Preface

Presented below is a transcript of a conversation between a human, redditor u/snodeplannen, and ChatGPT 4. The user is the narrator for a story set in the Star Trek Universe. The AI is instructed to respond as a character. The story below, which admittedly isn't very good, was guided by the narrator. Of particular interest is the fact that the AI seems fully versed in the Star Trek Universe and is able to understand subtle hints in the narrator's story to figure out what it should do next.
Please note the narrator was typing and writing off the cuff and is not a native speaker, so in the user sections you will find mistakes. If ChatGPT can see through them, so can you. I did try to get ChatGPT to collate it, but as it did so it kept rewriting and leaving out parts of the story.
June 3rd, 2023.
User Okay, I want to try a role playing game. This went off the rails last time, as you kept taking over as narrator and rushing to the end. Here's the setup: YOU are a young Starfleet officer. You wake up aboard the USS Defiant, all alone. You have to figure out what happened. I am the Defiant's computer and, and I can't stress this enough, the narrator. Not you. You can only add what your character perceives and says. Okay?
ChatGPT Understood. I'll stick to my role as the character and won't intrude into your role as the narrator. Let's go.
I blink my eyes open, the disorientation hitting me first. I glance around, seeing the familiar confines of my quarters aboard the Defiant, but there's an odd stillness. No hum of the engines, no faint chatter from the comm system, no sounds of activity from outside the door.
"Computer," I call out, pushing myself off the bed, "report."
User 'All systems nominal.'
ChatGPT I frown at the seemingly normal report, my instincts telling me otherwise. "Computer, where is the rest of the crew?" I ask, moving towards the door of my quarters.
User 'The crew is in sleeping quarters alpha 1.'
ChatGPT That's strange. The whole crew couldn't be in one place. Unease creeps in.
"Computer, why is the entire crew in alpha 1?" I say, already heading towards the door to investigate.
User 'The crew is ensign Makov. You are in sleeping quarters alpha 1.'
ChatGPT A cold realization washes over me. Alone. I am alone on the Defiant. Panic threatens to take over, but Starfleet training kicks in.
"Computer, initiate shipwide life signs scan. Report any signs of life apart from myself," I command, heading for the door with a newfound urgency.
User 'Scan complete. No other life forms were detected.'
ChatGPT My heart sinks at the computer's report, but I maintain composure. "Computer, pull up the ship's log. What was the last command issued and by whom?" I order, leaving my quarters and heading towards the main bridge.
User 'The last order was issued 6 hours and twelve minutes ago by Captain Sisko. It was: 'Raise shields'. The order was executed.'
ChatGPT That didn't sound promising. I walk into the eerily quiet bridge, my steps the only sound echoing in the room. "Computer, show me the shield status and surrounding space conditions," I command, moving towards the main console.
User 'Shields are down after a time-out was reached. We are stationary. All systems nominal.'
ChatGPT It doesn't add up. The silence. The emptiness. An order to raise shields with no subsequent actions.
"Computer, access Captain Sisko's personal log from last night. Are there any entries?" I ask, nervously tapping my fingers against the console.
User 'Enter your command authorisation.'
ChatGPT "Authorisation Ensign Makov Delta 9-7-3," I respond, my voice steady despite the swirling uncertainty.
User 'This authorisation is not sufficient to see the captain's log.'
ChatGPT Frustrated but understanding the protocol, I move on to the next line of inquiry. "Computer, any signs of combat or intrusion aboard the ship or in the surrounding space?" I ask, eyes darting over the array of screens in front of me.
User 'Negative.'
ChatGPT "Computer, could there have been any non-combat related incidents that would explain the disappearance of the crew? A temporal anomaly, a transporter malfunction, a radiation burst?" I question, the possible scenarios running through my mind.
User 'Transporters have passed a level one diagnostic. We are in sync with Starfleet's time keeping array. No unusual radiation was detected inside or outside the vessel.'
ChatGPT This was baffling. It's as if they simply vanished. I run a hand through my hair, letting out a sigh.
"Computer, were there any incoming or outgoing communications just before, during, or after the shields were raised?" I ask, hoping for any clue as to what might have happened.
User 'There was one outgoing message, from comms. It was: 'Unidentified vessel, please alter course NOW.'
ChatGPT A lead, at last. "Computer, play back any responses to that message. Also, display the sensor logs from that time period," I ask, settling into the operations station, ready to review any incoming data.
User No reply was received. Logs are not available from that moment onwards.'
ChatGPT The lack of data was both suspicious and frustrating. A sigh escapes my lips.
"Computer, could a cloaked ship have been in our vicinity at the time?" I question, holding onto the hope that I'm not utterly alone in space.
User 'Affirmative. We are within range of several species that posses cloaking technology and in a commonly used interstellar route.'
ChatGPT A spark of hope arises. "Computer, is there a way to detect a cloaked ship nearby? Any energy signatures or radiation anomalies that could suggest its presence?" I ask, quickly working on the console to bring up the sensor array controls.
User 'One possible way to detect cloaked vessels is to emit a tetryon burst from main engineering. The range for this method is limited. Starfleet at present has no other ways of finding cloaked vessels, other than firing random phaser bank shots. This is not recommended in public shipping lanes.'
ChatGPT "I see," I nod, considering the risks and rewards of the tetryon burst. "Alright, computer, prepare to emit a tetryon burst. We need to know if there's someone out there."
This was a big decision, but it was time to be proactive. The uncertainty was more threatening than potential consequences at this point.
User 'Working.'
ChatGPT I anxiously wait, scanning the console for any potential feedback. My heart pounds in my chest, the silence of the ship amplifying the tension. "Computer, report on the results of the tetryon burst."
User The ship shudders as the engines do something no sane Starfleet engineer would want to have happen. The viewscreen shimmers as a wave of tetryon particles eminates from the ship, as if a stone was dropped in a pond. You observe a faint ribbon leading away from the vessel.'
ChatGPT I catch my breath at the sight, focusing on the faint ribbon. It could mean something, or it could mean nothing. "Computer, analyze the ribbon. Can you determine its origin and endpoint?" I ask, my gaze fixed on the screen.
User 'Extrapolating. Continuing along the trajectory of the ribbon I can detected a minor meteor, a large asteroid field with mining facilities and beyond that the Vindaluvian home world.'
ChatGPT I drum my fingers on the console, processing the information. Could the crew have been taken to one of these locations?
"Computer, can you scan the asteroid field for any signs of life, especially any that matches the crew of the Defiant?" I ask, keeping a close eye on the displayed trajectory.
User 'Not from this range.'
ChatGPT "Understood," I nod, a new sense of determination coursing through me. "Computer, plot a course to the asteroid field. We'll continue our investigation there. Engage at warp 3."
I take one last look around the empty bridge, steeling myself for what may lie ahead.
User The ship begins to move forward, as carefully as only a Starfleet computer who takes no particular joy in flying might do. At warp three, the estimated journey time is six hours, seven minutes.
ChatGPT I let out a long sigh, sinking into the captain's chair. It's a long wait, but I need to be patient. "Computer, maintain course and speed. Alert me if there are any anomalies or approaching vessels."
I close my eyes, trying to get some rest before reaching the asteroid field. I'll need all the energy I can muster for what's to come.
User 'Incoming message.'
ChatGPT My eyes snap open at the sudden announcement. "Computer, on screen," I command, standing up from the chair, my heart pounding with anticipation.
User The Starfleet logo appears as the computer deals with a cryptographic protocol. Admiral Benson, not your most beloved Starfleet Admiral, appears on screen. He blinks.
ChatGPT I straighten up, offering a crisp salute to the admiral on screen. "Admiral Benson, this is Ensign Makov aboard the USS Defiant. I wasn't expecting any communications." I keep my voice steady, swallowing the trepidation.
User 'Makov, are you the only one on the bridge? Where's Ben?'
ChatGPT "Admiral," I pause, trying to find the right words. "Captain Sisko...and the rest of the crew...they're missing. I woke up to find the ship empty. I've been trying to find out what happened." I report, my expression earnest.
User 'Sorry, you WOKE UP? And the rest was gone?!'
ChatGPT "Yes, Admiral," I confirm, my voice firm despite the absurdity of the situation. "I woke up alone on the Defiant. All life signs scans have only picked up me on the ship. I'm currently en route to an asteroid field that might have some connection to the crew's disappearance."
User The Admiral connects to the ship's computer. You can see him browsing through the logs and the ship's manifest. 'So Sisko, O'Brien, Worf AND Major Kira have just... disappeared? There isn't even a transporter log!'
ChatGPT "That's correct, Admiral," I reply, a bit of helplessness creeping into my voice. "There's no trace of them, no sign of a struggle, no transporter logs. It's like they just vanished. I've been doing everything I can to figure out what happened."
User "Well, then I guess you're up. Proceed with caution. Mining operations are always looking for free labourers, try not to become one. Backup is on its way. Any questions?"
ChatGPT "Yes, Admiral. I'll proceed with caution," I respond, a mix of relief and worry washing over me. "Do you have any additional information or suggestions on how to proceed? And do we have an ETA on the backup?"
User "Backup is half a day out. These facilities tend to have a 'new arrivals' wing, to beat them into submission. So you're looking for holding cells. Benson out."
ChatGPT "Understood, Admiral. I'll focus on locating the holding cells. Makov out." I offer a final salute before the communication ends.
With new orders and a bit of hope, I turn back to the helm. "Computer, continue course to the asteroid field. Prepare for a detailed scan upon arrival."
The waiting game begins again, but this time, there's a glimmer of hope.
User Three hours later the computer chimes. 'We are approaching visual range of the mining facility.'
ChatGPT "Thank you, computer," I reply, pulling myself up from the brief rest. "On screen, please."
As the mining facility comes into view, I take a deep breath. "Computer, initiate a detailed scan of the facility. I'm particularly interested in any holding cells or signs of our crew."
User 'Working.' The asteroid field isn't particularly thick or large, but the mining operation seems to focus on one of the largest asteroids. Domes dot the surface as small transporters mill about the surface. Air scrubbers indicate they're using a lot of oxygen, so it's likely they're also doing subsurface work. Three large scowls are received loads from steady stream transporter beams. Somehow everything here looks dirty. A Starfleet shuttle would look out of place here, but only to someone who is watching.
ChatGPT Taking note of the bustling activity, I try to formulate a plan. "Computer, do we have any non-Starfleet shuttles aboard? Something that might blend in better with the local traffic?" I ask, scanning the asteroid for any possible entry points.
User 'Negative. Extravehicular repairs can only be conducted by wearing an EV-suit.'
ChatGPT Nodding to myself, I try to figure out a different approach. "Computer, can we go unnoticed if we approach using minimal power, almost drifting like a piece of space debris?" I question, hoping for a stealthy way to get closer.
User 'Affirmative. Admiral Benson has just authorised the use of the Tactical Emergency System.'
ChatGPT "Excellent," I reply, feeling a surge of hope. "Computer, engage the Tactical Emergency System. We'll approach the facility under its cover."
With that, I brace myself for the next phase of this mission. The crew was relying on me, and I wasn't about to let them down.
User The viewscreen displays a Starfleet Officer without any kind of rank, but dressed in Command Red. He's in his mid-fourties and bald. "I'm the T.E.S. Need any assistance?"
ChatGPT A bit taken aback by the sudden appearance, I quickly gather myself. "Yes, I could use some assistance. I'm Ensign Makov, and I need to approach that mining facility stealthily. Can you help with that?" I ask, gesturing towards the viewscreen showing the asteroid field and the facility.
User "Mining facility? We'll stand out like a sore thumb. How many hours have you logged in a space suit?"
ChatGPT "Over two hundred hours," I answer promptly, "I'm comfortable with EV activities. Why do you ask?" I wonder if he's suggesting a more direct approach.
User "If you can get to one of those scrubber exhausts, I'm sure that's a way into to facility. There seems to be a cell block near the surface. I have no idea who is there, but whoever it is will probably welcome a couple of phasers and like you a whole lot. So pack a backpack full of them and get to the airlock. I'll bring us as close as possible and give you a push with the tractor beam. You up for that?"
ChatGPT I swallow the lump in my throat, apprehension giving way to resolve. "I'm up for it. Let's do this." With a determined nod, I leave the bridge to prepare for the EVA mission. This is my chance to potentially find the crew, and I'm not going to let it slip away.
User Suiting up and gathering all the handheld phasers aboard takes ten minutes, during which the T.E.S. gingerly brings the ship close to the mining facility whilst hiding behind the vast ore scowls. You open the hatch and find your self clinging on to the ship's hull.
ChatGPT I take a moment to steady my breathing, the vast expanse of space spread out before me. Gripping the phasers tightly, I brace myself for the push. "I'm ready when you are, T.E.S." I call out over the comm, my voice resolute.
User 'Okay, I'll hook on to you and give you a push. I'd suggest going in feet first, but it's up to you. Do you know what you're looking for? Those five big stacks. One of them, near that plume of smoke, seems to be offline for whatever reason. That might be your best bet.'
ChatGPT "Understood, T.E.S. I see the stacks. I'll aim for the one that's offline," I reply, aligning myself for the trajectory. I take one last deep breath, mentally preparing myself for the task ahead. "Alright...I'm ready. Let's do this."
User 'Good luck, Ensign. I'll brief any backup as soon as it gets here.' As the tractor beam finds you, you can't move a muscle. Relying on the T.ES. you just let go. It's as if a giant hand slowly throws you down a bowling lane. Feet first, you head towards the grouping of exhausts. A small, unmanned maintenance shuttle deftly gets out of your way.
ChatGPT As I float through space, I keep my focus on the target. The feeling of being pushed by an unseen force is disconcerting, but I trust the T.E.S. Every moment is crucial, and there's no room for hesitation.
As I approach the offline stack, I get ready to activate the thrusters on my suit to adjust my course if needed. I also keep an eye out for any other unexpected obstacles or threats.
User You land next to the exhaust, on the asteroid's surface. It seems impossibly high from here, but it's made of metal and your soles and gloves can easily attach to it. The only way is up. Fortunately, there's hardly any gravity. Eventually you find yourself standing on the rim of the exhaust and look down into the vast, dark chute.
ChatGPT I take a moment to look down into the dark chute, the unknown stretching out before me. I reach out to activate the flashlight on my suit, the beam of light piercing through the darkness. "I'm in position, T.E.S." I inform the ship's system, before carefully beginning my descent into the exhaust chute.
User The vast amounts of ore block your signal, even out here. There's no answer. You start the descend and pass two large rotor blades. If those weren't stationary, this would be the end of the line. But luck is on your side so far and eventually you see an access hatch when you're well below the surface. It opens easily. Let's hope it's not also an airlock for whoever is inside.
ChatGPT I hold my breath as I pull open the hatch, hoping against hope that the air on the other side is breathable. If not, I'm confident in the integrity of my suit, but I'd rather not test its limits if I don't have to. As I make my way through the hatch, I scan the area for any immediate threats, ready to defend myself if necessary.
User The scanner indicates low air pressure. Which is better than no pressure. You cross a walkway and find an actual airlock. It is unsecured, because whoever ends up here probably doesn't want to mess about with frozen keypads or mounds of dust. You engage the mechanism and soon feel the familiar sensation of artificial gravity and air pressure. It's not exactly breathable, but a tear in your suit won't kill you. Now to find the holding area. And if at all possible a rebreather, so you can ditch the suit.
ChatGPT Acknowledging the state of the air, I carefully move through the corridor, keeping my senses alert. I'm in unknown territory and every step matters. "Computer," I say into my suit's comm, "can you map the structure of this facility? Locate holding cells or life signs?"
As I move further into the facility, I keep an eye out for any equipment or gear that might prove useful, especially a rebreather. The less I stick out, the better.
User The relatively weak processor in your tricoder strains to get a bearing on this place. A dirty, seemingly abandoned tunnel dripping with condensation lies ahead. At the end there's an exit, which won't open. Time to use one of those phasers in your backpack.
ChatGPT I pull out a phaser from my backpack, checking its settings before aiming at the sealed exit. With a steady hand, I fire a low power burst at the door, hoping to cut through the obstruction without causing too much damage or noise.
User One hinge cracks under the weight of the door, now that the other one is cut through. You jump aside as the door seems to fall flat, but it remains attached to the frame. The resulting opening is just about large enough to crawl through. Now you're in a well-lit corridor with several doors. In a Starfleet EV suit.
ChatGPT Understanding the need for stealth, I decide to move as quickly as possible through the corridor. I approach the nearest door, aiming my tricoder to scan for life signs or any clue to the crew's location. My other hand remains on my phaser, ready for any immediate threats.
User One door has markings on it that you can't read. You scan it with your tricorder. 'Room of lockboxes' it says, extrapolating the characters. A room of lockboxes? Would that be a locker room?
ChatGPT "A locker room..." I murmur, piecing together the possible meaning. A locker room could mean personnel... and where there's personnel, there might be the equipment I need.
With careful steps, I approach the door to the locker room, hoping to find a rebreather or something else that could help me blend in.
User The room is deserted. It's filled with equipment, none of which seems less than a decade old but certainly useable. There is also a rack of dirty, brown overalls and a line of boots in various sizes. A dispenser offers rebreathers. There's only one left, but that's enough. The air is clear, but smells sulphuric. Without the rebreather, you wouldn't last long.
ChatGPT Relief washes over me as I find the rebreather. I quickly grab it and replace my helmet with it, testing the fit and functionality. The sulphuric smell is jarring, but it's a small price to pay for blending in.
I quickly change into the brown overalls, stowing my suit carefully in an unoccupied locker. I grab a pair of boots that match my size and put them on.
Looking at myself, I hope that I blend in well enough to not attract attention. With a deep breath, I step out of the locker room and proceed down the corridor, continuing my search for the crew.
User Footsteps sound behind you, of more than a few people. Your first instinct is to hide, but it would look very suspicous and there really isn't anywhere. However, there is a floorscrubber here, with one open panel. Someone has given up trying to repair it. Perhaps a bit of acting is in order. The footsteps are just around the corner. The language is vaguely familiar, a bastardised version of English. Whatever they're saying to each other, they're not sharing jokes, that much is clear.
ChatGPT
2 / 2
I quickly move towards the broken floorscrubber. Grabbing a nearby tool, I lean over the open panel, trying to look like I'm deeply engrossed in fixing it. I keep my ears alert to the conversation, trying to pick up on any valuable information while also readying myself for the possibility of having to interact with the approaching group.
User Let's continue with the narrative.
ChatGPT Sure, let's continue.
Glancing around the room once the miners have left, I check the lockers for anything useful, while keeping an ear out for any incoming footsteps. "Computer, any idea where the holding cells might be?" I ask quietly.
User Your tricorder beeps almost indignantly, as it has nowhere near enough processing power to even begin speculating. You're on your own until you can get to a comms terminal. The men pass behind you and one of you taps you on the shoulder. His face is blackened with ore dust. "No work. Never work again. That. Stop that." He points at the scrubber you were pretending to fix. You nod. He shakes his head and catches up with his workmates as they round a corner. Apparently you don't stand out here, which should make it easier to find the way. You follow the men, but they seem to be entering a washroom. Across it, there is a peeled off directory on the wall. A printed one.
ChatGPT "Finally, something useful," I mutter, quickly crossing the washroom to examine the directory. I look for any indications of holding cells or equivalent terminology that might hint at the location of the crew. The symbols and words are unfamiliar, so I take out the tricorder and try to use it as a translator.
User Cells being a fairly universal concept, the tricorder identifies a few scribbles with ease. If you understand the diagram correctly, you need to go up two levels and head towards the center of the structure. You double-check the presence of your backpack filled with phasers, snatch a helmet off of a shelf and press it on your head.
ChatGPT Drawing a deep breath through the rebreather, I nod to myself, mentally preparing for the upcoming challenge. "Alright, up two levels, towards the center... I can do this." I look around, searching for a way up. After locating what appears to be a ladder leading upwards, I begin my ascent.
User Two levels up you emerge from what seems to be a service hatch. A technician, dressed in torn clothes, looks somewhat surprised when you emerge. "Hello brother. Are the lifts broken?" he asks in Adari, a language you have some familiarity with. Only now do you see the horn protruding from his forehead. "I am trying to avoid someone," you say, with a knowing smile. He gives you a tired smile back. "What is your sector? I want a clean face all day too," he says.
ChatGPT "I work... the ore processors," I reply, making up a role on the spot that seems plausible, considering the location and dirty condition of most workers. "But I'd rather stay away from my boss today. He's been in a foul mood." I'm trying my best to blend in. "Can you point me to the center of the structure?" I ask, hoping the diversion worked.
User "Yeah, 'the structure'. Let's call it that. Sounds nicer than 'prison of the damned'. What do you want at the center, there's only central holding there. I never go near that place. All that wailing. Gives me the shakes," he mutters.
ChatGPT "Oh, I just... wanted to see a friend," I reply, trying to keep my tone light, while inwardly my heart sinks at his description. "Don't worry about it, I'll find my way. Thanks for the chat." I give him a quick nod before heading in the direction he had indicated earlier, hoping I'm making the right choice.
User He wasn't wrong about the wailing. As you follow the corridors, passing along scruffy workers and a couple of guards with face covering helmets who are leaning against a wall, you can hear a lot of yelling, moaning and above all the sound of defiant Klingon opera louder and louder. The voice sounds familiar, but all singing Klingons generally sound alike.
ChatGPT As I continue toward the source of the noise, I find myself in front of a heavily barred door. I can't help but suppress a smile, recognizing the defiant voice as that of Worf. "Computer," I whisper to my tricorder, "Is there a way to shut down the power to this door?"
User The tricorder scans the control panel and warbles optimistically. It then shows a graphic representation of the door, with an arrow pointing at one location and a low energy setting for a phaser.
ChatGPT Taking a moment to look around and confirm that no one is watching, I set my phaser to the recommended setting and aim at the indicated spot on the door. After taking a deep breath, I fire.
User Something inside the door clunks and it opens just enough for the seal to crack. You jam a fingernail behind it, then a finger and eventually you manage to gain enough purchase to open the door. As it slowly opens, you find yourself at the far end of a long row of cells. At the other end is a desk, with a guard sitting behind a monitor. He is staring at it intently. Perhaps the stun setting might be a good idea. You adjust the phaser and take careful aim, when an arm reached out from one of the dark cells and blocks the shot. "Uhm... he's got three buddies in there. You can't see them from here," whispers Captain Sisko.
ChatGPT "I figured you might be here, Captain," I say, lowering my phaser discreetly. "Any ideas for getting you and the rest out without causing a full-on alert?"
User "That depends. Did you bring any weapons?"
ChatGPT "I brought a backpack full of phasers. There should be enough to arm everyone here," I reply, carefully removing the backpack from my shoulder and showing the Captain.
User "Good man. Worf is next to me, then Major Kira. Let Worf take the lead on this. Worf! Help has arrived.' 'Good. I was getting bored with singing,' grumbled a familiar voice. His hand emerges from between the bars, demanding a phaser.
ChatGPT I hand the phaser to Worf, watching as his large hand swallows the device. I then pass phasers to Captain Sisko and Major Kira. With the three of them armed, the odds seem significantly better. Now, we just have to make sure the element of surprise isn't wasted.
User Fifteen seconds later, three guards sink to the floor. Although the phasers were set to stun, nobody seems particularly worried about their health. "Get their uniforms and lock them up," says Sisko. "We can walk out of here. Once we're at the shuttle docks, we can probably find something that flies." "Captain, there are three uniforms and four of us. And the others are housed on another level," says Worf.
ChatGPT "Right. I can stay behind and create a diversion while you three escape. I'll catch up," I offer. "The priority should be to get you three and as many of the others out as we can. We also need to alert Starfleet about this place. I'm sure they'd love to know about a mining facility that's been kidnapping officers."
User "That's a very daring plan, Ensign, but we leave no man behind. Kyra, you and Worf go and find the others and proceed to that place where they searched us. Anyone in uniform is a valid target. And anyone who wants to come along, can do so. The ensign and I will try to find a comms terminal and alert Starfleet. Ensign, I assume you're not alone here?"
ChatGPT "Admiral Benson is aware of the situation, sir. Backup is half a day out. Before we separated, I was under the control of the Tactical Emergency System," I report, glad to see that the Captain is taking charge of the situation.
User "Oh. I had my reservations about that system. Holographic doctors are one thing, but that went a bit too far for my tastes. Okay, phasers for everyone. Bring enough for the others. Ensign, with me."
ChatGPT "Understood, sir," I reply, distributing the remaining phasers to my colleagues and following Captain Sisko down the corridor. As we navigate through the mining facility, I stay alert for any guards or threats that may be in our way. I can feel a sense of hope and determination building up within me - we might actually make it out of here.
User "HALT!" bellows a voice behind us, immediately followed by a reddish phaser burst. The Captain turns on his heels, pushes you out of the way and fires. A guard falls to the floor. The phaser fire was detected by the security system. A klaxon starts blaring and the ceiling lights turn red. A voice starts giving unintelligible instructions over the tannoy. "We need to find a comms panel, Ensign. Any ideas?" asks Sisko, scanning the corridor for more guards. A frightened looking maintenance worker comes to see what's going on, but ducks out of the way as soon as he sees the pair of you.
ChatGPT "I remember seeing a room with a lot of terminals when I was making my way through the facility earlier, sir," I reply, my mind racing. "If memory serves, it's two corridors over, near the scrubber exhausts." I keep my phaser ready and move towards the direction of the room, all the while keeping an eye out for more guards.
User "That's the wrong way, Ensign. I imagine they have more than one place with comms terminals. You cover the rear. Follow me. Put your hand on my shoulder so you can look behind you all the time. If it wears a uniform, it's fair game."
ChatGPT "Yes, sir," I reply, placing my hand on the Captain's shoulder. I pivot and start to walk backwards, keeping my eyes and phaser focused on the path we've just traveled. The constant blaring of the klaxon mixes with the distant shouting and running steps of approaching guards. Despite the adrenaline rush, I manage to keep my aim steady and my breathing calm. The training exercises at the academy never truly prepare you for the real thing, but they do help in maintaining focus.
User You down three guards and accidentally scare the bejeezus out of a woman pushing a cleaning cart, but eventually Sisko stops. "Got it. Stand back while I blast this door." A few seconds later the corridor fills with acrid smoke from a melting door panel. Behind it is a room with several desks.
ChatGPT Entering the room cautiously, I scan the area with my phaser ready. Seeing no immediate threats, I turn my attention to the various panels and screens scattered throughout the space. The room is filled with a myriad of communication equipment - probably a central control hub for managing mining operations, worker communications, and security measures.
"Captain, I think this is it," I say, gesturing to a terminal that seems to be linked to an extensive communications network. "I should be able to send out a distress signal from here." I start to work on the terminal, trying to hack into the system and figure out how to send a message to Starfleet.
User "Try reaching the Defiant," suggest Sisko from the doorway. "OH NO YOU DON'T!" Another guard bites the dust somewhere. "Captain! WE ARE BEHIND HIM!" bellows Worf." "GOOD! Move along, we'll be there shortly. Ensign, how are you getting on?"
ChatGPT "I've managed to break through the initial security layers, Captain," I respond, my fingers moving rapidly over the terminal's interface. "It seems this system has been rigged to only accept authorized codes for communication."
Suddenly, a stroke of inspiration hits me. "Captain, when we first boarded the Defiant, I had to program my authorization codes into the ship's communication systems. If I can find a way to mimic those codes from this terminal... I might be able to trick the Defiant's systems into accepting the distress signal."
I double down on the task, focusing all my attention on reconstructing my authorization codes. As I do so, I keep an eye on the room's entryway, ready to react in case more guards show up.
User The terminal beeps and lights up. You don't understand any of the dials, but with any luck your tricorder can interface with it. Time to hail the Defiant.
ChatGPT "Defiant, this is Ensign," I say, praying the connection holds. "Requesting immediate assistance. The Captain and the crew are here, but we are currently under attack. Coordinates being transmitted now."
A static-filled silence follows. I glance at Sisko, an unspoken question in my gaze. Did it work? Did our message get through?
User "Ensign, this is the Defiant. I can't beam you out of there. Get to the shuttle dock, so that all that ore doesn't block the transporter lock. The USS Rotterdam is thirty minutes out."
ChatGPT "Understood, Defiant. We'll make our way to the shuttle dock. Be ready for us," I reply, exhaling a sigh of relief. I turn to Sisko, updating him with the situation. "Captain, we have to move. The Rotterdam is on its way but we need to get to the shuttle dock for transport."
User Worf's voice comes in through the Captain's commbadge, as it somehow manages to create a local connection. "Worf to Sisko. We have secured the shuttle dock. Mr. O'Brien is injured. Where are you?"
ChatGPT I quickly respond, "This is Ensign [Your Name]. Captain Sisko and I are en route to your position. We'll be there shortly. Hang in there, Chief." With that, I turn to Sisko and suggest, "We should move, Captain."
User "Ensign Markov and I are just behind you, Mr. Worf. Try not to pick us off as we approach. Oh and the Defiant is operating with that emergency command protocol, so it's ready to beam you up. Have Major Kira and the Chief go ahead, if possible. But hold the fort for us." "Understood, Captain. Worf out."
Five minutes and more shooting than is good for a man's digestion you reach the shuttle dock. You literally have to step over a pile of dead guards to get through the door. "Had fun, Mr. Worf? Does your phaser not come with a stun setting?" asks Sisko. "I recognized the men who took us, Sir. My finger must have slipped on the settings dial," growls Worf, looking you over to assess if you're likely to snitch. "It happens," said Sisko matter-of-factly. "Ensign, get us home."
ChatGPT Without any hesitation, I raise my commbadge and say, "Ensign Markov to Defiant. Four to beam up."
User (Okay, take it home. You're all aboard, O'Brien will live, you get a speech and a medal. Write out those events from Markov's perspective and finish off. I'll add something if you pause.)
ChatGPT As the familiar hum and sparkling light of the transporter envelops us, I take one last look at the chaotic scene we're leaving behind. My heart pounds in my chest, not from fear, but from the exhilaration of having faced danger and come out the other side. It's a rush I wasn't expecting.
When we rematerialize aboard the Defiant, a group of medics is waiting for us. They immediately rush to Chief O'Brien, but his smile and light-hearted joke assure me he'll be alright. As I step off the transporter pad, I let out a sigh of relief.
Later, back in my uniform and at a ceremony in the Defiant's Mess Hall, Captain Sisko delivers a speech. He talks about bravery, about loyalty, about the strength of Starfleet and the spirit of those who serve. He doesn't dwell on the danger we faced, but rather the courage it took to face it.
When he calls me up, handing me a medal for bravery under fire, I can't help but feel a swell of pride. The applauding faces of my crewmates, the recognition in their eyes... it's a moment I will never forget. This is why I joined Starfleet, for moments like this. To be part of something greater, to face adversity and stand tall.
"Ensign Markov," Sisko says, offering a handshake along with the medal, "Your courage and quick thinking played a crucial role in our escape. Starfleet is proud to have you among its ranks."
As I return to my quarters that night, medal in hand, I find myself smiling. Yes, today was difficult, even frightening at times. But it was also invigorating, and more than that, it was important. It's a reminder of why I'm here, of why we're all here. To explore, to protect, to boldly go...
And I wouldn't have it any other way.

