#I can finally copy and past it with my computer back

[residences-of-the-darkforest]

The song lyrics for what inspired Wolfthrush and Snowsight go like this!

Snowsight (aka the daughter):

My daddy's got a gun My daddy's got a gun My daddy's got a gun You better run My daddy's got a gun My daddy's got a gun My daddy's got a gun Ga - ga - ga - ga - ga

It started with the hayloft a-creakin' Well it just started in the hay - LOFT With his long johns on, Pop went a-creeping Out to the barn, up to the hay Young lovers and they are not sleeping Young lovers in the hay - LOFT With his gun turned on, Pop went a-creeping Out to the barn, up to the hay - LOFT

My daddy's got a gun My daddy's got a gun My daddy's got a gun You better run My daddy's got a gun My daddy's got a gun My daddy's got a gun Ga - ga - ga - ga - ga

Ahh. yaa. yaa. ya Ahh. yaa. yaa. ya Ahh. yaa. yaa. ya Ahh. yaa. yaa. ya Ga - ga - ga - ga - ga - ga

It started with the hayloft a-creakin' Well it just started in the hay With his long johns on, Pop went a-creeping Out to the barn, up to the hay - LOFT Young lovers with their legs tied up in knots Young lovers with their legs tied up in knots With his long, tall gun, Pop went a-creeping To blow their hay-loft dead heads straight off

My daddy's got a gun My daddy's got a gun My daddy's got a gun You better run My daddy's got a gun My daddy's got a gun My daddy's got a gun Ga - ga - ga - ga - ga

Ahh. yaa. yaa. ya Ahh. yaa. yaa. ya Ahh. yaa. yaa. ya Ahh. yaa. yaa. ya Ga - ga - ga - ga - ga - ga Ga - ga - ga - ga Ga - ga - ga - ga

--------

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Wolfthrush (aka the dad):

Whatever happened to the young, young lovers? One got shot and the other got lost in Drugs and punks and blood on the street Blood, blood on her knees Bloody history (yeah)

Whatever happened to the hayloft? Burnt to the ground, and what about Pop? He took his ass back to the crack shack With his long johns on, singing that old song

My baby's got a gun, my baby's got a gun My baby's got a gun, I better run My baby's got a gun, it goes Boom, boom, crack, ga-ga-ga-ga, boom, boom

An eye for an eye, a leg for a leg A shot in the heart doesn't make it unbreak She really didn't wanna make it messy She really, really didn't, but the girl gone cray

My baby's got a gun, my baby's got a gun My baby's got a gun, I better run My baby's got a gun, it goes Boom, boom, crack, ga-ga-ga-ga, boom, boom

She crucify (she crucify) She crucify (she crucify) She crucify (she crucify) Hey Pop, you die, you die

My baby's got a gun, my baby's got a gun My baby's got a gun, I better run My baby's got a gun, it goes Boom, boom, crack, ga-ga-ga-ga, boom, boom My baby's got a gun, my baby's got a gun

My baby's got a gun, my baby's got a gun My baby's got a gun, I better run My baby's got a gun, it goes Boom, boom, crack, ga-ga-ga-ga, boom, boom

My baby's got a gun, my baby's got a gun My baby's got a gun, I better run My baby's got a gun, it goes Boom, boom, crack, ga-ga-ga-ga, boom, ga-ga-ga-ga

She's not a bad kid She's not a bad kid But she had to do it She had to do it They're not a bad kid But they had to do it They couldn't not They had to face off

She's not a bad kid But they had to do it She had to crack She had to kill Pop

(songs are Hayloft and Hayloft II)

[cupidbedsy]

𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 | 𝘲𝘩43 ♔

➪ summary: follow quinn and y/n through their journey of going from best friends to lovers

➪ warnings: reader has a shitty day, mentions of parents fighting, hate comments, that's all i think?

➪ word count: 5.1k

➪ file type: song based fic - reupload

➪ sunny's notes: i forgot how much this tugs at my heart. i'm sorry this took a little longer than i hoped it would but it's finally out again. i hope you guys enjoy it again - blog maintenance is happening tomorrow if i can get my computer to work :)

© cupidbedsy (sunflower-lilac42) ; do not copy, repost, or translate my work and designs on any other website or here

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i'm like the water when your ship rolled in that night rough on the surface but you cut through like a knife 

˚₊· senior year of high school (2016-2017)

She was having a tough time, school, finals, graduation, work, everything and anything that she did seemed like it was ganging up on her. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason for her stress, but there were many things she could blame it on. On top of it, her parents had been fighting nonstop for the past month. It wasn’t like they hadn’t before but this time it was worse because she felt like she was the cause of it.

Quinn had invited her over for some dinner, hoping to at least relieve some of the stress from his best friend’s shoulders. When she arrived he could see the stress on her face, she looked as if she didn’t want to come in the first place. 

He stepped aside and let the girl in, “Hey, y/n/n.”

“Hey Quinner,” She gave him a tired smile. 

“You okay?” 

“Yeah, just tired.” She ran a hand through her hair before following Quinn to his room, saying hi to Ellen on the way. Ellen looked at the girl strangely, “Hi, y/n.”

“Hi, Mrs. Hughes.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Ellen, hon.” She pressed a kiss to her head, “Are you okay? You look-”

Bad? Drained? Stressed? Annoyed? Tired? All of the above? Is what she wanted to say, but didn’t, “I’m just a little tired right now.” Ellen nodded but looked unconvinced, shooting her oldest a look who shook his head.

He lightly took the girl’s arm and took her to his room, offering her to sit on his bed which she took gratefully. She looked around his room and at the posters on his wall before looking over at where he now sat at his desk. He was already looking at her with a small smile on his face, concern still lingering in his eyes.

The two stared at each other for a moment before a knock was heard on the door, “Hi.”

The two looked over to see his brothers standing there, “Hi Jack, Luke.”

Quinn didn’t reciprocate his best friend’s kindness, “What do you two want?”

“We just wanted to give y/n this.” Luke pulled out one of his bear stuffed animals from behind his back, “You looked sad.” Jack stood there, slightly out of place, mostly because this was Luke’s idea instead of his, but he liked y/n enough to go with him.

“Awe, thanks, you guys.” Tears made their way to the corners of her eyes but she refused to let them fall in front of the two. 

Noticing her expression, Jack waved goodbye and dragged the eighth grader behind him. Y/n held the bear in her lap, arms wrapping around it tightly as she tried not to think of the events that happened before she got here. 

“Y/n/n? Are you sure you're okay, because if not-” Quinn’s overwhelming concern for her made the tears bubble over in her eyes and a sob ripped from her throat, “I can’t do it anymore, Quinny.” 

Quinn was quick to get up from his desk chair and stumble over to his bed to wrap the girl in a hug. He knew he didn’t have to do anything but hold her tight as she dug her head into his chest, the stuffed animal still clutched tightly to her chest. 

It took her about ten minutes to calm down, tear after tear, and for her it felt like it would never stop. Quinn did what he always did and waited for her to stop so he, or she, could talk about it. He knew if he tried to talk to her while she was crying, she wouldn’t listen, nothing got through to her when she was crying this hard. 

When she pulled away to wipe away her tear-stained face, Quinn opened his mouth to talk, “You know you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but you can, I’ll always listen.” He reached his hand out to wipe away one tear that she missed, one blackened by her mascara, leaving a trail of the makeup it held behind it. 

She held a weak smile on her face at the warmth his hand brought to her cheek and looked at him, “Just finals and other shit like that, the usual. Plus, my parents were fighting again, I think that was my final straw.”

Quinn nodded his head, recognizing the tone in her voice that said she didn’t want to talk. Her face looked more tired after crying and he sighed, scooting back to rest his back against the headboard. Y/n looked at him confusedly but smiled when he opened his arms. She was quick to lay against his front, laying her head on his chest once more, still holding the bear in her grasp. 

Ellen walked by twenty minutes later to tell them that dinner was ready, but when she peaked into her son’s room and saw both of them with their eyes closed she smiled, closed the door, and walked away telling the rest of the family to be quiet as they slept. 

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

and if it was an open-shut case i never would've known from that look on your face lost in your current like a priceless wine

˚₊· end of senior year/graduation (2017)

Both of them knew the feelings that they harbored for each other but were both unsure of how the other felt. Neither one of them wanted to mess up their current friendship, they had been best friends since freshman year. 

It had never been that simple between them, their friends saying how they looked like a couple everywhere they went. She would always wear his jerseys to his games or one of his shirts and he would always show up to her events with unwavering support. 

Whenever someone saw Quinn, y/n wasn’t too far behind and vice versa, whenever y/n was asked what she was doing that night, she would say hanging out with Quinn and vice versa. They would always be caught holding hands or leaning up against one another or literally any other way that looked like they were dating. 

They never said anything though, and they wouldn’t until graduation. Quinn and y/n stood side by side taking a picture with each other as they waited for their parents to find them. Y/n knew Quinn was good at hockey, good enough to get drafted, good enough to make the NHL, it was no secret. But because of Quinn’s birthday that wouldn’t happen for at least another year.

She was worried, she didn’t want to lose him. She didn’t want him to become this big-shot hockey player and forget about her, she didn’t want him to become a self-absorbed player with an ego bigger than himself. Though deep down she knew he would never let his ego get that big, but the forgetting part? As much as she told herself he wouldn’t and knew that he wouldn’t she couldn’t get past the ‘what if?’

Quinn waved a hand in front of her face, snapping a couple of times to gain her attention, “Y/n. Y/n. Y/n.” He dragged out the last syllable of her name. 

She looked at him, her eyes getting rid of the glassed-over look by blinking, “What?”

“I’ve been talking for the past couple of minutes and you, my dear sweet y/n, have not responded. You have just been-” Quinn looked over to where her focus had landed when she spaced out, “staring at that tree.”

“Oh sorry.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“What’s going to happen?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we’re going to go to school for one year and then you’re going to get drafted. You’re going to go away somewhere and play professional hockey for a living and you’re going to forget about me.”

“Who said I was going to forget about you?”

“No one, just me and my thoughts.”

“Well, you and your thoughts are wrong, because I could never forget about you.” He tilted her head down to kiss the top of her head.

“That’s what you say now.”

“I’ll you fly out to wherever I’m playing, Nashville, Toronto, Vancouver, anywhere, and I’ll let you punch me if I forget about you because you are the best fucking thing that has ever happened to me. Since freshman orientation, I knew you were the one.”

“Are you just saying that because I was the only one who would talk about hockey with you?”

Quinn, being bold, slid his hands underneath y/n’s graduation gown, grabbing onto her waist through the fabric of her dress and pulling her close to him. She stumbled at the unexpected action, causing the boy to apologize before placing his index finger underneath her chin and lifting it so her eyes would meet his, “Look at me.”

She sighed when the two made contact. Quinn noticed the fear in her eyes, she truly didn’t want to lose him and he didn’t either, “I know you’re worried and so am I, but I promise you this-”

She didn’t want to hear what he had to say, the whole bullshit of the promises not to forget about her, she’s read it plenty of times in books, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Quinn.” She averted her eyes away again, directing them to the other families around them.

“Hey.” Quinn once again moved her head so her eyes had no choice but to look into his own, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Quinn but that doesn’t really change-”

“Just shut up for one minute, will you? I love you, y/n. And I don’t mean the typical I love you that you give to the girls. I love you and I was too afraid to tell you because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship and I didn’t know how you felt but I thought if there was a time to tell you this, it would be now.”

Y/n looked at him in shock, the words she had been waiting for since she walked into the auditorium for orientation. This wasn’t real life, was it?

Quinn stared at her blank face as she opened and closed her mount a couple of times, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

The boy went to walk away but she placed a hand on his arm, “No! No, I’m sorry I just didn’t know what to say. I love you too, Quinn.”

“You do?”

She nodded and Quinn wasted no time placing his lips onto hers.

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

life was a willow and it bent right to your wind head on the pillow, i could feel you sneaking in

˚₊· fall of 2021

She loved Quinn, she truly did, but not that much that she was willing to stay up into the early hours of the morning/late hours of the night for him after a game. She texted him saying that she was going to bed and that she was proud of him for his game. 

It was the first time since they moved in together that Quinn had a night home game. Getting used to the rhythm that was going to be for the rest of Quinn’s hockey career was starting slow. She wasn’t used to him coming home at late hours of the night or leaving in the early hours of the morning before the sun was up to go to practice. 

She didn’t mind it that much though, just knowing that he was coming home to her was good enough for the both of them. She laid in bed, hoping that she would be able to stay awake until he got home but she fell asleep within moments of her placing her ends down on the pillow.

When Quinn got the text, he had just finished putting on his suit jacket and he wanted nothing more than to go home to his girl and lay next to her in their newly shared bed. But, his teammates were not going to let that happen. 

They dragged him to a bar to have one or two drinks before heading home. He thinks he’s never detested his teammates this much before this moment. When he finished his first drink, he said goodbye, practically running out of the doors of the bar. 

He unlocked the car and practically sped home and crept into the apartment, just in case y/n was already sleeping. He set his things down and walked into the bedroom and smiled when he saw her curled up in the sheets, a shirt of his adorning her body much like in college when he’d go to away games. 

He took a quick shower, not wanting to prolong the duration of not having her in his arms. He put a pair of sweatpants on before carefully lifting the covers and sliding into bed. Y/n, who had been awake since he walked in the apartment doors, turned over, “Hey Quinner.”

Quinn’s eyes snapped to his girlfriend’s, “Hi sweetheart. I’m sorry, did I wake you?” 

“No, I was just a little cold and then I heard the front door click open.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were awake?”

“Because then I would’ve had to wait even longer for you to come to bed.”

Quinn smiled, kissing her, “I love you.”

“I love you.”

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

life was a willow and it bent right to your wind they count me out time and time again

˚₊· 2022

𓆩ᥫ᭡𓆪 『 instagram 』

_quinnhughes

liked by yourusername, jackhughes, lhughes_06, and 58,527 others

_quinnhughes happy fifth anniversary to this gorgeous girl. and while we both know that five should really be a nine, i'm glad i've been able to call you mine for the five of them. i love you, y/n <3

tagged: yourusername

view 309 comments

yourusername: quinn... i love you so much 💙

⤷ _quinnhughes: i love you too pretty girl 💚

⤷ user: the canucks colors 🥹

jackhughes: proud of you for putting up with him for so many years @/yourusername

⤷ yourusername: my pleasure

lhughes_06: congrats you two!

*liked by _quinnhughes & yourusername*

user: five years? hah, that's humorus

user: can't believe she's kept him for that long, thought quinn would've dumped her when he made the nhl

user: she's not even that pretty, i don't see the appeal

user: probably just using him

user: don't see this lasting any longer

_eliaspetterson: congrats guys! happy five years

*liked by yourusername & _quinnhughes*

bboeser: my besties!

⤷ _quinnhughes: please do not ever use that word again

⤷ yourusername: i think it's sweet, quintin

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

life was a willow and it bent right to your wind but i come back stronger than a 90's trend 

˚₊· 2022

𓆩ᥫ᭡𓆪 『 instagram 』

nhlwags

liked by yourusername, _quinnhughes, canucks, and 8,432 others

nhlwags as we ring in the holiday season, y/n is back with her famous gift bags! we heard cookies were the hit thing this year.

also wishing these two a (very) belated fifth anniversary, hope quinn and y/n have many more years to come (maybe a ring soon 👀)

tagged: yourusername, _quinnhughes, canucks

view 98 comments

yourusername: my favorite time of year! always glad when i get to make the team things. (and yes, i'm hoping for a ring too 😔)

⤷ user: if you don't get a ring, it's rigged. wya @/_quinnhughes??

⤷ yourusername: fr

_eliaspetterson: cookies were amazing as always, treating us well over here

bboeser: our little baker!

jackhughes: this is preposterous! we never got any cookies :(

⤷ yourusername: you know what that word means?

⤷ jackhughes: when did you start becoming a bully to me

⤷ yourusername: when i started hanging out with you too much

user: gagged them fr

user: well... she shut them up

user: me looking for all the hate comments to defend my girl

user: i really wanna know what the famous y/n cookies taste like

⤷ j.tmiller9 heaven

⤷ colemcward: the greatest thing on this planet

⤷ conor.garland8: amazing

⤷ jackhughes: perfect

⤷ lhughes_06: everything you would want them to taste like

⤷ _quinnhughes: i'm starting to get the sense you guys only come to my house to taste her food

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

wait for the signal and I'll meet you after dark show me the places where the others gave you scars

˚₊· summer of ‘19

“Meet me at the dock after everyone goes to bed” was the text y/n got at ten o’clock. She smiled to herself when she read it and patiently waited for everyone to go to bed before sneaking out of the house and running down to the dock. Quinn sat with his feet dangling over the wood into the water waiting for his girlfriend. When he heard footsteps behind him, he turned around and grinned when he saw her running towards him. 

They hadn’t had a moment alone together in almost three months. When Quinn had to fly to Vancouver to make his debut, she couldn’t come with him, having to finish her classes. Then she was staying with her parents for the majority of May and into June and she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. Quinn had been finishing up some things with the team and he ended up spending some much-needed time with his family. 

Ever since y/n had gotten to the lake house, she had been helping Ellen with things and spending time with Luke and Jack because they wanted her to. They played Mario Kart and other video games, and the two made her go out on the boat with them and made her watch as they did tricks and flipped into the water. 

Quinn patted the space next to him but instead, y/n took her spot right on his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. His eyes widened at the sudden contact but happily wrapped his arms around her waist, snuggling into one another. 

Y/n looked at him, “So, I guess I’m dating a big-shot NHL player now, huh?”

Quinn merely shrugged, “I guess you are, aren’t you?”

“Yes, unfortunately, because he’s living in a totally different country than me and in the opposite direction.”

“Aw, that sucks. I’m sorry to hear that. He must feel terrible.”

“Oh I don’t know, he gets to be a free man.”

“I wouldn’t say free, more sad.”

That comment made her perk up, “What’s wrong?”

“I just, miss you.” His voice ever so slightly cracked and she could see the tears starting to form in his eyes, “Honey. Hey, hey, it’s okay.”

At the nickname, Quinn immediately started crying,  he had missed her so much, much more than he ever imagined he would. He never really thought about the fact that his best friend, his girlfriend, his everything would be in Michigan while he was in Vancouver. 

“No, it’s not okay. I get to live out my dream but my dream isn’t complete without you there. We’re going to be 2,368.82 miles apart for at least the next two years. I don’t think I can do it.”

Y/n hated it when he cried, it broke her heart into a million pieces when she saw the tears trickling down his face. Much like he always did with her, she reached up and cupped his face, wiping his tears off his face, “Listen to me. We are Quinn and y/n, y/n and Quinn, when has anything ever stopped us from being apart? Where's Quinn from when we graduated, huh? The Quinn who promised me that he would never forget me and that everything was going to be okay? Just because we’re however many miles you said apart doesn’t mean anything. So now it’s my turn to promise you something. I promise you that we are going to find a way to make this work.”

Quinn nodded his head, still a little unconvinced about her words. In a way to distract him from the thoughts that he never thought he would be able to escape, she looked at the scars on his body and started asking him questions about them. 

Some were from his childhood when he, Jack, and Luke would be playing a game or messing around and one of them would throw something at him or he was pushed over. Some were from when he played hockey when he was younger, getting shoved into the boards or shoving someone else into the boards. Some were from the games he played in the spring, his first games in the NHL. Those were y/n’s favorites and least favorites. Favorites because it was from his dream, and the stories behind them would last forever, least favorites because they reminded her of how much he could get hurt doing this. But that wasn’t something she wanted to worry about right now. 

All she wanted to do was think about this moment, the moment they were living in as the stars illuminated where they sat on the dock, in each other’s arms, talking about random stories from each other’s childhood. 

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

now this is an open-shut case guess i should've known from the look on your face every bait and switch was a work of art

˚₊· fall/winter of 2023

“You guys would never guess what I found when I was cleaning the other day.” Y/n came walking in from the room she had been in. 

Jack and Luke sat at the table with Quinn and Ellen and Jim sat near their sons, one of the days leading up to the Hughes v Hughes game. They all smiled as the girl came bounding in, Quinn had just placed down his tiles when she spoke and he raised his eyebrows, “What’d you find, hon?”

Y/n placed a fluffy object down on the wood surface, “Luke’s bear that he and Jack gave me when we were in high school.”

“Paulie?” 

“You still remember its name?” Jack laughed loudly and Ellen got up to hit the middle child on the back of his head, “Don’t make fun of you brother.”

“Oh, come on. You have to admit, it's a little funny.”

Luke blushed heavily and Quinn quirked an eyebrow, “Why do you still have that is my question.” He took the bear into his grasp and started fiddling with its arms, “Because.”

She shrugged and all five of the Hughes’ looked intrigued, “Y/n, you have to tell us.” Jack insisted as he leaned forward, messing up the game that had previously been going on. Quinn and Luke groaned at their brother’s actions. 

“Because,” She ripped the bear from her boyfriend’s grasp and held it to her chest, “Because it reminds me of that day when I was sad and you guys cheered me up. It was the first day I felt a part of the family.”

“I remember that day.” Luke spoke up, looking between everyone in the room, “Jack and I were sitting on the couch when Quinn opened the door for you and you came in and you looked all…”

“Dead?”

“I was gonna say sad but I guess that works too. Anyway, when you two went up I told Jack my plan and he hesitated about it but I knew he had a soft spot for you so he caved in easily. I ran to my room to get the bear and give it to you.”

“It was a stupid, plan.” Jack laughed again but he knew how much it meant to y/n. 

The girl shrugged and hugged Luke from behind, resting her arms on his shoulders as they wrapped around him, clasping her hands together, “It’s okay, Luke. I loved it.”

Ellen smiled, “And following, you’ve always been a part of the family. Ever since Quinn came back from freshman orientation just bragging about the girl he met.”

“Mom.” Quinn threw his head back in annoyance and y/n giggled, “You talked to your mom about me? From freshman orientation? Ew, I was just a dork back then.”

“If I remember correctly, Quinn couldn’t stop talking about the girl that wore a Patrick Sharp Blackhawks jersey one or two sizes too big, with her hair in braids who talked about hockey with him for the duration of orientation.” Jim patted his son on his shoulder as Quinn continued to clench his eyes in embarrassment. 

“Do we really have to relive this moment?”

“Maybe not now but Ellen and I are definitely going to talk about this when you aren’t around.”

“Hey look at that, she called me Ellen! It only took her ten years.” The woman teased as she wrapped her in a hug. 

“Hey! I thought I was being respectful, and it’s a force of habit.” Y/n blushed as she smiled and gasped when all of a sudden an armed wrap around her and Quinn pulled her into his lap.

“Quinn!” Quinn hid his face in the crook of her neck and breathed deeply, “I’m never going to live this down. 

“Probably not.” Looking at her watch, y/n realized the time, placing a kiss on Quinn’s forehead. 

“I should be going to bed, I got work in the morning. Night everyone!”

The four let out their goodnights and Quinn whispered an ‘I love you’ and y/n repeated the words to him before heading into their shared bedroom. The five Hughes’ sat in the kitchen for a couple of minutes in silence until Jack spoke, “So, when are you going to ask her?”

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

the more that you say the less i know

˚₊· freshman year of college (2017-2018)

Sitting at one of the tables in the student center, y/n sat across from Quinn as he talked about whatever was going on in the hockey world. She understood hockey, enough to be able to watch the game when it was happening and she knew some of the stats, but anything past that, not a clue in the world. 

She loved it when Quinn talked about hockey though. His eyes lit up and held this glint in them, he talked really fast, just spewing out nonsense. It was the highlight of her day when it happened, it was at least once a day if not more. He would always show up outside her dorm room or offer to take her to dinner. 

Every time he did, it always took Quinn a while to notice that his girlfriend wasn’t responding and this was the same. Quinn was rambling about Ohio State’s hockey team and the upcoming game against them and she just sat there, amused by his voice and his facial expressions. 

Quinn was halfway through his ramble when he finally made eye contact with her, “You’re not paying any attention to this are you?”

“I’m sorry, babe, but it’s really hard to when you look like that when you talk.”

“Look like what? An idiot for not knowing my girlfriend is not listening to any word I say?”

“No, hot.” Quinn’s cheeks reddened as he looked at her, “You never fail to make me blush do you”

“Absolutely not, and anyway, you know I never understand hockey. I try but it’s all in one ear and out the other.”

“I think one time we need to set up something so you can learn everything you need to know. Get you a book or make you a slide show or something.”

“Sure, Quinny. Whatever you say.”

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

wherever you stray i follow

˚₊· september of 2021

“You can just put that box over there.”

Jack placed down the box where y/n said, “How much stuff do you have?”

“Wow, Jack. Can’t believe you’d be so mean to me. This is why Luke is my favorite.” Y/n placed her arm around Luke as he walked into the apartment, “What?”

“Nothing, you poor innocent little man.” Y/n walked away to start unpacking the box Jack had placed down not too long ago.

“Do you guys need any help?” Luke asked politely, following after his brother’s girlfriend. 

“Nah, I’m okay. Thanks you guys, just chill out for a little bit before we go out for dinner.” The two nodded, sitting on Quinn’s, and now y/n’s, couch.

Just at that moment, Ellen walked in from the hallway and Quinn followed her, “It would be nice of you two to actually help y/n instead of just sitting there.”

Jack threw his arms up, “We offered to help her and she said no!”

“Actually, I offered but yes, she said it was okay.”

Y/n nodded her head, “I did.”

『••✎••』

Later that night, y/n and Quinn were standing in the living room, looking out the window. Quinn was standing behind the girl with his arms wrapped around her waist, “I can’t believe this is real.”

“I know, the lights are beautiful.”

“Not that.”

“Then what?” She looked up at him to see a lovesick expression on his face. 

“You here, in Vancouver.”

“Hey, you didn’t want me to be here in the first place.”

“Yeah well, I wanted you to do what was best for you. I didn’t want you to move all the way out here just because I was here.”

“How dumb are you?”

“Very, apparently.” 

She smiled again and rocked the two of them side to side, “Whatcha wanna do?”

Quinn just winked at her eliciting a giggle from her.

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

i'm begging for you to take my hand wreck my plans that's my man

˚₊· july/august of 2021 + november 7, 2021

“Quinn please!”

“Y/n, I’m not letting you do this. You had it all planned out since the moment we both got our acceptance letters.”

“I know that Quinn, but things change, plans change. I want to be with you, forever. I want to be wherever you are, please just let me come to Vancouver with you.”

The two stared at each other, eyes locked. They had been arguing for the past hour, ever since y/n brought it up. She had just graduated college and with Quinn having been in the NHL for the past two years she got a taste of what it would be like to do long distance, and it was horrible for both of them. 

“You know what it's like. These past two years have been horrible, Quinn, and not just for me and you know it.” Her voice cracked, “I would rather wreck everything I have planned for my future just to move to Vancouver for you. I can find a job there.”

“Are you sure, like 100% sure about this?” Y/n placed her hands on his cheeks, “Of course, I’m sure.”

Quinn nodded his head, “When do you want to move in?”

『••✎••』

It was November when y/n was able to go to Quinn’s first home game. It was a Sunday and they were playing the Stars. She was extremely excited as she threw on her jersey and drove to Rogers Arena. She met up with some of the wags that were going to the game as well and they sat in the suite waiting for their husbands to start playing. 

When they all came out, they cheered in unison watching them skate. They conversed slightly, giving y/n teasing comments and glances every time the announcers would mention Quinn or he had done something even remotely good for the team. It was worse when he got sent to the penalty box for cross-checking in the first period.

Most of them gave her cheeky grins when they showed him in the box, some giving her nudges. She blushed deeply as they made their comments. She didn’t know what was up with him tonight, he got three primary assists and a penalty. 

After the game, the wags excitedly took the girl down to the tunnel to wait for Quinn, “Hey, there’s your man.”

