#man it has been years since i properly wrote down and logged my dreams

[rottingcompost]

Had a very weird and kinda fucked dream last night, or maybe it was two, I dont know lol.

[heliosthegriffin]

Infernis Dominus

An aged Cardin Winchester walks down the halls into a well decorated throne room.

The years had been good to him, the graying in his hair natural and he supported a mighty mustache and mutton chops, and even in his more advanced years he still looked as formidable as he did in his prime.

Whether it was due to his aura control, a healthy life style, or duty he was driven by, was impossible to be told and did not matter as he was as well mentally as he was physically. He would continue to serve.

He took to one knee in a bow before a marble and golden throne that was draped in blue tapestry with a pair of golden arcs in the center.

At the center of the throne was a enigma of a man, one who was both boyish, but clearly a man, young but showed age with the strands silver hairs in his golden hair and the laugh lines on his face, blues eyes that carried playful energy and harsh weight, a body that was built to destroy that was covered by heavy armor and held a dreadful sword at his side, but he carried himself with an aura of peace and warmth. Divine, but clearly a Man.

This is Jaune Arc, Lord of the Arc Covenant, Paragon of War, and Master of Conquest.

“My friend, why do you bow? It is only the two of us here.”

Cardin rose up on his feet, and waved off his comrade. “Paah, even if it is only us two I pay my respects to my superiors, circumstance must not be forgotten, otherwise discipline dies and chaos reigns.” Jaune raised a brow. “Hmm, I suppose, but I think its the stick up your ass.”

“If it’d keep you from slouching so much, I’d shove a log up yours.”

Jaune feigned pain. “Oh, such immodesty, is that anyway to speak to your king!”

“If I didn’t know you spent you’re free time in your harem chamber, or playing with those miscreants street rats you’ve taken in, I’d almost pretend to believe you.”

Jaune smirked at him. “To be fair, my wives have taken a quite the likening to them, and my brood has practically adopted them.”

Cardin shook his head in good-nature. “Oh, how are we suppose to remove you from your chambers now.”

“I suppose I shall have to move my throne in there.”

Both men then shared a laugh.

Jaune wiped a tear from his eyes. “How goes Carmine?”

“Oh, you know we’re in a stable, happy, monogamous marriage. No drama, no sleeping order, and no random bastards either.”

“Pfff, I bet you two have great sex too.”

A doopey smile ran across Cardin’s face. “Very.” 

Jaune barked out a laugh.

“Anyway, she’s happy, we’ve got a grandchild on the way soon, so she’s practically move into our’s son’s house, and using her semblance to knit everything, and has more or less got our daughter in law on house arrest.”

Jaune rolled his eyes. “That sounds like Carmine.”

“So how goes you harem, every man’s dream or so they say.”

Jaune sunk into his throne. “Exhausting, I should have never gone above six, but like an idiot I married twelve!” A wide smile broke across his face, and he opened his hand revealing a white orb of aura, where a dozen faces could be spied within. “Its damn tiring keeping up with them, trying to keep track of the hierarchy, and if it’s not a damn orgy to keep them all satisfied, it’s who gets to sleep with who. Sometimes though I have to man up and lay down the law, because at the end of the day I run this show, whether I like it or not.”

He forms another orb of aura, and another till he had twelve floating orbs, each showing a face of one of his wives as he watched them through his aura.

“I soul-bounded each one to each other and myself, I wanted them to know how honest I was about how they had a place in my heart.” With a wave of his hands the orbs shaped together to form a heart with each woman forming a piece of it. He rested a hand under his chin as he look at them. “I have to stop myself from having doubts sometimes, as they can feel it and I don’t want to worry them.”

He pulled the heart towards himself and held it between his hands. He looked at the many loves of his life. “I wouldn’t trade anyone of them,” He crushed the heart between his hands, the last look Cardin got his friends wives was a look of contentment and peace as a wave of aura washed over them.

Jaune then look at Cardin.

“So what do you have for me today? Any news about the battle front?”

Cardin then sighed. “About that, we won.”

Jaune raise a brow. “Excuse me?”

“We have done it, all land on Remnant, all known land in system as been taken by you, Sir. That was actually the reason I come to visit you today.”

“I thought you wished to converse with a long-time friend.”

“That too, anyway we’ve repelled the Grimm, and surrounded the Pools of Darkness with kill nests, any Primordial Grimm have either gone into hiding and we can kill at our leisure, or have been exterminated, the last of the planets in our system have sworn under your leadership, and finally we repelled any attempts by the Brothers and they’re minions to renter the system, not that they’ve tried very hard since you chased them off.”

Jaune smirked and thumbed his sword. “Shame, I was hoping to kill a god.”

“So, I’ve come to ask what next?”

Jaune put his hands on his sword and thought for a moment, looking out at his stain glass windows.

Cardin watch his friend with slight worry.

Ever since they met at the academy over fifty years ago, Jaune’s desire to make the world a better place and to be a hero had guided him. It’s what won Cardin and so many others over, what made him put together a militia when they found evidence of the councils corruption, what put him as the King of Vale, what made him go to war with Atlas and Mistral over the treatment of Faunus, why he put the world under his banner, why he absorbed the relics and dominated their spirits, why he killed the undying witch and put to rest the old wizard, and why he took over the solar system and cast out the gods in a duel.

What would they do with all the power in not only the world, but the solar system.

“Well, I suppose we need to make sure we can hold our territory, make sure we keep the world healthy, make sure that the other planets get along properly, and keep our strength up. Never know when the brothers or some-other gods out there will want some new ‘Congregation’. But, otherwise? I cannot say yet, for I have a pestering idea that I have yet to outline.”

“As you will it then, I shall have it done.”

“As you will then. By the way, come by again soon.”

Cardin nodded. “With Pleasure.”

“No, no, no, I’m going with pleasure!” Then Jaune walked off his throne and into his chambers. “It helps clear my mind.”

Cardin rolled his eyes. “Sure it does.”

-------

Fifteen Years later---

------

Cardin had grown slightly older, but other wise looked the same.

He was looking over piles of documents with his friends and colleagues, Lie Ren and Sun Wukong. Both of them having aged quite well, with Sun looking in his mid forties and Ren hardly touching thirty.

The doors were flung open, a wind knocking all their papers over, as Jaune strode in a broad smile on his face, still hardly having aged at all.

“Friends and Allies, I have decied our next step!”

Ren carefully rose from his seat. “What might that be?”

Jaune ripped Crocea Rexus from his sheath. “I’m glad you asked, we’re conquering hell! For too long have gods unworthy of our faith had control of our souls, no longer! We will liberate them and allow them salvation!”

Sun started clapping. “Yeah lets do this!”

Cardin raised a greying eye brow. “How might we do this though?”

“Oh ho hoh! I’ve been practicing for this question, for the last decade I have been experimenting with dimensional and spiritual barriers, and I have found I can cut them, like this!”

Jaune then took a slash at empty air causing it to twist and contort as space itself was destroyed leaving a hellish red light to fill the room, a large red hand then reach through and pulled itself out.

A gigantic demon emerged.

It then fell in half as Jaune resheathed his sword.

“Pesky creatures they are, so you boys in? I already got my militia going with me.”

Ren shook his head. “Jaune you don’t have to form a militia every time you want to overthrow something. You’re literally the king of the solar system, you have an army at your beck and call.”

“I do If I want to keep favor with the people, and honestly it’s more fun that way.”

Ren sighed in annoyance.

Cardin then got up and called his wife. “Yeah, It’s Jaune. Yep it’s a crusade, Hell, this time. I’ll be back alive or you’ll kick my ass, love you too.”

“I take you’re all accepting?”

“You know it!”

“Someone has to keep you in line.”

“What he said.”

Jaune then raise his sword and rushed into Hell, his Militia outside following as he screamed. “Glorious!”

AN: I am so annoyed, this is second time I had to write this because the first time I wrote it, It got deleted because I had accidentally hit the inspect button and it all went down the pipe.

[grimelords]

My September playlist is here, 37 songs from opera to bossa nova to a song about marrying Tom Collins to thank him for the sips. I’m hopeful there’ll be at least one thing in here you’ll enjoy

Been Drinkin’ Water Out Of Hollow Log - Mississippi Fred McDowell: I love this song because every other version I’ve ever heard sings it as ‘I’ve been drinking muddy water, sleeping in a hollow log’, but straight up drinking out of the log sounds so much better. Also I just found out that this version I’ve loved for years was the original Alan Lomax recording and not a later one like I’d assumed, which is nice!

Tom Collins - The Sloppy Boys: I have not been able to get this song out of my head since I heard it. “I sent an edible arrangement to my travel agent because they had free booze on the carnival cruise” is a masterpiece of rhyme and the way he screams “hold him in my grips!” is just perfect.

What Means Of Witchery - Gospel: This is a perfect song. I think it’s criminal that Gospel aren’t more widely known and I think I’ve decided to make it my life mission to spread the word. The gospel of Gospel if you will. You don’t have to. I had a long daydream a little while ago about transcribing the drums in this song, which feels like an unresolved brain problem but exemplifies just how much I love it.

A Saint Among Madmen - Helen Of Troy: This is the band the drummer from Gospel was in before Gospel and they’re really really good. This sort of spoken word song is hard to pull off without sounding totally corny and I think him being so low in the mix really helps. It reminds me of some early At The Drive-In instrumental wise. The way it finally kicks off, and the sort of yelping desperate tone to the screams in the second half is just so satisfying.

shimripl casual - Autechre: Another cut I enjoyed from Autechre’s immense new album as I work on comprehending it. I like this song because it sounds like a field recording of a prototype mechanical swamp.

