Where to begin. I met my husband in college and we were together for 5 years before we got married last year. The controlling, inappropriate behavior began pretty much from the beginning. I am type 1 diabetic and when I was first diagnosed (right after college/ two years into dating) I had trouble with control. I had a BAD low blood sugar one night at their home where I was sweating through my clothes, shaking, and couldn’t see straight. I was pretty much crawling on their floor trying to find my glucose tabs. My husband got me a juice from the fridge and gave it to me. My mil pulled him aside and told him I should get my own juice and he shouldn’t have to do things like that. That’s just one example but she’s also horrendous to his older siblings significant others (he is the youngest of 4). Well then we got married and that was an entire nightmare all together. She complained about everything. I’m sure she was just mad she couldn’t legally get on the altar and marry him herself. But she still brings up to this day that there weren’t enough pictures of their family (it was extremely even - I would even go to say they had more but alas), that they overpaid for the wedding (this was a big big wedding and they had over half the guest list. His dad gave him a set amount and we worked with it, so if she wasn’t mad about this it would be something else), and just tries to take a wonderful memory and taint it for us. We got pregnant on our honeymoon and waited to announce to my husbands parents at the 12 week mark. When we announced she pulled my husband aside and asked him “if he knew I wasn’t on birth control” (lmfao as if we haven’t been having sex for the last 6 years without reproducing - I can promise this baby was very much wanted). All this to say I still hadn’t called it quits with this psycho yet. Well once my son was born we had a super traumatic birth experience and a week in the nicu with a scary diagnosis. I couldn’t hold my baby for a week and it deeply scarred me. We got out of the nicu on Friday and I could finally hold my baby I disturbed (ha.). This woman showed up to our house the next day and took my son and didn’t give him back for hours. I went into the nursery I worked so hard on and just wept. I was folding his little clothes while she snuggled the baby I had sacrificed holding so he could get better. She even came in and say me crying and just asked that I move the clothes off the rocker I had bought so she could rock him. This gutted me because I hadn’t even gotten to rock him in it yet. He’s now almost 4 months and I feel like I’ve seen her constantly. She lives 3 hours away but we’ve seen her every 2 weeks since he was born. When he was about a month old she did the same shit she always does and hogged him all day long (I don’t get to have him when she’s around) and I was finally upstairs giving him a bath and getting ready for bed and he was crying because I was putting a long sleeve onesie on him and it bothers him when I pull things over his head. I started breastfeeding him and she ran upstairs and worriedly asked “is he okay?!” Which I somewhat condescendingly said “yes” to (because no shit he’s okay he’s with his parents) well she turned around to walk away and just started yelling at me on her way out “RUDE! SHES JUST RUDE!”. I was just done at this point because it had been a long day of putting up with this beast of a woman and I was exhausted. I want to add that my husband has always defended me and we had agreed we shouldn’t cut her off because she’s still his mom and my sons grandma but it’s taken it’s toll on our new marriage. We have continued to see her and it’s been pretty miserable each time. We both leave unhappy and I’ve become pretty resentful towards my husband and my marriage from all of it. She wants to visit this weekend and we’ve been fighting because I just want a break. I see all these people in here that see these monster women weekly and I don’t know how they do it. Am I wrong for wanting a long long break (if it were up to me I wouldn’t see her again until probably the holidays but even ruining my sons first Christmas with her presence makes me sick to my stomach). I’m just looking for any advice. I love my husband and I know he loves me but neither of us knows how to handle this and I’m tired of it wearing on our relationship. My son deserves happy parents who love each other. Which honestly he has, but when my mother in law is around it drives a giant wedge between us.

One I’m not crazy , two it’s been a long time and three I wasn’t in the best emotional state.so let’s get on with the story. I live in a moderate sized city in a mountainous area. The kind of place you can go hiking and pay an arm and leg for rent. Anyway I’m yammering.
On this shitty evening I was enjoying one of my favorite pastimes: alcohol. As I drank my problems away a gorgeous woman approached me. Short blonde hair, curves in all the right places. Something wasn’t right. Because She was interested in me.This may shock you but stuff like this just doesn't happen. We talked for hours, my jokes were landing. Hell we loved the same horror movies. Kind of ironic now that I think about it. Now I’m not ugly, at least I don’t think so, just a little awkward and dense. But she was way out of my league. I’d be damned if I didn’t look at this gift horse in the right part.
After talking we went to my place. Several things happened. One my life size chucky doll scared the crap out of her. On top of the fridge isn’t the best place for that. Two we cuddled and three she turned into a goddamn werewolf and bit me! All things considered I think I handled it pretty well. I treated my wounds, cried in the shower for thirty minutes and went to bed. What? You expected me to call the cops? They’d ask what kind of crack I was smoking.
Despite being a mythical monster and biting the shit out of me she wasn’t the worst I’ve been with. She cleaned up my place while I was firmly grasping my sanity. Honestly I thought it was a bad dream and I just had a great night with a neat freak. Of Course that didn’t explain the scar. Or how fast it healed.
It had been a week since the Werewolf incident and I was feeling kinda different. My senses were more sensitive. A lot of my neighbors need to take out their trash. Geez people that shit is disgusting. I also heard a friend of mine sneeze from across an entire Walmart.Freaked him out when i texted bless you. My vision has always been good. However now I can see fast moving objects a lot easier. I’m sure the parents of the kid who I pulled from the path of a car that ran a red light are grateful for it. It was awesome.
A week later it wasn't awesome. . I was invited to a party in a town an hour away. Nothing but forests on either side for miles. I was pissed after driving all that way just to find out the party had been canceled. Out of nowhere some asshole in an suv cut me off and I nearly crashed. I pulled off to the side of the road and I was so pissed. Without thinking I grabbed a rock and pitched the greatest fast ball of my life shattering the rear window. I was satisfied until the car stopped and my heart dropped to my ass when it drove back to me.
A mountain of a man stepped out of the car.”How the fuck do you fit in there?” Was my only thought before the rear driver side door opened.the man that stepped out was in his late 40s a few wrinkles on his face and slightly graying hair. He kinda reminded me of Will Ferrel. I mean aside from his hair and eye color he looked just like him. The two walked over to me. I’m gonna call them will and mountain since I never got their names. Will stepped forward and shook my hand.” Hey there. Seems like we’ve got a problem.”
Suddenly I was on the ground, the distinct taste of blood in my mouth and will leaning over me.” Now I understand my friend here was being reckless! “He yelled that last word over his shoulder.” However, you can’t break people’s things.”
He helped me up as Mountain walked over. In the movies you'd expect me to suddenly be an amazing fighter. This was not a movie. Mountain held me in place as Will did his best Rocky impersonation.
My only thoughts at that moment were. Where the hell are my powers.Will took that time to interrupt my thoughts.”Now I'm a fair guy and I can tell you don't have the money to pay for my rear windshield. So what I'm gonna do is beat you until I feel you have learned your lesson. How does that sound?” What an arrogant asshole.
Now if I was in my right mind I would have accepted this punishment but i wasn't in my right mind. I spat blood in Will's face and Mountain threw me to the ground before stomping on the back of my head. Blood dirt and mucus covered my face.
“You know there's one thing I hate above everything. It’s being disrespected!” Will continued his rant while walking back over to me dragging something with him as Mountain dragged me into the woods by my leg. We stopped moving but the ringing in my ears didn’t.
Flipping over to my back the full moon was the only thing I could focus on. “Come on werewolf powers!! Come on!!” I thought to myself. Will looked at me with a goofy smile on his face. He was laughing at me. I didn't think that I said it. I said it out loud. Those were probably gonna be my last words.
A lot of emotions went through my head at that moment. Fear,confusion,remorse,and Anger. Mostly anger . I was pissed. This is the textbook definition of overreacting. I broke a window and I didn't kill his dog. “ You know what Fuck this guy, fuck his car, fuck his friend and fuck werewolves!” Something hit me in the face and I blacked out.
when I came to it was still dark but I could see clearly. The area around me looked like a bomb went off. Several trees looked as if they lost a fight with The Hulk,I was covered in dirt and blood and there was a weird breeze. Looking down I found that The breeze was caused by me being naked.
My body felt like it had been stretched, reshaped and put back together by an angry toddler. By the grace of whatever deity is out there I found my keys and wallet and two more sets of keys and two other wallets.
I followed the smell of exhaust until I was back on the road. Will’s SUV was still there but no sign of him or mountain. I may have helped myself to a duffle bag full of cash in the trunk while searching for something to cover myself with. But I got into my car and drove off in my naked glory. Oh don't judge me, you just read what happened.

--- The Dream ---
Mia woke up to a noise in the basement she was not sure if she should go or not she was very scared to leave her room she got out of bed and got up and creeped to the door she quitly opened the door and looked out to see if there was anything out in the hallway as she walked to the stairs she seen the light on in the kitchen and she went quitly downstairs mia went and seen that the refrigerator was open there was blood in the refrigerator and intestines hanging from the shelf she was getting scared she didn't know what was happening she herd the noise in the basement as she went to the basement she seen that the light was on and that nobody was there she looked and had found a blood trail to the table in the back near the washer and dryer and she went to the table she seen a clear box on the table as she went and opened the lid to the clear box and she seen that it was filled with blood as she looked in the box she picked up the big wooden spoon next to the clear box and put the spoon in and stired and as she did Mia's head floated to the top as she screamed she turned around and seen a gir with a pumpkin smile she fell backwards and covered her face with her arms.
---- Awake ----
Mia woke up and was drenched in sweat she had a fearfully look on her face and did not know what to do she stayed up for the rest of the night beacuse she was afraid to go back to sleep she got up and went to her desk and turned on the light and got her art pencils and started to draw what she seen in her nightmare

It looked so real that she put it in a frame and Mia turned on the TV and watched M.A.S.H it was one of her favorite TV shows and she was wondering if she was going to see this thing in her dreams agian hopefully she won't be there but she had a bad feeling about it she seen that the sun was coming up it was 5:00 oclock am and her mom came in and seen her up as Mia's mom Dana asked her what is wrong she told her that she had a nightmare it was worse then the one that she usually has and Dana asked what that pic of the girl was Mia seid it was the thing that she seen in her nightmare she was scared and want to go to a therapist.
Dana told Mia that she is worried about her and that she was going to keep her home today and take her to the therapist to see what's wrong she was not sure if she's going to get any sleep tonight because of the nightmares she had she told her mom it felt real to her and she didn't know how to handle it so Dana told her before she gets a therapist she's going to take her to a sleep doctor to find out what's really going on Mia agreed to that so Dana and Mia got in the car with her picture and thay drove off to the clinic thay drove to Rosemont street and then turned left after Dana turned left she then drove down the street to the first 4 way interaction and then turn right thay went and got to the clinic and made a appointment for the doctor and the receptionist gave her a paper to fill out.
So she fill out the form and told thay seid it would be about minutes so Dana went outside and called her school and told and told them she won't be coming in today that she is I'll thay seid ok so she went in and the doctor came out and called mia in and her mom went with her the doctor told her to put the gown on and lay down on the bed to relax and she did as the doctor went into the other room to sit down her mom was there looking at the screen Mia fell asleep.
----Dream realm----
Mia herd a noise from downstairs in the basement agian she woke up and put her feet on the floor and quietly went to the door as she had tears running down her face and had her fingers in her mouth she walked downstairs slowly and quietly as she looked the lights where on in the kitchen again and Mia went into the kitchen to find out the refrigerator door was open again and she seen that there is blood and intestines in the fridge as she looked on the floor there was a blood trail going to the basement agian and this time there was a whole lot of it she backed up fast but she knew she was in the clinic and the doctor could see everything she See's so she went and got the broom handle and went and opened the basement door and slowly went down the stairs and seen that there is a lot of blood on the steps she started to show fear and started to cry.
----Back in the clinic----
Dana omg is this the night she told me about I can see why she is upset and scared.
Doctor I have had a lot of patience's before with nightmares but I never had a patient like this who actually had a nightmare that was gruesome and bloody like this intestines and blood coming from the fridge that's insane.
Dana yes it is she drew a picture of the monster in her dream she had brought it here with her.
Doctor omg this is creepy I don't know what to think of this.
----Back to the Dream realm----
Mia went downstairs in the basement and looked now there was body's hanging up from hooks and she saw that the clear bin was full of blood she back up to the wall and fell to the floor with tears in her eyes she was scared to open the box she knows what is in there and is scared to look again as she got up and went slowly to the box and opened the lid as she got the big wooden spoon she stired it and her head came up as the monster was behind her she turned around and hit it with the broom handle as it fell to the ground she ran to the stairs and went up and closed the door.
----the Awakening----
Doctor omg Mia calm down what was that monster and why was you head in the clear box with the blood in it.
Mia I don't know omg sob sob I don't know I am so scared I refuse to go to sleep I can't go to sleep sob sob.
Doctor oh dear me I have never seen this before I have never experienced something like this.
Dana this is what kept my daughter up and this poor girl is scared shitless of this how do we stop this please doctor.
Mia what if I let the monster get me sob sob it's a dream what if that is the only way to end it sob sob sob sniff.
Dana no don't do that.
Mia mom I can't stay up all night every night I need to rest my body will die if I don't rest.
Doctor she is right what is the harm of it it's a dream.
Dana just please don't die on me please your my baby girl.
Mia I will mom sniff sniff I am sorry mom.
So thay went home and Dana ordered some food as thay waited Mia told her mom that it's going to be hurtful to do this she knew she was scared because she was shacking and in fear of this thing.
5 minutes later
The food got there and Mia and Dana ate after Mia ate she went upstairs and got a bath going for her and she got her clothes and went in the tub she scrubbed herself up good and cleaned her self as she did the dead skin came off and she felt better after she drained her water she stood up and got a towel and dryed off she then went got her clothes on and went to bed.
----The Dream realm----
Mia took a deep breath and thought it was just a dream and that it's going to be ok so she went downstairs and went downstairs to the basement she then went and taken the clear plastic bin and pushed it on the washer and dryer she taken her clothes off and then put and drop her clothes she went and layed down on the table and waited for the monster to come as she waited she herd a noise from behind the hanging carpet and sheets it was the monster of the dreams as she did not look the monster seen Mia laying there.
Monster what are you doing girl.
??? My name is Mia I am sniff sniff offering my body to be eaten by you.
Monster my name is pumpkin Girl and why are you wanting me to eat you.
Mia is that not how this ends pumpkin Girl
Pumpkin Girl no why would I eat myself.
Mia what do you mean eat yourself no your supposed to eat me I am your dinner I am supposed to be eaten by you to end this.
Pumpkin Girl no I can't eat you I will die and you will still be alive I love this look and I don't want to lose it .
Mia so what I not going to be eaten by you so I taken off my Pikachu nitewere just so you will tell me I can't be eaten I came her to be eaten now eat me.
Pumpkin Girl are you fucking crazy.
Mia well I still be alive in the real world if you ate me.
Pumpkin Girl yes .
Mia well you eat me then I won't bug you to do this and you can leave just please so I feel better in the real world.
Pumpkin Girl for heaven sakes fine I will eat you just stop this harping and I will leave after this will that make you happy.
Mia yes very much.
Pumpkin Girl ok fine here we go.
So pumpkin Girl start to eat Mia and she screamed in pain as she died in her dream she was being eaten by herself as she was told and she tore Mia apart.
----The Awakening----
Mia it feels like it's over I think I stopped it sniff omg that is so great I think I can rest easy now so she went downstairs and looked around to find that things felt ok and she finally got the feeling it was going to be ok and not a nightmare she felt a lot of relief from all of that she seen her mom in the kitchen and she went up and gave her a big hug and told her she thinks tit will be ok and she might be able to get some rest she told her mom she wants to go to school tomorrow she asked her if she was sure and Mia seid yes Dana told it was ok she went and told her she is going to lay down for the rest of the day and her mom told her ok she went upstairs and went to her room and laid down and went to sleep till morning.
----Next morning----
Mia got up and got dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen table and she felt good as dana seen that her daughter was feeling good she herd the bus pull up and she taken her breakfast and ate on the bus.

Looking for the name of a uk based toy that came out after 2000. They were silicone and or rubber fridge magnets, designed in the shapes of monsters and stuff. Kids went nuts for them and were collectibles back in the day. Think they started out as a cereal toy but have no idea what they were called and internet searches have proven fruitless. Pls help

They literally both have a fridge monster episode. Which nobody can tell me the writers of archer weren’t inspired by bepop for this. Unless it’s a trope done in another show I haven’t seen. Idk the shows seem eerily similar and honestly spike and archer are super similar. Also I truly think the whole space cowboy season in archer is completely inspired by cowboy bepop.

New update, new content, and some thoughts about the state of the game. I haven't seen posts like this so I thought I'd share my experiences. I played the game for a bit up to Fall Y1 at launch so I have some prior experience with the game. I've also played.... a lot of other farm rpgs. So I have experience with the genre in general.
New game, old struggles
Money, money, money... Money! Most of spring & summer were spent chasing the all important gold. The eternal grind to make money to buy stuff to make more money. Early on I slummed away as a humble potato farmer (literally -- I may have dabbled briefly in cauliflower, I planted 95% potatos) while spending time mining or diving. I spent more time mining at first because I heard good things about selling osium ore which turned out to be true. That was the point where I could actually afford things although getting to that point took quite a while. Energy at that point was a premium. But once I could finance the house upgrade, things changed and bug jerky was on the menu. By early summer, I had also done enough diving to craft 32 sprinkler 1s and got the farm into proper working order. By the end of summer, I was making a tidy stable amount of gold from pineapple juice and my 14 or so kegs that I didn't feel like I had to live in the fire mine. By early fall, I even plunked down the cash for the master fishing rod and got my giant sea bass taken care off. Overall off to a solid start.
More specific thoughts:
Farming: generally good. Early game is a bit rough because you're manually watering crops. That's to be expected. Sprinklers take the right amount of effort to get started. Main criticism is that the devs have created a whole bunch of interesting crops and there's zero point to planting 95% of them right now. There needs to be a tangible benefit to planting crops that don't give the player the best most money. Maybe work the farmer's association into a set of 'bounties' for in demand crops or something that reward the player with crafting materials, makers, or extra money. There needs to be something to create demand for crops to support diversity.
Mining/combat: progression generally felt right. Energy, as always, felt tight until cooking became a thing. I generally felt unthreatened except when a fire bat was in the way. Monsters in general feel very passive. Combat skill xp gain is ridiculously low. I have finished the fire cave and I'm at level 2 combat.... It'd be nice if monster loot in general sold for more or was used for something. There is a part of me that would okay with a nerf to the amount of osium ore that we can get from the fire cave, but only if money from other sources was buffed. It takes a while to get a steady supply of gold from farming. That money from what osium ore farming paid for quite a few upgrades. I also think there needs to be more things that use gold bars -- demand for bronze & silver bars felt high.
Diving: taking out the roadblocks was a godsend. Keep them out. They did nothing but anger new players whose progress has been cockblocked with a large milk or cucumber. Really looking forward to being able to gather gold & osium kelp. I think balancing mining & diving is going to be hard because diving flatout has so many benefits over mining.
Fishing: I like fishing, but being a full time fisherman has to be rough. I definitely think fish need a big gold buff -- 50% more if not x2. I like that the fishing poles actually matter, but they're really expensive. I'd personally prefer an upgrade path for the fishing rods so I'm not stuck with them forever. Also fishing skill rate is super slow. It's not as bad as combat, but it still felt really slow even when I was fishing 80% of the day.
Catching: I was not initially impressed with bug catching. I come from the farm rpg side of the genre so this was not a big deal for me..... Until I could cook bugs. Suddenly I cared about catching bugs. Other people have actual food in their fridge. Mine is full of bugs. Catching skill also could use a buff to xp rate. It felt really slow to me.
Cooking: manual cooking is not fun. I'd like a setup where after we do manual cooking of a combination enough times it becomes a recipe. For recipes that require a certain level of friendship with a townie, make those 'signature dishes'. Cooking also has the same problem that farming does -- lot of recipes and there's a handful that are worth using. There needs to be something aside from friendship levels to create a demand to cook anything that's not grilled fish or bug jerky. Maybe something like a request system where the local shops need x amount of dishes.
Long-term thoughts
I'm liking how the game is shaping up. The museum alone will take forever to finish..... Having 100% access to diving will be nice. Just being able to farm high tier kelp will make expanding the farm easier. That said, I do hope the devs are thinking long-term. The game is going to need some gold sink beyond what's in the game so far.

a true 10/10, nothing compares (drink-wise, at least. food may be another question)

A selection of items “on special” this week in Coles and Woolworths that may be of interest to some keto followers. Most are processed so not really suitable for “clean keto”. Victorian data, some may not be available interstate. Alcohol (except no carb beer) excluded. Drink prices exclude recycling deposits. If you are doing an online order, also look at the stores' ONLINE ONLY specials as I don't always include all of these, many are multibuys.
‘Locked prices’ might now be considered specials as unlocked prices have increased, but same every week til July so not included as ‘specials’.

COLES

Well Naturally chocolate has moved to the Confectionery aisle. Website still stuffed so may have missed items of interest. Please add in comments if you find anything. Does anyone here work for Coles?

