Little dipper crock pot recipe book

Let's explore the world together. Let's cuddle up together on the sofa while it storms and hold each other when we've got no other plans. Just make the most of every moment. Ambition, a thrist for knowledge and adventure, and a little competitiveness will go a long way to help.
I come from a big family of engineers and I'm an artificial intelligence software engineer myself, so I'm more than a little nerdy. Some people find me intimidating but I'm easy to get along with. I make friends fast and I've got a pretty large group that have all been hanging out regularly since college.
Movies are a passion of mine. Good movies, bad movies, all have their place depending on my mood. My favorite movie is the new Dune, with Blade Runner 2049 being a close second. It's safe to say Denis Villeneuve is my favorite director. I like complex, immersive movies that feel like they transport me to a new universe. It would be nice to find someone who feels the same way and wants to share that experience. Let's dissect the brilliant works of art and have fun laughing about movies that are so bad they're good.
I'm also a really good cook but bonus points if you know how to cook too or would like to learn. I'd love to have someone I can cook with. Cooking and good food in general helps me relax after a long day. Food is important in my family, especially seafood. Everywhere we travel we bring back new recipes. I cook from all kinds of different cuisine but in a normal rotation and no particular order, you'll see me making lots of French, Italian, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Mexican, and more. Parties are often planned around the food with everyone hanging out in the kitchen while it's made. You'll always eat well with me around.
I have a lot of other hobbies I switch between pretty often. It helps me prevent burn out on any specific thing. I pick up skills very quickly, so that definitely has something to do with having so many. Drawing, painting (digital, oil, and miniatures), DIY projects, TTRPGs, PC gaming, airsoft, wood/metal working, and more. I've even published my own TTRPG and I'm working on two more books for it.
If you made it through that wall of text, drop me a line. I love meeting new people and so does my dog.

Back again I see?
Wanting more of the amazingly exciting recountings of my life since I came to your world?
I am not surprised dear reader, after all, I am a seventy three thousand year old immortal demonic being who looks absolutely fabulous in a little black cocktail dress… in any form, so who can blame you?
Now, where was I? Oh yes…
“So you want vengeance upon those who have wronged you? I unquestionably can relate to that as I have a long history in smiting my summoners enemies,” I said with a casual air.
It’s true, revenge was one of the main reasons I and many other demons are summoned as we are the perfect assassins. And we are very good at our job as it is a win-win-win for us. We get to kill, causing agony and mayhem, we get to siphon off our victims soul and of course because we have been tasked with murder, we get our summoners soul as a bonus! The symmetry is perfect, I love it. This will be a wonderful summons and hopefully one I could stretch out for as long as my Magus lives. I will have to do something about that as he looks far too soft for my liking and him having a long and healthy life is in my interests.
“Revenge? Nope.”
Now that was unexpected.
The Magus folded his arms, giving me a blank look as he leaned back in his spinning leather throne. I now regretted not taking that seat. It seems so much fun! Never mind…things always change.
“What!?! You want me to kill people but not for vengeance? Why? You said, and I quote, “your life blew apart two years ago”, so I assumed that someone harmed you so deeply that you committed yourself to the Black Arts, finding a way to summon me from Avernus the second circle of hell also known for lust and envy, just to indulge yourself in murder? My… that is so infernally delicious Magus! You have the makings of becoming a Prince indeed.”
“I need no revenge, I have no need for anything as melodramatic or prosaically trite and cliched as that. I may as well explain my motivation so you completely understand what I am asking of you. Just over two years ago, my wife who was the centre of my life, was killed in a car accident while travelling back from her work, in a place thousands of miles from here. The only fault was hers as I had constantly warned her about the dangers of driving on that particular stretch of highway. She was everything to me, my one and only. My world ended. I think you understand this as being a demon who fully knows the human heart, how all-consuming love can be. It can drive us to madness.”
“This I know. Go on.” I nodded in agreement – love can make humans do insane things. This is how I often could ensnare my victims, by making them fall hopelessly in love with me.
His story rang true so far however I still had a lot of difficultly in understanding why his grief had led to him wanting me to murder people. It made no sense to me.
“Anyway, I lost all my joy for life. I became a wreck as you so eloquently pointed out but not writhing in my own filth. I was too cowardly to end my life yet too broken to move on, mired in a purgatory of my own making. Then one day, while shuffling around in my miasma, a book fell from the shelf. I don’t know how or why it did. It was a book I picked up decades ago when I was a student in a shop that has long since closed. It is a book on magic. When I first picked up and read the book I was amused as it seemed like someone was genuinely trying to show how the Art worked. As a rationalist and skeptic, I dismissed the contents back then as pure fantasy. However, for some reason I never got rid of the book, keeping it for all this time. Still, the book had literally dropped at my feet that day so I decided to reread it as that was the only thing keeping my mind focused on walling out my despair from consuming my thoughts.”
My Magus paused then sat up, took his beer from the table and drank deeply then continued,
“Imagine my immense surprise Meridiana, when I decided to follow one of the easiest rituals and spells and found that it worked. At first I thought I had fully lost my mind because it shouldn’t be possible yet it was. I made the most basic of charms, a simple Talisman of parchment that contained the utmost rudimentary Healing spell. Upon completion I pressed the parchment charm to my forehead and it vanished in a flash of magical flame to my stunned amazement. My despair was gone but the hole in my soul was ever present. I felt a sense of achievement but no wonder or joy. That was gone but my thirst for knowledge was invigorated as it become the bulwark against my all-consuming desolation.”
“Hmm… this is all rather nice but it still does not explain why you wish me to kill people that have not injured you.”
I folded my arms and gave him a hard examining look as my patience, which was always limited, was running out... fast.
“True. I shall tell you. I want you to kill certain people across the world in the name of Justice.”
“Huh!?! You cannot be serious?” I guffawed, laughing loudly at this ludicrous pronouncement.
The look he gave me sent a chill down my spine.
“I am deadly serious Meridiana. You see there are always powerful people, mostly men, who commit the most evil acts simply because they can. You know this to be true. I realise that they will suffer after they have departed this world. Yet I want them gone, on an express highway to hell. Governments are unable or unwilling to act against these monsters that wear human skin. And the monsters know that they are, for all practical purposes, untouchable. As an ordinary man, I can do nothing to stop them, however I am not an ordinary man anymore. I have totally embraced The Will and The Way, the desire for power and accept the consequences. In addition, I have bound myself to you as you are bound to me. There will be repercussions if you do as I ask, this is assured but I do not care. The old saying “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t” is utter bullshit. You know the devil in front of you is a monster, so why not rip his heart out and watch the light fade from his terrified eyes as you burn it before him with hellfire, sending his soul to Hades or worse? And if the next one is a devil as well… see step one and repeat.”
I almost fell off my seat of power, slacked jawed in staggered incredulity. This Magus was compelled, driven by something so totally beyond my comprehension. And yet… he made sense in a gloriously evil way. I had to again reappraise this human. Maybe he had gone insane with the grief of the death of his wife? That would make more sense. Still… he was rational, focused and in perfect control of himself. I could not detect any signs of insanity within him at all, this I would know having driven thousands beyond that point. There was nothing but the will to power in his eyes. A dawning realisation fell upon me: this could work.
“Magus, let me see if I am fully understanding you; you want me to kill evil doers who are powerful people because they are evil and untouchable and that offends your sense of Justice?”
“Yep. You got it in one. Even though I posses the power of the Arts, The Will and The Way, I myself lack the knowledge and power to strike at those who have drawn breath for too long. Instead I looked for another way to fulfill my… childish need for Justice, becoming a Supernatural Vigilante in a sense for want of a better description. In a delicious irony, by using you, I will be the hand of vengeance for those who are denied justice. A great philosopher said that you should take care in fighting monsters less you become the monster itself as if you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you. Yeah… fuck that. I will become the monster that is so awful that all monsters will quake in terror and as to the abyss, I will stare right back at it, giving it a truly uncomfortable long staring look, making it turn away. I am sure you are familiar with Psalm 23/4?”
“Yes… I am,” I nodded in almost breathless awe of my Magus.
“Right well, I’m adapting it, changing it to what the US Marine Corps often say, “Yay though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I fear no evil, for I am the meanest and most dangerous Motherfucker in the Valley.” This is my mantra now.”
I don’t think my jaw could have dropped any further dear reader when I heard that. I had no idea as to who or what the US Marine Corps were and, if that was one of their mottos, I truly admired them for it. Only the most powerful of Demon Lords and Princes would embody that level of Will to Power. My Magus had that drive, that strength of personality of self-determination, a yearning for Power to strike out at those he despised.
Perfection!
I quickly gathered myself as I needed to appear strong and unshakable.
“I can work with this…” I replied casually.
The Magus gave out a dry, cold bark of a laugh.
“Of course you can. You know I could compel you but I would rather you be my willing partner in this endeavour. I see this as a win-win-win situation. You get to kill and reap the souls of the damned. By doing so, you may regain favour with the one who imprisoned you. Yes I know not to speak his name. And the evil fuckers who abuse their power, causing untold suffering to mostly innocent people, will painfully die screaming and then continue that scream for eternity. It’s all gravy as the saying goes.”
