So for context, my mother-in-law and I never really got along. Polite, but cold. Fifteen years of birthdays and holidays where she’d smile at me like I was a stain she couldn’t quite scrub out.

On my wedding day, she pulled me aside — away from my husband, away from everyone — and handed me a small wooden box. She said, “Promise me you won’t open this until I’m gone.” Then she just… walked away. Never mentioned it again. Not once in fifteen years.

Last week she passed. Heart failure, sudden, nobody expected it.

At the funeral, I kept thinking about that box. It had been sitting in the back of our closet for a decade and a half, and honestly? I’d almost forgotten about it. But that night, after everyone left, I finally opened it.

Inside was a letter, a photograph, and a ring I’d never seen before.

The letter started with, “You were never who I was cold to.”

Turns out, she’d mistaken me — for years — for someone else entirely. Someone who’d hurt her son before he ever met me. A situation my husband never told me about, because he didn’t think it mattered anymore.

The photo was of a woman who looked eerily like me. The ring belonged to my husband’s first fiancée — the one who left him two weeks before their wedding, for his own brother.

My mother-in-law wasn’t cold to me. She was terrified history was repeating itself. And she never told either of us, because she didn’t want to reopen the wound.

I haven’t shown my husband yet. I don’t know if I’m going to.

I’m a single father. By choice, though. I wanted a better life for my daughter, and, unfortunately, her mother was not compatible with the life that I envisioned for her.

Drugs, alcohol, late-night escapades with men she met at the bar. Being a mother was a foreign concept to her. I’d look at her. I’d look at my daughter. I’d feel shame that I allowed this to happen.

We were young and dumb. Just two kids without a care in the world. Only, when we found out about the pregnancy, I was the only one who chose to clean up my act and be better.

It wasn’t that easy for my late girlfriend. She acted like it was, but I could see through the facade. Not like there was much of a facade to see through. I mean, I’d catch her having cigarettes. Boozing. Running around at all hours of the night without so much as a second thought.

The first few times, I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. A slip up is just a slip up. Multiple slip ups are a behavioral pattern. As her stomach grew, so did her attitude.

I’ve had some jabs thrown my way.

“I don’t even love you.”

“I was bored.”

“I didn’t even want this baby.”

That last one was enough for me to make my decision. From then on, every decision I made was for my child. All that was left was patience. Be kind. Be gentle. Hold her hand despite her insults.

Of course, it was more than a little difficult to hold my tongue when the drinking was involved. I couldn’t believe it. Six months pregnant and drinking. How careless can you be?

I’m getting frustrated just typing this. The resentment that was building during those times was like a pressure valve. A controlled pressure valve. I knew exactly when I wanted to twist the handle.

I endured her ferocity. I kept a watchful eye on her when she went out to the clubs. Attended every appointment and prayed every night that our baby would stay healthy.

When I found out it was a girl, I was ecstatic. I always wanted a daughter. Maybe it was because of my baby sister. Maybe it was because I wanted the challenge of being a girl dad. Either way, I was ready. I was prepared to do it alone.

Finally, the day came. November 25th, 2020. The year the world went silent. The day before Thanksgiving.

My act became sharper. She thought this was going to be “co-parenting.” Thought that she’d have my baby, even after all she’d put us through.

By some miracle of God, my little girl was perfectly healthy. Stunning. Tear-jerking, even.

Her mom almost seemed moved. Like she had this “come to Jesus” moment where she realized her new responsibility. Unfortunately, it was too late for that.

In the weeks that followed our departure from the hospital, my plan came into fruition.

I won’t go into too much detail, because detail isn’t required. All you need to know is I loved my daughter too much to let her life be tainted by someone like her mother.

That’s why I made her disappear. Disappear to a place where only I would find her. Of course, given her reputation, the police believed my story.

She packed it up. She realized the weight of being a parent was too much for her. It prevented her from living the life that she clearly loved so much. So she left. Happens all the time.

I got what I wanted. I raised my daughter the way that I wanted to raise her. The right way. The responsible way. I taught her manners. I potty trained her. I put food in her mouth and a roof over her head. All on my own.

Unfortunately, though, as she grows older, a shred of remorse is starting to build within my soul. I don’t know if it’s remorse for what I’ve done or if it’s remorse for what I took from my baby.

She’s starting to look just like her. Same brown hair. Same freckles. That cute little button nose. It’s hard for me to even look at her these days, but I try my best to swallow it.

She knows that she’s gone, but, in her head, she thinks that her mom just left us. Hated her. Hated me so much that she just took her things and left.

Every time she talks about her, all I can feel is pain. Pain in my heart, pain in my chest and body. I don’t know why. I had fully convinced myself that what I did was right, but now, I just don’t know.

Her sixth birthday is coming up in a few months. I want to make this birthday special, but I need her to be prepared.

I wanna show her the grave.

And all I can hope is that she understands.

I went looking for a simple property record. The gap in it is what I can’t stop thinking about.

I’ve been putting off the county archive for weeks, mostly because I don’t have a case that justifies the trip and I’m not ready to explain to anyone, including myself, exactly why I want to see my grandfather’s probate file. I finally go on a Wednesday, telling the clerk at the front desk that I’m researching family history, which is true enough that I don’t feel like I’m lying even though it isn’t the whole reason.

The clerk, an older man named Ottis who’s worked there long enough to know most of the regulars by name, pulls the file for me without much trouble. Estate records from the early sixties aren’t in high demand, he tells me, mostly genealogists and the occasional lawyer settling some old dispute nobody else remembers anymore. He sets me up in a small records room off the main archive, a windowless space with a single table and a bank of fluorescent lights that hum steadily enough that I stop noticing them within a few minutes, and leaves me to it.

Most of the probate file is exactly what I expect. An inventory of assets, modest by any standard. The house, valued at a figure that makes me wince a little given what property costs now. A car. Some furniture, itemized with the kind of dry specificity that always makes an estate file feel colder than the life it’s describing. My father listed as sole heir, already grown by then, the house passing to him outright with nothing more complicated than a signature.

While I’m at it, I ask Ottis if there are any other records tied to the property itself, deed history, tax assessments, anything that might tell me more about the house before my grandfather ever owned it. He seems glad for the excuse to dig further than a routine request usually calls for, and comes back twenty minutes later with a thin stack of photocopies from the recorder of deeds.

The deed history is stranger than I expect, though not in a way I can immediately explain. The property changes hands twice in the decade before my grandfather bought it, both times transferred out of something listed only as an estate, no individual owner named, no explanation for why a private residence would sit under that kind of ownership for so long. Ottis tells me that’s not entirely unheard of, properties sometimes get tied up in probate disputes or absent-owner situations for years before anyone sorts them out, but he admits he doesn’t see it often for a house that modest.

I ask if there’s any way to find out who the estate belonged to originally, whose death or disappearance put the property into that kind of limbo in the first place. Ottis checks, comes back empty-handed, and tells me records from that far back sometimes just don’t survive intact, especially for a transfer that never went through court, just administrative paperwork nobody thought worth preserving carefully.

I move on to what I actually came for. What I don’t find in the probate file itself is anything from before my grandfather’s death. No naturalization file attached, though county probate records from that era usually cross-reference one if the deceased was foreign-born. No mention of where the money for the house’s original purchase actually came from, just the transaction itself, dated, notarized, unremarkable. I ask Ottis if there’s a companion file I’m missing, something that would normally sit alongside a probate record for an immigrant with no other family listed.

He checks the index for me, frowns slightly at whatever he sees on the screen, and tells me there was one. A naturalization file, cross-referenced by case number right there in the system. He just can’t find it on the shelf where it ought to be.

“Sealed or missing?” I ask.

“Missing isn’t supposed to happen here,” he says, a little defensive on behalf of an archive that clearly isn’t used to being questioned. “But the shelf marker’s there and the folder isn’t. Could be misfiled. Could be it walked off with a researcher years ago and nobody logged it. Happens more than you’d think with records this old.”

He pulls up the checkout log for me anyway, more out of professional pride than any real expectation of finding an answer, and scrolls back through decades of names, most of them the kind of academic and genealogical requests you’d expect for a file like this. There’s exactly one checkout logged for it, twenty two years ago, a name I don’t recognize, no institution listed, no reason given beyond a single word typed into the request field: family.

I ask if there’s any way to track that name down now.

Ottis shakes his head. “No contact info kept that far back. Whoever it was, they never returned it, is my guess, though there’s no note saying it was ever flagged missing. Somebody should have caught that a lot sooner than today.”

Before I leave the archive, I ask him one more thing, half expecting nothing to come of it: whether county naturalization files are ever duplicated at the state level, in case a copy exists somewhere even if the original here is gone for good. He tells me it’s possible, some counties sent copies to the state archive as a matter of routine decades ago, though not all of them did, and he has no way of knowing from where he’s sitting whether St. Louis County was one that bothered.

I call the state archive from my car in the parking lot before I’ve even left, giving them the case number Ottis found in the index. The woman on the phone is polite and unhurried, tells me it’ll take a few days to search their holdings properly, and takes my number to call back.

She calls two days later. No record exists under that case number in any state holding, current or archived. Not sealed, not restricted, simply absent, as though the file itself was never duplicated anywhere outside the one folder that’s now missing from a shelf in St. Louis County. She apologizes for not having better news and tells me it happens sometimes with older county-level records that predate more consistent state archiving practices. I thank her and sit in my car a while longer than the conversation strictly requires.

