#i dont even know if it fully fits the piece. i just totally blanked on having a caption to be honest.

[jupiterscallie]

Don’t skew my memory to spare your own grief. Honor my words by allowing the judgement placed by those impartial to weigh down on my grave. Only then shall it truly be decided if you can still label me a hero.

[hella-free-space]

Repurposing “Betta Tanks”

I’m a big fan of ‘upcycling’ stuff and I hate just throwing things away (especially pricier things).

There’s SO MUCH (literally a ridiculous amount) of misinformation about bettas that gets circulated by pet stores, facebook users, pinterest users, youtube users, and even betta-centered websites! There’s also plenty of people who have gone out and purchased bettas and “betta tanks” only to find out later that they’re completely unsuitable homes for their new finned friends! D: (If you’d like to know more about bettas and proper husbandry, check out this post) It would seriously suck if I went out and bought one of those Aqueon Betta Falls tanks (they are completely inappropriate for any fish or live animals and they can seriously injure bettas and other fish), which costs around $40 btw, only to learn that I’ve got to start totally from scratch and shell out another $40-100 PER safe and proper setup (the betta falls holds up to 3 fish, so that’s up to 3 new setups). and then after buying a whole new tank and equipment, I’m left with an expensive death trap. I wouldnt feel right selling it anyone else (who might use it to house bettas) but I also don’t want to just throw it away. Do I just put it back in the box and put it up on some high shelf in the garage? NO. NO I DO NOT. I’m going to find a good use for it, and I’m hoping that some of the ideas listed below give y’all some ideas too! more under the cut

Wall Mounted Fish Bowls

[Source]  These are usually anywhere from 1/2 - 1 Gallon, and are available from a number of brands and sellers on amazon and ebay. The idea is pretty cool and novel, but obviously not a healthy home for a betta (or other fish / invert). Consider using it as a hanging terrarium or planter! You can do fresh cut flowers, marimos, pothos, bamboo, java fern, anubias, or even an entire miniature aquascape! Funny enough, you can actually buy hanging glass terrariums / planters as well, so here’s some visuals!

USB / Desktop Aquariums

NO. DON’T DO IT. PUT THOSE FISH DOWN RIGHT NOW. THEY ARE NOT GOING IN THIS TANK. I’ve seen people keep bettas, guppies, tetras, etc. in these things and I just want to make it very clear that these are NOT suitable for anything...

EXCEPT MARIMOS!! :DD Marimos love a little bit of current and can be kept in bowls, jars, or tiny tanks! I think that having a little bit of current and some mini marimos and even some miniature decor would make an awesome edition to any desk, especially since it comes with a light and pump! :) Feel free to get creative tho! you can grow bamboo, pothos, and other plants out of it as well, or do a miniature aquascape, or even do some simple aquatic plants like anacharis, or an anubias nana petite one a tiny piece of driftwood~ have fun with it! :)

Betta Falls

OF DEATH. these tanks can seriously injure your fish, are too small to hold a stable cycle, will stress the fish out (because they can see each other) and are honestly no bigger than the cups you bought them in :/ 

What’s really cool about this tank is the design, though. Its got this cascading waterfall type design which would probably be awesome for marimos since they get their round shape from being rolled around by the current! A bit of flow is the way to go~ Also, being able to do 3 totally different (or completely complementary) sections is what makes this an especially fun and challenging upcycle! 

- You can do some cool rocks or miniature aquarium decor and use it as a waterfall, similar to how these little countertop fountains are used - You can grow bamboo or other semi-aquatic plants out of these compartments - You can grow fully aquatic plants in these compartments - You can even add some fake bettas if you want to add a lil fishy centerpiece - You can do any combination of different things and you’ve got 3 compartments to decorate however you see fit! :D

Betta Cubes

no.

NO!!

YAAAAAAAAAAS!! see where I’m goin with this y’all?

Other “Betta Tanks”

Besides plants, betta tanks also make fantastic enclosures for invertebrates!! :D I’m talkin about your snails, your millipedes, your slings (baby tarantulas), and even your mantids!!

@hipsterzombiesquad took this 1/2 gallon “betta tank” and turned it into a small terrarium for their snails!! :D It’s literally the cutest thing <3 (there’s two teeny tiny snails on top of the rock ornament in case you’re looking for them!)

