#i have 1 left over of the other syringe but for next week ill have to find new syringes with no pcp or pharmacy. somehow.

[pleckthaniel]

I realize this is partly my fault gor not checking but last time I refilled my prescription they gave me syringes too small for my dose and I know for a fact she did it because I ran out of needles "too early" (i used one wrong and had to throw it out. one. so i needed needles 1 (one) week earlier than her computer said i should) and instead of like asking me a question like a normal human being she decided I was doing heroin and I know that because the time before the last time I went she joked about it with the other pharmacist right in front of me and jesus christ i just want to have literally one thing in my life be easy why is that too much to ask

[disasterghaster-moved]

SEPTEMBER 26th - 2013 - 3AM

PART 1 ] [ PART 2 ] [ PART 3 ]

News died down and people calmed down. Slipped under the radar like so much background noise about bombings in far off countries. I could imagine it to be like how you get used to bullets reporting off the sand and brick and hot earth after it goes on for days and weeks and years. 

Tsunamis you never drown in, riots you only see as rushing masses on the screen, earthquakes you can’t comprehend, cancelled flights you’ll never be on, borders closed that you never intended to cross, and hospitals creaking under the pressure of illness that’d been packing them for months. What was some spoiled wheat when you came from the land of agricultural plenty? Nevermind that end of season harvest was recent.

And, anyway, I still had bills and to pay those I had to keep working. Natural disasters notwithstanding.

Thankfully, night shift usually meant I could relax. The current site I was working at was a warehouse facility. Took big trucks in and out all day, but shut down around the time I rolled in. Mostly I did patrols by car or foot. Since it was only what a proper northerner considers ‘chilly’ for my last patrol, I decided to walk.

All I was really looking for inside the warehouse was fires or leaks. Outside was more about checking out the parked trailers along the outer fence line. Making sure the plastic seals weren’t broken. That people weren’t climbing the fence to steal anything.

I honestly didn't expect any trouble. I heard more from the day shift about fist fights over boxes from the workers in the building than I did actual attempts at theft.

Hell, mostly I ran into lone coyotes. Or a racoon. They’re all kinda cute if you keep a distance. Sometimes I’d purposely only look at the stray rabbit from an eye corner and keep moving. They were just there for the choice, crisp, grass on this side of the fence.

Somewhere in the back, I found a hole in the fence line. Low to the ground and mostly under the fence where dirt had been dug up. Not super uncommon. Looked like an animal had dug it up. Another lone coyote lookin’ for one of those rabbits, probably. I sighed out a puff of condensed air and tucked my flashlight under my arm with the cone of light pointing at the breach.

Phone came out of my pocket and I took a flash lit photo. Put that away and took out a bit of scrap paper and a pen I kept in one of my coat pockets. Scribbling the time, 0349, and the look of the hole. I’d have to document it and let the supervisor know in the morning to have it checked out.

It also meant I’d be walking this every half hour instead of every couple hours. Thankfully, I only had three more to go.

I paid some extra attention to the trailers nearby. Checking their seals were intact and making sure the tops of the doors were adequately locked still. Scoped out the area and thought all looked well enough to move on.

Mind you, there was some unease. Might be a coyote around after all. Normally I wouldn’t think much of that. Alone, they’re not really keen to scrap with a human. Most didn’t desperately dig through a fence, either.

Thankfully, I was allowed a taser with this company so I kept it in hand in my pocket. I just couldn’t shake the feeling on the back of my neck. Cold and prickly and not from the bite in the air. Left over combat instinct or plain, embarrassing, fear of the dark mixed with primal fear of wild animals? I resolved to walk with a longer stride and dipped down the figurative hallway between two trailers. There was more light to see by coming off the warehouse at the other side as opposed to along the perimeter fence.

I nearly tripped when I came out. Ahead of me, in the dark place between trailers still in their docks, was something. Low and crouched. With two eyeballs that gave off a sheen of an amber glow. Like a coyote.

Mmm, great. Maybe it had rabies. In which case, a taser wasn’t going to do it.

I avoided shining a light on it to keep it from attacking. Instead I pulled at my radio and turned the volume down before speaking into it, quite and calm,

“Candice, you got a copy?” Relieved when that alone didn’t cause the animal to stir. Beyond a slight shift and a low rumble. A growl that sounded...pained? I didn’t get an inch closer. Rabies or not, injury was even more liable to launch at me with intent to maul if I wasn’t mindful.

“Go ahead.” She responded. Unaware of my predicament.

“We’re gunna need to call Paul and the non-emergency number for the cops, I guess?” I paused, but held the button to keep the line. “There’s a cranky, possibly rabid, coyote back he--shit!” I let the button go, my voice cracking on a high pitch, as the animal came screaming out of the dark across the pavement toward me.

By the way? Not an animal! It turned out to be bipedal! PERSON! A person was streaking toward me with a howl of rage I hadn’t heard since the desert. The only thing that kept me from getting bum rushed straight down into the ground was that time in the war. Muscle memory and understanding of how bodies work allowing me to shift into mindlessly diverting all that failing momentum into the ground under me instead. Face first with me holding an arm and pressing a knee between shoulder blades of the squirming ball of bizarre fury under me. Pinned down.

They kept hollering, but I spoke to them at an even pace despite the adrenaline threatening to make me rattle too fast with my words. “Hey! Are you okay? You can’t just hulk out in the middle of private property. I am going to have to call the cops if you don’t calm down.”

That didn’t seem to work any better than telling me not to eat a fifth slice of pizza on a Tuesday morning.

I mumbled a cuss as I worked on adjusting my hold to free up a hand enough to respond to Candice calling me over the radio with increasing concern.

“Dro? Dro, you copy?”

“Yeah, co--” I paused to let the latest howl come and go. “Copy! We’re going to need the police. It’s some person--” Growled back when the next long winded scream came. “Some person on drugs I think?”

“Copy, you need backup?”

“Nah, you can’t leave the guardhouse. Just...tell ‘em to hurry. They’re not--” I didn’t bother to take my finger off the button for the next roar. “--not real happy about all this.”

“Copy.”

I sighed and buckled down on holding them down without hurting them. Drugged out or not, this person didn’t deserve to get their ribs or wrist inadvertently broken. Or to choke if my knee got jostled out of place from all the wild writhing they were doing. I started trying to talk them down when they started whining instead of roaring.

“Sorrysorrysorry.” They sounded to be openly weeping. “Hurts, I’m sorry!” Mashing their own face into the ground where I couldn’t see them. I grimaced.

“It’s fine.” Drugs are wild. I tried to be understanding. Hard and worked up as the both of us were. Wasn’t my first run in with an intoxicated trespasser. Get out of your mind and you don’t know where you are and shit that’s a big fucking lady throwing me, around time to FIGHT. “It’s alright, hey, it’s okay. Police are comin’. With some doctors, I’m su--”

Apparently that wasn’t the right thing to say, they kicked back up into doing their damndest to trash free. My muscles were starting to burn by the time I heard the sirens rolling in close enough to hear. I was running out of breath to deal with this. They couldn’t get through the gate and around back to me fucking fast enough as far as I was concerned.

The police officer that came out of his cruiser looked the sort of troubled that my colonel had in his eyes right before he was expecting us to get blown away by an IED any second. The EMTs that came out of the ambulance were dressed to deal with something infectious. Like...face shields, multilayered plastic white clothing, and were on the person under my knee in seconds with a large syringe.

No one said anything to me as my perp went limp by the time the plunger on the shot fully depressed. I awkwardly got up and stepped away as they gave me the impression of mopping up an undesirable pile of barf. Packing themselves and their charge away into the back of their ambulance on a stretcher board before they took off.

The police officer barely even thanked me for my help and told me to have a good rest of my day before he left right behind them only to overtake them. Flipping on their lights to escort the emergency vehicle he accompanied.

Leaving me in confused and stunned silence as I caught my breath.

What?

The cop didn’t even try to get a statement. Or my name. Or even my number to ask me my statement later. I wasn’t even sure how I was going to write my report up and not sound like I didn’t do my job right without that interaction with the officer.

My brows knotted as I leaned into a brisk walk back for the guardhouse.

[popcrone818]

Wicked Games Part 1

Okay so this is just a little something i have been working on. i really need some feedback on it as ill be updating it here and on wattpad regularly. i will take any feedback obviously just nothing too cruel. also if you want to see me write for anyone in particular shoot me a message and i will get right on it. lots of love

Dauntless

Initiation, stage two; fears. My brother wasn’t able to test me so I had the cruel Dauntless leader; Eric. I had 10 fears, 6 more than my brother. Each day was going to be a different fear for everyone. We wouldn’t face all of our fears until stage 3 of initiation.

My first fear was spiders, crawling all over me as I lay there helpless and still, I was able to get out of that fear soon enough though. I left the room and Eric that day only slightly out of breath.

The dark and drowning were actually together I was drowning in the dark and at this time I had no idea which one I was more afraid of. But I got out of there by letting the water engulf me and fill up my lungs.  

Fears 4 and 5 being burnt alive while people judged me had me shaking as the flame licked at my ankles, I could hear people yelling profanities at me as the flames rose on my body, I tried to calm my racing heart and listen in to the words being yelled out to me but I couldn’t hear any of it I just mumbling I just knew they weren’t very nice this being said. That day Eric had laid a hand on my forearm as I came out of the sim, he almost looked like he cared for a slipt second before he realised I was out of the sim and his stone cold exterior was plastered on his face.

My next two fears were clowns and losing Tobias. Clowns obviously wasn’t too bad but as my heartrate was slowing down one of the clowns dragged my brother over to me, his wrist and ankles bound and a gag in his mouth, he also looked unconscious as they held a gun to his temple. I watched as he lifted his head his eyes holding in all of the pain that our past had caused as he mouthed run to me, I watched as the safety was taken off the gun and the trigger pulled. I screamed and fell to my knees as the sim ended and I felt myself fall out of the metal seat to the ground, I didn’t look up at Eric as my eyes continued to leak and show my weakness in front of the cruel dauntless leader. What would he think of me now, I had excelled in the first stage of initiation I was no longer a weak abnegation, I was dauntless but now as I balled myself up on the floor in the simulation room I felt weak again. I knew Eric was looking down at me but I could care less as I picked myself up off the ground and lunged out of the room and rushed into the pit frantically looking for my brother. I saw him from afar talking to the man he had introduced me to as Zeke once before, and I launched myself at his back as tears cascaded down my cheeks.

After my little outburst in the pit the day before I couldn’t even look at Eric when I entered the simulation room the day after. I had been weak and I hated knowing he had been there to witness it. I held myself up and my body strong, my eyes cold and unmoving as he watched me walk to the seat in the middle of the room and readied the serum before placing a hand on one side of my neck and the tip of the syringe on the other.

“This last lot of fears is going to be even worse than yesterdays, stay strong Amaya,” he plunged the syringe into my neck before he finished his sentence and my eyes closed bringing on my last lot of fears.

My eyes opened and Marcus leered above me, “You will never leave me ever again.” He snarled as he started to undo his belt before pulling it out of the loopholes. He flung it and it stung my cheek before he laid it down and started to undo his pants. He used me like he used to causing harm to my small body as his fingers dug into my olive flesh as he thrust in and out of my tiny body. The fear then changed slightly as he raised the belt over his head and brought it down over my back again, again and again before switching once more where Marcus took bids from random men before the highest bidder grabbed my face and lead me into the back room to have his way with me. I couldn’t slow my heart rate and I couldn’t fight back my hands had been tied behind my back and my ankles had been tied to the base of the bed. I was weak I was helpless and I couldn’t do anything about it. I closed my eyes as I tried again to steady my heart and this time managed to calm it down enough to be brought out of the simulation. I looked over to where Eric was sitting as I tried to catch my breath. My hands trembled and as Eric started to move closer to me I shrunk away from him and his touch. I knew Marcus shouldn’t have this effect on me but I also knew that everything he had done to me once Tobias left would stay with me for the rest of my life. Usually I was pretty good at hiding everything that Marcus had done but when being faced with it once again I couldn’t do it. Eric placed his hand on my forearm once again I flinched and I saw something flash behind his eyes before he took his arm off me and disconnected the leads from my forehead. I took one last big breath before I bolted out of the simulation room not looking back at Eric as I made my way to the initiate dorm room. I sat down on my hard plastic bed and sobbed until dinner time.

I made it my mission to find my brother before sitting down as close to him as possible. His arm automatically wound its way around my waist as he continued to eat. He pushes his plate over to me slightly and I pick up his hamburger taking a bite. It was silent between us for a moment.

“Are you still afraid of Marcus?” he nods as he takes his hamburger from me and takes another bite himself. I shrink into his a bit more as Eric makes his way over to us. He stands directly in front of both of us but keeps his eyes on me the whole time. I plead with my eyes for Eric not to say anything to my brother about what had happened in my last fear landscape. Tobias didn’t need to know the full extent of what happened once he left.  

Eric takes a seat in front of us and starts to quietly eat his own meal. “How are you holding up after your last fearscape?”

“She’s fine,” I feel Tobias tense beside me, I look up and notice that his jaw is clenched and he is staring directly at Eric with a look that could kill. I straighten up slightly but still close to my brother, trying to show Eric that I wasn’t afraid that what he saw in my fearscape was nothing and that it didn’t need to be brought up again.

“I wasn’t asking you Four! I was asking Amaya.” Eric’s hands are balled into fists on the table before he slams them down making me flinch.

