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molsons112000 · 8 months ago

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So again, Oklahoma City bombing, how did he have a license to get the Van? Or was it a small truck to put the fertilizer in to blow up? And then all the car bombings. They got a license to get the car and then let's see the terrorist in London. They got a license to get the car to run over people. So how are these people allowed to have vehicles? .. If the people selling the cars can't do what we do in financial services, making sure that the people are not criminals and drilling down.Then we need to take away all the cars and just go to public transportation bicycles and walking... So I don't know how the ship bags that I see driving around even have a f****** car.I mean, it's ridiculous.All these people, killing people with cars and blowing things up like oh yeah, the world trade center, they rent it.What avan and blew up in the parking garage... So if people selling cars don't have high criteria for who's buying their fucking vehicles then we need to get rid of all car manufacturing... Either the auto industry is into solving the fucking problem of people using their vehicles as weapons of terror are we get rid of the industry but something has to get...

Like Saudi Arabia, originally they ban women from driving. So women should understand this. They were banned from driving and they were least likely to do the terrorist act. So Hey, getting the bad guys out of driving. Because now all the women are buying cars. Losing the scumbags, it's a good thing like scumbag. You make me use a horn burn in hell.

We need to start taking away the privilege and never give it back...

Do you know I can give you from prostitution to buying drugs?They put a lot of white people in jail that went into minority neighborhoods.They profiled them.They saw a white guy in the minority neighborhood.They pulled them over and they busted them for either buying drugs or lets see prostituition... No a black guy got profile as well.Eddie Murphy, how do you think they pulled him over?He was in a neighborhood known for known prostitutes, and he was driving around in a luxury car and they're like.Why is this luxury car in this neighborhood?That is known for prostitution... So the cops Hold over the car Because they were profiling....

So I can give you all these times like me at the airport.I paid cash for a ticket.They said I met a profile and they walk me to the game and stood with me... I don't get minorities White people to be profiled all the time.But when you do it's a bad thing fuck you....

According to a BMJ analysis, between 1970 and 2019, there were 25 vehicle-based terrorist attacks in the United States that resulted in 1,715 injuries and 808 fatalities. This figure does not include the September 11 attacks.

Trauma Surgery & Acute Care Open

an analysis of vehicle-based terrorist events

Results There were 257 recorded terror attacks that involved some type of vehicle between 1970 and 2019. The attacks resulted in 808 fatalities and 1715 injuries when excluding the September 11 attacks. 76 events occurred at the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 25 in the USA, 16 in Israel, and 14 in the UK. Of the 257 terror incidents, 71% (183) occurred within the last 6-year span of inquiry.

Generative AI is experimental.

United States Department of Justice (.gov)

https://portal.cops.usdoj.gov › ...PDF

Drive-By Shootings

by K Dedel · Cited by 1 — Drive-by shootings are but one aspect of the larger set of problems related to gang and gun violence. This guide is limited to addressing the particular harms ...

Missing: total ‎| Show results with: total

Capital B News

capitalbnews.org

Drive-By Shootings: The Mass Casualty Crime No One Is ...

Jul 5, 2022 — There have been more than 700 drive-by mass shootings since 2012, most of them involving an assault-style weapon

According to Statista, there were 44,086 robberies involving a handgun in the United States in 2022. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program defines robbery as taking or attempting to take something of value from someone by force, threat of force, or violence, or by putting the victim in fear.

Statista

Number of robberies in the U.S. 2022, by weapon - Statista

Feb 13, 2024 — There were 44,086 robberies with a handgun in the United States in 2022. A further 11,797 robberies were perpetrated with a knife or other ...

Crime/Law Enforcement Stats (Uniform Crime Reporting ...

FBI — Robbery

In 2022, the District of Columbia had the highest robbery rate in the United States, with 357.5 robberies per 100,000 people, while Wyoming had the lowest, with 7.9 robberies per 100,000 people. Other states with high robbery rates include Maryland, California, New Mexico, Nevada, Alaska, Illinois, and Tennessee.

Gitnux

https://gitnux.org › vehicle-homici...

Must-Know Vehicle Homicide Statistics [Latest Report]

An estimated 9,967 vehicular homicides occurred in the United States in 2014, accounting for 31% of total traffic fatalities. In 2019, men were

In 2022, there were 2,431 bank robberies in the United States, according to Statista. California had the most bank robberies in 2022, with 172, followed by Colorado with 155.

Statista

Robbery: number by location U.S. 2022 - Statista

Feb 13, 2024 — Characteristic, Restaurant, Hotel/Motel/Etc., Park/Playground, Bank/Savings and Loan, Number of robberies, 3,818, 3,068, 2,646, 2,431,

twitter.com

Justin Wingerter on X: "States with the most bank robberies in 2022 ...

Feb 7, 2024 — States with the most bank robberies in 2022, according to FBI data released Monday: 1) California: 172 2) Colorado: 155 California's population is six times larger than Colorado's.

Bank robberies are often considered low-risk crimes because bank employees are trained to comply with a robber's demands. However, 80% of the stolen money is never recovered. Banks have increased their defenses against bank robberies, making it more difficult for robbers to get away.

Generative AI is experimental.

Featured snippet from the web

Number of robberies in the United States in 2022, by location

CharacteristicNumber of robberiesRestaurant3,818Hotel/Motel/Etc.3,068Park/Playground2,646Bank/Savings and Loan2,4319 more rows

•

Feb 13, 2024

https://www.statista.com › statistics

Robbery: number by location U.S. 2022 - Statista

So what is the department of motor vehicles doing around the united states working with the auto industry to prevent these people from ever driving again.... Because to do these criminal offenses they have to have a vehicle... So somebody's gotta be the driver....

So how are they getting these vehicles and like uhauls...

U.S. Department of State (.gov)

https://www.state.gov › 1993-worl...

1993 World Trade Center Bombing

Feb 21, 2019 — On February 26, 1993, a bomb exploded in a parking garage of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City. This event was the first ...

So for the oklahoma city bombing and used a rented rider truck....

On the morning of April 19, 1995, an ex-Army soldier and security guard named Timothy McVeigh parked a rented Ryder truck in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.

https://www.fbi.gov › famous-cases

Oklahoma City Bombing - FBI

So i'm wondering how these people are able to get these vehicles to perpetrate these crimes.... Isn't U-haul and writer truck in all these rental operations? Making sure they're doing their due diligence. And car dealers are making sure they're doing their diligence before. They sell a car or rent a car to individuals. And isn't the department of motor vehicles supposed to be doing their job and screening people highly related to being able to drive a car...

So why are all these excriminals able to purchase vehicles?????

The boys in the hood the drive by shootings they're getting vehicle....

How are all these bad people Vehicles to commit all these crimes.....

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paradiselifeebikesblogs · 1 year ago

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E-Biking Safety Tips: Exploring Dunedin Responsibly 🚴‍♀️🛡️

E-biking through the picturesque town of Dunedin, Florida, is a thrilling adventure that allows you to explore its beautiful beaches, scenic parks, and charming downtown. While the journey is filled with excitement, it's crucial to prioritize safety to ensure that your exploration remains enjoyable and incident-free. At Paradise Life E-Bikes, we're dedicated to promoting safe and responsible e-biking in Dunedin, and in this blog, we'll share essential e-biking safety tips to help you explore the town responsibly. Let's embark on a secure and exciting journey through Dunedin! 🌞

Wear Your Helmet 🚴‍♂️🪖

Safety starts with your head, so don't forget to wear your helmet. Whether you're e-biking on the Dunedin Causeway, exploring Honeymoon Island State Park, or enjoying the Pinellas Trail, protect yourself with a well-fitted helmet. It's your best defense against potential head injuries.

Observe Local Traffic Rules 🚦🚴

When you're e-biking in Dunedin, you share the road with other vehicles and pedestrians. Always obey traffic signals, stop signs, and right-of-way rules. Pay attention to your surroundings, and use hand signals to indicate your intentions to other road users.

Ride at a Safe Speed ⚡🚴

E-bikes can reach relatively high speeds, especially with pedal assistance. While it's thrilling to zoom along the Dunedin Causeway or Pinellas Trail, it's essential to be aware of your surroundings and adjust your speed accordingly. Slow down in congested areas, on narrow paths, and around pedestrians.

Be Visible 🌟

Enhance your visibility with bright or reflective clothing, especially if you're e-biking in low-light conditions. Equip your e-bike with lights and reflectors, and use a bell or horn to alert others to your presence when necessary.

Maintain a Safe Following Distance 🚴‍♀️🚗

When e-biking near vehicles, maintain a safe following distance to give yourself time to react if the vehicle suddenly stops. Keep in mind that e-bikes may have a shorter braking distance than traditional bicycles.

Stay Alert and Avoid Distractions 🚴‍♂️📵

Distracted riding can be just as dangerous as distracted driving. Put your phone away, avoid wearing headphones, and stay focused on the road. Being alert and aware of your surroundings is crucial to your safety.

Stay on Designated Paths 🛤️

Dunedin offers a variety of e-biking paths, such as the Pinellas Trail and Dunedin Causeway. Stick to designated paths whenever possible to ensure a safer and more enjoyable ride. Off-road adventures are fantastic, but make sure you're equipped for the terrain and riding responsibly.

Perform Regular Maintenance 🧰🚴‍♀️

Maintain your e-bike to ensure it's in excellent working condition. Regularly check the brakes, tires, and other components. Keep your e-bike in top shape for safe and reliable riding.

Ride Defensively 🛡️🚴

Defensive riding means anticipating potential hazards and staying proactive in avoiding them. Be cautious at intersections, yield the right-of-way when needed, and always be prepared for unexpected situations.

Respect Nature 🌿🐦

When e-biking through Dunedin's beautiful parks and natural areas, respect the environment. Stay on designated paths to preserve flora and fauna, and dispose of trash properly. Leave no trace of your visit.

At Paradise Life E-Bikes, we're committed to promoting safe and responsible e-biking in Dunedin. By following these safety tips, you can enjoy the thrill of e-biking while ensuring a secure and enjoyable experience. 🌴🚴‍♀️

So, gear up, put on your helmet, and ride responsibly. Explore Dunedin's adventure spots with confidence, knowing that you're prioritizing your safety and the safety of others. Contact us today to book your e-bike rental and embark on a secure and memorable e-biking journey through Dunedin, Florida! 🚴‍♀️📞🌞🛡️

#Electricbikes #ParadiseLifeEbikes #Ebikes #Electricbicycle #Electricbikestore #Ebikerentals #Electricbiketours #Pedalassistbikes #Electricbikeaccessories #Electricbikemodels #Batterypoweredbicycles #Bikeshop #Ebikedealer #Electricbikebrands #Bikerentals

#batterypoweredbicycles #bikerentals #bikeshop #ebikedealer #ebikerentals #ebikes #electricbicycle #electricbikeaccessories #electricbikebrands #electricbikemodels

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theonemarvelousness · 2 years ago

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Halloween Problems [Incomplete]

He has never seen Malleus so uncomposed. His elegantly laid hat is askew, his eyes are wide, shifting back and forth rapidly. Hands tangled in both hair and horns. Sure, he would say that human jumping, grabbing onto Malleus’s horns and declaring him to be like an old bicycle was—well, both unexpected and bothersome, but the snarl that ripped from the fae’s throat reminded Vil that Malleus Draconia was far from human. He had shaken, and gotten the idiot off, but was clearly a mess by how the clouds rolled in and the lightning started. Bright eyes glistening in the new light—and worse yet, his hands had gone to his horns; the expression was panicked. “Malleus!” He calls out, approaching. Immediately, the fae steps back.

“Malleus—It’s only me—Vil.” He’s doing his best, because he knows panic, wild panic when he sees it.

“—Ah, Draconia—might we escort you somewhere else?” Jade appears at his side, but doesn’t touch. Again, the fae steps back. The humans are dispersing rapidly, but also swelling to come back. “IT’S MALLEUS!”

“DRACONIA!”

“Hey, who can touch him!? I can’t wait for the clout!”

“Oh wow, is this storm part of the show?!”

“COOL!”

Someone makes a swipe at the fae again. Who steps out of the way, instead of striking. Jade steps in the way. “Ah—it’s not kind to touch people, is it? Or would you… rather touch me?!”

“Hey—it’s just for a challenge! It’s no big deal!”

“I would beg to differ…” Jade poises, and hedges a step back.

Vil takes another side, keeping some riff raff from another strike. They’re carefully corraling the fae somewhere else. He’s going fast, too. They can barely keep up with his fluid steps as he’s dodging around the guests. At least he’s not striking them—but he is about dancing around them. It’s—a graceful sight to catch. But then a bit of flames he sees from Malleus’s mouth.

They have to get him somewhere. That’s not a good sign—a dragon breathing fire.

The Hall of Mirrors is close—the fae ducks inside, they follow.

More lightning crashes; Vil moves quickly to set up a defensive spell to absorb the harsh bolts of lightning. The storm isn’t abating.

The fae is still there; he’s not responding. But how his eyes move rapidly—trauma.

“—They’re not here.” Jade offers. “No one else but students will be here. No one’s going to touch you.” Jade’s voice is very calm. He keeps his distance, too. It’s—interesting. “If they do, you should burn them.”

But, really—this is a mite ridiculous. Well, fine, it’s clearly some sort of response to…

Something.

There’s panic still. But he seems to be slowly coming to terms? No, no. He’s back himself against a wall. Fae are more—monstrous, one might say. The instincts are probably all—active. This is a situation they need to approach carefully. Another flame releases. He’s somewhere, far away.

“Malleus--?” That’s Silver.

Vil turns. “Keep everyone out—we’ve got this—I think.”

“I—yes!” The dutiful member of Diasomnia stands at the gate.

Soon, there’s Sebek’s booming voice. “Stay BACK! All of you!”

“—call Lilia.” He catches Silver saying.

“Lilia’s on his way, Malleus.” Vil soothes carefully.

Eyes finally focus on him. There’s clearly a better pull to reality. But the noise he makes is the reminder he’s more dragon than man.

“Yes—Lilia.” Jade adds. “There’s no need to fret, right? Lilia will--” It seems Jade is hedging his bets, “—keep you safe.”

Soon, he hears a gasp outside, and the sound of rushing footsteps.

Immediately, it looks like Malleus has calmed at the sight of—yes, Lilia. His horns are released, and while his appearance is a mess, his focus is on the small, strange fae.

“—Good grief, such incidents are unavoidable in theater and entertainment. Losing yourself because of some rowdy outsiders is the mistake of an amateur. Now that I’m done—I need to go to my dorm to clean up.” He is irritated—but perhaps more that he couldn’t do much.

Jade’s smiling. “My, my, Malleus is truly powerful… I did my best, but if I had failed—ah. I will go now. Have a wonderful Halloween~!”

