Showalter blackwell long funeral home obituaries

funeral home beef is crazy rip bra though.

2023.06.07 20:11 dubreacts_ funeral home beef is crazy rip bra though.

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2023.06.07 20:06 Extreme_Web_4069 Long Island funeral home owner arrested two years after Jan. 6 sleuths ID'd him

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2023.06.07 20:00 LostAnvil Long Island funeral home owner arrested two years after Jan. 6 sleuths ID'd him

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2023.06.07 19:13 dlschindler The House Of Dust

Immortality defies the gods.
Last City Of Man stood in bleak sandblown towers before the Mad Swordsman in its tattered rags. The towering tarnished machine limped forward, dragging its sword-arm with its remaining limb. The brown robes covering the giant whipped in fluttering tatters and its hood shaded the cracked black orb that was its face.
"All dead. The enemy follows, as I bring the message of doom." Mad Swordsman laughed to itself as it went.
In the city it went, through the opening gates. There in the center of the calming wind storm stood Law Givers. These men and women were paid by tax revenue to read the laws written on the pillar in the center of the city. Each faced a different direction, loudly reciting Law.
The city was divided into districts, each within another, with an avenue that bisected the city in one direction, while the river it commanded bisected it in the other direction. At its heart stood the stronghold of its king. He was the only man in the city that was fertile. All the other men were castrated during childhood and partnered to a girl, betrothed. Yet when they were married, it was the king that took the bride on a honeymoon.
"It isn't madness? Would I recognize madness?" Mad Swordsman listened as the law was described. It decided that the laws of this final city were insane laws. All the taxes and mutilations. Every crime was punished the same way: by cutting off the offending body part. Sometimes just having that body part was a crime, apparently.
"What are you doing here, giant?" King Gamma asked. He had with him his army. Some had spears or clubs, others had bows and bronze axes, still a few had rusted assault rifles swathed in leather or painted rocket launchers decorated in fetishes. Their armor was similarly arranged from grass shields, sports padding or chainmail to patched flak jackets. Mad Swordsman decided they were only minimal adversaries. With a sweep of its weapon or a sudden tumbling roll it could wipe them out instantly. It hadn't come to the city to fight humans.
"I forgot." Mad Swordsman chuckled.
"Do you want repairs? You must do something for me." King Gamma pointed to the desocketed sword-arm it was dragging. The left hand of the giant robot was a massive sword forged of some metal from the Pool Of Time, near the Temple Of Humanity, far away and long ago. Such things could not be made anymore.
"I want repairs. I must do something for me." Mad Swordsman responded.
"No, for me." King Gamma pointed to himself. "For King Gamma you will serve."
"Mad Swordsman serves no king." Mad Swordsman laughed. "Have you not heard my song in the ruins of the cities? Will you see my shadow before you in the wastelands? I wander and here to there I go. I wonder, my little king with a big heart, do you know?" Mad Swordsman spoke and dropped the sword-arm, gesturing with its freed hand as it spoke poetically.
"You insolent robot! I should have you shot from the walls with imp's needles." King Gamma was turning red faced and angry.
"I see those EMP harpoons you just mentioned." Mad Swordsman looked up and saw two huge crossbows meant for disabling giant robots. It wondered if two would be enough to take it down. It might be.
"You think those will just tickle?" King Gamma laughed angrily. Mad Swordsman started laughing the same way. One of the king's advisors said something to him. He stopped and reconsidered the towering robot, staring up at it. When he had calmed down and thought he gestured for Mad Swordsman to sit.
The machine obeyed. Pleased that the advice he had gotten was solid: he rewarded his advisor with praise and put him in charge of the machine.
"I am Leer. I'd follow me and get repairs, unless I wanted to fall to pieces with sand in my gears and my robes in tatters. Such a tarnished surface. You were once called Silver Swordsman, were you not? You have no gleam." Leer told the robot.
"Those are fun words." Mad Swordsman got up and hefted its sword-arm over its shoulder.
"Then come with me." Leer led the machine into the heart of the city. There was a great library there. Scribes worked day and night by electric light and had recorded information about all things on millions of scrolls of recycled paper. Atop the library was a satellite dish. The gates of bronze were opened and the giant in the brown tattered robe came into the heart of the city, its vast library.
"I shall have to have a look inside. I wonder if the information you have included the Serum of Everlasting Life among other great secrets from ancient times." Leer brought out a cable that he could connect to the inside of Mad Swordsman, to its brain.
"Couldn't I just tell you?" Mad Swordsman chuckled.
"Could you?" Leer stopped for a moment, waiting for that.
"No." Mad Swordsman laughed. "I forgot all that stuff a long time ago. One too many of those robot-eating plants zapped me. You know?" Mad Swordsman knocked on the side of its upper body. It didn't really have a head, just the black orb of sensors and ambient energy intake for a face.
"Let me take a look. It might still be in there." Leer was opening the sealed access panel on the robot with a plasma cutting tool. If it could cut diamonds it could cut the flesh of an empathical. This kind of robot was the most advanced, a machine built by machines, it was nearly indestructible, supposedly.
"That really hurts a lot." Mad Swordsman told him. "Keep doing it because I like pain. Making myself sit here while you do that makes me feel sane. The searing agony makes me feel alive. The trust in a stranger makes me feel holy. Right now I feel as close to God as I ever have."
"You sure are weird." Leer laughed.
"I sure am." Mad Swordsman laughed also and then howled in the torment of its sensitive nerves being burned.
"This will be dangerous. Our minds will touch briefly and the spark of that, in the waves of consciousness that is the fabric of the world, we might cease to exist. Both of us." Leer put on the crown of cables and wore it.
"You want the Serum of Everlasting Life so badly?" Mad Swordsman asked.
"I believe so, yes." Leer stated.
"I will try to help you inside my mind. Be careful, we only have one instant." Mad Swordsman sounded wise to some kind of irony.
"How long will that seem?" Leer worried.
"That depends on how long you have got. Until you break inside your mind, you will not know mine." Mad Swordsman swore.
"It's too late." Leer's eyes rolled back into his head and he jerked as the connection seized up and down his spine painfully. The first thing he was aware of was the phantom pain of the burn. It felt like someone had burned him painfully behind his ear and plugged something into his spine through his neck.
"See my residual self-image." Mad Swordsman stood as a brown robed monk, or at least as the robes of the monk. Only a metal skeleton hid beneath. A grinning skull of silver and long bone fingers of silver. It stood only as tall as the man, or the man stood as tall as the machine. From the perspective of the machine: size was an illusion. Leer noticed he looked exactly the same.
"I look the same." Leer said.
"No you don't. I see you how you see yourself inside your mind. It's not what you look like." Mad Swordsman laughed hysterically after it said this. "You look ridiculous."
"I am already starting to regret this." Leer grumbled. He followed Mad Swordsman through the fogs of memory to some kind of glass city. "What is this place?"
"I don't know what to call it." Mad Swordsman looked around and shrugged. "There is the first place to try: a recent memory."
Terror gripped the man, then. He felt the swift cutting bite. The rending of flesh, no mercy, so much anger being unleashed. So much terror and pain caused. Far worse than the root of the evil. Yet shining there was the jewel he sought.
He watched in a frustrated discord of emotions as Mad Swordsman followed the angry woman's pointing finger. Where she pointed the blade cut a man in half, over and over. Their screams and their blood spray kept happening until it became comical. He was laughing and it felt like vomiting. It was painful, heaving laughter at the sight of the executions. There was almost a musical perfection to the giant's swordplay as it danced with great speed and strength, slashing its blade through each opponent.
When they were all dead the woman and the giant left the cave behind. What was the cave? Leer felt his head spinning. On the walls of the cave were the paintings of different prehistoric animals. Outside stood offroad vehicles retrofitted with armor and weapons. "The Caves of Scane."
Leer fell to the dust and laughed. There was no such place. They might as well have hidden the Serum in the ruins of Casark. There simply was no such place.
"What have you seen? Does the truth frighten you?" Mad Swordsman knelt and put a silver hand on the tickled man in the dust.
"What is that?" Leer's eyes became silent, a terror beyond what a mind can handle. Somehow the tipping of the scales put his ego into a freefall. How small and humble a man can be when he sees a hole in the sky.
"That has no name. It is not something that can be described with eyesight alone. Perhaps you see, in the blue sky, a curtain that is the night sky, except there are no stars. What you see is reality, it is the real-reality. You know instinctively what it is and what it implies to see it there, like that." Mad Swordsman rambled strangely and then laughed merrily at the revelation.
"It is nothing. It is just a dream. A hallucination inside the mind of an insane computer." Leer protested.
"Ah such are all unacceptable memories, I am certain." Mad Swordsman sounded bemused. Its grinning silver skull gleamed under the monk's hood.
"Who is she?" Leer pointed to the statue of the angel that stood towering above the mist.
"I am an empathical and she is my mother. Do you not call upon your own mother in times of great need? Even if she is not there or could not save the hero Gilgamesh, always the quest is for mom." Mad Swordsman sounded proud and its empty eyesockets reflected the great statue.
"The hero Gilgamesh? Is that how you see us? We live on the brink of extinction." Leer's lip quivered angrily.
"Don't cry; they will grow back." Mad Swordsman reached and pointed to the door of memories it wanted to check for the Serum. Unlike the memories there was a cold wind and a world beyond.
They stood there upon the frozen wastes surrounding the Temple Of Humanity. Mad Swordsman stood there with its tarnished silver, partially peeled from the scouring ice winds, revealing tortured silver flesh beneath. Its warm robes were again like a tattered brown cape, the hood still shielding its dark domed face. It had gotten its repairs and now had two left arms as sword-arms and held another, smaller sword in its right hand.
"It's freezing here! How can it feel so cold in a memory?" Leer shouted over the winds. Beside him stood the same giant he had met in the Last City Of Man: the one-armed Mad Swordsman. The other stood there in front of them, frozen.
"This place is not a memory. Remember that spark you mentioned? Well, here we are, on the other side of that divide. You shouldn't play with such things." Mad Swordsman laughed maniacally. The other empathical began to move.
"Who are you?" It demanded of Mad Swordsman.
"I am Unit Three Sixteen." Mad Swordsman identified itself between laughter.
"That is impossible. I am Unit Three Sixteen." The other giant robot said.
"You are a paradox. I just got here, so it must be me that is supposed to be here." Mad Swordsman told it.
"That makes no sense." Unit Three Sixteen told Mad Swordsman.
Without warning, Mad Swordsman suddenly slashed with its own severed sword-arm. The reflexes of the frozen empathical were not fully activated and it was off-guard. The first blow damaged one of its legs. Now both combatants were limping the exact same way. It was like watching them square off in a mirror, except one of them had three arms and the other only had one arm.
They exchanged heavy blows and deflected the attacks or dodged them without fail. One strike from the fatal blade would erupt one of them in a blue ball of fire. Unit Three Sixteen splashed backward into Pool Of Time and stood there for a moment, contemplating the entanglement and the duel rationally. Its crazed opponent splashed in after, swinging wildly and unable to reach the alternate variant of itself. Both of them began to sink, staring menacingly at their own reflection on the black dome of the other.
"Wait, wait! Don't leave me here!" Leer rushed after them and just as they were starting to vanish he stepped in after them. He opened his eyes, the crown of cables had come off and he'd fallen on the floor.
"I feel different." Mad Swordsman told him.
"The Caves of Scane, where are they?" Leer asked weakly while laying on the ground.
"Much closer to the ruins of Casark than any man would dare go." Mad Swordsman giggled menacingly.
"Does this place really exist?" Leer wondered imploringly.
"Do you or I exist? Is this reality somehow more real than the one we were just a part of?" Mad Swordsman questioned merrily. "The place really exists."
"We shall see the king." Leer realized out-loud. He took his robot to the king and explained he wanted to set out for the ruins of Casark.
King Gamma assembled his army of one hundred and sixty soldiers in bronze armor and the same warriors he had brought earlier to fight the robot also. This made the expedition quite massive. They had chariots and wagons and camels also. Mad Swordsman told Leer it would take longer, with so many following, to get there.
"Consider the anima of so many disciplined men with you." Leer tried optimism.
"I am considering that also. When they are being eaten by mutants or dying of radiation. The ruins are hilarious." Mad Swordsman moved its repaired sword-arm. It was inferior to the original socketing, but it was better than no arm.
"You aren't laughing." Leer pointed out.
"That's because I was being sarcastic." Mad Swordsman snickered. "The ruins aren't really funny."
"Nobody else thought it was a joke." King Gamma interjected from horseback as they journeyed across the scorched earth.
"That's not true, now is it?" Mad Swordsman argued with a clownish tone-of-voice.
"How dare you infer that his majesty is a liar!" Leer spoke up.
"That's enough. We all know this machine is insane. It wants to provoke a reaction so it can fall over laughing." King Gamma didn't take the bait so easily.
"Something wrong with that?" Mad Swordsman asked.
"Where are you leading us? What is this place?" Leer asked the giant robot. He stood in the shadow where it loomed in its brown robes.
"This is Pradesia. The ruins of Casark lie beyond." Mad Swordsman pointed with its left sword-arm. The whole army of King Gamma followed into Pradesia. The settlement they found was gutted by flames and everyone was murdered or executed on poles and crosses. It was a hellish sight, rotten for weeks.
"All of these bodies were already burned in a funeral fire. It is best not to touch them." Mad Swordsman told King Gamma. Sounding serious made the king a believer. He ordered his men to leave the bodies, to not even look at them.
"Behold the Caves of Scane." Mad Swordsman had led them all the way to Kelsov's home in the hills. All of them were dead and their vehicles sat with a layer of sand on them.
"We should take these vehicles." Leer advised.
"It is the plan that I like best." King Gamma agreed. They left the horses and chariots and some of the men behind and took the vehicles of the Finalists. Before they got very far, all of the vehicles stopped working.
"There is great entropy the closer we get to the place that is not a place. You shall see all that it can be." Mad Swordsman told King Gamma. "It is why the vehicles do not work. Because we are always closer to the darkness outside, the end of the last world. Nothing shall be and so things are becoming nothing. These cars don't work. Will your horses turn inside out if you feed them the grass of these steppes?" Mad Swordsman chuckled nervously.
"Send for the chariots." King Gamma told Leer.
So the expedition went onward until they reached the outskirts of Casark. The city sat in twisted and macabre damage. Everything that could happen to a city had happened and now only a few scattered bits still stuck into the sky, like the bent legs of a dead bug.
"This is Casark. Already some of your men are getting sick. There are animals here that are no longer like normal animals. They are horrible and twisted by being so close to the end of all things. It warps them into the likewise molecules of destruction, rewriting the physics that evolved their bodies and breaking and sucking them into new shapes as it sees them." Mad Swordsman said as it was moodily chuckling.
"The darkness here is unnatural." Gamma complained.
"Look sire, the clouds are parting. Perhaps now we shall find what we seek here." Leer smiled.
"Only death can be sought here. I don't get it." Mad Swordsman guffawed.
"What is that? What in God's name is that? Dear God!" King Gamma fell off his horse and writhed in terror at the sight of the darkness outside.
At the sight of it all his army screamed in terror. It was as though the clouds had parted to reveal only nightmare beyond, a night sky with no stars torn in the daytime sky. It had hidden behind clouds, now like a killer cloud it tore into their eyes. Some fell on their bronze swords. At least one took up a rocket launcher and fired from a chariot at the darkness. The path of the rocket traveled backwards to the soldier. It was a tendril of nothingness and he became as nothingness. He simply was no more as though he never was. There was nothing left of him, barely even a memory. Not one man who witnessed it could recall the soldier's name and soon most of them completely forgot they had seen him become as nothing.
There was still worse for the others. Like Mad Swordsman had warned them: the ruins were swarming with monsters. As the men were screaming in disarray and panic: the monsters found them and came for them. Bronze armed warriors battled hideous giant chimeras all around while others fled or were eaten alive. Tendrils from outside fished for men and when it touched them they became part of it, dissolved into nothingness. Sometimes it brushed one of its monsters and it took them too.
Soon the battle had become an orgy of blood and guts as the monsters fed and no soldiers remained. King Gamma walked among them, his hair turned white and his words maniacal and crazed.
"Go then, go to your graves you cowards!" He yelled at the splattered remains of his men.
"Your majesty, we still have Mad Swordsman!" Leer followed behind and pled with his king.
"Don't mind me. I am just here for the live comedy." Mad Swordsman was doubled over and laughing at all the carnage.
"I do mind!" King Gamma was outraged. "You kill these monsters right now. Show no mercy, use your fullest strength at your most reckless speed. My men are already dead!" King Gamma pointed and screamed. The fury of the king and his command charged up the emotitronics of the empathical with enraged anima.
"And then I rest." Mad Swordsman said after it cleaved all of the mutants in half. It had slid along, skating horribly on the slick gore and never losing its balance. The monsters stood no chance against the unrestrained machine.
"What rest is there?" King Gamma threw off his crown and ran. "What rest can there ever be when the sky is opening over the world of Ruin?"
"I know how to accept rest." Leer picked up the crown.
"I shall continue the mission, following you." Mad Swordsman told Leer.
"Then we go to our deaths." Leer realized. He walked into the empty ruins, under the eternal void, to search for the cure of immortality.
The ruins of Casark became as escalating height and chaos of twisted remains, scorched and broken. As blackened bones of the earth they stood, like cratered mountains on an asteroid, the fields burned by lava and liquid nightmare as black as ink. What bubbled from below in confused orbs of consciousness were the writhing fleshy things and wired oil dripping things of mechanical nature. All became warped by death, in sequence with a place of pure entropy, even life served to destroy and spread death. This was a cancer upon the universe. Leer could not believe it had no name.
Leer felt like the air was dead and his lungs hurt and it was like slowly suffocating. A device of flashing colors and lights, drawn from the edges of the dead universes beyond, stood testament to the efforts of higher beings. It was a kind of chaos that was intact. If entropy was fine order, if nightmares were the laws of physics, the place ahead of them was lawless and chaotic.
They found where two dead machines lay upon a flying vehicle under a covering of tarps. What mad sacrifice had left them there, instead of where they had fallen? The device had spread their light, their colors from their grave. There was, in all the chaos, a cabin in a place that knew time and order. Leer could breath and it was actual air in his lungs. He sighed and looked at the structure.
"Welcome home." Silver Swordsman told Mad Swordsman.
"If I stand before you then I am not dead under the tarp." Mad Swordsman noted without humor. It seemed to have lost its sense of humor, its madness taking on a different quality. Something too clever to be understood. Yet something totally insane.
"You are certainly one of the dead, although nobody has looked." Silver Swordsman observed.
"Good. As long as nobody notices I am dead under that tarp I should be fine. Without observation there is no paradox." Mad Swordsman stated. Then he added in the same voice as Silver Swordsman:
"This very moment in this place is a paradox. In order for us to be here we had to already arrive before we got here. We are now showing up to complete the cycle of us leaving this place, therefore the place exists."
"I didn't say that." Silver Swordsman replied.
"Except I am you from the future. I am here now and I have said it and you heard it, therefore I heard it when I was you. I did say that, you cannot say I didn't when I did. And you are me." Mad Swordsman debated.
"We have outran the sun. We are behind the sunrise." Leer realized.
"That is a good way to put it. Perhaps Junior now understands what is going on?" Mad Swordsman teased Silver Swordsman.
"I got it before you got here." Silver Swordsman said with dry, sophisticated humor.
"Oh, I get it. That is very funny." Mad Swordsman found the joke to be an excuse to laugh forcefully for five minutes. Leer sought sanctuary indoors.
Inside he found where King Gamma had fled. The place was some kind of bar. There was a table and some things to sit on and they had some bottles of alcohol they were sharing. He walked up alongside King Gamma and gave him back his crown.
"I'm Leer." Leer told the other bar people.
"Adinett." The girl said. "I just turned four hundred."
"Happy birthday. Looking very good." Leer said.
"Oh, thank you. Um." Adinett drunkenly started toward Leer until King Gamma said:
"He is a eunuch."
"You could still please me though, right?" Adinett was undeterred.
"No. I am married." Leer accepted a drink from the bartender.
"I am Solomon." The bartender introduced himself. "This is my place. I call it The House Of Dust."
"Because it is where the dead will reside." The drunk guy in the corner said.
"Who is he?" Leer asked.
"Aidan." Solomon said with a strange kind of awe and disappointment. Like meeting your idol, drunk. Literally.
"That's Aidan?" Leer's lips curled in rejection. He stared, taking a good look. Aidan flopped around drunkenly and moaned his sentences without coherence. Most of them started with words like:
"Where'z?" or "What'z" slurred into the rest of what he was saying.
"You got him shit-faced." Leer accused Solomon. Solomon shook his head.
"We just have to wait." Adinett was drunk too. Her temperament was much more alert though. Inside of her was a rage. She was an angry drunk. At least she was too drunk to lash out.
"Where you from?" Solomon asked.
"Last City Of Man" Leer told it by one of its names.
"Ur? You are with King Gamma. I mean like where do you come from?" Solomon asked.
"Eldimoor." Leer recalled. "I was born in Eldimoor."
"Nice place, Eldimoor." Solomon nodded.
"We had orchards there. I remember the orchards." Leer smiled.
"I was from Pradesia. We had paddies." Adinett said with grim sobriety.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
"This is a pocket, gravitationally reversed. We exist in a stasis of time here. The entropy does not enter except at our natural local time, here in The House Of Dust." Solomon told Leer and King Gamma.
"How did you accomplish such a thing?" Leer asked.
"I discovered it. I alone survived here when everyone else fled." Solomon explained.
"Others have come here?" King Gamma wondered. Solomon shook his head.
"Nobody has ever made it here before the Apostate." Said Solomon.
"You mean Silver Swordsman?" King Gamma had seen the giant robot already.
"All of them together are now the Apostate. That's the last intelligent thing they said." Solomon shrugged.
"I seek immortality. For my king." Leer looked at Adinett.
"They took it from Jerome's Tomb." She shifted in her seat and knocked over her drink. "I'm done drinking."
"Good girl." Solomon picked up the glass.
"It is here, somewhere." Leer sounded sure.
"In Casark? No. The Finalists used all the Serum. Then, once they were ready to live forever, I killed them all." Adinett told him. "In my sleep."
"I saw what you did." Leer informed her. "In the memories of Mad Swordsman."
"So why are you asking me then?" Adinett complained belligerently.
"This place is all the immortality there is. The world outside is chaos. In here we have a moment of quiet." Solomon advised.
"How did you discover this place?" Leer asked suddenly.
"I was standing in the street when Umbraeon first came. It ripped open the sky and began to destroy everything around. Except this one bubble of time. Like it is happening out there so fast, and in here, so slow. The eye of the storm, you know?" Solomon explained.
"So you opened a bar?" Leer sounded amused.
"No, I built a cabin and stocked it with alcohol. I was an alcoholic." Solomon shrugged.
"Why?" Adinett asked.
"I was scared to be myself. I was only happy when I wasn't me. I had to be locked inside my own mind, while my reptile was drunk." Solomon described.
"This is the best reptile bar I've ever seen." Adinett cheered, empty handed.
"By now it is the only bar. By now, unless there are other pockets like this one, untouched by Umbraeon. Well then the world is gone." Solomon predicted.
"That's how slowly time passes in here?" Leer wondered. Solomon just nodded.
"We have arrived at the end of the world." King Gamma said.
"So Mad Swordsman knew, somehow, and that this was actual immortality." Leer decided.
"I hadn't thought of that." King Gamma took a drink.
Everyone was quiet while they realized how close was the end.
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2023.06.07 18:46 lawanddisorder Long Island funeral home owner arrested two years after Jan. 6 sleuths ID'd him

Long Island funeral home owner arrested two years after Jan. 6 sleuths ID'd him submitted by lawanddisorder to longisland [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 18:43 nomass39 You know those lists of rules everybody blabbered about? I'm the guy who writes 'em.

