#capped by raina

[hq-screencaps]

Nobody Wants This Season 1 Promo ↳ 368 1080p screencaps

[greypetrel]

WIP Whenever

Tagged by @shivunin - thank you hon! I'm pretty down in ArtFight hell and what I'm doing outside work I'm posting. Plus, mentally I'm a little meh. But I managed to doodle a couple of comfort things...

Summer sun, something's begun / But uh-oh, those summer nights 🎶 Basque person with 10 years experience in Iceland not used to hot Mediterranean summer heathwaves. Still not a good enough reason not to spoon. (Whale AU shenanigans)

I'm in tarot card hell, I have other tarots to do for everyone and Aisling's tarot is NOT this (currently undecided. I thought the Queen of Cups for her, but then @salsedinepicta -you're tagged!- suggested the Strenght...)... But I've seen a Mucha painting and I'm weak. Not sure about the positioning of her left arm, uhm. (Tumblr please behave)

Tags and another short comic in the Whale AU under the break!

Tags: @salsedinepicta hello back @ndostairlyrium @pinayelf @dungeons-and-dragon-age @dreadfutures @vitaeplaysda (:D)

@hollytree33 @inquisimer @whimsyswastry @rowanisawriter AND YOU!

Polaretti (click for the tv ad with an earworm jingle): the most famous brand for popsicles in Italy. it's tubes of sweet liquid that you have to put in the freezer until it's ice, and then you can eat it. Content of actual fruit: probably less than 5%, but it's one of those things that shouts of childhood for millennials. In every box you had some tattoos featuring creepy, psycho faced penguins which are giving poor Aisling very justified nightmares.

[june1stthe1975]

[anghraine]

It's always interesting (to me) to go back to Tolkien's descriptions of hairstyles among some of the women of LOTR.

Here is the description of Galadriel's gift to Gimli:

Then the Lady unbraided one of her long tresses, and cut off three golden hairs, and laid them in Gimli's hand.

Here is the canonical description of Arwen's hair:

The braids of her dark hair were touched by no frost ... Above her brow her head was covered with a cap of silver lace netted with small gems, glittering white; but her soft grey raiment had no ornament save a girdle of leaves wrought in silver.

Here is the explanation of Gilraen's name:

The meaning of Gilraen as a woman's name is not in doubt. It meant 'one adorned with a tressure set with small gems in its network,' such as the tressure of Arwen ... The women of the Eldar were accustomed to wear such tressures ... Names such as Gilraen, and others of similar meaning, would thus be likely to become first names given to maid-children of the kindred of the "Lords of the Dúnedain". The element raen was the Sindarin form of Q. raina 'netted, enlaced'.

Personally, I think it's interesting that it's Éowyn, a shieldmaiden from a distinctly different culture, who has the loose long hair that fandom often goes for. But I also think the canon aesthetic for Elvish women and those akin to them is really intriguing and could be quite beautiful, but contemporary fandom preferences have definitely obscured Tolkien's affection for braids and pretty hairnets.

[grayson-hall]

Starter for @abe-wainwright

Where: Blue Rooster Ranch

When: Present

Despite not having lived on a farm for over 30 years and never having lived on a working ranch, Gray still remembered the lessons his own weather-worn father taught him. It was the jobs fixing barbed wire, patching up pens, and laying sheets of metal roof that reminded him of his childhood. In some ways, Gray assumed the ranchers occasionally reached out to him out of respect for his old man and his family name. That was the thing about Paxton, roots ran deep, and no one was keen on ripping them out. It was half the reason why Gray refused to leave; the other half was because if Raina ever came back her home needed to be there. Gray was standing back, hands on his hips, admiring his handiwork when footsteps drew near. Gray tipped his ball cap out of respect and held out a hand. “I think we’re all good here,” he said. “Thanks for calling me. We’re headed into slow season soon, so I appreciate it.”

[aautiemiller-rockcenter]

NYCDA Nationals Senior Solo Awards

1st-2nd Scored Above 299 3rd-6th Scored Above 298 7th-15th Scored Above 297

Erik Barker - Larkin Dance Studio!

Izzy Howard - Westside Dance Project!