They leave, but he catches the sight of Malleus and Lilia wrapped in a tight embrace. “My apologies… I caused such a disturbance between many species… I should have had better control.”

“—Young master, you did nothing wrong! They grabbed and yanked at you--” Sebek’s voice carries, but it’s soon faded away.

---

Jade is walking with him—he’s suspicious, of course. But… he hedges.

“He was terrified.” Jade offers.

“I noticed.” It’s…

“What a curious reaction—I mean, I would freak out if someone pulled my fins or tail! But… we are lucky Lilia was here.”

“What are you getting at, Jade?” Vil just wants to know the point, he needs to fix his make up.

“I think, in the future, we could also summon No Wei if another incident occurs.” What a wide grin to his lips.

There’s confusion. “Why would No Wei be associated—ah, I’m not here for your strange Octavinelle schemes. Go talk with your brother or Azul for those.” A shake of his head. What ridiculousness. “We know to call Lilia, and I am rather sure you have everyone’s number. In case. We’ll just try to run interference for the Draconia Challenge from now on. I’ll speak to the professors after I fix up.”

“Noted. Well then, farewell~” And Jade turns off, going somewhere unknown.

No Wei…? Hah. That makes no sense.

---

Ah, he spots Riddle! It’s good to see him so confident. Last year, he was nervous, wasn’t he?

“—it’s good to see you so comfortable in your dancing, more than I thought you would be with the ladies attending. Then, would you dance with me next?”

Riddle offers his hand out. “Gladly.”

“—I am impressed.” He admits, as they take to the next dance. “Your posture and footwork are refined, and smooth—I didn’t expect you to become such a good dancer in heels this soon.”

“I have danced like this, ballroom dancing, since I was a small child. My mother taught me as part of my education. Though, admittedly, I prefer a routine style versus more free-flowing movement in dancing overall.” It’s cute, how thorough he is, isn’t it?

“--

#malleus draconia #vil schoenheit #jade leech #twst fic #twst writing #twst writings #twst fanfiction #twst silver #lilia vanrogue #riddle rosehearts #admittedly this isn't the final cut that's making it into the fic #no wei

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ccohanlon · 3 years ago

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rising

They were digging up pipes in the alley again.

Three young men in orange overalls stood waist- deep in a trench trench, unfazed by an acrid smell of human waste that filled the narrow, cobble- stoned dead-end. One of the young men had a lighted cigarette in his mouth and there was a sudden, loud pop and a flash of blue-green flame as it ignited a tendril of leaking biogas. Fearless of the risk of a bigger explosion, the three men just cackled and kept on working.

A few of us stood in our doorways, watching. The medina's sewers were often blocked and sometimes, they overflowed into the courtyards of our riads, submerging the tiled floors beneath a vomitous soup of decomposed excrement.

In the past couple of days, different parts of the medina had been flooded by what was thought to be sea-water. It had risen from public drains, some said, or had seeped from dubious hollows beneath the medina's oldest neighbourhoods. Others had seen it streaming from the seams of a medieval sea gate beneath the north-west ramparts, at the onset of the spring tide. But no-one had given it much thought: the inexplicable had been a commonplace of life here for over a thousand years — sometimes incidents of it were recalled as miracles.

The alley darkened as the sun dipped below the medina walls. A tinny crackle, a second or two of ringing feedback, then the dissonant, amplified drone of mua'dhinns from different mosques calling the faithful together for the last salah of the day — salat al-'asr. I waited until everybody else had retreated inside their riads and closed the doors before I did the same.

It had been two weeks since the wind had died. At this time of year, midway through summer, the north-easterly trade wind the Berbers called the taros was relentless. Seldom blowing less than 20 knots, day or night, along the Atlantic coast, it cooled the coastal towns and villages and held the flies and mosquitoes at bay. It was unusual — and for locals, unsettling — for calm to endure for more than a few days. You could still hear the remnants of the south-going swell tumbling over the inshore reefs to break against the medina's westernmost walls.

I had found a small hardwood table and bench in a storage room on my riad's rooftop. I dragged them across the fractured tiles and positioned them in the one spot where there was a view — framed by crumbling plaster and unpainted breeze-block — of a sliver of ocean. I sat at the table and scribbled random observations of the past few days in pencil in a small, spiral notebook. They were rudimentary, unembellished, more aides-memoire than diary. I was not a writer. I was not even a note-maker. I still can't explain why I felt the need to do this.

I can't explain the Dowayo doll, either. I found it at the back of the same storage room. Carved from sub-Saharan rosewood, bound with tiny red beads and cowrie shells, it had been tossed into a pile of kindling and charcoal, and was covered with dust. I wiped it clean with a damp cloth and placed it on the table as a kind of totem. Dowayo dolls are supposed to encourage fertility in young girls of the Namji tribe in north-western Cameroon. I wondered how it had made its way here across 3,000 miles of desert.

Every morning since I moved into the riad, this old man pedalled down the alley on a rusty, French-built bicycle, towing a makeshift trailer. The trailer was the chassis and axle of a baby's pram, married to a wooden fruit box. As he rode, he squeezed a rubber-bulbed air horn clamped to the handlebars — it sounded like a goose's honk — to remind everyone to bring out their empty plastic bottles. He stopped at each riad to collect them and to spray the stoop and gutters with rose-scented antiseptic. If nothing else, it masked the smell of cat piss.

I always woke before dawn, to the mua'dhinns' first calls to prayer, but I stayed in bed until I heard the old man's horn as he turned into the alley. Then I got up, gathered my bottles from the kitchen and met him outside the front door.

I hadn't heard his horn today. Above the riad's open roof, the sun had already burned off the pale grey stratus of the marine layer, so it was late morning. I crab-walked barefoot down the curving tiled staircase to the ground-floor courtyard and stepped into cold water. For a few, gag-inducing seconds, I thought it was sewerage from the household drains and I cursed the young workers who had dug up the alley. But the water was clear and smelled faintly of seaweed left too long in the sun.

I waded barefoot along the flooded alley to the junction with the long avenue that was one of the medina's main thoroughfares. A shallow river flowed along it from the direction of the harbour, carrying with it rafts of refuse and debris. The stalls that sold leather bags, shoes, carved wooden bowls and boxes, colourful carpets, djellabas, argan oil, incense, and scented candles were all shuttered and the cafés had packed away their tables and chairs. There was no-one on the streets, not even the wizened mendicants that worked the tourist trade. I walked to another alley, a short-cut to the souk. Carozza men, pushing wooden carts piled with luggage, led groups of jittery, dishevelled tourists along it towards the bus terminal on the other side of the medina.

The water had yet to reach the souk but most of the stalls were empty. A few elderly women carried plastic bags filled with green vegetables and live chickens, clutched upside down by their legs. Fruit sellers with long trays filled with tomatoes, cherries and baskets of desiccated figs and apricots were wheeling them eastwards, towards the gate that exited into the medina's pub- lic car park.

"Is everywhere closed?" I asked one of them.

"Rimal. Le sable.”

"Sand?”

"Oui. Ça arrive." He waved towards an empty sky but I noticed, then, that the wind had returned. It felt hot and dry."Chergui," he said.

As if to make up for this news, he handed me a brown paper bag filled with ripe tomatoes.

The flood reached the souk as rivulets cascading over steps and sidewalks from colonnades on either side of the road, flushing the copper-tinged stench of blood from the floors of fishmongers, butchers, and poultry slaughterers into the street.

By nightfall, the water level in the riad's courtyard had receded a little — the semi-diurnal tide, I thought, nothing more than a brief respite. The electricity and fresh water had been cut off and the riad was dark, the only source of light an aqueous half-moon over the roof. The cloistered, inside-outside architecture of a riad — open to the sky, full of bright, reflected light by day, yet cool, with shaded vaults, and as protective as a medieval keep — was everything I had ever wanted of a house. But tonight, it felt besieged.

I climbed up the narrow stairwell to the rooftop. I unrolled a heavy canvas covering and slid its rectangular hem over the timber balustrade surrounding the open part of the roof. Tied down with elasticised cord looped over hooks at the base of the newel posts, it looked like a military tent. The irony of sealing the roof while the sea flooded the courtyard below was not lost on me but a strong chergui could carry enough sand from inland to bury the whole medina.

When I was done, I shinned my way up one of the crumbling plaster walls around the roof to see what I could of my neighbours — did I still have neighbours? The only light was from a rooftop two buildings away, where a family sat kindling a fire in a makeshift brick fire-pit. On a wall next to them, hung by bound hind legs on a butcher's hook, the carcass of a freshly killed goat, skinned, gutted and beheaded. One of the women waved to me. I waved back but felt suddenly embarrassed and a little lonely.

The wind was rising. To the east, the stars were disappearing behind by filaments of sand-laden stratus. I eased myself down the wall, picked up the Dowayo doll from my desk, and headed downstairs.

The wind and sand scoured the roof all night, the strongest gusts clawing at the roof tent as gouts of sand ricocheting across it like buckshot. By dawn, so much sand had accumulated that the door from the stairwell wouldn't open. But the wind had died.

A change of tide had swelled the sea in the courtyard, too, its surface strewn with granules of fine, orange dust.

I gathered a few clothes from drawers and wardrobes and packed them into an oiled canvas rucksack I had bought for desert hikes I never actually set out on. I added a Swiss army folding knife, as well as my passport, a notebook and pencil, a few hundred dollars in cash, a pair of well-worn Birkenstocks, and a wide-brimmed folding hat. In the kitchen, I found three large bottles of mineral water. and strapped them, along with a rolled, foam mat, a lightweight windcheater, and the Dowayo doll to the outside of the rucksack. I donned jeans and a long-sleeved, white, cotton shirt. I tied the laces of my canvas sneakers together and slung them over my shoulder.

The water in the alley had deepened. It came up to the knees of a gnarled old woman, who stood mid-stream, her black djellaba billowing around her like a buoyancy aid. I recognised her as one of my neighbours.

"Partez-vous?" she asked, as I waded past her. I nodded.

"Allez à l'est. Il ne reste plus rien au nord." Her tone was doleful but resigned.

I had not yet decided where I would head or even whether I was leaving. At the avenue at the end of the alley, I turn not east, towards the gate at the far end of the empty souk and beyond, the desert, but west, towards the sea.

The faithful were gathered outside a crowded mosque at the top of the avenue. They stood or sat on upturned plastic crates in the water to listen to voice of their imam over speakers mounted above the mosque's gates. On the far side of the wide square that filled the space between the last of the medina's buildings and the sea, sand dunes scaled the castellated stone walls of the old port. The square itself was an archipelago of barren, sandy cays scattered across a muddy sea.

I clambered over hillocks of coarse wet sand and bales of tangled nets and polypropylene rope blocking the passageway to the quayside. Hundreds of open, timber fishing-boats, all of them painted Egyptian blue, were unmoored and jammed together in every direction by the incoming tide; several had grounded on the submerged quay. I eased myself over the gunwhale of the nearest boat, into the deep well of its hull, then clambered onto the sternsheets to step across to the next boat, and the next, until I reached the outermost of the flotilla.

It was on old boat but solid, with a dry bilge. Oars were laid on the sole of its hull. Beneath a poorly secured hatch, I found two fuel tanks, both full, and an Evinrude outboard engine that I could start without a key. I laid my rucksack on the midship thwart. The Dowayo doll watched over me as set to work mounting the engine on the transom.

I waited until high water, that afternoon, to cast off. I drifted on the ebb through the outer harbour, between slab-sided, timber trawlers and the high, stone breakwaters, into the open Atlantic. A long, steep swell was still running, the last vestige of the once relentless taros. Last night’s hard wind had streaked the crests with whitecaps. I pulled the cord to start the outboard. The boat rolled as her stern lifted on the shoulder of a wave.

I shaped a rough course south-west. I had no chart, no compass, no waypoint to sail towards, but it didn't matter now. All bearings were lost. I would trace the contours of a new shore, where the desert had somehow become one with the sea.

First published in the collection, Zahir: Desire & Eclipse, a book by Zeno Press (edited by Christian Patracchini), UK, 2020.

#fiction #sciencefiction #shortstory #climatechange #desert #ocean #atlantic #escape #medina #northafrica

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dannycaing832 · 3 years ago

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TRANSCEND OR CONSUMED

by Danny Caing Date Written: March 11, 2020

PART 1 THE PECULIAR INCIDENT ON ORCHARD LANE

DAY 1 - Time: 6:00 PM

Redway Elementary School

344 Humboldt Ave., Redway, California, USA

Zeeka Magda & Kahley Rosnan, both 14 years old, were biking around the baseball field. It has been a long day in school, and they were both excited to try out their new bicycle around the campus ground. While taking a break along with the shady trees, the topic of their discussion was about extra-terrestrial.

ZEEKA: Do you believe what Mr. DaNoche has told us about aliens that they had visited our planets before the era of pyramids?

KAHLEY: I've heard some stories that aliens have abducted humans for experiments, and turn you into humanoid, like robots.

ZEEKA: What if we are the alien on this planet, and we are the source of destruction. Come to think of it, if there were no humans on this planet, Earth would be peaceful, and mother nature would be happy.

KAHLEY: Maybe we are just one microdot civilization among the billions of billions of stars in the universe, and it would be pointless if we existed alone.

ZEEKA: Why do scientists do not believe in the existence of God?

KAHLEY: Because they are gods.

ZEEKA: Hey, Kahley, I have to go, it's getting late. See you tomorrow at Debs Hamburger. It's my brother Jugbey's birthday.

KAHLEY: Okay, bye. See you later.

DAY 1 - Time: 6:30 PM

It was getting dark, and Zeeka has to turn on the light and reflector of her bicycle. From the school baseball field, she took the route along Manzanita Road and then turn right to Redway Drive. While she was biking alone along the road, she saw on her side mirror the light of a motorcycle. But when she turns left at Fern Street, the faint light was still following her. Her heart starts beating fast, and she was scared of the dark road. As she turns right at Orchard Lane, the light was getting closer to the side mirror. She can feel her legs trembling. Then she saw a California Highway Patrol car, heading in her direction, she decided to stop and wave her hands in panic. She turns her back on the noisy truck horn sound while its headlights kept blinking on and off, and she saw the couples inside the pickup pointing direction on her left side, unknowingly with disbelief there was a floating pulsating glowing ball right beside her. Suddenly, there was a big flash of the immensity of light. In a blink of an eye, the ball of light vanished. She was wondering where have the California Highway Patrol car and the pickup truck gone missing on the road? Instead, she hurriedly pedaled home for safety.

Arriving in her place, she was amazed to find the pickup truck and the California Highway Patrol car parked with the other vehicles in the front yard. She became more curious when she peaked at the window she saw many guests in the house. They might have decided to celebrate her brother's birthday tonight? When she opened the main door, the room fell silent, and everyone was shocked to see her as if they have seen a ghost. Her mother collapsed in front of her. She saw Kahley running towards her carrying a baby. She suddenly feels weak and uncomfortable. Everyone was touching her hair, her arms, her face, there was no stopping, there were murmurs and cries, she felt like an angel that night who came down from heaven.

