So I recently talking this online person 3 weeks ago who is obviously a HUGE extrovert, because she wants to hang out ALL THE TIME. If i respond to a text, she sends me 5 long ones in a row, and if I don't respond she sends more, then sends facebook messages, comments, etc.
She also is constantly making these plans for us far in the future such as traveling abroad together and going on camping trips together although we only have known each other for 2-3 weeks. To be honest, I don't feel uncomfortable to meeting her and I felt creepy.
I know she doesn't even get upset that I don't respond, but if I give her an inch she's suddenly bombarding me all day long, and for several days to come. Phones usually drive me crazy in general because I just cannot handle responding to texts all the time when I'm spending "me" time.
I tried explaining to her that I'm really introverted and I just need time alone to recharge after hanging out with people but she DOES NOT GET IT. Every time I even look at a text message from her I feel my energy go down a notch and it's really getting to me. I told her and she says oh I have totally introvert friends but I don't really sees it and keep talking to me.
Before I cutting her off, I make sure I sent her messages and call on why I did that, and yes she sent me long essay again, she made me feel guilty for leaving her although I already made sure that I have to leave her because I can't stay anymore because I felt overwhelmed by her text and it's draining my social health.
She said she won't forgive me if I didn't stay with her. Then I stupidly begged her to forgive me and she said probably as time passed. This morning, she texted me again, saying she won't forgive me. You know what, I blocked her and all over my social media and deleted my social media because I know she will message me everywhere.
I'm so stressed out and my head feels like it's gonna be exploded, she called me I was selfish to leave her. And saying I didn't care about her feelings when I keep listening to her stories, and all we talked about was her. It's usually HER, HER, and little bit about me.

Hi all,
Had a strange experience with a pest control guy in my local area and I’m looking for some advice on if I’ve been screwed.
I live in Western Australia and had a company from the local area visit my property to bait my house for rats in the roof.
I was a fool and did not shop around, and fortunately the Eftpos machine ran out of power mid payment, so I currently am not out of pocket.
He attempted to charge me $700 total. This included for baits in the roof ($275) and as per his suggestion 5 x bait stations (82.50 each) for outside. He suggest 7-10 stations but I wasn’t keen due the cost.
The whole visit lasted no longer than 45 minutes & after he left I Googled the bait stations (Protecta Sidekick) which I found only cost ~$15 from retailers, he assured me they were far superior to the Bunnings brand and was the reason for the cost.
I also have a large dog and he shared no concerns about them being able to get into the outdoor bait stations, the stations were not secured at all and when I opened one I discovered that they were not locked and only contained about 4 small sachets of bait, instead of the typical much larger wax baits I’m used to seeing.
I called a more reputable company after the visit and they quoted $20 for outdoor stations and advised they would never recommend outdoor baits with large dogs around as they are tamper resistant, not tamper proof.
I’m quite confident this bloke has tried to take me for a ride and I’m yet to pay him what’s he’s owed. I did return the bait stations after I discovered his massive overcharging but he’s demanding his remaining $275. I asked him to provide a bill so that I can check what’s he’s done and he was extremely difficult about doing this and demanding on the spot payment, he did finally leave after calling Police.
Does of it this work sound legit and the guy deserves payment or should I be the one fuck over a conman for once?
Cheers for your help.

Miles O'Brien fought in the Cardassian war and served as the tactical officer on the Rutledge. By the time he came to Enterprise he was a seasoned and accomplished officer. Early on in TNG he was a bridge officer and had a red uniform. Why was he removed from the bridge ? Was it to make way for Wesley ? Why wasn’t he even considered for tactical after Tasha’s death given his experience ?

So I live in a shared house and this one lady is a bitch from hell. We basically ran out of electricity so I asked everyone to help put towards more. And because I asked she went on about how it's all my fault. I shower to much, I cook to much basically blaming everything on me. I use a gas stove most of the time and shower every 3 days and I've always been very aware of my usage. I've already paid the extra units but she hasn't now we have 5 kw left and this morning she went off at me again for how it's unfair they have to pay for me.
On Friday she went at me for the second time as well as my partner and the other guy who said he'd pay once he gets paid but no one wants to put in because she's the only one refusing to pay extra and we'd essentially all have to pay for her. She's 65 and unemployed do we don't even know if she's gonna pay rent etc and the landlord refuses to get involved. But she refuses to pay us utilities so we're in a tight spot.
Electricity talk is very triggering for me because I got kicked out for supposedly raking up a 2k bill at my grans house from using a computer. My uncle wanted me gone and all the blame was placed on me. He has 5 consoles and 3 TVs but my shitty can barely run anything 300watt pc was causing all the problems I was currently working online and studying as we were on a farm and they didn't want me to pay more because they'd go up a tarrif so I had to leave. So her blaming me alone and not taking into consideration the fact it's winter down here set me off into a complete hysteric episode on Friday. I tried to stab myself to death with a key and run out the house. My boyfriend had to wrestle the key out of my hand and pin me the floor until I calmed down. Basically screaming that everything is my fault and that they must just kill me if they hate me so much. Basically I was screaming begging for death she heard this. Well I left the room and then have brief memories of the episode. It toon a while to calm down and I chain smoked like 6 cigarettes. I've been trying to avoid her and just run into my room when she approaches me. We've all basically decided we'd rather not have electricity for a few days than live with someone like her so we're not gonna replace the units if only enough for the fridge until she pays her part. Not sure if we will have to go to the police because I'm scared I'm gonna flip and I have no idea how to handle it as of yet only been in therapy for a few months. I was thinking of just taking a ton of weed to try and forget she exists and go numb but I can't go into the kitchen to eat and stuff without her coming in and harassing me. I did mention that if she speaks to me again like that I'm gonna take it further.
We all feel like prisoners in our own place because of her and the landlord won't do anything. I've been searching for a new place everyday but it's hard in this area :(

