I have a feeling I know what people will tell me and that I wont like what they have to say but I need at the very least to write this out and express my feelings.
So I've had trauma and depression since childhood and in my 20's I abused alcohol and drugs [mostly psychedelics' and some xanax], I had horrible depression. At times I couldnt really see colour or taste food, at times my drinking was so bad I barely ate. Very unstable. Frankly the only reason I didnt end up homeless or dead was that I happened to know other traumatized alcoholics and drug addicts and we co dependently saw eachother through the hard times. My best friend in that particular category overdosed just after the pandemic and that was that. I have poor relations with my family [I do talk to one sister] and only a couple friends left. Those friends are actually pretty stable, though one has kind of a drinking problem as I do.
I went into a pre apprentice trades program as part of Welfare; most of the participants are ex criminals or addicts. I met a girl. She was extroverted, wild, friendly, still using too much coke and things like that but on anti depressants, resolute to raise her son and get him back, stay away from criminals and stay away from the drug trade. For someone whos only ambition was to sleep as much as I could for as long as I could, the fact that she wants a red seal for carpentry and wants to open up a shelter for abused children really impressed me, it made me admire her even. We both had similar backgrounds in that respect only she had a far worse life and still wanted and wants a normal one. Maybe im just desperate and lonely but it really hit me to meet someone I liked who I understood who impressed me.
Anyway; during the program we gradually became friends. Not the best of friends, just friends. And she would flirt with me some as well-- as I said a wild girl so its hard to interpret the flirting, and she said she wanted no man just to raise her son. most of her friends are guys. She wanted to hang out and do shrooms but I was busy, so I invited her over a while later and she accepted. But she got depressed on the weekend and never came down; we continued to hang out but she flirted noticably less. Honestly her friend had just died and a lot of other friends in jail and to be frank I was probably being a self absorbed asshole even to invite her down, but I was excited to see her. About a week ago she got full custody of her kid back and is therefore very busy and mentioned it.
After that the program went online mostly, and she skipped a few days for the funeral and drinking, things like that. I ran into her again on the last day and as we had done previously we hung out with eachother most of the day. We ate lunch (where to give an indication of the relationship in some way; were close enough that while waiting for the food she rested her head on my shoulder and I wrapped my arm around her] grabbed some booze and drank for a couple hours. I asked her if she ever wanted to hang out after the program and she paused for a second to think and then answered: "sure, we both live in the same city unlike those other wackos, we can hang out. but id probably have to bring my son along" Not a word for word accurate quote but its close enough. So right there I, in all honesty from a point of self consciousness, am not sure how to take that. Hesitating because she didnt want to? hesitating because she was thinking out the structure of her life? my impression of her is always that shes fond of me and a very open person, but I make bad decisions and calls. So to my ear saying 'my son might be there' is an honest concession to the fact that shes a single mom and in a sense the willingness to hang out with me and her son is a good sign, yes? But I cant get it out of my head its a bad one.
This is where I am quite embarrassed: The last time we drank together this girl got way too drunk and ended up pissing in some water cups and throwing them out the window of the bus. She didnt get in trouble cause she was further to the back, it all worked out. Yesterday on said bus though I was the one who was way too drunk [and a bit high on coke] and so I pissed into a water bottle-- which I slightly overfilled because it was hard to judge and a bit of piss was on the cap, which I then tightened and threw out the window lol. Ofc the bus driver noticed because im a dumb fuck, and kicked me and the girl off the bus -- at least I think thats what happened, I know we both left but in all honesty my memory is sketchy and I wasnt paying attention.
Long story short im pretty sure I heard the girl say something like 'you got some piss on me' holy fuck my soul shattered into a million pieces. Again as a preface; she seems non judgmental and is more than a little crazy-- drugs, things like that. She burned her arm with cigarettes the other day just as a dare to see who could withstand more pain between her and her friend. So I honestly have NO idea how something like that would be received. A regular person absolutely would call me fucking pathetic [trust me...I know im pathetic] and would want nothing to do with me after that. Maybe shes different?
On the way back home stumbling drunk I texted her 'your cool, text me if you ever wanna hang out' and no reply. Again she just got her kid back and has been saying shes too busy to text people-- she even had an argument with someone who thought he was being ghosted.
Honestly what the fuck do I do:
-I cant stop going over this in my head and tearing myself apart. I really liked her and I feel like I shot myself in the foot to the point where I cant salvage it. The programs over and im honestly not even sure how I can communicate with her. Should I apologize? Do I call her up? Should I wait a few days?
-I am if im being completely honest interested in dating her--- but I dont want to be, because she said she just wanted friends, and I do want to be her friend, and I dont want to be that fucking dishonest simp asshole whos resenting her and sitting on the sidelines. I want the crush to go away because she seems like someone I could be best friends with
-I am also aware that line of reasoning sounds precariously like I love her or something, and im not sure if the feelings will go away
-I'm also just not sure if shes good for me or im good for her. I know that since ive met her ive enjoyed waking up and most of my instincts and things I do are shared with her, and I always have felt like a wild fucking loser who no one understood
-All ive done today is walk around trying to distract myself from this.
-Assuming she isnt mad at me and im just neurotic and mentally ill [definitely]; then how or what should I do in going about hanging out with her? I've never been an adult before, only a drunken loser and a petty thief. Is the subtext of hanging out with a woman and her kid that its a date? Should I just ask a generic thing like 'do you wanna drink and hang out?'
Or maybe im just barking up the wrong tree and shes not even very interested me as a friend, I donno.

Lisa hummed quietly while she worked in her kitchen, maybe it was William’s influence, or maybe Rebecca’s, but she still liked making coffee the old fashioned way. Not that any of them minded using preground beans, but no technology has replaced the power of freshness.
So while I sat waiting for her to return, I simply watched what was already on her screen. It was an animated drama of some sort, maybe horror, there was a demon weeping over a grave at least, could have been anything, really.
And I just listened while she hummed along with the coffee grinder, those things have changed a lot over the years, now they were near totally silent, I saw one in an Earth museum once that made a tremendous racket, but these had only the faintest hum as the beans were reduced to powder.
I didn’t know the tune Lisa was humming, but it felt strange to hear her let out a little tune after I told her I was leaving, and of course I couldn’t know if I’d be coming back.
She and I [Redacted], and we really did like each other, a lot, actually. Of course we both knew it couldn’t last forever, we were quite literally from different worlds, and we wanted different things out of our lives.
But that didn’t mean we couldn’t have something good for a time. I had to wonder if she was thinking about this as the time to let go? Humans have a habit of putting a brave face on things, they have a whole philosophy called ‘stoicism’ which is basically just putting a show of strength on while enduring a lot of unpleasant shit.
I can’t say I liked that philosophy very much, it reminded me too much of my homeworld’s view of things. I suppose it had a valid point when it came to hard times, but it seemed too much to like hard times. At least as I understood it, perhaps I was wrong in that regard. I’m sure the subject will be hotly debated over for years.
Regardless, at that moment I was just enjoying the noise of her preparations, watching out of the corner of my eye while she brewed coffee the old fashioned way. I pause for a moment here to tell you, in addition to the supply of alcohol that went to Dlamias, at my suggestion, Bonny Red also dropped a large supply of coffee off at the neutral trading station where she had to deliver her goods. Along with directions for how to prepare it.
Now, in the capital of Dlamias, I knew for a fact that a small number of ‘coffee bars’ were starting to open up. The stay awake juice was used by a number of government employees to help keep them focused, and… well, in the Earth middle ages coffee was banned in an empire because people stayed up late talking politics while drinking the stuff. Coffee shops became hotbeds of political dissent.
It was one more little monkey wrench I’d thrown into the gears of Dlamisan society. Awake for longer and with time to talk, I had absolutely no doubt that the buried frustrations of my people would start to bubble up as surely as the water was boiling in Lisa’s pot right now.
I know my government, they’ll use the stuff to extend labor hours and keep people working harder, and they’ll put it together with food for convenience…
And my infection will spread. Longer hours, but also time to complain, and with the first humans settling in too…
The dam would burst and change would be forced. I did wonder if they would try to use military force to quell dissent. But I doubted it, especially now. In a way, this danger with the return of the Rogue World and the disappearances and the threats from the Praeda, couldn’t have come at a better time.
Concessions would be the government’s only option, and once that began, there would be no stopping it.
‘Even if I die out there, my will, will be done no matter what.’ I thought, and made the evil finger pyramid of doom with my hands.
Lisa returned a moment later with coffee in hand and a smile on her face. She sat beside me on the couch and asked, “Did you enjoy the show?”
I hadn’t really paid much attention to it, but it seemed alright. “I haven’t seen that much, but… it looks alright.”
“It’s based on an old novel, that demon,” she pointed to the ashen figure, “lost his wife to human invaders, his village, everything but his daughter. This season is based on one of the sequels in that series, he’s finally reclaimed the land where there village was, and he found her body still buried in the rubble of their home. So he had her buried there and all the grief hit him at once, everything he kept buried while he worked to raise their daughter.”
“Oh… so humans are the villains in this one?” I asked.
“Sort of.” She said as she leaned back and slipped her arm over my shoulder from behind while she drank from her glass cup. “Like, the humans started it, they built the first cities and needed labor so they started conquering nomads and villages to work their farms and whatnot. So that’s bad, but not all humans are the bad guys. Some demons are shown as bad, same for some of the elves and dwarves… I guess you could say that their ‘governments’ do bad things to each other.”
“Oh, so everybody is kind of bad sometimes?” I asked.
“Yeah, kinda.” She sipped, “A lot of gray there, most of what happens that’s bad after a certain point, happens because everybody is too afraid to stop. They don’t want to keep fighting, but they’re afraid of what happens if they pull back.”
“That’s interesting.” I said as I brought the cup to my mouth. It was hot, rich, fragrant, the rich steam rose from within and I inhaled it with the vigor of somebody bursting from beneath the water after nearly drowning and finding air again.
I made a mental note to bring some of this with me when it was time to leave, Lisa was quiet, seemingly waiting for me to explain. A lot would be necessarily classified and, reckless as I may be, I knew better than to let things like this slip.
“I’m going on a peace mission, actually, not just me. The whole family is. It’s… complicated, but Bonny Red is taking us to a neutral zone where we can talk to the Praeda, all of them, or most, at least.” I shifted a little in my seat, I didn’t want to tell her how dangerous it might be for us, but I hated keeping secrets.
“Do you know when you’ll be back?” She asked, her wide eyes fluttered a little, “Is this one of those ‘gone for decades and I’ll be an old lady by the time you get back’ talks?”
I snorted my coffee just a little and smacked my chest a few times. “No… I mean I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but it will take months just to get there, it’s over thirty-thousand lightyears away, so even at the fastest possible speed through thick space, we’re looking at nine months travel without doing any jumps.”
She whistled long and low, “So… what you’re saying is, I’ll need to pack my toothbrush, and a pair of replacement heads for it?” She asked.
“Say what now?” I asked and my ears twitched.
She turned to the side and propped her head up in her hand, then gave me a quirky smile and said, “You’ve got all those ears and still didn’t listen to me? Alien or not, you’re definitely male.” She laughed at her own joke while I could only cock my head in confusion.
“Say what now?” I asked again.
“I want to go too.” She clarified, “Listen, Bonny Red and I have had a nice arrangement going for a while now, but alien or not, I know that woman and she’s definitely planning on spending a lot of time on Earth after all this, she’s been in the void for a few years now and I know how sailors, pirates or not, get when they finally hit a safe port. The easiest thing for all of us is if I just go along. Besides,” she held up her arm and waved one hand around her room, “I don’t really have anything holding me back. I have my degree, my job won’t go anywhere, I can sublet my apartment. And how many people get a chance to go out that far?” She asked.
“Wait, you’re serious?” I asked. I definitely wanted to know what she was talking about when it came to Bonny Red, but the more pressing matter was her thought of coming with us.
“I don’t have to be part of your envoy, I’ll just join her crew for a year or so. I’m no stranger to hard work or military stuff, you know that.” She said.
“Well, I mean, that’s up to Bonny Red, not me… but… why would you…” She stopped me by putting a hand on my chest.
“Because you and I both know this can’t last. You’ll live for hundreds of years, your stages of life are in line with mine right now, but that’s going to change. I’ll grow older, faster, maybe I’ll want to start a family of my own, something we can’t do, but even if I don’t do that, time changes all humans, faster than you know. You saw how Fauve has grown up, right?” She asked.
I could only nod. She was in her twenties now and while there were echoes of the child I knew, she was like a tree that I’d watched grow from a sapling. I could still recognize her for what she’d been, but she was not the same.
“That’s how it will be for me from my twenties to my thirties, and thirties to forties. I’m going to change, I won’t be the twenty-something who gets hammered with her friends on weekends anymore, but you’ll still be the you that you are right now, when I’m old, gray, and thinking ahead for my funeral.” She chuckled, “From my perspective, you’re kind of like if Peter Pan was a college student and not a young boy.”
I only vaguely knew the story, but I got the gist of what she meant, I just didn’t know what to say to it.
“To you, nine months, two years, three years, those may not sound like a lot. To me, they’re big bites out of my life, and when we’re done, those days won’t come back. So, if you don’t object…” For a moment she looked quite vulnerable, like she thought I very well might refuse her, inching herself away a little but leaving her hand where it was over where my hearts were beating faster by the moment.
“I’d want to go with you. If I can. If I can’t… then I have to be honest, that’s too much of my life to slip by to wait on something that can’t really last anyway.”
She wasn’t wrong. I did my very best to never think about the differences in our lifespans, but clearly that wasn’t something too far from her mind. “It’s not really up to me, but… if she refuses to let you sign on…” I didn’t want to finish that sentence.
“Right. I think she will. She understands a lot about things not lasting.” Lisa smirked a little, “I will have to figure out what to do with my hair on this trip though, there aren’t exactly seasons in space.” She ran her free hand through the long strands, and I suggested… “You could have it done like stars, put the night sky design on there instead of the season?” I suggested, and realized that in saying that, I more or less acknowledged that I wanted her to go along. I knew she was right, this might very well be the last of our times together, she was in her mid to late twenties now, I think. Twenty-five or twenty-six, even if we got out there and stayed for one day and came back, eighteen Earth months would have come and gone, and that’s if we stopped for nothing. In reality we could be gone for a full two years with ease.
“You’re a genius, Bailey.” She said and set her cup down with a smirk, “I’ll make sure to pick up enough dye for the trip, and I’ll send an ‘application’ to Bonny Red before she gets here.”
Humans do not move slowly, that much is for sure. As far as she was concerned, the matter was settled.
I wasn’t sure if Bonny Red would be alright with this, but she was frankly as strange as Lisa. For some reason, unbeknownst and inexplicable to me, I always end up surrounded by oddballs and outliers.
And you know what?
I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I am not going to get this type of job anytime soon as I am becoming a freshman in high school.
But I do want to and I am working towards becoming a mortician and embalmer.
Which is better to work at? A family owned funeral home or corporate owned?
What is the average salary you get? (I’m in illinois)
How do you get paid/what for?
What happens in a ‘average’ day for you?

