Car accident lawyers west palm beach

I was rear ended 2 days ago. (Location: South Carolina) I have never been in any sort of a collision, ever. the person admitted fault and immediately started a claim on their phone. I have already been contacted by their insurance company.
I was hit in a car pool line while wearing my seatbelt at an elementary school while I had been stopped for 15-30 seconds. My 5 year old unbuckled herself, and got her backpack on and was about to get out. I had my neck slightly turned looking at her and then we were hit. My daughter was pushed forward and then fell back into the seat and hit her head.
The speed limit is 10 MPH in the car pool line. There was very little traffic at this time and the person who hit me was able to drive in from the main entrance of the school to the front of the carpool line without having a reason to stop (like stopped cars in front of her) up until the front where drop off is. I don’t know what speed she was going but she was absolutely not going anywhere near 10. And it was uphill. Everyone that has seen my car has estimated she was probably going between 25-35 and is absolutely shocked at the amount of damaged that occurred in a car line.
I do have a front dash camera that recorded the accident and you can tell I was hit pretty hard and my car was pushed toward about 10 feet (uphill, with my foot on the break If that matters). The other driver Told me at different points they had no idea what happened, then they said they were turned around handing their child their bookbag, and then later said they accidentally hit the gas instead of the breaks.
My car is significantly more damaged than hers is. I wouldn’t say it’s severe damage but it’s significant. No one from the insurance company has seen it yet. My bumper is caved in and my trunk/back hatch is crinkled, cracked, and uneven (my car is an SUV) her car was larger than mine and the front bumper is slightly popped off and was cut across like a foot. No one’s Airbags went off and the cars are still drivable.
Instantly after being hit my head and neck started hurting. We waited for a police report and I got one. I immediately took both of my children to their doctor. My oldest (5) who was standing up getting their backpack on was complaining about a headache. The doctor said one pupil was slightly larger than the other and that we needed to keep an eye on it and immediately bring her to the ER if there was any other concerning behavior. Another doctor was called in for a second opinion and also agreed the pupils were not the same size. My daughter has a bump on her head where she hit. The area around her eye is now bruised a little bit. (I did take photos). The pediatrician said my 2 year old seemed normal. I then went to urgent care. They said my neck was inflamed and sprained. The diagnosis sheet said I had acute back pain and to follow up in 2 weeks. I was prescribed 2 things (I don’t remember what at the moment) and I picked them up same day from the pharmacy.
I am in a lot of pain still. Even with cream, heating pad, and prescription medicine. My neck hurts, my shoulders hurt, my back hurts bad, my knees hurt, under my arms hurt, my tailbone hurts and my ears are ringing off and on.
The person at fault insurance company (USAA) called me today. They offered me $7,000 total for injury ($2500 for me, $2500 for my child that was injured, $1500 for my child that doesn’t seem to be injured, and $500 as a “buffer”). I am a little concerned because I was told that the buffer money could be used if I was contacted with extra bills from medical Insurance, but that I shouldn’t be. I said I wasn’t ready to make a decision at the moment. She asked me if I had a different amount in mind. I said I wasn’t ready to discuss that. She also offered to give me the money and pay for any additional medial treatment we needed in the future. I still stated I wasn’t ready to make a decision and she is planning on calling me back next week.
I am having multiple family members and friends tell me I need to at least see a lawyer for a free consult. I do think I am planning on doing that. Other family members and friends are telling me I should counter a little higher and not risk wasting a bunch of time for only a little more $, which is the only reason I am reluctant. I don’t plan on signing anything until I’m 100% sure we are all ok long term. Nothing at all has been done besides an auto body shop is supposed to call me to set up an appointment to get my car in. Thank you in advance for any advice.
I am absolutely horrified thinking about how this could’ve ended if the person had hit me 30-45 seconds later when my kid would’ve been getting out of the car.

I do not understand why people cheat. What kind of beast are we that we will deliberately inflict the worst kind of pain on the person we swore to love, who has been there for us through everything, and made countless sacrifices for our well-being? In the process, we rob our 'loved one' of dignity, pride, self worth, and a host of other things that cannot be restored. My betrayal happened 25 years ago and completely broke me. I recently read a couple posts from guys whose betrayals happened years ago, too, which has inspired me to write, although advice, support, condemnation are really no longer pertinent.
If you had asked me until the day, I would have stated that I had been born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Although I came from a fairly poor family, I had absolutely everything else because of my Katie, We were born in the same month, as first children to young parents who lived on the same street, only a couple blocks apart. So my Katie was in my life right from the start, and we became a 'thing' without knowing it. We spent so much time together that it just seemed natural that she was n at my place, or I was at hers. By the end of elementary school, a favorite activity of the boys and girls was to meet up somewhere before we went in for the night and steal a few kisses. It was never stated, but I didn't kiss the other girls, and she only kissed me.
Our transition to high school began horribly for me. I have to add at this point that Katie was stunning, like upper first percentile gorgeous. I never saw her equal. All the boys noticed her. The unwritten rules of elementary school did not apply here and soon all the boys in the school vied for her attention. They staked out her locker, jostled with one another to see her between classes, and at lunch. We were always intercepted on the way to school by boys in cars. I was devastated. How could a grade nine boy have any chance against bigger, stronger, richer boys who had cars and money? My love of school vanished. I became morose, didn't study, didn't walk her to school. In fact, I told my mom that I wanted to quit. Katie's mom saved the day by phoning my mom to ask if I was OK. I hadn't been over for a long time, and Katie was worried about what was going on. She invited me over next evening and she, I, and Katie sat down and talked. When I explained myself, Katie assured me that as far as she was concerned, I was, am, and always would be her boyfriend. My love of life returned. The unwanted attention of men, though, never went away.
By the time grade 12 ended, I had given her a promissory ring which she had accepted. We had begun making decisions about our careers: she wanted to be a dental technician, and I had decided on a general year of arts and sciences at university. We remained in our parents' homes in order to save money, and due to an unexpected offer by her parents, this was fine with us both. A favorite activity of ours was to drive out into the country away from city lights. We would park our car, throw an unzipped sleeping bag across the hood and windshield, then a couple pillows for our heads. We covered up with a light blanket, then snuggled up as we watched the sky, talking, wishing upon the falling stars, etc. before moving to the backseat. We had been sexually active since the summer before. This time we fell asleep and didn't wake up before morning.
Her parents were up making breakfast when we arrived so I prepared myself for a scene. Instead, Katie's mom calmly asked us to sit down and have breakfast. I still waited for the shoe to drop. They asked where we had been and I thought that at 19, I was old enough to tell them the truth, so it was time to man up. They both smiled and her dad told us that their main concern was our safety so instead of using the backseat, I would be welcome to sleep with her in her room. This was before cell-phones, by the way, so parents did not know where their kids were, and couldn't find out. Her mom told me that it had been clear for a long time that we loved one another and were inseparable, and her dad told me that he was proud that his daughter had found such a fine young man. Our Sex was always fantastic. We spent hours discovering our bodies and how to pleasure one another. I was the king of the world.
For brevity, I will speed things up but I wish I could go on. The lengths I went to to show her how much I loved her, and the thousands on wonderful things we did as a couple might make it easier for readers to relate to the completeness of my destruction when it came.. She finished her course and quickly got a job. We took an apartment together after my third year. I had made the decision, with her input, to go into teaching. I had the capability to do anything else, but teaching afforded us more time together. More time with her was something money could not buy. After my fourth year, I proposed, and we set a date for the early summer after I convocated. We stayed in our apartment for one more year, and in the year following, I had landed a job. We bought a house in which we planned to live forever. We planned on having children after I had been given a permanent contract.
At 28 we began our family, welcoming our son, David. I was so proud of Katie and of David. I think I acted as if Katie were the first woman in the world to give birth. It was wonderful and terrifying. I had prepared for the birth, but the violence of it shocked me. I relied on the two mothers for advice and the three women were constantly amused with my playing mother hen. What is she feeling? What does she need? What should I do? When can we have 'relations' again? The birth brought me even closer to Katie. I had often heard that once born, children become the number one in their parents' eyes, supplanting their partners. Not me. Katie was a miracle, a wonder. She had always been my best friend, lover, soulmate, etc. Now she had become my soul itself. There simply was no me without her. Now, sometimes, in the deadness inside my heart, I can almost conjure these feelings. I felt even greater pride when Hannah arrived after David, three years later to be exact.
Katie's employers were very generous to their employees. Every second year, they would give the hygienists, technicians, receptionists, etc., a five day long weekend. The girls would make all the plans, and the practice would pay all the costs. One year, once the kids were older (David 10, Hannah 7), I had made plans to take the kids somewhere special, instead of the usual trip to one or the other grandparents. Instead, we were going to a city far away with a famous mall that featured a huge water park, indoor amusements, submarine ride, and so on. Pretty exciting for all three of us. Once it was time, I drove my love to the airport where she was to meet up with the others, and we set off.
I will just cut to the chase here. On the second day, the kids and I were wading toward the wave pool, when we saw something that stopped my heart. Outside the park, but on their way there, were Katie and someone I didn't know, walking hand in hand. In this place! Countless people from everywhere go there. And, As I stated upfront, with her looks anyone who had ever seen her would recognize her immediately. "There's mommy" declared Hannah. The tears were already flowing when Davey asked, "Dad?' He wanted me to assure him, I guess. The cheating couple found a pair of reclining beach chairs, and before sitting down, exchanged a long, passionate kiss, hands massaging the others' butts. Davey asked me again, "Dad", but I was just gasping and couldn't form sounds. As the cheaters separated and sat down, Hannah began running toward Katie, calling "Mommy, mommy". As she recognised Hannah, Katie was in full panic, scanning the crowd until she finally saw us. I began walking toward them, and she buried her face into the bath towels she had brought. I stopped in front of AP and asked Hanna to come to me. "So asshole, I want to introduce you to the children whose family you just destroyed. I hope their faces haunt you for the rest of your miserable life." He met my words with a shit-eating grin, long practised, and went and sat a few chairs further away, without uttering a sound.
I told the kids to stay with their mom and high-tailed it to our room. I changed as quickly as I could, leaving most of my stuff, and all the kids'. At reception, I explained that Katie would eventually want to know where I was, and that it was OK to tell her I had left, and to let her into the room to get the kids' things. I am not proud of this, but I figured that two kids might inject a little coitus interruptus into their plans. Then I began a very long and lonely eight hour drive home, punctuated by many stops along the highway as my sobbing at times grew too intense for me to keep going. When I arrived at our house, I pulled the phone jack out of the wall. I sat down, and wrote each of the kids a long letter which I placed onto their pillows. I took a hockey bag, stuffed it with random clothes and items I thought I'd need. I had had more romantic plans for the bathtub, but I ran a lot of water into it and poured the better part of two gallons of bleach in. Then, every wedding picture, or photo of the two of us I could find (all the pre-children photo albums) and all the lingerie and other sexy things I had given her. Wedding certificate, too.
Before I left, I laid out the house for the reception I had wanted to give her. The week before this, I had purchased two hundred, thick, white candles of various heights, and commissioned two of Katie's colleagues to get me the oils and lotions she might like. I laid out the candles beginning at the entrance like a little path leading to the bathroom. Candles crowded all the horizontal surfaces in the bathroom, and the bath oils and lotions were placed nearest to the tub. I had gotten two new large hotel grade white bath towels that I placed on the toilet seat. On top of that, was the lingerie and other sexy things I had bought for the night, except I cut them up. The kids were to stay with grandpa and grandma, and our neighbor and his wife were to light the candles after I phoned them from the airport. Our bedroom, too, was loaded with candles, and I folded over her side of the bed and tore off the petals of two dozen roses to sprinkle onto the sheets. It was to be the homecoming of all time. I left my wedding ring on the kitchen table, scooped a few photos of the kids and left, forever.
I was in no condition to see anyone, so I booked into a cheap motel to wait for Tuesday--long weekend, remember. I did phone my principal and explained that he needed to find a sub because I would not be in in the near term. Tuesday morning, I made an appointment with a divorce lawyer and gave him the terms: I would take out half the money in our checking or savings account, whichever was most, but relinquished claim to everything else. I asked for visiting rights during holiday periods. I would never see Katie face to face; all communication was through the lawyer who was not allowed to disclose my whereabouts to anyone. I headed toward a part of the country where there was a housing boom to find some kind of basic job that paid the bills . I never even thought about teaching again. My lawyer did a beautiful job of keeping correspondence focused on business, and he never disclosed my whereabouts. He even controlled the exchange of children.
I could go on, particularly how I handled things with the kids, my beloved in-laws, but I want to return to my first paragraph. Was the affair worth it? It destroyed me. Think of a light bulb with a burned out element. My spirit, my love of life, of being me, burned away. Self-respect, confidence all extinguished, never to return. Now, so many years later, I still cannot trust women. I cannot make myself vulnerable. Guys try to set me up, but I always refuse. My libido did not survive the affair, anyway. I was largely an absence in my kids' lives (two weeks in summer are not much). Was that worth it? Just a mistake?. I feel like I can't answer anything anymore, but for God's sake girls, think about what you are doing before you enter into your little fling. Does your husband or boy friend deserve this?

Jynweythek: time passes as the chime of the anvil is struck and the world is still for only a moment
Vordhosbn: this is very blurry blue streaks with blue and red dots. to me this is just a breed of synthetic materials trying to figure out something relatively important, dunno what, i cant say.
Kladfvgbung Mischk: Immediately, i don’t want to think about it but i see a beach. it’s night time and there are torches lighting a full cave with upside down masks on the wall, nobody’s home.
Omgyjya-Switch7: From brown to a light rusty coloured yellow, this songs is like the sound of neurons trying to convey emotions that they weren’t designed to. It does almost well but they have a complexity of their own. the first of my favourites.
Strotha Tynhe: A mouse is scurrying into a field of Magnolias. it is so happy. But is reached a point with no flowers on sight, and the screen goes dark.
Gwely Mernans: Welcome to the inside of what you didn’t know existed. You are really not supposed to be here but alas here you are. better make it worth it. i think that would be in your best interest.
Bbydhyonchord: Palm trees and extremely reflective water. No sand in sight, only roads. Highway Roads for miles containing nothing but palm trees with lights surrounded by water. you drive for eternity. until you don’t.
Cock/ver10: the previous song has crashed into a wall and created a chemical reaction of intrusive motions within the entire line of driving. The wall it hit didn’t even exist, where are we going? i don’t know but i think the car is on some (aphex) acid. it must rest.
Avril 14th: Stone buildings in fine, colourful grass in the middle of France from an alternate universe. fine mist makes you smile.
Mt Saint Michel + Saint Micheals Mount: little green men with three antennae are sprinting from left to right, they are wearing blue jumpers and now they’re dancing. they don’t have history just enjoy the show. Are you entranced yet? To some folk, This is how to get lost into sound. And it couldn’t be better. If it’s not for you, the door glows for those who see it.
Gwarek2: Richard’s dad has a presence on this track. i don’t know why but i just feel like he has been a major part of this atmospheric administration. i may be completely wrong but this is him speaking from tones. He is working and producing influence through his son. This to me is the bside of qu1.
Orban Eq Trx 4: A bratty, clumsy teenager is riding his skateboard whilst those around him cheer with empty soup cans. he’s about to hit the jump! Will he make it? i’m not sure. he’s pretty drunk.
Aussois: Congratulations! You’ve discovered picturesque time travel. You can now look at any photo and hear the last 6 and a half seconds of audio that was around the event at the time.
Hy A Scullyas Lyf Adhagrow: Have you ever thought an inanimate object could become melancholic? me either, but this is it. i cant tell you what object it is.. you decide that all for yourself. in fact, you decide all of this yourself. Everything can feel.
Kesson Dalek: This sounds like a message of great urgency. it must be answered or everything they’ve ever loved is smashed in a billion shards of obsidian. i wish i knew but then again, i do not.
54 Cymru Beats: This is an AI robot attempting to process a 1:1 ratio of what it’s like for a human to have two small doses of ketamine and MDMA. The glitches are unbearable and unfortunately it’s a robot and gets this test completely wrong. Well, on second thought-
Btoum-Roumada: An empty mall. Vacant. covered in a shine of burgundy. very very dark and heavy emphasis on the burgundy. pretty.
Lornaderek: the car is not clean
QKThr: A windmill in a wind storm, but you can’t hear anything except peace. it is a navy blue sky and dark green grass.
Meltphace 6: A massive orange/tan coloured nuclear reactor with extremely intricate (green) wiring on the inside. the colour is green for a very specific reason but this reason is unknown to me. alexander graham bell from another world is playing his telephone inside. He loves the beeping noises. He’s got so many machines.
Bit 4: Ungodly amount of thin, stretchy material. but at the same time is very brittle and will break upon contact. a very unstable material.
Prep Gwarek 36: The clay soldiers build their very long and flat wall, comparable to the Great Wall. These blocks are somewhat smaller than an Average Toolbox and of an aquamarine blue colour. A timelapse.
Father: The crow in the cage is watching you. it has a human face but the details aren’t there. you can’t tell what they really look like. Don’t answer it if it mimics someone you know.
Taking control: the tunnel is narrow but the space is infinitely long. it just doesn’t make sense in a euclidean world. it has red lasers and some voice disguised in the colour of the darkest sapphire echoing through the entirety of your being. rocks are banging together in such a way that they are they’re own percussion group. you can’t see them in front of you but your mind can certainly hear them. not sure what that’s all about. another favourite.
Petiatil Cx Htdui: A world where homes look like churches. They’re white, made of wood and not very tall. but it would seem something went wrong. there is nobody here, the entire land is empty. why?
Ruglen Holon: Pottery class from 286BC. the fire is really warm and there is bread, although hard and tacky it is filling. a pot is shaping up to be the best, but it takes time. Am eternity it feels like.
Afx237 v.7: Half computer half human hybrid disgusting being is let lose and is causing terror on humanity. there are so many very not fun things going on in this scenario but the monster thing is just doing gang signs whilst strobing everyone to death. what a world to live in! this was the first one i was exposed to, another favourite. the baselines are sex
Ziggomatic17: the pinnacle of past, present and future influence my neurons transmit to one another. i don’t even know what to say for this one. a garbage bin has begun a career in stair falling, in which they create sound people love. it talks too. cute little thing for sure. very polite, big mouth for big sounds. it has a doorstopper as a friend and it’s so annoying but really knows how to make beats so the bin keeps it around. all in all, sometimes things are really nice and it feels good. sometimes you wish it doesn’t end, but you know the best things always do.
Beskhu3epnm: remember the clay soldiers? they’re in a waiting room right now. but there’s tension in here and i can’t seem who hates who but it’s about to get heated !!!! maybe not though. they seem level headed.
Nanou2: duotangs, love, bread, tapestries, aerosol cans - whatever you want. you can finally have it for free and you don’t need to prove anything. just enjoy what you want for once, sometimes you deserve it.