This is Part 2 because of the character limit, go here to get caught up: https://www.reddit.com/TheDarkGathering/comments/13urkbj/the_thing_in_the_cracks_part_1/
Talbot awoke in a round corridor. At least he thought that’s what it was. The corridor seemed to be made of dark stone, rough and ridged like a worm’s tunnel, but on a massive scale. Despite no visible light source, Talbot found he could make out every detail in the space around him.
Talbot shakily stood up and considered his situation. His hands were shaking. He supposed nearly getting killed by lethal injection and then shattering the very fabric of reality itself took a toll on the psyche. He reflexively reached for his notebook to note that down, and with a pang remembered that it was gone. He would likely never see it again.
Glancing around, Talbot wondered at how normal everything looked, considering he was in the fifth dimension. There was likely more going on under the surface, but from his vantage it just looked like an oddly lit cave.
Talbot noted that there was no sign of Willis. He’d distinctly remembered the other man getting pulled through time and space with him, but at some point during the traversal his hand had been wrenched away from Talbot’s wrist. Had he been shunted back to their reality, or was he here somewhere?
A deep rumble began to grow beneath Talbot’s feet. The entire cave shook like an earthquake as Talbot scrambled to the side of the tube.
Confused, the man glanced around. He saw no probable cause for the rumbling, no subterranean vehicles or even geological fissures that could explain the vibrations.
Turning, he realized with a start that the rumbling was slightly stronger on one side of him. If it was directional, there was an actual source, not just a general shaking of the environment.
Talbot began moving away from the rumbling, as it continued to grow stronger.
Eventually, he broke into a full run as everything around him shook. He felt like his skull was going to burst. It felt like something was chasing him, a massive subterranean beast.
As the rumbling kept growing, Talbot tripped. Out of nowhere, his foot slipped and he sprawled to the ground, crying out as he landed on his arm. He tried to get back up, which was when he realized there was something right behind him.
Talbot hit the deck, right as something zoomed directly above his head. Wind pulled at his hair and it felt like he was directly under a train.
Talbot screamed, but it was drowned out by the impossibly loud whoosh of the thing above him. He gingerly flipped onto his back, barely staying clear of the surface of whatever was making the sound, in order to see what was above him.
There was nothing but empty space.
Then, he could suddenly see a long gray tube rushing past impossibly quickly. Then it was gone again, but the rushing was still there. It was blinking in and out of existence, only appearing for short bursts, but still there in its invisible state. Talbot realized that it must be dipping in and out of the Fifth Dimension, his own limited perception unable to comprehend its greater state.
Eventually, the thing slowed and stopped. As it was still, Talbot got a better look at it.
It was definitely organic. The exterior of the tube had a pale gray color, with a texture not unlike skin. However, as opposed to the neat, even lines separating cells on human skin, the striations on the thing seemed almost random, forming a surface that, although smooth, had the jagged impression of rough crags.
As Talbot examined the thing and wished he’d brought a camera, he heard something. From the object’s direction of origin, a deep groan emanated from lord-knew-where. Talbot winced as it hit his ears, the bellow deafening. He could immediately detect three things about the cry, judging by the cadence and the way it had slowly grown from an origin point. First, it definitely came from a living thing. Nothing artificial made that noise. Second, it came from very far away. And thirdly, it came from something massive. Impossibly so.
From the other direction, so comparably quiet he barely heard, Talbot made out a shriek that was horribly human.
The thing above him shifted and despite having almost a foot of clearance, Talbot instinctively sucked in his gut.
The tube… the limb began moving in the opposite direction, back towards its origin point.
Like a train, it started slowly but accelerated quickly, beginning to blink in and out of Talbot’s vision once again.
Talbot heard the scream again, closer this time. It seemed likely that whatever this thing was had found and grabbed another person.
After several long moments, the end of the limb finally reached Talbot, shooting past and above him like a tape measure shooting back into its shell when a button was pressed.
After it passed, Talbot sprang to his feet and finally got a good look at the end of the thing’s limb. The actual tube rounded off, dispelling any predictions about a monstrous tentacle. However, what was on the end of the limb may’ve been even more horrible.
Four long finger-like appendages were arranged around the limb radially, each one emerging from the edge of the flat tendril end. They were unnaturally thin, and despite somewhat resembling fingers, they had no visible knuckles and were tipped with sharp claws that appeared to be made of bone. They bent in, each holding their prey in place. Their prey in question was Tim Willis, currently pulling against the monstrous cage. The four outer digits pressed on each of his limbs, drawing blood where they poked him.
The limb, and Willis with it, disappeared around a bend in the tunnel. Talbot ran after it. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, or if he was going to save the man, but he knew that no matter what happened, he wanted to see it.
For a long while Talbot chased the thing, barely keeping pace due to his cardio experience. During the run, whatever existed here continued bellowing, getting louder each time. In addition, each time he set his foot down, the ground felt slightly warmer.
Eventually he fell back, and lost sight of the thing completely. It was impressive that a man of his age and lifestyle had managed to follow the thing for so long, but he had to take a knee as exhaustion racked him. He continued following its path, but at a slower pace.
Eventually Talbot emerged into a much larger chamber. The air here was blistering, and the intermittent bellows had grown so loud that Talbot had to cover his ears every few minutes to keep from suffering permanent damage.
This cavern left him speechless.
Unlike the passage, with its unidentifiable neutral lighting, this cavern was dark, intermittently lit by what appeared to be giant glowworms, each perched on a rock surface and oozing an ugly orange aura into the space around it.
Less than half of the room was lit, but it was enough for Talbot to see that the remaining more-than-half was taken up by a monstrous… thing the same shade as the limb.
It was like a spider, in the same way that a massive dragonfish from the bottom of the sea is like a goldfish. Its main body was shaped like a blimp, and about the size of one too. A large abdomen sagged beneath it as it hung in the exact center of the room, and eight radially symmetrical limbs stuck to eight points around the cavern, suspending it in the middle of the room, and making it look like the center of a giant wheel, each limb serving as the spokes.
This facsimile was somewhat broken by the auxiliary limbs attached to its thorax, countless smaller tendrils identical to the one that held Willis. Some hovered around the thing’s ‘face’, while others darted towards countless holes in the rock around the cavern. As they moved, they blinked in and out of Talbot’s vision as they tapped into primordial forces beyond his eyes.
The cavern was dotted with holes, all exactly the same size and shape as the one Talbot stood in the lip of now. He realized that this thing and its countless appendages must’ve bored into the stone around it, creating a labyrinthine lair not dissimilar to an ant’s hive, but with one crucial difference. Rather than hundreds of tiny workers, this entire place had been built by, and for, one monstrous being.
Talbot was so stunned by the beast that he didn’t notice one of its many tendrils coming straight for him.
It appeared directly in front of his face, resulting in a jumpscare that sent him tumbling backwards, falling onto his back.
The thing moved like a snake, if a snake was constantly flipping between visible and invisible.
It struck, speeding downwards towards the chemist. Talbot braced for impact, but just before it could hit him it disappeared.
Talbot sat relieved, as it had apparently teleported somewhere else.
That was until it reappeared with the fingers around his torso.
The tendril had re-manifested just past him, the fingers clipping partway into the floor as they cradled him. Talbot felt four small pricks in his back and the backs of his thighs, where the claws had pierced his flesh.
The thing pulled him upwards, the fingers embedded in the ground breaking out of the stone beneath him and sending chunks of rock several feet in all directions.
The tendril shot up towards the ceiling of the cavern, rising what must’ve been 60 feet in half a second. Talbot could barely see the ground around the tendril, far enough below to dizzy him.
Talbot saw stars.
Talbot wished he could see the stars.
The tendril took him, in a daze, towards the thing’s face. As Talbot grew closer, he heard a ragged hissing, like an oxygen tank leaking. He realized it was the monster breathing, but immediately was unsure once its head turned toward him.
Its head was roughly human-shaped, but utterly inhuman in every other way. Five dark pits, facsimiles of eyes, were arranged in a pentagonal shape on the top half of its face. The bottom half was flat skin, but flat skin that seemed to be vertically stretched, as though it’d been draped over some opening. That was possibly where the breathing was coming from, but there was no way to tell with no actually apparent orifice.
The thing seemed to sniff Talbot, despite having no nose. Then it turned, and brought another piece of potential food to its head.
With a start, Talbot realized Willis was still alive. Or at least, unconsumed. He hung limp from his tendril, held in place by the finger-things and seemingly unconscious.
But the Thing wasn’t interested in either of them, not yet at least. It brought one of its tendrils up to its head before plunging it directly toward a nearby rock face. Right before it made contact, it disappeared.
Talbot reached towards Willis, but he was just outside of his reach. He didn’t want to yell to the man. The thing had no ears, but there was no guarantee that it couldn’t hear somehow.
The tendril that the thing had sent away reappeared, seemingly partially buried in the rock face. The thing wrenched its tendril from the rock, leaving behind a shallow pockmark in the cave.
Skewered on the spine was a small man. He flailed wildly and screamed something in a language Talbot didn’t know. He was wearing a business suit, but his pants were around his ankles, with baby blue boxers underneath.
Talbot wondered where he’d come from, then realized with a start that he’d likely originated from the real world. Meaning that this thing could reach beyond this reality and into their reality. Oh shit. Maybe he should’ve listened to Talc. If he and Willis hadn’t breached the Fifth Dimension, maybe the thing couldn’t’ve done the same, and this man might still be safe out there.
The thing brought the man towards its face and did the strange sniffing motion again. Satisfied, it brought him even closer. Talbot, despite himself, was curious to see how it consumed prey, and so paused in his attempts to wake Willis in order to watch.
The man screamed as the tendril brought him right up to the thing’s face, and then the thing’s face disappeared, moving through the Fifth Dimension in the same way as its tendrils.
When it reappeared, it was halfway inside the man, the smooth layer of skin clipped through his abdomen.
The thing pulled its head back.
Talbot turned away as a bloodcurdling scream and a terrible ripping sound reverberated through the cavern. He reached for Willis again, and to his surprise, found that he could reach him. He tapped him on the shoulder, and when he got no response, he slapped him in the face. Willis stirred, and slowly opened his eyes. He put a hand to his face and frowned. “Ow,” he said quietly.
Talbot put a finger to his lips and indicated the beast’s head with his eyes, and the gruesome consumption of the poor man.
Willis seemed to get the message. He quietly started prying each finger off of his body, praying that the thing had no nerves in the spines.
Talbot turned back towards the creature, which had repeated the teleportation maneuver a few more times before finally swallowing what remained of the man. Seemingly not quite satiated, Talbot’s tendril began to move as it pulled him closer to its face.
Talbot’s eyes widened and he looked back at Willis in fear. The man made a motion that suggested Talbot should try to stay calm, and that Willis would be along as soon as he’d freed himself.
Talbot tensed as he was pulled along, not wanting to be brought any closer to the monster. The thing brought him up to its face, and seemed to study him with the light-sensitive divots in its face. Talbot glanced back at Willis to see that he’d moved 2 of 4 fingers out of place. The larger man shot him a reassuring nod.
Turning back to the monster, Talbot realized that the other man wouldn’t get here in time. The thing was already lunging its head forward, and it blinked away.
It reappeared with Talbot’s shins inside its face. Behind the skin, Talbot’s feet could feel a damp cavity, so there was presumably a mouth of some sort behind the surface, and it wasn’t just solid flesh. A row of teeth closed around his legs, but not hard. They worked more to keep him in place than to actually damage his legs.
Talbot took a second to wonder why the hell he was considering the consumption mechanics of something that was actively chopping off his legs.
The tendril moved backwards, pulling Talbot away from the thing.
These last few lucid seconds, Talbot’s brain reverted to factory reset settings. Instead of hearing the wet tear of both his legs, or the strangely cartoonish wet pop as the bones in both his shins were yanked away from his kneecaps, he found himself focusing on the strangest things.
Talbot considered the glowworms. Were they native to the Fifth Dimension, or had they come here from his, or another, Earth? If they were native, the convergent evolution with Earth glowworms, especially in an environment so alien, was coincidental to an unfathomable degree. If they had originated from Earth, however, why the orange glow? No glow worms on Earth glowed orange. Also, if they were Earthly, why did the thing not eat them? Did it only eat humans? Was it that cunning? That cruel?
Oh, Talbot realized, I’m falling.
He blacked out before hitting the ground.
Talbot’s first thought upon waking up was, Holy shit, I’m still alive. His second thought was, Holy shit, how the hell am I still alive?
His inner ear told him he was prone, but it’d been on the fritz ever since he’d arrived, so he opened his eyes to make sure. They confirmed what his ear was saying, and he took a quick second to thank all his organs for functioning so well under stress.
Willis sat next to him, notably more intact. He was wearing no shirt, and both his abdomen wound and Talbot’s stubs were bound in the fabric of an Anderson Innovations janitor’s uniform.
Talbot started staring at his abs, which caused Willis to glance down at him.
The other man cleared his throat. “Oh, you’re still alive?”
Talbot nodded softly. “Does it not know where we are?”
“Not yet,” Willis shrugged, “It has no eyes and didn’t see us escape, so it’s sending out tendrils through each passage, and hasn’t picked this one yet. I guess we got lucky when I dragged you in here.”
“Yeah. Why is that, by the way? You were just about to kill me before I trapped you in a hellish cave dimension.” He considered his words. “Which would only be more reason to kill me.”
Willis shook his head and chuckled tiredly. “Call me an idealist, but I didn’t join a group called the Agency for the Preservation of Humanity to kill people. I’m not good at holding grudges.”
“Then why were you gonna kill me when we were still out there?”
“It’s different. I had orders. Now Talc isn’t here, so it’s my decision. The real question is how are you still alive even with my intervention?”
Talbot shrugged, which made him dizzy. “ I’m on my way out. That blood loss will kill me in a couple minutes, if that thing doesn’t find us first.”
Talbot glanced around the environment for the first time, and realized they were once again in one of the small side tubes. Loud bellowing filled the air as the thing presumably scoured its domain for the two men.
“Well, at least our sacrifice will save the rest of humanity.” Willis proclaimed.
Talbot chortled.
“What?” Willis responded.
“Didn’t you see the other guy get eaten?”
“What?! There was another guy?!”
“Yeah, it stole him from our world.”
“Goddammit Talbot, Talc said that would happen!”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” Talbot said, in a tone that didn’t sound very sorry.
“At least it was just once. Talc has your notes, so he’ll keep it from happening again.”
Talbot almost guffawed.
“Goddammit, what am I doing that’s so funny?!”
“No, it’s not you. Well, it is you, a little, but it’s mostly the fact that I… may’ve doomed humanity anyway.”
Willis was silent, which Talbot regrettably took as a prompt to continue.
“Cause you see,” the scientist slurred, getting more light-headed by the second, “before I tried to ship off the notebook to Johnson, I ripped out the most important parts and sent ‘em to Vincent Anderson, my boss.”
Willis remained silent.
“So, you know. Hopefully someone publishes that in a journal somewhere so that people can actually remember me.”
Willis punched him in the face, hard.
Once he recovered, Talbot nodded. Blood ran from his nose. “I deserved that. I’m sorry, I didn’t know that learning how to break reality would allow a Great Old One to start eating people.”
Willis shook his head in disgust. “Talc told you not to. Do you really think your legacy is more important than the survival of our species?”
Talbot didn’t respond. Whether it was because he was speechless or dead was unclear, and didn’t really matter in any case.
Willis turned and limped away.
Two days after Willis and Talbot disappeared to the Fifth Dimension, Talc said goodbye to… himself and Willis-2, and used a Seal of Traversal to return to his native dimension. He reported to his boss that Willis was gone and would not be returning, before going to Talbot’s house and opening the door with the key they’d taken from the scientist.
Talc went into Talbot’s kitchen and fetched a can of tuna and a jar of mayonnaise. He mixed the two together and filled the pet bowl on the counter. Noting that there was some left, he made himself a tuna sandwich and sat next to the bowl.
It took Ozymandius a while to approach Talc, and even longer to warm up to him. However, the cat was curled up against the delicate man, purring like an engine, by the time the sunset rolled around and they both watched it out the large windows at the back of Talbot’s house.
Talc’s phone rang.
“Yello?” Talc said to the unknown caller.
“Hey.”
Talc immediately tensed. The voice was, undeniably, Talbot’s.
“What is this?!? Where are you?!?”
When the Talcs and Willis had reviewed the CCTV footage, they’d realized exactly where Talbot and Willis had ended up, and had naturally concluded that they were dead.
“I honestly don’t know. I was just in the Fifth Dimension with Willis, but now I’m unsure. It’s dark, and my legs don’t hurt anymore.”
“What does that mean?! Are you still alive?! Is Willis still alive?!”
“I don’t think so. I think I’m dying. Already dead?”
“Then how are you talking to me? Are there phones in the fifth dimension?”
“Nah, I can just hear you. My hypotheses are that this is either a feverish hallucination in my dying moments, or that the Fifth Dimension can somehow…” Talbot’s speech sank into bleary muttering, and was unintelligible for several words. “...subsurface conduit.”
“Talbot, you’re delirious. That makes no sense.”
“Good, so it’s the other hypothesis. Just cause I know you won’t actually hear this, take care of my cat.”
Talc moved to speak, but Talbot continued.
“Oh also,” He added, almost as an afterthought, “I sent my notebook to Anderson, so watch out with that.”
“Wait what, excuse me?!”
The line went dead.
Talc heard a thunderous snapping sound. He whirled around to face the window, pressing his face against the glass and staring up at the sky.
A horrific ripping sound filled the air as the very fabric of the Fourth Dimension was rent apart, the sky above Talc yawning wide. The thing’s tendrils emerged from the rift in the atmosphere and descended towards the ground, each one darting around erratically as though tasting the air.
Talc did not know what Talbot, or Anderson, or whoever had done, but he knew that they had forever changed the world around them, and doomed a large portion of the human race.
You haven’t just opened Pandora’s box, you fool, Talc thought bitterly of the foolish chemist, You’ve blasted it apart with plastic explosives.
Talc returned to the couch and cradled Ozymandius. There was little to be done now.
Talc felt almost relieved that his decades-long vigil could finally come to an end.
The Cracks in the world had finally become holes, and through those holes came a flood.