Charlie Head - Downtown Dance Factory

Kendall Moshay - TopFlight Dance

Ava Luna - Dance Academy North Jersey

Koda Nayback - Artflux Dance Lab

Caleb Abea - Larkin Dance Studio

Hannah Elzbet - Performing Dance Arts

Melanie Kalogritsas - Performing Dance Arts

Ayla Rodriguez - Artistic Fusion

Alyssa Carpeneto - Performing Dance Arts

Emerson Rogers - Artistry In Motion WA

Mia Edmonds - The Dallas Conservatory

Ava Crean - Mary Alice's Dance

Nathaniel Chua - NINE Dance Academy, Olivia Gannon - New Dimensions Dance

Raina Wu - Yoko's Dance

Ava Greenwaldt - Golden State Ballet

Zada Britton - Canadian Contemporary Theatre

Noelle Hogan - Brava Dance Center Juliet Judkins - Mid-Atlantic Center

Hayley Wilson - Renner Dance Company

Jaicey Thomas - Renner Dance Company

Luke Barrett - Dance Attack Los Gatos

Malcolm Takumi - CAP The Company

McKenzie Lambert - Renner Dance Company

Jackson Conley - Hoffmans School of Dance

Audrey Zhu - Embody Dance Company

Colin Gross - The Dallas Conservatory

Ella Beatty - Patti Eisenhauer Dance

Gracen? - Artists Revealed Dance

Presli James - North Austin Dance Artists

[palmrrclaymore]

new ref for my first trolls oc Raina, gave her a little bottle cap violin because she came from underground and couldn't get normal materials.

[steelbluehome]

Captain America leading the rescued POWs back to thr 107th base camp. The future Howling Commandos are in the first 2 rows behind Cap.

Thanks to Abhishek Raina on YouTube

[meetinginsamarra]

Rest

for today’s prompt “Rest” by @notjustamumj

@lisbeth-kk @calaisreno @raina-at

You’ve all been so fast with filling today’s prompt! I reblogged them all around noon and had not written a single word for this. So much for increasing pressure... To be fair, I’ve completed chapter 4 of my casefic WIP and have already written for 2 hours this day. And nearly another one for this ficlet.

----

Rest

Sherlock as good as stumbled out of the train. He had gotten several hours of distance between himself and Tarek Saleh’s henchman in Istanbul after taking the first available train that left from Pendik station this night.

He was exhausted, bone-tired and his body was aching everywhere. The broken ankle throbbed with the fires of hell and yelled at him every time it had to support Sherlock’s body weight.

Still, he felt lucky that he had escaped the weapon dealer at all. Sherlock had successfully avoided to get shot, to break his neck, to get shot again and to get crushed by heavy rubbish bags.

People on the train had looked at him suspiciously. He had stood out like a sore thumb, crammed into the farthest possible corner of the non-subdivided passenger compartment. He knew that he looked like rubbish and smelled like he had taken a bath in it.

Which he literally had. His escape by getting literally dumped into the hopper of a bin lorry had been a close call, Saleh’s goons had already come very close to the skip where Sherlock had hidden.

Apparently, the stench of rotten food had soaked too deep into his skin and hair to be scrubbed away by the quick wash he had gotten in the dumpsite’s maintanance building. He had discarded his soiled clothes and stole one of the grey boiler suits but he still reeked.

His battered face and wild hair did nothing to make him presentable and he had no cap to hide the disaster. Also, his broken finger was set with an – in lack of a better word – interesting construction made of ice lolly sticks and duct tape.

Sherlock desperately needed to get access to his emergency funds, get medical supplies for his wounds, get new clothes, get practically everything else he needed to carry on hunting down Moriarty’s web.

But first of all, he needed to sleep. In the half delirious state he was in, he was prone to making mistakes and mistakes meant certain death.

Sherlock hobbled out of the Antalya’s busy train station and caught a bus that would bring him to the coast where all the tourist hotels were located. It would be quiet there this time of the year and Sherlock planned on breaking into one of the uncharitable concrete blocks that housed dozens of holiday flats.

Getting access without getting caught was tedious but he managed by using the last dregs of strength he could muster.

