Eyes wide shut ritual scene

Oh, my fellow Pedro fans!
(Have labelled Spoiler, just in case you don't want to know anything even minor about the movie, don't read any further.)
I'm in Spain - was coming here anyway for a short holiday, but the very first thing I've done is go see SWoL!
It's my first Almodóvar movie, and the first time I've had a chance to see our Internet bf on the big screen, so excitement was the understatement of the day.
OK, I'm probably biased...probably definitely biased - but I have to say, I loved it! I couldn't tear my eyes away from Pedro, he's so magnetic in the film. He simply inhabits the role - his voice and gentle accent, the way he moves (and rides that horse!), the emotion in his acting and his eyes, so very charismatic - he draws you in, which is no surprise.
I forgot about his goofy Pedro-ness, his SLK, he was just Silva.
No deliberate spoilers here - other than what's already been mentioned or touched upon in this sub previously - but he made me feel the love.
And, yes, I did see his ass, but it wasn't gratuitous - it was a micro-second (or three), which illustrated a mood, a sense of feeling at that point in the plot. That wasn't what made me want to see the film - it was just to see him do his thang, show his acting chops, make art (although I won't say no to bonus body shots).
Although, going in, I wasn't wholly enamoured of Ethan Hawke playing Jake, he did do an excellent job being Pedro's "scene partner", as PP likes to say. He was a suitable counterpart to Pedro's Silva, the contrast worked well, I thought.
The short itself is tasteful, yet passionate - I loved the vibrant colour, the drama, the music. I would have loved even more if it had been a full-length movie - I want to see what happened next (and before)! - but it's certainly made me want to explore more of Almodóvar's film.
Thanks, Señor Pascal, for educating me!

Fang Yuan’s first life of five hundred years.
Fang Yuan was forced to leave Qing Mao Mountain, wandering about in Southern Border before going to Western Desert and then to Eastern Sea.
He struggled at the border of death, he had to worry about one or two primeval stones.
He had to bow down and grovel before the strong and this destitute life.
He had also once gained a high status, listening to reports from his subordinates while drinking tea.
He had been lowly, he had been glorious, he had been lofty, he had been ordinary.
Considering his life on Earth and the experiences after crossing over to this world, his vision was already beyond normal people, his experiences were plentiful, and he was very knowledgeable.
How could such a person not understand these worldly affairs?
Frost Tide tribe’s leader was frustrated, replying quickly:
“Since you know these truths, then you should know you are taking great risks now! This is our merman internal political battle, what are you, a weak human Gu Master, doing by meddling? You like Xie Han Mo? I can guarantee that after this matter is finished, I will gift you many more beautiful mermaids! Don’t doubt my sincerity, I can swear an oath to the Sea God!”
“There is indeed no need to doubt the sincerity of a merman who swears an oath to the Sea God. But…” Fang Yuan continued: “Although I accept these truths, it does not mean I like them.
You think I like Xie Han Mo? No, no, I only want to help her. Why am I taking such risks to help her? Because I have my own principle, favors must be repaid, hatred must be returned.”
“I have used lifespan Gu, I have lived much longer than you can imagine.
I used to wish for a long life before, but now, I am tired of this thought.
Life has become increasingly boring.
Sometimes, the final destination of the journey is not important, the important thing is the process of the journey and how you feel during the journey.”
Frost Tide tribe’s leader involuntarily opened his eyes wide at these words, it was hard for him to understand Fang Yuan’s way of life:
“You are saying the position of saintess is not important, the important thing is helping Xie Han Mo in this competition?”
“Correct, but there is still more. You talked of the dark side of politics and promised to gift me mermaid beauties,
both have no importance to me.
Let me put it this way so you might understand a little, I have lived long enough that I am already sick of wearing a mask to live.
Death is not scary to me at all.
Right now, I only want to live using my truest emotions and feelings,
I will achieve my goals in my own way. Only by living like this can I feel the excitement of life and the desire towards living!”
Frost Tide tribe’s leader was dumbstruck and stupefied, he finally understood as he shouted:
“So that’s it, you are a lunatic! You have said so much but they are nothing more than saying you have lived long enough and don’t want to live anymore! So be it you were a Gu Immortal, but you, a mere rank three Gu Master, want to live life your own way? You are dreaming!”
Fang Yuan smiled: “You think becoming a Gu Immortal can allow people to live according to their will? Live without wearing a mask? A place with people has society and conflict. Survival and living are two different things. The way you want to live does not have to depend on your strength and cultivation level, but your own heart.”
After a brief pause, Fang Yuan continued: “Actually, low strength is also quite interesting. When you live without a mask, low strength will allow you to face more difficulties and challenges of reality; surpass these difficulties, face these challenges, and life becomes much more wonderful.”
Frost Tide tribe’s leader stood stupefied, his eyes and mouth were wide open as he was unable to say anything!
His sight moved across the crowd of people, landing on Fang Yuan, he saw a slight smile. A chill rose in his heart: This person has such strange and deviant thoughts that differ from common logic, he has an inclination towards self destruction. He has likely turned demonic!
It would not matter if he did not play by the rules, the more terrifying thing was he did not think according to the rules. His thought process was completely different from ordinary people, he was already too far away from the norm!
This was a demon!
“This is a true demon!” Frost Tide tribe’s leader felt a chill. He felt this was Fang Yuan’s true nature, even though Fang Yuan did not wantonly slaughter lives, even though Fang Yuan currently still committed acts of kindness like repaying favors!
Frost Tide tribe’s leader felt a deep powerlessness at the same time.
“He is too strong-minded and stubborn.
He clearly only has rank three cultivation, how dare he? Unreasonable, unreasonable! A lunatic, a madman! He is too arrogant, he actually shows contempt for life and death!! Right… he does not even fear death, what would he not dare to do? All the wealth, beauties and status in the world might be useless when compared to his own true feelings! What else do I have to entice him?”
Frost Tide tribe’s leader was going crazy.
The more he thought, the more he realized, the more he knew Fang Yuan had no fear and would not be enticed. There might be a day when he is enticed, but it would be because he himself wanted to be enticed and it would be his genuine intention.
It was not easy for people to live in this world!
That was the case for mermen as well.
Frost Tide tribe’s leader had high authority and status, but it was even harder for him.
If he won, who could say he was corrupted?!
But right when Frost Tide tribe’s leader was about to succeed, he failed, he completely failed.
Because he ran into Fang Yuan.
This person had no ‘aspirations’!
No, that was not exactly right. Frost Tide tribe’s leader believed Fang Yuan liked wealth, beauties, power and fame too, but he liked to live by his own feelings even more! That was his aspiration.
What was the point of having such a grand aspiration?
With such an aspiration, wouldn’t the majority of other people end up looking crude and ordinary?
He was really courting death!
Frost Tide tribe’s leader gritted his teeth with hatred, this hatred was intensified because of an unknown fear in the depths of his heart.
Frost Tide tribe’s leader wished he could flay Fang Yuan, he wished Fang Yuan would immediately die!

Was at work and i was already pretty low around 60mg/dl but i ignored it and didnt think it would go a couple more points lower but 5 minutes later my knees started to bend involuntarily. I started blinking and black spots were just making faces unrecognisable and then i fell back. The feeling of all my body parts just one by one feel like they were shutting down was just the craziest shit and i couldnt really do or say anything besides "yeah im type 1 diabetic" to a coworker near me before i just kept passing in and out. Everytime i blinked more and more people just kept showing up and then i saw a fire department truck and i knew this shit was real. The worst part was just feelin like i was really goin to die and wasnt ready for any of that shit. I tried hard to just stay awake with my eyes just rolling around in my head and i was clenching my fists. I can remember one of my ring fingers shaking and someone grabbed it to make it stop. Ive never felt my heart pump that much. Only reason it got this far was because i was a dumbass and didnt pack a juice and hadn't told my new job what they should do if i ever got that bad. All my shit was in the break room and i wasnt really thinking when i started to go low. I never thought it would happen to me but now i know. All those stories i heard of people doin weird shit and wakin up to paramedics giving them a glucagon shot or them drinkin a juice and drenched in sweat yeah ill take those to heart now. Went to costco and got hella juice boxes. The fact that a Babe ruth and a bottle of orange juice got me back to normal, what a weird fucking disease. Honest to god bullshit sometimes. I know this event was my fault but i'd like to have a normal day at work sometimes without doin the math or is the weather to hot am i more insulin sensitive. Just want a feeling of peace sometimes. On the ride home i just couldnt believe that shit just happend. All in a time span of just 25 minutes. Felt like a dark hour in hell.

Helter Skelter (2012) - I recommend this to anyone who likes stuff like Neon Demon, Starry Eyes, or even Perfect Blue. It has a unique style and looks beautiful, but for me that was a bit of a downfall too. The story is cool, it’s about a plastic surgery addicted celebrity who completely fabricated everything about herself but is now falling apart. I loved Lilico in some bizarre way. I also think the idea of a planned obsolescence of plastic surgery where you always need to get more makes a lot of sense. And the topic of being replaced by someone else and worrying whether your time’s up makes people do crazy things. But where I think it had the potential to go into really visually grotesque shit to show the decay and subsequent attacks on other people, the movie stayed beautiful and artistic, even when she’s falling apart she just looks bruised. The ending kind of loses the plot a bit, or maybe the same thing just repeats for too long and the culmination isn’t that great, some storylines just don’t amount to much, and the final scene didn’t make much sense (without hurting the overall story too much, I just wouldn’t end it like that). But the movie has a lot going for it, Lilico is 10/10 and the story is entertaining to follow, I simply wish for more contrast (7.5/10)
Irreversible (2002) - I love exploitation movies so for me the rape scene wasn’t uncomfortable or shocking like it was for many people. I was more bothered by 40 min of found footage level camera work and characters that were so fucking annoying it was impossible to give a shit about them. The idea of the movie is simple, it goes back through time memento style with the central point being the rape, and it’s supposed to show a contrast between chaotic and violent after at the beginning and the “beautiful” before stage, like time is irreversible. But the problem is that the chaotic part was just annoying to watch, and the beautiful part was the main characters being unlikable shits, so any emotional effect was completely lost on me and I don’t find the idea alone to be that profound or original. It seems I’m in the minority since everyone seems to be incredibly moved and shaken by this movie, I think it’s just a pretentious artsy shit that takes itself very seriously (2/10)
Pet (2016) - the premise sounds entertaining but the execution’s blah. I’m not expecting some brilliant psychological drama here but the character motivations are so nonsensical and unconvincing it’s like a kid wrote it, except it doesn’t even just say fuck it and go crazy with the story. The movie is just so unambitious, it seems like no one had any fun with it. And characters are so fucking stupid, it’s a game of cat and mouse between Karen on steroids and a lamp (4/10 because at least it wasn’t a total pain to watch, just kind of a waste of time)
Cure (1997) - This is a great horror movie, it deserves the respect it gets. I didn’t like Pulse much so I was skeptical, but I’m glad I finally watched it. I love the classical detective feel of the movie and the premise with the guy who makes people kill, but at the same time he really just unleashes their own desire. The detective is a likable character, and I like how the ending can be seen as both good and bad for him. Best of all, it has a good, original story which was executed well. (8/10)
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte - I’m trying to throw in a classic here and there and this one sounded interesting. I like Bette, I think Whatever Happened To Baby Jane is one of the best movies and best horrors of all time. This movie let me down a bit. I noticed this thing with older thrillers, it seems human psychology was really fascinating people in the 60ies and, when done right, it led to some incredible movies (e.g. Hitchcock’s stuff, obviously) but it also led to many movies with really convoluted plots that don’t hold up well. This one is a bit of the latter, it’s a cool setup but the main villains come up with such a ridiculous over the top plan to fuck over Charlotte who is already sufficiently fucked up that you don’t need anywhere near as much effort to bring her down. But the backstory is good, the acting too, and I like the tragedy of the fact that Charlotte and her father both thought they were protecting the other, which ultimately ruined her life. It’s sad to see how sometimes one single event can ruin someone’s whole future (6/10)
Censor (2021) - I liked the movie a lot while watching it, it’s a good story with a lot of potential and I liked the main character. I was genuinely immersed in the mystery of what happened to her sister and although the movie doesn’t explicitly say it, it’s pretty easy to put the story together. I still wanted to see more even though I get why we didn’t. I thought the ending was good too although I have practical questions (e.g. how did she make the other woman get in the car with her and comply while tripping?) I think the theme is good too, and relevant today even if it focuses on the ‘80s in the UK, and the connection between censoring movies and censoring your own mind is neat. It’s just that I had a feeling I wanted to get a bit more from the story when it finished, and I’m not sure what. But overall I recommend it as a lesser known but interesting movie (6.5/10)
Spiral (2019 not the Saw one) - The story has some interesting elements but the characters are so fucking dumb and their behavior makes no sense, so it gets annoying to watch. Some of the more interesting elements of the story got neglected for the service of making social commentary which just made the story make much less sense and made the point less effective. How do the townspeople even decide that whoever moves in will be a part of some oppressed minority? What made the main couple move there in the first place? Why are they so fucking weird to each other the whole movie (I guess mislead the viewer)? Social commentary is fine but when they drop any attempt to have a real story in the end and just get preachy as fuck it loses the plot completely. But I liked the setup and the ending, it could have been so much better. (5.5/10)
Next batch:
new: Boogeyman
lesser known: Compliance or Nocturne
classic: Mommy Dearest
foreign: giallo: Blood & Black Lace; likely good: Nothing Bad Can Happen