ZEEKA: What's going on here? Is that your baby?

KAHLEY: Yes, and his father is Jugbey, your brother. You were missing for eight years. What happened to you? Where have you been?

Khaley finds Zeeka stunningly cute since she last saw her eight years ago, she was her best friend and classmate, and she was still wearing the same clothes.

PART 2 THE INTERVIEWS

Upon hearing the news about the disappearance of a girl by the flash of light at Redway, California, a three-member UFO Chaser's team headed by an Astrophysicist and scientist Alfred Douglas, a NASA consultant Debra Burnett, and a UFO documentarian James McGee investigated a possible alien abduction. When the flash of light occurred at exactly 6:48 P.M., the electricity blackout, cars stop moving, and even watches, too, within the 45-kilometer radius from the center of the anomaly followed by a 3.28 earthquake scale magnitude and intensity. Three principal witnesses directly saw the disappearance of the girl from the flash of light, the California Highway Patrol officer, Lieutenant Gary Holden, and the two couples in the pickup truck, Henry & Matilda Newford.

DAY 2 - Time: 2:38 PM

Orchard Lane, Redway, California, USA

Here are the documented accounts during the interviews on the First Encounter of the Third Kind witnesses.

JAMES MCGEE: Lieutenant Holden, can you tell us what exactly you saw that night at the Orchard Lane?

LT. GARY HOLDEN: Yes, Sir. I was driving along Briceland Road, I just came from Redway Feed, Garden & Pet Supply to buy some Dog Food, and suddenly I saw this floating helix or spiral spring in colorful lights at ten o'clock on my front shield window, I thought it was on the South Fork Eel River. I drove through the Orchard Lane, and then upon turning left, I finally saw the object hovering above the road. A girl was standing with her bike waving at me. There was a pickup truck beeping wildly, and its headlights going crazy. I saw this ball of light, the size of a balloon, floating on her side. Then there was a big flash of light from the balloon. I covered my ears from a piercing sound. When the bright light was gone, the girl disappears. My car engine stopped, and the pickup truck. There was a blackout all over Redway, and I found out later that my watch stopped clicking at 6:48:39 PM.

DEBRA BURNETT: Lt. Holden. What did you feel when you saw this unexpected event?

LT. GARY HOLDEN: First, I thought I was out of focus and felt my body was numb. It's like, you don't remember why you are here standing out of nowhere. Then, gradually you came to all your senses, feeling shocked and nervous. The first thing that came into my mind was my dog, Bernie.

ALFRED DOUGLAS: You just mentioned to us that you covered your ears from a piercing sound. How does it sound?

LT. GARY HOLDEN: It sounds like microphone feedback in high frequency.

JAMES MCGEE: Did you report what happened that night at Orchard Lane?

LT. GARY HOLDEN: I have no idea, we all lost contacts, the radios, cellphones, and backup systems were out of order. Thirty minutes later, military helicopters with Special Forces landed in the vicinity of Redway Elementary School fields and secured a 100-meters perimeter area where I was standing. I remember that night when we walked from Orchard Lane to my office, on West Coast Road along Redwood Drive, everyone on the street was asking us what happened and why they cannot contact anyone. Based on the military information, electricity blackout has reached as far as Bridgeville on the north, and Rockport on the south.

ALFRED DOUGLAS: Who are we?

LT. GARY HOLDEN: The Special Forces.

DEBRA BURNETT: Well, we wish to thank you for your time, Lt. Gary Holden. We will keep you posted, we may still need your assistance at your convenient time, and please don't hesitate to contact us if you can remember anything which might be helpful on this ongoing investigation, and research on this matter.

Right after the interview, Alfred, James, and Debra shook hands with Gary as he was leaving the monitor room in the truck van.

DAY 2 - Time: 3:28 PM

Orchard Lane, Redway, California, USA

Henry & Matilda Newford were seated in front of the table with Alfred, James, and Debra inside the monitor room. They were the couples who have seen Zeeka vanished by the flash of light along Orchard Lane.

DEBRA BURNETT: How long have you been married? Do you have any children?

MATILDA NEWFORD: We've been living together for 38 years now, and we have two children, all boys, U.S. Army stationed in Afghanistan and Syria. My husband, Henry, is a Vietnam War veteran.

JAMES MCGEE: Mr. Henry Newford, can you describe to us how did you first sense the encounter?

HENRY NEWFORD: I'm not sure, I was driving the truck, and my eyes, were focused on the road. It was my wife, Debra, who first saw this bright floating object in front of us along Orchard Lane.

ALFRED DOUGLAS: Can you remember the shape of the object?

HENRY NEWFORD: It was like five rings on top of each other, and they were illuminating different colors like a rainbow.

DEBRA BURNETT: I think they were all connected.

JAMES MCGEE: Like a spiral spring?

MATILDA NEWFORD: Yes, that's it. Like a spiral spring.

HENRY NEWFORD: In the distance, I saw this girl standing on the roadside, with her bike, and there's was an unusual thing about the ball of light on her side, she was waving to the approaching Highway Patrol car. Suddenly the pickup truck went to stop, the headlights were blinking on and off, and the horns kept beeping. When she noticed the truck, I tried to warn her, pointing to the ball of light on her side. I saw the spiral ring, on top of her, then there was a big flash of light. When the light subsided, everything went still and quiet, the girl in front of me vanished from my sight.

DEBRA BURNETT: What did you do next?

MATILDA NEWFORD: We went out of the truck. Henry tried much time to start the engine. Lt. Gary Holden came to us if we are all right and told us to stay on foot for a while. Later, there were people all over the road. It was dark and dreary. Even our flashlight didn't work.

ALFRED DOUGLAS: When you saw this object above the girl, how high do you think it was from the ground?

HENRY NEWFORD: I think it was about a-100 meters or so.

DEBRA BURNETT: Mr. & Mrs. Henry & Matilda Newford we sincerely thank you for your support and cooperation. It's been a great pleasure.

With all the smiles and exchanging handshakes, it was worth success in gathering crucial information on this case. But still, the conclusion remained unexplained and unsolved.

PART 3 ZEEKA MAGDA TESTIMONY

DAY 2,308 - Time: 8:32 PM

Orchard Lane, Redway, California, USA

News spread that night that Zeeka has returned. Every family in Redway came to see her. Zeeka was sitting beside her mother on her bed while Khaley & her baby was standing beside her. When Zeeka touched her mother's forehead, there was a glow in her hands, and she suddenly woke up.

BERNADETTE (Mother of Zeeka): Oh my baby darling, you are back. I missed you so much.

ZEEKA: I miss you, too, mom. Where is dad?

BERNADETTE: Your dad passed away, two years ago, I am sorry.

Zeeka embraced her mother and cried. When Jugbey came inside the room, he was surprised to see her sister. He works as head of the Maintenance Division at Shelter Cove Airport. Jugbey embraced them both. Someone was knocking at the door, and Khaley opened it, and it was Lt. Gary Holden of the California Highway Patrol.

LT. GARY HOLDEN: Mrs. Magda, Dr. Gilbert Jenner, would like to speak with you in private?

Mrs. Bernadette Magda works as one of the staff at Healy Senior Center in Redway, and Dr. Gilbert Jenner was her supervisor. Bernadette went outside the room and greeted Dr. Gilber Jenner in the hallway, crowded with people coming from their neighbors. There were flashes of lights from the cellphones on the crowds while Lt. Holden kept holding them back to give them more space. While inside the room, Zeeka, Jugbey & Khaley with the baby were embracing each other.

JUGBEY: What happened to you? Where have you been for these years?

ZEEKA: How did dad die, Jugbey?

JUGBEY: Road accident. He was in a coma for two months before he slips away. I saw him sleeping in your room, reading your diaries, looking at your school pictures, and even arranged your stuff on your table.

ZEEKA: God, I miss him so much. I love him so much.

Bernadette came inside the room and told Zeeka that the whole community of Redway wants to see her. Some local enforcers will keep her safe, and the crowd promised to behave. When Zeeka came out of her room, people along the hallway were touching her, and some were crying. While shaking hands most take a selfie with her. Upon reaching the veranda, there were cheers, clapping of hands, screaming her name, and cars were honking. From the moment the flashes of light from the cellphone hit her eyes, she started remembering everything that happened. A young Pastor handed the microphone to her and asked her to tell them the truth about why she came back to Earth. When she was about to speak, everyone felt the silence, so quiet that you can hear the birds chirping. All you can see was raising their video cellphones focusing on her.

ZEEKA: I'm so glad to see you welcome me back home. I did not know that I was missing for eight years. I was there in another world, but it was only for a few days. They were beautiful people, just like us, only they were more intelligent and organized. Everyone was wearing a skinsuit of colorful design, medium built, and bald. I thought I was in China, because of their eyes, they looked human to me. They were speaking our language, and ours was ancient.

PASTOR LONGCOP: How can you be sure that you were not in China?

ZEEKA: There were three moons in the sky. Two has rings, and the other one was a blue moon or water moon. When I was conscious, I thought I was in heaven. Below me were clouds, later I found out I was in the floating glass city. They put me inside a glass tube filled with lime to sealed my body. I wore a jumpsuit, the only one wearing on the whole planet. Then they took me to a garden. The plants and flowers were alive, they feel my touch.

I saw thousands of their kind floating in a yoga sitting position, inside the gigantic doom, meditating for thousands of years, so they say. Our body is ancient because we eat food that deteriorates our inner energy. We crave more on the outside consciousness rather than the source of power within us. The only way we can be part of the universe is to become ourselves a universe within. We have this glow inside us, enhancing it will give harmony among ourselves. The body must not control us. We should control the body. They say that the universe is within us. Their civilization is so much advance from us. We must respect all life on our planet, but we eat them, and that's why we get old and die. We created technology by killing one another. We are paranoid primitive in their eyes, and greed of outside consciousness power. They said that travelers visited Earth and become us, taught us about the universe within us, but we are still struggling to dominate with each other on the outside consciousness.

PASTOR LONGCOP: Who are these travelers?

ZEEKA: God is the energy of light, traveling around the universe. The Kingdom of God is the universe. The Kingdom of God is within us. It's very logical to understand that the universe is within us.

PASTOR LONGCOP: It doesn't make sense at all. Are you referring to our Lord JESUS CHRIST?

ZEEKA: You pray to talk to GOD, but when you read JESUS WORDS, GOD speaks to you. JESUS is the LIVING WORD of GOD.

When the crowd heard these words, they all kneel and bowed their heads. Zeeka raised her two hands as she looks up to the sky.

ZEEKA: Luke 17:21 nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

Matthew 6:9-13

Pray then like this, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

John 8:51 I tell you the truth, if anyone KEEPS MY WORD, he will never see death.

John 15:7 If you remain in me and my WORDS remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

DAY 2,308 - Time: 9:00 PM

Beverly Hills Terrace, North Beverly Hills, California, USA

Alfred Douglas was in his study room when his cellphone rang on the table. It was James McGee on the line.

JAMES MCGEE: Are you watching CNN right now?

ALFRED DOUGLAS: No. What is it?

JAMES MCGEE: It's about the girl, Zeeka Magda, with her bike in Redway, who vanished with the flash of light on the Orchard Lane eight years ago, she's all over social media.

ALFRED DOUGLAS: How fast, can we get to Redway?

JAMES MCGEE: Debra and I are on our way with a helicopter to pick you up. See you in fifteen minutes.

When Alfred Douglas switch on the monitor screen on his living room

"Good evening, this is Gloria Borger of CNN Breaking News. Eight years ago, a 14-year-old girl, Zeeka Magna, disappeared from the flash of light in Orchard lane. Tonight, the girl appeared at her house, as you can see on the Facebook videos, the crowds were rejoicing because they were all healed by their sickness, including cancer, right after hearing her testimony. Zeeka testified to them that the Kingdom of God is within us. The universe is the Kingdom of God. Within us is the universe. God is the universe. God is within us."

When they arrived at Zeeka's house, there were so many people everywhere, including the military from Special Forces. When Alfred Douglas saw Lt. Gary Holden with the FBI, he waved his hand with a gesture.

ALFRED DOUGLAS: Good evening Lt. Holden, could we see the girl?

LT. GARY HOLDEN: Good evening, Sir. I'm sorry, the FBI is in the room right now, no one is allowed inside the room at this moment. They are conducting an investigation.

ALFRED DOUGLAS: Can you tell us what happened inside the room and why the FBI is in there?

LT.GARY HOLDEN: It's too crowded in here, come this way, I'll show you something.

When they were at the corner of the living room. Lt. Gary Holden pulled out his cellphone and told them that he was able to record something inside the room, but this must stay strictly confidential. They all agreed on what he told them.

On the cellphone screen, they saw Zeeka at the center with her mom, brother Jugbey, sister-in-law Kahley & her baby, Mr. & Mrs. Matilda & Henry Newford, Dr. Gilbert Jenner, Pastor Longcop, and Lt. Gary Holden. They were the only people inside the locked room.

ZEEKA: I will be going back to them now. They only gave me a few hours window to return to Earth. I love you so much, mom. Kahley & Jugbey, I love you too, and your baby. Remember when I told you about the doom? They are now meditating and projecting my body here on Earth. If I am with my body here, I will die. I can live a thousand more years with them. I want to see more of the universe within me. I tell you the truth, Beware! in the year 2083, a Coronal Mass Ejection from the sun will hit the Earth. Do not be afraid to embrace the light, Jesus is within you, the Universe is within you. We all become part of the Universe.

Suddenly, her body was gradually transforming into tiny bright particles, as she was speaking to her last words. Everyone kneels and watches her slowly disappearing like a cloud of dust blown by the wind.

ZEEKA: You pray to talk to GOD, but when you read JESUS WORDS, GOD is within you. JESUS is the LIVING WORD of GOD.

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horrorkingdom · 4 years ago

Text

Blindness

It’s true what they say – that when a person goes blind their other senses heighten in order to compensate. Knowing that, and thinking back on everything that happened to me, I still can’t come to a rational conclusion of how these events unfolded around me without my knowledge. Granted, I couldn’t actually see any of it happening, but I never suspected anything of this magnitude when judging solely on the minor oddities that I had experienced.

Sure, every once in a while I would hear noises, but my house was old and seemed to have a mind of its own. All of its pops and creaks had become just as familiar to me as navigating its interior without the benefit of sight. Even when things began to turn more bizarre, I always found a way to rationalize them away. Looking back, I ask myself, “How could I have been so…well, for lack of a better word, blind?”

