Hello! I am here for a serious LTR.
Me:

• 5'9, VB, Average rating, slim and cute daw hihi
• Virgin
• NBSB
• Mature
• Will be your player 2
• Will bake for you
• Will make origami for you
• Will cuddle or read books with you
• Will talk with substance and listen
• Will support your goals and passions

You:

• VT or top
• 22 to 26
• Mature
• Caring
• support my goals too

Kindly DM or comment on my profile post to get my attention.

Hello Campfire Tales! I am a huge fan of your channel and thought it would be a great idea to share with you one of my terrifying experiences/encounters as a former park ranger at Everglades National park. I I woke up bright and early to the sound of my alarm. I opened my eyes, having a positive, carefree attitude. It was almost as if I knew that that day was going to be a good day, but boy, was I terribly wrong..
I stretched and let out a sigh filled with positivity, almost as if my body was trying to butter me up for what was about to come. I rolled out of bed cheerfully and headed to the bathroom. I stopped in my tracks when I saw something peculiar in the toilet.
I quickly turned around and left the bathroom because I really didn;t want to deal with anything on such a positive day, but after a while of staring at my bed in wonder of what the thing i saw was, I convinced myself that despite the type of day i was having, I still needed to check out the peculiar thing.
I turned back around and walked into the bathroom to see the horrific scene of two yellow, inhuman eyes staring back at me. I screamed in fear and jumped back a few feet. I began to hyperventilate as I continued to stare at the two eyes staring back at me, seemingly into my soul.
I continued to stand there, labored breathing, trying my absolute best to comprehend the bizarre and foreign scene in front of me.
How… or who.. Or what… eyes are those?
I finally recollected myself and decided to take a few steps closer to the scene, but quickly turned back around when I realized just how risky a decision like that could be. I entered my bedroom and found a ski mask. I put the ski mask on, knowing that in reality it most likely wouldn;t protect me from whatever creature was in my toilet, but my philosophy was that something was better than nothing.
I made it back into the bathroom, where the scene was located, and took a few deep breaths to prepare myself for the sort of confrontation I was about to face. I took more deep breaths as I slowly inched closer and closer to the toilet, until eventually I was right back where I had been, standing on top of a toilet, staring at two yellow eyes.
There was something incredibly bizarre and terrifying about these eyes. If you were to look at them, they would look like a normal animal's eyes, but it’s almost as if a malicious energy is radiating off of them.
It certainly could have just been the principle of the situation that was making me feel this way, but I’m not going to brush off the malicious energy theory.
I realized I had been standing there, simply staring at the eyes for upwards of twenty minutes when I finally checked my watch. It was almost as if the eyes possessed a power to distort their victims' perception of time as they knew it. I could have sworn I was only staring at those eyes for thirty seconds, a minute at most, but no, somehow an entire twenty minutes had passed.
I quickly snapped out of staring at the creature and decided to try something. I closed the toilet and flushed the toilet. I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth as I began to hear disgusting and horrifying loud noises, and then I heard nothing.
I opened the lid of the toilet and was incredibly relieved to see that the now familiar eyes were no longer there and staring at me. I truthfully had no idea how my plan had worked considering there was no way my toilet had the power to flush away a creature that big, but I was just thankful it was gone.
I stepped away from the toilet and turned on the shower. As I was waiting for it to heat up, a huge amount of disgusting, incomprehensible colored, black sludge came pouring out of the shower drain. I watched in horror for around five seconds until it finally stopped, and the water turned back to normal, and washed away the black sludge completely after around one minute.
Even after the scene was completely done with and the shower was back to normal, I couldn;t stop staring at the place where an incredibly horrific and incomprehensible scene had happened that I was now supposed to simply step into and embrace to get ready for work.
I knew that there was no way in hell I would be able to convince myself to go into the shower, so I simply exited the bathroom and locked the door from the outside using a chair in my room. I was so paranoid that I continuously checked behind me, every second or so, as I walked the very few steps needed to get to my closet which contained my work uniform.
I opened my closet door and screamed and felt intense fear for a split second when I mistook two yellow buttons on one of my shirts for the two yellow eyes I was unfortunately familiar with.
I decided to pick out that shirt , as a sort of way of exposure therapy to s,all, round, yellow objects, which I was aware I would now very unfortunately have a fear of for at least a good portion of the remainder of my life.
I put on the yellow shirt and looked into the mirror as I buttoned it up, feeling tense, feeling as if maybe this was a bad decision to make. I finally finished buttoning up my shirt, and I exited my bedroom and made my way into the living room which contained the front door. I opened the front door and embraced the chilly air, knowing today was going to be a rough day full of discomfort.
I adjusted the shirt on myself in the mirror, trying to gain some confidence to wear it. After a few minutes of doing that, I finally gained the confidence. I exited my room and entered the living room, and then took the few steps needed to reach the front door.
I turned the front door handle and embraced the warm spring air, knowing that today was going to be a rough one. I walked to my vehicle and opened the car door before getting inside and making myself cozy. My drive to work was around forty five minutes long, so at least that gave me some time to ponder about the situation that happened.
I sat in my car, almost crashing a few times, from thinking about the situation too much. Dozens of thoughts rant through my mind.
Am I crazy? Was it all just a hallucination?
What was that creature?
Will I see that creature again?
What came out of the shower head?
Am I safe to return to my home?
After nearly crashing into a car for the sixth time now, I decided to take my mind off of the bizarre creature as it was clearly not safe to think about in the midst of driving a few thousand pound vehicle.
After a while more of driving, this time without thinking about the incident, I arrived at my workplace. I pulled into the dirt parking lot that was next to the rangers office that I was assigned to on that day. I parked in my lucky parking spot and quickly exited the vehicle and I was soon on my way, taking the few dozen steps needed to reach the office door.
I made it to the office door and fumbled around inside of my pocket to find my keys. MY heart sank beneath the floor when I realized there was absolutely nothing in my pocket. It was then that I made the fateful and horrific realization that I had forgotten my keys all the way back at home, clearly having been too distracted by that creature to remember them.
I let out an audible and loud groan of frustration that caused a few nearby birds to fly away.
I was working the early morning shift today, and unfortunately I was assigned to work alone today, meaning there was no one to let me in. I knew that the late morning shift people would not arrive for four hours. It was then that I became aware of my two options: I could either wait four hours for the late morning shift workers to arrive on site and open the door for me, or I could drive forty five minutes there, and forty five minutes back, and then open the door for myself.
I let out one more audible and quiet loud goran of frustration, causing even more birds to fly away. I stepped down the steps that led to the dirt parking lot that was attached to the patio attached to the rangers office. I took the few dozen steps needed to reach my vehicle and I reached into my pocket, pulling out my car keys.
I stood still for a second and looked at my car keys in despair, wishing that I had remembered my other set of keys as well. I unlocked the car and got in the driver's seat. The drive home felt twice as long as it usually would have because of the pure anger and frustration I felt from forgetting my keys.
After a long and treacherous drive home, I finally made it. I parked my car in the driveway and stepped out of my vehicle. I walked the steps needed to reach the front door and turned the knob, only to realize the door was locked. I stood there in a paralytic state for a few minutes when the retaliation hit me that I had locked myself out of my own house.
I tried to think if I had hidden a spare key for myself, but I was always too paranoid about break-ins to do that. I screamed from the top of my lungs in frustration, causing all of the birds to fly away, and around four dogs to start a barking fest.
I felt a wave of embarrassment wash over me and I quickly took cover before any concerned neighbors could take sight of me. I decided to pull out my cell phone and call my boss.
I dialed in my Boss’s number, and he almost immediately answered.
“Hey! This is Mike, just letting you know I might not make it to work today or I might be a little late because I forgot the office key inside of my house, and I unfortunately locked myself out of my house.” I explained to my Boss, feeling incredibly embarrassed.
“Really? You call me about this now? You really think that we wouldn’t have a spare key hidden on the work site Mike?” It took me a few moments to register his words, but when he did, I felt a huge wave of stupidity wash over me.
“O-ooh my god.., I- I am so incredibly sorry.. Listen, I’ll head back right now and call you when I get there so you can tell me where the key is, and again, I am so sorry for all of this! Bye!” I explained before hanging up the phone and rushing to get back in my car.
I opened my car door and instantly turned on the ignition. I began to speed on the streets, ten miles over the legal speed limit. It wasn’t even like it mattered if I was late anymore, but I guess the anxiety and embarrassment fueled me to get there as quickly as I possibly could.
I thought about how different this day could have gone if I had just remembered to bring my keys, but what was the point in fantasizing about a reality that had not and will not ever happen.
After another long drive to work, I had made it. I pulled up into the dirt parking lot once again and parked my car in the lot closest to the building. I exited out of my car and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. I dialed my Boss’s number.
“Hey! Where is the key?” I asked my boss.
“It’s under the doormat in front of the front door,” He replied.
I felt one more wave of stupidity and regret wash over me once I realized that all I would have had to do was check under the doormat and this entire mess would have been avoided.
“Okay.” I replied simply before hanging up.
I let out a sigh of frustration before walking the few dozen steps needed to reach the doormat. I pulled up the doormat, revealing two keys. I sighed again and picked one of them up. I placed the key in the keyhole and turned the doorknob. To no one's surprise the door opened. I turned the doorknob once more with my hand this time and embraced the air conditioned rooms.
I quickly went inside and shut the door behind me. I sat down at my desk and logged onto my work computer to see what work I had assigned for the day. It looked like ij was assigned to “Deal with an issue regarding the river, right next to the West trail sign. Before 11:00 AM.
I found it sort of bizarre how cryptic the task was, but I decided that it would be best to just get it over with as soon as possible. It was 9:00 AM, and who knew how long this task could take to complete. I sat up from my office chair and walked to the front door once again. I turned the handle and embraced the seasonably hot warm air outside.
I groaned as I stepped outside, the heat hitting me abruptly and like a wave.
I stepped down the few steps needed to reach the dirt parking lot and was on my way to the west trail. I knew the river well and was confused as to why it needed an issue fixed. After some time, I finally arrived at the westside trail. I was immediately horrified when I arrived at the river and saw what I was looking at.
Inside of the river, twice the size it had been this morning, were the two, eerily familiar, yellow eyes, staring into my soul. This time was different however, because the eyes were attached to something. The eyes were attached to an incredibly bizarre body that appeared half human half alligator.
I continued to stand there in shocked awe, staring at the eyes. I wondered about all of the dark secrets they held. Suddenly, The creature began to move. It was slow at first, but there was no mistaking that it was moving. Suddenly, the creature stood up on its legs, revealing the upper half of its incredibly bizarre and disturbing body.
“RUN!” The creature shrieked at me incredibly loud, causing the hair on my head to sway backward in the wind its mouth had created. After the initial shock wore off, I booked it behind me and began to run as fast as I ever had. It felt as if I were running for my life, probably because I quite literally was running away from something deadly.
I ran until each breath I took felt like there was fire in my lungs, and until my legs didn’t even feel attached to my body. I looked behind me for the first time and was horrified to see the creature gleefully sliding down a ginormous river that was inching its way towards me at an incredibly fast speed, and flooding the trail.
After ten more minutes of running, My lungs felt as if they were pure lava, and I had forgotten what legs even were. Finally, I made it back to the office. I reached the patio and instantly swung the front door open, letting myself inside instantly and closing and locking the door behind me.
I instantly ran to one of the windows in the building and watched as the mass of water quickly moved towards the office, with the bizarre alligator creature riding atop of it. I braced for impact as the water suddenly got very close, but after a while of closing my eyes and protecting my head, I realized nothing happened.
I opened my eyes and saw the creature staring at me from the window.
“Well, it looks like you beat the game. Fair play.” The alligator said in an incredibly disturbing voice before suddenly vanishing. I stood there in shock for a few seconds before collapsing to the ground from pure exhaustion and confusion.
The next few hours were a blur, I remember waking up feeling confused on the office floor as the sound of the late morning shift people arriving woke me up. I left work that day and completely ghosted everyone there and never showed up again.

Is This The Demovote?

Yes! We would like to thank everyone who voted in our DEMOVOTE which collected everyone's favorite demos. Just like our yearly Top Demo, EP, Split, Etc vote we do every year, the people who participate are fewer than our Top X votes. This is to be expected as someones favorite demos is more niche than favorite metal of any given year. This has given us an opportunity to do not only do a vote result but also make it as a primer on getting into demos. I would like to thank an_altar_of_plagues for not only writing up an intro for the questions "Why Demos?" but also making a separate primer for newcomers into the world of lofi madness. Use this as a way to advance your demo knowledge one space regardless of where you are.

Demo Dives and High Fives: A Shreddit Demo Primer

But Why Demos?

Love at First "BLEGH" (an_altar_of_plagues)

I avoided demos for a long time because I thought they were just poorly-recorded versions of tracks I could find on albums. Though I want to clown on my younger self for having such a FALSE and BURNED AND DIED opinion, it's an understandable thought. The lower fidelity of much of demo outside the mainstream bands is already a turn-off for many fans of music, and demos often amplify the ostensible loss of sound for something stereotyped as ephemeral "trveness". And when I want to listen to music, I want to listen to a lot of it - why turn on demos when so many of them are just a few minutes long anyway?
The first demo that had me think "hmm, there's something to this" was Abigor's Lux Devicta Est, released in 1993. At the time, I had exhausted all of Abigor's pre-reformation LPs, and I wanted more. With tentative steps I turned on the staticky opener to this demo, and from there the love affair was set. Demos became an avenue to explore not only a band's earlier or non-album material, but to learn more about broader scenes, influences, and msuic at-large. Over the last few years, exploring the depths of demos has become one of my primary music habits - I get a ton of love out of hearing bands puts ideas down on paper for no reason but the love of the craft. And when I think I've heard it all, there's always something weird and obfuscating that makes me excited all over again about my favorite genre of music.
Demos can be an intimidating area of metal to get into - but don't fret. The easiest way to start exploring demos is to look at the discographies of bands you already enjoy. Metallica, Darkthrone, and Morbid Angel are just three bands with important, influential, and just plain good-sounding demos for your pleasure. From there, check out bands' influences on the Metal Archives and see which names pop out. Lots of your favorite bands are as nerdy about metal as we are on this subreddit, and plenty of them are open about what's inspired them to make music.
Thanks for reading, and have an excellent time!

Mining For Ore (Kaptain Carbon)

When I started Tape Wyrm many years ago, I wanted to cover black and death metal demos that few people knew about. Part of this was the discovery process, so I could be the first one to tell someone else about a cool thing on the internet, but over time I enjoyed writing about bands that no one else was writing about. I also felt that negative reviews were mute anymore. That there was so much music, one could entirely immerse themselves in it and never have to write about things they didn't enjoy. Why spend time writing about a popular record you didn't like when there were 10 better ones no one has heard of? Moving from a music critic perspective to a music miner perspective was fun, since it also seemed like there was a culture of like-minded writers evolving into the space. So I began just listening to anything that was new and had a cool cover and developed my own compass on what would potentially be interesting. Though the landscape of music consumption has changed over the past decades, places like Bandcamp have become a field for anyone to interact with the music they want. With a small amount of gumption one could find things with little effort and be amazed almost daily.
There is a belief nearing a joke about demos being better than albums, as it captures the essence of a band before the inevitable commercialization of the sound. The strange thing is this idea could be as true as it could be false. Demos in earlier decades acted as demonstrations of talent, which were used as pitches for record contracts. For famous bands, demos were then released on compilation or box sets. When tape trading became a form of music dissemination, demos were passed around not only as potential projects that would yield future albums, but also as products themselves. Some of these demos would be from bands that would go on to be famous, while others were just from bands that would make these types of releases indefinitely. That means, while demos still exist today, they do not exist the same way they did in the past. There is no reason to have a demo for a record label, as that sort of relationship does not exist in the same way it did in the 70s and 80's. You make tapes for demos after you put your music on Bandcamp, Youtube, or Soundcloud and only if you have the financial means. Demos on tape today are a mark of established progress, which are sold to fans rather than given away to record labels. While the necessity of demos might have changed, the spiritual realm of the demo still exists as it did in past decades.
When you get into demos, and seeking out more of the same, you not only approach the entire history of music but its subterranean maintenance floor. You will be listening to lesser known releases from famous bands, as well as full releases from potentially unknown bands. You could be listening to releases by bands made in haste to pitch to record labels, or from bands who chose never to venture into larger production. For the band and its listeners, this realm of the demo is marked with a raw spirit that tries to chain it to a recorded release. It is a world where things are made in haste and with the intention to capture a moment in time. Listening and seeking out demos has given me a heavy metal hobby where my musical options has an almost infinite number of participants. It reminds me of the expanse of music where it is impossible to think there is nothing good coming out at any given time. There is a torrent of music and we cant possibly have the time to drink it all.

First Circle: Essential / Most Popular Demos of All Time

1. Rippikoulu - Musta Seremonia [Finland, Death/Doom] (1993) 14

Well, here it is. One of the most famous, if not the most famous death metal demo of all time comes from a Finland -- a place of seemingly eternal misery and poetry. When people talk Finnish death, Rippikoulu is mentioned alongside Demilich, Abhorrence, Demigod, and like three other entries in the below list. When people talk about Finnish death, they talk this 31 minute release. There is little else save for the first demo and most certainly not their 2014 EP. Musta Seremonia is an iconic release in the death/doom genre and made even more canonical with the 1798 painting The Vision of the White Horse by Philip James De Loutherbourg showing Death and Famine riding after the breaking of the first two seals in the end times. If you don't believe me look at the cover and listen to this part specifically for the wrestling entrance song for Death and Famine.

2. Poison - Into the Abyss [Germany, Death / Thrash] (1987) 13

Poison, despite having the same name as another more popular band, has an interesting backstory which is perhaps the fate of many bands of the same era. Poison's original 1987 demo led to the band being featured on a Roadrunner compilation which then led to a contract stipulation that they would accept no offers from other labels in a given time period. During that time, Poison dissolved thus ending an extremely short existence. Into the Abyss (1993) is a remastered release of the original 1987 demo and seems to be also celebrated by fans as being apart of a short tragic history of a band that never was. Perhaps this band would go onto do great things but this is a time when a demo is the only living artifact of a band that could have been.

3. Necrovore - Divus De Mortuus [US, Death] (1987) 13

Necrovore exists as two demos. This one and Demo 1988. Perhaps the most established thing about this band is the logo which seems to take up most of the visual real estate on the releases. Necrovore existed for 3 years and their members went on to do projects that were as obscure but less popular than Necrovore. This was a moment in time for this band and I honestly am baffled this exists. Texas in the 1980's does not seem like a time for a furious death / black band to exist let alone make a demo that has no right to being this good.

4. Damaar - Triumph Through Spears of Sacrilege [Lebanon, Black/ Death] (2007) 12

Damaar is perhaps one of the more recent additions in this list and this act comes with a couple of interesting bullet points or bullet belt points. The first is the band being from Lebanon and with some strong opinions on organized religion. The second is a sound that feels like machine gun fired in a small closet. Triumph Through Spears of Sacrilege is a furious explosion in the tradition of Revenge, Blasphemy, and any other band that wears bullet belts for fashion. This band is for a discerning fan who enjoys being steamrolled by sound.

5. Enslaved - Yggdrasill [Norway, Black] (1992) 10

This is interesting since you can listen to the new record from Enslaved in 2023 and then go back 31 years and see where it all started. If I were to imagine Enslaved I would picture some giant tree perhaps sacred in Norse Cosmology and this demo being at the very root before branching out into various worlds. If you are at all familiar with Enslaved's work you are aware they started in black metal before experimenting with progressive black and what I suspect is hallucinogens. This is before all of that and Yggdrasill sounds like the cover of a photocopied lightning bolt which adorns the cover. You also get an early example of dungeon synth / neoclassical with the track "Resound Of Gjallarhorn" which doesn't come with the catalyst until you run Grasp of Avarice.