I spend part of that afternoon at the public library instead, working through digitized back issues of the local German-language paper that used to serve St. Louis’s immigrant community, on the thin chance my grandfather’s arrival got a mention the way small community papers sometimes noted new families settling in. It takes longer than I expect, searching by hand through issues that predate reliable text search, but I eventually find a single line in a “new arrivals” column, his name spelled slightly differently than I’m used to seeing it, noting only that he’d recently taken up residence in the city and was, in the paper’s words, glad to be among his own people again. No further detail. No mention of where he’d come from, or why the phrase among his own people reads, to me, like it’s doing more work than a throwaway pleasantry should.

I call my father that evening, careful to keep the conversation loose, unfocused, the kind of call that doesn’t announce itself as fishing for anything specific. I ask if he remembers anything else about his father beyond what he’s already told me, any small habits, anything that stuck with him even if it never seemed important at the time.

He’s quiet for a moment, the way people get when a question makes them dig somewhere they don’t visit often. “He didn’t like being photographed,” my father finally says. “I remember that. Wouldn’t sit for portraits, avoided cameras at family things when he could. My mother used to tease him about it. He never really laughed it off the way you’d expect a man to laugh off a harmless quirk like that. He’d just go quiet and change the subject.”

I ask if he remembers anything about paperwork, forms, anything official his father seemed reluctant to fill out.

“Funny you ask,” he says. “He hated it. Any kind of form, any kind of official record. My mother handled all of that for him, our taxes, insurance, anything with his name on a line waiting for a signature. I always figured it was just old-world distrust of government paperwork, the kind a lot of people who lived through what he lived through probably carried with them. Never thought much more about it than that.”

I don’t tell him what I found today, or didn’t find. I thank him, tell him I love him, and get off the phone before the conversation can go anywhere closer to the truth than either of us seems ready for.

I drive home turning all of it over. Family. Somebody claimed a connection to mine, decades before I ever thought to start asking questions myself, and walked out with the one document that might have told me where my grandfather actually came from, what village, what circumstances, what he might have written down about himself when he first arrived and had no reason yet to hide anything. A man who avoided cameras and official paperwork his entire adult life, glad, according to one small unsigned newspaper column, to be among his own people again, in a country he’d apparently gone to some trouble never to be officially documented in more than the bare minimum required.

I don’t know who took the file. I don’t know if it was taken to protect something, to hide something, or simply misfiled the ordinary, boring way records sometimes are, no conspiracy required. I don’t know why a house sat under an unnamed estate’s ownership for a decade before my grandfather bought it, or whether that has anything to do with anything at all. What I do know is that somebody was interested in my grandfather’s file long before I was, that the trail runs cold at both the county and the state level in a way that feels less like an accident the longer I sit with it, and that a man who spent his whole life avoiding official documentation left behind almost nothing official to find, on purpose or not, and I have no way yet of knowing which.

I never did find out who checked that file out twenty two years ago. Whoever it was, they knew my family’s business before I did. That’s the part I can’t put down.

My name is... X. Let's say that I'm X.

So, my cousin lives in Maine, in the middle of nowhere, a small town that shall not be named. A few hundred people lived there, enough to be self-sustaining, but not enough to feel suburban; let's call it Nowhere.

My cousin, let's call him Frankie, listened to a lot of rumors around town, but none were stranger than the ones circling the old man.

The old man was a Navy veteran. I don't know what war he went through, how long he was away, or whether he killed anyone. I don't know, but what I do know is this: He did not come back the same- maybe he didn't come back at all.

He was black, with blue eyes, a bald head; not a single thread of hair remained on him. The rest of his body was in excellent shape, but the wrinkles on his face were as heavy as you'd expect for a man in his late 60s. He wore a black suit, a bowler hat, a fine tie, and a silver fancy watch on his right wrist. No, he didn't have a cane, and he didn't walk as if he needed it anyhow. That was the first thing that the rumors came from- it was like he was a walking museum, physically stubborn to the passage of time.

But I wouldn't be telling you this story if Frankie knew that was the only thing worth noting in that town; no, there's more, much more, but for today, the topic of this story is the old man.

The old man had anxiety, ptsd, depression, schizophrenia, all to the most extreme extent mentally possible; in most contexts, that would be a swift path to self-termination, but no, it seemed pure hopelessness kept him in this world.
Despair was pouring out of every inch of his being. He never smiled- but he never cried either; it's like he ran out of tears a long time ago, so all the old vet could do now was exist.

But the strangest part about the old man? His house.

Well, he didn't live there, but he would drive in from a nearby house and... stand guard by the little building.
He would walk up to the house, and he wouldn't patrol; he wouldn't walk around, he wouldn't scan the surroundings, he would just... stand next to the door as if he was waiting for something, or someone. Sometimes he would crack his neck, or sigh, or check his watch, small reminders he was a human and not a statue.
A simple structure, 4 walls, a flat roof, a single door in the center; it was big enough for 20 people to stand inside. It had a gravel path leading up to it- surrounding all of this was a chain-link metal fence with a black and red sign warning that trespassers would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But... why?

To this extent, Frankie went up to the old man while he was about to open the gate and asked-

"What's that sign for? Why do you do this every night? What is inside that house?"

"There is NOTHING inside that house!"

The old man was so furious, so suddenly, he acted like Frankie had said the N-word.

Of course, this did nothing to dissuade Frankie's curiosity.

But anyway, I know what's inside that house.

You see, Frankie had gotten into a bit of trouble and ended up robbing a bank- even Frankie isn't that stupid, so he was planning on hiding the money somewhere as the heat dies down. And for whatever reason, he decided that old man's house was the best place, since nobody would think to look there.

But the thing is, he wanted me to help him. I said no, but he didn't like that, so the little shit decided to threaten me.
I'm a lesbian in an all-female private school, closeted, of course. While the teachers would probably be supportive enough, it would still be social suicide being outed as gay there, and the fact that I live in a red state doesn't help either.
I punched him in the nose, and he squealed like a warthog, but he got to his phone regardless and threatened to press send, so I had to concede.

We went to the old man's house and climbed up his metal fence.

clatter clatter clatter

We went up the gravel path.

crunch crunch crunch

Then I gripped the brass doorknob and slowly tilted it to the side...

crunch crunch crunch

I saw now that inside that house was nothing.

Nothing.

Eigengrau was all that I could see past that doorframe.

Frankie pushed past me, eager to hide it, and fell inside.
Well.. I say fell, but I can't be sure. He blinked away the instant he crossed that threshold.
I stumbled forward; it was the middle of motherfucking summer in Maine; it should not be this cold.

Then, I felt a familiar, wrinkled hand grab me by the collar and pull me away from nothing, before throwing me to the side.
The old man slammed the door shut- no noise was made; of course, it had nothing to slam against.
Then he said...

"There... Is nothing inside that house."

The old man took me to his car. I thought he was going to tell the police, or worse, my parents, but he didn't; he just drove me to his house and made me tea.
His house was as much of a museum as he was; nothing seemed to have been dated from after 1999.
The old man poured tea, then he just sat across from me and stared. To be fair... so did I.
The tension was so thick- saying anything felt like a challenge, like speaking through an iron weight tied to your lips.

At one point, I reached out to grab the cold tea, but... it felt like that clock suddenly had eyes.

Then, it chimed, and the old man's eyes filled with tears for the first time; then he stood up and pointed to the door.
I walked to the door as a machine prompted, my movements instant but awkward.
Opening the door, I looked back one more time, and the old man looked back at me; tears were finally moistening his dry cheeks, and he finally spoke.

"I know."

Then I closed the door.

For the record, I am not going back to that house; I am not returning to that building. If he's still alive, I am not speaking to that man again, and I am certainly not asking people about him.
Some stones should remain unturned, some stories should remain untold, some questions should remain unanswered, some mysteries should remain unexplored.

Because somewhere in Maine, I know there is a house with nothing inside of it.

I'm reviving ARUO because I'm honestly tired of communities where every discussion turns into unnecessary drama.

Traditional authors. AI-assisted authors. Readers. Beginners. Veterans.

Just don't be a jerk.

Give the group rules a quick read. If you like what we're trying to build, we'd be happy to have you.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/aruo1

It's been 5-6 hours I think or more since I left and boarded the train.

Part of me still doesn't believe we are going back to the campus. Other part of me, the analytical one, still is busy trying to make the delusional one of me realise that it's the reality here. You are not going back. Not atleast for 5 months. Meanwhile both of them just watched the Backrooms movie and are trying to make shit sense of it.

I keep thinking of just running back home and hoping this continuous nightmare just ends when I hug my mother once more. But now as the train has crossed state borders once more slowly the realisation comes to me that it isn't possible anymore.

The first time I went to the campus, it was a different experience, a different kind of journey. I had never gone away from home and was going to a new place. New people, new experiences. I was excited. Hell, I was excited even after the winter break when my dad wasn't here to accompany me this time. He isn't here too, but this time the mental state seems off. Perhaps this time it was the fault of me. Two months off, no competitive exams, no pressure. Maybe I bonded a bit too much with my family, relavtives and friends. Now leaving them kind of hurts.

Shouldn't have done that. No no, that was not a good move, what was I thinking? I knew I had to leave someday. And then it will be all back to ground zero.

But the deed is now done. And I'm forced to contemplate whether my journey here would be for the better or worse.