My mother had tried to convince me not to move into the house alone. “Sarah, a young blind woman shouldn’t be living all by herself,” she’d said. But I wanted to – needed to. I needed to prove to myself that I was strong enough to do it. Besides that, as a twenty four year old, I didn’t want to live with my parents forever. And I sure didn’t want to wait around for a nice man to marry and move in with. That may never happen.

Having lost my sight at an early age due to a freak accident with industrial strength cleaning chemicals, I knew all too well the nuances of learning to create a mental map of my surroundings.

When I first moved into the old house I used my cane exclusively. I waved it back and forth in front of me with every step I took. I knew roughly where all of the furniture was since I was the one that directed the movers on where to put everything. I employed the cane for nearly a week, using its tip to develop a mental image of the layout. The learning process was slow and clumsy at first, but I eventually got to the point that I was able to shed my cane after several days and began walking cautiously with my arms extended. I progressed further and became familiar enough with the territory that by the end of the first month I was able to walk freely without the use of my cane, or arms or any other aid.

I became quite adept at moving throughout the house freely. Not only that, but the house was located in a somewhat urban area which made it convenient to walk to any place I had the need. The grocery was only three blocks away. There was a department store across the street from that, and a bank and coffee shop just a bit further on. I got used to listening to the flow of traffic and timing the lights in my head so I would know when the “Walk” and “Don’t Walk” signals were lit. Occasionally a kind stranger would offer to take my hand and lead me across. I would thank them and we would part ways once we were safely on the next sidewalk.

In those days I was working from home making phone calls to patients that had recently been discharged from the hospital. In essence, I was being paid by the hospital to administer surveys that were then used to improve their services. The hospital was kind enough to provide me with a laptop computer that contained several different voice-command software applications. I spent my days transcribing the recorded phone calls by speaking the customers’ answers into a microphone, and having the data fields automatically populate accordingly in the program.

The first odd event that I remember was on one particular day when I got up from my work desk for a lunch break. As I was headed into the kitchen, I kicked an object in the middle of the living room floor. I heard it slide a short distance on the carpet. I knew that I hadn’t left anything in the way of my path as I had just been through there not even an hour ago, and there was nothing on the floor.

I knelt down and patted around until I located the object. A book. By feeling its Braille title I recognized it as a book on national parks that I kept on my coffee table, some five feet away. I didn’t remember knocking the book off of the table. I stood there perplexed. The longer I thought about it though, the less frightening it became to me. I convinced myself that I must have simply forgotten about knocking the book to the floor, and I must have stepped over it or next to it during my other passes through the room. I returned the book to its place on the table and went about making my lunch.

That night, while lying in bed, I heard a sound that came from the kitchen. It was almost entirely masked by the usual sounds of the pops and creaks from the house settling, but I definitely heard it – faint as it was. It was a very light humming noise. So light, in fact, that an average person without enhanced hearing may not have heard it at all from this distance. I slowly got out of bed, listening intently, the sound increasing as I made my way down the hallway and through the living room.

As soon as I passed through the threshold into the kitchen I knew what the sound was. It was the compressor motor on the refrigerator, and it was substantially louder than usual. I approached the appliance and found that its door was standing wide open. I eased it shut and the hum returned to a normal volume.

“What on earth? Did I leave this open?” I questioned myself in a whisper. Maybe it didn’t close all the way the last time I swung it shut, I thought. I returned to bed, but had trouble finding sleep. My mind wandered and questioned how I could have overlooked the fallen book and the open fridge door when they’d first happened.

The next morning, I decided to go have breakfast at Espresso Express, the little coffee shop up the road. They served excellent coffee, and you could also get a ham & cheese croissant melt that was to die for. That alone was worth the effort of showering, dressing, and leaving the safety of the house to be plunged into a buzz of whizzing traffic, honking horns, and people clamoring on the sidewalks.

On that morning a gentle stranger helped guide me across the intersection just ahead of the coffee shop. I said, “Thank you!” as they released my arm, but there was no response. He or she was lost in the shuffle of people on cell phones, their conversations momentarily audible to me as they passed in front of and behind me. The tinny sound of a bicycle bell alarmed me, and I felt the breeze left behind when the rider whipped past. I entered the coffee shop to a much more serene environment and enjoyed my favorite breakfast at a seat near the plate glass window, bathed in the sunlight that washed in on me.

That afternoon I took a break from making phone calls to use the bathroom. As I was seated on the toilet, I heard something next to me. It was as if something had brushed against the sink – an ever so subtle sound. My heart rate rose and my brow furrowed as I strained to listen closer. All I could hear was my pulse throbbing in my ears. Suddenly a wall clock in the living room chimed four ‘o clock, startling me to the point that I jumped slightly while still seated there. I regained my composure, washed up and returned to the computer to transcribe the data from my phone surveys.

I closed the laptop and went to make dinner at 6:30. Over the years, I had learned to be extra careful when dealing with the hot oven and burners. Once I had accidentally set a plastic plate directly onto a burner that was still hot, resulting in a cloud of noxious fumes that lasted for days – long after I’d finished cleaning up the mess. I was lucky that it had burned itself out and the damage wasn’t any worse. After that close call, I bought a small fire extinguisher to keep on the countertop next to the oven.

On this particular night, I made my dinner without any risk of fire. However, the undertaking wasn’t completely without incident. As I proceeded to make dinner I discovered that the canned goods I needed for the recipe were missing from the cupboard. I have always kept my canned goods in very specific places on the shelves so that I would always know what was what without the benefit of being able to see the labels. I don’t remember using up the items I needed that night, but apparently I already had. So, I opted to make a casserole instead.

I sat at the dinner table enjoying the simple meal I had made. The television was playing in the background, filling me in on all of the day’s news headlines. I finished the first portion on my plate and reached to dip into the casserole dish once more. I scraped the inside of the dish, the sounds of metal on ceramic echoing throughout the kitchen. It was empty.

“I can’t believe it! I couldn’t have already eaten it all!” I said incredulously. I had thought for sure that I’d prepared a bigger portion than that, and I didn’t remember emptying the dish fully onto my plate. Thoughts ran through my head in an attempt to reason out the matter: Had it baked up to be less than I’d anticipated? Had I spilled some on the table while dishing it onto my plate?

In search of the missing food, I placed the palm of my hand on the tabletop and moved it steadily over the area within my reach. As I was doing so there was a distinct movement in front of me. I gasped and my heart rate immediately quickened. I felt the blood pulsing through my neck. This sound was not as subtle as the others I’d been hearing. It was obvious – a sudden motion of something moving across from me. I continued listening, but all I could hear was the much-too-chipper weather man on TV giving the forecast.

Suddenly I was overwhelmed with a feeling that I was no longer alone at the kitchen table. “Is someone there?” I called out, hoping there was no reply.

Silence.

I felt a shift in the air pressure as if something moved behind me followed by the creak of a floorboard. I froze. Something brushed against the back of my hair, gentle as a feather. I recoiled and let out a squeal.

I shot up out of my chair, made my way to the corner of the kitchen and turned to face the interior of the room. “Who’s there?” I demanded. No answer. By this time I was breathing heavily, practically hyperventilating. My chest and throat radiated heat as my heart raced inside, giving me the sensation of acute indigestion. I thought I might vomit.

I slowly made my way to the doorway leading into the living room. I stood there for what seemed like an eternity listening for something, anything that would explain the circumstance. Eventually I moved on and worked my way into the hallway bathroom. I locked the door behind me.

It took over an hour and a half for me to calm down. While in the locked bathroom, I wrestled with my thoughts. I reasoned with myself. I didn’t want to admit that my mother was right, but maybe I shouldn’t be living alone. It appeared to be taking its toll on me. On the other hand, all of these things could be logically explained, I told myself. If I wasn’t blind, I’d have seen whatever it was that caused the noises and it would be so obvious. I’d laugh about how ridiculous it was to be scared of it, I’m sure. At least that’s what I tried to convince myself.

What finally brought me out of the bathroom was the ringing of the telephone. I admit it startled me at first, but only because it had been so quiet for the last two hours. I cautiously opened the door and entered the hallway. My phone was in the living room. I approached it quickly and answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey Sarah, it’s Jill.”

Thank God, it was just my friend Jill. “Hi Jill, how’s it going?”

“Oh, I’m doing good. I saw you at Espresso Express today,” she said in a playful tone, which I didn’t understand initially.

“You did?”

“Mmm hmm. I saw you in the window when I walked by on the sidewalk.” Still in a playful tone.

“Well, why didn’t you come in and say, ‘hi’?” I asked.

“I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Disturb me? Why would you be disturbing me?”

“Because, silly, I assumed you were on a date. Who’s the lucky guy that was sitting with you?”

My mouth slacked open. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t form words.

“Sarah?” Jill asked, “Are you okay?”

I dropped the phone. I could still hear Jill’s muffled voice even though the speaker was face down on the carpet. I frantically made my way around the house, arms flailing in front of me.

“Who are you?” I yelled into the house. “What do you want?”

I was terrified, but also angry. I felt violated. I didn’t necessarily want to encounter whatever it was, but I couldn’t go on hiding in my own house any longer. I spent hours searching every square inch of the property and found nothing. I finally went to bed after I was able to calm down, but I did not fall asleep until the wee hours of the morning.

A light rustling sound woke me not long after I fell asleep, still in the dark hours of early morning. I wasn’t sure at first if it was real or if I had dreamed the noise. As I was about to get up, I noticed that the sheets next to me were pulled back. I stretched out my right arm into the empty space beside me. It felt warm as if someone had been lying there with me. The events of the previous day flooded back into my memory. My sightless eyes welled up with tears as I began to question my own sanity. Frustrated, I bolted up and out of the bed. I threw on some old clothes and headed toward the front door with the intention of fleeing the house, unsure exactly where I was going to go – maybe Jill’s place. She lived fairly close.

I wanted to take my cane with me as I always did whenever I went outdoors. I searched the house frantically, unable to remember where I’d left it. I almost always left it propped against the wall by the front door, but it wasn’t there. I made my way along all of the perimeter walls, feeling desperately for the cane.

When I neared the kitchen I still had not found my walking aid, but I made a discovery of a much more startling nature – a barely detectable vertical crevice in the wall I had not known about previously. I used all my fingers to follow the crease up the wall, across the top, and down the other side. It was a doorway designed to fit perfectly flush within the wall. I leaned my weight inward against the panel and felt a slight give on its right side. I worked my fingers into the crevice on that side the best I could, eventually prying the panel free. It swung open to the left. I gasped in shock and my pulse quickened. A hidden room right in the center of my house.

How I wish that I would have had sight at that moment. I faced a completely unexplored territory inside my own house with the possibility that someone else was in there with me.

I entered slowly, arms extended. “Is someone in here?” I whispered, afraid to ask the question. There was no response. I stepped forward. To my right I discovered a flat surface – a tabletop. I ran my hands along its surface. On top of the table I was able to make out several unopened cans of food. No doubt these were the missing canned goods I’d been looking for. The table also contained silverware and a can opener that disappeared weeks ago.

My heart rate increased even more and my palms began to sweat. I worked my way forward until I came to a wall that I knew bordered the living room. I found a hole the size of a quarter at eye level. Sweat began to form on my brow as well. I found another similar hole on the next adjacent wall. This wall bordered the bathroom. Tears started to well up in my eyes. I was able to find two more holes on the two remaining walls bordering the kitchen and the bedroom.

I dropped to my knees in absolute horror and disbelief. How long had this person been watching me? How could I have not known? My hands were on the floor in front of me and I felt something soft. I investigated further with my fingertips. It was some sort of comforter or sleeping bag. At one end was a fluffy pillow.

At this point not only was I terrified beyond description, I was also furious. How dare someone spy on me covertly from within my own walls! I knew I had to run out of the house and get to safety immediately, with or without my cane. I decided I would go to Jill’s house and we’d call the police from there.

I made my way to where I remembered the hidden door to be, my arms sweeping the area ahead of me in a panic. Instead of the open door, my hands found the warm torso of a human, a male, standing silently in the doorway. He grabbed both my arms and pulled me out of the hidden room and into the house.

We struggled in the kitchen. I kicked at him and screamed as loud as I could into his ears. I was able to get one arm free and I used it to grasp for the fire extinguisher that I knew would be by the oven. He attempted to pull me away, but my fingers reached its nozzle. I swung it at him, feeling the metal cylinder connect with the back of his skull. He released my other arm and I pulled the trigger in his direction, enveloping him in a cloud of white foam.

I ran into the utility room off of the kitchen where I knew my only advantage existed – the fuse box. I found the box and tripped every lever I could find, eliminating all power from the house. If this perverted psycho wanted to kill me, he’d have to do it on an equal playing field – in the dark.

The intruder had not followed me into the utility room. The fire extinguisher must have dazed him. I remembered the toolbox I kept in that room, and I quickly retrieved the longest screwdriver I could find. I stood in the corner and listened carefully. If he was still conscious, he would not be able to move around in the pitch darkness without creating a noise. I would surely detect his movements.

I held the screwdriver against my chest, gripping its handle tightly with both hands. I felt my wildly beating heart against the side of my fist. After an eternity, I moved forward a bit. I may have knocked him out, or even killed him. I had to make sure.

I left the utility room and entered the kitchen. There was still no sound from anywhere in the house. I passed into the living room and headed toward the front door. Halfway through the room I could feel his presence. Something in the air around me had shifted. Without warning there was breath on the back of my neck followed by a deep whisper directly in my ear, “The showers were my favorite.”

I screamed and swung around, stabbing the screwdriver into empty air. I ran for the door. It was merely a few feet away, but I couldn’t reach it due to the resistance I met when the voyeuristic brute’s arms wrapped around my waist. He wrestled me to the floor and straddled me. I tightened my grip on the tool and plunged it as hard as I could into his side.

I shudder to think about it when I recount the feeling of the steel shaft separating two of his ribs. It was horrid, and I was only able to stomach it knowing that if I hadn’t acted, my life would have ended then.

The man winced in pain and let out a deep, growling grunt. He fell backward and rolled off of me. I turned over onto my chest and pushed up off of the floor, then crawled over to the couch and used it to get back onto my feet. I still held the screwdriver, a warm trickle of blood seeping onto my knuckle.

I could tell that the intruder was writhing around on the floor near the doorway. I would have to exit through the back door. From the opposite end of the living room, I entered the sun room where the door was located. I wasn’t as familiar with this entry point, causing me to fumble around with the deadbolt and screen door locks for longer than I would have liked.

I knew there were concrete stairs there leading to a flat patio. How many steps? Four? Five? I couldn’t remember. I proceeded slowly. The last thing I needed was to fall and twist my ankle. After navigating the steps, I came to the end of the patio, which emptied into a narrow alleyway between the shotgun-style houses behind mine.