6. Nirvana 2002 - Disembodied Spirits [Sweden, Death] (1990) 10

There is much lore surrounding this Swedish band and their name as the 2002 was supposedly added to not confuse themselves with the American band who just released their debut on SubPop. I am just confused why this Swedish band would make the change for another band that had yet to become established. Perhaps premonition? In any case we all know this band as "not that Nirvana" but if you are at all familiar with death metal, you know Nirvana 2002 spoken in the same sentence as Entombed, Dismember, and Nihilist. This is Swedish death metal that might not be as well known as the other band with the name but within the right community they are just as legendary.

7. Metallica - No Life 'Til Leather [US, Thrash] (1982) 9

We start to dive into the obscure acts now with a demo from a little known band that went onto produce nothing of note. Metallica demo is a prime example of demo turned album as all songs in the 1982 demo would appear on their 1983 debut (minus the lyric changes for The Mechanix) . No Life 'Til Leather was an example of the band shipping their sound to interested parties before being picked up by Megaforce Records one year later. For anyone interested in Metallica lore, this is the demo Mustaine played on before entering into a career about complaining about being in the band and giving ammunition to the one person who said Metallica died after Mustaine left (probably Mustaine himself).

8. Timeghoul - Tumultuous Travelings [US, Death] (1992) 9

I am not certain, but I feel everyone's first demo is from Timeghoul. I am almost positive. Timeghoul, for the longest time, existed only known to the few people who traveled in the catacombs of death metal demos and those who personally knew the band. This changed in 2012 with the release of the first two demos as a compilation from Dark Descent. Suddenly, everyone and their grandmothers knew about this death metal band (not really). It is hard not to understand why Timeghoul made such an impact as the band made protracted epics about science fiction and fantasy combining the lyrics with a sound which ripped the fabric of reality. I laugh still to this day that Timghoul perhaps has more attention and success now as an internet band than when they were a band for those few short years.

9. Stone Dagger - Stone Dagger [US, Heavy] (2013) 9

Oh cool, this must be one of those new heavy metal bands and in no way a mixture of bands that loop in traditional metal and near raw black metal. No. Stone Dagger might be easier to understand if you don't look at the members. Sure there are some easy connections like Magic Circle and Sumerlands. Then you have members who were also in the death doom act Innumerable Forms as well as others who were the lead in the black metal act Torture Chain. Also there is Pagan Altar thrown in there. The sound of Stone Dagger is not what you would expect from its members but few care since in that confusion lies a demo which is skilled and eternally impactful.

10. Tormentor - Anno Domini [Hungary, Black] (1989) 9

Do you know how many bands have the name Tormentor? I do. 21. Tormentor for the longest time existed as this Eastern European black metal band that made demos and a live album with misrepresented covers of Destruction songs as Bathory covers. (I do find it interesting that Destruction was that big of a deal for a band to be covering their song "Total Desaster" a few years later.) If any of the bands I just mentioned are of interest to you then Tormentor should be apart of your daily diet. Raw, unflinching, and a complete fucking mess, Tormentor lives to be a problem. Anno Domini is also noted for being listed as a demo despite it being 38 minutes long. I don't know what they were intending on doing with this outside of being exciting to internet dorks 30 years later.

11. Blasphemy - Blood Upon the Altar [Canada, Black / Death] (1989) 9

"Added to the second full-length Gods of War to compensate for the album's overly short running time." Alright what do we do this album is only 20 minutes? I don't know just put our demo on there who gives a fuck? Sometimes the complete lack of caring is charming for a band like Blasphemy. For anyone not familiar with the band you can honestly start at their albums or this one it doesn't matter as the production sounds like gravel and barbell drops after a sick deadlift. You either enjoy Blasphemy or you haven't been bullied to enjoy Blasphemy more.

12. Abhorrence - Vulgar Necrolatry [Finland, Death] (1990) 8

We are back in Finland which should be a place you visit if interested in death metal. Yeah, sure Sweden has its history but the true Sweden is Finland. Please don't DM me it was a joke. Abhorrence does not exist in full length form. Demos, EPs, Splits and compilations are the realm of this band and to be honest they could not be anywhere else. Something this gross and unhinged is best experienced in 15 minute terror sessions. Vulgar Necrolatry also has the pleasure of being entirely hand drawn for the cover and what it looks like done on a bumpy bus.

13. Morbid Angel - Thy Kingdom Come [US, Death] (1987) 7

Before the now famous release of Altars of Madness (1989), Morbid Angel would have four demos. Three of these would feature Mike Browning who was creating Nocturnus as the same time. Thy Kingdom Come does not have Browning rather Wayne Hartsell who was a member from 1986 to 1988 and only played on this demo. I do not know why and where Browning was at this time but I think I would have to read books to find out. Thy Kingdom Come, outside of the granular details, is one instance I prefer the muted sounds of the demo over the followup album. Morbid Angel is not lacking in energy, in any capacity though on Thy Kingdom Come, the death metal set in a blender sound feels more palatable on this early demo.

14. Hellhammer - Satanic Rites [Switzerland, Speed / Thrash / Black] (1983) 7

If Hellhammer has given us anything, It is demo and EP covers that go great on battlejackets. Satanic Rites (1983) and Apocolyptic Raids (1984) are the core of the Hellhammer universe and the place where most of these people with jackets travel to for pilgrimage. To know this band you should listen to both releases before moving onto Celtic Frost and inevitably sewing on a patch to your battle jacket. Its fine, they are cool and so are you.

15. At the Gates - Gardens of Grief [Sweden, Melodic Death] (1991) 7

"The band was called The Dwellers at the Gates of Silent Memory (named after a Fields of a Nephilim song) for about a week before the members decided to shorten it." What the fuck, am I just learning this now? That is how they shortened it? For anyone unfamiliar with the early work of At The Gates before their breakouts Terminal Spirit Disease (1994) and Slaughter of the Soul (1995), they were rougher death metal. This is also an instance where you are going to have to temper your expectation as the foundation which would bring them fame is still present in their demo and debut The Red in the Sky Is Ours (1992). Gardens of Grief is a moment in history everyone should be aware of and I do wish they didnt shorten their name as it sounds like a post rock band.

16. Timeghoul - Panaramic Twilight [US, Death] (1994) 6

Well this is awkward. I literally just talked about this band and said everything I wanted to. For anyone curious, the cover for this demo, which you probably have seen comes from the most famous of metal album cover designers Gustave Dore. This one in particular is from the 1845 illustration from Edgar Allen Poe's Raven. The illustration is called ", Death Depicted as the Grim Reaper on Top of the Moon" which I think is suitable for a band like Timeghoul. Again, Dore continues to be the greatest artist everyone steals from to make metal album covers.

17. Nihilist - Only Shreds Remain [Sweden, Death] (1989) 6

See, I'm just joking about Sweden. If you were looking for a timeline of this band it goes Brainwarp > Nihilist> Entombed. Nihilist only really existed for two years but judging by the way you see that logo almost everywhere and referenced in many places, you can assume they left a last impression. I am unsure which came first, the respect for Entombed or the discovery of Nihilist. Regardless of where it started everyone should be required to listen to at least the cursory works of Nihilist, Entombed, Unleashed, and Morbid which all make up this crusty web of Swedish death

18. Catacomb - In the Maze of Kadath [France, Death] (1993) 6

LISTEN TO THAT EARLY DUNGEON SYNTH INTRO! Okay, so up until two days from now, Catacomb exists as just this demo. Not to sday Morbid Attraction (1991) or The Lurker at the Threshold (1992) were not appreciated but In The Maze of Kadath is the one which brought this band enough underground success to last them 30 years. I might be wrong but I think the discovery of Catacomb happened after the invention of the internet as the label which released the original demo has In The Maze of Kadath as their only release. You can also buy one of of the copies from the manager.. Who knew Lovecraftian death metal would be so appreciated by people on the internet years later?

19. Whetstone - Ancient Metal [Germany, Heavy / Speed] (1988) 5

I don't know if this slaps despite the band picture or because of it.. Outside of this demo, some of the members went onto another heavy metal act called The Immortal before disbanding after two demos. "The band called their style "Ancient Metal". Okay, well that certainly didn't stick. How about heavy/speed similar to early Blind Guardian? Sounds great.

20. Death Strike - Fuckin' Death (1985) 5

The original Fuckin' Death demo would be turned into the first four tracks on Fuckin' Death (1991) released by Nuclear Blast. Again this is an example of a demo as proof of concept for an eventual album. They didn't even change the name. Fuckin' Death (1991) would eventually go onto to be the release everyone knows and its probably no due to the fact they are lounging on a car like some stoner rock band. It is almost as if this band doesnt give a fuck about anything and is using the ferocity of punk to fuel their death metal.

21. Hades - Alone Walkyng [Norway, Black / Viking] (1993) 5

"Jørn Inge Tunsberg was convicted for Åsane church arson on Christmas Eve of 1992 along with Varg Vikernes and spent 2 years in prison." Oh its one of those bands. I am sure Hades gained some sort of cult popularity due to the actions of one member which is kinda of a shame since the music contained in this demo is top notch. Far cleaner than what one would expect from an early early 90's Norwegian black demo which continues to add to the complexity of this release.

22. Sadistic Intent - Conflict Within [US, Death] (1989) 5

What the fuck is going on with this cover? One of the funniest things about Sadistic Intent is that in 2007 most of the band reformed Possessed and existed as Possessed for a few years. Sure why not? You have seen the logo for Sadistic Intent on a jacket and it is usually worn by the craziest looking person at the metal show. This should be taken as a warning since they are looking for the pit to form and to claim dominion on the upper echelons of the crowd. It is understandable because outside the spasms of manic hyper activity, this band throws some nasty riffs which are probably covered in bacteria.

23. Demigod - Unholy Domain [Finland, Death] (1991) 5

LISTEN TO THAT DUNGEON SYNTH INTRO. Holy shit now its Demigod! This is the best day ever! Seriously if you have never listened to Demigod before go listen to Slumber of Sullen Eyes (1992) and then when you are done listen to this demo. If you did step one, move to step two. I have a personal connection with Demigod as they are some of the few bands that make me stop what I'm doing to absorb riffs at my computer.

24. Treblinka - Crawling in Vomits [Sweden, Death / Black] (1988) 5

This sounds terrible but you know, it might have been apart of the grand design. Treblinka exists as one of those legacy bands you might see reformed for a one off show or maybe not since the members dont want anything to do with each other. Treblinka eventually turned into Tiamat and all members participated on the Sumerian Cry (1991) demo before all not doing that anymore. I am not going to recommend Crawling in Vomits as your first dive into demos or maybe I will because you know it could be apart of the whole design.

25. Emperor - Wrath of the Tyrant (1992) 5

LISTEN TO THAT DUNGEON SYNTH INTRO. Well, no wonder, Mortiis is on here. I am not going to get into the labyrinth of release differences between this demo as it exists in multiple versions, fake versions and compilations. Somewhere in Norway the band Emperor recorded their demo on "on bad equipment (4 tracker) during 8-9 & 11 May '92."You will most certainly come across Emperor in your heavy metal travels and this demo is less important in terms of the music than it is for its historical importance. This is also true since the Emperor (1993) EP was released a year later and has the now iconic (Also Dore) cover of Death on a Pale Horse.

Second Circle: More Niche Demos Worthy of Discovery

26 Lucifer's Hammer - The Burning Church (1994) 4
27 Virtue - We Stand to Fight (2013) 4
28 Worship - Last Tape Before Doomsday (1999) 4
29 Armoured Angel - Communion (1990) 4
30 Tomb Mold - The Bottomless Perdition (2016) 4
31 Pagan Altar - Pagan Altar (1982) 4
32 Iron Maiden - The Soundhouse Tapes (1979) 4
33 Demolition Hammer - Necrology (1989) 4
34 Baxaxaxa - Hellfire (1992) 4
35 Hellhammer - Triumph of Death (1983) 4
36 Bog Body - Through the Burial Bog (2018) 3
37 Xysma - Swarming of the Maggots (1989) 3
38 Paradise Lost - Frozen Illusion (1989) 3
39 Possessed - Death Metal (1984) 3
40 Nihilist - Premature Autopsy (1988) 3
41 Cromlech - ...And Darkness Fell (1996) 3
42 Varathron - Genesis of Apocryphal Desire (1990) 3
43 Vader - Morbid Reich (1990) 3
44 Morbid - December Moon (1987) 3
45 Destruction - Bestial Invasion of Hell (1984) 3
46 Sabbat - Sabbatical Demon (1990) 3
47 Paysage d'Hiver - Paysage d'Hiver (1999) 3
48 Mercyful Fate - Burning the Cross (1981) 3
49 Terminal Death - Faces of Death (1985) 2
50 Mefisto - The Puzzle (1986) 2
51 Angel Witch - 1978 Demo (1978) 2
52 Messiah in the Abyss - Noumenon (2022) 2
53 Spirit Possession - 2020 Demo (2020) 2
54 Megadeth - Last Rites (1984) 2
55 Apollo Ra - Ra Pariah (1989) 2
56 Sijjin - Angel of the Eastern Gate (2019) 2
57 Exorcist - Voices From the Graves (1987) 2
58 Törr - Witchhammer (1987) 2
59 Afterbirth - Psychopathic Embryotomy (1994) 2
60 Abhorer - Rumpus of the Undead (1989) 2
61 Mefisto - Megalomania (1986) 2
62 As Sahar - Meditation Embun Pagi (1995) 2
63 Slaughter Lord - Taste of Blood (1987) 2
64 Imprecation - Ceremony of the Nine Angles (1992) 2
65 Satan - Into the Fire (1982) 2
66 Sanctus - Thy Disciples (1982) 2
67 Bekëth Nexëhmü - De Svarta Riterna (2013) 2
68 Dark Tranquillity - Trail of Life Decayed (1991) 2
69 Moonsorrow - Tämä Ikuinen Talvi (1999) 2
70 Ethereal Shroud - AbsolutionEmptiness (2013) 2
71 Paysage d'Hiver - Steineiche(1998) 2
72 Deranged - Place of Torment (1989) 2
73 Arnaut Pavle - Arnaut Pavle (2013) 2
74 Rhinocervs - RH-07 (2011) 2
75 Paysage d'Hiver - Kristall & Isa (2000) 2
76 Crematory - Wrath From the Unknown (1991) 2
77 Hell - Hell (1982) 2
78 Twisted Tower Dire - Triumphing True Metal (1997) 2
79 Slaughter - Surrender or Die (1985) 2
80 Eucharist - Demo 1 (1992) 2
81 Cruciamentum - Convocation of Crawling Chaos (2009) 2
82 Dismember - Reborn in Blasphemy (1990) 2