New Rules - Dua Lipa: This song feels like it deserves a marching band. There's just so much going on rhythmically, the dancehall rhythm at the centre of it is constantly augmented by all sorts of other percussion, the great snare work throughout, the perfectly formed tiny fill that introduces the chorus, it's just an absolute feast. I only found out the other day that the guy who produced this, Ian Kirkpatrick, also did Bad Liar - what a year for Ian!

My Girls - Tears For Fears: Hey Tears For Fears did a cover of My Girls by Animal Collective and this might be controversial but I think it's better than the original. It tightens up the structure and differentiates the sections a bit, so that it changes from a slow building jam into an odd pop song. They also draw out the harmonies more so that you really notice how funny it is to sing 'my father's graaave' over and over in a big bass under everything.

Crosses - Zero 7 and Jose Gonzales: Sia's career from before she was world-famous Sia is so interesting because she had like a full 15 years of being notable around the world in a bunch of different ways before it all coalesced into Big Sia. She was a backing vocalist in Jamiraquai's band for god's sake. She also was the de facto vocalist of this downtempo band Zero 7 for three albums, but she's not on this song but Jose Gonzales also sang on about half the songs on this album is! This is a remix/cover of his solo song Crosses but this version really shows the song in a whole different light to the original.

Napoleon Solo - At The Drive-In: Years ago in high school one of about 5 videos I had on my iPod was this version of Napoleon Solo from 2001 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nlfmqsx1r0 and I would watch it over and over and over. It's also a good example of why Cedric's lyrics are like they are. He just talks like that. He says things like 'they had the acme weight dropped on them' to describe his friends who died in a car crash and you just have to go along with it.

Act Three: No. 27 - A Real Slow Drag - Scott Joplin: Did you know Scott Joplin, the man behind everyone's favourite song The Entertainer, wrote TWO operas?? Because I didn't. One of them is unfairly lost to history but the other, Treemonisha, was written in 1911 but not properly performed until the Joplin renaissance in 1972. This is the big finale and it's partly because of the performance but partly because of the way he wrote it but it feels a lot more modern than any other operas I've heard from the era. Even though it is mostly a march, it feels like melodically and structurally he's drawing on pre-blues and gospel music in a way that presages rock and roll and the influence it's had on all music since - it feels more like a musical than an opera.

Celia - Cults: Cults have a new EP and it's an entirely different sound for them. Pounding, dark, Ochestral Manouveurs In The Dark type synths under their best lyrics in a long time.

Sharp Dressed Man - Xiu Xiu: Xiu Xiu did this ZZ Top cover for The AV club and I absolutely love it. It sounds like Queens Of The Stone Age if Josh Homme’s charisma stat overflowed and reset back to 0. This recording they did later is is great but the original video is even better https://youtu.be/0SG6yDSbtxULazy 

Nina - Greg Phillinganes: This was a recommendation from my friend and yours @megapope and thank god he did because I've had it stuck in my head all month. Written by Donald Fagen from Steely Dan for Michael Jackson's keyboard player's solo album, a true behind-the-scenes hit.

Gobbledigook - Sigur Ros: I was thinking about how after Takk Sigur Ros got so big and famous and rich off advertising money for their beautiful music and then made the best move possible and pivoted abruptly away from ethereal graceful floating melodies hung from the moon by a gossamer string to good old fashioned stompers made of wood. This is another in my very short playlist of songs like this and The Dodos first album where the driving rhythm plus acoustic guitars are the centre of it all. A little genre that I think has a lot left in it to explore.

Betty Dreams Of Green Men - Guerilla Toss: This feels like the energy drink version of Aqua by Eurythmics from last month's playlist. This sounds like BATS to me and I'm excited because there's not enough music like this around. Extremely energetic power music about some kind of 1950s alien invasion.

#NeverUseTheInternetAgain - Homeboy Sandman and Edan: I love this song. It starts out with a sentiment everyone can agree on (facebook sucks, the internet is bad) and quickly veers into 50 year old man gripes (GPS has ruined everyone's sense of direction? you should order pizza over the phone? match.com??) but it's got such conviction in the hook that I'm sold anyway and have pledged to #neverusetheinternetagain.

Vanishing Hour - Helen Of Troy: This is another Helen Of Troy song but it basically sounds like an unheard Gospel song, which is incredible new for me; the guy who will never stop tracking down every cassette and live recording they ever did. I don't know how the membership of Helen Of Troy went beyond sharing a drummer but the vocalist of Gospel is unmistakably in the mix here and it sounds fantastic.

Canon x Love S.O.S. - Justice: Another great cut from Justice's new sort of live album. This whole album has really made me appreciate Love S.O.S. a lot more. It comes back two or three times and I'm grateful every time. It's a perfect glam rock sentiment. Sending a love ambulance because there's a love emergency happening.

Mariners Apartment Complex - Lana Del Rey: I feel like we don't deserve new Lana yet. I'm so grateful but I'm still getting over Lust For Life and she's going to do this to me? Amazing.

I Got Cash - Brooklyn Funk Essentials: Another @megapope find. Perhaps the most powerful song I've ever heard, in the sense that I feel like I'm being personally admonished throughout. The power structures at play here are towering and the beat.. it's funky.

Pray - Jungle: Jungle flat out released five (5) singles before their album came out and they were all so amazing that I was worried they wouldn't have anything left for the actual album but guess what: the whole thing is absolutely gold, and especially this last song Pray. The feeling I get from the hook into the big drop feels like being dropped bodily into a big tub of honey, if there was a way that that could feel good instead of terrifying. It’s just luscious.

Sad Rude Future Dude - Ball Park Music: I googled “haven’t had a friend in years” trying to remember what this song was called and became instantly suicidal at the sheer amount of reddit threads that phrase returned. Which is I suppose exactly what this song’s about: posting on reddit about how the internet has ruined my relationships and brain, but in a very upbeat, singalong way. This song is a good example of how a dynamic drummer can completely elevate a song to another level.

Knuck If You Buck - Crime Mobb: Knuckle up if you're buck wild it's Crime Mobb. The best named crew since Ruff Sqwad. The two women in this (Princess and Diamond) absolutely carry the whole song. Everyone else has got such a mopey boring flow but they both come in so lively and so aggressive you cannot get away from it. Is there a more powerful opener than "I come in the club, shaking my dreads, throwing these bows and busting these heads"? Is there a better line in general than "Crime Mob, it ain't no stopping, it be like Saddam Hussein, Hitler and Osama Bin Laden"?

Deixa - Toquinho: I'm quickly becoming one of these 'the end is near' sandwich board guys grabbing people on the street and yelling at them except about bossa nova. It is criminal how much this whole genre has been reduced to funny elevator music or The Girl From Ipanema as ironic intermission music when it has stuff like this to offer us. I really recommend this whole album, I've been obsessed with it over the last couple weeks and it's just breathtaking start to finish.

The Way - Friends: This band's spotify page is good because it's full of absolutely no-name recordings of Blank And Friends that have fucked up their tagging. Anyway I have never heard a song like this, and I didn't think it was possible to use big 80s pinch harmonic guitars like this but they pulled it off in an absolutely beautiful way.

Mass Grave - Health and Soccer Mommy: Corrin Roddick of Purity Ring produced this new Health song which brings the degrees of separation between Health and Katy Perry down to a thrilling 1 since Purity Ring did two songs on her new album. This really does sound like Health covering a Purity Ring song and that's excellent news in my book. I don't know much about Soccer Mommy but this song has definitely inspired me to check her out so I'll undoubtedly report back on that next month.

(two circles) - Boredoms: I only just made the connection that Yamantaka Eye from Boredoms is the same Eye from from Hanatarash who famously drove a bulldozer through the back wall of a venue as part of a performance. Which I mention only because it really exemplifies just how much of a change of direction Vision Creation Newsun is from all that, just ten years later he's in a totally different direction of building something beautiful instead of tearing music (and buildings) apart at the seams. Nobody knows how to describe this album, it's space rock it's post rock it's experimental but it has something that a lot of that music doesn't - positivity. This whole album is a sun-worshipping positive fever without ever feeling lost or meandering.

Centreline - Ava Luna: I'm mad at this song. At about 1:15 they do an extremely satisfying thing sing the 'line' in 'centre line' in a deep bass and it sounds great. Then every other time that section comes around they either don't sing it or there's something else going on that obscures it and it blueballs you for the whole rest of the song. Other than that it's good, but i'm at war with this song.

Venice Bitch - Lana Del Rey: I am so excited that Lana Del Rey is finally embracing the most often ignored part of americana and facilitating a jam band. This is the last thing I would expect from Jack Antonoff but he did amazingly. It sounds closer to Ultraviolence era than anything else she's done and I'm just plain excited to see what the album is going to be like if this is any indication.

Act 1 Scene 4: This Is Monstrous, Wozzeck! - Alban Berg: I found an english version of Wozzeck and it's one of the best opera recordings I've ever heard. It's just plain mixed and recorded well, which is a rarity when a lot of opera recordings seem like they just hung a single mic somewhere at the back of the theatre and pressed the button. Anyway here's the good bit from Wozzeck where Wozzeck goes to the doctor and the doctor yells at him for "Pissing! Pissing there on the pavement!" See, opera’s fun!

Pop Roll Flow - Clypso: I heard this song on Unearthed when they had Nick Littlemore from Pnau guest programming and I love it. It feels brand new and very familiar at the same time, every sound in it is in absolute hypercolour, and the verse vocal sounds like a cool insect is singing at me. What's not to love!