My steps were slow and cautious. My hands told me there was a brick wall to my right, and a brick wall about five feet to my left. The sides of the two houses. I was entering unfamiliar territory without the benefit of my cane. My breathing was frantic and the tears continued to fill my useless eyes. I kicked something and nearly fell over. It felt plastic – a child’s toy maybe. I was moving much too fast compared to my level of comfort with the surroundings. But I had no choice as footsteps were approaching behind me.

I picked up the pace, waving the screwdriver out in front to buffer my impending collision with any obstacles. Ten more feet of forward progress and the screwdriver alerted me, with metallic clanging, to the presence of a chain link fence connecting the two houses.

I stopped and cried out, my voice breaking up through my tears, “No.” I turned around, my back to the fence. I began swinging the screwdriver violently.

“Leave me alone!” I screamed.

More hyperventilating.

More tears.

The man approached slowly, and then stopped just a few feet away from me. I got the feeling he could see what he was doing. Either there was an electric light in this alley or the dawn had already crested enough that ample ambient light was available. I didn’t know which one was the case because I had no idea what time it was.

Knowing I was about to die, I just wanted answers. “How long?” I managed to ask. “How long have you been in there?” My voice was angrier than I’d expected.

“Since before you lived there,” he replied calmly, his voice deep. “I got lucky with you – a blind girl. With the others I couldn’t come out in the open when they were home. I couldn’t sit and eat their dinner with them. I couldn’t stand over them while they worked at their computers. I couldn’t go to the coffee shop with them.” There was a pause as he moved even closer. “I couldn’t stand next to them in the bathroom.”

I cried uncontrollably in a whirlwind of emotions. I had never before felt so violated, so angry, and so terrified all at the same time. There was sudden movement again in front of me.

“Don’t touch me!” I demanded as I held up the screwdriver. I don’t know exactly how it happened. I don’t know if he didn’t see the tool or just didn’t care, knowing that he was caught. But as he lunged forward, he managed to impale himself on the screwdriver and pin me up against the fence. My hands were still gripping the handle, but it was so deep inside him that his shirt was touching my fist.

His breathing became gurgled, and his last words to me were, “I couldn’t snuggle next to them in bed either.”

We collapsed together as one unit. The fence tore at my back as we slid down onto the ground. His dead weight nearly crushed me, but I managed to push him off and crawl away. I crawled all the way back to my house, in through the back door and into the living room to my phone. I sobbed hysterically as I keyed in the digits 9-1-1 and fell to the floor.

Credit: moonlit_cove

#explore #horror #follow #beginner witch #creepy photo #creepy #creepypasta #horror community #new to tumblr #journal #horror kingdom #horror stories #murder #death in paradise #death mention #blindness

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tired-college-student-writing · 5 years ago

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A Match made in Therapy

Summary: JT and Dani know that outside of the Team Bright had very few people in his life. It was them, Gil, his mother, sister, therapist, parakeet, and his serial killer father. His circle of friends was small, but not as small as they seemed to think.

__________________________________________________

“Yo, man you can’t be in here,” JT snapped as a tall, well-dressed man appeared in the doorway of the conference room. The leak of their possible serial killer, seven drowned men found in the same location, deaths ranging eight months, was much too high already and they wanted to keep the story under wraps as long as they could.

“Calm down, JT,” Gil said, mirth tickling his voice, “Matt’s a friend. Plus it’s not like he can see what we’re working on.”

“What do you mean-”

The man, Matt, smirked slightly as Dani’s words dried up in her throat as his white cane tapped over the ground lightly, “Don’t worry, I’m used to it. I won’t take up too much of your time, I just heard Gil in here and thought I would say hello while I wait for the administrative desk to retrieve forms I can read.”

“Please tell me you aren’t here for Harriet Ludman,” Gil asked, causing the other man’s lips to twist upward.

“No, Jessica Jones, but I could give your woman a listen if you thought my ‘superpower’ was admissible in court.”

“What?”

He chuckled at JT’s question, “Gil and Mal always said I was like a human lie detector. Always could tell if someone was being truthful.”

Gil snorted, “Also the only lawyer I know with a moral code.”

“Hey,” Matt said with mock hurt, “Foggy Nelson works alongside me in our fight for justice.”

“Uh-huh,” Gil hummed before grinning, “Might want to take a step to the left and cover the door with that cane,”

Matt looked bemused, “Who am I tripping?”

“You’ll see,”

“No, I-” Matt cut himself off with a tilt of his head, “Is that…”

The detectives looked on in confusion as a crooked smile splits his face and he quickly steps back until he finds the doorframe and flattens his back to the left of it, cane crossing the entire doorway just below knee height.

“What are you-“

Gil shushed them, “Just watch,”

“Edrisa’s autopsy is back!” Malcolm called before reaching the door, “It turns out I was right about the vics being dead before being submerGED!”

His words spiked as his legs were swept out from under him, landing in a crumpled heap on the floor.

Dani attempted to hold back a snort as JT cackled openly at the profiler’s misfortune alongside Gil’s fond laughter.

Bright blinked up from the floor as he rolled onto his back, Matt smirking down at him.

“One of these days you’ll have to explain how a profiler can be so unobservant, Mal,” Matt teased lightly as he held out a hand.

“Please tell me you aren’t here for Harriet Ludman,” Malcolm groaned, grasping the offered hand.

Matt smirk grew with mirth, “Can’t say I am.”

Malcolm’s face broke into a wide smile as he pulled the other man into a hug shocking the detectives. Bright wasn’t the type to initiate touch regularly. Sure he would give the occasional arm pat to them, or offer a comforting hand to hold to a distraught family member they were interviewing, but anything past that that wasn’t strictly necessary, someone else had to reach out first.

And yet the embrace between the pair was a level of comfort like they rarely saw in their profiler.

“It’s so good to see you, Mattie ”

“I would return the sentiment but,” he started with a sly grin only for Malcolm to groan and shove him away and towards Gil, who gave a deep chuckle before wrapping an arm around the blind man’s shoulders.

“It is nice to see you two together again,” Gil said, earning a cheeky grin from Matt before he added, “That was not an opening.”

“Yes, it was,” Matt countered.

‘“Not that I don’t enjoy Bright getting knocked on his ass,” JT cut in, “But how do you guys know each other?”

Malcolm was practically bouncing, “Matt and I are childhood friends, we met shortly after the Surgeon's trial.”

“He didn’t judge me for being a walking Dickens’ character, and I couldn’t see that he was the Surgeon’s son, nor did I care anyways so we stuck together,” Matt agreed with a grin, “Gil and Jackie basically adopted both of us after we met.”

“Walking Dickens's character?” JT snorted, “Interesting description.”

“A catholic orphan who was blinded while saving an old man and found his dad murdered,” Malcolm rattled off only to whacked with Matt’s cane, “Ow!”

“Oversharing again, resident. Plus you know what they say about throwing stones.”

Malcolm rolled his eyes, “They already know about my dad and still put up with me, Dani even said I was a friend! They’re not going treat you like you’re made of glass, Murdock, and if they do I’ll convince Gil to put them both on desk duty. ”

JT startled looking at Malcolm like he just poured coffee on his lap, “What I had to say it allowed for you to get it?”

Malcolm looked confused, “What?”

“I put up with your skinny ass crashing my date with Tally, and you didn’t think we were friends?”

The profiler froze, “Really?”

“Yes, Bright,” the older man huffed, “geeze keep up.”

“Oh…”

“As happy I am that Mal actually managed to make more friends,” Matt cut in sounding entirely sincere, before he pointed an accusatory finger about four inches left of Malcolm’s shoulder, “I want to know why no one told me you were back to New York.”

Malcolm rolled his eyes, “Ah yes, let me just find the man that changed his number, and moved apartments since I was last in New York.”

Matt pouted, “My law firm is well known enough after the whole Fisk debacle that you could have found me.”

“Fisk?” Malcolm asked with a scrunched brow, earning an eye roll from Matt.

“ Yes, massive kingpin, fist fought some guy in horns named Daredevil? The weirdo brought all the legal stuff to take down Fisk to Foggy and I, ring any bells?” Matt snarked, “It ended a little over four months ago.”

“Ah,” Malcolm winced, “I was… occupied during that time period,”

“What,”

“I was-”

“No,” Matt’s face hardened, his glasses suddenly casting dark shadows over his face, “I heard you. What do you mean you were ‘occupied’?”

Malcolm shot a helpless look at his team only for Gil to raise a brow, “I’m not touching this, you’re the one that woke up Mama Murdock, you can explain.”

“Well, I-”

“Matt,” A blond head poked into the door, What are you doing in here? We’re needed in room 3.”

Malcolm’s panic shift to glee, “Hi Foggy,”

The blond paled, “No,”

“No what?”

“No, you stay away from me murder boy!” he barked, setting the team on edge only for Malcolm to laugh with glee and edge towards him, earning a yelp as he dived behind Matt, shoving holding onto the blind man’s shoulders.

“Ah, come on Foggy,” Matt teased, as he let the other man use him as a shield, “You love Malcolm.”

“I did,” He groaned, “but last time he got near me we ended up with the beer cheese incident.”

“I don’t even want to know,” Gil sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, “You really can’t be in here Foggy,”

“Gil!” Foggy grinned, “No wonder Malcolm’s here,”

“I can go places without Gil you know,” Malcolm piped up only to earn a round of snickers around the room.

Matt reached out and stroked the air a few times before successfully patting Malcolm’s shoulder, “Of course you can, Just as long as Jessica is tracking that chip she planted in your arm.”

“Mother didn’t chip me,” Malcolm countered, “I’m a person, not a dog.”

“Maybe she should have,” Foggy snarked, “You’d probably have a few less near-death experiences.”

“Amen to that,” JT mumbled earning two cheeky grins from the pair of lawyers only for Foggy’s eyebrows to jump skyward as he saw one of the pictures posted on the wall of a bloated body.

“Definitely wasn’t supposed to see that,” He groaned, slapping a hand over his eyes, “Matt it’s so gross, it looks like someone blew that guy up with a bicycle pump I’m jealous of your lack of eyes.”

“Eyes still exist, and are still in my head thank you,” He countered with a tone that spoke of how ridiculous he found the statement that he clearly said more often than expected, “But we really should leave, Jessica is waiting.”

Foggy groaned, moving towards the door, “Jones needs to stop breaking fire escapes.”

“Who did what now?” Dani asked looking amused.

Matt smirked, “You represent one vigilante, suddenly all the rest want you to be their lawyer too. Mrs. Jones is one of them.”

“Wait, Jessica Jones, as in the Jessica Jones that works with Luke Cage, and the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen?” Dani asked with surprise, Malcolm’s eyes flashed wide when he heard the list.

Foggy flashed a cheeky grin, “He goes by Daredevil now, but yeah. They’re our clients and we’re late for meeting with our client, so it was nice meeting you all but we should head out,”

“Don’t be strangers,” Gil offered, “But Foggy,”

“Don’t mention anything about what I saw,” He relayed back with a dismissive wave, “I know. I’m already trying to block out whatever happened to that dude from my head, I won’t risk your investigation.”

“We’re not done talking Malcolm,” Matt called as he grabbed onto Foggy’s elbow, “I still need to hear about what had you so preoccupied.”

“I have a feeling we have a lot of catching up to do,” the response made the lawyers pause, “I’d love to hear more about this Daredevil fellow and the other heroes you’ve worked with.”

Matt gave a small smile, “Clearly you don’t know much about them. They’re not exactly heroes.”

“I have a feeling they are.”

#prodigal son #daredevil #matt murdock #malcolm bright #gil arroyo #foggy nelson #Matt and Malcolm are childhood best friends #You can pull that headcanon from my cool dead fingers #Timeline? What Timeline?

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writingcuredmyfrown · 5 years ago

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The Sign

It’s been a long time since I wrote something, so I present to you my latest story. A tale, inspired by H.P.Lovecraft.

Words: 1,843 - It’s a long read, so brew some coffee or tea, close your window and kick back!

I have always had a keen interest in everything witchy, occult, magical, necromantic, mystical and supernatural. When I was a small boy I used to gather all kinds of stones, leaves, odd trinkets, twisted branches and other curiosities. Then I would take them to a small room, next to the attic of my father’s old house, where I would experiment with them, chant verses I had read in old poetry books, color them with different pigments, submerge them in water etc. Now that I look back on those years, I realize that I wasn’t looking for something, or expecting results, but that I just loved doing it. I was drawn to the process, to the interaction with the object. It pulled me, gripped me, at points I even felt enthralled by it.

Naturally, when I saw the advert in the newspaper, I immediately boarded the first train for Akshalam. Lately, my life has consisted of endless travel from place to place, all across this wasteland of a country. I’ve found many things of suspicious origin, trinkets with questionable properties, and tomes upon tomes with knowledge, long forgotten and obsolete. You see, money would seem like a problem, but not here. Practically the whole country now deals in such goods, they’ve become the new commodity, the new big thing. Gradually everyone became if not interested in the mystical oddities, then at least interested in becoming rich off them.

The train ride was silent. There was a nip in the air of the wagon, which left me uneasy. All around me were people just like me, treasure hunters, seekers of relics and knowledge freaks. At times, looking through the window, I felt as if this isn’t the world I used to live in. I went back in time, in my mind, and saw such things that do not exist anymore. I looked around the train and carefully scanned my fellow passengers. They were almost husks, dried out humans with no sense of place or time. I was wondering why the incidents at the docks were increasing, and why the police weren’t doing anything. It seems that slowly, over the years, this land has fallen from grace, drowned in some sort of dreadful slumber, which paralyzes the mind, but leaves the body untouched. I felt like I was on an island, surrounded by vast masses of ocean, with its deep and silent waters, ready to engulf me at any point. I kept staring out the window, I thought maybe, out there, lies something else.

When I arrived at Akshalam I sat down at a coffee shop to eat and get some coffee. The ride was almost nine hours, and I desperately needed to press on, I couldn’t allow myself to rest in one of those two-story hotels, with no windows and barely any staff members, apart from the person at the reception. I’ve stayed at such places once or twice, and no matter how hard I tried, I could never fall asleep. There was always some strange, ominous noise coming from within the walls. Screeching, scratching, twitching noises that wouldn’t leave my brain alone. When I had inquired about them, the only answer I received is that it’s natural now. It seems that most buildings in town have developed such an issue, and the residents say the only way to deal with it is to sing a verse from a book titled “A poet’s endless dream”, which calms the noises down, subdues them.

After my little break, I went straight to the carriage station. I carried the newspaper with me, the advert was written informally, it appears the person behind it wanted the editors to not change anything. It said:

“In the city of Akshalam, June Street, you will find me in my shop. I have for you a secret beyond your imagination. A scripture, found in a recent expedition in the Kaloma Steppes, which bears a mark of curious origin. Find me, and inquire about it. We shall speak in private. Signed, Jazem Al-Hafar”

I showed it to the man, handling the wagons and he mumbled something inaudible. When I asked whether I could be shown the way, or carried there, he mumbled something again, and motioned me to climb on.

