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Hello!
I have Initio Paragon 100 ml (tester) missing about 5 sprays, Roja Apex Parfum Cologne 100 ml missing about 11 sprays, Uden Overdose 50 ml missing about 8 sprays, DS & Durga Pistachio w/ box, 100 ml missing about 7 sprays, African Leather 75 ml missing about 9 sprays, Black Afgano w/ box, 30 ml missing about 4 sprays, Reflection Man w/ box, 100 ml bottle missing about 3 sprays, Galloway (tester) 125 ml missing about 14 sprays, Xerjoff Casamorati 1888 100 ml missing about 9 sprays.
Photos: https://imgur.com/a/JkbpEfX/ https://i.imgur.com/9AiG82h.jpg
I’m interested in trading for a full/near full bottle of any of the below listed fragrances, comparable in size, and I prefer trading with a reputable (flaired) user. Please do not waste our time with PM/Chat if you haven’t first commented on this post or have no flair, otherwise I’m automatically assuming you’re a scammer and ignoring.
I have several transactions on this sub-reddit which can be verified, over 1,200 sales on eBay with 100% positive feedback - https://www.ebay.com/uslos-da-boss, and I am also a 5-Star seller on Mercari (same user name: Los-Da-Boss) w/ over 120 sales.
Please NOTE: I will ONLY trade Paragon for any of the Top 15 on my list!
I have a huuuuuge list of frags I’m Interested in. Please see the list below and if you have something FROM THE LIST and want to trade, please hmu so we can discuss it. Please note I’m not interested in other offers at this time, so please don’t message me with offers. If it’s not on my list, I’m not interested.
Thanks in advance!
Trading for:
Amouage Reflection 45, Xerjoff Pikovaya Dama, The Harmonist Hypnotic Fire, The Harmonist Moon Glory, The Harmonist Sun Force, Unique’e Luxury Crush On Me, Unique’e Luxury Mashumaro, Roja Oceania, Roja A Midsummer Dream, Narcotica Doza, Electimuss Mercurial Cashmere, Nishane Shem, Narcotica Dulce Diablo, The Harmonist Yin Transformation, LV Ombre Nomade
Electimuss Auster, Roja Elysium Eau Intense, SHL God of Fire, Argos Triumph of Bacchus, Unique’e Luxury Beverly Hills Exclusive, Marc Antoine Barrois B683 Extrait, Unique’e Luxury Mangonifiscent, Marc Antoine Barrois Encelade, Electimuss Silvanus, Byron Parfums Mula Mula, SHL Venom incarnate, Byron Parfums Mula Mula Rouge Extreme, Xerjoff Richwood, LV Afternoon Swim, Kilian Blue Moon Ginger Dash, Indult Tihoti, Javoy Paris Fire At Will, Unique’e Luxury Kutay, Xerjoff Symphonium, Thameen Carved Oud, Argos Adonis Awakens, Argos Danea,
Electimuss Imperium, Xerjoff Italica,
Electimuss Black Caviar,
Electimuss Octavian, Electimuss Rodanthe, L’Artisan Parfumeur Tea for Two, Nishane Wulong Cha, Xerjoff 1861 Decas, Nishane Zenne, PDM Sedley, Initio Blessed Baraka, Xerjoff Ivory Route, Marc Antoine Barrois Ganymede Extrait, Nishane Hundred Silent Ways, JusBox Cheeky Smile, Electimuss Trajan, Vilhelm Mango Skin, Marc Antoine Barrois B683, Vilhelm Dear Polly, Electimuss Pomana Vitalis, Amouage Ashore, Amouage Crimson Rocks, Casamorati Mefisto Gentileoumo, Electimuss Vixere, Ormande Jayne Ormande Man, Byron Parfums The Chronic, Byron Parfums Black Dragon, Le Labo Santal 33, Initio Musk Therapy, Javoy Paris Psychedelique, Frederick Malle Portrait of a Lady, Amouage Search, Byron Parfums Green Butterfly.
Thanks for looking!!

Saturday:
Durham Craft Market - Saturday 08:00 AM @ Durham Central Park - Durham
The Raleigh Market - For the thrill of the hunt! - Saturday 09:00 AM @ N. C. State Fairgrounds - Raleigh
Shop & Play Saturday at Phillips Farms of Cary: Kids' Summer Kick-Off with NC Eat & Play - Saturday 09:00 AM @ Phillips Farms of Cary - Cary
FREE HIIT class @ Crabtree Valley Mall w/ Princess from Fit Factory! - Saturday 09:00 AM @ Fabletics Crabtree Valley Mall - Raleigh
West Point Park Tours (4 start times) - Saturday 10:00 AM @ West Point on the Eno - Durham
Spring Kiln Opening at Mark Hewitt Pottery - Saturday 10:00 AM @ Hewitt Pottery - Pittsboro
Saturday Slowdown at RambleRill Farm in Hillsborough: shop at farmers' market, meet goats, have a picnic - Saturday 10:00 AM @ RambleRill Farm - Hillsborough
Summer Sol - Vinyasa Flow w/ Live Sound Journey & Zero Proof Cocktails - Saturday 10:00 AM @ Raleigh Rose Garden - Raleigh
1st Annual International Children's Day at the City of Raleigh Museum - Saturday 10:00 AM @ City of Raleigh Museum - Raleigh
Ever After: Fairytales, Food & Flowers - Saturday 10:00 AM @ Fred Fletcher Park - Raleigh
"Cultural Infusions": An Art Collective Art Exhibition - Saturday 10:00 AM @ Triangle Cultural Art Gallery - Raleigh
Open Farm Visit to Sunrise Community Farm - Saturday 10:00 AM @ Sunrise Community Farm Center - Chapel Hill
The Original Downtown Raleigh Murals and Public Art Tour - Saturday 10:30 AM @ 300 S Salisbury St - Raleigh
Yoga at Hi-Wire Brewing - Saturday 11:00 AM @ Hi-Wire Brewing at Golden Belt - Durham
Historic Raleigh Trolley Tours (1-hour long; 4 start times) - Saturday 11:00 AM @ Mordecai Historic Park - Raleigh
Wilson Pride Market - Saturday 11:00 AM @ Fayetteville Street - Raleigh
Flight Day at Dix Park - Saturday 11:00 AM @ Dorothea Dix Park, Big Field - Raleigh
The Market at NCMA - Saturday 11:00 AM @ North Carolina Museum of Art - Raleigh
Flight Day at Dorothea Dix Park - Saturday 11:00 AM@ Dorothea Dix Park — Big Field - Raleigh
FlushFest -- West Hillsborough's Homemade Music and Film Festival (admission by donation) - Saturday 12:00 PM @ 711 Eno Street, West Hillsborough - Hillsborough
flART Market - Saturday 12:00 PM @ ArtPost - Durham
Record Show - Saturday 12:00 PM @ Durty Bull Brewing Company - Durham
Art-n-Soul Market - Saturday 12:00 PM@ Waverly Place - Cary
Art-n-Soul Market @ Mystic Farm & Distillery - Saturday 12:00 PM @ Mystic Farm & Distillery - Durham
Rescheduled: Bond Brothers' Mid-Town Square Spring Festival - Saturday 12:00 PM @ Bond Brothers Beer Company - Cary
Raleigh's International Food Festival - Saturday 12:00 PM @ City Plaza - Raleigh
53rd Annual Bimbé Cultural Arts Festival - Saturday 1:00 PM @ Rock Quarry Park - Durham
Doughnuts with Dads at Book Harvest - Saturday 1:00 PM @ Durham Bulls Athletic Park - Durham
Live music - Saturday 2:00 PM @ Gizmo Brew Works - Raleigh
Away Home - Workshop Offering (part of NC State's TheatreFEST) - Saturday 2:00 PM @ Thompson Hall (NC State) - Raleigh
The Carrboro Really Really Free Market - Saturday 2:00 PM @ Carrboro Town Commons - Carrboro
Live music: The Stagger Brothers - Saturday 2:00 PM@ Carolina Brewery - Pittsboro
The ComedyWorx Show Matinee - Saturday 3:00 PM @ ComedyWorx - Raleigh
19th Annual Beaver Queen Pageant - Saturday 3:00 PM @ Duke Park - Durham
Saturdays in Saxapahaw Outdoor Concert Series - Saturday 3:00 PM @ Saxapahaw Post Office - Saxapahaw
Jazz + Art Market - Saturday 3:00 PM@ Artmosphere Community Arts Center - Clayton
Summertime Beer Fest - Saturday 3:00 PM @ Clouds Brewing Tap Room - Raleigh
Live music - Saturday 6:00 PM @ Gizmo Brew Works - Raleigh
The ComedyWorx Show - Saturday 6:00 PM@ ComedyWorx - Raleigh
Music at Mill Bridge - Saturday 6:00 PM @ Mill Bridge Nature Park Amphitheatre - Wake Forest
Music on Main - Saturday 6:00 PM @ The Streets at Southpoint - Durham
Live music: Maverick Rose - Saturday 6:30 PM @ Southern Peak Brewery - Apex
1st Annual Bad Prom For A Good Cause - Saturday 7:00 PM @ Tobacco Road Sports Cafe & Brewery - Raleigh
Metropolitan Community Church - Saturday 7:00 PM @ St. John’s Metropolitan Community Church -
Live music: LowderStill - Saturday 7:00 PM @ Nickelpoint Brewing Co. - Raleigh
Pride Dance Party at Gizmo Brew Works - Saturday 7:00 PM @ Gizmo Brew Works - Chapel Hill
Live Music - Saturday 7:00 @ 20 West Franklin Street Plaza - Chapel Hill
Live music: Thomas Hinds - Saturday 7:30 PM @ Oaklyn Springs Brewery - Fuquay-Varina
Glitter Hour: Amateur Drag and Queer Stage Show - Saturday 8:00 PM @ Ruby Deluxe - Raleigh
Summer F.L.I.N.G. Game Night - Saturday 8:00 PM @ 93 Rock Quarry Rd - Raleigh
Afrobeats, HipHop, Dancehall - Saturday Nights (1st Saturday of Each Month) - Saturday 10:00 PM @ Nafkot Lounge - Raleigh
Social Club: Saturday Night Social - Saturday 10:00 PM @ Social Club - Raleigh
​
Sunday:
The Raleigh Market - Sunday 09:00 AM @ Raleigh Market (at N.C. State Fairgrounds) - Raleigh
Free Pop-Up Yoga in Wake Forest with SoulFULLY YOURS - Sunday 09:30 AM @ Horseshoe Farm Nature Preserve - Wake Forest
A Place at the Table's "pay what you can" food truck rodeo - Sunday 11:00 AM @ A Place at the Table - Raleigh
Board Game Sundays - Sunday 12:00 PM @ Gizmo Brew Works - Durham
Spring Kiln Opening at Mark Hewitt Pottery - Sunday 12:00 PM @ Hewitt Pottery - Pittsboro
Black Farmers' Market - Sunday 1:00 PM @ Southeast Raleigh YMCA - Raleigh
Community Build Day for Durham Art Parade: Art on a Stick - Sunday 1:00 PM @ The Scrap Exchange - Durham
Youth Aviation Academy Program at John Chavis Memorial Park - Sunday 1:00 PM @ John Chavis Memorial Park - Raleigh
Historic Raleigh Trolley Pride Ride (3 start times) - Sunday 1:00 PM @ Mordecai Historic Park - Raleigh
Durham Really Really Free Market - Sunday 2:00 PM @ Lyon Park - Durham
Open Mic Hosted by Michael Brennan - Sunday 2:00 PM @ BMC Brewing - Pittsboro
Durham City of Medicine Walking Tour (pay what you want) - Sunday 2:00 PM @ Raleigh Convention Center - Raleigh
Live music: Gypsy Railroad Band - Sunday 2:00 @ Nickelpoint Brewing Co. - Raleigh
Historic Houses on the Move - Sunday 2:00 @ Bombshell Beer Company - Holly Springs
Beer, Bacon, and Bluegrass - Sunday 3:00 PM @ Oaklyn Springs Brewery - Fuquay-Varina
Open-Mic Night - Sunday 3:00 PM @ Gizmo Brew Works - Raleigh
"Pay What You Can" for tickets to Corpus Christi by Terrence McNally, presented by St. John's Six Sundays in Spring concert: Sensory Expressions - Sunday 3:30 @ E. Carroll Joyner Park - Wake Forest
Indoor Yoga at the Chapel at Dix Park - Sunday 3:30 @ Dorothea Dix Park - Raleigh
Freeman Round House Summer Event Series: Karaoke with Mia Harris - Sunday 6:00 PM @ Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park - Wilson
Sunday Salsa Social -- lesson and dance - Sunday 6:30 PM @ Triangle Dance Studios - Durham
Sunday Night Live Music - Sunday 7:00 PM @ Southern Village - Chapel Hill
​
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Any other cool events that we missed? Comment below so we can add them to our list!