I am desperate! My best friend is a mother of three young kids and already has enough to deal with and I’m just trying to find some help on Reddit on how to help her.
A few months ago she “love tapped” a big SUV with a small car she was driving in and got a letter in the mail that the lady she “love tapped” is asking her insurance for money for injuries and damage to the car. But there is no damage to the car (she has pictures) and this lady won’t leave her alone. She is claiming bodily injury.
It’s tricky because at the time she was driving her dad’s car and she is not insured under her dad’s car. So I’m not sure what she can do?
Her dad’s insurance declined and now her license is suspended for not reporting the car accident and the lady’s insurance was the one that reported it I think?
Now the lady’s insurance has sent whatever payment was paid out to collections and is asking her for $1600 - $1800 which she doesn’t have because she’s fucking broke.
Now she’s afraid her dads license will get suspended because this all happened under HIS INSURANCE.
I just want to know what I need to do to help her. Does she need a lawyer? What kind? What can she do about her license? I need help! Please help me.
TL;DR My best friend love tapped a car and that lady now is seeking money claiming body injury and damages to the car. I need advice on how to help her!

Just wanted to share a recent success experiment and....

• Yes, it was done in a 7 month time frame
• Yes, it cost $100 (hosting) - we absorbed the cost since it was a new approach and de-risked client
• Yes, it took 10 hours all in (dev + content pop)
• Yes, less than 25 pages were needed

We aimed to position for "ottawa car accident lawyer", initial target was top 5, amazing was top 3 and the site now sits ...... #1. Now that I typed this out, it'll probably tank! lol
Observations which I am willing to share - use as you want:

1. the website look isn't as relevant as we initially thought
2. clarity is much more relevant than we thought
3. much less content is needed to start seeing results than we thought
4. seo updates don't need to happen as often as we thought - no ongoing seo effort!
5. results fall off a cliff (pretty much) if outside the top 10 - duh!
6. did we use AI for content gen? No, but we did use AI

We have 2 other tests brewing and both have better conversions than this site - will share another next week if the community wants it.
I see so many "marketing agencies" pushing the same game plan (Wordpress and post a blog once a XXXX) and it is just a waste of money for the client. Happy to provide link to site for those who want it.

I want you to understand what happened, Darcy.
Awakening to the smell of freshly fried eggs and sizzling bacon was the highlight of the day. I felt as if I could hover across the house like an old cartoon character following the smells. I stepped down the stairs, a content smile brandished across my face. I shrugged as I walked past the minor black mold that started to creep in under the door and waved hello at my family, sitting around the circular dining table. You said that you loved me, and handed me a cup of coffee. It was brown and hot, the aroma of which filled my senses. I sipped it slowly as I listened to my children tell me about their fanatical dreams.
Charles, my oldest, was nearing seventeen, had started to dream up strange dreams that bordered on nightmares. He told me of the times he was standing on a golden sand beach with a singular palm tree beside him. In front of him was a wall, a wall of water that peaked past the clouds. It was as if it was a curtain for the very sky. Atop the peak of the curtain was the raging white rapids of a stirring sea… yet the water did not move. It stayed stationary as Charles slowly made a sand castle from the golden sand. Content even in the face of annihilation.
Debra, nearly fourteen, told of her dream. She described a beautiful green oasis within a pit of sand, from which she slid down from the dunes above. Within, she saw various things and beings that sprouted coral like protrusions across their bodies. It would’ve frightened her, had it not been a dream, and they were kind. They spoke to her, of which Debra only remembered a little about. She said they were from a village, one of which they were exiled from. When Debra asked why, she was met with an apathetic shrug, and a word. “Unlucky.” She said the dream continued, from which they had a lovely time. Unfortunate strangers left to be kind to other unfortunates.
Finally, Timmy, my youngest who had reached the age of twelve just a few months prior, told of his dream. He said it was simple, a simple room, with a simple sound. The gentle tings and tongs of a wind chime outside of a window. The room around him was gray and ascetic, as if unlived in. He said that in this dream, he would only stare at the wind chimes, as they slowly rang him a tune. Enjoyment through the dull.
I smiled in interest at each of their retellings. It was a wondrous thing, human imagination. Before long however, the clock struck thirty past nine and work called to me. I pulled my tie ready and lifted the brown suitcase that I brought to work everyday. I stepped outside to the evergreen plastic lawn, and the ideal American suburb. White walled homes with gable rooftops, lawns of grass, and sprinklers wasting the water.
I waved hello at the neighbors, and they waved back. Responses that remained static throughout the past ten years of living here. Stability is good though, I thought to myself.
Half an hour later, I found myself at the office of my work, typing away at the cheap plastic keyboard as lights flickered on the monitor, the slow whirr of the office filled my ears. The chatter of the workplace felt off, where I’d expect a chuckle from a distant corner of the office, I heard only drawn out sighs. Near the front of the office, my manager sat behind closed shutters, perhaps he knew if something was wrong. I pressed down on a button underneath the monitor screen and it shut off with a dull beep. I walked towards my manager’s office, passing a few grim frowns from my coworkers.
I knocked on the door, through the closed shutters I could see a small peek of my manager, where he sat with his head in his arms. I knocked again and he raised his head, “Come in.” his voice was slurred.
I walked in and could immediately tell he was hungover, or perhaps even drunk. His usually well-kept hair was a tangled frizzy mess. This was the first sign. He talked to me with somber words. I don’t remember what he said exactly, but he spoke about the business and how it was failing. He lifted a piece of dead coral he had on his desk, I assumed it was a paper weight of sorts. He sighed to it and asked me to leave.
I returned to my desk with the same grim expression the rest of my coworkers held. Jobs were getting more difficult to obtain, and I could hear it from the grapevines and newspapers. I used the work phone to make a call to you, I told you about the situation, and you understood.
At least, I thought you did.
When I returned home from the long workday, the phone had a message from the office. I was let go over the phone, it came so suddenly; I had a hard time believing at first. I didn’t lose face in front of the children, I just had to find a new job.
Charles and Debra had put Timmy to bed, they were observant and smart kids. They knew something was wrong.
Charles was the first to ask, “What’s wrong?” He asked me. Debra grew the same worried look that Charles had.
I didn’t know what to tell them at first, it was my responsibility as a parent to take care of them. I had to keep up that image of stability, I’d find a job soon enough. I waved their question away, I knew they weren’t content with my answer.
By the time I got around to eating dinner, it was cold. It’s not that important to mention, but it’s just another straw to the ever burdened camel. We talked over the cold dinner, just you and me.
“What are you going to do?” You asked me, I couldn’t look into your eyes. I felt the tinge of disappointment in your words. It was unfair.
“I’ll find a new job, there’s another place, up a bit into the city, not much longer of a commute…” I said, you said something in response, something about your parents. I didn’t want to be co-dependant. I said it was off the table. We weren’t poor. We had enough money to pay the mortgage for six months, eleven thousand dollars in savings. You said okay, I knew you had malice in your voice.
We ate in silence, just you and me. I wish I could have a meal with you again.
The next morning, Debra had come down with something bad. High temperature, disorientation, and molted skin. You let Charles take Timmy to school, and we went to the hospital with Debra together. They said it was sepsis.
She wouldn’t make it if she didn’t get treatment immediately, so we said yes to everything they told us. I was by her bedside that night, listening to the cold quiet breeze that flowed in.
She spoke to me, slowly, “Dad.” I nodded to her. She said kind things to me, supportive, good-natured words. Then she told me about her dream the previous night.
She described it to me in her fatigued state. Debra returned to that oasis, where she met the coral men. She waved at them and they did not seem to recognize her. They let her in with open arms nonetheless. She said they spoke to her about trust, and how she needs to trust you.
You.
Trust you.
I didn’t hear the rest of her dream. She slept with Charles and Timmy by her side in that hospital that night. I had no idea where you went. The next morning, she went into shock. You got there an hour later, frantically pushing the nurses and doctors to the side. You were shouting her name.
She was fine. The treatments worked and Debra recovered. The doctors said it was a thirty to forty percent mortality rate, and you weren’t there. We fought in the lobby, do you remember that? I do.
The hospital always made me queasy. Knowing that the injured and ill filled every crevice of the building made my skin itch to the bone. I had gone there between my job hunts to visit Debra. Charles and Timmy were worried sick about her, I spoke to Timmy out in the hallway. He asked me where you were, if I had known what I knew now, I would’ve never said anything. I gave him your number and said he could call you. Charles called you too, and I returned to Debra’s side. She was still in a fatigued state, her mind clouded. She would repeat a few of the same phrases about her dream.
“Friendly wants to meet you.”
“They’re so kind, and strange.”
“I want their face.”
Something creeped me out about the last phrase, and how’d she repeat it while closing her eyes. I went to the front desk an hour later, and asked for the current bill.
It was eight thousand dollars, I knew I had eleven thousand dollars in our account. I knew it, I double checked it that morning and I did the math on how many months I could pay on our mortgage.
So why was the bill declined? Why was it that when I called the bank, they told me I had only ten dollars and twenty-six cents left in the account? I told the clerk I’d pay later and walked back into Debra’s room. I looked at her, softly fading away, I wondered if she’d ever fully recover from the sepsis. I knew everyday she stayed meant a few thousand dollars more in debt. Her oxygen line was on the floor, I guess back then safety wasn’t such a big concern. I looked into her eyes, I didn’t see my daughter. I saw a codependent person fading away. My foot found it’s way over the oxygen line, my heel to the ground with the front of my foot hovering just over the line.
Debra turned to face me, “They will meet… they know my caretaker.” I didn’t know she was talking about you, at the time. It was enough to get me to move my foot away. I walked to meet Charles, who was standing outside, leaning against the wall of the hospital with Timmy.
“How is Debra?” Charles asked. He was genuine, a good kid. Too good.
I told him she was fine, and if he’s seen you anywhere. He shrugged, and he lied to my face. “She didn’t tell me anything.”
No, Charles and you spoke for far too long for you to have said nothing to him. Why would he lie?
I asked him again, calmly.
Charles raised his hands up to his sides, “Don’t know. What’s your plan for a job? She told us you got fired. Maybe that’s why she left.”
Something started to stir in me, from that question. “Please mind what you’re saying.” I said back to him.
He was a teenager though, so he continued his speech, “You’ve been out of a job for all of three days, and she already left. There had to be something else going on.” A noise started in my mind, like a crescendo to an opera performance, rising orchestral tension.
“No.” I stuttered, my hands were shaking. “There was nothing else.” Charles wasn’t content with my answer, he sighed and whipped his head to the side. He said something along the lines of how much of a failure I’ve become.
I looked down at Timmy. I asked Timmy to walk away. He did, like a good kid.
Charles started to walk too, I grabbed his wrist. You know that feeling? That feeling that some parents have that makes you just want to… teach your kid a lesson? I’ve tried to type this section out in more detail, several times, but I’m now electing to omit it.
I strangled Charles. I did. He coughed, wheezed and struggled in my hands. His kick to my shin made me let him go. A second later I recognized what I had done, and fell to my knees in front of him.
I was killing my son, why?
He shouted something at me, but I had gone deaf, trapped in my own mind. He snapped at me and grabbed me by my shirt, forcing me to focus on him. We cried together, breaking down our emotional walls to expose to each other what we were feeling. I felt that I was disappointing my entire family, that I was a failure. I didn’t mention what I almost did to Debra.
It’s only been three days, what’s going on?
Later that evening, I drove Timmy and Charles back home. That’s where you come in. You were slumped over the dining room table, a glass of red wine to one side and a disconnected landline to your other side. I came in shouting at you, asking— no, demanding, what happened to the money.
You mumbled something, and tipped the glass over. I asked again and you yelled at me. Charles was quick to take your side, maybe he didn’t hear what I said and just heard me shouting.
“Leave her alone!” He yelled. I balled my fists in anger and shouted again. You stood up out of the chair and threw the glass across the room, it shattered into pieces. I pointed at the door, poor Timmy was so terrified. You scared him so much.
You walked out of the house, that was the last time I ever saw you. When you shut that door behind you, I felt a wave of relief, despair, and loneliness. On the counter, I noticed you left behind a piece of dried coral. It was covered in swirls, gray and dead. Hard as stone yet I could crumble bits of the facade with a hard enough press. I needed to talk to Debra.
Charles and Timmy elected to stay at home, I let them. I would visit Debra myself, driving the car that evening through the lonely highway as my heart beat raced. I kept thinking to myself, replaying every situation in my head, thinking about what was the smart choice.
I found myself at the hospital again, I still wished I never went inside. The clerk at the front office was kind as always. She could tell something was off about me too as I walked to Debra’s room. The window into the room was stained, a speckle of red. It didn’t concern me at first— stepping inside the room showed me something much worse.
I know what they told you, they told you that I did it, and what I’ve told you so far will make it sound like I had the reason to do it but I didn’t. I didn't do it. Did you? Did you? Who did? Was it you? Was it them?
Debra laid in that hospital bed, at first I thought her face had been caved in. I ran to her, grabbing her hand. I was close enough to see what really happened. Her left hand was clutching a medical scalpel, it was covered in dried dead coral. Like someone left it in the ocean for a few decades for the sea to manifest upon it. Remembering her face now is difficult, not because my memory is poor, but just… how it was.
Her face’s skin was upside down. A thin bloody line from the top to the bottom marked a large oval frame of her face. It was as if someone picked up that oval and just turned it around. I could see her eyes behind her cut off lips. Behind her eye sockets were her white teeth, cracked and covered in sea growth. Blood spilled from her ears, eyes, nose, and mouth, gently pooling in her bed. The mouth of hers was twisted and curled, in such a large smile that it was unnatural. I placed my hand to her cold cheek, and I cried. Darcy, I cried, is that not enough? Even after all this time, I remember exactly how her face felt. Like cold meat from the freezer, none of the warmth that she once had. The nurse came in a few minutes after me, or maybe a few seconds. I don’t recall. The nurse restrained me, screamed, and soon enough I was escorted out of the building where dozens of the red and blue had parked up by the front. Flashes of her face kept assaulting my mind, the twisted smile, the teeth behind her eye sockets, the feel of her skin. Debra didn’t deserve this, yet, that smile, it was like she had joy before…
The police had me in one of their cars, and I was taken to the station. My eyes and cheeks covered in dried tears, and my hands in blood. They didn’t arrest me, but their questions were numb to me, I wasn’t in the state of mind to answer them and they let me go a few hours later. I collapsed on the sidewalk outside of the station, curled into a fetal position, crying. One of the policemen came outside to talk to me. I remember him, his voice was uncaring and cold.
“You can’t be out here like that.” He said, or something to that effect. I ignored him, and he dragged me off of the sidewalk and into the lot of the station. I asked him through my broken voice to call for Charles, my son. He agreed and returned to the station. My mind started to drift, and wander, as if it was swimming through a ravine. Rocks on either side of my mind, threatening to poke and scratch me if I diverged from the path before me. I started to dream, there upon the lot of the station.
I remember my own nightmare vividly.
A towering being stood within a sand-encircled oasis. It was hundreds of meters tall, the ankles of the being were at the height of the oasis’s trees. I stood before it, atop the dunes that surrounded the oasis. Long strands of hair, thick as trees, flowed from the skull of the being down to the exposed rib cage. The sun was behind the being, but even then, I could see the coral protrusions from every bit of the skin it had. Twisted and curled, dotted and maze-like, the coral flowed throughout the entirety of the being as it held its head in a bowed state. It was the very definition of colossal, like the sea, and the waters it held.
I walked from the dunes towards the oasis, as if the being was calling my name. Within the oasis, there were two figures facing away from me. Both were women, from their silhouettes, a tall one, and a shorter one. I could see that their hands and arms were covered in a similar coral growth that I started to see everywhere.
As I stepped forward, I recognized the figures, it was you. You and Debra. The figures turned to face me, Debra’s face was the same as I last saw it. Twisted, curled, spiraling, evil. Her smile, arcing from the middle of both sides of her face up to an apex at the top of her head opened slightly. Your face was… You know what your face was. You talked to me.
“What are you talking about?” You said to me, I was confused at first, as I hadn’t said anything. I kept my eyes fixed on Debra. I asked you what you meant.
“Psycho. Where’s Timmy!” You shouted at me, I looked at you, your face changed. It would be blank, if not for the dozens of holes in a neatly arranged grid covering your entire face. Every one of them beckoned my gaze, and the sense of vertigo felt as if I was falling. Your face, I know now that it was resembling a phone’s speaker.
I responded, slowly, freezing up in terror as my gaze darted between the two of you, “I.. I don’t know.” I closed my eyes, I could feel the heat of the oasis fade, and the cool breeze returned around me. I felt a hand shake my shoulder and I opened my eyes. A policeman was standing next to me, holding a cellphone to my ear, he snapped his fingers in front of my eyes.
You yelled at me again, through the phone, “What the fuck did you do to Debra?” I felt pleasant though, hearing your voice. Even if it was a yell. The policeman removed the phone from my ear before I could respond, he pressed down on a button and your voice disappeared.
“Some wife, huh?” He chuckled to himself as he held the large phone in his hand. His words hurt. He continued to speak, “Debra… that’s the dead kid from the hospital, yeah?” He narrowed his eyes at me and grabbed my shoulder. He told me to come with him.
I was in a trance-like state from that point, like the environment around me shifted with me in place. One moment, I was at the booking station, the next, the jail cell. They threw me in with a new set of gray dull overalls. Around me, gray concrete, and a singular window. I leaned my head against the wall, staring out into the window. I was tired. My vision blurred and my mind felt as if it was turning on and off, alternating every other moment. I could only smell the bit of blood that remained on my skin and the metal aroma that arose from the bars of the cell. I focused outside, out into the window. A wind chime hung from something outside, slowly drifting around in the breeze. I listened to the gentle melody it played as I started to slowly hit my head against the prison wall.
I awoke to the sunlight against my eyes, I was laying on the hard concrete floor. Every joint in my body ached and felt exhausted. My vision was blurry, but I could see something new in the corner of my cell. It was coral, sharp and jagged, spiral patterns decorated its skin and it was alive. It was a shade of yellow, blue, and green— the air felt thick and heavy— as if I was breathing the ocean itself. I started to cough. A policeman approached my cell, he slammed on the bars with his baton and yelled at me. Then he saw the coral, and he fell.
Then another policeman came.
And another.
They learned eventually. Now three policemen laid, dead, at the foot of the cell. I kept my gaze at the coral. Watching it grow with my own eyes as it reaches out towards me. The swirls and twists of it slowly morphed on the surface. Slowly it molded into Debra’s twisted face. Sour and angry, her smile turned to a frown, two pale eyeballs peeked from behind the lips.
I crawled away from it and reached my hand through the cell, tearing a pair of keys from one of the dead policemen.
The coral came closer, stretching and bending as if it was the joints of a rotting corpse.
I jammed the key into the cell lock from the outside and managed to unlock it. I slammed the door against the corpses and stumbled out of the cell. I slammed out the front door of the station.
Flashlights beamed into my eyes as I could hear frantic shouting from the policemen outside. I shut my eyes and collapsed on the steps of the station. A moment later all I heard was silence. When I opened my eyes, I saw all the policemen twisted and curved, like coral. Spirals across their skin and their faces moved to other parts of their body. One’s mouth had shifted all the way to their hand. I called out for help, if anyone could help. I looked down at my hands and noticed I was holding a scalpel, a scalpel covered in coral. I dropped it onto the floor, blood decorated its exterior.
I fell into another dream, there upon the front of the station.
I was back in the oasis, half a dozen new men were there, covered in coral growths and twisted limbs. Their faces were sinister, curled, like abominations. I watched as the colossal picked up one of the men and tore them apart. It roared, a roar that shook my very spine. It splattered the man onto its ribcage and turned its head toward another man. The colossal being was— absorbing them.
I knew what I had to do. I’m sorry for doing it, I hope you see now, there was a reason. It had to be stopped.
I slammed my head against the oasis floor and I awoke at the station’s front steps. The coral seeped out of the station, curling and twisted. There was commotion outside, but none seemed to notice me as I crawled away. The coral was following me, I could see it slowly inch by inch, twist its way toward me.
I found myself in one of the police cars, driving this time, seeking a way to end the coral safely, without hurting any more people. I remembered at home, I had a gun, kept underneath the bed. I took care not to speed, I didn’t want to hurt anyone else.
I didn’t want to hurt anyone else.
It wasn’t my intention.
I really didn’t mean to.
I stopped the car at home, I rushed inside, ran into our room and tore the place apart. I was frantic, I didn’t even notice them. The coral started to sprout from me, I could feel the calcium structures start to twist within my stomach. I tore apart the final drawer, the gun seemed to gleam at me.
I picked it up.
“Dad?”
Timmy. I turned to face him, the coral was spreading from my body. I remembered the colossal being, what it was doing. I fired the gun at him. It was a haze from then, I remember a scream… Charles’ scream. I shouted for him, yelling at him to come out. I could feel the coral splinter into every bone of my body tearing my flesh from within. My eyes grew bloodshot and my hand started to seize. I fired the gun throughout the house, again, and again. Charles fled outside, tripping on a piece of coral and slamming his chin into the concrete walkway. I pointed the gun at him as he desperately pleaded with his hands in the air and I shot him.
I turned the gun to myself, pain reverberated throughout my entire body. The coral sprouted from my shoulder, a curling bit of evil that twisted and wriggled. I pressed down on the trigger, and the gun’s hammer struck an empty chamber.
I screamed, I threw the gun onto the street and walked back into the house. Coral had grown all over the inside, so I reached the landline. I dialed you.
“Please send your message after the beep.” It chirped back to me.
I left the phone hanging and walked to our home office, passing by pictures of our family as the coral slowly grew over them. I collapsed in this chair, typing on the computer what had happened. I’m hoping by posting this… you would find it... and understand what happened.
You would understand.

