​
After Franz boarded the aircraft and was sent to a facility to be interrogated the women in a fancy coat known as Senator Jil’adamas asked her daughter who’s the District Commander of this region.
“(What are the losses?)”
District Commander Zara replied nervously
“(The medics just checked all of them are unconscious with some suffering from broken bones and internal burns from the electrical weapon, a few days of medical bath would fix any damage done)”
“(Good, if one of them died it would be a stain on my reputation)”
‘She and her goddess damned reputation’ District Commander Zara thought dissatisfied that her mother only cares about reputation
“(Say Zara)”
“(Yes mother?)”
“(You still haven’t found a mate yet have you?)”
‘Oh goddess no!’ Zara screamed internally as the last thing she wants is to become a political bargaining chip.
“(Mother I’ve been looking up male candidates but I just haven’t been able to find the right one yet)”
“(Really now?)” The former said as she reviews the information they have so far on the individual they have just captured.
In particular she’s eyeing the reports saying that he’s speaking an unknown language.
There’s also strong evidence that he might be from a new undiscovered species.
—————————————— Later
After landing Franz was lead to a room, right now he’s assisting Cre’taxsian scientists in making a translation software to communicate.
Much of what he does is being shown pictures/videos and saying what he thinks they mean.
Of course that’s easier said than done as some times he would be shown stuff that he simply has no idea about.
Like no matter how many photos of these thingy mabob there won’t be an English equivalent.
He’s being shown a crystal but it’s not a crystal the scientist we’re adamant about it.
‘Dude what the hell is that even?’ Franz was baffled as he’s being shown various devices with a “not crystal” below it.
With still pictures failing to get through to him, they then showed him a video of how’s these “not crystals” are made.
While it’s interesting and the production process seems complicated but no matter if it’s cut or whatever there’s simply no fucking English equivalent!
It isn’t until they showed him a video of these crystals being inserted into a device and the device started moving that it finally clicked for Franz.
‘Ohhhhh these must be computer chips or their equivalent of it’
Like obviously aliens wouldn’t be using the same technologies as humans on earth.
In fact they seems to be using photons computers instead of the electrical computers that humans are using.
Like closet thing he knows to their technology is Fiber Optic cables.
With a bit of thinking he finally spoke to the scientist showing him videos of what these things do
“crystal chip”
……. …. ..
The scientist’s eye twitches
Then she showed a different type of “crystal chip” she emphasized that this chip has a different function than the last one but to Franz it’s pretty much just a “crystal chip” with a different color.
‘Maybe like the difference between graphics card and CPU?’ He wondered before just saying “blue crystal chip”
To which a vine visibly bulges on her forehead and Franz can hear laughing noises from outside the interrogation room, undoubtedly there is probably an army of staff outside working alongside her helping and giving suggestions.
She coughs before moving onto a different field as he just demonstrated that computers are not his specialty, she whispers into the coms before deciding to go to a more familiar field.
She then pulls up another picture
(It’s not strange for aliens to use a different format of the periodic table, look up alternative periodic table formats)
‘What’s this supposed to be?’ Franz wondered
Then the Scientist pointed to the center and said
“(Hydrogen)”
She then pulls up a 3D model of a ball and circling that ball is a smaller ball.
She pulls up another picture of a giant explosion in the middle of space. Then she shows a vast gas clouds as the aftermath begins of the giant explosion.
She then shows the vast gas clouds in space slowly coalescing into a stagas giant.
She rewinds the video points to the gas clouds and said “(hydrogen)”
At this point Franz naturally knows what’s she’s referring to and said “hydrogen”
With that the rest of the elements went smoothly as Franz liked chemistry and physics when he was in high school.
Although Franz is bewildered by the fact that they didn’t go pass Rubidium atomic number 37. Even their periodic table doesn’t show anything pass Rubdium.
After the basics vocabulary’s of objects they then move into actions, this part was especially torturous.
Imagine playing charades but you have no idea if you’ve guessed right on the word they’re trying to convey.
After a few growling days charades, they’ve finally have something workable.
Confident that they now have gathered enough word samples the scientific team decided to try out their new software.
“What you name?”
‘They speak like the Chinese in China town back home’ Franz thought before responding
“Franz”
With his response Franz can hear cheering from outside the room, Franz didn’t give his full name as it’ll needlessly complicate things.
Like they can barely speak but you’re ganna throw your full name at them?
“What you race?”
“Human”
“What you gender?”
“Male”
“What you from?”
At that question Franz frowns as the software obviously still needs a lot of work but it’s still intelligible enough to be understood as “where are you from?”
“Earth”
“What Earth from?”
‘You mean where is Earth right?’ Franz wondered
“Not Know” he replied using the same shitty English as they do, not that he recalls giving them the vocabulary for “don’t”
At his reply the scientist frowns not quite believing that he doesn’t know where his home world is.
Even so she moves on to the next question which is the most important one
“What you explode?”
“What?” Franz replied not quite understanding the question
The scientists then showed a picture of a crater where Franz first appeared on this world.
“What you explode?” She asked again as she plays a video of an explosion in town center before a figure that looks like him crawling out of the crater.
‘Why did you detonate an explosive? or is it what explosive did you use?’ Well on both cases he’s being accused of being a terrorist
Well that seems like undeniable proof that he’s responsible for the explosion but in actuality he isn’t! He was just disarming a bomb according to a bomb expert and before he knows it he’s crawling out of a crater and into this devil infested world!
But what’s he ganna say? I didn’t do while a video of him crawling out of ground zero is being played?!
No! He has to be creative with this one!
“I not explode”
The scientist’s eye brow raised with his claim, Franz then took out his smartphone and brought up the cam footage of him trying to disarm an explosive attached to a gram of anti-matter there was a bright flash of light and next thing you know he’s in the middle of a crater.
He showed it to the scientist, that peaked the scientist’s interest
“Again” she demands while pointing to his iphone
Franz the replayed the video and she then points towards the large device the bomb was strapped to.
“What that device?”
‘God if I know’ Franz thought before muttering “teleportation device”
The scientists frowns as the word “teleportation” is not within the list of vocabulary they got so far.
“Travel device” seeing that she doesn’t get it Franz uses another term that’s a close approximation of what he wants to say that they know.
Franz is making shit up right now as he doesn’t actually know what that device is, but it’s better then saying “I don’t know how I got here and that explosion is not my fault”
The scientists frowns making a note to ask about it again after they have a better translation on his language.
She points to the jar that’s magnetically confining a gram of pure anti-matter.
“Anti-matter”
She frowns again
“Not matter” Franz tried to switch out the word “anti” with “not” but unfortunately they also didn’t have the word for “matter” within their narrow lists of translated words.
“Not atoms”
They know the word for “Not” and “atoms” but can they figure out its anti-matter?
…..
After a bit of thinking there was still a frown so the answer to is a big NO.
“Periodic Table” Franz then gestures to the wall
The scientists did as he said and shows their version of periodic table on the wall.
Franz then gestures to all of elements within it and said “Matter”
….
The scientist still doesn’t seem to get it
Franz then points to the hydrogen and said “hydrogen wall”
The scientists projects a 3D model of a hydrogen.
Then he gestures for the electrons to spin in reverse and said “anti-Hydrogen”
Then he makes a fist saying “hydrogen” and another fist saying “anti-hydrogen”
He brought both fist together and said “explosion”
Franz brings up the image of the jar of anti-matter and said “anti-hydrogen”
It is only then that it finally clicked to the scientist of what she has heard, she quickly went out to talk with her team who’s were listening in to the conversation.
“(Oh my goddess! Did he just say what I think he’s trying to say!)”
“(His race must be insane to be playing with anti-matter!)”
“(Just my kind of crazy)” one of the single scientist who desperately looking for a mate said
“(Oh you dirty dirty bitch)” her friend quips
“(These degenerates !)” the head scientist yells out as normally her team is quite professional but as soon as a male is brought in they devolve into a bunch of horny degenerates!
Franz didn’t know what they’re saying but it’s gotten very rowdy outside.
—————————————————— After a few more days of charades and adding more words to the database the science team again feels that they should redo the interrogation.
“We have improved the translation and hope that you can answer us again” the scientists said
‘It sure is a lot better then the last time’ Franz thought before replying
“Sure what do you want to know?”
“First thing first who are you?”
“I’m Franz full name is Francis Alexander Zimmerman, I’m a Security Specialist”
She raised her eye brow at the information she’s given as she notes down something in her crystal data pad.
“So what does a Security Specialist do?
“I Specialized in Security be it escorting clients, protecting important facilities to disarming dangerous explosives”
The part about disarming explosives is pure BS he’s just overselling himself to get a bit of negotiating leverage.
“(Baby I want to hire you to guard our nest)”
Franz could hear a bit of commotion outside and someone whistling
Hearing what was said a vain bulge as the head scientist scolded them over the coms.
She scolded them in their weird alien language so Franz has no idea what was being said but judging by her tone it’s probably full of expletives.
After the scolding the head turns back to Franz and smiles before continuing where they left off as if what had transpired didn’t happen
“So tell me which race are you?”
“We call ourselves Human or in our academic terms we refer to ourselves as Homo Sapients or Wise People”
“I see interesting, this is our first time coming across your species so can you tell us where we can contact your people so that we can start diplomatic relations?”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you with that as I’ve got no clue as to where I’m currently at”
At Franz’s reply the scientists shows a galactic map to him.
“Unfortunately I’m not educated in Astronomy the study of stars so I can’t help you in that matter”
The Cre’taxsian scientist doesn’t quite believe in what he says but she lets it pass before asking something that has her own personal interest in it.
“So how did you arrive here?”
“I arrived here when I was disarming an explosive device attached to one of the experimental devices in the Lab I was responsible for”
“Can you tell me more about the experimental device?”
“I’m under oath of non-disclosure, I can only tell you is that it was teleportation research and it involved the use of anti-matter”
The scientist clicks her tongue as she really wants to know more about it, unfortunately for her it was all BullShit as Franz himself has no ideas what they were researching, he just made it to explain how he got here.
“Your people must be pretty insane to be using that for experiments”
“It is not my place to question”
“Moving on some of my staff has taken interest in some of your devices can you hand them over to be examine?”
“I’ll humbly decline” while Earth’s technology isn’t as advanced as the technology here but it’s one of the few assets he has that is of some research value.
Like he’s not ganna just give away one of the few valuable things he owns for free, what is he? Insane!?
The scientist clicks her tongue some more she then moves onto the next question
“Can you tell me more about your people?”
“This is my species first time coming into contact with your species so I would like to know more about your species before sharing my own”
‘Information is always important’ Franz thought as he stranded in an alien land with no way home, he gotta make the most of the resources he has.
He doesn’t want to give away valuable information that he would learn that he could have traded it for something valuable.

Side note: I've added a password, so read carefully. If you message me WITHOUT the password, your messages are automatically IGNORED. tired of getting hit up with people who don't read 😒. It's ridiculous cause I've ignored 5+ chats cause none of them contained the password. Things are written for a reason.
Facts about me:

• I have been roleplaying since 2012. Yes, I got experience under my belt, and yes, my ideas usually have really long reads, but don't let that scare you off! After the starter is off, I may lower myself down to a decent paragraph or two, sometimes three! It all depends on what I've got to work with.
  
• My timezone is EST. I'm awake from 9am - 2am and I'm usually free unless I'm busy doing house chores, out of the house, asleep, or playing video games on my switch. I'm usually become REALLY active at or around 8pm.
  

Rules:
1: if you don't like 50/50 mixture of sex scenes and story, don't bother hopping into my inbox. I'm fine with sex scenes, but when it's constantly back to back, the roleplay itself gets boring.
2: Be literate. No one liners. I like to write..it's annoying when I send a 2-3 paragraph response and I get 3 lines...just...no. I am not accepting people who are just starting out! If you aren't experienced in writing or roleplaying, kindly stay out of my inbox.
3: Be okay with playing canon characters. I'm mainly doing fandom roleplays right now and it's going to be Canon x my oc. No, I'm not doing double ups. Do not even ask, because the answer will be no every time. I do not give a shit if you think that makes me 'lazy' or 'selfish', if you've got a problem, you can simply ignore or block me. Commenting on my post to bitch and whine about me not doubling up will only result in me blocking you. The ONLY time I'll double up, and if I'm confident enough, I'll only do female characters. I suck at males. Got a problem? Not my issue. Block and move on.
4: Roleplay in third person. I can't and won't adapt to first. Don't even bring up the idea of you playing first person and me playing third. Believe it or not, I've been asked this twice and that is just a hell no for me. The only time I do first, is when I'm writing into my book.
5: if you don't know how to share ideas, then don't bother messaging me. I'm tired of carrying the story when the other person doesn't help. If you've got ideas, then PLEASE speak up! Your opinion on the roleplay matters too! I'm an easy going person, and easy to get along with (dispite my rules).
6: DO NOT control my character. I control what she says, does, hears, sees, ect. I don't control yours, so don't control mine. HOWEVER, if it's highly necessary and needed, then run it by me first and ask me. Just leave me some wiggle room so I can make a decent response. Failure to comply by this rule, results in immediate drop of the rp.
End Note:
Yes, I've updated my rules just a tad. I do not care if it makes me sound mean or rude, because I'm neither of these things. I'm just tired of putting these rules down for a specific reason and they go ignored because I can tell when someone hasn't read them, and lied about it. I'm just trying to get my point across and roleplay. I'm a very easy going person who loves to make friends on the side (which I've somewhat given up on making friends...only a selective few have actually gained my friendship).
Do not hop into my inbox with a simple 'hey' 'hi' 'sup', etc and for God's sake, don't message me with a 'rp?'and proceed me to flash me with your talliwhacker. I promise you, you'll get your feelings hurt and I'll be here laughing at ya 😂. Nobody wants a peen on their screen. Do not send me an image of your one eyed noodle. Thank you. The password is pineapple.
Fandoms & Pairings
Deadpool (Wade x my oc)
The Adam's family
Pokemon ((MAYBE. Don't be nasty about it either!))
Bridgerton (or something like it. Can be Oc x Oc)
Disney Decedent's (or anything Disney) (oc x oc)
Orange is the new black (this can be oc x oc).
Criminal Minds (REALLY wanna do)
Marvel:
Loki x my oc
Spiderman (Tom Holland) x my oc
Dog The Bounty Hunter (REALLY wanna do):
Dog Chapman x my oc
The walking dead (REALLY wanna do!!):
Daryl X my oc
Batman x my oc
Lucifer (Netflix show series) x my oc (really wanna do)
The Originals: Klaus x my oc (PLEASE !! I REALLY wanna do this one!)
American Horror Story: Tate x my oc (REALLY wanna do)
Dragon Ball Z - Super (vegeta x my oc) (really wanna do)
Naruto: Minato x my oc
Harry Potter (thanks to the wonderful world of rp, the characters will be 18 or older. For me, I'd like it if it was Draco x my oc. REALLY wanna do)
Game Of Thrones (I'm still very early in the show, but I think we could think of something!)
Once Upon A Time:
killian x my oc, REALLY wanna do 🥺.
Avatar the last Airbender:
Zuko x my oc
Twilight:
Jacob x my oc
(Course, our version will be alot better than the movies).
If any of these interests you, message me!
End note part 2:
Congratulations! You've made it to the end. Still interested? You've got the password. Message me and let's get started 😁.

[warning - spoilers here if you're on your first watch]
My take for the more light-hearted eps is:
1.01 - premiere. it's got its serious moments of chaos, but on the whole it's interesting, sets the tone, feels wholesome as everyone slowwwllyyyyy begins to start working together... as they realise they'll need to, to escape
1.17 - through the looking glass... Though there's a sense of urgency in the episode, it isn't too traumatic for the viewer.. The ending to the ep is quite uplifting.
2.04 - crackers don't matter. Need I expand? Everybody going nuts is hilarious.
2.15 - won't get fooled again. Insanity, again! "Then, I can't arrest you!!!"
3.13 - scratch 'n' sniff. Though some of the content is a bit dark and related to stuff that happens in real life, a lot of it was just hilarious. Esp. D'argo changing 😶
3.16 - revenging angel. No explanation needed - looney tunes
4.07 - John quixote. Farscape meets vs video game land. Amazing...
4.10 - coup by clam. I used to not be overly keen on this one, but it's grown on me over time.
4.12 - kansas. the crew being on earth, amazing. D'argo sticking ones up at that random lady? Hilarious... Also, bite me. 😂
Heavy eps:
1.09 - dna mad scientist. I struggle watching Aeryn struggle through what good old mr rat man did to her...
1.19 - nerve. Literally just because of who Scorpius decides to shoot. B*stard.
2.03 - taking the stone. I struggle watching John ignore China needing to speak. She is quite clearly struggling with things in this episode, it was a little hard to watch.
2.05 - the way we weren't. Though Pilot and Aeryn ultimately remain close, the snapshot of the past is bleak!
2.22 - die me dichotomy. Obvious reasons! So sad...
3.04 - self-inflicted wounds pt 2. The sacrifice made...
3.08 - green-eyed monster. I find Crais UNBEARABLE here.
3.17 - the choice... All the grief Aeryn experiences...
4.05 - promises. Aeryn's back story whilst she's away and the heat delirium is a struggle to see. Esp w scorpius about "helping"
4.16 - bringing home the beacon. The ending, mostly. Also, Grayza's general waywardness / treachery
4.18 - prayer. Aeryn is clearly in a bind here.
4.22 - bad timing... Need I say it?
And parts of s5 (pk wars) -
[MAJOR spoiler here] Jool & D'argo
I'm probably missing quite a few out here, as I'm writing this whilst sleepy! Anyone care to share their takes, or anything I've missed?

M4F About me: - I like videogames, sports, running, & listening too music. I also watch a lot of movies and shows, during my free time . - I'm currently 6’0 ft tall, & weight around 150 pounds, I don’t have a preference at all for size & weight! - Black hair, brown eyes - I enjoy meeting new people, although I can be shy or introverted at times, but the right person will help be more comfortable - Enjoy playing PC games, currently valorant atm. - college freshman
About you: - In my age range (18-26) - Similar interests (Optional but would be better) - I don't really care how you look as long as you don't abandon your health and hygiene. - from Texas, I don’t mind long distance at all, or in person
DM me, if you enjoyed the post & are interested in talking & see where things go!

M4F About me: - I like videogames, sports, running, & listening too music. I also watch a lot of movies and shows, during my free time . - I'm currently 6’0 ft tall, & weight around 150 pounds, I don’t have a preference at all for size & weight! - Black hair, brown eyes - I enjoy meeting new people, although I can be shy or introverted at times, but the right person will help be more comfortable - Enjoy playing PC games, currently valorant atm. - college freshman
About you: - In my age range (18-26) - Similar interests (Optional but would be better) - I don't really care how you look as long as you don't abandon your health and hygiene. - from Texas, I don’t mind long distance at all, or in person
DM me, if you enjoyed the post & are interested in talking & see where things go!

Clarity League is a Europe-based Dota 2 community centered around giving players of all skill levels the opportunity to experience competitive play - in a safe & inclusive environment at that. If this appeals to you, read on and find out how to join for Season 8, the signups for which close in 11 days!

How does it work?

