#literally hitting every brick wall imaginable trying to find this silly book

[interstate40]

If a book has been out of print for 18 years, only one library in the world has a copy but the library is in Europe, there are literally zero (0) copies available to buy anywhere on the internet, and the author still maintains a website with a contact email listed...

Would it be inappropriate to email the author and ask if he has any insight on where to find a copy?

[jimincase]

Namjoon - Halloween AU: Spilt

Demon! Namjoon

Summary: Monsters hide everywhere, even in plain sight.

Word Count: 1.3K

This is a Part 4 but can be read separately

Jungkook, Jin, Taehyung

The book closed with a loud snap throughout the otherwise quiet diner, a sigh escaping your lips as you evaluate what you just read. You could only wish to live in a mythical universe as the one in your book, romance blossoming in your life with such ease. A beautiful love story taking place on the beach. You snorted. One could only dream. Glancing down at your phone, you notice the time and immediately ask for a to-go cup for your milkshake. You didn’t realize just how long you were reading in the faded red booth; your milkshake completely melted as there was no longer any condensation dripping from the glass onto the table.

Grease and warm apple pie scents filled your nose as you walked out of the restaurant, your cup in your hand and your book under your arm. Walking down the sidewalk of the busy city, the only smells you can make out are cold and brittle, nothing like the warmth and familiarity from the diner. Neon lights displaying that businesses were open and drunks staggered your vision as you continued your way through the evening city life. Posters and graffiti are scattered on every wall and fence you can see, displaying something in bright colors to gain attention. The only one that catches your eye is a poster with a bright crescent moon printed on it, with a scarecrow welcoming you to what looks like an apple orchard and pumpkin patch. You stop to read the bright titles on the poster, snickering at some silly names: “Menacing Hedge Maze, Teetering Rides, Wicked Apples.”

You giggle, deciding to take one of the little slips of the bottom of the poster that had the number of the place, wondering if you may attend such fair. You wander down the road for a few more minutes, taking in bright lights and interesting people, avoiding getting hit by cars and bikes. Soon you get to a quieter and duller part of the city, a part that people usually only go to in order to arrive at a grander part of the city with better business. The crosswalk button is sticky as you repeatedly press at it, knowing it won’t speed up the switch from green light to red light but having nothing better to do as you wait. Your body naturally leans against the pole as you look in front of you at the opposing sidewalk, the one you were about to cross to. The image of the figure is faint but you swear you see it in between the speeding cars. A tall and lean figure waits at the other end, facing you completely. There was no eyes, no ears, no mouth, nothing but the look made chills run up your spine. You couldn’t look away, not believing if what you were seeing to be real or a figment of your imagination. It’s body -- if that’s what you would call it -- was made entirely of shadows, screaming and haunting faces meshing against it, almost like people were actually inside the creature, trying to escape its clutches. Although it has no face, it looks as if you’re the next face to be added to its endless collection. Bile rises in your throat as you continue looking at the--the thing. The next gap from the traffic allows you to see that it has disappeared.

Fear overwhelms you as you refuse to believe what you just saw to be real, and that it truly disappeared just like that. You don’t move, just watch the same spot the monster was previously standing in, even though the light has long turned red and the crossing sign lit up, telling you it was okay to cross now. You back away from the crossway, opting to take a different route. You continue peeking over your shoulder though, paranoia seeping into your system. You collide with a hard body, your milkshake cup teetering forward, towards the stranger as the book falls out from the crook of your arm. The sticky chocolate paints the man’s shirt as he stares down in shock, before slowly looking up to meet your eyes, hatred and anger plastered on his face.

What once were mocha coffee eyes dissipate. Inky black bleeds through and takes over the man’s entire eye, encasing the pupil and iris. There was only darkness within his eyes, an abyss that pulled you; a black hole that took over.

“You don't know the hell you just caused...literally.” He rasps out as he takes grip of your forearms, pulling you into an alleyway and slamming your back against the cold brick.

Fear paralyzes you, trapping you in your place as you can only look at the boy in front of you’s eyes. It’s obvious this creature is far from human as he stares you down, trapping you in the black holes that are his eyes. Your limbs ache to move, your brain screaming at you to fight, to get out but you can’t. No matter how hard you try to escape, no muscles dare to move, to even twitch.

Monsters lurk everywhere.

Monsters like the one in front of you roam the streets everyday. Fear bubbles up within you as you stare on at the demon in front of you, recalling your previous encounter with the faceless creature at the stoplight. There are unknown monsters walking past you everyday, monsters that hide in the shadows, monsters other than humans.