This is really just a message into the void or a journal entry that I’m sharing. Maybe others will relate or this might just be what I need to get out of my system. Either way it’s the only idea I have to try and feel a bit better today.
For context: I lost my boyfriend of 4.5 year on may 6th. We had been close/best friends since I was 11 or 12. His 22nd birthday would’ve been this July. He’s only 7 months younger than me. It’s weird being widowed before being married. If Covid hadn’t happened or lasted so long we had been hoping to get married this summer. With Covid screwing things up we were planning to get engaged sometime this year.
Just got a text from my mom showing me my little sisters lock screens on her phone. The first one is me and the other is my partner. She’s still in elementary school. My even younger sister even wrote a whole paper about him. My brothers are both just kinda angry I think. I keep realizing he was an older brother to my siblings.
I knew my family loved him, but I never realized how much. I keep remembering during my part of the eulogy just seeing my family finally break down and start crying. Cousins and all. Realizing they lost someone too. I’d always been worried some didn’t like him but this proved that wrong.
Having the funeral home completely overcrowded by people mourning him is something I’ll never forget. Seeing so many people I’d heard so much about, that I should’ve met at our wedding. Even so many people I didn’t think cared about us anymore. Of course it was a young unexpected death, so there were a few gawkers but almost everyone there genuinely loved him. I am still mad he didn’t get to plan a prank for his funeral like he wanted to. He saw a video on Reddit a month before he died. It gave him so many ideas, I don’t think he even settled on one.
For years now he’d introduce me to strangers as his fiancé or wife even though we never had an actual proposal or anything (just a couple alcohol induced adorable little moments). We knew it would happen sometime in the future so we didn’t rush. Even found a voicemail from over three years ago where he said we’d marry each other and have an amazing life and that he specifically wanted to leave it as a voicemail. I told my therapist all of that and she said I could call myself his fiancé if I wanted to, because really that’s what we were. I even had a temporary therapist I had say we sounded like true soulmates.
I keep wondering if the urgency to get married that I’d started feeling a few months ago was a sign of what was to come. We didn’t have the time we thought we did. I wish I acted on that feeling more than I did. I keep imagining what his tux would’ve looked like at our wedding or what colors we’d have everywhere. He always talked about getting a tux with those thin pinstripes, almost mafia-esque, but not the thick cheesy stripes. He would’ve looked so handsome. I would’ve made sure to get him a hair stylist so his curls would look nice and wouldn’t get brushed out like they did at our high school dances. All our friends were so excited, even though the wedding hadn’t been thought of more than day dreaming.
Knowing he didn’t have a will because he should have had decades more. He was almost 22 years old why would he? But now we’re left figuring out who gets what. Trying to be charitable to the people in his life even the ones making this situation worse. Hoping my niceness will ease pain even to the people I don’t think deserve it. It’s what Abe would’ve done in my position. He was so kind even to those that never deserved it.
I know he would hate knowing I found him and the half hour of torture I went through while emts tried saving him. He would hate knowing how badly my ptsd has gotten since his passing. He would hate how much this is ruining my life. He would be happy that I’m finally back in therapy though. The day after he died he and I had plans to set up those appointments, but at least I got there. I wish I had been able to go sooner, so he could’ve had me at my best before he died. He had finally been at his best a couple months prior. We would have had the most amazing time.
He told me he wouldn’t want me to be so sad if he died but I am. He always said he wanted us to remember him with a smile and celebrate his life. Even while alive he told me he’d think it’s cool if I’d date other people, but I only have eyes for him. I want that human connection again, but all my thoughts are of him. I keep thinking of so many risky things he’d do that I’d try to warn him against, but he almost never listened. Now I’m glad he got to do all the crazy things he did. Kinda wish I would’ve worried less and just enjoyed the life we had ignoring the risks and anxieties.
My grandpa said I’m gonna go through a lot of guys trying to meet my expectations now. I made the joke that I’ll have to find another bisexual guy so we can be a throuple in the afterlife. Abe would definitely get a kick out of that. Really I know I’ll never love someone the way I love him. Not saying I’ll never find another person, but they won’t be him. I was unfortunate enough to lose my soulmate way too soon.
I think this post might just be me trying to find silver linings or little flecks of comfort and happiness. I don’t know. Depression is definitely setting in and this time I don’t have my sunshine to ease the pain. I keep just playing live pictures I’d taken of him over the years and pretending he’s not gone, just out of reach. Still hoping for a Time Machine too.
But he’s gone and the final toxicology should be in soon, and once it is we can finally have his official cause of death. I’m hoping having those answers will make the grief easier to process. Right now I can’t wrap my head around him being gone for no apparent reason. I hate that they couldn’t just use the physical evidence alone. We think it was a heart issue but they have to wait for toxicology to confirm (or rather to rule out other causes).
Really I just hope his soul is still out there somewhere. We’ve gotten a few signs and feelings of him being with us, but you can never know for sure until you’re gone too. For now I’m just gonna believe he’s out there watching us and maybe occasionally visiting. After writing this I genuinely think I could write a novel about my guy.

Hi, girls. I don’t like posting sad stories on here; but my therapist is out for a few weeks, and I need to get this off my chest.
My ex-fiancé recently moved out. I needed family, so I traveled back home to Arkansas for the first time since my transition (22 months).
My (30F) little bro (21M) and I had a wonderful time. He called me ‘she’ for the first time! I was so happy.
I did notice that his roommates, a cishet couple, were being weird around me. I told my bro that I wasn’t comfortable at his apartment, and asked if we could hangout elsewhere. He assured me that his roommates were always like that, and that I was safe there.
Well, despite my bro introducing me as his sister, his roommate called me his brother. This was the first time I had been misgendered on the trip. I corrected her: ‘sister’.
She sneered ‘sister’, shrugging her shoulders, rolling her eyes. I was a little upset at this point, so I misgendered her back, calling her a boyfriend.
My brother was quite upset with me, saying that wasn’t cool, and that she did hers ‘on accident’ while mine was intentional. Our arguing got me heated, so when she said that she would wait outside while we argued, I snapped at her. ‘No one is talking to you’, I said.
TW: out came the transphobia. She started yelling ‘You need to get IT out of my house. I don’t know what to call IT. Jeez, all because I called IT brother.’
Her boyfriend came out to yell out me. At that point I had three people yelling at me, including my bro.
I left, and my bro followed me outside. He gave me this big speech about ‘being the bigger person’.
He said that ‘if it were anyone else, the boyfriend would have reacted very differently’. I said ‘oh, I should be grateful that a man didn’t beat my ass, huh’?
He turned to walk away, saying that he loved me. I told him I loved him too, and left.
The next day he called me acting like nothing happened. I asked what he said to his roommates when he went back into his apartment. He said that they apologized to him and he said nothing. I asked where his ‘being the bigger person’ speech was for them.
We fought, and I told him while I love him, I will not be talking to him until he apologized. He said that I’m not going to guilt trip him.
My little bro and I had a rough childhood. All we had was each other. I never thought I would be estranged from him, but here we are.
Thanks for reading, sisters.

Just for background: nmom, a narcissistic older brother and a loveable dad ❤️
Nmom's lover molested me when I was young like grade 6/primary 6 kind of age, and nmom found out about it when I turn 17 when I was sexually assaulted by my neighbour. I managed to forgive both the neighbour and my nmom's lover.
But never the nmom. I still remember what she said when she found out what her lover did. "Don't tell anyone about this, not even to the police; I'll handle it myself and ask him" Well of course the nmom lover denied it. And the nmom of course, kept In contact with him.
So my scenario was, I go home I get paranoia and fear of hearing nmom's lover voice and her talking thru Skype, and I leave the house and I still get paranoia and fear due to neighbour (neighbour received 6 months jail and was released)
I got sick and tired of everything when I turned 26 realising that no matter what I do, nmom will not change. So I moved out of my parents house. My beloved father was devastated. He didn't knew why I wanted to move out, and eventually I did told him and he said "I am sorry.. I am powerless." Oh my good lord my heart cracked.
Well 6 months passed after I moved out, and loveable dad was having a major surgery, I was by the waiting lounge and encountered nmom and she was all regretful, in so much that I nearly felt guilt until she started saying "What if I die at xxxx year?"
And I recalled this one subreddit who advised or at least what to say in those sort of scenario "And I can also die tomorrow, so what's your point?"
Loveable dad passed away early today due to the surgery taking a toll on his body. I am not that involved in the funeral no matter how much I want to be in.
The narc older brother is the one who's taking "in charge" for most of it. My family's has the traditional values of: son's will carry the family name, so of course they must be the one to decide.
Regardless, thank you subreddit. You guys actually helped with my mental fortitude of "yea, this nmom and narc older brother can't be helped." And to how to somewhat bite back at them. Thank you. I still intend to do no contact as soon as the funeral rites and wills are over. The 6 months of no contact were utter bliss for my mental health.
Rip beloved papa, I will never forget the day you taught me how to cook rice and omelette for myself.

Long story short... my wife's parents have both died, and one of her brothers who never has had any contact with the family now all of a sudden is texting her and demanding information and documents.
My wife's brother (whom I'll call B1) has been the kind of person whom I've only seen or heard from three times since we got married over 20 years ago. One was at the wedding, the other two times were at each of the funerals for their parents. My mother-in-law used to cry over the fact that he never would call or visit her, ever... except for times when he needed money. His wife is also the kind of person who is manipulative and had him put in jail once, and my in-laws used most of their savings to bail him out. They even bought a car for them, and when it broke down, B1's wife wanted them to provide a replacement car. She also complained that when my wife's grandmother died, they weren't included in the will (but none of the grandchildren were, either). She has always been the type of person with a sense of entitlement.
As soon as my mother-in-law died last year, B1 started asking about how much money was left for them in the will, even before the funeral proceedings were over. My wife and her other brother (I'll call B2) explained to him that their remaining funds were necessary for my father-in-law to live on; he was in assisted living and required the help of memory care, which was quite expensive. After the funeral, B1 and his wife then went through my mother-in-law's belongings at her home, trashing the place as they took anything of value they could find, and left without even shutting the front door as they left town. Among the valuables they took were my father-in-law's military awards from the Vietnam War. B2 and my wife had previously told him that they wanted to display his medals at his funeral, when he would eventually die. Despite multiple attempts to contact B1 and have the medals returned, he never responded. Our assumption is that he sold them for money.
Recently, my father-in-law died, and when B1 was asked to come to the funeral and bring the medals, he claims that he looked everywhere but couldn't find them. At the funeral, he again asked about how much was left in the inheritance. Now, my wife had received power of attorney for her parents before they died, to make decisions regarding their medical care and assist with paying their bills, etc. Once her father died, she and B2 thought it would be wise to consult with a lawyer to handle the will.
B1 has been asking for documents about my father-in-law, including his social security number, some military documents, etc., so he can "learn more about his life". It turns out that B1 has the same name as his father, and our suspicion is that he wants to have his SSN so that he can try to obtain funds from the trust before it is properly distributed. Last night he sent my wife a text, saying that she must send him a copy of the trust, a copy of the power of attorney, and the lawyer's information, for him and his lawyer, within 12 hours. (At the time of this post, this means we have about half an hour remaining to do that, haha.) Of course, my wife is concerned that he might try to steal their father's identity and steal money from the account. I have suggested she ask the lawyer working on the trust what she is legally obligated to share with her brother. For what it's worth, she doesn't even have the trust right now, which she says is hundreds of pages long and the lawyer currently has it, so she couldn't provide that to B1 anyway.
What, if anything, are we legally obligated to give her brother at this time?

If you’re reading this I am begging you to believe me. Especially if you have children. My name is Leon and I have been investigating strange disappearances for four years. I am not an official investigator or a journalist. Before I started this whole thing I did not believe in ghosts or the paranormal. For me to believe in something I had to see it with my own two eyes! Everything had to be factual and everything had an explanation.
At least this is what I used to believe until my wife was murdered four years ago. They found her at work completely skinless. She was drained of blood and was missing all of her nails. They told me the precision required to accomplish this was not heard of yet. I waited months for answers and they never came, so I decided to go get them myself. I had no idea where to start or who to speak to so I went back to the store to try and dig up as much information as I could find.
Her manager eventually told me that she had gotten into a fight with a customer that day and that he assumed she went home on time. When her body was found in the employee break room he was shocked. He had no idea she was still in the building. He said he told me exactly what he told the police. I asked him if there was any footage of the man she was arguing with but he told me the security cameras were not working that day. I vividly remember wanting to punch this guy in his damn face. He was no help and I was determined to solve my wife's murder.
I ended up searching for the guy for months. I asked every one of her coworkers if they saw the argument and a couple of times I even had a run-in with the cops. They insisted that I should let them do their jobs and that they had everything handled. There was no chance I was going to listen to them. I had to take time off from my investigation to attend her funeral and make sure I got all of the preparations right. In hindsight, I was not growing properly and I really should've taken some time to reassess.
So fast forward another month and I finally get a lead. Something I assumed the cops didn't have, this meant I could finally get some answers before being stonewalled again. I ended up finding this guy, Will Brookes at a fucken motel off of the highway about three miles from where my wife worked. I waited for two days before I saw him leave his room to get ice. Once I knew what room to find him in I knocked until he opened the door. He was rightfully pissed but not as pissed as I was. It took every ounce of willpower in my body to not kill him on the spot.
“Why did you kill my wife?!” I snapped as I forced myself into the room and slammed the door behind me. He looked shocked.
“I did not kill her!” He screamed and tried to move around me. So I grabbed him by his shirt and slammed him into the wall next to the tv. This guy was not very heavy and not very strong. At that moment I was wondering how he could kill anyone.
“You were the last person to be seen with her alive!” I barked. I wanted to push his body through the wall. I wanted to crush him.
“I was bringing her the papers she requested for a job offer she accepted in a place called LittleBrooke!” The man said. He was shaking so I put him down and pushed him to the side. “Show me the papers,” I demanded. My wife had told me twice that she had gotten a new job offer. I was extremely excited! I work from home and would be happy to live wherever she wanted. All she had to do was say the word and we could’ve left as soon as possible. But she never made it home to tell me the news.
I watched as the shaking man handed me a stack of papers and even a suitcase. “Here, take it and please leave me alone!” He shouted. “Okay.” I left the motel room and went right to my car. I put everything on the passenger seat and went home. Once I got there I sobbed in the driveway for over an hour before finally getting out and heading inside. I never got to see her body and I never got to say goodbye. Being in this house felt like I was walking into a damn shallow grave of sorts.
I went right to the master bedroom and packed up as many clothes as I could. I even took some of her favorite items, I don’t know why. I took a couple of pillows and two blankets, and after that, I went around to search the rest of the house. Once I had finished in the master bedroom I went and grabbed all my items from the bathroom. After that, I went into the nursery. We were planning on trying to have a baby once she got her new job. I looked around the nursery and took some stuffed animals and blankets, nothing too crazy. I also made sure to grab our family photo album. Finally, I made sure to grab all of the savings from the jar we had plus anything I kept in the safe. I also made sure to grab our wedding video and once I had everything I thought I could need I left the house. On my way out I made sure to tell the building goodbye.
Once I got back into my car I decided to drive a bit. No way in hell was I going to the same motel as that guy so I drove until I hit a hotel far enough away from my house. I did not end up checking in though. Once I got close enough I backed up and just kept driving. I eventually hit a truck stop after a couple of hours and decided to rest my eyes for a while. I was exhausted and there were way too many questions rushing through my head. I knew if I kept driving in that state I would probably crash or something.
After sleeping for four hours I decided it was time to look through the papers and figure out what I was going to do next. I took the first paper from the stack and started to read it. For the sake of time here I will only tell you guys what I found that was interesting.
Paper One: You have been accepted to work as a store manager! Please review your employee packet for more information.
So as I am going over this first paper a couple of things stick out to me. Whoever wrote this was trying not to be specific. The whole paper was one big announcement for a new store opening up in a place called LittleBrooke. There was no state mentioned anywhere on this paper, I would later find out that this place was supposed to be in Washington D.C.
I decided to dig around and eventually found the employee packet. She accepted a job at a mega-store called BrightMarketZ. I thought it was a pretty weird name but what stood out to me was what they were offering to pay her. $22.00 an hour! I couldn't believe it. No wonder she said yes and didn’t bother to ask any questions.
Paper Twenty: To find LittleBrooke please enter [REDACTED] into your GPS device. You will be staying inside apartment 307. All rent for your first month in LittleBrooke is covered by your employer. Please note that all apartments are two-bedroom only. If you have a larger household please speak to Sydney May at Town Hall for bigger accommodations.
After reading this I decided to just go to LittleBrooke and get answers. I was assuming that I would find out what the hell happened if I just went. I wanted to know what my wife died for and I wanted to know why this was some big secret in the first place. I went back to bed and as soon as the sun came up I put the information into my GPS and headed for LittleBrooke.

