Elise hells kitchen

They crept in. It was pitch black and stone quiet. They were suddenly starting to regret this dare. Stupidly, only one brought a flash light. The aggressive darkness and inky black yielded with grudging compliance but always seeming to push back. They moved cautiously onward amid the dust and cobwebs. The floor creaked. They breathed in tight, quick breaths. You could hear a pin drop.
Suddenly, there was a deep moan. "OOOOOOOOUUUUU". It seemed from below them. The house had been abandoned for years. Who or what could make such a sound? The boys looked at each other, but continued on, hearts pounding in their chests.
As they proceeded into the kitchen they encountered a swarm of flies. Buzzing and beating their necks and faces, they rushed and stumbled to the door, not stopping to see what they were truly feasting on. They slammed the door behind them. Maybe a body? But no way were they going back to find out. And again came the sound, "ooooOOOOOooooOOUUU" but louder this time, and closer.
They proceeded through the dark into the dining room. They saw a fully set dining table covered in cob webs. Dust-covered regal-looking glasses, goblets and silverware adorned the table. Spiders climbed on ivory plates. Clearly a house of privilege and set for a grand feast which never happened.
Or, perhaps, met a fatal end?
They pushed on. But again that unearthly howl.
"oooooOOOOOOOOOOOUuuuuUUUUuuUUOOOOooo".
They found the basement staircase, and from below, the sounds seemed to be emanating. Could they proceed? Would they? Did they dare? Two of the boys looked at each other, faces filled with worry.
But the third said, confidently, "We're going down there." Not wanting to seem the weaker, the other two boys steeled themselves and nodded.
The stairs creaked and groaned evily under their feet. The rickety banister shook in angry defiance. Insects and vermin scattered underneath them with every step. They were descending into hell, they knew, but none would turn back.
And the sound: "oOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUuuuuUUOOOO". Now loud enough to fill not only their heads but seeming to claw at their very souls!
Now at the basement door! The antique, crying squeak of the hinges eeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEee made the boys wince and almost cover their ears. But they had to know. WHAT is making that horrible, terrible sound?
"ooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUoooooUUUUUUUOOOOOOO"
In the center of the basement lay an unholy coffin! A twisted artistic expression of murder, decay and disease! Brutish, incorrect lengths had been forced together, buckling the wood and bulging the steel at points, as if death, itself, were attempting to escape. It was festooned with beast-like emblems and decrepid artifacts: skulls, antlers, skins, totems, and drenched in the color of blood!
It was TRUE! The house really was haunted!
"OOOoooOOOoOOooOoOouuUUUUUuuuuUOOuouOUO"
Now the boys realized with sheer horror that the insane moaning was definitely coming from the coffin!
Before the boys could turn and run, the coffin began to shake! They froze.
Then it suddenly LIFTED off the ground! They gaped in terror!
Shaking violently and rising, the coffin started to turn. It turned and turned, and gained speed. It was spinning in the air before them! A mix of terror and fascination gripped them. Unable to look away. Unable to run. It spun faster and faster AND FASTER!
"OOOoooOOOoOOooOoOouuUUUUUuuuuUOOuouOUOOOOOOOoo"
The first boy with the knife slashed in the air in front of him, as if to stab away at the evil! Then he dropped the knife and ran back up the stairs, never to be seen again.
The second boy with the gun fired warning shots at the ceiling BANG! BANG!, but then thought better of it, dropped his gun and also ran up the stairs, and also was never to be seen again.
The third boy stood there calmly, reached into his pocket and popped a cough drop into his mouth. He sucked on it for a bit.
And the coffin stopped.

I was panicking when suddenly I cut my finger. I watched in horror as the blood from my finger dropped on the soup I was cooking. Holy, holy, holy, now, what am I supposed to do? I have very little time. My Teacher came in and asked if the soup is ready, me and my classmates take turns to cook for lunch. Principal found this fun and wanted to see how well we can cook. I said "well, almost." T: how long till then? He said, I replied "never mind, it's ready" P: good, I'll go serve this now. He said, I'm panicking, hoping they wouldn't notice, I mean, it's just a drip right? I went outside nervous, to my relief they praised my cooking.
P: wow Eve, this is delicious T: she's right, this is amazing. I can finally breath, well at least they liked it. I went home and was greeted by my parents. M: welcome home, dear, what would you like for supper? D: hey, kiddo, how was school? Wow, this is surprising. My Parents never would greet me like this. They play favorites and my Parents favorite isn't me, it's my twin sister they love and favor all the time. After supper I went to bed finally, it's Friday and I'm exhausted thank goodness there's no school tomorrow. The sun hit my eyes and I woke up, went to the bathroom brushed my teeth and went down for breakfast. "Hey, mom what's for breakfast?" No reply "uhh mom?" M: yes, sweetie? "What's for breakfast?" M: you "what?" M: you "mom, stop acting weird" M: you.
I was weirded out and I was about to open the front door when suddenly my sister Ava blocked me. "What are you doing?" A: where are you going? "Outside?" A: why? We're hungry "so? That's not my fault, mom didn't cook anything" A: we were planning to eat raw meat. "That's weird" D: I can't take it anymore! Grab her! Standing there confused, they grabbed me and put me on the kitchen table. Then Ava grabbed some rope and started to tie me. I was screaming then they started to eat my leg. "Help! Help me!" Bawling and begging for them to stop, but they instead pretended like they didn't hear me. Thankfully my neighbor barged in the front door and freed me.
She was escorting me out the house and was about to call an ambulance then...... N: stomach growls your leg "please, my leg is almost gone! They ate it! Please call the ambulance" I was sure that I'm safe with her but no. She then tried to eat me too. "What are you doing?" She ignored me. I grabbed a rocked and smashed her head, she passed out. Then I started screaming for help crawling, I can't walk due to my leg bleeding. I passed out and thankfully a firefighter found me and brought me to a hospital. When I woke up he asked how I was feeling. I was scared that he'll try to eat me too but thankfully he didn't.
I said my leg was a bit numb and he broke a horrifying news to me. F: sorry kid, your leg lost so much blood and you were passed out for a long time it was too late. Worms, flies and bugs started to crawl in your leg. They had to amputate it. As I processed this I lifted the blanket and saw that my right leg was gone. I cried, the firefighter tried to comfort me and asked me what happened and I told him everything. He was shocked, who wouldn't be?
He asked how my neighbor went from nice to a psychotic cannibal. Then it hit me, the drop of blood, the vent above the stove, the steam, the vapor must have escaped through the vent and spread around the city. I tried to tell him that and he said that we'll get them arrested first. He called the police and they arrived and started asking me questions. I felt so relieved to finally be safe but then, they handcuffed me and the police shouted. "Dig in"