Players register individually, rather than with premade teams. They are then drafted onto their teams for the season (think fantasy sports!). It's first come, first serve - if you sign up early enough and make the cut, you are guaranteed to be drafted and get to play, no ifs and buts.
Seasons are split up into divisions, with 8 teams in a division. Higher divisions are higher average MMR, so you'll face opponents closer to your skill level. We do mean what we say about all MMRs being welcome - last season hosted players spanning from 250 MMR, to 10500 MMR (neither of those are typos!).
Season 8 is a two-stage tournament: the Group Stage spans 7 playdays, determining seeding for double elimination playoffs, which are played across 4 playdays. With two playdays per week, the max total duration of the season is just over 5 weeks (June 27th - August 3rd) - with more details on the schedule being available on the league Discord server, in the #calendar channel.
Once play starts, you play two series a week - same days, same time, each week (Tuesdays and Thursdays at 20:00 CEST), with BO2s throughout the group stage, and BO3s in the playoffs (with a pair of BO1s in the lower bracket) - no scheduling struggles, with play exclusively in Captains Mode. All you have to do is sign up, show up, and play some Dota!
We also run an inhouse league - see the #inhouse-info channel on the Discord for more info - though keep in mind it's not always active.

FAQ

How do I get started?

For starters, join the Clarity Discord Server - we post all updates and announcements there. The registration link - as well as every other important link - can be found in the #information channel on Discord, as well as in recent updates in the #announcements channel. Check the playdays in #calendar, and if they work for you, register using the signup form (taking care to read the descriptions on the questions).

How does this work?

Once you're sure that you can play every matchday (based on the #calendar channel), use the Sign-up Form to register for the season. Later on - during the activity check period - you'll receive a Discord message to confirm you're still able & willing to play. Pay close attention to DMs - Discord may hide messages from admins as Message Requests!
When the player pool is confirmed, we host Player Drafts. Again, think fantasy sports - captains bid on players to create their teams. We hold one draft for each Division, and the player pool for each Division is made up of players that remain in the pool upon the completion of the previous draft.
Once all teams are finalized, you join your team's Discord server and on June 27th, you play your first series with your team. You and your team coordinate matters like in-game roles, potential practice sessions, and gameplanning.

Can I play if I'm [x] MMR?

Yes! The only MMR-related requirement we have is that your MMR is calibrated, and - ideally - that you remember your MMR from before patch 7.33. Players of all skill levels participate in Clarity League every season - the current MMR spread for Season 8 spans a range from 900 MMR to 9900 MMR (and we've had both lower and higher in past seasons!). Seasons are also split into divisions, so players will generally face opponents closer to their own skill level.

Can I play if I’m not from Europe?

You can, yes - but keep in mind that every single game will be played on European servers, and the schedule is crafted with European players in mind. Nevertheless, we’ve had players from NA and SEA participate - just make sure you’re comfortable with the playtime and what will likely be higher ping, if you decide to participate from another region.

Is there a prize pool?

No - introducing money to amateur environments largely serves to incentivize cheating, and we just don’t see the value in doing so.

Do our matches get casted?

Some of them do, yeah! In the past about 1 in 4 of all series are casted by community members, and we organize casts for the Grand Finals of each division every season. We also welcome up and coming casters to join the community if they're looking for games to cover!

I'm unable to make it to one of my matches! What do I do?

Teams are allowed to replace one player from the roster with a temporary standin. Using any more than that will result in a forfeit loss, and missing too many matches will likely result in a ban from the league - so don't register if you're guaranteed to miss matches.

I can't play every matchday, but I still want to participate. Is there anything I can do?

Absolutely! Once you join the Discord server, you can keep an eye on the #standins channel - if a team is missing a player, they'll need a temporary replacement, and that's where you can help them out if you're around that evening. You can also give our inhouse league a try, featuring auto-balanced teams and a leaderboard, all hosted from within our Discord - or you could simply join to hang out in the Discord, and stay up to date on future events that might fit you & your schedule better!

Got more questions?

League participants & staff members will be happy to answer any questions you have here on reddit - alternatively, you can simply join the Discord and ask whatever's on your mind in the #league-questions channel! You can also feel free to DM me here on reddit or on Discord (Madsen St. Alessia#1964) if you have questions you'd prefer to ask privately.

Important Links
Join the Clarity League Discord here: https://discord.gg/rh5te7swjq
If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them - hope to see you join the community!
Madsen

Clarity League is a Europe-based Dota 2 community centered around giving players of all skill levels the opportunity to experience competitive play - in a safe & inclusive environment at that. If this appeals to you, read on and find out how to join for Season 8, the signups for which close in 11 days!

How does it work?

Players register individually, rather than with premade teams. They are then drafted onto their teams for the season (think fantasy sports!). It's first come, first serve - if you sign up early enough and make the cut, you are guaranteed to be drafted and get to play, no ifs and buts.
Seasons are split up into divisions, with 8 teams in a division. Higher divisions are higher average MMR, so you'll face opponents closer to your skill level. We do mean what we say about all MMRs being welcome - last season hosted players spanning from 250 MMR, to 10500 MMR (neither of those are typos!).
Season 8 is a two-stage tournament: the Group Stage spans 7 playdays, determining seeding for double elimination playoffs, which are played across 4 playdays. With two playdays per week, the max total duration of the season is just over 5 weeks (June 27th - August 3rd) - with more details on the schedule being available on the league Discord server, in the #calendar channel.
Once play starts, you play two series a week - same days, same time, each week (Tuesdays and Thursdays at 20:00 CEST), with BO2s throughout the group stage, and BO3s in the playoffs (with a pair of BO1s in the lower bracket) - no scheduling struggles, with play exclusively in Captains Mode. All you have to do is sign up, show up, and play some Dota!
We also run an inhouse league - see the #inhouse-info channel on the Discord for more info - though keep in mind it's not always active.

FAQ

How do I get started?

For starters, join the Clarity Discord Server - we post all updates and announcements there. The registration link - as well as every other important link - can be found in the #information channel on Discord, as well as in recent updates in the #announcements channel. Check the playdays in #calendar, and if they work for you, register using the signup form (taking care to read the descriptions on the questions).

How does this work?

Once you're sure that you can play every matchday (based on the #calendar channel), use the Sign-up Form to register for the season. Later on - during the activity check period - you'll receive a Discord message to confirm you're still able & willing to play. Pay close attention to DMs - Discord may hide messages from admins as Message Requests!
When the player pool is confirmed, we host Player Drafts. Again, think fantasy sports - captains bid on players to create their teams. We hold one draft for each Division, and the player pool for each Division is made up of players that remain in the pool upon the completion of the previous draft.
Once all teams are finalized, you join your team's Discord server and on June 27th, you play your first series with your team. You and your team coordinate matters like in-game roles, potential practice sessions, and gameplanning.

Can I play if I'm [x] MMR?

Yes! The only MMR-related requirement we have is that your MMR is calibrated, and - ideally - that you remember your MMR from before patch 7.33. Players of all skill levels participate in Clarity League every season - the current MMR spread for Season 8 spans a range from 900 MMR to 9900 MMR (and we've had both lower and higher in past seasons!). Seasons are also split into divisions, so players will generally face opponents closer to their own skill level.

Can I play if I’m not from Europe?

You can, yes - but keep in mind that every single game will be played on European servers, and the schedule is crafted with European players in mind. Nevertheless, we’ve had players from NA and SEA participate - just make sure you’re comfortable with the playtime and what will likely be higher ping, if you decide to participate from another region.

Is there a prize pool?

No - introducing money to amateur environments largely serves to incentivize cheating, and we just don’t see the value in doing so.

Do our matches get casted?

Some of them do, yeah! In the past about 1 in 4 of all series are casted by community members, and we organize casts for the Grand Finals of each division every season. We also welcome up and coming casters to join the community if they're looking for games to cover!

I'm unable to make it to one of my matches! What do I do?

Teams are allowed to replace one player from the roster with a temporary standin. Using any more than that will result in a forfeit loss, and missing too many matches will likely result in a ban from the league - so don't register if you're guaranteed to miss matches.

I can't play every matchday, but I still want to participate. Is there anything I can do?

Absolutely! Once you join the Discord server, you can keep an eye on the #standins channel - if a team is missing a player, they'll need a temporary replacement, and that's where you can help them out if you're around that evening. You can also give our inhouse league a try, featuring auto-balanced teams and a leaderboard, all hosted from within our Discord - or you could simply join to hang out in the Discord, and stay up to date on future events that might fit you & your schedule better!

Got more questions?

League participants & staff members will be happy to answer any questions you have here on reddit - alternatively, you can simply join the Discord and ask whatever's on your mind in the #league-questions channel! You can also feel free to DM me here on reddit or on Discord (Madsen St. Alessia#1964) if you have questions you'd prefer to ask privately.

Important Links
Join the Clarity League Discord here: https://discord.gg/rh5te7swjq
If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them - hope to see you join the community!
Madsen

Hello! I'm looking for a connection, someone with whom awkward silence is just an enjoyable and quiet moment rather than a big deal. I want that sort of connection where we both enjoy simply being together, one that makes us want to know everything each other and where hours pass and we feel like it's only been minutes. :)
As may well be evident, I'm definitely a bit romantic. I'd describe myself as a sensitive, very romantic and affectionate person who simultanously still values his own masculinity. In general, I'm a relatively quiet person but I can talk about things I'm passionate about for hours! Looks-wise I'm a fairly average looking 1,72m guy with blond hair and blue eyes.
As for my character, I quite like myself and have done a lot of self-improvement over the past years. I am a confident and caring person and in relationships I'll probably shower you with affection. I'm also the sort of person who doesn't mind a lot of stuff many people seem to - I can very honestly tell you whether I prefer the red or the blue shirt if you were to ask me which one I prefer. I've been told that's a good quality to have, so yay! Oh - also, I quite like cuddling! Relatively good listener too, I'd say!
While I use a vaporiser device occasionally, I don't drink alcohol and I don't smoke or anything of that sort - best case scenario you don't either, but so long as it's not an alcohol/drug addiction or that sort of thing it'll be fine. I have many hobbies from the more obvious watching an interesting show or movie and playing a video game to writing/worldbuilding(just for myself), cultures, languages, history, geography, all the things that surround us.
With a partner I can both be the type of person to just listen and go with the flow as well as take charge and lead - I think both are good traits to have and being able to do both generally has always felt like the best way to me :) In a woman I value compassion, communication, emotional maturity & availability and these sorts of traits a lot. Of course, humour is always appreciated, I make the best and worst jokes, and within minutes of each other. My type of humour can be dry, occasionally even eyeroll-inducing. I should warn you of that! It's also occasionally edgy, but not overly.
I'm straight, but I wouldn't get along well with someone who has issues with LGBT+ people. I am agnostic, and I don't have a particular preference for a religious background.
I'm bilingual with German and English. So long as we can understand each other, any background is fine. I'm neurodivergent, currently awaiting an autism diagnosis, and have depression, although I tend to not show that very much I'd like to think.
If you're interested, live in Europe (& plan to stay in Europe) and would like to get to know each other please feel free to send me a message!

Hello! I'm looking for a connection, someone with whom awkward silence is just an enjoyable and quiet moment rather than a big deal. I want that sort of connection where we both enjoy simply being together, one that makes us want to know everything each other and where hours pass and we feel like it's only been minutes. :)
As may well be evident, I'm definitely a bit romantic. I'd describe myself as a sensitive, very romantic and affectionate person who simultanously still values his own masculinity. In general, I'm a relatively quiet person but I can talk about things I'm passionate about for hours! Looks-wise I'm a fairly average looking 1,72m guy with blond hair and blue eyes.
As for my character, I quite like myself and have done a lot of self-improvement over the past years. I am a confident and caring person and in relationships I'll probably shower you with affection. I'm also the sort of person who doesn't mind a lot of stuff many people seem to - I can very honestly tell you whether I prefer the red or the blue shirt if you were to ask me which one I prefer. I've been told that's a good quality to have, so yay! Oh - also, I quite like cuddling! Relatively good listener too, I'd say!
While I use a vaporiser device occasionally, I don't drink alcohol and I don't smoke or anything of that sort - best case scenario you don't either, but so long as it's not an alcohol/drug addiction or that sort of thing it'll be fine. I have many hobbies from the more obvious watching an interesting show or movie and playing a video game to writing/worldbuilding(just for myself), cultures, languages, history, geography, all the things that surround us.
With a partner I can both be the type of person to just listen and go with the flow as well as take charge and lead - I think both are good traits to have and being able to do both generally has always felt like the best way to me :) In a woman I value compassion, communication, emotional maturity & availability and these sorts of traits a lot. Of course, humour is always appreciated, I make the best and worst jokes, and within minutes of each other. My type of humour can be dry, occasionally even eyeroll-inducing. I should warn you of that! It's also occasionally edgy, but not overly.
I'm straight, but I wouldn't get along well with someone who has issues with LGBT+ people. I am agnostic, and I don't have a particular preference for a religious background.
I'm bilingual with German and English. So long as we can understand each other, any background is fine. I'm neurodivergent, currently awaiting an autism diagnosis, and have depression, although I tend to not show that very much I'd like to think.
If you're interested, live in Europe (& plan to stay in Europe) and would like to get to know each other please feel free to send me a message!

One hundred and forty-nine stairs. That’s how many there are to get up to the fire tower I’m posted at. I used to think getting up there meant safety. Now, I’m hoping it just means survival.
Climbing one hundred and forty-nine steps when you’re healthy is no small feat. When one of your legs has been torn to shreds, you’re bleeding from many places and you’re trying to get up there to wrap it, hoping there’s enough bandages so you don’t bleed to death, it’s a lot more difficult.
Then there are the stairs themselves which also count as a hazard when you have to hop up each one, causing pain to shoot through your injured leg. The stairs are skinny enough as they are, but the closer you get to the top, the smaller they get.
How do I know the exact number of steps? I counted them. I also counted which ones I miscalculated my jump, or brushed my foot against the step, or did something else that nearly sent me sailing over the rickety railing to my untimely death. The first time was one step number three, then fifteen, thirty-seven was a bad one, fifty-two, one oh seven, one-twenty, and finally one-forty-three. I guess it’s a good thing I’m deathly afraid of heights.
By now you may have figured out, I’m a park ranger. How did I end up playing this deadly game of hopscotch? It started a week ago when I got the job.
I was super excited, because I love working alone, and I love nature. What other job blends those two so well?
That excitement waned quite a bit when I arrived at the tower on my first day and looked up at those tiny metal steps I would have to climb to get to my job. The whole thing looked about as sturdy as if someone had built it with an erector set. I mean honestly, seeing surface rust on stairs that have to support your weight is terrifying, and I had to wonder how much I would be swaying when the wind really kicked up.
I wanted to close my eyes and just run up, but I didn’t dare. I paid attention to every single step, watching the metal bow under the weight of my foot, white-knuckling the railings as I went.
Finally, I reached the top and knocked on the trapdoor that had to be opened to let me in. I met the ranger who would be training me. His name was Bob, and he looked every bit how I envision a park ranger would look. Tall and thin, wiry but not scrawny, with a five o’clock shadow because he never had the time to shave properly.
Bob was one of those guys who seemed to always have a smirk on their face like they’ve just been told the greatest joke of all time, but they don’t want to let you in on it.
He spent the entire shift showing me around and then boring me to tears with all the little details of working in a fire tower. The place wasn’t bad. I was expecting an empty room with a card table and a radio, but this was nice. It reminded me of a small apartment or the inside of a small RV. There was a kitchenette with a microwave, sink, and minifridge. There was a couch and a couple of chairs, and most importantly, there was a bathroom.
At one point I thought there would be an outhouse at the base of the tower I would have to use. The thought of going down all those steps while holding number one or especially number two was something I didn’t even want to have nightmares about.
Just before the end of the shift, the next ranger came up. His name was Toby.
Toby looked nothing like I envisioned rangers looking like. He was overweight but made up for it by being under tall. He had a look of mischief in his eyes like a seventh grader who had just dropped a cherry bomb down the toilet and was trying to walk away looking nonchalant.
He smiled and shook my hand.
“So did Bob bore you to tears?” he said.
“Not quite to tears,” I said.
“Hey, I’m a good trainer,” Bob said looking offended yet still wearing that grin.
“Did you tell him everything?” Toby said.
“Pretty sure,” Bob said.
“Did you tell him about?” Toby leaned closer and whispered something in Bob’s ear that I couldn’t hear.
Bob’s grin grew.
“No, I didn’t tell him about that.”
“Maybe we should wait until he’s done training,” Toby said.
“What?” I said looking back and forth between them.
“We’ll tell you once you’re done job shadowing,” Bob said with that infuriating grin.
When we left, I was so focused on what they weren’t telling me, I nearly missed the first step and plunged to my death.
“Yeah, you’re gonna want to focus on those steps,” Bob said. “We had a coworker get hurt really bad because of them.”
“Is he ok now?”
Bob looked away.
Toby came over and volunteered, “He’s dead.”
That was definitely what I wanted to hear.
The next few days were a blur. Between total boredom with reading the procedure book and Bob grinning all the while refusing to tell me the big secret, I was getting super frustrated. I couldn’t wait for my first night working alone.
At least I had brought some supplies up to keep in the tower. Some snacks, a few books, and a tablet to make some notes on if I started writing a story.
Finally, the night came. I was working on my own for the first time. Surprisingly, Bob’s smile vanished as he told me.
“Did you ever read anything off of Reddit?” he said.
I shrugged.
“I don’t really read much other than books.”
“Sign up for Reddit, then go to the nosleep subreddit and look for a story called, ‘I was a park ranger stationed in a fire tower. It had a strange set of rules.’ Read that. It’ll tell you what to do.”
“Ok,” I said. “That’s the big secret? Read someone’s made-up story?”
“It might seem made up,” he said. “But trust me, follow the rules.”
I tried to read his expression to see if he was messing with me or not. In the five days I’d known him, there was never a time he wasn’t wearing that stupid grin, until now. His face was serious as a heart attack.
“Alright,” I said. “I’ll look it up later on my phone.”
“You really should do it as soon as I leave.”
“Ok.”
“Good luck.”
He stepped over to the door and went down the stairs. A few minutes later I heard his truck drive away.
“What the hell was that about?”
I stood in the middle of the room looking out at the beautiful trees, but not even seeing them. My mind was occupied by what Bob had said.
“It has to be a prank,” I said to the empty room. “Bob and Toby cooked this up to scare me on my first night. Well, I’m not falling for it.”
I did my first round of walking around on the outside walkway, looking for any sign of fires. We worked twelve-hour shifts, so I was working from seven am to seven pm. It was late summer and still warm enough to go without a jacket, at least on my first round. By the time I got to my fourth round, there was a chill in the air. I started doing my rounds from the inside and made a mental note to bring a jacket with me tomorrow.
It seemed odd to be talking about a jacket in late summer, but in the forest, the temperatures can vary wildly. It could be thirty degrees at night and eighty during the day.
I stepped back inside and saw my phone had lit up with a text message. I looked at it and it was Bob.
‘Did you read the rules yet?’
‘No,’ I texted back.
‘You don’t have much time.’
I knew this was a joke, it had to be a joke. The old timers pulling a fast one on the new guy, jerking his chain a little.
‘I’ll get right on it,’ I texted.
‘You better.’
I put my phone down and looked at the clock. It was ten minutes after ten. Outside was now completely dark, creating a very disconcerting illusion where when I would look outside, all I saw was my reflection. I decided to turn some lights off and go with just the bare minimum. That reduced the reflection some and I could see some trees outside.
I did a slow pan around, then grabbed a bag of chips and a soda, sat down, and worked on a crossword puzzle. That only lasted a half hour until I was bored with it. I picked up a book and started to read.
I woke sometime later, with my head resting on the back of the chair, chip crumbs all over my shirt, and the book laying on the floor.
I stretched and looked over at the clock. It read two-thirteen.
I jumped up, flinging the bag of chips to the floor, realizing I’d missed several checks, then ran around the room staring out at the trees. After my quick lap, I took a breath and did another slower lap to make sure there was no smoke. Thank God, there was none.
I chided myself for falling asleep on duty like that as I cleaned up my mess. I decided I should set an hourly alarm on my phone so that wouldn’t happen again.
When I picked up the phone I noticed there was a series of texts from Bob.
‘Did you read it yet?’
‘Why aren’t you answering?’
‘Are you alright?’
‘Don’t open the door for any reason.’
The last one sent chills down my spine.
Why would I open the door in the middle of the night?
As I was thinking this, another text came in.
‘For the love of God, read it!’
What the hell was wrong with this guy? Was he seriously losing sleep for a stupid joke?
I decided I would humor him and read the story. I opened my phone and went to the Reddit site. I had just signed up and put my information in when I heard static over the radio. I stepped to the receiver and checked it. Static blared out of it, making me jump as I heard a faint voice in it.
“Tower seven, do you read me?” I heard from a voice I could barely hear through the static.
I hesitated for a moment trying to remember if this was tower seven or not.
“Tower seven do you read me?” the voice said sounding a little more desperate.
I picked up the mic and keyed it.
“This is tower seven, go ahead.”
“It’s good to hear you tower seven,” the voice said suddenly clear. “I didn’t think you would answer.”
“Well, here I am, awake and alert, answering you,” I said. “What did you need?”
“I already have what I need,” the voice said sounding like it was chuckling. “I’d like to come visit if that’s alright.”
“Tower seven, this is base, who are you talking to?”
“I don’t know, someone on the radio,” I said into the mic.
“Seven, there’s no one else on this channel,” base said.
I got chills for a moment. What did that mean? How was I hearing someone that base couldn’t? Why would someone be calling now? Then it hit me that the base dispatcher was probably in on the joke too.
“Ok, base, maybe it was just some random transmission.”
“Tower seven,” the voice said. “Am I alright to come from a visit?”
I hesitated for a moment. What if it wasn’t a joke? Who the hell is walking through the forest at two thirty in the morning?
“Maybe we’ll do that visit another time,” I said.
“Visit?” base said. “What visit? Seven, you know it’s against policy to have visitors.”
“Yeah, sorry, base, I won’t be letting anyone visit.”
More static came over the radio. I could swear I could hear someone say something in the middle of it.
It sounded like, “We’ll see.”
I put down the mic and picked up my phone to read the story when I saw something off in the distance. It was a light, but it was hovering, like a helicopter. I switched my phone to camera mode, zoomed in, and took a picture. It was weird because the light was blue. I didn’t think helicopters had blue lights on them. Also, this light wasn’t flashing, it was solid the whole time. It came closer and I took another picture.
It floated even closer. It was mesmerizing. There was no sound. No hum, no whirring of tiny blades keeping it afloat like a drone, nothing. It was about the size of a basketball and glowing the most brilliant blue I’d ever seen. I reached out for it and it backed away from my hand. I took a step closer to the edge of the walkway, reaching out as far as my arm could stretch.
It backed away a few inches, just out of reach. I stood on my tiptoes, pushing against the railing trying to touch it. It moved away another inch.
I reached the tipping point and pinwheeled my arms to regain my balance and shove back against the railing.
I fell onto the walkway, landing hard on my backside and hitting the back of my head against the window. I looked up and the light was gone.
I shook my head, painfully stood up, and went back inside. I didn’t want to do a patrol but figured I’d better. After a slow walk around, I collapsed in the chair and set my alarm to go off in an hour.
After sitting there for a few minutes I could feel myself nodding off, so I opened my phone and started reading the story. After about ten minutes, I lowered my phone, eyes wide, hands shaking.
“It can’t be real,” I whispered. “It’s just a joke.”
I scrolled back through the story and re-read the rules.

