My PCP is referring me for genetic testing to see if I have a “connective tissue/vascular disorder.”
I am a 32 F and have had a superficial blood clot, my mother has had multiple pulmonary embolisms, and her mother had 2 heart attacks and 2 strokes. All three of us are very fair-skinned with prominent veins. Although I have never been very flexible, my PCP said my joints felt mobile and I have had people comment on my soft skin in the past, (including having trouble with bandages sticking). I have tested negative for the most common blood clotting disorders, so, given my family history, my PCP is exploring other explanations.
She said that EDS could affect the integrity of the blood cell wall in a way that could potentially increase the risk of clotting. But when you search for blood clots and EDS, almost all results have to do with vEDS.
Does anyone know if EDS in general can be associated with increased risk for clotting, or is that a risk specific to only vEDS? Feeling a little lost by the info I can find.

I’ve been living in my car for almost 3 whole months. I really thought I would be in a place by now… my main concern is getting wrapped up in a roommate situation and becoming dependent on that due to income relief.
That’s happened to me once before and it was a tough spot to get out of..
At any rate.. paying credit cards and late financial obligations hasn’t allowed much room to save. Plus ignorant spending last couple of weeks because I try to alleviate the loneliness by taking a leap into a social situation… it hasn’t ended well.. and I spent a bit more than intended..
it’s only helped to realize the true difference between solitude and actual loneliness.. I’ve been very ok in my solitude… the last.. few years. Now that I am attempting connection and failing… that’s tough..
So… I’ve created this situation that I should be working towards getting out of.. why even try to make a connection at such an unstable point in time..
So since I’ve realized just how bad it really is for me… I’m nauseous at the fact I have to find somewhere different to sleep every night.. I’m scared to be towed while sleeping… I’m afraid to get robbed.. somewhat.. I’m worried about getting in trouble if I encounter a police more than once.. I’m worried about my car getting damaged.. I sleep horribly… This just sucks… I hope I can really pull from my self discipline and figure this the hell out.. I just have to keep earning.. I’ve started delivering stuff to make extra cash.. but I also work a full time job.
And the little time I do get to myself is either trouble sleeping, or trying to motivate myself to do deliveries outside of time spent on my own moral imperatives.
That’s a good vent. sigh

Guy from work upgraded to a new PC and gave me this thing to do whatever with. Learning towards selling to pay the bills after a system wipe and probably upgrading the OS to a SSD to give it a little bit of new life.
Intel Core i7-4820K AMD Radeon R9 270 with 2GB GDDR5 8gb ram (4x2gb, 1600mhz) Standard Chassis in Matte Stealth Black with an 875W Power Supply Single Drive: 24X CD/DVD burne r (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability
Searching briefly I saw a post that looked like someone took their DVD burner out and put on a RGB fan, debating as well.
Any advice on what to do with this thing aside from giving it an SSD? Thought about using the ram on some other old PCs I've got hanging around to sell them and maybe picking up a 2x8gb set to boost the ram in this (saw it for ~$24 online).
Also, if taking the selling route, what do you all think would be a good asking price? And do we think it's worth an SSD and RAM upgrade to see about selling it as a better gaming system than what it is stock?
I know right now it does well enough so far with some games I've tested on it like Fortnite, The Forest, Rocket League, Monster Hunter, and Fallout 4. I mean well enough I'd play them. Of course, I'm a 39m that's not picky about graphics as much as performance when I know what I'm playing on. If it were new high end stuff I'd be going for higher graphical settings and FPS. Seems like it could also handle some of these on medium with some tweaked settings here and there, like Fortnite having shadows kicked off.
Anyways, it's late here so I'm rambling, sorry about that. Any input is appreciated. Also, for 💩 and giggles should I see about throwing in a 3070 ti (if it will fit) just to see what the CPU bottleneck turns into? 🤷🏻‍♂️😅

Hi Reddit, this is my first of probably not many post. But I posted this to see others opinion on if I'm in the wrong for being mad at a annoying prank. To start this story off I'll say a few things, the names in this story are not their real names and are used as sample names.
Ok so, me, (15 y/o male), and my best friend, (14 y/o female) which we will call Mari. Mari and me have been best friends for about 2 years now and I even considered her as my little sister as we had a great relationship. This all spans from a week ago to today. Mari who had gone through somethings that I wasn't aware of at the time, was acting quite upset for a while and was giving me the silent treatment. For the longest time I thought I had done something and everytime I asked her what's wrong she just ignored me. I managed to get her to laugh a few times as she was very easy to make laugh and couldn't help but acknowledge my existence.
But even after this, she still ignored me for almost 2 whole days! At this point I was a little sad because she normally always told me what was wrong when she was going through something, unless it was really personal. Later on once I was home I texted her to see if she would ignore me or actually respond. And to my surprise, she responded. I asked her why she didn't talk to me for the almost 2 days and she ends up saying it was a prank.. At this point I was a little upset because I genuinely thought I did something wrong! I told her how I felt about her doing the prank and she acknowledged it and apologized.
About 1 day after that situation I decided to be a little petty and do what she did to me. I also ignored her for almost 2 days, and she continues to try to talk and text me for me to talk to her. I know I know.. I may be a jerk for this.. but I didn't mean any harm and I was a little salty about the prank.
But this is where the prank got a little too much. About 3 days later she decides to prank me again with the same prank. Instead she didn't even laugh after trying to make her laugh. It was like I didn't even exist! I had no idea why she was doing it at the time and once again, I thought I did something. Turns out she was just upset with me for copying her prank.. I was furious! I told her that I was just copying what you did so she felt how I did to be ignored on purpose! Note, I hate being ignored by people I genuinely care about, I'm a major overthinker and can't help but think I did something.
But anyway, she says she's mad at me for pranking her with her own prank and I'm upset and asking how she is mad at ME! I genuinely felt hurt that she was ignoring me like that since it wasn't something she normally does and she isn't normally a prankster. I ended up taking out my rage on her and ended up blocking her.. I'm starting to feel bad and feel like I shouldn't have gone that far. Even though she knew before hand that I didn't enjoy those types of pranks. Please help, am I in the wrong?

My (19M) girlfriend (18F) keeps making fun of my penis size
To preface, I’ve never once in my life been insecure about my penis size. I’ve always had the idea that you have what you have and you learn to work with it.
That being said, my girlfriend is my first sexual partner. We’ve been together for about a year with some issues, but nothing too serious that we’ve failed to overcome. We click and the sex is great all the time. Round after round and she always finishes.
My girlfriend has thrown a joke out every now and then about my size (5.75 erect) but they’ve always been a little funny and I can just laugh it off.
A few months ago, she saw it soft (oh no!) and she started making jokes about it being tiny or whatever and I really didn’t mind as 1) I’m a grower and 2) who cares how big it is when flaccid?
The last few times I’ve seen her though, she’s been making continuous jokes about my erect size. “No way it’s over 5 inches” or “It’s so cute and tiny” or “Are you gonna get one of those penis enlargement surgeries in the future? Add a few inches I can barely feel it sometimes”
She’s been doing this constantly the last few days and today she just kept going and going to the point that it’s beginning to hurt my self image.
She does this with other things like my acne when it used to flare up or thinning spots in my hair (It’s so funny that you’re balding at 19) but never this much.
I just don’t understand why she does this when I treat with nothing but respect and never make fun of her especially not for things that are out of her control. It’s just taken a toll on me to the point that I’m starting to dread having sex with her or being naked around her at all.

Forgive the wall of text,there's a lot to consider. Tw suicide threats?
So I (22f) have been in a relationship with "Mike" (27m) for 5 years. Things have gotten extremely hard money wise in the last few years even to the point where we've had to couch surf or stay in hotels the last year or so. I do everything I can to make sure we are taken care of from working extra shifts, budgeting our money down to the last penny,making sure we are fed,and have a roof over our heads every night. I even do almost all the cleaning and laundry. Mike does work a little but not as much as I'd like and mostly chills on his computer or sleeps. He has some pretty bad mental health issues so I try to just understand he's doing his best but that excuse does less for me each time.
Mike also came from a family with money where his parents always took care of everything so he doesn't grasp the same understanding of poverty as I do. He buys things we don't need for survival,he even got a new car recently which I'm struggling to pay for. He also doesn't have his own bank account anymore from overdrafting it too much. I try to have conversations about our situation or maybe selling some stuff. He says I'm being ridiculous and not making any sense,I will admit when I'm trying to have an adult talk and those words come out of his mouth I get flustered so sometimes I don't I guess. His parents can't afford to help us out anymore and all the money I make is gone within a few hours of being paid. It doesn't even cover everything but I'm left alone to figure it out and usually I do but I'm slowly pinning myself into a corner I won't be able to get out of. I maybe can get us through the next week or two.
I desperately want to leave,I have friends who want to help me and will let me stay for months while I get set up. Mike doesn't have that,we both moved to a state far from home and I'm his only support system out here. So problem one with leaving is he would be homeless without me and totally alone with no money. I've been in that spot and it hurts my soul to even think of doing that to someone I care for.
The next problem is I've tried to break up with him in the past,he gets extremely emotional and says I'm his everything that he can't live without me. It gets so emotional to the point where I'm uncomfortable and try to back track just to make him stop. He has also said he would hurt himself if I left which is extremely worrying.
The final problem is how would I go about it? A big part of me just wants to disappear in the middle of the night,to not have to deal with those huge emotions of his and the hurtful things he'll say to guilt me. I feel like this would be very cruel though,I know he'll wake up in a panic and how he'll feel. I just don't know what to do.
I desperately want to be free,anytime I'm away it feels like a weight is lifted from me. It's scary to be on my own but there's also a great relief.
Tldr; I want to leave my boyfriend but he'd be homeless and might hurt himself. Help.

So i saw how many are okay with Drakken being an Anti-Hero while some like Ironnancy and Corez2.0 are really rather much him as a Villain only while same goes for a few others, But i don't find it personally that bad since it's an opportunity to see more with Drakken than just being a super cool villain that everybody praised for or most haters like Nerdigans would rather have him killed off. Just because you have a character introduced as a villain later to change to Anti-Hero or Hero, Doesn't make them bad characters or character writting unless they are treated like punching bags. There are many other characters that happened to turn on that side because of coming to realisation more than just who they believe they are.
Shadow the Hedgehog - Now if you're a Sonic fan or at least very familiar with the series and the characters, Shadow was first introduced as a Villain for Sonic who wanted revenge against Humans for killing Maria and wanted to destroy planet earth. Until later he came to realisation on his memories the most important thing he forgot from what Maria told him, Give them a chance to be happy, be their friend and how Earth is very beautiful, Which Shadow was later redeemed and sacrificed himself, But as he came back he was in amnesia with no memories about who he is and his relationships and act more like an Anti-Hero by doing heroric acts and villainous acts, But for a while Shadow becamed one of those main heroric Sonic characters but it didn't changed much of his aspects of his character since he still does heroric stuffs but sometimes does villainous things for the heroric side and that's what made his character good, Especially with his underrated game where you complete missions and stories wether you are Hero, Villain or Anti-Hero.
Greed - From Fullmetal Alchemist, Greed was at first showcased as one of the Seven Deadly Sins children of Father and he wanted mostly everything, But what he wanted the most was immortality, He was at first a villain from a bunch of thugs fighting Elrich until he turned on against Father and died and was "Ressurected" with no previous memories he had while possessing the boby of a proud son of some samurai clan i believe and he was still against Father, Still doing some evil acts but had a guilt of conscious about his previous "friends" And soon he wanted to kill Father so he can rule the whole World, But he eventually died happily to know he had friends
Ryuga - From Beyblade Metal series, Like others, Ryuga first appeared as a villain and Gingka's nemesis until he defeated him only once, Ryuga then becamed an Anti-Hero as he was a real lone wolf without relying on anyone's help and still staying as the strongest Blader, In Metal Masters, Ryuga wanted to erase everything that was tied to Dark Nebula organisation by attacking the Hades Academy, There were times he was helping Gingka against their common enemies and helped Tsubasa to resolve his dark infection power, But upon in Metal Fury with Nemesis, Ryuga was thirst for more power to have Nemesis's power and the whole 10 star fragments so he can remain the only Blader the most unbeatable one and did not care for anything as he wasn't helping much the Legendary Bladers and unwillingly causes them to be in their nearest dooms in arrogant way until his soul disappeared in the sky.
Now i get we're in Edens Zero, But all i'm saying is with Drakken, He'll still do some illegal buisness with money and some villainous stuffs but he also does heroric acts, Which in a way he has his own balance between the Good and Evil and is morally grey, We don't know what will he do next after saving all lives on Guilst, But we'll see what kind of performances Drakken delivers as a Anti-Hero because Let's be honest, In EZ, Mashima has created one of the best villains ever, But when it comes to Anti-Heroes, Well there's a few yeah, And i know some can be seen as Anti-Heroes, But i mean literal Anti-Heroes who are they look like villains but do some heroric acts sometimes you know? And i think Drakken Joe will show the true meaning of being an Anti-Hero!