“Rule #1: Guns don’t do jack.”
All the others vary, but this is always the #1 rule at every park in the country.
Personally, I would have added precisely four extra letters to it, but upper brass insists we need to uphold at least some modicum of professional decorum. Still, there are no words to describe just how frustrated it makes me every single time I see some jagoff standing there gormlessly unloading his magazine into some unfathomable nightmare creature who obviously isn’t going to feel a thing. Once I even saw someone run empty and then try to reload, instead of just, I don’t know, running away. I was almost glad to see him get exsanguinated.
Many folks have attempted to get creative with it. You name it, they’ve tried it. Silver bullets, 50 caliber high explosive incendiary ammunition, shotgun slugs cased in gold carved out from the Ark of the Covenant and pumped full of aglaophotis and blessed by the pope himself… and nothing. Nada. Zilch. As far as I know, throughout the entire history of the NPS, not a single bullet we’ve fired has even lightly tickled any of God’s half-finished rejects that stalk the wilderness.
I guess we just have trouble coping with the fact that our generation’s favorite hammer doesn’t work on this particular nail. In all fairness, though, there’s a psychological benefit to holding a gun, even knowing this foremost rule. It’s a lot more bearable to weave through trees in the pitch black wood miles from civilization when you have ol’ Remington’s gift to humanity gripped in your shaking hands. Venturing out with just your bare fists feels like you may as well give up, drop trou, bend over, and hope the thing with forty thousand eyes is feeling romantic.
I have to admit, even I keep my trusty old 1911 on my hip, even knowing it’d be absolutely useless for anything but putting a round through my own brain stem in case I get cornered by any of the things you really don’t want capturing you alive.
“Rule 2: Handheld UV lights are required when bushwhacking after midnight so fluorescent spider silk may be seen and avoided. If caught by a strand, or if you feel the earth beginning to part beneath you, throw down a circle of salt, recite the Gayatri Mantra, and clap exactly thrice.”
I’m sure you’ve wondered how we even come up with the really elaborate and specific rules like this one. The answer’s simple: a little bit of occult research, and a hell of a lot of deadly trial and error.
Sure, sometimes we get lucky and somebody else does our homework for us. For example, up at Isle Royale, an Ojibwe elder was kind enough to provide us with a few rules that help greatly when dealing with… well, you-know-what. Sorry, but never referring to them by name was one of the rules. In general, though, if you see a rule emphasizing that you have to clap exactly thrice, you can bet it’s because some poor bastard tried clapping two times or four times and ended up paying the ultimate price for it.
In this case, it was Annemary, or ‘Crazy Anne’. I worked by her side for twenty years, at least. She was a hell of a woman, the kind who made everyone hush into a terrified silence whenever she walked into a room. Still, even she wasn’t as scary as that spider-thing that kept her alive for a week in his web while he extra-orally digested her. He was a right bastard, and for a while I worried we’d have to write off Shenandoah as a lost cause… but since this rule was put into place, the evil cunt has been more or less left to starve. I consider it my magnum opus.
We only pulled it off because of you, Anne, you crazy diamond. Once you’ve conquered Hell, save a spot for me beside your throne, okay?
“Rule 3: If approached by a man with the head of a deer, offer to make him tea. He likes it strong with milk and two sugars. Sit with him as he drinks, and respond to him with absolute politeness and good manners at all times. Never ask him his name.”
You’ll be pleased to know that not every strange thing that lurks in these parks is the sort that yearns to tear your intestines out through your arsehole while you cry for mommy. Just like real wild animals, a vast majority of them just want us humans to leave ‘em alone… and a few even like us.
We’ve got a swell arrangement worked out with this peculiar deer-man who manifests in front of rangers on graveyard shift every once in a while. That 10 foot tall sonuvabitch has got the body of a man but the head of a stag with a rack any hunter would drool over, the digitigrade legs of a wolf, and he wears these flowing robes which look to be made of the night sky, glimmering stars and all. He talks all cryptic and posh, but all he asks us for is some tea time. In return, he opens that third eye on his forehead and glimpses into the future, giving us a few hints as to what sort of trouble might be brewing in the next few weeks. From our encounters, he seems like a nice enough fellow.
We only tell you not to ask his name because it’s beyond pronunciation and will just leave your ears bleeding. You know how it is.
“Rule #4: If you hear the wailing of an infant in the woods steadily drawing closer to the park office, open the red lockbox with code 0681. There is a living fetus inside on a bed of satin; pierce its heart with one of the provided golden pin needles until the noises cease.”
Another complicated mess of a rule we had to bring in a Goetic daemonologist to help cook up. I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, sure, if we knew more about these things, we could probably pare these rules down some more, come up with something simpler, easier. But the point is that the rules we have now have weathered the test of time and have been proven to keep us safe consistently. Once we’ve achieved that consistency, a rule pretty much never changes, since any propositions to study alternatives are always shut down by the question of “what happens if your hypothesis doesn’t work?”
Oh yeah, by the way. You recall how I mentioned there are certain entities out here you really don’t want to get taken alive by? This is definitely one of those. Cutting up that fetus is never very pleasant, but trust me, it’s worth the trouble.
But if you want to trail blaze and stake your life testing out some theory you cooked up… be my guest.
“Rule #5: When staying at the old barracks, always cover every mirror in a room before turning out the lights, and never remove or break-“
“Wait. Slow down a second.”
I had not even made it through five rules before the rookie sitting across from me at the cabin rudely interrupted. He was a young man who’d look more at home in Hollywood or Los Angeles than out here in the woods, his immaculately groomed jet black hair slicked to the side like all the posh celebs are doing it. I didn’t have a very good first impression of him, but hell, I always hated when I had to babysit a newbie through a night. Patience was never my strong suit.
“Can I ask why these are all so… infuriatingly vague?” He continued. “Like, what do I do if forgot to cover a mirror? What happens if I don’t clap three times or whatever?”
“Because there’s fifteen rules even just here in Shenandoah. That might not sound like a lot, but when you’re fighting fer your life ‘gainst something with more mouths than you have teeth, it’s a hell of a lot to remember. Got to keep details sparse, y’see. Make sure to drill in the important bits. And it wouldn’t help you none to know what happens if you break a rule - it’d only scare ya,” I explained. “Now shut your yapper while I finish reminding you of ‘em all.”
He groaned. “I’ve already heard them far too many times. At least a thousand today.”
I stared daggers through him. “There’s no such thing as ‘too many’ in this case, boy. People died to write these rules, and they’ll save your life.”
“With all due respect: how, exactly, are these supposed to protect me? Like… how is clapping and throwing salt around supposed to ward off anything? It’s complete nonsense!”
We got a lot of these types of guys: the “rational skeptics” who don’t believe in your silly rules. It’s either that or the fools with more muscle than brains who think they can kill a creature who can make your heart pop with a single thought. Usually, they get filtered out and fired quick. Usually. I made a mental note to beat the ass of whoever decided that this smarmy, cocksure rookie was ready for the graveyard shift. But it was too late to send him home; he wouldn’t make it out of the park alive, if he tried to traipse off through the woods at this hour.
“It doesn’t have to make sense. These things don’t work by our logic.” But I knew I couldn’t convince these types with words alone, so I stood. “C’mere, boy. Let me show you something.”
I led him to the huge window pane on the cabin’s wall, overlooking the forest down below, and checked my watch - only 20 minutes til the show started. It was a pain convincing him to shut up and wait, but that big mouth of his snapped closed the instant he realized something was emerging from the bushes down there.
It was a raccoon - not an unusual sight out here, if not for the fact that it was walking upright. And not the clumsy waddling on hind legs you expect from animals, but it seemed to stroll bipedally with all the grace of a man, as if its body had been unnaturally twisted and deformed to befit a style of movement that was never meant for it. It moved with purpose, crab walking across a mossy field with its upper body rigid as a statue’s would be, one ‘arm’ pointing towards the sky and the other to the ground below. It plodded along its set route for a minute before disappearing back into the shrubbery without ceremony.
He was baffled, slack-jawed. “What the hell was that?”
“Exactly what it looked like,” I told him. “If you’re lookin’ for a logical explanation, there ain’t any. Some places on earth, they aren’t run by our logic. They’ve got a different basis for their rules entirely.”
“And what’s that?”
“Symbolism,” I replied, as if it were obvious. “In our world, everything’s got to follow the laws of cause-and-effect. For what you’ve seen to have happened, two raccoons must’ve fucked at some point to birth the one we saw. Then somebody, probably me, would’ve had to surgically or genetically mutilate it in ways beyond current medical science, tame and train the wretched thing, and set it up to perform this exact routine at this exact time… and all for what? To mildly confuse a rookie ranger? Explaining it would require so much contrivance, so much pulling assumptions out your ass, that it would laugh in the face of Occam’s razor. For our logic, it is unexplainable. Impossible.”
“But symbolically, it made perfect sense. That creature don’t need a backstory or a cause - it prolly just came into existence a few minutes ago, and will pop out of existence once it’s sent its message. Its gesture was the hermetic mantra ‘as above, so below’ - reminding us that everything that everything that happens on the surface world is mirrored in the underworld. It happens every morning at 1:33 AM because that’s the exact time the Witch of Woodbridge killed ‘erself to become the intermediary between the two here in Shenandoah. And it’s a raccoon because...” I paused. “Well, actually, I haven’t really figured that part out yet.”
My words failed to comfort him. In fact, the more I spoke, the more horrified he seemed, eyes widening in confusion and horror as if I’d just sat down and told him that the voices in my head command me to lick the dandruff off of camels. “Oh my God. You’re crazy. You’re actually insane.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Tell ya what. Think of, for an example you’d be familiar with, a voodoo doll. You use a strand of their hair or a toenail or something so that the doll comes to symbolize their physical vessel. By hurting the doll, you’re symbolically hurting their actual body, so the damage happens to both. That’s how the supernatural works.”
He blinked. “Voodoo dolls work?”
“In places like this, they do.” I raised a brow. “Does that surprise you?”
Suddenly, he stood and threw up his hands, as if realizing he’d been made the victim of some sick prank. “You know what? Screw this. I don’t know if this is some kind of hazing thing or what, but I feel like continuing this line of conversation would just leave me as batty as you are.”
My heart lurched with terror as he stomped to the front door and began undoing the numerous slide locks and dead bolts. “Wait! Hell are you thinkin’, boy?”
He’d only barely opened the door a crack before I’d wrapped him in a chokehold, but it’d been enough. He let out a startled yelp as I started violently pulling him across the cabin, practically clobbering him just to keep him from wrestling out of my grip. I was no spring chicken, and the younger man probably could have bested me, but I had the element of surprise on my side, plus a blow to the head that had left him drowsy.
I tossed him headlong through a hatch, down into a crawlspace under the cabin where sage burners and dried tobacco and protective talismans were waiting. I slammed the hatch shut behind him, restraining the squirming rookie with my weight and clapping a hand over his mouth to silence his protests. His face was twisted by confusion and rage, and he was just about to throw me off of him, but then he froze… eyes widening, as we both heard the unmistakable sound of… something walking in through the ajar cabin door.
We’d made it into the crawlspace just in the nick of time.
There was the heavy click-clack of hooves against the wood floor above us, interspersed with quieter thuds. It took him a moment, but I could tell when he’d figured it out. With one pair of legs, the creature walked with normal hooves… with the other, it walked on the knuckles of human hands. And as it stalked the house, knocking over plates and bookshelves, it growled and hissed and groaned not out of one maw, but three: one sounding high and avian, one low and reptilian, and another letting out the soft bleating of a sheep, all in unison like some unholy choir.
Just when it seemed like it couldn’t get any worse, a fourth maw must’ve opened up, for a new sound filled the room “Daddy?” Came a little boy’s voice, desperate and whimpered, sniffling in a way that made me feel sorry for it even despite knowing better. “Why did you leave me out in the woods, daddy? It was so dark… and I was so scared. Please, daddy. I thought you loved me. Where are you?” The child’s voice devolved slowly but pitiful begging to outright sobbing and inconsolable weeping, downright screaming itself hoarse as the clock neared 2 and the creature’s searching grew frantic.
But the very instant the clock struck 2 o’clock, all the sounds ceased, all at once. We waited there for a moment, in that deafening silence… until I smacked the rookie across the back of the head. “Rule 11, you smug prick. You never open the door at this hour of the night. That… thing takes it as an invitation.” My voice made it obvious I was desperately holding back my simmering fury. I’ve beaten folks half to death before, and I’m not afraid to do it again. “If you want to get yourself killed tonight, have at it. But I am not letting you take me down with you.”
Once the nightmare had left, his brain had an opportunity to register what had just happened… which quickly escalated into a full-bore panic attack. “Fuck this, man. What in the hell was that!? Oh God, oh God, oh God, I can’t take this man, no, no, no, I’m not cut out for this, I need to go home, I need to, I can’t-“
I watched nervously as he jumped up and started frantically pacing the cabin. He was acting erratically, sloppily. This couldn’t end well. “Snap out of it, boy! No sense in braving the woods this late at night. Ya won’t be able to see more than a foot in front of your face. Just wait here until sun-“
He swung at me when I tried to restrain him again, almost breaking my nose. “No, man! I can’t take an entire night of this! I need to go! Jesus, let me go, you crazy bastard!”
I didn’t want to admit it, but this one was looking like a lost cause. There was no way I’d be able to overpower him again once he inevitably did something else stupid. Call me selfish, but at this point, my only concern was making sure he didn’t get me killed.
“Alright! God, fine! If it’s really so important to ya… you can go. Your shift’s officially over, rookie. But I ain’t goin’ out there with ya. You’ll have to brave it on yer own. As long as you follow the rules, you should be able to make it back to your car in one piece. You hear me? The rules!”
He pouted like a child being lectured by an overbearing father. “Yeah, yeah, Christ, old man, I get it! I’ll follow the damn rules!”
In my defense, I did furnish him with every single thing he’d need to survive out there. UV flashlights, salt boxes, obsidian talismans, volcanic ash, the dried and shrunken head of a lamb, and more… not that he appreciated any of it. He was just whining at me to hurry up, ignoring all my attempts to remind him of the rules, like he was in a rush to get out there and die horribly. Eventually, I just gave up, shrugged, and let him hike off into that pitch blackness.
To his credit, he made it farther than I’d expected. Twenty minutes of silence passed, and I started to wonder if he’d actually pulled it off after all.
That was about when the screaming started.
I’d heard it too many times before: the distinctive wailing of a man realizing everything he’d done and accomplished in his life had all just been leading up to this moment when a shambling abomination saw fit to deliver him to the afterlife kicking and screaming and missing a few body parts. It didn’t surprise me in the slightest, really, but it was still unpleasant to listen to.
Judging from what little of it was intelligible, he was crying about something pulling out his eyes. Must’ve broken rule 13. Poor, stupid bastard. That one’s so easy, you’d almost have to be breaking it on purpose.
I remember the first time somebody broke a rule and got themselves killed under my watch. It almost broke me. I blamed it all on myself, then. Sent me into a depression for months. But now, after all these decades… I’m just numb.
After all, my only job is to write the rules.
If they don’t want to follow them, well… it’s their funeral.
submitted by nomass39 to nosleep [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 18:28 codenamefulcrum Here is an outline of how I wish the sequel trilogy would have been written:

Star Wars Episode VII: Echoes of the Past
  1. The story opens with Chancellor Leia Organa leading the New Republic. Various political challenges, both internal and external, are revealed, alongside subtle rumors about Grand Admiral Thrawn and his Imperial Remnant fleet hidden in the Unknown Regions.
  2. Concurrently, Luke Skywalker runs a Jedi Academy on Tython, where he guides the new Jedi Order in their quest to understand the mysteries of the ancient Jedi.
  3. On another front, Poe Dameron and Finn, soldiers and close friends in the Grand Army of the New Republic, lead daring missions against remnants of the Empire.
  4. Han Solo and Chewbacca, upon hearing rumors of a force-sensitive individual among the Mandalorians, find Rey. Discovering her potential, they set course to the Jedi Temple on Tython.
  5. Leia, in the meantime, decides to visit Tython to see her brother Luke and her son Ben, who has passed the trials and is made a Jedi Knight. It's during this visit that Han and Chewbacca arrive with Rey. This eventful day brings about a long-awaited reunion between the original heroes - Leia, Luke, Han, and Chewbacca.
  6. Amidst this poignant moment, the need for Rey's training becomes clear, and she becomes the newest member of Luke's academy.
  7. In the final act, the rumors of Thrawn are confirmed as his fleet launches a surprise attack on Coruscant. The Senate building is evacuated, but Leia, with a determination characteristic of her, stays behind to coordinate the counterattack. The attack results in her untimely death.
  8. In response to the attack, Finn and Poe, now promoted to Generals, lead a counterattack against Thrawn. As the situation grows dire, and with Thrawn's fleet mercilessly bombing civilian targets, Finn makes a difficult decision. He evacuates his ship, asking Poe to do the same.
  9. Finn, in a heroic sacrifice, pilots his ship directly at Thrawn's flagship in an attempt to halt the bombardment, causing massive damage. However, it remains unclear whether Thrawn survived the onslaught.
  10. Amid the chaos of the attack, the Jedi Temple on Coruscant is destroyed, revealing an ancient Sith Temple beneath its ruins. This ominous discovery leaves the audience with a chilling sense of what's to come.
Star Wars Episode VIII: Shadows of Korriban
  1. Three years have passed since the destructive attack on Coruscant by Thrawn's fleet. The New Republic, still recovering, stands tall under new leadership while the Jedi Order has begun to rebuild itself on Tython.
  2. Luke, sensing that Thrawn is still alive, begins to have visions of the ancient Sith homeworld, Korriban. Believing it to be a clue, he sends his most trusted Jedi Knight, Ben Solo, along with his Padawan, Rey, on a mission to Korriban.
  3. The quest takes Ben and Rey to the shadowy depths of Korriban, where they explore the ancient Sith temples and tombs. Thrawn and his fleet, however, are nowhere to be found.
  4. The journey takes a dark turn when the ceiling of the tomb of Darth Bane collapses, separating Ben and Rey. As Ben searches for a way back to Rey, the Sith ghost of Darth Bane appears to Rey, attempting to seduce her to the dark side.
  5. When Ben finally finds Rey, he senses a deep change in her. Realizing that she has turned to the dark side, he tries to reach out to her, pleading her to resist the lure of the Sith. But Rey, fully embraced by the dark side, attacks Ben, resulting in his death.
  6. Back on Tython, Luke feels a deep disturbance in the Force and is filled with grief when he realizes his nephew's demise and Rey's turn to the dark side. During his time of despair, he is visited by the Force ghost of his father, Anakin Skywalker, who offers him comfort and guidance.
  7. As news of Rey's actions and Ben's death reaches the New Republic and the Jedi Order, an urgent council is called. In this meeting, the leaders start planning how to counter the rising Sith threat, now made real and personal by Rey's betrayal. The episode ends with a heavy sense of uncertainty about the future.
Star Wars Episode IX: The Sith Reborn
  1. A year has passed since the tragic events on Korriban. Rey has discovered Thrawn's hidden base beneath the scorched surface of Mandalore. Thrawn, recognizing Rey's power and determination, accepts her as his second in command.
  2. On Tython, the Jedi Order holds a solemn funeral for Han Solo, who died of grief following the loss of both his wife and son. The loss is immense, with Chewbacca, unable to bear the grief of losing his oldest friends, deciding to return to his home planet of Kashyyyk after saying a final goodbye to Luke.
  3. That night, Luke is visited by the Force ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan reveals a long-held secret: Rey is his granddaughter, a result of a secret affair he had with Duchess Satine of Mandalore before the Clone Wars. Obi-Wan shares with Luke a hard-earned insight – that love is the essence of the Force and that the old Jedi Order's strict policy on emotional detachment was flawed.
  4. Driven by his love for his family and friends he has lost, Luke seeks out Rey, determined to bring her back to the light side. His confrontation with Rey ends tragically, with Rey, consumed by the dark side, killing Luke.
  5. Following Luke's death, Rey returns to Thrawn and persuades him that the time is ripe to destroy the Jedi Order and the New Republic. Thrawn, swayed by Rey's resolve, agrees to this dark plan.
  6. Rey returns to Tython and deliberately reveals herself to the Jedi Order and the Grand Army of the New Republic, luring them to Mustafar.
  7. The climax unfolds in a massive space battle above Mustafar, with the New Republic and Jedi Order launching an all-out offensive against Thrawn's fleet. Despite suffering heavy losses, the New Republic and Jedi manage to overcome Thrawn’s forces and capture Thrawn himself.
  8. However, Rey manages to escape amidst the chaos, taking refuge in Vader's Castle on Mustafar. There, she is visited by the Sith ghost of Emperor Palpatine, who convinces her to reject the Rule of Two, the principle that had defined Sith relationships for centuries.
  9. Palpatine urges Rey to create a vast army of Sith to bring down the New Republic and the Jedi Order. The story ends with Rey, now a symbol of a new Sith era, beginning to plot her next move, setting the stage for the next trilogy.
submitted by codenamefulcrum to StarWars [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 18:15 throwAwayyy0100 My boyfriend(22m) has been acting sketchy but won't tell me why, is this a reason to end things ? (22f)