Amanda L. left this review about the Sweetness Betta Tank: “This is not appropriate for any fish, but I bought this to house a tarantula spiderling. My spider is quite happy and not only is the enclosure cute and a good size for this dwarf species juvenile but the interesting shape let me set up a really deep starter burrow that he's currently excavating and webbing up.”

This is one of these marina betta tanks.  Youtube user ShreckKram used it for a praying mantis! I’m not sure how tall the mantis is compared to the enclosure, but generally you want the terrarium to be 3x as tall and 2x as wide as your mantid is at the very least :)

Emzotic also used the marina betta tank for some snails! :D (skip to 6:20 to see baby snails!)

Bugsincyberspace sells a ton of different invertebrate kits as well! These are biobubble deco cubes that are often marketed towards bettas but as yall can see, they’d make a great bumblee millipede terrarium! :D

The Fish Bowl

[Source] Last but not least, we have to talk about what in the heck to do with these classic fish bowls, drum or not. These bowls are basically blank canvases and there are tons of decor ideas floating around on pinterest, but for now I wanted to give yall a few decor ideas and a then show yall some more interesting uses!

These sand bowls are a really cute alternative to live plants and with all the miniatures you can buy on amazon or ebay or at hobby lobby or michaels (or even walmart), there are so many unique themes / scenes you could choose to create. You can also do a little zen garden of sorts with rocks and different colored sand and a miniature rake even!

A fairy garden!

I don’t personally drink, but I know there are Of Age fishblrs on here, so this is for you! Tipsy Bartender also did a video for this drink!

Of course I had to include a planted terrarium too! Now, when I created a fish bowl succulent terrarium a lot of people said that it wasn’t the best kind of container for succulent since it traps humidity and there’s no drainage (feel free to drill some holes if ya know how to do that tho!). If you’re worried about keeping succulents in a bowl like this, there are tons of mosses and ferns and such that you could use to create a terrarium :) SerpaDesign has a TON of instructional videos for making terrariums!

Another decor idea! 

Now, this is similar to something I actually made for my then-boyfriend (now husband) for valentines day a few years ago. I made a little luvdisc aquarium in a dollar store fish bowl (they’re like 16 oz. super small). I used like, glass pebbles and plastic plants and filled it with this fake water stuff and it came out pretty cute! I’m so sorry that I don’t have a picture of it for yall but the concept is fun and you can do the same thing with pretty much any plastic creature you have!

The last idea I have for y’all today involves food. I’m not the best cook, but I do freakin love me some chocolate, so with halloween coming up, you can use that old fish bowl (preferably cleaned. very well.) for a party-size bowl of dirt-and-worms or the summery sandy alternative (for the vanilla or banana pudding lovers out there). This version features some cute little amphibians! And of course I had to include a dinosaur version because of course I do.

There’s tons of other holiday decor and food and drink ideas as well. since this post is sooooo incredibly long, I’ll just list these last few ideas as links instead of including pictures and everything else.

Glass halloween lighted bowls

DIY Gumball machine

DIY Candy Dispenser

Shark Jello Bowls

The cutest halloween graveyard terrarium

Fishbowl centerpieces

Frog jello cups

Caught ya bein good reward bowl

Fish-themed slime

Goldfish snack bowl

Tissue Paper Lanterns

Dinosaur Terrariums

Origami Fish bowl

Resin Fish Bowls (most of these are miniatures but i dont see why a larger version would be any less cool)

Fish bowl punch (feel free to switch it up and add gummy octopuses too)

Paint it black and make a dry ice cauldron

Paint it black and make it a cauldron candy or punch bowl

[fitnessexpert00-blog]

The Ultimate Fitness Tracker Showdown

New Post has been published on https://fitnessqia.com/trending/the-ultimate-fitness-tracker-showdown/

The Ultimate Fitness Tracker Showdown

Video Transcript

Cody: Pear is a shape and therefore I’ve nailed it. Yes. All right, yeah. Let’s talk about all this new tech and stuff to get you healthy and fit.

Ryan: So in my house, we measure love by the kinds of gadgets your significant other gets you, and I still don’t have an Apple Watch. So, there you go everybody.

Cody: Clearly love.