So i saw how many are okay with Drakken being an Anti-Hero while some like Ironnancy and Corez2.0 are really rather much him as a Villain only while same goes for a few others, But i don't find it personally that bad since it's an opportunity to see more with Drakken than just being a super cool villain that everybody praised for or most haters like Nerdigans would rather have him killed off. Just because you have a character introduced as a villain later to change to Anti-Hero or Hero, Doesn't make them bad characters or character writting unless they are treated like punching bags. There are many other characters that happened to turn on that side because of coming to realisation more than just who they believe they are.
Shadow the Hedgehog - Now if you're a Sonic fan or at least very familiar with the series and the characters, Shadow was first introduced as a Villain for Sonic who wanted revenge against Humans for killing Maria and wanted to destroy planet earth. Until later he came to realisation on his memories the most important thing he forgot from what Maria told him, Give them a chance to be happy, be their friend and how Earth is very beautiful, Which Shadow was later redeemed and sacrificed himself, But as he came back he was in amnesia with no memories about who he is and his relationships and act more like an Anti-Hero by doing heroric acts and villainous acts, But for a while Shadow becamed one of those main heroric Sonic characters but it didn't changed much of his aspects of his character since he still does heroric stuffs but sometimes does villainous things for the heroric side and that's what made his character good, Especially with his underrated game where you complete missions and stories wether you are Hero, Villain or Anti-Hero.
Greed - From Fullmetal Alchemist, Greed was at first showcased as one of the Seven Deadly Sins children of Father and he wanted mostly everything, But what he wanted the most was immortality, He was at first a villain from a bunch of thugs fighting Elrich until he turned on against Father and died and was "Ressurected" with no previous memories he had while possessing the boby of a proud son of some samurai clan i believe and he was still against Father, Still doing some evil acts but had a guilt of conscious about his previous "friends" And soon he wanted to kill Father so he can rule the whole World, But he eventually died happily to know he had friends
Ryuga - From Beyblade Metal series, Like others, Ryuga first appeared as a villain and Gingka's nemesis until he defeated him only once, Ryuga then becamed an Anti-Hero as he was a real lone wolf without relying on anyone's help and still staying as the strongest Blader, In Metal Masters, Ryuga wanted to erase everything that was tied to Dark Nebula organisation by attacking the Hades Academy, There were times he was helping Gingka against their common enemies and helped Tsubasa to resolve his dark infection power, But upon in Metal Fury with Nemesis, Ryuga was thirst for more power to have Nemesis's power and the whole 10 star fragments so he can remain the only Blader the most unbeatable one and did not care for anything as he wasn't helping much the Legendary Bladers and unwillingly causes them to be in their nearest dooms in arrogant way until his soul disappeared in the sky.
Now i get we're in Edens Zero, But all i'm saying is with Drakken, He'll still do some illegal buisness with money and some villainous stuffs but he also does heroric acts, Which in a way he has his own balance between the Good and Evil and is morally grey, We don't know what will he do next after saving all lives on Guilst, But we'll see what kind of performances Drakken delivers as a Anti-Hero because Let's be honest, In EZ, Mashima has created one of the best villains ever, But when it comes to Anti-Heroes, Well there's a few yeah, And i know some can be seen as Anti-Heroes, But i mean literal Anti-Heroes who are they look like villains but do some heroric acts sometimes you know? And i think Drakken Joe will show the true meaning of being an Anti-Hero!

I got shortlisted for TCS Digital Interview after giving NQT. I have my in-person interview on Thursday at Chennai. I'm from Mechanical dept(2023 batch) and have only got a little bit of knowledge on C and C++ and nothing else. What sort of questions can I expect in the interview? Will I have any disadvantage just coz I'm from a mech background? How many rounds does the interview go on for? Your experience? I need all the help I can get. Thank you.

Spoiler!!!!!!

This entire post is a spoiler for White Plume Mountain. If you ever plan on playing it, just move right along.
The module White Plume Mountain is one of my all time favourites. I have run it as a short adventure multiple times, and a part of it I've always felt to be a little dumb is a ring found in a room full of orbs you have to smash to unlock the door out.
When you pickup up the ring, it says:

Stop before you put me on. I confer the following powers upon my wearer: invisibility, haste, immunity to charms, fly once per day, detect magic, and one wish. I also provide the benefits of protection and spell turning. The only drawback is that once a year I permanently eat a small part of your life. I must be worn before I can leave this room; merely carrying me away is not possible. If ever I am removed from my wearer’s finger, however, all my powers are lost. So you must decide right now who will wear me forever.

The ring then loses power as soon as you leave the room.
In a three-shot type setting, this type of stuff is cool because it's powerful, but the consequences of the ring taking away a part of your life doesn't really matter to the player, because the game isn't going to go that long. A wish isn't really that powerful in a one-shot setting, because the stakes of the game aren't usually that incredibly high and the characters don't have that much going on to wish on, or if they do, the player won't usually get to experience the benefits of the wish.
So in that type of setting, they're usually just like "oh cool a ring that casts some good spells!" and then it stops working when you leave the room and it's kind of lame.
However, I have been running the module for the group I DM for in a long term campaign, and oh boy does having stakes beyond the volcano make a difference.
The group spent a minute debating whether or not anyone should even put it on after not being able to quite figure out what exactly "consuming a piece of your soul" meant, and when one did put it on, they spent even more time trying to figure out what to wish for, working to figure out a way to use the wish to defeat an Ancient Blue Dragon that they will have to parlay with.
The amount of energy they to put into the ring was significantly more than one-shot groups usually do, which made the betrail of the ring all that more disappointing. A couple people thought it might be too good to be true, but it was still a fun tangent anyway.
I love this module so much, if you have players that need a side quest to go on, I highly recommend it.

Things are (still 😊) going really well between us & I absolutely love everything he does for me, but I want to find more ways to show him this. I let him know all the time how grateful I am but I know words can get repetitive & fall on deaf ears sometimes. I also do things like make him little notes & letters, cook for him occasionally, get him small gifts but I want to step it up a little bit.
His favorite basketball team is coming to town soon & he’s always talked about how he’s never gotten a chance to see them play, so I was thinking of getting courtside seats for him & one of his best friends? I would get the 2nd one for myself but he & this friend go way back & basketball is the one thing they bond really strongly over. The cost wouldn’t make that big of a dent in my account, but I know the tickets are pretty pricey so might this be going overboard?
So yeah, any thoughts on this idea + other general ways of showing gratitude would be great :)

Hi All.
I've had my Synology NAS for a little other a month now, and am really pleased with it so far. I have a very large photo collection that I have accumulated over the years and love the way that Synology Photos makes it easy to find photos by date, person, or place taken. While there are better face recognition AIs in existence, this basically does the job pretty well, and I like that inference is done locally.
I have a family member that I would like to share about 99% of these photos with, preferably using the IOS app so that the process of logging in to the NAS and the People and Places albums are easy to access. My issue is that when I first set up my NAS, I put all of the photos under my personal account. Is there a way to mark photos as accessible to another user or copy to a shared directory except for a small number of specific photos? Or will I have to manually set the shared folder up again or a folder for this specific user, manually copy the tens of thousands of photos again, and simply delete the ones I don't want accessible to that user? It seems like Synology is very good about not duplicating files or effort unless it is absolutely necessary, so I hope there is an easier solution than starting from scratch. I'd appreciate any ideas.
Thanks in advance.

Sorry for the brief post earlier, as I was catching a flight.
It's true that many believe that Kote means disaster, the evidence of which is when Kvothe tells Kilvin that he doesn't know "kote" and Kilvin responds "Expect Disaster every seven years".
But, let's look back to Kvothe and Willem's earlier discussion on Siaru. Siaru is a complex language, without a word for word equivalence for an English translation. Examples: Tuan volgen oketh ama = Don't put a spoon in your eye over it. The language also seems to play out in an unconventional order, meaning that modifiers are likely part of the word itself. oketh likely means "Your eye" not just any eye for example. Soheketh ka Siaru krema'teth tu? = How well do you speak Siaru? Rieusa, ta krelar dealu tu = Not very well, thank you. Rieusa is likely the thank you, and KrelaKrema is quality. So Soheketh ka Siaru krema'teth tu? is likely "The spoken language of Siaru, well taught are you?
It's safe to assume that Chan-Vaen edan Kote does not translate direclty to Seven years, disaster is expected. Disaster would likely by a more complex word with degrees of modification for quality. Chan-Vaen is seven years, ill accept that one.
But lets come back to Kote in a minute and look at "edan."
Edan is used in another part of the story, and this is the key to understanding that Kote is not disaster. It appears in the discussion between Viari and Willem.
A tall, lean Cealdish man opened the door behind the entry desk. Unlike most Cealdish men he was clean-shaven and wore his hair long, pulled back into a tail. He wore well-mended hunter’s leathers, a faded traveling cloak, and high boots, all dusty from the road. As he shut the door behind him, his hand went unconsciously to the hilt of his sword to keep it from striking the wall or the desk.
So Viari walks out of Lorren's office, which is directly behind where Willem is sitting, and he grabs his sword to keep it from hitting something, He then says:
“Tetalia tu Kiaure edan A’siath,” ... “Vorelan tua tetam.”
He claps Willem on the arm after saying this, and then turns his attention to Kvothe.
He was telling Willem that he didn't wan't to cut him with his sword.
Since we know that Siaru idioms are usually translated a little oddly...
Chan-Vaen edan Kote Likely means, "Every seven years, a cut is expected." Edan means cut, and Kote means to expect. Kvothe chose this name as he was planning his elaborate trap which we know as the Waystone Inn. I think in the frame story, still doesn't know the truth, and he is expecting the truth to find him.

My husband and I seem to be in a constant tiff because we both think we do more than the other. For context, I am the main parent. I organise food shopping weekly, plan meals weekly, cook most nights, tidy the house, get our 1 year old ready for daycare, drop her to day care, pick her up 2 days from daycare, get her dinner, do the bedtime routine 3 times a week by myself and work 38 hours a week in 4 days with 1 day off to spend with my daughter. I also am the parent that does the research for our daughter relating to her nutritional and developmental needs, I organise the doctors appointments etc
My husband has breakfast with our daughter, feeds the dogs in the morning, gives them their tablets, does the clothes washing, cooks once a week and picks our daughter up 2 days a week from daycare. We share washing and putting away of dishes and will likely start sharing the clothes washing so reduce the amount he needs to do. My husband works 42.5 hours a week in 5 days and goes to training 3 days a week. I’m probably forgetting some things but that’s the general idea.
How did you distribute the house and babies needs so that the load feels fair?
My husband has little to no empathy so mental load is not a factor to him.