Y/n looked up and smiled, “That is my man.” 

Quinn smiled brightly, picking the girl up and spinning her around, “I can’t believe you’re here! You’re actually here!”

“Alrighty, Quinny, calm down. You’re causing a scene.”

“Sorry, babe. I’m just really excited that you’re here.” He smiled down at her, his hands on her lower biceps, just above her elbow, “I can tell.”

“What do you say, you guys want to go out for dinner?”

“Quinn, I got work in the morning. I need some sleep. Maybe another time though?” The girls nodded their heads at y/n and let the young couple wander off out of the arena and to their car.

“I’m really glad you’re here. I don’t know if I would’ve survived another minute without knowing you weren’t waiting at home for me.”

“Well, you never have to survive another minute without me again. Unless you’re on a road trip then, yes, but you know what I mean.”

Quinn and y/n were so in love it was actually kind of annoying to some people, but they had to admit that they were absolutely adorable.

© cupidbedsy (sunflower-lilac42) ; do not copy, repost, or translate my work and designs on any other website or here

[melannen]

How To Make Your Own Fanfiction Archive, In Just Ten Easy Steps

As the go-to "person who knows about AO3" for quite a few people who read fanfic but aren't really linked-in to wider fandom culture, I've fielded a lot of questions about how to do certain things on AO3 to which my best answer is "you should really start your own archive!" I think, in general, more fans starting their own small archives would be a net good for fandom. AO3 was never meant to be the only archive for all fandom, or even the main archive, and the more spread out and backed up we are the more resilient we are.

But of course I have to be reminded that a lot of fans these days don't really have any idea how little "you should start your own archive!" really involves. (Also, that I should practice what I preach.) So I am now making my own fanfiction archive, and writing up this post as I do it to tell people how to make theirs!

Go to https://neocities.org/ and sign up for an account. It only needs a username (which will also be your website address), password, and email. Pick a username that will be related to your archive's title!

Choose the free account option (if you ever need more than what the free account offers for a text-only archive, you should probably look into graduating from neocities.) This should take you to a menu of "how to make a website" tutorials. You should do them! They're useful skills. But let's get your archive running first.

Hit the big red Edit Site button, or open the menu under your username and select "Edit Site".

Select the "Index.html" file to edit. You're now in an HTML Editor. Congrats, you're a web developer c. 1999!

Find where it has text between the < title> tags. Delete the filler text, and put in the title of your new archive. This text will be what shows on the tab when people go to your archive.

Find where it has text between the < h1 > tags. This will be big header text at the top of your page. Put the title of your archive here again. If you have no experience with HTML, you should read over the other sample text. It covers the basic basics very well! Once you've done that, you can delete everything else between the < /h1> tag and the < /body> tag. Save your index.html file.

Get an HTML file for a fanfic you would like to add to your archive. If it's on AO3, you can use the html download option built into AO3. If you have it as a word processor/google docs file, you should have the option to save as an html file. Save that html file to your computer.

Go back to Edit Site on Neocities and go to "upload". Find the html file you saved and upload it. (You can also drag and drop files to upload.)

The file you uploaded should now be showing with your other neocities files. Right-click on the title and select "copy link".

Go in to edit index.html again. Under where you put your header text, type < br> < a href=" . Then paste in the link you copied. Then type "> Then put in the title of the fic. Then type < /a> . Then save the index page again when you're done. You can do this for every fanfic you have.

Congratulations! You now have your very own personal private fanfiction archive that you are 100% in charge of and make all the rules for. It's at least as good as half the ones I was reading on when I started reading fanfiction and will serve its function well as a way to let people read your fic. You can link to it from anywhere you want! (Including your AO3 profile.)

Blogpost version, with FAQs and discussion

Anyway, here's my beautiful new fanfiction archive made using this tutorial:

Melannen's Fanfiction Archive

(I am honestly way more disproportionately proud of finally making that than I expected to be. It's nice to have your own archive.)

If you make one, share it here ! I want to see!

[colleendoran]

How Do I Do Stuff

The question was phrased a little strangely, and I don't want to embarrass the person by posting exactly what was said, but I'll answer it and hope this clears everything up.

I do almost all of my drawing by hand. No, I don't trace in Photoshop. Not a judgment on those who do, but I come from a generation of artists who did not use Poser programs or other digital tools. We learned to draw using a technique called the Sight Size method. I know a lot of people assume everyone - including the old masters - traced everything using optical tools, but while it is true some people did, it is just as true that most didn't, and you can draw with great accuracy if you learned how to draw the old fashioned way.

Sight Size breaks everything down into its barest components of geometric shapes and you build from there. Once you learn it, you never forget, and it applies to everything you will ever draw.

I learned it using a set of Famous Artist Course books my mom had since she was a kid, and they are still the gold standard. They're often on ebay. If I were you, I'd buy them.

I actually find using figure reference really annoying because I like exaggerations and modifications from reality in my final work.

This page from Neil Gaiman's Chivalry was drawn and painted without figure reference of any kind.

I don't know why people assume I trace all the time. If you were to try to use photographs to replicate these figures, you would find they are slightly off. There is no tracing here.

This is not to say I never use reference. This page, for example, was referenced from a photo of my mother. Isn't she pretty.

But this page of Sir Galaad was drawn and painted without reference.

He's pretty, too.

If he were real, I'm sure a lot of people would be very happy about it. But he's not. And had I reference, the art would have gone a lot faster. I had a time trying to nail this face that is very alive in my head but doesn't really exist.

Back in the ancient days, all cartoonists had to learn to draw and paint extemporaneously because reference was limited and digital tools didn't exist. While some high end artists had photography studios and professional models with costume and sets on hand, small fry like me were limited to what was in the house or available at my small local library, which was no bigger than a few rooms of my current house.

Artists kept extensive "morgue files" or "swipe files" which were collected from magazine clippings and photographs so we would have as much of what we might need on hand for quick reference. These ephemera collections could get unwieldy. I have thousands of photographs I've simply never sorted. I finally dumped most of my files this past year.

Have I ever traced anything? Of course, especially if I have to re-use a shot or setting over and over. Making extra work for myself is just silly. It's my job to make pictures, not to perform magical feats, like copying one shot after another over and over without making a mistake.

However, for almost 15 years of my career, I refused to copy or trace anything, and did not even own a lightbox. On the one hand, that forced me to learn to carefully examine what I saw. On the other hand, it was a stupid hill on which many deadlines died.

Only after I realized many professional artists had lightboxes and overhead projectors did I finally break down and get one.

The one thing I use my lightbox for more than anything is for tracing my thumbnail sketches to the final drawing paper. Instead of trying to capture the liveliness of the original sketch by copying what I see - only bigger - I blow the thumbnail up to the size I want the final art to be, then I trace over the thumbnail using a lightbox onto the final drawing paper.

Here's a look at thumbnails from the graphic novel Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples.

I enlarged these on my computer to fit onto 11"x14" paper, and traced the thumbs before finishing the art which was drawn in pen and ink and colored in Photoshop.

While I obviously made some changes, the essence of the thumbs is there in the final work. Tracing my thumbs retains some of the looseness of the original sketches, which is often lost otherwise.

So, there is a valid purpose to tracing at times, though in my opinion, too much tracing can weaken drawing ability, substitute for developing skills, and make the work kind of stiff.

If you want to, I'm not your judge. But it's weird to me that people think I must be faking my skills in some way.

Ironically, the word cartoon comes from the Italian word cartone, which is a large heavy sheet of paper - also, the origin of the word carton.

Preparatory sketches were made on this paper which was then transferred to the final work surface via either tracing or by stamping little holes in the paper through which dust was sprinkled, recreating the contours of the drawing for the artist to follow.

So the origin of the word cartoon comes from a process often used...for tracing.

[lightdancingwords]

Come Find Me - Part One

Pairing: Beau Arlen x F. Reader

Series Summary: You are a new arrival to Big Sky, Montana, and found gainful employment with the local insurance department next door to the sheriff’s department. A whole new life with your past haunting you, while Beau is still dealing with the entanglements with his ex-wife. Can either of you succeed in overcoming your ghosts?

Word Count: 2,185

Tags/Warnings: mentions domestic violence, intimate partner violence, minor problems with the police

Divider: credit to @tsunami-of-tears

Chapter One: Arriving On The Wind

Y/N stared at the employment acceptance letter. Your hand trembled. It happened. It was finally happening. A carefully cultivated plan that culminated in an escape from Billings with most of your possessions, a job offer, and even a place to stay until you saved up enough for a place of your own. Most wouldn’t have been so damned lucky.

Still… it was happening. Y/N got away. If Y/N got lucky, maybe Mark didn’t follow you, find you. A tremor in your hand gave away your nervousness, your fear. You swallow hard and brace yourself. You got away. You have the restraining order. You found a self defense class in Big Sky. You’re doing all you can do.

Except… it was so scary. Every step you took, you wanted to flee, turn around and go sobbing apologies into Mark’s arms. You hated it. You felt weak. Your therapist told you over and over it was normal, that it was a natural occurrence that happened between abusers and their victims. It didn’t matter. You hated it.

“Come on, Y/N,” you whisper to yourself. Mark didn’t break you.

You got away.

With a toss of your long auburn hair, a proud lift to your chin, you stepped into the insurance office. There was a ridiculously cheery bell chime attached to the door that made you want to jump out of your skin for half-a-second. It was… well, rather empty. Oh, there was a computer desk setup, the phones lighting up like a Christmas tree, but it was devoid of people.

“Hello?” you call out, hesitant. Did you come to the wrong place? Was the offer letter a fake? God, you hoped not….

You step further inside, your heels clicking against the linoleum floor. You look around the corner, and saw a solitary bathroom door closed. There was light peeking from the bottom of the door. Just as the certainty that someone—possibly the owner—was in there formed in your mind, there was a distinct flush and the sound of the sink running. A moment later, a portly man stepped out.

“May I help you?” he asked, friendly, if guarded.

“Uh, yes,” you said, holding out the letter. “I’m Y/N. I’m here about the job.”

“Oh! Y/N!” He ignored the letter, brightened considerably at you. “Excellent timing! If you weren’t coming in a few days, I was going to have to close up shop for a while.”

You blink, blink again, confused. “I’m sorry?”

“Oh, just some family drama in Tennessee. I’m the only one with Power of Attorney and my bloodthirsty relatives are swarming the waters. I would’ve hated to close the office. Please, come, sit, sit,” he insisted, gesturing to the only chair across the computer desk. “I’m Arthur, as the email says.”

You feel the knot loosening in your chest. Arthur was as cheerful as the offer letter made him sound. He ran over the whole business, allowing you to take out a notepad and scribble notes as he explained. Your history working in insurance was a boon, made it easier for him to turn the reins over to you while he dealt with the family drama.

Several hours later, reasonably confident, with copies of the office keys, you stepped out back into the Big Sky sun. Your mind was spinning with information overload, of program notes and the rules of his insurance department. Oh, Arthur worked with local and franchise insurance providers, but he definitely didn’t follow their rules!

“What can I say? I’m a bit of an anarchist!”

God.

However, just as you turned to head to your car, your gaze went up to the neighboring building: Big Sky Sheriff Department. Would there be any point whatsoever…? Evidently your body was saying ‘yes’ as you found yourself walking over to the front door of the department. Before you knew it, you were standing in front of a secretary desk with a sweet, older woman with a tight, gray-haired bun.

“Hi there! How can I help you?” she asked. She’s got a smear of lipstick on her teeth.

You were trying to decide how to tell her when a presence caught your attention. The door to your right opened, the one reading ‘Sheriff Beau Arlen’, and a tall man with bowlegs stepped out. There was something about him, something beyond his attractive looks, that caught your eye. Not that he was ugly; God, far from it.

The secretary glanced over, saw the way you were staring, and smirked. “He’s a tall drink of water, ain’t he?”

You couldn’t look away. After a long moment, it dawned on you why you were drawn to him. He projected this protective air, a kind of warmth, that was at once guarded and incredibly open. As though, if you asked, he’d give you a hug that’d encompass you all over and soothe your hurt away.

When he glanced over, he gave you a polite nod, and oh my God—his eyes. They were so damned green you thought your heart was going to stop. A kind of mossy green that looked as though the sun were shining through them. He had thick lashes—that was so unfair, how dare he have thicker lashes than you?—and a neatly trimmed beard. There was the slightly crook to his nose, a minor imperfection that made everything else just seem all that more incredible. His hair was a bit on the long side, neatly combed back.

“Everythin’ all right, Doris?” he asked, walking over.

For the love of God, Y/N, breathe. You took a shaky breath and call up a smile that felt all kinds of nervous.

Doris smirked at you again. Goddammit. “Well, I don’t know, Beau, this youngin’ hasn’t said anything yet.”

Beau shot you a warmer smile and held out his hand. “Sheriff Beau Arlen, ma’am, at your service.”

Oh don’t you dare say anything dirty, Y/N. Once again, you force yourself to act, to move. “H-hi! I’m Y/N,” you said, taking his offered hand. His fingers felt rough and his hand was warm. The handshake alone was electric, firm. He wasn’t shy about making his strength known.

“Well, nice to meet you, miss,” Beau said, a slight questioning look in his green eyes. “How can we help you today?”

It dawned on you that his accent was out of place in Montana. If anything, it sounded…. “You’re from Texas,” you observed curiously.

Beau’s smile widened. “I am,” he said, hitching his hip against Doris’s desk. “You ever been?”

“Austin, once,” you said with a smile, finding yourself relaxing. “For the music festival.” He was so instantly likable, you were wondering if you were imagining it.

“Good choice,” he said with a nod. “Always nice to meet a fan of ACL.” He shifted his head, just a bit, with a curious tilt. “As much as I’d like to keep talkin’ to a pretty lady, Doris will kill me if I keep sitting on her desk like this.”

“Or threaten to keep my lasagna to myself,” Doris quipped, watching you and Beau with a keen eye.

Beau gave Doris a horrified look. “Doris! Would you really be that cruel?”

“Yes.”

Y/N laughed. The banter was delightful, as was Doris’s wicked grin. “It sounds like the lasagna is really delicious.”

“Big Sky has a lasagna competition—don’t ask me why—and every year, Doris wins,” Beau said, praising his secretary. “She treats me once a week with a big ol’ casserole dish of it. That she’s darin’ to threaten to withhold—”

“Then do your job, sheriff,” Doris said, pinning him with a steely look of her dark eyes. “And take this youngin’ into your office and talk to her.”

“You just said you don’t know what she wanted!” Beau said defensively. Clearly the idea of losing access to Doris’s lasagna was terrifying for him.

Doris whipped a look on you and you knew you were in trouble. “Well?”

All at once, the knot tightened again. Your voice didn’t want to work. Your heart was pounding. It must’ve shown in your face because Doris’s demeanor gentled at once.

“Beau, take her into your office,” Doris said, and there was something different in her voice. A note of compassion that nearly had you weeping.

“Yeah, yeah, hey… come on,” Beau said gently, lightly taking your hand with one hand and the other barely touching the small of your back.

Once he had you in a chair in his office, he shut the door and moved to sit across from you. He leaned forward with a concerned frown. “You all right, darlin’? Need water? Coffee?”

You shook your head. “No…” You managed to talk, finally. You took a breath, then another. The knot loosened enough for you to breathe fully again. “I’m sorry, I don’t usually fall apart like that.”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. We get all sorts of folks here in Big Sky. Sometimes, they’re a bit skittish like you. Just gotta treat you gentle and nice, like approachin’ a deer.”

You quirk a brow at him. You never imagined you’d be compared to a deer. “I’m sorry?”

Beau half-smiled. “That got you to shift gears, didn’t it?”

It did. It was such a bizarre comparison her brain shifted into the peculiarities of it instead of dwelling on Mark and why you were here. You couldn’t help it, you let out a soft laugh and shook your head. “I… yeah, it did.”

Beau sat patiently, giving you a gentle, waiting look.

It was that precise expression that had you pouring everything to him. Not all the details—no, that was too much—but how you escaped an abusive relationship, how you moved to Big Sky to get away, how you had to fight for a restraining order… and the fear that Mark would track you down. You didn’t want the sheriff’s department to go blind about any possible phone calls. You wanted them warned, prepared.

Within minutes of you starting, Beau pulled out a notepad and pen, and began taking notes. He’d ask questions, nothing too probing, sensing you weren’t ready. He asked for information—Mark’s full name, his date of birth, his last known address. He asked for the details of the charges, and that had you choking up at one point, especially when you mentioned staying at the hospital….

That part had Beau stopping, and something dark and angry flashed in those beautiful green eyes. Then it was gone and he gave you a soft nod to keep going. Through it all, you had the feeling he was genuinely listening, genuinely cared. Billings Police Department was never like this.

It took over an hour.

Beau raked his fingers through his hair and nodded. “Well. I’ll make sure the deputies are updated on this, miss Y/N,” he said, glancing at the pages he wrote. “That way if you give us a call, we’ll know what’s going on. I’ll have Doris reach out to Billings PD for the files, that way we have copies. Especially your restrainin’ order.”

He paused, weighing his next words. He reached into his top desk drawer, pulled out a card, and slid it over. “My phone number. If you ever feel you need to talk, if somethin’ got you jumpy, whatever, give me a call.”

Your gaze snapped up to him, more than a little surprised. “I can’t—”

“Y/N.” The way he said your name, with that Texas drawl, had your heart stuttering. “There ain’t no shame in acceptin’ help. Take my number. You don’t have to call. I just want you to have the option.”

You swallow hard. Pride goeth, as the idiom went. You take the card, your fingers trembling slightly. You felt Beau’s gaze sharpen on your hands, and wanted to pull away. Instead, you fought that reaction and gave him a weak smile.

“Thank you… sheriff,” you said, hesitating on whether it’d be all right to call him by his name.

“Call me Beau.” He got up, walked around his desk and offered you his hand. You pause, then took the offered hand. How was it he seemed so much warmer than before? “I promise you… if he comes around, I’ll know, and he won’t be able to sneeze without me knowin’.”

Normally such a reassurance would make you laugh, mostly out of disbelief, but Beau’s declaration felt real. As though he truly meant it. “Are you always this helpful?”

He grinned. “Only for pretty ladies.”

This time you did laugh, but it’s soft and startled. His whole face transformed with that line, playful and boyish. “Well, thank you, Beau. I really appreciate it.”

Beau escorted you out of his office, again that light hand on the small of your back. “Anytime, miss. Promise me you’ll call if you need somethin’.”

You glance at him over your shoulder as you reach the door. “I will,” you promised with a smile, feeling lighter, more hopeful.

Doris watched you leave, then quirked a look up at Beau. “Well?”

“Doris… she’s gonna be trouble.”

[random-writer-23]

Meet cute with lumberjack logan at a Christmas tree farm

Based heavily on the other day when I went Christmas tree shopping and got a big one with some real girth to it and the Christmas tree guy threw it over his shoulder with a big old smile on his face and carried it all the way to the car by himself and so I started writing this as SOON as I got home. I'm also probably gonna write this same idea but like an established relationship where the reader brings Logan lunch for his lunch break and sees him unloading and throwing around some trees and they freak in the car or something. I don't know what it is but I fear the idea of men carrying heavy things is just so attractive to me.

Warnings: Probably cheesy but idgaf, no smut for this one my darlings I'm sorry... but my next one is from a delicious request one of you beautiful people sent in and it's 😏 .

Very much unedited but I don't think there's any major mistakes, please lmk if I did

Also yes I know the formatting is weird, I don't know why it was double-spacing my paragraphs I tried to copy and paste the whole thing all at once but it kept saying "There's a 4096-text-characters-per-block limit." and then it wouldn't let me save it so I did my best with formating.

Word Count: 2k

It was usually a tradition that my best friend and I go tree hunting together, but due to her horrible boss calling them into work, finding a Christmas tree fell to me alone, and I was determined to find the perfect tree. Driving around to a few different major stores and finding nothing good, I decided to go to a local Christmas tree lot. Following the GPS on my phone, I turned onto this long dirt road leading to a small clearing in an area of trees. A large sign and blow-up Santa is standing at the entrance of the parking lot greeting me. I gnaw on my bottom lip watching a family walking back to the car, the dad grunting as he carries the tree, two kids running around his legs excitedly. I smile at the sight before looking away my eyes roving the parking lot for an empty spot. Finally finding one I pull into the parking spot, putting the car in park and grabbing my purse. Climbing out of the car my phone starts ringing in my back pocket, I pull it out, the contact photo of my best friend's face flashing across the screen, and I swipe my thumb across the screen raising it up to my ear.

“Hello?” I chirp, locking my car and making my way to the tree lot.

“Hey did you get the tree yet?” She asks, the keys of her computer keyboard clicking in the background.

“No not yet, I’m at the fourth tree lot today decided to go to a local one” I shrug, entering the lot my eyes greeted by the quiet chattering of children, the smell of fresh pine needles wafting through the air.

“A local tree farm? They’ll probably be a bit more expensive than the other trees we looked at” She murmurs

“Yeah but these look fresher” I chuckle brushing my hands over the branches my fingers coming away damp with water droplets.

“Alright fair enough, just pick a good one” I can hear the smile in her voice. “Oh shit, okay gotta go managers coming” She whispers hastily ending the call. I let out a quiet laugh, making my way through the thick brush of taller trees, looking for where they keep the smaller ones. Kids race past me shouting after each other, their tired parents following along behind them, desperately trying to corral their kids. I keep walking along scooting between the trees until I get to a small area near the back of the tree farm, the shorter trees being kept underneath a red and white striped canopy.

“Here we are” I mumble softly to myself weaving between the trees, circling them slowly admiring them trying to find the best one.

“There something I can help you with Sweetheart?” A gruff voice speaks up from behind me making me jump slightly. The smell of pine needles mixed with a rough earthy cologne becoming stronger as I feel the stranger's presence move in close behind me “Sorry didn’t mean to scare ya” The voice chuckles a deep rumbling sound in his chest, I turn around coming face to chest with what I think is the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. I tilt my head up slightly letting my eyes settle on his face, the way his thick beard is peppering, hairs of white sprinkled throughout the brown. I peel my eyes away from his gorgeous life-roughened face, and charming smile letting them roam his figure. Taking in the way his plaid shirt is tucked nicely into his jeans, sleeves rolled up past his elbows, the fabric hugging tight to his arms the muscles in his arms flexing as he crosses them over his chest, His broad shoulders and bulging arms make him seem more closely related to a wall than a man.

“Oh it’s alright, I just didn’t see you coming” I chuckle lightly putting my hand over my chest to try and calm my racing heart. “Well, I’m looking for a tree” I smile up at him squashing down the bundle of nerves in my stomach. He glances around at the trees surrounding us.

“I figured that much” he says teasingly, and I feel an embarrassed heat spread up my neck.

“Oh, well I guess that's obvious” I chuckle, and he nods.

“What kind are you interested in? We’ve got some pine, firs, spruce…” He points to various trees and my eyes widen slightly.

“I didn’t realize there were so many kinds,” I say softly, looking at the trees he pointed at rattling their names off the top of his head.

“psh, oh yeah, We’ve got tons of different kinds, gets a little overwhelming at times” He smiles down at me and my heart stutters in my chest. “I didn’t even introduce myself, I’m Logan, and ’ll be happy to help you pick out the perfect one” he grins holding out his hand for me to shake, I look down at his hand noticing no wedding ring, much to my delight. I reach out shaking his hand, which easily envelops mine. His hand is rough from the work of a blue-collar job, and I briefly wonder what else his hands can do. I quickly squash the thought returning my attention to his introduction.

“Nice to meet you, I’m (Y/n)” I say cringing as my voice comes out a breathless whisper.

“so let's see first how tall are your ceilings,” He asks slowly pulling his hand away from mine, resting them on his hips adjusting his belt, glancing out at the sea of trees in front of us.

“Oh shit um I don’t know” I shrug nervously, “average height I think?” I smile a little as he nods.

“It’s alright if you don’t know, most people don’t” He chuckles, and I let out a breath letting myself loosen up in his presence. “Let’s get you over to the shorter trees just to be safe” He smiles resting his hand gently on my shoulder and leading me to the shorter trees, I tense up under his touch, the warmth of his touch sending butterflies exploding in my stomach “Now.. these over here are the 7-foot trees, they’ll be the best size for rooms with average ceiling height” I nod along to his words, “now let's see what kind of tree we can get cha” He murmurs taking a step back eying me up and down in a way that makes my pulse race and my cheeks heat up “You look like a classy kind of gal, so let's get you a classy kind of tree” He points to the back corner of the tree tent, where a group of similar looking trees are displayed. “Douglas fir, Classic tree for a classic kind of girl” he takes a few steps towards the group of trees, his hand falling to rest in the dip of my back, pushing me gently towards the trees.

“Oh these are nice” I smile taking a look at the trees, pine needles a rich dark green, still damp from when they were last watered.

“Oh yeah, nice pine smell sure to make your house smell like a forest,” He says launching into what I assume is his usual selling script, giving a deep inhale, I copy him getting a big whiff of not just the pine trees around me but the smell of Logan’s cologne as well. “Strong branches too, they’ll hold even your heaviest ornaments,” He says removing his hand from my back and standing next to one of the trees, my eyes widen as I realize the tree is only a little bit taller than the hulking man in front of me. “Yeah look at her perfect, nice and tall at the top for your tree topper, no empty spots you’ll have to hide with lights and ornaments or turn to face the wall to hide from visitors” He says examining the tree next to him.

“Laying on the salesman charm a little thick aren’t you” I tease lightly, and he freezes in his steps.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” He crosses his arms over his chest and I’m sure he notices the way my eyes follow the movements, as he subtly flexes the muscles in his arms. “I just really like trees” he shrugs cracking a smile. “Besides I’ve gotta make sure the prettiest customer here finds the perfect tree” His voice lowers huskily, and I turn away under the pretense of admiring the tree to hide the smile that creeps on my face, forcing myself to relax. He’s just trying to sell me a tree, he’s not flirting. I scold myself mentally, pretending to eye up the tree. “So what do you think?” He asks with the same husky tone. “Pretty handsome tree huh?” My eyes flicker back to him briefly as I nod.

“Yeah it’s a pretty good tree” I murmur clearing my throat and looking back at the tree he’d picked out for me. he grins at my words.

“I’ll take it” I smile, and he nods.

“Sounds good” He smiles reaching up and pulling the tag off the tree. He walks me over to a tent set up in the middle of the tree lot where an older man is standing behind the counter muttering curses under his breath as he fumbles with some twine. “Hey Gary, this pretty little lady here is gonna buy one of our Douglas” Logan says throwing me a wink, and I reach my hand up hiding my smile as Gary rolls his eyes.

“Then go get the tree” Gary grunts snatching the tag from Logan's hand and scanning it, I look at Logan and he shrugs giving me a small wave before retreating in the direction where my tree is. Gary grumbles under his breath before telling me the price of the tree taking my card from my outstretched hand, he swipes it and I hear Logan's loud grunts in the distance as he walks into view carrying the tree towards the netting machine. He lays it down on the machine trunk first pushing it through, the netting wrapping tight to the tree folding up the branches and pulling them close to the trunk of the tree. He pulls the wrapped-up tree out the other end of the machine laying it up against the side of the machine. “So you got someone around here to help you get this to the car?” Gary asks, and I see Logan's head swivel to face us, his eyes sparkling with what looks like interest. “Well?” Gary grumbles impatiently.

“Well uh no” I say softly, my eyebrow furrowing, “my friend was supposed to come with me to get the tree but she had to work” I explain chuckling awkwardly at Gary's stern look.

“Hmm,” He grunts, snapping his fingers, “Logan!” He barks and Logan makes his way over to us. “Take her tree to the car for her” he huffs, and Logan gives him a playful salute walking to the netting machine, bending down and throwing my tree over his shoulder with a few coarse grunts. My eyes widen as he hoists the tree up onto his shoulder standing up straight, the muscles in his arms flexing as he holds onto the tree. My eyes eagerly follow his movements as he comes towards me.