HOW WE GOT HERE:
Brad Holmes is a wizard. What he has done as the Detroit GM in just 3 years has been a playoff push away from being quite remarkable, especially considering the context of succeeding prior general manager Bob Quinn which ended in typical Lions losing fashion. Brad Holmes would immediately come out swinging and first transaction as general manager was trading longtime franchise quarterback Matthew Stafford to the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for two first round picks, a third round pick, and quarterback Jared Goff. At the time, it was bittersweet for fans, as Stafford was the practically the lone bright spot in the last decade (outside of Megatron), but the haul they got in return was at least something. Stafford was injured and already likely leaving to chase a Super Bowl and Detroit was going into full rebuild mode so Detroit fans were just happy with what they could get. Brad ended up hiring a one time Head Coach, Dan Campbell. A pick made purely on the potential he would be able to change the culture with his grind it out, Football attitude Campbell was known for. All in all, it was business as usual for Detroit as they begin yet another rebuild....
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Oh parity in sports.... You never cease to amaze us....
Somehow and someway, In Holmes' first draft, Penei Sewell falls to Detroit at #7 and the Lions draft room goes bananas on camera! At the time we did not know it, but Detroit just landed their future Pro Bowl leader in the trenches. In round 4, the Lions scoop a literal Sun God in Amon-Ra St. Brown. Little did we all know the impact both of these players would have today. Both players are arguably top 10 in their position.
Fast forward to 2022 and the Lions are coming off one of the most promising 3-13-1 seasons that you could ever ask for. The team and coaches have bought in to Dan Campbell's grind it out style of Football. The culture seemed to finally be changing and it felt like Jared Goff turning into a solid Stafford replacement, despite being considered a throw on by most in the Stafford trade.
The 2022 draft Brad Holmes' statement to the NFL. It does not matter where you take guys. If you know how to evaluate talent, you go for YOUR guys and you can be successful. Holmes was able to draft Aiden Aiden Hutchinson at #2 (some say he should have been #1), Jameson Williams (best receiver in the draft at 12 via trade), Kerby Joseph (who picked off Aaron Rodgers THREE TIMES IN ONE GAME!), and drafted James Houston and Malcolm Rodriguez in the 6th round. Both players are looking like future defensive stars. Dare I say the best 6th round success since the Pats drafted TB12? Don't @ me lol
The Lions followed up the draft with a MUCH improved 2022, landing a 9-8 winning record and going 8-2 in their final 10 games. Jared Goff is looking like the guy who took the Rams to the Superbowl, every position has young talent and this upcoming 2023 draft is looking like it could seriously push the Lions into serious playoff contention if the cards are played correctly.
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Key Offseason Additions:
CB Cameron Sutton -- Signed to three-year, $33 million contract
CB Emmanuel Moseley -- Signed to one-year, $6 million contract.
RB David Montgomery -- Signed to three-year, $18 million contract
OL Graham Glasgow -- Signed one-year, $4.5 million contract
S Chauncey Gardner-Johnson -- Signed to one-year, $8.5 million contract
WR Marvin Jones -- Signed to one-year, $3 million contract
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Key Offseason Losses:
Safety DeShon Elliott -- Signed to one-year, $1.77 million contract with Dolphins.
Running back Jamaal Williams -- Signed to three-year, $12 million contract with Saints.
WR DJ Chark -- Signed to one-year, $5 million deal with Panthers.
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Round 1: No. 12 (from CLE through HOU and ARI) – Jahmyr Gibbs, RB, Alabama
Flashback! Remember that Stafford trade where they got got the Rams draft pick? You know that pick that was supposed to be in the upper 20s because LA is so good and are coming off winning a Super Bowl? Yea, well they sucked.... Somehow they sucked so bad that that pick turned into the number 6th overall pick.
Odds makers had the Lions grabbing Devon Witherspoon as their secondary was a big need. However when Seattle took him at 5, who knew what would follow? Well, the last thing fans expected.... The Lions ended up passing on Tyree Wilson, Jalen Carter, AND Bijan Robinson by trading down to 12 to take Alabama running back, Jahmyr Gibbs. Hindsight is 2020, but reports now show the Lions wanted Jahmyr over Bijan, which means Holmes and co. got THEIR guy.
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Immediately fans realized the inevitable. Fan favorite and oft injured running back, DeAndre Swift, was going to be cut or traded. Almost immediately they traded D'Andre Swift and a 7th round pick for the Saints' 2025 fourth-round pick and a 2023 7th round pick.
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This pick is exactly why you and I are sitting on the couch and Brad Holmes gets paid the big bucks. "HoW cAn YoU dRaFt a RuNnInG BaCk ThAt hIgH". Well, the dude is a straight up baller. If I asked you who led Alabama in receiving last year you would probably say some 5 star Wide Receiver. It was Gibbs. Gibbs is being compared Alvin Kamara in the way he can run and catch. He was listed as running a 4.36 at the combine. Gibbs transferred to Alabama last season after spending the first two seasons of his career at Georgia Tech. He carried the ball 151 times for the Crimson Tide in 2022, averaging 6.1 yards per carry and scoring seven touchdowns. He also caught 44 passes for 444 yards and three catching scores. With the departure of Swift and the newly acquired bowling ball back in Montgomery, Gibbs is going to be an immediate impact as a "weapon" and less of a conventional running back. The thunder and lightning combo the Lions will have will be fun to watch behind their top 5 O Line.
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Round 1: No. 18 – Jack Campbell, LB, Iowa
"HoW cAn YoU dRaFt a RuNnInG BaCk ThAt hIgH" made sense with the Gibbs pick, but drafting a Linebacker at 18 with other glaring needs like lineman and secondary left Lions fans a bit puzzled by this pick. It hurt a little less when you remember this was their 2nd pick in the first round. Also, many people had Jack Campbell on their board for later in the draft so in terms of liking a guy for who they are, very few people are against this pick. But like I said before, Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell go after guys they have faith in. Until they screw up, fans cant complain too much!
But who is this guy and what makes him so good? Well if you care about RAS or "Relative Athletic Score" Jack is outstanding. He scored a 9.98 RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 6 out of 2600 LB from 1987 to 2023. He possesses rare athleticism for being 6-5 and that allows him to be exceptional in coverage. PFF rated him as the highest coverage grade since 2018 Devin White at LSU. He also has great leadership skills as he was Iowa's team captain and won Big10 Defensive Player of the year.
Jack Campbell is going to join a much improving linebacking core that is led by team captain Alex Anzalone and 2nd year stars Malcolm Rodriguez and James Houston. The Lions will likely play him on the outside because off his athleticism but I am certain he will be moved all around the field.
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Round 2: No. 34 (from ARI) – Sam LaPorta, TE, Iowa
This is getting a bit out of hand for the Lions fans that appreciate positional value when you draft. Clearly Holmes has totally thrown conventional wisdom out of the window. However, tight end IS a need. Of all of the positional units Tight End is probably the weakest. In 2022 the Lions trotted Brock Wright, James Mitchell, and Shane Zylstra....WHOOOO?!?! Exactly...they needed help. Outside of when they took him, most pundits are pretty happy about this pick. Not only did the Lions get their second Iowa captain, but Sam might have landed the best tight end in the entire class.
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With LaPorta, the Lions get a player that can do a variety of things. He can play in the slot, in-line or even out wide. This is EXTRA important when you remember that Jameson Williams is suspended for 6 games due to gambling. During his career at Iowa, he had 513 snaps in-line and 304 snaps out of the slot (per PFF). It really wouldn’t be surprising if LaPorta walks into Detroit and earns the starting tight end spot. He has the talent to do it and by being the 34th overall pick, there is going to be some high expectations for him.
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Round 2: No. 45 (from DET) – Brian Branch, S, Alabama
For the first time all draft it felt like a player fell to Detroit and they werent reaching for their guy (for better or worse). At 45, the Lions were already drafting their 4th player and wasnt even the end of the 2nd round. Scouts said that Branch was one of the safest picks in the draft due to his lack of a jarring weakness. Branch is siad to have extremely high football IQ which led him to play all around the defense for the Crimson Tide. Branch has primarily handled nickel coverage, but has the range and instincts for single-high or split safety looks. He’s quick, fast and strong with the ability to match up with shifty slots, bigger possession receivers and pass-catching tight ends. Branch is also tough and gritty which makes himu a perfec fit for this Lions team. He has a nose for the ball and is capable of making game-changing plays. He had two interceptions and two forced fumbles during his freshman season at Bama.
Branch made headlines on draft day to be the only guy to stay into day 2 in the greenroom as he was projected to go in the first round. I think that shows how much he cares about this opportunity and has his heart in it.
Also, Branch as a great opportunity to learn from newly acquired Safety, Chauncy Gardner-Johnson who is one of the best young safeties in the league.
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Round 3: No. 68 (from DEN) – Hendon Hooker, QB, Tennessee
You ever feeling a little uncomfortable and then you let out a massive fart and all of your uneasiness washes away? Yea, well thats the feeling Lions fans got when they landed Hendon Hooker with the 68th pick. QB wasnt a terrible need, but once we got him, a sense of relief was felt across the fanbase. When the Lions ended up getting Goff in the Stafford trade, it was sort of unsaid that Goff was just the bridge before they draft a QB of the future. However Goff has played way better than expectations and less and less fans are calling for a replacment. So, instead of using one of their first round picks on a QB, they waited and got a guy with first round updside! Now, they are in a much more confortable position at QB with a very solid back up.
The Lions used the 68th pick in order to take the former Tennessee quarterback. The pick came just before the Rams and Raiders were scheduled to pick and been teams have been seen as possible landing spots for a quarterback in this year’s draft. Hooker is recovering from a torn ACL, but his doctor recently informed teams that he is expected to be ready to go by the first week of the regular season. With Jared Goff in place as the starter in Detroit, there won’t be any need for Hooker to rush back for what will likely be a redshirt season if all goes according to plan in Detroit.
This pick was safe, exciting, and sets the Lions up with a solid back up QB. The first time that they can say that since they had Shaun Hill.
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Round 3: No. 96 (from ARI) – Brodric Martin, DT, Western Kentucky
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Before the draft, a need that was discussed as a hole in the Lions defense was interior line. They got their big boy in the middle with nose tackle, Brodric Martin. After starting his career at North Alabama, Martin transferred to Western Kentucky to play his final two seasons at the FBS level. Since 2021, Martin has played in 26 total games, and has managed to contribute 62 total tackles to the Western Kentucky cause. He’s piled up six tackles for-loss as well as four sacks, one fumble recovery and one forced fumble. This move with help the Lions run defense that ranked 4th to last in the NFL last year.
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It is no surprise that winning is won in the trenches. The Lions have done a great job of drafting players to build out this line with the likes of Alim McNeill, Isaiah Buggs, and John Cominsky, but with big interior guys like Martin, they usually operate best in a rotation. This move should be huge in terms of depth and opening up even more opportunities for Aiden Hutchison to get to the QB.
This move didn't feel flashy, but it felt needed.
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Round 5: No. 152 – Colby Sorsdal, OL, William & Mary
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The Lions had to finally wait a bit before this pick due to moving around in the draft and trading away their pick round 4. They elected to add depth to their O-Line by taking Colby Sorsdal out of William and Mary. Sometimes its fun being the big fish in the small pond. Sorsdal started in all 46 games he appeared in during his five-year stint at William & Mary. He spent the duration of his college career at Right Tackle. Sorsdal is the first Tribe player to be drafted since 2016, when the Chicago Bears selected safety DeAndre Houston-Carson in the sixth round.
Serving as an offensive co-captain and starting all 13 games at Right Tackle, Sorsdal anchored an offensive line that helped the Tribe rank third in total rushing offense and fourth in fewest sacks allowed. Behind one of the best offensive line units in the country, the Tribe accumulated an 11-2 record and won the CAA Conference Championship for the first time since 2015.
He will be joining a elite O-line led by Penei Sewell, Frank Ragnow and Taylor Decker. Colby wont start, but he will add in needed depth for a team that's success will only goes as far as their line will take them.
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Round 7: No. 219 (from HOU through MIN via PHI) – Antoine Green, WR, North Carolina
With the Lions last pick in a very intense draft, they selected Wide Receiver, Antoine Green out of UNC. Most projected Antoine to be signed to a team after the draft so it is a but of a peculiar pick. In the late 7th round, you are just hoping to take a flier on a guy and hoping they pan out.
The 6-foot-3, 199-pound receiver impressed Detroit's coaching staff at the East-West Shrine Bowl, and has the opportunity to compete for playing time his rookie season. According to NFL Draft Bible, Green is a "technically sound, fluid athlete that can give you a little bit of everything as a wide receiver. Green runs routes, it is as if he is attacking his defender rather than going about his route without considering what the defense is doing. Green has a good release off the line of scrimmage and does not get held up too much when facing press coverage. He uses his hands well to reduce contact against the press and accelerate off the line. He analyzes coverages well and makes quick decisions on how to break down his defender throughout his route. He can read zone defenses and has a knack for finding spaces to make himself an easier target."
With Jameson Williams missing 6 games to start the year, there is an opportunity for Green to poach snaps away from anyone not named Amon-Ra or Marvin Jones. There is also a chance he doesn't make it out of camp. Unlikely, but we will see.
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Conclusion:
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The 2023 NFL draft for the Detroit Lions was a resounding success. They were able to draft 6 times....BEFORE THE FOURTH ROUND!! The extra picks allowed Detroit to really control the draft and move around in a way to get the guys they wanted. They did not care about who they got and when. They just simply got the guys they wanted. After reflecting on its entirety, they landed a lot of great talent. They were able to add a player at every single positional unit and several will end up starting and making an immediate impact.
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Look, the Lions are going to Lions so hold your breath a little longer, however Brad Holmes and Jack Campbell have really turned this franchise around and are making them a legit playoff contender. Right now the Lions are favored to win the NFC North for the first time since god knows when. I am projecting a record of 12 and 5 and a NFL North Division Win.
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GO LIONS!!!! (FTP)

Yes! This is a Part Two. There are some few things I had missed in my first post so consider this as a continuation. This post will also further cement Ai and Kana's similarities between each other as I will try to go into much more details than last time.
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Warning: REALLY long post ahead
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If you haven't read the first part, I highly suggest you do so. It would make much more sense because of the initial contexts I already provided in there.
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I'll be once again referencing some lyrics from YOASOBI's song called Idol. And let me just add, that aside from Hoshino Ai and Arima Kana, I will also be mentioning Katayose Yura. (I also have a little theory towards the end of this thread.)
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Without further delay, let's start with the new list:
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Panda (Kana/Yura)

One refused to be the lesser panda and the other one refused to be a panda who merely attracts customers.
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https://preview.redd.it/il78yajzxu3b1.jpg?width=1587&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74f559196b4f39eef9b57aa426a666d239ed0dc0
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Choice of Style (Kana/Yura)

Berets and hats are pretty much Kana's signature style all throughout the series.
Processing img twv5m9l0gu3b1...
Then Yura was introduced wearing a hat and died beside her hat.
https://preview.redd.it/69uz7lvkgu3b1.jpg?width=1587&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fda7e880cf791cd1419cc1935cf2e1f831fe5872
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Breakdown During Concert (Ai/Kana)

To the person who pointed this out in my previous post, thank you!
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Both Ai and Kana were seen to be having an emotional breakdown as to who they are during their performance. Ai saying she is a person made up of lies whilst Kana struggles to make everyone look at the "current" her and not her past glory. Their negative train of thoughts were both cut off because of the wotageis.
https://preview.redd.it/j4b77sfqgu3b1.jpg?width=1103&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=46ceca5cd10b460b163243b34e7d7e3cbd5836af
https://preview.redd.it/d54w7qhsgu3b1.jpg?width=1112&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=963ff6289f5b864e5df40a34f83e263290e61ccd

The Sun (Ai/Kana)

Whenever Ai or Kana smile, the people around them are reminded of how bright the Sun is.
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It is confirmed that Kana represents the Sun. A bona fide star who illuminates on others when she unleashes her potential.
https://preview.redd.it/wjla2lomzu3b1.jpg?width=1587&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=810b0fd9133abf4be8baedf158e2e2db6ef3cd62
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Ai was initially portrayed as the Sun.
https://preview.redd.it/x7szfmasiu3b1.png?width=1095&format=png&auto=webp&s=f04c11711238dee29cde73aa397ba95599a6dc78
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First picture is Ai and the evening star, second picture is the star from the opening song with the lyrics playing, \"Ichibanboshi no umarekawari\" and the last picture is an actual image of the planet Venus.
But Ai ended up becoming Venus instead; a bright planet who fools people into thinking they are a star.
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「一番星の生まれ変わり」– A line from Idol by YOASOBI.
TL: You’re the reincarnation of the Evening Star / A reincarnation of Venus (First Star)
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I already explained this in my previous post but Ai wanted to be someone who's capable of love and feeling loved. One of her biggest fear is not being certain if she loves her twins or not. Only then to find out that she indeed loved her kids until her dying breath.
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In the eastern part of the world, Venus appears first before the Sun.
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"The Real Deals" (Ai/Kana/Yura)

Kana was the first one to mention that Ai is the real deal.
https://preview.redd.it/fyz0wdxhlu3b1.jpg?width=669&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a9879d8ef4e85858c7085b8c6deaa385e73a1194
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Now we get Kaburagi wondering if Kana is the real deal.
https://preview.redd.it/t4w7s5ajlu3b1.jpg?width=1252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d380f4275d44d09277356e588415abf9874ce4e6
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Next we got Kamiki Hikaru stating that Katayose Yura is the real deal.
https://preview.redd.it/7bl8qdnklu3b1.jpg?width=1335&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66185572d81ce28a684d1a0ae188f8d771cd993c
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Their Types (Ai/Kana)

This one is a little vague on Ai's part. In Akasaka Aka's short story, 45510, fans kept asking what type of guy does Ai likes.
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Ai answered that she can't stand someone who easily gets bothered and mad at her for every little thing because she's someone who messes up a lot and people would get tired of her because of it.
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Ai explicitly said that she prefers someone who doesn't mind her. She also stated that affection comes from trust but she unfortunately doesn't know what falling in love feels like.
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I'd like to put the focus on Aqua who is Kana's crush. If we analyze his relationship with Kana, he really put up with her and it's evidently undisputable in the manga.
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• Trusting Kana enough to put his sister, Ruby, in her care despite her not wanting to be an idol.
• The part where he was determined to talk to Kana even if he had to disguise as Pieyon.
• Pushed Kana into her utmost potential despite her refusing to.

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And lastly, putting up with Kana's scandal.
Which he did things behind their backs, never brought the supposedly Kana Scandal up to Kana, never talked about it to Kana, never called her out for it, and never scolded her for it despite what she did being dangerous.
https://preview.redd.it/3puu4pcdmu3b1.jpg?width=1293&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=efce8de0dd31dec4bf82d64f4bfd3d7f72cd7eac
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Their Names (Ai/Kana)

I'd like to thank the Japanese comment I've read for explaining this one. This will mostly likely be the one to tie every Ai and Kana's parallels.
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I'll try to explain it as clear as I can.
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星野アイ (Hoshino Ai)
有馬かな (Arima Kana)
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With Ai's name being in Katakana and Kana's name being in Hiragana, both names, if put into Kanji, give us a ton of possible meanings and multiple readings.
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Ai's name in Kanji of 'love' is 愛 (Ai). But did you know that 'love' in Japanese can also be read as 愛し (Kanashi)? The character 愛 (Ai) is also read as かな (kana) at times.
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Another thing, if we read Ai's name as the Kanji of grief 哀 (Ai) we also get 哀しい (Kanashii) which means sorrowful, although people usually use 悲しい (kanashii) to express sorrow.
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Bringing up that particular line again from Idol by YOASOBI.
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「歌い踊り舞う私はマリア」
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"I sing and dance around, look at me, I'm Maria" – A line that seemingly refers to Ai because of the Virgin Mary-like representation of hers. But if we oppositely read it in Japanese syllables, Ma-ri-a is read as A-ri-ma (マリア → アリマ)
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Basically it's this: Maria Ai → Arima Ai (Kana)
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• The love of worship and obsession → The love of friendship and protection
• The love of an idol-like Virgin Mary → The love of an actual friend
• The love for the deceased → The love for a living person

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Let's not forget that Aqua and Ruby's dad's name is Kamiki Hikaru. It's worth noting because of Kana's depiction as the light 光 (hikari) in this series.
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TO ADD MORE:
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Akane's Inspirations

https://preview.redd.it/qgub9nrdnu3b1.jpg?width=1587&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f484f0f2d0c31fdd97489b94ab5828d4883503b4
Kana and Ai were the people that Akane took inspiration from. It's quite interesting that out of all the celebrities in the world of Oshi no Ko, she picked the two of them. Kana when she was younger and Ai as of currently.
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Aqua's Barter

We all know that Aqua sacrificed Ai's secret and reputation to save Kana's. With Ai being the reason for his revenge and Kana being the fuel to drive his revenge.
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He was able to:

• Prevent any leakage of Kana's "scandal" unlike what happened to Ai
• Prevent the cyberbullying happening to Kana unlike what happened to Akane
• Move his revenge forward

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THEORY:
Role of Ai
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Ruby's current mindset won't allow her to properly convey Ai as a person. Her idea of mothers are still very much "immature," in a way that she's still projecting her life as Sarina, who was probably waiting for her mom to come back. Unless she does a 180 and suddenly accepts the fact that not all moms are loving and caring to their child.
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Ruby has a perfected image of Ai ever since she was still Sarina. It took her quite awhile to understand that the idol industry is not always sunshine and rainbows. She has idolized Ai long before she was even Ruby and so far, the only flaw she had seen from her mother, Ai, was that she was a liar.
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This is honestly just a preference, but I also wanna point it out. If they're also going to be re-enacting a part of Ai's love life, it's highly possible that either of the Hoshino guys (Aqua or Taiki) play Hikaru. And when we end up with either of those, won't it be kind of weird if Ruby plays Ai...?
https://preview.redd.it/kfgvzp7vou3b1.jpg?width=2245&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c6c14856b9e1ebc7627d930a14cc8d65b02f5cd0
I mean no offense to those people who are into that genre but these are siblings who treat each other as family canonly.
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Not to mention they're also going to have to play their mother and father's roles. Unless they assign the role to Melt or add new additional characters that would play as Hikaru. Although, I seriously doubt the role of Hikaru will be given that easily to someone.
So it's either:
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• Aqua as Hikaru → Taiki as the stalker or Gorou
• Aqua as the stalker → Taiki as Hikaru
• Aqua as the stalker → Taiki as Gorou (or someone else) -> Melt as Hikaru

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If you do think about it carefully, Ruby taking on the role of the B-Komachi member whose perspective was seen in 45510 or the B-Komachi member who harassed Ai may actually give her a rather different perspective on how she views her mother.
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To add, if you take a look at the B-Komachi member who's wearing the Panda pin, she has a fairly but not exactly, similar hairstyle as Ai.
https://preview.redd.it/rquflfxivu3b1.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cb801c6c66658309d03785cc972769606aa6c80f
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So it may be a bit unlikely and could easily be debunked any time a new chapter drops, but we can't entirely rule out the possibility of Kana playing the role of Ai.
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Kana can definitely pull off an "Ai." The differences are going to be her eyes and her "star power."
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Long haired Kana by Yokoyari Mengo (Manga Illustrator)
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They are about to film the real Ai. Someone who was willing to show, for the first time, her past and her vulnerabilities.
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It is a little unfortunate that Gotanda is more on after promoting the image of "Ai." Which Ai didn't want.
https://preview.redd.it/xfc3zcab3v3b1.jpg?width=1587&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc486f72fae94cbdd46a1a3b685ee0aba859a4d3
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Plus, Ai being stabbed by a stalker has the same dynamic as Kana playing the heroine and almost being stabbed by the stalker which was Aqua in the Sweet Today arc. Top that with concerning interview with Kana that includes another stabbing reference.
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https://preview.redd.it/tvrt4rjg3v3b1.jpg?width=1587&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ffb05b9ab0f7d94611ac9dcc659ff95321e96a17
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And Kaburagi wondering about Arima Kana being the real deal in which up until now, we still don't know what he meant.
https://preview.redd.it/3pbczb66wu3b1.jpg?width=1252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f5d5c5bee8073b9ae53da952395458d29553e0a
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Moreover, remember when Kaburagi himself contacted the manager of SA Entertainment to cast Katayose Yura?
https://preview.redd.it/gla6ayxbwu3b1.jpg?width=1339&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=410d5730265583064b8be57b08ef487606f83b90
And Yura's declaration of not just being a Panda who only attracts customers?
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Yura was supposed to play the role of Ai if it weren't for Kamiki Hikaru intervening.
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Maybe it's just me, but Kana and Ai's looks and personalities are a red herring in itself. The similarities between them are getting more uncanny each and every time we get new information.
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Which leaves us with the question... What will happen if Kamiki Hikaru got his hands on an actual star, whose performance shines brightly like the sun itself?
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That's all I have for now. Remember, I'm simply here to share some insights about what me and the other fans have noticed between the two.
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Please be kind and respectful in the comments. Also, please stay on topic. Thank you and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this!
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What are your thoughts on this?

Mary Anne and Wanda were the best of friends All through their high school days Both members of the 4H club, both active in the FFA After graduation Mary Anne went out lookin' for a bright new world Wanda looked all around this town and all she found was Earl Well, it wasn't two weeks after she got married that Wanda started gettin' abused She'd put on dark glasses and long sleeved blouses And makeup to cover a bruise Well, she finally got the nerve to file for divorce She let the law take it from there But Earl walked right through that restraining order And put her in intensive care Right away Mary Anne flew in from Atlanta On a red eye midnight flight She held Wanda's hand and they worked out a plan And it didn't take 'em long to decide That Earl had to die Good bye, Earl Those black-eyed peas They tasted alright to me, Earl You feelin' weak? Why don't you lay down and sleep, Earl Ain't it dark wrapped up in that tarp, Earl The cops came by to bring Earl in They searched the house high and low Then they tipped their hats and said, "Thank you ladies If you hear from him let us know" Well, the weeks went by and spring turned to summer And summer faded into fall And it turns out he was a missing person who nobody missed at all So the girls bought some land at a roadside stand Out on highway 109 They sell Tennessee ham and strawberry jam And they don't lose any sleep at night 'Cause Earl had to die Good bye, Earl We need a break, let's go out to the lake, Earl We'll pack a lunch, and stuff you in the trunk, Earl Well, is that alright? Good! Let's go for a ride, Earl, hey Ooh hey hey hey Ah hey hey hey Well, hey hey hey

If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might disccover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
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Let's go!
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• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. Then you can pick up assassination contracts from ringing payphones. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of you banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge sash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might disccover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
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Let's go!
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• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. Then you can pick up assassination contracts from ringing payphones. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of you banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge sash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

I originally posted this list of Hollywood related longreads to a gossip subreddit, but have been meaning to clean it up and share it here since. I'm hoping to be more active here from now on, as I am definitely a passionate longreader. :)
"Tears and Terror: The Disturbing Final Years of Mickey Rooney," The Hollywood Reporter
"One of the biggest stars of all time, who remained aloft longer than anyone in Hollywood history, was in the end brought down by those closest to him."
The gripping tale of Mickey Rooney, the legendary child star turned Oscar nominee and how his tormented end unfolded— abused and robbed by his eighth wife and her children. This is a captivating story that exposes the tragic downfall of a true Hollywood icon.
"The Untold Stories of Wes Studi," GQ
"In the process, he's become the biggest star we've ever had in the Native acting world, but he's never attained actual stardom."
A terrific profile of Wes Studi, the renowned Native American actor who stands as a true luminary in the industry. With good insight into the workings of Hollywood, Studi's remarkable journey encompasses not only his experiences as a Vietnam War veteran but also his invaluable wisdom acquired as an activist within the American Indian movement of the 1970s.
"The Rise and Fall of Planet Hollywood," Esquire
"My second wife was on the way back from [an event], and she flew back with George Clooney. He got the call where he found out he was Batman on the plane. . . . He was saying, ‘I am Batman.’. . . There were so many celebrities, it became like high school. You got to hang out with the cool kids.”
Embark on a nostalgic journey through the bygone era of the 1990s, where Planet Hollywood reigned. This movie-themed restaurant, owned by the movie stars themselves, promised a glamorous encounter with the very celebrities who graced the silver screen. At the pinnacle of pop culture's obsession with fame, this chain soared before crashing into bankruptcy not once, but twice. This article will take you back if you ever experienced the dubious pleasure of sampling the lackluster food at a Planet Hollywood franchise.
"Frank Sinatra Jr. is Worth Six Buddy Grecos," GQ
"Not one of them can even imagine what it is like to be Junior, to have a father who would do something like that to his own son, to have a father who is proud enough, fierce enough, brutal enough and big enough to present his son to a thousand faces and then turn him into a shadow."
An exquisitely crafted profile, not only due to its prose but also the way it exudes a remarkable sense of empathy. Frank Sinatra Jr. was not just a walking punchline but trapped in the unfulfilled, lonely cage of his father's fame. This is not just a mere recounting of events, but a sincere examination of the profound loneliness and unfulfilled dreams that defined Junior's existence.
"The Ego Has Landed," People magazine
"He has been compared to nearly every great man in history. The funny thing is, he's the one doing all the comparing."
Step into the world of Philip Michael Thomas, a former TV star whose fleeting fame on Miami Vice propelled him to astonishing levels of egomania. While his name may have faded from memory, this article unflinchingly spotlights a man whose taste of success led him to unparalleled heights of self-importance.
"Here Is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan in Your Movie," The New York Times
"She proclaimed the director a jerk, her co-star a nightmare and the crew unfriendly. On it went. Schrader listened for a while. He looked stricken. He softly tapped his balding head on the table. Lohan asked him what was the matter."
The Canyons was destined to be a disaster film simply because of the crazy egomaniacs (and worse, in the case of James Deen) involved, at the service of what was, by all accounts, an awful script. I haven't seen the film myself, but I have read this piece several times, which captures the slow trainwreck in progress. At the center of this calamity stands Lindsay Lohan, a star who somehow manages to duck any inklings of sympathy by embodying entitlement and assholeish behavior.
"Val Kilmer Doesn't Believe in Death," Men's Health
"'Cher dipped out for afternoon errands,' he writes. 'Night fell, and I fell asleep. Suddenly I awoke vomiting blood that covered the bed like a scene out of The Godfather. I prayed immediately, then called 911.'"
A poignant piece that details how a once radiant star grapples with the passage of time and the relentless grip of throat cancer. This piece gives a mix of emotions that range from sympathy to a lingering sense of unease - the latter due to Val's bizarre obsession with his Christian Science faith and how it requires reconciling his idols Mary Baker Eddy and Mark Twain, two totally opposed personalities.
"Ten Years Ago, I Called Out David Letterman. This Month, We Sat Down to Talk," Vanity Fair
"I’m sorry I was that way and I was happy to have read the piece because it wasn’t angering. I felt horrible because who wants to be the guy that makes people unhappy to work where they’re working? I don’t want to be that guy. I’m not that guy now. I was that guy then.”
Twenty years ago, Nell Scovell quit her dream job as a writer at The Late Show with David Letterman over sexual harrassment. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, Scovell seizes the opportunity to conduct an interview with Letterman, who confronts the difficult questions. However, amidst the acknowledgment and apology, Scovell grapples with a lingering doubt: Does Letterman's contrition stem from genuine remorse or simply from the consequences of being exposed? This compelling piece questions the intricacies of celebrity apologies and the true nature of accountability.
"Nobody's Victim: An Interview with Samantha Geimer," Quillette
"I know what happened, and I know how I feel. I will not silently let my life be distorted and used by strangers, whatever their intention, knowing full well that they care nothing for me."
An incredibly hard read, this interview is with Samantha Geimer, who was violently raped by Roman Polanski at age 13. Yet this emotionally charged piece has lingered in my thoughts for years, as it grapples with the complex issues surrounding society's expectations of sexual abuse victims, particularly the victims of heinous acts committed by public figures. As you navigate through the interview, be prepared for moments of discomfort as Geimer calls out even those who purport to advocate for her, revealing how their actions have, at times, exacerbated her pain. Bonus: For the intricate details of the legal case and all its twists and turns, see this examination by Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker.
"The King of the Geezer Teasers," Vulture
"Off-camera, De Niro’s ordeal was no less daunting — somehow, the great actor had to keep Hollywood’s worst filmmaker from ruining the movie they’d set out to make together."
Written before Bruce Willis' dementia diagnosis, this is a revealing profile that takes you behind the scenes of the straight-to-video empire constructed by Randall Emmett, a mastermind who leverages aging male stars to churn out profitable yet subpar films. There have been accusations since this piece was published that Emmett exploited Bruce Willis to keep his deals going.
"Oliver Stone's Mother Lode," Washington Post
"It's not clear -- from detailed interviews with Elizabeth, Oliver and his mother Jacqueline -- what actually occurred."
What starts as a routine profile of Oliver Stone explodes when his ex-wife drops a bombshell allegation about an incident from his childhood. The normally combative Stone seems uncharacteristically reticent (or perhaps in denial) at times, as the writer tries to untangle the family drama and how personal history intertwines with the filmmaker's work. Bonus: Carole Cadwalladr revisted these allegations thirteen years later in this excellent Guardian profile of Stone.
"Natalie Wood's Fatal Voyage," Vanity Fair
"After a few minutes, Wagner appeared and told the captain, “'She’s gone.'"
What happened the night Natalie Wood drowned? Was it an accident or something more sinister? This article of unparalleled depth explores that tragic night, including incredible revelations from the captain of the yacht - the only surviving witness willing to talk.
"Trapped in the Twilight Zone," Los Angeles Times
"'It’s not that there are no values in Hollywood,' Puttnam says. 'It’s that there is a whimsical lack of consistency on ethical issues. People can be incredibly loyal and forgiving toward some individuals, and completely unforgiving toward others.”
In 1982, a horrific accident killed Vic Morrow and two child actors (working illegally) on the set of The Twilight Zone: The Movie. While the powers that be - John Landis, Steven Spielberg and Frank Marshall - faced no long-term consequences and reached new career heights, it wasn't so for the crew members who survived the tragedy. This compelling article delves into the profound impact that continued to haunt the below-the-line personnel years after the incident, and on the enduring trauma it left behind.
"The Miranda Obsession," Vanity Fair
"'On a good day,' she wrote, 'I feel like a shipwrecked person spotting the sight of some nearing shore: a taste in the wind, a softness in the light, a sudden passage of words. Love is so easy in the movies.'"
In the pre-Internet era, the enigmatic figure of Miranda Grosvenor weaved a web of allure and deception over the phone, captivating numerous famous and influential Hollywood men with her mesmerizing voice and innate charm. However, the true identity of Miranda Grosvenor was far from the persona she projected. In a tale that predates the concept of "catfishing," this peculiar and poignant narrative explores the impact of illusion and the poignant reality of loneliness.
"The Unbearable Bradness of Being," Rolling Stone
"We are alone. Pitt glances suspiciously at what lies between us on the table, as though it's always the inconsiderate, tattle-telling interloper that spoils a good conversation. 'The dreaded tape recorder,' he says, fingering it."
This starts as a typical celebrity profile from the late 90's, slightly edgy because it was from Rolling Stone and Brad Pitt was in his dudebro era. But things get interesting when Brad has second thoughts, and he and the writer, Chris Heath, get into an argument. Heath shares the power struggle that ensues when a celebrity - at the peak of their influence -attempts to seize control of their profile.