1. Never, under any circumstances, leave the fire tower until you are relieved.
   
2. Turn off all lights between the hours of 2 and 3 am.
   
3. If you receive a radio transmission or phone call between those hours, do not answer.
   
4. If anyone knocks on the trapdoor during those hours tell them they’ll have to wait until morning. Do not open the door.
   
5. If you see a glowing object floating toward the tower, don’t look at it. Cover your eyes and count to 50. When you open your eyes it should be gone. If not, cover and count to 50 again.
   
6. If animals surround the tower don’t go down to look. Fire your flare gun into the air twice one minute apart, then lock yourself in the bathroom and hope for the best.
   My skepticism started to waver. How could they have known about those things, unless…
   

There was a powerful banging at the trapdoor that made me jump.
“Who is it?” I said.
No one answered.
I minute later, the pounding resumed. I searched for anything I could use as a weapon. Digging through the silverware drawer and finding an old, dull, paring knife, I backed as far away from the trapdoor as possible while staying inside. The pounding repeated. Somehow through the fear that coursed through my veins, I found my voice.
“You’ll have to come back in the morning,” I said.
“But I’m here now tower,” said the voice from the radio. “Let… me… in... ”
The last three words changed from asking to demanding. The voice also became deeper and more menacing.
I didn’t answer. I just slid down to the floor and hugged my knees holding the knife in front of me, silently searching through the story on my phone to see if there was something I missed, some way I could remedy the situation. But there was nothing, and the end of the story didn’t give me much hope.
I covered my ears and closed my eyes as the pounding continued now mixed with the voice that was going back and forth between pleading and threatening. It whispered then it screamed. It sound like a young boy, then it sounded demonic.
I rocked back and forth trying to keep some measure of sanity as the assault continued. I began to wonder how long the trapdoor would hold before whatever it was broke through.
Then suddenly it stopped.
As happy as I was that there was no more pounding and yelling, I didn’t trust it. My entire body was on pins and needles. It felt like the calm before the storm.
The fire tower shook. It felt like an earthquake, only different. I stood and went out to the walkway to see what was happening. When I looked down, I couldn’t believe it. The tower was surrounded by animals of all kinds. Deer, squirrels, bears, moose, any forest animal you could imagine, and even a couple I couldn’t and didn’t want to identify.
As I leaned over watching this strange menagerie, a moose rammed into one of the tower’s legs. It sent a shockwave through the entire metal framework. By the time it got up to me the tower was shaking so hard it made me lose my balance.
I toppled over the edge and fell. I threw my arm out attempting to catch the rail, but only touched it with my fingertips.
I knew I was falling to my death, there was no doubt. The wind rushing in my ears didn’t drown out the sound of my screaming. It sounded odd like I was listening to someone else scream. I closed my eyes, not wanting to know when the end was coming.
Suddenly something hit me hard in the ribs. I looked and I had hit a tree limb, but it didn’t stop me. The branch broke sending me falling again until I hit another branch. This one tore a gash on my leg as I flipped head over heels and fell again. The next branch grazed my head and made me see stars. I bounced off another branch hitting my shoulder, then took one to the knee, and landed flat on my back on the ground.
I lay there dazed, injured, but alive and surprised to be so. As I tried to regain my bearings, I saw the animals rushing over to me. I doubted they wanted me to pet them while they licked my wounds and cared for me while singing Disney songs.
I jumped up as pain rocked my body from more places than I wanted to think about. I hopped over to the tower steps and began my long arduous journey, just a half step away from a bunch of animals that seemed dead set on my destruction.
About halfway up I realized there was no more pursuit, so I slowed trying to conserve energy.
I got to the top, unlocked the hatch and tried to push it open. It took several tries to get enough strength while balancing on one leg standing on the tiniest of all the tiny steps. As soon as I got it open, I turned and slammed it shut, locking it.
I hobbled into the room, found the first aid box and struggled to get to the couch. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and forget this day ever happened.
I tried to easily lay myself down, but ended up collapsing in an excruciating heap.
Once down, I focused on bandaging the leg since it was losing the most blood. Once done, I proceeded to bandage all the rest of the areas that needed.
“How are you feeling, tower seven?” I heard the voice say over the radio.
I didn’t answer.
“Oh, come on now tower, don’t be like that,” it said. “Talk to me. Let me in and we’ll have a conversation.”
I lay there trying to think of anything other than pain and this voice.
“There has to be punishment for disobeying the rules.”
My blood ran cold. How did that thing know about the rules?
I reached into my pocket and was astonished that my phone was there. It had a cracked screen, but was usable. I texted Bob.
‘I’m alive, somehow. I broke half the rules without knowing it because I read the story too late.’
‘Are you alright?’
I took pictures of my bandaged leg that was wrapped but blood was still seeping through. I took pictures of my battered face, and my bruised ribs. I sent them all to Bob.
‘Good Lord, man, what did you do?’
‘I fell out of the tower.’
‘You did what?’
‘Was leaning over the edge of the walkway when one of the animals smashed into the support leg and shook the tower, knocking me over.’
‘How are you alive?’
‘Tree caught me.’
‘I’ll call the paramedics and come in early to relieve you.’
‘I’ll be laying here on the couch, bleeding.’
Then I added, ‘I’ll follow the rules from now on.’
There was static on the radio and a faint voice said, “You’d better.”
***
When Bob unlocked the hatch and led the EMTs in, he didn’t have that grin on his face.
“You ok, kid?” he said.
“Hunky dory, how about you?” I said laying on the cushions that were soaked in my own blood.
“He might be in shock,” one of the EMTs said.
My rescue was an adventure in itself. When they examined me they informed me that my leg was broken. I was sweating trying to go back down those steps with a splint on. I could just see me slipping near the top and falling again. There didn’t seem to be any trees close enough to catch me on this side.
Apparently, the EMTs seemed to be thinking the same thing. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of tying me to a backboard and trying to carry me down the steps. After two EMTs nearly fell, they decided to tie it to a rope and lower me like a sack of potatoes.
They rigged up a rope around one of the support poles for the walkway. Watching the rope scrape along the edges of the wood, fraying as it went was probably more terrifying than anything I’d experienced last night.
Floating in the air, spinning slowly didn’t help my fear of heights any. I decided to close my eyes and try to stay as still as possible so the balance wouldn’t be disturbed and slide me out of the end to fall to my death.
I was extremely grateful when the board hit the ground. My adrenaline finally crashed and I fell into a deep sleep as they loaded me into the ambulance.
***
Truth be told, I’m absolutely terrified to go back to the tower. It’s not like I have a lot of choices. Park ranger is a good paying job and sitting around watching for fires is about the easiest job I’ve ever heard of.
If you take away the supernatural voices, bizarre wildlife, strange lights, and the stairs of death.
I’m hoping paying attention to the rules will keep me safe.
I’m posting this as a warning. If your job has some strange rules, make sure you follow them, no matter how stupid you think they might be.

One hundred and forty-nine stairs. That’s how many there are to get up to the fire tower I’m posted at. I used to think getting up there meant safety. Now, I’m hoping it just means survival.
Climbing one hundred and forty-nine steps when you’re healthy is no small feat. When one of your legs has been torn to shreds, you’re bleeding from many places and you’re trying to get up there to wrap it, hoping there’s enough bandages so you don’t bleed to death, it’s a lot more difficult.
Then there are the stairs themselves which also count as a hazard when you have to hop up each one, causing pain to shoot through your injured leg. The stairs are skinny enough as they are, but the closer you get to the top, the smaller they get.
How do I know the exact number of steps? I counted them. I also counted which ones I miscalculated my jump, or brushed my foot against the step, or did something else that nearly sent me sailing over the rickety railing to my untimely death. The first time was one step number three, then fifteen, thirty-seven was a bad one, fifty-two, one oh seven, one-twenty, and finally one-forty-three. I guess it’s a good thing I’m deathly afraid of heights.
By now you may have figured out, I’m a park ranger. How did I end up playing this deadly game of hopscotch? It started a week ago when I got the job.
I was super excited, because I love working alone, and I love nature. What other job blends those two so well?
That excitement waned quite a bit when I arrived at the tower on my first day and looked up at those tiny metal steps I would have to climb to get to my job. The whole thing looked about as sturdy as if someone had built it with an erector set. I mean honestly, seeing surface rust on stairs that have to support your weight is terrifying, and I had to wonder how much I would be swaying when the wind really kicked up.
I wanted to close my eyes and just run up, but I didn’t dare. I paid attention to every single step, watching the metal bow under the weight of my foot, white-knuckling the railings as I went.
Finally, I reached the top and knocked on the trapdoor that had to be opened to let me in. I met the ranger who would be training me. His name was Bob, and he looked every bit how I envision a park ranger would look. Tall and thin, wiry but not scrawny, with a five o’clock shadow because he never had the time to shave properly.
Bob was one of those guys who seemed to always have a smirk on their face like they’ve just been told the greatest joke of all time, but they don’t want to let you in on it.
He spent the entire shift showing me around and then boring me to tears with all the little details of working in a fire tower. The place wasn’t bad. I was expecting an empty room with a card table and a radio, but this was nice. It reminded me of a small apartment or the inside of a small RV. There was a kitchenette with a microwave, sink, and minifridge. There was a couch and a couple of chairs, and most importantly, there was a bathroom.
At one point I thought there would be an outhouse at the base of the tower I would have to use. The thought of going down all those steps while holding number one or especially number two was something I didn’t even want to have nightmares about.
Just before the end of the shift, the next ranger came up. His name was Toby.
Toby looked nothing like I envisioned rangers looking like. He was overweight but made up for it by being under tall. He had a look of mischief in his eyes like a seventh grader who had just dropped a cherry bomb down the toilet and was trying to walk away looking nonchalant.
He smiled and shook my hand.
“So did Bob bore you to tears?” he said.
“Not quite to tears,” I said.
“Hey, I’m a good trainer,” Bob said looking offended yet still wearing that grin.
“Did you tell him everything?” Toby said.
“Pretty sure,” Bob said.
“Did you tell him about?” Toby leaned closer and whispered something in Bob’s ear that I couldn’t hear.
Bob’s grin grew.
“No, I didn’t tell him about that.”
“Maybe we should wait until he’s done training,” Toby said.
“What?” I said looking back and forth between them.
“We’ll tell you once you’re done job shadowing,” Bob said with that infuriating grin.
When we left, I was so focused on what they weren’t telling me, I nearly missed the first step and plunged to my death.
“Yeah, you’re gonna want to focus on those steps,” Bob said. “We had a coworker get hurt really bad because of them.”
“Is he ok now?”
Bob looked away.
Toby came over and volunteered, “He’s dead.”
That was definitely what I wanted to hear.
The next few days were a blur. Between total boredom with reading the procedure book and Bob grinning all the while refusing to tell me the big secret, I was getting super frustrated. I couldn’t wait for my first night working alone.
At least I had brought some supplies up to keep in the tower. Some snacks, a few books, and a tablet to make some notes on if I started writing a story.
Finally, the night came. I was working on my own for the first time. Surprisingly, Bob’s smile vanished as he told me.
“Did you ever read anything off of Reddit?” he said.
I shrugged.
“I don’t really read much other than books.”
“Sign up for Reddit, then go to the nosleep subreddit and look for a story called, ‘I was a park ranger stationed in a fire tower. It had a strange set of rules.’ Read that. It’ll tell you what to do.”
“Ok,” I said. “That’s the big secret? Read someone’s made-up story?”
“It might seem made up,” he said. “But trust me, follow the rules.”
I tried to read his expression to see if he was messing with me or not. In the five days I’d known him, there was never a time he wasn’t wearing that stupid grin, until now. His face was serious as a heart attack.
“Alright,” I said. “I’ll look it up later on my phone.”
“You really should do it as soon as I leave.”
“Ok.”
“Good luck.”
He stepped over to the door and went down the stairs. A few minutes later I heard his truck drive away.
“What the hell was that about?”
I stood in the middle of the room looking out at the beautiful trees, but not even seeing them. My mind was occupied by what Bob had said.
“It has to be a prank,” I said to the empty room. “Bob and Toby cooked this up to scare me on my first night. Well, I’m not falling for it.”
I did my first round of walking around on the outside walkway, looking for any sign of fires. We worked twelve-hour shifts, so I was working from seven am to seven pm. It was late summer and still warm enough to go without a jacket, at least on my first round. By the time I got to my fourth round, there was a chill in the air. I started doing my rounds from the inside and made a mental note to bring a jacket with me tomorrow.
It seemed odd to be talking about a jacket in late summer, but in the forest, the temperatures can vary wildly. It could be thirty degrees at night and eighty during the day.
I stepped back inside and saw my phone had lit up with a text message. I looked at it and it was Bob.
‘Did you read the rules yet?’
‘No,’ I texted back.
‘You don’t have much time.’
I knew this was a joke, it had to be a joke. The old timers pulling a fast one on the new guy, jerking his chain a little.
‘I’ll get right on it,’ I texted.
‘You better.’
I put my phone down and looked at the clock. It was ten minutes after ten. Outside was now completely dark, creating a very disconcerting illusion where when I would look outside, all I saw was my reflection. I decided to turn some lights off and go with just the bare minimum. That reduced the reflection some and I could see some trees outside.
I did a slow pan around, then grabbed a bag of chips and a soda, sat down, and worked on a crossword puzzle. That only lasted a half hour until I was bored with it. I picked up a book and started to read.
I woke sometime later, with my head resting on the back of the chair, chip crumbs all over my shirt, and the book laying on the floor.
I stretched and looked over at the clock. It read two-thirteen.
I jumped up, flinging the bag of chips to the floor, realizing I’d missed several checks, then ran around the room staring out at the trees. After my quick lap, I took a breath and did another slower lap to make sure there was no smoke. Thank God, there was none.
I chided myself for falling asleep on duty like that as I cleaned up my mess. I decided I should set an hourly alarm on my phone so that wouldn’t happen again.
When I picked up the phone I noticed there was a series of texts from Bob.
‘Did you read it yet?’
‘Why aren’t you answering?’
‘Are you alright?’
‘Don’t open the door for any reason.’
The last one sent chills down my spine.
Why would I open the door in the middle of the night?
As I was thinking this, another text came in.
‘For the love of God, read it!’
What the hell was wrong with this guy? Was he seriously losing sleep for a stupid joke?
I decided I would humor him and read the story. I opened my phone and went to the Reddit site. I had just signed up and put my information in when I heard static over the radio. I stepped to the receiver and checked it. Static blared out of it, making me jump as I heard a faint voice in it.
“Tower seven, do you read me?” I heard from a voice I could barely hear through the static.
I hesitated for a moment trying to remember if this was tower seven or not.
“Tower seven do you read me?” the voice said sounding a little more desperate.
I picked up the mic and keyed it.
“This is tower seven, go ahead.”
“It’s good to hear you tower seven,” the voice said suddenly clear. “I didn’t think you would answer.”
“Well, here I am, awake and alert, answering you,” I said. “What did you need?”
“I already have what I need,” the voice said sounding like it was chuckling. “I’d like to come visit if that’s alright.”
“Tower seven, this is base, who are you talking to?”
“I don’t know, someone on the radio,” I said into the mic.
“Seven, there’s no one else on this channel,” base said.
I got chills for a moment. What did that mean? How was I hearing someone that base couldn’t? Why would someone be calling now? Then it hit me that the base dispatcher was probably in on the joke too.
“Ok, base, maybe it was just some random transmission.”
“Tower seven,” the voice said. “Am I alright to come from a visit?”
I hesitated for a moment. What if it wasn’t a joke? Who the hell is walking through the forest at two thirty in the morning?
“Maybe we’ll do that visit another time,” I said.
“Visit?” base said. “What visit? Seven, you know it’s against policy to have visitors.”
“Yeah, sorry, base, I won’t be letting anyone visit.”
More static came over the radio. I could swear I could hear someone say something in the middle of it.
It sounded like, “We’ll see.”
I put down the mic and picked up my phone to read the story when I saw something off in the distance. It was a light, but it was hovering, like a helicopter. I switched my phone to camera mode, zoomed in, and took a picture. It was weird because the light was blue. I didn’t think helicopters had blue lights on them. Also, this light wasn’t flashing, it was solid the whole time. It came closer and I took another picture.
It floated even closer. It was mesmerizing. There was no sound. No hum, no whirring of tiny blades keeping it afloat like a drone, nothing. It was about the size of a basketball and glowing the most brilliant blue I’d ever seen. I reached out for it and it backed away from my hand. I took a step closer to the edge of the walkway, reaching out as far as my arm could stretch.
It backed away a few inches, just out of reach. I stood on my tiptoes, pushing against the railing trying to touch it. It moved away another inch.
I reached the tipping point and pinwheeled my arms to regain my balance and shove back against the railing.
I fell onto the walkway, landing hard on my backside and hitting the back of my head against the window. I looked up and the light was gone.
I shook my head, painfully stood up, and went back inside. I didn’t want to do a patrol but figured I’d better. After a slow walk around, I collapsed in the chair and set my alarm to go off in an hour.
After sitting there for a few minutes I could feel myself nodding off, so I opened my phone and started reading the story. After about ten minutes, I lowered my phone, eyes wide, hands shaking.
“It can’t be real,” I whispered. “It’s just a joke.”
I scrolled back through the story and re-read the rules.