“Where too?” He grunts, barely struggling under the weight of the tree.

“Oh uh, my cars that way” I say softly, and he nods leading the way in the direction that I pointed to, and I trail along behind him watching him carry the tree to my car. I speed up catching up to him. “That one over there” I say pointing to my car.

“Got it” He grunts lowly, changing direction slightly till he’s walking directly towards my car. I run ahead unlocking it and opening the driver's door leaning in and dropping my purse in the passenger seat, exchanging it for the ropes and blanket I’d brought with me to tie the tree to the roof of the car. I turn the car on rolling down the windows slightly. I take the ropes and blanket over to where Logan is waiting, keeping the tree standing next to him. I throw the blanket over the car so the tree won’t scratch my paint.

“Ready?” He asks and I nod.

“Yeah!” I chirp and on my signal he lifts the tree back onto his shoulder, grunting as he raises it off his shoulder sliding it on the top of my car. He sets it down on my roof with little struggle. I find my mind wandering to what else he could lift with those arms, but I force myself to focus as he speaks.

“There we go” He pants slightly breathless from throwing the tree on top of my car. He lifts his shirt untucking it to wipe the sweat off his face and I get a glimpse of the skin underneath. A little drool trickles out my mouth at the sight of his tight abs glistening with sweat, a course happy trail of hair disappearing down under the waistline of his jeans. I quickly turn my head reminding myself it’s improper to gawk at strangers, only looking back at him when he speaks up again. “Toss me some rope” He murmurs and I obey quickly, he makes quick work winding the ropes through the open windows, tying the tree securely to my car roof. He tugs on the rope ensuring they’re secure. He dusts off his hands, turning away from my car to look at me. “So you got someone at home to help you get this thing in the house?” He asks his arm resting atop my car casually. I check the time on my phone, and I shrug.

“I think my friend should be home soon, between the two of us we should be able to get it in the house alright” I tuck my phone back into my back pocket, and he nods.

“Just you and your friend huh? No boyfriend to help you?” He says the implication of his words not lost on me.

“Nope… just my friend and I,” I say smiling up at him.

“Well a pretty thing like you shouldn’t be doing any heavy lifting” He shrugs casually, “I’m off in about an hour if you want some help taking it in,” He says slowly his fingers tapping rhythmically on the roof of my car.

“Oh no I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you” I giggle softly hiding the smile on my face.

“No no I insist, customer service is my top priority” He chuckles.

“Well, I suppose if you insist” I giggle softly, and he holds his palm out for my phone. “I’d appreciate any help I can get” I pass him my phone and he takes it brushing his fingers against mine, I watch him type his number into my phone and then call his own, the low buzzing in his pocket signalling the call went through.

“Alright I’ll let you know when I’m off” He grins standing up and shoving his hands in his pockets, I nod almost too eagerly.

“Okay sounds good” I grin.

“And well, maybe after we take care of your tree, you’d be interested in completing a customer service survey… say over dinner,” He asks, and a bright smile crosses my face.

“Dinner?” I ask hesitantly.

“Oh yeah just to make sure I provided the best service I could” He says teasingly.

“Oh of course, well in that case, dinner sounds great” I grin, and he lets out what looks like a sigh of relief.

“Alright, I’ll uh give you a call later” He grins, turning around as he hears Gary calling for him in the distance.

“I’ll be waiting” I giggle waving at his retreating figure, one he’s out of the side I climb in the car and call my friend.

“Hey, you get the tree?” She asks.

“Fuck the tree I got a date!” I squeal and she gasps.

“Tell me everything!” She laughs, and I launch into my story, starting the car and pulling out the tree lot.

[everybodyhatesmiddleschool]

It has been six excruciating days since I was plunged into the Bridgerton fandom against my will.

I was minding my own business, watching YouTube compilations of the best kisses in TV history, when I unwittingly clicked on a video about Colin and Penelope, and I was immediately down so bad for them.

Let me be clear: Bridgerton was not part of my life before I clicked on that video. I wanted nothing to do with it; I had no intention of ever watching or reading that smut. And then, without warning, it swept in and took me in the night, much like Colin Bridgerton in the back of a carriage.

To say I have been lost in the sauce these past six days would be a gross understatement. The carriage scene is literally ruining my life. I haven’t gone to sleep before 1 a.m. since Sunday, and I have been over an hour late to work every day. Why? Because I cannot stop consuming that godforsaken scene — watching gifs of it over and over, reading y’all’s hilarious takes and memes about it, watching it with the audio descriptions turned on (🥵), watching it with the music removed (🥵🥵), watching Luke and Nicola on their press tour, watching, watching, watching.

Have I started actually watching season 1 of the show? Of course. Did I check out the large-print version of the first book from the library since it was the only copy available? You bet. But I do not care about these other characters and storylines. I want it to be Colin and Penelope on the screen and the page in every sentence and every scene.

And either fortunately or unfortunately, I don’t even have to be looking at a screen to be distracted by them — my daydreaming has never been as maladaptive in my life as it has been this week. I can hardly think of one ten-minute stretch in the past six days in which some imaginary scenario has not been taking over my brain. I want to be part of their world so bad — not just Bridgerton, but Shondaland. As is the case for 90% of all of my daydreams, I want these actors to know I exist. I want them to look at me with just as much awe and love as I look at them. So I might be staring at my computer screen in my cubicle, but in my mind, I’m on a press tour of my own that intersects with theirs. (I’m never the desperate fan with no life in my dreams; my idols always see me as their equal). I might be driving my commute in my car, but in my mind, they’re congratulating me about my own novel being optioned by Netflix. I might be brushing my teeth in my bathroom, but in my mind, we’re laughing together on Graham Norton’s couch.

But Lord, here comes that freaking carriage scene once again, inserting itself into my mind (pun unavoidable). I cannot get over it. I’m so stuck there that I’ve found myself wearing shoes I don’t remember putting on, carrying coffee mugs I don’t remember putting in my bag, driving a speed limit I don’t remember agreeing to as acceptable. There is laundry that needs to be folded. Bills need to be paid. Emails need to be deleted en masse without reading. But I can’t find the door that will let me out of this damn carriage.

I had a conversation with myself two days ago about how we might be able to adapt to this new living situation. After a few temper tantrums, I finally said, “Girl, if you’re going to watch this scene 1,000 times, you have got to find a way to make it a constructive part of your life.” So I did what any rational adult would do: I started writing a scholarly paper about why it’s so powerful — not just for me but, according to the internet, for a lot of women. And I have every intention of writing an entire paper about this … if I can find the time. I’m just so busy right now with consuming this damn scene.

Was starting to write that article enough to satiate my obsession with this scene, with this show and these actors? Of course not. So this morning, I started writing a spicy scene of my own, featuring not Colin and Penelope but two other vaguely outlined characters who I’m sure I’ll give names and personalities to later. I was literally sitting in my cubicle, hunched over my planner, writing down snippets of sexiness in as small a print as possible in case someone walked up on me and looked over my shoulder without me noticing. And I’m not gonna lie: this shit’s good. I’ve never written smut before, because I’ve never had enough spice in my own life to feel like I’d be able to do it justice on paper. But that imagination of mine — she’s a freak. And my mind? My mind has moved way past the gutter. It is now in the outhouse. It’s in the slop with the pigs.

It should have come as no surprise, but as usual, the act of actually writing down the jumble of mess in my brain has had the effect of breaking some of the spell. I was also forced to focus on work because of looming deadlines, and I currently feel calmer than I have since Sunday. But I am truly living in fear of June 13. I cannot go through this again, and I know that I’m bound to, because I know that what’s been shown so far won’t hold a candle to what’s coming. And if I get down bad any further, I will be deep enough in the ground for this to become my final resting place. I’m not ready to be buried, but it feels inevitable.

But somehow, despite my own wants and fears, and despite the fact that we haven’t even been introduced yet to the bedroom where Colin and Penelope are sure to end up, I am somehow already lurking from behind the window curtains in the corner, peeking out at them doing the deed. I know what I hope I’ll see: based on the excerpt I’ve seen from the book, they will be in front of a mirror — expressly because Colin wants Penelope to see herself in full for the glorious goddess she is, and she will look at her sexy, bare self with just as much pride and love as we viewers behind the screen will (but probably with slightly less lust than Colin, who I pray will be very loud about how hot she is).

I am dreaming about this scene, but I dread it. Because if it’s as good as the carriage scene, I will immediately be re-enscripted and sent right back to the trenches where I spent the last six days. I’m excited, but I’m scared. And I’m afraid of getting lost in the woods again, because I know that if I do, I won’t want to be found.

[virtual-winter]

It's been 10 years since I first watched Frozen!🌻❄️⛏️☃️🦌

(Swedish DVD-copy of Frozen)

November 20th, 2014. It seems like forever ago. I remember watching this movie through my desktop ASUS PC (remember when computers used to have actual DVD-drives?) on a by today's standards pretty crappy Philips monitor. It didn't matter. The movie was like nothing else I had seen before. Even though I don't even have a sibling and can't fully relate to the conflict, Anna and Elsa's adventure is IMO one of the best stories ever told💕

I was 22 back then. A young man and totally in love with this Disney movie. Now I'm 32 and it continues to be among my favourite movies of all time. Even now, ten years later, I still live and breathe Frozen every day! It is a part of who I became and it is the way I wish to remain 😄

I have become a devoted fan of all things Frozen and I'm trying my best to be a part-time Frozen-analyst, mapmaker, worldbuilder and collector. I'm also known for using too many emotes and exclamation marks!

Below, I have tried to summarise some important and meaningful keepsakes and events from the past ten years. I hope you enjoy scrolling!✨✨✨

I believe this was the first ever Frozen-related pic that I saved (it's the oldest in my album) (April 2015)

I was equally in love with the OUAT Frozen arc and no one can tell me Georgina and Elizabeth were anything but perfect for their roles (April 2015)

🥹🥹🥹

(March 2015)

In just a couple of years we saw the franchise grow (did anyone else prefer the original logo for the musical?) (February 2016)

The official announcement we'd all been waiting for (April 2017)

The architect in me loved the castle! (2017)

I mean, who could ever forget this moment? (December 2018)

AJHFSJASJFKAGKJFGSKFDSGSJF!?!?!?!?!?!? (February 2019)

What are those????? (February 2019)

My first piece of "big" Frozen merch (April 2019)

I made a custom calendar just to count down the remaining days to Frozen II (I also avoided spoilers for the last 6 1/2 months) (December 2019)

🥹🥰😭

(December 2019)

Perfectly balanced, as it should be (February 2020)

Me collecting stuff! (February 2020)

Me going crazy saving as much Frozen content as possible 😅 (August 2020)

I joined r/Frozen (June 2021)

I started my deep-dive into Arendelle's geography in 2021 which ultimately lead to "An odyssey through Frozen geography", the first of many fandom projects! (July 2021)

Together with a group of equally dedicated Frozen nerds fans, I helped building the @arendelle-archives server and later tumblr-blog! (2021)

Collecting more things! (October 2021)

A Frozen comic writer responded to my reddit post?😲(December 2021)

I started developing ideas for a Frozen fanfic (2022)

Frozen III-announcement! Finally! (February 2023)

My Norway-trip of 2023. Without a doubt one of the most beautiful destinations on Earth and a must-go for anyone who wants to visit the real Arendelle!!! (July 2023)

I continue to delve into more map-related stuff in Wonderdraft (May 2024)

Together with the rest of the wonderful folks over at @frozen10fanzine, I helped create and design a fanzine summarising the memories of Frozen fans from the past decade! (July 2024)

A slice of my current Frozen collection! Some figures were very kindly donated to me by @yumeka-sxf 🙌 (July 2024)

And lastly, from today: the first snow of the season❄️🩵

If you made it this far, thank you for scrolling😅

Finally, a little shout-out to friends and acquaintances I've made through the likes of reddit, discord and tumblr in the past few years:

@bigfrozenfan @yumeka-sxf @greatqueenanna @queenritaofarendelle @saiten-gefroren @snowflaketale12 @cloudberriesforaqueen @theartoffrozen @secretsofthestorymakers

A big thank you also to the whole @arendelle-archives and @frozen10fanzine - teams! Y'all continue to inspire me!

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Remembrance of Things Past: Final Part

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.5k

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill, fearing for your life

Summary: Someone leaves an unmarked package by your door that sends you into a spiral of fear. Meanwhile, the team joins forces with Virginia police on a case Rossi was on decades earlier, one that he will have to go back into in order to figure out the one that's staring at him in the face.

Season Six Masterlist

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them.

x

The detective pulls up the email he got on the big computer and plays the message his daughter left for him before she died.

"Mom, Dad, this is Heather. When you get this message, I'll probably be dead. Tomorrow you're going to find me," she starts crying, "and when you do, please know that I... I enjoyed it."

"I enjoyed it. That's his signature. It's him," Rossi says.

"Agent Rossi, I need to give the press a statement."

"Not yet."

"It's already leaked out that this is the Butcher and his son."

"Fix your faucet and tell your men to be quiet," Rossi glares.

"Look, people are scared. This guy has spent a decade terrorizing this area—"

"You think I don't know that?" Rossi cuts him off.

The Detective sighs and leaves the room to do what Rossi told him to do.

"We need to figure out why he's back, like BTK or the Grim Sleeper. Let's go over victimology one more time," Hotch says.

"He kills blondes who are living on their own. He takes them from public places with some form of ruse. He's reenacting his last kill for what reason?"

"Maybe there's something symbolic about the last kill. Let's hear her call again."

"Maybe we should take a look at the victims that didn't call anybody. There were thirteen recording messages and five documented conversations with loved ones," Spencer suggests. "There were twenty kills. Two victims didn't call anyone."

"I just assumed those victims couldn't reach anyone," Rossi frowns.

"Let's pull the files of the victims that didn't leave a message. Reid might be onto something."

It doesn't take long for Penelope to pull all the files from the archives before sending them over. Detective Green has hard copies that the previous officers left behind, and he brings those boxes in for everyone to look through as well.

"So, Sylvia was the Butcher's first kill. Karen was his eighth. Why weren't they forced to make phone calls?"

"Sylvia was his first kill. He was building up his confidence. Then, he thinks to himself, how can I hurt the most people? I'll have them make calls."

"Six women after that made the phone calls. Why did he stop at Karen?" Hotch looks at the desk phone that is still connected to Penelope. "Garcia, what are Karen's parents' names?"

"George and Claire Bachner died in a car accident when Karen was nineteen."

"My notes say Karen had a husband named Lee Mullens," Rossi says. "He didn't receive a call. When I interviewed him at the station, he said he didn't have an answering machine."

"Do they have a child?"

"Negative," Penelope answers.

"Wait a minute. They had a son. I wrote it down." Rossi flips through his own notes. "Colby."

"Garcia, run Karen's maiden name. Bachner."

It doesn't take her even a minute to pull up the information.

"Oh! There it is! Karen had a son, Colby Bachner, born at Johnson Memorial in Bristol, Virginia."

"Was the father there to sign the birth certificate?" Hotch asks.

"Yes. His name was... Lee Mullens. Oh. Karen had Colby two years before she and Lee were married."

"Are the father or son still in the area?"

"Yeah. Lee and Colby live at 1844 Shadow Wood Lane which is six miles from where the victims were dumped."

"So, maybe Karen never made a phone call because the most important person in her life was already in the room with her--her son," you theorize.

"Oh, hell no. They're licensed electricians," Penelope gasps.

"Let's go."

You leave the police station and head to the Butcher's house where it's unusually quiet. Derek and Emily head around back with some officers where an RV sits, and you approach the front of the house with Rossi. You look at the attic window and narrow your eyes in suspicion. You tap Rossi's shoulders and point to the window with a nod. He understands that you're saying that someone is up there whether that be the Butcher himself or his son.

You follow Hotch and Rossi inside the house with officers right behind you. You come around the corner and see someone standing on the stairs holding a picture in his hands. He's an older gentleman and looks harmless but you can feel twenty victims' energies all over the man. This is the Butcher.

"FBI. Don't move," Hotch says.

"Put your hands in the air!"

"What are you doing here?" Lee asks. "Why are you here? My son isn't here."

"You're under arrest for the murders of Chloe Moore, Reilly Gold, and Sylvia Marks," Rossi glares and moves closer to Lee.

"I don't know them. Please, I need to call someone."

"You can call from the station."

"Rossi, wait," you say.

Right as Rossi touches the bottom stair, the older man looks down nervously at his pelvis. Wetness spreads from the middle of his pants toward the ground. He's peeing himself. This man... something isn't right. You can't bring him in when he's like this so Rossi opts to keep him in the living room after getting him a fresh change of pants to wear. The rest of the team searches the house but his son isn't there.

The only thing that will incriminate them is a shallow grave in the front of the house with a woman's body in it. Whoever dug it didn't care about keeping her well hidden. He just wanted her out of sight. The thing that Rossi was hoping for was Lee's twenty victims being here but besides the woman in the front lawn, no other person has been here in a long time.

When they've killed, they did it somewhere else.

"We checked the house. There's no torture chamber and no son. There's a fresh grave in the backyard, and Colby left a note saying he was going to find a prize," Emily says.

"Garcia, check Mullens' records and see if he owns any other property. Check under the son's name, employment records, and anything else you can find," Hotch says to her over the phone.

"Got it."

"Guys. I think I found something," Spencer says from the kitchen.

"Morgan, let's get all the police cars out of the neighborhood in case the son comes back."

Derek leaves and you walk to the kitchen with Hotch and Rossi.

"Everything in the house is labeled. I found Donepezil and flashcards in the medicine cabinet."

"Donepezil? Doesn't that treat Alzheimer's?"

"It's a cholinesterase inhibitor. It improves acetylcholine either by increasing levels in the brain or enhancing nerve cells' response to it."

"So, this guy gets to forget while the family has to live with this forever?" Rossi asks and scoffs.

"Alzheimer's affects short-term memory before it affects long-term. That explains the scripted phone calls and the dump sites."

"It also explains why he started up again," you say. "He's repeating his last kill because he can't remember it. He's killed for over ten years. He probably remembers the earliest victims."

Derek walks back into the kitchen.

"What did you find?"

"He's got slides of all the prior abduction sites."

"Do you want me to go in with you?" Hotch asks Rossi.

"I've got this."

Rossi walks into the living room while you stand in the archway and watch them.

"We met twenty years ago. Do you remember that, Mullens? You played the grieving husband. I was a young FBI Agent." Rossi shows him pictures of his earlier victims. "Do you remember these women?"

"I don't know them."

"Of course, you do. You wouldn't have forgotten them yet. Tell me, where is your son? Where is he taking your next victim? To a friend's place? To an abandoned house?"

"I rewired this house."

"Did he help you with that? Or did you do that on your own? Like you did... all of these?"

Rossi takes out some more pictures and places them on the table.

"Are those your trophies?" Lee asks.

"What do you know about trophies?"

"I like trophies. It proves you won something."

"You're not gonna win today," Rossi glares.

"I'm scared."

"You don't have a right to be scared. Those women were scared. Now, where's your son?" Lee doesn't answer. "It must be hard to lose your mind. You start forgetting how to feed yourself. Soon you're stinking up your pants and wearing diapers."

"I ain't wearing no diaper," Lee growls.

"You peed into your boxers ten minutes ago. You need them now. So, how did you get your son to do all this? Did you get him to help you to kill your wife?"

"Karen left us."

"No, that's what you convinced him. You killed her when she figured you out. You took her to a chamber, the same place you took Heather Langley, Kara Kirkland, and Sylvia Marks."

"Sylvia's a pretty name," Lee chuckles.

"She graduated from Georgetown. She wanted to be a chemist, but you burned her so bad that her family couldn't recognize her. How did you do that? Did you use a fire poker or a curling iron? Something you made? Something you bought?"

"When she saw the Lexwell, her eyes went so wide, she scared me half to death," Lee smiles at the memory.

"Find out what that is," Hotch says to the team having heard the same thing you did.

You step off to the side and call Penelope.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"I heard what happened this morning."

"Oh, yeah, that. We'll talk about it later, okay? Listen, I need something. What can you tell me about the name Lexwell?"

"Lexwell is a camera manufacturer based out of New York. They've been around since the forties."

You walk to the team who are huddled together and put Penelope on speakerphone.

"Have they always produced photography equipment?"

"Back in the day, they made electroshock therapy equipment."

"That's the unknown object penetrating our victims," you say.

"Garcia, what mental hospitals in Virginia use ECT machines?"

"Five hospitals use Lexwell equipment. Of those five, three have been torn down and two are still in operation."

"Cross-check that list of hospitals against Mullens' electrical business client list."

"Yeah, I'm already doing that. Mullens wired some buildings at the Oakton Center back in the eighties."

"Do you know that place?" Derek asks the detective.

"It's a former mental institution on eighty-six acres."

"He's right. Two of the buildings are still in operation. The rest of the place is abandoned."

"Thanks, baby girl."

Hotch knocks on the wall which catches Rossi's attention, and the older agent leaves the living room.

"Where are you going?" Lee asks.

You don't waste time getting to the abandoned hospital. The closer you get to it, the more you see wisps of energy dancing in front of the hospital.

"He already has another victim. I can see her energy."

"Find her," Rossi urges.

He doesn't hesitate to follow you as you run through the hospital grounds with urgency. You pass by building after building until you get to the back of the property where five buildings stand. You pause and look around the place and that's when you spot it. Blue energy seeps up from one of the sewer gates by the first building.

"She's in the basement of that one," you point.

Hotch and Rossi are first to get down there while the rest follow suit. You peer around their shoulders to see a blonde woman on some medical table with black tape over her naked chest. Colby is pacing next to the table with a knife in his hand. He is beyond stressed, unable to live up to his father's expectations.

"Colby." The young man snaps his head up and places the knife to the woman's throat when he sees the FBI. "Put the knife down."

"I'll kill her."

"The killing is done."

"Please help me," the woman cries.

"This is not your fault, Colby. Your father got you into this."

"No, you don't know my dad!"

"We know you're losing him, Colby. This isn't going to help you or him."

"He's getting better."

"No, he isn't." You push past them and take the center position. Colby's wide eyes land on yours but you don't move any closer to him. "I know that scares you because you already lost your mother."

"She left us!" he screams at you.

"Your father killed her."

Colby shakes his head as tears roll down his cheeks.

"No, no, no. You're wrong!"

"You were ten. He strapped her to this table. Your father brought her here. You might have been in the car or upstairs. You blocked it out because I know you love him. You love him and you didn't want to see what he is truly capable of. He's supposed to be your dad. He's supposed to love you and care for you." Colby is full-on crying now but he still has the knife to her throat. "He most likely knocked your mother out at home and brought her here."

"No, I helped him bring the only woman here from that house."

"That was your mother, Colby."

"No, she left us," his voice breaks.

"Every one of your father's victims made a call except for your mother because she laid on this table and said goodbye to you right here."

"No, she's not dead," he cries. "She left us. She... She left us!"

"You don't want to hurt her, Colby. You never wanted to hurt any of them."

Colby sobs as he tosses the knife away from the woman. Rossi and Hotch immediately handcuff him while Derek and Emily help the woman who is also crying. The woman is brought to the paramedics once they come and the detective brings Colby back to the station to start the process of his arrest. You stand off to the side with your arms crossed over each other. Spencer, Derek, and Emily join your side and watch the paramedics do their job.

"You know, parents are supposed to protect their children. They're supposed to love them and keep them safe," you say.

"Well, sometimes they don't get the memo," Emily responds.

******

Frank leans back in his chair with his feet up on the dollar store fold-up table he got yesterday. The phone is pressed to his ear since he's talking to his wife while keeping a close eye on the cameras he installed in your apartment. You and Spencer are going about your nightly routine, nothing major happening here.

What he did to you sent you into a paralyzing fear so much so that you started looking for a camera to put on the outside of your apartment. It's a good thing he already planted the ones inside your place. You say you have this magical gift that can tell you anything you want to know so why can't you figure out who he is? When will you? Will you ever? As much as he cherishes you, you're becoming too much of a liability to keep in his life. He should have gotten rid of you when he was supposed to but you were and always will be his favorite toy. He must play with you one last time before taking you out.

"You should have been there, Clarissa. She went crying to Daddy about the fake bomb I put in front of her door. You should have seen the look on her face. She was so scared," he laughs. "Even racked with fear, she still looked... so cute."

"Please be careful, Frank. You're playing with fire."

"I'm only getting started," he smirks.

"When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now, and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the latter. It is sad to go to pieces like this, but we all have to do it." – Mark Twain

x

Want to be tagged? Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[barbinaj-blog]

After Hours - Hasan Piker Fanfic

tags: Lawyer AU, Coworkers to Lovers, Public place, SoftDom Hasan, Slight Degradation, Dirty Talk, Fingering

(((Minors DNI, 18+)))

“Pass me that stapler?” Hasan asked, not looking up from his stack of endless papers. His nose was pointed at his heavy workload, brow stuck to a deep line that bisected his forehead.

I didn’t respond verbally, just grabbed the rectangular office item and held it suspended in front of him for a few seconds.

His face lifted to look me in the eye, a single inky curl bouncing in front of his glasses. His forearm, now exposed because of his rolled up sleeves, slowly raised up his hand to push his glasses back up from the tip of his nose to properly see my blank expression. Or rather, an expression I had forced myself to put on since I’ve been put on this case with him.

Something about Hasan just jerked my ovaries slightly to the left. It only really gets obvious when we’re alone, which doesn’t happen often; but over the past week, this case that both our supervisors put us on duty to comb through made it so we had to put in even more overtime since starting at Grandor & Belfort.

He let out a sigh. “Please?”

“You’d think you were raised by wolves.” I placed it near his computer on the shared desk we were on in the library. He scoffed and swiped it as quickly as I left it, his finger brushing mine ever so slightly.

“Wolves would have been a cooler origin story for me, for sure.” He quipped flatly. I tried to stifle my snicker but half of it slipped out of me.

“Yeah? So you and the boys can bond over being true alphas?” I shot back.

“Only on the weekends, we don’t wanna do too much. Alphas don’t have to.” He grunted as he stood up and went to the bookcase, seemingly searching for another tome to rifle through.

I shook my head in wry amusement at how he can be such a levelheaded brat. It was impressive honestly. Which, if you ever saw Hasan from across the street, that would be the last thing you’d think he would be like.

Standing at an impressive 6’4, he was like an industrial container. Big and thick, a bit hairy and generally to himself. His hands were almost always balled up, and I’d notice his thumb would always be picking at his palm. Probably at the calluses he’d formed from constantly grinding weights into his fists everyday, without fail. Except for tonight.

“Did you find the terms set by the first trial?”

I didn’t realize i had been staring at him till he asked. I jolted back to work, fishing in my own mountain of copies. I stood up to try and find the file, biting the insides my cheek.

“You did find it, didn’t you?” I craned my head around to see his face a little bit too close. I felt the whispers of his breath on the back of my neck—typically, I’d be incredibly uncomfortable with someone, particularly a man, being right behind me, but this time my entire body was caught in the vice grip of adrenaline.

He smelled really good too.

“Y-yeah I swear I did…” I whipped my head back to my side of the desk, but I couldn’t focus in the sea of white sheets and black ink surrounding. All I could hear is a my heart thumping against my rib cage, practically trying to claw its way out of me.

“It’s right here…” His voice softened like soft serve melting on a hot day, dripping down slowly like his arm over my shoulder to the file that was on my right. He was tall enough to reach it, but I didn’t have the sense to duck so his chest wouldn’t brush up against my back like it did.

He pulled back and took a beat. “Could you pass it to me?”

My face was hot, and I quickly grabbed the paper and flung it at him without another word.

“Sorry, did I do something?”