Year One in LittleBrooke

It took me three weeks to reach LittleBrooke and I could tell that something was wrong the moment I found the town. If I wasn't so damn desperate for answers I would've turned around as soon as I saw the library. The building itself wasn't big but the two huge lions on either side of the staircase gave me the creeps.
After that I passed a mechanic, the whole place looked run down as hell. There wasn't a single car to be seen but the sign said open. The man standing outside of the building waved to me so I gave him a slow wave back. He looked weird. At the time I couldn’t place my finger on why but now I know it’s because he was not human.
The theater was kind of cool to look at in a vintage kind of way. They were not showing anything when I drove by and I made the decision early on to stay out of the theater altogether. After the theater, I saw a small building that said LittleBrooke Press. If anything else I figured I could write for the paper.
As I approached the apartment building a woman was standing outside. Her face was weird as hell. It looked like she had far too much plastic surgery like her face was threatening to pop at any moment. “Hi, can I help you?” she asked me. Her voice was shrill, it was gross to even hear her speak. It sounded like she was putting on a fake voice just to speak to me. “Hi, my wife accepted a job offer. Unfortunately, she has passed away. I would still like to claim the apartment left to us. I can work at any place that currently has an opening.” I offered.
“LittleBrooke Press has space for two more writers!” She smiled and handed me the keys to the apartment. She never asked my name and she knew exactly where I wanted to go. I thought it was weird but I didn’t argue. Instead, I took the keys and thanked her. I spent that whole day getting settled into the new apartment. A couple of things, the front door had four different locks on it. I thought that was pretty weird. I also did not see or hear any other people until my third night in the apartment. I called the LittleBrooke Press about a potential job and they told me to email my submissions. There was no need for me to come in person and honestly, I liked this deal a lot.
For the first few months, I spent my time writing about whatever came to my mind. After that, I would send it in and get my money back. The editor never told me what to do and they never requested anything. It was sweet. As December rolled around I could feel myself slipping into a seasonal depression. At that point, I had made no progress in any of my investigations. I did not know the town well enough and frankly, I felt like I was wasting my time. That night I decided to check out the local bar. It was pretty hidden, you had to drive further into LittleBrooke to find it. Once I got there I was shocked! The place was packed. I sat down at the bar and ordered a drink.
The bartender was hot as hell, too hot. She was so even looking so perfectly symmetrical that it made me extremely uncomfortable. There wasn’t a single hair out of place. “So are you new in town?” She asked me. “Yeah, I just got here a couple of months ago. My now-deceased wife accepted a job offer here.” I said bluntly and dryly. I wanted to finish my drink and go. It was like the bones in my body were screaming at me to leave. The woman looked shocked. “Tell me, does that happen often? Do people accept a job offer in LittleBrooke and turn up dead a couple of days later?” I hissed. It was a genuine question but she did not take it too kindly. She took my drink from my hands and told me to leave.
As I made my way back to my car I could hear someone coming up from behind me. I turned around as fast as possible and had to take three steps back. It was the bartender, but she did not look the same. Half of her face was weighed down like she had no bones at all. Her eyes were bulging out of her head. She gurgled at me. “You need to leave!” She finally snapped and swung her arm in my direction. I moved back before she could hit me. As her hand hit my car window it shattered like it was made of ice. I watched as her arm popped and clicked. I could see it slowly getting longer. Before I knew it her arm was dragging on the pavement! She lunged at me so I punched her in her stomach. She gurgled again and sunk her teeth into my jacket. I screamed for help as we hit the pavement. She was trying fucken eat me! I grabbed her by her hair and threw her backward as hard as I could. As I scrambled to my feet and looked at her I screamed again. Her skin was pulled back. Now hugging the bones on her face. Her eyes were completely exposed! I turned and dove into my car as fast as I could. I slammed the door behind me and sped out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell.
The next morning I received a letter under my door. “Sorry, you had problems last night! Please accept our sincerest apologies.” -Mayor Brookes. There was $300 included with the letter. Now, I thought about leaving but decided I had to stay. Something was going on here and I had to find out what. I removed my jacket to see if the woman had injured me, she didn't but the experience was still terrifying. For the first time in a very long time, I was scared. But I also felt closer to the truth than I have ever been before.

Year Two in LittleBrooke

I spent all of January writing about the women who attacked me. I even contacted the police. I quickly learned that the police were going to be completely useless. My editor never sent the story back so I had assumed it was published.
At the end of the month, I left to shop for some supplies. Let me tell you, the grocery store in LittleBrooke is something else. They don’t have any brands you’ve ever heard of and at first, that drove me nuts. However, I quickly came to fall in love with the food here. It was comforting to have something to enjoy. Like always, I made sure to shop for two to three months at a time. Shopping was easy, I used the self-checkout to make sure I didn’t have to speak to anyone.
Once I got home I put everything away and decided to look around the apartment building. My whole floor started with 301 and went all the way to 310. The first floor was 501 to 509. There was a technical second floor but none of the doors were labeled. It looked like someone was renovating the place.
I got to see some of my neighbors too. An older woman, two men, and I were living next door to a lady the whole time. I had never seen or heard from these people before. It seemed like everyone wanted to keep to themselves too. I wanted to try and talk to someone but every time I approached them they turned and walked away. For what it's worth they looked completely normal.
So I left the apartment building and ventured around the property. There were no other apartments anywhere close to the one I was staying at, or so I thought until I found one about thirty minutes away. It was so out of the way you wouldn't find it unless you were looking. Against my better judgment, I opened the doors to the building and walked right inside. The place smelled like rust and soot.
I went to explore the first floor and was shocked to find blood trails on the floor and the ceiling. I followed the trail and made sure to look at the numbers on each door. This floor was numbered 1-10. Most of the doors were locked and I wasn’t going to try and knock anything down. I opened the door to apartment 10 and walked right inside. There was just enough light from the sun to illuminate the place. It looked like the whole place had been ransacked. I checked the tables and cabinets before heading into the bedroom. I searched the dresser and under the pillows before finally checking under the bed. When I looked under I spotted a black box. I grabbed it and that is when I got the feeling again. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I felt something sharp dig into my shoulders.
I screamed as loudly as I could, my face slammed off of the carpet and I clenched the box with one hand. Before I could figure out what the hell was happening I was tossed backward. I went into the bedroom door and rolled a couple of times until I reached the torn-up couch. I slowly lifted my head and to my horror what I was looking at was way too far from human to be real.
It looked like a dog ape thing. It was mostly skinless aside from some skin on its torso and face. The creature had thick, long claws and was standing on its hind legs. It barked at me. Its fangs were huge! I quickly scrambled to my feet and rushed out of the door as fast as possible. I could feel the blood running down my back. Never once did I consider letting this box go.
“Help!” I screamed as I burst through the apartment complex doors and started to run back to the main road. My heart was pounding, I could feel my chest getting tighter with each step. I could hear the beast behind me, it was screeching. I thought I was going to die for sure, there was no way I could continue to outrun this beast. That’s when I heard a car and before I knew it I could see it! A woman was waving me over, she was just up ahead! I had to push a little harder. I had to be just a little stronger.
When I felt the embrace of the car door I ripped it open and dove inside. She sped away and I looked out of the window. The beast did not follow us any further. “Are you insane!” She snapped at me. That’s the last thing I remember before passing out.
When I woke up I was laying on my stomach on an extremely comfortable couch. I could smell someone making pasta with meat sauce. My stomach was going insane. Everything hurt though, especially my back and my left side. I figured I had hurt my side when I was tossed across the room.
At this point, I did not dive into the box yet. I could barely move. “Hi.” I heard a woman say from the kitchen. “Thank you,” I replied before trying to sit up. I was so concerned that this woman would be another monster. When I saw her though I knew she was normal. She didn't look so damn perfect and that was a breath of fresh air.
“What's your name?” She asked me as I watched her prepare two bowls of food.
“Leon,” I said before closing my eyes. “You heard me screaming?” I asked her seriously.
“I did. I’m pretty sure everyone in our building did. You got hurt pretty badly, I did my best to patch you up.” She paused and laughed. “My name is Ashley.”
So I ended up crashing at her place. During this time I tried to focus on recovering. Sleeping became hell, I was having constant nightmares. I also spent a lot of time working on articles. I ended up giving Ash the keys to my apartment so she could get my laptop. It was a big move to trust anyone here but I am glad I did.
​

Year Three and Four in LittleBrooke

During my recovery, I spent most of my time writing. I wanted to write about everything I have seen and experienced. I had a lot of questions and way too much time with my thoughts. Ash and I got to know each other too.
I told her about how my wife had died mysteriously. I eventually opened up about her being skinned and drained of her blood. Ash told me she had come to LittleBrooke with her older sister. Her sister went to work one day and never came back. She was working at the theater. Ash had told me that she was stuck here, she didn’t feel right leaving with her sister still missing. Every time she would try the cops would meet her at the town line.
It was during this time that we both shared that we had never seen a police station. We talked about the monsters too. Her first run-in with one was at the grocery store. I told her about what happened to me at the bar. She told me that she heard rumors of the beast living beyond the apartments. The first time she saw it was when it was attacking me.
As I started to recover more we discussed a couple of things. First, the neighbors here suck. She could hear me screaming and came to help but no one else did. Second, neither of us has seen any families since we moved here. It was at this point I decided I wanted to leave and I offered to take her with me. We could both get out come hell or high water. She agreed but there was something I had to do first.
I showed her the box I had taken from the apartment.
“You almost died for a box?” Ash asked me. “Yes,” I said seriously.
I opened it and blinked. I found a picture of a girl with black hair and bright green eyes. It read, Stephanie. I found a missing persons report too. This girl had been missing a year before I got here. I decided that my last article would be about her. I had written about a couple of missing people before this. For example, the old lady in our building vanished and her apartment was rented out two days later.
I also found a badge inside the box. It read F.O.P.P. and there was a name! Jack Bridges. We tried to look up the organization's name but we came up empty-handed. I ended up writing the story about Stephanie and the next day Ash and I got packing. We decided to take my car since the cops know what hers looks like. I packed up the essentials all over again and we piled into the car. “We should check the other direction. Before we leave.” I suggested. Ash knew about the bar already but neither of us knew what was beyond that point: This suggested changed the course of our lives forever.
So we started driving in the other direction. We passed the bar where the woman had tried to eat me, we passed a convenience store I didn’t know this town had and we just kept driving. Eventually, I could hear Ash speaking to me, “Holy shit! The police station.” she pointed out. I couldn’t believe it either. I did not stop driving though but I wish I did.
Eventually, we saw a sign that read, LittleBrooke High. Go Bears!
I started to slow down a bit until the school was in view. The place looked run down as hell. There were holes in the walls and leaves growing up the side of the building. The parking lot was massive and full of buses. I pulled the car into the parking lot and told Ash to get into the driver's seat.
“You’re not serious?” She asked me. I could tell she wanted to go but I said, “This is it! This is the last place of note in this fucken town. Just take the wheel and I will be right back.” I said as I jumped out of the car and went to look around.
As I approached one of the buses I grabbed the doors, they were already open a crack. I pulled them open and was hit with a horrible stench. I had to step back and puke and no I am not going to describe what I saw in that fucken bus. At that point, I decided I had seen enough and it was time to fucken go.
“Help!” I heard someone cry from a couple of buses over. “Please!” I heard again. I wanted to slap myself because I knew better. I had already decided it was time to leave but I went to investigate anyway. I went to the bus and pulled the doors open. It smelled like stale piss and blood. “Back here!” A girl screamed out to me. I made my way to the back of the bus, stepping on school jackets and over backpacks. That is where I found them. Two teenagers are tied to the leg of a bus seat. They looked horrible, caking in blood and sweat. They were both injured. “Stephanie?!” I exclaimed as I bent over to free them. I recognized her face the moment I saw it.
“Can you move? I asked the blonde girl.” As I started to let her go. “Everything hurts.” She told me. I opened the emergency exit and called for Ash to pull the car over. It took her a second to hear me but she came as fast as possible. “I am going to get you guys in the car and we are going to get out of here, okay?” I told them. I wanted to tell them everything was going to be okay, but I couldn't. It felt like that would be a huge lie.
Ash stepped out of the car and helped get the girls into the backseat. As I stopped to look around I could feel the bus shift in weight. I turned around and inhaled sharply. Standing before me was a creature wearing a jacket that said COACH on it. He looked sickly, and pale, and his veins were protruding from his face and hands. As he ran at me I jumped out of the emergency exit door just in time to feel something slam off of the back of my head. I looked down to see a barbed football. I could feel blood trickling down my neck, I stumbled forward and felt a hand grab my arm. Ash was shoving me into the car. She slid over me, closed the passenger door, and backed the car up. I thought she was moving like lightning.
At this point, everyone was screaming. My heart was threatening to jump out of my fucken chest. I was so sure we were all going to die here, just like everyone else I had seen on the buses. But no, Ash sped out of the parking lot. The coach chased us to the school limits but for some reason, he did not follow us anymore.
I know we should've stopped to see if the kids could find their parents but we didn't. Instead, Ash just kept driving. Eventually, we could hear the cops behind us but that did not stop her. It took us six hours to finally see the You Are New Leaving LittleBrooke sign! I couldn’t believe it. This place was not that big at all.
So listen, if you’re invited to take a job in LittleBrooke. Don’t take it. It’s not worth your life.