Hey everyone! I'm still alive, sorry for not uploading for so long, but I've been stuck without any ideas
Fortunately a friend of mine helped me with some interesting concepts
This is a short chapter, but from now on, things will get interesting
And of course this is a fanfic from a story from u/SpacePaladin15, and the story is The Nature of Predator
Also, here is the whole NoP universe
(First) (Previous ) (Next)
Memory transcription subject: Leon, UN "Jackal" special forces
Date [standardized human time]: October 28, 2136
After some time waiting In that dammed box I began to feel the rumble of the engines and after some time I finally began to feel the already familiar sense of being lifted to the sky. Then like it was a VTOL, I began to feel the ship speeding up towards the space probably
Then, I could hear steps getting close, steps that I could recognize because they were very similar to those of Rahade
My door suddenly opened revealing the same arxur as before, I didn't even remember his name, to be honest I was already very bad with remembering names as a normal human
Now? I still suck at remembering names, but now I could record their names and play it back within my memory
"Come" The arxur ordered, and sadly I had to obey, not because I cared about his rank, I could give less of a fuck, but now I was in his ship and both my experience and my dad taught me that when I was in a plane, the commandant/pilot was my new god until I was back in the ground
I followed behind the arxur who from time to time glanced back at me, it couldn't be to check if I was following him, my steps were enough, something that I would fix as soon as possible. It was probably to check that I wouldn't pounce on him or admire my beautiful figures…
I silently chuckled at my own jokes making the arxur to give me another glance
What? I couldn't make my own jokes? I've lost everything in exchange for me leaving that hospital bed. Something that to be honest, I don't know if it was worth it in the long run
The only activity where I could socialize was through videogames, and because of my new body, it was incredibly easy to win, and wining constantly isn't fun
After walking through the corridor that worked as the spine of the ship we arrived at what looked like a meeting room, and fortunately for me, it's ceiling is tall enough to allow me to stand at full height
The arxur then sat in a weird chair specially designed to take in account their tails. Because of how much I weigh and how flimsy the chairs looks, I won't even consider sitting. Now I can be grateful of my mechanical body and the automatic balancing system because I wouldn't be able to sit without breaking anything
"Very… beast, here you have all the information you need, now, once you finish with it destroy it" The arxur said while he gave me some kind of holopad that looked a lot like Rahade's pad. But the way he called me…
"Do not test my patience" I said in a menacing tone, sorry dad, but the space nazis don't enter in the category of 'new God until we touch land'
"Are you threatening me?" This sub-brick overgrown gecko…
"I'm giving you a warning" I say as I lean towering over him, fortunately for his own good he decides to not try to fight a murder robot in such closed space
Now without much of a fuss he left leaving me to my own thoughts
Why I was suddenly so hot tempered? As a pilot I always had to keep my head cold, but now? I wanted to kill the arxur…
Fucking temper control… Not only they had to change my diet habits, but now I was as good as a teenager in a tantrum, fortunately I don't lose all control, I still can direct myself towards something, like now wanting him to leave, even if it was after threatening him
Still, fuck him, he is the chief-captain or whatever that rank is of a cattle ship, and it's not a new ship, I can perfectly smell the blood around me if I turned on my smell receptors
Anyway, let's see what's in here
As expected there is a complete rundown of my objectives, there is also a small map of the compound, something that I will take a photo of, I don't have the best memory after all
But there is something that catches my eye
"To make sure this operation goes as much undercover as possible, your arrival and extraction will be the same as the trimestral meat deliver. In other words, you will be stranded in that planet for three months. Do not worry about the cold and food, you are able to eat trees to gain energy and you can enter in 'Energy saving' mode to pass time faster, beware, in that mode you will be unresponsive, so make sure to stay in a safe area"
"The extraction coordinates will be sent through the special device inside this pad, once the time is up, a ship will go to your location. Play the following audio"
Then, the most obnoxious sound that I've ever had the misfortune to hear, played. But to my surprise, I somehow was hearing a voice that the audio was definitely not saying, probably a hidden message that only me could understand. It remembered me of those old videos were people hearing with headphones listened something different than those that listened with a speaker
"The following message is vital information and no one must get this message, the safe word once you board the ship is: What a wonderful world, if the response is other than 'A beautiful world indeed' the operation is compromised and you must exterminate all witnesses in that ship. I repeat, if you say 'What a wonderful world' and they don't respond 'A beautiful world indeed', exterminate all life forms in that ship. If that happens, reactivate the device. If the device is reactivated human ships will be sent to dominion space which is very dangerous, this is a last resort option. Good luck and may God bless your soul"
With that the device busted into flames for a moment before falling in parts in my claws
Indeed inside the pad there was a circular object that fitted perfectly in my hand, in the front there was a dark screen with 'Heat' written in it, once I turned my thermal vision I could clearly see a clock ticking down
In the back there was a magnet of some kind, and it was strong, very strong for how small it was
In the sides there are some buttons and some slots to tie it somewhere, it looked awfully lot like those old pocket watches, but it was obvious that compared to them, this thing was huge, but for my size? It was ok
To avoid losing it, I stick it in the back of my lower left hand with the powerful magnet, then with the clothes in that hand, I tied it and cover it up. Now this thing wasn't going nowhere
Now, the only thing left was arriving to my destiny
Once I made sure that they couldn't fix the pad, by eating the motherboard and anything that looked important, I went to my room and began studying the the plans of the building, if I was going to kill somebody, I needed to know that building like the back of my hand
…
Anyway, how long will the trip be? In the movies it's always almost instant, but this was real life
Well, I hope I have enough time…
Memory transcription subject: Leon, UN "Jackal" special forces
Date [standardized human time]: November 12, 2136
Two weeks! Two fucking weeks inside that metal box barely getting out, two weeks holding myself so I don't tear apart that fucking gecko
Well, in reality it wasn't 2 full weeks thanks to the 'Energy saving' mode, it was more like half of it, I couldn't just sleep all of the travel, I had to study the maps after all
But today was the day, I exited the 'room' and walked to the back of the ship which was devoid of any life
Still, I knew that sooner or later they would open the door and I had to free fall, again, out of the ship. They couldn't just land and then I get out, I would get detected immediately
So there I was, standing in front of the closed door… Until now
I could finally see the door opening, and with it it came a storm
"I'll be dammed… Hoth."
A frozen forest that looked like Russian Siberia in the middle of winter, I could barely see the installations in the distance even with my enhanced sight, and I was only able to see it thanks to the lights of the watchtowers
With one last look at my few belongings checking that I had everything, I jumped into the abyss with nothing but snow and my servos to stop the fall
I guess I kinda cheated because with every extremity except my tail, I grabbed a tree to slow my fall even a little, without my multiple cameras was a hard job, but nothing impossible
With a deafening noise I landed in the ground, and to my surprise, the snow reached around my waist, compared to a human only their heads would stick out
The trees that I used to slow down my fall were completely destroyed with huge claws marks in all of their trunks
I quickly checked all of my gear and 'clothes' finding that they weren't made in china because they were still in perfect condition, my tailbags, as I called them, were also in perfect condition and with all the little belongings I had still inside
With nothing left to check, my silent march towards my objective began…

OG4 opens with a confident summary of RE2 and RE3, then wipes the slate clean by explaining that Umbrella's involvement was revealed to the public and the company succumbed to a stock collapse. I couldn't help but notice that Remake4's demo starts with a similar opening but more focused on Leon, and it makes no mention of Umbrella's reveal to the public, their end, etc. It then gives a text summary (the splash screen with Leon in the car right before the demo starts) that also makes no mention of Umbrella's ruination.
So, assuming you are not privvy to any leaks or insider info, I'm curious what you all think: was that context just missing in the demo's intro or does the new canon take a twist here, with Umbrella assumedly still at large or at least left to an ambiguous fate until some later reveal?
​
My thoughts: I hope there's a new twist on this plot element. OG4 is one of my favorite games of all time to this day but, as a fan of the overall series, I'm not sure I love how they handled Umbrella's off-screen collapse. I understand it was an intentional way of rebooting the series a bit with 4 being such an offshoot of the first 3 games and it allowed them to focus more carefully on Leon's story and Los Illuminados, I just feel like the first three games pretty solidly set up 4 major characters - Chris, Jill, Claire, and Leon - and gave them each some personal investment in the battle against the pharmaceutical giant. Chris was betrayed by Wesker, Jill and Leon saw the corruption behind those who created and tried to retrieve the G virus and just how little regard they had for human life, Claire saw what it did to Sherry, etc. So having each of their games built up these stakes, it felt a bit... anticlimactic when we hear in the title crawl that Umbrella got taken down by government sanctions and bad publicity. And no, Wesker working with Tricell in Re5 and Neo Umbrella or whatever the hell was going on in Re6 didn't lead to some equal payoff.

Hi everyone. Im pretty new to crypto and planning to invest to btc and eth later on when i get myself more educated about crypto.
Just wanted to ask what do you guys think about core?
Was mining core for a while and have gathered some and currently staking it. Did read through whitepaper and it looked kinda good to me. I want to know opinions about core from ppl who been longer to crypto and does this project really have future?
Was also mining pi yers ago but lost hope about it when reading about pi everywhere.
Staking is for 81 year period so if price even keeps where it is now i still do a little profit no matter what.
Thanks for reading and i want to know opinions about core if it project to go for longer term or should i just keep with btc and eth when i feel ready to invest?

“Of his three disciples, Mo Ran used to be duplicitous. In fear that he wouldn't be able to stop himself from entering his Shizun's bed again, he pretended not to like him. Shi Mei always held dark thoughts in his heart. In fear that he would expose his plans and reveal his true nature, he also pretended not to like him. In actuality, both of them were people who truly didn't care for little things like whether or not Chu Wanning could cook or do laundry.”
Idk when I first read this it kind of hit me that Shi mei 2.0 (current one) would have actually spoiled Chu Wanning like Mo Ran does if he was allowed to openly pursue his shizun. Which led me to feel a little frustrated that we never got any inner dialogue from Shi Mei 2.0 about his feelings for Chu Wanning. I wish meatbun would have spared one chapter from all the Xue Meng extras to give us an insight look to Shi Mei’s (not Hua Binan) love for CWN. I really wanted to know about his inner turmoil’s regarding his mission and his feelings.
Another thing I realized
Hua Binan and TXJ both had animalistic love towards CWN and it makes me wonder if Shi Mei’s love for CWN is parallel to Mo Ran 2.0’s (more on the gentler and caring side).