“No, it’s allergies.” I squeaked.

He paused. He took the item from my hand and i felt his presence leave from behind me. I just stood there frozen and tried my best to not disintegrate into dust. My eyes fluttered and began to unblur, so I finally sat back down, my legs giving out much quicker than I had thought.

I felt something cold on my head and jumped at the sudden sensation.

“A peace offering.” Hasan plopped a can of fanta in front of me on my desk. I rubbed my shaved head and watched him also sit in front of me, opening his own can of the fizzy drink.

“And a sign that we should take a break.” He leaned back slightly in his chair, his wide frame hiding the chair out of sight. He took a sip, and kept his eye on my for a second while drinking. I cleared my throat and took that as a sign to quench my thirst.

“Thanks.” I popped the can open and took a light sip, still trying to compose the waves of somersaults that my gut was experiencing. “Fanta is my favorite.”

“I prefer diet coke, but fanta is up there with the greats.”

“Diet coke is literally car cleaner.” I heard myself say.

He shrugged. “Need to keep my engine clean. All this horsepower needs maintenance.”

A giggle nearly made me choke on my drink. “And that’s why, as a society, men are left behind. You just compared yourself to an object like it was nothing!”

“I’m calling myself an object! It’s acceptable if a man does it.”

“What, so if I did it then it would be different?”

“Oh 100%.”

“How?”

“Because.”

My brows pushed up, and I leaned in a little waiting for his response.

“Because you’re you.”

“And that means?”

He let out a short puff of air, and shifted in his seat a little. “That means that if you did it, it would mean something.”

I blinked at his answer. He continued “It would mean that your thoughts are impure.”

“And yours aren’t?” A dry chuckled escaped me.

He flashed a smile that I could only call mischievous. “Depends on who’s asking.”

“I’m asking.”

“And I plead the 5th.”

My back slumped back against my chair, arms crossed, my mind fizzling at what he meant by my specific objectification of him being different.

“Then what if I said you were a wet blanket of a person.”

He scoffed, looking away for a beat and swinging his heavy gaze back at me. “Yeah? You into that sorta thing?”

“No—” I stopped midway through my sentence because he was smiling at me. His lips were curled mischievously, his mouth slightly ajar. I could see his the underside his tongue as it pressed against his palette, as his eyes stayed deadlocked between my nose and chin. I swore his eyes slid over my lips too.

“You shouldn’t chew on your lip like that.” His voice was low and breathy, and quiet. But I heard him. “You do that a quite a bit.”

My face bloomed a heated blush, and I released my bottom lip. “Bad habit.” Shit. My poker face might be worse than I thought. I felt myself squirm in place.

“It’s cute.”

My eyes shot back at him. He was even more relaxed, his two forefingers holding his temple with his elbow on his arm rest.

“You got a booger though.” He scrunched up his nose at me. My hand snapped to cover my nose, and swivelled my back to him as my insides melted in embarrassment. I wiped my top lip beneath my nose, trying to capture the little thing that cost me my dignity in front of him.

“D’you get it?” He laughed.

“Hasan, I appreciate the concern but I’d love if you didn’t make more fun of me right now.” My voice trembled at the end.

“I’m not” He chuckled. I felt the chair turn back around, my sight line at his crotch for a split second. He crouched down to my level, his lashes low on his face and lips slightly parted. I saw the shimmer of his tongue swipe over his bottom lip.

“Move your hand,” his voice vibrated low and my lower stomach caught the frequency like a tuning fork. Buzzing with want and excitement. My hand wilted away from my lip.

“You’re so gullible.” He reached out, in what seemed like slow motion, and traced a feather light line over my cheek, trailing to my lips. His thumb pressed into the seam of my mouth, slipping in easily.

“Shit…” He hissed. I could barely keep my eyes open as the wave of pleasure washed over me. I had forgotten to breathe it seemed, my vision getting spottier and my head felt like it was floating off my body.

“Hey hey, breathe, baby.” My eyes popped open at the pet name and I gulped some air back into my lungs.

“There you go baby, there you go…” He eclipsed the space between us, tugging his finger out my mouth, despite my whines of protest. I could barely hear my own voice from the rush of blood going to my head.

As quickly as his finger left my lips, the tip of his nose pecked mine and I laid my forehead against his just to take a moment of rest.

“You’re squeezing your legs.” He said quietly. I hadn’t noticed it till I felt his hand on my knee. He slid his hand down my thigh, my breath growing more irregular by the moment.

“Hasan, please, I—” He reached my centre, using the friction of my dress pants against my growing need, palm out. I pressed my hips forward, searching for that feeling. A piece of lighting struck my core and he silenced my moans with his mouth. His lips were like sweet relief, quenching my desperation with his taste.

Kissing Hasan was something I thought about, but in practice I couldn’t believe how good it felt. It couldn’t have felt better, and the more he pushed into me the more I let him in. Rival to his tongue was only his hand, large and quick, already in my pants and past my underwear.

“Fuck…you’re so wet for me…” His voice sounded strained from something, but I wasn’t ready to detach from his lips. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he took that as an opportunity to lift me from my chair to the desk.

My fly had been unzipped and he sunk deeper into my folds, so slow and cruel. Everytime he left my sweet pressure I ran back to it, bucking against his movements to guide him where to go. The back and forth was agonizing, but so perfect. The inconsistent pleasure was addictive.

“You’re so cute, trying to tell me where to go…” He said in a mocking tone. “You like when I touch you here?”

I nodded into his shoulder, clamping my lips together.

“Yeah? You like this don’t you? In a public place? Getting all wet for me?”

I could barely respond with anything more than moanful breaths—he was making me lose my mind. My mind was fogged up by his smell and his voice, his breath, his taste. I wanted to taste him again.

“I’m not talking to myself, am I?” I looked up at him, and pushed my chin up to his face to kiss.

“Nuh-uh. I asked you a question, baby. Answer.”

“I do, I love it, please Hasan,” He drove his hips forward and that spread me open even more. My knees were higher up near his torso, causing me to use one of my arms to steady myself behind me. He used his free hand to tug my pants down from my ass, and I lifted myself to get them off in one fell swoop. He captured my lips again, and I sang my praises into his mouth at the return of his tongue.

He kept pressing into me, slowly and gently laying me down on the table. He cradled my head and pushed the laptop and books out the way, still digging at my shivering insides with his thick fingers.

“Fuckin’ hell, you’re not gonna cum are you? Just from me fingering you like this?” He started to pull my pant legs off, making me more exposed but freer than ever. He kept my thighs pressed together, crossed at the ankles, laying across his left shoulder.

A mangled groan at the back of my throat seeped out of me as he started fingering me faster and faster, his thumb now bullying my clit. “Hasan, please don’t sto—”

“You’re not listening babe, I asked if you’re gonna cum from me just playing with your pussy in the library. Are you?” He was panting too now, pushing my straight legs closer to my chest, his face looking down on me with nothing but lust and something a shade darker than sex.

“Yes, please, it feels so good, I can’t take it any longer…!”

“Then cum.” He kissed me and I was whisked away. He kept nudging inside me, and I succumbed to the fall of my orgasm. His tongue and fingers were acting as one, and I felt my core flex and bit on his lip, riding the choppy waves of my release.

A minute or ten passed by, I couldn’t tell, as he slowly ended his reign of pleasure over me, leaving trails of kisses on my cheek and my neck, to my unbuttoned blouse near my collarbone.

“You made such a mess on me, babe.” He licked at my jaw, while slowly emptying my entrance and rubbing my sensitive button.

“You’re gonna have to pay for that, sweetheart.” He smiled against my neck as it all faded to black.

—————

If you made it this far, leave a like or a comment. Let me know if this needs a part two!

[seat-safety-switch]

For a couple years, I worked in a video store in a small town. In many ways, this was the culmination of a childhood dream: routine, unchallenging labour. If you were a particularly annoying labour analyst, all I actually ever “did” was ring up rentals, restock returns in the morning, and clean the windows. Customer service has its own way of filling the space left by the actual work, though.

People who have worked retail are a sort of elite corps. For one thing, you’re never rude to another retail employee for the entire rest of your life. You’ve been in the trenches, too, and even if you somehow managed to escape, you’d still have had that shared trauma to know how bad that shift could get for that shelf-stocker at Maybe’s Drugs off I-40.

I have all the usual complaints, but there’s something else, too. My unique problem is this: I had this one customer who came in every Monday morning, asking for the same movie. We never had that movie, which is the crux of our conflict. He – and I can’t remember his name anymore, even if the electroshock therapy had been effective – never took “no” for an answer, and would come back the next week. He’d ask for the same thing, by title. No other details: no barcode, no publisher, no actors. Not even a description of the plot (he hadn’t seen it yet, obviously.) Now, this was before broadband internet was widely available, so I’d have to dial up after hours to America Online, and see if the movie had been added to their database. It never did, except one night I saw some folks talking about it in a video store chat room.

Their customers, too, were asking for this film. Insistently. After talking about it that night, we decided that we would form a bit of a trade union group. If any of us heard anything on this mysterious VHS, we would share the knowledge with the rest of the group. That retail-worker camaraderie at work again, you see. Nothing ever came of it, but I did end up becoming good friends with a manager at a Hobart’s Movies in Ames, Iowa, and we were even roommates for awhile before he got a new job at Seaworld. I moved on, too, making my slow, but inevitably in retrospect, drift towards the coast. Still, the whole thing bothered me. For years afterward, I would turn on my computer every Monday night, long after I had left the job, and search for any clue as to the existence of this film.

Once, on a day off, I called a librarian, who got pissy at me for even asking about it, and demanded to know who had put me up to calling her as a prank. I hung up in a panic, but she called back for hours. Obviously, she was also undergoing the same situation, and I felt shame at having brought a momentary pain to another proud Retail-American.

Now, video rental stores are a thing of the past. Even in small towns, they have been reduced to just a fond memory and an abandoned corner of a strip mall. Maybe my customer’s quest doesn’t matter anymore. The aggregation of the world’s knowledge into one hissing, unseen beast at the centre of our collective technological hallucination is complete. If they don’t have it, pick a different one. All I know is that, one day, someone will find a copy of this movie, and I’ll be able to go back to that town and shove it in the ground where the video store once stood. On that day, I can finally rest, freed from the slavedriver that is Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.

[magickalsapphic]

Evernote to Notion Tutorial!

As an avid Notion user whose first love was Evernote, I was also very upset at the sudden high charge and limit of Evernote to 50 free notes... I already had 565 notes in there, and was a fan of the simplistic yet useful mechanism for taking notes with a click, organizing them in notebooks, and being able to use tags, archived files, etc.

So I have taken it upon myself to recreate the mechanism as closely as possible.

This is my final result: easy to make into your own!

Template link, though I suggest looking over this tutorial most of all:)

I also have to say, I love how it is relatively great for the mobile option as well! Especially with my gallery views and button for new notes.

**I recommend using a computer/laptop for this!

Step 1: Importing all your notes

- Instructions directly quoted from the Notion website:

You can import all of your Evernote data into Notion in one go, and retain its organization.

From the import window, choose Evernote

Sign into your Evernote account.

Authorize Evernote to connect to Notion.

Once your Evernote account is linked, check the boxes next to the notebooks you'd like to move and click Import

Your Evernote notebooks will appear as pages in Notion's sidebar. Inside, you'll find your notes as items in a list database.

Each note can be dragged and dropped anywhere else within Notion

Step 2: Move notebooks into ONE database

Let all your notebooks load correctly -- I personally checked the amount of notes each notebook had to match the ones in Evernote. The notebooks will go into the Notion pages on the sidebar like the picture, and each page will automatically add the notes into a NEW DATABASE table, which tells the amount of notes at the bottom.

Create a new blank page: this will be your EVERNOTE HOME layout

Inside this page, create a New Database (preferably in Table form)

This will be the MAIN DATABASE

In this database, click ...

Then click + Add a new property and click Select.

I named the property "notebook". Then include in the options all the different notebooks you had in Evernote! Here is my specific example:

4. Add ALL the notes to the new database

Each "notebook" is automatically a separate database, we don't want that!

With tedious work, copy all the notes from the first notebook into the new database

Go into the first "notebook" (on the sidebar, just imported from Evernote) and press CTRL-A or Command-A to select all the notes. Then copy them with CTRL-V or Command-V.

Then go into your EVERNOTE HOME LAYOUT

Paste the notes into your MAIN DATABASE

Make sure the notes are inside the database, they will be part of the MAIN DATABASE table!

WARNING!!! BEFORE PASTING THE OTHER NOTEBOOKS' NOTES:

After pasting the First Notebook notes on the MAIN DATABASE, put the correct notebook property in each one!

I could not find a better way to do this than selecting a Single Note > Click on the "Notebook" property > Select the preferred notebook ("plot/story ideas") > click away > click back on the square until it is selected (the whole square turns blue) > then copy it (CTRL-C or Command-C) > then select the rest of the notes in that property column (like in picture 3) - and pasting the property to all of them at once.

(select property + CTRL-C or Command-C)

(select the rest of the notes - for ease, click on one, then press SHIFT and arrow down!)

(Paste the property to the rest of the notes all at once)

-- Thank you @ myself for complicating a very simple procedure --

Continuing:

5. Next - copy and paste the notes of each note book into the MAIN DATABASE, each time making sure you add the "notebook" property as said in Step 4.

For ease: I found it helpful to sort the notes (... > Sort > Updated > Descending)

When this is done, you should have all your notes into a single database (MAIN DATABASE), organized by notebooks.

Make the Evernote Home Layout - 2 options

*If you're new to Notion, you will slowly get the hang of databases, don't worry. I am making this as detailed as possible:)

Option 1: Use my free template!

Please let me know if you have any problems accessing it.

Option 2: Follow my instructions and make your layout your own

You can follow my steps as I create my preferred layout, and change things around (magic of notion) to make this into your own.

I prefer to make my page Full Width, Small text, and change the font (upper right corner: ...)

With the space bar I give some space to the whole ordeal.

Now, what exactly am I saving from a normal Evernote Home Page?

Recent notes

Scratch pad

(Would be so very easy to get a pinned note, and recently captured as well, though I don't do this in this tutorial)

Notebooks Gallery Tutorial

Press anywhere on the page > Click + > Scroll and Click on Gallery View > Click New Database

It should look like this

This here is a new database that we will call "Notebooks Database"

Each page shown there can be each notebook, and if you don't wish to show it in Gallery view, and instead have a simple list, you can!

For that Press ... > Layout > List

I will continue showing how to make the Gallery View like my own layout however:)

You can customize each page by clicking on it, changing the name (to each notebook you have), adding a cover and icon, however you wish.

Notion Tip: Instead of having to download images, you can Copy Image Link to almost any GIF of image on Google, Pinterest, etc, and then pasting the link!

Make sure you select "Page Cover" to be shown for your Notebooks Database Gallery View!

... > Layout > Gallery > Card Preview > Page Cover

My final result:

Notion Tip: To hide the name of "Notebooks Database", click the three dots ... next to it and click Hide Database Title

2. Recent Notes Gallery Tutorial:

To explain how to add the RECENT notes view I will make a video:

This is exactly what I do:

Make space after the title > Move a Block next to another Block to create 2 columns > Drag the Notebooks Database Gallery to Column 1

In column 2: Add a New Gallery View > Choose Main Database > Add whatever Properties you would like shown > Sort > By Created Time/ Updated Time (depending on preference)

For this one, make sure you put "Page Content" to be shown

... > Layout > Gallery > Card Preview > Page Content

3. New Note Shortcut Button Tutorial

To add a button so you can quickly add a new note like in Evernote, do the following (shown in the video below)

Click anywhere > + > Button > Add page > (Add page to) "MAIN DATABASE" > (Delete the name property) > + Add another step > Open Page > Select Page > New Page Added

Explore all the other features of this new button!

4. Finally, customize each Notebook Page:

Click on each Notebook page > Add a Gallery/List/Table view > Filter > Choose selected notebook tag > Sort > Updated time > Descendant

(video/gif tutorial shows how i personalized mine, I still have more stuff I want to add but those are the basics!)

BONUS: Add a Scratch Pad

Click anywhere > + > Add a Toggle List > ::: > Customize color

OR

Click anywhere > + > Add Callout > Customize color and Icon

Thank you for following this tutorial and I hope it was helpful and less daunting for new Notion users after the Evernote downfall:) Please send any questions, feel free to add your own ways to make things easier and other tips and hacks you may have!

[rjalker]

"Who Goes There?"

By John Wood Campbell Jr., published under the name Don A. Stuart

Originally published in the August 1938 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction magazine, also known as Astounding Stories of Super-Science, and Analog Science Fiction and Fact.

This is the public domain story that the 1982 movie "The Thing" was based on, as well as the older 1951 movie "The Thing From Another World".

"Who Goes There?" is public domain, meaning you can do literally anything you want with it at all. Including making your own movie, TV show, play, musical, full length novel, audiobook, webcomic, literally anything, just like the creators of the two movies did.

You can even just copy and paste it into your own social media post.

This includes the four illustrations placed within the appropriate spots in the stories, with included image descriptions.

Transcribed from a PDF scan on starting on December 28th 2024, at 6:21PM. Finished on January 1st 2025 at 4:38PM.

You can the files it from Itch.io (to tip me if you want), or the Internet Archive. It includes the editable document, a PDF, and an epub. The Internet Archive will also generate a computer-read audiobook.

Epubs are the generic version of ebooks, and can be read like you'd read a kindle book on your phone with many free apps.

I will be recording my own audiobook for it which will likewise be public domain. I will edit that into this post when it's done. You can also watch the progress of the transcription on youtube.

This story is 21K words long. You're gonna have to set aside some time to read it all.

(Archived read-more link)

(Read more was here)

Who Goes There?

-

The place stank. A queer, mingled stench that only the ice-buried camps know, compounded of reeking human sweat, and the heavy, fish-oil stench of melted seal blubber. An overtone of liniment combatted the musty smell of sweat-and-snow-drenched furs. The acrid odor of burnt cooking fat, and the animal, not-unpleasant smell of dogs, diluted by time, hung in the air.

Lingering odors of machine oil contrasted sharply with the taint of harness dressing and leather. Yet, somehow, through all that reek of human beings and their associates—dogs, machines and cooking—came another taint. It was a queer, neck ruffling thing, a faintest suggestion of an odor alien among the smells of industry and life. And it was a life-smell. But it came from the thing that lay bound with cord and tarpaulin on the table, dripping slowly, methodically onto the heavy planks, dank and gaunt under the unshielded glare of the electric light.

Blair, the little bald-pated biologist of the expedition, twitched nervously at the wrappings, exposing clear, dark ice beneath and then pulling the tarpaulin back into place restlessly. His little birdlike motions of suppressed eagerness danced his shadow across the fringe of dingy gray underwear hanging from the low ceiling, the equatorial fringe of stiff, graying hair around his naked skull a comical halo about the shadow’s head.

Commander Garry brushed aside the lax legs of a suit of underwear, and stepped toward the table. Slowly his eyes traced around the rings of men sardined into the Administration Building. His tall, stiff body straightened finally, and he nodded. “Thirty-seven. All here.” His voice was low, yet carried the clear authority of the commander by nature, as well as by title.

“You know the outline of the story back of that find of the Secondary Pole Expedition. I have been conferring with Second-in-Command McReady, and Norris, as well as Blair and Dr. Copper. There is a difference of opinion, and because it involves the entire group, it is only just that the entire Expedition personnel act on it.

“I am going to ask McReady to give you the details of the story, because each of you has been too busy with his own work to follow closely the endeavors of the others. McReady?”

Moving from the smoke-blued background, McReady was a figure from some forgotten myth, a looming, bronze statue that held life, and walked. Six-feet-four inches he stood as he halted beside the table, and with a characteristic glance upward to assure himself of room under the low ceiling beams, straightened. His rough, clashingly orange windproof jacket he still had on, yet on his huge frame it did not seem misplaced. Even here, four feet beneath the drift-wind that droned across the Antarctic waste above the ceiling, the cold of the frozen continent leaked in, and gave meaning to the harshness of the man. And he was bronze—his great red-bronze beard, the heavy hair that matched it. The gnarled, corded hands gripping, relaxing, gripping and relaxing on the table planks were bronze. Even the deep-sunken eyes beneath heavy brows were bronzed.

Age-resisting endurance of the metal spoke in the cragged heavy outlines of his face, and the mellow tones of the heavy voice. “Norris and Blair agree on one thing; that animal we found was not—terrestrial in origin. Norris fears there may be danger in that; Blair says there is none.

“But I’ll go back to how, and why we found it. To all that was known before we came here, it appeared that this point was exactly over the South Magnetic Pole of Earth. The compass does point straight down here, as you all know. The more delicate instruments of the physicists, instruments especially designed for this expedition and its study of the magnetic pole, detected a secondary effect, a secondary, less powerful magnetic influence about 80 miles south-west of here.

“The Secondary Magnetic Expedition went out to investigate it. There is no need for details. We found it, but it was not the huge meteorite or magnetic mountain Norris had expected to find. Iron ore is magnetic of course; iron more so— and certain special steels even more magnetic. From the surface indications, the secondary pole we found was small, so small that the magnetic effect it had was preposterous. No magnetic material conceivable could have that effect. Soundings through the ice indicated it was within one hundred feet of the glacier surface.

“I think you should know the structure of the place. There is a broad plateau, a level sweep that runs more than 150 miles due south from the Secondary station, Van Wall says. He didn’t have time or fuel to fly farther, but it was running smoothly due south then. Right there, where that buried thing was, there is an ice-drowned mountain ridge, a granite wall of unshakable strength that has dammed back the ice creeping from the south.

“And four hundred miles due south is the South Polar Plateau. You have asked me at various times why it gets warmer here when the wind rises, and most of you know. As a meteorologist I’d have staked my word that no wind could blow at —70 degrees— that no more than a 5-mile wind could blow at —50— without causing warming due to friction with ground, snow and ice and the air itself.

“We camped there on the lip of that ice-drowned mountain range for twelve days. We dug our camp into the blue ice that formed the surface, and escaped most of it. But for twelve consecutive days the wind blew at 45 miles an hour. It went as high as 48, and fell to 41 at times. The temperature was —60 degrees. It rose to —60 and fell to —68. It was meteorologically impossible, and it went on uninterruptedly for twelve days and twelve nights.

“Somewhere to the south, the frozen air of the South Polar Plateau slides down from that 18,000 foot bowl, down a mountain pass, over a glacier, and starts north. There must be a funneling mountain chain that directs it, and sweeps it away for four hundred miles to hit that bald plateau where we found the secondary pole, and 350 miles farther north reaches the Antarctic Ocean.

“It’s been frozen there since Antarctica froze twenty million years ago. There has never been a thaw there.

“Twenty million years ago Antarctica was beginning to freeze. We’ve investigated, though and built speculations. What we believe happened was about like this.

“Something came down out of space, a ship. We saw it there in the blue ice, a thing like a submarine without a conning tower or directive vanes, 280 feet long and 45 feet in diameter at its thickest.

“Eh, Van Wall? Space? Yes, but I’ll explain that better later.” McReady’s steady voice went on.

“It came down from space, driven and lifted by forces men haven’t discovered yet, and somehow— perhaps something went wrong then—it tangled with Earth’s magnetic field. It cam south here, out of control probably, circling the magnetic pole. That’s a savage country there, but when Antarctica was still freezing it must have been a thousand times more savage. There must have been blizzard snow, as well as drift, new snow falling as the continent glaciated. The swirl there must have been particularly bad, the wind hurling a solid blanket of white over the lip of that now-buried mountain.

“The ship struck solid granite head-on and cracked up. Not every one of the passengers in it was killed, but the ship must have been ruined, her driving mechanism locked. It tangled with Earth’s field, Norris believes. No thing made by intelligent beings can tangle with the dead immensity of a planet’s natural forces and survive.

[Image description start: A black and white illustration of a tube-shaped black spaceship crashing through the air and striking the ground in a mountainous area. Image description end.]

“One of its passengers stepped out. The wind we saw there never fell below 41, and the temperature never rose about —60. Then— the wind must have been stronger. And there was drift falling in a solid sheet. The thing was lost completely in ten paces.” He paused for a moment, the deep, steady voice giving way to the drone of wind overhead, and the uneasy, malicious gurgling in the pipe of the galley-stove.

Drift—a drift wind was sweeping by overhead. Right now the snow picked up by the mumbling wind fled in level, blinding lines across the face of the buried camp. If a man stepped out of the tunnels that connected each of the camp building beneath the surface, he’d be lost in ten paces. Out there, the slim, black finger of the radio mast lifted 300 feet into the air, and at its peak was the clear night sky. A sky if thin, whining wind rushing steadily from beyond to another beyond under the licking, curling mantle of the aurora. And off north, the horizon flamed with queer, angry colors of the midnight twilight. That was spring 300 feet above Antarctica.

At the surface—it was white death. Death of a needle-fingered cold driven before the wind, sucking hear from any warm thing. Cold—and white mist of endless, everlasting drift, the fine, fine particles of licking snow that obscured all things.

Kinner, the little, scar-faced cook, winced. Five days ago he had stepped out to the surface to reach a cache of frozen beef. He had reached it, started back—and the drift-wind had leapt out of the south. Cold, white death that streamed across the ground blinded him in twenty seconds. He stumbled on wildly in circles. It was half an hour before rope-guided men from below found him in the impenetrable murk.

It was easy for man—or thing—to get lost in ten paces.

“And the drift-wind then was probably more impenetrable than we know.” McReady’s voice snapped Kinner’s mind back. Back to welcome, dank warmth of the Ad Building. “The passenger of the ship wasn’t prepared either, it appears. It froze within ten feet of the ship.

“We dug down to find the ship, and our tunnel happened to find the frozen—animal. Barclay’s ice-ax struck its skull.

“When we saw what it was, Barclay went back to the tractor, started the fire up and when the steam pressure built, sent a call for Blair and Dr. Copper. Barclay himself was sick then. Stayed sick for three days, as a matter of fact.

“When Blair and Copper came, we cut out the animal in a block of ice, as you see, wrapped it and loaded it on the tractor for return here. We wanted to get into that ship.

“We reached the side and found the metal was something we didn’t know. Our beryllium-bronze, non-magnetic tools wouldn’t touch it. Barclay had some tool-steel of the tractor, and that wouldn’t scratch it either. We made reasonable tests—even tried some acid from the batteries with no results.

“They must have had a passivating process to make magnesium metal resist acid that way, and the alloy must have been at least 95% magnesium. But we had no way of guessing that, so when we spotted the barely opened lock door, we cut around it. There was clear, hard ice inside the lock, where we couldn’t reach it. Through the little crack we could look in and see that only metal and tools were in there, so we decided to loosen the ice with a bomb.

“We had decanite bombs and thermite. Thermite is the ice-softener; decanite might have shattered valuable things, where the thermite’s heat would just loosen the ice. Dr. Copper, Norris and I placed at 25-pound thermite bomb, wired it, and took the connector up the tunnel to the surface, where Blair had the steam tractor waiting. A hundred yards the other side of that granite wall we set off the thermite bomb.

“The magnesium metal of the ship caught, of course. The glow of the bomb flared and died, then it began to flare again. We ran back to the tractor, and gradually the glare built up. From where we were we could see the whole ice-field illuminated from beneath with an unbearable light; the ship’s shadow was a great, dark cone reaching off towards the north, where the twilight was just about gone. For a moment it lasted, and we counted three other shadow-things that might have been other—passengers—frozen there. Then the ice was crashing down and against the ship.

“That’s why I told you about that place. The wind sweeping down from the Pole was at our backs. Steam and hydrogen flame were torn away in white ice-fog; the flaming heat under the Antarctic Ocean before it touched us. Otherwise we wouldn’t have come back, even with the shelter of that granite ridge that stopped the light.

