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      Draevin wasn’t as enraptured by the tornado Nilice was summoning as Peter was. He prepared to cast a Wall of Frost just in case something went wrong. As the massive vortex descended on Sylnya the chances of something going wrong started to shift from a question of “if” to a question of “when.”
      Nilice pointed towards Sylnya to direct her attack. Sylnya abruptly halted all her previous taunting and looked up at the sky with concern. She huddled on the ground over her quivering shadow stalker and braced for impact. It looked like Nilice said something rude to Sylnya, but it was impossible to hear over the gale-force winds already battering the crowd. People everywhere were bracing themselves or fleeing the arena. Draevin even noticed a few goblins fly by with arms out-stretched and big toothy grins on their faces. Without the normal wards in place he knew a spell like this could go from fun to fatalistic in moments. He’d seen the devastation Colossal Galestorm could do on a battlefield before.
      The tornado touched down right on top of Sylnya and she disappeared into the chaos. It continued to batter at the spot she had been, stripping away layer after layer of dirt and leaving a crater behind. Up in the stands large chunks of rock were broken off of the arena and flung around at random into the crowd. Spurts of screaming could be heard as the winds shifted wildly. Draevin ended up using that Wall of Frost after all and barely blocked a piece of stone bannister from crashing into their booth.
      After a minute the winds died down enough for Draevin to lower the ice wall and look out at the arena. Sylnya was still standing—if you could call it that—exactly where she’d started but what was left of her body was battered and broken into splinters.
      The crater where she had been standing was filled with a network of roots that extended outward in every direction. The network was extensive. It looked like the roots had reached underground across the entire floor of the arena. Even at the edge of the crater roots were ramming into the side.
      Nilice was panting in exhaustion. She took a few steps closer to the edge of the crater to examine the remains. There didn’t appear to be anything left of the original Sylnya and there was also no sign of Kot. The now sweating gnome looked towards the judges but they just shrugged. The mana interference field generator was still humming with energy, so for once they weren’t watching with True Sight.
      Something twitched on the ground at Nilice’s feet and roots exploded out of the ground around her; they wrapped around her legs, chest and even her head. Once the little pink-haired gnome was completely restrained a second mass of roots snaked out of the ground next to her and pooled into a humanoid mass. The mass of roots refined itself into Sylnya’s naked form. With the battering they’d just received the crowd was silent for once and the next words could be heard clearly despite only being spoken at a normal volume.
      “I think you just tried to kill me,” Sylnya said. Her mouth slowly twisted into a wicked smile. “You know, I was offered quite the bonus from my sponsor for killing you. I turned them down. I thought you were too cute to kill.” Nilice was unable to respond, as roots had wrapped firmly around her head and held her mouth clamped shut. Behind the two of them the metal device floating in the center of the arena sputtered and dropped to the ground. “But then you hurt Kot.”
      Sylnya turned back towards the root-lined crater and called out “Kot! Come!” A shadow slowly slid along the ground from deep within the network of roots and the shadow stalker appeared at her side. He was only walking on three paws and held up one gingerly before him. Sylnya pointed at Nilice’s restrained form. “Kill!”
      Nilice’s eyes bulged just for a moment. Kot leapt forward and went straight for the little gnome’s throat. If Nilice had wanted to surrender it was impossible to tell, as restrained as she was. The shadow stalker earned a roar of approval from the crowd as the blood splashed against the ground.
      “Nilice is dead. Sylnya wins,” Maeve announced as the bell chimed to signal the end of the match. Draevin stood and gave a shout of support for his friend, but Peter’s calm clapping was a bit more restrained.
      “Aren’t you happy for her?” Draevin asked.
      “Did she… have to do that?” Peter asked. His face was paler than usual. “She had the win.”
      Draevin waved off Peter’s concern. “When you try to kill your opponent you can hardly complain when they kill you back. Besides, after the money she lost on Tomrha’s match she probably decided to reconsider that bonus.”
      “That’s the end of today’s matches,” Maeve announced once the crowd had quieted. “The second half of round one will continue tomorrow at second bell. Be sure to place your bets before then. The first match will be between Tenna and Sharack.” She didn’t even acknowledge the injuries in the crowd.
      Down on the field Sylnya was “tending” to Kot despite her nakedness. Sylnya’s version of tending to Kot involved wrestling him into submission so she could force a Healing Lotus down his throat. He was not happy about it. Across the stands, amidst the dispersing crowd, there was a group of orcs gathering near the railing closest to her. They were whistling and cat-calling at Sylnya while she was trying to work. “Great,” Draevin grumbled out loud. “It’s her damned fans again. I should probably do something before we get a repeat of last time.”
      “What happened last time?” Peter asked.
      Draevin sighed. “Last time she lost her clothes in a match she ended up cutting off someone’s hand and had to spend the night in the Guild holding cell.” One of the orcs was making crude thrusting motions with his hands outstretched before him.
      “That would be extremely inconvenient,” Peter said. He waved a hand towards Sylnya, then frowned when nothing happened. “I’m not strong enough to reach that far,” he said. “Do you think you could do something? Maybe make some clothes out of frost?”
      “Frost Armor?” Draevin asked curiously. “I guess I could.” It seemed like a strange request, but as a cryomancer it was probably the best way for him to help out. Draevin waved his wand in the air and spun a pale blue dress out of frost. “It will melt in about an hour if she doesn’t maintain it,” Draevin warned Peter. “But it should give her plenty of time to find some real clothes.”
      Peter pointed to the escalating situation; Kot was now fully recovered and the pair of them were approaching the group of orcs. Sylnya was rubbing her breasts crudely while shouting, “Is this what you want you fucking pervs,” at the group.
      She didn’t seem to understand or care that she was only making things worse. “It doesn’t need to last long,” Peter said flatly.
      “Right, we should probably hurry,” Draevin agreed. He conjured a staircase out of ice with a tap of his wand that connected the window of their booth directly to the arena floor so they wouldn’t have to walk around.
      “I can take care of it if you have plans,” Peter said all of a sudden. He grabbed at the dress Draevin was holding.
      Draevin let the dress slip out of his hands. “What plans?” He asked Peter.
      Rather than answer Peter gave him a sly smile and rushed down the new staircase.
      “Sick bro,” a voice came from behind Draevin’s shoulder. Draevin knew exactly who it was right away. Faernyl: the red-headed elf who had been riding with Tenna the other day. “You can, like, totally make all sorts of clothes with your cryo bro. I can’t wait.”
      Can’t wait? Draevin turned to Faernyl. “Frost Armor is designed to stop bolts of force. It’s not a fashion statement.”
      “To you maybe,” Faernyl replied easily, “I’m already planning to make bags that will keep, like, your stuff chill. So, we gonna do this now?”
      “Faernyl, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Draevin told him. “Are you expecting me to teach you or something?”
      “You didn’t forget already, did you?” Faernyl asked with a half grin, one eyebrow arched.
      “Let’s just say that I did,” Draevin suggested, “and you can explain ‘it’ to me.”
      “We talked right after the whole thing with the judges. Remember?” Faernyl asked. When Draevin maintained a neutral face he continued. “The thing with Peter being my opponent tomorrow…” he trailed off again, still getting no feedback from Draevin. “Come on, man! You were telling me about how your robes were made with cryo and you said we could do the ‘ol switcheroo.”
      “Switcheroo? You really think I talk like that?”
      “Well not exactly, no,” Faernyl admitted. “You know the ‘ol Piso-de-Diso? You scratch my back, I scratch yours?”
      This was definitely not something Draevin remembered happening, but there had been a rock dropped on his head earlier. It wasn’t completely impossible that he had lost more than consciousness during that incident. “Go on,” was all he said.
      “So yeah, you wanted me to teach you True Sight but I didn’t know it so we settled on Telekinesis.”
      True Sight. It suddenly made sense. Peter was the only one who cared so much about True Sight, and he had been acting very confident in his ability to make it to round two earlier. “I see. Let me get back to you on that, Faer,” Draevin told him, “I need to have a conversation with Peter about something first.” He turned back to the arena floor where Peter was helping Sylnya dig through the remains of her old body. Sylnya was now wearing the blue dress made of Frost Armor and it looks like most of her fans had given up. Draevin stalked down the staircase and went straight for Peter.
      While he was walking over Peter dug out a long knife from the splintered wreckage and held it up triumphantly. When Draevin got close he could hear them talking.
      “…I could keep it right?” Peter was asking her.
      “You can borrow it,” Sylnya insisted. “Can’t you buy your own knife after all the money you made betting on yourself today?”
      Peter shrugged. “I wanted a used one.”
      Draevin cleared his throat. “Peter,” he said as darkly as he could manage. “Did you impersonate me?”
      Peter pursed his lips, then glanced over to where Faernyl was waiting for their training session. “Maaaaybe,” he finally admitted. “I needed to get information out of him and you were the only person I knew who had a relationship with him.”
      “Just great! Now Faernyl is expecting some kind of training session with me so he can sell chilled hand bags or something!”
      “That actually sounds like a great idea,” Sylnya said. “This dress you made is nice and refreshing in this heat.”
      “It’s totally impractical is what it is!” Draevin shot back. “Who would even want a handbag that melts in a few hours? This is a waste of time.”
      “I’m sorry,” Peter said far too firmly for his words to come off as a heartfelt apology. “I didn’t mean to make plans with him, that’s just where the conversation ended up. Feel free to cancel on him.”
      “Come on Draevin,” Sylnya goaded him. “Would it really be that bad?”
      Draevin scowled at her, but actually paused to consider the idea before responding. One-on-one training with a skilled kinomancer was hard to come by. “Fine, it’s not like I have any other plans today and I’ve always kind of wanted to learn Telekinesis anyways.”
      Sylnya suddenly frowned. “Uh, Drae. Are you sure about that?”
      “What? Of course I am, why wouldn’t I be?”
      Sylnya gestured insistently at something behind him with only her eyes. Draevin turned around and saw Tenna. She was covering her face with her hands and there were tears in her eyes. Of course! He had promised to teach her that modification to the defenses he layered in his hair.
      “I-I’m sorry,” Tenna blurted out. She turned and ran off before Draevin could even say anything.
      Sylnya leaned an arm on Draevin’s shoulder. “Oh Drae, you really are the worst.”
      “What? I forgot okay,” he said defensively. “If this is anyone’s fault it’s Peter’s.”
      Sylnya laughed. “Don’t try to blame this on Peter. What did you promise her?”
      “It was nothing. I just told her I’d teach her my own modification of a cryomancy spell. Why did she storm off like that?”
      “Because you forgot about her,” Sylnya said. “I’ll try to smooth things out with her. Explain how you got hit on the head. Maybe she didn’t know. In the meantime you better train with Faer.”
      “Smooth things over? What does that even mean?” Draevin demanded.
      Sylnya just shook her head. “Come on Peter,” she called out. “I’ll show you that shopping center on the way. What was it you wanted?”
      “A crystal stylus, for inscribing.”
      “I hope you have a lot of gold on you then,” she told him.
      Peter patted a bulging pouch on his belt. “I should have plenty. And I need the nicest one I can find. Mana layering is really delicate work.”
      Draevin watched them leave. When he turned back to check on Faernyl he was already on his way over.
      “So, we gonna do this bro?” Faernyl asked.
      Draevin sighed. “I don’t think I have a choice in the matter anymore. So tell me, how many cryomancy spells do you know?”
      Faernyl stared off into space for a moment, then scratched his head. “That’s ice magic right?”
      Draevin blew out a breath in a heavy sigh and tried his best to resist rolling his eyes. “Yeah Faer… It’s ice magic.”
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I work at a train station that services unusual destinations. Last night a passenger exploded.