If you’re reading this I am begging you to believe me. Especially if you have children. My name is Leon and I have been investigating strange disappearances for four years. I am not an official investigator or a journalist. Before I started this whole thing I did not believe in ghosts or the paranormal. For me to believe in something I had to see it with my own two eyes! Everything had to be factual and everything had an explanation.
At least this is what I used to believe until my wife was murdered four years ago. They found her at work completely skinless. She was drained of blood and was missing all of her nails. They told me the precision required to accomplish this was not heard of yet. I waited months for answers and they never came, so I decided to go get them myself. I had no idea where to start or who to speak to so I went back to the store to try and dig up as much information as I could find.
Her manager eventually told me that she had gotten into a fight with a customer that day and that he assumed she went home on time. When her body was found in the employee break room he was shocked. He had no idea she was still in the building. He said he told me exactly what he told the police. I asked him if there was any footage of the man she was arguing with but he told me the security cameras were not working that day. I vividly remember wanting to punch this guy in his damn face. He was no help and I was determined to solve my wife's murder.
I ended up searching for the guy for months. I asked every one of her coworkers if they saw the argument and a couple of times I even had a run-in with the cops. They insisted that I should let them do their jobs and that they had everything handled. There was no chance I was going to listen to them. I had to take time off from my investigation to attend her funeral and make sure I got all of the preparations right. In hindsight, I was not growing properly and I really should've taken some time to reassess.
So fast forward another month and I finally get a lead. Something I assumed the cops didn't have, this meant I could finally get some answers before being stonewalled again. I ended up finding this guy, Will Brookes at a fucken motel off of the highway about three miles from where my wife worked. I waited for two days before I saw him leave his room to get ice. Once I knew what room to find him in I knocked until he opened the door. He was rightfully pissed but not as pissed as I was. It took every ounce of willpower in my body to not kill him on the spot.
“Why did you kill my wife?!” I snapped as I forced myself into the room and slammed the door behind me. He looked shocked.
“I did not kill her!” He screamed and tried to move around me. So I grabbed him by his shirt and slammed him into the wall next to the tv. This guy was not very heavy and not very strong. At that moment I was wondering how he could kill anyone.
“You were the last person to be seen with her alive!” I barked. I wanted to push his body through the wall. I wanted to crush him.
“I was bringing her the papers she requested for a job offer she accepted in a place called LittleBrooke!” The man said. He was shaking so I put him down and pushed him to the side. “Show me the papers,” I demanded. My wife had told me twice that she had gotten a new job offer. I was extremely excited! I work from home and would be happy to live wherever she wanted. All she had to do was say the word and we could’ve left as soon as possible. But she never made it home to tell me the news.
I watched as the shaking man handed me a stack of papers and even a suitcase. “Here, take it and please leave me alone!” He shouted. “Okay.” I left the motel room and went right to my car. I put everything on the passenger seat and went home. Once I got there I sobbed in the driveway for over an hour before finally getting out and heading inside. I never got to see her body and I never got to say goodbye. Being in this house felt like I was walking into a damn shallow grave of sorts.
I went right to the master bedroom and packed up as many clothes as I could. I even took some of her favorite items, I don’t know why. I took a couple of pillows and two blankets, and after that, I went around to search the rest of the house. Once I had finished in the master bedroom I went and grabbed all my items from the bathroom. After that, I went into the nursery. We were planning on trying to have a baby once she got her new job. I looked around the nursery and took some stuffed animals and blankets, nothing too crazy. I also made sure to grab our family photo album. Finally, I made sure to grab all of the savings from the jar we had plus anything I kept in the safe. I also made sure to grab our wedding video and once I had everything I thought I could need I left the house. On my way out I made sure to tell the building goodbye.
Once I got back into my car I decided to drive a bit. No way in hell was I going to the same motel as that guy so I drove until I hit a hotel far enough away from my house. I did not end up checking in though. Once I got close enough I backed up and just kept driving. I eventually hit a truck stop after a couple of hours and decided to rest my eyes for a while. I was exhausted and there were way too many questions rushing through my head. I knew if I kept driving in that state I would probably crash or something. After sleeping for four hours I decided it was time to look through the papers and figure out what I was going to do next. I took the first paper from the stack and started to read it. For the sake of time here I will only tell you guys what I found that was interesting.
Paper One: You have been accepted to work as a store manager! Please review your employee packet for more information.
So as I am going over this first paper a couple of things stick out to me. Whoever wrote this was trying not to be specific. The whole paper was one big announcement for a new store opening up in a place called LittleBrooke. There was no state mentioned anywhere on this paper, I would later find out that this place was supposed to be in Washington D.C.
I decided to dig around and eventually found the employee packet. She accepted a job at a mega-store called BrightMarketZ. I thought it was a pretty weird name but what stood out to me was what they were offering to pay her. $22.00 an hour! I couldn't believe it. No wonder she said yes and didn’t bother to ask any questions.
Paper Twenty: To find LittleBrooke please enter [REDACTED] into your GPS device. You will be staying inside apartment 307. All rent for your first month in LittleBrooke is covered by your employer. Please note that all apartments are two-bedroom only. If you have a larger household please speak to Sydney May at Town Hall for bigger accommodations. After reading this I decided to just go to LittleBrooke and get answers. I was assuming that I would find out what the hell happened if I just went. I wanted to know what my wife died for and I wanted to know why this was some big secret in the first place. I went back to bed and as soon as the sun came up I put the information into my GPS and headed for LittleBrooke.

Year One in LittleBrooke

It took me three weeks to reach LittleBrooke and I could tell that something was wrong the moment I found the town. If I wasn't so damn desperate for answers I would've turned around as soon as I saw the library. The building itself wasn't big but the two huge lions on either side of the staircase gave me the creeps.
After that I passed a mechanic, the whole place looked run down as hell. There wasn't a single car to be seen but the sign said open. The man standing outside of the building waved to me so I gave him a slow wave back. He looked weird. At the time I couldn’t place my finger on why but now I know it’s because he was not human.
The theater was kind of cool to look at in a vintage kind of way. They were not showing anything when I drove by and I made the decision early on to stay out of the theater altogether. After the theater, I saw a small building that said LittleBrooke Press. If anything else I figured I could write for the paper.
As I approached the apartment building a woman was standing outside. Her face was weird as hell. It looked like she had far too much plastic surgery like her face was threatening to pop at any moment. “Hi, can I help you?” she asked me. Her voice was shrill, it was gross to even hear her speak. It sounded like she was putting on a fake voice just to speak to me. “Hi, my wife accepted a job offer. Unfortunately, she has passed away. I would still like to claim the apartment left to us. I can work at any place that currently has an opening.” I offered.
“LittleBrooke Press has space for two more writers!” She smiled and handed me the keys to the apartment. She never asked my name and she knew exactly where I wanted to go. I thought it was weird but I didn’t argue. Instead, I took the keys and thanked her. I spent that whole day getting settled into the new apartment. A couple of things, the front door had four different locks on it. I thought that was pretty weird. I also did not see or hear any other people until my third night in the apartment. I called the LittleBrooke Press about a potential job and they told me to email my submissions. There was no need for me to come in person and honestly, I liked this deal a lot.
For the first few months, I spent my time writing about whatever came to my mind. After that, I would send it in and get my money back. The editor never told me what to do and they never requested anything. It was sweet. As December rolled around I could feel myself slipping into a seasonal depression. At that point, I had made no progress in any of my investigations. I did not know the town well enough and frankly, I felt like I was wasting my time. That night I decided to check out the local bar. It was pretty hidden, you had to drive further into LittleBrooke to find it. Once I got there I was shocked! The place was packed. I sat down at the bar and ordered a drink.
The bartender was hot as hell, too hot. She was so even looking so perfectly symmetrical that it made me extremely uncomfortable. There wasn’t a single hair out of place. “So are you new in town?” She asked me. “Yeah, I just got here a couple of months ago. My now-deceased wife accepted a job offer here.” I said bluntly and dryly. I wanted to finish my drink and go. It was like the bones in my body were screaming at me to leave. The woman looked shocked. “Tell me, does that happen often? Do people accept a job offer in LittleBrooke and turn up dead a couple of days later?” I hissed. It was a genuine question but she did not take it too kindly. She took my drink from my hands and told me to leave.
As I made my way back to my car I could hear someone coming up from behind me. I turned around as fast as possible and had to take three steps back. It was the bartender, but she did not look the same. Half of her face was weighed down like she had no bones at all. Her eyes were bulging out of her head. She gurgled at me. “You need to leave!” She finally snapped and swung her arm in my direction. I moved back before she could hit me. As her hand hit my car window it shattered like it was made of ice. I watched as her arm popped and clicked. I could see it slowly getting longer. Before I knew it her arm was dragging on the pavement! She lunged at me so I punched her in her stomach. She gurgled again and sunk her teeth into my jacket. I screamed for help as we hit the pavement. She was trying fucken eat me! I grabbed her by her hair and threw her backward as hard as I could. As I scrambled to my feet and looked at her I screamed again. Her skin was pulled back. Now hugging the bones on her face. Her eyes were completely exposed! I turned and dove into my car as fast as I could. I slammed the door behind me and sped out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell.
The next morning I received a letter under my door. “Sorry, you had problems last night! Please accept our sincerest apologies.” -Mayor Brookes. There was $300 included with the letter. Now, I thought about leaving but decided I had to stay. Something was going on here and I had to find out what. I removed my jacket to see if the woman had injured me, she didn't but the experience was still terrifying. For the first time in a very long time, I was scared. But I also felt closer to the truth than I have ever been before.

Year Two in LittleBrooke

I spent all of January writing about the women who attacked me. I even contacted the police. I quickly learned that the police were going to be completely useless. My editor never sent the story back so I had assumed it was published.
At the end of the month, I left to shop for some supplies. Let me tell you, the grocery store in LittleBrooke is something else. They don’t have any brands you’ve ever heard of and at first, that drove me nuts. However, I quickly came to fall in love with the food here. It was comforting to have something to enjoy. Like always, I made sure to shop for two to three months at a time. Shopping was easy, I used the self-checkout to make sure I didn’t have to speak to anyone.
Once I got home I put everything away and decided to look around the apartment building. My whole floor started with 301 and went all the way to 310. The first floor was 501 to 509. There was a technical second floor but none of the doors were labeled. It looked like someone was renovating the place.
I got to see some of my neighbors too. An older woman, two men, and I were living next door to a lady the whole time. I had never seen or heard from these people before. It seemed like everyone wanted to keep to themselves too. I wanted to try and talk to someone but every time I approached them they turned and walked away. For what it's worth they looked completely normal.
So I left the apartment building and ventured around the property. There were no other apartments anywhere close to the one I was staying at, or so I thought until I found one about thirty minutes away. It was so out of the way you wouldn't find it unless you were looking. Against my better judgment, I opened the doors to the building and walked right inside. The place smelled like rust and soot.
I went to explore the first floor and was shocked to find blood trails on the floor and the ceiling. I followed the trail and made sure to look at the numbers on each door. This floor was numbered 1-10. Most of the doors were locked and I wasn’t going to try and knock anything down. I opened the door to apartment 10 and walked right inside. There was just enough light from the sun to illuminate the place. It looked like the whole place had been ransacked. I checked the tables and cabinets before heading into the bedroom. I searched the dresser and under the pillows before finally checking under the bed. When I looked under I spotted a black box. I grabbed it and that is when I got the feeling again. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I felt something sharp dig into my shoulders.
I screamed as loudly as I could, my face slammed off of the carpet and I clenched the box with one hand. Before I could figure out what the hell was happening I was tossed backward. I went into the bedroom door and rolled a couple of times until I reached the torn-up couch. I slowly lifted my head and to my horror what I was looking at was way too far from human to be real.
It looked like a dog ape thing. It was mostly skinless aside from some skin on its torso and face. The creature had thick, long claws and was standing on its hind legs. It barked at me. Its fangs were huge! I quickly scrambled to my feet and rushed out of the door as fast as possible. I could feel the blood running down my back. Never once did I consider letting this box go.
“Help!” I screamed as I burst through the apartment complex doors and started to run back to the main road. My heart was pounding, I could feel my chest getting tighter with each step. I could hear the beast behind me, it was screeching. I thought I was going to die for sure, there was no way I could continue to outrun this beast. That’s when I heard a car and before I knew it I could see it! A woman was waving me over, she was just up ahead! I had to push a little harder. I had to be just a little stronger.
When I felt the embrace of the car door I ripped it open and dove inside. She sped away and I looked out of the window. The beast did not follow us any further. “Are you insane!” She snapped at me. That’s the last thing I remember before passing out.
When I woke up I was laying on my stomach on an extremely comfortable couch. I could smell someone making pasta with meat sauce. My stomach was going insane. Everything hurt though, especially my back and my left side. I figured I had hurt my side when I was tossed across the room.
At this point, I did not dive into the box yet. I could barely move. “Hi.” I heard a woman say from the kitchen. “Thank you,” I replied before trying to sit up. I was so concerned that this woman would be another monster. When I saw her though I knew she was normal. She didn't look so damn perfect and that was a breath of fresh air.
“What's your name?” She asked me as I watched her prepare two bowls of food.
“Leon,” I said before closing my eyes. “You heard me screaming?” I asked her seriously.
“I did. I’m pretty sure everyone in our building did. You got hurt pretty badly, I did my best to patch you up.” She paused and laughed. “My name is Ashley.”
So I ended up crashing at her place. During this time I tried to focus on recovering. Sleeping became hell, I was having constant nightmares. I also spent a lot of time working on articles. I ended up giving Ash the keys to my apartment so she could get my laptop. It was a big move to trust anyone here but I am glad I did.