“Somehow in the blinding inferno we could see great hunched things, black bulks lowing, even so. They shed even the furious incandescence of the magnesium for a time. Those must have been the engines, we knew. Secrets going in blazing glory—secrets that might have given Man the planets. Mysterious things that could lift and hurl that ship—and had soaked in the force of the Earth’s magnetic field. I saw Norris’ mouth move, and ducked. I couldn’t hear him.

“Insulation—something—gave way. All Earth’s field they’d soaked up twenty million years before broke loose. The aurora in the sky above licked down, and the whole plateau there was bathed in cold fire that blanketed vision. The ice-ac in my hand got red hot, and hissed on the ice. Metal buttons on my clothes burned into me. And a flash of electric blue seared upward from beyond the granite wall.

“The the walls of ice crashed down on it. For an instant it squealed the way dry-ice does when it’s pressed between metal.

“We were blind and groping in the dark for hours while our eyes recovered. We found every coil within a mile was fused rubbish, the dynamo and every radio set, the earphones and speakers. If we hadn’t had the steam tractor, we wouldn’t have gotten over to the Secondary Camp.

“Van Wall flew in from Big Magnet at sun-up, as you know. We came home as soon as possible. That is the history of—that.” McReady’s great bronze beard gestured toward the thing on the table.

II.

Blair stirred uneasily, his little, bony fingers wriggling under the harsh light. Little brown flecks on his knuckles slid back and forth as the tendons under the skin twitched. He pulled aside a bit of the tarpaulin and looked impatiently at the dark ice-bound thing inside.

McReady’s big body straightened somewhat. He’d ridden the rocking, jarring steam tractor forty miles that day, pushing on to Big Magnet here. Even his calm will had been pressed by the anxiety to mix again with humans. It was lone and quiet out there in Secondary Camp, where a wolf-wind howled down from the Pole. Wolf-wind howling in his sleep—winds droning and the evil, unspeakable face of that monster leering up as he’d first seen it through clear, blue ice, with a bronze ice-ax buried in its skull.

The giant meteorologist spoke again. “The problem is this. Blair wants to examine the thing. Thaw it out and make micro slides of its tissues and so forth. Norris doesn’t believe that is safe, and Blair does. Dr. Copper agrees pretty much with Blair. Norris is a physicist, of course, not a biologist. But he makes a point I think we should all hear. Blair has described the microscopic life-forms biologists find living, even in this cold and inhospitable place. They freeze every winter, and thaw every summer—three months—and live.

“The point Norris makes is—they thaw, and live again. There must have been microscopic life associated with this creature. There is with ever living thing we know. And Norris is afraid that we may release a plague—some germ disease unknown to Earth—if we thaw those microscopic things that have been frozen there for twenty million years.

“Blair admits that such micro life might retain the power of living. Such unorganized cells can retain life for unknown periods, when solidly frozen. The beast itself is as dead as those frozen mammoths they find in Siberia. Organized, highly developed life-forms can’t stand that treatment.

“But micro-life could. Norris suggests that we may release some disease-form that man, never having met it before, will be utterly defenseless against.

“Blair’s answer is that there may be such still-living germs, but that Norris has the case reversed. They are utterly non-immune to man. Our life-chemistry probably——”

“Probably!” The little biologist’s head lifted in a quick, birdlike motion. The halo of gray hair about his bald head ruffled as though angry. “Heh. On look——”

“I know,” McReady acknowledged. “The thing is not Earthly. It does not seem likely that it can have a life-chemistry sufficiently like ours to make cross-infection remotely possible. It would say there is no danger.”

McReady looked toward Dr. Copper. The physician shook his head slowly. “None whatever,” he asserted confidently. “Man cannot infect or be infected by germs that live in such comparatively close relatives as the snakes. And they are, I assume you,” his clean-shaven face grimaced uneasily, “much nearer to us than—that.”

Vance Norris moved angrily. He was comparatively short in this gathering of big men, some five-feet-eight, and his stocky, powerful build tended to make him seem shorter. His black hair was crisp and hard, like short, steel wires, and his eyes were the gray of fractured steel. If McReady was a man of bronze, Norris was all steel. His movements, his thoughts, his whole bearing had the quick, hard impulse of a steel spring. His nerves were steel—hard, quick-acting—swift corroding.

He was decided on his point now, and he lashed out in its defense with a characteristic quick, clipped flow of words. “Different chemistry be damned. That thing may be dead—or, by God, it may not—but I don’t like it. Damn it, Blair, let them see the monstrosity you are petting over there. Let them see the foul thing and decide for themselves whether they want that thing thawed out in this camp.

“Thawed out, by the way. That’s got to be thawed out in one of the shacks to-night, if it is thawed out. Somebody—who’s watchman to-night? Magnetic—oh, Connant. Cosmic rays to-night. Well, you get to sit up with that twenty-million-year-old mummy of his.

“Unwrap it, Blair. How the hell can they tell what they are buying if they can’t see it? It may have a different chemistry. I don’t care what else it has, but I know it has something I don’t want. If you can judge by the look on its face—it isn’t human so maybe you can’t—it was annoyed when it froze. Annoyed, in fact, is just about as close an approximation of the way it felt as crazy, mad, insane hatred. Neither one touches the subject.

“How the hell can these birds tell what they are voting on? They haven’t seen those three red eyes, and that blue hair like crawling worms. Crawling—damn it’s crawling there in the ice right now!

“Nothing Earth ever spawned had the unutterable sublimation of devastating wrath that thing let loose in its face when it looked around his frozen desolation twenty million years ago. Mad? It was mad clear through—searing, blistering mad!

“Hell, I’ve had bad dreams ever since I looked at those three red eyes. Nightmares. Dreaming the thing crawled out and came to life—that it wasn’t dead, or even wholly unconscious all those twenty million years, but just slowed, waiting—waiting. You’ll dream, too, while that damned thing that Earth wouldn’t own is dripping, dripping in the Cosmos House tonight.

“And, Connant,” Norris whipped toward the cosmic ray specialist. “won’t you have fun sitting up all night in the quiet. Wind whining above—and that thing dripping——” He stopped for a moment and looked around.

“I know. That’s not science. But this is, it’s psychology. You'll have nightmares for a year to come. Every night since I looked at that thing I’ve had ‘em. That’s why I hate it—sure I do—and don’t want it around. Put it back where it came from and let it freeze for another twenty million years. I had some swell nightmares—that it wasn’t made like we are—which is obvious—but of a different kind of flesh that it can really control. That it can change its shape, ad look like a man—and wait to kill and eat——

“That’s not a logical argument. I know it isn’t. The thing isn’t Earth-logic anyway.

“Maybe it has an alien body-chemistry, and maybe its bugs do have a different body chemistry. A germ might not stand that, but, Blair and Copper, how about a virus? That’s just an enzyme molecule, you’ve said. That wouldn’t need anything but a protein molecule of any body to work on.

“And how are you so sure that, of the million varieties of microscopic life it may have, none of them are dangerous. How about diseases like hydrophobia—rabies—that attacks any warm-blooded creature, whatever its body-chemistry may be? And parrot fever? Have you a body like a parrot, Blair? And plain rot—gangrene—necrosis if you want? That isn’t choose about body chemistry!”

Blair looked up from his puttering long enough to meet Norris’ angry, gray eyes for an instant. “So far the only thing you have said this thing gave off that was catching was dreams. I’ll go so far as to admit that.” An impish, slightly malignant grim crossed the little man’s seamed face. “I had some, too. So. It’s dream-infectuous. No doubt and exceedingly dangerous malady.

“So far as your other things go, you have a badly mistaken idea about viruses. In the first place, nobody has shown that the enzyme-molecule theory, and that alone, explains them. And in the second place, when you catch tobacco mosaic or wheat rust, let me know. A wheat plant is a lot nearer your body-chemistry than this other-world creature is.

“And your rabies is limited, strictly limited. You can’t get it from, not five it to, a wheat plant or a fish—which is a collateral descendant of a common ancestor of yours. Which this, Norris, is not.” Blair nodded pleasantly toward the tarpaulined bulk on the table.

“Well, thaw the damned thing in a tub of formalin if you must thaw it. I’ve suggested that——”

“And I’ve said there would be no sense in it. You can’t compromise. Why did you and Commander Garry come down here to study magnetism? Why weren’t you content to stay at home? There’s magnetic force enough in New York. I could no more study the life this thing once had from a formalin-pickled sample than you could get the information you wanted back in New York. And—if this one is so treated, never in all time to come can there be a duplicate! The race it came from must have passed away in the twenty million years it lay frozen, so that even if it came from Mars then, we’d never find its like. And—the ship is gone.

“There’s only one way to do this—and that is the best possible way. It must be thawed slowly, carefully, and not in formalin.”

Commander Gary stood forward again, and Norris stepped back muttering angrily. “I think Blair is right, gentlemen. What do you say?”

Connant grunted. “It sounds right to us, I think—only perhaps he ought to stand watch over it while it’s thawing.” He grinned ruefully, brushing a stray lock of ripe-cherry hair back from his forehead. “Swell idea, in fact—if he sits up with his jolly little corpse.”

Garry smiled slightly. A general chuckle of agreement rippled over the group. “I should think any ghost it may have had would have starved death if it hung around here that long, Connant,” Garry suggested. “And you look capable of taking care of it. ‘Ironman’ Connant ought to be able to take out any opposing players, still.”

Connant shook himself uneasily. “I’m not worrying about ghosts. Let’s see that thing. I——”

Eagerly Blair was stripping back the ropes. A single throw of the tarpaulin revealed the thing. The ice had melted somewhat in the heat of the room, and it was clear and blue as thick, good glass. It shone wet and sleek under the harsh light of the unshielded globe above.

The room stiffened abruptly. It was face up there on the plain, greasy planks of the table. The broken haft of the bronze ice-ax was still buried in the queer skull. Three mad, hate-filled eyes blazed up with a living fire, bright as fresh-spilled blood, from a face ringed with a writhing, loathsome nest of worms, blue, mobile worms that crawled where hair should grow—

[Image description start: Half a dozen men crowded around a block of ice on a table, with streams of meltwater running away. Inside the block of ice, just visible, is the body of an alien. It is has three eyes visible on a small, oval shaped face, with a squat body, and four tentacle-like limbs in place of arms or legs. A bright light bulb burns on the ceiling above. Image description end.]

Van Wall, six feet and 200 pounds of ice-nerved pilot, gave a queer, strangled gasp and butted, stumbled his way out to the corridor. Half the company broke for the doors. The other stumbled away from the table.

McReady stood at one end of the table watching them, his great body planted solid on his powerful legs. Norris from the opposite end glowered at the thing with smouldering hate. Outside the door, Garry was talking with half a dozen of the men at once.

Blair had a tack hammer. The ice that cased the thing schluffed crisply under its steel claw as it peeled from the thing it had cased for twenty thousand thousand years—

III.

“I know you don’t like the thing, Connant, but it just has to be thawed out right. You say leave it as it is till we get back to civilization. All right, I’ll admit your argument that we could do a better and more complete job there is sound. But—how are we going to get this across the Line? We have to take this through one temperate zone, the equatorial zone, and half way through the other temperate zone before we get it to New York. You don’t want to sit with it one night, but you suggest, then, that I hang its corpse in the freezer with the beef?” Blair looked up from his cautious chipping, his bald, freckled skull nodding triumphantly.

Kinner, the stocky, scar-faced cook, saved Connant the trouble of answering. “Hey, you listen, mister. You put that thing in the box with the meat, and by all the gods there ever were, I’ll put you in to keep it company. You birds have brought everything movable in this camp in onto my mess tables here already, and I had to stand for that. But you go putting things like that in my meat box, or even my meat cache here, and you cook your own damn grub.”

“But, Kinner, this is the only table in Big Magnet that’s big enough to work on,” Blair objected. “Everybody’s explained that.”

“Yeah, and everybody’s brought everything in here. Clark brings his dogs every time there’s a fight and sews them up on that table. Ralsen brings in his sledges. Hell, the only thing you haven’t had on that table is the Boeing. And you had ‘a’ had that in if you coulda figured out a way to get it through the tunnels.”

Commander Garry chuckled and grinned at Van Wall, the huge Chief Pilot. Van Walls’ great blond beard twitched suspiciously as he nodded gravely to Kinner. “You’re right, Kinner. The aviation department is the only one that treats you right.”

“It does get crowded, Kinner,” Garry acknowledged. “But I’m afraid we all find it that way at times. Not much privacy in an Antarctic camp.”

“Privacy? What the hell’s that? You know, the thing that really made me weep, was when I saw Barclay marchin’ through here chantin’ ‘the last lumber in the camp! The last lumber in the camp!’ and carrying it out to build that house on his tractor. Damn it, I missed that moon cut in the door he carried out more’n I missed the sun when it set. That wasn’t just the last lumber Barclay was walkin’ off with. He was carryin’ off the last bit of privacy in this blasted place.”

A grin rode even on Connant’s heavy face as Kinner’s perennial, good-natured grouch came up again. But it died away quickly as his dark, deep-set eyes turned again to the red-eyed thing Blair was chipping from its cocoon of ice. A big hand ruffled his shoulder-length hair, and tugged at a twisted lock that fell behind his ear in a familiar gesture. “I know that cosmic ray shack’s going to be too crowded if I have to sit up with that thing.” he growled. “Why can’t you go on chipping the ice away from around it—you can do that without anybody butting in, I assure you—and then hang the thing up over the power-plant boiler? That’s warm enough. It’ll thaw out a chicken, even a whole side of beef, in a few hours.”

“I know,” Blair protested, dropping the tack hammer to gesture more effectively with his boy, freckled fingers, his small body tense with eagerness, “but this is too important to take any chances. There never was a find like this; there never can be again. It’s the only chance men will ever have, and it has to be done exactly right.

“Look, you know how the fish we caught down near the Ross Sea would freeze almost as soon as we got them on deck, and come to life again if we thawed them gently? Low forms of life aren’t killed by quick freezing and slow thawing. We have——”

“Hey, for the love of Heaven—you mean that damned thing will come to life!” Connant yelled. “You get the damned thing—let me at it! That’s going to be in so many pieces——”

“No! No, you fool——” Blair jumped in front of Connant to protect his precious find. “No. Just low forms of life. For Pete’s sake let me finish. You can’t thaw higher forms of life and have them come to. Wait a moment now—hold it! A fish can come to after freezing because it’s so low a form of life that the individual cells of its body can revive, and that alone is enough to reëstablish life. Any higher forms thawed out that way are dead. Though the individual cells revive, they die because there must be organization and coöperative effort to live. That coöperative cannot be reëstablished There is a sort of potential life in any uninjured, quick-frozen animal. But it can’t—under any circumstances—become active life in higher animals. The higher animals are too complex, too delicate. This is an intelligent creature as high in its evolution as we are in ours. Perhaps higher. It is as dead as a frozen man would be.”

“How do you know?” demanded Connant, hefting the ice-ax he had seized a moment before.

Commander Garry laid a restraining hand on his heavy shoulder. “Wait a minute, Connant. I want to get this straight. I agree that there is going to be thawing of this thing if there is the remotest chance of its revival. I quite agree it is much too unpleasant to have alive, but I had no idea there was the remotest possibility.”

Dr. Copper pulled his pipe from between his teeth and heaved his stocky, dark body from the bunk he had been sitting in. “Blair’s being technical. That’s dead. As dead as the mammoths they find frozen in Siberia. Potential life is like atomic energy—there, but nobody can get it out, and it certainly won’t release itself except in rare cases, as rare as radium in the chemical analogy. We have all sorts of proof that things don’t live after being frozen—not even fish, generally speaking—and no proof that higher animal life can under any circumstances. What’s the point, Blair?”

The little biologist shook himself. The little ruff of hair standing out around his bald pate waved in righteous anger. “The point is,” he said in an injured tone, “that the individual cells might show the characteristics they had in life, if it is properly thawed. A man’s muscle cells live many hours after he has died. Just because they live, and a few things like hair and fingernail cells still live, you wouldn’t accuse a corpse of being a Zombie, or something.

Now if I thaw this right, I may have a chance to determine what sort of world it’s native to. We don’t, and can’t know by any other means, whether it came from Earth or Mars or Venus or from beyond the stars.

“And just because it looks unlike men, you don’t have to accuse it of being evil, or vicious or something. Maybe that expression on its face is its equivalent of a resignation to fate. White is the color of mourning to the Chinese. If men can have different customs, why can’t a so-different race have different understandings of facial expressions?”

Connant laughed softly, mirthlessly. “Peaceful resignation! If that is the best it could do in the way of resignation, I should exceedingly dislike seeing it when it was looking mad. That face was never designed to express peace. It just didn’t have any philosophical thoughts like peace in its make-up.

“I know it’s your pet—but be sane about it. That thing grew up on evil, adolesced slowly roasting alive the local equivalent of kittens, and amused itself through maturity on new and ingenious torture.”

“You haven’t the slightest right to say that,” snapped Blair. “How do you know the first thing about the meaning of a facial expression inherently inhuman? It may well have no human equivalent whatever. That is just a different development of Nature, another example of Nature’s wonderful adaptability. Growing on another, perhaps harsher world, it has different form and features. But it is just as much a legitimate child of Nature as you are. You are displaying that childish human weakness of hating the different. On its own world it would probably class you as a fish-belly, white monstrosity with an insufficient number of eyes and a fungoid body pale and bloated with gas.

“Just because its nature is different, you haven’t any right to say it’s necessarily evil.”

Norris burst out a single, explosive, “Haw!” He looked down at the thing. “May be that things from other worlds don’t have to be evil just because they’re different. But that thing was! Child of Nature, eh? Well, it was a hell of an evil Nature.”

“Aw, will you mugs cut crabbing at each other and get the damned thing off my table?” Kinner growled. “And put a canvas over it. It looks indecent.”

“Kinner’s gone modest,” jeered Connant.

Kinner slanted his eyes up to the big physicist. The scarred cheek twisted to join the line of his tight lips in a twisted grin. “All right, big boy, and what were you grousing about a minute ago? We can set the thing in a chair next to you tonight, if you want.”

“I’m not afraid of its face,” Connant snapped. “I don’t like keeping a wake over its corpse particularly, but I’m going to do it.”

Kinner’s grin spread. “Uh-hu.” He went off to the galley stove and shook down ashes, vigorously, drowning the brittle chipping of the ice as Blair fell to work again.

IV

“Cluck” reported the cosmic ray counter. “cluck-burrp-cluck.” Connant started and dropped his pencil.

“Damnation.” The physicist looked toward the far corner, back at the Gieger counter on the table near that corner, and crawled under the desk at which he had been working to retrieve the pencil. He sat down at his work again, trying to make his writing more even. It tended to have jerks and quavers in it, in time with the abrupt proud-hen noises of the Gieger counter. The muted whoosh of the pressure lamp he was using for illumination, the mingled gargles and bugle calls of a dozen men sleeping down the corridor in Paradise House formed the background sounds for the irregular, clucking noises of the counter, the occasional rustle of falling coal in the copper-bellied stove. And a soft, steady drip-drip-drip from the thing in the corner.

Connant jerked a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, snapped it so that a cigarette protruded, and jabbed the cylinder into his mouth. The lighter failed to function, and he pawed angrily through the pile of papers in search of a match. He scratched the wheel of the lighter several times, dropped it with a curse and got up to pluck a hot coal from the stove with the coal-tongs.

The lighter functioned instantly when he tried it on returning to the desk. The counter ripped out a series of chuckling guffaws as a burst of cosmic rays struck through to it. Connant turned to glower at it, and tried to concentrate on the interpretation of data collected during the past week. The weekly summary——

He gave up and yielded to curiosity, or nervousness. He lifted the pressure lamp from the desk and carried it over to the table in the corner. Then he returned to the stove and picked up the coal tongs. The beast had been thawing for nearly 18 hours now. He poked at it with an unconscious caution; the flesh was no longer hard as armor plate, but had assumed a rubbery texture. It looked like wet, blue rubber glistening under droplets of water like little round jewels in the glare of the gasoline pressure lantern. Connant felt an unreasoning desire to pour the contents of the lamp’s reservoir over the thing in its box and drop the cigarette into it. The three red eyes glared up at him sightlessly, the ruby eyeballs reflecting murky, smoky rays of light.

He realized vaguely that he had been looking at them for a very long time, even vaguely understood that they were no longer sightless. But it did not seem of importance, of no more importance than the labored, slow motion of the tentacular things that sprouted from the base of the scrawny, slowly pulsing neck.

Connant picked up the pressure lamp and returned to his chair. He sat down, staring at the pages of mathematics before him. The clucking of the counter was strangely less disturbing, the rustle of the coals in the stove no longer distracting.

The creak of the floorboards behind him didn’t interrupt his thoughts as he went about his weekly report in an automatic manner, filling in columns of data and making brief, summarizing notes.

The creak of the floorboards sounded nearer.

V

Blair came up from the nightmare-haunted depths of sleep abruptly. Connant’s face floated vaguely above him; for a moment it seemed a continuance of the wild horror of the dream. But Connant’s face was angry, and a little frightened. “Blair—Blair you damned log, wake up.”

“Uh—eh?” the little biologist rubbed his eyes, his bony, freckled fingers crooked to a mutilated child-fist. From surrounding bunks other faces lifted to stare down at them.

Connant straightened up. “Get up—and get a lift on. Your damned animal’s escaped.”

“Escaped—what!” Chief Pilot Van Wall’s bull voice roared out with a volume that shook the walls. Down the communication tunnels other voices yelled suddenly. The dozen inhabitants of Paradise House tumbled in abruptly, Barclay, stocky and bulbous in long woolen underwear, carrying a fire extinguisher.

“What the hell’s the matter?” Barclay demanded.

“Your damned beast got loose. I fell asleep about twenty minutes ago, and when I woke up, the thing was gone. Hey, Doc, the hell you say those things can’t come to life. Blair’s blasted potential life developed a hell of a lot of potential and walked out on us.”

Copper stared blankly. “It wasn’t—Earthly,” he sighed suddenly. “I—I guess Earthly laws don’t apply.”

“Well, it applied for leave of absence and took it. We’ve got to find it and capture it somehow,” Connant swore bitterly, his deep-set black eyes sullen and angry. “It’s a wonder the hellish creature didn’t eat me in my sleep.”

Blair started back, his pale eyes suddenly fear-struck. “Maybe it di—er—uh—we’ll have to find it.”

“You find it. It’s your pet. I’ve had all I want to do with it, sitting there for seven hours with the counter clucking every few seconds, and you birds in here singing night-music. It’s a wonder I got to sleep. I’m going through to the Ad Building.”

Commander Garry ducked through doorway, pulling his belt tight. “You won’t have to. Van’s roar sounded like the Boeing taking off down wind. So it wasn’t dead?”

“I didn’t carry if off in my arms, I assure you,” Connant snapped. “The last I saw, that split skull was oozing green goo, like a squashed caterpillar. Doc just said our laws don’t work—it’s unearthly. Well, it’s an unearthly monster, with an unearthly disposition, judging by the face, wandering around with a split skull and brains oozing out.”

Norris and McReady appeared in the doorway, a doorway filling with other shivering men. “Has anybody seen it coming over here?” Norris asked innocently. “About four feet tall—three red eyes—brains oozing out—— Hey, has anybody checked to make sure this isn’t a cracked idea of humor? If it is, I think we’ll unite in tying Blair’s pet around Connant’s neck like the Ancient Mariner’s albatross.”

“It’s no humor,” Connant shivered. “Lords, I wish it were. I’d rather wear——” He stopped. A wild, weird howl shrieked through the corridors. The men stiffened abruptly, and half turned.

“I think it’s been located.” Connant finished. His dark eyes shifted with a queer unease. He darted back to his bunk in Paradise House, to return almost immediately with a heavy .45 revolver and an ice-ax. He hefted both gently as he started for the corridor toward Dogtown. “It blundered down the wrong corridor—and landed among the huskies. Listen—the dogs have broken their chains——”

The half-terrorized howl of the dog pack had changed to a wild hunting mêlée. The voices of the dogs thundered in the narrow corridors, and through them came a low rippling snarl of distilled hate. A shrill of pain, a dozen snarling yelps.

Connant broke for the door. Close behind him, McReady, then Barclay and Commander Garry came. Other men broke for the Ad Building, and weapons—the sledge house. Pomroy, in charge of Big Magnet’s five cows, started down the corridor in the opposite direction—he had a six-foot-handled, long-tined pitchfork in mind.

Barclay slid to a half, as McReady’s giant bulk turned abruptly away from the tunnel leading to Dogtown, and vanished off at an angle. Uncertainly, the mechanician wavered a moment, the fire extinguisher in his hands, hesitating from one side to the other. Then he was racing after Connant’s broad back. Whatever McReady had in mind, he could be trusted to make it work.

Connant stopped at the bend in the corridor. His breath hissed suddenly through his throat. “Great God——” The revolver exploded thunderously; three numbing, palpable waves of sound crashed through the confined corridors. Two more. The revolver dropped to the hard-packed snow of the trail, and Barclay saw the ice-ax shift into defensive position. Connant’s powerful body blocked his vision, but beyond he heard something mewing, and insanely, chuckling. The dogs were quieter; there was a deadly seriousness in their low snarls. Taloned feet scratched at hard-packed snow, broken chains were clinking and tangling.

Connant shifted abruptly, and Barclay could see what lay beyond. For a second he stood frozen, then his breath went out in a gusty curse. The Thing launched itself at Connant, the powerful arms of the man swung the ice-ax flat-side first at what might have been a head. It scrunched horribly, and the tattered flesh, ripped by a half-dozen savage huskies, leapt to its feet again. The red eyes blazed with an unearthly hatred, an unearthly, unkillable vitality.

Barclay turned the fire extinguisher on it; the blinding, blistering stream of chemical spray confused it, baffled it, together with the savage attacks of the huskies, not for long afraid of anything that did, or could live, held it at bay.

McReady wedged men out of his way and drove down the narrow corridor packed with men unable to reach the scene. There was a sure fore-planned drive to McReady’s attack. One of the giant blow-torches used in warming the plane’s engines was in his bronzed hands. It roared gustily as he turned the corner and opened the valve. The mad mewling hissed louder. The dogs scrambled back from the three-foot lance of blue-hot flame.

Bar, get a power cable, run it in somehow. And a handle. We can electrocute this—monster, if I don’t incinerate it.” McReady spoke with an authority of planned action. Barclay turned down the long corridor to the power plant, but already before him Norris and Van Wall were racing down.

Barclay found the cable in the electrical cache in the tunnel wall. In a half minute he was hacking at it, walking back. Van Wall’s voice rang out in warning shout of “Power!” as the emergency gasoline-powered dynamo thudded into action. Half a dozen other men were down there now; the coal, kindling were going into the firebox of the steam power plant. Norris, cursing in a low, deadly monotone, was working with quick, sure fingers on the other end of Barclay’s cable, splicing in a contactor in one of the powered leads.

The dogs had fallen back when Barclay reached the corridor bend, falling back before a furious monstrosity that glared from baleful red eyes, mewing in trapped hatred. The dogs were a semicircle of red-dipped muzzles with a fringe of glistening white teeth, whining with a vicious eagerness that near matched the fury of the red eyes. McReady stood confidently alert at the corridor bend, the gustily muttering torch held loose and ready for action in his hands. He stepped aside without moving his eyes from the beast as Barclay came up. There was a slight, tight smile on his lean, bronzed face.

Norris’ voice called down the corridor, and Barclay stepped forward. The cable was taped to the long handle of a snow-shovel, the two conductors split, and held 18 inches apart by a scrap of lumber lashed at right angles across the far end of the handle. Bare copper conductors, charged with 230 volts, glinted in the light of pressure lamps. The Things mewed and hated and dodged. McReady advanced to Barclay’s side. The dogs beyond sensed the plan with the almost-telepathic intelligence of trained huskies. Their whining grew shriller, softer, their mincing steps carried them nearer. Abruptly, a huge, night-black Alaskan leapt onto the trapped thing. It turned squalling, saber-clawed feet lashing.