This will be the last statement I ever make before I disappear forever. I’ve heard that this kind of a thing is quite common for those who finally grow a conscious and decide to leave for good. I personally don’t know anyone else apart from a few people I used to work with who knew about this, so here we go. My name isn’t important, but you can call me DD. When I think about it, I’m not important at all, I’m just the messenger or whistleblower, so anything else that would further “incriminate” me isn’t important either. What is important however is this story. It’ll probably be swept under some rug no doubt, that’s the usual approach to these things, the words “conspiracy theorists” has a strong negative vibe to it, we can thank the boys at Langley and the Pentagon for that one. They have been responsible for more cover ups and lies than anyone else on the planet, except for a few. Well anyway, spoiler alert; there’s a derelict object orbiting Ganymede which is one of the moons of Jupiter… Now that I have your attention let’s begin.
I work for NASA. Well, that’s half-truth really, if you saw my real credentials, you would say that I worked for NASA, and that’d be that. The truth is I’ve been free lancing for various intelligence agencies, some named, some not, for about the last 10 years... Most of the other guys that worked with me were sort of the same, varying in different fields. My job was to delete or remove all the UFO evidence the government “accidentally” let slip into the public eye. We call them UAP’s I’m not sure why the different name but that’s what we call them. What often happens is one of those idiot Astronauts goes for a spacewalk on the external side of the ISS and gets too wild with a camera and boom one of those things is front and center of the next biggest conspiracy to hit the internet; or one of those weather balloons go up for some science experiment or something and they catch one zooming on by. Let’s face it, its been happening a lot these days, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cover up and eradiate everything, whilst Tech Giant companies continue to sell to everyone on the planet a personal camera to record anything they want, with the ability to upload it.
You can only suppress this kind of thing for so long before the conspiracy theorists finally get enough evidence together to make most denials look suspicious at best, and if you keep denying it, well you just look dumb. One thing everyone must know about the Governments of the world, they really care about how they appear to the public, in their little Geopolitical world its known as Optics, its part of their control apparatus. But that’s another story.
So, with the Ganymede object. It requires context that it’s been seen by almost every major Government in the world. Before the James Webb telescope gave us detailed images, we were getting shots from Hubble, and so on and so forth. So, when you think about it this object sort of throws a whole wrench into well... Everything. As far as we were aware at the time when we found it there was a… damn I’m not sure what it was but shit... its strange. It looks like a space station sphere within a toroid, roughly 900 feet across in diameter, it or they both look as though they counter rotate. I think; around each other which is how it is maintaining its orbit, it’s hard to tell, because the body of it doesn’t have any patterns or distinctive features or something along those lines. Juno got too close to the thing, and made it shoot out a ping. So, they had to make it out to be a bunch of random sounds and disruption in downloads for those who wanted the pics from the Jovian planets moon for the mainstream media to keep the all the people calm. The media told everyone that Juno was disrupted, and communication would be shut down for a bit until the proximity was past. Sometimes I think those types of cover ups work a little too well. Juno got a lot closer, and no one was aware. That’s when people like me take over and we work to figure out as much as possible, and then cover the rest up.
The color of this thing shimmers from time to time, we couldn’t tell whether it was some sort of technology, or defensive camouflage or something that had been busted from the internals, or even if it had been naturally made to be iridescent, what we do know though however is that it emits little to no radiation, there is zero heat, and it has no life signatures whatsoever. Throughout this you will notice how behind the eight ball the intelligence services were when it came to this thing and can sometimes be with other of these major world altering revelations sometimes. But I digress.
So, we quickly began covering up everything, and gave it a name, Little Rock. Stupid and probably insulting but that’s what we call it as it looks like a rock anyhow. We tried dating how long Little Rock had been orbiting Ganymede, though without any form of reference it was anyone’s guess, quite possibly before life even existed here on Earth. There is another thing we had to verify about it, we had to make sure of this, but it has a giant freakin hole in the center of it, one of the guys who I worked with has been looking at UFO’s for quite some time, looking for offensive capabilities and the such, he told me that the hole could have been made by either a huge comet ramming through it, at some point in the past or, some other form of kinetic weapon that was shot through it. This evidence was in the images that Juno spat out and it’s like it’s been blown to pieces. We couldn’t make heads or tails as to how.
Moving along, we fast forward to why this has taken so long coming out. After the Juno cover up, we had to get on top of this thing before other Governments decided to move on this, so we launched another satellite in secret almost straight away, this one was launched by one of SpaceX’s rockets; they made a big show that it was only launching more of the Starlink satellites, but one of them had an Ion drive on it and slung shot itself around the planet to move into the trajectory of making it to Ganymede and hopefully running into Little Rock. Well, it worked. The Satellite we sent was called Nemo, it got into an orbit with Ganymede and has produced some more detailed photos of Little Rock, and well its worse than we thought.
Surprise to everyone we aren’t alone in the universe. I think I should just rip that band-aid off and let everyone digest what I just said. And yes, I meant that, we are not alone. We have the proof, but by now I think everyone’s suspicions are just confirmed.
Nemo was shot down, by probably the same thing that got Little Rock maybe? Whatever it was it had been hanging around after Juno passed it or it could have always been there, we aren’t sure. This thing looked like some inactive debris, so Nemo approached it and was instantly destroyed. When we looked at the play back footage, which took longer than we wanted it to get back to us, it looked like a small object had approached Nemo, it had a strange physical look which puzzled everyone, the only way to describe it would be the Angel depictions from the Genesis section of the bible like a sphere within a sphere.it was just bizarre.
The playback showed that as soon as Nemo got there it began moving and changing its orbital direction to meet Nemo, so we have limited information as to what it was and why it did it. When we saw the initial playback one of the four-star Generals who was there with us at the time told us all to copy it to his files for the Pentagon and delete the original. We had to do it but after that we all theorized about what our best guess was. The best one I remember was that it was some sort of proximity drone that activated too late when Little Rock got hit, went dormant again, then when Nemo turned up it went active and did its job. We think it’s a proximity drone since it never attacked Juno, because Juno didn’t get too close like Nemo did.
Now we get to the best part. Somewhere along the line the drone must have been scanning the wreckage of Nemo and figured out its origin, keep in mind that we didn’t leave one of those dumb golden plates on Nemo like Voyagers got, that pretty much says come and get us. So how it made the connection is a mystery to us. What happened next was very scary, we got the same frequencies that Juno picked up earlier here on Earth. For reference there is loads of space junk up there above our heads, and some of it woke up. To be specific the one that woke up is a bit infamous, it’s called the Black Knight Satellite, this thing has been in orbit for the longest time around the south pole; we had originally assumed it was a hunk of debris from the Mir station years ago, but as of more recently we thought it was something else, the conspiracies surrounding it say it is an Alien spacecraft, and well its true. We keep an eye on these things in case, and for the most part it stayed dormant all these years we have never had a way of getting to it without it being obvious or reckless, at least to my knowledge. When those frequencies started, post Nemo getting wrecked the Black Knight decided to start moving in a certain direction and it began emitting a frequency like the one that Juno read. Though it was softer and didn’t emit consistently it bleeped a few times then stopped and started moving.
From what we understand the Black Knight began moving towards Europe where it dropped something out of a holding bay onto a collision course with Earth. You guys should have seen the amount insanity that caused with the intel community, and NASA practically pooped themselves as this payload slammed into the Siberian tundra about 400 miles from anything remotely resembling human habitation and no one knew why or what it was.
That’s when the race had been on, every Government that wanted to see what it was, were sending everything they had up that way. The Russians had a huge head start and were pretty much all over it setting up quarantine stations and a huge facility over the top of what had struck the Earth. We were watching via spy satellites and stealth craft, whilst I’m told we had spies and wet work teams on the ground which made sense because we got photos from the inside of their makeshift facility. Our first reports showed that they’d been excavating it for days, it was a large 3 meter by 3-meter black cube. I’m serious it was a cube, with a lot of... well, I’m not sure, but the images we got back made it look like some sort of sludge. Like this oozing red sludge. The Russians were keeping away from the stuff as it probably freaked them out. They were instead sticking probes in it, taking samples and trying to figure out what it even was. The sludge was given a wide birth, as it was expanding out of the cube, the initial containment zone had been expanded, and was growing daily from the imagery we got back. This was concerning to us, and there had been talk of dropping all kinds of ordinance on the site. As far as we are aware we were moving into different defcons, which is a state of readiness for war.
It must have been something that happened because the cube emitted a pulse. This was read like a seismic event over in that region. For some reason the sludge apparently stopped moving. It just stayed in position and then it calcified. The info we got said the pulse made it crystallize and it looked like a ruby. Within the crystal were sacks or at least they looked like small gross little wiggling sacks full of puss and bile, like larvae or maggots looking for a meal.
No one exactly knew what had been going on, although they did know one thing, these larvae couldn’t be reached by anything, how we figured that out was easy. The Russians have some of the best drilling equipment on the planet and some of the largest and strongest diamond tipped filament drills in the world. Keep in mind that these types of machines and tech are specialized and leave a paper trail. They cost an exorbitant amount of money and are often from overseas corporate manufacturers. So, for secret projects they need a finer touch or end up leaving a large fingerprint on everything. In normal situations Governments will often pay using a black budget that no one can audit or talk about during a live parliament session. This relates to us because we were the ones who the Russians were buying extra drills from and our hardware to crack this structure. If Russia already had the equipment and they were buying more from overseas Manufacturers, it meant they needed help getting into it, and they didn’t care if it was obvious.
These larvae sacks eventually were dissected out of the crystalized structure The Russian government had stopped buying excessive amounts of drills, we heard. Now these larvae weren’t like the ones you find in movies, they looked like tiny little specs, which eventually grew to the size of human bodies, looked like a body bag that had veins and a lot of discharging sludge coming off them, they would wiggle around every now and then like a caterpillar moving around on a leaf, We knew that they didn’t get them all, but the willingness to continue wasting resources was weaning, they got a few of them and left the others, their scientists had found thousands of these things apparently, but they had just sealed off the cube and the word was they planned to fill the whole thing with concrete, or something worse.
The ones they extracted were moved to another facility and we only have sparring reports and rumor as to what had happened since their scientists are tight lipped and every spy that got close to this vanished. I’ll say this without any context. Its human. Somehow someway it’s human or at least appears to be. It has from the documents that we were able to obtain and translate, a human type of body with a working nervous system and humane features down to a detail. On a cellular level their cell structures and makeup of their nucleus is different though, they are harder to destroy, and the life cycle is elongated before undergoing mitosis. There was some speculation as to why they were birthed in those living larvae sacks, the theory went by some of the brains of the freelance contractors and the intel community that in order for any of those things to survive here they have to be birthed from this planet. which would include adapting their immune systems and growing on this planet. You can imagine the absolute nightmare fuel that brought about. This was when the higher ups really considered just dropping a nuke on the whole area and blowing it all to Jesus; and if I’m being honest, I don’t really blame them for wanting to do that. But somehow level heads prevailed, and they decided that if anything was going to happen the Kremlin would be the one to deal with it but if it went beyond their borders, it would be a NATO issue.
We had gotten assurances from higher ups that all data would be shared as it was increasingly obvious to every country involved. The negations meant that the Kremlin was prepared to drop any ordinance they had to deal with it. This wasn’t the best approach but there was an assumption from everyone that NATO would step in if something went sideways even if it was still in Russian territory. Things were very tense in those rooms, I’m just glad I’m not there anymore.
Here is the part that should scare the pants off anyone; we know for a fact that the larvae sacks eventually hatched, or something, and they all came out looking like humans, well they were birthed into various ages, some were 40 odd some were in their 20s, some female, some male. It was as if the birthing sacks had a set expectation of development, not only that, but they had ethnic diversity, meaning they had different racial traits and backgrounds. Some were Caucasoid, others Hispanic, Asian and so on. The Russians were smart enough to photograph and fingerprint all the ones that they had pulled from the ruby structure and thank God they did. Another weird coincidence was that when they ran the DNA and fingerprints most have matching DNA strands to those who have gone missing globally. Yeah, that’s right missing persons cases that have been all over the world, not just in the Russian region but globally. But the differences in their cell structure meant that these things weren’t those missing people, so that was its own pandoras box.
Now that we have caught up, The worst part. They lost them. They literally broke out of their containment zone and ran off into the Siberian tundra, most of them nude or in hospital gowns, those damned idiots lost them. What we know is before the giant jail break. Is that they had been attempting the communication process and education with these hybrid humans, but it hadn’t gone very well, somehow one of them had figured out some information that they shouldn’t have, and even though they were housed in one of the most sophisticated dark gulags they got, these hybrids got out, this isn’t some old soviet era dump, its an actual top level place where they were housing most spies and just pure evil people the Russian Government hated but couldn’t kill. They housed them there moving everyone else out and the Hybrids, they could communicate without anyone else knowing. So, they got out and are in the wind now, and everyone is losing their minds trying to find them. Good luck, I say.
I had to blow the whistle on this one, what the hell is being done to find these people? And what are they going to do if they catch them? I don’t know and don’t want to know, they killed everyone who knew too much and that includes me. so I’m gone, I’m out, I’m leaving this mess behind me, this will be one of my last broadcasts, don’t expect anything in the future, they are probably going to try and find me, but I’ll head off grid and stay off grid forever ill step back if anything ever comes about from this.
Just one more thing before I go, this is more of a thought that we played with in game theory classes during the strategy meetings. When the owners of the Little Rock station had a let’s call it a “security measure” in place to activate Black Knight to have all of this happen with the Cube and the Hybrids, and let’s say it’s a contingency to make sure their civilization survives, who were they fighting? and why were they losing. Food for thought.
DD