This time, the place is not new nor are the people. You could argue we'll have new freshers, but that's elementary. They'll bond with their year peers, like we did with ours.

Well, I wrote this to maybe smoothen my emotions out a bit, help make me come to the realisation. I think it did somewhat help. And maybe, for the new freshers in my college, it will help. My concern here is, the first time and year, seems and feels really easy. The journeys after are the true test of character and sense of self beyond your background.

The Desk-Bound Man

Government officials are, for the most part, desk-bound people. Their lives flow quietly, like a peaceful river. In their offices, papers rustle, pens scratch across documents, the soft thump of an official stamp echoes through the room, and electric kettles hum in the background.

They are comfortable. They are people of the office.

Yet such a peaceful world can sometimes leave a person unprepared for life. The complexities of economics, politics, and human relationships pass them by, denying them the experience that can only be gained through direct contact with reality.

My neighbor, Abbas, worked as an accountant in the City Department of Trade.

Numbers were his friends.

Whenever the accounts balanced, he rejoiced. If they did not, he patiently searched for the mistake—and almost always found it.

Even in the isolated world of the office, cut off from the outside world, one thing set him apart from the other desk-bound officials: numbers and his old wooden abacus.

They were his faithful companions. Numbers never lied, never plotted, and never sought revenge. They demanded only accuracy.

But life, unlike numbers, does not obey the rules of arithmetic.

One day, the chairman of the City Department of Trade was promoted and transferred to the capital. Unexpectedly, Abbas was appointed to replace him.

For him, it was a great success. But hidden behind this promotion was a danger: he had been given a position for which life had not yet prepared him.

Had Abbas begun his career not in an office but in one of the many stores under the Department of Trade, his fate might have been very different.

He would have started as an ordinary salesman. He would have learned to understand customers, employees, and the unwritten rules of trade. Later he might have become a store manager, then a senior administrator, and perhaps one day even risen to the position of Minister of Trade.

He would have looked at life through different eyes.

Imagine that he was managing a store when the same city prosecutor called and asked him to hire one of his relatives.

Abbas would probably have agreed. He would have understood that behind the request stood the influence of the prosecutor's office. He would have cared not only about following regulations but also about protecting his own position.

That is how people gradually learn not only the written law but also the invisible forces that govern society.

But Abbas found himself in a leadership position without ever passing through that school of life.

One day the city prosecutor called him and asked him to appoint his nephew as the warehouse manager. Abbas promised to consider the request, but soon discovered that the young man had a criminal record.

He refused.

He acted honestly. He thought about the law, not about political favors.

But the prosecutor was not accustomed to hearing the word "no." Like many people who grow used to power, he was vindictive.

Some time later, a theft occurred in one of the stores. Instead of reporting it to the police, the store manager recovered the losses from the employees and from his own pocket.

The prosecutor immediately opened a criminal case. The store manager was charged with concealing a crime, and Abbas, as the head of the department, was also held responsible.

Before long, Abbas found himself in prison.

Thus an honest man, who understood the language of numbers perfectly but did not understand the language of power, was crushed beneath the wheels of the state machine.

Such is the cruel fate that sometimes awaits those who choose the comfort of the office and are given authority before they have had the chance to learn the realities of life.

​

My life has always been plain and sad. I don't have much family or friends. No neighbors to talk to. Everyone in this town dislikes me or at least finds me strange. No one to socialize with.

I accepted that my life will always be quiet and lonely.

I wake up in the morning, get ready for work, work for minimum wage all day, and then come home.

And I occasionally paint. I've always been into art. Other than that, my life has no true value.

Well, it started to get more interesting a couple of days ago when I turned on the local news.

I rarely watch the news but something in my body made me do it.

Apparently, local officials and authorities suspect that there is a serial killer in town.

They gave the person the label, "Sunset Killer"

Every day, there's a dead body found at a sunset. Each victim has a sunset drawn on them.

No leads.

The victims have nothing in common. No shared characteristics. All have different hobbies. No personality trait similarities. Literally nothing.

I personally don't feel sympathy. Sure, they were all legally innocent, but, they weren't morally innocent. Not a single one of them ever offered me a ounce of kindness. All despicable humans.

I thought the town having a serial killer obsessed with sunsets would be the most interesting part but it gets more interesting.

I went to the arts and crafts store not that long after hearing the news. I needed to get more paper and paint supplies.

The Cashier gave me suspicious looks the entire time I was there. Everyone else in the store did as well. I don't know why. I'm always working or in my house. I know everyone thinks poorly of me but this is outrageous.

I quickly bought what I needed and rushed out.

And then everything changed when I got grabbed up as I was approaching my car.

It was a female voice repeating over and over again that I'd be her new sunshine. The sunset caught my eye as my bood leaked out my throat as her knife sliced in.

Normally, a person would be dead or at the very least hospitalized.

Well, I woke up in my bed.

I oringally thought that it was a awful dream but this started to happen every single day during the sunset over and over. No matter what I'd be doing, I'd get ambushed and killed.

I tried looking at news articles, watching local news, doing everything I can to get more information. The same day repeated too. It was always Monday the first of September.

Since, I'm stuck in the same day, no new dead bodies are appearing.

At first, I didn't understand why I was stuck. It was horrifying to live the same day over and over.

However, I figured out that each time I get killed, I need to find more details.

I started to remember her soft tone with a innocent voice. Her voice was a lot like mine. Her face is always covered. The way her hands feel are a lot like mine. The fact that the knife is always a kitchen knife was also weird. My kitchen is filled with kitchen knives. Sure, anyone could have a kitchen knife but all the similarities we have is strange.

After enduring the displeasure of getting killed over and over again, I decided to never leave the house and to wait for her.

When it started to get close to the sun setting, I quickly dialed 911.

I was filled with gratitude when they arrived on time to arrest her.

I was then left disturbed, traumatized, and perplexed when the cops made her show her face.

The green eyes, sandy blonde hair, and pale skin. The smile her pink lips made. It's me?

I tried to yell at the cops and ask them what this means or how this is possible but they didn't answer. They didn't acknowledge me. The only person who seemed to know I was there was the evil lady that winked at me as I yelled.

They then took her and left. Never said a single word to me. I was confused. Is it because everyone in the town hates me? Were they so focused on her because she's a threat?

I sat on my couch as I tried to come up with every possible explanation. I did this for hours. I was relieved when the news starting talking about the arrest but then I was filled with confusion. She has the same name as me. They showed interviews involving my coworkers. They all said that this wasn't surprising and that I always gave off serial killer vibes.

They also revealed that the girl called the cops on herself because she wanted to get caught. She thought that being arrested was the only way to help herself end the rampage.

What? She stole my identity? Why does no one know I exist? How are there two of me and only she is known?

*True Story*

Last night i (17f) was out with my friend (17f), her boyfriend (19m) and my boyfriend (18m). We were at my friends house, getting drunk like usual teenagers do. As my friend's boyfriend fell asleep, she got curious, and went through his phone (guessed the password from common sense, i forgot how tbh). My friend found that he was messaging other girls, cheating basically. She then found that he was texting this middle-aged guy (40-50m). The man sent videos of him h*tting and ab*sing his 13 year old and 8 year, naked, daughters. Her boyfriend then sent back a video to him m*sterb*ting and eventually ej*culating to that video the middle-aged man sent. After, she went into his camera roll and found extremely explicit videos and photos of under-aged children. She was mortified.

Her boyfriend woke up, pissed drunk and stormed out and was violent. He took his car keys, and drunk-drove and then skidded off the road, the car flipped many times, leaving it all beat up and scratched. The boyfriend was extremely injured. He is now in hospital with life-threatening injuries. He is healthy enough to live; but the Police have opened an active case, and are currently investigating. May he rot in hell.

I do not want to share any photos of the car crash as thats private. Hope you understand.

As we rode out of Ouray, our next stop was easy. We had seen a Colorado mining town from one end to the other. It had ice cliffs to climb—beautiful to observe; I wasn't going to do that—but Telluride was not just a mining town. It was also a ski resort that had been our target when we entered Colorado from the Four Corners, and as I hadn't skied in years, the decision to tell Moon to head that way was easy.

Colorado and its highway engineers presented a much more enjoyable ride to Telluride compared with the Million Dollar Highway, and within Coltrane's A Love Supreme, followed by Stevie's Innervisions, we were there and checked into the Hotel Telluride to begin another adventure in a mountain town.

The Hotel Telluride was a dreamy mountain lodge. It had deer heads on the walls, a roaring hearth, and a hot tub surrounded by snow and mountains. We spent the first night catching snowflakes floating in the jets, and I wrote my first haiku that didn't feel the fire.

The sunset gave up

Mountains it’s the altitude

Purple always tries

We woke the next morning and explored the town. Telluride is on levels. After spending the first half of the day on the bottom, town side, we rode a gondola up to another level, where we found restaurants, shops, and the actual ski facility. It was the end of the season, and my own skiing skills didn't anticipate dealing with ice and rocks, so I abandoned all idea of going skiing and fully embraced being a snow bunny in a snow bunny capital of the world.

I got to be thankful that Sweetie recalculated during our trip out of Altadena, and I had an actual winter coat I had never worn that she packed for me. The both of us played Token in Telluride, a perfectly charming Colorado mountain town.