Barclay leapt forward and jabbed. A weird, shrill scream rose and choked out. The smell of burnt flesh in the corridor intensified; greasy smoke curled up. The echoing pound of the gas-electric dynamo down the corridor became a slogging thud.

The red eyes clouded over in a stiffening, jerking travesty of a face. Armlike, leglike members quivered and jerked. The dogs leapt forward, and Barclay yanked back his shovel-handled weapon. The thing on the snow did not move as gleaming teeth ripped it open.

VI.

Garry looked about the crowded room. Thirty-two men, some tensed nervously standing against the wall, some uneasily relaxed, some sitting, most perforce standing, as intimate as sardines. Thirty-two, plus the five engaged in sewing up wounded dogs, made thirty-seven, the total personnel.

Garry started speaking. “All right, I guess we’re here. Some of you—three or four at most—saw what happened. All of you have seen that thing on the table, and can get a general idea. Anyone hasn’t, I’ll lift——” His hand strayed to the tarpaulin bulking over the thing on the table. There was an acrid odor of singed flesh seeping out of it. The men stirred restlessly, hasty denials.

“It looks rather as though Charnauk isn’t going to lead any more teams,” Garry went on. “Blair wants to get at this thing, and make some more detailed examination. We want to know what happened, and make sure right now that this is permanently, totally dead. Right?”

Connant grinned. “Anybody that doesn’t can sit up with it to-night.”

“All right then, Blair, what can you say about it? What was it?” Garry turned to the little biologist.

“I wonder if we ever saw its natural form,” Blair looked at the covered mass. “It may have been imitating the beings that built that ship—but I don’t think it was. I think that was its true form. Those of us who were up near the bend saw the thing in action; the thing on the table is the result. When it got loose, apparently, it started looking around. Antarctica still frozen as it was ages ago when the creature first saw it—and frozen. From my observations while it was thawing out, and the bits of tissue I cut and hardened then, I think it was native to a hotter planet than Earth. It couldn’t, in its natural form, stand the temperature. There is no life-form on Earth that can live in Antarctica during the winter, but the best compromise is the dog. It found the dogs, and somehow got near enough to Charnauk to get him. The others smelled—heard it—I don’t know—anyway they went wild, and broke chains, and attacked it before it was finished. The thing we found was part Charnauk, queerly only half-dead, part Charnauk half-digested by the jellylike protoplasm of that creature, and part the remains of the thing we originally found, sort of melted down to the basic protoplasm.

“When the dogs attacked it, it turned into the best fighting thing it could think of. Some other-world beast apparently.”

“Turned,” snapped Garry. “How?”

“Every living thing is made up of jelly—protoplasm and minute, submicroscopic things called nuclei, which control the bulk, the protoplasm. This thing was just a modification of that same world-wide plan of Nature; cells made up of protoplasm, controlled y infinitely tinier nuclei. You physicists might compare it—an individual cell of any living thing—with an atom; the bulk of the atom, the space-filling part, is made up of the electron orbits, but the character of the thing is determined by the atomic nucleus.

“This isn’t wildly beyond what we already know. It’s just a modification we haven’t seen before. It’s as natural, as logical, as any other manifestation of life. It obeys exactly the same laws. The cells are made of protoplasm, their character determined by the nucleus.

“Only in this creature, the cell-nuclei can control those cells at will. It digested Charnauk, and as it digested, studied every cell of his tissue, and shaped its own cells to imitate them exactly. Parts of it—parts that had time to finish changing—are dog-cells. But they don’t have dog-cell nuclei.” Blair lifted a fraction of the tarpaulin. A torn dog’s leg, with stiff gray fur protruded. “That, for instance, isn’t dog at all; it’s imitation. Some parts I’m uncertain about; the nucleus was hiding itself, covering up with dog-cell imitation nucleus. In time, not even a microscope would have shown the difference.”

“Suppose,” asked Norris bitterly, “it has had lots of time?”

“Then it would have been a dog. The other dogs would have accepted it. We would have accepted it. I don’t think anything would have distinguished it, not microscope, nor X-ray, nor any other means. This is a member of a supremely intelligent race, a race that has learned the deepest secrets of biology, and turned them to its use.”

“What was it planning to do?” Barclay looked at the humped tarpaulin.

Blair grinned unpleasantly. The wavering halo of thin hair around his bald pate wavered in a stir of air. “Take over the world, I imagine.”

“Take over the world! Just it, all by itself?” Connant gasped. “Set itself up as a lone dictator?”

“No,” Blair shook his head. The scalpel he had been fumbling in his bony fingers dropped; he bent to pick it up, so that his face was hidden when he spoke. “It would become the population of the world.”

“Become—populate the world? Does it reproduce asexually?”

Blair shook his head and gulped. “It’s—it doesn’t have to. It weighed 85 pounds. Charnauk weighed about 90. It would have become Charnauk, and had 85 pounds left, to become—oh, Jack, for instance, or Chinook. It can imitate anything—that is, become anything. If it has reached the Antarctic Sea, it would have become a seal, maybe two seals. They might have attacked a killer whale, and become either killers, or a herd of seals. Or maybe it would have caught an albatross, or a skua gull, and flown to South America.”

Norris cursed softly. “And every time it digested something, and imitated it——”

“It would have had its original bulk left, to start again,” Blair finished. “Nothing would kill it. It has no natural enemies, because it becomes whatever it wants to. If a killer whale attacked it, it would have become a killer whale. If it was an albatross, and an eagle attacked it, it would become an eagle. Lord, it might become a female eagle. Go back—build a nest and lay eggs!”

“Are you sure that thing from hell is dead?” Dr. Copper asked softly.

“Yes, thank Heaven,” the little biologist gasped. “After they drove the dogs off, I stood there poking Bar’s electrocution thing into it for five minutes. It’s dead—and cooked.”

“Then we can only give thanks that this is Antarctica, where there is not one, single, solitary living thing for it to imitate except these animals in camp.”

“Us,” Blair giggled. “It can imitate us. Dogs can’t make 400 miles to the sea; there’s no food. There aren’t any skua gulls to imitate at this season. There aren’t any penguins this far in-land. There’s nothing that can reach the sea from this point—except us. We’ve got brains. We can do it. Don’t you see—it’s got to imitate us—it’s got to be one of us—that’s the only way it can fly an airplane—fly a plane for two hours, and rule—be—all Earth’s inhabitants. A world for the taking—if it imitates us!

“It didn’t know yet. It hadn’t had a chance to learn. It was rushed—hurried—took the thing nearest its own size. Look—I’m Pandora! I opened the box! And the only hope that can come out is—that nothing can come out. You didn’t see me. I did it. I fixed it. I smashed every magneto. Not a plane can fly. Nothing can fly.” Blair giggled and lay down on the floor crying.

Chief Pilot Van Wall made a dive for the door. His feet were fading echoes in the corridors as Dr. Copper bent unhurriedly over the little man on the floor. From his office at the end of the room be brought something, and injected a solution into Blair’s arm. “He might come out of it when he wakes up,” he sighed rising. “McReady helped him lift the biologist onto a near-by bunk. “It all depends on whether we can convince him that thing is dead.”

Van Wall ducked into the shack brushing his heavy blond beard absently. “I didn’t think a biologist would do a thing like that up thoroughly. He missed the spares in the second cache. It’s all right. I smashed them.”

Commander Garry nodded. “I was wondering about the radio.”

Dr. Copper snorted. “You don’t think it can leak out on a radio wave do you? You’d have five rescue attempts in the next three months if you stop the broadcasts. The thing to do is talk loud and not make a sound. Now I wonder——”

McReady looked speculatively at the doctor. “It might be like an infectious disease. Everything that drank any of its blood——”

Copper shook his head. “Blair missed something. Imitate it may, but it has, to a certain extent, its own body chemistry, its own metabolism. If it didn’t, it would become a dog—and be a dog and nothing more. It has to be an imitation dog. Therefore you can detect it by serum tests. And its chemistry, since it comes from another world, must be so wholly, radically different that a few cells, such as gained by drops of blood, would be treated as disease germs by the dog, or human body.”

“Blood—would one of those imitations bleed?” Norris demanded.

“Surely. Nothing mystic about blood. Muscle is about 90% water; blood differs only in having a couple per cent more water, and less connective tissue. They’d bleed all right,” Copper assured him.

Blair sat up in his bunk suddenly. “Connant—where’s Connant?”

The physicist moved over toward the little biologist. “Here I am. What do you want?”

“Are you?” giggled Blair. He lapsed back into the bunk contorted with silent laughter.

Connant looked at him blankly. “Huh? Am I what?”

“Are you there?” Blair burst into gales of laughter. “Are you Connant? The beast wanted to be a man—not a dog——”

VII.

Dr. Copper rose wearily from the bunk, and washed the hypodermic carefully. The little tinkles it made seemed loud in the packed room, now that Blair’s gurgling laughter had finally quieted. Copper looked toward Garry and shook his head slowly. “Hopeless, I’m afraid. I don’t think we can ever convince him the thing is dead now.”

Norris laughed uncertainly. “I’m not sure you can convince me. Oh, damn you, McReady.”

“McReady?” Commander Garry turned to look from Norris to McReady curiously.

“The nightmares,” Norris explained. “He had a theory about the nightmares we had at the Secondary Station after finding that thing.”

“And that was?” Garry looked at McReady levelly.

Norris answered for him, jerkily, uneasily. “That the creature wasn’t dead, had a sort of enormously slowed existence, an existence that permitted it, none the less, to be vaguely aware of the passing of time, of our coming, after endless years. It had a dream it could imitate things.”

“Well.” Copper grunted, “it can.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Norris snapped. “That’s not what’s bothering me. In the dream it could read minds, read thoughts and ideas and mannerisms.”

“What’s so bad about that? It seems to be worrying you more than the thought of the joy we’re going to have with a mad man in an Antarctic camp.” Copper nodded toward Blair’s sleeping form.

McReady shook his great head slowly. “You know that Connant is Connant, because he not merely looks like Connant—which we’re beginning to believe that beast might be able to do—but he thinks like Connant, talks like Connant, moves himself around as Connant does. That takes more than merely a body that looks like him; that takes Connant’s own mind, and thoughts and mannerisms. Therefore, though you know that the thing might make itself look like Connant, you aren’t much bothered, because you know it has a mind from another world, a totally unhuman mind, that couldn’t possibly react and think and talk like a man we know, and do it so well as to fool us for a moment. The idea of the creature imitating one of us is fascinating, but unreal because it is too completely unhuman to deceive us. It doesn’t have a human mind.”

“As I said before,” Norris repeated, looking steadily at McReady, “you can say the damnedest things at the damnedest times. Will you be so good as to finish that thought—one way or the other?”

Kinner, the scar-faced expedition cook, had been standing near Connant. Suddenly he moved down the length of the crowded room toward his familiar galley. He shook ashes from the galley stove noisily.

“It would do no good,” said Dr. Copper, softly as though thinking out loud, “to merely look like something it was trying to imitate; it would have to understand its feelings, its reactions. It is unhuman; it has powers of imitation beyond any conception of man. A good actor, by training himself, can imitate another man, another man’s mannerisms, well enough to fool most people. Of course no actor could imitate so perfectly as to deceive men who had been living with the imitated one in the complete lack of privacy of an Antarctic camp. That would take super-human skill.”

“Oh, you’ve got the bug too?” Norris cursed softly.

Connant, standing alone at one end of the room, looked about him wildly, his face white. A gentle eddying of the men had crowded them slowly down toward the other end of the room, so that he stood quite alone. “My God, will you two Jeremiahs shut up?” Connant’s voice shook. “What am I? Some kind of microscopic specimen you’re dissecting? Some unpleasant worm you’re discussing in the third person?”

McReady looked up at him; his slowly twisting hands stopped for a moment. “Having a lovely time. Wish you were here. Signed: Everybody.

“Connant, if you think you’re having a hell of a time, just move over on the other end for a while. You’ve got one thing we haven’t; you know what the answer is. I’ll tell you this, right now you’re the most feared and respected man in Big Magnet.”

“Lord, I wish you could see your eyes,” Connant gasped. “Stop staring, will you! What the hell are you going to do?”

“Have you any suggestions, Dr. Copper?” Commander Garry asked steadily. “The present situation is impossible.”

“Oh, is it?” Connant snapped. “Come over here and look at that crowd. By Heaven, they look exactly like that gang of huskies around the corridor bend. Benning, will you stop hefting that damned ice-ax?”

The coppery blade rang on the floor as the aviation mechanic nervously dropped it. He bent over and picked it up instantly, hefting it slowly, turning it in his hands, his brown eyes moving jerkily about the room.

Copper sat down on the bunk beside Blair. The wood creaked noisily in the room. Far down a corridor, a dog yelped in pain, and the dog-drivers’ tense voices floated softly back. “Microscopic examination,” said the doctor thoughtfully, “would be useless, as Blair pointed out. Considerable time has passed. However, serum tests would be definitive.”

“Serum tests? What do you mean exactly?” Commander Garry asked.

“If I had a rabbit that had been injected with human blood—a poison to rabbits, of course, as is the blood of any animal save that of another rabbit—and the injections continued in increasing doses for some time, the rabbit would be human-immune. If a small quantity of its blood were drawn off, allowed to separate in a test tube, and to the clear serum, a bit of human blood were added, there would be a visible reaction, proving the blood was human. If cow, or dog blood were added—or any protein material other than that one thing, human blood—no reaction would take place. That would prove definitely.”

“Can you suggest where I might catch a rabbit for you, Doc?” Norris asked. “That is, nearer than Australia; we don’t want to waste time going that far.”

“I know there aren’t any rabbits in Antarctica,” Copper nodded, “but that is simply the usual animal. Any animal except man will do. A dog for instance. But it will take several days, and due to the greater size of the animal, considerable blood. Two of us will have to contribute.”

“Would I do?” Garry asked.

“That will make two,” Copper nodded. “I’ll get to work on it right away.”

“What about Connant in the meantime,” Kinner demanded. “I’m going out that door and head off for the Ross Sea before I cook for him.”

“He may be human——” Copper started.

Connant burst out in a flood of curses. “Human! May be human, you damned saw-bones! What in the hell do you think I am?”

“A monster,” Copper snapped sharply. “Now shut up and listen.” Connant’s face drained of color and he sat down heavily as the indictment was put in words. “Until we know—you know as well as we do that we have reason the question the fact, and only you know how that question is to be answered—we may reasonably be expected to lock you up. If you are—unhuman—you’re a lot more dangerous than poor Blair there, and I’m going to see that he’s locked up thoroughly. I expect that his next stage will be a violent desire to kill you, all the dogs, and probably all of us. When he wakes, he will be convinced we’re all unhuman, and nothing on the planet will ever change his conviction. It would be kinder to let him die, but we can’t do that, of course. He’s going in one shack, and you can stay in Cosmos House with your cosmic ray apparatus. Which is about what you’d do anyway. I’ve got to fix up a couple of dogs.”

Connant nodded bitterly. “I’m human. Hurry that test. Your eyes—Lord, I wish you could see your eyes staring——”

Commander Garry watched anxiously as Clark, the dog-handler, held the big brown Alaskan husky, while Copper began the injection treatment. The dog was not anxious to coöperate; the needle was painful, and already he’d experienced considerable needle work that morning. Five stitches held closed a slash that ran from his shoulder across the ribs halfway down his body. One long fang was broken off short; the missing part was to be found buried in the shoulder bone of that monstrous thing on the table in the Ad Building.

“How long will that take?” Garry asked, pressing his arm gently. It was sore from the prick of the needle Dr. Copper had used to withdraw blood.

Copper shrugged. “I don’t know, to be frank. I know the general method, I’ve used it on rabbits. But I haven’t experimented with dogs. They’re big, clumsy animals to work with; naturally rabbits are preferable, and serve ordinarily. In civilized places you can by a stock of human-immune rabbits from suppliers, and not many investigators take the trouble to prepare their own.”

“What do they want with them back there?” Clark asked.

“Criminology is one large field. A says he didn’t murder B, but that the blood on his shirt came from killing a chicken. The State makes a test, then it’s up to A to explain how it is the blood reacts on human-immune rabbits, but not on chicken-immunes.”

“What are we going to do with Blair in the meantime?” Garry asked wearily. “It’s all right to let him sleep where he is for a while, but when he wakes up——”

“Barclay and Benning are fitting some bolts on the door of Cosmos House,” Copper replied grimly, “Connant acting like a gentleman. I think perhaps the way the other men look at him makes him rather want privacy. Lord knows, heretofore we’ve all of us individually prayed for a little privacy.”

Clark laughed bitterly. “Not any more, thank you. The more the merrier.”

“Blair,” Copper went on, “will also have to have privacy—and locks. He’s going to have a pretty definite plan in mind when he wakes up. Ever hear the old story of how to stop hoof-and-mouth disease in cattle?”

Clark and Garry shook their heads silently.

“If there isn’t any hoof-and-mouth disease, there won’t be any hoof-and-mouth disease,” Copper explained. “You get rid of it by killing every animal that exhibits it, and every animal that’s been near the diseased animal. Blair’s a biologist, and knows that story. He’s afraid of this thing we loosed. The answer is probably pretty clear in his mind now. Kill everybody and everything in this camp before a skua gull or a wandering albatross coming in with the spring chances out this way and—catches the disease.

Clark’s lip curled in a twisted grin. “Sounds logical to me. If things get too bad—maybe we’d better let Blair get loose. It would save us committing suicide. We might also make something of a vow that if things get bad, we see that that does happen.”

Copper laughed softly, “The last man alive in Big Magnet—wouldn’t be a man,” he pointed out. “Somebody’s got to kill those—creatures that don’t desire to kill themselves, you know. We don’t have enough thermite to do it all at once, and the decanite explosive wouldn’t help much. I have an idea that even small pieces of one of those beings would be self-sufficient.”

“If,” said Garry thoughtfully, “they can modify their protoplasm at will, won’t they simply modify themselves to birds and fly away? They can read all about birds, and imitate their structure without even meeting them. Or imitate, perhaps, birds of their home planet.”

Copper shook his head, and helped Clark to free the dog. “Man studied birds for centuries, trying to learn how to make a machine to fly like them. He never did do the trick; his final success came when he broke away entirely and tried new methods. Knowing the general idea, and knowing the detailed structure of wing and bone and nerve-tissue is something far, far different. And as for other-world birds, perhaps, in fact very probably, the atmospheric conditions here are so vastly different that their birds couldn’t fly. Perhaps, even, the being came from a planet like Mars with such a thin atmosphere that there were no birds.”

Barclay came into the building, trailing a length of airplane control cable. “It’s finished Doc. Cosmos House can’t be opened from the inside. Now where do we put Blair?”

Copper looked toward Garry. “There wasn’t any biology building. I don’t know where we can isolate him.”

“How about East Cache?” Garry said after a moment’s thought. “Will Blair be able to look after himself—or need attention?”

“He’ll be capable enough. We’ll be the ones to watch out,” Copper assured him grimly. “Take a stove, a couple of bags of coal, necessary supplies and a few tools to fix it up. Nobody’s been out there since last fall, have they?”

Garry shook his head. “If he gets noisy—I thought that might be a good idea.”

Barclay hefted the tools he was carrying and looked up at Garry. “If the muttering he’s doing now is any sign, he’s going to sing away the night hours. And we won’t like his song.”

“What’s he saying?” Copper asked.

Barclay shook his head. “I didn’t care to listen much. You can if you want to. But I gathered that the blasted idiot had all the dream McReady had, and a few more. He slept beside the thing when we stopped on the trail coming in from Secondary Magnetic, remember. He dreamt the thing was alive, and dreamt more details. And—damn his soul!—knew it wasn’t all dream, or had reason to. He knew it had telepathic powers that were stirring vaguely, and that it could not only read minds, but project thoughts. They weren’t dreams, you see. They were stray thoughts that thing was broadcasting, the way Blair’s broadcasting his thoughts now—a sort of telepathic muttering in its sleep. That’s why he knew so much about its powers. I guess you and I, Doc, weren’t so sensitive—if you want to believe in telepathy.”

“I have to.” Copper sighed. “Dr. Rhine of Duke University has shown that it exists, shown that some are much more sensitive than others.”

“Well, if you want to learn a lot of details, go listen in on Blair’s broadcast. He’s driven most of the boys out of the Ad Building; Kinner’s rattling pans like coal going down a chute. When he can’t rattle a pan, he shakes ashes.

“By the way, Commander, what are we going to do this spring, now the planes are out of it?��

Garry sighed. “I’m afraid our expedition is going to be a loss. We cannot divide our strength now.”

“It won’t be a loss—if we continue to live, and come out of this,” Copper promised him. “The find we’ve made, if we can get it under control, is important enough. The cosmic ray data, magnetic work, and atmospheric work won’t be greatly hindered.”

Garry laughed mirthlessly. “I was just thinking of the radio broadcasts. Telling half the world about the wonderful results of our exploration flights, trying to fool men like Byrd and Ellsworth back home there that we’re doing something.”

Copper nodded gravely. “They’ll know something’s wrong. But men like that have judgment enough to know we wouldn’t do tricks without some sort of reason, and will wait for our return to judge us. I think it comes to this: men who know enough to recognize our deception will wait for our return. Men who haven’t discretion and faith enough to wait will not have the experience to detect any fraud. We know enough of the conditions here to put through a good bluff.”

“Just so they don’t send ‘rescue’ expedition,” Garry prayed. “When—if—we’re ever ready to come out, we’ll have to send word to Captain Forsythe to bring a stock of magnetos with him when he comes down. But—never mind that.”

“You mean if we don’t come out?” asked Barclay. “I was wondering if a nice running account of an eruption or an earthquake via radio—with a swell windup by using a stick of decanite under the microphone—would help. Nothing, of course, will entirely keep people out. One of those swell, melodramatic ‘last-man-alive-scenes’ might make ‘em go easy though.”

Garry smiled with genuine humor. “Is everybody in camp trying to figure that out too?”

Copper laughed. “What do you think, Garry? We’re confident we can win out. But not to easy about it, I guess.”

Clark grinned up from the dog he was petting into calmness. “Confident, did you say, Doc?”

VIII.

Blair moved restlessly around the small shack. His eyes jerked and quivered in vague, fleeing glances at the four men with him; Barclay, six feet tall and weighing over 190 pounds; McReady, a bronze giant of a man; Dr. Copper, short, squatly powerful; and Benning, five-feet-ten of wiry strength.

Blair was huddled up against the far wall of the East Cache cabin, his gear piled in the middle of the floor beside the heating stove, forming an island between him and the four men. His body hands clenched and fluttered, terrified. His pale eyes wavered uneasily as his bald, freckled head darted about in bird-like motion.

“”I don’t want anybody coming here. I’ll cook my own food,” he snapped nervously. “Kinner may be human now, but I don’t believe it. I’m going to get out of here, but I’m not going to eat any food you send me. I want cans. Sealed cans.”

“O.K., Blair, we’ll bring ‘em tonight,” Barclay promised. “You’ve got coal, and the fire’s started. I’ll make a last——” Barclay started forward.

Blair instantly scurried to the farthest corner. “Get out! Keep away from me, you monster!” the little biologist shrieked, and tried to claw his way through the wall of the shack. “Keep away from me—keep away—I won’t be absorbed—I won’t be——”

Barclay relaxed and moved back. Dr. Copper shook his head. “Leave him alone, Bar. It’s easier for him to fix the thing himself. We’ll have to fix the door, I think——”

The four men let themselves out. Efficiently, Benning and Barclay fell to work. There were no locks in Antarctica; there wasn’t enough privacy to make them needed. But powerful screws had been driven in each side of the door frame, and the spare aviation control cable, immensely strong, woven steel wire, was rapidly caught between them and drawn taut. Barclay went to work with a drill and a key-hole saw. Presently he had a trap cut in the door through which goods could be passed without unlashing the entrance. Three powerful hinges from a stock-crate, two hasps ad a pair of three-inch cotter pins made it proof against opening from the other side.

Blair moved about restlessly inside. He was dragging something over to the door with panting gasps and muttering, frantic curses. Barclay opened the hatch and glanced in, Dr. Copper peering over his shoulder. Blair had moved the heavy bunk against the door. It could not be opened without his coöperation now.

“Don’t know what the poor man’s right at that,” McReady signed. “If he gets loose, it is his avowed intention to kill each and all of us as quickly as possible, which is something we don’t agree with. But we’ve something on our side of that door that is worse than a homicidal maniac. If one or the other has to get loose, I think I’ll come up and undo those lashings here.”

Barclay grinned. “You let me know, and I’ll show you how to get these off fast. Let’s go back.”

The sun was painting the northern horizon in multi-colored rainbows still, though it was two hours below the horizon. The field of drift snow swept off to the north, sparkling under its flaming colors in a million reflected glories. Low mounds of round white on the northern horizon showed the Magnet Range was barely awash above the sweeping drift. Little eddies of wind-lifted snow swirled away from their skis as they set out toward the main encampment two miles away. The spidery finger of the broadcast radiator lifted a gaunt black needle against the white of the Antarctic continent. The snow under their skis was like find sand, hard and gritty.

“Spring,” said Benning bitterly, “is came. Ain’t we got fun! And I’ve been looking forward to getting away from this blasted hole in the ice.”

“I wouldn’t try it now, if I were you.” Barclay grunted. “Guys that set out from here in the next few days are going to be marvelously unpopular.”

“How is your dog getting along, Dr. Copper?” McReady asked. “Any results yet?”

“In 30 hours? I wish there were. I gave him an injection of my blood today. But I imagine another five days will be needed. I don’t know certainly enough to stop sooner.”

“I’ve been wondering—if Connant were—changed, would he have warned us so soon after the animal escaped? Wouldn’t he have waited long enough for it to have a real chance to fix itself? Until we woke up naturally?” McReady asked slowly.

“The thing is selfish. You didn’t think it looked as though it were posessed of a store of the higher justices, did you?” Dr. Copper pointed out. Every part of it is all of it, every part of it is all for itself, I imagine. If Connant were changed, to save his skin, he’d have to—but Connant’s feelings aren’t changed; they’re imitated perfectly, or they’re his own. Naturally, the imitation, imitating perfectly Connant’s feelings, would do exactly what Connant would do.”

“Say, couldn’t Norris or Vane give Connant some kind of test? If the thing is brighter than men, it might know more physics than Connant should, and they’d catch it out,” Barclay suggested.

“Copper shook his head wearily. “Not if it reads minds. You can’t plan a trap for it. Vane suggested that last night. He hoped it would answer some of the questions of physics he’d like to know answers to.”

“This expedition-of-four idea is going to make life happy.” Benning looked at his companions. “Each of us with an eye on the others to make sure he doesn’t do something—peculiar. Man, aren’t we going to be a trusting bunch! Each man eyeing his neighbors with the grandest exhibition of faith and trust—— I’m beginning to know what Connant meant by ‘I wish you could see your eyes’. Every now and then we all have it, I guess. One of you looks around with a sort of ‘I-wonder-if the-other-three-are-look.’ Incidentally, I’m not exempting myself.”

“So far as we know, the animal is dead, with a slight question as to Connant. No other is suspected,” McReady stated slowly. “The ‘always-four’ order is merely a precautionary measure.”

“I’m waiting for Garry to make it four-in-a-bunk,” Barclay sighed. “I thought I didn’t have any privacy before, but since that order——”

———

None watched more tensely than Connant. A little sterile glass test-tube, half-filled with straw-colored fluid. One—two—three—four—five drops of the clear solution Dr. Copper had prepared from the drops of blood from Connant’s arm. The tube was shaken carefully, then set in a beaker of clear, warm water. The thermometer read blood heat, a little thermostat clicked noisily, and the electric hotplate began to glow as the lights flickered slightly.