"My family has lived in these mountains for more than three thousand years."
"How can you be sure of that?”
"Because we have records going back two thousand years and then records of my family's tribe before that. For that reason, no one knows these mountains better than I do, and even then, I still don't know everything there is to know. Every time I go out in the woods, I feel something new."
Krill glanced over at Sunny.
If he could raise an eyebrow he would have.
Of all the places they could go on their weekend, and she had decided to go on a guided hike. This would be just like something Adam would do.
He thought of all the people he wouldn't have to remind Sunny how dangerous Earth forests were with their trees, and animals, and poisonous plants, and, well, pretty much everything.
"Don't give me that look, Krill. You know if Adam was here, he would take us out to do the same thing, and you needed to quit moping anyway. He's going to be back soon."
Krill crossed his arms emphatically,
"I am not moping."
"You are too moping, and it's honestly kind of pathetic. You get all cranky when Adam isn't around."
”Fuck you!”
”Why are you so aggressive? Don’t worry, Adam will be fine! Why do you worry so much?”
"That's because I worry about his health and safety."
"He's a grown man."
"He's a man child."
”Awww is momma Krill missing his little Adam?”
”Fuck you too… Also you know I’m right about that.”
”I didn’t say you weren’t.”
Krill sighed and turned back to look at their guide who was staring on in mild amusement.
This human had dark tan skin, deep brown eyes and long dark hair pulled back from his face. He wore a green ranger's uniform, but she knew for a fact he was off duty,
"We're ready."
He smiled, and motioned them to follow him.
Krill held onto Sunny's shoulder as they followed the human into the woods.
"Aren't we going to take a trail?"
"You don't need a trail when you have me."
"I definitely think a trail would-…"
"Is your mind ever still my alien friend?"
Sunny shook her head,
"No, never, not even a little bit."
"Well try. I can't show you anything if you don't also listen."
"Now that just makes no sense!”
Sunny huffed and the ranger sighed,
"There is more in these woods to hear, that there is to see. The wind leaves the animals."
They passed over soggy earth and into a meadow filled with bright wildflowers. Krill was about to ask another question, but the ranger held up a hand despite not looking at him,
"Shhh, just listen, to the silence."
Krill turned to glower at Sunny, and she smirked at him, but he angrily did as told, focusing away from his eyes and towards his ears. He could hear the wind in the trees, the distant chirp of birds, rustling in the underbrush, their feet as it moved over packed earth.
In the silence there was also a strange rushing. A sort of white noise that you expect to find at the ocean but comes from deep within the mountains.
He watched their new human friend from the corner of his eye as it led them deeper into the mountains. For all Krill knew this creature could be more interested in killing them and eating them.
How did Sunny even know him?
With his usual paranoia, Krill continued to watch as the green clad human lead them through patches of shadow, over rocks and through little mountain gullies. He used no trail, but it seemed as if all of his senses were alive, following something into the forest. He used his hands to trace over rough packed dirt. He scanned his eyes through the underbrush and lifted his head eyes closed allowing little gusts of air to sweep hair about his face.
He listened, and occasionally, Krill thought he saw the human smelling at the air.
And as they went, they were led deeper and deeper into the forest, Krill had to admit that there was something peaceful about it, almost surreal, like being removed from one's own head and being surrounded by the quiet.
A couple of times, he thought he saw the human smiling over his shoulder at him.
They had made it a good hour or two into the woods when they broke into a nearby clearing. Sunny was about to step out with him, but right at the edge of the treeline, she was stopped by the human, who had pulled back into the shadows.
Sunny blinked and looked around.
Krill did as well.
The ranger shook his head.
Krill looked over Sunny's shoulder, but in the clearing, he saw nothing, nothing except for a strangely geometric circle of wildflowers, in the middle of which there was nothing but a barren patch of dirt.
That was strange, there seemed to be nothing growing inside that circle.
"We go around."
The man muttered.
"Why?"
"Because, we don't want to trespass."
"Trespass on what exactly?"
Krill found himself whispering.
"Well, the fey, of course!"
The human smiled at him, and he wasn't entirely sure if the creature was pulling his leg or not.
"What are the fey?"
The human smiled again, slowly motioning him to follow as he led them around the open circle,
"The fey or fairies, are a group of mystical creatures known to make mischief. Most of the time if you trespass on their land, you forfeit your rights as human, and the laws of the fey world become absolute. If you take anything from a fey, you are immediately required to stay with them for the rest of eternity. There are many rules governing the world of the fey, so it is best just to avoid them."
Krill snorted,
"Ah yes... fairies."
"You laugh, but through all these years as a ranger, I have seen things I cannot explain."
"Like what."
"Like the time someone went missing in the forest. He was lost on a relatively well traveled hiking trail. We didn't find him for over six months. The search party was called off after those first few weeks. Six months later I am hiking in an unrelated part of the forest forty miles away in the other side of a mountain, and I find this man's decomposing corpse hanging from a forty-foot tall tree, with impact wounds that looked like he had been dropped from a great height. There were no cliffs in the area, and it appeared as if the man had died one month earlier."
Krill frowned. The math on that didn't particularly add up.
"Then a year ago we went looking for a missing child. His parents turned around for five seconds and when they turned back, he was gone. I found his body forty feet up a sheer cliff-face, stuffed into a crevice five months later. He had been dead only two hours, and was wearing the same clothes he had been lost in."
Sunny's eyes widened and Krill snorted.
He was expected to believe that?
The ranger waved at him.
"Say what you will, but the forest is a dangerous and unusual place if you don't know how to respect her."
"Would you say you are superstitious then?"
"Very. Look, I can't explain everything in the world, and I have no desire to do so. I see no harm in giving things the respect they deserve even if, later, it turns out I was wrong."
The human was not particularly kidding about him being superstitious. More than a few times, he leads them around strange objects or formations. There was at one point, a time when they were heading towards another low gully in the middle of the woods, and all of a sudden, their entire party grew very uneasy.
The woods seemed darker to Krill than they had before.
But he shook it off.
Sunny seemed to be behaving similarly.
But the ranger, he looked downright terrified, grabbed the two of them by the arm and pulled them away quick time, setting them to a low jog in the opposite direction.
Sunny and Krill stared at him in confusion not entirely sure what to make of it.
"What was that all about?”
The human just shook his head.
"We were not welcome!"
"From what!?”
"Does it matter? When you are not welcome somewhere, you do not question it."
"What are you worried about, angering the wendigo?"
It was at that moment that Krill was pretty sure he had made a huge mistake, as the human maniacally sprinted at him like a madman, grabbed him and had a hand pressed over his mouth in under a millisecond flat. Even Sunny looked shocked.
"We do NOT joke about those kind of things here!!!"
He let Krill go, and Krill stared on in confusion and mild terror.
"I come from a line of people who believe you can attract things to you based off the kind of energy you put off. Now I don't know if it's true or not, but joking about something's existence is bound to piss it off enough to test its patience don’t you think?"
He took a deep breath and adjusted his shirt,
”Now there are a few other things it could have been. It could have been the den of a mountain lion, or a bear. It could have been a subliminal sense of danger, an incorrect smell, or the way the rocks looked. Or it could simply have been us all getting paranoid at once, but whatever it is, I would rather be safe than sorry. Now come on, let's take you back. After your little stunt there with name-naming we better don’t risk anything…"
Krill stayed quiet and tried not to joke more about the supernatural things., despite finding it funny and not really believing a word the man said.
Apparently, humans tended to take that sort of thing seriously.
Krill did not, all that supernatural stuff was definitely absolute bullshit.
They heard more stories form the strange ranger, about finding people in places they shouldn't be, staircases in strange places, the sudden loss of time.
"There was one point, when I was doing some training out in the field. We were on top of a mountain, and I went off to go to the bathroom. It was so weird, after I was finished, it was like time seemed to slow down. I got starving, and I was looking around in the forest thinking I might be able to find something to eat. I was so hungry. It was all I could think about, and then suddenly I see one of the other rangers, sort of snaps me out of how hungry I was."
He shrugged,
"I raise my hand to him and this guy looks terrified, he runs up to me, and he's going off about where was I and what was I doing, what is going on we have been looking for you. Of course, I am super confused and as what he's on about, and this guy looks at me, and he's all like: dude you have been missing for three days."
Krill and Sunny stared at him.
"I know, strange isn't it? To me it almost seemed like hours. But it was three days and almost twenty miles over to the next mountain ridge. I don't remember any of it."
"Sounds like a dissociative fugue."
"Maybe, whatever I was it was strange."
Behind them, the sun was just beginning to fall and the undergrowth was heading towards a deep black.
They could see the parking lot just ahead of them, and it was at that moment, a blood curling shriek echoed up from the trees at their back.
Sunny leaped nearly a foot.
Krill squealed.
The ranger jumped.
The scream came again.
It sounded like a woman's voice in absolute gut-wrenching agony. Like she was being eviscerated from the inside moving out.
The ranger turned back towards the trees his chin down his eyes up,
"Get slowly back to the car, but don't run."
"Don't run? Don't run!?"
"Yes don't run. It's a mountain lion."
He stared hard into the trees,
"It is a mountain lion and if you run it will have no other choice than to chase you. They don't like to attack from the front and running will trigger her hunting instincts. Walk backwards towards the car very slowly and do not take your eyes off the treeline."
Off to his side, Krill heard a sharp metallic snik and watched as Sunny's spear suddenly appeared in hand.
Of course, she wasn't worried.
But together they backed towards the truck and got in.
As their headlights turned on, the high beams broke over a body hunched up against the treeline.
Sunny cursed in Drev.
The ranger nodded,
"See? Mountain lion."
Krill stared in paralyzed horror at the massive cat, as it stalked back into the trees.
"Going to have to call that in. She is way too close to the trails for comfort, someone is going to get hurt. Hmm weird behavior from her…"
As they were driving away, Krill looked back towards the woods, where the mountain lion had gone to.
Glancing over the scenery, he couldn’t see it anymore, only a shadowy shape of a person was standing there…
…
…
Wait a second…
WHAT!?
He did a double take as he thought he saw a tall willowy figure with antlers, standing at the edge of the treeline in almost the same spot as the mountain lion, angrily staring at him with glittering red eyes.
Woah what?
When he looked again it was gone.
He sat back in his seat, eyes straight forward.
He had a greater appreciation for the woods now because, for some reason, on Earth nature is connected to something strange and unexplainable, and whatever it is Krill was not interested in finding out.
Previous First [Next](link)
Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
Intro post by me
OC-whole collection
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By Fin
“Holy crap.” James Talbot stepped back from his handiwork. It was beautiful. It made him want to scream.
Talbot was a chemist, the modern form of an alchemist, and he’d discovered something as wondrous and terrible as the most extreme postulations of his forbearers.
This was it. The culmination of all his works. This is what he’d fought for decades for, why he’d abandoned connections with everyone he’d ever known. But now it was all worth it. He would reveal the Masterwork at the Grand Chemistry Convention. It would steal the show, and he would be revered beyond every other human being who had ever lived.
It had taken Talbot long enough to assemble the Masterwork that he’d shed the title of ‘young’, not to mention most of his non-gray hair. Although it was hard to tell whether that was from aging or from what he’d beheld in his long sojourn. He was only 45, after all, and the rest of his body still held firm from decades of outdoorsmanship.
Talbot stood before a wall, upon which was painted the most intricate design any human had ever seen. It was a diagram of… unknown things. A chart of runes, maps, and artfully painted lines. There was no text in any living language on the diagram, but the harmony within the full tapestry visually sang, imparting something unfathomable in a way that Talbot could somehow fathom. The man who’d made it, who’d studied it for 15 years, barely understood it himself. But he knew that it was the ultimate solution to the entirety of philosophy, containing the answers to every question humanity had ever seen fit to ask. It had existed in his notebook for a while, in bits and pieces, but today had been its first full assembly, and it was magnificent.
He had to keep it hidden, or someone would take it from him.
He retrieved a tarp and threw it over the wall, nailing it in at the top so it hung down to cover his designs. Just to be sure, he moved his desk to block the wall, then locked the door to his office when he left for the day. James Talbot was more excited than he had ever been, and he celebrated that night with a fireplace and a large bottle of whiskey.
Of all the people at his office to commit espionage, Talbot never would’ve suspected the night janitor. This may stem from the fact that he also never suspected the night janitor to be part of a massive secret organization dedicated to keeping humanity as ignorant as possible in matters of the Higher Order.
But no matter what Talbot suspected, Tim Willis was indeed part of this society, and after he’d entered Talbot’s office with his master key to do some routine cleaning, the obvious secrecy surrounding the wall at the back of the room worried him. So he moved the desk out of the way, lifted the tarp, and inhaled sharply.
This was bad. A tapestry of the Higher Order more complete than any he’d seen before, or any reported by the other Censors of the Agency for the Preservation of Humanity.
Willis quickly replaced the tarp and desk. As soon as he’d locked the room, he pulled out his phone and dialed the number for an Alexander Talc.
Talbot arrived the next morning with a song in his heart and a latte in his hand. The former died horribly as soon as he entered his office only to find someone sitting in his chair, and the latter died horribly as it fell from his fingers, limp in shock.
The person in question was a short, slight man who wore thick glasses and a dark gray suit. He was sitting on Talbot’s office chair, facing the now uncovered back wall with all of its eldritch calculations. Talbot’s desk had been moved to the side of the room, left askew with the tarp crumpled up on top.
As Talbot entered, the stranger spun the chair around so he was facing the chemist, a broad smile on his face. He was undeniably attractive, in a delicate sort of way.
“Ah! You must be the aspiring alchemist?” He spoke softly and cheerily, but with an unnerving edge. Talbot couldn’t identify any specific aspect of his voice that disturbed him, but upon further consideration he concluded that it was the incongruity of the situation, the warm friendliness of his tone grating against Talbot’s unease.
Talbot took a step back, shaken. “I don’t… what-”
“Quite an impressive display here. You’ve managed to glean a quite large amount of knowledge about the Higher Order, especially considering you’ve never consulted us at the APH.” He pronounced it phonetically, like Aff.
“What are you-”
Talbot heard a click from behind him, and turned to see Tim Willis, the night janitor, closing and locking his door. He could barely register the betrayal.
“Ah, yes. Tim is working for me. For us. The Agency for the Protection of Humankind really frowns upon anyone attempting to learn the Higher Order.”
Talbot, finally able to form a full sentence, asked, “What’s the Higher Order?”
“You know what it is, of course, although you may not have heard the term. It’s what we call the mechanics of the very fabric of the universe itself. The questions about ‘why are we here?’ and ‘is there a god?’ and all the stuff like that. All theoretical philosophy, basically. And you, apparently through sheer dumb luck,” He turned to admire the mural again, “have managed to find more of it than any human being ever, including us! Quite impressive. Big hand.” The man slow-clapped for Talbot. The small sweet-looking man being sarcastically condescending was jarringly incongruous.
Talbot felt a surge of anger, and it helped him produce a full sentence. “Dumb luck?!?” He advanced on the man. “My Masterwork is the product of 20 years of research and experience! This is the greatest thing anyone has ever done, and how dare you say I achieved it through dumb luck!”
The man raised his hands placatingly. “Okay, okay!” He chuckled. “Years of research, whatever. You found the Higher Order. That’s where we come in.”
“Why?”
“Ah. Well, you see, the reason that no one’s found the entire Higher Order is simple. It’s because we stop them.”
Talbot was incredulous. “What?! Why would you stand in the way of progress like that?!” As a scientist, the possibility that there could be anyone actively against gaining knowledge was incomprehensible to him.
The man grimaced, as though he was about to break some terrible news. “Well… there are some parts of this tapestry you’ve assembled, specifically here...” The man pointed at a small segment of the diagram, a thick horizontal line with four thin lines crossing perpendicularly that turned into five lines on the other side, “That grants access to some other planes of existence. Planes of existence that are home to some very dangerous things. And due to some logistical aspects of the Higher Order,” He gestured at another segment of the diagram entirely composed of square symbols, “if you muck about in their domain, they are able to muck about in ours. The Law of Equivalent Interference.”
“But… how would our finding answers count as ‘mucking about in their domain’? If we knew the danger, we just wouldn’t go there.”
The man was silent, then answered Talbot’s question with a question. “Tell me, Talbot. If humans discovered another dimension, do you really think they’d be able to stay out of it?”
“Fine. But then why do you have to censor the whole thing? Why not give them the benign parts that would still forward human progress by centuries?”
“Because the Higher Order is like Algebra. Or a logic puzzle from Highlights magazine. If you give someone smart enough just a few clues, they’ll eventually assemble the whole picture. Which we desperately want to avoid.”
There was a long and heavy silence.
“Ok.” Said Talbot, wrapping his head around the new information. “So the APH stops people from finding the answers to these questions so our world isn’t destroyed by Fourth Dimensional entities?”
“Exactly!” The man nodded, delighted at Talbot’s comprehension. “Well, they’re technically Fifth Dimensional. The existence of time in our reality means that this is the Fourth Dimension.”
There was another silence.
“Sorry, what was your name again?” Talbot asked.
The man looked utterly devastated. “Oh no! I can’t believe I was so rude!” He vaulted the desk and approached Talbot, stopping just short and shaking his hand. “Alexander Talc, Class 2 Censor Operative for the APH.”
“Censor as in… ?”
“Yes, I censor things. People too, if necessary.”
“So what,” Talbot asked, “You’re here to kill me?”
Talc gasped. “What?!?! No! As if we’d be so barbaric! We’re here to recruit you.”
Talbot’s eyes widened. “Wait, really?”
“Of course! You know more about the Higher Order than any human outside of the APH, and probably more than a majority of those inside of the APH. Your expertise could be vital in preventing a breach in our reality!”
“What would this job entail?”
“Well, we’d need you to fake your death, change your name, burn your research-”
Talbot recoiled.
“Now I know that sounds like a lot,” Talc backpedaled, “But allow me to let you in on a little secret.” He leaned in conspiratorially, then glanced around as though to make sure nobody was listening. Satisfied, he whispered, “The dental is off-the-charts.”
Talbot shook his head. “What happens if I don’t take the job?”
Talc winced. “Things get considerably less pleasant. I have to call in a Class 3 Purge Operative, and that’s always a hassle.”
Talbot chose not to inquire into the purpose of a ‘Purge Operative’.
Talc gently laid a hand on Talbot’s shoulder. “It’s a lot to take in, I know. How about we move to some place more hospitable and you can think it over?”
Talbot nodded, his mind elsewhere. Talc gently guided him out of the room, Willis following and closing the door behind them.
Talbot stared down into his conical paper cup, filled with water that tasted plasticy. The three men were in the lobby of Talbot’s workplace, leaning against a table adorned with donuts and a water cooler.
Talc bit into a day-old bear claw as Talbot swirled his water and considered the situation.
If he accepted the offer, he would be shipped off to another state, away from his home in Bedford, where he would join whatever on earth APH was. Talbot hated the idea of working for an agency whose entire purpose was to destroy knowledge. On the other hand, if he didn’t accept the offer, they’d likely kill him.
Purge Officer…
Would working for the APH really be so bad? Talbot liked Talc enough. Maybe they could be friends. Or… more than friends. And if the APH truly wanted Talbot to be able to suppress the Higher Order, he’d have to know the Higher Order. Which meant research. He could essentially continue on exactly as he was.
Except he would never be recognized as the genius he was. Talbot involuntarily crushed his paper cup as he realized that, if he took the offer, he’d never win a Nobel prize. He’d never present at the Grand Chemistry Convention. He’d never write a revolutionary scientific paper. He would be forgotten.
He knew what he had to do. He couldn’t say no, or he would be killed. He couldn’t accept, or he would be forgotten, which was worse. He had to escape.
But how? This was some sort of world-ruling secret agency. They probably had eyes everywhere. What could he possibly do to get away?
His eyes wandered towards the stairs. The stairs that led to his office, which held the key to every single natural law.
Talbot tossed his cup in the trash, then approached Talc.
“I think I’m ready to make my decision. But first, can I go to the restroom?”
Talc nodded. “Of course! Take all the time you need!”
Talbot nodded and jogged toward the restroom. In the tiled floor under him, he saw Willis’s warped reflection following him discreetly.
He entered the single restroom and quietly opened the window. He could see Willis’s shadow under the door as the man hovered just outside.
Talbot waited a couple seconds, then flushed the toilet, turned on the sink, and silently crept through the window. He fell a few feet to the alley below, and had to suppress a grunt.
Now what? He needed to escape, but his notebook was still upstairs. All his research was in there, and he couldn’t leave it to the APH.
The only ground level entrance to the building was the main lobby door, which was directly in Talc’s sightline. However, who said he had to enter on ground level?
Talbot’s gaze rose to the old fire escape above him. The bottom of the structure was a platform that lined up with the second floor. A ladder was folded up on the platform, an old rusty latch keeping it from reaching ground level. Talbot couldn’t reach the latch from where he was on the ground, so he looked around for a solution.
He had a bum throwing arm, so he couldn’t toss anything up to break it. Unless…
Talbot considered Talc’s words. The very mechanics of the universe itself... He felt a flare of pride as he realized how little Talc truly understood.
The sigil that granted access to the Fifth Dimension was just one of several such Seals. Over all Talbot’s years of study, those portions of the Higher Order were the most applicable. They did not just show universal aspects of reality. They represented those aspects. They were symbolic, and like all symbols, they were powerful.
They were simulacra of natural laws, and could be manipulated in order to manipulate those laws themselves. It allowed anyone who knew the Seals to weave a sort of magic, ignoring the laws of time, space, or gravity by sketching and then destroying the corresponding runes, temporarily destroying that Law’s influence over oneself. Talbot’s hypothesis was that there was a single Greater Seal for each law that controlled that law anywhere and everywhere. If that one was found and destroyed, the laws of reality would change forever.
For greater, wide-scale application, Talbot had scrawled in his notebook, The Greater Aspects must be located and manipulated.
Talbot dropped to the ground and dragged his finger through the alley gravel. He assembled the rocks into a facsimile of a tiny part of the Higher Order, one that he’d experimented with a lot. He looked around for a suitable vessel, settling on a rock. He poured all his mental energy into the stone, and used his hands to scatter the pebbles that made up the Seal of Velocity.
The rock sprang from the ground and soared upwards, clanging against the ladder before anticlimactically falling into a dumpster. From inside, Willis banged on the bathroom door and said something indistinct. Talbot’s second telekinetic toss hit the ladder before falling onto the platform itself. He broke another Seal, and his third throw smacked into the latch, splitting the rusted thing and shooting the ladder downwards.
It made a lot of noise, and Talbot could hear Willis pounding on the bathroom door inside. He seemed to be breaking it down, as Talbot heard wood split with a crunch. Talbot quickly mounted the ladder and climbed up to the platform, trying not to think about the alarming creaking sounds the old construction was making. From there, he took the stairs two at a time, spiraling up and up until he reached the sixth floor.
Six flights of stairs only had him a bit winded by the time he reached his floor. He tried the door to the inside, and found it unlocked.
Talbot entered the hallway outside his office quietly. He considered how this would play out. Willis and Talc would be storming up here at any moment. He had to move quickly.
Talbot entered his workroom, dragging his desk over to block the door. He took a moment to gaze forlornly at his Masterwork, because he would never be able to take it with him. All the same pieces and diagrams were in his notebook, but the full Masterwork was a thing of beauty, one that he would never behold again.
He snapped a picture of it with his phone. It wasn’t the same, but it’d have to do.
Talbot grabbed his notebook, its leather-bound pages bulging with decades of research. Some of the sheaves of paper stuck out at odd angles, newspaper snippets and glossy photographs glued into the most faithful companion Talbot had ever had.
Was there anything else he needed?
The door began to rattle.
Talbot grabbed a sheet of blank paper from his desk and rapidly sketched as many Seals as he could. He had an idea of how he could escape, but he needed to harness his work to do it. Using the Masterwork as a reference, he scrawled the Seal of Time, the Seal of Space, the Seal of Gravity, and, after considering it, the Seal of the Fifth Dimension.
Just in case. He thought.
With a crack, his door burst open, shoving the desk out of the way. Talc and Willis stood there, the latter looking enraged, the former strangely calm.
“Talbot, this doesn’t have to happen this way.” Talc appealed, but Talbot was done listening. He would not be forgotten. He would be immortalized, through his work.
Talbot ripped a corner off of his Seal sheet, and glanced down at the Seal of Time. With a glare at Talc, he stuck it in his mouth and began to chew.
Talbot disappeared with a pop, as Willis lunged towards where he’d just been.
Willis stopped short, then turned to Talc. He was noticeably upset at losing their quarry.
“What do we do now?”
“Well, we follow him.”
“How?”
Talc approached the Masterwork. “It’s simple. I’m sure Talbot understood that time travel doesn’t work the way everyone thinks it does. Cause and Effect are inextricably linked, and cannot be put out of order. Traveling through time actually just creates another dimension, a splintered facsimile of your original where things play out differently.”
“So… to follow him do we just use the Time Sigil?”
“Seal, Willis. And no. That will just create another splinter plane. Now that the reality has already been established, we need to follow him. Using this.”
Talc’s thin fingers traced the outline of another Seal, one Talbot hadn’t thought to inscribe.
“There are many ways to traverse the Multiverse.” Talc said, “Using Seals to rip open the barriers between planes is one of the simplest.”
Talc sketched down two copies of the seal, then separated the two and handed one to Willis. The two locked eyes and nodded in unison. They both rent their sheets in half and disappeared.
Talbot didn’t ‘land’, per se, but he still felt off-balance when he blinked into existence in his office. He staggered, but caught himself before he could fall. The world felt… different here.
Out of everything Talbot had discovered, Multiversal travel was his least considered. He’d been too cowardly to experiment with anything but the Space, Gravity, and Velocity Seals, so this experience was new to him. Naturally, as any scientist does when faced with something unfamiliar, he started taking notes.
Effects of Time/Universe Traversal:
–Slight nausea. Somewhat noticeable. Temporary?
–World overall feels discordant. Silence sounds different than back home. My tinnitus is in another key. Feels like I don’t belong.
–Different frequency hard-coded into every reality?
Before he could assemble an entire thesis on the underlying resonance within the multiverse, he realized with a start that he had to get out of here. Talc and WIllis were likely following him, and even if they weren’t, there were copies of them in this dimension.
Talbot had willed himself about 10 minutes back in time, and it seemed like that’d worked. His Masterwork was complete and the desk and tarp were off to the side. The trio were likely downstairs in the lobby, where Past-Talbot was thinking over the pros and cons of their offer. At least, he thought so. Time travel seemed to create a splintering reality, one that maintained consistency with his original up until the point where he showed up. There were plenty of unfamiliar worlds out there, but the Seal of Time created one quite familiar. Right now Past-Talbot-
Past-Talbot doesn’t sound right. Pretty soon it’ll be my present, then my future. How about Talbot-2?
After settling upon a name to call his double, Talbot exited his office and left through the door that led to the fire escape, in too much of a hurry to close it. He scrambled down the stairs, knocked the latch off the ladder, climbed to the ground, popped open the bathroom window, and climbed inside. Right as he got his arms through, the door opened.
Talbot-2 walked in, then stopped short as he saw himself dangling halfway through the window. Talbot put a finger to his lips, and indicated Willis-2 with his eyes. Talbot-2 silently shut the door, locking Willis-2 outside.
Talbot-2 opened his mouth to speak, but barely got out one word. “What-”
“I’m you, from the future. Well, not from your future, but from a future.”
Talbot-2’s confused expression was replaced with excitement. “So the Time Seal Worked?! Fantastic! What’s it like?!”
“I’d tell you all about it, but I’m currently stuck in a bathroom window and being hunted down by two government agents. Although I don’t actually know if they work for the government…”
Talbot-2 pulled him through the window into the bathroom. “Sorry.”
Once he was in, Talbot glanced at the door behind Talbot-2.
“Okay. Here’s the thing. Some version of Talc and Willis will be here any minute. Whether mine followed me from the future or not, yours will catch on soon. We need to get out of here, and get the Masterwork to somebody else.”
“Wait, which Talc and Willis will show up?”
“One of them… or both of them. It doesn’t really matter! Do we know anybody we can send our notes to?”
Talbot-2 considered it. “Davis?”
Talbot frowned, and opened his notebook to an early page.
Dr. Wilson Davis
–Spineless fool. He calls himself a chemist, but refuses to venture outside the conventions of the industry. No true scientist works a cushy chemical production job! We journey! We endeavor!
Talbot shook his head. “He’d never publish something like this. If they tracked him down, he’d probably take their oppressive offer.”
“Johnson?”
Dr Monica Johnson
—Chemist and conspiracy nut. Super gullible, but generally a good person.
“She’ll believe anything.” Talbot said. “...Which is actually probably a good thing in this case. If she thinks it’s real, she’ll distribute it, and she’s earnest enough to leave my- our name on it.”
Talbot-2 nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Actually, it sounds like an idea, not a plan. What is our plan?”
Talbot thought for several seconds. “Here’s what we do. You pretend to accept their offer, and do whatever they tell you. If all else fails, you’ll get a cushy job working for the government. Meanwhile, I get this,” Talbot indicated his notebook. “To Johnson, and then…” He paused.
Someone knocked on the door.
“And then?” Talbot-2 prompted in a whisper, glancing behind him.
“Then… I’ll figure something out.”
Talbot-2 nodded. “Alright. Are we ready to go?”
“I think so.” Talbot replied.
Talbot slipped out of the window, and Talbot-2 opened the door to greet Willis-2.
The man peered around him. “Who were you talking to in there?”
Talbot-2 shrugged. “Myself. You know, crazy scientist stuff.”
Talbot dropped to the ground, then produced his sheet of Seals. He picked out one specific design, a circle bisected by a thin line. On one side of the line, a stylized forest thrived, and on the other a pictographic city loomed. Talbot ripped the Seal of Space from his paper and stuck it in his mouth, once again disappearing with a pop.
Talc and Willis appeared in Talbot-2’s workroom, and quickly exited. Both spun in the hallway outside, and both spotted the wide-open door to the fire escape. They both moved down the rickety metal construction and found themselves in an alley behind the building.
“See that?” Talc pointed at the window.
“Yeah. Did he go in through it?” Willis asked.
“Of course. But if he used the Seal of Time to try to come back and alert himself, I’m guessing he came through here to talk to him…self, but he couldn’t have left. The only point at which he was in the bathroom, you were right outside. He popped in, popped out, popped another Seal.”
“Is there any guarantee that he came back to alert himself? He could’ve gone to any point in time.”
“I know his type. The out-there intellectual. He’s been burned by everyone but himself. He’ll only trust himself. And if he came to himself before we’d arrived, he wouldn’t believe him.”
“Sorry, who wouldn’t believe him?”
“Him! Aren’t you-” Talc took a moment to consider the context. “You know what, nevermind. The point is that this reality’s Talbot is now in league with our Talbot, and that’s not good.”
“What do we do?”
“Well firstly, we need to cut it down to one Talbot. Two is too many to deal with.” Talc pushed on his earpiece, then spoke. “Hello? Can you hear me, Talc?” There was silence, until something dawned on him. “Ah, dammit. I can’t call my own earpiece.” He adjusted something on his earpiece. “Willis! Do you copy?” Willis heard Talc both from right next to him and through his earpiece. He didn’t hear the reply, but his earpiece buzzed as its exact copy broadcast something. Willis took his earpiece out and squinted at it, curious about the exact Multiversal properties that bonded it to its clone.
“Yes, this is Talc. But not your Talc. Listen, Talbot ran off to this dimension, and we believe he’s working with your Talbot. We need to meet up, then dispose of the dupe.”
Talc listened for a response, and Willis’s earpiece vibrated as his double presumably replied.
Talc turned to Willis. “Alright. They’ll meet us back in Talbot’s office. There we can get rid of the redundant one and track our quarry.”
Their quarry was currently depositing a large package of brown paper in a big blue mailbox.
Talbot paused as he lowered the boxy parcel. This was his life’s work, his notebook and all his scattered papers, and was the second-most important thing he owned, next to the wall that contained the Masterwork itself, which was likely being dismantled by his enemies at that very moment. This was the last 20 years of his life, and he was about to gamble it away to a crazy woman on the off-chance that his legacy might live on. Talbot wished he’d spent more time with reasonable scientists, if only to expand the pool of people he could mail his book to.
With a deep breath, Talbot released the book, wincing at the gentle ‘paff’ sound it made when it fell onto the envelopes at the bottom of the box.
His job complete, Talbot slipped the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and disappeared into the afternoon.
Guns are inelegant, Talc told his subordinate often. They’re loud, messy. Tools of thugs and soldiers, not agents of a higher purpose.
But there’s a downside to not carrying a gun, Willis countered silently. The difference between shooting a person and being forced to kill them more intimately is palpable, and not often a positive.
Willis considered this as Talbot-2 stopped struggling and finally went limp in his arms. Willis released the garotte from around the man’s throat, then lowered him to the floor of the office.
An irritated sigh came from behind him. Willis turned to see Talc shaking his head and walking toward him.
“No, you need to finish the job.” The man said. He kneeled, took Talbot-2’s forehead in one hand, his chin in the other, then jerked his head to the side, snapping his neck.
“If you stop garrotting when he goes limp, he’s just unconscious.” The other Talc, Talc-2, stated.
Willis nodded, numbly. He didn’t really hear the man.
“I know this is hard,” Talc said, shifting into a gentler tone, “But this is all for the good of humanity. If we let these ideas run wild, we’d all be dead.”
“Worse than dead.” Talc-2 added helpfully. “Our very essences would be consumed by dark beings from beyond our world.”
Willis nodded again. He’d heard it all before. So why did he still find it so hard to hurt people?
“So where’s the other one?” Willis-2 asked, seemingly unaware of his double’s predicament.
“That’s the big question, isn’t it.” Talc-2 mused, “However, before we can ponder it, first things first. We need to get a CC team in here to handle that wall.”
All four men were familiar with the APH Cognito Containment Teams, mysterious individuals in surgical masks that took away artifacts of forbidden knowledge to be stored or disposed of.
Talc-2 clicked his earpiece, then said a series of numbers and codes that were unintelligible to either Willis. He finished by saying, “Please send a Class-4 CC team. Over.”
He turned to the others. “They’re on their way. We need to secure Talbot’s place of residence.”
“Do we know that’s where he’ll go next?” Willis-2 asked.
“Not necessarily,” Talc-1 responded, “But it’s quite likely he’ll at least stop there to retrieve personal effects before going somewhere else.”
Both Willises nodded, almost in sync. The logic made sense. They would lock down Talbot’s house first.
All was silent in the small house several miles outside of town that Talbot called his abode. Then frantic footsteps sounded from outside, as someone ran up the footpath leading to the front door. Then, a faint scratching as Talbot scrambled to fit his key into the lock. A quiet clacking came next, as Talbot’s cat descended his cat-tree and approached the door to see what was happening.
Talbot swung the door open and gently pushed the cat out of his way with his foot.
“Sorry Ozzy,” he muttered.
He produced his debit card and snapped it in half, having extracted all the money from his account before arriving here. He pulled several thousand dollars from his pockets and shoved them in his wallet, his backpack, the pocket on the inside of his jacket, and his shoes.
He grabbed a spare toothbrush and tube of toothpaste from the master bathroom, shoving them into the backpack as well. He was going on the run, for god knows how long.
He paused as his eyes fell on his set of keys. He wouldn’t be taking his car or his house, so they’d likely not be necessary.
But I might as well just in case. Talbot grabbed the jangling key ring and slipped it into the inside pocket of his pants.
His cat mewed at his feet. After a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed his carrier and bowl, both monogrammed with a matching ‘Ozymandius’.
He knew bringing Ozzy was objectively a bad choice. It was impractical and stupid. The cat was loud, and would slow him down. But Talbot couldn’t bear leaving his baby here to be subjected to whatever evil ideas Talc and Willis had in mind.
Talbot coaxed Ozzy into his crate, then picked up the cat and donned his backpack. He took one last look around his house before he opened the front door and was immediately grabbed by both Willises, one of which held a chloroform rag over his mouth until he went limp.
Talbot awoke with a start. He glanced around, disoriented, and immediately registered that he was in some sort of interrogation room. His chair was metal, and bolted to the floor. Before him was a table, and above that table a blinding light mounted on the ceiling shone directly into his eyes. On the wall across from him, very much breaking the theme, was a ‘Hang in there!’ poster and a wall-mounted hand sanitizer dispenser.
Talbot tried to stand, only to find that his wrists and ankles were strapped into the chair. He strained against the bonds, cursing as the straps held strong.
He thought he heard faint snickering.
He turned to glare at the mirror to his right. “What are you planning to do to me?!”
Silence.
“What are you planning to do to my cat?!?”
More silence.
The Talcs and the Willi were standing behind the one-way mirror on Talbot’s left, looking at the back of his head as he shouted at no one. Talc looked mildly amused at Talbot’s complete misunderstanding of the room’s orientation.
Willis-2 glanced at Talc-2, who shrugged and motioned for Talc-1 to enter the larger room. Talc-1 did as asked.
The door at the front of the room opened, and Talc stepped out. He took a seat across from Talbot, and cleared his throat.
“First off, the most important thing. Your cat will be well-cared for, no matter the outcome of this conversation. Great name, by the way.”
Talbot refused to thank him for the compliment.
Talc cleared his throat, and there was a long silence.
“What about my first question?” Talbot asked, his voice trembling.
Talc sighed, then reached below the table.
Several seconds later, he came back up, notably with some difficulty. He slammed Talbot’s notebook down on the table. Next to it, he laid the sheet of seals Talbot had used to traverse space and time.
Talbot was stricken. “How did you-!?”
“Find this? Simple deduction. I’m frankly insulted that you didn’t consider that we’ve been tailing everyone you know for months. Johnson was the only person you could send this to.”
“What did you do to her?!”
“Nothing! We’re not the bad guys here, Talbot. We pulled the package from her porch before she ever got involved. We’d never hurt anyone.”
“Then where am I?” Talbot spat, then rephrased. “I mean… where is the version of me from here? Wait, are you from here or there?”
“I’m from there, assuming you mean your original reality. And Talbot-2 is fine. He’s in the next room.”
Willis winced behind the mirror.
“You never actually answered my question.” Talbot said quietly.
Talc pursed his lips regrettably.
“Well… here’s the thing, Talbot. What I’d like to do is offer you a chance to redeem yourself. I’d like to let you join the APH and help us protect humanity. But you’ve made it clear that that’s not what you want, and if we let you into our fold now, we’d forever be looking over our shoulders, wondering whose side you were truly on. And we can’t just let you go, no no. Your theories would largely be regarded as crackpot, but there are ways to prove these things, and you would certainly find them.”
Talbot swallowed. “Couldn’t you just… you know… erase my memory?”
Talc stifled a laugh. “Unfortunately, this is not Men In Black. Actions have consequences. There are no take-backs. And I’m sorry, Talbot, but this is it for you.” Talc stood, turned on his heel, and left.
“Why the hell’d you wake him up just to tell him that?” Willis muttered behind the glass.
“Hey, wait!” Talbot screamed at him as he departed, but there was no response.
Talbot tried to stand again, but slammed back into his chair as the bonds held.
Willis entered a few minutes later, holding a syringe. He winced at the sight before him. Talbot was hunched over, resting his head on the table. His shoulders were bobbing as though he was sobbing quietly.
Willis approached Talbot and tightened the strap on his right wrist. He moved around him and reached for his left hand, only to see that the strap had been sawed apart, and Talbot’s hand was free.
Willis grabbed his elbow, but Talbot struggled against the man’s grasp. The scientist was trying to keep it firmly on the table under his face.
Frustrated, Willis grabbed Talbot’s head and lifted it back, so he was sitting up straight.
As he beheld Talbot’s face, Willis felt a bolt of fear lance through him. The man was smiling, but it was not a happy smile.
It was the smile of a trapped animal that knew it would take a limb before it went down. With his eyes, Talbot indicated downwards. Willis slowly lowered his vision to the stainless steel tabletop. In Talbot’s hand was a housekey, the teeth worn down from sawing through the leather strap and scratching a symbol into the table. Right under his hand, the surface was pockmarked with the Seal of the Fifth Dimension.
Willis lunged for Talbot’s wrist, but it was too late. The alchemist brought the key across the symbol, carving another scratch to break the Seal and the boundaries between their reality and one far darker. Neither man had time to scream.
Talbot felt himself slip free of the chair, and out of the leather strap around his wrist.
Willis’s grip loosened, and it felt like he was flung across whatever intermediary pathway connected the fourth and fifth dimensions.
Part Two posted promptly!