“I’m Fine Eric.” I tell him as I stand up from the table and he gives me a short unrecognisable nod. I turned around to leave as Tobias squeezes my hand before he drops it. I wandered around the pit for a while contemplating getting a tattoo before I found myself standing out the front of the tattoo parlour I talked myself into walking in and then spent the next 10 minutes looking at designs and thinking about the placement that I wanted. I decided on an artsy intricate design on my forearm. I didn’t have a meaning I just felt drawn to the tattoo and the placement seemed right.

“What are you getting?” I whipped around to face the voice only to find Eric standing by the open door to the parlour, I point to the one above my head as he takes long thoughtful strides through the parlour to get to me, I don’t know how I knew he had been talking to me. I could have been the fact I could feel his eyes in the back of my head before I had even turned around but I’m glad that he had actually been talking to me and not someone else. He pulled the design down off the wall and inspected it before looking up at me with a questioning look in his eyes. “Where are you getting it?” he questions again.

“On my forearm just here.” I point to the place on my right arm where I want it. He nods and takes a hold of my wrist gently and dragging me towards the back where an older guy covered head to toe in tattoos greets Eric.

“Hello Eric! Back for more on your back so soon? I thought another 2 weeks was what we had discussed.” He asks Eric as he starts to set up his station. Eric shakes his head and starts waving his hand around.

“No, today I’m here with her,” he pointed to me.

“Abnegation I see.” He says as he gets up from the chair he was seated in and comes to inspect me in a way. I find myself shrinking away from his gaze slightly, unsure of this man, and find myself closer to Eric than I thought I had been. His grip on me wrist seemed to become slightly comforting.

“Adam, she’d like this one please. On her right forearm.” Eric could sense that this Adam guy’s gaze had scared me slightly, and because he had seen my fearscape he could understand why I had moved away. Adam took the slide away from Eric and back over to his station where he started to get the ink and gun ready. All up it took him about 3 hours to get the design just perfect on my skin. He cleaned me up and instructed me on the proper way to care for it before letting us go. Eric had stayed with me the whole time looking somewhat bored but still never leaving my side. Eric and I made our way out of the parlour and towards the initiate dorms in silence. Before we rounded the last corner Eric grabbed my wrist yet again making me stop as he looked into my eyes. I looked up at him slightly due to the height difference but watched emotion after emotion fly behind his steel blue eyes.

“I just wanted to make sure you were alright after your last fear.”

“What do you mean?” I asked him as my face scrunched up in feigned confusion.

“Marcus? Why is he one of your fears and what was with the bidding e was doing? The screen went black shortly after numbers started to fly out of his mouth.” He said taking a small step forward as I took one large one back away from him. I didn’t want him to know any of it, and here he was asking the questions that I didn’t want to answer. He saw what Marcus had done to me himself but didn’t see what he let others do to me whenever he pleased.

“It was nothing, just something we used to do that had scared me as a child.” I told him as my hands balled into fists thinking about the first time he allowed his friends to ‘buy’ me for the night. Then the first time he had touched me flashed in my mind and I involuntarily shivered.

“That’s bullshit and you know it! But I’ll let you get some sleep. You’ve got a week off before stage 3 starts, use it wisely.” He told me giving my wrist one last squeeze and making his way back in the direction of the pit. I make my way over to my bed and collapse after the big day I’ve had.

I am awoken by a loud banging like metal on metal. I roll over and cover my face with my pillow. I felt warm breath on the back of my neck making the little hairs there stand up.

“GET UP INITIATE!” I flinched away from the voice and almost fell out of my bed. Eric stood above my bed a stupid little smirk plastered on his stupid perfect face. I saw his eyes flick over my body and I quickly covered my body with my sheet as I shot him a glare before he walked away.

“Everyone in the pit in 5!” he yelled as he walked out the door. I was the first in the pit once I had changed and nearly raced down there. I found Tobias and Eric standing by a board and as I walked up to my brother to wrap him in a tight hug I could feel Eric’s eyes watching me while I walked over. The other initiates started to gather and Tobias and I jumped apart before Eric started speaking.

“Rankings are up. Bottom 10 get your stuff and get out, your cut.” He pulled the sheet off the board behind him.

 1.       Chris

2.       Jasmine

3.       Amaya

4.       Jai

5.       Emily

6.       Andrew

7.       Jeremy

8.     �� Teaghan

9.       Caleb

10.   Josh

11.   Shaun

12.   Alex

13.   Theo

14.   Damon

15.   Dana

16.   Bella

17.   Lindsey

18.   Jeff

19.   Mollie

20.   Alyssa

 The next 10 months went really quickly I ended up ranking first in my class and was offered a leadership job next to Eric, he was seriously pissed off that he had to train me but he got over it and now I would even go as far as saying we are friends, or at least verging on friendship. I loved my new apartment. I was on the fourth floor of the compound where the rest of the leaders had their homes. I was overseeing training for the new initiates that come in tomorrow, I would be watching over my brother as Eric watched over me to make sure that I was doing my job right. I so wasn’t looking forward to seeing the girls sneak out of Eric’s apartment in the early mornings but what can you do when you live on the same floor. He had started to sleep around about 6 months ago after he had a meeting with Jeanine. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that he was just trying to keep up his reputation. It had started to become disturbing watching him with a new girl wrapped around him every day.

I heard a knock at my door. I closed my book and padded over, in my fuzzy bed socks, to open my front door.

“Hey are you ready for tomorrow?” Four asked me walking in and making himself comfortable on my sofa.

“Hello to you too.” I said sarcastically as I close my door and make my way into the kitchen to put the kettle on to make coffee.

“Looking forward to scaring the shit out of some initiates with me today?” he asks as I grab two mugs from the cupboard and start to add the coffee and sugar.

“Hell yes I am, not so sure how I feel about Eric overseeing me though.” I told him as I poured the water for the coffees and brought them over to the sofa where he had his feet on my coffee table. I kicked his foot off and handed him the mug of hot liquid.

“Do you still have that thing for him that you had back when you were an initiate?” I didn’t look up at him as the images of all the girls sneaking out of Eric’s apartment raced through my mind.

“No, I don’t.” I told him as I clenched my jaw and took a sip of my coffee.

“Okay,” he stretched out the word almost like he didn’t believe me, “Get a goodnights sleep, I’ll be here at 8 an hour before they arrive.” He got up put his mug in the kitchen and gave me a kiss on my head as he made his way out of my apartment. I went to close my door when a few doors down I watched Eric’s door open and close and a women in a tight fitting, short black dress exits with her shoes in her hand. I roll my eyes and slam my own door. I feel my façade slip and a tear makes its way down my cheek. I swore Eric wouldn’t do this to me, I needed to keep my head up and not let him get to me. I switched off all of my lights and went to bed.

[jasonfvkingtodd]

Wolf  [Part 1]

Warnings: Slight mention of mental illnesses

I awoke with a throbbing headache from the earlier 'session'. Ive been stuck in this cell, tortured for weeks or even months on end in 'The Lab'. My own blood was on the floor and walls of the cells, it stank like the pits of hell. Why were they doing this? Both my tank top and tactical pants were caked with blood. When was the last time I actually cleaned up? Fuck.

A group of men burst into the cell and dragged me across a long corridor, illuminated with bright white lights. A bald man with a goatee wearing a white lab coat greeted me. As from what I’ve have gathered from the conversations my captors had, his name was Sadiq.

"Jasmine, nice to see that you've... recovered. Lets begin with our next session." Sadiq smirked.

I then glanced down to find that the stab wound from the previous time you were in The Lab healed fully.

The men tied me down to a examining table, awaiting for Sadiq's instruction. Not having enough energy to resist them, I laid there, exhausted and hopeless, awaiting the pain that’s about to come. Then, out of nowhere, men were shouting outside the Lab, followed by guns firing. Sadiq looked worried, terrified even and ran out of the room. Not so tough now huh.

Minutes later, the entire facility sat in a deafening silence. I started to realize why Sadiq was scared shitless. Something took out the entire facility within minutes. Strapped to the table, i was left defenseless. Unable to turn my head, I heard the door opening behind, followed by a dark shadow with... pointy ears? Was this a joke? A face loomed over, it was covered by a cowl. The man’s face was impossible to read. He then sunk a syringe into your neck as you slowly faded into oblivion.

Whispers were heard as you laid on what felt like a metal surface. “You can’t just bring someone like this into the cave Master Bruce. Especially not a criminal!”, a British sounding voice exclaimed. “She’s in need of immediate medical attention that even the best hospital in Gotham can’t provide,” a deeper, American sounding voice replied.  How was I a criminal?

They’re going to torture me again. Another one of Sadiq’s mind games. The man in the mask moved towards me, his face inches away.

“Why are you in Gotham,” he growled.

“ I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I blatantly said.

“Let me ask you once more. Why. Are. You. In. Gotham.” The man in the mask repeated.

I remained silent. No point answering him anymore. He remained silent for a while, thinking.

“Do you remember fighting me?” He asked.

“No.” I answered.

“Do you remember fighting me for that thumbdrive?”

“Uhm no.” I hesitated. What on earth?

“She doesn’t remember a single thing from 6 months ago.” The man in the mask said to the older guy in a suit standing beside him, both seemed… vexed. Maybe I was really rescued.

The man then turnt to the machine and administered another substance into the IV drip. Before I could panic, I immediately felt the effect of the knockout drug, as waves of fatigue crashed over me, before I drifted back into nothingness.

I woke up to warm rays of sunlight on my face. Sunlight. Huh. It’s been forever since I’ve seen the sun. Last time I saw it… well, Sadiq almost executed me. Just one of his mind games.

“Good morning Miss.” The British guy walked in the room just as I was about stand up. I tensed up, my body on alert. I’m much stronger now, I can fight back. “You’re safe here. Don’t worry Miss…?”

“Jasmine. You can just call me Jasmine.” I managed to stutter out. That’s what I presume, my name I mean. Sadiq always calls me that. I never knew my name, I can’t even remember who were my parents.

“At your service Miss Jasmine. Oh, where are my manners. Alfred Pennyworth, at your service. If you need anything, ring the bell.” He gestured to your nightstand where a dainty-looking hand bell stood.

“Yes… Sure, thank you. May I ask where am I?” I probed. This sounded too good to be true.

“You’re staying in Wayne Manor, Bruce Wayne’s ‘house’” He replied.

Who? Who the tell was that? I gave a puzzled look to him. I heard him mutter under his breath, “Oh dear Lord, this is even worse than what Master Bruce has made it to be.”

He cleared his throat, “Would you like a tour around the manor Miss Jasmine?”

With that, I was cooped up in this manor for 2 months, recuperating. Not that I’m complaining, it’s been the best days of my life. On the plus side, I was getting stronger everyday, getting smarter everyday. I eventually found out who Bruce Wayne was, billioniare ‘playboy’, secretly Batman. Funny how I knew Batman first before Bruce Wayne. But like all the Robins before me, I found hope again.

The first time I met Bruce  (a few days after I woke up in the manor),  I hugged him. I know, totally not the most awkward thing to ever do when you first meet the Batman.  Still, no regrets. “Thank you. For saving me.” I choked out. He smiled (HE ACTUALLY SMILED). And that was our first non-hostile exchange of information. He’s the sweetest person, although he doesn’t actually show it. He became a father figure to me after the 2 months.

As weeks passed, he started teaching me martial arts as I recovered. ‘To neutralize threats’ he would tell me, ‘is to take each and everyone of them down in the fastest way possible’ as he fucking flips me across the room.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m never becoming a Robin, Damien would murder me. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’m not cut out for this shit. I’ve had countless sleepless nights, even with the knowledge I’m safe, I can never sleep properly without medication. It’s a problem, I know. Thus, I would conclude, everytime I had an internal argument on taking up Robin’s mantel, I would never get that lovely 8h of sleep if I were to become Robin.

Meanwhile, as I’m fantasizing about my plans to take Sadiq down with the new learnt moves Bruce has taught me, I walked around the house. Then one day, I saw a figure looming over a picture in the library. Fuck is that a ghost? I’ve always heard stories from Dick that the manor had tons of wandering spirits.

As I inspected closer, it was a man. Around 6’2, in a grey tactical suit with a red bat symbol. As he sensed someone’s prescence, his head suddenly turnt to my direction, staring right back at me.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked, getting ready to fight if there was a need.

He laughed, “What the fuck are you doing here? Alfred let me in don’t worry. “ He paused awhile and continued, “OH you’re the girl, Alfred’s talking about! You’re a clone or something right? Hi, I’m Jason Todd, former robin, now red hood.” He remarked.

“What th- First of all fuck you, I lost my memory I’m not a fucking clone. Second, name’s Jasmine, you shitfuck.” Shit was that too rude? FUCK.

Jason chuckled,”Woah, feisty. Nice to meet you Jasmine. Are you planning to fight Damien to overthrow him as Robin? Or are you going to take the Spoiler route?”

“Huh, definitely fighting Damien.” I joked.

Jason and I… We hit it off. It’s kinda like the dynamic I have with Dick, only much much more inappropriate. I talked all the way into the night as he drove you to what he termed “the most beautiful view in Gotham”.

“Woah.” I marveled at the city lights of Gotham city as both of us reached the rooftop of a rickety old brick building. “I gotta admit Jason, I had my doubts.”

“Never judge a book by its cover clonegirl.” He remarked.

“Fuck you.” I rolled my eyes.

Both our feet hung off the rooftop, sitting next to Jason’s childhood gargoyle, letting the stillness of the night fill the atmosphere. The view was amazing. 