• Aeroplane - Jelly Lite $1.95 they noqw sell Watermelon, Grape and Blueberry
• Bread/Wraps - Herman Brot 600g $6
• Bread/Wraps - Simson's Pantry Low Carb Keto 5 pack 200g 2 for $10, Low Carb High Protein 5 pack 225g 2 for $9
• Butter - Devondale 250g $4.50, Lurpak 250g $5.30, Coles 500g $6.90
• Butter - Maharaja Choice Ghee 300g $5
• Cheese - Always cheddar cheese block or slices on special
• Cheese - Babybel Mini Cheese 200g $9., Laughing Cow Cheese 128g $4, Bega Cheese Stringers Original 8 Pack 160g $5
• Cheese - Perfect Italiano Melting mozzarella/mexican 450g $7, Perfect Italiano Parmesan 125g $3.50
• Cheese - Tasmanian Heritage Camembert 250g $10
• Chocolate - Lindt 2 for $8.50
• Confectionery - Eclipse Mints 40g $2.80 artificial sweeteners, Double D Smart 50g $2.20, Jols $1.50 maltitol
• Cream - Ayams coconut 270ml $2.30, Valcom 400ml $2
• Cream - Meander Valley 200ml $3.80
• Dips - Always something on special - all brands have high and low carbs
• Dips - Black swan Classic Dip 200g 2 for $6.50,
• Drinks - Coca Cola 24x375ml $20,
• Drinks - Kirks $1.40, 10 cans $6.95
• Drinks - Lipton's iced tea 2 for $6.50 peach or lemon no sugar
• Drinks - Ocean Spray 5% Juice low sugar 1.5 Litre $4.85
• Drinks - Pepsi Max or Solo 1.25L $1.70,
• Drinks - Schweppes 1.1L $1.50 zero of no sweetener,
• Drinks, energy - Red bull 8x250ml $9.50 half price,
• Drinks, kombucha -- Remedy 4x250ml $6.50, Nexba 1L $4.95, Nexba 4 pack $6.90
• Drinks, no sweetener - Bubly 8 cans $7.50, Schweppes 10 cans $7.50, Dash 4 pack $6.30
• Fish - Fresh Tasmanian Salmon Portions Skin On $29kg
• Fish - John west Tuna Tempters 95g $1.35, Wild Scottish Mackeral 125g $3
• Fish - Sole Mare Portuguese Style Sardines In EV Olive Oil 120g $2.40
• Fish - Thawed blue grenadier $12kg
• Ice cream - Denada tubs and sticks 2 for $20 ONLINE ONLY
• Mayonnaise - Kewpie 300g $4.30 in Asian area, S&W whole egg 440g $6.30
• Meat - Australian Lamb Half Leg Roast bone in $12kg, Boneless shoulder $18kg, Bone in $13kg
• Meat - Australian Pork Belly Roast Boneless $16kg, Pork ribs $16kg, Boneless pork shoulder $9kg
• Meat - Beef Corned Silverside $11kg
• Meat - Chicken drumsticks $4kg, Whole chicken $4.50kg,
• Meat - Don kabana $3.30 from deli
• Meat - Free Range Rspca Approved Chicken Breast Fillets Large Pack $13kg
• Meat - Graze Grass Fed oyster blade $22.50kg
• Meat - Hans Twiggy Sticks $23.50kg from deli
• Meat - Pork mince 500g 2 fr $10
• Meat - Primo Middle Bacon 750g $11pk, Streaky Bacon $17kg from deli, Shortcut from deli $16kg
• Meat - Rocco's Smokey Bacon & Cheese Sausages 450g $7
• Milk - Rokeby Farms Fit Milk $2
• Milk - Suncoast Gold Macadamia UHT 1L $3 note contains vanilla but not on front label
• Milk, almond - Vitasoy fridge $3, Inside Out fridge $3 (Woollies cheaper)
• Nuts - Coles natural macadamias 400g $15, Market Land smoked almonds 500g $8
• Oil, EV olive - Cobram Estate Aust 750ml $10.80, Coles 3L can $28, La Espanola 1L Organic $13, La Espanola mild 1L $9.50
• Peanut butter - Sanitarium 375g $3.50
• Pickles - Fehlbergs Burger Pickles 490g $4
• Protein bars/cookies - BSC 60g $3.15 maltitol
• Protein powder - Coles Perform 35g 2 for $4
• Sauce, pasta - Val Verde passata 700ml $2.50 , Mutti varieties 40g $4
• Sauce - Valcom Curry Paste 210g-240g $3.40, Massaman 08.8/100g, Thai Green 05.3, Thai Panaeng 03.8, Ayams 185g $3.20, Mai Ploy green 50g $1
• Snacks - Don Donski pork crackle 50g $2.50, Master 50g $2
• Snacks, sweet - Atkins 20 pack cherry coconut in big size area $20 maybe less. (maltitol_
• Spice - Mingle better gravy 120g $4.40 higher carbs
• Stock/Bone broth - Campbells Real UHT 1L $2.25, half price
• Sweetener - Natvia Gold 250g $6.80 E&S
• Syrup - Natvia maple syrup 250ml $5.50
• Tea - Dilmah Inspiration spiced rooibos 20 pack $3
• Yoghurt, flavoured - Chobani Greek no sugar 2 for $4, Danono Yo pro Perfor 20g protein 175g $1.85 half price
• Yoghurt, flavoured - Chobani Fit 15g protein 170g $2.15
• Yoghurt, plain - Chobani Greek Yogurt 907g whole milk $6.30

WOOLWORTHS

30% off PranaOn, Keep It Cleaner & Bodiez# #Excludes Bounce Multi Packs, Keep It Cleaner Bars

• Aeroplane - Jelly Lite $2 look for watermelon, blueberry, grape
• Avalanche - Hot chocolate 10 pack $4.40 higher carbs
• Beer - Steersman Blonde Low Carb Bottles 6x330ml 2 for $22 ??? carbs, Better Beer zero carbs 6 pack $18
• Bread/Wraps - Simson's Pantry High Protein Low Carb Wraps 5 Pack $4.40
• Butter - Devondale 250g $4.20
• Butter - Mainland organic NZ 250g $4.50
• Cheese - Always cheddar cheese block or slices on special
• Cheese - Bega Cream 225g block $3,
• Cheese - Castello varieties 150g $6.50, Tasmanian Heritage 125g $5.65
• Cheese - King Island 200g $7.50
• Cheese - King Island Brie or Camembert 175-200g $9.50
• Cheese - Melbourne Cheese co marinated fetta varieties 250g $7.50, Castello Greek 450g $5.50
• Cheese - Perfect Italiano 450g melting mozzarella, mexican $7
• Cheese - Picon corners cream 120g $2.50, Babybel 100g $5
• Chocolate - Lindt Excellence $3.30
• Chocolate - Well Naturally 90g bars or coated almonds $3.50
• Crackers - Olina simply seed 80g $3.50
• Cream - Bulla Double 200g $4
• Dips - Always something on special - all brands have high and low carbs
• Dips - Yumi's $3.50, Chris heritage %7.50
• Drinks - Bickfords diet cordial 750ml $4 try Tropical good sweeteners
• Drinks - Coca Cola, Sprite Fanta diet 1.25L $1.70, 30 cans $24.95
• Drinks - Cottees Diet cordial 1l $2.95 half price
• Drinks - Ocean Spray 5% Juice low sugar 1.5 Litre $4.90
• Drinks - Pepsi Max, Pepsi, Solo Zero, or Raspberry Zero 12 x 450ml bottles $10
• Drinks - Pepsi, Solo Zero, Sunkist Zero 24 x 375ml $19, 12x450ml bottles $10
• Drinks - Schweppes 1.1L $1.50 zero or Unsweetened
• Drinks, energy - Monster Energy 4 x 500ml $6.92, NEW C4 473ml $3.80, Gatorade or G active 600ml $2.30
• Drinks, kombucha – Lo Bros 4 pack $6, Remedy sodaly prebiotic 4 pack $6,
• Drinks, no sweetener - Mt Franklin 1.25l $1.35, Strangelove 4 pack $7.20
• Fish - Brunswick sardines 106g $2, Kippers $1.65
• Fish - Just Caught Frozen Atlantic salmon no skin $29kg
• Fish - Paramount wild Alaskan pink salmon 415g $7.50
• Fish - Sirena tuna 95g $2.30 try Aldi slices in O oil
• Ice blocks - Twisted Raw C coconut Lychee 4 pack $5.50
• Mayonnaise - Hellmans Real 400g $6
• Meat - Beef Mince 500g $7
• Meat - Bertocchi Gold varieties Bacon 400g $8 (thin & crispy middle is my fave) Shortcut from deli $15kg, Streaky from deli $18kg
• Meat - Chicken maryland $7kg, Free Range drumsticks $6kg, Drumsticks large pack $4kg, loose $4.50kg
• Meat - Don Sliced Meats 160-200g $3.20, Primo varieties 2 for $6.30
• Meat - Lamb midloin chops $23kg
• Meat - Luv a duck legs 500g $10
• Meat - Macro Free Range Australian Fresh Whole Plain Chicken $4.50kg
• Meat - Primo Kransky Double Smoked or Cheese – From the Deli $10.80kg half price
• Meat - Woolworths COOK precooked Slow Cooked Chicken Breast in Creamy Mushroom Sauce 700g $12 6.3g/serve
• Meat - Woolworths COOK precooked Shanghai Style Pork Belly 600g $12 separate sauce reduce carbs by ditching most of the sauce
• Meat - Woolworths COOK precooked Slow Cooked Pork Knuckle $10kg
• Meat - Woolworths COOK Slow Cooked Beef Brisket in a BBQ Sauce 700g $15.50 ditch most of the sauce
• Meat - Woolworths Cook Slow Cooked Butterflied Beef 700g $15
• Milk, almond - Almond Breeze UHT $2, Australia's Own UHT $1.85, Almo fridge $5.50, Inside Out fridge $2.25 stock up half price long dates, Sanitarium fridge $3.30
• Milk, coconut - Australia’s Own UHT $1.90
• Oil - Coco Earth liquid coconut oil 500ml $11
• Oil - The Grove EV avocado 250ml $8.50
• Oil, EV olive - Monini 750ml $13. Moro 500ml $7.80, Red Island Aust 1L $16
• Peanut butter - Mayvers 375g 2 for $9, Pics $5 (online only), Bega Simply Nuts $4.40, Noya almond butters $7.20, Skippy no added sugar 450g $2.75 USA jhalf price
• Pickles -
• Protein bars/cookies - BSC, Noway, Bounce Load up 30% off, QUEST PB cups $2.40 half price, Quest cookies $2.40 ONLINE ONLY
• Protein drinks - Bodiez Protein Water Powder 290g $24.50, Premixes cans and bottles 30% off
• Protein powder - Keep it cleaner protein 375g $23.10
• Sauce - MasterFoods Reduced sugarTomato or Barbecue Sauce 475-500ml (some maltitol) $1.90 half price
• Sauce - Pataks curry pastes 283g $4 check carbs
• Sauce, pasta - Leggos Providore Tomato & Chilli 400g $5 lowest carb not hot
• Sauce, hot - Franks red hot buffalo 148g $3.50, Byron Bay varieties 150ml $4.20, Bull's-eye Chilli Louisiana Style Chipotle Cajun Spices 135ml $4, Frank's Redhot Original Thick 368ml $5, Nandos peri peri 250g $6
• Snacks - D'orsogna Tasty Sticks 400g $9.75, From deli $25kg dearer
• Snacks - Normandie Pate Chicken & Black Peppercorns 150g $4.60
• Snacks - O olive oil roasted seaweed 4 pack $2.75
• Snacks, sweet - Aussie Bodies 4 pack $8, Atkins 5 pack $7.50 (maltitol)
• Soup - Hart & Soul konjac noodles pho100g mug size $1.50
• Spices - Mingle Seasoning 35-50g $2.47 half price
• Stock/Bone broth - Maggie Beer 500ml stock $4, Campbells bone 500ml, $7, Hart & Soul bone 350g $3.50
• Sweetener - Natvia E&S 350g $7.50, Whole Earth E&MF 200g $7.10, Truvia E&S 360g $8
• Syrup - Lakanto monkfruit golden malt, or vanilla bakers syrup 300ml $7
• Syrup - Natvia Choc Topping No Added Sugar 250ml $2.85 half price
• Tahini - Mayvers hulled 385g $5.20
• Yoghurt, flavoured - Chobani Fit 15g protein $2.15
• Yoghurt, flavoured - Chobani no sugar 680g $5.40
• Yoghurt, plain - Chobani Greek Natural Whole Milk 907g $6.30

HELLO! I HAVE FINALLY GOTTEN UNDERTALE AND I AM PLAYING IT WITH FLOWERY! AND IF YOU'RE ASKING WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FRIEND, THEN THE ANSWER IS THE REAL FRIEND WAS THE PAPYRUS WE MADE ALONG THE WAY! YES, I HAVE FOOLED YOU INTO BELIEVING IT WAS A FRIEND THAT WANTED TO PLAY UNDERTALE, BUT IT WAS ME ALL ALONG! I'M SORRY FOR LYING, BUT I WANTED IT TO BE A SURPRISE!
SO I HAVE STARTED MY JOURNEY BY READING THE STORY ABOUT HUMANS AND MONSTERS, AND THEN I NAMED THE FALLEN HUMAN! IT WOULDN'T LET ME USE "PAPYRUS" SO I NAMED MYSELF "COOL"! AND THEN I SAW FRISK STARING AT ME ON A FLOWER BED, AND I CAN MOVE THEM! SO I GUESS FRISK IS WHO I SHALL PLAY AS!
I HAVE TRAVERSED INTO THE NEXT ROOM AND I MET FLOWERY! AND HE IS TEACHING ME ABOUT BATTLES AND LOVE, BUT THEN HE SHOOTS BULLETS AT ME SO I AVOID THEM UNTIL HE GETS VERY ANGRY AND TRIES TO KILL ME (VERY INACCURATE OF YOU, GAME!) BUT THANKFULLY, TORIEL HAS SAVED ME WITH THE POWER OF FIREBALLS, WHICH HOPEFULLY DIDN'T HURT FLOWERY TOO MUCH!
I'VE ARRIVED AT THE RUINS AND TOUCHED THE SHINY YELLOW SPINNING STAR THING, AND GOT FILLED WITH DETERMINATION FROM THE RUINS! I GUESS THAT'S HOW I SAVE! TORIEL SHOWS ME HOW PUZZLES WORK, WHICH I DIDN'T NEED HELP, BUT FRISK PROBABLY DID SO I'M GRATEFUL ANYWAY! A FEW SWITCHES FLIPPED LATER AND FRISK HAS ENTERED THEIR FIRST BATTLE! THE FIRST THING I NOTICED IS THE HUMAN DOESN'T HAVE A MAGIC OPTION, BUT I CAN WORK WITH THAT! FLOWERY SUGGESTED I SHOULD SPARE THE DUMMY OVER AND OVER, BUT THAT DIDN'T DO ANYTHING SO I TALKED TO IT INSTEAD AND TORIEL WAS PROUD OF ME! UNFORTUNATELY THE DUMMY WASN'T VERY INTERESTED IN TALKING WITH ME!
I ENTER THE NEXT ROOM, AND PREPARE FOR THE PUZZLE UP AHEAD THAT TORIEL HAS WARNED ME ABOUT! BEFORE I CAN READ THE SIGN ON THE WALL, I GET JUMPED BY A FROGGIT, SO I COMPLIMENT IT AND TORIEL SCARES IT AWAY (HOW RUDE!) I READ THE SIGN AND MEMORIZE THE CORRECT PATH, AND FLOWERY SAYS IT DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE TORIEL WILL HOLD MY HAND ANYWAY! INTERESTING HOW HE KNEW THAT, BUT HE IS GOOD AT PREDICTING THE FUTURE!
I ENTER THE NEXT ROOM AND TORIEL RUNS FROM ME, SO I RUN TO THE END OF THE ROOM AND FIND A PILLAR, WITH TORIEL HIDING BEHIND IT VERY POORLY, BUT I PRETEND TO NOT KNOW SHE'S THERE TO MAKE HER HAPPY! SHE RETREATS FROM THE PILLAR AND GIVES ME A CELL PHONE AND LEAVES! I THEN WAIT FOR TORIEL AND CALL HER SOMETIMES, BUT THEN I LEARN THE ANNOYING DOG IS HARASSING HER AND I LEAVE TO GO SAVE HER!
BUT AS SOON AS I LEAVE THE ROOM, TORIEL CALLS ME, SO I GUESS SHE HAS EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL! FLOWERY REFUSES TO LET ME STAY IN THE OTHER ROOM, SO ONWARD I GO! I TALK TO A FROGGIT AND IT TELLS ME ABOUT MERCY! I GET FILLED WITH DETERMINATION BY PLAYING THE LEAVES AND SAVE THE GAME! THEN I GO UP AND FIND A BOWL OF CANDY! FLOWERY SUGGESTS I STEAL ALL THE CANDY I CAN, BUT I ONLY TAKE ONE! I INSPECT THE CANDY, AND LEARN IT HEALS 10HP! INTERESTING!
I PREPARE TO LEAVE THE ROOM, BUT ANOTHER FROGGIT ATTACKS ME! I COMPLIMENT IT AND IT SHOOTS MAGIC FLIES AT ME, SO I DODGE THE MAGIC FLIES WITH EASE AND SPARE THE FROGGIT! THEN I ENTER THE NEXT ROOM AND FALL DOWN AND SEE TWO DOORS! FLOWERY URGES ME TO GO TO THE DOOR ON THE RIGHT, AND I GET ACROSS THE FALLING FLOOR AND ESCAPE TO THE NEXT ROOM!
AS SOON AS I WALK FORWARD, I GET A CALL FROM TORIEL WHO IS ASKING IF I PREFER CINNAMON OR BUTTERSCOTCH! FLOWERY SAYS IT DOESN'T MATTER WHICH OPTION I CHOOSE BUT DOESN'T EXPLAIN WHY IT DOESN'T MATTER, SO I CHOOSE CINNAMON! I WALK FORWARD SOME MORE AND GET ANOTHER CALL FROM TORIEL, WHO IS NOW ASKING IF I DISLIKE BUTTERSCOTCH! I THEN FEEL BAD FOR LEAVING THE ROOM BECAUSE SHE HAS THANKED ME FOR BEING PATIENT, BUT FLOWERY STILL DOESN'T WANT ME TO GO BACK! I PUSH A ROCK A BIT AND THE SPIKES GO DOWN, BUT I GET ATTACKED BY A WHIMSUN, WHO LOOKS VERY AFRAID! I TRY TO CONSOLE IT, BUT IT RUNS AWAY! BEFORE I CAN LEAVE TO THE NEXT ROOM, TORIEL CALLS YET AGAIN, ASKING IF I HAVE ANY ALLERGIES! FRISK ASKS WHY SHE'S ASKING AND SHE SUSPICIOUSLY SAYS THERE'S NO REASON!
I ENTER THE NEXT ROOM, AND SEE A BUNCH OF FALLING-GROUND THINGS! FLOWERY GETS BORED OF WATCHING ME FALL OVER AND OVER AND HELPS ME WITH THE PUZZLE! BEFORE I CAN LEAVE TO THE NEXT ROOM, I GET ATTACKED BY A MOLDSMAL! I FLIRT WITH IT, AND WE HAVE A VERY MEANINGFUL CONVERSATION! THEN I SPARE IT, AND LEAVE TO THE NEXT ROOM!
I SEE 3 MORE ROCKS AND START PUSHING THEM OVER, BUT THE THIRD ROCK IS ALIVE! FRISK ASKS IT TO MOVE, AND IT DOES SOME TOMFOOLARY, BUT FINALLY I GET IT TO THE BUTTON! BUT THEN IT MOVES OFF THE BUTTON AS SOON AS I APPROACH THE SPIKES!!! I ASK IT TO STAY ON THE BUTTON, AND IT FINALLY UNDERSTANDS, AND I AM ABLE TO ESCAPE TO THE NEXT ROOM!
I FIND SOME CHEESE AND GET FILLED WITH DETERMINATION FROM THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THE MOUSE MAY ESCAPE THE HOLE AND GET THE CHEESE, AND SAVE THE GAME! I INTERACT WITH THE HOLE AND THE MOUSE SQUEAKS AT ME! I THEN LEAVE TO THE NEXT ROOM!
I ENTER THE NEXT ROOM AND SEE NAPSTABLOOK PRETENDING TO TAKE A NAP! I TRY TO WAIT FOR THEM TO LEAVE, BUT THEY DON'T MOVE SO I UNFORTUNATELY HAVE TO MOVE THEM WITH FORCE! I CHOOSE TO CHEER AT THEM, AND FRISK SMILES AT THEM, WHICH NAPSTABLOOK FINDS FUNNY?? I GET HIT TRYING TO AVOID THE MAGIC TEARS AND CHEER AT NAPSTABLOOK ONCE MORE, AND FRISK TELLS THEM A JOKE! NAPSTABLOOK PULLS A SANS MOVE AND DOESN'T ATTACK, SO I CHEER ONCE MORE! NAPSTABLOOK TRANSFORMS INTO DAPPERBLOOK AND I CHEER ONCE AGAIN, AND WIN THE BATTLE! NAPSTABLOOK LEAVES AND I LEAVE TO THE NEXT ROOM!
I READ A SIGN AND IT TELLS ME ABOUT THE SPIDER BAKESALE, SO I GO BACK TO BUY SOMETHING, BUT I ONLY HAVE 3G! FLOWERY TELLS ME I SHOULD FIND MONSTERS AND SPARE THEM, AND THEY WILL GIVE ME MORE G! I GET HIT AGAIN, BUT I HAVE ENOUGH MONEY FOR A SPIDER DONUT, SO I GO BUY ONE AND INSPECT IT, AND LEARN IT HEALS 12HP! I THEN CONTINUE ON MY ADVENTURES! I ALSO SAVE AT THE MOUSE ROOM AGAIN, AND I AM AT FULL HP! HOW CONVENIENT!
I TALK TO THE FIRST FROGGIT IN THE ROOM, AND LEARN HOW TO GO INTO FULL SCREEN! AND THEN WE WONDER WHAT F4 STANDS FOR TOGETHER! I TALK TO THE SECOND FROGGIT IN THE ROOM, AND IT TELLS ME ABOUT YELLOW NAMES, WHICH AGAIN, I ALREADY KNOW, BUT FRISK DOES NOT, AND I AM THANKFUL FOR FROGGIT TELLING THEM! IT ALSO SAYS I WILL HAVE TO SPARE WITHOUT YELLOW NAMES, WHICH DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE TO ME AT THE TIME! I TRY TO LEAVE THE ROOM, BUT TORIEL CALLS ME AND TELLS ME TO LEAVE SPACE IN MY POCKETS FOR SOMETHING COOL I MIGHT WANT, AND I LEAVE TO THE NEXT ROOM!
I ENTER A ROOM AND LEARN I NEED TO FIND A SWITCH HIDDEN SOMEWHERE! FLOWERY TELLS ME TO LOOK AT THE TOP MIDDLE ONE LAST, SO I DO THAT AND FIND A RIBBON, NAPSTABLOOK, AND TWO VEGETOIDS! I INSPECT THE RIBBON AND PUT IT ON FOR EXTRA DEFENSES, AND BETTER LOOKS! I GET ATTACKED BY A MOLDSMAL AND A MIGOSP, AND I SPARE THEM WITH EASE, AND ESCAPE TO THE NEXT ROOM!
I FIND THREE PILLARS AND THREE DIFFERENTLY COLORED SWITCHES NEXT TO ALL OF THEM! THE SIGN SAYS THE ROOM IS GOING TO ROTATE, SO I MEMORIZE THE ROOM AND MOVE FORWARD! THE SIGN SAYS I SHOULD PRESS THE BLUE SWITCH, WHICH I REMEMBER IS BY THE FIRST PILLAR! BUT I GET ATTACKED BY TWO VEGETOIDS AND GET HIT! I ENTER THE NEXT ROTATION AND THE SIGN TELLS ME TO FLIP THE RED SWITCH, WHICH IS IN MY VISION! I FLIP THE SWITCH AND GET ATTACKED BY ANOTHER MOLDSMAL AND MIGOSP, AND SPARE THEM ONCE AGAIN! BY PROCESS OF ELIMINATION, I FIGURE OUT I NEED TO FLIP THE GREEN SWITCH, WHICH IS BEHIND ONE OF THE PILLARS! I LEAVE TO THE FIRST ROOM TO REFRESH MY MEMORY, AND AFTER SOME THINKING, I FIND THE GREEN SWITCH AND MOVE FORWARD!
I FINALLY ENTER A NEW ROOM, AND FIND TWO DIFFERENT PATHS! FLOWERY TELLS ME TO GO RIGHT, AND I FIND A FROGGIT, WHO TELLS ME TORIEL WAS HERE RECENTLY! I ALSO LEARN THAT FROGGIT IS INTIMIDATED BY TORIEL, WHICH IS STRANGE BECAUSE OF HOW KIND SHE IS! I GO UP TO FIND A GIANT CITY, AND A TOY KNIFE! I INSPECT THE TOY KNIFE, AND LEARN IT IS A DEADLY WEAPON, SO I DISCARD IT! I THEN GO TO THE OTHER PATH AND REUNITE WITH TORIEL! SHE HEALS ME AND TAKES ME TO HER HOME!
I ENTER TORIEL'S HOUSE AND SHE TELLS ME SHE WAS MAKING A PIE TO WELCOME ME TO THE UNDERGROUND! SHE ALSO TAKES ME TO MY NEW BEDROOM, WHICH I WILL BE STAYING IN FOR THE TIME BEING! I EXPLORE THE ROOM, AND FIND SHOES AND TOYS AND VARIOUS OTHER COOL ITEMS! I TURN THE LIGHTS OFF AND THE SONG TURNS INTO A MUSIC BOX VERSION! I THEN DECIDE NOW IS A GOOD TIME TO GO TO SLEEP, AND I WAKE UP TO A SLICE OF PIE SITTING ON THE FLOOR! HOW KIND OF TORIEL TO LEAVE THIS HERE! I INSPECT IT AND LEARN IT FULLY HEALS ME! THIS MUST BE A VERY VALUABLE ITEM! I LEAVE MY BEDROOM AND INSPECT THE PLANTS AND DRAWERS AND THE MIRROR! I ALSO FIND A LOCKED ROOM, AND A NOT LOCKED ROOM!
SO NATURALLY, I ENTER THE NOT LOCKED ROOM, AND LEARN IT IS TORIEL'S BEDROOM! INSIDE HER BEDROOM IS A BUCKET OF SNAILS, WHICH FLOWERY DESCRIBES AS "SURPRISINGLY GOOD", AND JUDGING BY HOW TORIEL TALKED ABOUT MAKING SNAIL PIE EARLIER, I'D SAY FLOWERY AND TORIEL EAT SNAILS! WHICH IS TOTALLY NORMAL, ACCORDING TO FLOWERY! I ALSO FIND TORIEL'S DIARY, AND DECIDE NOT TO READ IT TO RESPECT HER PRIVACY! I FIND THE MOST TSUNDERE OF PLANTS, CHAIRIEL, TORIEL'S BED, AND A BOOKSHELF THAT TELLS ME ABOUT TYPHA, OR WATER SAUSAGES! INTERESTING KNOWLEDGE! LASTLY, I FIND TORIEL'S SOCK DRAWER, AND I LEAVE THE ROOM!
I LEAVE THE HALLWAY AND INSPECT THE BOOKSHELF AND VERY OLD CALENDAR, AND THEN I TRY TO GO DOWNSTAIRS BUT TORIEL TELLS ME NOT TO! HOW SHE KNEW I WAS DOWN THERE, I HAVE NO IDEA. BUT ALAS, I MUSTN'T PLAY DOWNSTAIRS! I GO INTO THE LIVING ROOM AND FIND TORIEL READING A BOOK! I TALK TO HER, AND FRISK HAS THE OPTION TO ASK WHEN THEY CAN GO HOME?? FLOWERY TELLS ME TO LOOK AT EVERYTHING ELSE FIRST, AND SO I DO!
THE FIRE IS PLEASANTLY WARM, MUST BE MAGIC FIRE! I FIND A HISTORY BOOK ABOUT MONSTERS BEING TRAPPED BY THE BARRIER, AND ALSO I LEARNED ABOUT ASGORE'S INCREDIBLE NAMING SKILLS! I FIND SOME TOOLS THAT HAVE BEEN FILED DOWN, AND ENTER THE KITCHEN! INSIDE THE FRIDGE, THERE IS A BRAND-NAME CHOCOLATE BAR! THE SINK HAS WHITE FUR STUCK IN THE DRAIN, AND I CANNOT IMAGINE WHO'S FUR THAT BELONGS TO! I LOOK IN THE CUPBOARD TO FIND COOKIE CUTTERS FOR GINGERBREAD MONSTERS, TO WHICH FLOWERY SAYS HE REMEMBERS STEALING GINGERBREAD MONSTERS FROM TORIEL WITH THE MEDDLING CANINE ONE TIME, AND IT WAS A "BONDING EXPERIENCE", WHICH IS VERY NOT COOL OF FLOWERY, BUT I FORGIVE HIM! I FIND THE UPGRADED PIE, BUT IT'S SIZE INTIMIDATED FRISK AND I CANNOT GET IT! LASTLY, I FIND THE VERY CLEAN STOVETOP, AND LEARN FROM THE NARRATOR THAT TORIEL USES FIRE MAGIC TO COOK! INTERESTING METHODS, I PREFER USING NON-MAGIC FIRE, BUT IT IS WHAT IT IS!
I THEN TRY TO FIND ANYTHING ELSE TO LOOK AT, BUT FIND NOTHING. SO I AM UNFORTUNATELY FORCED TO ASK HOW TO LEAVE! BUT THEN TORIEL ASKS ME TO LISTEN TO HER BOOK ABOUT SNAILS AND I FEEL SUPER BAD, SO I LISTEN TO HER, AND I LEARN THAT SNAILS SOMETIMES FLIP THEIR DIGESTIVE SYSTEMS AS THEY MATURE! I DIDN'T NEED THAT KNOWLEDGE, BUT I HAVE IT NOW! AFTER SOME BOONDOGGLING, I GET THE COURAGE TO ASK HER HOW TO LEAVE, AND SHE RUNS AWAY! I LOOK THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE HOUSE, BUT I CAN'T FIND HER! I CALL HER, BUT SHE DOESN'T PICK UP!!
I FINALLY REALIZE THAT THE BASEMENT IS THE ONLY PLACE I HAVEN'T LOOKED, SO I GO DOWN THERE AND SEE TORIEL STANDING THERE! I WALK UP TO HER AND SHE TELLS ME SHE IS GOING TO DESTROY THE EXIT TO THE RUINS SO I CANNOT LEAVE! SHE TELLS ME TO GO UPSTAIRS BUT I HAVE TO CONVINCE HER TO LET FRISK ESCAPE, SO I CONTINUE MOVING FORWARD! TORIEL TELLS ME ABOUT HOW THE OTHER HUMANS THAT FELL DOWN HERE HAVE DIED TO ASGORE??? VERY INACCURATE YET AGAIN, GAME! BUT I DECIDE TO MOVE FORWARD ONCE MORE! TORIEL TELLS ME THIS IS MY FINAL WARNING, AND I CONTINUE MOVING FORWARD, AND SHE THROWS ME INTO BATTLE!
THE FIRST THING I DO IS TRY TO TALK HER OUT OF THIS, BUT FRISK CAN'T THINK OF ANY CONVERSATION TOPICS! IF ONLY I HAD BEEN THERE TO HELP!! TORIEL THROWS FIRE AT ME, AND I TRY TO CHECK HER FOR SOME EXTRA KNOWLEDGE! I LEARN TORIEL HAS 80 ATK AND 80 DEF, WHICH IS HIGHLY INTIMIDATING, BUT I CANNOT GIVE UP! I GET HIT BY HER NEXT ATTACK, AND I TRY TALKING YET AGAIN, BUT TO NO AVAIL! I TRY ONE FINAL TIME TO TALK, BUT FRISK JUST CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING!! I GET HIT TWO MORE TIMES AND AM BROUGHT DOWN TO 12HP!
EVENTUALLY, I SPARE HER, AND SHE REMAINS SILENT, BUT IT SHOWED TEXT THIS TIME! THAT MEANS I'M GETTING SOMEWHERE! I GET HIT ANOTHER 3 TIMES AND AM BROUGHT DOWN TO 3HP, SO I HEAL USING THE MONSTER CANDY! I CONTINUE SPARING HER, AND SHE STAYS SILENT, UNTIL EVENTUALLY SHE USES A QUESTION MARK! I SPARE HER YET AGAIN, AND SHE ASKS WHAT I AM DOING! I GET KNOCKED DOWN TO 7HP, BUT I CONTINUE SPARING! SHE TELLS ME TO ATTACK OR RUN AWAY, NONE OF WHICH I WILL BE DOING ANYTIME SOON! SHE ASKS WHAT I AM PROVING THIS WAY, AND I GET HIT, BUT LEARN SHE'S NOW ONLY DEALING 1 DAMAGE! I SPARE AGAIN, AND SHE TELLS ME TO FIGHT HER OR LEAVE, WHICH I AM STILL NOT DOING! I SPARE HER AGAIN, AND SHE TELLS ME TO STOP IT. I DON'T KNOW HOW MANY MORE TIMES I CAN TELL HER I'M NOT DOING THAT. SHE TELLS ME TO STOP LOOKING AT HER THAT WAY, BUT THAT'S FRISK'S FACIAL EXPRESSION, WHICH I CANNOT CONTROL! I SPARE HER AGAIN AND SHE TELLS ME TO GO AWAY! HOW RUDE. I SPARE AGAIN, AND SHE GOES SILENT AGAIN! I SPARE HER AGAIN, AND SHE LOOKS SAD, AND HER FIREBALLS ARE NOW AVOIDING ME! VERY SAD, BUT I'M DOING IT!
I SPARE HER AGAIN AND THE MUSIC CUTS OUT. SHE ASKS ME TO GO UPSTAIRS, BUT THE FLEE OPTION IS GONE. NOT THAT I WAS GOING TO USE IT ANYWAY. SHE TELLS ME SHE WILL TAKE GOOD CARE OF ME HERE, AND I'M SURE SHE WILL, BUT FRISK CLEARLY WISHES TO RETURN TO THE SURFACE! SHE TRIES CONVINCING ME TO STAY. I CONTINUE SPARING HER, AND SHE ASKS ME WHY I AM MAKING THIS SO DIFFICULT. UNFORTUNATELY I CANNOT ANSWER. SHE ASKS ME TO GO UPSTAIRS, WHICH I DO NOT! SHE GOES QUIET AGAIN, AND STARTS LAUGHING! SHE THEN CALLS HERSELF PATHETIC, WHICH IS VERY NOT TRUE!! SHE GOES QUIET AGAIN, BUT SHE FINALLY AGREES TO LET FRISK GO!
THE BATTLE ENDS AND SHE TELLS ME TO NOT GO BACK TO THE RUINS! I WILL TRY TO CALL HER SOMETIMES WHILE ON MY JOURNEY! SHE THEN HUGS ME AND LEAVES! AND I DIDN'T CRY! I SWEAR! I THEN CONTINUE MOVING FORWARD, AND I MEET FLOWERY AGAIN, WHO SHAMES ME FOR SHOWING MERCY, AND LAUGHS AT ME! BUT NOW I KNOW HIS PLAN ISN'T REGICIDE, SO THAT'S GOOD! I THEN WALK INTO THE DOORWAY AND READ THE CREDITS! AND THEN I ARRIVE AT SNOWDIN, BY THE GIANT DOOR!
I WALK FORWARD AND GET HARASSED BY SOMEONE'S SILHOUETTE! I REACH THE BRIDGE AND STARE AT THE SILHOUETTE AND IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZE THAT IT'S SANS! VERY INACCURATE AGAIN, GAME! I MET THE HUMAN FIRST! BUT THIS IS SOMETHING SANS WOULD DO, SO ALSO ACCURATE IN A WAY! FRISK SHAKES SANS' HAND AND HEARS THE WHOOPEE CUSHION! SANS THEN ACTIVELY DOESN'T DO HIS JOB, AND SOMEHOW GOES THROUGH THE BARS, SAYING THEY'RE "too wide to stop anyone", WHICH IS VERY NOT TRUE! THOSE BARS STOPPED EVERYONE!
FRISK HIDES BEHIND THE LAMP AND A VERY HANDSOME AND COOL SKELETON RUNS ON-SCREEN! I ALSO WATCH THE SAME CONVERSATION I HAD WITH SANS THAT ONE TIME PLAY OUT, SO GOOD JOB FOR BEING ACCURATE, GAME! BUT ALSO HOW DOES THE GAME KNOW ABOUT THAT?? ALSO, IT JUST DAWNED ON ME THAT SANS WAS HELPING ME WITH HIS GOOFY ANTICS??? ANYWAY, FLOWERY AND I LAUGH AT MY PUN, BOO AT SANS' PUNS, AND CONTINUE MOVING FORWARD! SANS ASKS THE HUMAN TO SHOW THEMSELF TO ME TO CHEER ME UP, AND IF SANS REALLY DID THAT, I THANK YOU BROTHER! IT DID IN FACT CHEER ME UP! AND THEN SANS LEAVES, AND SO DO I!
I GET FILLED WITH DETERMINATION BY THE LAMP'S CONVENIENCE AND SAVE THE GAME! AND THAT IS WHERE I SHALL STOP PLAYING FOR NOW, BECAUSE I NEED TISSUE! BECAUSE! I AM NOT CRYING!! I JUST HAVE SOMETHING STUCK IN MY EYE AND NEED TO GET IT OUT!! I SHALL PLAY UNDERTALE AGAIN LATER! I HAD A LOT OF FUN, EVEN THOUGH IT WAS VERY INACCURATE SOMETIMES!
-NYEHFULLY YOURS, PAPYRUS AND FLOWERY