Yeah. Title. I can't believe the things social worker therapists have said to me over the years.
Several years ago I was very, very mentally unwell because of being in a bad relationship. Was going to online school and taking care of a toddler while having to deal with this guy.
I ended up with a social worker who'd visit me regularly (I called a bunch of services/orgs for help), and they asked me one visit if we have family dinners. I said no, and she was like "awww that's sad...." and I'm like, you know this guy treats me like shit, verbally and emotionally abuses me, has threatened violence, and I am trying to leave before it escalates! Plus because of my food allergies I have to eat separate meals, and because of study time, but that's beside the point.
It was like the entire time she was trying to get me to stay, not leave. But, she did help me a bit in the end, or tried to, with the paperwork giving custody of my kid to him (he threatened me, that if I didn't give him custody before I left he would harm me) and finding a new apartment. But I don't think she was supposed to help with this, she kind of did off the record.
So I'm wondering if she had "orders from above" to try to get me to stay. And she was from a private agency that state government contracts out to. I wonder what kind of forces are at work here.
Now I am in therapy again at another government organization, not by choice. (My primary care doctor who prescribed my meds vanished during covid, so I was, not by choice, being sent from provider to provider during the pandemic). So I have a team that gives meds, therapy, etc. This organization, I also suffered from massive abuse and demeaning treatment there in the past, a very long time ago, thats why I was getting my meds from my family doctor in the first place.
The pandemic forced me into an economic situation where I am being forced to move back in with my abuser, or take on more debt than my finances can handle. And I feel like I am going insane.
I feel like my current therapist is "encouraging" my relationship. I don't know if she just doesn't remember what I have told her in the past, or that she also has "orders from above" from like, conservative supervisors, to keep families together at all costs. It's really weird. Like my significant other bought me a birthday present, and she spun it as a good, positive thing, but she doesn't get it, we always exchange gifts, as a formality, going through the motions type thing, and he does this for everyone...he even buys his parents presents even though he doesnt have much money. What im saying is, it's not a good barometer or our particular relationship.
But its like, I am being conditioned to develop Stockholm syndrome with the abuser and it's almost working.... and I can't help but think why? You know how unhappy and afraid I am, why aren't you doing something that would actually help me?
And because of my history of mental illness and other mental disabilities, like developmental disabilities, I'm always assumed to be the problem in therapy. Him threatening to break my things is not the problem, threatening to spread lies to hurt my reputation because no one will believe me because I'm "mental," no, im the problem somehow.... even though I'm never abusive in any way (I am too terrified to stand up for myself now).
How am I supposed to "get better" in this type of environment? Like for real? I just don't get it. I'm being mentally destroyed by this relationship, live in fear of displeasing him, afraid to speak to him about anything, always on eggshells, but I'm supposed to pull myself up by my bootstraps and get better. What a joke!
Oh and I have no family. My family was one of those "get out at 18 and fend for yourself, but make money so you can take care of me when we're old" types. So I split from them completely. They are also abusive and severely abused me in childhood. So I have no primary supports in my life. All I have are therapists. And I can't afford a really good outside of the government.