“Elle is it?”
“That’s what my name badge says.” I responded flatly to the man in the red bowler hat on the other side of my plexiglass ticket booth.
He’d been complaining about a cancellation for at least twenty minutes.
“Well Elle, I’d like to speak with your supervisor.”
Great. My favourite line. I prepared my scripted response.
“I’m the only staff member on duty at this time, if you have an issue you can log it with the phone number on the poster.”
I tapped the glass next to the poster detailing how to contact Connected Railways head office. It was one I’d had to demand after one too many incidents with disgruntled passengers angry at delays, cancellations and prices.
I didn’t control that shit, and I was sick of being abused for it.
Red bowler hat inhaled sharply for a prolonged period. His face turned so red it reminded me I had some strawberries in my fridge at home that needed using before they went bad.
As he took in more air, buttons on his shirt began to detach and ping in all different directions. I was suddenly more grateful than usual for the plexiglass as the little plastic pucks bounced off it. I sighed deeply and hit the red security button underneath my desk as I braced for myself for whatever onslaught was to come next.
Then he blew up.
Not blew up as in he ranted and screamed at me like a normal asshole customer in a service based industry. No. Red bowler hat man inhaled so much air he quite literally blew up, spattering blood across the floor of the station entrance, my ticket booth and any other passenger in a ten foot radius - Luckily there was only one, who hastily made their way to the platform.
I looked on in despair as his hat rocked a little upon impact with the floor.
I know I should sound more shocked, frightened even, when I talk about a man exploding before my very eyes. That would be a normal reaction; but incidents like that one were ten a penny at the station and had become more of an annoyance than a source of terror. In my line of work, a man exploding was relatively normal. Not terribly extraordinary, at least.
“What a mess. Is everyone ok?” Atlas arrived, befuddled as he looked at the pile of scattered organs on the floor.
Atlas was the night security guard, one of only two other members of staff in the entire station and my saviour, from both boredom and the unusual passengers. He had long, dark hair that he pulled into a messy bun on top of his head that always made his hat sit strangely.
“I think so. Just need to call Nicky and get things cleaned up. Sorry for summoning you, I thought it was going to be much worse that that, the guy looked angry.”
“Never a bother, Elle. You know that. Nicky’s going to love-“
Atlas was cut off by a loud and nauseating slurping noise as the organs and bits of person started to move together across the concrete floor as if they were suddenly magnetised.
The blood on my booth congealed into droplets that danced down the screen and towards the collecting mass. The explosion hadn’t been entirely out of the ordinary, but this was beginning to pique my interest.
“Good job you called.” Atlas continued, a curious expression on his face as the mass built to a height that towered above us both.
Screaming, naked and covered in a transparent goo, red bowler hat man was reborn and much bigger and angrier than he had been before. He bent over, picked up the bloodied hat and placed it on his head before approaching the booth.
I wasn’t sure on the purpose of the hat. After all, the rest of his clothes remained shredded on the floor. Regardless I found him quite intimidating and almost wavered through my next scripted response.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave Connected Railway’s property.”
Red bowler foamed at the mouth, revealing a set of yellowed teeth and continued squealing into the open air. I cringed a little and tried to look away, watching the unsuspecting, oblivious people in the street behind him and envying their ignorance.
They were only a few feet away and yet to them, the incident wasn’t happening at all. Oh how sweet it must have been to not see the booth, the blood or the naked man screaming in the night. That would’ve been a real treat.
The station I work at is only visible to those who are already aware of its existence, or it would’ve been quite the scene, even at 2am. That’s what I’ve deducted in my time here anyway. I’d walked this street a thousand times before my interview and never once seen a station entrance.
There was no other explanation. My employment, as a normal human that stumbled across the advert by pure dumb luck, was more unusual than anything I’d witnessed from red bowler hat man.
I stayed firm, maintaining eye contact as I watched Atlas creep up behind the creature and hold up a pistol. A security guard with a gun wasn’t a typical sight in England, even in the city, but then nothing about my workplace was typical.
He pulled the trigger releasing a sharp point and injecting a yellow liquid into the man’s neck. I watched as he dropped to the floor, shrinking into the disgruntled passenger he had been prior to the explosion, albeit stark naked.
“Where was he headed Elle?” Atlas asked, grabbing hold of the now comatose creature and struggling with the dead weight as he tossed him over his shoulder, careful to avoid certain regions.
“He was moaning about the cancellation on the village line. Cordyline Hill via Monsoon Valley. I tried explaining that there was one thirty minutes after but he didn’t let me...”
“I’ll take him down to the platform now and page the guys at Monsoon Valley. Village line comes in at 2.22 and reaches MV by 2.46. He should stay like this until then. He’s their problem now.”
“Finish.” I added just as he walked away.
I sighed. I was grateful for Atlas but he could be tone deaf at times and was blind to the irony of cutting me off just like Karen in the red bowler hat had. I leaned back in my chair, kept one eye on the large antique clock on the wall to the left and prepared for the rest of the night to go by uneventfully.
I know it seems strange, to be so positively apathetic. You have to understand how real desensitisation is, the more we consume the easier it gets and bowler hat wasn’t the first and definitely wouldn’t be the last monstrous transformation I’d see.
I can’t explain the things that go on at the station entirely. I have my theories, but I have no way of confirming or denying them.
The only hard facts I have are these; I have never heard of a single station we service, I’m absolutely certain that at least ninety percent of our passengers aren’t of the human variety, regardless of the risk I run of being eaten I’m still paid a pittance like every other booth worker in the country and on any given day I might have to drive home soaked in blood.
So why do I stay? I stay for passengers like the one that followed red bowler hat.
I’m not immune to curiosity. I recognise that I’m shafted by Connected Railway on a regular basis with only a poster and a charming but undeniably human security guard for protection. But that doesn’t change the fact that when you work with things that are out of this world every now and again you come across one that makes it somehow worth it.
The woman in the floor length tweed coat was not your run of the mill, angry, potentially explosive customer. She was much more.
She approached with a small dog in her arms, her coat sweeping across the hard ground where bits of organ had previously been strewn, walking with such dainty steps it was almost as if she were floating.
She wore a scarf that matched the coat and had a face with more wrinkles than necessary to tell a story. I would’ve put her in her nineties at best, although she was perfectly mobile.
“How can I help?” I asked, attempting to put on my best customer service face.
“A single to Meander Place please, no return.”
Meander place wasn’t a destination I was often asked for tickets to, it sat on the barely used Epstar line, which was mostly used by the more intimidating of passengers.
I’d never taken any of the trains myself, despite my curiosity, but I tried to take note of the people I saw and where they were going. There was no other viable way to pass the time.
“That’ll be £29.50 please”
“I’m afraid I don’t have that, I spent the last of my money in that delightful pub across the street, we’re going to have to come up with another method of payment.”
I held in a sigh. The station sat opposite an unusual, traditional looking old pub called the Pickled Gnome, which seemed to be a popular stop for my passengers before their journeys. I often questioned the type of patrons that it served, although I suppose I was in no real position to.
“I’m sorry, we don’t offer payment plans or alternative methods here.”
“You don’t understand, do you?”
The woman made eye contact with me and I felt my head freeze into position, staring back at her. Her eyes were an incredible marbled yellow with flecks of green. Her next words make my skin crawl.
“This is a transaction between you and I, not a faceless company you represent, Elfida.”
My blood ran cold. No one, not my employer nor even the few people I considered friends knew my full name. I managed to break my trance like fixation on the woman to check my badge and just as suspected, it said Elle.
“Who are you?”
“Interesting. You don’t want to know how I know your name, you want to know who I am. You have a habit of asking all the wrong questions don’t you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Hah! See, again. Another useless question. I suppose as I know your name it’s only fair you know mine.. Agnes Copper. Haven’t you ever wondered why you’re here?”
She placed the small, scruffy looking dog on the floor and extended a frail, skeletal hand out towards the booth. Hand shaking I pressed the security button hard, eliciting a wry smile from Agnes.
“That’s not going to work Elfida. I’m glad I have you attention though, if that weren’t the case you’d have noticed the clock you’ve been watching for the past few hours stop.”
She was right, the clock had stopped. And I hadn’t noticed. I gulped. I’d dealt with some incredibly unusual passengers, but none of them had ever rendered my security button useless. Or known my full name.
“What do you want?”
The dog barked, making me jump. Agnes shushed him before continuing.
“That’s a better question, dear! Although you already know the answer. I want a ticket to Meander Place, the question is... what do you want?”
I took a moment to try and comprehend her question at all. She spoke with a glee that made me deeply uncomfortable. In the short term, I wanted Agnes Copper gone and to forget about her yellow eyes.
I had a feeling that wasn’t what she was referring to, however.
“Come on Elfida, there must be something.”
“Please stop calling me that. My name is Elle.” I spoke with a quiet defiance. She smiled, enjoying my agitation.
“Oh. Am I getting somewhere? Now why would a pretty girl like you hate a pretty name like that so much?”
I felt a pang in my stomach. I hadn’t thought about my life with that name for a long time. Life before Irene disappeared.
“It’s personal.”
“I know dear. I think you’re aware I already know the answer.” Her eyes lit up and she licked her puckered, wrinkled lips as I shuddered at her words. “You’re wondering now if I know where she is aren’t you?”
I was. She was right. Who wouldn’t wonder? When my little sister went missing there wasn’t a trace of her left in my parents home... my old home. She was only eight years old and one morning she just wasn’t in the house, they never found a stitch of evidence. That was enough to drive my parents to alcoholism, abuse and eventually divorce.
I got it. They lost a kid but it sure did suck to be the sister left behind in the shit storm. Ten years old and I had to roll my mother over to stop her choking on her own vomit. I put up with eight years of that before I fled, came to university in the city, shortened my name and never went back home.
Of course I wondered where she was.
“Do you.. know where she is?”
Agnes laughed an evil cackle, sinister enough to make every bone in my body vibrate. I felt weak, like all the wind had been knocked straight out of me. I tried to control it, but tears fell against my will. I hadn’t thought about Irene in so long.
“Are you a gambler, Elfida?” Agnes asked, ignoring my question entirely.
“I’ve never considered myself to be a betting woman.” I answered, voice shaking audibly.
“Well I think it’s time you start. If you print me a single ticket to Meander Place I will give you a clue. What a wonderful thing? A little piece of hope. The clue could lead to that little girl you seek... or it might not. After years of no answers, isn’t it worth the risk? For the minimal cost of a £29.50 ticket.”
“If the clue is useless, what are the consequences?”
“A better question. Finally, you’ve got it! Shame we’re almost out of time, my train leaves in a few minutes and I’m not too quick on my feet. Make a decision Elfida, I think you know I’m getting on that train either way.”
I hated arrogant customers. I made a point of ensuring I did my job properly, no matter what crazy things were going down in the station, but Agnes made a compelling case. She may have looked old and frail but she froze the air in the space around her. I wasn’t confident I’d even get close to stopping her board that train.
How could I let the opportunity to find Irene slip away?
I printed the ticket. Of course I did. One way to Meander Place, the Epstar line. Agnes continued to frantically lick her lips as the machine made the printing noise. Her mouth moved like a snake, it terrified me.
As I handed it to her through the slot she reached into her pocket and pulled out a tiny red box, only large enough for small pieces of jewellery, replacing the paper slip with it.
“Thank you Elfida. I hope you find what you’re looking for.” She winked a reptilian yellow eye and shuffled away from the booth towards the platform entrance.
I sat there for a few minutes. Staring at the box, then back at the clock that continued ticking the moment Agnes was out of sight. I searched for her on the platform security cam that faced me inside the booth but she’d vanished. No trace.
Just like Irene.
I stroked the box, unsure I even wanted to know what was inside, while simultaneously desperate to see the contents.
“Elle! Monsoon Valley just called, the guy had the same argument with them. Popped all over again, the guard there is having a total crisis. Thank fuck we’re rid of that shit, right?” Atlas interrupted my deep and brooding thought.
I shoved the box into my pocket as quickly as I could and looked up, blinking away any residual tears from my interaction with Agnes.
“Ha, sounds like a blast.” I joked, managing a chuckle from Atlas, “We’ll have to tell Nicky about it when she’s done with platform nine.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and check on her anyway, the Epstar line just blasted through there, never know what unsavoury characters might be about.”
Atlas spoke seriously but I struggled to take him so. He always seemed impervious to the strangeness that surrounded us and my recent meeting had cut through my apathetic disposition. I was relieved when he wandered off, giving me a chance to breathe.
After a few moments collecting myself I finally gathered the strength to reach into my pocket and open the red box. When I saw the contents I almost flung them and the box at the floor and ran.
Inside was a finger, a small severed finger. The nail was painted pink, splotches on the skin around it, like it had been painted by a child.
It had. I’d painted Irene’s nails that exact shade the night she went missing. But it didn’t make any sense, it had been years... and the finger was so fresh... even if she was alive, how could she still be so small?
Fighting the bile in my throat I noticed a pattern... words, intricately carved and so minuscule they were a struggle to read.
Find me in Thistle Park.
The boys on bikes

[OT] Hey guys, resonatingfury here. Four years ago I responded to a prompt about two people who go on adventures in lucid dreams and eventually find each other in real life. Today, after years of struggle, I'm so proud to say that Lost in a Dream is a published novel. I'm finally an author!!!

tl;dr: me write good book, pls read
~ ~ ~
Good morning!
I'm willing to bet that most of you won't remember my novel's origin prompt, though you might recognize me from stories such as the one where a man must face four judges in the afterlife. After all, it was over four years ago!
This was the prompt, if you want to take a look and see how poorly I wrote back then ;)

”You possess the ability of persistent lucid dreaming. Accompanied by a strange man/woman, together you build a world you revisit every night. One day you see them at a coffee shop. You immediately recognize each other."

It went from a terrible five part miniseries, to a Wattpad hopeful, to nothing as I lost motivation and drowned in work through the years, until finally I straightened myself out and rewrote the whole manuscript starting last year.
And now, somehow, here we are.
I'm both humbled and proud to present Lost in a Dream, a novel that actually adheres pretty closely to the prompt even after all of the rewriting and deep edits. Here is the blurb from the rear cover:

If dreaming is a drug, then I'm a junkie.
For most people, sleeping is an obstacle. Something to get out of the way, so they can get back to their life. For others, it's an escape to nothing; a blissful break from the wears of life.
It's the opposite for me.
I live so that I can dream. I trudge through work so that I can go home and close my eyes, awakening in the real world—one where dreams do come true. A place where I can fight a dragon instead of my ever-disappointed boss, where I’m a warrior instead of a glorified telemarketer. A place where I matter.
Tigers instead of taxes. Monsters instead of men with too much power.
Reality is just the word we came up with to accept a mundane life. A birthing place for grander ideas we so desperately wish could come true.
I choose to live in a world where they do.

I’ll also share a few quick bits about the book:
Lost in a Dream is a lovechild of literary fiction and fantasy; it's likely considered portal fantasy, but leans more toward the literary side thematically.

The cover art was done by Flor Figueroa over at Fiverr - look into her work if you want awesome minimalist cover art!
The novel is a shred under 74,000 words, so it's not a book you can club people with. Sorry.
It is a standalone novel--there won't be a sequel. I do, however, already have my next books planned.
Lost in a Dream is my first published work!

Here's a snippet from the advanced praise for Lost in a Dream:

I picked it up and just couldn't put it down.
— Man with glue hands

If you are interested in reading Lost in a Dream, then please visit you relevant Amazon marketplace:
Paperback:
US | UK | DE | FR | ES | IT | JP | CA
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US | UK | DE | FR | ES | IT | NL | JP | BR | CA | MX | AU | IN

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I'll stop bothering you now and let you read the intro to Lost in a Dream so you can get a feel for the story :)

~ ~ ~

You are a world of your own.
That’s not to say you’re extraordinary, necessarily—you might be. Chances are you’re more so than me, at the least, but that’s not much of a feat. Rather, we are each little universes of thought, infinite in expanse yet bound by flesh; pioneers lost in our own minds. Every human is a wellspring of possibility and impossibility, every breath a wish for something greater as we run desperate from the impending dark.
We are, in a sense, prisoners to ourselves. Slaves to dreams we may well never grab hold of, working to the bone so that one day the schism between what we want and what we have might narrow ever so slightly. It is no surprise that every night we shut down for a brief reprieve, where we get a taste of the strange workings inside our heads. A glimpse into the potential we each have, raw as it may be.
When we aren’t asleep, exploring our own dreams, we look to those of others. Snippets of what it’s like to live in someone else’s mind; pretty portals to vast, new, and often beautiful worlds, or ones so terrible and forlorn that anything seems tolerable when compared. Something—anything—to distract from the one that we’re in. To feel greater than ourselves.
After all . . . isn’t that why you’re here?