Year Three and Four in LittleBrooke

During my recovery, I spent most of my time writing. I wanted to write about everything I have seen and experienced. I had a lot of questions and way too much time with my thoughts. Ash and I got to know each other too.
I told her about how my wife had died mysteriously. I eventually opened up about her being skinned and drained of her blood. Ash told me she had come to LittleBrooke with her older sister. Her sister went to work one day and never came back. She was working at the theater. Ash had told me that she was stuck here, she didn’t feel right leaving with her sister still missing. Every time she would try the cops would meet her at the town line.
It was during this time that we both shared that we had never seen a police station. We talked about the monsters too. Her first run-in with one was at the grocery store. I told her about what happened to me at the bar. She told me that she heard rumors of the beast living beyond the apartments. The first time she saw it was when it was attacking me.
As I started to recover more we discussed a couple of things. First, the neighbors here suck. She could hear me screaming and came to help but no one else did. Second, neither of us has seen any families since we moved here. It was at this point I decided I wanted to leave and I offered to take her with me. We could both get out come hell or high water. She agreed but there was something I had to do first.
I showed her the box I had taken from the apartment.
“You almost died for a box?” Ash asked me. “Yes,” I said seriously.
I opened it and blinked. I found a picture of a girl with black hair and bright green eyes. It read, Stephanie. I found a missing persons report too. This girl had been missing a year before I got here. I decided that my last article would be about her. I had written about a couple of missing people before this. For example, the old lady in our building vanished and her apartment was rented out two days later.
I also found a badge inside the box. It read F.O.P.P. and there was a name! Jack Bridges. We tried to look up the organization's name but we came up empty-handed. I ended up writing the story about Stephanie and the next day Ash and I got packing. We decided to take my car since the cops know what hers looks like. I packed up the essentials all over again and we piled into the car.
“We should check the other direction. Before we leave.” I suggested. Ash knew about the bar already but neither of us knew what was beyond that point: This suggested changed the course of our lives forever.
So we started driving in the other direction. We passed the bar where the woman had tried to eat me, we passed a convenience store I didn’t know this town had and we just kept driving. Eventually, I could hear Ash speaking to me, “Holy shit! The police station.” she pointed out. I couldn’t believe it either. I did not stop driving though but I wish I did.
Eventually, we saw a sign that read, LittleBrooke High. Go Bears!
I started to slow down a bit until the school was in view. The place looked run down as hell. There were holes in the walls and leaves growing up the side of the building. The parking lot was massive and full of buses. I pulled the car into the parking lot and told Ash to get into the driver's seat.
“You’re not serious?” She asked me. I could tell she wanted to go but I said, “This is it! This is the last place of note in this fucken town. Just take the wheel and I will be right back.” I said as I jumped out of the car and went to look around.
As I approached one of the buses I grabbed the doors, they were already open a crack. I pulled them open and was hit with a horrible stench. I had to step back and puke and no I am not going to describe what I saw in that fucken bus. At that point, I decided I had seen enough and it was time to fucken go.
“Help!” I heard someone cry from a couple of buses over. “Please!” I heard again. I wanted to slap myself because I knew better. I had already decided it was time to leave but I went to investigate anyway. I went to the bus and pulled the doors open. It smelled like stale piss and blood. “Back here!” A girl screamed out to me. I made my way to the back of the bus, stepping on school jackets and over backpacks. That is where I found them. Two teenagers are tied to the leg of a bus seat. They looked horrible, caking in blood and sweat. They were both injured. “Stephanie?!” I exclaimed as I bent over to free them. I recognized her face the moment I saw it.
“Can you move? I asked the blonde girl.” As I started to let her go. “Everything hurts.” She told me. I opened the emergency exit and called for Ash to pull the car over. It took her a second to hear me but she came as fast as possible. “I am going to get you guys in the car and we are going to get out of here, okay?” I told them. I wanted to tell them everything was going to be okay, but I couldn't. It felt like that would be a huge lie.
Ash stepped out of the car and helped get the girls into the backseat. As I stopped to look around I could feel the bus shift in weight. I turned around and inhaled sharply. Standing before me was a creature wearing a jacket that said COACH on it. He looked sickly, and pale, and his veins were protruding from his face and hands. As he ran at me I jumped out of the emergency exit door just in time to feel something slam off of the back of my head. I looked down to see a barbed football. I could feel blood trickling down my neck, I stumbled forward and felt a hand grab my arm. Ash was shoving me into the car. She slid over me, closed the passenger door, and backed the car up. I thought she was moving like lightning.
At this point, everyone was screaming. My heart was threatening to jump out of my fucken chest. I was so sure we were all going to die here, just like everyone else I had seen on the buses. But no, Ash sped out of the parking lot. The coach chased us to the school limits but for some reason, he did not follow us anymore.
I know we should've stopped to see if the kids could find their parents but we didn't. Instead, Ash just kept driving. Eventually, we could hear the cops behind us but that did not stop her. It took us six hours to finally see the You Are New Leaving LittleBrooke sign! I couldn’t believe it. This place was not that big at all.
So listen, if you’re invited to take a job in LittleBrooke. Don’t take it. It’s not worth your life.

PART [1/2]
The fresh oxygen-filled air bristled through the green canopy above. Gn’ylaum did appreciate Earth’s aesthetic to some degree, although he would never feel truly at home in these things they called forests. Yet, today he would experience it in a different way, for he was finally invited to go hunting with the human hunting group he had associated with a while ago, for the purpose.
“Do you mind if we take notes?” asked one of the four humans he was accompanying.
“Notes about what?” Gn’ylaum asked.
“Just, we’re unfamiliar with your kind and hunting, just for future reference,” answered another man, that had introduced himself as Joseph to Gn’ylaum. “I imagine you’ll also be marking some observations about us.”
That hadn’t occurred to Gn’ylaum. He wasn’t exactly looking to making a habit out of human-style hunting. He more or less did it, because hunting humans had been outlawed. This was the closest thing he would ever get, although he wouldn’t tell his companions the truth about that, he supposed.
“Sure,” nodded Gn’ylaum.
Packed with primitive weapons that humans called shotguns, and backpacks filled with miscellaneous supplies, the hunting group set off into the thick overgrown woods. On the search for a life form called deer, or boar, and some other denominations that didn’t say much to Gn’ylaum. He would follow and shoot when pointed where. He figured it wouldn’t be to difficult, since human society seemed to be at least several centuries behind on development to the civilization Gn’ylaum called home.
They had been walking for over an hour in a stiff pace. Gn’ylaum could keep up, but he wondered why humans bothered traveling in such an exhausting way. Joseph had halted the group at the edge of a clearing in between the trees. It was covered in long sharp grass and dotted by patches of bracken. Gn’ylaum had familiarized himself with Earth’s flora in preparation of the trip. It seemed so much more diverse and complex than the low grade coverage on his home planet. It was about the only thing he appreciated about this place. Even though the compactness of it sparked a hint of claustrophobia within him. Joseph gestured everyone to crouch and so they did, then he whispered Gn’ylaum over to him, so he could observe from close how they were going to shoot the deer that was apparently grazing within the clearing. Gn’ylaum hadn't seen the deer, which he credited towards the survival instinct of the animal.
“You check where the wind is coming from,” Joseph whispered. “You try to approach the with headwind, so that it cannot smell you coming and any noise that you make gets carried away from the animal.”
This made sense to Gn’ylaum. Even though he couldn’t remember animals of prey at home that would be this complicated to hunt. Most of the species on his home planet reproduced at such a rate that it would be near impossible to make a dent in their populations, when hunting them for food. Although he had understood that humans do not always hunt to provide, but also for something they call sport. Where they go about wastefully killing things to see if they can. It was a strange concept, but Gn’ylaum would be open minded about it and try before judging.
“If you’re close enough, you line the barrel of your gun along your arm, and aim it using this small indent up front,” Joseph whispered. “You need to get the head or chest, depending on what you’re hunting, right in between it.”
Thus far Gn’ylaum could follow the instructions. The weapon had seemed crude to him, but it turned out he had underestimated the sophistication of the human hunting process somewhat. There was a clear aim behind everything. Though no efficient, it had a certain elegance Gn’ylaum couldn’t deny.
“If you’ve steadied your aim, you hold your breath,” Joseph proceeded. “You guys do breath, right?” he asked, as if suddenly unsure.
Gn’ylaum nodded. His species did breath, although they didn’t need the oxygen, but their bodies processed the nitrogen in the air. Something of which Earth had plenty, so that Gn’ylaum could go about his way, without the need of aiding equipment.
“BOOM!” yelled one of the other men out of nowhere.
Both the deer and Gn’ylaum startled at the sudden loud exclamation. The deer sped off in the forest and Gn’ylaum dropped backwards on the ground. The men – bar Joseph – laughed loudly as if they were amused and proud by scaring their guest to death.
“Very funny guys,” said Joseph, as he stretched his arm out towards Gn’ylaum, to give him a hold to get back on his feet. ”Anyway, that was all, except for pulling the trigger. You shoot the next one Gn’ylaum.”
Gn’ylaum simply rubbed his backside, and cleaned his coat. As he picked up his gun from the ground, he saw the men that had laughed earlier, making notes about his movements. Which seemed odd to Gn’ylaum, as he hadn’t done anything of particular use to the goal of this trip, but he choose not to question it and strapped the weapon over his shoulder.