1. Never, under any circumstances, leave the fire tower until you are relieved.
   
2. Turn off all lights between the hours of 2 and 3 am.
   
3. If you receive a radio transmission or phone call between those hours, do not answer.
   
4. If anyone knocks on the trapdoor during those hours tell them they’ll have to wait until morning. Do not open the door.
   
5. If you see a glowing object floating toward the tower, don’t look at it. Cover your eyes and count to 50. When you open your eyes it should be gone. If not, cover and count to 50 again.
   
6. If animals surround the tower don’t go down to look. Fire your flare gun into the air twice one minute apart, then lock yourself in the bathroom and hope for the best.
   My skepticism started to waver. How could they have known about those things, unless…
   

There was a powerful banging at the trapdoor that made me jump.
“Who is it?” I said.
No one answered.
I minute later, the pounding resumed. I searched for anything I could use as a weapon. Digging through the silverware drawer and finding an old, dull, paring knife, I backed as far away from the trapdoor as possible while staying inside. The pounding repeated. Somehow through the fear that coursed through my veins, I found my voice.
“You’ll have to come back in the morning,” I said.
“But I’m here now tower,” said the voice from the radio. “Let… me… in... ”
The last three words changed from asking to demanding. The voice also became deeper and more menacing.
I didn’t answer. I just slid down to the floor and hugged my knees holding the knife in front of me, silently searching through the story on my phone to see if there was something I missed, some way I could remedy the situation. But there was nothing, and the end of the story didn’t give me much hope.
I covered my ears and closed my eyes as the pounding continued now mixed with the voice that was going back and forth between pleading and threatening. It whispered then it screamed. It sound like a young boy, then it sounded demonic.
I rocked back and forth trying to keep some measure of sanity as the assault continued. I began to wonder how long the trapdoor would hold before whatever it was broke through.
Then suddenly it stopped.
As happy as I was that there was no more pounding and yelling, I didn’t trust it. My entire body was on pins and needles. It felt like the calm before the storm.
The fire tower shook. It felt like an earthquake, only different. I stood and went out to the walkway to see what was happening. When I looked down, I couldn’t believe it. The tower was surrounded by animals of all kinds. Deer, squirrels, bears, moose, any forest animal you could imagine, and even a couple I couldn’t and didn’t want to identify.
As I leaned over watching this strange menagerie, a moose rammed into one of the tower’s legs. It sent a shockwave through the entire metal framework. By the time it got up to me the tower was shaking so hard it made me lose my balance.
I toppled over the edge and fell. I threw my arm out attempting to catch the rail, but only touched it with my fingertips.
I knew I was falling to my death, there was no doubt. The wind rushing in my ears didn’t drown out the sound of my screaming. It sounded odd like I was listening to someone else scream. I closed my eyes, not wanting to know when the end was coming.
Suddenly something hit me hard in the ribs. I looked and I had hit a tree limb, but it didn’t stop me. The branch broke sending me falling again until I hit another branch. This one tore a gash on my leg as I flipped head over heels and fell again. The next branch grazed my head and made me see stars. I bounced off another branch hitting my shoulder, then took one to the knee, and landed flat on my back on the ground.
I lay there dazed, injured, but alive and surprised to be so. As I tried to regain my bearings, I saw the animals rushing over to me. I doubted they wanted me to pet them while they licked my wounds and cared for me while singing Disney songs.
I jumped up as pain rocked my body from more places than I wanted to think about. I hopped over to the tower steps and began my long arduous journey, just a half step away from a bunch of animals that seemed dead set on my destruction.
About halfway up I realized there was no more pursuit, so I slowed trying to conserve energy.
I got to the top, unlocked the hatch and tried to push it open. It took several tries to get enough strength while balancing on one leg standing on the tiniest of all the tiny steps. As soon as I got it open, I turned and slammed it shut, locking it.
I hobbled into the room, found the first aid box and struggled to get to the couch. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and forget this day ever happened.
I tried to easily lay myself down, but ended up collapsing in an excruciating heap.
Once down, I focused on bandaging the leg since it was losing the most blood. Once done, I proceeded to bandage all the rest of the areas that needed.
“How are you feeling, tower seven?” I heard the voice say over the radio.
I didn’t answer.
“Oh, come on now tower, don’t be like that,” it said. “Talk to me. Let me in and we’ll have a conversation.”
I lay there trying to think of anything other than pain and this voice.
“There has to be punishment for disobeying the rules.”
My blood ran cold. How did that thing know about the rules?
I reached into my pocket and was astonished that my phone was there. It had a cracked screen, but was usable. I texted Bob.
‘I’m alive, somehow. I broke half the rules without knowing it because I read the story too late.’
‘Are you alright?’
I took pictures of my bandaged leg that was wrapped but blood was still seeping through. I took pictures of my battered face, and my bruised ribs. I sent them all to Bob.
‘Good Lord, man, what did you do?’
‘I fell out of the tower.’
‘You did what?’
‘Was leaning over the edge of the walkway when one of the animals smashed into the support leg and shook the tower, knocking me over.’
‘How are you alive?’
‘Tree caught me.’
‘I’ll call the paramedics and come in early to relieve you.’
‘I’ll be laying here on the couch, bleeding.’
Then I added, ‘I’ll follow the rules from now on.’
There was static on the radio and a faint voice said, “You’d better.”
***
When Bob unlocked the hatch and led the EMTs in, he didn’t have that grin on his face.
“You ok, kid?” he said.
“Hunky dory, how about you?” I said laying on the cushions that were soaked in my own blood.
“He might be in shock,” one of the EMTs said.
My rescue was an adventure in itself. When they examined me they informed me that my leg was broken. I was sweating trying to go back down those steps with a splint on. I could just see me slipping near the top and falling again. There didn’t seem to be any trees close enough to catch me on this side.
Apparently, the EMTs seemed to be thinking the same thing. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of tying me to a backboard and trying to carry me down the steps. After two EMTs nearly fell, they decided to tie it to a rope and lower me like a sack of potatoes.
They rigged up a rope around one of the support poles for the walkway. Watching the rope scrape along the edges of the wood, fraying as it went was probably more terrifying than anything I’d experienced last night.
Floating in the air, spinning slowly didn’t help my fear of heights any. I decided to close my eyes and try to stay as still as possible so the balance wouldn’t be disturbed and slide me out of the end to fall to my death.
I was extremely grateful when the board hit the ground. My adrenaline finally crashed and I fell into a deep sleep as they loaded me into the ambulance.
***
Truth be told, I’m absolutely terrified to go back to the tower. It’s not like I have a lot of choices. Park ranger is a good paying job and sitting around watching for fires is about the easiest job I’ve ever heard of.
If you take away the supernatural voices, bizarre wildlife, strange lights, and the stairs of death.
I’m hoping paying attention to the rules will keep me safe.
I’m posting this as a warning. If your job has some strange rules, make sure you follow them, no matter how stupid you think they might be.

One hundred and forty-nine stairs. That’s how many there are to get up to the fire tower I’m posted at. I used to think getting up there meant safety. Now, I’m hoping it just means survival.
Climbing one hundred and forty-nine steps when you’re healthy is no small feat. When one of your legs has been torn to shreds, you’re bleeding from many places and you’re trying to get up there to wrap it, hoping there’s enough bandages so you don’t bleed to death, it’s a lot more difficult.
Then there are the stairs themselves which also count as a hazard when you have to hop up each one, causing pain to shoot through your injured leg. The stairs are skinny enough as they are, but the closer you get to the top, the smaller they get.
How do I know the exact number of steps? I counted them. I also counted which ones I miscalculated my jump, or brushed my foot against the step, or did something else that nearly sent me sailing over the rickety railing to my untimely death. The first time was one step number three, then fifteen, thirty-seven was a bad one, fifty-two, one oh seven, one-twenty, and finally one-forty-three. I guess it’s a good thing I’m deathly afraid of heights.
By now you may have figured out, I’m a park ranger. How did I end up playing this deadly game of hopscotch? It started a week ago when I got the job.
I was super excited, because I love working alone, and I love nature. What other job blends those two so well?
That excitement waned quite a bit when I arrived at the tower on my first day and looked up at those tiny metal steps I would have to climb to get to my job. The whole thing looked about as sturdy as if someone had built it with an erector set. I mean honestly, seeing surface rust on stairs that have to support your weight is terrifying, and I had to wonder how much I would be swaying when the wind really kicked up.
I wanted to close my eyes and just run up, but I didn’t dare. I paid attention to every single step, watching the metal bow under the weight of my foot, white-knuckling the railings as I went.
Finally, I reached the top and knocked on the trapdoor that had to be opened to let me in. I met the ranger who would be training me. His name was Bob, and he looked every bit how I envision a park ranger would look. Tall and thin, wiry but not scrawny, with a five o’clock shadow because he never had the time to shave properly.
Bob was one of those guys who seemed to always have a smirk on their face like they’ve just been told the greatest joke of all time, but they don’t want to let you in on it.
He spent the entire shift showing me around and then boring me to tears with all the little details of working in a fire tower. The place wasn’t bad. I was expecting an empty room with a card table and a radio, but this was nice. It reminded me of a small apartment or the inside of a small RV. There was a kitchenette with a microwave, sink, and minifridge. There was a couch and a couple of chairs, and most importantly, there was a bathroom.
At one point I thought there would be an outhouse at the base of the tower I would have to use. The thought of going down all those steps while holding number one or especially number two was something I didn’t even want to have nightmares about.
Just before the end of the shift, the next ranger came up. His name was Toby.
Toby looked nothing like I envisioned rangers looking like. He was overweight but made up for it by being under tall. He had a look of mischief in his eyes like a seventh grader who had just dropped a cherry bomb down the toilet and was trying to walk away looking nonchalant.
He smiled and shook my hand.
“So did Bob bore you to tears?” he said.
“Not quite to tears,” I said.
“Hey, I’m a good trainer,” Bob said looking offended yet still wearing that grin.
“Did you tell him everything?” Toby said.
“Pretty sure,” Bob said.
“Did you tell him about?” Toby leaned closer and whispered something in Bob’s ear that I couldn’t hear.
Bob’s grin grew.
“No, I didn’t tell him about that.”
“Maybe we should wait until he’s done training,” Toby said.
“What?” I said looking back and forth between them.
“We’ll tell you once you’re done job shadowing,” Bob said with that infuriating grin.
When we left, I was so focused on what they weren’t telling me, I nearly missed the first step and plunged to my death.
“Yeah, you’re gonna want to focus on those steps,” Bob said. “We had a coworker get hurt really bad because of them.”
“Is he ok now?”
Bob looked away.
Toby came over and volunteered, “He’s dead.”
That was definitely what I wanted to hear.
The next few days were a blur. Between total boredom with reading the procedure book and Bob grinning all the while refusing to tell me the big secret, I was getting super frustrated. I couldn’t wait for my first night working alone.
At least I had brought some supplies up to keep in the tower. Some snacks, a few books, and a tablet to make some notes on if I started writing a story.
Finally, the night came. I was working on my own for the first time. Surprisingly, Bob’s smile vanished as he told me.
“Did you ever read anything off of Reddit?” he said.
I shrugged.
“I don’t really read much other than books.”
“Sign up for Reddit, then go to the nosleep subreddit and look for a story called, ‘I was a park ranger stationed in a fire tower. It had a strange set of rules.’ Read that. It’ll tell you what to do.”
“Ok,” I said. “That’s the big secret? Read someone’s made-up story?”
“It might seem made up,” he said. “But trust me, follow the rules.”
I tried to read his expression to see if he was messing with me or not. In the five days I’d known him, there was never a time he wasn’t wearing that stupid grin, until now. His face was serious as a heart attack.
“Alright,” I said. “I’ll look it up later on my phone.”
“You really should do it as soon as I leave.”
“Ok.”
“Good luck.”
He stepped over to the door and went down the stairs. A few minutes later I heard his truck drive away.
“What the hell was that about?”
I stood in the middle of the room looking out at the beautiful trees, but not even seeing them. My mind was occupied by what Bob had said.
“It has to be a prank,” I said to the empty room. “Bob and Toby cooked this up to scare me on my first night. Well, I’m not falling for it.”
I did my first round of walking around on the outside walkway, looking for any sign of fires. We worked twelve-hour shifts, so I was working from seven am to seven pm. It was late summer and still warm enough to go without a jacket, at least on my first round. By the time I got to my fourth round, there was a chill in the air. I started doing my rounds from the inside and made a mental note to bring a jacket with me tomorrow.
It seemed odd to be talking about a jacket in late summer, but in the forest, the temperatures can vary wildly. It could be thirty degrees at night and eighty during the day.
I stepped back inside and saw my phone had lit up with a text message. I looked at it and it was Bob.
‘Did you read the rules yet?’
‘No,’ I texted back.
‘You don’t have much time.’
I knew this was a joke, it had to be a joke. The old timers pulling a fast one on the new guy, jerking his chain a little.
‘I’ll get right on it,’ I texted.
‘You better.’
I put my phone down and looked at the clock. It was ten minutes after ten. Outside was now completely dark, creating a very disconcerting illusion where when I would look outside, all I saw was my reflection. I decided to turn some lights off and go with just the bare minimum. That reduced the reflection some and I could see some trees outside.
I did a slow pan around, then grabbed a bag of chips and a soda, sat down, and worked on a crossword puzzle. That only lasted a half hour until I was bored with it. I picked up a book and started to read.
I woke sometime later, with my head resting on the back of the chair, chip crumbs all over my shirt, and the book laying on the floor.
I stretched and looked over at the clock. It read two-thirteen.
I jumped up, flinging the bag of chips to the floor, realizing I’d missed several checks, then ran around the room staring out at the trees. After my quick lap, I took a breath and did another slower lap to make sure there was no smoke. Thank God, there was none.
I chided myself for falling asleep on duty like that as I cleaned up my mess. I decided I should set an hourly alarm on my phone so that wouldn’t happen again.
When I picked up the phone I noticed there was a series of texts from Bob.
‘Did you read it yet?’
‘Why aren’t you answering?’
‘Are you alright?’
‘Don’t open the door for any reason.’
The last one sent chills down my spine.
Why would I open the door in the middle of the night?
As I was thinking this, another text came in.
‘For the love of God, read it!’
What the hell was wrong with this guy? Was he seriously losing sleep for a stupid joke?
I decided I would humor him and read the story. I opened my phone and went to the Reddit site. I had just signed up and put my information in when I heard static over the radio. I stepped to the receiver and checked it. Static blared out of it, making me jump as I heard a faint voice in it.
“Tower seven, do you read me?” I heard from a voice I could barely hear through the static.
I hesitated for a moment trying to remember if this was tower seven or not.
“Tower seven do you read me?” the voice said sounding a little more desperate.
I picked up the mic and keyed it.
“This is tower seven, go ahead.”
“It’s good to hear you tower seven,” the voice said suddenly clear. “I didn’t think you would answer.”
“Well, here I am, awake and alert, answering you,” I said. “What did you need?”
“I already have what I need,” the voice said sounding like it was chuckling. “I’d like to come visit if that’s alright.”
“Tower seven, this is base, who are you talking to?”
“I don’t know, someone on the radio,” I said into the mic.
“Seven, there’s no one else on this channel,” base said.
I got chills for a moment. What did that mean? How was I hearing someone that base couldn’t? Why would someone be calling now? Then it hit me that the base dispatcher was probably in on the joke too.
“Ok, base, maybe it was just some random transmission.”
“Tower seven,” the voice said. “Am I alright to come from a visit?”
I hesitated for a moment. What if it wasn’t a joke? Who the hell is walking through the forest at two thirty in the morning?
“Maybe we’ll do that visit another time,” I said.
“Visit?” base said. “What visit? Seven, you know it’s against policy to have visitors.”
“Yeah, sorry, base, I won’t be letting anyone visit.”
More static came over the radio. I could swear I could hear someone say something in the middle of it.
It sounded like, “We’ll see.”
I put down the mic and picked up my phone to read the story when I saw something off in the distance. It was a light, but it was hovering, like a helicopter. I switched my phone to camera mode, zoomed in, and took a picture. It was weird because the light was blue. I didn’t think helicopters had blue lights on them. Also, this light wasn’t flashing, it was solid the whole time. It came closer and I took another picture.
It floated even closer. It was mesmerizing. There was no sound. No hum, no whirring of tiny blades keeping it afloat like a drone, nothing. It was about the size of a basketball and glowing the most brilliant blue I’d ever seen. I reached out for it and it backed away from my hand. I took a step closer to the edge of the walkway, reaching out as far as my arm could stretch.
It backed away a few inches, just out of reach. I stood on my tiptoes, pushing against the railing trying to touch it. It moved away another inch.
I reached the tipping point and pinwheeled my arms to regain my balance and shove back against the railing.
I fell onto the walkway, landing hard on my backside and hitting the back of my head against the window. I looked up and the light was gone.
I shook my head, painfully stood up, and went back inside. I didn’t want to do a patrol but figured I’d better. After a slow walk around, I collapsed in the chair and set my alarm to go off in an hour.
After sitting there for a few minutes I could feel myself nodding off, so I opened my phone and started reading the story. After about ten minutes, I lowered my phone, eyes wide, hands shaking.
“It can’t be real,” I whispered. “It’s just a joke.”
I scrolled back through the story and re-read the rules.