Third Circle: Wow You Are Still Here? You Absolute Maniac

83 Valefar - Frigus Ex Tenebris Venit (1995) 1
84 Pan.Thy.Monium - .....Dawn (1990) 1
85 Morbid Fear - Darkest Age (1990) 1
86 Detonátor - Demo - 1990 (1990) 1
87 Armoured Angel - McMXCV Demo (1995) 1
88 Manowar - Demo '81 (1981) 1
89 Venom - Demon (1980) 1
90 Reversed - Promo 2022 (2022) 1
91 Kaldeket - Vitiate (2021) 1
92 Dripping Hörror - Waiting for the Drip (2020) 1
93 Pyre of Black Roses - Demo I (2021) 1
94 Hinthial - :𐌀𐌍𐌔𐌀𐌓: (2021) 1
95 Nona Decima Morta - Demo (2020) 1
96 Skorbvstr - Hanshi (2022) 1
97 Venymysgourvleydh - Subterranean Pyre (2021) 1
98 Dawn - Apparition (1993) 1
99 Impurity - The Impurity Temple (1989) 1
100 Merciless Death - Holocaust (1992) 1
101 Nuctemeron - The Unxpected (1988) 1
102 Interment - Where Death Will Increase (1991) 1
103 Imperator - Eternal Might (1988) 1
104 Slaughter - Bloody Karnage (1984) 1
105 Ljosazabojstwa - Staražytnaje Licha (2015) 1
106 Amon - Call the Master! (1992) 1
107 Fantom - Lucifer Jelenj Meg! (1987) 1
108 Slaugther Lord - Thrash 'Til Death 86-87 (2000) 1
109 Asgard - Cachtická Pani Hrabenka Bathory (1995) 1
110 Ripping Corpse - Death Warmed Over (1987) 1
111 Sorcerer - Sorcerer (1989) 1
112 Gorement - Obsequies... (1991) 1
113 Sentenced - Rotting Ways to Misery (1991) 1
114 Funebrarum - Triumphant Ascent (2000) 1
115 Bolt Thrower - Concession of Pain (1987) 1
116 Rottrevore - The Epitome of Pantalgia (1990) 1
117 Crematory - The Exordium (1990) 1
118 Mortify - The Calm Beyond... (1993) 1
119 Death - Death by Metal (1984) 1
120 Eructation - Demo #1 (1992) 1
121 Transgressor - Twisting Brochus (1990) 1
122 Sarcasm - A Touch of the Burning Red Sunset (1994) 1
123 Invocator - Alterations (1989) 1
124 Crucifix - Barriers (1992) 1
125 Adversary - Remains of an Art Forgotten (1991) 1
126 Agonized - Gods... (1991) 1
127 Ebwa - Savagery of Bawo (1998) 1
128 F.C.D.N. Tormentor - Demonic (1986) 1
129 Terrorizer - Nightmares (1987) 1
130 Jaguar - 6 Track Demo (1980) 1
131 Demon Bitch - Demon Bitch (2012) 1
132 Vixen - The Works (2004) 1
133 Eternal Champion - The Last King of Pictdom (2013) 1
134 Obscure Evil - Midnight Forces (2016) 1
135 Devil - Magister Mundi Xum (2010) 1
136 Ageless Wisdom - Demo '90 (1990) 1
137 Torture Chain - Mountains of Hate (2009) 1
138 Blitzkrieg - Demo Tape (1980) 1
139 Obsequiae - Obsequiae (2009) 1
140 Ras Algethi - Oblita Divinitas (1993) 1
141 Cosmic Church - Syysauringon Vihkimys (2012) 1
142 Fall of the Leafe - Storm of the Autumnfall (1996) 1
143 Mourning Beloveth - Autumnal Fires (1998) 1
144 Departure Chandelier - The Black Crest of Death, the Gold Wreath of War (2011) 1
145 Thergothon - Fhtagn-Nagh Yog-Sothoth (1991) 1
146 Tomb Mold - Cryptic Transmissions (2017) 1
147 Agalloch - From Which of This Oak (1997) 1
148 Behemoth - ...From the Pagan Vastlands (1994) 1
149 Blaspherian - Summoning of Infernal Hordes (2006) 1
150 Excarnated Entity - Stillborn in Ash (2019) 1
151 Mephitic Corpse - Immense Thickening Vomit (2019) 1
152 Total Isolation - Winfield (2019) 1
153 Rotted - Dying to Rot (2019) 1
154 Grotesque Infection - Consumption of Human Feces (1992) 1
155 Mortiferum - Altar of Decay (2017) 1
156 Cryptopsy - Ungentle Exhumation (1993) 1
157 Ares Kingdom - Ares Kingdom (1989) 1
158 Paysage D’hiver - Kerker (1999) 1
159 Xasthur - A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors (2001) 1
160 Darkthrone - Land of Frost (1988) 1
161 Spiral Staircase - S/T (2017) 1
162 Drowning the Light - Dark Winter Depression (2003) 1
163 Beherit - Demonomancy (1990) 1
164 Viridescent Funeral - Verdant Kingdoms (2022) 1
165 Svartidauði - Those Who Crawl and Slither Shall Again Inherit the Earth (2010) 1
166 Veitsi - Dignity & Honor (2022) 1
167 Otyg - Bergtagen (1995) 1
168 Isengard - Vandreren (1993/2022) 1
169 Tomhet - Purpureargotamiceps (2007) 1
170 Panphage - Nordlandets Dödsande (2011) 1
171 Arckanum - Trulen (1994) 1
172 Vlad Tepes - Dans Notre Chute... (1995) 1
173 Voivod - To the Death!... (1984) 1
174 Demilich - The Four Instructive Tales... Of Decomposition (1991) 1
175 Axeman - Arrive (2010) 1
176 Moonblood - Dusk Woerot (2002) 1
177 Baphomet - Children of Doom (1987) 1
178 Leviathan - Black Metal, White Devil (2002) 1
179 Nakkeknaekker - Krig (Demo) (2021) 1
180 The Suns Journey Through the Night - Demo II (2021) 1
181 Temple Ash - I (2018) 1
182 Paysage d'Hiver - Das Tor (2013) 1
183 Clairvoyance - Demo (2020) 1
184 Tomb Mold - The Moulting (2016) 1
185 Tomb Mold - Aperture of Body (2022) 1
186 Pendraig - Demo Tracks (2019-2020) (2021) 1
187 Ekranoplan - Demo (2018) 1
188 Sedimentim - Demo (2019) 1
189 Xatatax - Demo 2014 (2014) 1
190 Ethereal Shroid - Lanterns (2020) 1
191 War Cry - Trilogy of Terror (1983) 1
192 Hirax - Demo 1984 (1984) 1
193 Zemial - Necrolatry (1997) 1
194 Sindrome - Into the Halls of Extermination (1987) 1
195 Satan - The First Demo (1981) 1
196 Witchslayer - '83 Demo (1983) 1
197 Frigid Bich - Demo (1984) 1
198 Fatal Agent - Demo-Lition(2017) 1
199 Virtue - Fools Gold(1987) 1
200 Cryptic - Cryptic '89(1989) 1
201 Aspiration - Visions of Reality(1993) 1
202 …and Oceans - Mare Liberum(1998) 1
203 Glacier - Ready for Battle(1984) 1
204 Coroner - Death Cult(1986) 1
205 Belial - Gods of the Pit(1991) 1
206 Mutilated - Psychodeath Lunatics(1988) 1
207 Nomicon - De Rerum Natura(1992) 1
208 Sacro - Yo Voy a Pelear (1986) 1
209 Communion - Black Metal Dagger Demo Rehearsal (2015) 1
210 Chastain - Demo '84 (1984) 1
211 Storm Queen - Demo 1 - The BBC Studio Sessions (1980) 1
212 Deep Machine - Demo '80 (1980) 1
213 White Medal - Yorkshire Steel (2012) 1
214 Satan's Blade - Curse of the Blade (2015) 1
215 Cirith Ungol - Cirith Ungol (1979) 1
216 Jonah Quizz - Demo 1980 (1980) 1
217 Slayer - Demo (1982) 1
218 Predatory Light - MMXIV (2014) 1
219 Syöpä - Beneath Lucifer's Eye (2005) 1
220 Thresher - Totally Possessed (1989) 1
221 Trouble - 1983 Demo (1983) 1
222 Trouble - 1982 Demo (1982) 1
223 Antestor - Kongsblod (1987) 1
224 Apostle - Apostle (1984) 1
225 Cross - Metal From Above (1987) 1
226 Septicflesh - Forgotten Path (1991) 1
227 Fatal - Soul Burns (1989) 1
228 Amorphis - Disment of Soul (1991) 1
229 Kostnateni - Konec Je Vsude (2018) 1
230 Borrowed Time - Demo 2010 (2010) 1
231 Goatlord - Sodomize the Goat (1988) 1
232 Primitive Warfare - Primitive Warfare (2019) 1
233 Carcass - Flesh Ripping Sonic Torment (1987) 1
234 Mütiilation - Black Imperial Blood (Travel) (1994) 1
235 Reclusiam - Reclusiam (2004) 1
236 Sentenced - Journey to Pohjola (1992) 1
237 Cathedral - In Memorium (1990) 1
238 Evoken - Shades of Night Descending (1994) 1
239 Repulsion - Slaughter of the Innocent (1986) 1
240 Avernus - Sadness (1994) 1
241 Katatonia - Jhva Elohim Meth (1992) 1
242 Vektor - Hunger for Violence (2007) 1
243 Mournful Congregation - An Epic Dream of Desire (1995) 1
244 Entombed - But Life Goes on (1989) 1
245 Darkthrone - Cromlech (1989) 1
246 Reputdeath - Dissecting Goryfication (2022) 1
247 Encumber - Silent Witness of Past (1998) 1
248 Gates of Ishtar - Seasons of Frost (1995) 1
249 Cyanotic - The Chasm Within (1992) 1
250 Ablaze My Sorrow - Ablaze My Sorrow (1995) 1
251 Centinex - Under the Blackened Sky (1993) 1
252 Dismember - Last Blasphemies (1989) 1
253 Mork Gryning - Demo '94 (1994) 1
254 Glacier - Demo Tape (1988) 1
255 My Dying Bride - Towards the Sinister (1991) 1
256 Nuclear Winter - Abomination Virginborn (2003) 1
257 Amon - Sacrificial (1989) 1
258 Cynic - Demo (1991) 1
259 Arcane Necrosis - Arcane Necrosis (2006) 1
260 Grand Belial's Key - Goat of a Thousand Young (1992) 1
261 Gontyna Kry - Welowie (1997) 1
262 Graveland - The Celtic Winter (1994) 1
263 Vlad Tepes - War Funeral March (1994) 1
264 Marduk - Fuck Me Jesus (1991) 1
265 Black Crucifixioin - The Fallen One of Flames (1995) 1
266 Moonblood - The Winter Falls Over the Land (1995) 1
267 Poison - Bestial Death (1985) 1
268 Powervice - Behold the Hand of Glory (2005) 1
269 Mütiilation - Destroy Your Life for Satan (2008) 1
270 Nokturnal Mortum - Lunar Poetry (1996) 1
271 Funebre - Demo '90 (1990) 1
272 Rotting Christ - Satanas Tedeum (1989) 1
273 Vader - Necrolust (1989) 1
274 Desaster - Lost in the Ages (1994) 1 275 Death - Mutilation (1986) 1
276 Thou Art Lord - The Cult of the Horned One (1993) 1
277 Primordial - Dark Romanticism... Sorrow's Bitter Harvest... (1993) 1
278 Endlichkeit - Endlichkeit IX (2015) 1
279 Paysage d'Hiver - Schattengang (1998) 1
280 Endlichkeit - Endlichkeit VI-VIII (2014) 1
281 Untitled - Untitled 1
282 Helloween - Death Metal Demo (1984) 1
283 Dream Theater - The ATCO Demos (2002) 1
284 Stormbringer - Stealer of Souls (1993) 1
285 Elfspell - The River Giant Rises (2016) 1
286 Firestorm - Siege by Fire (1999) 1
287 Tabernacle - Terror in Thrace (2021) 1
288 Sauron - Demo (1984) 1
289 The Mob - Demo (1982) 1
290 Moonshade - Lost in a Nightmare (1998) 1
291 Thundercross - Land of Immortals (1994) 1
292 Solar Temple - Rays of Brilliance (2017) 1
293 Nimbifer - Demo I (2019) 1
294 Intestine Baalism - The Energumenus (1995) 1
295 Vothana - Vua Quang Trung - Demo IV - (2006) 1
296 420 - Reality (1998) 1
297 Vlad Tepes - Celtic Poetry (1994) 1
298 Blood Spill - Demo (1988) 1
299 Aeon - Clean Hand of the Eternal Gods (1995) 1
300 Vaktal - Vitriolic Revolt (2021) 1
301 Benighted - World of Nothingness (2001) 1
302 Winter Bestowed - Within My Labyrinthine Heart (2001) 1
303 Deaf Auditorium - Season of Evil (2002) 1

Please post any and all [Feedback] or [Listen] type threads in this thread until the next one is created. Any threads made that should be a comment here will be removed.

Rules:

1. Make an effort to comment on other people's tracks. By doing so, you will find that others will be more likely to help you with your tracks.
   
2. Be specific when asking for help. Examples of specific questions: "What do you think about this kick sample?" "How's this mix?" "I need some help on this melody, the last measure comes off a little cheesy, any ideas?" etc.
   
3. Be descriptive when giving feedback. Use timecodes to highlight certain parts.
   
4. Please link to the feedback comments you've left in your top-level comment. This will show others the feedback you've left, and you're more likely to get feedback yourself! Also, please notice those who are leaving a lot of feedback and give them some, too. This is a cooperative effort! Update: Any comments that do not follow this format will be automatically removed.
   For example:
   

feedback for Esther: "link to feedback"
feedback for Fay: "link to feedback"
feedback for Minerva: "link to feedback"
Here's my track. I'm looking for ___