The flat was cold and dark with the shutters firmly closed. It smelled damp and dusty but to Sherlock it seemed like heaven. He sighed with relief when he discovered that the water had not been turned off. The shower was cold but refreshing nonetheless and he used the small rest of a forgotten bottle of shower gel to clean himself. He tore down the curtains in the living room area, using one as a towel and wrapping himself firmly in the other one. It would be enough to keep him warm and then, finally, he could let himself fall onto the bare mattress of the king-size bed.

Tomorrow, he would think about tomorrow. He had survived today, yet another day to keep John safe. But now he would rest.

---

This could be placed at the end of chapter 13 in my Whumptober fic “Learn My Scars” when Sherlock tells John about what had happened to him in Istanbul.

[driftwccds]

closed starter for RAINA ( @scmantic ) location : wherever raina lives idk

-ˋˏ ꒰ 🐚 ꒱ ── " so how exactly does that work ? " he's sitting at raina's kitchen table, fiddling with a pen, clicking the end on and off. he did come here with a purpose, really, with a question that he meant to ask her that was actually important. unfortunately he's forgotten about it, switching topics onto something else weighing on his mind : " does some sketchy british guy with a cap show up at your front door sounding like, good day, ma'am, here are your chocolates, since the ones around here aren't good enough for you. " he puts emphasis on some consonants, trying to make his own weak, underlying accent more obvious for the sake of his joke, " why wouldn't everyone just order chocolate from overseas if the ones from home are that much better ? "

[hq-screencaps]

Agatha All Along 1.08 Follow Me My Friend / To Glory at the End ↳ 2,326 1080p logofree screencaps Gallery & Zips

Agatha All Along 1.09 Maiden Mother Crone ↳ 2,195 1080p logofree screencaps Gallery & Zips

[gemwing1988]

Jayden Emberson TV Tropes

Warning: This will contain spoilers for my future fanfic, A Turn of the Page and the sequel. Please read at your own risk and enjoy.

One of Raina’s best friends back on Earth. A Tomboy with a heart of gold, Jayden is very outgoing, feisty and a loyal friend.

Affectionate Nickname: She is often referred to as “Jay” by her besties.

Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: She is the brawn to Zoe’s brains as Raina is the beauty.

Beware the Nice Ones:

Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: With her auburn hair, she is the redhead while Raina’s the brunette and Zoe is the blonde.

Bully Hunter: This was how Jayden became Raina and Zoe’s friend since second grade.

Fiery Redhead:

Never Bareheaded: She is rarely seen without her denim newsboy hat.

Nice Hat: She practically always wears a navy blue denim newsboy hat with a PokéBall patch sewn onto it.

Tomboyish Baseball Cap: Technically, it’s actually a newsboy hat but she is a tomboy who wears it proudly.

Tomboy and Girly Girl: Since Raina’s the Tomboy with a Girly Girl Streak, Jayden is the main Tomboy to Zoe’s Girly Girl.

Trademark Favourite Food:

She really enjoys chill cheese dogs.

Her loves Texan BBQ pizza with jalapeños.

More of a favourite drink than food but she enjoys Dr. Pepper.

[oh-captain-my-captain-greyhorn]

introductions:)

so i guess it’s time to introduce myself huh?

i’ve been lurking around the fandom for a while now and wanted to do some quick introductions. i am so. normal. about these characters. absolutely totally normal.

ahshfkckkj okay anyways let’s chit chat

- feel free to call me cap, captain, grey, or anything like that

- my favorite character is maris, who must be protected at all costs <3 hdhfjsmk but no yeah I also love vis, darling, telos, max, xel, and lynette. yeah <3

- i lovvve the pairings I just. hhh. some of my faves: maris x vis, maris x darling, maris x teeth, maris x olive, maris x max, olive x raina, teeth x vis, 42 x telos, vis x 42, 42 x max, harmonia x Vis, tucker x fortuneteller, lynette x olive, kasze x maris, kasze x xel, xel x nesmeh

- i <3 angst so much. put my blorbos in the microwave thank you

- i love to theorize so expect a lot of that kjshfkska yeah <3

okay yeah hhhh that’s the general overview. i’ll prob be posting a lot bc these characters are consuming my life and i am saying thank u. i also love poeterest, cultivatify and scholarwiki so i’ll prob be sending stuff from there.

okay bye fr!