So I guess newsreaders can hide their emotions really well on TV. I’ve never seen Mary Markov in any state of heightened temper. The time she came down to help after I’d burned down the FunFlair building with Frankie was definitely a first in that regard. Then again, I’d never committed arson before either, so there were a lot of firsts that night. It’s been two days, but I can still see her angry face before me when I close my eyes. It frightened me a little.
After the fire had been doused by her staff, she gave Fran and me a look unlike anything I’d ever seen before. There was a homicidal rage in her eyes, her mouth had turned into a thin, steely line and the vein on her forehead threatened to pop. To my surprise (and admittedly relief), she turned the entirety of that wrath against Frankie Preston. “What in the world were you thinking?” she thundered, looming dangerously over the shorter man. “You committed a goddamn crime! If you were a normal person, I’d have to get you behind bars now!”
“Wait, I’m the privileged one here?” he snapped. “That woman tortured me! She brought me into this world by fault and proceeded to make me wish I’d never been born! And there was nothing I could ever do about it, because, oh, that’s right, I’m not a normal person! As you so endearingly put it. No one has a fucking clue what I am, so it’s okay for me to suffer, isn’t it?”
Mary opened her mouth to respond, but only ended up shutting it again. Then she focused her scrutiny onto me. “I thought you’d have known better.”
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but I knew what I was getting myself into. This was a contemplated decision.”
“Was it ever.”
I motioned for her to step aside with me, bringing a bit of distance between ourselves and my waiter. “I’ll make it up to you,” I began. “I will, but please, please drop this.”
“Did he force you to come?”
“You don’t actually believe he could force me into anything, do you?”
Mary Markov sighed. “I guess not. Look, it’s not like I don’t understand his grudge. And from what I know of Ms Wallis, she won’t be missed by many. I just wish it didn’t have to come to this. This means a ton of work for me.”
“It means so much more to him.”
Another sorrowful moan. Then, “Alright. I have your back. But don’t, um… encourage this kind of behavior in him, please.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “What are you going to do about the other doll?”
“She’s in bad shape—”
“Trash shape,” Fran chimed in from behind, having inconspicuously strayed closer.
“She’s in bad shape,” Mary repeated, pointedly ignoring him, “and currently unresponsive, but since you said she’s shown signs of sentience, I guess we’ll have to look into her. It prompts a very interesting question, after all.”
“Being?” I offered.
“Think about it. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the other two living dolls, Zion Boyd and Bunny Martell, but they came alive after Frank tinkered with them. And now there’s this one. Maybe your little boyfriend has some kind of yet to be explored ability, seeing as he was the first to gain awareness.” She fell silent for a pregnant pause, glancing between the two of us. “Something to ponder on your drive home. Which you will be starting now.” She made a shooing motion with both her hands.
The message being quite clear, Frankie and I got back into his car. The ride was quiet at first, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable stillness. It felt like a weight I didn’t know I’d been carrying had been lifted. I stared at the server’s profile, alternately framed by nightly darkness and moonlight, drinking in every little detail about it. It was hard to believe that someone as cruel as Philomena Wallis had created something this breathtaking.
“So you’ll probably wanna talk about all of this, huh. About what I am, I mean.” Frankie’s voice was light and relaxed with only a hint of uncertainty gnawing at it.
“What’s there to talk about?”
“Aren’t you surprised? A little… disgusted, maybe?”
“I always knew you weren’t human. Beyond that, it doesn’t really matter to me what you are.” I shrugged. “I mean, I’d be fine if you were human, too. I’d be fine if you were a squonk.”
“What’s a squonk?”
“I don’t know, I just made that up. Anyways, did you actually think I would be grossed out? Did you?”
He smiled. “I guess not. This’ll sound crazy, and it’s hard to explain, but it’s like I got a voice in the back of my head constantly telling me that… that I should wash myself again or that I ought not to touch you. I suppose it’s not really a voice; it’s only these thoughts that kind of keep pushing into my mind even though I should know better. And I do know better. But that doesn’t stop the thoughts.”
I nodded slowly. “I think I understand. I can’t tell you how much I disagree with that voice, though. You’re the cleanest person I’ve ever met and if I could, I’d live in your hair like a cootie."
"That's how close you want me?"
"Yup.”
He let out a soft laugh. “I’m really, really glad you came with me. If there’s ever anything you need, I’ll do it. No matter what. If you want to bury a body, I’ll dig the hole.” He paused. “Actually, we should sell any corpses you might have. It’s wonderfully lucrative.”
I shot him a quick smile before turning to stare out the window with knitted brows. “What do you think about what Mary Markov said? About you being able to make the dolls come alive somehow.”
“I don’t know if there’s anything to it. I don’t remember doing anything special with them. Zion and Bunny were just standing around when I turned them on, and they came to within minutes. I figured they were sentient before, and it was simply repressed. I woke up randomly, too, after all.”
I hummed pensively. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“Well, if you’re implying it’s some kinda superpower, then that’s probably the most useless one ever.”
“We don’t have to talk about this now,” I told him, to which he gave me a grateful half-grin.
Per my request, he dropped me off at Nettie’s place. I kissed him goodbye on the crown of his head and told him we’d text the following day. He thanked me again and I watched him drive off before going up to ring the doorbell, mentally preparing an apology for showing up at five-thirty in the morning. My savior human was surprisingly quick to answer, giving me an indulgent wave as soon as I stumbled over my first “I’m sorry”.
“It’s fine,” she muttered. “I hadn’t gone to bed yet.”
I gave her an incredulous look and she sighed, crossing her arms in front of her chest. Her normally soft, rounded cheeks were sunken, her eyes oddly dull. Judging from the angry red marks, she’d apparently been chewing on her lower lip with some force. It was only then that I took note of the sweater she was wearing. A faded, shaggy piece of fabric that clearly hadn’t been washed since Kit Sutton had given it to her on the cliff that day. I felt a sharp pang in my chest and pulled her into a hug as soon as I’d stepped inside with her.
She stifled a sob when she wrapped her arms around me in return. “It’s hit or miss with me when it comes to sleep lately,” she confessed in a brittle voice.
I swallowed. “I’m working on it. I’ll get her back for you, I have a lead. Is there anything I can do in the meantime?”
“Not really. I just gotta distract myself ‘til the morning comes, I’ll be fine then.”
“Then I’ll stay up with you.”
It was thus decided. We sat down in the living room for a while, then went out into the garden to watch the sunrise. My savior human had taken her place in her mother’s chair while I whipped up some chocolate chip pancakes (one of her favorites) for her for breakfast. I carried them out to her on a little plate with a cup of tea, and for a moment, her expression cleared up for a beam of happiness to shine through. “We should do something productive,” she remarked, and I gave her a questioning tilt of the head. “I’ve been thinking,” she went on. “Isn’t it weird how all these years, you didn’t hop dimensions once, and now all of a sudden it keeps happening?”
“Don’t worry about that right now.”
“I always worry, baby girl. It’s my natural state of being.”
“It shouldn’t be,” I insisted. “It feels wrong. You have your own problems, I don’t want to add to that.”
“Seriously, that’s not what’s happening here. This is just how I keep my mind off… things.”
I rolled my lips together. Blue-haired things, probably. “You deserve so much better. You deserve this to be way, way easier,” I stated.
“That’s a nice thought. But it doesn’t change anything right now. You can control your body, can’t you? Your teeth and tentacles?”
“Yes. It happens automatically when I get scared sometimes, but for the most part, I’m actively doing it.”
“Then how about if we could somehow start getting you on top of your dimension jumping, too? It would be a tad risky and I’m not sure how to go about it exactly, but it would be far better if you could toggle it. You’d be able to stop yourself from hopping when you don’t want to, but maybe you could venture into these other spaces for exploration purposes, too.” The words spilled out of her like a babbling little waterfall as she plucked apart one of her pancakes and stuffed them into her mouth. “Because there has to be more to this. I just have that feeling. So I reckon we try and find a way to work with this. What do you think?”
“Sure. I guess I’d be… open to that.”
“Really? I-I don’t want to pressure you…”
“No, no, it sounds fine! I wanna try!”
“Okay!” She set aside her plate, rubbing her hands in blatant excitement. “So it happens when your flight instinct kicks in, correct? How about we get you in that headspace on purpose?”
“How would we do that?” I asked cautiously.
When I was sitting cross-legged on the ground among my savior human’s countless flowers with my eyes closed and her hand in mine, that question had pretty much answered itself. Nettie Peterson was leading me in a “guided meditation” consisting of several intrusive queries about my first ever jump—the most terrifying moment of my entire life.
“The thing, that floating maw, what did it look like?” she began, referring to the creature that had ended it all.
I furrowed my brows. “It didn’t look like anything,” I replied meekly. “Mostly, it was just… really big and dark.”
“Dark? What color dark?”
“Black, I guess. It swallowed the light.” A pulsating pain began to flare up behind my forehead. “It was nothing. It was like a giant ball of nothing.”
“You told me once that it made a noise,” my best friend went on, her fingers grasping mine a little tighter. “Do you remember that sound?”
I winced. “Yes.”
“Describe it.”
“It was more like a vibration that went through everything,” I mumbled. “The ground was shaking. And then we all screamed.”
“Did you see inside its mouth?”
“No. There was nothing inside of its mouth. There was nothing inside of it. Just emptiness.” I shifted my weight. Images were flashing in front of my inner eye, filling the darkness behind my closed lids. My breath had caught in my throat and it felt like ants were crawling beneath my skin. “And then all of us were suddenly… nothing, everything was gone and at that last moment, everyone was so terrified. They all knew it was over. All of them.”
At first, I thought Nettie Peterson’s hand was trembling. Then I realized it was my own, shaking hers through the contact. For a moment, my body felt feather-light, but not in a relaxing or comfortable way. It was as though I was afloat, out of control and weightless. I didn’t like it. “Can we stop?” I choked out.
“Of course,” my best friend replied, gently squeezing my fingers.
I let go of a deep breath, blinking my eyes open. Across from me, Nettie was giving me a soft but deeply apologetic smile. “Did I push you too far?”
“It’s not your fault. I think I simply wasn’t ready for this.”
“I understand. Let’s go inside and make some more of those—” She stopped mid-sentence. She’d been pointing her chin at the plate of pancakes resting on her chair, only to see that it had changed.
The food I had just served her half an hour ago had turned into a moldy, rotten mess. A couple flies were circling it, emitting a low, almost melodic buzz. My savior human and I traded wide-eyed glances, disbelief, fear and excitement mirrored in our eyes. We then got up to take in our surroundings. The flowers surrounding us weren’t the same anymore. They were either withered or deathly pale; formerly pink, yellow and red petals had become either light gray or iridescently white. Thick, soupy fog was hanging over everything, it was denser and heavier than any we’d ever had in town before. The mist seemed to have consumed all the noise and color in the world, leaving only cold, oppressive silence.
Nettie was the first to regain speech. “It worked! Oh my Lord, it actually worked.”
I clasped her arm and she immediately fell silent. Wordlessly, I pointed at the rolling fog on the other side of the garden fence. There was something moving within. An enormous, caterpillar-like shape soundlessly dragged itself through the air, its long body slowly moving along across the street. My savior human’s jaw had dropped, her mouth wide open as she followed my gaze. Neither of us moved a muscle as we waited for the creature to pass by. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to take note of us at all. I didn’t want to imagine what could happen if one were to draw its attention.
“This is… I don’t believe this,” Nettie breathed, running a hand over her mussed coils. “You did it. We’re not home anymore.”
“What do you propose to do now?”
“Keep our heads low and try to find out anything useful, I’d say.”
I nodded and she folded her hand into the crook of my arm. Together, we proceeded through the open door back into the house. Wammawink and Nettie’s old convertible were standing in their garage, a pool of motor fluid surrounding each vehicle. The paint was peeling from the car doors, matching the way the pictures and photographs around her house had faded.
The food in her kitchen had morphed into a self-contained ecosystem. Bugs were crawling up and down the walls and ghostly white mice scuttled across the floor with shocking brazenness. There was no trace of human life anywhere in sight. We stepped out the front door and into the street only for Nettie to grab me and fling me to the ground next to her. We flattened ourselves against the curb as another one of the gigantic caterpillar-figures snaked its way along just a couple feet above our heads. I craned my neck to give my best friend a sidelong glance out of terrified, saucer-sized eyes. I could see my reflection in hers as she pressed a finger to her lips. I gave her a tiny nod.
Finally, it was gone again and we helped each other to our feet. Nettie brushed down her sweater with great care before tilting her head at me as though asking if I was alright. I gave a reassuring, albeit wavering smile which she returned with a slight strain to her brow. We linked arms again and started walking down the street. The whole dimension seemed to be a mirror image of our hometown, only deader. Aside from the flies and vermin, there seemed to be very little life. All of the houses we were so familiar with looked decrepit, old and empty. Walls were crumbling down, roofs looked to be seconds away from caving in and most windows were shattered. It was impossible to see ahead through the mist, but we managed to hide from the flying worm-things everytime they came up.
We were starting to become a little frustrated seeing as our exploration yielded nothing of note. There was hardly anything to be seen safe from the depressing alternate version of our neighborhood. On top of that, the clammy chill that hung in the air along with the fog was making us increasingly uncomfortable. Finally, we decided we should try and get back home. We returned to Nettie’s garden where we crouched down once again, hand in hand. Before my savior human could begin her questioning though, the ground beneath us suddenly began to shudder, heaving as if moved by some kind of subterranean pulse.
Nettie Peterson and I snapped our eyes open at the exact same time, mouths agape in bewilderment. And then we saw it. It was in the sky, partially veiled by the thick fog yet impossible to overlook. It became darker and darker as it neared, its indescribably large form seemed to envelop the entirety of the heavens. It had been five years since I had last seen it, but I recognized it immediately. Not that it had any features I could have recognized. I remembered though, and in that moment, it all came flooding back to me. The breeders that threw themselves in front of their young, the cries that echoed across the plains together with the stones and soil sent rolling by the earthquake. I caught my best friend’s gaze, read the terror in it and knew that it was just as immense as my own. Her lips were parted in an ear-piercing scream that ended up being drowned out by the hovering roar of the Devourer Of Worlds.
I squeezed her hand so tightly I feared I’d snap her fingers. And suddenly, before I knew it, all was silent again. The air was warmer, filled with the fragrances of countless different flowers. The early morning sun was shining down on us, and it felt like it was heating up my very core. We were back. In the blink of an eye, Nettie had thrown her arms around me, pulling me close to her chest.
“Baby girl,” she whispered.
“That was it,” I rasped out. “That was it.”
“I know.” Withdrawing just an inch, she wiped a thumb over my eye, careful not to scrape me with her nail. It was only then that I realized I was crying. Tears were streaming down my cheeks, noiseless and hot, dripping from my chin and wetting my chest.
"You're not hurt, are you? Look, it's going to be alright. You just take it easy now. We'll go inside, have some tea or coffee or whatever and calm down, a-and then we can figure this all out. Come on. Get up. Easy, easy now." She hugged me even as she pulled me to my feet and into the house alongside her. "So tea. How about strawberry? Or Turkish apple? Or classic chamomile? Something for the nerves, at any rate."
"Wait," I stammered, interrupting her monologue. "What about you? Are you okay?"
"Oh, no. No, no, no, far from it. I'll sign us both up for therapy once I find the time, but for now, tea! Tea."
"Nettie, please don't strain yourse—"
"Listen here, I'm gonna make you some goddamn tea and we'll sit down with it and it's gonna be warm and nice and we'll forget all about this. I'm here. I can take care of you. You do not need to be scared." She pressed her face close up to mine, her voice sharp and a mite threatening.
"I'm sort of scared of you right now."
"Oh." She drew back. "Pardon. I'll put on the tea." A forced, crooked tune tumbled from her lips as she went ahead into the kitchen.
We've both simmered down a little since the incident. It's been two days now. I used most of that time to unwind and recover from what had to be the single most eventful night of my time here on earth. Keep in mind, this happened the morning after the fire. The calm is not going to last much longer, though. I don't mind that, I just need to brace myself.
Rhonda's been in touch.
X
1
2: deadbeat roommate
3: creepy crush
4: relocation
5: beach concert
6: First date
7: Temp work
8: roommate talk
9: a dismal worldview
10: warehouse
11: staircase
12: explanation
13: hurt
14: hospital
15: ocean
16: diner
17: government work
18: something in the caves
19: shopping cart
20: olms and Jewels
21: long hair
22: recruitment
23: waitresses
24: dollhouse
25: burning plastic

I’m planning to kill myself when my parents are gone. They are still really healthy but I’d expect it’d be a several decades before they’re on their way off. They’ve spent a lot of money on me and I don’t want them to know that’s going to waste in their lifetime.
I was going to kill myself when I moved out but when my friend died of cancer and I watched his parents prepare for his funeral, I didn’t think I could do it like I planned to anymore. I stayed with them to help them with their chores at home while they were grieving. I can’t even describe how eerie and depressing it was to hear his mom wail across the house in the middle of the night. His dad told me that he considered killing himself with his wife but they wouldn’t do it for religious reasons. I didn’t think of it at the time but whenever I look back on it, sometimes I felt like I was watching my own parents mourn for me.
In a way, trying to figure out how to keep my head up until then has become my only purpose. I’m constantly in pain on every layer of my being: emotional, mental, and physical. It’s unbearable. But I still choose to tough it out and stay for awhile longer. But no matter what I’m sure I’m going to commit suicide.
Knowing this has helped me perform academically. I’m in university and working towards a computer engineering degree and the coursework is extremely grueling. But I’ve been really successful with almost a 4.0 GPA with an internship on my resume. In high school before I decided to kill myself, I almost failed some of my classes. I’ve always felt very uncomfortable and disgusted just being in my own body with terrible self worth but it’s not something that stresses me out anymore. It feels like an obvious fact that I’ve come to terms with. I definitely feel the same way but as weird as it sounds, I am still suffering from it but at the same time, I just don’t care anymore. It’s contradictory but unfortunately I don’t know how else to articulate it.
I’m aware of what lies ahead and any path I take whether it’s a successful one or not is just a detour to the same place. My career means nothing to me. Success means nothing to me. And in a way that’s brought stability in areas of my life. I’m in pain but it’s not one that involves pressure. Instead, life feels more like some wavering hypnotic empty hell rather than a rat race that I’ve fallen behind, which I used to feel. I’ve turned to my academics and career as a way to try to distract myself from the pain rather than a means to success as people typically do and I think this mentality has made me keep working and being outwardly functional.
I’m doing well because I’m playing a very long waiting game and I needed to have something that distracts me for a long time while keeping my true intentions of committing suicide quiet.

Top 30 Prospect Performance
Arizona Complex League

Prospect	Performance	Position	Age	Ranking
Michael Arroyo	3-3, HR, R, 4RBI	Shortstop	18	Mariners #11
Carlos Jimenez	0-1, 2BB	Outfield	20	Mariners #30

Low-A Modesto

Prospect	Performance	Position	Age	Ranking
Cole Young	0-4	Shortstop	19	Mariners #3
Gabriel Gonzalez	1-4, R, SB	Outfield	19	Mariners #7
Michael Morales	6.2IP, 5H, 1BB, 1ER, 9K	Pitcher	20	Mariners #20
Josh Hood	2-4	Second Base	22	Mariners #29

High-A Everett

Prospect	Performance	Position	Age	Ranking
Harry Ford	1-3, 2B, BB, SB	Catcher	20	Mariners #1
Axel Sanchez	1-3, R	Shortstop	20	Mariners #15
Alberto Rodriguez	0-3, HBP	Outfield	23	Mariners #27

AA Arkansas

Prospect	Performance	Position	Age	Ranking
Jonatan Clase	1-4, R, 2RBI, BB, SB	Outfield	21	Mariners #12
Prelander Berroa	1.0IP, 1H, 1BB, 0ER, 2K	Pitcher	23	Mariners #14
Robert Perez Jr	2-5, 2B, RBI	Outfield	22	Mariners #21

AAA Tacoma

Prospect	Performance	Position	Age	Ranking
Cade Marlowe	0-4, BB	Outfield	25	Mariners #16
Zach DeLoach	2-3, 2R, 2BB	Outfield	24	Mariners #26

Unranked Excellence

Prospect	Performance	Level	Age	Positon
Jeter Martinez	4.0IP, 2H, 1BB, 0ER, 5K	DSL	17	Pitcher
Jose Romero	3.0IP, 1H, 0BB, 0ER, 1K	DSL	18	Pitcher
Abdiel Medina	5.0IP, 3H, 0BB, 2ER, 2K	ACL	21	Pitcher
Reid VanScoter	7.0IP, 6H, 0BB, 3ER, 3K	High-A	24	Pitcher
Randy Bednar	2-3, HR, 2R, 2RBI	High-A	24	Outfield
Logan Warmoth	2-5, HR, 2R, 3RBI	AA	27	Shortstop

Final Scores
DSL Mariners defeat Nationals 2-1
ACL Mariners defeat D-Backs 4-3
Rancho Cuca. defeats Modesto 7-3
Everett defeats Vancouver 5-4
Arkansas defeats Tulsa 9-5
Reno defeats Tacoma 8-6
Highlights
Michael Morales strikes out nine.
Michael Arroyo’s home run.
Standings

Affiliate	Record	Standings	Diff	Level
DSL Mariners	3-0	1st in division	+8	DSL
ACL Mariners	2-0	1st in division	+11	ROK
Modesto Nuts	27-27	3rd in division	+6	Low-A
Everett AquaSox	27-27	4th in division	+12	High-A
Arkansas Travelers	35-19	2nd in division	+68	AA
Tacoma Rainiers	29-31	2nd in division	+6	AAA

Prospect Performances Index.