Chapter 1 - Stranger
When Daglan woke up that morning he didn't see anything unusual. He had awoken from a drop of water falling from the ceiling as he did many mornings. His best friend Rozere was in the kitchen with her father cooking what smelled of eggs. The sun was shining through the cracks in the curtains and holes in the walls as it always did. What felt different? Then he heard voices outside, voices that grew louder and louder. At this point Rozere and her father Koshu had heard the commotion as well and stepped outside to see what it was. Daglan hastily followed suit, after finding his tunic and boots.
Lying on the ground outside was a young man, no older than 25. He lay face up in the dirt wearing only baggy purple pants and a black conical hat covering his face. His long black hair seemed to be tied at the base of his head in a long spiky ponytail, his slender muscular body was covered in dozens of battle scars, and at his waist was a black katana with its sword tied firmly inside its sheath. Almost the entire town had crowded around him, murmuring and shifting anxiously. It wasn't often people arrived in town, mostly just traders on their way to and from Inoris, and that too was a rarity.
"Back now people, give this man some room! And for the love of Reza, quiet!" Barked Doc Silvis as she pushed through the crowd. She immediately knelt down and felt his neck with her fingers. She paused for a moment and gave a very annoyed sigh, slapping away his hat. "He's alive alright. This dumbass is sleeping in the street." She gave the stranger a hard slap across the face, one that would have probably knocked him out, had he been awake. The crowd watched in awe as he yawned and scratched his nose, barely affected by Silvis.
"What should we do?" Someone asked.
"Do you know who he is?" Asked another.
As the murmurs heighted Daglan could tell Silvis was getting fired up, over the years Daglan had gotten to know Silvis quite well, with all his escapades outside the town walls. Daglan knew better than anyone that Silvis hated when a patient ignored her, and more so when she had to repeat herself.
"I said quiet! Don't you lazy bums have more important things to do?! Livani! Koreso! Aren't you two on watch?! Scram the lot of you!" A wave of fear crashed down upon the crowd and everyone began to disperse. All but Daglan, as Rozere pulled on his sleeve.
"Come on Daglan," she hissed, keeping an eye on Silvis like she was some wild animal, "You don't want to make her angrier."
"I'll be fine," he whispered, without looking back, his eyes stuck on the sleeping man. What was this feeling? It was like the feeling he got when Silvis healed his wounds, but not as warm. Almost closer to the feeling he got when abominations were near, when he ventures past the walls, but not as malicious. Before he knew it he was kneeling next to Silvis, watching her run her hand across his body, her hands glowing faintly, his curiosity bubbling.
"He isn't cursed or hypnotized, I can't feel a single thing wrong with him. I do believe this man is really just asleep, and slept through a slap in the face." Silvis sighed. After a few moments she looked at Daglan with a tired smile, then frowned. "Thanks for being quite Daglan, now since you're gonna bum around, get to work hauling this bastard back to my infirmary and don't let him out of your sight. I want to know as soon as he wakes up."
Daglan looked around to ask Rozere for help but she was already gone, how long had he been watching this stranger and Silvas? He looked down at the smiling, snoring face of the stranger, scooped under his arms, and with much difficulty began dragging the older, bigger boy to the infirmary.
The infirmary was quiet today, there hadn't been a major abomination attack in quite a few weeks which didn't happen often. It wasn't long before Rozere came in with a grimace on her face and her fingers on her nose.
"Honestly," she said in that strange nasally voice when you hold your nose, "I hate how much time you make me spend here. Between you getting hurt and my dad making me help Silvas, I can't get away!" She plopped down next to him and sighed. "So what's with this guy? Why are you still here with him?"
"Silvas asked me to watch him and tell her when he wakes up. Apparently I can't let him leave till she talks to him." He shrugged, trying more to convince himself. She eyed him suspiciously, but immediately dropped the subject.
"Did you notice his sword was tied closed? I wonder what that's about?" She reached out and placed a hand on his sword, and just then the weird energy the stranger gave off changed from similar to those of the abominations , to even scarier than anything he'd ever felt from them. Rozere fell to her knees and screamed as the stranger stood over her. When had he stood up?! Daglan shot to his feet, a smile ripping across his face as excitement crackled through his body. He prepared to defend his friend, when just as quickly as the evil energy had manifested, it disappeared. In fact the feeling Daglan had been getting from the stranger had all but subsided completely.
He stared at Daglan and Rozere with a confused look. When Rozere had eventually stopped screaming, Daglan held out his hand to help her up. Daglan’s mind raced with questions but could he do nothing but stare at the stranger as he stared back.
“Uh, hello-” he began and just then Silvas and Koshu burst through the door with Livani and Koreso close behind. Koshu sprang in between Rozere and the stranger, towering over him.
"What did you do to my daughter!" He said through gritted teeth. The stranger scratched the back of his head and opened his mouth when Rozere spoke up,
"It was nothing dad, he just woke up and scared me! Look at me I'm fine, now would you stop!" But Koshu didn't flinch, not until Silvas spoke up.
"Back off Koshu, Rozere is right, she's fine, and this boy is obviously no danger at the moment." He mumbled something under his breath but did as he was told . "Yeah, listen to Silvas and not me." Rozere grumbled, crossing her arms.
"Now listen here young lady, you will show your aunt some resp–" Koshu began but Silvas smacked him in the back of the head.
"Now isn't the time, Koshu, take her and go," she glared at the stranger, who was still smiling awkwardly and scratching the back of his head.
“Everyone out, now.”
"Uh, where am I? He eventually stammered.
"Daglan, out." Silvas said forcefully, without taking her eyes off the stranger. As well as Daglan knew Silvas, he'd never seen her this worked up, not even about the abominations . She was so strong-willed, so much more than anyone else in town. He had heard stories about Silvas, but only bits and pieces around town, probably all made up. Still there was one he heard more than others, he had heard before she lived in Graybarrow she had fought in some kind of war.
Daglan sat outside the infirmary trying to hear as much as he could. Wondering what could have gotten Silvas so worried, and if that man was even human. He could barely hear anything, mostly Silvas's mumbled questioning and the nervous laughter of the stranger. As he sat and pondered, an extremely tall, wide shouldered man sat down next to him and lit a cigarette. He had a long thick mustache that covered his upper lip but came down on the sides past his chin, and scruffy brown hair that stuck up at weird angles.
"Oh, hi Mr.Lucio." Daglan said as he pretended to have not been eavesdropping.
"I haven't seen you in class," he said as he blew out a cloud of smoke, "and I don't often see you hanging around here by choice." He continued to puff his cigarette as they sat in silence.
"Mr.Lucio… I can feel him like the abominations and Silvas's healing. What is he?"
"I'm not sure, from what I've heard he sounds human enough. What do you think?"
"I don't know… I think he's human? But why can I feel him?"
"There must be something similar between him, Silvas's healing, and the abominations from the mountains and forest, hmm?"
"I guess so…" They continued to sit in silence until Lucio had finished his cigarette.
"You can always talk to me if you need help, Daglan. You may like getting experience more, but a little book learning can go a long way." He stood up, pressing his cigarette out between his fingers and putting the butt in his pocket. "It's always good to see you, don't be a stranger." He said as he waved his hand walking away. Daglan thought about what Lucio had proposed, something similar. It didn't seem like Silvas or the stranger would be coming out soon so Daglan decided to go home and see what Rozere thought about all this.
When he did get home both Rozere and Koshu were in foul moods, having most likely fought since earlier. Deciding that he'd rather not be part of that, he grabbed his bag and scurried out the front door before Kusho had time to notice.
It's a short walk to the gate, the guards had patched up his last hole in the wall, but he had since come up with another, more thrilling way. Climbing up to the top of the traders hall, he'd be high enough to jump to the wall once the guards had passed. Then it was a quick jump down and a sprint out of their eyesight before he was able to relax. He walked along a path he knew quite well until he came up on a small ladder, it was built into a tree that led up to a small treehouse.
His exploration headquarters as he liked to call it. The inside was small and filled with trash, and his souvenirs from his adventures sat on a roughly made table. A small Salegitti skull, a broken dagger missing its tip, and a small crystal like rock that shown with faint yellow light. Next to them were three well worn books. He picked up the book titled journal and sat on the ground, scribbling furiously with a small piece of charcoal. He then began to study the other two, older, bigger books. One titled, Abominations of Hel’s Peaks, and the other, Creatures of South Shodun. Mr Lucio was right about book learning, but he liked his own books.
Back in town Rozere was wandering around with her hands behind her head, whistling to herself. “I wonder where Daglan is?” She pondered allowed, before realizing she had stopped in front of Silvas’s office. She stared at the large building with its off-white stone, and massive steel doors. There were various cracks and dents all along the wells and doors, as well as wooden planks over the windows, Silvas called them the clinic’s battlescars, there was nowhere safer to hide in the whole town.
She stared for a long time before realizing there was a man sitting in the grass, a large bottle of alcohol in one hand, and multiple empty bottles sitting neatly by his legs. His long spiky hair was a little cleaner, and the copious amounts of drool were now wiped away. His face was a bright red, and he had a cigarette hanging from his lips. He stared at her with a slight wobble,
“Hey… You're that girl that touched my sword right?” He took another large gulp from his bottle.
“Yeah? What of it?” She asked with defiance, her hands on her hips. He smiled a sickening smile and shot to his feet faster than Rozere could see.
“Why don't you try it again? Or will you simply scream for help? Little girls shouldn’t play with monsters.” He said as he towered over her. “Go ahead.” He lifted his arm in the air so his katana was unblocked. Rozere’s knees began to shake and a lump formed in her throat but she did not look away. She was an ant, and this man was a giant. She wasn't going to back down, but he could stand faster than she could see. Surely dropping his arm even faster would be no problem right? He was right, she wanted to scream, but she stood firm.
“Maybe I will!” She returned his malicious smile and reached out for his sword as fast as she could, bracing for the impact and the horrible crunch of bones as he grabbed her arm and snapped it in half. She flinched as her nerves went off, electric sensations coursing through her fingertips. It's happened! But what she felt wasn't pain, but the hard yet somehow soft grip of a katana hilt. She opened her eyes to see her hand firmly gripping his katana and a much more playful smile somehow even wider across this strange man’s face. He began to laugh loudly as she stumbled backwards and fell. He held out his hand, still giggling a little. She eyed him hard then after a moment smacked his hand away. She stood up, and began to brush herself off, glaring at him all the while. He apologized in between giggles.
“My name is Noboru, you've got quite the spirit to face me down. What's your name kid?” He asked as he sat back onto the grass and took another long swig from his bottle. Rozere straightened up and looked at him with a fiery gaze.
“Rozere of Grayborrow.” She said, crossing her arms. “And you dont scare me!”
“What are you yelling about Rozere?” Silvas asked as she appeared behind her. “You!” she exclaimed as she saw Noboru “Where did you get all of that from!? Rozere give me a hand and throw away these bottles would you?”
“She's already gone.” Noboru giggled. Silvas spun around to see that Rozere had indeed disappeared, as Noboru began to laugh louder. Rozere could hear the slap from across town as she sat against the traders hall. As she pondered just how big a lump must be on the side of Noboru's face, a ball smacked her’s.
“Hey who did that!?” She demanded as she hoped to her feat, tears forming in her eyes, which she quickly wiped away.
“Oh, sorry Rozere! I didn't mean to! Honest!” Said the boy as he ran up and grabbed his ball off the ground before the evil Rozere could kick it away, her foot swishing in the air. The boy was a few years younger than Rozere, had shaggy blonde hair, a tunic that was two sizes too big for him and a pair of round glasses broken in several spots.
“You better be sorry, pipsqueak!” she said, wiping her eyes and now running nose. “I'll have to beat you up if not!”
“Come on give Vilcus a break he said sorry. What are you doing over here by yourself anyways? Daglan run away again?” Said another girl with little blonde pigtails and red cheeks, as she came up behind Vilcus.
“Hi Meska and no he didn't run away again.” Rozere said, sticking her tongue out. “I just think he went for a walk is all… he'll be back… soon!” She crossed her arms and held her chin up. “Well why don't you come play with us until he gets back?” Meska asked, turning around and walking away, “We are playing dodgeball, maybe you can hit Vilcus in the face.”
“Hey nuh-uh! She won't hit me!” Vilcus persisted as he followed after her. Rozere sniffled, rubbed her nose with her sleeve, and smiled.
“Okay fine, but wait up!” She yelled.

As Daglan walked through the trees, he could feel the malicious energies from abominations all around him, it was making his blood boil. He remembered the stranger looking down at him and Rozere, overflowing with the most malicious intent he had ever felt. A smile began to creep across his face once more, as he could feel something close behind him. He spun around to see a creature he had only seen in books, the sight of which excited and terrified him. 

A giant humanoid creature with a long smooth snake-like torso, and grotesquely elongated arms and legs stood before him. It had a small pair of arms on its hips that bounced as if boneless, and a strange human face. Smooth indents of skin sat where the eyes should be, and it had a beak lined with razor teeth that jutted out at multiple angles. It clicked its tongue and sniffed the air then began to lick its beak with what could only be called a smile.
“What should I call you big fella?” Daglan asked nervously as excitement shot through his body. This wasn't like anything he'd ever encountered in the forest, or during attacks. This creature was much more dangerous. He gritted his teeth and forced an equally disgusting smile, even though he was sure the abomination couldn't see him. He pulled out the dagger he had smithed in secret at Koshu’s forge and dropped his stance lower, lower, lower. The creator was clicking and sniffing in anticipation, no doubt it could feel Daglan’s bloodlust.
Daglan took a slow step forward, then another. The creature's head tilted and it sniffed harder, then in a flash that Daglan couldn’t even see, it lashed out, slashing his shoulder apart. Adrenaline had already made its way to Daglan’s brain and he didn't even feel the warm blood soaking into his tunic or notice his limp arm flailing behind him as he attacked. He rolled under the creature’s arm and slashed at its ribs ripping its open sending its guts pouring out. It screamed in pain and whirled around, but its tall body and long arms whizzed over Daglan’s head. He rolled again, this time in between its legs, slashing at its knee, cutting down to the bone. It screamed again and fell to its knees with a gross squishy thud from one. It twitched and spazzed as it began twisting its body around in a disgusting manner.
Daglan approached cautiously, but the adrenaline had worn off and he looked down at his arm. It was almost completely blue, and the little skin and bone that held his arm to his body squirted copious amounts of blood. There was a blur then he was flying through the brush stopping when he thudden into a tree. His eyes began to blur with red, then black. The last thing he heard was a familiar voice...
“You are by far the most interesting of the bunch. Hey, can you hear me?”
When Deglan awoke he was looking at a ceiling he knew all too well. In a bed he had awoken in many times. But this time he couldn't move. “Silvas! What's happening?! Silvas! Rozere!” Daglan began to thrash when he heard that same voice.
“Hey hey hey! You're going to hurt yourself more than you already have!” When standing over him, blocking the light with his conical hat, was the stranger. “That was a nasty creature you were tangling with out there. I heard you like to fight but I'm guessing you've never seen a lasari before? Ugly things, and not easy to kill with small weapons if you don't know how.”
“I do know how.” Daglan said matter of factly, “They have two brains located behind the eye sockets.”
“Oh-ho-ho,” the stranger smiled maliciously, “ but how do you stop them from reproducing after that?” Daglan went silent for a moment. “What do you mean?"
“Lasari have a fun ability to reproduce from their corpse. Specifically, their heart has two eggs inside that will hatch if it ever stops beating. So to properly kill one you must burn the heart.” He laughed and presumably sat back down, out of Daglan’s eyesight. There was a slight pause and Daglan was about to speak when he heard a gasp and the stranger continued.
“Anyway, you almost lost your arm. Luckily, your doctor and blacksmith were able to fix you up, those two are something else. It'll take some time for your bo-” Daglan cut him off.
“What do you mean I almost lost my arm?! What did they do to me?!” He exclaimed, thrashing, memories of his broken and bleeding arm flashing through his mind.
“If you don't calm down, I will calm you down.” He said forcefully. “I hate babies. I thought you were supposed to be a tough kid? Now anyways it's just me and you here, everyone else is asleep, so please. I know you've heard of the metal prosthetics of this country, Metics, I think they're called? I’ve seen people in town with them. Well your blacksmith had to help your doctor make you a new shoulder.”
“So why are you being so helpful? I don't know you, and you feel the same as an abomination.” “See it's things like that!” He shot back up his face noticeably red.
“You're so interesting! I don't remember how I got here…” He scratched his head for a second, “but boy have I had fun since I've shown up!” Your girlfriend Rozere-”
“She's not my girlfriend, and you leave her alone!” He shouted.
“Well she's fearsome! And you’re so interesting too! Definitely the best five year o-”
“I’m twelve. Rozere is thirteen.”
“Well twelve then. Point is, I like you and your little girly friend, so I thought I'd help out and not let you die.” Then it dawned on Daglan, there was no way a search party found him like when he normally gets in a scap and passes. He had thoroughly lost and was deep in the woods. By all accounts he should be dead. Daglan was so angry he hadn't even thought about what happened afterwards.
“It was you. So what do you want from me? Are you some abomination loo-” This time the stranger cut him off.
“My name is Noboru, the handyman.”
“I've never heard of that species.”
“Well I'm not an abomination, I'm a jack-of-all-trades, so to speak. I travel from place to place making money doing odd jobs. Anyways, you remind me an awful lot of someone I used to know. So don't go throwing your life away against such low level trash as the abominations around here.” Daglan began to feel the intimidating malice from Noboru, almost that of when Rozere had touched his sword. “I know you can feel my energy. Unlike the people of this town, save a few, I think you're gifted.” Then it was gone just as quickly as before. “What do you want, Daglan.” Daglan’s blood was fire and his eyes daggers, piercing the ceiling with determination.
“I want to be remembered.”
“So get out of this town and maybe one day you can fight me, and I’m not even the strongest out there. Come… show this world what you're… made of because I for one… can't wait.” Just then Daglan heard a thud followed by an endless cascade of snores from Noboru.
“Would someone get me out of here!”

I felt goosebumps the first time, still felt it on a rewatch. Even when winners hang their portrait at the end of each season makes me incredibly proud of them. Is it just me? 😅 Tbh I kinda feel like a loser for feeling these but watching their struggles and joys has lifted my spirits even in the most challenging times.
Whether you've been following HK from the start or binge-watch everything, it was awesome to see the museum.

