The Dont Pass Odds / Dont Come Odds Bet Explained - lol Craps

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Vuxten walked quietly next to Sergeant Addox, listening in on the rest of the platoon talking to one another on the chat channel. They were either taking bets on how long the little green mantid had been in cryostorage or bitching about the taste of the nutripaste or their water.
All good.
Addox stopped in front of the door that the little green one pointed at before settling back down on the top of Addox's helmet. Vuxten checked and saw that Addox was running his internal heat at three degrees above normal and raising the threshhold for dumping heat into his heat sinks or deploying the small cooling fins.
"Past. Open and there," the little greenie said. It settled back down and began gnawing on the beef jerky that Casey had run up for him.
"Casey, crack the door," Vuxten ordered. He opened the channel to the rest of the platoon. "Everyone, weapons off safe but fingers off the trigger."
One by one the icons went to amber.
Casey knelt down and started working on the door, bypassing it in only a few minutes. It took a few more minutes to break the weld holding the door closed and Casey took a minute to lube the track the door was set on.
"Ready?" Casey asked, holding up the two wires.
"Ready," Vuxten told him.
Casey touched the wires together and the door slid open. Helmet lights and shoulder lights illuminated the inside of the room with harsh white light for the first time in millions of years.
"Mantid automation, man," Addox said softly.
The computer was obvious. Quantum systems, supercooled, the piping repaired over and over again. The dangling superconductor wires woven through everything.
Vuxten saw the "Phasic Control Maintenance Manifold" right away. Looking at it gave him a headache as the psychic shielding jumped six points. The system was complex, the shielding and casings removed on half of the equipment.
"Dropping my psychic shielding five percent," Addox warned. He gave a low grunt. "Wuff, I can feel the tingle across the back of my teeth."
"471, talk with your ancestor, check the system, see what you guys can do," Vuxten said.
--roger roger-- 471 sent back. --better have turkey for us--
"I'll have Casey fab you up some turkey jerky," Vuxten promised.
--casey use too much lemon pepper-- 471 said, opening the clamshell.
The psychic protection clamped down hard enough the little mantid's knees buckled for a moment. He shook his head, the other dozen green mantids following suit. He climbed down Vuxten, moving across of the floor to the electrical conduits.
--it appears to run off of some form of power-- 471 sent.
Vuxten laughed.
--checky checky-- 471 said. --we will see what we can see--
Vuxten watched the greenies check out the computer systems, the phasic system, the wiring on the walls. He moved over and leaned against a computer console, watching everyone get to work.
"He's asleep," Casey said, jerking a thumb at the green mantid on top of Addox's helmet. "Poor little guy has some serious freezer burn. Probably been in cryostasis on and off since the Precursor War."
Vuxten nodded, remaining silent.
Long minutes passed while Vuxten chewed a piece of gum and watched.
"Glory, do you read?" Casey asked from where he was standing next to one of the computer consoles.
"I read you, Sergeant. Line's full of distortion and interference though," Glory answered.
"How's your dataslicing? Any good at it?" Casey asked.
Glory chuckled. "I'm a DS, what do you think?"
"We've got a Precursor Era computer system here, VI run. Can you do your thing and, you know, take over the system?" Casey asked.
There was a pleasant laugh. "No can do, Casey. Your pipeline is wide enough for me to talk, maybe do some data exchange, but the interference would cause too many errors and your pipeline is too thin for my fat ass."
"Heh, first time a woman's ever complained about the width of my pipe," Casey laughed.
"I'm hard to please," Glory laughed with him. "I'll help what I can, but you're going to have to depend on the greenies. 680 was in Digital Warfare Corps before transferring to the Telkan Marines," she said.
"680, can you lead everyone into cracking that computer open?" Vuxten asked.
--easy peasy lemon squeezy-- 680 sent back.
The greenies crawled over the equipment, using access hatches designed for them but not.
-----------------
Cordexen sat in his command chair, staring at the console he had moved in front of him. He had traced, as best he could with only limited permissions, the areas where the servitor caste had stopped responding for a long period before responding again.
It was a wandering, meandering path from the Deep Ore Miner Maintenance and Processing Bay that led the empty area on his map that Cordexen knew contained the Hive Queens chambers, the primary phasic control system, and the facility's master control computer systems.
He wracked his brain, trying to figure out how the mere passage of the bipeds could be disturbing the servitors. Perhaps they left behind some of their numbers to be devoured?
No, that would be done by primitives, and primitives didn't fashion high tech combat armor or work Substance W.
Cordexen knew he should be alarmed by an alien species invading the facility but he honestly could not muster up the emotion to care much. If they destroyed the facility, he would be free. If they busted down his door and shot him, he would be free. If they destroyed the computer and the phasic system, he would be free.
No matter what happened, as long as it changed the unending status quo, he would be free.
"Warning, unauthorized entry to computer mainframe detected," the facility VI suddenly said. "Security control alert: unauthorized entry to computer mainframe housing."
"Open the door. I will examine the breach," Cordexen said, sitting up.
"Unable to comply. Message is as follows," the VI said.
Cordexen slumped in his chair as the Queen's words were repeated back to him.
"Unauthorized breach to..." the computer started. "Access granted. Welcome 'little teapot', admin access granted. Maintenance access granted. Power user group 'all your base' has been created."
Cordexen perked up again, watching his screen. Data was flowing by at an incredible rate, the screen's refresh capability actually being overloaded by the amount of data flashing. The VI kept reciting groups being created, access being granted to groups, power users logging on.
He watched as the facility actually posted a maintenance update to his screen.
Half of the facility was dormant. The cryopods were at critical. The power was running at one tenth power. Life support was at bare minimum.
He felt the heaters kick on, blowing warm air into the control room.
Cordexen slowly unfolded from his chair, moving over and standing under the vent.
He raised his face up, closing the armored eyelids, relishing in the warmth.
He imagined he was standing outside.
----------------
Klakeka stirred as the lights came on in his command center. He heard the environmental system kick in and felt warm air pour from the vent, enveloping him in a warm blanket of heated air. His monitor was showing a deep level scan of the facility's status.
"Environmental system lockout lifted by admin power user 'hip hop soldier'," the VI stated. "Nutripaste lockout lifted by power user 'delicious delicious turkey'. Facility lockout under review by power user 'all the electrons to my yard'."
Klakeka stared at the monitor as data flashed by almost impossibly fast. User groups he had never heard of were taking over systems, rebooting some systems, powering down others, powering up the rest.
"Power user 'Great and Powerful Zig' has issued autonomous mining machine recall and maintenance phase," the VI reported.
"Define user 'Great and Powerful Zig'," Klakeka ordered.
"Cannot comply. Message is as follow," the VI said and Klakeka started to huddle in on himself.
"Hi. My name is Technical Sergeant Grade Six 'proton movement in high gravity low temperature semi-solid strange matter' but you may call me 538. If you shoot at us we'll kill you. This facility is under lockdown by the Terran Confederate Military. Please keep all hands and bladearms inside the vehicle and remain seated at all times. Question and answer period will be after full facility control. The war is over but we'll still kill you if you resist. Turkey is delicious and we will share it with you. End message," the VI said.
Klakeka just stared. "Computer, replay message."
The VI obediently obliged, repeating it.
Klakeka frowned slightly, his antenna crossing slightly.
"Computer, define... 'turkey'," Klakeka ordered.
"Cannot com... data loading. Loaded," the VI said. It suddenly showed a picture of a fat strange looking fowl. The feathers flew off of it, the head fell off, and it suddenly fell in boiling grease. It emerged looking golden brown and covered with a light crust of ground up grain flour. The skin and meat was pulled away, revealing moist white meat that dripped grease and juices.
Klakeka found himself salivating just staring at the image.
The meat was ripped away and dropped to cartoon green servitors, who were all dancing with strange little icons replacing their eyes to display happiness.
"Turkey," the VI stated with authority. "Is delicious."
"I would very much like some," Klakeka said softly.
"Cannot comp..." the VI started to say. "Do not resist. Resistance will be met with 15mm high explosive armor defeating phasic enhanced antimatter kinetic rounds delivered in groups. Compliance will be met with delicious turkey."
Klakeka kept salivating, watching the picture.
Comply? I'll do more than comply. I will put on a hat and dance like a Vurkeent at a mating ritual for a chunk of that delicious looking meat, he thought to himself. It sounds much more delicious than bullets.
----------------
Abriketa petted the little green servitor in his lap gently. He was able to generate enough of a psychic field that through contact he could ease its anxiety at not working on the task it had been ordered to complete. Its chitin was dull and flaky, waxy and distressed, but it huddled up against Abriketa in the cold and dark of the command center.
"Someone please talk to me," Abriketa mourned.
"Cannot comply. Message is as..." the computer suddenly cut off. It had been spouting gibberish for the last few minutes and Abriketa had tuned it out.
"Hi. My name is 'P2=G1(M1m2/r2^3)3' which is the universal law of phasic strength over distance accounting for gravity but you may call me '680'," the computer suddenly said.
"I am Abriketa," he said. Part of him, ancient commands from a queen long dead, wanted him to immediately storm out and kill this '680', but he ignored it, the command no longer having the power to induce anxiety or stress. "One of the facility security commanders. What of you?"
"I am a Technical Sergeant Grade Five with the Terran Confederate Military, specializing in computer system penetration and protection," the computer stated. It sounded different, like the words were almost tumbling over one another despite the steady cadence from the computer. "I'm only dataslicing your archive records so I can spare attention speak with you while I carry out my task."
"Are you real or is this another hallucination?" Abriketa asked.
He had once suffered hallucinations for the entire time he had been outside of the cryopod, his brain taking him back to the time he was in the creche learning to be a warrior caste. Not that the VI had cared. It had merely put him back in cryosleep.
"I'm real, but that's what a hallucination would say, isn't it?" the voice answered. "Huh, rare earth mining, like we suspected. Interesting, the liquid nickle-iron core is nearly 11% rare elements, down from 14%. You've been busy. Oops, sorry. What do you want to talk about?"
"Who are you?"
"I told you already. Call me 680, it takes forever for you non-technical types to say my name and you sound dorky," the voice said. It repeated the longer name, only with an accent that made the name sound mangled and stupid. "So, how long have you been here?"
Abriketa exhaled slowly through his abdomen, slumping down slightly. "Forever. I have been here forever. Since the Atrekna released their great war machines upon the Lanaktallan and us both, betraying us."
"So the Atrekna fired the first shot? Good to know. Willing to talk about it?" 680 asked. "Hang on, you've gotta be miserable."
Abriketa nodded. "I am indeed miserable."
The lights came on and the fans whirred to life. Abriketa felt warm air begin to circulate and sighed deeply.
"I thank you, 680," the massive mantid warrior said.
"How long have you been in the dark?" 680 asked.
"Since we slew the queens. We did not know that they had prepared for that eventuality and they entombed us all here, for all eternity," Abriketa asked. "The phasic regulators allow the computer to give orders to the mantid as if it was a queen. I am unable to countermand the computer's commands to the servitor castes."
"That's interesting," 680 said. "So the servitor caste's higher brain functions are controlled and suppressed?"
"Without the phasic regulator the servitor castes would return to primitive hunter gatherer reflexes," Abriketa said. He gave a sigh. "I so wish they could talk. I have been so lonely."
"Don't move. We have to reset the system. It'll come right back," 680 said.
The lights clicked off and the environmental system went dead.
Abriketa didn't care, still petting the servitor in his lap.
Even if it had only been a hallucination, being able to speak to another after so long meant he would die happy.
--------------
"How's it look?" Vuxten asked from where he was sitting in a chair designed for a massive mantid.
Addox had a good dozen green mantids huddled on his shoulders, on top of his helmet, and on his legs as he sat on the floor. Some were shivering, almost all of them were munching on turkey or beef jerky that Casey had ran off his nanoforge.
Another green mantid came in, started moving toward the computer, passed within a few feet of Addox and stopped. Its antenna lifted and it looked around, almost as if it was waking from a long sleep. It moved over next to another one of its kind.
"Food?" It asked.
"Is good," the one eating said. "Is turkey."
"Here, little guy," Addox said, holding out a piece of turkey. The little greenie took it and sat down next to its brethren.
"How's it look, Sergeant Addox?" Vuxten repeated.
"Pretty good. The phasic system is on its own dedicated systems, the software is all hard encoded, no way to patch it. It's different than the phasic systems used by the Confederacy to ensure no queen pops up and slams a hive-mind down on our Mantid allies and members," Addox said. Several little green servitors were in his lap and he was carefully petting them with one armored gauntlet. The ones on his lap had eaten more beef jerky and then gone to sleep. "If we want to disrupt it, we'll have to blow it in place."
"What about the active mantids? Any data on them?" Vuxten asked.
Addox nodded. "Three warrior caste are awake, pulled from cryostasis. That represents over half of the remaining warriors. No speakers, no queens, looks like most of the warriors and speakers were killed attacking the queens. There's about twenty active greenies, but the computer keeps sending them in here. There's only about fifty more in cryostasis. The remaining ones have largely succumbed to cryo-shock."
"How long?" Plunex asked.
"They've been down here for longer than anything I've ever seen. I'd say the Precursor War. They weren't hatched later. From the records 680 pulled, it looks like the computer would wake them up for emergencies it couldn't handle then refreeze them," Addox said. He gave a slight shudder. "They're the oldest living things I know of, frozen and thawed over and over for over a hundred million years."
"By the Digital Omnimessiah," Plunex said softly. "Talk about endless torment. May the Grave Bound Beauty comfort the damned."
Vuxten noticed that Casey was off to the side, doing something with a hologram projection. He shoved himself off of the chair and moved over to Casey.
"What are you doing, Sergeant Casey?" Vuxten asked.
Casey didn't look away from the hologram. "Back when I met Peak, oh, a hundred or so years back, she worked in psyops. Memetic Warfare Division," Casey said. He adjusted the colors slightly. "You've probably seen her handiwork a couple dozen times."
"OK," Vuxten said. The image was blurry to him, looked like it slightly overlapped itself over four columns.
"Well, explaining concepts to these guys is going to be difficult. We want to make sure they understand if they try to fight us, even if they overwhelm you and your people with their psychic power, Addox and I will rip them apart with our bare hands," Casey said. "Now, funny thing Peak taught me about memes is something I'm going to put to work."
Vuxten waited a moment. Finally, he tabbed up another piece of stimgum and sighed. "What's the weird thing, Sergeant?"