hi! am going to be in boston for a few weeks this summer and was wondering if anyone had any instructor recs. would preferably ride at chestnut hill or back bay. in nyc i love andrew, joshua f, marvin, and claire j. have also enjoyed eve and cameron!

Just finished my first trip to Italy and what a great experience. Wanted to share my experience here for other first time travelers and some things I would have done differently. The trip was broken up into 3 legs and spread across 12 days - Tuscany (5), Rome (2), and Amalfi (5). I'll include some details of itinerary and travel.
Apologies for a long post, but hopefully someone will get some good info out of this!
​
To prep for the trip, I used the Duolingo app for about 3 months to try and make sure I knew enough Italian to get by. Of course, the moment my plan touched down all that studying I did flew out of my head and I basically forgot it all! In the end I was able to get by with just greetings, ordering food/drink/cafe and simple hi, how are you type phrases. For reference, my wife did no studying and picked it up right away. Only shock to her was that there was no such thing as iced coffee.
Tuscany
We flew into Milan and rented a car at the airport. Would definitely recommend this because once you are into Tuscany it is hard/expensive to find drivers and Uber is basically non-existent.
Stayed at the Como Castello del Nero hotel. The hotel was beautiful and had everything you could want. Rolling and picturesque hills from every vantage point, a great pool, good fitness facilities and a nice spa. The staff at the hotel were world class as well. The restaurants on property were very nice however quite expensive. We did eat on the property a few times, but I think i preferred my meals off property and in the smallelocal restaurants more. I would have planned more dinners off property if I had to do anything differently here. Favorite meal was at La Capanna del Gallo, a smaller restaurant which was a short drive from our hotel.
For activities we visited a few wineries/vineyards as well as did a bit of hiking. We were a little jet lagged and did spend a bit of time just relaxing and drinking wine by the pool. The winery that absolutely blew me away was the Antinori Vineyard in Bargino . We did the CRU tour which included an in-depth tour of the facilities, tasting of several vintages and then a lunch with wine pairing. Would highly recommend visiting here. One of the mom-and-pop vineyards that we visited and i would also recommend is Il Palagio di Palazzo. Did the CRU tour here as well and was very pleased.
​
Rome
Used the rental car to travel from Tuscany to Rome, then returned the car near our hotel in Rome.
Stayed at the Baglioni Hotel Regina. Nice enough hotel, but the rooms were a little dated. Technically classified as a 5 star hotel but I probably would have classified it as a 4 star. Still, decent enough stay and staff. Plus for the location as well. We booked this hotel because it was purely in a good location and more of a 'utilitarian' choice - we knew that we weren't going to be spending a lot of time here so the hotel didn't matter all that much.
As we were only in Rome for two days, we really tried to pack in as much as we could. On the day we arrived we spent the afternoon walking around and just taking in the city. We had dinner in the Testaccio neighborhood, which i would highly recommend. We ate at Felice, which was a bit touristy but i think still worth it for some excellent cacio e peppe.
Trevi Fountain - its whatever - cool i guess but absolutely mobbed.
Colosseum - very cool. Did an early morning guided tour which was booked on Viator.
Vatican Museum - Also very cool but a bit long for our taste. Did a 4 hour private/guided tour booked through Context Travel. We were able to get 'behind the ropes' in a lot of places to look at things away from general public which was nice, but its very crowded in the main areas.
If we had to do something different in Rome it would for sure be spacing out activities or just booking a day or two more. All in all, we went to Rome knowing that we would be very busy and very 'touristy' but I think slowing it down a bit would have made this portion of the trip a little nicer. Still, Rome is great and would love to get back.
​
Amalfi
Took the train from Roma Termini to Naples. Our hotel arranged for a transfer from Naples to the hotel.
Stayed at Borgo Santandrea just outside of Amalfi town. Hands down nicest hotel I have ever even stepped foot inside. Seriously 5 star all the way through with no detail overlooked. One detail I loved is that it smelled amazing in throughout the hotel which actually was a really nice touch. The hotel had an amazing pool and is the only hotel in Amalfi that his its own beach club. The staff were top notch and I think there was a staff-to-guest ratio of like 3:1. The hotel also had a free shuttle that would drop-off/pickup from Amalfi town whenever you needed which was a real life saver in terms of time and money.
For activities we visited Ravello, Amalfi and Positano (sort of) then utilized our hotel's beach club for a few lazy days. Ravello was my favorite of the cities to visit. There were tourists yes, but much fewer than all the other cities. We visited Villa Cimbrone which has a spectacular garden and amazing views. You should go here for a nice cocktail or glass of wine. We went out in Amalfi town for dinner several times and never had a bad meal. We tried to branch off the main square and into some alleyways to find hidden gems, but all in all I would say most of the restaurants were comparable at the $$$ price range on google maps. Finally, we planned to visit Positano but scrapped it at the literal last minute - we rented a boat to take us from our hotel's dock to Positano but as we approached Positano it just appeared overrun by people. Instead we had our boat driver just cruise us around the coast. This ended up being one of my favorite days. The cost was $100/hour so actually pretty reasonable. Beach club at Borgo Santandrea was also a highlight - not crowded at all and the service is great. You can visit the beach club even if you don't stay at the hotel, so I would say its worth it even just for a nice lunch and cocktails. The pizza at the beach club is really good, although a little pricey at roughly 30 euros for a basic pizza.
I don't think I would really change anything about the Amalfi portion of my trip other than trying to extend it!
​
Just to give everyone an idea on budget, I think we spent roughly $25,000-$30,000 for two people during the trip of a lifetime.