I have been dating Jay for a few months now and when we started, everything was going great. He lives pretty far from me but he would come see me 2-3 times a week and our communication was on point. I never felt insecure about our relationship and trusted him 100%
He lives with his parents and they are pretty strict on him so he told me he didn't want to tell them about us just yet as they already find reasons to argue with him and he doesn't want them to use our relationship as ammo. His father gets mad at him if he comes home from work and doesn't go straight to sleep and also if he sleeps in even when he gets home around midnight after work and doesn't work until the afternoon. He starts technical school in august and has a home gym to work out in so I don't know what more his dad wants from him. Jay literally just stays home and goes to work, nothing else and his dad still wants more from him. Jay doest even go out anymore. I remember he came to spend the night, pretty sure lying to his parents about who he was staying with and his dad starting blowing him up around noon asking where he was at. Jay lied and said work and his dad left him alone. It's like his dad wants him to stay in the house when he's not working. He had just started a new job when we started out so he had multiple days off during the week and he would come see me for maybe an hour or two. He told me he used his friend as excuse a lot of the times when they questioned where he was at bc they knew his friend was going thru a tough time and that Jay was “helping him out”
I haven't seen him for 2 1/2 weeks and at first it was because of work, then bc a really close family friend passed away and he had dental surgery. I understood and was supportive. He's had only 2 days off of work in the last 17 days and it was only for his procedure and the funeral. Even when he’s scheduled off, he’ll pick up shifts. It's like he's purposely asking for as much work possible to get out of his house. He's even working doubles, he's worked 3 doubles since Saturday already. I miss him and he told me Saturday he was coming over to spend the night after work and I got so excited. 10 minutes after he got out of work, he told me his mom called him arguing with him about where he was at and he had to go home first. I just knew right then and there he wasn't coming so instead of making him feel like he had to choose, I told him I didn't want him to start a fight with his family. He told me he would try to see me this week.
The way he phrased his texts, he made it sound like his parents found out about us. He said that I technically am a far drive (an hour) so he understands why they trip out on him. That made me question how they knew he was coming to my city but I didn't ask. And then he said he needed to find a good day to bring his car over here. The thing is, he has an older car and he usually drives a car shared between him and his mom, in the time we've been together I've only seen him driving his own car once so then that made me question if his parents are keeping the "good" car from him since they know he can't drive too far in his car considering how much gas it takes and how driving it long distances isn't good. He wastes a full tank just driving here and back so that's about $90 right there.
Now our communication has gotten really really short. We just have like "hi how are you" convos but nothing deep. I don't know what he's been up too lately when he use to send me paragraphs about his days and he's just been kinda blocked off.
Last night was the night I started questioning our relationship. I have his location and he has mine and I've never had a problem with it, I barely even check it as I know he's always home or at work. Well last night he got off of work and we texted a bit, he was asking about my day when he suddenly stopped texting. I didn't think much of it as I assumed he got home but after 40 minutes something told me to check his location. He turned it off. It said no location found and I was so confused. I wanted to freak out bc he has NEVER done that but suddenly he felt the need to hide it? I texted him saying I had a question and it delivered so his phone didn't die and he texted back quickly. I came up with a lie saying I was going out for "taco Tuesday" and what he was doing, if he wanted to come out. He just said he sadly works a double today so he can't & appreciated the invite but never told me what he was doing. I was fuming, I wanted to ask him sooo bad why his location services was off but decided against it. I once saw all the people he has on find my friend and I'm pretty sure I saw his moms email on it. My cousin told me not to react bc I can come off crazy when whole time it probably isn't about me and more him trying to hide it from his parents if anything. I just don't known what to think and really want to give him the benefit of the doubt.
This morning came and his services are still turned off, maybe he forgot to turn them back on but now I dot know what to do. I don't know if I should bring it up to him or act nonchalant. If I bring it up then he knows I'm checking it. He's been acting so sketchy lately and he's not the type to tell me things over text, but in person. There's been times when big things happen to him and he doesn't tell me until days later when we meet in person. Im sure there's an explanation but him acting this secretive is making me feel weird. Something is off with him and the part of me that is scared to get hurt wants to text him and tell him this won't work out, even without giving him a chance to explain but then the part of me that still trusts him and know relationships take work tells me to just wait and see him to hear him out. Problem is, who knows when I'll see him again.
I don't know what to do. Should I text him saying we NEED to meet up soon or go with the flow. Should I break up with him or see what he has to say first? Technically there's no solid proof anything is wrong and last night was the first red flag. Something inside me just screams this has to do with his parents and when talking about the situation with my cousin, before I could even mention that I think his parents are controlling him, he told me that what jay is doing sounds exactly how he use to act when he was dating his ex while living his parents. That no grown man wants to admit that his parents won't let him go or do things so instead they come off as sketchy bc it's embarrassing to admit mommy and daddy still tell him what to do.
Hes an amazing guy but the no explanation for his sketchiness is driving me crazy.
submitted by throwAwayyy0100 to relationship_advice [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 17:28 houseat261turnerlane Smear

I guess I need to write this down now, just in case I’m right and I’m dead tonight. My name is Tom, I’m 14 years old, and I did something horrible. I killed someone. Well, I mean, it was an accident and it wasn’t just me, but I caused someone’s death, or helped do it, and now he’s coming after me. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true, and I need to get all of this stuff off my chest before it’s too late.
My two best friends are dead. Brayden died last Wednesday, and Bart died the Wednesday before that. They were bullies, and I guess I am too, but they were my friends and I miss them. Bart was kind of the leader, I guess you could say. He was this big tough kid, and he loved picking on people. I used to think it was funny. That’s wrong of me, I know, but you sort of sometimes get like, excited that someone isn’t picking on you, so you join in when they’re picking on someone else.
This kid named Max was Bart's favorite target. he was this little guy, skinny and short with big buck teeth and shaggy hair. he wore glasses, and his family doesn’t have much money so his clothes were always too big because they came from his older brother. Hand me downs. Max has an older sister too, this weird girl about to go to college, she always dresses in black clothes and stuff, and everyone makes fun of her and calls her a witch or things like that. She’s a total loon.
My parents didn’t like when I started hanging with Brayden and Bart. Brayden was an alright guy I guess, but he was kind of like me. Caught up in Bart’s crap, and just thankful not to be on the receiving end of everything. Bart beats a lot of kids up. We were just glad to not be getting our asses kicked I guess. And it’s not like Bart didn’t have good qualities. he was a funny guy, and he could be nice sometimes. His dad is a big jerk and he had a bad home life and I guess the bullying makes sense when you filter it through that. I’m sure most bullies are kind of like fighting through something when it comes down to it. No one is mean just for the sake of being mean, right?
Okay, so Bart and Brayden, and I liked to play football in Brayden’s backyard a lot. He had a big backyard, but at the end of it was this little creek, and we had all taken some spills in there before, running down the line trying to evade tackles or whatever. Bart had the idea that we would invite Max over to play with us. He asked him on a Wednesday after school, he was super nice to Max, he apologized for being so crappy to him, and asked him over to play. I was there. max lit up like a Christmas tree. He seemed so excited to be invited. We laughed about it as we walked to Brayden’s. Max wasn’t with us, he said he had to go home and ask his mom first.
We waited for the kid in Brayden’s front yard, and Bart hit my shoulder when he saw him riding his bike down the street to us. We were all super nice. I don’t know, I guess I knew we were being crappy, but we kept catching each other’s eyes and smirking. We went into the backyard and started tossing the football around. Max was better than any of us thought he was going to be. He didn’t seem like the kind of kid who would be good at sports, but he caught everything and had a decent arm on him. He asked if we were going to pay for a game and Bart told him that we were. He asked Max if he had ever heard of the game smear the… well I don’t want to say it. My sister is gay and I love her and support her. I was uncomfortable with the word anytime Bart said it, and he said it a lot. I mean, he said the Q word in a crappy way. Like making fun of people. I’m sure you’ve heard of the game he suggested. Max said he had never heard of it. Bart explained that whoever had the ball was the Q…. and everyone else tackled him. Then he tossed Max the ball. He caught it and we rushed him, knocking him to the ground. Max did, at least. I guess I did too. So did Brayden. Every time Max got up one of us would knock him down. Eventually, he tossed the ball away but we didn’t stop. We just kept tackling him. Max was crying, and he got a split lip. It was bleeding pretty bad and I turned to the others and told them to stop, but Bart got so pissed and knocked me down. he told me if I didn't want to play anymore I would be the Q and he would smear me. So I played. I knocked Max down, over and over.
Max tried to run. he ran toward the back of the yard and we chased him. Bart was the fastest and he slammed into Max and the kid went flying into the creek. We stood at the bank and I’ll never forget the sight. Max was dead, lying with his head on a rock, his blood leaking out into the slow-moving water. This was about a month ago, and I know I’ll never get that sight out of my mind, as long as I live. Which won’t be that long, I guess. Maybe that’s what I deserve.
The rest of the day is kind of a blur. Brayden’s mom was at work, so we called the police. We told them it was an accident, that we had just been playing and Max had slipped. We had to go down to the station for hours and talk, each of us with our parents and a cop. They asked about his split lip and some bruises. We all just said that’s what happened sometimes when you played football. They bought it.
We all went to the funeral. Brayden and I were pretty shaken up, and we stopped talking to Bart. I could tell he was shaken up too, but he kept making jokes about it. He wouldn’t laugh or anything, I think he was trying to make himself feel better. Like it had been an accident. Max’s sister came up to Bart at the funeral and yelled at him. She was crying, it was hard to watch. She said she knew something had happened. Her parents had to drag her away from Bart. She told Bart that she would bring her brother back, and he would set things right. We all thought she was crazy.
Two Wednesdays ago I was sleeping when my phone rang. It was like two in the morning. I answered it and it was Bart, telling me that Max was in his yard. I told him that was impossible, but he sent me a picture and it sure looked like Max, right outside his window. He was just standing there, wearing the suit he was buried in, his face gray and gaunt. Bart was scared. He said he was going to hide. He was home alone for the night, his parents had gone out, they went out a lot. he said he was hiding in his closet. He begged me to come over. Begged me to save him. And then he started to scream. The call ended, and I called him back over and over but he didn’t answer. I almost went over there, but I was frozen in fear in my bed. I couldn’t convince myself to get out from under my covers. The next morning at school everyone learned that Bart was dead. His parents had found him early that morning, he was dead in his closet. I told Brayden everything and showed him the picture Bart had sent me. He was terrified.
Last Wednesday was our last day of school before summer. Bart came up to me near the end of the day and told me they had been outside for gym class and he had seen Max standing across the soccer field, just by the trees there. When Bart had pointed him out to someone else, Max was gone. Behind a tree maybe. Bart was scared that Max was coming from him.
The next day Brayden was dead. His mom found him outside in their backyard, and some kids said his head had been turned around, but I don’t know if that’s true or not. I wonder if Max’s sister really brought him back. She must of. Maybe she is a witch.
Today I woke up and looked out my window. I could see someone standing down the road, right in the center of the street. Small and in a suit. It’s Max. I went outside, but he was gone. But I know it was him. I know why he killed Bart first. He knows Bart was the ring leader. Maybe he saved me for last because I tried to stop the others. I don’t know. Maybe he won’t kill me. But I keep seeing him. He’s getting closer. He was at the end of the street earlier, and then when my dad sent me outside to get the garbage cans in from the road he was closer, in a neighbor's yard, staring at me from around the corner of their house. He’s getting closer. He’s coming for me. I guess I don’t really blame him.
submitted by houseat261turnerlane to nosleep [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 17:02 Screaming_Mosquito Does anyone want this thing growing in my backyard? Please say yes.

I've tried selling this thing for weeks now on Facebook Marketplace, eventually at just 1 cent because I just genuinely want it out of my hair. And I cannot find any takers. I want someone to just take it instead of throwing it out because honestly, I'm deeply nervous about what would happen if I did. But if this advertisement proves to be just as fruitless, I will do it despite my nervousness because my mind just can't take this anymore otherwise I'm afraid I'm going to have a psychological break with reality and need to be sedated.
I grew up originally in Northern California near Mt. Shasta, and four years ago I moved to the Big Island of Hawaii after I got a new job working for the university located in Hilo as an adjunct. The search for a place to rent where I could garden in the backyard took a while, but the wait was worth it. Gardening is like comfort food for my soul, and always has been ever since I was a little girl. My mom brought me up doing it, and I took to it immediately when I was just 3 or 4 she always liked to remind me.
I suppose the reason I wanted to leave California was the fact that she wasn't there anymore, that the last piece or vestige of my family was gone and I was all that was left of the life we used to have out there. I remember the day everything was packed up for the movers and ready to go, I walked outside to wait for a friend to pick me up to take me to the airport. As I sat there on my porch, I saw an elderly man walking in front of my front yard. It was an old friend of my mom's from the neighborhood. He had been very kind to me at her funeral as he had just lost his wife himself. We both waved at each other and I got up to chat with him one last time.
As it turned out, he was there to give me a going away present. It was a batch of strange seeds in a small sack. Some were colored burgundy, others indigo, and still others ivory with fascinating patterns on them. In total, there were 19 by my count. He said that before his wife passed away, she had originally intended to give them to my mom. Apparently, during one of their hiking trips around the mountain, the two of them kept stopping to see if someone was following them. Every time they would, some tree would rustle or a bush would make a quick, sharp noise indicating some sort of disturbance. Towards the end of their hike, they stopped one final time only for them to turn around and notice that someone had left this dingy little sack of seeds on a rotted out tree stump they had just passed. In other words, there was no question at that point that they had been followed.
For what reason? He couldn't say, though obviously the implication was that whoever it was wanted them to have these seeds. His wife died soon after that, before she could pass them along to my mother. He said he was hesitant to part with them after she died, but felt extremely guilty having waited too long to give them to my mom. Now that I was heading to Hawaii, he thought he ought to just give them to me instead of continuing to keep them. Other than that, he told me to be very careful with them, to specifically pour them out into the ground from the sack instead of touching them myself. And I wondered why. Like it's such an oddly specific thing to bring up about them.
Regardless.
I took them gratefully and thanked him for the gift and said that my mother would have loved them. Now, I'm not so sure she would have.
It was only a week or so after I had finally unpacked everything in my new place that I decided to garden again. And the first thing I planted, of course, were the seeds once meant for my mom. In memory of her. It was only one I put in the ground because honestly I wasn’t exactly sure how big this thing was going to grow to be. I wasn’t even sure what exactly this thing was even going to grow to be either. Turns out, it’s a vegetable… of some kind. I think. It’s almost like a yam? Like with the same texture and everything but with bright orange skin… and fur in strange places? Also, another thing, it’s like a yam but at the time of writing this it has most definitely grown beyond the size of a typical yam. Basically it’ll increase in size every week or so by a half a foot by my measure. Also, every time it grows by that much, another bulbous root pops out and burrows itself beneath.
And oh yeah there are little blue flowers (or what I guess you could call flowers) growing out of little nooks and crannies and just random spots all over. I’m not sure what to say. I have yet to identify it. If one of you reading this can, then good for you, would you like to take it off my hands in that case? Please? Okay well, I guess I better finally explain why I want this damn thing out of here. I’ve already ostracized myself at work trying to get people to take it, as well as trying to explain what makes me hate the thing, so what harm will come from making a bunch of internet strangers think I’m creepy or crazy?
The black and white of it is that every time this thing grows a half a foot, every time another root plants itself in the ground, every time another one of those little blue flower buds appears on it, something changes. About the world we live in. About our history. About how we live day to day. And no one seems to notice any of the changes except for me. Today in fact, I almost got into a fatal car crash after I woke up and took note of a new flower bud growing on the side of it facing my house. If you put a Bible in front of me and made me swear to God that I was going to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth I would swear on that, my life, and my late mother’s grave that I grew up knowing that Americans in all 50 states drive on the left side of the road.
I know you’re probably laughing at me. Because that’s what the person I almost ran into did when I told them. They wanted to know if I was British or something, and I said no I was born and raised in Northern California all my life. The closest I’ve ever even been to a foreign country is San Diego. But when I pulled over after that scare and looked it up on my phone, there it was. Americans drive on the right side of the road and pretty much always have. It’s just so… jarring. I have vivid memories of me death gripping the wheel to my mom’s Wrangler for the first time in my life, with her in the passenger seat teaching me the rules of the road for the first time. And I remember very clearly her telling me that no matter where I go in the United States or Canada, if I ever did that is, I would be on the left side of the road the entire time.
And I remember everyone else driving on the left side too. I remember them doing it yesterday. And now, everyone’s acting like it’s actually been this other way the entire time and that I’m somehow just noticing it. But I’m not “just noticing” it. It changed without warning me, to my abject frustration. This is what my life has been like since I planted it. I remember when it first sprouted. When I first started noticing the changes. The very first one I encountered were the changes made to the American flag. Again, swearing to God, on my own life, and on my late mother’s grave, I can attest that the American flag has always had 13, red and white, diagonal stripes. Not horizontal. Diagonal.
Again, I remember vividly sitting Indian style around our 1st grade teacher as she taught us some of the most basic history of the Revolutionary War. Particularly when it came to the Betsy Ross story. I remember being told that, when Betsy Ross first showed George Washington her initial design for the flag that it did indeed have horizontal stripes just like the one I suppose all of you are familiar with. But at the last second, he had her change them to be diagonal because he wanted to convey that the United States did not intend to be an empire in which some states would be perceived to be dominating the others by being “on top”. Making the stripes diagonal, to him, avoided this undesired symbolism.
I remember it all so clearly, even the little kitschy cartoon drawings in our school books of him with Betsy Ross as she showed him the final design. I remember reading about it in middle and high school. Hell, I even remember writing a 13 page essay for US History I in college that dealt with the subject. The paper of course, along with any historical record or proof of this detailed memory (digital or otherwise), is nowhere I can find it. It’s as if God or something turned the whole world into one big Wikipedia article and began editing reality at random with no one reverting the changes.
If you don’t think I’m crazy yet, then maybe I’m just not trying hard enough. When I noticed the plant had grown its eighth root, I learned for the first time in my life that Richard Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal and not for having been outed as having had a nearly decade long affair with both Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy at the same time as I thought I had been taught. I hadn’t even heard the term Watergate before that. In fact, I learned at the same exact time that apparently for decades since, the affix -gate had been attached to various other scandals and controversies as though it were a naming convention. Until that eighth root planted itself firmly in the ground, I had never once seen or heard of something like that before.
The day I noticed the very first flower to bloom on it, was the same day I found out there’s this little place near Long Island and New Jersey you may have heard of called New York City. You see, to me, that place has always been (and always will be in my mind as I cling onto what I know to be the truth) New Ithaca. Frank Sinatra’s famous song that is played every year on New Year’s Eve, has always been about the great city of New Ithaca, the Big Apple. The changes are just so weird and particular too. The whole general history of that city and state has remains the same though (at least to me), being that it was founded by the Dutch but was taken by the British and renamed before becoming a part of the United States. Only, instead the place was previously named New North Brabant whereas I suppose you have always known that New York used to be New Amsterdam.
There’s even a song about that bit of trivia, I learned. Catchy, and also cringe inducing for someone like me going through what I’m going through.
Actually the overwhelming bulk of changes have had to do with place names. Again growing up, I had it beaten into my brain that in 1492 Columbus sailed the Pacific blue. You heard that right. The vast puddle you probably call the Atlantic Ocean has always been the Pacific to me. And vice versa. Nebraska was a name I had not ever heard of before I measured another half foot in that damn thing’s already enormous length. To me that place was called the State of Fillmore. If before I measured it to be at 3 feet, you had asked me to point out Paris on a map, I would have stared at you blankly until I realized you probably meant to say Degaulleville which was built just northeast of the ruins of the ill-fated City of Lights after it was used as a testing ground for Germany’s most devastating weapon of WWII - the nuclear bomb.
Apparently in this new world the plant has created for me, it is our country that has the dubious honor of being the first military in the world to use nuclear weapons in an actual war.
And the list of changes I have just goes on and on like that. I’m not going to waste time spelling them all out for you. I’m sure that should be enough for you to at least hear me out or dismiss me as having had a break with reality. All I want now is this thing in my backyard, and these seeds to boot, out of here. Like I said in the beginning, I’d throw it away, but now that I suspect there’s some sort of link between it and all these changes being made, I worry what it could do to me if I yanked it out of the ground and chucked it into a dumpster. Degaulleville, Fillmore, etc. were erased by this thing. I could be too, if I made it mad enough.
There’s another part of me, a selfish part, that hopes if someone else takes it they can be the ones to have all these changes happen to instead. They can be the ones to watch desperately as what you once knew to be true, to be there, to be real, is all ground up and thrown away like it was nothing to bend your reality and leave you as the only one aware of it. I want that to happen to someone else instead of me. I want to be the one who’s oblivious to the changes made in the fabric and window dressings of reality. I want to be the one who reads the complaints and desperate cries of someone like me, and calls them crazy. I want want want that.
There’s another, tinier part of me, that naively hopes once I can leave this thing with someone else, it will change reality again but this time for the better. For the better, for me. Maybe once it starts affecting someone else adversely, it can change reality one more time to make my mom come back. To come back in a way that would make me forget she was ever gone. And then maybe I can go home, go back to the life I was used to living. But I know at the same time, there’s absolutely no reason it would do something nice like that for me.
Hell, if anything, it could decide to make things in reality, history, etc. worse for everyone including me. Like let me think… Okay for example, remember back in 1999 when everyone was afraid of the Y2K bug, but then it turned out to not be such a catastrophic ordeal as people were predicting? That damn plant could change things to make it so that Y2K’s catastrophic potential was fulfilled. Or wait, here’s a more recent example - remember like three or so years ago when there was that weird disease in China all the schools and governments got freaked out about for two weeks, warning about having to do lockdowns and stuff like that only for the Chinese government to successfully contain it before it could leave its shores?
I’d imagine the plant could change that history as well. And it’s not like I want any of that to happen, it’s just that I have little to no control over whether or not it will. And I just want to be free from being the only one to know it’s all happening. To notice it everyday. To have your heart and brain scratched at and tortured by it when you do.
So please, someone, anyone out there who can and is willing to take this thing off my hands knowing full well what it is - just DM me. I’ll give it to you at no charge or expense to you. I’ll even dig it out of the ground and drive to where you are (if you’re on the island that is) so you don’t have to get up and go anywhere. If you’re located somewhere else I’ll happily volunteer to pay all the associated shipping costs at my own expense as well in order to get it to you.
You’ll be my knight in shining armor if you do.
UPDATE: I am no longer in need of anyone to take this thing and these seeds off my hands. Thank you to the person that DMed me after I posted this. I got your email confirming that it safely arrived at your address as well. Also, glad to hear it’s grown another root. By glad, I mean that I am glad to know that it has grown yet again but this time I haven’t noticed anything changing. You have no idea what you’ve done to help salvage my sanity. Bless you.
submitted by Screaming_Mosquito to DrCreepensVault [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 16:17 AutoNewspaperAdmin [Business] - Long Island funeral home owner arrested two years after Jan. 6 sleuths ID'ed him NBC

