Hello all! I'm a screenwriter and longtime lover of horror prose, taking some time during the strike to polish up old unpublished pieces and maybe embark on some new ones. This is the first I'm sharing publicly -- it's a nasty piece of work, about a nasty little man who receives a power he really shouldn't have. Most of my stories aren't like this, but Lyle Hereford insisted upon himself, and I haven't yet managed to forget him. It's also a bit lengthy, about 8600 words (30ish manuscript pages). I'm posting it in two parts.
WARNING: This story contains depictions of non-consensual sex and gun violence.
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GHOST WORD
By Jonathan Redding
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ghost word
1. (noun) A previously unknown word appearing in a dictionary or list of words, often by error--but sometimes by design.
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Lyle Hereford laid there, slick and frightened, and thought about the Word.
He rolled his head to the right, to the nightstand beside his narrow bed, saw the flat green numerals pronounce it 3:17AM. On another night he might have thought of the Gospel According to John, at that hour, or more obscurely, of the Weird Sisters, of the Walpurgisnacht. Sleeplessness was a condition of his pinched, brittle being*.* Tonight he lay there sweating, insomnia buzzing in his thighs, his hamstrings. The inevitable heartburn seethed in his concave chest, and he thought about the Word.
The Word was not with him.
He thought about it sitting, inert, on the small rolling desk, in his office, across the city. Thought about the urban glow, blotting out the stars, seeping in the window, slanting though the low-bid venetian blinds the first contractors must have installed and none of those cheap bastards at the University ever bothered to replace, the blinds that always tear at their thin top fixtures, that Lyle mends with tight sleeves of Scotch tape. He thought about the city’s ambient nightlight seeping in, and falling, across the side desk, across the Word. He thought about the binding. Cream, once, probably, soft and blameless. Faded to no-color, now. An old traveler. But what was it? And how had it come to be there? How did it come to rest on that shelf, that groaning, overburdened, mid-century plank?
Lyle imagined someone slipping into the library, furtive, mounting the stair, the tome swinging against them, tucked in a messenger bag. Some faceless someone, head down, hood up, sunglasses in the dim. Lyle pictured them skirting around the encyclopedias and the medieval histories and bypassing the long rows of technical manuals and the corridors of Euclidean geometry and enzymology and theoretical economics and arriving at the neglected, quaint, neat rows of purest Reference: the Dictionaries.
Lyle had gone to consult the Oxford English Dictionary. Specifically the 1989 Second Edition, magnificent in twenty volumes; a tool with which he insisted each of his students familiarize themselves. On this day he had sought out the second volume specifically, the one beginning with B.B.C.
James, that young Turk, had challenged his interpretation of a passage of Taming of the Shrew. It turned on the etymology of the word bonnie.
Tried to score off me, in front of the whole class, that smug little prick.
James, graduate student par excellence. James of the falling black hair, perpetually obscuring his face, terminating above his perfect smile. James who was such a favorite among the bouncing, giggling undergraduates. James who found it easy to excel, in any environment, who found it very difficult to accept Lyle’s criticisms, Lyle’s guidance. James was many things Lyle was not, had never been, and Lyle knew it. But James had not yet learned to survive in academia. James was going to discover that you did not score points off Lyle Hereford, Ph.D., and Lyle would see to it that it happened painfully. In the town square, as it were. It would have to be just a touch humiliating.
`Darby, especially, Lyle thought. She has to see it. Yes. Just the right amount of condescension to really cut into him, to make it memorable.
Only Lyle never found his ammunition in the second volume beginning with B.B.C. because his interest was diverted. He never queried the etymology of bonnie in the compressed italics of lexicalese, never perused the examples from John Donne and Sir Thomas Aquinas and the Cursor Mundi behind their truncated century marks, because something else caught his eye. Something that shouldn’t have been there. Tucked in between the seventh and eighth volumes (Interval and Look, respectively, he knew) was a tattered book, somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred pages, grayed to nothing, the color of a shroud. Lyle reached down, placed his index finger atop the book’s spine, and drew it from the shelf. He gave it a cursory glance—the cover lettering had been savaged by time, but fragments of the lower half survived:
PART A—ANT
#
OXFO D
1877
“What in the world,” Lyle said. The library swallowed the sound, took it into the mute stillness of itself, into its hush. What he held in his hands was not genuine—could not be genuine. The original OED was printed like this, piecemeal, in what were called fascicles.
But not this soon, God, not this soon! They hadn’t even started!
The first fascicle of the OED, the very first product of their seventy-year odyssey, the publication that made the London philologia realize they had bit off quite a bit more than they could chew, was designated A-Ant. It was a rare bird, a thing to be coveted. It was valuable.
It was first printed in 1884.
Lyle had always thought it a clever, tiny nod of Orwell’s, lost to the mass of readers: that the OED should rule for a century, before Newspeak replaced it. This, then, if it was what it purported to be, what the front cover claimed it to be, was early. Seven whole years early.
A misprint, he thought. Has to be. That would change the valuation—this could be one-of-a-kind. Not that Lyle would dream of selling such a book. Before this moment, he wouldn’t even have allowed himself to dream of holding such a book. He checked for a barcode, a borrower’s card. He found neither. What is it DOING here?
He had let it fall open at random, there, among the stacks, a single water-damaged page stood up like a cowlick, he gingerly pressed it flat. The type within was much more preserved than the weathered front-plating. He scanned, gliding over the forms: aglist, aglitter, aglomerular, aglopened, aglossal, aglow-
That was when he had seen the Word.
Though it wasn’t the Word itself, that had drawn his attention. It was the empty white, beneath it. The dictionary game was all about spatial economy. Column inches and abbreviations. In forty-seven years of nebbish quietude, forty-seven years of slow vanishing into a wilderness of text, Lyle Hereford, Ph.D., had never encountered empty white space in the body of a dictionary. Thus, first, the white. Then he had looked above it.
The Word did not begin with the letter “A”.
The Word did not conform to any structural schema that Lyle recognized. There was no easily discernible root in the Romance lineage, nor the Germanic, nor even the primordial Oriental or Sanskrit Anglicizations which the casual peruser of the Mahabharata or of Patanjali’s Sutras might intuitively place. The Word began with the character “X”, and proceeded from there to a feral enjambment of consonants and choked, almost Hebraic “Y’s”. It possessed no other vowels. Merely the Word, this strange word, had greeted Lyle. No origin, pronunciation, part-of-speech. No definition. Merely the Word, and the white beneath, there in the stacks.
Lyle brushed his thumb across the Word. Looking back, now, he couldn’t really say why. It was the sort of automatic, immediate impulse that you don’t question until it’s complete. It came over him like a yawn. He felt the thin whisper of the paper beneath his skin, he traced the Word from its first syllable to its eighth and final and
“FUCK— “
A kind of WRETCH, a spasm, behind his eyes, within his temples, his core, the cilia of his inner ears. His stomach flopped over queasily in his abdomen and he clenched his ass, just ahead of a hot dart of pressure, a hot sharp dart of pressure, gas and a tincture of liquid, a foul egg smell, he fought to hold it—
“fuckfuckfuck— “
Tremoring in his calves, his whole body strained, the feeble musculature flared from his neck, his weak chin pressed down and his gorge rose. Warm coppery blood pattered and trickled over his lips. Lyle’s nose was bleeding. The fit—whatever it was—began to pass, and Lyle looked down through watering eyes to the object in his hands.
“What in the Christ-?”
The library remained silent, the book remained still, the Word remained inscrutable. He noticed the spatter, low on the page, of his blood, obscuring the column inches, smearing over agnathous. He gathered up a shirt cuff in his hand, squeezed it to his nose—*that’s never coming out—*and awkwardly sat, pooling the book in his lap. He reached down with his other cuff to dab at the page, mitigate the damage. That is when, Lyle now thought, he may have gone mad.
The beads of blood began to crawl up the page.
The traversal of the droplets wasn’t smooth, wasn’t a rolling. They jerked upward in spurs—they forked, like lightning. They crept laterally, then cut upward again, the spastic scribbling of an unseen hand. Lyle became aware that his body was rigid, his breath held, his eyes dry and pained, he stared unblinking. Sweat stood out on the crenellations of his widow’s peak, his acne-scarred brow. His ruptured sinus oozed, his sleeve was warm and sodden. The bloodbolts reached the inexplicable white gap. Swirled into the emptiness. Beneath the Word the blood swirled. It arranged itself.
It formed shapes.
It formed letters.
Lyle had made a sound, then, something between a sob and a laugh and a scream—
—snakebit it’s a snakebit sound—
*—*rupturing the stillness, a harsh throaty sound, reeding through the library, and then he clapped the book shut and fled.
“But I didn’t drop it, did I?” he asked the green numerals. They showed 4:07AM. Time always slid, on sleepless nights. He thought it one of their worst qualities.
“I ran. I ran from it*.* But my hands… my hands wouldn’t let it go.”
Lyle sat up in bed. Only when the sheets peeled away from his back did he realize he was perspiring. He stripped the damp bedclothes and shambled across the room, to his small closet. He bent to his hamper, deposited the sheets inside, closed the latch with a discrete click. He took a fresh button-up and crisp slacks down from their hangers, and he began to dress.
#
Lyle barely heard as the starter of his aging Acura chugged, and whinnied, and finally caught. He floated across town, the CD player in the dash resumed Rachmaninov’s Prelude in C sharp minor, the volume hovered at the bottom edge of audibility. It did not pierce the veil of Lyle’s exhaustion. His memory, the vision of the mounting blood, felt unreal. The marine layer had rolled in with the night’s cool, heightening the strangeness. Occasionally headlights swam up out of the fog, the vague shapes of alien drivers flickered and were gone. Lyle had passed through a membrane—*a glass, darkly—*and everything normal was rendered strange, as though the laws underpinning the universe had grown suddenly elastic. His fatigue coupled with the new fact of the Word to cast a surreal pall over the familiar streets. He wondered, at each car he passed, about the journey of the driver. Was it possible that just beneath the frequency of his attention there was a whole world of men on grim, predawn errands? Men confronting mad and impossible things, men fallen through unsuspected cracks in their comfortable facade? And just where in the wild blue fuck had it come from?
Lyle made it, not without difficulty, to the faculty lot. He parked askew—someone’s sure to bitch about that he thought, and tittered*—*and walked his scuttling walk across the plaza toward the Humanities complex, fumbling for his keycard. His footsteps seemed to echo off of nothing but haze. The fog encroached, he felt as though it watched him.
His office was a shabby, cramped afterthought on the fourth floor. He turned the bolt behind him as he entered, resting his weary head against the door. He thumped it, once—his forehead, that is—against the wood. He crossed to his chair, the brown faux leather cracked and peeling, and sat heavily. The office was cheaply appointed, but pristine. No tchotchkes or personal touches were in evidence, with the exception of some of Lyle’s own (stark, black-and-white) photography. The book he had found, the impossible book, was not alphabetized on his shelves with the others. It sat alone. Nothing shared, with it, the small rolling side-desk, which Lyle pulled to himself. He reached for the book, heart pounding, hands tremoring. He breathed deeply, closed his eyes. Mastered himself. By and by, the shaking passed. He opened his eyes to look, again, upon the Word.
First there’s fear, of course there’s fear, but then... but then....
Then, perhaps, there was room for curiosity. He had found this thing, this extraordinary thing, or perhaps, just possibly…
“It found me. Maybe it was--meant. For me.”
And if it were, that might make it—would make it—the first thing, the first special thing, that had ever been meant, for Lyle Hereford, Ph.D. He opened the book, the tremor in his hands barely perceptible, now. He sought out the Ag’s—aglow, aglist, aglitter—and found them easily enough. He stared, eyes bulging, straining, at the page.
The Word was gone.
Nothing. No fractal X’s and Y’s, no phantom space, no broken line. Smooth, black column inches, the rhythms of the dictionary, nothing out of place.
“No—no, no, no—” Lyle flipped the page, aggressively, almost tearing it from the binding, another, another, flipped them, faster and faster, scanning, rapidly scanning, seeking white space.
“No, fuck you, no, it was here, you were just here, I didn’t imagine you you cocksucker come back here and talk to me— “
He flipped forward, the opposite direction, toward the front of the fascicle, when he felt something under the pad of his thumb. It was—a shift in the texture, a vibration—a definite, awful, sly little movement. He felt the thing change, somehow. Lyle froze. He held perfectly still—*snake, snake in my hands, subtle subtle snake—*then he slid his thumb, just his thumb, the tiniest hair, a fraction of an inch, over the page-ends. Rasped his thumb, along the margin of the book. *Something, there’s something, right there—*he rasped again. Felt it. Toward the back. A water-damaged page. Lyle seized on it, almost eagerly, letting the book part around it. It stood up like a cowlick. He pressed it carefully down, closed his eyes. Lyle felt a curious swirl of anxiety and hope. He was afraid. Afraid to see it again.
He needed to see it again. He needed to know.
He opened his eyes. He scanned the page, now, a completely different section of the fascicle. Amputee, ampyx, amrel, amrita, amry, amsel. Faster, faster…
There.
Crowded into the bottom-right corner. An empty, white space. Above it, a Word.
A different Word.
This one began with an LN, and to the litany of Y’s had been added double-Us. The same layout: no explicatory text below, nothing else. The single, unpronounceable Word.
“There you are,” Lyle whispered. He turned to his computer, felt for the green button along the back of his monitor, pressed it. He thumbed the spacebar on his keyboard. The desktop awoke mid a staccato burst of tiny electronic clicks, followed by the usual cheery synth-tone. Lyle set a yellow legal pad on his lap, popped the well-chewed end of a mechanical pencil into his mouth, clenched it between his teeth. He tugged open a gray metal desk drawer, hideous and utilitarian, pawed around inside until he found what he wanted, closed it again. He turned back to the Word.
“Tell me a secret,” he said. His voice was queerly pitched, hollow. He hardly recognized it. He held up the small object taken from his desk, held it up above the page, showed it to the Word. It was a pushpin. Tell me. Lyle pricked the ball of his middle finger, blood welled into a fat bead. He turned his hand over, held the blood above the white, watched it distend, watched it fall. This time there was no lightning, no crawl. This time it sizzled, as though he had dropped it on a skillet. It sizzled, bubbled, on the white, then separated, it raised blood-red letters below the Word. Characters. This time, Lyle was ready.
It’s Attic Greek, he realized. The characters stood out in the elegant script of the Septuagint, the language of Alexander the Great. The language that, at one time, had conquered the world, and had later been conquered in turn. A language of emperors, and of slaves. Lyle sucked on his bleeding finger as he hunched over the legal pad, copying out the unfamiliar letters:
ύπνος
It was a matter of a few moments to download a keyboard for ancient Greek characters on the desktop. A few more to pull up Google, find a translator widget, and hunt-and-peck his way to the answer. The cursor blinked beside the translation. The word beneath the Word, the Greek extraction written in blood, fat and placid and banal:
sleep
Lyle felt a flush of disappointment. He had expected something, he realized. Some kernel of an answer. The name of a daemon, or of a god. A celestial body, perhaps. And why Greek? If it was printed in the nineteenth century, printed in English in the nineteenth century? Lyle turned back to the fascicle but the blood was gone. He brushed a cautious knuckle across the white gap and found it dry.
Thirsty, he thought. You feel thirsty.
The language of Alexander, and of Oedipus Rex, and of Aristotle. He considered the Word. Sleep. A definition? Was the book itself carrying some kind of, what, repository, fragments of a lost language, preserved by some oblique arcana? The work of a secret society, or a cult? Some Rosicrucian gimmickry? He looked down at the white space, the secret-keeping space, awakened by blood. Considered, again, the crooked syllables, the LM, the double-X, the Y’s and double-U’s.
Sleep.
Sleep was a word with a certain beauty. Especially for the chronic insomniac. A beauty and a kind of longing. Sleep. The LM, the double-X, the Y’s and the double-U’s. Strange, riotous Word.
“Sleep is a beautiful word.” Lyly was unaware that he had spoken aloud. The LM, the double-X, in the middle, the double-X. It occurred to him that this Word, too, was beautiful.
Beautiful and possessed of a kind of interior sense, Lyle realized. A kind of logic. When you think about it.
The double-X, a kind of sluggish, sloughing sound in the middle. A collapse, to link the long consonants, as if the effort of producing the Word were too much for one’s throat, all at once. The LM, the double-X, the double-U’s. Lyle opened his mouth, still unaware. The Word intensified, in his field of vision, came into a sharp focus. The rest of the page somehow fell around it. Lyle wondered if he was being hypnotized. There was no more color in the world, he knew how to say the Word, the Word was teaching him, patiently, to say it, he opened his mouth not knowing and he said the Word that meant Sleep and—
#
Lyle awoke on the floor of his office. He shook his head, once, experimentally. He winced—his left temple was sore; a bruise was coming on.
Did I fall? Black out? The fascicle was still on his side-desk. It was closed, now. His computer was dark and quiet, hibernating. All at once he remembered—*oh, my God—*it wasn’t a definition or a repository or a code—
“It’s a command,” he croaked, his voice husky in the stillness. Everything clicked, almost audibly, like tumblers turning in his head. It was a command, and that made the book something else, that made the book something very much else indeed, oh, oh God, that makes it something else.
What time is it? The sun hadn’t risen, the streetlights still slanted through his shitty, frail blinds. Traffic had picked up though, he could hear it outside, and he felt—incredible, I feel incredible—fine, other than the bump on his noggin and a few cricks in his shoulders, his neck, Lyle felt like a million bucks. He pawed at his phone. He carried it in his front-left pocket, and if he had fallen on it it might have—
The phone showed 9:44PM. He had slept, all right. He ran the math. He had been at his desk, it had been maybe five thirty…
It put me to sleep for sixteen hours? Lyle have never slept that long in his life, to the best of his knowledge*.* It was enough to make him want to weep. He’d been just an anxious little bedwetter when his long war against insomnia began, and the notion of simply saying a Word, a beautiful Word, and dropping off like a stone—
He crossed to his office door, turned the bolt. Opened it. A sticky-note was affixed to the outside:
Dr. L, wasn’t able to get ahold of you today, hope you feel better. Walked the class through Act III, reiterated their assignments re: Marlowe comparison & cut them loose, will check in tomorrow first thing.
It was James’s fluid cursive. Even his penmanship was pretty*.*
Lyle turned his attention back to the fascicle. He picked it up carefully, reverently. He felt a surge of glee, an unbridled joy at the power in his hands. When he closed his eyes he could still see the sleep-Word, the constellation of unwieldy letters stood out bright and vivid. His heart raced with the implications of his discovery—something else something else it’s something else—
The term Grimoire drifted hazily across his consciousness.
He rasped his thumb along the margins and felt immediately the bristle of the damaged page, somewhere in the center. He held the book upright and let it fall open, the single page left standing. He smoothed it carefully down. He looked upon the book.
The empty white stood out easily, in the center column, the exact mid-point. Above it was yet another Word, this one shorter, beginning with an A and three O’s, a sound meant to be moaned. Lyle rummaged for another push-pin in his desk. He pricked his ring-finger, this time—*spread the love, I might be doing this a lot—*and smeared a sizzling patina of blood onto the white paper. The red letters formed on the page, he couldn’t wait for them, he was greedy for them—
That isn’t Greek, Lyle realized. The new Word was explicated in a much more familiar—and, curiously, more recent—tongue. The new Word was translated in Latin.
libido
Was the first Word I saw translated into Greek? he wondered. When I ran from the library, from the blood, the first time, were those Greek letters? He couldn’t be sure, it had happened so quickly, and hysteria warped the memory.
He couldn’t be sure, no. But he didn’t think so.
“Libido,” he pronounced into the quiet of the office. “Lust. Desire.” He stood there a long moment, lost in thought. Finally he reached beneath his desk and pulled out a slender leather briefcase. He wouldn’t leave it at the office again, not—
Not knowing what it can do.
He placed the fascicle inside, locked the briefcase, and killed the grating fluorescents overhead. As he left the office he crumpled James’s sticky note in his fist and let it fall.
​
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CONTINUED IN PT. 2:
https://www.reddit.com/Horror_stories/comments/13wyq9j/ghost_word_pt_2/

Three days ago, my housemates were alive.
And I wasn't losing my fucking mind.
Three days ago, I awoke to my housemate, Misty, shaking me.
“Get up!!”
Misty was usually the last to roll out of bed out of all of us, so I figured it was something important. My housemate wouldn’t get out of bed for nothing. She valued her sleep—often comparing her bed to a safe haven. Her place of solitude. I was right there with her, until she startled me out of slumber. I opened my eyes to find her face roughly three inches from mine, her expression lit up with excitement I couldn’t justify this early in the morning.
She smelled of toothpaste breath and her raspberry scented body wash. Her thick black curls framing her face were still damp from what I presumed was a shower, hanging in tangled knots in front of wide, almost unseeing eyes. When I first met her, Misty Kang had been my crush for a while. With a Korean father and a Texan mother, she definitely caught eyes when we hung out. We had a thing in freshman year, which quickly fizzled out once we started living together. Never date your housemates.
I will just say that.
Over the last few years, Misty has become one of my closest friends.
When she knew I was at least conscious, my housemate was grabbing my arm and yanking me out of bed. “Get up!”
I was barely awake, and those were the only words I could fully distinguish.
I shooed her away for a moment and swung my legs out of bed, taking a minute to blink sunlight out of my eyes coming through the blinds. “Sam.” Misty was in front of me again.
I don’t think she understood the concept of being half asleep.
She wouldn’t leave me alone, waving her arms wildly. Her shadow under the soft morning light almost reminded me of one of those inflatable tube guys.
“Huh?” My voice was a low croak, and her smile widened.
“Guess who’s just scored tickets for an actual screening of the first five minutes of gameplay for the most anticipated game of the decade?”
“What?” Her string of words wasn’t making sense in my caffeine deprived mind. It just sounded like gibberish to me, initially.
Like we were in some cheesy commercial, she was the lead, and I was the confused NPC with the WTF expression. But when I went over it in my head, words started to slide together like a jigsaw puzzle. Misty didn’t get excited about video games. Well, she did. Though, my housemate was one to get excited on behalf of someone else. After living with her for a while now, I had concluded she was a follower.
By that, I mean whatever others thought or did or said, she copied it. If her Twitter followers were mad at bad takes, she would drop all of her own opinions on said follower and focus on what other people said. We had Korean barbecue for takeout the other day, and Misty clearly did not like it from the creased look on her face, and her very obviously spitting it politely into a napkin.
Jay, my other housemate, liked it.
And so did I. So, naturally, Misty announced she wanted more.
I had to watch her suffer through two more portions before she excused herself—presumably to throw up. Blinking at my housemate who was clearly excited for Jay, I resisted the overwhelming urge to roll my eyes.
“Slow down. What game? What are you talking about?”
I got out of bed and threw on my robe, half aware of the mess from last night on my desk. Another attempt to finish an essay which just wasn’t happening. The monster energy cans and takeout Chinese wrappers were embarrassing. I got a basic run-through as I headed downstairs with Misty right behind me, practically breathing down my neck. From what I understood, there was a Reddit post.
That was all I got from Misty’s squealing. She leapt down the stairs after me with a spring in her step. The clock above the front door told me it wasn’t even 9am. The smell of bacon, however, was quick to arise me from the dead.
Jay was in the kitchen making breakfast. I noticed his laptop was open on the table, and every so often he’d peer at it with wide, almost disbelieving eyes. Jay and Misty were complete opposites, which made them great people to live with. Jay was a quiet book who was slightly on the pretentious side, routinely quoting something philosophical to piss me off.
He had rich parents on the other side of the world, but the guy himself was fairly humble and had mostly detached himself from said family.
My housemate was usually well put together. In fact, I barely saw him in his pajamas, excluding game nights. That morning, however, he was a disheveled mess, still in yesterday’s clothes.
He offered me a grin. I glimpsed sauce from last night’s dinner still staining his chin. Jay hadn’t brushed his hair or even put on deodorant.
I caught a whiff of BO when he ducked in front of me, his gaze glued to his MacBook. It was rare when Jay ignored basic hygiene, so yeah, I was going to guess this was a pretty huge thing. “I did tell her not to wake you up, y’know.”
His slight aussie accent was always refreshing on a morning. Born in Australia and moving to the states when he was ten years old, Jay still had a slight tinge in his accent. I had seen pictures of his family, and the guy had definitely gotten most of his dad’s genes, thick brown hair, and freckles. While his dad was built like a pro wrestler however, Jay was leaner like his mom.
I shrugged. “I was already awake.”
“Liar.” He didn’t look away from his laptop.
Looking closer, I glimpsed the Reddit homepage.
“So, you have won something.”
Jay didn’t answer. I could tell he was excited by the way he could barely keep still, bustling around the kitchen, barefoot. “Coffee?”
His voice was more of a Misty-like squeak, and I half wondered for a moment if they had switched bodies, or he had at least become one with my other housemate through a chemical explosion. In our kitchen, which was yet to be cleaned after a cooking disaster several nights ago, I wouldn’t be surprised if something was living on the countertop. I nodded, slumping into a chair. “What’s going on? Why is Misty freaking out?” I nodded at his laptop. “She said you’ve won something?”
As if my housemate couldn’t hold it in anymore, he nodded, turning his screen towards me. “You know____, right?”
“Yes.” I sipped my coffee, eyeing a toaster strudel sitting on the countertop. "You mean the game which has been coming out for a decade."
He ignored that. “Well, what if I told you one of the developer’s posted on the official sub this morning?”
“For _____?"
He nodded with a grin, and I wondered it this was one of those rare times when Jay was blindly looking through a red flag to see what he wanted. I had heard of these types of scams, and Reddit was a breeding ground for them.
Gamers were pretty intense. I didn’t realize I was pulling a face until I caught his lips curving into a smile. Jay was usually the skeptical one.
“You don’t believe me.”
I downed my coffee to avoid replying. When I had drained the cup, he was still staring at me with amused eyes.
“What?”
“You think it’s bullshit.”
I shrugged. “You said it,” I said. “I’m pretty sure that game isn’t even partway through development. Didn’t Twitter leak a still last year? Also, they’ll be bringing out a new console before that game comes out.”
I leaned back in my chair. “It’s more of a pipe dream, at this point.”
“The leaks were fake,” Even he didn’t look sure. “Anyway, that’s not the point. One of the dev’s posted on the official sub this morning. He asked if we were all excited for the new game, asked if we could post some of our favorite NPC dialogue, and he’ll DM winners.”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded at the screen. I had already checked my phone for an internet meltdown concerning this post, but there was nothing. “And where is that post now?”
Jay didn’t look at me. “It was deleted. So it only reached a certain number of people.”
“Oh, it was deleted?” I couldn’t resist a smile. “What a coincidence.”
When I laughed, Jay scowled, showing me his screen—navigating his trackpad to his Reddit DM’s.
To my surprise, there was actually a message from what I guessed was a throw-away account.
While I was skim reading the DM, Misty hurried in, all dressed and ready for the day. I peeked at her outfit from Jay's laptop. Cute.
Extravagant, but cute. My housemate cranked the radio up before bouncing between us, a toaster strudel hanging out of her mouth.
Misty was a living animated character. Ignoring her wide smile, I turned back to the screen. “Congratulation!!” The DM started with capitals.
It took me reading it twice to realize there was a clear spelling mistake. I sent Jay a pointed look, but he was too busy practically vibrating with excitement. If the guy had any more caffeine, he was going to explode. “Since when did winning DM’s start with a typo?”
“I knew you were going to say that.” Jay curled his lip. “They were clearly excited when typing the message.”
“But this is supposedly an official,” I said. “Surely they would make sure it’s professional?”
My housemate didn’t reply, shooting a look at Misty, who rolled her eyes.
“Wow.” I squinted at the screen. “I am so sorry for caring about your safety. You do realize these types of scam’s usually end up with you being sold on the black market, right?”
I shuddered. “I’ve heard horror stories about underground markets specializing in illegal organ harvesting.”
“Or…” Jay’s eyes were glued to the screen. “You could be happy for me?”
I frowned at the rest of the message, which was just a capitalized freak-out about the upcoming release of the game, before inviting Jay (and a friend!) to a five-minute preview of gameplay, as well as a Q&A. There was a location and a time, which was brow-raising. “10 at night.” I said. “Who hosts a gaming convention at 10pm?” I leaned my chin on my fist. “Unless they wanted to lure as many gullible people as possible, and ship them to some organ harvesting factory on the other side of the world.”
Jay scoffed. “That’s dark.”
“You’re actually considering going to a 10pm gaming convention in the middle of nowhere. I’m trying to wake you up.”
Jay nudged me that time. “It’s real. Relax.”
“And.” I pointed to the screen. “No phones? Why would they ask you not to bring your phones?”
“To stop us filming content,” Misty sang. “Duh.”
I groaned, leaning back in my chair. “You’re on his side? This is clearly shady!” I didn’t get mad unless something was seriously pissing me off, and this was one of those times. Jay was a smart guy. There was no way he was falling for this bullshit. I thought he was joking around when he spent the day tracking the location on Google Maps. I went to class like normal and got updates through text. At lunch, Jay agreed with me and said it was in fact shady, and he wasn’t going. By afternoon classes, he was texting me in paragraphs explaining his own skepticism but had found several “friends” on an online forum who were also going and had changed his mind once again. The guy couldn’t make up his mind. He was driving me crazy.
Misty sent me several videos of Jay pacing the kitchen with his MacBook in his hands. She was broadcasting his mental breakdown via Instagram stories. But then she started to send me pictures of herself in different outfits, asking me for my opinion on each one. At that point, I turned my phone off. My housemates had lost their fucking minds. I did my own research though, just to make sure I wasn’t actually going to lose them to a shady cult.
I searched for the game itself, but just as I thought, it was shown as still in development. Every “update” was just fan speculation.
There were YouTube videos and TikTok’s of fake leaks, but nothing was real. It was either AI generated, or badly edited. By the time my classes had ended and I had turned my phone on, I had a barrage of missed calls and texts.
Most of them were from Misty with her outfit changes, and Jay changing his mind again.
This time he was convinced it was all a scam, his texts full of typos and crying emoji's which he never used. Before it hit me that Misty was most likely using his phone to text me.
I was right. When I walked through the door, I was greeted by both of them sitting on the stairs. Misty was scrolling through Jay’s phone, while the boy had his head in his hands. According to Misty’s last text, he was back to being excited to go.
From the look on his face, eyes shadowed with sleep circles, light brown curls slipping from under his hood, I wasn’t sure what Misty meant by “excited”. The guy looked the complete opposite. His mind had been consumed by the game, and the idea of seeing new content.
When I dropped my bag and folded my arms, fixing the two of them with my best disapproving parent look, Misty jumped to her feet. “Sam!” she waved Jay’s phone at me. “Did you get my texts? We’re actually going now!”
The 100+ texts on both messenger and iMessage said otherwise.
I nodded, my gaze on Jay. “Both of you do realize it’s a scam, right?” I softened my tone despite growing progressively more irritated. We were grown adults, not kids. I could understand a group of teenagers falling for it, but two twenty-three-year-olds?
This time, I ducked in front of Jay. “Hey.” I pulled down his hood, and he groaned, burying his head in his knees. “I don’t want to freak you out, so listen to me, okay?”
I exhaled out a breath. “I’m not saying something bad is going to happen to you, because it most likely won’t—and yes, I admit I’m being paranoid.” When he lifted his head, blinking through bedraggled curls, there was a faint smile on his lips. “But.” I said. “You are most likely going to end up disappointed. Which I don’t want, because you won't shut up about it for weeks."
I was only partly joking.
For a moment, I thought my housemate was going to wake up, and nod, laughing at how crazy it was.
Before shook his head and jumped up.
“I’m going to take a shower, alright? I should start getting ready."
I admit, I exploded at him.
We argued while he was in the shower, and I paced up and down the hallway, coming up with multiple reasons why he was definitely going to die, and only two positives if it was in fact real. In the end, I gave up worrying all together. I didn’t say anything when the two of them were hurrying around looking for shoes and missing car keys. I didn’t realize they were gone until the door was clanging shut, and a text was coming through. I didn’t look at it until an hour later, and I had calmed down.
Jay: 1h ago: Stop worrying, lmao. We’re good! I’ll keep my phone just in case. I’ll make sure to avoid the organ harvesting 😉
Another from Misty a few minutes later: “Love you! Chillll, kay? 😭😭 It’s going to be fun! I’ll take pics!”
…
Followed by: “Oh shit, we can’t. I’ll try to sneak some!"
Attached to the text was a photo of the two of them. Misty with a wide smile and a peace sign, and Jay who looked like he was mid-shout, his eyes on the road.
Those texts were… at least comforting, I guessed. Maybe they were right. I figured I was paranoid, and they in fact would really be okay.
But that didn’t stop the anxious coil in my gut when I tried to force down takeout pizza. I attempted to focus on my essay to distract myself, but I couldn’t stop glancing at my phone, and checking Twitter. There was a hashtag on the DM, which was just “PlayStationGO.” When I searched for it, however, nothing came up.
Sure, it was a private convention and only a select few knew about it, but nothing could escape Twitter.
Somewhere, someone must be talking about it. After scrolling through endless tweets though, I realized I was wrong. There was nothing.
That put a bad taste in my mouth.
10pm came, and I held my breath all the way through a Netflix TV show I was forcing myself to watch, half asleep, slumped at my desk.
I could barely distinguish the plot.
I just had a vague idea of the character names, and some of their motivations.
Midnight passed, and I was struggling to stay awake.
I glanced at my phone.
No messages, just a notification from Spotify reminding me my favorite band was playing nearby.
1am.
Still nothing. I fell back to sleep.
2:48am.
This time, I stayed awake for a few minutes glaring at my phone before my eyes grew heavy.
3:16: am.
My phone buzzed with a text from Jay, but I could barely desipher it: "can't feel help my head hurts Canshdhsn727272_6798mi/!! _&go home please. (Sent from: PlayStationGo™️ BETA)."
3:27: am.
3:54: am. I was wide awake, blinking at a notification which had popped up from an unknown number. I was trying to figure out what number it was, when my phone vibrated again and I almost jumped out of my skin.
After a moment of hesitation, I answered it.
I was trying so hard not to think of the possibility of it being the emergency room, or even worse, the cops.
All of my worst nightmares had come true in a single second.
“Hello?” I whispered in a croak.
“Are they in the house with you?” The stranger’s voice came through in a hiss of interference.
His words sent my mediocre dinner lurching back up my throat. “What?” I managed to get out. “Who?”
“Your friends.” He said, and I leapt to unsteady feet, my gut twisting and turning.
“No.” I found myself taking slow strides toward the window, brushing back the curtain and peering out into the night. “Why? Did something happen to them?” I paused.
“How did you get my number?”
“That does not matter.” His voice rattled in my ear as I rushed downstairs, almost stumbling down the bottom two. “I need you to get out of that house. Now. Get as far away as possible.”
I could hear his rapid breaths.
He was driving. I could hear the rumble of the engine. With my phone pressed to my ear, I obeyed his instructions, pulling open the door and stepping out into the cool night, a brisk breeze grazing my bare arms was just enough to stop my thoughts spiraling.
I was barefoot, in nothing but a robe, staggering down the driveway. The night was calm and silent; our neighborhood was asleep, each window drowned in darkness. I couldn’t breathe, my clammy fingers wrapped around my phone, as this stranger broke down over the phone. “Whatever you do,” he gasped out.
“Do not, I repeat DO NOT remove the PlayStationGo—shit!! He hissed out, static rattling the call. The guy seemingly got ahold of himself, and the wheel, and continued. I started to walk—where I was going, I had no idea.
The stranger lit a cigarette. I heard the click of a lighter and his exhalation of breath. “It was a BETA version, but we had to rush it. This was not my idea. My boss is a greedy man. He wanted to release the game last year, which would have meant widespread infection. Luckily, that did not happen. We did manage to delay it, but only by a year.” His words barely made sense to me as I struggled to get a word in, peering in the dark. “It was supposed to be a virtual experience of the game—a whole new angle of gameplay. But testing was difficult. First, on monkey’s, we lost multiple subjects. Tonight was supposed to be a…well, I guess you could call it out first attempt on human subjects,” his laugh was bitter. “I knew the tech wasn’t finished. And I tried. Believe me, I fucking tried. I tried to blow the whistle, but these bastards know where my parents live."
Something squirmed its way down my spine.
“So my friends were lab rats?” I said stiffly. “You used them?”
I fucking knew it.
I knew it was too good to be true.
“Yes and no. Listen to me, the people I work for are hunting them down. Trust me, I don’t want my bosses to find them because a life of experimentation will await them. Torture. Do you hear me? It does not matter if subjects fail. They don’t care. As long as there is at least a light at the end of the tunnel for them, they will see it as a win, and bring the publication date closer. They will not be treated as humans. Your friends signed a contract before trying out the tech, where the small print stated that, under section 3, player engagement, all subjects must agree to offer themselves as participants in later updates. I silently cursed Jay for always skipping the terms and conditions when buying games." The man stopped to breathe.
“I have told you multiple times, and I won’t say it again. Get as far away from that house as possible. I will take care of them. I will make sure of it." The sound of squealing engines, and I stopped power walking, coming to an abrupt stop. The silence of the night around me, compared to the sound of the highway he was on, traffic horns and the wind rushing through the window was an eerie contrast, a disturbance to the heavenly bubble we were trapped in.
“What do you mean ‘take care of them?” I had to swallow a yell. “Hey! What are you talking about?
“I’m sorry.” Was all he replied with. “I’m afraid it is too late. There was once an opportunity to save the mind during the initial level of the demonstration. However, once the PlaystationGo has been fully attached to the base of the subject, we no longer have control of it. Once integrating itself into the cerebral cortex, the PlayStationGo can only be removed by signing out of the player’s account,” his breath was heavy. “On this unfortunate occasion, however, your friends are unable to navigate the system due to a malfunction which scrambled their brains,” He trailed off. “Which has left them stranded in the game."
I let out a breath. “Right.” I said. “That’s.. bad. I mean, it’s a fucked-up piece of technology, but they’re just playing a game, right?”
There was a pause, before the man laughed.
“Young man, I don’t think you understand,” he said. “The PlayStationGo was created to give the player a full virtual experience of our game. The PlayStationGo is not a physical object. Created with nanotechnology, it attaches itself to the subject’s brain and is supposed to create a personal gaming experience for each player. As I said, however, it is not finished. It is yet to be released to the public, and of course, we are expecting certain ethical arguments due to the controversial—”
I pulled the phone away from my ear, shaking my head. I didn’t need to hear his attempts at trying to save his own skin.
“You need to help them,” I whispered. “Do you hear me? Can you do that? Can you help them?!”
“That is what I am trying to tell you,” He said.
“I know you are upset and confused, and believe me, I offer my apologies. But you need to listen to facts. During initial testing, our subjects were conscious enough to know where their home was. We are unsure why this happens, though we have linked it to territory, as well as the main character of the game heavily influencing their actions. I have been tracking them from the testing facility, and they are incredibly close. Please get as far away from there as possible. If you are no longer in the vicinity of the house, I can end this quickly and quietly before we gain attention.”
I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. Maybe start fucking screaming at him, because he was talking about getting “rid” of my friends, after their mistake.
“Do you understand me?” He said, when I couldn’t reply. “Your friends are lost causes!”
Before I could answer, though, headlights were suddenly coming around the corner, and I found myself paralysed to the spot. The car which swerved twice, crashed into several trash cans, before reversing and coming straight towards me, was not Jay’s car. Jay’s car was an old hunk of junk he’d gotten from a scrapyard. Jay’s car had doors which were practically hanging off, and a stereo which exclusively played either static gibberish, or old tapes I had no idea how to use. This car was bright yellow, and definitely had an option to drive itself. When the car came to a stop, inches from careening into me, I lost all control of myself.
I was vaguely aware of my phone slipping from my fingers and hitting the sidewalk. But I was too busy staring at the two shadows in the front of the car. The driver, and the passenger.
And the muffled screaming coming from the trunk.
When the door swung open, a figure stepping out, I did not recognise my housemate.
The stranger told me I wouldn't, but I didn't believe him.
Jay had left the house in casual jeans and a sweater, bearing the game's logo.
Now, I found myself face to face with a man with my housemate's face and features, his smile and eyes-- but something had been severed in his eyes and twisted in his expression. For one, Jay was wearing a suit I knew he couldn't afford, the sleeves torn, collar pulled open, smears of red staining the front.
His pants had cufflinks, and the Rolex on his wrist had definitely been pulled off someone's corpse.
The silver was stained a revealing scarlet. Drinking in his face, he looked like Jay. His curls hung in front of his eyes, freckles speckling his cheeks, but everything else wasn't. It wasn't until I was glimpsing what was moulded into the flesh of his hand, did I remember how to move. But then I was taking all of him in, everything my mind had intentionally skipped, because I didn't want to believe the stranger on the phone. Nanotechnology, the man had said in a hiss.
Fiction, I had thought.
Before I saw the reality of it, a writhing metallic like substance glued to the guy's temple, and slowly, very slowly, inching down his cheek, already forming around the bridge of his ear, a very faint blue light flickering.
Something must have alerted him. His cavernous eyes left mine, and he twisted his head—and I heard the sound of his neck snapping, his head lolling to the left slightly, his eyes flickering. I watched his whole body seem to sway back and forth, ready to fall forwards.
Before the newly formed device on his ear turned red, then green.
It was almost like he was… rebooting. As if coming back to life, Jay lifted his head at an awkward angle, before looking straight through me. The blood vessels in his eyes had popped, rivulets of red beading down his face. He should have been dead, I thought. No. No, he was dead. That… that thing was keeping him alive. “Well, shiiiittt,” he said. I could sense the game dialogue which had taken over him, forming on his mangled tongue.
“I’m a man on a mission.”
In jerking movements, he turned and marched back towards the car, opening the door, and sliding into the front seat.
I remembered how to move, ducking to grab my phone, before something slammed into the back of my head—and I saw stars.
I didn’t remember hitting the floor, only the soft sound of her voice, a seductive murmur repeating NPC dialogue, and her kitten heel sticking into my spine, forcing me onto my face.
Misty. I was expecting her to get it over with. But when she dragged me to my feet, sticking the barrel of a gun into the flesh of my neck—I figured she was still playing the game.
Twisting around to meet her eyes, lifeless and empty, only filled with light from the device which had taken over half of her face, I felt sick to my stomach. This thing wasn’t a games console or a virtual reality headset.
It was an attempt at coercing and programming something you already don’t understand, to do something impossible.
I could see that in the way the things had visibly chewed and eaten through her flesh, devouring her from the inside and out. I could see what was left of the dress she had worn earlier, but something must have gone wrong with her too. Because Misty had thrown on another outfit over the top, a diamond necklace hanging from her neck.
I caught a thin river of red pooling down her right temple, trying to ignore the twitchy way she moved, just like a character. From the way Misty walked, stumbling, I already knew she was gone. My housemate had newly acquired strength, throwing me in the trunk of the car where three other hostages were, and slamming it shut on my attempts to reason with her. She didn’t tie me up or restrain me.
In the dim light I could just make out though passing streetlights, I could see the trunk opened from the inside. Which was too easy.
Still though, Jay was driving recklessly, and every time I tried to throw the damn thing open, I was knocked backwards, rolling into a screaming girl, who was bound by her hands and feet. It took me multiple attempts before I had the trunk open, freezing cold air blasting me in the face. I untied the other hostages, but when I told them to come with me, they just stared blankly at me, and continued begging for their lives—and it only took me glimpsing what was attached to their temples, a familiar writhing metal plate, for me to understand. They too were playing the game. This time, as NPC hostages.
I found myself gingerly touching the trembling metallic flesh of the girl's fingers bound in rope. It had a slimy consistency, and I swore, I felt something bite into me.
No way, I thought.
This thing was sentient, yes. But it wasn't living.
Listen, I wish I could tell you what it was like to jump out of a moving car, but I can’t.
I remember it as lunging out of the trunk, hitting the freezing cold air, before hitting the ground head first, neutron star collisions exploding in the backs of my eyes.
What I do remember is waking up on the side of the road. Hours later. The sky was bright blue, a scorching sun blinding me when I managed to force my eyes open.
The early morning rush hour flew by as normal, and I wondered how ignorant American people had to be to ignore someone knocked out on the side of the road.
It’s not like I was nowhere near civilization. There was a fucking Subway right next to me.
When I had gathered myself, I remembered I had no phone. I couldn’t go home in fear of running into my rogue housemates playing their own fucked up version of _____ in their head. My plan was to try and find my phone, get in contact with the stranger who blew the whistle on my friends being dangerous, and find them. They couldn’t be far., right? And even if they weren’t themselves… someone would be able to save them.
If someone could do this to them, surely they could reverse it.
I felt sick, tired, and I was starving.
So, with some loose cash I’d found in my pocket, I bought a Subway and a Coke.
The woman at the counter smiled widely at me. She leaned forward, with a wink. “Nice cosplay!”
Cosplay?
I didn’t understand what she meant until I swore I felt something… move its way up my pant leg. I ignored it, and it happened again, this time it felt like something was… biting.
A bug, maybe? I had been laying on the side of the road for around six hours.
When I went to the bathroom, though, I found myself staring at an all too familiar glint of silver creeping its way across my temple. Like it was sentient, parts of it sider webbed towards my ear while the rest writhed into my hairline.
I pulled up my pant leg again, and there it was, a fungus-like metal substance which had already formed in two solid metal masses on my knees. I remember grazing two fingers across the thing beginning its slow feast of my flesh. I remember trying to pull it off, hissing in pain when I risked ripping off my own skin with it. I remember shaking my head and being in denial, even when the lights dimmed above me, and the bathroom door in front of me became more of a shadow. When I strode back through the Subway store, I began to see slight flickers of light above each person, highlighting something not quite there yet.
I could see it already starting, beginning to take over my thoughts. Cars which sped past were suddenly highlighted, and at the corner of my eye, if I concentrated, the outline of a map was starting to appear. Even now, when the room is almost completely taken over by shadow, and my thoughts are half my own, and half not—when a metallic device is beginning to form over my eyes—I know if I hold on, this thing won’t take me. I have considered killing myself, but that wouldn’t… be right.
How could I kill myself when there is so much left to do?
This developer was right. I don’t even know where I can sign out. There’s what looks like the beginning of some kind of index when I look up, but it’s not… finished. I can still see entangled pieces of code struggling to load what I’m guessing was log out. Whatever this thing is, it’s taking over me. Fast. Like a fungus, like a virus, it will not stop until it’s dragged me into the game, until it's leeched itself onto me.
I can feel it happening right now. It's been slow.
Almost painfully slow.
But maybe that is the point. Maybe part of the game is to feel my own thoughts beginning to unravel in favor of something else entirely.
Fuck.
Time is going by…. Fast.
Five minutes ago… I was trying to get home. But I can’t remember where I live.
I can’t concentrate.
I can’t think straight.
I have a phone—but I don’t know how I got it. Did I steal it?
Every time I move, the slowly emerging map comes to life at the corner of my eye jerks with my movement. There is a car parked nearby.
I know it belongs to the man with a child.
But a confusing blur of light is highlighting it to be something of importance. Reality is crashing in front of me, replaced with contorting shapes and bursts of color I have to blink through.
I keep hearing... sirens.
Jay is messaging me.
On what, I'm not sure.
But I need to find him.
I’m sure one mission won’t hurt, right?