Ladies and gentlemen of Morefolk, you all must be terribly confused. I've sent this message to your emails and your phones, which took quite a lot of time, so please listen to me. As you're all well aware, there have been a series of murders in this town of ours. Murders that have, up to this point, had their details kept private. For the "sake of investigation", as our police department puts it, the specifics of these crimes have been kept under wraps. Bullshit. All of it. It's all a load of bullshit. Our police aren't keeping this information secret for the security of the investigation. They're doing it out of cowardice.
Isn't it strange that, even in a small town like this where everyone is connected, nobody seems to know anything about the recent deaths? Ellie... Sasha... Claire... Jackie... all taken away from us. Yet, nobody has anything to say? Do you seriously believe that the husbands of the pregnant women that were slaughtered are keeping quiet because they're too "traumatized"? Or, perhaps they keep quiet due to some kind of nondisclosure agreement they have with the police, right? Wrong... all wrong. The police have BRIBED and BULLIED the husbands of the victims into silence.
It's come to my attention through my own investigation that this goes deeper than just the police force. They're being ordered around by an agency that remains unnamed even within the files I've managed to crack. All this is to say, this situation is much more than it seems on the surface. After finding what I've dug up, it's obvious to me why they're trying to keep the husbands quiet. You know what? Fuck that. I never trusted these damn cops. I knew something suspicious was going on. You all have a right to know the truth. Below is a leak of a transcript containing some very... interesting information. The police force is going to lie to you, they'll tell you that what I am about to expose is purely fabricated. They're cowards, all of them. I dare you to look into their eyes as they lie to your face, and tell yourself that you trust them. With that being said, allow me to grant you the real truth.
(Start of Transcript)
Detective Casper: "Alright, the date is February 17th, it's 8:45 AM. My name is detective Casper. Everything from here on out is on the record. Mister Middleton, I appreciate your willingness to speak about what happened last night. Typically we wouldn't... handle things this way. We'd have you cleared psychologically first, and this session wouldn't occur for a while longer. Unfortunately, this isn't a conventional situation. I hope you understand.”
Middleton: "Yeah... I do"
Detective Casper: "That being said... your voice is shaky, and your eyes are still red. Are you okay? Can you do this right now?"
Middleton: "Do I look okay to you? I'll be "okay" when that crazy bitch gets executed. You hear me?"
Detective Casper: "I hear you, and I promise you, the more help you give us, the closer we'll get to delivering justice. You're doing a brave thing here today, I hope you know that."
Middleton: "I'm not fucking brave. I couldn't do anything to stop that... that goddamn monster. I'm not brave. I'm angry. I just want that thing dead."
Detective Casper: "I know... I would too, trust me. You keep referring to the suspect in rather inhuman terms. Why is that? Was the suspect wearing a mask or some other form of concealing clothing that made them appear less human?"
Middleton: "You... you aren't going to believe me... I just know that thing couldn't have been human... it couldn't have been... it looked human but it just wasn't."
Detective Casper: "I apologize, I've gotten ahead of myself. Let's not focus on that right now. Let's start from the very beginning. Typically, criminals of this sort tend to "stalk" and "survey" the homes of their victims. They spend time figuring out the schedules and patterns of behavior of their victims. Did you notice anything strange before this tragedy happened? Maybe a car suspiciously driving past your house repeatedly? Perhaps someone consistently looking at your property? Anything at all?"
Middleton: "No, never. Everything seemed so... so normal. I swear, I didn't see anything like that."
Detective Casper: "I understand. Thank you. I would also like to mention, if at any time you require something to drink or eat during this interview, please tell me. We will be happy to accommodate you."
Middleton: "I'm okay, thanks. If... if I put anything into my stomach, I'm afraid I'll just vomit again. My throat already hurts enough as is..."
Detective Casper: "Understood. Once again, you're being very brave, please stay strong, for your wife."
Middleton: "Please... call her Jackie..."
Detective Casper: "Sure. Do it for Jackie, okay?"
Middleton: "Yeah... for Jackie...."
Detective Casper: "Alright, thank you, Mr. Middleton. Now, going forward, I'm going to ask you to describe the events that happened last night. If at any point in time you feel uncomfortable, we can take a break. Do you understand?"
Middleton: "I understand, I do...."
Detective Casper: "Very well, let's proceed. According to your call with dispatch, the events unfolded at or around 1:13 AM. Is this correct?"
Middleton: "That's correct."
Detective Casper: "Right, now then, could you explain what exactly happened that night? I will ask you to be concise, but I will refrain from interrupting you. I'm all ears, okay?"
Middleton: "Alright... well, Jackie and I were in bed, asleep. I remember waking up to the sound of thumping. I couldn't exactly place it, but I soon realized it was coming from underneath the bed. Jackie woke up right after that. I got out of bed and... I looked at the floor. There was a fucking hand... just, sticking out from under the bed. It was a woman's hand. This whole time, the thumping from under the bed just continued and continued..."
Detective Casper: Was there anything on the hand? Any jewelry, any identifying scarring or tattoo?"
Middleton: "No... nothing like that. It was just a pale hand. Jackie couldn't see it at the time, but she was already really freaked out by the bumping. I shouted at the person under the bed, I told them to come out. I heard a lot of shifting around, and the bumping immediately stopped. The hand stretched forward and clawed at the floor like it was dragging the rest of the body forward with it. I... oh Jesus..."
Detective Casper: "Are you alright?"
Middleton: "I can keep going... please. I can do this."
Detective Casper: "Very well, please continue."
Middleton: "It took a while for that... that thing to come all the way out. It... it looked like a nude woman, but it just... it was so off. It couldn't have been human. There's just no way."
Detective Casper: "How do you mean? What made it appear so inhuman to you?"
Middleton: "There was... a long, stitched-up gash on her abdomen. Her eyes were so cloudy and grey... and it looked like tears were leaking out of them. She was nearly bald, her head only had a few short hairs sticking out of it. Oh God, the smell... she smelled like utter shit... and the way she moved. She didn't stand up at first. She just laid on the floor and looked up at me... You have to believe me. That thing was not a human. It was something else... I'm not crazy. I swear on my life I'm telling the truth."
Detective Casper: "I believe you, I do. You're a great help to us right now. Here, take some tissues. It's okay. You're doing great. Take your time, alright?"
Middleton: "Thank you... I uhm.. I appreciate it. Please continue to believe me... What I'm about to say doesn't sound real, but, but... but it is. I promise it is."
Detective Casper: "I'm here for you. It's okay. Every detail matters."
Middleton: "Okay... Okay... She uh, she opened her lips while staring at me. She didn't move her mouth or... or move her lips or tongue. But she made this, just... this awful noise. It sounded like an infant crying. Just... that sound coming out from her lips, it isn't natural. It isn't human. The crying sounded... like if you took a recording of an infant crying and you looped it over and over again. It was the most horrific shit I've ever heard."
Detective Casper: "She didn't even move her mouth? You said it sounded as if the crying were coming from a recording. Did you happen to notice any audio-playing devices on her person?"
Middleton: "No... she was completely naked, she couldn't have hidden one anywhere. That... that sound... it was coming from her.."
Detective Casper: "I understand. Please, continue, if possible. What happened after that?"
Middleton: "I just... froze. I couldn't move a muscle. It was like I was having a sleep paralysis episode. My body was stiff as a rock, and she stood up and faced Jackie. Jackie must've been so scared... she couldn't move either. She just laid in bed, with a look of horror on her face... Oh God... I should've done something, but I just... I couldn't. I felt completely numb."
Detective Casper: "It's understandable, oftentimes we freeze up in horrifying moments. It isn't your fault."
Middleton: I know, but... this was different... This wasn't just me freezing up in fear, it was like... it was like nothing I've ever felt before. She, uh, she was standing next to Jackie, and... I... I think I'm gonna be sick. Please, can I just... take a break? Please?
Detective Casper: "Of course. We'll take a fifteen-minute recess. You're doing a fantastic job, you deserve a break."
(15 Minutes Pass)
Detective Casper: "Alright, we are now back in session. Mister Middleton, are you comfortable resuming where we left off?"
Middleton: "Yeah... I am. I still feel sick, but I have to do this. I do. That monster stood next to Jackie and... it just... it tore into her. It just dug its horrible fingers into her stomach and began ripping and clawing and just... it was so awful. There was so much screaming and so much blood... oh my God. Jackie... Our poor baby... he was supposed to be our baby... he was supposed to be alive. He was supposed to be named Jack. He was supposed to be alive and be our baby. And that fucking monster just... took him from us. It clawed its way inside and ripped Jackie open and tore out our child..."
Detective Casper: "Please, Mister Middleton, I know you must be hurting. Please, stay focused, or you'll upset yourself further. What did the suspect do with the child?"
Middleton: "She... She... she tore into her own abdomen... she tore her stitches apart and opened her own abdomen... her own womb... and she forced our baby inside of her... she fucking... she fucking... oh dear God..."
Detective Casper: "Mister Middleton, our forensics crew didn't recover any DNA that might belong to the suspect as of yet. From the sound of it, she should have bled quite profusely inside of the room, based on your description. Wouldn't you think so?"
Middleton: "I told you, she's not fucking human. She didn't even bleed. It was like... just an empty cavity in her abdomen. And she stuffed our baby in there... my wife is dead, my unborn baby is dead... you think a human could have done something like this?"
Detective Casper: "I think you're understandably upset by this event. I think that some details might be exaggerated or misunderstood in your head."
Middleton: "You don't... you don't believe me, do you?"
Detective Casper: "Look... we are taking everything into account. We are truly trying to bring justice for you, Jackie, and Jack. We really are. We are going to consider your account going forward in our investigation. Your help is appreciated, Mister Middleton."
Middleton: "Fine... believe me or don't. But mark my words. When you find the fucker that's responsible for this, you'll see that it's only a vicious creature. Don't try to reason with it. Don't try to arrest it. Put a bullet in its fucking skull? You understand me?"
Detective Casper: "Noted. Do you have anything more you would like to add to the record?"
Middleton: "Just... just kill it..."
Detective Casper: “Alright, this marks the end of the recording at 9:27 AM”
(End of Transcript)
Funny how the "official record" is still being kept secret, huh? These bastards know what they're doing. Every single interview with the husbands has consistent themes. No signs of forced entry into the home. Knocking under the bed. The man is unable to move. The descriptions of the woman and the sounds she makes. What she does to the poor mother and child... it's all consistent. Something horrible is happening in this town. The police, and whatever agency is contacting them, are suppressing this information. I am going to blow this whole thing wide open. I am going to find out what's going on, for the sake of our town.
Know that this is not the final leak I will spread. Know that I am urging each of you to embrace the truth. Know that I am calling on each husband they tried to threaten and bribe into silence to speak out. You all have a right to safety and transparency. This cannot continue, for the sake of our friends and family. Morefolk is a place of dignity, there's no room for gruesome murder and government corruption here. This will not be the last you hear of me.
Signing off for now,
-J