Ryan: Not a lot of love. So the cool part about the new Apple Watch Series 4 is you get GPS and cellular, so you can leave your phone behind as you go run off on a trail, which is pretty cool. Bad news, 500 bucks. You can get the Samsung LTE version, 350 bucks. Also not awesome, right, but you get to leave your phone…but whatever. So when I run, I don’t want my phone slapping my leg, I want to be able to track my stuff when I’m cruising around, so we have an alternative to that. This is called the FitBit Ionic. It’s right here. This is pretty cool. You can have Pandora download all your stations from Pandora right onto the thing, you can track all of your fitness, check your weather. Do just about anything that you want to do.

Cody: It’s got a nice sized face on it.

Ryan: Yeah, it’s got a real nice face, a real adaptive touch screen, pretty awesome. This is only 250 bucks. And it has built-in GPS, so if you’re using Runkeeper or some other thing to track your thing, it’ll sync with that. And boom, 250 bucks, no phone.

Cody: I like that.

Ryan: That’s pretty cool, right? Plus you get access to this sweet FitBit app which works so amazing. It’s one of my favorite things. And we have a scale at home that also syncs with the FitBit. And it’s just all in one place. I just love that.

Okay, so let’s say you want to go a little bit less expensive. This one is called the FitBit Charge 3. This one’s 130 bucks. And this one’s right here. I put my wife’s band on, so it’s a little small for me, right? But it tracks the exact same kind of things, check your steps. It also recognizes what exercises you’re doing. So if you’re running or if you’re weightlifting it’ll kind of go, “Oh, you must be weightlifting so I’m going to track your cardio that way.” That’s pretty cool, right?

Cody: Yeah, I like that.

Ryan: So the next is the Amaze FitBip. Now this is only $80. It’s this one right here. You can kind of turn it sideways here. And this is a 30-day battery life. How crazy, 30 days? And this is made by…the watchmaker is 17% of the global market in FitBit-type watches and gadgets and stuff. 17%, it’s mostly international, so it’s not huge here in the states, but pretty cool. And then they also have this one here. This is it’s just a little token that goes on this band here. This is only 50 bucks.

Cody: And then what does that do?

Ryan: This little band here, it’s like a little washer, and that has GPS in it, tracks all of your steps. The same as the other gadgets, but it’s just this little thing right here. And you can see it through the app on your phone. That’s 50 bucks.

Cody: That’s kind of cool. I like that.

Ryan: That’s pretty awesome. So, last but not least. This is called the Motive, this is a ring, so if you’re not into putting a bunch of stuff on your wrist, the Motive ring, it’s 200 bucks, but look at it. It’s just this tiny little ring.

Cody: And that will keep up with stats and everything?

Ryan: I pulled up my stats from yesterday, so I can show off a little bit. So you can see that I checked how much sleep I got, it tracks…

Cody: Almost seven hours. Nice.

Ryan: Yeah almost seven full hours. It tracked when I did a pre-workout run, when I did my workout, and then when I did cardio afterwards, and it shows you your heart rate monitor, everything.

Cody: On a ring.

Ryan: So if you don’t want to wear a bunch of junk on your arms and stuff, there you go, 200 bucks, the Motive ring. I love it.

Cody: That’s pretty cool. I didn’t realize it could do all that. That’s pretty cool. It’s like Green Lantern’s ring.

Ryan: With sleep tracking, and cardio, and everything else, it’s just perfect. And…

Cody: Thanks, Ryan.

Ryan: We just dropped something.

Cody: Guess we just lost that. We just have to have fancy washer through.

Ryan: I’ll pick up 50 bucks on my way out the door.

Cody: Okay then.

Ryan: That’s fine.

Cody: Ryan’s good for it. Oh yeah it’s brand new. Just take it back. All right, thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right, back to you.

Once upon a time, fitness for the average home athlete involved a fair bit of guesswork. Sure, you could use a stopwatch to measure your speed — or a pedometer to measure your steps — but you’d probably need professional athletic expertise and equipment to access more meaningful metrics on your health and athletic performance.

How far we’ve come! These days even a rank amateur athlete can have a small biometric super-computer strapped to their wrist, measuring everything from basic activity level to potential heart arrhythmia.

Now before we go any further, it’s probably good if we name the large, chrome plated techno-elephant in the room. Fitness trackers are not for everyone. Some people dig fitness metrics, readouts, and statistics. The more data they can have about their inner workings, the better. Slap it in a graph and it’s golden! Others find the whole idea … well… a tad “squicky.” If fitness trackers just aren’t your bag, we totally get it.