Let me start by saying I’m breaching contract by sharing this. If the company’s lookouts link this post to me – which they will – I’ll be disgraced, and any chance at getting a job in this profession again will be out of the picture. I have the common sense to keep my name unknown, but all that’s gonna do is slow them down.
Keeping this hidden would be a crime against humanity of the highest order. You all deserve to know, as terrible as it is.
I work at an unnamed technological research company as, you guessed it, a researcher. In recent years, we’ve made astonishing advancements in developing technology that can interact with and harness tachyons.
Tachyons are particles that travel faster than light; that’s the most important part. They’ve been a subject of theoretical physics since the late 60s, but as far as public knowledge goes, they’re still just that. Theoretical.
But they are most certainly real. Well, not “tachyons” per se, though their behaviour is equatable. I won’t bore you with the technicalities, but the result of a particle travelling faster than light is that said particle is able to, effectively, travel backwards in time.
My other group members and I have been experimenting with these particles for the best part of two years now. We’ve made major advances, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.
Yesterday, 23/03/2023, at 09:07 am, my equipment detected a tachyon signal. This was in the morning, mind you, and no tests had yet been carried out. From what I can tell, this signal originated – or, rather, will originate – from elsewhere.
Playing it out loud, it at first just sounded like a garbled mess of frequencies. But after observing the audio structure, I found it to be made up of thousands of tones, of which there were only two types – long, and short.
The realisation hit pretty quick. It was Morse code, or, at least, it could be interpreted as such. The most fundamental form of digital communication known to man. So, I ran it through an auto-interpreter a few times, and got a fully coherent message.
I refuse to believe that I’m seeing patterns where there are none. The chances are so astronomically low that I can’t feasibly consider it to be a random signal, especially considering I’ve never received one from somewhere outside the lab.
I’m going to copy over the translation here. I do not wish to instil panic, but please, spread this post. People need to be aware that this is a real possibility.
To whomever is reading this, prepare yourself.
Here it is.
[TRANSCRIPT BEGIN]
Hi.
My name is Tim Hermelle. Before I write down this account, I should insist that this is the truth. This is happening to us all right now. This is not a joke, prank, or an interactive project.
This is the truth. You HAVE to believe what you are about to read, for our sakes.
Okay, with that out of the way… shit, it’s getting closer. I’ll write down what I can before we’re pulled back to the city, to join the others. I hope enough context is given in my account for you to fully understand.
I live - lived - in the great city of Pharades (that’s Pha-ra-dees). The utopia of humanity’s future. Life was amazing. Every aspect brought joy and satisfaction to every person. No hunger, thirst, no overpopulation, pollution… a Nirvana if there ever was. The level of advancement may be difficult for some of you to believe
Work was optional, and automatons would fill the spaces left by those choosing to pursue their own personal dreams. Even so, a large number of people here still choose to have jobs, vocations I suppose. Healthcare was unparalleled, and not one person has died during my time here.
Everything major was decided by a vote. It was the perfect democratic system, but I’m no politician, so I wouldn’t be able to explain to you why that is.
Hell, we even had a collective vote to decide the next week’s weather every Sunday. That’s right, we’d taken control of the weather. Want to splash around in puddles, smelling the petrichor? Maybe get a tan on? You’d just have to go and vote for it.
Pharades was, without hyperbole, fucking beautiful. In between the city blocks, there were great swathes of woodland and meadows. Crystal rivers flowed underneath silver bridges, and leaves of every colour painted the landscape like polka dots.
And the city itself, well, they say nature trumps anything manmade in terms of beauty, but I disagree. The intricately designed towers were accented by all the most complementary colours, gold, chrome, red, blue, any combination you could imagine, it was here. Arches, spirals, and patterns of every variety adorned the structures.
The day in question was a Wednesday – not that days of the week held any particular significance anymore. I’d planned to meet with two of my buddies, Erin and Tuan, at our favourite coffee shop a couple of districts over, in the Wantania area.
Historically, the journey may have been arduous, or frustrating. Not now. Most people didn’t even use vehicles anymore – instead, the city had built a vast underground network of ever-shifting and rearranging tracks, called “Tubyrinth”. Each person owned a personal pod of sorts, customisable to any degree.
I input Wantania Central, and hopped inside. My pod contained a sofa and a minifridge, stocked up with my favourite drinks. The journey was always snappy. Each time, the underground superstructure would arrange a new and unique track to be used, direct to a reserved bay.
Just fifteen minutes later, I was stood under the vaulted, ornamental expanse of the station roof, a hundred or so feet above. I always stopped here to just stare upwards for a moment, absorbing the imaginative architecture.
After exiting the station, I was surprised to see that both Erin and Tuan were already waiting for me outside. The good kind of surprised, that slaps a goofy smile onto your face.
“Took you long enough!” Tuan chuckled, finding the irony in his own words hilarious.
“God, I know right?” added Erin, “I was worried I’d need crutches after standing out here waiting!”
“Well, heh, you’re not gonna like this next part,” I joked, and we set off down the street, laughing. Our favourite café was called “Beansmith’s Forge”. It was a cheesy, but endearing name, and the theme fit the three of us like a glove; as I said before, we’d been working on worldbuilding for our fantasy RPG, an immersive neurolink VR experience, where the player could design their own character and have a unique questline auto-generated out of a complex system.
We ordered brunch, and, of course, coffee. I won’t get into the details of our talks, but we quickly finished up, paid, and set off down Gerben Street.
The more exciting event of the day was our session booked at the aptly named Noji Box, something you could call an “anti-grav playground”. Admittedly, I’ve never fully known how it works, just that it involves paired wormholes, immensely powerful electromagnets, and a huge vacuum-chamber.
One thing I was always grateful for was that the automatons, who I saw working robotically through storefront windows, were withheld any accurate human likeness – I’m sure you’ve heard of the uncanny valley, so you’ll know what I mean. They fell just short of it.
All was calm on the walk, as to be expected. We made it to the Noji Box in good time, ten minutes before our session booking. I get it’s company policy to take everyone through the safety basics, but it was admittedly a little boring after many, many past visits.
The only real requirement was that you’d have to wear an “osteopatic suit”. No, osteostatic? Something about keeping your bones from floating away from each other, or from disappearing over time.
We were suited up, ready to enter “S.S. Slamdown”, when a sudden tremor shook the building’s foundations. Everyone shared the same puzzled expression – not once had something like that ever happened in Pharades.
The staff looked a bit stumped at first. I guess they never had to deal with a situation like this in the past. To our dismay, but unsurprisingly, our session was cancelled, and we were told that they would call us later to sort out a re-booking.
I had the strangest feeling when we left and began back down the road. Something similar to déjà vu, but not quite. Like nostalgia, but without the accompanying feeling of reminiscence or joy.
Trying to brush it off, I distracted my mind by humming a tune. I didn’t know what it was from, at the time, but I knew it was a stringed melody. A violin? Thing is, I wasn’t really humming it as much as hearing it in my head.
We rounded a corner, and Erin paused in surprise.
“Oh, that’s… hey, that’s Jeremiah! He’s been playing that fiddle the street over from mine for the past, what, two weeks? Come on, let’s go listen.”
I grew confused when we approached, only to hear the exact same melody that had just been looping in my head. Before I’d heard this guy playing. I don’t remember stumbling upon this particular street performer before this point.
We stood listening for a few minutes, then continued our walk. Thoughts no longer infested with that tune, I was hit with what I can only describe as a taste. The savoury taste of something on my tongue, complete with mustard and relish. Meat of some kind?
The concern started to flourish when we came upon a food truck, and Tuan asked if we were hungry. Sure, we’d just eaten at the coffee shop, but I could fit in one more tasty bite. He offered to pay, which we gladly accepted, and he returned with… hotdogs. With mustard. And relish.
My gratitude masked the ever-growing confusion within me. Was this just a weird coincidence, or something else? Did I know we were going to get hotdogs?
We wound up back at the station, where a feeling of detached sorrow welled up inside me, something you might feel after recalling a bad memory from which you’ve since recovered. I understood then that I would run into my on-good-terms ex inside. But, before we could enter, another rumbling tremor swept across the street, followed by the clamour of destruction and screams from inside.
A grey dust cloud plumed out from the entrance, sweeping us off of our feet. I saw Erin flipped face-first into the pavement, just as I caught my heel on the base of a stop sign. Yet another quake boomed underneath the asphalt.
The asphalt I was falling down onto… but the impact didn’t come. Instead of a hard surface, the sensation of falling went on. You know that feeling when you think there’s another step at the bottom of the stairs, only to find the floor instead? It was just like that.
The ground I fell upon wasn’t asphalt. It rang out as I collided, almost hollow-sounding. Metallic. Maybe it was just my head ringing, but without a doubt, I was not in the street anymore.
I sat up, and my palms confirmed I was on a metal floor, the kind with those diamond-shaped grips. Looking around almost caused a complete sensory overload, immediately. A multitude of flashing lights, screens, wires, buttons, and all sorts decorated the room. It looked not far off from the control room of an intelligence agency – at least, how they’re depicted in movies.
I got onto one knee and pivoted to look around. The tall man standing directly behind me almost led to a second fall, but instead I scooted backward frantically at the sight.
The man – well, I say “man”, but this person didn’t really have any distinguishing features. They were wearing a spotless black and white cloak of some kind, and a metal cage covering the upper half of their face, so that only their mouth was visible.
They stood still, not reacting to my show of surprise, then spoke in the most androgynous voice conceivable.
“How did you get in here?”
I scanned the room, finding that there were no obvious entrances anywhere around, like we were inside a closed-off box.
“I- uh, I fell over, a-and next thing I know – here,” I stuttered.
“Well, you shouldn’t be here, and there’s no way that you should be able to get here.”
I stood up, feeling a little more comfortable in the presence of this stranger, though not letting my guard down entirely. Now, I could see the pictures displayed across the screens – they seemed to be feeds of countless locations in Pharades, streets, woodlands, you name it.
“What… what the hell’s going on here? Who are you? Why are you spying on the city?”
The stranger didn’t seem amused, being pelted with questions, and held up a hand, gesturing me to stop. They let out a deep, held breath.
“Well, since you’re here, I may as well enlighten you. Take a seat.”
So I did. I sat in shock and disbelief for the next five minutes as the person answered all my questions, even the ones I didn’t know I wanted to ask. They introduced themselves simply as “Administrator”, but I chose “Admin”, to avoid the mouthful.
Admin proceeded to tell me the truth, as casually as one would talk about the weather.
It wasn’t real.
A simulation.
They told me we were inside a highly advanced, self-sustaining, supercomputer pod travelling through deep space, harvesting energy from ions extracted from the surrounding vacuum. Over a hundred trillion years ago, those living here now consented in having their consciousness imported to the device.
On top of the ion harvesting, power was supposedly generated from emotions experienced by a consciousness – the more intense an emotion or feeling, the more power generated.
I interrupted the monologue at this point with a question they hadn’t seemed to consider,
“Let’s say I believe what you’re saying. If this system’s been up for as long as you say, why did I only just have my 29th birthday, what, two months back now?”
“I understand your concern, but allow me to continue. Every 50 years, it is reset. All your memories are wiped and locked away until the moments when you would again make those memories. There are only a set number of people who were uploaded to the system, and their minds cannot simply be deleted if they were to die.”
Not only a simulation, but an endless loop? My brain felt like it might burst.
“Wait,” I said, “if we’re reset every time, and everything plays out the same… then, we can’t possibly have any free will of our own, right?”
“I suppose you could say that. But the illusion we, I, have worked tirelessly to maintain, gives the impression that you do.”
“Wh… what? So, the original me signed up for this? But I’m not him! I’m a copy, aren’t I? Do I have a choice in this?”
“There is no way for me to erase any person that lives here. Only if the pod itself is damaged or destroyed, can I, or anyone else, truly die. The Great Stellar Extinction has come and gone, and all that remains outside is cold, and dark. A handful of black and brown dwarves, and black holes. To my knowledge.”
The sudden feeling of intense, hollow loneliness filled up my chest. We were alone in a great black sea of nothingness. My slack jaw must have told Admin I didn’t have the capacity to speak.
“Over time, I have lost contact with the hundreds of thousands of other pods that were ejected from Earth all that time ago. Either they are too far now, or they met a destructive end. I can’t say which is the better, anymore.”
Absorbing the sudden truth, the emptiness evolved into anger.
“Let me get this straight. We, living our lives down there, are puppets to you? Is that it? Just an endless cycle of digital paradise, kept in the dark of all you’ve just told me? How can you possibly justify this?!”
“Calm down. Having your memories wiped is a luxury I cannot afford. Anyway, that’s only the preface of what I need to talk about. I’m sure you also noticed the tremors, down there?”
“The tremors? Oh, oh yeah. Sort of ruined my plans, but I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
“I didn’t do anything. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Whatever the cause, it’s not within this pod.”
I took it all in. A system malfunction? Why did the Admin feel the need to share this with me?
“Is… is that why, maybe, that I could predict some of the things that happened afterwards?”
“It’s worse than I thought. The memory suppression seems to be failing.”
Both of us paused for a moment. The silence was deafening.
“I’ve been taking readings on the external sensors. There’s… something out there. An object. It’s been following us for a while now, but with no starlight left, I don’t know what it is. Space debris couldn’t move on its own accord like this thing is.”
“What are you trying to say?” I sputtered, the dread I felt deepening by the second.
“I’m saying that something has found us.”
My blood ran cold. Found us? What could have found us?
“Didn’t you say all the stars are dead? The universe is just darkness now. What could have found us? What?”
“I wish I had the answers, too. I don’t think we’re safe anymore. The most recent readings imply that whatever it is, it’s latched onto the pod somehow. Possibly-“
Admin was cut off by the loud screech of static from the speakers around the room. Their head shot up to the nearest corner in a manner that set me on a knife’s edge.
The tremors returned with a vengeance now, and the both of us were sent sprawling onto the floor. I didn’t fall through it this time, though. Sparks flew and monitors went offline.
I was about to ask what we should do, when the roaring static settled, and something else started to play.
An innocent, childlike giggle. Gurgled coos, infantile squeals of joy that pierced my eardrums like needles and left them ringing. Remembering the sounds that came from those speakers make my insides twist and yearn to escape my body, knowing what came next.
The laughter grew, and so did the tremors. The room started to collapse, wires and boxes raining down upon us. Well, not really collapse, no, but change. The far wall crumpled, like something on the other side assailed it with forceful impacts, and the room began to shrink.
As if that dark place wasn’t claustrophobic enough, the ceiling, walls, everything began to close in on us. All the while, the childlike giggling only grew in joy. I thought we were to be crushed and snapped by the pressure, when we were abruptly freed.
It had happened again. Pushed through the floor and spat out somewhere else. This time, I – we – found ourselves near a paved road leading out of one of the city blocks, into a green meadow which gave way to trees a ways down.
Something was terribly wrong. Only after brushing myself off and standing up did I become aware of the swirling darkness that replaced the once baby-blue sky, with its cotton candy clouds. A heavy and unsettling calm had fallen upon us, dampening the city’s brilliance. No more did sunlight gleam off the ornate spires and arches, replaced by a still, hanging shadow.
The eerie quiet was shattered by that godforsaken crackling, booming across the landscape, despite not a speaker in sight, again followed by those ill-belonging coos and cries. Accompanying the infantile sputtering came an uproar of cracking and crumbling, great impacts from deep within the city’s heart.
Both Admin and I stared in disbelief as distant buildings sunk into the ground, while others twisted and warped their way into the sky, as if made from soft clay. Some just disappeared entirely, leaving not a shred of evidence behind that they had ever been there, while their former inhabitants plunged from storeys above.
“It’s taken my place.”
Those four unprompted words shook me to the core of my being. The god of this world had been usurped.
“But why?” I found myself asking, “with what motive?”
Admin went to reply, but stopped upon seeing the great, pinkish masses floating up out of the streets, far ahead. We stared in bewilderment, trying to make out what they were. The chorus of screams hurried us to the realisation that the balls were… they were made of people.
Agonised, howling faces littered the fleshy abominations, while more objects rose around them. Structural beams, signposts, metal objects of every kind gravitated toward the amalgams of humanity, before their relentless assaults began.
Ripping, tearing, stabbing, slicing… it was already too much for my mind to comprehend. It garnered no reaction from myself other than stunned shock. Flesh and blood spewed from the masses, and orbited around them like the rings of Saturn, falling back in to haphazardly patch themselves back onto the wailing people.
My thoughtless attention was redirected as a frantic deluge of citizens fled the city, running down the street towards us. One by one, the exodus was halted, people seeming to stop in place abruptly, though the screams did not relent.
I couldn’t see what had stopped them until the crowd drew closer, where I saw an elderly man whip forward, foot stuck fast, instantly snapping his knee from the momentum. He let out a heart-wrenching cry as he fell down and looked to see what had stopped him.
Something that looked like roots, water pipes maybe, had erupted through the tarmac and coiled their way up his leg. I could see the strength draining in his eyes as they stood him back upright by force, wrapping around his entire body.
I watched in abject horror as he was raised off the ground, and each and every one of the old man’s limbs were bent and snapped at unnatural angles, shattering frail bones into dust.
His feeble cries were promptly silenced as a squirming metal tube forced its way inside his mouth, his eyes rolling back in unfathomable agony as the bulging mass forced its way down his throat, splitting his ribcage apart and allowing the organs within to slop out and float in the air, as if weightless. The whole process seemed to reverse itself in time, then repeat, over and over.
I could only hear the echoes of Admin’s shouts and the faint sensation of their grip on my forearm as they pulled me away from the mind-bending atrocity. My vacant body tumbled backward, sending both of us falling onto the grass.
Still I could only sit there, frozen. Somewhere off to the right, I saw a young woman pulling presumably her daughter along by the wrist, fleeing the hellscape of flesh and bone down a small alley. Her head spun wildly as she noticed the walls of the alleyway closing in around them.
She burst out into the open, but was yanked back, her grip fast. She turned in desperation, only to see her daughter, who couldn’t have been more than seven, being slowly crushed into a paste of bloody flesh and yellow fat. Her pitiful screams still ring in my ears, seeing her child suffer such a terrible fate.
Admin was finally triumphant in breaking my trance, and I rushed to my feet, stumbling before gaining my footing and bolting the fuck out of there. The childish giggling echoing out over the sky only served to push me forwards and away from that place.
“What the fuck is going on?!” I yelped, glancing over to Admin, hoping they could offer just the slightest of explanations.
“I have an idea, but we need to get somewhere first. You see that hill through the woods, right over there?”
“Hill? To the observatory?”
“There’s one last thing we can try to stop this. It’s a shot in the dark, but I can’t just stand here and fade away with the rest.”
High speed winds whipped the trees as we ran below them, leaves fluttering in a wild seizure. Air-splitting cracks sounded, so loud my ears began to ring once more, and I looked over my shoulder to see what they could have been.
Blazing spouts of fire shot down from the clouds behind, more akin to lightning than anything, striking the forsaken with white-hot temperatures. Even from a distance, I could see skin and flesh melt off of bones like candle wax, forming spiralling clouds of organic vapour.
In my distraction, I ran straight into a tree, and tumbled over, blood leaking from a small cut on my forehead. Admin skidded to a stop and pulled me up to my feet, and ran onwards, not waiting for a moment to ask if I was okay.
Neither of us were okay. That was a given now.
We reached the top of the hill without too much effort – seems it was programmed for everyone to have an above-average level of fitness, young or old regardless.
Admin frantically, but methodically, sifted through what appeared to be a large hoop of keys, searching for the one to fit the observatory’s door. I looked back over to where we had fled from.
The twisted buildings coiled toward the sky, gargantuan talons holding captive everyone I’d ever known. But there was something else. Far behind the city, in the distant hills and woodland, a great black wave that spanned the horizon was travelling towards us, eviscerating the world itself. All it left behind was an endless chasm of darkness, defying reality itself.
The tsunami came closer, before stopping at the city’s outskirts, leaving only a towering earthen spire of suffering, flaming bolts cracking down upon it.
“Admin, what is going on?!”
They paused for a moment, then continued working on the several locks barring our entry.
“Do you remember what I told you earlier, when you found me? How this system is able to keep on running, over the trillions of years?”
“…ions?”
“Yes, but that’s only the basis. I told you that emotional activity generates power, yes? The more intense an emotion, the more power generated?”
“What are you getting at?”
“This is pure theory, but I believe that whatever is out there is feeding off of the system.”
“Is that why all that was happening? The-“
I stifled a gag, recalling the horrors fresh in my memory.
“Again, it’s a theory. I don’t understand what it is. If the constraints of the universe are loose enough for something to evolve in its endless darkness, to predate on the last sources of energy within it… I don’t know. And I doubt we ever will.”
I stared out at the hellscape, speechless. Finally, Admin found the right key, yanked the door open, and pulled me inside by the arm.
“Hey!” Admin yelled, snapping their fingers, “I need you to be present for this. I am restricted in this world, I can’t break and reform things like you can. A failsafe, for if the power were to go to my head. Follow my instructions exactly.”
They told me how to break apart some of the technology in the observatory, and rewire it into a different machine. I had no idea what we were creating at the time, but complied nonetheless.
The finished product was a makeshift beacon of some kind, connected to the nearby terminal.
“Thank you. Now, type.”
“Type what?”
“Everything that has happened. Add as many details as you can, because we won’t have another chance to get this out there.”
“O-okay, what is this thing? A radio?”
“In a way. The observatory is one of the only places here that has a connection to the outside. I have used it more than once to observe the universe fading away. This setup will send our transmission as a unique, superluminal type of wave. Hurry, we can’t waste time chatting about this.”
And so, here we are. I don’t know who will be hearing this, if anyone at all.
I beg of you, consider how our advancements might be our downfall.
It’s almost here. I can hear the flaming bolts striking the forest, closer.
This is my account. Please save us. Please spare us.
Don’t condemn us as you have.
[TRANSCRIPT END]
There it is. I’ve revised the translation more times than I can count, and I’m sure there’s no mistake here.
Other readings imply that this message has travelled an unimaginably vast distance, and not only over space. Repeated triangulation only tells me this came from above, somewhere far away, among the stars.
I can feel the edges of my mind singeing. This can’t be proven as truth, nor can it be discredited. There’s no possible way to explain how this message came from our own planet.
I’m trying to be rational, but I think we need to consider future development very carefully. As a people, we have always rushed through our technological advancements at an incredible speed, not stopping to consider all the consequences that might follow.
If anyone will believe this, please spread it around. I have no doubt this post will be taken down the moment they find it. As for myself, I’ll be disgraced, probably. Stuck in a cold cell, most likely.
Spread the word. The fact that the higher-ups will attempt to conceal this is a cruel thing indeed, if any of it’s true.
Signing off.

I just got my "winter mix" from youtube music, and these seemed to be my top 5 artists so the question becomes... Who else should I listen to to branch off of these?

Hello! I hope you all are having a great day so far. I have a few days off from work and am really wanting to find people I can talk to and maybe play games with. A little about me, my name is sprout, Im pretty shy but once you get to know me you’ll see im quite the firecracker. I like to tell a lot of bad jokes and laugh quite a bit, im also a Disney adult so I LOVE everything Disney. My favorite Disney movies are Moana, princess and the frog and turning red. Maybe we could even watch some movies or something sometime 💚
I play a few games such as wizard 101 (yes this game still exists), dead by daylight and Minecraft. Im still quite a baby when it comes to learning/playing games but im super down to learn and determined to get better >.<
I promise to keep the conversation going if you do, im quite good at holding a conversation and if we click and become friends, I’m very consistent 💚
I’m 5’6, Latina (my English is good but I still get a little confused with some of the language so keep that in mind) and I go to the gym consistently so if you want to be gym bros and talk about physical education for hours I’d listen! I also am in EST time zone but I’m open to whoever.
As long as you’re over the age of 18 I have no problems talking. Just please no creeps, and no people who are just looking for one word conversation. I promise I won’t respond if so •ᴗ•
If you’d be interested in talking, playing games or watching movies feel free to message me. Tell me a little about yourself! Maybe take a look at my profile to get to know me better. I hope you have a good day💚
-lil bean sprout