The Magus drank the rest of his beer while mine still sat upon the table, barely consumed.
“Your scheme… is breathtaking Magus. When do I start?” I asked with barely restrained enthusiasm.
“Ahh… well not immediately.”
He saw my disappointment that I could not keep of my face.
“Firstly you have to learn more about the world my dear Meridiana. As I said to you earlier, the world you last knew is gone. You think this is a palace. It is a moderately luxurious home, nothing more than that. There are luxuries and treasures that will drown your need for satiation so utterly, that it will make you feel sick. Yes… it is true. Also, I will never lie to you Meridiana. Never. I recognize that is an alien concept to you, that lies and manipulation are embedded with the fabric of your being yet you MUST understand that everything I say is the truth and trust me when I tell you things. Do you understand that?”
I nodded again but didn’t completely believe it… I just couldn’t. The Magus saw the doubt in my black eyes and shrugged.
“Meh… it’s a start I suppose. Skepticism is a healthy trait to have anyway. Question what you hear and see but know I will never lie to you. This I vow and pledge this to you, this I vow and pledge this to you, I vow and pledge this to you!”
My eyes widened as he invoked the chant of three. He was making a binding oath to me, unbidden and freely given. No one had ever done that for me before. For the first time in my life… I could trust someone.
“I accept, I accept, I accept… Magus,”
The oath was complete.
We were bound more tightly than I ever could have thought possible. The feeling of elation… something I had not experienced in millennia bubbled up inside of me.
A broad smile beamed from my lips as I regarded my Magus.
“So then, if you do not wish for me to start our scheme, what do you wish to do? I am eager to learn Magus of the new world I exist in,” I said as I twirled a strand of my silky black hair in what I hoped was a tantalising way.
“Perhaps I should show you around the rest of the house and demonstrate some of it’s functions. Yes, that’s probably a good place to start. See the device above you?”
I looked upwards and for the first time noticed a three bladed… thing, that was in constant motion, moving the air around the room in comforting and pleasing way.
“That’s a fan. It is powered by electricity. You know of lightning?”
I nodded.
“That is electricity. Humanity has learned to harness that power in order make machines work replacing muscle power to drive devices and machines at a much more efficient rate.”
“Oh… I recall back not long after Alexander the Great had passed, some wiseman in the city of Ctesiphon in Parthia invented a device that created the spark. It was regarded as a novelty and never really achieved anything. And you say now that humans have harnessed this power? Intriguing. Go on,” I said as I watched the ‘fan’ spin relentlessly above us.
The Magus then leant forward and picked up a small white object that had been resting on top of the low table between us.
“This is a control for the fan. With it you can turn it on or off, increase or decrease the speed,” he said as he showed me the buttons with little icons upon them. As he pressed one, it made a tiny beeping sound and the fans’ speed increased. Marvellous!
“Electricity is also used for lighting. We no longer need to burn oil or candles for illumination at night time,” he said as he stood and took a few paces over to the wall where there were a few steps that descended into an area I hadn’t paid attention to. On the wall, just below shoulder height, was a shiny extrusion that had tiny… switches?.. upon it. He flicked one and lights above me flashed into life.
“Wonderous!”
I smiled in delight at seeing this. No more smelly oil lamps giving off the smoky acrid stench of rancid animal fat or oil. No more gutting candles either. Simple clean bright light at the flick of your finger.
“The fridge you saw is powered by electricity. The cooking devices, which I will demonstrate later, are also powered by electricity. You might say that human civilisation has become so dependent upon electricity, that if it were taken away, we would plunge back into the dark ages in a terrifying way. Moving on… oh follow me please,” he said politely, indicating we go back towards the stairs.
In my initial amazement, I had failed to notice many things such as the stairs that I ascended the basement from, curled around and continued upwards. Also, the Magus had many works of art adorning the walls of his home. I never really paid attention to human art although I have done so to many artists, driving their desires to be the greatest only to see their dreams to ashes when I finally betrayed them.
Another thing that I took note of was how light, airy and clean this house was. It was most likely early afternoon and sunlight shone through multiple windows, reflecting off the pristine white tiles and off white walls. This was nothing like the dingy, dank, dark and reeking, smoke filled halls I last encountered while on this world a thousand years ago. It was… refreshing.
“Just past the kitchen is my office,” he said as we walked forwards.
I stopped and stared again as there were more books lining the cabinets and shelves! There was another large metal framed window that was partially shrouded in wooden slated blinds, keeping out the harsh mid afternoon sunlight and heat. Papers and books were everywhere and a black device, much larger than the ‘phone’ was open upon a long bench that had a seat on wheels in front of it. The device had a glasslike window and was lit up, displaying the summoning circle and text alongside it.
“Oh that’s a computer. A more powerful device than the phone. I’ll demonstrate that later too.”
Again I wordlessly nodded but paid thorough attention to every detail now.
“Lets head upstairs, oh there is a bathroom here, as well as a pantry and spare bedroom,” he said offhandedly as he gestured briefly to his left to a small recess that had three closed doors within it.
Ascending the tiled stairs, passing by yet another large window that looked out onto the atrium, we arrived at the top. Plush white wool carpet lined the floor. It felt so glorious under my bare feet amd stretched the entire length of this level of the house. He took a few paces and we came upon a very large…alcove is the best description I could give it. Within this space were a chair exactly like the one my Magus sat on downstairs as well as another extremely comfortable looking upright couch. In front of that, just 7 feet away and bolted securely upon the wall, was a huge black…metal and glass screen.
“That’s the television,” he said.
I understood Greek and could piece the words together.
“Far… sight?”
The Magus smiled at me. I saw his amusement and… it pleased me.
“Yes, that is correct. This device is for visual entertainment. It uses electricity of course and I’ll demonstrate it to you in a minute. Follow me.”
He took a few steps and opened up a double doorway that led into a bedroom, one of which I had not seen before. A massive bed dominated the space. Off to my right was another set of double doors that opened into a marble and tile covered bathing room was my best guess. And there were another set of double wooden doors, all of which were painted in a glossy white colour off to my left. In front of me was a wall of glass and metal, with a balcony beyond looking over the street and trees below. Heavy curtains were drawn up on either side.
“This will be your room Meridiana. That’s your bathroom where you can wash yourself and a toilet for the necessary ablutions. We don’t shit in pots and throw them onto the street anymore by the way. That porcelain seat you see, that’s called a toilet which you sit on that and do your business and flush it away.”
“Oh where the fun in that Magus? It used to be dreadfully amusing to hit unsuspecting passers-by with the contents of the chamber pot!” I laughed with a demonic mischievous grin.
He didn’t seem all that amused, barely cracking a smile.
“We just don’t do that anymore and I tell you now, don’t do it here or anywhere else for that matter. We don’t want or need the attention that would bring upon us. Do you understand?”
“Yes Magus,” I said demurely, still with a small but infernal grin upon my pouty lips.
“Over here is your wardrobe,” he said as he opened the second set of doors that were to my left.
I walked over and gasped as it was full of the most amazing clothing I had yet seen. Opulent gowns and other garments obviously made for a woman hung neatly in a long row. There were shelves and drawers filled with even more garments.
“There were my wife’s clothes. I think you might have to adjust your body’s shape to fit them as she wasn’t as shapely as you are now,” he said with a sad look as he gazed upon his dead wife’s clothing.
“I can do that. That will not be a problem,” I replied as I examined her dresses and gowns, all of which would have been worth a fortune back in Gerbert’s time as they were so well crafted as the colours, patterns and materials would have made the Byzantine Empire’s female nobility go mad with envy at seeing such fine clothing. His wife had excellent taste I may add. I was eager to try on her clothing now.
I turned back to my Magus and gave him the brightest smile.
“This will do nicely!”

My name is Jordan Richter. I’m an investigative journalist for an independent media outlet. Ever since I had to use my wits, an old tape-recorder, and some fake weed I made from my mother’s arugula plant to catch a few bullies in their lies back in middle school, I’ve been obsessed with exposing corruption. I’ve spent years chasing the truth, going undercover, and even doing some modest hacking. Mostly I do political stuff, scandals, coverups, bribery. Every politician has a skeleton in their closet, and if you look hard enough, they usually have a few dozen. It’s not out of the ordinary for people to send me evidence of bad behavior on a potential suspect, like hotel receipts, photos, bank statements, that kind of thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I never publish anything I get without verifying it. I always look at every case as hearsay until proven correct. You can really mess up someone’s life with a false accusation, and as someone who’s been through that twice, I don’t want to be that guy. Besides, sometimes the stuff people send is just too vague, not convincing, or obviously faked. But ever once in a while I find something really deep, something my editor would call ‘beyond the pale’.
Something dark.
This is one of those times.
I recently received a recording and transcript of a phone call that the whistleblower, who chose to remain anonymous, secretly recorded and sent to me via email. The first time I listened to it, I was shocked, and had to re-listen several times just to be sure I heard it right. Due to technical difficulties with the recording, I can’t post it here, but I can share the transcript. If what is contained within is even remotely true, then anyone who lives in Barron County Ohio needs to get in contact with either their local travel agent, or perhaps a National Guard unit.