If you like your tech less on your wrist and more in your pocket, we got you fam. Kindly.

Still reading? OK let’s do this thing! Let’s talk fitness trackers. Right now there are some amazing products out there and the competition is fierce. Here are a few hot contenders for the coveted title of “ultimate fitness tracker.”

Apple Watch 4 ($500) or Galaxy Watch LTE ($350+)

To make this comparison remotely fair, the Apple Watch 4 and the Galaxy Watch LTE really need to be tucked away in their own fancy-pants category — for want of a better term, let’s call them uber-watches.

Both these watches are the Swiss army knives of our technological age. They are fitness tracking watches, to be sure. They’ll measure your vitals, help you track your calories, give you reminders to keep moving. They even come with integrated guided exercises for fitness and relaxation.

They also perform an impressive array of productivity functions, essentially offering their lucky wearers the luxury of being completely up to speed on their work and social life, all from the display of one gleamingly obvious status symbol conveniently situated on their wrist.

These watches are also the only wearables on the market thus far which feature fully-integrated cellular data. They can, therefore, act as standalone smartphone replacements.

And of course, all this whizzbangery comes with a price tag to match. Prices start at $350 and rapidly go north from there. Still, if your wallet can handle it, the Apple Watch 4 and the Galaxy Watch LTE are amazing pieces of tech, the sheer breadth of their expansive feature-set eclipsing anything else on the market.

Fitbit Ionic ($250)

But let’s set our sights on dedicated fitness trackers, starting with the already iconic.

As you probably know, Fitbit has been around for a long time. The company was among the first to conceive of the idea of wearable sports tech, and their sleek, dependable products remain at the forefront of premium quality tracker technology today.

Beyond tracking your heart rate and physical activity, the Ionic offers a very slick, full-screen display, on-screen workouts and auto-exercise recognition. It also comes with GPS and on-device music storage, making it pretty much perfect for any kind of outdoor exercise like jogging or hiking.

Is it the Apple Watch 4 killer it was made to be?

Well, that remains debatable. It definitely wins for price and multi-platform compatibility (a feature you’ll never find in an Apple product, for obvious reasons!) but it lacks the Apple Watch’s integrated native cellular and vast ecosystem of supporting apps.

Brass tacks: the Fitbit Ionic offers exceptional value. It comes bristling with great tech and functionality but with a significantly reduced price tag compared to its luxuriously appointed rivals.

Fitbit Charge 3 ($130)

Sticking with the Fitbit ecosystem, for the time being, let’s wander toward the budget end of the tech aisle to look at the.

Now full disclosure here. If we were reviewing the Fitbit Charge two years ago, it’d be a no-brainer for the perfect balance of affordability versus solid, usable fitness tracking features. And don’t get us wrong. It’s still a great tracker.

Sure it has a smaller screen, but it can still hook you up with an invaluable stream of health data, and of course, it’s a budget gateway to the truly awesome Fitbit app.

But you won’t get on screen workouts. It’s completely tethered to your phone. And music or other cool apps? Forget it. The Fitbit Charge 3 will be perfect for some home athletes, but as you’ll soon discover, it faces some pretty tough competition.

Amazfit BIP ($80)

Which brings us to the Amazfit BIP. First up, that $80 price tag you see up there? That’s not a typo.

An important thing to mention about the Amazfit as a fitness tracker is its battery life. This thing is a little powerhouse and can give you 30 days of average use on a single charge. To give you a sense of how crazily efficient that is, the Fitbit Charge 3 gives you about 7 days.

The thing is, you’re not even sacrificing a feature set for battery life!

This watch comes with a color touch display, GPS and a barometer, along with all the usual suspects of heart rate tracking, activity monitoring and sleep tracking. In fact, if you held this watch alongside the Apple Watch to do a feature comparison, the Amazfit BIP would undoubtedly have more ticks than blanks.

As of early 2019, 50 million units have sold and the Amazfit brand now has over 15% global market share. This little number is definitely the best value out there, and we reckon it will be for some time.

A Quick Nod to Some Minimalist Trackers

To round out this list, we wanted to give a quick nod to more minimalist trackers. These display and interface-free devices are built around a different design principle — less is more — so comparing them to the above devices is apples and oranges. Let’s take a quick look at two interesting options.