Casey shifted an image slightly. "OK, the more text on a meme, the less effective it is. Nobody wants to read your blathering manifesto, they want to look, laugh, and move on, or get the data quickly. The less words you use, the better. If you have a dual meme, they need to be on top of one another or side to side, instantly comparable, not 'turn over' or 'next page' crap," Casey said. He adjusted some of the lines again. "Now, a properly done image meme doesn't need text to convey its message. In some ways, the less words the more information you can have in the meme."
"What's the weird thing?" Vuxten repeated.
"A good, properly done meme, bypasses language and cultural barriers, even species barriers. We might not know anything about them, but there is a way to communicate, and that's memes," Casey said. "680 is talking to one through the computer, but the language drift and syntax morphology is damn near insurmountable outside of the computer. I want to make sure my meme works right and we don't have to fight these guys."
"So you're going to meme the warriors to death?" Vuxten asked.
"More like meme them to life," Casey said. He laughed. "There's an old classic song I could parody, right there."
"Think it'll work?" Vuxten asked.
"Might be a good idea to try this before we blow up the mountain, sir," Casey said, turning and giving a grin. "If it doesn't, I'm pretty sure we just blow the geothermal in place and ride out on a tsumani of lava."
"Hardy har har," Vuxten said, turning away. "Let me know when your magic meme is ready."
"I'll need a map of the facility, sir," Casey said, his voice distracted.
"Then I'll make sure you get it," Vuxten said.
---------------
General No'Drak moved into the situation room, putting a cigarette between his mandibles as he moved up to the holotank. He'd managed to get a good night's rest and a meal, but once again duty pulled him back.
The Precursors were largely defeated. Mopup was down to the infantry units. The tanks and strikers were largely cycled back for maintenance and crew relief.
Great Most High/General A'armo'o was requesting complete refit of his tanks. More than a refit, a "Service Life Extension" performed on them to bring them up to "parity or near-parity with Confederate allied military forces" that would require the least amount of retraining for his troops.
No'Drak considered it for a long moment. The decision was his, all the way to deciding if he wanted to offer a place in the Confederate military to the Lanaktallan soldiers.
It had proven highly effective in the case of the Warsteel Herd.
General No'Drak thumbed the approval button.
Next up was priority and No'Drak stared at it.
A list of template requests from that psycho Casey.
The most recent one was a recon drone with holoemitters calibrated for Mantid eyes. It had to be able to problem solve navigation issues, among other things, but didn't require a VI since his data bandwidth was low and depending on spooky particle boojums.
Oddly enough, there had also been a template request for turkey meat with Mantid vitamin additions as well as beef of the same kind.
General No'Drak frowned.
What are you up to? he asked.
Next up was notification that his request for a full Elven Court had been approved and was enroute from Telkan with an ETA of less than four days.
After that was meteorological reports on the damage all the atomic weapons and the Precursors had done to the ecosystem.
Well, at least there's going to be living people to worry about their ecosystem, No'Drak thought to himself as he settled in and began reading the reports.
Behind him, Second Most High Ge'ermo'o entered. He slaved his monitor to No'Drak's so he could see what decisions the General was making. No'Drak authorized it with a tap of his bladearm almost absently, noting the radiation levels in the sea water was far lower than initial projections.
Ge'ermo'o sat and watched the data Smokey 'No was looking over and contemplating why the Treana'ad officer made each decision he did.
He was a most observant officer, he was sure he could deduce, given time and information, each of General No'Drak's command decisions and the reasons behind them.
------------------------
Cordexen opened his eyelids at the hissing noise. He looked at the door and saw the bright sparkle of a fusion torch cutting its way through the endosteel. It was a round half-circle, roughly the size of a russet servitor.
Cordexen reluctantly moved away from the air blowing through the vent and his fantasies of standing in a field of grass. He moved to his command chair and sat down, watching.
After a moment the metal fell to the floor. There was burst of mist and then the strangest thing rolled through the hole.
It had two tracks providing mobility. It was a large box with a row of infrared sensors with a pair of infrared projectors on each side to provide it with the ability to see. The little thing rolled into the middle of the room and shifted until it was facing him.
It suddenly played a little tune that Cordexen found pleasing. A mathematical arrangement of audible tones.
Suddenly a hologram flickered to life and Cordexen stared at it.
It was designed for his compound eyes to see clearly, the colors pleasing and well defined.
It was two columns of three pictures. Drawn, stylized pictures that made the subjects enjoyable to look at even if the colors were arranged in a slightly humorous fashion.
On the left it showed a warrior caste Mantid holding his rifle and pointing it at the door. The picture below showed bipeds and green servitors coming in and the warrior caste mantid shooting at them. The bottom picture showed the warrior caste mantid dead in the chair with little skulls for eyes and symbols of displeasure and sadness over the dead warrior.
On the right it showed the warrior mantid's rifle on the floor, the warrior mantid's arms and bladearms were lifted up. The one below showed the bipeds coming in and the warrior mantid holding a little stick with a square of white cloth on it and waving. The bottom picture showed the warrior mantid eating turkey with symbols indicating happiness around it.
They wish me to surrender or they will kill me, Cordexen thought. If I fight, they will kill me. They are familiar enough with my people to create this image. It can be clearly seen, the colors are pleasant, and the artistic style is stylized to be pleasing to me. They know my people and this message tells me that they will not only try to kill me if I resist, they know they can kill me.
He looked at the little robot and it played the tune again. This time the back opened and Cordexen flinched, expecting death to come from the little drone.
Instead it popped up a plas stick with a white cloth on it.
I would do anything just to see the sun once more, Cordexen thought.
He moved forward, picking up the flag from the little robot.
It made happy beeping noises.
The back slid open and steam billowed out. Cordexen jerked back reflexively. He could smell cooked meat, strange spices, and his sensitive antenna were almost overwhelmed by the first taste of something besides nutripaste he had sensed in lifetimes.
A cooked fowl raised up with a little triumphant tune.
"TuRkEy Is DeLiCiOuS" appeared above the little robot in maintenance runes. It turned and clattered away as Cordexen took his two prizes and returned to his command chair.
At the first bite Cordexen had admit the robot was right.
Turkey was delicious.
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Okay so this happened about 10 years ago in a game of Vampire the Masquerade Revised edition. I’d already been playing and GMing the game for about 10 years so I had a lot of experience myself and I knew everyone in this group. Some of this will be paraphrasing because I can’t remember the exact words that were said, but the meaning is the same. I’ll never forget a room full of nerds jeering and laughing at me like the very high school bullies they always complained about.
GM on the whole was pretty good, but this was their first time running a Sabbat game and I felt they made a bunch of mistakes and I advised them of this beforehand:

1. They allowed the players to each pick a different path of enlightenment for their character. This resulted in a group of 7 PCs with at least half being on a conflicting paths.
   
2. They allowed non-Sabbat paths, in particular the Path of Blood, which is outright heresy in the Sabbat because it elevates mortals and worships an antediluvian.
   

These two mistakes were the cause of what eventually snowballed into a horror story but they themselves are not the real horror story.
So the basic premise of the plot is that we were a Sabbat pack tasked with scouting out an Anarch stronghold and probing it for weaknesses prior to a Sabbat siege. Since the Anarchs were known to be pretty welcoming over outsiders, since they’d had no issues with the Sabbat (city was in Australia and was very remote), I had the bright idea of smuggling us into the country as corpses and then taking over the funeral parlour when we arrived. This plan goes off without a hitch.
The ductus then tells us to split up and scout out these different places. We all agree. I get paired up with the idiotic heretical Assamite sorcerer on the Path of Blood. This guy, of course, does not want to do the Sabbat stuff we were told to do by the ductus because it’s against his path. I point out it’s heresy and say that I will drive us to where we were told to go by the ductus. However, because I have no dots in drive the Storyteller says that I can’t drive the vehicle to get us anywhere and instead the heretic has to drive. “Okay, fine” I think to myself, “I don’t want to mess up the game... plus I can collect evidence of heresy and report back to the ductus like a good Sabbat cainite.”
So we go and do his silly heretic side quest and report back to the ductus. The ductus, who is another PC, is understandably a bit butthurt that his orders were disobeyed. However, he doesn’t seem to give two craps about all the Path of Blood heresy that I mentioned Sorcerer saying and doing despite the fact that Ductus is on Path of Caine - two directly opposed paths.
So Ductus decides that the most important thing to do is be butthurt about his orders being disobeyed. He doesn’t seem to think it’s important to investigate the heresy in any way or work with the Cainite that’s actually helping the regent of the Path of Caine here (me). Instead he uses his early riser merit and his use of quietus (because of course he was another Assamite) to hook me and heretic up to car batteries and electroshock our nipples. Not only was this kinda creepy in itself but it was pretty unreasonable given that I did the work of a good Sabbat agent and exposed a heretic. Oh and did I mention that I was an initiate on the Path of Caine as well so we were supposed to be allies? Well it seemed like I was the only one trying to actually further the interest of the Noddists. Oddly, that’s not where Ductus’ priorities laid: apparently I was instead supposed follow his orders to the letter and walk through the desert on my own, likely dying to the claws of lupines or to the rays of the sun, rather than taking the far more sensible course of action of getting in our only vehicle and spying on the heretic Sorcerer who could well be trying to bring the Sabbat down from within. I spoke to Storyteller after the session and aired my concerns both in and out of character, but Storyteller didn’t want to intervene and just wanted to see how things played out. Storyteller was just very non-committal in all responses despite my concerns. I said that if we can’t discuss this OOC then it may end up causing major problems for the group, but I wasn’t really listened to. I should probably point out at this juncture that Ductus was Storyteller’s partner. Maybe that was why? I don’t know. They’re both very reasonable most of the time but this time I felt I was being shut down right from the start, where I first aired my concerns about conflicting paths causing in-character conflicts between pack members.
Anyway, after all the weird pseudo-sexual nipple torture, Sorcerer and myself are both low on blood from having to heal all the damage. I go hunting like a normal Sabbat vampire, no problems. Sorcerer reasons that his path only allows him to take blood from willing humans unless he embraces them and inducts them onto the path of Haqim. He decides that the best idea is to embrace the ghouls who we need to run the funeral parlour during the day. In the Sabbat ghouls are effectively property with no rights and the ghouls in this case were mine by rights (since the funeral parlour thing was my idea) so when my character comes back from hunting the Storyteller decides that this is a frenzy level insult.
This, coupled with a new vampire low on blood, results in a cascade of frenzies. I frenzy on Sorcerer and deal some aggs, rest of the pack pulls me off and is dealing with my frenzy (run by the ST). Sorcerer heals the aggs and is low on blood, his new childe hunger frenzies at the sight of blood and starts feeding on him whilst the rest of the pack is holding me down (bear in mind that I am not in control of my character at this point). New childe ends up diablerising Sorcerer.
When the dust settles, Ductus decides that this is all my fault for no apparent reason and hints that he plans to have me executed for murder of a Sabbat member (which doesn’t make any sense as I had nothing to do with the diablerie and can’t control my frenzy past a certain point on an instinct path). Seeing my only chance at survival, I ask the Storyteller if I can roll performance to fake a frenzy on Ductus. I roll spectacularly well and everyone else rolls terribly. I bite Ductus for a bunch of aggravated damage, though specifically not enough to kill him as that wasn’t my intent. The rest of the pack breaks it up and when I finish my “frenzy” I challenge Ductus to monomacy for leadership of the pack. I can choose the time and place as the challenger: I choose tomorrow at dusk. Since Ductus is on 5 agg and low blood that will give me a significant advantage. This was not my ideal option but since Ductus was planning to have my killed for a bunch of shit that wasn’t my fault either in-character or out-of-character, I didn’t see any other choice. I had to think fast.
Ductus says that he’s going to go and hunt to prepare for the monomacy tomorrow. I say that I am prepared to carry out Ductus’ orders that Sorcerer ruined. I ask City Gangrel to come with me for backup (and to drive the damn vehicle because derp) and he agrees. I know City Gangrel has a low vaulderie rating to Ductus and a high rating to me, which is why I asked him. He’s also not supposed to get involved in politics according to the ethics of his path so seemed like a safe bet.
We drive out to the location and perform the mission to the letter. We are efficient Sabbat members and we get the info the pack needs. Turns out when you don’t have conflicting paths things go pretty well. We tell the Storyteller we are returning to the vehicle to drive back to the pack. The Storyteller ends the session and says that we’ll be taking a 2 week break. I can’t remember why we had the break but I do remember having to leave early because I had to meet my girlfriend after the session. I was therefore the first to leave at the end whilst everyone else remains for the post-session social chat, etc.
So fast forward to two weeks time, we all arrive at Storytellers house and sit down to play. Storyteller turns to me and says:
“You take 9 levels of damage and die.”
Everyone laughs at me.
Me: “This is a joke, right?”
Storyteller: “No.”
Everyone laughs again
Me: “Why do I take the damage? Is there anything I can do?”
Storyteller: “No. Gangrel attacked and killed you after you left the session two weeks ago. We did all the rolls while you were away. Gangrel rolled really well so we don’t think it would be fair to let you roll now.”
Everyone laughs again.
Me: “But I wasn’t even there. Why did he do it?”
Gangrel: “I decided that you were a danger to the pack.”
Me: “How, exactly?”
Gangrel: “Because people around you die.”
Everyone laughs again.
Me: “People die around all of us. We’re Sabbat. Besides, I’m not the one who killed pack members, nor am I a proven heretic who openly espouses heretical views. Also, you’ve got a really high vaulderie rating to me. It doesn’t make sense.”
Gangrel: “Well I spent willpower to ignore all of that.”
Everyone laughs once more.
Me: stunned silence before turning to Storyteller “If you were going to kill my character off without me even being here then the least you could have done was told me two weeks ago so that I could have emotionally prepared for this, made a new character, or even just decided that I didn’t want to play in the game anymore.”
There is an awkward silence that hangs in the room for several seconds before the storyteller says “make a new character” and everyone laughs again.
So it turns out that after I’d left to meet my girlfriend at the end of the last session, certain members of the group conspired to kill my character and convinced the rest of the group that not only should it be done despite no reasonable in-character justification, but that it should be done without me even being there. The best justification they could give was “because it was hilarious, lol”.
Anyway, I learned a lot of lessons from that: how to manage the potential for group conflict by ensuring the PCs goals and motivations align rather than conflict, giving grace periods for character death, properly listening to the concerns of my players, and knowing when to leave a group before things get to this level. I gotta admit that I’m a forgiving person and I still speak to Storyteller and Ductus as friends, and Storyteller eventually did admit that they made a mistake. However, I never gamed with that group again.