This will be the last statement I ever make before I disappear forever. I’ve heard that this kind of a thing is quite common for those who finally grow a conscious and decide to leave for good. I personally don’t know anyone else apart from a few people I used to work with who knew about this, so here we go. My name isn’t important, but you can call me DD. When I think about it, I’m not important at all, I’m just the messenger or whistleblower, so anything else that would further “incriminate” me isn’t important either. What is important however is this story. It’ll probably be swept under some rug no doubt, that’s the usual approach to these things, the words “conspiracy theorists” has a strong negative vibe to it, we can thank the boys at Langley and the Pentagon for that one. They have been responsible for more cover ups and lies than anyone else on the planet, except for a few. Well anyway, spoiler alert; there’s a derelict object orbiting Ganymede which is one of the moons of Jupiter… Now that I have your attention let’s begin.
I work for NASA. Well, that’s half-truth really, if you saw my real credentials, you would say that I worked for NASA, and that’d be that. The truth is I’ve been free lancing for various intelligence agencies, some named, some not, for about the last 10 years... Most of the other guys that worked with me were sort of the same, varying in different fields. My job was to delete or remove all the UFO evidence the government “accidentally” let slip into the public eye. We call them UAP’s I’m not sure why the different name but that’s what we call them. What often happens is one of those idiot Astronauts goes for a spacewalk on the external side of the ISS and gets too wild with a camera and boom one of those things is front and center of the next biggest conspiracy to hit the internet; or one of those weather balloons go up for some science experiment or something and they catch one zooming on by. Let’s face it, its been happening a lot these days, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cover up and eradiate everything, whilst Tech Giant companies continue to sell to everyone on the planet a personal camera to record anything they want, with the ability to upload it.
You can only suppress this kind of thing for so long before the conspiracy theorists finally get enough evidence together to make most denials look suspicious at best, and if you keep denying it, well you just look dumb. One thing everyone must know about the Governments of the world, they really care about how they appear to the public, in their little Geopolitical world its known as Optics, its part of their control apparatus. But that’s another story.
So, with the Ganymede object. It requires context that it’s been seen by almost every major Government in the world. Before the James Webb telescope gave us detailed images, we were getting shots from Hubble, and so on and so forth. So, when you think about it this object sort of throws a whole wrench into well... Everything. As far as we were aware at the time when we found it there was a… damn I’m not sure what it was but shit... its strange. It looks like a space station sphere within a toroid, roughly 900 feet across in diameter, it or they both look as though they counter rotate. I think; around each other which is how it is maintaining its orbit, it’s hard to tell, because the body of it doesn’t have any patterns or distinctive features or something along those lines. Juno got too close to the thing, and made it shoot out a ping. So, they had to make it out to be a bunch of random sounds and disruption in downloads for those who wanted the pics from the Jovian planets moon for the mainstream media to keep the all the people calm. The media told everyone that Juno was disrupted, and communication would be shut down for a bit until the proximity was past. Sometimes I think those types of cover ups work a little too well. Juno got a lot closer, and no one was aware. That’s when people like me take over and we work to figure out as much as possible, and then cover the rest up.
The color of this thing shimmers from time to time, we couldn’t tell whether it was some sort of technology, or defensive camouflage or something that had been busted from the internals, or even if it had been naturally made to be iridescent, what we do know though however is that it emits little to no radiation, there is zero heat, and it has no life signatures whatsoever. Throughout this you will notice how behind the eight ball the intelligence services were when it came to this thing and can sometimes be with other of these major world altering revelations sometimes. But I digress.
So, we quickly began covering up everything, and gave it a name, Little Rock. Stupid and probably insulting but that’s what we call it as it looks like a rock anyhow. We tried dating how long Little Rock had been orbiting Ganymede, though without any form of reference it was anyone’s guess, quite possibly before life even existed here on Earth. There is another thing we had to verify about it, we had to make sure of this, but it has a giant freakin hole in the center of it, one of the guys who I worked with has been looking at UFO’s for quite some time, looking for offensive capabilities and the such, he told me that the hole could have been made by either a huge comet ramming through it, at some point in the past or, some other form of kinetic weapon that was shot through it. This evidence was in the images that Juno spat out and it’s like it’s been blown to pieces. We couldn’t make heads or tails as to how.
Moving along, we fast forward to why this has taken so long coming out. After the Juno cover up, we had to get on top of this thing before other Governments decided to move on this, so we launched another satellite in secret almost straight away, this one was launched by one of SpaceX’s rockets; they made a big show that it was only launching more of the Starlink satellites, but one of them had an Ion drive on it and slung shot itself around the planet to move into the trajectory of making it to Ganymede and hopefully running into Little Rock. Well, it worked. The Satellite we sent was called Nemo, it got into an orbit with Ganymede and has produced some more detailed photos of Little Rock, and well its worse than we thought.
Surprise to everyone we aren’t alone in the universe. I think I should just rip that band-aid off and let everyone digest what I just said. And yes, I meant that, we are not alone. We have the proof, but by now I think everyone’s suspicions are just confirmed.
Nemo was shot down, by probably the same thing that got Little Rock maybe? Whatever it was it had been hanging around after Juno passed it or it could have always been there, we aren’t sure. This thing looked like some inactive debris, so Nemo approached it and was instantly destroyed. When we looked at the play back footage, which took longer than we wanted it to get back to us, it looked like a small object had approached Nemo, it had a strange physical look which puzzled everyone, the only way to describe it would be the Angel depictions from the Genesis section of the bible like a sphere within a sphere.it was just bizarre.
The playback showed that as soon as Nemo got there it began moving and changing its orbital direction to meet Nemo, so we have limited information as to what it was and why it did it. When we saw the initial playback one of the four-star Generals who was there with us at the time told us all to copy it to his files for the Pentagon and delete the original. We had to do it but after that we all theorized about what our best guess was. The best one I remember was that it was some sort of proximity drone that activated too late when Little Rock got hit, went dormant again, then when Nemo turned up it went active and did its job. We think it’s a proximity drone since it never attacked Juno, because Juno didn’t get too close like Nemo did.
Now we get to the best part. Somewhere along the line the drone must have been scanning the wreckage of Nemo and figured out its origin, keep in mind that we didn’t leave one of those dumb golden plates on Nemo like Voyagers got, that pretty much says come and get us. So how it made the connection is a mystery to us. What happened next was very scary, we got the same frequencies that Juno picked up earlier here on Earth. For reference there is loads of space junk up there above our heads, and some of it woke up. To be specific the one that woke up is a bit infamous, it’s called the Black Knight Satellite, this thing has been in orbit for the longest time around the south pole; we had originally assumed it was a hunk of debris from the Mir station years ago, but as of more recently we thought it was something else, the conspiracies surrounding it say it is an Alien spacecraft, and well its true. We keep an eye on these things in case, and for the most part it stayed dormant all these years we have never had a way of getting to it without it being obvious or reckless, at least to my knowledge. When those frequencies started, post Nemo getting wrecked the Black Knight decided to start moving in a certain direction and it began emitting a frequency like the one that Juno read. Though it was softer and didn’t emit consistently it bleeped a few times then stopped and started moving.
From what we understand the Black Knight began moving towards Europe where it dropped something out of a holding bay onto a collision course with Earth. You guys should have seen the amount insanity that caused with the intel community, and NASA practically pooped themselves as this payload slammed into the Siberian tundra about 400 miles from anything remotely resembling human habitation and no one knew why or what it was.
That’s when the race had been on, every Government that wanted to see what it was, were sending everything they had up that way. The Russians had a huge head start and were pretty much all over it setting up quarantine stations and a huge facility over the top of what had struck the Earth. We were watching via spy satellites and stealth craft, whilst I’m told we had spies and wet work teams on the ground which made sense because we got photos from the inside of their makeshift facility. Our first reports showed that they’d been excavating it for days, it was a large 3 meter by 3-meter black cube. I’m serious it was a cube, with a lot of... well, I’m not sure, but the images we got back made it look like some sort of sludge. Like this oozing red sludge. The Russians were keeping away from the stuff as it probably freaked them out. They were instead sticking probes in it, taking samples and trying to figure out what it even was. The sludge was given a wide birth, as it was expanding out of the cube, the initial containment zone had been expanded, and was growing daily from the imagery we got back. This was concerning to us, and there had been talk of dropping all kinds of ordinance on the site. As far as we are aware we were moving into different defcons, which is a state of readiness for war.
It must have been something that happened because the cube emitted a pulse. This was read like a seismic event over in that region. For some reason the sludge apparently stopped moving. It just stayed in position and then it calcified. The info we got said the pulse made it crystallize and it looked like a ruby. Within the crystal were sacks or at least they looked like small gross little wiggling sacks full of puss and bile, like larvae or maggots looking for a meal.
No one exactly knew what had been going on, although they did know one thing, these larvae couldn’t be reached by anything, how we figured that out was easy. The Russians have some of the best drilling equipment on the planet and some of the largest and strongest diamond tipped filament drills in the world. Keep in mind that these types of machines and tech are specialized and leave a paper trail. They cost an exorbitant amount of money and are often from overseas corporate manufacturers. So, for secret projects they need a finer touch or end up leaving a large fingerprint on everything. In normal situations Governments will often pay using a black budget that no one can audit or talk about during a live parliament session. This relates to us because we were the ones who the Russians were buying extra drills from and our hardware to crack this structure. If Russia already had the equipment and they were buying more from overseas Manufacturers, it meant they needed help getting into it, and they didn’t care if it was obvious.
These larvae sacks eventually were dissected out of the crystalized structure The Russian government had stopped buying excessive amounts of drills, we heard. Now these larvae weren’t like the ones you find in movies, they looked like tiny little specs, which eventually grew to the size of human bodies, looked like a body bag that had veins and a lot of discharging sludge coming off them, they would wiggle around every now and then like a caterpillar moving around on a leaf, We knew that they didn’t get them all, but the willingness to continue wasting resources was weaning, they got a few of them and left the others, their scientists had found thousands of these things apparently, but they had just sealed off the cube and the word was they planned to fill the whole thing with concrete, or something worse.
The ones they extracted were moved to another facility and we only have sparring reports and rumor as to what had happened since their scientists are tight lipped and every spy that got close to this vanished. I’ll say this without any context. Its human. Somehow someway it’s human or at least appears to be. It has from the documents that we were able to obtain and translate, a human type of body with a working nervous system and humane features down to a detail. On a cellular level their cell structures and makeup of their nucleus is different though, they are harder to destroy, and the life cycle is elongated before undergoing mitosis. There was some speculation as to why they were birthed in those living larvae sacks, the theory went by some of the brains of the freelance contractors and the intel community that in order for any of those things to survive here they have to be birthed from this planet. which would include adapting their immune systems and growing on this planet. You can imagine the absolute nightmare fuel that brought about. This was when the higher ups really considered just dropping a nuke on the whole area and blowing it all to Jesus; and if I’m being honest, I don’t really blame them for wanting to do that. But somehow level heads prevailed, and they decided that if anything was going to happen the Kremlin would be the one to deal with it but if it went beyond their borders, it would be a NATO issue.
We had gotten assurances from higher ups that all data would be shared as it was increasingly obvious to every country involved. The negations meant that the Kremlin was prepared to drop any ordinance they had to deal with it. This wasn’t the best approach but there was an assumption from everyone that NATO would step in if something went sideways even if it was still in Russian territory. Things were very tense in those rooms, I’m just glad I’m not there anymore.
Here is the part that should scare the pants off anyone; we know for a fact that the larvae sacks eventually hatched, or something, and they all came out looking like humans, well they were birthed into various ages, some were 40 odd some were in their 20s, some female, some male. It was as if the birthing sacks had a set expectation of development, not only that, but they had ethnic diversity, meaning they had different racial traits and backgrounds. Some were Caucasoid, others Hispanic, Asian and so on. The Russians were smart enough to photograph and fingerprint all the ones that they had pulled from the ruby structure and thank God they did. Another weird coincidence was that when they ran the DNA and fingerprints most have matching DNA strands to those who have gone missing globally. Yeah, that’s right missing persons cases that have been all over the world, not just in the Russian region but globally. But the differences in their cell structure meant that these things weren’t those missing people, so that was its own pandoras box.
Now that we have caught up, The worst part. They lost them. They literally broke out of their containment zone and ran off into the Siberian tundra, most of them nude or in hospital gowns, those damned idiots lost them. What we know is before the giant jail break. Is that they had been attempting the communication process and education with these hybrid humans, but it hadn’t gone very well, somehow one of them had figured out some information that they shouldn’t have, and even though they were housed in one of the most sophisticated dark gulags they got, these hybrids got out, this isn’t some old soviet era dump, its an actual top level place where they were housing most spies and just pure evil people the Russian Government hated but couldn’t kill. They housed them there moving everyone else out and the Hybrids, they could communicate without anyone else knowing. So, they got out and are in the wind now, and everyone is losing their minds trying to find them. Good luck, I say.
I had to blow the whistle on this one, what the hell is being done to find these people? And what are they going to do if they catch them? I don’t know and don’t want to know, they killed everyone who knew too much and that includes me. so I’m gone, I’m out, I’m leaving this mess behind me, this will be one of my last broadcasts, don’t expect anything in the future, they are probably going to try and find me, but I’ll head off grid and stay off grid forever ill step back if anything ever comes about from this.
Just one more thing before I go, this is more of a thought that we played with in game theory classes during the strategy meetings. When the owners of the Little Rock station had a let’s call it a “security measure” in place to activate Black Knight to have all of this happen with the Cube and the Hybrids, and let’s say it’s a contingency to make sure their civilization survives, who were they fighting? and why were they losing. Food for thought.
DD

I’m slowly making my way through Twin Peaks for the first time. Slow if only because season 2 has way too much James and way too much Donna.
But anyways, finally finished season 2 and it was fucking spectacular, though so upsetting.
I could NEVER have imagined such a warm, happy, soft environment could ever crumble and decay the way it did. By the end of the episode I was realising that pretty much everyone’s life became completely fucked, and the warmth can’t last.
But having just watched the film, all of that warmth and happiness from season 1 and 2 just feels like such an empty lie. The dark truths and criminal underworld was always present, but painted over with the warm filter and the smooth music. Nothing ever felt serious, and up until this point everything seemed to exist in a purely fantastical world, where evil could never truly take root.
I knew the movie would be heavy, a prequel about Laura’s final days was always going to be heavy.
Her relationship with Bob was an aspect of the show I often attributed to the fantasy element, and I took it quite literally that there was a demon she was being groomed and terrorised by.
For some reason I never made the connection of what Leland being Bob actually meant for Laura and Sarah’s life, and puts Sarah’s insanely visceral grief into a totally different light. And at first, that horrible sadness Sarah is afflicted by feels like an inability to accept that something bad happened in this town, and someone was murdered, and that the warmth and softness here has just been compromised.
But it was so from the start. Lelands ritual scene where he drugs Sarah, turns the fan on and then climbs through Laura’s window was hands down the scariest and most strangely real depiction of abuse I’ve ever seen , it will stay with me for a while
I couldn’t know where season 3 goes but I’m fucking nervous and excited.

