#i had to fucking tape up three separate spots on my BED ITSELF because i got an adjustable bedframe that can't turn off

[nexus-nebulae]

can things please stop having blue LEDs on them. im tired of having to cover all of my electronics with black tape so i can actually fucking sleep

[bondsmagii]

What’s the scariest paranormal thing that happened to you (that you’re comfortable sharing)? You’re such a great story teller and in this awful month of August spooky vibes are the most bone-deep.

I have a few, but my usual go-to actually has an ask regarding it waiting in my inbox, so when it spits out of my queue you’ll see it anyway! two for the price of one. anyway, for this one I’ll go for another terrifying experience that I haven’t told as often and it still honest to god creeps me out.

in my third year of university, I lived in campus accommodation. the building was pretty creepy-looking as it was: it was quite literally modelled on the buildings of a nearby prison, and said buildings looked like Khrushchev-era Soviet housing. it was split into a bunch of flats, each housing five people in single rooms, a full bathroom, a half-bathroom, and a living room/kitchen area. my room was at the very end of the hall, and the living room door was on the other end, facing the front door. there were no windows in the central hallway, and shortly after I moved in there was a chair just randomly in the middle of the hallway that nobody could account for; it soon vanished just as inexplicably. (this was not too surprising and certainly not as creepy as the place I lived in my fourth year, where I opened my bedroom door after hearing a strange tapping on it, and saw a single red balloon floating down the hallway. I immediately shut the door.)

anyway. this is where we set our scene. at the time of this encounter I had been living there for maybe three months or so; it was the middle of winter and very dark and cold. our flat was on the fourth floor and filled with ill-fitting windows and therefore the wind simply ripped through it, and as a result we spent all of our time in our rooms with the windows duct-taped up. despite the nasty weather, I was and still remain a) a night owl and b) very restless, so I would frequently go out and walk around campus at night in the howling wind, because hey, if I’m going to get murdered by a supernatural entity, I might as well make sure the atmosphere is worthy. my campus was excellent for such things, and my usual walk took me along the foot of a mountain, along the top of a slope looking down onto a loch, and around a castle before heading home. 

up until recently, this walk had been uneventful. that had gradually begun to change, and frequently on my way back, I would feel as though I were being followed. it started as a minorly uncomfortable feeling which didn’t really bother me, because I’m quite used to the paranormal and it takes a lot to unnerve me, but soon it began to grow into something unnerving enough that I would sometimes skip out on my walk, and other times when I braved it I would end up running the rest of the way home. there was a security door at the bottom of the staircase leading to my flat, and usually once I got inside and slammed it shut, I would feel better. one night, this was not the case. the feeling of being watched had been the worst yet, and I had actually felt in danger as I had run home. I got through the security door and slammed it shut, but this time it wouldn’t lock. I tried for several seconds, but the lock just would not twist. I gave up and sprinted up several flights of stairs to my flat, and miraculously the front door still locked. I slammed it closed and locked it before backing up to the living room door; seconds later, something slammed itself against the front door and snarled. I could feel something out there. there were several seconds of nothing, and then the presence abruptly vanished.

alright. a little creepy. not the worst thing I’ve ever experienced but what the fuck, you know? I skip out on my walks for a while, and about a week or so later I’m in the kitchen making coffee at 3am, because that’s how I roll. as mentioned, the living room/kitchen door is opposite the front door. there is a wall separating the living room from the kitchen, but an open archway rather than a door. I cannot see the living room door from the kitchen, and said door has a small window in the top which looks out onto the front door. there is no direct line of sight from the hallway to the kitchen, yet as I make my coffee, I can feel something watching me. something is very much staring at me, and it is coming from the hallway right outside the living room door.