Is it just me or do all the new fridges now have monster freezer compartments? We have a 24-year-old Kenmore that thank god is still running, though the ice maker quit a couple years ago. I always wanted a bottom freezer setup, but back in 1999 they were not available at the mere mortal consumer level.
Now they are the norm - but it seems to me that the freezer sections are huge and the actual fridge space seems way smaller than my current fridge, especially when you look at all space taken up by water and ice dispensers and what-have-you.
I did the measurements and my old Kenmore fridge is quite roomy: It has 15.5 cf of fridge space (I measured the interior dimensions). The shelves are half-width shelves, fully adjustable and amazingly versatile. There are four big gallon-milk-jug-deep buckets on the door, adjustable heights, plus two flip-top butter dish-type top shelves and a rail shelf at the door's bottom for, like, salad dressings etc. A pull-out deli drawer. Two veggie crispers. I need every bit of this fridge space - we don’t buy much frozen food at all.
I also have no interest in French door or side by sides. Or water dispensers.
I just want a plain vanilla bottom freezer fridge with an ice maker in the freezer and a ton of fridge space. Is this now a unicorn?

You just woke up here and a tall dark monster just tipped his hat to you. With these notes inside. This is how you survive pt1
Monday: what you should definitly know is days after this one arent gonna get any easier. There is one cheat day wich is a little better but still require top scheduling, but lets get into it.
Monday there wil be a knock on the door, if you dont answer it he will break the door down and you will NEED to replace it before nightfall.
When you do decide to answer it a weirdly very fashionable guy will tell you that he was walking by and saw your scrappy security and is wondering if you would like it fixed (this wil also happen if he breaks the door down). You NEED TO ACCEPT THIS! This way you will be protected in the night.
He will ask for a price of finding him a new house to escape this neigbourhood. You will find somebody this week who will help you with this.
Because he is very generous he wont make you pay right away. Ok so about half an our in you will hear sirense, you will need to stall these till hes done.
There is a girl called jennie patterson nextdoor she will be seen wearing a bulletproof vest and a gas mask. There is a vodka bottle in the fridge you will need to pry out and you need to give it to her before the police gets there. She will then distract them for you.
When he has it all fixed up he will run out and the police will start chasing him. This is pretty much the day over, with a few exceptions like: if you wanna go outside there are a few rules. There will be people walking outside with no pupils dont aproach them, if they do see you go inside immideatly.
If they do catch you pray that sebastian is outside. He wil get you back into your house you wont see him but i am pretty sure its him. Why i think its him i will explain later.
Ok now your day should be done. There is food in the fridge its abhorend im not sure what it is but there is another thing in the fridge YOU DO NOT TAKE IT OUT! It will be needed later and it will invite unwanted visitors. The security system wont work against visitors.
If you did eat it for some reason ITS DONE. Your best bet is grabbing the knife and doing it yourself cause you dont wanna find out what happens...
Now if you made it trough this day before you go to bed you need to do something. There is a phone number on your desk call this number with the LANDLINE otherwise it will be traced back to your house.
A voice will talk on and on about all the different ways he could kill you until you scream to him 'I SWEAR TO F###ing g#d IF I DONT SURVIVE TONIGHT YOU WONT LIVE EITHER' then you go to sleep.

It all started Friday, when we (myself and my roommate James) went fishing at one of the local lakes. Or, at least we tried to go fishing. It's Spring but the lake we drove to was still frozen. Ice fishing wasn’t something we’d ever done, but we figured it couldn't be too difficult. When we arrived I tentatively tested the ice and it seemed solid, so we ventured further out. The ice cracked underfoot in a few places, but neither of us were very concerned. Once we got to a nice spot in the middle I sat down on one of the buckets we’d brought and started fitting our poles with hooks. While I was doing that, James set about trying to make a hole in the ice. He started by stomping on it with his foot to no effect. Then, he grabbed his bucket and began hammering away at it.
“Need some help over there?” I said in a somewhat teasing tone.
“No I’ve got it, I just need a better spot, this one’s much too hard.” he said, jumping on the spot as proof.
“Whoa don’t do that! If the ice breaks you’ll fall in and I’d have to save you, then as payment you’d have to treat me to a beer at Shelby’s.”
“Man you know I don’t like that place, it's so dingy. But as I said, the ice won’t break. I’m going to look for another spot.”
“Alright, well I’m done with the poles. Let me know if you need any help then.”
“Awesome, you can see the fish swimming under the ice over here. This is the spot, I know it!”
“Great! I’ll move our gear over.”
Suddenly, I heard a loud crack and a small splash. I looked over and saw James had his foot stuck in the ice.
“Hey you alright? Don’t move, let me come pull you out.” I said, dropping our poles and walking over.
“No I don’t need any help, I just need to pull my leg out. This water is cold as hell!”
“Yeah I bet. I’m coming over anyway just in case.”
“Nah I got it, see?” he said, before aggressively trying to pull his foot out of the hole. Almost immediately he lost his balance, and fell forward slamming into the dark patch of ice. I heard the surface give way and saw him fall into the water. I ran over to the hole and tried to see him, but the water was too muddy. Frantically, I plunged my arms into the water and grabbed randomly hoping to find a purchase on James. My arms started burning, and after a few minutes I had to pull them out. I started panicking and didn’t know if I should jump in after him. I decided I would call 911 first, even though I knew there’s nothing they could do, and then would jump in after him. But just as I dialed the number I saw a hand come out of the water. I dropped my phone and grabbed it, heaving a muddy body onto the ice and pulling it towards more solid ground. It was James, he was covered in mud and some grass, but other than that seemed perfectly fine. He wasn’t even shivering, nor did he seem particularly stressed. Once I’d helped him to his feet he stood and turned towards the hole in the ice, looking at it pensively.
“Are you alright James?” I asked. He didn’t respond, so I grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the hole towards the shore. I’d suddenly remembered that not shivering was a symptom of severe hypothermia, something that would only get worse in those wet clothes of his. I almost had to drag him away, but he offered no resistance, just kept looking behind him at the hole. When we reached the car I turned the heater to maximum, and undressed James. I gave him my jacket and wrapped him in a blanket I had in the back.
“James? Can you hear me? I’m taking you to a clinic now, there’s one only 15 minutes away.” I started the GPS and pulled out of the small recreation area, but before I could get onto the road James grabbed me and started screaming.
“TAKE ME BACK TAKE ME BACK TAKE ME BACK TAKE ME BACK”
I jumped and hit my head on the roof of the car.
“Dammit James you scared the crap out of me, are you all right?”
He let go of me, and whispered “Take me back.”
“No, we’re going to a clinic. You're clearly hypothermic, you're not even shivering but you’re ice cold. End of discussion.” I said, and then continued onto the road towards the clinic. I focused on the road, but I could feel his eyes on me.
“We’ll come back another day.” I said. I quickly glanced to my left, and was startled to see he was looking directly into my eyes.
“Alright,” he whispered, before slowly looking away and out the window.
We spent the rest of the drive in silence, until we reached the hospital. The doctor said he didn’t have hypothermia, but gave him some dry clothes and recommended standing by the heater until he warmed up. James nodded, but headed straight for the car. I quickly said thanks to the doctor, and followed James. It would take an hour to get to our apartment, so I flipped through my CD collection.
“Let’s see… I’ve got the Cars, and we’re in a car so it seems like a worthy choice.” I smiled at him, it was a joke I’d told many times before that usually got an eye roll, and occasionally a laugh. But this time James didn’t give me either, and instead continued looking out the window. “Alright” I said. “Let’s try something you like.” I pulled an Elton John CD out of its sleeve and popped it in the stereo. Elton John is his favorite, and he can’t help but sing along to Rocketman. This was the first time he hadn’t. He even sang to it when I picked him up after his girlfriend dumped him in college.
When we finally arrived at our apartment I pulled into the parking space at the back of our building. James didn’t say a word and silently followed me to our door. Once inside, he went over to the couch, lied down, and closed his eyes. I thought he was probably shaken by his experience and needed some time alone, so I let him be and went to my room. I was a bit worried about him so I spent the day at home Saturday, but he still wouldn’t make conversation with me. Then in the evening, he came out of his room and sat down next to me.
“Take me back, " he whispered.
“Take you back where exactly?”
“To the lake, you said you’d take me back.”
“Oh yeah I guess I said that. Honestly, I don’t really trust the ice after what happened, we should wait a month or so until it fully melts and then just fish like we normally do.”
“But you promised. You said we’d go back another day.”
“Yes, when the ice melts. Maybe it’ll just take a few more weeks.” I said, perplexed at his insistence.
“I need to go back.” he said, eyes suddenly locking with mine.
“You don’t need to go back, you want to go back alright? We are not going back so soon, I’d be stressed out the whole time. You could’ve died, you know.”
“So you won’t take me back?”
“That is correct, the lake is much too dangerous and you’ve been super quiet ever since we got back. I’m going out with Dale tonight, but when I get back we should talk about what happened and try and work through it alright? I’ll be back late, but text me if you need anything. Also, don’t forget it's your turn to make dinner.”
Then I left, and went to meet up with my friend Dale. We had more than a few drinks, and talked about a recent hunting trip he’d been on with his son. Dale has a way of continuing conversations way longer than you’d think possible, but because I don’t see him as much as I used to I let him talk all he wants. Needless to say, I got in pretty late and was very hungry. I didn’t see anything on the counter, so I figured James had wrapped dinner up in the fridge. Standard procedure when I’m out with Dale, who never fails to keep me out all night. But, when I looked in the fridge there was nothing there.
James loved to cook and never missed an opportunity to try out a new recipe on me. I saw his door was open, so I popped my head into his room to see if he was still up. I was surprised to see that he wasn't there, so I decided to see where he was using Find My Friends. When I saw that he was in the middle of a random forest I was confused, until I realized he was heading to the lake on foot. I was very concerned and immediately raced to my car. Admittedly, I had had a few drinks, but I’m a big guy and it was an emergency so I drove out anyway. There wasn’t anyone on the road this late regardless, and all I could think about was James falling through the ice again.
It was very dark when I arrived at the lake. It was still frozen, just as before, but I could make out a figure in the center illuminated by the moonlight. I quickly hurried to the edge and cautiously stepped closer to the figure, ice sometimes cracking underfoot. As I walked I could see a few holes in the ice, presumably caused by animals falling under. I heard splashing water to my left and saw a muddy deer somehow manage to stumble out of the water. It was dragging a dark mass alongside it, and quickly moved into the darkness of the forest out of sight. I heard a yelp as something fell through the water to my right just as I approached James.
He stood with his back toward me, staring into a large hole in the ice.
“James, I saw a lot of holes in the ice on my way over to you. I really don't think this is safe. Let’s go home. I’m worried you might not be thinking clearly, you’re putting us both in danger right now. We really shouldn't be on the ice.”
“Look,” he said, without turning.
I walked up beside him, and looked into the hole. The water was crystal clear, and I could see a naked body tangled in the weeds. Suddenly, James stepped forward and jumped into the hole. Stunned, I watched him move towards the body before the mud obscured my vision. After a few seconds his hand came out of the water reaching towards me. I grabbed it, and with some effort pulled him and the body out onto the ice, hearing a subtle crack as their collective weight bore down on the lake's surface.
“James? What is happening right now?” I said.
He didn’t answer, just stood up and looked at the body with a curious look on his face. He started to wipe the mud off the body with his sleeve, and I realized the corpse had James’ face. They were identical, except for the fact that the body was naked and James was clothed.
“What the fuck? Who is this? Why did you know there was a body here? Why does he look like you?” I said nervously.
In lieu of an answer, James turned to look at me with a confused expression. I backed away slowly and clutched my phone in my pocket ready to call 911, when, suddenly, a muddy deer emerged from the forest and began to approach James. As it got closer I saw it had a bloodied deer leg in its mouth. It moved quickly, and was next to James within seconds. The deer dropped the leg, walked over to the body, and began to lightly chew the dead doppelganger's arm. It looked at James, then back at the body and walked back to where it had dropped the deer leg. Then, it put it back in its mouth and began to chew, before looking back at James again.
“Oh, thanks.” James said.
The deer bowed its head slightly, then returned to the forest.
Suddenly, James dropped to his knees and lifted up an arm of the body. He immediately began tearing into the flesh, savagely ripping off pieces with his muddy hands and teeth. I felt vomit come up my throat, and I blacked out.
Next thing I knew I was in bed. I felt cold, dirty, and tired. When I left my room James was making breakfast as if nothing had happened.
“Good morning,” I said warily.
“Good morning! How’d you sleep?”
I didn’t respond, I could still see the body being torn apart on the ice, but the memories were hazy. I wasn’t drunk at the time but I had been drinking prior, and somehow I was back in the apartment like I’d never left. It all seemed a bit surreal, but I have never had a dream so disturbing before. I looked out the window and saw that my car was still in its spot, but I was also still wearing my clothes from the bar, which initially seemed a tad odd.
“Are you alright?” James said, with a concerned look on his face. “You know you took quite a nasty fall last night. You really shouldn’t drink so much.”
“I fell? When?” I said, touching my head and confirming that it was a bit sore.
“You came home last night after you went drinking with Dale and I guess you slipped on the doormat or something, I heard a thud and found you passed out cold on the floor.”
“Huh, you’re right I guess I did drink a bit too much” I lied. “But you know Dale, he’s just got a way of keeping you on that stool.”
“Clearly! Just know you can call me to pick you up anytime, you don’t have to stumble home all by yourself.”
“Thanks, anyway I’ve got to get going. See you later?”
“Not hungry? I’ve got some eggs here, they’re crunchy, just the way you like them!”
By ‘crunchy’ James meant he had put the entirety of the egg into the bowl and whisked it all together; this was his signature. He lived with his grandfather for a bit as a kid, and apparently the madman refused to separate the shells, claiming they were a great source of calcium. James was always trying to get me to try them, but I always declined.
“No thanks,” I said, unable to suppress a small smile. “I’ve got some errands to run, I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Alright your loss, see you later! Don’t forget it's your turn to make dinner.”
“Of course.” I said, walking out the door and grabbing my keys from the bowl.
When I got to my car I started heading towards the supermarket, but stopped beside the road once I was out of sight of the building. My seat felt slightly damp and the interior had a bit of an earthy smell, so I opened the window. I hoped that I had dreamt the whole thing, but every time I thought about what I’d seen I felt nauseous again. I had to be sure, so I decided to go back to the lake. I was paranoid that James might use Find My Friends on me, so I actually did end up going to the supermarket and hid my phone nearby, and just hoped if he did check it he would only look once. Then I booted up my GPS and headed back to the lake.
As usual, when I arrived the small parking lot was empty. I quickly headed to the lake and very carefully walked towards the center. As I walked my memories of the night prior kept flashing before me, the muddy deer dragging something across the ice, the crunch of the ice beneath my feet. Eventually I reached the spot where James had fallen. The ice was clean, no body in sight. I didn’t even see any blood. I very nervously looked down into the water, but again didn't see anything suspicious. Perhaps this should’ve convinced me it was a dream, but I’m much too stubborn for that, so I decided I would need to find a way to test James. I started heading back to the supermarket in my car to retrieve my phone, and thought up a plan.
When I arrived at the store I grabbed my phone and bought some groceries. Then I went about actually completing my errands as if it were a regular Sunday, albeit much more slowly than I would normally. I managed to stretch out my chores until 4:00 PM, then headed home to start dinner. When I arrived James was on the couch watching television.
“Wow you were gone a long time.” he said.
“Well, I had quite a bit to do. But don’t worry, I’m ready to make you some dinner.” I said cheerfully.
I made spaghetti while he watched Netflix, and when it was done set the table. James’ favorite drink is apple juice, he drinks it paired with almost any meal. So, as anticipated when I asked him what he wanted to drink he asked for it. I got us both opaque glasses, and poured him a cup filled with apple cider vinegar, myself with lemonade, then I called him over to the table.
“Bon Appétit!” I said dramatically, with a flourish of my hand.
“I’m starving, thanks for making one of my favorites.” he said.
“Well, we both had a bit of a difficult weekend, so I’m counting on you to make Shepherd's pie sometime next week.”
“Definitely! You know, you're actually a really good Italian cook! If I didn’t know better I’d think there might be a little rat pulling the strings up there.”
“Well I was classically trained by the best YouTube chefs.” I said, as I watched him down half the glass of vinegar without batting an eye.
After dinner I went to my room and left James with the dishes. Then, I sat down on my computer and began organizing my thoughts. Now I’m just waiting till he goes to sleep before I make my move. I’m going to creep into his room tonight and kill him using an axe I snuck in when I brought up the groceries. I don’t know what he is, but I do know James, my James, is dead. The only thing I can do now is kill the monster I saw eating him. I just hope the element of surprise will be enough, and I pray I'll be able to go through with it when the time comes. I just have to wait for him to turn out the lights, it'll be any moment now.