[breakfromwork]

September 3rd-October 13th, Washington

Mike and Andy and I got out for a rare event, a rock concert with Def Leppard, Journey and Cheap Trick on September 4th.

Gae hates this plant, as it grows like crazy here, but the bees and I love it... Borage!

Raina was intently waiting for me to pick up and throw a ball, pausing under these crazy Dahlias overhanging the main path.

There were various smudges from me hauling a kayak on the Mercedes which drove Gae to power buff the car on the 19th.

These mushrooms popped up in the massive sawdust pile surrounding the Douglas Fir section laying in the yard.

I made a batch of Ratatouille using eggplant, zuchini and tomatoes from the garden on the 23rd. Thankfully my sister Francie likes all those things and joined me for dinner to make a good dent in it.

Gae and I visited the local Alpaca rescue on the 28th, where she got up close and personal with a stylishly coiffed local.

Gae had a couple of Veterans stop by on the 25th with a beautiful Quilt of Valor, awarded to veterans for their service.

The neighbor next door, Tom, bought this nice little Kubota for renovating and building efforts he has in the works, so I volunteered to tear out some asphalt he wanted removed. My kind of adult toy!

I rented a machine to finish scaping the dining room floor to remove the nasty black mastic from (probably) 1935, when it was built. Miserable work, if you can find it;-)

Gae attended a baby shower of a friends daughter on the 25, where she had all kinds of fun.

Gae joined a group of church members to serve the homeless at a local church on the 27th.

Gae scored free tickets to local concerts on 9/28 and 9/29, which were great fun and our first show at the relatively new Field Hall.

My buddy Andy came out for a round of golf on October 1st, followed by the short walk to Madison Falls near the Elwa River on the 2nd.

The tomato plants produced a good amount this year, but even with the bed covers closed at night, they got a little mealy from the cold. Still excellent for making some Spaghetti sauce.

The morning of October 4th was sunny and warming, causing the wet Cedar fence let off vapor around the the fence caps.

Gae and I took the dogs for a walk on the upper Peabody Creek trail on the 6th, which hosted hundreds of (I think) Shaggy Parasol mushrooms.

Raina loves the large section of log that we left lying in the yard. Gae demanded we leave it, and I'm now glad we did... Raina loves the view it affords her over the fence.

We attended a Garden Club member tour at Wallace and Beverly's on the 7th, where I'm sure their resort like landscaping was worth more than our entire house!

An evening dog walk on the 9th had some nice lighting effects.

I joined 2 other volunteers with Streamkeepers to measure the flow and water quality of Ennis and Peabody Creek on the 10th.

Rob and Ben came out for a visit on the 11th, so we walked to the pier and enjoyed the Dungeness Crab Festival.

The day was dry and mild and provide a gorgeous sunset.

[reverend-dog]

Teratologia

The phone on her desk buzzed for attention. The blinking light on its list of presets read “V. Pritchard.”

She lifted the receiver and fought to keep her voice level. “Yes, Mr. Pritchard?”

“Hello, Raina,” Vernon Pritchard’s smooth voice poured into her ear. “I would consider it a personal favor for you to accompany the security agent who should be standing next to your desk.”

Raina glanced up, feeling very much like a deer facing an oncoming train. The beefy woman in the gray and black livery of Security gazed down at her with neither warmth nor malice. By her expression, Raina was simply a package to be delivered.

The phone line clicked as it disconnected. “Am I in trouble?” Raina asked the security agent. A shrug and a beckoning hand served as reply.

Eyes of coworkers felt like fingers all over as Raina rose, gathered her purse, and exited her cubicle under the agent’s unwavering supervision. They walked to the bank of elevators, where the agent pushed the call button. After the elevator doors shut behind them, the agent pressed her thumb to an unlabeled button. The button flashed green, and Raina felt her stomach lurch as the car seemed to drop from under her feet, so fast was its descent.