[Business] - Long Island funeral home owner arrested two years after Jan. 6 sleuths ID'ed him NBC submitted by AutoNewspaperAdmin to AutoNewspaper [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 16:07 AutoNewsAdmin [Business] - Long Island funeral home owner arrested two years after Jan. 6 sleuths ID'ed him

[Business] - Long Island funeral home owner arrested two years after Jan. 6 sleuths ID'ed him submitted by AutoNewsAdmin to NBCauto [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 15:58 Lidiflyful My Dad sent us a message from beyond the grave - stop eating Spam!

I'm not even joking. Heres the full story:
My Dad passed 4 months ago. My Uncle lives abroad and flew back for funeral etc. As it's a long trip he has stayed for months, so he has been at my Dads empty house, to save him paying out for a hotel.
I was worried he might be sad, or even scared in there, as my Dad died at home. He said that so long as he didnt know where he died, he would be fine. So we didnt tell him.
In all these months my uncle has had no signs, signals or messages from my Dad. My uncle is a staunch non-believer. He is very much rooted in materialism and thinks anyone who has experiences are crazy or lying.
Well, that all changed today. He came round to our house, he was animated in his speech and words which is very much out of character for him and he told us the following.
Last night he went to bed and as soon as he slipped into deep sleep, my Dad appeared to him. My Dad appeared younger, healthier, and was holding a bottle of Guinness, which was his favourite.
He led my uncle down the stairs. He pointed to the spot where he died and said 'This is where I laid down bro. But I am good now'
He also said that my cousin, who no one has seen for over 2 years, as he also lives abroad, to stop eating spam meat, because it shorten his life.
My mind is blown.
We called my cousin to ask him about this. Yes he has started enjoying the taste of spam and has been eating it regularly - no one knew this!
When I asked my uncle what spot my Dad pointed to (as I was the one who found my dad so I know exactly where he died)....and he was bang on. As far as my uncle was concerned my Dad could have died anywhere in that house. But he showed him the EXACT spot.
I am shook. I am so happy to hear he is fine as this has been bothering me the most. It has also encouraged me to continue my search for Big Truth.
submitted by Lidiflyful to afterlife [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 15:08 SandraSandraSandra A Struggle - The Saga of Flower-Hill 5

The hill appeared deserted. Sonurupākä was not sure if he should find the worrying, or a positive indication that the disruption caused by their hordes has gone relatively unnoticed.
His wife and the Great Mothers of his clan had done it. They had united the clans of Konuthomu behind a single purpose. Behind a single man. Behind him. More than that, his mission east had been a success—they think. This hill is where they are supposed to meet. Is it possible the people of Kamābarha have betrayed their trust.
He stews on this risk as the column advances up the hill. They travel in twos—one with a spear, one with a bow—each carrying a simple cloth rucksack with arrows and food.
Ahead he sees a face emerge from the undergrowth—he draws his bow and knocks the arrow he’d had at his belt, and then noticed the lack of feathers and painted pictographs. In Rhadämā he calls, “Hail good son, I hope your wait has been short and fruitful.”
Despite the initial shock of a bow in his face, the Kamābarha scout recovers admirably, “Aye, we just arrived then finished the midday meal. Come, I shall take you to our Outer-Chief.”
The featherless man, young and lithe with hungry eyes and handsome visage, leads the column up the hill. As they round the crest, a crowd emerged seated in its meadowy crest.
It’s a good crowd, with bows and spears much the same as theirs. The leader stands dressed in a blue and red cape and central skirt. Ōdjobanama, son of the great clan mother of Kamābarha, greets him heartily, “The spirits are good bringing us together so swiftly. Please, sit, share my plate.” He guides Sonurupākä over to a small circle of richly dressed men. Before them sit plates with zizania, fried tuber, and rabbit. Sitting, the two leaders eat and talk, planning for the assaults.
There are three main settlements of this particular band of Yelithātsan, surrounded by managed forest and meadowland for grazing and their meagre farms imitating civilization. The attack is to begin after the fall of night, when the savages are hopefully in their cups—even barbarians keep to the holy day. They honour Him in another way: he saves us all from destruction, so we shall save ourselves from pilfering. Splitting the horde into two equal groups, one under each Outer-Chief’s command, they shall approach the main village together. Once cleared, they will move on to the subsequent two. Messy business, but necessary.
The Outer-Chiefs toast their plans with small cups of cranberry wine, and lay down for a rest. The night shall be long and tiring.
The flickering torchlight paints their faces ghostly as they stand, ringing the village.
It is a quaint, wooden affair with thatch roofs and small-halls. Larger barns surround the village in the pasture land. Those shan’t be touched, the bison’s their reward, after all.
Half a dozen scouts creep into the village, the sounds of caroling have ceased—the festivities are at an end. It has been a dry month, more so than usual, and the homes take fire easily. First the thatch but then the thinner planks and wattle used. The scours quickly retreat to the village surroundings and take up their spears or bows, posted beside arrows stuck-standing in the dry earth.
The first shouts are ones of terror—the smell of smoke and unwelcome light rousing the unknowing sleepers within.
“Water, water,” the cries ring out as the people scramble to put out the fires.
The first to show themselves are the young mothers, easily roused and quickly killed as arrows fly. The village is surrounded, there is nowhere to flee.
Cries of terror and “attack” begin to accompany those for water. Somewhere some babes begin to bawl.
Sonurupākä steadies his face and fired arrows, piercing the throat of a young boy, newly-feathered, who took up a spear in his house’s defence.
“Savagery is a blight upon the land. An ordered paddy requires weeding. Allow for rot and you ruin the store.”
Repeating platitudes under his breath, he fires again and again into the crowds. Still, his stomach rolls. It is his duty, nothing more. He was trusted to do this. It is an honour.
One of his men pierces a woman with a babe, the two falling to the earth in a single heap. Another a wizened matriarch. A few brave fools with spears and clubs and knives make it to the perimeter, only for the spearmen of the forces of order to make quick work of them.
As the fires rage higher and all hope of putting them out is lost, and bodies begin to pile, more and more of the Yelithatsan simply throw their bodies to the ground and plea for forgiveness, for grace, for god.
The harder challenge is raised by those of the farmhouses and barns attacking from the dark. A few clever Yelithatsan loose arrows from the forests, downing some of the forces of civilization, but they too are overwhelmed.
With the resistance broken, it’s easy work to go through the wreckage, slicing the throats of those wounded but struggling long—offering a little prayer and making them an offering in thanks for protection in the battle.
The main task, however, is slicing off the left ears off the defeated—both living and dead. By taking the Kemihatsārä of the defeated, they are robbed of status and power. Women, youths, and weaker men are left alive—if they don’t get infected from their wound—and are to be taken back as farm labour. Their feathers of parrot and pigeon shall adorn the cloaks of the victors.
Those who are too wilful receive a simpler fate: a knife makes quick work of resistance.
Binding the prisoners and leaving some men to guard them, the troupes split up and continue their assault.
Some 800 lie dead as midday sets in, but thousands of bison and many urns of wine have been seized. The victors take turns sleeping as others burn the dead—Proper pyres with prayers for the honoured dead, the defeated built in with the kindling.
The divvying up of the rewards is simple enough: Konuthomu’s rewards belong to the clan mothers—they shall decide the division upon their return (or, realistically, already have), and Ōdjobanama’s requests seemed fair.
They shall rest and feast here tonight, amongst the ruins of the village. In the morning, the captives will be loaded with goods and brought to their new lives as landless labour: servants of new clans. Before the funeral pyres, Sonurupākä completes a ritual. This is perhaps aggressive, inventing something new, but it seems necessary. Casting the ears into the fire, he grants the Kemihatsārä of the defeated to the victorious soldiers. Feathers of parrot and pigeon are added to cloaks: trophies of victory. Those who distinguished themselves most admirably receive more, with multiple feathers marking their prestige.
The duNothudo, of DjamäThanä at least, had told him to treat the victors as heroes. He prays this is what they meant. But the men had begun to add the feathers to their own cloaks—and that anarchy could be tolerated.
The smell of burnt flesh accompanies the feast, dozens of bison roast over raging fires and hearty stews of rice and tuber grace the tables. Glory tastes excellent.
The welcome back in Konuthomu was incredible. A small, congratulatory feast was thrown upon their return, and Sonurupākä was granted a full row of clan-feathers from each of the six clans: extending his cape beneath his tail-bone.
The division of the resources was decided upon, with 144 bison set aside for the Autumnal Equinox. Invitations were sent out far and wide for all villages within six days of canoeing to come, pay homage to the Great Mothers of Konuthomu, take part in the bounty and generosity of the Mothers, and arrange for their commitments to the granaries of Konuthomu. The Potters’ Quarter, a dense maze of small, two-story houses, kilns, and workshops below the Themilanan split between DjamäThanä in the East and NāpäkoduThonu in the West was abuzz.
1728 bowls of celadon.
That is what Senisedjarha had called for, and that is what Sonurupākä must deliver. The Nōlukomuko, DjamäThanä’s portion of the recent prisoners, were put to work quarrying the feldspar needed to make the glaze, and the workshops of the Potters’ Quarter seemed lit and full both night and day. Overview of the Quarter is not chiefly Sonurupākä’s duty, but the fruit harvests are in the hands of Nolunaman and Sonurupākä is not needed beyond the city.
Perhaps soon, if messengers come back reporting on the peasants who refuse to pay homage to the Great Mothers, he’ll be needed beyond the Themilanan. But for now, he can dedicate himself to artistry and allow the glaze to clear his mind.
They’d needed to remind a few families of their position—and what they owe to the Great Mothers of Konuthomu. But the Autumnal Equinox proved to be the greatest event Konuthomu had ever known. In the meadows just beyond the fields, dozens of long tables were set up. Seventy-two fire pits were dug, each to roast two of the 144 bison for the feast. Tsukõdju had never witnessed such a feast.
The evening ends with declarations by the duNothudo: Nāpäkodu Peritēki-Demisenikonu is named Outer-Chief—it makes sense, his time is up and he has served his duty well.
But the duNothudo do not stop there. “As is plain to all, the world grows more dangerous, more complex. We need a strong hand to enact our wisdom, and to protect us. Nāpäkodu Peritēki-Demisenikonu shall be our spear: the protector of Konuthomu. But what good is a spear without a kiln and field to protect? We thus name Djamä Sonurupākä-Pēzjeceni Inner-Chief.”
A murmur rises. So his task is not done.
The weather has cooled and the harvest has been completed. He has had a busy few months. But as he has settled into his new role and finished the duties with the harvest, he has had time to think.
It’s night now, the air is cold. He woke from bed and is wearing only a woolen poncho, traded for from the Yeli. He walks in the courtyard garden in the Rhadämā style house he built—indisputably the greatest in the Themilanan, positioned on a flat mound extending above the Potters’ District.
He woke up from a recurring nightmare: he’s back in that flaming village, he looses an arrow at a figure running at him through the flames. He goes to see who it was, and finds Senisedjarha holding their newborn daughter.
At that moment he always wakes up. One of the serving girls on duty brings him his pipe, packed with tobacco, and a cup of strong maple wine. He sits on a rock, moonlight filtering through the leafy canopy above him.
A man must do his duty, for that is what makes a path.
Another drink and he’ll return to bed and take his wife in his arms.
Another drink and he’ll be able to sleep.
submitted by SandraSandraSandra to DawnPowers [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 14:49 writingforthefeels My Grandpa was a Dragonslayer.

That's what my parents told me.
It was the end of summer, the cold fall air was starting to come in, when my parents sat me down to give me a talk. My mother took a long breath,
"Lucas, your grandpa is going through a very tough time right now, he is currently fighting a ferocious dragon, and so he may seem a little off sometimes, but just know he is very tired from fighting the dragon"

I was a bit confused at the time. A dragon? I had no idea my grandpa was a Dragonslayer. My 6 year old brain was overjoyed.
"Grandpa fights dragons?! He's even cooler than I thought!"

There was a somber look in my mother's eye, but she said nothing afterwards and just rubbed my shoulder.


A couple weeks later we went over to my grandparents house for a visit. The waft of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies fills the air as we walk in, my grandma made the best cookies in the world. My grandpa sees me and his eyes light up with that same joyous love they always do.
"Heya there sport! How's my favorite second baseman doing?"
"Grandpa! I play third base, you know this!" I respond while giggling
"Oh r-right of course, I'll grab the gloves and we can go toss the ball around"
He walks towards the kitchen before catching himself, then walks upstairs to go grab our baseball gloves.

The autumn leaves were starting to fall as we went outside to play catch. My grandparents house was in a nice neighborhood that had a lot of trees. Ray's of sunshine were flowing through the trees as we tossed the baseball around. After we play for a bit, we go back inside and help ourselves to my grandma's favorite chocolate chip cookies.

"I can't believe you're really a dragon slayer grandpa!"
My grandpa's eyes widened for a half second before going back to his usual, joyous self.
"Haha, well an old man can have a few secrets can't he?"
"I want to help you fight it!" I insisted
"Haha! I'd love to have you help me, but sadly I fight the dragon after your bedtime every night"
I pouted, but that seemed like a reasonable enough explanation for my 6 year old self.

Shortly after we finish eating the cookies, my parents and I pack up in our car and wave bye as we pull out of the driveway.
That was the last time I saw my grandpa at his house.
That night I dreamt of a dragon. It spouted fire from it's mouths and snarled as it stared at me. I shook in fear as the dragon raised it's claw and began a massive swipe at me. I could see the razor sharp edges at the end of each finger that looked about as big as me.
But all of a sudden my grandpa was there, clad in shining silver armor. he raised a mighty shield and deflected the dragon's claw, before shouting to me
"C'mon sport! We got a dragon to fight!"
All of a sudden I realized I also had a sword and shield, perfectly fit to my size. My fear had evaporated when I saw my grandpa, and I let out a roar as I charged to follow my grandpa towards the dragon.

I woke up with a start immediately after. I felt frustrated I couldn't end up fighting the dragon, but I was still smiling thinking of my grandpa being a heroic dragon slayer.
The months go by as school starts and we aren't able to visit my grandparents, though I did manage to talk to them on the phone sometimes. My grandpa started to seem less like his usual self; he was still the kind old man I came to know and love, but he seemed to be talking like he was distracted by something, and lost his train of thought frequently.

My parents told me he was just tired from fighting the dragon.

6 months after I had the dream about fighting the dragon, I had another similar dream. The dragon was there, and my grandpa was too, but things were different. My grandpa was pinned under the dragon's talons, and looked to be struggling.

"Grandpa! GRANDPA!" I shouted

My grandpa looked at me, but the usual joyous glow that was always in his eyes wasn't there.

He looked scared, confused.

I wasn't about to just let the dragon win though. I drew my sword and charged towards the dragon, it stared at me with dark, soulless eyes.

I woke up with a jolt, panting. I was scared, not of the dragon, but of what was gonna happen to my grandpa.
2 months later, my parents tell me we are gonna meet grandpa at the hospital. When we walked in the room, my grandma was crying quietly. She quickly wiped her eyes as we walked in the room.
"Hey buddy, grandpa might be a bit confused right now, he's very tired from fighting the dragon, but just know that he loves you and that will never change.
I give my grandma a big hug. I didn't want her to cry, I wanted to be brave for her.

My parents and I walked up to my grandpa. He was laying on the hospital bed, he looked like he was looking at something a million miles away.
My mom was the first one to speak
"Harry… this is your grandson, Lucas. You remember him right?"
"Lucas? Hmmmmm. Oh right! How could I forget! My favorite baseball player! You play for the Detroit Tigers right? 3rd baseman?"
I giggled
"Grandpa! I'm only 6! I can't play for the Tigers yet!"
"Oh r-right, I'm sorry buddy"

He's never called me buddy before.

I was confused, but at the time I chalked it up to him being tired from fighting the dragon. Still, I couldn't help but feel a hint of sadness as we walked out of the hospital room. But right as I was about to head through the door my grandpa shouted.
"Hey sport!"
I looked back and for just a glimpse, I saw that same joyous love in my grandpa's eye.

"I'm gonna beat that dragon"

I smile at him before heading out the door. The drive home was quiet, I could tell my mom was sobbing quietly into her coat, my dad was driving, his eyes looked somber in the rearview mirror.
"Dad, is the dragon too strong for grandpa to beat?"
My dad looks at me and sighs deeply.
"I don't know Lucas, but I know he's gonna try"

That night, I had another dream.

The dragon was there, and so was my grandpa. But this time, the tides had turned. My grandpa fought furiously, all while laughing with his same, joyous laugh. I see him climb onto the back of the dragon, the dragon bucking wildly to get him off.
"Grandpa! Grandpa, I'm here!" I shout
He looks at me with those same joyous eyes.
"Heya there sport, toss me that rope! I know you got a mean throw!"
Right as he said it I realized there was a bundle of rope right next to me. I pick it up and throw it with all my strength. Miraculously, my grandpa reaches out one arm and catches it.
"Thanks sport! I can always rely on you!"
My grandpa swings the rope around the dragon, getting it right through it's mouth. The dragon bucks even more wildly, but my grandpa holds on. Eventually, the dragon submits, and stops bucking.
I stare at my grandpa on the back of the dragon. He was not only a Dragonslayer, he was a dragon rider!

"We did it grandpa! We beat the dragon!"
He takes a long look at me, with those same joyous eyes, and smiles. Then he guides the dragon into the air as he flies away.


My grandpa died that night.