Part 3
Day 14
Chloe walked into what had once been the beautiful home of the Garrisons. The room she walked into was the main hall. It was large and square-shaped with a room on both sides and a hall on the other side of the door. In the middle of the room, a large antler chandelier lay in a destroyed twisted mess on the hardwood floor. She looked over at the walls and saw a few small circular holes. Bullet holes. She thought, taking a step closer to get a better look. Herman followed her wagging his tail like nothing was wrong with this situation. She looked down toward the floor and spotted large claw marks on the hardwood floor. Some looked like hound claw marks (she became acquainted enough with the marks to recognize them) but others were much larger. Far too large to be from one of the hounds.
After scanning the room for another minute she decided she’d go into the left room first. The left room was a small lounge that seemed unassuming at first glance until she noticed the couch that had been thrown against the wall and the dried blood stains on the walls and carpet. It was human blood and was mostly frozen.
She walked across the main hall and into the room on the right. This room was unassuming with very little apart from bookshelves and a small desk. It also seemed relatively undisturbed with little to no damage.
She walked down the hall into the main part of the house. This main section had an open-air kitchen/dining room and a large living room. It looked horrible, it was clear a massacre had happened here. Blood was everywhere on the floors, the walls, and even the ceiling in certain spots. Most of the blood was a dark red with occasional splatters of yellow-greenish blood. She saw bits of muscle and tissue in the blood, and all around that was wreckage. Their large 100-inch flat-screen TV lay crushed on the floor. The leather couch was flipped over and ripped in countless places. The fan lay on the floor looking like it had a sledgehammer taken to it. The kitchen was worse though… slumped against the wall was a mostly eaten body. It was essentially just a skeleton with small bits of meat and tendon still clinging on. Despite being absolutely terrified something made her want to get a closer look. She noticed most of the bones were broken if not shattered, and it wasn’t until that point she realized everything below the rib cage was missing. She yelped and looked away. The rest of the kitchen was destroyed with the drawers and cupboards broken, and one section of cupboards laying on the ground with shattered glass all around it. Lastly, the dining room. Another antler chandelier lay destroyed on the ground and the table was leaned over like it had been used as firing cover.
She walked over to the dining table only to realize another destroyed body lay behind it. This one looked like it had been thrown around by the look of its breaks. This one only had half a skull with the frontal and parietal bones absent. She looked and saw this was wearing dog tags. She let out a small sob when she saw that. She knew who it had to be. It had to be Timothy Garrison. She and Timothy were the same age and had dated through most of high school. After they graduated they had a mutual break up and she met Joey in college, but she and Timothy remained good friends. He had come to their wedding and he was the one who taught her how to shoot a rifle, and he had been the only person in his family to serve in the military.
Herman slowly walked up to the body and started sniffing it.
“Get away from him!” She screamed at the dog.
She started to sob when her brain seemed to kick back into gear. Pull yourself together and cry later, She told herself. She stood up, wiped the tears off her face, and kept going. She went back over to the kitchen and yanked their fridge open. It was stocked to the brim with meats, fruits, vegetables, and bottles. She restrained her excitement at the sight but still grabbed as much as she could. She filled a duffel bag full of only a portion of the goodies in their fridge then moved on. CREAK! The loud sound interrupted her walk over to the pantry. It came from the wooden ceiling just above her, and whatever it was that caused it sounded large. She froze and listened for more sounds, but after a while of nothing she moved on hoping beyond all hope that it was just a house noise.
She and Herman crept over to the pantry and with a quick pull she opened it. The pantry was large and also stocked with food. Most of it was crap that would expire or had already expired, but what excited her was the large sack of potatoes sitting by the door. She grabbed the sack and set it on top of the duffle bag by the fridge.
CREAK! This one was louder than the last and sent a chill down her spine. She wasn’t sure whether or not she wanted to run out of the house or go upstairs and investigate. Her head was telling her she should leave but the other part of her so wanted to know what was making that sound. Finally, she made a decision. She’d search the bottom floor then she would go upstairs to check out the noise. CREAK! This one was the quietest so far, coming from below her. The basement, she thought, looking down at the floor.
She crept down a hall on the first floor with Herman right behind her. She was following a trail of blood like it was a trail of breadcrumbs. It was a deep crimson red and there was a lot of it. Whoever was bleeding definitely wasn’t alive anymore, she thought. She slowly followed the trail up to a white door which was now half covered in blood. Shakily she reached for the blood-covered knob and pulled the door open. It was the basement staircase but she looked at the way the blood had puddled and it told a story. They had hurried halfway down the stairs before something knocked them down to the bottom. There they are killed and then dragged into another section of the basement. She slowly walked down the stairs watching each step carefully until finally, her boot made contact with the linoleum floor.
Meanwhile…
I sat messing with and poking at the satellite phone trying to see why it wouldn’t send a call through. I’d looked through the manual and popped it open to see if anything had broken, but it was perfectly fine. I angrily smacked the phone against the coach, but still, nothing happened. At last, I set the phone down in defeat hoping Chloe was ok.
I turned from the couch to the window and saw Gretchen and Mom still busy with the shoveling. For the amount of snow on the driveway they’d made good work. Almost half of the driveway was clear of snow and covered in salt.
I watched on for a while before I heard a little beep. I looked over and saw the little screen of the satellite phone was showing an empty battery. I smacked my palm into my forehead annoyed by my stupidity.
“Hey Alby, can you get me some batteries?” I asked, looking over at him.
He nodded and disappeared into the kitchen a minute or two later he came back out holding the box of batteries.
“Thank you!” I said taking the box and quickly popping two new batteries in.
The basement was dark, very dark. Chloe could hardly see a thing, but she had thought of this scenario and pulled a flashlight from one of her pockets. Ca-Click! The thin beam of the flashlight kicked on. She was expecting to see the light illuminate the wall on the other side of the room or maybe a piece of furniture. But it illuminated a wall of webs. She saw through the webs at least a dozen cocoons far more than just the Garrison family. But even worse she saw dozens and dozens of stingers. They’d made the basement into a nest.
Bzzz…
The satellite phone continued to buzz and an uproar began to grow around her. Herman let out a growl and looked ready to pounce. Chloe in a hurry grabbed Herman’s collar and started running upstairs with him. The basement became full of the sound of screeches and she heard something big started moving down there. She sprinted as quickly as she could, making it to the top of the stairs and turning around to see at least a dozen stingers following her. Rat-a-tatatatatat!! She shot a barrage of bullets down at the stingers hitting most of them. Then something big appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Two things actually. Two hounds. She yelped and then slammed the door shut. She looked around quickly for something to barricade the door. Her eyes met a small dresser in a bedroom near the door. She pulled it out and shoved it against the door. CRACK! It came from the other side of the door and was quickly followed by a loud slam. She grabbed the still-growling Herman and started pulling him along with her. After a minute he started walking by her side and she let him go.
Suddenly she remembered the walkie and pressed the button.
“Joey… Joey, I'm here!” She yelled half excited and half still terrified.
I let out a sigh of relief; “Did you check out the Garrisons already?” He asked.
“Sort of… I’m still over there,” She explained.
She thought about telling me what she’d encountered but didn’t want to overly worry me. Plus recounting that day's events would just make things worse for her, not better.
“Ok, just be safe. I love you,” I told her.
“Love you too,” She said.
Bzzz…
She sat in the kitchen near her bags thinking for a minute. Since the crash, she hadn’t heard a thing from the basement door which made her start to suspect that the stairs had collapsed. Her curiosity had gotten desperate and she now felt like she had to check what was upstairs. She would never forgive herself if someone was still alive up there and died because she didn’t go and help them.
She slowly crept upstairs, her rifle trained and Herman at her side. The Garrison's house was set on a hill in such a way that the second floor was larger than the first. The second floor was made up of four halls that made a square with rooms within and outside of that square. The spiral stairs entered a corner of the square. Chloe reached the top stair and looked down the halls. Both were wrecked like upstairs but down one of the adjoining halls a body lay on the floor, or what was left of a body. She slowly walked over and saw this was by far the worst body she’d seen so far.
This one looked like it had been eaten similarly to Carl. The sternum and ribs were shattered and the spine was broken, but this one was worse. The bones were covered in bites and scratches, but worst of all the splatters around the body were immense; the person had likely struggled while they were being eaten alive. Chloe shivered at the thought and could only hope that they didn’t suffer long.
She stepped away from the body and got a better look around her. Apart from the body and the blood around it, there wasn’t much sign of death up there, but it still looked awful. Just like downstairs, the walls were covered in gashes and holes, and Chloe was becoming very surprised that they didn’t hear any of these gunshots.
CREAK! She looked down the hall where it had come from. For a brief second, she saw something at the end of the dark hall then it disappeared. It was only then that she noticed how dark it was up there, because of the houses set up there were no windows in the hall and the power had been out for days. She pulled out her flashlight Ca-Click! The narrow beam popped on and barely illuminated the end of the hall, but as she had thought whatever was there was gone now. She started to go about the search process methodically slowly going down the hall checking a room on the inside of the hall and then on the outside. The first room she poked her head into was a girl’s bedroom. It was decorated with a wallpaper of pink flowers and a small bed with pink covers. It was the stereotype of a little girl’s room. She noticed the covers were disheveled and a few things were knocked over. It looked like something had happened in the room but she wasn’t sure what.
She stepped out of the room and moved on to the next and the next. They were both similar with a similar disheveled nature. She started to realize whatever had happened it had woken them all up. She tried to push the last door in the hall open but it wouldn’t budge.
She continued up to the corner where she’d seen the thing. Multiple things then happened at once. She saw something massive lurking in the hall she began to turn down, she heard a creak behind her, Herman barked, and screeches began coming from downstairs sounding like the things had finally escaped the basement. Before she could stop Herman he started making a charge for the thing growling and barking. Chloe made a move after him but a gloved hand grabbed her and then covered her mouth. She watched Herman lung towards the thing then SLAM! It whacked Herman mid-air sending the dog flying back down the hall. He landed with a crash right next to her, a large bloody slash across his body. SCROAR! The sound came from the massive beast and nearly shattered her eardrums, and for one brief second, she raised the flashlight from Herman to the creature. She didn’t see much but that was enough.
She saw its face. It had four disturbing brown eyes, they were eyes she recognized. Those eyes… Those were the eyes of Mrs. Garrison. She gasped in horror through the gloved hand and she heard the person holding her let out a slight sob. The rest of its face wasn’t any better. Its top of head and forehead were all one bony plate. Its mouth was a black hole of teeth, and like the hounds, its lower jaw split into two mandibles. The back of its head had strange thin attachments that reminded her of the gills on an axolotl's head. Then in an instant, a few more things happened. The person holding her made a move for a door, the monster made a move for them, and the slamming footsteps of the hounds as they sprinted up the spiral staircase.
“Get in,” The person said, letting go of her and opening the door.
She turned around and saw the person who’d grabbed her and saw Fred Garrison standing next to the open door.
“NOW!” He yelled, grabbing her and pulling her into the room.
Fred hurried inside after her and quickly slid a fridge against the door. Seconds later angry screeches and slams rang out from the other side. They sounded like the hounds, not the big ones. Then she caught one other sound in the chaos, a wine. Oh gosh, Herman is still alive, She thought.
Fred stood by the door shotgun in hand while the slamming and screeching continued. She stood there and listened as they continuously tried to get in. Suddenly she heard Herman let out a growl, seconds later one of the hounds shrieked like they were in pain. CRUNCH! The sounds of Herman’s attack stopped and were replaced with sounds of meat ripping.
Chloe let out a small sob with her only comfort being that the crunch was likely Herman’s neck breaking.
Fred stepped away from the door and looked at her. He did not look like the man she remembered him as. His hair and beard looked like large rose bushes that were never cut. His blue eyes looked depressed like there was nothing there but sadness. Then she noticed a large bandage on his left arm. It looked like the whole arm had gotten cut open at some point.
Then her eyes wandered around the room. It was a small shop/man cave room. There were a few guns on the table, but more importantly, she noticed lit candles everywhere.
“I… I… I’m sorry,” He said with tears in his eyes.
She let down a quiet sob and Fred walked over helping her find a seat on the couch. After a minute of crying with Fred awkwardly trying to comfort her, she pulled herself together and looked up at the man.
“What happened?” She asked.
The man's face changed and she saw tears build up in his eyes; “A massacre,” He said grimly.
Then he followed with his story: “It happened around the fifth day I think. It was late and Jess and I were watching TV in the living room. Tim, Tom, Bart, and Gerry were chatting at the dinner table. Tom's wife and my four daughters were upstairs in bed. Everything was quiet and peaceful when suddenly my two dogs started barking outside. Now I know sometimes they’ll bark at dogs but this wasn’t that type of barking. This was get the heck away from me or I’ll kill you type barking. Then I started hearing weird screeching noises and at that point, I went over to the backdoor to check out the problem. I saw a bunch of massive spiders outside trying to attack my dogs, except they weren’t really spiders. Some of them had stingers and others kinda looked like slugs with spider legs. They’d stung one of my dogs a bunch and she was lying on the ground, the other was trying to stand her ground but it was a losing battle. I pulled at my revolver and started shooting at them. They were really fast. I think only one or two shots actually hit them. They started running over to me. One ran right in between my legs and a few of them tried to attack me. I shot those ones and turned around to try and stop the one that had gotten in, but it was already running havoc in the kitchen. My sons were chasing it, but they weren’t having the best of luck. Suddenly there was a crash, more spiders jumped through the now shattered windows, and something was banging on the front door. In an instant, the door was knocked off its hinges and one of those creeper things came through the door…”
Chloe interrupted him with: “I’m sorry but what are “those creeper things?””
“The… the big ones. The type that got your dog.” He explained.
“Anyways… it came running into the house, and before any of us could stop it. It threw Tom across the kitchen and into the wall. I came running to help him but that’s when it slashed my arm and threw me into the TV. The TV fell on top of me and then one of those spiders ran over and stung me in the thigh. I lay there with my eyes beginning to grow heavy. I saw Gerry, Tim, and Bart using the table as the shield. All three were hunched behind the table as the creeper began eating Tom. In a quick move, all three made a run for it. As they were running the creeper pounced and threw Tim into the table. Then it slashed Bart across the chest. Gerry managed to maneuver the creature and hurried over to help me. Bart ran down the hall to the basement and me and Gerry started hurrying upstairs. At some point, I blacked out and woke up here. Everyone was gone.” He finished with a somber look on his face.
“Oh gosh, I’m sorry.” She said looking at him.
“And somehow they turned my beloved Jess into one of those.” He said motioning to outside where the Creeper had been.
She stopped to listen and realized that she couldn’t hear the hounds anymore.
“Are they gone?” She asked, looking over at Fred.
“Probably, they eat fast for their size,” Fred said grimly.
They sat there again awkwardly before Chloe asked, “What are all the candles for anyway?”
“Well I started lighting them for warmth, but I realized those things don’t seem to like them. Especially the scented ones.” He explained.
She took a whiff of the air and realized how strong the scents were in the room. It almost gave her a headache smelling them.
“So why were you here anyway?” He asked.
She got a little nervous. She felt like a little kid in trouble with her parents. She didn’t want to tell the truth because she worried it would anger him.
“We were running out of supplies.” She said simply.
Her thoughts turned back towards me as she sat there.
I sat on the couch still watching them work. They were about two-thirds done now, but they were starting to really tire and it was getting late. It had started to darken and I knew soon night would fall, and I just hoped she would make it home before nightfall. I’d tried to call her again, but this time it would ring but not go through. I started to wonder if hers had run out of battery. Bang! I immediately turned to the window in a panic. I saw Gretchen standing holding the rifle a few feet away straight down the barrel as a dead stinger. I let out a sigh of relief and turned back toward the phone in my lap. I hope you’re an ok babe.
“Fred, we have a plan. Come with me, don’t stay here, you'll die,” Chloe pleaded.
“Maybe I want to die.” He said, “Look I’m not stopping you from leaving but I’m not going.”
“Well if I go alone I’ll die, please my family needs me,” She said desperately.
Memories of his family flooded through Fred’s mind. He remembered how he felt when his first kids, Tom and Tim, were born. She hadn’t even had a kid, and suddenly he found himself doing something he didn’t think he’d be doing.
“Fine, let's go send those things back to hell!” He yelled pushing the fridge out of the way.
“Follow my lead,” He ordered turning around to her.
Then he cocked his shotgun and slammed the door open. As he had suspected the hounds and creeper were both gone, but lying on the floor next to the door were two bodies. One was the sprawled-out body of a now-deceased hound. Its neck was broken in multiple places and its yellow-greenish blood was everywhere around it. The other body was ripped off most of its flesh, but she knew who it had belonged to. Herman wasn’t going to sit there and bleed out so he must’ve lunged for one of the hounds nailing it in the perfect spot on the neck killing it. Then the other hound quickly retaliated by feasting on the dying Herman, or maybe it was the creeper she wasn’t sure which one actually ate him. But what she did know was that the skeletal remains of Herman on top of the hound had its teeth in the hound's neck.
Chloe let out a small sob and in barely a whisper said: “You were such a good boy, but you can rest now.”
She reached down and picked up a ripped piece of leather near the bodies. It was what remained of Herman’s collar. She stuff the piece into her pocket and looked over at Fred. Fred had tears in his eyes as he saw the corpse of Gerry just down the hall.
“H… He was only 15,” Fred cried as he got a better look at the scene.
Chloe stood there unsure of what to do or say because Fred looked like he was about to have a meltdown. Then his sad face turned to one of anger. She moved the flashlight past the body and down to the corner and the staircase. Lurking next to the staircase its brown eyes glowing in the light was the creeper. It was guarding the stairs and most likely wasn’t going to let them leave for as long as it lived. Her curiosity was getting the better of her so she turned a dial on the flashlight to make it brighter. She wished she could go back and stop herself. Stop herself so she didn’t have to see the horror that was the creeper. Her first interpretation of the face was fairly accurate except for one part. Inside its gaping maw behind the mandibles almost looked like a separate set of jaws. The second set was much more human-like and looked ready to shred any meat to bits, but its head was nothing compared to the body it sat upon. It appeared to have six limbs, two very long front arms with two large claws at the end, and two more arms that attached to roughly where pectoral muscles would normally be. These arms were much shorter than the previous set. It had two back legs that appeared to be quadruple-jointed. It had the normal heel and knee joints, but it had one additional joint in the foot. Despite this the legs looked vaguely dogfish, but not nearly as those of the hounds. Coming out where the tail should be was a large thorax with two nasty stingers on the end. The thorax was curved like that of a wasp ready to strike when necessary. It almost looked like it had a shell of exoskeleton on its back and thorax, and spouting out of the thicker plates were large needle-like spikes.
It let out a demonic shriek as soon as the light brightened. It ducked out of sight and started making a loud clicking noise. Chloe and Fred kept their guns trained on where it had disappeared ready for it to come out charging, but unfortunately, they underestimated it. It made a loud ticking sound followed by CREAK! Before Chloe could even turn the hound that had crept from behind had her pinned to the ground and was bitting and slashing at her back. BANG!!!! BANG!!!! Fred had lowered his shotgun to its head. The first blast blew out two of its eyes and shattered part of its exoskeleton, and the second blast dug through the broken exoskeleton into the brain. The hound collapsed dead and with his gun pointed at where the creeper had been Fred helped push the body off of her.
Chloe got up a little shaken but relatively ok. She started guarding back while he guarded the front as they slowly made their way towards the stairs. Any second they were expecting the creeper to appear from around the corner, but it didn’t. The creeper was planning something again but they didn’t know what. Just as they made it to the stairs they turned down the other hall, but saw nothing. The creeper had likely walked into one of the rooms and was waiting, but they weren’t there to explore. They hurried down the spiral staircase, but just as they got to the bottom they saw the place was still swarming with stingers, slugs, and 3 hounds. A loud ticking sound came from upstairs and the three hounds charged towards them. They started running back upstairs only to see the creeper now lurking at the top of them. Cornered in the middle of the stairs back to back with each other they began to accept their fate.
I started to really worry about where Chloe was I hadn’t heard from her in a while and it was getting late. I sat there trying to call her every few minutes but it would not pick up. BANG! I dropped the phone and turned to the window. Gretchen stood there with the rifle pointed at something off in the snow, but I couldn’t see what the thing was. BANG! I saw for a brief millisecond the bullet flying into the blizzard then nothing. BANG! I tried to pull myself up to see what it was, but searing pain went through my body when I tried. I looked out again and saw something massive emerge from the blizzard charging for Gretchen.
“I’m sorry we should’ve stayed up there,” Chloe cried as the hounds slowly stepped closer.
“Kid, I would rather die here than die in the room a coward, but you ain’t going to die here!” He said triumphantly.
Suddenly he pulled out a small can of spray deodorant and sprayed it in the hound's faces. All three toppled over making loud hacking coughing noises.
“GO!” He yelled and she quickly made her way past the hounds and downstairs.
There were still dozens of stingers down there and she still wasn’t sure what to do. Before she could do anything. RAT-A-TATATATA! All around her, the stingers began exploding as Fred landed shot after shot.
“A little help would be nice!” He yelled.
She quickly pulled out her semi-automatic and started firing as well. RAT-A-TATATATA! The hall began to fill with the exploded bodies of stingers and slugs. Suddenly she heard shuffling behind her and saw the hounds getting up. Without a second thought, she sprinted down the hall and into the kitchen. Standing in the living room was another group of stingers and a hound. How many hounds are there? She thought, then she remembered how many people in their town had two or three hunting dogs. If all of them were changed they’d be a small army.
She ducked behind the island sitting uncomfortably close to Tom’s body. Fred sprinted in a second later and saw what she did. He jumped to the ground and shimmied over to her.
“Crap kid we really are screwed,” Fred said his momentary confidence completely diminished.
Before anyone could do anything the monster that had emerged from the blizzard was attacking Gretchen. In one quick motion, it slashed open her gut and she dropped the gun. I stared outside as my mom tried desperately to fire, but even from this distance, I could see she’d loaded the gun wrong. In an instant, she was on the ground bleeding. I looked over at the shotgun sitting next to me and fired a round through the window at the beast. The window shattered and I saw the creature get hit right solid in the chest, but it didn’t matter much. Like the dog beasts, this one had a thick darkly colored exoskeleton that the round didn’t pierce. The beast looked up from what it was doing and started charging for the house. I fired again but it didn’t even slow the creature it just kept on charging straight towards the house. The boys at some point had caught onto what was going on and started crying and screaming. I tried to get them to quiet down, but they were too distraught. I grabbed the box and loaded two more rounds just as the door was thrown out of its hinges. SCROAR! It charged into the house. BANG! I shot it directly in that face and saw one of its eyes explode. SCROAR!!!! It swung a large two-clawed hand straight across my face throwing me across the room. I landed against a wall and in my weak state I leaned over and felt myself begin to fall. Unfortunately, it had thrown me right next to the basement stairs. Every time I hit a stair only hurt more than the last. At some point, my bandaged left hand slammed into a wooden stair. The pain was so bad I almost passed out. Finally, with one lass unceremonious thud, I landed on the basement floor.
Chloe looked around her hope beginning to fade then her eyes locked with the pantry. The large pantry with a window.
“Follow me,” She whispered as she started crawling for the pantry.
Fred followed close behind. Chloe crawled into the pantry and ducked into it. She peeked out of the doorway and saw that Fred had froze. The four hounds had gathered right behind him. He looked horrified and clearly unsure of what to do. Suddenly with a loud creak, the creeper's head poked into the kitchen and it let out a loud ticking sound. The hounds started screeching and one began to slowly walk towards Fred. RAT-A-TATATATA! She struck the approaching one 9 times in the face and the sudden burst seemed to wake Fred from his fear. RAT-A-TATATATA! Yellow-greenish blood exploded from the approaching hound's mouth and it slammed its head into the wall in pain. Fred turned around and sprinted into the pantry with Chloe closing the door as soon as he was inside.
Instantly sounds of slamming and scratching erupted from the door. Chloe turned to the window in the pantry and slid it open diving out into the snow. Fred quickly followed slamming the window behind him to give them more time.
Chloe sprinted through the snowy evening as quickly as she could Fred trying his best to keep up with her. The man wasn’t exactly in his prime and combine that with him not having snow shoes to be frank Chloe was surprised he was able to stay caught up at all.
As she sprinted down the darkening street getting closer and closer to home she thought she heard a faint Bang! Followed quickly by SCROAR!!!! Her worries suddenly switched from her and Fred to her family. She hadn’t called them in hours and now there was clearly something going on. She sprinted ever faster looking up and realizing she’d already made it onto their street.
As soon as their house was in view she saw the shoveled driveway, but she also saw my mom laying in a pool of her own blood. Along with that, she saw Gretchen weakly trying to get up also bloody. Chloe ran over to Gretchen.
“Gretchen, what happened?” Chloe asked as she helped Gretchen stand.
“Something… something big.” Gretchen sputtered out.
Gretchen had a lost far away look on her face. She almost seemed drunk but Chloe knew that wasn’t the case. Gretchen was likely in shock. SCREAM! Chloe immediately recognized it as one of the boys. She gently sat Gretchen down and then pulled out the rifle. Fred had finally caught up and quickly but carefully Fred and Chloe made their way into the house guns drawn.
They hurried inside and saw the creeper looming over a now-still Alby. Without a second thought, Chloe raised her rifle RAT-A-TATATA! She shot the thing a few times in the back knowing that it probably wouldn’t do any real damage. It turned around and looked at the two of them standing there. The scene was eerie as the still-burning fireplace cast a strange glow on the creeper. Everything seemed to go still for a second the two of them staring at the creeper and the creeper staring right back at them. All three of them trying to make a decision but are not sure what to do. SCROAR! It dives forward slicing at the welding helmet Chloe was wearing and then pinning her to the ground with its four legs. BANG!! His shotgun blast hardly seemed to phase the thing as started digging its claws into Chloe. She let out a scream that I heard loud and clear from the basement.
I’d managed to pull myself halfway up the stairs with my good arm and leg but my energy was running out and I was feeling lightheaded. I had to save her I had to protect her. BANG! I heard another gunshot followed by an unfamiliar scream. I didn’t know at the time that Fred was putting everything he had into trying to protect my wife.
Chloe gunless and pinned down was beginning to accept her fate when she remembered what she’d done last time. She reached for her knife and stabbed one of its feet. SCROAR!! It backed up off of her clearly in pain. Quickly she pulled the sniper rifle off her back and Bang! The bullet went clean through one of the thing's legs. She’d quite literally found the creeper's Achilles heel. It half fell to the ground letting out another roar of pain and agony. Both its front legs were crippled and it lay there defeated. Fred stepped forward ready to put a shotgun blast to the temple when suddenly. The thing reared up onto its two back legs throwing Fred into the wall. It had to hunch a little as the ceiling wasn’t very high but it still was tall. Chloe figured that on two legs without a hunch it was probably 10 feet tall. SCROAR!! Bang! It lunged towards her and she used her first shot to shoot its arm. The bullet embedded into the exoskeleton but didn’t seem to hurt it. The creature stopped for a moment as if to think. Bang! She shot the creature in the belly. The exoskeleton cracked. Bang! The second shot sunk into its stomach and the creature's blood began to leak out. SCROAR! It bashed one of its arms into her. She felt her left shoulder get cut open and the helmet went flying off.
BANG!! BANG! Two shotgun blasts rang out at the exact same time. The first blast was Fred's. It hit the creeper directly in the back of the head causing it to stumble forward. The second was my blast hitting it directly in the face. The two shots managed to hit at the exact perfect times. The creeper collapsed to the ground critically wounded.
Fred ran over to Chloe who was in a daze on the ground.
“Are you alright kid?” He asked helping her up.
“I’ll live,” She said weakly.
The creeper let out a growl from where it lay on the floor. I pointed the shotgun from where I was on the stairs and fired one final blast into its head.
“Chloe who is that?” I asked cautiously.
“Fred,” She said sounding weak.
I crawled the rest of the way up and saw Alby laying near the fireplace motionless. I froze as I felt tears begin to well up in my eyes. Then I looked closer and saw besides a cut on his arm he wasn’t hurt, and better yet it looked like he was breathing.
“Alby!” I yelled trying my best to over to him with my broken body.
He lifted his head and turned it to look at me.
“Is the monster gone?” He asked.
“Yes it’s gone,” I said trying to sound comforting.
“Ba… Babe,” Chloe stammered, now leaning down over me.
Her eyes were locked with mine but she had a horrified expression on her face. I didn’t care and gave her a long tight hug.
“You’re not leaving me again,” I told her.
Finally, I pulled away and looked at her and for a second it was just the two of us and nothing else mattered.
Fred hurried into the house helping Gretchen walk.
“Everyone downstairs now!” He ordered and we all hurried down.
“Alby where’s your brothers?” I asked him as he followed us downstairs.
“They're down here.” He said pointing down the staircase.
“Fred, what’s happening?” Chloe asked the panic-stricken man as we all stepped into the basement.
“More, more of them are coming.” He said a look of fear on his face.
“Well then let's get ready for a fight!” Chloe said, cocking the shotgun she’d taken from me.