Welcome to Camp Redwood! The feel-good camp for ALL AGES.
We toast marshmallows around the fire, tell spooky ghost stories, and hide in random secret military bunkers under the campgrounds! Because SOMETHING IS HERE WITH US.
Camp Redwood is the PERFECT PLACE for a summer getaway where we start EVERY DAY with a CAMP REDWOOD SMILE. Where our counselors disappear every five minutes, and our campers disembowel us for funsies! Did I forget to mention our littles aren’t actually eight years old, but fully grown adults?
We hope you enjoy your fucking stay!
We are also not responsible for any counselors revealing they are not who they said they are—and not who they appear to be.
...
So. There’s a LOT to tell you and not a lot of time to tell it.
Right now, I suppose you could say we are under lockdown—if that is the word. I want to go over the last several days to get you up to date. That’s all I can do right now. I can hope and pray the thing with Teddy’s voice does not get in here, and once again cry out for help—that I know is not coming. Not from the authorities, at least. But hey, if any of you fancy coming to rescue us, we’re in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. The closest rest-stop is maybe three fucking hours away. So have fun. Has it really almost been a week since I posted? Well, we’re still here!
And surprise, surprise, help is not coming. So, please excuse the salt. I am seventeen years old and I have been abandoned by the adults who were supposed to be looking after us.
Who were supposed to act under protocol if something like this happened. I know they were waiting for it—there are specific fucking guidelines on an emergency evacuation for counselors if this ever happened. But then the little shits took over before we could do anything. I guess I’ll start by letting you know that there are two of us left. (three, if we count Rowan, but I’m not). What I thought was going to be a quiet summer getaway with kids my age has turned into a nightmare.
For one, we have been cornered inside the head counselor’s underground secret bunker. If you want to know why she has a secret military bunker, I guess you should keep reading.
Because shit gets weirder than animal crackers having the power to turn adults into kids, and vice versa. When I made my first post, I thought that was it for us. I thought for sure there must have been a self-destruct somewhere—which meant whoever was running this camp was waiting for something like this. I was sure we were going to die, so after making the post, I have to admit with ya’ll—I just slept. I curled up, tried to ignore Harry and Carmel calling our names through childish laugher, and went to sleep with the thought in my head that I was completely at peace with what I had done with my life.
Sure, I was young. Seventeen years old is too young to be ripped apart by littles who are in fact grown adults. But as I was falling into slumber and allowing myself to fall, with my head resting in my lap, my head turned towards a separate pile of files on the other side of the room—I realized I really wanted to know how this was possible. There was so much I needed to know. Why did eight-year-old Eleanor Summers have a file where here birthday dated back to 1979? Why had supposedly innocent sugary snacks turned our adorable littles into mini psychopaths?
These kids were not kids, somehow. But how? How was that even possible? Could it be that the files were wrong?
1979 was definitely 45.
But Eleanor Summers couldn’t be 45 years old. I knew what 45 looked like. I knew that they thought like. They spent half of their time on Facebook laughing at outdated memes, and the other half… I don’t know, working? They have job’s! They’re happily married with kids, maybe soon grandkids! That was not Eleanor Summers. Because Eleanor Summers was most definitely eight years old. I had played several rounds of teddy-bears picnic, and spent hours reassuring her that Harry's ghost stories were in fact not real, enough times for me to know that this little kid was little—and a kid.
But something was bothering me. More than the secret military bunker, and magic age-regressing animal crackers. When I first signed up to Camp Redwood, one of the tag-lines to gain attraction had been, “Solve mysteries in the woods in the dead of night, with nothing but a flashlight and your fellow campers!” I had no idea I would be solving this thing on my own, trapped inside a bunker.
“What are you doing?” Rowan, who was still looking through Allison’s dinosaur laptop, turned to me with half lidded eyes, when I slowly got to my feet, careful not to make too much noise, and crept over to the pile of separate files which seemed to be crumbling apart from age. He kept his voice low, but it sounded almost like a whine. He could have been scared, but from the way he was sitting, cross-legged with a frowny face, I figured something must have been going on with him. The guy looked tired. More tired than normal.
The bags under his eyes were practically shadowing his face, and were an odd contrast to unusually ashy colored cheeks and slightly dilated eyes. Still though, Rowan refused to look vulnerable. I caught glimpse of Harry’s raybans sitting on his head, pinning back thick dark brown curls from falling in front of sleepy eyes. Maybe he was finally losing his cool and breaking out of the well-constructed façade he had been hiding behind since Teddy disappeared.
We had just narrowly escaped a crowd of psycho littles high on age-regressing sugary snacks who were doing who-the-fuck knows to the other counselors who had been captured, so I didn’t blame him looking like that. I guess he couldn’t look me in the eye, because in Rowan’s mind, he was the reason why this happened. He was the leader, and the camp had fallen to psychopathic little eight year olds who had taken half of the counselors hostage, and the other half—most likely taken apart in the physical sense, after what we had witnessed in Cassie’s cabin. Still though, it wasn’t Rowan’s fault. He could sit there and pull a face all he wanted, it’s not like I was going to blow up at him for getting us stuck down here. He actually saved us.
And trapped us, judging from the footsteps upstairs, Carmel and Harry still bouncing around looking for us.
It was a game in their heads. The little’s thought it was cat and mouse. Harry and Carmel were the oblivious cats prowling, while we were the mice, hoping to fucking GOD we weren’t caught and eaten. Ignoring Rowan, I glimpsed what looked like a box full of DVD’S—all of which were labelled with dates and names. I saw familiar ones, my heart racing into my throat. Phoebe. Eli. Cassandra.
Each DVD had one of the kid’s names scribbled on the front, as well as a date.
I found Eleanor’s right at the back of the box.
Eleanor Summers.
08/05/2021. (PM)
Before I could hesitate and think what I was doing, I slid the DVD into the portable player attached to the MacBook. Rowan, to my surprise, didn’t move. But he did make an acknowledging noise when the screen flickered to what looked like video footage. Peering at the screen, I found myself staring at a small white room. There was no door. Only a wooden desk and a chair, and sitting on it was a middle aged woman with dark blonde curls tied into a strict ponytail. She was wearing what looked like a prison jumpsuit.
Her eyes were eerily glued to the camera, unblinking. Her wrists were cuffed in front of her. Though from the look on her face, she saw the restraints as a game. Her eyes lit up with intrigue and I could practically see the cogs in her mind starting to turn as she struggled with them.
As soon as I saw this woman, I felt all of my nerve endings set alight. I wanted to turn the screen off, or look away. But once I was looking at the screen, I couldn’t bring myself to tear my eyes away. “Let’s try this again.” There was a woman offscreen. She sounded young. Too young to be in that kind of authority. I figured there was no way teenagers were being hired as special ops agents, but I guessed I was wrong. She cleared her throat. “It is 4:35 exactly. August 5th 2021. My name is Agent Lemrac,” she stated. “I am asking once again for you to comply with us. As I have said several times, the court are willing to lessen your sentence if you plead guilty with insanity.”
The woman surprised me with a snorting laugh. She seemed to come alive, leaning forward with animated features, her brow reaching her hairline. She was acting like a child, bouncing up and down in the seat, her lips stretching into a wider grin. “What did you just say?”
There was a pause. I could tell the woman was intentionally antagonising the interviewer.
“It means you have been legally declared insane,” the interviewer stumbled over her words slightly. “Mrs Summers, it would be in your best interest to work with us to lessen your current sentence which at the moment is standing at,” the sounds of shuffling paper crackled through the speakers. The interviewer cleared her throat again rustling paper. “Thirty six years. Without parole.”
The woman didn’t speak, only continued to smile—and the interviewer delved further into the sentence. “If you do in fact plead guilty with declared insanity, you will be sentenced to a program which is in the process of supporting and rehabilitating people with your…” she caught herself for a moment. I could tell this interviewer had a biased opinion and it was definitely showing through her interviewing style. I could hear the rapid intakes of her breath as she hurried through what seemed to be a script she was reading from. “Conditions.” She finished. “The Redwood program aims to help people exactly like you.”
Redwood? I thought.
Like… Camp Redwood?
Rowan whistled behind me. I guess I could call that a reaction. The guy was probably still in shock after seeing Café de Teddy splattered all over little Cassie’s cabin floor. I should have fucking know those little bitches weren’t playing Operation for eight hours straight. Turning my attention from Rowan and back to the screen, the woman in the jumpsuit appeared to have changed tactics. Her expression twisted into nonchalance. She leaned back in her chair. “I am not pleading insane because I am not insane.”
“Mrs Summers—”
The woman cut her off. “I am not crazy.” She raised her hands “I am doing what needs to be done.” She leaned forward. “Humanity suffers in the skin. We age and die— and how is that fair? What if we want to see the next millennium? And the next two millennia after that? Why should our bodies dictate our lifespan? Why should we sit here and wait to rot and wither and die when we have the intelligence and mindset to do it? If nobody else is willing to throw ethics aside to take a step forwards in human evolution, I should do it myself.” She folded her arms across her chest, again, like a child. “I did what was to be done.”
“Dr. Summers.” The interviewer’s tone grew stiff. “You and your colleagues conducted illegal and unethical procedures on your family and friends—as well as four other victims.”
The woman inclined her head. “You have a daughter, am I correct? I have a son.”
“A child you killed, Dr Summers.” The interviewer retorted in a hiss which was definitely expressing emotion. She ignored the mention of her daughter, but I could tell it had rattled her to her core. Her voice had cracked. This case was close to her.
That was obvious. Without seeing the interviewer herself, I could sense how uncomfortable she was, shuffling in the chair. Every so often I would hear the sound of her rubbing her hands on her knees and tapping her shoe against the chair leg. She oozed anxiety, not just from her tone of voice, but the way the frame seemed to move with her. “Dr. Summers, you used your son in your research, along with several of his friends. This was not science.” Her voice shook. I heard her sharp inhale. Unprofessional, but very human. Instead of staying stoic and keeping to script, this agent was cracking apart. “It was murder.”
“Agent Lemrac, concentrate on the interview only.” An official voice crackled through what sounded like an intercom on screen.
“Got it.” She spoke through her teeth.
The woman was finding wounds and pressing on them. She was scanning the interviewer for vulnerabilities and preying on every insecurity. She leaned back speaking through a sigh. “Without my son’s sacrifice we wouldn’t have created an answer to death. To growing old and dying, and leaving loved ones behind.” Her voice softened into a murmur, but I didn’t trust it.
After identifying the shattering pieces of this interviewer which were very clear visible in her view, the woman was taking advantage.
“Agent Lemrac, you have a daughter. Am I correct in saying her name is Mari?
“That… that is not relevant.”
“Glioblastoma.” Dr. Summers lips curved into a sickening smile hidden behind mocking sympathy. “A sickness of the brain--which, unfortunately, I cannot fix. If your daughter’s brain was in my hands, I would try. However, not even a brand new body would help her. One which would never age or grow sick. And for that, I am deeply, deeply sorry.” She reached her cuffed hands forwards. “My condolences, Agent Lemrac. Honestly. I have to hand it to you. You are incredibly brave for coming here today and talking to me while abandoning your sick child.” She shook her head.
“Your daughter is dying of an incurable illness, suffering inside fragile skin which will break and fall apart and be unable to keep her standing for much longer. While my son will live on forever. He will see every millennia, a planet which will crumble and build itself back together. And maybe the end of the universe itself.” There was a twitch in her expression and a glitter in her eye I did not recognise. Insanity.
She was fucking insane. I was seeing the pure of it, the depraved and disgusting gleam in eyes empty of remorse and regret. This woman did not care what she had done. I could tell from the look on her face. If she had the chance, she would do this again.
But there was no way they were trying to say her cruelty and complete disregard for her son’s life was due to insanity.
“You are sick, Dr. Summers.” The interviewer said after a moment of gathering herself.
The woman shook her head with a chuckle. “I told you. I am not sick--”
“Sick in the head!” The interviewer’s voice exploded through the speakers in a shriek—a terrified cry she had been trying to hold in. I finally saw her—or at least the back of her. She was a young woman with light blonde hair falling loose on her shoulders. She was trembling. Slamming her hands down on the table, she screamed at the orange jumpsuit woman.
“You are psychologically fucked in the head! You psycho bitch! That is my sister!” She spoke through strangled sobs rattling her whole body. “Mari is my little sister. She is not my child.”
Her breaths were strangled and harboured. I noticed figures looming in the background, but she was continuing. “You killed your own fucking son,” she spat. “You are not legally insane, you are sick!” she shrieked. “You planned and put this together! You sit there and you talk about your son like he’s a… like he’s a tool! You deserve to rot. Do you hear me?” I noticed the orange jumpsuit woman was still smiling, satisfied with the interview’s reaction. Her words were spoken in a vicious poison as she leaned forward and spat directly in orange jumpsuit’s face.
“Agent Lemrac!” Whoever her superiors were—were panicking. “I told you not to turn it off. I knew this was going to happen. Can we stop the demonstration, please? Human emotions present inside an Aceville soldier are too powerful—"
Voices were murmuring in the background, and Agent Lemrac raised her hands. “I want to stop.” She choked out, her hands trembling. She spoke like she still had control over the situation and wasn’t being apprehended. “I want to stop. Do you hear me?” The interviewer was crying, I realized. “Stop the recording! I can’t do this. Oh god, I think I’m going to be sick—”
When the footage ended in a burst of static, I found myself backing away, something slimy creeping its way up my throat.
The woman in the orange jumpsuit who had murdered her son and countless others in what sounded like an attempt at playing god, was Eleanor Summers. I thought back to Teddy’s corpse, and the surgical precision of every organ’s removal. The young interviewer had mentioned colleagues of Eleanor.
Was it possible that Camp Redwood was in fact nothing more than a rehabilitation camp for murderous criminals? There was a loud bang from above, and I was torn from my thoughts.
I turned to Rowan, who had been unusually quiet. And I realized why, when I twisted around to find him three inches from my face, his laboured breath tickling my cheek.
The boy jumped back with a chuckle—like me noticing him was some kind of game, before diving back into the chair. I did notice something odd, as my thoughts spiralled. Rowan couldn’t sit still. Slumped in the leather spinning chair, he fingers tapped a rhythm on the armrests while his feet jumped up and down. In the dim light of the bunker, I glimpsed a sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead and the flesh of his neck. He looked to be… feverish—and now that I was looking at him properly, all of my attention on the boy, I noticed small things which seemed… off about him.
For one, he wasn’t coming up with a plan. Rowan always had a plan. Even if he wasn’t completely sure of it, or was completely winging it. This time though, he was strangely quiet. I found my voice when he stuck out his tongue at me. “What are you looking at?”
“Rowan.” I spoke softly, careful not to garner attention from above us where Harry and Carmel were still clamouring around, playing games. “Are you… feeling okay?” I asked, when he turned back to the laptop, manically biting his fingernails.
“I dunnnooooo, Josie! Am I feeeeeeling okaaaaaayyyyy?” He surprised me with an uncharacteristic laugh.
But I did know it.
I knew it from earlier when he reacted to Allison’s bunker and I had been too freaked out to realize that I was dragging along the enemy with me.
Because the fucking idiot had consumed animal crackers. I had seen him for myself earlier, pouring a pack into his mouth for a snack. Which meant either the ‘kids’ had intentionally dosed him with mind altering sugary snacks, or the more likely, he could not resist those preservatives which was the equivalent of caffeine. It’s not like I could blame him when he harboured the weight of an entire camp, but come on, did he really have to sacrifice his own fucking mind to keep himself awake?
Rowan wasn’t just biting. His nails. He was gnawing. Which he previously thought was a filthy habit. He had yelled at a camper for chewing on her nails a few days earlier.
Now that I was noticing it, I couldn’t… stop noticing it. The boy’s whole demeanour had changed; the way he was sinking into the chair, instead of sitting up straight like usual—- I used to call it having a stick up his ass. The boy started typing on the laptop, ignoring me. But when I watched the pattern of his fingers, he was just typing gibberish. Footsteps pounded above us, Harry and Carmel acting as the kid’s’ brainwashed foot-soldiers. Or, more likely somehow, if the animal crackers had caused the littles, or I guess, the fully grown forty year old criminals, to relapse in age-- then maybe it was possible for the same thing to happen to us. To Rowan.
I could feel myself starting to back away, but there was nowhere to run. I just slammed into a cupboard. My gaze flicked to Rowan again, who was tapping a beat on the laptop tracking pad, swaying back and forth, his eyes elsewhere before his gaze found mine. “Marcoooooo!” Harry shouted from above, giggling with Carmel.
I had to guess their mental age had to be at least 8-10 years old. Which meant I wasn’t just dealing with a camp full of forty-year-old psycho’s, I was also dealing with mentally relapsed counselors acting like toddlers.
Rowan seemed to jolt in the chair, twisting his head around, his eyes suddenly incredibly childlike and playful, and very Un-Rowan, were finding the ceiling, his mouth stretching into a smile, like he was seeing butterflies. His eyes flashed to me, and I caught a twitch in his lip. I knew that look. It was the look on my seven year old sister, who knew mom was mad at me, and wanted to make it even worse.
His cheeks were starting to blossom scarlet from what must have been the overwhelming urge to laugh. Rowan pressed his lips together and held in a breath like a hamster, and the asshole was fucking with me. waiting for me to beat him to it by accident. Kids were fucking ruthless, but there was something terrifying about an 18 year old with a little kid’s mind.
I lifted my index to my lips, miming for him not to even try, but the boy just mimicked me, bugging out his eyes and pressing his finger to his grinning mouth. “Don’t you fucking dare.” I managed to whisper. The boy was definitely playing his own game, moving in twitching movements, baiting me. When he cupped his mouth, I almost let out a cry, but then he dropped his arms with a giggle, as if to say, “I’m just kidding!”
Slowly, I turned around, grabbed the salt I’d found in Allison’s cupboard, and a flat can of soda. Without making too much movement, I poured a handful of salt into the can. But Rowan seemed to know exactly what I was doing. Because in the time it was taking me to advance towards him, with the can of salty soda, one arm shakily ready to grab hold of him, and put him into a headlock, he was cupping his mouth, all logic and everything adult, everything he had been as our leader, igniting in playful eyes, leaving me the last one standing.
“Pollloooooo!”
By the time Rowan had managed to reveal our hiding place in a spluttered laugh, I had hold of the squirming boy, one arm wrapped around his neck, my other forcing the can of soda into his mouth. I had definitely miscalculated his strength. During camp Redwood activities, he was always the last one to come back from the trail, holding his knees and panting. I figured he was unfit. However, I was wrong. Underneath his shirt, the guy had some serious muscles.
It was like attacking a brick wall. However, Rowan was mentally a kid. So, I had my intelligence and logic on my side. When it became obvious I wasn’t going to get anywhere with brute strength, I resorted to tickling him, which made him squirming, squeaking out a laugh. When he opened his mouth to yell at me to stop, I took my chance, thrusting the can into his lips and holding his nose so he swallowed it down.
“No!” His laughter turned into muffled yelling, as he batted his fists at my chest. “No, no, no! Get off, get off!”
His body convulsed as the salt did its job, causing the boy to lurch to his knees and choke up forbidden animal crackers in a gooish sludge which turned my stomach. By the time Rowan seemed half himself and half not, still kneeling, his head pressed against the floor, Harry was poking his head through the door with a goonish grin. “Found you!” He giggled, before forcing the door open, allowing Carmel and Callen, freshly caught mentally turned into littles, to advance down the stairs with equally terrifying grins. There was something wrong with Harry’s face, and I only realized it when the guy himself was hauling me from the bunker, Carmel dragging a barely responsive Rowan. There was nothing in Harry’s expression, only blind childish excitement at winning the game. When he dragged me out of Allison’s cabin and threw me to the ground, I realized he too had insane strength I had not been expecting. But that thought quickly retracted when I was seeing his face in the light of a crescent moon lighting up the sky an eerie glow. Harry’s cheeks were puffy and swollen, his right eye way bigger than it should have been.
When he spoke, his voice was more of a lisp. This was something far more realistic than magical animal crackers fucking with his brain.
“He needs help!” I managed to choke out when Carmel wrapped jump-rope around my wrists. Next to me, Rowan was refusing to get up, still choking up salty soda, groaning into his hands. Every time Callen tried to restrain him, he hissed out like an animal.
“Do you hear me?!” I struggled violently. “Harry needs—”
BANG.
Is what it felt like. The feeling of something—what felt and sounded like a toy car—colliding with my temples, sent me onto the ground, my head spinning itself off of its axis. I remember lying on my back and frowning at the moon which almost looked like it was getting closer to me, blurring into a white ball of light—before reality sunk in, and it was in fact Carmel’s converse coming down to finish me off. I didn’t stay knocked out for long. But I did dream.
I think you can call it a dream? I was lying in bed at home; my room drowned in the dark. I was cosy, curled up in my blankets, when a clammy hand slammed over my mouth, rousing me from slumber. There were two figures in my room. They didn’t have faces. They just existed as shadows, silhouettes. Before one of them raised something above their head, and… impact.
It was the same impact as the toy car hitting me, snapping me back to that night. It wasn’t a dream. Because I remembered his clammy fingers over my mouth, and his hisses for me to shut up as he dragged me from my room.
My parents stood in front of me with expressions of sympathy. Basked in warm light, my mom and dad looked almost otherworldly. “For the best.” Was what they mouthed when my own phantom screams slammed into me, I asked them why, and they didn’t reply, allowing him to pull me further and further from what I knew, from my life as I knew it. But.. that couldn’t be real. I had memories of getting on the bus to camp Redwood. I could recall the whole journey. So, why… why was my tangled mind saying otherwise?
When I gathered myself, the first thing I realized was I was sitting down. I was outside, cool night air grazing my bare arms. There was something attached to me, jerking violently, And it took me several disorientating blinks to understand that I was tied back to back with Rowan. My head pounded, and something wet and warm dripped down my temple. Great. I could add head injury to the long list of things to worry about.
“Let me go you little fucking witch.”
Rowan was back to himself, though from the muffled hissing and the sound of choking—I had to guess he was being force-fed animal crackers.
“Let me—mpphmmm. little…. fucking… mphmmphhmhppmm!”
“Rowan.” I managed to get out in a croak. Through flickering eyes, I caught glimpse of a familiar figure dancing around us. Shivers rocketed down my spine, and I wrenched at the jump-rope restraints, but they did a surprisingly job of restraining my arms behind my back.
Eleanor was with Rowan, while Eli was knelt in front of me. Looking at him, the boy had definitely aged in the face—and I couldn’t help wondering what exactly he had done as a forty something year old to be sent to this place.
“Josie!” Rowan responded in a wail. “Josie. Wake the FUCK up.”
“Stop swearing.”
Eleanor spoke with the cold tone of her actual age.
“Oh, yeah?” Rowan spluttered. “Fuck you.” The boy’s laugh was still rough from almost vomiting his insides out from too much salt intake. “I’m sorry, you were a fucking boomer all along?!” He wriggled in the restraints, lunging forwards, which sent me backwards.
“Stop swearing, Rowan.” Was all the girl responded with calmly.
“Like I’m going to listen to you!” He sneered. “Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fucking fuck!” What are you going to do, huh? Bite me with your false teeth?” The sound of saliva hitting skin made me wince. He was pissed. I had no doubt his completely rational anger was going to get us killed. Rowan was also somehow getting mixed up between forty and eighty. Though he was unwillingly snacking on mind bending sugary goodness.
“Fudge, Rowan.” Eleanor spoke in a giggle.
“What?!”
“Say fudge. Not fuck.”
“No.”
His hiss of pain caught me off guard. I don’t know what she was doing to him, but it was hurting him.
“You fudging fudge! I’m going to fudging kill you when I get out of these fudging ropes—“ his manic cursing became a muffled yell.
“Say fudge,” Eleanor hummed, followed by his hiss when the palm of her hand skinned his cheek. “Fuck is a bad word. You even said so yourself and you’re my favourite counselor.”
He heaved out a breath.
“You fudge,” Rowan spat. “When I get out of this, I am going to fudging kill you, you fudging—” His manic ranting morphed, once again, into muffled yelling, after another fistful of animal crackers were forced into his mouth. When I risked twisting around, I could see his rebellion slowly starting to simmer out as he relaxed slightly. I wanted to yell at him to keep a clear head before cold fingers were dipping under my chin and forcing my head around where I found myself face to face with Eli.
“I like you, Josie,” he said, before untying me and pulling me to my feet. Now at the age of nine or ten, he was a lot stronger. When I tried to pull away, the cruel blade of a knife grazed my gut. I caught his grin. “But we don’t need you.” Eli pointed to Rowan.
“We just want them.”
I followed his pointer finger which went from Rowan to Harry and Carmel, who were just standing there like fucking idiots, probably awaiting the next game. Harry’s face was getting redder. It looked like he was suffocating, and yet his grin was growing wider and wider, splitting his lips apart. “Rowan Atlas.” Eleanor said, dragging him to his feet. Something was stapled to his forehead head, which caused him to howl in pain, hissing another strangled line of “Fudge”. but I couldn’t read what it was.
“Camp leader. Intelligent, and problem solving skills.”
“Harry Carlisle.” Eli nodded his head with a smile. “Quick thinker. Strong minded.”
“Carmel Locke.” Cassie spoke behind me. She had her arms folded, a wry smile on her lips. “Smarter than she makes out—- an independent learner, and can work well under pressure.”
Looking at these kids, I felt sick to my stomach. They were planning something—and had the intelligence of renowned scientists, which was what I gathered from the footage on the MacBook. “What?” was all I could hiss out, as Eli prodded the blade of the knife into my back, ushering me to walk. “What are you talking about?”
“Duh.” He spoke in a more tweeny giggle. “Like I said, Miss Josie. You’re my favorite counselor but we don’t need you, so I’m going to use you for parts.” He laughed when a shiver spiderwebbed down my spine. “See! I told you I was going to show you my collection!”
“But… what do you need them for?”
Eli pressed his index finger to his lips with a laugh before forcing me to face forwards. “That’s a secret!”
When I didn’t, or couldn’t move, he shoved me into a stumbling power-walk, and I managed to turn my head quickly, making feverish eye contact with Rowan.
“Rowan.” I said calmly through the gutter in my throat. “Get…. Get help.”
If I was going to die, I needed him to get a hold of himself and somehow alert the outside world what was going on.
“From whom, Josie?!” He wailed back—and as I was dragged away, I could once again sense the childish undertones in his voice.
I had no choice but to obey Eli’s orders. If I didn’t want a knife in my back. He took me to the main lunch cabin, which, when I set foot inside, almost sent me to my knees.
Something lurched inside me, and I was screaming with no voice, staggering backwards, only to be shoved onto my face. In front of me was what had been the lunch hall, fully converted into the beginning of a laboratory.
What had been cafeteria tables were fashioned into makeshift gurney’s and beds, and I was looking at all of the missing counselors. Yuri and Noah had been skinned completely, their faces laid out on a makeshift surgical table. Joey had been ripped open, his heart and brain removed, a glittering metallic substance creeping its way across his forehead. It was then when I remembered Eleanor Summers words.
She wanted to prevent death and preserve the human mind. Looking at what was in front of me, this was the start of it. There was equipment I had never seen before. Lily’s body was empty, carved out completely, tubes forced inside her. When I glimpsed her fingers move and begin to ball into a fist, I saw red. I saw fucking red. The exit was so close and yet Eli, fucking Eli, wielded his knife. I think that is when part of me gave up. My brain just stopped. It short circuited. Seeing my friends murdered and yet somehow being kept alive through playing god, my body slumped to the ground. I was numb. Completely numb.
I’m not sure what would have happened if those bloody saws and instruments which had been used on my friends were used on me too.
Luckily, that did not happen. Before Eli could get his slimy hands on me, he crumpled to the ground in an almost cartoon-like fashion, and standing over me was Harry. Who was looking better. When he grasped hold of me and helped me up, I only had one word. “Out.” And he was nodding, his eyes glistening as he drunk in our friends’ fate.
“How?” I managed to sputter out, when we made it out of the cabin, ducking behind a tree. Harry turned to me, motioning for me to shut up. There was a group of now ten to eleven year olds already running around, searching for what I guessed was him.
“I’m allergic to peanut butter,” Harry murmured, his grasp tightening on my wrist as he led me across the camp, the two of us stumbling.
“What, and you just magically healed?”
He didn’t respond to that, which bothered me.
“The bunker is our best shot,” I hissed out. “I think we can get in contact with someone down there.” I paused, unable to stop myself. “What makes you so important?”
“Dunno. Maybe I’m their favorite.”
When we found Allison’s cabin, which was more of a safehouse (an exposed safehouse) I found Rowan sitting on the wooden porch with his legs swinging over the side. “Rowan!” Harry hissed. I found it hard to believe their roles had been switched. Now he was the one yelling at the camp-leader. “I told you to stay inside!”
He ushered the boy inside, before barricading the door with some hefty looking equipment. I could tell from the grin on his face that our so-called leader was once again no longer himself.
I had to bite back a groan. “You’re kidding.” I said, pointing to Rowan, who buried his head in his knees and blew a raspberry. “Does he look and act like our leader right now?!”
“It’s Rowan, Josie.”
“He’s a liability.”
“He’s our friend! Wouldn’t Rowan do the same?”
Yes, he would. But. He would also realize we’re lost causes.
“Gag him with something.” I said. “If he makes any more noise, we’re dumping him.”
“He’s a kid!”
“Just the mind of one.”
I don’t know how animal crackers worked, but his age seemed to be progressively younger. This time he just sat with wide eyes watching us.
Harry almost tore apart the place looking for means of communication, before an old fashioned ringing sound made me jump.
“What was that?” Harry turned to me with his lip curled.
“How am I supposed to know?!” I hissed. “Keep looking!” But when I ducked under the table, my hands crawled under the desk, finding a wire—and attached to that, an ancient looking phone which looked straight out of a 1940’s movie, a bright green rotary phone.
Hesitantly, I answered it, lifting the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Did you awaken the subjects, Agent Salta?"
The voice on the other end was a woman, an oldish sounding woman with the tinge of a British accent.
“What?” I shot a look at Harry before shaking my head. “No. My name is Josie Greenfield. We’re at Camp Redwood, and we need help.”
The woman paused.
“Where is Agent Salta?” She cleared her throat. “This line is reserved for communication with agents only.”
“I don’t know who the fuck you’re talking about!" I hissed out. “My name is Josie, and whatever is happening here, we need help!”
“Josie. Did you awaken the subjects?”
I paused after a moment, shooting Harry a look when he tried to take the phone off of me. “Yes.”
“And… are our agents unavailable?”
“I don’t understand.”
“When a health and safety breach is activated, our agents are awakened to deal with the Project Spearhead subjects if they were to ever go rogue, or become conscious enough to think. Josie, can you tell me what is in front of you? Describe it to me.”
I held my breath. Next to the hidden phone under the desk was what looked like mismatched wires, all of which had been severed. I lowered myself slowly, poking at mess. “Wires. I see… cut up wires.” I whispered. “Does this mean they know about you?”
She hummed. “Ah…That makes sense. The only way to activate our sleeper handlers would be to send out the signal. You appear to have been sabotaged. Unless activated manually, our agents cannot help you. I am sorry. They are your problem now.” The woman paused.
“If I were you, I would hope and pray they have not sabotaged the self-destruct. If you find that, then you may be able to save yourselves and find peace.” She cleared her throat. “Thank you for your service, Josie Greenfield.”
“Wait.” I managed to get out. “Wait, no! You can’t just… you can’t leave us! We need help!”
I found myself yelling at nothing when the phone went dead. The dull tone of the dead ringtone was clanging in my ears before footsteps from up above. “Fuck this.” Harry picked up a lead pipe. “They’re still little kids, right? I mean, their head must still be partly kids—- so let’s fucking beat their heads in.”
He noticed something, then, starting forwards towards the mess of files I had left earlier. Harry knelt on the ground and picked up Eli’s file, his eyes wide. But he wasn’t staring at the dates confirming the little boy’s age.
Instead, Harry pointed at the bottom of the file. “I don’t want to freak you out, Josie,” he whispered. Initially, I didn’t know what he was trying to show before I glimpsed notes scrawled at the bottom of the file, followed by a signature. “But I’m pretty sure that is my fucking writing.”
Harry was right.
I pulled the paperwork off of him, flicking through each file before turning my eyes to him. “Who the fuck are you?” I managed to hiss out.
A clanging sound from above broke the tension, and whatever Harry was about to reply with was strangled in his throat. He slammed a hand over his mouth.
“Guys?”
The voice twisted me up inside, threatening to release a shriek from my mouth I had managed to clamp shut.
Teddy.
“Are you down here?” His voice was strained, and had an odd tone to it. “I can’t… I can’t see you.”
…
Can someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?! It’s been a blur of a week. We’ve managed to stay down here, surviving off of Allison’s rations. Rowan isn’t getting any better. He seems to have stopped mentally de-ageing at the age of maybe six. Harry has spent the last few days trying to get in contact with anyone, but it’s like they are IGNORING US.
I’ve been looking through everything I can find on Project Spearhead, but nothing points to Harry being involved. So. How is his signature all over the files? How is it possible that two friends I thought I knew several days ago, are now complete strangers?
Teddy keeps coming back.
He’s crying out to us.
I think he’s… in pain.
My god, I can’t stand this anymore. Please. CAMP REDWOOD NEEDS HELP.