1. Never, under any circumstances, leave the fire tower until you are relieved.
   
2. Turn off all lights between the hours of 2 and 3 am.
   
3. If you receive a radio transmission or phone call between those hours, do not answer.
   
4. If anyone knocks on the trapdoor during those hours tell them they’ll have to wait until morning. Do not open the door.
   
5. If you see a glowing object floating toward the tower, don’t look at it. Cover your eyes and count to 50. When you open your eyes it should be gone. If not, cover and count to 50 again.
   
6. If animals surround the tower don’t go down to look. Fire your flare gun into the air twice one minute apart, then lock yourself in the bathroom and hope for the best.
   My skepticism started to waver. How could they have known about those things, unless…
   

There was a powerful banging at the trapdoor that made me jump.
“Who is it?” I said.
No one answered.
I minute later, the pounding resumed. I searched for anything I could use as a weapon. Digging through the silverware drawer and finding an old, dull, paring knife, I backed as far away from the trapdoor as possible while staying inside. The pounding repeated. Somehow through the fear that coursed through my veins, I found my voice.
“You’ll have to come back in the morning,” I said.
“But I’m here now tower,” said the voice from the radio. “Let… me… in... ”
The last three words changed from asking to demanding. The voice also became deeper and more menacing.
I didn’t answer. I just slid down to the floor and hugged my knees holding the knife in front of me, silently searching through the story on my phone to see if there was something I missed, some way I could remedy the situation. But there was nothing, and the end of the story didn’t give me much hope.
I covered my ears and closed my eyes as the pounding continued now mixed with the voice that was going back and forth between pleading and threatening. It whispered then it screamed. It sound like a young boy, then it sounded demonic.
I rocked back and forth trying to keep some measure of sanity as the assault continued. I began to wonder how long the trapdoor would hold before whatever it was broke through.
Then suddenly it stopped.
As happy as I was that there was no more pounding and yelling, I didn’t trust it. My entire body was on pins and needles. It felt like the calm before the storm.
The fire tower shook. It felt like an earthquake, only different. I stood and went out to the walkway to see what was happening. When I looked down, I couldn’t believe it. The tower was surrounded by animals of all kinds. Deer, squirrels, bears, moose, any forest animal you could imagine, and even a couple I couldn’t and didn’t want to identify.
As I leaned over watching this strange menagerie, a moose rammed into one of the tower’s legs. It sent a shockwave through the entire metal framework. By the time it got up to me the tower was shaking so hard it made me lose my balance.
I toppled over the edge and fell. I threw my arm out attempting to catch the rail, but only touched it with my fingertips.
I knew I was falling to my death, there was no doubt. The wind rushing in my ears didn’t drown out the sound of my screaming. It sounded odd like I was listening to someone else scream. I closed my eyes, not wanting to know when the end was coming.
Suddenly something hit me hard in the ribs. I looked and I had hit a tree limb, but it didn’t stop me. The branch broke sending me falling again until I hit another branch. This one tore a gash on my leg as I flipped head over heels and fell again. The next branch grazed my head and made me see stars. I bounced off another branch hitting my shoulder, then took one to the knee, and landed flat on my back on the ground.
I lay there dazed, injured, but alive and surprised to be so. As I tried to regain my bearings, I saw the animals rushing over to me. I doubted they wanted me to pet them while they licked my wounds and cared for me while singing Disney songs.
I jumped up as pain rocked my body from more places than I wanted to think about. I hopped over to the tower steps and began my long arduous journey, just a half step away from a bunch of animals that seemed dead set on my destruction.
About halfway up I realized there was no more pursuit, so I slowed trying to conserve energy.
I got to the top, unlocked the hatch and tried to push it open. It took several tries to get enough strength while balancing on one leg standing on the tiniest of all the tiny steps. As soon as I got it open, I turned and slammed it shut, locking it.
I hobbled into the room, found the first aid box and struggled to get to the couch. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and forget this day ever happened.
I tried to easily lay myself down, but ended up collapsing in an excruciating heap.
Once down, I focused on bandaging the leg since it was losing the most blood. Once done, I proceeded to bandage all the rest of the areas that needed.
“How are you feeling, tower seven?” I heard the voice say over the radio.
I didn’t answer.
“Oh, come on now tower, don’t be like that,” it said. “Talk to me. Let me in and we’ll have a conversation.”
I lay there trying to think of anything other than pain and this voice.
“There has to be punishment for disobeying the rules.”
My blood ran cold. How did that thing know about the rules?
I reached into my pocket and was astonished that my phone was there. It had a cracked screen, but was usable. I texted Bob.
‘I’m alive, somehow. I broke half the rules without knowing it because I read the story too late.’
‘Are you alright?’
I took pictures of my bandaged leg that was wrapped but blood was still seeping through. I took pictures of my battered face, and my bruised ribs. I sent them all to Bob.
‘Good Lord, man, what did you do?’
‘I fell out of the tower.’
‘You did what?’
‘Was leaning over the edge of the walkway when one of the animals smashed into the support leg and shook the tower, knocking me over.’
‘How are you alive?’
‘Tree caught me.’
‘I’ll call the paramedics and come in early to relieve you.’
‘I’ll be laying here on the couch, bleeding.’
Then I added, ‘I’ll follow the rules from now on.’
There was static on the radio and a faint voice said, “You’d better.”
***
When Bob unlocked the hatch and led the EMTs in, he didn’t have that grin on his face.
“You ok, kid?” he said.
“Hunky dory, how about you?” I said laying on the cushions that were soaked in my own blood.
“He might be in shock,” one of the EMTs said.
My rescue was an adventure in itself. When they examined me they informed me that my leg was broken. I was sweating trying to go back down those steps with a splint on. I could just see me slipping near the top and falling again. There didn’t seem to be any trees close enough to catch me on this side.
Apparently, the EMTs seemed to be thinking the same thing. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of tying me to a backboard and trying to carry me down the steps. After two EMTs nearly fell, they decided to tie it to a rope and lower me like a sack of potatoes.
They rigged up a rope around one of the support poles for the walkway. Watching the rope scrape along the edges of the wood, fraying as it went was probably more terrifying than anything I’d experienced last night.
Floating in the air, spinning slowly didn’t help my fear of heights any. I decided to close my eyes and try to stay as still as possible so the balance wouldn’t be disturbed and slide me out of the end to fall to my death.
I was extremely grateful when the board hit the ground. My adrenaline finally crashed and I fell into a deep sleep as they loaded me into the ambulance.
***
Truth be told, I’m absolutely terrified to go back to the tower. It’s not like I have a lot of choices. Park ranger is a good paying job and sitting around watching for fires is about the easiest job I’ve ever heard of.
If you take away the supernatural voices, bizarre wildlife, strange lights, and the stairs of death.
I’m hoping paying attention to the rules will keep me safe.
I’m posting this as a warning. If your job has some strange rules, make sure you follow them, no matter how stupid you think they might be.

One hundred and forty-nine stairs. That’s how many there are to get up to the fire tower I’m posted at. I used to think getting up there meant safety. Now, I’m hoping it just means survival.
Climbing one hundred and forty-nine steps when you’re healthy is no small feat. When one of your legs has been torn to shreds, you’re bleeding from many places and you’re trying to get up there to wrap it, hoping there’s enough bandages so you don’t bleed to death, it’s a lot more difficult.
Then there are the stairs themselves which also count as a hazard when you have to hop up each one, causing pain to shoot through your injured leg. The stairs are skinny enough as they are, but the closer you get to the top, the smaller they get.
How do I know the exact number of steps? I counted them. I also counted which ones I miscalculated my jump, or brushed my foot against the step, or did something else that nearly sent me sailing over the rickety railing to my untimely death. The first time was one step number three, then fifteen, thirty-seven was a bad one, fifty-two, one oh seven, one-twenty, and finally one-forty-three. I guess it’s a good thing I’m deathly afraid of heights.
By now you may have figured out, I’m a park ranger. How did I end up playing this deadly game of hopscotch? It started a week ago when I got the job.
I was super excited, because I love working alone, and I love nature. What other job blends those two so well?
That excitement waned quite a bit when I arrived at the tower on my first day and looked up at those tiny metal steps I would have to climb to get to my job. The whole thing looked about as sturdy as if someone had built it with an erector set. I mean honestly, seeing surface rust on stairs that have to support your weight is terrifying, and I had to wonder how much I would be swaying when the wind really kicked up.
I wanted to close my eyes and just run up, but I didn’t dare. I paid attention to every single step, watching the metal bow under the weight of my foot, white-knuckling the railings as I went.
Finally, I reached the top and knocked on the trapdoor that had to be opened to let me in. I met the ranger who would be training me. His name was Bob, and he looked every bit how I envision a park ranger would look. Tall and thin, wiry but not scrawny, with a five o’clock shadow because he never had the time to shave properly.
Bob was one of those guys who seemed to always have a smirk on their face like they’ve just been told the greatest joke of all time, but they don’t want to let you in on it.
He spent the entire shift showing me around and then boring me to tears with all the little details of working in a fire tower. The place wasn’t bad. I was expecting an empty room with a card table and a radio, but this was nice. It reminded me of a small apartment or the inside of a small RV. There was a kitchenette with a microwave, sink, and minifridge. There was a couch and a couple of chairs, and most importantly, there was a bathroom.
At one point I thought there would be an outhouse at the base of the tower I would have to use. The thought of going down all those steps while holding number one or especially number two was something I didn’t even want to have nightmares about.
Just before the end of the shift, the next ranger came up. His name was Toby.
Toby looked nothing like I envisioned rangers looking like. He was overweight but made up for it by being under tall. He had a look of mischief in his eyes like a seventh grader who had just dropped a cherry bomb down the toilet and was trying to walk away looking nonchalant.
He smiled and shook my hand.
“So did Bob bore you to tears?” he said.
“Not quite to tears,” I said.
“Hey, I’m a good trainer,” Bob said looking offended yet still wearing that grin.
“Did you tell him everything?” Toby said.
“Pretty sure,” Bob said.
“Did you tell him about?” Toby leaned closer and whispered something in Bob’s ear that I couldn’t hear.
Bob’s grin grew.
“No, I didn’t tell him about that.”
“Maybe we should wait until he’s done training,” Toby said.
“What?” I said looking back and forth between them.
“We’ll tell you once you’re done job shadowing,” Bob said with that infuriating grin.
When we left, I was so focused on what they weren’t telling me, I nearly missed the first step and plunged to my death.
“Yeah, you’re gonna want to focus on those steps,” Bob said. “We had a coworker get hurt really bad because of them.”
“Is he ok now?”
Bob looked away.
Toby came over and volunteered, “He’s dead.”
That was definitely what I wanted to hear.
The next few days were a blur. Between total boredom with reading the procedure book and Bob grinning all the while refusing to tell me the big secret, I was getting super frustrated. I couldn’t wait for my first night working alone.
At least I had brought some supplies up to keep in the tower. Some snacks, a few books, and a tablet to make some notes on if I started writing a story.
Finally, the night came. I was working on my own for the first time. Surprisingly, Bob’s smile vanished as he told me.
“Did you ever read anything off of Reddit?” he said.
I shrugged.
“I don’t really read much other than books.”
“Sign up for Reddit, then go to the nosleep subreddit and look for a story called, ‘I was a park ranger stationed in a fire tower. It had a strange set of rules.’ Read that. It’ll tell you what to do.”
“Ok,” I said. “That’s the big secret? Read someone’s made-up story?”
“It might seem made up,” he said. “But trust me, follow the rules.”
I tried to read his expression to see if he was messing with me or not. In the five days I’d known him, there was never a time he wasn’t wearing that stupid grin, until now. His face was serious as a heart attack.
“Alright,” I said. “I’ll look it up later on my phone.”
“You really should do it as soon as I leave.”
“Ok.”
“Good luck.”
He stepped over to the door and went down the stairs. A few minutes later I heard his truck drive away.
“What the hell was that about?”
I stood in the middle of the room looking out at the beautiful trees, but not even seeing them. My mind was occupied by what Bob had said.
“It has to be a prank,” I said to the empty room. “Bob and Toby cooked this up to scare me on my first night. Well, I’m not falling for it.”
I did my first round of walking around on the outside walkway, looking for any sign of fires. We worked twelve-hour shifts, so I was working from seven am to seven pm. It was late summer and still warm enough to go without a jacket, at least on my first round. By the time I got to my fourth round, there was a chill in the air. I started doing my rounds from the inside and made a mental note to bring a jacket with me tomorrow.
It seemed odd to be talking about a jacket in late summer, but in the forest, the temperatures can vary wildly. It could be thirty degrees at night and eighty during the day.
I stepped back inside and saw my phone had lit up with a text message. I looked at it and it was Bob.
‘Did you read the rules yet?’
‘No,’ I texted back.
‘You don’t have much time.’
I knew this was a joke, it had to be a joke. The old timers pulling a fast one on the new guy, jerking his chain a little.
‘I’ll get right on it,’ I texted.
‘You better.’
I put my phone down and looked at the clock. It was ten minutes after ten. Outside was now completely dark, creating a very disconcerting illusion where when I would look outside, all I saw was my reflection. I decided to turn some lights off and go with just the bare minimum. That reduced the reflection some and I could see some trees outside.
I did a slow pan around, then grabbed a bag of chips and a soda, sat down, and worked on a crossword puzzle. That only lasted a half hour until I was bored with it. I picked up a book and started to read.
I woke sometime later, with my head resting on the back of the chair, chip crumbs all over my shirt, and the book laying on the floor.
I stretched and looked over at the clock. It read two-thirteen.
I jumped up, flinging the bag of chips to the floor, realizing I’d missed several checks, then ran around the room staring out at the trees. After my quick lap, I took a breath and did another slower lap to make sure there was no smoke. Thank God, there was none.
I chided myself for falling asleep on duty like that as I cleaned up my mess. I decided I should set an hourly alarm on my phone so that wouldn’t happen again.
When I picked up the phone I noticed there was a series of texts from Bob.
‘Did you read it yet?’
‘Why aren’t you answering?’
‘Are you alright?’
‘Don’t open the door for any reason.’
The last one sent chills down my spine.
Why would I open the door in the middle of the night?
As I was thinking this, another text came in.
‘For the love of God, read it!’
What the hell was wrong with this guy? Was he seriously losing sleep for a stupid joke?
I decided I would humor him and read the story. I opened my phone and went to the Reddit site. I had just signed up and put my information in when I heard static over the radio. I stepped to the receiver and checked it. Static blared out of it, making me jump as I heard a faint voice in it.
“Tower seven, do you read me?” I heard from a voice I could barely hear through the static.
I hesitated for a moment trying to remember if this was tower seven or not.
“Tower seven do you read me?” the voice said sounding a little more desperate.
I picked up the mic and keyed it.
“This is tower seven, go ahead.”
“It’s good to hear you tower seven,” the voice said suddenly clear. “I didn’t think you would answer.”
“Well, here I am, awake and alert, answering you,” I said. “What did you need?”
“I already have what I need,” the voice said sounding like it was chuckling. “I’d like to come visit if that’s alright.”
“Tower seven, this is base, who are you talking to?”
“I don’t know, someone on the radio,” I said into the mic.
“Seven, there’s no one else on this channel,” base said.
I got chills for a moment. What did that mean? How was I hearing someone that base couldn’t? Why would someone be calling now? Then it hit me that the base dispatcher was probably in on the joke too.
“Ok, base, maybe it was just some random transmission.”
“Tower seven,” the voice said. “Am I alright to come from a visit?”
I hesitated for a moment. What if it wasn’t a joke? Who the hell is walking through the forest at two thirty in the morning?
“Maybe we’ll do that visit another time,” I said.
“Visit?” base said. “What visit? Seven, you know it’s against policy to have visitors.”
“Yeah, sorry, base, I won’t be letting anyone visit.”
More static came over the radio. I could swear I could hear someone say something in the middle of it.
It sounded like, “We’ll see.”
I put down the mic and picked up my phone to read the story when I saw something off in the distance. It was a light, but it was hovering, like a helicopter. I switched my phone to camera mode, zoomed in, and took a picture. It was weird because the light was blue. I didn’t think helicopters had blue lights on them. Also, this light wasn’t flashing, it was solid the whole time. It came closer and I took another picture.
It floated even closer. It was mesmerizing. There was no sound. No hum, no whirring of tiny blades keeping it afloat like a drone, nothing. It was about the size of a basketball and glowing the most brilliant blue I’d ever seen. I reached out for it and it backed away from my hand. I took a step closer to the edge of the walkway, reaching out as far as my arm could stretch.
It backed away a few inches, just out of reach. I stood on my tiptoes, pushing against the railing trying to touch it. It moved away another inch.
I reached the tipping point and pinwheeled my arms to regain my balance and shove back against the railing.
I fell onto the walkway, landing hard on my backside and hitting the back of my head against the window. I looked up and the light was gone.
I shook my head, painfully stood up, and went back inside. I didn’t want to do a patrol but figured I’d better. After a slow walk around, I collapsed in the chair and set my alarm to go off in an hour.
After sitting there for a few minutes I could feel myself nodding off, so I opened my phone and started reading the story. After about ten minutes, I lowered my phone, eyes wide, hands shaking.
“It can’t be real,” I whispered. “It’s just a joke.”
I scrolled back through the story and re-read the rules.

1. Never, under any circumstances, leave the fire tower until you are relieved.
   
2. Turn off all lights between the hours of 2 and 3 am.
   
3. If you receive a radio transmission or phone call between those hours, do not answer.
   
4. If anyone knocks on the trapdoor during those hours tell them they’ll have to wait until morning. Do not open the door.
   
5. If you see a glowing object floating toward the tower, don’t look at it. Cover your eyes and count to 50. When you open your eyes it should be gone. If not, cover and count to 50 again.
   