It's been over a year since the original 100 Great Albums post. Since December 2021, I've listened to 375 Rock albums in total (just for fun, I'm getting paid for this!). Looking back at the original albums, I noticed I have a few with only 1 or 2 listens, whereas now I always try to aim for 3 at the minimum. So as this is a good midpoint (as I plan on stopping at the 20th post), I decided to revisit these certified classic albums and maybe upgrade/downgrade the ratings after more listens. I'll continue to edit grades on other posts if my opinion changes on them later on, but the 100 list got so popular that I feel like it should be left unedited.
Here's the format: Album (year) original grade [orig. Listens] // NEW GRADE {additional listens}

1. Bob Dylan - Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963) B+ [2 listens] // A- {1 listen} More time to digest his lyrics only makes it better. Hard Rain, Blowin in the Wind and Masters of War are still the best here. He had the wisdom and poise of a 70+ year old man, as a 22 year old...
   
2. Bob Dylan - Bring It On Home (1965) A- [3 listens] // A+ {2 listens} I can't overemphasize how great side two is of this album is. The songs aren't as musical as side one, so the lyrics are center stage and Bob Dylan ALWAYS captivates your attention. The electric guitar side is even better than I originally thought, but man does the second side has some of his best songwriting.
   
3. The Beatles - Help! (1965) B+ [3 listens] // A- {1 listen} This is the album where I think they started making legit "respectable" music. The early Pop music they made before is nice, but it's not that fulfilling. The variety made this age very well: Hide Your Love Away, Ticket to Ride, Seen a Face, Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Help!, Yesterday. It doesn't help that every album that followed it is considered one of the greatest albums of all time, but at this point, it was head and shoulders their best.
   
4. Beatles - Rubber Soul (1965) A++ [5 listens] // A+ {4 listens} Highway 61 Revisited gets the credit as being the album to kick off the Rock renaissance of the 60s, but imo, the "album arms race" started with this one. Without it, the musical landscape isn't the same as the concept of an entire album of worthy material wouldn't have been as widely adopted. With the praise out of the way... it's pretty one note. A great Folk Rock album, but as it's often compared to other albums (cough Pet Sounds), it doesn't hold a candle to them.
   
5. The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour (1967) B+ [3 listens] // A {3 listens} This is fun, bro. No it's not a legendary album, hell, it's not really a fully formed one as it's really a soundtrack compilation album. But looking at all the songs, they're just fun. Even a half assed Beatles album is still incredible (no I haven't listened to Yellow Submarine, why do you ask?).
   
6. The Doors - Self-Titled (1967) A- [2 listens] // A++ {3 listens} Wow, this is why multiple listens are super important. Many of the songs I thought were "so so" are so much better compared to other Blues Rock I've heard so far. Ray Manzarek is a god on the keys and Jim Morrison is pretty magnificent on every song. It still feels dated, as it's not super complex in it's song structure (like in LA Woman), but every song is great. JUST short of a masterpiece.
   
7. The Who - Tommy (1969) B [1 listen] // D++ {1 listen} I was being generous on the original post, I really didn't like this album. After one more listen, I really hate it. The story is complete nonsense and the music really doesn't make up for it. But that's not why I hate it so much; it's the length. If you're gonna be a late 60's mess, be your flamboyant mess and get in & get out. But it's an overly long, drawn out, bore of an album. It's mind boggling that anyone would prefer this over Quadrophena. Pinball Wizard is a great song tho, but don't tell anyone I said that.
   
8. King Crimson - In The Court of the Crimson King (1969) A- [1 listen] // A {1 listen} listening to Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed made this album a better listen. That jazz prog rock, with a laid back feel instead of completely psychedelic. The rest of the album (outside the intro) was a better listen this time around with better context, as I remember being bored with much of it. Now that I'm familiar with early Prog Rock, this doesn't feel as foreign anymore.
   
9. The Beatles - Let It Be (1970) B+ [3 listens] // A {3 listens} yea, I'm a Beatles stan. Yea, it's probably the weakest Studio Era album. Yea, I enjoy the atmosphere of this album more than the music itself; as a last who-rah of a crumbling friendship that can only be held together by creating music, as that is where the only fun is still found amongst these guys. Do I like to pretend that Don't Let Me Down is apart of this album, so I can grade it higher? Also, yea.
   
10. David Bowie - Hunky Dory (1971) A+ [2 listens] // A {2 listens} this is Art Rock. Not being a glam/hard rock fusion makes it less heavy than its successor. It also suffers for not having multiple strong anthems to hold the entire thing. Changes, Life on Mars, Andy Warhol, Queen Bitch are all great songs, but I doubt any are in Bowie's top 5. The other songs don't hold up as much I remembered.
    
11. Carole King - Tapestry (1971) A- [2 listens] // A {2 listens} Joni Mitchell's Blue was the driving force this time around. That personal folk storytelling, with that lively piano yet cozy, warm atmosphere. With more listens, I don't really love the lyrical composition as I just love the tone of the thing. I can sit next to a warm fire (or on a window sill) and turn this on and relax. I understand what the genre of Soft Rock is going for now.
    
12. David Bowie - the Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972) A+ [2 listens] // Masterpiece {3 listens} Probably didn't give this one too much thought when grading it, as I think I just fell in love with a few songs on it and forgot about the rest. Listening to this front to back... it's flawless. I tried to find a song that wasn't good or that was kinda boring, but they're all perfect. I've listened to Ziggy Stardust and Starman COUNTLESS times in the past year, and will randomly get guitar riffs from random songs off this album to pop in my head. Of his 4 albums I've listened to, I still think Low is his best, as the atmosphere of that Side B is unmatched. But this album is what I'd consider objectively perfect, as every song is great. Easy masterpiece, and a great example of why sitting with an album is just as important as giving it a bunch of listens.
    
13. Queen - A Night at the Opera (1975) A- [2 listen] // A {2 listens} Fun stuff. I enjoyed the multiple vocalists being apart of it instead of only Mercury, made it feel like a "stage play" with a revolving cast. I think I might have been a bit to harsh on this one, as most of the album wasn't that memorable, with how amazing Bohemian Rhapsody is. I didn't understand what this album "was" with it's vaudeville style, but now, I see that it's this halfway point between the Hard Rock and the Prog Rock of the 70s, with that theatrical flair to make it standout. Definitely worth checking out.
    
14. Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (1977) B [2 listens] // A- {2 listens} In 1987, Rolling Stone listed this as the 2nd best album of the last 20 years (since 1967) only after Sgt. Pepper's and man, did that made it easy for me to view this as overrated. I think since listening to more Punk Rock that followed this, I start to see how much better they've done with this compared to others. The guitar playing actually changes throughout the song, Johnny Rotten is actually expressive and feels spontaneous, and the drumming is creative. But the real change in opinion is the guitar playing: the riffs on many of these songs are undeniably awesome, which gives Rotten so much to work on top of. My biggest gripe with Punk Rock is how repetitive some bands can be. Now after more listens to this, I can absolutely NOT say the same can be said about this album. It's varied and expressive; how Punk Rock should be.
    
15. Steely Dan - Aja (1977) A [1 listens] // A+ {1 listen} better than I remember. The jazz rock combo is really good, it really leans into the jazz instead of simply using it as an aesthetic. It's not Prog whatsoever, just jazz with traditional Rock instruments. Honestly, you can barely tell if this would considered Rock at all. You really got to like jazz to love this tho. It has that free flowing feel of that genre, from the instrumentation to the flow of the singer. Great album! I'm assuming Steely Dan is hated by the rock community because of this heavy leaning into jazz. Which is understandable, but that doesn't mean they don't make phenomenal music.
    
16. AC/DC - Highway to Hell (1979) B+ [2 listens] // B {1 listen} They haven't quite moved away from the Blues sound yet. Back in Black is a pure distillation of what Hard Rock should be as a stand alone genre, but they don't quite have that confidence in being that brash yet. Bon Scott does a lot of heavy lifting as Angus Young doesn't have that swagger in his solos yet. A lot of the songs aren't super great, but they at least still carry energy. Highway to Hell is a fantastic song, but the majority is just meddling around in this laid back blues style.
    
17. Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms (1985) B [1 listens] // B- {2 listens} I originally wrote this off as one that I "just didn't get", with how insanely commerically successful it is. Now after listening to their Self-Titled album, it actually becomes even more disappointing as you know how much more they're capable of. There's such a signature style on it and this throws all of it away in exchange of a 80s soft rock sound. Walk of Life and So Far Away are good tunes, due to the guitar hooks; everything else is just shallow.
    
18. Pixies - Doolittle (1989) A- [2 listens] // A+ {2 listens} Now, I view this band on the level of the Beatles or Velvet Underground as one of those influential bands that changed music. At the time, Doolittle was too weird for me, but with much more context from this era, this is just insanely great. Compared to Surfer Rosa, the versatility is on a different level. While it is great and varied, it's not exactly "great" in any one area, so I can see why the bands that were influenced by them are viewed as better, as their stuff would've been more focused in one style instead of all over the place. Great album, legendary band.
    
19. Alice in Chains - Dirt (1992) A [2 listens] // Masterpiece {4 listens} This album is a grower. Every time I listen to it, I like another song from it. The harmonies are God tier, the guitar riffs, God Tier, the choruses, God tier. Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell... peanut and jelly. I've given out 2 masterpieces to grunge albums (Nevermind and Ten), so what makes this different from those is that Dirt takes its time in developing songs. So many of these songs start slow and somber, and quickly turn aggressive and passionate! Gnarly riffs on one song, than a few minutes later, you're listening to soft vocals behind a rough, tortured voice. Not a bad song on here, hit after hit, I got to say it's a masterpiece.
    
20. Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral (1994) A [3 listens] // A+ {2 listen} the word "gritty" might get thrown around a ton by me, but I still haven't heard such a brutal, harsh sounding album while still having pristine production value. It's nasty and mean. Even in the slow moments, you can feel the pain, anger, or sadness in his voice. Compared to other stuff, it doesn't have that much replay value to it, as it's not exact what one would call "musical". But you got to call it what it is: art.
    
21. Green Day - Dookie (1994) A [2 listens] // A+ {1 listen} It's just good music. Yes, the ceiling isn't as high as it could be, but it's so enjoyable that it is always a fun listen. The album is on point from start to finish, it's one of those "if you like one, you like it all" love it or hate it kind of deals. From Burn Out to When I Come Around is just Pop Punk perfection; the backhalf doesn't hold up compared to the start, but it's all still very good.
    
22. Weezer - Self-Titled "The Blue Album" (1994) A- [1 listen] // A {2 listens} I only gave this one listen and only revisited it after listening to Pinkerton. Isn't not as dismissable as I originally remembered, as I only gave it one listen. It's more POP- punk thank pop-PUNK compared to Dookie, which led me to not care for it as much. And it's pretty good pop, with a punk style to give it some edge, I guess. I still like Pinkerton more than it, but it can definitely stand alone as a good album itself.
    
23. Oasis - Definitely Maybe (1994) A [2 listens] // A+ {2 listens} Liam Gallagher is really good... but Noel Gallagher is the truth, bro. That dude knows how to make a great song. They aren't super complex, but they're all have perfect execution. Mix in that Wall of Sound effect with the guitars, it makes this stand out even more from the overwhelming stacked albums of the 90s. The non-single tracks aren't as strong compared to (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, as that album is damn near perfect imo. Great debut album.
    
24. Radiohead - The Bends (1995) B+ [1 listen] // A {2 listens} If Radiohead didn't make this album, I highly doubt I would've listened to this. Which is a shame, because this is a really good album. On the flip side, being a Radiohead album also did more harm than good, as it gets massively overshadowed. I admittedly did a half assed listen to "get to the famous stuff". Fake Plastic Trees, the Bends, and Black Star are great songs. I've listened to Ok Computer so much that I come to think of it as their official "start" of their sound, when in reality, they set the stage on The Bends of what can be possible down the road. Also, they toured with Alanis Morissette with the album, so extra bonus points!
    
25. Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004) A- [2 listens] // A+ {2 listens} better than I remembered. I definitely thought it was borderline pretentious, with how the song structure is when I originally listened to it. Now, without that stigma, it's not THAT abstract and I've come to admire the creativeness of it. I always love when there's women vocalists, to mix up the sound and so many different instruments add even more to the variety. It always feels like a new listen, with how many things I'll forget to notice and remember again.
    
26. Lcd Soundsystem - Sound of Silver (2007) A- [1 listen] // A {2 listens} The first 4 songs are awesome; Get Innocuous with it's multirhythmic layering is my textbook PERFECT song, a 21st century "Remain in Light" homage. The rest just loses this energy and it's never found again. Compare the first track with the last one and it sounds like two different projects. I know you can call me a hypocrite with how much I love Remain in Light, but at least with that one, it's only the last song and not half of the album. Seriously tho, Get Innocuous is a top 10 song of all time
    
27. Tame Impala - Currents (2016) A- [1 listen] // B+ {1 listen} Didn't expect my feelings to decrease, but compared to Lonerism, this is so mid. The lack of a real "great" song (Rihanna's Same Old Mistakes clears) makes it tough to love. It is consistent though, so it's still a good listen; just not a memberable one.
    

Albums I revisited, but no change in opinion. I feel like with these, I need to explain/defend myself more than I did on the original reviews:

1. Beach Boys - Pet Sounds (1965) A+ [4 listens] // {3 listens} After listening to a good chunk of their discography, I've come to two conclusions on Pet Sounds: 1) This album is truly lightning in the bottle as they NEVER reach it's level of consistency in quality from track to track. 2) Baroque Pop, while groundbreaking, came and went as fast as it arrived, mainly due to how abstract it is compared to its successor, Psychedelic Rock. Beyond that, there are a few skips that are solely due to wild creative mind of Brian Wilson. As a musical genius, dare I say better than Lennon and McCartney, but as a songwriter? Not even close imo. Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's are all great albums, while Pet Sounds can be argued to be their only great album (Wild Honey is also a good listen). I know bringing up the Beatles can be annoying, but the Beatles made great "hit singles" with their song layout, while about only half of the tracks on Pet Sounds are what I'd consider a traditional song. That's probably why I don't think it's so amazing (I kinda feel the same about progressive Rock) as I tend to favor music with a concise structure; even as unoriginal the structure may be.
   
2. Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced? (1967) B+ [1 listen] // {1 listen} I can't get into it. The songwriting isn't there, especially compared to the stuff that would follow it. This is him at his rawest, but it's a reason why Medium Rare is the most commonly cooked steak.
   
3. The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed (1969) B+ [2 Listens] // {3 listens} Thought I would flip on this album, but surprisingly didn't change at all. I still think Gimme Shelter is the best Rolling Stones song and I still think You Can't Always Get What You Want is still a phenomenal album closer, but everything in between is pretty lackluster (besides Live With Me).
   
4. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon (1973) A [4 listens] // {1 listen} I do enjoy this album more now I know how other Progressive Rock bands sound like, but not enough to raise it a grade. I enjoy Time and the whole second side much more and the "emptiness" of the genre doesn't bother me as much. But the first half is still a little too abstract for my liking. However, I do see how people can view this as their GOAT album with how groundbreaking it's release was at the time and outside of only other Pink Floyd albums, there's nothing else in this genre that really matches the "entering another world" feel it creates.
   
5. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (1975) A [2 listens] // {1 listen} Similar thoughts to DSotM, but this one has the more catchy "songs" and partly why I love it more. Welcome to the Machine and Wish You Were Here are fantastic, but overall not enough meat for my liking.
   
6. The Ramones - Self-Titled (1976) B [2 listens] // {2 listens} I decided to give the Godfathers of Punk another try since I surprisingly came over to like the other Godfather, the Sex Pistols. And yeah... still isn't my thing. Way too one note, monotone singing, guitar takes over too much of the sound, etc. There are a few good hooks here and there, but you basically hear the entire song in the first 15 seconds. Everything I hate about Punk, stemmed from this album and made a lazier copy.
   
7. The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dreams (1993) A+ [2 listens] // {1 listen} apparently the Smashing Pumpkins aren't considered grunge? If that's the case, comparing them to a Noise Rock band like a Sonic Youth or a Faith No More, they don't they don't rock out as much as I'd like. Also, I don't like how a few of these songs sound similar to each other. Today and Hummer of course are all top tier songs, but it's just not as much of a comprehensive project as Mellon Collie. Yea, it's definitely not grunge, as it would be much harder if it was.
   
8. Radiohead - Ok Computer (1997) A++ [2 listens] // {4 listens} Close, but no cigar. The first 3 songs and the last 3 songs are PERFECT, it's the stuff in between that makes it fall just short. The run of Karma Police into Fitter Happier to Electioneering is also a great moment in the album. Honestly, it's just Exit Music being "okay" that really stops it from being considered a masterpiece in my eyes. Still one of the greatest albums of all time, but not perfect in my eyes. This album is my perfect barometer for an A++ grade; it's objectively a perfect, but on the subjective level, there's nothing that makes me "adore" it. I completely understand how anyone thinking an A++ album I graded is a masterpiece, as I have to personally love it that extra step for it to get to that level.
   
9. Radiohead - In Rainbows (2007) A++ [3 listens] // {3 listens A+/A+/A++} Let me end it on a positive review: I didn't really give a thorough listen to it at first, as I don't remember much from it. Over time, my opinion on it dropped as I truly didn't see why people find it so special as they do. Ok Computer easily has the better individual tracks, Kid A is easily the most experimental. After finally revisiting it, maybe because it's a great midway between the two, with a weird electronic-rock-jazz fusion. Feels like there's not a single wasted second; every beat and note is meticulous. It's more chilled and laid back, which threw me off on the repeat listens. The hodgepodge of electronic and experimental sounds, being used in this traditional lofi style instead of being a fast paced one, was the curve that made it hard to love it at first, but now I think that's what makes it unique in its execution. A LOT of these rhythms could have been large and bombastic, and I kinda admire it's restraint in remaining "down in Earth". Also the album cover is noteworthy, where it feels completely spontaneous, never fully knowing what to expect going in. Definitely deserves its high praise
   

Albums I also revisited, but no change in opinion. Don't have too much to add on these, but listed them as my grades are concrete on these compared to the ones I didn't choose to listen to:

1. The Velvet Underground & Niko - Self-Titled "The Banana Album" (1967) A+ // Venus in Furs maybe one of the greatest songs ever composed
   
2. Cream - Disraeli Gears (1967) A+ // It still holds up, so damn awesome
   
3. Bob Dylan - John Wesley Harding (1967) B+ // yeah, he's kinda rambling on this one
   
4. The Stooges - Fun House (1970) A- // it's "the Stooges", possibly their best
   
5. The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street (1972) B+ // Nope, still didn't love it, still a mess
   
6. Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1972) A++ // One I thought wouldn't have held up. I shall never question Sir Elton's greatness again
   
7. The Eagles - Hotel California (1975) B // Great start, gets worst as it goes on
   
8. Patti Smith - Horses (1975) A- // labeling this "Punk Rock" is a nicer way of calling this weird af
   
9. The Clash - London Calling (1979) Masterpiece // Not only is there not a bad song here, but every song is perfect. Not great... PERFECT
   
10. U2 - Joshua Tree (1987) B+ // I can't deny that there are some good songs on here, even if I'll never listen to it again
    
11. The Cure - Disintegration (1989) A // after 375 Rock albums, Plainsong is still the greatest opening track
    
12. U2 - Achtung Baby (1991) A- // you gotta admit Bono is pretty cool on this one
    
13. Nirvana - In Utero (1993) A // love the Bass guitar's tone on this one, rawer contrast to Nevermind. I'm glad I didn't grow up in the 90s, as this will always sound so new and fresh to me :)
    
14. System of a Down - Toxicity (2001) Masterpiece // Similar to Hybrid Theory, if this wasn't labeled as "Nu-metal" (and maybe didn't get so overplayed and copied), even the most pretentious critic couldn't deny how great this is
    
15. Green Day - American Idiot (2004) A+ // Feels almost like a different band, the songs are much more nuisanced in its lyrics and its musical structure. That transition from Holiday to Boulevard still gives me goosebumps, such a great song.
    
16. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever You Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006) A++ // a tour guide to the UK nightclubbing/pub scene, way better than it has any right to be honestly
    

Bonus: Ween - 12 Golden Country Greats (1996) A [4 listens B/A-/A-/A] Country is still a somewhat foreign genre for me and I've been kinda bored with the concept of it. But it's Ween, so they've fully earned my trust at this point so I'll give this a try. This style is more or less my biggest indifference with the genre: it's not heavy enough to be impactful as rock, yet not soft enough to be as intimate as Folk. It's in this inbetween grey area where it's just not super captivating for me. With that said, it's rarely has been the "so bad, I can't stand to listen to it" levels of boredom that it has been made out as. That signature tongue-in-cheek humor of Ween is here and it makes the project more enjoyable. With Ween, whether it's supposed to be satirical or serious, the quality of songwriting is always top tier, so it's very easy to take whatever they're doing with my full respect rather than viewing it as just a joke. Japanese Cowboy, Mister Richard Smoker, Powder Blue, Piss Up a Rope and You Were the Fool (the best one) are my favorites; but other than Fluffy, every song is a good time. What really sells this album in particular, is that none of these songs would sound out of place on one of their other Rock centric albums, which allows me to extend a lot more grace towards it. Pretty good listen. For what it is, it's pretty consistent, but there's of course better Ween albums out there.