Part 3
Day 14

Chloe walked into what had once been the beautiful home of the Garrisons. The room she walked into was the main hall. It was large and square-shaped with a room on both sides and a hall on the other side of the door. In the middle of the room, a large antler chandelier lay in a destroyed twisted mess on the hardwood floor. She looked over at the walls and saw a few small circular holes. Bullet holes. She thought, taking a step closer to get a better look. Herman followed her wagging his tail like nothing was wrong with this situation. She looked down toward the floor and spotted large claw marks on the hardwood floor. Some looked like hound claw marks (she became acquainted enough with the marks to recognize them) but others were much larger. Far too large to be from one of the hounds. After scanning the room for another minute she decided she’d go into the left room first. The left room was a small lounge that seemed unassuming at first glance until she noticed the couch that had been thrown against the wall and the dried blood stains on the walls and carpet. It was human blood and was mostly frozen. She walked across the main hall and into the room on the right. This room was unassuming with very little apart from bookshelves and a small desk. It also seemed relatively undisturbed with little to no damage. She walked down the hall into the main part of the house. This main section had an open-air kitchen/dining room and a large living room. It looked horrible, it was clear a massacre had happened here. Blood was everywhere on the floors, the walls, and even the ceiling in certain spots. Most of the blood was a dark red with occasional splatters of yellow-greenish blood. She saw bits of muscle and tissue in the blood, and all around that was wreckage. Their large 100-inch flat-screen TV lay crushed on the floor. The leather couch was flipped over and ripped in countless places. The fan lay on the floor looking like it had a sledgehammer taken to it. The kitchen was worse though… slumped against the wall was a mostly eaten body. It was essentially just a skeleton with small bits of meat and tendon still clinging on. Despite being absolutely terrified something made her want to get a closer look. She noticed most of the bones were broken if not shattered, and it wasn’t until that point she realized everything below the rib cage was missing. She yelped and looked away. The rest of the kitchen was destroyed with the drawers and cupboards broken, and one section of cupboards laying on the ground with shattered glass all around it. Lastly, the dining room. Another antler chandelier lay destroyed on the ground and the table was leaned over like it had been used as firing cover. She walked over to the dining table only to realize another destroyed body lay behind it. This one looked like it had been thrown around by the look of its breaks. This one only had half a skull with the frontal and parietal bones absent. She looked and saw this was wearing dog tags. She let out a small sob when she saw that. She knew who it had to be. It had to be Timothy Garrison. She and Timothy were the same age and had dated through most of high school. After they graduated they had a mutual break up and she met Joey in college, but she and Timothy remained good friends. He had come to their wedding and he was the one who taught her how to shoot a rifle, and he had been the only person in his family to serve in the military. Herman slowly walked up to the body and started sniffing it. “Get away from him!” She screamed at the dog. She started to sob when her brain seemed to kick back into gear. Pull yourself together and cry later, She told herself. She stood up, wiped the tears off her face, and kept going. She went back over to the kitchen and yanked their fridge open. It was stocked to the brim with meats, fruits, vegetables, and bottles. She restrained her excitement at the sight but still grabbed as much as she could. She filled a duffel bag full of only a portion of the goodies in their fridge then moved on. CREAK! The loud sound interrupted her walk over to the pantry. It came from the wooden ceiling just above her, and whatever it was that caused it sounded large. She froze and listened for more sounds, but after a while of nothing she moved on hoping beyond all hope that it was just a house noise. She and Herman crept over to the pantry and with a quick pull she opened it. The pantry was large and also stocked with food. Most of it was crap that would expire or had already expired, but what excited her was the large sack of potatoes sitting by the door. She grabbed the sack and set it on top of the duffle bag by the fridge. CREAK! This one was louder than the last and sent a chill down her spine. She wasn’t sure whether or not she wanted to run out of the house or go upstairs and investigate. Her head was telling her she should leave but the other part of her so wanted to know what was making that sound. Finally, she made a decision. She’d search the bottom floor then she would go upstairs to check out the noise. CREAK! This one was the quietest so far, coming from below her. The basement, she thought, looking down at the floor. She crept down a hall on the first floor with Herman right behind her. She was following a trail of blood like it was a trail of breadcrumbs. It was a deep crimson red and there was a lot of it. Whoever was bleeding definitely wasn’t alive anymore, she thought. She slowly followed the trail up to a white door which was now half covered in blood. Shakily she reached for the blood-covered knob and pulled the door open. It was the basement staircase but she looked at the way the blood had puddled and it told a story. They had hurried halfway down the stairs before something knocked them down to the bottom. There they are killed and then dragged into another section of the basement. She slowly walked down the stairs watching each step carefully until finally, her boot made contact with the linoleum floor. Meanwhile… I sat messing with and poking at the satellite phone trying to see why it wouldn’t send a call through. I’d looked through the manual and popped it open to see if anything had broken, but it was perfectly fine. I angrily smacked the phone against the coach, but still, nothing happened. At last, I set the phone down in defeat hoping Chloe was ok. I turned from the couch to the window and saw Gretchen and Mom still busy with the shoveling. For the amount of snow on the driveway they’d made good work. Almost half of the driveway was clear of snow and covered in salt. I watched on for a while before I heard a little beep. I looked over and saw the little screen of the satellite phone was showing an empty battery. I smacked my palm into my forehead annoyed by my stupidity. “Hey Alby, can you get me some batteries?” I asked, looking over at him. He nodded and disappeared into the kitchen a minute or two later he came back out holding the box of batteries. “Thank you!” I said taking the box and quickly popping two new batteries in. The basement was dark, very dark. Chloe could hardly see a thing, but she had thought of this scenario and pulled a flashlight from one of her pockets. Ca-Click! The thin beam of the flashlight kicked on. She was expecting to see the light illuminate the wall on the other side of the room or maybe a piece of furniture. But it illuminated a wall of webs. She saw through the webs at least a dozen cocoons far more than just the Garrison family. But even worse she saw dozens and dozens of stingers. They’d made the basement into a nest. Bzzz… The satellite phone continued to buzz and an uproar began to grow around her. Herman let out a growl and looked ready to pounce. Chloe in a hurry grabbed Herman’s collar and started running upstairs with him. The basement became full of the sound of screeches and she heard something big started moving down there. She sprinted as quickly as she could, making it to the top of the stairs and turning around to see at least a dozen stingers following her. Rat-a-tatatatatat!! She shot a barrage of bullets down at the stingers hitting most of them. Then something big appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Two things actually. Two hounds. She yelped and then slammed the door shut. She looked around quickly for something to barricade the door. Her eyes met a small dresser in a bedroom near the door. She pulled it out and shoved it against the door. CRACK! It came from the other side of the door and was quickly followed by a loud slam. She grabbed the still-growling Herman and started pulling him along with her. After a minute he started walking by her side and she let him go. Suddenly she remembered the walkie and pressed the button. “Joey… Joey, I'm here!” She yelled half excited and half still terrified. I let out a sigh of relief; “Did you check out the Garrisons already?” He asked. “Sort of… I’m still over there,” She explained. She thought about telling me what she’d encountered but didn’t want to overly worry me. Plus recounting that day's events would just make things worse for her, not better. “Ok, just be safe. I love you,” I told her. “Love you too,” She said. Bzzz… She sat in the kitchen near her bags thinking for a minute. Since the crash, she hadn’t heard a thing from the basement door which made her start to suspect that the stairs had collapsed. Her curiosity had gotten desperate and she now felt like she had to check what was upstairs. She would never forgive herself if someone was still alive up there and died because she didn’t go and help them. She slowly crept upstairs, her rifle trained and Herman at her side. The Garrison's house was set on a hill in such a way that the second floor was larger than the first. The second floor was made up of four halls that made a square with rooms within and outside of that square. The spiral stairs entered a corner of the square. Chloe reached the top stair and looked down the halls. Both were wrecked like upstairs but down one of the adjoining halls a body lay on the floor, or what was left of a body. She slowly walked over and saw this was by far the worst body she’d seen so far. This one looked like it had been eaten similarly to Carl. The sternum and ribs were shattered and the spine was broken, but this one was worse. The bones were covered in bites and scratches, but worst of all the splatters around the body were immense; the person had likely struggled while they were being eaten alive. Chloe shivered at the thought and could only hope that they didn’t suffer long. She stepped away from the body and got a better look around her. Apart from the body and the blood around it, there wasn’t much sign of death up there, but it still looked awful. Just like downstairs, the walls were covered in gashes and holes, and Chloe was becoming very surprised that they didn’t hear any of these gunshots. CREAK! She looked down the hall where it had come from. For a brief second, she saw something at the end of the dark hall then it disappeared. It was only then that she noticed how dark it was up there, because of the houses set up there were no windows in the hall and the power had been out for days. She pulled out her flashlight Ca-Click! The narrow beam popped on and barely illuminated the end of the hall, but as she had thought whatever was there was gone now. She started to go about the search process methodically slowly going down the hall checking a room on the inside of the hall and then on the outside. The first room she poked her head into was a girl’s bedroom. It was decorated with a wallpaper of pink flowers and a small bed with pink covers. It was the stereotype of a little girl’s room. She noticed the covers were disheveled and a few things were knocked over. It looked like something had happened in the room but she wasn’t sure what. She stepped out of the room and moved on to the next and the next. They were both similar with a similar disheveled nature. She started to realize whatever had happened it had woken them all up. She tried to push the last door in the hall open but it wouldn’t budge. She continued up to the corner where she’d seen the thing. Multiple things then happened at once. She saw something massive lurking in the hall she began to turn down, she heard a creak behind her, Herman barked, and screeches began coming from downstairs sounding like the things had finally escaped the basement. Before she could stop Herman he started making a charge for the thing growling and barking. Chloe made a move after him but a gloved hand grabbed her and then covered her mouth. She watched Herman lung towards the thing then SLAM! It whacked Herman mid-air sending the dog flying back down the hall. He landed with a crash right next to her, a large bloody slash across his body. SCROAR! The sound came from the massive beast and nearly shattered her eardrums, and for one brief second, she raised the flashlight from Herman to the creature. She didn’t see much but that was enough. She saw its face. It had four disturbing brown eyes, they were eyes she recognized. Those eyes… Those were the eyes of Mrs. Garrison. She gasped in horror through the gloved hand and she heard the person holding her let out a slight sob. The rest of its face wasn’t any better. Its top of head and forehead were all one bony plate. Its mouth was a black hole of teeth, and like the hounds, its lower jaw split into two mandibles. The back of its head had strange thin attachments that reminded her of the gills on an axolotl's head. Then in an instant, a few more things happened. The person holding her made a move for a door, the monster made a move for them, and the slamming footsteps of the hounds as they sprinted up the spiral staircase. “Get in,” The person said, letting go of her and opening the door. She turned around and saw the person who’d grabbed her and saw Fred Garrison standing next to the open door. “NOW!” He yelled, grabbing her and pulling her into the room. Fred hurried inside after her and quickly slid a fridge against the door. Seconds later angry screeches and slams rang out from the other side. They sounded like the hounds, not the big ones. Then she caught one other sound in the chaos, a wine. Oh gosh, Herman is still alive, She thought. Fred stood by the door shotgun in hand while the slamming and screeching continued. She stood there and listened as they continuously tried to get in. Suddenly she heard Herman let out a growl, seconds later one of the hounds shrieked like they were in pain. CRUNCH! The sounds of Herman’s attack stopped and were replaced with sounds of meat ripping. Chloe let out a small sob with her only comfort being that the crunch was likely Herman’s neck breaking. Fred stepped away from the door and looked at her. He did not look like the man she remembered him as. His hair and beard looked like large rose bushes that were never cut. His blue eyes looked depressed like there was nothing there but sadness. Then she noticed a large bandage on his left arm. It looked like the whole arm had gotten cut open at some point. Then her eyes wandered around the room. It was a small shop/man cave room. There were a few guns on the table, but more importantly, she noticed lit candles everywhere. “I… I… I’m sorry,” He said with tears in his eyes. She let down a quiet sob and Fred walked over helping her find a seat on the couch. After a minute of crying with Fred awkwardly trying to comfort her, she pulled herself together and looked up at the man. “What happened?” She asked. The man's face changed and she saw tears build up in his eyes; “A massacre,” He said grimly. Then he followed with his story: “It happened around the fifth day I think. It was late and Jess and I were watching TV in the living room. Tim, Tom, Bart, and Gerry were chatting at the dinner table. Tom's wife and my four daughters were upstairs in bed. Everything was quiet and peaceful when suddenly my two dogs started barking outside. Now I know sometimes they’ll bark at dogs but this wasn’t that type of barking. This was get the heck away from me or I’ll kill you type barking. Then I started hearing weird screeching noises and at that point, I went over to the backdoor to check out the problem. I saw a bunch of massive spiders outside trying to attack my dogs, except they weren’t really spiders. Some of them had stingers and others kinda looked like slugs with spider legs. They’d stung one of my dogs a bunch and she was lying on the ground, the other was trying to stand her ground but it was a losing battle. I pulled at my revolver and started shooting at them. They were really fast. I think only one or two shots actually hit them. They started running over to me. One ran right in between my legs and a few of them tried to attack me. I shot those ones and turned around to try and stop the one that had gotten in, but it was already running havoc in the kitchen. My sons were chasing it, but they weren’t having the best of luck. Suddenly there was a crash, more spiders jumped through the now shattered windows, and something was banging on the front door. In an instant, the door was knocked off its hinges and one of those creeper things came through the door…” Chloe interrupted him with: “I’m sorry but what are “those creeper things?”” “The… the big ones. The type that got your dog.” He explained. “Anyways… it came running into the house, and before any of us could stop it. It threw Tom across the kitchen and into the wall. I came running to help him but that’s when it slashed my arm and threw me into the TV. The TV fell on top of me and then one of those spiders ran over and stung me in the thigh. I lay there with my eyes beginning to grow heavy. I saw Gerry, Tim, and Bart using the table as the shield. All three were hunched behind the table as the creeper began eating Tom. In a quick move, all three made a run for it. As they were running the creeper pounced and threw Tim into the table. Then it slashed Bart across the chest. Gerry managed to maneuver the creature and hurried over to help me. Bart ran down the hall to the basement and me and Gerry started hurrying upstairs. At some point, I blacked out and woke up here. Everyone was gone.” He finished with a somber look on his face. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry.” She said looking at him. “And somehow they turned my beloved Jess into one of those.” He said motioning to outside where the Creeper had been. 