This is a great letter with a lot to unpack. I hope you find it interesting.

“Do not grasp another’s bow, do not ride another’s horse, do not meddle in another’s affairs.” Though this is a commonplace saying, it can also be sustenance for entering the Path. Just examine yourself constantly: from morning to night, what do you do to help others and help yourself? If you notice even the slightest partiality or insensitivity, you must admonish yourself. Don’t be careless about this!

What do you make of this? He’s telling this guy to discipline himself if he is partial or insensitive. Why? What does partiality have to do with Zen? Were Zen masters insensitive?

In the old days Ch’an Master Tao Lin lived up in a tall pine tree on Ch’in Wang Mountain; people of the time called him the “Bird’s Nest Monk.” When Minister Po Chu-yi was commander of Ch’ien T’ang, he made a special trip to the mountain to visit him. Po said, “It’s very dangerous where you’re sitting, Ch’an Master.” The Master said, “My danger may be very great, Minister, but yours is even greater.” Po said, “I am commander of Ch’ien T’ang: what danger is there?” The Master said, “Fuel and fire are joined, consciousness and identity do not stay: how can you not be in danger?” Po also asked, “What is the overall meaning of the Buddhist Teaching?” The Master said, “Don’t commit any evils, practice the many virtues.” Po said, “Even a three-year-old child could say this.” The Master said, “Though a three-year-old child can say it, an eighty-year-old man cannot carry it out.” Po then bowed and departed. Now if you want to save mental power, do not be concerned with whether or not a three-year-old child can say it, or whether or not an eighty-year-old man can carry it out. Just don’t do any evil and you have mastered these words. They apply whether you believe or not, so please think it over.

Why is he separating good and evil, and talking about virtue? Maybe it’s because an eighty year old man can’t carry it out. He has to smack some life into this guy.

If worldly people whose present conduct is without illumination would correct themselves and do good, though the goodness is not yet perfect, isn’t this better than depravity and shamelessness? One who does evil on the pretext of doing good is called in the Teachings one whose causal ground is not genuine, bringing on crooked results. If, with a straightforward mind and straightforward conduct, you are able to seize supreme enlightenment directly, this can be called the act of a real man of power.

It sounds like Dahui is saying that enlightenment is a perfection of goodness. He says if someone isn’t enlightened, they should at least try to do good because it’s better than depravity. A fair compromise.

The concerns that have come down from numberless ages are only in the present: if you can understand them right now, then the concerns of numberless ages will instantly disperse, like tiles being scattered or ice melting. If you don’t understand right now, you’ll pass through countless eons more, and it’ll still be just as it is. The truth that is as it is has been continuous since antiquity without ever having varied so much as a hairsbreadth.

There it is. Just understand concerns and they disperse. Understand?

Matters of worldly anxieties are like the links of a chain, joining together continuously without a break. If you can do away with them, do away with them immediately! Because you have become habituated to them since beginningless time, to the point where they have become totally familiar, if you don’t exert yourself to struggle with them, then as time goes on and on, with you unknowing and unawares, they will have entered deeply into you. Finally, on the last day of your life, you won’t be able to do anything about it. If you want to be able to avoid going wrong when you face the end of your life, then from now on whenever you do anything, don’t let yourself slip. If you go wrong in your present doings, it will be impossible not to go wrong when you’re facing death.

Do you notice he said, “if you can do away with them, do away with them?” What if you can’t?
He tells this guy that he’s habituated to his anxieties and he has to struggle with them. If he doesn’t, according to Dahui, he’ll go wrong when facing death. That’s quite a declaration. Whenever you do anything, don’t let yourself slip.

There’s a sort of person who reads scriptures, recites the Buddha-name, and repents in the morning, but then in the evening runs off at the mouth, slandering and vilifying other people. The next day he does homage to Buddha and repents as before. All through the years till the end of his life he takes this as daily ritual—this is extreme folly. Such people are far from realizing that the Sanskrit word kshama means to repent faults. This is called “cutting off the continuing mind.” Once you have cut it off, never continue it again; once you have repented, do not commit (wrongdoings) again—this is the meaning of repentance according to our Buddha, which good people who study the Path should not fail to know.

Cutting off continuing mind is the ultimate repentance. He says to do this means to not speak ill of others. Even the guy who cut you off in traffic. Even the opposing political party. Even “Dogenists.”

The mind, discriminating intellect, and consciousness of students of the Path should be quiet and still twenty-four hours a day. When you have nothing to do, you should sit quietly and keep the mind from slackening and the body from wavering. If you practice to perfection over a long long time, naturally body and mind will come to rest at ease, and you will have some direction in the Path. The perfection of quiescence and stillness indeed settles the scattered and confused false consciousness of sentient beings, but if you cling to quiescent stillness and consider it the ultimate, then you’re in the grip of perverted “silent illumination” Ch’an.

Uh oh. He’s telling this guy to meditate. Here’s where it gets juicy. If you practice to perfection over a long, long time, naturally body and mind will rest at ease. Sounds a lot like a method. He even said “practice.”
The perfection of quiescence and stillness indeed settles the scattered and confused false consciousness of sentient beings. Wow. Maybe Dahui was a Dogenist.
He talks here about “silent illumination,” which he is famous for reviling. He’s pretty clear about what he means though. Don’t cling to quiescent stillness. Don’t consider it the ultimate.

The Sanskrit word prajna means wisdom. Those who lack clear prajna and are greedy, wrathful, stupid, and lustful, those who don’t have clear prajna and harm sentient beings, those who do such things as these—they are running away from prajna. How can this be called wisdom?

Prajna means to not harm other beings.

By keeping mindful of the matter of birth and death, your mental technique is already correct. Once the mental technique is correct, then you won’t need to use effort to clear your mind as you respond to circumstances in your daily activities. When you don’t actively try to clear out your mind, then you won’t go wrong; since you don’t go wrong, correct mindfulness stands out alone. When correct mindfulness stands out alone, inner truth adapts to phenomena; when inner truth adapts to events and things, events and things come to fuse in inner truth. When phenomena fuse with their inner truth, you save power; when you feel the saving, this is the empowerment of studying the Path. In gaining power you save unlimited power; in saving power you gain unlimited power.

Correct technique is mindfulness. He’s playing all the hits and using all the trigger words. This bit is very interesting. Correct mindfulness is not actively clearing out the mind. It’s being constantly mindful of the inner truth of things, until they merge. This is exactly like Foyan: “When knowledge and principle merge, environment and mind unite, it is like when one drinks water one spontaneously knows whether it's warm or cool.”
How true these words are!

This matter may be taken up by brilliant quick-witted folks, but if you depend on your brilliance and quick wits, you won’t be able to bear up. It is easy for keen and bright people to enter, but hard for them to preserve it. That’s because generally their entry is not very deep and the power is meager. With the intelligent and quick-witted, as soon as they hear a spiritual friend mention this matter, their eyes stir immediately and they are already trying to gain understanding through their mind’s discriminating intellect. People like this are creating their own hindrances, and will never have a moment of awakening.

What’s he telling this person here? Smart people can’t be enlightened? I think it’s similar to his warning about silent illumination. Don’t cling to the intellect. Don’t try to gain understanding through intelligence. Brilliant people tend to struggle with Zen because they’re always trying to make sense of everything.

“When devils from outside wreak calamity, it can still be remedied,” but this (reliance on intellectual discrimination) amounts to “When one’s own family creates disaster, it cannot be averted.” This what Yung Chia meant when he said, “The loss of the wealth of the Dharma and the demise of virtue all stem from mind’s discriminating intellect.”

He ends with this quote from Yung Chia. The mind’s discriminating intellect is the cause of loss of wealth of the dharma and the demise of virtue. Do you think that’s true? Dahui obviously did.

Hi everyone.
I wrote a little story that I'd like to share with you. English isn't my native language, so I probably made a lot of mistakes. Feel free to point them out and I will try my best to fix them and improve my writing.
---
Captain Cro’zee never thought about himself as a cheapskate. He preferred to think that he was efficient with spending money. Sadly, his big break never came and his company was still limited to a single ship. And this ship was bleeding money.
But now… now it was about to change. The only thing that Cro’zee needed to do was to sign this contract. A very unusual one. Thing is, when you hire people, you are supposed to pay them out of your pocket. But in this particular case… Cro’zee would be compensated not only for every credit he was going to pay to this new hire, but for every expense that was related to this employment. Very unusual and very generous. And Cro’zee was going to milk that Earth Xeno-Relations Agency really hard. The only catch was that his new hire was a human.
Well, if to finally make a break, you had to hire a member of species that were relatively new to the galactic scene, but notoriously troublesome… then you better be prepared. Cro’zee’s tentacles twitched in exasperation, and then he made himself calm down. He took the private authenticator in his appendage, pressed it to the contract sheet and waited for a few moments. Authenticator buzzed, engraving the unique signature on the thin plastic and the deal was done.
Just like that.
Now the only thing that he had to do was to notify the crew. Trying his best to keep his voice straight, captain activated the ship-wide communication and began the announcement.
“Hey lads, Captain speaking. I heard your complains about lack of security detail for a few last deals and I’m proud to announce that we are finally going to fix this. We have a new hire, coming in tomorrow. Make him feel welcome. And, by the way, he’s human. I will send you updates on handling these species today. Read up on them. You have the whole shift to get ready. Captain out.”
* * *
Justin was having a mother of all headaches. He didn’t get much of a sleep tonight and the only thing that was keeping him functional was a big cup of coffee. Two cups, actually. And a cigarette, which he really wasn’t supposed to smoke, especially after going without them for two years. The amount of info that Agency made him read was enormous. He knew what he was signing up for, but that wasn’t really making him feel any better.
Being the first human accepted as an employee on the alien ship was a big deal. Like a really big deal. Agency made than painfully obvious. Humanity has only recently made contact with the Galactic Federation and still was treated like a new kid on the block.
“We placed a huge bet on you, son” said that guy from EXRA. “Do not let us down. We want you to ace whatever they’ll throw at you… and don’t you dare to quit. You are going to be Gagarin of interstellar job market.”
Yep. No pressure. Justin let out a deep sigh and looked in the window. The ship that was going to be his new home for a while was moored in the dock of space station. All that Justin had to do was to walk through the airlock and make a good first impression. To a bunch of aliens. Well, at least the crew was comprised of oxygen-breathing species, so he wouldn’t have to wear the mask.
Justin looked into a mirror. It reflected a tall man with black hair, brown eyes… and bags under these. But still handsome. He smiled, admiring his new teeth. Agency paid the dental bills, saying that their poster man should have the best possible smile for photos and what not. Custom-tailored steel-grey jumpsuit clinged to the body in all the right places, making Justin look like an action movie hero. A pistol was hanging at the hip – a trusty old 9mm. Pepper spray on the other side – although, judging by the Agency materials, it could be even more dangerous to most xeno-species than a bullet. A perfect security specialist with a humanity reputation to uphold, Justin thought. And, wearing his best smile, went through the airlock gate.
The air inside the ship was cold. Enough for Justin to see his own breath. The alien crew was gathered in the room, their eyes on the newcomer. Justin made two quick steps, saluted and reported: “Justin Allen Barrett, security specialist, reporting for duty!”
That’s when all hell broke loose.
* * *
Xathath was trembling with anticipation. She was about to see a human first time in her life! Well, the whole crew was about to do the same, but she had a special task from Captain Cro’zee. To make human feel welcome. Apparently, her appearance was the closest to human in the crew. She didn’t object, though. Cro’zee has finally approved her request to increase her finder’s fee on contracts, although he hinted that failing to work with the new hire will roll that back. So Xathath was really determined to face the human and make his life aboard the ship as great as possible.
But she was not ready to how humans make their entrance.
Airlock has opened and a hulking form came through. Hot smoke was billowing from its head orifices, and it wasn’t just smoke. Environment control system immediately sent warnings to Xathath’s headgear display: the concentration of caffeine and nicotine was rising rapidly. The human was literally breathing poison! He bared his white fangs and rushed forward, making Xathath instinctively back down a step. Then he stopped, become somehow even taller that he was before and roared: “Justin Allen Barrett, security specialist, reporting for duty!”
Xathath was supposed to greet him, but she felt like her vocal chords numbed. The silence lasted no more than a second, and then ECS finally issued an alert. The loudspeakers in the ceiling began to blare warnings, urging everyone to leave the compartment immediately. As Xathath was closer to human than anyone else, she had to act first and make something fast. She darted to the human, pulling the breather mask out of her emergency bag, and slapped it on the poison shafts on humans face, holding her own breath.
“Please, breath into this!” she shouted, “Why doesn’t documentation on your species warn that you are exhaling poisonous alkaloids?!”
“I am doing what?” croaked the human.
“Caffeine! Nicotine! These are not supposed to come out of you!”
Xathath felt terrible. She read so much data on these species and she missed such an important detail! What else did she miss? Bright stars, how is she supposed to work with that death-breathing monster? And make him feel welcome after what she did?!
“Ummm…” the human’s voice changed its tone and volume, “It’s my fault, actually. I was very nervous and tired and I had to use some stimulants to keep going. Sorry.”
They use toxins as stimulants? Xathath was not sure how to react to that. Luckily, Captain Cro’zee intervened.
“Welcome aboard, Human Justin Allen Barrett” he bellowed, “We are glad to have you. Please refrain from using toxic stimulants until we upgrade our environment control system. Don’t you worry, I will oversee that myself and send EXRA the bill. In the meantime, Exchange Specialist Xathath will give you a tour through my ship. You will see each other very often from now on.”