Taking csgo skins mainly (knives, gloves, aks, m4s, awps and so on). Anything as long as offer is good
I don't update this list everyday, so I have many items which aren't listed here. Check if something interests you! Also, some of the items are on trade hold, for release date you can add me or check by yourself.
TRADE LINK: https://steamcommunity.com/tradeoffenew/?partner=35769104&token=J30wyEpy
Add me to talk here: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197996034832
Keys from these buy outs aren't TF2 keys. I don't take Hydra keys either.
Buy outs are in keys for the sake of having a buy out, I trade for skins mainly.
Gloves/wraps:
Gloves Slingshot FT 0.36 float - B/O 200 keys
Gloves Amphibious WW 0.42 float - B/O 170 keys
Gloves Omega FT 0.33 float - B/O 160 keys
Gloves Snow Leopard FT 0.36 float - B/O 150 keys
Gloves Snow Leopard FT 0.37 float - B/O 150 keys
Gloves Tiger Strike FT 0.32 float - B/O 140 keys
Gloves Smoke Out MW 0.14 float - B/O 120 keys
Gloves King Snake FT 0.36 float - B/o 120 keys
Gloves Tiger Strike WW 0.44 float - B/O 100 keys
Gloves Field Agent FT 0.36 float - B/O 85 keys
Gloves Bronze Morph MW 0.14 float - B/O 75 keys
Gloves Cool Mint FT 0.36 float - B/O 75 keys
Gloves Arid BS 0.64 float - B/O 72 keys
Gloves Emerald Web BS 0.56 float - B/O 71 keys
Gloves Diamondback MW 0.13 float - B/O 68 keys
Gloves POW WW 0.38 float - B/O 66 keys
Wraps Caution FT 0.31 float - B/O 59 keys
Gloves Overtake MW 0.14 float - B/O 59 keys
Gloves King Snake BS 0.59 float - B/O 58 keys
Wraps Caution WW 0.38 float - B/O 50 keys
Wraps Overprint WW 0.43 float - B/O 50 keys
Gloves Big Game BS 0.69 float - B/O 47 keys
Gloves Polygon FT 0.18 float - B/O 50 keys
Gloves Blood Pressure FT 0.32 float - B/O 43 keys
Gloves Blood Pressure FT 0.35 float - B/O 43 keys
Gloves Blood Pressure FT 0.36 float - B/O 43 keys
Gloves Finish Line FT 0.22 float - B/O 50 keys
Gloves Finish Line FT 0.32 float - B/O 42 keys
Gloves Nocts BS 0.62 float - B/O 42 keys
Gloves Boom FT 0.37 float - B/O 38 keys
Gloves Lunar Weave FT 0.36 float - B/O 36 keys
Gloves Finish Line WW 0.41 float - B/O 36 keys
Gloves Diamondback FT 0.37 float - B/O 35 keys
Gloves Field Agent BS 0.77 float - B/O 34 keys
Wraps Overprint BS 0.75 float - B/O 34 keys
Gloves Marble Fade BS 0.57 float - B/O 33 keys
Gloves Case Hardened MW 0.12 float - B/O 33 keys
Gloves Mogul BS 0.60 float - B/O 33 keys
Gloves Cool Mint BS 0.63 float - B/O 31 keys
Gloves Bronze Morph BS 0.61 float - B/O 30 keys
Gloves Jade FT 0.23 float - B/O 35 keys
Gloves Forest Ddpat FT 0.35 float - B/O 26 keys
Wraps Duct Tape MW 0.12 float - B/O 25 keys
Gloves Charred FT 0.21 float - B/O 30 keys
Gloves Overtake FT 0.16 float - B/O 30 keys
Gloves Jaguar Queen FT 0.37 float - B/O 22 keys
Gloves Rezan FT 0.16 float - B/O 30 keys
Gloves Rezan FT 0.28 float - B/O 21 keys
Gloves Yellow-banded FT 0.30 float - B/O 21 keys
Gloves Diamondback BS 0.58 float - B/O 20 keys
Wraps Arboreal FT 0.31 float - B/O 20 keys
Gloves Snakebite FT 0.16 float - B/O 25 keys
Gloves Blood Pressure BS 0.74 float - B/O 19 keys
Gloves Forest Ddpat BS 0.46 float - B/o 19 keys
Gloves Convoy WW 0.44 float - B/o 19 keys
Gloves Case Hardened FT 0.15 float - B/O 23 keys
Gloves 3rd Company FT 0.36 float - B/O 17 keys
Goves Buckshot FT 0.15 float - B/O 20 keys
Gloves Unhinged FT 0.24 float - B/O 17 keys
Gloves Overtake BS 0.45 float - B/O 17 keys
Gloves 3rd Company FT 0.38 float - B/O 16 keys
Wraps Constrictor FT 0.31 float - B/O 16 keys
Gloves Buckshot WW 0.40 float - B/O 16 keys
Wraps Desert Shamagh FT 0.35 float - B/o 16 keys
Wraps Constrictor WW 0.38 float - B/O 16 keys
Gloves Transport BS 0.60 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Rezan BS 0.74 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Yellow-banded BS 0.63 float - B/o 15 keys
Gloves Guerrilla BS 0.53 float - B/o 15 keys
Gloves Buckshot BS 0.53 float - B/O 15 keys
Wraps Desert Shamagh WW 0.41 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Case Hardened BS 0.53 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Emerald FT 0.36 float - B/O 15 keys
Wraps Constrictor BS 0.74 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Needle Point FT 0.36 float - B/O 14 keys
Gloves Rattler FT 0.35 float - B/O 13 keys
Gloves Mangrove FT 0.25 float - B/O 12 keys
Gloves Racing Green FT 0.30 float - B/O 11 keys
Knives and high tier items:
Talon Black Pearl MW 0.07 float - B/O 600 keys
Karambit Autotronic MW 0.13 float - B/O 350 keys
Nomad Fade MW ST 99% 0.07 float - B/O 400 keys
M9 Tiger Tooth FN 0.003 float - B/O 300 keys
M9 Tiger Tooth FN 0.01 float - B/O 270 keys
Daggers Sapphire FN ST 0.004 float - B/O 230 keys
Karambit Black Laminate FT 0.29 float - B/O 210 keys
M9 Black Laminate MW 0.11 float - B/O 200 keys
Talon Slaughter FN 0.03 float - B/O 200 keys
DEAGLE Blaze FN 0.01 float - B/O 170 keys
Flip Lore FN 0.05 float - B/O 170 keys
Butterfly Night FT 0.19 float - B/O 190 keys
Bayonet Tiger Tooth FN 0.02 float - B/O 160 keys
Flip Gamma Doppler FN P4 0.02 float - B/O 160 keys
Butterfly Stained BS 0.90 float - B/O 150 keys
M9 Freehand MW 0.11 float - B/O 150 keys
Flip Marble Fade FN 0.004 float - B/O 140 keys
Butterfly Forest Ddpat FT 0.16 float - B/o 140 keys
Flip Gamma Doppler FN P1 0.01 float - B/O 140 keys
Butterfly Safari Mesh FT 0.19 float - B/O 140 keys
Flip Doppler FN P2 0.03 float - B/O 140 keys
Karambit Ultraviolet BS 0.51 float - B/o 140 keys
Bayonet Lore FT 0.25 float - B/O 140 keys
Ursus Doppler FN P4 0.06 float - B/O 140 keys
Nomad Vanilla - B/O 130 keys
M9 Damascus Steel FT 0.20 float - B/O 130 keys
AK Head Shot FN ST 0.05 float - B/o 130 keys
M9 Blue Steel BS 0.99 float - B/O 150 keys
Stiletto Tiger Tooth FN 0.006 float - B/O 130 keys
Huntsman Fade FN 0.03 float - B/O 130 keys
Flip Tiger Tooth FN 0.03 float - B/O 120 keys
Skeleton Stained FT 0.23 float - B/O 120 keys
Ursus Crimson Web MW 0.12 float - B/O 120 keys
Ursus Doppler FN P1 0.03 float - B/o 120 keys
Flip Vanilla - B/O 120 keys
Stiletto Vanilla - B/O 120 keys
Huntsman Gamma Doppler FN ST 0.02 float - B/O 120 keys
M9 Stained Ft 0.28 float - B/O 110 keys
Karambit Forest Ddpat FT 0.36 float - B/O 110 keys
Flip Doppler FN 0.01 float - B/O 110 keys
M9 Rust Coat BS 0.66 float - B/O 110 keys
M9 Night BS 0.49 float - B/O 110 keys
Ursus Tiger Tooth FN 0.008 float - B/O 110 keys
Bayonet Lore BS 0.62 float - B/O 100 keys
Flip Autotronic MW 0.14 float - B/O 100 keys
Skeleton Night FT ST 0.27 float - B/O 100 keys
M9 Urban Masked FT 0.28 float - B/O 100 keys
Bayonet Black Laminate MW 0.12 float - B/O 100 keys
Paracord Slaughter FN ST 0.03 float - B/O 90 keys
Flip Slaughter FT 0.23 float - B/O 90 keys
Huntsman Marble Fade FN 0.009 float - B/O 90 keys
Skeleton Stained BS 0.65 float - B/O 90 keys
Ursus Vanilla - B/O 85 keys
Gut Autotronic FN 0.05 float - B/O 84 keys
Bayonet Crimson Web FT 0.34 float - B/O 84 keys
Paracord Slaughter MW 0.10 float - B/O 83 keys
Bowie Marble Fade FN 0.01 float - B/O 82 keys
Bowie Marble Fade MW 0.07 float - B/O 82 keys
Bayonet Damascus Steel FT 0.22 float - B/O 82 keys
Bowie Doppler Fn P3 0.03 float - B/O 81 keys
Flip Autotronic FT 0.23 float - B/O 80 keys
Huntsman Tiger Tooth FN 0.02 float - B/O 75 keys
Talon Boreal MW 0.08 float - B/O 73 keys
Survival Vanilla - B/O 72 keys
Flip Ultraviolet MW 0.14 float - B/O 72 keys
Daggers Gamma Doppler FN P4 0.02 float - B/O 71 keys
Stiletto Damascus Steel FT 0.31 float - B/O 71 keys
Flip Bright Water FN 0.04 float - B/O 71 keys
Skeleton Safari Mesh FT 0.15 float - B/O 68 keys
Talon Safari Mesh MW 0.13 float - B/O 68 keys
Ursus Ultraviolet MW 0.13 float - B/O 67 keys
Bowie Tiger Tooth FN 0.02 float - B/O 67 keys
Paracord Crimson Web FT 0.15 float - B/O 80 keys
Classic Case Hardened MW 0.09 float - B/O 65 keys
Nomad Blue Steel BS 0.87 float - B/O 64 keys
Falchion Lore MW 0.09 float - B/O 61 keys
Gut Lore MW 0.12 float - B/O 60 keys
Paracord Forest Ddpat FN 0.06 float - B/O 57 keys
Bowie Case Hardened FT 0.18 float - B/O 57 keys
Gut Tiger Tooth MW 0.07 float - B/O 56 keys
Falchion Vanilla ST - B/O 55 keys
Ursus Damascus Steel FN 0.05 float - B/O 54 keys
Daggers Marble Fade FN 0.05 float - B/O 53 keys
Navaja Marble Fade FN ST 0.01 float - B/O 51 keys
Flip Night FT 0.23 float - B/O 51 keys
Gut Marble Fade FN 0.01 float - B/O 50 keys
Huntsman Black Laminate BS 0.80 float - B/O 50 keys
Falchion Lore Ft 0.24 float - B/O 50 keys
Gut Doppler FN P2 0.008 float - B/O 50 keys
Huntsman Freehand FN 0.06 float - B/O 49 keys
Huntsman Night MW 0.14 float - B/O 49 keys
Daggers Tiger Tooth FN 0.01 float - B/O 49 keys
Classic Blue Steel MW 0.12 float - B/O 48 keys
Ursus Ultraviolet FT 0.28 float - B/O 48 keys
Huntsman Crimson Web FT 0.31 float - B/O 48 keys
Huntsman Case Hardened WW 0.42 float - B/O 48 keys
Gut Doppler FN P4 0.02 float - B/O 48 keys
Ursus Damascus Steel MW 0.10 float - B/O 47 keys
Bowie Vanilla - B/O 47 keys
Daggers Lore MW 0.14 float - B/O 46 keys
Gut Tiger Tooth FN 0.03 float - B/O 46 keys
Daggers Vanilla - B/O 46 keys
Nomad Night FT 0.25 float - B/O 46 keys
Flip Rust Coat BS 0.63 float - B/O 46 keys
Navaja Doppler FN P2 0.02 float - B/O 46 keys
Navaja Marble Fade FN 0.03 float - B/O 46 keys
Ursus Night MW 0.14 float - B/o 45 keys
Gut Doppler FN P1 0.03 float - B/O 43 keys
Navaja Slaughter FN 0.05 float - B/O 43 keys
Stiletto Safari Mesh FT 0.20 float - B/O 43 keys
Classic Night BS 0.73 float - B/O 43 keys
Nomad Boreal FT 0.37 float - B/O 43 keys
Huntsman Freehand MW 0.11 float - B/O 43 keys
Daggers Slaughter MW 0.11 float - B/O 42 keys
Huntsman Damascus Steel MW 0.13 float - B/o 42 keys
Falchion Crimson Web FT 0.18 float - B/O 45 keys
Gut Vanilla - B/O 41 keys
Flip Urban Masked FT 0.28 float - B/O 41 keys
Paracord Blue Steel FT 0.36 float - B/O 40 keys
Nomad Safari Mesh MW 0.12 float - B/o 40 keys
Navaja Tiger Tooth FN 0.01 float - B/O 40 keys
Ursus Blue Steel BS 0.95 float - B/O 39 keys
Falchion Bright Water FN 0.05 float - B/O 39 keys
Daggers Lore FT 0.32 float - B/O 39 keys
Bowie Bright Water FN 0.06 float - B/O 39 keys
Gut Lore BS 0.59 float - B/O 38 keys
Flip Forest Ddpat FT 0.36 float - B/o 38 keys
Flip Scorched FT 0.34 float - B/O 37 keys
Flip Safari Mesh FT 0.36 float - B/O 37 keys
Nomad Scorched FT 0.35 float - B/o 36 keys
Nomad Safari Mesh WW 0.44 float - B/O 36 keys
Daggers Lore WW 0.42 float - B/O 35 keys
Daggers Crimson Web FT 0.37 float - B/O 35 keys
Classic Scorched FT 0.16 float - B/O 35 keys
Classic Boreal MW 0.08 float - B/O 34 keys
Falchion Bright Water MW 0.14 float - B/O 34 keys
Ursus Urban Masked FT 0.33 float - B/o 34 keys
Navaja Blue Steel FN 0.01 float - B/O 34 keys
Daggers Freehand FN 0.06 float - B/O 34 keys
Classic Urban Masked FT 0.35 float - B/O 34 keys
Classic Forest Ddpat FT 0.18 float - B/O 33 keys
Ursus Scorched MW 0.13 float - B/O 33 keys
Classic Safari Mesh MW 0.12 float - B/O 33 keys
Ursus Safari Mesh MW 0.12 float - B/O 32 keys
Ursus Scorched FT ST 0.35 float - B/O 32 keys
Navaja Vanilla - B/O 32 keys
Gut Ultraviolet MW 0.13 float - B/O 32 keys
Huntsman Bright Water FT 0.35 float - B/O 32 keys
Bowie Bright Water FT 0.17 float - B/O 31 keys
Bowie Ultraviolet WW 0.38 float - B/o 30 keys
Ursus Boreal FT 0.15 float - B/O 30 keys
Ursus Safari Mesh FT 0.20 float - B/O 30 keys
Falchion Black Laminate WW 0.39 float - B/O 29 keys
Survival Night BS 0.66 float - B/O 28 keys
Paracord Urban Masked FT 0.22 float - B/O 28 keys
Navaja Case Hardened WW 0.44 float - B/O 28 keys
Huntsman Boreal FT 0.27 float - B/O 28 keys
Huntsman Scorched FT 0.20 float - B/O 28 keys
Gut Bright Water FT ST 0.21 float - B/O 27 keys
Daggers Ultraviolet FT 0.30 float - B/O 27 keys
Gut Damascus Steel FT 0.35 float - B/O 27 keys
Gut Rust Coat BS ST 0.52 float - B/O 27 keys
Gut Bright Water FT 0.26 float - B/O 27 keys
Bowie Rust Coat BS 0.48 float - B/O 27 keys
Paracord Forest Ddpat FT 0.26 float - B/O 27 keys
Gut Night FT ST 0.18 float - B/O 26 keys
Gut Blue Steel FT 0.32 float - B/O 26 keys
Paracord Forest Ddpat WW 0.38 float - B/O 26 keys
Gut Freehand FT 0.30 float - B/O 26 keys
Paracord Safari Mesh FT 0.17 float - B/O 26 keys
Navaja Damascus Steel Fn 0.05 float - B/O 26 keys
Falchion Rust Coat BS 0.52 float - B/O 26 keys
Bowie Scorched FT 0.19 float - B/O 25 keys
Gut Freehand WW 0.40 float - B/o 25 keys
Falchion Forest Ddpat FT 0.15 float - B/O 25 keys
Daggers Ultraviolet WW 0.38 float - B/O 25 keys
Gut Rust Coat BS 0.55 float - B/O 24 keys
Gut Safari Mesh WW 0.38 float - B/O 23 keys
Daggers Bright Water FT 0.21 float - B/O 23 keys
Daggers Ultraviolet BS 0.52 float - B/O 23 keys
Navaja Blue Steel MW 0.12 float - B/O 23 keys
Gut Urban Masked FT 0.19 float - B/O 23 keys
Gut Boreal FT 0.23 float - B/O 23 keys
Gut Safari Mesh FT 0.28 float - B/O 22 keys
Daggers Black Laminate FT 0.37 float - B/O 22 keys
Gut Scorched FT 0.15 float - B/O 22 keys
Navaja Ultraviolet FT 0.36 float - B/O 22 keys
Daggers Night FT 0.25 float - B/O 22 keys
Navaja Boreal BS 0.67 float - B/O 21 keys
Navaja Night MW 0.12 float - B/O 21 keys
Navaja Stained FT 0.30 float - B/O 21 keys
Navaja Blue Steel WW 0.40 float - B/O 21 keys
Navaja Night BS 0.57 float - B/O 20 keys
Daggers Rust Coat BS 0.66 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Boreal FT 0.15 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Boreal Ft 0.15 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Urban Masked FT 0.28 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Night FT 0.20 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Safari Mesh BS 0.65 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Forest Ddpat FT 0.29 float - B/O 20 keys

I'm still going through the process. Rheumatologist thinks AS. GI problems are really bad at times.
Felt I was going to faint. Tons of gastric reflux. Urgent care ran my numbers. Lipase was outside of tolerable range. Just barely. Not off the charts.
Was my near fainting spell related to the high lipase ? Is my GI problem worsening ? I think so. Anyone have lots of GI issues ? Liver issues ? Is it related to AS ?
I'm going back to PCP for followup and another lipase level. Want to hear their plan but I'm curious about other people experiencing this. Thanks.

I went out drinking, came home with my (who ever he is to me, no title) and was a little drunk. Actually I was more like tipsy. We had amazing sex lol anyway, after that he offered me HALF a gummy.. and mind you I was conscious.. It’s not like I wasn’t aware of what I was doing and plus I trust him. He’s been in my life since we were teens and he’s a cop. Lol anyway, he asks me if I want it because it would put us to sleep real quick and I took it. It was HALF. I took it at 4am on the dot and woke up at 9am with the “out of body experience”. I never even had gummies and barely smoked weed 5x all together in my life. So needless to say, I’ve never been high before this. I wake up and I immediately sit up in panic and I knew something was off, it felt weird. He woke up and asked me if I was ok. I kept touching his arm and asking him if he could hear me lmao. He kept saying yes I hear you I’m right here with you. I wasn’t believing him and I then starting saying how I know he woke up and “found my body” and now he has to tell my family and they will all be sad I died lmao. He kept reassuring me I was ok and only high. I kept talking nonsense then he took me outside for a walk. We came near this pretty tree and I immediately grabbed him and said “omg no, let’s turn around” and he said why?? And I said “because this tree looks like a tree that would be at the gates of heaven” he chuckled and we turned around. Then I started having a panic attack and kept telling him I was about to faint. He then took me to sit down and tried to calm me down but I told him I wanted to be seen by a doctor so he took me to urgent care which thankfully is behind his house, barely 2 mins away. The doctor tells me it’s normal in just high ASS FUCK lol. He ends up telling me to go home put music on, lay down, and enjoy the rest of my high 😎 NEVERRR again lol. Only good thing that came out of this was the sex.
TL;DR: i took half a gummy and got ended up at urgent care.

Hey everyone! Posting this WAMC from a throwaway just because it has more personal details. I had done a WAMC on SDN and here before, but the school list seemed really top heavy, and also there are apparently people out there with 10-30 publications 💀. Hoping to just get some final feedback before I submit.
GPA: cGPA: 3.82 and sGPA: 3.74, B.S. in Biochemistry, minor in chemistry
MCAT: 521
Demographics: URM white hispanic (so marking white and mexican), bisexual.
Illinois residency, ties to Ohio and Michigan
School type: T40 private, primarily paid for with merit scholarships, grants, and work during school
Clinical (all volunteer): 200 hrs EMT emergency response (over 2 years), 700 hrs with a free clinic working primarily with AA and hispanic populations (over 2 years), doing patient assessments and vitals
Research: Roughly 1,000 hrs at 2 labs (400 hrs at first, 600 at second) with 2 first-author presentations at local school conferences from the 2nd lab
Shadowing: 32 hrs shadowing an anesthesiologist, 32 hrs primary care physician
Non-clinical volunteering (most impactful):
I have to double check because it's my part-time gap year work, but it's probably over 2,000 hours at this point over 3 years and my gap year. All my hours have been as a volunteer and now as a director for a 100-person social justice and government policy non-profit. As a volunteer, I largely worked with hispanic and AA students by going into local schools and helping host sessions to discuss issues affecting local students and their communities (food deserts, lack of internet access, LGBTQ issues, etc), as well as leading laptop and internet hotspot distribution programs that gave students hundreds of devices.
As I worked up in leadership, I got more involved in the policy side of things. I've been the director of our national townhall series, which are events hosted with national political leaders. I coordinated and ran the events for townhalls with all the candidates for Cleveland's mayoral election (including incumbent mayor), the candidates for Congresswoman for our national congressional district, and our state's Secretary of State. All these events primarily focused on lack of internet access in our city and have had around 5,000 attendees in total. I also later helped to manage the school program mentioned in the first paragraph, which has worked with over 6,000 students across 40 different schools in the area.
Finally, I helped get legislation passed at the state level, entailing over $200 million in internet broadband funding from the Federal Government for our state. This entailed writing up a policy white paper, going to the state capital to talk to the State congress, discussing the issues and details with the bill's sponsor, and working with another policy research non-profit. This ultimately created the BroadbandOhio program, which I've been working with for the last year on additional legislation for Ohio. I've also been involved with our grant process and have applied for and managed about $200,000 in grant funding.
Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc):
Biology TA for 2 years, resident assistant and senior resident assistant for 3 years, emergency dispatcher for one year, and led a large campus board for 3 years.
This board involved me leading and overseeing about 13 student organizations and 1,000 students, working directly with administration on student issues related to media. I also wrote up a report and created a new student center through the conversion of an old building; got about $300,000 in funding from administration for it and the board itself had about $500,000 in annual budget that I managed directly. Board was advised by an associate dean that I'm close with. I also have some minor leadership in comparison to the campus board and non-profit work.
Relevant honors or awards:
Won two national awards, about $15,000 in scholarships, several campus awards, and featured on the news for the non-profit; won a campus award and a $1,000 prize for leading the student center project. Some other minor stuff like Dean's list and around $10,000 for research funding over 2 summers from 2 separate grants.
Anything else not listed you think might be important:
Letter writers will be the biology professor I took a class with and later TA'd for; nutrition professor I took several classes and a graduate research seminar with; physics professor I had for a small class and who liked my non-profit work; founder and former CEO of the non-profit I'm on the board for; and dean for the student board.
Issues:
Got 2 Cs in Calc 2 and Ochem 1 freshman year and a withdrawal from an economics class during sophomore year (got a concussion and just general difficulties with adapting to college). However, I've had a near 4.0 since then, with As in Ochem 2, 4 physics courses, and 2 upper division calculus courses. Finally, my school offers a committee letter but, because of a change I had to make in my application, it'll be delayed until SeptembeOctober because my school normally submits them in August. Because of that, I've decided to go with individual letters, which I know is a negative and a knock against me, but I'd rather have the guarantee of submitting early with my own letters. I also will not have a PI letter of recommendation and research will not be one of my MMEs (the student board, non-profit, and free clinic will be)
I primarily want to target T20 ish schools (maybe want to do a competitive specialty) in the Midwest/Northeast in urban areas (I do bike and transportation advocacy as a hobby, so they're very important to me) and apply to around 20-30 schools, hopefully with merit money.
Preliminary list:
Northwestern
UChicago
Rush
UIC
Loyola
Washington University in St. Louis
University of Iowa
University of Michigan
Ohio State
University of Cincinnati
Mayo (MN)
Vanderbilt
Duke
Emory
University of Pittsburgh
University of Rochester
Albert Einstein
Columbia
Mt. Sinai
Cornell
Georgetown
Yale
Harvard
UCLA
UCSF
Case Western
Maybe: NYU, Stanford, Penn, JHU, Jefferson, Boston, George Washington, Brown