I Might Survive - Architecture In Helsinki: I always feel like Arcitechture In Helsinki are poised to make like Portugal The Man and have an international superhit off their seventh album. They have been consistently reinventing their brain of weirdo-pop every single album for 15 years now and it feels like they've still got so much more to give. This song especially deserved to be a hit in my opinion, it's pop perfection and I've come around from hating to completely loving the little 'than alive baby!' adlib near the end.

Angels - The xx: My two best friends got married to each other this month and it was beautiful. What's more, she picked the perfect song to walk down the aisle to. I'm so happy to see two of the people I love the most in love with each other, and also when I drove them to their suite after the reception my phone accidentally started playing Merzbow's new album which was good.

Jesus Was A Cross Maker - Judee Sill: I'm so glad I found out about this album. Judee Sill had a crazy life, and her wiki page is a ride but unlike a lot of musicians with a back story her music stand alone - unique, rich and beautiful. Tightly structured and thoughtfully composed for such hippy-dippy christian mythology themes, and melodically beautiful even when her voice isn't quite up to the task. It really does feel like the spirit was moving through her. This song in particular is amazing I have been straight up listening to it on repeat. The phrasing is insane, the self-harmonised vocals sound like they're phasing in a very cool way, the violins break into a Bach figure halfway through - it's just amazing. I cannot stop listening. I've also started a playlist of this, Jesus Is A Dying Bedmaker by John Fahey and Jesus Came To My Brithday Party by The Middle East so I'm absolutely 'on one' as the kids say.

Rappers Convention - Harlem World Crew: another thanks to @megapope for bringing this incredible moment to my attention. A very early rap song that was recorded in the middle of the Iranian hostage crisis and helpfully gives a complete breakdown of the situation in the opening verse before getting back to basics and detailing how much they love partying for the remaining 5 minutes. Music is truly incredible. 

I Need A Lover - John Mellencamp: I'm learning a lot about John Mellencamp this week. Apparently this song was originally on the album 'A Biography' in 78 that didn't get a release in the US because his first album did so badly, but I Need A Lover was a top ten hit here in Australia and was thusly included on his next album a year later and blew up in the US. The other surprising thing is the album version, this version, has a fully two minute long intro before it gets to the song.

High (feat. Elton John) - Young Thug: The Lil' Nutsack song that makes Dewey Cox famous again in Walk Hard is real now and it's good as fuck.​

listen here

[johnny-j-suh]

Falling for you ( Ong Seongwoo scenario )

Hi everyone!

So this is my first Wanna One imagine starring * drum rolls * ONG SEONGWOO. I came up with a Soulmate!AU because i’m a cliché and also a sucker for those.

Prompt : In which you’re born with half a tattoo on your body and the tattoo only becomes a whole when you meet your soulmate.

Genre : SoulmateAU!

Warning : None.

Word count : 2,781

It kind of sucks but i hope you’ll enjoy it anyways! Also I apologize in advance for any mistakes, english isn’t my first language but please feel free to point it out so i can improve.

You plopped down onto the mattress without bothering taking off your jacket. You just came home from your parents restaurant where you helped around all day since one of the employee broke their arm and couldn’t work anymore. The room was only lightened by a lamp on your bedside table projecting shaking shadows on the walls. The rain pouring outside soothed your tired body as you suppressed a yawn, streching your heavy and sore limbs. You rolled onto your stomach, absently scratching the mark on your left shoulder. Your tattoo looked like some sort of compass, ornated by a black and white circle in the middle of the tattoo, reminding you of the yin and yang sign minus the dots in the drawing, it was encircled by three circles and adorned with precise lines running up half your shoulder, leaving the other half  irretrievably bare and empty. 

You lazily propped yourself on your elbows and opened your laptop, automatically logging on the forum you spent most of your time on. 

* Kotonoha_n0_niwa has entered the chatroom *  [11:27pm]

Kotonoha_n0_niwa : Ong are you there ? I had the most exhausting day ever and i need to relax. [11:27pm]

* ItsOngNotHong has entered the chatroom * [11:29pm]

ItsOngNotHong : What is it that i hear? Do you, perhaps, need me ? [11:29pm]

You chuckled at the boy’s dramatic antic, sitting properly on your messy bed. The noise of the city drifting through the open window, somehow made you feel less alone, and as your tattoo itched again you imagined what life would be like with a soulmate. Today was the kind of long day and exhausted that makes you question every single thing you’ve ever done in your life, if you’ve ever taken any good decisions at all. At only 19 years old, you were already making a statement of your short life and, as you stared blankly at the computer screen, lightening your tired face with its sharp light, you caught yourself wondering if you really wanted to meet your significant other.

Kotonoha_n0_niwa : I don’t even know why i come up to you first when i need to laugh. [11:30pm]

ItsOngNotHong : Because i’m really, amazingly, extremely, overwhelmingly funny ? Also you don’t have friends. [11:30pm]

Kotonoha_n0_niwa : Okay first of all you’re really, amazingly, extremely, overwhelmingly stupid and second of all i do have friends, ask Daniel we texted all day. [11:31pm]

You met Daniel through Ong who introduced you to one another as Daniel also spent time on the forum, less than Seongwoo though, who, despite being a college student, seemed to have a lot of time to waste.

ItsOngNotHong : You text him more than me... :( [11:31pm]

ItsOngNotHong : Stop stealing my best friend. [11:32pm]

Kotonoha_n0_niwa : Hahaha are you sure he’s not your soulmate ? [11:33pm]

You sit back, tapping your fingers against your knee. You’ve only been talking to Ong for about a year but to you it felt like more than that. You’ve always found him quite entertaining and careless, something you could only admire as the introvert you were. Chatting through forums helped you show a side of you you were too shy to share with the real world. It made you feel less lonely. Ong made you feel less lonely. Although you denied it for quite a long time, this boy was the sole reason why you were reluctant about meeting your other half. More than that, you were afraid he would find his before you. You were scared he would leave you. Ong made you feel supported and listened, and his kindness towards you never failed to make your heart flutter.

ItsOngNotHong : Do you want me to send you memes of me and Jisung ? We went to a horror house and the pictures taken inside are GOLD, Jisung screams like a girl. [11:34pm]

Of course Ong, as the confident boy he was, had already sent tons of pictures of himself and his friends, you even knew all of their names by now, and calling him handsome wouldn’t do justice to the beauty that is this man. He just had the kind of overflowing charisma that drows you like a butterly to the light. And you wouldn’t mind burning your wings. You often caught yourself wishing for Seongwoo to be your soulmate, seeing how you two matched so well, before pushing the thought to the back of your mind whispering to yourself how stupid you were. You didn’t even know where his tattoo was situated, let alone what it looked like. You never really talked about soulmates anyway, sometimes joking over Daniel being his potential soulmate but it’s always as far as it would get.

Kotonoha_n0_niwa : Stop playing, i bet you were even more scared than he was. [11:34pm]

ItsOngNotHong : I’m a manly man Y/N, i don’t get scared. [11:35pm]

You could easily imagine Ong swelling his chest with pride, a silly smile playing on his bright features.

Kotonoha_n0_niwa : Don’t you scream when you see bugs tho?? Anyway sleep is calling, talk to you tomorrow :) ? [11:36pm]

ItsOngNotHong : IT HAPPENED ONE TIME! And to be fair that mosquito was really huge... Goodnight Y/N, sweet dreams. [11:37pm]

* Kotonoha_n0_niwa has left the chatroom * [11:38pm]

Seongwoo sat back in his chair, staring at the red dot next to your username. Somewhere in the appartement, he could hear the soft melody of Sewoon’s guitar, one of his roomates, playing. He sighed, putting his hands behind his head, exhaling slowly. His eyes trailed over your words one more time, imagining how your fingers would look like, dancing on the keyboard, a small smile on your lips as you read the words, his words, he wrote for you. 

Ong Seongwoo was whipped. And he very much knew it.

'’ You know, you should think about confessing to her, i’m tired of seeing you look at your computer like a kicked puppy whenever she leaves the chatroom. ‘’ 

Guanlin snickered at Daniel’s comment, not bothering to look up from the television where a pretty tough mario kart game was displaying, both boys engulfed in the game, racing like their lives were on the line.

‘‘ Yah Guanlin-ah, don’t you have a soulmate to take care of instead of hanging out in our dorm and disrespecting your hyung ? ‘‘

Guanlin sticked out his tongue, out of pure concentration, slightly bending to the right to master as best as possible an arduous turn.

‘‘ Can’t. Seonho is at a family meeting and won’t be home until Friday. ‘‘

‘‘ Are you really not going to confess though ? ‘‘ Asked Jisung curiously, plopping on the couch between Guanlin and Daniel. Ong sighed for what seemed like the thousand time in five minutes, absently tracing the rain drops on the window with his long fingers.

‘‘ How could i ? I don’t even know if she lives in Korea nor if i’m her soulmate. Hell she could already have met hers ! I would look like a complete idiot... ‘‘

Jisung patted his shoulder, looking pitifully at his friend.

You tightened your jacket around your shivering form, one hand burried deep in your pocket while the other was busy checking the message you just gotten from Ong. Spring was coming around but the strong wind bitting your sensitive skin made you feel like it was still the middle of January. You regretted leaving your scarf at home.