[Image description start: Four men are gathered around and peering down at a test tube filled with dark and light substances, staring at it in suspense over a glowing opening in a metal tank. Image description end.]

Then—little white flecks of precipitation were forming, snowing down in the clear straw-colored fluid. “Lord,” said Connant. He dropped heavily into a bunk, crying like a baby. “Six days—” Connant sobbed, “six days in there—wondering if that damned test would lie——”

Garry moved over silently, and slipped his arm across the physicist’s back.

“It couldn’t lie,” Dr. Copper said. “The dog was human-immune—and the serum reacted.”

“He’s—all right?” Norris gasped. “Then—the animal is dead—dead for-ever?”

“He is human,” Copper spoke definitely, “and the animal is dead.”

Kinner burst out laughing, laughing hysterically. McReady turned toward him and slapped his face with a methodical one-two, one-two action. The cook laughed, gulped, cried a moment, and sat up rubbing his cheeks, mumbling his thanks vaguely. “I was scared. Lord, I was scared——”

Norris laughed brittley. “You think we weren’t, you ape? You think maybe Connnant wasn’t?”

The Ad Building stirred with a sudden rejuvenation. Voiced laughed, the men clustering around Connant spoke with unnecessarily loud voices, jittery, nervous voices relievedly friendly again. Somebody called out a suggestion, and a dozen started for their skis. Blair. Blair might recover—— Dr. Copper fussed with his test-tubes in nervous relief, trying solutions. The party of relief for Blair’s shack started out the door, skis slapping noisily. Down the corridor, the dogs set up a quick yelping howl as the air of excited relief reached them.

Dr. Copper fussed with his tubes. McReady noticed him first, sitting on the edge of the bunk, with two precipitin-whitened test-tubes of straw-colored fluid, his face whiter than the stuff in the tubes, silent tears slipping down from horror-widened eyes.

McReady felt a cold knife of fear pierce through his heart and freeze in his breast. Dr. Copper looked up. “Garry,” he called hoarsely. “Garry, for God’s sake, come here.”

Commander Garry walked toward him sharply. Silence clapped down on the Ad Building. Connant looked up, rose stiffly from his seat.

“Garry—tissue from the monster—precipitates too. It proves nothing. Nothing but—but the dog was monster-immune too. That one of the two contributing blood—one of us two, you and I, Garry—one of us is a monster.”

IX.

“Bar, call back those men before they tell Blair,” McReady said quietly. Barclay went to the door; faintly his shouts came back to the tensely silent men in the room. Then he was back.

“”They’re coming,” he said. “I didn’t tell them why. Just that Dr. Copper said not to go.”

“McReady,” Garry sighed, “you’re in command now. May God help you. I cannot.”

The bronzed giant nodded slowly, his deep eyes on Commander Garry.

“I may be the one,” Garry added. “I know I’m not, but I cannot prove it to you in any way. Dr. Copper’s test has broken down. The fact that he showed it was useless, when it was to the advantage of the monster to have that uselessness not known, would seem to prove he was human.”

Copper rocked back and forth slowly on the bunk. “I know I’m human. I can’t prove it either. One of us two is a liar, for that test cannot lie, and it says one of us is. I gave proof that the test was wrong, which seems to prove I’m human, and now Garry has given that argument which proves me human—which he, as the monster, should not do. Round and round and round and round and——”

Dr. Copper’s head, then his neck and shoulders began circling slowly in time to the words. Suddenly he was lying back on the bunk, roaring with laughter. “It doesn’t have to prove one of us is a monster! It doesn’t have to prove that at all! Ho-ho. If we’re all monsters it works the same! We’re all monsters—all of us—Connant and Garry and I—and all of you.”

“McReady,” Van Wall, the blond-bearded Chief Pilot, called softly, “you were on the way to an M. D. when you took up meteorology, weren’t you? Can you make some kind of test?”

McReady went over to Copper slowly, took the hypodermic from his hand, and washed it carefully in 95% alcohol. Garry sat on the bunk-edge with wooden face, watching Copper and McReady expressionlessly. “What Copper said is possible,” McReady sighed. “Van, will you help here? Thanks.” The needle jabbed into Copper’s thigh. The mans’ laughter did not stop, but slowly faded into sobs, then sound sleep as the morphia took hold.

McReady turned again. The men who had started for Blair stood at the far end of the room, skis dripping snow, their faces as white as their skis. Connant had a lighted cigarette in each hand; one he was puffing absently, and staring at the floor. The heat of the one in his left hand attracted him and he stared at it, and the one in the other hand stupidly for a moment. He dropped one and crushed it under his heel slowly.

“Dr. Copper,” McReady repeated, “could be right. I know I’m human—but of course can’t prove it. I’ll repeat the test for my own information. Any of yo other who wish to may do the same.”

Two minutes later, McReady held a test-tube with white precipitin settling slowly from straw-colored serum. “It reacts to human blood too, so they aren’t both monsters.”

“I didn’t think they were,” Van Wall sighed. “That wouldn’t suit the monster either; we could have destroyed them if we knew. Why hasn’t the monster destroyed us, do you suppose? It seems to be loose.”

McReady snorted. Then laughed softly. “Elementary, my dear Watson. The monster wants to have life forms available. It cannot animate a dead body, apparently. It is just waiting—waiting until the best opportunities come. We who remain human, it is holding in reserve.”

Kinner shuddered violently. “Hey. Hey, Mac. Mac, would I know f I was a monster? Would I know if the monster had already got me? Oh lord, I may be a monster already.”

“You’d know,” McReady answered.

“But we wouldn’t,” Norris laughed shortly, half-hysterically.

McReady looked at the vial of serum remaining. “There’s one thing this damned stuff is good for, at that,” he said thoughtfully. “Clark, will you and Van help me? The rest of the gang better stick together here. Keep an eye on each other,” he said bitterly. “See that you don’t get into mischief, shall we say?”

McReady started down the tunnel toward Dog Town, with Clark and Van Wall behind him. “You need more serum?” Clark asked.

McReady shook his head. “Tests. There’s four cows and a bull, and nearly seventy dogs down there. This stuff reacts only to human blood—and monsters.”

———

McReady came back to the Ad Building and went silently to the wash stand. Clark and Van Wall joined him a moment later. Clark’s lips had developed a tic, jerking into sudden, unexpected sneers.

“What did you do?” Connant exploded suddenly. “More immunizing?”

Clark snickered, and stopped with a hiccough. “Immunizing. Haw! Immune all right.”

“That monster,” said Van Wall steadily, “is quite logical. Our immune dog was quite all right, and we drew a little more serum for the tests. But we won’t make any more.”

“Can’t—can’t you use one man’s blood on another dog—” Norris began.

“There aren’t,” said McReady softly, “any more dogs. Nor cattle, I might add.”

“No more dogs?” Benning sat down slowly.

“They’re very nasty when they start changing,” Van Wall said precisely, “but slow. That electrocution iron you made up, Barclay, is very fast. There is only one dog left—our immune. The monster left that for us, so we could play with out little test. The rest——” he shrugged and dried his hands.

“The cattle——” gulped Kinner.

“Also. Reacted very nicely. They look funny as hell when they start melting. The beast hasn’t any quick escape, when it’s tied in dog chains, or halters, and it had to be to imitate.”

Kinner stood up slowly. His eyes darted round the room, and came to rest horribly quivering on a tin bucket in the galley. Slowly, step by step, he retreated toward the door, his mouth opening and closing silently, like a fish out of water.

“The milk——” he gasped. “I milked ‘em an hour ago——” His voice broke into a scream as he dived through the door. He was out on the ice cap without windproof or heavy clothing.

Van Wall looked after him for a moment thoughtfully. “He’s probably hopelessly mad,” he said at length, “but he might be a monster escaping. He hasn’t any skis. Take a blow-torch—in case.”

The physical motion of the chase helped them; something that needed doing. Three of the other men were quietly being sick. Norris was lying flat on his back, his face greenish, looking steadily at the bottom of the bunk above him.

“Mac, how long have the—cows been not-cows——”

McReady shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. He went over to the milk bucket, and with his little tube of serum went to work on it. The milk clouded it, making certainty difficult. Finally he dropped the test-tube in the stand and shook his head. “It tests negatively. Which means either they were cows then, or that, being perfect imitations, they gave perfectly good milk.”

Copper stirred restlessly in his sleep and gave a gurgling cross between a snore and a laugh. Silent eyes fastened on him. “Would morphia—a monster——” somebody started to ask.

“Lord knows.” McReady shrugged. “It affects every Earthly animal I know of.”

Connant suddenly raised his head. “Mac! The dogs must have swallowed pieces of the monster, and the pieces destroyed them! The dogs were where the monster resided! I was locked up. Doesn’t that prove——”

Van Wall shook his head. “Sorry. Proves nothing about what you are, only proves what you didn’t do.”

“It doesn’t do that,” McReady sighed. “We are helpless because we don’t know enough, and so jittery we don’t think straight. Locked up! Ever watch a white corpuscle of the blood go through the wall of a blood vessel? No? It sticks out a pseudopod. And there it is—on the far side of the wall.”

“Oh.” said Van Wall unhappily. “The cattle tried to melt down, didn’t they? They could have melted down—become just a thread of stuff and leaked under a door to re-collect on the other side. Ropes—no—no, that wouldn’t do it. They couldn’t live in a sealed tank or——”

“If,” said McReady, “you shoot it through the heart, and it doesn’t die, it’s a monster. That’s the best test I can think of, offhand.”

“No dogs,” said Garry quietly, “and no cattle. It has to imitate men now. And locking up doesn’t do any good. Your test might work, Mac, but I’m afraid it would be hard on the men.”

X.

Clark looked up from the galley stove as Van Wall, Barclay, McReady and Benning came in, brushing the drift from their clothes. The other men jammed into the Ad Building continued studiously to do as they were doing, playing chess, poker, reading. Ralsen was fixing a sledge on the table; Vane and Norris had their heads together over magnetic data, while Harvey read tables in a low voice.

Dr. Copper snored softly on the bunk. Garry was working with Dutton over a sheaf of radio messages on the corner of Dutton’s bunk and a small fraction of the radio table. Connant was using most of the table for Cosmic Ray sheets.

Quite plainly through the corridor, despite two closed doors, they could hear Kinner’s voice. Clark banged a kettle onto the galley stove and beckoned McReady silently. The meteorologist went over to him.

“I don’t mind the cooking so damn much,” Clark said nervously, “but isn’t there some way to stop that bird? We all agreed that it would be safe to move him into Cosmic House.”

“Kinner?” McReady nodded toward the door. “I’m afraid not. I can dope him, I suppose, but we don’t have an unlimited supply of morphia, and he’s not in danger of losing his mind. Just hysterical.”

“Well, we’re in danger of losing ours. You’ve been out for an hour and a half. That’s been going on steadily ever since, and it was going for two hours before. There’s a limit, you know.”

Garry wandered over slowly, apologetically. For an instant, McReady caught the feral spark of fear—horror—in Clark’s eyes, and knew at the same instant it was in his own. Garry—Garry or Copper—was certainly a monster.

“If you could stop that, I think it would be a sound policy, Mac,” Garry spoke quietly. “There are—tensions enough in this room. We agreed that it would be safe for Kinner in there, because every one else in camp is under constant eyeing.” Garry shivered slightly. “And try, try in God’s name, to find some test that will work.”

McReady sighed. “Watched or unwatched, everyone’s tense. Blair’s jammed the trap so it won’t open now. Says he’s got food enough, and keep screaming, ‘Go away, go away—you’re monsters. I won’t be absorbed. I won’t. I’ll tell men when they come. Go away.’ So—we went away.”

“There’s no other test?” Garry pleaded.

McReady shrugged his shoulders. “Copper was perfectly right. The serum test could be absolutely definitive if it hadn’t been—contaminated. But that’s the only dog left, and he’s fixed now.”

“Chemicals? Chemical tests?”

McReady shook his head. “Our chemistry isn’t that good. I tried to microscope you know.”

Garry nodded. “Monster-dog and real dog were identical. But—you’ve got to go on. What are we going to do after dinner?”

Van Wall joined them quietly. “Rotation sleeping. Half the crowd sleep; half awake. I wonder how many of us are monsters? All the dogs were. We thought we were safe, but somehow it got Copper—or you.” Van Wall’s eyes flashed uneasily. “It may have gotten every one of you—all of you but myself may be wondering, looking. No, that’s not possible. You’d just spring then. I’d be helpless. We humans must somehow have the greater numbers now. But——” he stopped.

McReady laughed shortly. “You’re doing what Norris complained of in me. Leaving it hanging. ‘But if one more is changed—that may shift the balance of power.’ It doesn’t fight. I don’t think it ever fights. It must be peaceable thing, in its own—imitable—way. It never had to, because it always gained its end—otherwise.”

Van Wall’s mouth twisted in a sickly grin. “You’re suggesting then, that perhaps it already has the greater numbers, but is just waiting—waiting, all of them—all of you, for all I know—waiting till I, the last human, drop my wariness in sleep. Mac, did you notice their eyes, all looking at us?”

Garry sighed. “You haven’t been sitting here for four straight hours, while all their eyes silently weighed the information that one of us two, Copper or I, is a monster certainly—perhaps both of us.”

Clark repeated his request. “Will you stop that bird’s noise? He’s driving me nuts. Make him tone down, anyway.”

“Still praying?” McReady asked.

“Still praying,” Clark groaned. “He hasn’t stopped for a second. I don’t mind his praying if it relieves him, but he yells, he sings psalms and hymns and shouts prayers. He thinks God can’t hear well way down here.”

“Maybe he can’t.” Barclay grunted. “Or he’d have done something about this thing loosed from hell.”

“Somebody’s going to try that test you mentioned if you don’t stop him,” Clark stated grimly. “I think a cleaver in the head would be as positive a test as a bullet in the heart.”

“Go ahead with the food. I’ll see what I can do. There may be something in the cabinets.” McReady moved wearily toward the corner Copper had used as his dispensary. Three tall cabinets of rough boards, two locked, were the repositories of the camp’s medical supplies. Twelve years ago McReady had graduated, had started for an interneship, and been diverted to meteorology. Copper was a picked man, a man who knew his profession thoroughly and modernly. More than half the drugs available were totally unfamiliar to McReady; many of the others he had forgotten. There was no huge medical library here, no series of journals available to learn the things he had forgotten, the elementary, simple things to Copper, things that did not merit inclusion in the small library he had been forced to content himself with. Books are heavy, and every ounce of supplies had been freighted in by air.

McReady picked a barbiturate hopefully. Barclay and Van Wall went with him. One man never went anywhere alone in Big Magnet.

Ralsen had his sledge put away, and the physicists had moved off the table, the poker game broken up when they got back. Clark was putting out the food. The click of spoons and the muffled sounds of eating were the only sign of life in the room. There were no words spoken as the three returned; simply all eyes focused on them questioningly, while the jaws moved methodically.

McReady stiffened suddenly. Kinner was screeching out a hymn in a hoarse, cracked voice. He looked wearily at Va Wall with a twisted grin and shook his head. “Hu-uh.”

Van Wall cursed bitterly, and sat down at the table. “We’ll just plumb have to take that till his voice wears out. He can’t yell like that forever.”

“He’s got a brass throat and a cast-iron larynx,” Norris declared savagely. “Then we could be hopeful, and suggest he’s one of our friends. In that case he could go on renewing his throat till doomsday.”

Silence clamped down. For twenty minutes they ate without a word. Then Connant jumped up with an angry violence. “You sit as still as a bunch of grave images. You don’t say a word, but oh, Lord, what expressive eyes you’ve got. They roll around like a bunch of glass marbles spilling down the table. They wink and blink and stare—and whisper things. Can you guys look somewhere else for a change, please?

“Listen, Mac, you’re in charge here. Let’s run movies for the rest of the night. We’ve been saving those reels to make ‘em last. Last for what? Who is it’s going to see those last reels, eh? Let’s see ‘em while we can, and look at something other than each other.”

“Sound idea, Connant. I, for one, am quite willing to change this in any way I can.”

“Turn the sound up loud, Dutton. Maybe you can drown out the hymns,” Clark suggested.

“But don’t,” Norris said softly, “don’t turn off the lights altogether.”

“The lights will be out.” McReady shook his head. “We’ll show all the cartoon movies we have. You won’t mind seeing the old cartoons will you?”

“Goody, goody,—a moom pitcher show. I’m just in the mood.” McReady turned to look at the speaker, a lean, lanky New Englander, by the name of Caldwell. Caldwell was stuffing his pipe slowly, a sour eye cocked up to McReady.

The bronze giant was forced to laugh. “O. K., Bart, you win. Maybe we aren’t quite in the mood for Popeye and trick ducks, but it’s something.”

“Let’s play Classifications,” Caldwell suggested slowly. “Or maybe you call it Guggenheim. You draw lines on a piece of paper, and put down classes of things—like animals, you know. One for ‘H’ and one for ‘U’ and so on. Like ‘Human’ and ‘unknown’ for instance. I think that would be a hell of a lot better game. Classification, I sort of figure, is what we need right now a lot more than movies. Maybe somebody’s got a pencil that he can draw lines with, draw lines between the ‘U’ animals and the ‘H’ animals for instance.”

“McReady’s trying to find that kind of a pencil,” Van Wall answered quietly, “but we’ve got three kinds of animals here, you know. One that begins with ‘M’. We don’t want any more.”

“Mad ones, you mean. Uh-hu. Clark, I’ll help you with those pots so we can get our little peep-show going.” Caldwell got up slowly.

———

Dutton and Barclay and Benning, in charge of the projector and sound mechanism arrangements, went about their job silently, while the Ad Building was cleared and the dishes and pans disposed of. McReady drifted over toward Van Wall slowly, and leaned back in the bunk beside him. “I’ve been wondering, Van,” he said with a wry grin, “whether or not to report my ideas in advance. I forgot the ‘U animals’ as Caldwell named it, could read minds. I’ve a vague idea of something that might work. It’s too vague to bother with though. Go ahead with your show, while I try to figure out the logic of the thing. I’ll take this bunk.”

Van Wall glanced up, and nodded. The movie screen would be practically on a line with this bunk, hence making the pictures least distracting here, because lease intelligible. “Perhaps you should tell us what you have in mind. As it is, only the unknowns know what you plan. You might be—unknown before you got it into operation.”

“Won’t take long, if I get it figured out right. But I don’t want any more all-but-the-test-dog-monsters things. We better move Copper into this bunk directly above me. He won’t be watching the screen either.” McReady nodded towards Copper’s gently snoring bulk. Garry helped them lift and move the doctor.

McReady leaned back against the bunk, and sank into a trance, almost, of concentration, trying to calculate chances, operations, methods. He was scarcely aware as the others distributed themselves silently, and the screen lit up. Vaguely Kinner’s hectic, shouted prayers and his rasping hymn-singing annoyed him till the sound accompaniment started. The lights were turned out, but the large, light-colored areas of the screen reflected enough light for ready visibility. It made men’s eyes sparkle as they moved restlessly. Kinner was still praying, shouting, his voice a raucous accompaniment to the mechanical sound. Dutton stepped up the amplification.

So long had the voice been going on, that only vaguely at first was McReady aware that something seemed missing. Lying as he was, just across the narrow room from the corridor leading to Cosmos House, Kinner’s voice had reached him fairly clearly, despite the sound accompaniment of the pictures. It struck him abruptly that it had stopped.

“Dutton, cut that sound,” McReady called as he sat up abruptly. The pictures flickered a moment, soundless and strangely futile in the sudden, deep silence. The rising wind on the surface above bubbled melancholy tears of sound down the stove pipes. “Kinner’s stopped,” McReady said softly.

“For God’s sake start that sound then; he may have stopped to listen,” Norris snapped.

McReady rose and went down the corridor. Barclay and Van Wall left their places at the far end of the room to follow him. The flickers bulged and twisted on the back of Barclay’s gray underwear as he crossed the still-functioning beam of the projector. Dutton snapped on the lights, and the pictures vanished.

Norris stood at the door as McReady had asked. Garry sat down quietly in the bunk nearest the door, forcing Clark to make room for him. Most of the other had stayed exactly where they were. Only Connant walked slowly up and down the room, in steady, unvarying rhythm.

“If you’re going to do that, Connant,” Clark spat, “we can get along without you altogether, whether you’re human or not. Will you stop that damned rhythm?”

“Sorry.” The physicist sat down in a bunk, and watched his toes thoughtfully. It was almost five minutes, five ages while the wind made the only sound, before McReady appeared at the door.

“We,” he announced, “haven’t got enough grief here already. Somebody’s tried to help us out. Kinner has a knife in his throat, which was why he stopped singing, probably. We’ve got monsters, madmen and murderers. Any more ‘M’s’ you can think of, Caldwell? If there are, we’ll probably have ‘em before long.”

XI.

“Is Blair loose?” someone asked.

“Blair is not loose. Or he flew in. If there’s any doubt about where our gentle helper came from—this may clear it up.” Van Wall held a foot-long, thin-bladed knife in a cloth. The wooden handle was half-burnt, charred with the peculiar pattern of the top of the galley stove.

Clark stared at it. “I did that this afternoon. I forgot the damn thing and left it on the stove.”

Van Wall nodded. “I smelled it, if you remember. I knew the knife came from the galley.”

“I wonder,” said Benning looking around at the party wearily, “how many more monsters we have? If somebody could slip out of his place, go back of the screen to the galley and then down to the Cosmos House and back—he did come back didn’t he? Yes—everybody’s here. Well, if one of the gang could do all that——”

“Maybe a monster did it,” Garry suggested quietly. “There’s that possibility.”

“The monster, as you pointed out today, has only men left to imitate. Would he decrease his—supply, shall we say?” Van Wall pointed out. “No, we just have a plain, ordinary louse, a murderer to deal with. Ordinarily we’d call him an ‘inhuman murderer’ I suppose, but we have to distinguish now. We have inhuman murderers, and now we have human murderers. Or one at least.”

“There’s one less human,” Norris said softly. “Maybe the monsters have the balance of power now.”

“Never mind that,” McReady sighed and turned to Barclay. “Bar, will you get your electric gadget? I’m going to make certain——”

Barclay turned down the corridor to get the pronged electrocuter, while McReady and Van Wall went back toward Cosmos House. Barclay followed them in some thirty seconds.

The corridor to Cosmos House twisted, as did nearly all corridors in Big Magnet, and Norris stood at the entrance again. But they heard, rather muffled, McReady’s sudden shout. There was a savage flurry of blows, dull ch-thunk shluff sounds. “Bar—Bar——” And a curious, savage mewing scream, silenced before even quick-moving Norris had reached the bend.

Kinner—or what had been Kinner—lay on the floor, cut in two by the great knife McReady had had. The meteorologist stood against the wall, the knife dripping red in his hand. Van Wall was stirring vaguely on the floor, moaning, his hand half-consciously rubbing at his jaw. Barclay, an unutterably savage gleam in his eyes, was methodically leaning on the pronged weapon in his hand, jabbing—jabbing, jabbing.

Kinner’s arms had developed a queer, scaly fur, and the flesh had twisted. The fingers had shortened, the hand rounded, the finger nails become three-inch long things of dull red horn, keened to steel-hard, razor sharp talons.

McReady raised his head, looked at the knife in his hand and dropped it. “Well, whoever did it can speak up now. He was an inhuman murderer at that—in that he murdered an inhuman. I swear by all that’s holy, Kinner was a lifeless corpse on the floor here when we arrived. But when It found out we were going to jab it with the power—It changed.”

Norris stared unsteadily. “Oh, Lord, those things can act. Ye gods—sitting in here for yours, mouthing prayers to a God it hated! Shouting hymns in a cracked voice—hymns about a Church it never knew. Driving us mad with its ceaseless howling——

“Well. Speak up, whoever did it. You didn’t know it, but you did the camp a favor. And I want to know how in blazes you got out of that room without anyone seeing you. It might help in guarding ourselves.”

“His screaming—his singing. Even the sound projector couldn’t drown it.” Clark shivered. “It was a monster.”

“Oh,” said Van Wall in sudden comprehension. “You were sitting right next to the door, weren’t you? And almost behind the projection screen already.”

Clark nodded dumbly. “He—it’s quiet now. It’s a dead—Mac, your test’s no damn good. It was dead anyway, monster or man, it was dead.”

McReady chuckled softly. “Boys, meet Clark, the only one we know is human! Meet Clark, the one who proves he’s human by trying to commit murder—and failing. Will the rest of you please refrain from trying to prove you’re human for a while? I think we may have another test.”

“A test!” Connant snapped joyfully, then his face sagged in disappointment. “I suppose it’s another either-way-you-want-it.”

“No,” said McReady steadily. “Look sharp and be careful. Come into the Ad Building. Barclay, bring your electrocuter. And somebody—Dutton—stand with Barclay to make sure he does it. Watch every neighbor, for by the Hell these monsters came from, I’ve got something, and they know it. They’re going to get dangerous!”

The group tensed abruptly. An air of crushing menace entered into every man’s body, sharply they looked at each other. More keenly than ever before—is that man next to me an inhuman monster?

“What is it?” Garry asked, as they stood again in the main room. “How long will it take?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” said McReady, his voice brittle with angry determination. “But I know it will work, and no two ways about it. It depends on a basic quality of the monsters, not on us. ‘Kinner’ just convinced me.” He stood heavy and solid in bronzed immobility, completely sure of himself again at last.

“This,” said Barclay hefting the wooden-handled weapon, tipped with its two sharp-pointed, charged conductors, “is going to be rather necessary, I take it. Is the power plant assured?”

Dutton nodded sharply. “The automatic stoker bin is full. The gas power plant is on stand-by. Van Wall and I set it for the move operation and—we’ve checked it out rather carefully several times, you know. Anything those wires touch, dies,” he assured them grimly. “I know that.”

Dr. Copper stirred vaguely in his bunk, rubbed his eyes with fumbling hand. He sat up slowly, blinked his eyes blurred with sleep and drugs, widened with an unutterable horror of drug-ridden nightmares. “Garry,” he mumbled. “Garry—listen. Selfish—from hell they came, and hellish shellfish—I mean self—— Do I? What do I mean?” he sank back in his bunk, and snored softly.

McReady looked at him thoughtfully. “We’ll know presently,” he nodded slowly. “But selfish is what you mean, all right. You may have thought of that, half-sleeping, dreaming there. I didn’t stop to think what dreams you might be having. But that’s all right. Selfish is the word. They must be, you see.” He turned to the men in the cabin, tense, silent men staring with wolfish eyes each at his neighbor. “Selfish, as Dr. Copper said—every part is a whole. Every piece is self-sufficient, an animal in itself.

“That, and one other thing, tell the story. There’s nothing mysterious about blood; it’s just as normal a body tissue as a piece of muscle, or a piece of liver. But it hasn’t so much connective tissue, though it has millions, billions of life-cells.”

McReady’s great bronze beard ruffled in a grim smile. “That is satisfying, in a way. I’m pretty sure we humans still outnumber you—others. Others standing here. Other standing here. And we have what you, your other-world race, evidently doesn’t. Not an imitated, but a bred-in-the-bone instinct, a driving unquenchable fire that’s genuine. We’ll fight, fight with a ferocity you may attempt to imitate, but you’ll never equal! We’re human. We’re real. You’re imitations, false to the core of your every cell.

“All right. It’s a showdown now. You know. You, with your mind reading. You’ve lifted the idea from my brain. You can’t do a thing about it.

“Standing here——

“Let it pass. Blood is tissue. They have to bleed, if they don’t bleed when cut, then by Heaven, they’re phony! Phony from hell! If they bleed—then that blood, separated from them, is an individual—a newly formed individual in its own right, just as they, split, all of them, from one original, are individuals!

“Get it, Van? See the answer, Bar?”