The streets of Akshalam are narrow, with living quarters cramped close together. There are no sidewalks, only ditches and trenches, used for sewage and waste. Everyone uses the streets, be it on foot, on a bicycle, on horseback or in a carriage. Transportation and moving around is difficult, but at least you have ample time to see and observe your surroundings. As we were slowly making our way through puddles, mud and masses of faceless people, I felt many piercing gazes, fixated upon me. I turned around and saw children, many children with dark skin and sky-blue eyes staring at me as we passed through. Their eyes were cold, dead. I felt them sapping my life force, draining me of my energy, turning me into a husk. I quickly looked away and tapped my driver on the shoulder, so he would hurry up. He mumbled and kicked the horses, which ended up scaring a bunch of passersby, who then angrily shouted at us in a strange dialect.

The long train ride, followed by this restless carriage ride had left me exhausted. I was now outside the shop. A small, crumbling building with clay ornaments at the front. It had a sign - “Jazem’s Sacred Grounds”. The door was wide open, the only thing between me and the inside of these sacred grounds was the fringe door curtain, a black and gold masterpiece of the oriental craft. No plastic, only the finest silk, adorned with precious jewelry and wooden figurines. I took a deep breath and headed inside.

I stepped carefully inside, the scent of something burning, perhaps incense, immediately hit my nose. The inside was small, with barely any place to take a step. It was full of shelves, boxes, crates, barrels and drawers. Some of the were widely open, their contents protruding a bit. It was dark, the only sunshine coming from a small window on the left wall. It was so filthy, that there was barely any light, and the beams that did manage to go through, illuminated a bunch of bundles of herbs on the counter. I didn’t know what to do next, I felt overwhelmed. From every corner and every little nook and cranny, something caught my eye. Flasks and vials with colorful substances inside, rocks and ores with a faint glow, numerous mounted heads, upon whose horns hung tribal necklaces; a small bird cage, now empty, different plants with twisted-looking fruits, countless sheets of paper, scattered about, full of incoherent writing, a cat with one eye, slowly walking across the end of the room, paintings of people, possibly long one, paint brushes, canisters, trinkets, bottles, pouches, glass ornaments and silver cutlery, a long hooded cowl, hanging on a nail on the right wall, and many, many candles, now extinguished. I felt my blood pumping, my heart began racing. The child, which was locked away within me was getting excited, it felt drawn once again. That’s what I feared most, that I would be consumed if I took one more step inside this place, that my own self would capture and lead me to my end. I came so far for this, I couldn’t stop then. I had to do it, to trust. I saw a copper bell, covered in dust on the counter. I slowly made my way there, trying not to push over or break something, and pressed it.

From behind the counter suddenly jumped a midget with a long beard and no hair. He smiled at me, caressed my hand gently and introduced himself. Jazem Al-Hafar. His teeth were all golden, his lower lip was burnt, and his eyes were dark green. I’ve dealt with such situations before, my visits have taken me far and wide, but this man was something different. His whole aura was different. I felt scared and alone, but I couldn’t resist. I felt enthralled once again. So I did as he told me, I followed him into the basement of the shop. We grabbed torches and went down a narrow corridor, which seemed endless. Soon, we arrived. There was nothing there but a table with two chairs, and a scripture. A few candlesticks gave the place an ambience of dread and decay. The scripture, I thought, it’s right there. He motioned me to sit, and he sat directly across.

The scripture was now in his hands, the seal had come off, he unwrapped the paper and gave it to me in a ritualistic way. I took it with my shivering hands, looked at Jazem and then looked at the writing itself. I couldn’t understand a word, the letters were written in a language I’d never seen, and not only that, they were also moving across the page, shaking, twisting. They formed a circle and started spinning faster and faster. I felt the scripture wearing me down, it was too heavy for my hands, but I couldn’t let go, no matter how hard I tried. The circle kept increasing in speed, and within its boundaries something began emerging, another piece of writing, I thought. A sign. A sign resembling nothing at all, yet melting my mind the more I stared at it. I kept losing energy, the intensity of the moving letters kept increasing, and slowly the sign became a window into another world, or dimension. I saw many people through that window, the train passengers, the hotel owners, the coffee shop keeper, those children on the street, and they all had the same sign on their foreheads, glowing in bright yellow. I wanted desperately to break the scroll’s hold, but I couldn’t. The window suddenly became a mirror, and I could see myself in there. Eyes wide open, full of blood, swollen nerve endings, and an iris as black as night. Then, when I looked at my forehead, I saw the very same sign, in its bright yellow tone. I wanted to scream, but couldn’t. I couldn’t move anything, my mind was trapped inside a still body.

And then, I woke up, head on the table. I leapt up and saw Jazem Al-Hafar right there, in front of me, holding the scripture, which was now sealed, in his hands. His golden teeth and burnt lip forming a sadistic smile, as he was stroking his beard. He took a candle and approached my face with it.

“What do they call you, traveler?” he murmured.

I tried answering, but nothing came out. Nothing coherent, that is, only a mumble. A mumble, devoid of meaning and sense. His smile widened, he stood up and started climbing the stairs back to the shop. The wind was howling outside, and as it was making its way through the cavernous tunnel, it blew away all the candles.

“Soon enough, traveler, all will kneel before the King in Yellow.”

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disarmingly · 6 years ago

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for kofi anon who wanted slice of life yoonkook with a hint of magic except there’s more than a hint im sorry i hope this is okay let me know if it isnt i will try again! please note that the very first section takes place in ‘present day’ for them while everything after that first section is their past leading up to that present. <3

jeon jungkook is your average good looking sort of introverted loves music is good at video games and dancing and singing and pretty much anything else he tries...young man. except for one thing.

"one thing," his boyfriend half scoffs half whines, snuggling himself closer to jungkook's side like a petulant cat that despite being smaller in stature manages to take up more space. jungkook says it's the shoulders. namjoon says it's yoongi's ~personality~. they are both probably right. anyway we weren't talking about yoongi. we were talking about jungkook and how he's your average fresh university grad who can walk on his hands and do backflips and draw and paint and make anyone who looks at him too long fall in love with him and-- --yeah. "one thing~," yoongi repeats with a groan and presses his face to jungkook's shoulder. bites him absently for good measure. jungkook yelps. * jungkook's magic manifested when he turned sixteen. "like a fucking disney princess," yoongi scowled the first time It happened. 'It' was a boy who had never met jungkook before, meeting his eyes in the supermarket and going five different shades from red to pink before stumbling over to him and babbling something along the lines of 'you're so beautiful oh my god'. yoongi, there at the time, stood to his full shorter height and stood slightly in front of a baffled jungkook, tilted his head at the blushing boy and said, "you're not wrong, but he's taken." the stranger apologized several times and walked away but both yoongi and jungkook were definitively aware of his eyes on jungkook their whole way through the checkout and out the automatic doors. "what the hell was that?" yoongi's hypothetical question would get its answer in the days and nights to follow as one by one jungkook felled multitudes of strangers and some not-strangers (much more awkward) -- not with a sword but with his....well...whole self. * some people's magic comes out at birth. some require a certain age. some are catalyzed by an event or even a special word. yoongi wishes jungkook could have been one of the minority of people in the world who didn't have magic at all. or that his magic could be something useful, like a magically present umbrella whenever he needed it. but no. jungkook's magic is exactly the kind of magic an average golden boy like jungkook would have: love. * "but it doesn't last," jungkook points out, shelving a book 'about soulmates and inevitable doom' where it actually belongs (certainly not with the gardening books, though jungkook was amused to find it there.) in addition to being temporary, if it's happened once, it doesn't happen again, so at least there's that. but yoongi, crouched low and properly ordering the books on the bottom shelf makes a clicking noise with his tongue to show exactly what he thinks and feels about that. jungkook sighs. "what do you want me to do? never leave the house again? i have to go to school--" "of course not!" yoongi's voice is louder than either of them expect it to come out. they get appropriately shushed. jungkook's ears turn red and yoongi feels immediate guilt for embarrassing him but he has a point to make. he continues, more quietly, "...that's...that’s not what i want." for a while they just keep silently setting this particular bookshelf's contents to rights. students file out. a few teachers leave. goodbyes and groans of 'see you tomorrow' get passed back and forth. at some point yoongi shuffles his way closer to jungkook, close enough to lean against his leg the way cats press along a person's shins when they want to say 'pet me human'. jungkook does in fact run his fingers through yoongi's dark dark hair, wishes yoongi wasn't quite so low to the ground so he could run them down to brush back and forth against his undercut; but later. there's something almost as therapeutic about petting as being petted. maybe that's just them. that's fine. when yoongi takes jungkook's wrist, it's just to tug his hand forward and kiss the palm, kiss his wrist, nose against his pulse and say, "i don't want you under house arrest. i want to take you to the movies. i want to go to the fair with you so you can win me stuff i don't need. i want to sit on the beach with you and everyone and toast marshmallows and....and all of the stuff we do. i want to walk to school with you. even if i'm not going here soon anymore." the last one hits hard. they haven't really talked about it. how yoongi going to university and jungkook still in high school will put a steep cut into their time...doing anything, house arrest or no. yoongi kisses his hand again. jungkook lowers himself so they can be closer. "that's very romantic," he says and he smiles too wide, so wide it hurts, smiles against the crying feeling. they're not breaking up. he shouldn't feel so sad. that's what he's been telling himself. but maybe yoongi understands. because yoongi says, "hey...hey come on." yoongi's arms fit around jungkook perfect. yoongi's mouth to jungkook's mouth also fits perfect. and yoongi's low toned reassurances of, "it's okay. it's okay," fit perfect enough. because it's more complicated than that, but sometimes perfect enough is about wanting to do the right thing even if one doesn't know precisely what that is. right now yoongi wants to let jungkook know he loves him. so he tells him it's okay. and he means all of it: the change of time and distance, jungkook's sometimes infuriating magic, and so on. it's okay. * what jungkook said is true. the effects of his magic which he can't control unless he never meets anyone's eyes ever again (impossible), vary in time. for some people predisposed to loving him already, the effects last longer. for absolute strangers, it seems the effects last anywhere from 24 hours to a week, the latter end of which is harrowing when it's someone who goes to school with him or lives in his neighborhood. but one of the things yoongi dislikes most about going to university is all the time away from jungkook in which god knows how many people are falling in love with him. the harmless ones are negligible he supposes; but some get pushy. he remembers several instances of people following jungkook home, waiting outside his window, and even ambushing him in empty classrooms. and it's not that jungkook can't take care of himself. jungkook is a soft heart but he knows how to defend himself and yoongi and the others have worked very hard to help him realize he's worth defending. still. yoongi's phone buzzes. he frowns and pulls to the side of the rode. dropping his feet to the ground with some difficulty. stupid namjoon and his stupid long legs; yoongi apparently didn't adjust the seat of the borrowed bicycle enough. whatever. he gets his phone out and his eyes widen. he sends a quick reply then bikes the rest of the way to the local high school so fast and so not within the standard cycling laws that no less than fifteen cars blare their horns at him en route. * he drops the bicycle in a hurry to get to jungkook who's seated on the curb with his head to his knees to avoid further incidents. it speaks volumes how tired he must be because he doesn't move and this scares yoongi more than almost anything, so when he lays a careful hand on jungkook's shoulder and jungkook jerks under his touch, he's honestly relieved, though he doesn't want to upset him. jungkook's eyes have dilated to be lamp-like. yoongi does the first thing that comes to his muscle memory and drops a kiss to jungkook's forehead. then he leans back and studies him. he has a split lip already swollen and starting to bruise at the right corner. right cheek too. there's a shallow bleeding scrape along his jaw too, smudged with gravel and dirt and yoongi's emotions can't settle on furious or devastated so he's both. he wants to frame jungkook's face but doesn't want to aggravate his bruises; and anyway he knows full well they should clean him up first, probably grab some antiseptic, some bandaids, an ice pack. jungkook sighs. "hey," yoongi settles for curling his hand on one of jungkook's knees. jungkook cracks half a smile. it looks like it hurts. "it's a little like a curse isn't it," jungkook says and he means it to come across as a joke but it falls flat because it's sort of true. "kook--" "i've never had it happen like that." jungkook interrupts and it's quiet. still pool quiet. yoongi aches. listens -- not just for jungkook's words but equally to his silence. cars pass. a little girl and her mother and a giant golden retriever start to pass by but not before the golden catches jungkook's tired eyes and pulls them over to him. he licks at jungkook's face and the mother is apologizing profusely but jungkook is giggling and then laughing and so yoongi fills in for him, "it's fine. this happens a lot." "dogs like him huh?" the mother says, clearly relieved and also bemused now. the little girl is curiously watching while petting the dog's fur the wrong way. a closer look has the mother frowning though and it's a fair question when she asks, "...are you both okay?" it's more delicate than yoongi associates with most parental strangers. he hates when people assume they know best or think they have the right to butt in just because they are 'an adult' or a parent or whatever. but she says it cautiously, like she knows it might be none of her business but is unwilling to ignore a boy with a fast blooming black eye; and that, yoongi can respect. so he says, "we will be." pauses. "thanks." the mother nods and they leave soon. jungkook watches them go, tension drawn out of him leaving him purely exhausted. yoongi had thought they would double-up on the bicycle because that's what they usually do, jungkook gleeful with the wind carding through his hair as yoongi pedals and complains that jungkook should be the one doing this; but that was before he got jungkook's text. seeing his line of vision, jungkook says, "can we...can we just walk?" yoongi kisses his temple very carefully, reaches for his hand and says, "whatever you want." * it's this near nightmare that spurs namjoon and taehyung into action. or rather, faster action. because they had been working on various experiments ('wasting' lab equipment but not really in their opinion and taehyung could charm the legs and arms off of a living person so they've gone unpenalized anyway) before. but when they all meet up next on the beach, jungkook's bruises and cuts still in the early stages of healing, it's too much. they go as far as to hide in cupboards ('how did you fit????' hoseok asks at some point, and namjoon just grimaces and says 'i fit okay') so they can stay in the school lab over night. this goes on for months and it's a bitter cold day in january when namjoon and taehyung (both slightly very too caffeinated) slam into jimin's garage (a modified hangout room complete with video game consoles, a bunch of musical instruments, a sofa, and a beanbag chair) and say, "we did it!" and then, "well, we think we did it." * magic is not science. but maybe science can be a little magic. jungkook's magic is the magic of love at first sight. namjoon's magic is the understanding of how things work. taehyung's magic is tricks of light. the perfectly round glasses they give jungkook that day are a product of both of these things, as well as the disciplined persistence of friendship. when jungkook puts them on, yoongi melts a little and thinks: how is this supposed to help if he's cuter than ever? but it does help. jungkook tests it on the first stranger he sees the next day -- a transfer student whose eyes happen to fall on jungkook first. he blinks. then he looks away. jungkook lets go of a breath so loud the people seated next to him turn and stare. he flushes pink from cheeks to ear tips; slides down in his chair -- embarrassed...and jubilant. * "weirdly it doesn't work on animals?" jungkook half says half asks but it doesn't matter. he loves animals and if that was all his magic had an effect on he wouldn't need these glasses in the first place. "huh," namjoon says which means he's going to pursue the why of it. "which you're very happy about," yoongi says. jungkook hums affirmative. they laugh. * they're walking back from the beach -- having declined seokjin's offer to drive them, wanting to have a little more time alone before parting ways (yoongi to his shared apartment with namjoon, jungkook back to the house with his family) -- and they're holding hands when jungkook pauses so quickly it jars yoongi to a stop. he trips. jungkook keeps him from falling. "sorry." "'s okay. uh...?" yoongi squints. in the sundown light jungkook's pink hair has a lavender cast. and jungkook has his special glasses on but yoongi's as deep in love as ever. that's not magic though. it's just how yoongi feels. it's this and other sappy thoughts he's having when jungkook angles his head down until their foreheads touch, brushes his nose against yoongi's nose and says, "no one's around." oh. yoongi's relaxed look goes narrow again but he's no good at denying jeon jungkook anything. he sighs. "fine." * yoongi's magic, though it rarely comes into play because it's too flashy and yoongi by nature isn't a flashy person, is also special. * an interesting thing about human beings: they rarely look up. but if they did on this particular night, they might see this: two boys holding hands and kissing against the pink lilac blue of twilight, the emerging moon as their backdrop, some 1800 feet up in the air. *

#yoonkook #sugakookie #drabble #kofi request #still taking kofi requests kofi name is darling #thank you for your help <3 #my moon and my stars #slice of life yoonkook w magic

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asuccessfulbusinessman · 6 years ago

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Dreamer “Clown Arms” Pheonix is not allowed to have his own theme music after the bicycle horn incident.