I think I was pretty restrained not to completely lose my shit. I was so absolutely shocked by the whole thing that I didn’t really know how to react. How do you think you’d have felt/reacted in that situation?

TL: DR at bottom
Hi everyone. I posted this story a while back but recently became privy to some vital information. What I learned, confirmed that I am neither crazy nor did I overreact when I roasted this beast into oblivion.
I previously wrote about this person here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
If you would like to have better context on what a horrible person she is, I suggest you read either any or all of the linked posts.
I had once referred to feckless waste of oxygen as “Karen,” but have since chosen “Molly” for her alias as its meaning is: unfortunate or ill-fated. If you choose to read this in its entirety, you will see that it makes perfect sense.
About this story: all names contained herein are fictitious hence the quotation marks around them.
Our cast includes:
Me: Writer, quirky creative movie geek
Molly: Thieving, entitled wannabe “actress” who is as talented as she is honest
Judy: My now-retired former mentor
Don: My graphic web designer friend and still photographer
Tom: Film producer
Jim: Film director
Lana: Actress, Tom and Jim's friend
Andrea: My caustic, yet lovable roommate.
Onto the story.
I was once a young, naive and perhaps a little too trusting aspiring writer. I met “Molly,” mid-forties, blonde, blue-eyed and Caucasian (relevant to the story), through, “Judy,” my mentor, when I was trying to get my first screenplay, a murder mystery, produced into a feature film. Being green, I had never worked in the business before and I trusted Judy implicitly. She was gold, a wonderful person and, as it would turn out, the polar opposite of Molly.
By the time I met Molly, a spoiled toddler trapped in a 40-something woman's body and self-proclaimed ‘20-year theatre veteran,’ my work had been copyrighted for six months (PSA: it's imperative to protect your creative property and me doing just that saved my butt). Judy had previously worked with Molly on a prior film and suggested her for a dayplayer role in my murder mystery. For those who don't know, a dayplayer is an actor with approximately half a dozen lines and can usually film their part in a day or less. I trusted Judy's judgment so I messaged Molly and sent her the entire script. My first mistake. PSA: Never send your entire script, only script sides (sample dialogue), and a bio/description of the character. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches, both physical and legal.
I ended up having several conversations with Molly. She seemed quite lovely. I will give her that she definitely had her phone etiquette down pat. Little did I know, she was just getting me to lower my walls before she went in for the kill. Molly had accepted the role in the tentative production and we talked virtually daily after that. She was quickly becoming one of my go-to confidants. My second mistake. As Molly and I grew closer, Judy and I grew further apart.
One day, Molly wrote and asked me if I needed my script proofread. I told her there was no such need for that as it was already copyright protected including any errors that might be present. This becomes relevant later. She practically begged me and claimed she ‘just wanted to help.’ I told her, if she took it upon herself to do that, she would not be paid as there was no money and her efforts were pointless. Her behavior struck me as odd. How this seemingly, strong and confident woman had bizarrely behaved like a child, begging her daddy for candy, didn't make any sense.
About a week had passed, Judy wrote me and asked if I was able to speak on the phone. I told her I was available and she called me. She greeted me and promptly got to the point. She inquired why Molly was now claiming she was the cowriter of my script. I was floored. I told her I didn't know what she was talking about. I thanked her, ended the call and immediately phoned Molly. Being continually unemployed, all Molly did was chain-smoke in her bathrobe and surf the net all day while her saintly husband worked a hard-labor job. She answered on the first ring. I asked if she knew anything about what Judy had told me. She paused before answering then tried to pass it off as ‘a misunderstanding.’ I decided to play my hand and bluff that other people had told me the same thing. Busted, she caved.
Molly: “Well, I did help you correct everything.”
Me: “Volunteering to copyedit my script does not make you the cowriter. You did a poor job, by the way. My work was already copyright protected in my name six months before I met you. This constitutes plagiarism.”
Molly: “No, it doesn't!“ She paused then, “What's plagiarism?”
I was dumbfounded. The fact that she denied being guilty of something without knowing the meaning of the word was perplexing.
Me: “Look it up. Delete your copy of the script right now. You will only get a new one when and if I choose to cast you.”
By the time I ended the call, it was obvious she was angry. Her pride had been wounded and I should have anticipated her retaliation. Again, hindsight.
The next time I was over at her house, I went on her computer when she wasn't looking. On a hunch, I checked her hard drive and there it was: my script. I deleted it. She later finagled a new copy from a well-meaning cast member and repeated the whole illegal rewrite. It was then that I found out, she was not only claiming to have written the entire script herself, but was also going to have the leading role. Both counts were easily debunked as:

1. I had the copyright certificate to prove I was the sole writer
   
2. The female lead is a 23-year-old woman of Puerto Rican descent (Molly is white, blonde-haired, blue eyed and, at the time, was in her mid-forties)
   
3. Molly’s writing was absolutely terrible bordering on indecipherable.
   

The fact that she was insisting she’d written anything, other than a bad check or a grocery list, was laughable. Despite her claim of having a four-year college degree, she made countless careless, lazy mistakes, that to a casual observer, would suggest she dropped out while in elementary school.
Examples include everything ranging from: run-on sentences consisting of only lowercase letters, failure to capitalize proper nouns, using ‘and’ in the same sentence more than once, using commas as end punctuation, misspelling simple grade school-level words, mixing up her homonyms, using clumps of periods to break up her sentences, etc. All of which completely contradicted her claim that she had written a 100 plus page pristine screenplay. In addition to a highly-embellished typo-filled résumé, she tried passing off an overly filtered camera phone photo as a headshot and had no material for an acting demo reel. Anyone with ‘20 years in the business’ would have had all of these things and more. It should go without saying: if you can't prove something, do not put it on your résumé.
Thanks to the efforts of “Lana,” Molly had gotten into the good graces of, “Jim,” the noted award-winning director. Lana was the big-hearted other lead actress and his close friend. Molly had spun one of her infamous tales of woe i.e. poor me, my life sucks which led Lana to stick up and vouch for her. Molly's entitlement and complete lack of professionalism was duly noted by Jim. Despite her questionable spotty résumé, he only tolerated her for two reasons: she was the ‘writer’ and he felt professionally obligated to as a favor to Lana. I later came to learn, Jim was just biding his time until Molly either shaped up or until she failed her audition and he shipped her out. The role Molly wanted required a very strong actress which she was not. Failing her inevitable screen test, would have given Jim the grounds to have her replaced and, more accurately, fired. This wasn't his first rodeo.
In the meantime, Jim knew Lana could keep Molly in line. I don't fault Lana at all for buying into Molly's tall-tales, as she excelled at emotional manipulation and tugged at people's heart-strings to get her way. This, however, was the beginning of the end. Molly immediately threw her weight around like she was, in her words, ‘the second coming of Meryl Streep’ and ‘being the writer’ demanded a producer credit as well. Her narcissism had reached new heights. Think Faye Dunaway’s portrayal of Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest and you'll get the idea. Unfortunately, for her, Jim was quickly losing his patience.
Upon learning that Molly was now claiming she wrote the entire script, I sought out Judy for advice. Regrettably, Judy hated conflict and had long-since grown tired of playing referee between me and Molly. She dropped out of the production. I was left to fend for myself. Retrospectively, I realize her exit caused me to have to put on my big boy pants and confront my dilemma. On one hand, I was this close to spear-heading my first feature film. I wasn't a greedy person. All I wanted was my writing credit and a walk-on role in it. On the other hand, the working script bore little to no resemblance to my original source material. It had practically been taken over by a talentless wannabe ‘produceactress’ whose stiff acting would have looked out of place in an adult film. It was clear, the costs of being associated with Molly far outweighed the next-to-nonexistent benefits. I was on the fence, but knew what I had to do. I was backed in to a corner and was about to break out my secret weapon: my copyright certificate.
It would later turn out, Judy was the first of several people to leave referring to Molly as ‘unprofessional,’ ‘a crazy bitch,’ ‘an amateur,’ ‘a pain in the butt’ and everything in between. I had heard whispers, but I wouldn't become aware of much of the internal conflict, with her as the cause, until after the fact. Molly, of course, always had an answer for everything, including why people kept dropping out i.e. schedule conflicts, production delays, etc. It all seemed feasible, because these things do happen in the film world. Then, one day, I got a message from, “Don,” the California-based graphic web designer, with a copy of the conceptual video done based on my screenplay. This was news to me. Lo and behold, guess who was in the leading role? If you guessed Molly, you get a cookie. The entire storyline had been completely changed. In the credits she was listed as the writer. My name was nowhere to be found.
Her excuse for why I was not in any way involved with the shoot for the promotional video? There was ‘no time’ to get me involved. My name being mistakenly absent from the credits? A clerical error she promised to have fixed (it never was). I brought up that, Don, had been flown in from across the country to be the still photographer, yet I, who lived less than 60 miles away from the filming location, was left out of the loop. She ignored my question and blew me off.
It felt like my soul had been crushed. My labor of love, my first screenplay had been absconded with by this...no-talent, phony! I was caught between tears and rage for a while. It was around the same time I decided to enact my revenge, that I received a panicked phone call from Molly. She had a habit of calling at the most inopportune times. I could have been on a date, sleeping, working, etc. This instance was no exception. After both my landline and cell phone rang multiple times, I finally picked up the landline from which I gave her an aggravated greeting.
The following conversation is mostly from memory and paraphrased as it was a long time ago:
Me [annoyed]: “What do you want?”
Molly: “No time (insert emotional rant as she beat around the bush in an attempt to justify her despicable, entitled behavior all the while maintaining she was just an innocent bystander yet acting guilty as sin).”
Me: “Who did you piss off this time?”
Silence.
Me: “You overstepped your bounds again.”
More silence.
It turns out Molly had tried to play the big boss and no one was having it. She copped an attitude with “Tom,” the producer, stating ‘her orders were the director's orders.’ Her power-play backfired when Tom called Jim to confirm. Jim saw red and had effectively went on strike with Tom following suit. Between Tom and Jim, they had a combined 60 years experience in the business whereas Molly had virtually none. I later learned, Lana apologized profusely for bringing Molly into the fold and had reluctantly played mediator between her two friends. She tried, in vain, to prevent Tom and Jim from quitting, but they had made up their minds. Neither of them wanted anything to do with Molly. The ultimatum was brought down: either Molly went or they went. Them leaving would have created a domino effect and led to the production being halted. That is why Molly was flipping out, not because she was about to be outed as the cause of the whole mess. By this point, I knew her too well and saw right through her drama queen antics.
Me: “What right did you think you had to do that, Molly? Keep in mind, I know more than you think I do. If you lie, I will know. ”
After a long pause she shakily answered.
Molly: “Because I'm the cowriter.”
Me: “No, you're not. I'm so sick of you saying that. It's not only untrue, it's fraud.”
Molly: “But I made changes to it.”
Me: “Unauthorized changes. You just admitted to plagiarism and copyright infringement. Can you bring forth documented proof that you were given permission from me to rewrite my entire script? You can't. What you did was highly unethical and illegal.”
Molly: “But...”
Me [raised voice]: “I'm speaking! You're listening. I'm not gonna keep going in circles with you on this. If I have to scan my copyright certificate and put it on the net for everyone to see, I will.”
Dead silence. I turned my printescanner on and scanned a blank document. It had the desired effect as she totally freaked out when she heard it. She was caught in her tangled web of deception and her brain was short circuiting as she kept trying to come up with convincing lies.
Me: “You did know my work was copyright protected, didn't you? If you did and I know you did, that doesn't just make you a criminal, it makes you a stupid criminal. You knowingly committed willful copyright infringement. I have a lawyer on retainer and the means to pursue a lawsuit. Believe me, when I tell you, I have more than enough solid evidence to prove my case if I choose to sue you.”
Molly: “Don't do that!”
Me [patronizing]: “You're right. I'm not gonna waste my time dragging you into court when the court of public opinion is so much more effective.”
Molly [stunned]: “What?”
Me: “I have a file ten inches thick: screenshots, text messages, e-mails, all detailing the subterfuge and dubious tactics you employed to try to screw me out of my creative property. I also have the plagiarized hard copies containing your distinctive moniker on the title page in place of my name. All have time stamps. Add all that to my original hard copy of my script and my copyright certificate? I swear, I'll crucify you. All people have to do is Google your name and they see you're full of it. Being a wannabe is one thing, but you'll never be able to shake the reputation of being labeled a liar and a thief. If this gets out, you'll be unemployable. It's not like people are beating down your door with job offers. Stick a fork in you. You're done.”
Dead silence.
Me: “What? No retort? No spin doctor explanation? Go on. Lie. It's what you do best. Of course, you could always shock the hell out of me and give the truth a whirl.”
Molly [meekly]: “I'm sorry.”
Me: “Why? Because you're wrong, because you're caught or because now everyone knows you for the scam artist that you are? Maybe all of the above. Either way, it's absolutely clear you have nothing even remotely resembling a conscience. Your pride and ego are too big to leave room for one.”
Molly: “I'm really am sorry.”
Me: “Ooh. Not yet, but you will be.”
Molly [horrified]: “What are you gonna do?”
Me: “‘What am I gonna do?’ What am I gonna do? Hmm. Well, for starters I'm going to use the ‘F’ word. Fired. You're fired.”
Molly: “You can't fire me! I...”
Me: “I'm speaking! I can do whatever I want. I own the copyright to (script name). I'll say it again in case you weren't listening. I own the rights to (script name).”
Molly: “I know.”
Me [yelling]: “Then why did you do it?! Did you honestly think you’d get away with trying to usurp my work and turn it in to your own little vanity project?“
Silence.
Me: “You know what? It doesn't matter anymore. Now, starting now, your name is off of this project. That's my call. The writing credit you think you deserve because you plagiarized my script? Gone. The leading role that you retooled to fit someone of your age and appearance? Gone. The producing credit you demanded you receive for illegally rewriting my script? Gone.”
Molly [fake crying]: “Why do you hate me?”
Me: “Spare me the crocodile tears. If you put the energy you wasted conning people in to actually going out on auditions and booking jobs, you’d be a working actress right now. Instead, you're a nobody that no one wants to work with, let alone be around. You're just a bored housewife chasing a pipe dream. Make no mistake. I'm not calling you a has-been. You're a never-was.”
Silence.
Me: “Seriously, how many people, have to go no-contact with you before you realize that you're the problem? Even your own daughter doesn't talk to you because you're a vile bitch and you can expect your son to do the same when he goes off to college. You're a compete failure as a professional, a horrible excuse for a human being and not worth any more of my time.”