6. If animals surround the tower don’t go down to look. Fire your flare gun into the air twice one minute apart, then lock yourself in the bathroom and hope for the best.
   My skepticism started to waver. How could they have known about those things, unless…
   

There was a powerful banging at the trapdoor that made me jump.
“Who is it?” I said.
No one answered.
I minute later, the pounding resumed. I searched for anything I could use as a weapon. Digging through the silverware drawer and finding an old, dull, paring knife, I backed as far away from the trapdoor as possible while staying inside. The pounding repeated. Somehow through the fear that coursed through my veins, I found my voice.
“You’ll have to come back in the morning,” I said.
“But I’m here now tower,” said the voice from the radio. “Let… me… in... ”
The last three words changed from asking to demanding. The voice also became deeper and more menacing.
I didn’t answer. I just slid down to the floor and hugged my knees holding the knife in front of me, silently searching through the story on my phone to see if there was something I missed, some way I could remedy the situation. But there was nothing, and the end of the story didn’t give me much hope.
I covered my ears and closed my eyes as the pounding continued now mixed with the voice that was going back and forth between pleading and threatening. It whispered then it screamed. It sound like a young boy, then it sounded demonic.
I rocked back and forth trying to keep some measure of sanity as the assault continued. I began to wonder how long the trapdoor would hold before whatever it was broke through.
Then suddenly it stopped.
As happy as I was that there was no more pounding and yelling, I didn’t trust it. My entire body was on pins and needles. It felt like the calm before the storm.
The fire tower shook. It felt like an earthquake, only different. I stood and went out to the walkway to see what was happening. When I looked down, I couldn’t believe it. The tower was surrounded by animals of all kinds. Deer, squirrels, bears, moose, any forest animal you could imagine, and even a couple I couldn’t and didn’t want to identify.
As I leaned over watching this strange menagerie, a moose rammed into one of the tower’s legs. It sent a shockwave through the entire metal framework. By the time it got up to me the tower was shaking so hard it made me lose my balance.
I toppled over the edge and fell. I threw my arm out attempting to catch the rail, but only touched it with my fingertips.
I knew I was falling to my death, there was no doubt. The wind rushing in my ears didn’t drown out the sound of my screaming. It sounded odd like I was listening to someone else scream. I closed my eyes, not wanting to know when the end was coming.
Suddenly something hit me hard in the ribs. I looked and I had hit a tree limb, but it didn’t stop me. The branch broke sending me falling again until I hit another branch. This one tore a gash on my leg as I flipped head over heels and fell again. The next branch grazed my head and made me see stars. I bounced off another branch hitting my shoulder, then took one to the knee, and landed flat on my back on the ground.
I lay there dazed, injured, but alive and surprised to be so. As I tried to regain my bearings, I saw the animals rushing over to me. I doubted they wanted me to pet them while they licked my wounds and cared for me while singing Disney songs.
I jumped up as pain rocked my body from more places than I wanted to think about. I hopped over to the tower steps and began my long arduous journey, just a half step away from a bunch of animals that seemed dead set on my destruction.
About halfway up I realized there was no more pursuit, so I slowed trying to conserve energy.
I got to the top, unlocked the hatch and tried to push it open. It took several tries to get enough strength while balancing on one leg standing on the tiniest of all the tiny steps. As soon as I got it open, I turned and slammed it shut, locking it.
I hobbled into the room, found the first aid box and struggled to get to the couch. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and forget this day ever happened.
I tried to easily lay myself down, but ended up collapsing in an excruciating heap.
Once down, I focused on bandaging the leg since it was losing the most blood. Once done, I proceeded to bandage all the rest of the areas that needed.
“How are you feeling, tower seven?” I heard the voice say over the radio.
I didn’t answer.
“Oh, come on now tower, don’t be like that,” it said. “Talk to me. Let me in and we’ll have a conversation.”
I lay there trying to think of anything other than pain and this voice.
“There has to be punishment for disobeying the rules.”
My blood ran cold. How did that thing know about the rules?
I reached into my pocket and was astonished that my phone was there. It had a cracked screen, but was usable. I texted Bob.
‘I’m alive, somehow. I broke half the rules without knowing it because I read the story too late.’
‘Are you alright?’
I took pictures of my bandaged leg that was wrapped but blood was still seeping through. I took pictures of my battered face, and my bruised ribs. I sent them all to Bob.
‘Good Lord, man, what did you do?’
‘I fell out of the tower.’
‘You did what?’
‘Was leaning over the edge of the walkway when one of the animals smashed into the support leg and shook the tower, knocking me over.’
‘How are you alive?’
‘Tree caught me.’
‘I’ll call the paramedics and come in early to relieve you.’
‘I’ll be laying here on the couch, bleeding.’
Then I added, ‘I’ll follow the rules from now on.’
There was static on the radio and a faint voice said, “You’d better.”
***
When Bob unlocked the hatch and led the EMTs in, he didn’t have that grin on his face.
“You ok, kid?” he said.
“Hunky dory, how about you?” I said laying on the cushions that were soaked in my own blood.
“He might be in shock,” one of the EMTs said.
My rescue was an adventure in itself. When they examined me they informed me that my leg was broken. I was sweating trying to go back down those steps with a splint on. I could just see me slipping near the top and falling again. There didn’t seem to be any trees close enough to catch me on this side.
Apparently, the EMTs seemed to be thinking the same thing. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of tying me to a backboard and trying to carry me down the steps. After two EMTs nearly fell, they decided to tie it to a rope and lower me like a sack of potatoes.
They rigged up a rope around one of the support poles for the walkway. Watching the rope scrape along the edges of the wood, fraying as it went was probably more terrifying than anything I’d experienced last night.
Floating in the air, spinning slowly didn’t help my fear of heights any. I decided to close my eyes and try to stay as still as possible so the balance wouldn’t be disturbed and slide me out of the end to fall to my death.
I was extremely grateful when the board hit the ground. My adrenaline finally crashed and I fell into a deep sleep as they loaded me into the ambulance.
***
Truth be told, I’m absolutely terrified to go back to the tower. It’s not like I have a lot of choices. Park ranger is a good paying job and sitting around watching for fires is about the easiest job I’ve ever heard of.
If you take away the supernatural voices, bizarre wildlife, strange lights, and the stairs of death.
I’m hoping paying attention to the rules will keep me safe.
I’m posting this as a warning. If your job has some strange rules, make sure you follow them, no matter how stupid you think they might be.

I’m going to take shot at trying to explain what happens to shorts vs. a long with the same amount of money since Lightwave announced the first of many partnerships.Follow me 1st on the shorting.
March 15th Short interest stood at almost 20 Million now at 21 Million. That is 1 Million additional shares shorted with the average price for that period at $5.50.They shorted sold $5.5 Million worth to you and I all the while telling us there was no way a partnership was going to happen and some of you believed them. They were trying to make day traders out of us.
Because it is so risky in order to short those share their broker requires that they have 150% of the value of the position so they put up ½ of that or $2.75 million. 5.5 + 2.75 =$8.25 million.
At $7.75 if they covered those million shares would now cost $7.75 Million.$5.5 million that they put off to the side along with the $2.75m they put up equals $8.25 Million.
Which means that they have turned that $2.75 million into just a $1/2 million dollars which is an 82% loss. That looks like this in real numbers $2,750,000 now $500,000.
This is where it gets interesting because if the price increases another 2 Bucks they lose it all plus anything else the broker can get ahold of to cover. It is the broker that is on the hook, and they could care less if a short gets smoked.
Now for the longs that bought those 1 Million shares at $5.50 at $7.75 your account is up $2.25 million or 50%.
The shorts are doing their best to try and make short term day traders out of longs, while trying to convince other shorts that Lightwave is going to fail very soon. The problem is that Lightwave has NO Debt and cash in the bank for 1 year, as of tomorrow they will begin setting up the new lab space to handle the additional demand from multiple customs requiring more data before signing on and partnering up. The shorts have been trying to convince us that this would never happen, Oopsy’s, how are the shorts gong to cover 21 Million shares without pushing this up to at least $20 honestly it could spike at multiples of that for a few days.
Let us look at who was advising the shorts on this play remember that this is an EO Polymer that when Placed on Silicon Photonics Triples the Speed of the data while reducing Power requirements by 90%.
Fact, the first advisor Lost all his money in an Old EO Polymer company by the name of Lumera while publicly shown the obvious defects of that polymer by folks invested here. LOL, you cannot make that kind of stuff up, So somehow that makes him an expert. Listening to someone like that is akin to listening to a bankrupt financial advisor.
Fact, the Second is on old self-professed Silicon foundry guy that left the industry 20 years ago just about the time Lightwave started, he loves how forward-looking Intel is (I don’t think I need to point out that performance) as info Lightwave is about Light, photonic integrated circuits Optical (Photons, light) PICS not integrated circuits (ICs), also known as microchips, (electrons) of his era..
And the other advisor is a penny stock guy and worse than that, sub penny, as info sub penny looks like this. Lightwave Logic $7.75 1 Million shares would cost $7.75 Million Brand Teddy $.003 in other words 1 Million shares would cost $3k, lol I just looked at another of his pics and the price is 0.000001 with a 3 year high of 0.0008000 the best volume I could see was 45 million at .0003 or $13,500 for the day, that is correct for the entire day, large money. I think he is over his head here.
Xster Sunday Rambling
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The reason that I start a new post is that I can monitor the additional eyes that are moving to Lightwave, I'm from the days when if I could get 10 people in a week I'd be thrilled. Last post 5,600 reads in 48 hours, less than 100 likes though, not much encouragement. One time long ago I spent 10k of my money trying to surface Lightwaves technology, you had to pay way back then.

Hopeful but not holding my breath, haha. I can’t help but feel like this is so contrived, but here we are. First, please only reply if you read my post in it’s entirety & it applies to you. It’s wordy on purpose.
I’m seeking the ever elusive, deep & meaningful, mind blowing, long term friendship with the eager possibility of an organic -maybe- more. ENM here / happily married for 9 years to my straight / monogamous / 52m who’s big on compersion. We have a solid relationship, he’s just a very busy business owner & we would both like it if I could find another man to be extraordinarily close to. ;) Some variation of a kitchen table closed V would be be ideal.
I’m a petite + thickcurvy {bbw?}, heavily tattooed, brunette, gothy+bohemian, mountain mama. Raised & lived most of my life in very rural Montana, relocated to StL 7 years ago. I looove hiking, camping, exploring the wild outdoors, primitive outdoor survival, gardening, cooking, travel, I’m into the artsy fartsy {creating & consuming}, music & dancing, reading, theatre & films, photography, sci-fi & spooky stuffs, holistic mindbody therapy, psychology, & ohhh so much more. INFJ Capricorn love canines.
I don't drink outside of occasional social situations (it’s been a while). I also don’t smoke cigarettes BUT, I am verrry 420 friendly. It's fine if you do drink / smoke, though if you need to drink to have a good time we won't get along.
YOU are kind & respectful, down to earth, emotionally & physically available, intelligent & compassionate & have a positive mental attitude despite this wild & weird world. I can’t help but love funny guys that truly value empathy & respect. Divorced or single males only please; I don't bring the drama & I don't need it. ((I’m not interested in couples, whatever the dating dynamics may be. I’m straight. I don’t want to be your affair or secret. I don’t wanna just be a prop in your sexual exploits. I’m not looking to swap partners. Don’t bother if you’re still in love with your ex. —> I wanna feel special & valued & chosen.)) 35-55, prefer north of 40 with a healthy libido. Love an active dad bod best but your abs won’t intimidate me & my stamina will impress you, haha. Got kids? Great, me too - & I’m a former teacher! You’ve got your proverbial shit mostly together, a hell of a sense of humor & some similar interests; looking for friendly, flirty, fun chatting / texting with an emphasis on clear, honest, open & frequent communication. The day to day & naturally the deep. Let’s get to know each other & have lots of FUN doing so!
Gotta be cool with photo swapping, as I appreciate seeing who I’m talkin’ to & mutual physical attraction, while not at all a deal breaker on my end, is also important. I’ll admit I’m weak for some blue or green eyes. Happy to work up to phone & video calls if I’m diggin’ your vibe.
Local or geographically reasonable, makes no difference to me, so long as you are able & willing to invest the time. The means & intentions of meeting in person eventually is a huge plus. I’d love to have you as my hiking / camping / adventure companion! {I’m happy to travel for visits, you should be too! I mean, I wanna go out with you & I wanna get my hands on you, literally.}
I give of my time, energy & affection, & hope to find someone similar. If you're too busy, I'm not interested. If I have to do all the labor to maintain the conversation & relationship, no thanks. If you’re wanting casual NSA sex only, you can stop reading now. If you lean towards the right politically, we probably won’t make good friends. I've been through some shit in my time; I know I deserve what I want but I’m cautious & have strict boundaries, so please spare me your shot if you know you’re not what I’m looking for.
If you’re into the slow burn of deep emotional connection, enjoy receiving daily well wishes, need an available & understanding shoulder & ear, want someone you can actually have a two-way, open & intellectual conversation with, a friend who genuinely cares & truly wants to get to know & honor the authentic you, & crave someone who is equal parts silly, .:sexy:. & serious that enjoys a balanced roast-romance ratio… then hit me up & let’s see where the conversation takes us. If we click I promise you won’t be disappointed. I’ve got a lot of loveaffectiontime to give to the right guy; however please understand, I’m so not interested in single serve interactions or seldom passing ships in the night. Reliability, genuine effort, longevity are all such a turn on; match mine or leave me be. ;)
Message me with a pic & tell me a little bit about yourself & what sort of audio pleasures you’re listening to today. Can’t wait to hear from you! xx