(No prompt, just had this in my head and wanted it out.)
"You're nervous." Said Basch the canid, inhaling through his nose.
"I'm not nervous." Replied Joseph the human, sat with his arms resting on his knees.
The pair were sat in a public space on board a space station. To Joseph, who only a scant few weeks ago had just assumed that humanity was alone in the universe, the massive upheaval of the past few weeks had left him somewhat numb to the fact that an unknown sea of stars gently floated on by far above his head, while he sat on an artifical hill covered it what felt like real grass, next to an alien.
The pair were away from the crowds, choosing to sit on a hill overlooking the park and having a great view of the pleasure district.
Joseph had assumed something seedy from the name, but it was filled with families, parks, entertainment and confectionery stands.
The human's companion was one of two new friends that he had made. A canid, Basch, by virtue of his appearance, reminded Joseph of home. Wherever that was now. He looked like a werewolf, but with enough small differences that to say it was a one to one ratio to what he knew, would be false.
A mane that would have suited a lion or rock icon. Whiskers or spines extended from joins and down the centre of his back. A sea of small differences. Just... not quite a werewolf. If he squinted, then yeah, a 'space werewolf', maybe.
"Ah, I'm wrong then. I'm losing my touch..." Replied Basch, referring to Joseph's denial that his anxiety was building.
There was no danger, no need to be worried.
Yet...
That was when the canid attacked. Canids were larger than humans and Basch was a perfect specimen of a healthy male canid. Muscles rippled under a healthy shiny coat of fur. He used his greater mass to roll over Joseph sideways and dragged him into a barrel roll of sorts.
It all happened in mere moments, but the next instant Joseph was on his back, the grass tickling his ears while a giant wolf-like creature grinned down at him. Two massive clawed hands were either side of his head. The knees of the alien were either side of his legs while it's lower legs were crossed over and pinning Joseph's ankles down.
"What are you doing?" The young grinning man asked with laughter before trying to get up. He put an elbow beneath him and tried to push the alien away, but it was no different from trying to push a building.
"Oh no, I'm not being told I'm losing my touch, I have to be certain!" Exclaimed Basch as a hand snatched one of the human's wrists and pinned it. Putting his weight on the sides of his hands while holding the arm still, his other arm reached for the second wrist of the human which was just as quickly pinned down.
Joseph attempted to wriggle free, but found he was quite firmly held in place even when he bucked and yanked.
"I will not be shamed!" Grinned the alien.
"I didn't shame-hey! What are you-?! Ack!"
The canid had leaned down and pushed his snout and muzzle into the crease of Joseph's neck where it met the shoulder. A cold wet and leathery nose pressed into the exposed skin and breathed in deeply before breathing in and out in rapid successions, tickling the human.
Joseph reacted by flinching and trying to press his cheek into his shoulder, but the canid's head was in the way, snuffling and wriggling about.
"Mm, smells like nerves to me. What about... this side?!" The male said before retreating his head only to repeat his actions in the otherside. The human however was squirming and laughing as his sensitive areas were assaulted and tickled. He threatened the canid several times up to and including outright murder. The canid offered no mercy.
And as suddenly as the assault had started, it ended. Joseph was panting deeply, his face flushed red as he glared up at the canid who wore a dopey grin, tongue hanging out.
The canid released the human's hands and lowered himself onto his elbows. The canids body completely covered the human's lower half, pinning the legs and hips beneath him. The canid rested his head against the humans ribcage, while his hands were slipped beneath Joseph's shirt and rested against the bare skin directly. Basch could hear and feel the human's heart beating rapidly. He had noticed before that human's had a much faster heart rate than the other species, and only one heart at that.
The canid, on learning about their biology and hearing the small organ working so hard, developed a very serious sense of protection over it. It felt... fragile, like he needed to close his hands protectively over it and hold it against his own chest.
Especially Joseph's. It wasn't so much that he needed protecting, Basch had been a guard before. He didnt feel protective of the human, it was more that... he didn't want any harm to come to Joseph in the first place.
"So... am I wrong, or do I need to track down more evidence?" The canids voice rumbled and vibrated Joseph's entire body as he spoke.
"I can't smell what you can, for all I know you're just making things up!" Joseph complained, diverting the conversation.
"Being smell blind is no excuse... tell me... maybe I can make it better?"
"You..." the human sighed, his head thumping back down, seemingly defeated, but still not wanting to talk about it. Basch remained where he was, only moving his fingers, brushing his thumbs over the humans sides and stomach.
"It feels like something bad is going to happen."
"Something bad? Like what?"
"I dunno'... its stupid."
A growl of warning from the canid.
"It's not stupid. You're worried that you're in danger?"
"It's like... what happened the other week?" He referred back to the end of Earth.
"Every time we thought we were out of danger, something else went wrong. Like... its been two weeks since I got here... I'm waiting for the next thing to go wrong."
Basch understood this. Combat was a canid's preferred environment. There's a bad guy, kill the bad guy. Easy. But even for a canid, if the fighting is too hard or goes on for too long, it begins to weigh heavily on any canid. They become nervous, they react violently to surprises and expect the worst in perfectly calm situations.
Joseph felt Basch sigh before a flat, wet and broad tongue lapped at the underside of his chin. It immediately shattered the serious mood that was building in Joseph's head as he feigned repulsion, despite him immediately feeling better, if only a little bit.
"Aww gross! Canid breath!" He joked laughing.
As Vine came back to the other two, holding three odd treats in his hands, he came back to the canid ravishing the human. The furless alien was attempting to prevent the canid from licking his face and was failing miserably. The canid would duck in, wipe his broad tongue across the humans face, then use the moment of being blinded to attack the opposite side.
As Vine stood there, there was a moment that the human grabbed the canid's head with both hands and attempted to hold it away. The humans arm's were tense, his tendons sticking up and out as he put all his strength into holding the canids skull away. The canid merely leaned forward and slowly approached with a wicked grin before he was in range and licked the humans face once more before stopping and turning to the felinoid, leaning back exposing the panting human with his chest covering half ridden up to his arm pits.
"Welcome back!" Basch said with a wide smile.
"What is going on here?" Asked Vine, crooking an eye ridge.
"Nothing!" The canid lied pathetically.
The felinoid simply made a 'mm' noise as Joseph wiped his face free of drool with the length of his arms, still panting.
"If we're experimenting, firstly I want to be there to, at the very least, watch and secondly, whilst exciting, perhaps not in public?"
The canid merely leered at the felinoid, tongue dangling from its maw. Canids were not a partner Vine had ever considered before, but it was turning out to be an untapped goldmine of boundless energy of a confident partner that was vigously willing to serve.
The human on the other hand was a bundle of anxious nerves. While Vine could have manipulated him with ease, the felinoid was enjoying the long playful journey of Joseph coming to terms with the adventures and pleasures that Vine and Basch were offering without expectations. The two of them were, mostly, allowing the human to explore at his own pace.
That said if Basch was going to keep using every time Vine looked away to be flirting with the human, Vine was going to need to up his own game. He underestimated the tactical acumen of the solider.
"What you got there?"
"'You Creams', apparently a human delicacy."
Joseph looked up.
"Oh, Ice Creams?" Seeing the wafer cone and the coloured mound on top.
"I think they are frozen, but they were quite adamant they're called 'You Creams'"
Joseph frowned before a realisation dawned on him. He did a sit-up with the canid still pinning his legs and fished his translator out of his ear.
The canid did the same and the felinoid, after handing the cones out, matched.
"I like Ice Cream."
The aliens responded, but it was merely yowls and growls, the canid's words seemingly more sub-vocal then actual words, rattling Joseph's bsck teeth. The trio replaced the ear buds.
"I, meaning me, and Ice sound similar in some of our languages. They weren't saying You, they were saying Ice."
"Oh." Said Vine, looking at the slowly melting confection. "Well good luck then because they've got a sign and everything." He said with a shrug before biting into the treat with gutso.
Moments later Vine flinched and screwed his eyes up as he learnt what a brain freeze was.
WolvensStories
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Ciao everyone! Let's talk about Italy, the land of passion, history, and incredible cuisine. Whether you're strolling through the ancient streets of Rome, gazing at the stunning artwork in Florence, or getting lost in the romantic canals of Venice, Italy never fails to captivate. Indulge in the mouthwatering pizza in Naples, savor the authentic pasta dishes in Bologna, and treat yourself to gelato on a warm summer day. Explore the breathtaking landscapes of Tuscany, with its rolling hills and vineyards, or relax on the stunning beaches of the Amalfi Coast. From its rich history and architecture to its warm and welcoming people, Italy is a true treasure that should be on everyone's bucket list. Arrivederci!

This is something that has always fascinated me. Macomb and Oakland counties, the two most quintessential sprawling suburban counties of Metro Detroit, appear to be very alike. Both counties comprise of mostly low-density, single-family housing built post-war (though much of it was built from the 1950s-1970s), are almost entirely suburban, are growing in population, are about 75% white, and have similar average incomes and poverty rates (though Oakland is slightly richer than Macomb).
Though, they are actually quite different in a variety of ways:

1. Politics. The most obvious difference between the two counties. While the two counties were relatively moderate decades ago (Macomb was swing, Oakland was slightly Dem leaning), they have become more polarized. Oakland has shifted farther to the left while Macomb is now a solidly Republican county.
2. Education. Perhaps the most definitive difference between the two. In Oakland County, 51% of residents have a bachelor's degree or higher per latest Census, though only 25% of residents do in Macomb. Even in Macomb's wealthiest town, Washington Twp, full of sprawling McMansion developments, only 37% of residents have a bachelor's degree or higher. Compare this to the Southfield in Oakland County, often considered a lower-income town, where 39% of residents have a bachelors degree or higher. In Oakland County, most suburbs will have rates of 45-65%, while in Macomb, these rates are 15-35%.
3. Extremes. Oakland County has some very wealthy towns (Bloomfield Hills, Franklin, Northville, etc) and very poor ones (Pontiac, Royal Oak Twp). Macomb County, while having some fairly upscale places like Washington Twp and Shelby, and blue-collar ones like Warren and Roseville/Eastpointe, does not have any towns on the extremes.
4. Composition. Homes in Oakland County tend to have a much larger variety of styles and layouts, while Macomb County homes are much more similar in aesthetic, as many of them are brick ranches and split-levels. Additionally, Oakland County has plenty of downtown shopping areas (Royal Oak city, Ferndale, Birmingham, etc), while Macomb County has just one (Mount Clemens). Shopping and dining in Macomb County is much more relegated to stroads and strip malls.
5. Cars. In Oakland County, there are plenty of foreign makes on the road (Honda, Toyota, Mazda, and some of the luxury ones like Land Rover and Mercedes), and not many pickup trucks. In Macomb County, nearly every car is an American make, and there are plenty of pickup trucks not being used for towing/farm work.
6. Perception. Oakland County is often stereotyped as snobby, upper-class, and where all the action is, while Macomb is stereotyped as hillbilly, boring, and uncultured. This is still bearing in mind that the two counties are not that different socioeconomically, and that neighboring Livingston and Washtenaw counties are wealthier than Oakland, while Macomb is considerably wealthier than Wayne County. In Metro Detroit, there is a clear, de-facto sociocultural distinction between the two counties observed by their residents.

My question is, how did this divide come to be? Will these metrics eventually become more equal between the counties? If anything, the two counties almost seem to be growing more divided.