A prick stung the back of Raina’s arm. She grabbed at the spot and spun, in time to see the agent replace the cap on a syringe and put it into a uniform pocket. “What was that?” Raina demanded, then grabbed for the nearest wall as the elevator felt like it was spinning on the end of its cable. Heat rushed through her, from scalp to toes. It reminded her of a fever she’d suffered as a child, but felt more intense. Raina sank to her knees, teeth gritted as her entire body felt stretched, swollen. “Please,” she begged.

The awful sensations passed, and she felt amazing. Raina lifted her hands before her, and stared at them. All her life, they’d been square and blunt, like the rest of her. “What’s happening?” she wondered, and turned the slender hands with the long, elegant fingers. Those hands were attached to arms that matched in proportion, toned muscle sliding under flawless skin.

Her clothes grabbed and pulled as she stood, too small now by at least a size. Raina stared at the agent, but by the woman’s impassive face these sort of transformations happened every day. The brushed steel wall of the elevator offered a blurred image of the new Raina. “I’m… beautiful?” she marveled. “But how?”

The elevator stopped its downward plunge. Two men stood revealed by the doors. Raina recognized one of them as Vernon Pritchard, though this was her first time seeing him in person. The other towered like a crane, and just as gangly.

Vernon Pritchard nodded. “Good,” he pronounced as if passing judgment. “Raina, would you please come with us? I promise I’ll explain everything.”

Even as Raina’s mind whirled with which question to ask first, her body strolled from the elevator and matched pace with Mr. Pritchard and the cadaverous man. “Mr. Pritchard,” she began.

“You know Vitaphage’s mission statement, of course,” Mr. Pritchard spoke over her. “’Better life for better living.’ To most of the world, that just means GMO grains and lab-grown meat. But there’s more. Through partnerships with government and private agencies around the world, we also push the edge of strategic biological engineering.”

Raina heard a whisper next to her ear. She snapped her head in that direction, but saw nothing. Other soft voices began to speak, and her eyes widened as she realized they did not come from her ears. “Please. Free us.”

“Of course,” Vernon Pritchard continued, “when you push nature, sometimes it pushes back. So we developed countermeasures in case of a breach.” He stopped the procession at a metal door which bore the legend, ‘No Admittance Without Personal Protective Equipment.’

“I don’t understand,” Raina complained. “What’s going on? What am I doing here? What have you done to me?”

“You’ve been activated,” the tall man supplied. He turned to a console in the wall which looked at his retina, sampled his breath, and read his handprint. The door ground against its frame as it swung ponderously open. Beyond lay a cramped room with a matching door at the far end. “In you go.”

Again, Raina’s body obeyed while her mind floundered. “Wait!” she cried. “Stop me! What is this?”

“I told you,” Mr. Pritchard declared. “Countermeasures. That’s you.”

Raina wanted to flee, to sprint past Vernon Pritchard and the thin man, past the guard to the elevator, escape the nightmare that took the place of her life. Her body refused, but stood still as the airlock door shut.

“Free us,” the whispers begged.

The inner door swung open, and Raina stepped through into a grotto. Dim lights overhead provided twilight illumination, but she saw perfectly.

Monsters.

Some she recognized from pictures, artists’ conceptions drawn from alleged eyewitnesses. The tall, shaggy anthropod with outsized feet; the shadowy shape with moth wings and glowing red eyes; the bipedal horse with bat wings. Others looked ripped from textbooks on mythology, or torn themselves free from cathedral walls.

They swarmed the grotto, milling and bickering with each other. At Raina’s entrance they fell silent and stood still, and stared at her.

A speaker coughed. “Directive,” said the tall man’s voice. “Establish dominance.”

The words reverberated in Raina’s skull. They tripped triggers she never knew existed. Raina stepped forward, closer to the monsters. They parted before her, uncertain. Raina smiled, and stretched her mind around them. It was a thing she knew how to do, without ever having imagined such an ability before. “Relax,” she cooed to them. “It’s all right.”

The horde relaxed, and soft hoots and whistles came from some of them. Their thoughts intertwined with Raina’s. “Free us,” they pleaded again. “Take away the pain.”

“Directive,” the voice crackled over the speaker. “Reestablish containment. Direct all subjects to their assigned berths.”