Goodies from goodies: https://imgur.com/a/ik6GLtg
u/welshfancy x 2 Thanks for the *amazing* Barbie card. It’s so cute & fun, I can’t stop smiling! I share the hilarity here for those who share our Bananas-for-Barbie brains: One Barbie says to the other: “If only all men were like Ken…” & the other Barbie replies: “It’d be perfect! When you get bored you just put him away in a shoe-box! LOL!!! Including a close-up pic of it through the link :)
In one of our DMs & in my last thanks post, you shared that you really enjoy jokes. I’m kinda blushing here with some of these jokes, but I wanna gift you some laughs for this beautiful Barbie card. BTW ***I love men***, and I know we all do on this sub (even our friend who’s apparently selling their husband on the meta sub haha), so no offense to any of the lovely men on this sub. K, you sweet manly muffins? These are stupid stereotypes but shared only in the spirit of fun, no harm, & obviously we can’t live without y’all. I don’t think. ;) This is purely to entertain our friend u/welshfancy here because they deserve it after the job rollercoaster they've been on lately. But if anyone takes offense, I’ll immediately delete them. Better yet - feel free to post some funny revenge jokes about women. But remember, if you do, we’ll be sure to send appropriate “thank you” cards hahaha!
*Do you know what the insensitive bit at the base of a guy’s manhood is called? The man. ;)
*What’s the difference between men & government bonds? Bonds mature. =)
*What’s the difference between E.T. & men? At least E.T. phoned the hell home.
*What’s the difference between men & vultures? Vultures wait until you’re dead before ripping your heart out. ;)
*Why are men like blenders? You know you need one, but you’re not quite sure why.
*When’s the only time you can change a man? When he’s a baby.
*How do men help clean the house? They lift their legs so you can vacuum underneath.
*What did God say after creating man? “Hmmm, I think I can do better.”
*How are men like laxatives? They irritate the crap outta you! ;)
*How can you tell if your husband is happy? Who the hell cares?
*What do men & mascara have in common? They both run at the first sign of emotion.
*What do you call a man who disagrees with you? Wrong.
*Why does it take TWO HUNDRED MILLION sperm to fertilize one damn egg? Because not one will stop to ask for damn directions! ;)
Hope some of these made you giggle. :) I also LOVE this illustrated postcard of the Moon from La Loteria!!!! Thank you. :) Ya know I’ll need to hear about your wacky wild 80s adventures in Mexico, right? It’s like you left me with a cliffhanger! Feel free to share your wildest stories anytime - I’d love to share them on the sub in a thank you post. But if you wanna tell me confidential story secrets, that would be fun too! :) Thanks for always bringing a huge smile to my face with your endless mail love! Wishing you infinite joy…along with toilets & people that aren’t full of crap! ;)
u/410bore x 2 Is your PERFECT cool-calligraphy handwriting for REALS?!? OMG if I had your hot handwriting, I’d write all day long on walls & the sides of buildings to show off, graffiti laws be damned! Your handwriting is so hella awesome, you should charge admission to people just to watch you write!!!! Thank you for the vintage NASA card, which was just the icing on top of your gorgeous calligraphy cake! Thanks so much also for the neato wooden postcard!! It’s so unique! I love that you bought it from the Santa Monica Pier. BTW I’ve been to the Adobe Max virtual conference before - super inspiring. Hope you had a blast! BTW don’t be alarmed if you notice that it’s broken in the pic - I didn’t do it. That was courtesy of the USPS, which admitted its mistake. I honestly don’t know how they BROKE a WOODEN postcard LOL! But it’s no less beautiful - my nephew loves it so much he wants to feature it in his room. ;) Thanks for thinking of me, kind friend. =)
u/MelodicEntertainer Thanks for the cool retro sausage ad postcard - love retro ads!!!! Yes, friend, you’re almost ;) right that “Texas = BBQ” (haha, love it). I would edit this: “Texas = blissful, buttery, beefy BBQ” ;) I know it may seem redundant to type “beefy” but I add this because there are weirdos here who think CHICKEN & TURKEY classify as BBQ. I should take my shotgun & shoot them. Kidding. Just ‘cause I’m from Texas, it doesn’t mean I’m nuts enough to own a shotgun. =) I would use my glock. Kidding, again. Seriously I can’t stand gun violence. :( But the people who think that BBQ includes anything other than my blissful buttery beef should never, ever receive any cool stickers from any of us. ;) I’ve heard certain parts of Canada have some BBQ game too! Calgary maybe? Wishing you the sweetest, spiciest slabs of marbled, majestic beef, fabulous friend!
u/likablelobster Friend, there could be no more likable lobster than you. You became more likable by the minute after your adorable illustrated croissant & coffee postcard arrived! Did you use a ***gasp*** TYPEWRITER to type your super likable thoughts on this postcard?!? I’m obsessed with typewriters! I wish I had one from the 1940s! They are so crazy cool & believe me when I tell you that you became even more likable to me by typing crooked! I don’t know if it was intentional or not but THIS is the sweet crazy charm of using a typewriter - having no control over lawless words that don’t align to mad margins! For the first 15 minutes I stared at this card in awe, I didn’t even READ what you typed hahaha! I was entranced by the typing!!!! And then your likability catapulted to the moon when I read what you had actually typed. ;) I loved how you typed so much in such a small amount of space, you likable sweetie!!!! This postcard is now among my absolute favorites - because you typed through tumultuous postcard terrain & included what is the PRETTIEST stamp I have EVER seen (the super colorful illustrated Postcrossing stamp)!!!! Thank you SO much for making me so happy with your beautiful mail!
u/maiiiu Thanks so much for the super cuuuuute handmade “Write” card! Your calligraphy of the word “Write” is just gorgeous! I just love the awesome puffy-ish pastel-colored plant stickers you included - they’re so fun to look at & I can’t wait to use them while sending mail!! I love that you have a mentor, & what a bonus that he makes you laugh! I say, next time, *you* get to decide what y’all have for lunch. Wishing y’all perfect palak paneer lunches that are free from rain & roadside diversions! ;)
u/dekabus Thank you for the pretty floral card with all your sweet sentiments on beauty! I found it delightful that you included the cool sticker that says “Vermehrt Schönes” or “Increase Beauty” in German! I love it!!!! I think the subject of “beauty” is fascinating & want to share with you one of my favorite quotes: “But if a mirror ever makes you sad, you should know that it does not know you.” – Kabir Here’s an interpretation of the meaning from outofstress.com: “The mirror is merely a reflection of your external form and not of your internal form. Hence the mirror does not know you and what it portrays is of little importance.” You are BEAUTIFUL, u/dekabus, for so many reasons. But in this moment, you are most beautiful for spreading so much kindness & cheer to so many across the globe, especially to strangers! Thank you! Wishing you beauty in all its forms, beautiful friend. =)
u/jess_4943 Thanks for the pretty hyacinth postcard decorated with the fun stickers! I really love the lightbulb sticker that has flowers growing within it, like a terrarium! Depictions of mini terrariums housed in unusual objects always delight me!! Wishing you terrariums of joy! =)
u/wabisabi_sf Thanks for the serene RAoC 10th anniversary beach postcard with my name written in your *gorgeous* calligraphy! I appreciate your kind words & wish you beaches of beauty & bacon (if you like bacon ha)!
u/kk6321 Thanks for the cool postcard with all the fun travel stamps! Wishing you a blast in Spain! Re: you wondering if there will be AC…a few years ago I was in Portugal & it was 117 degrees. No AC. I prayed for death & canceled my plans to go to Spain because apparently it was hotter there. :( Wishing you buckets of ice & balmy breezes!!!!
u/omggallout x 2 Thanks for the adorable Arriety postcard - what a fun illustration! Haha, how cool that we unwittingly sent each other space postcards!!! Thank you for the gorgeous depiction of Orion Nebula with the fun planet stickers! Wishing you planets of peace & prosperity!
u/lehmongeloh Thank you for the cuuuuute kitty floral postcard! You are a magnet to cute, my friend! Please DM me with your address & likes if I may send you a card. =) Wishing you all things that are crazy cute!
u/smellyann64 Thanks for the cool vintage Vienna House of Parliament card! I don’t know what your job title is, but you staring down barracudas & hangin’ with octopi wins the RAoC coolest career contest! Wishing you safety & smiles in the sea!! =)
u/mypetitmal x 2 Thank you for the SUPER FUN, beautifully-illustrated Power Woman thank-you postcard! I love it! The artwork is so eye-catching & I love the comic-book panel style! It was my pleasure to send you the kitty card. My thoughts are with you & I hope that you’re feeling better. WHOA you’ve been carding since 2007 - whoa!!!! So awesome! Have you ever counted the number of cards you’ve received? To answer your question…I’ve been a crafter since about 2016 when I started frequenting craft classes at a bunch of different libraries. But I only got into carding when I met the beautiful u/Bridge-etti at a Victorian scrapbooking class & she casually mentioned RAoC to me! Imagine my delight at “running” into her again on accident/BY SURPRISE on this sub when she sent me a V-Day card & I sent her a birthday card!!! I’d been waiting to see how long it would take for me to cross paths with her since I never got her info and it only took about 6 weeks!!! Amazingly fun!! So I have her to thank for my new obsession - RAoC, & for the sad/fun reality that my car now looks like Hobby Lobby had a baby in it. ;) Thanks also for the super cuuuute friendship currency postcard! What cute doodles. Also love the adorable sticker you added! I hear you on the time change - same. Wish they would abolish it so we can prevent traffic accidents & other nonsense! Hope you recover soon & that your trip to Chi-town was a blast! Eat anything tasty there? =) Thanks for thinking of me & looking forward to learning more about you. Wishing you endless smiles & sunshine through RAoC & beyond, sweetheart!
u/thunderlightboomzap Thank you for the pretty illustrated sky card! You shared such wonderful affirmations - thanks for taking the time to share them with me! And so many! I especially love how you shared affirmations focusing on self-worth: “My worth cannot be measured by my paycheck, my job title, or a list of professional or academic achievements” & “There is nothing I need to accomplish to be worthy. I am already worthy.” Right on! These are amazing reminders. Thanks also for the “mental health matters” & self-compassion stickers! You’re such a loving, encouraging soul! Here are some affirmations for you on one of my fave subjects, creativity:
“I am creating in every moment, awake and asleep.”
“I am free to take my imagination anywhere it wants to go.”
This one is a bit wordy, but I like the spirit:
“I effortlessly connect with the universe's boundless inventiveness.”
Thanks again for being so thoughtful & encouraging! Wishing you the same peace, joy, & smiles you gifted me!
u/drguinea Thanks for the beautiful pastel flower postcard! Looking at all the pretty colors brightens my spirits. YESSSSS I’m all about David on Schitt’s Creek! I recall Googling the heck out of him when I first watched the show - it’s so easy to fall in love with him. But sad for me, he’s too hot & gay so what’s the point of living anymore?!? ;) And his real-life/tv DAD Eugene Levy - okay should I be embarrassed to admit that I fell in love with him years ago when I heard him speak live at a banquet in Austin LOL? He is HILARIOUS!!!!
u/LaCuntessa Thanks for the wacky fun Joan Miro postcard - love this art, & especially the smiling sketches!
u/hato_mailing x 2 Thanks for the GORGEOUS wax seals you sent along with the sweet nature postcards. :) The seals are simply stunning & a total wonder to look at, wow! The turquoise & silver seals are especially fun & fanciful! Thanks for letting me be a part of your fun mail wax seal test initiative - super cool. :) Wishing you the hottest of wonderful wax that never burns you! But not ear wax - OMG have you ever gone temporarily deaf because of excessive ear wax? It’s kinda cool & convenient when your mom yells for no reason but kinda torturous otherwise. Kinda like how I’m torturing you by mentioning ear wax for no reason. Sorry I haven’t slept much. Wishing you endless joy in your snazzy snail mail experiments!
u/libertyprogrammer Thanks for the gorgeous Women in Art Ray Eames postcard! I can’t wait to study her films. And as a newbie, I went batcrap bananas over all the flippin’ FUNNNNN & super unique postage stamps you included!! They are EXTRAORDINARY, & so are you for brightening my day with all this beautiful eye candy. Wishing you limitless liberty (LOVE the username)! =)
u/travel4me Thank you for this ****super gorgeous**** Loupaper postcard of the charming charcuterie snacks! You totally nailed the “brightly colored illustration” prompt - I loooove this card so much! Wishing you the crunchiest carrots, sweetest strawberries, creamiest cheeses, & bluest blueberries at your next social soiree! =)
u/missnettiemoore Thanks for the neato retro Absinthe ad postcard! Love vintage ads. I’ve never tried absinthe either. But I’m all about the art! Wishing you days full of intoxicating laughter & love! =)
u/bluedecemberart Thanks for the elegant Alphonse Mucha postcard! Love your thoughts on watercolor vs. lithographs. Holy moly I don’t know anything about art but I can’t believe it’s watercolor either! Astounding. Thanks for sharing your art expertise with me, I love to learn! Wishing you endless joy as you create your art. =)
u/photographyislove Thanks for the exquisite wildflower specimens postcard! I love illustrated cards like this one. =) I was alarmed to hear about your winter storm traffic story but relieved you’re around to talk about it! Wishing you safety & the best of hilarious podcasts while you drive!
u/mostlygoodthings Thanks for the sweet wishes from Spain - adorably written on the Norway postcard hahaha! I’m feeling envious about the gorgeous ambient sunlight scenes you described. =) Wishing you soft, serene sunlight (not like the sunburns we get in Texas ;( ) & smiles!
u/jamiekj Thanks for the sweet surprise wishes from Savannah! How adorable are you to think of me while on your work trip?!? I appreciate your thoughtfulness so much & hope that you had some fun while on your work trip (or at least tried some tasty treats). =) Wishing you lots of exciting excursions & zero work on your “work” trips haha!
u/lspjackie How cuuuuute is this vintage St. Patrick’s day illustrated postcard?!?!? It is sooooo adorable, & you are too for blessing a stranger with it! I’m insane for vintage illustrated ads & this one is just frame-worthy! Thank you. Hope you had a 17th full of luck & laughter! =)
u/tashmash Loved receiving a postcard from your fave ice cream joint! Thank you. What cuuuute diamond washi you used to decorate the postcard. I feel like American ice cream is devoid of flavofat because they jack it up with sugar. I wonder if your ice cream place uses more fabulous fat than stupid sugar in the ice cream. Your postcard makes me wanna pack up & move to NZ just to test out the goodies for myself. ;) Wishing you boundless buckets of chocolate cherry & cookies & cream ice cream without ice cream headaches!!!
u/Proud_Ad_759 x 2 This Winnie-the-Pooh card is crazy adorable but ALMOST as adorable as you are!!!!! I just LOVE your enthusiasm for snail mail & was so charmed by your cuuuute inquiry if I had received your postcard like a day hahaha after you mailed it from 87 states away! Seriously, your positive energy is so infectious & I’m so happy we met! I was also so happy to hear about your 6th sense…okay the same uber weird stuff happens to me. And it IS a “big thing” my friend! Now how can we channel that into winning the lottery LOL? Just kidding. Sort of - I mean, I’ll take the lottery but to be honest, even if I won it, I would NEVER EVER stop exchanging cards with fabulous fun friends like you! I think I’d just use the $$ to juice up the process. Like I’d hire a full-time assistant to take care of all the RAoC tasks while I just read & appreciate the cards. ;) Thanks also for the funny Peter Pan postcard of the little weirdo exposing his beautiful belly! Just loved your funny, creative answer to my macarena dance prompt !!! If you’re okay with me posting your awesome answer, I’ll do that later when I post a special thanks including all the different answers to the same prompt. =)
u/BetterOwl3221 Hello-Hello I’m so happy-happy to receive this STUNNING Halo-Halo recipe postcard!!!!! THANK YOU! =) I'm including a close-up pic of it in case anyone reading my long-winded nonsense wants to check out the recipe. =) I’m bananas for illustrated cards & this one needs to be framed for my future dream house! All of the pastel colors on this gorgeous card instantly brighten me up & I’m even excited to live today if that makes sense hahaha! It’s kinda cool how one beautiful card from a beautiful stranger can instantly be a beautiful balm for one’s mood. I also loved your description of the dreamy dessert. It sounds so perfect & simply scrumptious! The postmark is from last month - it took ages to get here. And funny, this is the *one* card I kept thinking about for weeks out of all the ones I’ve ever requested because it just looked like the happiest card ever on your post & I was hoping it wasn’t lost. So the day I got it in the mail, I started jumping up & down like a lunatic outside near the mailbox & was so giddy that a kid passing by, ALARMED, asked me if I needed help. I was like, really, you kind moron? I’m smiling & laughing like a nutcake while holding this beautiful mail & your instinct is to call the cops on me hahaha?!? I wanted to yell at the stupid sweetie to check out RAoC so he could experience the kind of joy you made me feel. =)
u/Dolliesqueak Thanks for the super cool Night Sky postcard with the awesome Carl Sagan quote!!! I agree that we are made of star stuff =) Wishing you shooting stars & sweet sunshine!
u/doggotoast x 2 Thanks for the gorgeous SG postcard! So cute! I’m digging your affinity for oatmilk. Yummmm - my fave oatmilk is Planet Oat, Extra Creamy - it’s insanely delicious. :) Thanks also for the bright yellow furniture postcard that woke me up! ;) I LOVE how you’d be workin’ the Macarena even though you “hate dancing” hahaha! Wishing you non-awkward dance experiences & the most aromatic cups of coffee, friend!
u/RideThatBridge Thanks for the super pretty illustrated floral card! I just love the Indian proverb you kindly shared: “All of the flowers of tomorrow are in the seeds of today.” This is insanely profound & inspires me to procrastinate a little less with all my work. ;) Here are some of my fave Indian proverbs:
“Don’t poison someone whom you can kill with sweets.”
“They who dream for too long will become like their shadow.”WHATTT!?!? Aren’t these deep?!? Thanks for the lovely inspiration! Here’s hoping your seeds of today blossom into fabulous flowers tomorrow! =)
u/jubilan Thanks for the cool illustrated Hawaiian cocktail postcard with your self-love encouragement! So sweet. Your positive vibes are so beautiful. Wishing you lots of contemplative, wonderful walks & sunny smiles!
u/drivingogre Thanks for the adorable bear postcard FANTASTICALLY FULL (yesssss for zero white space!!!) with the most fun facts!!! “Art used to be an olympic event!” Whaaat?!?!? That sounds amazing! Here’s a cool fact for you: kitty pee-pee glows in the dark! Wishing your lovely brain hoards all the most amazing fun facts forevermore so you can dazzle people dizzy at parties! P.S. Charming u/ellezavech , also a fact fiend like us, taught me a tres cool fact about one of my most fave words, “dazzle”. But you’ll have to work for it by checking out the post ;) https://www.reddit.com/RandomActsofCards/comments/11h673n/thank_you_when_does_bread_rise_when_you_yeast/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
u/sebisrude Not again with this rude nonsense, sugar! I’m dying to hear about this fun/mean username! I’m happy *as hell* you saved me from a critical Pipsticks expenditure emergency (stupid student-loan-debt-be-damned) by sending me this illustrated pen & pencil postcard!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU! I’m batcrap bananas over it & can’t tell you how badly the nerd in me ached for this card when I missed out on an offer for it ages ago! I had never even heard of Pipsticks before I saw this postcard. And now I hope a rich, evil relative dies soon (kidding) & bequeaths me his/her glorious estate which I will then fill with Pipsticks utopia & host a Pipsticks party to which you will be the guest of honor! Wishing you the peppiest of perfect stickers!
u/shipping_addict x 2 Thanks for the super cool NY postcard in the shape of a stamp!!! What a sweetheart you are, sending me the roasted veggies recipe unprompted. :) Are you sure you’re not a southerner, Darlin’, with all that homemade cookin’ & crazy cool cardin’? Thanks also for the *adorable* Over the Garden Wall tarot card!!! What is it about mini cards that drives me merrily mad?!!? I haven’t dived into tarot readings yet but am intrigued by what you wrote: “success, achievement, failure”. All I know is, if I’m successful & achieve, I’m thanking myself. But if I fail, I’m blaming *you*, Sugar, & will send you the ugliest postcards of all time. I’m collecting a batcrapload of ‘em specifically for this purpose. But you’re so cute, sweet, & strangely southern in your demeanor that your polite self would likely write the most heartfelt, sweet lies about how you love it all. ;) And OMG you sent me a Lindsay Lohan PARENT TRAP sticker?!?!? So hilarious & awesome! Hoarding it for life!!!! Also love the cuuuute lemon stamp sticker & the little pastel illustrated cutie!!! Ooooohh I just saw the cool purple Broadway stamp on the envelope - sweeeet!!!! =)
u/SherlockLady x 5 Thanks for the cuuuuuuuutest homemade Easter bunny card I’ve ever seen!!! The smiling sweetie & the bright orange carrot right next to it on the spring-y lime green paper just put me in the best mood! Also love the “You only live once” card, the super motivating “Be brave be bold be you” superhero card, the super thoughtful self-care card, & the Eiffel tower scrapbook paper card! LOVE the cute washi tape samples you sent! The eye-themed one is so adorable & my fave. Thanks also for the stickers & the tea - can’t wait to try it! You constantly spoil me with so much amazing love & I’m so grateful for your nonstop magical mail surprises!!!
u/stephkempf x 8 Sweetheart, I wish I could say I keep you in the postcard sending “business” LOL!!!!! THANK YOU. =) I can only hope that they appreciate you at work & give you boundless bonuses so you can buy as many stamps as your insane, adorable, gorgeous, generous, syrupy sweet heart desires. :) Truly, you AMAZE me with how much you indulge us with your fun, frightening, & frighteningly fun offers hahaha! I honestly had no idea what in the hot holy hell I signed up for when I filled out your birthday bonanza form. All I know is, I keep wondering if it’s my birthday when I’m surprised with a random birthday postcard hahaha! That’s super crazy fun! I’m so jazzed that you’re upcycling all your cards & blessing us with them. LOVE all the b-day postcards - especially the Snoopy one. I don’t understand how that kid never ages. Thanks also for the soothing floral non-bday postcard. I’ll admit I was jarred that it’s not a b-day card hahaha! I so appreciate all the fun, good vibes, & insane beauty you send my way!