However, as I looked down, cop cars raced off along the road. I was reminded of the crimes that people were committing during Gotham nights. Then one thought led to the other, I was in Sadiq’s Lab again, filled with fear. Agony. Pain. Fuck this wasn’t the first time I’m having these flashbacks, but every. Damn. Time. It feels the same.

“Jason, do you ever have flashbacks?” I broke the silence.

“Of wha- Oh. Yea. I have them. Not the best thing when it happens. Although it did make me zone out when I was tortured down in Qurac.Why?” He remarked.

“Huh, nice. I just don’t know what to do. You can’t stop the images from forming you know? It’s not… I can’t.” My brain was not working.

“Fuck, what happened Jasmine?”

“I was tortured too. By a man named Sadiq. For months, the pain I was put through was unbearable. But he just won’t let me die. Whenever I wake up, my wounds, even a punctured lung, stab wounds… They’ve all been healed.” I rambled, before I knew,  tears started streaming down my cheeks. “ Oh fuck. Sorry. You really don’t have to know that.”

“Hey hey, its going to be ok. You can cope with it. You’re here now right? Let’s start with that” Jason said, as he hugged be. Oh god. The warmth that radiates off him. I want this hug to last forever.

I sniffed, “I guess you’re right.”

I asked him all questions on coping with all these and he has been the best support. Don’t get me wrong here, Alfred and Bruce has helped me so much through these weeks of rehab but the emotional trauma… I don’t want to cast that burden on them, or anyone.

Jason and I, I realized, shares a lot of common things. We went through surprisingly similar experiences, similar tastes, humor…

“And that was how I knew I’ve done fucked up this time.” Jason concluded on his story on bringing a muddy raccoon back into the manor when he was 15. We were sitting shoulder to shoulder, sitting closer and closer together as our conversation and the night went on.

As we watched the sunrise, I rested my head on his shoulders. I felt him tense up. Ohhh shit, bad move Jasmine. He relaxed again as he let out a breath, resting his head on mine. Relief washed over me.

“We talked an entire day.” Jason cleared his throat as he got up from the ledge, “We should get some rest.” I guess he must’ve seen the disappointed look on my face. He then added,” You free tomorrow? Let’s go on a day trip to NYC.”

“Yea sure.” I chuckled. Is he leading me on? I don’t know.

As we arrived at the porch of the manor, we said our farewells.

“See you tomorrow, pick you up at 0800. Rest well doll.” He said, with the most mischievious looking smile ever.

“See you soon Jay.”

Thank you for 100 followers and for surviving this long ass read at my first shot at a fanfiction! I opted to go for 1st person instead of reader x Jason fic as I found it more challenging to write from that POV.This story also starts off on the first few issues of RHATO Rebirth. If i can, I’ll be following this series close to the current comics! :) Also, much much more fluff & action is planned out for this series! (I’ll keep on writing no matter) Already planned out a tie-in for #25 so hope yall would like it! Hope this concepts works out with logic haha. Any suggestions/tips for writing, pls comment! Much appreciated :) AND ALSO WHAT A TIME TO POST THIS YALL IMMA KICK START JASON TODD BIRTHDAY WEEK HERE WITH THIS STAY TUNED xoxo

[silver-the-cat]

7 Thorns in My Side - Part 1

A Jacksepticeye (And Egos) fanfiction

Summary: The demon has won. Jack is now trapped in a coma, the others are nothing more than mere puppets, and he finally has a physical form that he can use to wreak havoc on this realm. Absolutely nothing else can stop him, nothing at all. Or at least, that’s what he’d like to say. A certain group of 7 egos, all of whom with some kind of relation to Jack and the others, have risen and are determined to make sure the demon falls, for good this time.

It had been months, months since one of their doctors suddenly returned unannounced and with a patient, seemingly unconscious. It didn’t even take long for them to realize that it wasn’t just some simple injury or an illness, this patient was completely comatose.

Marie had only begun working a few weeks prior to the whole incident, only hearing stories of this doctor before his sudden return. Even when she did get the chance to meet the man himself, something about him struck her the wrong way. And the fact he suddenly turned up without any warning with a patient who had fallen into a literal coma certainly didn’t help that feeling of unrest. She had tried voicing this concern to her coworkers, only to be told she was merely being paranoid. 

She tried to convince herself that she was just overthinking things, frequently dispelling those intrusive thoughts as she performed her daily routines, checking in on patients and filing paperwork. It just so happened that on this particular day, she was given the job of checking up on the strange patient.

Marie hesitated for a moment outside the room’s door, hand hovering over the doorknob. Something about this patient, it also struck her the wrong way. From what they could tell, this man was in perfect health, aside from the whole ‘being in a coma’ part. They couldn’t find any sign of trauma that could’ve induced the coma, nor could they find any life-threatening disease. In all truth, he shouldn’t have even been in the hospital at all if it weren’t for the coma. Obviously, something was up with him. Something very unnatural.

“Alright, last patient for now…” She said, taking a deep breath. She finally grabbed the doorknob, pushing the door open slowly. “I know there is a very slim chance you’ll answer, but Mr. McLoughlin? I’m one of the nurses, I’m merely here for a routine check-up.” As she expected, absolutely no answer. The patient simply laid in the bed, almost as if he was dead to the rest of the world. Marie took in another breath as she set about her duties. She checked the heart rate, replaced anything that needed to be replaced, and cleaned out the rest of the room. As she finished throwing out the last piece of garbage, she turned back to face the patient, only to nearly have a heart attack.

The man was sitting up in his bed, letting out hoarse, extremely labored breaths every so often. He wasn’t looking at her, or at anything in particular really. Instead, he simply stared blankly ahead, even giving Marie goosebumps. But that wasn’t what terrified her the most.

It was the fact that blood was falling from his eyes like tears.

“M-Mr. McLoughlin? Are you…o-okay?!” Marie yelped, rushing over. “W-What’s going on? Can you h-hear me? Can you speak o-or--?!” The door swung open loudly before she knew it, also nearly giving her a heart attack.

“Nurse! Vhat iz going on?!” Marie turned, not sure whether to be relieved or even more worried at the sight of the doctor, Dr. Schneeplestein if she could remember correctly. The very same doctor she had been afraid of.

“D-Doctor, I’m not sure what. W-When I entered, he s-seemed stable enough!” Marie stammered as Schneeplestein walked over, causing her to back away as he attempted to get a closer look. “But w-when I turned around, h-he was sitting up like this, w-what’s even going on?! W-Will he be okay, I-I’ve never seen anything like this before!” Schneeplestein didn’t reply for a few moments, instead choosing to carefully push the patient onto his back once more while also leaning in a bit closer. This only left Marie even more clueless as to what exactly was going on or even what he was doing, since he was obscuring her view completely.

“Zhere, he should be stable for now….” The Doctor said after a moment of him doing something rather quietly. “....I’m terribly sorry you had to have vitnessed zhat, Nurse. But I assure you….everyzhing has been taken care of.”

“A-Are you sure?! Sir, he was literally b-bleeding from his eyes. A-And it sounded a-as if he was having trouble breathing as well!” Marie pointed out. “M-Maybe I should go find another doctor, j-just in case?” Schneeplestein spun around suddenly, panic strangely flashing across his face for a brief second.

“No, no, no! It’s fine, I can vatch him if you’re really zhat vorried!” He said quickly, holding up a hand. “He’ll be perfectly fine, I assure you! Vhy don’t you,” he moved away from the patient’s bedside, instead taking Marie by the shoulders as he began pushing her towards the door, “go see vhat else zhey need you for? I’m sure you have much, much more vork to do!” 

“But, sir, I--” She started, only to have the door nearly slam shut in her face. For a few moments, she merely stood at the door and stared at it, completely confused about what had just happened. But, Schneeplestein was right, she did have more work to do. 

At least, she thought as she slowly began to walk off down the hall, I’d have one hell of a story to tell during break.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, Schneeplestein has his back to the door, leaning his head back against the wood while one hand was also planted firmly on his forehead. An empty syringe was clenched firmly in his other hand, remnants of a bright green fluid still dripping from the very tip of the needle.

“God dammit….how much longer….?” He muttered under his breath, just before sighing. “I can’t keep zhis up forever….Somevone vill find out eventually…..”

“Oh please, I have my ways of making sure nobody does.” A voice, sounding as if it directly next to him, giggled. Barely flinching, he moved his hand and looked back to the room. In the farthest corner of the room, the shadowy outline of a man stood, the only things visible were two glowing green dots where eyes would be. If you looked closely as well, there was something reflective right on his throat, giving off a dark red metallic shine even in the dim light. “What’s more important than whether or not you can keep your own damn mouth shut is whether or not you’re doing your job.”

“Of course I am, you’d torture me if I didn’t.” Schneeplestein snapped back, walking away from the door and back to the patient’s bedside. The shadow merely gave a small snort, not moving from his place at all. “Vhat do you vant now. I’ve been doing everyzhing you’ve told me so far. For months now at zhis point.”

“Am I never allowed to just pay a small visit? Who can blame me if I want to see my favorite BOY?” The figure laughed, almost definitely grinning if he wasn’t before. “Or to know how the Good doctor is? And if he was doing his job properly. I nearly lost my body for a minute there. How badly are you even screwing things up if he was able to get up?”

“Obviously not bad enough for you to still be here, vhining and moaning to me about all of this.” Schneeplestein hissed. “I have it all under control. Vhy don’t you just get back to being zhe “puppet master” as you enjoy calling yourself.” Almost immediately, he knew that was the exact wrong thing to say. The air suddenly grew cold and sharp with what felt like anger. As he turned, something thin and grey shot out from where the figure stood, coiling itself tightly around his own throat and causing him to stop dead in his tracks.

“You’re extremely lucky I don’t kill you right here, right now.” The figure said coldly, holding the end of the grey thing tightly in one hand. “But I swear, I won’t hesitate to put a knife right in your throat. Just give me a reason to.”

“I….If you h-haven’t....” Schneeplestein somehow managed to choke out, fighting against the thing as much as he could. “K….Killed me yet….or even t-turned me into a….a puppet…..zhen I doubt you vo...vould kill me now….” The figure growled, before roughly pulling the grey thing back and even jerking the doctor forwards slightly. Despite this, the thing was somehow loosened and gave Schneeplestein the chance to yank it off. “It’s clear you need me, alive and not under your control.”

“Do you want a prize for figuring that out?” The figure said, suddenly making the grey thing disappear in a flash of red. “So what? I apparently can’t kill you. But does that mean I can’t make your life a living hell if you don’t do exactly as I say?” No reply from Schneeplestein, especially since he didn’t have any kind of snappy comeback to that at all. “Well, that would be to say your life isn’t already hell. But I’m sure the point still stands.”

“....I cannot describe how much I vish to hit you vith a chair right now….” Schneeplestein said through clenched teeth, glaring down the figure who merely laughed.

“I’d suggest you control those urges then, doctor. Unless you’d rather I harm one of your friends again….” The figure replied, obviously getting a real kick out of this entire situation. “We wouldn’t want that, now would we? Get back to work too, I’m not about to lose my body yet again.” With one last giggle, the figure seemed to melt back into the shadows, leaving Schneeplestein alone with the patient once more. He turned back around, rubbing the back of his neck with a sigh.

He truly did not know how much more he could take, at all.

((Boom, brand new story and an original one two. Obviously enough, everything in this story is based off of everything we believe to be happening right now. Examples being the coma, Anti returning, and Anti even having a physical form. This takes a look at a what if? What if Anti succeeds? What if he succeeds in picking off the egos, one by one, and placing them under his control? And what if he manages to get an actual physical form?

My mind kinda ran wild with this idea, and the ideas that followed. I won’t reveal everything quite yet, but I very much enjoy what I’m trying here. And I hope you all enjoy it too! However many people actually decide to read this, that is.

As for Wonderland, I’ve hit a bit of a brain fart, so it might take a bit longer for that to come out. My sincerest apologies, but I just have had no motivation to work on it at all. I promise I’m still gonna finish it! It just might take a while.

Alrighty, long rambling author’s note done. PEACE))

[wowiejimin]

Safe - Chapter 1

This is a rewrite of my previous fic, “Safe”, after almost a year of publishing it and not working on it ever since, I’ve come back to it but with a slightly new plot :) Enjoy!

I’ve made a hashtag under “wowiejimin safe fic” just to make it easier to find :)

Pairing: Gang Member!Jimin x Weak Heart!Genius!Reader

Genre: Angst, Romance, Lots of Action, Humor, Fluff, & Smut (In the Future)

Length: 3.2k

Warnings: Swearing, Blood, Death, Smut (In the Future), Drugs, Drug Injection, Needles, IDK JUST A LOT OF TORTURE YKNOW OMG

Members Included: All of BTS, other KPop groups in the future

Chapter List Next Chapter

In his world, being a part of a mafia gang, known as Bangtan Boys, is a bit terrifying. They were truly a filthy rich and powerful group that everyone feared. 22-year old Jimin was described as the stealthiest and most skilled member of Bangtan, playing an important part in their group. Whereas for 20-year-old (Y/N), a genius with a weak heart is suffering inside the cruel world as she is punished and experimented on the daily basis. Jimin finds himself protecting a gifted girl whose memory can hold numerous things in a blink of an eye. Jimin finds an interest in her, visioning that she may be a valuable asset to their group. Jimin has never paid attention to girls. However, that started to change when he met her.