Anyone have the Troma DVD of Mother’s Day? If so, I have a question for you…
In summer 2000, I was an intern for Troma. I remember filming a short bit on the street in Hell’s Kitchen with Lloyd and another intern that they were talking about using as the DVD intro to Mother’s Day.
I was just curious, does anyone on this subreddit have a DVD? I don’t own it, and it’s kind of pricey… I found myself thinking of it today, and I’m just curious if the little bit we filmed on the street actually made it onto the DVD.
Thanks!

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New Terran Refugee (Pt - 20) : An NOP fanfic
Thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for letting people write fanfics.
This is just a fanfic of course.
This chapter went through several iterations, I might have let myself think I could release it 1 week late (and failed). Also, I might have gotten sidetracked with other non-writing thing, oops.
TL;DR:
“OOPS! All Rewrites! And side projects!” – Me
In any case, here’s the chapter:
Memory transcription subject: Tayla, Venlil Widow
Date [standardized human time]: October 18, 2136
The first thing I became aware of was that I had awoken enveloping a richly warm pillow with a soft surface from above, and that not only was it hot but that it was also soft and squishy but without too much give, in fact it was somehow firmer below the surface, I snuggled closer to the material that was emanating heat below me and drove off my mind’s attempts at waking me up, this was too blissful an experience to stop suddenly.
The second thing I became aware of was that I didn’t remember replacing my heated pillow as the cold wind season was still expected to be a good deal of time away and that I had much more important things to spend my limited budget on.
The third thing I became aware of was that I wasn’t hugging a pillow, this only happened when I noticed that it wasn’t moving because I was snuggling into it, but rather moving in a steady motion against me, like when someone breathes while asleep.
The fourth thing I became aware of, were the memories of what led me into this situation ‘Just gonna close my eyes for a moment’; Why did I lie to myself like that?
The final thing I became aware of snapped me out of my musings, it was the reason I woke up, and the reason I had crashed so hard into sleepiness.
The consequence of drinking copious amounts of [shade root] tea to keep watch over Jorge until I could call the number in the email during the schedule it had included beneath itself, this was made worse by the cans of ‘Twilight Energy’ I had drank at the end when more drastic measures had to be taken.
I couldn’t ignore it I couldn’t help but feel the pressure mounting inside my bladder as I peeled myself off from on top of Jorge. Why did I move so much while asleep?
Oh Protector, I missed his warmth already…
I made a mental note to look into repairing my heated pillow for cheap due to a sudden urge to sleep with something warm more frequently, the abrupt thought jogging loose some memories about contact information of some local repairvenlil I’d called before for one reason or another, along with the memory of the number I called before… napping with Jorge…
A great feeling of chagrin manifested along with my bloom while closing Jorge’s bathroom door behind me as I remembered the text beneath the schedule, ‘Extended working hours during emergency situations’, the aftermath of antimatter bombing definitely applied… especially since that Mrs. Bennet sounded so exhausted so soon after the supposed start of her work claw.
I decided to chalk up my lapse in judgement to have been due to how Jorge’s expression before he sealed himself in had left my thoughts racing and heart pounding in worry over him.
With my thoughts somewhat settled, I examined the strange toilet that had been installed, before throwing caution to the winds when the urgency I felt reasserted itself with force.
…
After closing the lid and washing my paws, I finally found what had to be the equivalent of the pulley and chain, a small, recessed button parted into 2 asymmetric parts on the top middle part behind the seat.
I pressed both parts at the same time just in case.
FWOOOSH
A small eep escaped me but was drowned out by the noises that were still coming from the strange toilet!
Finally, the ruckus ended, letting me calm down from the unexpected loudness. Wait, did that noise wak-
THUNK THUNK THUNK
A bigger eep escaped me as I jumped a little into the air; However this time it wasn’t drowned out by another noise.
“¿you ok in there?” I could barely make out Jorge’s voice through the door, like he was putting in the barest effort needed to speak.
“Y-yeah, j-just startled…” I opened the door as I trailed off, a sudden realization had me asking him a question, “I guess I know how It felt w-when I s-startled you h-huh?”
His normally expressive face remained still, the only reaction to my attempt at lightening the mood a brief exhale from his nose; He simply slipped past me as I left the bathroom and muttered something I didn’t quite hear just before shutting the door softly.
I went back to the bed and turned on his pad, after a few seconds of waiting for it to turn on, and a few more waiting for my translator to parse the strange [date and time] format the humans used (Honestly, who separated the [hours] and the [days/months] like that?) I felt a bit of relief as I sank a bit into the still warm bed.
According to the pad, I’d just taken a short nap, I still had plenty of time until my children came back home, hopefully I had enough time to actually have some kind of talk with Jorge.
I’d have to somehow get him to talk about last Paw’s… reaction of his, and find a way to convince him to talk about his family, It’d be good for him to recognize that pain, maybe he’d even hold onto it like me…
^FWOOOSH
That thing that the humans called a toilet interrupted my train of thought before I could do more than think of the barest of ways I could breeze into such heavy topics, the small delay between the toilet’s sound, the groaning of water travelling to the faucet, and the door opening wasn’t even enough to get back on my mind’s [zephyr].
A quick focus on Jorge’s face made my determination start to breeze away a bit, it was much easier to think of how to talk to him when I couldn’t see just how heavily everything [to wear down like a long strong gale would] on him.
Jorge deflated slightly but visibly at how I apparently froze up at the sight of him.
“well, thanks, i… feel better, you can just… leave me be for now”
Jorge stood still, averting his eyes from me until he shrugged strangely after turning to look at the barricade, he then shuffled over and started to shift it to the side a bit, evidently wishing to put it back in place after I left.
“ah” he cleared his throat, “sorry, you can leave now” he returned to averting his eyes from looking at me and awkwardly motioned towards the wide opening he had made after dragging the barricade as he stepped away morosely.
“Jorge.” I paused to breathe; I’d managed to huff out his name just as I needed to exhale.
Jorge stood still for a moment before tentatively focusing on me, a strangely vulnerable expression sat on his face.
I patted the bed (an appropriate and proper distance away from me) with my tail before curling it away from the spot, he seemed to get the message and soon he had sat down beside me, brief moment of hesitation notwithstanding.
I turned my head towards him as I’d seen him do when talking, he flinched a little when his eyes met mine, closing them and averting his face, I reached out for his nearby claw with my tail and put it down gently on top.
I waited patiently for him to start talking; Thankfully the wait was short.
“this… ¿is this about… my reaction yesterday?”
“Yes,” I squeezed down on his claw softly with my tail in a comforting gesture, “I wanted to speak with you about that sooner, but for now…” another gentle squeeze, “I’m just glad you seem to be doing a little bit better.”
Silence enveloped us as Jorge seemed to mull over what I’d just said.
A small hint of a hunch had me examining him more closely, it seemed he was anxiously waiting for me to talk some more.
I chastised myself internally, ‘Of course he wasn’t going to be feeling very talkative…’, how could someone jump straight into talking about such a topic? It’d probably be better to start with other stuff and gauge things from there; With that my mind sifted through possible topics until one stood out.
“S-so, I kind of… used up a lot of your powdered ingredients… heh…” I took in his features, he seemed halfway here and halfway far away.
Maybe… Maybe if I somehow mentioned the call to remind him that there were more humans he could try talking to? Just in case he was getting tired of my clumsy attempts at talking with him…
“I, uh, didn’t think of asking Mrs. Bennet about their availability when I called her this Paw, s-sorry about that… b-but I’m sure they’ll get some more that you can use soon, right?”
That got a reaction, a small one, out of him; His eyes widened. It… felt wrong.
“o-oh, well, i’d better get started packing then…”
An impossibly heavy weight settled deep inside my stomach as he moved his claw out from under my frozen tail tip, my throat clenched up as Jorge got up and limply started wading to his bag.
I stared in mute horror as he dumped his clean body coverings into it, trying to communicate anything to him, and failing miserably as the sheer disbelief of just how horribly I had miscommunicated kept me frozen, while the pain and betrayal I could imagine him feeling kept my mind reeling.
He stopped just as he reached his bag, his claws clenched for a moment before he unclenched them slowly and turned around to look directly at me.
He’d shed more tears, his eyes were an ugly and fresher shade of red.
“y-you were waiting down here for me to wake up again just to have this conversation as soon as possible. ¿am i right?”
Th-this wasn’t supposed to go like this!
“I… I was-”
“I!” interrupted Jorge with an elevated tone of voice, “…Earlier, I woke up and went back to sleep a few times, I could see you sitting on the stairs, sometimes you and your pad would be missing, I kept thinking that maybe you were worried about me ¿you know?”
“I-” An intense look from him kept the rest of my response in my head; ‘I was!’ I wanted to plead.
“I guess you didn’t plan for me falling asleep after crying…” He trailed off and seemed to go into deep thought for a moment, before his eyes narrowed dangerously. “¿Did you just bring me that Atole to soften the blow?” He held up one of his claws towards me while making a stabbing motion with it, his voice came out as a much lower growl than normal from him. “¿Or was putting me to sleep part of the plan?”
My face felt as if I’d been hit by an icy gale. ‘Did he just insinua-?’
“You’re fucking heartless.” That last sentence from him was punctuated by a fresh set of tears from his eyes, though no sobbing came from him as he let himself fall backwards down onto the floor, like a puppet with its strings suddenly cut.
My heart was beating wildly, and my eyes stung from the horrible accusations that he was making, and from how I’d probably be doing just what he had said if this had happened a few days ago…
I gave myself a moment to recollect myself, I’d thought similar enough things when I was alone in the hospital after losing my family, not nearly as extreme but… my circumstances back then and his right now weren’t comparable.
I shuddered internally at how much worse I’d have fared if it had been Venlil Prime that had been attacked; I’d probably… I’d have tried to do what he tried last night…
With a sigh I focused consciously on Jorge, who was breathing a bit more steadily now, as I picked up the bottle and moved steadily towards his alert gaze.
I sat down in front of him and opened the bottle, he narrowed his eyes even further in response, making the redness and glistening more pronounced, the patches of fur above his eyes changed position as well; I didn’t quite know what it meant, but it couldn’t possibly have been from him feeling happy or at peace.
I pushed through the sense of fear that was starting to form from being under his stare and took in the rest of his body language… I readjusted my position and observed as he flinched away from me…
I slowly raised the bottle and drank; The patches of fur over his eyes returned to their normal position, overshot and stayed raised while the intensity of his stare diminished. Finally, he tilted his head ever so slightly.
After a few gulps more I stopped drinking and offered him the bottle, he still wasn’t accepting it; I wiped my lips and prepared to speak.
“…I wouldn’t do that to you…” A small quiver at the end made me trail off until I was certain my voice wouldn’t fail me. I wouldn’t do that now. “None of those things, I mean… Even after all I did… You gave me a chance…”
“When you put it like that…” Jorge wiped his eyes. “I mean, I don’t know what came over me…” He looked to the side and deflated a little.
“I understand… I was like this too…” A small shiver traveled through my spine, thinking about it always did… I ignored the shiver by standing up and offering him the bottle again, this time he grabbed it and drank deeply.
He trailed behind me, we sat down on opposite sides of the bed, him hugging his legs as he sat against the wall, and me with one leg over the edge of the bed with the other one crossed over it.
Dozens of starting points were flurrying in my head, I couldn’t decide on one, so I cleared my throat and let myself say whatever came out first.
“I’m married.” Jorge became extremely visibly confused. “I-I’m a Widow, I meant to say…” The familiar sting of pain grounded me as his expression changed into one I could recognize even from him, pity.
“He-” died “…It happened 11 years ago, I… I lost my family at the same time…”
Jorge’s expression softened even more, no longer out of pity, but out of understanding… of the pain we shared…
“It was my dad’s idea, he’s always wanted to have a big family homestead… when the latest batch of colonies were finally cleared for habitation he bought a plot immediately, my sister and her husband went with them first, then my brother and his wife, and finally me and…”
This whole talking thing was much harder than I thought… I cleared my throat; I couldn’t go on just omitting any names in my retelling…
“Krayla, that’s my mother’s name.” I paused, waiting for his reaction, he ‘nodded’ slowly, solemnly. “Tavk’io, my dad; Talnum, my b-brother; Tahyiya, m-my sister; …a-and Glim, m-my husband…”
I buried my head in my paws, this was too much…
A moment passed, I felt something brush against my tail; Opening my eyes I saw that it was Jorge’s claw, he patted the tip gently until his eyes met mine.
“Emiliano José Cauich Ayala, t-that’s my father’s name.” He paused to breathe and wiped his eyes. “Ixchel Paola Rojas Canul, that’s my mother’s name.”
We stayed in silence for a while longer, at least in my case recovering from the emotional toll that I had just gone through.
“S-shortly after we arrived at the colony,” I began. “I l-learned I was p-pregnant, G-Glim and I celebrated it with my family, we were going to name our baby after my brother and his wife, Kiyomi. It… It was something we had all come up with [years] before, everything was going just like we had dreamed and talked so much about…”
I squeezed my tail against myself, all those nights at the colony laughing and joking with each other about increasingly outlandish names (ones that we’d never use of course), gone just like that…
“G-Glim and Talnum were busy helping the colony expand by clearing new plots for development and as buffer zones, I helped around with Taylee and Talim when needed but I helped dad with the house most of the time; There were always things that needed to be taken care of after all. Th-then one day in the colony, I f-fainted while picking up Taylee and Talim from school, a f-few [weeks] after that… I had to be sent back here since the colony’s hospital had lost their last equipment shipment to an Arxur raid.” I paused and lowered my voice. “G-Glim stayed behind to take extra assignments, t-to cover expenses, h-he… he was… he was on his last pawful of shifts b-before leave wh-when…”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“…D-dad was at home looking after the kids, he’d sprained his leg while doing some maintenance, he called me early in the morning there, Talnum and Glim were in some kind of assignment together, and my mother had taken everyone else to get stuff from the market to prepare a farewell meal f-for Glim…” And after that… “The call disconnected abruptly, it had happened before so I… I j-joked to m-myself a-and the nurse that it was p-probably j-just the signal failing because I wasn’t there to maintain things p-properly…”
Tears started forming in my eyes again, Jorge shuffled closer, put his soft claw on my shoulder and gave a light squeeze, his warmth spread throughout me.
“…A few claws later I learnt the truth, that the colony had been raided and that the shelter had been breached, shortly after that, I… I lost my…” I did my best to look him directly in his eyes. “After that… I started planning how to get to the hospital’s roof…” There, a glint of recognition and pain in his eyes. “I was just waiting for the rescue fleet to finish up there, just in case, thankfully… my dad hid Taylee and Talim in one of the [Kitchen] cabinets after taking down the family pictures, since he couldn’t take them to the shelter, he… Taylee told me that he… he begged her to keep quiet before closing the cabinet. She stayed in there with Talim for I don’t even know how long… She… She hasn’t talked about it ever again.”
Another squeeze, then silence and cold as he retracted his claw back towards him, his face turning to another side while taking on some kind of thoughtful intensity.
“S-So… What I’ve been trying to say was… I kind of understand what you’re going through… A-and if you want to talk… I-I’m here?”
A small ‘nod’, and more silence. My eyes were beginning to feel heavy again, that nap hadn’t been enough it seemed.
Jorge harrumphed, causing a bolt of wakefulness to course through me as he began speaking, filling in the silence that had fallen on the room.
“…I don’t think I’m ready yet…” His face turned towards me once more. “But… thank you, for sharing, and for worrying about me, I… If you hadn’t been there when I drifted into and out of sleep…” His eyes widened in a flash. “Wait. ¿You haven’t slept right? ¿Are you feeling OK?”
“I-I t-took a nap after you f-fell asleep…” B-beneath him… “Y-you left a lot of space…” He did, but I couldn’t get to it from under his legs…
“Good, good…” His eyes flicked between me and the door. “Well… I suppose you’ve got stuff to do now. ¿Am I right?” Somehow, the expression that sat now on his face felt forced in a way. I kept quiet as I rummaged through my memories of The Aftermath.
Of course, he was trying to get me out to wallow in peace, just as I did…
That was the last thing he needed right now.
I needed to find a way to get him out of this room…
“Actually… I’m free until my kids get back, I’m used to taking care of chores quickly.”
“Right…” Jorge seemed to slowly steel himself, if I didn’t interrupt me, he’d just ask me to leave directly…
I tried to think faster, but the drowsiness was returning in force, it was no use… Unless…
“H-Hey!” My exclamation startled him, I pressed on to keep the momentum strong. “I uh, I kind of went through my whole supply of [shade root] tea to stay awake…” I didn’t. “And… I don’t really want to drink more energy drinks this Paw, I don’t suppose you have something to stay awake with you?”
Jorge blinked, again, once more, and again one last time before responding.
“¿I… think I have some coffee I could make?” He tilted his head adorably to one side as he scratched his head with one claw.
“Sounds perfect! Would you please make me some?” I stood up before he could even answer, reached for his idle claw and tugged at it towards me; He stood up in what seemed like a daze out of reflex.
We spent the next few [minutes] browsing the intact shelf, whatever this coffee was, it wasn’t there, the tentatively positive mood that had formed cracked a little as Jorge looked at the shelf barricade before he trudged over to it, stopping beside it where he gestured at vaguely with his claw.
We stepped past the barricade, tried not to look at each other, failed, shuffled in place for a moment and began sifting through the items strewn about the floor in an unspoken agreement.
It wasn’t long until I found myself holding a container that my translator insisted was labeled ‘Instant Coffee’. “Hey,” I started while turning, “is this the ri-” Jorge was looking intensely at something on the floor, I followed his gaze and saw it, the broken remains of the flame projector.
“J-Jorge?” I extended my tail cautiously towards his arm, his claws ceased to strain against themselves following the subtle flinch he had when the tip of my tail made contact with him.
I gave him the ‘Instant Coffee’ I was holding and scooped up the remains to dispose of them properly this time; Jorge held up the container and murmured an affirmation at me, I gestured for him to lead the way and proceeded to follow him to the [kitchen].
I raced my way directly to the trash container, separated the single-use fuel cannister from the remains I was holding, and dumped the inert bits inside; I’d have to take this last part to a proper disposal collection point in town some other time. For now, I glanced at Jorge and tucked it into a discreet spot in the cabinets when he wasn’t looking. Only after that did I notice what a mess I’d made up here despite my best efforts at cleaning up…
Jorge’s eyes were scanning all over the [kitchen], taking in every splotch, every spill and every crusted over utensil I’d used, he lingered noticeably longer on the open and haphazardly arranged containers of his that I had used, finally he stared at the Vanilla Extract bottle with a soft expression, it was the only container that had remained completely spotless and didn’t have a significant amount of its contents drained.
Yet another unreadable expression had settled on his face as he took a big pot and barely put any water in it, the other more reasonably sized ones just too dirty to deal with quickly, before putting it to boil on the [stove top].
“Uh…” He shifted his weight from one leg to the other a few times. “I… never did thank you for the drink earlier ¿Didn’t I?”
“N-no but there’s no ne-”
The patches of fur above his eyes furrowed together.
“You… mentioned before that you entered the program for money…” He looked confused. “¿Why didn’t you just… ask for me to be picked up? You’d have gotten someone else in no time… Hell, I’d still understand if you did it now. You don’t have to go through all this trouble for me.” The confused expression deepened as he gestured at the messy remains around us.
“…”
He was waiting for an answer.
“I… w-well I d-did enter for the money… b-but… I don’t want to just replace you… I like being around you. I d-don’t know if we’re there yet… But I’d like to be… f-friends! W-with you someday…” Oh Protector, I couldn’t be more obvious unless I just came out and said it…
“Well for what it’s worth… Thank you Tayla, you don’t know what that means to me right now.” He was looking directly at me, with raw emotion and palpable aliveness, my face started to feel as if I was standing under sunlight…
“I-It was the l-least I could d-do…” It was worth it even though he didn’t seem to understand quite what I accidentally meant before…
I was spared from further embarrassment by the pot of water sizzling violently behind Jorge who turned around in a blur to turn the heat off, while he did that I grabbed two (clean) mugs and set them down near him, though I didn’t move my paws quite fast enough as his claw brushed against me while he moved the mugs closer to him to pour the water on them.
He let the water cool down a little as he put his sugar and ‘Instant Coffee’ containers close to the mugs; He poured the less-than-boiling water into the mugs, stirred in a measure of ‘Instant Coffee’ and a measure of sugar as well.
He passed me a mug with a cryptic warning. “If it’s not to your taste, let me know.” Then he grabbed the other one, sipped a little and waited.
The mischievous glint in his eyes left me no choice, I’d have to play along for now; I raised the mug and sipped…
SPEH
WHY WAS EVERYTHING THESE HUMANS HAD SO BITTER?
I futilely attempted to remove the grimace from my face; Strangely, the roar of laughter I expected was nowhere to be heard, I found myself looking at Jorge with some amount of concern, though the clear, if understated, smile he sported calmed me down somewhat.
Wordlessly, Jorge reached for my mug and the can of powdered coconut milk, he then proceeded to mix in a little of it in both mugs, turning the liquid from a dark oily brown to a much lighter tone. Finally he mixed in a single drop of his Vanilla Extract in each mug and gave me back mine.
I gave him the best glare I could manage as I pouted at him, he took a deep drink from his own mug and held it up for me to examine.
With a sigh I tried mine again.
Warm. Flowery. Smooth. Bitter but not too much, like a perfectly harvested root. But most importantly of all, I could feel myself waking slightly more already, whether it was just self-suggestion or the drink having an effect so soon I couldn’t tell.
Once more, the reaction I expected from Jorge was missing, this time he seemed to be lost in thought, staring at a distant point in the air.
I took a moment to examine him, whatever he was thinking, it was starting to fester. It’d be better to get him talking “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s no-” He shook his head. “It’s just… I… my dad… he liked to drink his without adding anything, no sugar, no… coconut milk…, and… me and mom used to tease him about it…” He was retreating into himself once more.
I kept drinking my coffee; There had to be something else I could talk with him about…
Jorge straightened up, something about his posture, about the way he held himself had changed.
“Say… Tayla… ¿Can I ask you for a favor?” Despite the confidence he exuded he was running one of his claws over the back of his mug repeatedly.
“W-what kind of favor?”
“There’s something I want, no, something I need to make for the end of the [month], and… I’m going to need your help getting the stuff, I’d just ask you to get it all for me, but honestly that wouldn’t be right.”
“O-ok, but you still haven’t told me what the favor is?”
“I need to buy flowers, candles, a good tablecloth, and see what dishes I can actually make here that’d be good enough.”
“W-What for?” W-Was he? My heart was beating wildly in a peculiar mix of elation, nervousness and apprehension.
“I’m going to make an Altar for Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos), it’s the least I can do for my family all the way over here.”
W-
Wh-
WHAT?