now, momma didn’t raise a coward but she did raise a fool. I decide to go and look. I go to the archway and put my head out. the living room door is about three feet from me. and in the window I can see a head. it is very much at first glance a fully-formed head, but it’s not attached to anything. it’s floating there, kind of rotating on the air slightly. the face is that of an old man and he doesn’t seem to have much hair. his mouth is open and moving slightly as though he’s trying to talk. as it rotates around, I see that the freakiest part of this already very freaky apparition is the fact that his neck and half of his face isn’t actually whole. instead it flakes away from him in tatters, kind of like torn fabric. it is, by far, the creepiest apparition I have seen. I’m not entirely sure what to do, because usually I would see something like this and assume it was a residual haunting and therefore not sentient, or it was sentient but not malicious. such a thing would ordinarily make me think that the spirit wanted help, but there was the small issue of the absolute malice coming off this guy. I mean, for a solid forty seconds or so I was rooted to the spot, unable to move because I was convinced if I did, the thing would come through the door and fuck me up. gradually the disembodied head faded away, and I grabbed my coffee and quickly went out into the hall. no sooner had I done so did something throw itself against the front door again, with serious force.

something about all the doors in our flat: they’re all heavy-duty fire doors (aside from, ironically, the one leading to the living room/kitchen). they are super heavy and slam closed on their own, and it’s impossible to knock on them loudly because it hurts a lot. if my housemates or I wanted to knock on one another’s door, the only way we could make a noise loud enough to get attention from inside the room and not break our knuckles was to kick our shoed feet against the bottom of the door (which made a rattling thud) or slap our open palm against it. the front door was made out of this same serious knuckle-destroying material, and whatever was out there was going absolutely ham. the bang was defeaning. the door was literally jumping in its frame. it happened three times -- bang, bang, BANG -- and then the door went still. somehow I managed not to spill my coffee. I stood there, staring at the door, and I once again I was aware that something was standing on the other side. I had had quite enough by that point, so I hauled ass to my room -- which was, as you recall, at the very end of the long, dark hallway (complete with one ominously flickering light shining out from the bathroom). I get to my room and shut and lock the door.

for a moment everything is fine, and then as I step towards my desk -- bang, bang, BANG. those same bangs, on my bedroom door. once again it’s shaking in its frame, and then stops. there’s silence. said silence stretches on for some time, and then I hear a door open. my housemate in the room directly across from me calls out into the hallway what we’re all thinking: “what the fuck was that?”

we all open our doors and confer. it turned out my housemates all heard it too, and understandably were too scared to check what it was. I don’t tell them about the disembodied head, but I do tell them about the weird presence outside the door -- a presence which two of my four housemates have also felt. we theorise for a bit and crack a few jokes to calm down, and then we all go back to bed or, in my case, fucking around online. the next morning (I’m still awake, of course) my housemate across the hall gets up and slaps on my door, and when I open it he points out several deep gouges in the door that were definitely not there when I came back from the kitchen that night. they’re deep, too, and once again, these doors were made strong enough that I’m sure their only purpose in life was to break bones. we could not for the life of us work out what had caused it.

the presence remained by the front door for several nights, until I put salt down across the threshold and also across the doorways of all the bedrooms in the house. the presence vanished from the front door then, but was still felt outside the security door -- which was never fixed, because whenever the lock was replaced it broke again pretty much immediately. I never got chased home again, nor did I see the old man in the hallway either... but that was because I stopped going out of my bedroom during the hour between 3 and 4am, and kept strictly to that rule for the rest of the time I lived there.

[lesbianrewrites]

The Martian Chapter 9

*disclaimer* This is a project done for fun, and none of these characters/works belong to me. I do not claim to own any of the material on this page.

This is a Lesbian edit of The Martian by Andy Weir.

Chapters will be posted every day at 2pm EST.

Google doc version can be found here. The chapter can also be found under the cut. Enjoy!