TL;DR: We gave our troubled adoptive daughter the choice of continuing to live with us if she breaks up with her abusive, deadbeat boyfriend, or kicking them both out if she wants to continue to be with him. We were hoping she'd choose the first option, but she chose the second, and as a result they are homeless. Our family says we've made the right choice, but our friends think we've gone too far.
​
My (54M) wife (52F) and I have two daughters; Alexa, who's 27, and Britney, who's 21. We adopted Britney when she was 4. She has always known that she's adopted; she considers us to be her real family and thinks of her adoption day to be almost like a second birthday (she gets presents for each). We are of course happy that she thinks of us this way. Her biological mother was a drug addict, and the man who most likely is her biological father has been in and out of prison many times. Britney says she hates both of them, but that hasn't stopped her from maintaining periodic contact with them.
Alexa, who is our biological child, has never gotten along with Britney and has said many times that she doesn't consider her to be family, telling her that she takes us for granted and if she really considered us to be family, she'd cut off contact with her birth family. Britney of course gets very upset when she says this. They fight quite often; nowadays they just yell insults at each other, which, although is inappropriate and hurtful, is a huge improvement from when Britney was in her early-mid teens, when we had to call the police on her.
As you can probably can tell, Britney had a ton of behavioral challenges, both at home and at school. When she was in seventh grade, she began attending a school for kids with social/emotional challenges which prevented them from functioning in a normal classroom. It was there that she met John. She and John have known each other since middle school, however they did not begin dating until after Britney graduated high school. While we didn't disapprove of John quite as much as her other boyfriends, we still aren't wild about him. He drinks, smokes, does drugs (mainly weed, which is legal in our state now but we still don't like it) and listens to trash metal music.
Our property is large, and we have a guest house. After months of Britney begging, we finally agreed to allow John to move into the guest house, and Britney of course moved out of the main house and into the guest house with him. While we have allowed Britney to live with us rent free, we told John that if he wanted to live with us, he'd have to get a job and pay rent. He has had several jobs now, always ends up getting fired, and the little money he's made he puts towards drugs, not rent.
John and Britney fight a lot, and in recent months their fights have seemingly become more frequent and more intense. This worries us. Britney has insisted that John has never gotten physically violent, but we have reason to believe otherwise. It came to a head yesterday when I went down to the guest house and noticed a hole in the wall that I'm pretty sure was the result of someone kicking the wall, although Britney insisted that it was an accident and that she must have made the hole when she lost her balance and fell because she was drunk. We're pretty sure she's lying and that John kicked the hole in the wall because he was both drunk and angry.
We've given Britney an ultimatum; she can either continue to live with us if she breaks up with John, or she can stay with John but they will need to find somewhere else to live. We urged her to pick the first option, and, to our great relief, she did, and went and told John. John of course didn't take this well, but he packed up his stuff and said that he would be moving back in with his mom, and Britney could come over anytime she wanted. Britney must have misheard us as she had it in her head that we simply were kicking John out of our house, but that was NOT the case. We reiterated that if Britney wanted to continue living with us, she would have to break up with John. Britney then said that there was no way that she was going to break up with him, so she packed up her stuff, and they left.
We are DESPERATE to get Britney away from John. We called John's mom and explained the situation, and she's not allowing them to move in with her. Britney refuses to break up with him, but neither of them have jobs, so they are currently homeless and living in John's truck. Our extended family thinks we made the right choice, but various friends of ours think that we've gone too far in asking that Britney break up with John, and getting John's mother involved is only going to make things worse.
So, are my wife and I justified in what we did by kicking our daughter and her boyfriend out when she refused to break up with him?
​
Update: Our older daughter, Alexa, just fueled the fire by posting on Facebook that she's glad Britney is out of our house and "hopefully out of our lives" because she's been a burden on our family since they day she arrived, and that she never considered her to be her sister. All our relatives, as well as her friends, are siding with her. They all say that Britney has had many opportunities to change her ways, but it's clear that she's choosing her deadbeat boyfriend over the family that has taken care of her when no one else could, and therefore she's no longer part of our family. While we of course all agree that her boyfriend isn't a good person, saying that Britney isn't part of our family is uncalled for. We have told Alexa to delete the post. She refuses to do so.