(Hey everyone! Finally out of the shadow realm! Im reposting chapter five here as it got wiped last time, 6 is still percolating away in my head, but in the mean time, enjoy! Comments are appreciated!)
(Previous)
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/------------/
4-LOM rolled up to the holotable, the aging shipbuilder looking over the various fleet and division commanders.
4-LOM was an old Mk1 astro robot, his main body was a sphere, with four mechanical arms extending from his body, two large and bulky, and the other two smaller, more nimble and accurate, more dexterous, with a cylindrical lower body leading down to his treads, which were angular, tank like in shape, designed for heavy lifting. His head was flat, with a duo of square optics, a set of welding shields flipped up, ready to flip down when and where needed. His backpack was open, with tools sticking out, ready to be grabbed and used.
Looking around, he noted that the Saurians had their Admiral, a middle age Rox, their massive, tyrannasauric form still managing to tower over most of the others, even in holo, while Serano stood next to him. Nearby, Hota sat, nursing a coffee, rubbing his head, while one of the chief science officers hologram glanced at him nervously.
Another door entered, and a Mk12 frame entered, standing at the table. At first glance, the frame looked pristine, but 4-LOM wasn't fooled. He wasn't a shipwright for nothing, and he could see the pitting under the paint where plasma weaponry had uselessly splashed off, taking with it little layers of metal with it. Despite how new the frame looked, it was clear it had seen some action, recently as well, judging by the fresh coat of paint.
More holograms of fleet officials, and the bridges, or representations of their ships, flickered in above their shoulders. Serano looked like he had an old sailing ship floated there idly, a representation of the Enterprise. Some had wasps, while one captain had a cartoonish Barbus fish, with an old style white sailors cap and a belt of dynamite.
And then a small black hole flickered into view in front of his faceplate, making him roll back with a start. Getting a good look at the now pulsing black hole, he seemed to frown, one of his welding shields rising higher to simulate a eyebrow raise….. "Horizon? Is that you, little lass?" He said, with a thick, Scottish accent as his other shield rose up to join the other in shock.
The holographic black hole bobbed up and down in the air, two arms extending out from its corona and spun, as if to represent it, no, her, spinning in happiness. For a moment, 4-LOM was silent, before he began laughing, reaching up, even as his servo passed through the holo. "Ach, what I wouldn't give ta be in the Link with ye, lassie! I'm glad ye survived." He said, as the little ever hungry representation of the ship spun around him, before it shot off, floating near the Mk12, who looked at it.
The 12s head tilted more, as it listening to what the ship was saying, while 4-LOM felt a bit of possessiveness flair. Horizon was one of HIS creations, his and his wife's. Their ships were like children for them. Rolling over, he mentally began preparing a bit of what his wife would call the shovel talk, something they used to do with Captains that took on their vessels……
"Did you need something, Grandfather?" The machine said, domed head snapping to his, taking the wind out of his sails, and stare blankly at the taller, thinner machine.
Behind him, he heard Serano chuckle behind him, even as the Rox raised an eyeridge, while the Saline sat his mug down and placed his head in his hands.
"Grandfather- oh. I see…." He said, gaze turning flat as he gave a glare at Horizon. "I see the little gremlin is still able to make me short a fuse or two. Void knows Maria's hair turned white before she had to move bodies due to someone's antics." The little black hole pulsed sharply, as if squawking. "Would have appreciated a warning she made herself a captain…. Lassie, ye best be teaching him self preservation instincts." Catching the snort from the Rox and the sigh from Serano.
Slowly, his head turned around to face the two, one shield twitching, and finally saw Hota looking up with a flat look. "Too late on that one. I'll pass you the after action report later, AFTER the meeting." Serano said, hiding a smile. "If you want a first hand account, ask Hota. From what I understand, he had a front row seat for the Chaos the two caused."
She wasn't a little ship anymore, she wasnt- ah kriff it all. She was still his little lass. He'll talk with her later…preferably with Maria there…..after he grabbed his wrench and had a….. talk….. with whoever was their crew.
/------------------/
All the admirals and fleet commanders were soon in place, Asimov standing to the side, near the Admiral Serano, Horizons representation floating next to his head as his own panned about, looking at the assembled species. Several robotic ones, not Astro Robot series, called Glinch, looked at him curiously, while he picked out several different….Saurians, a few Roxes, several Trikes.
Several were pale, white skinned humans, bald, be they male or female. Clones, like himself, but with organic bodies, accompanied by nat-born humans, and several more advanced Astro Robot series units, these ones looking everything from near human, to large and bulky, armed with cannons, inbuilt missile launchers on their upper arms, and massive treads, or slimmer, almost skeletal ones with modules that could be swapped out at a moments notice.
"I appreciate ye all for coming on such short notice" 4-LOMs voice said, cutting over the gentle hubbub of the side conversations. "I had hoped that we wouldn't be facing them again, but here we are." The robot said as one of his smaller limbs tapes a command into the console, pulling up images of Everwatch stations current…condition. "Those of yeh from Federation space are more familar of the old stories, battle videos and the like. The Demons, as the Human Federation calls them, have been returned. It's only thanks to the work of Representative Hota that we have this information….. and had stumbled across an old Ace that had woken back up in time for this chaos." 4-LOM said, nodding to the Saline, getting the attention of his compatriots, who he shook his head to.
"Our opponents are equipped with biotech vessels, and are known for appropriating technology to forcibly integrate it with their own. Which means keep an eye out for a worse hodgepodge of weapons than a pirate vessel after its crew hits a pound of Spice and then gets drunk at a star port." 4-LOM said dryly, as various, old, images of the vessels and a few of the newer ones. "That being said, expect the sheer firepower jammed onto each of these ships to be on the higherside. However, they need long recharge periods, likely due to whatever power source used overloading, or the capacitor banks running dry and needing to recharge. Don't be fooled, they do have some form of biological armament, acid spitters, spike launchers, the works." He said, as images flicked up organic turrets, tentacles, and what looked like maws.
"As of right now, several of our larger vessels are being inspected and repaired, resupplied, and upgraded as needed. Several older vessels are being pulled out of mothball for the same reason. All civilian vessels are being drafted for emergency roles, receiving refit with hardware that will allow them to fight in a pinch, though their primary objective will be escorting transport ships and acting as emergency evacuation ships. We won't be expecting them to fight, but we need every ship we can get."
An image flickered into view of what amounted to the humans old museum of warships and deep space vessels, revealing it to be a hive of activity. Many other races had laughed at humanity for keeping their old vessels, rather than scrapping them, but now, now there was a reason why humanity had.
"Patrol fleets are to be at least one Saline Sensor ship, two to three Buckler class Trike Shield Bearers, one Rox Artillery ship, one Vohle capable human vessel, Two human PT ships, and three Raptor Swift claws." 4-LOM said, "these things aren't to be taken lightly. Sensors pick them up, call it in and engage. Stall for time if needed for reinforcements to arrive. Intercept fleets are to consist of five Trike Aegis class Shield Bearers, six Swift claws, one Rox supercarrier, three Rox artillery ships, two Saline Auxiliary ships, one Saline Medical cruiser, one Human Vohle Super-carrier, eight human PT ships, two Human Iowa class destroyers." The elderly bot belted out, making several Captains and admirals wince. Those weren't lightweight ships. The 'patrol' fleet could have been considered a planetary invasion force.
Before anyone could make any arguments or questions as to why the fleets were set to the Human classic of 'Maximum Overkill', and before any more ridiculous fleet deployments could be called out, a slightly panicking human sprinted into the room. "Sir! Confirmed hostile assault on Tisan-4" the human said, breathing heavily. "The Demons made planet fall, looks like a small invasion force that had left before the incursion field went up."
4-LOM stared….and then sighed. "Well, Caliburn had been itching for a fight." He sighed and placed a servo over his optics.
/-----------------------------------/
WARNING: Hostiles detected. Match confirmed; species D-65.
Threat level:Apollyon. Combat systems:unlocked.
That was what appeared on the Colony Managers terminal as alarms screamed across the Colony, alerts screaming on PADDs, sirens spinning as bunkers opened up.
An aging Wargen bared his teeth as he rapidly tapped at his terminal, as the younger human clone stood grimly at her manager's terminal.
"Civilians are filling out the bunkers, tunneling charges are set and ready to clear escape routes." The elderly, wolf like Wargen said, his muzzle splitting into four as he spoke, one part vertical, the other horizontally. "Colonial militia are manning hard points and connecting to systems now."
"Understood." The Colony manager said and let out a long breath, before opening the PA system. "All hands, brace for Activation procedure. I repeat, all hands, brace for activation procedure." She said, before securing herself in on one of the chairs, even as the commander buckled himself in across from her, even as terminals all around them flickered and the building shuddered and shook, new lights came online all over.
"And the other races call our alliance insane for building the bunkers" The Wargen muttered under his breath as the command room became a flurry of activity, sensor teams working together in an attempt to get data on their opponents. "Our people are safe. That's what matters, commander." The clone said softly, looking at her long time friend, even as the hidden defense system of the Colony woke up.
/------------/
Outside, the demonic army approached, on a slow, steady March, disgruntled at the lack of organics they had found to use. They needed biomass to fuel their war machine, to create their bases, their armies, their ships. And while they didn't care much about the sheer number of ships they lost during planet fall thanks to the orbital defenses, they needed to deal with the local defense computers. There had to be a way to broadcast an all clear signal and allow their other ships past.
Before them sat a large, fortified structure, looked like a massive cathedral, really. The irony was not lost on them as ports on the castle-like structure opened up, and began spitting metallic shells at them, exploding after punching through their infantry, leaving craters behind, destroying more of their forces.
The ground shook as their massive siege beast began forming from the splattered biomass, like some strange, oozing horror, slowly forming into a quadropodic creature.
The beast was mostly just a giant mouth in legs, with a long, worm like body lined with eyes, teeth, spikes, and tendrils, flinging said teeth at the structure.
Warlord Gistle ground his teeth as he stared at the cathedral as it held its own, his forces decimated by the attempted rain of metal. Said rain changed to one of scalding plasma as the castle changed tactics to try and burn the bodies to prevent them from forming additional, stronger units.
"Battle lord." Hissed one of the smaller battle chiefs said, as they stepped up next to Gistle. "The Seekers have not located where the miserable Frails have hidden themselves. Our efforts would be best put to entering the fortress ahead." The chief said, pointing at the massive fortress as the siege beast brushed off the weapons fire.
"No need, we will be inside soon en-" Came the guttural voice of the Warlord, before it was interrupted by a computerized voice, echoing out.
"THREAT ASSESSED. ASSUMING COMBAT MODE."
There was a rumble, everyone grabbing onto the stablest thing around them as the ground tore apart, the siege beast stumbling back, as the building tore up its own foundations as steam hissed out, and part of the building lifted up, and then slammed into the ground, and then the other side, slowly pulling itself up….and up…and up……
The structure wasn't a structure. Not any more. Towering over them, looking like a massive hunchback stood the cathedral, it's towers opening, revealing to be cowling around massive artillery cannons. It's arms, once covered with flat pillars, opened up to reveal a set rotating barrels, slowly spinning up, and a bulky duo of MAC batteries on the other arm. Sticking off the side of its upper arms were smaller hardpoints, each turret armed with four barrels, small and accurate, sniping ground units with horrifying accuracy, the soft metal shells ripping away to reveal their incendiary cargo held within steel mesh, allowing the coilguns to spit them out rapidly.
The head section looked like a sphere with three optics in a triangular formation, around a cannon that locked onto the siegebeast and whined, arcing brightly, before it fired, a bright flash seen as the cannon went off, it's round leaving behind a trail of fire as it raced through the air, punching through the beast, making it howl, and began trying to heal the injury that pierced it, ripping open a hole below it.
It's bipedal legs were thick, armored, and just as equally armed, it's lower legs armed with rotary cannons that spun, the lower pair foring a heavy stream of plasma, one barrel firing and then cooling as it spun, the others keeping the pace up, while above them, physical artillery was spat out, helping pierce armor for the plasma to scorch and burn to uselessness. More cannons sat on the sides and back of its legs in, taking aim at the surrounding armies, making sure to add on their screeches of rage.
Hanging off the underside of the platform that held the Cathederal sat more turrets, each swiveling around and adding to the chaos, their mini MAC armament chattering as they fired, picked a new target and fired again. On the top of the platform were AA cannons, taking aim and firing into the air, altering the timing of their rounds so that they acted as impromptu artillery, while more cannons, on four turrets, covered the monstrosities back, preventing them from sneaking up behind it, as if the cannons on the back of its legs weren't enough to cover it.
"TARGET ACQUIRED."
Warlord Gistle hissed in shock. The Frails had been LIVING in a Siege beast of their own!? Hidden partially underground, deceiving them to make it seem as if it was nothing more than a fortification!?
"Have all expendable units merge with our Siege beast, NOW! if the frails continue to pick our forces off one by one, they will never be able to reinforce our beast after they fall!" Gistle roared, even as around him the battle chiefs barked out the orders……..
/-------------/
The massive machine stared down at the hostile forces as they turned into a thick, biological slurry, short of the Demons themselves, and oozed towards the horror before it.
The monster seemed to absorb the substance on contact, growing larger and larger with each passing moment, howling and hissing.
He could feel his crew cursing in their heads, humans and otherwise, lighting the slurry up with plasmafire, burning some of it, but not enough. Caliburn agreed with them, as his Plasma getting cannon spun up, the five barrels glowing brightly, the heatsinks by the ends of the barrel glowing as the machine poured plasmafire from the barrels, searing into the beasts body, burning it up as it grew, stunting its growth heavily, and forcing it to consume more biomass to make heavy, chitenous armor, layers burning away under the assault.
Caliburn could feel the dust coming off as his gears spun, and he stepped forward, swinging the glowing arm as it cooled down, making the horror screech as he spun his upper body to add to the force of the blow, digging the glowing heating into the beast's face and knocking it back, buying time for his crew to deal with the horrific slurry around them, which still tried to fuse with the horror, chasing after it with a single minded determination.
As his upper body slowed down and he was facing forward again, he saw the beast setting up, snarling. His other arm came up, and he could feel his capacitors burning as he began firing his MAC arm at it, the massive, vehicle sized slugs punching into the beast, knocking it back farther, punching holes in the chitin it tried to grow as armor, making it hiss and move rapidly, trying to put distance between itself and the machine.
Unfortunately, the beast had the advantage in land speed, as it had four legs, while Caliburn only had two and lumbered slowly forward, his aging systems relishing the taste of combat after so long. And now he had far better weapons then a simple crane arm, like he had last time he fought a creature like this.
Because the beast had put distance between itself and him, it managed to absorb the last of the biomass, and began bounding forward, it's maw open, teeth spinning like some sort of Cuisinart….
A target he couldn't miss. His head cannon barked again, not as powerful as last time, but this time, he wasn't trying to rip it apart from the inside. The shell detonated on contact with the teeth, shredding them, tearing into the soft flesh within, making the beast howl and close its maw, it's chitin armor weathering the plasma splashing off, hardened to withstand the smaller weapons fire his crew spat at the creature.
His arms pulled their shrouding back around them, as he drew back and swung, hard, again using his body spinning to his advantage, striking the beast, the heavy weight of the heatsink and the weapon itself burying the shroud covered arm inside, the end opening up. Unfortunately, thanks to the partial shrouding, he wouldn't be able to spin his cannon, but all he needed was one shot inside it, and let it fly, ripping his arm out as it howled, smoke billowing from its new hole it tried rapidly to heal.
The tendrils it had tried to dig into his arm burned away as he kicked it up from below and began unloading both arms, fully unshrouded, the heat coming off both of them making steam hiss up into the air, as the beast took a heavy slug and then a plasma bolt, one after the other, deep into its stomach, sending it onto its back.
Loud popping sounds were heard as its limbs reoriented, allowing its former belly to become its back, the holes sealing slowly as it circled the walking cathedral, even as Caliburn scanned it, his upper body following its every movement. His command crew were breaking down every schematic and scan he gave them, working hard to figure out a way to kill the horror.
In the mean time, Caliburn and his crews would do their damndest to stall the beast and continue on their current plan. Burn it down, slowly.
He could feel his crews tracking the retreating demon forces, listening to the mental chatter within him as the artillery crews happily worked together to figure out their path, searching for the enemy command position, even as sensor crews watched as the rapidly approaching flood of biomass and machinery charged for them, some of the artillery crews already letting loose N-4 shells, the 'super-napalm', as the crews nicknamed them, impacting and exploding, burning into the biomass, unquenchable, even as the biomass attempted and failed to smother the burning substance, only serving to make it worse, melting the weaponry it carried with it.
The only reason why the crews could get away with it was because the biomass wasn't near the Bunkers exits or near infrastructure. Or Burnable items.
Command soon had a viable target, a sort of brain mass it had, separated throughout its body in a vain attempt to make sure it could still operate when a few of them were destroyed.
Several had been burned away by the plasma bolt going off inside of it, but many more remained, and it was attempting to make more/replace the burned away ones. They needed to eliminate the command signal….
Jubilation and grim satisfaction bloomed in his sensor and artillery crews, as he felt the mad scramble for bunker busting shells, before they were let loose into the air. Even as he blocked a tail strike from the beast and managed to crush its head under one foot, letting his landing engines ignite for the first time in decades to burn the creature more, his crews targeted the command bunker, shelling it with deadly accuracy, smoke rising from the hill they were tucked away behind in the distance, making Caliburn burn with satisfaction and praise for his crew.
/---------------------/
Gistle ran as fast as his hooves could move him, teeth barred as he snarled.
Around him, their command temple shook and shuddered, veins bursting, cables arcing wildly as the biomass contracted involuntarily or simply sagged, turning to biomass.
"Warlord, they are heavily shelling our position, we won't be able to retreat at this rate!" Hissed one of the Battle Chiefs at his side, hissing in fear, even as he snarled at the Pitiful, compared to him, creature. "We won't be taking everyone, only the essentials. The Everlasting King must be notified of this development. King be damned, the frails took the time to prepare for our arrival again." He growled as he came out to a hanger area, and ran into a small, fast ship, even as the others ran into larger, bulkier, slower ships.
Soon, the chitin that served as the door opened, and they shot out, erratically flying, trying to avoid the artillery shells, and now AA fire joining the fray.
He kept close to his compatriots, using them as a living shield as he twisted the small vessel around, smirking as he dodged the fire while they took it..
They were almost to space, soon, they could tear a Gate and get the fleet-
Reality tore open above him as a massive ring shaped vessel pushed itself into real space, disgorging hundreds of smaller vessels, bearing down on their positions, others engaging the floating fleet around them with aggressive assault runs, the sudden appearance in the system allowing them to have the element of surprise.
Weapons fire began filling the space around f them, tearing at their vessels faster then they could repair them as little, frail vessels zipped in and out of line of fire faster then they could shoot, track, or react, unloading slugs, plasma, torpedoes in a flurry of activity before diving away, allowing their munitions to wreak havoc amongst them.
Already, the larger vessels were disabled before Gistle managed to sacrifice one, smirking as it warped, it's biomass fueling the Gate, as he flew through, hoping he was in friendlier territories, unaware of a sensor torpedo flying in behind him.
/------------------------/
Down below, on the surface, Caliburn flung back his opponent again, arms blazing as he shelled it.
It was bigger then it had been, managing to absorb the biomass from the surviving landing ships and the remains of the command center they shelled out. It's armor was thicker, and was flinging out dozens, hundreds of calcium spikes, spitting its unknown energy weapons, only to splash off his shields, for the energy weapons, and his ar.or foe the calcium spikes, even as his weapons screeched.
The beast had holes all over its chitenous armor, from his shells punching in, or his artillery crews shelling the beast, his plasma following close behind as he sought to burn the creature out from the inside, going so far as to ram his plasma cannon inside and unload it, the rotating barrels helping tear it up from the inside as the heat sinks burned it.
Ships began dropping down from above, doing strafing runs, dropping smaller caliber explosives, distracting the beast as he tore another hole in it by spinning his upper body, one shrouded cannon arm striking the beast and ripping in, just as a gunship fired a Cleaner into it, just before it healed.
A burning flash of light, a horrific scream from the beast as it howled, body jerking as the explosive did its job…. Before it swung down, still alive, though just barely, it's armor shattering rather then buckling on the next strike from Caliburn, a facsimile of a uppercut, before the barrels let loose again, even as the plasma cannon dumped bolt after bolt into its lower body, searching for, burning the neural clusters as he found them.
The beast wrenched itself away from his grasp, snarling as it looked at him, the beast snarling as it tried to heal from the most recent injuries.
Caliburn felt his crew snarling back, his cannons swiveling around as they gave their response in munitions as he lumbered forward, the ground shaking from his steps and the escape ships erupting out of the ground around them, his rotary cannon screaming as it fired, the MAC on the other arm barking as he hit it again and again as it charged forward.
The beast no longer cared for its injuries, all it cared was to take the metal monster before it down, spitting acid out of it as it tried, and failed, to blind the machine, even as said machine swung its smoldering plasma cannon up and brought down the burning barrels down on its head, smashing it into the ground, pinning it there as it's crew continued shelling it out ruthlessly.
Caliburn refused to let the beast survive, he refused to let the thing get to the civilians. His crew snarled their agreement as the beast tore the pinned head off its body, even as it burned away to nothing, and tried to charge again, blindly, only to smash against the MAC arm and receive a pair of heavy slugs to the neck stump for its troubles, sending it somersaulting back, trying to reform its head.
It was much, much smaller now, now matching Caliburns size, due to all the biomass loss, it's head reforming as it snarled.
Caliburn seemed to roll his pauldrons and twitched his MAC, as if saying 'come at me'. The beast howled and charged forward, razor sharp tentacles erupting from its sides, whipping about wildly, only for turret crews to blast the tentacles off at the base, and for his artillery crews to shell it down from above, flattening it into the ground again with explosive shells.
Again, the beast began pulling itself out of the ground, only for another strafing run from aircraft , this time dropping standard napalm canisters onto the beast, making it howl as it healed around the canisters, and began burning from within.
It thrashed and writhed, tail and body whipping about, even as Caliburn kept firing, not letting up, shells puncturing the chitin bubble it was trying to form around the napalm to contain it, keeping it burning into the beasts body.
At last, the beast tried to fling itself at Caliburn, thinking that it could at least burn out the mechanical monster with it, only for Caliburn to swing and strike it, flinging it away again, the beasts body unable to get back up, and laid there, slowly burning away at last……………

Hopeful but not holding my breath, haha. I can’t help but feel like this is so contrived, but here we are. First, please only reply if you read my post in it’s entirety & it applies to you. It’s wordy on purpose.
I’m seeking the ever elusive, deep & meaningful, mind blowing, long term friendship with the eager possibility of an organic -maybe- more. ENM here / happily married for 9 years to my straight / monogamous / 52m who’s big on compersion. We have a solid relationship, he’s just a very busy business owner & we would both like it if I could find another man to be extraordinarily close to. ;) Some variation of a kitchen table closed V would be be ideal.
I’m a petite + thickcurvy {bbw?}, heavily tattooed, brunette, gothy+bohemian, mountain mama. Raised & lived most of my life in very rural Montana, relocated to StL 7 years ago. I looove hiking, camping, exploring the wild outdoors, primitive outdoor survival, gardening, cooking, travel, I’m into the artsy fartsy {creating & consuming}, music & dancing, reading, theatre & films, photography, sci-fi & spooky stuffs, holistic mindbody therapy, psychology, & ohhh so much more. INFJ Capricorn love canines.
I don't drink outside of occasional social situations (it’s been a while). I also don’t smoke cigarettes BUT, I am verrry 420 friendly. It's fine if you do drink / smoke, though if you need to drink to have a good time we won't get along.
YOU are kind & respectful, down to earth, emotionally & physically available, intelligent & compassionate & have a positive mental attitude despite this wild & weird world. I can’t help but love funny guys that truly value empathy & respect. Divorced or single males only please; I don't bring the drama & I don't need it. ((I’m not interested in couples, whatever the dating dynamics may be. I’m straight. I don’t want to be your affair or secret. I don’t wanna just be a prop in your sexual exploits. I’m not looking to swap partners. Don’t bother if you’re still in love with your ex. —> I wanna feel special & valued & chosen.)) 35-55, prefer north of 40 with a healthy libido. Love an active dad bod best but your abs won’t intimidate me & my stamina will impress you, haha. Got kids? Great, me too - & I’m a former teacher! You’ve got your proverbial shit mostly together, a hell of a sense of humor & some similar interests; looking for friendly, flirty, fun chatting / texting with an emphasis on clear, honest, open & frequent communication. The day to day & naturally the deep. Let’s get to know each other & have lots of FUN doing so!
Gotta be cool with photo swapping, as I appreciate seeing who I’m talkin’ to & mutual physical attraction, while not at all a deal breaker on my end, is also important. I’ll admit I’m weak for some blue or green eyes. Happy to work up to phone & video calls if I’m diggin’ your vibe.
Local or geographically reasonable, makes no difference to me, so long as you are able & willing to invest the time. The means & intentions of meeting in person eventually is a huge plus. I’d love to have you as my hiking / camping / adventure companion! {I’m happy to travel for visits, you should be too! I mean, I wanna go out with you & I wanna get my hands on you, literally.}
I give of my time, energy & affection, & hope to find someone similar. If you're too busy, I'm not interested. If I have to do all the labor to maintain the conversation & relationship, no thanks. If you’re wanting casual NSA sex only, you can stop reading now. If you lean towards the right politically, we probably won’t make good friends. I've been through some shit in my time; I know I deserve what I want but I’m cautious & have strict boundaries, so please spare me your shot if you know you’re not what I’m looking for.
If you’re into the slow burn of deep emotional connection, enjoy receiving daily well wishes, need an available & understanding shoulder & ear, want someone you can actually have a two-way, open & intellectual conversation with, a friend who genuinely cares & truly wants to get to know & honor the authentic you, & crave someone who is equal parts silly, .:sexy:. & serious that enjoys a balanced roast-romance ratio… then hit me up & let’s see where the conversation takes us. If we click I promise you won’t be disappointed. I’ve got a lot of loveaffectiontime to give to the right guy; however please understand, I’m so not interested in single serve interactions or seldom passing ships in the night. Reliability, genuine effort, longevity are all such a turn on; match mine or leave me be. ;)
Message me with a pic & tell me a little bit about yourself & what sort of audio pleasures you’re listening to today. Can’t wait to hear from you! xx