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nowtravel · 3 years ago

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Seven years after we quit our jobs to travel around the world, we revisit some of the riskiest things we’ve done on the road

Peter and I have a long-running joke that I have fallen off my bike in the most beautiful places in the world – among them Bora Bora in French Polynesia and Isabela in the Galápagos. I only learnt to ride at the age of 28 and my lack of experience has led to numerous falls.

What’s interesting is that no one ever calls me ‘brave’ or ‘daring’ for riding a bicycle or indeed a horse even though statistically (and in personal experience), these activities are some of the most dangerous I’ve done.

Instead, it’s things like skydiving and bungy jumping that impress others most. Below, I share 10 seemingly dangerous things we’ve done – some of which posed a real risk, but most of which were just pure fun.

1. CHANGED A TYRE IN NAMIBIA’S LION TERRITORY

I’ll be honest: this was one of the most nerve-racking experiences I’ve ever had. Peter and I were on day 13 of our epic self-drive safari through Namibia when we got our second flat tyre in as many days.

We had spent the previous day on a 160km round-trip to the nearest garage to pick up a spare tyre after using the one we had. We’re lucky we did so, because on day 13 we bust another tyre, this time in the middle of Etosha National Park, known for its abundance of lions.

The park rules clearly state that you should never leave your vehicle. Unfortunately, there was no phone reception so we couldn’t call for assistance. We waited to see if anyone else would turn up, but Etosha is a big place and we could have been waiting for hours.

So – Peter suggested changing the tyre in lion territory. I was to keep watch and sound the horn if I saw any movement.

How was I supposed to keep a 360° watch around the vehicle? Would I be quick enough on the horn? Would we be the two stupid tourists who got killed by lions because they flouted official safety rules?

I took a deep breath and nodded. Peter worked silently and quickly while I, dripping with sweat and anxiety, carefully scanned our surroundings. Fifteen minutes later, the tyre was on and we got back in the car, laughing with relief and possibly a touch of hysteria.

Half a kilometre down the road, we stopped laughing. There, we spotted a lion lazing beneath a tree and we realised that this story could have easily ended differently.

2. CLIMBED THREE OF THE SEVEN SUMMITS

Peter has climbed three of the seven summits: Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Mount Elbrus in Russia and Mount Aconcagua in Argentina with each climb growing progressively harder.

When I spoke to him on the phone after Elbrus, he was in high spirits. When I spoke to him after Aconcagua, however, he sounded completely exhausted. Physically, it was the hardest day of his life, he said. Several times he had considered giving up and turning around – something I’d never heard him say about a mountain before.

Aconcagua is a ‘trekkable’ mountain (i.e. no technical rope work involved), but it poses a tangible risk. At nearly 7,000m, it is believed to have the highest death rate of any mountain in South America. As dangerous endeavours go, attempting to scale the seven summits ranks pretty high on our list.

3. CROSSED A LANDSLIDE IN PERU

Crossing a landslide on our Salkantay trek in Peru seemed more thrilling than dangerous, but it posed enough of a risk to noticeably concern our guides. We trekked for an hour to try and avoid it, but when we found that a bridge had washed away, we turned around and returned to the site.

There, we picked our way across a steep slope of crumbling scree beneath a blanket of rain. Some of us fared better than others. One woman in her early twenties wept with nerves as she crossed, led by hand by two guides.

Peter and I were comparatively cavalier, but I look back now and can see that a single misstep would have ended badly.

4. HIKED TO ERTA ALE IN ETHIOPIA

The Danakil Depression in Ethiopia is one of the hottest, lowest and driest places on Earth. It’s so extreme that life has been found in pure acid here. Temperatures regularly reach 45��C (113°F) and seas of molten magma ooze just beneath the crust’s surface.

Its most impressive site is Erta Ale, one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Getting there has been called ‘the hike to hell and back’ and requires a three-day trip with a military escort.

In 2012, an attack by Afar rebels left five tourists dead and four people kidnapped, and there was a deadly incident days after our own visit.

It made us reflect once again on the pros and cons of risky travel and though Erta Ale was an incredible sight, I’m not quite sure I’d do it all again.

5. JUMPED OUT OF A PLANE – TWICE

This is where we get into fun territory where the perceived danger is greater than the actual. Peter and I have skydived twice, first in the UK and then in Australia. Both times were utterly thrilling.

Interestingly, the skydive in Cairns was almost cancelled because of rain and when we passed through heavy condensation, I understood why. At that height, raindrops sting like needles as you’re falling much faster than water.

Either way, I was pleased that the weather didn’t cancel our jump. As I say in the video, it’s the closest I’ll ever get to flying… unless I take up BASE jumping that is.

6. JUMPED ONE OF THE LONGEST BUNGYS IN THE WORLD

There is a moment as you shuffle onto the ledge of the 134m Nevis Bungy in New Zealand that you think Oh Jesus. If it’s true that humans are born with two fears – loud noises and falling – then surely jumping off a ledge into an abyss goes against human nature.

On the ledge, I waved gingerly to the camera and listened to the countdown: ‘three, two, one, bungy’. Heart lurching, I leapt off with a scream.

Seconds in, I realised that my eyes were closed. I snapped them open. If I was doing this, then I would bloody well enjoy it. I felt myself plunge deep into the valley, then rush back up again. I always thought I’d hate the bouncing sensation, but the Nevis Bungy was completely smooth. I swooped towards the ground again, feeling a whirl of disbelief. It was thrilling, frightening and utterly exhilarating.

People ask me if the Nevis Bungy or skydiving was scarier. Undoubtedly, it was the bungy. Despite the far greater height, skydiving doesn’t quite feel like falling. The force of the air around you has a buoying effect. With the Nevis Bungy, you really are just falling.

7. DIVED WITH SHARKS IN THE GALÁPAGOS

Again, this was more fun than dangerous, but when people see the footage of Peter gliding into the frame above a reef shark, they’re usually inclined to gasp out loud.

On a dive in the Galápagos, we encountered dozens of whitetip reef sharks resting on the seabed. At nearly 20 metres deep, we spent several awe-inspiring minutes watching these magnificent (and chilling) beasts.

Of course, whitetip reef sharks are rarely aggressive towards humans. Unlike their Oceanic cousin, they are seldom aggressive unless provoked. They are, however, fearless and curious and will sometimes closely approach swimmers to investigate.

8. DROVE THE SANI PASS IN LESOTHO

Located in the western end of KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, Sani is a mountain pass connecting Underberg in South Africa with Mokhotlong in Lesotho. The hairpinned pass − named one of the most dangerous in the world − starts at an altitude of 1,544m and climbs to 2,876m.

Built circa 1950, Sani Pass remains a challenging drive. With winding twists, loose gravel, plunging drops and hairpins bends, it demands painstaking care and practised skill. In parts, the gradient reaches 1:3 and in treacherous conditions, has claimed lives. In fact, one of the hairpins has the rather sobering name of ‘suicide bend’.

We crossed the pass during our 2018 trip to South Africa. The progress was extremely slow but we didn’t complain. This is one occasion when it truly is better to be safe than sorry.

9. SWAM WITH WHALE SHARKS IN DJIBOUTI

The whale shark is the largest known fish species living today. It poses no threat to humans, but its sheer size can be overwhelming.

On our trip in Djibouti, our spotter pointed to the waters ahead and Peter and I jumped straight in. Alas, the whale shark headed in the opposite direction and the two boats followed, depositing passengers far closer to him. Peter and I locked eyes. We’d made the mistake of jumping too soon.

It was then that a motion caught the corner of my eye. The whale shark was headed straight in our direction. I dipped underwater and the shark swam directly towards me as I hovered in the water as if suspended in time.

His skin glittered in the light and I held my breath as he swam so close I thought his tail would hit me as he turned. His enormous bulk slid swiftly by and I exhaled, long, soft and slow.

10. SCALED A VIA FERRATA IN CATALONIA

After changing the tyre in Namibia, this is the most nerve-racking thing on the list for me. I’ve said before that I’m most nervous when I’m in charge of my own safety during risky activities. Unlike bungy jumping or skydiving where you’re never out of an expert’s hands, via ferrata requires you to change your own carabiners, meaning that an absentminded mistake could have you hurtling to the ground.

A few metres up on our via ferrata in Catalonia, my left leg began to shake uncontrollably. I’d never experienced anything like it before and I realised that I must be terrified. I remember that it had a strange, academic quality and a detached part of me thought, ‘Huh, so this is what it’s like.’

I gathered my nerves and continued up. At the top, neither Peter nor our guide, Jordi, believed me when I said that it was scarier than bungy.

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dannycaing · 5 years ago

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UNGODLY WASTED YEARS

UNGODLY WASTED YEARS by Danny Caing Date Written: March 11, 2020

PART 1 THE PECULIAR INCIDENT ON ORCHARD LANE

DAY 1 - Time: 6:00 PM Redway Elementary School 344 Humboldt Ave., Redway, California, USA

ZEEKA: Do you believe what Mr. DaNoche has told us about aliens that they had visited our planets before the era of pyramids?

KAHLEY: I've heard some stories that aliens have abducted humans for experiments, and turn you into a humanoid, like robots.

KAHLEY: Maybe we are just one microdot civilization among the billions of billions of stars in the universe, and it would be pointless if we existed alone.

ZEEKA: Why do scientist do not believe in the existence of God?

KAHLEY: Because they are gods.

ZEEKA: Hey, Kahley, I have to go, it's getting late. See you tomorrow at Debs Hamburger. It's my brother Jugbey's birthday.

KAHLEY: Okay, bye. See you later.

DAY 1 - Time: 6:30 PM

It was getting dark, and Zeeka has to turn on the light and reflector of her bicycle. From the school baseball field, she took the route along Manzanita Road and then turn right to Redway Drive. While she was biking alone along the road, she saw on her side mirror the light of a motorcycle. But when she turns left at Fern Street, the faint light was still following her. Her heart starts beating fast, and she was scared of the dark road. As she turns right at the Orchard Lane, the light was getting closer to the side mirror. She can feel her legs trembling. Then she saw a California Highway Patrol car, heading towards her direction, she decided to stop and wave her hands in panic. She turns her back on the noisy truck horn sound while its headlights kept blinking on and off, and she saw the couples inside the pickup pointing direction on her left side, unknowingly with disbelief there was a floating pulsating glowing ball right beside her. Suddenly, there was a big flash of the immensity of light. In a blink of an eye, the ball of light vanished. She was wondering where have the California Highway Patrol car and the pickup truck gone missing on the road? Instead, she hurriedly pedaled home for safety.

ZEEKA: What's going on here? Is that your baby?

KAHLEY: Yes, and his father is Jugbey, your brother. You were missing for eight years. What happened to you? Where have you been?

Kahley finds Zeeka stunningly cute since she last saw her eight years ago, she was her best friend and classmates, and she was still wearing the same clothes.

PART 2 THE INTERVIEWS

Upon hearing the news about the disappearance of a girl by the flash of light at Redway, California, a three-member UFO Chaser's team headed by an Astrophysicist and scientist Alfred Douglas, a NASA consultant Debra Burnett, and a UFO documentarian James McGee investigated a possible alien abduction. When the flash of light occurred at exactly 6:48 P.M., the electricity blackout, cars stop moving, and even watches, too, within the 45-kilometer radius from the center of the anomaly followed by 3.28 earthquake scale magnitude and intensity. Three principal witnesses directly saw the disappearance of the girl from the flash of light, the California Highway Patrol officer, Lieutenant Gary Holden, and the two couples in the pickup truck, Henry & Matilda Newford.

DAY 2 - Time: 2:38 PM Orchard Lane, Redway, California, USA

Here are the documented accounts during the interviews on the First Encounter of the Third Kind witnesses.

JAMES MCGEE: Lieutenant Holden, can you tell us what exactly you saw that night at the Orchard Lane?

DEBRA BURNETT: Lt. Holden. What did you feel when you saw this unexpected event?

ALFRED DOUGLAS: You just mentioned to us that you covered your ears from a piercing sound. How does it sound?

LT. GARY HOLDEN: It sounds like microphone feedback in high frequency.

JAMES MCGEE: Did you report what happened that night at Orchard Lane?

ALFRED DOUGLAS: Who are we?

LT. GARY HOLDEN: The Special Forces.

Right after the interview, Alfred, James, and Debra shook hands with Gary as he was leaving the monitor room in the truck van.

DAY 2 - Time: 3:28 PM Orchard Lane, Redway, California, USA

DEBRA BURNETT: How long have you been married? Do you have any children?

MATILDA NEWFORD: We've been living together for 38 years now, and we have two children, all boys, U.S. Army stationed in Afghanistan and Syria. My husband, Henry, is a Vietnam War veteran.