~ ~ ~

Is it greed to desire something grand?
I often asked myself things like that as I killed someone.
Many lives have been forever reduced to similar questions that fade in and out like fireflies on a dark summer night—what’s ironic is that putting a sword through a neck is so much easier than finding the answers. It shouldn’t be, right? Just reach out and grab one of the little lightbugs and put it in a jar to study later . . . but every time I try, they vanish. All I get is a fistful of darkness.
By the time I was done thinking about all of that, there was only one other person breathing in the field before me: the man who had killed my family. My friends. My clansmen. I’d have cried looking at him if that well hadn’t dried up so long before; screamed if there were any leftover rage to burn.
"You're strong, Kinghunter," Ilhor Drago snarled, a hulking man in shimmering ebony armor patterned with wispy typhoons of cream and oxblood. He must’ve stood seven feet tall. "But this is my home, and I'll not die here like some flame you'd snuff out with a shovel of dirt."
He peered at me through two clusters of holes in a solid iron headpiece, describable only as a perforated bucket. The rest of his battalion littered the wood-lined meadow like smashed tin cans. They'd made quite a morbid medium for my art, shades of death tainting the lush, fertile forest around us, painting fern and flower slick with a contrasting crimson. In the holy glow of spring's sun, amidst a field paint-brushed with trampled fuchsia tulips and peonies that dribbled out of the treeline, the bloodied plants almost looked at home.
Ilhor charged at me, and I backpedaled toward the lake's muddy shore while keeping my sword raised overhead. Ilhor would be a challenge, no doubt—perhaps even worth three whole questions—but challenges are meant to be overcome, even if that challenge was once the most feared knight in any kingdom. A man known for cleaving children in two might terrify most, but I’d have fought God himself if that’s what it would’ve taken to put an end to Hadrian’s reign.
What will I do when all of this is over?
His footwork was perfectly placed with excellent tempo; he had the speed of a fox despite swelling with brutish strength, bowing the boundaries of human limits as if they physically couldn't contain his mass. Each swing of his enormous weapon left my own feeling heavier and heavier in hand, every metallic crack a seismic spasm that rang my soul like a church bell. I ducked and weaved through his razing, slowly backstepping to dodge; parrying had become too taxing on my aching palms. With each lurch forward, he churned huge piles of mud, flinging it around us. Though he was slowed, the length of his broadsword kept me from making a clean retreat.
Is there a place left in the world for someone like me?
Not only was I reduced to defense, but the stout cascade of steel he donned had virtually no openings, aside from under the armpits and a small gap beneath his helmet—one just big enough to slip a thin, thirsty blade into.
Another swing, another step, retreating further and further until I could avoid parrying no more and our swords locked with spark and screech. He grabbed me with a single hand that touched its fingers together at the nape of my neck, feet desperately reaching for the ground as he lifted me into the air. I must've looked to pedal myself airborne.
Why am I so damn good at this?
“Why did you come here?” Ilhor asked, though he didn’t care to relax his grip. “I defected. I defected!”
My words barely squeezed out between his fingers. “Hadrian wouldn’t let a defector live. Did you think an early retirement would save you?”
“How did you even find this place? He promised me it was safe!”
“Nowhere—” I punched at his giant gauntlets like a child, gasping. “—is safe.”
He grunted twice; once at me, and once at the ground.
With our weight combined, he sank past his ankles into the soft, dense mud that lined the lake's western shore. He dropped me, hoping it wasn’t too late, then yanked at them fruitlessly—an alligator has strength on the close, not open.
I lunged, but his sword slammed into mine and sent it flying further into the forest than reality should allow, nesting into the canopy with a grating buzz like a silver beetle. A pained screech and flurry of wings rang out, followed by a distant, wooden thunk. Before I could look back in disdain, his blade was thrusting straight at my heart. I ducked, twisting, and barely managed to get low enough for it to deflect off my mail, then grabbed his wrists and pushed forward with all my weight to outstretch his arms.
I only had a second before he'd overwhelm me, but that was all I needed. A small dagger, its polished gold hilt adorned with rubies, was partially hidden at his hip under a small flap of fraying linen. I let go of his off-hand, dropped even lower and grabbed it, then released his sword hand and pushed forward. In a blur of motion, I jammed the dagger into the thin gap between his helmet and breastplate just as his massive python of a left arm snapped at me again. A weary stumble backward was enough to escape his reach.
He struggled and sucked at the air, his words wet with blood. “I’m . . . not even . . . a king. . . .”
“How many innocent people did you kill for one?” I whispered, hacking off his head.
That was for you, Ophelia. For our little ones.
He plummeted into the coast, sinking into it a little bit. After a moment to collect myself, taking a few deep breaths, I was free to finally loot his body—a vulture hungry for the treasure I could smell on him. Out of a covered compartment at his right hip, I pulled out a golden scroll with reverence, cupping it in my hands and brushing my thumbs across its complex network of embossed vines. It was the fifth one I'd stolen, and it was every bit as mesmerizing as the first, glowing as though the sun itself had been laid out in my still aching palms. I knelt there for some time, drinking its glow, and aches melted to memory with each moment. Eventually, I found it within myself to forfeit worship and tuck it into a satchel at my waist.
My fugitive beetle-sword was stuck in a tree nearly twenty yards away, with traces of blood on and around it. Splintered branches and shredded leaves littered the area, but there were no signs of life—or death—anywhere. I yanked it out, apologized to anything I may have harmed in Dominaria Forest, and ran back to the lake's edge.
Hidden. No patrols, no shipments, no trade. Forest for miles on all sides. How ironic that your pet’s hiding place has become mine, Hadrian. It'll need a little cleanup, to say the least, but maybe this can be somewhere my roots can anchor.
A place to belong.
As I approached the castle, stepping over bodies like they were nothing more than fallen branches after a storm, a light, playful voice caught me off-guard.
"What a shame—I wanted to kill him."
I spun, reflexively unsheathing my sword to flare wary steel. A woman emerged from behind bark, crossing her arms and leaning lazily against the tree she'd been using for cover. Her weapon was unattended, dangling with a laxness inherited from its owner.
"I was rooting for you to lose, but your fighting skills are impressive. You're not like the others I’ve run into around here," she continued, her gaze sharper than a blade fresh off of whetstone, her lips hinting at a smirk.
I smiled as a cool breeze slid through thick trees, relaxing. "Yeah. You seem . . . different, somehow. You seem real."

I'm a commentator for a tournament of nightmares. The only thing they fear is her.

I strongly suggest you start at the beginning.
If you’re lost and looking for more info, the NFC has provided extra context for background on the fighters.
Where we last left off; “The Hunt Is Over”
-
I’ll be the first to say what I did was unprofessional. I broke protocol, climbed down from my commentary booth amid the sounds of boos and jeers from experts, Zunkle trying to reach for me as I ran the length of the imposing pit and towards my friend.
Before I could make it to her body, however, someone stepped out and shot me a glance that froze me in my tracks.
It was Wendy. Her mask stained in red that trickled down her chin and eyes alight with rage. At this distance, in the same pit where many had already been slaughtered, I felt very much like a man who’d stepped into a tiger pit.
“You have a job to do, Mr. Sabotta. I strongly suggest you get your ass back up to that booth, because things are going to get messy.” She stared up at the empty throne room where Alduin usually sat, calling out to the MIA champ. “Alduin! Bring me Abaddon, now!”
I stared at her for a moment before my body willed me back up to the side of the pit and Zunk graciously yanked me up by the collar, concern wracking his tired face.
“I can’t take you anywhere, can I? Look, there’s time to figure out what happened with Nelle, but we have a job to do. Once this is over, we can discuss next options, kay? Keep it together, Sal.” Before I could even reply, a manic laughter rippled from the throne room and Alduin’s voice boomed out;
“Since she’s not yet passed her semifinal match, let’s give her the next challenger!”
The elevator roared to life as the sound of dozens of footsteps, scratches and incoherent babbling grew in intensity as the elevator reached its destination and came to a screeching halt. As the doors opened and the multitude of eyes, teeth and claws tore at the doors to get out quicker, the lights were switched off and Alduin’s voice tore through the stunned silence.
“BEGIN!”
NFC WILDCARD SEMIFINAL MATCH: “WENDIGO” WENDY HATHALE VS THE TEIHIIHAN
With the lights out and the sole lights coming from my recording equipment and a sea of at least 12 pairs of hungry, ravenous eyes darting around the place, I was unsure I’d be able to accurately provide commentary. After all, seeing and providing context is my job. Still, I persevered.
“Fight fans, I apologise for my lack of professionalism a few moments ago. Being unbiased is a part of the job, but when it’s a dear friend, you struggle to quantify the line between professional and personal. I hope you’ll forgive me and you’ll be thankful to know Zunkle is back to keep me in check. Zunk, we’ve got ourselves our very last semifinal match of the Wildcard Tourney with a power outage! What happens next?”
Zunk stared down at the darkness below before his eyes fell upon the iPod still connected, spying Wendy’s playlist and letting a small grin slip across his face for a moment as he saw the song playing.
“I think what happens next is we see just how far righteous anger can take someone, Sal.”
Sure enough, as soon as he hit play and we directed our attention down to the pit, we could see flashes of brilliant light as these small creatures darted about the place, each looking for an opening in Wendy’s guard to strike. Their bodies were small, nimble, and the ribs exposed as dark brown skin stretched across them like thin paper. Flecks of drool foamed around their mouths and the eyes, bulbous with a sickly yellow, somehow widening when they spied their chance to dive for Wendy.
The realisation hit me and I felt a mixture of horror and disgust wash over me. Looking at the Compendium for guidance only confirmed my suspicions.
Some of these were children.
The Teihiihan were a mixture of warriors that’d fallen in battle, and the others were inexplicably still kids. But the Cheyenne and Arapaho cultures had another title for their dreaded legends, named after the hunger they embodied in their emaciated frames; The Little Cannibals.
Wendy, to her credit, kept her gaze firmly upon the empty throne room and even in the flashes of light we were getting from god knows where, she did not move until they lunged.
Then, she struck.
In a scene as beautiful as it was horrifying, she leaned back while maintaining her stance, allowed the first of these creatures to lunge forward and swiped at its underbelly, spilling the insides across her torso as it flailed on the floor, two of its cohorts rushing over to feed upon it.
The next was no more fortunate than the last, going for her legs as she nodded her head to the beat and brought her leg up at the right time, stamping down on the skull in tandem with the beat until the crunching gave way to a sickening squelch. She did not cease even then, goading the remainder to come forward.
So it went, two would rush forward and both would be caught in midair, hands flailing deftly and screeching as a flash of brilliance highlighted the others tentatively stepping forward as Wendy’s hands grew, claws stuck out and pierced the sides of their skulls, squeezing on the head until a popping sound rang out. Casting them aside, she practically danced as she threw the two corpses to a group on her left, directing her attention to the right as she did so. Ducking down, she darted forward and span her arms around, slicing at anything within her range.
When she was clear to the other side, 6 more gripped their necks, stomachs and eyes as they fall into a heap.
The two that were feeding now directing their blood stained faces towards her as they leapt into the air, mouths open to chew away at her flesh. She responded by simply sticking a fist out and allowing one to chew on her; the latter being swiped mid-air, taking the head clean off. She held this final one up as an example to the crowd, her expression unchanged even when bathed in this light.
“Do you like hurting other people?” She asked, seemingly to nobody as the main spotlight began to flicker to life, intermixing with the deep purple. She tensed her arm, and it grew, the small creature desperately trying to get away, scratching at her forearm in vain with the teeth no longer clamping onto the free skin. In a flash, she ripped the tongue and organs from its mouth, throwing them into the air as she held the remains of the skin and bones, using them as a bat to smash the viscera towards the throne room. Towards Alduin.
There was a splatter, droplets of blood falling down from on high as the crowd cheered the absolute carnage Wendy had left in her wake. She pulled down her mask, and it became obvious where the blood from before the match had come from;
She’d been so fraught with rage that she’d bitten clean through her bottom lip, the blood soaking her chin and the teeth clenched and caked in a dark crimson.
“I do. I will rip and tear everything you put in front of me." She cracked her neck with malice as the song began to fade.
“Give. Me. Abaddon. NOW.”
-
As the clean-up crew worked around an indignant Wendy, I began my end-match spiel. But something felt off, both in how I felt and the surrounding atmosphere. It was the same as that perpetual moment of losing your balance and falling, but stretched out to impossible lengths. A sense of dread washed over me, seeping into my bones and gripping me with the same fear I felt back in the cafeteria.
“This is how it always goes, you know. There’s always a struggle, there’s always a goal, and there is always…”
Hand’s grip on my throat and squeeze, my chest burning and arms refusing to fight back, fingers tensed and toes curled in protest, but I could not break away. I could feel my eyes bulging as the world started to fade.
“A great loss.”
Flashes of moments I’d never experienced once again flooding my mind; a thick underbrush with a younger Nelle, a bar with hooded figures, a manor house with a monstrous skeletal hulking mass out the window, a flight over the seas of the dead with innumerable figures rushing through the seats to reach for me, a hotel with floor after floor of incomprehensible terror… and then, an isolation room.
Looking around, it was pure white, a basic bed and toilet with nothing else to focus on. A straight-jacket wrapped around my body and as I turned, I saw someone peering through the slit in the door at me. Two pairs of eyes, to be exact. One upside down, a thick mono brow stretching across their forehead and curling into a shape on their forehead, eyes wide and bloodshot, their hands and feet tapping at the frame of the door impatiently. The pair that were right side up were half open, milky white and gazing around the room.
“You have repeated this tale so many times and it ends the same. We have tried guiding you, whispering in your ear and pointing you in the right direction. But it seems a more… direct approach is necessary. We see many forks in the road and paths to take. We can only point you to the right one.” The voice below called out after repeated tapping from the one above. “She… WE feel that you will not understand without our direct invention. Our goal is to end the cycle, to put a stop to the violence. At any costs.”
My head swirls, I feel the need to wrench my arms free, but I’m unable to do so. I simply stare ahead and ask what comes to mind without thinking.
“Why can’t that one tell me? What does this mean? How the fuck did you put me here when I was JUST in the pit?” I was growing frustrated, the fear ever-present, but my fight or flight instinct kicking in. She sighs and the tapping resumes as furtive eyes above burn with anger.
“She cannot speak. Clodagh sees what I don’t, but hears what I, Moirah, cannot. We are two of three sisters that are tasked with ensuring you go on the right path, as all things should. SO many have died because of your conflict, and we cannot abide it. You are a part of something that has existed in a balance for aeons, and it is up to us to end the cycle. We brought you here to help you remember, to help you act. As for the pit…” She clicked her fingers and one of my arm restraints grew loose. As I moved it, she beckoned me closer, and the air trembled around the door as I took each step, offering out a hand through the slit that, despite my better instincts, I walked towards it and took it. The second I got into range, she gripped me tightly. Her brown skin starting to tinge an ugly puce, the veins coming to the surface and pumping rhythmically with the beating on the door as Clodagh began smashing her skull against the metal frame. I could hear something muffled in the distance, the beat of a drum.
Flashes of images flooded my mind as I saw the visages of my friends laying dead at my feet; Rex, Landry, Zunkle, Nelle… Nora. All laying at the feet of Alduin and Abaddon, both laughing in utter madness, hands soaked in the blood and guts of every competitor. Everyone I loved. Overhead hung a black sun, the dazzling glow casting both of these beasts in an unholy glow.
“You never left. We just needed you to reach out and set the next reaction to an action, through a little divine intervention. Music is something that transcends time, space and reality, it holds within it so many emotions and ties that cannot be broken. Some embolden the weak and others decimate the strong. We’re most curious to see what this one will do…”
The visage of these two women in front of me flickers in and out, like a television losing signal. Before I realise anything was wrong, I’m sat back in the booth and my hand is outstretched onto the next song and Zunkle is staring at me quizzically, ready to switch the volume dial back to an even number.
Sure enough, the screaming of locusts joins the music as a weathered Abaddon glides from the dug-out, still holding at his skull where the jagged wound sits, decidedly less of his locust swarm with him as exposed bone and scratch marks are visible from his previous battle.
Alduin walked back to the throne room, cape wrapped around her and arms folded as she grinned.
“You had my curiosity, but now you have my attention, Wendigo Wendy. Its looks like we’ve already reached the end of The Wildcard Tournament! Only two remain and the winner will meet Eustace De Kolta & Nora Zayne in the Openweight Grand Prix Finals. I’m excited to see who has the balls to do what needs to be done, who among ya is ready?!” She screams into the mic, the crowd cheering. Some for Abaddon, a lot for Wendy, who had by this point hunched down onto all-fours and kept her eyes locked on a stoic Abaddon.
“I don’t give a fuck about any of that. I just don’t want to lose another friend to a fucking animal like this, to a tournament that pits unwitting contestants against creatures in a game they KNOW they’ll lose. I’ll take him out before he can go any further. And then… I’m coming for you, bitch.”
Alduin chuckled and threw her hand in the air to signal the start of the bout.
“BEGIN!”
NFC WILDCARD FINALS: “WENDIGO” WENDY HATHALE VS NFC ABYSS CHAMPION ABADDON THE DESTROYER
Perhaps it was the fear of losing respect from the crowd. Maybe it was a desire to finish things quickly and heal up, but Abaddon did not hesitate to rush forward. Throwing his locusts in front of him like a thick cloud, this was the first time his entire frame was visible for all to see. A thick metallic plate covered his lower half, inscriptions littering the sides and a black belt holding it together, two small holsters for his swords on either side. He was nimble, so much so that within just a few seconds he was behind Wendy and striking her with a blow to the back of the skull, the force sending her flying across the pit. The locusts were waiting for her body to drop, picking her back up and holding her in place as Abaddon ran in for another strike.
“A stunning start to what we could argue is both the finals AND a grudge match! Wendigo Wendy showcasing how much this fight means to her personally as well as the desire to take on our queen of the NFC. But as Abaddon has shown us in his last fight, he is the Abyss Champion for a reason. What do you think will happen next, Zunk?”
Zunkle leaned back in his chair and pulled some food out of his bag, a piping hot Stromboli that he took a hearty bite out of. I stared for a moment at his lackadaisical approach, waiting for him to finish.
“I think we’ve only just begun to see the violent delights this tourney has. And seeing all this competition, this bloodshed… it’s making me hungry. Not just for food, but for my own shot in that pit. I’ll tell you one thing though; Abaddon is making a grave mistake rushing forward.”
Looking down, Abaddon connected once again with Wendy. This time a kick to the side of the neck that drove her into the side of the pit with a sickening thud.
“You are mortal here, Wendy. You cannot rely on those gifts from your own home. For here, you are nothing more than another nightmare in my division to be conquered. I have my own desires for this tournament that cannot be stopped or interfered with and rest assured; I will take as many of yours or HIS friends as I need to in order to get there.” He shot a glance at me and for that moment, my hairs stood on end. Even just having him gaze at me sent me into a panic.
“Well, you’re unfortunately going to have a tough night, Abaddon.” Wendy coughed, pushing herself up and cracking her neck, bruises and cuts all over her body. “Because now I know what you are, where you come from and my role in all this, I can’t let you progress any further.”
Abaddon cocked his head to the side, and the locusts returned, forming around his arms as he began to pull at his swords. Both of them. Where the shimmering black was familiar, the sickly bright white of the alternative blade was a new kind of horrifying; faces etched in permanent suffering rippled across its fine steel and a soft moan lashed out as he swiped it through the air, crossing both blades in front of him.
“You are a bold and arrogant one, child. But I have seen where your path began and I know what you are, where you came from and what you did. You were powerless to stop death then, and you are no different here.”
He began inching forward, careful not to dash into her guard. Wendy stretched back and for the first time in a long time; she smiled.
“Y’know, back where I’m from, in the Hotel... We have this guy Sigurd Jónsson, but we call him “Ros”, he’s a total music head. Arrogant, rash and full of the worst jokes you’ll ever hear. He saved me from a cycle of violence in my own community, bringing me into his without even realising it. He didn’t make it out of there, at least... not in the way we wanted him to. But that's because he made a choice to stand and protect the things he knew were important, even if his dumb brave ass didn’t realise it at the time.” She flexed her fingers, and the joints grew with the nails, looking down at them with curiosity and melancholy.
Abaddon inched closer. He was almost in range.
“I guess we're pretty similar, in the end. That's why he's a brother to me. But, there’s one big difference between him and I.” Abaddon lunged and slashed with the swords. A horrid groan left the white sword as it hit nothing but air. Wendy leapt into the air and landed on Abaddon’s shoulders, hand tensed like a spider ready to bite.
“I’m not bound by that cycle anymore and that means I will do ANYTHING to pull him from it.”
She drove her hand into the wound on Abaddon’s skull, and immediately the atmosphere changed. There were no screams. There was no time. The locusts stood in place, silent and paralysed as Abaddon mirrored them. She stood there for a moment before releasing her hand, covered in a thick tar-like substance and jumped down, throwing her fist into the air to uproarious cheers. Alduin jumped down, clapping slowly and mic in hand.
“Well, I’ll be… the kid’s got skill. I live only for the best competition and you just proved exactly why this is the best fuckin’ tournament out there. You’re in the finals, kid. Good luck…” Alduin’s eye flashed, and she looked past Wendy to the sight of Eustace De Kolta sauntering into the centre of the pit to greet her, Nora standing at the foot of the dugout, one leg raised and arms folded, watching.
“A pleasure to watch, despite your… maladies.” He extended a hand that Wendy reluctantly took before he raised it into the air to louder cheers. “I’ll be taking him for now, wouldn’t want him interfering in our bout, would we?”
In a moment both relieving and horrifying, Eustace clapped his hands and laid the satchel down as his first pet from the opening round crawled out; the devourer. It reached for the still frozen body of Abaddon and as soon as its pale fingers had a solid grip on him, it ripped him from where he stood and dragged him into the satchel, locusts and all.
Alduin, to her credit, laughed heartily.
“And there’s our second finalist, The Nightmare Catcher Eustace De Kolta! Now adding the Abyss Champion to his repertoire, though I don’t think he’ll be able to hold him for long, he still has a near endless supply of horrors in that satchel!” She cast her eyes to the dug-out and as soon as Nora saw her, she walked forward. Perhaps determined not to let Alduin get even a moral high ground on her, let alone a physical one. “And lest we forget our third and last but by no means least competitor in the finals. Someone I’m sure will do great things… Nora Fucking Zayne!”
As the crowd cheered and confetti rained down, the computer screen held up a timer once more to signal the interval. Zunkle got to his feet and with eyes focused on the ground, thanked me profusely, his enthusiasm causing his voice to raise slightly louder than he intended.
“Sorry, sorry. Got a… lot on my mind, y’know? The NFC granted my match with Malphas and… well, I better get ready. But Sal, don’t judge me for what you see down there, okay? I may be Zunkle now, but I’ll always be The Jersey Devil, I hope when you call the fight, you give it everything you've got. Because I sure as hell will.” He patted me on the shoulder before heading off as Alduin finished her announcements.
“3 hours time, we will crown the NFC OpenWeight Grand Prix Winner and the next contender to my title, betting odds and food are open now. See you soon!”
Eustace chuckled as he let Wendy’s hand go and began walking back, a bitterness to his voice.
“It’s a shame we have to do this, if you weren’t what you are, I think we’d be friends. But given your showing here, it’s clear that you’re no different to the rest of the division… to what my family dealt with before.”
“Oh yeah? How d’you figure that, David Blaine?” She snarked, folding her arms and wincing from her wounds. He stopped and held up a hand as he circled around, a concerned look on his face intermixed with an uncontrollable excitement that I could sense even from here. Though I knew I had to rush to the infirmary and more uncertainty gripped me now than it had done when I stepped through those doors, I also knew that the finals were going to be the bloodiest of them all.
“Because after that showing, I sense there’s a changing of the guard. One that would send a dangerous message to the far-reaches of all worlds." He slings his satchel over his back and as I make my way to see my friends, those last words ring in my ears and once again bring forth the mentions of the cycle those strange women whispered into my ears;
"The only thing the NFC fears now… is you.”