Motiv Ring ($200)

The is … well … just that. A ring. Shocking, right?

This device literally looks like a piece of stylish yet nondescript jewelry. Within its gleaming carapace, it has just enough technology to measure your sleep, track your steps and monitor your heart rate. All up, it gives you a good, general overview (via an app) of how your health is doing.

It’s probably too blunt an instrument for anyone seriously into health metrics, but if you’re looking for a stylish alternative and are content with a bit less data, it’s worth looking at.

Amazfit Equator ($50)

The has a similar feature set to the Motiv Ring, but as you can see comes in at a quarter of the cost.

Housed within a stylish looking bracelet, its fitness techno juju also provides just enough data to keep an eye on your health — steps taken, calories burned and your sleep patterns. You can even hook it up to your phone, configuring it to send you silent vibration alerts when notifications and alarms come in.

Again, for stylish minimalism on a budget, no other brand is really approaching Amazfit right now. The Equator is a great option if you want a little bit of health data in a subtle, stylish package.

If there’s one conclusion we can draw from this impressive lineup of metric manufacturing marvels, it’s that the war for fitness tracker supremacy will rage on for the foreseeable future. If graphs and data are your thing, there are some pretty spiffy options out there whatever your budget.

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Source

The Ultimate Fitness Tracker Showdown

[adambstingus]

My Friends And I Found A Mysterious Hole On My Property And We Decided To Explore Its Depths

I need to have my story heard. I need to write this down. If I don’t, then I fear I’ll end up as mad as everyone thinks I already am. I’ve spent the past 11 months trying to find meaning and answers at the bottom of a bottle, but it never helps. Every night I wake in a cold sweat, shaking uncontrollably and gasping for air in the wake of the memory of the things I saw. Even now, I cannot venture past my door after dusk for fear of what lies beyond. Every bark from my dogs is a warning; every flicker of the floodlights that surround my house has me running for the generators. I have no idea what future awaits me past this moment, but I know I can’t stand the thought of another day where my experiences are not recorded in some way.

I farm a sizable piece of land, some several thousand acres in size. What I farm isn’t important, just the location. Upon my land occurs a unique land formation a type of rock that bears in a pattern unique to this area. In all the world, there is always something similar, but never quite exactly the same. Imagine a type of rock used by the early peoples to make paints that they would apply to their faces colors of orange, tan, red, white, and blue and embedded within these rocks are numerous geodes. It was always my plan that, should I fall upon financial hardship, I would sell these geodes at local stores or flea markets to the more “spiritual” people that frequented the larger towns near my home. Now however, that is no longer an option.

Until last year, I would allow hunters onto my land each winter to hunt deer and elk, occasionally joining them, as one elk could feed me for the better part of a year. They were my friends men I had hunted with for years and whom I had come to depend upon. I can still remember crawling through the brush of my property some year ago, only to came face to face with a mountain lion that appeared just as stunned as I at the encounter. I scarcely remember un-holstering my sidearm, a Beretta that had been gifted to me some years ago, and unloading half a clip into its still startled face as the panicked hands of my hunting buddies tore apart catclaw and mesquite branches alike to reach me before the second gunshot had rung out.

I still hold fond memories of how we laughed at the encounter that evening as they applied hydrogen peroxide to their bloodied hands in-between sips of beer. None of us went back for that mountain lion carcass. I think we honestly believed it wouldn’t be there if we looked, as if it had shrugged off several 9mm rounds fired point blank and was laughing off the encounter with its own buddies in much the same way we were. Sometimes I can still think back on that evening and smile at the image of all of us, wearing our beanies and fatigues, rifles slung over our backs…. The only two things that saved me in the end were my sidearm and the men at my back.

It was supposed to be a good year for hunting, the weather had been kind to us over the months and the uncharacteristic amount of rain for the area meant there was more grass to graze. Already I’d begun seeing elk lying dead on the side of the road. Unfortunate for the driver, but hopefully a sign of greater numbers that season. It was a more humid year than we were used to and it seemed like the winter would be harsh, but for us, it only meant buying more firewood. I’d been keeping the corn feeders stocked throughout the year and keeping a mental checklist of every deer and elk I saw. Even the javelina were starting to become a nuisance, although a decent source of meat provided you got a clean shot before they could musk.