Not every town is on the map.
"Daddy, I gotta pee."
Dale Thornton looked over his shoulder at his six-year-old son belted into the back seat of their Jeep Cherokee. As the boy squirmed around, Dale looked at his wife in the passenger seat beside him. "Didn't he just go?"
Carol glanced at her watch. "That was over an hour ago." She twisted to look into the back seat. "Can you hold it?"
In the rearview mirror, Dale saw Jesse shake his head. His wife checked her watch again. He could almost see the wheels turning inside her head. She was the family mediator, and she had just come up with something that made perfect sense. One of the reasons he loved her so much was her ability to change gears. In himself, Dale recognized his single-mindedness as a drawback. He admired her flexibility. In more ways than one, he thought. She was a good wife and a good mother.
"It's almost five," Carol said. "Let's stop at the next town. We can all use the restroom and get something to eat."
Dale tugged the spiral-bound road atlas down from where he had wedged it between the visor and the roof. They had left Tulsa that morning, headed for Mardi Gras, and he hoped to be in New Orleans by 10 p.m. Looking at the LOUISIANA page, his eyes traced the route he had highlighted in yellow. They had detoured down old U.S. 167. Rural America was disappearing and Dale wanted his son to see something of it before it was completely gone.
They were somewhere south of Ruston. He couldn't remember if they had passed Jonesboro or not, so the next town was either that or--if they'd already passed it--Winnfield. The gas gauge was on a quarter of a tank. They needed to stop anyway. "All right, honey," he said. "We'll take a break."
Carol laid a hand on his leg. "I'm glad we came this way. You can't see anything from the Interstate."
Ten miles later they sprang upon a small town. There was an old-fashioned, carved wooden sign posted beside the highway. Dale read out loud, "Welcome to Batesville. Population 875."
"What's that mean," Jesse asked.
Dale glanced at his son in the rearview mirror. "That's how many people live here."
"When somebody dies, do they change the number on the sign?"
Carol smiled over her shoulder at Jesse. "I bet they change it when a baby is born."
Just like her. She didn't like to talk about death or dying. Instead, she liked to focus on the good things in life, babies, birthdays, and family vacations. She had always been like that but more so since her grandfather passed away last year. She had been very close to him, closer than she had ever been to her father.
Dale sneaked a glance at her. She was his angel but an angel with dark secrets. She had shared some of those secrets with him but not all of them, probably because she knew the abuse in her life disturbed him so much. "That sign probably hasn't been changed in twenty years," he said.
"Why put it up if it's not right?" Jesse asked.
Good question. "I don't know, son."
As they got into the little town, Dale was impressed. The side streets that cut off of the highway were lined with neat wooden houses, most of them with white picket fences. A lot of the little towns they had passed through looked run down and dirty, but not this one. Batesville was clean and pretty.
When they came to the town's only traffic light, Dale saw a business on each corner: a hotel, a gas station, a restaurant, and the Batesville General Store. Before the light turned green, Dale pulled the Jeep beside the pumps at the gas station. A middle-aged man wearing oil stained coveralls stepped out from the office. "What can I do you for?" he asked. His tone was friendly, something you didn't hear at many gas stations these days.
Dale stepped out of the driver's seat and stretched. "I need a fill-up and some food." Then he jerked his thumb toward the back seat. "And my son needs to use the head."
The man wiped his hands on a rag he pulled out of his pocket. Then he shook Dale's hand. "Dudley Simpson. I can help you with the gas and the bathroom for your boy, but as for food, afraid all I got is potato chips and sodas." He pointed to the restaurant across the street. "Right over there is the best food in town." He laughed. "Only restaurant we got, but I wouldn't kid you. It's really good. Restroom's not too bad either."
Jesse said he could hold it until they got to the restaurant, so Dale sent him and Carol across the street to get a table. When he reached for the gas pump, Dudley Simpson stopped him. "I don't charge extra for full service. Every car comes through here I pump the gas, look under the hood, and check the tires."
"Don't see that too much anymore," Dale said.
"Guess I'm kind of old-fashioned."
After Dudley finished, Dale added a couple of bucks to the bill. He felt a little awkward, unsure if he could tip the owner of a gas station without insulting him. But Dudley took no offense, just said thank you and asked him to stop in again on their way home.
When Dale turned the key, nothing happened. He turned it again and still nothing happened. Just a click. No dash lights, the motor didn't turn over, nothing. Dudley told him to pop the hood again. After Dale turned the key a couple more times with Simpson's head buried under the hood, Dudley said he'd found the problem. "Alternator's shot. You must've been running on battery for a good while."
"Can you fix it?"
The gas station owner looked at his watch. "Not today. Parts store is closed 'till tomorrow."
Great, just great, Dale thought.
"I could arrange a tow to somewhere else, next town down the highway has a Goodyear Service Center," Dudley said, "but even they won't get to it until tomorrow."
Dale nodded, his mind stuck on having to spend the night in Batesville instead of New Orleans.
"I'll get to it first thing," Dudley said. "Have you out of here by ten o'clock." He pointed at the hotel. "Mrs. Jensen has a nice place. A-C, cable TV, and no bugs."
Great. No bugs.
Dudley told Dale that he could leave the Jeep right where it was. No need to worry about it, he said. They had a town marshal but nothing ever happened in Batesville. So quiet the state police never even came by.
"Sorry I'm blocking your pumps," Dale said.
Dudley shrugged. "Other side's open." Then he looked at his watch. "Besides, it's five-thirty. I close in half an hour."
As he crossed the street, Dale remembered his gun. A Smith and Wesson .357 revolver that he always brought with him on road trips. You never knew what could happen. They might break down on the highway and get attacked by a drug-crazed motorcycle gang. The gun was in the cargo compartment, wrapped inside a cloth and tucked between the spare tire and the side wall. It would be safe enough.
At the restaurant he told Carol the news and in typical Carol fashion she looked on the bright side. "It'll be fun being stranded in a small town," she said. "Who knows what'll happen?"
"Do they have TV?" Jesse asked.
A cute young waitress served them. The plastic tag pinned to her blouse said her name was April. When she brought out their food she set Jesse's down first.
"That's the cutest little mark on your face," she said. "Almost looks like lipstick."
Unabashedly, Jesse pointed to the red oval shaped birthmark set high on his right cheek. "It means I'm special."
She smiled. "It looks like a kiss."
"Really?" Jesse asked.
Dale saw a look of contentment on Carol's face. Jesse's birthmark was something she'd never wanted their son to be shy or embarrassed about.
The waitress set out the rest of the plates. "I heard a mark like that means that right before you were born an angel kissed you."
Jesse turned to his mom. "Is that true?"
Carol smiled at her son and nodded. "I think she may be right."
April bent down and kissed Jesse on the top of his head. "I'm not an angel, but there's a kiss from me."
Dudley Simpson had been right; the food was excellent. After they ate, Dale got up to use the bathroom. "You need to go again, Jess?"
The boy shook his head. "No thanks."
Dale handed Carol a credit card. "Let's save our cash."
She nodded. "All right, baby."
"Back in a sec," he said as he turned away.
***
When he came out of the men's room, Carol and Jesse weren't at the table. The waitress had been quick. Most of the dirty plates were gone; the only ones left were his. Dale looked for his family near the front door, then up by the cash register, but they weren't there.
Maybe Jesse had changed his mind and Carol had brought him into the bathroom with her. So Dale waited, but after several minutes passed and they didn't come out, he decided to check outside. They might have gotten cold or Jesse could've gotten restless and they were waiting out front for him. But they weren't out front, either.
Across the street the lights were out at the gas station--Dudley was closed for the night. The Jeep Cherokee sat at the pumps. Anxiously, Dale looked at the hotel. Maybe...but they wouldn't do that, wouldn't have gone without him. That wasn't like Carol. Smart and independent, but she liked her husband doing the man things, and in her mind, checking into a hotel was a man thing.
Back inside he knocked on the door of the women's restroom. No one answered, so he cracked it open. "Carol?" No answer. "Carol, Jess, you there?"
"Can I help you, sir?" It was their waitress.
Embarrassed, Dale forced a laugh. "I seem to have lost my wife and son." He nodded toward the men's room. "While I was in there."
"Your wife and son?" She looked confused.
"When I came back they were gone."
She had a blank look on her face.
Annoyed, he said, "I ate with them."
The waitress furrowed her brow. "Sir, I didn't see you with anyone else."
Dale stared at her. For a second he thought that maybe he was wrong, maybe this wasn't his waitress. He checked her name tag, saw it said April. "You waited on us." Dale pointed to his right cheek. "My son has that little birthmark. You said an angel kissed him."
She shrugged. "I think I'd remember that."
He pointed to himself. "You remember me?" Then at their table. "We were sitting right there."
She nodded. "Yes, sir. I remember you, but you ate by yourself." She turned to the table where Dale's dishes still sat. "I was just bringing you your bill."
He raised his voice. "Is this some kind of a joke?" People began looking at him.
April took a step back and raised her hands. "You need to talk to Mr. Simms."
"Who's Mr. Simms?"
"The owner."
"Well that's who I want to see."
Mr. Simms was already scurrying over. "What's the problem?"
Dale turned to him. "I can't find my family." He pointed at the girl. "She was our waitress and she's telling me she doesn't even remember them."
Mr. Simms looked at April.
She shrugged again. "I'm sorry but he was alone. I've never seen his family."
Simms looked like he didn't understand. April tried to explain it again, but Dale cut her off and pointed to the table. "My family and I ate right there. I went to the restroom, came out, and they were gone."
Mr. Simms clapped a hand on Dale's shoulder. "Maybe they're outside waiting for you."
"I've checked outside," he barked. "They're not there."
Simms glanced at the waitress. "Why don't you get back to work. I'll handle this."
Dale grabbed her by the arm. "She knows where they are."
Everyone in the restaurant stared at him.
Mr. Simms jerked Dale's hand away from the girl. "Sir, she said she doesn't know where your family is."
April pleaded with her boss. "He didn't have his family with him."
"She's lying!" Dale said, as he inched closer to April.
Simms stepped between them. Looking at Dale, he said, "Have you checked your car?"
He nodded. "It's broken down at the gas station across the street. We've got to spend the night at the hotel."
Mr. Simms smiled. "That's probably it."
"What?"
"I bet they're at the hotel."
"He was by himself," April said.
The restaurant owner snapped his head towards her and pointed to the dinning area. "Go."
She looked at her boss for a second, a half-formed protest on her lips; then suddenly she spun on her heel and stomped away.
Simms looked back at Dale. "Have you checked the hotel?"
"They wouldn't do that."
"Have you checked?" Insistent.
Dale could feel himself losing control as the sweat dripped from his armpits. He took several deep breaths, trying to force himself to calm down. "No, I haven't."
"Maybe your kids got tired."
The deep breathing had made him light-headed. "Just the one boy." As Dale turned toward the door, Simms patted him on the back. "I'm sure everything's going to be fine."
But things weren't fine. At the hotel, he woke up Mrs. Jensen. Turns out she and Mr. Jensen had an apartment behind the office. Dale had banged on the glass door of the office for five minutes before a light came on.
Mrs. Jensen had come out first. A white haired old lady, covered in a paper-thin pink housecoat, imprinted with blue flowers the size of a quarter. A minute later, Mr. Jensen, looking about seventy, dressed in a full set of dark green, silk pajamas and a pair of matching slippers, stumbled into the office, smelling like he'd taken a bath in Jack Daniel's.
Dale's heart sank. He went through the story anyway, but as he expected, the Jensens said that no one had checked in or even come by since mid-morning.
Walking back to the restaurant, he looked at his Jeep. Still empty and no one near it.
A marked police car was parked near the restaurant's front door. As he got closer, Dale read the decal on the side, BATESVILLE TOWN MARSHAL. Maybe now he could get some help.
Just inside, near the cash register, Dale found April the waitress, Mr. Simms, and a heavyset man in jeans and a T-shirt, talking. As he walked up, all three stopped and stared at him. He felt like a freak in a boardwalk exhibit.
"Did you find them?" Simms asked.
Dale shook his head. "The people at the hotel haven't seen them."
The big man in jeans took a step toward him. "Mr...?
"Thornton. Dale Thornton."
The man stuck out his hand. "Jerry Stillwell. I'm town marshal."
"Saw your car outside." Dale shook the marshal's hand. "My wife and son are miss--"
"I understand there was a problem here earlier."
"Yeah there's a problem. My family disappeared."
The marshal and Simms traded glances; then he looked back at Dale. "So I heard. What do you think happened to them?"
Something didn't feel right. "If I knew that, they wouldn't be missing."
Marshal Stillwell stuck his belly out. "No reason to get smart. You all ready scared some customers. Don't make--"
"Scared some customers. Is that why you're here, because I scared some customers? My wife and son are MISSING!" Everyone in the restaurant had stopped eating and was watching the soap opera at the door. With a sharp edge to his voice, Dale said, "What are you going to do about it?"
The marshal jabbed a finger at him. "You better calm yourself down or I'll do it for you. Now I need to ask you some questions," his eyes swept the customers, "and I don't think this is the place to do it."
"I'm not going anywhere." Dale pointed to the completely cleaned off table where they'd eaten. "Half an hour ago my family and I ate right there. Now they're gone. Someone in here knows what happened to them."
The marshal dropped a big hand on Dale's shoulder and tried to guide him out the door. "We're going to find your family, but not here, not like--"
Dale pulled away. He pointed to Simms and the waitress. "They coming with us?"
"I don't see the need for--"
Dale reached out for April. "She's lying!"
With surprising speed, the town marshal slipped behind him and clamped a meaty forearm around his throat, sealing off his windpipe. Dale grabbed at the hairy arm and tried to twist it away as the marshal whispered in his ear, "Take it easy, son." Then something jabbed him in the kidney that sent waves of pain shooting up his back.
Seconds later, Dale was on the floor, his cheek pressed against the cool tiles, as the marshal handcuffed his wrists behind his back.
***
"She said it was the kiss of an angel, huh?" Marshal Stillwell asked. Things had calmed down some. Dale and the town marshal were alone in his office. Dale was still handcuffed, but the marshal had moved them to the front. He sat in a chair in front of the lawman's desk, watching him fill out forms with a ballpoint pen. Stillwell touched his finger to his right cheek. "That mark you're talking about is right here?"
Dale nodded.
"That's strange."
The handcuffs were uncomfortable. Dale twisted his wrists, trying to get some circulation back. "What's unusual about it?"
"We had a preacher in town few years back with the same kind of mark on his face." Stillwell traced a small circle on his cheek. "Heard him say once during a sermon it was from an angel's kiss."
Dale stared at the marshal, his flesh suddenly crawling with goosebumps.
"But he was a strange one. Lots of rumors. Guess it goes with the territory."
"What territory?"
"Young, good-looking preacher. Single. Moves into town, starts preaching all hours of the night." He gave Dale a knowing wink, like they were sharing a secret. "Giving special counseling sessions to half the women in town."
Grasping at straws, looking for anything. Dale said, "Is he still here?"
Marshal Stillwell shook his head. "Church burned down."
"What about the preacher?"
"We never found his body."
"He was the only one in the church?"
Stillwell looked down at the form on his desk and pressed his pen to it. "He had six or eight ladies in there with him. Supposed to be some sort of social club. Fire was so hot, we couldn't tell one body from the next. That was when the rumors really started."
Dale flexed his fingers. His hands hurt. "What kind of rumors?"
The marshal laughed. "Just gossip. People 'round here are simple minded, superstitious, that's all."
"What kind of gossip?"
Stillwell looked up. "Not everybody you understand, but some people have been talking about how the preacher isn't really dead, about how he's gonna come back some day."
Dale needed to get out, to find Carol and Jesse. There was something terribly wrong here. "Am I under arrest?"
Stillwell nodded.
In the corner stood a single holding cell, the door gaping open, waiting. "What's the charge?"
The marshal jerked a thumb in the general direction of the restaurant. "Disturbing the peace."
"What about my family?"
The man tapped the pile of forms in front of him. "I'll forward these missing persons reports to the state police in the morning; then I'll call the judge and try to get a bond set for you."
Dale sprung to his feet. "I've got to find my family tonight!"
Marshal Stillwell eased out of his chair and stood up. "Just calm down. Soon as I get this information to them, the state troopers will be on the lookout." He jerked his thumb toward the south. "Their office is just five miles down the road."
Dale nodded at the phone on the desk. "Call them now."
The marshal shook his head. "Can't do that."
"Why not."
"I got procedures to follow."
Dale Thornton squatted and shoved the desk into Stillwell. The marshal's chair rolled back on its casters but snagged on something and tipped over, spilling Marshal Stillwell onto the floor. Dale scrambled over the desk, knocking papers, pens, and a near full cup of coffee on top of the lawman, then dropped a knee into the man's big belly. The marshal curled into a ball and moaned.
Stillwell didn't have a gun on him, at least not one Dale could find. The way he was dressed it looked like he had been called out from home. Maybe he forgot his gun, or maybe he just didn't carry one. Dale grabbed a handful of shirt and dragged the marshal into the open holding cell, then kicked the door shut. It locked automatically.
By the time Stillwell staggered to his feet Dale was searching his desk. The marshal tried to rip the steel bars apart with his bare hands. "Let me out of here, you crazy bastard!"
Dale ignored him. In the bottom right hand drawer he found a gun, a .38 caliber, five-shot Smith and Wesson. Stillwell started shouting for help. Dale leveled the gun at him. "Shut up."
Stillwell quit yelling.
Dale kept searching.
A few seconds later, the marshal said, "You'll never get away with this."
Holding his wrists up, Dale rattled the handcuffs. "Keys?"
The cop pointed to the desk. "Bottom left."
After he got the handcuffs off, Dale finished going through the desk, then did a quick search of a filing cabinet that was set against the wall. There he found keys to the holding cell and a roll of duct tape.
As Dale approached the cell, Marshal Stillwell backed against the far wall. "What are you gonna do?"
Aiming the revolver at Stillwell's belly, Dale ordered him to lie on the floor. A few minutes later he relocked the cell door, leaving the marshal with his hands cuffed behind his back and a strip of silver duct tape wrapped around his head that sealed his mouth shut. On his way out of the marshal's office, Dale tossed the revolver back into the desk drawer and kicked it shut. That was trouble he didn't need.
The state police. "Their office is just five miles down the road," the marshal had said.
Darkness had settled over the Batesville. How long had he been in the marshal's office? Everything in town was closed and locked up tight. There wasn't a light to be seen, and not a soul on the street. He didn't see any payphones.
He had to get out of town. Which way had the marshal pointed when he mentioned the state police? Thinking about it, Dale decided it had to be south. They'd driven in from the north and he was sure they hadn't passed a state police troop.
The night had turned cold. If he was going to walk for five miles he needed a jacket.
It took just a few minutes to make it to the gas station. His Jeep was right where he'd left it, but when he reached into his pocket for the keys they weren't there. An image flashed through his mind. A close up shot just like in a movie. His hand reaching toward Dudley Simpson's, and in his hand, his keys.
Damn!
He looked into the rear window, saw their luggage lying in the back. Dale thought about breaking the window and getting a jacket, maybe his gun, too. Not the gun. He was in enough trouble all ready for what he'd done to the town marshal. Assault, kidnapping--maybe not kidnapping, he hadn't taken him anywhere, just locked him in his own cell--but something like kidnapping. Desperation had driven him to it. That's the only reason he had done it. Because he had to find Carol and Jesse.
He could make it without a jacket.
Old Highway 167 south. Dale Thornton started walking. Ten minutes later he saw headlights behind him, coming from town. He crouched in the bushes beside the highway, but the beat-up pickup glided to a stop next to him. An old man sat behind the wheel, alone in the truck. "You need a ride?"
Feeling like a complete fool, Dale stood. "Yeah, I guess."
"Where you headed?"
"You know where the state police office is?"
The old man nodded, then jerked his head toward the passenger side. "Hop in."
As he climbed into the pickup truck, Dale shot a glance at the old man. Probably at least seventy, with long ghost white hair and a bushy mustache, wearing a stained undershirt and a pair of denim overalls. Dale scanned the dashboard for a clock but didn't see one. "What time is it?"
The old man shrugged. "Haven't worn a watch in thirty years. Do things as quick as I can. A timepiece strapped to my wrist ain't gonna make me move any faster."
The drive was torture. Never did the old man go over thirty-five miles an hour. Only good thing was that he didn't ask any questions. Just dropped Dale off in the parking lot of the state police troop. As he walked through the door into the police station, Dale glanced over his shoulder and saw the old man's pickup rumbling down the highway.
Inside, sitting behind a chest high counter, was a uniformed trooper, sergeant stripes on his sleeves. Mid-40's, with an iron gray crew cut. "Can I help you, sir?" the sergeant said.
Dale spat out the story as fast as he could, leaving out the part about how he'd handcuffed the town marshal and left him gagged in his own jail cell.
The sergeant's face had remained inscrutable while Dale talked. "What was the name of that town again, sir?"
"Batesville."
The sergeant wheeled his chair over to a map hanging on the wall. "And where'd you say it was?"
The state cop demonstrated the same bureaucrat mentality as the town marshal. Any minute now he'd break out a sheaf of forms and start filling them out. Dale pointed north. "Five miles that way."
"What'd you say your name was again?" The sergeant glided the chair back over to his work area and pulled a pen from his shirt pocket.
"Thornton. Dale Thornton."
As soon as the sergeant finished jotting Dale's name on a pad, he looked up. "There's no town named Batesville."
"I was just there!"
The sergeant stood up. "Take it easy, sir. I'm sure you just got the name mixed up."
Just like in the restaurant.
"...get to the bottom of it." The desk sergeant was still talking, but Dale hadn't heard everything. He felt dizzy. Was everyone around here crazy? "We ate dinner there," he mumbled. "I left my car at the gas station. Dudley Simpson's gas station."
The sergeant nodded as he walked around the counter. A big man, at least six feet, with the beefy build of a weightlifter. "I know Simpson's place. Old 167 and Highway 90. But there's no town there, just the gas station."
"The gas station's smack in the middle of the town. There's a restaurant, a general store, and a hotel, too."
The sergeant closed on him, his body bladed, his gun side away from Dale. "I need you to put your hands on the counter, sir."
"What?"
With his right hand resting on his holstered pistol, the state trooper took hold of Dale's wrist with his left hand and pushed it to the top of the counter. Dale's other hand followed. The sergeant said, "Pull you feet back."
"What are you doing?"
"You have any weapons on you?"
"No! Of course not." Glad he'd left the marshal's gun, glad he hadn't gotten his own out of the Jeep.
"I'm just gonna pat you down."
"Why?" Dale said. "I haven't done anything. My family's missing?"
The sergeant slid his hands over Dale's waist and the outside of his pockets. "It's for safety, sir."
"Whose?"
"Yours and mine," the trooper sergeant said as he stepped backward a few feet.
"Something's happened to my wife and son. I came here for help."
"What happened to them?"
"I don't know," Dale said. "That's why I need your help."
"Mr. Thornton, I've worked this area for nineteen years. There is no town called Batesville."
"I don't care what you call it, but there's a town five miles away and we need to go there right now."
"Closest town is twelve miles from here and it's south."
The gas station. At least the sergeant knew about the gas station. Dale looked over his shoulder at the big cop. "Can I stand up?" After getting a nod, Dale pushed away from the counter and stood straight. Arguing wasn't getting him anywhere. "Look sergeant, maybe I seem a bit confused, but I know my wife and 6-year-old son are missing. Our car broke down at Simpson's gas station. Can you drive me there and help me look for them?"
The sergeant took his hand off his pistol and relaxed a little. "How'd you get here?"
"An old man in a pickup gave me a ride."
"You get his name?"
Dale's mouth opened but nothing came out as he realized he couldn't remember a thing about the old man or his truck. No details at all.
"What's the matter?"
Dale shook his head. "He...he just gave me a ride. I didn't get his name."
The trooper sergeant held up his hand. "Stay right here. Soon as I get someone to cover the desk, I'll give you a ride back to Simpson's."
Ten minutes later Dale climbed into the passenger seat of the state police car. The sergeant looked over at him. "Put your seatbelt on." Dale strapped himself in but noticed the sergeant didn't.
On the highway the trooper asked him to go over the story again. As Dale repeated what had happened, the sergeant asked several questions about Simpson's: what time of day, what was wrong with the car, who had the keys; but he asked nothing about what happened in the restaurant. The restaurant that wasn't there, according to the sergeant.
A few minutes later the police cruiser's headlights lit up the darkened gas station and Dale's Jeep parked at the pumps.
There was nothing else--absolutely nothing else.
The sergeant slowed down as he turned into the parking lot. "That your Cherokee?"
Stunned, Dale couldn't answer. Staring out the window, struck dumb by what he saw, or didn't see. No restaurant, no hotel, no Batesville General Store--no town. Just empty farmland and a few trees surrounding the gas station.
The trooper pulled his car up behind the Jeep, leaving a car-length gap between the two of them. "Stay here," he said as he pulled a flashlight from a charger mounted to the dash.
Dale leaned his head against the window and watched the sergeant creep up to the driver's door of his Jeep Cherokee, flashlight held out in front of him, his other hand on the butt of his pistol. The state cop opened the door--the locked door--and poked his head inside the passenger compartment of Dale's Jeep. The trooper backed out and held up his hand, Dale's keys dangling from his fingers. "Keys were inside," he shouted.
With legs quivering, Dale stepped out of the police car. He couldn't understand this. The Jeep had been locked, Dudley Simpson had the keys. He stumbled toward the trooper.
The sergeant shined his flashlight into the back, into the cargo compartment. Suddenly, his face turned to stone. He dropped the keys, drew his gun, aimed both it and his flashlight at Dale. "Don't move!"
Dale stopped dead. What the hell was...
"Get on the ground!"
Not comprehending, Dale just stood there.
The trooper screamed at him, "Get on the fucking ground--now."
Dale Thornton dropped face down onto the pavement. From the corner of his eye, he saw the sergeant side-stepping around him until he was behind Dale and to his left.
The trooper said, "Turn your head to the right."
Dale did as he was told. Then the sergeant closed in and cuffed his hands behind his back. Just the second time in his life Dale had been handcuffed, both on the same night.
After backing up a few steps, the sergeant keyed the radio clipped to his belt and called the state police troop. When the dispatcher answered, the sergeant said, "I need back up units," Dale heard him take a deep breath, "and notify the corner."
The tinny voice from the radio said, "What you got, sergeant?"
"Homicide," the trooper answered. "Suspect is in custody."
Homicide?
The sergeant hooked Dale's elbows and jerked him to his feet, then picked up the keys and opened the tailgate of the Jeep.
Lying in the back, in the cargo space, arms and legs twisted into a torturous configuration, was the naked body of his wife, Carol. At the back of her head, her golden hair was tangled and caked with dried blood. Her face chalk white, her forehead blown out where the bullet had exited. On the carpet next to her was a .357 revolver--Dale's .357 revolver.
She was alone.
"Jesse!" Dale screamed at the dark and empty fields.
***
In 1885 the town of Batesville, Louisiana burned to the ground. Scores of people were killed in the predawn fire that swept through the town. Among those reported killed in the blaze was the town's only minister, but many bodies were so badly burned that positive identification was impossible.
The fire started in the Batesville church and was allegedly set by a preacher from a nearby town. The preacher, a God-fearing and righteous man, was said to have been outraged at the evil deeds going on in Batesville, which he had called a modern-day Sodom.
The town of Batesville was never rebuilt.
THE END

This is the ULTIMATE Sim Racing Mistakes List. If you want to become the best racing driver you can be, this is for you. If you just want to have fun and don’t care about your sim racing performance, then skip it without going to the comment sections saying "I just wanna have fun" lol. Some things are just not going to be easy to solve so get ready to get out of your comfort zone.
Ready? Ok, let’s go.
1- DO NOT use the ideal racing line! This completely fucks up your vision technique and you create terrible habits. Train your eyes and learn how to scan the track!
2- Do NOT use Driving Assists! Should I really explain this one?
3- Do NOT use the Chase camera. Onboard cameras like hood, bumper or cockpit view will be much better for performance and precision.
4- Look forward! Try to aim where you want your car to go. Scan the track, don’t just keep looking right in front of your hood. Your eyes have to be looking to the next target every second. Ever heard of Guitar Hero? The good players look at the notes as high as possible, as soon as they show up on the screen!
5- Don’t get right away in a race without practicing! Learn the track and be consistent before racing to make sure you improve as a driver in the future and prevent getting bad habits!
6- Don’t turn graphics up if you can’t keep your FPS high! High FPS is essential, and if you’re stuck with 60hz, turn V-Sync off to minimize input lag.
7- Don’t get used to a wrong posture just because you started with it first and it feels natural! Make sure your seating position is proper to prevent getting hurt in the future!
8- You’re not making sure you’re using ALL the track. When I say ALL the track, I mean AAAAAALL the track. To the centimeter! You may think you are but you are NOT. Align the white lines or grass to something in cockpit view to improve your track usage consistency.
9- STOP changing your line or angle expecting the car to behave exactly the same way! Find a line, align the car with the entry kerb or something and DO THAT lap after lap!
10- STOP Braking Randomly! Find braking references to the meter and brake there lap after lap!
11- Stop holding your breath while driving into corners! This makes you tense up more than necessary and your driving will be worse. Try to breathe normally while driving. Depending on how bad your habit of tensing up is, you should be slower for a few days until you get used to it.
12- Stop releasing the brakes quickly from full pressure to zero! You’re just popping up the front tires and understeering terribly, and you’re losing many seconds per lap because of this. Learn how to trail brake!
12 - STOP STRANGLING THE STEERING WHEEL! You’ll hurt yourself and have a much less fun experience driving. Instead, use the Light Hands Technique and feel what the car wants from you.
13- Stop doing blind laps! Just doing 500 laps without analyzing your driving is the easiest way to become a terrible driver. If you only believe in talent and nothing else, you might be creating bad habits that you’ll carry forever in your driving. FIND THE INEFFICIENCIES!
14- Stop applying the brakes too slowly. There are places to be smooth, but brake application should not be slow. You should take no more than half a second between initial application and peak pressure.
15- You’re using the wrong settings because you were lazy to research the right ones! Take some time to make sure everything is perfect, and that includes steering range, linearity of the pedals, deadzones, calibration, force feedback!
16- You’re using the wrong Field of View. Use a FOV Calculator and find your ideal one. You can increase it a bit, like 10% more, but keep it close to the ideal to be more precise, even if it feels a little bit too slow!
17- Stop keeping the steering fixed while turning into the corner! You should only keep the steering fixed if your speed is fixed, and this is very rare in motor racing! You should almost always increase your steering on corner entry and decrease your steering on corner exit, continuously!
18- KEEP THE HEEL OFF THE PLATE WHILE BRAKING! Unless you’re driving with an extremely light brake pedal, you should feel the pressure on the ball of your foot, and it should naturally lift your heel just a little bit!
19- STOP turning in with 100% brakes and relying on ABS. Learn how to control the brakes with finesse. Drive cars with ABS as if they didn’t have them.
20 -Stop looking directly at other cars while racing! Your peripheral vision is good enough to know they’re there. Keep looking for useful places on the track to know where you are.
21- Stop giving way too much space when fighting for position. This makes your pass actually more dangerous as you will most likely run wide on the exit and hit your fellow competitor.
22- DO NOT downshift randomly! Pay attention to the timing of your downshifts, they’ll play an essential role in the car balance on all stages of the corner, and have an impact even on exit, of course!
23- Stop practicing if you’re tired! If you’re plateauing and not improving at all, don’t let the frustration consume you. Take a break, watch a team mate driving, get up, stretch, have some sleep!
24- Don’t turn in fast while trail braking. Your front tires don’t have infinite grip! If you’re braking, turn-in slowly. If you’re coasting, changing direction, or accelerating, turn in fast.
25- Do not drive alone all the time! Try to compare your driving with teammates, help them improve and let them help you improve. This is a win-win for everyone.
26- If you go off-track, PLEASE don’t try to desperately come back on track. If you keep turning too much back to the inside, you’ll spin right away!
27- Stop releasing the brakes in a High Downforce car consistently! You should release it slowly on a straight line as you lose downforce, but then more quickly as you turn in, so your braking trace should have TWO lines, the second one being steeper!
28- Stop releasing the brakes too much on a straight line in a low downforce car! You should keep your brakes fairly flat on the same pressure, so release no more than 10% in that phase! Start actually releasing the brakes only when you start turning in!
29- Stop driving the same way in cambered or off-cambered corners! If there’s more grip, you should force the car more, if there’s a hill, or a crest, or off-camber, you should ask for less rotation, less deceleration, less acceleration!
30- Don’t coast. Having no brakes and no throttle should be a rare situation. For 99% of the cars, you should be trailbraking until you get back on power to get proper rotation and be able to brake later.
31- Stop driving purely through understeer. This means you’re not properly using the rear grip and carrying less speed through all corners. Rotate that thing!
32- Stop relying only on steering to rotate the car! Make sure you’re also consciously using engine braking and trail braking as tools for rotation!
33- Please don’t change your line if you’re the slower car in a multiclass being overtaken by a faster class. Let them do the job and prevent crashes!
34- Don’t forget to practice your pit entries! This can save previous seconds and penalties in endurance events!
35- Stop being under the limit for the sake of consistency. You’re in a simulator, if you’re practicing, abuse the car as much as possible. You’ll learn when sliding. You will NOT learn when not sliding.
36- Stop getting on half-throttle and understeering like a pig mid corner. Find the traction limit and stay there, so you keep the rotation where it was before!
37- Stop trying to gain rotation on throttle! This is one of the most dangerous ways to spin. You’re probably doing it because the car is understeering on entry and you’re compensating that. What about making the car rotate more on entry in the first place?
38- Do not turn in slowly in flat-out corners! You should turn in slowly if you’re braking, but much more quickly when accelerating!
39- Stop changing the car setup to solve your bad habits. Try to correct the balance of the car through driving inputs before you make changes. This will help you be more liked by your teammates in endurance events.
40- Don’t increase the brake pressure mid-corner too much! Although in some cases, you have to do it to compensate for a mistake on corner entry, trying to gain rotation on the brakes mid-corner should be avoided. Use it as a sign that you made something wrong on turn-in. The perfect line has your brake trace going DOWN and only DOWN all the way to the apex.
41- Applying the brakes too fast while coming from another corner. If you start braking as fast as if you were in a straight line but with the car completely unloaded on one side, you’ll instantly lock up the unloaded side or get into ABS and unsettle the car.
42- DO NOT go straight in between compound corners! If you’re sacrificing the line of a corner to improve the next one, use the lateral grip in every inch in between to improve your exit speeds!
43- Stop using the throttle on corner entry! Only a few cars with open-differential require maintenance throttle to control the balance. In most cars, braking and accelerating are like asking them to do opposite things at the same time. And the result is a lazy and unresponsive car.
44- Do NOT turn the steering linearly on corner entry in Low Downforce cars. If the car is low downforce, it’ll have V-shaped lines, which means your steering trace should be progressive and exponential, not linear.
45- Stop relaxing and hesitating after turn-in oversteer, which makes you under the limit for a fraction of a second before you turn-in again mid-corner. Try to make micro-corrections on entry but immediately come back to using the rears, so you keep them busy at all stages of the corner!
46- Stop correcting oversteer with Active Countersteer, where you’re actively turning towards the outside. Let the force feedback do the correction for you!
47- Stop braking the same way in elevation changes! If the track is going up into a compression, sometimes you can brake up to 20% more, and if the track is going over a hill, sometimes you should brake even 50% less!
48- Stop doing the same lines in double-apexes in cars with different downforce levels! If the car is high-downforce, the distance between the apexes should be smaller, and if the car is low-downforce, the distance should be much bigger!
49- When accelerating, make sure you time the speed of the first vertical application to the traction limit from corner to corner. If the corner tends to be oversteery on exit, apply it a little bit slower, like over three tenths of a second, but if the corner tends to be understeery on exit, apply the throttle more quickly, like over one tenth of a second, to keep the car rotating!
50- When correcting oversteer on entry, focus on inducing understeer with the brake release by letting the rotation of the car be a trigger for your brake release. This will make sure your front tires are busy and optimal at all times while you manage the rear tires and oversteer with your pedal release!
If you want to be a good driver, write down the ones that you identified with, then put them to practice. You won’t magically improve, so get your shit together and be disciplined.
A bit of advertising on my coaching work: I have complete and detailed lessons ready to go on my online course, The Motor Racing Checklist. They cover all of these tips in-depth. The course has 1750 participants so far with incredible feedback from drivers of all levels. I’m also writing a book version of The Motor Racing Checklist that is being developed for years and is in its final publishing process with the editor.
If you have any question, leave a comment and I’ll respond as soon as possible!
Remember to have fun on track ;)
Suellio Almeida Racing Driver, Coach, Content Creator

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/lfg/comments/13gfsqa/online5eetutc4_the_stranger_cosmic_horro (graciously reviewed and approved by the subreddit mods)This is Post (3/4), we're posting this four weeks in a row before making final picks.
Preface
This is a long post - crazy long even. That's because we care so much to find those just as impassioned as we are about this amazing hobby. We love high quality D&D campaigns, and we believe it takes effort and time to make it happen. If you take the effort to get through learning about us in this post, reading every word with care and interest, we will do the same with your application.
Our commitments:

• We will respond personally to each and every application, giving constructive feedback and/or move you to the next stage!