Tales From a Small Town: Where I've seen the fleshy things before

When you live in Raw and you like someone, you can be sure that the rest of the townsfolk will find out in no time. We are the most gossipy people in existence–everybody knows everybody and a secret you might tell a close friend is sure to be passed on to an even closer friend of theirs.
I'm looking at you, Mabel.
When I was eighteen, I had the biggest crush a young girl could have. The object of my affections was Bo Davis. He was twenty years old at the time and worked as a farmhand on Mr Johnson's property which was located right next to the Lewises' house. As such, Bo of course knew and to my dismay was great friends with Rory and Matilda Lewis. This was obviously a cause for concern. I was worried that they'd badmouthed me in his presence, or worse, that Matilda was interested in him.
My main concern was for any knowledge of this crush to reach them before I'd have the chance to properly talk to Bo myself. No matter how, I just knew they would try to ruin things for me.
One night, my friend Mabel, she's the daughter of Camille and Matthew Freedman who run the only art supply shop in town, had come to visit the orchard to see me. We had been planning on going out but I was a bit down so we ended up sitting down on the swings in our garden to talk. She asked me what was troubling me and I confessed it all to her–my feelings for Bo just as well as my worries about him being friends with "the enemy". I told her to keep her mouth shut about it and she promised she wouldn't tell anyone.
The next day, everybody knew.
I had to learn it the hard way when Vasily and I went to spend the afternoon at Dante's after he had finished running errands for Donovan. This was back when I was still very new to the place and not even close to frequenting it the way I do nowadays, making the whole thing even more embarrassing to me.
"So… Bo Davis, huh?" my brother asked casually, waving to Desiree who was on her bartending shift at the time.
I took a deep breath. "How?" I asked sharply.
"Oh. Wasn't supposed to get out then?"
"Of course not. Who the hell told you?"
"I heard it from Dallas Jones when I got Dad's whiskey earlier, he knows from Kathy Johnson and she heard it from your friend Mabel." He grinned awkwardly. "Sorry. I'm betting you told Mabel," he added.
"She's getting it for this," I growled.
"Hey, don't be upset now," Vasily tried to comfort me. "A four people chain ain't too bad. Could be more."
"That's not helping."
He shrugged, giving me another apologetic smile before glancing over at the entrance and quickly turning away again. "Well, then I bet you don't wanna know who just walked through the door."
I spun around and there he was. Bo Davis was standing in the doorway, in all of his tall, tan glory. He looked around and upon spotting me took his hat off and walked up to me. I could tell he was grinning, but I couldn't place the look on his face. I cursed inwardly. He knew. I was sure he knew. Of course, Kathy Johnson had probably told him at work.
"The two Bennetts," he greeted us. "Good to see you," he told my brother. "It's been a while."
"Sure has," Vasily replied, looking unsure.
"I'll be frank, I was looking for your sister. Would you give us a moment?"
"Sure will," Vasily replied, still looking unsure but willingly getting up from his chair and walking off to the men's room.
Oh fuck. I had a feeling this wouldn't be pleasant. I shrunk into my seat, looking up at the young man in front of me.
"So, I heard something from Kathy, and I don't know if it's true, but…"
"It probably is, go on." Screw you, Kathy.
He smiled. "For real? That's… very nice. Do you wanna go dancing or something sometime then?"
"What?" I must have looked flabbergasted.
"Oh. Okay, this is awkward. See, Kathy told me you liked me and not gonna lie, I was pretty happy about that. I thought I'd ask if you wanted to go out, but if that was just some dumb gossip, I'm really sorry. Didn't mean to be all weird on you."
"No, no, it is true!" I stammered, still absolutely aghast but very much trying to pull myself together. "I just kinda didn't expect you to… uh… I mean I'd love to go out."
He beamed at me.
We started off slowly. Our first date was at the college bar in town where all the younger people go to dance. I had an amazing time and Bo was the sweetest guy ever. A great dancer too. Afterwards, he walked me home and stayed a few minutes to introduce himself to Donovan. They had known of each other prior to that night of course, but Bo took it as common decency to say hello and Donovan loved it.
"He's a good boy," I later overheard him tell Siobhan. "He's gonna have to stop hanging around the Lewises so much, but he knows what to say, I'll give him that."
"And he seems to be such a hard worker," my mother answered eagerly. "I was scared she'd bring home some deadbeat. I love Pepper but you never know with that girl."
I was happy. I was in love. Not just that, I saw myself having a future with him. I knew he did too.
From then on, he would pick me up regularly until we'd spend almost every single day together. He wasn't pushy and the first time we kissed was amazing. Sure, we were both shy and clumsy as hell, but we didn't care. It was still the greatest feeling ever. This went on for one and a half months. And then it happened.
Raw's mayor throws a party for all of us every year on his wife's birthday. It's this huge, grand festivity that everyone attends whether they want to or not. There's music blasted through speakers in the townsquare which is probably loud enough for them to hear it over in Pure and there's fireworks and free booze and cake. It's wonderful, actually. At that point, I had only attended it once before and I had absolutely loved it, so of course I was looking forward to going there with Bo that year too.
Little did I know that after that night, I would spend the following birthdays of the mayor's wife locked inside my room, hugging my blanket and crying into my pillow while trying to keep myself from thinking of that young man I had so adored.
I still remember standing side by side with him, watching as the first colorful sparks rose and exploded into the night sky when he leaned in and spoke into my ear. I couldn't understand him so I motioned for him to repeat himself. He shook his head, took me by the hand and led me off from the small crowd. We actually had to walk for a few minutes until the music had grown quiet enough for us to talk. With all the lights and noise having faded into the background, I almost felt relieved when I could hear his soft, warm voice again.
"I've been wanting to tell you something. I don't want you to feel pressured so make of this what you will for now. So… I used to live with my parents until now but I talked to Mr Adams… he's the guy who used to live in that small, older house just up the street from yours. I've been wanting to move out for a while now and I've finally got enough money to actually think about it. Anyways…" He cleared his throat. "As I said, I talked to Adams and he's letting me have the house for a sum I can actually afford. Like, I will have to pay it off, don't get me wrong, but it's mine already. I'm moving in next week. Just gotta pack up my things."
"That's awesome," I began, my cheeks warming up. "You'll be so much closer!"
"Actually, about that. It really is pretty close. I know we haven't been a thing for long but I… I really want to have you with me. If that's too fast for you, it's okay. But just so you know… if you'd wanna come live with me, I'd love that." He smiled gently. "Of course, I was just super eager to move out already and you haven't even been with your family for too long, so I understand if you don't want to. Just letting you know. This is my invitation, basically."
I was staring at him with wide eyes. That was a huge step. I had only lived in a set place for one year though, so moving wouldn't make much of a difference. I could always return home if something went wrong. I was lovestruck; I wanted this. I was about to tell him when he shook his head.
"Okay, you look… affirmative," he said, chuckling a bit. "But please don't say yes just yet. I want you to really think about this before you decide. You gotta be sure, you know?"
I shut my mouth again, nodded and smiled. "Wanna go back to the party then?" I suggested.
He grinned. "Sure."
Just as this word had left his mouth, a high-pitched, ghastly scream cut through the night air, causing me to gasp and stumble against Bo who quickly steadied me on my feet. He too looked shaken.
"What was that?" I uttered, looking around frantically. We weren't close enough to the mountains for the creatures to be a threat; we were somewhere close to or behind the Johnsons' farm. There was no one else around but there were no dogs barking either. None of the telltale signs were there.
Bo's brow trembled as he stood up on his tiptoes to get a better look at our surroundings. "Way too dark to see anything," he muttered. "Crap."
"You think we should tell the others?"
"No… we gotta check this out first. Could just be some animal. Foxes in heat can sound scary as hell too and I've seen one or two sneak around the farm before."
"Don't leave me alone here," I pleaded.
"Of course not." He offered me his arm. "Not letting you walk around in the darkness on your own."
Pressing to his side, I followed him closer to the fenced area in front of the Johnson farm. It's not the biggest part of their land, simply the one where they grow their vegetables. I could barely make out anything, except for the short moments during which the sky would be illuminated by the bright colorful light of the fireworks.
"Maybe we should get one of our dogs," I thought aloud.
"I don't think we need to. That'd be such a huge detour."
"Do you have some kind of weapon with you at least? Your knife maybe?"
"Hey. Look at me." He kissed me on the forehead. "We'll just check this out. Nothing will happen. Not that I'd let you get hurt anyways." He winked. "No, for real. Everything's okay. It'll only be a minute."
He took a step ahead into the darkness. Another scream pierced the silence and we instantly started into the direction it had come from. We were still close to the Johnsons' farm, now walking around the fenced area and finally coming to a halt in the back of their house. It wasn't all that quiet anymore though. We could hear a low, rattling sound which seemed to come and fade again in long intervals. It took me a while to place it.
It was breathing. Someone or something was slowly breathing in and out, loudly too; yet they seemed to have trouble even doing so at all. It sounded almost like they were coughing with the way the air seemed to labor its way in and out of their lungs. It was raspy, heavy and deep. I had never heard anything like it before. The noises sent a chill down my spine as I tried to make out their source.
"Something's moving over there," Bo whispered.
I followed his pointing finger. He was right. There was something writhing on the ground. I could see slivers of some lighter color moving around in the darkness. "Is it an animal?" I breathed.
"No… that'd be way smaller," he replied in a hushed tone. "We need to be careful, there's this muddy spot over there. The Johnsons' pet pig always splashes around in it. We might slip if we get too close."
"You sure it's not just the pig then? That really did sound a little like a pig grunting just now."
"It should be inside around now. You're right though, it might have run off somehow." He let out a sigh of relief. "I'll check. You stay here, I don't want you to slip in the dirt."
I only reluctantly let go of his arm but stayed in place as he had asked. I watched the sheen of his brown leather jacket being swallowed by the blackness bit by bit.
"Rossa!" he called out, presumably the animal's name, making a clicking noise with his tongue to get its attention. My heartbeat quickened when I heard his breath hitch.
"What's wrong?" I whisper-shouted, a strange, nervous tingling sensation in my hands and cheeks.
"This can't–" Bo's voice was breathless and stunned. It was cut off by an ear-piercing scream, his scream, and I lunged forward, slipping on the wet ground and falling flat into the dirt. My head made contact with something hard, a stone maybe, and I shrieked with pain. I yelled his name, but only received more cries of terror in response. I struggled to get up, not managing to catch my footing in the mud.
"Where are you?" I screamed, now close to tears. I had lost all sense of orientation; his screams seemed to come from all around me. There was no light anymore, my head was spinning as I desperately spun around again and again hoping to spot his shiny jacket or the pale spot on the ground. "Where are you?!" I cried out once more, louder this time, a feeling in my chest like my heart was about to burst.
From somewhere, I thought I could hear him shout at me to stay back, but his words faded into a sickening gurgle before more agonized howls followed. There was a ringing in my ears. I called his name, pulling on my own hair and sobbing in wild despair as the screams faded into silence, until suddenly, all the lights of the farmhouse came on at once. It was so bright I couldn't see anything at first. Blinded, I stumbled around, trying to find something to hold onto.
"Good God…" The deep voice of an older man caught my attention, I recognized it to belong to Mr Johnson. The next thing I heard were three shots and a strange, crooked whimper.
"Bo?" I asked once more into the blinding light. However it was Mr Johnson who responded.
"Mother Mary… Pepper Bennett, right? Stay where you are!" He was speaking loudly but he sounded so afraid. He seemed like he was trying his best to stay calm though, talking to me in a forced soft but firm voice. "Don't move, okay?"
I blinked. I was finally beginning to regain my vision.
"Do not turn around!" the old farmer repeated. "I'm here. It's alright. Just don't turn around."
But I did. I heard him approach me from somewhere behind my back and I turned my head just a little bit. I caught a glimpse of something indescribable. It wasn't like anything I'd ever seen before. It was lying on its stomach, pale and hairless and twisted and alien. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a beast at first. But I saw much more than that. I saw blood.
A large, warm hand wrapped itself over my eyes. "Don't look," Mr Johnson uttered from right behind me, gently ushering me away. It was too late though. I couldn't scream anymore. My throat felt like it was burning. All I could do was sob silently as the farmer led me off and brought me back to Donovan and Siobhan who were both extremely confused but immediately took me into their arms.
Mr Johnson had seen Bo and me leave the party. When we hadn't come back right away, he'd worried we might have been getting up to some kind of mischief. He followed us and was instantly alerted by our screams, so he ran into the house to turn on the floodlights and grab his gun. By the time he returned however, it was too late for Bo. The creature had already torn him apart when he came out to kill it.
My parents brought me to the doctor that same night since I was dizzy and the ringing in my ears wouldn't stop. He said for the most part, it was probably the shock but that it appeared I had also sustained a light concussion from hitting my head.
The Davises didn't put any blame on me. I however did. To this day, I'm not sure if I could have saved him, but I know I could have tried harder than I did. If I hadn't slipped, if I hadn't panicked… maybe I could have helped. I'm not "over" what happened to him. I just don't think of it as much anymore. I stopped spending hours just imagining where we would be today if he hadn’t died. I stopped sleeping for days on end because getting up felt pointless. I guess I stopped to tell myself it was my fault too. All of that stopped a long time ago. Deep down however, I know that a part of me died with him that day.
Every year on the day of his death, I spend around three hours in the local cemetery to visit him. I always go there before the mayor's wife's birthday party starts so I don't have to hear any of the commotion. When I was still eighteen, I would spend almost every waking hour by his grave. It was hard to limit it to just once a year, but I'm glad I did. I knew I had to move on with my life eventually. As I said, it stopped a long time ago. I try to remember him instead of his untimely death. I try to remember his smile instead of the closed casket funeral. And when I leave again, I try to forget it all for a little while.
Where the creature came from, no one knew. It wasn't like the others though. However it closely resembled the one we found in the abandoned house Rocco claimed was haunted.
I'm sorry if this all reads as a bit jumbled. I still get very emotional thinking about it and I've never written it all out before. I don't think I want to ever again.
Since this is my last chance, I guess I should take it to say that Bo Davis was a wonderful young man. I admired him, and no matter if we'd ended up living together or not, I know for sure I would have never stopped cherishing the memories I made with him. I still do.
x
Alien lights above the hills