Major Duels/Fights That Could Happen

Background
I thought it would be fun to come up with a list of some of the major duels/fights that have a good chance of happening (or at least some potential foreshadowing). Obviously not all of these will end up taking place, but I've posted about most of these individually at some point, so I thought it would be fun to group them together.
If interested: Named Characters Killed by Individuals in Combat
Ser Gregor Clegane & Ser Loras Tyrell
Gregor Clegane and Loras Tyrell have already:

• Jousted in the Tourney of the Hand
• Almost fought after the joust
• Loras volunteered to go fight Gregor in the Riverlands and Ned said no

If interested: Gregor Clegane v. Loras Tyrell
Ser Rolly Duckfield & Lord Lorent Caswell
Rolly Duckfield (who we meet as one of Tyrion's companions aboard the Shy Maid) grew up in service to Lorent's father and was forced to flee and join the Golden Company.
If interested: Rolly Duckfield/Lorent Caswell
Swannbowl
House Swann's sigil is two swans combantant and while Ser Balon is a member of Tommen's kingsguard, his brother Ser Donnel has changed allegiances a few times. And while they aren't twins, we could see them battle to the death.
If interested: Swann vs. Swann: Ser Donnel the Constant
unAlliser Thorne vs. unJon
Before the mutiny at Castle Black, Jon had sent Ser Alliser beyond the Wall, and Ser Alliser legit responds with this:

Then you could hack off my head, same as you did for Slynt. I'll not give you that pleasure, bastard. You'd best pray that it's a wildling blade that kills me, though. The ones the Others kill don't stay dead … and they remember. I'm coming back, Lord Snow."
"I pray you do." Jon would never count Ser Alliser Thorne amongst his friends, but he was still a brother. No one ever said you had to like your brothers. -ADWD, Jon VI

If interested: Alliser Thorne's Destiny: Become a Wight/Try to Kill Jon Snow
Ramsay's Hounds vs. the Stark Direwolves
Not a duel/fight per se, but according to GRRM's thoughts on the show, we could potentially see a showdown between them in the books:

Speaking of which: Martin leaves a little note for the producers when writing about Ramsay’s flesh-eating hounds, whom we see hunting down a girl for sport.
[N.B. A note for future reference. A season or two down the line Ramsay’s pack of wolfhounds are going to be sent against the Stark direwolves, so we should build up the dogs as much as possible in this and subsequent episodes. SSM, Vanity Fair Article: 7 December 2018

If interested: The Stark Direwolves vs. Ramsay's Hounds
Ramsay Bolton vs. Jon Snow
We have the show to thank for this one as well (Battle of the Bastards), but it is worth noting that book Jon is a much better fighter than Ramsay:

"He fights for you," Reek blurted out. "He's strong." "Bulls are strong. Bears. I have seen my bastard fight. He is not entirely to blame. Reek was his tutor, the first Reek, and Reek was never trained at arms. Ramsay is ferocious, I will grant you, but he swings that sword like a butcher hacking meat." -ADWD, Reek III

If interested: Fighting Skill: Jon Snow vs. Ramsay Bolton & Other Perspectives of Ramsay Bolton
Ser Jaime Lannister (in general)
With the abandonment of the 5 year gap and the progression Jaime shows in the post I linked below, I think its quite feasible that Jaime has to use his left hand at some point (duel with Brienne, Lancel, Boros, etc.), my favorite potential foreshadowing of this, is this little throwaway line about his squire:

That night he and Ser Ilyn fought for three hours. It was one of his better nights. If they had been in earnest, Payne only would have killed him twice. Half a dozen deaths were more the rule, and some nights were worse than that. "If I keep at this for another year, I may be as good as Peck," Jaime declared -AFFC, Jaime VII

but if we remember Peck:

Next came four of lesser birth who had distinguished themselves in the fighting: the one-eyed knight Ser Philip Foote, who had slain Lord Bryce Caron in single combat; the freerider Lothor Brune, who'd cut his way through half a hundred Fossoway men-at-arms to capture Ser Jon of the green apple and kill Ser Bryan and Ser Edwyd of the red, thereby winning himself the name Lothor Apple-Eater; Willit, a grizzled man-at-arms in the service of Ser Harys Swyft, who'd pulled his master from beneath his dying horse and defended him against a dozen attackers; and a downy-cheeked squire named Josmyn Peckledon, who had killed two knights, wounded a third, and captured two more, though he could not have been more than fourteen. Willit was borne in on a litter, so grievous were his wounds. -ACOK, Sansa VIII

If interested: Hear Me Roar: Jaime Lannister's Left Hand
Areo Hotah v. Darkstar
Areo Hotah has already dispatched a POV character (Arys Oakheart) and the Camera that Rides is now headed to track down Dark Star with Obara Sand.

Only Ser Gerold Dayne had escaped unscathed. Darkstar. If Myrcella's horse had not shied at the last instant, his longsword would have opened her from chest to waist instead just taking off her ear. Dayne was her most grievous sin, the one that Arianne most regretted. With one stroke of his sword, he had changed her botched plot into something foul and bloody. If the gods were good, by now Obara Sand had treed him in his mountain fastness and put an end to him.
She said as much to Daemon Sand that first night, as they made camp. "Be careful what you pray for, princess," he replied."Darkstar could put an end to Lady Obara just as easily."
"She has Areo Hotah with her." Prince Doran's captain of guards had dispatched Ser Arys Oakheart with a single blow, though the Kingsguard were supposed to be the finest knights in all the realm. "No man can stand against Hotah."
"Is that what Darkstar is? A man?" Ser Daemon grimaced. "A man would not have done what he did to Princess Myrcella. Ser Gerold is more a viper than your uncle ever was. Prince Oberyn could see that he was poison, he said so more than once. It's just a pity that he never got around to killing him." -TWOW, Arianne I

If interested: The Showdown at High Hermitage
CleganeBowl
One of the more divisive theories in the fanbase is that of Sandor Clegane fighting his brother Gregor. While E+L have stated that they don't believe Cleganebowl will happen (although they have also said they won't change their stance on stuff publicly if they get new information):

No, the Cleganebowl theory -- specifically, the version that has the gravedigger formerly known as the Hound fighting a trial by combat against the necromantic experiment formerly known as Ser Gregor Clegane -- is not really going anywhere (though the two may well meet under other circumstances).

I tend to agree as I think that Sandor Clegane's plotline stays in the Riverlands (LSH and the BwB are hot on his trail and know he was the last one to see Arya alive).
That said we get it on the show (take that fwiw, as they were in deep with the fan service at that point) as well as get several quotes that could seemingly foreshadow a fight between them.
If interested: Trial by Combat: The Faith's Champion & Trials/Fights in King's Landing
Bloodraven & Bittersteel
Bloodraven and Bittersteel are known to have fought two duels::

• The First Blackfyre Rebellion (196AC)
• The Third Blackfyre Rebellion (219AC)

While the details of their first duel are pretty well known, the information about their second duel is very scarce (we will likely get more info in a future D&E or Fire & Blood II). It can also be argued that we could end up with a third "duel" (war by proxy) between the two.
If interested: The Duels Between Bittersteel & Bloodraven
Dark Sister & Blackfyre
While neither Blackfyre/Dark Sister have been mentioned in the main series, they have met in duels on a couple occasions. While it is confirmed that Bloodraven took Dark Sister to the Wall with him, we haven't seen it since. Blackfyre was last seen with Bittersteel.
I think its quite likely that Illyrio acquired Blackfyre at some point and that it was a treasure that House Blackfyre maintained as some semblance of legitimacy.
If interested: Dark Sister & Blackfyre: Could They Meet Again?
Dany/Balerion & ???
Not really sure who (it could be anyone from Euron and whatever he is summoning/dragon to another character on dragonback.
That said we are to expect a Dance of the Dragons II in the series, and imo its not a real "dance" unless both sides have dragons.
If interested: Thoughts, Theories, Parallels on the Dance of the Dragons II
TLDR: Just like the title says, a list of duels/combat that I could happen (and that have some potential foreshadowing, etc. as well.

Hello there. I hope whoever is reading my post is having a wonderful day 😊
I'm a 26 yo energy engineer. I'm 176 cm tall with brown eyes and dark hair. Generally, I'm considered by most to be handsome. I'd be more than happy to send pics of myself.
My intentions are pure. I seek a true & genuine relationship. I'm looking for someone with the following qualities:
1- Around my age or older. Yes I'm attracted to older women (not very old, though).
2- Intelligent and poessesses a high intellectual level. Has analytical skills and enjoys a scientific, intellectual, and fruitful discussion. I'm Sapiosexual, so I strongly get attracted to intelligence and intelligent people.
3- Must be an athletic person. Fit and cares for the health of her body as she cares for the health of her mind. Sport and healthy nutrition are priorities in her life.
4- Flexible, easygoing, and open minded.
5- Romantic, sympathetic, and loving. Cares to share my interests as I'll share hers.
Some detailed information about myself: I'm an athletic person. I do various sports, as I have hyper activity. I'm an MMA fighter and a very good swimmer (I actually rescued two persons from drowning in the past). I also work out at the gym often, run, and love cycling 🚲 I consider myself to be intelligent, articulate, and well educated. I love reading so much, especially about history and philosophy, as well as reading novels. I seek tirelessly to develop myself, increase my knowledge, and enhance my skills. I dream of taking part in saving the world through the development of clean renewable energy sources. Energy crisis, climate change, and environmental & pollution sciences are my main interests, along with programming & animation. I love playing video games in my free time (especially strategy/medieval genres), playing table tennis or watching tennis/table tennis, and writing novels (I wrote a novel series which I dream to transform into an animated series in the future). An animal lover & a cat person 🐱 but I love all animals in general. I actually rescued a puppy before 🐶 I'm known to be very flexible, easygoing, honest, open-minded, and open to other cultures in general. I'm a kind fellow with a refined sense of romance, and a very caring & loving person. Finally, I talk too much, yet I'm also a very good listener!
I'll be working and living in Germany after several months. Germany faces an energy crisis due to war in Ukraine, and as it happens, I specialise in new and renewable energy systems and technologies, so I managed to find good opportunities there.
Thank you for taking the time to read my modest intro. If you think we share similar interests/vibe/purpose, please don't hesitate to shoot me a message 🙂

Hello there. I hope whoever is reading my post is having a wonderful day 😊
I'm a 26 yo energy engineer. I'm 176 cm tall with brown eyes and dark hair. Generally, I'm considered by most to be handsome. I'd be more than happy to send pics of myself.
My intentions are pure. I seek a true & genuine relationship. I'm looking for someone with the following qualities:
1- Around my age or older. Yes I'm attracted to older women (not very old, though).
2- Intelligent and poessesses a high intellectual level. Has analytical skills and enjoys a scientific, intellectual, and fruitful discussion. I'm Sapiosexual, so I strongly get attracted to intelligence and intelligent people.
3- Must be an athletic person. Fit and cares for the health of her body as she cares for the health of her mind. Sport and healthy nutrition are priorities in her life.
4- Flexible, easygoing, and open minded.
5- Romantic, sympathetic, and loving. Cares to share my interests as I'll share hers.
Some detailed information about myself: I'm an athletic person. I do various sports, as I have hyper activity. I'm an MMA fighter and a very good swimmer (I actually rescued two persons from drowning in the past). I also work out at the gym often, run, and love cycling 🚲 I consider myself to be intelligent, articulate, and well educated. I love reading so much, especially about history and philosophy, as well as reading novels. I seek tirelessly to develop myself, increase my knowledge, and enhance my skills. I dream of taking part in saving the world through the development of clean renewable energy sources. Energy crisis, climate change, and environmental & pollution sciences are my main interests, along with programming & animation. I love playing video games in my free time (especially strategy/medieval genres), playing table tennis or watching tennis/table tennis, and writing novels (I wrote a novel series which I dream to transform into an animated series in the future). An animal lover & a cat person 🐱 but I love all animals in general. I actually rescued a puppy before 🐶 I'm known to be very flexible, easygoing, honest, open-minded, and open to other cultures in general. I'm a kind fellow with a refined sense of romance, and a very caring & loving person. Finally, I talk too much, yet I'm also a very good listener!
I'll be working and living in Germany after several months. Germany faces an energy crisis due to war in Ukraine, and as it happens, I specialise in new and renewable energy systems and technologies, so I managed to find good opportunities there.
Thank you for taking the time to read my modest intro. If you think we share similar interests/vibe/purpose, please don't hesitate to shoot me a message 🙂

The water patters down. I wonder if it's God crying on how much he has broken one of his children. For I am not a creature that was born, but a fire that was set. I stand alone looking up at the skies, feeling each drop like shards of glass cutting into my skin.
I close my eyes softly and spread my arms wide, envisioning that the sting of these cuts are not from daggers of desolation but currents from the caress of love. For who am I to know the difference? My chastity to another's devilish beauty does not permit me to be held by another, whilst my sanity does not let me return to her.
What a tragedy I have become? A mature mind yet a romantic heart. A walking contradiction I stand.
I try to look at the eyes of the others that walk past, if I can see my world in them. I see the ocean in one, foliage in the other and Earth in another. I am yet to see all three together - I saw them once a moon ago, but that was merely the devil's desire within me. No wonder whenever she sang my name, I looked over my left shoulder to hear where her voice came from. The truth be told in her eyes I saw enough Earth to be buried under, her embrace was just the bare grave for me to lay in. Yet I couldn't resist.
My hair drenches in the rain, the water trickles down from the roots to my nose. For a minute, I imagine the tip of her finger nail as sharp as a knife inching closer to wipe the droplet away. As it comes nearer and nearer, the sound of a revolver rolling and the sirens approaching audiates in my head. 'Sanity is overrated' my heart whispers in thirst. 'Hush, Hush, boy - how many more bullets can you call diamonds?' my mind reasons.
I clench my fists and fall to my knees. Oh Jupiter, Oh Odin, Oh Zeus is this why your statues were never erected along with a woman? For I have broken pieces of me to sculpt her and now I exhaust. I tuck my head in my lap and bow in submission.
A hand lays flat against my spine. A head presses on mine. I look up, I don't recognise her. Who is she?
Her hair, majestically sways down each fibre made with fine threads of heaven's silk. As the wind blows, her hair dances as though it had a life of its own, twirling in sync with the wind chimes like a ballerina lost in melody. I couldn't help but be mesmerised by her magnificence. A small streak untidily rests on her forehead, my hand tremors as I resist the urge to correct it for the fear of being scorched.
Her eyes, pearl bronze, I look into them and see stars from a hundred different galaxies twinkle - her magic is beyond my comprehension. Each star sparkling praises of her beauty. They glimmer like pools of liquid gold, with long, dark lashes that frame them perfectly. My mind says Medusa, but my heart says Athena.
Her nose, slender like the stem of a delicate flower. Tilted flawlessly laddered to paradise. It rises from her face with a gentle curve, like a wave breaking on the shore. The delicate bridge that supports it is as elegant as the strings of a harp, and its tip is as pointed and sharp as a sword.
Her lips, built from the softest rose petals, stretching so gracefully to smile. They are a luscious shade of pink, with hints of red from the ruby rocks of hell. Hidden, a power within them, holding the secrets of the universe.
Her cheeks, crafted from beige velvet, wrapped tightly around her jaw. They sit like beautiful canvases waiting to be painted. I must be careful. I must be careful. For my blood supply is now too meagre for me to dip a brush into.
A small beauty mark sits beside her lip, accentuating her features in a way that was august. It adds a touch of glamour and sophistication to her look, like a small but precious gem that had landed on her skin. Her only imperfection too was perfection.
If I had enough ink or life to write about her beauty. It would be a race on which would end first. For there is not enough ink or time to explain and if there was, neither could do justice.
She floats around me, and her warmth evaporates the dampness from my skin. Her halo umbrellas us both, and I gaze at her in awe, my pupils dilating in the presence of her radiance. She looks back at me and giggles like a sparrow on a summer's day, each sound causing my heart to skip a beat and my mind to falter.
"Beauty or Beast, which are you?" I implore her.
She giggles and looks away, gliding ahead just out of reach. She turns her head over her right shoulder and smiles at me with her eyes, simultaneously, she rests her right hand across her left shoulder and tauntingly dances her fingers on her clavicle.
Surrounded by darkness, her aura is the only thing that emits light. I limper to my feet and inch closer to her. She moves ahead with a gentle flight, turning back every so often to catch my eye. The intensity of her gaze fuels my adrenaline, urging me to follow her into the unknown.
I push myself until I can go no further. My muscles tire, and even with adrenaline coursing through my veins, my body can no longer sustain the effort. I collapse onto the unforgiving concrete road and close my eyes, giving in to the exhaustion that has overtaken me.
" I can...I cannot" I plead to her.
Her gentle laughter fills the air as she lays down beside me. With a feather-light touch, she traces her index and middle fingers over my forehead, down over my eyelids, and finally to my chin.
"But, you must." Alluringly she whispers.
As her words leave her lips, my mind is flooded with memories, each one flashing before my eyes like scenes from a movie. I see her nestled in my arms on a Himalayan mountaintop, tucking her head under my chin as we sit at the peak. I see us rowing a boat along the canals of Venice, the wind blowing her hair as she presses her nose against mine. I see us climbing the pyramids of Egypt, her eyes glistening with love as she looks back at me. I see us running hand-in-hand on the beaches of Bazaruto, our footprints marking a path of love in the sand. I see the colour of our hairs erode to the colour of the snow, that we once laid in our youth. I see us sitting on a weathered park bench, sharing a walking stick between us, as we watch others find their world.
As the vivid dreams fade away, I slowly open my eyes to the reality of the dimly lit street lamp shining down on me. I find myself lying all alone, the cold concrete sending shivers up my spine as the stones gently roll against my head. I remain still, feeling the ache of a beard grown out of the patience I have for her return. The leaves rustle around me, their whispers like cruel laughter echoing in the stillness of the night, a mocking chorus to my loneliness.
I look up at the darkened sky and yell "Oh Lord, I do not know if I am destined for Valhalla or Hades, the first one buried me. Let this one return to cremate me."