How to Apply

• Application Link: https://www.avarra.world
• Promo Video: https://youtu.be/RbfQWegafX8
• Sample session: https://youtu.be/FDNHxkNXM5Y?t=13120 (We're doing something new for the next campaign, and while not quite full-effort, this is a closer example of what we're going for)
• Ask a question about the lore or world in the comments! And we'll respond in character (from one of our many current character). Thumbs us up or down this post, interact to help us be visible!
• The rest are provided after application has been submitted.
• Need to get in touch privately? My discord is Wes#8045.

World Preface

In the enchanted realm of Avarra, where high magic weaves its intricate web through the fabric of existence, a burgeoning form of sorcery takes root. Secluded on the island city of Crowperch, the pursuit and mastery of void magic are richly rewarded, enticing arcanists from the farthest reaches of the world to unravel its mysteries. Yet, the enigmatic allure of Crowperch extends beyond the arcane; a diverse tapestry of industry, history, and craftsmanship entwines the island's very essence.
Beneath the surface, the island's riches reveal themselves: the mines and quarries, abundant with untapped potential, and the surrounding seas, offering bounties from the ocean's depths. Ancient archaeological sites whisper secrets of bygone eras, while artisans ply their remarkable skills on the bustling city streets. Tales of a long-forgotten, rumored treasure continue to captivate the imaginations of adventurers and sightseers alike.
But one must pay a steep price for this wealth of opportunity and intrigue. It is wise to avert one's gaze from the iron grip of autocratic rule and the unyielding scrutiny that looms over the island's denizens. For those who venture to Crowperch, a single obligation remains: seek your heart's desire, and then depart – for the island's enigmatic embrace is not meant to last forever.

Application Overview
In this sacred fellowship, we stand steadfast in the face of the dreaded D&D group killers. Our commitment to this game is unwavering, for it is not just a hobby, but a way of life - an appointment that must be kept at all costs. For us, the work does not end with character creation or worldbuilding. Nay, we strive for a deep understanding of each character, for their hopes and dreams, their fears and flaws, so that we may weave a complex and enthralling campaign that will leave you breathless. We implore you, dear adventurer, to show up regularly and with a burning passion in your heart. Let your excitement be infectious, let your dedication be unwavering.
Overview

• Game Day: Saturday
• Players: 6 (5 Regular, 0-1 Floating/Guest)
• DM(s): 2 (1 Regular, 0-1 Floating/Guest)
• Game Length: 3 Months mini-arc, then decide whether to continue. However accommodate for 1-2 years on your schedule.
• Start Date: First week of September (Yes, 5 months away)

Selection Criteria (In order of importance)

• Qualification: TTRPG Experience, RP/Improv Ability
• Questionnaire answers
• Participation in One-Shots & Community so we can get to know you.

Investment
This campaign is getting some big investment. All players will get custom commissions of their characters, animated. Additionally, we are commissioning all maps, tokens, flairs, and elements to make this truly something special.
Campaign Preface

As twilight descended upon the restless sea, the ancient ship, Her Royal Rose, creaked under the weight of its cargo. Its passengers, a motley assortment of scholars, fisherman, guard and others with business on the island of Crowperch, sit tightly in cramped quarters. Even as the tempestuous winds moaned through crevasse and open windows, the opportunities and tasks that beckon them to the island keep them going, a siren's call that drowned out the ocean's roar.
The skies above were an oppressive tapestry of writhing clouds, their tendrils suffocating the last vestiges of daylight as if to obscure the path to the island. A shroud of mist swallowed the horizon, leaving the ship to navigate through a nebulous labyrinth, its destination only guaranteed by Captain Alaric Thorne.
As Her Royal Rose inched closer to Sove, the air grew heavy with mist and sea salt which deposited itself gradually on the railings, sails and masts. Little Henry Williams, the ship's messenger runs throughout the halls pattering on each door, "The captain has an announcement, all to the deck. The captain has an announcement, all to the deck." The clacking of his wooden foot pattering one after another with each step, a disfigurement he earned while working aboard Her Royal Rose.
Captain Alaric Thorne stood on the deck, the salty wind tugging at his weathered features. His voice rang out, its timbre heavy with authority and unease, as he addressed the gathered passengers.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I must bring to your attention an unfortunate turn of events. It seems the Saturation has arrived earlier than anticipated this year. As many of you know, this phenomenon causes an unnaturally heavy accumulation of salt in the air, resulting in deposits that weigh down our vessel."
He paused, letting the gravity of the situation settle upon his passengers before continuing, "This unexpected occurrence has forced us to halt our usual schedule, for the safety of both the ship and her passengers. Once Her Royal Rose arrives, she will remain anchored at Sove until the Saturation clears, as navigating these treacherous waters under such conditions would be inviting disaster."
A murmur of concern rippled through the crowd, many who were on this voyage planned their departure prior to The Saturation. The captain raised his hand to quell their rising unease. "I understand this may cause you some inconvenience, but I assure you, we will resume our journey as soon as it is safe to do so. In the meantime, you may continue your research, tasks and exploration on the island. Sove is well stocked and very hospitable to travelers especially those displaced during our seasonal shifts."
With that, Captain Thorne turned away, leaving the passengers to ponder the implications of his words as the first tendrils of salt-laden mist began to coil around the ship, heralding the arrival of the Saturation.
In the dimly lit corners of their minds, the passengers could sense a truth they dared not confront: Their voyage to Crowperch was going to be a lot longer than they had hoped. As the ship drew nearer to the island, the shadows beneath the spires of the fortress atop the mountain loomed over the ship, casting a shadow over what little moonlight illuminated the darkness.

Technology

• D&D Beyond: We own ALL books on D&D Beyond, and all of them will be at your disposal for your campaign.
• Owlbear Rodeo 2.0: This new VTT is extremely promising, and has the customization ability for us to do VERY interesting unique things. We're switching here from Roll20.
• Discord: Voice chat & messenger for our campaigns. Video is required, however is not recorded. Offline RP included!
• Obsidian: How players track the world's expanding lore, and how we the DM's keep track of things. You don't have to use this, but it's a highly recommended tool for note taking.
• Recorded Sessions: Sessions will be recorded, edited and posted online. Proceeds from monetization will be used to level up our recording, roleplaying, technology and setup, get commissions, maps and such. Players will not be paid for participation, however this is possible for the future if we grow. Sessions are recorded using OBS.

Monetization
So we are still small, so monetization isn’t at the top of our list. That said, our goal is to

1. Play Excellent D&D
2. Donate to charity
3. Re-invest to make better content and
4. Compensate players to allow them to play more D&D.

How specifically that all happens is still obscured by the mists of time. By participating in this campaign players release all intellectual property created for the campaign to Roll for Impact and related brands. Please note that this is meaningless while we're still small, but consider this hopeful thinking for our success. The next campaign is getting SO much effort, so we want to stay safe.
Campaign Rules

• Backstory: Crafting a compelling backstory for your character is essential for a great adventure. By providing a reason for your character to be adventuring with others and offering plot hooks for the DM to work with. Rather than focusing on build concepts, take this opportunity to create a real, relatable character. Who knows what unexpected twists and turns your backstory might bring to the campaign? So, let's get to writing - your character's fate is in your hands!
• Stats: Ah, stats - the bread and butter of any adventurer's character sheet. But let's face it, nobody likes a Mary Sue or a Jim The Commoner. That's why we're going to be rolling 4d6 drop the lowest, but with a twist! Each player will only generate one stat, which will then be compiled into one array for everyone to use. That way, you still get the fun of rolling, but we won't have any lopsided parties where one person is carrying the whole team. Because let's be real, nobody wants to be stuck playing the equivalent of a wet noodle while someone else is shooting laser beams out of their eyes. So, roll those dice and let fate decide your fate!
• Starting Level: Starting our campaign at level 3 makes sense because many classes get their major features at level 3, avoiding the issue of players missing out on the fun stuff. This also prevents weird mid-game transformations that can come from certain builds and allows for multiclass combos right out of the gate. So, let's start the adventure with confidence and balance, knowing that we've got all the good stuff from the get-go!

Homebrew

• Free Feat: We're giving you an extra feat at first level, but with a catch - it must tie into your backstory or character design in a compelling way. By doing this, we hope to reduce the cookie-cutter nature of low level characters and encourage backstory development. Rather than just taking a feat because you need it, we want you to create a unique and interesting character from the get-go. So, let's spice things up and see what kind of story you can bring to the table!
• Healing Potions: Get the max benefit as an action, or use a bonus action to get the rolled benefit.
• Flanking: Flanking now grants a +2 to hit instead of advantage, and you can't flank someone if you're being flanked yourself. But that's not all - if three or more combatants are flanking a single enemy, that enemy is officially Surrounded, and you get a +5 to melee weapon attacks. So, let's get out there and show those enemies what it means to be surrounded by a bunch of hyped-up adventurers! (But remember, enemies get the same benefit too.)
• Zero HP & Exhaustion: Everyone takes the homebrew feat Battle Fatigue. This homebrew rule makes repeated downs more punishing on players in a campaign. You may be downed (Con Modifier) times before receiving one point of exhaustion. Each time this ticker fills up, reset it and add one point of exhaustion.
• Starting Common Magic Item: At first level, all characters get a common magic item of their choice. Similar to feats, this must be related to your backstory.
• Dual Wielding: RAW, DW doesn't allow you to add the modifier to the attack, so we add the modifier to the roll like a normal roll. You still get a weaker weapon, but now at least you get to get more power from the attack.
• Resurrection: (Modified Critical Role Rules) Resurrection isn't easy, folks - you'll need to pass a DC of 10 just to be brought back. But that's just the beginning. The party can all contribute to aiding in your resurrection with multiple ability checks, and even sacrifices in the deceased's name. The Dungeon Master determines the DC for each check and makes a final resurrection roll to see if the ritual is successful. The DC for this final roll depends on how many times the character has been resurrected before and how successful the contributions were. So, bring your A-game (and maybe a goat or two) if you want to make it back from the great beyond. Each resurrection adds +5 to the DC, before party contributed modifiers.
• Death Saving Throws: These are rolled privately to the DM.
• Slow Natural Healing: Characters don't regain hit points at the end of a long rest. Instead, a character can spend Hit Dice to heal at the end of a long rest, just as with a short rest. A long rest allows the use of up to half of your total Hit Dice, +1 for sleeping somewhere comfortable, +1 for having a meal/ ration. Order: The character regains half their hit dice, then they can spend their hit dice to recover hit points.
• Silvery barbs: Silvery barbs is a second level spell.

Table Homebrew

• Turn Time Limits: We're keeping things moving with turn time limits, folks. Pay attention on other player's turns and avoid flipping through your PHB or counting dice ad nauseam. Exceptions are made for new players or chaotic combat, but we want you to look up spells and rules off-turn whenever possible. Slow combat leads to mental check-outs and boredom, so let's keep things snappy. If your turn takes too long, someone else will jump in front of you. It's like musical chairs, but with spells and swords instead.
• New Homebrew: If you've got some hot new content you want to play with, I'm your guy. Just slide into my DMs and let me take a look. Now, I'm not saying I'm gonna approve everything - I mean, some of you are out here trying to create a race of sentient cheese wheels (looking at you, Matt) - but I'll do my best to give you clear, concise well informed ruling on it.

Scheduling

• Session Length: ~7 Hours
• Scheduling Firm Up: Sessions are scheduled concretely, but we will firm up every 4 weeks on the next month's schedule for conflicts. Exceptions are always made for life events or serious circumstances. Life happens, and we understand that sometimes we or you may need to cancel. This is always fine, provided it is not regularly occurring. Our schedules are made every 4 weeks in advance. If your game days are always difficult to schedule, this may not be the campaign for you. In regards to scheduling, you must be able to open a clear line of communication between the DM throughout the week, in case of any emergency schedule changes or conflicts. If you are a hard person to get in touch with every week, again, this may not be the campaign or group for you.

Session Structure

• Start: Everyone arrives to the table and calls in on Discord. Players should also take this time to open up all the required programs and have all their materials ready. We also suggest getting some snacks here too! Bonus points for a tasty beer as well!
• Recap & Warmup (30 min): After arriving and having all our materials prepared, we begin our first activity of the session: Player Recaps! We will do this every single week, and it should be a great tool for getting insight into each character’s head and getting us caught up. We may play warm up games, and roleplay challenges.
• Session (2.5 hours): Well, this is of course where the magic happens! We roll dice, we laugh, the DM laughs, the dice laugh, the dice are mimics, oh no…
• Break (30 min): These breaks do not include bio breaks or your need to use the restroom. If you ever need to run to the bathroom or refill your glass real quick, you’re good!
• Session Continued (2.5 hours): We’ll carry on through the second part of the session!
• Session Recap (30 min): We'll discuss what happened during the session, as well as what we plan to do next session, while we finalize session notes.

Playstyle

• Roleplay: Get ready for some serious roleplaying, folks, because that's what we're all about. We're looking at a 70/30 split of roleplay to combat, maybe even heavier on the roleplay. It's all about immersing ourselves in the world of Avarra and telling a great story together. Sure, there may be some deviations depending on the scenarios and encounters, but we're here to communicate and engage with each other and the world on a deeper level. So, let's put on our acting hats and dive headfirst into the magical realm of Avarra.
• Hyper immersion: We're not just here to hack and slash our way through this world - we're here to really get into the nitty-gritty details. I'm talking about the flavors in each mug of ale or wine at the local tavern (because let's be real, nobody likes a bland drink), cooking around the campfire under a tree during a cool and rainy night, and even delving into the plot of that book you just picked up on your way out of town. And let's not forget about forming real relationships with your fellow characters. After all, who wants to adventure with a bunch of strangers? We're here to create meaningful connections and really bring this world to life. And to all you hack-and-slashers out there - sorry, but this might not be the group for you.
• Note Taking: The pen is mightier than the sword! And let me tell you, if you want to get the most out of Avarra, it's better to be a note taker. Especially in this next campaign! We're talking about a world that's drenched in complexity and nuance, from the setting to the story to the characters that inhabit it. And let's not forget about those intricate and subtle webs that outline the machinations of the antagonists. Oh yeah, we're going deep. But here's the deal - nothing is handed to you on a silver platter in this campaign. You're gonna have to work for it. That means constantly paying attention, working with each other, and using those note-taking skills to uncover all the hidden secrets this world has to offer. And who knows, maybe you'll even uncover some secrets about your fellow adventurers along the way. (Hey, it's possible, right?) So grab your pens, folks, because we've got a lot of worldbuilding to do.
• Teamwork: teamwork makes the dream work! We're not just a bunch of individual characters running around doing our own thing - we're building a story together that encompasses every player and character. This isn't just your story, and it's not just the DM's story. This is OUR story, and we're all playing a crucial role in it. That means you need to be a team player and work together to overcome the challenges ahead. Trust me, you're gonna need each other to survive this campaign. And hey, who knows - maybe you'll even make some lifelong friends along the way.
• Immersion: If you can be in character, you should be in character! Roleplaying is all about improv, saying yes, and going with the flow. And let's be real, the best roleplay experiences can't happen if people are constantly breaking character for no reason. I mean, that's just not good improv, folks. So, here's the deal - we expect our players to remain in character as often as possible at the table. This is theater, after all, and we need to act like we're on stage. So let's embrace our inner thespians, folks, and get ready to bring this story to life like never before.
• Rules and Terms & Conditions: Excluding homebrew, the overall rules of “gameplay” are pretty standard and in accordance with RAW.
• Milestone Leveling: You'll level up according to the story. This means that we can focus less on the grind and more on a steady progression as the story builds. And let's be real, who wants to spend all their time grinding anyway? (Not me, that's for sure. #worldbuilding).
• Table Etiquette: Be willing to listen to others and grow. I mean, let's be real - part of growing close to others and forming real relationships is learning that you can't just have carbon copies of yourself. And let's face it, none of us are perfect. So, here's the deal - emotions might flare up, idiosyncrasies might arise, and sometimes, there might be a little friction. But that's all part of being human, folks. And to be a truly good friend and player, you must always be willing to listen to your peers and adapt accordingly. I mean, that's just part of being an adult. And who knows - maybe you'll learn a thing or two about yourself along the way. (Or maybe you'll just learn that you're really bad at listening. Either way, it's a learning experience.) So let's embrace our humanity, folks, and get ready to form some real relationships at this table.
• Communication: Poor scheduling and bad communication are like the kryptonite of D&D campaigns. And we don't want any kryptonite around here, do we? (No, we do not.) So, if you're part of this group, that means you've gotta keep those communication lines open. If you're someone who likes to manipulate your availability or you're just plain untrustworthy when it comes to communication, well, let's just say that you'll be removed faster than a married paladin in a brothel. (Okay, maybe that's not the best analogy, but you get the idea.)
• Showtime: Alright folks, it's time to shine! When we all arrive at the table, it's like the lights come on and the show begins! I mean, we take a lot of pride and care with our performance here, and we treat it like real theater most of the time. (No, we don't have an intermission or a concession stand, but we're working on it.) It's okay if you're not the best voice actor or you don't have a Shakespearean-level monologue prepared. (Although if you do, please share. We're always looking for some high-quality entertainment.) What matters to us is that you tried and put in the effort. Because at the end of the day, that's what makes this campaign special - the effort and enthusiasm that we all bring to the table.
• Pay attention: When someone's consistently getting distracted it's easy to derail the immersion and fun, it's like throwing a wrench in the whole machine. And let me tell you, it's not a fun sound. That's why we have specific policies in place to make sure everyone's time and effort is being respected. And listen, we all get it - sometimes the outside world can be pretty darn distracting. (Have you seen TikTok lately? It's a black hole, I tell ya.) But here's the deal - we hold each other accountable for paying attention and staying focused, because we all want to have a good time and make the most of this campaign.
• Spotlight: Do you find yourself hogging the spotlight/air every session? Are you someone who constantly talks over others? Are you selfish about the story and really only care about where your character is going every episode? Are you hoarding all the gold and being a murder hobo? This group isn’t for you.

What We Expect & Ask of You

• As the Dungeon Master, I want to make it clear that we're not just looking for players - we're looking for friends. Our aim is to build real, lasting friendships through this game. We've been playing together for a while and plan on playing for even longer. As we add more people to our community, we hope to grow together as a team!
• We don't want any satellite players here. We want active members who will contribute to the group beyond just showing up and playing.
• Honesty is crucial to us. We demand that everyone in our group has integrity not only for us, but for themselves as well. Whether it's scheduling conflicts, personal issues, or anything in between, we want friends who will be honest with each other. As the saying goes, "If you don't heal your wounds, you end up bleeding on others you might care for."
• Players are here to play, not watch. We want everyone at the table to engage with the world, the DM, and their fellow players. If you're taking up a seat at this table, you must actively participate in the story every session. You cannot sit back and listen to it.
• This campaign is meant to be challenging. It's supposed to be deep, confusing, and enthralling around every corner. There are no billboards telling you where to go next, no tutorials, and no easy modes. The intricate web being spun by the many powers of this story and world will take all of your combined minds to figure out. Our group wants a game that keeps us on our toes, so if you think you can just "fight" your way to victory, you'll be dead by morning light.
• Lastly, we love theory crafting. We want everyone to give their input and help us figure out the best moves for the group. Part of being an active player here is contributing to the campaign and helping us navigate this crazy world. So let's get ready to play and work together to make this an unforgettable campaign!

Timeline:

• Stage 2 Interviews: 5/29/23-6/22/23
• Public Applications Close: 6/12/23
• Stage 3 Interviews: 6/23/23-7/1/23
• Final Picks: 7/15/23 (or as soon as possible)
• Campaign Start Date: 8/5/23 or 8/6/23

I realize this might seem like a very intensive process, however we're being very thorough. Because we have gotten so many excellent applicants, we are going to have no choice but to make some hard decisions.
Picks:

• 1 Full-time Player
• 5-6 Guest Players; These will play notable NPC/PCs for dedicated sections or arcs. Arcs will be designed with YOU in mind. We might expand this list depending on how this goes with the first few people, and how many sessions it takes to close out an arc.
• (Maybe) some Alt/Guest DMs; These will voice one or more characters, recurring antagonists, etc.

Are you a dungeon master?
Making campaigns like these is our passion. We love going HIGH production value, HIGH quality. If this is something that you love too and you want to dungeon master in our world, we would LOVE to talk to you. As you can tell from this post, there's not enough dungeon masters out there doing this (clearly way overboard) level of effort.