Van Wall laughed very softly. “The blood—the blood will not obey. It’s a new individual, with all the desire to protect its own life that the original—the main mass from which it was split—has. The blood will live—and try to crawl away from a hot needle, say!”

McReady picked up the scalpel from the table. From the cabinet, he took a rack of test-tubes, a tiny alcohol lamp, and a length of platinum wire set in a little glass rod. A smile of grim satisfaction rode his lips. For a moment he glanced up at those around him. Barclay and Dutton moved toward him slowly, the wooden-handled electric instrument alert.

“Dutton,” said McReady, “suppose you stand over by the splice there where you’ve connected that in. Just make sure no—thing pulls it loose.”

Dutton moved away. “Now, Van, suppose you be first on this.”

White-faced, Van Wall stepped forward. With a delicate precision, McReady cut a vein in the base of his thumb. Van Wall winced slightly, then held steady as a half inch of bright blood collected in the tube. McReady put the tube in the rack, gave Van Wall a bit of alum, and indicated the iodine bottle.

Van Wall stood motionlessly watching. McReady heated the platinum wire in the alcohol lamp flame, then dripped it into the tube. It hissed softly. Five times he repeated the test. “Human, I’d say.” McReady sighed, and straightened. “As yet, my theory hasn’t been actually proven—but I have hopes. I have hopes.

“Don’t, by the way, get too interested in this. We have with us some unwelcome ones, no doubt. Van, will you relieve Barclay at the switch? Thanks. O.K., Barclay, and may I say I hope you stay with us? You’re a damned good guy.”

Barclay grinned uncertainly; winced under the keen edge of the scalpel. Presently, smiling widely, he retrieved his long-handled weapon.

“Mr. Samuel Dutt—Bar!’

———

The tensity was released in that second. Whatever of hell the monster may have had within them, the men in that instant matched it. Barclay had no chance to move his weapon as a score of men poured down on the thing that had seemed Dutton. It mewed, and spat, and tried to grow fangs—and was a hundred broken, torn pieces. Without knives, or any weapon save the brute-given strength of a staff of picked men, the thing was crushed, rent.

Slowly they picked themselves up, their eyes smouldering, very quiet in their motions. A curious wrinkling of their lips betrayed a species of nervousness.

Barclay went over with the electric weapon. Things smouldered and stank. The caustic acid Van Wall dropped on each spilled drop of blood gave off tickling, cough-provoking fumes.

McReady grinned, his deep-set eyes alight and dancing. “Maybe,” he said softly, “I underrated man’s abilities when I said nothing human could have the ferocity in the eyes of that thing we found. I wish we could have the opportunity to treat in a more befitting manner these things. Something with boiling oil, or melted lead in it, or maybe slow roasting in the power boiler. When I think what a man Dutton was——

“Never mind. My theory is confirmed by—by one who knew? Well, Van Wall and Barclay are proven. I think, then, that I’ll try to show you what I already know. That I too, am human.” McReady swished the scalpel in absolute alcohol, burned it off the metal blade, and cut the base of his thumb expertly.

Twenty seconds later he looked up from the desk at the waiting men. There were more gins out there now, friendly grins, yet withal, something else in the eyes.

“Connant,” McReady laughed softly, “was right. The huskies watching that thing in the corridor bend had nothing on you. Wonder why we think only the wolf blood has the right to ferocity? Maybe on spontaneous viciousness a wolf takes tops, but after these seven days—abandon all hope, ye wolves who enter here!

“Maybe we can save time. Connant, would you step for——”

Again Barclay was too slow. There were more grins, less tensity still, when Barclay and Van Wall finished their work.

Garry spoke in a low, bitter voice. “Connant was one of the finest men we had here—and five minutes ago I’d have sworn he was a man. Those damnable things are more than imitation.” Garry shuddered and sat back in his bunk.

And thirty seconds later, Garry’s blood shrank from the hot platinum wire, and struggled to escape the tube, struggled as frantically as a suddenly feral, red-eyed, dissolving imitation of Garry struggled to dodge the snake-tongue weapon Barclay advanced at him, white-faced and sweating. The Thing in the test-tube screamed with a tiny, tinny voice as McReady dropped it into the glowing coal of the galley stove.

XII.

“The last of it?” Dr. Copper looked down from his bunk with blood-shot, saddened eyes. “Fourteen of them——”

McReady nodded shortly. “In some ways—if we could have permanently prevented their spreading—I’d like to have even the imitations back. Commander Garry—Connant—Dutton—Clark——”

“Where are they taking those things?” Copper nodded to the stretcher Barclay and Norris were carrying out.

“Outside. Outside on the ice, where they’ve got fifteen smashed crates, half a ton of coal, and presently will add 10 gallons of kerosene. We’ve dumped acid on every spilled drop, every torn fragment. We’re going to incinerate those.”

“Sounds like a good plan.” Copper nodded wearily. “I wonder, you haven’t said whether Blair——”

McReady started. “We forgot him! We had so much else! I wonder—do you suppose we can cure him now?”

“If——” began Dr. Copper, and stopped meaningly.

McReady started a second time. “Even a madman. It imitated Kinner and his praying hysteria——” McReady turned toward Van Wall at the long table. “Van, we’ve got to make an expedition to Blair’s shack.”

Van looked up sharply, the frown of worry faded for an instant in surprised remembrance. Then he rose, nodded. “Barclay better go along. He applied the lashings, and may figure out how to get in without frightening Blair too much.”

Three quarters of an hour, through —37°cold, while the Aurora curtain bellied overhead. The twilight was nearly 12 hours long, flaming in the north on snow like white, crystalline sand under their skis. A 5-mile wind piled it in drift-lines pointing off to the northwest. Three quarters of an hour to reach the snow-buried shack. No smoke came from the little shack, and the men hastened.

“Blair!” Barclay roared into the wind when he was still a hundred yards away. “Blair!”

“Shut up,” said McReady softly. “And hurry. He may be trying a lone hike. If we have to go after him—no planes, the tractors disabled——”

“Would a monster have the stamina a man has?”

“A broken leg wouldn’t stop it for more than a minute,” McReady pointed out.

Barclay gasped suddenly and pointed aloft. Dim in the twilit sky, a winged thing circled in curves of indescribable grace and ease. Great white wings tipped gently, and the bird swept over them in silent curiosity. “Albatross——” Barclay said softly. “First of the season, and wandering way inland for some reason. If a monster’s loose——”

Norris bent down on the ice, and tore hurriedly at his heavy, windproof clothing. He straightened, his coat flapping open, a grim blue-metaled weapon in his hand. It roared a challenge to the white silence of Antarctica.

The thing in the air screamed hoarsely. Its great wings worked frantically as a dozen feathers floated down from its tail. Norris fired again. The bird was moving swiftly now, but in an almost straight line of retreat. It screamed again, more feathers dropped and with beating wings it soared behind a ridge of pressure ice, to vanish.

Norris hurried after the others. “It won’t comeback,” he panted.

Barclay cautioned him to silence, pointing. A curiously, fiercely blue light beat out from the cracks of the shack’s door. A very low, soft humming sounded inside, a low, soft humming and a clink and click of tools, the very sounds somehow bearing a message of frantic haste.

McReady’s face paled. “Lord help us if that thing has——” He grabbed Barclay’s shoulder, and made snipping motions with his fingers, pointing toward the lacing of control cables that held the door.

Barclay drew the wire-cutters from his pocket, and kneeled soundlessly at the door. The snap and twang of cut wires made an unbearable racket in the utter quiet of the Antarctic hush. There was only that strange, sweetly soft hum from within the shack, and the queerly, hecticly clipped clicking and rattling of tools to drown their noises.

McReady peered through a crack in the door. His breath sucked in huskily and his great fingers clamped cruelly on Barclay’s shoulder. The meteorologist backed down. “It isn’t,” he explained very softly, “Blair. It’s kneeling on something on the bunk—something that keeps lifting. Whatever it’s working on is a thing like a knapsack—and it lifts.”

“All at once,” Barclay said grimly. “No. Norris, hang back, and get that iron of yours out. It may have—weapons.”

Together, Barclay’s powerful body and McReady’s giant strength struck the door. Inside, the bunk jammed against the door screeched madly and crackled into kindling. The door flung down from broken hinges, the patched lumber of the doorpost dropping inward.

Like a blue-rubber ball, the Thing bounced up. One of its four tentaclelike arms looped out like a striking snake. In a seven-tentacled hand a six-inch pencil of winking, shining metal glinted and swung upward to face them. Its line-thin lips twitched back from snake-fangs in a grin of hate, red eyes blazing.

Norris’ revolver thundered in the confined space. The hate-washed face twitched in agony, the looping tentacle snatched back. The silvery thing in its hand a smashed ruin of metal, the seven-tentacled hand became a mass of mangled flesh oozing greenish-yellow ichor. The revolver thundered three times more. Dark holes filled each of the three eyes before Norris hurled the empty weapon against its face.

The Thing screamed in feral hate, a lashing tentacle wiping at blinded eyes. For a moment it crawled on the floor, savage tentacles lashing out, the body twitching. Then it staggered up again, blinded eyes working, boiling hideously, the crushed flesh sloughing away in sodden gobbets.

Barclay lurched to his feet and drove forward with an ice-ax. The flat of the weighty thing crushed against the side of the head. Again the unkillable monster went down. The tentacles lashed out, and suddenly Barclay fell to his feet in the grip of a living, livid rope. The thing dissolved as he held it, a white-hot band that ate into the flesh of his hands like living fire.

Frantically he tore the stuff from him, held his hands where they could not be reached. The blind Thing felt and ripped at the touch, heavy, wind-proof cloth, seeking flesh—flesh it could convert——

The huge blow-torch McReady had brought coughed solemnly. Abruptly it rumbled disapproval throatily. Then it laughed gurglingly, and thrust out a blue-white, three-foot tongue. The Thing on the floor shrieked, flailed out blindly with tentacles that writhed and withered in the bubbling wrath of the blow-torch.

[Image description start: Barclay lies on the ground in the grip of The Thing, trying to rip one tentacle away from his clothes while McReady and Norris stand in the remains of the broken doorway, McReady firing the blow-torch at The Thing, which glares back from the flames with sharp, needle-like teeth in a rounded head with a short muzzle. Image description end.]

It crawled and turned on the floor, it shrieked and hobbled madly, but always McReady held the blow-torch on the face, the dead eyes burning and bubbling uselessly. Frantically the Thing crawled and howled.

A tentacle sprouted a savage talon—and crisped in the flame. Steadily moved with a planned, grim campaign. Helpless, maddened, the Thing retreated from the grunting torch, the caressing, licking tongue. For a moment it rebelled, squalling in inhuman hatred at the touch of the icy snow. Then it fell back before the charring breath of the torch, the stench of its flesh bathing it. Hopelessly it retreated—on and on across the Antarctic snow. The bitter wend swept over it, twisting the torch-tongue; vainly it flopped, a trail of oily, stinking smoke bubbling away from it——

———

McReady walked back toward the shack silently. Barclay met him at the door. “No more?” the giant meteorologist asked grimly.

Barclay shook his head. “No more. It didn’t split?”

“It had other things to think about,” McReady assured him. “When I left it, it was a glowing coal. What was it doing?”

Norris laughed shortly. “Wise boys, we are. Smash magnetos, so planes won’t work. Rip the boiler tubing out of the tractors. And leave that Thing alone for a week in this shack. Alone and undisturbed.”

McReady looked in at the shack more carefully. The air, despite the ripped door, was hot and humid. On a table at the far end of the room rested a thing of coiled wires and small magnets, glass tubing and radio tubes. At the center a block of rough stone rested. From the center of the block came the light that flooded the place, the fiercely blue light bluer than the glare of an electric arc, and from it came the sweetly soft hum. Off to one side was another mechanism of crystal glass, blown with an incredible neatness and delicacy, metal plates, and a queer, shimmery sphere of insubstantiality.

“What is that?” McReady moved nearer.

Norris grunted. “Leave it for investigation. But I can guess pretty well. That’s atomic power. That stuff to the left—that’s a neat little thing for doing what men have been trying to do with 100-ton cyclotrons and so forth. It separates neutrons from heavy water, which he was getting from the surrounding ice.”

“Where did he get all—oh. Of course. A monster couldn’t be locked in—or out. He’s been through the apparatus caches.” McReady stared at the apparatus. “Lord, what minds that race must have——”

“The shimmery sphere—I think it’s a sphere of pure force. Neutrons can pass through any matter, and he wanted a supply reservoir of neutrons. Just project neutrons against silica—calcium—beryllium—almost anything and the atomic energy is released. That thing is the atomic generator.”

McReady plucked a thermometer from his coat. “It’s120° in here, despite the open door. Our clothes have kept the heat out to an extent, but I’m sweating now.”

Norris nodded. “The light’s cold. I found that. But it gives off heat to warm the place through that coil. He could keep it warm and pleasant, as his race thought of warmth and pleasantness. Did you notice the light, the color of it?”

McReady nodded. “Beyond the stars is the answer. From beyond the stars. From a hotter planet that encircled a brighter, bluer sun they came.”

McReady glanced out the door toward the blasted, smoke-stained trail that flopped and wandered blindly off across the drift. “There won’t be any more coming, I guess. Sheer accident it landed here, and that was twenty million years ago. What did it do all that for?” He nodded toward the apparatus.

Barclay laughed softly. “Did you notice what it was working on when we came? Look.” He pointed toward the ceiling of the shack.

Like a knapsack made of flattened coffee-tins, with dangling cloth straps and leather belts, the mechanism clung to the ceiling. A tiny, glaring heart of supernal flame burned in it, yet burned through the ceiling’s wood without scorching it. Barclay walked over to it, grasped two of the dangling straps in his hands, and pulled it down with an effort. His strapped it about his body. A slight jump carried him in a weirdly slow arc across the room.

“Anti-gravity,” said McReady softly.

“Anti-gravity,” Norris nodded. “Yes, we had ‘em stopped, with no planes, and no birds. The birds hadn’t come—but they had coffee tins and radio parts, and glass and the machine shop at night. And a week—a whole week—all to itself. America in a single jump—with anti-gravity powered by the atomic energy of matter.

“We had ‘em stopped. Another half hour—it was just tightening these straps on the device so it cold wear it—and we’d have stayed in Antarctica, and shot down any moving thing that came over from the rest of the world.”

“The albatross——” McReady said softly, “Do you suppose——”

“With this thing almost finished? With that death weapon it held in its hand?

“No. By the grace of God, who evidently does hear very well, even down here, and the margin of half an hour, we keep our world, and the planets of the system too. Anti-gravity, you know, and atomic power. Because They came from another sun, a star beyond the stars. They came from a world with a bluer sun.”

[nexility-sims]

𝐍𝐎. 𝟐   ❛ 𝐝𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 ❜   |   NAKAWE, EARLY MARCH 1991

❧  𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠  /  𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬  /  𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭.

❛ News about the royal family filled broadcasts throughout the day as cheerful early birds, irreverent talk show hosts, and straight journalists alike seized on recent developments. Nothing was too trivial or unremarkable. With the quiet of death and mourning over, the messy aftermath presented opportunity—for ratings, among other things.

❧ ahhh !!! ngl, i'm very proud of this, and i think that it's an improvement on the last television montage. happy to report that there will be more :^) big grateful shoutout to @madebysimblr for the two hosts i lightly edited and renamed ! also shoutout to tom noguchi’s book for the direct inspiration djdhjf

𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓

TRANSCRIPT:

morning news

[J] That bird risked everything to put out the fire! Inspiring.

[E] It’s the Morning in Nakawe promise—wholesome coverage to start your day, every day.

[E] Now, as you know, it’s been several weeks since Princess Safya’s tragic death. It looks like her family is finally getting back to normal. We got a glimpse of some beach outings this week.

[E] Safe to say Abelina has quickly stolen hearts nationwide.

[J] Everything we’ve seen suggests she’s a sweetheart.

[E] And there she is enjoying some fun in the sun with her father. I think we’re all excited to see more of this little family—especially with two new members on the way.

[J] First Reyes twins in recent memory!

[J] Princess Leonor also took to the beach in Nakawe, although she spent her time reading instead of swimming. I bet booksellers are going to see that one flying off the shelves this week.

[E] I’ll admit that I already bought my copy! That’s Ogechi Suzu’s 1987 magical realism bestseller Learning to Fly. No spoilers, but it’s about a woman who can suddenly transform into a parrot.

[J] That’s a classic story, isn’t it? What’s Suzu’s take?

[E] A Nakawe city girl has to crisscross all of Uspana to find herself. There’s love and computers. It’s a modern update.

daytime talk

[F] Okay, we’re back! We couldn’t get a Reyes on our little broadcast, so Mencia Cipac’s here to discuss where we are post-Princess Safya. Mencia was a palace correspondent for years, and she published a fabulous book on royal childhood last fall. Today’s person of interest is a big girl now, but—well, is she really?

[F] Safya’s baby. That’s how we know her. Who is she now?

[M] That’s the question. In my book, I thought I had an answer. We’re going to watch a young person invent herself in real time—all while dealing with such extraordinary events. The premature death of a parent. Losing a role that was, by all accounts, her nascent identity.

[F] In public! Publicly.

[M] That’s right. The scrutiny and attention ... We know how hard it is. Going from a little girl to a young woman is always hard. In the public eye, even under normal circumstances, it’s absurd. In our modern history, this turn of events is unprecedented.

[F] To think, we really haven’t even known who she is.

[M] We never really know, but we make great educated guesses. We’ve see her through the prism of her role, particularly this past year. That isn’t unusual for royalty, here or elsewhere. A hard worker. Our queen’s “little shadow.” That just won’t be true anymore. I mean, we know—we’ve guessed—how Queen Beatriz is.

{Audience murmurs}

[M] So, where does that leave her? It is hard to predict. I wonder if she’ll continue to work in a similar fashion—become a loyal worker for the institution like Martin, perhaps.

[F] Oh, I hope not! Can you imagine? How dull! A beautiful girl. She’s so young. She should do something interesting—for me, because I want to see it. Someone get her on the line!

{Audience laughs}

[M] The recent surveys suggest that’s how many Uspanians feel. They sympathize, but they crave newness and excitement. Our public figures let us live vicariously, don’t they? Leonor’s generation is lagging—all children, of course, all off-limits. That means she’s the lighting rod for that collective anticipation.

[F] She was at the beach here in Nakawe the other day. The gossip is some surfers out there were chatting her up. You’ve seen those boys! She deserves the attention but, oh, so do I—!

{Crowd cheers}

[M] The talk has shifted immensely, hasn’t it? We thought there would be a wedding in a year or two, and now it’s all up in the air.

[F] Who cares about that nobody, really? The whole thing was so sweet it made my teeth hurt. Give us someone new. Someones, even.

[M] To people in my profession, the coming weeks are going to be significant. Whether she’s working as we expect or occupied some other way, her public life will be different. Romance is part of that, sure.

[F] A young girl needs it. Us old ones, too. Maybe a self esteem boost will help her out of this funk. It’s depressing, frankly, how bad she looks in those photos we’ve seen lately.

{Audience murmurs}

[F] Hey! She looks great, though! The baby fat is melting away. That mourning diet did wonders, wow. She always looked like her mother—the body, too, you know. Blessing and a curse.

[M] There’s some resemblance to her father, too.

{Audience grumbles}

[F] Jail! Legal won’t let me talk, but: right, ladies?

{Audience murmuring, interspersed clapping}

[F] Anyway, she has his coloring, yes. The darker skin—which, you know, is a shame since her mother had a very pretty complexion. Brighteners? Sunscreen? Maybe we could have a segment on good products. Bring in a dermatologist or two?

{Audience applauds}

evening news

[B] Alright, last update before the hour ends.

[R] That’s right. The Office of the Crown has given a timeline and some details on the transition. First, Princess Safya’s three children will be retaining their titles—that’s “princes” and “princess.”

[B] Courtesy, most likely.

[R] There was no explanation, but our colleagues over at Palace Affairs seem to believe so. Arnaut, meanwhile, is officially the Crown Prince of Uspana, per the same memorandum released today.

[B] That’s a big deal. I mean, we are looking at the future head of state. People my age associate him with, well, velvet and gambling. He’ll lead the nation in time. In your lifetime, if not mine.

[R] Well, Bernardo, the reality is that does concern some.

[B] It remains to be seen whether that’s fair. The coming months are going to be quite the test for him.

[R] You’ll recall better than me that he was tested in the 1970s and still hasn’t recovered—according to this month’s polls, anyway.

[B] Uspanians may not want to give him a chance, but he’ll be addressing the Assembly to formally accept the role all the same.

[R] And we’ll be reporting as it happens later this week. For now, that’s it for us. UBC Nightly News with Inti Rivera starts now.

nightly news

[R] Yesterday afternoon, Crown aides joined the chief medical examiner involved in the investigation of Princess Safya’s death for a press conference. Some reporters’ questions revealed the influence of rumor on what Uspana’s public now wants to know.

[R1] My understanding is that the Crown has not accepted the investigation’s conclusions. Can you confirm?

[A1] Incorrect. The Crown is uninvolved. Dr. Siodina issued a ruling, and the family asked questions strictly as surviving loved ones.

[R2] Did intoxication play a role in what happened?

[S] It isn’t my opinion that it led to her being in the water. It did contribute to the drowning itself.

[R3] Why did she leave the yacht?

[S] That’s a question with a psychological answer rather than a forensic one, I think.

{Reporters murmur}

[R4] Did an altercation with her husband, Lord Rodrigo, occur that night that would have caused her to leave?

[S] Um .... A moment, please.

{Reporters resume murmuring}

[A2] {whispering} Officially, yes, they argued.

[S] There was a disagreement, yes.

[A2] {whispering} No violence.

[S] It was, however, entirely civil.

{Reporters, clamoring}

[R] Following what some are now calling a, quote, “unmitigated disaster,” the Crown announced that it plans to conduct its own formal but unofficial inquiry into the accident as well as the investigation itself. In a twist, sources suggest this plan could have been in the works prior to the conference. This is a developing story.

[wishjacked]

Happy #WebcomicDay!! :D

This year we're celebrating the process of making pages... so below the cut I've got a bunch of pictures sharing how I go about making pages of my evil post-apocalyptic workplace sitcom, Cargo!! :D

So! My process!!

Writing-> I think sometimes there's pressure to "write" your comic a certain way, I see people talking about script format and stuff a lot. That really doesn't work for me, though! I write my "first draft" script in short scenes on scrap paper, in whatever order they come to me. Sometimes a scene will just be one or two lines, and then a little description of what I want to happen in the rest of the scene.

Later I type the scene up, and write the "connective tissue" that fits between the disjointed scenes so they all flow together like they ought. I don't do page breaks or even character tag or action notes hahahaha I like it to be as BASIC as POSSIBLE so it's easy to edit. And since I'm the person drawing it I can almost always remember who's supposed to be saying what lmao

I edit a lot, but the most major editing is also probably the last bit... when I letter my pages usually I realize "they would never say that" and so I end up rephrasing everything. My art brain is sometimes waaaaay better at phrasing hahaha. Like you can see in the finished page for this script I rewrote like basically all of it, and actually went back to the original "sketch" script in a lot of places.

Thumbnailing-> my thumbs are really big, I draw them with markers on printer paper and keep them in a binder!! I like to thumb scenes in batches and I also usually write my dialogue on them, just so I can read through them before (and while) I draw to get a feel for how the pacing works. :)

Sketching-> OH sketching is also really hard for me! I don't have a good visual imagination so it's really important for me to make sure I have good references. Last year I was especially focusing on setting.

My comic is set in Florida. I'm lucky in that I used to live there and still go back to visit sometimes, so sometimes I can gather my own reference images! But more often I start on Google Maps or Zillow, trying to find buildings that have interesting features or the right kind of "look" for what I want. I'll also look up other interesting elements, my comic is set in a post-apocalypse and I'll research home gardening and things like that which people would probably have.

For example, in this set in chapter 7, I used Google Maps images, photo references of indoor hydroponic gardening, and like, 90's-00's hacker computer setups haha. Also my BFF Roomstyler.com, where you can make 3d house interiors haha!!

Lineart-> I LOVE lineart it is my favorite!!!! I sketch and ink two pages at a time, and it usually takes somewhere between 10-12 hours to do both steps.

I actually think my art looks best when it's just lineart... but I think my STORY is better with color, like it makes it clearer and easier to read and it has a better atmosphere HAHA.

Colors-> I think it usually takes me 4-6 hours to do 2 pages (I haven't timed myself as consistently as I time my lineart and sketching). I have a big file with small copies of my previous pages that I color drop from, and my characters are all flats only. The limited palette that I use is also really handy, it streamlines coloring a LOT.

Finishing Touches-> aka I steal mercilessly from my one true love, my internet home, the beautiful and blessed Wikimedia Commons

I put lots of overlay layers on my art! I like textures so having some strange little textures or pictures on things makes my art feel a lot more finished to me.

And finally my very most favorite ✨finishing touch✨ is the bright colored/patterned gutters that I use. Here are some of my favorites that I've made and used in the past!

And that's all!! I hope you guys have a very happy Webcomics Day and find lots and lots of wonderful new things to read!!!

[spacealligator]

I'm curious to know how you manage your documents for fics, so I've come to you with a few (possibly fun?) questions regarding your process !

1 - How do you name your documents? 2- If you have a multichapter fic, do you keep it all on one document, have a separate document for every chapter, or something else? 3 - If a situation arises where you want to make a drastic change that can essentially end up deleting thousands of words, do you commit to deleting those chunks and start fixing them right in the original document, or do you resort to making copies first so that you still have the original? Something else, maybe? 4 - Optional freebie slot ! Tell me something about your process that you might want to mention, but I didn't have a question specific enough for you to mention it !

hellou whoooo, thank you so much for the ask, here`s how my mess of a brain organizes everything?

1- most of the time the titles are just the theme of the fic, so for the Handsome Cop universe ie the title of the google docs was police AU for a long time, Ive had names like roommate AU, ame trio AU, flower AU etc very straight foward. I only change the title of the google docs once I settle on a title I really like, and that usually happens when Im about to publish and have to come up with something hehe

2- I keep all chapters in one doc, and also, if Im writing a series, theyre also in the doc because I often need to reference it to check some infos or really just the tone of the writing up until then. The worst part is correcting some info that you`ve been using for some time, like the age of a character changes, or something that happened in their past and they reference it a lot, then I have to go over the whole text and look for the specific mentions of that info and it just sucks

3- I have a google docs called kill your darlings where I put the scenes and ideas that were edited off my final drafts, I often go through the drabbles to check if there`s any cool idea in there I can re use under a new light

oh man 4 it`s gonna be a wild one

while reviewing and editing I often use text to speech tools to make sure that the writing sounds natural, its really useful for non native english speakers like myself

I have a spreadsheet of all my wips, with their % completion status, whats still on the pipeline to be written, and just silly ideas that I want to explore in the future (I had to do this because I had more wips than I could manage and was drowning in plot bunnies hehe)

when Im stuck I like writing on my phone because its hard to care about formatting, so I just shoot hundreds of words into a doc that when I open up in the computer looks like a enormous wall of text, and its easier for me to correct, edit and fill in the gaps once I have the main content on a page (blank pages scare me)

I often write all the dialogue of the scene first, and then fill in the gaps with descriptions and inner monologues, this way I make sure the conversations in my fics have some rhythm to them

most of my stories never had an outline, I just get this scene in my had and then I have to do the work around to get there and after it the consequences of it, right now Im working on my cowboy bebop AU and its the first time I really planned a plot, but I dont know whether is better or not

sometimes I go back to read my fics already posted but I often get an itch to correct things like wording and typos, but I dont because thats a rabbit hole I don`t wanna fall into

I hope you enjoyed reading my answers and got something useful out of them, I`d love to ask you right back and hear about your writing process too!