The sun began to set on the small Scottish island, casting a warm orange glow across the quaint village. As the residents finished their meals and the last few visitors trickled out of the local pub, a man named Ewan slipped into the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to make his move. Ewan, a middle-aged man with a scruffy beard and unkempt hair, was an alcoholic. He was known by many on the island for his frequent drunken antics and had been kicked out of the pub more times than he could count. Despite several attempts to quit drinking, Ewan was powerless to resist the allure of alcohol. As the last of the pub's patrons made their way out the door and the owner began to close up, Ewan seized his opportunity. He snuck into the now-empty pub through a back door, hiding behind a large wooden barrel in a corner. He held his breath, praying he wouldn't be discovered as the owner locked up and left for the night. Once he was sure the coast was clear, Ewan emerged from his hiding spot and surveyed the room, his eyes gleaming with excitement. He licked his lips as he approached the rows of bottles behind the bar, the promise of a long night of uninterrupted drinking weighing heavily on his mind. However, as Ewan began to move across the pub, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about the pub. The warm, lively atmosphere he was accustomed to had been replaced Ewan looked around as he approached the bar and wondered to himself. Why do pubs always limit themselves to the same decor? The harsh shades of red. The black and white photos of people long dead and oil paintings which seem to have been painted to fade into the background. Ewan had both drank and been barred from every pub on the island now and has seen little to no variety in interiors. "I guess it is to make it feel homely and familiar. Our brains associate familiarity with safety and people who feel safe are likely to drink more." while still feeling unsettled moving across the bar. The feeling of unease wasn't going to stop him from drinking as much as he can physically take before sneaking out leaving the landlord none the wiser. Until a stock take shows some discrepancies that he will probably put down to spillages or his carelessness with bookkeeping. Then he thought "No I will drink as much as I want and top the bottles up with water" Ewan's eyes grazed over the selection of choices on the Optic. Grouse being his usual preferred choice when he wants to spoil himself on the rare occasions he has money to burn, Bells being his usual go-to poison as the price and alcohol content measure up quite nicely but tonight he was going to drink like a king. He grabbed the bottle of Redbreast and carefully unscrewed it from the optic and began to greedily chug straight from the bottle. He walked drunkenly from behind the bar to a stool he sat down and for no reason held the bottle to the sky and said "cheers" at that moment the jukebox began to blast out at an incredibly loud volume "You're mine" by Ritchie Valens. "FUCK!" Screamed Ewan as he put down his bottle and hurried over to the jukebox. The light emitted from which was now making the shadowy areas seem darker by contrast. He scrambled to the floor feeling for a plug socket behind it to unplug the thing. The sound up close was almost deafening. After feeling along the wall to no success he quickly pulled at it to come forward so he could get behind it to where the plug must be and sure enough it was there. He yanked it out of the wall with a hard jerk and the record began to slow "yourrr minee forrrr eternityyyyyy....." and then silence. Ewan let out a sigh of relief. "Thing must be connected to some sort of sensor" Ewan walked to the window, crouched down in case anyone was looking in to see what the noise was. He looked to see if anyone in the opposite building heard the commotion. He looked and the only building on the other side of the road facing the pub was a thatched-roof cottage. Dimly lit by street light, with a sign above the door that read "Alf's funeral home" "Well Alf. I'm sorry if I woke up any of your clients" slurred Ewan while chuckling to himself. He reached for the bottle on the bar while turning and no bottle. He retraced his steps from the bar to the jukebox to the window and back to the bar but the
bottle was nowhere to be seen. Then he looked up at the Optics. There he saw it. The fine redbreast whiskey. He staggered over to it. Holding the bar for balance. There it was and seemingly untouched. He must have drank near on a quarter of the bottle but there it is. Almost full and back where it was. "I must have tipped it up with water after drinking and put it back. This isn't the first time I've lost chunks of time from drinking and it won't be the last" mumbled Ewan allowed as an attempt to reassure himself. Putting his feeling of unease down to the nerves of being caught along with the dull twinge of guilt he feels for stealing Ewan decided to look for cheaper alternatives for his next binge. He finally settled on a bottle of Jack. Only total pussies who want to pretend they like whisky because they think it gives them an edge drink Jack Daniels. The faggots that drink it non ironically will never notice it is watered down. Ewan grabbed a glass this time deciding to drink measured amounts. Aware that loss of time while drinking is usually followed by passing out entirely. Ewan sat hunched over on a rickety wooden stool, the creaking of the floorboards beneath him barely audible over the deafening silence that enveloped the empty pub. The musty smell of stale beer and old wood filled his nostrils as he took another swig from the glass of his Jack Daniels, a bitter taste lingering on his tongue. “Piss water,” he thought to himself. The room was dark, though his eyes had now adjusted enough to fully take in his surroundings. The old faces in frames on the wall. A photo on the wall to his left was of a party being held in this very pub. Looking to be in the 1910s judging from the fashion. Amongst the 20 or so people in the image, one woman stood out in the dead center. Her long hair was down, a contrast from the other ladies in the photos sporting the traditional Pompadour style of the time. She was smiling while looking off to the side. Seemingly unaware that she was to be the star of the photograph. Above the photo on a shelf made from taxidermy antlers sat an antique hunting rifle. The light from the street lamp reflected off the mettle barrel casting eerie shadows across the rows of dusty liquor bottles. Ewan thought about how many parties would have taken place here over hundreds of years this pub had been open. The idea of drinking for any kind of pleasure had become such an alien concept to him now. Drinking for Ewan wasn't a way to unwind or relax or even in his mind feed an addiction. Not anymore anyway. Now he finds himself desperate for a drink to quell the demons that haunted his every waking moment. As the alcohol began to take hold of him again, the memory he had been trying so hard to suppress clawed its way back to the forefront of his mind. It was a memory that he could never escape, a weight that anchored him to the ocean floor of despair. It had been over six years since the accident. The night had started like any other: dinner with friends, laughter, and, of course, alcohol. It was supposed to be a celebration of Ewan and Isla, his wife's fifth wedding anniversary. But as the night wore on and the glasses piled up, so too did the tension between them. “We need to get a taxi.” Said Isla after excusing herself and Ewan “I am fine to drive! It is only a mile down the road” “You were supposed to stay sober tonight” “Yeah, and you were supposed to get your license 3 years ago.” “Do you really wanna do this now?” Ewan thought on this for a second before speaking “No. I am sorry I was only meant to have a couple but got a little carried away. I am sorry, but you know we will never get a taxi at this time of night. Come on I'll drive slow” Ewan cut this memory short. He wouldn't allow himself to think about this anymore. As tears began to fall from his face he necked the remainder of the contents of his glass. Before he had a chance to pour himself another drink the stall he was sitting on was jerked back with such force that Ewan landed on the ground with a thud. Smashing the glass that was tightly gripped in his hand in the process. Ewan let out a pained gargled yelp as he shook his now bleeding hand in pain. The blood splatters landed on the wall art and photos. He looked at his hand and saw that yes indeed a large chunk of glass was sticking out of his hand. He yanked it out. With that more blood trickled out rapidly. He turned to see what happened to his seat. And there almost 3 feet away from him sat his bar stool. “Fuck this!” said Ewan as he hurried to the back door. Locked. He tried the fired exit, the windows. All locked. At this point, he didn't care about being discovered. He turned all the lights on. And started bashing his fists against the windows. The glass wouldn't budge he grabbed a chair and began smacking the window over and over again until the chair had fallen to pieces. Suddenly the Jukebox started playing again. Some big band highland number that he did not recognize this time. “I know I unplugged that” as he looked at the jukebox he noticed that the hunting rifle that sat on the shelf to the right of that was gone he scanned the room and to his horror, he saw a lady standing in the corner of the room facing away from him. His vision was slightly wavy from the alcohol. “Hey I don't know if you work here and you are trying to mess with me for breaking in. You have successfully scared the shit out of me and I am happy to wait outside for the police to arrive or whatever. I am bleeding, let me leave?” The woman turned around. It was the lady from the photograph. Her face was covered in bruises. Her eyes were red and puffy. She put the hunting rifle that was in her hands up to her chin and pulled the trigger. The front of her face exploded revealing bits of teeth and a gaping hole where her mouth should be parts of her brain decorated the ceiling the remainder half that was still in her skull pulsated a little as blood tricked out. She fell to her knees and now with her few remaining teeth bare, she looked as though she was smiling. Though her eyes gave the impression of pure rage. As she fell head first on the floor the electricity died. Ewan scurried away while on the floor to the corner by the bar and then vomited. “not real, it's not real it's not real” he said while covering his eyes. Afraid to look. He sat like this for what felt like hours. In that time a puddle of urine collected around him. “Usually I don't piss myself until I've finished my second bottle” he darkly thought to himself. “I need to find a way out of here” Thought Ewan as he opened his eyes and saw that there was no trace of the lady from the photograph anymore. The ceiling was clean and the gun was back on its shelf. He stood shakily. As He stood he noticed that the building on the opposite end of the street now had a light on. He began banging on the window again “Hey! I am trapped in here! Send help!” He saw movement in the window as someone pulled back the curtain to look. It was a middle-aged gentleman with greying hair. He looked around confused to see where the noise was coming from “OVER HERE!” Shouted Ewan and he banged on the window until his other hand was just as bloody. The gentleman then turned in Ewans direction “YEAH OVER HERE I AM TRAPPED! PLEASE COME AND HELP ME!” The gentleman looked as though he was trying to hear while with his hand he reached for the lining of his shirt. With one motion he ripped his shirt open relieving a gash going all the way up his body stitched together with what appeared to be wire. His look of concern turned to amusement and he pulled the wire. Undoing the stitches to show where his vital organs that have now been donated used to be. He laughed like a madman as he pulled his skin back. His head now leaning against the glass and his laughter which sounded muffled due to the distance was still audible from the pub. Deep and raspy but that of a madman. Ewans attention was broken by the sound of a familiar clank of something metallic. It was a sound that was instantly recognizable to anyone. The sound of coins dropping to the floor. Ewan turned and looked and sure enough, there were two coins on the ground behind where he stood. He bent to pick them up. They were old. Very old. From what he could see in the dim light they looked to be that of the Victorian times. He heard the sound again. This time over by the jukebox. He walked over to pick them up and noticed something. The floor under the jukebox looks to be a cellar door. He dragged it out some more to reveal that yes indeed, it was some kinda entrance to a hatch of some kind. This time Ewan saw the coins drop to the floor. He looked up at the ceiling and saw dozens of corpses laying flat against the ceiling with coins covering their eyes dressed in their funeral clothes all shoulder to shoulder. The sight was horrifying. And as if waiting to be viewed, at that moment their flesh began to melt to just skeletal remains, and coins and blood showed Ewan as he frantically tried to get the hatch on the floor open. Digging his fingers into the gaps trying to grip it to lift it until he eventually found a bit to latch onto. With one firm pull the hatch came up. He dove into the cellar. Not caring what he will find at this point. Slamming it shut behind him. He searched his pocket to find his lighter. After a few attempts at getting it to light he managed. He saw it wasn't a cellar at all. Instead, it was a tunnel. He began to follow it along. After walking for about 30 minutes the tunnel got narrower and narrower until Ewan was crawling on his hands and knees. He noticed a light ahead and felt hopeful that this could be the end of his ordeal. He began to notice he was crawling on pavement and broken glass. He kept going until he could stand and he could see trees and a road he hurried out of the tunnel and saw to his confusion. He was still inside the cellar. The trees stopped sharply at the ceiling and the road stopped sharply at the four walls that surrounded him. He turned to go back through the tunnel, Back the way he came. this was not the way out. what he saw as he turned defied all logic. The small part of his brain that clung to rational explanation broke as he saw that the tunnel he had just crawled through had been replaced with a tipped-over car. He saw a younger version of himself slowly regain consciousness while suspended upside down. He froze unable to move or look away. “Oh god please don't make me relive this” “Isla? Oh my god, Isla” Ewan checked her pulse but couldn't find one. He could see emergency services lights coming towards them from a distance. He knew he would go to prison for manslaughter if caught causing death by dangerous driving “I am so sorry baby. I am so sorry” Ewan said through tears while unbuckling her seatbelt and moving her over to the drivers side and then crawling back out of the car to flag down the ambulances. "They'll be able to resuscitate her, She will be okay and I will take care of her". Ewan didn't notice that the car had begun to ignite until it was too late. The flames spread quickly. “Ewan..?” said a dull voice from the car. Ewan turns and hurried to the car but by that point, it was too late “Isla!” He cried as he watched the flame cover his wife. Isla screamed in pain until her face was completely burnt away and all she could make was gargles and all Ewan could do was watch in horror. Then the entire room went up in flames and became ash leaving Ewan completely in the dark. Sobbing. “I am sorry I didn't know. I didn't mean to. I.... I...!" Ewan composed himself. "I deserve to die but I am not dying in here" Ewan stood and pulled out his lighter again to light the room only to see it was now filled with hundreds of bodies all staring at him. the tips of their feet scraping across the floor as they floated closer. Ewan backed away until he felt something metallic. A ladder leading up to a manhole shaft. he quickly began to climb as the ghostly rotting corpses moved closer to him at a more rapid speed now. as he reached the top and forced the lid open he was greeted by sunlight. hands clutched at his ankles dragging him back but with determination to survive he pulled himself free and was finally outside in the open. He closed the cover shut. He could hear birds chirping, and sounds of people driving to work. The world had never seemed so beautiful. "Oh my god buddy are you okay?" said a young man who looked horrified at Ewan who was covered in dried blood, ash, and a collection of injuries. "I am going to call you an ambulance buddy hang tight" The young man pulled out his phone and began to dial. by this point, Ewan began to pass out. He slipped in and out of consciousness while getting carefully placed on the gurney. "What is your name?" "Have you taken anything?" "Who's blood is this" "My name is Ewan, I haven't taken anything. I guess I have had far too many spirits last night though" he laughed to himself as the doors to the ambulance closed. as the vehicle began to speed away music began to play on the radio. "I didn't think ambulances had radios" said Ewan as he began to recognize the music. "Your mine and we belong together. Yes, we belong together" He tried to stand but he had been strapped down to the gurney. The walls of the ambulance began to melt away. The paramedics all had coins covering their eyes and mouths stitched shut. Ewan let out a scream as fire began to cover his body he could see once the walls of the ambulance were fully gone he was still in the pub. it was still night and he was now very much on fire. He let out one final scream before his lips were completely gone. His chard body fell to the floor by the bar with a thud. An empty bottle of Jack tightly gripped in one hand and his lighter in the other. In his final state of living consciousness before his inevitable death, he saw the light emerge from the window. The sun was finally rising for real. He closed what remained of is eyelids and let out a pained sigh as he died. Ewans body was discovered later that day by a confused and horrified cleaner. Who immediately phoned the police. The investigating officers, who knew all about Ewans drunken antics on the island and had their suspensions regarding the circumstances involving his wifes death. Put Ewans demise down to an elaborate and painful suicide. That night as his body lay on the slab in Alfs funeral home. After the sun had set and everyone had left for the evening. But in the pub opposite the funeral home, Ewan emerged from his hiding spot behind the barrels and surveyed the room, his eyes gleaming with excitement. He licked his lips as he approached the rows of bottles behind the bar, He felt an unsettling feeling of deja vu but had managed to shake it off by the promise of a long night of uninterrupted drinking which weighed heavily on his mind.