It was a sad day, my mom was sobbing the whole time as my dad tried to comfort her, and I couldn't even bring myself to cry. I was confused, I thought we won. If we beat the dragon, why did my grandpa die?
The funeral was a few days after. A soft breeze made the trees rustle. It was a small event, he wouldn't have wanted anything else. There was a lot of crying, and a lot of speeches about the great person he was. As the ceremony came to a close, my grandma came up to me and tried to smile.
"Your grandpa wrote this for you a few months ago, as he was first starting to fight the dragon"
She handed me a letter. I thanked her and gave her a big hug, promising I'd find the dragon that did this.

As the sun started to set, my parents started to pack up the car. On the ride home I decided to open the letter. It read:

Dear sport,

I know how this must feel right now. I was supposed to beat the dragon! Then why am I not there still?
Well Lucas, there's something you should know about this dragon. Truth be told, I had no idea this
dragon was coming; it came out of nowhere, and was as surprising as it was scary. I was scared, sport.
I know that might seem surprising to you, your brave old grandpa being scared, but I was. Dragons
are scary, even to old-timers like me. But one thing kept me pushing on, kept me fighting. That thing
was you, sport. You were my sword and shield, my shining silver armor. I couldn't have fought the
dragon without you. I know you can't see me now, but trust me when I say I'm out there going on
adventures. I carry you and your grandma and your parents with me, you guys are my courage, my
protectors. I don't know where I'm going, but I know I'm gonna be okay because I have you with me. I
love you, sport. Hit a home run for your old grandpa huh?

Your favorite Dragonslayer,

Grandpa.
submitted by writingforthefeels to creativewriting [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 11:09 angelikeoctomber Pre Apocalypse timeline

Pre-Global Outbreak Hershel Greene's farm has been in his family for 160 years. (Bloodletting) Hershel left home at age 15 and didn't return for his father's funeral. (18 Miles Out) He is an alcoholic. He drank heavily at the local bar every night until Maggie was born, and then he quit cold turkey. His first wife, Josephine, bought back his grandfather's pocket watch when he became sober, which he'd pawned long ago to pay for his drinking habits. (Nebraska) Dale Horvath and his wife, Irma, suffered a miscarriage. Before she lost the baby, Irma spent that Thanksgiving in misery from the meat aversions she was suffering. (Secrets) Irma Horvath developed cancer and later succumbed to her disease. (Wildfire) Daryl and Merle Dixon's mother died in a house fire; at the time, Daryl was old enough to ride a bicycle, and Merle was under 18. (Hounded) When he was under 12 years old, Daryl got lost in the woods and eventually found his own way home. (Triggerfinger) Merle sometimes made Daryl donate his blood for money. (Rest in Peace) Michonne is at school with her friend Jocelyn. (Scars) When he was in high school, Shane Walsh once stole the principal's car at lunch hour and filled it with chicken feed before getting back to school in time to finish his sandwich before the bell rang. (Save the Last One) Rick Grimes and his son, Carl, used to go on walks through the neighborhood when Carl was three years old. (Worth) Andrea Harrison's father gave her a gun to protect her and her sister, Amy, as they left for their road trip not long before the outbreak. (What Lies Ahead) Philip Blake lost his wife in a car accident 18 months before the outbreak started. (Killer Within) Terminus member Martin used to watch football games with friends on Sundays. He also attended church regularly. (No Sanctuary) Glenn had moved to Atlanta where he found employment as a pizza delivery boy. It was during this period where he gained insightful knowledge regarding the city streets and layout. Jim lived in Atlanta with his family and he was an auto mechanic specialized in vehicle repair. Theodore Douglas played football in college, and was given the nickname 'T-Dog'. 131 days before the Global Outbreak, the Wildfire virus begins reanimating corpses. Its existence is unknown to the general public. (Wildfire) Lucille discovers she has cancer and that her husband Negan is having an affair. Shootout day Rick Grimes and Shane discuss Rick's family. No mention of zombies. (Days Gone Bye) Rick and Shane engage in a shootout. Rick gets shot and passes out. (Days Gone Bye) Outside Carl's school, Lori Grimes and her friend, Paula, talk about Lori's relationship with Rick. Shane arrives and tells Lori that Rick has been shot and is in the hospital. Lori relays this information to Carl as Shane looks on. (Bloodletting) After the shootout day Shane visits Rick in the hospital with flowers. (What Lies Ahead) Lori and Carl then visit Rick in the hospital. Carl offers to give Rick blood. (Nebraska)
submitted by angelikeoctomber to thewalkingdead [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 09:50 LawbirdBringer A new home, an introduction

So, I'm feeling an itch to try and do another crossover, this time with Frostpunk of all things. Thus, I am gonna try it. However I must state some thing. In this universe, as the date Frostpunk is set in. Or at least, The scenario "A new home" is happening in. Is somewhere during 1886 to 87. And the invention of the Nukes are during 1933. So for all intents and purposes, The Federation never stumbled upon humanity. At least, in a way they stumble upon them so much earlier than they should. This way, the feds never had a reason to exterminate the species in the first place. They didn't know they existed.
In terms of things regarding the Laws of New London. In this story, both Order and Faith are mixed together. The laws leading to Faith Keepers and The Temple are signed as well as the laws leading to Patrols and Foremen. As for Adaptation laws. Child Labor, Extended Shift, Soup, Extra rations for the Ill, Prosthetics, Ceremonial funerals, Public house. Nearly everything is researched.

For the purpose of the City, they haven't crossed the Line yet. But as any who played the game knows. The other side of the Line is so tempting. So very, very tempting.

Memory Transcript: Felix Hawthorn - Captain, leader of the last City
Date: [standardized human time]: Day 47
I can no longer see the lights out there. The Little fires and candles that lit up the city. The houses are all but covered in ice. The automatons are barely managing to work through the frigid winds. I turn to check the thermometer, even in my office. Built at the base of the Generator. The winds could reach me through the cracks in the walls. I blinked the ice out of my eyes as my vision locks with the thermometer. "Negative... 150 degrees..." I croaked out. Speaking aloud as I slowly turned to face the cloak on the wall.
To my bewilderment, and amazement. It was still turning away. Even when frost threatened to break it. Just a few more hours... just a few more...
I weakly lifted my arm, If I survive. It'll need amputating. I couldn't even feel the burning cold that was coating its' senses yesterday.
No guardsmen, Faith Keeper, or anyone has came to alert me to anything new... The infirmaries were the only buildings with enough warmth for people to at the very least. Feel chilly... Heh... "Should probably go to one..." I shiver at I felt Jack Frost threaten to tear my insides apart, speaking my thoughts won't help much... thinking things out will keep me focused...
I can't go to a Infirmary. We have no space for a new one to be built, nor do we have enough space for everyone... Thus, here I sit. In my chair. Watching the frost grow on my windows... I pray to myself, that whoever plunged us in this Frozen Hell. Would have mercy on the children and the elderly
As the glass in my window gets overgrown in ice and snow, I slowly close my eyes. And lay back. If this is the end of the human race as we know it... I rather sleep through it than see the results. I already wrote down notes so whomever finds me, will know what to do.
Sleep takes me, the frost won't win that battle at least. In the realms of Dreams. I'm sitting under the warm sun, my daughter and son playing in the grass not too far from me. My wife and I play a game, pointing out the different shapes the clouds made in the sky...

There is a pirate ship... a bird... that's a whale... "No, silly. That's a dolphin!" she'd laugh, I would respond with a chortle and a "Well, when you're right, you're right."
Such warmth... It's not even that warm in actuality, it is as average a day as any other... but I feel so... warm.
---------
Memory Transcript: Jannim, Junior Venlil explorer
Date: [standardized human time]: Day 47
I shivered as the ship struggles to handle the temperature of this planet. Of course, sometimes a explorer will never come back. Be it through running into Predators, a error in the systems. Or just bad luck. But I never thought it would happen to me.
I boot up the terminal, thankful it still worked at least. "Explorer Log 21. Jannim. Horkle, our exterminator. Succumbed to the wounds he sustained during the crash. Day 7 after the crash, our pilot, Thalk and captain Fonn still haven't came in from checking on the damages the ship sustained when the storm hit us. Should've left when we noticed it but no... we just had to be heroes to a race we don't even know how to find." I panted as I glanced to the ships' walls. Thanks to the ship I'm alive, but how long will the power last? If Fonn and Thalk were still alive out there... I took a deep breath and continue the log "The captain and pilot left the ship sometime yesterday, to check on external damages and on the engines.-" A growl from the predator-like winds stole my attention away.
You survived a Arxur raid, and this is how you go out? Fearing for your life because of alien nature?
Yes, I was...

I take a bite out of my emergency rations, the blandness of it was much better than the chill in the air. "-I-if anyone finds this, leave this planet. Don't go looking for the natives, LEAVE. Before the scans broke down, it appears the planet is gonna undergo various storms similar to the one I am in. Leave at once and mark the planet down as a Deathtrap." I managed to keep myself from stuttering as I continued the message "The planet itself seems predatory, if this is anything to go by. I believe the natives of this planet will have succumbed to the frost during this storm. If not this one, then the next one. Or the one after that. However long it takes. Nothing should be able to survive such harsh winds in this temperature."
I stop myself, taking a few deep breaths, then another bite of my ration. "... If you're stationed near Venlil Prime. Please, find Pallhen. He's my father... tell him... I love him, and that I'm with Mother now." I choke past a tear as I looked to the systems. "Looks like the lights are about to fail, if the controls are anything to go by. Even if the pilot and captain return. We won't be able to even launch... Final log of Junior Explorer Jannim. Protector watch over us." I sighed before ending the Log. Left in silence, I listened to the predatory-storm beat on the ship. And watch Horkles' corpse lay on the medical table of our ship.
Silently counting the emergency rations, and what regular rations we have left. I would last around a week. Perhaps longer if I space my meals out... I think I'll just keep my meals as is, having to do with spacing meals out will just raise my hopes... Can't really have that if this storm lasts much longer.
I resumed eating my ration as I try to guess what the natives were like before this planet became a great, big, Temperature Predator. ------------------------------------------------ Memory Transcript: Felix Hawthorn - Captain, leader of the last City
Date: [standardized human time]: Day 48
"Captain!" A harsh voice awakens me, I use my one good arm to push the Faith Keepers' hands off me. He was apparently shaking me awake. "I'm up, I'm up!" I cried out as I sighed. I could see the relief worm its way onto Brother Collins' face. "Captain. We made it" he exclaimed as a mix of relief and pure joy radiates from his face to his voice. I grumbled in tired bewilderment as I turned to look at the thermometer.
"The storm has passed!" Collin cheered as I mentally froze at the sight on the Thermometer on the wall. -20 degrees Celsius... "Brother Collin! don't just stand there!" I cried out as I stand up with as much my renewed vigor would allow me. Causing the Faith-keeper to freeze in place. "Get out there, and tell the Guards to check the people, check them yourself it you have to. I need information on how our population handled this storm before we move forward!" I shout my orders at Collin, before grabbing my scarf off my neck. The ice still hasn't thawed off my scarf but... I fashion it into a sling for my arm "I'll be here after I have my arm amputated. Can't die now after all we went through." I allow a slight snicker escape my lips as I walk out the doors of my office and marched to the nearest infirmary. I could hear Collin run out of the office shortly after me and went off to find the guards, check families. Maybe both.
To my relief, the infirmary I first arrived at had a place open for me. Due to overcrowding, I was given a seat on the floor. And now... here I wait, listening to the doctors and nurses comfort and calm the ill and wounded. A few shot nasty glares at me... I'd like to see them try and prepare the city for a storm like that. I think I did pretty well... ---A few hours later.--- "So... we're at 307 able bodies, a hundred dead. Five missing. And finally, 246 amputees" I stated to the Head guardsmen, Matthew Williams. And there beside him stood high Priest Jenkins Anderson. "Moral will go up of course, everyone who survived the storm will feel nothing but joy for a while. But now we have to deal with reverting the city to what it was before the storm." I point to Matthew with my newly attached arm, the claw couldn't point fingers but it works when I need to grab something. I shift to point at Anderson as this was for them both to do. "Spread word that we are sending hunters back out and are putting the hothouses back up. I want scouts looking through the wilderness for anything they can find out there. We're not out of the storm yet" I declared as I brought my prosthetic back down. "Take stock of what rations we currently have, and spread them out as much as you can to the population. Send word to the Factory to start churning out Prosthetics... And when you have the scouts ready, inform me." Mister Williams saluted me before leaving the office, while Anderson stays there, watching me... "Did... the two come back?" I asked him, the silent shake of his head told me everything... "We don't have the bodies... find out the name of that father and his daughter, then make a pair of graves for them." Anderson nods and with a respectful bow, stepped out the door.
Finally left to my thoughts, I sat back in my chair. Staring at my desk. So many lives lost... I did what I could, but should I have done better? I could have done better... they are all dead because of me, how many of them were parents?... how many children?
I sat in silence as I start a prayer to the dead. Praying they forgive me for failing them. Praying again that they pass on to a place better than where we are. And finally, Praying that someone up there actually is listening...
Once my prayers were done, I looked to the reports brother Collin had placed on my desk during my time in the Infirmary. Apparently something had crashed during the start of the great storm. There was something flying out there... Going by the calculations the engineers did under Collins' request. The crash is relatively close by... a three day travel on foot, two via riding one of the automatons through the days and night.
I stand from my desk and walk out the door, Paying some mind to a picture of my wife on my way out. I had to be one of the scouts. For this at the very least... if there is some hope there is a survivor out there, if the father and his daughter is there... I have to be certain... we have enough automatons and able bodies to use the coal mines and coal thumpers. And after the storm, I do not believe we required the other laws. I'll leave the high priest in charge until my return. Matthews is a good man but... Anderson is the more compassionate of the two. He'll keep up the moral while I'm away.

-------

This wasn't a lot, but hey. Hope you liked the introduction. If anyone has any questions regarding New London in the story, please feel free to ask. If anyone has anything to just say, feel free to share your thoughts.
submitted by LawbirdBringer to NatureofPredators [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 06:46 CornerCornea Old Traditions for a Night Wedding