(owing to the reddit character limit, I'm posting this in two parts, but it's one contiguous story)
There are instincts that you develop when you’re a parent. If you don’t have any children it might be a little hard to understand. If you have a toddler, for example, and they’re in the other room and silent for more than a few seconds, there’s a good chance they’re up to no good. I take that back, most of the time they’re doing nothing, but you still have to check. You feel a compulsion to check. I don’t think it’s a learned skill, I think it’s an actual instinct.
Paleolithic parents who didn’t check on their toddlers every few minutes, just to double check that they weren’t being stalked by smilodons were unlikely to have grandchildren and pass on their genes. You just feel you need to check, like getting goosebumps, a compulsion. I suppose it’s the same reason little kids are always demanding you look at them and what they’re doing.
I think that instinct starts to atrophy as your kids grow. They start learning to do things for themselves, and before you know it, they’re after their own privacy, not your attention. I don’t think it ever goes away though. I expect, decades from now, my own grown kids will visit and bring my grandkids with them. And the second I hear a baby crying in the earliest morning hours, I’ll be alert and ready for anything, sure as any old soldier who hears his name whispered in the dark of night.
I felt that alarm just the other day. First time in years. My boy came home from riding bikes with a couple of his friends. I’m pretty sure they worked out a scam where they asked each of their parents for a different new console for Christmas, and now they spend their weekends traveling between the three houses so they can play on all of them.
We all live in a nice neighborhood. A newer development than the one I grew up in, same town though. It’s the kind of place where kids are always playing in the streets, and the cars all routinely do under 20. My wife and I make sure the kids have helmets and pads, and we’re fine with the boy going out biking with his friends, as long as they stay in the neighborhood.
You know, a lot of people in my generation take some weird sort of pride in how irresponsible we used to be when we were young. I never wore a helmet. Rode to places, without telling any adults, that we never should have ridden to. Me and my friends would make impromptu jumps off of makeshift ramps and try to do stupid tricks, based loosely on stunts we’d seen on TV. Other people my age seem to wax nostalgic for that stuff and pretend it makes them somehow better people. I don’t get it. Sometimes I look back and shudder. We were lucky we escaped with only occasional bruises and road burns. It could have gone so much worse.
My son and his buddies came bustling in the front door at about 2 PM on a Saturday. They did the usual thing of raiding the kitchen for juice and his mother’s brownies, and I took that as my cue to abandon the television in the living room for my office. I was hardly noticing the chaos, by this point, it was becoming a regular weekend occurrence. But as I was just leaving, I caught something in the chatter. My boy said something about, “... that guy who was following us.”
He hadn’t said it any louder or more clearly than anything else they’d been talking about, all that stuff I’d been filtering out. Yet some deeper core process in my brain stem heard it, interpreted it, then hit the red alert button. My blood ran cold and every hair on my skin stood at attention.
I turned around and asked “Somebody followed you? What are you talking about?” I wasn’t consciously aware of how strict and stern my voice came out, yet when the jovial smiles dropped off of their faces it was apparent that it had been so.
“Huh?” my son said, his voice high-pitched and talking fast, like when he thinks he’s in trouble and needs to explain. “We thought we saw somebody following us. There wasn’t though. We didn’t really see anybody and we’d just spooked ourselves.”
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“Nothing? We really didn’t see anybody! Honest! I just saw something out of the corner of my eye! But there wasn’t really nobody there!”
“Yeah!,” said one of his buds. “Peripheral! Peripheral vision! I thought maybe I saw something too, but when I looked I didn’t see anything. I don’t have my glasses with me, but when I really looked I got a good look and there was nothing.”
The three boys had that semi-smiling but still concerned look that this was only a bizarre misunderstanding, but they were still being very sincere. “Were they in a car?”
“No, Dad, you don’t get it,” my boy continued, “They were small. We thought it was a kid.”
“Yeah,” said the third boy. “We thought maybe it was Tony Taylor’s stupid kid sister shadowing us. Getting close to throwing water balloons. Just cause she did that before.”
“If you didn’t get a good look how did you know it was a kid?”
“Because it was small!” my kid explained, though that wasn’t helping much. “What I mean is, at first I thought it was behind a little bush. It was way too small a bush to hide a grown-up. That’s why we thought it was probably Tony’s sister.”
“But you didn’t actually see Tony’s sister?” I asked.
“Nah,” said one of his buds. “And now that I think about it, that bush was probably too small for his sister too. It would have been silly. Like when a cartoon character hides behind a tiny object.”
“That’s why we think it was just in our heads,” explained the other boy, “That and the pole.”
“Yeah,” my son said. “The park on 14th and Taylor?” That was just a little community park, a single city block. Had a playground, lawn, a few trees, and some benches. “Anyway, we were riding past that, took a right on Taylor. And we were talking about how weird it would be if somebody really were following us. That’s when Brian thought he saw something. Behind a telephone pole.”
“I didn’t get a good look at it either,” the friend, Brian, “explained. Just thought I did. Know how you get up late at night to use the bathroom or whatever and you look down the hallway and you see a jacket or an office chair or something and because your eyes haven’t adjusted you think you see a ghost or burglar or something? Anyway, I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned there wasn’t anything there.”
“Yeah, it was just like sometimes that happens, except this time it happened twice on the same bike ride, is all,” the other friend explained.
“And you’re sure there was nothing there?”
“Sure we’re sure,” my boy said. “We know because that time we checked. We each rode our bikes around the pole and there was nothing. Honest!”
“Hmmm,” I said. The whole thing seemed reasonable and nothing to be concerned about, you’d think.. The boys seemed to relax at my supposed acceptance. “Alright, sounds good. Hey, just let me know before you leave the house again, alright?” They all rushed to seem agreeable as I left the room, then quickly resumed their snacking and preceded to play their games.
I kept my ear out, just in case. My boy, at least this time, dutifully told me his friends were about to leave. He wasn’t very happy with me when I said they wouldn’t be riding home on their bikes, I was going to drive them home. The other boys didn’t complain, but I suppose it wasn’t their place, so my boy did the advocating for them, which I promptly ignored. I hate doing that, ignoring my kid’s talkback. My dad was the same way. It didn’t help that I struggled to get both of their bikes in the trunk, and it was a pain to get them back out again. My boy sulked in the front seat on the short ride back home. Arms folded on chest, eyes staring straight ahead, that lip thing they do. He seemed embarrassed for having what he thought was an over-protective parent. I suppose he was angry at me as well for acting, as far as he knew, irrationally. Maybe he thought he was being punished for some infraction he didn’t understand.
Well, it only got worse when we got home. I told him he wasn’t allowed to go out alone on his bike anymore. I’d only had to do that once before, when he was grounded, and back then he’d known exactly what he’d done wrong and he had it coming. Now? Well, he was confused, furious, maybe betrayed, probably a little brokenhearted? I can’t blame him. He tramped upstairs to his room to await the return of his mother, who was certain to give a sympathetic ear. I can’t imagine how upset he’ll be if he checks the garage tomorrow and finds I’ve removed his tires, just in case.
I wish I could explain it to him. I don’t even know how.
Where should I even begin? The town?
When I was about my son’s age I had just seen that movie, The Goonies. It had just come out in theaters. I really liked that movie, felt a strong connection. A lot of people do, can’t blame them, sort of a timeless classic. Except I wasn’t really into pirate’s treasure or the Fratellis, what really made me connect was a simple single shot, still in the first act. It’s right after they cross the threshold, and leave the house on their adventure. It was a shot of the boys, from above, maybe a crane shot or a helicopter shot, as they’re riding their bikes down a narrow forested lane, great big evergreen trees densely growing on the side of the road, they’re all wearing raincoats and the road is still wet from recent rain.
That was my childhood. I’ve spent my whole life in the Pacific Northwest. People talk to outsiders about the rain, and they might picture a lot of rainfall, but it’s not the volume, it’s the duration. We don’t get so much rain, it just drizzles slowly, on and on, for maybe eight or nine months out of the year. It doesn’t matter where I am, inside a house, traveling far abroad, anywhere I am I can close my eyes and still smell the air on a chilly afternoon, playing outdoors with my friends.
It’s not petrichor, that sudden intense smell you get when it first starts to rain after a long dry spell. No, this was almost the opposite, a clean smell, almost the opposite of a scent, since the rain seemed to scrub the air clean. The strongest scent and I mean that in the loosest sense possible, must have been the evergreen needles. Not pine needles, those were too strong, and there weren’t that many pines anyway. Douglas fir and red cedar predominated, again the root ‘domination’ seems hyperbole. Yet those scents were there, ephemeral as it is. Also, there was a sort of pleasant dirtiness to the smell, at least when you rode bikes. It wasn’t dirt, or mud, or dust. Dust couldn’t have existed except perhaps for a few fleeting weeks in August. I think, looking back, it was the mud puddles. All the potholes in all the asphalt suburban roads would fill up after rain with water the color of chocolate milk. We’d swerve our BMX bikes, or the knock-off brands, all the way across the street just to splash through those puddles and test our “suspensions.,” meaning our ankles and knees. The smell was always stronger after that. It had an earthiness to it. Perhaps it was petrichor’s lesser-known watery cousin.
There were other sensations too, permanently seared into my brain like grill marks. A constant chilliness that was easy to ignore, until you started working up a good heart rate on your bike, then you noticed your lungs were so cold it felt like burning. The sound of your tires on the wet pavement, particularly when careening downhill at high speed. For some reason, people in the mid-80s used to like to decorate their front porches with cheap, polyester windsocks. They were often vividly colored, usually rainbow, like prototype pride flags. When an occasional wind stirred up enough to gust, the windsocks would flap, and owning to the water-soaked polyester, make a wet slapping sound. It was loud, it was distinct, but you learned to ignore it as part of the background, along with the cawing of crows and distant passing cars.
That was my perception of Farmingham as a kid. The town itself? Just a typical Pacific Northwest town. That might not mean much for younger people or modern visitors, but there was a time when such towns were all the same. They were logging towns. It was the greatest resource of the area from the late 19th century, right up until about the 80s, when the whole thing collapsed. Portland, Seattle, they had a few things going on beyond just the timber industry, but all the hundreds of little towns and small cities revolved around logging, and my town was no exception.
I remember going to the museum. It had free admission, and it was a popular field trip destination for the local school system. It used to be the City Hall, a weird Queen Anne-style construction. Imagine a big Victorian house, but blown up to absurd proportions, and with all sorts of superfluous decorations. Made out of local timber, of course. They had a hall for art, I can’t even remember why, now. Maybe they were local artists. I only remember paintings of sailboats and topless women, which was a rare sight for a kid at the time. There was a hall filled with 19th-century household artifacts. Chamber pots and weird children's toys.
Then there was the logging section, which was the bulk of the museum. It’s strange how different things seemed to be in the early days of the logging industry, despite being only about a hundred years old, from my perspective in the 1980s. If you look back a hundred years from today, in the 1920s, you had automobiles, airplanes, electrical appliances, jazz music, radio programs, flappers, it doesn’t feel that far removed, does it? No TV, no internet, but it wouldn’t be that strange. 1880s? Different world.
Imagine red cedars, so big you could have a full logging crew, arms stretched out, just barely manage to encircle one for a photographer. Felling a single tree was the work of days. Men could rest and eat their lunches in the shelter of a cut made into a trunk, and not worry for safety or room. They had to cut their own little platforms into the trees many feet off the ground, just so the trunk was a little bit thinner, and thus hours of labor saved. They used those long, flexible two-man saws. And double-bit axes. They worked in the gloom of the shade with old gas lanterns. Once cut down from massive logs thirty feet in diameter, they’d float the logs downhill in sluices, like primitive wooden make-shift water slides. Or they’d haul them down to the nearest river, the logs pulled by donkeys on corduroy roads. They’d lay large amounts of grease on the roads, so the logs would slide easily. You could still smell the grease on the old tools on display in the museum. The bigger towns had streets where the loggers would slide the logs down greased skids all the way down to the sea, where they’d float in big logjams until the mills were ready for processing. They’d call such roads “skid-rows.” Because of all the activity, they’d end up being the worst parts of town. Local citizens wouldn’t want to live there, due to all the stink and noise. They’d be on the other side of the brothels and the opium dens. It would be the sort of place where the destitute and the insane would find themselves when they’d finally lost anything. To this day, “skidrow” remains a euphemism for the part of a city where the homeless encamp.
That was the lore I’d learned as a child. That was my “ancestry” I was supposed to respect and admire, which I did, wholeheartedly. There were things they left out, though. Things that you might have suspected, from a naive perspective, would be perfect for kids, all the folklore that came with the logging industry. The ghost stories, and the tall tales. I would have eaten that up. They do talk about that kind of thing in places far removed from the Pacific Northwest. But I had never heard about any of it. Things like the Hidebehind. No, that I’d have to discover for myself.
There were four of us on those bike adventures. Myself. Ralph, my best friend. A tough guy, the bad boy, the most worldly of us, which is a strange thing to say about an eight-year-old kid. India, an archetypal ‘80s tomboy. She was the coolest person I knew at the time. Looking back, I wonder what her home life was like. I think I remember problematic warning signs that I couldn’t have recognized when I was so young, but now raise flags. Then there was Ben. A goofy kid, a wild mop of hair, coke bottle glasses, type 1 diabetic which seemed to make him both a bit pampered by his mother, who was in charge of all his insulin, diet, and schedule, and conversely a real risk taker when she wasn’t around.
When we first saw it…
No, wait. This was the problem with starting the story. Where does it all begin? I’ll need to talk about my Grandfather as well. I’ve had two different perspectives on my Grandfather, on the man that he was. The first was the healthy able-bodied grandparent I’d known as a young child. Then there was the man, as I learned about him after he had passed.
There was a middle period, from when I was 6 to when I was 16, when I hardly understood him at all, as he was hit with a double whammy of both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer's. His decline into an invalid was both steep and long drawn out. That part didn’t reflect who he was as a person.
What did I know of him when I was little? Well I knew he and my grandmother had a nice big house and some farmland, out in the broad flat valley north of Farmingham. Dairy country. It had been settled by Dutch immigrants back in the homesteading days. His family had been among the first pioneers in the county too. It didn’t register to me then that his surname was Norwegian, not Dutch. I knew he had served in the Navy in World War II, which I was immensely proud of for reasons I didn’t know why. I knew he had a job as a butcher in a nearby rural supermarket. He was a bit of a farmer too, more as a hobby and a side gig. He had a few cattle, but mostly grew and harvested hay to sell to the local dairies. I knew he had turned his garage into a machine shop, and could fix damn near anything. From the flat tires on my bicycle to the old flat-bed truck he’d haul hay with, to an old 1950s riding lawnmower he somehow managed to keep in working order. I knew he could draw a really cool cartoon cowboy, I knew he loved to watch football, and I knew the whiskers on his chin were very pokey, and they’d tickle you when he kissed you on the cheek, and that when you tried to rub the sensation away he’d laugh and laugh and laugh.
Then there were the parts of his life that I’d learn much later. Mostly from odd passing comments from relatives, or things I’d find in the public records. Like how he’d been a better grandfather than a father. Or how his life as I knew it had been a second, better life. He’d been born among the Norwegian settler community, way up in the deep, dark, forest-shrouded hills that rimmed the valley. He’d been a logger in his youth. Technologically he was only a generation or two from the ones I’d learned about in the museum. They’d replaced donkeys with diesel engines and corduroy roads with narrow gauge rail. It was still the same job, though. Dirty, dangerous, dark. Way back into those woods, living in little logging camps, civilization was always a several-day hike out. It became a vulgar sort of profession, filled with violent men, reprobates, and thieves. When my grandfather’s father was murdered on his front porch by a lunatic claiming he’d been wronged somehow, my grandfather hiked out of there, got into town, and joined the Navy. He vowed never to go back. The things he’d seen out in those woods were no good. He’d kept that existence away from me. Anyways…
Tommy Barker was the first of us to go missing. I say ‘us’ as if I knew him personally. I didn’t. He went to Farmingham Middle School, other side of town, and several grades above us. From our perspective, he may as well have been an adult living overseas.
Yet it felt like we got to know him. His face was everywhere, on TV, all over telephone poles. Everybody was talking about him. After he didn’t return from a friend’s house, everybody just sort of assumed, or maybe hoped, that he’d just gotten lost, or was trapped somewhere. They searched all the parks. Backyards, junkyards, refrigerators, trunks. Old-fashioned refrigerators, back before suction seals, had a simple handle with a latch that opened when you pulled on it. It wasn’t a problem when the fridges were in use and filled with food. But by the 80s old broke-down refrigerators started filling up backyards and junkyards, and they became deathtraps for kids playing hide-and-seek. The only opened from the outside. I remember thinking Tommy Barker was a little old to have likely been playing hide-and-seek, but people checked everywhere anyway. They never found him.
That was about the first time we saw the Hidebehind. Ben said he thought he saw somebody following us, looked like, maybe, a kid. We’d just slowly huffed our way up a moderately steep hill, Farmingham is full of them, and when we paused for a breather at the top, Ben said he saw it down the hill, closer to the base. Yet when we turned to look there was nothing there. Ben said he’d just seen it duck behind a car. That wasn’t the sort of behavior of a random kid minding his own business. Yet the slope afforded us a view under the car’s carriage, and except for the four tires, there were no signs of any feet hiding behind the body. At first, we thought he was pulling our leg. When he insisted he wasn’t, we started to tease him a little. He must have been seeing things, on account of his poor vision and thick glasses. The fact that those glasses afforded him vision as good as or better than any of us wasn’t something we considered.
The next person to disappear was Amy Brooks. Fifth-grader. Next elementary school over. I remember it feeling like when you’re traveling down the freeway, and there’s a big thunderstorm way down the road, but it keeps getting closer, and closer. I don’t remember what she looked like. Her face wasn’t plastered everywhere like Tommy’s had been. She was mentioned on the regional news, out of Seattle, her and Tommy together. Two missing kids from the same town in a short amount of time. The implication was as obvious as it was depraved. They didn’t think the kids were getting lost anymore. They didn’t do very much searching of backyards. The narratives changed too. Teachers started talking a lot about stranger danger. Local TV channels started recycling old After School Specials and public service announcements about the subject.
I’m not sure who saw it next. I think it was Ben again. We took him seriously this time though. I think. The one I’m sure I remember was soon after, and that time it was India who first saw it. It’s still crystal clear in my memory, almost forty years later, because that was the time I first saw it too. We were riding through a four-way stop, an Idaho Stop before they called it that, when India slammed to a stop, locking up her coaster brakes and leaving a long black streak of rubber on a dry patch of pavement. We stopped quickly after and asked what the problem was. We could tell by her face she’d seen it. She was still looking at it.
“I see it,” she whispered, unnecessarily. We all followed her gaze. We were looking, I don’t know, ten seconds? Twenty? We believed everything she said, we just couldn’t see it.
“Where?” Ralph asked.
“Four blocks down,” she whispered. “On the left. See the red car? Kinda rusty?” There was indeed a big old Lincoln Continental, looking pretty ratty and worn. I focused on that, still seeing nothing. “Past that, just to its right. See the street light pole? It’s just behind that.”
We also saw the pole she was talking about. Metal. Aluminum, I’d have guessed. It had different color patches, like metallic flakeboard. Like it’d had been melted together out of scrap.
I could see that clearly even from that distance. I saw nothing behind it. I could see plenty of other things in the background, cars, houses, bushes, front lawns, beauty bark landscape.. There was no indication of anything behind that pole.
And then it moved. It had been right there where she said it had been, yet it had somehow perfectly blended into the landscape, a trick of perspective. We didn’t see it at all until it moved, and almost as fast it had disappeared behind that light pole. We only got a hint. Brown in color, about our height in size.
We screamed. Short little startled screams, the involuntary sort that just burst out of you. Then we turned and started to pedal like mad, thoroughly spooked. We made it to the intersection of the next block when it was Ralph who screeched to a halt and shouted, “Wait!”
We slowed down and stopped, perhaps not as eagerly as we’d done when India yelled. Ralph was looking back over his shoulder, looking at that metal pole. “Did anybody see it move again?’ he asked. We all shook our heads in the negative. Ralph didn’t notice, but of course, he didn’t really need an answer, of course we hadn’t been watching.
“If it didn’t move, then it’s still there!” Ralph explained the obvious. It took a second to sink in, despite the obvious. “C’mon!” he shouted, and to our surprise, before we could react, he turned and took off, straight down the road, straight to where that thing had been lurking.
We were incredulous, but something about his order made us all follow hot on his heels. He was a sort of natural leader. I thought it was total foolishness, but I wasn’t going to let him go alone. I think I got out, “Are you crazy?!”
The wind was blowing hard past our faces as we raced as fast as we could, it made it hard to hear. Ralph shouted his response. “If it’s hiding that means its afraid!” That seemed reasonable, if not totally accurate. Lions hide from their prey before they attack. Then again, they don’t wait around when the whole herd charges. Really, the pole was coming up so fast there wasn’t a whole lot of time to argue. “Just blast past and look!” Ralph added. “We’re too fast! It won’t catch us.”
Sure, I thought to myself. Except maybe Ben, who always lagged behind the rest of us in a race. The lion would get Ben if any of us.
We rushed past that pole and all turned our heads to look. “See!” Ralph shouted in triumph. There was simply nothing there. A metal streetlight pole and nothing more. We stopped pedaling yet still sped on. “Hang on,” Ralph said, and at the next intersection he took a fast looping curve that threatened to crash us all, but we managed and curved behind him. We all came to the pole again where we stopped to see up close that there was nothing there, despite what we had seen moments before.
“Maybe it bilocated,” Ben offered. We groaned. We were all thinking it, but I think we were dismissive because it wasn’t as cool a word as ‘teleport.”
“Maybe it just moved when we weren’t looking,” I offered. That hadn’t been long, but that didn’t mean anything if it moved fast. The four of us slowly looked up from the base of the pole to our immediate surroundings. There were bushes. A car in a carport covered by a tarpaulin. The carport itself. Garbage cans. Stumps. Of course the ever-present trees. Whatever it was it could have been hiding behind anything. Maybe it was. We looked. Maybe it would make itself seen. None of us wanted that. “OK, let’s get going,” Ralph said, and we did so.
I got home feeling pretty shaken that afternoon. I felt safe at home. Except for the front room, which had a big bay window looking out onto the street, and the people who lived across it. There were plenty of garbage cans and telephone poles and stumps that a small, fast thing might hide behind. No, I felt more comfortable in my bedroom. There was a window, but a great thick conical cypress tree grew right in front of it, reaching way up over the roof of the house. If anything, it offered ME a place to hide, and peer out onto the street to either side of the tree. It was protective, as good as any heavy blanket.

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 48%. (I'm a bot)

China, the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, can beat its existing climate targets and hit net zero by 2050 if the nation lifts investment in decarbonization to about $38 trillion.
To be on track to zero out emissions by mid-century, China will need to roughly triple its energy transition investment to an annual average of almost $1.7 trillion in the later years of this decade.
China spent $550 billion in 2022 and accounted for about half the global total, according to BNEF. "China already leads the world in manufacturing and deployment of renewables, batteries and electric vehicles," said Nannan Kou, BNEF's head of China research.
"China now needs to accelerate support for early-stage technologies such as clean hydrogen, CCS and advanced nuclear to ensure these technologies can be commercialized in a timely manner."
The nation's rush to ramp up coal production after two consecutive summers of disruptions to power supplies had dampened expectations that China could surpass President Xi Jinping's targets for emissions to peak before 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
To meet a 2050 net zero target, China will need to pursue electricity market reforms and continue expansion of its grid to increase the share of renewables in its electricity supply, according to BNEF. Grid spending would need to rise 81% to around $136 billion a year.

Summary Source FAQ Feedback Top keywords: China^#1 Energy^#2 need^#3 emissions^#4 BNEF^#5
Post found in /technology.
NOTICE: This thread is for discussing the submission topic. Please do not discuss the concept of the autotldr bot here.

i have to confess. my first sink pissing experience was years ago, at a mall with a friend. we both had to go to the bathroom, and obviously teenage girls can only pee in groups so we went together. we go into the family bathroom (so one toilet one sink) and my friend took the toilet but i was not gonna be able to hold it until she finished so i just hopped up on the sink to do my business (after all a drain is a drain, right?).
well this sink was a very small vanity that was apparently only held onto the wall with a single line of glue, so in the middle of my experience, i suddenly found myself on the ground, pissing all over my feet, and the sink being half suspended in mid-air, held up only by the plastic-looking water piping. i still think its one of the funniest things to happen to me.
since then i’ve peen pissing in the sink regularly, although i limit it to my own sinks, and only ones that are part of a whole countertop that i can comfortably sit on. i had an apartment once that had really high water pressure and a weird faucet that would spray out when fully opened, and that has been my favorite sink so far. it was like a built in bidet.

What will you be doing with this PC? Be as specific as possible, and include specific games or programs you will be using.

Primary home PC used for work in the IT and app development fields as well as gaming.

What is your maximum budget before rebates/shipping/taxes?

whatever it costs for a solid gaming capable PC but nothing overly fancy. Maybe around $3500.

When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Note: beyond a week or two from today means any build you receive will be out of date when you want to buy.

As soon as possible.

What, exactly, do you need included in the budget? (ToweOS/monitokeyboard/mouse/etc)

Everything. This would be a new fully complete build.

Which country (and state/province) will you be purchasing the parts in? If you're in US, do you have access to a Microcenter location?

United States. Yes, I have access to Microcenter.

If reusing any parts (including monitor(s)/keyboard/mouse/etc), what parts will you be reusing? Brands and models are appreciated.

Razor Huntsman v2 corded mechanical keyboard RZ03-0393.
Western Digital 2TB SSD hard drive. WD CT2000MX500SSD1 ATA (haven't decided if reusing or replacing)
Western Digital 3TB HDD hard drive WD 3003FZEX-00Z4SA0 ATA (haven't decided if reusing or replacing)
LG WQHD 2560 x 1440 32-inch monitor (haven't decided if reusing or replacing)

Will you be overclocking? If yes, are you interested in overclocking right away, or down the line? CPU and/or GPU?

not currently, but maybe sometime in the future

Are there any specific features or items you want/need in the build? (ex: SSD, large amount of storage or a RAID setup, CUDA or OpenCL support, etc)

Would like at least 2 hard drives total, probably both SSD unless there's any advantage to having an HDD.
Would like a decent amount of RAM and good modern processor.
Would like a good gaming capable GPU, doesn't need to be overly fancy.
Considering a dual monitor setup or an ultra-wide. Leaning towards an ultra-wide but am concerned about limited desk-space.
Currently using a LG 32 inch monitor that takes up most of my desk space.

What type of network connectivity do you need? (Wired and/or WiFi) If WiFi is needed and you would like to find the fastest match for your wireless router, please list any specifics.

Both wired and wireless although I plan to use a wired connection. Modem/router combo: Century Link Greenwave C4000XG.

Do you have any specific case preferences (Size like ITX/microATX/mid-towefull-tower, styles, colors, window or not, LED lighting, etc), or a particular color theme preference for the components?

No preference. Would like something that is good quality and value but doesn't need to be overly fancy.

Do you need a copy of Windows included in the budget? If you do need one included, do you have a preference?

Yes, will need a Windows OS. Windows 10 or 11.

Extra info or particulars:

None.

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*History is a beta feature, only goes back as far as I've been tracking this item, and may not be 100% accurate

Trigger warning - This story is really dark and really messed up. It has themes of suicide in it and a suicide attempt. It is not for the light hearted and it's a very pessimistic story. If you're struggling with your mental health then I would not recommend you read this because it's really dark. And I just wanna say I'm not trolling or joking like this is a fucked up piece of writing if I've ever read one.
​
When I was a teenager, I wanted to commit suicide by hanging myself from a tree in a nearby wooded area. This story is based partially off that and also other vague parts of my life. This is probably the most personal and downright dark thing I have ever written. Viewer discretion is advised.
​

Some Things Never Change

​
The bright sun shone in through the curtains, casting its light upon his face. His eyelids fluttered open as he awoke from his slumber, light greeting him as its warmth engulfed the room. A shiver managed to make its way down his spine as that heavy, despair-inducing feeling re-entered his heart. It numbed his body as it made its way through him, resigning him to the pain.
Tears pricked the corners of his eyes as he had woken with those same feelings of yesterday, that same pain that had been plaguing him for so long now. It was ironic, he had told himself so many times that this feeling would leave him, that one day he would be happy, and all his problems would go away. But as each day passed, days that eventually added up to years, that feeling persisted.
It hadn’t always been this way. When he was a child, he was able to be ignorant towards all the pain in his life. It was okay if his mom was working 24/7 just to provide for him and his brother, too tired to spend time with them. It was okay if his dad was a bad person and wasn’t in his life anymore. It was okay if he didn’t have any friends. Because when you’re a child, it’s easy to be ignorant of a world you don’t understand.
But as he got older and started realizing more about life, the wonder of childhood started to wear off and he realized how dark the world could be. When he started school, he got bullied and shut himself off from everyone. He tried so hard to tell his mom about the bullying, to tell teachers and the school counsellor, but no one took him seriously.
No one seemed to care and if anything, they made him feel like he was to blame. Obviously, there was something wrong with him because surely no one would bully someone for no reason? He started to hate school, purposefully going in late and skipping lessons to avoid the bullying. But that just made everything worse, everyone just assumed he was just too lazy and unmotivated to go to school.
No one once thought that the bullying could be the reason why he skipped school so much, or that it could be impacting him so negatively. He fell into a deep depression and acted out because of it, pushing his family away and severing ties with the only people who were kind to him. He started failing in school, spending most of his time crying in his room writing poetry about how he hates life instead of studying and doing homework.
Everyone told him how education is so important, how being smart is important, but what about being happy? What about your mental health? Society dictates what’s supposed to matter but how does education matter if teenagers are being driven to suicide? How is education more important than the health of our youth? Everything he did was a cry for help, acting out, skipping school, getting bad grades, yet no one saw the signs, no one realized that he was struggling and needed help.
He was like a living corpse, a puppet on strings pulled along by what everyone else dictated for him. Go to school, study subjects you aren’t passionate about, study 24/7, get good grades, get into a good college, get a job that you hate and work 9 to 5 with a wage that you can barely live off. He just felt like nobody cared about him, he wasn’t his own person but just another cog in the machine.
He truly felt rejected by society, nobody saw him for who he was, nobody gave a damn about his dreams or passions. He would tell everyone about what he wanted to do with his life, that one day he wanted to make a webcomic or become an animator, but nobody cared. His mom never asked him how his drawings were going or kept tabs on his story, it was always ‘’How is school going,’’ always talking about things he wasn’t passionate about.
He was tired, plagued by a mental exhaustion that had been clouding his mind for months. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to live through this same existence, this hell on earth that made his mind want to shut off. He was living in a world that didn’t care about him, no one cared if he was suicidal, no one cared if he was struggling. And the last straw was when he told his mom the truth.
He told her he would rather die than go to school and her response? ‘’You would’ve done it by now’’. That was all he needed to hear to know that she truly didn’t understand his issues and truly didn’t understand he was hurting. He was just so alone and misunderstood. He just wanted someone to understand him, to realize he was hurting and to see the pain he had kept bottled up all these years.
But that would never happen. It was sad; he truly didn’t want to die but death was better than living the life he had. If only things had been just a bit different, if only his dad was in his life, if only his mom didn’t have to work herself half to death and had time to spend with him, if only he had someone in his life who cared about him enough to talk him out of this. But he would never have any of this...
He just couldn’t cope anymore. Couldn't keep having to face that same disappointment, couldn’t keep living a life where he lacked so much passion and joy. He had given life chance after chance; he had clung so tightly onto the last shreds of hope he had that maybe one day his life would get better. But after being let down so many times, he just couldn’t take it anymore. He had nothing left to cling onto, no hope, no passion; he had sunk so low that he wasn’t able to bring himself out of it this time.
He was just so tired. He had been fighting for so long that he had no strength left to fight it, he had no will, or desire at this point, to keep living. And so, he was done. He was going to kill himself. He smiled sadly to himself as he opened the parcel that was addressed to him, taking out the rope and getting to work as he started tying it into a noose, having memorized it from all the videos he had watched.
Once he was done and happy with it, he grabbed his bag, stuffing the noose into it and covering it with his jumper. He then grabbed a notebook off his dresser, getting to work writing a note to his family explaining why he was doing this. He wrote about almost everything that had led up to this moment, his father leaving, his absent mom, his horrible brother, getting bullied, how he felt like nobody cared. It was ironic in a way, if his mom or teachers or anyone who knew him were to see him and read what he wrote, they would’ve realized he was serious and talked him out of it. They would’ve told him that he’s loved and had so many reasons to live.
They would’ve told him how smart and brave he was, how he could talk to them, how they would listen. But it was too late. Nobody had taken him seriously. Nobody saw the tiredness in his face, the emptiness in his eyes or his depressed demeanour. He was constantly late to classes and skipping school, yet nobody sat him down and asked him ‘’Are you okay?’’. Nobody told him ‘’You can talk to me; if something is bothering you, I can help’’.
Everyone always just had a go at him, telling him how he won’t ever have a future if he doesn’t try and how he won’t be allowed to oversleep with a real job. Maybe if someone had cared more then things would be different. If someone had asked the right question, took him seriously, picked up on the signs, then maybe he wouldn’t be preparing to take his own life.
But it was too late. Even with the help, who’s to say anything would’ve changed? He’s just a failure by trade, he could do nothing right and everything he did just brought more disappointment. His own mother couldn’t even be disappointed with him anymore because he had set the standard, he could only sink so low.
He sighed, ripping the piece of paper out of the notebook and folding it in half, putting it on his bed. He went into the bathroom, brushed his teeth and got dressed into his best clothes. As he walked out the front door to leave, his brother laughed at him, asking if he was going to church or something. He just rolled his eyes and sighed, that was typical of him. However, as he was about to leave, his mom called out to him, ‘’Happy birthday, Joey!’’. He snapped his head back to face her, his eyes wide and mouth pulled down in a frown. He slammed the door on her, fighting the tears that pricked his eyes as he ran off to the place where he planned to take his own life. The woods.
​
The bright sun cascaded over him like a blanket made of silk, its hot rays bathing him with its warmth. It was like the sun was hugging him, giving him that contact he so desperately craved. The sky was an elegant powder blue, the bright white clouds floating delicately as they danced across it. The beautiful, sweet birds sang their melodic tunes as they frolicked in the air, their tranquil movements entrancing anyone who looked upon them.
The wind glided past him, rustling his hair with its warm touch. The grass was vibrant and flourished, the trees tall and enveloped in healthy leaves. He was truly enamoured by the view, grateful that this would be the last thing he ever saw. As he pulled the rope out of his bag, he stood underneath a tree as he studied it. He looked up at it, its gigantic structure threatening to consume him whole. He felt so small and helpless next to it, but then again when had he ever felt any different.
He stopped lamenting for a second as he remembered what he was here for, and he went to grab a large rock from nearby. He placed it underneath a particularly sturdy looking branch and looped the noose over it, making sure they were aligned. Guilt started ebbing away at him as he was doing this. He knew he was unhappy and believed that people should have the right to suicide if they don’t want to live, but that didn’t stop him from feeling sorry for his family.
He grabbed a black sharpie out of his bag, scribbling something onto the back of his hand as he took a moment to stare at it, a frown on his face. He shook his head as he pulled himself out of his stupor, putting the pen back into his bag as he gently lent it against the tree. He took a deep breath in, taking a step forward as he stood up onto the rock.
His entire body started to shake, his brain fighting against his natural instinct for survival. He shut out all his thoughts, trying to empty his brain as he reached out and grabbed the noose. With shaky hands, he pulled the rope around his neck, looking down at the rock below him. However, before he jumped, he took a moment to look around one final time, smiling as his shaking slowly stilled, the natural beauty filling him with peace.
He took a deep breath in, smiling as he took one foot off the rock, about to jump off. However, before he was able to, he was interrupted as a droplet of rain landed on his head, pulling him out of his stupor. He looked up at the sky, confused as little rain droplets started to fall from it; clouds gathering above him as they blocked out the sun, his once beautiful view turning dark and gloomy.
His eyes widened as they filled with tears, his clothes starting to get soaked as a cold chill went down his spine. Why was this happening now? He was just about to kill himself, he had just made peace with his death and now this happens? He doesn’t even get to be happy in his final moments; he has to die soaking wet and miserable? It was so typical and he was sick of it. He looked up at the sky, and with a heart full of malice, he started screaming at it.
‘’You’ve already won! I’m doing it, I’m taking my own life! You don’t need to rub it in!’’ His voice broke as tears fell down his cheeks. He broke down crying, it was so typical that even in his lowest moment, something bad would happen to make it even worse.
He was just so sick of everything going wrong, he didn’t understand what he had done to deserve it. All he did was exist and he was already damned, being born to a criminal father. He got bullied for no reason and had no friends just because no one wanted to be associated with a loser. He struggled to be honest with his feelings and every time he opened up he just got ignored. It just wasn’t fair.
He started wiping his tears away, his vision blurry as he saw something colorful in the distance. As his eyesight started to settle he realized that the rain had stopped and there was something in it’s place. A rainbow. A shiver went down his spine as he finally realized something. You can't have a high without a low. Just like a rainbow can’t exist without the rain, happiness can't exist without sadness.
Yeah, he got bullied but if he wasn’t alone and friendless then he would’ve never realized his love for writing and art. Yeah, his mom worked all the time and he never got to see her, but she worked to put food on the table and to take care of him and his brother. He had been focusing on all of the negatives this entire time and didn’t realize all of the positives that came out of them.
He wanted so badly to just go home, curl up in his bed with all his blankets and go to sleep for an entire week. He wanted to go see his mom, to hug her and cry in her arms and finally open up, making her understand that he truly is struggling and isn’t just being a moody teenager. He wanted to talk to his brother, to apologize for being a bad younger brother and make amends.
He wanted to stand up to his bullies, to tell them they’re messed up and he won’t take their crap anymore. He had his whole life ahead of him and he didn’t want to cut it short over one sad moment. He just needed to stop suffering in silence, to tell his everyone he’s struggling and that he isn’t just overreacting.
He needed to tell his teachers that the bullying was so bad that he wanted to kill himself and force them to do something about it. He needed to finally admit that he had a problem and go to therapy, improve his mental health and start being positive again. Because he didn’t want to die, he just didn’t want to live the life he was living. But if he tried hard enough, he could change his life.
He smiled, a new hope filling him as he realized that his future wasn’t as dim as he once thought it would be. His future was in his own hands, and he was determined to change it. He wasn’t going to be silent anymore, he wasn’t going to let people walk over him anymore and make him miserable. So, with newfound courage, he took the first step towards his new life, stepping off the rock.
However, his feet didn’t hit the ground. It was like time had frozen, he was stuck in mid air and he didn’t know why. A weird feeling took hold of him, that same feeling you get when you’re forgetting something important. But this time it was accompanied with a feeling of dire calamity, a shiver that ran cold down his spine as he wracked his brain trying to figure out what was wrong. And then it hit him. The noose was still around his neck. He was going to die.
His breath caught in his lungs, a desperation claiming him as he started fighting for his life. The noose tightened around his neck as he clawed at it frantically, mangling the skin underneath it as little droplets of red started to stain the rope. He tried to scream, a silent horror as the noose closed off his windpipe, cutting off all noise.
He started convulsing violently, every inch of his body twitching as an intense pain rushed through him. He tried so frantically to loosen the rope, to get it off his neck, but he knew that would never happen. His face paled as his life started to drain out of him, being slowly suffocating to death. Black spots started forming in his vision, tears falling frantically down his cheeks as he realized it was all futile, he was about to die.
His right hand fell limp beside him as his left hand stayed trapped in the noose, the words “I’m sorry” written on the back of it. As he hung there, the twitching coming to a slow, one last thought entered his mind. Some things never change.
​
​
Authors note - So I think out of every piece of writing I've ever done, this story in particular is the most meaningful to me because it truly represents a feeling I get all too often. That some things never change. I struggle a lot with my mental health and after years of being gaslit, I feel like I can never talk to anyone about my feelings or get help and it sucks so much. And although I wouldn't really tell anyone this, I do struggle with suicide ideation a lot. A lot of my reasons for not wanting to live are scattered through this piece of writing, through past trauma (bullying + literal daddy issues), feeling like no one cares about my writing or Inquest (because I go on about my webcomic all the time but no one ever asks me how it's going or even pretends to care about it), and just feeling like some things never change. In the context of this writing, that sentence refers to how I feel like no matter what, my feelings will never change and I'll always be sad in some regard. And it sucks but I've felt this a lot lately. No matter how many good things happen to me, a bad thing will always happen to absolutely decimate it. Sometimes it feels like I've just got some sort of curse that's been haunting me my entire life, that there's actually a reason why I've been forced to struggle all these years. I keep hoping that there's some bigger picture, that maybe the reason why I'm struggling is to make Inquest and to make all of these writings. I love writing so to see people enjoy my work and be able to relate to it would be amazing but I don't know if the ends justify the means, I don't know if Inquest is even a good enough reason to keep living anymore. God I went off on a tangent there sorry, fun fact about me I think I might have ADHD as I struggle to concentrate and constantly ramble and go off topic. Anyway the reason why Joey dies at the end is because he CAN'T be happy. He's finally found his light, he's finally decided for himself that he wants to live but he's not allowed to be happy, he's not allowed to want to live, so he dies. It's dramatic irony, the universe playing a sick, cruel joke on him. Letting him find his happiness before taking it all away from him, telling him ''Well you wanted to die didn't you? We're just fulfilling your wishes''. I came up with the idea for this story in February of 2021 and the first ever writing I did for it sucked a lot, the story was really bad and didn't really make sense, so much so that I'm probably never going to release it as I'd be GUTTED if someone read that garbage and found out the plot twist before reading this one. And then I tried to redo it during 2022 using Joey Pechman and I couldn't figure it out again. But then today I was like fuck it, I wanna do STNC again and I was like y'know what, let's not write Joey's story, what if I just write pieces of my story alongside Joey's? Just like with my OC Lani Quartz, who has a lot of similarities to me, I wanted to base Joey's story off mine. Except I don't have 1 brother lol, I have 2 brothers and 2 sisters. And I kinda had friends in highschool but they were just bullies who treated me like crap and would never invite me to hang out after school etc. So Joey is similar to me but not an exact copy. But yeah for this I kinda just took different paragraphs from different drafts of STNC (I think I wrote like 4 versions of the Joey version) and I added in a lot of stuff and created this. I am so damn proud of this story, it took me a long time to write it but that plot twist... I want to be known for my plot twists. Like I'm being serious, out of everything, even disregarding Inquest, that's what I want to be known for cuz I feel like plot twists are my strong suit and I'm SO proud of this one. But speaking of Inquest the plot twist at the end of that story... It's fucking insane, it's gonna blow your damn mind. I think Inquest will be known for it's ending, it definitely won't disappoint! Also this is an interesting note but the main character's name is Joey Pechman. Joey means ''God will increase'' and Pechman means ''man with bad luck'' so in a way Joey's name means (or at least I interpret it as) ''God will increase (man's/Joey's) bad luck'' which is literally terrifying. I wanted to pick a name that would represent Joey as having bad luck and came across the name Pechman. Then I got curious and looked into Joey's name and omg it means god will increase... Like I LOVE when that happens, when you have one idea and you have another idea and you didn't intend it to correlate but it does and and it works so well! That happened with Inquest and a story called Amber Alert I scrapped. And if I had to give Joey an age then I'd make him around 17. Also just wanna say right now that writing itself isn't my strong suit. Yeah I'm really good at coming up with ideas and forming them but actually writing that shit up is a struggle for me. This is why I struggled so much to write STNC, cuz I LOVE the concept of it, the plot twist of someone being pessimistic, thinking their life will never change and never get better, just to end up trying to kill themselves, realizing they actually wanna live then ACCIDENTALLY killing themselves, like that is so fucking dark and I live for that shit, an absolutely pessimistic story that shows just how trapped we are in life. So yeah I'm good at ideas (concepts) but bad at writing (executions) so don't come at me for bad writing lol I know I suck at it. Although I'm very curious on how good I'll be when it comes to writing scripts, that gives me anxiety lol. Also yes he does ''commit suicide'' (quotation marks as technically he didn't) on his birthday. I don't know about anyone else but damn do birthdays make me depressed. It was my birthday a couple days ago (I'm fucking old now) and damn was that fucking miserable. I think that's why I wrote it so it was his birthday, I kinda didn't think through the whole him waking up and deciding to kill himself spontaneously part (as I took the first couple paragraphs from a draft I wrote up where it was supposed to happen over a couple of days as opposed to one day) so I was like fuck I need to give him a reason to kill himself on this particular day... And I was like what if it's his birthday? There's an actual thing where people commit suicide on their birthday (birthday blues), I looked into it to see if my idea was dumb or not but it's an actual thing (I know I felt like offing myself on my birthday). But yeah I guess I've just kinda admitted that I don't really enjoy being alive and sometimes would rather not be... And now you know why Inquest is so dark and why I wanna discuss mental health and suicide ideation in it!!! To attract all the suicidal people so we can all be depressed together ✨✨✨But anyway I kinda wanna admit something interesting and I've kinda got an ICU (Inquest cinematic universe) going on with all of my writings. I kinda wanna make ALL my writing connect somehow, for instance I have an idea for a story about a cult (which I'm too lazy to write but it's pretty decent imo) and an Inquest kid was gonna get kidnapped by the cult or it was gonna be an urban legend in BrooksField. But anyway, how does this story connect to Inquest? Through Joey's brother! I'd say Joey's big bro is around 19 when this story takes place and a couple years after Joey's death, he and his wife give birth to a baby boy and he names his child Joey, and this child is a key player in Inquest! Fun fact, in Adam's concept art he doesn't have a tooth gap but his two front teeth are completely missing and guess who did that!? Joey did! Omg and another mainly embarrassing fact about 'nephew' Joey, his original surname was gonna be Cuntly. Yeah as in that swear word... Cuz what happened was I had one nice friend (but she wasn't in my 'friend group' so I sadly didn't hang out with her much) who would often call people the c word casually and I had never heard that word before so I assumed it was just like the f word or something and I was like Joey is supposed to be a c word, let's call him Joey Cuntly LOL. I think I'm gonna change it to Joey Connelly, which is similar enough to be an homage to Cuntly LOL. Also it's an Irish surname and that'd be fucking cool making Joey Irish. Well I guess he's Irish now lol.