Are you tired of playing Historic Brawl and running into the same matchups? The same dull [[Atraxa]] and [[Etali, Primal Conqueror]] decks that do the same thing? Ramp to something stupid and good on value?
Well my big bad frog YARGLE (and Multani too I guess) is here to absolutely WAFFLESTOMP these fools in a 2 turn clock (OR LESS!). Take a hop on the wild side and show these "value good stuff" players what a good ol' 18/6 VANILLA creature has to say about their shenanigans.
This golgari beatstick deck is chalked full of fun and value and here to absolutely wallop an opponent out of nowhere and laugh when they realize a GIANT FLYING TRAMPLING FROG (elemental spirit) told them to GTFO of his game!
Not to mention [[Selvala, Heart of the Wilds]] may as well be the co commander here since when she calls for her frog leader [[Yargle and Multani]] she says screw mana here's 18 for ya play out your hand! Maybe you're low on cards and need a new hand? No worries, learn from [[Rishkars Expertise]] and Yargle will show you what cards to keep and use from a choice of EIGHTEEN! Then laugh at your opponent playing Rakdos as you slap down your [[Akroma's Memorial]] and drink those salty tears up as they CANNOT STOP THE FROG!
Who said you need some dumb fancy high value commander that does it all? Just let Yarge (and I guess Multani as well....) show you the way!
Mmmmrggglllhhehejeeemurrrrrrrrd
Commander 1 Yargle and Multani (MOM) 256
Deck 1 Thoughtseize (AKR) 127 1 Go for the Throat (BRO) 102 1 Infernal Grasp (MID) 107 4 Snow-Covered Swamp (KHM) 280 1 Black Market Connections (HBG) 145 8 Snow-Covered Forest (KHM) 285 1 Mask of Griselbrand (MID) 111 1 Murderous Rider (ELD) 97 1 Phyrexian Arena (8ED) 152 1 Baleful Mastery (STX) 64 1 Hagra Mauling (ZNR) 106 1 Languish (JMP) 246 1 Ritual of Soot (GRN) 84 1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse (DMU) 107 1 Sheoldred (MOM) 125 1 The Cruelty of Gix (DMU) 87 1 Yawgmoth's Vile Offering (DAR) 114 1 Blood on the Snow (KHM) 79 1 Breach the Multiverse (MOM) 94 1 Bojuka Bog (WWK) 132 1 Castle Locthwain (ELD) 241 1 Gate of the Black Dragon (HBG) 77 1 Hive of the Eye Tyrant (AFR) 258 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire (NEO) 278 1 Llanowar Elves (DAR) 168 1 Tamiyo's Safekeeping (NEO) 211 1 Veil of Summer (M20) 198 1 Heroic Intervention (M21) 188 1 Ilysian Caryatid (ANB) 98 1 Into the North (CSP) 111 1 Tear Asunder (DMU) 183 1 Cultivate (STA) 51 1 Garruk's Uprising (M21) 186 1 Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea (BRO) 185 1 Selvala, Heart of the Wilds (JMP) 429 1 Settle the Wilds (Y22) 55 1 Wrenn and Realmbreaker (MOM) 217 1 Gemrazer (IKO) 155 1 Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma (MUL) 92 1 Harmonize (STA) 52 1 Oracle of Mul Daya (JMP) 415 1 Questing Beast (ELD) 171 1 Cavalier of Thorns (M20) 167 1 Defiler of Vigor (DMU) 160 1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World (WAR) 169 1 Vorinclex (MOM) 213 1 Rishkar's Expertise (KLR) 180 1 Storm the Festival (MID) 200 1 Turntimber Symbiosis (ZNR) 215 1 Verdant Rejuvenation (HBG) 69 1 The Great Henge (ELD) 161 1 Tyvar's Stand (ONE) 190 1 Kamahl's Druidic Vow (DAR) 166 1 Boseiju, Who Endures (NEO) 266 1 Castle Garenbrig (ELD) 240 1 Lair of the Hydra (AFR) 259 1 Binding the Old Gods (KHM) 206 1 Deathsprout (WAR) 189 1 Gitrog, Horror of Zhava (Y22) 58 1 Casualties of War (WAR) 187 1 Darkbore Pathway (KHM) 254 1 Deathcap Glade (VOW) 261 1 Overgrown Tomb (GRN) 253 1 Temple of Malady (M21) 253 1 Witherbloom Campus (STX) 275 1 Woodland Cemetery (DAR) 248 1 Woodland Chasm (KHM) 274 1 Shadowspear (THB) 236 1 Arcane Signet (ELD) 331 1 Coldsteel Heart (CSP) 136 1 Mirror Shield (THB) 234 1 Swiftfoot Boots (BRR) 58 1 Relic of Legends (DMU) 236 1 The Celestus (MID) 252 1 Key to the Archive (Y22) 59 1 Solemn Simulacrum (M21) 239 1 The Immortal Sun (RIX) 180 1 Ugin, the Ineffable (WAR) 2 1 Akroma's Memorial (M13) 200 1 Cityscape Leveler (BRO) 233 1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger (BFZ) 15 1 Arch of Orazca (RIX) 185 1 Bonders' Enclave (IKO) 245 1 Command Tower (ELD) 333 1 Demolition Field (BRO) 260 1 Faceless Haven (KHM) 255 1 Field of Ruin (MID) 262 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx (THS) 223 1 Plaza of Heroes (DMU) 252

I used to work as a zookeeper at the Milwaukee Zoo. There wasn't much to it. Just your standard zoo with a gift shop and areas to visit certain animals. I certainly was a fan of the zoo as a child, having visited the zoo for birthdays or field trips. I always said I wanted to be a vet of some sort but guess zookeeper was the closest I could get. Started working at the place around age 20. Fresh out of high school and trying to save money for my autistic nephew, this job didn't offer much. Running the train when workers couldn't, making sure the animals were fed and taken care of, you get the gist. I know, I know. I said I was a zookeeper but work is right around these parts so I have to pitch in where I can.
When I first started at the Milwaukee Zoo, I felt like I was living my dreams of helping animals. But that soon turned out to not be the case. After being there for less than a year, strange occurrences started to happen. It would be minor things such as lights going out, animals being sick, etc. Nothing major. The big incident happened right when two rookies were hired to see where they would fit in at the zoo. They were skinny and teen like. One was more hairer than the other but other than that, they seemed normal. Or so I would think. The weather was a bit hot and I was sweating while cleaning the elephant enclosure. I know, not the greatest job but someone's gotta do it. The manger of the zoo came up to me as I was closing the metal door to the cage.
"You Emily Tanner?"
"Yes. What's up?"
"I've got these two rookie here and I was wondering if you have time to show them around the base, you know, kinda get them used to the place and see where they fit in."
"Um, sure." I stammered, reaching out to shake the two young mens' hands. The gesture was ignored. Thinking to myself, I wondered what was wrong with them. Did they not understand basic social cues? Were they autistic like my nephew? Thoughts started racing through my head until one of the young men spoke.
"You ever notice the smell of animal waste, how it brings you joy?"
I couldn't speak in that moment. Surely this guy was kidding around, right? Nope. His face was stone cold. He was serious.
"Maybe." I managed to get out. This guy was definitely going be the last one to work with, I thought to myself. Instead, I gave a plastered smile and continued on with the conversation.
"These two shouldn't give you a hard time." the manger said before walking away. I nodded in agreement but then he turned back around.
"Oh, and I posted some rules on your locker door. Be sure to read them carefully. You wouldn't want to know what could happen to you if you don't."
"Is this man for real??" I thought again, my breathing quickening. I was beyond confused. "What is happening??"
But I couldn't worry about that. I had these two rookies to look after. Once I ensured the door to the elephant enclosure was secure, I lead the two men to the gorilla exhibit. It was a bit of a walk since the zoo is literally a maze where if you wanted to get to one area of interest, you had to pass several others before reaching your destination. Sure, you might be wondering if I should have the zoo's layout memorized by now, but you have to think. I don't go to the zoo everyday. Even when I go home, the zoo isn't the first thing on my mind. As I was walking, showing the men the different animals and how they behaved and such, I caught a chill down my spine every time I took a glance behind me to ensure they were following me. I tried to ignore it but the feeling was so overwhelming, I had to say or do something to take my mind off the dreaded feeling.
"So, what brings you two to the zoo and why do you want to work here?" I asked them.
Nothing.
They didn't answer. They just stared. Their cold, black eyes stared right into my soul. I quickly turned away and continues down the hot sticky tar path towards the bird enclosure. Luckily for me, it was nearing my lunch break. I could probably feed some of the birds there and then leave these two to their own devices.
I hurried my pace so that time could move faster and I could get as far away from these guys as possible. Hastily, I opened the door to the enclosure and lead them inside. Naturally the birds flew and here and there, their squawks and screeches following them as they flew about.
"You wanna be careful with the birds. Sometimes they can be mean." I tried to crack a joke but these guys weren't having it. So I naturally shut my mouth and buried any jokes I had deep within. They just stared at me, their soulless eyes not leaving mine. Bleh! Where the manger pick these guys up from, the graveyard? Even mummies and buried corpses could crack a ghost smile every once in a while. Carrying on with showing them how to care for the birds, I checked my watch and quite literally ran out of the building like it was on fire. I had to know those rules and why on EARTH these deadpan guys were hired. Surely the manger wanted to hire them as a joke because no one could be that cold and unfeeling like these two creeps.
Racing to the lockecommon room, I checked my locker door and surely, there was a list of rules. Five of them to be exact.
Rule One. Do not allow new hires to see the animals. This is crucial. If you've broken this rule, it's already too late.
Rule Two. Make sure the new hires are not left alone with the animals.
Rule Three. Do not allow the new hires to come in contact with the people. This rule is to never be broken.
Rule Four. Ensure all enclosures are locked and secure.
Rule Five. If the new hires are ever left alone, run as far away from this place as you can. Don't look back.
Grabbing the note and slumping into a nearby nearly broken garden chair, I heaved a sigh. I guess I've broken most of these rules because I left these guys alone and I left them in the bird enclosure on top of that. These "rules" didn't make sense. Why didn't the manger warn me of these supposed rules before introducing me to these guys?? Sighing once more, I exited the room and went back into the blinding light outside. I hurried back to the bird enclosure to find the new hires gone. My heart sank. I had to find them and fast.
Since I didn't know where to look, I went to the manager's office and found him on the phone. He sounded annoyed.
"Yeah, yeah. I got them all set. The girl is to be in charge of them until I figure out something else."
His word hit me. Surely he wasn't talking about me, right? My thoughts swirled again and I nearly gagged. Holding myself together, I knocked on the open door. The manger looked up me, plastering the fakest smile ever.
"What brings you here?" he asked.
"Um, I saw the note on my locker door and I think... I think I might have broken a few rules already."
The manger quickly stood up and hurried to close the door shut. Looking out the blinds that faced the opening entrance to the zoo and gift shop, he turned to me, his face serious.
"Did you lose them?"
"Huh?"
"Did. You. Lose. Them?"
His jaw clenched and his face was covered in cold sweat.
"Yes." I finally admitted. The manger signed, hanging his head.
"We have a problem."
His words were cutthroat, no funny business hidden under his once funny demeanor.
"What...problem?" I questioned, concerned.
"Those new hires aren't... exactly what you would call human. They are entities of sorts."
Now my head was officially fried. Entities? I thought. What kind of twisty rollercoaster works was I living in?? The manger approached me.
"If we don't find them by midnight, we're toast." he said, his voice a whispery hiss. I stared at him, shocked.
"Well, what do you plan on doing? I-I didn't ask to be part of this!"
"Look, I didn't have a choice but to choose you. If I didn't..." he faded off. He then looked at me again, his features a mixture of hurt and panic.
"If I didn't choose you, I would be taken away." he sighed, the words a heavy burden to say.
My voice was no more. Still confused, I open my mouth to speak.
"What do we do now?"
"We wait."
End of Part One.