Let me start by saying I’m breaching contract by sharing this. If the company’s lookouts link this post to me – which they will – I’ll be disgraced, and any chance at getting a job in this profession again will be out of the picture. I have the common sense to keep my name unknown, but all that’s gonna do is slow them down.
Keeping this hidden would be a crime against humanity of the highest order. You all deserve to know, as terrible as it is.
I work at an unnamed technological research company as, you guessed it, a researcher. In recent years, we’ve made astonishing advancements in developing technology that can interact with and harness tachyons.
Tachyons are particles that travel faster than light; that’s the most important part. They’ve been a subject of theoretical physics since the late 60s, but as far as public knowledge goes, they’re still just that. Theoretical.
But they are most certainly real. Well, not “tachyons” per se, though their behaviour is equatable. I won’t bore you with the technicalities, but the result of a particle travelling faster than light is that said particle is able to, effectively, travel backwards in time.
My other group members and I have been experimenting with these particles for the best part of two years now. We’ve made major advances, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.
Yesterday, 23/03/2023, at 09:07 am, my equipment detected a tachyon signal. This was in the morning, mind you, and no tests had yet been carried out. From what I can tell, this signal originated – or, rather, will originate – from elsewhere.
Playing it out loud, it at first just sounded like a garbled mess of frequencies. But after observing the audio structure, I found it to be made up of thousands of tones, of which there were only two types – long, and short.
The realisation hit pretty quick. It was Morse code, or, at least, it could be interpreted as such. The most fundamental form of digital communication known to man. So, I ran it through an auto-interpreter a few times, and got a fully coherent message.
I refuse to believe that I’m seeing patterns where there are none. The chances are so astronomically low that I can’t feasibly consider it to be a random signal, especially considering I’ve never received one from somewhere outside the lab.
I’m going to copy over the translation here. I do not wish to instil panic, but please, spread this post. People need to be aware that this is a real possibility.
To whomever is reading this, prepare yourself.
Here it is.
​
[TRANSCRIPT BEGIN]
Hi.
My name is Tim Hermelle. Before I write down this account, I should insist that this is the truth. This is happening to us all right now. This is not a joke, prank, or an interactive project.
This is the truth. You HAVE to believe what you are about to read, for our sakes.
Okay, with that out of the way… shit, it’s getting closer. I’ll write down what I can before we’re pulled back to the city, to join the others. I hope enough context is given in my account for you to fully understand.
I live - lived - in the great city of Pharades (that’s Pha-ra-dees). The utopia of humanity’s future. Life was amazing. Every aspect brought joy and satisfaction to every person. No hunger, thirst, no overpopulation, pollution… a Nirvana if there ever was. The level of advancement may be difficult for some of you to believe
Work was optional, and automatons would fill the spaces left by those choosing to pursue their own personal dreams. Even so, a large number of people here still choose to have jobs, vocations I suppose. Healthcare was unparalleled, and not one person has died during my time here.
Everything major was decided by a vote. It was the perfect democratic system, but I’m no politician, so I wouldn’t be able to explain to you why that is.
Hell, we even had a collective vote to decide the next week’s weather every Sunday. That’s right, we’d taken control of the weather. Want to splash around in puddles, smelling the petrichor? Maybe get a tan on? You’d just have to go and vote for it.
Pharades was, without hyperbole, fucking beautiful. In between the city blocks, there were great swathes of woodland and meadows. Crystal rivers flowed underneath silver bridges, and leaves of every colour painted the landscape like polka dots.
And the city itself, well, they say nature trumps anything manmade in terms of beauty, but I disagree. The intricately designed towers were accented by all the most complementary colours, gold, chrome, red, blue, any combination you could imagine, it was here. Arches, spirals, and patterns of every variety adorned the structures.
The day in question was a Wednesday – not that days of the week held any particular significance anymore. I’d planned to meet with two of my buddies, Erin and Tuan, at our favourite coffee shop a couple of districts over, in the Wantania area.
Historically, the journey may have been arduous, or frustrating. Not now. Most people didn’t even use vehicles anymore – instead, the city had built a vast underground network of ever-shifting and rearranging tracks, called “Tubyrinth”. Each person owned a personal pod of sorts, customisable to any degree.
I input Wantania Central, and hopped inside. My pod contained a sofa and a minifridge, stocked up with my favourite drinks. The journey was always snappy. Each time, the underground superstructure would arrange a new and unique track to be used, direct to a reserved bay.
Just fifteen minutes later, I was stood under the vaulted, ornamental expanse of the station roof, a hundred or so feet above. I always stopped here to just stare upwards for a moment, absorbing the imaginative architecture.
After exiting the station, I was surprised to see that both Erin and Tuan were already waiting for me outside. The good kind of surprised, that slaps a goofy smile onto your face.
“Took you long enough!” Tuan chuckled, finding the irony in his own words hilarious.
“God, I know right?” added Erin, “I was worried I’d need crutches after standing out here waiting!”
“Well, heh, you’re not gonna like this next part,” I joked, and we set off down the street, laughing. Our favourite café was called “Beansmith’s Forge”. It was a cheesy, but endearing name, and the theme fit the three of us like a glove; as I said before, we’d been working on worldbuilding for our fantasy RPG, an immersive neurolink VR experience, where the player could design their own character and have a unique questline auto-generated out of a complex system.
We ordered brunch, and, of course, coffee. I won’t get into the details of our talks, but we quickly finished up, paid, and set off down Gerben Street.
The more exciting event of the day was our session booked at the aptly named Noji Box, something you could call an “anti-grav playground”. Admittedly, I’ve never fully known how it works, just that it involves paired wormholes, immensely powerful electromagnets, and a huge vacuum-chamber.
One thing I was always grateful for was that the automatons, who I saw working robotically through storefront windows, were withheld any accurate human likeness – I’m sure you’ve heard of the uncanny valley, so you’ll know what I mean. They fell just short of it.
All was calm on the walk, as to be expected. We made it to the Noji Box in good time, ten minutes before our session booking. I get it’s company policy to take everyone through the safety basics, but it was admittedly a little boring after many, many past visits.
The only real requirement was that you’d have to wear an “osteopatic suit”. No, osteostatic? Something about keeping your bones from floating away from each other, or from disappearing over time.
We were suited up, ready to enter “S.S. Slamdown”, when a sudden tremor shook the building’s foundations. Everyone shared the same puzzled expression – not once had something like that ever happened in Pharades.
The staff looked a bit stumped at first. I guess they never had to deal with a situation like this in the past. To our dismay, but unsurprisingly, our session was cancelled, and we were told that they would call us later to sort out a re-booking.
I had the strangest feeling when we left and began back down the road. Something similar to déjà vu, but not quite. Like nostalgia, but without the accompanying feeling of reminiscence or joy.
Trying to brush it off, I distracted my mind by humming a tune. I didn’t know what it was from, at the time, but I knew it was a stringed melody. A violin? Thing is, I wasn’t really humming it as much as hearing it in my head.
We rounded a corner, and Erin paused in surprise.
“Oh, that’s… hey, that’s Jeremiah! He’s been playing that fiddle the street over from mine for the past, what, two weeks? Come on, let’s go listen.”
I grew confused when we approached, only to hear the exact same melody that had just been looping in my head. Before I’d heard this guy playing. I don’t remember stumbling upon this particular street performer before this point.
We stood listening for a few minutes, then continued our walk. Thoughts no longer infested with that tune, I was hit with what I can only describe as a taste. The savoury taste of something on my tongue, complete with mustard and relish. Meat of some kind?
The concern started to flourish when we came upon a food truck, and Tuan asked if we were hungry. Sure, we’d just eaten at the coffee shop, but I could fit in one more tasty bite. He offered to pay, which we gladly accepted, and he returned with… hotdogs. With mustard. And relish.
My gratitude masked the ever-growing confusion within me. Was this just a weird coincidence, or something else? Did I know we were going to get hotdogs?
We wound up back at the station, where a feeling of detached sorrow welled up inside me, something you might feel after recalling a bad memory from which you’ve since recovered. I understood then that I would run into my on-good-terms ex inside. But, before we could enter, another rumbling tremor swept across the street, followed by the clamour of destruction and screams from inside.
A grey dust cloud plumed out from the entrance, sweeping us off of our feet. I saw Erin flipped face-first into the pavement, just as I caught my heel on the base of a stop sign. Yet another quake boomed underneath the asphalt.
The asphalt I was falling down onto… but the impact didn’t come. Instead of a hard surface, the sensation of falling went on. You know that feeling when you think there’s another step at the bottom of the stairs, only to find the floor instead? It was just like that.
The ground I fell upon wasn’t asphalt. It rang out as I collided, almost hollow-sounding. Metallic. Maybe it was just my head ringing, but without a doubt, I was not in the street anymore.
I sat up, and my palms confirmed I was on a metal floor, the kind with those diamond-shaped grips. Looking around almost caused a complete sensory overload, immediately. A multitude of flashing lights, screens, wires, buttons, and all sorts decorated the room. It looked not far off from the control room of an intelligence agency – at least, how they’re depicted in movies.
I got onto one knee and pivoted to look around. The tall man standing directly behind me almost led to a second fall, but instead I scooted backward frantically at the sight.
The man – well, I say “man”, but this person didn’t really have any distinguishing features. They were wearing a spotless black and white cloak of some kind, and a metal cage covering the upper half of their face, so that only their mouth was visible.
They stood still, not reacting to my show of surprise, then spoke in the most androgynous voice conceivable.
“How did you get in here?”
I scanned the room, finding that there were no obvious entrances anywhere around, like we were inside a closed-off box.
“I- uh, I fell over, a-and next thing I know – here,” I stuttered.
“Well, you shouldn’t be here, and there’s no way that you should be able to get here.”
I stood up, feeling a little more comfortable in the presence of this stranger, though not letting my guard down entirely. Now, I could see the pictures displayed across the screens – they seemed to be feeds of countless locations in Pharades, streets, woodlands, you name it.
“What… what the hell’s going on here? Who are you? Why are you spying on the city?”
The stranger didn’t seem amused, being pelted with questions, and held up a hand, gesturing me to stop. They let out a deep, held breath.
“Well, since you’re here, I may as well enlighten you. Take a seat.”
So I did. I sat in shock and disbelief for the next five minutes as the person answered all my questions, even the ones I didn’t know I wanted to ask. They introduced themselves simply as “Administrator”, but I chose “Admin”, to avoid the mouthful.
Admin proceeded to tell me the truth, as casually as one would talk about the weather.
It wasn’t real.
A simulation.
They told me we were inside a highly advanced, self-sustaining, supercomputer pod travelling through deep space, harvesting energy from ions extracted from the surrounding vacuum. Over a hundred trillion years ago, those living here now consented in having their consciousness imported to the device.
On top of the ion harvesting, power was supposedly generated from emotions experienced by a consciousness – the more intense an emotion or feeling, the more power generated.
I interrupted the monologue at this point with a question they hadn’t seemed to consider,
“Let’s say I believe what you’re saying. If this system’s been up for as long as you say, why did I only just have my 29th birthday, what, two months back now?”
“I understand your concern, but allow me to continue. Every 50 years, it is reset. All your memories are wiped and locked away until the moments when you would again make those memories. There are only a set number of people who were uploaded to the system, and their minds cannot simply be deleted if they were to die.”
Not only a simulation, but an endless loop? My brain felt like it might burst.
“Wait,” I said, “if we’re reset every time, and everything plays out the same… then, we can’t possibly have any free will of our own, right?”
“I suppose you could say that. But the illusion we, I, have worked tirelessly to maintain, gives the impression that you do.”
“Wh… what? So, the original me signed up for this? But I’m not him! I’m a copy, aren’t I? Do I have a choice in this?”
“There is no way for me to erase any person that lives here. Only if the pod itself is damaged or destroyed, can I, or anyone else, truly die. The Great Stellar Extinction has come and gone, and all that remains outside is cold, and dark. A handful of black and brown dwarves, and black holes. To my knowledge.”
The sudden feeling of intense, hollow loneliness filled up my chest. We were alone in a great black sea of nothingness. My slack jaw must have told Admin I didn’t have the capacity to speak.
“Over time, I have lost contact with the hundreds of thousands of other pods that were ejected from Earth all that time ago. Either they are too far now, or they met a destructive end. I can’t say which is the better, anymore.”
Absorbing the sudden truth, the emptiness evolved into anger.
“Let me get this straight. We, living our lives down there, are puppets to you? Is that it? Just an endless cycle of digital paradise, kept in the dark of all you’ve just told me? How can you possibly justify this?!”
“Calm down. Having your memories wiped is a luxury I myself cannot afford. Anyway, that’s only the preface of what I need to talk about. I’m sure you also noticed the tremors, down there?”
“The tremors? Oh, oh yeah. Sort of ruined my plans, but I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
“I didn’t do anything. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Whatever the cause, it’s not within this pod.”
I took it all in. A system malfunction? Why did the Admin feel the need to share this with me?
“Is… is that why, maybe, that I could predict some of the things that happened afterwards?”
“It’s worse than I thought. The memory suppression seems to be failing.”
Both of us paused for a moment. The silence was deafening.
“I’ve been taking readings on the external sensors. There’s… something out there. An object. It’s been following us for a while now, but with no starlight left, I don’t know what it is. Space debris couldn’t move on its own accord like this thing is.”
“What are you trying to say?” I sputtered, the dread I felt deepening by the second.
“I’m saying that something has found us.”
My blood ran cold. Found us? What could have found us?
“Didn’t you say all the stars are dead? The universe is just darkness now. What could have found us? What?”
“I wish I had the answers, too. I don’t think we’re safe anymore. The most recent readings imply that whatever it is, it’s latched onto the pod somehow. Possibly-“
Admin was cut off by the loud screech of static from the speakers around the room. Their head shot up to the nearest corner in a manner that set me on a knife’s edge.
The tremors returned with a vengeance now, and the both of us were sent sprawling onto the floor. I didn’t fall through it this time, though. Sparks flew and monitors went offline.
I was about to ask what we should do, when the roaring static settled, and something else started to play.
An innocent, childlike giggle. Gurgled coos, infantile squeals of joy that pierced my eardrums like needles and left them ringing. Remembering the sounds that came from those speakers make my insides twist and yearn to escape my body, knowing what came next.
The laughter grew, and so did the tremors. The room started to collapse, wires and boxes raining down upon us. Well, not really collapse, no, but change. The far wall crumpled, like something on the other side assailed it with forceful impacts, and the room began to shrink.
As if that dark place wasn’t claustrophobic enough, the ceiling, walls, everything began to close in on us. All the while, the childlike giggling only grew in joy. I thought we were to be crushed and snapped by the pressure, when we were abruptly freed.
It had happened again. Pushed through the floor and spat out somewhere else. This time, I – we – found ourselves near a paved road leading out of one of the city blocks, into a green meadow which gave way to trees a ways down.
Something was terribly wrong. Only after brushing myself off and standing up did I become aware of the swirling darkness that replaced the once baby-blue sky, with its cotton candy clouds. A heavy and unsettling calm had fallen upon us, dampening the city’s brilliance. No more did sunlight gleam off the ornate spires and arches, replaced by a still, hanging shadow.
The eerie quiet was shattered by that godforsaken crackling, booming across the landscape, despite not a speaker in sight, again followed by those ill-belonging coos and cries. Accompanying the infantile sputtering came an uproar of cracking and crumbling, great impacts from deep within the city’s heart.
Both Admin and I stared in disbelief as distant buildings sunk into the ground, while others twisted and warped their way into the sky, as if made from soft clay. Some just disappeared entirely, leaving not a shred of evidence behind that they had ever been there, while their former inhabitants plunged from storeys above.
“It’s taken my place.”
Those four unprompted words shook me to the core of my being. The god of this world had been usurped.
“But why?” I found myself asking, “with what motive?”
Admin went to reply, but stopped upon seeing the great, pinkish masses floating up out of the streets, far ahead. We stared in bewilderment, trying to make out what they were. The chorus of screams hurried us to the realisation that the balls were… they were made of people.
Agonised, howling faces littered the fleshy abominations, while more objects rose around them. Structural beams, signposts, metal objects of every kind gravitated toward the amalgams of humanity, before their relentless assaults began.
Ripping, tearing, stabbing, slicing… it was already too much for my mind to comprehend. It garnered no reaction from myself other than stunned shock. Flesh and blood spewed from the masses, and orbited around them like the rings of Saturn, falling back in to haphazardly patch themselves back onto the wailing people.
My thoughtless attention was redirected as a frantic deluge of citizens fled the city, running down the street towards us. One by one, the exodus was halted, people seeming to stop in place abruptly, though the screams did not relent.
I couldn’t see what had stopped them until the crowd drew closer, where I saw an elderly man whip forward, foot stuck fast, instantly snapping his knee from the momentum. He let out a heart-wrenching cry as he fell down and looked to see what had stopped him.
Something that looked like roots, water pipes maybe, had erupted through the tarmac and coiled their way up his leg. I could see the strength draining in his eyes as they stood him back upright by force, wrapping around his entire body.
I watched in abject horror as he was raised off the ground, and each and every one of the old man’s limbs were bent and snapped at unnatural angles, shattering frail bones into dust.
His feeble cries were promptly silenced as a squirming metal tube forced its way inside his mouth, his eyes rolling back in unfathomable agony as the bulging mass forced its way down his throat, splitting his ribcage apart and allowing the organs within to slop out and float in the air, as if weightless. The whole process seemed to reverse itself in time, then repeat, over and over.
I could only hear the echoes of Admin’s shouts and the faint sensation of their grip on my forearm as they pulled me away from the mind-bending atrocity. My vacant body tumbled backward, sending both of us falling onto the grass.
Still I could only sit there, frozen. Somewhere off to the right, I saw a young woman pulling presumably her daughter along by the wrist, fleeing the hellscape of flesh and bone down a small alley. Her head spun wildly as she noticed the walls of the alleyway closing in around them.
She burst out into the open, but was yanked back, her grip fast. She turned in desperation, only to see her daughter, who couldn’t have been more than seven, being slowly crushed into a paste of bloody flesh and yellow fat. Her pitiful screams still ring in my ears, seeing her child suffer such a terrible fate.
Admin was finally triumphant in breaking my trance, and I rushed to my feet, stumbling before gaining my footing and bolting the fuck out of there. The childish giggling echoing out over the sky only served to push me forwards and away from that place.
“What the fuck is going on?!” I yelped, glancing over to Admin, hoping they could offer just the slightest of explanations.
“I have an idea, but we need to get somewhere first. You see that hill through the woods, right over there?”
“Hill? To the observatory?”
“There’s one last thing we can try to stop this. It’s a shot in the dark, but I can’t just stand here and fade away with the rest.”
High speed winds whipped the trees as we ran below them, leaves fluttering in a wild seizure. Air-splitting cracks sounded, so loud my ears began to ring once more, and I looked over my shoulder to see what they could have been.
Blazing spouts of fire shot down from the clouds behind, more akin to lightning than anything, striking the forsaken with white-hot temperatures. Even from a distance, I could see skin and flesh melt off of bones like candle wax, forming spiralling clouds of organic vapour.
In my distraction, I ran straight into a tree, and tumbled over, blood leaking from a small cut on my forehead. Admin skidded to a stop and pulled me up to my feet, and ran onwards, not waiting for a moment to ask if I was okay.
Neither of us were okay. That was a given now.
We reached the top of the hill without too much effort – seems it was programmed for everyone to have an above-average level of fitness, young or old regardless.
Admin frantically, but methodically, sifted through what appeared to be a large hoop of keys, searching for the one to fit the observatory’s door. I looked back over to where we had fled from.
The twisted buildings coiled toward the sky, gargantuan talons holding captive everyone I’d ever known. But there was something else. Far behind the city, in the distant hills and woodland, a great black wave that spanned the horizon was travelling towards us, eviscerating the world itself. All it left behind was an endless chasm of darkness, defying reality itself.
The tsunami came closer, before stopping at the city’s outskirts, leaving only a towering earthen spire of suffering, flaming bolts cracking down upon it.
“Admin, what is going on?!”
They paused for a moment, then continued working on the several locks barring our entry.
“Do you remember what I told you earlier, when you found me? How this system is able to keep on running, over the trillions of years?”
“…ions?”
“Yes, but that’s only the basis. I told you that emotional activity generates power, yes? The more intense an emotion, the more power generated?”
“What are you getting at?”
“This is pure theory, but I believe that whatever is out there is feeding off of the system.”
“Is that why all that was happening? The-“
I stifled a gag, recalling the horrors fresh in my memory.
“Again, it’s a theory. I don’t understand what it is. If the constraints of the universe are loose enough for something to evolve in its endless darkness, to predate on the last sources of energy within it… I don’t know. And I doubt we ever will.”
I stared out at the hellscape, speechless. Finally, Admin found the right key, yanked the door open, and pulled me inside by the arm.
“Hey!” Admin yelled, snapping their fingers, “I need you to be present for this. I am restricted in this world, I can’t break and reform things like you can. A failsafe, for if the power were to go to my head. Follow my instructions exactly.”
They told me how to break apart some of the technology in the observatory, and rewire it into a different machine. I had no idea what we were creating at the time, but complied nonetheless.
The finished product was a makeshift beacon of some kind, connected to the nearby terminal.
“Thank you. Now, type.”
“Type what?”
“Everything that has happened. Add as many details as you can, because we won’t have another chance to get this out there.”
“O-okay, what is this thing? A radio?”
“In a way. The observatory is one of the only places here that has a connection to the outside. I have used it more than once to observe the universe fading away. This setup will send our transmission as a unique, superluminal type of wave. Hurry, we can’t waste time chatting about this.”
And so, here we are. I don’t know who will be hearing this, if anyone at all.
I beg of you, consider how our advancements might be our downfall.
It’s almost here. I can hear the flaming bolts striking the forest, closer.
This is my account. Please save us. Please spare us.
Don’t condemn us as you have.
[TRANSCRIPT END]
​
There it is. I’ve revised the translation more times than I can count, and I’m sure there’s no mistake here.
Other readings imply that this message has travelled an unimaginably vast distance, and not only over space. Repeated triangulation only tells me this came from above, somewhere far away, among the stars.
I can feel the edges of my mind singeing. This can’t be proven as truth, nor can it be discredited. There’s no possible way to explain how this message came from our own planet.
I’m trying to be rational, but I think we need to consider future development very carefully. As a people, we have always rushed through our technological advancements at an incredible speed, not stopping to consider all the consequences that might follow.
If anyone will believe this, please spread it around. I have no doubt this post will be taken down the moment they find it. As for myself, I’ll be disgraced, probably. Stuck in a cold cell, most likely.
Spread the word. The fact that the higher-ups will attempt to conceal this is a cruel thing indeed, if any of it’s true.
Signing off.