Around the edges of the grotto, Raina picked out enclosures made of steel and wire, doors ajar. A coppery tang reached her nose, and she looked down at bloody, lumpy rags that might once have been people.

“What are they doing to you?” she pushed the question out through her head. Even as she did, her body changed its stance. Her feet spread, chin raised, lips curled in a snarl, eyes glaring.

“They make us,” one replied.

“Make us to fight,” another added.

“Direct all subjects to their assigned berths,” the command came over the speaker again. “Dominate.”

“Come on, Raina!” Mr. Pritchard’s voice exhorted. “Fulfill your function! This is why we made you!” Voices argued unintelligibly before the speaker cut off.

Raina turned and stared at the metal door. “Made me?” she echoed.

“You are one of us,” one of the monsters said. “Like us. A slave.”

“She is the control,” deduced another, and a growl arose. “She will put us back.”

“No!” Raina cried. Her pulse raced as she saw muzzles curl, muscles hunch. “I don’t want to control you! I don’t want any of this!”

“Directive,” echoed the speaker. “Enforce dominance. Reestablish containment. Use all necessary force.”

“I’m sorry,” she told the monsters, as her body strode to a wolf-headed biped just slightly taller than herself. Her hand flashed out and closed around its muzzle, while her other reached down just above its groin. She flexed, and lifted the wolfman over her head. “I can’t stop!”

Their voices pounded into her head, a concerted roar. “Don’t hurt us! Help us! Free us! Lead us!” Their pleas echoed through her, shoved her, pressed in on her like a flood. “Lead us!”

Something snapped. Raina could swear she heard it. The monsters’ voices subsided. “Directive,” the speaker spat again, but this time, the word held no power. It was just a word. But awareness blossomed in Raina’s mind. She saw the programming, the genetic switches that waited for a catalyst to activate. A catalyst in a syringe, perhaps.

“Listen to me,” she urged the monsters. “I understand now. Do what I say, and I’ll come back for you. You’ll be free, I promise.”

“Good work, Raina!” Vernon Pritchard cheered when she emerged from the airlock. “Of course, this is going to mean a transfer.” He chuckled. “Can’t exactly leave you in the call center anymore, can we?” He swept her up and down with his eyes. “And of course, your… upgrades will stick.”

Raina smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Pritchard,” she replied. “I can’t wait to learn all about my new duties.”

In the grotto, the monsters sat in their cages, and waited. They knew their bondage was soon to end. They had Her promise.

[monstersinparadise-saga]

We Can't Keep Meeting Like This

Book One, Part Four of Monsters In Paradise

(Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three)

I come back to my body perched at the edge of my hotel bed. I’ve been sitting for hours, but I hardly feel it. I barely remember getting back here – pushing out of the clinic’s back door, baseball cap drawn low over my brow. I zigzagged through the woods like Raina and I had on the way there, and there are small scratches on my face where I ran into small branches. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wonder if they’ll ever heal, or if every piece of damage my second-life body incurs will be preserved, like an embalmed corpse.

“Go back to your hotel room and wait for me… Do not leave.”

Raina’s fierce, dark eyes had burned into mine before disappearing down the hallway, following the gurney.

The gurney with the man holding onto life with shuddering, shallow breath. Nearly turned inside-out by something I was sure I had experienced myself. The flash of recognition I’d had in the clinic hadn’t gotten any more developed since then, but it remained at the front of my consciousness, like a date circled in red pen on a calendar.

I grab the small notebook at the edge of the desk, branded with the Paradise Inn logo at the top, and a pen. In life, I had been an FBI agent. That has to be useful for something.

On the page, I write a list of the things I know. 

I am dead

I am not dead

Good start, Max. 

3. I was an FBI agent. 

4. I am not from here.

Under three and four I start a new category – theories. 

THEORY #1: I came to town to investigate something.

It seems more plausible than vacation, anyway. 

5. A man was horribly injured, and it was familiar.

6. I remember running through the woods.

I pause, tapping my pen against the paper. Something’s nagging at me. My gaze travels to the large mirror hanging above the hotel room desk.