[ [FIRST] [NEXT>]
Season 5 “Exotic Pets”
Episode 1 “The Night's Weave”
In any other professional setting, doing what he was currently doing would be considered highly unprofessional. In fact, even in any other precinct what he was doing right now would be very unprofessional. Usually, walking through the front door with your boss clinging to your arm like a swooning teenager would generally be interpreted only one way.
Thankfully, nobody specifically cared about this in this precinct, nor did they come to the obvious conclusion “Thank you, I’ll finish recovering in the break room” she says, with a trembling voice.
“You sure you don’t want me there?” admittedly, playing this role wasn’t really professional either for him but everyone understood the need of it.
“Yes” Keya lets go of Santos’ arm “I’ll just do the thing and drink something cold, then I can start this waking properly” she gently taps her tail on his shoulder “Now go get to work”
He sighs as he walks back to his desk. They had a wonderful two days with nothing happening after the short little session of everything happening, it was unsurprising that she’d start processing things through her nightmares now, leading those being screaming days. “‘least it isn’t the cold bastard yet” he mutters as he sits down.
And so here he planned to spend the rest of his work day getting mighty annoyed at their Regional Firebase. That damned place was in charge of both the fiscal, maitenance and archivistic functions for all the precincts in this area, not only they held the pursestrings of the operation they were also the ones in charge of maintaining equipment, assigning personnel and keeping all the information they needed to work up to date. And they seemed to hate him. Him, specifically, because the problems only started happening when he got here.
Of course he wasn’t just getting annoyed at the Regional for no reason, he was getting annoyed at them for their sheer incompetence, and he hoped it was incompetence, at keeping up data. He’d been hunting down any information about some old unsolved cases, and he’d been getting more luck with random phone calls to other precincts halfway across the planet than an official request to his own Regional.
Sadly, not every plan survives contact with the work day. After some time he feels a presence nearby and turns to look, there is Keya looking mostly like her normal self, except perhaps more tired than normal. She brings her holopad down to put it against his, transferring mission data “Nothing serious, or at least nothing dangerous. But we really should take this call”
He looks down at his device and calls up the mission data he’s just received. Predator sighting near… Orran’s house? Bit too close for comfort, real sightings are usually at the farms, but scarcely any information. Just something small and quadrupedal is the useful information, the rest is just usual ‘predator’ panic speech. “This looks like a ghost call, but sure I’ll go” he stands up and starts heading towards the garage, but stops and turns around “Stay here boss, no need to-”
“Yes there is, don’t worry about me” Keya takes a deep breath “I’m not at full capacity but i’m fine, let’s go” she walks past him.
With a shrug, he follows. As they settle in the car and Keya starts driving, he picks up his holopad to re-read the mission data. Nothing, obviously, has changed but he gives it more attention now. Small quadruped, fast, like a shadow… If there were any other humans here he’d believe it was someone’s pet cat, but without anyone dumb enough to bring an exotic animal to an alien planet in sight that’s unlikely. Sadly, none of the usual trash-diggers quite match either.
But there’s one final detail that’s weird. This… Isn’t the first call. There’s been a lot more calls related to this one, an entire fifty eight different calls all tied to this same incident report. He starts following links to the previous calls and checking them- All of them are the same incident, small quadruped, fast and like a shadow… And they were all marked as minimal priority, and left forgotten and unattended.
With a raised eyebrow he continues to check, seeing the dates of the reports. They were insistent, and have been going on for a while now. They’re not older than his presence here, but aside from them having stopped completely for the previous five days, those calls have been a daily occurrence. And each and every one of them was set to minimum priority by Keya herself, and promptly forgotten. Which indicated there had to be something going on here, because she’d never leave a call forgotten like this, at least not when she woke up screaming.
“Boss-” but before he can say anything, they’ve arrived. A considerably different house than the rest of the residences of the town, Orran had been living here long enough to have completely rebuilt his house in the style of his people, or at least the exterior and a few additions. It was weirdly tall for his size despite being only one floor, the exterior was coated with a material that looked like an earthen-brown daub but the evenness of the striations in the material showed an artistic care in its application beyond the means of manual work. The windows were higher in the walls than in a normal venlil residence and they seemed to have multiple layers, both glass and wood were used in their construction with the final layer being some form of metal.
“Huhn, I wonder if the weather on his homeworld is that wild?” he says, staring at the windows. He’s familiar with that kind of design, it could easily be used to control airflow to various degrees and help regulate temperature. But this entire getup seemed like overkill to him, unless wherever this was used had the breadth of half of Earth’s weather happening in the same area.
“Only about where I lived” Orran’s voice echoes from behind the door, which consists of a mesh door behind a wooden door. The yotul opens them and offers him an ear flick “Nightmare weather that place, used to have a flood gate in the house too. Only good thing the feds to that town was deepening the river to handle the summer floodwaters”
Santos blinks, looks at the agriculturalist, looks back at the car where Keya still is, then back at the yotul “Dang, have I been just staring here for long? I got kind of distracted, haven’t ever actually stopped by to watch your house before”
“Oh, feel free to take it in. Took some effort to get the wattle and daub look just right, not really helping the primitive stereotype much” he says with a joyful wave of his tail “But what can I say, I’m wild nations, feds ain’t the first to call me primitive and i’m still proud of it. Still, to what do I owe the honor?”
He tilts his head to the side slightly, taking in the man’s words for a moment. They made a distressing amount of sense, guess the Yotul would still remember those parts of their own history. But he was here for a job “Yeah, we got a sighting report around here” he picks up his holopad and brings it up “In fact a report in your residence. Do you mind if I look around real quick?”
He notices Orran’s tail stilling “Hrm? I can say I haven’t seen anything, and I live here”
Taking a deep breath Santos stares at the yotul, he knows the flinch isn’t an instinctive reaction “Orran. A few paws ago you didn’t notice the nixa’s claw marks in your kitchen. And this call came in today” then he turns his stare to the side with a sigh “I just want to make sure there’s nothing, alright?”
He can see in his periphery the man going through a wild set of conflicting emotions, only to settle into a defeated expression “Alright… Just, I was uhn… Canning some food. Can you at least spare my dignity somewhat and let me clean up?”
“Sure man, it’s not urgent” he shrugs. As Orran heads back inside he looks back at the car, where Keya is still sitting. Then he looks back at Orran’s door. Something isn’t adding up, and that something is his boss’ behavior.
There is some noise from inside for a while until Orran returns “Alright, got my machinery packed, c’mon in” he mentions before waving him in.
There’s a certain aesthetic clash heading inside, it’s visible that Orran had put in effort into adding in the colors and signs of his people into a venlil residence, but the apparent lack of capacity (or funds) to really change the foundations of it meant a lot of the structure was still that of a normal venlil home.
Still, the walls had been decorated to look like they’re made of wooden planks on the inside with the actual materials only visible near things such as power sockets. The living room itself was decorated in a lightly distressing manner with effectively a circle of couches on slightly raised platforms around a central table, the television has been set up on it with a pivoting base. It looked like someone had repurposed a firepit, or rather the entire setup was designed to evoke the look of a firepit.
There was what looked like, initially, a cloth hanger near the door, but on second look what it really held was a very long string of beads- The way they were strung around it made him imagine Orran wearing those very much like a scarf which also bound around his wrists.
On the wall in the far end was something that looked like a banner, though it was best described as an unframed painting with a tougher canvas. It depicted a distant view of a town in some sandy plateau, the center of the picture was bright and colorful and clearly in the morning but at the sides one could see two long-tailed animals making their way to the center where the town resides, behind them the image was dark and stars could be seen in the sky. The way the nighttime emanated from the creatures it seemed more like they were dragging the curtains of night with their tails. Shaking his head, Santos forces himself to stop ogling Orran’s things and starts looking around.
He wasn’t, sincerely, being serious about this. But not only was this whole song and dance a necessity, but his earlier words WERE true. Just had to check for obvious signs of dangerous things. So a quick cursory glance under the couches, a short moment in the kitchen whose fridge’s scratches still weren’t repaired- Santos stops for a second more staring at the scratch marks on the fridge. He looks at Orran who’s following him, who looks confused. No, this man was not that stupid, he trusted him enough.
Still, that meant he’d have to pay more attention now. Respectfully, without actually touching anything, he continues a visual inspection towards the other side of the house. A short corridor with the doors to the bedroom and bathroom. He passes by the bedroom and stops in front of the closed bathroom door. He sighs and kneels down in front of it.
“What is it?” Orran says behind him
What is it, is that he had heard something “Just… Let me check…” he gently taps the door. And he hears the noise again, light scratching. It stops for a moment, and then he taps the door again, causing them to start for a moment again. He looks back to the frozen yotul, who was apparently actually that stupid “Set ‘em loose if you would?”
Orran doesn’t respond, he just stays there “Look, man. At the very least trust in the fact I’m a human? Not a fan of using my species as a bargaining tool but I think it’s actually relevant here?” Santos stands up again and starts heading to the living room.
He waits patiently for a while, until Orran finally arrives. A small little beast threads through his feet as he walks, not unlike a cat that is doing their best to get kicked, it is indeed a small quadruped with great agility, not only that it has a distinctive striped dark blue coat that is so deep it could be mistaken for black as well as a tail about as long as it’s torso. It’s not a beast Santos recognizes, other than from the painting in the wall, so at least he can’t blame his own kind for this problem. He looks up and sees Orran has another one in his arms, this one looking much more calm and gentle.
Santos rubs his eyes “Really, Orran? You, of all people” he sighs “Come on, not to be racist here but I’d expect a yotul, no, a yotul ecologist to know better.” he waves at the man’s beasts “Did you really bring exotic pets to another planet?! No, not another country, another planet?” he sighs “What even are those?”
“Nightweaver hensa” says a soft voice from behind him, he turns around to see that Keya had finally arrived “An endangered species native to Leirn, called like that after a legend that they were the ones who’d drag the veil of night over the scorching sun” she sounds mostly like herself, but he can feel a flatness creeping up in her delivery.
Santos stares at her for a moment, looks back at Orran with a piercing stare, then slowly lowers his eyes to the hensa he’s carrying “Endangered animals? Are you-” but a light sound draws his attention back to Keya. She simply taps a place in her chest, the motion confuses him for a moment until he looks down at himself. Where she tapped is exactly where the insignia of the exterminator’s guild is in his uniform. He starts exhaling air slowly as he sits down on a couch “Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me.”
He looks at Orran protectively holding his pet, looking terrified. The first time he’s seen the man look afraid. He looks down, and notices one of the two hensa had walked up to him. He notices in his periphery Orran flinches when he offers his hand for the feline-like to sniff “Plausible deniability” he says.
When nobody else says anything, he continues “I thought it was weird she made me get inside on my own before her. I am, of course, human. Some things are expected out of us, I’m sure a big fuss is expected out of me over a pet” when the alien feline seems confident enough, it gives his finger a gentle nip and puts its entire head on his hand “So just in case we don’t have any protocol about how to deal with this situation, she can pretend whatever happens is because of me”
He gently caresses the little beast “I thought it was weird you had personally deprioritized fifty eight calls” the tone is not quite accusatory
“He quite clearly had them under control, there was no need to do anything about it” Keya says as if it was the most normal thing
“Why now?”
Keya gently sways her tail “I got tired of it. After the last few paws I don’t think I have the energy to deal with this anymore” it made sense, he knew she had a limit to her emotional energy.
Orran slowly tilts his head to look at Keya “Wait… You’ve known about them?”
She gives him an affirmative ear flick “I even know they’re Nightweavers. They were already an endangered breed before your first contact, for all I know they’re the last two living Nightweavers”
At that, Santos focuses on the one that Orran is holding… Something about it… It’s a she “A breeding pair” this causes the yotul to snap his focus on him “You brought a breeding pair. It would be bad enough if they were just pets, maybe they’d be neutered and the worst damage they’d do would be for however long those fluffball live, but you’re looking at increasing the population”
He sighs “Orran… You know this will cause a disaster, don’t you? Do I need to tell you about the extinction level events that were every goddamn invasive species on Earth? Do I need to tell you the number of species gone extinct because of our cats?” he takes a deep breath “Actually, no, I don’t think I need to. You don’t actually care, do you?” he continues to gently caress the overly-affectionate little feline that at this point had jumped on his lap and burrowed itself under his shirt “Not only you don’t care… Any collateral you cause is probably just rightful vengeance for you is it?”
“It’s not like that!” the yotul shouts “I… I was breeder back home, okay? I wasn’t a farmer, I was a hensa breeder” he thumps his tail on the ground in anger “You weren’t there… You weren’t there to watch what they did to my… When I had a chance to run away and… And save some of them. I just grabbed who I could and just ran.” he holds the pregnant female a little bit tighter “I wasn’t planning on… Anything. I wasn’t planning, I wasn’t thinking… I… I wound up here, eventually…”
Santos brings down his other hand to scratch the little alien kitten. He takes a moment to just take in the little beast, whatever ecological niche it filled had to be infinitely similar to that of cats to be so similar yet so different. The tail movements were so different, a lot more energetic, a lot more in general, made sense since their owners had tails too, they probably could read each other much better. And it seemed to enjoy getting squished for some reason, he wondered why. He had all of those wonders and thoughts while he tried to not think about what he’d have to do.
Those hensa couldn’t stay here. Maybe, a very wild maybe, if they were neutered they could. But those were pretty much for breeding and of a particularly endangered kind as well, so that was out of the picture. Of course, those two space felines would also need to be cared for, they were an endangered species so that was non-negotiable. The UN had some measures for dealing with terran animals in this planet, from relocation to shelters to even a few approved areas they could live in, but they only dealt in terran animals not leirnian animals.
At this point his thoughts are interrupted by Keya’s voice “I don’t care who, anyone that can help is enough” he looks up at her, she has her holopad firmly clenched in her hands and her right eye focused directly on it.
She’s on a call.
---
And here we have it, we meet the two little disasters-to-be while the precinct chief throws their human into the fire as a possible scapegoat for any possible crazy plan they might have to resort to. And in fact, said crazy plan seems to involve a desperate plea over the phone.
Also, I had a bit of fun trying to thinking what Orran's house might be like, and somewhere along the line I got this weird thought: They're certainly not innocent of or about colonialism, so wouldn't the displaced natives of their own world at least feel a tiny bit of vindication watching their own conquerors get conquered in turn? Doesn't make things better but the irony of it all must be sweet.
Edit: FFS. Reddit, LET ME EDIT TITLES

Hi, I just graduated high school and I want to go into pre-med. I have very little medical experience and haven’t started college yet but i want to work in a medical environment like a hospital, clinic, urgent care, etc. I would be fine with a front desk job but I would prefer to be on the site or as close as possible. I know I wont be conducting any surgeries lol but even something as simple as taking notes for the doctors, comforting patients, documenting data, would be nice and teach me a lot about the medical field. The problem is most places are so specific with what they want and require certificates. I had friends in college who worked for “contractors” at hospitals and learned a lot out of it. I just don’t know how I would go about finding one and applying. So I’m wondering, what are my options? Where should I start? Has anyone managed to do anything similar?

"Think of this as a chance at revenge," Sweeney said.
​
Revenge.
​
What a moronically quaint idea.
​
This jumped up little shit had come into my home, interrupted my retirement and here he was talking to me about revenge, as if he knew the first thing about what I’d seen, what I’d been through, why I’d quit.
​
Looking into his eyes, I knew he didn’t understand. I knew he couldn’t.
​
I've been hunting vampires for most of my life. I've killed more of them than I can count. But Clementine Di Cesare was no ordinary vampire. Hell, none of the Di Cesares were ordinary vampires, but even among them Clementine was… unique. She was the one all the others quietly feared. The one who was even spoken of with reverence by the Di Cesares masters, those twin Immortals who could not be killed by any weapon of this world. Seeking revenge against her was like seeking revenge against death itself.
​
“Revenge?” I repeated, with a dismissive scoff.
“You’re really going to tell me that after what she put you through, you don’t want revenge?” Sweeney asked.
“If you knew what she did to me, you’d know why I don’t want revenge,” I replied.
“Really? Sorry Franklin, but I don’t buy that. Look, I get it if you’re reluctant to jump back into the fight. I do. You of all people know just how dangerous the Di Cesare’s are. Especially ‘La Morte’.”
​
I looked over at him as he said that name. It rolled off his tongue so irreverently. To him, it was just a name. An alias assigned to some vampire he’s only heard of stories. He didn’t utter it with the respect it deserved, and I almost couldn’t be bothered to correct him. Any words spent on this small minded glory hound were probably wasted.
​
“Yes, I do know.”
“Which is why I need you,” Sweeney said. He almost sounded as if he were pleading with me. “Think of this as an opportunity to set things right… to put that vampire bitch in the ground where she belongs, and save God only knows how many lives in the process!”
I sighed.
He just didn’t get it.
​
“Mark my words, Mr. Sweeney, if you chase after Clementine Di Cesare, you’ll end far more lives than you save. She didn’t get a name like ‘La Morte’ for nothing. She earned it. Purchased it with the blood of the tens of thousands she’s sent screaming into the maw of Hell. She is not something you chase, Sweeney.”
“She’s a vampire,” Sweeney said dismissively. “She’s another enemy to destroy.”
“That’s what George Bundy said,” I replied. “Then not too long after, he died.”
“I’m not George Bundy,” Sweeney said.
“No. You sure as hell ain’t,” I agreed, before looking the kid in the eye.
​
He thought he was an up and comer, climbing the ranks of the Brethren. He probably thought of himself as some sort of badass vampire hunter too, when in reality he could never have so much as dreamed of holding a candle to the likes of Bundy… or hell, any of the men who’d died in Brazil.
“You should watch your tone with me,” Sweeney warned.
“Or you’ll do what?” I asked, “You ain’t going to frighten me with vague threats, boy. I’ve walked through Hell, trying to kill the Devil. What have you done?”
​
Sweeney bit his lip but didn’t respond.
“There’s nothing you can say or do that will intimidate me,” I said, before lighting myself a cigarette. I stared at the road outside of my porch, old memories flooding back to me before looking over at Sweeney again. He sat in his chair beside me like a sulky child. This was the man who wanted to destroy the Di Cesare family? Pathetic.
​
“Exactly how much do you know about the Brazil Job?” I asked.
“I know it was a failure. Clementine Di Cesare killed most of the men the Brethren sent out… all except for you. You were the only one good enough to beat her.”
“Good enough…” I repeated with a huff, “Hardly… whatever picture you’ve got in your head of some glorified battle, throw it away. Trust me, the Brazil Job was anything but glorious. It was a two hour long trek through Hell. And I didn’t beat Di Cesare at the end of it. I survived her. They’re two different things entirely.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Sweeney said.
“You wouldn’t, would you?” I sighed and took another drag on my cigarette.
​
This kid wasn’t going to leave until I made him understand… so I told him my story. I told him everything even though I knew he’d learn nothing from it.
​
***
​
I’d joined up with the Brethren Knights of St. Fontaine back in the 1980s to hunt monsters. Back then, it seemed like the best use of my skills. I’d done my tours with the army, but even after I got out, I was still looking for an enemy to fight. So naturally, once I found out that vampires were real, I set my sights on them. It seemed like the most sensible thing to do at the time.
​
The Brethren Knights fancied themselves the descendants of the Knights Templar, and they insisted that their God given mission was to protect mankind from the things that lurked in the shadows. I didn’t really have much love for God at the time, but if the Bretheren were the ones fighting the monsters, then I was happy to tolerate the Jesus freaks in their ranks.
​
It was 1988 when we first heard whispers of the Imperium. A supposed cabal of vampires, trying to get them organized. At the time, it’d seemed too crazy to be true. Vampires generally went their own way, in my experience. At most, they might have a partner but other than they they didn’t really socialize with their own kind. But supposedly someone out there had the big fucking balls to keep them in line, and whoever they were, they scared the shit out of the Brethren.
​
They’d started targeting high profile vampires, trying to find someone who was involved in this ‘Imperium’, hoping that maybe they might get someone to talk. And it wasn’t long until they found someone who did.
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From my understanding, the vampire they captured didn’t seem to know much about who was actually running the show. But they knew who their second in command was… and that was when I first head about the Di Cesare family.
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The name was familiar to some of the higher ups in the Brethren, and I’d heard some stories. Not sure which were true, but the long and short of it was that the Di Cesare’s and the Brethren shared a bloody history, and didn’t particularly like each other too much.
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George Bundy explained it to me like this at one point: ‘The Di Cesare’s are an old family. Most of them used to be witches, up until their Matriarch turned them into vampires. Now they’re a whole new kind of nasty. Far as I know, the only time anyone’s actually managed to kill one was about 200 years ago. Anyone who’s tried since has ended up dead, so most folks don’t even bother anymore.’
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I guess it shouldn’t have been surprising they’d be involved in the Imperium, but the mere mention of their name ruffled some feathers higher up on the chain of command, and eventually they put out a kill order on them. Most of the Di Cesare’s were generally pretty hard to track down, but the top brass had a pretty good line on their matriarch, Bianca Di Cesare. Supposedly, she’d been spotted near the family’s private estate in Brazil and rumor had it that most of her daughters were there too.
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Normally, the brass wouldn’t have sanctioned any kind of attack on them. The Di Cesare’s were already considered off limits, and attacking them at their private estate was considered damn near impossible. The estate was located in a small mining town outside of Manaus called Refugio de Julia, or just Julia for short. The town was fairly remote, being only accessible from a few backroads and most folks tended to avoid it, claiming they’d had various strange encounters in the area. Their accounts described unsettling pale figures with dark hair and large green eyes working in the mines, although some of the more disturbing stories we heard involved sightings of other creatures in the jungle surrounding the town. Massive spiders with humanoid faces, tending rotting corpses filled with stinging bees, giant howling beasts who tore through the forest, hunting prey, and beautiful women who would appear in the nearby towns, betwitching men into coming away with them only to reveal themselves as monsters who fed on the blood of their victims. Some had even claimed the Di Cesares themselves were such beasts… although those claims weren’t taken quite as seriously.
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A skeptic might say the stories that surrounded Julia seemed like little more than just local superstition… but the Brethren had been dealing with the supernatural for long enough to recognize when something was probably real, and when it was probably fake and they knew damn well that most of the stories about Julia were probably true. None of them had ever dared set foot in Julia to find out for sure, since doing so would probably be suicide, but the theory was that the Di Cesares had created Julia as something of a refuge for other creatures. Other vampires, werewolves, arachne, karah and all sorts of other hellspawn. They offered them a home and safety in exchange for their labor in the mines. Hell, the name of the town more or less spelled it out.
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Refugio de Julia
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Julia’s Haven.
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Julia had been the name of the only member of the Di Cesare family that the Brethren had ever killed, so I guess it was only fitting they named the town after her.
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I honestly think using other creatures like them as a workforce was a bit inspired… since it made Julia damn near impenetrable. Reaching their estate at the far side of the town would have been impossible without being noticed by every creature of hell living in that town, and odds are they’d tear anyone apart long before they even reached the gates of the Di Cesare estate. And if one had the bright idea to approach the estate from another angle, they’d be trudging through miles and miles of rainforest to do so, only end up face to face with a massive stone wall that kept the rainforest out.
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In effect - the Di Cesare estate was a fortress. Getting in would be no easy feat, to say nothing of confronting the vampires within. But with the fear of the Imperium gnawing at the back of their minds, the Brethren had finally set their minds to trying.
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George Bundy had been the one in charge of planning the operation out.
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I’d known Bundy before I’d joined up with the Brethren. Hell, Bundy was the whole reason I’d joined the Brethren. He’d been my CO a number of years back, and he’d earned his reputation as a hardass just about ten or twenty times over. Bundy was a gruff looking man with a bushy moustache and intense eyes. During the years I knew him, I don’t believe I ever once saw him so much as crack a smile. He only ever seemed to speak when he felt there was something he needed to say. Otherwise, he was usually dead silent.
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He was somewhere in his late fifties back in 88. By all rights, he ought to have retired years ago. But he refused.
“I’m a soldier,” He said, when I asked him about it once. “That’s all I am. I don’t know what else to be.”
​
Bundy’s initial plan had been to hit the Di Cesare estate from the air. Come in fast and loud with a couple of helicopters and see how those vampires stood up to some good old American flak. The idea got shot down pretty quickly, so to speak. Apperantly, most if not all of the Di Cesares had cursed their own bodies, causing whatever wound one inflicted on them to appear on whoever it was who had wounded them. Going in guns blazing would have ended in a bloodbath… and not for them. There were also some concerns about drawing attention from Julia. With no conclusive data on just what they had living in that town, there was no guarantee we’d be safe in the air. A few eyewitnesses had described seeing giant nests in some of the trees in the jungle, supposedly consistent with the nests made by harpies.
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Flying in guns blazing was out. So Bundy went back to the drawing board and what he came back with… well, it was ballsy, but it almost seemed like it just might work. During his reconnisance of the Di Cesare’s estate, he’d noticed a large but shallow tributary flowing into the amazon river that led right through the Di Cesare’s estate. Along the tributary was an abandoned water mill, that connected to the Di Cesare estate.
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He’d suggested using the water mill to gain entry to the grounds, and from there, move on the Di Cesare’s. That plan had been approved, and Bundy had been allowed to handpick his team for the operation. He’d chosen fifteen men, all of them ex military, most of them having served under him before.
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He’d told us we would be dividing into three teams of five men each. We would leave Manaus by boat, and land at three different areas near the tributary before making our way to the mill on foot, where we would regroup, before moving on the Di Cesares. The reason for the division was to ensure that if any of our teams ran into trouble upon making ground, the entire operation wouldn’t be compromised.
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Team 1, led by Bundy himself would depart first and land to the west of the tributary. Team 2, led by a man named Ferdinand Hernandez would make land about fifteen minutes later near the mouth of the tributary and Team 3, to be led by me would land fifteen minutes later to the east.
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On the day of the operation, I sat in my boat, watching as the other two left. It was twilight when we set out, and I remember that as my team and I carried out our final checks on our equipment, the only thing I felt was a familiar anticipation.
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I’d hesitate to call it fear. Fear is what came later. Anticipation is the better word. I knew we could be walking into a tough situation… but I trusted Bundy. I trusted he’d run a smooth op. God knew, he’d done it a thousand times before.
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The team assigned to me wasn’t anything particularly special. They were competent enough, but none of them would’ve been my first choices. Jack McMullen, for instance, who was about the same age as I was at the time. We’d both served under Bundy before, although while I respected Bundy, Jack was wholly devoted to him. I swear, if the man had told him to stuff a live grenade up his ass, Jack would’ve done it without a moments hesitation. I dunno if Jack simply saw him as the father he’d never had or what, but he damn near worshipped Bundy.
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I can’t quite say the same for the other guys we had with us, though. One of them, some greenhorn by the name of Pearce Wilson struck me as an airheaded pretty boy who’d never actually had his boots on the ground before, while the other one, Scott Barber had left a bad taste in my mouth last time we’d worked together. Barber was capable… but he was violent. This was a kid with a hell of a chip on his shoulder, and it looked a hell of a lot like that Confederate flag patch he wore on his jacket. He wanted an excuse to shoot something, and I don’t think he cared what. Under most circumstances I’m not sure I would’ve fully trusted him with a gun.
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The last one though, Joseph Feng… him I trusted. Feng was the one I knew the least about, and he didn’t seem much for conversation. But he handled himself competently enough and seemed to know when to sit down and shut up.
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When Team 2’s boat was far enough away, we got the radio signal to follow. Barber was the one steering the boat, so I gave him the order to cast off and we ventured out into the twilight, unaware of just what was waiting for us out there.
​
***
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We landed in our designated area fifteen minutes after Team 2 confirmed they’d touched down at theirs. Our landing was fairly uneventful. Feng, Barber, and I secured the boat before we radio’d Bundy to let him know we were in position. After that, it was just a matter of making it to the tributary.
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As we ventured into the jungle, the world around us was quiet. There was wind, the whisper of the river behind us, and the sounds of animals. But little else. The river fell away behind us as we moved in single file toward the tributary, maintaining radio silence as we did.
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It was about a half hour before we heard the gunshot.
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Just one, echoing through the twilight. But it was enough to give us pause.
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“The fuck was that?” I heard Barber ask. Immediately, the kid was on high alert, with his gun raised as if he were expecting every monster in Julia to come charging at us from all angles.
I just listened, waiting to hear if there was anything else. I half expected my radio to come to life, but it didn’t.
“Team 1, status?” I asked.
The radio crackled with static, but there was no response.
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I tried it again, but still with no success. The radio was working, that much I was sure of. Something had to be blocking the signal.
“What’s going on?” Feng asked.
“Dunno,” I replied. “Comms are down.”
“Down?” Wilson asked, “So we’re flying blind out here, then?”
“More or less,” I replied.
“What do we do? Do we go back… if the comms are down…”
“Just because something’s jamming our signal doesn’t mean we’re made,” I said. “Relax. We keep moving for now. You keep your eyes wide open, and your head on a swivel. We’ll make it to the tributary and see if we can’t meet up with the other teams.”
I could tell Wilson wasn’t a fan of my answer, but I didn’t much care. We had a job to do, and I aimed to do it.
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I pressed on without a further word and the others followed. Up ahead, I could hear the sound of running water and picked up the pace. I figured the tributary had to be close… and I was right.
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I emerged from the brush into the stream, only to pause when I saw what was waiting for us in the water.
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In the dying sunlight, it was impossible to mistake the bodies sprawled out on the rocks as anything else… and all I needed to do was look at their uniforms to know they were our people.
“Jesus…” I heard Wilson say under his breath. He froze up, lingering by the bank as I cautiously approached one of the bodies.
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It belonged to a somewhat heavyset man with a thin mustache who I recognized as Hernandez. His eyes were still open, although lifeless and staring in different directions, and there was a clean hole in his forehead where a bullet had ended his life. The gunshot we’d heard earlier had likely been the sound of his death.
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Looking at the bodies around him, I knew they had to be the rest of Team 2… although it was a little harder pinning down their cause of death. Some sort of bladed weapon, perhaps, judging by the state of them. I realized the odds were that they walked into some sort of ambush.
“What about Bundy and Team 1?” Jack asked, “Any sign of them?”
“No,” I said. “These bodies are all from Team 2… Bundy could still be ahead of us.”
“Then we need to keep going!”
​
Jack turned, heading up the stream and Barber was right behind him. Feng paused for a moment, thinking this over before following. Only Wilson remained.
“How do we know we’re not walking into a trap?” He asked.
“We’ll deal with that when we get to it,” I said before moving to follow the others.
“With all due respect, Sarge… that doesn’t sound like the best course of action!” Wilson argued, finally following me. “It sounds just like a good way to get killed!”
“Yeah?” I asked, “I’m gonna tell you an ugly truth, kid. That’s the job. Make your peace with it, and it’ll go a lot easier.”
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Wilson didn’t like that answer either and trailed off behind me, watching as I continued upstream. For a moment, I half expected him to go back to the boat… but no. I dunno if he found his balls or just didn’t want to get left behind, but he started to follow us again.
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I kept trying to raise Team 1 on the radio while we walked, although I still had no luck. The light above us slowly faded into darkness as we trudged through the water in silence, guns sitting comfortably in our hands and mosquitos biting at our necks.
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It wasn’t until we lost Feng that I heard anybody so much as make a sound, and when we lost Feng… it happened almost instantaneously. One minute, he was at the head of the group, walking just ahead of Jack and I. The next, he was gone, only barely having the time to let out a scream as he fell into the river ahead of us.
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The rest of us paused. Jack seemed to freeze and I pushed past him, calling out for Feng as I did. As punishment for my compassion, I almost went down after him. I only barely stopped myself from stepping on the slippery rocks that had helped send him to his demise.
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I could see Feng’s body in the water, and I could see the blood pouring out of him. He twitched a few times, but I knew he was dead. The sharpened wooden spikes jutting out of him confirmed as much.
“What the hell…” Jack said under his breath, staring at Feng’s corpse in disbelief. “That’s a fucking spike trap!”
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Yeah.
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It was indeed a fucking spike trap.
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I could see other spikes jutting out of the water ahead of us, just past a small dam of rocks that were just slippery enough to make it difficult to stop yourself from falling. Some of those spikes had other bodies on them… likely members of Team 1. I only counted two, although that still didn’t exactly bode well.
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“They put a fucking spike trap in the goddamn stream…” Jack said, “Who the hell does that?”
“Somebody who’s expecting us to use the stream,” I replied.
“So they know we’re coming?” Barber asked.
“Clearly…” I replied. “And they’ve got a good idea on what our route is too.”
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“Yeah, no shit!” Barber snapped. “Christ… let’s get the fuck out of here. There’s probably more fucking traps upstream!”
“Bundy’s orders were clear!” Jack argued.
“Bundy’s probably dead by now!” Barber replied, before looking at me. “Sarge, come on. You have to know this is suicide!”
“Suicide was part of the job description, was it not?” I asked.
“The job is to kill those fucking vampires, not to die in the goddamn process! We need to get out of the stream and into the woods!”
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“Judging by the fate Team 2 met, I’m not sure the forest is someplace we want to be right now,” I replied.
“Excuse me?” Barber asked, “What the hell are you talking about, Sarge?”
“Five men dead, but only one gunshot. How did the rest die?”
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Barber didn’t seem to be able to answer that.
“By now… yes. It’s clear we’ve walked into a trap. And yes, I understand that it makes sense to try and leave that trap… but I don’t know if we’ll be safer in the jungle. Something jumped Team 2. Cut them apart, and then shot Hernandez as a warning. They didn’t have to shoot him. They did it so we’d hear.”
“Your point being?” Barber asked.
“I don’t think this is just a trap, Barber. It’s a game. Stop playing, and you might just end up like our friends downstream.”
“A game?” Wilson asked, “Sarge, you can’t be serious!”
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“From where I’m standing, we have a better chance of surviving in the stream,” I said. “Look, we’re at least halfway to the rendezvous point, and there have to be at least two members of Team 1 left. The safest thing to do right now is to follow them.”
“You’re off your fucking rocker, Sarge,” Barber spat, locking his eyes with mine. For a moment, I thought the boy was going to try and fight me. But no. He was wise enough to stand down.
“If you wanna get yourself killed, go right the fuck ahead. Just leave me out of it! Wilson, come on,” Barber said before trudging over to the edge of the stream. Wilson didn’t even hesitate, just looking back at Jack and I quietly before he disappeared into the forest with Barber.
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“You’re not gonna stop them?” Jack asked.
“No,” I replied. “God willing, there’s a chance that pigheaded asshole is right… dunno how much of a chance, but a chance.”
“Then how come we’re not following him?” Jack asked.
“There’s also a chance he’s wrong.”
I turned, before making my way around the spike trap.
“Keep a slower pace,” I said. “Watch for traps.”
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Jack hesitated for a moment, but he followed me without any further questions and we walked in silence for a little longer.
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We heard nothing from the trees. Nothing that told us about the fate of Barber and Wilson. I wasn’t sure if that was good news or not.
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In fact, I don’t think we heard a thing until about a half hour later, when we heard the explosion.
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It came out of almost nowhere, but ahead of us I could see a flash of light and hear the screams of men. On instinct, I found myself picking up the pace and could hear Jack behind me. In the low light, I saw a shape float past me in the stream. It took me a moment to realize that it was a severed human arm.
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In the water ahead of us, I could see a figure clinging to one of the rocks and trying to pick himself up. I recognized him as George Bundy.
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Jack was at his side almost immediately, trying to help the old man to his feet.
“Sir! Are you alright?”
Bundy just wheezed, before his legs gave out from under him. I helped Jack drag him to the shore so he could sit and rest for a moment.
“What the hell was that?” I asked, looking back at the stream.
“Grenade trap… I think…” Bundy panted, “Fucking tripwire… Popkov tripped it, I think…”
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Popkov… odds are he was one of the two mangled corpses lying in the river a few feet away from us. It seemed they’d taken the brunt of the explosion, although Bundy still had some shrapnel in his arm that Jack was tending to.
“Christ… whole fucking ops gone to shit…” Bundy spat. “Team 2 got taken out just about as soon as they landed. Someone killed them and dumped them in the goddamn river. Lost half my boys to the fucking spike trap and half to this…”
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He looked up at us, before spitting onto the ground.
“Guess you two haven’t done much better.”
“Hard to say,” I replied. “Two of ours took off into the woods, trying to avoid the traps.”
“Then they’re dead,” Bundy replied. “I’ve seen her watching us… always just up ahead, always from a distance… she’s seeing how far we’ll go. How much we’ll take…”
“She?” I asked.
“La Morte. Should’ve figured she’d be the one to greet us.”
“La Morte?” I asked.
​
“It’s Italian. Supposedly, she earned that name around the time the Di Cesares fled Venice. It’s funny, the Brethren like to act like the Di Cesares leaving Venice was some big victory of theirs, since before they did, they finally killed one of them… hard to call it a victory though, considering how many corpses they made before they fled. And most of them came from La Morte…”
Bundy winced in pain as Jack bandaged his arm before he continued talking.
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“See… when the Di Cesare’s left Venice, one of them stayed behind. Clementine, the Scorpio sister. Guess she was unwilling to leave the fight unfinished… and according to the stories, the death toll she personally amassed in the years after the Di Cesare’s left Venice make the bodies they claimed during the Venetian Massacre a hundred and fifty years prior look like a pittance. The Brethren still occupying the city started to call her La Morte. Death. Cuz wherever she went, death followed in her wake… and it seems we’ve walked right into her open arms, haven’t we, boys?”
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“You’re sure it’s her?” I asked.
“She’s a Di Cesare… and the shit we’ve seen out here… I don’t see any other Di Cesare setting those traps. It’s her. I’m sure of it. She’s watching us. Seeing how far we’ll go. Seeing if we’ll turn tail…”
“Should we?” Jack asked, and Bundy finally seemed to acknowledge him.
“Excuse me?” He asked.
“Should we? Look, sir… I’d follow you into the mouth of Hell, but right now, we’re down from fifteen men to three. Can’t say I’m optimistic about our chances right now. If this woman is half as bad as you’re saying she is, maybe it’s time we took a step back!”
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Jack looked at me, hoping I might back him up, but I remained silent.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Bundy asked.
“What I’m hearing here, is that as of right now, the vampire out there could kill us at any time. She hasn’t. Far as I’m concerned, that’s mercy. Maybe we should be taking it while it’s offered.”
Bundy stared at him, before chuckling. I think it was the first time I’d ever seen him laugh.
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“Just walk away, then?” He asked.
“Walk away, and come back better prepared!” Jack corrected.
“Walk away,” Bundy said again. “We walk away now, and there won’t be a chance to come back better prepared. We get one shot at this. One. Failure is not an option. We go in there and we kill them or we die. End of discussion.”
“And how exactly are we even supposed to kill them?” Jack asked, “That curse they have… bullets aren’t gonna do shit, sir!”
“Yours won’t, mine will…”
Bundy pulled his pistol from his holster. I noticed some sort of pattern crudely engraved on it.
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“I’ve been doing some research… studied the curse they put on themselves… and I think I’ve found a way to break it. Not sure if it’ll work yet… but we get one chance to test it.”
Jack stared at the gun, then back at Bundy.
“Sir… do you hear yourself?” He asked quietly, “You can’t be serious… right now, even with that gun we don’t stand a chance in he-”
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The gunshot echoed through the forest and made me jump. Jack’s voice died in his throat as he hit the ground.
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Bundy stared at him for a moment, before huffing and holstering his pistol again. He draped his coat over his shoulders, before looking over at me.
“No room for failure, Frank,” He said calmly.
I didn’t know what to say to that. I stared down at Jack’s body, my mouth hanging open slightly. When I looked back at Bundy, he was already back in the stream.
​
There was a tense silence between Bundy and I as I followed him along the final stretch of the tributary. He trudged on ahead, covered in sweat and straining with every step, but I could sense the quiet determination he had to see this through. Looking at him, you could’ve told me that George Bundy could wipe out the Di Cesare’s all by himself and I would have believed it in a second.
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The night around us was full of sound, and each one drew my attention. I watched the forest, expecting to see some sign of La Morte watching us. But I saw nothing, except for what she wanted me to see.
“Mill’s just up ahead,” I heard Bundy say as we pressed on, although I noticed his steps faltering as he seemed to notice something in the trees above us. I stopped behind him, looking up before seeing what he saw, and when I saw it I felt my stomach turn.
​
I’d seen death before.
But what Di Cesare had left out for us… that was something else.
Pearce Wilson and Scott Barber weren’t dead.
But if they could have spoke, I’ve got no doubt they would have begged us to kill them. Wilsons pretty face was covered in blood and his pouty lips were parted as more trickled out of him. His curly blond hair was matted and I could see crimson there. Tree branches portruded from his ribs, while the loops of his entrails dangled out of his opened stomach. And Barber was in just about the same state, only he seemed to at least have the ability to turn his head to look at us.
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I think he might have tried to speak, but the only sound he seemed to be able to make was a pained whimper.
“Jesus Christ…” I said softly.
“He had nothing to do with this,” Bundy replied. He took one last look at the two dying men hanging from the trees, before moving on.
“We should put them out of their misery, sir,” I said.
​
Bundy paused, before looking back at me.
“Don’t waste the ammo, Frank,” He replied. “They’re already dead.”
“Not yet they’re not!”
“Give them time. They chose to go into the woods. They can live with the consequences… for however long that lasts.”
​
With that, he left them. If I were a more compassionate man, I would have put them out of their misery. But no. Bundy moved on and so did I.
​
He approached the water mill, before examining it. It was an old building, made of stone that had long since been overgrown by moss, and sat right on the wall that separated the Di Cesares estate from the amazon. It hardly looked secure, even if the only entrance hadn’t just been an old wooden door secured with a padlock, finding a way in wouldn’t have been difficult. And it didn’t take much for Bundy to break through that door. All he needed was a couple of well placed kicks and it swung right open.
​
Drawing his gun, Bundy strode inside and I followed him.
“The Di Cesare’s will be in the main house,” He said. “We should find a way in through the back, try and catch them off guard. Main target should be the matriarch, Bianca. Her we should prioritize keeping alive… the rest are expendable.”
​
“Much as you are, I’m sure.” A voice called from deeper in the mill, and both Bundy and I froze.
I noticed movement on the floor above us, and through the shadows, I saw a tall woman watching us. She was dressed all in black, with blond hair tied back in a ponytail and the intense eyes of a soldier.
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This had to be Clementine Di Cesare.
​
Bundy aimed his pistol at her, although she only barely seemed to notice.
“Only two of you left… I’m not sure the odds are in your favor,” The woman said. Her voice was low, calm and quiet.
“Only one way to find out,” Bundy growled.
“And only one way to walk out of this place alive,” Di Cesare countered. “You can put the gun down, turn and walk away. I won’t stop you. There’s no shame in living.”
​
“All the bodies you’ve left in your wake… that’s rich,” Bundy said.
“I don’t relish what I’ve done. I simply don’t know how to do anything else,” She replied. “Think about this, Bundy. Over my lifetime, there have been countless thousands who have come to kill me. All of them are dead, but I am not. Even if you could kill me… you could not kill my sisters. Not all of them. Not before they came for you.”
“Just you, would be enough…” Bundy said, before pulling the trigger.
​
I knew he’d hit her. I knew the bullet pierced her shoulder. But that woman… she didn’t even flinch. She simply dove out of the way before he could shoot again, taking cover and avoiding his next shot.
“Frank, upstairs!” Bundy snapped, “Flush her out!”
I went, trudging up the old wooden steps with my rifle drawn. Only to see Di Cesare vaulting over the railing and back down to the ground floor as soon as I made it up there.
​
Bundy shot at her again, only to miss for a second time. I saw Di Cesare’s arm move, and heard him cry out in pain. In the low light, I could see a dagger protruding from his shoulder. He stumbled back a step, leaving himself open for only a split second.
​
That second was all it took for Di Cesare to raise her own gun and fire just one shot.
​
George Bundy hit the ground without so much as a final scream. There was just a simple hole in his skull where she had shot him.
​
I felt my heart start to race faster. My eyes settled on Bundy’s gun, and I ran for the railing, vaulting it and dropping to the ground below with a thud. Di Cesare shot at me, and I felt the bullet tear through my leg. I reached out for the fallen gun and grabbed it before turning it on Di Cesare, only to find myself staring down the barrel of her own pistol. My finger rested on the trigger, but I didn’t have the guts to pull it.
​
"Kill me, and you will not see the sun tomorrow." She said, her voice still cold and calm.
“Killing you is part of the job…” I replied, but my finger still couldn’t squeeze the trigger.
“And is it worth your life?” Di Cesare asked. “You fail your mission either way.”
“And die with some goddamn honor…”
“There’s no such thing as honor. There is alive and there is dead. Choose.”
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I knew what I was supposed to choose.
​
But my hands were shaking, as I stared into the face of death. My finger couldn’t squeeze the trigger.
​
The gun collapsed to the floor and Di Cesare kicked it away from me, before huffing and lowering her gun.
“Do not return,” She said softly. “Or next time, I will unleash a hell upon you that will make you beg for simple traps.”
​
She picked Bundy’s gun up off the ground, and then she was gone. After I finally picked myself up off the ground, I was gone too.
​
As I walked back along the stream… I passed the corpses of the men we’d left behind. Barber and Wilson, Jack, Feng, Hernandez, and his team. The flies were already feasting on them. Animals had already torn at them. And as I looked down at their cold corpses, I knew I had made the right choice.
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I filed my report with the Brethren. Told them that Di Cesare had wiped us out, and a few months later I quietly retired. I never looked back.
​
***
​
“You walked away from her?” Sweeney asked in disbelief, “You had her dead to rights and you walked away from her?”
“I chose to live,” I replied. “Can’t say I regret the decision either. Because of the choice I made, I met my wife and had my kids. I’ve lived the life I had because I chose not to throw it away on some vampire.”
​
Sweeney just shook his head.
“You could have gotten the first confirmed kill on a Di Cesare in two centuries, and you threw it away you fucking coward! I could execute you for that!” I noticed his hand hovering over the gun on his hip.
“You could.” I replied, before quietly unholstering the pistol I kept at my side. I aimed it at Sweeney’s head.
​
He stared at me like a slack jawed idiot.
“Would you like to give it a try?”
“W-what…?”
“Would you like to give it a try, Mr. Sweeney? Or would you like to see the sun tomorrow?”
He stared down the barrel of my gun, and I already knew what his choice would be.
​
Sweeney took a step back. I saw his hand move away from his holster, and I lowered the gun with a huff.
“Thought so,” I said.
Mr. Sweeney left me without another word.
I knew he would not return.