CHAPTER IX

LOG ENTRY: SOL 79 It’s the evening of my 8th day on the road. “Sirius 4” has been a success so far. I’ve fallen into a routine. Every morning I wake up at dawn. First thing I do is check oxygen and CO2 levels. Then I eat a breakfast pack and drink a cup of water. After that, I brush my teeth, using as little water as possible, and shave with an electric razor. The rover has no toilet. We were expected to use our suits’ reclamation systems for that. But they aren’t designed to hold twenty days worth of output. My morning piss goes in a resealable plastic box. When I open it, the rover reeks like a truck-stop men’s room. I could take it outside and let it boil off. But I worked hard to make that water, and the last thing I’m going to do is waste it. I’ll feed it to the Water Reclaimer when I get back. Even more precious is my manure. It’s critical to the potato farm and I’m the only source on Mars. Fortunately, when you spend a lot of time in space, you learn how to shit in a bag. And if you think things are bad after opening the piss box, imagine the smell after I drop anchor. Then I go outside and collect the solar cells. Why didn’t I do it the previous night? Because trying to dismantle and stack solar cells in total fucking darkness isn’t fun. I learned that the hard way. After securing the cells, I come back in, turn on some shitty ‘70’s music, and start driving. I putter along at 25kph, the rover’s top speed. It’s comfortable inside. I wear hastily made cut-offs and a thin shirt while the RTG bakes the interior. When it gets too hot I detach the insulation duct-taped to the hull. When it gets too cold, I tape it back up. I can go almost 2 hours before the battery runs out. I do a quick EVA to swap cables, then I’m back at the wheel for the second half of the day’s drive. The terrain is very flat. The undercarriage of the rover is taller than any of the rocks around here, and the hills are gently-sloping affairs, smoothed by eons of sandstorms. When the other battery runs out, it’s time for another EVA. I pull the solar cells off the roof and lay them on the ground. For the first few sols, I lined them up in a row. Now I plop them wherever, trying to keep them close to the rover out of sheer laziness. Then comes the incredibly dull part of my day. I sit around for 12 hours with nothing to do. And I’m getting sick of this rover. The inside’s the size of a van. That may seem like plenty of room, but try being trapped in a van for 8 days. I look forward to tending my potato farm in the wide open space of the Hab. I’m nostalgic for the Hab. How fucked up is that? I have shitty ‘70’s TV to watch, and a bunch of Poirot novels. But mostly I spend my time thinking about getting to Ares 4. I’ll have to do it someday. How the hell am I going to survive a 3,200km trip in this thing? It’ll probably take 50 days. I’ll need the Water Reclaimer and the Oxygenator, maybe some of the Hab’s main batteries, then a bunch more solar cells to charge everything… where will I put it all? These thoughts pester me throughout the long boring days. Eventually, it gets dark and I get tired. I lay among the food packs, water tanks, extra O2 tank, piles of CO2 filters, box of pee, bags of shit, and personal items. I have a bunch of crew jumpsuits to serve as bedding, along with my blanket and pillow. Basically, I sleep in a pile of junk every night. Speaking of sleep… G’night.LOG ENTRY: SOL 80 By my reckoning, I’m about 100km from Pathfinder. Technically it’s “Carl Sagan Memorial Station.” But with all due respect to Carl, I can call it whatever the hell I want. I’m the Queen of Mars. As I mentioned, it’s been a long, boring drive. And I’m still on the outward leg. But hey, I’m an astronaut. Long-ass trips are my business. Navigation is tricky. The Hab’s nav beacon only reaches 40km, then it’s too faint. I knew that’d be an issue when I was planning this little road trip, so I came up with a brilliant plan that didn’t work. The computer has detailed maps, so I figured I could navigate by landmarks. I was wrong. Turns out you can’t navigate by landmarks if you can’t find any god damned landmarks. Our landing site is at the delta of a long-gone river. If there are any microscopic fossils to be had, it’s a good place to look. Also, the water would have dragged rock and soil samples from thousands of kilometers away. With some digging, we could get a broad geological history. That’s great for science, but it means the Hab’s in a featureless wasteland. I considered making a compass. The rover has plenty of electricity and the med kit has a needle. Only one problem: Mars doesn’t have a magnetic field. So I navigate by Phobos. It whips around Mars so fast it actually rises and sets twice a day, running west to east. It’s isn’t the most accurate system, but it works. Things got easier on Sol 75. I reached a valley with a rise to the west. It had flat ground for easy driving, and I just needed to follow the edge of the hills. I named it “Lewis Valley” after our fearless leader. She’d love it there, geology nerd that she is. Three sols later, Lewis Valley opened into a wide plain. So, again, I was left without references and relied on Phobos to guide me. There’s probably