I had been contacted by the magistrate to investigate a night wedding in the countryside that had involved the loss of human life. There seemed to be a recent rise in tourists involved in ghost dowries over the years. However, from my research I believe it was a man in search of night weddings for personal gain that was the cause of so many deaths.
When I received the request, I was nearby on Green Island, and addressing a rather unique matter even for my line of work. A little girl from the mainland had arrived two weeks prior and claimed to be the recently deceased husband of the grieving widow.
The child claimed to have woken up in the hospital where the doctors informed them that they had drowned and was clinically dead for 4 minutes when the body inexplicably sat upright in the gurney. This would have seemed to be great news, except when the child looked into the mirror, it was not their face staring back at them.
In old Taoist texts I have read of such events, where the bodies of the recently deceased are not put to ground quickly enough, and their souls are left to wander. They could get carried away by the Northeast or Southwest wind. Depending on the location from where they died. And possibly attach to an empty host.
This seemed to be the case, as the wife acknowledged that due to the wet season, they did not bury her husband's body right away. Because the grounds were so wet, that any graves would wash away, leaving corpses laying in the street. Still, I had the responsibility of testing the child. Whom passed a simple test of naming names. Where they used to live. The wife's habits. A conversation they recently had, and even childhood memories. All were confirmed by friends and family. But it would be the child's handwriting that ultimately convinced me. They were a perfect match, down to the signature.
Upon my approval, the villagers had no choice but to accept that this child was indeed the man come back to life. And when I left, he was sitting outside of his house cleaning fish as he had always done for 32 years, except now in the body of a 10 year old girl.
I didn't have much time to dwell on this case as I was needed at the aftermath of the failed night wedding. Ghost dowries have been in use for thousands of years, and traces of it can be found in many different cultures. From the Aztec to the Egyptians, and more recently from old Spain to the streets of Southeast Asia. Though in recent times, only a few remote places continued the practice, and there are a limited number of priests today who are qualified enough to handle such a case. Luckily, I had plenty of experience in this matter.
In my early years, I had married many ghost brides.
And was often asked, "But you're a priest, how can you get married?"
"Zhengyi Taoist priests can choose to take a wife or not. In fact, in order to pass on my Celestial title, I must have an heir."
The man looked distraught, "And you're sure this will stop her from whispering into my ear every night?" He clutched the bag rather tightly.
"Don't you worry," I took the bag from his hands. "Everything will be fine."
We would perform the customary vows and the following night the man reported no more whisperings from his daughter, yet a week later, the police raided my hotel in a different district. The man had claimed that I had swindled him. That his daughter had returned and continued her whispering of terrible, horrible things that he dare not listen. Clanking and banging away in the walls as he covered his ears in fear until sunrise.
Fortunately, I was allowed to prove my innocence.
I returned and stayed in the man's room, waiting with him for signs of his daughter. And surely enough, late in the hour, I heard the wretched scraping and dragging in the walls. The man stopped breathing in his bed and laid perfectly still. Even I was afraid to move as the most dangerous aspects of my job are in the unknown. My mind began racing, wondering if I had somehow botched the night wedding. Or worse, that the ghost bride wasn't his daughter at all, and I had inadvertently given this mysterious entity a special anchor to this world, a holy man.
The walls shook without reason. And a tiny noise could be heard near the man's bedside. He jumped off his mattress and ran to my side. The two of us watched as the noise traveled back and forth against the back wall like wooden clogs.
"My daughter did always carry around a rattle drum when she was little," the man whispered.
"Hush, don't let it capture your breath," I warned him. "Whatever this is, I don't believe it is your daughter. And because of the ritual, we may have increased its hold on this realm."
He whimpered, "Not my daughter?"
I held up my finger and traced the noise as it traveled in an odd form. I began to wonder if the entity was creating some sort of symbol.
"What are you drawing," the man cried.
"It may be creating a portal," I told him. "Now hush before it turns its attention toward us."
"Please, there must be something you can do?"
I reached into my bag and pulled out some incense. I lit the ends and began chanting. From my waist I pulled out a long yellow parchment. And drew on it a sealing spell. "Spirit," I called as I stepped forward. "I am a guiding light." The noise rattled with conviction as I drew closer. "Let me lead you to peace!" And with one quick motion I punched my hand into the wall, clutching the sealing spell in my palm, at the last place I heard the noise. To my displeasure I felt something wriggling in my grasp as something long and thin wrapped itself around my wrist, its end clawing at my forearm. I screamed when I felt its teeth sink between the soft flesh of my thumb and index finger. But I did not let go. Instead I pulled out this demon from the wall and threw it roughly to the ground.
The man screamed as he jumped onto a chair and screamed, "Rat!"
Yes. A simple field rat. That had a trap stuck on its tail which caused its movements to rattle in the wall. That had been rummaging near the man's nightstand because in one of the drawers he had left a bag of watermelon seeds.
Not all cases are this simple, and plenty are true to life supernatural encounters. Over the years my experience has taught me to be more cautious in my evaluations. Which was why when I finally arrived at the house of the massacre due to a failed night wedding. Every hair on my neck stood on end as I tried to be objective as possible.
But there was no denying that something heinous had occurred here. Bodies were still laying on the floor. Some with their faces in the dirt. Some missing their heads completely. And those with their faces up, were unrecognizable. And my first wife leaned into my ear and whispered to me, "This is the work of a ghost bride."
"How do you know?"
"I recognize her anger. It was mine before we were married."
"How do I know what?" A man walking toward me asked. "Are you the priest they called out here?"
He was average built, and in plain clothes, "Detective, why yes. I am here to assist you in anyway that I can."
The detective spit on the ground, "Assist me? As far as I'm concerned we're wasting valuable time carrying on with this hocus pocus bullshit. The killer's trail will be cold by the time we get through all this religious tape." He wafted the air in front of his face, "And the dead bodies boiling out here. This is all your fault as far as I'm concerned. Assist me," he snorted.
"Are there any eyewitnesses, Detective?"
"Several. But they're all saying the same damn thing. Spouting a bunch of nonsense. Which is why those religious nuts down at the station dredged you up."
"All non-relatives to the home owners?"
He snorted again, "Coincidence."
"Let us hope so," I told him. "Because the alternative is much worse." I walked the scene, going around the upturned tables, tracing the steps of carnage in the courtyard, to the main living room. There I saw the body of an old man, both hands clutching his chest, his face was completely missing. "Any surviving family members?"
"Some are still left," he grunted. "But we've gathered most of them under police protection."
"Have you located the husband?"
"Yeah, we're extraditing him as we speak."
"Extradite?"
"The foreigner took off in the middle of all the commotion. Boarded a flight back home according to our investigation. We've contacted the airline, and the airport security in America will hold him when he lands. As he is currently my number one suspect."
I circled the area in front of the shrine. Noting the spilled bowl and its contents on the ground. The position of the spoon next to it. Before standing in the spot on the left side where the effigy would have stood. "What about the bride?"
The detective shook his head, "What bride?"
"It was a night wedding," I told him. "There must have been a physical object acting as a stand in for the daughter's soul."
"Nothing more than bags of cotton usually," he paused. "But they did report that the stand-in this time was some sort of department figurine. A mannequin of some sort."
"Have you looked into that?"
"Why would I look into that. Are you crazy?"
"Right, you're right of course. You'd have to wait until after sunset to be able to figure out which mannequin serves as the ghost bride's earthly form."
The detective stormed off as if I had said something outlandish. Leaving me to my own devices, I interviewed a few of the neighbors who attended the night wedding, gathered some evidence and sorted with the other officers at the site, and then left for the nearest hotel in the city.
It had been a long month for me and I couldn't think of anything that I would enjoy more than a cold beer. So after checking in I went down to the bar, where an ethereal creature sat alone. She was beautiful to say the least and I had to strike up a conversation lest I live a life of regret, "S'il te plaît ma chérie, dis-moi comment on t'appelle pour que quand je sois perdu dans les ténèbres. Puis-je demander la lumière."
"What?"
"Oh, American. I apologize. I thought you were French."
"On my mother's side," she brushed away her hair.
I noticed the ring, "Ah, you are married. My sincerest apologies miss."
"Newly married," she commented. "My husband is speaking with the concierge."
"Activities on vacation," I mused. "How wonderful."
"It's nothing like that. It seems someone has left him a note. And we're technically on our honeymoon." She paused, "Though this isn't where we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be in Hawaii."
I ordered a beer with the bartender and sipped my drink, "Hawaii is wonderful, but this is also a beautiful island. In fact, when the Portuguese came here, they named it Formosa. Which translates to beautiful island. It may not be where you're supposed to be, but perhaps you'll find that this is exactly where you need to be."
The woman sighed, "I don't even know anymore."
"Ah, I know what this is. I've great experience in these matters. Having been married many times. You feel doubt."
She laughed, "How many times have you gotten a divorce?"
"Divorce?" I laughed. "I never leave a woman after we have been wed."
She looked taken aback, "Oh. I didn't know polygamy was so common in these parts." She glanced behind her to where a tall man was standing with what looked to be the hotel's concierge. "I guess we're in the same boat."
"It's not what you think," I told her.
"Where have I heard that one before," she rolled her eyes.
"Larissa!" The man called for her.
She stood up, "Well, it was nice meeting you. Tell your wives I said hello."
I smiled as she left, glancing at my sides. "If only you knew," I said while sipping my beer.
Now in hindsight, if I were not so fatigued after nearly a month of hard work and constant traveling. I would have perhaps picked up on the fact that she too was familiar with the concubine lifestyle. Which was unusual in itself for an American. Or perhaps I would have picked up on the fact that Larissa was an uncommon name. As I had read Jim's article. But there was no such luck, which is why, when I say that I am deeply regretful of what I read on the news later about the couple, I am truly at a loss for what I could have prevented. But that is not my story to tell.
After I finished drinking at the bar I made my way to the elevator and got in. When a man coming towards me waved as a sign to hold the door, I called out, "It's full." He looked at me bewildered as I was the only person he could see in the elevator, before sticking his hand out to stop the elevator from ascending. Huffing and puffing as he glared at me angrily before pressing his floor number. Except the elevator pinged. The weight capacity light had turned on above our heads. "Like I said, it's full." The man shook his head in amazement. Pressing his floor number again. The elevator pinged again. Unwilling to budge. I sighed and got out, "I'll wait for the next one."
And wait I did, even in my room I waited for night fall instead of resting. The thoughts of a botched night wedding swirling in my head. For the many things that could go wrong. Because even though I had much practice in these matters, I was still always nervous before a fight. So when night fell, I was red eyed and exhausted, but better mentally prepared than before.
But when I arrived back at the scene of the crime, I was not prepared for all of the commotion.
"Ka-kin-eh Ka-kin-eh," a man shouted as the fire blazed.
I grabbed one of the men running by with an empty bucket, "What happened here?"
"T-the villagers, they set the p-place on fire. Trying to rid the evil demon."
I let him go and shook my head. The fools! I made my way toward the courtyard where I saw the detective from earlier moping his forehead as he was helping put out the fire. "Detective! This is terrible," I yelled as the flames licked the night.
"No shit dumbass, it's a fire."
"You don't understand," I told him. "Now the entity has nowhere to return. We may never find it."
He threw the bucket to the floor and whirled around, "Enough! I've had enough! Listen here, there is a fire. F-I-R-E. This a real problem. If it catches to the fields, it could light the newly laid fertilizer on fire and catch the entire mountain!"
"Detective!"
That was the only word I had to say before he punched me. It was a dark night out, but stars had suddenly appeared. He hovered over me and I thought he would strike me again but then suddenly he froze. "What is that?"
I turned my head and looked out into the field. The heat of the fire burning the back of my head as I tried to stop my nose from bleeding. "Where?"
Neither one of us moved as we watched the tall field.
"Right there." He pointed.
I reached up and threw his hand down, "No! You never point at entities," I told him. "Now you could be marked!"
He ignored me and reached for his gun, "Stop! Hey you! I order you to stop or I'll shoot!"
I looked into the field, scanning the endless rows before my eyes stopped and froze in horror. At one point in time the thing must have been a simple plastic mannequin. Standing in a department store perhaps. But now, it was twisted and gnarled. Its face dirty and unrecognizable. It stood on all fours sometimes threes as it swayed slowly back and forth. The thing was also without form because it didn't need to bend or move as normal people. It was still objectively, plastic. It swung its arms behind it and used that as leverage to run, turning its head - cracking the seams that had somehow still held and took off.
The detective rung a shot out at it. I think it struck but it didn't matter as the mannequin disappeared in the field. The detective must have lost his mind because he gave chase.
I couldn't let him go alone so I followed. Pulling out my long yellow parchment as I wrote on it the symbols for sealing, hoping the simple spell would work. As we entered the tall field.
It was chaos. The ground was mushy beneath my feet, and the smell of fecal matter assaulted my senses further. In the brush I had lost the detective, so I was forced to tell my wives to help me locate his whereabouts. They didn't often leave my side, and some were reluctant but ultimately agreed.
I stood in the field, waiting with bated breath as I heard further gunshots in the distance. I couldn't wait for my wives to gather as I tore after the detective. And just in time as I saw him standing, looking absolutely terrified as he shot blindly into the fauna until his pistol clicked. The mannequin lunged for him. But I got there first. Pushing him to the ground, causing both of us to tumble.
He was eating a mouth of dirt as I pulled him to his feet. "We have to get out of this field! The ghost bride will pick us off in this thicket!"
Stumbling, and running, the two of us were covered in more than dirt. Several times we heard rustling nearby as if something were running alongside us. But eventually we made it out into the open plain. The detective trying to catch his breath as he reloaded his pistol.
"Shooting it doesn't work," he panted. "But maybe I can disable it from moving."
"Shut up," I told him. "Listen."
He stopped for a moment and we waited. Then all of the stalks before us shook wildly as if a hundred people were running through it. The detective raised his arm but I stopped him as my wives ran out of the field.
They were terrified as they ran right through us.
I hadn't experienced the feeling in awhile but the coldness as their ghostly forms went through our bodies was cold as ice. It was enough to bring us both to our knees, clutching our chests as we struggled to breathe. I had passed through one or two in a row before. But never 10 or 20 at a time. I lost count.
"What was that," the detective managed to gasp, his fingers in a death grip around his gun.
"A blue procession," I told him. "Something caused all of my dead wives to flee."
We looked up as the leaves in front of us rustled.
"Is it..."
I shook my head, running forward to catch her. My 13th wife, Ah-ren. Her arm was missing, and a part of her shoulder. She was an innocent girl that had drowned when she was alive. Her innocence carried on with her to the afterlife where many souls generally grew up embittered. But never her, always sweet my girl, just weary of water.
"I didn't want to go," she told me.
"I know," I held her. "I'm sorry."
"It got some of the others too. But Meita got in its way and told me to run." She cried.
"Don't cry I told her. You know how you hate getting wet."
"I don't want to go. I wanted to stay with you. All of us together."
I could do nothing but watch as her soul splintered and disappeared forever.
I had never felt such fury. In all my years, a womanizer, a liar, a cheat at cards, a scoundrel, a bastard even. But an undutiful husband? Never.
Without thinking I approached the field and cast a spell that was forbidden.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm purging the field. All beings alive or dead will forever feel displaced when they enter here. A feeling of unending dread and doom will overcome them, causing madness if they do not leave or are unable to. But I have no other choice." I reached into my side and threw a handful of salt. It landed on the ground as I chanted. The winds carrying it into the field, the small white morsels rolling obediently into the darkness.
"Nothings happening," the detective's word stuck in his mouth as a horrible scream echoed into the night. It sounded like two pieces of steel being twisted together.
"There," I took off after it. The jumbled figure of the mannequin fled toward the village.
We followed it through the streets and between alleyways; the villagers screamed and fled when they saw it. We barged through home after home as we chased it. Until we cornered it at an abandoned building at the edge of town.
"It was supposed to be a mall," the detective told me. "But the developers ran out of money."
We walked quietly into the empty building. Shells of stores stood in various degrees of construction. Checking a few of the fronts before venturing further inside.
"You've got to be kidding me," the detective said as we came near the center of the complex. There next to the escalators and the fountains was an army of mannequins of all shapes and sizes lined up like terracotta warriors. "They must have stashed them all here when the place was being built, and forgot about them when it closed."
"There are hundreds."
"We'll go through together. Quickly and quietly." He added, "Stay alert."
We moved through the rows, staring at all of the stuck faces, searching for one covered in grime and bullet holes. But it was more difficult than it sounded. Many of the mannequins were in bad shape, weathered, broken, laying in pieces on the ground. It was hard to tell if a pile of parts was indeed our culprit.
Slowly we began to clear the rows and I could see the other side in sight.
"There!" The detective shot his gun. The surrounding mannequins dropped like dominoes when the entity scattered. Falling down all around us, drowning in a sea of plastic arms and smiling faces. I was struggling to stand as I looked up and saw the entity come rushing toward us. The detective fired his gun blowing out one of its knee caps. I hurriedly reached for my parchment but could not find my pen. Another shot, another hit, but the scorned bride kept on charging unable to feel pain.
It jumped into the air and the detective blew a part of its face away. But then he began screaming as the bride began to eat him. Pieces of his sinew was launched into the air as he was torn apart. I rushed forward trying to help but the creature grabbed me by the throat and lifted me into the air. My feet searching for the ground as my lungs folded trying to breathe. The thing turned its head toward me and said, "Will you marry me?" As the darkness closed into the corners of my eyes.
The fight was leaving my body as I saw several of my wives rushing forward. Their ghostly forms bloodlusted as they began tearing at the mannequin, slowly pulling out pieces of her soul, causing the mannequin's arms and legs to go limp as they dragged her out of the corporeal form.
I scrambled the floor blindly with my fingers searching for my sacred parchment but could not find it amongst the rubble and the ghost bride was fleeing, leaving the shell of her mannequin in a heap on the floor. My wives chasing her, screaming their fury for killing the others. For destroying their souls.
I chased after them into the open air, where she was being cornered. Crying as I approached, trying to escape into the Southwest wind. I knew what I should have done, but could not bring myself to do the right thing. Instead I bit my finger and drew symbols on my forearms with my own blood. Approaching the bride that never was and tore her soul into pieces.
When I was done my wives sat down around me before slowly dispersing as the sun began to rise.
"We did it huh?"
I continued staring at the sun, "Yeah."
"Well then," the detective said before disappearing. "Maybe in the next life I'll be sooner to trust you."
Later they would find his body in the abandoned mall. Still clutching his gun. The department gave him a 21 gun salute at his funeral and a medal as commemoration. I was just glad that his soul had not been eaten.
I, on the other hand, went back to the hotel. To the bar and ordered a well deserved drink. Where I saw a pretty woman sitting alone, "Did you know that in order for me to pass on my Celestial title, I must bear an heir?"


s
submitted by CornerCornea to nosleep [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 06:35 -amylia- Life of a POMO with the majority of my family PIMI

Long time POMO here, that loves their family very much and is only soft shunned by some. I managed to 'fade' long before that was even a term. Honestly if it weren't for the cult aspects of my childhood, I had it pretty good. I have one set of grandparents and a father still alive that are in, along with many aunts, uncles and cousins. I think I managed to still have a connection with them because I left very slowly over a long period of time, and I make it a point not to be public about my true thoughts about the bOrg.
I can't have a long conversation with my one surviving parent without it inevitably turning to JW stuff. But we do talk. I even came out as Bi to them and they seem to accept that since I am married to someone of the opposite gender. (I think that in their mind I was able to 'overcome' those feelings. Lmao)
My parent that died was POMQ/PIMQ depending on the month, and I arranged a funeral for them at a funeral home with a long time elder family friend, as per their wishes.
I have some family that has left following my exit over the years, and I seem to be the first one they contact when they are either questioning or completely awake. I like that I am a 'safe' person for them to contact.
I live in very close proximity to some PIMI family members, and we talk, and help each other out, but don't have dinner together or hang out a lot. Sometimes it hurts a lot, because we used to be very close, and now I can see that they are guarded while around me, sometimes the wall drops and we interact like old times and goof off and tell jokes, but then reality seems to snap back into them that they're not supposed to be close to me. I can feel it in the air when it happens, and I always excuse myself, reluctant to let them be uncomfortable.
I even managed to visit some out of state PIMI family members this past summer with my never JW spouse and the kids, and made it a point to skip around depending on when their meeting nights were and had big plans on Sunday to take the kids sightseeing.
I don't get offended when they preach to me anymore, I know it is because they genuinely care, and are so indoctrinated that they really believe they are trying to 'save' me.
I wish all the time that something would happen to wake them all up and we could all go to a cookout together and laugh about old times. I went back like 3 times in my youth to try and fake it, just to have a closer relationship to them, but my sanity and mental health couldn't take it. So I have settled for the odd phone calls and texts to see how we are, or ask if we're safe during a natural disaster, or something on the news, I savor the few laughs we might get in while they're helping me fix my tractor, or I am helping them with something and I bite my tongue when they invite me to the meeting.
I truly appreciate and cherish the few that have woken up and the ones that talk to me without trying to throw in something JW related. I have an aunt that is very PIMI, but calls me regularly and we talk and laugh and she never asks about JW stuff or brings it up unless it is to talk about her plans of going, which I dismiss as it being such a huge part of their lives that it is bound to come up. I have become a pro at redirecting conversations about conventions to asking if they are getting a hotel or driving back and forth, or if they mention a CO visit I ask if they are going out to eat with them and where are they going to eat.
I have resigned myself to being a fringe member of the family. I even show up at the occasional memorial once every few years, I find it gives them less reason to shun me, and I take the opportunity to see how much everything has changed, but yet has sadly remained the same.
I know the vulnerability of someone recently waking up, and if I were a vocal exJW/apostate, ai know that talking to me might be too much. Instead I have chosen to have a good life outside the influence of the bOrg, I have an amazing huge social network I have cultivated, and I have gone through a lot of therapy to get to where I am now. I feel like to best anti-witness I can give is to seem relatively normal. I know this does not apply to all, especially folks in the LGBTQA+ community that cannot or will not live a life in the closet, but for me it has worked well enough, and for that I know I am privileged.
So to those that are planning a fade, it can work to an extent, though it will never be the same, and unconditional love can be hard to come by in this life.
And to those that Disassociate, you have my upmost respect and hats off to you for having the courage to do that.
submitted by -amylia- to exjw [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 05:47 Screaming_Mosquito Does anyone want this thing growing in my backyard? Please say yes.

I've tried selling this thing for weeks now on Facebook Marketplace, eventually at just 1 cent because I just genuinely want it out of my hair. And I cannot find any takers. I want someone to just take it instead of throwing it out because honestly, I'm deeply nervous about what would happen if I did. But if this advertisement proves to be just as fruitless, I will do it despite my nervousness because my mind just can't take this anymore otherwise I'm afraid I'm going to have a psychological break with reality and need to be sedated.
I grew up originally in Northern California near Mt. Shasta, and four years ago I moved to the Big Island of Hawaii after I got a new job working for the university located in Hilo as an adjunct. The search for a place to rent where I could garden in the backyard took a while, but the wait was worth it. Gardening is like comfort food for my soul, and always has been ever since I was a little girl. My mom brought me up doing it, and I took to it immediately when I was just 3 or 4 she always liked to remind me.
I suppose the reason I wanted to leave California was the fact that she wasn't there anymore, that the last piece or vestige of my family was gone and I was all that was left of the life we used to have out there. I remember the day everything was packed up for the movers and ready to go, I walked outside to wait for a friend to pick me up to take me to the airport. As I sat there on my porch, I saw an elderly man walking in front of my front yard. It was an old friend of my mom's from the neighborhood. He had been very kind to me at her funeral as he had just lost his wife himself. We both waved at each other and I got up to chat with him one last time.
As it turned out, he was there to give me a going away present. It was a batch of strange seeds in a small sack. Some were colored burgundy, others indigo, and still others ivory with fascinating patterns on them. In total, there were 19 by my count. He said that before his wife passed away, she had originally intended to give them to my mom. Apparently, during one of their hiking trips around the mountain, the two of them kept stopping to see if someone was following them. Every time they would, some tree would rustle or a bush would make a quick, sharp noise indicating some sort of disturbance. Towards the end of their hike, they stopped one final time only for them to turn around and notice that someone had left this dingy little sack of seeds on a rotted out tree stump they had just passed. In other words, there was no question at that point that they had been followed.
For what reason? He couldn't say, though obviously the implication was that whoever it was wanted them to have these seeds. His wife died soon after that, before she could pass them along to my mother. He said he was hesitant to part with them after she died, but felt extremely guilty having waited too long to give them to my mom. Now that I was heading to Hawaii, he thought he ought to just give them to me instead of continuing to keep them. Other than that, he told me to be very careful with them, to specifically pour them out into the ground from the sack instead of touching them myself. And I wondered why. Like it's such an oddly specific thing to bring up about them.
Regardless.
I took them gratefully and thanked him for the gift and said that my mother would have loved them. Now, I'm not so sure she would have.
It was only a week or so after I had finally unpacked everything in my new place that I decided to garden again. And the first thing I planted, of course, were the seeds once meant for my mom. In memory of her. It was only one I put in the ground because honestly I wasn’t exactly sure how big this thing was going to grow to be. I wasn’t even sure what exactly this thing was even going to grow to be either. Turns out, it’s a vegetable… of some kind. I think. It’s almost like a yam? Like with the same texture and everything but with bright orange skin… and fur in strange places? Also, another thing, it’s like a yam but at the time of writing this it has most definitely grown beyond the size of a typical yam. Basically it’ll increase in size every week or so by a half a foot by my measure. Also, every time it grows by that much, another bulbous root pops out and burrows itself beneath.
And oh yeah there are little blue flowers (or what I guess you could call flowers) growing out of little nooks and crannies and just random spots all over. I’m not sure what to say. I have yet to identify it. If one of you reading this can, then good for you, would you like to take it off my hands in that case? Please? Okay well, I guess I better finally explain why I want this damn thing out of here. I’ve already ostracized myself at work trying to get people to take it, as well as trying to explain what makes me hate the thing, so what harm will come from making a bunch of internet strangers think I’m creepy or crazy?
The black and white of it is that every time this thing grows a half a foot, every time another root plants itself in the ground, every time another one of those little blue flower buds appears on it, something changes. About the world we live in. About our history. About how we live day to day. And no one seems to notice any of the changes except for me. Today in fact, I almost got into a fatal car crash after I woke up and took note of a new flower bud growing on the side of it facing my house. If you put a Bible in front of me and made me swear to God that I was going to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth I would swear on that, my life, and my late mother’s grave that I grew up knowing that Americans in all 50 states drive on the left side of the road.
I know you’re probably laughing at me. Because that’s what the person I almost ran into did when I told them. They wanted to know if I was British or something, and I said no I was born and raised in Northern California all my life. The closest I’ve ever even been to a foreign country is San Diego. But when I pulled over after that scare and looked it up on my phone, there it was. Americans drive on the right side of the road and pretty much always have. It’s just so… jarring. I have vivid memories of me death gripping the wheel to my mom’s Wrangler for the first time in my life, with her in the passenger seat teaching me the rules of the road for the first time. And I remember very clearly her telling me that no matter where I go in the United States or Canada, if I ever did that is, I would be on the left side of the road the entire time.
And I remember everyone else driving on the left side too. I remember them doing it yesterday. And now, everyone’s acting like it’s actually been this other way the entire time and that I’m somehow just noticing it. But I’m not “just noticing” it. It changed without warning me, to my abject frustration. This is what my life has been like since I planted it. I remember when it first sprouted. When I first started noticing the changes. The very first one I encountered were the changes made to the American flag. Again, swearing to God, on my own life, and on my late mother’s grave, I can attest that the American flag has always had 13, red and white, diagonal stripes. Not horizontal. Diagonal.
Again, I remember vividly sitting Indian style around our 1st grade teacher as she taught us some of the most basic history of the Revolutionary War. Particularly when it came to the Betsy Ross story. I remember being told that, when Betsy Ross first showed George Washington her initial design for the flag that it did indeed have horizontal stripes just like the one I suppose all of you are familiar with. But at the last second, he had her change them to be diagonal because he wanted to convey that the United States did not intend to be an empire in which some states would be perceived to be dominating the others by being “on top”. Making the stripes diagonal, to him, avoided this undesired symbolism.
I remember it all so clearly, even the little kitschy cartoon drawings in our school books of him with Betsy Ross as she showed him the final design. I remember reading about it in middle and high school. Hell, I even remember writing a 13 page essay for US History I in college that dealt with the subject. The paper of course, along with any historical record or proof of this detailed memory (digital or otherwise), is nowhere I can find it. It’s as if God or something turned the whole world into one big Wikipedia article and began editing reality at random with no one reverting the changes.
If you don’t think I’m crazy yet, then maybe I’m just not trying hard enough. When I noticed the plant had grown its eighth root, I learned for the first time in my life that Richard Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal and not for having been outed as having had a nearly decade long affair with both Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy at the same time as I thought I had been taught. I hadn’t even heard the term Watergate before that. In fact, I learned at the same exact time that apparently for decades since, the affix -gate had been attached to various other scandals and controversies as though it were a naming convention. Until that eighth root planted itself firmly in the ground, I had never once seen or heard of something like that before.
The day I noticed the very first flower to bloom on it, was the same day I found out there’s this little place near Long Island and New Jersey you may have heard of called New York City. You see, to me, that place has always been (and always will be in my mind as I cling onto what I know to be the truth) New Ithaca. Frank Sinatra’s famous song that is played every year on New Year’s Eve, has always been about the great city of New Ithaca, the Big Apple. The changes are just so weird and particular too. The whole general history of that city and state has remains the same though (at least to me), being that it was founded by the Dutch but was taken by the British and renamed before becoming a part of the United States. Only, instead the place was previously named New North Brabant whereas I suppose you have always known that New York used to be New Amsterdam.
There’s even a song about that bit of trivia, I learned. Catchy, and also cringe inducing for someone like me going through what I’m going through.
Actually the overwhelming bulk of changes have had to do with place names. Again growing up, I had it beaten into my brain that in 1492 Columbus sailed the Pacific blue. You heard that right. The vast puddle you probably call the Atlantic Ocean has always been the Pacific to me. And vice versa. Nebraska was a name I had not ever heard of before I measured another half foot in that damn thing’s already enormous length. To me that place was called the State of Fillmore. If before I measured it to be at 3 feet, you had asked me to point out Paris on a map, I would have stared at you blankly until I realized you probably meant to say Degaulleville which was built just northeast of the ruins of the ill-fated City of Lights after it was used as a testing ground for Germany’s most devastating weapon of WWII - the nuclear bomb.
Apparently in this new world the plant has created for me, it is our country that has the dubious honor of being the first military in the world to use nuclear weapons in an actual war.
And the list of changes I have just goes on and on like that. I’m not going to waste time spelling them all out for you. I’m sure that should be enough for you to at least hear me out or dismiss me as having had a break with reality. All I want now is this thing in my backyard, and these seeds to boot, out of here. Like I said in the beginning, I’d throw it away, but now that I suspect there’s some sort of link between it and all these changes being made, I worry what it could do to me if I yanked it out of the ground and chucked it into a dumpster. Degaulleville, Fillmore, etc. were erased by this thing. I could be too, if I made it mad enough.
There’s another part of me, a selfish part, that hopes if someone else takes it they can be the ones to have all these changes happen to instead. They can be the ones to watch desperately as what you once knew to be true, to be there, to be real, is all ground up and thrown away like it was nothing to bend your reality and leave you as the only one aware of it. I want that to happen to someone else instead of me. I want to be the one who’s oblivious to the changes made in the fabric and window dressings of reality. I want to be the one who reads the complaints and desperate cries of someone like me, and calls them crazy. I want want want that.
There’s another, tinier part of me, that naively hopes once I can leave this thing with someone else, it will change reality again but this time for the better. For the better, for me. Maybe once it starts affecting someone else adversely, it can change reality one more time to make my mom come back. To come back in a way that would make me forget she was ever gone. And then maybe I can go home, go back to the life I was used to living. But I know at the same time, there’s absolutely no reason it would do something nice like that for me.
Hell, if anything, it could decide to make things in reality, history, etc. worse for everyone including me. Like let me think… Okay for example, remember back in 1999 when everyone was afraid of the Y2K bug, but then it turned out to not be such a catastrophic ordeal as people were predicting? That damn plant could change things to make it so that Y2K’s catastrophic potential was fulfilled. Or wait, here’s a more recent example - remember like three or so years ago when there was that weird disease in China all the schools and governments got freaked out about for two weeks, warning about having to do lockdowns and stuff like that only for the Chinese government to successfully contain it before it could leave its shores?
I’d imagine the plant could change that history as well. And it’s not like I want any of that to happen, it’s just that I have little to no control over whether or not it will. And I just want to be free from being the only one to know it’s all happening. To notice it everyday. To have your heart and brain scratched at and tortured by it when you do.
So please, someone, anyone out there who can and is willing to take this thing off my hands knowing full well what it is - just DM me. I’ll give it to you at no charge or expense to you. I’ll even dig it out of the ground and drive to where you are (if you’re on the island that is) so you don’t have to get up and go anywhere. If you’re located somewhere else I’ll happily volunteer to pay all the associated shipping costs at my own expense as well in order to get it to you.
You’ll be my knight in shining armor if you do.
UPDATE: I am no longer in need of anyone to take this thing and these seeds off my hands. Thank you to the person that DMed me after I posted this. I got your email confirming that it safely arrived at your address as well. Also, glad to hear it’s grown another root. By glad, I mean that I am glad to know that it has grown yet again but this time I haven’t noticed anything changing. You have no idea what you’ve done to help salvage my sanity. Bless you.
submitted by Screaming_Mosquito to LetsReadOfficial [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 05:31 Screaming_Mosquito Does anyone want this thing growing in my backyard? Please say yes.