July 7th Excerpt From the Journal of Violet Stone
​
I don’t remember much. Just the scenery flying by me as I ran from the train station. I didn’t see anyone chasing me. But I felt chased. I didn’t know what to think, what to feel, or even where the hell I was going. The only thing I felt was fear.
​
When I finally stopped, it was because I just couldn’t run any further. My lungs burned, begging me for air. So I ducked into an alley, trying to catch my breath, and organize my thoughts. The rain pounding down around me was too loud. The street was too quiet and every car that passed by sent another fresh jolt of terror through me as I replayed what had happened at the train station over and over again in my mind. The way that he’d fallen, the look on his face in the instant before he’d gone under the train. Oh God… I couldn’t get it out of my head! I couldn’t stop seeing it in my mind!
​
I wanted to go home, but was that even an option? How the hell does someone just go home after something like that? I couldn’t just waltz through the door like nothing was wrong! If Sam and Lisa didn’t notice, Rose sure as hell would and that assuming that the police weren’t already there. Someone could have recognized me! That Marilyn Monroe looking girl on the platform had gotten a good look at me. What if she told someone? It didn’t matter whether I’d meant to push the guy or not! It didn’t matter how much I’d fucking hated him at the time. He was dead. I was responsible. I’d pushed him. It was my fault.
​
‘I’ve just fucking killed a man!’
​
That thought… that reality didn’t feel real. It hadn’t truly hit me yet.
​
‘I’ve just fucking killed a man!’
​
I felt sick. If I actually had anything in my stomach, I might have even thrown up. Moving made me feel even worse, so I just stood there, letting the rain soak me to the bone, shaking from the horror and the cold while I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do next. But all I could think about was the way he looked as the train went over him, and wondering if anything would have changed if I’d at least tried to grab him. Could I have caught him? Could I have saved him? What then? What would happen next? As far as I knew that motherfucker had murdered my goddamn parents! Should I really have even bothered trying to save him? Maybe I should have felt vindicated by all of this? Maybe this was some kind of justice, right? It sure as hell didn’t feel like justice. It’s not like I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this had been the guy! There were doubts! There were a lot of fucking doubts!
​
I heard the sirens in the distance. But nobody came for me. I saw a police cruiser pass my alley. It didn’t stop for me, but it did make me think about my sweater. The goddamn sweater… it would probably be enough to identify me, right?
​
For a moment, I thought about turning myself in to the police. I mean, maybe once I told them that it was an accident, then maybe they’d be cool with it and let me go? I mean, the police are just known for being trustworthy and reasonable, right? What did I possibly have to worry about with them? I could just turn myself in and everything would be hunky fucking dory! ‘Oh, you just threw a man in front of a fucking subway train! Yeah, no big. Go home! Take a load off! Get some coffee! Try not to think about the man you just threw under a fucking subway train!’ Yes! Go to the police Violet! Great idea! And while you’re at it why don’t you do it in the fucking nude too? GREAT IDEA VIOLET! ALMOST AS GREAT AS THE TIME YOU THREW A MAN IN FRONT OF A FUCKING SUBWAY TRAIN! REMEMBER THAT?
​
I took off the sweater and abandoned it in the nearest dumpster. I hid it under some trash bags and hoped to God that nobody would ever find it, then, after standing in the rain like an idiot for several minutes with no idea on where to go next, I started walking home.
​
Nobody noticed me.
​
Nobody followed me.
​
The city was just… quiet. Not quiet, quiet. But nothing felt out of place. The world around me almost felt normal, and it was my own fault that the normalcy felt wrong somehow.
I entered my old bedroom through the fire escape, just like I used to back in high school when sneaking out at night to drink was the worst thing I’d ever done. I could hear people in the apartment, and I listened to see if any of the voices were unfamiliar. I heard Sam and Lisa talking over breakfast, and I could hear the TV. Nothing out of the ordinary. It satisfied me enough that I was safe. I locked my bedroom door and crawled into bed, pulling the covers over my head and listening to the rain and the voices outside. But I heard nothing out of the ordinary. It was like nothing had happened. Like it was all just a bad dream. Eventually, I fell asleep.
​
I stayed in bed until well after noon, staring up at the ceiling when I couldn’t sleep anymore. Sam and Lisa both left for work. I could hear Rose going around the house. She’d said that she had the day off, save for classes in the evening. She only bothered me once, though. Knocking on my door to check on me. I told her I was sick, and she didn’t pry. She didn’t sound suspicious. Just concerned.
​
I kept replaying what had happened at the subway station over and over again in my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and I couldn’t stop hating the quiet around me.
​
Sometimes, I wondered if it was just a bad dream. If maybe I’d never even left my room at all. Maybe I just wanted to believe that. It was better than thinking I’d just killed someone. There was a part of me that didn’t really seem to care. It still hadn’t fully hit me yet. After all, no one had come for me. So maybe it really was just a bad dream? Even if it hadn’t been, how had that man known who my Mom was? What about the things he’d said? Was it just a weird coincidence, or a horrible mistake? Maybe it was both.
​
I checked my phone when the afternoon began to slip into evening. The whole event was getting hazier in my mind. I was starting to convince myself it hadn’t happened. Lisa had messaged me, asking how I was feeling. Rose must’ve told her I was sick. I lied and said I was feeling a bit better, then I checked the news.
​
When I read the story I felt sick all over again. No name for my victim, no information at all. The man who’d gone under the train was just identified as ‘a man.’ That was it. Nothing else. There wasn’t even a picture of him.
​
There was however a picture of me… kinda.
​
It was blurry as hell. I tried to make out my own face amongst the black and white pixels but I couldn’t. It might have been me as I entered the station, although my hood was over my head, my hair was covered, and the only thing I could sort of identify was my lips, which aren’t exactly that distinct. Really, it could have been anyone in that picture. Anyone at all.
​
‘An unknown possible suspect’ It said under the picture. Followed by: ‘The suspect is believed to be male, approximately 6’2 and was last seen wearing a grey hoodie and jeans.’
​
They got the outfit right, and were only a little off with the height by two inches.
​
All in all… I can’t say that any of this really seemed damning to me. Although the idea that the police (or at least the news) had no idea who I was didn’t do a whole hell of a lot to calm me down. The idea of ‘getting away with it’ seemed just as bad as being caught.
​
For the second time that evening, I wondered about turning myself in to the police. I mean, this wasn’t exactly first degree murder. It was an accident! That had to be at least manslaughter, right? I mean, it was still a crime but it wasn’t first degree murder, right?
​
Christ… I was probably committing an even bigger crime by not coming forward! Why wasn’t I going to the nearest police station? What the hell was stopping me? Fear? Fear of what, consequences? You don’t fucking kill a man and not suffer any consequences! Even if it was an accident, there had to be some kind of consequence, right?
​
Was it justice? Assuming that this guy really had been the one who’d killed my parents all those years ago, did he really deserve to die like that? Thrown screaming under a train and… and…
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God I didn’t even know if it was really the guy or not! It could have been anyone! He could’ve just randomly known my Mom and just so happened to look like her killer! It wasn’t even a perfect resemblance! I mean, fuck, how many fucking people in New York have blond hair, blue eyes and glasses? Thousands at least! Justice wasn’t a valid excuse! It just wasn’t!
​
I wanted to continue to lie there and stew, but I don’t know if that was really an option anymore. Slowly, I forced myself to get out of bed and head into the kitchen. I’d eaten nothing all day, which wasn’t all that healthy of a diet. As a further fuck you to my digestive system, I rummaged through the cupboard. There was a box of off brand pop tarts that I jammed them in the toaster for breakfast, if you could still call it that at five in the evening.
​
While I waited for my sugar enriched breakfast to ‘cook’ I raided the fridge for a drink. I found some OJ, and wandered into the living room. Rose had already left for class, but I knew Sam and Lisa would have been home soon.
​
When they did come home, they found me in the living room, under a blanket and finishing my shitty off brand pastries. Lisa fussed over me, like I knew she would. Sam just took over the TV and changed the channel to something other than the news.
​
I went to bed early last night, checking the news stories again on my phone before lying awake in bed. I might have slept a little. I couldn’t really say. I was just alone with my thoughts.
​
I’m not supposed to go back to Toronto for another day or so. But maybe I could leave early? Fuck off, leave all of this behind me and try to move on with my life? Sam and Lisa wouldn’t question it… much. That sounded like a horrible idea though. Just… fucking off, forgetting, pretending that this didn’t happen. It sounded like a mistake. Running away seemed like the exact kind of thing that would come back to bite me in the ass… and then what would I do? Was I supposed to just keep running from it? I knew in my gut that this would only ever make things worse. What would that do to Sam and Lisa? What would it do to Rose? I didn’t want to find out. I didn’t want to put them through that!
​
As I lay in bed a quiet resignation settled over me… and oddly enough, with it came a bit of peace. I guess even if no one else ever found out about what had happened at Prince Street, even if I took that secret to my grave, it would still gnaw at me. I’d still be looking over my shoulder, waiting for the day to come when it caught up with me. I didn’t want to deal with that. I didn’t want to put my family through that!
​
So I made a decision.
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I don’t know if this will be my final entry or not.. I might not be coming back after this. Sam, Lisa, Rose… if any of you are reading this, I’m sorry. I swear to God, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.
​
I’m going to go to the police in the morning and I’m going to turn myself in. So if this is it… well… goodbye.
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I hope you don’t hate me too much.
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***
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Okay, so what the fuck?
​
I did the right thing! I turned myself in to the police! I was ready to go to jail over this!
​
Instead, I’m back in my old bedroom at Sam and Lisa’s and I’m 99.9% sure that I’m off the hook.
​
I went to the police station. I told them that I was there to confess and up until that point, things went as expected. They took me to an interrogation room and I waited for someone to come and talk to me. I was in there for about an hour, fidgeting aimlessly with my hands and waiting for some kind of judgment before someone finally bothered to show up.
​
The guy who walked through the door had a sort of ex military look to him. His eyes were intense and he had a muscular physique with a neatly trimmed goatee. He didn’t say a word to me as he came in. He just looked down at the file in his hands before sitting down at the desk.
​
“Violet Stone, right?” He asked. Straight to business. I always thought that Detectives were supposed to come off as friendly at first. This guy seemed like he’d come in with the express purpose of kicking my ass.
“Yeah, I’m Violet.” I said.
​
He looked up at me, sizing me up for a moment before huffing.
“Alright… well Violet, well my name is Vincent Bennett. I’m the Detective assigned to the Arthur White case. I understand you’re here with information, correct?”
​
Arthur White? Was that the name of the guy I’d killed?
“Yeah… I was… I was the one on the subway platform with him.”
“The one who pushed him?” Bennett asked.
​
I hesitated for a moment before nodding.
“It… it was an accident!” I said, “He’d grabbed my arm, I was just trying to get him off of me!”
“Right… tell you what Violet, why don’t you walk me through what happened yesterday morning, okay? Tell me everything that you remember.”
​
I did just that. I told him about how I’d run into Arthur and his daughter while I’d been out on a jog, I told him about how he’d mentioned my mother and how I’d followed him, and finally I told him about what had happened on the subway platform.
​
The whole time, Bennett just took notes and nodded quietly, only pausing a few times to ask a question.
“So - you attest that it was an accident, that Mr. White fell into the path of the oncoming train?” He asked.
“Yeah… yeah, it was.” I said.
“Okay. You mind if I ask why it took so long for you to come forward?” He asked, “I mean… this happened yesterday morning. It’s been at least twenty four hours.”
​
“I was panicking!” I said, “Look, I didn’t know what to do or if I should come forward or what!”
“A man was killed,” Bennett replied. “And you fled the crime scene. You also took a while to come forward. Forgive me if I find any of that suspicious.”
“Well, I’m trying to do the right thing now!” I argued although Bennett’s stony expression didn’t seem to change much.
​
“Miss Stone… are you aware of who Arthur White is?” He asked. “Do you know much about the White family?”
That question of his seemed awfully loaded.
​
“No, why are they important?” I asked.
“Depends on which circles you run in,” Bennett replied. “I’m gonna be honest with you… Arthur White was a real piece of shit. I wouldn’t really call him the worst member of the White family. Arguably he made the rest of them look saintly in comparison. But he was still a man with a… history. You say he resembled the man who you believed killed your parents… was that your only motivation for following him to the Prince Street station?”
“He mentioned my Mother by name!” I said, “He said he knew Diana Stone!”
​
Bennett paused, before looking up at me again.
“You’re Diana Stone’s daughter?” He asked.
My brow furrowed.
“What, you knew her too?” I asked.
“I’ve… heard the name before.”
​
My heart skipped a beat.
“So he did kill them…” I said softly, “You’re telling me that he did kill them?”
“Arthur White was not a suspect in the Diana Stone murder, no. His-”
​
Bennett’s phone started to ring before he could finish whatever it was that he was trying to say. His ringtone was the opening riff of ‘Phantom of the Opera’ by Iron Maiden.
​
He paused, tensing up a little at the sound of the ringtone. Then he quietly reached into his pocket to take his phone out. He stared at the screen, which depicted a big red X on it, before quietly standing up.
​
“Excuse me,” He said softly as he left the room, and for a few minutes, I sat there in the uneasy silence, waiting for him to come back. I found myself fidgeting with my hands again as I looked over at the mirror that dominated the wall to my left. I figured that there had to be someone behind it, watching me. Maybe it was Bennett? I squinted, trying to see if I could see him behind the glass, but there was no luck.
​
The only thing I saw was my own reflection, squinting back at me like an idiot and the security camera in the corner behind me. I looked back up at the camera, staring into it for a moment. I wondered if maybe Bennett was watching me through there. Maybe nobody was watching me? It was hard to say. I stared back into the iris of the camera for a moment, before the door opened again and Detective Bennett came back in. I saw him stuffing his phone back into his pocket.
​
Something about his demeanor had changed, but it was hard to say exactly what. When he spoke to me again, his tone was much quieter.
“Thank you for your time, Miss Stone. We have all we need. You’re free to go.”
​
Free to go?
​
“Wait, what?” I asked. “I… I just killed a guy! What do you mean I’m free to go!”
“You indicated that Mr. White’s death was an accident, correct?” Bennett asked. “That’s all we need. Go home, kid.”
I stared at him in disbelief. He was just letting me go? I’d fucking killed a man and they were just letting me go? That didn’t make any sense!
​
“So that’s it?” I asked, “You’re not going to arrest me or… or press charges or…?”
“No. We’re not,” He said. “You’re free to go.”
​
He picked up his folder and headed for the door again, pausing before looking up at the camera and then back to me. He held the door open for me, and after a moment, I got up and followed him.
“Do I need to get a lawyer?” I asked.
“That won’t be necessary,” He replied as he led me back through the police station. Once we were back at the front door, he pushed through and gestured for me to follow.
​
Once we were outside, I watched him take out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
“So that’s just it, then?” I asked. This whole thing still confused me.
Detective Bennett still didn’t reply. He just looked up toward the building, before taking a drag on his cigarette.
“Take my advice, kid… don’t ever look a gift horse in the mouth. It might not always be so pretty on the inside,” He didn’t look at me as he said that. He started down the steps of the police station, before pausing. “And do yourself a favor, keep your head down for the next little while.”
​
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, but Detective Bennett was already walking away from me.
​
I’m not an idiot.
​
Something isn’t right here. I just don’t know what.
​
I keep thinking back to the phone call Bennett got. I’ve got a feeling that it had something to do with my sudden release. What I don’t know is what or why and to be honest, I’m not sure that I want to find out.
​
Bennett told me to keep my head down, and I’m smart enough to take his advice.
​
I’m leaving tonight.
​
I’m going to let Sam, Lisa, and Rose know over dinner. I’ll think of some bullshit excuse. Maybe I’ll say that it’s a work thing, or something. They’re not going to check. I’m supposed to be heading home in a couple of days anyway, so they’re not going to think too much of it if I leave early.
​
Either way, whatever the hell I’ve gotten myself into, I want to get out of it sooner rather than later.