The following is the transcript, exactly how it was sent to me, word for word.
(The recording begins. The sound of a phone ringing can be heard, before a handset is picked up with a soft click, and a man speaks.)
Voice 1: “Sheriff’s office, how may I help you sir or—”
(A second man’s voice can be heard shouting through the phone.)
Voice 2: “Wurnauw! What the hell is going on in your district?”
(A chair creaks, and it sounds as though Voice 1 is clearing his throat.)
Voice 1: “Mr. Karonti, I—”
Voice 2: “Shut your mouth before I shut it for you. Don’t you know not to use my name on the phone, you hopeless lump? I gave you a job to do, one job, and now I’m hearing all kinds of noise about things going wrong down there. You think my group funded your campaign so these kinds of mistakes could happen?”
Voice 1: “Sir, I assure you, my deputies are doing everything we can to—”
Voice 2: “Your deputies? Do you have any idea what I just got done reading? One of your loudmouth deputies has been blabbing online about seeing a Techno in the freaking woods. Thousands of people viewed his post, Wurnauw. If just one of them does any amount of digging, our entire operation could be jeopardized.”
(The sound of a pencil snapping in half can be heard.)
Voice 1: “I . . . I’ll find the responsible man, and deal with him, sir. It won’t happen again.”
Voice 2: “It better not. As for the park, why didn’t you seize control of New Wilderness like I directed? We need that instillation as a base for operations, and those two-bit rangers are still running around firing guns everywhere, stirring up the herds, and causing the anomalies to migrate. I want them gone, Wurnauw. I don’t care how you do it, just get rid of them.”
Voice 1: “Sir, with all due respect, the Night Rangers outnumber us two to one, and they’re the only ones keeping the Technos and Organics at bay. I’ve lost two men already to the Echo-Spiders, and we can barely keep the roads blocked as it is. Civilians are finding their way in, and every one of them that survives has to be silenced or discredited. I need more men.”
Voice 2: “I have a thousand of my best fighters on standby as we speak. But I need live specimens, Wurnauw, the more the merrier, and we can’t get them if those polo-shirt wearing rent-a-cops are killing them all. Ever since that Cromwell girl popped the last Oak Walker, we’ve had nothing but spikes in the electromagnetic satellite readings from your area. Time is of the essence if we want to contain this thing. Arrest the Night Rangers, clear the New Wilderness Wildlife Reserve of all personnel, and prepare the site for ELSAR to move in.”
Voice 1: “If I move on the park, the rangers might resist. I know the head of security there, and that old Marine won’t give up without a fight. This could spark a real shooting war right in our backyard, and if the public finds out . . .”
Voice 2: “If the public finds out that there are moon-eyed freaks stumbling around in the woods, they’ll start the shooting war themselves. For God’s sake Sheriff, use your head for something other than a hat rack! You want to flush the rangers out? Drive a herd into them, and let the freaks do their job. Once everyone’s dead, we’ll come in and clean up. No one will ever have to know it was you.”
Voice 1: “Look, this would be a whole lot easier if we had more help. I’m not a miracle worker, and rumors spread every time we take another casualty on the force. It’s a small county, sir, with even smaller towns. All it takes is one person talking, and I can’t contain it. Just give me 50 guys, kitted out and ready to go, and at least then we can man the roadblocks.”
(There is a long pause, and a clock can be heard ticking in the background.)
Voice 2: “Fine, I can send 50, but no more until the LZ is clear. The situation is rapidly deteriorating, and the more men we move, the more attention we’ll attract. If we can’t seal the Breach soon, we could face an ecological disaster that would make Chernobyl look like Christmas in the Bahamas. I don’t need to remind you what we’ll be forced to do if that happens.”
Voice 1: “Clean Sweep.”
Voice 2: “Exactly. I won’t risk creating another Black Crow Island. The press is distracted by the upcoming elections right now, but if we make one slip-up, we’ll have reporters and home-grown watchdogs breathing down our necks all across the country. We cannot afford another Disaster Zone, especially not after what happened in Canada.”
Voice 1: “I understand sir. As soon as the reinforcements arrive, I’ll have New Wilderness captured for you within a week. Three days tops.”
Voice 2: “Time is critical, Wurnauw. Do not disappoint me on this. Get control of your department, shut the Night Rangers down, and keep the anomalies contained until we get there. I’ll work on suppressing any more online activity regarding your area and run some interference in case a few wannabe private-eyes start Googling things they shouldn’t.”
Voice 1: “Yes sir.”
Voice 2: “Oh, and one more thing. The leak in your department, it’s some moron named Hamond. I don’t care how you do it, or where, just make him disappear, now.”
Voice 1: “Hamond, huh? I should have known. Believe me, sir, it’s as good as done.”
(There is a muted click from the other end of the line, and the recording ends.)
Naturally, I dove into the internet and started hunting for information as soon as I read the transcript. Try as I might, I couldn’t find anything about a Barron County Ohio in the mainstream press, or on any map anywhere. There is a Barron County in Wisconsin, but nowhere in the foothills of Appalachia, almost as if it’s been selectively deleted from every record available. As for the New Wilderness Wildlife Reserve, I did manage to locate its home page just before a strange computer glitch made it unavailable. Just last week, the park announced it wouldn’t be holding a tour season this year, and that all grounds were closed to the public. It also issued a call for more volunteers for its security department, offering a whopping $40 an hour to anyone who stayed longer than a week, along with free room and board. Sadly, I didn’t get the chance to find any contact information, the site crashing in what I suspect was a coordinated DDOS attack from an unknown source.
What really stood out to me about the whole thing was the capitalization in the transcript of the bizarre words used by the two callers. Technos, Organics, and the vague threat known as the Breach. These seem to refer to some kind of animal species, judging by the use of the word ‘herds’ but it was hard to make heads or tails of it. My search in the regular web turned up nothing, until I stumbled across this site, and found four posts; three of them belonging to a girl named Madison Cromwell, and one belonging to a sheriff’s deputy, Sean Hamond.
From what I can gather in reading their accounts, both claim to have seen creatures of gargantuan and supernatural proportions. If there is any truth to them, then it might be reasonable to infer that the creature Miss Cromwell encountered, (called the ‘Oak Walker’ in the transcript by the mysterious Mr. Karonti) was likely an Organic, due to its plant-like characteristics. This creature seemed to be highly intelligent, and even possibly telekinetic, with the ability to create and control smaller human-sized creatures referred to by Cromwell as ‘Puppets.’ It is also important to note that in both Hamond’s account, and in the secret phone call, the creature known as ‘the Big one’ or ‘the Oak Walker’ is described as a type of apex predator, whose downfall contributed largely to the explosion of anomaly activity outside of the regular area. It is entirely possible that Miss Cromwell did in fact succeed in killing the creature, which in turn allowed lesser species to thrive in its absence and spill out into the environment.
In the second account, the strange metallic monstrosity that attacked Officer Hamond seems to fit rather well into the Techno category, given its electronic and mechanical attributes. This very well could be one of the ‘Echo-Spiders’ brought up by Sheriff Wurnauw. While there isn’t much information to go by, it seems that Organics and Technos are merely subcategories of the various paranormal beings that came from the Breach, and these anomalies present a clear and present danger to all human beings around them. A mention of electromagnetic readings powerful enough to be observed by satellites also seems to indicate that there is significant environmental disturbance going on in the area, which may have contributed to the origins of these species, or perhaps is a byproduct of their existence.
This, of course, was troubling to say the least, but I wanted to know more, and for that, I’d have to find the people who had supposedly witnessed these occurrences firsthand. Armed with two complete names, I info-hunted, and found some alarming results.
Madison Cromwell’s family recently moved from Black Oak to an unknown location somewhere deep in the hills of Idaho. For a family of relatively low-income to undertake such an abrupt move, they were either pursuing better income, or desperately fleeing some form of danger. I have no idea if Madison is alive or not. All of her social media accounts have been deleted, and none of her contacts on the various platforms seem to know if she quit, disappeared the last night of her job, or is still lying low somewhere.
In the case of Sean Hamond, it was announced early yesterday morning that a gunfight broke out in the Barron County Sheriff’s Office between members of the department, resulting in three dead, and four injured. Sean Hamond is said to be still at large, charged with the rather serious crime of organizing domestic terrorism, though no more details have been provided on that. One of the casualties was Officer James Walker, the partner Hamond referenced in his account on this site. Walker was shot twelve times in the firefight and taken to the Black Oak Regional Hospital. According to the hospital reports, he died of his wounds on the operating table soon after. For such violence to break out between fellow peace officers, and for such drastic charges to be leveled, there must be serious issues in the Barron County government, which lends more than a little credence to the validity of the whistleblower’s claims.
But it gets worse.
Upon looking into the reference to ‘Black Crow Island’, I could only find a passing mention about an explosion that destroyed an abandoned sanitorium on a small island off the coast of British Columbia. Not much was provided in terms of detail, except that two people had been seen fleeing the island on a rowboat but were never apprehended. How this is connected, I do not know, but if it was important enough to mention in the phone call, I can only assume it had ties to the same forces at work in Barron County.