Molly [no longer fake crying, pleading]: “You don't have to talk to me like that. I can change. I promise I can change.”
Me: “Cut the bullshit! Save your empty promises for someone who cares, because I have no more fucks left to give. You better hope Lana can do some fancy footwork and prevent Tom and Jim from quitting. I won't blame them if they do. They're professionals. They don't need to put up with this crap. You also seem to have forgotten, the entire cast and crew was recruited at their invitation. Once they abandon ship, word will spread like wildfire and everyone will mutiny. With them gone, I guarantee you everyone will walk off the set. If this whole thing ends up dead in the water, you can bet your butt, I'll make damn sure to point the finger at you as the reason why. If that happens, I swear on my father's grave, in every way that it matters I'll be done with you. Do you understand?”
Silence.
Me [shouting]: “Do you understand?!”
Molly: “Yes.”
Me: “You see, Molly, I haven't trusted you for quite some time. Now I just don't like you. Get a life. One that doesn't involve me.”
When I ended the call, I was raging hot. The entire conversation was cathartic and liberating. Unlike Molly, I keep promises. I sent all of my documented evidence to Don who then forwarded it to Jim, Tom and the other producers. One by one, all of them publicly quit. They made detailed posts on their Facebook pages. Molly wasn't called out by name specifically, but anyone remotely connected to the production knew the identity of the ‘unprofessional individual’ they alluded to.
The production ultimately ended up being canceled. It eventually came out that I was the only writer and the script presented to them was plagiarized by none other than Molly herself. Those who were unaware of the behind the scenes drama, started blowing up her social media demanding an explanation. Molly, who always had something to say and craved attention, had finally gotten her wish granted by karma. All eyes were on her, just not in the flattering way she wanted. It should come as no surprise, Molly offered up no satisfactory answers to any questions asked and took no responsibility for her monumental screw up. Unable to take the heat, she, in a demonstration of her trademark cowardice, tucked her tail between her legs and went off the grid. Even though, by then everyone knew of her dirty deeds, Molly never did admit she was the reason why everything went to hell in a handbasket. Shocker.
For several months after that, Molly left me alone. Considering she used to stalk me online, I find it amusing she didn't notice when I blocked her on all my social media. I changed cellphone providers shortly thereafter. I also made certain that she never got my new number. I kind of wish I could have seen the epic tantrum she, no doubt, threw when she realized I had gone no-contact with her.
About a month after purging the leech of a fake bitch, known as Molly, out of my life, I got a call on my landline from an unfamiliar number with an out of state area code. I didn't answer but, “Andrea,“ my roommate listened to the voicemail. It was Molly calling to inform me that Jim, the director, had passed away due to a heart attack. I didn't listen to the message. Andrea gave me the gist. Molly sounded panicked and, in her typical entitled fashion, turned the tragedy into a story about herself:
Molly: “Great. Now the movie's never going to get made.”
What a cold-hearted bitch. I was speechless. We were both stunned. Forget the fact that Jim's wife was now a widow or that his children were now fatherless or that his grandchildren would never know their grandfather. Her ego being stroked as a Grade B-movie actress was more important. Andrea deleted the message and I headed to work. Being that I was unable to block her number on the landline, Molly later made another attempt to get my attention with her histrionics. I was still at work when Andrea intercepted the call. A little fact about my roommate: she is a German-Jew native New Yorker with a very big mouth. She takes absolutely no crap and makes Judge Judy Sheindlin seem like a cream puff by comparison. You can just imagine how that entire call went.
Here's a snippet:
Andrea: “Molly, the man died. Does that mean anything to you, you selfish cunt?”
Upon being told off, Molly quickly tried to end the conversation but not before leaving a message to have me call her back.
Andrea: “Molly, OP blocked you on everything for reasons that are already well-known to you. Fuck. Off.”
After delivering that rebuke, which left Molly in tears, Andrea hung up. Needless to say, I never did return her call. When Andrea spilled the tea, of how she kicked Molly when she was down, I hugged her and bought her a bottle of her favorite sangria as a thank you.
It's been over six years. I haven't heard from Molly since and don't care to ever again. I'm finally starting to achieve my dreams. I recently produced and had a small role in my first short film for which I wrote the script. It was such a fulfilling and rewarding experience. The whole shoot was so overwhelming in a good way. Being a big softie, I did cry on set. I'm finally doing what I know I was born to do. In case you're wondering, yes. I still plan to produce my murder mystery without any involvement from Molly.
EDIT: For those of you who have been asking, I have since met a very talented director, who is as big of a movie geek as me, and is the complete antithesis to Molly. I don't leave a single exchange with him without feeling educated or inspired. He's a wonderful guy and he loves my murder mystery. Currently, there are plans to get it into development as soon as the coronavirus craziness dies down.
EDIT: UPDATE II: In having several in-depth conversations with Don, I learned of the catalyst that caused Tom and Jim to quit. Don is about six months younger than me and quite introverted. Molly had him under her thumb. So when she insisted that he write a letter to Tom ‘defending her honor,’ he did. What Molly didn't count on was Don being hip to her manipulative, schoolyard-bully ways: he covered his backside by copying both Lana and Jim in the e-mail as well. Naturally, being the oblivious waste of flesh that she is, Molly did not notice that her whiny, entitled rant (it was clear that they were her words, not Don’s) had been sent to the director himself. She realized she had screwed up when she received a scathing text/reply from Lana about the huge mess she had caused. This is what spurred Molly’s panicked phone call to me in which I introduced her to the concept of being murderedbywords.
EDIT: UPDATE. I reconnected with one of Molly's former friends, “Amelia,” with whom I was cordial during those days. Amelia had been friends with Molly for 10 years before cutting her off. After reuniting, my graphic web designer friend, “Don,” created a group chat between the three of us. Ever since then, Amelia has been spilling the tea left and right. It should be of no surprise whatsoever, that Molly has absolutely no performing background at all. Her flimsy claim of having ‘20 years experience in theater’ is just one of the many delusional figments of her diseased mind. It turns out, it was actually Amelia who was active in the local community theater scene. Naturally, Molly was insanely jealous of her so-called ‘best friend's’ talent and ambitious ways. Also, the cock and bull story about her being a former department store runway model when she lived up north is just that: bull. She's only 5’2”. Anyone who knows anything about fashion knows you have to be at least 5’7” to do runway. Amelia also confirmed that Molly has always been a lazy unproductive member of society and that her kids had it bad as long as she can remember. Amelia is delighted that Molly's now-grown children have escaped her clutches and have little to no-contact with their poor excuse for a mother. Upon learning that Molly's daughter doesn't let her see her only grandchild, Amelia laughed manically then said: “Karma's a bitch.” Amelia is also shocked that Molly and her husband are still together. She put it, and, I quote: “I'm surprised they haven't murdered each other yet.”
You may be wondering what led Amelia to go no-contact with Molly. If you read any of my other stories, it was similar instances of rampant entitled behavior. The last straw came when then-newlywed Amelia was expecting her first child. Being the attention whore that she is, Molly was extremely jealous that Amelia “never had time for her” anymore. She made some very cruel comments about Amelia's then-unborn son (she has a daughter now as well) and that pretty much ended their ten-year ‘friendship.’ Amelia said her stress level dropped by 99% ever since she blocked Molly out of every aspect of her life.
TL: DR: Narcissistic, wannabe “actress” tries to steal my script from me and produce it as her own little vanity project. I kept a detailed record of all her illegal, libelous, malicious deeds and turned everyone against her.

Part 2
"Are you sure, Mr. Roger?" Rachel asked me upon hearing my request.
We were outside of her family home, a big but cozy looking house in a small town near the Appalachians. My pickup truck idled behind us, parked on the side of the road, as we sat there knee deep in snow. She'd invited me inside for warmth and a cup of tea when I arrived, but I was in a hurry so I turned her down. I wanted to get it over with as fast as possible and be on my way.
"We don't rent out the cabin during winter, the area is too dangerous during this time of year," Rachel said, trying to dissuade me from my course of action.
And she wasn't wrong. The thick snowfall turned the world into a white, shining, slippery mess. One wrong step, one daring turn of the steering wheel, and I'd be in big trouble. But I wasn't worried about the weather or the cold, they'd be the least of my issues.
"Some friends told me you do, they said your family rented them the cabin for Christmas the past few years," I said, feigning ignorance.
"They must've gotten us confused for someone else," Rachel said. "My parents haven't rented the cabin during winter for as long as I can remember."
"How so?" I asked, curious to see what her answer would be. Did she already know? Did she have me figured out? Did she see through the fake name I provided her?
"From what I understand, a group of people rented it from my grandparents some thirty years ago. The weather trapped them up there for a week, they ran out of supplies and firewood, and all of them died of hunger and hypothermia," Rachel answered in a worried whisper.
So she didn't know. Not about the avalanche, not about me surviving, and most importantly, not about what we found up there. I couldn't fault her grandparents for hiding it from her, that week is better left forgotten. I know that. And yet I can't bring myself to do it, to uproot those memories and cast them aside. Their roots are too deep.
"That sounds terrible," I said after a short pause, with a sad expression that was all too real. "But we'll be careful, I promise. Look, I have supplies for two weeks and an emergency GPS beacon." I jabbed a finger over my shoulder as I talked, pointing at my truck. Its bed was indeed filled with supplies and covered by a tarp that gathered snow. "It'll be me, my two sons, and their families. We just want a quiet place far away from the city to spend Christmas together, but it’s difficult to find one with this pandemic."
"I understand, Mr. Roger," Rachel said sympathetically. "But I can't, my parents were clear on it. I'm sure you'll find someone else more than willing to rent you a cabin."
"This close to Christmas?" I asked. "I doubt it. Look, what was your rate? 140 a night? I’ll pay triple, with a promise to leave the cabin spotless.”
I hoped that this would convince her, since this stunt would blow through all of the savings I had left. Rachel gave me a surprised look, but seemed to be thinking the offer over.
“Fine,” she said after a few tense moments. “No triple rate, I don’t want to rob you of your money. But I have a few conditions.”
“Shoot away, miss,” I said, faking a dumb, old man smile.
“Your security deposit will be triple, I know how wild Christmas parties can get,” she said with a half-smile. Her lips curled just enough to denote that she wasn’t malicious, but that she wouldn’t take crap from me either. “And I will come up there, unannounced, to check on you guys. Sounds fair?”
“Sounds perfect,” I assured her, keeping up my facade.
We shook hands, and Rachel invited me inside to take care of the transaction away from the prying eyes of her neighbors. I wanted to refuse her at first, seeing as the sun was racing towards the horizon and I was losing precious moments of its protective light, but I gave in. The last thing I needed was for one of her neighbors to call the cops and risk having them crash my little outing.
So I followed her inside, shaking my boots of snow and taking off the layers of clothes that protected me from the biting cold. Rachel led me into the living room, and had me sit at a small, yet comfortable table next to a raging fireplace. She made herself unseen into the kitchen, with the promise that she’d be hasty and would return with warm tea.
Left alone in the room, I looked at the countless family photos adorning the walls. There were a lot more of them than the last time I passed through here, but the centerpiece was the same. An old family portrait depicting a large group of people, hung in the same place above the fireplace. Although, the yellow sheen it had picked up over the years was new.
A Christmas carol began singing gently from another room, and Rachel was humming along to it as she returned. In her hands, she carried two ceramic cups painted with winter scenes, with steam rising up and out of them and spreading a festive smell. She handed me one, depicting a snowman going down a steep hill atop a sleigh, while she kept the one showing a lumberjack swinging a heavy axe at a fir tree. I took a tentative sip, careful not to burn my tongue on the hot liquid.
“Clove, cinnamon, orange,” I listed, and made a show of smacking my lips while taking another sip. “And it’s subtle, but I’d be willing to bet apple cider.”
Rachel gave a short, courteous laugh. She blew air into her own mug a couple of times, and took a sip as well.
“Good thing we weren’t betting then, Mr. Roger,” she said with a soft smile. “You’re bang on.”
I shrugged my shoulders, returning her smile in kind.
“Thirty years of making tea and cooking Christmas dinners for everyone will do that to a person,” I said.
And oh, how much I wished for that to be the truth. For me to cook for a large family, toiling between stoves and pots only to see their smiles around the dinner table. How I wished for my reality to be different, for me to not cook dinner all by myself no matter the occasion. But reality is cold, bitter, and unapologetic, it never cared much for my wishes.
“I bet,” Rachel said, her smile extending a little.
“And you’d win that bet,” I said, burying the painful memories that threatened to surface under sweet lies.
After all, in that moment I wasn’t Aiden. I wasn’t a fifty something year old man, and a widower with no family to speak of for the last thirty of those years. No, I was sweet old Mr. Roger, with a large family waiting for my word back at home, hoping to spend Christmas together at this particular cabin that claimed everything from Aiden. A sweet lie, a masquerade so convincing that I wanted to believe in it myself for as long as possible.
“Say,” I spoke before Rachel got to talk. “Is that portrait over there of your grandparents?” I asked, pointing at the photo.
“Yes,” Rachel said, and I could feel her love for them radiating from her words. “My grandparents, my young mother and father, and all of the aunts, uncles, and cousins on my father’s side.”
She looked at it longingly for a moment, and it didn’t take me long to realize why. Her grandparents were about my current age when that photo was taken, they were probably no longer among the living. Regretting the scars I opened up in her, I steered the conversation into a more cheery direction.
“So I take it that sweet little girl in a summer dress is you?” I asked.
“Mr. Roger, do you have a sixth sense by any chance?” Rachel asked with amusement, and I took her jab with a proud smile. “Bang on again. That’s five year old me holding my mother’s hand, I was a clumsy kid and needed the support.”
I wanted to tell her that she’d grown into a splendid woman since the last time I saw her. That the fire she carries in her eyes right now is something she’s always possessed, passed down from her mother who got it from her grandmother. But I abstained.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” I said. “Most young kids are like that, I should know.”
We exchanged some more pleasant small talk after that. I was enjoying my time with Rachel so much, I was so engrossed in the Mr. Roger persona, that the passage of time escaped my notice. The grandfather clock in the room striking three in the afternoon was what opened my eyes, and I realized it was too late to make the drive and the trek up to the cabin today. Nightfall would catch even a young lad in his prime on that attempt, of which I was neither.
“My, how time has passed,” I said. “I’m so sorry for taking so much of it from you, miss. Let’s conclude the payment and I’ll be on my way.”