The creature in front of you towers above you and a sly smirk crosses his face, causing deep indents on his cheeks. You’re shaking now. This boy would be rather handsome if he wasn’t a beast of hell, what with his dimples and plump lips. You would have never suspected what he was if you never would’ve spilled your drink over him. Now it seems that this is the end. The realization and the truth seem to come to light at this moment: your life is going to become only darkness, just like his eyes.

His fingertip slowly traces up your neck, to the curve of your jaw, to the apple of your cheek. Your body is still stiff as you can only allow him to do what he wishes. You don’t even blink. It appears that as soon as you saw his true eyes, he has had a hold over you since. He knows, of course. He knows that you can’t move, no matter how desperately you wish to, so he takes his time. Anxiety and paranoia build within you as the tension in your body spreads throughout. Your brain is going into overdrive trying to activate its motor parts to actually move, but you believe your blood has actually frozen over.

You can’t look away from the demon as he towers over you with his eyes so lifeless and dark that you’re afraid you can see your death in them.

You can.

In one shallow breath, claws have extracted from his nails. He’s slow in his actions of moving a single claw down the column of your throat, drawing blood in the process. The beads of blood drip down your neck, onto your shirt. Now you both have stains on your clothes; however, it seems that he’s not a man of equal vengeance. A wicked grin splits his face as he stares down at you and at the first mark he has made. Your body begins shutting down from the overwhelming fear and you lose all control. You already feel distant and away from the situation, from the entire world, from living.

The only thing that keeps you sane from this nightmare is going over everything, no matter how despicable they are: One wrong move has just ended your life; monsters are real and they walk around like regular people everyday--

A loud snap echoed throughout the alleyway.

Do you understand now, Y/N? If you're afraid of that, just wait until you find out.

[veen83]

new york is one of my favorite places to visit, and october’s trip was no exception. i am lucky enough to have family and friends scattered throughout the city, so i have an abundance of places to stay and an assortment of people to keep me company.

on each visit i pick two things i’ve never done or seen before and make it a point to check them out, but i outdid myself on this last visit. with lannon out of town, maggie out of the country, and the rest at work on the weekdays [and over the weekend, in the case of molly], i found lots of ways to entertain myself and saw lots of new and familiar places along the way.

below are some of the highlights from my most recent visit to one of my favorite cities.

bear-veena reunion! new york, new york. october 2017.

a [very brief] reunion with my bear! i don’t know how the stars aligned for this one, but ellie happened to be in from london for work for 48 hours at the same time i was. she was busy with her work, but we managed a late lunch and catch up session before i needed to get ready for hamilton and she had to catch her flight. it was so nice to see her, however briefly, and it did my heart good to see her in person and not just over skype.

this happened. new york, new york. october 2017.

hamilton. i have already written extensively about our experience seeing this show come to life, but i would be remiss if i didn’t also mention it here. it was incredible.

lower east side tenement museum. this museum first came to my attention when i read orphan train in 2014, and i have been wanting to visit ever since. i learned a lot about the families living in the lower east side, and it was an incredible experience to walk through a few of the apartments and imagine the lives of those who lived there not all that long ago. i highly recommend a visit, especially for all of my fellow history nerds.

catching up with an old friend. new york, new york. october 2017.

catching up with peyton. peyton was a classmate of my brother’s in helena, and she was the reason i found out about baylor and then ended up boarding there my last two years of high school. we hadn’t seen each other in years but have kept in touch over social media, and luckily our schedules overlapped while i was in town and we were able to spend an evening drinking and eating and catching up over the last two decades of each other’s lives. it is so nice to spend time with someone who has known you your entire life and who remembers random moments of your childhood.

love me some wooden roller coasters. brooklyn, new york. october 2017.

coney island. i have been wanting to visit coney island for some time, and i finally made it out there on this visit. luke and khadija joined me, and together we rode the cyclone, a 90-year-old wooden roller coaster that was so much fun and also a little terrifying. i seriously thought i might fly out when we went around one of the turns, but it was amazing and i would do it again if i could. it was fun to wander through the different parks and see all the families out enjoying one of the final weekends of the season.

south indian feasting. new york, new york. october 2017.

a return to saravanaa bhavan. as much as i like to try new places when i visit the city, one of my staples is saravanaa bhavan, a delicious south indian eatery on the upper west side. this year, molly and lili joined me for a late sunday lunch, and we stuffed ourselves silly before heading across the street to sample on some whiskey at caledonia. that masala dosa is the stuff dreams are made of.