This afternoon I was at-fault in an accident where I rear-ended someone in Virginia. I admit I was following too closely and was at fault; I'm not looking to contest whether or not I could have done better, but rather where I go from here.
My largest concern is car insurance. I insure two cars, and cutting insurance isn't an option. It is already very expensive. I don't have any prior accidents on my record, I'm just 19 and on my own insurance. I don't know if I could sustainably afford a higher monthly premium.
Miraculously the damage to both vehicles is very minor; the other car only had some scuffs on the rear paint job. I'm inclined to offer to pay for her repairs out of pocket. Would this be advisable?
I'm also wondering whether or not it's worth fighting the ticket I received for following too closely. In the past I've been able to fight every ticket I've received successfully, but this will be my second ticket being fought in my court. Simply paying it will automatically raise my insurance rates, right? If I fight it, do I need a lawyer or can I represent myself?
Any and all advice would be immensely appreciated. Thanks in advance.

In late January my husband and I were in a car accident. Thankfully it wasn’t that bad but my husbands car is scraped up around one of the headlights. The other guy involved ran from the scene, and after we called the police and reported the incident, we later got a voicemail from the cop stating he had been booked for a DWI. We only have liability coverage and the other guy has no insurance at all. For some reason the cop didnt file a report about the incident but provided us the guys name and VIN. We were recommended to take it to small claims court. How do i go about that? Do i need to get a repair quote for the scrapes beforehand? Do i need a lawyer? Will paying for the process be more than what the damage is worth? I don’t know why the cop didnt submit an official report, it makes me wonder if they will even consider our case even though we have evidence from the cop himself with the voicemail.