* ItsOngNotHong has entered the chatroom * [10:14am]

ItsOngNotHong : Hey Y/N, are you sleeping ? [10:14am]

* Kotonoha_n0_niwa has entered the chatroom * [10:15am]

Kotonoha_n0_niwa : Hi, no i’m not! But aren’t you supposed to be in class right now ? [10:15am]

ItsOngNotHong : I’m pretending to take notes on my computer, Minhyun has been threatening to rat me out to the teacher since i started playing Super Mario 20mins ago. [10:16am]

Kotonoha_n0_niwa : Yah Ong Seongwoo, don’t you wanna graduate ?! [10:16am]

ItsOngNotHong : Of course i do! I’m just counting on my natural talent ;)[10:16am]

ItsOngNotHong : Hey what about you ? Aren’t you in class at this hour ? [10:17am]

You pushed open the door’s restaurant, greeting your mother with a hug as soon as you got in. At only 8 in the morning the restaurant was pretty much deserted. A soft song was playing in the background, perfectly matching with the cosy atmosphere of comfy homemade food restaurant on a rainy day.

Kotonoha_n0_niwa : I only have class this afternoon, so i’m gonna help my parents with the restaurant until school starts. [10:18am]

ItsOngNotHong : Such a nice and helpful girl, that’s the Y/N i know! [10:19am]

You rolled your eyes, suppressing a giggle, while making your way to the locker room to get your apron and your name tag.

Kotonoha_n0_niwa : lol, my shift’s starting soon, talk to you later loser. [10:20am]

* Kotonoha_n0_niwa has left the chatroom * [10:20am]

ItsOngNotHong : So cruel... :( [10:21am]

‘‘ Ah really, that was the most boring class ever ‘‘ Jisung started complaining as soon as the class ended, earning himself a death glare from the teacher. ‘‘ Also i’m so hungry, my stomach kept growling during the lesson. ‘‘ 

‘‘ Daehwi and Samuel texted me asking if we wanted to eat at that ramen place downtown, next to the mall. ‘’ 

Daniel texted them back confirmation after the trio agreed on going there. Ong drove his two friends at the place, since he was the only one with a driver licence, Jisung claiming that he kept riding his bike to ‘‘ protect the environment, thank you very much ‘‘ when really he had just given up after failing for the 5th time.

It was about twelve when they arrived at the restaurant. The rain had stopped pouring and the sun was peering behind a curtain of gray clouds. From what Ong could see from the bay windows, the restaurant wasn’t too crowded, way less than the mall where people kept flooding in and out the building like a river stream.

Ong took off his hood, flattening his messy brown hair with his hand. He looked at his reflection in the glass, his chocolate brown eyes meeting the back of a girl setting a plate in front of a customer. At the sight, his tattoo started itching, sending chills down his left arm. Seongwoo paid it no mind, absently scratching the compass through his thick layers of clothes. 

The three boys entered, immediately spotting Daehwi and Samuel, both waving at them with a grin plastered on their faces. Samuel and Daehwi were both a year younger than them, but that didn’t stop them from hanging from time to time, when they weren’t busy with finals or any other college activities. The two soulmates greeted them happily, their shooting star marks both visible on the back of their hands.

Seongwoo gazed at their matching tattoo, wondering what Y/N’s mark looked like.

The day went by smoothly, as you took care of your customers, mostly regulars and a handful of college students as Seoul’s public university wasn’t far. Soon, noon kicked off and your stomach woke up, growling like a hound. Taking it as a cue to take your break, you went to the back, a cup of instant noodles in your hand.

‘‘ Ah... Eating cupped noodles in a ramen restaurant, if that isn’t a shame. ‘‘

You wolfed down your excuse of a healthy meal, feeling the warmth of the chicken broth warming up your insides. You jumped on your feet as your heard the door bell ring, signaling the arrival of new customers. You walked to a table at the back of the restaurant, occupied by four boys, a seat remained vacant but you knew was occupied for the jacket laying on the back of the sofa.

‘‘ Hi guys, what can i get for you ? ‘‘ You slightly bowed at them, a pen in one hand, ready to write down their orders.

A boy with blond hair, who looked a few years younger than you, stated all the orders, his hand remaining locked with the boy next to him who was softly smiling at what looked like his soulmate, as their tattoos indicated.

‘‘ I’ll get that done for you as soon as possible ! ‘‘ You smiled gently at the couple, bowing once again at the group of friends before turning around, still scribbling the drinks they previously ordered.

As your turned tail, you didn’t notice a boy going full speed on you, his eyes focused on his overfilled glass of water while you didn’t glance one bit from your notebook.

You felt your body jerked away as a cold wave of water came crashing on your sweatshirt and face, splashing your notebook at the same time. You let out a scream before you stumbled on your feet and ended up on your butt, soaking wet.

‘‘ What the he- ‘‘ You glared at the person who got you in this miserable state and froze mid-sentence, mouth wide open, water dripping from your hair. The guy finally looked down at you, stopping his movements right on track, his left hand halway outstretched to help you get up on your feet.

You quickly rose up, taking in the features of your internet friend, still in shock. If the guy was charismatic on picture, he was drop dead gorgeous in rea life. His brown hair was messy, his bright chocolate brown eyes widened in shock, mouth agape, his perfect white teeth visible.

‘‘ O-ong ? Is that you ? ‘‘ You suttered, unaware of the questionning looks of the four boys in the back.

Seongwoo’s face broke into a huge grin before he engulfed you in a hug, whispering how jinjja, daebak it was to finally meet you. He apologized a few times asking if you were okay as you wiggled away from his arms, embarassed and worried you might get him wet too. You felt your shoulder and whole body heat up at the contact, but ignored the tingling in your arm as you proceed to wipe the water from your notebook.

‘‘ I can’t believe we’re finally meeting and the first thing you do is spill water all over me. ‘‘ You laughed, voice still trembling from the shock.

‘‘ Wait you’re Y/N ? THE Y/N from the forum ? ‘‘ Asked Jisung, whom you recognized from meme pictures Ong sent you a while ago.

‘‘ Ong won’t shut up about you ! ‘‘ Added one of the blond haired guy, mockingly smiling at a frozen Seongwoo behind you.

You awkwardly laughed at the boy’s sentence, feeling the heat rise up to your cheeks.

‘‘ Guys stop bothering her. ‘‘ Seongwoo whined. He handed you a napkin, apologizing once again for running into you and spilling his water on your clothes and notebook. You stripped off your sweatshirt using the napkins to absorb the little water that went on your tank top. You heard a hand clasped against a mouth as Samuel let out a loud ‘‘ Oh!! my!! god!! ‘‘ earning few disapproval glances from customers.

You lifted up your gaze curiously, your eyes catching a glimpse of your mark now brightly shinning, sending waves of heat in your shoulder.

‘‘ You’ve got to be kidding me... ‘‘ Whispered/yelled Daehwi as Daniel  signaled to everyone to look at Ong’s mark that was shinning as well under his gray shirt.

You felt your heart stopped and quickened as you took a proper look at Ong’s tattoo that had the form of a compass, with a black and white circle in the middle, lines and circles graciously running up his muscular shoulder. Your heart was pounding so hard in your chest that you could’ve sworn the whole restaurant could hear it.

Soon enough the shinning ceased, leaving two full and identical marks on your respective shoulders.

‘‘ D-do you mean that... ? ‘‘

Ong Seongwoo was your soulmate. Your internet friend, to whom you developped genuine feelings for, was your soulmate. The guy who just spilled water all over you was your soulmate. Jisung got you out of your trance as he got up on his seat and yelled that one of his best friend had just found their soulmate.

The restaurant exploded with applause, cheering for the two of you as you looked down, furiously blushing at the sudden attention. You felt a hand wrapped around yours, squeezing it lightlty, you looked up, meeting with a lovely pair of deep chocolate eyes.

‘‘ So now, I guess you could say you fell for me, right ? ‘‘

[ecotone99]

[SF] GRANDMA BEE MODEL 3

​

My name is Henry Danville and for the last three years the Federal government has paid me thirty-five thousand dollars a year to work from home. That thirty-five thousand, zero hundred dollars and zero cents is a carefully measured amount. It keeps me doing my work, it keeps me fed, and it’s just enough to keep me happy. Thirty-five thousand is also a small enough figure to ensure that I don’t go too far from my work station for any significant amount of time.

The suits do not think I know this, but I do.

The government pays me this salary because on April 11th in the year 2016, I sent one of my cats (although as far as ownership of barn cats goes, I might as well claim to own the birds that fly overheard) five minutes into the future.

Time travel is something I have been obsessed with ever since my undergraduate physics professor showed a clip from an old episode of Star Trek where Kirk folds a piece of paper to demonstrate the folding of space time. He draws a line between the two points, skipping most of the paper by passing over the fold.

I saw that clip for the first time in 1986. It turns out time travel works something like that, or at least I’m pretty sure it does (even now I’m not certain), I just had to figure out how to fold the paper.

I became a professor myself, teaching subatomic particle physics to grad students. I was a good professor. I graded papers quickly, my class averages never dipped below 70%, and I never slept with any of my students (if I told you how often one of them tried it you would not believe me, I’m not an especially handsome man). The whole time I was teaching, I only really cared about time travel. I can’t say that the jump forward in time would have meant anything special to me, only that I had accomplished what no one else could. What other men could only dream of. My peers laughed at me openly, even some students chuckled when I broached the subject, but I never stopped trying to fold the paper.

Then I retired and converted my savings to electrical equipment. Thus began my real work. My first breakthrough was the alpha temporal producer, or ATP for short. In simple terms, the ATP is Kirk’s pen. ATPs provide a little bit of ink, and if you get enough of them going, you can draw the whole line.