Let me start by saying I’m breaching contract by sharing this. If the company’s lookouts link this post to me – which they will – I’ll be disgraced, and any chance at getting a job in this profession again will be out of the picture. I have the common sense to keep my name unknown, but all that’s gonna do is slow them down.
Keeping this hidden would be a crime against humanity of the highest order. You all deserve to know, as terrible as it is.
I work at an unnamed technological research company as, you guessed it, a researcher. In recent years, we’ve made astonishing advancements in developing technology that can interact with and harness tachyons.
Tachyons are particles that travel faster than light; that’s the most important part. They’ve been a subject of theoretical physics since the late 60s, but as far as public knowledge goes, they’re still just that. Theoretical.
But they are most certainly real. Well, not “tachyons” per se, though their behaviour is equatable. I won’t bore you with the technicalities, but the result of a particle travelling faster than light is that said particle is able to, effectively, travel backwards in time.
My other group members and I have been experimenting with these particles for the best part of two years now. We’ve made major advances, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.
Yesterday, 23/03/2023, at 09:07 am, my equipment detected a tachyon signal. This was in the morning, mind you, and no tests had yet been carried out. From what I can tell, this signal originated – or, rather, will originate – from elsewhere.
Playing it out loud, it at first just sounded like a garbled mess of frequencies. But after observing the audio structure, I found it to be made up of thousands of tones, of which there were only two types – long, and short.
The realisation hit pretty quick. It was Morse code, or, at least, it could be interpreted as such. The most fundamental form of digital communication known to man. So, I ran it through an auto-interpreter a few times, and got a fully coherent message.
I refuse to believe that I’m seeing patterns where there are none. The chances are so astronomically low that I can’t feasibly consider it to be a random signal, especially considering I’ve never received one from somewhere outside the lab.
I’m going to copy over the translation here. I do not wish to instil panic, but please, spread this post. People need to be aware that this is a real possibility.
To whomever is reading this, prepare yourself.
Here it is.
[TRANSCRIPT BEGIN]
Hi.
My name is Tim Hermelle. Before I write down this account, I should insist that this is the truth. This is happening to us all right now. This is not a joke, prank, or an interactive project.
This is the truth. You HAVE to believe what you are about to read, for our sakes.
Okay, with that out of the way… shit, it’s getting closer. I’ll write down what I can before we’re pulled back to the city, to join the others. I hope enough context is given in my account for you to fully understand.
I live - lived - in the great city of Pharades (that’s Pha-ra-dees). The utopia of humanity’s future. Life was amazing. Every aspect brought joy and satisfaction to every person. No hunger, thirst, no overpopulation, pollution… a Nirvana if there ever was. The level of advancement may be difficult for some of you to believe
Work was optional, and automatons would fill the spaces left by those choosing to pursue their own personal dreams. Even so, a large number of people here still choose to have jobs, vocations I suppose. Healthcare was unparalleled, and not one person has died during my time here.
Everything major was decided by a vote. It was the perfect democratic system, but I’m no politician, so I wouldn’t be able to explain to you why that is.
Hell, we even had a collective vote to decide the next week’s weather every Sunday. That’s right, we’d taken control of the weather. Want to splash around in puddles, smelling the petrichor? Maybe get a tan on? You’d just have to go and vote for it.
Pharades was, without hyperbole, fucking beautiful. In between the city blocks, there were great swathes of woodland and meadows. Crystal rivers flowed underneath silver bridges, and leaves of every colour painted the landscape like polka dots.
And the city itself, well, they say nature trumps anything manmade in terms of beauty, but I disagree. The intricately designed towers were accented by all the most complementary colours, gold, chrome, red, blue, any combination you could imagine, it was here. Arches, spirals, and patterns of every variety adorned the structures.
The day in question was a Wednesday – not that days of the week held any particular significance anymore. I’d planned to meet with two of my buddies, Erin and Tuan, at our favourite coffee shop a couple of districts over, in the Wantania area.
Historically, the journey may have been arduous, or frustrating. Not now. Most people didn’t even use vehicles anymore – instead, the city had built a vast underground network of ever-shifting and rearranging tracks, called “Tubyrinth”. Each person owned a personal pod of sorts, customisable to any degree.
I input Wantania Central, and hopped inside. My pod contained a sofa and a minifridge, stocked up with my favourite drinks. The journey was always snappy. Each time, the underground superstructure would arrange a new and unique track to be used, direct to a reserved bay.
Just fifteen minutes later, I was stood under the vaulted, ornamental expanse of the station roof, a hundred or so feet above. I always stopped here to just stare upwards for a moment, absorbing the imaginative architecture.
After exiting the station, I was surprised to see that both Erin and Tuan were already waiting for me outside. The good kind of surprised, that slaps a goofy smile onto your face.
“Took you long enough!” Tuan chuckled, finding the irony in his own words hilarious.
“God, I know right?” added Erin, “I was worried I’d need crutches after standing out here waiting!”
“Well, heh, you’re not gonna like this next part,” I joked, and we set off down the street, laughing. Our favourite café was called “Beansmith’s Forge”. It was a cheesy, but endearing name, and the theme fit the three of us like a glove; as I said before, we’d been working on worldbuilding for our fantasy RPG, an immersive neurolink VR experience, where the player could design their own character and have a unique questline auto-generated out of a complex system.
We ordered brunch, and, of course, coffee. I won’t get into the details of our talks, but we quickly finished up, paid, and set off down Gerben Street.
The more exciting event of the day was our session booked at the aptly named Noji Box, something you could call an “anti-grav playground”. Admittedly, I’ve never fully known how it works, just that it involves paired wormholes, immensely powerful electromagnets, and a huge vacuum-chamber.
One thing I was always grateful for was that the automatons, who I saw working robotically through storefront windows, were withheld any accurate human likeness – I’m sure you’ve heard of the uncanny valley, so you’ll know what I mean. They fell just short of it.
All was calm on the walk, as to be expected. We made it to the Noji Box in good time, ten minutes before our session booking. I get it’s company policy to take everyone through the safety basics, but it was admittedly a little boring after many, many past visits.
The only real requirement was that you’d have to wear an “osteopatic suit”. No, osteostatic? Something about keeping your bones from floating away from each other, or from disappearing over time.
We were suited up, ready to enter “S.S. Slamdown”, when a sudden tremor shook the building’s foundations. Everyone shared the same puzzled expression – not once had something like that ever happened in Pharades.
The staff looked a bit stumped at first. I guess they never had to deal with a situation like this in the past. To our dismay, but unsurprisingly, our session was cancelled, and we were told that they would call us later to sort out a re-booking.
I had the strangest feeling when we left and began back down the road. Something similar to déjà vu, but not quite. Like nostalgia, but without the accompanying feeling of reminiscence or joy.
Trying to brush it off, I distracted my mind by humming a tune. I didn’t know what it was from, at the time, but I knew it was a stringed melody. A violin? Thing is, I wasn’t really humming it as much as hearing it in my head.
We rounded a corner, and Erin paused in surprise.
“Oh, that’s… hey, that’s Jeremiah! He’s been playing that fiddle the street over from mine for the past, what, two weeks? Come on, let’s go listen.”
I grew confused when we approached, only to hear the exact same melody that had just been looping in my head. Before I’d heard this guy playing. I don’t remember stumbling upon this particular street performer before this point.
We stood listening for a few minutes, then continued our walk. Thoughts no longer infested with that tune, I was hit with what I can only describe as a taste. The savoury taste of something on my tongue, complete with mustard and relish. Meat of some kind?
The concern started to flourish when we came upon a food truck, and Tuan asked if we were hungry. Sure, we’d just eaten at the coffee shop, but I could fit in one more tasty bite. He offered to pay, which we gladly accepted, and he returned with… hotdogs. With mustard. And relish.
My gratitude masked the ever-growing confusion within me. Was this just a weird coincidence, or something else? Did I know we were going to get hotdogs?
We wound up back at the station, where a feeling of detached sorrow welled up inside me, something you might feel after recalling a bad memory from which you’ve since recovered. I understood then that I would run into my on-good-terms ex inside. But, before we could enter, another rumbling tremor swept across the street, followed by the clamour of destruction and screams from inside.
A grey dust cloud plumed out from the entrance, sweeping us off of our feet. I saw Erin flipped face-first into the pavement, just as I caught my heel on the base of a stop sign. Yet another quake boomed underneath the asphalt.
The asphalt I was falling down onto… but the impact didn’t come. Instead of a hard surface, the sensation of falling went on. You know that feeling when you think there’s another step at the bottom of the stairs, only to find the floor instead? It was just like that.
The ground I fell upon wasn’t asphalt. It rang out as I collided, almost hollow-sounding. Metallic. Maybe it was just my head ringing, but without a doubt, I was not in the street anymore.
I sat up, and my palms confirmed I was on a metal floor, the kind with those diamond-shaped grips. Looking around almost caused a complete sensory overload, immediately. A multitude of flashing lights, screens, wires, buttons, and all sorts decorated the room. It looked not far off from the control room of an intelligence agency – at least, how they’re depicted in movies.
I got onto one knee and pivoted to look around. The tall man standing directly behind me almost led to a second fall, but instead I scooted backward frantically at the sight.
The man – well, I say “man”, but this person didn’t really have any distinguishing features. They were wearing a spotless black and white cloak of some kind, and a metal cage covering the upper half of their face, so that only their mouth was visible.
They stood still, not reacting to my show of surprise, then spoke in the most androgynous voice conceivable.
“How did you get in here?”
I scanned the room, finding that there were no obvious entrances anywhere around, like we were inside a closed-off box.
“I- uh, I fell over, a-and next thing I know – here,” I stuttered.
“Well, you shouldn’t be here, and there’s no way that you should be able to get here.”
I stood up, feeling a little more comfortable in the presence of this stranger, though not letting my guard down entirely. Now, I could see the pictures displayed across the screens – they seemed to be feeds of countless locations in Pharades, streets, woodlands, you name it.
“What… what the hell’s going on here? Who are you? Why are you spying on the city?”
The stranger didn’t seem amused, being pelted with questions, and held up a hand, gesturing me to stop. They let out a deep, held breath.
“Well, since you’re here, I may as well enlighten you. Take a seat.”
So I did. I sat in shock and disbelief for the next five minutes as the person answered all my questions, even the ones I didn’t know I wanted to ask. They introduced themselves simply as “Administrator”, but I chose “Admin”, to avoid the mouthful.
Admin proceeded to tell me the truth, as casually as one would talk about the weather.
It wasn’t real.
A simulation.
They told me we were inside a highly advanced, self-sustaining, supercomputer pod travelling through deep space, harvesting energy from ions extracted from the surrounding vacuum. Over a hundred trillion years ago, those living here now consented in having their consciousness imported to the device.
On top of the ion harvesting, power was supposedly generated from emotions experienced by a consciousness – the more intense an emotion or feeling, the more power generated.
I interrupted the monologue at this point with a question they hadn’t seemed to consider,
“Let’s say I believe what you’re saying. If this system’s been up for as long as you say, why did I only just have my 29th birthday, what, two months back now?”
“I understand your concern, but allow me to continue. Every 50 years, it is reset. All your memories are wiped and locked away until the moments when you would again make those memories. There are only a set number of people who were uploaded to the system, and their minds cannot simply be deleted if they were to die.”
Not only a simulation, but an endless loop? My brain felt like it might burst.
“Wait,” I said, “if we’re reset every time, and everything plays out the same… then, we can’t possibly have any free will of our own, right?”
“I suppose you could say that. But the illusion we, I, have worked tirelessly to maintain, gives the impression that you do.”
“Wh… what? So, the original me signed up for this? But I’m not him! I’m a copy, aren’t I? Do I have a choice in this?”
“There is no way for me to erase any person that lives here. Only if the pod itself is damaged or destroyed, can I, or anyone else, truly die. The Great Stellar Extinction has come and gone, and all that remains outside is cold, and dark. A handful of black and brown dwarves, and black holes. To my knowledge.”
The sudden feeling of intense, hollow loneliness filled up my chest. We were alone in a great black sea of nothingness. My slack jaw must have told Admin I didn’t have the capacity to speak.
“Over time, I have lost contact with the hundreds of thousands of other pods that were ejected from Earth all that time ago. Either they are too far now, or they met a destructive end. I can’t say which is the better, anymore.”
Absorbing the sudden truth, the emptiness evolved into anger.
“Let me get this straight. We, living our lives down there, are puppets to you? Is that it? Just an endless cycle of digital paradise, kept in the dark of all you’ve just told me? How can you possibly justify this?!”
“Calm down. Having your memories wiped is a luxury I cannot afford. Anyway, that’s only the preface of what I need to talk about. I’m sure you also noticed the tremors, down there?”
“The tremors? Oh, oh yeah. Sort of ruined my plans, but I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
“I didn’t do anything. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Whatever the cause, it’s not within this pod.”
I took it all in. A system malfunction? Why did the Admin feel the need to share this with me?
“Is… is that why, maybe, that I could predict some of the things that happened afterwards?”
“It’s worse than I thought. The memory suppression seems to be failing.”
Both of us paused for a moment. The silence was deafening.
“I’ve been taking readings on the external sensors. There’s… something out there. An object. It’s been following us for a while now, but with no starlight left, I don’t know what it is. Space debris couldn’t move on its own accord like this thing is.”
“What are you trying to say?” I sputtered, the dread I felt deepening by the second.
“I’m saying that something has found us.”
My blood ran cold. Found us? What could have found us?
“Didn’t you say all the stars are dead? The universe is just darkness now. What could have found us? What?”
“I wish I had the answers, too. I don’t think we’re safe anymore. The most recent readings imply that whatever it is, it’s latched onto the pod somehow. Possibly-“
Admin was cut off by the loud screech of static from the speakers around the room. Their head shot up to the nearest corner in a manner that set me on a knife’s edge.
The tremors returned with a vengeance now, and the both of us were sent sprawling onto the floor. I didn’t fall through it this time, though. Sparks flew and monitors went offline.
I was about to ask what we should do, when the roaring static settled, and something else started to play.
An innocent, childlike giggle. Gurgled coos, infantile squeals of joy that pierced my eardrums like needles and left them ringing. Remembering the sounds that came from those speakers make my insides twist and yearn to escape my body, knowing what came next.
The laughter grew, and so did the tremors. The room started to collapse, wires and boxes raining down upon us. Well, not really collapse, no, but change. The far wall crumpled, like something on the other side assailed it with forceful impacts, and the room began to shrink.
As if that dark place wasn’t claustrophobic enough, the ceiling, walls, everything began to close in on us. All the while, the childlike giggling only grew in joy. I thought we were to be crushed and snapped by the pressure, when we were abruptly freed.
It had happened again. Pushed through the floor and spat out somewhere else. This time, I – we – found ourselves near a paved road leading out of one of the city blocks, into a green meadow which gave way to trees a ways down.
Something was terribly wrong. Only after brushing myself off and standing up did I become aware of the swirling darkness that replaced the once baby-blue sky, with its cotton candy clouds. A heavy and unsettling calm had fallen upon us, dampening the city’s brilliance. No more did sunlight gleam off the ornate spires and arches, replaced by a still, hanging shadow.
The eerie quiet was shattered by that godforsaken crackling, booming across the landscape, despite not a speaker in sight, again followed by those ill-belonging coos and cries. Accompanying the infantile sputtering came an uproar of cracking and crumbling, great impacts from deep within the city’s heart.
Both Admin and I stared in disbelief as distant buildings sunk into the ground, while others twisted and warped their way into the sky, as if made from soft clay. Some just disappeared entirely, leaving not a shred of evidence behind that they had ever been there, while their former inhabitants plunged from storeys above.
“It’s taken my place.”
Those four unprompted words shook me to the core of my being. The god of this world had been usurped.
“But why?” I found myself asking, “with what motive?”
Admin went to reply, but stopped upon seeing the great, pinkish masses floating up out of the streets, far ahead. We stared in bewilderment, trying to make out what they were. The chorus of screams hurried us to the realisation that the balls were… they were made of people.
Agonised, howling faces littered the fleshy abominations, while more objects rose around them. Structural beams, signposts, metal objects of every kind gravitated toward the amalgams of humanity, before their relentless assaults began.
Ripping, tearing, stabbing, slicing… it was already too much for my mind to comprehend. It garnered no reaction from myself other than stunned shock. Flesh and blood spewed from the masses, and orbited around them like the rings of Saturn, falling back in to haphazardly patch themselves back onto the wailing people.
My thoughtless attention was redirected as a frantic deluge of citizens fled the city, running down the street towards us. One by one, the exodus was halted, people seeming to stop in place abruptly, though the screams did not relent.
I couldn’t see what had stopped them until the crowd drew closer, where I saw an elderly man whip forward, foot stuck fast, instantly snapping his knee from the momentum. He let out a heart-wrenching cry as he fell down and looked to see what had stopped him.
Something that looked like roots, water pipes maybe, had erupted through the tarmac and coiled their way up his leg. I could see the strength draining in his eyes as they stood him back upright by force, wrapping around his entire body.
I watched in abject horror as he was raised off the ground, and each and every one of the old man’s limbs were bent and snapped at unnatural angles, shattering frail bones into dust.
His feeble cries were promptly silenced as a squirming metal tube forced its way inside his mouth, his eyes rolling back in unfathomable agony as the bulging mass forced its way down his throat, splitting his ribcage apart and allowing the organs within to slop out and float in the air, as if weightless. The whole process seemed to reverse itself in time, then repeat, over and over.
I could only hear the echoes of Admin’s shouts and the faint sensation of their grip on my forearm as they pulled me away from the mind-bending atrocity. My vacant body tumbled backward, sending both of us falling onto the grass.
Still I could only sit there, frozen. Somewhere off to the right, I saw a young woman pulling presumably her daughter along by the wrist, fleeing the hellscape of flesh and bone down a small alley. Her head spun wildly as she noticed the walls of the alleyway closing in around them.
She burst out into the open, but was yanked back, her grip fast. She turned in desperation, only to see her daughter, who couldn’t have been more than seven, being slowly crushed into a paste of bloody flesh and yellow fat. Her pitiful screams still ring in my ears, seeing her child suffer such a terrible fate.
Admin was finally triumphant in breaking my trance, and I rushed to my feet, stumbling before gaining my footing and bolting the fuck out of there. The childish giggling echoing out over the sky only served to push me forwards and away from that place.
“What the fuck is going on?!” I yelped, glancing over to Admin, hoping they could offer just the slightest of explanations.
“I have an idea, but we need to get somewhere first. You see that hill through the woods, right over there?”
“Hill? To the observatory?”
“There’s one last thing we can try to stop this. It’s a shot in the dark, but I can’t just stand here and fade away with the rest.”
High speed winds whipped the trees as we ran below them, leaves fluttering in a wild seizure. Air-splitting cracks sounded, so loud my ears began to ring once more, and I looked over my shoulder to see what they could have been.
Blazing spouts of fire shot down from the clouds behind, more akin to lightning than anything, striking the forsaken with white-hot temperatures. Even from a distance, I could see skin and flesh melt off of bones like candle wax, forming spiralling clouds of organic vapour.
In my distraction, I ran straight into a tree, and tumbled over, blood leaking from a small cut on my forehead. Admin skidded to a stop and pulled me up to my feet, and ran onwards, not waiting for a moment to ask if I was okay.
Neither of us were okay. That was a given now.
We reached the top of the hill without too much effort – seems it was programmed for everyone to have an above-average level of fitness, young or old regardless.
Admin frantically, but methodically, sifted through what appeared to be a large hoop of keys, searching for the one to fit the observatory’s door. I looked back over to where we had fled from.
The twisted buildings coiled toward the sky, gargantuan talons holding captive everyone I’d ever known. But there was something else. Far behind the city, in the distant hills and woodland, a great black wave that spanned the horizon was travelling towards us, eviscerating the world itself. All it left behind was an endless chasm of darkness, defying reality itself.
The tsunami came closer, before stopping at the city’s outskirts, leaving only a towering earthen spire of suffering, flaming bolts cracking down upon it.
“Admin, what is going on?!”
They paused for a moment, then continued working on the several locks barring our entry.
“Do you remember what I told you earlier, when you found me? How this system is able to keep on running, over the trillions of years?”
“…ions?”
“Yes, but that’s only the basis. I told you that emotional activity generates power, yes? The more intense an emotion, the more power generated?”
“What are you getting at?”
“This is pure theory, but I believe that whatever is out there is feeding off of the system.”
“Is that why all that was happening? The-“
I stifled a gag, recalling the horrors fresh in my memory.
“Again, it’s a theory. I don’t understand what it is. If the constraints of the universe are loose enough for something to evolve in its endless darkness, to predate on the last sources of energy within it… I don’t know. And I doubt we ever will.”
I stared out at the hellscape, speechless. Finally, Admin found the right key, yanked the door open, and pulled me inside by the arm.
“Hey!” Admin yelled, snapping their fingers, “I need you to be present for this. I am restricted in this world, I can’t break and reform things like you can. A failsafe, for if the power were to go to my head. Follow my instructions exactly.”
They told me how to break apart some of the technology in the observatory, and rewire it into a different machine. I had no idea what we were creating at the time, but complied nonetheless.
The finished product was a makeshift beacon of some kind, connected to the nearby terminal.
“Thank you. Now, type.”
“Type what?”
“Everything that has happened. Add as many details as you can, because we won’t have another chance to get this out there.”
“O-okay, what is this thing? A radio?”
“In a way. The observatory is one of the only places here that has a connection to the outside. I have used it more than once to observe the universe fading away. This setup will send our transmission as a unique, superluminal type of wave. Hurry, we can’t waste time chatting about this.”
And so, here we are. I don’t know who will be hearing this, if anyone at all.
I beg of you, consider how our advancements might be our downfall.
It’s almost here. I can hear the flaming bolts striking the forest, closer.
This is my account. Please save us. Please spare us.
Don’t condemn us as you have.
[TRANSCRIPT END]
There it is. I’ve revised the translation more times than I can count, and I’m sure there’s no mistake here.
Other readings imply that this message has travelled an unimaginably vast distance, and not only over space. Repeated triangulation only tells me this came from above, somewhere far away, among the stars.
I can feel the edges of my mind singeing. This can’t be proven as truth, nor can it be discredited. There’s no possible way to explain how this message came from our own planet.
I’m trying to be rational, but I think we need to consider future development very carefully. As a people, we have always rushed through our technological advancements at an incredible speed, not stopping to consider all the consequences that might follow.
If anyone will believe this, please spread it around. I have no doubt this post will be taken down the moment they find it. As for myself, I’ll be disgraced, probably. Stuck in a cold cell, most likely.
Spread the word. The fact that the higher-ups will attempt to conceal this is a cruel thing indeed, if any of it’s true.
Signing off.

We need an image for the header here is my new puppy in a backpack which he loves.
Thank you who participated in the Townhall Discussion which happens on the eve of a R&R announcement to voice concerns and raise leading questions on how we run the sub. Today we take off Ministry and Be'lakor from RESPITE (Temporary Timeout) since those names were the ones which were randomly picked from the list picker that has the best graphic design around.. In the Fall and Spring we take two random bands of the RESPITE list in an act of sheer anarchy. If you would like to read about our R&R list you can do so here or just post in the comments how fucking confusing it is.

Wait, but why Saxon, Gorod, and Saturnus?!?!?! What Did They Do?

They were the top 3 when our sub hit 1.5 Million Users. The Mods are weirdos and we were planning on banning the top 3 at 1.5 and unbanning them when it hits 2 million. We have no idea how long that will be but you can thank the users who submitted them for falling into our trap.

These Rules Are Silly And Stupid.