I've tried selling this thing for weeks now on Facebook Marketplace, eventually at just 1 cent because I just genuinely want it out of my hair. And I cannot find any takers. I want someone to just take it instead of throwing it out because honestly, I'm deeply nervous about what would happen if I did. But if this advertisement proves to be just as fruitless, I will do it despite my nervousness because my mind just can't take this anymore otherwise I'm afraid I'm going to have a psychological break with reality and need to be sedated.
I grew up originally in Northern California near Mt. Shasta, and four years ago I moved to the Big Island of Hawaii after I got a new job working for the university located in Hilo as an adjunct. The search for a place to rent where I could garden in the backyard took a while, but the wait was worth it. Gardening is like comfort food for my soul, and always has been ever since I was a little girl. My mom brought me up doing it, and I took to it immediately when I was just 3 or 4 she always liked to remind me.
I suppose the reason I wanted to leave California was the fact that she wasn't there anymore, that the last piece or vestige of my family was gone and I was all that was left of the life we used to have out there. I remember the day everything was packed up for the movers and ready to go, I walked outside to wait for a friend to pick me up to take me to the airport. As I sat there on my porch, I saw an elderly man walking in front of my front yard. It was an old friend of my mom's from the neighborhood. He had been very kind to me at her funeral as he had just lost his wife himself. We both waved at each other and I got up to chat with him one last time.
As it turned out, he was there to give me a going away present. It was a batch of strange seeds in a small sack. Some were colored burgundy, others indigo, and still others ivory with fascinating patterns on them. In total, there were 19 by my count. He said that before his wife passed away, she had originally intended to give them to my mom. Apparently, during one of their hiking trips around the mountain, the two of them kept stopping to see if someone was following them. Every time they would, some tree would rustle or a bush would make a quick, sharp noise indicating some sort of disturbance. Towards the end of their hike, they stopped one final time only for them to turn around and notice that someone had left this dingy little sack of seeds on a rotted out tree stump they had just passed. In other words, there was no question at that point that they had been followed.
For what reason? He couldn't say, though obviously the implication was that whoever it was wanted them to have these seeds. His wife died soon after that, before she could pass them along to my mother. He said he was hesitant to part with them after she died, but felt extremely guilty having waited too long to give them to my mom. Now that I was heading to Hawaii, he thought he ought to just give them to me instead of continuing to keep them. Other than that, he told me to be very careful with them, to specifically pour them out into the ground from the sack instead of touching them myself. And I wondered why. Like it's such an oddly specific thing to bring up about them.
Regardless.
I took them gratefully and thanked him for the gift and said that my mother would have loved them. Now, I'm not so sure she would have.
It was only a week or so after I had finally unpacked everything in my new place that I decided to garden again. And the first thing I planted, of course, were the seeds once meant for my mom. In memory of her. It was only one I put in the ground because honestly I wasn’t exactly sure how big this thing was going to grow to be. I wasn’t even sure what exactly this thing was even going to grow to be either. Turns out, it’s a vegetable… of some kind. I think. It’s almost like a yam? Like with the same texture and everything but with bright orange skin… and fur in strange places? Also, another thing, it’s like a yam but at the time of writing this it has most definitely grown beyond the size of a typical yam. Basically it’ll increase in size every week or so by a half a foot by my measure. Also, every time it grows by that much, another bulbous root pops out and burrows itself beneath.
And oh yeah there are little blue flowers (or what I guess you could call flowers) growing out of little nooks and crannies and just random spots all over. I’m not sure what to say. I have yet to identify it. If one of you reading this can, then good for you, would you like to take it off my hands in that case? Please? Okay well, I guess I better finally explain why I want this damn thing out of here. I’ve already ostracized myself at work trying to get people to take it, as well as trying to explain what makes me hate the thing, so what harm will come from making a bunch of internet strangers think I’m creepy or crazy?
The black and white of it is that every time this thing grows a half a foot, every time another root plants itself in the ground, every time another one of those little blue flower buds appears on it, something changes. About the world we live in. About our history. About how we live day to day. And no one seems to notice any of the changes except for me. Today in fact, I almost got into a fatal car crash after I woke up and took note of a new flower bud growing on the side of it facing my house. If you put a Bible in front of me and made me swear to God that I was going to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth I would swear on that, my life, and my late mother’s grave that I grew up knowing that Americans in all 50 states drive on the left side of the road.
I know you’re probably laughing at me. Because that’s what the person I almost ran into did when I told them. They wanted to know if I was British or something, and I said no I was born and raised in Northern California all my life. The closest I’ve ever even been to a foreign country is San Diego. But when I pulled over after that scare and looked it up on my phone, there it was. Americans drive on the right side of the road and pretty much always have. It’s just so… jarring. I have vivid memories of me death gripping the wheel to my mom’s Wrangler for the first time in my life, with her in the passenger seat teaching me the rules of the road for the first time. And I remember very clearly her telling me that no matter where I go in the United States or Canada, if I ever did that is, I would be on the left side of the road the entire time.
And I remember everyone else driving on the left side too. I remember them doing it yesterday. And now, everyone’s acting like it’s actually been this other way the entire time and that I’m somehow just noticing it. But I’m not “just noticing” it. It changed without warning me, to my abject frustration. This is what my life has been like since I planted it. I remember when it first sprouted. When I first started noticing the changes. The very first one I encountered were the changes made to the American flag. Again, swearing to God, on my own life, and on my late mother’s grave, I can attest that the American flag has always had 13, red and white, diagonal stripes. Not horizontal. Diagonal.
Again, I remember vividly sitting Indian style around our 1st grade teacher as she taught us some of the most basic history of the Revolutionary War. Particularly when it came to the Betsy Ross story. I remember being told that, when Betsy Ross first showed George Washington her initial design for the flag that it did indeed have horizontal stripes just like the one I suppose all of you are familiar with. But at the last second, he had her change them to be diagonal because he wanted to convey that the United States did not intend to be an empire in which some states would be perceived to be dominating the others by being “on top”. Making the stripes diagonal, to him, avoided this undesired symbolism.
I remember it all so clearly, even the little kitschy cartoon drawings in our school books of him with Betsy Ross as she showed him the final design. I remember reading about it in middle and high school. Hell, I even remember writing a 13 page essay for US History I in college that dealt with the subject. The paper of course, along with any historical record or proof of this detailed memory (digital or otherwise), is nowhere I can find it. It’s as if God or something turned the whole world into one big Wikipedia article and began editing reality at random with no one reverting the changes.
If you don’t think I’m crazy yet, then maybe I’m just not trying hard enough. When I noticed the plant had grown its eighth root, I learned for the first time in my life that Richard Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal and not for having been outed as having had a nearly decade long affair with both Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy at the same time as I thought I had been taught. I hadn’t even heard the term Watergate before that. In fact, I learned at the same exact time that apparently for decades since, the affix -gate had been attached to various other scandals and controversies as though it were a naming convention. Until that eighth root planted itself firmly in the ground, I had never once seen or heard of something like that before.
The day I noticed the very first flower to bloom on it, was the same day I found out there’s this little place near Long Island and New Jersey you may have heard of called New York City. You see, to me, that place has always been (and always will be in my mind as I cling onto what I know to be the truth) New Ithaca. Frank Sinatra’s famous song that is played every year on New Year’s Eve, has always been about the great city of New Ithaca, the Big Apple. The changes are just so weird and particular too. The whole general history of that city and state has remains the same though (at least to me), being that it was founded by the Dutch but was taken by the British and renamed before becoming a part of the United States. Only, instead the place was previously named New North Brabant whereas I suppose you have always known that New York used to be New Amsterdam.
There’s even a song about that bit of trivia, I learned. Catchy, and also cringe inducing for someone like me going through what I’m going through.
Actually the overwhelming bulk of changes have had to do with place names. Again growing up, I had it beaten into my brain that in 1492 Columbus sailed the Pacific blue. You heard that right. The vast puddle you probably call the Atlantic Ocean has always been the Pacific to me. And vice versa. Nebraska was a name I had not ever heard of before I measured another half foot in that damn thing’s already enormous length. To me that place was called the State of Fillmore. If before I measured it to be at 3 feet, you had asked me to point out Paris on a map, I would have stared at you blankly until I realized you probably meant to say Degaulleville which was built just northeast of the ruins of the ill-fated City of Lights after it was used as a testing ground for Germany’s most devastating weapon of WWII - the nuclear bomb.
Apparently in this new world the plant has created for me, it is our country that has the dubious honor of being the first military in the world to use nuclear weapons in an actual war.
And the list of changes I have just goes on and on like that. I’m not going to waste time spelling them all out for you. I’m sure that should be enough for you to at least hear me out or dismiss me as having had a break with reality. All I want now is this thing in my backyard, and these seeds to boot, out of here. Like I said in the beginning, I’d throw it away, but now that I suspect there’s some sort of link between it and all these changes being made, I worry what it could do to me if I yanked it out of the ground and chucked it into a dumpster. Degaulleville, Fillmore, etc. were erased by this thing. I could be too, if I made it mad enough.
There’s another part of me, a selfish part, that hopes if someone else takes it they can be the ones to have all these changes happen to instead. They can be the ones to watch desperately as what you once knew to be true, to be there, to be real, is all ground up and thrown away like it was nothing to bend your reality and leave you as the only one aware of it. I want that to happen to someone else instead of me. I want to be the one who’s oblivious to the changes made in the fabric and window dressings of reality. I want to be the one who reads the complaints and desperate cries of someone like me, and calls them crazy. I want want want that.
There’s another, tinier part of me, that naively hopes once I can leave this thing with someone else, it will change reality again but this time for the better. For the better, for me. Maybe once it starts affecting someone else adversely, it can change reality one more time to make my mom come back. To come back in a way that would make me forget she was ever gone. And then maybe I can go home, go back to the life I was used to living. But I know at the same time, there’s absolutely no reason it would do something nice like that for me.
Hell, if anything, it could decide to make things in reality, history, etc. worse for everyone including me. Like let me think… Okay for example, remember back in 1999 when everyone was afraid of the Y2K bug, but then it turned out to not be such a catastrophic ordeal as people were predicting? That damn plant could change things to make it so that Y2K’s catastrophic potential was fulfilled. Or wait, here’s a more recent example - remember like three or so years ago when there was that weird disease in China all the schools and governments got freaked out about for two weeks, warning about having to do lockdowns and stuff like that only for the Chinese government to successfully contain it before it could leave its shores?
I’d imagine the plant could change that history as well. And it’s not like I want any of that to happen, it’s just that I have little to no control over whether or not it will. And I just want to be free from being the only one to know it’s all happening. To notice it everyday. To have your heart and brain scratched at and tortured by it when you do.
So please, someone, anyone out there who can and is willing to take this thing off my hands knowing full well what it is - just DM me. I’ll give it to you at no charge or expense to you. I’ll even dig it out of the ground and drive to where you are (if you’re on the island that is) so you don’t have to get up and go anywhere. If you’re located somewhere else I’ll happily volunteer to pay all the associated shipping costs at my own expense as well in order to get it to you.
You’ll be my knight in shining armor if you do.
UPDATE: I am no longer in need of anyone to take this thing and these seeds off my hands. Thank you to the person that DMed me after I posted this. I got your email confirming that it safely arrived at your address as well. Also, glad to hear it’s grown another root. By glad, I mean that I am glad to know that it has grown yet again but this time I haven’t noticed anything changing. You have no idea what you’ve done to help salvage my sanity. Bless you.
submitted by Screaming_Mosquito to nosleep [link] [comments]


2023.06.07 03:32 OGPendy Here's my pitch for FTWD after season 3.

Here's my pitch for FTWD after season 3.
To begin, two major changes need to be made to both FTWD and TWD. Firstly, Travis is shot in the neck, and he does throw himself out of the helicopter, but he survives by landing in a river. Secondly, in TWD, Carl doesn't die. Instead, Morgan sacrifices his life in some grand gesture, and his final plea is for Rick to end the war.
My Reasoning:
  1. Not only was Travis' death sudden and absurd, but it also ruined any potential he had to become an excellent character. In my version, Madison and Co are still pushed forward by news of his "death," killing two birds with one stone and allowing for a myriad of interesting possibilities.
  2. This allows TWD to continue closer to how it did in the comics, a way I find much more narratively satisfying, and doesn't allow Morgan to crossover--thus stopping FTWD from becoming the "Morgan and Friends Show". (Maybe he can die saving Carl--bringing his character arc of not being able to protect Duane full circle.)
These are not entire seasons. These are simply general ideas. P.S. - Reading this in one sitting might make it feel like a breakneck pace, but just try to picture your own episodes within these seasons.
SEASON 3
With Travis now alive, it allows season three to play out basically the same, until the mid-season finale, where Travis would reveal himself as alive. From there, we would get a Travis-centric episode like we did with Daniel, showing how he stitched up his own neck wound and lived in the wilderness until he was found by Walker's people. As someone else said on this sub, this would open up the possibility of Travis being a bridge between the two people groups.
Because of his siding with Walker, we could get a very interesting dynamic between Travis and the other Clarks, specifically Madison. Story beats would have to change, but this will help the overarching story overall. For my purposes, Travis (while with Walker's people) would revert to his more pacifist self as he was in seasons 1 and 2. However, this would not change his tendency for violence, which he would struggle with during the duration of the season. Luciana still leaves, Daniel is still shot by Strand, Madison still kills Troy, and Nick still destroys the dam.
TLDR: Travis survives his gunshot wound and becomes a bridge between the two communities. The rest of the season's events basically play out the same, with obvious changes.