She stopped to listen and realized that she couldn’t hear the hounds anymore.
“Are they gone?” She asked, looking over at Fred.
“Probably, they eat fast for their size,” Fred said grimly.
They sat there again awkwardly before Chloe asked, “What are all the candles for anyway?”
“Well I started lighting them for warmth, but I realized those things don’t seem to like them. Especially the scented ones.” He explained.
She took a whiff of the air and realized how strong the scents were in the room. It almost gave her a headache smelling them.
“So why were you here anyway?” He asked.
She got a little nervous. She felt like a little kid in trouble with her parents. She didn’t want to tell the truth because she worried it would anger him.
“We were running out of supplies.” She said simply.
Her thoughts turned back towards me as she sat there.
I sat on the couch still watching them work. They were about two-thirds done now, but they were starting to really tire and it was getting late. It had started to darken and I knew soon night would fall, and I just hoped she would make it home before nightfall. I’d tried to call her again, but this time it would ring but not go through. I started to wonder if hers had run out of battery. Bang! I immediately turned to the window in a panic. I saw Gretchen standing holding the rifle a few feet away straight down the barrel as a dead stinger. I let out a sigh of relief and turned back toward the phone in my lap. I hope you’re an ok babe.
“Fred, we have a plan. Come with me, don’t stay here, you'll die,” Chloe pleaded.
“Maybe I want to die.” He said, “Look I’m not stopping you from leaving but I’m not going.”
“Well if I go alone I’ll die, please my family needs me,” She said desperately.
Memories of his family flooded through Fred’s mind. He remembered how he felt when his first kids, Tom and Tim, were born. She hadn’t even had a kid, and suddenly he found himself doing something he didn’t think he’d be doing.
“Fine, let's go send those things back to hell!” He yelled pushing the fridge out of the way.
“Follow my lead,” He ordered turning around to her.
Then he cocked his shotgun and slammed the door open. As he had suspected the hounds and creeper were both gone, but lying on the floor next to the door were two bodies. One was the sprawled-out body of a now-deceased hound. Its neck was broken in multiple places and its yellow-greenish blood was everywhere around it. The other body was ripped off most of its flesh, but she knew who it had belonged to. Herman wasn’t going to sit there and bleed out so he must’ve lunged for one of the hounds nailing it in the perfect spot on the neck killing it. Then the other hound quickly retaliated by feasting on the dying Herman, or maybe it was the creeper she wasn’t sure which one actually ate him. But what she did know was that the skeletal remains of Herman on top of the hound had its teeth in the hound's neck.
Chloe let out a small sob and in barely a whisper said: “You were such a good boy, but you can rest now.”
She reached down and picked up a ripped piece of leather near the bodies. It was what remained of Herman’s collar. She stuff the piece into her pocket and looked over at Fred. Fred had tears in his eyes as he saw the corpse of Gerry just down the hall.
“H… He was only 15,” Fred cried as he got a better look at the scene.
Chloe stood there unsure of what to do or say because Fred looked like he was about to have a meltdown. Then his sad face turned to one of anger. She moved the flashlight past the body and down to the corner and the staircase. Lurking next to the staircase its brown eyes glowing in the light was the creeper. It was guarding the stairs and most likely wasn’t going to let them leave for as long as it lived. Her curiosity was getting the better of her so she turned a dial on the flashlight to make it brighter. She wished she could go back and stop herself. Stop herself so she didn’t have to see the horror that was the creeper. Her first interpretation of the face was fairly accurate except for one part. Inside its gaping maw behind the mandibles almost looked like a separate set of jaws. The second set was much more human-like and looked ready to shred any meat to bits, but its head was nothing compared to the body it sat upon. It appeared to have six limbs, two very long front arms with two large claws at the end, and two more arms that attached to roughly where pectoral muscles would normally be. These arms were much shorter than the previous set. It had two back legs that appeared to be quadruple-jointed. It had the normal heel and knee joints, but it had one additional joint in the foot. Despite this the legs looked vaguely dogfish, but not nearly as those of the hounds. Coming out where the tail should be was a large thorax with two nasty stingers on the end. The thorax was curved like that of a wasp ready to strike when necessary. It almost looked like it had a shell of exoskeleton on its back and thorax, and spouting out of the thicker plates were large needle-like spikes.
It let out a demonic shriek as soon as the light brightened. It ducked out of sight and started making a loud clicking noise. Chloe and Fred kept their guns trained on where it had disappeared ready for it to come out charging, but unfortunately, they underestimated it. It made a loud ticking sound followed by CREAK! Before Chloe could even turn the hound that had crept from behind had her pinned to the ground and was bitting and slashing at her back. BANG!!!! BANG!!!! Fred had lowered his shotgun to its head. The first blast blew out two of its eyes and shattered part of its exoskeleton, and the second blast dug through the broken exoskeleton into the brain. The hound collapsed dead and with his gun pointed at where the creeper had been Fred helped push the body off of her.
Chloe got up a little shaken but relatively ok. She started guarding back while he guarded the front as they slowly made their way towards the stairs. Any second they were expecting the creeper to appear from around the corner, but it didn’t. The creeper was planning something again but they didn’t know what. Just as they made it to the stairs they turned down the other hall, but saw nothing. The creeper had likely walked into one of the rooms and was waiting, but they weren’t there to explore. They hurried down the spiral staircase, but just as they got to the bottom they saw the place was still swarming with stingers, slugs, and 3 hounds. A loud ticking sound came from upstairs and the three hounds charged towards them. They started running back upstairs only to see the creeper now lurking at the top of them. Cornered in the middle of the stairs back to back with each other they began to accept their fate.
I started to really worry about where Chloe was I hadn’t heard from her in a while and it was getting late. I sat there trying to call her every few minutes but it would not pick up. BANG! I dropped the phone and turned to the window. Gretchen stood there with the rifle pointed at something off in the snow, but I couldn’t see what the thing was. BANG! I saw for a brief millisecond the bullet flying into the blizzard then nothing. BANG! I tried to pull myself up to see what it was, but searing pain went through my body when I tried. I looked out again and saw something massive emerge from the blizzard charging for Gretchen.
“I’m sorry we should’ve stayed up there,” Chloe cried as the hounds slowly stepped closer.
“Kid, I would rather die here than die in the room a coward, but you ain’t going to die here!” He said triumphantly.

Suddenly he pulled out a small can of spray deodorant and sprayed it in the hound's faces. All three toppled over making loud hacking coughing noises. “GO!” He yelled and she quickly made her way past the hounds and downstairs. There were still dozens of stingers down there and she still wasn’t sure what to do. Before she could do anything. RAT-A-TATATATA! All around her, the stingers began exploding as Fred landed shot after shot. “A little help would be nice!” He yelled. She quickly pulled out her semi-automatic and started firing as well. RAT-A-TATATATA! The hall began to fill with the exploded bodies of stingers and slugs. Suddenly she heard shuffling behind her and saw the hounds getting up. Without a second thought, she sprinted down the hall and into the kitchen. Standing in the living room was another group of stingers and a hound. How many hounds are there? She thought, then she remembered how many people in their town had two or three hunting dogs. If all of them were changed they’d be a small army. She ducked behind the island sitting uncomfortably close to Tom’s body. Fred sprinted in a second later and saw what she did. He jumped to the ground and shimmied over to her. “Crap kid we really are screwed,” Fred said his momentary confidence completely diminished. Before anyone could do anything the monster that had emerged from the blizzard was attacking Gretchen. In one quick motion, it slashed open her gut and she dropped the gun. I stared outside as my mom tried desperately to fire, but even from this distance, I could see she’d loaded the gun wrong. In an instant, she was on the ground bleeding. I looked over at the shotgun sitting next to me and fired a round through the window at the beast. The window shattered and I saw the creature get hit right solid in the chest, but it didn’t matter much. Like the dog beasts, this one had a thick darkly colored exoskeleton that the round didn’t pierce. The beast looked up from what it was doing and started charging for the house. I fired again but it didn’t even slow the creature it just kept on charging straight towards the house. The boys at some point had caught onto what was going on and started crying and screaming. I tried to get them to quiet down, but they were too distraught. I grabbed the box and loaded two more rounds just as the door was thrown out of its hinges. SCROAR! It charged into the house. BANG! I shot it directly in that face and saw one of its eyes explode. SCROAR!!!! It swung a large two-clawed hand straight across my face throwing me across the room. I landed against a wall and in my weak state I leaned over and felt myself begin to fall. Unfortunately, it had thrown me right next to the basement stairs. Every time I hit a stair only hurt more than the last. At some point, my bandaged left hand slammed into a wooden stair. The pain was so bad I almost passed out. Finally, with one lass unceremonious thud, I landed on the basement floor. 

Chloe looked around her hope beginning to fade then her eyes locked with the pantry. The large pantry with a window.

“Follow me,” She whispered as she started crawling for the pantry. Fred followed close behind. Chloe crawled into the pantry and ducked into it. She peeked out of the doorway and saw that Fred had froze. The four hounds had gathered right behind him. He looked horrified and clearly unsure of what to do. Suddenly with a loud creak, the creeper's head poked into the kitchen and it let out a loud ticking sound. The hounds started screeching and one began to slowly walk towards Fred. RAT-A-TATATATA! She struck the approaching one 9 times in the face and the sudden burst seemed to wake Fred from his fear. RAT-A-TATATATA! Yellow-greenish blood exploded from the approaching hound's mouth and it slammed its head into the wall in pain. Fred turned around and sprinted into the pantry with Chloe closing the door as soon as he was inside. Instantly sounds of slamming and scratching erupted from the door. Chloe turned to the window in the pantry and slid it open diving out into the snow. Fred quickly followed slamming the window behind him to give them more time. Chloe sprinted through the snowy evening as quickly as she could Fred trying his best to keep up with her. The man wasn’t exactly in his prime and combine that with him not having snow shoes to be frank Chloe was surprised he was able to stay caught up at all. As she sprinted down the darkening street getting closer and closer to home she thought she heard a faint Bang! Followed quickly by SCROAR!!!! Her worries suddenly switched from her and Fred to her family. She hadn’t called them in hours and now there was clearly something going on. She sprinted ever faster looking up and realizing she’d already made it onto their street. As soon as their house was in view she saw the shoveled driveway, but she also saw my mom laying in a pool of her own blood. Along with that, she saw Gretchen weakly trying to get up also bloody. Chloe ran over to Gretchen. “Gretchen, what happened?” Chloe asked as she helped Gretchen stand. “Something… something big.” Gretchen sputtered out. Gretchen had a lost far away look on her face. She almost seemed drunk but Chloe knew that wasn’t the case. Gretchen was likely in shock. SCREAM! Chloe immediately recognized it as one of the boys. She gently sat Gretchen down and then pulled out the rifle. Fred had finally caught up and quickly but carefully Fred and Chloe made their way into the house guns drawn. They hurried inside and saw the creeper looming over a now-still Alby. Without a second thought, Chloe raised her rifle RAT-A-TATATA! She shot the thing a few times in the back knowing that it probably wouldn’t do any real damage. It turned around and looked at the two of them standing there. The scene was eerie as the still-burning fireplace cast a strange glow on the creeper. Everything seemed to go still for a second the two of them staring at the creeper and the creeper staring right back at them. All three of them trying to make a decision but are not sure what to do. SCROAR! It dives forward slicing at the welding helmet Chloe was wearing and then pinning her to the ground with its four legs. BANG!! His shotgun blast hardly seemed to phase the thing as started digging its claws into Chloe. She let out a scream that I heard loud and clear from the basement. 

I’d managed to pull myself halfway up the stairs with my good arm and leg but my energy was running out and I was feeling lightheaded. I had to save her I had to protect her. BANG! I heard another gunshot followed by an unfamiliar scream. I didn’t know at the time that Fred was putting everything he had into trying to protect my wife.
Chloe gunless and pinned down was beginning to accept her fate when she remembered what she’d done last time. She reached for her knife and stabbed one of its feet. SCROAR!! It backed up off of her clearly in pain. Quickly she pulled the sniper rifle off her back and Bang! The bullet went clean through one of the thing's legs. She’d quite literally found the creeper's Achilles heel. It half fell to the ground letting out another roar of pain and agony. Both its front legs were crippled and it lay there defeated. Fred stepped forward ready to put a shotgun blast to the temple when suddenly. The thing reared up onto its two back legs throwing Fred into the wall. It had to hunch a little as the ceiling wasn’t very high but it still was tall. Chloe figured that on two legs without a hunch it was probably 10 feet tall. SCROAR!! Bang! It lunged towards her and she used her first shot to shoot its arm. The bullet embedded into the exoskeleton but didn’t seem to hurt it. The creature stopped for a moment as if to think. Bang! She shot the creature in the belly. The exoskeleton cracked. Bang! The second shot sunk into its stomach and the creature's blood began to leak out. SCROAR! It bashed one of its arms into her. She felt her left shoulder get cut open and the helmet went flying off.
BANG!! BANG! Two shotgun blasts rang out at the exact same time. The first blast was Fred's. It hit the creeper directly in the back of the head causing it to stumble forward. The second was my blast hitting it directly in the face. The two shots managed to hit at the exact perfect times. The creeper collapsed to the ground critically wounded.

Fred ran over to Chloe who was in a daze on the ground. “Are you alright kid?” He asked helping her up. “I’ll live,” She said weakly. The creeper let out a growl from where it lay on the floor. I pointed the shotgun from where I was on the stairs and fired one final blast into its head. “Chloe who is that?” I asked cautiously. “Fred,” She said sounding weak. I crawled the rest of the way up and saw Alby laying near the fireplace motionless. I froze as I felt tears begin to well up in my eyes. Then I looked closer and saw besides a cut on his arm he wasn’t hurt, and better yet it looked like he was breathing. “Alby!” I yelled trying my best to over to him with my broken body. He lifted his head and turned it to look at me. “Is the monster gone?” He asked. “Yes it’s gone,” I said trying to sound comforting. “Ba… Babe,” Chloe stammered, now leaning down over me. Her eyes were locked with mine but she had a horrified expression on her face. I didn’t care and gave her a long tight hug. “You’re not leaving me again,” I told her. Finally, I pulled away and looked at her and for a second it was just the two of us and nothing else mattered. Fred hurried into the house helping Gretchen walk. “Everyone downstairs now!” He ordered and we all hurried down. “Alby where’s your brothers?” I asked him as he followed us downstairs. “They're down here.” He said pointing down the staircase. “Fred, what’s happening?” Chloe asked the panic-stricken man as we all stepped into the basement. “More, more of them are coming.” He said a look of fear on his face. “Well then let's get ready for a fight!” Chloe said, cocking the shotgun she’d taken from me. 

Hey there! Part 3 had finally been finalized! Please enjoy! _______________________________________ Sam snaps his head in the direction of the crying sound, it's one of Mary's foals, she pushed one off of her bed! And she is standing over it, with one of her hooves raised high, "Ou no am pwetty nouf for mawy! Gon gib babbeh wostest stompies!" That's all Sam needed to hear, sprinting towards Mary and that green foal with no remorse for whatever dare lay in his path. Sam's barreling toward Mary startled her, causing her to scream and shit herself all over her foals, "NO! BABBEHS SAB MUMMAH FWOM SCAWY NOISES!!!" But her foals could only squirm and wiggles at the fact that their own mother shit all over them to hear her cries for help.
Sam snatches Mary and roughly yanks her up by her scruff, his hair in a mess due to how fast he ran across the relatively small safe room, "MARY!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!!!" Sam shouted, fueled with rage at this display of awful parenting, "No wedgie babbeh no was pwetty nouf for mawy, so mawy was gon gib bad no wedgie babbeh wostest stompies!" She clearly doesn't understand what she did wrong, despite her being taught how to treat different kinds of babies. "MARY! THAT IS NOT HOW YOU TREAT YOUR BABIES! I TAUGHT YOU TO TREAT ALL OF YOUR FOALS EAUALLY REGARDLESS OF WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE! AND THIS IS THE FIRST FUCKING THING YOU DO?!" Sam shouts once again, his anger not being quelled in the slightest bit "But mawy do what daddeh say, mawy tweat aw babbehs da samsies" "CLEARLY FUCKING NOT!!!" Sam continued, bu by this point Sam had already had enough of Mary's BS. She was so good at remembering what to do with different kinds of foals, so why is she treating this one differently? The question flew around Sam's head before the cheeping of Mary's foals brought him back down to earth, "CHEEP PEEP! CHIRP CHEEP! PEEEP!" the foals cried, begging to be cleansed from their mothers excrement. Realizing that Sam would have to figure the foals issue later, he had to punish Mary, and he had to do it now.
"Mary, because of the act you just put on. Not only are you not going to see your foals for the rest of the day, you are also NOT GOING TO EAT DINNER TONIGHT, AND YOU ARE GOING IN THE SORRY BOX FOR THE REST OF THE DAY!!" Sam spouted, asserting his authority as man of the house. The fact that Mary wouldn't be able to see her foals, not be able to eat dinner and go in the sorry box was just to much for her to handle, and she just began sobbing loudly. Like a toddler throwing a tantrum loud, "HUUUUHUUUUU!!! MAWY SOWWY MAWY SOWWWY!!! PWEASE NO SOWWY BOXIE PWEASE!!! BABBEHS NEED MUMMAH! BESTEST BABBEH NEED MUMMAH!!!!" Sam having heard Mary mention 'bestest babbeh' gave Sam the opportunity to do what was needed to get a point across, "Mary, do you remember what I told you about bestest babies?" That query alone brought Mary back to her senses, "WAIT, DADDEH PWEASE SAB BESTEST BABBEH FWOM MUMSTAH!! BESTEST BABBEH NO AM NUMMIES!" Mary began pleading, knowing what happens when a foal is called 'bestest', it makes the monster hungry.
"Well Mary, you should have thought about that before picking favorites" Sam responded, taking her into the bathroom with the sorry box in tow, dropping Mary into the box, and putting the box into the tub, incase she decided to try and piss and shit her way out of the box. "DADDEH PWEASE SABE BESTEST FWOM MUNSTAH!! PWEASE!!" Mary continued to plead through her tears, but Sam only reminded her, "The more you call it 'bestes' the hungrier the monster becomes" and turned off the bathroom light and slammed the door shut.
Sally having watched all this was most certainly a sight for her, she had never seen daddeh so mad before! She knew that Mary did something wrong, but didn't know what, so in her infinite wisdom, she investigated. Wadleing over to Mary's bed she saw, babbehs! Bebbehs covered in poopies! That must've been what Mary did wrong! But, why was this green babbeh not covered in poopies? And why did this babbeh only have 1 weggie? These circumstances perplexed Sally but she had to act quick if she wanted to help daddeh, so she gathered up all of the babbehs, and began to clean them of their poopies. The babnehs cried and cried, cheeping and peeping away, Squirming around trying to clean themselves, getting shit all over the bed, that and the fact the poopies Sally was giving Wickie cweanies tasted VERY no pwetty, but she had to help daddeh, she had to! After cleaning all of the babbehs until they no longer had the no pwetty poopies all over them she grabbed them and stuck them in her fluff, their crying finally ceasing, except for the green one with only 1 weggie, weird.
Sam finally made it back to the safe room after getting his thoughts together and how he should punish Mary, but that would come later, right now he has to figure out if the foal Mary pushed off of her bed was hurt. Coming into view of the safe room he saw 2 things; 1) Annie and her foals somehow slept through all of that noise 2) Sally had all of Mary's foals cleaned and stuck in her fluff, the one that Mary pushed still crying and squirming. "Sally girl, did you clean Mary's foals?" "Yes daddeh, sawwy gib babbehs wicke cweanies to hewp daddeh cuz sawwy no wan see daddeh angwy" Sally clearly had no motive other than to help Sam, that much was clear. So maybe could do a little more... "Hey Sally, can you help daddy bring Mary's babies into the kitchen so they can have som milk? Mary's going to be in the sorry box for the rest of the day and I don't want Annie to have to feed more foals. Do you think you can do that for daddy?" Sam knew she would say yes, but he didn't want to make it sound like a demand. Sally would be a big help in controlling Mary's foals. "Ob couwse daddeh! Sally wiw hewp daddeh wit anyting!" Sally responded, eager to help.
And with that Sam scooped the crying green foal that Mary pushed and he headed dor the kitchen with Sally on his trail. He needed to see if anything on the foal was broken.
Sitting at the kitchen table, Sam laid the crying green foal out and finally got a look at it, the only leg it had is the front left leg, the other 3 aren't present on the foal. Carefully rubbing the foal to see If it would cry louder to certain areas to signal something hurt, which it didn't. So that had to mean that the poor thing is hungry, probably got no milk before Mary pushed him. Grabbing the foal formula from the fridge and turning it luke warm in the microwave and gave it to the foal, it greedily suckled at the bottle, it's only leg trying to find something to latch on to. Once it had finished drinking it gave out a burp and quickly put itself to bed, curling up in Sam's palm. Sam gave Sally the foal and repeated the process with the others and once done, he took the pink foal and told Sally to go back to the safe room and try to get some sleep. She obliged and headed back while Sam went to his garage, foal in hand, suckling on its own hoof.
Once Sam got into his garage he put the foal down and grabbed thumbtacks and a tape recorder. Sam grabbed one of the foals legs, hit record on the player, grabbed a thumbtack
And,
And,
And,
He couldn't do it. Stopping the tape and putting the tack away Sam knew he shouldn't punish the pink foal, it didn't know any better, why should it have to suffer for its mothers mistakes? So, with a heavy heart Sam grabbed his car keys, got in his car and drove to the fluffmart, pink foal in tow.
When Sam arrived and walked in, he noticed and absolutely DOMMY MOMMY looking lady at the counter, buying an excessive amount of glue traps, .aybe she had a micro infestation and didn't want to call an exterminator? Regardless as she passed Sam she gave the pink foal a death glare, and walked out. With the line now gone Sam walked up to the lady behind the counter, "excuse me miss, do you take foals?" Sam asked, attempting to show the pink foal, now reluctant after being given a mk8 luigi deathstare. "Of course sir, and I suspect this is the one tou dropping off?" She replied, eager to see a new member to her product line "Yea, I'm also here to see if you guys have fake patches of pink foal fur, do you guys have that?" The lady behind the desk saw Sam's akward smile and she knew everything he had gone throught in the last couple hours, "Of course sir, would you also like recordings of foals being tourtered? I assume you are punishing a mare?" Having read Sam like a book, he quietly shakes his head and the lady scoops the foal and heads to the back of the store.
A few minutes go by before she comes back with the foal fur and recordings, letting Sam know that the foal he just brought wasn't used for these products. Sam knew that, as he saw the lady put the foal in the cages they have at the side of the store, in the cage of 'orphaned foals'. So Sam played along, and thanked her for the reassurance.
Sam got home and began unpacking his things, he had a lot to due in such a short window tomorrow.
_______________________________________ and so there you have it! Part 3 of my story and part 4 will most likely be the end of the story and it might be the shortest part. (My next story is 'connected' to this one so see if you can't find it) Anyways part 3 went throught 2 rewrites and I'm not sure if this Is the best one but this is the one I went with. Have a great day and I'll see you at part 4!