As for the vague ‘ELSAR’ group of which Mr. Karonti appears to be a major player in, I found nothing that matched the description of his lethal capabilities. No large-scale private security companies hail by that name, and while I have no doubt it’s an acronym for something, I don’t know what it could be. Whoever they are, I seriously doubt the fighters of ELSAR are interested in the wellbeing of Barron County, or the employees at the New Wilderness Wildlife Reserve.
That leads me to this moment, as I type the finishing touches on my entry. Normally, I would say to refer to my article in our media website for the rest of the story, but my editor was found dead just this morning, with a bullet in his head.
The back of his head.
I have a well-adapted gut feeling when I’ve been asking too many questions, stirred around in too many pots, and I know they’re coming for me. Random cars have been following me to-and-from home, strangers keep watching my apartment building, and I found a tracking device stuck to the trunk of my car today. Maybe this little post will garner enough attention to alert the people of Barron County to their imminent danger. Perhaps the New Wilderness Night Rangers will read this in time and find a way to avoid whatever horrible plans Sheriff Wurnauw and ELSAR have for them. Regardless, my part in this investigation is at an end.
My wife, and two boys are waiting for me, at the pre-determined spot I arranged over the burner phone I bought at a local phone kiosk. I have withdrawn all my money in cash, and have booked flights for three different countries, bus tickets for four different cities, and a rental car with three sets of fake license plates. My social media accounts are all deleted, my entire family has shed their personal phones, and I even dyed my hair. If someone reading this is hunting me, good luck. I’ve dug up people who didn’t want to be found for half my life, and my family is at stake here.
You’ll never catch us.
And if you’re someone who lives in Barron County, or heck, anywhere near Ohio, all I can say is . . . brace for impact.

My name is Jordan Richter. I’m an investigative journalist for an independent media outlet. Ever since I had to use my wits, an old tape-recorder, and some fake weed I made from my mother’s arugula plant to catch a few bullies in their lies back in middle school, I’ve been obsessed with exposing corruption. I’ve spent years chasing the truth, going undercover, and even doing some modest hacking. Mostly I do political stuff, scandals, coverups, bribery. Every politician has a skeleton in their closet, and if you look hard enough, they usually have a few dozen. It’s not out of the ordinary for people to send me evidence of bad behavior on a potential suspect, like hotel receipts, photos, bank statements, that kind of thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I never publish anything I get without verifying it. I always look at every case as hearsay until proven correct. You can really mess up someone’s life with a false accusation, and as someone who’s been through that twice, I don’t want to be that guy. Besides, sometimes the stuff people send is just too vague, not convincing, or obviously faked. But ever once in a while I find something really deep, something my editor would call ‘beyond the pale’.
Something dark.
This is one of those times.
I recently received a recording and transcript of a phone call that the whistleblower, who chose to remain anonymous, secretly recorded and sent to me via email. The first time I listened to it, I was shocked, and had to re-listen several times just to be sure I heard it right. Due to technical difficulties with the recording, I can’t post it here, but I can share the transcript. If what is contained within is even remotely true, then anyone who lives in Barron County Ohio needs to get in contact with either their local travel agent, or perhaps a National Guard unit.
The following is the transcript, exactly how it was sent to me, word for word.
(The recording begins. The sound of a phone ringing can be heard, before a handset is picked up with a soft click, and a man speaks.)
Voice 1: “Sheriff’s office, how may I help you sir or—”
(A second man’s voice can be heard shouting through the phone.)
Voice 2: “Wurnauw! What the hell is going on in your district?”
(A chair creaks, and it sounds as though Voice 1 is clearing his throat.)
Voice 1: “Mr. Karonti, I—”
Voice 2: “Shut your mouth before I shut it for you. Don’t you know not to use my name on the phone, you hopeless lump? I gave you a job to do, one job, and now I’m hearing all kinds of noise about things going wrong down there. You think my group funded your campaign so these kinds of mistakes could happen?”
Voice 1: “Sir, I assure you, my deputies are doing everything we can to—”
Voice 2: “Your deputies? Do you have any idea what I just got done reading? One of your loudmouth deputies has been blabbing online about seeing a Techno in the freaking woods. Thousands of people viewed his post, Wurnauw. If just one of them does any amount of digging, our entire operation could be jeopardized.”
(The sound of a pencil snapping in half can be heard.)
Voice 1: “I . . . I’ll find the responsible man, and deal with him, sir. It won’t happen again.”
Voice 2: “It better not. As for the park, why didn’t you seize control of New Wilderness like I directed? We need that instillation as a base for operations, and those two-bit rangers are still running around firing guns everywhere, stirring up the herds, and causing the anomalies to migrate. I want them gone, Wurnauw. I don’t care how you do it, just get rid of them.”
Voice 1: “Sir, with all due respect, the Night Rangers outnumber us two to one, and they’re the only ones keeping the Technos and Organics at bay. I’ve lost two men already to the Echo-Spiders, and we can barely keep the roads blocked as it is. Civilians are finding their way in, and every one of them that survives has to be silenced or discredited. I need more men.”
Voice 2: “I have a thousand of my best fighters on standby as we speak. But I need live specimens, Wurnauw, the more the merrier, and we can’t get them if those polo-shirt wearing rent-a-cops are killing them all. Ever since that Cromwell girl popped the last Oak Walker, we’ve had nothing but spikes in the electromagnetic satellite readings from your area. Time is of the essence if we want to contain this thing. Arrest the Night Rangers, clear the New Wilderness Wildlife Reserve of all personnel, and prepare the site for ELSAR to move in.”
Voice 1: “If I move on the park, the rangers might resist. I know the head of security there, and that old Marine won’t give up without a fight. This could spark a real shooting war right in our backyard, and if the public finds out . . .”
Voice 2: “If the public finds out that there are moon-eyed freaks stumbling around in the woods, they’ll start the shooting war themselves. For God’s sake Sheriff, use your head for something other than a hat rack! You want to flush the rangers out? Drive a herd into them, and let the freaks do their job. Once everyone’s dead, we’ll come in and clean up. No one will ever have to know it was you.”
Voice 1: “Look, this would be a whole lot easier if we had more help. I’m not a miracle worker, and rumors spread every time we take another casualty on the force. It’s a small county, sir, with even smaller towns. All it takes is one person talking, and I can’t contain it. Just give me 50 guys, kitted out and ready to go, and at least then we can man the roadblocks.”
(There is a long pause, and a clock can be heard ticking in the background.)
Voice 2: “Fine, I can send 50, but no more until the LZ is clear. The situation is rapidly deteriorating, and the more men we move, the more attention we’ll attract. If we can’t seal the Breach soon, we could face an ecological disaster that would make Chernobyl look like Christmas in the Bahamas. I don’t need to remind you what we’ll be forced to do if that happens.”
Voice 1: “Clean Sweep.”
Voice 2: “Exactly. I won’t risk creating another Black Crow Island. The press is distracted by the upcoming elections right now, but if we make one slip-up, we’ll have reporters and home-grown watchdogs breathing down our necks all across the country. We cannot afford another Disaster Zone, especially not after what happened in Canada.”
Voice 1: “I understand sir. As soon as the reinforcements arrive, I’ll have New Wilderness captured for you within a week. Three days tops.”
Voice 2: “Time is critical, Wurnauw. Do not disappoint me on this. Get control of your department, shut the Night Rangers down, and keep the anomalies contained until we get there. I’ll work on suppressing any more online activity regarding your area and run some interference in case a few wannabe private-eyes start Googling things they shouldn’t.”
Voice 1: “Yes sir.”
Voice 2: “Oh, and one more thing. The leak in your department, it’s some moron named Hamond. I don’t care how you do it, or where, just make him disappear, now.”
Voice 1: “Hamond, huh? I should have known. Believe me, sir, it’s as good as done.”
(There is a muted click from the other end of the line, and the recording ends.)
Naturally, I dove into the internet and started hunting for information as soon as I read the transcript. Try as I might, I couldn’t find anything about a Barron County Ohio in the mainstream press, or on any map anywhere. There is a Barron County in Wisconsin, but nowhere in the foothills of Appalachia, almost as if it’s been selectively deleted from every record available. As for the New Wilderness Wildlife Reserve, I did manage to locate its home page just before a strange computer glitch made it unavailable. Just last week, the park announced it wouldn’t be holding a tour season this year, and that all grounds were closed to the public. It also issued a call for more volunteers for its security department, offering a whopping $40 an hour to anyone who stayed longer than a week, along with free room and board. Sadly, I didn’t get the chance to find any contact information, the site crashing in what I suspect was a coordinated DDOS attack from an unknown source.
What really stood out to me about the whole thing was the capitalization in the transcript of the bizarre words used by the two callers. Technos, Organics, and the vague threat known as the Breach. These seem to refer to some kind of animal species, judging by the use of the word ‘herds’ but it was hard to make heads or tails of it. My search in the regular web turned up nothing, until I stumbled across this site, and found four posts; three of them belonging to a girl named Madison Cromwell, and one belonging to a sheriff’s deputy, Sean Hamond.