First Entry
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Fifth Entry
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Journal of Camille Lambert - April 12th
​
We could see the shadows of the Nightwalkers from our place by the bonfire. They peeked in through the broken windows of the church, watching us from afar but never actually entering the ruins. I’m not sure if the firelight was what kept them away, or the protective runes that Nina had drawn.
​
Nina sat on a fallen column, watching them in case they tried anything… and yet if I walked over to the right side of the circle of columns that we’d set up our bonfire in, she seemed… dimmer. Like she was there and yet not there at the same time.
​
Dom on the other hand was crystal clear. I could see him sitting by the door of the church. I couldn’t see him at all from the left side of the circle. The mist was too thick. But on the right side, he was right there, impossible to miss. The effect was surreal, to say the least. He was holding the device Nina had used to call in her backup. She’d called it a phone but it didn’t look like any phone I’d ever seen.
​
“ETA, an hour or so for the standby team in Tallinn, 15 hours for the rest,” Nina had said after she’d made her call. “Let’s get comfortable.”
I figured that it’d been about an hour and a half since she’d said that. Standing by the bonfire itself, the world past the columns seemed to be in flux. Sometimes I could see mist through the windows and the holes in the ceiling. Sometimes I could see stars.
​
Shadows of smaller Nightwalkers darted past the church door sometimes, lingering only long enough to look in on us before retreating back into the darkness. Nina watched each one like a hawk, gripping her shotgun tightly.
I walked out to sit with her for a bit, leaving the light of the fire for a little while. Even from her vantage point, I still couldn’t see Dom but at least I knew he was safe enough.
“How many do you think are out there?” I asked quietly.
“Too many,” Nina replied. “We’re not going back to Puriysk tonight, that’s for damn sure.”
​
As she spoke, I saw more shadows moving in the dark, skittering away into the mist.
“You sure you want to stay out here? Might be safer to stay with Dom,” I said.
“Probably, but it’s better if I stay here. If the door closes, I’m better off on the inside. Be easier to open it again, that way.”
“Fair enough,” I said, looking back out into the mist. I could see nothing past it.
​
No shadows. No movement. There wasn’t even any noise. Nina looked up at the darkness again.
“Is it just me or is it quieter out there?” She asked.
“No… it’s quieter out there,” I said. “Could be there’s a big one nearby. Dom said that the small ones usually avoid them.”
​
Nina kept staring out at the mist, but the silence remained. I wasn’t sure if she was genuinely worried or not. After a few minutes, I saw movement in the mist again. I heard the rustling of trees and saw something standing in the dark. I almost thought that it might have looked like a man… almost. But I couldn’t fully make out the shape of it.
​
I could see the eyes of the Nightwalker shining in the firelight, before it finally moved, darting out of sight. Nina watched it go, before returning her attention to me.
“Good news is, we won’t be alone for that much longer,” She said. “After the first group shows up, we can head into Puriysk with them and start setting up shop. By the time the rest of them arrive, we should be in a good place. After that, it’s just a matter of getting people out and dealing with Calhoun,”
“You make it sound easy,” I said.
“I mean, it probably won’t be a walk in the park,” Nina admitted. “But at least we won’t be running this job alone. These things go easier when you’ve got help.”
“Yeah… I imagine they would,” I said.
​
Beside us, I heard a dull thud as a piece of one of the church's more damaged walls fell away and crashed to the ground. Nina was up on her feet immediately, shotgun in hand. I rose to my feet beside her.
“The fuck was that?” She asked.
“Part of the wall, I think,” I said. I spotted the spot where it had fallen and looked up. It had probably come off one of the broken domed towers near the door. One of their ceilings had come down ages ago and I imagined it wouldn’t take much more than a strong gust of wind to knock over some of the loose bricks jutting out from where the roof remained. Nina approached the fallen piece of brick, pausing to inspect it.
​
“Hell of a big chunk of wall,” She said before looking up again. I did the same, although as I did, I could’ve sworn I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked over at it. The shadows cast by the bonfire left pools of darkness along the ceiling.
​
But in those pools, I could see flickering reflections of light.
​
Two of them.
​
Staring right at me.
​
Slowly I reached out, putting a hand on Nina’s shoulder. I didn’t want to yell or move too quickly. I couldn’t see what was in the darkness but I know that it looked poised to strike. Nina looked over at me, before tensing up. I knew that she saw it too. The eyes remained trained on us, and I heard a low, animal hiss coming from the shadows.
“Bonfire…” Nina said, gripping her shotgun tighter “Get Dom… now.”
​
I took a step back and saw the eyes following me. Nina backed away from the shadows, eyes never leaving the ceiling. I saw limbs splaying outward from the darkness. I could see them tensing up. It was going to lunge.
​
“MOVE!” I said, breaking into a sprint, but it was too late. The Nightwalker launched itself at Nina like a bullet. I heard her shotgun fire twice, before the creature crashed into the ground, flailing violently. I could see long, dark limbs, more than any human should have struggling to pick itself up. I could see a body that only vaguely resembled a man. It had a torso, a human head, and long black hair, but looked more like a spider than a person. And yet there was something off about it. Something I hadn’t seen on any of the other Nightwalkers. This one had some kind of sigil on its forehead. Something that looked almost like a crimson eye, that seemed to glow with surreal energy.
​
The Nightwalker looked at Nina, snarling at her. When it opened its mouth, I could see rows upon rows of teeth inside. She fired her shotgun again, but the creature barely even seemed to notice them. Even after she’d gone through the trouble of cursing them, her rounds weren’t doing anything.
“RUN!” I heard her yell, and I didn’t dare question that. I just ran.
​
I sprinted toward the bonfire, just in time to see Dom running toward me. He took aim at the Nightwalker, firing at it as it tried to go after Nina. But his bullets did next to nothing to it. The Nightwalker didn’t even look at him.
​
It just kept going for Nina, almost pinning her down. She unloaded two more shells into its face, which did little more than make it flinch and bought her some time to run.
​
This time, she took off at a sprint toward the bonfire. Dom saw her running and started to backpedal as well, running back toward the bonfire and the safety of the columns. The creature paused as we took shelter by the fire, watching us intently and letting out another serpentine hiss. Nina stared back at it, before looking back at the fire. She tossed her shotgun aside and hastily grabbed one of the spare branches we’d kept for the bonfire. She put it in the fire, before pulling it out and brandishing it like a weapon. The Nightwalker hissed and recoiled a bit, focused on the flame. As it paused, Dom grabbed Nina’s shotgun off the ground and took aim.
​
“Don’t…” She said, putting a hand up to stop him, her voice low and intense. She didn’t dare look away from the Nightwalker. “Save the cursed rounds… they won’t kill it. Just get outside.”
“What about you?” Dom asked.
“Outside,” Nina repeated. “Now.”
I put a hand on Dom’s shoulder.
“Let’s go!” I said, trying to tug him along behind me.
​
He hesitated for a moment longer before finally letting me take him. We backed through the right set of columns, and once we were through I saw Nina taking a step away from the bonfire, toward the right set of columns. The Nightwalker passed the left set of columns, trying to follow her.
“Come on…” She said under her breath, “Come and get me, shithead…”
​
I saw it inching closer to her, and tensing up again, getting ready to pounce. That was when Nina made her move. She thrust her burning branch into the Nightwalker's face, earning a cry of pain from it and making it jerk back. I saw it swatting at the branch, trying to get rid of the fire. Nina took the chance to run, sprinting at top speed toward the door of the church.
“GO!”
​
Neither of us needed to be told twice. We ran for the church door, as the Nightwalker let out a roar from behind us. I looked back to see it charging toward us again, gaining ground. As we ran back out into the field, we were greeted by countless blinding lights. I saw Nina pause, before feeling her grab me by the back of the shirt and pull me away. I could see Dom in her other hand. She dragged us both down to the ground in the instant before the Nightwalker emerged from the door of the church.
​
I saw it recoil, putting up its clawed hands to try and shield its eyes from the blinding light.
​
Then I heard the gunfire.
​
As my eyes adjusted to the light, I could see several men, each holding automatic rifles advancing on the Nightwalker. It shrank back toward the church, trying to shield itself from the gunfire, clearly overwhelmed. But just like with Nina’s shotgun before it, the bullets did little to harm it. Despite all the gunfire it took, it didn’t fall. I could hear it hissing, I could see its beady black eyes darting around wildly. It lunged forward again, tackling one of the nearby men and tearing into him, before going after another. I saw its jaws close around his skull and heard the sickening crunch of bone as it took his head. The other men scrambled back, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the Nightwalker as they could. It howled in rage, preparing to charge after them when a final, deafening gunshot echoed through the night.
​
This time, the Nightwalker's entire body seized up. It let out an agonized scream. I could see its clawed hands clutching at a wound that had appeared on its chest… and I could see smoke rising out of that wound. It kept screaming and thrashing violently. Its limbs gave out from underneath it. I could see the wound in its chest sizzling and burning. I saw the flesh and skin sloughing off of its body, and I could see the pale white bone underneath.
​
The eye sigil on its forehead flickered before fading away and the Nightwalker let out one final, howl before collapsing to the ground, its body still twitching and convulsing. I looked over to see a single woman standing calmly by the nearby trucks. She was tall and pale, with long, stringy black hair and an intense look in her eye.
​
She was dressed in a long beige coat and holding an ornate revolver in one gloved hand. As the Nightwalker died I saw her gingerly slip the pistol into the inner pocket of her coat before reaching into another pocket for a notebook. Without ever looking away from the dead Nightwalker, she scribbled something down, then pocketed the notebook again and calmly walked toward the church, not even pausing to acknowledge anyone else around her. As she left, I saw the other armed men tending to their dead. With the Nightwalker dead, I could get a better look at them now. They were dressed like soldiers, with bulletproof vests and no shortage of pockets. A few of them wore netted veils over their faces, making it hard to get a good look at them and giving them an eerie appearance, although watching them examine the bodies of their dead and respectfully carrying them away was almost humanizing.
​
Nina sat up, her blonde hair messy and a somewhat disoriented look on her face. She looked over toward the source of the lights that had blinded us. Four large SUVs were parked outside of the church, their headlights shining on the door. From those SUVs, I could see more armed men getting out and one of them was coming toward us.
​
“Nina Valentine?” I heard him ask. He had a heavy Slavic accent.
“Still alive,” She said, as she slowly climbed to her feet.
“Good. I’m Olev Kallas, I’m from the Tallinn Office, Director Durand sends his regards,” He offered Nina a hand to shake and she reluctantly took it. “The Director is currently en route, as are the rest of the team. In the meanwhile, we’re here to help.”
“Yeah and right on fucking time too,” She said, looking over at the dead Nightwalker.
​
“Ah… yes, you can thank Dr. Di Cesare for that,” Kallas said.
Nina raised an eyebrow. I had a feeling that she recognized the name, but she didn’t comment on it.
“But first, I imagine you and your friends must need a hot meal and a cold drink right about now and I can get you both.”
“Oh you’ve got no fucking idea…” Nina said, as Dom helped me to my feet. She waited until we were up, before gesturing for us to follow as Kallas led us toward one of the SUV’s.
​
***
​
I barely recognized the empty field around us as Puriysk. The buildings were all long gone and in their place was a paved highway that I’d never seen before.
“The town’s been gone for as long as I can remember,” Kallas said. “I couldn’t tell you if it was us, or the Soviets who got rid of the ruins. I read somewhere that there was some talk about refurbishing the old Church, but as you see, nothing ever came of it.”
“Thank God for small miracles,” Nina said, “Made my job a hell of a lot easier.”
​
We drove down the highway, past the wide open landscape and as we drove, I couldn’t help but admire it. In the distance, I could see the lights from another nearby town and watched as they drew closer and closer. God, I’d never seen a place so full of life before. As we drove along the quiet streets, past the sleeping buildings in the early hours of the morning, they still seemed so alive. Street lights cast a warm glow on the few passersby out doing their business. There were more cars on the road than I’d ever seen before, some driving past us to their own destinations and others parked and still.
​
“I can drop you three off at a hotel if you’d like,” Kallas offered. “You can get cleaned up and have a short rest before Director Durand arrives. I can pick up some fresh clothes for you, and then we can have a debrief over dinner.”
“Yeah, works for me,” Nina said before looking over at us.
“Dinner sounds good,” I said, although at the time I had no idea what exactly a hotel was. Thankfully, I got my answer pretty quickly.
​
The room I got was comfortable. The bed was softer than anything I’d ever laid on before and the hot water… oh God… I spent almost an hour in the shower alone, enjoying the steam and feeling the tension drain out of my muscles. When I was done, I put on a soft, fluffy bathrobe and laid down, letting myself relax for the first time in days. I almost dozed off… and maybe I would have if I hadn’t heard a knock on my door.
​
I considered ignoring it and just letting sleep take me, but I figured I might as well make sure it wasn’t important. Tying my bathrobe a little tighter around me, I got up to answer the door and was greeted by Dom, still wet from the shower.
​
“Hey,” He said. “Sorry, I hope I’m not bothering you!”
“It’s fine!” I replied, putting on a smile, “Come on in.”
I opened the door all the way to let him inside, but he hesitated.
“No, it’s alright. I just thought I’d check on you. It’s been… well, it’s been one hell of a past few days. And this feels like the first chance we’ve had to really breathe in a while.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I sighed. I still held the door open for him. “Well, we’re not going to have this conversation in the hall, so come on in. I’ve got a coffee machine in here and I’m dying to try it out.”
​
I’m not sure if it was the promise of coffee that made him accept my invitation or the realization that I probably didn’t want to be in the hall with just a bathrobe on, but he came inside anyway.I went to the coffee machine and tried to figure it out. They had these little cups that I’d never seen before, but otherwise, it seemed fairly straightforward.
​
“Man… it’s really something else out here, isn’t it?” Dom asked, going to sit down on the bed. “It’s just so bright out here!”
“I’m still not entirely convinced I’m not dreaming,” I admitted. I managed to get one of the cups into the coffee machine and watched as it pissed out a somewhat pathetic amount of scalding hot coffee that admittedly did smell very nice. It had a lovely vanilla aroma.