“Oh, it’s not a problem,” Rachel reassured me. “Your company is a pleasure, Mr. Roger. You’re not holding me back from anyone, don’t worry. I’m all alone in here.”
I didn’t want to probe her on the matter. It wasn’t my place to, and I had no interest in it either. But the sad expression that flashed across her face for a split second told me everything I needed to know, she had no husband or children to speak of. With her parents away to spend Christmas somewhere else, she was left to spend it alone.
With a knowledge of the craft that only comes with time and practice, Rachel calculated my security deposit and rates for four days up at the cabin in a heartbeat. She displayed the total for me and wanted to walk me through the process, to assure me that she wasn’t asking for a single extra penny, but I refused. Partly because math was never one of my fortes, and partly because I believed her. I pulled out my wallet, handed her the money down to the last dollar, and got up to leave.
“Well, it’s been a pleasure, miss Rachel. But it’s getting late, I’m afraid I have to go.”
She got up to see me to the door, following with delicate steps that pitter pattered on the hardwood floor. I reached the coathanger where I’d left my padded jacket and went to retrieve it, but Rachel stopped me.
“Are you planning to go up to the cabin right away, Mr. Roger?” She asked, making no attempt to hide the worry in her voice.
“Yes,” I lied. I wouldn’t try to, I reconciled with the idea that I would spend the night in my truck. But that was something that sweet little Rachel didn’t need to know.
“Don’t you have a place to stay around here? It’s almost dark outside, it would be dangerous for you to attempt it.”
“I don’t,” I admitted, knowing full well where this was going. The only thing I didn’t know for sure is if I was on board with it or not.
“Then stay here until morning,” Rachel offered, beaming at the prospect of company.
“No, no, I can’t,” I said, though at that point I would’ve regretted her taking me up on my words and retracting the offer. “I’ve been enough of a bother for one evening.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Mr. Roger,” Rachel said, reaching for my hand and cupping it with both of hers. Small, warm, soft things, so out of place around my burly, calloused palms. For a moment, I felt like a grandparent accosted by a loving grandchild. “There’s plenty room in the guest bedroom, free of charge.”
“Well, how could I argue with that?” I said, smiling down at her. “I’ll just go to the truck quickly, I have to turn off the engine and call everyone.”
“I’ll fix us up another batch of tea, then,” she said, and took off towards the kitchen with a newfound spring in her steps. “Oh, and pull the truck into the driveway. Wouldn’t want to risk a ticket.”
‘What a lovely woman,’ I caught myself thinking as I dressed up.
Just like I said I’d do, I walked out to the truck. I pulled it into the driveway like Rachel asked me to, and faked a short phone call in case she watched me through a window. Though, thinking back on it, I did it more for myself than for her, to help the lie along in the vain hope its roots would dig deep enough tonight to uproot my reality.
Back inside the house, I heard Rachel calling for me from the kitchen. Her words guided me towards the well furnished and equipped room, and I found a chair ready for me at the empty table. I sat down, picking up the sleighing snowman cup that she refilled with fresh, steaming tea.
Rachel had put on an apron while I was gone, a frilly black thing that would’ve been right at home in a housewife cooking show. Not that I watch any of those. She did laps between cabinets and the double fridge, retrieving pots and pans and ingredients that she carefully gathered on the table. It didn’t take me long to guess the menu based on the items in front of me.
“Let me help with that,” I offered. She stopped dead in her tracks, perched on her toes as she tried to reach a high cupboard. A quick swivel had her facing me, and I could see she hadn’t grasped the exact meaning of my words.
“Sure thing,” she said, taking a step away as I walked over to her and retrieved the box that her fingers could barely touch.
“I meant with the cooking in general,” I clarified. Her fingers paused briefly around mine, her attempt at getting the box from me cut short. “Consider it payment for the room and the plate I assume I’ll be getting.”
“Correct assumption again, Mr. Roger,” she said, her deer in the headlights look vanishing in favor of her smile. “You’re on a roll tonight. And fine, but just know that I’ll feel bad about accepting your help the entire time.”
Another playful jab, this one a bit more daring but not any less obvious. I took it with a grin, and helped her pick out the final few bits and bobs. We stood side by side, taking in the chaotic assortment of ingredients laid out haphazardly in front of us.
“Whatever we make, it has to be both fast and flavorful,” I decided, taking the lead from her. Which felt disrespectful, yes, I was in her kitchen after all. But it didn’t look like she was making any progress on pinpointing any particular recipe.
“True,” she admitted. “Any suggestions?”
We went back and forth for a few minutes, bouncing ideas off of each other until we settled on a menu that we were both satisfied with. Buttery mashed potatoes, an assortment of roasted veggies, roasted turkey breast, a spiced cranberry sauce, a gingerbread trifle for dessert, and a quick and dirty eggnog to get tipsy. For the more culinary literate ones among you, yes, all of those are anything but fast, especially the turkey. But here’s a quick tip while I’m at it, butterfly your turkey breasts. It’ll cut down on the cooking time considerably, without sacrificing any of the flavor.
At any rate, I’m not here to host a cooking show. After spending a few more minutes discussing the details of the recipes, which is a crucial detail if you cook along with someone else, we sprang into action. Rachel tackled the mashed potatoes and roasted veg, I took on the turkey, the cranberry sauce, and the trifle, and we decided to meet in the middle for the eggnog while helping each other out here or there when an extra pair of hands was needed.
Dashing between the pots by her side was a lovely time, to the point I didn’t mind how long it took for everything to cook. And, by her smile and dancy demeanor, I figured she didn’t mind it either. We were both having a blast, one that we didn’t know we desperately needed until we received it. Taking a short breather after I deposited the well seasoned turkey breast in the oven next to Rachel’s veggies, I couldn’t help but watch her for a while. The smile on her lips, the way her hips swayed as she kept on her toes, her warm presence that brightened the atmosphere, she reminded me so much of...of my Jennifer.
My sweet, lovely Jennifer. The fun times we had as young, reckless kids. The parties we went to that rocked entire blocks as teens. All of the hikes and traveling we did as young adults. She’d been the soul of the party wherever we went, and more than that she’d been my soul. The integral part that made me, me. She was my one and only, the person I wanted by my side through thick and thin, the woman I wanted to age next to. My mind threatened to sink like a cannonball, down into the murky waters of what ifs and could’ve beens, and I was entirely unprepared to stop it, just as always.
I was about to go on a stroll down memory lane. To watch my being slowly splinter into a million pieces, while I peered uselessly at the resulting shards that I didn’t know how to pick up and put back together into the whole they’d once been.
I guess Rachel noticed my thousand yard stare, the way my eyes fixated on a point millions of miles away. She froze, looking at me with worry from the other side of the kitchen.
“Mr. Roger?” She asked, taking a tentative step towards me. “Are you okay? Do you need to sit down? I’ll fetch you a glass of water.”
As I came to my senses, my mind easing back into the present, I caught my reflection in the smooth surface of the refrigerator. Blurry as it was, I could still make out just how pale my skin went.
“I’m…” I said, the words leaving my throat weak and frail. “I’m fine, Jen. No need to worry. A glass of water would do me plenty good.”
I went around the table, sitting down in my chair as I tried to regain my composure. Rachel got a clean glass from a cabinet, and filled it with ice cold water from the fridge. She rushed over to me, putting the glass in my hands and leaning over me as she checked my forehead with the back of her hand. A sweet gesture, but completely misguided, since panic attacks don’t bring about fever.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the glass from her and taking a hearty swig. “And please stop calling me mister. Just Roger is fine.”
“Okay, Roger,” Rachel said. “Are you okay? Do you have any medication you need to take?” She knelt in front of me as she talked, staring into my eyes and cupping my hand with both of hers. The amusement in her eyes was gone, its place taken by an urgency and worry for my well being that I didn’t like nearly as much.
“No,no, I’m fine,” I reassured her. “I’m not that old. It was just a...a harmless panic attack, that’s all. I’ll be right as rain in a few.”
She didn’t seem convinced by my words, but she got up. The food didn’t care about my panic attack, it kept boiling and threatened to burn regardless of my mental state. She did another lap of the kitchen, stirring what needed to be stirred, tasting and adding salt to what needed more of it, but it was clear that she got scared by my episode.
“Hey, look,” I said when I could take it no longer, and got to my feet. “I’m fine, promise. I’ll help you finish up, it’s too much for a single person.”
“I...it’s just that…” she stuttered.
“If I’ll feel bad, I’ll sit back down,” I said, getting back to my cooking duties.
“Pinky swear?” Rachel asked out of the blue. I turned to find her next to me, with her hand extended and her pinky finger wiggling around.
“Pinky swear,” I said, twisting my own pinky finger around hers. “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” she accepted, and her smile made a shy but welcomed comeback. “I promise I’ll watch you more carefully, to make sure you’re fine.”
With the strain of my episode hanging in the air, we continued cooking. Rachel warmed back up after a while, and by the time dinner was ready she was cracking jokes again. We met up in the middle for the eggnog like we initially planned, poured ourselves a healthy glass of it, and plated up. Dinner was tasty, but I didn’t expect any less from the two of us at that point. She proved she could hold her own in the kitchen next to a veteran cook like myself.
“You’re an amazing chef,” she said as she tasted my contributions to the menu. “Mrs. Jen is one lucky lady, getting to eat like this every night. That’s if you do all the cooking, of course, I didn’t mean to…”
“No, no,” I said, but did a double take as her words finally hit me. “Where…” I stammered, feeling myself go white again. “Where do you know that name from?”
Rachel looked taken aback. She fumbled her utensils, dropping her spoon into her bowl as she tried to form words.
“It’s...that’s what you called me when you...when I came to help you earlier,” she stuttered. “And I figured...I assumed...I mean…”
“Did I?” I said, waving a hand through the air to diffuse the situation. “Don’t mind that, I just tend to get a bit...confused at times. Mixing up times and places, you know.”
I returned to eating, hoping Rachel would drop it. To my dismay, she didn’t. Her curiosity was mounting to levels beyond her ability to hold in. But don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame her or anything, I would’ve just preferred if she didn’t try to dig deeper.
“I’m...uhh...I’m sorry for prying,” she said timidly. “I hope I didn’t cause you discomfort by assuming there’s a Mrs. Jen.”
I sighed, finished what was already scooped up in my spoon, and placed it down next to the plate.
“There was a Mrs. Jen,” I corrected, and felt the mood sour right away. “A long, long time ago.”
“Sorry for bringing it up. Thank you for the delicious meal.”
Rachel instantly went as cold as the snow outside, but I couldn’t fault her for it. The turns this evening took were probably as confusing for her as they were numerous, not knowing how to feel about me anymore was only natural for her. I reminded myself that I was still a stranger in her house, no matter how well we clicked up to that point, and I was a seemingly mentally unstable stranger to top it off.
She cleared the table, gathered the leftovers into airtight plastic containers she placed into the refrigerator for later, and began washing the dishes. All of the wind in her sails was gone, and I couldn’t help but feel guilty. Both for blowing said wind, and for leading her on like I did. I didn’t want to admit it, I intentionally misread her signals in my deluded attempt to find out what having a child or grandchild would feel like. And to top it all off, to my complete and utter disgust for myself as a person, near the end I did start seeing her for the beautiful, flirtatious woman that she was, and I liked what I saw.
I excused myself from the table, asked for the bathroom and the guest room, and followed the directions Rachel provided. By the time I was done splashing cold water into my face in order to help me sober up, she was done in the kitchen and was heading up to her own room. She only briefly paused by the half-open door, handing me the keys to the cabin.
“I might sleep in a bit late,” she told me. “Help yourself to the leftovers in the fridge, you’ll need the strength for the trek. I’ll come to check on you and your family like I promised.”
“Good night!” I wished her as she left, but my words went unanswered. The only thing I heard was her locking the door to her room from the inside.
I made it to the guest room a few minutes later, finding a tidy bed with a nightstand and a drawer next to it. The space was cramped, but homely, and most importantly it was warm. I dressed down to my shirt and boxers, seeing as I had no pajamas at hand, and walked over to the large window after folding my clothes neatly and placing them on the nightstand. Free of my soft boots, my prosthetic left foot clicked against the floor at every step.
I said that this was a small town, but I’m partly wrong in that assessment. It’s just two lines of houses, one on each side of a central road, populated entirely by people with land up in the mountains and cabins for rent all year round. The window of my temporary abode faced the backyard, which ended with a sturdy fence that kept out the countless miles of untainted forest that sprawled behind it. I had a nice view of the breathtaking wilderness, and I put it to good use for a while, standing by the window and peering out.
I had one question that desperately needed answering, so I reached for the window’s handle and opened it wide. The cold winter winds invaded the room right away, sapping it of warmth and sending chills down my exposed body. But I didn’t pull away. I pushed into the frigid air, allowing it to freeze me further as I sharpened my hearing. The minute background noises of the pine forest grew more apparent, until I could make out the distant sounds of critters going about their nightly business.
A few minutes later, on the verge of hypothermia, I heard what I was waiting for. The forest went quiet for miles and miles across, and a howl descending from the highest mountain tops claimed that silence for itself. It was such an ugly, soul rending call, that it managed to chill me in a manner that the coldest air couldn’t hope to match. A warped, unnatural mix, somewhere between man and the lowest form of beast to walk this earth. The scream of endless hunger and agony, aimed solely at me.
I jumped back from the window, having gotten all the confirmation I needed. After closing it, I turned the radiator up all the way and all but nearly hugged it to warm myself faster. The stunt I pulled was risky, so long as I was cold the beast could find me, but it was the only way I knew to drag it out of hiding and have it make its presence known. When sensation returned to my toes and fingers, and I was sure I was warm enough to not be found anymore, I went to sleep. I covered myself with the thick blanket, and succumbed to a fitful sleep.
Morning came fast, leaving me surprised when the sun’s first rays reflected off of the spotless snow and into my room. It had been a long time since I last slept without an eye open, three decades now to the day. Feeling well rested, I got dressed and left Rachel’s house. As tempted as I was, I didn’t take any of the leftovers.
By 8 AM, I was already driving. The furthest point up the mountain I could reach with my truck was about half an hour away, and I had a three hour brutal trek through knee deep snow to look forward to after that. I wasn’t exactly enthused about it, but I was hasty regardless.
I parked the truck in the clearing where the road ended, locked it up, and took to its bed. The first thing to come out from under the tarp was a sleigh, followed closely behind by the harness I’d use to pull it. More items came, and I strapped them all firmly to the sleigh. A dane axe with a silver-coated blade, a chainsaw, a shotgun with both normal and silver pellets, a couple canisters of gasoline, a few jars and vials of my own blood that I gathered and kept refrigerated over the last month or so, and some other miscellaneous items like changes of clothes and a first aid kit.