[←Chapter 50] [Cover Art] [My Links] [Index] [Discord] [Subreddit] [Chapter 52→]
The first sensation that came to him was the gentle lapping of something cool around his legs. The feeling in question had an almost kindly character to it. He let that sensation carry him through the rivers of muddled consciousness, thought slowly emerging.
The first question was a pressing, if quite basic one.
Was he?
It dominated his mind, filling it to the brim as he asserted his existence. He certainly did exist, that he was fairly sure of - what was considering the question, if nothing indeed existed? So he must exist, but in exactly what mode or medium he wasn’t exactly sure. All he knew was of himself, drifting along a slurry of thought, with something cool lapping at his legs.
So, then if that question was, at least for the time being, answered, who was he?
He strained at the boundaries of his empty mind, and found nothing - no scrap nor iota of recollection or memory.
He gave up, and left himself to drift for an indeterminate time.
The third question, which he hoped might be a little easier to answer - where was he?
He opened something with effort, and something bright streamed in. ‘Eyes’. That’s what he had opened, and the streaming thing was ‘light’. It wasn’t the usual kind, at least he thought so, although he couldn’t exactly remember what the ‘usual’ kind was. It was soft, gentle, not so much ‘streaming’ in, but laid down on the surface of his vision like gossamer.
As his vision resolved, he became aware of what lay… in front of him? Above him? Directionality was a little fuzzy. What he did experience was blurred tones of orange, red, blue and dark purple, mixing together in splashes and strokes. The ultimate effect was something like a gradual gradient, with uncountable tiny dots letting forth that soft light.
Ah.
Starlight.
He was looking upwards then, with a sky full of stars and colour above. Again, there was that definite sense of the unusual, that this was not what skies were ‘supposed’ to look like. And again, he couldn’t quite remember what the ‘usual’ sky was to contrast. Something deep within told him that he’d seen many skies, or potentially the same sky many times, and it did not look like this.
His body, light as a feather, experienced no strain as he sat up. Once more, the unusual feeling, and once more, no usual feelings to compare it to. His legs were submerged into dark waters, which rose and fell around him slowly. Cool, but not painful or irritatingly cold, it stretched out with only the merest ripple into the horizon. Below him, yes it must have been ‘below’, was a fine black sand that gently sloped into the ocean.
So that was what was forward, now what about behind?
He turned something, his ‘head’ he seemed to recall, and found much of the same. Another sea, although this one was made out of the black sand instead of the black water. The dunes too stretched to the horizon and beyond, with the stars vanishing behind them.
So, where was he then? Evidently ‘here’, wherever here was. Now, he was certain that he’d been somewhere else before, but had no way of knowing where nor how long ago it’d been. Had he been ‘here’ before? Perhaps. There was a sense of familiarity to the place.
He stood with the merest effort, black grains cascading down to join their siblings. One foot after another sank into the damp sand and soon he’d left the imprint of his body long behind. The stars, nor the sea, nor the sand seemed to change character or position as he walked.
Onward. Onward. Onward, along what he thought was a straight line into the far distance.
It was some time later when he stopped to take a glance around, and found nothing behind him. Perhaps he’d barely moved at all, and the imprint had merely been washed away by the gentle waves, or perhaps it was too far into the distance to see. There was nothing before him either, merely the exact same sand, water, and stars. There was no lightening or darkening of the endless sky, no change in the positions of the constellations, merely the black desert, eternal for all he knew.
Perhaps no time had passed at all, and all the movement was merely inside his mind.
The water flowed over his feet as he walked at its edge, trying to discern matters of who, where, what, when, why? Perhaps he was nobody, perhaps this place was nowhere, and perhaps there was no real reason to be here other than… being here. It was all rather confusing and any time he seemed to be getting close to an answer it stole away.
Ultimately, when all the questions were gone, there was only the walk, one step, two step, across the sand.
He tried to count the steps and got lost somewhere around fifty thousand. He tried to gauge whether he was ‘hungry’, or ‘tired’. Those were things, he thought he knew, that were supposed to happen after a while. If he was remembering correctly, such things seemed to have little sway here. Hence, time passed, for him if not the world, and he found himself walking onwards.
He seemed to remember a concept of ‘day’ and ‘night’, a brightening of the darkening used to tell time. But the light was always the same here, an ethereal twilight stuck between the two. There had been something else, however, that he was sure of, that indicated the passage of night and day.
It took him another couple thousand steps before he finally had it. Sun and Moon, that had been it, hadn’t it? They were… circular, that he was pretty sure of, and one had been warm, and the other cooler, and smaller. The moon was the former, and the sun was the latter, or maybe the other way around?
New thoughts shelved for the moment, he continued on his path to places unknown. It took his fancy to turn left and wander across the dunes with the ocean to his back. Up and down, up and down, he trudged across the hills and troughs of the dunes. Yet, when he glanced back from time to time, the ocean always seemed to be the same approximate distance. He kept at it for a while, trying to see if there was any indication of distance being gained.
It was a consummate failure. The sea was still there, its lapping waters calling to his back.
Once more, he found himself at that endless shore, and in the far distance, both touchable yet incomprehensibly distant, hung a pale circle.
‘Moon’.
He remembered that, at least.
The sea had changed, gone from bare ripples to a smooth mirror. The darkness underneath its surface had deepened, something stirring beneath. It was reaching for him, no longer be beckoning, with a hunger that belied its apparent calmness. The moon hung low to touch the sea and where they met, a black shadow pressed against the interstice.
From that shadow a voice ripped across the stilled waters, prying against his ears. The worlds were fashioned out of something sharper than any blade, darker than the night sky, peeling reality with harsh syllables.
“PAIN,” it said, over and over, a drum sounded out the beat of a wild and wounded heart.
The water had crept up around him while he stared, small waves brushing just below his knees. The shadow against the moon grew great and terrible, half submerged, half silhouette. The character of the thing was impossible to make out, with only the vaguest resemblance to a horrible flower. Elements of it unfolded like petals with a luminosity that shattered the twilight of the desert.
There was a gaze, or perhaps a multitudes of directed lines of intention that intersected solely on him. He was dissected, without consideration of dignity or privacy, everything perceived and understood. The waters before him parted, drawn back like bare cloth and he saw the true scale of the thing.
It underlay the bottom of the world, an incomprehensible mass of tangled roots and mad thoughts spreading through every deep place and high recess. All merged, all twisted with no end nor beginning, and deeper, deeper still, a baleful light shining as a furious star. It pummelled his perception, tore at what little memory or identity remained, coiling and snaking those hateful roots through his very soul.
He began to slip, pulled as inexorably as gravity pulled one downard without pity or reprieve. He was a grim prize, an unknowing creature that had walked into reach of the mind flower. The waters rising, he attempted to summon a pathetic protest, to deny the fate which had been chosen for him. Such defences were swept aside and crushed with unceremonious ease, as the waters rose, and rose, and rose. He felt the first touch of the thing, uncountable mental fingers groping, and having found their target within him, closing in an impossible grip.
The scream was high and hideous, an echo of a thousand languages calling out in incomprehensible fury. His own soul began to crackle in tandem with a pain so furious it drowned every other sensation. All of it, the scream, the water, the faint pressure of the moonlight, blurred into the chaotic static. A rent in reality was beneath him, around him, the beach vanishing into the distance. He was falling into a void, where nothing and no one could reach.
The dread certainty of utter destruction was upon him. Whatever impression he’d left upon existence would be washed away, mere grains of sand drawn into the depths of the sea, never to be seen nor known by anyone nor anything.
But before that fate was sealed with oblivion, something pulsed out across the darkness. Something high and pure and beautiful where there was once only the corrupt horror of the flowering abomination.
He found himself curled up on the sand, staring out into a moonless sea.
It took him some time to remember who he was, or rather, the fact that he was, period. A sense of horror, pain, and a narrow escape from peril echoed in his head, though the detail was fuzzy. Clutching himself, and shivering despite the lack of chill, he lay on the sand for an indeterminate amount of time.
When he managed to pull himself up to his knees, he found that the scene had definitely changed. The dunes and stars were all the same, but what lay between them was entirely different. The empty air folded and swirled, little eddies and ripples and warps, turning the sand and waters into structure.
Climbing to his feet, he found that the distortions stretched out far into the distance, expanding and extending to greater heights and widths, increasing in complexity and detail. He was standing in a place, something definite and specific, built with purpose and intent.
He walked out into the warped location, clambering deeper and deeper into the distortions. He found that the shapes became more definite, and more obvious the further he went. There were flowers, yes, unmistakably flowers, of different shapes and sizes. A twisted lamppost without candle to light it, recalling other memories of warmth and lights. A rocky stream, complete with moss and lichens, so real he could almost hear the bubbling of non-existent waters.
The next dune brought more sights, trees and cobbles and blades of grass. The one after that, walls, both chest high and well above his head. It was building itself around him as he stepped over the sand, and when he crossed the last dune…
Promenades and boulevards, staircases and great lofts, immense windows and walls that looped and winded and reconnected with each other in ways that seemed impossible. Corridor after loft after wing after walkway, terraces and sloped beds and balconies and pillars. None with any colour or brightness of their own, but rather sculpted out of the stars and sand and sea.
Space itself had been folded, pinched, and pressed to create a masterwork of bizarre architecture. Between all of the structures, there were trees and flowers and lawns of both distantly familiar and absolutely alien character. It was a garden, a garden in a timeless place with no colour, yet substance.
A garden of glass.
He stepped on the transparent cobbles, and walked a zig-zagging path that turned into itself and out between an arch of a walkway. He was greeted with a small pool and the sound of falling water. He stooped and gathered a handful of a liquid that he couldn’t see, but could feel. Deep within, far larger than what should’ve fit through the portal, swam immense creatures. Coiling and folding in on themselves like the garden itself, they floated above what must’ve been an entire city, all sunk deep below the black sand.
He surveyed the series of bridges and districts that extended into the dark, before finding to his left another bench. This one had not been there before, and was now accompanied by an immaculate lamppost that emitted a not-light. From a spiralling post, there were hanging baskets of flowers with trailing vines that moved in a non-existent wind. He made his way over, and found that the bench held his weight without give.
An indeterminate amount of time was spent on trying to guess at the rhyme or reason behind the labyrinthine architecture. Eventually, he had to give up, the turns and twists impossible to follow for long. Perhaps it had not been designed at all, rather such complexity was some kind of inevitable law of this place.
There was something beside him on the bench.
He picked it up, taking more than a moment to recognize what it was, so different was it from the rest of the Garden. Solid, with a colour and texture all its own, a paper envelope, faded by age and dust, with a flaking red seal at its centre. A ‘letter’, alive and unsculpted unlike the garden, with its own sound and smell. He picked at the wax, and opened the letter with the satisfying rustle and scent of old, folding paper.
Then he departed from the grey half-life of the black beach, and found himself somewhere entirely different.
He was at a desk, his desk, a great behemoth of red-brown wood with a frankly ridiculous amount of drawers. Not that he could see much of them, with the sheer amount of parchment and books drowning the surface. He had a hand, one of warm flesh and blood, closed around an inkwell that was teetering dangerously over a fresh sheet.
He frowned at the sudden sense of displacement, sure that there was something wrong, but he wasn’t quite sure wha-
A knock at the door, hurried but strong, came to interrupt his thoughts. It was almost hidden behind one of the great red curtains arranged around the walls of the considerable room. Light bled through a handful of them, suggesting the presence of windows. Those walls that didn’t were furnished by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stuffed to the gills. He quickly righted the inkwell, and gave some customary response while drying his hands with a cloth.
A voice, muffled by the wall, but still legible as a young woman’s, answered, and the door practically flew open. Into the room bursted a youth in the prime of adulthood, carrying a dusty grimoire. She paced toward the desk, and he suspected that she was barely holding herself from sprinting.
Before he could afford even a ‘good morning’, as was their custom, she slammed the book on his desk. This drew both an annoyed grunt and a reproachful look from him, which she responded to by nearly spilling an inkwell as she flipped open to a page. Words began to drift in and out of perspective, too blurry to make out. Clearly she was excited about something - well of course, she was always excited about something or other.
Wait, how did he know that?
How did he know her? He definitely did.
He was about to reach out, to call out, to ask her name, who she was, who he was, before her final words came into sharp clarity.
“...and that’s only the beginning, professor Efrain!”
Efrain. Yes. Yes, that had been his name. In some other time, some other place.
‘Efrain’.
The vision was gone, and he was sitting on a bench made from black sand in a garden made from the world. Above him, between all the spires and walkways, a great thing floated. It looked almost like swirling scraps of cloth and paper, scrawled in ink and charcoal, with words and symbols from many different languages. They twisted and compressed into a sharp point beyond his eye’s sight, but which he was certain looked at him.
He wasn’t pulled, that would imply that some kind of force was exerted upon him. Rather, the scene shifted and moved so that he was closer to the mass of turning lexicons.
“You do not belong here,” came a voice, authoritative and cold.
The garden, the beach, the stars and sand, all vanished upwards as he tumbled, deeper and deeper. Out of space and memory and time he fell into a warm current which carried him away back to a different consciousness altogether.
[←Chapter 50] [Cover Art] [My Links] [Index] [Discord] [Subreddit] [Chapter 52→]