I never had a family, maybe I had wanted one once but it never happened, and it certainly can’t happen now. I have been told in so many words by men in black suits and black sunglasses that any distractions to my work will not be tolerated.

The time machine, or Grandma Bee (my great great Grandma Bee lived to be one hundred and five and I always figured she had found some way to cheat the system) has three main parts. There is pad A which the subject is placed on, and pad B where they show up. The control panel houses a start switch, a display screen, and a few buttons. There is also about four hundred and twenty thousand dollars of electrical equipment stringing the whole contraption together. Another hefty sum of money is in the garbage in the form of wires and machines of my own design that didn’t work properly, or didn’t work at all.

Grandma Bee Model 2 (model 1 had blown a hole in the roof of my house, and after that I moved my work to the barn) was not even supposed to be turned on when it finally worked.

I was on my knees on the barn floor, tinkering with one of the three ATPs sitting between pad A and pad B, when the toe of my right boot brushed the second ATP, adjusting its position slightly and crossing a few bald wires that I was in the process of covering. At the same time, an orange kitten wandered onto pad A and another cat, who had inexplicably hopped onto the control panel, brushed against the on switch.

If these three things had not happened in the same instant then I might never have a story to tell, but they did and now I do. It may seem like an extraordinary coincidence, and for years I believed that too, but now I have reason to wonder.

Whether divined by a cosmic presence, something a little closer to the mainland, or just the work of two cats and my stray boot, Grandma Bee Model 2 turned on. There was no great explosion of light, no shriek of terror from the cat, and certainly no hurrah or eureka from me. There was a low beep, and I turned just in time to see the unfortunate cat disappear. All that was left behind was dark grey smoke rising in lazy spirals from the ATPs. The inside of the barn smelled like a Swanson Dinner microwaved for seven hours on the high-power setting.

The cat was gone. I could hardly believe my eyes. I ran to the control panel and inspected the settings. Grandma Bee was set for five minutes, as always. Everything was just as it had always been, except for this time I moved an ATP and crossed some wires, and this time it had worked. Maybe.

Try to imagine my situation. If you are young and unburdened by having committed the majority of your years to a single pursuit you may be unable to understand, but try. Picture me waiting there, my eyes exploding out of my head. Imagine the sweat dripping from my forehead, and my hands pressed so hard against the control panel that they turn white. Picture a sad old man waiting for the results of his entire life’s work, thrust into his anxiety by accident.

After two minutes of waiting, the control panel sparked and turned itself off before I could grab the fire extinguisher. After four minutes and thirty seconds, Grandma Bee Model 2 turned back on.

I had programmed the message myself, but when the green letters popped up on the control panel display it gave me such a shock I thought my heart was going to stop.

PREPARE TO RECOVER.

“Get ahold of yourself Henry,” I muttered.

A second low beep, and a fizzle from the three ATPs, and the cat appeared on pad B. It was missing its tail and one of its ears. In the time that it took for me to run over to it, half excited half scared out of my wits, the cat had given a single weak mewl and flopped onto its side, stone dead.

I carried the body to an empty worktable. After an autopsy, I discovered that the poor thing’s liver and one of its lungs were gone too, presumably to wherever its tail and ear were. I also discovered that bottom of all of the cat’s paws were burned as black as the bottom of a frying pan, and still hot.

I logged it all in my notebook, where until now I had only been able to chronicle failed adjustments to Grandma Bee Models 1 and 2. Instead of “some cat” I named him Armstrong in my report and vowed to give him a hero’s funeral before returning to my work.

When I turned to bring the body outside for burial, I saw Armstrong’s missing parts lying on pad B in a pool of scabbed blood. His liver, lung, and ear were charred black and unrecognizable, and his tail was on fire.

I buried Armstrong and his parts under the apple tree in the back garden. I’m pretty sure the black suits dug him up and whisked his bones away for testing. I woke up one day, perhaps a week after I had told the government about the cat and the suits had shown up, and the dirt where I had buried Armstrong was disturbed.

I could dig him up and see for myself, but I don’t really want to know. I also don’t think the suits would like it very much if I started doing some extracurricular investigating. They are still watching me. They have had some staff changes since the incident of course, and they don’t come and say hello anymore, but they’re still watching from a distance.

Anyways, after I made the mistake of reporting my work and the suits got involved, things really got moving. At the start the suits were polite. Maybe someone had warned them that I turned a cat inside out and set whatever fell off of the body on fire, I had heard as much whispered about me between two of them who thought I couldn’t hear them, but if they feared me they had no reason to. The guns on their hips would have snuffed me out quite effectively, cat killer or not.

They came in black SUVs. While most of their team secured the property, one of them explained my situation. He told me about the government grant of thirty-five large, and told me I was doing work that the president himself was proud of. I was told America was behind me in spirit, even if the operation was classified for the time being, and then I was offered a notepad and a blue pen.

“Write down the equipment or parts that you need,” one of the suits said. “We’ll have whatever you need for your work brought in ASAP.”

I didn’t like the way he said brought in like I was under quarantine.

“Will it come out of my thirty-five large?”

“Not a penny Mr. Danville.”

I took the notepad.

“Good enough.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what I needed given that Grandma Bee had gone off by accident, but I had a good idea that I needed to build a few more ATPs if I wanted to get a whole cat from A to B, so I scribbled down the component parts. After that I put some desserts and books, and just for gags I wrote porn. The suit accepted the note, scanned it, and pocketed it without a twitch. It was all there the next morning. The equipment was in the barn, the food in the kitchen, and one the agents had stacked five copies of Playboy on the back of my toilet.

“What if I think of something else later?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure you fellas don’t have a public phone line.”

“Make a note, put in your neighbor’s mailbox. Make sure you put it in an envelope. Sign it, and we’ll take care of it in 48 hours, tops.”

“Which neighbor?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

George and Marcy Klayson live about a quarter mile down the road one way and Ben and Carol, I forget their last name, live a half mile the other direction. They are my closest neighbors. Since that day, I have dropped notes for electronic parts, food, and whatever else I think of in both mailboxes tens of times, but I haven’t seen my neighbors once. I don’t think I will ever see them again.

After sending several hundred mice through Grandma Bee Model 2 (mice are cheaper than cats), I decided two things were required for me to send something as large as a person for more than five minutes.

I had an idea that the suits were thinking about jumping people through stretches of time best measured in years and not minutes, and for that I would need a lot more ATPs, bigger ones too if I could work it out.

By early 2018 I had come up with an ATP design that could get the job done. I called my new design the SATP (S for supermassive), and this time I did get a couple of the suits to help with construction and erecting the thing. It took a crane to stand it up when the SATP was built. I think the suits were worried that someone might see it, but the SATP fit neatly inside of my grain silo. There might be an issue if someone wandered too close and wanted to have a look at whatever was making the humming noise, but the suits weren’t letting anyone near me. In three years, not a single car or truck or bicycle has gone by my property without a suit climbing out of it.

The second thing I needed to do, which I completed very recently, was a reworked construction for pad B. The SATP allowed me to effectively send my squealing subjects through spacetime for up to ten minutes forward, but GBM3 was being put under extra strain when it was trying to figure out how to orient the subject’s physical being when it dropped it off.

The new design is simply a hole, or if you like (and the suits certainly seem to) Portal B. Portal B is a metal circle that hangs in midair, and the cats simply fall through it. I have theories as to why this helps, but they are no more than that. All I can say for sure is that the mice started coming through without their feet burned off, and that the rate of missing organs went down from 5 in every 6 mice to 1 in 2.

The addition of portal B allowed me to send subjects ahead for up to an hour without risk of cataclysmic system failure. It also persuaded me to rename my creation the Grandma Bee Model 3, or GBM3 for short. The old systems had concentrated on getting the job done however possible, now the goal was efficiency.

If you, dear reader, are been paying attention you may be wondering if I have tried, to send subjects backwards.

I have tried. Subjects sent back simply disappear, and that makes sense of course because I am ahead and am not able (or willing) to go back further to watch them appear, but nothing has showed up. If future me is sending mice back, I’m not getting them for one reason or another. I tried to send one back to the day before and it disappeared just as expected, but I have no memory of a mouse showing up without reason. I have decided to let it go. I suggest you do the same if you don’t want to tie your head in knots.

The suits became impatient after the jump in progress resulting from the SATP. Forward progress only serves to increase their appetite for greater progress, and I’ve done my best to keep up with their desires.

After the construction of three more SATPs, and this brings our story to the day before yesterday, we were able to successfully send a person forward. I do not know anything about the man, only that he was tattooed heavily, very pale, and nearly catatonic. The suits told him what to do and he obeyed, and in that way, I suppose we were very alike.

We sent him forward five minutes. By then I fully expected the experiment to be a success and I was not disappointed. His breathing was steady, his pupils dilated when I shone at them with my flashlight, and he was able to track the movements of my finger. The bottoms of his feet were a little warm, but they cooled off quickly enough and most importantly he remained alive. He didn’t speak, but he hadn’t said a word since they pulled him out of the black SUV parked in my driveway. After the test, they packed him into the SUV again and drove away.

The next day, the suits came back with the tattooed man and told me they wanted him sent forward by ten minutes. I complied.

He went ten minutes just fine, and then the suits demanded he be sent on a half hour jump. I refused, not because I didn’t think it would work, but because the machine needed some time to cool and I still did not know the full effects of multiple jumps forward. The suits threatened me, and I gave in.