symbolism there. Phobos is the god of fear, and I’m letting it be my guide. Not a good sign. But today, my luck finally changed. After two sols wandering the desert, I found something to navigate by. It was a 5km crater, so small it didn’t even have a listed name. But to me, it was the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Once I had it in sight, I knew exactly where I was. I’m camped near it now, as a matter of fact. I’m finally through the blank areas of the map. Tomorrow, I’ll have the Lighthouse to navigate by, and Hamelin crater later on. I’m in good shape. Now, on to my next task: Sitting around with nothing to do for 12 hours. I better get started!LOG ENTRY: SOL 81 Almost made it to Pathfinder today, but I ran out of juice. Just another 22km to go! An unremarkable drive. Navigation wasn’t a problem. As Lighthouse receded into the distance, the rim of Hamelin Crater came into view. I left Acidalia Planitia behind a long time ago. I’m well into Ares Vallis now. The desert plains are giving way to bumpier terrain, strewn with ejecta that never got buried by sand. It makes driving a chore; I have to pay more attention. Up till now, I’ve been driving right over the rock-strewn landscape. But as I travel further south, the rocks are getting bigger and more plentiful. I have to go around some of them or risk damage to my suspension. The good news is I don’t have to do it for long. Once I get to Pathfinder, I can turn around and go the other way. The weather’s been very good. No discernible wind, no storms. I think I got lucky there. There’s a good chance my rover tracks from the past few sols are intact. I should be able to get back to Lewis Valley just by following them. After setting up the solar panels, I went for a little walk. I never left sight of the rover; the last thing I want to do is get lost on foot. But I couldn’t stomach crawling back into that cramped, smelly rat’s nest. Not right away. It’s a strange feeling. Everywhere I go, I’m the first. Step outside the rover? First person ever to be there! Climb a hill? First person to climb that hill! Kick a rock? That rock hadn’t moved in a million years! I’m the first person to drive long-distance on Mars. The first person to spend more than 31 sols on Mars. The first person to grow crops on Mars. First, first, first! I wasn’t expecting to be first at anything. I was the 5th crewman out of the MDV when we landed, making me the 17th person to set foot on Mars. The egress order had been determined years earlier. A month before launch, we all got tattoos of our “Mars Numbers.” Johanssen almost refused to get her “15” because she was afraid it would hurt. Here’s a woman who had survived the centrifuge, the vomit comet, hard landing drills and 10k runs. A woman who fixed a simulated MDV computer failure while being spun around upside-down. But she was afraid of a tattoo needle. Man, I miss those guys. I’m the first person to be alone on an entire planet. Ok, enough moping. Tomorrow, I’ll be the first person to recover a Mars probe.LOG ENTRY: SOL 82 Victory! I found it! I knew I was in the right area when I spotted Twin Peaks in the distance. The two small hills are under a kilometer from the landing site. Even better, they were on the far side of the site. All I had to do was aim for them until I found the Lander. And there it was! Right where it was supposed to be! Pathfinder’s final stage of descent was a balloon-covered tetrahedron. The balloons absorbed the impact of landing. Once it came to rest, they deflated and the tetrahedron unfolded to reveal the probe. It’s actually two separate components. The Lander itself, and the Sojourner rover. The Lander was immobile, while Sojourner wandered around and got a good look at the local rocks. I’m taking both back with me, but the important part is the Lander. That’s the part that can communicate with Earth. I excitedly stumbled out and rushed to the site. I can’t explain how happy I was. It was a lot of work to get here, and I’d succeeded. The Lander was half buried. With some quick and careful digging, I exposed the bulk of it, though the large tetrahedron and the deflated balloons still lurked below the surface. After a quick search, I found Sojourner. The little fella was only two meters from the Lander. I vaguely remember it was further away when they last saw it. It probably entered a contingency mode and started circling the Lander, trying to communicate. I quickly deposited Sojourner in my rover. It’s small, light, and easily fit in the airlock. The Lander was a different story. I had no hope of getting the whole thing back to the Hab. It was just too big. It was time for me to put on my mechanical engineer hat. The probe was attached to the central panel of the unfolded tetrahedron. The other three sides were each attached with a metal hinge. As anyone at JPL will tell you, probes are delicate things. Weight is a serious concern, so they’re not made to stand up to much punishment. When I took a crowbar to the hinges, they popped right off! Then things got difficult. When I tried to lift the central panel assembly, it didn’t budge. Just like the other three panels, the central panel had deflated balloons underneath it. Over the