The young woman was thrown to the ground, grunting in pain. The man then punched her in the stomach, growling before grabbing her upper arm, sitting her down in front of his boss, also known as the leader of the Void. He stared at her unamusingly, “You’re lying to me.” She shook her head, “I’m not.” She replies, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I swear–!” She rambled and he cut her off, shaking his head, “You’re lying, and if you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll be using that lighter over there and use it on your body.” He threatened as her breath hitched. The leader then took out a sheet of paper, holding up a pen to her face, “For the last time, give me the numbers.” He yelled, slamming the pen down on the desk, making every other object on the desk shake.

A FEW DAYS EARLIER ~

Loud cries filled the porcelain white hall, “N-No!” The young woman cried as the two men, carrying her by her fragile arms, dragged her towards the one room she despised the most. The Injection Room is what she calls it.

(Y/N) whimpered as they strapped her to the bed, stopping her from escaping. “A-Appa!” She screamed, “Please–!” She was cut off as the men wrapped her mouth with duct tape. Her muffled cries bounced off the walls and echoed in the hallway. The man whom she called Appa looked down at her, the syringe in his hand. She stared at the sharp and thick needle, little droplets of the drug oozing out. She took short breaths as the man smiled, covering her eyes with his free hand before roughly stabbing the thick and long needle into her neck.

Muffled screams and cries came out of the young woman’s taped mouth. The man slowly injected the substance into her before pulling the needle out. Although he finished, the muffled cries continued. The man nodded at his men as they all left the room, turning off the lights, leaving the woman in the dark alone.

(Y/N) loud screams slowly got quieter and quieter and she felt her body twitch. Her eyes then rolled back, closing her eyes shut. She couldn’t even hear her own sobs, couldn’t feel her hot tears run down her flushed cheeks. 

Her body was intensified with burning sensations yet she felt cold.

~/~

Tired.

It was the only word that could come up, close to describing her current feeling. Her whole body felt frozen to the point she couldn’t imagine on ever moving again.

Deep breathes were only heard in her cell as she huddled her small body into the very corner of the room, shivering as she stayed away from the door as much as possible.

“You did absolutely amazing today, (Y/N).” The husky and rugged voice echoed in her cell as the man let out a little chuckle. “I’ve won thousands because of you.” He said, looking at the girl.

(Y/N) looked at the man who was her so-called father. (Y/N) didn’t do anything but stare back at the man with slightly terrified eyes. (Y/N) referred him to as Appa as he was the only person who kinda took care of her since she was abducted.

She wasn’t referred by her own name but was labelled as Tiny by the others as she was rather smaller than the rest of the test subjects. Although she was small, she was a genius. Her greatest strength lied in her intelligence.

(Y/N) shivered as the man chuckled once more before shutting the door, leaving the young woman in complete darkness.

She remembered the day she was taken away from her mother, never seeing her again after that.

(Y/N) wrote an equation on the board, correcting her teachers work, “Try it the other way, it adds up to 467. Only one answer is correct.” She erased her work on the board and turned to her teacher, “I mean no disrespect, Mrs. Soong, but your calculations are wrong.” The other students in the class giggled and the flustered teacher glared at the younger girl, “Office.” She says and everyone stopped. (Y/N) widens her eyes and obeyed anyway.

The principal sighed and twiddled with a pen. “Ms. (Y/N)…” He started, “We’ll be moving you to another school.” (Y/N) gasped, “Wait, what–”

“(Y/N), you’re smart, a genius. Truly a gifted child. You have to go to an appropriate school. You’ll make new friends.”

~/~

“Don’t be sad, (Y/N). We’ll always be your friends. I hear the kids in Daegu are cool, you’ll have a good time there.” Her friend reassured. (Y/N) was originally from Busan, but knowing that she’ll be moving to Daegu made her nervous. (Y/N) and her friends walked on the busy streets, coming home from school. (Y/N) sighs, “I don’t even like numbers. I like it here. I don’t want new friends.” She whined and her friend laughed, “Of course. But don’t worry, I’ll send you a letter every week.” (Y/N)’s face lit up, “You promise?”

“Of course. Think you want me to miss out on having a famous friend? It’s going to be great, (Y/N).” (Y/N) smiled up at her friend. Suddenly, a hand grasped her wrist and started to drag her away from her friend. “(Y/N)!” He screamed and the mysterious man shoved (Y/N) into the car, driving away. The young girl panicked, looking around. “Hold tight, kid.” The man smirked and they drove off to a peculiar place.

Within 20 minutes or so, they arrived at their destination. The man who grabbed her guided her to a building and led her to an office. A man in his 20’s was seated in front of a wooden desk and smiled. "Ah, (Y/N)!” He stood up and pointed at a girl her age, who sat in the corner of the room. “This is my niece, Soohyun. Recognise her?” He asked and she nodded, “S-She’s in my class.” The man nodded, “She says your mind is like a computer. We spoke to your teacher and she said the same thing. That’s why you’re here.” He rested his hands on her shoulders, “Lovely girl.” He mumbled as he grazed his finger softly on her chin. (Y/N) grimaced in disgust and he sighed, “Computers are so annoying.” He walks to his desk and smiled, “They say what you learn you never forget, is that so?” He asked and she shook her head, afraid of what was going to happen.

The man grew furious. He had an abacus calculator set on his desk and mixed the beads around randomly, “Then we will go to your home and kill your mother for making such a stupid girl!” He shouted making (Y/N) jump. He sat down and (Y/N) felt the tears welling up.

She had always known that her mother was always so ill. All (Y/N) knew is that her mother participated in projects as a test subject until she was pregnant with her. And with her being a part of a project, handling with tons of drugs and stress, (Y/N) was born with a weak heart. Other than that, her mother was all she had.

She quickly ran to the calculator and solved the problem as fast as she could. Within seconds, she finished. The man smirked, slowly clapping his hands. “So they are telling the truth. Mrs Soong said your father ran away when you were very little, left your mother, and your mother is very ill.” He looked at her as she held her tears in. “Soon you will be all alone. Do you want that?” (Y/N) slowly shook her head and he smiled, standing up. “Then we will take good care of your mother,” He turned to the man that drove her here. “This is Banjo, your new father. He’ll take you to Seoul, where you will count for us.”

It’s been almost 10 years since she’s been taken away. Now at 20-years-old, (Y/N) was trained by the man, Banjo whom she called Appa, in the laboratory through tests and experiments.

She was a subject of at least eight experiments which involved violent and unpleasant doings. (Y/N) tried her absolute best not to fail through these fights or experiments. But if she were to fail even just by a little bit, (Y/N) would be dragged into and locked in a cell with other punished test subjects for great periods of time with no food. She whimpered at the thought, remembering that there was a dead body present in the same room, probably died due to starvation.

This caused an experience of which severely scared (Y/N) with a fear of confinement and loneliness.

(Y/N)‘s breath hitched as she searched for warmth in her body. She winced as she gently grazed over a slightly swollen area on her back from a brutal whipping.

The things (Y/N) had to do with Banjo was absolutely tiresome and scary. After receiving many doses of the drugs, she was sent to underground gambling parties, using her intelligence to win the man tons of money. Sometimes she is even used for underground fights as a scrapper.

She was trained under a man to learn how to fight, who Banjo hired. But as soon as her trainer was killed by Banjo’s men for helping (Y/N) escape, she has been teaching herself.

Although her intelligence was her greatest strength, it doesn’t mean her physical strength is as powerful. However, her combat skills are shown to be more or less average, and she has yet to be shown successfully killing a target.

(Y/N) is noted as being one of the quickest test subjects mentally and physically when it came to problem-solving or fights. She is so fast that her fights only last a few seconds. As she can easily outmanoeuvre them, she is a very difficult target for others to catch, thus her agility and balance making up for her strength.

(Y/N) sighed before closing her eyes slowly, lifting them up every few seconds whenever a sudden noise was heard. All she had in her cell was a small tray of food and herself, tucked into the very corner of the room.

(Y/N) truly did not like to fight or use her intelligence for something that is not useful for her own being. At least in a way where thousands of people are bidding on you and where you’re forced to gamble or fight others in order survive or to not get punished.

She didn’t think that her life with her so-called new father would be like this. She thought far from that until he stuck the needle into her neck for the first time when she was only 11-years-old.

Not only that, but she had a weak heart. She knew was that her mother was a test subject as well and once she gave birth to her, (Y/N) was born with something called Heart Murmur. Although it wasn’t a disease, it may indicate an underlying heart problem.

(Y/N) hissed quietly, feeling the agonizing pain in her chest, placing both her hands to help ease the pain. The man that practically controlled her did nothing to help with her weak heart. But they did mention that they indeed put something to help ease the side effects of her weak heart in the drugs. However, (Y/N) thinks otherwise, knowing it’s only making it worse.

The fragile woman let out a cough before closing her eyes shut, hoping that the time before her next event gives her enough time to rest and heal.

~/~

(Y/N) sighed, rolling her side, placing a hand on her heart, slightly feeling the uneven heartbeat on her palm. She sweated nervously, waiting for the doctor. Once every two weeks, (Y/N) is checked up by the doctor and to hear if there was any other way to cure her heart problem. There was one way, but they deemed it was too risky. A valve replacement.

For as long as she could remember, her heart was in terrible condition ever since she was born. In short, she was born with an abnormal heartbeat, meaning abnormal heart murmur. It was the abnormal sounds of the heart due to turbulent blood flow. And that’s what (Y/N) had. Although there were innocent and harmless types of heart murmur, she just had to get the worst one, abnormal.

With the medicine she received, taking an anticoagulant, such as aspirin or warfarin, preventing blood clots from forming in her heart and causing a heart attack or stroke.

And finally, the doctor came in with a blank face. She hasn’t always liked him. Ever since she found out that he was the one who recommended the drugs, she despised his whole existence.

“There’s no other treatment, is there?” She asked quietly. The doctor shook his head, sitting down on a chair next to the hospital bed. The doctor takes out his stethoscope, lifting the earbuds to his ears and the chest-piece to her chest. (Y/N) watched as he listens to her heartbeat with bored eyes.

The doctor lets out a sigh before documenting notes on his clipboard. “It seems like everything is just fine, for now at least. You’re still going to have to use those anticoagulants, however. Although it seems like your heart is slowly shutting down.” He says as (Y/N) slowly sat up.

“Well, if it weren’t for those drugs that are constantly being injected into my body I would be perfectly fine right now.” She mumbled. The doctor says nothing but hands her a new bottle of medications. “Instead of taking one per day, take two.” He says before walking out.

And that’s how (Y/N)’s checkups went. They were short and boring but at least she knew how she was doing.

(Y/N) gave out a sad sigh, feeling the tears well up in her eyes. Who was she kidding, there was no way that she was getting better. Although the medication she was given actually worked, the injected drugs, the stress and pressure from the constant gambling and fighting worn her out more. Especially when it came to punishment, it was hard. Not being fed for a couple of days, not being able to take your medication and kept in a dark room for who knows how long. 

She shivered at the thought before closing her eyes, nuzzling her face into the somewhat comfortable bed. It wasn’t the best bed to sleep in, but it was by far the best thing she has ever slept on for the last 10 years.

~/~

PRESENT ~

(Y/N) sat in her dark cell; staring up at the ceiling as she chewed on the rock-hard bread she was given for breakfast. After scarfing down the bland bread, she opened her pill bottle, taking two of the small pills, swallowing them down dry. 

Suddenly, her door was opened as Banjo stood at the doorway with clothes in his hand, “(Y/N),” Banjo called and she looked at him from where she sat, “Mr. Han is here. Remember him?” He asked and she nodded, “The man that started all this.” She mumbled, referring to her life as of right now. Banjo then held up an outfit, “Take a quick shower and then change into these.” He threw the plastic bag of clothes to her chest, leaving.

(Y/N) scoffed before walking out of the cell, making her way towards the showers with two security guards following closely, making sure that she won’t escape. During her life here, all she wore was a hospital gown. But when it came to fighting or gambling, she wore something more appropriate for those events.

She locked the door behind her, placing the set of clothes on the counter before stripping the gown off her small body. She then turned on the shower, rinsing herself with the cold water.

She sighed, continuing to get ready.

~/~

After a few minutes, (Y/N) walked in wearing a simple black circle skirt and a white button down short sleeve shirt. Mr. Han smiled widely, “Ah, (Y/N), you’ve grown into a beautiful young woman.” He says walking towards her before guiding her to a table.

It’s been almost 10 years since she last saw him which was right before she came to the laboratory when she was just 10-years-old.

He pulled out a sheet of paper, placing it in front of (Y/N). (Y/N) scanned the sheet, noting that it was just full of numbers. “I want you to take this to your room and I want you to memorise it. Then—“

“I’ve memorised it.” She says and Mr. Han looked at her surprised, “(Y-Y/N), this is a very important number. For your mother’s sake, answer me carefully.”  He stared at her in the eyes, “Are you sure you’ve memorised it?” He asked and she nodded, “I’m positive. I can tell you without looking at it.” (Y/N) says with a blank face as Mr. Han chuckled.

Banjo came in with a smirk, joining the two, “If she says she remembers it, she remembers it.” He looked at her as she stared at him with slightly furrowed brows, “I can vouch for that.” Mr. Han chuckled, “Then I have an important job for you.” He turned to the young woman, taking the sheet of paper, crumpling it and throwing it into the fireplace, burning it.

~/~

They all left the laboratory, Banjo guiding (Y/N). Missions like these were normal to her, memorising many numbers and solving puzzles for Banjo. However, she never really knew why.

It’s been a long time since (Y/N) has seen the sun. Most of the time when she was out with Banjo, it was either midnight or it was raining.

She smiled softly, looking at the bright blue sky, loving the feeling of the warm sun on her skin.