I brought the first cup over to Dom.
​
“Glad I’m not the only one,” He said as I went back to make another cup, “Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if Nina’s backup was even going to come through and I sure as hell didn’t expect any of this.”
“You and me both,” I said with a sigh, “Is it wrong to say that I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop?”
“Well, when something seems too good to be true…” Dom murmured, “Although then again… looking at what we had in there compared to what Nina’s been telling me about life out here, I can’t help but wonder if we’ve had it bad for so long that even the smallest good thing would seem too good to be true.”
“That’s a disturbing thought,” I said.
“Maybe. But what if it’s true?”
​
I didn’t know how to answer that.
“Either way… this isn’t much more than a break, isn’t it?” Dom asked, “The calm before the storm. I know that after we talk to the Director, Nina’s going right back in… and I’m going with her.”
I nodded before taking my coffee and joining him on the bed.
“I know,” I said. “And I’m going with you.”
“You know that you don’t have to, right?” Dom asked. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I know that this kind of thing isn’t exactly in your wheelhouse. I’m not saying to just let it be or anything, but there’s other ways to help that don’t involve shooting things and burning down buildings.”
​
Again, I paused.
“Maybe,” I said. “Honestly, whatever I can do, I just want to do it. Whatever it may be. I’ve been just accepting things the way they were for too long, the same as you. I don’t want to just accept it anymore! I can’t.”
“And you aren’t,” Dom said, “I mean… shit, I watched you take pot shots at a Nightwalker the other night. Ever since we left, you’ve done whatever you can to help out. You’ve done a hell of a lot more to fix things than anyone else I know. That takes a hell of a lot of strength. More than I’d probably have in your shoes… honestly, you’re half the reason I’m still doing this, Cam.”
​
I looked at him and felt his hand pressing over mine.
“Only half?” I teased, trying to distract from the shade I could feel my cheeks flushing.
“Well, there’s everyone else too.” He said, “But right now, the one I care the most about is you.”
I actually broke down laughing at that and gently pushed him away.
“Too much?” He asked.
“No,” I said. “Just right.”
​
I let my head rest on his shoulder and for a little bit, we just sat together, hand in hand and beautifully content. I sensed him hesitating for a little while, before finally seizing the moment and placing his hand on my chin. I let him. He lifted my face and pressed a gentle kiss to my lips, one that I all too happily reciprocated.
​
After all… who knew when we’d get another chance?
​
***
​
The restaurant that Kallas brought us to was fairly quiet, although it wasn’t empty. As we walked in, I could see a large table set out with faces both familiar and unfamiliar at it.
​
Nina had washed almost an entire layer of dirt and soot off her face. Her hair looked cleaner and she was clearly wearing new, cleaner jeans. Although I didn’t think she’d actually changed her T-shirt. I recognized it by the neckline, but I’d never seen the whole thing before. It had a graphic of a warning label on it that said: ‘DO NOT USE FOR WET GRINDING’ although the ‘DO NOT’ part was crossed out in red.
​
Had she seriously been wearing that the whole fucking time…? At least it looked like she’d recently washed it.
​
Beside Nina, I saw Natalya, looking a little more cleaned up and wearing new clothes. Someone must have gotten her out of Puriysk earlier that day. The dark haired woman that Kallas had named as Dr. Di Cesare sat on the other side of Nina, although she was more focused on her own journal than any of us.
Lastly, I saw a man I didn’t recognize at all. He was tall and looked to be somewhere in his fifties, with wavy blond hair and a clean shaven face. He was dressed in a nice but slightly wrinkled suit.
​
The blond man was the first one to speak.
“Mr. Kallas, good to see you again,” He said as he got up to greet us.
“Director Durand, I have to say that the pleasure is all mine,” Kallas said, shaking Durand’s hand. His attention turned to us next.
​
“You two must be Camille Lambert and Dom Hoskins, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Milo Durand. I’m the Director of the Fae Relations Bureau’s Department of Public Safety.”
“Hell of a mouthful,” Dom said, shaking Durand’s hand.
“Just call us the FRB for short,” He said with a smile, “Take a seat. Dr. Di Cesare and I wanted to take some time to go through the situation with the Calhoun Pocket.”
​
Kallas pulled out some seats for us and we sat down. There were glasses of water waiting for us at the table. As soon as we sat down, Dr. Di Cesare glanced up at us, but didn’t close her notebook.
“So… now that we’re all here. Where should we begin?” Kallas asked.
“Well for starters, I’d like to get a solid picture of what exactly we’re going to be walking into when we send the rest of our people into the Calhoun Pocket,” Durand said, “Mr. Kallas, I’m aware you’re detachment has already properly secured Puriysk. But I’ve got some questions regarding the other towns so we know what else to expect once we’re inside.”
“What exactly is it that you want to know?” I asked.
​
“Well for starters, we need access to the other towns. We were told that navigating between them could be difficult, but I imagine there must be some way to circumvent that,”
“There is,” Dom said, “The roads don’t always go to the same places, but there are always landmarks and turns. You can use those to navigate.”
“One of the files I found in the archive at the Deputy’s Office has a list of landmarks and directions to reach the different towns,” Nina added, “I emailed you a copy earlier to go over,”
​
Durand nodded.
“Excellent. Which leads me to my next question. Infrastructure. I can’t imagine Calhoun’s been running a show like his without some means of providing food and power to the other towns. I’m aware that Rankin Mills had a power plant, so I figure that Calhoun is using that to keep the lights on. But what about food, gas, supplies?”
“Most of the food comes from Bakersfield,” I said. “There’s a lot of farmland there, most of it fairly safe from the mist. I used to work at a Roadhouse in Thompson Falls. We’d get deliveries every week or so.”
​
“I see… what about Puriysk and Thompson Falls? What’s there?”
“Puriysk was where they trained a lot of the Sheriff’s Boys,” Dom said. “They had the largest Deputy’s Office outside of Parsons. And Thompson Falls was more of a mining community. Lotta the construction work that was done in Parsons was done by people brought in from Thompson and Puriysk.”
​
Durand raised an eyebrow.
“Construction in Parsons?” He asked.
“Calhoun’s sorta been using it as his capital. Far as I can tell, he’s been trying to build up the towns, although Parson’s the one that’s gotten the most attention,” Dom said. “I guess it’s as close to a capital city as we’ve got in there. He also mentioned the ‘Sovereign Nation of Calhoun’ although I haven’t heard anyone outside of Parsons use that name.”
“Sovereign Nation of Calhoun…” Durand repeated, before glancing at Nina. She just gave a slightly defeated nod as if to say: ‘Yeah, he actually called it that.’
​
“Okay… let’s talk about Calhoun himself… what do you know?” Durand asked.
“Not a hell of a lot,” Dom said, “Closest I’ve ever come to actually meeting the guy is when he spoke to us outside of the church last night. Other than that, he rarely leaves his house in Parsons and rarely appears in public and most of what I’ve heard is just rumors.”
​
“Whatever you’ve heard… odds are that it’s true,” Natalya said quietly, drawing all eyes at the table over to her.
“I’ve heard the story enough times now… first from my mother, then from so many afterward. One day, the days just grew dimmer. The clouds above us just grew so thick that you could not see the sun and the mist drifted through the streets. The roads no longer led to the same places… and at night, the shadows moved, devouring any in their paths alive and screaming. First, it came for Parsons, then Rankin, Puriysk, Bakersfield, and Thompson. One by one. In time, it will come for others. He will come for others.”
​
Durand leaned in a little bit, listening intently. Dr. Di Cesare had also paused, listening as Natalya spoke.
“My mother told me that after the change, Calhoun’s people began to enter the town. Drunken louts, filling up the bars demanding free alcohol in exchange for ‘protection’ from the things outside. Although even with the alcohol, they still left bodies in their wake.”
She paused, slipping back into old, bitter memories.
​
“She told me of the ways Calhoun had changed Puriysk… most of the men either joined his little militia out of necessity or were given other jobs where they were worked to the bone. And the women…” She paused, “The homemakers he generally left alone but the young and the pretty ones found their way into the brothel. After all, his soldiers needed something to do to pass the time when they weren’t drinking and acting like children with guns. Governor Calhoun raped Puriysk, just the same as he raped every other town he took. All my life, I’ve watched as he’s milked them for his own gain and spread like a disease across new towns, looking for more. Before I even understood what home was, he had taken my home from me. Before I was old enough to speak, he had taken my life from me. Because of him, I grew up in a brothel in a town that does not exist.”
​
Durand was silent, before looking at Nina who drummed her fingers on the table.
“Valentine?” He asked.
“Like Dom said, the only interaction we had with that guy was when he talked to us last night,” She said. “I’m not a psychologist but I’d figure most of what he said is pretty on par with what a narcissistic megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur would probably say. It was probably a whole lot of horseshit… probably…”
“But?” Durand asked. Nina sighed.
​
“There was one thing he said that stood out, he said that if we killed him, we’d be killing everyone else in the pocket too. He made it sound like his life was tied to it, or something. I don’t know if he can actually fucking do that or not but I’m also not sure I’d want to chance it. Some of those documents I found in the Puriysk archive mentioned Calhoun and something called ‘The Eldest’.”
​
At the mention of the name, Dr. Di Cesare looked up.
“Gretchen,” Durand asked, “Do you recognize that name.”
Gretchen Di Cesare gave a curt nod before flipping through her notebook to a previous page. As she did, I noticed her sleeve lifting briefly, revealing a tattoo on her wrist. Two wavy, parallel lines. It looked like the zodiac sign for ‘Aquarius.’
“The Eldest… Old Fae. ‘The eldest’ according to myth, hence the name. Few documented encounters. None modern…” She paused to think for a moment, “Hard to kill… harder to control. Would need the heart either way. No small task but… possible… probable.”
​
“Old Fae?” I asked, “What exactly is that?”
“More or less exactly what it says on the tin,” Nina said. “Really old forest fae who got fucked up by the Midnight Grove… and a real fucking problem if that’s what we’re going to have to deal with. Do we even know how to kill an Old Fae?”
“As stated, the heart,” Dr. Di Cesare said, “Find that, kill the Fae. Would reckon that Calhoun has it. If not on his person, then somewhere safe. And should that fail…”
She removed the revolver from her coat pocket and set it down on the table without a word.
​
“A contingency. Custom revolver, specialized blessed rounds - Malvian ice.”
I saw Nina raise an eyebrow.
“You put Malvian ice in a gun?” She asked.
“What’s Malvian ice?” I asked. I figured that this conversation required a bit of context.
“Frozen mist, obtained from the domain of an Ancient God. In essence, a part of the God herself” Dr. Di Cesare said. “Weaponized - could kill anything beneath the Ancient Gods. Never tried it with bullets before, but the live fire trial yielded promising results.”
​
My mind flashed back to the Nightwalker we’d run into last night and the way its flesh had melted away after Dr. Di Cesare had shot it with that gun. The memory sent a chill through me.
​
“So you built a gun that can shoot an Old Fae dead?” Nina asked. I couldn’t tell if she was disturbed by the guns existence or excited to try it out.
“Old Fae, Grovewalkers, and most lesser Gods, amongst other things,” Dr. Di Cesare said. “So long as it has a physical form, it can be killed.”
“Dr. Di Cesare agreed to assist us with this job, in the interest of doing her own research on the Calhoun pocket,” Durand added. “The gun is her contribution to this project. It’s intended as more of an emergency measure than anything else. But if necessary, we could use it to kill whatever is allowing Calhoun to control the pocket reality.”
Nina just whistled and sat back in her chair. She seemed almost at a loss for words.
​
“So… all we need to do is shoot Calhoun or this ‘Eldest’ thing with that gun, after we get everyone out and we’re golden, right?” Dom asked.
“I would regard The Eldest as a higher priority than Calhoun right now,” Durand said. “Calhoun could have been lying about tying his own life to the existence of the pocket reality, but I’m not willing to take that gamble if I don’t have to. Right now, my gut is saying to try and take him alive.”
​
“He’s not gonna go quietly if we try,” Nina pointed out. “Hypothetical question, if we destroy the heart, would that take the risk of killing Calhoun out of the equation?”
“No. Whatever spell was used, would not die with the caster,” Dr. Di Cesare said.
Nina nodded thoughtfully.
“I see. Fuck.”
​
“To your point though: Killing Calhoun is likely inevitable. And while I lack any meaningful data on the spell used by the Eldest or how to circumvent it, I can predict the timeframe of such a collapse. The effect would not be immediate. Could take minutes, hours or days. There may be a window for escape.”
​
“We'll have time to cross that bridge when we get to it,” Durand said. “Last question I’ve got is about the local militia, but Mr. Kallas and I can discuss that with Valentine and Mr. Hoskins separately. In the meanwhile, I believe our first order of business should be eliminating collateral. We’ll start with Puriysk, then move on to Rankin Mills, Bakersfield, and Thompson Falls. Once we’ve cleared out those towns, we’ll focus on Parsons and Calhoun. Mr. Kallas, I’ll leave it to you to oversee the evacuation efforts. It’s probably redundant to say this, but we’ve got our work cut out for us, ladies and gentlemen so let’s keep our heads down, our minds sharp and get through this as cleanly as possible. Now… without any further ado, I promised you people dinner and I’m not going to put you all to work on an empty stomach. So, as the Estonians say: ‘Head isu.’”
​
***
​
Looking back, there was a sort of bittersweetness to that evening. On one hand, I don’t remember the last time I’ve eaten so well. After dinner, I went back to the hotel, enjoyed my hot shower, and sank into my warm sheets, waiting for Dom to come back from his meeting with Nina, Kallas, and Durand.
​
And yet… at the same time, all I could think about was what would happen in the morning. In the morning, we’d be leaving again, going back to Puriysk. Back to Calhoun. Part of me almost dreaded it, fearing that if I left this place then I’d never get to come back again.
​
But listening to Durand and the others talk during that briefing… so much of it went completely over my head and I couldn’t help but feel like that was a good thing. They’d been focused, precise, knowledgeable and most of all, prepared.
​
Calhoun’s threats lingered in the back of my mind, but they seemed so much smaller now. I struggled to imagine that Calhoun and the Sheriff’s Boys could do much the face of what had come for him, even with some kind of all powerful Fae at his disposal. Just Nina alone had been enough to rip Puriysk from his grasp… what could an army of her do?
​
I should have taken comfort in that idea. I did take comfort in that idea. But I still couldn’t help but worry all the same. Maybe what Dom had said earlier was true. Maybe we’d had it so bad for so long that even the smallest good thing now seemed too good to be true… maybe. When Dom came back, I was waiting for him. We lay in bed together, talking quietly to each other about what was going to happen in the morning, and holding hands, we drifted off into sleep.