When you watch former presidents respond to questions about UFOs, for example Obama and Trump, they refuse to confirm their existance, but they certainly haven't ridiculed the idea .. indeed far from it. The reaction is more "Its a very interesting subject, and I want to tell you but I can't". I am left with the strong impression that they know aliens/UFOs exist.
But! Being the president is genuinely a very powerful position to be in. Even if they couldn't for some reason unilaterally unclassify everything, they could at least do something behind the scenes to lay the groundwork for disclosure. But they haven't really done anything. The most I have really seen a president do was when Trump signed the bill calling for the first UAP report, but that also was being pushed by others whose support he presumably wanted.
So my intuition tells me that they don't actually want to tell us, but they DO want us to keep asking questions. Why could that possibly be?
I really get the feeling that secrecy iisn't because of some shadowy defense agency/MIB department secretly brain-wiping and murdering people, rather this comes from the top.
Another clear indication that there is some legitimate reason for secrecy, and one confirmed by Grusch, is that the Five Eyes are very likely also aware (in addition to adversaries). When something reaches an international level of agreement there is usually a relatively sound reason why this is in the public interest.
The only conclusion that follows, is that they have agreed with the aliens not to tell us. However these aliens are certainly not entirely against us finding out it appears, since they do seem to show themselves from time to time.
My hypothesis is the aliens told our leaders: you can only reveal our existence when the public are clearly demanding it, confidently with a unified voice, i.e. they have reached a level of intellectual and emotional maturity which would suggest that they are ready.

[Scene: The End dimension. Liberty Prime emerges from the end portal, followed by a group of Brotherhood of Steel soldiers. They see the Ender Dragon flying above them, roaring and shooting fireballs.]
Liberty Prime: Liberty Prime is online. All systems nominal. Weapons hot. Mission: the destruction of any and all Chinese communists.
Soldier 1: Sir, that’s not a communist. That’s a dragon.
Liberty Prime: Obstruction detected. Composition: titanium alloy supplemented by enhanced photonic resonance barrier. Probability of mission hindrance: zero percent.
Soldier 2: Sir, I don’t think it’s a good idea to provoke it.
Liberty Prime: Democracy is non-negotiable.
[Ender Dragon swoops down and breathes fire at Liberty Prime and the soldiers. Liberty Prime dodges the fire and throws a mini-nuke at Ender Dragon, hitting it in the wing.]
Ender Dragon: [screeches in pain]
Liberty Prime: Communism is the very definition of failure.
[Ender Dragon flies away and circles around the end crystals, healing its wound.]
Soldier 3: Sir, look! It’s regenerating!
Liberty Prime: Embrace democracy or you will be eradicated.
[Liberty Prime shoots a laser beam from its eyes, destroying one of the end crystals. Ender Dragon roars and shoots a fireball at Liberty Prime, but it bounces off its armor.]
Liberty Prime: Tactical assessment: red Chinese victory - impossible.
[Ender Dragon charges at Liberty Prime, trying to knock it down. Liberty Prime grabs Ender Dragon by the neck and slams it to the ground.]
Liberty Prime: Death is a preferable alternative to communism.
[Ender Dragon bites Liberty Prime’s arm, causing sparks to fly. Liberty Prime punches Ender Dragon in the face, making it let go.]
Liberty Prime: Alaska’s liberation is imminent.
[Ender Dragon gets up and flies away, but Liberty Prime throws another mini-nuke at it, hitting it in the chest. Ender Dragon explodes in a burst of light.]
Liberty Prime: Objective reached. Target neutralized.
Soldier 4: Sir, you did it! You killed the dragon!
Liberty Prime: Affirmative. Proceeding to next objective.
[Liberty Prime walks towards the exit portal, followed by the soldiers.]
Liberty Prime: America will never fall to communist invasion.

A weight had hit me as I fell back into my chair. The rage I felt before was only amplified as I began to see red. I clenched my fists, unable to control my breathing. The room felt as though it was melting away as I grew more fixated on the date. “This must be some joke” I thought to myself. “I’m sick of these games she is playing” I continued in my head as I thought about how many days I’ve spent in this house with these erratic monsters.
Suddenly, I heard a faint and muffled whisper as though it was in my ear alone, before everything shut off and my vision went black.
I snapped back to reality some time later that evening to the static of the television illuminating the darkness of the room in an eery dull light. I felt uneasy as I attempted to scan my surroundings. Through the glimpses of light shimmering from the television, I watched shadows drift between the furniture. The room felt as though it was alive.
Claws crept from the corners of the room as shadows danced behind curtains drawn and objects shifted ever so slightly to get a better view of me. No one could understand my suffering. If it wasn’t for the sheer terror and fear I felt around every corner, it was the knowledge that it would slowly drive me to insanity.
To my right, I could hear a low pitched laughter. Filled with bass and very slow and drawn out. Like an old cartoon character from the 1960’s had crawled out of the television and proceeded to haunt me. Everything about it was unnerving and I hesitated to look. I had every intention of shutting the television off and marching upstairs with a glance.
On second thought, I considered just leaving the house right then and there. All of the time spent with my girlfriend, the memories, the warm summer evenings sat together, the cold winter nights, curled up on the couch. I could drive away from it all and save my sanity for someone else… but what would I be to them, if I gave up on my girlfriend now, when she may need me the most… or maybe it was me that needed her.
I reached for the remote, but it wasn’t where it usually is. I thumbed around, searching in the dark, my eyes fixated on the static of the television. The laughter becoming more unsettling as its pitch seemed to flip from high to low, it drew itself out as if it was on a loop, playing at half the speed. Was I being haunted by Goofy!?
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see something dark, inching its way across the couch. I could feel a lump in my throat as my mouth ran dry and my blood turned cold. Goosebumps enveloped me as I could feel the couch cushion next to me begin to sink.
I turned away as I continued frantically searching for the remote. A presence from behind me only put me on edge further as I began losing focus and rechecking the same area over and over. Eventually my heart stopped at the sound of a hard snap as something hit my leg. It wasn’t painful, but the sheer fright made me wince in agony.
I quickly glanced over to find the remote turned over next to me. My eyes shot to the television, as I wrapped my hand around the controller and fiddled for the power button before I felt the presence once more.
I looked down to find a hand, covered in a thick black substance grappling mine and the remote. I followed its arm up to a monster. The remnants of someone as they were melting away in front of me. Their eyes had popped long ago as the gaping wide holes stared back at me and its slack jawed expression of amusement and bewilderment shook me.
Its grip only continued to grow around my hand as the subtle sound of its flesh peeling away from its muscles only continued to upset and haunt me. I attempted to pull away and my fingers pressure against the remotes power button sent the room into darkness as I began to panic.
The room once filled with life had now shifted for the worst. The shadows had no excuse to hide and the figures in the darkness had everyone to run as I felt trapped. I could hear the laughter from the undead children as the crept from between to cushions. Bare footsteps from the hallway marched toward me as scratching came from every corner of the room and the tar covered hand only gripped me tighter.
I pulled with no luck and began muttering to myself and begging to be set free. I used my fist to bash and claw at the monstrous claw holding me in place. Eventually the hand gave way, followed by a choking that quickly turned to gurgling from the humanoid that tortured me.
My hand burned as I raced out of the room, unable to see through the darkness. I smashed into a table and fell to the floor. As my head hit the wood, my ears began ringing and I could feel and hear the footsteps growing closer as my hand was on fire. Burning a heavy, I reached for it only to feel the tar covered fingers still clung to me.
I pulled myself to my knees and began crawling towards the staircase, I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating at this point. Crawling further, at the bottom of the staircase, I shouted out to my girlfriend. My head feeling lighter and my ears ringing growing louder. With my final scream, I felt hands tugging at me as I pulled away.
I shot awake only to find myself on the same couch, television was static as I sat alone. I looked around to see nothing… the television remote sat beside me as I cut the TV off and headed upstairs. Stopping only for a moment went I saw a faint shadow move in the distance.
I shook it off and continued to bed. As I closed the bedroom door behind me, there she was. My girlfriend was nestled safely in bed, although I was a complete wreck. To my surprise, I saw eyes open at the head of the bed as they began staring back at me.
It took a moment to realize it was her cat staring at me from her side of the bed. I began to disrobe and slip into bed, as the cats gaze followed me across the room. I nestled into the covers as the cat continued to fixate on me and it began to feel uncomfortable.
I turned over to find the cat staring me down, its eyes transfixed on me ominously, as though they were glowing. I began to get delirious as a grin grew across the felines face. Its mouth opened wide to expose human teeth as a silhouette around it began to form a long flowing hair until I realized this WAS NOT the cat.
It rose from the covers, towering over me, a thin and pale figure, as it turned and floated out the window before I lost consciousness.
I woke the next day to my girlfriends screams of agony.
I raced downstairs to find her standing over the cat. The smell was overwhelming and it’s remains were almost unidentifiable if it wasn’t for its collar.

Yes, the Showtime produced anthology film was intended as the pilot movie for what would be their answer to "Tales From the Crypt", then at the height of its popularity on HBO. For whatever reason, they didn't proceed with a series, but thankfully what we did get is an energetic, gory and darkly humorous romp courtesy of John Carpenter (as well as the first major horror credit from writers Billy Brown and Dan Angel, later to bring us the "Goosebumps" TV series and "The Haunting Hour" as well as the underappreciated "Night Visions"). Carpenter, in pure Crypt-Keeper mode and clearly having an absolute blast, plays a cackling, ghoulish mortician who takes on a tour of his mortuary's residents, or as he calls them, "the arriving departed." (The fact that his opening scene shows him guzzling formaldehyde in a martini glass is a big hint he's not what he seems.) Death by natural causes bores him, so he shows us the residents of body bags, i.e. those who die in horrific fashion, leading us to three horror tales:
"The Gas Station" - Directed by Carpenter, this is him riffing on his masterwork "Halloween" is fun style (seriously, the film is even set near Haddonfield). College student Annie (Alex Datcher) is starting her new job as the night shift attendant at a remote gas station, which would be creepy enough on its own. Except there's also a serial killer prowling the area (no, contrary to what you may think, it's NOT Michael Myers this time) and there's no shortage of red herrings in the parade of odd customers who show up. Even the previous shift's attendant (Robert Carradine) is not above suspicion. Can Annie figure out who the killer is and make it through the night? It's fun watching Carpenter basically do a new take on his most acclaimed film, but also you get a wide variety of genre names making appearances, including Wes Craven, "An American Werewolf in London's" David Naughton and Carpenter regulars Peter Jason and George "Buck" Flowers" among the parade of suspicious customers. (Craven in particular is a memorable creeper.) And you also get a most unexpected Sam Raimi cameo that plays into the story's twist.
"Hair" - Carpenter again handles this cautionary tale about men who won't accept their receding hairlines. Stacy Keach stars as an affluent businessman obsessed with his thinning hair, to the point that it's affecting his relationship with his girlfriend (Sheena Easton...yes, that Sheena Easton), who could care less. This obsession leads him to a mysterious clinic where the shady doctor (David Warner) provides him a miracle cure that ends up working wonderfully...but perhaps he should have checked to make sure where his new hair originated from. The twist is wonderfully bonkers and Warner in particular is in his element (aided by Deborah Harry as his loyal nurse). And yes, that's Greg Nicotero showing off his own flowing locks in one scene.
"Eye" - Tobe Hooper takes the director's chair for this one (he later appears onscreen himself with Tom Arnold as fellow coroners) which features Mark Hamill (yes, really) as an aging pro baseball player who loses one of his eyes in a car crash and, unwilling to admit his career is over, undergoes an experimental procedure that has his eye replaced with that of a recently deceased donor. The procedure works, but Hamill soon starts receiving horrible visions and dreams of murder and necrophilia and he realizes the eye came from a very evil source that isn't quite gone, which puts his wife (Twiggy) in serious danger. Very much the darkest of the stories, with Hooper in his element and Hamill in excellent form as a nice guy slowly being twisted into something monstrous (by the climax, he's basically doing his Joker). Also for MST3K fans, the two doctors who do the surgery are played by none other than an aged John Agar and Roger Corman himself. Now that's a combo.
Any fan of "Tales From the Crypt" will want to check this one out. And if nothing else, it will make you wish we had a series to enjoy Carpenter's Crypt-Keeper expy chewing the scenery whole.