“These are your instructions; Banjo will take you to a man who has the second set of numbers. You will memorise it and then you’ll be taken to another location where your final instructions are given.” Mr. Han instructed. (Y/N) only nodded, understanding the plan.

(Y/N) sat in the back of the car with Banjo and the rest of his men.

Banjo looked at her with a smile, “You’re learning fast, kid.” Is all he says before a van crashes into their car. The window was shattered and the glass shards stuck to everyone’s skin. Men then came out of the strange van, shooting their guns at the car they were in.

(Y/N) panicked, “W-What’s happening?” She muttered to herself as a gun was pointed at her face. She widens her eyes at Banjo, who looked at her with wide eyes as well. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let them have you,” Banjo says before a bullet was shot at the windshield, stopping him from killing (Y/N).

(Y/N) gasped and quickly got out of the car while Banjo was distracted, only to be grabbed by another man she didn’t recognize. More cars came into the scene, killing the rest of Banjo’s men. (Y/N) yelped and desperately tried to escape, only to have the man to hit her by the grip of the gun, throwing her into the van.

==

jimin will be making an appearance in the next chapter !! :3 thank you for reading ~~

[gaiyofanfiction]

Save Me

Chapter 1: Second Time? - Chapter 2: Awake - Chapter 3: First Love - Chapter 4: Mama - Chapter 5: Reflection - Chapter 6: Lie - Chapter 7: Stigma - Chapter 8: Begin - Chapter 9: Taken - Chapter 10: Torture - Chapter 11: The Plan - Chapter 12: The Escape

Reader X Jungkook

Mental Hospital AU

Angst/Thriller/Romance

Disclaimer: This story is pure fiction. We did take their personalities and match as best we can with illnesses, however we do not claim that the boys from BTS have these mental illnesses! Also, we did as much research as we can on each disorder. We are not meaning to offend anyone who has these illnesses at all. ALSO, WE DO KNOW BTS CHANGED THEIR ENGLISH NAME TO BEYOND THE SCENE BUT WE’RE USING BULLETPROOF BOYSCOUTS CAUSE IT FITS THE STORY BETTER.

Trigger warning: Mentions of mental illness, hospitals, self harm, suicide attempt and abuse. Both Gaisho and I recommend, if you feel like you need to go to the hospital for ANY reason, please don’t be afraid to do so. It can help. If you EVER feel like you need to talk to anyone, vent, or need advice on anything, please do not hesitate to msg us! We’ve been through it all.

Chapter 1: Second Time?:

        “The Ambulance is on its way,” your foster mother sighs as she sits down in front of you.

        You look out the window of the living room, your body shaking as you hold the blood stained towel to your arms. The expressionless look on your face tells her you’re either not paying attention or you don’t really care.

        “Hunny, this is the second time this week you’ve done this.” She looks at you with worry.

         You don’t even glance her way making her sigh again. ‘Second time this week? What is she talking about?’

        She stares at you when suddenly she yells out in frustration, startling you. “Why do you do this, Y/N?! You always act like you’re not ever here! Like your mind is somewhere else and then you go and do something like this! Don’t you think that after every other foster family passed you off, you would have stopped by now?!”

        You stare at her wide-eyed, but continued to stay silent. Why argue with someone you weren’t even sure was real? Your head turns back to the window, making your foster mother throw her hands up in defeat. You hear in the distance the sirens from the ambulance. Suddenly your vision starts to turn black as your consciousness fades.

        You start to regain consciousness. Loud sirens go off as you are jostled around. You try to look around and figure out where you are.

        “Ahhh, there she is! Thought we lost you for a second,” says the front driver as he gives a smile in your direction.

        “W-what?” you stutter, completely confused. You lazily look around trying to refocus your vision. You are able to make out a bunch of medical equipment and you feel yourself strapped to a gurney.

        “Yeah, you lost a lot of blood back there. But, luckily we were able to control the bleeding and you should be alright,” says the driver, as he stays focused on the road.

        The other man in the passenger side leans in to whisper to the driver, “Dude, this is the second time this week.”

        ‘Second time this week? What do they mean?’ You blankly stare outside the window of the rig. You’re not sure what to think, there are no other words on your mind. However, you start to slowly doze off.

         Time passes. You wake up to the noise of beeping machines around you. You shift your heavy body to sit up and see where you are. ‘The hospital? Why am I here?’

        You see a man and a woman talking to a doctor outside the doorway of your room. Disappointment filled their eyes as the doctor walks away. They quickly enter your room and the woman gets uncomfortably close to your face.

        “Seriously, Y/N? This is the second time this week, let alone how many times this MONTH! You realize how much of an inconvenience you’ve been?” says the angry woman. ‘Who is she and why is she so close to my face? Are they…Are they my parents?’

        The woman sighs and crosses her arms, taking a step back. “Stop giving me that look! You look really stupid right now. You know what, I’m done. There’s a reason why you’ve bounced around so much in the foster system. I can’t do this anymore.” With those words she storms out of the room. The man that was with her looks at you with sadness and follows suit.

        ‘Well, that was interesting’. Confused by her statement you cock your head. Just then the same doctor as before comes into the room. “Hi there, my name is Dr. Samuels. I am going to ask you a series of questions and then we’ll go from there. Is that okay?” You give the man a small nod.

        “Good. Do you know where you are?” You nod your head, not speaking, although your eyes wander.

        “Do you know why you’re here?” You start to nod, but you end up shaking your head fairly hard and start to clench your eyes closed.

        “Y/N, you attempted suicide. You had cut your wrists pretty badly. It seems like you knew what you were doing with the way you cut. You also left a note for your foster parents.” You start to nervously scratch your neck and with your other hand you clench the railing of the cart, not making eye contact with the doctor.

        He notices the beginnings of an anxiety attack, but continues anyway, “based on your history of suicide attempts, chronic depression, bipolar behavior, derealization disorder and dissociative amnesia, I had recommended to your foster parents that it would be wise to put you in an inpatient facility to get you back up on your feet. We’re working on you getting processed right now. The psychologist will be coming in to talk to you soon. It’s going to be alright, Y/N.”

        Your face shows no sign of life as you slump into the stiff mattress. ‘Who am I? Who are these people? Attempted suicide? I don’t understand! I can’t remember a damn thing!’

        You start to scream and thrash. “NO! NO! NO! GET ME OUT OF HERE! AHHHHHH!” Nurses immediately rush to your side and try to hold you down. The doctor quickly hands over a syringe to the nurse and orders for you to be sedated. Though you fight them, you feel the pinch in your arm and the room around you starts to fade away into darkness.

        Once again you slowly come to, but this time you’re in a wheelchair. You try to move your arms and legs, but they’re tightly strapped in. You sigh in defeat, clearly not getting anywhere. You look up to notice a very unusually happy woman.

        “Hi there! Welcome to one of the best behavioral facilities in the nation: ‘Be Free Behavioral’.” The woman speaking to you is quirky and extremely smiley. It actually annoys you and slightly creeps you out. You just give her a grim facial expression as she continues to talk to you.

        “At ‘Be Free Behavioral’, we encourage all of our patients to freely express themselves during the process of healing. Hence our name, ‘Be Free’, hehe, get it?” She says with an intense smile.

        “Yeah, I don’t feel like I’m ‘free’ here,” you raise a brow as you look down at your restraints.

        “Haha! You’re so funny! C’mon now, it’s time for proper introductions!” The lady pushes you into the lounge where you’re surrounded by several other patients. Your hands clench the arm rests of the wheelchair as your eyes rapidly survey the room. You try to relax your breathing. You are not usually around this many people at once.

        “Alright everyone! We have a newbie here with us today! Hehe. Let’s all go around the room and state our names. Remember, no last names!” This lady is way too perky for your liking. “Let’s start from the left side of the room and work our way around. Shall we?” She motions to a cluster of seven good-looking men.

        Something about their presence makes you feel at ease. Your eyes move to the first one.

        “Hi, I’m Rap Monster, ah I mean Namjoon, haha. You can call me either name!” the purple-haired boy cracks a sweet smile. His dimples make you blush.

        “Ah, I’m Yoongi, but everyone calls me Suga. It’s nice to meet you,” his eyes smile, though his face remains fairly expressionless. His skin was ivory soft, and it paired well with the black hair with blue highlights.

        The next boy with light brown hair with salmon pink highlights butts in with a lot of energy, “Hi! I’m so happy to meet you. My name is Hoseok, but you can call me Hobi. I hope we can be good friends!” The very smiley boy was full of life, but that didn’t turn you away. Actually his demeanor made you feel more light-hearted.

        Next up was this cocky boy with darker brown hair. “And my name is Jin! I’m the good-looking one of the bunch. I’m really the only one you should try to remember, HA, HA, HA!” ‘Wow, this boy really cut to the chase about how he feels about himself’. His introduction makes you giggle. You also notice the others shake their heads and roll their eyes.

        “Jin, you ruin everything. Ah, my name is Jimin! I hope we make you feel more welcomed here,” he smiles and puts up a peace sign. It was very adorable.

        Coming down to the last few of the group, a light brown-haired boy speaks next. His voice is a bit deeper like the first two, “Hi, uh, my name is Taehyung, but you can call me Tae or even V. That’s what my hyung’s and dongsaeng call me.” He smiles more so with his lips without baring his teeth. His smile was sweet and comforting.

        Finally, it was the last boy to say his name. All of a sudden he became really reserved and shy. He didn’t even look at you when he says his name in a low whisper, “J-jungkook. That’s my name.” He hides behind Taehyung like a little boy. Your lips crack a smile for the first time since you arrived and chuckle at his cuteness. ‘He must not be too familiar with talking to girls’.

        There were others sounding off their names, but you don’t hear the rest because you’re so focused on the first seven boys. They stood out more to you out of everyone else here. Your memory is still foggy, you still don’t understand the events that lead you to be in this situation. You barely even knew who you were, who your parents were, or anything really. But even with all of that, those boys seem to have welcomed you with no issues, making you feel slightly more at ease.

        The overly happy woman claps her hands. “Wonderful! Now, why don’t you tell everyone your name and a little bit about yourself,” she motions to you.

       At first you weren’t really sure what to say. You bite your lip and start to tap nervously on the armrest. “I-I…I don’t know who I am…Can you tell me?”

        The lady nervously laughs, “Why, you’re Y/N, of course!” a bell dings as the clock turns two, interrupting the woman. “Well, will you look at that? Everyone, it’s free time! Please ‘be free’ and productive! Hehe.” She finally exits the lounge. ‘Jeez, how annoying can you possibly be.’

        The seven boys slowly gather around you, making you nervous. Rap Monster notices and gives a small comforting smile. He proceeds to speak calmly, “the restraints are only temporary. If you at least show that you’re on good behavior, they’ll eventually give you more autonomy.” Again he smiles. ‘Ah! Those dimples!’

        You let out a small peep and say, “I don’t… know why I’m here…” your eyes start to water up, suddenly a hand reaches out to touch yours, making you flinch slightly. It was Suga, though his face still remains expressionless. He looks off into the distance, but says to you, “don’t worry, everyone needs someone, right? We’re here for you. They call us seven the Bulletproof Boy Scouts”.

        All around you the boys smile in agreement, even Jungkook, who is still hiding behind V, smiles without looking directly at you.

        “Everyone, it’s time for medication. Please head over to the nurse’s station for your timely medications. No exceptions.” A man says, standing down the hallway at a distance. He wore a white coat and was jotting down notes on his clipboard. He was very stern and authoritative. ‘Why do I get this terrible vibe from him?’

        “W-who is he?” you whisper to the boys.

        Rap Monster lets out a shaky breath and swallows the lump in his throat, “that is Dr. Seung Ho Choi. The founder of Be Free Behavioral.”

[mary-gs-travel]

Two Days

How can I describe a months worth of time onboard the Africa Mercy in Douala, Cameroon? I am finding the task impossible, so today I set out to describe 2 days. Let’s start with this Monday.

 A Messy, Magnificent, Manic Monday on the Mercy Ship

 0630 Wake up to alarm. Climb out of top bunk as quietly as possible with a flashlight to avoid waking up my 3 roommates (If they’ve managed to sleep through my alarm). Brush teeth, wash face, and dress into my blue scrubs that I laid out on top of the mini-fridge the night before.

 0645 Walk up 1 flight of stairs to stand in line in dining hall. Grab a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee. Sit in corner and keep head down. Eye contact invites the morning people to engage you in conversation; this must be avoided until the caffeine helps my brain realize that yes, I am, in fact, awake.

 0700 Go down 2 flights of stairs to Deck 3. This is where work begins. I am assigned as Charge Nurse this dayshift, so as I step onto the ward I sign all the Day Crew in and out and make sure all our Nurses have arrived. I greet the few patients that are already awake. I lead the team in a quick prayer, and then we start handover report. I can feel the patient in Bed 10 poking my back through the curtain as we pray, and when I peak around the corner of the curtain I see her mischievous grin.

 0715 Read the notes from the weekend’s Charge Nurses. Our woman in Bed 13 has been ill since Friday with various symptoms that don’t seem to make sense.

 0730 Rounds (check on the patients) with the current surgeon onboard.

 0735 I learn that 1 of our 2 bathrooms for the patients is not draining properly and has flooded. Page the Plumber.

 0740 We’re out of a handful of medications. I scamper over to B-ward to pilfer some of what we need until Pharmacy comes by to restock our supply.

 0745 Go up to Deck 6 for Monday Morning Meeting, where I take notes to relay information given back to the nurses who are on the wards and will miss the meeting. We learn about some places to go and not to go in town and about events that will be happening on the ship this week.