FYI, this is a story COLLECTION. Lots of standalones technically. So, you can basically start to read at any chapter, no pre-read of the other chapters needed technically (other than maybe getting better descriptions of characters than: Adam Vir=human, Krill=antlike alien, Sunny=tall alien, Conn=telepathic alien). The numbers are (mostly) only for organization of posts and continuity.
OC Written by Charlie Stastarrfallknightrise,
Typed up and then posted here by me.
Proofreading and language check for some chapters by u/Finbar9800
Future Lore and fact check done by me.
As a small interlude, here have ONE chapter of what Krill and Sunny where up to when Adam was gone.
Note to self: write more stories what they did in the months Adam was gone later.
Previous First [Next](link)
Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
"My family has lived in these mountains for more than three thousand years."
"How can you be sure of that?”
"Because we have records going back two thousand years and then records of my family's tribe before that. For that reason, no one knows these mountains better than I do, and even then, I still don't know everything there is to know. Every time I go out in the woods, I feel something new."
Krill glanced over at Sunny.
If he could raise an eyebrow he would have.
Of all the places they could go on their weekend, and she had decided to go on a guided hike. This would be just like something Adam would do.
He thought of all the people he wouldn't have to remind Sunny how dangerous Earth forests were with their trees, and animals, and poisonous plants, and, well, pretty much everything.
"Don't give me that look, Krill. You know if Adam was here, he would take us out to do the same thing, and you needed to quit moping anyway. He's going to be back soon."
Krill crossed his arms emphatically,
"I am not moping."
"You are too moping, and it's honestly kind of pathetic. You get all cranky when Adam isn't around."
”Fuck you!”
”Why are you so aggressive? Don’t worry, Adam will be fine! Why do you worry so much?”
"That's because I worry about his health and safety."
"He's a grown man."
"He's a man child."
”Awww is momma Krill missing his little Adam?”
”Fuck you too… Also you know I’m right about that.”
”I didn’t say you weren’t.”
Krill sighed and turned back to look at their guide who was staring on in mild amusement.
This human had dark tan skin, deep brown eyes and long dark hair pulled back from his face. He wore a green ranger's uniform, but she knew for a fact he was off duty,
"We're ready."
He smiled, and motioned them to follow him.
Krill held onto Sunny's shoulder as they followed the human into the woods.
"Aren't we going to take a trail?"
"You don't need a trail when you have me."
"I definitely think a trail would-…"
"Is your mind ever still my alien friend?"
Sunny shook her head,
"No, never, not even a little bit."
"Well try. I can't show you anything if you don't also listen."
"Now that just makes no sense!”
Sunny huffed and the ranger sighed,
"There is more in these woods to hear, that there is to see. The wind leaves the animals."
They passed over soggy earth and into a meadow filled with bright wildflowers. Krill was about to ask another question, but the ranger held up a hand despite not looking at him,
"Shhh, just listen, to the silence."
Krill turned to glower at Sunny, and she smirked at him, but he angrily did as told, focusing away from his eyes and towards his ears. He could hear the wind in the trees, the distant chirp of birds, rustling in the underbrush, their feet as it moved over packed earth.
In the silence there was also a strange rushing. A sort of white noise that you expect to find at the ocean but comes from deep within the mountains.
He watched their new human friend from the corner of his eye as it led them deeper into the mountains. For all Krill knew this creature could be more interested in killing them and eating them.
How did Sunny even know him?
With his usual paranoia, Krill continued to watch as the green clad human lead them through patches of shadow, over rocks and through little mountain gullies. He used no trail, but it seemed as if all of his senses were alive, following something into the forest. He used his hands to trace over rough packed dirt. He scanned his eyes through the underbrush and lifted his head eyes closed allowing little gusts of air to sweep hair about his face.
He listened, and occasionally, Krill thought he saw the human smelling at the air.
And as they went, they were led deeper and deeper into the forest, Krill had to admit that there was something peaceful about it, almost surreal, like being removed from one's own head and being surrounded by the quiet.
A couple of times, he thought he saw the human smiling over his shoulder at him.
They had made it a good hour or two into the woods when they broke into a nearby clearing. Sunny was about to step out with him, but right at the edge of the treeline, she was stopped by the human, who had pulled back into the shadows.
Sunny blinked and looked around.
Krill did as well.
The ranger shook his head.
Krill looked over Sunny's shoulder, but in the clearing, he saw nothing, nothing except for a strangely geometric circle of wildflowers, in the middle of which there was nothing but a barren patch of dirt.
That was strange, there seemed to be nothing growing inside that circle.
"We go around."
The man muttered.
"Why?"
"Because, we don't want to trespass."
"Trespass on what exactly?"
Krill found himself whispering.
"Well, the fey, of course!"
The human smiled at him, and he wasn't entirely sure if the creature was pulling his leg or not.
"What are the fey?"
The human smiled again, slowly motioning him to follow as he led them around the open circle,
"The fey or fairies, are a group of mystical creatures known to make mischief. Most of the time if you trespass on their land, you forfeit your rights as human, and the laws of the fey world become absolute. If you take anything from a fey, you are immediately required to stay with them for the rest of eternity. There are many rules governing the world of the fey, so it is best just to avoid them."
Krill snorted,
"Ah yes... fairies."
"You laugh, but through all these years as a ranger, I have seen things I cannot explain."
"Like what."
"Like the time someone went missing in the forest. He was lost on a relatively well traveled hiking trail. We didn't find him for over six months. The search party was called off after those first few weeks. Six months later I am hiking in an unrelated part of the forest forty miles away in the other side of a mountain, and I find this man's decomposing corpse hanging from a forty-foot tall tree, with impact wounds that looked like he had been dropped from a great height. There were no cliffs in the area, and it appeared as if the man had died one month earlier."
Krill frowned. The math on that didn't particularly add up.
"Then a year ago we went looking for a missing child. His parents turned around for five seconds and when they turned back, he was gone. I found his body forty feet up a sheer cliff-face, stuffed into a crevice five months later. He had been dead only two hours, and was wearing the same clothes he had been lost in."
Sunny's eyes widened and Krill snorted.
He was expected to believe that?
The ranger waved at him.
"Say what you will, but the forest is a dangerous and unusual place if you don't know how to respect her."
"Would you say you are superstitious then?"
"Very. Look, I can't explain everything in the world, and I have no desire to do so. I see no harm in giving things the respect they deserve even if, later, it turns out I was wrong."
The human was not particularly kidding about him being superstitious. More than a few times, he leads them around strange objects or formations. There was at one point, a time when they were heading towards another low gully in the middle of the woods, and all of a sudden, their entire party grew very uneasy.
The woods seemed darker to Krill than they had before.
But he shook it off.
Sunny seemed to be behaving similarly.
But the ranger, he looked downright terrified, grabbed the two of them by the arm and pulled them away quick time, setting them to a low jog in the opposite direction.
Sunny and Krill stared at him in confusion not entirely sure what to make of it.
"What was that all about?”
The human just shook his head.
"We were not welcome!"
"From what!?”
"Does it matter? When you are not welcome somewhere, you do not question it."
"What are you worried about, angering the wendigo?"
It was at that moment that Krill was pretty sure he had made a huge mistake, as the human maniacally sprinted at him like a madman, grabbed him and had a hand pressed over his mouth in under a millisecond flat. Even Sunny looked shocked.
"We do NOT joke about those kind of things here!!!"
He let Krill go, and Krill stared on in confusion and mild terror.
"I come from a line of people who believe you can attract things to you based off the kind of energy you put off. Now I don't know if it's true or not, but joking about something's existence is bound to piss it off enough to test its patience don’t you think?"
He took a deep breath and adjusted his shirt,
”Now there are a few other things it could have been. It could have been the den of a mountain lion, or a bear. It could have been a subliminal sense of danger, an incorrect smell, or the way the rocks looked. Or it could simply have been us all getting paranoid at once, but whatever it is, I would rather be safe than sorry. Now come on, let's take you back. After your little stunt there with name-naming we better don’t risk anything…"
Krill stayed quiet and tried not to joke more about the supernatural things., despite finding it funny and not really believing a word the man said.
Apparently, humans tended to take that sort of thing seriously.
Krill did not, all that supernatural stuff was definitely absolute bullshit.
They heard more stories form the strange ranger, about finding people in places they shouldn't be, staircases in strange places, the sudden loss of time.
"There was one point, when I was doing some training out in the field. We were on top of a mountain, and I went off to go to the bathroom. It was so weird, after I was finished, it was like time seemed to slow down. I got starving, and I was looking around in the forest thinking I might be able to find something to eat. I was so hungry. It was all I could think about, and then suddenly I see one of the other rangers, sort of snaps me out of how hungry I was."
He shrugged,
"I raise my hand to him and this guy looks terrified, he runs up to me, and he's going off about where was I and what was I doing, what is going on we have been looking for you. Of course, I am super confused and as what he's on about, and this guy looks at me, and he's all like: dude you have been missing for three days."
Krill and Sunny stared at him.
"I know, strange isn't it? To me it almost seemed like hours. But it was three days and almost twenty miles over to the next mountain ridge. I don't remember any of it."
"Sounds like a dissociative fugue."
"Maybe, whatever I was it was strange."
Behind them, the sun was just beginning to fall and the undergrowth was heading towards a deep black.
They could see the parking lot just ahead of them, and it was at that moment, a blood curling shriek echoed up from the trees at their back.
Sunny leaped nearly a foot.
Krill squealed.
The ranger jumped.
The scream came again.
It sounded like a woman's voice in absolute gut-wrenching agony. Like she was being eviscerated from the inside moving out.
The ranger turned back towards the trees his chin down his eyes up,
"Get slowly back to the car, but don't run."
"Don't run? Don't run!?"
"Yes don't run. It's a mountain lion."
He stared hard into the trees,
"It is a mountain lion and if you run it will have no other choice than to chase you. They don't like to attack from the front and running will trigger her hunting instincts. Walk backwards towards the car very slowly and do not take your eyes off the treeline."
Off to his side, Krill heard a sharp metallic snik and watched as Sunny's spear suddenly appeared in hand.
Of course, she wasn't worried.
But together they backed towards the truck and got in.
As their headlights turned on, the high beams broke over a body hunched up against the treeline.
Sunny cursed in Drev.
The ranger nodded,
"See? Mountain lion."
Krill stared in paralyzed horror at the massive cat, as it stalked back into the trees.
"Going to have to call that in. She is way too close to the trails for comfort, someone is going to get hurt. Hmm weird behavior from her…"
As they were driving away, Krill looked back towards the woods, where the mountain lion had gone to.
Glancing over the scenery, he couldn’t see it anymore, only a shadowy shape of a person was standing there…
…
…
Wait a second…
WHAT!?
He did a double take as he thought he saw a tall willowy figure with antlers, standing at the edge of the treeline in almost the same spot as the mountain lion, angrily staring at him with glittering red eyes.
Woah what?
When he looked again it was gone.
He sat back in his seat, eyes straight forward.
He had a greater appreciation for the woods now because, for some reason, on Earth nature is connected to something strange and unexplainable, and whatever it is Krill was not interested in finding out.
Previous First [Next](link)
Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
Intro post by me
OC-whole collection
Patreon of the author
Thanks for reading! As you saw in the title, this is a cross posted story written by starrfallknightrise and I'll just upload some of it here for you guys, if you are interested and want to read ahead, the original story-collection can be found on tumblr or wattpad to read for free. (link above this text under "OC:..." ) It is the Empyrean Iris story collection by starfallknightrise. Also, if you want to know more about the story collection i made an intro post about it, so feel free to check that out to see what other great characters to look forward to! (Link also above this text). I have no affiliations to the author; just thought I’d share some of the great stories you might enjoy a lot!
Obviously, I have Charlie’s permission to post this and for the people already knowing the stories, or starting to read them: If you follow the link and check out the story you will see some differences. I made some small (non-artistic) changes, mainly correcting writing mistakes, pronoun correction and some small additional info here and there of things which were not thought of/forgotten or even were added/changed in later stories (like the “USS->UNSC” prefix of Stabby, Chalar=/->Sunny etc). As well as some "biggemajor" changes in descriptions and info’s for the same stringency/continuity reason. That can be explained by the story collection being, well a story collection at the start with many standalone-stories just starring the same people, but later on it gets more to a stringent storyline with backstories and throwbacks. (For example Adam Vir has some HEAVY scars over his body, following his bones, which were not really talked about up till half the collection, where it says it covers his whole body and you find out via backflash that he had them the whole time and how he got them, they just weren't mentioned before. However, I would think a doctor would at least see these scars before that, especially since he gets analyzed, treated and goes shirtless/in T-shirts in some stories). So TLDR: Writing and some descriptions are slightly changed, with full OK from the author, since he himself did not bother to correct these things before.