Special thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for allowing fanfiction and giving us Tilfish. The man gave us a canon art of the bugs, and they're rad!
Also, sorry for the wait. Work was murder. As always, if you see something funky or not canon with my work, let me know. I appreciate constructive criticism.
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.*~*.
Memory Transcription Subject: Marullo, Tilfish agricultural practitioner.
Date: December 2, 2136
.~*~.
We did not talk about Muttart's deviant behavior to anyone else. Tugal had made it absolute that not a buzz would be ushered against him, and Holywood had agreed immediately. So had I. There was something in his eyes that spoke volumes over everything he stated. He was scared of the correctional facilities. I couldn't imagine why, but he feared them more so than the predators that had tainted our refuge. I trusted my brother. He'd endured several Arxur invasions, and if his judgment felt that something was amiss, then I would follow it even if I didn't understand it.
In order to keep Muttart away from Cleo and her friends' questions, Holywood had taken the brunt of the following blame and attention when the rest of our group emerged from the shadows. In between turns scrubbing walls and floors she accepted her berating in stride, and I firmly believed by the end of it that she understood her catastrophic mistake and just how close we'd come to being destroyed.
Despite the close call, there was some admiration among the group towards her. It took a certain level of bravery to resist the predators so openly, and she'd done it in a way that didn't put anybody under the ire of our hunters. Little reminders to the public to stay safe and remain aware against the threat was brilliant.
Remain unconquerable.
And naturally, since she was the only one to really go outside and see what the rest of the world looked like in person, questions were asked. Clusters of them, relentless and probing.
We found it hard to believe that the predators feared us, but Holywood hadn't conceded that point despite how laughable it sounded. Seeing the one that had been trampled was hard to dispute, and once Tugal asked his network similar, hesitant observations came back. How could predators feel fear? Especially of us? Nobody knew. Several scholarly members that had books on predators were just as clueless, despite looking through well respected Federation studies and even less public experiments on the matter. It would suggest that these predators were completely different than the Arxur.
Tugal had called the scholar an idiot openly over the entire network for that conclusion. Honestly, if that guy was who we were going to for advice, then we were going to have to rely on ourselves to figure this one out.
The predators had been saying from day one that they meant no harm, and after every piece of propaganda and video that emerged from the Cradle, the summit, and their world's destruction, it was the only pillar that they stood on. We're different. We want to be friends. We don't want to hurt you.
So many worlds and colonies, wiped out. It was baffling that so much harm could occur in so little time. More so that so many species believed them. While I had looked at the studies the Venlil and later Zurulians had produced, I had believed that it was fabricated or extorted out of them. These humans were protected by the Arxur, for Formi's sake! How could anyone see their rampant destruction and linked claws and see something other than efficient monsters?
But they can feel more than what the academic studies suggested in the past. They feel fear. They're emotional predators. Pack creatures. How much of those studies were true? Is that how they passed the tests? How they got to be space fairing without uplifting?
My antennae twitch in tired irritation. I can't be thinking like that. The predators occupying our planet and colonies were brutally invasive things. Manipulating at every second. Give them an inch, and they take a whole hill.
What if they're afraid of us because they see that we were fixed.
Nausea makes me cover my eyes. Cilany's broadcast had been... dreadful. That one wasn't propaganda, it had come out before the Harchen had surrendered. Before we surrendered. It was real. We were predators, once. Predators. If it was more propaganda, it had worked in isolating us. In days, our entire species was abandoned.
But, it wasn't propaganda. The Kolshians hadn't denied it, and it forced our hand. Predators had no place in this universe, and neither did we. Even if we'd been fixed. Even if we'd been contributing for centuries. We had been tainted all along. Our loyalty didn't matter anymore, and nobody knew what was going to happen to us now that our nature was known to the entire galaxy. We knew the humans were coming before the surrender came. Deep down I understood why. Without the Federation, we couldn't hold them off.
We're stuck under their rule now. Without them, we'd still be alone. An easy target for our trigger happy neighbors or the Arxur. Maybe they won't eat us after all, knowing we were the same once. Or maybe they're afraid the cure is contagious and still in our blood.
What's it matter? While they act better than the Arxur, they're still predators.
Like me?
I groaned and batted at my antennae in frustration. I was going to go insane before the day even began if I didn't get up now. Holywood had broke the news to me that part of the shipping district had gone up in smoke during the initial panic. The very part of the district that used to house several storage facilities worth of perishable goods. Why nobody had contacted me over a looming shortage of that magnitude was beyond me, and I was going to need to figure it out in short order or my people might just be forced to revert back to our monstrous past.
The thought alone gets me up out of bed, and I almost staggered right into Cleo as I leave.
"'Bout time you got up." She chittered slowly, and I realized she must have taken a double watch. Her whole body sags like her legs are barely keeping her up, and even her twitching antennae are muted. She was furious over her lighter being stolen, and had probably wanted to be the one to catch one of the predators sneaking back in after dark. Something we all were worried about, after Sunshine's observations. "Your predator was busy all night. I don't know how it does it."
"At least it kept you company."
The hiss that sounded from Cleo made me want to eat my own words, but she rubbed at her eyes instead of making me pay for it. "I can't wait to torch it. It was roaming the streets all night looking for people, going down underground and everything. It gave me something to look up though. Hey, do you know what a nood is?"
"...no?"
"Nobody in the network does either. Your predator wanted them from you, but took it back pretty fast. Claimed its pad was stolen by a brute. I'm going to look it up later, see if it was something important we're not allowed to know about."
"You're exhausted, Cleo. Please, rest a little first."
"It'll be a small search. Shouldn't take me long at all." Cleo stretched and flexed her mandibles, and they clacked loudly as she staggered by. I watched her go with some concern, hoping she didn't recall my snark when she woke up and that she heeded my advice. Who knows what dastardly thing she could uncover in her sleep deprived state.
I hesitated in front of Muttart's room before cracking it open a sliver, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw him still nested in his bed. I opened it some more and noticed Holywood sleeping in a chair nearby, and felt some warmth in my carapace despite my well founded anger with her. Quietly, I shut the door. I wanted those two to rest off what happened last night.
Swinging around to the kitchen, I grabbed a few peeled Amonine Roots from the fridge, then did a double take.
Right, Holywood didn't get the groceries. I'll have to do it after work- this kitchen wasn't meant to feed this many people.
The possible food shortage looming over my head made my feelers grip the roots a bit harder. I'd need to do more than get some short term groceries. I'd need to think harder on what could feed two dozen of us for a few weeks, and how to get it without any predators or onlookers noticing.
I bit into a root absently and chewed as I made my way back to my new office, preparing myself to bully some farm owners back into shape and get some shipping companies back on schedule. I recalled how my old boss would do that, and shuddered. I was going to have to try and be like that screaming menace. Maybe not as loud, but I would need to get the point across somehow. Money usually worked in spooking those stubborn sand spitters back to work.
I cracked open my door and found Tugal half asleep in my chair, tapping away at my pad. He looked even worse than Cleo did, and I felt my antennae drop as I made my way over to him.
He was the one that realized how much of a threat Sunshine was. Its controlled destruction of my old office- the talk about fire and purging, wasn't even half of it. Let alone that it had adapted to Federation culture and was weaponizing it against us, it had managed to do something even worse. It had revealed itself in such a way that only people like Tugal could pick up on. And it had done so to root out the ones that could pose a true threat to predators. Tugal saw it, and it noticed.
Sunshine walked like an Arxur.
I've never seen a grey in person, but Tugal had many times. I didn't even notice that it stalked differently than the other predators, but it was stooped forward all the time. It took wide, confident steps and put its weight into each pace, making it sway as it wandered around. It loomed wherever it stood, and dragged its claws along anything soft like our walls or decorations. It hissed at me, for Formi's sake. And evidently, it stalking around the room once it finished threatening me was another sign of a restless hunter he had seen many times before. The trembling hands were new. Tugal thought it might be because of the mask that it couldn't be licking its jowls, but Sunshine had a perpetual twitch and tremble whenever its paws were not moving or touching things.
Tugal swore it was watching him during the exchange, and he had set up the night watch for that reason. Sunshine and its fellow predators coming back was easy to believe, but they hadn't shown. Now everybody was tired, and a human with extremely violent capabilities was lurking somewhere in the capitol biding its time.
Humans have tried to distance themselves from the Arxur many times to save their reputation, and then we get one that acts just like them in our own home. We can't prove it yet, but we need to warn the rest of the galaxy that they're no different. Maybe they'll forgive us for our past long enough to honor our sacrifice.
"Tugal? I have some Amonine Root. Do you want to have some and lay down?"
"Hmm? Yeah... yeah, that'll do good. Hey, the human was pretty busy today. It tired out Cleo, Jair, and Zoil already."
"...Zoil? Does that thing ever tire of talking?" I asked incredulously. Looking at the time, it was barely the start of the day for most capitol dwellers. Zoil was the most social soldier I'd ever interacted with, and for him to be tired of talking... it must be because its a flesh eater, and not another herbivore.
Maybe he's tired of being a monster and pretending everything is okay around other predators.
I banished the thought. "And you?"
"...Yeah." Tugal yawned just like Cleo had, flicking his mandibles lightly as he handed over my pad. "Say, he found something at the road leading out of town. The one bordering the Wind-Reed farm. I can't figure it out, can you?"
"He?"
"...I'm going to bed. Be careful with it today. It's... energetic." I nodded and took the pad as Tugal wandered off, flipping it around and peering at the messaging app. I almost drop the pad when a full picture covers the screen. It's of an outstretched human arm- thankfully fully concealed in coverings- taken at an odd angle like the photographer is trying to get a better shot from an awkward position. There's a massive frond that stretches over the length of the limb, and I almost miss the legs holding the leaf to the predator's arm, and the two small eyes on the midrib nearing the apex.
"Hey Marullo, what is this thing? It's awfully friendly."
"I don't know exactly. Where did you find that?"
"It was in a bush in the outskirts. I was clearing a car wreck and it just scurried over to me. Didn't even see it until it climbed up onto the engine block."
"It's not used to predators. Be gentle with it."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence. It's nibbling on me but I think that's because I'm damp from a sprinkler system going off. Wait does this thing bite?"
I stared at the conversation in mute disbelief, then checked how long ago the predator sent that last text. I rapidly began to type out a response.
"It bites a lot. It is a Bark Saw, an ambush predator. It'll split you open if you don't get rid of it right away. It'll drink you." Not a moment passes before I see typing, letting me know that the predator I planned on catching hadn't been eaten alive in the last minute.
"Really?"
I stared down at the pad in my paws in disbelief, then frustration. Bark Saws were not to be trifled with. Their continued existence was because of their uncanny speeds and camouflage. They could crack through a carapace with ease and suck out a victim's fluids while they still writhed and screamed, and somehow they used air pressure differences from propelled flames to avoid even the most trained Exterminators. Attempts to burn them out were only half successful in most recorded incidents, and it seemed the more the Federation tried to burn them out the more they appeared in populated areas. It was an honest nightmare knowing that when one was killed, three more would crop up in a farmer's field within days.
"It will punch through your garments easily. Those edges can slash through most fabrics and cut into wood. Get if off of you, and kill it."
There was a solid period of time with no response, and I found myself forgetting about work and focusing on what could be happening. I couldn't call it in to the exterminators because most of them had gone off and killed themselves, and I doubted what few remained at their post could do anything about it. The humans had left us exposed to everything, and predators were running amok!
A little bubble appeared and let me know that my predator had survived, and I sat down at my desk as it sent a new message.
"Yeah, that thing started giving me the heebie jeebies. It was pretty tame, but I don't feel like being drank today." I found myself chittering in amusement for the briefest moment and stopped myself as the icon popped up again. "Yeah, it got away. They're act chill when they're not threatened, so it just sort of scuttled off once it was done getting its H20 hit. I'm hole free. What wiki page did you read that garbage off of?"
Indignation filled my body. "I studied that in school. There are entire papers on that beast. They threaten farmers all the time."
"And you remember that now, and not when I first took a photo of it and asked if it was safe to pick up? Aren't you one of those farmers?"
Oh crap.
My mind scrambled for something to come up with. Having others talk to it was coming back around to bite me, literally. Soldiers didn't know half the things I did, and Exterminators lacked contextual information most the time.
"I forgot."
Oh that looks bad.
"I work in food distribution. I'm not out in the fields often." I sent immediately after, my feelers wrapped tight around my pad as the predator formulated a scathing response.
"I don't do massive bugs well. I know they leave you alone if you don't threaten them, but that's back home. I really can't tell the friendly ones from the dangerous ones out here, so please don't randomly forget that again. I'd like to keep my blood to myself and not get sucked on."
The edge in that text made me wince, and I had to salvage this somehow.
"I'm sorry."
It didn't respond, and I slowly set my pad on the table. I needed to work, and I couldn't let this thing get into my head before I started. I was grateful for a moment, but I knew better. It had stopped talking the moment I got my pad back. It was angry, and I couldn't lure it over if it was mad at me. I would have to try and win it back, and I probably had to stop pawning off the conversation to others or we'd blow our chance.
I adjusted a book on my desk before opening the work station before me. I hid most of the irreplaceable works Sunshine had tainted in this room so they wouldn't be torched or ruined by botched chemical treatments by Cleo's subordinates. I'd have to find someone more competent for the job, but I pushed the thought from my mind as I scowled at the slew of emails and critical rail disruptions plaguing the screen.
This is worse than construction traffic during Uplift Day celebrations. Idiots. Every single one of them.
.*~*.
I leaned back, my pharynx sore. I vividly understood why my old boss screamed so much at these cretins.
Money money money. We want money. We want extra time to do the same work for even more money. We want to hire other companies to do our work, so we want some deferrals and discounts and extra privileges as well. Oh, there's barely any drivers. Looks like we need more funding to get some extra feelers on deck. We need extra hazard pay because of the predator invasion. We're also updating our insurance policies: here's five hundred pages of ambiguously worded jargon. We need that signed before we can continue. Better hurry up. Oh, finding warehouses and securing our old drivers isn't our problem, that's someone else's job. Here's a number you can call, they should point you in the right direction. Say, are you paying for security for the meeting in a few days? We need extra security. We won't show up otherwise, and it would be outrageous if you think we're going into the city without security. We also need board and monetary compensation, preferably in whatever safe districts are left up there.
Every single one of you can catch fire and pop under the sun's cruel gaze. I'm sorry Formi, but it felt nice threatening to use the predators against them. It was fascinating how quickly their new demands went away.
Way too much screaming later, and I'd done it. Food distribution would be returning to a semi-normal state by tomorrow. I had called several storage companies and secured proper arrangements for the new warehouses under a tirade of threats, and things would be okay.
I rested my chin on the desk and sighed, eyeing the now empty plate and water with satisfaction.
I need to notify the Head of Agriculture about my new job title and hope he's still alive. I'm getting that old advisor's title and pay by tonight after this. I'd like to run for the department head but I don't know if that would put me on a plate or not. Oh who cares? The Predators won't eat the Tilfish keeping the masses fed.
As if on cue, my pad buzzed. I couldn't contain the groan that buzzed out of me as I lazily slapped at the device, reading the new text from the predator's social hunting app:
"I think you're full of shit about these scary leaf creatures."
A photo is attached of several Bark Saws in a single file line, leering at the camera. My brief moment of satisfaction evaporates into horror.
"Shoot them! Don't let them slip away!" I typed out frantically.
"Not happening. They're like really backward, ugly as all hell dogs. They've been following me around without eating anyone. Do you know what they even eat?"
"They eat us! They kill farmers and hatchlings!"
"What about fruit?"
I clench my mandibles tightly. "Are you stupid! They don't eat fruit!"
"How strange. I've been feeding them fruit for an hour now. I can't really see how they're so terrifying."
My claws scratched the screen as I typed out a response: "Then I hope they die. They're killers, and there's never been this many so close to a city! Tilfish are going to die because you predators destroyed our only way to handle them!"
"What type of a farmer doesn't even know their pests?"
"What kind of predator says they're trying to help us and then feeds our killers?"
There was a long pause.
"They're omnivores and you didn't even know it. You're a terrible farmer."
"That's the best you can do? Do you let your people be slaughtered on your filthy planet by other predators without retribution?"
There was an even longer pause.
"I don't. As much as I'd like to tell you off, I'm not allowed to. We have our own pests, and we deal with them respectfully."
"What, are you afraid your pad will be seized? Tell me why you think you're so noble and better than me!"
"Did you think that these messaging apps were unsupervised? That the UN was going to let us talk about whatever we wanted? You're an idiot, Muttart."
I paused, the information making me reconsider our plans. my fury was tempered by the revelation that we could be thwarted at any given time by the predators in charge, watching from the shadows. My predator continued typing.
"Now that you're aware of that, have you considered that we might react poorly to being preyed on as well?
Screw it, I don't care. You're not a nice person. If I'm kicked off of this program I might as well say that most your fruits are terrible. Everything grown on Sillis is bland and boring and tastes like dirt."
Spending two straight work shifts fighting to feed an entire city, only for this thing to insult me and everything relating to my craft made me see red for a moment. "A predator wouldn't know good taste unless it was still screaming in their grasp!"
"How original. I've definitely not heard that one before a dozen times. You remember that we got paired together over farming? What primitives still use wheeled drones for agriculture?"
"It's efficient! Are you really saying your predator methods are better? You're too primitive and bloodthirsty for our technology!"
"Cope harder, Marullo. A bunch of meat eaters can grow plants better than you can. Better, tastier plants! We use hydroponic facilities, which can grow crops without soil in a condensed space. The yields are massive, and for our fields we have repellents and pesticides that only affect harmful creatures, and leave everything else alone. What do you have?"
"The Kolshians have hydroponics, so that doesn't mean anything! We get enough rain storms that we didn't need to implement them, and our yields are great! And you poison your pests? That's barbaric!"
"So is setting them on fire, but you sure like doing that. Our methods don't ruin our fields, at least."
Why did it have to bring that up?
"How did you find that out?"
"For all the time we've been talking, you don't describe your agriculture. You did on day one and never picked it up again. I want to learn how your farming practices work in frequent hurricane conditions. I'd love to see a farm in operation. Study how your plants grow and thrive. Most of them are semi-aquatic and many are fully aquatic. It is cool. Since you backed out I had to do all of that alone. Tell me, how it is acceptable that exterminators were praised for burning down several square miles of farmland to kill one Bark Saw?"
I exhaled deeply, my feelers loosening on my pad. "It wasn't. I had to fight hard to get any form of a penalty against the office for that, and my boss let it get thrown out in court. That fire ruined the surrounding crop yields and is why food prices have been so high in the past year, at least before you all came here and destroyed the value of our credits."
"Check the list of the confirmed deceased. Maybe you'll get lucky and see one of their names up there."
I flinched at that text, and my anger simmered.
Why do I like that idea? They were exterminators, so they could be... is this thing manipulating me into wanting this? Of course it is. It's sick.
"You are a-" I deleted that before I could continue, and something crossed my mind. I'd been sinking down to this thing's level, and I leaned further back as I realized that something was wrong with my predator.
"We're fighting, and you've never acted like this before. What happened?"
The predator responded immediately. "You're supposed to represent your people. and so far you are doing a good job at that."
Were we? We're fighting right now, and I have no clue what insults or things would've been said by anyone else I've handed this off to. I let Cleo talk to a predator, of course it would think I'm hostile.
I rubbed at my face, feeling the plan slipping away.
"I'm sorry for upsetting you. I'll try and be better."
It didn't believe the lie. "You're full of shit. You talk like every other bug on this rock. You know how many bricks have been thrown at me? How many times I've been shot at?"
Oh. It's been working around the city during the demonstrations as well. That's a backhanded compliment. I didn't think it was capable of that, wow. It, uh, it's still typing. Oh dear.
"Your people are not easy to like. I've been trying. I really have. But every time I go down to fix something I need to worry that an access panel is rigged to explode when I walk by it, or an exterminator is waiting in the shadows with a match and a fifth of alcohol. People are destroying your own city for a chance to catch me alone. Two humans the city over got ambushed and torched doing my job, and everybody cheered . They're copying that now. They're wicked, twisted people. You all are. I'm out here in these fields right now because one of your own went into one of our integration tents and got found out. Do you know what your people did to him for being curious? For giving us a chance and listening to basic reason?"
I felt my pharynx tighten.
"They had PD. They don't represent us."
"F.U.C.K. You Marullo. They ripped his limbs off and left him in this field to die. I've found two so far, and we can't find the fucking rest. One of the perpetrators was a schoolteacher. A schoolteacher! He passed your PD screenings! Half of them were model citizens! Your predators are more merciful than your own people!"
I gagged. I couldn't help it.
"Did he live?"
"So far, yes. But nobody gives a shit. You'll just diagnose him with PD when he gets out of the hospital and euthanize him because he can't walk to treatments."
"We're better than that! We help our wounded!"
"I'm still scraping bodies off the concrete because your government workers won't come out here and do it themselves. I'm finding some of them still breathing. It's been days. Where is your people's mercy? Their compassion? Everywhere I look, I see a desert. There's no love here. No care. It's just us."
I swallowed thickly, looking at my work pad. At the recorded logs of countless farm operators taking advantage of our fallen stature to make some extra money. Were the other sectors similar? Or did the farmers out there care about feeding the people over their profits? I didn't know if the predator was lying about this or not.
"I need to go Marullo. Have fun being better than me."
Carefully, I sat my pad down. I needed to go outside. I needed some air in the garden. There was another knock on the front door as I reached for it, and I wanted to scream.