I've seen some confusion about things in both this sub and in the game, so I've created a sort of quick guide to answer some basic questions about some of the systems in the game. I only started when the global server opened so I'm NOT an expert, but I've tried to do some research and understand things the best I can so hopefully this will be helpful to someone!
Vitality:
Used to talk in world chat. It can be traded in your profile screen for gold. 100 Vitality is worth 500 gold when you tap "use" next to it under your picture. It caps depending on your level so unless you talk all the time in world chat, get that gold each day!
Cooking:
At your home, you have two basic needs - hunger and cleanliness. Hunger is a little time consuming to resolve since you have to cook and eat multiple meals to fill it. But being full is worth doing once a day as it earns you Chestnuts to be claimed each day. The amount of chestnuts are based on how much income you are getting from the Endorsement Queen competition that is always running as you get two hours worth of income from the previous day converted directly to extra chestnuts.
You gain 75 points of energy for cooking each day, maxing at 300 points if you don't spend it. This means you have four days of leniency before you start letting energy go to waste. Each point of energy converts directly to a point of proficiency, allowing you to work up the ranks of cooking. As you reach different levels, you can learn recipes that are sometimes faster to make or take care of your hunger efficiently. Your tablet in 'Home Services' might have some recipes when you watch the food related channels (Cuisine, Desserts, and Water). These channels are also available on certain TVs and computers in homes and you will learn different recipes from them. The computer also has a special bulletin option that also can grant recipes. Bookshelves often have a single recipe that can be learned by them, so If you don't want your own personal library, make sure you keep an eye out for different bookshelves in friend's homes! The last important place to get recipes is the Boardwalk/ community center. Two recipes come from NPCs that only spawn when it is nighttime in the game HOME screen (Please note that the home time moves differently than the rest of the game and your personal clock, so you may just need to pop over and check what time it is there.) The other NPC is always there if you look around the center area.
Dyeing:
In general (there seems to be some exceptions), clothes under 3 stars require basic dye and clothes above require trend dyes. Things like dresses cost more dyes than shoes or socks. If you have a piece of clothing you wear a lot to pass levels, Fashion Battle, or Endorsement Queen, you can increase the stats on it by raising the charm on it. The important points are 8 and 16 charm, which gives fashion style +5% and +10% respectively. Dyes on pieces that are not in a set (and thus do not have a Charm in the lower left corner) do not increase stats. From a purely mechanical standpoint, it is best to focus on getting one piece to 8 so you can have the 5% rather than two pieces to 4, as that does not grant a bonus yet. To get to 16, you will have to extend the palette to unlock more colors. This often requires you to have had duplicates of the clothing pieces that you decomposed and got specific vanes for.
Allies:
Ally experience and intimacy becomes INCREDIBLY slow to get and you will want to focus on the highest tier allies possible. You almost NEVER want to spend on an R ally - you cannot get what you invested in them back and you will get SR allies through various events and methods in game for free. One thing to consider when it comes to allies is that you want to be able to attain as many duplicates as possible - so allies from gacha events are a little more of a struggle here. If that’s all you have better than an R, go for it, but when the event is gone it’ll be much more difficult to evolve and raise the skills of them in the long run. There are currently 4 SSR allies available in the permanent gacha pools - Doomsday Rose (Cool), Perfect Match (Elegant), Red Spider Lily (Sexy), Fuzzy Fun (Sweet). There are 8 SR’s available permanently. Right now, the Rose Fantasy gacha has Doomsday Rose and Perfect match SSR allies also in it, and one SSR card not available in normal gachas. If you want more information, you can click the little i on the upper right corner and click over to Ally List to see which allies are available where.
General Clothing Tips:
Only five accessories count when it comes to scoring in Endorsement Queen and Fashion battle. It will always select the highest scoring accessories if you’re not sure and there doesn’t seem to be a penalty to adding more, but there’s no NEED to add more if you are certain you have 5 that will rank the highest. In other words, that ring that only ranks as a B in Endorsement Queen is probably not ever going to be counted so you don’t have to stress yourself out putting something on in every category.
Endorsement Queen:
The way this mode work is you’re trying to pass certain scores for themes to open ‘stores’. This earns you income which also counts towards increasing your level inside Endorsement Queen. Every level in Endorsement Queen increases the bonus given to your score, so it’s important to claim the income regularly in case it’ll bump you up in score! You likely want to check this daily and make sure you haven’t gotten any new pieces that are better than something you had on. If you ONLY increased an Ally, that will often update with “Highest Record Quick Endorse” just fine. However, if you got better clothing, you will need to tap Endorsement and manually replace it. 50 Income gained=1 Chestnut and there’s no penalty to converting, so it’s a must for gaining chestnuts for your house. When you tap management, you can redeem chestnuts, see how your current income is, and tap the “Income” button. Often when you level up (and almost every time at the beginning) you may be able to increase the Ability of a store so it gives more income, or Use a Decoration that will increase income. You will unlock multiple decorations in a row - always make sure the one In Use is the HIGHER percentage in each row that you’ve managed to unlock.
Gold:
I’ve seen this confusion pop in world chat more than once. Yes, you need gold. You need a lot of gold. You will NEVER have enough gold. Ignoring just basic purchases you need to buy from the store and the like, there are several heavy gold sinks! Improving your ally always requires gold and once you get to the higher levels, that cost gets very noticeable. Through your guild, you can also take beauty courses, which the second and fourth categories are increased through gold. This gives a huge boost to your stats and once you get to around the 40th class, you are spending a minimum of 300,000 gold per class with some being more expensive.
If you still have gold after that, or maybe you’re stuck trying to grind some levels so you can’t take the next course or update your ally - you should probably still keep the gold. If it’s burning a hole in your pocket though and you want to indulge, you can spend 48,000 gold at the Starlight Show permanent Gacha for a ten pull. This will get you potentially new clothing pieces, makeup, photo additions, and if you get doubles, coins in decomposition to let you buy the clothes there. If your gold is in high supply, you’re probably missing something!
Miscellaneous Tips:
Not sure where to spend whatever currency you know you just saw you got from doing whatever you just did? Go to “Bonus” on the main menu and over to “Exchange”. This is a list of all the stores so you can see what you have to spend in!
Have extra energy but can’t move forward in levels? Check other outfits out in your Fashion studio to see if there’s other items you can collect in advance to make it easier for you later. Don’t let that energy go to waste! Hitting max means it stops generating new energy for you so spend it!
You can gain 8 additional energy per day by sleeping in your bed at home!
Make sure you you go the Special Offer tab in the mall and buy the Daily Offer for 6 gold! You get 888 gold and 5 basic color charts so getting it every day adds up! (Credit to to rui-tan!)
You can use a Wishing Fountain at home (If you want to buy one of your own, look under Build -> Living Room and select "Song of the Ocean" for 1050 Chestnuts!) to get additional gold each day when you make a wish. This will also give you a 24 hour timed title. You can make one wish a day and have multiple options, though it's unclear what they all do. (Credit to GalaxyLatteArtz!) I've made the Koi Fish wish and several of the others but I honestly couldn't tell besides the Title change. If anyone knows, please share!
If there's anything I've gotten wrong or other tips and tricks I've left out, please comment! I don't want to give misinformation and there's probably a lot I don't know myself yet. There's also things that are coming to mind that I know I've left out but I had to stop somewhere!

Thursday, May 25 - Wednesday, May 31

Top 10 Posts

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
38	4 comments	Crystal Waters - 100% Pure Love
32	1 comments	Basement Jaxx - Romeo (Official Video) [2001 - UK]	[Sp] [AM] [BC] [Dzr] [SC]
27	5 comments	Laurent Garnier - The Man With The Red Face (Live) [2000 - France]
24	6 comments	Track Id of this song? played by Solomun in 2023
21	1 comments	Mall Grab - Feel U	[Dzr] [SC]
17	2 comments	Sade - Smooth Operator (C.I.S.C.O Edit)	[AM] [BC] [Dzr] [SC]
17	3 comments	Diana Ross - Upside Down (Kolter Edit)	[Sp] [AM] [BC] [Dzr] [SC]
16	0 comments	M&S Pres. The Girl Next Door - Salsoul Nugget (If U Wanna) (M&S Sure Shot Dub)
15	8 comments	Capcom vs. SNK 2 - This Is True Love Makin'
14	2 comments	The Streets - Weak Become Heroes (Ashley Beedle's Love Bug Vocal)	[Sp] [AM] [BC] [Dzr] [SC]

 

Top 5 Most Commented

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
12	26 comments	What is your most prized record in your record collection??
9	14 comments	Podcasts?
10	13 comments	Anyone know of the house scene in the Tampa Bay Florida area? I just moved here
3	13 comments	Seeking Chilled House Music Suggestions for New Beach Bar
1	9 comments	House/Tecno festivals in the fall?