In late January my husband and I were in a car accident. Thankfully it wasn’t that bad but my husbands car is scraped up around one of the headlights. The other guy involved ran from the scene, and after we called the police and reported the incident, we later got a voicemail from the cop stating he had been booked for a DWI. We only have liability coverage and the other guy has no insurance at all. For some reason the cop didnt file a report about the incident but provided us the guys name and VIN. We were recommended to take it to small claims court. How do i go about that? Do i need to get a repair quote for the scrapes beforehand? Do i need a lawyer? Will paying for the process be more than what the damage is worth? I don’t know why the cop didnt submit an official report, it makes me wonder if they will even consider our case even though we have evidence from the cop himself with the voicemail.

I think I started getting aware of my BPD symptoms in March 2021. I had an unactive reddit account sleeping since September 2019 and I grow to browse more and more here.
As unconventional as it may be, I met my first two girlfriends on reddit. My first one on the depression sub, she was abusive and we ended up parting, at least I know she somehow is still alive. She put me down and wounded me a lot, in the wake of our split I lost my car in an accident but I have let go now.
I met my second girlfriend here, on the BPD subreddit, I am BPD too of course, and it was arguably the three months I felt the most connected to someone during my life despite the hundreds of kilometers of distance. I have no news of you, we both cheated on each other, but I will never forget you, if you are still lurking on there, I will remember the beach car and the little cartoon about death, it brings me to tears now. I just hope that you found a better life and a good man who values you as much as you deserve, because you deserve it (I know this sounds cliché af) and I am sorry that I could not be that man because I was born too far away.
Since then I've broken down into psychosis, I feel more and more dead as days go by. I have a third girlfriend by my side, she's very nice and sticks with me through it all, she's very emotionally wounded herself and sometimes the idea that I don't want her to see me go into full delirium and would better chose to end it honourably now while I still am able to, crosses my mind. To her as well, I wish that whatever happens to me, she can build back and keep her memories of me as a guy who fought as hard as he could and not as a bed-ridden person filled with delusions.
I don't really know what I'm looking for here. My life is full of regrets. I am 25 now but this feels like I have been living 95. I also met two of my best friends on this subreddit, so I am very tankful for that.
I have been less and less on reddit because bad experiences with psychiatry made me give up the idea of being curable alltogether (doesn't mean that you, the reader, aren't curable, always fight as hard as you can to give the illness a hard time). And I realised that as years went by, with pandemic and war, reddit more and more became an echo chamber of the suffering so many cannot express to their relatives.
It's especially valid for us here with BPD who have had terrible families. This is my story, I write it so maybe if I pass away soon I may be remembered. I hold no more grievances, all that is gone and turned to ash.
I wish you get a better chance at life, and that if I'm still salvageable, so will I.
Res non verba (acts, not words)

I posted earlier a travel itinerary in another sub and got some useful suggestions so decided to draft a new, hopefully better one. In my previous one I was doing Athens, Naxos, Santorini and Crete (staying in Heraklion).
Wanted to add I don't drive and I am going alone so renting a car is not an option. I do like to book the tours in advance but I only do it in a website that allows me to cancel with a full refund to up to 24h before, so I have some flexibility. However, I can't vary too much the dates I stay in each place otherwise accomodation prices might go up, given the time of the year, so I wanted to settle at least that.
The itinerary would be:

• Day 1: arrive in Athens, go to port, have lunch, get ferry at 17h30 to Santorini
  
• Day 2: Santorini, Akrotiri Excavation, Megalochori, & Beaches Tour. Can go freestyle by bus, just not sure there's direct buses from Perissa to that place, the tour is 49€
  
• Day 3: Santorini, tour of vulcanic islands and susnet at Oia (this one is not negotiable)
  
• Day 4: stay in Perissa, go to black beach, then go to the port to get ferry at 17h30 to Heraklion. Ferry arrives at 19h25
  
• Day 5 - 9: stay in Heraklion and do the following trips:
  
  • 1. Lasithi Plateau, Cave of Zeus, & Knossos Day Trip OR Preveli Palm Beach Boat Trip & Rethymno Town Tour
  • 2. Spinalonga, Plaka, Agios Nikolaos, & Elounda
  • 3. East and South Crete Villages Tour and beach
  • 4. Day Trip to Preveli Beach OR Lasithi Plateau, Villages & Zeus Cave Tour (depending on the one I do the first day, the one from first day includes Rethymo besides Preveli)
  • 5. Stay in Heraklion, get bus to Chania, walk around Chania
• Day 10-11: stay in Chania
  
  • 1. Day Trip to Elafonisi Island
  • 2. Full-Day Samaria Gorge Trek Excursion. If I am too tired at this point, this one "From Chania Areas: Gramvousa Island Day Trip and Balos Beach" would be an option.
  • Get night ferry to Athens at 22h, ferry arrives at 6am

There's another two activities, from Heraklion:

• From Heraklion: Palm Forest Beach of Vai, Ierapetra & Sitia
  
• From Heraklion: Island of Chrissi
  

Maybe one of those is better and I can replace some of the mentioned ones?

• Day 12-14: Athens
  • 1. Visit acropolis. At 16h30 get bus to Sounion and get back in the 20h bus (or do a tour that does the same, if I am too lazy)
  • 2. Tour to Meteora. I found one for 92€ with train tickets included and then a tour there. I find it a bit expensive, so I might try to book the tickets separately and then do a tour there for 40€
  • 3. From Athens: Bus Trip to Mycenae, Epidaurus & Nafplio. After this, get the bags, have dinner and go to airport. I need to be at the airport at 1am only, so I think it's okay. I could replace one of those two tours with a visit to one or two of the nearby islands as well.

So my questions are:

• Am I losing much on leaving Naxos off? Cutting Santorini is not an option. I might hate it or I might love it, but at least I will have a personal opinion about it.
  
• Is it possible to get a transfer from the Santorini port to Perissa at 1am? I know the ideal location to stay would be Fira but the difference of the price of the accomodations is too high
  
• What do you think of my itinerary in Crete? Is it too repetitive (like always seeing the same things)? Should I replace some tour by another more interesting? Should I cut one day and instead add one more to Athens and use it to visit Aegina or Hydra for example?
  

I posted earlier a travel itinerary in another sub and got some useful suggestions so decided to draft a new, hopefully better one. In my previous one I was doing Athens, Naxos, Santorini and Crete (staying in Heraklion).
Wanted to add I don't drive and I am going alone (hence the solo lol) so renting a car is not an option. I do like to book the tours in advance but I only do it in a website that allows me to cancel with a full refund to up to 24h before, so I have some flexibility. However, I can't vary too much the dates I stay in each place otherwise accomodation prices might go up, given the time of the year, so I wanted to settle at least that.
The itinerary would be:

• Day 1: arrive in Athens, go to port, have lunch, get ferry at 17h30 to Santorini
  
• Day 2: Santorini, Akrotiri Excavation, Megalochori, & Beaches Tour. Can go freestyle by bus, just not sure there's direct buses from Perissa to that place, the tour is 49€
  
• Day 3: Santorini, tour of vulcanic islands and susnet at Oia (this one is not negotiable)
  
• Day 4: stay in Perissa, go to black beach, then go to the port to get ferry at 17h30 to Heraklion. Ferry arrives at 19h25
  
• Day 5 - 9: stay in Heraklion and do the following trips:
  
  • 1. Lasithi Plateau, Cave of Zeus, & Knossos Day Trip OR Preveli Palm Beach Boat Trip & Rethymno Town Tour
  • 2. Spinalonga, Plaka, Agios Nikolaos, & Elounda
  • 3. East and South Crete Villages Tour and beach
  • 4. Day Trip to Preveli Beach OR Lasithi Plateau, Villages & Zeus Cave Tour (depending on the one I do the first day, the one from first day includes Rethymo besides Preveli)
  • 5. Stay in Heraklion, get bus to Chania, walk around Chania
• Day 10-11: stay in Chania
  
  • 1. Day Trip to Elafonisi Island
  • 2. Full-Day Samaria Gorge Trek Excursion. If I am too tired at this point, this one "From Chania Areas: Gramvousa Island Day Trip and Balos Beach" would be an option.
  • Get night ferry to Athens at 22h, ferry arrives at 6am

There's another two activities, from Heraklion:

• From Heraklion: Palm Forest Beach of Vai, Ierapetra & Sitia
  
• From Heraklion: Island of Chrissi
  

Maybe one of those is better and I can replace some of the mentioned ones?

• Day 12-14: Athens
  • 1. Visit acropolis. At 16h30 get bus to Sounion and get back in the 20h bus (or do a tour that does the same, if I am too lazy)
  • 2. Tour to Meteora. I found one for 92€ with train tickets included and then a tour there. I find it a bit expensive, so I might try to book the tickets separately and then do a tour there for 40€
  • 3. From Athens: Bus Trip to Mycenae, Epidaurus & Nafplio. After this, get the bags, have dinner and go to airport. I need to be at the airport at 1am only, so I think it's okay. I could replace one of those two tours with a visit to one or two of the nearby islands as well.

So my questions are:

• Am I losing much on leaving Naxos off? Cutting Santorini is not an option. I might hate it or I might love it, but at least I will have a personal opinion about it.
  
• Is it possible to get a transfer from the Santorini port to Perissa at 1am? I know the ideal location to stay would be Fira but the difference of the price of the accomodations is too high
  
• What do you think of my itinerary in Crete? Is it too repetitive (like always seeing the same things)? Should I replace some tour by another more interesting? Should I cut one day and instead add one more to Athens and use it to visit Aegina or Hydra for example?
  

Hey guys I’m taking my NCLEX RN on the last day before it changes in Fort Meyers Florida. The testing site is 2 and a half hours from my home. I graduated from a non accredited nursing school in west palm beach back in 2017. This is my third attempt and in Florida you’re only allowed 3 attempts. I’m turning 30 and am embarrassed to still be dealing with this. Anyone else passed and have some advice for me? 🥺

I posted earlier a travel itinerary and got some useful suggestions so decided to draft a new, hopefully better one. In my previous one I was doing Athens, Naxos, Santorini and Crete (staying in Heraklion).
In this one, I decided to change a few things:

• Save Athens for last so I don't have to get ferries in the day of my flight back
  
• Cut Naxos and go directly from Athens to Santorini. The only concern I have is that the ferry I get arrives there at 1h45 so there's probably no buses and I would have to book a transfer to Perissa. Is that a problem?
  

Wanted to add I don't drive and I am going alone, so renting a car is not an option. I do like to book the tours in advance but I only do it in a website that allows me to cancel with a full refund to up to 24h before, so I have some flexibility. However, I can't vary too much the dates I stay in each place otherwise accomodation prices might go up, given the time of the year, so I wanted to settle at least that.
The itinerary would be:

• Day 1: arrive in Athens, go to port, have lunch, get ferry at 17h30 to Santorini
  
• Day 2: Santorini, Akrotiri Excavation, Megalochori, & Beaches Tour. Can go freestyle by bus, just not sure there's direct buses from Perissa to that place, the tour is 49€
  
• Day 3: Santorini, tour of vulcanic islands and susnet at Oia (this one is not negotiable)
  
• Day 4: stay in Perissa, go to black beach, then go to the port to get ferry at 17h30 to Heraklion. Ferry arrives at 19h25
  
• Day 5 - 9: stay in Heraklion and do the following trips:
  
  • 1. Lasithi Plateau, Cave of Zeus, & Knossos Day Trip OR Preveli Palm Beach Boat Trip & Rethymno Town Tour
  • 2. Spinalonga, Plaka, Agios Nikolaos, & Elounda
  • 3. East and South Crete Villages Tour and beach
  • 4. Day Trip to Preveli Beach OR Lasithi Plateau, Villages & Zeus Cave Tour (depending on the one I do the first day, the one from first day includes Rethymo besides Preveli)
  • 5. Stay in Heraklion, get bus to Chania, walk around Chania
• Day 10-11: stay in Chania
  
  • 1. Day Trip to Elafonisi Island
  • 2. Full-Day Samaria Gorge Trek Excursion. If I am too tired at this point, this one "From Chania Areas: Gramvousa Island Day Trip and Balos Beach" would be an option.
  • Get night ferry to Athens at 22h, ferry arrives at 6am

There's another two activities, from Heraklion:

• From Heraklion: Palm Forest Beach of Vai, Ierapetra & Sitia
  
• From Heraklion: Island of Chrissi
  

Maybe one of those is better and I can replace some of the mentioned ones?

• Day 12-14: Athens
  • 1. Visit acropolis. At 16h30 get bus to Sounion and get back in the 20h bus (or do a tour that does the same, if I am too lazy)
  • 2. Tour to Meteora. I found one for 92€ with train tickets included and then a tour there. I find it a bit expensive, so I might try to book the tickets separately and then do a tour there for 40€
  • 3. From Athens: Bus Trip to Mycenae, Epidaurus & Nafplio. After this, get the bags, have dinner and go to airport. I need to be at the airport at 1am only, so I think it's okay.

I could replace one of those two tours with a visit to one or two of the nearby islands as well.
So my questions are:

• Am I losing much on cutting Naxos? Cutting Santorini is not an option. I might hate it or I might love it, but at least I will have a personal opinion about it.
  
• Is it possible to get a transfer from the Santorini port to Perissa at 1am? I know the ideal location to stay would be Fira but the difference of the price of the accomodations is too high
  
• What do you think of my itinerary in Crete? Is it too repetitive (like always seeing the same things)? Should I replace some tour by another more interesting? Should I cut one day and instead add one more to Athens and use it to visit Aegina or Hydra for example?
  

My son was paralyzed neck down in 2012 in a car accident. His Insurance Provider Pafco was a nightmare on go! I stayed with him 24/7 from date of accident at hospital rehab and then primary caregiver. I kept him in Toronto as we were from a small town that lacked proper medical care. His accident benefit lawyer was Thompson and Rogers. His care took everything I had, turn every 2 hours, leaving my 2 young daughters behind. I liquidated 2 businesses to keep us afloat.
Pafco was so bad we filed a tribunal and entered into arbitration and got the ombudsmen involved. They did not settle within the 2 year regulated time frame and made him beg for every cent. His health was failing my family was worried about my failing health. We decided to move back home closer to friends and family as there was nothing more we could do. Pafco wouldn't settle with a claim against them. They tricked my son to dropping claim to receive small payout to buy into and modify my home in Belleville.. They knew his health was failing. Within a month after the payout they locked him into an annuity with BMO and Sunlife w/o consent or knowledge to himself or lawyers, naming themselves as beneficiary. He spiraled downhill spent the remaining time in hospital and died 3 months later. Pafco had his money.
I was devastated but so were my friends, daughters and family. I suffered cranial 6th nerve paralysis almost immediately. My family begged me to rest and let go. I began seeing a cardiologist 2 years ago for bp and heart issues. My family is getting fed up and stressed arguing I have to let go. My daughters are terrified of losing me and again want me to let it go and wont even discuss it. I now have 2 ulcers and diverticulitis but just cant let go, his last words were don't let then get away with it mom! The words haunt me but so do my daughter and families tears and plea for me to let go!
I am causing them a lot of duress and they have suffered the loss to and terrified of losing me. But they stole 2,2 million from my son, no choice of investment or beneficiary.....he didn't even no and even specified he would not entertain a structured settlement. I have begged the government and governing bodies for justice, I only have his former lawyer as a consultant to fight as he cant live with the injustice either. My parents are aging and don't need this stress. His words haunt me, i know how tired you are as a caregiver but no one should be above the law! No one should die in vain or injustice. I worry if i don't fight who will. But my fight is putting distance between loved ones. I cant save my son , but I can save someone else no one with catastrophic injuries should be victimized, let alone by insurance that is 1 mandatory and 2 there to protect us not. They acted in bad faith and that is illegal. Pafco needs to be penalized and insurance reformed. TBH i will fight till my body stops hes my son, I want to be the voice of victims. Please be honest ...am I being selfish!