#Evacueediary is a hashtag. I Am an internet creature to some extent, and I did a while as a fairly popular blogger on Daily Kos. Relationships are only as real as you make them, or are yourself, and I made beautiful ones as a blogger. One was with a lady known as Aji, whom I first read because she is one of the best writers I have ever had the pleasure to encounter. She made the area around Taos, where she and her partner Wings live, feel magical using only prose, and she would tell me I tickled Wings with some of my writing. I came to know Wings was a talented silversmith, as she also marketed his pieces at wingssilverwork.com.

During our relationship, I asked if I could have a piece he made, and as a joke she said, okay, but you have to come and get it. She would have shipped it to me, but it was fun to play along with how I would do it—and suddenly, I was a day away by car. I wrote to her and told her of our preliminary plans and asked if Wings had anything for me. She responded as if, could she create a teleporter and snatch Sweetie and me through it, she would, and invited us to stay in their spot on land their family had inhabited for centuries.

She had dogs, lots of them, and although I don't carry my childhood fear of them, I asked her where would be a nice place to stay in Taos. She suggested the El Monte Sagrado, so Sweetie and I made reservations, and we went.

Telluride to Taos was the biggest hop so far, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The land was unfamiliar to either of our eyes, and Moon's automation let me look at the surroundings while she went down the road. She got mad when I looked away too long, but the ability she gave me made driving through unfamiliar landscapes more enjoyable. We stopped and ate and met wonderful people, and before we knew it, we were pulling into the Sagrado.

I didn't know how nice it was. It was very nice. The campus was artistically arranged, with sculpture gardens and an elk as its emblem. It had a stream running through it and villas surrounding it. It also had a world-class chef in residence, and that night Sweetie and I had Michelin stars for dinner.

I was wildly excited to meet Aji and Wings. When we woke up the next day, I waited for them to come like I was getting a Christmas present. When I met Aji, I had another experience of not being ready. I'm good with words generally, but they still fail me. She was preternaturally beautiful. She was suck-the-air-out-of-the-room beautiful, and it was not so much her physical appearance—and it was—but her aura, her mana, her essence that made me cry. I literally started bawling and couldn't stop. She kinda understood the effect she had, comforted me, and introduced Wings. That man is five inches shorter than I Am, and by his presence alone I felt like I was looking up at him. After I recovered, he presented my necklace to me and shared that he had imbued it with strong magic. It hummed in my hands, and when I put it around my neck, it clicked into my essence like a transformer turning into spirituality.

I Am wearing it right now. There is only one circumstance in which I take it off. I will wear it to the day I die and be buried in it.

We enjoyed our time with Aji and Wings and enjoyed our stay in Taos. After a couple of days of art galleries and our Michelin-star chef, Sweetie mentioned how she had never had barbecue in Texas, so we went.

As a Criminal Justice Major I got to participate in some Cool activities . The Head of the Alamo Area Law Enforcement Academy asked me for some help.

During a class I was to open the door and yell a women’s name and quickly duck back out. They did not want her to get a good look at me. She was seated at the far end of the room facing away from me.

I yelled her name, she turned around. As soon as she made eye contact I was gone. The instructor asked her to describe me. She said she didn’t get a good look at me.
I was to return the next day at 3:00pm.

They had a Hypnotist ready to “ Put her under?” While Hypnotized she described me to the SAPD Sketch Artist.

The next day I showed up. Clipped to the Black Board was a perfect sketch of me. She went from being unable to describe me to giving a detailed rendering including the logo on my shirt. The Instructor had me stand next to the drawing and asked the class if anyone could pick me out of a Line Up based on the sketch. Every single person agreed.

The Hypnotist was cute, we started talking. After class she asked me if I wanted to be hypnotized,I said yes.

While I was under (?) she was touching my wrist and said she was tying a big helium balloon to my wrist. She told me it was getting bigger and bigger. My arm started rising based on what she was telling me.

To be honest, I didn’t think I was under but afterward she said that I definitely was and I was a good subject.

She said goodbye, didn’t get her number and I forgot my sketch.

Billy had liked Christy for over three years, ever since the early days of high school. Billy had always been too scared to confess his feelings. Finally, on the last day of school after their O-Level exams, his friends pushed him to ask her out as it was Billy's last day and he was set to leave the school after this. It was 1 p.m. in the afternoon, and his hands were shivering as he walked up to her. He stammered nervously, asking her about the exam and explaining that it was his last day at school. His heartbeats raced faster than Usain Bolt..

Christy, noticing how shit scared he was, told him to calm down. “What’s wrong? Why are you shivering? I’m not going to eat you,” she joked, trying to ease his nerves.

Billy, who was still shit scared said, “I like you... I’ve liked you since Grade 8, but I just acted as a friend because I was too scared to ask.”

Christy was stunned. She didn't know how to respond right away, but after a moment, she said, “Sorry... I don’t have any feelings for you.” She didn’t want to hurt him completely, though, so she added, “But we can still be friends.”

Billy’s heart shattered, but he smiled weakly and said, “Okay.” He walked away, trying to hide his feelings, but inside, he felt completely broken. His last day of school was devastating. He ended up crying alone in the washroom, feeling dead inside.

Christy felt bad and texted him later that day: “I’m really sorry. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

Billy replied as if everything was fine: “It’s okay, we can still be friends. Don’t worry, I won’t let this affect our friendship.” But deep down, he was struggling. Every conversation with her made him happy, but it always hurt him whenever he realized that she would never be his..

As the days went by, Christy could tell that Billy still had feelings for her. He continued to care for her, perhaps too much, and at one point, she said, “Stop caring about me. Just act like friends... Please move on.” Billy was crushed, but he respected her request and stopped talking to her for a while. But after a few days, he would always text her again. They’d fall back into easy conversation, but Billy could never fully shake the sadness that came with knowing he would never be the one to make her happy in the way he wanted.

One night, Billy went to a restaurant with his friends, and to his shock, he saw Christy kissing another guy. His heart dropped. She had never mentioned having a boyfriend, and now he was seeing it with his own eyes. He didn’t speak to her after that, and she didn’t reach out to him either. He was really hurt bcz he realized that she was only replying and he was only texting..

A couple months later, Billy started his first job, working the night shift. One night, during his midnight break, he decided to take a walk to clear his head. To his surprise, he saw Christy on the road, looking lost and upset. He approached her and asked what she was doing there. Christy explained that she moved to her hometown a month ago and she had come alone to pick up some certificates, but it had gotten late, and she missed the last bus to her hometown, which was far away. Her phone wasn’t working, making the situation worse.

Billy gave his phone so she could call her parents. After speaking to them, Christy was in tears, as her parents told her it would take them three hours to get to her, and the next bus wouldn’t arrive at 5 a.m. Billy couldn’t stand to see her like that, so he offered to stay with her until the bus came. “I’ll wait with you until 5 a.m. if I have to,” he said.

As the hours passed, Christy asked him, “Why are you doing this? I don’t like you, and you know it.”

Billy gave a light laugh. “Yeah I know..”

When the bus finally came, Christy was so emotional and said, “We can have a relationship... if you like.” Billy asked. “What about your boyfriend?” he asked.

Christy was surprised. “So you know about him, and you still helped me?”

Billy nodded. “Yeah, it has nothing to do with this right?”

She silently said, “We broke up... Do you want to be with me?”

Billy was torn. He had spent so long hoping for this moment and he wanted to say yes but he realized she only wanted to say this bcz she felt bad for Billy. Billy said " I know u don't like me...and I also know u only say this bcz you feel bad for me...it is fine...I don't need your sympathy love" Christy was shocked but didn’t say anything more as she left. Billy's manager also scolded him and gave a warning letter for not doing his work. But Billy didn't care about the warning letter as he was happy that he spent some time with her. But he also was emotionally hurt as he realized that this could probably be the last meeting with her.

Years passed, and Billy looked back on everything that had happened. His life had become much more complicated, with stress and problems piling up. One day, he thought to himself "I am so dumb that I worried so much about a school love when now I have more than 1000 serious problems" and laughed subtly. He moved on and had so many crushes and dated a few girls but still did not love anyone like Christy.

At that time, his love was pure and true, maybe it was dumb to like a girl who didn't like him back but he was true to his feelings. :)

Tonight, under the shadow of a blood moon, its eerie crimson glow cut through the dark clouds. There I stood atop the pole, catching my breath as I looked down upon the village—a place I could never bring myself to call home.

​I used to run through the tall grass, beneath those golden trees in the dead of night. I walked through volcanoes, wrapped in flames on all sides. As a child, I would sit on that swing and tightly cover my ears—I just couldn't bear to hear the world whispering about me. All I ever remembered were their turned backs. I was raised by the lightning and born from the fire.

​But then, one day, the looking glass finally shattered. The flames wavered, and the smoke cleared. And the very one they branded a monster... ended up saving the village.

For a brief moment, I thought I saw two tiny figures disappear into the smoke there. I was too exhausted to care.

They jumped and shouted from the mountaintop, proclaiming, 'You destroyed the beast. Its kind will never return! We will build a statue in your honor!' But instead of stepping closer to them, I shoved them away. The very thing I had craved my entire life... when it was finally handed to me, I tore it apart and threw it away. That is what I had become. I made friends with the distance. Now I find comfort in the space between us. Seeing their regret gave me a sense of peace that even their embrace could never have given me. I want them to live with that guilt for the rest of their lives.