From what I can gather in reading their accounts, both claim to have seen creatures of gargantuan and supernatural proportions. If there is any truth to them, then it might be reasonable to infer that the creature Miss Cromwell encountered, (called the ‘Oak Walker’ in the transcript by the mysterious Mr. Karonti) was likely an Organic, due to its plant-like characteristics. This creature seemed to be highly intelligent, and even possibly telekinetic, with the ability to create and control smaller human-sized creatures referred to by Cromwell as ‘Puppets.’ It is also important to note that in both Hamond’s account, and in the secret phone call, the creature known as ‘the Big one’ or ‘the Oak Walker’ is described as a type of apex predator, whose downfall contributed largely to the explosion of anomaly activity outside of the regular area. It is entirely possible that Miss Cromwell did in fact succeed in killing the creature, which in turn allowed lesser species to thrive in its absence and spill out into the environment.
In the second account, the strange metallic monstrosity that attacked Officer Hamond seems to fit rather well into the Techno category, given its electronic and mechanical attributes. This very well could be one of the ‘Echo-Spiders’ brought up by Sheriff Wurnauw. While there isn’t much information to go by, it seems that Organics and Technos are merely subcategories of the various paranormal beings that came from the Breach, and these anomalies present a clear and present danger to all human beings around them. A mention of electromagnetic readings powerful enough to be observed by satellites also seems to indicate that there is significant environmental disturbance going on in the area, which may have contributed to the origins of these species, or perhaps is a byproduct of their existence.
This, of course, was troubling to say the least, but I wanted to know more, and for that, I’d have to find the people who had supposedly witnessed these occurrences firsthand. Armed with two complete names, I info-hunted, and found some alarming results.
Madison Cromwell’s family recently moved from Black Oak to an unknown location somewhere deep in the hills of Idaho. For a family of relatively low-income to undertake such an abrupt move, they were either pursuing better income, or desperately fleeing some form of danger. I have no idea if Madison is alive or not. All of her social media accounts have been deleted, and none of her contacts on the various platforms seem to know if she quit, disappeared the last night of her job, or is still lying low somewhere.
In the case of Sean Hamond, it was announced early yesterday morning that a gunfight broke out in the Barron County Sheriff’s Office between members of the department, resulting in three dead, and four injured. Sean Hamond is said to be still at large, charged with the rather serious crime of organizing domestic terrorism, though no more details have been provided on that. One of the casualties was Officer James Walker, the partner Hamond referenced in his account on this site. Walker was shot twelve times in the firefight and taken to the Black Oak Regional Hospital. According to the hospital reports, he died of his wounds on the operating table soon after. For such violence to break out between fellow peace officers, and for such drastic charges to be leveled, there must be serious issues in the Barron County government, which lends more than a little credence to the validity of the whistleblower’s claims.
But it gets worse.
Upon looking into the reference to ‘Black Crow Island’, I could only find a passing mention about an explosion that destroyed an abandoned sanitorium on a small island off the coast of British Columbia. Not much was provided in terms of detail, except that two people had been seen fleeing the island on a rowboat but were never apprehended. How this is connected, I do not know, but if it was important enough to mention in the phone call, I can only assume it had ties to the same forces at work in Barron County.
As for the vague ‘ELSAR’ group of which Mr. Karonti appears to be a major player in, I found nothing that matched the description of his lethal capabilities. No large-scale private security companies hail by that name, and while I have no doubt it’s an acronym for something, I don’t know what it could be. Whoever they are, I seriously doubt the fighters of ELSAR are interested in the wellbeing of Barron County, or the employees at the New Wilderness Wildlife Reserve.
That leads me to this moment, as I type the finishing touches on my entry. Normally, I would say to refer to my article in our media website for the rest of the story, but my editor was found dead just this morning, with a bullet in his head.
The back of his head.
I have a well-adapted gut feeling when I’ve been asking too many questions, stirred around in too many pots, and I know they’re coming for me. Random cars have been following me to-and-from home, strangers keep watching my apartment building, and I found a tracking device stuck to the trunk of my car today. Maybe this little post will garner enough attention to alert the people of Barron County to their imminent danger. Perhaps the New Wilderness Night Rangers will read this in time and find a way to avoid whatever horrible plans Sheriff Wurnauw and ELSAR have for them. Regardless, my part in this investigation is at an end.
My wife, and two boys are waiting for me, at the pre-determined spot I arranged over the burner phone I bought at a local phone kiosk. I have withdrawn all my money in cash, and have booked flights for three different countries, bus tickets for four different cities, and a rental car with three sets of fake license plates. My social media accounts are all deleted, my entire family has shed their personal phones, and I even dyed my hair. If someone reading this is hunting me, good luck. I’ve dug up people who didn’t want to be found for half my life, and my family is at stake here.
You’ll never catch us.
And if you’re someone who lives in Barron County, or heck, anywhere near Ohio, all I can say is . . . brace for impact.

Dunno if y'all will like this, or if it will even remain up, but a bit of a DISCLAIMER; The first chapter is more akin to a prologue than an actual part of a story, but it is required for the story to make sense, as the story needs a lot of world building and explanation for everything to work out, and unless y'all wanna be confused for the next three chapters, then I suggest you read, unless you aren't interested of course. Oh yeah, it was so long that I needed to post the first chapter in multiple parts, so get comfy, and prepare to read almost forty pages in total.
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Chapter One - Part One
Extremely Lengthy Exposition
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He didn’t know how to describe it.
A sort of lucid state in which he was only partially aware of who and what he was? Maybe. A condition of some sort of brain death, it being a result of gazing upon an entity far too complex for the human mind to ever even dream of conceiving? Perhaps. Or maybe it was a sign. A sign from whatever gods or higher beings that were our forefathers, our creators. The very things that created the universe, and all others as we know it. Perhaps it was a sign from Them, of his ascension, his final evolution into a being so superior, that to others, he could be considered a god himself. Yes, that was right. He could feel it, the power. Not in a way of touching something with a hand, but in a more metaphysical way, one far better than the crude grasping tools that humanity has had to work with for far too long.
It was so close, the innate understanding that was intrinsically tied into the human genome from eons ago, the inheritance he was meant to receive, what he DESERVED to receive, was right there. All he had to do was reach out, and touch it. He did just that, his mental probes extending outwards towards it, to claim what was rightfully his. He closed his fingers around it, and-
“Jacob, wake up. The doctor is trying to say something to you.”
Or it could just all be a construct of his dying brain, one that was futilely trying to sort the things that he was experiencing into something that could be translated and read.
“Jacob?” His mother repeated, with a more stern note entering her voice.
“Oh uh, sorry. What were you trying to say?” Jacob leaned forward, clasping his hands together, placing his elbows on his knees and leaning on his arms.
“I was asking you how you’ve been feeling recently, as it does pertain to the conversation I am having with your parents.” The doctor smiled patiently, expertly hiding most of his probable frustration behind a veneer of placidity.
“Relatively well, though I have been having a good amount of headaches, considerably more than usual.” Jacob responded, plastering a nonchalant expression onto his face.
“And what about that little . . . episode you had a moment ago?” The doctor questioned, leaning forward expectantly.
“Oh yeah, that. I guess I just kinda zoned out there for a second, you know?” Jacob replied casually.
“Zoned out for over half an hour?” The doctor tilted his head.
“Yep.” Jacob wasn’t going to fall for the bait.
“Hmm.” The doctor leaned back. “Well, I'm fairly sure that ‘zoning out’ for over half an hour with absolutely no idea what's going on in the outside world isn’t exactly normal behavior typical for a boy of your age, Jacob. Did you perchance have any sort of feeling that you can’t explain, or something similar to an out of body experience? It could even just be similar to lucid dreaming.” The doctor appears to be very insistent, Jacob, why don’t you take care of him? You could be out of state within a day or tw-
“Well when you put it like that, sure.” Jacob decided that he would indeed play the doctor’s game.
“Hmm. Well Mrs. Pattine, you heard it from him. When we did our testing last week, we noticed extremely irregular brain patterns that would normally indicate extreme stress upon the brain. However, Jacob here seemed perfectly fine, aside from a rather annoying headache.”
“Now, I’m fairly sure that anybody could deduce that that type of behavior from the brain isn’t good at all. In fact, the tumor that we had diagnosed Jacob the same week, being practically the size of a peanut, has now doubled in size. In fact, the growth appears to be scaling upwards in terms of the growth rate. What was doubling in size per week, will quickly grow to quadrupling, and then quintupling. Soon, Jacob will have to undergo intense chemotherapy.”
Jacob’s mother did not seem placated, like what the doctor was trying to do, but in fact appalled.
“Why are you saying all this in front of him!? He’s just a child for damn sake!” Jacob's mother clutched Jacob tighter, much to his both amusement and frustration after she refused to let go.