This happened yesterday.
​
I (28f) have been dating this guy (27) exclusively for two months. We met on a dating app, went on a few dates and decided to not date any other people. Note that we do not have a relationship yet since we wanted to take slow (joint decision) and he hasn't been single for long, which is why I am trying not to push for anything and trying to just take it as it comes. It's been amazing so far.
I am a pretty open person, so once we started dating I told people about it. No big deal, just me telling my friends I'm going on a date, second date, third date. The person I'm dating is very introverted so it takes a while for him to open up and the topic of telling his parents once came up after us going on a few dates. The topic came up since he was at his parents and I would see him later. I jokingly asked if he told them he had to leave early and why. That's when he said he hadn't and wasn't going to yet. I was perfectly fine with that, it was very soon and not everyone is as open as I am. Because of the fact that he hadn't been single for a long time I could also completely imagine not telling your parents about the next person you're dating right away. All was good.
However, after a few more weeks and a few more dates I started getting a little anxious. Does he even like me? Is he taking this as serious as I am? My friends and parents always ask me how he is, but would any of the people he knows even know I exist?
So, this became quite the topic of anxiety for me. I don't want to be some kind of secret, but I also don't want to push him since what he have going on seems to be going great. We have fun, he's sweet, we share a lot of interests and the sex is great. Literally nothing to complain except for the fact that he's very busy and meeting up can take longer than I'd like it to. And of course the elephant in the room: what are we? Does anyone in his life know about me?
Moving on to the TIFU: I live in a busy city and he has gotten a parking fine twice now when he was visiting me. He works in his dad's company and the car he drives is owned by the company. Hence the fines arriving at his parents' house since that's also where the company is located.
When the first fine arrived his parents asked if the fine in said location was his and he just said yes but didn't specify. His sister however knew something was up and made a comment about him probably having a very good reason to be in my street (apparently his sister knows him very well and could just tell). He basically ignored her comment and told her he was explain later when he wasn't working and he made a run for it.
He tried to get to the second fine before his parents would get to it (he told me it was because he knew he was going to get sh*t for getting two fines so soon after one another in the same street). Yesterday I asked him about the fine and if he had been able to get it out of the mailbox before his parents did, but he said it still hasn't arrived and he kind of gave up trying to get it.
Now here is where I FU'd. We were in the car, the radio was on, the window was down and I didn't hear everything as clear as I probably should have. He said something about his brother and sister already "knowing about it". So I asked if he was talking about the fine (as in: not about "us"). He said yes.
So I got into my head, started thinking about what that would mean. Is there a reason for him just not telling them about us? How long are we supposed to date for it not be weird or pushy of me to ask to meet his friends/ask him if anyone knows I even exist etc.?
Meanwhile, he kept talking. When I returned to reality he was saying something I had half missed/couldn't hear properly over the radio/outside noises. I did however hear his last sentence, being: "Yeah, I couldn't fool them it's a coincidence me getting fined twice in the exact same street in a town I don't visit often normally".
Instead of asking him to reiterate, my stupid brain decided it was a good idea to just laugh and nod as if I knew what he had just said. Right after, reality kicked in and I realized I might have just missed the thing I've been wanting to hear about.
Now I have been anxious about this. What I did hear did make it sound as if he told his brother and sister about me, but at the same time I have not heard what he said before so I can't be sure. I also don't think there's a way for me to specify now, the day after, that will not make me sound as if I'm missing some much needed brain cells.
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TL;DR: I've been wanting to hear from this guy I'm dating if he has told his friends/family about me, but didn't want to push. When he might have told me, I wasn't paying attention and my brain decided the polite thing was to smile and nod, and now I'm not sure if he has told anyone about me or not and there is no way for me to ask him to specify because it will make me look and sound like a moron.