We would like to thank the majority of support for our iron hand when it comes to moderation. Our authoritarian rule has made metal a place where now 1.9 Million potential users come and just listen to music without much talking. We recognize that a lot of conversation happens in different threads, on our discord, or not at all. Compared to other subs we do not have many active discussions rather just users posting music and following the rules. Its like a library in here rather than recess. We are happy with that now but if you would like to see some change please let us know or head on over to /metalfree our anarchistic treehouse where you can put up all of the Slayer posters you want.

As Always, Any Complaints Can Be Directed To Our Newest Mod Team Members Or Please reach the mods at

www.facebook.com/metal4life

What`s up with them? The Berreta got new sounds and now has an effective range of 5 meters. The Uzi mini has a 40 round magazine loaded with 9x17 and the sights don`t glow in the dark unlike, well, on basically every other weapon and the stock is used as a grip. Why is the Mac 11/M11 Cobray/Ingram one hand only? Why does the Elephant Gun use phosphoros for its ammo instead of something actually explosive? WHY is the double barrel shotgun built on a different base (engraved receiver) instead of just being a cut down DB?????? And why is the worn version a fucking ZIP GUN?!?!?
And to top it all off: How do you screw on a supressor on a firearm that has no threaded barrel?

I know - there’s plenty of reviews on here already. I also know that these types of things are extremely subjective so, to a degree, irrelevant.
I’ve been a fan since late ‘88 and have been to see every tour since then. In my eyes, DM peaked during Violator and SOFAD. There’s been some gems of songs before then and some after, but being honest, I’ve almost dreaded the next album fearing I’d be disappointed again. I’ve not been a huge fan of the last few albums and the Southern ‘Bluesy’ tone to them. It just hasn’t felt…well, DM-like.
Whilst Memento Mori is no Violator (or IMHO, Songs of Faith and Devotion), it has been a revelation since I started listening to it and is comparible to Black Celebration - one of my personal favs. My fears - at least this time around - have been unfounded. DM have written an album full of substance, emotion, atmosphere, and everything in between. The only one which I’m fully waiting to grow on me is Caroline’s Monkey.
Soul with Me is stunning. So DM and yet so very different. My Cosmos is Mine is ethereal and comes alive with some good headphones/AirPods. My personal favourites are Ghosts Again and, at the top of the pile, Before We Drown - the latter could almost be a lost Bond film theme song. It’s simply stunning.
The album is a glorious return to form. The boys sound energised and passionate about the record - something I’ve not felt from them for a long time. A fitting tribute to the late ‘Fletch’ and, hopefully, not the last we’ll hear from these remaining two.
On to album listen number 4, methinks!

I (23 F) am the legal gardian of my lil sis (16 F) diagnosed with asd, adhd and dyspraxie. She has been living with me since 5 month because our parents suddenly passed away. As you can imagine it has been hard but things are going down hill. First she is having a really hard time adaptating ( idk if that word exist english isn't my first language sorry), her moving with us wasn't something we could have prepare and i don't know what she need, i don't know what she like to eat or most importantly what she doesn't like to eat. I don't know what she does in her free time, i don't know what she thinks most of the time. She is very quiet and secretive. What i do know is that she is getting bullied at school, one of the girl she attend class with came to me and told me that other students were calling her the R word, were making fun of her for her quicks and using her naivety to kiss her and then makes fun of it.
Yesterday she came home with a busted eyebrow and needed 4 stitches, it was nightmare to get allowed the nurse to get treated. She tell me she fell, but the girl from her class told me she was punch by a girl that keep bothering her . So what should i do ? I'm contemplaning pulling her out of school, i can tell the bullying is taking a tool on her mental healt. That on top of other think i'm scare of what she could do.

I'm a long time real estate broker with Coldwell Banker Preferred-Conshohocken in CONSHOHOCKEN, PA and the nearby area, providing home-buyers and sellers with professional, responsive and attentive real estate services. Want an agent who'll really listen to what you want in a home? Need an agent who knows how to effectively market your home so it sells? Give me a call! I'm eager to help and would love to talk to you.
​
Real Estate Agent, Realtor, Real Estate, Buyers, Sellers, Foreclosure, Short sale, Listing Agent, First Time Home buyers, Relocation, Luxury Homes, Investment Property, Home Value, Senior Specialist, How Much is My Home Worth, Top Realtor Best, Real Estate Agent In My Area, Global Optimization Solutions

Our name is Murtons. We have made previous accounts on Reddit and made previous posts on this subreddit and others and have deleted them time and again. We have promised information that might relate to some of the experiencers of this subreddit. Now that we have acquired technology which makes such an idea possible, this will be our permanent account and everything we know and WILL know, we will tell to you, if not at the time when that information is acquired or when the event happens, then when it is safe to do so for ourself or when we are allowed.
​

An Introduction

As you know, our name is Murtons. Murtons is a pseudonym, not for 2 people but for 2 entities contained within a single body. Our story is long and I will be creating multiple posts on this subreddit and perhaps others if this post is received well, telling our story, making posts that are just information dumps made up of relevant information and maybe update posts on our situation. At no point am I making the claim that I am an authority on the subject but I will say that I know what I know. From this point on, I am referring to myself without plural, unless it is necessary to do otherwise, as it is just me doing the work at the moment and speaking in plural is exhausting.
For context, I do not have MPD nor am I trying to rip off any other users claiming to be "2 People" or "2 Entities". I assure you that my situation is unique. I will not share my own name but the name of the other entity is Carrabelle.
Carrabelle was attached to me in a previous life as a form of sarcastic "Marriage into the family". His "Species" is unique in that, when he is attached biologically, he is attached to your consciousness and will be there in every life after the one that he was attached until detached. The longer that he is attached, the harder it is to remove him. After a certain amount of time, physical removal will not be enough as he will just grow back. My family (Again, non-human) have managed to set up an inhibitor of sorts for the time that I did not have my memories and until they are back that will stop him from making my life difficult...mostly.
As for information on myself if you want it; I have had a fear of Jesters and carnivals for a long time, along with the associated patterns. I have a fear of fictional settings with dark cyberpunk themes such as games like Observer. I have Autism, ADHD, OCD and I heal really quickly. My hair and nails grow quickly as well. I also get cold electric feelings across my body, especially when I am stressed or sick. I am introverted and have only recently begun to learn important life skills, such as being able to talk to people. My home life is terrible as well, which is important to this. Oh yeah and I have survived Meningococcal, Pneumonia, Meningitis and Leukemia twice.
​

My Experiences

During the course of the past 2 years, I regained memories from 5 different lives and from 3 key points in this life as well as remembering certain "Dreams" which I can guarantee are more real than I had assumed at the time. I have remembered that 3-4 of those 5 previous lives have interacted with this one and that this life happening was a direct consequence of the choices of my previous incarnation. I have remembered that I would not be who I am today without the non-humans that I call Family.
As there is so much to unpack, I will be making a separate post for each life, excluding this life, which will instead be split into 3 parts. I will also be making a post explaining certain concepts that I have learned, along with things I have learned which relate to the many other experiences of many other experiencers and maybe a Q&A, though the latter probably will not be necessary. In this post, I will be talking about the sudden re-emerging of my memories, dreams and the subsequent events.
​

2019

I (Only 15 at the time) woke up to the sound of glass smashing and my mother screaming. I looked around and it was pitch black and it seemed my Mum was asleep. I assumed that she had dropped something in the middle of the night and screamed and I had managed to sleep through it, only waking up to the extremely loud subconscious recollection hours later. I felt strange though, like my body knew something was wrong but I could not figure it out myself.
I got out of bed and walked towards the door. Though it was dark, I could tell that my door was slowly opening on its own and I was frozen with fear. I saw slight movement and a shape but due to how dark it was and my own fear, I started to question if the door was opening or not. In both a curious movement to see if the door was shut or not and the thought that I might be dreaming so what I do doesn't matter, I moved towards the door.
In an instant, I felt myself flying towards my bed with a figure moving towards me and suddenly being forced onto my stomach. I felt 1 hand pushing my face into the bed, another 2 arms holding my arms down and another hand on my back. I tried fighting to see the face of my attacker, thinking that I could gain some small victory if I saw their face (Not that it would matter, as I could not tell anyone) but I fell unconscious.
I awoke slowly, the images blurry in front of me, some kind of colourful effect dancing in my vision, dissipating the longer I was awake, my emotions dull but not dead. There were sand/mud buildings in front of and around me. They did not look made by some primitive civilization but made with the intent to last. I was walking on a footpath of some kind with a road to the right of me. It was humid and felt as though I was wearing thick clothing. I just knew that I was dreaming, this whole situation was absurd.
I looked to the left of me and saw someone walking beside me. I was fairly short for a 15 year old but this person was tall, like 7-8ft tall. I slowly noticed the way that they dressed; overly colourful, a strange hat and 4 sleeves containing 4 different arms. They must have noticed that I was looking in their direction because they looked down at me, opened their mouth and as they did so, what looked like chunks of meat and wires spilled out and I looked away as terrified as I could be. I had a weird feeling that it did not hurt them in any way and that they only did it to scare me.
As we continued walking along this footpath, we came to a crossing in the road and on the other side was some kind of checkpoint. Two tall guards with tight outfits, white masks and guns guarded a metal door that was built into either a wall or a fence. I knew that if this was somehow not a dream, going through that door was the point of no return. If it was a dream, then running or staying has no real world consequence but if it was real, then running was the only option. I slowly backed away, hoping to be out of the vision of that thing before I started running.
As I started running, I turned around and saw whatever that thing was screaming, all 4 arms outstretched, clutching some kind of wand in one hand. I was as scared as my body would allow, running back the way we came, when a vehicle nearly hit me. The car was fairly low to the ground and the driver looked me with confusion. I ran back to the footpath that took me to the checkpoint and I just kept running, not knowing where to go but hoping to figure it out as I went. After a few moments of running, I heard someone yell for me and when I looked, there was someone in an alleyway next to me.
I felt myself being quickly yanked into the alleyway and I though that I had been caught. I was grabbed and made to face the person who I had unknowingly been saved by. My memory is not perfectly clear but she had bluish purplish skin, large yellow eyes and what looked like spikes coming out of her head, not straight out like a porcupine but in a way that looked like a substitute for hair.
"Ahhh, a demon" I said sarcastically, assuming myself to be dreaming.
"I am not a demon" she said bemused.
"Well, this is my dream and you look like a demon, so you are a demon'' I said extremely smugly.
"You are not dreaming".
That went on for about 30 seconds. I asked her who she was and she told me that she was my best friend. I asked her, that if she was my best friend, then how I did not remember her and she told me that I asked to have my memory erased, which made no sense to me. I asked where I was, to which she said that I was currently on Mars. Eventually I heard a voice behind me trying to get my attention. The voice belonged to another girl. She had bleached white skin, large eyes (She is not a grey. She hates being called that.), black hair and black clothes.
"Hey *****, how have you be-..." the previous girl interrupted her and would not let her speak. The first girl seemed to be somewhat... territorial. My memory faltered and I seemed to forget the conversation that had transpired seconds before. The second girl walked off with a scowl across her face, which I without my memory, assumed to be directed at me. My focus was brought back to the first girl with the spikes for hair and I noticed a watch on her wrist which reminded me of the watch the Yautja wear in the "PREDATOR" franchise, with its own differences of course.
After a while, she said that they were taking me home . I was looking forward to going somewhere familiar and less confusing. She walked to my right and I saw movement down the other end of the alleyway, which I scared me but after they didn't react, I assumed that it was more of them, so I calmed down. The girl with the spikes pulled out what looked like a fork like device but in between the middle two prongs was a circular object. She asked me if I was ready and when I said that I was, she placed the object to my right temple and my vision nearly instantly went black, I felt relaxed and I felt my body collapse, along with someone catch me and then the sensation of being dragged.
I woke up restrained and facing someone that I only have the memory of the colour green to associate them with. They simply asked me "Are you sure that you want to go home?" to which I replied with a somewhat confused "Yes", wondering why they would even ask that.
I woke up. My Mum remembered nothing and seemed fine, while my memory of the event was distorted, only remembering the city, the guards, the 4 armed monstrosity and the fact that a conversation of some kind had happened. The only possible evidence of the night prior was found later when we could not lock the front door. My memory of that "Dream" began to fade quick, being gone within 2 weeks.
​

2020

I had dropped out of High School due to Covid making things difficult and my School being next to useless. My Mum had begun to leave me alone over a couple of nights to go and talk to her "Just a friend". A couple of nights turned into weeks and weeks turned into 6 months. She would occasionally re stock the fridge and pantry while I was asleep, stay a few hours in the morning so she could say that she tried to see me (My sleep patterns were all over the place) and then she would leave.
I had friends online that I eventually got rid of due to realizing that they were not friends. While I had those friends, I gained memories back of a fight with some girl 2 years beforehand, which I did not realize at the time was a part of something so big. That situation is part of the last of the 3 key events and will be covered in a post.
For 2-3 months during those 6 months, every night to every second night, I would get strange dreams with reoccurring characters, that always felt so real at the time and that I would always either slowly forget or I would forget when I woke up. I will tell you everything that is worth mentioning, though I can guarantee you, everything except for the first "Dream", will not be in chronological order. Sometimes the "Dreams" would have actual dreams before or after them, most of the time related to something I saw during the events of the "Dream" or something I glimpsed before I was fully conscious in said "Dream". Sometimes, the real dreams were unrelated.
Sometimes I had real dreams that I also know were manipulated as they would relate directly to a game I had played or something similar. I will not mention these. Any comparisons I make to fiction after this point is not meant to imply that they are real dreams but merely a comparison to something that one might consider familiar.
​

• I Woke up to loud sounds. I was paralyzed and leaning against a wall. A girl ran up to me and knelt down. She had black hair, was wearing black and had large eyes with bleached white skin. She put 2 guns down in front of me. There were people behind her firing down over the railings of the plateau we appeared to be on with a large neon people skyscraper in the far background. The girl said that her name was Kingston and that they will explain everything but first I have to wake up.

It took me a while to wake up and regain control of my body. I heard a girl yelling at me to wake up or else they will kill me themselves (They did not mean it). I woke up, picking up the guns, when I noticed what looked like a humanoid lizard going up behind one of the people with firing. I aimed for it and shot it in the head. I heard someone yell "HOLY SHIT! HIS FIRST KILL AND IT'S A HEADSHOT!".
A girl with spikes instead of hair run up to me and gave me a thumbs up whilst saying "Good Job!". Forgetting that Kingston existed, I assumed that she was the one who threatened to kill me and told her not to patronize me. She seemed hurt and confused. When I woke up, I for some reason went on some rant about how they cannot just kill whoever they want and they told me that they were killing bad people and that I needed to calm down.
What looked like hundreds of those lizard people were running towards the railings. One of the other people firing yelled "I'm out of ammo" and then everyone else did as well. I was terrified and I suddenly got a sudden burst of confidence. I jumped onto the railing and with both guns, started firing on the lizards... and then so did everyone else. They lied to see what I would do.
There was a sudden explosion and the neon pink building exploded. I was grabbed and told to run. They were jumping of a ledge onto a street. The ground looked slippery and I was scared. They told me that I had to jump. They were telling me that it was not a dream and that if I did not jump then I would die. I think someone pushed me and someone else caught me.
We walked along the street in the rain and I started crying. Someone comforted me and I fell unconscious. I woke up in bed
​

• I was in what looked like a harbor. There was an ocean to my left and there were market tents and stands on both sides. The architecture was vaguely similar to Feudal Japan. I had 2 people with me, though I was not in enough control of my body to see who they were.
  I saw someone ahead of me running from a group of people. They were holding an oily black sphere. one of the people beside me, Kingston, dressed in a thicker outfit than usual, yelled at me to chase him and the girl on the other side with spikes instead of hair, encouraged me to go after him but in a softer voice.
  

I chased him, pushing past people and sliding under what looked like a cart. He jumped over something large and I had what looked like a burst of confetti hit me in the face. I lost him and I had the 2 girl sitting over me. "Better luck next time!" Kingston said, aiming something towards my face. I fell unconscious. I woke up in bed.
​

• I woke up in a jungle. I was behind a vehicle. I felt more awake than usual. Someone was next to me and I could not look at them without activating my fight or flight response. A tall blue guy wearing welding goggles said something about the car while working on it. I assume that we had broken down and he was trying to fix it.

The person that I was terrified of and I sat down behind the car. She told me that she was my best friend and she wants me to look at her. I tried but I just couldn't. She said it made her sad but she understood. I said that I was sorry and eventually I fell unconscious. I woke up in bed.
​

• I woke up to a tight circular metal room with doors. The room was filled with buttons and levers on a round curved bench that lined the walls and it had a very steampunk aesthetic. There was a staircase that lead down. The 2 doors were open and when I went out, I saw a railing that went around the outside of the small room. The only thing that I can compare the obvious water vehicle to, is the life raft at the end of the videogame Bioshock 2.

Someone came up behind me and pulled me inside. He were dressed from head to toe in black. They had a mask/helmet on with big bug eyed lenses. He told me to stay inside because it was dangerous. He started manipulating the dials and levers, using not only his arms but mechanical arms that came off a machine on his back. The mechanical arms were had joints and pivoted on those joints, with clasps at the ends. The only thing that I can compare him to is a mix between Spectre from Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City and the skinny Comic version of Spider-Man but even then, it is not an accurate comparison.
I waited a long time and was bored. He told me to be patient. Eventually a kind of ship arrived and he told me that they are not to see me, as the people on board do not like me because of what I had done. I asked what I did wrong but he refused to tell me. At some point, I fell unconscious. I woke up in bed.
​

• I have a small memory of waking up and in doing so, getting a bit behind the people that I was obviously following. I caught up with them and tried getting their attention. They said hello to me and I kept following them. They were the tall blue guy, the girl with spikes, the guy with the mechanical arms and Kingston. I do not remember falling unconscious but I woke up in bed.

​

• I woke up to someone pulling me up off the floor. My surroundings were metal. The person pulling me off the floor was tall, blue and wearing a trench coat. They looked at me and asked me if I remembered them. I told them them that I did but not really.

We heard footsteps coming from a nearby doorway. 2 people that I cannot remember the appearance of walked in. They seemed extremely cocky and started telling us how there is no escape, that we were going to be taken and that after they had me, they were going to kill my cats. I love my cats and all I could feel was hate.
I could feel what felt like pure energy running through my hands and when I looked down, my hands were glowing orange. Not having anything else to do, I put my hands out and just thought "hehe, it's like magic in Skyrim" and jokingly put my hands out to "Shoot Flames". Instead, orange energy with sparks started to come out of my hands. I looked at the person who seemed familiar and he nodded with a smile saying "Go ahead!".
I leapt at the two people who were moments ago bullying and tormenting me. I jump on the one on the right, punching him in the face. I fear the one next to me will try to stop me and so I jump, without effort, onto a wall, laughing and the leap back. I continue jumping in and out, throwing various punches and attacks, until all that is left is an unmoving gory mess and by the end I feel unstoppable.
The tall blue man who had obviously come to rescue me says "Okay, that is enough" and I fall unconscious. I wake up in bed.
​

• I wake up on the ground. It is concrete, as are my surroundings. Kingston runs up to me and hands me an ear piece, says to listen carefully and then disappears. I do not remember hearing a voice through the ear piece at any time. I walk around for a bit and it reminds me of a building in my school and I think that I am there for a moment but I knew that it could not be because nothing else is familiar and it is far too large.