“I’m sorry Mrs. Pattine, but all parties involved here have to know what’s at stake here, including young Jacob here.” The doctor, to his credit, did seem genuinely remorseful, yet not really backtracking enough to make an effective apology, more like creating a plausible justification for his actions.
Jacob didn’t really care either way. Well, he did care that he was probably going to die and was thankful that the doctor had decided to be blunt, but not caring about his mother’s rather extreme outburst in his supposed defense.
That had been the case as of late, not really caring about his loved ones. Well, he DID care, at least he thought he did, but why did they always have to be just, so, well, like that all the time? Jacob was rather exasperated from the whole ordeal, and plus, the doctor was talking again.
“-however, we have a solution to this problem of Jacob’s.” The doctor reached out to the briefcase on the table to his right, opening it. He then extracted what appeared to be a syringe filled with clear liquid.
“This is a prototype we, us being ANTI, have been working on for a long time. You might have learned what this is from various pop culture and media sources, but if you don’t, I’ll explain what it is now.” Without giving anybody in the room time to protest, he continued on.
“This is a syringe full of nanobots. Yes, honest-to-god, genuine nanobots. We’ve been working on these for a good amount of time, since around 2000, yet no significant headway had been made towards making a nanobot serum cost-effective enough to employ in more, liberal, uses.”
“However, when Russia annexed Crimea back in 2014, Congress decided that a viable threat was rising, and revived the program with a stimulant called cold hard cash. When another budget increase came with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it didn’t exactly hinder us, and a year later, we came up with the first effective prototype of nanotechnological biological cellular regeneration to date. And now, we're gonna give it to Jacob.”
Mrs. Pattine didn’t appear to care about all of the war stuff or fancy political words, only really catching onto the words of, “give it to Jacob” and responded accordingly.
“I don’t believe it. What's the catch?” Mrs. Pattine glared suspiciously at the doctor.
“No catch, just the requirement that we are given full liberty to experiment on the tumor in Jacob’s head, within legal bounds.” The doctor appears to be trying to brush over that fact, but Mrs. Pattine also catches onto the important bits.
“You want to experiment on my son!? That sounds like a pretty big catch to me!” Mrs. Pattine screeches in protest.
“It’ll be within full humane laws, nothing illegal, I promise you. In fact, we’ll give you even more incentive.” The doctor pauses, seemingly for dramatic effect.
“So, out with it!” Mrs. Pattine seems to be quite stressed, and most likely wants nothing more than to just go home already.
“We will give you a sum of thirty million dollars, with no tax put on it.” The doctor says plainly.
Mrs. Pattine doesn’t react for a moment, seemingly processing what she just heard.
“Th-th-thirty million dollars!?” Mrs. Pattine splutters in disbelief. “You can’t be serious!”
The doctor chuckles. “Oh but I am. We’ll place it directly into your bank account, as liquid assets would likely be hard to manage for you. It’ll even be covered by insurance.”
Mrs. Pattine clearly is still suspicious. “This is too good to be true.”
“I can assure you, Mrs. Pattine, it is not.”
She looks unsure as to whether or not to take the deal, and looks at Jacob.
“Go ahead.” Jacob shrugs, hoping to maybe NOT die.
Mrs. Pattine then gets up. “I need to go over this with my family.”
They accepted the deal.
* * *
Three days later, Jacob was inside a chamber packed with men and women in lab coats, all of them seeming to be doing something important. The room was about twenty feet in diameter and in height, circular, with a large ten-foot-high blast door being the only intentional access point that could be used to enter the chamber. A large secure industrial vent was inset into the ceiling, also covered with a steel mesh to prevent something from getting in, or perhaps out. In the center of it all was a large contraption, with many pipes, hoses, and wires protruding from various access ports around the machine. It all seemed a bit too militaristic for a minor cryo experiment, but what did he know?
On the front of the machine in the center of the room was a thick plastic cover that exposed the interior, the interior being a cavity about eight feet tall and two feet wide. It appeared to have been designed to allow a human to rest upright inside the machine, and rest comfortably to boot, utilizing a foam mold to mimic a bed. In fact, the little foam mold appears to be fitted to Jacob’s exact dimensions. Jacob, being the ever-curious fellow, inquired as to what the strange doohickey.
“So uh, what am I looking at here?” Jacob gestured to the machine in the center of the room.
“This is, for all intents and purposes, a cryo pod. It can effectively freeze a human being, preserving them for extended periods of time, without them growing or aging at all.” The doctor, who appeared to be in charge of this whole ordeal, answered him.
“And you’re putting me in there?” Jacob asked.
“Yes. We are hoping to learn more about that little tumor-that-isn’t-a-tumor in your head, as it's something that we haven’t ever seen before. Since the tumor is progressing at an alarmingly fast pace, and since we don’t want you to die, we will be placing you in this for a single year, on the dot. The freeze will stop the progression of the tumor, and the nanobots will keep you in top shape even if something goes wrong with the pod, and they will even combat the tumor, so you aren’t in any danger.” The doctor replied.
“Huh. And you’re gonna find some sort of miracle cure for the tumor while I’m on ice?” Jacob asked, wanting to get all of the essential information.
“Yes.” The doctor didn’t elaborate this time.
“Uh, cool. So we’re starting now? I was wondering why I was in this weird looking wetsuit thingy.” Jacob pulled at his sleeves, the tightness of them a little uncomfortable.
“Yes. Once the specs have been fully calibrated, we can place you in the pod, and you can say goodnight.” The doctor nodded to himself. “Yes, it should only be ten more minutes.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, a bit over schedule, everything was set up. Jacob was standing in front of the cryo pod, talking to one of the doctors.
“So I just step inside, right?” Jacob inquired.
“Correct you are. We’ll strap you up, run diagnostics, and then see you in t- a year.” The lady, Dr. Sophia Vasel by her nametag, appeared to have stopped herself from saying something was either a simple misspoken word, or something she wasn’t supposed to say. It didn’t really matter to Jacob, since you could just kill her, now and be done with it. It would be so easy, to ju-
“Alright, nice.” Jacob stepped up inside, a little stepladder conveniently set into the machine. He turned around and shifted a little, trying to get comfortable. Dr. Vasel and one other doctor began strapping him in, hooking little electrodes and wires up to him to do all sorts of technical mumbo jumbo. After a minute of attaching devices to him and making sure everything was in order, they began to run diagnostics to make sure everything electronic was working. After an agonizingly long ten minutes of affirming and reaffirming, the first doctor that he had met with walked up to the plastic clear door with a microphone in his hand.
“Can you hear me Jacob?” The doctor asked.
“Yeh.” Jacob replied lamely
“Uhm, OK, it seems like everything is alright on our side, so without further ado, I think we’ll be seeing you in a year.” The doctor nodded to his colleagues next to him, and they started to press buttons on the console. A loud alarm started blaring, and a hissing noise spread throughout the pod. Devices began to inject what was probably some sort of powerful anesthetic, considering he began feeling extremely drowsy a moment later.
The last thing he saw before he fell asleep was the plastic cover being coated in frost.
* * *
Three weeks after that, a government official of the program that had taken Jacob Pattine in for treatment and experimentation contacted the Pattine family to offer their condolences, as they had to inform them that due to a malfunction in the systems of the nanobots, Jacob Pattine had unfortunately died in testing, and that they hoped this won’t sour relations between them.
However, it did sour relations between them, as the subsequent lawsuit against them proved all too well. It had even progressed to a Supreme Court case called Pattine v Army Nanotechnological Initiative, which ended up with a seventy-two million dollar payment towards the Pattines, and a ruling that outlawed any and all with the use and/or experimentation on humans with nanotechnology, as it was deemed too dangerous to use on humans. A deep-dive into the records of the ANTI yielded many discoveries, the most notable of them being the many deaths of humans in the testing trials of the nanobots. This also led to the dissolution of the ANTI, and shaped the future of nanotechnology for years to come.
However, using nanobots for the use on humans didn’t stop there. In fact, some would say it thrived, just in a different way than imagined. Like many other creations that were found to be too radical or immoral for the majority of the populace, the CIA was the one to collect the scraps, and make it their own. By using their own funding to revive the unofficially named Nano-Cryo project, they resumed research, employing many of the original members of the infamous project, with the doctor being put back in charge of the currently unnamed project.
That left only Jacob to deal with. Luckily for him, Jacob wasn’t so disposable as some might believe, as certain conditions on his being made his potential quite desirable to some shadowy heads of certain organizations. This led to the CIA creating a cover story about the unfortunate death of the boy, which would allow them to both obtain the asset, and snip off the loose thread that was ANTI, killing two birds with one stone. They continued testing within CIA Black Site-046, which was located within the city known as New Jersey, which would later influence the name of the secretive project.
One more alteration would be made to the test. As Jacob had now been cut off from the outside world and was presumed dead, the CIA had no worry about public retribution, allowing them to extend his period in the cryo pod from one year to ten. At the end of the ten years, Jacob would be woken up from stasis, and testing would be enacted, with various procedures analyzing how his physiology had reacted to the tumor and the extended stay in cryostasis. The nanobots were there to ensure that Jacob didn’t die from the tumor, but also to make sure he didn’t die from the long periods of time spent sleeping. After twenty-four hours had passed, Jacob would be placed back within the cryo pod, and be woken up again when another ten years had passed, with this cycle repeating for the foreseeable future.