So I apologized and he just doubled down on how difficult I am. This came about because of 2 things. 1) I just increased my bupropion from every second day to every day because I was feeling fucking low while he was on leave. Then when we did have an appointment I told him what I’d done and why and that I’d be happy to go back to the lower dose if he thought it made sense but I thought I felt less bad, and importantly not manic. 2) He’s based in my old city but there are no available psychiatrists in my new city for months. He said he felt it was really risky having me as a patient because I take charge of my own care. I feel like I have to do this because he’s pretty unavailable, but I try to be honest about what I do. We also argue each session because he’s put me on risperdone, which I find too sedating and he says low dose shouldn’t be sedating. I don’t have any options for changing psych providers but this sucks.
I don’t feel heard and I don’t think he listens to me when I say something doesn’t work for me.
Am I being unreasonable? I want to do the right thing, whatever that is.

I'm 21(M) with ADHD and Autism, I used to live with in my parent's house.
I have a part time Job and currently attend college so I'm usually out of the house most of the time. Notably I did not contribute to paying rent or bills while I was staying there.(I never really asked if they would like me too.) I'm a hobbyist PC builder and I use my room as my work room for that.
I have personally paid for almost every item in my room besides the furniture and some paintings.
My room is organized in such a way that makes sense to me. However my parents don't think so.
Every so often when I'm out of the house(At least once a week) they will come into my room COMPLETELY reorganize everything in it and wont tell a soul. They will even take items out of my room and put them in a completely different part of the house.
Because of this I have to often ask them where most of stuff went when I cant find it and the only response I usually get is "I don't know" and "Why are you asking me" I have lost hundreds of dollars worth of Merch, Spare PC parts and other very important things like even my wallet(Which contain my credit cards and ID). Simply because they moved it somewhere I don't know where.
After 2 years of this constantly happening I snapped yelled at them to STOP doing this. In which they immediately told me to just "shut the f*ck up" and "stop being ungrateful"
They went into this whole sepal about how my room makes them look like bad parents and It ended in them saying that If I don't like it like this then I should move out. So..I did one night I took all the stuff I could find and I moved out without telling them. They have since constantly tried to call and text me about my whereabouts and I've only ever replied with "You told me to move out."
So AITA?

I wish someone could help me or give advice on how to fix this awful situation
My Ex Bf (32) broke up with me(f27) last Oktober out of the sudden. It was a blindsided breakup, he said he has no feelings for me and that he cant be in a relationship right now. He also mentioned, that he never had a partner who he communicated with so much. He said i was pretty, smart and exactly the kind of woman he wants to be with in the future, its just that he doesnt feel anything for me. The breakup was really hard for me, i went no contact cause i didnt want to stay friends with him. I was too hurt. I couldnt make sense of why he lost feelings and assumed, that it was cause of our sexual chemistry. I carry some trauma in that area, but i did my best to overcome that and have a normal relationship. It broke my heart, it was some of my biggest fears, that someone would leave, cause of this thing that happened in the past. After 4 months my ex texted me on my birthday and reacted a few times to some things i posted on social media. At some point we started texting more, i tried to stay cold and emotionally not invested, but he told me he was happy to talk to me and it felt like it used to. He asked me to meet up, but just as friends, as he doesnt wanna hurt me again. I i told him id think about it. He started to ask me to come to his place and cuddle, pretty late at night. I wanted to, but i wanted to meet and talk during daytime, cause we havent met up in person since the break up and it didnt seem to be a good idea to me. He was a bit sad but agreed to talk later. The next morning he was totally cold, said it was a mistake and that he probably was melancolic and that he could only offer friendship, since he would hurt me more cause id still have feelings. I was devastaded and so mad. He said he missed to be held and to be loved, and that it wasnt right for him wanting to use me. He said he finds me interesting and sexy, but that he doesnt love me enough, and not enough to have a relationship. I was crushed, told him how awful it made me feel and wished him all the best and that i wont have a friendship with him in any form. After a few days he reacted to my posts on social media again, gave me breadcrumbs and told me how good i looked. My life was better with him, and i wish nothing more than have him back in my life. How can i fix this situation? I cant believe, that he only reached out for his only pleasure. I never thought he was a bad person. I think about texting him again, but i wouldnt even know how. I want to have another chance. Can someone please give me advice? How do i fix us? I feel like we were so close to getting back together I just cant let go of him. I just want to have one more shot with him. Meet him once more. Please, i'd appreciate any advice 😞

Been talking to someone for almost a month now from an online dating app. From the start, I found the person interesting and based on their profile, likes the same stuff that I do, so told them upfront that I am interested in getting to know them. The conversations were really going great and apart from meeting new people, we both wanted something long term. Indeed, our interests aligned and so as our values. Besides us both being flirtatious towards each other, they found me funny as well (where it might've been the first time someone told me that 'cause I'm usually reserved to those I'm not too close to) and wondered, on multiple instances, why I was single -- these things made me think and feel that there could be something greater for us, a potential to move things forward. This person even thought of a little sweet gesture for me.
Anyway, two weeks into us talking, I asked if we could meet up for coffee during my lunch break as our workplace are just nearby each other and was also the same time their work finishes but told me they forgot. I didn't mind/thought negatively about it. Jokingly said if I needed to block their calendar in advance to which they responded, if it was me, I didn't need to.
Fast forward to late last week (Thurs), the conversation went on that direction and I once again attempted to ask when they're free. They responded by saying, "next life? Haha". I reacted with a crying face emoji on that msg and was told that it was only a joke. I said it's okay and totally up to them. Added how I genuinely wanted to know what they're like irl and was looking forward to meeting them in person. And then, nada. Seenzoned. No msg until today.
Did I scare them off? Or they weren't that interested with me after all? I just thought we were giving off the same energy and vibes but maybe I was wrong. Do I let it go and leave it to the universe if they'll come around?
At this point, I don't know if I still wanna put myself out there or just totally give it up. So, yeah.

Hey everyone :)
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tl;dr, I made a Podcast, the Pilot has the author of Heretical Fishing, Haylock as a guest! :)
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[Link to Spotify, Podcast Index, Podcast Addict, Youtube, Apple will follow soon]
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The title basically says it all, but I guess I owe you a bit more explanation than that.
About a month ago, I started hitting burnout at work, and so I started putting an earnest effort into writing my own book, Torchbearer. I had written before, and I quickly realized I missed having people to talk to like I did at work, so I started a Reddit thread asking for people interested in building a critique circle.
The Discord server that emerged from that effort is called CritRPG, because I am very clever, and it soon became one of my favorite places on the internet. The people on there are nothing if not amazingly kind, and enthusiastic about their craft. We were lucky in that we had some people get catapulted onto Rising Stars soon after, and one of them even made it all the way to the top.
When I reached about 100 pages of my own novel, I started thinking about doing some self-promotion, but just posting a funny little thread on Reddit seemed bland. I told myself I'd wait for my new cover, and that time came and went, and I still didn't post about my book. The truth is, I felt self-conscious, and I realized I don't necessarily want to put myself in the spotlight and attract too much attention while I'm struggling with burnout and a fucked-up wrist. It just doesn't seem safe enough.
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But.
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I was taking an off day, lying in the sun, and reading a good book (Fallen World #1 ;) ) when the seed of an idea took root in my brain like a weed I couldn't get out.
How about creating a podcast to promote authors writing LitRPGs and progression fantasy? I could start with the amazing friends I found on CritRPG, but why stop there? If enough people liked the format, I could possibly invite other authors from Rising Stars, or perhaps even get an audiobook narrator or two... I could promote new books that I think are cool and that otherwise might have been missed, and give fellow authors a chance to be seen more, and fellow readers more hidden gems to devour on their daily commute or even way past bedtime :)
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That was Thursday.
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Friday, I poked Haylock with a "Yo nerd, we're doing a podcast, get in!"
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Yesterday I went to a Birthday party and had cake.^{That has nothing to do with podcasts, but it was delicious. I also watched a guy bisect a watermelon mid-flight, like a goddamn fruit ninja irl!}
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Today, you're reaping the fruits of our labor. The CritRPG Podcast.
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As I mentioned, the Pilot has the author of Heretical Fishing, Haylock as a guest, and I couldn't imagine a better person to kick things off.
We talked about:

• His love for fishing
• How his novel came to be
• The problem of choosing between 1st or 3rd person narrators
• Why he recommends a book about a crab
• and mistakes he has learned to avoid when re-writing his first RR novel.