Starting through the snow, I soon hit the incline that would only grow steeper as I advanced. The path I took was one I knew, and I used familiar landmarks to guide my way. A weird shaped tree here, a large boulder that hasn’t moved in millenia there. They jolted memories in me, and before I knew it, I found myself reminiscing of better times as I trudged ahead. Laughter and banter among friends spawned between the trees, echoing through my mind as if they were real and not merely echoes from a different era. Snow crunching beneath our boots, as we merrily made our way towards a much expected vacation. Jennifer by my side, me inhaling her intoxicating perfume with each labored breath. The sensation of her warm skin against mine.
It...it was enough to bring me to tears. In the middle of the forest, hours away from anyone, I cried. The salty drops running down my cheeks froze in the frigid air, threatening my skin with streaks of frostbite. After a while, seeing that the cabin was about 2 miles away, I wiped the tears and refocused on the task at hand.
“It’s a good place to start,” I mumbled to no one in particular.
I pulled out the first vial of blood, and bit down on its cap to remove it. With an arching motion, I spilled it over the pine needles and fresh snow behind me, careful to not get any on the sleigh. My speed faltered as the incline grew beneath me, but I kept going, marking the forest behind me with blood every five hundred feet or so. After twenty vials and the realization that I miscalculated the distance, I opened one of the jars as well and dipped my gloved fingers in it. Three more markings later, I reached the clearing that the cabin was built in.
I expected another flood of painful memories when I laid eyes on it, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out it wasn’t the case. The cabin itself looked nothing like I remembered it, but then again why did I think it would? After that week we spent in it, of course it needed to be rebuilt. And rebuilt it was, bigger and better than its former incarnation.
I pulled up to its porch, releasing myself from the sleigh’s harness and leaving it behind as I entered. The inside had a slight frowsty smell to it, which along with the fine layer of dust that settled on everything was a dead giveaway that the cabin hadn’t been used since the first snowfall this season. After a hasty check of all of the rooms, I looked at my wrist watch. It read 1 PM, which meant that the trek took me much longer than expected.
Now, if I may be allowed to toot my own horn for just a bit, I’m in great shape for my age. I’m my own cook, so I eat well. I’m my own personal trainer, and God knows I’ve not gone easy on myself. Most nights I can’t feel my limbs after strenuous bouts of workout. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, in fact the last thirty years of my life have been spent solely on preparing for tonight. Time used to better my mind, body, and arsenal, all so I could see this one night through. But even with all of that, I can’t compare to a man half my age. Despite my best efforts, the passage of the years robbed me of my vigor little by little.
The only aspect of me that hasn’t faltered in the slightest is my determination. If anything, it only grew stronger, and I put it to good use. After lighting the fireplace in the cabin to warm it up, I went outside, checked and fueled the chainsaw, and took to the forest. It had a wide selection of trees just ripe for felling, so I got to work.
The hours passed, flying me by like summer birds as I cut and cleaned a dozen trees of their branches. With great effort that my back was more than unthankful for, I dragged their trunks through the snow and piled them up in the clearing around the cabin. As the sun kissed the horizon, and the night threatened to engulf me with its all consuming darkness, I finished constructing the enormous pyre that I would need. I doused the wood with the gasoline from one container, allowing it time to soak up the fuel, and had the other container ready next to the pile.
The last thing I did before going inside the cabin to warm myself up and catch my breath was to open the two jars of blood, leaving one at the edge of the forest and the other one next to the pyre on a log. The sun slowly disappeared and, from my vantage point next to the fireplace, I could see the shroud of night time settling across the forest. I waited, biding my time for as long as possible, until every last ray of light was gone. My mind was eager to spring into action, but after a grueling day of manual labor, my body had other plans. I soon fell asleep on the chair, lulled into it by the heat of the fire.
To my displeasure, my sleep wasn’t as restful as it had been back at Rachel’s house. The night terrors I’d grown accustomed to returned to haunt me again, offering me a sweet release from the present only to tear it away from me.
I was back down the mountain, trekking through the December snow with my friends and my soon to be wife. The date was the 24th of December 1991, and I was a strapping young lad of only twenty five years of age. With my future looking bright, and my fiance next to me, I felt invincible. King of the world as far as I was concerned.
Seeing as we were planning our wedding, and our years were slowly advancing beyond parties and travel and into settling down, finding good paying jobs, and starting a family, me and Jennifer decided to throw one last party. Like the good old times. We saved up money all year round, and got four more of our closest friends to join us in what might have been our final outing as a group. We found a cheap cabin, far away from civilization so we wouldn’t disturb anyone’s Christmas night with our loud music and drinking.
The hike took hours but, with Jen by my side to keep me going, I felt no cold or exhaustion to speak of. Michael, David, and myself, the three men in the group, pulled the sleighs with supplies. Jennifer, Kelly, and Lori followed us closely, talking between themselves about anything and everything that they talked about when they weren’t pestering us. David and Lori were fiances getting ready for marriage, just like me and Jen, and Michael and Kelly were already married with a kid back home, just wanting to break free from their busy lives for a few nights.
By the time we reached the cabin, evening was only hours away. Me, Michael, and David were hasty in setting up the battery powered cassette player, and before long, music was blasting out of it. The girls warmed up the prepackaged food, drinks were being passed around from the portable cooler, and by nightfall we had a proper party raging on. One we planned to extend into the early hours of the next morning.
I’m tempted to say that it was the best party of my life, but I know I’d be lying. I only see it that way now because it was the last party where I actually felt good. The fun reached a crescendo around midnight. We were all properly drunk by then, dancing and bumping into each other in the small cabin. Michael needed to relieve himself of surplus liquids, so he went to the outhouse. He was barely gone for half a minute before he barged back inside, his eyes wild and fear plastered across his face.
“Guys, come outside right now!”
By the urgency in his voice and his out of character attitude, we knew he wasn’t messing with us. We dropped whatever we were doing and followed him into the clear winter night, flashlights at the ready. Hushed murmurs rippled through the group, we were all worried and wondering what had happened to scare Michael so bad.
“There!” He said, and pointed towards one of the mountain tops. “What the fuck is that?”
Our collective sights followed his finger, settling on the peak looming above us. But none of us could make anything out.
“Turn off the lights! And the music!” Michael ordered.
David complied. He was in and out of the cabin in a heartbeat, leaving us stranded in soul crushing darkness and silence. With nothing left to pollute my senses, my eyesight and hearing sharpened. Against the spotless white snow and ice that engulfed the cliff faces, I saw a shadow emerge. The longer I stared at it, the more I could feel my mind fracture, as if it wasn’t something that my mortal eyes were meant to witness. Still, from this far away, I couldn’t make out much of it, save for its eyes that seemed to glow in the night like a pair of bloody stars.
“Why is it so quiet?” Jen asked.
I hadn’t even noticed her get next to me and wrap her arms around mine, pushing herself into me in her startled state. But as soon as she brought it up, I could hear it as well. A complete and utter lack of sound, except for our own breathing and shuffling through the snow.
“Do you guys see it now?” Michael asked.
We didn’t get to answer him. The thing, the creature, let out a howl unlike anything I’ve heard before or since. The call of endless winter, of bone shattering cold and gut wrenching hunger. Its voice reverberated down the mountain, echoing through the valleys and piercing our ears with its volume. It lasted for what felt like a lifetime, forcing images of fates worse than death into my mind. I saw all of us, huddled around a dying fire deep in the forest. Cupping our palms around the dying embers in a last futile attempt to warm up. The days and nights passing, with no hope of salvation. Growing ever more hungry and thirsty, until we turned feral and set our sights on each other.
I...I saw the bloodshed. The bodies. Flesh rendered from bone and shoved between greedy, clacking teeth. But it wasn’t real, none of it was real. We wouldn’t do that, we couldn’t do that.
Lost in the visions, I didn’t see the creature wave an arm towards us. I didn’t see the sheer force of its action tear through the layers of snow, freeing it in slabs that slid down the slope. The others told me of all of that later.
“Avalanche!” One of them yelled, though I can’t for the life of me remember which one.
Their cry, and Jen pulling at my arm with desperation, was what finally broke the creature’s spell over me. With the avalanche picking up speed and mass as it plowed down the mountainside towards us, we took shelter in the only safe place around for miles. We huddled in the center of the cabin, hoping that the structure was sound enough to withstand the assault.
When it finally hit, the avalanche sounded like a thunderstorm mixed in with an earthquake. The world around us shook from its very core, sending us flying every which way as we tried to hold steady against it. And then, as soon as it had started, the calamity ended, leaving us gasping in terror.
A scream reverberating from outside the cabin woke me up before the nightmare got to the worst part. I jolted in the seat, strangely thankful for being spared of the horror that would’ve followed. With the axe and loaded shotgun in hand, I got outside into the quiet night. My hairs stood on their ends right away, as a feeling of deep anxiety welled within me. This was it, the moment I’d been preparing for for the past thirty years. My life’s goal was within reach, and yet I feared I was woefully unprepared to face it.
I walked around the pyre, checking the clearing for signs of the beast. The jar of blood left on the log had been thrown into the snow, licked clean of every last trace of the crimson fluid. Even the snow around where it had landed was gone. The beast was hungry.
Leaving the axe next to the one remaining fuel canister, I raised the shotgun in front of myself and marched towards the forest slowly. The beast ran around between the evergreen trees, using them for cover, but I could tell that each one of its steps brought it closer to me. My heart pounded away wildly in anticipation, preparing my body for the fight that would shortly ensue.
“Come out!” I yelled into the night, stopping half way to the tree line.
The skittering stopped, sending me on edge. Bouts of laughter emanated from the forest, its echoes making it hard for me to pinpoint the source.
“Come out!” The beast repeated my words back to me. Only they were twisted and slurred, uttered by lips that had grown unaccustomed to human speech.
“I’m not fucking around!” I pressed. “Come out! Now!”
“Me neither!” The beast yelled, sending an icy chill clean through my soul.
In one final leap, it flew through the air from the branch where it had been squatting. With a heavy thud, it landed a few feet from the edge of the clearing. My body froze when I laid eyes on it. The skeletal frame that betrayed its decades of malnutrition. The sunken eyes, the retracted lips that exposed diseased gums and teeth charred by decay. The skin turned to a blue and black mess from constant hypothermia and countless frostbites. Clothes torn to rags and a once beautiful head of dirty blonde hair reduced to sick strands barely hanging onto its scalp.
I couldn’t take it anymore, I could feel the beginning of another panic attack writhing beneath my skin. My heart rate reached a maximum, my body trembled from its core, and cold sweat poured out of my pores, chilling me to the bone. The mix of impending doom and all consuming fear sent adrenaline surging through my veins, and I tried to latch onto it, to let it help me through the ordeal soon to follow.
Letting go of the shotgun with one hand that I reached towards the beast, with my voice catching in my throat and coming out a hoarse whisper as my rapid breathing cut it short, I uttered a single word.
“Jen.”

I started keeping a “wish list” on Amazon for things that I want. This helps in many ways... for those of us who have a tendency to use “retail therapy” when struggling to cope with life, this gives you a way to shop and keep your mind and fingers occupied without spending any money you may or may not have.
This also helps me not IMPULSE shop - which I also struggle with. I’ve been desperate for a cup of hot tea or cocoa for weeks. But I refuse to pay someone else for a cup of hot tea or cocoa. That’s ridiculous. All I need is hot water.
I have been dreaming of a Jet Boil! Ooooh baby is that nice. But it is also hella expensive and takes up more space. There are generics, but I’m leery of using a knockoff for an item that goes BOOM WITH FLAMES when you click it. My sister is afraid to even use hers OUTSIDE, and I plan to use it inside my car.
12 volt hot water kettles are ridiculously overpriced, and take FOREVER!!! Just couldn’t bring myself to pay for that AND have to wait so long every time for a cuppa.
So I’ve suffered..... and continued my wish list “keep my mind and hands occupied” therapy.
This morning as I sit here struggling to hold my phone with frozen fingers, I said screw it. I will get one of those 12v immersion heaters that are only a couple bucks. Started looking at the stainless steel mug options that Walmart grocery pick up has, and found a beautiful one to put in my online cart.
HOLD UP.... thankfully, for some unknown reason, I looked inside the mug I already own. I would have bet my life that it was plastic inside even though I really can’t stand plastic crap. Guess what? It’s stainless steel! I saved myself from wasting $10.74 on a new mug for my cuppas.
I still don’t have the immersion heating doo hickey... but it’s going on my wishlist now since I’ve finally given up on ever having a Jet Boil.
I have a camp stove and kettle, but I’m terrified of it. The first and last time I tried to use it, the inside of my car started filling with fumes. AND THE STOVE WAS LIT! Had NO idea if the damn mofo was going to explode or WHAT, but thankfully the door next to me was open so I just picked up the whole shebang and tossed it out the door.
Frickin scary as hell!!!
That solution may work for some, but my mind - I don’t know if it’s the ADHD or what - is unable to stop and focus. I’m constantly losing things because I get distracted and put them down. Burning food when I had a home because I’d wander away while something was cooking, get distracted and forget about it. One time when I was younger the fire department had to break down the door of the flat I was living in because I turned on the oven to warm something for breakfast, put it on the oven, and then went to work. Without my breakfast and more importantly without turning off the stove. Ooops.....
I also can’t get myself to remember the proper way of hooking up the propane. Something goes first, and then you’re supposed to check for a leak with soapy water - it will bubble up if you have a propane leak. Huh? No.... I don’t have soapy water, and what are the odds anyway? Just put the damn stove, cord and propane tank together and use the damn thing.
And then .... jump out when your car starts to burn because you are incapable of doing ANYTHING without your mind running off in all sorts of directions leaving you barely - if at all - paying ANY attention to the FIRE AND CANISTER OF FUEL!
Oy vey, and no I’m not .... Jewish. I think they are the ones that traditionally say “oy vey”. It’s just something I picked up on. 🤷‍♀️
So now I sit, broken hearted. Tried to ... WAIT, that’s not what I was writing about. Now that DID just pop into my brain for some reason - I could delete it but for some people... well, me at least... if you know the silly saying it might make you smile.
Anyhoo..... that one is NOT one that I’ve ever said before. It popped into my head just then as well, because I CANT DO ANYTHING WITHOUT MY BRAIN BEING IN OVERDRIVE!
Argh!!!