decades, the balloons had ripped and filled with sand. I could cut off the balloons, but I’d have to dig to get to them. It wouldn’t be hard, it’s just sand. But the other three panels were in the damn way. I quickly realized I didn’t give a crap about the condition of the other panels. I went back to my rover, cut some strips of Hab material, then braided them into a primitive but strong rope. I can’t take credit for it being strong. Thank NASA for that. I just made it rope-shaped. I tied one end to a panel, and the other to the rover. The rover was made for traversing extremely rugged terrain, often at steep angles. It may not be fast, but it has great torque. I towed the panel away like a redneck removing a tree stump. Now I had a place to dig. As I exposed each balloon, I cut it off. The whole task took an hour. Then I hoisted the central panel assembly up and carried it confidently to the rover! At least, that’s what I wanted to do. The damn thing is still heavy as hell. I’m guessing it’s 200kg. Even in Mars gravity that's a bit much. I could carry it around the Hab easily enough, but lifting it while wearing an awkward EVA suit? Out of the question. So I dragged it to the rover. Now for my next feat: Getting it on the roof. The roof was empty at the moment. Even with mostly-full batteries, I had set up the solar cells when I stopped. Why not? Free energy. I’d worked it out in advance. On the way here, two stacks of solar panels occupied the whole roof. On the way back, they would be a single stack. It’s a little more dangerous; they might fall over. The main thing it they’ll be a pain in the ass to stack that high. I can’t just throw a rope over the rover and hoist Pathfinder up the side. I don’t want to break it. I mean, it’s already broken, they lost contact in 1997. But I don’t want to break it more. I came up with a solution, but I’d done enough physical labor for one day, and I was almost out of daylight. Now I’m in the rover, looking at Sojourner. It seems all right. No physical damage on the outside. Doesn’t look like anything got too baked by the sunlight. The dense layer of Mars crap all over it protected it from long-term solar damage. You may think Sojourner isn’t much use to me. It can’t communicate with Earth. Why do I care about it? Because it has a lot of moving parts. If I establish a link with NASA, I can talk to them by holding a page of text up to the Lander’s camera. But how would they talk to me? The only moving parts on the Lander are the high gain antenna (which would have to stay pointed at Earth) and the camera boom. We’d have to come up with a system where NASA could talk by rotating the camera head. It would be painfully slow. But Sojourner has six independent wheels that rotate reasonably fast. It’ll be much easier to communicate with those. If nothing else, I could draw letters on the wheels, and hold a mirror up to its camera. NASA’d figure it out and start spelling things at me. That all assumes I can get the Lander’s radio working at all. Time to turn in. I’ve got a lot of backbreaking physical labor to do tomorrow. I’ll need my rest.LOG ENTRY: SOL 83 Oh god I’m sore. But it’s the only way I could think of to get the Lander safely onto the roof. I built a ramp out of rocks and sand. Just like the ancient Egyptians did. And if there’s one thing Ares Vallis has, it’s rocks! First, I experimented to find out how steep the grade could be. Piling up some rocks near the Lander, I dragged it up the pile, then down again. Then I made it steeper, etc. I figured out I could pull it up a 30 degree grade. Anything more was too risky. I might lose my grip and send the Lander tumbling down the ramp. The roof of the rover is over 2 meters from the ground. So I’d need a ramp almost 4 meters long. I got to work. The first few rocks were easy. Then they started feeling heavier and heavier. Hard physical labor in a spacesuit is murder. Everything’s more effort because you’re lugging 20kg of suit around with you, and your movement is limited. I was panting within 20 minutes. So I cheated. I upped my O2 mixture. It really helped a lot. Probably shouldn’t make that a habit. Also, I didn’t get hot. The suit leaks heat faster than my body could ever generate it. The heating system is what keeps the temperature bearable. My physical labor just meant the suit didn’t have to heat itself as much. After hours of grueling labor, I finally got the ramp made. Nothing more than a pile of rocks against the rover, but it reached the roof. I stomped up and down the ramp first, to make sure it was stable, then I dragged the Lander up. It worked like a charm! I was all smiles as I lashed the Lander in place. I made sure it was firmly secured, and even stacked the solar cells in a big single stack (why waste the ramp?). But then it hit me. The ramp would collapse as I drove away, and the rocks might damage the wheels or undercarriage. I’d have to take the ramp apart to keep that from happening. Ugh. Tearing the ramp down was easier than putting it up. I didn’t need to carefully put each rock in a stable place. I just dropped them wherever. It only took me an hour. And now I’m done! I’ll start heading home tomorrow, with my new 100kg broken radio.