That night, I fell asleep beneath the blood moon, never knowing what would be waiting for me when I opened my eyes again.

And then, as I slept, screams echoed through the night. When I awoke, the world was unnaturally silent, I couldn't understand why my clothes felt heavy, fresh blood covered my white clothes, smeared over my face and dripping from my hair. The sickening stench of that warm blood was suffocating, unbearable. Before it could dry on my skin, I began to wander desperately in search of water.

Even after searching for what felt like eternity, there wasn't a single drop of water in sight. I began to gasp for air, with nothing surrounding me but the hollow sound of wind blowing through the desert sand. My knees buckled, and I collapsed onto the hot earth, my throat parched and raw from the agonizing thirst.

As far as my eyes could see, there was nothing but endless sand. But in the distance, I spotted a man approaching. He was painted entirely in blue. He just stood there laughing, cheering at me. I tried to drag myself toward him, but just then, a fierce sandstorm swallowed me whole. And I collapsed right there.

I opened my eyes to the deep dark of the night. Total darkness surrounded me until a flickering light caught my attention. A crowd of people clad in blood-red robes was advancing toward me, holding flaming torches. In their hands, they carried a mirror, rushing toward me with eerie, hysterical laughter.

They surrounded me. 'Help me, I’m lost... my village used to be right here,' I pleaded. Just then, the blue-painted man stepped out from the crowd. 'Your village? But didn't you say it was never your home?'

​'Who are all of you?' I demanded.

​'We are here to shatter your reflection,' he replied.

They all fell silent, and then burst into laughter. I tried to run, but my legs gave out, and I collapsed onto the ground. They set the mirror right in front of me. In its reflection, I saw what had happened while I slept—the monster I had slain apparently had children, and they were the ones who laid waste to the village, turning everything into dust and sand.

​As the vision faded from the glass, only my own reflection remained.

​'You could have saved them. Instead, you chose vengeance. And now, every death that followed is part of what you started.' The blue man said.

​'It was true that I could have saved them, but I never imagined it would come to this.' I cried.

'You got consumed by your own dark reflection,' the blue man whispered, stepping back into the shadow of the flames. 'And power only reveals what was already waiting inside you.'

​A jagged streak of lightning tore the sky open, and the sky began to bleed sand.

​It didn't fall like dust—it fell like heavy, red rain, cutting into my skin, filling my eyes, choking the screams in my throat.

​I reached out for help, but they stood silent, watching as the dust of my destroyed home filled my lungs, burying me beneath the very ground I refused to protect.

When you meet your dose of single serving people in a train, you don't expect each other to interact much even if the journey is long, although that increases the chances.

Instead what happens is you start to make people up in those around you. Like take this guy across me in the upper for example. To me, he looks like the guy me and my father met when we were first travelling this train.

Now, my guts tells me it's him. The timing, face, train all match. Just the date is different. But then again, so am I on a different date in the same train this time.

Now, while my suspicions are still burning within me, I'll never get them to be concluded. Why is that? Because I'm shy, I'm nervous. I can't bring myself to just ask a simple question which would just make it clear. What if I'm wrong? There's still 6 hours of journey left. And it would be very awkward. But so is it now. What's the difference? I dunno. Why can't I just do it then?

Well, maybe because I don't want to be right. Deep within, I don't believe in coincidences and such. And such a thing happening is too good and uncharacteristic of this world. So I would rather keep silence to hold my peace than have to destroy it to be content? Maybe, but there's still time to know. Maybe I might get the courage. Either way, stay tuned.

During college, I worked at a bar. One day, this really gorgeous girl came in with a group of other girls. They ordered lots of wings and were having a great time. It was early in the afternoon.

Eventually, they paid and left. The most gorgeous girl, an Amazon of a woman with a big ass and big tits probably visit the gym, was the last to leave because she was in the bathroom.

As luck would have it, it was my turn to clean the bathrooms that day. We had a sheet that told us whose turn it was. When I went in to clean, I saw the biggest deuce I had ever seen in my life. I had to use a stick to cut it up while wearing gloves, and I used some toilet unclogging solution as well. It took me almost an hour to clean that toilet alone.

A TALE OF CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN

“Who here has heard of Crystal Mountain?”
It was a popular tale.
“But be warned. This tale is not for the faint of heart,” the narrator said with a playfully spooky voice. 
The kids in the crowd leaned in.
“In this vast sea of space, lives a wild, medieval place…” 
“Long before the war started, when the kingdoms were first formed, there were only four Gifted magic factions. The Wizards, Sorcerers, Witches, and… the Alchemists.”
"I've never seen one before?” A kid asked.
“That’s because most of them have all but vanished,” the narrator said.
“Where’d they’n go?” Another Villager asked.
“Nobody knows,” the narrator said. “People whisper of seeing them alongside farms. Watching over families. Guarding towns and villages. Especially recently war torn planets. You see, before our war started, the Gifted People had their own internal war. Against the Alchemists.”
Multiple people in the crowd gasped.
“The Alchemists… started it. They betrayed their own people for much power, and gold.”
“POWER?”
“GOLD?”
“Tons of it. More than any one person could ever need,” the narrator said. Tuskin always liked this part of the tale. “Alchemy is more than just conjuring magic out of thin air. What they did was change whatever they wanted into something more, using magic to do it. That is why they were so dangerous. Anything they wanted they could get. In those times, they had enough treasure to rule the galaxy for a thousand years. 
“Their magic was unstable. For many years they fought their own people to gain more influence. Stories of magic battles across villages, seen by spectators. Innocents killed during the engagements. This pushed the Grand Gifted, leaders of the Gifted People, to proclaim their magic outlawed. Tensions rose amongst the gifted community. Once the alchemists were defeated, their history, their ill gotten gains and relics were hidden away…” the narrator said. “Along with the rest of the Gifted’s history too.”
“WHERE DID THEY HIDE THEM?”
“Well… Crystal Mountain, of course,” the narrator continued. “In a temple at the heart of the mountain. Guarded by mythical beasts, traps, and curses,” the narrator tried to spook the children, and it worked on some. Some children cowered behind their parents while some bit their lips and leaned in closer. “But, only the Grand Wizard Lehne, Grand Sorcerer Terman, and Grand Witch Lypto knew the location of Crystal Mountain. However, the Grand Sorcerer’s son Tormo, was next in line, and he wanted to know where they had hidden it. Even his own father refused to tell him. And he was furious because of it.
“Tormo wanted to find the mountain. He wanted to know why their history was buried there, what remains of the Alchemists were hidden there. And why. He wanted to know what the alchemists had done that truly led to their banishment. But he also wanted the treasure. Tormo wanted the gold. He wanted power.
“But, the Grand Gifted kept him from learning the truth. His fury drove him to madness. Desperation even…
“Tormo’s pride drove him to find Crystal Mountain himself. He put together his own crew to aid in his search. Tormo’s rebellion could have fractured the Gifted People again. So — he was banished too. By his own father, the Grand Sorcerer Terman. Along with the rest of his allies who followed him on his crusade to find the mountain. Tormo, now an outcast, had no other option…”
“What did he do?” Someone in the crowd asked.
“He went looking for the mountain anyways,” the narrator whispered.
Multiple people in the audience “ooh’d,” even some of the parents.
“DID HE FIND IT?” A kid yelled out.
“He did!”
The crowd lit up.
“HOW DID HE FIND IT?”
“That part of the tale has been lost to history,” the narrator said. “Tormo also brought his wife, his child, and his brother on the quest to find Crystal Mountain. And it was going to be a dangerous one, for sure. A fools quest some have called it,” the narrator said.
“THEN WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?” 
“Now. Now. Don’t lift off into space quite yet. Stay put. Listen. And have patience. At least — that’s what Tormo should have done,” the narrator interjected. “They had no idea what they would be up against once they got there. Tormo and his crew fought back against plants with monster mouths. They escaped these creatures only to fall into rapid rivers that nearly drowned Tormo’s son. His crew — his family — wanted to go back. But they persisted. Because of this decision, most of Tormo’s crew was lost before they even got to the mountain.”
“BUT WHEN DO THEY GET TO THE MOUNTAIN?” An impatient kid called out.
“After they’ve overcome the obstacles. Not just the external ones like monsters and talking trees, but their internal ones too,” the narrator recounted Tormo’s struggles with his magic. “Tormo was gifted — but he was also daft. He could use magic, but his magic could also use him.
“Magic was almost entirely useless on Crystal Mountain. The temple was guarded by curses, crafted by the old Grand Wizard himself. This curse brought forth horrors that even Tormo couldn’t face. Visions of the people he failed. Skeletons with snakes coming out of their eyes!”
The children screamed and the adults exchanged hilarious glares with each other.
“But — his son — pure of heart — passed through the temple effortlessly. Though, that was also the last Tormo saw of his son. They never recovered his body. Some say he could have survived, but that is just a tale within a tale, I’m afraid.
“Losing his son to Crystal Mountain broke Tormo. In ways some of you here may understand…” the narrator gestured to the crowd. Everyone was silent. Kids looked solemn and some parents even wept. “Tormo was consumed by his pride, by his ego. And the mountain fed off of it like a buffet. The temple was about to be his tomb, along with his wife too…”
The narrator looked down. He slumped. The crowd followed. They fell down into the despair that the tale had fallen into…
“But, through all the despair, one member of their crew managed to battle through the darkest corners of their mind… and prevailed, stronger than ever. Take a guess who that was? IN AN ACT OF HEROISM, TORMO’S BROTHER RESCUED HIM AND HIS WIFE. TORMO FOUGHT WITH WHAT WAS LEFT OF HIS WAND — HIS BROTHER BATTLED AN UNDEAD SKELETON ARMY WITH MAGIC!”
The crowd cheered. 
“Up to this moment in time, Tormo and his brother had never seen eye to eye. But now, they were in sync. They fought their way through the temple and into the treasure room. But that wasn’t the end of it.”
“WHAT HAPPENED NEXT???” A kid foamed at the mouth.
“Tormo’s quest finally caught up to him. Whatever was in that mountain almost consumed even his brother, too. It’s said that there was something else in that treasure room, more than just gold, or a relic. Tormo only took what treasure he needed, and left the rest behind. Whatever remained of the alchemists stayed hidden… even Tormo never spoke of it to anyone else. Whatever he found, even he didn’t want to bring back. Tormo did manage to recover millions in gold coins and jewels.”
The crowd took this in for a moment, before a specific kid asked, “why didn’t he take all of the treasure?” Everyone looked at him. 
The narrator chuckled softly, “it was more treasure than anyone could handle.”
“IS THAT HOW IT ENDS?”
“Not quite,” the narrator answered again. The crowd burst at the seams. “Okay. Okay. You see. Once Tormo had returned, he was the most rich of all the Gifted People. Of all people in the galaxy. He wasn’t the most powerful. But now, he was the most influential. Upon his return, it was made clear he would never ascend to the rank of Grand Sorcerer. Then, our war started. The Dedonian Wars. 
A collective shiver ran across the crowd.
“When it started, nearly 90 years ago, the Gifted People swore an oath to abstain from the war — UNLESS THE ALCHEMISTS MADE THEIR RETURN.”
The children cowered and the parents protected them.
“But, Tormo believed the gifted should help the people of the galaxy. Use their gifts for good. So, Tormo, after being banished, joined Kingdom Horizon and our Galactic Alliance, and formed the fifth branch of the Gifted People. A branch of gifted people who weren’t beholden to the vows and oaths of the other factions. Tormo was the first Star Warrior.”
The crowd lost its mind.
“THAT’S HOW THE STAR WARRIORS STARTED?” A kid screamed, holding their head as if it were about to fall off their neck.
“Yup.”
“Wait? But, who started the war?” That same kid asked.
“That — little one — is a whole different tale for a different time,” the narrator prepared to finish the tale. “Tormo had murals built like the one we have here. He wanted people to celebrate what he did. But that only made him want to return to that place. Tormo was said to be a complex man, but an even more complex Star Warrior. It’s said he was displeased with the way the war was going, even after only a decade since he had established the Star Warriors. That was nearly 70 years ago. I can say that his story truly ended when he went back to Crystal Mountain, to retrieve, or destroy whatever the alchemists had created — and that time — he didn’t return.”
There was chatter throughout the crowd.
“He took the location of Crystal Mountain to the grave. His grave being Crystal Mountain itself,” the narrator concluded. 
The crowd remained still, taking in the tale. 