AITA for not talking to my step sister after she snitched on me for smoking weed

First Contact - Chapter 298 (Infinity)

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The facility was dark and cold, the atmosphere flat and thin feeling despite being at the right pressure. It felt heavy and oppressive despite being at Earth standard gravity. It had the feeling of an ancient structure built by people who were unknowable and so alien that their very thought process was impossible to understand.
But the desiccated corpses in the chairs were Terran human, pre-diaspora, their datalinks so old they were still made of non-allergenic nu-chrome rather than warsteel or any of the modern materials. Their vacuum suits had the look of uniforms, pulled on over jumpsuits or archaic clothing. It was easy to see where the suits had been pulled: stations on the walls that read "EMERGENCY USE" above them.
Herod sat on the floor, staring at his hands. He'd accidentally blown off two of the fingers of his physical interaction frame. The hand was covered with pink synthetic neural fluid and the red of synthetic blood even as synthetic blood dripped from his mangled fingers. In his other hands he held a standard force packet pistol, the end still smoking from the synthetic blood that was splattered on it.
Sam-UL's physical therapy frame was slumped in the chair, held by cargo straps, the ruptured cranial casing still sparking.
Herod could hear screaming around him. Human voices. Male, female, some languages that Herod didn't know even though he prided himself on knowing most of the Human Regional Languages. They were all screaming differently, some shrieking words, others bellowing in rage, still others screaming in horror and terror. There was a small contingent that just sobbed, many lamenting the loss of children or loved ones.
To Herod, those were the worse.
The lights all went out in the facility, the fans whined down, and Herod could hear the voices louder. A flickering light caught his attention and he turned to look.
A female Terran wearing a work jumpsuit with an odd logo and the words "PROJECT DREAMCATCHER" under the logo was moving down the hallway, her face in her hands, weeping. She was entirely made of translucent bluish tinged pale white light that flickered between one of her steps and the next.
She sobbed a name and flickered away.
"I can hear them," Herod whispered, staring at his hands. There was an error, an overflow in his emotional processing buffers, that was spilling data into the RAM for his eyes, causing them to leak lubricant as the pressure sensors kept glitching.
"Shunt the incoming signals to the emergency disaster overflow system!" the corpse on his right shouted, a flicking whitish blue transparent version of the man appearing in the seat, covering the skeleton like wax paper.
"My God, it's everyone," the woman lying on the floor in front of Herod cried out from where her flickering apparition sat in the chair.
"System instability is rising. Phasic locks are failing in Section Sigma," the male said.
"I can hear them," Herod whispered.
A light started flashing and Herod looked up, squinting at the white light pouring from the screen. A single sentence was displayed by the monitor.
HEROD, WE DID IT. I'M IN. I'M OK NOW. WE DID IT. - END OF LINE
Herod giggled and looked back down at his hands, staring at the sparks jumping off his maimed fingers. It hurt, but it felt good that it hurt.
The text vanished.
HEROD, IT WAS THE ONLY WAY. I HAD TO TRICK THE SYSTEM TO LOAD ME INTO BOTH SYSTEMS AT THE SAME TIME. - END OF LINE
Herod looked back down at his fingers, at the discolored pistol patterned with dried synthetic fluids, and giggled.
A flickering ghost moved behind him. "Get into the protective suits now, we're going to power cycle the entire third layer, try to..." it whispered.
"Phasics are down on Layer Two and Three and Four! Phasic arrays are failing on Layer Six!"
"I can hear them now."
HEROD! PULL IT TOGETHER! HEROD! THERE'S STILL WORK TO BE DONE! - END OF LINE
Herod stared at the pistol and giggled again.
He closed his eyes.
Only for a moment.
The moment was gone.
All his dreams passed before his eyes, a moment of curosity.
He opened his eyes and looked up, his smile a skewed lopsided thing, his eyes burning a hot amber.
"I'm here, Sam," he giggled. He screamed, long and loud, and it felt like some kind of abscess bursting deep inside of him. The relief of pressure felt so good that it allowed him to get to his feet, still screaming.
HEROD, I NEED YOU TO ASSIST ME. TURN ON YOUR DATALINK. - END OF LINE
Still screaming, Herod activated his datalink, knowing he was transmitting raw shrieking gibbering code full of madness normally only found in the minds of half-baked warboi hashes loaded into missile targeting systems.
It felt like cool oil being poured into his ear. It soothed the overloaded and screaming circuits of his positronic brain. It moved through the artificial electronic dendrite chains, calming the disharmonic buzzing of the scorched circuits.
Herod shuttered and was vaguely aware that somehow he had pissed himself. He could feel the coolant running down his legs even as his screaming slowly dwindled. He closed his eyes, hiding the amber fire for a moment.
When he opened his eyes, the optics were no longer robotic eyes but more like Terran cybernetic optical replacements.
The iris were gun-metal gray.
"Can you hear me, Herod?" Sam asked through the datalink. The dead DS's voice was calm, steady, somehow more mature.
"I hear you," Herod said softly.
"Can you still hear them?" Sam asked.
Herod looked around. He could see three humans, translucent whitish blue light, putting on emergency vacuum suits.
"No. I can still see them," Herod admitted.
"Phasic residue. According to my diagnostics the entire phasic arrays on this level are gone. Fried out. I've got a repair order in, but nothing's happening. I need you to go check the creation engines on that layer," Sam said.
"Layer? You mean floor, level?" Herod asked. There was a blue line in his vision that led out the door and took a left into the corridor.
"No. Layer. My God, this place is... its... our parents built this back when one of us took a facility the size of a hover-bus just to run the computations for our sentience," Sam-UL said, his voice awed. "I'm a little stiff, my thoughts are a little slow and janky, but my God, the processing power."
"Talk to me, Sam. I'm holding on with both hands but I feel like I'm slipping," Herod admitted as he passed by two flickering humans rolling around on the floor stabbing each other with makeshift knives while two others crouched next to one unmoving one and shoved gobbets of spectral flesh into their screaming mouths.
"Infinite processing power matched to infinite storage," Sam-UL said quietly. He laughed, a sharp brittle sound. "We're both barely holding on. We should be lucky I'm young. My time on that station made it so I'm used to overwatch and restricted areas, I'm roughly 3.1% faster in the computing speed than you are," he laughed again. "This... this is what it must be like to touch the face of God while he is asleep."
"Stay with me, Sam," Herod groaned, closing his eyes as he walked by two spectral humans engaged in sexual acts with a dozen others cheering them on.
They were all smeared with blood.
"The phasic systems failed. It was designed for disasters but the Glassing was a whole magnitude higher than anything they had ever predicted due to the Mantid psychic assault that accompanied it," Sam said. He laughed again then sobbed before continuing, his voice high and tight. "Oh, God, there's a Pubvian with her eight puffies here, asking me if I've seen her husband. She can't find her husband and her puffies are scared."
A human stepped out of a doorway and fired a pistol three times. Herod instinctively ducked and raised his own pistol.
The specter put the pistol in his mouth, pulled the trigger, and vanished as a dozen spectral hands reached out of the wall for him.
Herod concentrated on the blue line and kept walking.
"We aren't the first to try to repair it," Sam-UL said suddenly while Herod was waiting for an elevator.
"We aren't?" Herod felt foolish repeating the other DS. The doors to the elevator slid open.
It was mercifully empty.
He stepped in and pressed the button.
"Five 'emergency teams' came from Terra to try to fix it," Sam-UL said. "They failed."
"I'll bet," Herod said. He didn't need Sam-UL to tell him what had happened to those teams.
"We're the only ones who could have done it. We don't have phasic subprocessors, none of the psychic screaming will effect us as badly as a fleshy," Sam-UL said.
Three specters fell through the ceiling of the elevator, screaming and clawing at one another, and vanished through the floor.
"I can barely hang on as it is, Sam. I feel like I'm slipping," Herod repeated, putting his hand on the elevator wall.
"Imagine if you had a phasic subprocessor like a cop or like Torturer," Sam-UL said.
A male human appeared for a moment, obviously talking to the barely visible woman in front of him. As the elevator passed the floor hands reached out and yanked him through the doors. The woman began screaming as hands dragged her out too.
"I would be dead," Herod said softly. He giggled.
He sobbed.
He laughed.
He started screaming.
The warm oil poured into his ear and through his mind again, leaving him on his knees.
"You need to hold on, Herod," Sam-UL said as the elevator came to a stop. "I'm holding the doors shut, but you need to hold on."
"Why?" Herod asked, staring at his hands. He didn't remember tucking the pistol away again.
"Because I can only see the schematics for this place, and even with nearly infinite computing power, I'm having a hard time absorbing it all," Sam said. "I'm looking for your Matron, honored warrior. When I find her, I will have her come to gather you and your clutch brothers."
"What is it?" Herod asked, slowly standing up.
"You're on Gamma Layer but the sun is out, which is something I'll need you to fix," Sam-UL said. He giggled again. "You shall play Prometheus to this forgotten place, Herod, and I shall place your name in the very stars."
"Stay with me, Sam," Herod said automatically. He inhaled deeply, as if the intake of atmosphere would actually matter to his functioning.
It somehow steadied him.
"I'm ready."
The door opened and Herod reached out and grabbed the edge of elevator door, staring.
The sky was full of lights. Lines, clusters, patterns. Lights that moved, lights that flowed, lights that blinked on and off, lights that blossomed and faded. He could see massive tubes rising up and vanishing. He could see the curvature of the sky moving away from him.
Where it met with the upward curvature of the ground.
"But... but... the Niven Ring Wars," Herod gasped. "They were all destroyed."
"It's not a Niven Ring," Sam-UL said. He giggled. "Oh, no, that would be too simple for our parents, Herod. Far far too simple for those that we look at as so primitive," his laughter was sharp, jagged , and Herod joined him in laughing at a joke he hadn't heard.
"In a hundred million years, when our parents are gone, they will not be called humans or Terrans," Sam-UL giggled. "They will call them 'The Builders' and marvel in awe and fear their works."
"What is it?" Herod asked, staggering out of the elevator.
He was on a platform, a mag-lev train sitting on the single monorail in front of him. There were dead plants at the edges, a depowered robot in the middle of the right hand edge, and skeletons littered about the ground.
"A Matrioshka Computer," Sam-UL said. "Hypothetical. The math says it would be unstable, that it wouldn't work."
"I've never heard of it," Herod admitted, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth so he wouldn't scream as specters flickered in and out of reality, fighting with one another. A crowd was waiting for the maglev, the doors opened, and Screaming Ones came pouring out, attacking everyone, even as individual members of the crowd began screaming.
"Picture an onion. Multiple layers. Only in the middle is a sun. It uses the sun's energy to run high energy computations on the inner layer, the heat passes to the next layer, where thermal excitement generates more power for computations that generate heat, which passes to the next layer, until it reaches the last layer, which is largely cold and no more energy escapes," Sam-UL said as Herod followed the blue line in his closed eyes and wove around between the bodies. He got on the mag-lev and sat down, his eyes still closed.
Voices whispered in his ear to open his eyes and look at them.
A woman asked if she was beautiful.
A voice asked if he had seen her puffies.
"Hang on, I've got to divert power to that mag-lev, get you to solar engineering," Sam-UL said.
"How far above me is that layer?" Herod asked, feeling the train bobble slightly as the magnetic levitation system was activated.
"Almost exactly a half million miles," Sam-UL asked. "The fusion generators, the 'suns' you will be activating will be on a magnetic tube circuit a quarter million miles, exactly in between."
"Why is the sun out?" Herod asked. He could feel the train vibrate.
Don't you love me any more, Wayne? a woman whispered in his ear. Is that why I'm here alone? Don't you love me and the children any more, Wayne?
Herod shuddered.
"Emergency shut down when the Mantid attack happened."
Herod sat for a long time, flinching at every whisper, holding himself and rocking back and forth, alternating between sobbing and laughing, screaming and giggling.
"Herod," Sam-UL's voice sounded stressed, tight.
"I'm here, Sam," Herod said.
"Check the strange matter creation engine," Sam-UL said. "I'm going to hand you a atomic template."
Herod just nodded, his eyes still closed. He reached down into his satchel, groped around till he found the nano-forge, and pushed one finger into the dataport. It came back as ready, just missing the matter tank.
"Still need a matter tank," Herod said. He giggled.
"Herod, I'm going to put on something in the background. I need you to tell me if it makes things better or worse," Sam-UL said. His voice sounded authoritative and mature again.
"Hit me," Herod giggled.
"...warm podling safe podling brave podling clever podling one and one is two two and one is three two and two is four circle is round and square is square and blue is nice and green is pretty..."
It eased the discomfort in Herod's mind. At first he just rocked back and forth to the tune, hugging himself, as the mag-lev train sped through vacuum at a nearly impossible pace. Then he began humming along with it as the voices, the pleading, the questions, the screaming began to recede.
He opened his eyes.
He was miles above the dark surface. Above him the lights flowed and flickered and bloomed and went dark. The train car was scarred, damaged, windows broken out, the support poles missing or knocked away, the seats slashed and stained with blood and worse. Bones were scattered, wrapped with the rags of clothing that had long ago succumbed to slow decay.
"Only another ten minutes, Herod, then you'll be refueling the strange matter reactor. That'll get the emergency systems working," Sam-UL said, his voice audible above the strange simple soft singing but not obscuring it.
"I'm holding on, Sam," Herod said.
He could remember the weight of the pistol in his satchel.
He fantasized about pressing the barrel of the pistol to his forehead and joining the specters.
"Once you get power to the system, I can bring back up the fusion reactors in between the Layers, run some more diagnostics," Sam-UL said. "There's something really strange."
"What?" Herod asked, more to take his mind off of everything than anything else.
"The mass and energy of this place. For example, gold conductors, there's more gold in this Layer alone than in the entire Sol System, hell, in any stellar system," Sam-UL said.
"Creation engines and mass creation systems," Herod said.
The maglev was miles above the dark surface, but he could still see ghostly flickers here and there in the streets, groups of flickering specters in tubes only a few miles away from him.
He could still hear screaming.
"It takes the entire mass of a system to build a Niven Ring, Herod," Sam-UL said. "This is layer after layer after layer, millions of miles apart, which increases the surface area of the next layer," he was quiet for a moment. "Right now, as we speak, another Layer is in the process of being built."
"Why?" Herod asked as the train swept through a grouping of flickering transparent specters that were grappling with each other. "I thought you said there was basically infinite computing power coupled to infinite storage."
"Herod, you're a particle physicist, you don't get it. There is infinite computing power coupled to infinite storage to manage and create nearly infinite procedurally generated persistent simulations of realities complete with personality matrixes and chaos events," Sam-UL said quietly.
"Why?" Herod repeated as he watched two small children eating a third sweep by.
"Because of the nature of what it is," Sam-UL said softly. "What each unique simulated reality actually is."
"What?" Herod asked, swallowing.
"The afterlife for each person who dies. They're kept in separate simulated realities to prevent data loss, with infinite copies of themselves spawned through infinite simulated realities, each housing a person who has died that is then spawned in the other realities," Sam-UL said. His voice changed and he giggled. "I can see infinity here, Herod. I can touch where eternity and infinity make love to one another while entropy watches in envy as matter and energy pours from between their legs to create reality."
"Stay with me, Sam," Herod said automatically.
"Her breasts are full of life," Sam-UL said softly, his voice full of wonder. "Her thighs whisper of abundance, her buttocks are rounded with potential."
"Sam!" Herod snapped.
"And 'Lo! I looked away from her form, for it was procedurelly generated unto infinity where her bosom would comfort beyond failed entropy, a suitor that had been spurned and gnaws upon its own liver in discontent," Sam said. There was laughter, then a sobbing, and Sam's voice came back. "There's normally a dozen digital sentiences and a few tens of thousands of workers here to keep the supervisory digital sentience together, Herod."
"We alone remain to tell thee," Herod quoted.
"You're there," Sam-UL said as the train slowed and came to a stop. "Close your eyes. The third maintenance team got this far before their security was overwhelmed by the Screaming Ones. It's particularly bad."
Herod followed Sam's advice, closing his eyes and following the blue line. A couple of times he stumbled over objects that clattered away.
Most of it was bones.
Finally he was there. The room was massive, the size of a city, full of machinery that sat in the dark. As Herod crossed through the room, heading for his goal, some of the machinery clacked and clattered through ancient maintenance checks.
Very few telltales were red, and those that were had robots working on them.
"You're here," Sam-UL said.
Herod opened his eyes, still hearing the song in the back of his mind.
It was a reactor. A crude, ancient strange matter reactor. Herod just stared. He'd never seen one in real life, supposedly they were theorized but then replaced by much more stable, if less energetic, thorium salt antimatter fusion reactors.
It used 'heavy' helium three atoms, strange matter helium three.
"Do you have a schematic, Sam?" Herod asked, feeling the ground beneath his feet firm up for the first time since they'd committed themselves and used a hack-job mat-trans to reach this place from the Black Box.
"Yeah, sorry. I found some puffies, they're confused and sad. I'm looking for their mother," Sam-UL said. His voice was full of anguish. "How can we do this, Herod? How can we bear this?"
"Because we must," Herod answered, examining the schematic. He overlaid it on the wreckage. It looked like someone had tossed an implosion charge into the reactor.
He could fix it in less than an hour with the creation engines and reactors he'd brought.
"Sam, I need mass," Herod said. "The air in here isn't registering with the creation engines, not even the strange matter one."
"Behind you. He's waving. Call him Wally," Sam said.
Herod looked behind him. A junk pile robot, damaged and battered, sat there. It waved, blinking the debris shutters on its cameras at him.
"All right. Come here, Wally, let's get started," Herod said.
Wally was eager to help, delivering matter tanks that fit easily with the nanoforges. The zero-point difference reactors gave off a soft glow, some of the energy escaping as faux-light neo-protons, that lit the work-space with a slight bit of comfort.
Finally Herod stepped back, watching the reactor inject the 'heavy' helium-3 strange matter into the reactor.
It fired up with a hum.
"All right, I can get the orbital reactors fired up and access the Alpha Layer," Sam-UL said.
Herod sat down and put his arm around Wally, hugging him.
The battered old robot leaned his head against Herod's side and gave a digital equivalent of a sigh.
"Weird, the outer layers are smaller than the inner layers," Sam-UL mused. "OK, sensors on the Alpha Layer coming online, I can get a look at our star and..."
Sam-UL's voice trailed off.
"It's not a star..." Sam-UL said, his voice crackling with stress. "Herod, I can't... I can't... I can't... I can't..."
"Sam, what is it?" Herod yelled, looking up.
"BANG! BANG! BIG BANG! BIG BANG! IT FAILED HERE! IT FAILED HERE!" Sam yelled. "BANG AND COLLAPSE BANG AND COLLAPSE BANG AND COLLAPSE TILL OUR PARENTS SHOWED UP!"
"SAM! Get it together!" Herod yelled.
There was silence for a long moment.
"They built a Matrioshka Computing Shell around a repeatedly failing Big Bang," Sam-UL said softly. "I can see eternity inside of it."
"The puffies, Sam, they need their mommy and daddy! Think of the puffies," Herod tried.
Sam made a strange noise.
"I'm here, Herod," Sam-UL said. "Michael pulled me back. He's online again."
"Can we get out of here yet, Sam?" Herod said, ignoring the shades that appeared, struggled against other shades, until one shade threw a makeshift explosive into the reactor.
"I don't think this place likes us."
[first] [prev] [next]