I see a fat man sitting on a bench, hunched over. He reminds me of one of my mothers ex's and I try to avoid him. He notices me and I rush away but he does not get up.
I see someone tall and they glance at me for a moment before whipping their head around and staring at me. I realized they are not friendly and run away. I did not count the arms.
I walk down a pathway and notice a few public benches in front of a small fenced off decorative public bush with the wood chips beneath it. There are 2 staircases on either side of the fenced off bush, leading to what seemed like an oval and there appeared to be a helicopter or some kind of aerial vehicle, landing on said oval. I was not sure if it was there to save me or not and so I approached the staircase cautiously.
Eventually, what looked like a SWAT member started walking down the stairs. I noticed what looked like metal beams moving very fast behind his back and even before I noticed that, I realized that he was not any kind of SWAT member or cop. I panicked and ran. I heard him yell "WAIT! I'M A FRIEND!" and I responded with "WHY IN THE FUCK WOULD I BELIEVE YOU?!". In a lower voice I heard him say "Good point".
I felt my feet dragged out from under me and myself being dragged away. I tried digging my nails into the concrete and realizing that it was pointless, painful and stereotypical of every B grade horror movie, I stopped. Just as I stopped being a stereotype, my body was picked up and made to face my "Friend". I realized that mechanical arms that came from his back held me up off the ground. I told him to wait desperately, repeating myself over and over before I saw one of his mechanical arms move next to my neck/head and then I fell unconscious. I woke up in bed.
​

• I felt wind on my face. I felt something really close to my face. My tiredness disappeared and alertness took over. I opened my eyes and what looked like a shredded face was millimeters from my own. The faces lips moved and I heard them say "Boo!".

I screamed. It moved away quick and I heard laughter. I saw the rest of it as it and others were laughing. It was sitting down on all fours, almost like a quadruped and it looked mechanical. The other people who were laughing were Kingston, the tall blue guy, the man with the mechanical arms and the girl with spikes instead of hair. I was less terrified and more embarrassed. Behind the 5 of them was what looked like the back of a chopper, with the ramp down and behind it, a metal city surrounded by walls.
After they stopped laughing, they told me that they needed me to come with them. I said that I just wanted to go home and they told me that I could, if I came with them. I assumed that they were trying to trick me, so I ran the opposite direction. They yelled after me telling me that I needed to stop doing this.
I reached a cliff and managed to find a few paths down the side of it and get away from my pursuers. I don't remember how but I stumbled up what looked like a military outpost. There were tents, a few temporary looking structures and a strange rounded pyramid shaped tank. The tank had what looked like a pivoting sphere on the top with the barrel attached to one of the sides. When I arrived, the whole place woke up. I started running as people were leaving the tents and structures with guns. The tank woke up.
The 4 people who were pursuing me caught up and managed to save me. They obviously were not happy, as I got them into a gun fight instead of just listening. I do not remember falling unconscious but I woke up in bed.
​
Sometimes after remembering one of these dreams, I would tell my mother and I would say how weird it is that I keep having dreams with the same people. This on it's own is strange as I never remembered any key parts of any of the dreams when telling my mother. Either I only remembered the characters within the "Dreams" or I only remembered when thinking about the latest "Dream".
​

2021 - Now

One late night, I had the sudden inexplicable urge to research aliens. I had found so many links to various articles and stories but a lot of it seemed ridiculous. After a few hours, I got a strange vision. It lasted less than half a second but it was unmistakable. A pair of eyes in blue sunken sockets.
I went on Reddit, creating my first Reddit Account (As far as I am aware) and going to the appropriate subreddits, asking questions. I started getting memories of a family of blue aliens and being terrified. I had various memories of walking down the corridors of a ship.
The next day was the day I moved in with the family of my mothers previously "Just a friend" . In my new home, I kept getting these memories. I eventually met a Reddit user who seems to have deleted his account. We both helped each other remember something... terrifying.
We remembered cephalopodic beings in suits. They seemed to like crystals and had rings around their fingers attached to strings which attached to computers. I began Calling them pianists. Eventually he started to doubt himself and I never heard from him again. He did however mention glowing orbs that followed him as a child and have since started following his own child. I also remember the orbs following me as a child.
I started to realize that a lot of the previous memories that I had remembered just did not happen. Eventually I started remembering more memories that I eventually realized did not happen. Not all of the memories however were false. Eventually the memories started to become real mixed with fake. What was real and false started to become clearer and eventually certain "Characters" in these memories started to become more consistent and stop being replaced by other fake "Characters".
I started getting memories of meeting a porcupine girl when I was 4-5. She seemed like a mix between a Human and a porcupine. I also remembered a guy with mechanical arms and his face was deformed and repaired with metal. I also started getting memories of Jesters with multiple arms... too many arms.
After enough time, the memories of the Human porcupine and the deformed man with mechanical arms changed. The man with mechanical arms was no longer deformed and was now wearing a mask and due to his similarity to an aforementioned videogame character, I began calling him Spectre. The porcupine girl stopped looking so Human and instead looked more like a girl with spikes instead of hair. I remembered that there indeed was another girl that looked Human. She had bleached white skin, black hair, black clothes and she loved to give everyone attitude.
Eventually, I met another user on Reddit who was and is very useful. He told me about his unique abilities and since he has been given multiple visions, some of which are visions of different people which I eventually learned were my past incarnations. He has also been given visions of the cephalopodic beings and a few details were made clearer. Their appearance is similar enough to the fictional DND species Illithids that I changed the spelling around and began calling them Ithilids and oddly enough, I also started reading it like that too. Eventually the real memories became obvious and very consistent.
After learning some stuff from that user, he told me that he had a vision while he was sleeping. In that vision, a tall ethereal man in a trench coat with a cybernetic arm and welding goggles contacted him. He only said "Say goodbye to your buddy Murtons" before messing around inside his head. I eventually remembered him. He was the tall blue guy. His name is Mason.
I have since remembered previous lives, 5 to be exact. What happened in them will be discussed in future posts, if future posts are wanted. What I have remembered about my current life will also be discussed in future posts if those future posts are wanted. What I will say is this: 3 of those 4 people are from my previous life and all 4 are my family. They have recently started visiting me after I fall asleep and I am certain that they are not dreams. They are also not the abducting kind in the slightest (Even though... yeah... they do technically abduct me). If you got to know them, within less than a week, they would seem like regular people (Because they are) and their physical appearance would no longer bother you. They are supposed to come back in August and I am so excited.
In one of my recent visits from my family, I learned that the girl with spikes for hair is called Piper.
​

Something Weird

Upon reading the KGB Secret Alien Races Book, I noticed 3 things in all of the obvious misinformation. 3 things which terrify me and also helped to make some memories clearer.
​

1. The Caraveldi mentioned in the book are reported to be about 9 ft tall, have 4 arms and be extremely dangerous. This is an identical description to the Jesters that I remember and the thing that I saw on Mars.
2. At the end of the book are different "Notes". Most are just gibberish or fake quotes. They do however mention something about Putin being chosen to start an avalanche. Before recently, people had assumed that it was referencing one of his other actions, especially due to another quote talking about Medvedev.
3. In the notes section, there is a quote. The quote reads "Why do Australian Humans do not see September 23?". I am Australian and that is my birthday and as far as I am aware, the book was first made in 2008, the year that I met my family for the first time in this life. Creepy.

​

Your Choice

It is entirely your choice in what order I make my posts. I can put them all in chronological order and the give the Information Dump. I can do the posts on this life first and then the aforementioned order or whatever order is wanted. It is your choice.
​
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On a side note, I am well aware that people are going to try to call me out as a LARP or for trying to create an ARG or trying to be a TAA copy cat. I am not trying to do any of that nor am I writing fiction. I am doing this to try to help people and also help myself by actually putting this out there instead of keeping it in. I would actually like to talk with people but if you are going to troll, please do not bother. I get enough ridicule from every other Human that I tell about my memories, so please do not think that your words hurts.
I am also sure that I do not have any medical issues that could be causing delusions or visions. Thank you for your concern in advance.
​
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
​
Murtons Out...

​
My Dad died nearly two years ago, and we just buried him today.
Dad was a writer, though you've probably never heard of him. He was known in small circles, celebrated by the community where he lived, but his books will likely never grace the shelves of Barnes and Noble. I say that like it's a fact, but that may not be the case anymore. Dad, like one of those old painters from the 1800s, became infinitely more famous in his death than he ever did in life. People who wouldn't return his calls and wouldn't even think of publishing his work now come to see him from miles away. This probably seems strange, given I just told you he's dead, so let me start at the beginning.
Dad died as he lived, at his keyboard.
He's been writing the same book for as long as I can remember. It's a massive seven or eight-volume series. In one of my earliest memories, I can remember tottling into his office and looking up at him as he smiled at me, his fingers never leaving the keyboard as he plinked away. Dad wrote other things for magazines or freelance work, but the books were his magnum opus. He would tell anyone who would listen, usually interested friends of mine who were aspiring writers themselves, how the book would be his greatest work once it was done. He had envisioned ten books and all, detailing the hero's journey of his main character as he attempted to find his father's murderer across several continents, meeting people and finding clues along the way. I've heard him talk about that book almost every day since I was old enough to understand what he was talking about, but I couldn't tell you much about it. He never let anybody read it, he was so protective of it, and I don't know if more than a dozen people were aware of its existence. That being said, he was always in his study when he had time, tapping away at the keys and refining his manuscript for the day it would be picked up by an editor.
I was the one who found him, and it will haunt me for the rest of my life.
I was getting ready for college, packing up my things, and moving out, and I came to see if he would help me move some furniture onto the truck. He had been in his office all day, and I thought maybe he was mad at me. I knew he didn't want me to leave, he was sad to see me go, but he had to understand that I had to go to college. I had a full-ride scholarship I'd be a fool not to use, and living on campus would give me access to resources I wouldn't have at home. It seemed like the best choice to move out, and I couldn't believe he couldn't see that.
So when I stuck my head in and asked him, I was surprised when he didn't turn around. That only seemed to cement in my head the idea that he was mad at me. He had his back to the door as he always did, fingers tapping away, and when he didn't say anything, I just stood there and looked at the back of his head for a moment. He had a bald spot forming, the hair receding away from the center, and I thought it a little sad to watch my Dad aging in such an obvious way.
I asked him again, his fingers never slowing, but when he didn't say anything, I went downstairs and managed to manhandle the desk down into the u-haul. I decided I wouldn't bother him if he wanted to act like this. He would fold when it came time for me to leave, apologizing for acting like this, and we would have a hug before I drove off into the sunset.
Around lunchtime, I looked at my now-empty room and realized I was finished packing.
Mom was at work at the post office, and I had planned to swing in and say bye on my way out of town. We had said our goodbyes that morning, with lots of tears and hugs over breakfast, and Dad was the only one I felt I still needed to say goodbye to. So, I went upstairs again, saying I needed to leave and wondering if he'd come to give me a hug?
His fingers just kept tapping away uninterrupted.
"Come on, Dad," I said, stepping inside as he continued to ignore me, "I know you're bummed about this, but it's time for me to get out there and make it on my own. It's not like I'll never be back again. You'll see me on Thanksgiving. That's less than," but when I put my hand on his shoulder, I noticed how cold it was.
Dad had been up here for three days writing, and Mom said she didn't think he'd come to bed at all in that time. This wasn't uncommon for Dad. He would hyper-fixate on a project or revisions and lose days at a time. His office was towards the back of the house on the second floor, so without foot traffic or noise, he could lose himself for days as he worked. He usually came down for food after everyone was asleep, but I couldn't remember hearing him stumbling around lately.
I turned him towards me, his hands moving comically in front of him as he swung away from the desk, and as he came away, he began to scream as if someone were stabbing him.
I stumbled away, taking in his long face and sunken eyes, and found myself running from the room as I grabbed the phone out of my pocket.
Mom said she'd be home immediately, and as I waited downstairs, I could still hear him screaming from his office.
Mom came home in a rush, going up the stairs two at a time, and when the screaming finally stopped, I breathed a sigh of relief.
When she came downstairs, she asked me to come to his office.
"I need to talk to you about something, and I think this should be a family decision."
I came back up to see that Dad was still staring into the screen of his MacBook, tapping away like we weren't even there.
"I don't know how to explain this, but I think your father has died."
Looking at his fingers as they went about their tireless typing, I asked her if she was kidding? Dad was clearly alive. His hands were moving, and I could see words on the screen forming coherent sentences. Were they playing a joke or something? None of what she was saying made any sense.
"I checked his pulse. He has no pulse, no vitals, he's just gone, sweety. But, it appears that he's not quite gone."
She tried to move him, and as she turned him away, I could see his lifeless face as it turned to regard me. His jaw had been hanging slack, his eyes open and staring, and as his hands came away from the keyboard, he started screaming all over again. It was a deep and tortured noise, similar to the one he'd made before, and without even meaning to, I turned him back to the keyboard, where his hands started typing again.
I asked her what was going on, and Mom shrugged as she tried to come up with a reason for all this.
"His book was important to him, you know that. I think, maybe, once he finishes it, he might stop on his own. I can't explain what's happening here, but I don't want him to die with his work unfinished. Your father kept saying it wasn't ready, but I'm going to send the first manuscript to his editor. Maybe once he sees it and someone puts it in print, he'll finally be able to rest, but either way, let's keep this between us, okay? I want your father to pass on without regrets, don't you?"
I nodded, telling her that, of course, I wanted Dad to die at peace.
"Then do him this last favor, and don't tell anyone what you've seen here. Promise?"
I didn't know how to feel about this, but I told her I wouldn't tell anyone, and she thanked me as she hugged me goodbye.
I left in my Uhaul, unsure how to feel about the situation, but I kept the secret.
I didn't come home much for the next year.
I came home for Thanksgiving as promised, but the whole thing felt uncomfortable.
Mom and I sat downstairs eating, her curious about how school was going and me filling her in on my studies. As I ate turnkey and tried to have a normal conversation over stuffing, all I could focus on was the tapping from upstairs. Mom had closed the door to Dad's office, something that I could never remember happening at any time in my life, but despite her best efforts, the tapping was still audible. There was also a smell from the room at the end of the hall, and I was worried about her living in a house with a decomposing body. She said he hadn't decomposed much, but I think she might have been trying to spare my feelings. Worse than the smell, though, was the tapping. It never stopped and sounded too loud to be from whole fingers.
Despite this, Mom was in pretty good spirits. She said Dad's first book was being edited, and his publicist thought it would likely be ready for the shelves next year. He couldn't believe my Dad had been keeping this gem to himself for so long, and I think that was when I realized how few people Dad had shared his books with. She said the initial payment on the book had allowed her to pay some overdue bills, and she would send him the second book sometime next year.
"If I release them slowly, it won't seem so odd when he finishes, and I let them know he's passed."
I asked if his writing had slowed at all, and she said he was still typing night and day.
"He never rests, and I've had to start sleeping in my noise-canceling headphones. The sound takes some getting used to, but I think I can almost put it out of my mind."
I had meant to stay for the week, but I ended up making excuses and leaving the day after Thanksgiving.
The sound of the keys as they clicked away was becoming too much for me to handle.
After that, I made excuses to not come home. I told Mom I had a paper due during Christmas and stayed on campus over the holiday. I took extra classes, so I didn't have to come home on semesters I would have been able to take a break from. I still called her on the phone, but our conversations became shorter and shorter as time went on. The longer I was on the line with her, the more pervasive the clicking became, and it felt like I could hear it over the phone no matter where she was.
My mother's mental state began to deteriorate as well.
She had sent the second book to his publicist, and he had fast-tracked it after the first one had done so well. She deflected any sort of interviews or phone calls for Dad, telling them how shy and anxious he was, but people really seemed to want to pick his brain about the direction of the book, and they were becoming harder and harder to put off. She didn't sound like her usual self, either. It was clear that she wasn't sleeping, and she said the clicking was getting louder and louder the longer it went on.
"I tried to do some soundproofing in his office, but it never seems to help. I can't stand to be in there for very long. Even though he's looking at the screen, I can feel him watching me when I'm in there. I think," Mom took a breath, and I could almost see her looking in the direction of his office as she pitched her voice low, "I think I can hear something moving around at night."
I asked what she meant, afraid that maybe animals had gotten in to try and get at Dad's body, but she said it was just little sounds.
"You remember how he used to leave his office late at night to get food? Sometimes, I feel like I can hear someone coming down the stairs in the wee hours of the morning. While I was listening to it the other night, I realized that I couldn't hear the keyboard anymore, and that scared me even more."
She started crying then, and I think I had already decided to come home that weekend so we could sort this out.
I hadn't come home in a long time and found a very different woman than I had over Thanksgiving the year before.
And why not?
It had to be nerve-wracking knowing you were sharing a house with a corpse.
Mom looked like she had aged twenty years. Her hair, light blond the last time I'd been home, was threaded with gray and looked thinner than ever. Her skin sagged, and her eyes looked bruised from the bags under them. She was thin to the point of emaciation, and I wondered if she had been eating? When she hugged me, I could feel her ribs pressing against me, and I decided then that something had to be done before I lost both my parents.
I told her that we had to end this, I told her that we had to put him to rest, but she feebly resisted.
"He isn't done yet. He's still typing up there. I can't lay him to rest until he finishes."
I asked her how long that would be, but she didn't seem to have the answer.
I told her I was tired and wanted to rest, but after I heard her door close and the sound of her springs grumbling as she went to bed, I got up and went downstairs. I wanted to see what this thing was that was moving around after dark, and I knew just the place to hide. There was a small closet in the living room, a place for wrapping paper and old crafts Mom hadn't gotten around to yet, and after sliding some things around, I made myself comfortable and cracked the door. It took some time, and I wished I had some coffee to keep me from dozing in the small, warm space.
I was just starting to nod off, my phone showing half past three in the morning, when the landing at the top of the stairs creaked.
Something glided down almost soundlessly, its body light, and I pressed my eye to the slit in the door to see what it was. It was dark in the living room, the curtains drawn, but I didn't dare turn on a light. If it knew I was here, it might flee, and then I'd have nothing to report to Mom in the morning. Luckily for me, it jostled right by the closet door, and the creature was impossible to miss. It was thin, almost lacking dimension, creaking as it ambled into the kitchen. I held my breath as it disappeared into the dim space, but the pale head was hard to miss.
When it turned to look at the closet from the kitchen doorway, I feared I had made a noise.
When those empty sockets fixed on the door, I covered my mouth with my hand.
When the creature creaked its way into the kitchen and disappeared from sight, I tripped out of the closet and made my way less than gracefully back up the stairs and into my old room.
If it heard me, it didn't stop at the door to comment.
Only then did I come to the same conclusion that Mom had, realizing what was missing from the silent house.
The tapping had stopped.
We called the police the next day, me threatening to call them myself if mom didn't. I didn't know what the thing I'd seen was doing in the kitchen, but I couldn't very well leave her alone with it. She just nodded and picked up the phone, and I think she was ready to call them. She had lived with Dad's corpse for two years, and even she had to agree that it was time to end it.
The paramedics weren't sure what to make of him, but he was definitely what I had seen the night before as it went into the kitchen. He had mostly rotted, but his bones had moldering flesh still attached in places. His scalp had some hairs clinging to it, the bald spot I had noticed was still visible, but we had taken his hands off the keyboard before they got there.
When we had taken him from the computer, his scream was little more than a wheeze of protest.
He had no vocal cords to scream with, but still, he protested.
The police had questions, but I think my mother managed to convince them that it was harmless. She said that when he died, she had gone a little crazy. She couldn't cope with him being gone, so she had just pretended he was in his office, typing away on his novel. I told them that was what she had told me for months, and I think they believed me. Dad's remains were taken to the funeral home, and it goes without saying that his funeral was a closed-casket affair.
As we sat on the front row, though, I heard something that would haunt me until I went into the ground myself.
Dad may not have been able to scream, but it seemed his work went on regardless.
As I sat there with Mom, my mother sobbing as she heard the all too familiar sound, we both heard the low tapping as those bony fingers smacked against the lid of the coffin.
I can only assume that they still press against the lid even now, my father's last story worn into the wood of his coffin.

She was a top leader of a cult. She made a ton of money from mind-f'ing other people. I'm not sorry that she was arrested for it. I hope she learns and grows. But there are a million more people I'd rather invest my time and energy in. I don't know her personally, but after watching all the docs and listening to the podcasts, it's clear she exerted a ton of bad coercive control over a ton of people. Now she is suffering the consequences of that. Good.