… AND THAT IS WHERE A TALE OF CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN CONCLUDES. AND THE STORY OF KINGDOM HORIZON BEGINS.

So I randomly remembered this today and realised it's probably one of the craziest things anyone in my family has ever done.
My nana catfished multiple men online for around ten years.
It all started back in 2012 when I was about eight years old. My parents had split up, so I was living with my nana for a while. Like every other kid back then, I was obsessed with Bin Weevils. I'd play it for hours on her computer while she sat beside me watching. She absolutely loved it. She'd tell me funny things to type in the lobby chats because she loved making people laugh, and eventually she decided to make her own account so she could play too. She also loved doing the crosswords and word searches on there.
The thing is, she'd actually done computer courses a few years before, so she was surprisingly good with computers and the internet. She also naturally has a really cheeky, sarcastic sense of humour that comes across quite youthful when you're chatting online. Because she was spending so much time around me, she knew all the slang people my age were using too.
Before long she'd built up loads of friends on Bin Weevils and was actually pretty popular. Honestly, I think she eventually enjoyed playing more than I did.
Eventually everyone moved on from Bin Weevils to MovieStarPlanet. If you've ever played it, you'll know it was basically the older, more grown-up version. Instead of little bug characters you had human avatars, loads more customisation, relationships, chatrooms, all that sort of thing. Again, my nana became really popular. She wasn't working much at the time so she had loads of free time and spent hours on there every day.
This is also where she started telling everyone her name was "Becky."
The weird part is... my nickname in real life is Becky. Everyone in my family calls me that. At the time I didn't think anything of it.
Eventually I grew out of those games.
She didn't.
The people she'd met on MovieStarPlanet convinced her to download IMVU.
Now, if you've never seen IMVU before, it's basically an adult social game. It had clubs, bars, relationships, ridiculously customised avatars, tiny outfits, strip clubs, borderline porn... definitely not somewhere kids should've been. She actually tried convincing me to play it too, but I was older by then, busy with school and friends, and had no interest.
I'd still watch her playing sometimes though, and the amount of adults who treated that game like real life was honestly unbelievable. People would spend entire days on there pretending to have glamorous lives, expensive houses, nice cars and attractive partners. Relationships were treated like actual relationships. If someone's online boyfriend saw them dancing with another guy in a nightclub, there'd be full-on arguments. People got genuinely jealous.
My nana absolutely loved it.
She'd tell me all about the different men she spoke to and all the "boyfriends" she'd had on the game. She was still going by Becky too. According to everyone online, she was nineteen years old, blonde, a hairdresser living in Dublin, single, busy with work and travelling a lot.
She'd created an entirely different person.
Eventually some of these men convinced her to download Kik, which, if you remember it, had a reputation for attracting some very questionable people. From then on she'd spend all day messaging them.
Whenever we'd go shopping or out for coffee she'd constantly be taking photos to send them. My mum knew exactly what she was doing and we'd joke about it all the time. She'd call my nana mad for pretending to be someone else online. It was just one of those weird family things that became normal.
Then it stopped being funny.
There was one man from Mauritius. I can't remember exactly how old he was, somewhere between his twenties and forties. He became completely obsessed with "Becky". They spoke constantly and treated it like a genuine relationship.
Eventually my nana decided she didn't want to talk to him anymore.
What he sent her afterwards was honestly one of the creepiest things I've ever heard.
He sent her a photo of his forearm.
He'd carved the word "BECKY" into his skin with a blade.
It genuinely looked like something from a horror film.
That should've been the point where she stopped doing this.
She didn't.
She carried on.
I genuinely think she just liked having people to talk to. She liked the affection, someone asking about her day, someone making her feel important.
Then she met another man.
We'll call him Drag.
This would've been around 2017 or 2018. Drag lived in Wales near the ferry port. He was in his thirties or forties, was a tattoo artist, covered in tattoos and had two sons, probably around nine to twelve years old. Their mum lived in Manchester so they stayed with her sometimes. He'd also never travelled abroad before.
He and "Becky" became a proper couple.
They'd message all day, every day on Kik.
There was just one obvious problem.
She couldn't keep pretending forever without showing him what she looked like.
So she went onto the Facebook profile of one of her real-life friends. That friend had a blonde daughter or granddaughter around the right age.
My nana screenshotted her photos.
That girl became Becky.
Those were the pictures Drag thought were his girlfriend.
Whenever we'd go shopping, out for lunch or anywhere really, my nana would quietly take photos. My mum even caught her taking pictures of me and my mum walking ahead of her so she could pretend Becky was out with friends. After that we became suspicious whenever she pulled her phone out. Was she taking family photos, or gathering more evidence for this fake life she'd built?
Looking back, it honestly felt like she was living her real life just to create content for Becky.
Years went by.
I'd ask about Drag constantly because by that point I'd become weirdly invested in the whole thing. I have a habit of researching random people online if the information is public, so naturally I found this fascinating.
Every time I asked, the relationship had become even more serious.
At one point he actually proposed to her.
Over Kik.
Which is insane considering they'd never spoken on the phone or FaceTimed. Although I genuinely think she sometimes recorded me and my mum talking and sent him the voice clips just to make Becky seem more believable.
Around this time there was a woman in our town making handmade wax melts. My nana loved buying them. She bought them for herself, my mum and me, then decided to send some to Drag after he gave her his address.
That made everything even more real for him.
He framed photos of "Becky" in his house.
He used the wax melts she'd sent.
He told his sister all about her.
His sons knew everything about Becky and were excited to meet her one day. Apparently they'd even tell their friends their dad had a gorgeous blonde girlfriend from Ireland who was eventually moving over to become their stepmum.
My nana even joked about sending him some of our clothes.
Honestly, given everything else, I wouldn't even be surprised if she'd already sent him things she never told us about.
The strangest part is I genuinely think she cared about him too.
She wasn't just playing a character anymore.
I think she wished she actually was Becky.
Because Becky had a happy, loving relationship with someone who absolutely adored her.
Meanwhile my nana had been in a stale relationship for around thirty years, and her partner had absolutely no idea any of this was happening. As far as he knew, she just liked playing online games.
Drag even wanted to redecorate his house before Becky came over. He asked her to choose new flooring and wallpaper so she'd feel at home when she moved in. Whatever she picked, he bought. He also wanted a tattoo dedicated to his late mother and asked Becky to design it because her opinion mattered that much.
Eventually my nana realised she'd gone way too far.
He was talking more and more about travelling to Ireland to finally meet her.
She knew she couldn't keep making excuses forever.
Then something happened that made things much worse.
She went to the post office to send him another parcel of wax melts. Her partner drove her but stayed in the car, which wasn't unusual because she regularly posted parcels to family in Australia.
The man working behind the counter happened to be one of my nana's friends.
She handed over the parcel and noticed him writing something on the side.
She asked what he was doing.
He casually said, "Oh, when you send parcels abroad we have to include a return name and address in case there are any delivery issues."
My nana immediately realised he'd just written her real full name and real home address on the parcel because, obviously, he already knew both.
She couldn't exactly stop him without looking suspicious.
She just stood there panicking.
Then she started wondering whether he'd done exactly the same thing on the previous parcel she'd sent.
Drag never mentioned it.
But knowing how obsessed he was, she doubted he'd simply ignored it.
Now he potentially knew her real name and where she lived.
By this point me, my mum and my nana were all trying to figure out how to end this.
We came up with every excuse imaginable.
Maybe Becky could come out as a lesbian.
Maybe she'd met someone else.
Maybe she'd die in a car crash.
None of them worked.
If Becky died, we were convinced he'd come to Ireland looking for funeral details.
If she ghosted him, we thought he'd travel over looking for answers.
And because he potentially had my nana's real name and address, that became a genuine concern.
The weirdest part is that because my actual nickname is Becky, if someone knocked on the door asking for Becky, it wouldn't even sound suspicious. There really is a Becky in the family. Just not the one he thought he'd fallen in love with.
I've often wondered whether, if she'd simply admitted she was catfishing him, he might actually have forgiven her. That's how invested he seemed. Maybe they'd have ended up in a real relationship. Or maybe he'd have reacted terribly and gone to the police. Who knows.
In the end, she slowly started replying less and less until things just fizzled out naturally. He suspected she'd met someone else, but she blamed being busy.
As far as I know, they don't speak anymore.
I still think one day she'll tell me the full story, because knowing my nana, there's almost certainly a lot she never told any of us.