 

The whirring blades of my MD-902 throbbed against the warm evening air, and I smiled.
From 5,000 feet, the ground flew by in a carpet of dark forests and kelly-green fields. The sun hung low on the horizon in a picturesque array of dazzling orange and gold, and I could make out the narrow strip of the Ohio River to my left, glistening in the fading daylight. This time of year, the trees would be full of the sweet aroma of fresh blossoms, and the frequent rains kept small pockets of fluffy white mist hanging in the treetops. It was a beautiful view, one that reminded me of why being a helicopter pilot trumped flying in a jumbo jet far above the clouds every day of the week.
Fourteen more days, and I’m debt free.
That made me grin even more. I’d been working as a charter pilot ever since I obtained my license at age 19, and after years of keeping my nose to the grindstone, I was closing on the final payment for real-estate in western Pennsylvania. With no debt, a fixer-upper house on 30 rural acres all to myself, and a respectable wage for a 26-year-old pilot, I looked forward to the financial freedom I could now enjoy. Maybe I’d take a vacation, somewhere exotic like Venice Italy, or the Dominican Republic. Or perhaps I’d sock the money back for the day I started a family.
“Remember kleineun, a real man looks after his own.”
My elderly ouma’s voice came back from the depths of my memories, her proud, sun-tanned face rising from the darkness. She and my Rhodesian grandfather had emigrated to the US when they were newlyweds, as the violence against white Boer descendants in South Africa spiraled out of control. My mother and father both died in a car crash when I was six, and it had been my grandparents who raised me. Due to this, I’d grown up with a slight accent that many of my classmates found amusing, and I could speak both English, and Afrikaans, the Boer tongue of our former home.
I shifted in my seat, stretched my back muscles, and glanced at the picture taped to my console. Both my parents flanked a grinning, gap-toothed six-year-old me, at the last Christmas we’d spent together. My mother beamed, her dark hair and Italian features a sharp contrast to my father’s sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. Sometimes, I liked to imagine they were smiling at me with pride at how well I flew the old silver-colored bird my company had assigned to me, and that made the long, lonely flights easier to bear.
A flicker caught my eye, and I broke my gaze away from the photograph.
Perched in its small cradle above the controls, my little black Garmin fuzzed over for a few seconds, its screen shifting from brightly colored maps to a barrage of grey static.
Did the power chord come loose?
I checked, ensuring the power-cable for the unit’s battery was plugged into the port on the control panel. It was a brand-new GPS unit, and I’d used it a few times already, so I knew it wasn’t defective. Granted, I could fly and navigate without it, but the Garmin made my time as a pilot so much easier that the thought of going blind was dreadful.
My fuel gauge danced, clicked to empty, then to full, in a bizarre jolt.
More of the gauges began to stutter, the entire panel seeming to develop terrets all at once, and my pulse began to race. Something was wrong, very wrong, and the sludge inside my bowels churned with sour fear.
“Come on, come on.” I flicked switches, turned dials, punched buttons, but nothing seemed to fix the spasming electronics. Every gauge failed, and without warning, I found myself plunged into inky darkness.
Outside, the sun surrendered to the pull of night, the sky darker than usual. A distant rumble of thunder reverberated above the roar of my helicopter’s engine, and I thought I glimpsed a streak of yellowish lightning on the far horizon to my left.
Calm down Chris. We’re still flying, so it must just be a blown fuse. Stay in control and find a place to set her down.
My sweaty palm slid on the cyclic stick, and both feet weighed heavy on the yaw pedals. The collective stuck to my other hand with a nervous vibration, and I squinted against the abyss outside.
Beep.
I jumped despite myself, as the little Garmin on my panel flared back to life, the static pulling aside to reveal a twitching display. Each time the screen glitched, it showed the colorful map detailing my flight path over the ground below, but I noticed that some of the lines changed, the names shifting, as if the device couldn’t decide between two different versions of the world.
One name jutted out at me, slate gray like most of the major county names, appearing with ghostly flickers from between two neighboring ones.
Barron County.
I stared, confused. I’d flown over this section of southeastern Ohio plenty of times, and I knew the counties by heart. At this point, I should have been over the southern end of Noble County, and maybe dipping lower into Washington. There was no Barron County Ohio. I was sure of it.
And yet it shown back at me from the digital landscape, a strange, almost cigar-shaped chunk of terrain carved from the surrounding counties like a tumor, sometimes there, sometimes not, as my little Garmin struggled to find the correct map. Rain began to patter against my cockpit window, and the entire aircraft rattled from a strong gust of wind. Thick clouds closed over my field of vision like a sea of gray cotton.
The blood in my veins turned to ice, and I sucked in a nervous breath.
Land. I had to land. There was nothing else to do, my flight controls weren’t responding, and only my Garmin had managed to come back to life. Perhaps I’d been hit by lightning, and the electronics had been fried? Either way, it was too dark to tell, but a storm seemed to be brewing, and if I didn’t get my feet on the ground soon, I could be in real trouble.
“Better safe than sorry.” I pushed down on the collective to start my slow descent and clicked the talking button for my headset. “Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, over.”
Nothing.
“Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, requesting emergency assistance, over.”
Still nothing.
If the radio’s dead, I’m really up a creek.
With my hand shaking, I clicked on the mic one more time. “Any station, this is—”
Like a curtain pulling back, the fog cleared from around my window, and the words stuck in my throat.
Without my gauges, I couldn’t tell just how far I’d descended, but I was definitely very low. Thick trees poked up from the ground, and the hills rolled into high ridges with flat valley floors, fields and pastures pockmarking them. Rain fell all around in cold, silvery sheets, a normal feature for the mid spring in this part of Ohio.
What wasn’t normal, were the fires.
At first, I thought they were forest fires for the amount of smoke and flames that bellowed from each spot, but as I swooped lower, my eyes widened in horror.
They were houses.
Farms, cottages, little clusters that barely constituted villages, all of them belched orange flames and black pillars of sooty smoke. I couldn’t hear above the helicopter blades, but I could see the flashes on the ground, along the road, in between the trees, and even coming from the burning buildings, little jets of golden light that spat into the darkness with anger.
Gunfire. That’s rifle fire, a whole lot of it.
Tiny black figures darted through the shadows, barely discernable from where I sat, several hundred feet up. I couldn’t see much, but some were definitely running away, the streaks of yellow gunfire chasing them. A few dark gray vehicles rumbled down one of the gravel roads, and sprayed fire into the houses as it went. They were fighting, I realized, the people in the trucks and the locals. It was horrific, like something out of war-torn Afghanistan, but worse.
Then, I caught a glimpse of the others.
They didn’t move like the rest, who either fled from the dark vehicles, or fired back from behind cover. These skinny figures loped along with haphazard gaits, many running on all fours like animals, swarming from the trees by the dozens. They threw themselves into the gales of bullets without flinching, attacking anyone within range, and something about the way they moved, so fluid, so fearless, made my heart skip a beat.
What is that?
“Echo Four Actual to unknown caller, please respond, over.”
Choking back a cry of shock, I fumbled at the control panel with clumsy fingers, the man’s voice sharp and stern. I hadn’t realized that I’d let go of the talking button and clicked it down again. “Hello? Hello, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot out of Pittsburgh, over.”
An excruciating moment passed, and I continued to zoom over the trees, the fires falling away behind me as more silent forest took over.
“Roger that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, we read you loud and clear. Please identify yourself and any passengers or cargo you might be carrying, over.”
Swallowing hard, I eyed the treetops, which looked much closer than they should have been. How far had I descended? “Echo Four Actual, my name is Christopher Dekker, and I am alone. I’m a charter flight from PA, carrying medical equipment for OSU in Columbus. My controls have been damaged, and I am unable to safely carry on due to the storm. Requesting permission to land, over.”
I watched the landscape slide by underneath me, once catching sight of what looked like a little white church surrounded by smaller huts, dozens of figures in the yard staring up at me as I flew over a towering ridgeline.
“Solid copy on that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot. Be advised, your transponder shows you to be inside a restricted zone. Please cease all radio traffic, reduce your speed, climb to 3,000 feet and proceed north. We’ll talk you in from there. How copy, over?”
My heart jumped, and I let out a sigh of relief. “Roger that Echo Four Actual, my altimeter is down, but I’ll do my best to eyeball the altitude, over.”
With that, I pulled the collective upward, and tried my best to gauge how far I was by eyesight in the gathering night, rain still coming down all around me. This had to be some kind of disaster or riot, I decided. After all, the voice over the radio sounded like military, and those vehicles seemed to have heavy weapons. Maybe there was some kind of unrest going on here that I hadn’t heard about yet?
Kind of weird for it to happen in rural areas though. Spoiled college kids I get, but never saw farmers get so worked up before. They usually love the military.
Something moved in the corner of my eye, and I turned out of reflex.
My mouth fell open, and I froze, unable to scream.
In the sky beside me, a huge shadow glided along, and its leathery wings effortlessly carved through the gloom, flapping only on occasion to keep it aloft. It was too dark for me to see what color it was, but from the way it moved, I knew it wasn’t another helicopter. No, this thing was alive, easily the size of a small plane, and more than twice the length of my little McDonald Douglass. A long tail trailed behind it, and bore a distinct arrow-shaped snout, with twig-like spines fanned out around the back of its head. Whatever legs it had were drawn up under it like a bird, yet its skin appeared rough and knobby, almost resembling tree bark. Without pause, the gigantic bat-winged entity flew along beside me, as if my presence was on par with an annoying fly buzzing about its head.
Gripping the microphone switch so tight, I thought I’d crack the plastic, I whispered into my headset, forgetting all radio protocol. “T-There’s something up here.”
Static crackled.
“Douglas Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, say again your last, you’re coming in weak and unreadable, over.”
“There’s something up here.” I snarled into the headset, still glued to the controls of the helicopter, afraid to deviate even an inch from my course in case the monstrosity decided to turn on me. “A freaking huge thing, right beside me. I swear, it looks like a bat or . . . I don’t know.”
“Calm down.” The man on the other end of the radio broke his rigorous discipline as well, his voice deep, but level. “It won’t attack if you don’t move too fast. Slowly ease away from it and follow that course until you’re out of sight.”
I didn’t have time to think about how wrong that sounded, how the man’s strict tone had changed to one of knowledge, how he hadn’t been the least surprised by what I’d said. Instead, I slowly turned the helicopter away from the huge menace and edged the speed higher in tiny increments.
As soon as I was roughly two football fields away, I let myself relax, and clicked the mic switch. “It’s not following.”
“You’re sure?”
Eyeing the huge flapping wings, I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah, I’m well clear.”
“Good. Thank you, Mr. Dekker.”
Then, the radio went dead.