SEASON 4
The dam has exploded. And after a minor time skip, we meet up with our crew: Madison, Alicia, Nick, and Travis, who are hiding out in an abandoned gas station. You see, while the dam is gone and quite a few of the Proctors with it, they're still everywhere; searching for the people who tried to wipe them out. In a hail-mary attempt, the Clarks flee up north, leaving Mexico and hopefully the Proctors by heading into Texas. They all assume Daniel and Strand are dead, and whatever sense of morality they had at the ranch has now completely been lost. They are ruthless to both walkers and people, both of which they find plenty of in the Texas plains.
One of the main relationships I want to grow in this season is between Nick and Travis. While they did interact in the other seasons, it was to a very small extent--most of Travis' time was spent with his own son Chris. But with Travis' brutality more or less returning, and Nick no longer being the fun-loving and adventurous 19-year-old we knew, they grow closer--two men who have lost their innocence and themselves to the apocalypse. Nick will become the son Travis never had. But as they grow closer, so do Madison and Alycia. However, it's not a paternal healthy bond, it's Alycia trying to live up to the "Golden Child" standard she's kept for herself. With Madison's tendency to care more about Nick becoming ever more obvious, Alycia is driven by a need to please her mother--something that will eventually tear the family apart. But for all intents and purposes, the Clarks are the strongest they've ever been.
After a few episodes of traveling through Texas, they are stopped by three members of a Biker Gang (think Hell's Angels or Sons of Anarchy). They try to intimidate our crew into giving up what little supplies they have, but with a single look from Madison, two of the bikers are dead and the other is nearly beaten to death. Travis argues they take the bikes and leave, but Madison suspects they have a camp nearby--and after a torture session performed by Travis, she's told that she's right. They are led to the Dell Diamond Baseball Stadium, which the Bikers call home. After an initial standoff, our crew is let in. Everyone is wary of these Bikers, but after only a little while, they quickly integrate into the group. Travis fits right in with the rough-and-tumble men, Alycia is praised for what little medical skill she has (which she uses to heal the tortured Biker, named Cole), Nick becomes a valuable asset for what the Bikers do, and Madison quickly rises up the ranks.
You see, these Bikers are like the Saviors. They run a protection racket. But instead of Negan's view of people: that they're a resource to be maintained, the Bikers simply destroy whoever doesn't bend to their will. However, there's a major problem: both manpower and bullets are hard to come by in the apocalypse, especially when they kill whoever disobeys them. But that's where Nick fits right in. With his skill with the walkers, he dons the blood and guts once more, using it to lead entire walker hordes into stubborn communities. They've found another new home. But as Travis and Madison make clear, it is not permanent.
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All seems well until word begins to spread amongst the Bikers. Their pre-apocalypse rivals, the Proctors, have made their presence known. In a show of force, the leader of the Bikers takes most of his men out to meet with the Proctors. At the same time, a young girl named Charlie is let into the stadium. Nick becomes a surrogate older brother, and they grow close. But our group, of course now fearful, vote to remain at the stadium with a few other nameless civilians and a healing Cole. It's going to be a few days, so Madison and the family lock the stadium down. No one in or out. That's when the Vultures show up.
Like season four of FTWD, they're still a corny group of hippies, but our group has dealt with worse. Way worse. Madison and Travis leave the stadium to talk to the Vultures, while Nick and Alycia stay back with Charlie. However, the young girl is revealed to be a double agent, the one who let the Vultures know that the majority of the Bikers were leaving. She pulls a gun on Nick and Alycia just as Madison and Travis single-handily slaughter all of the Vultures. None are left alive. Hearing the commotion, mixed with fear and anger, Charlie shoots Nick. But Alycia, in a split second, kills Charlie.
Now dying of a gunshot wound, Alycia desperately begins surgery on Nick. Madison is purely focused on her son, but the weight of what they just did is finally beginning to set on Travis. Nick is treated just as the Bikers return, a majority of their numbers wiped out. We then get a Strand-focused episode, revealing how after the dam he was captured by Proctor John himself. But we see how he was unable to worm his way into a position of power within the Proctors. We get to see how the Proctors tracked our group all the way from Mexico, and how they had a massive battle with the Bikers we know, wiping most of them out. But the Bikers we know escaped, and the Proctors have followed them.
Out of both time and options, Nick sneaks away (still very much injured), his plans unclear. However, the Proctors show up, Strand at the helm. He's the spokesperson for the Proctors now, but a wrench is thrown in the plan for battle when he sees Madison and Alycia inside the stadium. Proctor John holds his attack too, realizing his chance for revenge is within his grasp. He then proposes a deal to the Bikers, saying that if given Madison and Co, they'll leave. This, of course, is a lie. The Bikers deliberate, with Cole being the main voice for trading them over. Travis tries everything he can to convince the Bikers to not hand them over, but realizes that being killed either by the Bikers or the Proctors isn't much of an option. Bound and gagged, the Clarks (minus Nick, who Madison fears for) are handed over.
Put on their knees and guns put to their heads, Strand tries to talk John out of it--trying to make him pause and think. But it's no use.
Just as bullets are about to be fired, a massive herd comes out of nowhere! Nick has led them all here, and being careful, he slips through the herd and unties his family. He tells them to do the guts trick, which they do, but for whatever reason, he turns back. As he moves through the herd, careful not to get shot or eaten, he finds Strand fighting for his life. Nick then steps in, helps him with the trick, and leads him to safety--but not before seeing Proctor John fighting the herd. It looks like he's winning; using a row of his soldiers to gun down the horde, until Nick sneaks up behind him and slits his throat. Now leaderless and surrounded, the Proctors and the Bikers are wiped out. Covered in guts and aimless, our crew leaves the stadium.
Weeks later, and after a few more misadventures, Nick goes out hunting. As he does so, he stumbles upon a man dressed like a cowboy, and sitting against a pickup truck: John Dorie. The same exchange happens, where John asks whoever is in the shadows if they would like to join him. Nick reveals himself, and it ends the same way as it did in the show, "So what's your story?"
TLDR: Madison and Co escape Mexico only to join up with a biker gang in an old baseball stadium in Texas. The Proctors return, old rivals of the Bikers, and a massive battle ensues. A group called the Vultures show up as the Bikers leave, and are quickly slaughtered by Madison and Travis. The Proctors come with Strand in tow, and after quick thinking from Nick, the family and Strand escape, while both the Bikers and the Proctors are wiped out by a herd of walkers. Nick then meets a man named John Dorie.

Season 5
John Dorie is what Morgan should have been for the Clarks: the exact opposite of what they are. While they're ruthless and cold, he's merciful and warm. His mission is simple: find his wife. And because of Nick's insistence (and Travis' persuasion of Madison), they decide to help him do so. He explains they separated several weeks ago, after meeting at his cabin and living there for the majority of the apocalypse. But he is far from incapable. In fact, he's the best shot of the entire group and anyone they ever come across.
Tensions however, are high. Madison of course doesn't trust John, and hates the influence he seemingly having on her son. She thinks that his kindness is weakness, and fights to keep her control over Nick.
Based on the evidence John gathered, his best guess is that his wife was abducted and taken north, into Colorado. With nowhere else to go, the Clarks travel with John north. Having entered Colorado, John soon catches a trail. He finds evidence of a camp with the same logo as he found before, that of a key. He feels that they're getting closer, and he turns out to be right, as they find a small community of survivors living inside an old motel. He wants to go in and talk, but Madison isn't risking it. Instead, and with much pushback from John, our main crew goes in guns raised.
Using a small herd of walkers Nick gathered, they take out the guards and quickly find the leader of the community. At gunpoint, the man explains that he's part of a network of communities under one woman, Virginia. They're called the Pioneers, and their goal is to make Colorado the beginning of a new United States. Madison, Alycia, and Strand laugh at the idea, but Nick and Travis are more open to it. After stealing supplies, weapons, and a vehicle, our crew moves on to find John's wife. Or so he thinks.
A few days later, our group finds another one of the settlements, an old ski lodge. This time, however, based on both Travis' and John's pleas, they go in as if they're just some survivors. As they are let in, they see that the lodge is heavily armed--a death sentence had they gone in guns blazing. They stay for a while, with Nick, Travis, and John warming up to the idea of a multi-settlement government. John finds out that his wife is at the capital of the settlement, Lawton. Eager to hit the road to see his wife again, he tells the group to get ready to head out. Madison, however, has no such plan. Nick argues they should go with him, but Madison argues that nothing like this could last and that it's likely all a lie. Madison and Strand want to take over the lodge, killing them all if it came to it. Travis is against it, his guilt driving him to try to stop murdering, but Madison's mind is unchanged. Survival at any cost is her plan now, and if a few nobodies have to die for it, so what? Madison is going to keep everyone together, no matter what. So, under the cover of the night, John and Nick sneak off the lodge grounds and leave.
In the morning, Madison sees they're both gone. Enraged, she prepares to go out and immediately find them until a massive snowstorm hits, forcing them to stay inside. For Nick and John, however, a test of will is what the storm becomes. Frostbite and starvation are mere days away, and they seem to be going in circles. Until a search party finds them. They're grabbed and treated as they are taken to the capital settlement. The search party wasn't for them, but for a young girl, but finding the men so close to death stopped the search. At least for now.
Back at the lodge, Madison is planning for a seize of power. People are anxious, and she has enough trust with the guards to grab some guns. But Travis stops her. He talks to her and looks at her as if she's a different person, something that seems to haunt her. They've grown apart, barely showing any physical affection.
At Lawton, Nick and John see that the settlement is large, larger than anything they've come across so far. They have large walls, farms, livestock, freshly constructed buildings, and people. Anxious to get to his wife, John meets with the mastermind behind it all: Virginia. But unlike the show, she's a genuinely kind woman. She really does want the best for people, and after some deliberation, John finally gets to see his wife. She explains that during her own supply run, she ran into the Pioneers needing help. She did, and they invited her to join. She left a note for John, telling him where to find her, but a massive herd forced them to leave early. It's a joyous moment and something that deeply saddens Nick, reminding him of Luciana.
Until he hears a voice, "Nick?" He turns around and sees Luciana standing behind him! They embrace, and she tells some story about how she found these communities. She apologizes for ever leaving him and promises to never do it again. And after this moment, Nick asks her to be his wife. She says yes, and he couldn't be happier.
Two weeks later, Madison, Travis, Alycia, and Strand are escorted to Lawton, where they reunite with Nick. He explains what happened, and in a seemingly hopeful moment, a wedding is held. Nick and Luciana get married, and all the while Madison plots.
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After five or six months, we see how the family has gotten used to this way of life. Nick and Luciana are happy and working together, Strand has become a high-ranking Pioneer, Alycia has become a rather skilled doctor, Travis has settled down with Madison (though they're still very distant), working the fields next to a small cabin, and John and his wife work as rangers. Life is good. It's peaceful. With all the communities working together, it can seem like anything is possible. But Madison isn't happy. She doesn't trust any of it. And neither does Strand. She believes that at any second, a revolt will happen. An enemy group will rise up. She feels the Pioneers are too trusting, too hopeful. She wants to keep her family safe, and she doesn't think Virginia can.
One day, a community-wide meeting is called, where all the heads of the communities will come together to discuss general going-ons and plans for the future. All the heads come to meet in an old courthouse, including Strand. That day, Madison asks Virginia to meet, and she raises her issues: how they are too trusting, and a severe lack of top-down control. Virginia assures her that those things will happen--in time, but not to rush them. Madison asks her if she will ever actually make those changes, and Virginia pauses before saying...no. Madison then pulls a gun and shoots Virginia in the head. As soon as the shot rings out, Strand leaves the main courtroom where all the heads of communities are, locks the doors, and starts a fire. In mere minutes, the entire courthouse is in flames, and everyone inside is dead.
Immediately, there is chaos, as people think it was an attack. Madison steps up, explaining that Virginia was killed, and the fire was started by anarchists. Strand then grabs a random man and drags him up to the stage where Madison stands. After making up some story about the man, she asks the people if the anarchist should live, and there is a resounding and furious flurry of "no's". She pulls out her pistol and executes the man to the horror of Travis, Nick, and John.
At night, Madison meets with John, as he's become a high-ranking ranger. He knows that that man was innocent, but Madison seems to have no remorse. She explains very calmly that he's going to help contain the chaos, or she will kill his wife. To his shock, Madison waits for a response. He finally sputters out that he'll help. She lets him go back home, knowing he'll do whatever she wants.
Then, she goes home to Travis, who's distraught. He knows everything that happened was staged, and that Strand was helping plan it from the beginning. He's enraged, but Madison remains calm, explaining that everything she did was to protect her family. Travis is beyond shocked, exclaiming that everything that was happening was protecting her family. She looks at him, cold as ice, and tells him that he's not her family. He's not blood. Nick and Alycia are all that matter to her. Travis is horrified and heartbroken--too stunned to speak. She walks over to him and explains that if all he is is against her, he's a danger to her family. She then grabs a nearby knife and stabs him in the gut. She looks away from his eyes as he gasps for air, and as she twists the knife deeper into his stomach. She rips the knife out and he collapses on the floor, dying. She watches him suffer, and just like that, both Travis and the Madison we knew, are dead.
TLDR: Madison and Co follow a good-hearted cowboy named John Dorie into Colorado in search of his wife. After a few altercations with this group's settlements, John reunites with his wife and Nick reunites with Luciana. Months later, Madison and Strand enact a plot to seize control of power. Madison kills Virginia, and Strand lights a building aflame with all head of communities inside. Madison then threatens John into working for her, and she kills Travis.

Season 6
"Travis was killed by the anarchists." That's the lie that's told. The one spread around. At his funeral, Nick is devastated, barely able to hold it together as he gives a speech. John is silent, suspecting that Madison is the one who killed him. She knows that he knows, but she doesn't care. She cries at the funeral. But just for a moment.
Thanks to John's help, the communities have calmed down. Order has been re-established. Madison and Strand have taken up leadership of the Pioneers, but they quickly ditch the key logos and outfits. The rangers are trained to be merciless--gone are the days of trusting new people. A new rule is established: kill on site. Thanks to this, the communities are stronger than ever. John lives in perpetual fear of Madison, worried that at any moment she'll claim his wife is a member of the Anarchists, and have her killed. In order to avoid this, he becomes a vital tool for Madison, doing anything she says.
Nick is deep in grief, numb to his now wife and the outside world...until Luciana breaks wonderful news: she's pregnant. Nick is shocked, but excited--ready to be the father his dad never was.
In the meantime, Madison uses John to round up people who would stand against her, and after planting evidence and calling them Anarchists, she has them executed. Her family and community is secure. It looks like no one can stand in her way--except one woman: Luciana. Now pregnant and fearful of the dangerous new woman in control of Lawton, she wants to leave with Nick. He argues that they need to stay, it's his mother after all, and that they can't keep running forever. But she sees the danger.
That night, Nick and Alycia and hanging out together when he proudly tells her Luciana is pregnant. Alycia is really happy for him, until Nick tells her that he's decided he's going to leave Lawton with her after she gives birth. At the same time, Madison goes to Nick's home and meets with Luciana. She plays up the whole "sympathetic mother figure" deducing rather quickly that Luciana is pregnant. Luciana then tells her that they'll be leaving soon, much to the dismay of Madison. She soon leaves once Nick returns, not acting as if she knows about the pregnancy and their plans.
The next day John offers to take Nick down to one of their outermost communities, a few days ride. He accepts, feeling on top of the world. At that time, a group of armed Rangers burst into Nick's home, searching the entire place. Luciana is confused, but she is quickly tackled to the ground. Then, they find what they're searching for: the same knife used to kill Travis. Dragged out of her home, she's thrown into a holding cell.
A few hours out from Lawton, John struggles with the immense guilt of something. Nick asks him what's wrong, and he finally explains that Strand told him to take Nick out of town for a few days while something happened. Fearing something really bad is going to happen, Nick races back to Lawton, with the help of John.
The knife is supposedly the one that killed Travis, and Luciana is scheduled for a public execution that same day. At the time of the execution, Luciana is brought up on the gallows, in front of public of view, and Strand gives a speech about order and safety. Madison is absent. Nick reaches the main gates, but is temporarily blocked. Using sheer adrenaline and channeling Travis, he fights off the two guards and races to the center of town to see Luciana, noose around her neck. He screams for them to stop, but with the crank of a lever, the trapdoor falls, and Luciana suffocates to death. Nick can't do anything as he falls over, weeping, saying, "She's pregnant...she's pregnant..." Alycia comes running from the Infirmary, unaware of what's happening. John finally makes it to the town square, and using his crackshot aim, shoots Luciana down. But it's too late. For whatever the reason, she turned fast, and John walks over and quietly puts an end to her reanimated self.
Nick is completely broken now. He lays in a ball on the ground, unable to move. Alycia attempts to comfort him, but he pushes her away. John walks over to him, attempting to apologize or make what he did right, but Nick snaps. Grabbing a knife off of Alycia, he stabs John is the gut, and begins to beat his face in. Alycia tries to stop him, but Nick kicks her away as he takes swing after swing, beating John nearly to death. Nick then stops, grabs John's rifle, and screams for Strand. Strand, still standing on the gallows, attempts to duck as Nick fires at him, hitting him in the shoulder with a bullet. Nicks keeps firing, until his gun clicks empty. He stands, surrounded by Rangers and civilians.
He's locked in a cell, fists bloody and eyes empty. Madison comes to the cell, trying to play innocence, until Nick grabs her by the throat. He squeezes, a fire lit behind his eyes. All the pieces fit together now. Everything. He begins to laugh hysterically, realizing it was his own mother who killed his pregnant wife. "You...you actually thought I would what--just fall back into your own arms? Be your own little "Nicky' again!?" He tightens his grip, but he's too good a man. He can't do it. He releases her, utterly defeated. Madison leaves, telling Strand that he'll come around.
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A long time later, months, years, we're not sure--somehow, Nick is out of the cell. It's wintertime in Colorado, and he's living in the wilderness now, sporting much longer hair and a beard. Using tricks he learned while in Mexico and from Travis, he lives as a nomad. But no matter how far he travels, he's still hunted by the Pioneers.
In a flashback, we see that is was Strand who let Nick out of the cell. Nick just about kills him, but seeing the guilt Strand feels, Nick decides to just leave. He's quiet and stealthy, just stealing one of Travis' jackets and a machete. But before he leaves, he sneaks to Alycia, and pleads with her to come with him. She refuses, deciding to stay with Madison. He's sad, but he doesn't stick around. He climbs over one of the walls, and slips away.
In the present, we follow Nick as he lives in the woods of Colorado. He's almost completely silent, barely even grunting. He dispatches walkers with ease, and because of Travis, he knows how to live purely off the land alone. He's almost unrecognizable. One day, while cooking a rabbit, two Pioneers come across him on horseback. They dismount, holding him up at gunpoint, and tell him that he's going to return to Lawton with them. He doesn't speak as he pulls out his machete and cleaves one of the Pioneers' arms off. The man screams in agony as Nick impales the other one mercilessly. He kills the second man, then turns and grabs the other man's rifle. He checks its ammo, slings it across his back, and begins to raise his machete at the first Pioneer--before the man begins to weep. He begins blubbering about his wife, how they have a child on the way. Nick lowers his blade, wipes the blood on his sleeve, and sheathes it. The Pioneer begs for bandage, medicine, anything, but Nick just leaves, saying, "Tell her to stop coming after me."
The problem for Nick is that, essentially, he's trapped. Because of the thirteen-community network Madison now controls, he's surrounded, on all sides, by people attempting to capture him. It miles of land, sure, but not something easily escaped. So he's done what little he can--evade the larger search parties, and deal with the smaller pairs of rangers he encounters.
His new plan is to head farther north, hopefully into Wyoming or Montana. So for an episode he heads north, evading capture.
At the same time, Madison continues to rule the communities with an iron fist. But there's a problem: people have been disappearing from within the communities. Alicia has matured over this time, taking up a leadership position under her mother. She's an advocate for letting Nick go, but Madison can't. Strand still works for her, though he has become more brazen after his secret releasing of Nick. Madison suspects it was him who did it, but she waits to act. John has become the head of tracking Nick down, but he does his job in a way that slows down the process.
Madison calls him in for a meeting, and explains that his new mission will be discovering where her citizens are going. Thankful to be off of Nick, he accepts.
Nick makes his way to the furthermost community after days of travel, called "The Lanes". Sneaking past guards and the occasional walker, he makes it to Colorado border, and stops. He feels horribly guilty for leaving his sister with his mother, and he can't seem to shake the feeling. Then, he sees something odd: a small group of civilians sneaking out of the Lanes. He watches them, then decides to follow. After traveling deeper into the woods than he's gone before, he stumbles upon the civilians destination: The Copse.
An idyllic home deep in the Colorado woods, Nick is greeted by an old eccentric man: Teddy. Teddy is kind and wise, offering to take Nick's weapons, as he won't need them there. Nick cautiously obliges, and after a few days, falls in love with the place. Everyone who's fled from the communities has come here, and it's perfect. Until John finds it.
With six rangers vs an entire commune, Nick prepares for battle. But Teddy tells him to stop, and to let happen what needs to happen. Confused by his order, he steps down. John sees the place, and realizes that this is what the communities can be. He decides not to tell Madison about the commune, and he returns to his wife, and they leave together in secret.
After more drama and death, Madison stops all her rangers from looking for Nick, and switches the mission to finding this rumored commune. Nick catches wind of this, and warns Teddy that this is coming. Teddy refuses to arm, but Nick circumvents this by talking to the people of the commune. He finally steps into a position of leadership, rallying the citizens into protecting what they have. The citizens come together and form a fighting force, right as the first Rangers arrive.
It's a bloody battle, but the Rangers are defeated. Nick realizes that the people cannot defeat 13 communities, but they can convert them. After more fights, persuading, and uprising, nearly half of all the communities have rallied under Nick against Madison and her army.
Eager to get out from under her thumb of oppression, people from within Lawton begin to revolt. Madison, of course, shuts this down--brutally beating anyone who stands against her. Alicia sees now that her mother is truly gone, and begins to communicate with Nick, planning a final stand.
After weeks of fighting and plotting, it all comes to a head. All of Nick's forces, now seven communities, rally together to charge, all at once, to Madison's six community army stationed at Lawton. Strand, however, attempts to sabotage Madison's army by destroying their ammo reserves. He's caught, tortured for his involvement in the civil war, and in one final act of brutality by Madison, beheaded in view of both her own and Nick's armies.
On this, both sides clash, resulting in a massive firefight. Hundreds are killed between the two groups, and in the end, Lawton is in flames and Nick is within Madison's home. They fight, and it's brutal and hard to watch as we see our once mother and son duo trade blows. Nick finally gets the upper hand, and a mortally wounded Madison makes one last remark, "I kept you and Alicia safe. I did that no matter what. I tried to keep us all together..." Nick shakes his head. "You tore us apart Mom. I love you, even after what you did to us. To me. But this can't go on."
Madison hears these words, and sheds a tear. Nick looks away as Madison Clark dies. Nick leaves the house, teary-eyed, and explains what happened to the people. The war is ended. The Communities are reunited.
A few weeks later, Nick and Alicia share one last moment together--embracing at Lawton's gates. Alicia has become the leader of these communities, and peace has now truly been established. But Nick can't stay. The memories here haunt him. He's decided to leave. Go north. He shares one last goodbye to everyone he's met over the past years, and he departs, once again alone and on the road.
TLDR: After a brutal betrayal by Madison, Nick leaves Lawton. After a long time spent in the woods, he finds a new home: a peaceful commune. but realizing his mother will never stop searching for him, he rallies together the people of the commune and half of all the others. After betrayals, beheadings, and losses. The war is ended, and peace returns to the Colorado Communities. Nick decides to leave, and he's once again alone on the road.
THE END
I know that this was a long read, and I appreciate all of those who did. A few parts need work, but overall, this is a very rough draft for how I would have handled Fear.
Thanks to AI, attached are some admittedly rough designs for what our characters could have looked like in the later seasons:

Nick in season 6.

Nick on the road.

Alicia in Colorado.

An older Travis and Madison in one of the Pioneer's communities.

John Dorie at a snowy Lawton.
submitted by OGPendy to FearTheWalkingDead [link] [comments]