Acts I to IV are available in my previous posts.

Act V: Queenbreaker

Returning home
Claire and Owen fly back to the US and in the arrivals hall of Reno's International Airport, they are greeted by a group of journalists who question them about the Dolomites Crisis, the role they played in it and if it's true that Claire and Wu, known to be sworn enemies, really did saved the world together. One of those journalists is Cassandra Landis (a character which appeared in my JW rewrite and TRQ, and some sort of minor recurring antagonist for Claire). When Landis asks Claire treacherous and inappropriate questions in addition to implying that she's a mythomaniac, the former park director punches her in the face in front of the cameras, knocking her out.
The end of Biosyn
Due to the death of Dodgson, Murdoch and almost the entirety of the board of directors (and its only survivor, Nathan Quinn, quickly retired from the corporation); the disastrous results of Auronzo valley's siege and invasion; and the breaking scandals, Biosyn is left leaderless, its stock exchange's value collapses and so does the company itself. The Cupertino HQ and other Biosyn installations across the US and the rest of the world are seen being vandalized and its anti-locust seeds destroyed by farmers during a protest.
Queenbreaker
In the DSD headquarters, Gibbon is having fun watching a parody video of Claire punching Cassandra Landis when Bigelow, who just returned from Italy, knocks at his door. They discuss her mission's failure, with Gibbon announcing he'll strip of her status by moving her to a simple desk job. They also talk about the mysterious attackers who raided the Citadel (Gibbon plans to blame the grey guards for the killings committed by those as part of the US government's anti-Grey Guard propaganda campaign) and Claire's various exactions in Auronzo (and more particularly the Hunting Lodge slaughter and the annihilation of Biosyn's board of directors), along with the fact that she and Henry Wu apparently saved the world from a GMO locusts-induced famine. Gibbon adds that people as idealistic and determined as Claire tend to easily fall in the dark side, create terrorist organizations, and that as a supposed world-saviour and charismatic figure, people will support or join her in droves, which might be quite a problem, moreover that empires tend to fall in her wake ("Who's going to be next after InGen and Biosyn?" he wonders); that following the Malta betrayal, the WDMC and the DSD are having some sort of war, and should Vuillier send Claire upon the DSD, the result won't be pretty. Luckily for them, the CIA anticipated the problem she'll become and started to move their pawns in preparation of Operation Queenbreaker, intending to make her pay for what she did to their ally Biosyn and put a spoke in Vuillier's wheels. However, after seeing Franklin in a nearby hallway, Gibbon adds that their conversation must remain a secret for the moment.
Bigelow leaves and Gibbon starts watching another video: Dodgson's presentation about the chips and the recording of the battle between the Carabinieri and the chip-controlled animals.
The DSD collects the testimonies of various people involved in the Auronzo Incident, especially those of Pellegrino and her men. When Bigelow realizes that the tyrannosaur freed by Claire is the same which killed Maisie, she tells her boss and he is satisfied by her discovery.
Soon, another division of the CIA launches Operation Queenbreaker. Online, agents spread the rumours about Claire's misdeeds with even extracts from the Citadel's CCTV footage (sent by Lucrezia Pellegrino) being put on the social media and new caricatures being made (depicting Claire as a bloodthirsty vampire or a rampaging dragon which kills indiscriminately). Meanwhile, a shot in the arm is given to the investigation about Claire's fatal errors when she was park director of Jurassic World and the misdeeds she committed during the Lockwood Estate incident and her missions for the WDMC.
The trial of Claire Dearing
One morning, Claire is arrested and brought to court.
She endures a humiliating trial during which all of her crimes, proven or alleged (fake news were thrown into the mix) are discussed.
One of Operation Queenbreaker orchestrators' most treacherous moves are having Karen, Claire's half-sister, testimony against her, claiming she's responsible for the death of her son Gray (which died in this AU, killed by the Indominus); and using Drummond's, Bigelow's, and Kayla's testimonies about the Dolomites incident, where the three of them said that a Tyrannosaurus ate Maisie Lockwood, to imply that the Lockwood heiress died because of Claire, as she released the very same animal which ended up killing the teenage girl. As being responsible for kids' death is a big no-no for the public opinion, Claire loses part of its support.
During the last session of her trial, Claire knows it's a lost battle and pleads guilty for the crimes she did commit (adding she'll "do it again" for the greatest good if needed) before delivering an ominous speech, in which she talks about the opposition between civilization and barbarism (how barbarism is Man's natural state. She uses herself as an example), Man and nature, how dinosaurs changed her, and why they fascinates and frightens us at the same time (according to her, it's because they are the avatar of a barbaric world to which the entirety of mankind once belonged. By submitting and exploiting them, it's like if Mankind tried to reassure itself about its superiority over Nature). She claims having seen the future, declares that the World of Men is ending and a new age is coming, that soon, the entire planet will become a new Isla Nublar, and that modern civilization will know the fate of Jurassic World. Having heard enough, the judge interrupts her and announce the verdict: She'll have a life sentence (in an earlier scene, a death sentence is discussed by the judge and some orchestrators of Operation Queenbreaker, with the judge saying he can't sentence her to death as it will spark massive outrage with possible disastrous consequences).
While Claire is escorted away, Vuillier contacts the WDMC's allies within the Costa Rican government. Outraged by what the government did to his de-facto wife, Owen tells his boss that he intends to accept whatever job the WDMC has for him in Europe or anywhere in the world but the US.
Sometime later, while public opinion is divided on the result of her trial (while some think she deserved this and is nothing but a bloodthirsty madwoman; others see in this trial nothing but political scheming), it's announced to Claire that she'll be extradited to Costa Rica, the official reason being that the biggest of her faults and the deadliest one (triggering the fall of Isla Nublar) happened on Costa Rican territory and that they thus want her locked in one of their prisons. Claire is transferred to Costa Rica.
The fate of Auronzo Valley
Negotiations about Auronzo Valley ends and a decision is approved by both the UN and the Italian government. It will become a true sanctuary co-managed by the WDMC and the local government.
Due to Claire's imprisonment, Vuillier proposes the position of sanctuary manager to Owen and the latter accepts, taking the position after his and Sigurd's emigration to Italy.
Nyamu's solution
While conversing with Nyamu, Vuillier laments that Claire is going to rot in jail while she deserves better. Nyamu suddenly has an idea. He tells the WDMC director that Claire might still work for them, in a place where her ruthless nature could be used for their benefit and be appreciated, a place where she'll be "out of sight" of Odegaard and far from the CIA's claws.
A few weeks later, in the Women's prison of San José, Claire receives the visit of not only Vuillier but also Rodrigue Santagar, their ally within the Costa Rican government (and a character we met in TRQ) Santagar tells her that in exchange for the help she and Owen provided four years ago, the government proposes her to transform her prison time in community service. When she asks the nature of this "community service", they tell her it consists in joining the Grey Guard and remaining exiled in the Five Deaths for ten years. Despite her lack of military or law enforcement background, the Guard's marshal and its council of captains voted in favour of her recruitment as they heard of her prowess during the Fall of Jurassic World, the 2019 incidents and her missions as a field agent for the WDMC. Claire accepts, as she could be still acting in favour of dinosaurs, in addition to taking less chances of being assassinated in prison on the CIA's orders.
Gibbon learns this and when someone ask him if he's worried about this decision, he answers that the grey guards have a dangerous life and that with luck, she'll get eaten by a dinosaur or murdered by a poacher soon enough, before adding that they'll keep an eye on her. He's satisfied that the WDMC pretty much abandoned North America, leaving the DSD in charge of every De-extinction-related issues there.
Into the West
In October, Claire is brought by Santagar and a couple of police officers to Caldera's harbour near Puntarenas, where a cargo ship named The Wanderer is waiting for her and the other new recruits for the Guard. Seeing Owen and their son Sigurd on the dock, she gets emotional and the Costa Ricans let her join them for a moment. She bids them farewell, with Owen promising to visit her in the Five Deaths whenever he gets the chance, and then, escorted by the recruits' overseers, she embarks on the ship.
Owen and Sigurd watch The Wanderer depart and head west, into the sunset.

Epilogue

Finally, the epilogue arrives. It consists of a montage of various scenes while Vuillier or Owen gives a speech which sums up the saga's whole story since the first Jurassic Park. Here's its structure:
- Introduction with our character declaring that the world has changed: Footage of the Sanctuary's raptor pack walking in a single file on top of some ridge while they cross the Alps. Their leader stops at some promontory and looks west, towards some lowlands. An attentive viewer will quickly glimpse Victoria in the file. We then cut to a forest where some wolves are eating a carcass when the Achillobators arrive. Both packs growl at each other and a fight is about to break out when a now adult Victoria suddenly arrives and stands by her pack. Outnumbered and intimidated by the larger predators, the wolves decide to abandon the carcass and flee, letting the dinosaurs take their meal; of a small fishing vessel somewhere in the Pacific being attacked and sunk by a Mosasaurus (while the adult featured in JW died, some of the WDMC characters talk about possible Mosasaurus sightings in the earliest parts of the story and mention the fact that a juvenile was also housed in JW when the park fell); of a military aircraft having an accidental and fatal collision with an InGen Pteranodon.
- The rise of InGen and the first de-extinction successes: Footage of the abandoned Embryonic administration on Sorna and Jurassic Park: San Diego; of Drummond wandering in the now deserted Lockwood Manor, exploring its museum and observing the model of Jurassic Park's visitor centre.
- The Fall of Jurassic World and InGen: Footage of the ruins of JW on Nublar and the former InGen HQ in Palo Alto (a location seen in TRQ).
- The downfall of other genetic engineering companies: Footage of some Mantah Corp complex (not the one from Camp Cretaceous' seasons 4 and 5. In this AU, the Mantah Corp island doesn't exist, thank goodness!); abandoned Grendel Corporation facilities in India and Cameroon; Biosyn's logos being removed in the Citadel by workers and other cleaning/doing repairs within the Biosyn facility.
- Loose de-extinct animals in the world: Footage of some Nasutoceratops in the Indian countryside; of a Spinosaurus (the one we saw in Biosyn's possession and which was carried out of the Sanctuary by the flood) swimming in the canals of Venice, arousing awe and wonder in locals and tourists; of a Biosyn Quetzalcoatlus flying over the countryside somewhere in Europe; a pack of InGen Compsognathus in some dark alley in sight of Hollywood, diving head first in the trash; a pair of Pectinodon in the jungles of Cameroon...
- Losses: Footage of the funerals of the Carabinieri who fell during the Battle of Auronzo; of Vincent Chapuy and a couple of other grey guards featured in this story in a memorial hall within Caer Draig (The Grey Guard's headquarters on Isla Sorna), melancholically looking at the names of those who died during the Maltese and Dolomites incidents (we also glimpse the names of some grey guards from the JW rewrite); of Drummond paying a visit to Maisie's and Theo's sepulchres in Lockwood Estate (Maisie has a plaque in her family's mausoleum while Theo has an empty grave outside near that of Iris', who died during the 2019 incident) ; of some room/hall/wing/laboratory in Stanford University being renamed after Henry Wu.
- The challenges and battles to come: Footage of Dougal and other WDMC field agents parking near the entrance of Mount Saint-Michel, running past fleeing tourists before looking up, toward the abbey at the top of mount, over which a Quetzalcoatlus (the same from earlier in the epilogue) is circling; of some unnamed genetic engineering company/ies creating new de-extinct creatures; of illegal exploitations and black markets.
- The importance of good collaboration: Footage of Guillaume Vuillier and his assistant Peggy Zubiri in the WDMC's new headquarters in Gland, Switzerland; of Drummond and Cesare welcoming Owen and his son Sigurd in Auronzo and watching dinosaurs in the valley together; of Kayla being shown her new plane and her and Bigelow going on some new adventure together (it's implied that Kayla now works for the DSD and that Gibbon changed his mind about Bigelow and decided to send her back on missions).
- The rampant Greed and Corruption: Footage of Senator Christine West in Washington, addressing questions about her close ties with Biosyn (she's in the middle of a corruption scandal) and walking away before being shot by a unknown sniper; of Giovanni Pazzi being dismissed from his position as Minister of the Interior after some whistle-blower (implied to be Viscontini) revealed that he was corrupted by Biosyn and warned Dodgson about the government's intents of taking Auronzo valley from him and arresting him.
- The looming threats and how Mankind's fate stand on an edge: Footage of Isaac Gibbon and other US government officials plotting in secret and DSD scientists working with embryos; of Claire, now in grey guard attire, standing at the top of a watchtower on some Isla Sorna ridge, looking at the ocean where she suddenly spots a suspicious ship in the distance (her eyes are seen ferociously locking on it); the final sequence, set at night, shows a Biosyn tyrannosaur looking at a town in the distance and letting out an otherworldly roar.
The End
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Thanks for reading!
I'm aware that I might have taken a few controversial story decisions but I think that's part of the fun of rewrites like this one, do what filmmakers can't due to various reasons.
Please, let me know of your thoughts. I'll be happy do have a debate about my work.