 0830 Return to ward and do rounds (check on the patients) with Medical Doctor onboard. Be interrupted multiple times with questions and news that the second of our 2 toilets is no longer flushing. Send up a mental prayer that the plumber will arrive soon. Bed 4 has a hernia in addition to her childbirth injury. It causes her much discomfort, but our general surgeon is not yet onboard and the surgery schedule for hernias is already full. We can treat this patient’s women’s health issue, but not the hernia. I try to remind myself that treating something is better than nothing, but my insides feel rotten. If this women had proper access to healthcare, like I do in my home country, than she never would have suffered this childbirth injury in the first place.  

 0900 Check in with Nurse Team Leader and ask her all the questions that have arisen over the weekend and the past two hours. Hear the good news that 8 of our patients (5 who have already been discharged and 3 who are still onboard) will be in the Dress Ceremony today to celebrate their healing.

 0930 Watch as a Nurse and Day Crew inform Bed 10 that she will be in the Dress Ceremony today. Enjoy the smiles.

 1000 One of our Day Crew isn’t feeling well. At the Crew Clinic it was found she has a fever, so I sign her out to go home and rest.

 1015 The toilets and vacuum system seem to be working again, thank you to the plumber. One of our Day Crew mopped up all the water and cleaned both bathrooms without anyone asking him to.

 1030 Lab results are in, hand delivered by our Lab Crew. I page the Medical Doctor. Bed 13’s labs are not great, but not worse. Bed 10 has an infection, so after the dress ceremony she’ll need to stay a few more days for IV antibiotics. Two other patients have infections that will require antibiotics. One patient’s culture showed no infection, so she will get to be discharged tomorrow.

 1100 Meet with Admissions, OR and Team Leaders to determine what beds the patients being admitted to the hospital this evening will be placed in.  Today is a screening day for Women’s Health, and we don’t yet know who our admissions will be. Per suggestion of my Team Leader I have 3 beds set aside for admissions, but we won’t know until the last minute who those admissions will be.

 1105 Meet with Ward Supervisor to discuss nurse staffing for the next 3 shifts. She leads us in a mini-devotional before we talk about how many nurses we have and how many we need to take care of our patients.

 1130 Return to ward. Organize Nurse/Day Crew Lunch breaks. The Day Crew already had planned who would go first and who would go second.

 1200 Another Day Crew feels unwell and complains of headache. I send her to the Crew Clinic and hope no one else is going to be sick today.

 1230 Sit at desk and update patient information from the morning into the computer system while fielding questions from Nurses and Day Crew about various patient issues. Make assignments for which nurses will take care of which patients (including our still unknown admissions) on the next shift.

 1250 I say goodbye to our patient being discharged. She is in her early twenties and came to us for a biopsy of a tumor. The results showed that the patient has advanced cancer that is beyond our abilities to treat. She is being sent back home with her husband. While onboard she and her husband received counseling with our Hospital Chaplaincy Team, and we’ve sent her with pain medication to manage her symptoms, but it doesn’t feel like enough. It is not enough. She deserves so much more than this.

 1255 Go up to dining hall to grab lunch before it closes at 1300. Onion Soup and carrot sticks.

 1320 Return to Ward. Check on Patients, Nurses and Daycrew. Find a saline syringe sitting on the Charge Nurse keyboard. Squirt saline water gun style at Nurse Ashley. Watch Bed 10 laugh.

 1330 Find out that I was supposed to send half my Daycrew to a Malaria education session a half hour ago, but it’s too late now to send anyone.

 1340 Bed 13 is vomiting.

 1345 Find Malaria Education for Daycrew flyer underneath my stack of papers on the Charge Nurse desk… oh, that’s where that was. Try to input the last of the shift’s information into the computer before the next shift arrives.

 1400 Shift change. I relay all the information from Monday Morning Meeting. Then we pray together before I give a handover report in the hallway (it’s too noisy in the ward) to the Charge Nurse taking my place.

 1445 Return to the ward. All the patients except Bed 13 have been moved down the E-ward for the Dress Ceremony. I’m exhausted and am not sure if I really want to go sit for the Ceremony, but our Team Leader encourages me to go. “It’s the best part,” she says.

 1500 I’m in E-Ward for the Dress Ceremony. 8 of our Ladies are walking into the ward singing songs of praise and worship. They are dressed in bright colors and look radiant.  Our chaplaincy team has spent the morning setting up the ward and preparing the ladies. We celebrate with them and sing songs of worship. Each lady takes a turn to speak into the microphone and tell their story. They tell stories of loss turned to triumph. Each woman is presented with a gift. I get to present a gift to a patient that we all referred to as our Mama on the Ward. I have never given a gift before during a Dress Ceremony, and I am so honored that I was able to present Mama with hers.

 1600 Picture time with the ladies in their Dress Ceremony outfits. We shared lots of hugs and laughter and joy. This is also the time where it starts to become bittersweet because soon I will have to say goodbye.

 1620 I see a positive malaria test sitting on the counter in the Ward. So that’s why Bed 13 has been so ill.

 1630 I fill in a few orders in charts that I hadn’t had time to do during the dayshift. I say goodbye to the patients in the ward and give hugs to the ladies headed off the ship.

 1645 I walk up a flight of stairs, down the hallway, and into my cabin. Time to sit for a moment and process my day.

 1730 Grabbed dinner from the dining hall. Dinner is a hamburger patty on bread with carrot sticks and a papaya. I took my meal to a conference room where a group of my friends and I watched Agent Carter (we are attempting to watch all the Marvel Movies and some TV shows in chronological order during this field service).

1900 Shower

 1930 Play a round of Qwirkle with friends in the dining hall.

 2100 Climb up into my bed and watch Game of Thrones on Movienight (our online video sharing system on the ship) until I fall asleep.

   And then here is Today, Tuesday, a typical day off.

  0930 Wake up to find 2 of my roommates had woken up and left while I slept. I lay in bed drowsing a little while longer because today I have no where to rush off to.

 1000 My 3rd roommate has left and I have the cabin to myself. I turn on all the lights and use my electric kettle to boil some water to make coffee with my pour-over pot. I play some music without having to use headphones. I drink the Cameroonian coffee that I bought from the grocery store a few days ago. Sadly, it’s not very good. But I drink it slowly while I journal and relax on the couch in our room.

 1200 I get dressed and venture out of my cabin to go look out a window. The sky is grey, cloud covered. I grab some lunch (Onion Soup, again, and a salad) from the dining hall and take it to the café. I eat lunch with friends and then spend the afternoon drinking more coffee and working on this record of my days. People filter through the area and I take many breaks from writing to chat.

 1630 Nurse Ashley stops by my table to say hello. Promises revenge for yesterdays water-gun saline prank.

 1715 Dinner is being served, but I’m not hungry. I grab a plate and wrap it up to save for later because dinner closes at 1830. I change into my Cameroon-appropriate exercise gear (got to keep those knees covered) and head out to the dock. I run some laps around our dock, which is lined with cargo containers and barbed wire that serves as our “Wall”.

 1845 Watch the sunset from Deck 8. The clouds have broken up and every now and then you can see snatches of Mount Cameroon off in the distance.

 1930 Shower followed by dinner. I get a FaceTime call from home and get to see my sister and my nieces.

 2000 Back to my room to finish this.  

 So there you go. A typical day at work and a typical day off.  I felt like these two days expressed the highs and lows of ship life and working in a volunteer hospital. The pros and cons of living in such a tight knit community. The joys and sorrows of the Women’s Health ward.

[baxterholmes]

Round-up of fine sentences from This Land:

Josh thought Pastor Bob wanted to say he was sorry for what had happened. He also thought Pastor Bob was taking him to lunch. But it soon became clear that Josh was paying his own way, and Pastor Bob was not there to apologize. Josh ordered a glass of water and watched Pastor Bob eat.

“He quoted scriptures about how I was sinning against God for coming against his church, his ministry,” Josh remembers. But Josh came prepared with scripture passages of his own, about the responsibility of a shepherd to protect his flock. The message fell on deaf ears. Josh drank his water. Pastor Bob ate a big meal and ordered dessert.

-Grace in Broken Arrow by Kiera Feldman

Oral doubled down: If Richard left, he’d walk away with him—arm in arm with his anointed son. Oral called on the faculty to forgive Richard, to take a “fresh start.” He was 89-years-old at this point. His hearing was going, and he needed a walker. But ever the benevolent dictator, Oral demanded obedience. He asked everyone who agreed with him to stand—an old power play from his repertoire. One professor stood and bravely ventured, “I don’t know what you mean by ‘fresh start.’ I can forgive Richard. But I am not going to allow him to come back as president.”

One by one, Oral started grilling the few professors who remained seated. Suddenly, he stopped.

“No, I shouldn’t do this. I’m sorry,” he said, dropping his head in his big, wrinkled hands.

-This is my beloved son by Kiera Feldman

The memory of the Silkwood incident lurks far in the background of life in Crescent–for the most part people don’t particularly care to talk about it, and, polite that Crescent locals are, when they do, most don’t have much to say. Still, the story remains unsettled. When Bradley Manning was growing up it was 20 years less settled.

-Private Manning and the Making of WikiLeaks by Denver Nicks

Jack Taylor does not appear to concern himself with people’s accusations he is a hatchet man for publisher Edward Gaylord. He plods along in his juggernaut fashion, putting in 17-hour workdays, sometimes five, six, seven days a week. He is a sedulous researcher, scouring public records for hours on end, compiling minutiae, interviewing sources (always anonymous and “well-informed”), spending great spans of time at the Xerox machine on the fourth floor of the Oklahoma Publishing Company. Hardly is he a flashy interloper. He is not apt in imitation of Carl Bernstein, to brazen his way into a taxicab, pounce on a public official’s lap, and nonchalantly request an interview. Dramatics like that befit neither his nature nor his bulk.

Taylor, however, is a tenacious journalist, magnificently disciplined and somewhat of a fanatic organizationalist. He diagrams and charts every connection involved in a story, whether it be people or corporate entities. He clips articles from national and local newspapers on the discriminating premise that one day the information might be of some use. He also writes memos of Faulknerian length and files them away in his private office, the sole office at OPUBCO reserved for a single reporter. Jack Wimer, formerly investigative reporter at the Tulsa Tribune and one who cooperated with Taylor on several stories, recalls how “he once wrote a 30-page, single-space, typed memo to himself on a story that he never wrote.” He also once drew up a list of every Freedom of Information Act request that he had ever made, to which governmental agency, how many were approved, how many were denied, how many were denied in part, and what section of the law was cited for denial. These kind of pedantic efforts leave the impression that he is attempting to document, for posterity’s sake, his own endeavors in addition to merely substantiating the stories. Though his meticulousness certainly pays off, the surplus of wasted effort must be enormous.

-Stalking the Smoking Gun by David Fritze

Between statehood and 1923, Oklahoma was America’s largest oil-producing state, and even after it lost its perch to California and later Texas, Oklahoma still managed to increase its share of American output until 1929, when Oklahoma accounted for 750,000 barrels of oil a day and 35 percent of all the oil produced in the United States. Wells in Oklahoma City spat oil ferociously, so high that one out-of-control gusher—the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Co.’s Mary Sudik No. 1, aka the “Wild Mary Sudik”—managed to sprinkle droplets on students in Norman, 11 miles away. Cushing alone produced 17 percent of American oil in 1919 and 3 percent of the world’s output between 1912 and 1919. And all of this time there was plenty of appetite for new oil. The world’s economy and its demand for petroleum and its distillates were increasing, and oil prices were holding steady for the most part, making Oklahoma’s goliath output enormously profitable. Scores of millionaires were created. The Osage Nation managed to hold onto their mineral rights during the allotment phase. They charged oil companies a flat 10 percent royalty fee and paid each tribe member annual distributions equivalent to more than a million dollars today, which attracted scalawags and con men from all over the country eager to marry an Osage heir, which kicked off a string of killings that would come to be known as the Osage Reign of Terror. Meanwhile, the high wages paid by the oil industry led hundreds of thousands of former sharecroppers to descend on cities like Tulsa and Oklahoma City and the tiny boomtowns that would pop up whenever a new field was found. Oil money created architectural blooms and secondary and tertiary industries: engineering, manufacturing, insurance. There were counter- flows of capital and labor. Universities and colleges sprouted, which in turn revealed new methods of refining petroleum and natural gas. This stoked the economy even more.

-Petro State by James McGirk

A soft-spoken woman from Oklahoma City first saw the pattern. Terri Turner is a Supervisory Intelligence Analyst with the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation. In September of 2003, a homicide case landed on her desk: a body found along I-40. Turner immediately put out a teletype seeking other female bodies found, like hers, nude, near interstates, and with signs of having been bound. Within 72 hours, two responses came back from Arkansas and Mississippi. At that point, Turner knew she might be looking at linked crimes. She had her communications specialists monitor the teletypes for further cases. In seven months, they had seven homicides. She calls them “my seven girls.”

-Drive-By Truckers by Ginger Strand

With Operation Midnight Ride behind them, Walker and Hargis turned their aspirations to the national political races, making it clear that their choice for president was the libertarian senator Barry Goldwater. In August of 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his momentous “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C.; its hopeful message of peace and unity was in direct opposition to Walker and Hargis’ aggressive calls for civil uprising. Two months later, in October of 1963, Walker attended a conference in Dallas in which he once again bashed President Kennedy and his policies. He was probably unaware that Lee Harvey Oswald was in the audience listening.