Not kid related... & just here to vent and get some validation!
SO & I had a lovely evening together.. SD6 is with her mom tonight.
He was watching his show while I got some work done. When his show was over, he somehow got into his memories from his phone and started pulling up memories of us and trips we've all taken together onto the tv. THEN, pictures of his ex begin popping up here and there in random video memory compilations. The last one, which caused us to start arguing was one labeled "Cooking." It showed pictures of his daughter over the years learning to cook in the kitchen, and also pictures of his ex pregnant cooking and pictures of food on the stove where she was cooking and I could practically see down her shirt and stuff. You can't control what the phone decides to put in these featured videos.
He says, "I know you don't want to see this." and then he proceeds to get mad when I say, "You're right, I don't.. I don't know why you're continuing to play it." And then he gets all defensive, "I can't even watch old memories of my daughter without you having a problem with it!" Give me a freaking break!! Why on earth would I want to sit here and watch that? If it was flipped the other way, I'd absolutely stop playing the video. It's uncomfortable as hell! We started going back and forth bickering and now he went up to bed mad saying he'll never watch memory videos in front of me again lol. So immature.
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ETA: Can't wait for iphone to eventually come up with a way to block pictures of certain people in those dang memory videos! Not that they all have to be deleted, but jeeze... it would be nice to go through memories without having to see her face and watch them all happy together before their divorce!!