Something in my chest dropped, a weight that made my stomach roil. This wasn’t right, none of it. Who was that man? Why did he know about the thing I’d just seen? What was I supposed to—
A flash of light exploded from the trees to my right and shot into the air with a long finger of smoke.
What the . . .
On instinct, I jerked the cyclic stick to one side, and the helicopter swung to avoid the rocket.
Boom.
My world shook, metal screeched, and a dozen alarms began to go off inside the cockpit in a cacophony of beeps and sirens. Orange and red flames lit up the night sky just behind me, and the horizon started to spin wildly outside. Heat gushed from the cockpit door, and I smelled the greasy stench of burning oil. The safety belts dug into my shoulders, and with a final slip, the radio headset ripped free from my scalp.
I’m hit.
Desperate, I yanked on the controls, fought the bird even as she spun toward the ground in a wreath of flames, the inky black trees hurtling up to meet me. The helicopter went into full auto-rotation, the sky blurring past outside, and the alarms blared in a screech of doom. Panic slammed through my temples, I screamed at the top of my lungs, and for one brief second, my eyes locked on the little black Garmin still perched atop my control panel.
Its screen stopped twitching and settled on a map of the mysterious Barron County, with a little red arrow at the center of the screen, a few words popping up underneath it.
You are here.
Trees stabbed up into the sky, the belts crushed at my torso, glass shattered all around me, and the world went dark.
Copper, thick, warm, and tangy.
It filled my mouth, stank metallic in my nose, clogged my throat, choking me. In the murkiness, I fought for a surface, for a way out, blind and numb in the dark.
This way, kleineun.
My ouma’s voice echoed from somewhere in the shadows.
This way.
Both eyes flew open, and I gagged, spitting out a stream of red.
Pain throbbed in my ribs, and a heavy pressure sent a tingling numbness through my shoulders. Blood roared inside my temples, and stars danced before my eyes with a dizzying array. Humid night air kissed my skin, and something sticky coated my face, neck, and arms that hung straight up toward the ceiling.
Wait. Not up. Down.
I blinked at the wrinkled, torn ceiling of the cockpit, the glass all gone, the gray aluminum shredded like tissue paper. Just outside the broken windows, thick Appalachian bluegrass and stemmy underbrush swished in a feeble breeze, backlit by flashes of lightning from the thunderstorm overhead. Green and brown leaves covered everything in a wet carpet of triangles, and somewhere nearby, a cricket chirped.
Turning my head from side to side, I realized that I hung upside down inside the ruined helicopter, the top half burrowed into the mud. I could hear the hissing and crackling of flames, the pattering of rain falling on the hot aluminum, and the smaller brush fires around the downed aircraft sizzling out in the damp long grass. Charred steel and burning oil tainted the air, almost as strong as the metallic, coppery stench in my aching nose.
They shot me down. That military dude shot me out of the sky.
It didn’t make sense. I’d followed their orders, done everything they’d said, and yet the instant I veered safely away from whatever that thing in the sky had been, they’d fired, not at it, but at me.
Looking down (or rather, up) at my chest, I sucked in a gasp, which was harder to do that before.
The navy-blue shirt stuck to my torso with several big splotches of dark, rusty red. Most were clean slashes, but two held bits of glass sticking out of them, one alarmingly bigger than the other. They dripped cherry red blood onto my upturned face, and a wave of nausea hit me.
I gotta get down.
I flexed my arms to try and work some feeling back into them, praying nothing was broken. Half-numb from hanging so long, I palmed along my aching body until I felt the buckled for the seat belts.
“Okay.” I hissed between gritted teeth, in an effort to stave off my panic. “You can do this. Just hold on tight. Nice and tight. Here we go . . .”
Click.
Everything seemed to lurch, and I slid off the seat to plummet towards the muck-filled hole in the cockpit ceiling. My fingers were slick with blood and slipped over the smooth faux-leather pilot’s seat with ease. The shoulder belt snagged on the bits of glass that lay just under the left lowest rib, and a flare of white-hot pain ripped through me.
Wham.
I screamed, my right knee caught the edge of the aluminum ceiling, and both hands dove into a mound of leaf-covered glass shards on the opposite side of the hole. My head swam, being right-side-up again enough to make shadows gnaw at the corner of my eyes.
Forcing myself to breath slowly, I fought the urge to faint and slid back to sit on the smooth ceiling. I turned my hands over to see half a dozen bits of clear glass burrowed into my skin like greedy parasites, red blood weeping around the new cuts.
“Screw you.” I spat at the rubbish with angry tears in my eyes. “Screw you, screw you, screw you.”
The shards came out easy enough, and the cuts weren’t that deep, but that wasn’t what worried me. On my chest, the single piece of cockpit glass that remined was almost as big as my palm, and it really hurt. Just touching it felt like self-inflicted torture, but I knew it had to come out sooner or later.
Please don’t nick a vein.
Wiping my hands dry on my jeans, I gripped the shard with both hands, and jerked.
Fire roared over my ribs, and hot blood tickled my already grimy pale skin. I clapped a hand over the wound, pressing down hard, and grunted out a string of hateful expletives that my ouma would have slapped me for.
Lying on my back, I stared around me at the messy cargo compartment of the MD-902. Most of the medical supplies had been in cardboard boxes strapped down with heavy nylon tow-straps, but several cases had ruptured with the force of the impact, spraying bandages, syringes, and pill bottles all over the cluttered interior. Orange flames chewed at the crate furthest to the rear, the tail section long gone, but the foremost part of the hold was intact. Easily a million-dollar mess, it would have made me faint on any other trip, but today it was a godsend.
Half-blind in the darkness, I crawled along with only the firelight and lightning bolts to guide me, my right knee aching. Like a crippled raccoon, I collected things as I went, conscious of the two pallets of intact supplies weighing right over my head. I’d taken several different first-aid courses with some hunting buddies of mine, and the mental reflexes kicked in to help soothe my frazzled mind.
Check for bleeds, stop the worst, then move on.
Aside from my battered chest and stomach, the rest of me remained mostly unharmed. I had nasty bruises from the seatbelts, my right knee swelled, my nose slightly crooked and crusted in blood, but otherwise I was intact. Dowsing every scratch and cut with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol I found, I used butterfly closures on the smaller lacerations that peppered my skin. I wrapped soft white gauze over my abused palms and probed at the big cut where the last shard had been, only stopping when I was sure there were no pieces of glass wedged inside my flesh.
“Not too bad.” I grunted to myself, trying to sound impassive like a doctor might. “Rib must have stopped it. Gonna need stitches though. That’ll be fun.”
Pawing through the broken cases, I couldn’t find any suture chord, but just as I was about to give up, I noticed a small box that read ‘medical skin stapler’.
Bingo.
I tore the small white plastic stapler free from its packaging and eyeballed the device. I’d never done this before, only seen it in movies, and even though the cut in my skin hurt, I wondered if this wouldn’t be worse.
You’ve gotta do it. That bleeding needs to stop. Besides, no one’s coming to rescue you, not with those rocket-launching psychos out there.
Taking a deep breath, I pinched the skin around the gash together, and pressed the mouth of the stapler to it.
Click.
A sharp sting, like that of a needle bit at the skin, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the cut itself. I worked my way across the two-inch laceration and gave out a sigh of relief when it was done.
“Not going to bleed to death today.” I daubed ointment around the staples before winding more bandages over the wound.
Popping a few low-grade painkillers that tumbled from the cargo, I crawled wriggled through the nearest shattered window into the wet grass.
Raindrops kissed my face, clean and cool on my sweaty skin. Despite the thick cloud cover, there was enough constant lightning strikes within the storm to let me get glimpses of the world around me. My helicopter lay on its back, the blades snapped like pencils, with bits and pieces of it burning in chunks all around the small break in the trees. Chest-high scrub brush grew all around the low-lying ground, with pockets of standing water in places. My ears still rang from the impact of the crash, but I could start to pick up more crickets, frogs, and even some nocturnal birds singing into the darkness, like they didn’t notice the huge the hulk of flaming metal that had fallen from the sky. Overhead, the thunder rumbled onward, the feeble wind whistling, and there were other flashes on the horizon, orange and red ones, with crackles that didn’t sound quite like lightning.
The guns. They’re still fighting.
Instinctively, I pulled out my cellphone, and tapped the screen.
It fluttered to life, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get through to anyone, not even with the emergency function designed to work around having no service. The complicated wonder of our modern world was little better than a glorified paperweight.
Stunned, I sat down with my back to the helicopter and rested my head against the aluminum skin of the craft. How I’d gone from a regular medical supply run to being marooned in this hellish parody of rural America, I didn’t know, but one thig was certain; I needed a plan. Whoever fired the missile could have already contacted my charter company and made up some excuse to keep them from coming to look for me. No one else knew I was here, and even though I now had six staples holding the worst of my injuries shut, I knew I needed proper medical attention. If I wanted to live, I’d have to rescue myself.
My bag. I need to get my go-bag, grab some gear and then . . . head somewhere else.
It took me a while to gather my green canvas paratrooper bag from its place behind the pilot’s seat and fill it with whatever supplies I could scrounge. My knee didn’t seem to be broken, but man did it hurt, and I dreaded the thought of walking on it for miles on end. I focused instead on inventorying my gear and trying to come up with a halfway intelligent plan of action.
I had a stainless-steel canteen with one of those detachable cups on the bottom, a little fishing kit, some duct tape, a lighter, a black LED flashlight with three spare batteries, a few tattered road maps with a compass, a spare pair of socks, medical supplies from the cargo, and a simple forest green plastic rain poncho. I also managed to unearth a functioning digital camcorder my ouma had gotten me for Christmas a few years back, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to do any filming in such a miserable state. Lastly, since it was a private supply run from a warehouse area near Pittsburgh to a direct hospital pad in Ohio, I’d been able to bring my K-Bar, a sturdy, and brutally simple knife designed for the Marine Corps that I used every time I went camping. It was pitiful in comparison to the rifle I wished I had with me, but that didn’t matter now. I had what I had, and I doubted my trusty Armalite would have alleviated my sore knee anyway.
Clicking on my flashlight, I huddled with the poncho around my shoulders inside the wreck of the chopper and peered at the dusty roadmaps. A small part of me hoped that a solution would jump out from the faded paper, but none came. These were all maps of western PA and eastern Ohio. None of them had a Barron County on them anywhere.
The man on the radio said to head north, right before they shot me down. That means they must be camped out to the north of here. South had that convoy and those burning houses, so that’s a no-go. Maybe I can backtrack eastward the way I came.
As if on cue, a soft pop echoed from over the eastern horizon, and I craned to look out the helicopter window, spotting more man-made flashes over the tree tops.
“Great.” I hissed between clenched teeth, aware of how the temperature dipped to a chilly 60 degrees, and how despite the conditions, my stomach had begun to growl. “Not going that way, are we? Westward it is.”