He went an hour, the three, then five. In the time between each jump the suits stood politely silent. They were content to watch the experiments, and almost as if it were an accident, most of them were positioned in front of the barn’s exit points. I badly needed a coffee, and one of the suits came back with a full pot. He was smiling, but because of the sunglasses I couldn’t tell if the smile was reaching his eyes or not.

After the nameless man jumped five hours I called it off. His feet were suffering first degree burns (though he did not complain) and it was almost midnight by this point. The experiment was over, I said, but it was not to be.

They said I could go to bed, but I had to send him on a twenty-four hour jump first. I refused. We had not even sent a mouse that far, but they insisted. It was him or me. I’m sad to say that by this time the suits must have gotten a pretty good idea of how to recreate Grandma Bee Model 3 in the event of my passing, and I believed their threat.

I sent him. Gods help us I sent him, only I didn’t send him forward one day. In the instant before I pressed the big green button, one of the suits who had crept silently behind me grabbed under my arms. I let him and didn’t fight back, and why would I? I was ok with not dooming the tatoo’d stranger. The suits shouted at the guy who grabbed me, all but one. That one brought his gun up and before the others could react they were all dead. The barn smelled like smoke again.

I screamed. The tattooed man drooled a little, but otherwise did nothing at all.

At gun point, the one who had shot his peers told me I was going to send the guy forward a full year.

“He’ll die,” I said. “His feet won’t just burn up. He’ll catch fire and die. The STAPs will probably explode and we’ll die too.”

“They won’t,” the suit said. “They won’t explode, and Mr. LaFleur here won’t die. We’ve had the boys in the lab take a look at GMB3. We gassed your bedroom and had you out like a lightbulb for three days, plenty of time for them to get a good idea of what’s going on here.”

“If they’re so smart then what do you still need me for?”

“They’re not that smart,” the suit said. He made a face at me, his mouth twisted in half frustration half laughter, like he had an inside joke on me, but he had to step in dog shit to get it.

They already tried to recreate it back at the lab, I thought. But it didn’t work. It almost did though, or it had worked poorly, because this guy is about to tell me what they did right and what I’m doing wrong.

“Still,” the suit said, “The boys in white had some interesting ideas for modifications. I don’t understand a word of it, but I’ve got the binder in the car and I think you’ll understand just fine. You’re going to make those changes, then send him, or the two of us will send you right now.”

I won’t bother with the details of what happened before I made the tattooed guy, apparently named Mr. LaFleur, jump forward. I protested some more and lost the fight. The suits showed me the changes in a black binder marked CLASSIFIED and they made sense. They made a lot of sense actually.

I applied the changes after putting up another fight and getting the butt of a gun smacked across my face. I was exhausted. I don’t know what time I finished but the sun had come back up and started on its way down again. I asked for another coffee and the suit who had held me back from the control panel suggested I eat shit.

I told them when I was done. The suits led LaFleur forward onto pad A again, and even though they had scrambled his brains some part of him must have known what was up, because he seemed to dig in his heels just a bit on the way.

I pressed the green button when he was on pad A, I wanted to do it when the suits were setting him up but they were wise to me and were very careful not to step on the launch pad. That same low beep and Mr. LaFleur disappeared. The SATPs groaned and I thought we were done for, but then they fell silent.

“We’ll be back,” said one of the suits.

“One year,” said the other. “Don’t try and run.”

Before they could leave, the SATPs started groaning again, and Portal B made a strange snapping rumbling noise. Like someone taking a piss on a snare drum during an earthquake. A purple circle spread, covering the whole area of Portal B. The suits looked at each other, then me. I shrugged but looking back I think I had an idea of what was happening.

Something flew out of the purple. A black shadow, angry, it streaked through the air like a tear of paper spinning and twisting in the wind. It was giving off enormous amounts of heat, so much so that there are still black burn marks on my shirt from where it passed by me. The phantom flew up to the north wall of the barn, smashed through it, and went up into the sky. Then it was gone. It’s still out there somewhere.

One of the suits rounded on me.

“What the fuck was that?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I just… I don’t know.”

I had an idea, a couple of ideas actually, but before I could give voice to them something else came out of portal B. A long robotic tentacle. It snaked out slowly, with the speed that a fisherman reels in a lure, only this one was coming towards us. It had a translucent white skin, like liquid glass, and beneath the skin I could see wires of a hundred different colours, twisting metal, and what looked like thin blue veins crisscrossing throughout.

It had a golden disco ball on the tip and by the way the tentacle was moving, that ball might’ve been an eye. It crept towards us without a sound or smell, then stopped in front of the first suit. I stayed perfectly still, but the other suit, the one that had grabbed me and told me to eat shit, tried to run.

He got a few steps towards the nearest exit but he never had a chance. The golden disco noticed him somehow, and the golden ball opened up. A red beam shot at him and it sounded like the guns the Stormtroopers fire in Return of the Jedi. It zapped through the back of the suit’s head, and he went down like a sack of potatoes. His brains poured out in streamers in front of him.

The golden disco ball went for me next. It scanned me up and down and I closed my eyes. I bit my lip so hard it started to bleed, and then the tentacle just left me alone. It returned to the remaining suit and after a quick once over, used its laser to cut him in half lengthwise.

Then the tentacle went away, but not back into portal B. It pulled itself through one of the barn doorways into the outdoors. For a while all I could see was the unending length of wire and metal unfurling from Portal B. Then it stopped, and I heard the laser firing again. Then there was a titanic crash that made the earth shake, then the laser started up again.

It’s destroying the SATPs, I thought, and I was right.

It cut them diagonally at the base, like a lumberjack cuts an oak, and the SATPs were falling one by one, with no timber to signal their demise. If the tentacle had sent one of the massive machines falling into the barn I would’ve been a pancake, but even then, I did not run. I was too scared to move.

When the four SATPs were done with, the tentacle began to retreat back into portal B. I wanted to run and hide before the golden disco ball came back, in case it changed its mind about me, but I was still paralyzed with fear. It took one look at pad A before shredding it into flaming oblivion as I feared it would. The control panel got the same treatment.

When the control panel was destroyed, there was nothing to power portal B, and it shut down. The purple distortion that the tentacle was coming out of went with the power, and the machine was severed. Everything that had been sticking out of portal B smashed into the ground and didn’t get up. When I finally gathered the courage to investigate the thing, I saw that the cut was totally smooth. The rest of it, whatever the tentacle was attached to, was still in its own time, but the tentacle was stuck in 2019.

To this day – and I suspect for another year at least – I do not know for sure what that shadow creature was that came hurtling out of portal B. I have a theory though, I believe that creature is what was left of Mr. LaFleur after his jump forward. I think the trip burned him and flipped his organs inside and out a hundred thousand times and somehow it transformed him into something unrecognizable as a human.

My theory goes further.

I think someone on the other side of that year knew La Fleur was coming, received him, and then sent him back. Whether he was a warning or an attack I can’t say. Maybe both. I have a horrible feeling that someone was me. I think in that version of the future something terrible happened because of GBM3 and future me decided the only thing to do was go back and destroy it.

I don’t know what could cause me to want my life’s work destroyed, just like I don’t know why the men in suits wanted LaFleur to jump forwards a year. I can guess. I can guess that if LaFleur was ok when the two of them returned in a year, they would have taken turns jumping forward, maybe ten years at a time. Maybe they each stuck a chunk of cash in an investment account and wanted to skip the waiting period between a few thousand dollars and a few million. If that sounds stupid to you then good, it sounds ridiculous to me too, I can only guess.

I am going to rebuild the time machine. I have to. The suits will kill me if I don’t. I see a black SUV drive by sometimes, and I still haven’t seen my neighbors. Not a single soul.

Whatever my reason future me had – will have – for destroying my life’s ambitions, I hope I have avoided it, because it’s also possible that I had nothing to do with that tentacle. It’s possible that by the time a full year has come and gone, artificial intelligence is in full swing and it doesn’t like us. Maybe that happens in a hundred years, or two hundred, and they came back to break GMB3 because it was the only chance we, mankind, had. Or maybe all of that, or none of it. I expect I will know it a years’ time, or less.

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[blueyesandleatherjacket]

Ghost of you, 11/?

Volume: 1.

Number of parts: 11/?.

Pairings: Human!Nine x Rose; Human!Ten x Jack; Clara Oswald x Olivia Baxter (OC).

Synopsis: "I was a simple neurologist working for the great Maxence Spitz. This man is certainly a clever one. The cleverest of us all. I admire him; this is no secret to anyone, and working for him is a great honour."

A/N: I've started writing this fiction last year after I had a particularly weird dream (as usual) and after I wrote the prologue, I've put it aside to work on other stuff. I've gone back to it not so long ago and decided that it would be the fiction I would post next, after not posting anything for a while. I must have watched I am legend and Game of thrones way too much to come out with something like this but I hope you will like it. I am not a scientist, nor did I have a particular knowledge of sciences. I do my researches on the internet like everyone to make sure everything is as close to the reality as possible. I have a literature degree only. Writing is what I do and it makes me explore next fields, and learn new things.

“Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough.” - T.S. Eliot.