-The Strange Love of Dr. Billy James Hargis by Lee Roy Chapman

Contrary to the widespread misconception that it is a late twentieth-century invention, developed as a humane alternative to the medieval barbarisms of the electric chair and the noose, lethal injection hails from older and more ghastly origins. During WWII, Nazi Germany carried out its euthanasia program, granting “mercy deaths” to Jews and Gypsies, the disabled and the mentally ill. In the early stages of the Action T4 program,2 the Nazi regime used an injection of lethal drugs to kill infants and children suffering from physical handicaps and mental impairments. Eventually this method of execution was deemed too slow and expensive, as Hitler would turn to the hyper-efficient gas chambers in his quest for Aryan purity. The experimentation with lethal injection was for the most part lost to history, ceding both spotlight and stigma to the notoriously prolific gas chambers. That is until a few Oklahomans, keen on cutting the costs of Old Sparky and modernizing state-sanctioned executions, resurrected it nearly 40 years later.

-Tinkering with the Machinery of Death by Mike Mariani

One of the detectives just pulled me aside and said he found a syringe in your pocket. I can see Taco, by the way, outside, and he’s still walking around the front yard, mumbling to himself.

He’ll be the next one to die; you know that, don’t you?

Until then, that little fuck, that little shit, gets to go home; he gets to see tomorrow and lie to his parents about needing money for something other than drugs and alcohol; he gets to parlay his grief over you into sympathy and, who knows, maybe more drugs and a blow job from some skanky little whore on meth who will feel bad for him because you died.

The cop who found the syringe told me when he went to ask Taco what happened to you, Taco kept repeating, “I don’t know, I don’t know. He was my best friend.”

-Letter to My Son The Weekend He Died by Barry Friedman

The woman stood with the couple’s one-year-old daughter a safe distance across the sage. Tucs told the man to start wetting down the walls of his home using a 12-volt pump drawing water from a cistern. He sent a bystander down the road to help the fire trucks find their way over the unmarked road to the scene. Then he and another bystander began shoveling dirt in front of the path of the stream of vegetable oil, which shot orange flames three feet high as it crept along the earth. As Tucs shoveled load after load in front of the stream, the fire in the shed grew, and the interior of an old sedan parked nearby caught fire. Tucs’ berm slowed the oil from reaching the home, but the dirt saturated and set alight, and more oil escaped through the flames and poured downhill. He started another berm and the same thing happened. The shed streamed fire. Tucs’ bunker gear lacked suspenders, so he kept hauling his pants up as he worked. As fire trucks arrived from area departments and set up on scene, Tucs heard a rupture and a rush of air, and looked up to see three 40-foot tornadoes of fire whirling above the shed into the sky.

-Firefight Along the Prairie by Michael Canyon Meyer

He stood naked by the roadside with a blanket draped around his hips, feebly reaching out for the glimmering cars as they passed in the morning light. He was almost too hideous to look at: Purple and black tracks streaked across his frail limbs, and his hollow eyes peered out from a pale, gray head shaved bald, eyebrows and all. Brandon Andres Green was not from hell, not exactly. He was from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

Over the course of the past six days, Green had been tied up in a Tulsa hotel room, where his mind was loaded with powerful psychoactives and his body ravaged. He was then driven 500 miles south and abandoned in a Texas field at night. Green had crawled through the darkness, the occasional moan of a distant car his only guide. Every few feet, he collapsed from exhaustion. By morning, he reached the road. He grasped at fistfuls of air, hoping that someone might notice him.

-Subterranean Psychonaut by Michael Mason, Chris Sandel and Lee Roy Chapman

Lacking the political power he once held through both the Democratic Party and his Klan affiliations, diminished in his fortune, and aggrieved by his son’s death, Brady began to fall apart. Tulsans reported seeing him dining at his hotel alone, staring into space and leaving his meals untouched. Gone was the steeley-eyed entrepreneur. A portrait published in the Tulsa Daily World around this time shows an aged Brady looking weary and morose.

In the early morning hours of August 29, 1925, Brady walked into his kitchen and sat down at the breakfast table. He propped a pillow in the nook of one arm, and rested his head upon it. With his right arm, he took a .44 caliber pistol, pointed it at his temple, and pulled the trigger. [28] Brady, who worked to divide Tulsa along racial lines, died a victim of his own curse.

-The Nightmare of Dreamland by Lee Roy Chapman

Birdwell’s life reads like a John Wayne script. A story in The Daily Oklahoman on October 17, 1931, details an account of Birdwell kidnapping a deputy sheriff in Earlsboro and detaining him so that Birdwell could go to a funeral home to view his father, who had recently died. If Birdwell had attended his father’s funeral, he would have been arrested for robbing banks in Earlsboro, Maud, Mill Creek, and Roff, Oklahoma. After Birdwell saw his father’s body, he returned the deputy sheriff’s gun on the outskirts of town, and rode into the sunset with Pretty Boy Floyd.

But Birdwell and Floyd’s days were numbered. Their names and faces were routinely in the papers, and the FBI was just waiting for one of them to make a mistake. Boley was Birdwell’s biggest mistake.

“Pretty Boy told the gang, ‘Go anywhere else, but do not rob Boley. The people there need their money and they do not have much of it in the bank,’ ” said Henrietta Hicks, Boley municipal judge and unofficial historian. “They just would not listen. You know how Napoleon met his Waterloo? Well, George Birdwell met his Boley-loo.”

-Bandit in Boley by Jamie Birdwell-Branson

Bad men are drawn to the City of God. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls it the meeting ground for America’s most sinister extremists. Many Oklahomans regard it as the most dangerous and mysterious place in the state.

For 30-plus years, a small, isolated community in Northeastern Oklahoma has been the subject of endless scrutiny. Law enforcement agencies and conspiracy theorists insist that Elohim City is a breeding ground for neo-Nazis and anti-government militias hell-bent on overthrowing the “Zionist Occupied Government” (ZOG) of the United States. The most damning accusation suggests Elohim City played a central role in the planning and execution of the Oklahoma City bombing.

-Who’s Afriad of Elohim City? by Lee Roy Chapman and Joshua Kline

At the hospital the day Abby was born, a nurse handed me a booklet about being the parent of a dead child. What’s the cost of a funeral for a newborn? Can you take a tax deduction? What should you name a dead child? Is it OK to build the coffin yourself? The booklet plainly answered such questions. It was my introduction to a realm of knowledge I had never known existed.

The answers run like this:

You can build the coffin if you want. It might make you feel better.

Name the child what you meant to name him. Don’t save the name for someone else.

You can claim the baby as a dependent on your taxes if he drew a breath.

-A Stiller Ground by Gordon Grice

The historian Frederick Jackson Turner draws the line of frontier encroachment at the hands of industrial expanse at 1890. He delivered his theory in an 1893 address to the American Historical Association of Chicago titled “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” now known as the “Turner Thesis.” A year later, at the age of 17, Fraser molded his first End of the Trail. He wrote that it came from an idea that had been haunting him since childhood: “Often hunters, wintering with the Indians, stopped over to visit my grandfather on their way south and in that way I heard many stories about the Indians. On one occasion a fine fuzzy bearded old hunter remarked with some bitterness in his voice, ‘The Injuns will be driven into the Pacific Ocean.’”

-The Indian of their Dreams by Mark Brown

Netarsha slapped her hand on the window behind her.

“I said, ‘NOOOOOOO!’ Bust out laughing. I knew. I knew. I sat up. I didn’t know what to do. I kind of balled up, on my bed, in the corner… and my doorbell rang.”

It was the police, come to tell her.

-We Extend Our Condolences by Brian Ted Jones

[lindsaynsmith]

Read It Should Have Been You, a Short Story on the Future of Death

Read It Should Have Been You, a Short Story on the Future of Death https://ift.tt/2yJcfcp

Image: Kundra/Shutterstock

[Beginning Log File 0289]

Fuck you.

No, seriously, fuck you.

My collection site hurts particularly bad today and I’m cranky, but I need to focus on you. You, the one with the permanent bag under your left eye after you let your dumbass cousin hack your car and turn the ADT off. Your face slammed into the console, which turned your orbital bone into an assortment of mismatched, razor-sharp puzzle pieces that tried to find homes in the gooey surface of your eye, but it was Shakyra who flew through the windshield and wetly slid down the hood until she plopped onto the road. The ambulance had already been deployed the moment she crashed into the car in front of you two, but when it arrived five minutes later, its sirens weren’t even on. It eased to a stop and two paramedics casually slid from the front seat. The road sensors had already told them she was dead.

You were spared from the full visual effect of her broken, bleeding body because you’d gone temporarily blind in that left eye. But you knew. The paramedics knew. The onlookers, who cruised by in their own self-driving cars, never stopping, never slowing down—they knew, too. But you weren’t thinking of Shakyra as stupid then, not yet. All you were thinking as the paramedics guided you onto the stretcher was, “No.”

Shit, I hate thinking about that. Fuck, fuck, fuck—

[Log file recording terminated. Progress saved.]

…Shit. Calm down. They’re listening, of course they are. They always are.

But back to you. That accident is where my story begins.

When the blood trade started, you and Shakyra just shook your heads and laughed. “White people,” you agreed. But that sure as hell didn’t stop you from slipping into some seedy pit of a plasma center when you were finally fired from your job at Meijer—a particularly bad migraine had you vomiting all over the produce section like some horrible parody of The Exorcist.

You remember The Exorcist, right? I’ve become obsessed with artifacts from before the Great Elevation: movies, TV, books, you name it, I got it, even Dracula, which oddly was a bitch to find. When I can’t quite grasp onto you, I grasp onto those movies. They remind me that there are much worse fates than death…Not that I really need reminding, anymore.

“Feeling better?” Katya asks me, a placid smile on her bright face.

“Yes,” I say, because there’s nothing else she wants to hear. I settle back down on my bed and turn to stare out at the cloudless gray sky. The little virtual assistant console on the nightstand flickers blue three times before the light goes out. Not dead, just resting.

“That’s good. Repressing your feelings isn’t good for stress levels…a little emotional release here and there can be really helpful.” She gives me the practiced stare of a fed-up, underpaid RN, though her immense wealth is why she’s here at all. “Just don’t overdo it, okay?”

Warning heard loud and clear. “Okay.”

Katya Belaya is 115 years old. She’s worked as a hematology nurse almost as long as I’ve been alive, at thirty-four. That was when research around blood therapy really kicked off.

She doesn’t talk about her life before the Great Elevation much, but I’ve overheard bits and pieces during the chaos of shift changes—she was retired, living quite well on the inheritance from her dear old husband’s death, but then the advertisements started coming out in full force, promising eternal youth for the right price. And this fool actually believed it; she’s been supervising dumbasses like me ever since. Right now, her bland smile seems to say, “Who’s the fool now?”

After just ten years of treatments, she looks young enough to be my mother.

This is the story of how you overcame death: You signed a contract.

You’d heard the rumors, of course. Everyone had: Rich old people thought they could obtain the key to immortality by getting regular infusions of blood from young, healthy people…sorry, young, healthy, poor people. Because why in the fuck would you help someone like David Rockefeller live even longer unless it was the difference between sleeping in your bed for another month or living in your car? So yes, you overcame death because you were too poor to die. The moment those bullshit treatments turned out not to be so bullshit after all, the coveted “good death” became a luxury like it never had before.

You are the perpetual motion device keeping that luxury conveniently available to people like Katya. You spend a lot of time in these hospital rooms, these beds. They’re much comfier than anything you could ever afford on your own, let’s be clear. And the staff is just always listening and watching and smiling because they want you to be healthy, pet.

I mean, what the fuck good is your blood if you—sorry, they—let your body go to shit? Kale for everyone. Hurray.

There will be raised bumps amid the corded muscles of your upper arms—one for each side. They’re as big around as a penny, with the mass of a glass marble embedded under the surface. You’ll scratch at them sometimes, when no one’s looking—never in the hospital, though, that would be a level of stupid even you won’t begin to contemplate—but they do not move or compress.

If you were to take, say, a knife—do NOT do this, but just say one day you did—and make a small, clean cut across that marble of tissue, you would be engulfed by a pain so relentless that you’d immediately black out. When you’d wake up, any evidence of your crimes would be gone, save for a pale scar that’d vanish within a couple days.

Soon, you’ll enter your go-to blood center looking to score enough for rent and your car—the demand has gone up. Three times the money. And when the nurse slaps a Band-Aid across your inner arm and tells you you’re good to go, a man in a doctor’s coat who you suddenly, somehow, know is not a doctor will appear in the slim gap between the privacy curtains and ask you to take a survey. The nurse will slip away, as light and soundless as a sunbeam, and the not-doctor will slowly ease into the chair she’s just vacated.

You will remember him well, so well, even after decades pass: the bald head with just a hint of brown fuzz, long fingers and wide palms with bulging veins, beady gray eyes tracking your every movement behind basic black frames. The frames are what give him away—they’re Mykita, which are expensive as fuck. Your girlfriend at the time is (was) crazy about everything fashion. You’ll scoff at the thought of remembering this, and vow to get payback by forcing her to sit through a Hell’s Kitchen marathon.

The not-doctor has other plans. “When was the last time you lost someone you cared about?”

Many faces will flit through your mind as an unwelcome wave of longing seeps into your chest. But although she wasn’t the last, she was the most: Shakyra. You watched her die. You didn’t stop her. But you could’ve. You—stupid, stupid, stupid you—didn’t. Why? You won’t know. You never will.