First Entry
Second Entry
Third Entry
Fourth Entry ​
Fifth Entry
​
Journal of Camille Lambert - April 12th
​
We could see the shadows of the Nightwalkers from our place by the bonfire. They peeked in through the broken windows of the church, watching us from afar but never actually entering the ruins. I’m not sure if the firelight was what kept them away, or the protective runes that Nina had drawn.
​
Nina sat on a fallen column, watching them in case they tried anything… and yet if I walked over to the right side of the circle of columns that we’d set up our bonfire in, she seemed… dimmer. Like she was there and yet not there at the same time.
​
Dom on the other hand was crystal clear. I could see him sitting by the door of the church. I couldn’t see him at all from the left side of the circle. The mist was too thick. But on the right side, he was right there, impossible to miss. The effect was surreal, to say the least. He was holding the device Nina had used to call in her backup. She’d called it a phone but it didn’t look like any phone I’d ever seen.
​
“ETA, an hour or so for the standby team in Tallinn, 15 hours for the rest,” Nina had said after she’d made her call. “Let’s get comfortable.”
I figured that it’d been about an hour and a half since she’d said that. Standing by the bonfire itself, the world past the columns seemed to be in flux. Sometimes I could see mist through the windows and the holes in the ceiling. Sometimes I could see stars.
​
Shadows of smaller Nightwalkers darted past the church door sometimes, lingering only long enough to look in on us before retreating back into the darkness. Nina watched each one like a hawk, gripping her shotgun tightly.
I walked out to sit with her for a bit, leaving the light of the fire for a little while. Even from her vantage point, I still couldn’t see Dom but at least I knew he was safe enough.
“How many do you think are out there?” I asked quietly.
“Too many,” Nina replied. “We’re not going back to Puriysk tonight, that’s for damn sure.”
​
As she spoke, I saw more shadows moving in the dark, skittering away into the mist.
“You sure you want to stay out here? Might be safer to stay with Dom,” I said.
“Probably, but it’s better if I stay here. If the door closes, I’m better off on the inside. Be easier to open it again, that way.”
“Fair enough,” I said, looking back out into the mist. I could see nothing past it.
​
No shadows. No movement. There wasn’t even any noise. Nina looked up at the darkness again.
“Is it just me or is it quieter out there?” She asked.
“No… it’s quieter out there,” I said. “Could be there’s a big one nearby. Dom said that the small ones usually avoid them.”
​
Nina kept staring out at the mist, but the silence remained. I wasn’t sure if she was genuinely worried or not. After a few minutes, I saw movement in the mist again. I heard the rustling of trees and saw something standing in the dark. I almost thought that it might have looked like a man… almost. But I couldn’t fully make out the shape of it.
​
I could see the eyes of the Nightwalker shining in the firelight, before it finally moved, darting out of sight. Nina watched it go, before returning her attention to me.
“Good news is, we won’t be alone for that much longer,” She said. “After the first group shows up, we can head into Puriysk with them and start setting up shop. By the time the rest of them arrive, we should be in a good place. After that, it’s just a matter of getting people out and dealing with Calhoun,”
“You make it sound easy,” I said.
“I mean, it probably won’t be a walk in the park,” Nina admitted. “But at least we won’t be running this job alone. These things go easier when you’ve got help.”
“Yeah… I imagine they would,” I said.
​
Beside us, I heard a dull thud as a piece of one of the church's more damaged walls fell away and crashed to the ground. Nina was up on her feet immediately, shotgun in hand. I rose to my feet beside her.
“The fuck was that?” She asked.
“Part of the wall, I think,” I said. I spotted the spot where it had fallen and looked up. It had probably come off one of the broken domed towers near the door. One of their ceilings had come down ages ago and I imagined it wouldn’t take much more than a strong gust of wind to knock over some of the loose bricks jutting out from where the roof remained. Nina approached the fallen piece of brick, pausing to inspect it.
​
“Hell of a big chunk of wall,” She said before looking up again. I did the same, although as I did, I could’ve sworn I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked over at it. The shadows cast by the bonfire left pools of darkness along the ceiling.
​
But in those pools, I could see flickering reflections of light.
​
Two of them.
​
Staring right at me.
​
Slowly I reached out, putting a hand on Nina’s shoulder. I didn’t want to yell or move too quickly. I couldn’t see what was in the darkness but I know that it looked poised to strike. Nina looked over at me, before tensing up. I knew that she saw it too. The eyes remained trained on us, and I heard a low, animal hiss coming from the shadows.
“Bonfire…” Nina said, gripping her shotgun tighter “Get Dom… now.”
​
I took a step back and saw the eyes following me. Nina backed away from the shadows, eyes never leaving the ceiling. I saw limbs splaying outward from the darkness. I could see them tensing up. It was going to lunge.
​
“MOVE!” I said, breaking into a sprint, but it was too late. The Nightwalker launched itself at Nina like a bullet. I heard her shotgun fire twice, before the creature crashed into the ground, flailing violently. I could see long, dark limbs, more than any human should have struggling to pick itself up. I could see a body that only vaguely resembled a man. It had a torso, a human head, and long black hair, but looked more like a spider than a person. And yet there was something off about it. Something I hadn’t seen on any of the other Nightwalkers. This one had some kind of sigil on its forehead. Something that looked almost like a crimson eye, that seemed to glow with surreal energy.
​
The Nightwalker looked at Nina, snarling at her. When it opened its mouth, I could see rows upon rows of teeth inside. She fired her shotgun again, but the creature barely even seemed to notice them. Even after she’d gone through the trouble of cursing them, her rounds weren’t doing anything.
“RUN!” I heard her yell, and I didn’t dare question that. I just ran.
​
I sprinted toward the bonfire, just in time to see Dom running toward me. He took aim at the Nightwalker, firing at it as it tried to go after Nina. But his bullets did next to nothing to it. The Nightwalker didn’t even look at him.
​
It just kept going for Nina, almost pinning her down. She unloaded two more shells into its face, which did little more than make it flinch and bought her some time to run.
​
This time, she took off at a sprint toward the bonfire. Dom saw her running and started to backpedal as well, running back toward the bonfire and the safety of the columns. The creature paused as we took shelter by the fire, watching us intently and letting out another serpentine hiss. Nina stared back at it, before looking back at the fire. She tossed her shotgun aside and hastily grabbed one of the spare branches we’d kept for the bonfire. She put it in the fire, before pulling it out and brandishing it like a weapon. The Nightwalker hissed and recoiled a bit, focused on the flame. As it paused, Dom grabbed Nina’s shotgun off the ground and took aim.
​
“Don’t…” She said, putting a hand up to stop him, her voice low and intense. She didn’t dare look away from the Nightwalker. “Save the cursed rounds… they won’t kill it. Just get outside.”
“What about you?” Dom asked.
“Outside,” Nina repeated. “Now.”
I put a hand on Dom’s shoulder.
“Let’s go!” I said, trying to tug him along behind me.
​
He hesitated for a moment longer before finally letting me take him. We backed through the right set of columns, and once we were through I saw Nina taking a step away from the bonfire, toward the right set of columns. The Nightwalker passed the left set of columns, trying to follow her.
“Come on…” She said under her breath, “Come and get me, shithead…”
​
I saw it inching closer to her, and tensing up again, getting ready to pounce. That was when Nina made her move. She thrust her burning branch into the Nightwalker's face, earning a cry of pain from it and making it jerk back. I saw it swatting at the branch, trying to get rid of the fire. Nina took the chance to run, sprinting at top speed toward the door of the church.
“GO!”
​
Neither of us needed to be told twice. We ran for the church door, as the Nightwalker let out a roar from behind us. I looked back to see it charging toward us again, gaining ground. As we ran back out into the field, we were greeted by countless blinding lights. I saw Nina pause, before feeling her grab me by the back of the shirt and pull me away. I could see Dom in her other hand. She dragged us both down to the ground in the instant before the Nightwalker emerged from the door of the church.
​
I saw it recoil, putting up its clawed hands to try and shield its eyes from the blinding light.
​
Then I heard the gunfire.
​
As my eyes adjusted to the light, I could see several men, each holding automatic rifles advancing on the Nightwalker. It shrank back toward the church, trying to shield itself from the gunfire, clearly overwhelmed. But just like with Nina’s shotgun before it, the bullets did little to harm it. Despite all the gunfire it took, it didn’t fall. I could hear it hissing, I could see its beady black eyes darting around wildly. It lunged forward again, tackling one of the nearby men and tearing into him, before going after another. I saw its jaws close around his skull and heard the sickening crunch of bone as it took his head. The other men scrambled back, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the Nightwalker as they could. It howled in rage, preparing to charge after them when a final, deafening gunshot echoed through the night.
​
This time, the Nightwalker's entire body seized up. It let out an agonized scream. I could see its clawed hands clutching at a wound that had appeared on its chest… and I could see smoke rising out of that wound. It kept screaming and thrashing violently. Its limbs gave out from underneath it. I could see the wound in its chest sizzling and burning. I saw the flesh and skin sloughing off of its body, and I could see the pale white bone underneath.
​
The eye sigil on its forehead flickered before fading away and the Nightwalker let out one final, howl before collapsing to the ground, its body still twitching and convulsing. I looked over to see a single woman standing calmly by the nearby trucks. She was tall and pale, with long, stringy black hair and an intense look in her eye.
​
She was dressed in a long beige coat and holding an ornate revolver in one gloved hand. As the Nightwalker died I saw her gingerly slip the pistol into the inner pocket of her coat before reaching into another pocket for a notebook. Without ever looking away from the dead Nightwalker, she scribbled something down, then pocketed the notebook again and calmly walked toward the church, not even pausing to acknowledge anyone else around her. As she left, I saw the other armed men tending to their dead. With the Nightwalker dead, I could get a better look at them now. They were dressed like soldiers, with bulletproof vests and no shortage of pockets. A few of them wore netted veils over their faces, making it hard to get a good look at them and giving them an eerie appearance, although watching them examine the bodies of their dead and respectfully carrying them away was almost humanizing.
​
Nina sat up, her blonde hair messy and a somewhat disoriented look on her face. She looked over toward the source of the lights that had blinded us. Four large SUVs were parked outside of the church, their headlights shining on the door. From those SUVs, I could see more armed men getting out and one of them was coming toward us.
​
“Nina Valentine?” I heard him ask. He had a heavy Slavic accent.
“Still alive,” She said, as she slowly climbed to her feet.
“Good. I’m Olev Kallas, I’m from the Tallinn Office, Director Durand sends his regards,” He offered Nina a hand to shake and she reluctantly took it. “The Director is currently en route, as are the rest of the team. In the meanwhile, we’re here to help.”
“Yeah and right on fucking time too,” She said, looking over at the dead Nightwalker.
​
“Ah… yes, you can thank Dr. Di Cesare for that,” Kallas said.
Nina raised an eyebrow. I had a feeling that she recognized the name, but she didn’t comment on it.
“But first, I imagine you and your friends must need a hot meal and a cold drink right about now and I can get you both.”
“Oh you’ve got no fucking idea…” Nina said, as Dom helped me to my feet. She waited until we were up, before gesturing for us to follow as Kallas led us toward one of the SUV’s.
​
***
​
I barely recognized the empty field around us as Puriysk. The buildings were all long gone and in their place was a paved highway that I’d never seen before.
“The town’s been gone for as long as I can remember,” Kallas said. “I couldn’t tell you if it was us, or the Soviets who got rid of the ruins. I read somewhere that there was some talk about refurbishing the old Church, but as you see, nothing ever came of it.”
“Thank God for small miracles,” Nina said, “Made my job a hell of a lot easier.”
​
We drove down the highway, past the wide open landscape and as we drove, I couldn’t help but admire it. In the distance, I could see the lights from another nearby town and watched as they drew closer and closer. God, I’d never seen a place so full of life before. As we drove along the quiet streets, past the sleeping buildings in the early hours of the morning, they still seemed so alive. Street lights cast a warm glow on the few passersby out doing their business. There were more cars on the road than I’d ever seen before, some driving past us to their own destinations and others parked and still.
​
“I can drop you three off at a hotel if you’d like,” Kallas offered. “You can get cleaned up and have a short rest before Director Durand arrives. I can pick up some fresh clothes for you, and then we can have a debrief over dinner.”
“Yeah, works for me,” Nina said before looking over at us.
“Dinner sounds good,” I said, although at the time I had no idea what exactly a hotel was. Thankfully, I got my answer pretty quickly.
​
The room I got was comfortable. The bed was softer than anything I’d ever laid on before and the hot water… oh God… I spent almost an hour in the shower alone, enjoying the steam and feeling the tension drain out of my muscles. When I was done, I put on a soft, fluffy bathrobe and laid down, letting myself relax for the first time in days. I almost dozed off… and maybe I would have if I hadn’t heard a knock on my door.
​
I considered ignoring it and just letting sleep take me, but I figured I might as well make sure it wasn’t important. Tying my bathrobe a little tighter around me, I got up to answer the door and was greeted by Dom, still wet from the shower.
​
“Hey,” He said. “Sorry, I hope I’m not bothering you!”
“It’s fine!” I replied, putting on a smile, “Come on in.”
I opened the door all the way to let him inside, but he hesitated.
“No, it’s alright. I just thought I’d check on you. It’s been… well, it’s been one hell of a past few days. And this feels like the first chance we’ve had to really breathe in a while.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I sighed. I still held the door open for him. “Well, we’re not going to have this conversation in the hall, so come on in. I’ve got a coffee machine in here and I’m dying to try it out.”
​
I’m not sure if it was the promise of coffee that made him accept my invitation or the realization that I probably didn’t want to be in the hall with just a bathrobe on, but he came inside anyway.I went to the coffee machine and tried to figure it out. They had these little cups that I’d never seen before, but otherwise, it seemed fairly straightforward.
​
“Man… it’s really something else out here, isn’t it?” Dom asked, going to sit down on the bed. “It’s just so bright out here!”
“I’m still not entirely convinced I’m not dreaming,” I admitted. I managed to get one of the cups into the coffee machine and watched as it pissed out a somewhat pathetic amount of scalding hot coffee that admittedly did smell very nice. It had a lovely vanilla aroma.