[ [FIRST] [NEXT>]
Season 3 “Linked”
Episode Single “Hunter”
“This is very irregular, you know?”
“And so is importing an extremely dangerous, viciously intelligent predator all the way from nightside to dayside.”
It had taken an entire paw for someone to finally arrive, and it felt disgusting the entire time. They didn’t have any real facilities for storing corpses, so they had to improvise by partially dismantling the interior of the breakroom’s fridge and messing with the settings. She had thought that she’d feel disgusted dealing with a corpse, but somehow that wasn’t it, it was that for some reason it felt wrong to store it like that.
And it took an entire paw for a necrologist to finally arrive. Of course they couldn’t do their forensics here, they’d need to transport it somewhere with proper facilities, and somewhere deep inside her she felt better about the cooled van they were going to use to transport the animal, it was certainly more respectful than a jury-rigged freezer.
“Guess he’s getting to you isn’t he?” Keya mutters to herself, finally having finished the handoff in the garage. Hopefully nothing like that would happen again anytime soon, or ever if possible. She makes her way back to the central administrative room of the precinct, passing by the armory as one always does on the way to the garage.
“This is just a game to you!” “And what do you know of fucking reality?!” “Nothing! IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR YOU BRAHKIN APE!” it was curious why Marik even allowed Santos inside the armory if they were going to fight. Still, they might be a little more shouty right now but the stress of the previous mission must be getting to them, and in her knowledge they could sort themselves out soon.
She stops as soon as she enters the central room, it always distresses her lightly how this precinct didn’t even have a single office, she lets her mind sit on the idle thoughts about the everyday functions of her workplace as her tail thrashes uncertainly behind her. After all that stress it was difficult to get her emotions ordered enough to think straight, and the latest change to her nightmare didn’t help. She’d expected to see the nixa as her chaser, as it’d happen for a time every time she’d deal with something particularly dangerous, but instead it was at the very end, in Santos’ arms, as if the human had died trying to protect it. “I guess that was a positive change? Maybe?”
She shakes her head with enough force to draw some attention, then walks over to Lunek’s desk. He’d still be out of commission for a bit, the shoulder wounds could easily have cost the man his arms if they had taken even a fifth of a claw longer to get to the hospital, but thankfully muscular reconstruction was within their capacity and the wound sufficiently fresh they wouldn’t need to worry about nerve reconstruction. But there was something weird about his wife’s reaction to the news, she’d seen family being distressed at a wounded exterminator, but she seemed angry instead of scared or even worried.
Then, she walks over to Santos’ desk. He had given her permission to check his work, he’d been working on the animal database and had stuck to a string of old cases for a mysterious predator nicknamed ‘the black claw’, something that was incredibly elusive and had been killing even in the middle of the capital. Cases as old as the republic itself, in fact. Santos’ datapad had a map containing cases he’d decided were relevant, and a diagram of the wound patterns was also visible, thankfully no images of the wounds themselves but something about it was familiar.
But her thoughts about the human’s grisly cataloging were interrupted by said man’s guttural roar of fury and pain. The words that accompany the roar are so jumbled her translator can’t even recognize them and she doubts another human could either. Everyone present turns their attention to the door towards the armory as loud crashing and metallic noises echo down the hall. And then a horrible noise she couldn’t identify for a moment, a high-pitched bleat that sounded like a venlil’s mimicry of a furious roar.
Everyone had stood up, having drawn their tranq pistols and focusing on the doorway. The first one to walk out of it is Marik, walking nonchalantly as if nothing had happened. Except something clearly had happened, he had four marks across his face, his right shoulder was deeply stained orange with his blood and his eyes had a look of fury she had never seen in her kin before, but perhaps most distressingly was the red stains in his paws and running down his mouth “I don’t know how you handle this, it’s absolutely brahking disgusting” he says, ignoring everyone who’d instinctively raised their guns at his entrance, picking up a medkit that’s always hanging at the wall and beelining to the breakroom.
And right behind him is another grizzly sight. Looking the very sight of everything everyone feared humans would look like, orange staining the white of his sleeves as well as his nails, Santos spits a tuft of fur from his orange-stained mouth “And you taste absolutely fucking foul too” with that morbid remark she notices he’s also deeply stained with red, three ragged gashes down his left arm and a portion of his right ear missing, spilling red down his right shoulder. He calmly follows Marik to the breakroom.
“What… Happened…”
-^-
It wasn’t, in fact, pretty. Santos knew very well this was an absolute fucking disaster. Taking a bite of your coworker’s shoulder would have been a complete disaster if they were both humans, and by everything that’s holy the fucking devil sheep was pretty much one, but he was a venlil and given how often ‘eaten’ was a cause of death for this species the optics of this situation was as horrible as it could be.
Sure, the devil sheep had started it. He’d completely flown off the handle at whatever it was he had said and managed to perform the miracle of making those stubby claws of his tear through his arm before trying to break his skull with his. And the damage to his ear was a good sign the demon was willing to fight like a goddamn animal, so he just returned the favor in kind.
At least the damned devil sheep still had enough of his faculties to realize both needed medical attention and the hospital wasn’t a viable choice, so now they were both lying down on the couches of the breakroom while Keya carefully applied the contents of the medkit on his enemy. He’d insisted she check him out first, even going as far as growling at her, which just prompted her to give a twist of her right ear equivalent to a human raising an eyebrow.
As soon as she had applied the stitching gel to Marik’s face and shoulder and applied an adhesive bandage to the bite marks the devil sheep silently walked out of the room. “What happened?” Keya asks, with a simultaneously stiff and angry tone that made him question what side of the bed she woke up today, he was betting it wasn’t the cold bastard right now.
“Dunno.” he winces as she applies stitching gel to his ear, the devil sheep’s grinding teeth had managed to somehow take a piece out of it “I said something that set him off worse than I’ve ever seen, but nothing I haven’t said before. I expected him to go talk to you before it got down to blows”
Keya stops for a moment to move herself in his field of view “And he got so angry you bit him?” before returning to his side to start applying a bandage to his ear across the head.
“No, he got so angry he did this” he raises his wounded arm, the cuts are deep and jagged like cut with a rusted and chipped knife “And then all bets were off”
There’s a loud thumping noise of Keya slamming her tail on the ground “And somehow after taking pieces out of each other you just calmly walk over here to get treated like nothing happened?!” it was definitely her if she was getting angry like this.
He takes a deep breath to prepare for the stinging when she starts applying the stitching gel to his arm, thank heavens none of the cuts hit a serious blood vessel “Look, I’ve seen people like that before. Couple of times I had to trade fists with people in that state after the bombs, sometimes the only way to get what you’re feeling out is some violence. And no offense, but your people don’t know how to deal with that need”
Keya sighs “With you calling him a devil sheep in the middle of an exterminator’s precinct it surprises me this didn’t happen earlier…”
At that moment Santos’ mind halts. Something is failing to add up “Wait. Hold that thought- The translator is doing something weird” he turns to face Keya to continue saying something only to be interrupted by the pain of the bandages on his arm.
“I really hope it is because you don’t call people that” she had very purposefully made the bandaging process painful.
“There is zero reason the words, the meaning of the words I’m using, translate to anything you have real context for here” he stares at Keya, who gives him a sideways stare in return “I’m calling him a sheep, the same way he calls me an ape. What you’re talking it seems i’m using one of your idioms here and I doubt that’s true”
Keya takes a seat “The translator is good at finding meanings” she gives a dismissive tail wave “From what I understand the software knows enough to see that you’re using an animal reference as an offensive adjective to construct a phrase we can understand from it. Or at least it’s been able to for… What… The last three terran months at least”
Santos puts a hand on his forehead “So it’s not that word. Do you have a word for a devil? A creature that’s the embodiment of evil in some religion?”
It was a pain talking about translator issues through the translator, everyone knew that “An old faith that still holds some pretty strong roots sees the darkness and the night as evil. The meaning of what you call him keeps getting translated as… A child born of the Night itself.”
The human raises an eyebrow “What, like a vampire or something?”
Keya closes her eyes, and slowly tilts her head to the side “That parsed… I didn’t think humans had those kinds of myths too. But a little less blood drinking and more flesh eating”
He bites his lower lip, he can feel the genuinely foul taste of the orange blood that he still hadn’t cleaned from his face “Of course… A mythologization of ‘predator disease’ itself. Not unlike a changeling, fuck.” he rubs his forehead “And with his high aggression and staring habit, of course he’d see it like that. He never reacted that badly to it before”
Only at this moment he realizes Keya is… Surprisingly, terrifyingly calm about staring at his still blood-soaked visage “I bet he knows you had no idea about what you were talking about. But it’s still a sensitive thing” she stands up “Talk to him, but later. Not going to intrude in his personal life more than this. For now, you’re dismissed until your next shift” she turns to give him a side-eye stare “And clean up before you leave”
Very obviously he was going to clean up before leaving. Walking around drenched in venlil blood wasn’t going to fly in the capital, here in bumfuck nowhere Blackriver? The fact that he had accidentally been using something on par with some old human racial slurs against Maurice didn’t sit well with him, he was an annoying ass with a prickly personality that always got under his skin, but that was all it was.
Face clean and sleeves rolled to hide the stains, he heads out, still mostly looking like he’d lost a fight. Thankfully, the trip to his apartment is quick, and so is the process of getting properly cleaned and changed. He takes additional time cleaning his mouth with mouthwash- This planet made him hyperaware of some things and at this point he was certain he wasn’t going to get the taste of Maurice’s blood out of his tongue for a few days no matter what he did.
But it was better to try to do something about it than sit here and feel weird about it. It meant he should probably go out and eat something, which was a bit of a problem. There were a pair of restaurants on Blackriver, and none of them would deny him but it was always such a laborious process to get served, they were simply not used to humans here and at least half the servers were worse than that. But he just needed a flavor distraction, not really nutrition, so… There was one place where he was very much welcomed.
Ready to leave, he heads out again. The trip is longer this time, but it’s very easy to find one’s way to where he’s going, very much literally the center of town. Blackriver had a large park at it’s center, and parks in venlil cities always amused him in a dark way, they were as wild as wilderness was allowed to get in this planet. What is left of nature here is simply allowed to exist freely in those places, and venlinese cities often had a large amount of them, more than most terran cities. Interestingly, for as little this town had to offer to anyone not working in the farms, the park actually had something that he understood was a bit of a tourist attraction, the forgotten tree.
It is a very large tree, which seemed to grow into unnatural shapes and colors, but that was due to the sheer amount of grafts it had received over time. For some reason, multiple branches had been grafted on it, and even in the time he’d been here there’d been new branches added to it. And on top of that, the branches were often decorated. Never the original branches, always the grafts, and they all were decorated with a variety of things, all of which seemed to be personal effects. Just one detail unnerved him sometimes when looking at it, it was very common for what was seemingly braided wool to be used as a decoration, and there was exactly one source of a material like that in this planet. He knew it was called ‘the forgotten tree’ by the locals, but he never really understood why.
But his objective wasn’t in the park itself, but a place that had a great view of the forgotten tree. The Watchful, a somewhat strange small café, had most of its seating area outside and the kitchen inside and was generally a very silent place. He’d come here once early on when he was looking around the town, the staff here was wary about him as always, one even had asked him why he was here instead of elsewhere. Tired of that kind of reaction, he’d just been honest and said he wanted a drink while looking at the pretty tree. And for some reason the staff seemed to warm up to him very fast from that point on, and he couldn’t quite understand- Other than the fact the tree was probably important, and given the name of the establishment it was probably set up here exactly for people to eat while looking at this strange tree.
He ordered something powerful and intense, a starberry and firefruit juice which was a local blend known to annihilate your sense of taste with its potency and a small fashik salad, one of the most costly items in the menu being an import from the Grand Herd, and to him something that tasted just like breaded and fried cauliflower despite it being raw leaves. All very helpful in washing away the taste in his mouth. He sat there in the seat outside, looking at the forgotten tree, nobody bothering him about his wounds. There was a sense of calm to doing this that really helped alleviate his nerves.
But something caused him to tense, something he saw. Maurice himself had shown up, not at the café however, but at the tree. He watched the night-black venlil walk up to the tree, sit in front of it and just… Stay there. And it made him curious, at this point he was done with his snack and he needed to talk to him anyway. So he walks over calmly.
He notices the man has something on his lap, it looks like a pair of metal rods with some electronic components on them, and he had a small box of tools with him. On closer inspection, those rods seemed like a part of the rifle he had used yesterday. But some unseen force, some understanding inside him, made him unable to start up a conversation.
He looks up at the tree, it sways gently as the everlasting breeze cannot seem to overpower it for more than a moment at a time, the sun through its leaves shines a mosaic pattern on the ground. The decorated branches remind him deeply of something… Ceremonial. Like something you’d see at a temple. So he just sits down in front of the tree as well, looking up at it. “Do you know what this tree is?” Marik asks.
Santos just shakes his head gently
“It’s a grave” he looks at Marik “There’s many traditions out here. In one of them, when someone dies their death is marked by grafting a new branch on a special tree” the venlil looks up at the tree “Do you know this tree’s name?”
“I’ve heard it called the forgotten tree”
“The special tree… It’s supposed to represent one’s family. In that tradition” he looks back down, and continues to adjust the component he was messing with “A person’s passing is remembered by adding another branch of the family tree”
Santos looks back up at the tree “If this is that kind of tree then… Whose family is this?”
“This one… This one is different” Marik takes a slow breath “Once upon a time, someone wanted to leave a mark for a nameless person. Someone who’d died without a herd, or even a family.” his hands stop moving for a moment “So, they grafted a scion to a random tree, in the name of a forgotten one”
Then, he continues the adjustments “And someone heard about it, someone that needed a forgotten one to be remembered. So they came here too, and added another branch. And it happened again. And again.”
“This is a grave for the herdless, the reviled, the forgotten.” Marik looks up again, but he notices this time he’s looking at somewhere specific on the tree “A grave for the ones everyone else wanted to forget, but one last person wanted to remember” he looks back to his work “A tree for the forgotten”
Santos takes in the tree again, looking at the various decorations. He doesn’t really form a real thought about the tree, or the branches, he just lets his mind take it in “They… Set up the café back there, so they could come visit without anyone asking, isn’t it?”
Marik points to a branch about halfway up the tree, one where a thick rope of braided wool serves as an adornment. The rope’s wool is of two contrasting colors, a deep jet-black and a dirty white “That… It’s my parents’ hand binds”
Hand binds… He trusted the translator to have given him the right meaning, especially given what else Marik had just said. Earth also had some traditions with hand binds for marriage.
Marik takes a deep breath turns to face him “You will keep your mouth shut while I speak” then he looks back at the tree
It didn’t feel like a threat, strangely enough. And he had the feeling this was going to get complicated “My mother had predator’s disease, she was a violent predator that once very much put a kid’s head through a locker in my school because the kid annoyed her too much.” he wanted badly to say something “My father was part of a death cult, he’d raise dangerous predators and set them off in the town. And the worst of all, for me at least, he spent every waking moment caring for his flesh eaters, he loved them more than me”
That sounded horrible, but something felt off. Marik’s tone sounded as flat as the cold bastard’s. But he was told not to speak until he was done. Marik then sets down his tools and the piece he was working on, and pulls out a small white box with two subdivisions from a satchel and he keeps it firmly held in his lap, Santos can identify it easily as a holder for contact lenses. And just as it seems, Marik brings up one of his hands up to his face, and very gently and carefully removes one of his contacts, revealing the terrifying color of his eye. Then he repeats the procedure with the other, storing his contacts in the box, and turns to face Santos- Staring at him with those two demonic eyes.
Deep black sclera and blood-red irises, when coupled with his night-black wool and nasty disposition it really made him look like a demon. It made sense why the word ‘nightchild’ was used. He’d seen him without his contacts once before, when they fought the first time, the one time he shouted at him for real. “I have hyperchromia” he says, in a flat tone.
Marik keeps his face trained on him, but his ears are pinned back “My body produces far more pigmentation than natural. Venlil don’t get this deep black” he grabs at his wool “Without special care, this fur falls off on its own. My mother always had a lot of missing patches, making her look sick” Marik adjusts his facing to look directly into Santos’ eyes, but it wasn’t the usual side-eye that other venlil give, it was a terrifyingly unnerving human stare that hit him directly into the uncanny valley. But in that stare, Santos could see a thin green film over the man’s cornea “It affects my vision. The pigmentation seeps into the cornea and distorts light. Anything with color… It bleeds off, overwhelms everything around it”
“You’re blind…” it was muttered, he almost flinched expecting Marik to snap at him, but he doesn’t.
“It has overtaken my entire vision, except for a small bit, at the far left side of my right eye. There’s a ten degree angle where its effects are… Lesser. I can see shapes, and shadows”
Then, Marik turns to face the tree again. It’s visible how much he can’t put it into focus with how his stance is different. “I’m a nightchild. Fur black as the night, the eyes of a predator, and the disposition of one” he looks down, and starts getting his tools back into the box. The way he does it without error, and the way he stores the gun part back in his satchel as if he could see perfectly, speaks of his practice of doing this.
“You do not know what it is you call me, but I’ve heard it all my life. I couldn’t take it as well when I was a kid” he looks back up “That girl… She’d always call me a monster. A predator. She’d say nasty things every paw, every time I met her in the corridors she’d berate me.” he takes a deep breath “One day I lost my patience, like I did with you last paw”
That causes Santos to wince, knowing where this was going “I smashed her head through the locker. Bent the flimsy metal with her skull. She was sent to the hospital” he didn’t know if he wanted to know what happened next.
“The exterminators got involved. I was panicking when I heard it, we all know what happens when they get involved. But my parents arrived before they did.” Marik takes a deep breath “I inherited my hyperchromia from my mother” he pauses for another moment “I remember her as the gentlest woman I have ever met, she was careful with every movement, she taught me how to guide my movement with my tail to make up for lack of sight” he tilts his head slightly to the side “That time, she’d put an unnatural aggression in her voice, she growled at the exterminators like a beast. They asked things, and she admitted that the girl had been annoying her, so she’d smashed her head”
There’s a long stretch of silence, and Santos says nothing until Marik pulls something else out of his satchel. It’s a book that seems to have survived a fireplace somehow, which he hands over to him. “Do you remember those athai that had nested in an abandoned house? That problem you solved that made Keya start trusting you, when you decided to move their nests?” Marik turns to face him, without his lenses to give his eyes focus that glassy and distant stare is unnerving “I lived there. With my father” he turns back to the tree.
The book is something he can’t read, but it looks half burnt and there seems to be something inside of it. He considers for a moment, and decides to pick up his datapad to have the visual translator tell him at least the title “The Linked Chain”. He opens up the book carefully, this thing has survived an attempt at destruction and it shows, whatever it had to say was mostly lost to the flames. But there were some objects being held by the book. A small charm with three metal hoops all connected at the center, a data storage device with clear signs of heat damage and a fragment of a burned photograph.
The photograph was of a short venlil, jet-black wool, black sclera and blood-red irises, but at the burned edges of the image he could see something else, a hand holding the image of the one in the photo, just a wisp of off-white wool and almost difficult to notice just the shoulder of another, much smaller, jet-black venlil. This once was a family photo.
“He was certain he could save the failing crops with the athai. He raised them carefully, kept them out of trouble, let them roam the fields. The crops were truly failing back then” Marik takes a deep breath “My lenses, they were the only gift he ever gave me. They’re not normal lenses, they can selectively change the intensity and frequency of light that crosses them, they use programmable nanostructures so they can be adjusted for the user.” he takes a deep breath “I’m… The only one with those. They let me see, by taking away the color of things… They use military cloaking technology, technology that isn’t available to civilians”
Santos continues to page through the book, and at the very end he finds one last object. A fragment of a letter of all things, almost completely burned only a handful of words and a sigil can be seen, the sigil is of three leaves crossed together “One day exterminators showed up at our house. They said a dangerous death cultist was trying to get everyone killed, and wanted to talk to my father.” he extends his hand to him, and Santos returns the book.
“I was familiar with the precinct’s personnel, they’d bothered my mother relentlessly in the past. I recognized the chief of the time, but not the others.” he takes a deep breath again “They didn’t bother asking questions when my father showed up, they didn’t bother about collateral. It was all he could do to shove me out of the effect range”
Santos bites his lower lip, wanting to say something. But there was no sense of finality to Marik’s words yet “And then they just left. No followup. Not making sure the body was consumed. I knew enough to grab a water bucket, but wool burns like dried ipsom. He always carried that book with him, hidden, he didn’t trust it anywhere else. He had no strength for words, he barely had the strength to start pulling it out of where it was”
“I wonder… If my father would be proud” he closes his eyes “Now that i’m just like his beasts.” before Santos could be tempted to answer, he continues “Predator, bah. Stupid name. Like you humans say, it denotes a relationship. Who eats, who gets eaten. Stupid, that means nothing”
Marik raises a hand up to his face “Look at you. That word means nothing, it doesn’t tell you who is dangerous. No, no… The important word is hunter. They are the ones who kill.” he slowly flexes his fingers “Humans… There’s almost no human hunters. Bet even the arxur have those who aren’t hunters either. But we all forget us herbivores have hunters too.” he closes his hand in a fist “The difference is that you eat what you kill, we just leave it to rot” he lowers his hand “I am a hunter, and I love it.”
Marik stands up “Santos. I hate humans” his voice is distressingly cold “And more than any one of your kind I hate you” he turns to face him “My life was simple, before you arrived”
Especially now, it always caught Santos off-guard how Marik could growl “I knew who to hate, I knew what was right and wrong, it was simple. But you took that from me” he steps closer “And you took it from me in the most terrible, sadistic way possible” and he steps even closer, close enough he can feel the man’s wool against his chest “You took it from me in such a way that I don’t want it back anymore. You took that ease, that simplicity of my life away forever. I can’t have it back because I don’t want it. And it’s YOUR FAULT”
Marik takes a step back “My mother gave herself so I wouldn’t go to a facility. My father gave me eyes that can see, and the price was life.” Marik turns around and faces away, he lowers his tail towards the ground and brings it around his legs, swiping the ground in front of him “Everything that endangered us we killed, anything that competed with us we’ve starved. My father knew that. He knew we were the apex predators of this planet, nothing could stand before our hunters, and I’m one of them. You made me realize that” he says, before he walks away. Santos just stares, watching as his companion moves on as if he could see, tail swiping around the ground in front of him- Like a human would use a cane.
Santos sighs, and sits down. He then looks up, staring at the branch with the white-and-black braid “Hey. I know you don’t know me, but I know your son. Y’know, he’s one hell of a fucking ass. Seems like he’s always been, eh?” he wasn’t sure why he was doing this “But he’s good. Said he’s like your athai now, don’t think he is, he knows restraint. Bites like one, though. Don’t know why he’s with us right now, not after those… People took you two from him. But he’s a good guy.”
He takes a deep breath “He needs a friend, I can’t be it. I guess… I helped him out, yeah. He needed what happened but… I can’t be friends with him anymore now, he wouldn’t allow it. It’s fine, he needs to hate someone, too. Hating you is what got him going when you were gone, it seems. I can take it, he’s fun to annoy too.”
He looks at the tree itself now, at the flecks of light that shine through the mismatched leaves “You should be proud of him. I know I would be.”
---
And... Here's a weird-ass chapter? We see the aftermath of having a close call, and we learn more about Marik's weirdness. The season "Linked" has a single chapter, on account of being a situation that couldn't really fit happening during a mission. Who knows, it might get other chapters later- We have more characters with their own histories to discover.
This was one of the chapters I spent most brainpower on if anything because it... Felt good thinking about it. Yeah I was crying writing it, it was genuinely difficult for some raeson.
And the next season is "Burned Minds", with such a name I wonder what could it be about.