[yeshuah-yahveh-blog]

In Wrathful Waters - Chapter 4: Red Herring’s Pond.

The excitement that detective Daniel Hamworth felt after getting such an incredible confirmation from the coroner faded away into oblivion after two days without any real progress on any front since that encounter. Hamworth and detective Eastport dashed into unknown territory after the confirmation from the coroner that Eastport needed in order to give in, to what he considered, ‘Hamworth’s delusions’. Bryan Eastport felt more excited than he had ever been when he and detective Hamworth went on their fishing trip to catch the Red Herring, though that feeling, like most things, fell into ruin by the cruel hands of time. Detectives Eastport and Hamworth were both seated by their respective desks, waves of indifference slowly drowning them, as they try to find anything that could possibly lead them to this heinous serial killer.

“You know”

said Bryan with a metallic tone to his voice.

“I believe you, and so does Cappy, but fuck mate, because he is so damn cautious we are the only ones who are assigned to catch this asshole, and that isn’t helping much.”

Slowly, time elapsed that could see great empires rise and fall, Daniel raised his gaze from the empty paper he was staring into, trying to figure out what he might write about this case of theirs, to the glossed over eyes belonging to detective Eastport.

“Aye”

said Daniel absently. Ten seconds or so past before Daniel continued.

“But there is one thing we could try, though, but it will not be all that popular amongst anyone beside maybe the Red Herring himself, if we fuck up royally.”

“And that is?”

“Well”

said detective Hamworth slowly, as he scratched his right chin and inspected the ceiling for a moment before returning to Bryan.

“Red Herring seems to like murdering children, and, it seems to me, that we could indeed use a child, a specific child mind you, to mock Red Herring publicly with such ferocity that he could not refrain from murdering said child.”

Silence reigned for what seemed an eternity before Bryan said

“Sure, sure, continue”.

This response from Bryan Eastport shocked detective Hamworth for a moment or two, before he managed to gather himself, and continued:

“I am childless, and so are you, I hope! But, but, the Captain does indeed have a nine-year-old boy, as it happens, and if he would, in a way, challenge the Red Herring’s murderous authority and superiority, his fragile psyche must indeed suffer a fracture or two, and in order to heal said fracture he needs to murder this ‘foul mouthed’ child and reclaim his stature, or so I have surmised. Such a tactic might backfire at us with such velocity that nothing would remain of us if things do go wrong.”

Bryan Eastport dwelled in the rare corner of his mind that is known as ‘thought’ for such a long time that Daniel thought his partner indeed either suffered a stroke or was sitting at his desk, dead as a stone. Just as Daniel was about to utter a disapproval of his own insane idea, as to counter the awkward silence brought forth by Bryan, detective Eastport finally spoke, with as slow, calculating voice.

“Sure, why not? I hate that brat, and if he dies, the world would not be poorer, and Cappy is not exactly the best boss in the world, if all goes to shit I would welcome a new boss at a better job.”

A short pau wrestled itself into Bryan’s monologue, as a boring interlude, before he continued.

“But I have to be the one who chat with the little shit, because he hates your guts, you lucky fucker.”

“Whaa?”

Bryan laughed a dry laugh before he spoke once again.

“Aye, sadly for me he fucking hates your guts, Mr. Mailbox Grave, And I would rather not do any of this shit if it was up to me, but if we are going to catch this fucker, then I have to sacrifice my time to talk to that waste of life.”

Daniel Hamworth sat in his chair, his gaze locked onto Bryan’s, paralyzed in shock over his partner’s statement. How could Bryan, someone who was exactly what he described Captain Steel’s son to be, sitting there and taking upon himself to convince the child to, in all but name essentially, play Russian roulette (or Red Herring Roulette as it was come to be called). For the first time since his eyes laid their sight on Bryan, he began to feel something horrible, something paradoxical when the thought or Bryan Eastport was concerned; Daniel felt pride. When Bryan saw the wet eyes of Daniel, something happened, something that Bryan never have done before in his life; he blushed.