The themes I went for was: -Mostly black jackets -1 exception per team not being a black jacket but fan favourites -3 runner ups in each team. -1 questionable chef that fans often disliked. I known 32 is far too many for hells kitchen, I'd be interested in who you'd cut it down to and what would happen if this idea actually happens. And I know I'll get a little backlash for some of the picks whether they are not fan favourites, but part of the joy in hells kitchen and the secret to broadcasting is to have someone disliked in the public eye to create drama and raise viewer counts. Hope this layout I made works food enough as well lmao. Let me know what you think!

Recap of last episode
Theme Song Plays
Deliberations: Akira is frustrated at her bad performances so far. The Red and Blue Teams welcome their new members. The chefs fall back asleep, but are awoken by the LAPD. They escort the chefs downstairs for the next challenge.
Challenge: Gordon reveals that, for today's challenge, the Chefs will have to serve breakfast for emergency workers (police officers, firefighters, and EMTs). The Blue Team doesn't get off to a great start, with James serving undercooked eggs and Giancarlo burning the toast. The Red Team is alright to start, but Bryce becomes vocal and leads the Red Team to a dominant second challenge win.
Reward: As the next service was Family Night, the Red Team are brought to Santa Monica Pier to have fun at the amusement park.
Punishment: The Blue Team has to clean the firetrucks and ambulances outside. Candace falls and sprains her ankle, requiring medical attention. She voluntarily leaves as a result, with Gordon respecting her decision and ponders what could have been.
Gordon's comment: "Candace sadly has to leave Hell's Kitchen due to an injury. She could've won the competition, but unfortunately, we'll never know."
Before service: The Red Team is saddened by the sudden departure of Candace.
During service: The Blue Team gets off to their best start since Opening Night. Not one mistake is made during the appetizers. They make it to entrées 18 minutes in, an incredible feat. The Red Team do great as well, making it to entrées 23 minutes in. Five minutes into entrées, Martina makes a mistake so bad, Gordon almost kicks her out of Hell's Kitchen entirely, by bringing up THREE raw meats in a row. The one silver lining being that the meats weren't ordered for the children. Gordon sends her up to the dorms in seconds. Aside from that, the Blue Team is near perfect. The Red Team also has an amazing service, with Akira having her best service yet and taking control of the Red Kitchen. Both teams complete service for the first time this season, but both teams have to choose one nominee each.
Nominations: The Blue Team, with Tyrone as announcer, nominate Martina, for her horrendous mistake on meat. The Red Team, with Kelsie as announcer, nominate Lauryn for lacking confidence. Gordon, impressed by that night's service, says that he doesn't want to send anybody home, but that he's also a man of his word. He calls up Martina and tells her to give him her jacket. He said she started off good, but the wheels came off, and she never bounced back. She is disappointed in herself, but hopes the right opportunity will find her.
Gordon's comment: "While Candace had to leave due to a sprained ankle, Martina was like a thorn in my side. So, I had to grab my tongs and pull her out of the competition."

I am 15M and as of just now I have no idea what to do. Today was a normal day me and my sister 12F are home alone while our parents are at work and are doing our usual chores and hanging out but that's not the point. At around 5pm my father gets home and I say hello and welcome home and talk with him but the whole time he's angry in every response so I kinda avoided him my mother got home around 6 and I help her bring stuff in and go to my room. A little later I hear shouting but I think nothing of it as they mess around sometimes but then I hear a loud crash and lots of yelling and know there fighting they do fight off and on a out dumb shit but today was different someone broke and threw something when they fight yelling is all that happenes not hitting or breaking but not this time, I couldn't move I was scared so I waited there in my bed for what felt like forever but it was like 5 minutes or so. I slowly peek out and see that my mother's favorite vase had been thrown at the wall and everything on the counter had been flung off into the kitchen as I walked over I saw my father outside smoking a cigarette and my mother is cleaning, so I not knowing what to do I help clean, a few minutes ago by and he comes in saying that I shouldn't help her clean her mess all I tell him is that I want to help so the house is clean He doesn't respond to me but instead yells at my mother more and she yells back and I don't know what to say or do so I stay silent and clean up, He goes into his room and I finish cleaning with my mother, so I'm not sure what to do so I just go to hangout with my sister we talked and she cried for awhile and we had the dog in her room with us because she didn't want to be neer either our parents. So after awhile we take the dog out our mother comes out to clean the porch and we talk and I ask what the hell happened, she told me they started to argue a bit and she got mad and hucked a thing of peanuts at him hit him on his cheek so he got mad and yelled calling her a whore and a cunt and flipped out and flung everything off the counter and threw her favorite vase at the wall hitting my nieces toys with dirty water, "I cleaned them all up they are all good" and he took off his wedding ring and threw it at the floor at her and said he wants a divorce and her being already really pissed said sure that she would call her dad to get a check to do it, she started to cry telling me and my sister so my sister hugged her for a bit then they started cleaning the porch again and I sat on the bottom steps with my dog as my father came out to smoke, they start yelling again and stop fast after they tell about divorce again and finally realized there are kids and parents next door who can hear them he goes in we sit out for a bit longer and then go to my sisters room again with the dog, as I'm writing this my sister is on the top bunk reading her book while I'm laying down on the bottom bunk with the dog. I just don't know what I should do about all this.

Ok so my son is a little over 2.5 years. We have been successfully using the potty for pee for MONTHS now. We still will not poop in the potty. I brought it up with the pediatrician and she said "stop giving him pull ups. He can do it." So we tried that...he went 5 days without pooping and, at the advice of a potty training book that his pediatrician had recommended to us, we ended up giving him a suppository. We thought, "great, this is our chance to coach him to use the potty for poop." This kid is the most stubborn I've ever seen. He HELD HIS POOP for HOURS after the suppository. We had him bare butt and near the potty afterwards. **Gross stuff after these asterisks** He was leaking liquid doo doo out of his booty but did not release the motherload until finally we couldn't take him being in discomfort (and cleaning leaky poo) anymore and gave him his pull up.
I messaged the pediatrician after that with a "WTF else do we do?" and the clinic nurse says "yeah if it's been some days, give him the pull up."
We cannot seem to convince him to poop on the potty. CUrrently, we are putting him in a pull up and making him stand in the bathroom while he poops (he usually would poop in his play kitchen). We've offered a potty in the play kitchen (his safe space) but he refuses. We also have tried to let him poop a little then transition to the potty, which he responds with just not pooping anymore. We also try to get him to sit on the potty with his pull up on, which sometimes he poops, but usually not.
I'm getting concerned because pee has been successful for a long time. We aren't in pull ups anymore except for naps and a night time diaper for sleeping. He ONLY asks for a pull up for pooping. It's now getting to the point where if we remind him that pull up pooping only happens in the bathroom, he'll just refuse it all together. I'm sad and worried cause I know his little tummy is hurting. It also feels like we're just never going to go poop. He doesn't poop in his undies, either.
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Everything I look at for guidance has been really unhelpful as we've already tried most things with no success, or they aren't reasonable for our family and schedule. I work shift work that has me out of the house for about 14 hours 3-4 days a week and husband works from home but not in a capacity that allows for easy child-rearing. We send our son to daycare, but the peer pressure from his friends hasn't helped with the poop thing (but does wonders for everything else).
I'm not sure what else, if anything to try. I don't want him to think this is forever. We read books and talk a lot about poop and where it goes and how you feel and how we need to practice going poop on the potty and one day we'll get it and we'll get our "big boy bed" (our only real bargaining chip at this point). We don't bribe with food or toys really, and he's only somewhat motivated with sticker charts.
Help? solidarity? What do?! Will he EVER poo?
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TL;DR: My son is a super star with peeing but only poops in a pull up and we've tried a lot and can't seem to get the poo in the toilet.

I think the murders way too old for the guys ever to cover, but it really has everything they look for in their episodes. For one, it has the oldest, rustiest panhandle behavior. First the town but that is charitable it is a village. It's St. Peter's Village, Pennsylvania. It was a 19th-century mining town and still has some of the best rock deposits in the world if you care about that kind of thing. The whole town is owned by this one very old Italian guy, unless he died, but then it is owned by his family. They are shady about whether he is still alive or not.It's also historically registered so between the family and that you can't do shit in this town. You can't paint a shingle without a permit. Of course, we had a dumb small town festival or two, but there's nothing to stand out there. Let's get into the murder. In the mid 19th century, there was a sex cult outside of Philly. They were big into free love, and they were run by a Quaker lady and an ex-con. In these days, Quaker women were seen as very base because they were allowed to have opinions and preach at Quaker meetings. This lady was in an interracial relationship with a black man in Philly. Obviously, in those days, this coupled with the cults messages about safe sex, legal abortion, same sex attraction , and what we today might term polyamory got them kicked the hell out of Philly. So they ran to the sticks full of people like my ancestors ( Pennsylvania Dutch farm folk). These people were given a message about how they should all share their wives, and the mad lads actually went for it! So, the cult existed rather tenously with the local populations in more "civilized" places like Pottstown. They reportedly had orgies in this one water house, which was actually located on my childhood friend's parents' property. More on that house later. They also burst into a church service fully naked and walked down the aisle. That little stunt, along with their tendency to bathe naked in the town river, got them in big trouble with the law. So there was a hell of a trial, and the cult was forced to disband.... That Quaker lady she kept living in the house I mentioned earlier , never married, and then one day, she was murdered in her kitchen. To this day, the murder was never solved because one gentleman who was set to stand trial hung himself, and another was run over by a train. The first guy left a note. That's the whole wild tale. My dad actually met a guy, well over 90, whose grandfather had witnessed the cult at the age of 5 or 6. A crazy tale, no doubt. Edit: Cult was the Battle Axes of Love Valley. Love Valley still exists and was later a Christian summer camp. Today, it is an abandoned Christian summer camp, and the place is creepy. There is even a sign explaining the name of the Valley and the cult/murder there!