In the development of the cryostasis model, one thing had persisted throughout the trials. When the testers had been subjected to extended periods of time within stasis, once unfrozen, the brain would refuse to reactivate. No matter what measures were taken, the brain would simply not resume biological function, and the subject would be effectively dead. The leading theory on this was that the brain had been “dead” for so long, that it simply couldn’t remember that it was alive. This is the same reason why cavemen, even if perfectly preserved in ice, couldn’t be simply revived with a shock paddle or some adrenaline.
So, the nanobots were there to stimulate and keep the brain semi-active during time spent sleeping, keeping the brain alive through the barest of actions, making it more akin to sleep instead of simply dying and then being revived with a perfectly preserved body and brain. However, this led to the tumor being slightly active as well, so it would still progress while within stasis, albeit at an incredibly glacial pace. This would likely cause problems in the future, but a solution is bound to come up at some point.
Right?
* * *
Invariably.
What an interesting word
And a nice one at that. It really just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? A word that most people probably can’t even recall the meaning of, yet is seen so commonly in works that are often above the skill of your average eighth grader. It means for something to happen a lot, or always. For instance, you could say, “Oh, whenever I go to my friend's house, the meals his mother makes are invariably burnt.” or something along those lines.
Jacob couldn’t apply that word to his situation.
That would imply that he had been doing or experiencing something for long enough that he could use that word as a hyperbole. However, he hadn’t. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Imagine blinking your eyes. Now try to recall how long the moment between opening your eyes and the light reaching your eyes was. Now that's a more accurate comparison.
Right when Jacob closed his eyes, he had been hearing a hissing sound, expecting sleep to take him. Then a slight, rather odd blip in his awareness caused him to lose his bearings for a moment, but quickly regained them. The hissing continued, and became rather annoying after a bit, considering the nasty headache he currently had. Did he have that before he entered the pod? He wasn’t sure, but he was having a hard time remembering his last moments before he entered the machine, which was odd, as that was just a moment ago. Oh, now the hissing noise is stopping, so Jacob guessed that the doctors realized there was a problem, and were now spooling down the machine to take him out before something disastrous happened.
The hissing noise stopped, and the sound of pistons groaning filled the small cavity instead, along with a notable difference in the positioning of the cryo pod door, specifically moving upward. Ah, now the door is opening, fantastic. Jacob hoped that he could just get this damn experiment underway, without any more delays.
Goddamn the door is slow. At least he could see somewhat outside, as the door had opened up enough to let him see the feet of two people standing outside his little home. Actually, scratch that, three people standing outside, as the door had opened more up to let him see a third person standing behind the pair that were closest to him. He blinked several times to clear the fog from his eyesight, his eyeballs feeling pretty cold, as if he had spent a little in pure winter weather with his eyes open, letting them freeze a bit. Matter of fact, as feeling returned to his body, he felt cold all over. Not so cold that it was painful, but more of a cool uncomfortableness.
Speaking of feeling returning to his body, he felt a rather unpleasant prickling sensation throughout himself, like his entire body had fallen asleep, or if he had just returned from the cold after a long stay in the frigid winter air. He flexed his fingers, or at least tried to. His fingers were encased in a hard plastic glove, molded to fit his hand. It was the same story with the rest of his body, many straps fastened tight enough to restrict his movement, but not enough to restrict his blood flow. He tried to see more than the feet of the unknown people in front of him, as the door was open about halfway now, but the fog, or maybe steam, wafting up from his pod was masking everything else.
Oh yeah, the hissing was back too.
After another eternity of the door just slowly opening, the long-awaited event finally arrived. The door clanked to a stop, now resting somewhere on top of the cryo pod. The hissing noise also came to a stop, seeming to have been the cause of the fog as well, considering how it began to clear up with the end of the abhorrent hissing sound. The fog cleared up fully, allowing him to see a rather strange sight.
Three people in full hazmat suits were standing in front of him, one of the two in front holding an odd device that looked vaguely like a heart monitor. The one with the heart monitor stepped up to him, uttering a single word.
“Please hold still.”
Jacob naturally held still as the person wrapped a sensor on his wrist, then one on his neck. The man then pressed a few buttons on his little machine, and then watched some sort of readout on the screen that Jacob couldn’t make out from his angle. The man stayed like that for about half a minute before taking off the little sensors from his wrist and neck, and then put the device down on some sort of table that Jacob also couldn’t see due to his angle, before nodding to the man beside him.
The pair moved into action, unstrapping and unclamping him in various areas around his body, unrestricting his movement. Jacob didn’t move yet though, as once the pair were done taking off the various inhibitors, the third man in the back stepped up, as if he wanted to speak. The unnamed man grabbed the bottom of his visor, where a small lip was present. The man then used that lip to pull up the plastic covering his face, or at least the layer that was preventing Jacob from seeing his face. The man pulled it up, revealing the doctor, who’s name he still didn’t know. However, something was off about him, though Jacob couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Long time no see Jacob.” The doctor smiles disarmingly, which makes Jacob beg the question of why he would need to be disarmed.
“What do you mean, ‘Long time’? It hasn’t even been half an hour.” Jacob frowns, tilting his head questioningly, though Jacob is pretty sure he already knows the answer to his own question.
The doctor’s smile wavers, and his eyes turn downcast, avoiding Jacob’s.
“Well, ah, you see Jacob, it HAS been a long time. I imagine you just didn’t notice, due to no little input on our part.”
Suddenly, Jacob realized what was off about the doctor. When he had seen him last, the doctor had a look about him that made him seem like he could be in his early thirties or late twenties, with a little margin for error, of course.
However, The doctor now looked like he had aged around a decade, sporting a few new wrinkles that definitely weren’t there before. Instead of being a man just entering his more mature ages, he looked more like a man entering a higher, more responsible position in your standard American technical corporation. To put it shortly, he looked like he was in his forties.
“So you're saying that it's been a year already, and I was just too out of it to notice?” The doctor winced, and opened up his mouth to speak, but Jacob continued talking.
“However, I have noticed that while you said I was supposed to be in here for a year, the actual reality is different. Unless you somehow had a growth spurt, or decided that looking older was a new fashion trend, it's odd that you seem to have aged a decade in what was supposed to be a year of stasis.” Jacob tilted his head, focusing a stare on the doctor. “Tell me, doctor, how long was I out?”
The pair in front of him, having been listening this whole time, looked back at the doctor expectantly. The doctor shook his head, and attempted a smile, though the result looked more like a pained grimace. The doctor then looked up at Jacob, giving him a strange look.
“Noticed that, did you? Well, I suppose you do deserve an explanation. Let's talk about this in a more, comfortable, area.”
* * *
Jacob fixed the doctor with another bland stare for the fifteenth time in four minutes.
“So you’re telling me, that the damn CIA kidnapped me, your government organization was dissolved, and now I’m officially dead to the outside world? Not to mention I was asleep for not a year, but a decade?” Jacob said all of this with a tone that might have implied disbelief and anger.
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds, well, exactly like what happened I suppose, but I wouldn’t put it, well, any sort of other way, so yes.” The doctor, contrary to the facade he was still bravely trying to put up, didn’t appear too comfortable with telling Jacob all of this. After all, who would want to tell an innocent, carefree, bright-eyed young boy, that his family thought him dead, and that he was asleep for a decade as well.
Jacob leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and breathed out the air he had been holding in.
“Huh.” Jacob didn’t elaborate.
“I’m sure that this might be very alarming to you, but remember that this wasn’t in our control. I’m very sorry for your loss, but just know that we do have therapists and other people that you can talk to on hand, just let us know.” The doctor didn’t seem very proud of this series of unfortunate events happening to the aforementioned carefree child.
“Well, as long as they aren’t dead yet, I’ll be fine.” Jacob shrugs.
The doctor blinks in surprise.
“I- what? Are you sure? Your mental health is very important, and despite what our higher ups at the CIA might say, you are also important as a person.” The doctor had an increasingly worried expression on his face.
“Nah, I think I’m pretty good for now.” Jacob remained seemingly uncaring for his current status as perceived dead by his family, or for his mental health. “So, what happens to me now? I’m assuming I’m not getting executed for lack of further usefulness, or else you wouldn’t be offering me therapists, and I’m not exactly going back out into society, as that would be a rather awkward situation for the CIA. So, that leaves only one more avenue of action.” Jacob leaned forward. “I’m going back in the machine, aren’t I?”
“. . . yes.” The doctor seemed put off by Jacob’s lengthy statement.
Jacob leaned back and nodded, satisfied by his answer. “I have just one question then.”
The doctor cocked an eyebrow.
“Why am I so important? Plenty of people have brain tumors, and yet you guys aren’t kidnapping those people, right? So, what makes this one special?” Jacob tapped the side of his head.
The doctor cleared his throat, seemingly more comfortable to be conversing over a topic more familiar to him, like neuroscience.
“I can do that. Follow me.”