Walking away from my poor 902 proved to be harder than I’d anticipated. Despite the glass, the fizzling fires, and the darkness, it still held a familiar, human essence to it. Sitting inside it made me feel secure, safe, even calm about the situation. In any other circumstance, I would have just stayed with the downed aircraft to wait for help, but I knew the men who shot me down would likely find my crash site, and I didn’t want to be around when they did.
Unlike much of central and western Ohio, southeastern Ohio is hilly, brushy, and clogged with thick forests. Thorns snagged at my thin poncho and sliced at my pant legs. My knee throbbed, every step a form of self-inflicted torture. The rain never stopped, a steady drizzle from above just cold enough to be problematic as time went on, making me shiver. Mud slid under my tennis shoes, and every tree looked ten times bigger in the flickering beam of my cheap flashlight. Icy fear prickled at the back of my neck at some of the sounds that greeted me through the gloom. I’d been camping loads of times, both in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, but these noises were something otherworldly to me.
Strange howls, screeches, and calls permeated the rain-soaked sky, some almost roars, while others bordered on human in their intonation. The more I walked, the softer the distant gunfire became, and the more prevalent the odd sounds, until the shadows seemed to fill with them. I didn’t dare turn off my flashlight, or I’d been completely blind in the dark, but a little voice in the back of my head screamed that I was too visible, crunching through the gloomy forest with my long beam of light stabbing into the abyss. It felt as though a million eyes were on me, studying me, hunting me from the surrounding brush, and I bitterly recalled how much I’d loved the old Survivor Man TV series as a kid.
Not so fun being out in the woods at night. Especially alone.
A twig snapped somewhere behind me, and I whirled on the spot, one trembling hand resting on the hilt of my K-Bar.
Nothing. Nothing but trees, bushes, and rain dripping down in the darkness.
“This is stupid.” I whispered to myself to keep my nerves in check as I slowly spun on the spot. “I should have went eastward anyway. God knows how long I’m going to have to—”
Creak.
A groan of metal-on-metal echoed from somewhere to my right, and I spun to face it, yanking the knife on my belt free from its scabbard. It felt so small and useless in my hand, and I choked down a wave of nauseas fear.
Ka-whump. Creak. K-whump. Creak.
Underbrush cracked and crunched, a few smaller saplings thrashed, and from deep within the gloom, two yellow orbs flared to life. They poked through the mist in the trees, forming into slender fingers of golden light that swept back and forth in the dark.
The soldiers . . . they must be looking for me.
I swallowed hard and turned to slink away.
Ice jammed through my blood, and I froze on the spot, biting my tongue to stop the scream.
It stood not yards away, a huge form that towered a good twelve feet tall in the swirling shadows. Unpolished chrome blended with flash-rusted spots in the faded red paint, and grime-smeared glass shone with dull hues in the flashes of lightning. Where the wheels should have been, the rounded steel axels curved like some enormous hand had bent them, and the tires lay face-down on the muddy ground like big round feet, their hubcaps buried in the dirt. Dents, scrapes, and chips covered the battered thing, and its crooked little radio antenna pointed straight up from the old metal fender like a mast. I could barely make out the mud-coated VW on the rounded hood, and my mind reeled in shock.
Is . . . is that a car?
Both yellow headlights bathed me in a circle of bright, blinding light, and neither I nor the strange vehicle moved.
Seconds ticked by, the screech-thumping in the background only growing closer. I realized that I couldn’t hear any engine noises and had yet to see any soldiers or guns pointed my way. This car looked old, really old, like one of those classic Volkswagen Beetles that collectors fought over at auctions. Try as I might, I couldn’t see a driver inside the murky, mold-smeared windows.
Because there wasn’t one.
Lightning arched across the sky overhead, and the car standing in front of me blinked.
Its headlights slid shut, as if little metal shades had crawled over the bulbs for a moment and flicked open again. Something about that movement was so primal, so real, so lifelike, that every ounce of self-control I had melted in an instant.
Cursing under my breath, I lunged into the shrubs, and the world erupted around me.
Under my shoes, the ground shook, and the car surged after me in a cacophony of ka-thumps that made my already racing heart skip several beats. A weather-beaten brown tow truck from the 50’s charged through the thorns to my left, it’s headlights ablaze, and a dilapidated yellow school bus rose from its hiding place in the weeds to stand tall on four down-turned axel-legs. They all flicked their headlights on like giants waking from their slumber, and as I dodged past them, they each blared their horn into the night in alarm.
My breaths came short and tight, my knee burned, and I crashed through thorns and briars without thought to how badly I was getting cut up.
The cheap poncho tore, and I ripped it away as it caught on a tree branch.
A purple 70’s Mustang shook off its blanket of creeping vines and bounded from a stand of trees just ahead, forcing me to swerve to avoid being run over, my adrenaline at all-time highs.
This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.
Slipping and sliding, I pushed through a stand of multiflora rose, and stumbled out into a flat, dark expanse.
I almost skidded to a stop.
What had once been a rather large field stood no taller than my shoestrings, the grass charred, and burnt. The storm above illuminated huge pieces of wreckage that lay scattered over the nearly 40-acre plot, and I could just make out the fire-blackened hulk of a fuselage resting a hundred yards away. The plane had been brought down a while ago it seemed, as there weren’t any flames left burning, and I threw myself toward it in frenzied desperation.
Burned grass and greasy brown topsoil slushed underfoot, and I could hear the squelching of the cars pursing me. Rain soaked me to the bone, and my lungs ached from sucking down the damp night air. A painful stich crept into my side, and I cursed myself for not putting in more time for cardio at the gym.
Something caught my left shoelace, and I hurtled to the ground, tasting mud and blood in between my teeth.
They’ve got me now.
I clawed at the mud, rolled, and watched a tire slam down mere inches from where my head had been. The Mustang loomed over me and jostled for position with the red Volkswagen and brown tow truck, the school bus still a few yards behind them. They couldn’t seem to decide who would get the pleasure of stomping me to death, and like a herd of stampeding wildebeest, they locked bumpers in an epic shoving match.
On all fours, I scampered out from under the sparring brutes, and dashed for the crumpled airplane, a white-painted DC-3 that looked like it had been cut in half by a gargantuan knife blade. I passed a snapped wing section, the oily remains of a turbo-prop engine, and a mutilated wheel from the landing gear. Climbing over a heap of mud, I squeezed into the back of the ruined flight cabin and dropped down into the dark cargo hold.
Wham.
No sooner had my sneakers hit the cold metal floor, and the entire plane rocked from the impact of something heavy ramming it just outside. I tumbled to my knees, screaming in pain as, once again, I managed to bash the sore one off a bracket in the wall.
My hand smeared in something gooey, and I scrabbled for my flashlight.
It clicked on, a wavering ball of white light in the pitch darkness, and I fought the urge to gag. “Oh man . . .”
Three people, or what was left of them, lay strewn over the narrow cargo area. Claret red blood coated the walls, caked on the floor, and clotted under my mud-spattered shoes. Bits of flesh and viscera were stuck to everything, and tatters of cloth hung from exposed sections of broken bone. An eerie set of bloody handprints adorned the walls, and the only reason I could tell it had been three people were the shoes; all of them bore anklebones sticking out above blood-soaked socks. It smelled sickly sweet, a strange, nauseas odor that crept into my nose and settled on the back of my tongue like an alien parasite.
Something glinted in the beam of my flashlight, and my pulse quickened as I pried the object loose from the severed arm that still clung to it.
“Hail Mary full of Grace.” I would have grinned if it weren’t for the fact that the plane continued to buck and roll under the assault from the cars outside.
The pistol looked old, but well-maintained, aside from the light coating of dark blood that stained its round wooden handle. It felt heavy, but good in my hand, and I turned it over to read the words, Waffenfabrik Mauser stenciled into the frame, with a large red 9 carved into the grip. For some reason, it vaguely reminded me of the blasters from Star Wars.
I fumbled with a little switch that looked like a safety on the back of the gun and stumbled toward a gap in the plane’s dented fuselage to aim out at the surrounding headlights.
Bang.
The old gun bucked reliably in my hand, its long barrel spitting a little jet of flame into the night. I had no idea if I hit anything, but the attacking cars recoiled, their horns blaring in confusion.
They turned, and scuttled for the tree line as fast as their mechanical legs could go, the entire ordeal over as fast as it had begun.
Did I do that?
Perplexed, I stared down at the pistol in my hand.
Whoosh.
A large, inky black shadow glided down from the clouds, and the yellow school bus moved too slow to react in time.
With a crash, the kicking nightmarish vehicle was thrown onto its side, spraying glass and chrome trim across the muddy field. Its electro-synth horn blared with wails of mechanical agony, as two huge talon-like feet clamped down on it, and the enormous head of the flying creature lowered to rip open its engine compartment.
The horn cut out, and the enormous flying entity jerked its head back to gulp down a mass of what looked like sticky black vines from the interior of the shattered bus.
At this range, I could see now that the flying creature bore two legs and had its wings half-tucked like a vulture that had descended to feed on roadkill. Its head turned slightly, and in the glow of another lightning bolt, my jaw went slack at the realization of what it was.
A tree trunk. It’s a rotted tree trunk.
I couldn’t tell where the reptilian beast began, and where the organic tree components ended, the upper part of the head shaped like a log, while the lower jaw resembled something out of a dinosaur movie. Its skin looked identical to the outside of a shagbark hickory but flexed with a supple featheriness that denoted something closer to skin. Sharp branch-like spines ranged down its back, and out to the end of its tail, which bore a massive round club shaped like a diseased tree-knot. Crouched on both hind legs, it braced the hooked ends of its folded wings against the ground like a bat, towering higher than a semi-truck. Under the folds of its armored head, a bulging pair of chameleon-like eyes constantly spun in their sockets, probing the dark for threats while it ate.
One black pupil locked onto the window I peered through, and my heart stopped.
The beast regarded me for a moment, with a curious, sideways sniff.
With a proud, contemptful head-toss, the shadow from the sky parted rows of razor-sharp teeth to let out a roar that shook the earth beneath my feet. It was the triumphant war cry of a creature that sat at the very top of the food chain, one that felt no threat from the fragile two-legged beings that walked the earth all around it. It hunted whenever it wanted, ate whatever it wanted, and flew wherever it wanted. It didn’t need to rip the plane apart to devour me.
Like my hunter-gatherer ancestors from thousands of years ago, I wasn’t even worth the energy it would take to pounce.
I’m hiding in the remains of the cockpit now, which is half-buried under the mud of the field, enough to shield the light from my screen so that thing doesn’t see it. My service only now came back, and it’s been over an hour since the winged beast started in on the dead bus. I don’t know when, or how I’m going to get out of here. I don’t know when anyone will even see this post, or if it will upload at all. My phone battery is almost dead, and at this point, I’m probably going to have to sleep among the corpses until daylight comes.
A dead man sleeping amongst friends.
If you live in the Noble County area in southeastern Ohio, be careful where you drive, fly, and boat. I don’t know if it’s possible to stumble into this strange place by ground, but if so, then these things are definitely headed your way.
If that happens . . . pray that they don’t find you.