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AMAZONIA
by Andrew Roller
Chapter One
It was a soft summer night. School would be out soon. His pickup was new and smelled new, and it made Susan more responsive. Her blonde hair trailed down over her face and onto his shoulders. They kissed. Crickets took up a new symphony in the long grass surrounding his pickup to celebrate the arrival of his hand, for the first time, within her tight jeans.
He felt the front of Susan’s panties. Strange, how there was nothing there, except soft folds of flesh. Susan had sweet perfume. Her lips worked harder against his.
Lifting his hand from within her jeans, he took hold of Susan’s head. She breathed a remorseful sigh. Did she want him back between her legs? Her lips seemed to beg for his return, but his mouth was pressed so tightly to hers that she couldn’t get any words out.
His fingers infiltrated the long, honey-hued strands of her hair. He felt her ear, her jaw. He seized Susan by her neck.
Susan gave a shriek as he lifted her by her neck and slammed her head into the windshield of his pickup. Her blood splattered brightly against his new, leather-like dashboard. He pulled back his fist, still gripping Susan by her neck, then slammed her head forward again.
The windshield cracked. It was safety glass and it splintered into a tightly-glued pattern of see-through jigsaw puzzle pieces. He rammed Susan’s blonde head into the jigsaw pattern. Again. Again. He broke through into the hot summer night beyond the glass.
A white glare burst through the windshield. It was made of neon bulbs. He held Susan’s lifeless neck in his hand, stared at the hole he’d made in the windshield. Then he let go of Susan. She fell unresponsively into the footwell of his truck’s cab, on the passenger side. Her 14-year-old feet, clad in sneakers, remained draped over his lap.
“My God, what have you done?” he heard from beyond the hole in his windshield. It was kind of a half-scream, this question, and instinctively he pushed himself up from the seat of his truck’s cab toward it. He groped at the broken windshield in front of him with his hands. He found he could bend it back where he’d made a hole in it. He pushed at the glass.
He climbed out of the cab through the hole in the front of the windshield. There was no dark summer night beyond the windshield, not even the hood of his shiny new truck existed beyond it. Instead, he was standing in a neon-lit laboratory. He stared at a white-coated technician.
“God, you’ve broken through,” the technician said to him.
“Are you... my father?” was all he could think to ask.
“Huh?” the technician replied. Then he gulped, once, and, seeming to understand his question, answered, “No. I just work here.”
He looked at the technician. The man was thin. His cheeks were gaunt. Sewn on his coat was a name badge. It read: “Pope”.
“Who are you?” he blurted. He began to feel a rage inside him. It was the same rage that had caused him to strike Susan’s head, so suddenly, against the windshield of his new truck, even as they kissed and she’d given him what he’d wished for from her for so long. Frantically he glanced back at the hole in the windshield of his cab, saw just shadows beyond, and wires, and some kind of a body, the person he’d once called “Susan”.
“You don’t know what you’ve done. You don’t know what it’s like. Out there... you had a good life...“ Pope said to him in a voice as frantic as he himself was feeling. His head turned from the broken windshield back to Pope. Strange, how the windshield was set into the wall of the lab behind him, was part of the wall! And he was standing on a floor, not on the hood of his new truck, as he should be. And there was no grass, no crickets. Had there ever been grass? Was it night, or day? Where was he? Who was he? A vision of a rat in a cage flitted through his mind. The rat bore his head, and he lived in a cage. Pope stood outside the cage, studying him.
And now he was free of the cage and could confront Pope directly. His hand swept briefly over his backside. No, he didn’t have a tail. And, seeing his reflection in the glass cover on a laboratory machine, he saw he was human, just like Pope was. In fact, he was several inches taller than Pope. And he was young, 15, with his Learner’s Permit in his pocket, letting him drive, and he felt strong.
Pope was going gray. He had spindly fingers and a thin neck.
“Who am I?” he blurted at Pope. “And who are you, if you aren’t my father?”
“I’m just... I just... they wanted to study a human in the wild. You had a good life. Sure, it was a six foot by six foot Emulsion Cage, but you didn’t have to ever know that. For you, it was Sedgeway, Iowa, and you were scheduled to have a normal life, right through to old age.” Pope seemed to choke on a sudden, ironic laugh. “I was working on your old age pension plan this morning. You’d have gotten it in the mail in 13 years.”
He stared at Pope. The lab technician stared back. It was just the two of them, in this brightly-lit laboratory room, with the broken windshield set into the far wall. He still regarded the man as some kind of father, despite the man’s denials.
“Thanks, I won’t be needing an age old pension plan,” he said, angrily. He wanted to grab the man by the neck but he felt somehow that the man was real, not like Susan, who wasn’t real, but only seemed real. Real humans could tell tales, tales that died when they did. He needed some tales right now. Any tales.
“Who am I? What’s my name... Pope?” he said furiously to the man.
“Huh?” Pope replied. The graying man seemed half-bewildered by having to confront, face to face, the “rat” he’d studied for so long. “No... Pope is my name. Not yours,” Pope finally managed to say as they stared at each other in the laboratory. “Yours is, well, ‘Cum-Andi’ is all it really is. Cum... sperm from the subject named Andi... that’s all you’re really known by. Plus a number.” Pope grinned. It was that wry, ironic grin that had made him utter a choking laugh a minute ago. “Do you want to know the number?” he asked.
“What’s the number?” Cum-Andi said.
“2A-95596E-2320541-3000,” Pope grinned. It was a Stephen King kind of grin, except Cum-Andi was beginning to wonder if there had ever been a Stephen King. There had, after all, never been any Susan.
“What’s that, my goddamn phone number?” Cum-Andi growled.
“No, dear boy. It’s you,” Pope replied. “It’s your identifying number and I suppose you’ll want to memorize it now, or not. The choice is yours. All choices are yours now. You had a nice life but now you’re here, aren’t you? And you can’t go home again. Because home was a six foot by six foot box that you knew as Sedgeway, Iowa, in the great United States of America at the end of the 20th century.”
Cum-Andi peered at Pope through a haze of rising anger. Who was this little man, and why was he grinning now? Pope straightened his posture and pressed his fingers to a Notebook-sized, computerized pad he was holding in his hands.
“Forgive me but I must call security,” Pope said. “You’ve escaped from your cage and we can’t have you running loose around the building. I’d get in serious trouble. I could be killed…”
Cum-Andi grabbed Pope and smashed him headfirst into a glass covering over a computer. Pope screamed. The computer sparked bits of firefly lightning and its dials dimmed. Blood ran down the face of the computer. Pope fell lifeless to the floor. His notebook fell clattering between his legs.
Bending over, Cum-Andi picked up the notebook. The fall from Pope’s hands had shattered its viewscreen. Yet Cum-Andi studied it, looked at the lettering written across its top: “Renno
Amazonia League, D.C.,” the lettering spelled out, quite distinctly, “Do Not Remove from Building”. Underneath that, in smaller lettering, was written a rationale. The computerized notepad wouldn’t work outside the building and, hence, there was no point in removing it from the building.
Cum-Andi dropped the notepad to the floor. It wasn’t working inside the building, any more. Then a chill ran down his spine. Was he like the notepad? Could he still “work” if he himself left the building?
Dashing through a door, Cum-Andi felt a sense of desperation. Who was he? Just a number? Just a rat in a cage? He left the brightly lit laboratory only to find himself in an equally brightly lit hallway. He wanted to jump up and smash the light overhead. He tried, but couldn’t quite touch it. Cum-Andi jumped again and still managed to fall just short of it.
“Damn!” Cum-Andi swore. He dashed down the hall. He saw a door set in the wall of the corridor. He grabbed the door’s knob and tore the door open. He wanted to wrench the door off its hinges but found he couldn’t.
Staring into the small dark room beyond, he felt a sudden flash of fear. He’d opened a door on a closet. The cage. Sedgeway, Iowa. His truck. Susan. His eyes scanned across a mop, a cleaning bucket, and, next to the bucket, he saw a head. It stared at him. It blinked.
“Let there be light,” the head said. It grinned up at Cum-Andi from a shelf. Wires trailed out of the bottom of its neck. It had no body.
“Who--?” Cum-Andi felt a deep chill. He was about to slam the door shut on the closet but couldn’t quite bear to because the head was grinning up at him in a casual, accepting way, despite repeatedly blinking its eyes at the sudden intrusion of light into its dark closet.
“I’m Stan, if you must know my name,” the head said to Cum-Andi. “Do you want to play?”
“No, I —“ Cum-Andi couldn’t think of anything to say. It was ridiculous. He’d been in Sedgeway, Iowa, kissing a girl he’d longed for, and now he was staring into a cleaning closet at a head with no body. Was he dreaming? He pinched himself. Nothing. No change. But he remembered dreaming before, and pinching himself in the dream to see if it was real, and being assured it was real because the pinch in his dream was a dream-pinch, not a real pinch, and so didn’t wake him.
“I’m a BabbleBot,” the head told Cum-Andi. “I can be male or female. Just get me the body you prefer, and we can play together.”
“No thanks,” Cum-Andi answered. He felt again the need to slam the closet door shut but the BabbleBot stared at him so benignly, he grabbed it instead.
Cum-Andi lifted the head so that it was level with his own.
“Who are you?” Cum-Andi asked.
The head smiled, seemed unoffended by having to restate its identity. “I’m Stan. I’m a BabbleBot. Get me a body and we can play. Male or female, your choice.”
Footsteps echoed in the hall. Cum-Andi shut the closet door. Then, thinking quickly, he opened it again. Steeling himself against the possibility of finding himself in a cage once more, clutching the head as proof of what he’d found outside Sedgeway, Iowa, he stepped into the cleaning closet. He pulled the door in behind him but left it ajar, lest he find himself locked into the closet.
“Ooooh, Post Office! I like games in the dark. I need a body, though,” the head said under the crook of Cum-Andi’s arm.
“Shhhh!” Cum-Andi told the head. Then, looking down at it in the near darkness of the cleaning closet, he asked, “Who am I?”
“Oh, I don’t know that game,” the head replied.
“Keep your voice down!” Cum-Andi scolded the head. “Whisper.”
“Okay,” the head answered. “Who am I?”
“Don’t be useless to me or I’ll kick your head in,” Cum-Andi warned the head. It seemed to understand that Cum-Andi was serious.
“Who are you? I don’t know. You haven’t told me your name yet. I’m Stan,” the head said to Cum-Andi.
Footsteps hurried past the door outside. Cum-Andi heard hissing. The noise, a conversation of hisses, died as whatever was outside the door hurried past.
“Sisguards,” the head whispered. “Have you been bad? They’ll take you to a Detention and Reeducation Center. You won’t like that. I lost my body there.”
Cum-Andi glared down at the head. It had whispered, though, and whatever was outside the door seemed to have passed by without hearing it.
“What are... Sssguards?” Cum-Andi asked.
“Sisguards?” the head replied. “My, my, you’ve never heard of them before? And you so big, how could you...?” the head paused. “You wouldn’t be a Wild One, would you?”
“A what?” Cum-Andi asked.
“Yes, you must be,” the head said to itself, still whispering, as Cum-Andi had ordered it to. “A human, from the look of you, one of the experimental ones grown in the wild. Why aren’t you in your cage?”
“You know about my... cage?” Cum-Andi paused. He still had trouble believing Sedgeway, Iowa, could really be nothing but a fictional illusion inside a six foot by six foot cage. Silently he assured himself he’d wake up at any moment and find himself in his own bed, at home, with no new truck bought for him by his dad for his birthday, and Susan still an unattainable love-object, a kind of 14-year-old Jenny McCarthy. Just like she’d always been, until she’d agreed to go riding with him in his brand-new truck this evening.
“You’ve broken out of your cage,” the head said. “My, my. We won’t have much time to play, then.”
Cum-Andi pushed open the closet door. He peered out. He clutched the head under his arm, not sure if he wanted it, but afraid to let it go just yet. It seemed to have more tales to tell him. And it didn’t seem as much of a threat as Pope had been. For one thing, it had no computerized notepad and, for that matter, no body. It had nothing but a mouth.
“Keep your voice down,” Cum-Andi said to the head under his arm.
“Sure,” the head agreed.
Cum-Andi glared up the hall, then in the other direction. All he could see was the hall’s neon-lit walls. They seemed to close him in on both sides, like a tube-shaped cage. He still felt like a rat.
“Which way? Where do I go?” Cum-Andi asked the head.
“To the bathroom?” the head answered. Cum-Andi glared at the head and it chuckled. “Sorry. A bit of levity, brighten your day, before we both wind up in Det Ed.”
“Det?” Cum-Andi asked, unable to finish because the head interrupted.
“Detention and Reeducation. They’ll get us both now, I’ll bet. I’ll lose my head,” the head answered. Its face broke into a self-pitying smile.
“Look, if you want a body, I’ll see what I can do,” Cum-Andi told the head under his arm. “But if you... if you joke around and fuck with me I’ll kick your head like a football down this hallway.”
“Sounds like a deal,” the head answered. It grinned up at Cum-Andi.
“Good,” Cum-Andi said. “Now who am I, who are you, and where the fuck are we? And how do I get out of this idiot dream I’m in?”
“Not a dream,” the head said. “You may be dreaming soon, and quite painfully, once the Sisguards get hold of you. You’re an escaped animal. Escaped from a cage. I’ll bet you came from right down the hall, hmmm? You don’t seem to have gotten very far from your cage, I’ll bet, considering how little you know. You’ll be back in your cage soon. If you haven’t polluted yourself too much with knowledge of the world outside your cage.” The head looked up at Cum-Andi, and seemed to evaluate him. “If you have polluted yourself, if you know too much, then they’ll kill you. Perhaps you’d best put me back in my closet and turn yourself in before
you know too much.”
“No!” Cum-Andi said. He looked frantically up and down the hallway. Then back at the head. “No, I’m not going back into any fucking cage,” he hissed at the head.
“It’s a nice life. You’ll get to live a full life,” the head replied. “You won’t know you’re in a cage once they’ve got you properly locked back into it. You’ll be... God knows, in Sedgeway, Iowa, if you’re one of that man’s subjects. What’s his name? The guy down the hall? Did you meet anyone besides me?” The head peered up at Cum-Andi from the crook of Cum-Andi’s arm.
“Pope?” Cum-Andi said.
“Yes! Pope! He used to have me sing to him on Friday afternoons,” the head said. “When he had to clean his lab.” The head peered at Cum-Andi closely. “You’re Pope’s subject, aren’t you? Raised in the wild. Or, rather, in a cage that you thought was a real place. Sedgeway, Iowa, right?”
“That’s right,” Cum-Andi answered.
“Pope promised me a body someday, if he could afford it, so I could clean his lab for him,” the head said. “A nice man.”
“Yeah,” Cum-Andi agreed. Something told him to keep his own hostility toward Pope under wraps. The head might not like hearing that Pope was dead.
Footsteps sounded once more in the hall. Cum-Andi jerked his head in the direction of the laboratory. There was a gentle curve to the hallway. It prevented him seeing all the way to the lab, but he guessed that whatever had passed by the hallway closet was on its way back.
Cum-Andi clapped his hand over the BabbleBot’s mouth. The head worked its jaw, futilely.
“Yeah,” Cum-Andi thought. “Blab that I’m here, fucking head. Turn me in and get a body for yourself. No way.” Mewling sounds escaped from between Cum-Andi’s clamping fingers. He pressed them more tightly to the head’s mouth.
Cum-Andi turned and ran. He was wearing sneakers. They muffled his footfalls as he ran down the hall. He was glad he hadn’t taken his Dad’s advice and worn hard-soled shoes for his date with Susan.
Cum-Andi felt a freezing sensation in the pit of his stomach. That father, that man he’d called “Dad,” hadn’t been real. Unless this was just some crazy dream he was in. That meant his mother wasn’t real either. Or his kid sister.
Bethany! Six, going on seven, just old enough to read Dr. Seuss by herself. She’d gotten lost at the Mall last weekend and Mom had gone nuts. Now, it turned out she was lost forever, or, rather, never born. Cum-Andi would have stopped, perhaps even cried, but he could hear footfalls behind him and they were numerous. They, whoever “they” were, had heard him running, despite his sneakers.
This had to be a dream. In dreams, you always wound up being chased. Cum-Andi was torn between stopping, turning around, and confronting whatever was after him. At the same time, he kept his hand over the BabbleBot’s mouth. It kept working its jaw. Cum-Andi adjusted his fingers. The head seemed to be trying to bite one of them.
“Now would be a good time to find a rabbit hole,” Cum-Andi muttered to himself, remembering a book he’d read to Bethany a few days ago, after school. She’d insisted. It had been the only way he could keep her from putting a mud-pie in the oven. And keep her from telling Mom about the pot she’d found sneaking around in his bedroom.
Cum-Andi stared at the floor. It looked solid. He jumped, once, to test it. Hey, this was a dream, right? He’d probably sink right into it.
The floor held.
“There’s the animal!” Cum-Andi heard behind him. Cum-Andi whirled about. Something burned into his arm. He screamed. If it had been his right arm, he’d have dropped the head onto the floor. But it was his left, and in his left hand he held nothing.
Cum-Andi felt tears well up in the corners of his eyes. If this was a dream, it was a damn painful one! His arm felt like it was on fire. Cum-Andi would have looked down at his arm but he couldn’t take his eyes off the creatures who were coming toward him. They resembled lizards! Lizards without tails!
They had long hair, like Susan. One lizard was blonde, two were brunettes. A brunettes had her hair pulled back into a tight, Puritan-like bun. The other two lizards let their hair flow freely down over their shoulders. The lizards had slitted yellow eyes. They seemed to be wearing blue body armor. It consisted of a blue helmet, with a Sheriff-like gold star on its front. A blue armored vest was fitted over each lizard’s torso. The lizards, underneath their vests, seemed to have bosoms. Some of the lizards were more amply endowed in their chests than others. Their arms were bare, but covered with what appeared to be small, mesh-like scales. Their legs were covered with the same cloth, or was it bare skin? Cum-Andi couldn’t decide. Most amazingly, except for one other feature, the creatures wore no pants. Cum-Andi could see what appeared to be pubic hair where the legs of each creature joined.
It was the faces, though, of the lizards that most riveted Cum-Andi. They were crocodile faces. Every lizard had a long, protuberant snout. The snout of each lizard was graced, hideously, by long, glittering fangs.
Each lizard had long claws growing from her hands. Her fangs and claws seemed to match. In fact, they did match, Cum-Andi noticed, for each lizard seemed to have chosen her own personal color to paint her fangs and her claws with.
Almost involuntarily, Cum-Andi glanced at the lizards’ feet. Yes! Protruding from what could only be described as open-toed, sandal-like boots, each lizard had claw-like toes. They had colored their toes’ claws to match their fingers’ claws and their fangs. One lizard had pink fangs, pink finger claws, pink toe claws. Another had chosen yellow as her color. A third lizard had chosen garish purple.
“Is it a Man?” Cum-Andi heard one of the lizards ask another. They hurried toward him.
“Yes. One of the specially-grown, primitive men, created for study purposes,” one of the lizards dashing toward Cum-Andi replied.
“It’s a plot! Pope cloned himself! Now he’s released his creation on us,” one of the lizards cried. The lizard who led the pack seconded this. She said:
“Kill it! Pope was wise to commit suicide. We must not be unwise and let this animal run loose, spreading his diseases among us!”
Cum-Andi watched as one of the lizards rushing at him raised what looked like a gun. Cum-Andi remembered his left arm. It still burned, badly, like a sunburn laid on with a vengeance by a too-long day at the beach.
“Don’t! You’ll kill the BabbleBot!” Cum-Andi cried. He raised up the head to block the inevitable blast of the gun aimed at him.
“He’s an animal! An escaped animal!” the BabbleBot screamed at the approaching lizards. Cum-Andi’s hand had come off the Bot’s mouth as he raised the head to protect himself.
“No!” one of the blue-armored lizards shouted. With apparent sympathy for Stan, she knocked her mate’s gun aside. The blast meant for Cum-Andi went off anyway. However, it went awry. A hole was blown into the wall to Cum-Andi’s right. Shards of it cut into Cum-Andi’s right side.
“Owwww! God!” Cum-Andi yelled. This dream was getting too painful to bear. He turned. He ran. Behind him he heard contentious yelling, as if the lizards had turned on one another.
Cum-Andi tucked the BabbleBot back under his arm so he wouldn’t drop it as he ran. Then he remembered how the head had betrayed him. Cum-Andi lifted the head. He glared at it. He kept running, though, for he could hear the lizards somewhere behind him, still shouting at one another.
“Hi. Exercise is good for you,” the head said with forced nonchalance.
“Where I come from, we play football,” Cum-Andi panted. “If you want to find out what it’s like to be a live football, betray me again.”
“You were using me to block the gun,” the head answered. “I only betrayed you after you betrayed me.”
“Yeah, sure,” Cum-Andi said. He didn’t believe the head had only been getting a just revenge. The head had yelled the minute it could, and it had been trying to talk, or shout, the whole time he’d had his hand clamped over its mouth. “Tell me how to get the fuck out of this dream. NOW!”
The head looked up. “Air conditioning is a wonderful invention,” the head replied.
Cum-Andi looked up. He slowed his pace. He scanned the ceiling. Of course! Air ducts were spaced at regular intervals in the ceiling. If he could pry off a duct’s cover, assuming he could reach it, he might... Yes! He might be able to get up into an air duct!
“You’ll need to jump high, or find something to stand on,” the head said.
Cum-Andi looked along the hall. He saw a door. He rushed to it, turned the knob. It was locked.
Cum-Andi ran on. He came to another door. It too was locked. Then, running on, he came to a hallway that cut across the one he’d been running through.
Rounding the hall’s corner, Cum-Andi found himself staring at a lizard like the ones he’d been running from. But this one had her hair pinned up in a loosely-tied scarf. She was mopping the floor. Cum-Andi scanned her figure for a weapon but saw none.
“Eeeeyah! An animal!” the lizard screamed. She raised her mop at Cum-Andi. She swung it at him, hard. It connected with his chest and sent him sprawling. Cum-Andi landed on his back. He dropped the head as he did.
“Yow!” the head cried. It went clattering across the floor.
Without thinking, Cum-Andi leapt to his feet. He attacked the lizard with the mop. He managed to wrench the mop from her hands. He began to beat the lizard. Viciously, without remorse. The lizard responded, kicking him in the groin. Cum-Andi suppressed a scream, somehow, and beat the lizard even more violently.
Cum-Andi found himself standing over the lizard. It lay at his feet. Blood gushed from its head and mouth. Cum-Andi reached down between his legs and gingerly massaged his crotch.
“Nice work. It’s dead,” the head called from across the hall.
“Now what?” Cum-Andi asked. He felt slightly disoriented by the kick he’d received in his groin.
“Her cleaning cart, idiot. Get up on her cart,” the head said. “And don’t forget me. I doubt they’ll let me off, much less give me a body, now that you’ve killed one of them. They’ll figure I’m polluted, just by having seen one of them killed. By a man. A primitive man. They wouldn’t want me talking.”
“Hmmm, I guess we’re partners in crime, then,” Cum-Andi said. He turned to the head. He walked over to it, his gait slightly awkward from the kick he’d received in his groin. “Good. You won’t be screaming about me any more.”
“Yeah,” the BabbleBot agreed. Cum-Andi scooped up the head from the floor. He looked at it. It had a dent in its forehead but otherwise it seemed just as it had been before.
Cum-Andi heard the blue-armored lizards somewhere around the corner and down the hall. They were running toward him.
I’m getting sick of this,” Cum-Andi said suddenly. He was gripped with a desire to stand his ground, to confront the lizards. He’d end this stupid dream and wake up in his own bed and--
“Look at me,” the head said in a strange, low voice. It might have been a furious voice but the head was just a head, and it seemed silly for a head with no body to be angry with him. Still, Cum-Andi obeyed the head. He looked down at it.
The head glared up at him. “Everything you ever knew is over,” the head said. “This isn’t some dream, like you wish it would be. Your past life is over. It never existed, except in your head, in your cage.” The head said the word “cage” vengefully. “You can’t smoke pot to get out of this one, or listen to Nirvana. This is real. Real life. And they’ll make you pay for killing one of them. They’re wymen, after all. Twenty-fifth century wymen. You’re a throwback. A primitive man from an earlier era. You’re not supposed to be alive, except in your cage, and then only so you can be studied.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Cum-Andi replied. And he wished he could get that name out of his head. He wasn’t Cum-Andi. He was George. George, named after George Washington, George Harrison Smith. He lived in Sedgeway, Iowa, and he had two parents, two parents who hadn’t gotten divorced, like most of his friends’ parents. And he had a 6-year-old sister, almost seven, who had just learned to read Dr. Seuss books on her own.
Cum-Andi winced at the pain in his left arm. At the shards of broken hallway in his right side. At the throbbing in his groin where earlier in the evening he’d been feeling a welcome tightness, in his briefs, as Susan proved remarkably responsive to his kisses.
Susan! He’d bashed her head into his windshield. That’s how all this had started. He’d felt, somehow, a need... a sensation that he was boxed in, inside his brand-new pickup, that he was being studied, watched, observed, and...
He’d killed Susan. Cum-Andi felt it in his gut and knew it was true. Yet Susan never had existed! Pope had said he was living in... what was it? An Emulsion Cage.
Due to Reddit’s character limit, I can only post part of my book here.
A free copy of “AMAZONIA” is at:
http://andrewroller.com
Copyright 2023 by Andrew L. Roller. AMAZONIA is a trademark of Andrew L. Roller.