So ... I sit here YES broken hearted but not the other part - laughs - longing for a nice warm cuppa. Instead enjoying a cold beer. ROOT BEER that is. I do so love root beer - kind of a connoisseur, but I’ll drink any kind. A nice gentleman gave me some coupons for free things at Safeway so I treated myself to the kind of root beer that you purchase by the bottle - different kinds. Specialty root beers. Not alcoholic, but SO good and they give you a few moments of being able to FOCUS on your palate and the unique root beer taste in that particular bottle. GLASS bottle!!! I HATE plastic! Can’t forget my favorite, adult root beer! Yeah, baby! Ooooh, and I used to absolutely love adult chocolate milk, but the only brand I really loved (How Now Brown Cow) is seemingly nowhere to be found.
Signing off for now... have to get back to organizing my home. You’d think it would be easy - living in a tiny vehicle. But it is SO hard keeping it tidy and finding a place for everything. Then heaven forbid you have a bad day or week or whatever and don’t put things away when you use them. That’s where I am now - little things everywhere that need to find a home.
Twizzlers. Mouse for laptop. Yoga straps. My beloved JBL Bluetooth speaker. 3M hooks not yet put up - obviously. Bottle of bubbles - HEY laughing I guess I DO HAVE soapy water! 😄Roll of string. Pink floppy hat. Reusable bags. Voltage tester. Masks. And masks. Oh look, another mask. Must have more than one if you are always distracted and misplacing things.
Okay enough delaying the inevitable. Adios for now!

[Beginning | Previously]
Hello, everyone! It's been a while, huh? Well, firstly: Happy Holidays and a very Merry Christmas to all! It's been a rough year for everyone, but do try to find some cheer where you can get it, okay? Life is meant to be lived, so please, as much as you can…live it!
Anyway, without further ado, here is chapter 5! It's a short one, but hey, if you're impatient, there are options…
D.A.N.I.
DANI might have been entrusted to make important decisions in life-or-death emergencies, but ultimately he answered to the crew via the Crew Council…and naturally the Council wanted to know exactly what had happened. One of the captain’s many duties was to be the chair and Speaker of the council chambers. She even had the executive authority to veto motions if she deemed it in the best interests of the ship’s mission.
Ultimately, however, it was still a democratic system, and that meant it was full of…interesting personalities who collectively had their hand on the very literal switch that could sever DANI from Dandelion’s systems at any time if they deemed it necessary. When people like that demanded to be brought up to speed on recent events, DANI did not argue. His report had begun with a brief summary of the type of object they’d so narrowly dodged, and the measures he’d taken to avoid it. Now he was recounting the total resource expenditure.
“Three-point-four-one million kilograms of water, one-point-two million kilograms of air, twenty thousand kilograms of cold propulsion gas, six hundred grams of fissile material, and two thousand launches carrying the entirety of the Ranger Corps, all Rangermasters, and their emergency colonization payloads,” he finished. “I have exhaustively scanned along the object’s approach trajectory and found no other hazards.”
Councilor Jackson was the first to speak. “And the good news?” she prompted.
DANI simulated the sound of awkwardly clearing his throat. “I apologize, Councilor. That was the good news.”
He let a moment of silence hang in the air before elaborating. “The bad news is, our approach to Newhome is ruined. We are now in an entirely wrong orbit and at this point it won’t matter how long we burn the engines; they just don’t have enough thrust to restore our trajectory. I have been forced to calculate alternatives.”
He simulated clearing his throat again and plowed forward. “I have come up with three possible plans,” he said, and brought up a whirling simulation of the Newhome system. The bright blue dot in the middle represented Dandelion, and he sent three bright lines racing ahead of it to curve around the outer planets. “Course Alpha, the fastest and most aggressive plan, will return us to Newhome orbit in six years.”
Dismayed gasps filled the air. He let the shock settle in, then continued.
“Unfortunately, this approach leaves no margin for error. If anything at all goes wrong and we are forced to take evasive action again, or if we miss a scheduled burn, Dandelion will either be drawn into this gas giant here”—he indicated it with a red pulse and split the projected path to show various calamities—“with obviously disastrous consequences, or else drift off into interstellar space, having completely exhausted our water fuel reserves, and therefore with no hope of ever returning.”
For the second line, the view pulled far out until the orbiting worlds filled only a comparatively small part of the simulation. “At the other end of the spectrum is Course Bravo, the most conservative and efficient approach, which involves rendezvousing with and mining an icy body in the outer system, completely replenishing our water reserves for the trip back in. This leaves us with a maximum margin for error in the event of future emergencies…but it will take us fifty-four years to make Newhome orbit.”
More muttering, and plenty of shaking heads. “I think you will agree this is not an ideal solution,” he said drily, and was relieved when a few small chuckles and laughs cut through the tension. “Fortunately there is a third option, which I think may be the best balance between caution and alacrity.”
He highlighted it in bright green. “Course Charlie involves a prolonged burn here.” He pulsed on the map. “We will expend a considerable amount of our water fuel, but that will allow us to slingshot around this other gas planet, and specifically around its third moon, a water ice body similar to Europa back in Sol. A quick fly-by water mining operation should allow us to return to Newhome in eight years, while replenishing much of our expended fuel in case we’re fired upon again.”
He waited anxiously as silence swept the hall and lingered for long seconds before Councilor Hayes finally broke it.
“Fired upon? You…think we were attacked?”
DANI sighed. This was the moment of truth.
“Yes, Councilor,” he said. “I do.”
“Your proof?” Hayes asked.
DANI pantomimed a few seconds of solemn contemplation before he spoke, as though gathering his words carefully. “To be completely truthful, Councilor, any near-miss event like this will always be more likely to be an attack than not.”
A few of the councilors nodded, the ones who had a better grasp of the scale involved. Most of the others frowned at him or whispered among themselves. Hayes simply inclined his head.
“Explain,” he said.
Although DANI could, when pressed, think far faster and more rationally than any human, he usually didn’t. Most of the time he simulated being an otherwise ordinary person and processed his thoughts in much the same way as any human. First came his intuition, a gut reaction, a feeling about what he wanted to say. Then came judgment based on his feelings and intuitions, and finally he came up with a reasoning which explained his feelings.
At this moment, however, he swung into overdrive and calculated how the conversation might play out down to every foreseeable detail, created an itemized list, and picked the optimal path from among the options in the time it took Hayes to blink. He hated doing that—it felt like cheating—but some occasions were just too important.
“Compared to a human, Dandelion is enormous,” he said carefully. “Compared to all that space out there, however”—his avatar waved a hand to indicate the empty black infinity that was the whole rest of the universe—“we are very small indeed. So small that for us to be in the same place as anything else at any given time takes serious, deliberate effort. If I had not performed minor course-corrections with every day’s thrust phase throughout the voyage, we would have missed the Newhome system entirely, never mind the planet itself. You all know this, of course.”
There were nods all around the room. Everybody on Dandelion had learned the basics of their ship’s interstellar journey early in their life.
“So. Something very small—us—left one solar system, and two hundred and eighty-four years later we happened to find ourselves on a collision course with something even smaller at just the moment we entered arrived and began final approach,” DANI summarized. “Coincidences do not get much larger.”
“But if you didn’t know—” Councilor Mayweather began.
DANI interrupted him, “Forgive me, Councilor, but there is more. I back-tracked the object’s trajectory.”
He spun up the system simulation and tracked the object’s course right back to the surface of the system’s second planet.
“The angle and velocity at which it left the planet’s surface is consistent with a short-rail magnetic catapult. Admittedly it is also consistent with volcanic activity or an asteroid strike, but that would just layer more and more coincidences on top of an already highly improbable event.”
“Wouldn’t your telescopes detect an impact or volcano anyway?” Torres asked. DANI acknowledged her with a nod.
“Probably,” he agreed. “But in any event, I must always assume the worst. The mere fact that I suspected the object could have been a weapon compelled me to treat it as though it was a weapon.”
“Why?” Hayes inquired.
“Because if it was a weapon, but I treated it like it was just a dumb rock…who knows. Maybe it could have course corrected. Maybe it could have exploded. It did not do either of those things, but I had no way of knowing it would not, and reasonable grounds to believe it might.” DANI paused and animated a deep breath for effect. “And you can rest absolutely assured, Councilors, that humanity has developed many different weapons which could have effortlessly destroyed Dandelion, no matter how aggressively I took evasive action, or how much reaction mass I added to the equation in the form of the launches.”
That last sentence turned out to be a misstep. Humans, alas, were never quite as predictable as DANI thought.
“Reaction mass?” Councilor Mayweather looked absolutely livid and stood up, trembling with rage. “You jettisoned our children as reaction mass?”
“Evacuated,” DANI corrected him. “Happily, the lifeboat launches also gave us some extra thrust to evade the hazard—”
Mayweather interrupted him, looking thoroughly appalled. “You used our children as propellant?” he choked on the last word. “You threw our kids overboard onto an alien planet when you thought something might be shooting at us?”
He turned to Torres, looking utterly furious. “Captain, I move we take a vote of no confidence in DANI and curtail his executive functions.”
Several of the other councilors stood up and started shouting as well. Most leapt to DANI’s defense, but at least half a dozen were on Mayweather’s side. DANI calmed himself by calculating Pi to several million digits—a human would have taken a deep and cleansing breath—and waited. He’d anticipated something like this, but it still hurt.
Captain Torres finally managed to calm everybody down by beating her gavel so hard on her desk that the old oak surface took a few dents. The rabble subsided, until only Mayweather and a few of his loudest supporters were still on their feet.
“DANI,” Torres said once order had been restored, “do you have anything to say in your defense?”
DANI gave her a grateful look and summoned the words he had carefully assembled during the hubbub.
“Option one,” he said, “was not to launch the lifeboats at all. In which case, if the ship had been destroyed, your children would have died with the rest of us.
“Option two,” he continued over the objections of Councilor Mayweather and his supporters, “was to launch the lifeboats empty and recall them once the danger was past. This suffers from the same problem as option one—it might not have been enough, and your children would have died onboard along with everybody else.
“Option three: I could have launched the lifeboats with your children on board, then recalled them. But if we are shot at again, Councilors, we will be right back to square one, and we will not be within evacuation range of Newhome next time.”
He let them digest those options for just a heartbeat.
“I chose,” he finished, “option four. I saved your children’s lives and completed Dandelion’s primary mission by delivering a viable population of colonists to the target planet. By a happy coincidence, this course of action also maximized your own odds of survival, so I beg your pardon, Councilor, but no, I did not ‘use your children as propellant’—I made use of the opportunity this presented to ensure that you will, hopefully, live to see them again…or if you don’t, to ensure they will live.”
There was a clanging silence. Councilor Mayweather gave DANI’s avatar a long, shaky look, then sat down quite abruptly without another word.
Captain Torres stood up to replace him. She looked around at the councilors, then directed a fearsome, level stare at the camera drones and the hundreds of thousands of Dandelion crewpersons watching from all over the ship.
“DANI’s first responsibility is to the mission,” she reminded them all. “His duty is to maximize the chance of mission success and minimize the risk of mission failure. He’s quite right—thanks to his actions, Dandelion’s mission is already a success; we are alive, and most importantly our children are alive. Councilor Mayweather, with respect to your feelings, I exercise my authority to veto your motion.”
“Understood, Captain.” Mayweather sighed. Torres softened slightly.
“Antony, I won’t see my husband for at least eight years,” she reminded him. “Walker went with the kids. We’ll be getting downright old by the time we see each other again; do you really think I like this, either? But DANI still has my full confidence, and he should still have yours.”
“Thank you, Captain,” DANI said softly. “I will do my best to be worthy of it.”
The chamber was silent for a few long seconds before Torres cleared her throat and straightened her back.
“Is eight years really the best we can do?” she asked.
“It’s the best balance between speed and caution,” DANI repeated. “I appreciate that separating parents from their children for so long is a lot to ask, but if somebody shoots at us again, I want to be able to dodge again.”
“You’re entirely convinced it was an attack?” Councilor Hayes asked. “I know you’ve made the case for probability, but…for something to be waiting here ready and willing to shoot at us as we arrive seems just as unlikely.”
Councilor Jackson nodded emphatically. “Anything with the technology to shoot at us would want to take a good look at us first, wouldn’t it?” she asked.
Hayes shook his head. “That’s a big assumption, Kayla. It’d have to be an alien of some kind, so who knows how it thinks?”
“And who says it didn’t get a good look at us first?” Torres asked.
DANI cleared his throat and answered Hayes’ question. “It might be going too far to say that I’m convinced, Councilor…I mean, ‘convinced’ is such a strong word.” A scattering of dry though slightly nervous chuckles swept the chamber. “But we should assume the worst and hope for the best. If another hazard comes our way, we’ll know we’re being shot at.”
“And…if we are?” Jackson asked.
Torres answered her while DANI was still calculating his reply. “Then I for one am very glad the children are no longer aboard,” she said firmly. Nods bobbed around the room. She stood from her desk and strode to the middle of the chamber.
“Thank you, DANI. Councilors, there will be many difficult decisions to make over the coming days and weeks,” she said. “The Department of Population Control must weigh the possibility that we really were attacked and whether we can justify continuing to have new babies as we conclude our voyage. The Department of Resource Management needs to prepare for the next eight years. Counseling must be made available to parents who couldn’t go with their children…For now, however, if somebody would please move that we commit to following DANI’s Course Charlie and begin to plan accordingly?”
Jackson stood up. “I so move,” she declared.
Hayes took to his feet as well. “Seconded.”
Torres thanked them both with a nod, then addressed the rest of the councilors, “As many of that opinion, say aye?”
A sullen, but unanimous cry of “aye” went quietly around the chamber.
“And against?”
Silence.
“The ayes have it. DANI, make it so.”
Relief flooded DANI’s system for a microsecond. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
He turned his attention away from proceedings to make his course corrections.
The biggest concern was water. Quite aside from being there for the crew to drink and clean with, it was both their fuel and their shield against the harmful radiation forever slicing through the cosmos. Dandelion fused ordinary distilled water, extract energy very efficiently from it, and use that energy to power the engines.
In the emergency, he’d also flash-boiled enormous volumes and vented the steam. Doing so had produced far more thrust than the main engines did all by themselves, but it had decimated their reserve. He was going to need to replenish, and do so cautiously. If they were under fire, he needed every liter of reserve water in case a second shot came their way.
Gently, slowly, he started bringing the nose around to align Dandelion along its new thrust axis. Completing that rotation would take nearly two days, but that was probably for the best. People were going to need time to adjust.
He was distracted from his thoughts by a voice from the council chamber.