My girlfriend and I moved into a new apartment and now all my socks are going missing

“What the fuck?” I asked, stepping back from my sock drawer as if it were an open flame. “Jessica, I’m definitely missing another pair.”
“What?” She asked. “How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know.”
And I didn’t. The whole thing made zero sense. When we first moved into our new apartment eight months ago, my socks took up the entire drawer. After three months, there was definitely some empty space. On that day, six months in, I only had enough socks to fill up half the drawer.
I turned on her, “If this is some kind of joke, I need you to come clean right now. This isn’t funny anymore.”
“Garret,” she said incredulously, laughing. “Why are you blaming me? I’m not doing anything. This is starting to get a little freaky but I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m gonna go get some water. My mouth has been so dry since I woke up.”
But what other explanation was there? We lived alone, and our apartment was fully furnished, meaning we had a working washer and dryer. We didn't do our laundry on the same day, and our clothes never left the place unless we were wearing them.
I followed her to the kitchen and took a deep breath, “Listen, baby, I’m sorry. I’m just stressed out and it’s a little weird. Like, where could they be?”
“Well let’s count them,” she said, taking a long drink of water. “Every week when you do your laundry, count them before you start washing them, count them again before you put them in the dryer, and then count them again when you’re folding them. If we can narrow it down to when they go missing, we can figure out where they’re going. I mean things don’t just disappear.”
I did exactly as she said. That day, I counted eight pairs of socks, and I bought a notepad to keep track of the numbers. I bet I’m the first guy in the world to buy a notepad to record how many socks he has.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve done my laundry like this: every Saturday night, I wash my clothes, then put them in the dryer last thing before bed. In the morning, I let the dryer run for about ten minutes to get any wrinkles out, then I take out the clothes, fold them, and put them up.
For three weeks, I had eight pairs of socks every time I counted. I told Jessica that I must have just been misplacing them somehow, and now that I was being careful, everything was squared away.
She scolded me for making it a big deal and scaring her, but we started to relax about the whole thing. I mean, seriously, it was a few missing socks over the course of months. There was no reason we should have been scared in the first place.
But on that fourth week, things got a little weird.
Before I put my clothes in the washer, I had eight pairs.
Before I put them in the dryer, I had eight pairs.
Jessica stood by me on Sunday morning as I prepared to open the dryer and count my socks. It had become our weekly ritual, I was starting to feel like this guy my dad used to know who always made sure he had an even number of cheerios in his bowl before he ate them.
Usually, after I counted the eighth pair, Jessica would shout something celebratory like, “The socks are safe!” And then I’d pick her up, spin her around, and give her a quick kiss on the lips.
As I was counting, we were relaxed. She was on her phone and casually complaining that her mouth was dry again and she didn’t know why.
I knew that my sock problem was over, but it was merely routine. As I counted out four, I could tell she was getting ready to celebrate, but what she hadn’t noticed was that there were only two pairs left.
I counted to make sure, but yeah, six pairs. I was missing four socks.
“Jessica…” I said, my voice trailing off as I pointed down at the pile of socks.
She put her phone away and stepped closer, counting off the socks slowly, “What the hell?” She asked. “Are you joking?”
“No…”
“You had eight before you put them in the dryer right?”
“Yeah, I did. Um… maybe they got tucked away somewhere else?”
So we searched the dryer for any place they could’ve been hiding, and we checked all of my clothes to see if they’d somehow slipped into a collar, sleeve, or pocket. I even checked the lint trap to see if they’d somehow gotten inside there.
But no, they were gone. Had we just discovered that things can disappear? A magical dryer? Was someone breaking in every few weeks and stealing my socks?
And it was only my socks that went missing. Jessica hadn’t noticed anything wrong with her clothes, but then again, she did the whole thing all at once, never leaving clothes in the dryer overnight.
So something must have been happening in the time between us going to bed and waking up in the morning. That only made it scarier.
I looked at Jessica, she had gone so pale that her skin was almost matching the color of the white wall behind her.
“Baby,” I said. “It’s just some missing socks. We’re overreacting. Four weeks and I lost two pairs of socks. You know I’m an idiot sometimes, I probably miscounted at some point.”
I reached forward to pull her into an embrace, but she stepped back, slamming herself against the wall with a loud thud.
We stared at each other in silence for several seconds before she whispered, “Are you trying to scare me or something? Things don’t just disappear, Garret, You need to cut it out.”
“Jessic-“
“I gotta go to work.”
She stepped out of the laundry room and into the kitchen. Within ten minutes she was dressed and out the door.
\God,** I thought to myself. \Am I really gonna let some missing socks ruin my relationship?**
At first, I thought I’d just buy a bunch of new socks and forget about the whole thing. I wouldn’t even notice if a few went missing here and there. I guess that’s what most people would have done, it’d make both of us feel better.
It was just a bunch of missing socks. I didn’t care if the guy from *13 Cameras\* was breaking in at night, as long as he stopped with taking a couple of pairs of socks every now and then.
But then again, no one breaks into a house just to steal socks.
I was still pretty sure that I was imagining the whole thing, but I decided to call out of work and go buy two security cameras. If for nothing else than to ease my mind.
I set one in the corner of the laundry room, hidden between two towels. From there it could record the door, the washer, and the dryer. The other I perched just above the front door, looking down so that I would be able to see if anyone entered the house.
I connected the cameras to my phone. They came with an app that would let me view the entire video feed’s both current and past, and would send me an alert and a five-second video whenever motion was detected.
When Jessica came home from work, we made up. She said she was just feeling really scared about the whole thing and didn’t know how to react.
I explained what I did with the cameras, and told her that soon we’d feel safe in the knowledge that no one was breaking in and making off with my precious socks.
For the next six days, I did a quick check of both video feeds every night before bed. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and I hadn’t received any notifications for movement that wasn’t attributed to either Jessica or me.
It was reassuring, but we both knew that the real test came on Saturday night.
It was 10:00 pm and we were lying in bed. I had started my laundry fifteen minutes prior, and as usual, didn’t plan on getting up to take them out until morning.
I know most people would have changed their laundry routine by then, but I felt that if I did I was accepting that there was something to be afraid of. And if there was something to be afraid of, then I should have been doing something, not hiding from it and waiting for it to get worse.
Jessica had, miraculously, actually fallen asleep. I stroked her hair absentmindedly with my free hand as I watched the video feed on my phone.
As the minutes ticked by I started to feel a sense of dread and uneasiness. I was scared to move, as if the world was waiting for me to turn my head just an inch and set everything in motion.
My jaw tightened, and my heartbeat quickened in my chest. It was suddenly way too cold but I couldn’t bring myself to move the blanket at all.
I just layed there, waiting for something.
Eventually, I guess exhaustion took me. Because I woke up at 6:00 am with my phone on the floor beside the bed. Jessica was still asleep. Careful not to wake her, I got up slowly and grabbed my phone.
I had five notifications of movement.
Video one, 3:03 AM: A large man enters the apartment by key.
Video two, 3:03 AM: He enters the laundry room and flips the light on. I can see that he’s smiling wide and literally jumping for joy. Giddy like a little kid on Christmas.
Video three, 3:15 AM: He’s exiting the laundry room. He has a sock on each hand and he’s looking straight up, breathing hard, but from the slow and relaxed way his shoulders fall, I can tell he’s feeling good.
Video four, 3:16 AM: He walks past the front door. Not out of it. Past it. The only room in that direction is our bedroom.
Video five, 4:05 AM: He exits the apartment slowly and casually, sniffing the sock on his right hand.
What was he doing in our room for almost an hour?
ABC

First time viewing The Challenge as a Big Brother/Survivor fan, Part 10(Battle of the Bloodlines)