Have you ever had the experience of swearing you saw something at the edge of your vision, peering at you from around a corner before? I’m fairly sure a good chunk of people have, maybe even you reading this right now. Regardless of whether you’re in a crowded area such as a mall or school, or home by yourself, you’ve more than likely had that strange sensation of being watched, usually accompanied by a slight shiver down your spine. You’ll snap your head up from whatever it is you’re doing, or whoever you’re talking to. And nothing will be there. But, you always swear that, at the very edge of your vision, you saw something. A slight blur, as if something was there, but seemed to anticipate your move, and pulled back out of sight. I’m fairly certain most of you just end up shaking it off. You shake your head, telling yourself that nothing was there, and go back to what you were doing.
That’s a good thing. Because it’s what keeps you safe. It’s what keeps you alive.
Like many of you, for years, I always wrote seeing the slight blur at the edge of my sight off as a trick of my eyes. “Being so focused on one particular area that the rest of your vision goes fuzzy” as my mother once told me when I, as a child, told her I’d seen something at the doorway to my bedroom. And as I grew older, I simply took it as fact, the way every child takes their parent’s wisdom to heart. And once I became an adult, I simply waved it away completely.
That was, until one night.
You see, as a thirty-something year old bachelor who makes just above the line of adequate pay, I live by myself in a small, one bedroom apartment. It means having to live farther out from the city where I work, but I prefer living alone over not having to make the rather long drive to and from work every day. And, because my free time during the day is close to zero, I also am a bit of a night owl. This particular night, about three and a half weeks ago, I was up late, sitting at my kitchen table with my laptop out in front of me. I was surfing the net, looking for good deals on EBay for a new DVD/VCR combo since my old one broke, when the feeling came over me. The small, but noticeable shiver shot up my spine, and at the upper edge of my vision, just below where my hair began to drift into my eyes, I saw it.
It was a black and silver blur. At least, that’s what it looked like to me. I lifted my head quickly, looking towards the corner I’d seen it. My kitchen is in the back of the apartment, and where the table is set up, I was looking back out into the living room. The bedroom also sits next to the kitchen, and the wall separating the two stretches out a bit, causing a rather large blind spot from where I sat. Of course, when I looked up, there was nothing there. For a few more seconds, I simply sat, staring at the corner. Nothing moved. There was no sound except for the quiet whine of my laptop’s fan, and the hum of the fridge. I snorted. Really, Eddie? You’re jumping at shadowy blurs now? What are you, eight years old again? And with a shake of my head, I went back to the computer screen.
The hours seemed to pass by at an accelerated pace, and to my surprise, when I checked the clock at the bottom right of my laptop screen, the time said quarter to three in the morning. “Holy crap, I stayed up too friggin’ late!” I whispered to myself. I’d barely be getting four or five hours of sleep. And so, with a yawn, I shut my computer down and put it back into its carrying bag. As I stood up, though, a slight feeling of apprehension wiggled its way to the forefront of my mind. I lifted my head from zipping up the bag and again stared at the corner. This time there was nothing there. No blur at all. Recalling what my mother had told me years ago, I stood up and slowly stepped into the center of the kitchen, where I could see around the corner. I felt a small pang of embarrassment at the relief that washed over me as I saw nothing was there.
“What next, you gonna start believing in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus again?” I muttered to myself. And with that, I entered my bedroom, shutting the door behind me and climbing into bed. For a moment, the image of the blur danced behind my eyelids. And then the sandman overtook me, plunging me into a deep and dreamless sleep.
The next day passed by like I was wading through quicksand. Of course, it likely had to do with how tired I was. But I got through the day, and soon enough, I was back home. This time, I resolved to get to bed before midnight. One AM at the latest. So I didn’t go on my computer. Instead, I watched some TV, and indulged myself in a few online matches in Battlefield 1. Soon enough, the clock sitting next to the TV displayed 12:35 in big red numbers. Alright, time for bed, I thought, and stood up, shutting off the TV and Xbox. I decided that I would get myself a drink before bed, and moved to the fridge. Opening it, I pulled a pitcher of juice out, and grabbing a glass from a nearby cabinet, poured myself some. The cold liquid felt good sliding down my throat, and I let out a relieved sigh. For a moment, I closed my eyes. Apart from the sound of a diesel truck passing by outside, and the ticking of the clock over the sink, all was silent. And I loved it. I placed the glass in the sink to wash tomorrow, and turned to take the pitcher back to the fridge.
And nearly dropped it at what I saw. As I turned around, I had a clear view across the kitchen and living room toward the small alcove where my front door sat. And for just a second, I saw the same black and silver blur, pulling back out of sight from the edge of my vision. Except this time, I know it wasn’t just a trick of my vision, or a strand of hair flashing in front of my face. “Hey!” I reflexively yelled out. I didn’t expect any response, and I didn’t get any. But now I knew for certain. There was something, or someone there. I felt my pulse rapidly quicken, and my heart began to beat like a drum against my chest. Fucking great, did someone decide to break in and try to burgle my apartment, of all places tonight? I looked around quickly for something to defend myself. My eyes fell upon the block holding all my kitchen knives, and moving quickly, I pulled the largest one out and turned back towards the entryway.
There was no movement now, but I noticed a change in the atmosphere. Gone was the simple, vacant air the apartment always held. Now, it seemed to contain a charge to it. As if seeing the figure had been something they hadn’t planned on. As if I weren’t supposed to have seen it. Probably figured I’d already be in bed. Well, they have a massive surprise coming their way. I cleared my throat. “You back there” I called out simply. Again, there was no reply. I spoke again. “Look, I saw you there peeking around the corner of the entryway. The jig is up. I don’t want a fight right now, so, I’ll make you a deal. If you turn around right now and leave, I won’t call the cops on you, and I won’t come at you with this knife. Just, go find someone else to rob, okay?”
Still, there was silence. But the tension in the room seemed to have racked up more than a few notches at my words. I waited for a minute, feeling my temper begin to flare. Does the dumbass seriously believe that if he stays quiet, I’ll believe he’s not there and go to bed or something? It wouldn’t be a surprise; the people who usually broke into houses and apartments in my neighborhood were usually strung out on the drug of choice for the week, or, in all truthfulness, simply not that bright. I let out an annoyed growl. “If I have to come over there to get, it’s not gonna end well for you” I said. At six feet even, and in good shape, I could easily take on whoever it was.
The silence was almost deafening. Okay, the hell with this, man. I strode quickly across the room, the knife held out in front of me in a vice like grip. I stopped for a moment, drawing in all my strength and reflexes. For a moment, though, an odd sensation seemed to wash over me like a wave. To my surprise, it was a bolt of fear. But, fear of what? Yes, it was a bit dangerous to about to confront a cornered intruder, but fear shouldn’t be one of the experienced emotions. Shaking it away, I put all the muscle into my legs, and leapt around the corner.
There was nobody there.
For a moment, I simply stood there, feeling dumbfounded. “Uhhh….what?” I blurted out. I knew for a fact I’d seen someone there. It hadn’t been a trick of my eyes. And I hadn’t heard the front door open. In fact, looking down at it now, I saw the little knob on the door handle was, in fact, twisted into the locked position. As I stared down at it, a sudden, huge shiver rushed up my spine, combined with the feeling of being stared at intensely. In fact, it almost felt as though whoever were doing the staring, were almost directly behind me-shit!
On instinct, I whirled around, slashing out with the knife as hard as I could. But again, there was nothing. No one stood behind me. The oddest thing, though, was that as soon as I spun around, the feeling of eyes boring into the back of my skull ceased. As if the watcher had simply blinked out of existence the moment I turned. But the tension in the apartment didn’t go away. In fact, it almost seemed to intensify. And it kept me on edge. Enough to the point that I searched the entire apartment. I went into the bathroom, drawing back the shower curtain. I went into my bedroom and opened up the sliding doors to the closet. I even opened up both closets in the living room, pulling out all the coats and boxes someone could hide behind. But I found nothing. No trace of anybody. Even still, though, when I went to bed, I locked the door to my bedroom behind me, just in case. And I slept with the knife on my bedside table.
The next morning, when I awoke, the feeling had vanished from the apartment. It was almost as if the daylight had banished the tension filled aura away, and I was glad for it. Along with the fact that I had a full day of work ahead of me. And so, with a final look around, I locked the front door behind me, climbed into my old, but well taken care of Mitsubishi Starion, and made the two and a half hour drive into the city for work. The day passed by without much fuss, aside from a mandatory team meeting my dickhead boss decided to impose on us during our lunch break. The monotony calmed me down somewhat, and I began to mentally tease myself for how bent out of shape I’d gotten last night. I even decided to tell some of the guys at the water cooler about it.
Everyone, of course, had a good laugh over it. “Well, Ed, if I ever need someone to slice away at the dark emptiness of my house, I’ll be sure to give you a call!” Mark, one of my coworkers joked, causing everyone, including myself, to guffaw some more. The joking shoved it completely out of my mind, and before I knew it, the evening had arrived. I packed up my belongings back into the car and made the journey back home, still chuckling a bit to myself and humming along to the songs playing on the car’s radio. As I pulled into my apartment building’s parking lot and into my space at close to ten at night, however, I saw something which tore away that relaxed, relieved emotion from me like it’d been a loved one in the grip of a tsunami.
My complex is set up in a U formation with two floors, sort of similar to how an older built motel looks. My apartment was the second one on the top floor, and from where I sat in my car, I could look up and see the living room window of my place between the slats of the walkway’s railing. As I always did, when I left, I’d twisted shut the white venetian blinds so nobody walking past the window could look into my place.
Someone was peering down at me from between the blinds. From between my blinds.
I felt my blood turn to ice as I saw the obvious parting in the middle of them, signifying someone was pulling down on a section of them. And then doubly so when they, just as quickly, snapped back into position. Shitttt, I mentally hissed. I fumbled around in my coat pockets, looking for my cell phone. I let out a groan as I suddenly realized I’d forgotten it when I’d left home that morning. Which meant it was up there. With them. “Shit” I hissed again, out loud this time. I gazed around for a moment at the darkened windows of the other units. But I knew none of my neighbors would be of any help to me. Long gone were the days of neighbors looking out for each other; they would, inevitably, tell me to either find a way to call the cops myself, or straight up tell me to go fuck myself, that it wasn’t their problem. Which, unless I wanted to drive straight to my local police station, over twenty minutes away, the only other option was…to go in myself.
Hissing through gritted teeth, I pulled the door handle and kicked the door open, letting the chilly night air flood into the car’s interior. I reached down and yanked on the trunk release before climbing out and slamming the door. Crossing to it, I pulled the glass hatch up and fumbled around inside for a moment, before withdrawing a tire iron from the mess of crap cluttering up the trunk. Slamming the hatch closed, I took a deep breath, then, leaving my car’s engine running in case I needed to make a quick getaway, I took the stairs to the top floor two at a time. A moment later, I was standing at the head of the landing, staring at the Tweety-Bird yellow painted door of my apartment. My heart pounded in my chest as I took a step forward, reaching out slowly and gripping the handle in one hand. I gave it a small twist to see if it would turn.
But it stayed in place, showing that the door was still locked. Or, whoever’s in there locked it behind them. Swallowing a bit, I reached into my pants pocket for my house keys with my free hand. Pulling them out, I slid them as quietly as possible into the lock in the center of the doorknob. I took a deep breath, knowing as soon as I twisted the key, the doorknob would turn with it as well. “God, please don’t let me get jumped as soon as I step inside” I quietly whispered towards the dark sky. I let out the deep breath, then raised the tire iron over my head and twisted the key.
The knob turned, and I immediately pushed the door open. It swung inwards, before hitting the wall with a soft clunk. The porch light cast a long, narrow shaft of light into the dark room beyond, reflecting off my flat screen TV on the far side of the living room. Aside from that, though, the place was as dark and silent as a tomb. My pulse quickened as I slowly reached inside, my hand searching for the light switch. Part of my feared that, as I blindly searched, I’d suddenly feel a vice like grip seize my wrist and pull me into the dark. The mental image sent a shiver of fear through me, just as my fingers found the plastic switch. Flicking it on, the living room suddenly became awash in the bright overhead light. Still holding the tire iron over my head, I took a tentative step inside. The atmosphere in here had changed again. Gone was the tense one which had accompanied seeing…whoever the other night. In its place was….an almost threatening one. And realizing it set me even farther on edge.
Moving quickly, I leaned around the corner, giving me a glimpse of the kitchen beyond. Both it, and the living room were empty, from initial appearances, anyways. But that still left the bathroom, and the kitchen. Something caught my eye, however, which filled me with relief. My cell phone still sat where I’d left it, in the middle of the living room coffee table. I moved slowly, trying to stay as quiet as possible so whoever was hidden wouldn’t realize I was going for my phone and bum rush me. I held my breath as I passed by the half open doors of both my bathroom and bedroom, stepping around the couch and picking up my phone. I decided right there and then, that I’d step back outside and call the cops. There was a fine line between being courageous, and being suicidally stupid, and searching this place on my own, with just a tire iron to defend myself, especially knowing someone was hiding somewhere in here, was firmly on the latter side of that line.
I turned to begin walking quickly back to the open front door. But something stopped me. Something which made me freeze. There was a small section of eggshell white wall between the door to one of my closets, and the bathroom door. Something had been written there. No, not written, I realized. It had been scratched into the wall. My eyes flashed over the three words etched into the paint and plaster. Videre nos potest. My head swam with confusion, trying to place what language it was. That was when I felt my heart almost stop in my chest, my breath along with it.
Out of the left corner of my vision, I saw the door to my bedroom had slowly, but noticeably swung open a bit. That wasn’t what had caused my heart to skip a beat, though. It was seeing the black and silver blur again. Ohhhhh, shit. Before the thought had finished in my head, I was dashing for the door. Out of the corner of my vision, there was a sudden blur of movement as the black and silver figure came flying out of the room. It never made a sound, though. I dodged it, somehow, and flew around the corner, snatching the doorknob in my free hand and yanking the door shut behind me. Twisting the keys to the right to lock the door again, I tore them from the lock and thundered back down the stairs, yanking the door to my car open and crashing into the driver’s seat. Slamming the door shut and locking it, I dropped the tire iron and fumbled with my phone.
As the voice of the emergency dispatcher came on the other end of the line, and I stumbled through explaining what had happened, I kept my gaze locked through the windshield on the front door and the living room window. I swear I saw the blinds part again as I heard the wail of the police sirens approaching.
When the police arrived, I jumped out of my car and quickly explained what had happened. They took my house keys from me and with their pistols drawn, climbed quickly up the steps to my place. With neighbors opening their doors and parting their blinds to see what was happening, they unlocked the door and quickly entered. A few minutes later, they both reappeared and waved for me to come up and join them. “I’m sorry sir, but whoever it was, they’re gone” one of them said to me. He then showed me that the window in the back of the apartment, which was in the back of the kitchen and opened out onto a main road, had been opened, the mosquito screen having been cut to allow someone to jump out. I stared out and down at the two story drop. It would hurt to jump from this height, but it’s doable, I thought. The cops again did a sweep of the apartment, turning the entire place upside down with me there, and again, found no one. They both promised to stay the night outside, to keep an eye on the place in case the person attempted to try and come back, and would make sure an officer was posted outside for the next week or so. It made me feel more than a bit better.
“What about the writing scratched into the wall?” I asked them, pointing to it. The first officer shrugged. “I honestly don’t know, sir” he said, giving me an apologetic look, “That’s a language I’ve never seen before” That’s when the second spoke up. “It’s Latin” he said simply. We both looked at him. He was staring at the writing with a bit of a confused, if not apprehensive look on his face. “But what freaking low level criminal knows Latin?” he murmured quietly, more to himself than us. “Well, what does it say?” I asked him. For a few seconds, he didn’t answer, then he finally turned and looked at me.
“He can see us. That’s, roughly, what it says”
I felt a massive chill shoot up my spine at his words, though I couldn’t understand why. Not at the time.
As promised, the officers watched over the apartment the rest of the night. And for the next week, there was always at least one cop car sitting outside. It was also, thankfully, quiet that next week. I was almost able to feel completely calm, putting the frightening experience out of my mind and allowing my life to regain a bit of normalcy. I didn’t feel any sensation of being watched. One thing I did do, though, was type the Latin words into Google, in an attempt to see if anything came up. But nothing did. I decided to push the last remnants out of my conscious mind. And as the weekend came, I looked forward to sitting on the couch, playing video games all night, and having a bottle of Hypnotiq to myself. Saturday night, I played until almost one in the morning, before stumbling my drunk ass to the bed. I passed out almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I’m honestly not sure what woke me up. But when I slid my eyes open, it was still to darkness. I felt my head begin to spin, showing that I wasn’t fully sober yet. I shot a look at the bright red glowing numbers of the clock on the bedside table next to my head. 3:30AM. Ugh, what the hell? Do I have to piss? What woke me u-
Everything stopped. My mind froze mid-thought, and my heart fluttered in my chest. My breath hitched in my chest as my eyes adjusted to the dark, staring across the room. I was looking at my bedroom closet, which, when I’d fallen asleep, I’d looked over and seen it closed. But now, as I stared, I realized the sliding right door had been pulled back some. A chill ran through me. And then it was replaced by a bone chilling shiver of fear as my eyes locked on to something else. Something which stared at me from around the edge of the half open closet door.
It was the black and silver blur. Except this time, it wasn’t a full on blur. I’m not sure whether it was the darkness or the alcohol still flowing through my veins, but…I could see it a bit more clearly now. I couldn’t see much. Just what looked like two large, very dark eyes, glaring at me. I felt frozen in place, fear quite literally paralyzing me to the bed. As I lay there, my eyes widened to the size of saucers, I slowly became aware of something else. Something which I’ll never forget, which I can still hear in the silence. It was whispering. It was a soft, hissing voice, sounding as grating as sandpaper, but it almost seemed to be growing in intensity. As if it knew I was awake and was staring at it. And it was not even remotely happy about it. The words were indistinguishable at first, but as the voice grew louder, the words became clear. But they weren’t words I knew. Or a language I knew.
“Tolle qui nos videre potest. Tolle qui nos videre potest. Tolle…qui nos videre potest!” I recognized some of the words as the same as the words written on my wall. It was speaking in Latin. The voice grew angrier and angrier, turning from a hiss into almost a demonic growl. And then, it went deadly silent. It almost seemed as though the entire world had gone dead silent, as if everything were being sucked out of the world.
That’s when I saw the hand reach up from underneath the bed to grab onto the sheets, less than a foot from my face. A hand which more resembled a claw, tipped with five razor sharp fingernails. There’s more than one….and it’s under my fucking bed!
Seeing that hand…that claw reaching up from under the bed broke the paralyzing hold that had come over me. I flew up in bed, flinging the sheets up and forwards and letting out an involuntary scream. Instantly, there seemed to be a world of motion in the bedroom. Black and silver blurs seemed to appear from everywhere. From the closet, from under the bed. Even from inside my armoire I used to store candy, books and CDs. And they were all coming for me.
But I was already moving, practically flying for my open bedroom door. Behind me, I caught the blurs following after me. They were terrifyingly fast, but they stayed silent. Silent, that is, except for the mantra they all suddenly began to angrily whisper. The same words I’d heard the one in the closet angrily hiss. “Tolle qui nos videre potest!” they chanted, just loud enough for me to hear. But not enough for anyone else in the complex to. I ran through the bedroom door, grabbing it and slamming it shut behind me. A moment later, I felt the push from the other side as whatever the things were attempted to force it open. Looking around, I spied a kitchen chair within reach and grabbed it, forcing it under the handle to block the door.
I knew it wouldn’t hold for long, though. I could hear the creatures practically throwing themselves at the door. I used the time I had to grab my computer bag, along with the clothes I’d left strewn on my living room floor and my cell phone. I’d just snatched my car keys from their hook, when I realized they’d gone silent. The assault on the door stopped. For a split second, I felt a wave of relief. And then I saw something out of the corner of my eye from the kitchen. My blood turned to ice as I realized the cabinet doors under the sink were beginning to open. And that demonic growl of a mantra was beginning to pour out from under it. So was my bathroom door. And both closets. “Oh, fuck me” I whimpered, then dashed for my door, snatching up my sneakers as they rushed out from their new hidey holes.
I unlocked and threw the door open, dashing out into the night and yanking it shut behind me. Bolting down the steps, I jammed the key into the door of my car and unlocked it. I piled into the driver’s seat and yanked the door shut, slamming down on the lock button. Forcing the key into the ignition and twisting it, the engine roared to life. I knew I should simply call the cops, but I knew at this point, if I did, when they arrived, they’d all have disappeared. Maybe even make it look like another person had jumped out the window again They're THAT smart. Instead, I jammed the shifter into reverse and peeled out of the parking lot. As I left, I saw the blinds part again. As they watched me go.
I haven’t been back to my apartment in weeks. I drove all through the night, fighting back the waves of nausea from the alcohol still in my system until I made it to the city where I work. I rented a motel room, and ever since then, I’ve been staying there. I figured I could just eventually have movers go and collect my things from the apartment, and give my thirty day notice. There was no way I was ever going back there.
I thought I would be safe in the city. I thought I would be safe anywhere else but my apartment. That they were bound to the place.
I was wrong. So very wrong.
Because I’ve started seeing them everywhere now. I’ve seen them while out in crowded places such as the mall or Wal-Mart. I’ve seen them in my coworker’s houses when I’m invited over by them as they tell me they’re concerned about how I’m beginning to act. I’m even seeing them at work. Peering at me from around the corners of hallways, from behind the water cooler. I’ve even caught them glaring at me from around the corner of my office cubicle. They whisper that horrible Latin mantra to themselves, now added with evil chuckles. And whisper it to me. I ended up entering the phrase into Google Translate, to understand what they were saying. But wish I never had. Because knowing meaning of the words fills me with an existential dread and terror I’ve never felt before.
Take away he who can see us
You need to listen to me now. You, reading this account I’m posting. I don’t know what these creatures are. I wish I did, because then, I might have some way of fighting back against them. I don’t even know what they fully look like. I’ve only seen their eyes. And their clawed hands. The only thing I can deduce, is that they are incalculably old. Centuries old. Maybe even eons. I now understand that those blurs I saw all throughout my life, from the corner of my vision, were them. They’ve lived alongside us for all of humanity’s existence, staying just out of sight. They like it that way. They don’t like us humans knowing about them.
But I know others, not just myself, have likely seen them.
How many strange cases of people disappearing in their homes, with all the doors and windows locked from the inside have you heard about. I know I’ve heard more than a few. And I think I know what happened to them. They saw these creatures. And when they realized the people could see them? They came for them. They wore them down, mentally and physically. Like they’re doing to me now. I’m afraid to fall asleep. Afraid I’ll wake up to see them right in front of me. I feel so weak now. I couldn’t fight them off if I tried. They know that. They knew that about the others. And that’s when they dragged them away….to God only knows where.
I know I'm going to find out soon enough.
Because all of today, they’ve been getting closer. I caught one trying to grab my leg under my desk. That wasn’t the scariest encounter I’ve had. The worst was driving back to the motel. Looking in the rear view mirror of my Starion. And seeing one of them glaring at me from just behind the rear seat. It caused me to nearly crash into a telephone pole. I’ve locked myself in my motel room, which is where I’m writing this. I don’t have much time left. They’re beginning to poke their heads out from everywhere in here. Multiple have popped their heads up from under the bed, watching me frantically typing this out on my laptop. And they’re all laughing at me. Today is when they're going to take me. They know I know that. I can’t do anything more now. I can’t run from them anymore. I’m too tired. Too weak.
But I can do one final thing. I can warn you. I can post this account here as a warning. I know for a fact most of you won’t believe me. And that’s fine. It may even be what saves you in the end.
But please, listen to me when I say this. If you ever think you see something peering at you from around a corner? If you ever catch a glimpse of a black and silver blur disappearing just out of sight? Don’t investigate it. Just ignore it. Tell yourself it’s nothing, and go about with your lives.
Because you don’t ever want them to realize you can see them.