The not-doctor will see something in your eyes, something he approves of. He’ll lean forward, his legs planted shoulder length apart, and brace his forearms on his jean-covered thighs. Stare straight at you. Clasp his hands together, solemn. “What would it be worth to you,” he’ll murmur, voice thick with faux empathy, “to never have to experience that pain again?”

And that…your poor, sick bastard, that’s all it’ll take. He’ll explain, using way too much medical jargon, about what he wants to do—what he wants you to do. And you’ll sign. Even though, deep down, you know eliminating programmed cell death wouldn’t have saved Shakyra, grief isn’t sensible, so you’ll sign. The nurse will reappear with a twin pair of syringes before you’ve even finished the last curlicue on your signature.

“Everyone will have access to this,” the not-doctor assures you. “And for every person you refer, your payments will quadruple.”

But your girlfriend has (had) Type 1 diabetes: unfit.

Your mother? Hypertension and asthma. Ask her to lose some weight first.

Father? Lung cancer. Brother? Bipolar. You’re the dumbass with the permanently puffy eye, but apparently that’s not a genetic flaw, just a common-sense one. You’ll receive marbles in your arms that permanently stop the passage of time, as far as your DNA is concerned, all so you can spend the rest of your immortal existence “donating” blood to people who want to be buried as young, beautiful corpses.

Confused? Yup, it’s true: Katya, the not-doctor, and all the rest of the recipients…they don’t have the marbles.

You will sustain them for as long as they want to live, then stand watch when they don’t.

Today is Katya’s Death Day. She is 137 years old.

She has decided she’s seen everything the world has to offer, so it’s time. She picked out her coffin—sleek mahogany with golden accents—herself. She’s been without blood transfusions for a week now. The attending doctor says it will be any minute.

They don’t say “death” anymore—it’s the “next elevation.” Half her family, just as bright-faced and virile as she was, are drunk off their asses while she lies in the coffin, her breathing slowing, slowing, slowing…a long pause, during which everyone and everything suddenly sobers, stops…and then a wet rattle from her throat shatters the moment and the merriment continues.

I hover nearby; once she’s finally dead, I’ll have a new “nurse,” but who the hell cares. This precious thing, death, is something I likely will never experience. I dream of it, ache for it. I’m monitored too closely to down a container of bleach, or jump off a roof. My knives disappeared from my kitchen decades ago; my food arrives pre-cut. Everyone I knew who was too “unfit” for immortality is long gone. Naturally, there was no fanfare for them. Disability and illness are for the poors, you know. Should’ve made more money, and then they could’ve died in health instead of sickness. Should’ve taken better care of themselves.

You know, like I do.

Katya’s breathing stops again, for long enough that the DJ lowers the music until it’s just a faint pulse in my eardrums—like a heartbeat.

I stare at her softly rounded, rosy face; she’s wearing foundation and concealer under her eyes for her nonexistent flaws and diamond earrings that glint under the light of the crystal chandelier directly above us. She’s beautiful, and I want to drive a stake through her rotten heart.

The doctor leans over and presses her index and forefinger against Katya’s throat. After another pause, she proclaims, “Official time of death: 21:27.”

A chorus of applause and joyful shouts fills the room. I trail my fingers over my upper arm, not even feeling the sting of my nails digging into the flesh, reflexively. I lift my other arm and wake up my smartwatch with a scan of my retina.

“Log file 1076,” I whisper. “Those books were really fucking wrong about vampires.”

I’m being harsh, I know. I’m sorry. This…this is a lot.

Please, before you walk into that donation center one last time…think of Shakyra. Think of her broken body, splayed across the ground. The indifferent stares of onlookers who felt she’d brought it on herself.

Imagine what her last few seconds of awareness were like. Did pain rip through her like those ragged shards of glass? Did she sense her lungs filling with blood and phlegm? Did she choke? Gasp?

Imagine it. And know that, even though it’ll forever haunt us both, I wish it’d been you.

But I’ve gotta go: Katya’s replacement is waiting, and I bet he hates having to wait.

Sydnee Thompson is a writer and editor who’s unabashedly obsessed with all things death, especially when it comes to her speculative fiction, which has also appeared in publications such as Fiyah Lit Magazine and Fireside Magazine. You can stalk her on Twitter @SydMT or visit her website, shadesofsydnee.com.

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com October 31, 2018 at 06:45PM

[mikeyd1986]

MIKEY’S PERSONAL BLOG 96, March 2018

On Monday morning, I went to see Dr. Mah Mah at Narre Gate Medical Center in Narre Warren. I was running late as usual having slept in this morning, that classic Beatles song “A Day In The Life” could be a running monologue to describe most Mondays for me (Woke up, fell out of bed. Dragged a comb across my head. Found my way downstairs and drank a cup. And looking up, I noticed I was late...).

The issues with my ears from the infection to blockage and soreness through the glands and sides of my face was becoming like an episode of Days Of Our Lives (Previously on Michael’s auditory health issues). I was doing everything possible to treat myself, even spending my actual birthday resting up in bed and giving myself regular doses of pain killers and antibiotics. And yet it still hadn’t cleared up or stop hurting.

Being a Monday morning, the waiting room was packed with mum, dads, tradies and annoying screeching children running around (luckily I could only partially hear them). I wished that my doctor could simply prescribe me with a new set of ears (maybe an ear transplant?) but alas that’s not realistic. She advised me to stop taking the Ciproxin ear drops and instead put 10 drops of Waxsol in each ear for the next two nights and came back to see her on Wednesday. I’ll seriously do anything at this point just to get rid of the pain and discomfort. https://1800bulkbill.com.au/medical-centre/narregate-medical-dental-centre

After my appointment, I had birthday shopping to do as it’s my Mum’s birthday tomorrow. Truthfully, I wasn’t in the best state health wise nor in the mood to be shopping but I didn’t really have a choice. Plus it’s my Mum and she’s important to me and I’ll happily put up with an ear infection for her. My first stop was JB HI-FI Narre Warren where I bumped into my friend Tom Armstrong who happens to work at the store. I briefly caught up with him and he helped me out with getting a powerbank. Tom is an absolute sweetheart, no joke!

Next stop was Chemist Warehouse to stock up on my drugs (of the prescription variety of course). I’ve made a couple of trips here recently and now it’s not as daunting and overwhelming as it usually is. I guess you slowly get used to where all the products are located plus it wasn’t that busy. I managed to be in and out within 10 minutes or so. I needed more waxsol drops, cotton balls, a liquid inhalant for my Euky Bear vapouriser and panadeine forte. https://www.chemistwarehouse.com.au/

Lastly I dropped into a lovely little shop called the Berwick Curtain Nook located inside the Village Arcade and off High Street, Berwick. Whilst I was feeling a little awkward coming here by myself, I pretty much knew what I wanted to buy Mum. I got her a paperback notebook with an elephant on the front, a ceramic ornament with a beautiful inspirational quote and a grey Scottish Terrier ornament.

The lady went to the trouble of wrapping the ornaments in tissue paper and placing them in a bright red gift bag as I mentioned that it was my Mum’s birthday tomorrow. Thankfully it didn’t quite turn into the scene from Love Actually with Rowan Atkinson going overboard with the gift wrapping (Any ribbon? Cellophane? Rose petals? A box? NO THANK YOU!) but my pain threshold wasn’t letting up. However, I was very grateful for her service considering how last minute this was. http://www.berwickcurtainnook.com.au/

On Tuesday morning, we celebrated Mum’s birthday by each having a much deserved massage at Body & Balance in Cranbourne Park Shopping Centre. We decided on getting the oil neck and shoulder massage plus reflexology foot massage and hot stone therapy. The lady did a really thorough job without going too intense in the pressure department. I could actually relax into it even with the noise of the broken air conditioner above me.

I did get myself a little confused though as the lady said something quickly and left the room. I was left there wondering if she was coming back or if I was supposed to go outside the room. I was still feeling half deaf and she was also softly spoken so it was difficult to hear her. Looking at the digital clock on the table, it read 10:30am meaning that I still had another 20 minutes and my massage wasn’t over. So therefore I trusted my instincts, got dressed and met her outside.

Mum and I both reclined back on these circular rotating arm chairs whilst our female massage therapists went to work on our feet. It’s been months since I’ve had a proper foot massage done so I could feel how tense and sensitive they were in places but it was still a lovely experience all the same. The only thing that bothered me was that the massage staff were all having a conversation in Chinese the entire time which I thought was kinda rude. But I decided to let it go and tried to focus on enjoying the massage. https://www.cranbournepark.com.au/stores/body-balance/

On Wednesday afternoon, Mum and I saw Dr. Mah Mah at Narre Gate Medical Center in Narre Warren. I think I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been to the doctors in the past fortnight but now I’m getting over it. Thankfully the pain in my ears has eased up quite a bit and the waxsol drops have helped to soften up the ear wax blocking up the ear canals. So it was a huge relief when Mah Mah could syringe my ears so that I could hear clearly again.

I also decided to get a blood test ordered as it’s been over a year since my last one. She added a FBE (Full Blood Count), Urea/Electrolyte/Creatine, Cholesterol/Triglycerides/HDL/LDL, Glucose, TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone) and TES (Testosterone) levels. Over the past couple of months, I’ve noticed that I’ve been having periods of low energy and chronic fatigue so I think a blood test would be really helpful in figuring out what I’m deficient in.

In addition (I literally had a list of things to see her about today, no joke!), I wanted to get the dosage of my antidepressants increased. I’ve been taking Zoloft (Sertraline) tablets at 150mg for about 5 months now and my psychologist recommended that I increase it up to 200mg due to scoring a severe level of anxiety on a recent assessment I did. Plus I have noticed that there are times where the antidepressants seem ineffective when it comes to my mood so it couldn’t hurt to try increasing it.

On Thursday morning, I had my first Employ Your Mind session with my support worker Ally Lamb at Wise Employment Narre Warren. Basically, EYM is “a program that helps build the thinking and social skills that are important for work and other areas of life”. Ally recommended it to be as she knows how much I struggle with communication in social situations and dealing with my mental health issues. http://www.fifeemploymentaccesstrust.com/employ-your-mind.html

The first session was pretty straight forward and more of an introduction to the program. There are four phases in total which each run for 6 weeks with a short break in between. Phase 1 is done individually with the learning coach (Ally Lamb) whilst Phases 2,3 and 4 are run in small groups. We went through what her role as a learning coach is and I also filled in a questionnaire called the General Self Efficacy Scale.

The second part of the session involved the concept of cognitive remediation and going through parts of the human brain (frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, cerebellum, temporal lobe, brain stem). Basically it’s about being able to improve cognitive or thinking skills. Lastly we discussed how mental health issues can affect or impact upon cognitive skills and make it even more difficult to learn, concentrate and retain information. http://www.wiseemployment.com.au/en/community/ndis-supports-and-services/

Unfortunately my ears were still not 100% clear even after I got them syringed/irrigated at the doctors yesterday. It’s hard to explain but they still “feel” blocked even though my hearing is a lot better than it was earlier this week. I could be experiencing tinnitus or that my ear canals are too dry and not lubricated enough. Hopefully it clears up and heals naturally over the next few days.

On Friday morning, Mum and I went to the Morning Melodies social function at the Waltzing Matilda Hotel in Springvale. We were running late (no surprises there!) so we didn’t end up getting to the function room until around 10.45am or so. Thankfully we caught most of the performance though. Today we had Brian Muldoon doing the “Johnny O’Keefe tribute” show. It was partly a history lesson as Brian talked about Johnny’s life back in the early 60’s and 70’s, the television shows we became known for and the downward spiral that followed due to his mental illness.

Brian performed many of his classic hits including Shout!, Sing Sing Sing, She Wears My Ring, So Tough, The Sun’s Gonna Shine Tomorrow, It’s too late she’s gone, The Wild One and She’s My Baby. Most of Johnny O’Keefe’s songs carried a positive, uplifting message to them in order to help people’s moods up and push through the tough times in life. I feel like this is very relevant to the challenges we face in life today. https://www.entertainoz.com.au/listings/brian-muldoon/artist_profile_details

On Friday night, I went to a Vinyasa flow yoga class with Jade Hunter at YMCA Casey ARC, Narre Warren. I haven’t been to a fitness class in nearly two weeks now due to my health problems and being busy with other commitments like my birthday, appointments and my VCAT hearing. However, considering my ears were feeling a lot better, I decided to go back tonight. It’s funny how quickly you miss the gym when you haven’t been for a while.

I also read that certain yoga poses can help to unblock and relieve the pressure built up inside the ear canals so there’s another good reason to do. Tonight was a little more challenging than usual with lots of balancing, twists and binds thrown into the mix. I wasn’t really prepared for all of that nor did I have the flexibility to do everything Jade was demonstrating (Putting my legs behind my head? Yeah right!).

We did our usual Vinyasa flow sequence (Downward Facing Dog, Plank, Chaturanga, Cobra/Updog) plus Standing Poses (Warrior 2, Standing Forward Bend, Half Lift, Chair pose, Reverse Triangle pose), Seated Poses (Boat pose, Staff pose, Wide Legged Forward Bend, Happy Baby) and Inversions (Shoulder Stand, Plow pose). I could hear my ears popping which was a good sign plus my body heated up quite quickly during the class.

Jade does go the extra mile though considering we are doing yoga inside a creche. She added candles, burning incense, beautiful yoga music and some brass Tibetan bowls and chimes to the space which gave it the appropriate atmosphere for a yoga class. https://www.doyouyoga.com/the-perfect-vinyasa-flow-routine-for-beginners-30159/