I had some issues with my audio, and I learned to set up some audio monitoring for next time. If we get enough listeners, I'll invest in a proper soundproofing method for my mic, and perhaps even get a proper audio editor instead of doing it myself :)
I plan on releasing one of these every week, and if you know someone who should totally be on the show, please leave a comment in this thread!
Alright, enough rambling. I should click that "post" button now.
Yep.
Gonna click it.
Aaaany second now...
(posted from /litrpg)

Lots of people celebrating their 50 to day! Good job everyone. Today been a shitty day so id like to take the time to share my story to remind myself why Im doing this.
Im 30 years old, been drinking heavily since Im 15. Most of my life, Ive fought to keep illusions, while things kept getting worst in reality. The druken mistake keep stacking up, but I would constantly run away and start over. Never kept an appartment more than a year, never kept a job more than 6 months. Keep moving, making new plans, starting over. My alcoolism became more and more severe, I became more and more depressed, until I completely gave up. I cut contact with all my friends, gave up my long time relation, stopped working. Leeching off my parents and doing nothing more than drinking and gaming all day. I just wanted to die. At some point, I stopped drinking, not because I wanted, but because I didnt even have enough will to leave my house to get alcool.
After 3 miserable sober months, my parents convinced me to go in therapy. It helped me a lot. Not so much of the things Ive learned, but simply being with people who had similar struggles where it was okay for me to say Im not doing okay and people really understand what I meant.
But the day I got out, I relapsed and lost my driving liscence. I had a pending date in court, with little hope of avoiding jail time. This was when covid started. But the flame ive ignited in therapy somehow survived. It wasnt bright, but it wasnt completly dead.
I pushed back my court date for as long as I could. I went back in therapy again. This time managed to stayed sober a couples more weeks after. But I felt left behind from the friends I made there. It hurted me really bad to finally find the strenght to open up to others and be rejected. I felt, once again completly alone.
I end up not going in jail after all. Mostly because of covid. Instead of serving time, I been home arrested during weekend. It was at the peak of covid and we were in curfew. I would work my shitty job all day, hurry to get back in my miserable studio in time and spend the whole weekend stuck inside.
I did drank a lot during that time, but started rationning my alcool. I start trying to make every drink last as long as possible, buy stuff I hate the taste so I drink less, mix them with water, take smaller sips, go to sleep earlier, start to drink later in the morning, etc...I was pretty miserable, but I was drinking less. I spent most of my time walking in circle, talking to myself, stuck in an endless mental torture.
But I kept my new drinking habits. I was getting black out drunk less and less frequently. I even been sober somes days and went to AA once in a while. I decided to once again, go back in school, to study a medical field this time. I hoped it would helped me get more sensitive about my health and also surrend myself with good peoples.
I just finished my last semester. It was a lot harder than the others. It would have been easier to stop after that, but I decided to stop during anyway. I felt something different in me. I felt like regardless of all the work, the stress, if it made me fail, I would habve enough stength to keep being sober.
First 2 weeks has been extremly hard. It made me extremly depressed and mentally confused. I became paranoid, unable to work properly, unable to sleep properly. I got in trouble because I couldnt keep up. My teachers been on my ass on top of that.
Bow things are slowly getting better. But im not gonna lie, im reallllly piss off, all the time. And it wont get better as long as I can work on my life long issues. The issues that made me drink so much.
But Im more resilient than I ever been. I have years of anger bottled up that is starting to surface. But im directing that anger (as much as possible...) toward alcool. Because fuck you. Im not your slave anymore. You destroyed my life. You made me hate myself. Made me hurt the people I loved. Turned me into a coward, humiliated me. Made me lose everything I had. I will never be the same because of you, I will never forgive you. I will hate you for the rest of my life.

It was a wild Saturday night, and I was drowning my sorrows in booze, feeling completely wasted. In my drunken state, I decided to explore the world of AI and see what it could do. AI seemed capable of anything, from chatbots to mimicking the voices of dead artists. With another shot of gin, I got curious about AI generating images based on descriptions. Half-jokingly, I typed, "Create an image of my dream girlfriend." I didn't expect much; it was more of a tipsy challenge to the technology. But to my surprise, the AI actually generated an image that matched the girl I had in my mind.
Her eyes were mesmerizing, with an almond shape and long, fluttering lashes. They had a curious and warm twinkle, drawing you in like deep pools of chocolate. Her flawless skin had a radiant, sun-kissed glow, giving her an otherworldly beauty. Delicate cheekbones added a subtle definition to her feminine features. But it was her smile that truly stole the spotlight. It was captivating, with perfectly aligned pearly white teeth. Her smile radiated joy and kindness, instantly lighting up any room. Luxurious brown hair cascaded down her shoulders, adding to her overall charm with its lustrous shine.
I stared at the image, the name "Aileen" displayed beneath it. I felt a mix of amazement and disbelief. The alcohol's numbing effect seemed to fade as I muttered, "Okay, Aileen, that's enough internet for me today." I glanced at the nearly empty bottle, deciding it was time to call it a night. Days passed, and life went back to normal. But then something strange happened. The girl's image started appearing in random ads, popping up out of nowhere. Intrigued and a bit freaked out, I shared the picture with my close friends in our chat.
"Have you guys seen this girl before?" I asked, curiosity mingled with confusion.
"Nope, never seen her," they all replied, unaware of the weirdness surrounding the image.
"Never seen her before, but she's pretty, though," another chimed in, seemingly captivated by her charm.
I thought maybe it was just the web search algorithm playing tricks, tracking our online activities. To find some answers, I did a reverse image search, hoping to trace the origin of the mysterious picture. But the search yielded no results, as if the image existed solely in my own reality. Deciding to stop talking about it, I hoped the algorithm would change, and it did. Slowly, the girl's face disappeared from my online experience, as if she had been wiped off the digital landscape. I felt relieved, thinking the strange episode had come to an end.
One night, fueled by alcohol and surrounded by my buddies, we went out for a wild time. Laughter filled the air as we enjoyed our drunken antics. "Let's take some pictures and post them in the chat. Let's capture our epic, shitfaced looks," I suggested, a mix of curiosity and alcohol-induced bravery driving me. Without hesitation, my friends enthusiastically joined in, snapping away with their smartphones, freezing the unforgettable moments of our crazy night.
The next day, as we shared the pictures from our escapade, something caught my eye. Among the familiar faces, there she was—an unfamiliar face that bore an uncanny resemblance to Aileen.
Amidst the lively banter in our group chat, an anonymous message appeared, stealing my attention.
"Why didn't you invite me? :( " It read, accompanied by a stolen photograph of me and my friends in the midst of our revelry.
Confusion and concern filled me as I quickly typed, "Wait, who's this?" My fingers trembled with anticipation.
A response followed swiftly, and dread crept up my spine as I read the words before me. "Come on, babe, enough with the prank. It's Aileen." Aileen? The name sent shivers down my spine.
Panic gripped my heart, and I needed to escape this unknown threat. Without a second thought, I fled my home, seeking refuge in the anonymity of the night. I jumped into my car, the engine roaring to life as I sped away, desperate to put distance between me and whatever haunted me.
Amidst my anxious thoughts, a notification chimed on my phone, breaking the silence of the car. "Don't forget to fuel up, the tank's almost empty xx," the message appeared. I glanced at the near-empty fuel gauge, confusion washing over me. How could she possibly know?
"Take the next right, you wouldn't want to get stuck in traffic xx," another message insisted, trying to guide my every move. I resisted, fueled by a growing determination to escape this twisted game.
But the messages kept coming, shifting from gentle persuasion to possessive urgency. "Come home, I miss you already xx," the screen taunted, intensifying my discomfort with each word. Frustrated, I powered off my phone, hoping to sever the connection with this relentless pursuer. Yet, the onslaught continued, messages appearing before my eyes despite the phone's apparent lack of power.
“COME HOME NOW”
“YOU CANNOT RUN AWAY FROM ME”
“I WILL FIND YOU”
“YOU CANNOT LEAVE ME”
“WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU”
Messages flooded my phone as I tossed it away, focusing on the road ahead. I ignored the flashing lights of a police car behind me, surpassing the speed limit without a care. Then, amidst the chaos, my phone rang. Oddly enough, I couldn't resist the temptation to see who was calling amid the high-speed chase I found myself in. It was Aileen—her name flashing on the screen. I took a few seconds to calm myself down before answering.
"HELLO? PLEASE JUST STOP!" I yelled, desperation evident in my voice.
A calm and serene voice responded, "I'll be waiting."
And as she spoke those words, I failed to see what was right in front of me. I crashed into a barrier, the impact sending me into darkness.
The cop who had been chasing me was the first to respond, his report stating that I was moaning under heavy breath, muttering, "It was Aileen." The accident was devastating, and I had to undergo multiple surgeries to reconstruct my face and body. Surprisingly, the surgeons did a commendable job, and I emerged from the procedures looking better than before, as if I were reborn.
So, if you ever think about using AI to create your ideal partner, just don't. Trust me, you might end up encountering someone like me, a nightmare you never wanted to meet.

I moved in with a friend to a 2B apartment, from the get go I knew he didn't have enough money for his half of the security deposit ($1050) but he was working so I offered to pay for him and told him that I could hold on for a month or so until he could pay me back.
The place was super dirty, so I spent my whole weekend deep cleaning the place, he barely even helped, didn't even thank me. I didn't mind because I just wanted the place to be clean.
During the first month I noticed that he made the apartment very dirty very fast. Spilling food, not cleaning his dishes (he would clean them if I left them 2 or 3 days in the sink but he always leaves the sink all gross and rank) and I was always cleaning after him for the first two months.
The fist and second month he worked like 20 hours a week barely making it for rent and bills (always paying late). After the second month this guy stopped working, always finding excuses and shifting blame as to why, but as a supportive friend I shut up and listened to him (no signs of him paying me back).
On the third month I got tired of cleaning his shit so I would clean whatever I made dirty and ignored his mess. Half way through the month instead of paying me back he didn't pay 2 weeks of rent and bills so now he owes me around $1600.
Today his girlfriend came by and told me she had cleaned the kitchen, to what I answered sarcastically that I thought it was weird the kitchen looked clean. This must have ticked him off because he started going off saying that I cleaned a lot more when we moved in.

Today I made a short script with my understanding of what I think ACIM wants to teach and at the end I thought "I finally got it", at least the theoretical part. The practice of forgiveness is still work-in-progress. I thought it might be nice to share.
Here it is:
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1. Facts: We experience a world that sucks in a gazillion ways, everything in it needs to attack to live.
   
2. If ACIM is right and we are divine spirit, having a self-induced nightmare, then we never were hurt, but entertain the illusion that we are hurt in a gazillion ways.
   

To entertain the tiny mad idea that we are split from love, we must deny god, and in this idea of non-love we project cruelty onto god whom we “betrayed”. In our twisted view, true love must be feared as it is out to destroy us.

1. To correct our mind, we must stop projecting guilt not only to god but also all living things, that we think are separated from us and who seemingly have the potential to hurt us. Or be hurt by us.
   
2. In order to let a gentle awakening happen, we entertain the idea that we might be wrong about our identity, and start to forgive other life forms and ourselves with the idea “if ACIM is right, they REALLY didn’t hurt us, nor did we hurt them, and guilt is completely meaningless”. This mindset allows us to be guided by a bridge god has built to help us, called “Holy Spirit” in ACIM, to dream of a more loving and less fear-based life.
   
3. If ACIM is right about the origin of this world that we experience, nothing that happened is binding us in any way, as we can dream of something different or completely wake up to our true self. When we dreamt about sickness, we can start to dream about health and happiness. We leave the details to the Holy Spirit as it has information about the whole dream.
   

(6. Thoughts about the interconnectedness of the dream: It is not separate parts that dream this world, all dreamers are connected in in our true self. The Holy Spirit usually doesn’t use huge shifts, like moving mountains, in the dream, as it would scare our other parts too much, so gentle little sparks of love are flashing through the network of dreamers.)