Before anything got any more awkward, Daniel hastily said:

“Good, ol’chap”

with such a disturbingly bad imitation of an English accent, that it brought a smile to Bryan’s lips.

“It’s nothing, dude”

Bryan said as he took his eyes off of Daniel as he was trying to hide his embarrassment and appreciation from his senior partner.  Bryan’s gaze briefly fell upon his own desk, and all ornaments thereon. The things his eyes saw was in stark contrast to what existed on Daniel’s desk; family photos, photos of his girlfriend, and a desk neatly organized. Daniel’s, on the other hand, was chaotically filled with notes, files and memos, spanning as close as to Daniel’s first case, to the current one. When Bryan felt brave enough to look into Daniel’s eyes once again, he did so, and said:

“Whatever, but if I chat to Cappy’s son, I fucking hope that you do the trap to catch this disgusting pig, right?”

“Yeah, that I can do”

“Nice! Let’s do it then!”

Before Daniel could react, Bryan was already out of his chair and was nearly running towards the exit of the station, feverously hitting his phone with his fingers in such a manner as one might do when one is writing a text message with a body full of adrenaline. Detective Hamworth let out a deep sigh before he rose and followed his partner in order to exit the station and to rig the trap for the Red Herring. “Finally” he thought as he walked through the main entrance,

“the game is, as Mr. Holmes would say, afoot!”

Bryan and Daniel did agree on the scene of their trap before they went their separate ways. This location was Tide Park, appropriately enough. The clock rang midnight before Bryan called Daniel to tell him his progress and to, for one final time, they went over their plan and sealed their righteous oath. The next day detective Hamworth could see the video that Captain Steel’s son, Adrian, put up on the internet on the behest of detective Eastport. Daniel went on to investigate, with the few clues he had, and time flew by. Daniel and Bryan decided to meet two hours before the trap was meant to be sprung, which was 11:pm, three hours after the video was uploaded online. Detective Hamworth sat on a uncomfortable, woody bench in the middle of Tide Park, eating a sandwich and waiting for his junior partner to arrive.

Time came and went, the sandwich was consumed, and half a packet of cigarettes was smoked, before Daniel, at 13:00 finally had enough. What the hell was Bryan doing? Why did he not attend their final meeting before the trap? Hamworth have had enough, and so he left Tide Park, entered his car and drove to his precinct, swearing almost the entire way there. Just as he was about to park his car at the precinct, he got a call that had him mumbling incoherent words, which no one really wants deciphered, as he declined the warmth embrace of his parking spot, turned around and drove out of the parking lot and toward another crime scene. There was something about the address that gave him chills, though he could not say exactly why. After he parked his car, went under the police tape with a nod to the guarding policeman, and through the entrance to an upper-class apartment complex, and up four set of stairs toward the second flood and the apartment holding the murder scene.

If one discounted the blood strewn across the walls and floor, and the general upheaval of the order that the supposed owner slaved day and night to uphold, the apartment was truly unique and quite boring and scary in a rich kind of way, which one suspected in an apartment such as this. A police officer guided me through the gigantic hallway, through the majestic living room, to the master bedroom. When detective Hamworth entered the master bedroom, the sight his eyes scanned took Daniel aback. Horror filled his mind, chill spread throughout his entire body, and finally sadness and shock drowned the rest of Daniel as he watched the grotesque scene in front of him. In the middle of the bed were two figures, one was a preteen boy, the other a young man, they were embracing each other, with their faces utterly sliced to pieces and their entrails pouring

Out of their butchered stomachs. Despite the destruction to the faces of the murder victims, Daniel could, to his utter horror, identify them. The final series of thought entering detective Hamworth’s mind before he passed out was the identities of the victims and a dreadful thought that he might be next. Daniel Hamworth fell to the floor, his consciousness no longer within reach, in front of the bed containing the brutally murdered bodies of Adrian Steel and Bryan Eastport.