I am controlling myself not to cut my thighs so bad rn. I don't know maybe I'm being too dramatic about this maybe .I've always been told since I child to focus on my grades, and on my parent's dreams for me and by this I mean from as early as 3rd grade. They've always told me "Children who are serious about their future study hard from now itself" and since child I've neve been able to get straight A's. By the time I was in 7th grade if I ever asked to join a sports club I'd be shut down so quick saying to focus on my studies, the only tournaments I was able to play in was when I joined without telling them. I wasn't allowed to go out anywhere with friends when I was 13-14. Saying it isn't safe going alone and all. AND now we have my dear younger sister, the straight A student, the perfect daughter. She is allowed to go to some sports center with her friends. She was allowed to go out with her friends when she is 14.
Recently since last year I had started having mental breakdowns cause of study stress. And those while I got hugged for a few seconds but then later was said "U studied right? then don't cry and don't do this drama before exams" I felt so pathetic for crying in front of them. When my sis got allowed to go out I started to cry silently and then she started asking me, when I told her she straight up asked me-
"Oh- so u think theu don't love u huh? U think they treat me better than you?"and when the fight between us go a lil far she'd bring up my studies the thing I'm super insecure about- "Oh I'm not the one because of whom dad gets upset after every PTM, I'm not the one with bad grades." I swear I try, I try so much but maths just doesn't feel like my stuff.
maybe I was told cause I was a gifted child who doesn't use it. Intentional or not, favoritism was always there. I wasn't allowed to have an Instagram acc but she was. They never noticed my sh marks, even when I had no other clothes left rather than the ones with 3/4 sleeves.
We had to move from the country I grew up to my home country for good. My sister would cry and when I'd try to lift her mood she'd say "U don't feel bad about going is not my problem." She's younger and I have lived here longer but I was never allowed to have a gloomy mood as sh's say "Stop ruining parents moods too.
I came to my home country and it feels so empty here, no friends, only cousins and upon that dad asked me to focus more on studies, he told both me and my sister but as usual things r light on her. Right now I had cousins over at my home, I told I have online tuition class, they threw me out of the room so quick like I was getting m stuff and she's like "Come on dude, leave fast we've to continue the game" while I was just sitting over there waiting for the laptop to open. Ans mom's yelling at me just cause I wanted to have both my phone and laptop while m classes. She yelled at me saying "Focus on your class, what's whith wanting the mobile, class is going on right? so focus on it. I'm going to call ur father and let him know that you are not studying at all".
I'm literally doing 2 grades together and they r like "so? You've studied a grade, it should be easy for you" I can't cry freely or it gets named as a drama. I got 83% in a very important nation wide exam but then too it was labeled by dad that it isn't good and that he's ashamed to tell my grades to the relatives.
I'm tired, I'm so exausted , I just wanna make my own money and leave so I can get a therapist. They don't know how fucking toxic they r becoming without noticing. Sometimes I literally feel to end everything I'm just hanging in here.

Scene 1: The Hotel

• The scene is set in the Hotel from DOORS, a dark and creepy place with many numbered doors and hallways.
• Seek is lurking in one of the rooms, waiting for its next victim.
• Demo Samedi enters the Hotel, holding his voodoo doll and looking for trouble.
• He walks through the doors randomly, until he reaches the room where Seek is hiding.
• He sees the eyes on the walls and hears a low growl from behind the door.

Demo Samedi: What's this? Some kind of prank? (laughs) Well, I'm not afraid of some silly eyes. Let's see what's behind this door.

• He opens the door and sees Seek, a black slimy creature with a red eye, staring at him.
• Seek roars and lunges at him.

Seek: RAAAAAHHH!
Demo Samedi: Whoa! What the hell are you? Some kind of monster?
Seek: (snarls)
Demo Samedi: Well, you picked the wrong guy to mess with. I'm Demo Samedi, the master of voodoo!

Scene 2: The Fight

• The scene shifts to the room, where Demo Samedi and Seek are fighting each other.
• Demo Samedi uses his voodoo magic to attack Seek with various weapons and objects.
• Seek uses its speed and strength to dodge or break through the attacks and counterattack with its hands or fire from fallen chandeliers.

Demo Samedi: Take this!

• He throws a grenade at Seek, which explodes near it.

Seek: (grunts)
Demo Samedi: And this!

• He summons a sword and slashes at Seek as it passes by him.

Seek: (snarls)
Demo Samedi: And this!

• He shoots a beam of energy from his eye at Seek.

Seek: (dodges)
Demo Samedi: You're tougher than I thought. But you're still no match for me!
Seek: (growls)
Seek: Take this!

• It grabs a chandelier from the ceiling and throws it at Demo Samedi.

Demo Samedi: (grunts)
Seek: And this!

• It swings its hand at Demo Samedi, hitting him with its claws.

Demo Samedi: (snarls)
Seek: And this!

• It spits a blob of slime at Demo Samedi, sticking him to the wall.

Demo Samedi: You're stronger than I thought. But you're still no match for me!
Seek: (roars)

Scene 3: The Finale

• The scene changes to the wall, where Demo Samedi is stuck to the slime.
• Seek approaches him slowly, ready to finish him off.
• Demo Samedi struggles to free himself, but fails.

Demo Samedi: Get off me, you slimy freak!
Seek: (snarls)
Demo Samedi: Let me go!
Seek: (roars)

• Seek reaches Demo Samedi and raises its hand above its head, ready to stab him in the eye.

Seek: Say goodbye, you ugly bastard!
Demo Samedi: No!

• Suddenly, Demo Samedi remembers his voodoo doll and pulls it out of his pocket.
• He stabs it repeatedly with a needle in his other hand.
• Seek feels multiple wounds on its body and falls to the ground.

Seek: Aaaahhh!
Demo Samedi: Ha! How do you like that? That's the power of voodoo!
Seek: (weakly growls)
Demo Samedi: Now, time to finish you off!

• He frees himself from the slime and walks towards Seek, holding his knife.
• He raises his knife above his head, ready to stab Seek in the eye.

Demo Samedi: Say goodbye, you slimy freak!
Seek: (opens its eye wide)

• He stabs Seek in the eye, killing it.

Seek: Aaaahhh!
Demo Samedi: Ha! I did it! I won!

• He laughs maniacally and holds his voodoo doll in triumph.

Demo Samedi: I'm Demo Samedi, the master of voodoo! And no one can stop me!

• The scene fades to black.

The End

I used to work as a zookeeper at the Milwaukee Zoo. There wasn't much to it. Just your standard zoo with a gift shop and areas to visit certain animals. I certainly was a fan of the zoo as a child, having visited the zoo for birthdays or field trips. I always said I wanted to be a vet of some sort but guess zookeeper was the closest I could get. Started working at the place around age 20. Fresh out of high school and trying to save money for my autistic nephew, this job didn't offer much. Running the train when workers couldn't, making sure the animals were fed and taken care of, you get the gist. I know, I know. I said I was a zookeeper but work is right around these parts so I have to pitch in where I can.
When I first started at the Milwaukee Zoo, I felt like I was living my dreams of helping animals. But that soon turned out to not be the case. After being there for less than a year, strange occurrences started to happen. It would be minor things such as lights going out, animals being sick, etc. Nothing major. The big incident happened right when two rookies were hired to see where they would fit in at the zoo. They were skinny and teen like. One was more hairer than the other but other than that, they seemed normal. Or so I would think. The weather was a bit hot and I was sweating while cleaning the elephant enclosure. I know, not the greatest job but someone's gotta do it. The manger of the zoo came up to me as I was closing the metal door to the cage.
"You Emily Tanner?"
"Yes. What's up?"
"I've got these two rookie here and I was wondering if you have time to show them around the base, you know, kinda get them used to the place and see where they fit in."
"Um, sure." I stammered, reaching out to shake the two young mens' hands. The gesture was ignored. Thinking to myself, I wondered what was wrong with them. Did they not understand basic social cues? Were they autistic like my nephew? Thoughts started racing through my head until one of the young men spoke.
"You ever notice the smell of animal waste, how it brings you joy?"
I couldn't speak in that moment. Surely this guy was kidding around, right? Nope. His face was stone cold. He was serious.
"Maybe." I managed to get out. This guy was definitely going be the last one to work with, I thought to myself. Instead, I gave a plastered smile and continued on with the conversation.
"These two shouldn't give you a hard time." the manger said before walking away. I nodded in agreement but then he turned back around.
"Oh, and I posted some rules on your locker door. Be sure to read them carefully. You wouldn't want to know what could happen to you if you don't."
"Is this man for real??" I thought again, my breathing quickening. I was beyond confused. "What is happening??"
But I couldn't worry about that. I had these two rookies to look after. Once I ensured the door to the elephant enclosure was secure, I lead the two men to the gorilla exhibit. It was a bit of a walk since the zoo is literally a maze where if you wanted to get to one area of interest, you had to pass several others before reaching your destination. Sure, you might be wondering if I should have the zoo's layout memorized by now, but you have to think. I don't go to the zoo everyday. Even when I go home, the zoo isn't the first thing on my mind. As I was walking, showing the men the different animals and how they behaved and such, I caught a chill down my spine every time I took a glance behind me to ensure they were following me. I tried to ignore it but the feeling was so overwhelming, I had to say or do something to take my mind off the dreaded feeling.
"So, what brings you two to the zoo and why do you want to work here?" I asked them.
Nothing.
They didn't answer. They just stared. Their cold, black eyes stared right into my soul. I quickly turned away and continues down the hot sticky tar path towards the bird enclosure. Luckily for me, it was nearing my lunch break. I could probably feed some of the birds there and then leave these two to their own devices.
I hurried my pace so that time could move faster and I could get as far away from these guys as possible. Hastily, I opened the door to the enclosure and lead them inside. Naturally the birds flew and here and there, their squawks and screeches following them as they flew about.
"You wanna be careful with the birds. Sometimes they can be mean." I tried to crack a joke but these guys weren't having it. So I naturally shut my mouth and buried any jokes I had deep within. They just stared at me, their soulless eyes not leaving mine. Bleh! Where the manger pick these guys up from, the graveyard? Even mummies and buried corpses could crack a ghost smile every once in a while. Carrying on with showing them how to care for the birds, I checked my watch and quite literally ran out of the building like it was on fire. I had to know those rules and why on EARTH these deadpan guys were hired. Surely the manger wanted to hire them as a joke because no one could be that cold and unfeeling like these two creeps.
Racing to the lockecommon room, I checked my locker door and surely, there was a list of rules. Five of them to be exact.
Rule One. Do not allow new hires to see the animals. This is crucial. If you've broken this rule, it's already too late.
Rule Two. Make sure the new hires are not left alone with the animals.
Rule Three. Do not allow the new hires to come in contact with the people. This rule is to never be broken.
Rule Four. Ensure all enclosures are locked and secure.
Rule Five. If the new hires are ever left alone, run as far away from this place as you can. Don't look back.
Grabbing the note and slumping into a nearby nearly broken garden chair, I heaved a sigh. I guess I've broken most of these rules because I left these guys alone and I left them in the bird enclosure on top of that. These "rules" didn't make sense. Why didn't the manger warn me of these supposed rules before introducing me to these guys?? Sighing once more, I exited the room and went back into the blinding light outside. I hurried back to the bird enclosure to find the new hires gone. My heart sank. I had to find them and fast.
Since I didn't know where to look, I went to the manager's office and found him on the phone. He sounded annoyed.
"Yeah, yeah. I got them all set. The girl is to be in charge of them until I figure out something else."
His word hit me. Surely he wasn't talking about me, right? My thoughts swirled again and I nearly gagged. Holding myself together, I knocked on the open door. The manger looked up me, plastering the fakest smile ever.
"What brings you here?" he asked.
"Um, I saw the note on my locker door and I think... I think I might have broken a few rules already."
The manger quickly stood up and hurried to close the door shut. Looking out the blinds that faced the opening entrance to the zoo and gift shop, he turned to me, his face serious.
"Did you lose them?"
"Huh?"
"Did. You. Lose. Them?"
His jaw clenched and his face was covered in cold sweat.
"Yes." I finally admitted. The manger signed, hanging his head.
"We have a problem."
His words were cutthroat, no funny business hidden under his once funny demeanor.
"What...problem?" I questioned, concerned.
"Those new hires aren't... exactly what you would call human. They are entities of sorts."
Now my head was officially fried. Entities? I thought. What kind of twisty rollercoaster works was I living in?? The manger approached me.
"If we don't find them by midnight, we're toast." he said, his voice a whispery hiss. I stared at him, shocked.
"Well, what do you plan on doing? I-I didn't ask to be part of this!"
"Look, I didn't have a choice but to choose you. If I didn't..." he faded off. He then looked at me again, his features a mixture of hurt and panic.
"If I didn't choose you, I would be taken away." he sighed, the words a heavy burden to say.
My voice was no more. Still confused, I open my mouth to speak.
"What do we do now?"
"We wait."
End of Part One.

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(re upload because my first post was taken down) Last Sunday my dog Smokey of 9 years died i'm 18 now and have had her for the majority of my childhood and she became one of my best friends ive ever had. Smokey was a Bernese mountain dog golden retriever cross I didn't have a lot of friends growing up and got bullied practically everyday of my elementary years and most of my high school years too but everyday when I'd get home shed be there for me and seemed like the only one that loved me unconditionally. I grew very strongly bonded with her but the last few weeks in may she had been disappearing into the Forrest and not coming back when we called her (she never did this before) she also stopped eating any kind of food we'd try to give her so we had to bring to the vet where we find out she has liver and kidney failure and had to be put down. I am so crushed by this I wasnt even able to be there for the last moments as I dont live at home I called her over the phone before it was gone and I was told she got super wide eyed and was looking around the room as if I was there. Im having a very hard time dealing with this. Why did this happen to her and is this a normal age for her breed?