I brought the first cup over to Dom.
​
“Glad I’m not the only one,” He said as I went back to make another cup, “Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if Nina’s backup was even going to come through and I sure as hell didn’t expect any of this.”
“You and me both,” I said with a sigh, “Is it wrong to say that I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop?”
“Well, when something seems too good to be true…” Dom murmured, “Although then again… looking at what we had in there compared to what Nina’s been telling me about life out here, I can’t help but wonder if we’ve had it bad for so long that even the smallest good thing would seem too good to be true.”
“That’s a disturbing thought,” I said.
“Maybe. But what if it’s true?”
​
I didn’t know how to answer that.
“Either way… this isn’t much more than a break, isn’t it?” Dom asked, “The calm before the storm. I know that after we talk to the Director, Nina’s going right back in… and I’m going with her.”
I nodded before taking my coffee and joining him on the bed.
“I know,” I said. “And I’m going with you.”
“You know that you don’t have to, right?” Dom asked. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I know that this kind of thing isn’t exactly in your wheelhouse. I’m not saying to just let it be or anything, but there’s other ways to help that don’t involve shooting things and burning down buildings.”
​
Again, I paused.
“Maybe,” I said. “Honestly, whatever I can do, I just want to do it. Whatever it may be. I’ve been just accepting things the way they were for too long, the same as you. I don’t want to just accept it anymore! I can’t.”
“And you aren’t,” Dom said, “I mean… shit, I watched you take pot shots at a Nightwalker the other night. Ever since we left, you’ve done whatever you can to help out. You’ve done a hell of a lot more to fix things than anyone else I know. That takes a hell of a lot of strength. More than I’d probably have in your shoes… honestly, you’re half the reason I’m still doing this, Cam.”
​
I looked at him and felt his hand pressing over mine.
“Only half?” I teased, trying to distract from the shade I could feel my cheeks flushing.
“Well, there’s everyone else too.” He said, “But right now, the one I care the most about is you.”
I actually broke down laughing at that and gently pushed him away.
“Too much?” He asked.
“No,” I said. “Just right.”
​
I let my head rest on his shoulder and for a little bit, we just sat together, hand in hand and beautifully content. I sensed him hesitating for a little while, before finally seizing the moment and placing his hand on my chin. I let him. He lifted my face and pressed a gentle kiss to my lips, one that I all too happily reciprocated.
​
After all… who knew when we’d get another chance?
​
***
​
The restaurant that Kallas brought us to was fairly quiet, although it wasn’t empty. As we walked in, I could see a large table set out with faces both familiar and unfamiliar at it.
​
Nina had washed almost an entire layer of dirt and soot off her face. Her hair looked cleaner and she was clearly wearing new, cleaner jeans. Although I didn’t think she’d actually changed her T-shirt. I recognized it by the neckline, but I’d never seen the whole thing before. It had a graphic of a warning label on it that said: ‘DO NOT USE FOR WET GRINDING’ although the ‘DO NOT’ part was crossed out in red.
​
Had she seriously been wearing that the whole fucking time…? At least it looked like she’d recently washed it.
​
Beside Nina, I saw Natalya, looking a little more cleaned up and wearing new clothes. Someone must have gotten her out of Puriysk earlier that day. The dark haired woman that Kallas had named as Dr. Di Cesare sat on the other side of Nina, although she was more focused on her own journal than any of us.
Lastly, I saw a man I didn’t recognize at all. He was tall and looked to be somewhere in his fifties, with wavy blond hair and a clean shaven face. He was dressed in a nice but slightly wrinkled suit.
​
The blond man was the first one to speak.
“Mr. Kallas, good to see you again,” He said as he got up to greet us.
“Director Durand, I have to say that the pleasure is all mine,” Kallas said, shaking Durand’s hand. His attention turned to us next.
​
“You two must be Camille Lambert and Dom Hoskins, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Milo Durand. I’m the Director of the Fae Relations Bureau’s Department of Public Safety.”
“Hell of a mouthful,” Dom said, shaking Durand’s hand.
“Just call us the FRB for short,” He said with a smile, “Take a seat. Dr. Di Cesare and I wanted to take some time to go through the situation with the Calhoun Pocket.”
​
Kallas pulled out some seats for us and we sat down. There were glasses of water waiting for us at the table. As soon as we sat down, Dr. Di Cesare glanced up at us, but didn’t close her notebook.
“So… now that we’re all here. Where should we begin?” Kallas asked.
“Well for starters, I’d like to get a solid picture of what exactly we’re going to be walking into when we send the rest of our people into the Calhoun Pocket,” Durand said, “Mr. Kallas, I’m aware you’re detachment has already properly secured Puriysk. But I’ve got some questions regarding the other towns so we know what else to expect once we’re inside.”
“What exactly is it that you want to know?” I asked.
​
“Well for starters, we need access to the other towns. We were told that navigating between them could be difficult, but I imagine there must be some way to circumvent that,”
“There is,” Dom said, “The roads don’t always go to the same places, but there are always landmarks and turns. You can use those to navigate.”
“One of the files I found in the archive at the Deputy’s Office has a list of landmarks and directions to reach the different towns,” Nina added, “I emailed you a copy earlier to go over,”
​
Durand nodded.
“Excellent. Which leads me to my next question. Infrastructure. I can’t imagine Calhoun’s been running a show like his without some means of providing food and power to the other towns. I’m aware that Rankin Mills had a power plant, so I figure that Calhoun is using that to keep the lights on. But what about food, gas, supplies?”
“Most of the food comes from Bakersfield,” I said. “There’s a lot of farmland there, most of it fairly safe from the mist. I used to work at a Roadhouse in Thompson Falls. We’d get deliveries every week or so.”
​
“I see… what about Puriysk and Thompson Falls? What’s there?”
“Puriysk was where they trained a lot of the Sheriff’s Boys,” Dom said. “They had the largest Deputy’s Office outside of Parsons. And Thompson Falls was more of a mining community. Lotta the construction work that was done in Parsons was done by people brought in from Thompson and Puriysk.”
​
Durand raised an eyebrow.
“Construction in Parsons?” He asked.
“Calhoun’s sorta been using it as his capital. Far as I can tell, he’s been trying to build up the towns, although Parson’s the one that’s gotten the most attention,” Dom said. “I guess it’s as close to a capital city as we’ve got in there. He also mentioned the ‘Sovereign Nation of Calhoun’ although I haven’t heard anyone outside of Parsons use that name.”
“Sovereign Nation of Calhoun…” Durand repeated, before glancing at Nina. She just gave a slightly defeated nod as if to say: ‘Yeah, he actually called it that.’
​
“Okay… let’s talk about Calhoun himself… what do you know?” Durand asked.
“Not a hell of a lot,” Dom said, “Closest I’ve ever come to actually meeting the guy is when he spoke to us outside of the church last night. Other than that, he rarely leaves his house in Parsons and rarely appears in public and most of what I’ve heard is just rumors.”
​
“Whatever you’ve heard… odds are that it’s true,” Natalya said quietly, drawing all eyes at the table over to her.
“I’ve heard the story enough times now… first from my mother, then from so many afterward. One day, the days just grew dimmer. The clouds above us just grew so thick that you could not see the sun and the mist drifted through the streets. The roads no longer led to the same places… and at night, the shadows moved, devouring any in their paths alive and screaming. First, it came for Parsons, then Rankin, Puriysk, Bakersfield, and Thompson. One by one. In time, it will come for others. He will come for others.”
​
Durand leaned in a little bit, listening intently. Dr. Di Cesare had also paused, listening as Natalya spoke.
“My mother told me that after the change, Calhoun’s people began to enter the town. Drunken louts, filling up the bars demanding free alcohol in exchange for ‘protection’ from the things outside. Although even with the alcohol, they still left bodies in their wake.”
She paused, slipping back into old, bitter memories.
​
“She told me of the ways Calhoun had changed Puriysk… most of the men either joined his little militia out of necessity or were given other jobs where they were worked to the bone. And the women…” She paused, “The homemakers he generally left alone but the young and the pretty ones found their way into the brothel. After all, his soldiers needed something to do to pass the time when they weren’t drinking and acting like children with guns. Governor Calhoun raped Puriysk, just the same as he raped every other town he took. All my life, I’ve watched as he’s milked them for his own gain and spread like a disease across new towns, looking for more. Before I even understood what home was, he had taken my home from me. Before I was old enough to speak, he had taken my life from me. Because of him, I grew up in a brothel in a town that does not exist.”
​
Durand was silent, before looking at Nina who drummed her fingers on the table.
“Valentine?” He asked.
“Like Dom said, the only interaction we had with that guy was when he talked to us last night,” She said. “I’m not a psychologist but I’d figure most of what he said is pretty on par with what a narcissistic megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur would probably say. It was probably a whole lot of horseshit… probably…”
“But?” Durand asked. Nina sighed.
​
“There was one thing he said that stood out, he said that if we killed him, we’d be killing everyone else in the pocket too. He made it sound like his life was tied to it, or something. I don’t know if he can actually fucking do that or not but I’m also not sure I’d want to chance it. Some of those documents I found in the Puriysk archive mentioned Calhoun and something called ‘The Eldest’.”
​
At the mention of the name, Dr. Di Cesare looked up.
“Gretchen,” Durand asked, “Do you recognize that name.”
Gretchen Di Cesare gave a curt nod before flipping through her notebook to a previous page. As she did, I noticed her sleeve lifting briefly, revealing a tattoo on her wrist. Two wavy, parallel lines. It looked like the zodiac sign for ‘Aquarius.’
“The Eldest… Old Fae. ‘The eldest’ according to myth, hence the name. Few documented encounters. None modern…” She paused to think for a moment, “Hard to kill… harder to control. Would need the heart either way. No small task but… possible… probable.”
​
“Old Fae?” I asked, “What exactly is that?”
“More or less exactly what it says on the tin,” Nina said. “Really old forest fae who got fucked up by the Midnight Grove… and a real fucking problem if that’s what we’re going to have to deal with. Do we even know how to kill an Old Fae?”
“As stated, the heart,” Dr. Di Cesare said, “Find that, kill the Fae. Would reckon that Calhoun has it. If not on his person, then somewhere safe. And should that fail…”
She removed the revolver from her coat pocket and set it down on the table without a word.
​
“A contingency. Custom revolver, specialized blessed rounds - Malvian ice.”
I saw Nina raise an eyebrow.
“You put Malvian ice in a gun?” She asked.
“What’s Malvian ice?” I asked. I figured that this conversation required a bit of context.
“Frozen mist, obtained from the domain of an Ancient God. In essence, a part of the God herself” Dr. Di Cesare said. “Weaponized - could kill anything beneath the Ancient Gods. Never tried it with bullets before, but the live fire trial yielded promising results.”
​
My mind flashed back to the Nightwalker we’d run into last night and the way its flesh had melted away after Dr. Di Cesare had shot it with that gun. The memory sent a chill through me.
​
“So you built a gun that can shoot an Old Fae dead?” Nina asked. I couldn’t tell if she was disturbed by the guns existence or excited to try it out.
“Old Fae, Grovewalkers, and most lesser Gods, amongst other things,” Dr. Di Cesare said. “So long as it has a physical form, it can be killed.”
“Dr. Di Cesare agreed to assist us with this job, in the interest of doing her own research on the Calhoun pocket,” Durand added. “The gun is her contribution to this project. It’s intended as more of an emergency measure than anything else. But if necessary, we could use it to kill whatever is allowing Calhoun to control the pocket reality.”
Nina just whistled and sat back in her chair. She seemed almost at a loss for words.
​
“So… all we need to do is shoot Calhoun or this ‘Eldest’ thing with that gun, after we get everyone out and we’re golden, right?” Dom asked.
“I would regard The Eldest as a higher priority than Calhoun right now,” Durand said. “Calhoun could have been lying about tying his own life to the existence of the pocket reality, but I’m not willing to take that gamble if I don’t have to. Right now, my gut is saying to try and take him alive.”
​
“He’s not gonna go quietly if we try,” Nina pointed out. “Hypothetical question, if we destroy the heart, would that take the risk of killing Calhoun out of the equation?”
“No. Whatever spell was used, would not die with the caster,” Dr. Di Cesare said.
Nina nodded thoughtfully.
“I see. Fuck.”
​
“To your point though: Killing Calhoun is likely inevitable. And while I lack any meaningful data on the spell used by the Eldest or how to circumvent it, I can predict the timeframe of such a collapse. The effect would not be immediate. Could take minutes, hours or days. There may be a window for escape.”
​
“We'll have time to cross that bridge when we get to it,” Durand said. “Last question I’ve got is about the local militia, but Mr. Kallas and I can discuss that with Valentine and Mr. Hoskins separately. In the meanwhile, I believe our first order of business should be eliminating collateral. We’ll start with Puriysk, then move on to Rankin Mills, Bakersfield, and Thompson Falls. Once we’ve cleared out those towns, we’ll focus on Parsons and Calhoun. Mr. Kallas, I’ll leave it to you to oversee the evacuation efforts. It’s probably redundant to say this, but we’ve got our work cut out for us, ladies and gentlemen so let’s keep our heads down, our minds sharp and get through this as cleanly as possible. Now… without any further ado, I promised you people dinner and I’m not going to put you all to work on an empty stomach. So, as the Estonians say: ‘Head isu.’”
​
***
​
Looking back, there was a sort of bittersweetness to that evening. On one hand, I don’t remember the last time I’ve eaten so well. After dinner, I went back to the hotel, enjoyed my hot shower, and sank into my warm sheets, waiting for Dom to come back from his meeting with Nina, Kallas, and Durand.
​
And yet… at the same time, all I could think about was what would happen in the morning. In the morning, we’d be leaving again, going back to Puriysk. Back to Calhoun. Part of me almost dreaded it, fearing that if I left this place then I’d never get to come back again.
​
But listening to Durand and the others talk during that briefing… so much of it went completely over my head and I couldn’t help but feel like that was a good thing. They’d been focused, precise, knowledgeable and most of all, prepared.
​
Calhoun’s threats lingered in the back of my mind, but they seemed so much smaller now. I struggled to imagine that Calhoun and the Sheriff’s Boys could do much the face of what had come for him, even with some kind of all powerful Fae at his disposal. Just Nina alone had been enough to rip Puriysk from his grasp… what could an army of her do?
​
I should have taken comfort in that idea. I did take comfort in that idea. But I still couldn’t help but worry all the same. Maybe what Dom had said earlier was true. Maybe we’d had it so bad for so long that even the smallest good thing now seemed too good to be true… maybe. When Dom came back, I was waiting for him. We lay in bed together, talking quietly to each other about what was going to happen in the morning, and holding hands, we drifted off into sleep.