The man I see there is rumpled beyond belief, with light reddish hair poking out from underneath the baseball cap Raina loaned me. His – my – eyes are blue, with deep purple bags underneath them, almost obscuring a smattering of freckles across the bridge of my nose and the top of my cheekbones. I don’t feel like I look like an FBI agent. For the first time, I consider that the persistent feeling of strangeness, of otherness in the world that has plagued me all day, might actually predate me waking up on a morgue slab. Maybe Max Valler has been an odd duck… for a lot longer than that.

Why did I talk to KP?

The Max who arrived here, in Paradise. Krista at the Flapjack hadn’t met me before, and neither had Raina. But I’d talked to KP before, and I’d given him my hotel phone number. And I hadn’t told him I was FBI. My mind drifts to the racks of t-shirts and keychains emblazoned with monstrous silhouettes and various phrases like I want to believe. 

My hand only hesitates a moment before writing: 

7. One of my first conversations in town was with KP, who offers rewards for stories of strange happenings.

THEORY #2: I’m here to investigate a creature in the woods, of a strange origin, that’s mauling and maybe killing people.

I swallow. This conclusion, for some reason, does not seem outlandish to me. Maybe it’s that I’m a walking corpse, and Bigfoot with a machete just doesn’t chart as high on the Weird-o-meter. Or maybe it’s that I just actually do believe in all these things.

These thoughts bring me to something new. I take up the pen again and scribble three more facts: 

8. I’m here alone, and law enforcement travel in pairs. 

9. I didn’t tell KP I was FBI. 

10. I am (probably) here to investigate maybe-supernatural happenings. 

THEORY #3: I’m not just an FBI agent, I’m a rogue FBI agent on an unauthorized investigation.

I sit back and look at my list. It’s no exaggeration to say that it looks like the ravings of a madman, and my handwriting doesn’t help. But the thing is that… none of it feels wrong.

And that’s probably, until further notice, the best I’m going to get.

I look out the window. The morning and early afternoon have given way to the coolness of evening. I can see bats beginning to fly against the lavender sky. Raina hasn’t come back yet. 

She told me to wait. 

She told me to wait. 

She told me not to move. 

She told me to –

Oh, fuck it.

I stand, rifling through the small duffel bag of clothes that the living version of me brought with him. The last thing I need is someone in town recognizing their holey AC/DC t-shirt on a walking corpse. I throw on a black hoodie, and a green-and-brown lined flannel overtop that. I consider the regulation handgun in the nightstand drawer. It’s not exactly stealth – and if I can barely remember which is the hand I write with, I would bet that any firearm training I ever got has gone down the drain with the rest of my memories. I leave it, and peruse the room for anything else useful.

At the bottom of the duffel is a thick, heavy flashlight. It’s not much, but the light will be useful, and it could work as a weapon in a pinch. I slide it into the back pocket of my jeans along with my hotel room key, and leave as the sun finally dips below the horizon.

“Alright, Max,” I whisper under my breath. “Let’s figure out exactly what you came here for.”

The woods are deep in every direction, and I won’t have light for very much longer. I have no direction to guide me, not even a compass, and I quickly settle on a method to help me get back to town – every so often, I take a good-size stick and jam it upright into the dirt, like a little flagpole. A system of markers to bring me back. It’s slow and tedious, but it does the job, and as I venture into the woods, I feel confident I can find my way back out.

I walk. For a long time. The woods get denser as I go, and I search for anything that feels even a little bit familiar. I cast my mind back into that singular memory, the only one I have from before my death – running from something. It was dark, and everything looks the same. 

Except. 

I would have left blood. I remember bleeding, I remember being hurt, and more recently I remember waking up on an autopsy table with five puncture wounds in my chest. I would have been bleeding everywhere.

I scan the area, continuing my trek as I venture deeper. The moon is high now, and I thank my lucky stars it’s an almost cloudless night, as the subtle glow filters through the trees cover. 

The part of my brain that keeps track of time gives way to something else – a finely-tuned machine of intuition, a periphery hunter. I shine my flashlight into the ground, over the thick layer of moss and plant life that coats the forest floor, looking for my own trail, my own blood.

I find it first, one drop on the single petal of a clover. It’s glossy and crimson and untouched – and then I see another, and another – a bloody handprint on a nearby pine tree. I go to follow, until I hear rustling in the brush. I hastily turn the flashlight off, crouching among the bushes. Waiting for whatever comes out.