CHAPTER 11:

Seventh day of October. Day 1751 since the infection. Tegan Smith video log. Lot of things have happened since the last time I recorded something here. New results have fallen. New specimens have been delivered. Even the hierarchy here has changed. I was a simple neurologist working for the great Maxence Spitz. This man is certainly a clever one. The cleverest of us all. I admire him; this is no secret to anyone, and working for him is a great honour. He treats me better than my old boss who was constantly belittling me and giving me tasks that didn’t fit my abilities. Maxence let all my competences come out and exploited them the right way. His team is family to me and for someone who has grown up in an orphanage, that’s something really important. I fit in this team, in this family, and they accept me for who I am and never make any mean remarks but actually explain what I’ve done wrong and show me how to fix it. I’m evolving in the right way this time. Every step I take is a new progress to me. Well, until Maxence went out for this mission. I can honestly say that I hate the person who forced him out of his lab to go on the field. Catching a living specimen… It really was a stupid idea and a suicide mission. Only someone who didn’t know about the reality of things outside could ask for such a stupid thing. It could only go wrong and it did. It was a real disaster. Some would say that it could have gone worse than it did. Only three men are down on the ten that were on this mission. One death, two infections. To me, it’s a huge mistake to have sent them outside. Event if it was for a good cause, finding that damn cure, what we’ve lost isn’t worth what we’ve gained. Our leader, my mentor, Maxence Spitz, has been infected when a nightwalker bit his neck. Xavier died protecting him from a possible slaughter and Allegro… Allegro kept Maxence safe until they could come back here. Maxence has turned into a complete nightwalker. He has come back here in a crate and was transferred in a cage immediately after they arrived here. Allegro is infected though he has no symptom. He was transferred anyway. This obviously caused a huge mess in the hierarchy of our lab. We didn’t have a boss anymore and the chief of our security teams is down too. New leaders needed to be named. Maxence had picked his favourites before leaving. Wise man. That’s what I was thinking before I heard that I was now the leader of this team. Me, out of other people like Jack or Rose or Clara who deserved it more than me. Jack thinks that’s because Maxence had seen something special in me. I’m wondering what it is honestly. I’m perfectly aware that I wasn’t born a leader. I have the feeling that all my decisions are wrong. Was it a good idea to name Rory captain of all the security members? To have created that small cell working on Maxence? I’ve always been afraid of failing and right now, it’s worse than ever despite the support I have from the very same team I’ve created. Especially from Jack who is a better ally than I thought he would be with his changing mind and his extravagant personality. He clearly knows his limits. Rose worries me a lot too. We can’t deny that it’s her husband we’re working on and it’s seriously affecting her. We can’t pretend that we don’t see that she’s not okay but she’s kinda avoiding us so we won’t force her to talk about what is weighting her heart and ours. We can’t say that she doesn’t do her job properly because it would be wrong. She’s doing it more than right but she’s taking inconsiderate risks by always be around Maxence. We still don’t know how the virus gets from one person to another. If there’s any problem, we would lose another brilliant mind and this team would be lost. However, this proximity they share is also a good point for us. She was first to notice that Maxence wasn’t like any of the other nightwalkers, that he still had that part of humanity inside him. After further researches, Jack, Clara and I had come to the same conclusions. His DNA isn’t totally corrupted and his blood and brain are partly working like they used to before the infection but his primary needs like water and food and sleep are off. That’s what is making the nightwalkers aggressive and stupid. We had to sedate him to get clear scans of his brain. He was refusing to stay still even after we’ve tied him down which made him rather furious. He already was when we’ve put him in the crate to carry him to the scan room. It hadn’t been easy to catch him at all. He absolutely refused to come to us and had put as much distance as he could between him and us. He was avoiding us and when he felt cornered, he attacked. No one was harmed thankfully but we all were the witness of his intelligence. He ran straight to the palm reader. We haven’t thought of forbidding him the access because we never thought he would actually do something so clever in his condition. Zach was quick to lock the airlock thankfully. That’s a mistake we won’t do ever again. It could have had such disastrous consequences for us all. We were luck enough on that one. We may not have a second chance if we mess up once again. The sedative has had some interesting effects on his system. The humanity, what’s left of it in him, is increased by the sleep. I’ve noticed it on the scans before and after the sedative. Rose had noticed that his eyes were slightly losing their black colour. The original colour of his irises was showing up. It disappeared with the last effects of the sedative. I’ve seen that Rose recorded another entry in her video logs, an entry where she gives details about his vital signs while he was sedated. They weren’t normal but they weren’t very abnormal either. They were in-between but it’s a good sign for us. If we can ‘force’ his brain to feel the primary needs again, it could maybe reverse the process. It’s not gonna be an easy task obviously but we already fixed his sight today. We have forgotten that Maxence was short-sighted with all of that. It didn’t get better with the noctiagus but we gave him his glasses back and he looked better with them on. As if it had really changed something for him. We’ll see the results in the near future. I won’t post this video on the public interface. It’s more like an entry to my diary than an actual scientific report and it’s better if no one sees it. I just needed to vent and it’s done. End of the talk. Tegan sniffled and wiped his nose with a paper tissue. He was being emotional again. He hated being like this. He took a deep breath in to try and release the tension from his shoulders. This promotion was hard to live and he was restlessly wondering if he was doing things right. It even kept him from sleeping. He was exhausted but just couldn’t sleep. Not like Maxence who didn’t feel the need to sleep. Tegan rubbed his face and met the stubble growing there. He hadn’t shaved in days. They would all look wild if they didn’t have time to take care of themselves. They probably wouldn’t take the risk to shave Maxence. It would be giving him a weapon and it was dangerous to let something like a blade in his hands. Who knew what he would do with it? He was compelled to live with the growing beard on his face. Tegan smiled sadly at the memory coming up to his mind. He was remembering the first time he had met Maxence. A day he would never forget. Back then, he was working in the NINE, one of the most famous labs of this country. NINE stood for National Institute of Neurological Engineering. At first sight, you would say he was on his field but if you looked closer, he clearly wasn’t. His job there was only to keep his eyes on a screen and read lines of codes that weren’t related to neurology. He had learnt how to decipher those data and to report whenever there was a problem in a technology he could only dream of using.

– Flashback –

Tegan was leaning in his chair, bored. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of this screen in hours and there was nothing to report. This machine was working too well and it was burning his eyes to stare at the screen. He was having a hell of a headache once again. He had developed a tendency to violent migraines with this job. Even the meds he was taking couldn’t relieve him and he didn’t have the time to go and see a doctor. If he was absent for one second, they would fire him and he couldn’t lose this job even if they were treating him miserably and barely paying him. That’s the only thing he had at the moment and he didn’t want to lose the small flat he was renting. He rubbed his eyes and face as if it was gonna take his pain away. He hadn’t shaved in days and the hairs growing there were itching. It was the least of his troubles though. He had the feeling that someone was hammering nails right behind his eyes. How could he work correctly in such a condition? He glanced at the screen. Still no sign of a flaw in the codes. He grabbed the scientific magazine he had bought in the morning. With all of that, he hadn’t had the time to even open it. He had bought it because there was an article about Maxence Spitz’ new project and works. The man himself had a picture on the front. In a small frame on the side, but still. He admired this man and what he had done so far in scientific community. He was the greatest genius of this era. His colleagues here were mocking him, pretending that he wanted to be in a relationship with Maxence. It wasn’t like he would refuse if the man wanted to have a one-night affair but he knew that Maxence Spitz was straight and married with another genius of this planet. Anyway, for Tegan, Maxence would be the scientist who would change the whole world with his discoveries. He was so clever he could find a cure to the biggest and most lethal diseases this planet could count. And there were a lot of them. He put the magazine aside when he heard a knock on the door. It was rare to have someone knocking on his door. Not because he didn’t have many visits – the developers were maybe afraid that he would screw their precious codes up and were always checking – but because no one thought necessary to show him a bit of respect by knocking on his door while he was working. Sometimes, he was locking it just to be in peace and he was being yelled at for this but they weren’t sacking him for this. It wasn’t big enough of a mistake. Today was one of these days. He sighed and got up. He unlocked the door, opened it… and stumbled backward at the person standing before him. He thankfully managed to grab the side of the door to keep on his feet but the man before him was divided between a worried and a bemused face. “Are you alright?” Tegan would have recognised that northern accent anywhere. He had gone to lots of conferences just to hear the theories of its owner. Maxence Spitz. Doctor Maxence Spitz was standing before him. “Y-Yeah,” stuttered Tegan. “You surprised me. Didn’t expect you to be behind that door. Not many people knock around here.” “They should. Surprising a scientist while they’re working could be dangerous.” “I’m afraid I’m not doing anything that dangerous.” “That’s why I’m here. Can I come in?” “Sure.” Tegan let go of the door and gestured to Maxence to come in. He was slightly shorter than Tegan thought he was but he was compensating with his presence. This man certainly knew how to impose himself. Tegan offered him his desk chair and sat on an old wobbly stool. He was nervous and he had to stick his hand between his knees so it wouldn’t show. Maxence took his time to glance around him and his eyes fell on the magazine. He grabbed it and smiled. “They begged me for this interview,” he chuckled, opening the magazine to the page he was. “I honestly hate being the centre of attention. My wife thought it would be a good idea though. Like wearing this awful tie.” He played with it for a moment. He hated ties as much as he hated suits but Rose had forced him to wear one for this interview. He wasn’t very comfortable in those clothes and it was clear. Tegan moved nervously on his stool. He was wearing the same tie. He cleared his throat . Maxence looked up at him and his face showed how embarrassed he was. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that it was awful. It’s just that I’m not a suit and tie man. I’d rather wear a t-shirt and jeans. But it’s not professional.” Tegan was surprised to see that the man he admired was someone so normal. Someone like him in the end. It was quite funny to witness but if he didn’t get back to work, he would be in troubles. “Don’t you mind me interrupting you but… you said you were here for professional reasons… implying me?” “Oh… yes! Yes, absolutely! Like I’ve said to these reporters, I’m working on a new project, which is still confidential, and I’m looking for my own team members. It appears that you’re the best neurologist in the area. I’ve come here to poach you. Your director doesn’t know the chance he has to have someone as talented as you since he’s not using your potential the right way.” Maxence pointed to the lines of codes still flashing up on the computer screen. Not a job for a neurologist. “You can have me. Right now. I take the job.” Working for him would be a big honour and Tegan would make sure to never disappoint him if he was taken in his team. Maxence chuckled at Tegan’s eagerness and serious. He definitely was motivated for the job. “Your contract is ready on my desk. I’ve just come here to let your director know he was gonna lose an important member of his lab and to meet you personally.” Tegan was so surprised to be hired so easily without any job interview or tests that he would have fallen if he wasn’t sat. Maxence stood up and stretched his body. He gave a smile to Tegan and held a hand out to him. The neurologist shook it absently. He was too shocked by the situation. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning. 8, in my office. No obligation to wear a suit or to be clean-shaved, unless you like it.” Tegan acquiesced. It was like a dream come true. He had a new job. A new job with a boss treating him decently. A new job where he would do what he loved. And all of this was thanks to Maxence Spitz. God must have heard his prayers.