JAMES MCGEE: Mr. Henry Newford, can you describe to us how did you first sense the encounter?

HENRY NEWFORD: I'm not sure, I was driving the truck, and my eyes, were focused on the road. It was my wife, Debra, who first saw this bright floating object in front of us along Orchard Lane.

ALFRED DOUGLAS: Can you remember the shape of the object?

HENRY NEWFORD: It was like five rings on top of each other, and they were illuminating different colors like a rainbow.

DEBRA BURNETT: I think they were all connected.

JAMES MCGEE: Like a spiral spring?

MATILDA NEWFORD: Yes, that's it. Like a spiral spring.

DEBRA BURNETT: What did you do next?

MATILDA NEWFORD: We went out of the truck. Henry tried much time to start the engine. Lt. Gary Holden came to us if we are all right and told us to stay foot for awhile. Later, there were people all over the road. It was dark and dreary. Even our flashlight didn't work.

ALFRED DOUGLAS: When you saw this object above the girl, how high do you think it was from the ground?

HENRY NEWFORD: I think it was about a-100 meter or so.

DEBRA BURNETT: Mr. & Mrs. Henry & Matilda Newford we sincerely thank you for your support and cooperation. It's been a great pleasure.

With all the smiles and exchanging handshakes, it was worth success in gathering crucial information on this case. But still, the conclusion remained unexplained and unsolved.

PART 3 ZEEKA MAGDA TESTIMONY

DAY 2,308 - Time: 8:32 PM Orchard Lane, Redway, California, USA

News spread that night that Zeeka has returned. Every family in Redway came to see her. Zeeka was sitting beside her mother on her bed while Kahley & her baby was standing beside her. When Zeeka touched her mother's forehead, there was a glow in her hands, and she suddenly woke up.

BERNADETTE (Mother of Zeeka): Oh my baby darling, you are back. I missed you so much.

ZEEKA: I miss you, too, mom. Where is dad?

BERNADETTE: Your dad passed away, two years ago, I am sorry.

Zeeka embraced her mother and cried. When Jugbey came inside the room, he was surprised to see her sister. He works as head of the Maintenance Division at Shelter Cove Airport. Jugbey embraced them both. Someone was knocking at the door, and Kahley opened it, and it was Lt. Gary Holden of the California Highway Patrol.

LT. GARY HOLDEN: Mrs. Magda, Dr. Gilbert Jenner, would like to speak with you in private?

JUGBEY: What happened to you? Where have you been for these years?

ZEEKA: How did dad die, Jugbey?

ZEEKA: God, I miss him so much. I love him so much.

Bernadette came inside the room and told Zeeka that the whole community of Redway wants to see her. Some local enforcers will keep her safe, and the crowd promised to behave. When Zeeka came out from her room, people along the hallway were touching her, and some were crying. While shaking hands most take selfie with her. Upon reaching the veranda, there were cheers, clapping of hands, screaming her name, and cars were honking. From the moment the flashes of light from the cellphone hit her eyes, she started remembering everything that happened. A young Pastor handed the microphone to her and asked her to tell them the truth about why she came back to Earth. When she was about to speak, everyone felt the silence, so quiet that you can hear the birds chirping. All you can see was raising their video cellphones focusing on her.

PASTOR LONGCOP: How can you be sure that you were not in China?

I saw thousands of their kind floating in a yoga sitting position, inside the gigantic doom, meditating for thousands of years, so they say. Our body is ancient because we eat food that deteriorates our inner energy. We crave more on the outside consciousness rather than the source of power within us. The only way we can be part of the universe is to become yourself a universe within. We have this glow inside us, enhancing it will give harmony among ourselves. The body must not control us. We should control the body. They say that the universe is within us. Their civilization is so much advance from us. We must respect all life on our planet, but we eat them, and that's why we get old and die. We created technology by killing one another. We are paranoid primitive in their eyes, and greed of outside consciousness power. They said that travelers visited Earth and walked among us, taught us about the universe within us, but we are still struggling to dominate with each other on the outside consciousness.

PASTOR LONGCOP: Who are these travelers?

ZEEKA: God is the energy of light traveling around the universe for billions of years. They say that the Kingdom of God is within us. The universe is the Kingdom of God. Within us is the universe. God is the universe. God is within us.

PASTOR LONGCOP: It doesn't make sense at all. Are you referring to our Lord JESUS CHRIST?

ZEEKA: Luke 17:21 nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

When the crowd heard these words, they all kneel and bowed their heads. Zeeka raised her two hands as she looks up to the sky.

John 8:51 I tell you the truth, if anyone KEEPS MY WORD, he will never see death.

Matthew 6:9-13 This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."

John 15:7 If you remain in me and my WORDS remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

DAY 2,308 - Time: 9:00 PM Beverly Hills Terrace, North Beverly Hills, California, USA

Alfred Douglas was in his study room when his cellphone rang on the table. It was James McGee on the line.

JAMES MCGEE: Are you watching CNN right now?

ALFRED DOUGLAS: No. What is it?

JAMES MCGEE: It's about the girl, Zeeka Magda, with her bike in Redway, who vanished with the flash of light on the Orchard Lane eight years ago, she's all over the social media.

ALFRED DOUGLAS: How fast, can we get to Redway?

JAMES MCGEE: Debra and I are on our way with a helicopter to pick you up. See you in fifteen minutes.

When Alfred Douglas switch on the monitor screen on his living room

"Good evening, this is Gloria Borger of CNN Breaking News. Eight years ago, a 14-year-old girl, Zeeka Magna, disappeared from the flash of light in Orchard lane. Tonight, the girl appeared on her house, as you can see on the Facebook videos, the crowds were rejoicing because they were all healed by their sickness, including cancer, right after hearing her testimony. Zeeka testified to them that the Kingdom of God is within us. The universe is the Kingdom of God. Within us is the universe. God is the universe. God is within us."

ALFRED DOUGLAS: Good evening Lt. Holden, could we see the girl?

LT. GARY HOLDEN: Good evening, Sir. I'm sorry, the FBI is in the room right now, no one is allowed inside the room at this moment. They are conducting an investigation.

ALFRED DOUGLAS: Can you tell us what happened inside the room and why the FBI in there?

LT.GARY HOLDEN: It's too crowded in here, come this way, I'll show you something.

When they were are the corner of the living room. Lt. Gary Holden pulled out his cellphone and told them that he was able to record something inside the room, but this must stay strictly confidential. They all agreed on what he told them.

On the cellphone screen, they saw Zeeka at the center, around her was Bernadette, Jugbey, Kahley & her baby, Mr. & Mrs. Matilda & Henry Newford, Dr. Gilbert Jenner, Pastor Longcop, and Lt. Gary Holden. They were the only people inside the locked room.

ZEEKA:I will be leaving now. They only gave me a few hours window to return to Earth. I love you so much, mom. Kahley & Jugbey, I love you too, and your baby. Thank you for being here with me to witness the truth. Remember when I told you about the doom? They are meditating and projecting my body here on Earth. If I am with my body here, I will die. I decided to live with them for thousand more years. I want to see more the universe within me.

Suddenly, her body was gradually transforming into tiny bright particles, as she was speaking to her last words. Everyone kneels and watch her slowly disappearing like a cloud of dust blown by the wind.

ZEEKA: You pray to talk to GOD, but when you read JESUS WORDS, GOD speaks to you. JESUS is the LIVING WORD of GOD. GOD IS THE UNIVERSE WITHIN US.

Music Background: "Ungodly Wasted Years" by Danny Caing https://soundcloud.com/bright-white-album/ungodly-wasted-years-by-danny-caing

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newstfionline · 7 years ago

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Terrorists don’t scare city cyclists. We already have to deal with cars.

By Eben Weiss, Washington Post, November 2, 2017

After Tuesday’s terrorist attack in New York City, in which police say Sayfullo Saipov steered a truck onto our most popular bike path and killed eight people while injuring 12 others, many local cyclists took to social media to express their determination to ride the next day despite the horror.

They didn’t need to. Of course we’ll keep riding.

If there’s one group of road users virtually immune to being cowed by a lowly act of terrorism involving a motor vehicle, it’s cyclists. We’re reminded every day--through rolled-down car windows, on too-narrow roads, via social media--that we “share” the roads with people who actively hate us and that our interests (including safety) come behind theirs. Every one of us knows what it’s like to stare death in the grille. Daily riders have all had drivers aim their cars at us as if they were about to plow us down, whether because of run-of-the-mill inattention or out-and-out road rage.

Cyclists also know all too well that our most cherished “protected” spaces are not truly protected. In 2006, Eric Ng was killed on his bike on the same block and in the same bike path as Tuesday’s attack, when a drunk driver steered his car into the lane; advocates nationwide have been calling for better safety measures ever since. Even the scale of the Halloween incident is hauntingly familiar. In June 2016, authorities say, Charles Pickett Jr. killed five cyclists and injured four more in Kalamazoo, Mich., when he rammed them from behind.

Unlike in Kalamazoo, government and law enforcement officials have declared what happened in New York an act of terrorism. This ensures that it won’t get lumped in with all the other standard-issue road deaths to which our culture has become inured--722 cyclists were killed in 2016 across the country. Consider Dan Hanegby, who was killed by a charter bus driver while riding a Citi Bike in Midtown Manhattan this summer. According to the criminal complaint, the driver told a bystander after the incident that he had honked at Hanegby before choosing to fatally overtake him.

Carnage like this is far more frightening to cyclists than terrorism, because these sorts of conflicts happen literally every day. When a cyclist is behind the handlebars, the only difference between a misdemeanor right-of-way violation and an act of terrorism is whether the driver tooted the horn or shouted “Allahu akbar” during the act.

What’s the real difference between an act of terrorism and the vehicular mayhem we see every day? Terrorism unites us in both our condemnation and our resolve, while ordinary traffic violence against bicycles often comes with victim-blaming. Immediately after Hanegby’s death, media reported that he “lost control of his bike.” When a driver hit and killed Lauren Davis, a 34-year-old Brooklyn resident, in April 2016, the New York Police Department perpetuated the false narrative that she had been riding against traffic. That same month, the driver of an 18-wheeler on a residential street where such trucks are banned killed another Brooklyn man, James Gregg; police attributed his death to a “wind force” that sucked the bike into the truck.

Let’s hope we can reconcile our cognitive dissonance and regard all traffic violence as abhorrent across the entire spectrum of unacceptable excuses--from the Islamic State to “I didn’t see him.”

#Sayfullo Saipov #city cyclists #cycling safety #bicycle safety

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tripstations · 6 years ago

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Holiday WARNING: Tourist warns of island paradise HORROR after terrifying attacks | World | News

A young tourist has warned of the dangers of travelling to Dominican Republic (Image: Cora Smith)

Cora Smith, 27, travelled to the Dominican Republic in March 2018 with her husband, Jay, 32. On just the second day in the capital of Santo Domingo a man tried to kidnap her while she was out for a run on a busy main road. Just weeks later, having arrived in the popular tourist destination of Punta Cana, the young American was sexually assaulted while cycling just 20 metres behind her husband.

She describes the Dominican Republic as a “really dangerous place”, likening all-inclusive resorts to “military bases” due to the sheer numbers of armed guards stationed outside the entrances.

She said she was too scared to leave her husband’s side throughout their three month stay in the country.

Upon arriving in the Dominican Republic, a woman frantically ran up to Mrs Smith, an Instagram travel influencer, and urged her to take off her wedding ring.

Mrs Smith told Express.co.uk: “The woman came up to me and grabbed my hand, shouting at me to take my ring off.

The couple travelled to Dominican Republic in March 2018 (Image: Cora Smith)

“I thought she was crazy and told her I wouldn’t take my wedding ring off for anybody.”

The local then warned the American, from Orlando, Florida: “They will not ask you for it, they are going to cut your finger off and take the ring.”

Mrs Smith was pretty shaken from the woman’s warning but the next day she decided to go for a run along a busy six-lane main road in Santo Domingo while her husband napped.

She said: “I figured I would be pretty safe, I’m in broad daylight on a very busy road.

Cora Smith was warned not to wear her wedding ring (Image: Cora Smith)

“But as I was running, a car started honking his horn and slows down right beside me.

“The driver starts signalling to me to get into his car.

“I ignore him and kept running, but he keeps getting angrier and angrier.”

She explained the man then sped off, but stopped abruptly 100 metres in front of her, forcing the cars behind him to swerve.

Mrs Smith was sexually assaulted while the couple were cycling on a main road (Image: Cora Smith)

She said: “He then gets out of his car, opens the passenger side door and starts walking really briskly towards me – as if he was going to grab me and drag me into his car.”

Realising the danger, Mrs Smith stopped dead in her tracks, turned around and ran as fast as she could in the opposite direction.

After the incident, the travel blogger was terrified of going anywhere alone, she said: “I wouldn’t even go out the front door by myself.”

Continuing their travels, the couple then travelled to the tourist zone of Punta Cana, where Mrs Smith felt equally unsafe, partly due to the sheer number of armed guards.

Mrs Smith said armed security guards were everywhere in Punta Cana (Image: Cora Smith)

They grabbed onto my bicycle so I had no control of the bike and grabbed all over my chest, behind and private areas and laughed hysterically as they were doing it.

Cora Smith

She said: “You see armed security guards everywhere, all-inclusive hotels were like a military base.”

The couple took frequent cycle rides, and one afternoon Mrs Smith was sexually assaulted while they were travelling down a main road, just outside the airport.

She said: “My husband was maybe 20 metres in front of me, not very far when two Dominican men on scooters ride up next to me and begin to stare at me like I’m a delicious treat.

“They grabbed onto my bicycle so I had no control of the bike and grabbed all over my chest, behind and private areas and laughed hysterically as they were doing it.

The couple have travelled all over the world, including Bali and Thailand (Image: Cora Smith)

“My husband couldn’t hear my screams because of the noise from the road.”

Mrs Smith said she felt completely humiliated and dehumanised by the attack, and said: “You start to feel like you’re a piece of property.”

But Mrs Smith wasn’t the only target, with police attempting to rob her husband not long after the cycling incident.

He said: “I was alone on the beach when two police officers interrogated and searched me.

A police officer attempted to rob Jay Smith (Image: Cora Smith)

“They asked for the money in my wallet and when I refused they threatened to take me to jail.

“After I refused they ended up leaving, but I felt for sure I was going to jail.”

The couple have travelled all over the world, including the South America, Bali and Thailand, but said the Dominican Republic was “by far the most dangerous place”.

They said “nowhere compared to the Dominican Republican” and want to warn tourists that the country is “not a safe place”.

Mrs Smith said: “The Dominican Republic is not somewhere you want to go.

“People are flocking there on holidays and they are not safe.”

The post Holiday WARNING: Tourist warns of island paradise HORROR after terrifying attacks | World | News appeared first on Tripstations.

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