"Think of this as a chance at revenge," Sweeney said.
​
Revenge.
​
What a moronically quaint idea.
​
This jumped up little shit had come into my home, interrupted my retirement and here he was talking to me about revenge, as if he knew the first thing about what I’d seen, what I’d been through, why I’d quit.
​
Looking into his eyes, I knew he didn’t understand. I knew he couldn’t.
​
I've been hunting vampires for most of my life. I've killed more of them than I can count. But Clementine Di Cesare was no ordinary vampire. Hell, none of the Di Cesares were ordinary vampires, but even among them Clementine was… unique. She was the one all the others quietly feared. The one who was even spoken of with reverence by the Di Cesares masters, those twin Immortals who could not be killed by any weapon of this world. Seeking revenge against her was like seeking revenge against death itself.
​
“Revenge?” I repeated, with a dismissive scoff.
“You’re really going to tell me that after what she put you through, you don’t want revenge?” Sweeney asked.
“If you knew what she did to me, you’d know why I don’t want revenge,” I replied.
“Really? Sorry Franklin, but I don’t buy that. Look, I get it if you’re reluctant to jump back into the fight. I do. You of all people know just how dangerous the Di Cesare’s are. Especially ‘La Morte’.”
​
I looked over at him as he said that name. It rolled off his tongue so irreverently. To him, it was just a name. An alias assigned to some vampire he’s only heard of stories. He didn’t utter it with the respect it deserved, and I almost couldn’t be bothered to correct him. Any words spent on this small minded glory hound were probably wasted.
​
“Yes, I do know.”
“Which is why I need you,” Sweeney said. He almost sounded as if he were pleading with me. “Think of this as an opportunity to set things right… to put that vampire bitch in the ground where she belongs, and save God only knows how many lives in the process!”
I sighed.
He just didn’t get it.
​
“Mark my words, Mr. Sweeney, if you chase after Clementine Di Cesare, you’ll end far more lives than you save. She didn’t get a name like ‘La Morte’ for nothing. She earned it. Purchased it with the blood of the tens of thousands she’s sent screaming into the maw of Hell. She is not something you chase, Sweeney.”
“She’s a vampire,” Sweeney said dismissively. “She’s another enemy to destroy.”
“That’s what George Bundy said,” I replied. “Then not too long after, he died.”
“I’m not George Bundy,” Sweeney said.
“No. You sure as hell ain’t,” I agreed, before looking the kid in the eye.
​
He thought he was an up and comer, climbing the ranks of the Brethren. He probably thought of himself as some sort of badass vampire hunter too, when in reality he could never have so much as dreamed of holding a candle to the likes of Bundy… or hell, any of the men who’d died in Brazil.
“You should watch your tone with me,” Sweeney warned.
“Or you’ll do what?” I asked, “You ain’t going to frighten me with vague threats, boy. I’ve walked through Hell, trying to kill the Devil. What have you done?”
​
Sweeney bit his lip but didn’t respond.
“There’s nothing you can say or do that will intimidate me,” I said, before lighting myself a cigarette. I stared at the road outside of my porch, old memories flooding back to me before looking over at Sweeney again. He sat in his chair beside me like a sulky child. This was the man who wanted to destroy the Di Cesare family? Pathetic.
​
“Exactly how much do you know about the Brazil Job?” I asked.
“I know it was a failure. Clementine Di Cesare killed most of the men the Brethren sent out… all except for you. You were the only one good enough to beat her.”
“Good enough…” I repeated with a huff, “Hardly… whatever picture you’ve got in your head of some glorified battle, throw it away. Trust me, the Brazil Job was anything but glorious. It was a two hour long trek through Hell. And I didn’t beat Di Cesare at the end of it. I survived her. They’re two different things entirely.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Sweeney said.
“You wouldn’t, would you?” I sighed and took another drag on my cigarette.
​
This kid wasn’t going to leave until I made him understand… so I told him my story. I told him everything even though I knew he’d learn nothing from it.
​
***
​
I’d joined up with the Brethren Knights of St. Fontaine back in the 1980s to hunt monsters. Back then, it seemed like the best use of my skills. I’d done my tours with the army, but even after I got out, I was still looking for an enemy to fight. So naturally, once I found out that vampires were real, I set my sights on them. It seemed like the most sensible thing to do at the time.
​
The Brethren Knights fancied themselves the descendants of the Knights Templar, and they insisted that their God given mission was to protect mankind from the things that lurked in the shadows. I didn’t really have much love for God at the time, but if the Bretheren were the ones fighting the monsters, then I was happy to tolerate the Jesus freaks in their ranks.
​
It was 1988 when we first heard whispers of the Imperium. A supposed cabal of vampires, trying to get them organized. At the time, it’d seemed too crazy to be true. Vampires generally went their own way, in my experience. At most, they might have a partner but other than they they didn’t really socialize with their own kind. But supposedly someone out there had the big fucking balls to keep them in line, and whoever they were, they scared the shit out of the Brethren.
​
They’d started targeting high profile vampires, trying to find someone who was involved in this ‘Imperium’, hoping that maybe they might get someone to talk. And it wasn’t long until they found someone who did.
​
From my understanding, the vampire they captured didn’t seem to know much about who was actually running the show. But they knew who their second in command was… and that was when I first head about the Di Cesare family.
​
The name was familiar to some of the higher ups in the Brethren, and I’d heard some stories. Not sure which were true, but the long and short of it was that the Di Cesare’s and the Brethren shared a bloody history, and didn’t particularly like each other too much.
​
George Bundy explained it to me like this at one point: ‘The Di Cesare’s are an old family. Most of them used to be witches, up until their Matriarch turned them into vampires. Now they’re a whole new kind of nasty. Far as I know, the only time anyone’s actually managed to kill one was about 200 years ago. Anyone who’s tried since has ended up dead, so most folks don’t even bother anymore.’
​
I guess it shouldn’t have been surprising they’d be involved in the Imperium, but the mere mention of their name ruffled some feathers higher up on the chain of command, and eventually they put out a kill order on them. Most of the Di Cesare’s were generally pretty hard to track down, but the top brass had a pretty good line on their matriarch, Bianca Di Cesare. Supposedly, she’d been spotted near the family’s private estate in Brazil and rumor had it that most of her daughters were there too.
​
Normally, the brass wouldn’t have sanctioned any kind of attack on them. The Di Cesare’s were already considered off limits, and attacking them at their private estate was considered damn near impossible. The estate was located in a small mining town outside of Manaus called Refugio de Julia, or just Julia for short. The town was fairly remote, being only accessible from a few backroads and most folks tended to avoid it, claiming they’d had various strange encounters in the area. Their accounts described unsettling pale figures with dark hair and large green eyes working in the mines, although some of the more disturbing stories we heard involved sightings of other creatures in the jungle surrounding the town. Massive spiders with humanoid faces, tending rotting corpses filled with stinging bees, giant howling beasts who tore through the forest, hunting prey, and beautiful women who would appear in the nearby towns, betwitching men into coming away with them only to reveal themselves as monsters who fed on the blood of their victims. Some had even claimed the Di Cesares themselves were such beasts… although those claims weren’t taken quite as seriously.
​
A skeptic might say the stories that surrounded Julia seemed like little more than just local superstition… but the Brethren had been dealing with the supernatural for long enough to recognize when something was probably real, and when it was probably fake and they knew damn well that most of the stories about Julia were probably true. None of them had ever dared set foot in Julia to find out for sure, since doing so would probably be suicide, but the theory was that the Di Cesares had created Julia as something of a refuge for other creatures. Other vampires, werewolves, arachne, karah and all sorts of other hellspawn. They offered them a home and safety in exchange for their labor in the mines. Hell, the name of the town more or less spelled it out.
​
Refugio de Julia
​
Julia’s Haven.
​
Julia had been the name of the only member of the Di Cesare family that the Brethren had ever killed, so I guess it was only fitting they named the town after her.
​
I honestly think using other creatures like them as a workforce was a bit inspired… since it made Julia damn near impenetrable. Reaching their estate at the far side of the town would have been impossible without being noticed by every creature of hell living in that town, and odds are they’d tear anyone apart long before they even reached the gates of the Di Cesare estate. And if one had the bright idea to approach the estate from another angle, they’d be trudging through miles and miles of rainforest to do so, only end up face to face with a massive stone wall that kept the rainforest out.
​
In effect - the Di Cesare estate was a fortress. Getting in would be no easy feat, to say nothing of confronting the vampires within. But with the fear of the Imperium gnawing at the back of their minds, the Brethren had finally set their minds to trying.
​
George Bundy had been the one in charge of planning the operation out.
​
I’d known Bundy before I’d joined up with the Brethren. Hell, Bundy was the whole reason I’d joined the Brethren. He’d been my CO a number of years back, and he’d earned his reputation as a hardass just about ten or twenty times over. Bundy was a gruff looking man with a bushy moustache and intense eyes. During the years I knew him, I don’t believe I ever once saw him so much as crack a smile. He only ever seemed to speak when he felt there was something he needed to say. Otherwise, he was usually dead silent.
​
He was somewhere in his late fifties back in 88. By all rights, he ought to have retired years ago. But he refused.
“I’m a soldier,” He said, when I asked him about it once. “That’s all I am. I don’t know what else to be.”
​
Bundy’s initial plan had been to hit the Di Cesare estate from the air. Come in fast and loud with a couple of helicopters and see how those vampires stood up to some good old American flak. The idea got shot down pretty quickly, so to speak. Apperantly, most if not all of the Di Cesares had cursed their own bodies, causing whatever wound one inflicted on them to appear on whoever it was who had wounded them. Going in guns blazing would have ended in a bloodbath… and not for them. There were also some concerns about drawing attention from Julia. With no conclusive data on just what they had living in that town, there was no guarantee we’d be safe in the air. A few eyewitnesses had described seeing giant nests in some of the trees in the jungle, supposedly consistent with the nests made by harpies.
​
Flying in guns blazing was out. So Bundy went back to the drawing board and what he came back with… well, it was ballsy, but it almost seemed like it just might work. During his reconnisance of the Di Cesare’s estate, he’d noticed a large but shallow tributary flowing into the amazon river that led right through the Di Cesare’s estate. Along the tributary was an abandoned water mill, that connected to the Di Cesare estate.
​
He’d suggested using the water mill to gain entry to the grounds, and from there, move on the Di Cesare’s. That plan had been approved, and Bundy had been allowed to handpick his team for the operation. He’d chosen fifteen men, all of them ex military, most of them having served under him before.
​
He’d told us we would be dividing into three teams of five men each. We would leave Manaus by boat, and land at three different areas near the tributary before making our way to the mill on foot, where we would regroup, before moving on the Di Cesares. The reason for the division was to ensure that if any of our teams ran into trouble upon making ground, the entire operation wouldn’t be compromised.
​
Team 1, led by Bundy himself would depart first and land to the west of the tributary. Team 2, led by a man named Ferdinand Hernandez would make land about fifteen minutes later near the mouth of the tributary and Team 3, to be led by me would land fifteen minutes later to the east.
​
On the day of the operation, I sat in my boat, watching as the other two left. It was twilight when we set out, and I remember that as my team and I carried out our final checks on our equipment, the only thing I felt was a familiar anticipation.
​
I’d hesitate to call it fear. Fear is what came later. Anticipation is the better word. I knew we could be walking into a tough situation… but I trusted Bundy. I trusted he’d run a smooth op. God knew, he’d done it a thousand times before.
​
The team assigned to me wasn’t anything particularly special. They were competent enough, but none of them would’ve been my first choices. Jack McMullen, for instance, who was about the same age as I was at the time. We’d both served under Bundy before, although while I respected Bundy, Jack was wholly devoted to him. I swear, if the man had told him to stuff a live grenade up his ass, Jack would’ve done it without a moments hesitation. I dunno if Jack simply saw him as the father he’d never had or what, but he damn near worshipped Bundy.
​
I can’t quite say the same for the other guys we had with us, though. One of them, some greenhorn by the name of Pearce Wilson struck me as an airheaded pretty boy who’d never actually had his boots on the ground before, while the other one, Scott Barber had left a bad taste in my mouth last time we’d worked together. Barber was capable… but he was violent. This was a kid with a hell of a chip on his shoulder, and it looked a hell of a lot like that Confederate flag patch he wore on his jacket. He wanted an excuse to shoot something, and I don’t think he cared what. Under most circumstances I’m not sure I would’ve fully trusted him with a gun.
​
The last one though, Joseph Feng… him I trusted. Feng was the one I knew the least about, and he didn’t seem much for conversation. But he handled himself competently enough and seemed to know when to sit down and shut up.
​
When Team 2’s boat was far enough away, we got the radio signal to follow. Barber was the one steering the boat, so I gave him the order to cast off and we ventured out into the twilight, unaware of just what was waiting for us out there.
​
***
​
We landed in our designated area fifteen minutes after Team 2 confirmed they’d touched down at theirs. Our landing was fairly uneventful. Feng, Barber, and I secured the boat before we radio’d Bundy to let him know we were in position. After that, it was just a matter of making it to the tributary.
​
As we ventured into the jungle, the world around us was quiet. There was wind, the whisper of the river behind us, and the sounds of animals. But little else. The river fell away behind us as we moved in single file toward the tributary, maintaining radio silence as we did.
​
It was about a half hour before we heard the gunshot.
​
Just one, echoing through the twilight. But it was enough to give us pause.
​
“The fuck was that?” I heard Barber ask. Immediately, the kid was on high alert, with his gun raised as if he were expecting every monster in Julia to come charging at us from all angles.
I just listened, waiting to hear if there was anything else. I half expected my radio to come to life, but it didn’t.
“Team 1, status?” I asked.
The radio crackled with static, but there was no response.
​
I tried it again, but still with no success. The radio was working, that much I was sure of. Something had to be blocking the signal.
“What’s going on?” Feng asked.
“Dunno,” I replied. “Comms are down.”
“Down?” Wilson asked, “So we’re flying blind out here, then?”
“More or less,” I replied.
“What do we do? Do we go back… if the comms are down…”
“Just because something’s jamming our signal doesn’t mean we’re made,” I said. “Relax. We keep moving for now. You keep your eyes wide open, and your head on a swivel. We’ll make it to the tributary and see if we can’t meet up with the other teams.”
I could tell Wilson wasn’t a fan of my answer, but I didn’t much care. We had a job to do, and I aimed to do it.
​
I pressed on without a further word and the others followed. Up ahead, I could hear the sound of running water and picked up the pace. I figured the tributary had to be close… and I was right.
​
I emerged from the brush into the stream, only to pause when I saw what was waiting for us in the water.
​
In the dying sunlight, it was impossible to mistake the bodies sprawled out on the rocks as anything else… and all I needed to do was look at their uniforms to know they were our people.
“Jesus…” I heard Wilson say under his breath. He froze up, lingering by the bank as I cautiously approached one of the bodies.
​
It belonged to a somewhat heavyset man with a thin mustache who I recognized as Hernandez. His eyes were still open, although lifeless and staring in different directions, and there was a clean hole in his forehead where a bullet had ended his life. The gunshot we’d heard earlier had likely been the sound of his death.
​
Looking at the bodies around him, I knew they had to be the rest of Team 2… although it was a little harder pinning down their cause of death. Some sort of bladed weapon, perhaps, judging by the state of them. I realized the odds were that they walked into some sort of ambush.
“What about Bundy and Team 1?” Jack asked, “Any sign of them?”
“No,” I said. “These bodies are all from Team 2… Bundy could still be ahead of us.”
“Then we need to keep going!”
​
Jack turned, heading up the stream and Barber was right behind him. Feng paused for a moment, thinking this over before following. Only Wilson remained.
“How do we know we’re not walking into a trap?” He asked.
“We’ll deal with that when we get to it,” I said before moving to follow the others.
“With all due respect, Sarge… that doesn’t sound like the best course of action!” Wilson argued, finally following me. “It sounds just like a good way to get killed!”
“Yeah?” I asked, “I’m gonna tell you an ugly truth, kid. That’s the job. Make your peace with it, and it’ll go a lot easier.”
​
Wilson didn’t like that answer either and trailed off behind me, watching as I continued upstream. For a moment, I half expected him to go back to the boat… but no. I dunno if he found his balls or just didn’t want to get left behind, but he started to follow us again.
​
I kept trying to raise Team 1 on the radio while we walked, although I still had no luck. The light above us slowly faded into darkness as we trudged through the water in silence, guns sitting comfortably in our hands and mosquitos biting at our necks.
​
It wasn’t until we lost Feng that I heard anybody so much as make a sound, and when we lost Feng… it happened almost instantaneously. One minute, he was at the head of the group, walking just ahead of Jack and I. The next, he was gone, only barely having the time to let out a scream as he fell into the river ahead of us.
​
The rest of us paused. Jack seemed to freeze and I pushed past him, calling out for Feng as I did. As punishment for my compassion, I almost went down after him. I only barely stopped myself from stepping on the slippery rocks that had helped send him to his demise.
​
I could see Feng’s body in the water, and I could see the blood pouring out of him. He twitched a few times, but I knew he was dead. The sharpened wooden spikes jutting out of him confirmed as much.
“What the hell…” Jack said under his breath, staring at Feng’s corpse in disbelief. “That’s a fucking spike trap!”
​
Yeah.
​
It was indeed a fucking spike trap.
​
I could see other spikes jutting out of the water ahead of us, just past a small dam of rocks that were just slippery enough to make it difficult to stop yourself from falling. Some of those spikes had other bodies on them… likely members of Team 1. I only counted two, although that still didn’t exactly bode well.
​
“They put a fucking spike trap in the goddamn stream…” Jack said, “Who the hell does that?”
“Somebody who’s expecting us to use the stream,” I replied.
“So they know we’re coming?” Barber asked.
“Clearly…” I replied. “And they’ve got a good idea on what our route is too.”
​
“Yeah, no shit!” Barber snapped. “Christ… let’s get the fuck out of here. There’s probably more fucking traps upstream!”
“Bundy’s orders were clear!” Jack argued.
“Bundy’s probably dead by now!” Barber replied, before looking at me. “Sarge, come on. You have to know this is suicide!”
“Suicide was part of the job description, was it not?” I asked.
“The job is to kill those fucking vampires, not to die in the goddamn process! We need to get out of the stream and into the woods!”
​
“Judging by the fate Team 2 met, I’m not sure the forest is someplace we want to be right now,” I replied.
“Excuse me?” Barber asked, “What the hell are you talking about, Sarge?”
“Five men dead, but only one gunshot. How did the rest die?”
​
Barber didn’t seem to be able to answer that.
“By now… yes. It’s clear we’ve walked into a trap. And yes, I understand that it makes sense to try and leave that trap… but I don’t know if we’ll be safer in the jungle. Something jumped Team 2. Cut them apart, and then shot Hernandez as a warning. They didn’t have to shoot him. They did it so we’d hear.”
“Your point being?” Barber asked.
“I don’t think this is just a trap, Barber. It’s a game. Stop playing, and you might just end up like our friends downstream.”
“A game?” Wilson asked, “Sarge, you can’t be serious!”
​
“From where I’m standing, we have a better chance of surviving in the stream,” I said. “Look, we’re at least halfway to the rendezvous point, and there have to be at least two members of Team 1 left. The safest thing to do right now is to follow them.”
“You’re off your fucking rocker, Sarge,” Barber spat, locking his eyes with mine. For a moment, I thought the boy was going to try and fight me. But no. He was wise enough to stand down.
“If you wanna get yourself killed, go right the fuck ahead. Just leave me out of it! Wilson, come on,” Barber said before trudging over to the edge of the stream. Wilson didn’t even hesitate, just looking back at Jack and I quietly before he disappeared into the forest with Barber.
​
“You’re not gonna stop them?” Jack asked.
“No,” I replied. “God willing, there’s a chance that pigheaded asshole is right… dunno how much of a chance, but a chance.”
“Then how come we’re not following him?” Jack asked.
“There’s also a chance he’s wrong.”
I turned, before making my way around the spike trap.
“Keep a slower pace,” I said. “Watch for traps.”
​
Jack hesitated for a moment, but he followed me without any further questions and we walked in silence for a little longer.
​
We heard nothing from the trees. Nothing that told us about the fate of Barber and Wilson. I wasn’t sure if that was good news or not.
​
In fact, I don’t think we heard a thing until about a half hour later, when we heard the explosion.
​
It came out of almost nowhere, but ahead of us I could see a flash of light and hear the screams of men. On instinct, I found myself picking up the pace and could hear Jack behind me. In the low light, I saw a shape float past me in the stream. It took me a moment to realize that it was a severed human arm.
​
In the water ahead of us, I could see a figure clinging to one of the rocks and trying to pick himself up. I recognized him as George Bundy.
​
Jack was at his side almost immediately, trying to help the old man to his feet.
“Sir! Are you alright?”
Bundy just wheezed, before his legs gave out from under him. I helped Jack drag him to the shore so he could sit and rest for a moment.
“What the hell was that?” I asked, looking back at the stream.
“Grenade trap… I think…” Bundy panted, “Fucking tripwire… Popkov tripped it, I think…”
​
Popkov… odds are he was one of the two mangled corpses lying in the river a few feet away from us. It seemed they’d taken the brunt of the explosion, although Bundy still had some shrapnel in his arm that Jack was tending to.
“Christ… whole fucking ops gone to shit…” Bundy spat. “Team 2 got taken out just about as soon as they landed. Someone killed them and dumped them in the goddamn river. Lost half my boys to the fucking spike trap and half to this…”
​
He looked up at us, before spitting onto the ground.
“Guess you two haven’t done much better.”
“Hard to say,” I replied. “Two of ours took off into the woods, trying to avoid the traps.”
“Then they’re dead,” Bundy replied. “I’ve seen her watching us… always just up ahead, always from a distance… she’s seeing how far we’ll go. How much we’ll take…”
“She?” I asked.
“La Morte. Should’ve figured she’d be the one to greet us.”
“La Morte?” I asked.
​
“It’s Italian. Supposedly, she earned that name around the time the Di Cesares fled Venice. It’s funny, the Brethren like to act like the Di Cesares leaving Venice was some big victory of theirs, since before they did, they finally killed one of them… hard to call it a victory though, considering how many corpses they made before they fled. And most of them came from La Morte…”
Bundy winced in pain as Jack bandaged his arm before he continued talking.
​
“See… when the Di Cesare’s left Venice, one of them stayed behind. Clementine, the Scorpio sister. Guess she was unwilling to leave the fight unfinished… and according to the stories, the death toll she personally amassed in the years after the Di Cesare’s left Venice make the bodies they claimed during the Venetian Massacre a hundred and fifty years prior look like a pittance. The Brethren still occupying the city started to call her La Morte. Death. Cuz wherever she went, death followed in her wake… and it seems we’ve walked right into her open arms, haven’t we, boys?”
​
“You’re sure it’s her?” I asked.
“She’s a Di Cesare… and the shit we’ve seen out here… I don’t see any other Di Cesare setting those traps. It’s her. I’m sure of it. She’s watching us. Seeing how far we’ll go. Seeing if we’ll turn tail…”
“Should we?” Jack asked, and Bundy finally seemed to acknowledge him.
“Excuse me?” He asked.
“Should we? Look, sir… I’d follow you into the mouth of Hell, but right now, we’re down from fifteen men to three. Can’t say I’m optimistic about our chances right now. If this woman is half as bad as you’re saying she is, maybe it’s time we took a step back!”
​
Jack looked at me, hoping I might back him up, but I remained silent.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Bundy asked.
“What I’m hearing here, is that as of right now, the vampire out there could kill us at any time. She hasn’t. Far as I’m concerned, that’s mercy. Maybe we should be taking it while it’s offered.”
Bundy stared at him, before chuckling. I think it was the first time I’d ever seen him laugh.
​
“Just walk away, then?” He asked.
“Walk away, and come back better prepared!” Jack corrected.
“Walk away,” Bundy said again. “We walk away now, and there won’t be a chance to come back better prepared. We get one shot at this. One. Failure is not an option. We go in there and we kill them or we die. End of discussion.”
“And how exactly are we even supposed to kill them?” Jack asked, “That curse they have… bullets aren’t gonna do shit, sir!”
“Yours won’t, mine will…”
Bundy pulled his pistol from his holster. I noticed some sort of pattern crudely engraved on it.
​
“I’ve been doing some research… studied the curse they put on themselves… and I think I’ve found a way to break it. Not sure if it’ll work yet… but we get one chance to test it.”
Jack stared at the gun, then back at Bundy.
“Sir… do you hear yourself?” He asked quietly, “You can’t be serious… right now, even with that gun we don’t stand a chance in he-”
​
The gunshot echoed through the forest and made me jump. Jack’s voice died in his throat as he hit the ground.
​
Bundy stared at him for a moment, before huffing and holstering his pistol again. He draped his coat over his shoulders, before looking over at me.
“No room for failure, Frank,” He said calmly.
I didn’t know what to say to that. I stared down at Jack’s body, my mouth hanging open slightly. When I looked back at Bundy, he was already back in the stream.
​
There was a tense silence between Bundy and I as I followed him along the final stretch of the tributary. He trudged on ahead, covered in sweat and straining with every step, but I could sense the quiet determination he had to see this through. Looking at him, you could’ve told me that George Bundy could wipe out the Di Cesare’s all by himself and I would have believed it in a second.
​
The night around us was full of sound, and each one drew my attention. I watched the forest, expecting to see some sign of La Morte watching us. But I saw nothing, except for what she wanted me to see.
“Mill’s just up ahead,” I heard Bundy say as we pressed on, although I noticed his steps faltering as he seemed to notice something in the trees above us. I stopped behind him, looking up before seeing what he saw, and when I saw it I felt my stomach turn.
​
I’d seen death before.
But what Di Cesare had left out for us… that was something else.
Pearce Wilson and Scott Barber weren’t dead.
But if they could have spoke, I’ve got no doubt they would have begged us to kill them. Wilsons pretty face was covered in blood and his pouty lips were parted as more trickled out of him. His curly blond hair was matted and I could see crimson there. Tree branches portruded from his ribs, while the loops of his entrails dangled out of his opened stomach. And Barber was in just about the same state, only he seemed to at least have the ability to turn his head to look at us.
​
I think he might have tried to speak, but the only sound he seemed to be able to make was a pained whimper.
“Jesus Christ…” I said softly.
“He had nothing to do with this,” Bundy replied. He took one last look at the two dying men hanging from the trees, before moving on.
“We should put them out of their misery, sir,” I said.
​
Bundy paused, before looking back at me.
“Don’t waste the ammo, Frank,” He replied. “They’re already dead.”
“Not yet they’re not!”
“Give them time. They chose to go into the woods. They can live with the consequences… for however long that lasts.”
​
With that, he left them. If I were a more compassionate man, I would have put them out of their misery. But no. Bundy moved on and so did I.
​
He approached the water mill, before examining it. It was an old building, made of stone that had long since been overgrown by moss, and sat right on the wall that separated the Di Cesares estate from the amazon. It hardly looked secure, even if the only entrance hadn’t just been an old wooden door secured with a padlock, finding a way in wouldn’t have been difficult. And it didn’t take much for Bundy to break through that door. All he needed was a couple of well placed kicks and it swung right open.
​
Drawing his gun, Bundy strode inside and I followed him.
“The Di Cesare’s will be in the main house,” He said. “We should find a way in through the back, try and catch them off guard. Main target should be the matriarch, Bianca. Her we should prioritize keeping alive… the rest are expendable.”
​
“Much as you are, I’m sure.” A voice called from deeper in the mill, and both Bundy and I froze.
I noticed movement on the floor above us, and through the shadows, I saw a tall woman watching us. She was dressed all in black, with blond hair tied back in a ponytail and the intense eyes of a soldier.
​
This had to be Clementine Di Cesare.
​
Bundy aimed his pistol at her, although she only barely seemed to notice.
“Only two of you left… I’m not sure the odds are in your favor,” The woman said. Her voice was low, calm and quiet.
“Only one way to find out,” Bundy growled.
“And only one way to walk out of this place alive,” Di Cesare countered. “You can put the gun down, turn and walk away. I won’t stop you. There’s no shame in living.”
​
“All the bodies you’ve left in your wake… that’s rich,” Bundy said.
“I don’t relish what I’ve done. I simply don’t know how to do anything else,” She replied. “Think about this, Bundy. Over my lifetime, there have been countless thousands who have come to kill me. All of them are dead, but I am not. Even if you could kill me… you could not kill my sisters. Not all of them. Not before they came for you.”
“Just you, would be enough…” Bundy said, before pulling the trigger.
​
I knew he’d hit her. I knew the bullet pierced her shoulder. But that woman… she didn’t even flinch. She simply dove out of the way before he could shoot again, taking cover and avoiding his next shot.
“Frank, upstairs!” Bundy snapped, “Flush her out!”
I went, trudging up the old wooden steps with my rifle drawn. Only to see Di Cesare vaulting over the railing and back down to the ground floor as soon as I made it up there.
​
Bundy shot at her again, only to miss for a second time. I saw Di Cesare’s arm move, and heard him cry out in pain. In the low light, I could see a dagger protruding from his shoulder. He stumbled back a step, leaving himself open for only a split second.
​
That second was all it took for Di Cesare to raise her own gun and fire just one shot.
​
George Bundy hit the ground without so much as a final scream. There was just a simple hole in his skull where she had shot him.
​
I felt my heart start to race faster. My eyes settled on Bundy’s gun, and I ran for the railing, vaulting it and dropping to the ground below with a thud. Di Cesare shot at me, and I felt the bullet tear through my leg. I reached out for the fallen gun and grabbed it before turning it on Di Cesare, only to find myself staring down the barrel of her own pistol. My finger rested on the trigger, but I didn’t have the guts to pull it.
​
"Kill me, and you will not see the sun tomorrow." She said, her voice still cold and calm.
“Killing you is part of the job…” I replied, but my finger still couldn’t squeeze the trigger.
“And is it worth your life?” Di Cesare asked. “You fail your mission either way.”
“And die with some goddamn honor…”
“There’s no such thing as honor. There is alive and there is dead. Choose.”
​
I knew what I was supposed to choose.
​
But my hands were shaking, as I stared into the face of death. My finger couldn’t squeeze the trigger.
​
The gun collapsed to the floor and Di Cesare kicked it away from me, before huffing and lowering her gun.
“Do not return,” She said softly. “Or next time, I will unleash a hell upon you that will make you beg for simple traps.”
​
She picked Bundy’s gun up off the ground, and then she was gone. After I finally picked myself up off the ground, I was gone too.
​
As I walked back along the stream… I passed the corpses of the men we’d left behind. Barber and Wilson, Jack, Feng, Hernandez, and his team. The flies were already feasting on them. Animals had already torn at them. And as I looked down at their cold corpses, I knew I had made the right choice.
​
I filed my report with the Brethren. Told them that Di Cesare had wiped us out, and a few months later I quietly retired. I never looked back.
​
***
​
“You walked away from her?” Sweeney asked in disbelief, “You had her dead to rights and you walked away from her?”
“I chose to live,” I replied. “Can’t say I regret the decision either. Because of the choice I made, I met my wife and had my kids. I’ve lived the life I had because I chose not to throw it away on some vampire.”
​
Sweeney just shook his head.
“You could have gotten the first confirmed kill on a Di Cesare in two centuries, and you threw it away you fucking coward! I could execute you for that!” I noticed his hand hovering over the gun on his hip.
“You could.” I replied, before quietly unholstering the pistol I kept at my side. I aimed it at Sweeney’s head.
​
He stared at me like a slack jawed idiot.
“Would you like to give it a try?”
“W-what…?”
“Would you like to give it a try, Mr. Sweeney? Or would you like to see the sun tomorrow?”
He stared down the barrel of my gun, and I already knew what his choice would be.
​
Sweeney took a step back. I saw his hand move away from his holster, and I lowered the gun with a huff.
“Thought so,” I said.
Mr. Sweeney left me without another word.
I knew he would not return.