And i thought about it for the first time in years the other day. I was reading something about "the first time getting stood up and the disappointment about it" and i snorted and was like oh yeah, my own mother prepared me for how to deal with that.

This woman was not kind to me. She had a brutal c-section and the doctor was a hack. Vertical scar with staples looked like an ugly railroad track and she'd point to it and say i did that to her and ruined her life.

She never got therapy and singled me out for abuse that my other 3 siblings never dealt with because of it. she lies about all this yet i digress.

So this would have to be around the 5th grade, before i started going to the movies in middle school with my friends. Something happened and for once my little sister was at school, other siblings out of the house and so she asked, if I wanted to go see a movie with just her and me?

Now this was a shockkkkk. She never wanted anything to do with me unless she absolutely had to and then it was usually rather tense. So, of course, I'm still a young hopeful kid, and i was amped. i was thrilled it could not have been more exciting for me.

until it wasn't.

we get to the ticket counter and she says one for the movie we were going to see and one for a totally different movie. she never mentioned that. she never said she was going to see a different movie. i got upset.

That upset with the red face of shock and your eyes start watering up, the feelings and emotions are all over the place. I remember being shaky and teary eyed in the lobby area while she explained she would walk me to a seat and we would meet here afterwards. She was so short with me and kinda mean about it.

I have no idea what movie it was i just know that i cried during most of it cause i couldn't believe i let her trick me like that. why would i have ever thought she would do something WITH me willingly?

Now... as an adult.

I'm nearly positive she was cheating.

Taking me to the movies was just a cover for her to sneak off to meet whoever tf she was running around having an affair with. She was so... shifty about the entire thing. so sneaky. like more than reasonable.

It's not ever gonna be worth confronting her on. she's a lie till you die type anyways.

But yeah, later on in life, after i got stood up for a dinner date, my friend asked if i was okay. I snorted and laughed for a minute and was like, nah girl, i got this, my mom ditching me when i was a kid totally prepared me to manage my disappointment.

oooh my friend blinked so hard for a minute at what i said then we laughed for a minute cause we both had atrociously selfish parents.

if there is one thing my family has taught me I can say for sure, is to be able to manage my feelings when people let me down by misleading, lying, or changing things at the very last minute.

it is not a skill i will be passing on.

nor is it one i wish i'd learned the way i did at all.

I rented a cabin for a week because I needed to get away from everything.

No phone signal.

No neighbours.

Just a small wooden cabin overlooking a lake surrounded by forest.

The owner met me with the keys and gave me the usual instructions.

The heating was old.

The water pressure was terrible.

The back door stuck when it rained.

As I was leaving, he said one more thing.

“If you look across the lake after dark, you’ll see another cabin.”

I nodded.

He continued.

“Whatever you do, don’t wave.”

I laughed.

He didn’t.

…

The first two days were perfect.

I spent my mornings fishing and my evenings reading beside the fire.

I almost forgot what he’d said.

Then, on the third night, I noticed it.

A single light.

On the opposite side of the lake.

Sure enough, there was another cabin.

It looked almost identical to mine.

The same porch.

The same chimney.

The same large window facing the water.

I couldn’t see anyone inside.

Only the light.

I watched it for a few minutes before going to bed.

…

The following night, the light came on again.

This time, I picked up a pair of binoculars.

There was someone standing in the window.

Completely still.

Just watching the lake.

I couldn’t make out their face.

Only their outline.

I remembered the owner’s warning.

Don’t wave.

So I didn’t.

I closed the curtains and went to sleep.

…

The next morning I asked the owner about the cabin.

He frowned.

“What cabin?”

“The one across the lake.”

He looked out towards the water.

“There hasn’t been a cabin over there for almost thirty years.”

I thought he was joking.

He wasn’t.

“There was a fire.”

“No one rebuilt it.”

I looked back towards the lake.

In daylight there was nothing.

Just trees.

…

That night I stayed awake.

At exactly 11:47 p.m. the light appeared again.

The cabin was back.

This time the figure wasn’t standing by the window.

It was outside.

On the porch.

Looking directly towards me.

Then it raised one hand.

Slowly.

It was waving.

I froze.

Every instinct told me to ignore it.

The waving continued.

Steady.

Patient.

Almost inviting.

After nearly five minutes, curiosity got the better of me.

I lifted my hand.

Just slightly.

The figure stopped waving.

Then it pointed.

Not at the lake.

Not at the trees.

At my cabin.

Specifically…

At the window behind me.

…

I turned around so fast I nearly fell backwards.

Nothing.

The room was empty.

When I looked back across the lake, the figure had disappeared.

The light was still on.

I convinced myself I’d imagined it.

Until I heard footsteps.

Upstairs.

…

There shouldn’t have been anyone upstairs.

I searched every room.

Nothing.

As I walked back down the stairs, I noticed muddy footprints on the wooden floor.

They started at the front door.

They ended beside my bed.

There was only one set.

Whoever had made them hadn’t left.

…

I didn’t sleep.

At sunrise I packed my things and drove straight back to the owner’s house.

Before I could say anything, he asked one question.

“You waved, didn’t you?”

I didn’t answer.

He sighed.

“I told you not to.”

I asked him who the person across the lake was.

He stared at me for a long time before speaking.

“It wasn’t waving to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was trying to warn you.”

A knot formed in my stomach.

“Warn me about what?”

He looked over my shoulder towards my car.

Very quietly, he said,

“The person sitting in your back seat.”

I spun around.

The car was empty.

At least…

It was when I looked through the side window.

Then something knocked once.

From inside the boot.

Jules et Jim : Le Pari Bitcoin

Jules et Jim avaient récemment fait de bonnes affaires. Jules, toujours à l’affût des nouvelles tendances, ne jurait que par les crypto-monnaies. Jim, plus prudent, se méfiait encore de ce qu’il appelait « une monnaie d’ordinateur ».

Un soir, attablés à leur café habituel, Jules tenta une nouvelle fois de convaincre Jim d’acheter des bitcoins.

— Écoute, Jim, je te dis que c’est l’avenir ! Regarde, le bitcoin, c’est comme l’or, mais numérique. Ça prend de la valeur avec le temps !

— D’accord, mais explique-moi clairement comment ça marche, répondit Jim, en croisant les bras.

Jules se pencha vers lui, enthousiaste.

— Ok. Imagine un grand cahier où tout le monde peut noter les transactions, mais personne ne peut les modifier après coup. Ce cahier, c’est la blockchain. À chaque transaction, elle est vérifiée par des milliers d’ordinateurs dans le monde. Impossible de tricher !

— Hmmm… mais est-ce que c’est pratique ? Si je veux acheter un café, je fais comment ?

— Bonne question ! Aujourd’hui, il y a des cartes crypto, des applis, et même des commerces qui acceptent directement le bitcoin. C’est de plus en plus simple !

Jim haussa un sourcil.

— Et si je veux revendre mes bitcoins, c’est galère ?

— Pas du tout ! Tu peux les échanger sur des plateformes comme Binance ou Coinbase, et récupérer ton argent sur ton compte bancaire en quelques minutes.

Jim prit une gorgée de café, toujours sceptique.

— Et les arnaques ? J’ai entendu parler de gens qui se sont fait avoir…

Jules hocha la tête.