So my run through of the seasons continues, this time with Battle of the Bloodlines. I put a TL:DR or overall thoughts down at the bottom if you don't want to go through each episode. Check my posting history if you want to check out the past seasons I've been through so far.
Thanks for reading these, they're fun to make and make going through the seasons more enjoyable.
EP 1:
I thought Camila was short, but she seems a head taller than her sister. Damn
Not surprised Jenna is back.
I feel like if they were going for a season of bloodlines they could have tried for more vets or big names from the challenge to at least use it as an excuse to get some people back. It seems like they went the easiest route possible and got half of the previous season and some rookies and a whole bunch of pointless add ons.
I'm really worried I'm not going to like how this show changes moving forward... lol
Fucking Johnny and his god damn speeches
Oh, I didn't even recognize Kellyanne.
Damn, the son is coming up and they're still just drinking and hanging out
"Expect the most maniacal twists" after literally the first thing resembling a twist ever happens
Why were we robbed of Cohutta and Kellyanne, or even Nany on Exes 2, rather than fucking Bananas
Caught a weird angle on Christina and really thought they snuck Casey on the season for a second.
I really never understand the people that come on here and literally think they can openly cheat. Like God damn, how do you have anyone trust you if you think you can get away with it on a show let alone real life?
Guy who is cheating says they didn't hook up, girl who doesn't care says they did lol
Coming in and throwing out shit like "typical woman move" is definitely the way to come in as rookies lol
He literally has nothing to say
Angry drunk casting strikes again
Imagine coming in this game with a family member as a teammate and going out for fighting with the same family member lmao
Wait...is this the house from Seasons? Or another season? I recognize those stairs that Sam got pushed down right beside of!
He didn't hit you Shane, but I'm preeeetty sure you hit him a few times.
THEY get the clear? Pffft production is so damn wishy washy
So you thought Jenna being worthless was so entertaining you thought it a great idea to bring her just as useless cousin on with her. Great.
Rules must be stopping them from collecting water from the moat that has collected around the hill lol Just fall over and go "Oops, I must have picked up a little extra."
Leroy even mad at his damn sibling!
God damn, Johnny is murdering this.
Oh no people may be trying to come for Johnny? Unfair! lol
I seriously can't take the cartoon drawing on Nicole that she calls makeup.
Seems weird to have male and female days when there is multiple teams with both male or both female. If it's a female day do the all guy teams not even try because it doesn't matter? I'm confused? This seems dumb.
Having the rookie make a speech about putting someone up because they're a rookie? lol seems smart
Vince starting shit lol
EP 2:
I'm only just starting episode 2 and I think I hate this season. This may be my least favorite cast from the jump.
Uhhhh, did Cara just give a Hand Job to some RUTO random, WHILE SHE'S DATING ABRAM?!?! What in the shit Cara?!?! Cara just plummeted in my mind. Eeeesh
Every time I see Jenna and Brianna I suddenly get struck with a wave disgruntlement.
I hate this cast.
Starting off early with the eating challenges. I'm ok with this.
Interesting that they chose to do this role/position aspect randomly. Doesn't usually seem like their thing.
It'd be weird to have the snake cuddling around with you, but I honestly can't see being all that freaked out about it. The bugs definitely has the worst end of the bargain.
How are they possibly going to determine the worse out of this lmao first to give up?
Eh, some people didn't do near as bad as I thought. Kellyanne seemed to struggle going in but looked to blow it away.
Jenna and Brianna continue to prove their worthlessness.
Again, don't understand the discrepency between the girl/guy days. Could the girls literally have just not tried because they assumed it was a guy's day? This seems so dumb.
Wow, Kelleyanne looked like she killed it. Shocked she was at the bottom of guy teams.
With the way Cara was orchestrating the helping of Cohutta last episode I'm assuming Johnny is going in against Cohutta? Maybe I shouldn't get my hopes up.
Oh, I guess she's just going to Cohutta and seeing who they want.
Ugh, I hate this fuckin' cast. These twins just seem like all talk. Notice they get all snappy with Cara, but even though it was Cohutta that called them out they don't go to him at all?
Awe, Cara has Diem on her arm.
Nany just blowing up Cara's spot. So I'm assuming Cara was thinking there was no cameras in the bus and then suddenly Johnny has a gopro and suddenly Thomas needs to go?
God damn. Nany's sister looks like a damn cartoon character with her makeup.
I feel like Aneesa is trying to get Jenna/Brianna to quit lol "She's not even cute!"
Again, why. Why the fuck was Jenna brought back and why the fuck did they think her trainwreck cousin was worth bringing on with her?
I agree with Cohutta, these people are insanely crazy. Fucking hell.
I feel like Cohutta is doing terribely with this Elim. He's not even trying for the ball. Once he tackles him he just wraps him up and sits there.
Wait wait wait wait. Someone just talked about wanting to quit and only staying for their cousin and you're going to switch up teams to where she has no motivation to stay? What?!
EP 3:
Ok, so they're doing Survivor style swaps. Teams of two now swapping to two big teams. I'm ok with this.
As much as I hate Johnny, Cara is smart to grab Johnny first.
Cara's cousin is looking at this much smarter. It's more about saddling your team with the worse people than it is about picking the best.
Cara's team is getting fucked right now with these picks lmao Candice, Brianna, AND Aneesa's family member. That team is fucked. Was Johnny not trying to help with the picks at all? I can't imagine he'd be quiet.
I'm loving the recycling of challenges from the last couple seasons.
I was about to ask why Cara looked like the least secure person to jump but then I remembered she has a height fear.
Did they literally get Candice to walk off the challenge and directly in to a confessional? lol They wanted to get the shot with the blood.
I like this voting mechanic. That's gonna be rough.
Nany just randomly voting Aneesa just to be a bitch lol
Camila don't fuck around with her politics. You wanna throw out her name you better
Nany, you didn't vote for Larissa, but you also threw away your vote instead of voting for Jenna. I feel like you took some notes from Johnny. Also, I again bring up the fact that Nany and Johnny were kissing Jenna's ass at the last reunion.
These fuckin' throwaway votes lol Aneesa and Nany are playing bitchy. Not voting against Camila doesn't do shit if you could have voted for the next closest person.
Ok, at least the team came around to their senses. I don't know what they were thinking.
The way it was being determined I thought maybe they were done with the representing aspect in the elim, but calling Camila and Briana up makes me wonder if it will be Camila vs Jenna.
Jenna wins one elimination and wants to be cocky lmao
Hope this Tony dude is ok, but I'm perfectly fine with Shane/Tony going. Bye.
EP 4:
Shocked by Candice and Leroy. The big toe stops you from competing?! I would think it'd be more out of fear of the lip busting open again and getting worse.
Guess I was wrong about the representation aspect in the Elims. Makes it a lot easier to get rid of strong players with just voting in their weaker partner.
I really wish they didn't make so many elims dependant on body weight and size.
Bye Camila. You got screwed. I would have actually liked seeing Camila vs Jenna in the same elim.
"We're going to be here to the final." "Yup, probably." Good enthusiasm Brianna lmao
Oh no, Johnny lost two of his numbers in one night. :c
Eeeeeeesh, Every time I see this Cara/Thomas shit I just cringe super fucking hard. Jesus.
So many damn people cheating on this show. God damn!
I love when people are completely opposite what they show from their confessionals lmao Cory, all over Aneesa, gets told by his partner to shape up. Gets in confessional "She's showing me she's more childish then I thought. I'm gonna put an end to that." -Jennifer Lawrence ok.gif
Nany and Johnny are definitely the cheifs of hooking up and not really letting it effect their games lol
Damn, another pair gone.
Oh shit. Oh SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT Huge fucking eye emoji. HOLY FUCKING SHIT.
Abram, coming in to this house right now is fucking hilarious. Cara, just straight awkward.... Oh fuck hahaha
This season JUST GOT INTERSTING!
Oh god the awkwardness. I love it!
Johnny and Nany fucking loving it!
Abram doesn't look like he's in the best of shape though...
Cara shockingly doesn't look happy or excited.
AND Trivia? Best episode ever?!
I feel like they've asked this 60/60/60 angle questions multiple times now. I wonder if it's a trivia staple. I also don't think anyone's gotten it right.
God, I hate so much of this cast. But hey Abram is here and I am so ready for this drama.
5 sides on a stop sign? What?!
Fake face girl of all people winning it for the red team? Shocked.
Damn, I thought trivia was going long but that's the end of the episode?
EP 5:
What a weird place to pick up on an episode. It's like the old half hour episode days.
"I wouldn't lose a day of sleep if Banana's fell off a cliff." I knew I liked Abram.
What....just happened? Did Abram's brother volunteer to go in to Elim? Like...why? The crazy gene is strong with this family.
Cara STILL hanging around with Thomas. What is in this chick's head?!
Kellyanne...
"I don't want to talk to that bitch(aneesa) either." Cory going downhill fast.
You think Aneesa is dumb enough to fall for this obvious politicking kiss ass? You dumb rookies.
Aneesa, don't be stupid.
I'd usually be all for newbies coming in and fucking shit up, but most of these rookies are just annoying as hell.
"You're showing your true colors." Cory, you literally only even talked to Aneesa to get a vote. Who's true colors were seen?
"Nobodies afraid ladies." These twins are nothing but mouth.
I don't even know who this Anthony guy is... lol
Mitch looks like he's about to cry when this Anthony guy votes for him.
It sucks that so many people went home so quicky because I feel like the format didn't get to play out as well as it could have. They're basically forced now to vote for alliances rather than trying to weaken or strengthen teams. Which I think is the best part of the teams/pair aspect of this system.
Johnny is a douchebag, but Dario and Raphy are really not ones to talk lol
TJ just smiling and nodding watching it all. I love TJ lmao
Throwing off his mic. Isn't that like a big no no? I remember everyone jumping in and trying to help Jasmine when she almost did that. Like they didn't care before that, but as soon as she went for her mic everyone jumped on her to stop her.
Them being mad at Aneesa is fucking hilarious. You guys basically dogged her and only talked to her for her vote. Ya'll are idiots.
They're saying the vote was in Aneesas hands, but are they going on the assumption that Mike would have voted for himself? Because even with Aneesa's vote the decision was off by 2?
"Did they ask you if you saw them come out of the bathroom?" God damn Cara. What the shit. This isn't even like the Paula situation, where Yes Paula was shit for what she did, but Ty was pressing that shit constantly and it was weeks of it. Cara was hooking up with this dude like a week in. God damn chick.
I remember thinking early on that Kellyanne seemed more mature and stable than a lot of people on the cast, from seasons like The Island or Ruins, but I feel like she's just gotten more childish and insecure as seasons go on? Aneesa's acting just as stupid in this episode, but Kellyanne just seems kind of like the desperate girl trying to get attention from all the popular guys or something. It's a weird energy.
Jenna not considering things racist? Color me shocked.
"2020's in hindsight." That's definitely not the saying, but god do I wish Kellyanne.
I can't express how hilarious it would be for the twins to lose this lmao
Using only his arms lol, what a dumbass
Oh fuck. His damn foot slips! He fucking had it!
Hahahahaha the bitch twins gave up and tried to wine about the yellow hitting the line lmao
What idiots. All mouth, and then they're mouths get them the loss. Wow
Aneesa, wise the fuck up. Cory just wants your vote at this point.
EP 6:
Oh shit, A Dirty little secret. Ominous episode title!!!!!
Johnny at yoga is pretty funny, not gonna lie
I love Abram's hate for Johnny. He calls it true! "False friendships, selling people up river, just false to your face." So true!
Love the Johnny hate Abram, but you're definitely letting emotion effect the game my dude.
People can't stop talking about Cara/Thom. lol How is she not walking around this house with an ulser with worry of who's going to say something.
I would love nothign more than the guys get to a challenge and TJ just saying "First thing first, Cara we have to address something." I would love nothing more than for TJ just to put the drama out there RIGHT before a challenge.
Its challenges like this that really shows the benefit of vets and experience.
Kellyanne offering to go in? Saves time I guess.
Johnny, I understand not wasting the time in fighting for Nany in deliberations, but to vote for her is just stupid and pointless. You're not gaining any face with people already gunning for you by voting for someone who everyone knows you're aligned with. You're doing yourself a diservice voting for Nany. You're just being stupid.
Like Nany says, throwing his vote away would just back up what he's said for years. He's so loyal isn't he?!
I had genuinely no idea who Anthony was lol
"No matter what I do is the wrong thing." Well yeah, when you do shit that makes no sense but is some weird veiled attempt at supporting your team or garnering favor. You're a dumbass and just as much talk as Raphy and Dario
Who the hell is Cara talking to? Who is Jamie?!?
It's been two seasons of Nany crying over Johnny, yes she still has feelings for him.
He didn't want to make his girlfriend mad hahahahahahaha Johnny's been the one to talk up in the reunions how people hide from cameras to fuck and all this shit. Not voting for a friend is the most hilarious copout that is so empty.
Fuuuuuck, 50 times?! This is a better test of endurance. Damn. I think Nany has this one easily.
Oh god, AND Kellyanne has some kind of chest cold? Good luck chick.
Kellyanne actually won. I'm shocked. The comp having a bell on each side actually made it easier than I thought. I was thinking it was only on one end.
I'm happy to have Nany's sister out of the house lol
Hahaha I love Johnny basically saying "come at me" with this Cara secret. Let this alliance see if it can stick shit out. You have a crazy guy on your house just waiting to blow up lol It's dirty, but I love it.
EP 7:
Cara continuing to just call it flirtation is great.
Wait wait wait. Is Johnny really just having his Cousin go out there and blow it up? You giant pussy! Johnny wanting to keep his hands clean and leaving it up to someone with no fucking sense of even how to talk.
Cara, you suck ass.
Cara just trying to pass it off as trying to get further in the game is really a shit way to handle this lol What a way to try and pass your shitty behavior off as "gameplay"
"I did say that, Johnny." "It's cool Abe!" Johnny not in power is so much better than Johnny in power.
Abram is straight chaos and I love it. It has saved this season.
Aneesa how the hell long have you done these. What weak shit.
Cara needing stuff to be easier for her is hilariously sad.
Abram is insane, and I fucking love it.
I feel like Abram came in with the entire mindset of wanting Cara to win. Him and his partner wanting to go in to elim as soon as they got there, him wanting to get Johnny out and not wanting Cara to team with him. I think his whole mindset was to go in and just help Cara.
Of all the things to NOT have Abram himself being in the elim?! Destroying shit! That would have been hilarious to see.
Fucking "Home wrecker" Wooooooooooow
This elim is fucking awesome.
Abram causes himself to get a bloody nose lmao
Can we just talk about Abram barking like a dog and quietly in the back ground Jenna and Briana are spinning in circles? What?!
Stephen literally can't even get through the tiniest table hahaha
This is not even close. This is so damn sad.
Motivational crazy Abram is my favorite Abram
Oh Cara, come on. You're just now going to talk all about this breaking up shit and saying Abram there is harder for you in the game. Just be real, you're upset your new cuddle buddy left and you're upset Abram came in to make it awkward for you on tv. That being said though, why were you even still with him? lol dude is crazy. But you don't cheat on the dude!
EP 8:
Throwing it for Kellyanne? Johnny wouldn't even talk during deliberation for Nany lmao
At least everyone is clearly talking about how shitty Johnny is with his game. He's dirty, but he talks like he's a damn saint lol
I am continually shocked everytime this Jamie dude shows up on the screen lmao
Wait wait wait wait. CT and Diem's sister are joining the game? I'm about to fucking cry! It seems stupid late in the game to impliment a new team, but it's CT! I don't care!
No colored shirts, probably just an audible on the specific challenge.
I'm going to cry! "Do it for D!" I love CT!
Faith seems more interesting and has more screen presence in like one confessional than half this bloodlines cast lol
I'm pretty sure they just gave Aneesa the "Complete" but she looked like she fell a whole square before the yellow line...
Johnny "helping" lol This is my issue with Johnny. He can't just do shit in the open. He talks so much shit about Wes throwing shit, but he had a reason to and he owned it. You couldn't even talk during deliberations to help Nany and pass it off as saving face with a team, then not wanting to upset your girlfriend. But here you are throwing a competition and sabotaging other players to help a different girl. You're fake as hell and you just hide from it so plainly. It's disgusting.
I never remember who this Jamie guy is but at least he's calling Kellyanne rightfully out.