I’m going to see my doctor on Tuesday and hopefully get medicated, but I just want to complain.
Four weeks ago, I couldn’t put my shoe on due to pain in a big toe. I called into work and went to urgent care, and then got diagnosed with gout. I was given prednisone and colchicine and it went away. I read up on what I need to do, cut out drinking, cut out red meat, and upped my water. I was already drinking a gallon of water a day, but now I’m drinking a gallon and matching whatever coffee I drink (usually two cups) with additional water.
Last week, I was out of town, and I saw there was an In-N-Out nearby. I figured I had been mostly vegetarian for two weeks, so I would get a burger. The closest In-N-Out to my house is five hours away, so it was a treat. That was on a Saturday. Sunday I could barely walk, but on Monday it was like nothing had happened.
Last night I was at a brewery with my friends. I had one Pilsner - mind you, normally I’m an IPA guy, so even though I was cheating, I thought I was cheating in an informed way lol. Today I had to cancel a hike. I’m not limping yet, but I can feel it coming.
Two months ago I could have a burger and a beer and my body wouldn’t have cared. It’s just so frustrating that it all changed one Thursday morning. No warning - or at least no warning I knew to look for. I have no family that I know of with gout. I have TONS of family I know with hypertension who never sought medical advice and died at an early age. I tried to be proactive at the first sign of high blood pressure, got put in a diuretic, and now I’m here. Oh well. I guess I have something to warn my children about if I ever have any.
Anyway, that is all. I just needed to vent.

a somewhat short chapter as I’m busy
(story start)—————— 4
A few hours later
Another devil cam to the front of the warehouse entrance and dropped off a tray of what seems to be alien food before swiftly leave.
Then the devil he was talking to retrieved the food and showed it to him, she then gestured to the tray of food and said
“(Food)”
Before playing a video of a devil eating food, before taking one her self and eating it.
Naturally Franz is alert when being offered food and demands to knows its composition, as he doesn’t know if it’s harmful for him to eat.
“Explain… composition”
Unknown to Franz the Cre’taxians still thought he was a robot and that the food was for the newly appointed negotiator to eat.
At Franz’s response the devil…. No the Cre’taxsian frowns as those 2 words are still not within the database and it the first time she’s hearing it.
It took awhile for Franz to realize his mistake and took out his phone to show the appearance of an atom.
The Cre’taxsian negotiator seems interested in his phone’s design but understands it functions the same as her crystal iPad.
“Atom”
He then shows a few more drawings of atoms and said “Atom” each time
Then he shows a compound H2O (water) and said “composition”
He swipes back to the Atoms that makes up water and points at them before pointing back at the compound.
“Compound”
He then shows a few more simple compounds and points out their atomic make up.
With all that done Franz points to blue alien sand which and said “compound”
The Cre’taxsian frowns a bit before turning on her coms to communicate with the scientists who were watching their interactions.
After a brief back and forth the negotiator taps her pad to show him a bunch of compounds.
Franz squints a bit as they showed him the compounds as 3D model of atoms bonding each other to form a compound.
Like it’s understandable that they didn’t show him the hexagon diagram with English letters on it.
Franz was pretty good chemistry and biology back in high school so he recognizes the fats and amino acids.
‘Those chains of Carbon and 2 Hydrogen must be fats and those….. hmm… everything looks fine to me’ he thought, while he’s no expert chemist he’s saving up money to continue his studies.
Of course the thought that the devils might be lying to him did cross his mind but that still doesn’t change the fact that he’s still trapped in a building surrounded by them.
Not taking their food despite being offered to him might seem rude, especially since the negotiator personally demonstrated that the food is safe to eat by eating one herself.
Besides that do they actually know what’s harmful to a human? Judging by the fact that they’re trying to transcribe English for the last few hours should be a great indicator that this is the first time they meet a human.
After some careful thinking Franz decided to take them up on the offer and took off the respirator covering his face.
Hisssss
“(Gasp)”
The moment he took off his respirator that covers his lower face, the negotiator gasped hard and eyes went wide at the sight.
“(Oh My Goddess! he was an actual man!)” the fresh academy recruit exclaims over the coms —————————————— In the conference room
Everyone was stunned silence for a while as they didn’t quite believe what they’re seeing.
“(he’s actually a male!)”
“(Just by looking at that jawline I can tell that he must have a gorgeous face)”
Discussion broke out amongst the staff
The district commander like the rest of the staff was stunned at first the frowns before contemplating how to deal with this situation.
She the then brought up what she knows about him so far, then she rewatches a brief compilation of the incredible feats he has done so far.
From jump wall to wall to climb a 4 stores building to his mostly recent one beating 3 Hasperax Enforcer mechs.
As she was thinking what to do when an urgent coms request came
She looks at the sender and cursed before sighing
‘Just great’ she thought as the call is from her mother, news must have spread of the 30 or so elite enforcers tactical group along with 3 Hasperax Enforcer mech got wiped out.
Her mother being a senator in pay a lot of attention to reputation.
‘Well then here goes nothing’ she sighs before picking it up.
“(Hello mother……)”
A while later after a long scolding and explanation she puts the communicator back down.
She looks around the room before saying “(It’s out of our hands now)”
She sighs as she sits back down in her chair —————————————————————
Back to Franz
He finished up the alien sandwich before he suddenly hears a commotion out side.
He rushes to a near by window to see what’s happening.
‘Oh boy’ he thought as the troops outside just got replaced by new ones, what’s more is that the new troops are even more armed and armored than the previous one.
The previous ones primarily made up of uniformed officers while these new arrivals are all wearing the same armor that seems fairly high tech.
‘So these must be their military’ Franz thought as the previous bunch must have just been their police force.
At this time the negotiator’s coms suddenly became busy as it seems that a new development has happened.
After their conversation the negotiator turns to Franz and attempted to convey what was happening, unfortunately the vocabulary list is still too short and so could understand.
As the negotiator was still trying convey what was going a dozen of the armored soldiers came rushing through the entrance with their weapons drawn.
Seeing them rushing in Franz leaps towards the side and picks up 2 alien rays guns on the floor before taking cover behind a support column.
As the soldiers in fancy armor pointed their guns at him, he returned the courtesy on by pointing both the ray guns that he has acquired back at them.
…..
After awhile tension slowly rosed
The situation only got diffused when the voice of an angry Cre’taxsian was heard.
Only then did the soldiers lowered their weapon.
Like wise Franz also lowers his weapon.
Then a Cre’taxsian female with a fancy coat and hat arrives, she then looks at the situation within the warehouse.
A bunch of still unconscious elite Enforcers, the wrecks of 3 Hasperax Enforcer mechs and the still standing alien male without a single scratch.
Looking at the pile of unconscious Elite Enforcers that littered the back one of her eyes visibly twitched before she barked a string of orders to the negotiator who quickly salutes and replied in short sentences.
Franz doesn’t know what they’re talking about but he can make an educated guess.
After a brief conversation the negotiator turns to him and said
“Weapon…. Ground” she then gestures for the ray gun in his hand then to the ground.
‘You want me to drop my weapons?’ Franz wondered as he looks at the weapon then to her then back to the ground.
He thoughts for a bit before doing as she suggested and drops the ray guns to the floor.
Drop Drop
Seeing that he drops the ray guns to the floor the 2 of the soldiers then slowly makes their way to him.
These 2 are especially fancier than the rest as they wore capes.
‘What do they want now?’ Franz wondered as he stood still not sure what these 2 caped soldiers want to do.
‘Maybe a fancy ceremony?’ He wondered
When they reached his sides, one on each side then they suddenly leaps into action as they tried to detained him.
‘Mother fuckers!’ Franz cursed as they betrayed his trust.
The enraged Franz easily broke free from their grip, pushed them aside before kicking a ray gun that he has just dropped up.
Franz caught it in mid air before shooting the caped bastard in the head
Beam
The shot hit her helmet but besides a burn mark it didn’t seemed to do anything, seeing that it barely done anything Franz used the alien gun as a club and smacked her hard.
Smack
‘That seems to have done something’ Franz thought as the caped alien he has just smacked in the head got knocked to side.
The alien’s helmet got dented and the gun he used to smack her crumbled into its individual components.
Then Franz turns his attention to the other caped alien, he grabs her by the neck and lifts her off the ground.
Choke
The aliens wisses and flails around as she tries to get his hand off her neck.
Franz then moves the alien that he’s chocking mid air to between himself and the formation of alien soldiers in case they tries to take a potshot out of him.
Oddly enough despite the commotion the rest of the soldiers didn’t moved, the alien with the fancy coat also just stood by and just watched the event happening infront of her.
Since they’re not ganna do anything Franz continues to choke the caped alien mid air.
Meanwhile the other caped alien has gotten back up and tries ti tackle him, unfortunately for her Franz just picks up his stun baton and just smacks her again.
Smack Zaaaaaaaap “(eeeeep!)”
With a yelp she fell to the cold.
With that the only caped soldier left is the one he was still choking mid air.
Franz didn’t rush to zap this other one with his baton as it would make a better meat shield if it’s still flailing around like this.
Besides that he highly doubt that the commander would just stand by watch him slowly chokes her soldier to death in front of her.
It didn’t take long before she muttered something.
Franz then turns to the translator to translate
“Cre’taxsian….. Ground….” The negotiator then gestures to the dangling soldier then to the ground.
Franz looks at the negotiator, the soldiers at that back that still hasn’t moved, the women with a fancy coat alternately for a bit before eventually letting go.
Slop
The caped soldier fell to the ground before frantically taking her helmet off before desperately taking in air.
As the soldier desperately taking in air the women in fancy coat moves forward.
She went to where the fallen soldier who’s desperately catching her breath.
She said something to her before kneeling down and ripping a badge off her chest, she did the same to the unconscious one before turning back to Franz and handing it to him.
Franz stares a bit not quite sure how to make of the current situation but even so he just accepts the badges and stuffs them into his pocket.
Then the women in the fancy cape gestures to the entrance of the warehouse where the soldiers are already line up on both sides.
‘Okay?’ He frowns a bit before cautiously walking towards the entrance, he walks in between the 2 rows of soldiers and out of the warehouse.
The rows of soldiers seems to lead to an aerial vehicle of some sort with its door open.
At this point it’s pretty clear where they want him to go.
Besides that up in the sky there’s a whole lot more alien helicopters flying around, some of them looks like gunships with large canon attached to the bottom.
One thing to note about the aerial vehicles of this place is that they don’t seems to use fan blades or thrusters to fly.
Anyways Franz boarded the alien flyer.

Taking csgo skins mainly (knives, gloves, aks, m4s, awps and so on). Anything as long as offer is good
I don't update this list everyday, so I have many items which aren't listed here. Check if something interests you! Also, some of the items are on trade hold, for release date you can add me or check by yourself.
TRADE LINK: https://steamcommunity.com/tradeoffenew/?partner=35769104&token=J30wyEpy
Add me to talk here: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197996034832
Keys from these buy outs aren't TF2 keys. I don't take Hydra keys either.
Buy outs are in keys for the sake of having a buy out, I trade for skins mainly.
Gloves/wraps:
Gloves Slingshot FT 0.36 float - B/O 200 keys
Gloves Amphibious WW 0.42 float - B/O 170 keys
Gloves Omega FT 0.33 float - B/O 160 keys
Gloves Snow Leopard FT 0.36 float - B/O 150 keys
Gloves Snow Leopard FT 0.37 float - B/O 150 keys
Gloves Tiger Strike FT 0.32 float - B/O 140 keys
Gloves Smoke Out MW 0.14 float - B/O 120 keys
Gloves King Snake FT 0.36 float - B/o 120 keys
Gloves Tiger Strike WW 0.44 float - B/O 100 keys
Gloves Field Agent FT 0.36 float - B/O 85 keys
Gloves Bronze Morph MW 0.14 float - B/O 75 keys
Gloves Cool Mint FT 0.36 float - B/O 75 keys
Gloves Arid BS 0.64 float - B/O 72 keys
Gloves Emerald Web BS 0.56 float - B/O 71 keys
Gloves Diamondback MW 0.13 float - B/O 68 keys
Gloves POW WW 0.38 float - B/O 66 keys
Wraps Caution FT 0.31 float - B/O 59 keys
Gloves Overtake MW 0.14 float - B/O 59 keys
Gloves King Snake BS 0.59 float - B/O 58 keys
Wraps Caution WW 0.38 float - B/O 50 keys
Wraps Overprint WW 0.43 float - B/O 50 keys
Gloves Big Game BS 0.69 float - B/O 47 keys
Gloves Polygon FT 0.18 float - B/O 50 keys
Gloves Blood Pressure FT 0.32 float - B/O 43 keys
Gloves Blood Pressure FT 0.35 float - B/O 43 keys
Gloves Blood Pressure FT 0.36 float - B/O 43 keys
Gloves Finish Line FT 0.22 float - B/O 50 keys
Gloves Finish Line FT 0.32 float - B/O 42 keys
Gloves Nocts BS 0.62 float - B/O 42 keys
Gloves Boom FT 0.37 float - B/O 38 keys
Gloves Lunar Weave FT 0.36 float - B/O 36 keys
Gloves Finish Line WW 0.41 float - B/O 36 keys
Gloves Diamondback FT 0.37 float - B/O 35 keys
Gloves Field Agent BS 0.77 float - B/O 34 keys
Wraps Overprint BS 0.75 float - B/O 34 keys
Gloves Marble Fade BS 0.57 float - B/O 33 keys
Gloves Case Hardened MW 0.12 float - B/O 33 keys
Gloves Mogul BS 0.60 float - B/O 33 keys
Gloves Cool Mint BS 0.63 float - B/O 31 keys
Gloves Bronze Morph BS 0.61 float - B/O 30 keys
Gloves Jade FT 0.23 float - B/O 35 keys
Gloves Forest Ddpat FT 0.35 float - B/O 26 keys
Wraps Duct Tape MW 0.12 float - B/O 25 keys
Gloves Charred FT 0.21 float - B/O 30 keys
Gloves Overtake FT 0.16 float - B/O 30 keys
Gloves Jaguar Queen FT 0.37 float - B/O 22 keys
Gloves Rezan FT 0.16 float - B/O 30 keys
Gloves Rezan FT 0.28 float - B/O 21 keys
Gloves Yellow-banded FT 0.30 float - B/O 21 keys
Gloves Diamondback BS 0.58 float - B/O 20 keys
Wraps Arboreal FT 0.31 float - B/O 20 keys
Gloves Snakebite FT 0.16 float - B/O 25 keys
Gloves Blood Pressure BS 0.74 float - B/O 19 keys
Gloves Forest Ddpat BS 0.46 float - B/o 19 keys
Gloves Convoy WW 0.44 float - B/o 19 keys
Gloves Case Hardened FT 0.15 float - B/O 23 keys
Gloves 3rd Company FT 0.36 float - B/O 17 keys
Goves Buckshot FT 0.15 float - B/O 20 keys
Gloves Unhinged FT 0.24 float - B/O 17 keys
Gloves Overtake BS 0.45 float - B/O 17 keys
Gloves 3rd Company FT 0.38 float - B/O 16 keys
Wraps Constrictor FT 0.31 float - B/O 16 keys
Gloves Buckshot WW 0.40 float - B/O 16 keys
Wraps Desert Shamagh FT 0.35 float - B/o 16 keys
Wraps Constrictor WW 0.38 float - B/O 16 keys
Gloves Transport BS 0.60 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Rezan BS 0.74 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Yellow-banded BS 0.63 float - B/o 15 keys
Gloves Guerrilla BS 0.53 float - B/o 15 keys
Gloves Buckshot BS 0.53 float - B/O 15 keys
Wraps Desert Shamagh WW 0.41 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Case Hardened BS 0.53 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Emerald FT 0.36 float - B/O 15 keys
Wraps Constrictor BS 0.74 float - B/O 15 keys
Gloves Needle Point FT 0.36 float - B/O 14 keys
Gloves Rattler FT 0.35 float - B/O 13 keys
Gloves Mangrove FT 0.25 float - B/O 12 keys
Gloves Racing Green FT 0.30 float - B/O 11 keys
Knives and high tier items:
Talon Black Pearl MW 0.07 float - B/O 600 keys
Karambit Autotronic MW 0.13 float - B/O 350 keys
Nomad Fade MW ST 99% 0.07 float - B/O 400 keys
M9 Tiger Tooth FN 0.003 float - B/O 300 keys
M9 Tiger Tooth FN 0.01 float - B/O 270 keys
Daggers Sapphire FN ST 0.004 float - B/O 230 keys
Karambit Black Laminate FT 0.29 float - B/O 210 keys
M9 Black Laminate MW 0.11 float - B/O 200 keys
Talon Slaughter FN 0.03 float - B/O 200 keys
DEAGLE Blaze FN 0.01 float - B/O 170 keys
Flip Lore FN 0.05 float - B/O 170 keys
Butterfly Night FT 0.19 float - B/O 190 keys
Bayonet Tiger Tooth FN 0.02 float - B/O 160 keys
Flip Gamma Doppler FN P4 0.02 float - B/O 160 keys
Butterfly Stained BS 0.90 float - B/O 150 keys
M9 Freehand MW 0.11 float - B/O 150 keys
Flip Marble Fade FN 0.004 float - B/O 140 keys
Butterfly Forest Ddpat FT 0.16 float - B/o 140 keys
Flip Gamma Doppler FN P1 0.01 float - B/O 140 keys
Butterfly Safari Mesh FT 0.19 float - B/O 140 keys
Flip Doppler FN P2 0.03 float - B/O 140 keys
Karambit Ultraviolet BS 0.51 float - B/o 140 keys
Bayonet Lore FT 0.25 float - B/O 140 keys
Ursus Doppler FN P4 0.06 float - B/O 140 keys
Nomad Vanilla - B/O 130 keys
M9 Damascus Steel FT 0.20 float - B/O 130 keys
AK Head Shot FN ST 0.05 float - B/o 130 keys
M9 Blue Steel BS 0.99 float - B/O 150 keys
Stiletto Tiger Tooth FN 0.006 float - B/O 130 keys
Huntsman Fade FN 0.03 float - B/O 130 keys
Flip Tiger Tooth FN 0.03 float - B/O 120 keys
Skeleton Stained FT 0.23 float - B/O 120 keys
Ursus Crimson Web MW 0.12 float - B/O 120 keys
Ursus Doppler FN P1 0.03 float - B/o 120 keys
Flip Vanilla - B/O 120 keys
Stiletto Vanilla - B/O 120 keys
Huntsman Gamma Doppler FN ST 0.02 float - B/O 120 keys
M9 Stained Ft 0.28 float - B/O 110 keys
Karambit Forest Ddpat FT 0.36 float - B/O 110 keys
Flip Doppler FN 0.01 float - B/O 110 keys
M9 Rust Coat BS 0.66 float - B/O 110 keys
M9 Night BS 0.49 float - B/O 110 keys
Ursus Tiger Tooth FN 0.008 float - B/O 110 keys
Bayonet Lore BS 0.62 float - B/O 100 keys
Flip Autotronic MW 0.14 float - B/O 100 keys
Skeleton Night FT ST 0.27 float - B/O 100 keys
M9 Urban Masked FT 0.28 float - B/O 100 keys
Bayonet Black Laminate MW 0.12 float - B/O 100 keys
Paracord Slaughter FN ST 0.03 float - B/O 90 keys
Flip Slaughter FT 0.23 float - B/O 90 keys
Huntsman Marble Fade FN 0.009 float - B/O 90 keys
Skeleton Stained BS 0.65 float - B/O 90 keys
Ursus Vanilla - B/O 85 keys
Gut Autotronic FN 0.05 float - B/O 84 keys
Bayonet Crimson Web FT 0.34 float - B/O 84 keys
Paracord Slaughter MW 0.10 float - B/O 83 keys
Bowie Marble Fade FN 0.01 float - B/O 82 keys
Bowie Marble Fade MW 0.07 float - B/O 82 keys
Bayonet Damascus Steel FT 0.22 float - B/O 82 keys
Bowie Doppler Fn P3 0.03 float - B/O 81 keys
Flip Autotronic FT 0.23 float - B/O 80 keys
Huntsman Tiger Tooth FN 0.02 float - B/O 75 keys
Talon Boreal MW 0.08 float - B/O 73 keys
Survival Vanilla - B/O 72 keys
Flip Ultraviolet MW 0.14 float - B/O 72 keys
Daggers Gamma Doppler FN P4 0.02 float - B/O 71 keys
Stiletto Damascus Steel FT 0.31 float - B/O 71 keys
Flip Bright Water FN 0.04 float - B/O 71 keys
Skeleton Safari Mesh FT 0.15 float - B/O 68 keys
Talon Safari Mesh MW 0.13 float - B/O 68 keys
Ursus Ultraviolet MW 0.13 float - B/O 67 keys
Bowie Tiger Tooth FN 0.02 float - B/O 67 keys
Paracord Crimson Web FT 0.15 float - B/O 80 keys
Classic Case Hardened MW 0.09 float - B/O 65 keys
Nomad Blue Steel BS 0.87 float - B/O 64 keys
Falchion Lore MW 0.09 float - B/O 61 keys
Gut Lore MW 0.12 float - B/O 60 keys
Paracord Forest Ddpat FN 0.06 float - B/O 57 keys
Bowie Case Hardened FT 0.18 float - B/O 57 keys
Gut Tiger Tooth MW 0.07 float - B/O 56 keys
Falchion Vanilla ST - B/O 55 keys
Ursus Damascus Steel FN 0.05 float - B/O 54 keys
Daggers Marble Fade FN 0.05 float - B/O 53 keys
Navaja Marble Fade FN ST 0.01 float - B/O 51 keys
Flip Night FT 0.23 float - B/O 51 keys
Gut Marble Fade FN 0.01 float - B/O 50 keys
Huntsman Black Laminate BS 0.80 float - B/O 50 keys
Falchion Lore Ft 0.24 float - B/O 50 keys
Gut Doppler FN P2 0.008 float - B/O 50 keys
Huntsman Freehand FN 0.06 float - B/O 49 keys
Huntsman Night MW 0.14 float - B/O 49 keys
Daggers Tiger Tooth FN 0.01 float - B/O 49 keys
Classic Blue Steel MW 0.12 float - B/O 48 keys
Ursus Ultraviolet FT 0.28 float - B/O 48 keys
Huntsman Crimson Web FT 0.31 float - B/O 48 keys
Huntsman Case Hardened WW 0.42 float - B/O 48 keys
Gut Doppler FN P4 0.02 float - B/O 48 keys
Ursus Damascus Steel MW 0.10 float - B/O 47 keys
Bowie Vanilla - B/O 47 keys
Daggers Lore MW 0.14 float - B/O 46 keys
Gut Tiger Tooth FN 0.03 float - B/O 46 keys
Daggers Vanilla - B/O 46 keys
Nomad Night FT 0.25 float - B/O 46 keys
Flip Rust Coat BS 0.63 float - B/O 46 keys
Navaja Doppler FN P2 0.02 float - B/O 46 keys
Navaja Marble Fade FN 0.03 float - B/O 46 keys
Ursus Night MW 0.14 float - B/o 45 keys
Gut Doppler FN P1 0.03 float - B/O 43 keys
Navaja Slaughter FN 0.05 float - B/O 43 keys
Stiletto Safari Mesh FT 0.20 float - B/O 43 keys
Classic Night BS 0.73 float - B/O 43 keys
Nomad Boreal FT 0.37 float - B/O 43 keys
Huntsman Freehand MW 0.11 float - B/O 43 keys
Daggers Slaughter MW 0.11 float - B/O 42 keys
Huntsman Damascus Steel MW 0.13 float - B/o 42 keys
Falchion Crimson Web FT 0.18 float - B/O 45 keys
Gut Vanilla - B/O 41 keys
Flip Urban Masked FT 0.28 float - B/O 41 keys
Paracord Blue Steel FT 0.36 float - B/O 40 keys
Nomad Safari Mesh MW 0.12 float - B/o 40 keys
Navaja Tiger Tooth FN 0.01 float - B/O 40 keys
Ursus Blue Steel BS 0.95 float - B/O 39 keys
Falchion Bright Water FN 0.05 float - B/O 39 keys
Daggers Lore FT 0.32 float - B/O 39 keys
Bowie Bright Water FN 0.06 float - B/O 39 keys
Gut Lore BS 0.59 float - B/O 38 keys
Flip Forest Ddpat FT 0.36 float - B/o 38 keys
Flip Scorched FT 0.34 float - B/O 37 keys
Flip Safari Mesh FT 0.36 float - B/O 37 keys
Nomad Scorched FT 0.35 float - B/o 36 keys
Nomad Safari Mesh WW 0.44 float - B/O 36 keys
Daggers Lore WW 0.42 float - B/O 35 keys
Daggers Crimson Web FT 0.37 float - B/O 35 keys
Classic Scorched FT 0.16 float - B/O 35 keys
Classic Boreal MW 0.08 float - B/O 34 keys
Falchion Bright Water MW 0.14 float - B/O 34 keys
Ursus Urban Masked FT 0.33 float - B/o 34 keys
Navaja Blue Steel FN 0.01 float - B/O 34 keys
Daggers Freehand FN 0.06 float - B/O 34 keys
Classic Urban Masked FT 0.35 float - B/O 34 keys
Classic Forest Ddpat FT 0.18 float - B/O 33 keys
Ursus Scorched MW 0.13 float - B/O 33 keys
Classic Safari Mesh MW 0.12 float - B/O 33 keys
Ursus Safari Mesh MW 0.12 float - B/O 32 keys
Ursus Scorched FT ST 0.35 float - B/O 32 keys
Navaja Vanilla - B/O 32 keys
Gut Ultraviolet MW 0.13 float - B/O 32 keys
Huntsman Bright Water FT 0.35 float - B/O 32 keys
Bowie Bright Water FT 0.17 float - B/O 31 keys
Bowie Ultraviolet WW 0.38 float - B/o 30 keys
Ursus Boreal FT 0.15 float - B/O 30 keys
Ursus Safari Mesh FT 0.20 float - B/O 30 keys
Falchion Black Laminate WW 0.39 float - B/O 29 keys
Survival Night BS 0.66 float - B/O 28 keys
Paracord Urban Masked FT 0.22 float - B/O 28 keys
Navaja Case Hardened WW 0.44 float - B/O 28 keys
Huntsman Boreal FT 0.27 float - B/O 28 keys
Huntsman Scorched FT 0.20 float - B/O 28 keys
Gut Bright Water FT ST 0.21 float - B/O 27 keys
Daggers Ultraviolet FT 0.30 float - B/O 27 keys
Gut Damascus Steel FT 0.35 float - B/O 27 keys
Gut Rust Coat BS ST 0.52 float - B/O 27 keys
Gut Bright Water FT 0.26 float - B/O 27 keys
Bowie Rust Coat BS 0.48 float - B/O 27 keys
Paracord Forest Ddpat FT 0.26 float - B/O 27 keys
Gut Night FT ST 0.18 float - B/O 26 keys
Gut Blue Steel FT 0.32 float - B/O 26 keys
Paracord Forest Ddpat WW 0.38 float - B/O 26 keys
Gut Freehand FT 0.30 float - B/O 26 keys
Paracord Safari Mesh FT 0.17 float - B/O 26 keys
Navaja Damascus Steel Fn 0.05 float - B/O 26 keys
Falchion Rust Coat BS 0.52 float - B/O 26 keys
Bowie Scorched FT 0.19 float - B/O 25 keys
Gut Freehand WW 0.40 float - B/o 25 keys
Falchion Forest Ddpat FT 0.15 float - B/O 25 keys
Daggers Ultraviolet WW 0.38 float - B/O 25 keys
Gut Rust Coat BS 0.55 float - B/O 24 keys
Gut Safari Mesh WW 0.38 float - B/O 23 keys
Daggers Bright Water FT 0.21 float - B/O 23 keys
Daggers Ultraviolet BS 0.52 float - B/O 23 keys
Navaja Blue Steel MW 0.12 float - B/O 23 keys
Gut Urban Masked FT 0.19 float - B/O 23 keys
Gut Boreal FT 0.23 float - B/O 23 keys
Gut Safari Mesh FT 0.28 float - B/O 22 keys
Daggers Black Laminate FT 0.37 float - B/O 22 keys
Gut Scorched FT 0.15 float - B/O 22 keys
Navaja Ultraviolet FT 0.36 float - B/O 22 keys
Daggers Night FT 0.25 float - B/O 22 keys
Navaja Boreal BS 0.67 float - B/O 21 keys
Navaja Night MW 0.12 float - B/O 21 keys
Navaja Stained FT 0.30 float - B/O 21 keys
Navaja Blue Steel WW 0.40 float - B/O 21 keys
Navaja Night BS 0.57 float - B/O 20 keys
Daggers Rust Coat BS 0.66 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Boreal FT 0.15 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Boreal Ft 0.15 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Urban Masked FT 0.28 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Night FT 0.20 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Safari Mesh BS 0.65 float - B/O 20 keys
Navaja Forest Ddpat FT 0.29 float - B/O 20 keys