Pretty soon drivers throughout Georgia and South Carolina should be getting quests for the Master’s Tournament. Some of y’all will be asking about whether it is worth it, and some of y’all will be asking about strategies for working the tournament, so I’ll try to cover both in this post. For reference, I have been an Uber driver in Augusta since 2017. I did two Master’s Tournaments as an X driver pre-pandemic and one Master’s Tournament as an XL driver last year (the two tournaments during the pandemic were closed to the public and were for members only). Sorry to the Uber Black drivers who are looking at this post, I don’t really have much experience to share with you about your platform, but hopefully some of this guide will still be helpful. I don’t do Eats, but they should do well here, too.
Market basics:
Augusta is a rate-card market. It pays UberX $0.60/min and $0.09/mile and pays UberXL $1.45/min and $0.22/mile. Those who are coming from an upfront market (and new drivers who decide to start during The Master’s) will be accepting trips blind (unless Uber goes upfront within the next week). You have to have a SC vehicle inspection to pick up rides in North Augusta, SC, so unless you are a SC driver, or you come from a border town and did the SC vehicle inspection, you might want to avoid that side of town (near downtown, Augusta). Alternatively, if you do have a SC vehicle inspection done, this is a great location to get trips that other drivers (including most taxi drivers) cannot get. Outside of the tournament, the Augusta market only has UberX and UberXL. The platforms that I remember from last year during tournament week included UberX, UberX Diamond, Uber Comfort, UberXL, Uber Black, and Uber SUV. I know Lyft (which normally only does Lyft and LyftXL) also has Lyft Lux, but I’m not sure of their other platforms.
Tournament basics:
The rideshare waiting lot for the Augusta Nationals (the name of the golf course which hosts the Master’s Tournament) is on Washington Rd about a mile East from Exit 199 of I-20. Most tickets can only be used twice for entry into the tournament. The entrance to the rideshare lot is just after the taxi lot entrance which is just after the Olive Garden restaurant if you are coming from I-20. The tournament starts at 8 am and ends when all the players are done on the course, typically around 5pm-ish. Those who attend to watch the tournament but are not members are called patrons. A lot of patrons will only come to see a particular golfer (Tiger Woods draws a lot of attention) and will leave when their golfer leaves (especially during practice rounds). Some patrons will sit at a single hole and will leave when all the players that they want to see for the day have come across that hole.
The women’s amateur tournament already began on Wed March 29, 2023, at Champion’s Retreat. The women’s tournament players get a practice day on Fri March 31 and will compete on Sat April 1 at the Augusta Nationals. Mon, Tues, and Wed April 3-5 will be the practice rounds. A lot of your middle-class fans will be here on one of these days as they will have a hard time getting tickets to the actual tournament; most of these patrons will only be here for a single day. Thu-Sun April 6-9 is the actual tournament. Most of your better-off patrons (and very lucky patrons) will be here during the actual tournament. They will often be here all four days. April 6-9 will be, by far, the busiest times of the tournament.
A lot of businesses arrange for tickets. Outside of C-suite employees, most of these tickets will be given out to customers and awarded to employees for a half-day visit (as they can be used twice) to get the most bang for the buck. This is good for UberX & UberXL drivers as a lot of these patrons who are there for half-day help fill up some of the time between the start time rush and the end of the day rush and are more likely to use Uber (or taxis) to get around.
Try to get along with the law enforcement and the workers at and around the Augusta Nationals. The Augusta Nationals has a reputation for banning and trespassing those who don’t follow their fairly stringent rules, although most of the workers there just work for the week. The Augusta Nationals have stripped members of their membership for things we might feel are small infractions; they certainly don’t care about trespassing a random Uber driver.
Airports:
Augusta has two airports:

• The regional airport (AGS) will be mad crazy during tournament week, but many, many, many drivers will be hanging around the airport, including taxis, Uber Black, limos, hired drivers, shuttles for the master’s, hotel shuttles, etc. Unless you are Uber Black, I honestly don’t recommend hanging out at AGS (but do what you feel is best), although I personally would accept any requests that I got from the airport if I were outside the queue as there could be a hidden surge attached to it. AGS also closes their cellphone waiting lot to rideshare during tournament week. Be wary of picking up at AGS. There are six whole legal spots to pick up at AGS (six more spots at departures), and the Marshalls (GA’s police department responsible for airport operations at AGS) will probably take up two of them for some stupid reason. One of those six spots is also technically a shuttle pickup spot that the Marshalls may or may not be enforcing. Speaking of enforcement, the Marshalls will come out with a new policy several times a day during the tournament, so be polite, follow their immediate instructions, but don’t count on it being the same the next day. Also, the pickup spot in the app is the pedestrian crosswalk that goes between arrivals and departures (smack dab in the middle of the front of the airport). Make sure you pause for several seconds at that spot to start the cancelation timer before driving down towards the exits for arrivals. If you don’t, you have to go all the way around the airport to start the timer. Many knuckleheads will be ordering Ubers while sitting on the tarmac, so you might be collecting a few cancelation fees. A side note: you can always turn left into the rental parking lot and park along the sidewalk if necessary…this includes if you need to run into the airport to use the restroom or when there are not enough places to wait for your rider. This is about the only other place that the Marshalls will not harass you for stopping besides the designated pickup area and the cellphone waiting lot (when not closed). You technically need Uber stickers displayed to pick up at the airport, but I’ve never seen this enforced. If you want to see arrivals and departures, go to flyags.com and certainly don’t rely on the Uber app.
• At AGS, there is also an FBO (some riders will call it “Aviation Services” or “The private terminal” or “The executive terminal” or “The civil part of the airport” or something similar). Unfortunately, passenger auto-pins from here gets lumped into the general commercial pickup location. You will get mostly pilots coming from here as anyone who can charter a private plane will likely have a private ride already scheduled. You can legally pick up from the FBO (and also drop off). When you enter AGS, you’ll see a blue sign pointing to the cell phone waiting lot. Turn right into that lot and then turn left at the next street. Try to pick up under the awning, although you might have a line of grey Mercedes Sprinter vans in the way as those drivers feel they get special privilege (which they kinda’ do because the Augusta Nationals has a TON of political clout in Augusta).
• The other airport is the civil airport in the middle of the city named Daniel Field. Unlike AGS, this airport is typically underserved by Uber but is also extremely busy during the tournament. Despite there likely being a huge line of taxis there, you’ll likely get rides from here if the riders order the Uber before they see the taxis. These riders will likely leave their phone in their plane, so you might not see their blue location dot update. If you see them not have their phone with them (phones are not allowed in the tournament), let them know that there is an Uber representative that can order them a ride back on their account in the parking lot that you drop them off. (You probably won’t get their return trip, but they’ll help contribute to any surges later that you’ll benefit from.)

Quests:
Last year, the quests were for $15/trip originating from the rideshare parking lot at the Augusta Nationals between 3pm and 7pm. This sounds great, but I only got a total of 7 trips during that quest time for the entire four days of the quest (and one of those trips was a “high priority” return after a very short trip). The big issues are that the tournament might end before 3pm for bad weather or might go beyond 7pm (usually because of weather delays). Also, every driver is trying to cram into the rideshare lot to get in the queue for that quest. Even if the tournament gets out during the quest hours, you will be fighting traffic out of and back into the rideshare lot. The lot seems to be designed for about 20 vehicles, but there were at least 60 vehicles crammed in most of the time last year. Drivers can also park at the Publix parking lot near the Augusta Nationals to get in the queue, but then you must crawl through traffic to get to the pickup. As a strategy, it might be worth it to jump into the Publix lot, though, to get your position in the queue to get one more quest for the night. The quest is what brings drivers to Augusta, but it isn’t really where drivers make their money….
Tips:
Stories abound in and around Augusta about $100 tips that patrons give out during their visit to the Master’s Tournament. In the three years that I drove for the tournament, I only got some of these tips one year (last year) and none the other two years, but I received four of them last year for the following reasons: (1) being a military veteran, (2) returning binoculars that were left in my vehicle, (3) going through a Chick-Fil-A drive thru, and (4) making a half-dozen stops for one rider for cigars and alcohol and ice and other items. The first two tips were easy money; the second two tips cost a lot of time during high surges (although I would have still had a hard time doing better than the $100 during that time). If you are a young lady that is easy on the eyes (not sure of a better way to put it), you will have a much easier time getting the $100 tips, but you’ll likely also face some very stereotypical frat-guy behavior from the mostly older male crowd. Most people giving out these types of tips are not taking UberX or UberXL, though.
Surges:
As an upfront market, real surges are hidden, but you’ll still be able to see sticky surges. The best time for surges (aka, the times when riders exceed drivers) are in the early hours of the morning, the closing hours of the tournament, and during late night. The event starts at 8am (watch out for weather delays), but the rides easily start before 5am. There are a lot of moving parts to get the tournament started, and a lot of the rides that you’ll give as an UberX or UberXL are to those who support the tournament rather than the patrons. Parking lot attendants, traffic control, hospitality, camera crews, etc., are all heading to work. Uber shines at this time as the other modes of transportation have a hard time capturing this traffic unless prescheduled. A lot of patrons will start coming in soon after the workers to try to get the “ultimate” spot, and patrons will keep coming in for several hours. At the end of the tournament, there is no magical place to be except as close to the Augusta Nationals as possible. Patrons, workers, etc. are all streaming out of the same location.
Hot Spots:

• The rideshare lot for the Augusta Nationals: obviously
• Hooter’s: I swear a third of my mid-day trips went between Hooters and the Augusta Nationals. A very short trip.
• Other common restaurants that I would sit at (most of these have other restaurants close by that will be busy, too, but not necessarily as busy): Twin Peaks, T Bonz Steakhouse (in Augusta, not so much the one in Evans), Abel Brown, Beck’s, Cork and Flame (in Evans) and Frog Hollow (and other downtown Augusta restaurants).
• Hotel Clusters: For patrons, these hotels include those on Steven’s Creek Rd (aka Claussen Rd), Gordon Highway off of Exit 3 of I-520, downtown Augusta (one of which is in North Augusta, SC), Wheeler Rd off of Exit 2 of I-520, Jimmie Dyess Pkwy off of Exit 194 of I-20, and Lewiston Rd off of Exit 190 of I-20. Workers will primarily stay at the “cheaper” hotels (which will still be relatively mad expensive) throughout the city, especially around Washington Rd, Wrightsboro Rd near the Augusta Mall, and all the old hotels that litter the rest of Gordon Highway (good locations to pick up 5-7am).
• Underserved house rental clusters:

1. Don’t bother around Washington Rd as patrons will be primarily walking (not worth fighting the traffic for such low fares to the tournament either, imho, unless you are very, very close already).
2. West Lake is a huge location for pickups. It is a gated community, but if you tell the guards you are picking up at 3556 W Lake Dr (the Club House), they should let you right through the gate. You can even type this address in your app to get directions to it (without using your precious destination filters) and have your app look like you are actually going to there for a pickup.
3. There are several subdivisions near Washington Rd and William Few Pkwy in Evans, GA, that are commonly underserved.
4. Whole blocks within River Island Pkwy are rented out by Mercedes Benz and other corporations and is a good source of rides.
5. River North Dr in North Augusta, SC, is a great source of rides for patrons for those drivers who have submitted a completed a SC vehicle inspection to Uber.
6. Otherwise, workers and patrons will be staying in housing all over the city.

Roads to Avoid:

• Traveling down John C. Calhoun Expy/Washington Rd between downtown Augusta and the Augusta Nationals when patrons are going to/from the tournament. If coming from downtown or traveling to downtown, take Riverwatch Pkwy (erroneously labeled River Watch Pkwy on some GPS apps). Both Greene St and Reynolds St become Riverwatch Pkwy if you travel West on them long enough. At Alexander Dr, you will turn left, and then turn left again on Washington Rd (about ½ block from the rideshare entrance). To go downtown, turn left from the rideshare parking lot (not technically allowed, but most people still do so), turn right on Alexander Dr (the next light), and then turn right on Riverwatch Pkwy.
• Berkmans Rd (which becomes Alexander Dr at Washington Rd and becomes Highland Ave at Walton Way) will be closed by the Sherriff when the tournament ends. Until then, feel free to use it although it will be congested at the start of the tournament. The best way to avoid it is a long way around which is to take Walton Way to Walton Way Ext (a right turn), turn left onto Wheeler Rd, and then turn left on Marks Church Rd, to go West onto I-520, then to go East onto I-20, then get off at Exit 200 to Riverwatch, then turn right onto Riverwatch, and then turn left onto Alexander. If you do this with a rider in the car though, they might get really upset for all the extra miles they are paying for although it is much, much faster.
• Boy Scout Rd, which is technically the alternate route for Berkmans Rd when Berkmans Rd is closed. Just about all northbound traffic heading toward the tournament (or to Hooter’s or other nearby restaurants/hotels) that do not use the expressway will be stuck on this road when Berkmans Rd is closed. If Berkmans Rd is closed, you’ll likely regret taking Boy Scout Rd. Otherwise, Berkmans Rd is almost always better.

Law Enforcement:
The LE that you come across in Augusta are overworked outside of the tournament and will have had some really long hours by the time the tournament even starts. If you do something stupid enough to warrant the LE to actually bother going after you, expect at least a ticket. Be polite to LE because their fuses are already short. If you screw up, the best thing to do is to just apologize and accept the chew out if they are yelling at you from the road. Arguing will likely get you swarmed by police in Augusta.
Some notable things to point out:

• The North Augusta Police (in SC) have a reputation for giving out tickets for minor speeding infractions (and North Augusta has some of the lowest speed limits in the market). If you cross the bridges, stay at the speed limit until you get back to GA.
• Georgia State Police (GSP) have a reputation for giving you a ticket if they pull you over, even during non-tournament weeks. Most of their cars are the telltale grey on blue, but they do have a few stealth cars in the Augusta Market (black writing on black paint).
• Speaking of stealth cars, the Richmond County sheriff also have stealth SUVs and a TON of unmarked police cars.
• Georgia Public Safety (GPS) officers come out in numbers and single out a lot of commercial vehicles during tournament week (along with GSP). Note that Ubers are technically commercial vehicles. This is especially true on Doug Bernard Pkwy (the road going to/from the regional airport) and on I-520 and I-20. Doug Bernard Pkwy is easy hunting for GSP & GPS as the road is built like a 65-mph highway but only has a 45-mph speed limit. Everyone I’ve seen pulled over were exceeding 60 (I believe), but that is all the choice of the officers.

Competition:

• Other rideshare drivers: Not as bad as you would think. During the big money-making times, it won’t really matter. The market is flooded with rideshare drivers, though, which means that the surges are less common. Uber Black and UberX/XL surge separately, so there were times that Black was cheaper than X/XL according to several locals. Any stories about the Master’s Tournament driving the surges up to massive amounts all day long comes from 2016, which was the first time that Uber came to Augusta. The subsequent years have been much milder.
• Taxis: Taxi drivers come from all over GA and SC to drive during the tournament. I saw more taxis sitting at Daniel Airfield (our small civil airport in the middle of the city) during a slow time during tournament week last year than I’ve seen in all of Augusta during the rest of the year! At the Augusta Nationals, the taxi lot is next to the rideshare lot (but with a separate entrance), and patrons will have to walk past the Ubers to get to the taxis. At AGS, the taxi lot has its own beautiful exit coming out of the terminal, so the taxis often get riders before riders resort to Uber.
• Limos: Limos come from even further out. I saw limos from Myrtle Beach, Tampa, Kentucky…. LOTS of them all over the place. They are moving around the Daddy Warbucks type patrons and are getting most of those $100 bill tips. =P Limos and shuttles share a lot on Berckmans Rd.
• Hotel vans: Every decent hotel has at least a shuttle or two that they run during the tournament. Many of these hotels park their shuttles for the other 51 weeks out of the year. >.> These shuttles are not supposed to be in the rideshare lot, but some of them were last year.
• Private shuttles: A ton of companies, home-rental companies, and even the Augusta Nationals hire private drivers and use the grey Mercedes Benz Sprinter shuttles to get around. These shuttles are moving around the players, the CEOs, the big sponsor employees, etc. They are getting the rest of those $100 bill tips (many of them get a much higher single tip at the end of the tournament as a percentage of the shuttle cost).
• Public transportation: public transportation (the buses) suck in Augusta and are not really very relevant during the tournament.