I knew every inch of my property like the back of my hand, or at least I thought I did. It wasnt until two weeks into the season that we encountered . We were on a night hunt, trekking through a part of the property I’d taken to calling “Paint Rock Canyon,” due to the abundance of the unique rock formations in that area. It had needed no descent, just a brief 45 minute drive to the area situated between two mountains that sat almost directly in the middle of the property. We were all outfitted with LED headlamps and Maglites and most of us had outfitted our rifles with night-vision scopes, save for Anthony.

Anthony was not a large man, but he did seem to carry luck on his side. His medium length hair was usually tied back into a small ponytail and he had an almost ill-informed love of his neatly trimmed mutton chop sideburns and mustache that had earned him the nickname “Lemmy.” He couldn’t be considered lanky, nor could he be called overweight. On the whole, Anthony was quite normal, which many mistook for “average” brown hair, brown eyes, and a tanned complexion shared by the rest of us (the result of a life lived working outdoors). He had brought his AR-15, something he won in a local rodeo raffle, equipped with a thermal scope. While the others had found the rifle enviable, I was less impressed. Admittedly, I was disappointed that I didn’t win the second prize, which was a lever-action rifle with a custom saddle holster, provided by my favourite, local saddlery. I’m ashamed to admit it in retrospect, but I took a small comfort in the fact that Anthony was limited to featureless black-and-white as opposed to the rest of us.

Apart from Anthony, the hunting party consisted of Markus, Forrester, and myself. Markus was a heavy set Hispanic man who I turned to whenever I needed help with any of my vehicles, which was typically one per month. Auto repair was his family’s business and hed taken over the shop from his father after his passing. Forrester on the other hand was a pious man, a devout Baptist, and the only one among us who could honestly say hed never known the taste of liquor in his life. While the rest of us would set up the satellite to watch the game and drink to the point where we felt 10 years younger, Forrester could always be found over a smoker or grill that hed welded together himself, a root beer in one hand and a cooking utensil in the other. He was the shortest of all of us, but the only other farmer apart from myself, and my main source of hay when it came to animal feed.

That’s how I will always remember them before we found that damn hole under the light of the full moon. It was impossibly large and dug into the base of one of the mountains where the Paint Rock began. The hole was larger than any one of us and seemed like it was freshly dug. It certainly hadnt been there when wed last passed through the canyon scarcely two days prior. We stood in front of it in confusion for several minutes, questioning what could have caused such a thing when an elk came sprinting out, startling us all. Anthony was the quickest on the draw, bringing his rifle up and letting off several quick bursts as the gigantic animal bound towards us. The rest of us dove for cover, all but Anthony who, with his unbelievable luck, pierced the animal’s heart, bringing it crashing to the ground as he finally dove away from the falling body of an animal that weighed enough to total any vehicle unfortunate enough to collide with its form.

After calling to ensure that everyone was unhurt, we quickly turned our lights on the elks corpse, which turned out to be a cow rather than a bull as wed all assumed. Bullet wounds marked its body and I could have sworn the wounds on its back looked far too large to be caused by the 5.56 rounds fired from Anthonys rifle, yet I dismissed them as exit wounds despite being able to vividly recall no upward angle to his shots.

We were all thoroughly shaken by the experience and yet, for some unknowable reason, our curiosity was piqued. I recalled no one else on my land and doubted border-jumpers could have made something large enough to conceal an elk in less than two days. For reasons I will never fully know, none of us contested the idea when Markus suggested venturing inside the tunnel. We readied our night-scopes and light sources, pocketed some extra ammunition and abandoned what little light was offered by the night sky and made our way into the darkness.

The first thing we noticed as we entered the tunnel was its slope, which I think we all expected, except instead of sloping down into the earth the hole slanted upwards, ascending into the mountain. Out flashlights and headlamps illuminated the earthen walls yet saw no immediate end to the tunnel, which seemed to extend almost impossibly far.