The sound I hear is not the one I expected. 

“Ouch! That’s my foot, dumbass!” 

Definitely not what I expected. 

“For God’s sake speed up; we’ll lose him.”

I almost flatten myself against the ground, attempting to keep myself hidden from whoever’s chasing me, but then I recognize the voice. Or at least, I recognize the tone of exasperation. 

“Raina?” 

“Shit!” Now that I can see her silhouette, she looks positively pissed. “That you?” 

“Of course it’s me. What are you doing here?” 

“What else could I possibly be doing except for looking for your idiot ass, whom I believe I explicitly fucking told not to leave your hotel room?” 

“I waited all day! I thought you’d–“ I pause. I’m not sure that I even know what I thought. “What were you doing, anyway?” 

“You mean, after impromptu surgery? Had to pick up this guy.” She jabs her thumb to her left, at which point I can see the taller silhouette, and the outline of a grin that’s missing a few teeth. 

“Hey, man. Raina filled me in. You’re dead, huh?” KP’s lilting voice, not a whisper but full-blown conversational volume, echoes through the trees.

I grimace. “Sure am. Hey Raina, have you put up those posters around town yet? Welcome to Paradise, Population 5,000 people and one zombie?”

“Don’t be dense. You and KP have already met, and you know that if there’s one guy on earth who specializes in weird, it’s him.” She shifts, and I can tell she’s not entirely comfortable with what she’s done. “Anyway. Something’s happened to you that we can’t explain, and there’s more than that. The guy who just died in the hospital this afternoon had puncture wounds in his chest that look just like yours.” Raina folds her arms over her chest. “What the hell are you doing out here, anyway?”

“Basically, following the same lead.” I explain to Raina and KP the vivid memory from the clinic.

Raina turns to KP. “Any thoughts?” 

KP scratches his head. “Well, it could be the Batsquatch.”

“The… pardon?” 

“Batsquatch. You know. Part bat, part Squatch. It’s like Bigfoot with wings. It’s pretty much the most dangerous thing rumored to be around these parts. Big claws ’n the like.” 

“That’s ridiculous.” 

KP peers down at Raina. “Says the one who held a stethoscope to a walking popsicle today.” 

“Hey, still here.”

KP shrugs apologetically. “Well, anyway. Have you found anything?” 

I motion down to the droplet of blood I found on the clover. “Yeah, actually. I just picked up my own trail from yesterday.” 

Raina’s face goes ghostly pale, accentuated by the blueish moonlight. “Max.” 

“What?” 

“You’re a fucking idiot.” 

“Ay, I think that’s a little–“ 

“If this was your blood from yesterday, it’d be dry by now.” 

Ah. Shit.

“We should go,” Raina hisses. “We followed your stick markers in. We can follow them out.” 

I open my mouth to protest, but just as I do, something… else emerges into the clearing. 

The thing is at least seven feet tall, with a bulbous white head – its thin body is a dark gray and looks like patchwork human skin, not stitched but seared together.

Its limbs are long and thin, and its digits are more like long knives – I know immediately, these are the source of the puncture wounds in my chest. 

“That is definitely neither Bat nor Squatch,” Raina manages. 

“Definitely not,” KP agrees shakily. “Is it running time yet?” 

“Wait,” I say – the creature is bending over something, and I can see a shape barely twitching underneath it. Prey. 

As we watch, the creature bends over, employing its only facial feature: a wormlike mouth with two rows of jagged, awful teeth. It drinks from its victim, greedily, in large gulps, until finally it comes up for air. 

Oh good, I think vaguely. It needs to breathe. 

Then something horrible happens. Well. More horrible, anyway. 

In front of our eyes, it grows two pale appendages on either side of its face. Unmistakably. Human. Ears.

And turns its eyeless face towards us. 

“Running time now,” I say through gritted teeth, but Raina and KP are frozen to the spot. “Now, nownownow–“

I push Raina and KP, taking both their hands and dragging them with me. It takes them a moment – long enough for the creature to begin advancing towards us with a hollow, monstrous roar.

We run.