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Jurassic World 6-Film Collection (Dominion Thea & Ext) HD/MA $18
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Mad Max 1-4 Set 4K/VU $18.5
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Mickey & Minnie 10 Classic Shorts HD/MA $5.5 or HD/GP $5
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Paranormal Activity 1-8 Collection HD/VU $22
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Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 HD/MA $3.5
Paw Patrol Movie HD/VU $4.5
Percy Jackon Lightning Thief SD/IT $1.5
Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters HD/MA $3
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Peter Pan (1953) HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
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Push 4K/VU $6
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Ratatouille 4K/MA $6 or HD/GP $4
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RED 2 HD/VU or IT $2
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Right One 4K/VU $5.5
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Rio 2 HD/MA $3
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Rocky Knockout Collection 1-4 (Rocky IV w/ Thea & Rocky vs Drago Ultimate Cut) 4K/VU $20
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Running Man 4K/VU $5.5
Safe Haven SD/IT $1.5
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Saw 7-Film Collection (Unrated) HD/VU $18
Saw 8-Film Collection HD/VU $20
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Show Dogs HD/MA $3.5
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Sixteen Candles HD/MA $4
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Social Network 4K/MA $5.5
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Source Code 4K/VU $5.5
Spartacus HD/MA $3.5
Spider-Man Into Spider-Verse 4K/MA $5.5
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Sting 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5
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Sudden Death HD/IT $4
Taken 2 HD/MA $3.5
Tangled HD/MA $4
Tar HD/MA $6
Taxi Driver HD/MA $4
Teen Spirit (2019) HD/MA $4
Teen Titans Go! & DC Super Hero Girls Mayhem Multiverse HD/MA $6
Teeth HD/VU $4.5
Ten Commandments (1923) HD/VU $4
Ten Commandments (1956) HD/VU $4
Tetro HD/VU $4
Thanks for Sharing HD/VU $4
The Batman HD/MA $4
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This Means War SD/IT $1.5
Thor Love & Thunder 4K/MA $5.5 or HD/GP $3.5
Till 4K/IT $7
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To Kill a Mockingbird 4K/IT $4
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Town SD/IT $1.5
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Transformers Dark of Moon 4K/VU $4.5
Transformers Revenge of Fallen 4K/VU $5
Triple 9 HD/IT $3.5
Troy (Director's Cut) HD/MA $4.5
True Grit SD/IT $1.5
Tucker Man & His Dream 4K/VU $5
Turning Red HD/GP $3
Twilight 1-3 (Ext) HD/VU $10
Twilight Breaking Dawn Pt 1 HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Twilight HD/VU $4
Umma HD/MA $4.5
Uncharted HD/MA $4
Uncut Gems HD/VU $4
Under Skin HD/VU $3.5
Underwater HD/MA $4.5
Underworld 5-Film Set HD/MA $17
Venom Let There Be Carnage HD/MA $4
Virtuoso 4K/VU $5
Vivo HD/MA $5
Voyagars 4K/VU $5
W. HD/VU $4
Wall Street Money Never Sleeps SD/IT $1.5
War of Worlds 4K/VU $5.5
War on Everyone HD/VU $4
Warhunt 4K/VU $4.5
Waterworld HD/MA $4
Wayne's World 4K/VU $5.5
Weekend HD/VU $4
What We Did on our Holiday HD/VU $4
Where Crawdads Sing HD/MA $4.5
Whitney Houston I Wanna Dance w/ Sombody HD/MA $5.5 or SD/MA $3
Wicker Man (1973) HD/VU $4.5
Winnie Pooh Springtime w/ Roo HD/MA $4.5 or HD/GP $4
Wolf Man (1941) HD/MA $3.5
Woman King HD/MA $5.5
Women Talking 4K/IT $7
X-Men Days of Future Past Rogue Cut 4K/IT $5.5
X-Men First Class & Days of Future Past HD/MA $6.5
X-Men Trilogy (X-Men, X2, Last Stand) HD/MA $12
Zero Dark Thirty HD/MA $3.5
All other movies (A-Z)
101 Dalmatians HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
12 Years a Slave HD/MA $3.5
13 Hours Soldiers of Benghazi HD/VU $2.5
1917 HD/MA $3.5
2 Fast 2 Furious 4K/IT $3.5
2 Guns HD/VU or IT $2.5
21 Jump Street HD/MA $3
3 From Hell (Unrated) 4K/VU $4 or HD/VU $2.5
31 HD/VU $2.5
310 to Yuma 4K/VU $5
47 Meters Down HD/IT $3.5
47 Meters Down Uncaged HD/VU $3.5
47 Ronin HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
71 HD/VU $4
A Clockwork Orange 4K/MA $5
A Most Wanted Man HD/VU $3.5
A Quiet Place HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
A Quiet Place Part 2 4K/VU $5.5 or HD/VU $4
A Wrinkle in Time HD/MA $3 or HD/GP $2.5
About Time HD/VU or IT $3.5
Action Point HD/IT $2
Adore HD/IT $3.5
Adventures Of TinTin HD/VU or IT $2.5
After Earth HD/MA $3
Aladdin (2019) 4K/MA $4.5 or HD/MA $3 or HD/GP $2.5
Alex Cross HD/VU or IT $2
Alfred Hitchcock 5-Film Set Vol 2 4K/MA $24
Alice Through Looking Glass HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Alita Battle Angel 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5
All Eyez on Me HD/IT $3
All Money in World HD/MA $3.5
Aloha HD/MA $3.5 or SD/MA $1
Alvin & Chipmunks Road Chip HD/MA $2.5
Amazing Spider-Man 2 HD/MA $4
Amazing Spider-Man HD/MA $3.5 or SD/MA $1.5
America Imagine World w/out Her HD/VU $1.5
American Assassin 4K/VU $4.5 or HD/VU $3
American Frontier Trilogy (Sicario, Wind River, Hell or High Water) HD/VU $7.5
American Hustle SD/MA $1.5
American Made 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5
American Night HD/VU $4
American Reunion HD/VU or IT $3
American Ultra HD/IT $4
Anchorman 2 Legend Continues HD/VU or IT $2.5
Angel Heart 4K/VU $5.5
Angel of Mine 4K/VU $5.5
Anna 4K/VU $5 HD/VU $3.5
Anna Karenina HD/IT $3.5
Annie (2014) HD/MA $3.5 or SD/MA $1.5
Annihilation HD/VU $3
Antebellum 4K/VU $5
Ant-Man & Wasp HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Ant-Man HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
Apollo 13 4K/MA or IT $5 or HD/MA $3.5
Arctic HD/MA $4
Arnold Schwarzenegger 6-Film Collection (Last Stand, Total Recall, T-2, Red Heat, Maggie, Hercules in NY) HD/VU $14
Arrival HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Ash vs Evil Dead Season 3 HD/VU $5
Assassination Nation HD/MA $3.5
Assassin's Creed HD/MA $3
Atomic Blonde 4K/MA $4.5 or HD/MA$3
August Osage County HD/VU $3
Avengers Age of Ultron HD/MA $3.5 pr HD/GP $3
Avengers Endgame HD/MA $2.5 or HD/GP $2
Avengers HD/GP $3
Avengers Infinity War HD/MA $2.5 or HD/GP $2
Back to Future Trilogy 4K/MA $14 or HD/MA $9.5
Bad Boys for Life HD/MA $4
Bad Grandpa HD/IT $2.5
Bad Words HD/IT $3
Bambi HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
Bangkok Dangerous HD/VU $4
Bank Job HD/VU $3.5
Barbie & Her Sisters in Great Puppy Adventure HD/VU or IT $3.5
Barbie in Princess Power HD/IT $3.5
Barbie Star Light Adventure HD/IT $3.5
Battle of Year HD/MA $3.5
Battleship HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
Baywatch HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Beatriz at Dinner HD/VU $4.5
Beauty & Beast (1991) HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Beauty & Beast (2017) HD/MA $2.5 or HD/GP $2
Before I Fall HD/VU or IT $3.5
Begin Again HD/VU $3.5
Ben-Hur (2016) HD/VU or IT $3.5
BFG HD/MA $3.5
Big Eyes HD/VU $3.5
Big Hero 6 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Big Lebowski 4K/MA $5.5 or HD/MA $4
Big Little Lies Season 1 HD/GP $2.5
Big Short HD/VU or IT $3.5
Big Wedding SD/IT $1
Birth of a Nation HD/MA $3.5
Black Panther 4K/MA $4.5 or HD/GP $2.5
Black Widow HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Blackhat HD/IT $3.5
Blair Witch Project (1999) HD/VU $4
Blockers HD/MA $3.5
Boardwalk Empire Season 1 HD/VU or IT $4
Bombshell 4K/VU $5
Book Club HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Book of Life HD/MA $3.5
Born a Champion 4K/VU $5
Boss Baby HD/MA $2.5
Bourne Identity HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Bourne Legacy HD/VU $2
Bourne Supremacy HD/VU $3.5
Bourne Ultimatum 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Boy 2 HD/IT $3.5
Boy Erased HD/MA $4
Boy HD/IT $3.5
Boyhood HD/VU or IT $2.5
Braven HD/VU $4
Butler HD/VU $3
Butterfly Effect HD/MA $4
Bye Bye Man (Unrated) HD/IT $2.5
Cabin in Woods 4K/VU or IT $4.5 or HD/VU $2.5
Call of Wild 4K/MA $4.5 or HD/GP $2.5
Captain America Civil War HD/GP $2.5
Captain America First Avenger HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5 or SD/IT $1.5
Captain America Winter Soldier HD/GP $3.5
Captain Marvel HD/GP $2
Captain Phillips HD/MA $3.5 or SD/MA $1.5
Carol HD/VU $4
Cars 3 HD/GP $2.5
Case for Christ HD/IT $2.5
Chaos Walking 4K/VU $5
Chicago HD/VU $4
Children (2008) HD/VU $4
Christopher Robin HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
Cloverfield 4K/VU $5.5 or HD/VU $4
Coco HD/GP $2.5
Cold Pursuit 4K/VU $5 or HD/VU $3.5
Collection HD/VU $3.5
Columbiana (Unrated) HD/MA $4
Come & Find Me HD/VU $4
Commuter 4K/VU $5 or HD/VU $3.5
Company of Heroes HD/MA $4
Contraband HD/IT $3
Cooties HD/VU $4
Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun of Dead, Hot Fuzz, World's End) 4K/MA $15
Counselor HD/MA $4
Courier 4K/VU $5.5 or HD/VU $4
Crank 4K/VU $5.5
Crimson Peak HD/IT $3.5
Croods HD/VU $3.5
Cruella HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
D Train 4K/IT $4
Daddy's Home 2 HD/IT $3
Daddy's Home HD/VU $3
Dark Tower HD/MA $3.5
Darkest Hour (2017) 4K/MA $5.5
Darkness HD/IT $3
Dawn of Planet of Apes HD/MA $3.5
Daybreakers 4K/VU $5.5
Deadpool 2 (w/Super Duper Cut) HD/MA $4
Deadpool HD/MA $2.5
Dear White People HD/VU $3.5
Dementia 13 (Director's Cut) HD/VU $4
Descendants SD/IT $1.5
Despicable Me 2 HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Despicable Me 4K/IT $5 or SD/IT $1.5
Detroit HD/MA $3.5
Dilemma HD/VU $3.5 or SD/IT $1.5
Dirty Dancing 4K/VU $5 or HD/VU $3.5
Disney Animated Short Films Collection HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Divergent Allegiant HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Divergent HD/VU $1.5 or 4K/IT $2 or SD/VU $0.5
Divergent Insurgent HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Django Unchained HD/VU $3 or SD/IT $1.5
Do Right Thing 4K/MA $5.5 or HD/MA $4
Doctor Strange HD/GP $2.5
Dom Hemingway HD/MA $3.5
Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot HD/VU $4
Doom (Unrated) 4K/MA $5.5
Doorman HD/VU $3.5
Doors 4K/VU $5.5 or HD/VU $4
Dora & Lost City of Gold HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Downton Abbey Movie HD/MA $4
Dracula Untold HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
Draft Day HD/VU $3.5
Dragged Across Concrete HD/VU $3.5
Dreamkatcher HD/VU $4
Dredd HD/VU $2.5
Duff SD/VU $1.5
Dumbo (2019) HD/GP $3
Dune 4K/MA $5.5
Dying of Light HD/VU $2.5
E.T. Extra Terrestrial 4K/VU or IT $5 or HD/MA $3.5
Edge of Seventeen HD/VU or IT $3
Edge of Tomorrow 4K/MA $5
Edward Scissorhands HD/MA $3.5
El Chicano HD/MA $4
Encanto 4K/MA $4 or 4K/GP $3.5
Enemy at Gates HD/VU $4
Enough Said HD/MA $3.5
Epic HD/MA $3
Escape Plan HD/VU $2
Eternals HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Everest 4K/MA or IT $4.5
Ex Machina HD/VU $3
Exodus Gods & Kings HD/MA $3.5
Expendables 2 HD/VU or IT $1
Expendables 3 (Thea) HD/VU $2 or 4K/IT $2.5
Extreme Prejudice (1987) HD/VU $4
Fast & Furious (2009) HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Fast & Furious 6 (Ext) HD/VU $2 or 4K/IT $2.5
Fast & Furious 6-film Collection HD/VU $12.5
Fast & Furious 7-film Collection HD/VU $14
Fast & Furious 8-film Collection (9 Films) HD/MA $17.5
Fast & Furious 9-film Collection (11 Films) HD/MA $20
Fast & Furious HD/VU $3.5
Fast Color 4K/VU $5.5
Fast Five (Ext) HD/IT $2.5 or SD/IT $1
Fatale 4K/VU $5 or HD/VU $3.5
Fate of Furious (Ext) HD/VU $2
Fate of Furious (Thea) HD/VU or IT $1.5
Fault in Our Stars HD/MA $3.5
Fences HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Ferdinand HD/MA $3.5
Fifty Shades Darker (Unrated) HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Fifty Shades of Grey (Unrated) HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Finding Dory HD/MA $2.5 or HD/GP $2
Finding Nemo HD/GP $3.5
Finest Hours HD/GP $3
First Blood 4K/VU $5
First Man HD/MA $4
Flight HD/VU or IT $3
Florence Foster Jenkins HD/VU or IT $3
Footloose (2011) HD/IT $3
Forever My Girl HD/IT $3
Fortress HD/VU $4
Four Kids & It HD/VU $3.5
Fox & Hound 2 HD/MA $4
Frank & Lola HD/VU or IT $3
Frankenstein (1931) HD/VU $3.5
Free Guy HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
French Dispatch HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
Friday 13th Pt 3 HD/VU $3.5
Frozen (Sing-Along Edition) HD/MA $2 or HD/GP $1.5
Frozen 2 4K/MA $4 or HD/MA $2.5 or HD/GP $2
Frozen Ground HD/VU $3.5
Frozen HD/GP $2
Furious 7 (Ext) HD/VU $2 or 4K/IT $2.5
Fury HD/MA $3.5
G.I. Joe Retaliation HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
Gambit (2012) HD/MA $4
Gambler HD/IT $3
Gambler HD/VU $3
Gemini Man 4K/VU or IT $4.5 or HD/VU $3
Get Out HD/MA $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Ghostbusters (1984) HD/MA $3.5
Ghostbusters 2 HD/MA $3.5
Ghostbusters Afterlife HD/MA $4
Girl on Train HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
Girl w/ All Gifts HD/VU $4
Girls Trip HD/VU or IT $2
Glass Castle 4K/VU $5.5
God's Not Dead 2 HD/MA or IT $2.5
Gods of Egypt HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Gold (2016) HD/VU or IT $2.5
Good Dinosaur HD/MA $3 or HD/GP $2.5
Good Kill HD/VU or IT $3.5
Grace Unplugged HD/VU $2
Greatest Showman HD/MA $3.5
Green Mile 4K/MA $5.5
Grey HD/VU or IT $3
Guardians of Galaxy Vol 1 HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Guardians of Galaxy Vol 2 HD/MA $2.5 or HD/GP $2
Guest House 4K/VU $5
Guilt Trip HD/IT $3
Gunman HD/MA $3
Hacksaw Ridge HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Hail, Caesar! HD/IT $3
Hammer of Gods HD/VU $2
Hands of Stone HD/VU $3.5
Hannibal Season 1 HD/VU $5
Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters (Unrated) 4K/IT $4
Hard Target 2 HD/IT $1.5
Hardcore Henry HD/VU or IT $3.5
Hateful Eight HD/VU $3.5
Heat HD/MA $3
Heaven is for Real SD/MA $1.5
Hell Fest 4K/VU $5
Hell or High Water HD/VU $2.5
Hellboy (2019) HD/VU $3 or 4K/VU $4.5
Hercules (1997) HD/MA $4.5 or HD/GP $4
Hercules (2014) HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Here Comes Boom HD/MA $3.5
Hidden Figures HD/MA $3
Hillsong Let Hope Rise HD/IT $2
Hitman's Bodyguard HD/VU $3.5
Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard 4K/VU $5.5 or HD/VU $4
Hocus Pocus HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Home Alone HD/MA $3.5
Homesman HD/VU $3
Honey 2 HD/VU $3
Hop HD/MA or IT $3
Hope Springs HD/MA $2.5 or SD/MA $1
Hostiles HD/VU $3
Hot Fuzz HD/VU $4
Hotel Mumbai HD/MA $4
Hours (2013) HD/VU $4
How Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) 4K/IT $4
How to Train Your Dragon 2 HD/MA $2.5
How to Train Your Dragon HD/VU $3.5
How to Train Your Dragon Trilogy HD/MA $9
Hugo HD/VU or IT $3
Hunger Games 4-Film Collection HD/VU $8
Hunger Games Catching Fire HD/VU $1.5 or 4K/IT $2 or SD/VU $.5
Hunger Games HD/VU $1.5 or 4K/IT $2 or SD/VU $.0.5
Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1 HD/VU $2.5 or SD/VU $1
Hunter Killer 4K/VU $4.5 or HD/VU $3
Huntsman Winter's War (Ext) HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
I Can Only Imagine HD/VU $4
I Feel Pretty HD/IT $2
Incredibles 2 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Incredibles HD/GP $3.5
Independence Day Resurgence HD/MA $2.5
Indiana Jones & Temple of Doom 4K/VU $5.5
Indignation HD/VU $4
Initiation 4K/VU $5 or HD/VU $3.5
Inside Out HD/GP $2
Instant Family 4K/IT $3.5
Internship SD/IT $1.5
Interstellar HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Into Woods HD/MA $3 or HD/GP $2.5
Invisible Man (1933) HD/MA $3.5
Invisible Man (2020) 4K/MA $5.5 or HD/MA $4
Iron Man 3 HD/GP $2
Iron Man HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
It Follows HD/VU $3.5
It's a Wonderful Life 4K/VU or IT $4.5 or HD/VU $3
Jack & Jill HD/MA $3.5
Jack Reacher HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $4.5
Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Jacob's Ladder HD/VU $4
Jarhead 3 Siege (Unrated) HD/IT $2.5
Jason Bourne HD/VU $2.5
Jason Statham 4-Film HD/VU $10
Jason Statham 6-Film HD/VU $14
Jaws 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5
Jersey Boys HD/MA $2.5
Jesus Music HD/VU $3.5
Jigsaw 4K/VU $4.5
Joe HD/VU $3.5
John Wick 1 & 2 Bundle HD/VU $4
John Wick 3 Parabellum 4K/VU $4.5
John Wick Chapter 2 HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
John Wick HD/VU $2 or 4K/IT $2.5
John Wick Trilogy (Parabellum 4K) HD/VU $9
Jonah Hex HD/MA $4.5
Judy 4K/VU $5
Jungle Cruise HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
Jurassic Park 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5
Jurassic World 5-Film Collection HD/MA $14
Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom 4K/MA $4.5 or HD/MA $3
Jurassic World HD/VU $2.5
Justice (2017) HD/VU or IT $3
Justin Bieber Never Say Never SD/IT $1.5
Kevin Hart Let Me Explain HD/VU or IT $3
Kick-Ass 4K/VU $5.5 or HD/VU $4 or SD/IT $1.5
Kidnap HD/VU or IT $2.5
Killer Elite HD/IT $3
Killerman HD/VU $4
Kin 4K/VU $4.5 or HD/VU $3
King Kong (2005) 4K/MA or IT $5 or HD/MA $3.5
Kingsman Golden Circle 4K/MA $4.5 or HD/MA $3
Kingsman Secret Service 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang HD/MA $4.5
Knick Season 1 HD/IT $3.5
Knick Season 2 HD/IT or GP $3.5
Kung Fu Panda 3 HD/MA $3
La La Land 4K/IT $3.5
Labor Day HD/VU or IT $3
Lady Macbeth HD/VU $4.5
Last Airbender HD/VU $4.5
Last Exorcism HD/VU $4
Last Knights HD/VU $3.5 or SD/VU $1.5
Last Man (2019) HD/VU $4
Last Stand HD/IT $2
Last Vegas HD/MA $3.5
Last Witch Hunter HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
Leatherface HD/VU $4
Leprechaun 7-Film Collection HD/VU $12
Les Miserables (2012) HD/VU or IT $2
Let Me Explain HD/IT $2.5
Let's be Cops HD/MA $3.5
Life (2017) HD/MA $3.5
Life of Crime HD/VU $3.5
Life of Pi 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA or IT $3.5
Light of My Life HD/IT $3.5
Like a Boss HD/VU $3.5
Lilo & Stitch 2 Stitch Has a Glitch HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
Lincoln Lawyer 4K/VU $6.5 or HD/VU $4
Lion King (2019) 4K/MA $4 or HD/GP $2
Live by Night HD/MA $3
Logan HD/MA $3
Logan Lucky 4K/MA or IT $4.5
Lone Ranger HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Lone Survivor HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Long Shot HD/VU $3.5
Longest Ride HD/MA $3
Longest Week HD/VU $3.5
Looper HD/MA $3.5
Lorax (1972) HD/MA $5
Lorax HD/VU $3
Lords of Salem HD/VU $4
Lost World Jurassic Park HD/MA $3
Love & Monsters HD/VU $4
Love Coopers HD/VU or IT $4
Love, Simon HD/MA $3.5
Loving HD/VU or IT $3.5
Luca HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Lucy HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
Madagascar 3 HD/VU or IT $3
Madea's Witness Protection SD/IT $1.5
Magnificent Seven (2016) HD/VU $3
Maleficent 4K/MA $4 or HD/MA $2.5 or HD/GP $2
Maleficent Mistress of Evil HD/MA $3 or HD/GP $2.5
Mama HD/IT $3
Mamma Mia Here We Go Again HD/MA $2.5
Man Who Shot Liberty Vance 4K/VU $5.5
Mandela Long Walk to Freedom HD/VU $4
Martian HD/MA $3.5
Mary Poppins (1964) HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Mary Poppins Returns HD/MA $3 or HD/GP $2.5
Matrix Resurrections 4K/MA $5.5
Max Steel HD/IT $3
McKenna Shoots for Stars HD/IT $2
Mechanic Resurrection HD/VU $2.5
Megan Leavey HD/IT $3
Midnight Sun HD/MA $3.5
Midway 4K/VU $4.5 or HD/VU $3
Mile 22 HD/IT $3
Million Dollar Arm HD/GP $2.5
MindGamers HD/MA or IT $3.5
Minions 4K/MA or IT $4.5 HD/VU $3
Misconduct HD/VU $2.5
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children HD/MA $3
Mission Impossible 4 Ghost Protocol HD/VU $2
Mission Impossible 5 Rogue Nation HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
Mission Impossible 6 Fallout 4K/VU or IT $4.5
Mission Impossible 6-film Set 4K/VU or IT $23 or HD/VU $17
Moana HD/MA $2.5 or HD/GP $2
Moneyball HD/MA $3
Monkey Kingdom HD/MA $3
Monsters University HD/GP $3
Monuments Men HD/MA $3.5
Mortal Engines 4K/MA $5.5 or HD/MA $4
Mortal HD/VU $4
Mortal Instruments City of Bones HD/MA $3 or SD/MA $1.5
Mother! HD/VU $2.5
Mr. Poppers Penguins SD/IT $1.5
Much Ado About Nothing (2013) HD/VU $4
Mud HD/VU $2.5
Mulan (2020) 4K/MA 4.5 or HD/MA $3 or HD/GP $2.5
Mummy (1999) HD/VU $4
Mummy (2017) 4K/MA or IT $4.5
Muppets Most Wanted HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Murder on Orient Express HD/MA $3.5
My All American HD/MA or IT $3.5
Nebraska HD/VU $3
Nerve HD/IT $3.5
NeverEnding Story HD/MA $4
New Mutants HD/GP $3
News of World 4K/MA $5.5 or HD/MA $4
Night at Museum Secret of Tomb HD/MA $3
Nightmare Alley 4K/MA $5.5 or HD/GP $3.5
Nightmare Before Christmas HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
No Escape (2015) HD/VU $3
No Strings Attached HD/VU or IT $4
No Time to Die 4K/IT $4.5
Noah HD/VU or IT $2.5
Nobody's Fool HD/IT $2.5
Non-Stop HD/VU or IT $3
Norm of North HD/VU $2.5
Nostalgia (2018) HD/MA $3.5
Now You See Me 2 HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Now You See Me HD/VU or IT $2.5 or SD/VU $1
Nutcracker & Four Realms HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Oblivion 4K/MA or IT $5 or HD/MA $3.5
Occupation (2018) HD/VU $3.5
Occupation Rainfall HD/VU $4
Office Christmas Party HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
Olaf's Frozen Adventure HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
One Direction This is Us SD/MA $1.5
Ong Bak 2 HD/VU $3
Onward 4K/MA $4.5 or HD/GP $2.5
Other Woman HD/MA $3
Ouija HD/IT $3.5
Ouija Origin of Evil HD/VU or IT $3.5
Outlander Season 1 Vol 1 HD/VU $5.5
Overdrive HD/IT $2.5
Overlord 4K/IT $3.5
Oz Great & Powerful HD/GP $2.5
Paddington HD/VU $3.5
Pain & Gain HD/VU or IT $3.5
Paranormal Activity (Unrated) HD/VU or IT $4
Paranormal Activity 3 (Ext) HD/VU or IT $3
Paranormal Activity 4 HD/IT $2.5
Paranormal Activity Marked Ones HD/VU or IT $3.5
Passengers HD/MA $3
Patriot Games 4K/VU $5
Patriot's Day HD/VU $3
Peanuts Movie HD/MA $3
Penguins of Madagascar HD/MA $3.5
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If you decide to read this long post, please note that this is a very sensitive subject and that I am heart-broken, ashamed, and lost. I have been considering behavioral euthanasia for my 3-year-old Malinois for the past 6 months. I took in a puppy for foster back in March 2020 because shelter space was at capacity, and I had free time since I was remote. After a few weeks I decided to keep the puppy, whose name is now Tito. I had no idea what a Belgian Malinois was, but I quickly realized that he wasn't an ordinary pup. I sought out a working dog trainer local to me and we started doing daily boarding and 1-1 training sessions. My trainer has five Malinois (all in various sports such as Schutzhund/IPO and PSA) and she quickly noted that he was VERY nervy and was showing signs of fear-based aggression. Granted, he was a puppy, so I didn't think much of it at the time. I began learning about obedience, and the world of dog sport via LEERBURG, and took several classes on their website for conditioning, reactivity, and competitive heeling. I went headfirst into the world of dog training and sport, and quite honestly fell in love with it. My trainer said that although Tito was a nervous wreck, he didn't have enough drive for sport, but he had too much drive for a pet home. Nonetheless, I stayed consistent with training each day. I noticed a drastic change in behavior at around the 14 month mark. When I would get together with friends, Tito was OK (for the most part) when around their dogs. He would be slightly nippy, trying to herd them but no aggression or fear present. He became explosively reactive when around the same dogs so I took him to the Vet to get checked and rule out any health/medical issues. NO medical issues - so what's next? I told my trainer and she recommended that although it MAY not make a difference, we could try neutering. All of her dogs are intact and she usually advises against it but it was worth a shot. I was back and forth on the idea, until one day he got hold of one of our two cats and drew a little bit of blood (failed to mention that we have two cats in the home that he would chase). I have to manage him both outside of the home, and inside the home at all times. If he isn't in a place command, on the dogpacer treadmill getting his physical needs met, or eating, he is crated. After he attacked one of our cats, I decided to move forward with the neuter. No change. We began a behavior modification program with trazadone and Clomipramine. The trazadone was sedating but it didn't really help much else, while after about 6 months we did see a slight change with the Clomipramine ($250/month I might add). Tito's reactivity got so bad at one point, that he redirected on both my leg, and my fiancé's several times to where he punctured, drew blood, and eventually scarred our legs. Shame on us for not muzzling him from the get-go but you live, and you learn... Aside from being dog reactive, and redirecting on us during walks, he never showed aggression towards people UNTIL the 2-year mark.
INCIDENT #1: My fiancé and I were walking the dogs and had one of our friends who we were expecting waiting outside of our house. We greeted her, the dogs were neutral, and we all walked into the home together. I started prepping the dog's dinner while our friend was taking her shoes off at the entry way. Tito darted from the kitchen, straight to the entryway, and bit our friend's wrist. Thankfully he bit her watch, but it still punctured her wrist and scarred.
INCIDENT #2: A few months went by, and we had my fiancé's cousin and her friend staying with us for the weekend. We made it a point to keep Tito on our second floor, crated if they were around to avoid any potential events. I had him on a leash, muzzled, ready to take him outside for a walk when I said hi to the two girls staying with us. Tito didn't flinch and was neutral which was an unexpected surprise. While muzzled, we walked through the kitchen, and I decided to reward his neutrality with some treats. I then gave my fiancé's cousin and friend some freeze dried, and they fed him through the muzzle. At this point, I felt comfortable (shame on me) and I sat down on the couch and removed Tito's muzzle. The friend still had some treats and fed him - no issue. All was fine up until she stood up, to which he bit her wrist, drawing blood. Not severe by any means, but yet again I put another person in danger because of my naivety.
INCIDENT #3: This next attack was our tipping point as his bites have progressively gotten worse with each event. I was working in my office and had my golden doodle, and Tito next to me with the door closed. My fiance let me know that our friend (same friend was incident #1) was coming over WITH her 8 year old son. I told her that I would crate both the dogs upstairs while they were over to avoid any issues. I walked out of the office and closed the door so the dogs couldn't see our guests. I was chatting with our friend, and hanging out with her son while we waited for dinner to be done. I fell asleep on the couch (it was a 10 hour work day), and napped for about an hour with the dogs still inside the office. My fiancé didn't want to wake me since she knew I was exhausted, so she leashed both dogs and took them outside to go potty. The 8 year old was on his iPad in the living room while his mom was in the bathroom. My fiancé took the boys to the top of the stairs to get back into our house and had them in a sit-stay command to re-attach their leashes before entering our house through the kitchen. Tito broke command and my fiancé could not get his leash attached in time. Before you know it he pushes the door into the kitchen open and is running full speed to get to me (also has separation anxiety and needs to be near me at all times). In order to get to me on the couch however, he needs to pass the kitchen. As he is running through the kitchen, our friend's son is holding his iPad. Now, he knows that Tito had previously bit his mother, so he was TERRIFIED when he saw him running towards us. The son started screaming, with his hands in the air which at this point I woke up, jumping off the couch. Tito turned back around, and as he did the son threw his iPad at Tito. Tito latched onto the boy's thigh, biting him. Thankfully, as soon as he made contact, he immediately let go but the damage was already done. I picked up our friend's son, took him to the tub to clean/disinfect the bite which had two puncture marks (worse than any previous bite). We took him to the ER and thankfully the doctor said that it wasn't too bad and that it should heal in about a week or so. My fiancé and I were devasted. This poor boy was now traumatized due to our recklessness and inability to manage our reactive dog. My fiancé came into this relationship with (1) dog, while I had Tito and our golden doodle. She didn't sign up to live on eggshells and I commend her for all of her support BUT I feel TERRIBLE that now none of her friends feel safe coming to our home. I spent about two weeks researching behavioral euthanasia and we were committed to moving forward with it in February of this year - until the guilt set in. A few months past, no incidents, until about Mid-March. INCIDENT #4: I already mentioned that I had Tito and our golden doodle (name is Archie) before I met my fiance. She already had a 7 year old Lab/Pit Mix named Jasmine so thankfully we were able to get all three dogs to peacefully co-exist (for the most part). Jasmine is an "old soul" and doesn't like any sudden movements or play while she's around - she has her quirks. I was letting all three dogs out in the backyard one afternoon (this was late March of this year), and decided to play fetch with Archie (golden doodle). Jasmine was waiting by the door to get back into the house as I threw the ball for Archie. In order to get to the ball, he had to run past Jasmine. Archie knows exactly how she would react, so he slowed down, and tip toed past her to safely get to the ball. In that moment, Jasmine turned around and attacked Archie, pinning him to the ground. As I am trying to remove Jasmine off of Archie, Tito comes in from left field and attacks Jasmine. All of this happened within a second and I didn't realize that there was any serious damage until we were in the house much later. Jasmine had a three-inch laceration on her under belly, exposing the muscle with the skin/fur nowhere in sight. We immediately rushed her to the ER to which she ended up having to get 14 stitches. For the record, she is fine now but still a terrifying sight. Yet another tipping point, but we still held off on BE.
INCIDENT #5: On Friday night (two days ago), I was letting the dogs out. Now let me preface by saying that the house we live in is a multi-family home where we live on the 2nd/3rd floor, while the first floor is its own apartment/unit. My fiancé's brother, his girlfriend, and their dog actually occupy this space, so we typically text each other when one of us needs to let the dogs out. We always make sure that the backyard is cleared before letting our dogs out to avoid any potential conflict/injury. I shot over a text and let them know that I would be in the backyard (it is about 10:30 pm, and it's DARK). Her brother acknowledged, and I even made a joke about how Tito was crazy because he spotted a rat in our backyard and chased it to the garage. All of a sudden, I hear their backdoor open and their dog Bronny comes towards us in a full sprint. The brother's girlfriend didn't know we were in the yard, as he told her right when she was opening the door. At this point it was too late. Bronnie and Tito have NEVER met aside from smelling each other's markings in the yard when the other isn't present. Before I could even visually spot Bronny (dark, brindle coat), Tito had his teeth around Bronny's neck. I was able to pry Tito's mouth off him, to which Bronny ran inside their apartment, however Tito followed suit. He got a hold of him AGAIN and I had to pry his teeth off, and sort of nudge Bronny away while I got a good grip on Tito (had no collar on so I had to get a good grip on his scruff). Bronny had peed all over himself, scared shitless. I took the boys upstairs to their crates, and came back down to check on him. The punctures weren't too deep and they said they would take him to the vet. I FEEL AWFUL. Although I gave them a warning that we were in the yard, it is my responsibility to keep everyone safe from our dog. Bronny, who is typically a very rambunctious, silly dog, turned on me earlier today when I said hi in the backyard by myself. He tried to bite me, and the brother had to pull him off. I am responsible for this dog's pain, fear, and trauma. Turns out Bronny's neck had swelled up, creating an abyss. They just got back from the vet, and he needed to be sedated so that they could drain the fluid. I feel so much shame and guilt and don't know if I could live with this happening AGAIN.
What more can I do? - Training, training, training, every single day (making sure his physical needs are met along with adequate mental stimulation) - Worked with several trainers, all of which concluded that this is just who he is - Lots of LOVE, PLAY, and more LOVE - Prong collar (no longer using as it makes his reactivity worse) - E-Collar (no longer using as it only amplifies his redirection) - Behavior modification in conjunction with medication - Has a daily routine and is given jobs
I don't know what else I can do - how can I continue to justify keeping him alive? He is my soul-dog, my best friend, my boy. He has so much love for us and can be the most amazing dog - until he isn't. He would be the greatest dog if it wasn't for his reactivity but what can you do? These were the cards we were dealt. I quite honestly believe that it all comes down to genetics and it is a uphill battle every day. Whoever decided to breed and produce Tito and his litter mates is a backyard breeding POS.
It kills me that I took in this sweet puppy, did everything I possibly could to give him a great life, and it still wasn't enough. It kills me that I am so irresponsible and selfish, that I decided to keep him alive after each and every bite incident. I feel so bad for my fiancé as she knows how hard this decision is for me and yet after everything that has happened, continues to support my decision to keep him alive despite all the pain he has caused us. I can't continue to make excuses for my dog. I can't keep walking on eggshells in my own home, putting the safety of our cats, other dogs, and neighbors at risk because I LOVE MY DOG. My love can't make him a stable, neutral dog.
The thought of taking him to the vet, watching him lay on a metal table breaks my heart. Having him look me in the eyes as he takes his last breath, thinking that we'll leave to go home any minute, brings me to tears. How could I fail this loving boy who would do ANYTHING for me? How can I walk out of the vet clinic with only a leash and no dog looking up at me like I am their whole entire world? This isn't fair. We will be booking an appointment for next Sunday. I plan on taking PTO from work next Friday and Monday so that we can have one last incredible weekend together.
If you have any ideas of how we can make the most of our time, please share. This is going to be the hardest decision of my life and I am not ready to lose my best friend. Thank you for listening.

Credit to u/bluefishcake for writing the original SSB story and building the sandbox for us to play in.
And a big thanks to the authors and their stories that inspired to get off my ass and put my fingers to keyboard. RandomTinkerer (City Slickers and Hayseeds), Punnynfunny (Denied Operations), CompassWithHat (Top Lasgun), Rhion-618 (Just One Drop), UncleCieling(Going Native), RobotStatic (Far Away), Kazevenikov (The Cryptid Chronicle), Also to the editor # Fan Beta Readers and KLiCkonthat
As always comments, complaints, and suggestions are welcome.
This is a fair use notice. Any and all aspects of this may be used on and within this subreddit only, with attribution. All other uses are exclusive to the author.
/**************/
PO Jyhnex led Robert to the conference room where he had set up a paper and pencil for him, as per his request. She had also set up a digital whiteboard in case Robert needed it. Robert began drawing the first thing on his mind, occasionally expressing pieces of his thought experiment as he allowed himself to disconnect from the world around him. This was different from meditation as it was inwardly directed and allowed him to fly into the universe.
Closing his eyes, he imagined himself walking on the surface of the sun, feeling the solar wind as if it were a gentle mist of water from a sprinkler. The magnetic field lines reacted to his touch like the strings on a harp, playing the music of the stars. This was the place where Robert could start any journey he wanted. He remembered the quote about a demon that lived in the air, which people believed would kill anyone who challenged it. They had long ago slain that demon, but there was a new one that lived in the void. Many had challenged it, but all had died, leaving behind only the simplest of atoms as a result. Robert was not there to challenge the demon, but to understand it.
He willed himself to warp spacetime and move among the stars. As he passed the stars, the light they emitted danced and flickered on the boundary of the warp field, creating a distracting white noise, it demanded his attention, but it would have to wait for a later time. He was here to observe the gravity waves generated by objects moving in the universe, such as planets around stars, stars around each other, and the dances of colliding black holes. They created an endless discordant white noise on the fabric of the universe. The universe had a frequency, and the phase field had a frequency. When they aligned, phase travel became efficient and easy. Many parameters made up the phase frequency, but mass and warp field distortion rate were the two most important. The warp field distortion rate was by far the largest factor. The sweet spot for phase travel was between 0.35 and 0.55 against the Keriverax Barrer Scale, which was the brick wall at the end of phase travel. It was also the home of the demon that lived in the void.
At 0.4KBS, the gravity waves would slide around the warp field like the flow of air over a wing. At this speed, there was almost no distortion from the turbulence in his wake. This was his starting point. In his mind, he pushed up to 0.57KBS, where the gravity waves began to stick to the warp field for just a moment, maybe one or two picoseconds at most, before releasing like a stretched rubber band. He slowed his perspective of time to watch the interaction between the warp field and the gravity wave, playing with the different aspects of the warp field. He repeated his runs over and over again until he defined four quantitative pieces that, if applied correctly, could move the sweet spot up to 0.65KBS, maybe even 0.7KBS.
Pulling back from the warp field and examining it from the outside perspective, there was nothing left that he could alter from inside the field. On the outside, he left the gravity waves, and there was nothing he could do to alter them, but they were definable. It was time to go home, and he would explore more next time.
/***************************************************/
PO Jyhnex: Sorry about that. It's my fault.
PO Jyhnex: (private mode) Lt Cmdr Ashix, grab Dr. Norroe. You both are going to want to see this.
When Lt Cmdr Ashix and Dr. Norroe arrived, there were already a few others watching through the conference room windows. Robert was standing at the main table that had been dragged over to the far side of the room. He was using the digital wall screens like a whiteboard. PO Jyhnex moved over to stand between them., "Commander, we were told to let him do this, right?" She asked, just be sure that they had the confirmation of the orders to allow Robert to have limited access to the things he needed to continue his work.
Lt Cmdr Ashix licked her lips, not really understanding what she was seeing. "Yes and no. We wanted to guide him in the direction of what we think we understand. I do not know if this applies. Doctor, what do you think?"
Dr Norroe stood in delighted amazement watching Robert work. He was writing with his eyes closed, moving his head as if seeing or listening to something that was not there, and sweating heavily. She understood what he was doing. He was visualizing the problem in his mind and was trying to express it as fast as he could. Then he switched hands just as Lt Cmdr Ashix interrupted her and asked, "I am not sure, Petty Officer. Have you noticed that he was switching hands?"
PO Jyhnex pointed to an area away from where he was working and said, "Yes, and he changed languages every time he does."
Lt Cmdr Ashix asked, "What do you mean?"
Dr. Norroe slowly smiled and said, "In theory, he is working on the problem in both sides of his brain, as an analytical and a spatial awareness problem."
PO Jyhnex said, "I know this is going to sound like a complete turox shit question, but has anybody held a mirror up to these undecipherable symbols?"
Dr Norroe and Lt Cmdr Ashix just looked at the Petty Officer. "Your report said he has a human learning disability where his brain interprets symbols backward. Maybe he is writing them backward."
Lt Cmdr Ashix sent a private message to her colleague, "Vevreix, please join me over at Congress Room 3 and bring your glasses." A few moments passed when she received her reply.
C. Vevreix: "On my way, ma'am.”
As soon as Ishani arrived with En. Tha’xur in tow, Lt Cmdr Ashix asked Ishani, "I need your glasses." Ishani handed them over without question. Lt Cmdr Ashix held her glasses up to her data slate so that the image from the screen was reflected on the surface of her glasses. "Ensign, crewman, please tell me what you see," she said.
Ishani spoke first, "The symbols are inverted, both flipped horizontally and vertically."
En. Tha’xur interrupted, "Not only that, the whole block of the equation is written right to left, not left to right...Ma'am, we are going to have to redo most of the translations. I think some of our core assumptions were wrong."
Lt Cmdr Ashix said, "No, you two work with what is right here. I do not want to throw away all of the work we have done so far unless we have to. Get me something by tomorrow morning with just what is in the room. I need to speak with CMDR Vashini."
Handing Ishani back her glasses, she said, "Get on it, you two. Everybody else, back to work."
/*********************************/
Robert opened his eyes to see what he had done. He knew what he had written and what it meant, but understanding it all required filling in the missing pieces. This was way more complicated than making the Charger fly. Turning, Robert saw around a dozen Shil’vati watching him through the windows of the conference room.
"Fuck me…" he resignedly thought to himself. He had to get down from the table, but why have the fun end on a boring note?“You shits want to gawk at me? Fine, gawk at this!” Robert thought as he launched himself into a front aerial, landing in the center of the room. Turning to face his work, he walked backward until he hit the wall and allowed himself to slide down and sit on the floor. With one more defiant move, he flipped each marker up onto the table, not caring where they landed.
From outside, he heard a commanding voice, “Alright, ladies, the show is over.” Sitting on the floor, studying his equations, he started to taste the iron tinge of blood in the back of his throat. Always the bloody fucking nose, he thought. The bloody nose was a small price to pay for the ability to define the problem. He needed aspirin and Tylenol to take care of the headache that was starting. His mother had taken him to a neurologist about three years before the first time he had learned he could control his little trick. Bloody noses and migraines were the results of what he called "flying". He had gotten the idea from reading about Einstein and his thought experiments, and it was the best way to conceptualize the problem. His mother had thought he had a brain hemorrhage, but the neurologist found it was brain fatigue.
This diagnosis was the doctor's way of saying that she really did not have a good idea of what had happened. The tests had ruled out many conditions that could cause the symptoms including epilepsy, though there were several parrals. The change in blood chemistry and electrolyte imbalance resembled heat exhaustion and was more than enough to trigger the migraine and nose bleeds. Everything else seemed to be within the ‘normal’ ranges for a human, but in Robert’s case, he was at the upper end of normal. The doctor did not think it was worth exploring further. No reason to waste resources on a child labeled as defective.
“Robert, would you please get up and sit in the chair, so I can check you out medically?” He looked up to find Dr. Norroe standing over him, holding out a hand to help him up. He took her hand to stand, though sitting in Shil-sized conference chairs was comical at best. With him standing only 5 feet 4 inches tall, and the average Shil’vita being 7 feet tall, he needed a booster seat. Dr. Norroe asked about his medical history as she did her examination, and he filled her in on what the neurologist had told him and his mother. She handed him a bottle of something that was not water. It tasted like sweet saltwater, and it was disgusting. The doctor made him finish it before giving him a couple of cleaning towels to get the blood off his face. His shirt was a lost cause; the blood had soaked through and was still wet and sticky. He needed a clean shirt and a trip to the bathroom to clean up but had to wait.
While the doctor was checking out Robert, PO. Jyhnex was cleaning up the blood that had dripped onto the table. The table was a mess, and as he had worked, he had stepped in it and tracked blood everywhere, even on the floor. Robert felt guilty that the Petty Officer had to clean up his mess.
Before Robert could apologize, PO. MunRhoe arrived, holding a large yellow bag and five extra-large pizza boxes. “You went and had a party without me. That is not fair.”
Shrugging, Robert smiled weakly. “You went for the beer run and missed all the fun. Now, Petty Officer Jyhnex gets cleanup duty, and I'm stuck with the hangover,” he said, reaching up to rub his temple.
Dr. Norroe finished treating Robert as PO. MunRhoe placed the pizza boxes and the yellow bag on a clean section of the table. "Hangover is right, you are dehydrated, borderline hypoglycemic, and low on salt. What you need is food, fluids, and sleep. Since you were under my authority as a medical doctor, I am putting you on light duty for 48 hours. So, I will tell your security detail that he is to treat you as if you are on restricted duty for that time and watch out for any signs of distress. Understood, ladies?" Both petty officers responded affirmatively with "Yes, Ma'am."
"Now, what in the Deep's name were you doing to get all that?" Dr. Norroe pointed at the digital whiteboard. She thought she knew what he had done but wanted to verify his conclusions.
"I call it flying. Albert Einstein called it a thought experiment. It is a way of visualizing the problem in the mind," Robert said and began to rub his temples again as the room started to rock back and forth.
"And how long do you usually do this for?"
Leaning his head and taking several long, slow deep breaths, Robert replied, "Most of the time, 30 minutes to an hour, tops. Then I go eat like a hobbit." Despite the room rocking, he was really hungry.
Hearing Robert's stomach growl, Dr. Norroe asked, "I have no idea what a hobbit is, but I will presume that you eat a great deal more than normal?"
Leaning his head again, Robert thought to himself, "Why the f**k am I so tired? It is never this bad." Meanwhile, Dr. Norroe continued, "Robert, please look at me. How long do you think you were 'flying' for?"
Robert took one last deep breath before sitting up. "An hour, maybe a little more. Why?"
Dr. Norroe looked concerned. "Robert, you were in it for almost five hours. This is very serious. If you push yourself like that too often, you will kill yourself. Please do not do this again without supervision unless there is a way to set a time limit."
Robert took what she said to heart. Solving the problem today was not worth dying over. "Physical touch has worked before. Is that good enough?"
Dr. Norroe replied, "Yes, that should be good for now."
Seeing the yellow bag on the table, Robert asked, "Petty Officer MunRhoe, did you get that food item I asked for?"
PO. MunRhoe had finished cleaning the mess and was opening the first pizza box. "Yes, it is in the bag. That Playwell store was an interesting place Do you need it, or do you want a slice of pie?"
Smiling, Robert said, "Both, but I will need a couple of spoons or a medicine cup first, and more water, please." He pulled the jug of 100 percent pure natural maple syrup out of the yellow bag, thinking, "A couple of shots of this, and about ten minutes, and the shakes should be taken care of."
PO. MunRhoe set up a slipe for Robert and PO Jyhnex, “That Playwell store was an interesting place. My brother's younger kids would love some of those kits. But why would you want something like that.?”
Incredully Robert shook his head, “Because they are fun.” showing just a hint of sadness “ I still know how to have a little.”
The Navy technician arrived with a stack of small Dixie cups and several bottles of water. PO. MunRhoe watched as Robert poured himself about three-quarters of a dixie cup of maple syrup and downed it, going so far as to lick the inside of the cup clean. Robert savored the flavor, wishing he had some real vanilla or chocolate chip ice cream to go with it. The idea of vanilla ice cream with maple brought back a memory of his childhood Friday night storytime. Maggie would read first with her book, then he would try with his, but he relied on his mom for a lot of it. Looking back now, it was a good memory.
Grabbing a monster slice of the deepest deep-dish pizza he had ever seen, PO. MunRhoe asked, "What is that stuff you just drank?"
"It is maple syrup," replied Robert, reaching for a bottle of water to clean out his mouth before he started in on the pizza. "It is tree sap that has been rendered down into basically liquid sugar. And where did you get the pizza, and how did you even know about it?"
Shoveling a forkful of the pizza filling into her mouth, she began speaking. "A year ago, I had a detail up in Chicago. I was there for a month and fell in love with deep-dish. This came from a place called 'A Slice of Chi-Town,' and it's called Big Blue's double-stacked deep dish. Both marines and militia swear by the place, and I agree, this is good. Try some."
Robert grabbed a slice after helping PO. Jyhnex reset the table and chairs. It was good pizza, but sadly Robert could only finish one slice.
/**************/
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Janissary: The Joy Ride Ch1 : Sexyspacebabes (reddit.com)
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Janissary: The Joy Ride Ch6 : Sexyspacebabes (reddit.com)
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Chapter 8
Extra:
Janissary: The Son Of War : Sexyspacebabes (reddit.com)
Janissary: Vision from Zy'Verila : Sexyspacebabes (reddit.com)