Markus led the way, followed by Anthony, Forrester, and myself. I looked in awe at the almost circular hole that could almost comfortably fit a tractor within, provided you never intended to turn around. It was maybe a hundred yards into the tunnels depths that we first noticed a change and felt hesitant to continue. The air felt cool…yet . It was uncharacteristically more humid than any of us were used to. At first, we dismissed it as a result of being underground until we also began to realise we also felt lighter. Not only that, but the air somehow seemed thinner, like we were suddenly much higher in altitude, even though no mountain on my property was more than a few hundred feet tall. As our nerves began to take hold, Markus noticed what seemed to be an opening ahead, possibly into some sort of cavern. With none of us wanting to be the first to suggest turning back, we all agreed to at least see where the tunnel led before heading back.

After another 50 or so yards, Markus came upon the opening and froze. When asked what it was, it seemed all he could do to manage a wordless stutter, apparently rooted in place by whatever it was that he was witnessing until Anthony made his way beside him to shine his own light into the opening. I caught a brief glimpse of green on the ground before Anthony turned his head back and slowly, disbelievingly called Forrester and myself forward.

Exiting the tunnel, we stepped into…I still dont know how to describe it, a Jules Verne novel? The center of the earth? All that I know is that I now think of it as hell. What looked like greenish-black moss and algae covered the ground around us and giant, impossible plants grew amongst the moss. Various black-leaved ferns grew several yards, like those you would see in pictures of tropical climates, some growing upwards and branchless, maybe 10 feet tall with leaves like black pine needles reaching for the sky. And there was a sky. As impossible as it sounds, the four of us stood in silence, in a tunnel dug into a mountain at our backs, staring into a night sky. At first, my mind didnt want to believe it reeled at the idea. I first rationalised that they were some sort of glowing insects on the cavern roof, that there was no way they could be stars, but it wasnt long until I realised that the size and shape was wrong, even for stars. Together we stared into a night sky dotted not by distant suns, but by distant galaxies.

All around us, under an alien night sky, life grew up from the ground. The trunk of some massive tree reached towards the night sky just to the right of us, nearly a 100 feet high and four feet across, yet instead of branches, it looked more like an asparagus stalk, sprouting tightly packed, pale looking pods that resembled mushroom caps. Another tree looked not dissimilar to a spanish dagger cactus, yet with the same black leaves as the alien fern and almost three times larger than it should be with bark that resembled alligator skin, dotted with large white flower towards its apex. Around us countless alien plants grew, too many to recall had I even noticed them, because that was the moment grabbed Anthony.

Our first warning was a rapidly approaching series of clicks, but apart from that, the thing was impossibly quiet, swooping down from above with blinding speed and snatching Anthony up, carrying him screaming into the darkness as the rest of us were knocked to the ground by a gust of wind. By the time we were up and calling for Anthony, he was gone and Markus was running after off into that alien landscape, screaming his Anthonys name as Forrester and I gave chase.

Our chase was hampered by how light our bodies felt, every step propelled us farther than we were used to, which made it difficult to balance ourselves at any speed. Regardless, Markus had enough of a head start that by the time we caught up to him, hed already started firing. He was aimed into the branches of some alien tree above him, firing shot after shot until something fell at his feet. Following his gaze, it was too dark to see high enough into the tree, but bringing the scope of my .308 to my eyes, I saw the creature. Through the green colouring of my night scope, I couldnt make out the color of its feathers, but the creature was huge. It was large enough to steal a small horse into the sky. The creature was armed with talons the length of my arm, which were wrapped around a branch, a long, needle-like beak protruding from the centre of a flat, only vaguely bird-like face. The creature seemed like some unholy union between an owl and some reptilian creature. Its face was almost entirely free of feathers and covered in a scaly skin with a pair of forward-facing eyes so large that they seemed to take up more than half of its head. It sat on the branch, letting loose a series of bizarre clicks until one of Markus bullets struck its abdomen and it took off, flying away into the night.

We looked to Markus and saw him crouched down over Anthonys crumpled form he had fallen from the branches when Markus had started firing. Even before making my way to him, I knew he was dead. The fall was too high, his body looked too twisted. When the light from my flashlight illuminated his body, I immediately wished it hadnt. The creature’s talons tore his chest, stomach, and legs open. From the state of his innards as they lay splayed around him it was apparent that the creature had begun to feed before Markus started firing upon it. As we stood in stunned silence around Anthonys corpse, Markus began to moan, a low, woeful sound, as if his body and mind couldnt reconcile whether to be violently ill or if he should cry out in anguish. Forrester and I stood silently, neither of us certain of what to do. We were unable to process that our friend was dead until it slowly dawned on us that none of us knew where we were. In our haste to save Anthony, we had left behind our only means of returning home.