  breakfast. new york, new york. october 2017.

getting a tour of columbia. new york, new york. october 2017.

absolute bagels and a tour of columbia. madhav has been gushing about absolute bagels since i met him two years ago, so i knew i had to make it up there on this visit. as luck would have it, julie was free for breakfast on monday, and absolute is close to both her house and columbia’s campus. we picked up bagels and headed up to columbia, where julie showed me around for a bit before we settled down in the library to eat and catch up. it was great to hear about her life back in the states and to enjoy such a delicious breakfast, and i loved wandering columbia’s campus and pretending i was a student.

ethiopian deliciousness. new york, new york. october 2017.

ethiopian deliciousness at abyssinia. when tosca found out i was going to new york, she insisted i try ethiopian food in harlem. i had never been to harlem, so it seemed like a great monday lunch adventure. after i left columbia i made my way up to harlem and abysinnia at w 135th and frederick douglass boulevard. the food was amazing, and i had the place almost entirely to myself on a rainy monday afternoon.

learning about fashion at moma. new york, new york. october 2017.

moma. i had never been to the museum of modern art, so i figured a rainy monday was as good a day as ever to check it out. as it turns out, most everyone else had the same idea, especially as it was a long weekend and there were a lot of people in town. i had seen posters advertising their history of fashion exhibit, so when i arrived i headed straight up there and took my time wandering around. it was a very cool exhibit, and i enjoyed reading about how different styles have evolved from others. after, i wandered through one of the permanent galleries and was able to see van gogh’s starry night, which i did not even realize was at moma, so that was pretty cool. what was not cool, however, was the fifty or so people crowded around it with their cameras and selfie sticks. i love my photos, but some things are best remembered as memories, i think.

the strand. as a compulsive book-buyer, the strand bookstore and its touted “18 miles of books” has been on my list for years. i have previously visited their setup at central park east, but this was the first time i made it to their brick-and-mortar location near union square. it is multiple floors of floor-to-ceiling books and knickknacks for book lovers, and i spent far too much money on books, postcards, tote bags, magnets, and a whole host of other things. it is a mecca for book lovers, and the only thing that would have made it better is some comfy chairs to curl into with a book or two.

hitting up some neighborhood favorites. one of the great parts of staying at maggie and lannon’s place is that i know the neighborhood pretty well and could revisit some neighborhood favorites from last year. on my last night in town, molly and i had drinks at sugarburg and union pool before grabbing food at kings co imperial, and it was such fun to experience those places again. sugarburg is up there with fred’s for the title of my favorite new york bar, union pool is a sentimental favorite from a few years ago, and kings co is such good food.

fearless girl. new york, new york. october 2017.

fearless girl. i almost forgot about the fearless girl statue on wall st, remembering it only on my last evening in town. luckily i was heading down that way on my last morning, so i made sure to stop by and say hi to her in person. she’s so cool and collected and really everything i want to be. i didn’t have it in me to ask someone to take my picture with her, but it was cool to see her nonetheless.

hanging out with my bestie. new york, new york. october 2017.

trinity church. since this trip was all about seeing hamilton, i knew i had to visit trinity church and see alexander hamilton’s grave. the churchyard was pretty empty on tuesday morning, so i got to stand at hamilton’s grave for quite a while and just look while listening to the soundtrack. i thought it was interesting that i couldn’t find angelica’s headstone, since the show specifically mentions her being buried near him, although eliza was easy to spot since there are lots of plaques from the daughters of the american revolution. the other thing that stood out was the marker for their first son phillip — it notes that although it is known he was buried at trinity, the exact location of his grave was never marked, so it is not known exactly where he lays.

one of my favorite places. new york, new york. october 2017.

wrapping it all up at central park. no visit to new york is complete without a stop in central park. it took me to my last day in town, but i made it over there to sit and read and people watch and enjoy the gorgeous weather and the greenery. even mid-morning on a tuesday it is bustling with walkers and joggers and tourists and locals and children and college students and middle-aged adults and senior citizens and vendors and artists and people from literally all walks of life and it is hands down one of my favorite places in the world. it was a great way to wrap up a fantastic week.

manhattan street art. new york, new york. october 2017.

every visit to new york is unique and special and so much fun, and this one was no exception. until next time…

xx

veen on the road: a week in new york. new york is one of my favorite places to visit, and october's trip was no exception. i am lucky enough to have family and friends scattered throughout the city, so i have an abundance of places to stay and an assortment of people to keep me company.