Traveling from Other Markets:
One of the mistakes many drivers make is not recouping the costs of traveling from/to their market and missing the surges that result from other drivers leaving their market. I assume that a driver is not going to stay overnight in Augusta as the hotel costs are prohibitive. I also don’t recommend sleeping in your car because the local LE already have short fuses with the extra hours and the extra work brought on from patrons during the tournament (patrons routinely include heads of states and billionaires). If you are over 2 ½ hours away and don’t have a place to crash in Augusta, I wouldn’t bother.
Here is what I would do if I were in these other markets (but your reasoning or circumstances might be different):

• Aiken, SC: Technically the same metro although Augusta & Aiken drivers rarely overlap trips. I’d definitely be outside the Wilcox early to get one of the many patrons needing a ride.
• Athens: I might as well come to Augusta if I didn’t have a game going on. Still a four-hour round trip that I’d have to overcome. Brownie points if I could finagle a ride from the Thompson civil airport on the way to or from Augusta. Sadly, I know more about Atlanta than I know about Athens, but I would guess there are some (relatively) cheapskate patrons staying at hotels in Athens that would need a trip to Augusta early in morning. If so, I’d jump on that if I came across one (probably give them my number to get their return trip, too).
• Atlanta: A five-hour roundtrip is nothing to take lightly. I would only come to Augusta if I had a long-distance trip here (which many patrons will go straight from ATL or even a hotel). Atlanta does well during the tournament as a lot of drivers go to Augusta deadheading both ways, some drivers get pulled to Augusta thanks to long-distance trips, and Augusta ends up sucking up all the rental cars in the SE. A combination that is really, really good for drivers in ATL during tournament week and especially for airport drivers. If I got a long-distance trip back to ATL at any point (likely mid-day or at/near the end of the tournament), I’d take it in a heartbeat and call it a great day while finishing up in Atlanta if I had any more hours to burn.
• Columbia, SC: As I’d only be about an hour away, I’d definitely head over to Augusta. I’d also sit downtown Augusta during the few times that I would sit. I’d try to begin the day with a trip from the hotels in downtown Columbia as lots of international travelers will stay in Columbia (last year a lot of patrons from Ireland stayed in Columbia as the Augusta hotels were full, international travel to Columbia was easier, and the patrons came for a specific Irish player that qualified for the tournament fairly close to the tournament date).
• Macon: I don’t think that I would bother. Very unlikely to find trips along the way either way. To head directly to Augusta takes lots of state highways through small towns, too.
• Savannah: Even worse than coming from Atlanta. No interstates to travel up/down. I’d only do it if I got a patron staying at a hotel in Savannah (and give them my number to get their return trip, too).
• Statesboro: Quite a bit closer to Augusta than Savannah, but still traveling down state highways with little chances of getting a ride between the two metros. I would be surprised if any patrons stayed in Statesboro and ubered back and forth, but I’d accept a ride to Augusta if it came up (again giving my number to get their return trip).

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My son was paralyzed neck down in 2012 in a car accident. His Insurance Provider Pafco was a nightmare on go! I stayed with him 24/7 from date of accident at hospital rehab and then primary caregiver. I kept him in Toronto as we were from a small town that lacked proper medical care. His accident benefit lawyer was Thompson and Rogers. His care took everything I had, turn every 2 hours, leaving my 2 young daughters behind. I liquidated 2 businesses to keep us afloat.
Pafco was so bad we filed a tribunal and entered into arbitration and got the ombudsmen involved. They did not settle within the 2 year regulated time frame and made him beg for every cent. His health was failing my family was worried about my failing health. We decided to move back home closer to friends and family as there was nothing more we could do. Pafco wouldn't settle with a claim against them. They tricked my son to dropping claim to receive small payout to buy into and modify my home in Belleville.. They knew his health was failing. Within a month after the payout they locked him into an annuity with BMO and Sunlife w/o consent or knowledge to himself or lawyers, naming themselves as beneficiary. He spiraled downhill spent the remaining time in hospital and died 3 months later. Pafco had his money.
I was devastated but so were my friends, daughters and family. I suffered cranial 6th nerve paralysis almost immediately. My family begged me to rest and let go. I began seeing a cardiologist 2 years ago for bp and heart issues. My family is getting fed up and stressed arguing I have to let go. My daughters are terrified of losing me and again want me to let it go and wont even discuss it. I now have 2 ulcers and diverticulitis but just cant let go, his last words were don't let then get away with it mom! The words haunt me but so do my daughter and families tears and plea for me to let go!
I am causing them a lot of duress and they have suffered the loss to and terrified of losing me. But they stole 2,2 million from my son, no choice of investment or beneficiary.....he didn't even no and even specified he would not entertain a structured settlement. I have begged the government and governing bodies for justice, I only have his former lawyer as a consultant to fight as he cant live with the injustice either. My parents are aging and don't need this stress. His words haunt me, i know how tired you are as a caregiver but no one should be above the law! No one should die in vain or injustice. I worry if i don't fight who will. But my fight is putting distance between loved ones. I cant save my son , but I can save someone else no one with catastrophic injuries should be victimized, let alone by insurance that is 1 mandatory and 2 there to protect us not. They acted in bad faith and that is illegal. Pafco needs to be penalized and insurance reformed. TBH i will fight till my body stops hes my son, I want to be the voice of victims. Please be honest ...am I being selfish?