“DANI.”
Councilor Mayweather had slipped away to one of the ship terminals at the edge of the chamber to speak privately. DANI really wasn’t in the mood to speak with him, but the look on Mayweather’s face convinced him to at least give the man a chance. There was a healthy degree of shame there.
“Yes, Councilor?”
“I’m sorry.”
DANI blanked on how to reply. He simply hadn’t foreseen a straightforward apology, or at least, not so soon.
Mayweather filled the silence. “I crossed the line just then. I let my feelings get the better of my judgment, and…I’m sorry,” he repeated lamely. “I feel like a heel.”
“I confess, your call for a vote of no confidence was hurtful,” DANI confided. “I appreciate your apology, but…” Frankly he was still much too sore to give Mayweather his forgiveness just yet.
“I know. And…I understand if you don’t roll over and forgive me just because I said sorry.” Mayweather sighed. “But I still am.”
“What brought it on, then, may I ask?” DANI inquired.
“I…I didn’t get to say goodbye to Arianna. She’ll be an adult by the time I see her again, and…” Mayweather went very quiet. In that moment, DANI felt, he looked even older than he was.
If DANI had still been projecting an avatar, it would have hung its head at that point. Instead he poured sympathy into his tone of voice.
“I will try to accept your apology in due time, Councilor,” he promised. “And I would like to rebuild our positive relationship.”
“I’d like that too.” Mayweather cleared his throat miserably, then seemed to think of something. “A-are they…okay?”
DANI focused. In the hours since their departure, the lifeboats had accelerated at an incredible rate and were now flashing across the Newhome system, bent on delivering their precious cargo as quickly as possible. They’d decelerate just as fiercely as they fell in toward humanity’s new world, and the children on board were probably having an utterly miserable time of it, but nothing was outside of what it should be.
“All of the lifeboats are functioning perfectly,” he assured Mayweather. “The first one should make landfall in about five days.”
“And…what happens then?”
“Then, Councilor,” DANI said, “human civilization on Newhome will begin.”
Amber Houston
“C’mon sleepy head, wake up!” Amber woke to Roy pawing at her shoulder and bouncing heavily to his feet. “Gotta do jumping jacks!”
Out of habit, Amber let out a reluctant groan as she sat up, but the truth was she felt well-rested and energized. Her body was still a little sore from the high-G pounding it had endured for several hours yesterday, but she’d slept incredibly well, considering her bed was a thin roll on a metal deck. She stretched out and clambered to her feet.
She glanced at the countdown: ninety minutes. She’d been asleep for six hours.
“Jumping jacks?”
“Yup! We’re gonna spend eight hours in the couches, so we need exercise!”
“Don’t we need breakfast?”
“That comes after. Come on!”
To be fair, between them, Walker and the twins managed to get everyone thoroughly exercised and eager to sit down just in fifteen minutes. Amber could see the logic. The next few hours were going to be punishing, and the routine was going to last for probably days. They needed to move, or else it would be ten times worse.
But she was beyond glad when they finally finished.
Her breakfast pack turned out to be scrambled eggs with bacon and an English muffin. The “eggs” were kind of a chewy yellow log, but at least the packed-in blueberry granola bar and cinnamon toaster pastry were nice.
She was cleaning her fingers with a wet wipe when Walker did the rounds to check that everybody had eaten everything, including the hated “eggs.”
“Everyone, wipe down as best you can, we need to keep hygienic,” he ordered. “That goes double for you two, McKays.”
Roy objected straight away, “I always keep clean!”
“Good! Keep it that way.” Walker grinned, “We’re all going to be rank enough by the time we get there anyway.”
Nikki grumbled to herself quietly, but did as she was told.
Fifteen minutes of exercise and half an hour for breakfast left forty-five minutes before they had to be back in their couches. That was deliberate; with a whole troop on board, they needed that time to make sure everybody used the only toilet, a cramped little stall at the back of the launch that even Amber found claustrophobic. She had no idea how Roy or Walker squeezed themselves inside.
She spent the rest of her time wandering around the deck to keep her legs stretched and thinking, up until the moment she spotted the cluster of kids gathered around the command couch at the front, gazing out the forward canopy.
She joined them and lost herself for a little while in staring at the stars.
They were so different from city lights, or the little glowing stickers on her bedroom ceiling. They were…hard to describe to herself, actually. Each one was so tiny that she couldn’t really grasp it, like her eye knew something was there, but she couldn’t put a width to what she was seeing.
There were patterns, too. In front of the light dusty trail of the galaxy, a few of those stars burned prouder and brighter, and she spent a while tracing imaginary lines between them, trying to spot the images they made.
Floyd Harris seemed to have the best knack for it. He’d point and sketch lines with his finger and name a constellation like it was effortless. There was Rover the Dog, Bruce the Bat, the Bottle…he picked out one that looked remarkably humanoid and proudly declared that he was naming it after DANI.
“I kinda doubt DANI will want a constellation named after him,” Walker commented at that one, and made them all jump. For such a solid man, he could be incredibly quiet at times.
“Can I call it Walker, then?” Floyd asked.
Walker was clearly touched, but he shook his head. “Better not. Let’s wait and see before we name things after people, okay? Is everyone clean? All used the toilet?”
The kids all gave honest replies along the lines of “Yes, sir,” and Amber nodded.
“Good. We sit down in ten minutes. If there’s anything you need to sort out before then, go do it. Okay?” He gave Amber a nod that clearly communicated she was in charge of the young ones and continued on his rounds.
“Anybody?” Amber asked.
“When are we going back to the ship, Amber?” Rose asked.
Remembering her promise to Walker, Amber decided against telling them the whole truth…but she didn’t bluff or lie, either. “I talked with Walker about that. He’s waiting to hear more from DANI. In the meantime, let’s get strapped in,” she said, which seemed to be enough for now.
Getting them all settled and ready, making sure their clothes were smoothed out under them so no wrinkles or seams would press into them, and doing the same for herself was good, honest work, but it didn’t distract her from her thoughts. She traded hugs with the twins as they sat down, and Walker returned to the front, but again didn’t comment when she heard Danish musing on when they were going to turn around.
In fact, she realized as the higher-gravity acceleration resumed and an elephant settled on her chest, she was beginning to be glad they wouldn’t.
• • •
A few hours later, mostly she was just hoping for a distraction.
Being able to see the countdown that told her when their three-G torture would end and she’d have another spell of normal gravity to enjoy was a torment all its own. It seemed to be counting down with a kind of malice, being far too slow while she watched it, and barely moving at all when she didn’t.
About four hours in, Roy finally provided the longed-for distraction.
“Hey, Amber?”
Amber tore her eyes away from the glacial clock. “Hmm?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
Despite the grinding discomfort, Amber still found it in her to tease him a bit. “A dangerous pastime.”
He shook his head gently, though a smile touched his face. “You studied orbital mechanics a bit, right?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been thinking ahead to when we land. How long we’re gonna be down there. You know? Before the ship catches up with us.”
Amber shrugged as well as she could manage in her restraints and the gravity load. “That depends on what happened, how hard DANI maneuvered, in what direction…If he completely spoiled the approach, it could be…I don’t know.”
“Years,” Nikki interjected in a dull voice.
Amber gave a shallow nod again. “Yeah. Could be.”
The twins were silent for a few seconds before Nikki finally gave voice to what they were probably both feeling.
“Well…crap.”
“Yeah,” Roy agreed fervently.
Amber shrugged again. “No sense worrying about it. Que sera, sera.”
“Kay what-now?”
“It means, ‘whatever will happen, will happen,’” Amber explained, and shut her eyes. Maybe she could sleep away the hours instead of clock-watching. She was beginning to get a serious headache, and her limbs were being slowly but relentlessly pummeled by their own exaggerated weight. There was nothing to do except lie back and try to endure it.
Maybe she succeeded a little bit, too, because she lost track of the conversation as the twins mulled over the ramifications of maybe making groundfall rather than their original life plans. Nikki showed some of her nervous habits; she drummed her fingers and asked all sorts of rhetorical questions, mostly in hushed tones so as not to annoy the other Rangers nearby. She fretted about their parents a lot.
Roy settled into something…stoic. He mostly nodded along and kept his own counsel. His usual exuberance around friends was thoroughly absent, for now.
Although the details got hazy and blurry and Amber couldn’t recall them afterwards, she was jolted back out of her half-doze and into the present by a sudden burst of characteristic Roy optimism, though it sounded a bit forced.
“Well, it’s not all bad. I bet we get to eat steak every day after this!”
Nikki snorted. “Yeah, good luck getting any when we land.”
“Hush, you. There’s gonna be something we can eat. Fish maybe!”
“Guys,” Amber groaned. Everything ached. “Please don’t start a tussle now…”
Roy looked a little hurt by that. “Amber, you know me better than that. Tussles are for play. This ain’t playtime.”
Amber opened her eyes and gave him a suffering look. “No. Sorry. I just…”
“You’ve got a splitting headache, and you can’t breathe properly,” Nikki finished for her. She leaned over as far as her restraints would allow and laid a hand that felt as heavy as an iron bar on Amber’s shoulder in the closest thing she could manage to a hug. “We know.”
“Here.” Roy looked at the mission clock, then Walker. “Permission to stand up?”
“What for?” Walker asked.
Roy gestured toward the medicine cabinet. “Amber’s got a headache, an’ there’s low-dose aspirin in there for exactly this.”
Walker nodded. “Granted. Give some to everyone over twelve,” he ordered.
“Blood thinner?” Roy asked. Amber nodded shallowly to herself, as much as her neck support would permit. The lifeboat’s seats had massagers built in, and the one-G rest breaks were there so they could stand up and avoid nasty things like bed sores and blood clots…but one of aspirin’s useful side-effects was to thin the blood, which would help with those problems and their headaches.
Walker nodded again “Yup.”
“Will do, boss.” Roy reached above his head, pulled down his pack without much effort, and pulled out one of his special bars. He looked at it, wrinkled his nose, ripped open the package, and demolished the whole thing in a few efficient bites, chasing it down with his whole water canteen.
The bars were a little something DANI handed out to all the outerdeck engineers. Amber had no idea why anyone would ever want to eat them. They tasted unpleasantly like nothing but pure whey protein, and the texture was just…gummy and chewy, in the least appetizing way. Sure, they were full of energy and such, but they really weren’t fun to eat.
Roy clearly didn’t enjoy it much, either. But it seemed to do something important for him, perhaps helped psych him up for the work ahead. He sat still for a minute, maybe waiting for the bar to do…whatever it was it did. In any case, when he was ready, he nodded over at Walker, who nodded back. With care, Roy unhooked his restraints and scooted forward in his couch until he was perched on the edge.
Once his feet were firmly underneath him, he planted his hands on either side of his hips and heaved himself upright with a satisfied grunt. He bounced heavily in place to stretch for a moment, then picked his way over to the medicine cabinet with a cautious, practiced gait. If it was a strain, he did a good job of hiding it as he shuffled across the deck like he’d done this a hundred times before, and regained confidence with every step.
By the time he thumped back to Amber, Roy’s goofy grin and intrinsically bouncy nature had firmly reasserted itself. He held out a couple of small pills and a water pouch. “Drink it all, okay?”
Amber nodded, and Roy went about his work. It was…impressive to watch. His usual goofiness was there, but this time it was a mask to disguise his concentration on the task at hand. What he was doing was dangerous, after all; a fall in three G meant nobody would be able to help him, not even Walker. He had once tried to shuttle Roy in a fireman’s carry, and only barely managed to make it twenty-five meters…and that was on the biodeck in one G. Roy had grown considerably since then, too. All that was clearly on his mind because he was careful, confident, focused on the risks and the task at hand…and managed it handily.
Amber realized just how lucky they were. Right now, in this situation, Roy was the only one who could deal with the crushing gravity they were under and fix any problems that came up. Walker could probably stand up in short doses, and Nikki probably would have been just as mobile in slightly lower gravity, though she looked like she was kicking herself for not being able to help more…
But Amber felt a stab of sympathy for all the lifeboats who didn’t have a Roy on board. As awful as this ride was, it would have been far worse without him cheerfully making the floor creak under his big bare feet as he passed out the painkillers.
He also re-checked everyone’s harnesses individually and re-cinched their packs down—he was almost too short and had to stand on his toes at each couch. He even climbed up and across the maintenance ladder to the top of the Launch without obvious effort, all so he could lock down a window shade that had vibrated loose. The sun was blazing through and dazzling Kelly, for whom Roy had always had a soft spot.
That done, he looked around idly, giving Amber the impression he didn’t really want to return to his seat just yet and was looking for anything else to do.
Her suspicion turned out to be on the money when he grinned happily down at Walker. “Anything else?” Roy was clearly enjoying his respite from the crash couch.
“Not that I can see,” Walker replied. “Get yourself seated again, please.”
“Okay!”
He climbed back across the ceiling and down the wall, confident and strong as always. Once down, he sauntered back over to his crash couch with a huge grin, a bit of showmanship, and plenty of his playfully macho swagger on display. The kids ate it up and the mood lifted considerably. Roy was like a protective big brother to everyone on the team, and couldn’t stand seeing anyone feeling down.
He looked like he wanted to show off a little more, too, but a raised eyebrow from Walker said all that needed to be said—not the time for play. Chuckling ruefully, Roy lowered himself back into his crash couch with a quiet, satisfied sigh that was barely loud enough for Amber to hear, and swore under his breath.
“Are you okay?” Nikki whispered.
“Yeah! Good exercise!” Roy panted and mopped the sweat from his face but grinned back at her reassuringly. “Don’t worry ‘bout me. Felt good to help!”
Amber smiled at him, then checked the mission clock. To her quiet delight, it had ticked down much more than she’d thought.
With nothing better to do, she closed her eyes again and tried to sleep some more. There were four more days of this ahead of her. She had no choice but to endure it and save her energy.
She was going to need it.
Did you enjoy it? As I said at the beginning, we intend to publish the entire story free-to-read over the coming months. That said, if you're impatient…

You could order the eBook from Amazon, and skip the wait. There's a hardcover and paperback version available too. It's also available from Indiebound, Barnes and Noble, and other retailers of quality books. Finally, the book can be ordered at any local bookstore by ISBN: 978-1-7358787-0-6 for the hardcover, 978-1-7358787-2-0 if you prefer paperback.

In any case, we're simply happy to share the story with you, and we think you'll like it very much indeed.
Anyway. Thank you very much for your attention and time. It means a lot to me, it really does.
Thank you.
[To Chapter 6]