So I went on a binge of Hell’s Kitchen and found a list of chefs that died. One of them died from UC complications. Since I just left the hospital and I’m loaded on steroids rn, it just made my mental health dip. I know UC doesn’t have a high death rate due to surgeries and treatments, but god damn it was heartbreaking. Funny enough the show doesn’t really make me hungry. I’m just there for the drama lol.

I bought View to the West from a police auction for thirty dollars (okay, fine, it was the starting price and there were no other bids). It was (is) an oil painting, or so I assume, and the burnished bronze frame was included with it, and I figure the price was probably worth thirty bucks in the frame alone. The painting itself is pretty enough that I figured at the time it would make a nice little piece to hang over the couch of our apartment and add a little maturity to the look of the one-bedroom my boyfriend and I share.
When I brought it home, my boyfriend was furious, accusing me of wasting money again because I "knew" that every penny was precious. He was unemployed and I was barely keeping us afloat with my grocery clerk job. Thirty bucks was a lot of money, especially for something he labeled as a frivolity, but I never got to spend any money on myself.
"Thirty bucks is worth my mental health" is the general tune of what I said. He wanted to argue, but even if he wanted to break up right there he'd be homeless, no close living family to speak of. Besides, we were technically in love and he couldn't leave me without putting some major thought into it.
I wish I could tell you what the painting looked (looks!) like, but I don't remember by now. I only remember the frame, with its intricate little floral designs and details. It's heavy, like real bronze, and the painting itself is about three feet wide and two feet tall, plus a few inches for the frame. There's no signature on it, which pointed to something maybe mass-manufactured, but the texture on the canvas (I'm trashy and touched it, shut up) made me think that it might be hand-painted.
I hung it up over the couch as planned, without the help of my boyfriend who still stubbornly clung to the notion that it was a waste of money. He slept underneath it on the couch that night when I told him it was my money and I was allowed to spend it.
The morning after, as I was getting ready for work, my boyfriend seemed shaken. I asked him what was wrong, knowing he was about to pick another fight over the stupid painting I'd bought at the auction.
The painting, he said, was making him uneasy all night. There was something weird about it, and he said he wanted me to take it back to the auction to see if I could get my money back. Of course I didn't do that. It was a lame excuse anyway, and I had to work the next few days. The reason he was uneasy, I told him, was probably because it was a confiscated item from a police auction and he thought it was some kind of criminal paraphernalia. Which it wasn't. Isn't.
When I got home from work he was still at home like usual. But instead of lounging on the sofa watching Dr. Phil, he was sitting in the middle of the living room floor, looking up at View to the West like he was worshipping Christ Himself.
When I said his name, he didn't look up.
I had to shake his shoulder to get his attention, and when he finally looked up at me, his eyes were red and dry. He managed to blink a few times and I asked him what the hell he was doing.
He didn't know.
He thought he had seen a little black figure cross through the painting (it must have been some kind of a landscape, now that I'm writing it now) when he had been trying to go back to sleep on the couch after I left, and after that he couldn't stop staring at it. He claimed he hadn't realized so much time had passed while he was staring at it, and I wanted to accuse him of being dramatic, but those eyes were too hard to fake.
Fine, I said. If it was bothering him that much, we could cover it up and I'd try to take it back in a few days when I had time off again. He nodded, and his joints creaked when he got up to help me cover it up with a throw from our couch. How long had he been sitting there? That was the first real sign that something was wrong, but I ignored the unease that crept up the back of my neck.
He slept in bed with me that night, but when I woke up in the middle of the night for water, I was alone. I went out into the kitchen and saw my boyfriend in the living room again, wrapped now in the blanket we had put over the painting. His eyes were trained on it like it was the only thing anchoring him to this reality, and I even doubted that much. Despite the fearful feeling in my gut that something was very, very wrong with him, I approached. I even tried to put myself between him and the painting, but he stared right on through me.
I shook him again and he waved me off. I regret this, but I went back to bed shivering instead of calling for help. I didn't know what to do. Please don't judge me for that.
When I woke up to my alarm in the morning, my boyfriend was nowhere to be seen. The blanket he'd been wrapped in was in the middle of the laminate flooring of the living room, discarded. The door was locked, the bathroom empty, too, but he'd left his keys on the kitchen counter where they always sat.
And there was the painting, hung up on the wall where it had always been. I inspected it, hoping to see what my boyfriend had seen in it, trying to understand the obsession and praying it would tell me where he had gone. Fear soaked my bones. What if the painting had become too much for him to handle, what if I had awoken a psychotic break with the painting, what if he was on the street losing his mind and I was sitting at home, fretting over what he might be doing instead of going out to search for him?
And then I saw them: two little dark figures like the shadows of moths fluttering across the center of the painting. I pulled myself away from it, unsure of what I saw. Desperate to see it again, to prove that I wasn't seeing things, too, like my boyfriend had.
That was about thirty minutes ago. I texted my mom to let her know that my boyfriend is missing. If you know an unemployed Jonathan in Omaha, let me know if you know where he's at. We should talk and I'm worried about him.
In the meantime, I'm going to go look at the painting again to watch for the figures one more time. There must be something there.

my name is ghost, im a 16 year old girl and i have "attitude problems", i get yelled at and slapped for them alot but thing is i dont notice if i have an attitude or not, i'll say a sentence which i think is perfectly normal then i'll get yelled at for having an attitude, then i'll get yelled at for yelling at them while they are in the kitchen and im in my room(you have to yell for someone to hear you) i dont know when i have an attitude or when i dont because i genuinely can't tell. i've tried telling them that i didn't have an attitude and i ask my grandparents later on how i had one but then i get yelled at again for having an attitude then lying about it, but i seriously cannot tell when i have an attitude or not. i dont know what to do about this.
sorry edit, i forgot to mention that anytime i do this my grandfather will try to hit me, i remember one time when i had an "attitude" and he had put his hand up like he was going to hit me and i had yelled out "please dont hit me" and he had said something like "dont tell me not to hit you, ill hit you if i damn please", i was genuinely scared in this moment because one, im scared of him. im scared of my grandfather because hes so mean and rude and hurtful when hes upset, and two, he has hit me before and threatened to call CPS, he always tells my dad his side of the story to make him seem like the victim and then he has this smug face on like hes won, it scares me. im so scared of him i dont even trust myself around him when he has a knife, i grew up to him calling me names. he scares me so much but im only a fucking 16 year old girl with attitude issues. what the hell can i do, absolutely nothing because they always belive the adult.