DISCLAIMER, AGAIN: As I said last time, this is looking out to be very long, with a large amount of what might seem like useless text and dialogue, but what is actually essential parts of the story that will come later. The first chapter is barely even associated with the Murder Drones universe, with the only related things being a couple mentions of names or places that are in Murder Drones. I can assure you though, that the next chapter does earn this story the title of a MD fanfic, so please be patient. If you aren't a fan of the long reading, then this likely isn't the thing for you. Hell, even this disclaimer is far longer than it should be, so I'll just get right onto the show, er, or maybe the story.
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Chapter One - Part Two
Still Extremely Lengthy Exposition
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-e, he never found out.
Huh, fuzzy head.
Jacob resolved himself to ask the doctor his name when he came out of stasis next. Suddenly, Jacob focused on the fact that he just had a momentary blur in his awareness. Last time that happened, that signaled him entering stasis, and coming back out.
As if on cue, a hissing noise spread throughout the small chamber, ejecting a faint white fog. Luckily, it wasn’t aggravating his headache, as it had considerably lessened, probably throughout the time he was, “asleep”. The door also began to open after only thirty seconds of the gas being injected into his pod. Even better, the door was much faster this time, so it only took about ten seconds for it to open.
Like last time, a pair of assistants were waiting there in hazmat suits, though the suits in question looked less baggy and more solid and streamlined, a seemingly futuristic design. The visors were still opaque, though Jacob thought he could make out something in the reflection, probably him, now that he thought about it.
One of them stepped forward, holding a device that most likely served the same purpose as last time, but it, like the hazmat suits, was also smaller and more streamlined. The person strapped the little sensor strap to his wrist, as well as plugging a jack into a socket on the device on Jacob’s head. The man looked at the screen of the device for a second, before removing the strap and jack, before nodding to his fellow assistant. Then, they began to unstrap him from the pod.
Jacob was eventually released from the pod's grasp, and he stepped down after the pair backed up enough for him to do so. Jacob then saw a third man in another one of those futuristic hazmat suits approaching Jacob. The unnamed man, likely the unnamed doctor, stopped about four feet from him, before turning to his assistants and saying something to them that he couldn’t make out. It seemed to be good, since they nodded, and retreated out of the chamber.
The new man looked at him, and instead of raising his visor, tapped twice on the side of his head, and the visor became clear. It then also became clear to Jacob that, contrary to his previous assumption, the man was not the unnamed doctor, but ANOTHER unnamed doctor, this one looking like he was in his thirties.
“Uh, um, hi there.” The man seemed . . . nervous? Why was that? Wasn’t Jacob supposed to be the nervous one, if any?
“Sup.” Jacob nodded to him.
The man seemed to compose himself at Jacob’s words. “Yes, right this way please.”
The man walked out of the chamber, with Jacob following suit. Soon they arrived within another room, this one having what looked like a conference table filling up most of the room, with a couple other odd machines off to the side, as well as a little device in the middle of the conference table. The currently unnamed doctor sat down in a chair, with Jacob following suit, albeit sitting across from him. Just then, what looked like two armed guards joined them in the room, posting up on either side of the door, watching him carefully.
Jacob eyed them too, deducing that the best way to neutralize them was . . . none, as they would gun him down before he even got halfway across the room. Besides, why would he even want to take them down? Funny prank though. On the matter of the guards, Jacob decided to address one of the multiple elephants in the room.
“So uh, what's with the soldiers?” Jacob fixed the man with a simple questioning stare.
The man seemed to react rather oddly to Jacob attempting eye contact, doing his utmost best to prevent that very thing.
“Well uh, our experts on the matter said that, well, if the tumor managed to, uh, assimilate itself with essential parts of your brain, it could theoretically, uh . . .” The doctor cut himself off there, seemingly to try and find a way to phrase his statement.
“Influence me, or just outright assume full control of my body?” Jacob finished for him.
“Er, yes.” The doctor replied.
“Huh. Another question, if I may.” Jacob inquired.
The man nodded his affirmation.
“Where is the previous guy in charge? I thought he was gonna be the one to meet with me first.” Jacob asked.
The man seemed to further retreat into his hazmat suit that he still hadn’t gotten out of.
“Well, you see, uh, yesterday, on the way to this facility, Jackson, well. He got in a car crash. A malfunctioning self-driver. Since I was his assistant, I was chosen to assume the position of Acting Director.” The man’s eyes turned downcast at his own statement, as if in mourning.
Just then, Jacob realized why he seemed familiar. At first he had simply put off the feeling as nothing but a mistake from his mind, but now he could place his recollection. The supposed Acting Director was the assistant to the other unnamed doctor, apparently a man by the name of “Jackson” by the Acting Director’s words. Actually, speaking of Jackson, what was his full name?
“So his name was Dr. Jackson?” Jacob asked.
The man nodded glumly. “Yes. Dr Jackson C. Jenson. He had such a brilliant mind.” The man was retreating further and further into himself, and Jacob didn’t exactly need that yet. He still needed him for answers.
“Uh, doctor. Wasn’t I supposed to be debriefed or something?” Jacob wanted to snap his fingers in front of the man’s face, but he had a feeling that that wouldn’t go over well with the armed guards.
The man’s head snapped up, flustered yet again. “Er, yes. Let me get it set up.”
The man reached out to the small device on the center of the table, inserting what looked like a small USB into a socket on the object. He then pressed a small button on the side of the device, causing it to click, and do nothing else. The man cursed, pressing the button again, this time yielding results.
A small slot opened up on the top of the device, exposing a lens, which then began to glow, projecting a series of lasers that had no cohesive rhyme for rhythm. After a moment, the lights aligned themselves, creating an image too small to see. The man cursed again, calling the device a series of names that would probably get him in trouble if he were still in middle school, before turning a knob on the side of the device. The knob apparently controlled size, as the projection enlarged to a size more suitable to see. However, this proved too much for the brave device, as the image then flickered in the air, before simply shutting off with a pathetic click.
The man hung his head and sighed.
“I’m sorry, I swear that these were different in the demonstration. I’m probably gonna just get rid of them when I’m promoted to full director status.” The man commented.
Jacob peered at the open lens, which was now smoking, a good amount in fact.
“Uh, ok. So what was that supposed to do?” Jacob looked back at the still unnamed director.
“It WAS supposed to show you an image of your brain, but I guess we’ll just have to resort to the old-fashioned way.” After that statement, the man pulled a remote out of his pocket, pointed it at a screen on the wall, and pressed the on button.
Of course, it wasn’t so simple as that, as the man had to navigate the menus and files before selecting the presentation he wanted to use, so it was longer, and a bit more awkward than anyone in the room would’ve liked.
After finally getting the presentation to work, the man cleared his throat, after looking at Jacob to make sure he was watching, and began to speak.
“As you know, last time we saw you, the tumor had extended several appendages of itself throughout your brain, piercing several areas of your brain, including the empathy center. It had then somehow literally blurred the lines between itself and your brain, slightly merging itself with you in the process. However, while you were asleep, we made some rather . . . notable discoveries.” The man switched to the next slide, showing the same image, plus text and some diagrams, depicting something that looked like a reading from one of those machines that can read brain activity.
“We had placed a device on your head that was essentially a more powerful version of an electroencephalograph, or just an EEG for short. We wanted to see how your brain was reacting to the tumor in a more in-depth way, and while we did garner some interesting data, the thing that was more important, and worrying, was this next one.” The Acting Director flicked the button, the next slide showing a reading from the EEG. However, Jacob’s attention was taken from the slide by the man’s next words.
“This is not a reading from your brain, well, technically it is, in a way. You probably can’t see what is wrong with this reading, but a trained neuroscientist such as me can. The activity that we had detected is, for lack of a better word, muddled. We managed to figure out that while your brain itself was emitting the same relative frequencies as before, something else was adding onto that to create this muddled reading that we see here, and I’m fairly sure that you can guess what it was.” The man looked back at Jacob.
Jacob shrugged. “Yeah, it's the tumor, but we already knew that it was messing with my brain, so what’s new about this?”
The man looked back at the screen. “That is what we will see here.”
He flicked to the next slide, this one showing another set of EEG readings, this one different, though since Jacob didn’t really pay attention to the last one, he couldn’t tell what was different.
“You see, what was shocking was the way that the tumor was interfering with your activity, was that it wasn’t doing that at all. The reason why the EEG reading came out weird was that it had picked up two very different frequencies, and since it was only designed to pick up and read one, it just lumped the two together. One of those was from your brain, while the other . . .” The man trailed off, looking back at Jacob, who had a frown on his face.
“Was from the tumor.” Jacob finished.
The man nodded. “Correct. Now, this was worrying, as the only thing that could emit that kind of frequency that the EEG could pick up was your brain, or something in that general area. We triple checked our data, and brainstormed as much as we could, and we could only come to one conclusion: the tumor was now functioning like a brain, and thus, could no longer be defined as a tumor. It was now more of a proto-brain; simply, yet still functioning. I’m sure you can infer the rest.” The man clicked the power button on the remote, turning off the screen.
Meanwhile, Jacob was deep in thought.
So, supposedly he had a secondary brain inside of his own brain, like one of those Russian dolls that people loved so much. However, that does explain all of the fright around his body getting taken over by the little unwanted passenger in his head, as any entity, even if only semi-intelligent, living in your head is probably something to be worried about. But Jacob was more curious than worried, in actuality. While yes, that does seem a bit dumb of him, to not be worried about the potentially hostile entity living in his head that might be trying to take over his body, but Jacob was sure that the nanobots were doing their job, or else he would already be dead, by gunfire or weird tumor thing.
Jacob then realized something, something he had forgotten. He didn’t want to make the same mistake as last time, so he decided to just ask for the man’s name now.
Jacob cleared his throat.
“So anyway, uh, what's your name again?” Jacob asked.
The man looked back at Jacob incredulously.
“That's what you’re worried about? My name?” The man seemed a bit put off by this.
Jacob simply shrugged.
“Really? Alright, my name is Dr. Malcolm Instrum.” The man stared back at Jacob. “That's it.”
Jacob nodded, the situation getting a bit awkward. “So anyway, what’s next?”
* * *
Jacob was laying down on a medical bed, straps holding him down. He was in what looked like an operating room, with lights shining on his face. Strangely, the lights didn’t really hurt his eyes. For context, Jacob had just woken up from what the doctors had said was a, “simple operation” but never told him why he was being strapped down or being put to sleep. In hindsight, it was deeply worrying, but Jacob was still wondering that, if the lights didn’t hurt his eyes, then why was he still having to blink and look away?To his right was a door, where Jacob had seen a person in one of those futuristic hazmat suits walk into right when he woke up.
Jacob was beginning to worry that perhaps the entire team just coincidentally had developed rapid amnesia and had forgotten about him when a pair of men in hazmat suits walked into the room.
“No sudden movements.” One of them said, unstrapping his head.
Just then, Jacob noticed another pair of men, these ones armed, entering the room and standing on either side of the door. It seemed like they were still afraid he would be body snatched or something.
It didn’t take long for him to be unstrapped from the bed, and he was rather forcibly hauled up and told to move, so he did just that. The pair who had unstrapped him left the room through the door, with Jacob and the armed guards following suit. The armed guards escorted him out of the room, the pair of doctors seeming to have disappeared into thin air, somehow.
Jacob was brought to a room that looked suspiciously like his room from the last time he was here, and without any further words, the guards left him in the room, leaving and closing the door. Jacob had a feeling the door was locked, that feeling only reinforced by the beeping and clicking noise that followed soon after the door was closed.
Jacob looked around the room, and thankfully, at least something was there. The room was arranged in pretty much the same way, with the absence of a table and a chair. There was a TV up on the wall with a couch facing it, a bookshelf off to the side, and a table to the left of the couch. Jacob was about to investigate the bookshelf to see if any new material was present that he could read, when a beep and a click emanated from the door, before opening up to reveal a familiar face.
“Oh hey, it's you. Sorry, I kinda forgot your name, what was it again?” Jacob asked the doctor, not thinking to look at the nametag.
She smiled politely. “It's Dr. Vasel, and it's fine. You only saw me for an hour after all.”
Jacob stared back.
Her smile wavered slightly, although it wasn’t very noticeable.
“Erm, anyway, I’m here to do some psyche and mental tests. It should only take an hour. Answer truthfully, alright?”
“Alright.” Jacob replied, fully intending to answer truthfully, within reason of course.
* * *
“So, mind telling me what the ‘operation’ was about?” Jacob asked Dr. Vasel.
“Hmm?” She looked up from her clipboard.
“Earlier, some doctors or something put me in an operating room, knocked me out, and when I woke up, I was put in here. I’m not an expert on medical practice, but I’m fairly sure that that's not standard procedure.” Jacob questioned.
“Er, I don’t think I’m authorized to explain that to you.” Dr. Vasel countered.
“Huh.” Jacob dropped the issue.
Dr. Vasel stopped writing on her clipboard, tucking her pen back into her shirt pocket.
“That should be all, thanks for your time Jacob.” And without waiting for a reply, she left.
Jacob stared at the closed door for a second before scoffing and laying back onto his couch. He couldn’t lay on his bed because he didn’t have a bed, for some reason. Well, he wasn’t going to sleep in it, but couldn’t the higher ups have some consideration? Jacob glanced at the clock, trying to discern how long he had left, which was surprisingly short, relatively, at least. He had about six hours and a half left until he went back in the pod, so plenty of time to kill. He had gotten his physical check done before he had been strapped down onto a table and had that mysterious operation done on him, so if yesterday’s schedule was anything to go off of, then he would have nothing else for the entire day, so he was going to have to do something.
Jacob looked around the room, wracking his brain. He then decided to just look at the walls. He did that for a second before making out discernable lines in the floor and wall tile. His train of thought switched through a couple stations before somehow landing on check for security cameras, which was technically not that big a leap from just staring at the walls.
Jacob got up from the couch, stretching his limbs and cracking his knuckles. He looked at the standard places where cameras would be placed, like on the ceiling corners. He then checked the more discreet areas of surveillance, like the bookshelf and couch cushions. And the most utterly bizarre thing about the whole ordeal was that he found absolutely nothing. Nada, which was surprising when you consider that he was pretty much subject to the CIA’s whim here, unknown to the outside world. Speaking of the outside world, he had nothing to say about it, as nobody had given him any sort of reading material about the world's current state.
Jacob sighed.
This was going to be a long ordeal, wasn’t it?
* * *
One hundred.
That's how many times Jacob was woken up.
If you remember a bunch of pages back, some guys said that Jacob was going to be awakened exactly every decade, which is ten years. Multiply that by one hundred and you get one thousand years. Jacob lived for one thousand years, and it felt like one hundred days to him. This does seem like a bit of a jump, considering we were only just on the second awakening a moment ago and now we’re just speeding past one thousand years of humanity’s progress, but bear with me here, alright? None of us want to spend that long going through each and every one of those days, that would be an entire book on its own, maybe around five to four hundred pages long! No, much easier to just summarize it, and get to what matters, the present. After all, this is all just building up to the main story.
Anyway, so. As you know, each time Jacob woke up, he would be subject to various tests, measuring his mental, physical, and every other part of his body’s states. He would be awake for a total of twelve hours on the dot each time, stay asleep for ten years, and rinse and repeat for one thousand years. Now, you could probably tell that while it seemed like a short time for Jacob, it wasn’t exactly a few months for the outside world, pretty much the opposite, in fact.
Let's start with what we all know and love, history. Around the 2070s, the world was heating up yet again. Russia’s old leader had long since died, and while some would think that was a good thing, it really wasn’t. After a bloody scramble for control of the country, and a minor civil war, one of the old leader’s former generals, a person named Mikhail Noveztrenov, was aptly named, “Stalin’s Specter”, or “Сталинский призрак” if you want to get technical. He made an immediate and harsh reformation of Russia’s political and military state. A big reason why Russia had seemed so incompetent during the wars they had fought was largely due to widespread corruption amongst their ranks, along with a defunct R&D program.
Noveztrenov tried his very best to remedy these problems with the only method Russia had used lately, with executions and harsh reprisals. The world watched in dread as Russia began to build up a military, a legitimate one this time, and prepared for the worst. These feelings were only made worse by the new alliance organization headed by Russia which was said to rival NATO in many aspects, having included nations such as China, North Korea, Vietnam, and multiple other old enemies of the West. The 80s, that means the 2080s, was seen as the true Second Cold War, or Third depending on who you ask.
And finally, this boiling pot came to a head when the clock hit 2090. The East had been suffering under Western sanctions, deprived of oil, energy, and food for around five years now, slowly being strangled to death. This called for action, and action they did take. The second the clock reached the new decade, a massive blast of EMP waves rocked the world, targeted towards satellites, taking down several sections of the Internet in the process.
While the West was blinded, a force of over five hundred thousand troops crossed the border into the Middle Eastern Union, or the MEU, with the objectives to take various oil reserves and depots throughout the Middle East, with a secondary objective to annihilate the current government, and replace it with their own. Russian troops entered from the north and west, while the Asians landed on the beaches in the south and through the east, surrounding the MEU in a four pronged attack. In just two months, with the help of a new orbital cannon prototype, the MEU had been crippled by this blitzkrieg, with the only holdout being the nation's capital under siege
The Western nations gave the East an ultimatum; pull out of the MEU immediately, or suffer the consequences. Of course, the East denied. While they didn’t expect NATO and company to declare war, they were prepared for the possibility. And it's a good thing they were prepared, for European troops opened fire on the Russian’s a few days later.
And thus, World War Three began.
It was a long and drawn out conflict that probably would require its own story, with advanced technologies being used by both sides to attempt a victory, causing destruction everywhere they were used. In total, the war lasted for eleven years, with Europe nearly capitulating twice, and over two hundred and twenty million dead.
However, the war ended with quite the bang, but not so big it was the one we all know what you probably expected. Sort of. In 2101, the war was tilting in favor of the West. With the defeat of the East on the Moon, and the destruction of the orbital cannon, while the situation didn’t currently look too bad, Noveztrenov knew that if this continued, then he would be captured, and likely killed for his many war crimes. And the worst part, he couldn’t see any way out but one.
Noveztrenov retreated to his nuclear bunker in far northern Siberia, hidden deep in the snow. From there, he ordered for the immediate mobilization of almost all of the Russian armed forces to simply try and repel the invaders with extreme prejudice, while ordering a small portion to retreat to his bunker in Siberia. Noveztrenov planned to end the world in three days.
Of course, the West didn’t really like that. Through the brave actions of an intelligence agent who sacrificed his life to get word out of the impending nuclear fire, the Western nations had a meeting that would determine the outcome of humanity as a whole. They took a vote over two possible courses of action. The first was the standard response, just simply launching all the nukes and running underground. However, the other was suggested by the newly elected President of the United States, Henry Croftman. It consisted of sending a team of skilled special forces to disable the Eastern nuclear targeting array, which would effectively render all of the Eastern nukes useless.
In an extremely close vote, the tie breaker being the leader of Switzerland, it was decided to send the most elite of operatives, a collection of the very best the Western nations had to offer, deep into Russia to try and save the world.
And in a move that would likely inspire many action movies to come, with barely any time left on the clock, the operatives, after receiving heavy losses, disabled the array, saving humanity from a future filled with spicy air and cold days.
However, not everything was sunshine and rainbows.
While the team had disabled the array, they failed to do so in time, letting exactly nine nuclear weapons launch, and since the Western nations countermeasures had been crippled by war, only one was destroyed. The rest came down on major population centers, with the one intended for Washington thankfully taken down in the stratosphere.
London, San francisco, Ottawa, Miami, Taipei City, Seoul, Paris, and Berlin all suffered the burn of nuclear fire, killing millions. You could argue that revenge had been achieved with the execution of Noveztrenov, but most would say that one life was never worth millions. The West, while they had won the war, wasn’t free from consequences. The amount of effort that had to be put in to rebuild society, to restructure the governments of their former enemies, was tremendous.
However, while this war was terrible, it allowed for something that had never been seen before in all of human history. Unification.
The act of switching from war to peace nearly collapsed the rest of the nations, with rioting over food and energy, and the poor desperate for change. While they did recover, the Western nations knew that they needed a big change, something to prevent this from happening again. The EU suggested a rather radical idea, one that was at first dismissed, but when later considered upon, made quite a bit of sense.
After a vote was made by the remaining leaders of the world, it was agreed by a near unanimous decision to unite the entirety of humanity under a single banner, a nation built by humans, for humans, forever.
The period that came after was widely known as the Great Golden Age, with the majority of the Western nations having been leaning towards more progressive ideals, came economic and civil prosperity, after the reconstruction had been completed. Since oil was nearly depleted, it was agreed to switch to more reliable methods of energy, like solar, wind, hydro, with nuclear taking the top spot. Poverty reached an all time low, and the economy skyrocketed. In the following years, humanity would grow ever closer, and while some racial and ethnic issues arose, especially in the American South and the Middle East, they were quickly remedied with some concessions and agreements.
However, humanity’s nature was not to just sit there and eventually stagnate, it was to explore, to create, to build bigger and better things, things that would surpass their greatest dreams. And so, humanity only had one place to look for all that;
The stars.
In the year 2134, the very first stable wormhole ever would be created, creating a doorway between Tibet and California. It had originally been opened by creating separate two points, entangled particles being utilized, and just doing some magic science stuff, and bam, a pre-planned doorway between two points in space.
Scientists quickly discovered how to open a wormhole where they had never been before, enabling them to essentially walk between the solar systems without any sort of time dilation whatsoever. And so, the Space Age began.
New technologies, economic prosperity, some random corporate independence wars, all of this happened in the Space Age, an era which began in 2142, and is still ongoing, with humanity discovering new planets often. However, not everything was sunshine and rainbows, as a certain super-corporation’s mining operation on an exoplanet utilizing a force of artificial intelligence laborers gone wrong would kick start a whole new event in the mid-to-late 3000s.
However, we aren’t quite there yet, as some of you might be asking, “Where is my homeboy Jacob?” and well, you’ve got what you were asking for, not some things from his perspective, of course, but more narration!
* * *
Jacob had quite the time in the hundred days.
The most notable was that time he almost got kidnapped by a cult, but that’s for later. What is important is the recap.
Jacob was quite surprised when he heard about the World War, but was just shocked when he heard that the nations had united, under a single banner too! Jacob didn’t believe it at first, as he didn’t think the world leaders could put aside their egos to think about their people for once, but it seemed like progressiveness had reached heights that he thought were impossible. Jacob made sure to ask what had happened in the world each time he woke up.
Jacob also made another observation, this one over time.
Everybody around him was dying.
Not due to some attack or toxin, but rather the old enemy called time. Familiar faces like Dr. Vasel became old, before being replaced by younger ones that he might’ve gotten close to, if they hadn’t died within five days of his time. The therapists were worried about how this was affecting his mental state, but if he was being traumatized or something, he never noticed. Not that he would tell them that anyway, after all.
Oh yeah, not every face was friendly.
There was this one director who was such a nice guy, and acted really friendly with Jacob. Perhaps a bit too friendly, if you know what I mean. The next time Jacob woke up to quite a different scene. Bullets were flying, and about ten armed guards had taken up defense around his pod, with multiple masked individuals firing back at them. Jacob had been quite startled indeed, especially when a stray round took him in his chest.
Everybody had been quite worried after that, but that quickly turned to surprise when they had taken care of the invaders, and they had found that Jacob was feeling absolutely no pain at all. Jacob had commented he felt perhaps a rather annoying tingling sensation there, but none of the expected reaction to the bullet wound. They deduced that it was the tumor's fault, as it had now breached what the doctors called the dorsal posterior insula, but Jacob wouldn’t remember that, he only knew that it was somehow related to pain. The doctors wanted to remove the tumor, but the Intercontinental Intelligence Agency, or the ICIA disagreed, deeming it too dangerous. Oh yeah, Jacob didn’t know this at the time, but they also began to break even more laws regarding ethics around this time, no biggie.
Jacob was also surprised when he had a change of scenery too, as the chamber got bigger, and people started to wear hazmat suits around more. He had been told that he was moved to another planet for top secrecy, and the government was now working in conjunction with a puppet Windex company of all things to experiment on the thing in his head. Oh yeah, and supposedly they had developed some prototype AI based off of the tumor’s functions or something, not too important.
Jacob also started to actually fall asleep when he went in the cryo pod, instead of just experiencing a blip in awareness, which was deemed bad news by the experts. A few days later, Jacob’s tumor had progressed to a point in which it was deemed too unsafe to take him out of cryo anymore. They set some new nanobots to keep brain activity to the lowest possible setting, and were going to keep him frozen for the foreseeable future.
And of course, that foreseeable future would be coming to a rather startling end a few decades later, as what the people in 2999 didn’t know was that their own creations would be the end of them. Did I tell you that the new planet Jacob had been transferred to was a little planet called Copper-9? I don’t think I did, and the name probably doesn’t mean anything to uncultured swines like you, but that planet is quite important.
Anyway, a few decades later, a rather large catastrophe rocked the planet. Humans had been utilizing the uranium-laden core of the planet as a huge nuclear reactor, which was bound to have some unforeseen consequences. As whenever there is something that can be blown up, humans tend to do just that, either on purpose or on accident.
The core had detonated, creating a nuclear explosion so big it gave itself rings from the debris thrown off from the planet. The shockwave killed almost all biological life everywhere boots could touch the ground, and certainly every single human. The entire surface was plunged into a nuclear winter, with the sun being blotted out for a little, but not too long as most of the debris had actually gone upwards and outwards into orbit.
The company, JCJenson, would be separated from the aid of the government for the loss of a valuable asset, and would determine that the only thing left alive on the planet was metal. Speaking of that, the large number of AI labor drones were able to resist the blast for the most part, and since the cold didn’t bother them, they created their own civilization down there when their overlords died, believe it or not.
However, JCJenson wasn’t about to let an entire planet just up and go, so they repurposed some of the aforementioned labor drones into war machines capable of mass destruction. Anti-personnel razor sharp claws, flight capabilities, sub-machine guns, explosive ordnance, laser weaponry, the whole shebang. The company sent these, “disassembly drones” down to Copper-9 to eliminate the remaining, “worker drones” in an attempt to recover their investment.
In the midst of all this chaos, only a single person remained blissfully unaware of the planet collapsing around him, and the subsequent annihilation of intelligent androids, and he was a certain teen lying fifteen thousand feet beneath the surface inside a deep-sleep cryo pod.
Jacob would be left assumed dead for the second time in his life, and he didn’t even know it. The facility that he was housed in was a secure bunker designed to last for years running self-sufficiently, but those designs were still experimental. It could last for two hundred years, maybe three, tops, before running out of power, which would eject Jacob into a harsh and unforgiving landscape filled with unbreathable air, with only death waiting for him outside of the walls.
The facility did have automated guards that were intelligent in their own right, defending the contents of the facility from hostile threats, but it was unlikely that they would figure out a way to preserve the fragile human housed within their walls before running out of power. In short, the future looked quite bleak for Jacob, with almost no possibility of surviving.
Almost.
------------------------------------------ The next chapter might be coming a maybe a week or so, perhaps a bit less, so sit tight. Again, hope you enjoyed, and be patient. I am aware of the excruciatingly long amount of text, and while I am sorry for this, there is little chance of it getting better. In total, the length of this chapter added up to 38 pages, and I didn't count the words or characters, so good luck with that. See y'all when I upload the next one, if I don't get banned for unrelated MD content.