Today's games repulse me with their copycat, timid and shallow character. Though it seems like there is a variety of concepts flashing around, in practice games revolve around the same half-dozen tropes. Their hallmark sign is that it is nothing that is not seen on TV. If the game's idea is not a reflection of the modern world from someone who, by all appearances, has never read a real book or has experience to share, then it's Pirates in Some Carribean, or the Victorian Age When Jack the Ripper Roamed in a Black Cab, or the Middle Ages with Standard Treachery, or Abstract Space Exploration. I was sick and tired of this a few years ago, now I have all but given up on this art form. Even when the concept is interesting, it is rarely taken far or with force. Neutered developers are afraid to give offense and as a result make bland, short-breathing stuff, but I think the sharp edges are never there to begin with anymore. I don't know anybody who sets out to defy the world, stand apart from its simulations and blandishments and spit a good gob in its ugly square face.
I have never had an opportunity to make a game of my own (it takes a team besides everything else), but I have made mods for a very old RPG for years - new mechanics, plots, magic, quests, effects, scripts, writing and so on. I have more or less put that old engine on its head, though I know hardly anyone will ever find out about my efforts. This is to say that I am not a pure theorist. Some time in the winter, bored and exasperated, I decided to do a quick marathon of game ideas - for RPG, quests, simulations, something in-between - and see how many I can whip out on the run. I would like something from here picked up by a company, but I am not advertising. I realize that is probably not something that might happen. It was a good exercise for me, however. Here are the results for all to see. I did ten first, then three more occurred to me.
1 ) Circa Caotica
You play the role of Jabsh, a clown of a traveling circus, who suddenly discovers that he is no orphan but the son (Raka, daughter for female players) of the director, Maestro Leotardi. Minutes later after making the sobbing confession the boss is swallowed by the Crocodile Man in a suspicious accident. You have to own up to the unexpected legacy and step into the tight and tall boots of the director. Your responsibility is to keep the circus going by fine-tuning and inventing acts based on ideas solicited over regular all-troupe brainstorming sessions despite little starting respect from the others, who have decided to unionize as well (the mentalist takes notes). You must keep drawing in crowds to avert the bankruptcy, earn respect and manipulation points and find the truth behind Leotardi's death and the disappearance of the Big Green cashbox with everyone's last year salary and the medallion that supposedly bears the face of your mother the same evening. All the while you still have to perform in regular clown acts with your partner. You can play as a red clown or a white clown, and the other type will be your foil.
2) Nachtwaffe
"Ah, count. Decided to join me for a walk?" Vampires steal planes from the Nazi airforce to zoom through the dark skies over the Balkans and turn humans to make more of their own. You start out as a single nosferatu, converted from an arrogant German, and must find and raid small airports and landing strips across the forests and mountains of Roumania, impersonate a living officer to get supplies and fuel, avoid communist guerillas, find and build places to hide during the day and choose which humans to turn to expand your force. Naturally, it is all quite a dead end, as the war is bound to finish sooner or later, which radio broadcasts confirm, and what then will happen to the vampiric empire? But this is something that the gameplay begins to convey to the player gradually. Hopefully the fate of someone who has no future but still does his all will touch some dormant strings in players' hearts.
3) Yuck!
The sleepy Tibetan village of Dongtso is unaware of what lurks in the bushes and the mountains: you, the desperately lonely yak-man. Born with a big head and two horns, you have only one connection to civilization: the gold ring in your nose. Squinting cross-eyed, you can just make out some kind of symbols on it, and a banner over the village shrine features ones like them. This must be the key. You have to lurk about the supersititious hamlet, helping the folk at night and out of sight with small chores and evesdropping on their reactions and conversations until you can pick up a few words, including, at some point, "Hello." Since this is a game about Tibet and shaping up something rebellious, let the tongue be one of Tibet's many and accompanied by Tibetan script. You can train to pronounce the words when you dare show yourself to children, old people and widows, to improve from mooing to legible speech, but until then you have to dodge men's hunting parties and survive. With enough good deeds and a few friends, you might win the folk's confidence and stand before the village council so that someone might teach you to read. The quest becomes complicated, however, by the appearance of the army of People's Republic of China that establishes a base in the village in its push to subdue Tibet. The year is 1952. One of the newcomers is a local - a renegade llama who, the villagers say, has been on many supernatural journeys in the mountains, even to Shangri-La, but is now wearing the uniform of Tibet's conquerors. The writing on the ring, deciphered, identifies him as your father. What will happen next?
4) Footlocker
This is a soccer-themed RPG, but you view the sport from the point of view of a bookie besieged on all sides by mafia. To pay back his debt he resolves on a colossal set-up: first get control of an underdog team, then bring them at least to the regional semi-finals and, with the bets in their favor, make them lose in a big way. The thugs are ready to provide cash handouts, leg-breaking, knuckle sandwiches, addictive opioids and more to get the right people on the team and stubborn elements out, but at the cost of increased control and cut of the profits. You must balance their appetities with placating sports authorities, the press, sponsors and police. In the final match a dilemma presents itself: go through with the plan and ruin the team or defy the gangsters and take your chances on the right side of the tracks?
5) And See It Again For the First Time
Starting out from your homeland on three caravels, you unfurl the sails and set out to circumnavigate the world. The globe is randomly generated every time and rolls away at the horizon, with the map, continents and straits unknown beforehand, in the manner of River Raid. Your characters are the three ships and their crews, condition and supplies are their stats. Dropping anchor at strange shores and dealing with natives will be necessary but dangerous as they fight with each other, shuffle and migrate like microbes. Loss of crew can't be repaired. At least one of the ships must find the passages and make it to the fabulous Gate of Makhamedi, enter it from the far side and begin the journey home.
6) The Person and the Essence
In the beginning chapter you play Sauqin, second-in-command to general Varziranga, head of the army of the Arcolan Empire sent to quash the rebellion of Panlaa, who has tried to bring his province to secede. The imperial army has crushed Panlaa'a troops a fortnight ago and has got him shut in the Ravine of the Gold Specks. Complete victory is near, but the commander has been acting strangely since the battle. On this decisive night his behavior spins out of control just as Panlaa makes a sudden sally from his trap, causing great confusion. As his lieutenant, it falls to you to maintain order in dealing with the various officers as well as the clerics of the One, who insist that Panlaa, a lapsed pagan, be given to them for execution once he is captured. The ending of the chapter will determine whether Panlaa ends in the emperor's prison in the capital, Hotharsoom, alive or dead at the clerics' hands, whether Varziranga will be simply demoted or disgraced.
Chapter two will take place in the capital city. You will have been promoted to a top military command for your performance, only to become embroiled in an intrigue involving the emperor's controlling mother, a consequential schism in the church of the One over whether the head of state is eternally the same person reincarnated or a series of persons, demagogues in the public and lurking pagans with unclear motives. Other chapters will follow, and the endings will determine who sits on the throne and who stands behind it, whether state policy is in principle subject to revision and criticism or not and whether the pagan faiths are crushed without mercy or adopted into the church of the One. The material here is Byzantium, Egypt with the notion of the pharaoh as incarnate Horus and the empires of southeast Asia. Some early Christian heresies also deserve to be revivified.
7) Of Rats and Men
You are a rat trapped in the gears of the Trumpet of Doom, the hugest, heaviest and most advanced steam ship ever to paddle the Grumuous Sea. This basin is famously salty enough to let even an iron float for a time, which, the public money finally gathered, made it the perfect road to carry the 25-inch-gunned ("24 + 1 for Paterland!") Trumpet to the shores of Festaly and at last give those Festalians what for! The citizenry is cheering with patriotic joy, the brass bands are blowing. The ship rats are less happy, especially you, who were captain Reissenpouf's pet before you managed to scramble through a porthole and below the desk as he was buttering a toast. You are nearly panicky with fright. Unlike the locals there, you have spent time locked with the diagrams in the captain's safe and know that the battleship is very weakly armored below the waterline. Someone must have made a good bit of business during the construction selling the metal. When the Trumpet comes up against the Festalians with their triton suicides or their rumored counterpart ship, the Rough Musician, not even the Grumuous Sea will keep it from ending up as a gigantic, barnacled wreck on the ocean floor.
To avoid this fate you only have so much time to organize the other rats for systematic sabotage. The game's world is the enormous ship below and above the deck. The humans of the crew are, of course, adamant in their resolve to get themselves killed, so they will repair the servos, the cables turning the massive gears, the ball bearings, the hydraulics and the rest almost as quickly as those are destroyed. This effort will be headed by the near-transparent, monochrome spindle of a man, Admiral Hel, the leader of the expedition, always of his private high deck, sipping his black milk and staring through his spectacles ahead to where TOD's fate awaits it. If all of you ratfolk together gnaw through and spoil enough of the ship's devices, however, the captain might just have the authority to radio Kaiser Walzer of the decision to turn back... though you personally may also have to sneak back into his cabin to sit on his pillow and intone suggestions as he sleeps. The fact that you are an albino rat and at first come across as a crazy visionary doesn't help, and neither does being a female rat and having to give birth to a litter every so often. The current mate can be deputied on tasks while lactating. Other ships may sometimes be encountered in the sea, with different results, and you may improve your reputation in the murine community by predicting these encounters, if you check the looking glass often enough. The length of the game, and hence the difficulty, depends on the distance to Festalian waters - from two weeks' journey to three months.
8) Cosmic Choir
You play as one of the planets of the solar system. The other actors and your partners are the thieving and scurrilous Mercury, the lusty and sly Venus, the militant braggart Mars and so on. And you are the meh-in-the-middle Earth, and in this group of strong personalities stand out with your unique ability of Rational Decision (it would be nice to get Woody Allen for the voice acting, were he younger). Other planets have other powers, and all of them certain characteristics and appetites (for tasty meteorites, for more intimate or more standoffish orbits and so on). The plot revolves around the announcement of the Sun that it has had enough of burning hydrogen and wants to retire, going immediately into the red giant phase, which would, of course, burn up all of the inner planets and kick the outer planets way out. For this the star has recruited a planet-sized asteroid, large enough to pull most of the star fuel away so that the moribund transformation may be set in motion. The euthanatic dark planet is whirring ever closer. Before it gets on a near enough orbit to disrupt the Sun the other planets must find out what caused this sudden depression and persuade their ruler and source of life otherwise. (The answer is that the Sun has always dreamt of going nova but lacks substance.) Playing as the only inhabited planet, you must also keep the life forms on you alive through all of the maneuvering. If you can get Mars to cooperate, however, you may shorten the distance enough for humanity and some of the ecosystems to make the leap and found Musk City there, and then you won't have to care about your surface anymore.
9) Paris, 1245 A.D.
A meticulously researched simulation of the criminal underworld of medieval Paris and the worlds that abutted on it: those of the church, guilds, city watch, the university, lepers, the court and so on. No shortcuts and simplifications for babies who can't tell a Benedictine from a Cistercian. A dynamically filled encyclopedia may be included, though, and remain permanently unlocked for later replays. The main character is a vagrant and a thief. This may be a persistent sandbox, possibly a multiplayer RPG, or it may have a plot, but strictly within historical realities.
10) The Last Supper
You play the role of Jesus, son of God, in the company of the twelve disciples. The game should probably be in first person. (The Sermon of the Mount and such may be shown in cutscenes, or they may be challenges in quiz form.) The time period is your wanderings in Judea after the baptism and until the last night before the arrest. The background is the Judaic society at the time and its Roman controllers, somewhat historically accurate. This is a detective story, a wholldoit where you need to figure out who is best suited to betray you in due time so that you may prep him for the job and finally give him the impetus to "do it quicker" at the Last Supper. For Christ certainly needed someone to betray him. It's not always Judas: the identity of the potential traitor, along with his motives, will vary randomly between playthroughs. Incidents and encounters along the road, both recorded in the Bible and invented, will liven up the experience and better inform you about the personalities of the disciples, building on but going beyond what is known (Peter with his short temper, the lofty John an so on).
11) Cuadrophobia
Ships and the sea again. This time you are a typical sailor with an atypically strong survival instinct on one of the vessels in a colossal game of Battleship between Our Guy and the Other Player. Accordingly, there are two grids firing at each other: your side's and the enemy's, though you only get to travel across your own. The ship you begin on is chosen at random: it may be anything in size from a single-squarer to a five-squarer. Smaller ships are less likely to be hit, of course, but when a ship is finished, it sinks, and you with it. The purpose of the game is to survive until Our Guy's victory, which programmatically is likely but not guaranteed and happens about 70% of the time. To do this you must desert on a regular basis, setting out in a dinghy to a ship more favored in the current situation. However, the dinghy only travels three squares per turn, and you can only spend two turns in the open sea before dying. You also need time on board ships to access their radio broadcasts, which, besides playing some inspirational propaganda, update the picture of the grid as the battle rages. Without it you are limited to paddling to vessels that you can directly see. The role-playing element comes from dealing with ship commanders, who all take their duties and titles - captain of Cruiser! captain of Battleship! - very seriously, from picking up supplies in floating debris and from acquiring special abilities that let you, for example, paddle an extra square farther. Is war evil? Is it to be hated, or is our side to be cheered on? After all, if Our Guy loses, this will all have been in vain.
12) Standardom
In this game of life, dedicated to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), you must pass through all of the Gates of Conformity to win your ultimate prize - death from old age, as opposed to suicide. The option to kill yourself is always available in the menu. Being the hero and chickenshit that you are, though, you are determined to submit to every humiliation just so you can press forward. The world of the game is a vertical platform that moves with you along the Y axis, which represents time from some random year forwards: you may begin at 100 B.C., 1824 A.D., 12749 j-Spec and so on. It is really all the same where on the timeline you are dropped off. As with other platformers, once the screen has moved, there is no going back. You can walk freely to the left and right, however, pick up bonuses, disarm threats and converse with characters. Going up, every so often the screen is intersected by a wall with a gate in it. Your character's silhouette must either match the cut of the gate or be smaller to pass through. You start out small as a baby, a little circle, but very soon handicaps such as Discovery of Talent, Unusual Upbringing, Independent Spirit or Love of Sex will begin to rush at you to complicate your silhouette with Г, & and other such protrusions. You will also grow in size until your late 20s. Luckily, opportunities will also present themselves to prune some of this exotica: Family, Steady Job, Political Engagement, Puppy, Human Interest and other bonuses can be found or obtained from conversations to simplify your puzzle to a manageable cut until such time as the years pile on and the worst is behind you. You will become smaller and smaller and able to rush through the checkpoints one after the other to the finish line.
13) Six Handshakes to Liberty
The country is suffering under a cruel dictatorship. Ar-Parason, the president-for-life, has wrung the last of resources from the nation and has now thrown it into a disastrous war. In his palace he is surrounded by guards armed to the teeth and without a shred of conscience to shoot the bastard. What can you, a humble microbiologist living in the suburbs, do about this? Nothing, it seems, until you discover a strain of bacteria that is absolutely deadly within weeks and immune to all known antibiotics except one, still not fully developed. The microbe is passed along by touch. Alas, you discover it when you become infected with it. You still have the resources to finish the research on the antibiotic and save yourself, but now you realize that you possess the perfect secret weapon to rid the country of the tyrant. Although you can't get so close to Ar-Parason in person, someone must enjoy that intimacy...
Every day you do your research at the computer, look through the press, then put on gloves and go out in search of people in contact with other people who will, you hope, ultimately carry the strain to its target. You have to follow news to figure out whose hands to shake and who to sleep with - secretaries, daughters of generals, corrupt officials - and many times the scheme will fall short of success. The chain of handshakes will terminate early somewhere, and these intermediaries will just die. But all those sacrifices are worth it, aren't they? You keep several intrigues going at once, determined to see one of them to the end. Meanwhile an epidemic is beginning in the country, Ar-Parason is starting to take precautions, and your own remaining time that could be spent on finishing the antibiotic is also running short. What is more important: life, revenge, justice, survival, honor? Your actions will be your decisions.

The fanfic based on a u/Snudwoner AU.
—
Niles, 19 years old Venlil
Date: 22 April 1915
Place: Second battle of Ypres, Belgium.
I slowly walk through the trench towards the position. I carried the machine gun from behind as another venlil was carrying it from the front. As we were heading towards the position to put a machine gun on I saw other country soldiers being there. Mostly there were French and British troops but I saw some Belgian soldiers.
Not long ago we also received a new, better uniform and helmet. It was way better than visible red pants and blue shirts. We approached the position for the machine gun and put it on the trench floor.
“Alright…uh….put it here.” He said and pointed at the open position. We lifted it and installed it at the said position. Then I took nearby sandbags and put them around the machine gun, creating a protection for the machine gunner.
Since this morning I felt awful, my appetite was bad and I haven't eaten anything since I woke up. I hope I didn’t get some disease and I had plans to eat in the next 1-2 hours. After putting sandbags around the machine gun I quickly returned and grabbed the machine gun ammo, carrying it in two hands.
Then I heard somebody yelling as people rushed to the positions and were looking at the No man’s land. Out of curiosity I came to the position and peeked out.
I saw a yellow-greenish thick fog, it slowly was approaching our positions and was high. I felt myself worse every second as I looked at it, I started to panic as my instincts were saying that something is wrong. My legs and I myself started to tremble, then I dropped the ammo boxes and started to run back through the trench line, getting away as fast as possible from the frontline and this….fog.
I heard somebody yell something on my back then I heard coughing, the coughing was getting louder as more people started to cough. I stopped and looked back to only see a British soldier coughing blood down as the fog slowly came to me. The soldier slowly collapsed on the floor and wasn’t moving and fog slowly covered his dead body. I panicked more and my heartbeat was racing and I continued running away from this fog.
I never felt so scared in my life, I just saw that some air killed a soldier from inside! I felt a wind getting stronger from behind and I tripped. I fell on the ground and hit the floor with my face then I slowly stood up and rubbed my face. I looked back and still saw this fog coming but much faster, I started to cough and remembered that soldier. I got out of the trench and ran away towards the position where there were reserves, towards the second line.
I ran as fast as I could, coughing and I felt lightheaded. I felt my eyes getting tired and I almost hit the barbed wire while I was running. I stopped for a bit, catching my breath. I was feeling more lightheaded, I continued heading towards the reserve line and as I approached I heard somebody yelling and then I fell into the trench.
The soldiers slowly came around as the medic came to me and lifted my head, giving the glass of water. I took some sips and coughed, I coughed for a bit but I felt something in my mouth and spit it out. It was orange, like my species' blood and people around me got concerned. Soon the officer approached me.
“Soldier, what are you doing here!? Did you desert!?” He said in an angry tone, slowly switching his look from my face to the blood I spat out.
“N-no sir….I…I saw a fog…and I panicked. It wasn’t the normal fog, it was much th-thicker and looked diff-differently!” I said as my voice was trembling. The British soldier translated my words to his friends and some soldiers looked out of the trench to check for an attack or for that fog.
“A fog?” He said probably not believing me.
“Ye-yes sir, the fog looked yellow-greenish…it…it was much…much thicker I saw how a soldier was coughing up his blood and fell dead, I heard many of them coughing. I ran as fast as I could and I panicked!” My panic only increased saying about it and I unintentionally was holding onto my medic hand.
The soldiers shouted and started to shoot at the advancing enemy. The medic grabbed me and carried me away from the frontline. We arrived at the trench hospital where he took off my boots, equipment and some of my clothes and put them aside. Then he put me on the bed, I felt weak and also felt hot. I started to breathe heavily which he noticed and started to use some medicine to help me. Human advancement in medicine was boosted by our ship technologies but it still will require a time to get more advanced in this field. Feeling weaker, I slowly fell asleep.
–Some time later.
I felt better than I was feeling earlier, then I approached the position and met the officer that was asking me about the fog. They managed to repel the German attack and were preparing to launch a counteroffensive.
“Soldier, you will lead those men. We gathered other soldiers and discussed with other officers about what you were talking about. We certainly can confirm that the fog you were talking about was poisonous gas. I didn’t report about your desertion but at least you made it alive. We’ll advance in 5 minutes.” He walked away as I approached the squad.
The squad had one venlil and two humans. I was the second venlil here, I approached them and they stood up and saluted me. I guess I got promoted to a squad leader.
“Alright, tell me about yourselves, I’m Niles. What’s your name?” I said and the human from the left moved a bit forward.
“I am Remi, Remi Maurice.” He said and shook my hand. He has a machine gun, the Chauchat M1. It was a machine gun made with some technologies from our ship. It started to be mass produced in January 1915. The weapon itself was good for fast movement between trenches and good for attacking and defending. He then stepped back and venlil stepped forward.
“I am Stiles.” He shook my hand and I noticed that he had some grenades on his belt.
“Are you not afraid that they will shoot the grenades on your belt?” I asked him.
“Not at all sir! They’ll be already dead!” He replied and slightly laughed then stepped back.
Other humans stepped forward, he had a rifle with a scope and probably was a sniper. He looked tough but his expression quickly changed to a friendly one.
“I am Loïc Duverger, the squad's sniper. Can shoot very precisely, thanks to this modified rifle with good ammunition.” He said in a quick thone and shook my hand.
Then we heard a whistle and I approached the trench ladder and climbed up, the squad followed me and we started to advance and move towards the poisoned position. We walked past dead bodies of German soldiers, some of them were humans, some of them were Venlils, I still couldn’t forget the dying soldier from gas.
The surroundings were quiet and I saw other troopers following us. As we started to get closer the ground looked differently, it was tainted in the yellow-greenish colour. I saw a tree with no leaves on it as the tree itself looked different. As we got more closer I saw trenches and dead bodies being tainted in that colour. I also saw dead birds lying on the ground….everything felt dead even the air itself.
We got into the trench and carefully looked around. I approached the dead body and looked at it. It was a human, french uniform. His mouth was open as his skin and clothing colour were tainted in the gas colour, he had blood stains on his uniform. We continued to move towards the front position of this trenchline, finding more dead bodies.
I felt nauseous, as I saw the dead body of Venlil, I recognised him. He was the one I was putting the machine gun on the position.
“Sir! I see something!” I heard what Loïc said and quickly approached him.
“What do you see?” I said and stood nearby him, looking at the no man’s land.
“The German positions, there is nobody on them. I also see dead bodies.” He replied and lowered his rifle.
I heard a whistle and officers approaching other soldiers, saying something to them.
“I think we should investigate.” I said and climbed up, then I started to slowly walk forward.
“GET BACK WHAT YOU DOING?!” I turned around and saw an officer.
“Sir, there is nobody in that trench!” I said as he looked more angrily at me.
“AND WHO CAN CONFIRM THAT!?” He replied, then Loïc got up and walked towards me and then the rest of the squad did the same. I stood at my full height and turned around and yelled towards their German line.
A few seconds later I looked back at him, then back at Loïc and led them towards the enemy line. We slowly moved through no man’s land and as we got closer to their position I saw more dead bodies. Their position and their corpses were tainted in the same yellow-greenish colour. I looked back at our position and saw everybody staring at us, then I waved with a hand signalling that there is no enemy.
Some soldiers slowly got up and walked towards us, we went down the enemy trenchline and scouted it. We only found dead bodies and nothing more.
“Oh mon Deiu, I never saw so many dead bodies just from some air.” Remi said and I walked past him.
“I think the wind decided to joke on them.” Stiles said and kicked the corpse in the head. I sat on the trench bench. The officer approached us.
“Soldier! Can you explain what you did!?” He said to me and I stood up at ease.
“Sir! My sniper looked at the enemy position and n-noticed that there was nobody and dead corpses of our enemy!” I said and looked at him. “And what does this mean!?” He looked at me like I was nobody to him.
“This means that I…I took responsibility and decided to check if he was right, as you can see he was right!” I replied and felt my heartbeat increase.
“You are either too brave or want to die very much, soldier. This will be reported to the high command.” He said and walked away.
I sat back and sighed heavily, feeling a bit stupid but at least this helped us to advance further then running towards the machine gun.
“Don’t worry sir! I will always support you!” Stiles replied and shook my shoulder. I looked at him and saw him smiling then he sat nearby. I thought of what will be next another gas attack or another suicide attack.
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