It was at that moment I truly began to feel what others describe as despair, a feeling of such hopelessness fueled by the loss of one of my dearest friends and the crashing realization that we were alone, trapped in a place that had likely never before been seen by human eyes. I felt what seemed like tears of panic and sorrow begin to form. My breathing quickened as panic threatened to consume me. My heart hammered away I know not whether from fear of from adrenaline, yet through some means I will never fully know, I was able to keep my composure, possibly because I still refused to believe that any of what was happening was real.

When we tried to tell Markus of our situation, a fury seemed to take over, adamantly refusing to leave Anthonys body where it was while we tried to explain to him through panicked whispers that it was too dangerous to try to carry him with us, especially if other creatures like the one that had carried him away were lured by the smell of blood. Markus ignored our reasoning, instead muttering with only passing moments of coherence as he calmly attempted to reinsert Anthonys innards back into the torso. Markus mumbled that it would be okay, that things were lighter here, that he would take Anthony home and patch him up, that hed be okay as long as he got him back out into Paint Rock Canyon, because where they were was so impossible that it would be impossible for him die there too. His ravings became louder and louder as Forrester and I frantically tried to calm his growing madness.

From where the next creature came from, I still do not know, but like everything else on this world, it was monstrous and impossibly large. It made no noise when it grabbed Forrester between its massive pincers and Forresters attempts to scream were cut off by a gurgling wheeze when he was torn in half, as if all the air and blood were trying to escape from his lungs at once. In the dim torchlight, the creature seemed jet black, as wide as a feral pig, yet its serpentine body trailed more than 15 feet behind it. Its head seemed to be little more two giant eyes that had formed into one, yet was like that of an ant while the rest of its body was like that of a centipede, covered in a insectile, chitinous exoskeleton that seemed almost reddish-brown in color.

Blood and viscera spilled onto the alien soil as Forresters legs fell away from him, the same wheezing, gurgling sounds escaped from his lips for what seemed like minutes. I am ashamed to admit it, but at that moment, panic and fear took their hold on me and I found myself stumbling back, toppling over Anthonys crumpled body. I crawled backwards in an attempt to escape the nightmare that was illuminated before me. My last memory was the sounds of Markus chastising me followed by several rounds of gunfire and a sharp pain as something struck the side of my head, followed by the darkness of unconsciousness.

When I awoke, I found myself alone. As images and memories of what had happened returned to me, I sat up in a panic. I was back within the tunnel, presumably carried there by Markus, but the bodies of Anthony and Forrester were nowhere to be seen. In the distance, I heard no gunfire, no screams, no clicks from some monstrous raptor soaring through alien skies, scanning the land for prey. Out of fear, I refused to call Markus name, instead I fled down the slope of the tunnel, and refused to look back. Not even when I exited the tunnel back onto familiar earthen soil and ran to the waiting vehicle did I dare look at that tunnel, terrified that I might see that gargantuan insect-like creature pursuing me.

Everything following that was a series of calls, first on short-wave radio and then to the sheriff on my landline once I found myself back home. Search parties were mobilized, questions were asked, I was treated for shock, underwent numerous evaluations, was asked whether it could have been a mountain lion whether my mind had created the scenario to deal with the trauma. They found the tunnel, but it led nowhere. No alien world lay beyond. It simply ended with an earthen wall some 10 feet in. Officially, it was dismissed an abandoned illegal camp being used as a mountain lion den, but there were rumors that there was no sign it had been used by either. People began to talk, to say I had snapped and killed my friends. But I know what happened, what continues to happen.

Whenever I find the corpse of a deer or an elk, I know it was some hellish, clicking, avian creature that slaughtered it, flying forth from whatever doorway is contained within that canyon. I know I cant ever sell this place, for I am the only one who knows the signs to look for, for the tunnels to cave in. I havent found any more since that night, but I know theyre out there, leading to the bodies of my friends whove been left to rot in some unknowable hell, under the sky of a world between galaxies in the darkest region of existence.

And yet I can never truly call it hell, because if it was, then why did the tunnel ascend?

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from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/my-friends-and-i-found-a-mysterious-hole-on-my-property-and-we-decided-to-explore-its-depths/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/177328889447