I (45M) met my partner (42M) in 2005. He moved in about 5 months into the relationship, things moved quickly. In hindsight, there were red flags; but when you fall for someone, it is hard to separate fear from a red flag. Things were really good. He was a fun, life of the party type of guy. His personality and smile would fill a room. He followed me through school and we both got our doctorates. Vacations, family trips, I was so happy. However, about 18 months into the relationship, intimacy kind of started to die. He seemed kind of uninterested. When we did have sex, it often felt more like a hookup or like a soul-less robot I was with. I couldn't figure it out. I chalked it up to stress and school. There was always another reason I could find. It was during these first few months and years that I noticed he had no friends outside of his younger brother. Despite that, he was my best friend, we got along very well and really didn't have big fights or disagreements.
Fast forward to 2015, he is about to graduate and start his career as a doctor; it was an exciting time. His demeanor changed rapidly. He began going to the gym a lot, but this time I wasn't invited. I still had a year of school left so I was too busy anyways. His gym outings started lasting 2-3 hours. I asked mutual friends about it out of suspicion, but they assured me he would never cheat. About two weeks before his graduation, he told me we needed to talk, he was leaving me. It was very cold and to the point. I asked if he had met someone, he said "no, I would never do that". He didn't cry, no emotion. Two days later he came out of the bedroom with a backpack and said he was leaving for "a day or two". He didn't come back.
There I was, trying to study for finals which required about 15 hours a day for weeks on end. Trying not to break down constantly and be productive to make sure I passed my finals. I downloaded a dating app, if just to feel not so alone and have someone to chat with. I remember how quiet it was in those first few weeks, the silence was deafening. I chatted with a few people. One guy I chatted with had a blank profile, but quickly sent a face pic. He looked familiar. I told him my situation, to which he replied, "well, obviously it sounds like he is cheating on you". I studied his photo again and then went out to Facebook to investigate. It was my partners newest Facebook friend. I immediately texted my partner, and asked who this friend of his was, and why he says you are cheating on me. He was furious. It was the guy he left me for, he was cheating. My partners graduation was the next evening, which I was supposed to attend with him at his request, because he hadn't told friends and family that we were separated because he didn't want to ruin the celebration. I didn't go and so he went to his graduation and his party alone. He was mad at me for that. I hypothesize that this guy told me because he didn't want me going to the graduation neither my ex.
Up until that point, my ex and I had still been communicating on a near daily basis. That ended at this point, I was broken. A couple of weeks went by and then the new mister-ess contacted me. They had already had a falling out and he wanted to talk to me, said there were things I should know. I told him that he was crazy, but that at this point, what the hell, right? We decided to meet for a drink at a local rooftop bar. He made me assure him that I wouldn't punch him in the face, but I told him that I would rather punch my ex.
We grabbed a drink around 8pm. He was a very good looking guy. Kind of a rough looking Jake Gyllenhaal. I Instantly felt both jealous and insecure about myself at the same time. Is this why he left? I wasn't good looking enough? (During those early months, I blamed myself a lot for the breakup) He began by telling me that my ex was a piece of shit, and they weren't talking. I'm still not sure what had happened between them. He told me that they had been seeing each other for about 3 months before my ex left me (gym time), and he went on to say that my ex was a piece of shit and I should run as fast as I could away from him. Now, initially, I kind of chuckled.. of course you want me out of the picture, things aren't working out and he is obviously afraid my ex will come back to me. He then said something that still gives me chills and has taken me years to wrap my brain around: "He doesn't love you and he never has, he told me that when we first met. When I told him that's not possible, he told me that he has been cheating on you since he first met you.". Ok, so that knocked me back, and I'm sure I had a look of disbelief on my face. I don't know what my response was at that point, I think I semi blacked out.. but he began following up with names, dates and places. He named a guy that we met in Mexico on our 1st vacation together in 2006. My ex had just moved in with me a few months before that trip. They apparently hooked up in a bathroom of our resort he informed me. He named a classmate of my ex.. My ex had invited that classmate to multiple parties with us and to our place. He named a creepy older guy that lived in our building. At this point I think I was in shock. I felt violated. Both by the actions of my ex and by the fact that this stranger knew more details about my relationship than I did, or so it seemed. I finished my drink and got up to leave. He asked me not to tell my ex what I had been told. He then went on to say we should "hang out sometime". I left.
I arrived at my ex's new place in about 3 1/2 minutes. He admitted to everything. There was no remorse, he was just calm about it, like everything was normal. I did not know this person. It was probably one of the scariest moments in my life. This person I knew, loved and trusted more than anyone, I knew nothing about them. He told me that he did say he never loved me, but that was only so he could impress this new guy, he didn't mean it he said. I wanted to believe that. I asked him how many times he had cheated. He said he couldn't remember. He said that whenever he did something "bad" that he would mentally block it out, and that he couldn't remember anything. (Although he conveniently remembered to tell this guy about it as evidence he didn't care about me)
The next few days and weeks were a daze. Reality seemed not real anymore. Looking back, I was in shock. Over the next several weeks classmates and friends confided in me that there were other people my partner had cheated with, 6 that I know of at least now. I was looking for something that made sense of it all. Nothing did. I was back home visiting my family for Father's day, everyone was there except for my ex. It felt empty. My brother and sister tried to console me. I was inconsolable. My brother and I hung out for several hours that day, that hadn't happened for a long time. He pulled up YouTube on the TV and played me a Sia video he loved; Elastic Heart. We took turns playing videos and talking about the meaning behind them. I recall that being both an amazing day with my brother and also strange, as he was never that open. He hugged me before he left, told me he loved me. He called me "doc" right before he got in his car, even though I didn't have my degree yet..
My brother would die two days later at the construction site he worked at. The 1000's of pounds of rebar the crane was lowering down above his head would come undone and come down on top of him. It was instantaneous they told us. It turned out they had hired an out of work teacher to help on the site, he didn't know how to secure the fittings on the rebar to the crane. The company was fined $15k I believe in OSHA violations, but what was done was done. I remember at this point being almost happy for the breakup, because I was already numb when this happened. I cried a lot, but there were almost no tears left to cry at that point.
I found out about the accident via my smartwatch while I was with a patient. I can't remember if I was sitting on the floor or was leaning against a wall, but the faculty got me into an office and got me seated. They called my ex to come and get me because they weren't going to let me drive. It was 10:30am. My ex told them it was his first day of work at his new job and that he didn't want to leave early because it would look bad (yeah, I know). A classmate of mine drove me home and stayed with me until my ex got off work. She helped me pack to go to my parents. My ex came and got me and drove me the 90 mins to my parents, I don't remember much about that ride. The next few days were a blur, the funeral seemed like a bad dream. My ex did go with me, but he never cried, never showed emotion. The night before the funeral I asked if he could hang out with me, but he blew me off, it turned out he had a date. He ended up telling me I needed to find a new support system when I got upset.
The sense of loss you feel when you lose two people this close to you is overwhelming. It was at this point that I decided I couldn't lose my ex. Whatever was wrong with him, whatever he was going through, I needed to help him. This brings me to the painful lesson I would eventually learn through all of this: you really can't help someone if they don't want to change, are incapable of change, or if they think there is nothing wrong with them. Some lessons are harder to learn than others, however.
I started reaching out to my ex, trying to spend time with him. He was still seeing his fling off and on. I got him into therapy. This went on for sometime, us being off and on. I realize now that I was the back burner, he was keeping me warm. I was in the perfect state for him, I would have done anything to make things work at this point, I was broken into pieces. In the realm of narcissistic personality disorder, I was the "supply", and I seemed more than willing to put myself through that meat grinder given the circumferences.
During this time of back and forth. My ex would tell me he wanted to make things work, and then I would catch him with this other guy again. He would say they were just friends, etc.. At one point, this guy started showing up at my condo in the middle of the night, he would message me and comment on what I was wearing. I would get a text saying, "I like that red shirt", and I'd look down and I was wearing a red shirt. It got creepy fast, I never knew when I was being watched. One of the dating apps would show how far away people were, down to feet. On multiple occasions I would get a message as I was going to bed, the distance would show under 20 feet away. Those moments were horrific, because it happened on dozens of occasions. I was being stalked.
The messages I was receiving got more and more threatening. I told my ex about it, but he said it wasn't his problem. After one particularly creepy night where it seemed like this guy was in my hallway, I showed my ex all of the messages the next day. He finally told me that this guy hated me with a passion, and said he "didn't think he would actually do anything". I asked him what things he said he was going to do, and then he casually mentioned that this guy had joked about killing me. A few days later I stopped by my ex's place and was ringing the door entry panel, when this guy approached me and started a fight.. he broke my nose and threw me down a flight of stairs. My ex called the police and told me I shouldn't have been there unannounced. He continued seeing this guy.
Now, this guy had been in my school, and had just started taking preliminary classes at the request of my ex. I went to the school counselors and filed a report, he was kicked out of school and banned for two years. I filed a restraining order, but he didn't show up to court for the hearing. The school took it very seriously. Security guards were given his photo and told not to allow him in the building. The stalking did stop finally though.
My ex finally ended things with him, as he started getting more and more violent. My ex would call me saying he was scared of him, that he was there trying to beat the door down. As I'm typing this, I realize that this was probably just a manipulation technique to work on my empathy and to pull me back in. It worked. We talked about how to cut this guy off and what we needed to do to protect my ex from this crazy guy. We started spending more and more time together.
Over the next few months we began spending most of the week together. Things were starting to feel normal again. My ex moved back in with me. Although I was happy, I also was scared, because I knew deep down there was something very wrong. We had already started counseling at my request. His mother was a borderline personality disorder, which we had kind of known before. What we didn't know was how that affected a child raised by one. It would take me a few more years to fully understand the damage she caused.
Things pretty quickly fell apart after he moved back in. The kind, fun person I had known the first 10 years no longer existed. In hindsight, I realize that the kind person was a facade, an act that was used to cover all of the pain and dysfunction that was hiding underneath. After 3 months of living together I asked him to move out in the fall of 2016. I helped him find an apartment and helped him move his things. There I was, alone again, broken..
Despite being separated, we never stopped seeing each other. We regularly made dinner for each other, went and saw movies, camping trips, vacations, family gatherings, etc. I think deep down I held onto hope that therapy would slowly work its magic. I was 39 at the time, and starting over just seemed impossible.
By the end of 2018 we were back in therapy, he had been going off and on since 2015 at this point.. The question was, we can't stop spending time together, where do we go from here? I trusted our therapist, she knew us well. Judging from our sessions and how she conducted them, it seemed as though she believed we could reconcile. I had my concerns, but allowed my fears of being alone and fear of going through the full pain of losing my partner guide my decision making process. I simply could not picture my life without him. I was still trying to get my life back that I knew before 2015. Our therapist told me for this to work, I needed to be fully committed, 100%. (Although, hell, have I not been at this point??) She told me he was likely was developing borderline personality disorder, but that if he continued counseling, he could overcome it.
We decided to give it another go. However, I had been in my small condo for 15 years at this point, and he was in his tiny apartment. We needed a new place, for new memories. I wanted children, it's something we had discussed for years. We decided to buy a house together. I know, I'm rolling my eyes right now too.. We found an amazing house, and within about 6 weeks we were moving in. I was back to feeling as happy as ever. Intimacy, however, never recovered.
For about 6 months, things seemed "normal". However, something this time was different. I was different. I was becoming aware of reality. He had quickly stopped counseling after buying the house, but didn't tell me immediately. I began to notice things he said, little arguments he would start. He would belittle me in small ways. Once I noticed this, I couldn't let it go. He would also gaslight me. He would say something or make plans, and then when I would bring it up later, I was "crazy", because he never said that. I would try to point these things that bothered me out to him, but it would get turned around on me. Why couldn't I let things go, he would say. Also, my items would disappear. Mail would get thrown away, kitchen gadgets tossed. One particular night I wanted to make waffles, and I had a really nice waffle maker my parents got me. I searched and searched, but couldn't find it anywhere. I asked him if he'd seen it, which started a fight. "I didn't touch it! Stop accusing me!". I had only asked him because he had reorganized the kitchen a few weeks earlier. I searched storage, the garage, went through box after box. I looked for several days. After a few days, he said it "might" have been thrown away. Might have?? He said he wasn't sure. After another day of searching, he finally told me he had thrown it away because I rarely used it. When I got upset, he told me that I was too materialistic, and placed too much value on items. This happened dozens of times, and somehow it was always my fault.
By fall of 2019, something strange began happening. I started getting stomache pains. It was enough pain that I thought I should see a doctor. However, I quickly realized that this pain would begin only when my partner was in the room. After that, if he would try to touch me or hold my hand, I would instinctively recoil. I felt horrible about it. I told him to give me space while I figured myself out. I spoke to my therapist about it, and she told me I should read the book, The Body Keeps The Score. I didn't, but it's on my list.
Over the next few months I read several books about relationships. One of them I read twice, Too Good To Leave, To Bad To Stay. I put a lot of effort into figuring out how we could mend and repair all the damage that had been done over the years. I had seen multiple therapists, even a sex therapist. I think I was out on the porch one day, reading my 4th or 5th book, punishing myself for not knowing how to fix things. It was at that point that I realized he was in the house playing video games, had read zero books, sought out no new counseling, had not wanted to initiate any conversations on the topic. Everything rested solely on my shoulders to fix. I realized I was in this relationship alone. It felt like I was living with a roommate because I WAS living with a roommate. This person I loved did not love me, at least not the way I did him. It was a rude awakening, one that I should have realized 5 years earlier.
A few days later I told him I was leaving him, he did not react, he just said ok. Over the next few days and weeks I cried harder than I have ever cried, he didn't. At one point I realized I was having what Oprah called, the ugly cry, it kind of felt good in a way. The pandemic hit a few weeks later, so we were together until June of that summer. We discussed here and there if there were ways to save things. At one point he told me if I worked out more, it might help. It was in moments like that that I knew I was doing the right thing. I was an object to him, if I was a bit shinier I might get more attention.. at least that's what I heard. A few weeks before he moved out, he asked if he could move up to the 3rd floor, because he was sad he wasn't going to get to live in the house anymore. He thought we could be roommates. The problem was, we already WERE roommates, except I was in love with him, and he wasn't with me. Hearing that the house was his biggest concern hurt me deeply. (I had offered to let him keep the house, but he couldn't afford it by himself)
I helped him look for apartments, frequently having to excuse myself as I would break down during the showings. I helped him move his furniture and belongings. However, even after all of this, we continued to spend time together. Movies, dinners, game nights.. I started to experience deep depression after each weekend we spent together. I sought counseling, and slowly I weaned myself from seeing him. I eventually limited myself to 2 hours per week. This made him very angry, even though he was not doing therapy, and wasn't working on the relationship at all.
I realized I was doing the right thing, but I was constantly in my head. How could I leave this person I loved so much. The intense back and forth battle in my head was ferocious. I kept going to counseling, and he helped me to sort those competing thoughts out. I had been maintaining this pristine image of my ex in my head, the facade he had created early on persisted in my mind, and I longed for that perfect person I once knew. Yet the person I know knew on my day to day was this twisted person who seemed foreign to me. It has taken several years for me to meld those two people into one person, the real person.
It's been 3 years since I left him this month. I haven't spoken to him in over a year now. It gets better. There have been days and weeks when I couldn't get out of bed, and felt like I couldn't go on. For a long period the cognitive dissonance was almost beyond what I could handle. I felt like I had passed into an alternate universe, having lost both my brother and my partner. I didn't recognize my life. I had to cut off most of our mutual friends to survive, because they couldn't respect my boundaries. So not only did I miss my ex, but I missed my friends as well.
Your life will collapse as you know it. However, it is this collapse that has to happen in order to build a new, better life. Kind of like a Phoenix, it has to burn before it can rise into it's final form. There were many dark days that I held onto that image in my mind as my depression and sadness raged. The more pain I felt, the more it felt like fire burning away my old life. Let it burn. Feel everything. If anyone who has read this far has been through anything similar, you know what I'm talking about. There is no way around the pain, so walk right through it and feel all of it. The only way around is through.
I truly believe I have been through this for a reason, for something better. This is preparation for what my future holds. I am not the same person now, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I used to fear that I would be alone forever, and it terrified me. Now, it doesn't terrify me as much, but I don't think I will be alone forever, I have a lot to offer.
It has taken a lot of time, but I know understand my ex to be a covert narcissist with BPD. I was manipulated throughout the relationship. I discovered so many lies he had told me during the aftermath of the breakup, it is astounding. I believed every word. When I initially asked him to move in with me, it turned out he had made up a story about his dad kicking him out, and said he couldn't afford an apartment by himself. We went and looked at apartments for several weekends, with him sad he couldn't afford it. It was all a manipulation to coherce me to ask him to move in. There are countless other mainpulations as well. Right before he moved out for the last time, in a moment of what seemed like honesty, he told me he had never loved me, and that he didn't know what love was, but he thought it was a weakness that people had. I still miss him every day, despite the things he did. I now understand that you can love someone, but it doesn't mean you have to keep them in your life.
I have spent the last 3 years learning about myself and improving myself. At 45, I'm in my best shape ever. I've always been athletic, but I took it to a new level. Find something that makes you feel better about yourself, and run with it. I'm planning on finally learning how to play guitar and learn Spanish. I've joined a softball team and a kickball team. You have a blank slate, paint with bright colors and paint a beautiful new life for yourself. Life looks totally different than it used to, but it's slowly beginning to feel like a life again. Dream big!

If chefs who didn't get a black jacket just beforehand competed who wins?
Andrew Bonito
Maribel Miller
Brad Miller
Louross Edralin
Carol Scott
Sabrina Gresset
Nilka Hendricks
Vinny Accardi
Elizabeth Bianchi
Brian Merel
Zach Womack
Michael Gabriel
Sterling Wright
Alison Rivera
Dannie Harrison
Andrew Pearce
Jennifer Normant
Kenae Houston
Nikki Hanna
Antonio Ruiz
Tara Cianella