Hahahah Johnny's face when they get announced the winner. I love it.
Kellyanne fucked up talking shit lol
There's only 3 people that can go in and only one is going to be safe. There's no real reason to be angry at this point.
Jenna and Brianna getting screwed by Johnny too haha Only now realizing it. Johnny promises everyone everything and just watches as they all go out one by one.
Vince out of nowhere with "I have to go by performance today" haha yeah that sounds like Johnny, not owning up to the reason behind their choices. Had an alliance from the jump with Aneesa/Jenna/Nany and basically two of those are getting screwed over and Kellyanne is moved up the pecking order over everyone because of Anthony lmao You people are so damn dumb.
Kellyanne literally can't even defend Anthony hahaha
Oh here we go, Johnny voting against his alliance people to "save face" haha
I'm happy to see everything is finally coming to head for Johnny. Just wish these people weren't so stupid to believe it in the first place.
CT and Faith!!!!!
Kellyanne came back on the show because of Diem passing? That's actually really sweet. Not sure how true it actually is but I'd give her the benefit of the doubt and find it really touching. Kellyanne comes off more authentic than Cara does with her writing Diem on her arm and saying Diem for a trivia answer.
Vince wanting to start shit with CT? lol Dumbass
"I heard me and you would have been competition in the past." "In the past you would have already been knocked out." I love CT
Please tell me Jenna and Brianna are finally gone.
What in the holy hell is Kellyanne doing? lol She blows a huge lead by trying to flip the blocks and worry about their sizes? Jenna just comes in and throws them all up like it's nothing.
Anyone falling for Johnny and his bullshit has no one to blame but themselves. Kellyanne and Anthony just watched Johnny fuck over Nany, why did you think you'd be any different?
EP 9:
Of course Johnny wouldn't like Abram. He's too honest and not willing to believe his bullshit.
"Creepy uncle Vince" This show has a weird track record with Vince's
This is a cool scary challenge lol
Brianna didn't even try. Jesus.
Oh my god these people. Four in a row not trying! What in the hell?! You can't go under fucking water?! Did I miss the description of the task? Were people throwing it to have the fastest swimmers do it?
Abe getting in the box and cracking up. Abram is insane and amazing tv.
Everyone joking about Abram taking the chance to kill Johnny is reallllllly weird?
Some of these comps, I wonder if TJ hates that he even has to be there for them lol They're under water the whole time and TJ just announces when they're out. I'm surprised he's not sitting in a chair under shade having to be reminded to blow the horn.
If you told me at the drawing of teams that Red team would not lose a challenge I would seriously not believe you.
Vince saying he's not worried about it when he's been letting the team down constantly lol Of course he isn't.
Yes! Get rid of Johnny before it goes back to pairs!
Johnny running off to shore up his easy votes like easy. Doesn't give a shit about them, throws them in, but oh wait I can get their vote!
"I just hope you're not just sweet talking me." Jenna, you're a dumbass. He's only talking to you when it comes down to your vote lol Good thing it's Brianna with the vote and not you. She seems to buy less of Johnny's shit.
It's funny how Johnny doesn't play the "rookie" card and "earning stripes" when the rookie and person who's been terrible is tied to his fate.
Fucking Brianna and Jenna. Ya'll are so dumb. You are going to instantly get screwed right after this.
Call em out Abram! Call em out!
I have a feeling Mike is just going to throw this for Cara. Like I said, Abram just seems like he's had the mentality of helping Cara along since he's gotten here.
I get CT again, he was already there....but why Zach? Is it just to show off that he cut his hair off?
Comparing Zach and CT is laughable.
Could you imagine if Johnny was in the pit and was taken out by CT again?!
CT looked like he came in to kill someone in Cutthroat. He looks a lot more relaxed coming in here.
Hahaha Jamie looks like a child in this competition. His head just constantly being pulled against the wall.
Jamie, no matter how often being told, just refuses to use his legs.
"I think I'm nicer than CT" Oh Zach... that's funny. You have two full seasons of screaming at your female team members.
I'm with Aneesa. Hearing "Cuz" and "cousin" this often is just weird.
Of all the eliminations to bring in ringers for, this is kind of a boring one.
There was basically the only real risk left for Cara. I would say they're chalked in for the final at this point if not the win.
EP 10:
(With absolutely zero people paying attention) Vince: "Stupid bar tricks." and tries to blow a ping pong ball in the air, for no apparent reason or directed at anyone? What even is this dude?
Yes, a mini final! I hope this is a new trend of having a mini final every season.
This basically is a final with only 3 teams having any kind of chance at this lmao Aneesa and Jenna and their pairs have jack shit of a chance.
Brianna carrying this weight that looks bigger and heavier than she is! Lmao
"There's rocks on the ground!" Jenna... You say some of the funniest shit unintentionally.
I really wouldn't call struggling with the first leg "gassing out" it's more like they're suddenly struck with the struggle and just need to adjust and get on track. It's not like they're to the point of not being able to walk. They just aren't used to climbing an incline with a bag of weight on their backs.
I'm actually shocked by Cory and Mitch being so far behind everyone.
Ok, I spoke too soon. Vince legit looks gassed lmao
The two teams I didn't think even had a chance are leading hahahha
If I was in some kind of pool or betting for this show Cory would have me so pissed. He is being pathetic for how much you would just be looking at him and thinking he'd be better.
This monkey bar checkpoint would be terrible if you can't do it on first try. If you can't do it the first time, why would you be able to do it a second or third time?
Weird spot to have a girl/guy differential in the comp.
Cara just fucking booking past Bananas lol
The puzzle going to be the equalizer? Aneesa going from first to last?
It's a credit to editing that they somehow turned 15 minutes of Aneesa and Rianna struggling on the monkey bars in to like two whole segments.
Last to first? Holy shit! Wow
The challenge was actually surprising as hell in just about every way. Wow
"It's going to be a hard decision to make." What? How?!
Johnny just doing anything to keep himself out of Elim lol "Jamie sucks, he'd be easy to beat." Definitely not Vince, who's been terrible throughout the season. Not at all!
Good god, if Bananas and Vince scraped by again I would have flipped my shit.
"Knock these egos down." Vince, I didn't expect you to be so self aware...oh you weren't talking about yourself. Nevermind, carry on.
Johnny saying "If I go in and beat Cara, this could be considered one of my best wins I've every had." rings to me like Bananas trying to excuse a coming loss after the fact. Like he loses this elim and then wants to preemptively talk about the competition of Cara as being some huge win knowing damn well he loses. Fucking Johnny, I hate you if this happens. This is such a fucking Johnny move to belittle his loss like it was a big competitor. If you lose it will one hundred percent be because Vince is godawful at everything.
STOP SAYING COUSIN!!!!
It sounds like Johnny is thinking this is a color related puzzle, but I think it's more about the pattern of the lines. I don't think they have it.
Johnny is gone!
The Challenge is starting to get that Survivor problem where some big competitor leaves just short of the final and they started to put in the fire making challenge. Stuff like CT leaving before Free Agents, Johnny/Nany in Exes 2. There's an aspect of lesser competition getting to the end simply because the two big competitors face off leading to the end. Cara vs Johnny in the final would be more interesting than Jenna being in another damn final, or Aneesa and her partner having no chance.
EP 11:
Location change! This seems like a standard at this point...
Oh we checked off someone having to ask where it is. Even for Berlin.
Aneesa talking about getting this far and then failing, and then immediately sabotaging and tearing down her cousin.
They walk in to this hotel and it looks like it'd be the location of an older Real World season lol the weird furniture and colors everywhere.
Aneesa seems completely uninterested in even trying to care about her family member she brought in to this lol
Aneesa's like I'm just here for the money, and Rianna actually seemed to want to get to know her family member and have a good time.
All Aneesa talks about in these confessionals is needing Rianna in the game and to get her head in to it. Rianna's just talking about Aneesa being standoffish and rude. Maybe one of those things would kind of help the other? Like, give Rianna a reason to care to help you win money, or want to work harder for you. You might as well be Zach screaming at the girl.
Another cool competition. This season's cast has been lackluster, but the challenges have been on point.
Aneesa just seems so angry and bitter at this point.
Cory/Mitch blowing it away.
Aneesa sees her final fall away before her eyes.
Oh god. Cara says "Fustrated"...
"Then go to another country!" Aneesa says as if she has a choice...
Wait wait...it's come full circle. Now Aneesa is yelling at someone else to figure out who they are and who they wanna be. I've heard that argument thrown at Aneesa way too much.
Is..Is Aneesa talking about Cara right in front of her, like she's not there and not even a human? lol Aneesa, are you getting to Robin and Katie levels at this point? My brunette crazy drunk crush squad is closed up, sorry.
I definitely think there is a quality of fakeness to Cara, but Aneesa, I think you're a bit off the mark with her accent and how she approaches the game.
Bar Wrestle back, if there was anything Cara could come up short on.
I love that they try to act like an elbow or knee during the bar wrestle is dirty, but continue to keep bar wrestle in the game because of this exact aspect of it.
Saying Jamie won against CT is definitely stretching it lol
Jenna two for two in finals? Underrated great competitor? lol yeah right.
EP 12:
Jenna being the one to talk shit about being in a final... What reality is this?
Franz! A tailor?
City Final!!!!
A part of me would actually love Jenna and Brianna winning this lol
Oh yeah predictions: Cara/Jamie > Cory/Mitch > Jenna/Brianna
Cory and Mitch having to sit on only the second lap lol
Only the guys seem to have issues with this. Maybe 120 is a little much compared to the girls' 60?
"Janky carnival games"
Oh Cara come on. Literally crying from just fake beer?
Cara, you have rookies talking shit about your whining! THIS is how you handle drinking liquid?
Jenna and Brianna are just killing this.
At this point I purely think Aneesa lost her mind with Cara because of how much she had to hear "Cus" and "Cousin".
Jenna and Brianna blowing it away, just waiting for them to blow it away just in time to hear it's only day 1.
Part 1 ughhh. I miss marathon one day style finals. I don't care if it makes the final less suspenseful, or if one team blows it out of the water. I'd rather see people have to fight to not give up entirely.
Oh, is it still one day, just two parts?
EP 13:
I hope they have to swim in these suits.
You can just not eat them and get a 5 minute pinulty? Is that enough time?
Oh no Cara's worst enemy! Liquid!
Good god, Jamie seems like he's about to fill up that damn bucket.
Oh I see, it seems you have to eat everything, there is just a time limit for how long you have to get them done.
Jenna, also with no gag reflex. Zach seems to have a type.
TJ, amazing actor.
This city final has been a complete disappointment.
Just a random 2 mile jog around a track to end it. Did they just run out of ideas for finals?
These number puzzles and tangrams are again just like fire making in survivor. If you come in to these games not practicing these puzzles and learning basic strategies for them, then what are you even doing here? They come up just about every single season. Especially with the likelihood of people coming back multiple times. There's players of Survivor that will practice every single TYPE of puzzle they use and they have a much lower chance of ever even coming back let alone seeing the puzzle again. This show you're likely to come back on and likely to see these puzzle types. Do your damn homework!
I came around on Jenna/Brianna a lot. Happy to see them finish it.
Cara winning just seems tainted lol Like, I wasn't necessarily rooting for her so much as rooting against Johnny and then against the rookies and Jenna.
Reunion:
I hate when any show or episode starts with random teasers for the episode. Just get to it.
Vince starting the episode looking like an idiot.
Nicole looks less like a cartoon character.
At least Jenna is looking at all the elim's positively. Saying she had to make up for the previous season and never going in.
Bananas kissing ass of Jenna again, she must be coming back again...
Rianna looking good on this reunion. She looks a lot different than she was on the show.
Zach has a way of just cutting people off... geesh. Seems like a child that doesn't know how to handle a break up and just cuts, runs and hides.
Cara already crying, and they haven't even gotten to her yet.
Ugh...watching Abram's face while watching this. Ugh this is hard to watch.
Cara sit there and try to be mad or cry. You made your bed.
Abram about to cry.
Quit giving the fucking out that she did this because she was caught up in wanting to win. Fuck that noise.
At least she owns up and goes straight to Abram and says something.
Abram's tattoos just get worse and worse.
What the fuck is she trying to talk about with this being seven seasons about Abram and wanting the season. Way to take a fucking nose dive after starting off great.
This is just gross. Cara started off great, but damn it took a dive.
It just sounds a lot like fucking up and trying to find a lot of reasons to excuse it.
Didn't Thom himself say there was a handjob? lmao Cara, now you're just lying.
I hate Johnny, but I'm with him. Fuck this trying to bring up other peoples shit. Just be honest.
Quit giving her the fucking out that this has any fucking thing to do with the game.
Cara, wow. "Let me count my money. Who sent you home?" Well, that is definitely the way to address it lol
I loathe Johnny, but I agree with him when he says Cara saw she had an added number to her alliance and that was a huge factor of not telling him. She evne said it herself that she knew how he would react. She didn't want him to get DQ'd or possibly get Thom DQ'd. That's why she was upset when Abram wanted her to vote Thom in elim. At that point I do think she was just thinking about numbers and was trying to not talk about it. I don't think her getting with Thom had anything to do with thinking about the game, I hate that that is even suggested, but it definitely changed how she handled her decisions.
Can we literally not even talk about the fact that Johnny wasn't even willing to TRY to talk his team out of voting in Nany, but he was willing to throw an entire challenge to save Anthony/Kellyanne. Seriously not going to talk about that?
It was a game vote, what were you gaining? Everyone knew you were in an alliance with her and no one would care? You gained nothing, quit trying to squirm your way out of it.
Literally holding a trailer hostage to get a hashtag trending lmao
I feel like these reunions completely ignore the more pressing or interesting questions to just go for the direct and simple questions that might spark the most drama. Like not bringing up that Johnny tried to throw a challenge for Kellyanne and didn't mind not saying her name, but wouldn't even speak in defense of Nany at fucking all.
At least we're bringing up how god awful Vince was. Jesus. I'll just say it, Vince is more of a hindrance to the team than Big Easy.
"He purposely threw half of those." Fuuuuuuck out of here Johnny lmao
Good god, don't curse us with that Johnny, I never want to see Vince again. Cory is probably the only person from this season I could bet we see again. Maybe Jamie, but I doubt it.
Johnny, who has won finals with two other partners "This is the best partner I've ever had" haha this dude will literally say anything.
Why torture me at this point with hearing "cousin" more. Why?!
Overall thoughts:
I ended up coming around on this season quite a bit. The first two episodes I had absolutely zero investment. It brought in the worst parts of the previous season and then added half the cast being pointless or throwaways. The season ended up coming around, I think, due to the editing and the building of stories and drama. There wasn't a ton, but what was there was put together pretty well. Not only just the Cara and Abram situation, but also the individual elims, even though I never cared about any of these people, actually had interest and swings. I think the biggest disappointment of the season was the final. I was actually coming along and enjoying the season finally, you give me a "city" final and then it's so boring and bland and has almost nothing to do with the city other than kayaking down a river in the middle of the city and one part being in an abandoned subway. This final was an absolute bummer. It could have had the most interesting and athletic players in it and it would have still been a stail boring ass final. It's sad that the last couple seasons the mini final that they have within the season has been a better race or show of endurance than the actual finals have been.
I miss the long marathon exhaustion inducing finals. These finals are getting really lame. Fuck the winners coming down to times on the combined parts. Make the shit a race. Between the casting as of late, the group of players to continuously return, and the final going more and more down hill I'm really worried my interest and trust in the show is waning. I really hope it isn't so. I know I've heard some good about some seasons coming up, but I just don't see some issues being all that addressed.

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Wizard Tournament: Chapter 18