– Fin –

x

Camden McCarson was an old grumpy Scottish man. It was the description he was making of himself of course. He would rather think that he had attack eyebrows because the world was doing everything to make him cross. It wouldn’t come to his mind that he was just a bitter paranoid man who had suffered from so many ordeals in his life that he preferred being as pessimistic as possible and making mean comments whenever people were getting on his nerves. He was always on the move, always travelling as far from home as he could. To the question what was he looking for, he replied that he would know when he would have found it. So far, he couldn’t say he had found anything that was fitting his expectations. He still couldn’t put words on what he was looking for but the adventures his job was creating was enough to make him forget. He was making money by finding stuff and people that seemed to have disappeared from Earth. Once, he was working on a rather tricky case that had led him in the middle of Chiswick – something about a sat nav who had been stolen from the army, a sat nav full of secret information. That was the day he met Donna Noble. This red-haired woman had burst out in his life like a fury because he supposedly had collided with her car. It had appeared – after she was done yelling at him and hitting him – that they were working on the same case. Him, because he had been hired for it. Her, because she was bored in her life and had heard of this very important sat nav lost in nature. The medias had heard the rumours of this disappearance and it was all over the television and newspapers. Everyone was looking for a person to blame and the medias were worsening the situation. Of course Camden’s bosses had already tried to reach him but he hadn’t taken the calls. He wasn’t the one who had leaked the information and he certainly wasn’t gonna let anyone yell at him for something he hadn’t done. He would rather be sacked than being accused of something. His bosses knew better than to sack him though. He was their best element and he could be insubordinate and impolite and grumpy as much as he wanted because they wouldn’t take the risk of losing someone like him. So, when he had brought Donna to them asking for her to be his sidekick – ‘I’m no one sidekick!’ had she barked at him – because she was really good – not better than him but close enough – they had hesitated only the time to hear their final report on the matter they had worked on together. She had been hired based on those results. Camden wasn’t an easy man to work with but he had quickly learnt that Donna was no woman to be led around by the nose. She would rather have a go at him than accept his orders. They were always bickering on how to do some things but their work was done right and that was what mattered the most in the end. Plus, Donna knew she was indispensable to the man. She had taken him out of the loneliness he was burying himself into and she was often checking on him and taking him out of his office whenever he was locking himself in there for days just looking for a new interesting case, waiting for his boss to call him for a new inquiry. He reminded her a lot of Sherlock Holmes when he was like this. But mister Holmes was far from being as good and clever and arrogant as Camden McCarson could be. His office wasn’t what Donna had expected either. She was imagining him more in an old room with ancient furniture, libraries full of books and secrets, and maybe some painting portraits of past family members on the wall. His name seemed to have some nobility in it after all, but if it had any, Camden McCarson didn’t care at all about it. He was living his own life with his own rules and no one could change that. His office was surprisingly modern, all in stainless steel and blue and orange neon lights. He indeed had libraries full of ancient books and it was fitting strangely well in the middle of this office. There were two tables with four computers on them and flat screens hung on the wall just above. The computers were analysing the deep and dark web and the screens were silently displaying the news from all around the world. The best way to find good news to use. To complete it all, there was a huge desk in the bottom of the room. It was facing the door and turning its back to the large window although the owner of the place loved turning around to catch the spectacle of the sky when the sun was either rising or going down the horizon. He could also spend nights looking at the stars through the lens of the telescope set by the window. Camden McCarson certainly was a man full of knowledges and a great collector of weird objects that didn’t make sense to the beginner she was. She had learnt that asking questions could sometimes give answers. As long as she wasn’t asking about the woman that was on the picture he kept on his desk. He never replied to this question but she had often seen him lost in his thoughts while he had his eyes on this photography. When she stepped in his office that day, he was leaning in his chair, his feet crossed on his desk, his hands folded behind his head. A smile grew on the corner of his lips when he saw her. It was night outside but thankfully, he had offered her a room in the gigantic manor he was living in so she hadn’t had to go through the dangerous streets to meet him when he had called her at over 4am. Which was making rather moody to be honest. She hated being woken up by the mad man. “Don’t you ever sleep?” she grumbled. She had taken the time to pull on some clothes before coming. He would never seen her in her pyjamas. He was already being an arse with her normal clothes so if she did show herself to him in pyjamas, he would either choose to ignore them or make a comment that would infuriate her. Better not take that chance. “Barely.” “Yeah, I’ve noticed that.” To be honest, she had never seen him sleep. Whenever she was seeing him, he was up to something and he never seemed tired. But once again, it was a question he never really answered to whenever she dared asking him why he would stay up all the time. “What is so urgent that requires me to be up in the middle of the night?” “We have a new case.” “You’ve finally found something worth your talent?” “Someone sent me an email from London.” “There are survivors somewhere in the capital.” “Seems like it. Listen to this.” He brought his laptop closer to him and started reading the mail he had left opened. “Mister and Miss McCarson…” “Hm,” disapproved Donna. “I know, as if we could ever be married or even related.” “Oi, watch it old man!” Camden preferred ignoring the remark and not raising it. Their clients were always thinking that they were related in some way because of their ‘similar personalities’. They must be really blind to think such a thing of them. They were barely friends so to think they were relatives or married… “My name is Tegan Smith and I’m working at the London Centre of Researches for Contagious Diseases. As you might know, there is a virus spreading in the world and all the labs around the world have been requisitioned to find a cure against it. I can’t say more through this mail as our mission has to remain a secret to the people who aren’t working on this case. However, my colleague, the doctor Jack Harkness, has found something that needs to be examined by a professional detective. He highly recommended your services. Would you agree to a meeting with the doctor Jack Harkness and myself in the days to come in our lab? Please, let me know your answer quickly. Patiently waiting for your reply. T.S.” “This guy sounds like a newbie promoted to the head of his team by these dark times.” “What surprises me the most is that I know Jack very well and I also know he’s been working for one of the most brilliant minds this world can count.” “And that mind isn’t Tegan Smith.” “Oh, no. That’s why I wondered what happened to the real boss of this place.” “So, you wanna go just to see what he’s up to?” Camden put his computer aside and uncrossed his legs. He put them down and bent forward in his chair, leaning his head on one hand. He gave Donna another smirk. This was one of the reasons, yes. Maxence Spitz was a very interesting man and Camden couldn’t resist fighting another brilliant mind. He liked challenges and this looked like one. “We don’t have much work lately, don’t you agree?” “I’m not surprised at all since the world is coming to an end. Do you ever watch your own screens?” She pointed her thumb on the screens displaying the news from all around the world. Different channels but the news was the same: the virus was spreading, there were less and less survivors, less and less hope to find a cure. Some were even saying that the end of the world had come like the Mayas predicted millions of years ago. How many times the end of the world had been announced over the decades? It would be astonishing to have one being true in the end. “So, are we taking this case?” “We are.” “I’m preparing our luggage.” Donna quickly left the room. She wasn’t reassured by the fact they would have to travel through Scotland and England to reach that lab requiring their help but she guessed that security means would be established for them to travel safely. Especially since the situation had gone so critical in the last few days. To the doctor Tegan Smith’s attention: My associate, Donna Noble, and myself have examined your request and concluded that we were accepting the case you’re offering us. We can be there tomorrow. We leave to you all the organisation of the security means to guarantee our safety until we reach your lab. Cordially, McCarson & associates. The mail was sent and now, Camden was too thrilled to even find sleep. This mission was a real opportunity for Donna and himself. They better not screw it all up. So, while Donna was taking care of their luggage – more hers than his since she wasn’t his dogsbody – he made sure they would have a flight for London with his personal jet. No need to take risks and travel in public planes. They had to get to London quickly and discreetly and he hoped that Tegan Smith would make sure their security was guaranteed or it would cost him a lot…

To be continued...

Ghost of you © | 2017 - 2018 | Tous droits réservés.

×××

In the next chapter:

So she had been promoted into their private team. It was no surprise to Rose. Adam had been on the field, so had Allegro and Emily and Kyle. With the events of the last few days, they would need a psychological help. They only had doctor Amy Burnley. She hadn’t been hired by Maxence but that didn’t mean she wasn’t good. Rose just wasn’t into therapists. She had seen a lot of them after what had happened to her over fifteen years ago. They wanted to help her they had said but none of them was able to do so. Only Maxence had been able to and now that he wasn’t there anymore, she had no one to protect her against her demons.

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