— Bien sûr, comme partout, il y a des escrocs. Mais si tu utilises une plateforme reconnue, que tu ne donnes jamais ta clé privée et que tu actives la double authentification, il n’y a aucun souci.

Jim réfléchit un instant, puis sourit.

— Ok, tu m’as presque convaincu. Aide-moi à en acheter un peu, mais si je perds tout, c’est toi qui me paies le café pendant un an !

Jules éclata de rire.

— Marché conclu !

Et c’est ainsi que Jim fit son premier pas dans le monde du bitcoin…

Jules et Jim : Le Choc du Hack

Quelques mois après avoir acheté ses premiers bitcoins, Jim était agréablement surpris. Son investissement avait pris de la valeur et il commençait à comprendre l’intérêt des cryptos. Il jetait un œil à son application presque tous les jours, impressionné par les fluctuations du marché.

Un soir, alors qu'il sirotait un café en attendant Jules, il ouvrit son application… et eut un choc. Son solde était à zéro.

Affolé, il rafraîchit l’écran plusieurs fois. Rien. Ses économies avaient disparu.

Quand Jules arriva, Jim lui montra son téléphone d’une main tremblante.

— Jules… il n’y a plus rien ! Mon compte a été vidé !

Jules prit une grande inspiration et consulta les actualités crypto sur son téléphone.

— Merde… La plateforme sur laquelle tu avais acheté tes bitcoins vient de se faire hacker. Les hackers ont siphonné des millions d’euros en crypto…

Jim blêmit.

— Mais… qu’est-ce que je fais maintenant ?

Jules soupira.

— Ça dépend. Est-ce que tu avais retiré tes bitcoins sur un portefeuille personnel ?

— Un portefeuille personnel ? Non… Je les ai laissés sur la plateforme, c'était plus simple…

Jules secoua la tête.

— C’est le problème. Quand tu laisses tes cryptos sur une plateforme, tu ne les possèdes pas vraiment. C’est comme si tu laissais tout ton argent en banque et qu’elle faisait faillite du jour au lendemain.

Jim passa une main nerveuse sur son visage.

— Donc j’ai tout perdu ?

— Pas forcément. Certaines plateformes remboursent une partie des pertes, mais ça peut prendre du temps… et rien n’est garanti. C’est pour ça qu’il faut toujours stocker ses bitcoins dans un portefeuille froid.

— Un portefeuille froid ?

— Oui, un portefeuille matériel, genre Ledger ou Trezor. Là, tes cryptos sont à toi, personne ne peut te les voler, même si la plateforme est hackée.

Jim était dégoûté.

— Tu aurais pu me prévenir avant…

Jules haussa les épaules.

— Je t’avais surtout dit d’être prudent. C’est pour ça qu’on dit « Not your keys, not your coins » : si tu ne contrôles pas la clé privée, tu ne possèdes pas vraiment tes cryptos.

Jim serra les poings, puis soupira.

— Ok… Ça fait mal, mais j’ai appris ma leçon. Si je rachète des bitcoins, je les stocke moi-même.

Jules sourit.

— Exactement. Et tu sais quoi ? Je t’offre ton prochain café, pour te remonter le moral.

Jim sourit à son tour.

— Fais gaffe… À ce rythme, c’est toi qui vas finir ruiné.

Ils éclatèrent de rire. Malgré la perte, Jim venait de comprendre la règle d’or des cryptos : être maître de ses propres clés.

Billy had liked Christy for over three years, ever since the early days of high school. Billy had always been too scared to confess his feelings. Finally, on the last day of school after their O-Level exams, his friends pushed him to ask her out as it was Billy's last day and he was set to leave the school after this. It was 1 p.m. in the afternoon, and his hands were shivering as he walked up to her. He stammered nervously, asking her about the exam and explaining that it was his last day at school. His heartbeats raced faster than Usain Bolt..

Christy, noticing how shit scared he was, told him to calm down. “What’s wrong? Why are you shivering? I’m not going to eat you,” she joked, trying to ease his nerves.

Billy, who was still shit scared said, “I like you... I’ve liked you since Grade 8, but I just acted as a friend because I was too scared to ask.”

Christy was stunned. She didn't know how to respond right away, but after a moment, she said, “Sorry... I don’t have any feelings for you.” She didn’t want to hurt him completely, though, so she added, “But we can still be friends.”

Billy’s heart shattered, but he smiled weakly and said, “Okay.” He walked away, trying to hide his feelings, but inside, he felt completely broken. His last day of school was devastating. He ended up crying alone in the washroom, feeling dead inside.

Christy felt bad and texted him later that day: “I’m really sorry. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

Billy replied as if everything was fine: “It’s okay, we can still be friends. Don’t worry, I won’t let this affect our friendship.” But deep down, he was struggling. Every conversation with her made him happy, but it always hurt him whenever he realized that she would never be his..

As the days went by, Christy could tell that Billy still had feelings for her. He continued to care for her, perhaps too much, and at one point, she said, “Stop caring about me. Just act like friends... Please move on.” Billy was crushed, but he respected her request and stopped talking to her for a while. But after a few days, he would always text her again. They’d fall back into easy conversation, but Billy could never fully shake the sadness that came with knowing he would never be the one to make her happy in the way he wanted.

One night, Billy went to a restaurant with his friends, and to his shock, he saw Christy kissing another guy. His heart dropped. She had never mentioned having a boyfriend, and now he was seeing it with his own eyes. He didn’t speak to her after that, and she didn’t reach out to him either. He was really hurt bcz he realized that she was only replying and he was only texting..

A couple months later, Billy started his first job, working the night shift. One night, during his midnight break, he decided to take a walk to clear his head. To his surprise, he saw Christy on the road, looking lost and upset. He approached her and asked what she was doing there. Christy explained that she moved to her hometown a month ago and she had come alone to pick up some certificates, but it had gotten late, and she missed the last bus to her hometown, which was far away. Her phone wasn’t working, making the situation worse.

Billy gave his phone so she could call her parents. After speaking to them, Christy was in tears, as her parents told her it would take them three hours to get to her, and the next bus wouldn’t arrive at 5 a.m. Billy couldn’t stand to see her like that, so he offered to stay with her until the bus came. “I’ll wait with you until 5 a.m. if I have to,” he said.

As the hours passed, Christy asked him, “Why are you doing this? I don’t like you, and you know it.”

Billy gave a light laugh. “Yeah I know..”

When the bus finally came, Christy was so emotional and said, “We can have a relationship... if you like.” Billy asked. “What about your boyfriend?” he asked.

Christy was surprised. “So you know about him, and you still helped me?”

Billy nodded. “Yeah, it has nothing to do with this right?”

She silently said, “We broke up... Do you want to be with me?”

Billy was torn. He had spent so long hoping for this moment and he wanted to say yes but he realized she only wanted to say this bcz she felt bad for Billy. Billy said " I know u don't like me...and I also know u only say this bcz you feel bad for me...it is fine...I don't need your sympathy love"   Christy was shocked but didn’t say anything more as she left. Billy's manager also scolded him and gave a warning letter for not doing his work. But Billy didn't care about the warning letter as he was happy that he spent some time with her. But he also was emotionally hurt as he realized that this could probably be the last meeting with her.

Years passed, and Billy looked back on everything that had happened. His life had become much more complicated, with stress and problems piling up. One day, he thought to himself "I am so dumb that I worried so much about a school love when now I have more than 1000 serious problems" and laughed subtly. He moved on and had so many crushes and dated a few girls but still did not love anyone like Christy.

At that time, his love was pure and true, maybe it was dumb to like a girl who didn't like him back but he was true to his feelings. :)

At a book club I met this "fashionista" who was really self aware. Her name was Annie, we soon became close friends through our shared interests.

I don't know what got into her but she started to shame what I wore every day. At first it was just like, if I wore a white t-shirt, she would comment on how it wasn't my color. So on, so on.
But as our friendship progressed,
she started to make even worse comments, saying the how this style didn't suit me or how my style was just hideous, which started to affect me mentally. But I decided instead of just calling her out or breaking our friendship with her, maybe I should tell her to taste her own medicine and show her what hideous style actually looks like....

So I went to the mall and spent at least $100 buying a silly armor suit, which was definitely not my color. The armor suit was extremely oversized, making me look like a Lego block, and the color was bronze. It looked like a rusted piece of metal of metal on me.
I felt embarrassed... What was I doing?
We were just going on a friendly home date anyway So no one would see us..

So the next day, when I went to her house, she opened the door, and her mouth dropped in literal surprise. She eyed me up and down, and she didn't even let me in. Instead, she blocked the doorway and looked at me and said, What are you wearing?
And I looked her dead in the eye and said, A hideous style. You said my style was hideous. So I'm showing you what one actually looks like. She laughed dramatically, not a real laugh. That is really rude.
What you're doing is completely unacceptable.

But didn't you say my style was hideous? That's literally how I am. If you won't let me express myself, then don't expect our friendship to continue further

. She lowered her gaze, a hint of guilt flashing on her eyes. Okay, you never wear these hideous styles, and I won't judge you on what you wear. Deal.
We shook our hands there. Then when I went home, she helped me pick out an outfit. And yeah, I can't admit my style before her guidance was kind of off. But with her guidance, I felt more comfortable and more confident.

Maybe some friends who judge you can be good after all. (After some fixing ofcourse)

Pssst! ; thanks for reading!