* * *
The doctor led Jacob to a room with only one other person inside, that person being an assistant. The lights were off, the only source of illumination being a projector shining on a blank whiteboard, the image being an x-ray of what looked like a brain.
“Well, as I’ve said before, that so-called tumor in your head isn’t exactly behaving like a tumor normally would. In the beginning, when it first appeared, it looked like any old brain tumor, forming in your cerebral cortex. It grew a bit abnormally, but nothing too out of the ordinary.” The doctor pointed at a small marble sized mass that was present inside the aforementioned section of the brain on the projection. “However, that's when things took a turn for the stranger.” The doctor motioned for the assistant to switch to the next slide, which he did.
The diagram now showed the same image as before, which Jacob now knew to be his brain, with the sole difference being that the mass had now enlarged, seemingly spreading what looked like feelers or tentacles outwards, the longest one stretching towards a middle section of the brain.
“After this happened, we were notified through plants, and we took over your medical case, observing the growth of your tumor.” The slide switched again, now showing a larger tumor. It had grown even more feelers, now numbering at five, and the longest one was now in the middle of the brain.
“The tumor had spread itself out, and the longest appendage of it had now entered what we call the anterior insular cortex, or, “ The doctor looked at Jacob. “the empathy center.”
Jacob stared back at the doctor, not showing any outward form of reaction. The doctor looked back towards the projection, clearing his throat.
“Ahem, anyway. As you can probably guess, this was highly irregular behavior from what was supposed to be a simple tumor. And what we realized next was even more shocking.” The assistant clicked to the next slide, this one showing . . . nothing.
Actually, it did show something, Jacob just didn’t notice at first. The tumor was now not a simple mass, but instead had somehow become, fainter, he supposed. It didn’t have any clear separation from his brain, instead, only sections could be made out from the former tumor. It seemed like it had merged with his brain, which wasn’t exactly comforting to Jacob.
“The tumor now couldn’t be described as a simple tumor. We had to deduce that it had somehow become part of your brain, as we couldn’t find any clear definition of where the tumor began and where it ended. We could still technically see the tumor, though it was like it had faded its edges in with your brain, merging with it.” The assistant shut off the projector, and turned the lights back on.
The doctor turned back towards Jacob, with what looked to be a sympathetic expression on his face.
“Now I hope you understand why we want to know what the hell this thing is. If this was some sort of parasite, and if it could spread . . “ The doctor let Jacob figure out the rest on his own.
“Huh, yeah. I wouldn’t really want the world to turn into a reenactment of a certain hit TV adaptation of a certain hit zombie game.” Jacob nodded. “So, how are you gonna go about solving, “ Jacob gestured haphazardly to his head. “This?”
“We . . . aren’t sure yet.” The doctor grimaced. “However, it has only been, well, it's been quite awhile, but we learned a lot from the first go around. We are hoping to gain more data from the next decade, with some new technologies to be used.”
Jacob nodded his head, looking around. “So do I just go back in now?”
“No, actually. The planned procedure is to keep you awake for a minimum of twelve hours, with us taking several tests to determine if any changes have been made to your mental or intellectual state. And also, you are going to have to visit some therapists, that's non-optional.” The doctor replied.
Jacob only grunted in response to that last statement.
* * *
Jacob is running on a treadmill, with several devices measuring his various functions.
“Just let us know when you’re getting tired.” The man, Dr. Markus Vasquez by his nametag, repeated for the fifth time.
“And that would be right around now, actually.” Jacob stopped running when Dr. Vasquez pressed the off button.
“Hmm, alright. You’re operating at standard rates for a boy of your age.” Dr. Vasquez writes down notes on his clipboard, probably about him. Or maybe some sort of weird fan fiction about some US president, you never know.
Dr. Vasquez motioned for Jacob to follow him, which Jacob does.
“And that should conclude your physical testing regimen for today.” Dr. Vasquez leads Jacob into a square room about six feet wide, with a couch, a chair, two tables, a bookshelf, and a TV on the wall opposite from the couch.
Then, another doctor walks into the room, holding a clipboard and a sheet of papers. Dr. Vasquez and the new doctor share a few silent words, ones that Jacob can’t make out, before Dr. Vasquez walks out of the room. The new doctor, a Dr. Sophia Vasel by her nametag, sits down on the chair next to the couch.
“Hey again Jacob. I’m here to-” Dr. Vasel begins, but Jacob cuts her off.
“Oh wait, aren’t you one of the people who strapped me in that pod a decade ago?” Jacob tilts his head questioningly.
Dr. Vasel blinks. “Erm, yes. Anyway, I’m just here to give you a couple tests, alright? Just standard procedure.” Dr. Vasel flips through her clipboard. “Here is the first one.”
Jacob started again. “No signing any forms or asking for consent or anything?”
Dr. Vasel hid her apparent frustration admirably. “Uh, no. Our policy doesn’t require us to do that. Anyway, if we could get on with the test?” Dr. Vasel pulled out a pen. “Just some questions for the first one.”
* * *
Jacob was a bit bored.
Actually, that was an understatement. He was VERY bored. There, a much more apt statement.
After a large amount of rigorous testing, physical, mental, biological, the whole shebang, they had basically left him in the small room and told him to entertain himself for the remaining eight hours, twenty-seven minutes, and five seconds. After that, he would be going back into cryosleep. They gave him access to a good amount of literature from his time, as well as giving him a rather generous library of online media, also from his time. However, they had severely underestimated his preferences, as the majority of the online material consisted of children for the age of ten, and all the good books he had already read several times over.
So yes, he was quite bored. So bored, in fact, that even pacing around and thinking couldn’t sate his hunger for entertainment, as the intense migraine he had prevented him from running any sort of complicated scenario that could even mildly entertain him. So, he was forced to turn to his old friend.
History.
A decade ought to have yielded a good amount of entertaining historical fruit, especially when you consider the rather hot pot that was world politics at the time of the beginning of his short nap. So, he had requested a book that recapped everything important that had happened in the last ten years. And how interesting it was.
Standing out the most in terms of the global stage, the American intervention in the Russo-Ukrainian war, pushing the Russians not just out of Ukraine, but also reclaiming Crimea for the Ukrainians as well. This had happened due to Russia repeatedly threatening to use nuclear weapons in the war, and so America finally had to intervene, managing to push them out of Ukraine in just two and a half months. And it seems Russia was bluffing, as no nukes were ever launched.
However, war wasn’t the only highlight of the last decade, as a miniature space race actually occurred not between the East and the West, but SpaceX and NASA were both racing for the clout and money that being the first to have a human land on Mars would be. It ended up with a SpaceX victory, and not a small amount of a budget increase.
Nanotechnology had also progressed, yet not as much as other avenues, as it's mostly been used for small-scale construction supposedly. Congress was being quite strict on the Supreme Court’s ruling. However, some small advancements had been made in the effectiveness and build of a standard nanobot, making them considerably cheaper and easier to make. However, the availability of nanobots was mostly limited to either private firms or large corporations willing to invest in the product.
As entertaining as history was, it wasn’t enough to sustain him for more than an hour, so he resigned himself to sitting, standing, pacing, and occasionally watching kids cartoons for the rest of his time. He wasn’t going to ask for his benefactors to obtain some new content for him to watch, not because they couldn’t, no, they likely could do anything, but because his pride would be too injured if he did. Yes, a truly brilliant mind we have here.
* * *
“This feels familiar.” Jacob mused, his words certainly pertaining to the scenario that he was currently in.
Dr. Vasel and another doctor were strapping him in, securing his hands and feet in molded plastic to restrict movement, and straps to secure his arms and legs. This time, a little hat with a dozen blinking electrodes was added to his menagerie of devices. They had also given him a fresh edition of nanobots, these ones supposedly more efficient by two percent. Yes, such a great increase. However, they also fed off the energy his own body produced, so that theoretically gave them an infinite life, as long as he was alive.
The doctors finished up strapping him into the machine, giving him a final once over to make sure nothing bad happens again. They stepped back, and began to run diagnostics on their computers to make sure everything electronic was in order as well.
Jacob sighed. He had a feeling that this set of actions would become an agonizingly long procedure.
After a very long fifteen minutes, the unnamed doctor, who had come down during the diagnostics, nodded to an assistant, and he began pressing buttons. The machine clicked and hissed, and the door came down, blissfully quicker this time. After just thirty seconds, the door sealed shut, and Jacob saw the doctor through the plastic. The doctor walked out of sight, as the foggy plastic couldn’t see that far, though the doctor clearly went somewhere where he could talk to Jacob, as he heard the doctor’s voice over what sounded like an intercom inside the pod.
“You can hear me, right Jacob?” The doctor asked.
“Uh, yep.” Jacob replied.
“Very good. As there isn’t anything else we have to do on our end, we’ll be sending you off right about now. Any questions before you’re frozen?” The doctor inquired.
“None that I can recall.” Jacob said.
“Then we’ll see you again in ten years.” The doctor said.
The intercom shut off with a crackle, and the hissing noise came back, probably meaning he was gonna fall asleep any time now. He wondered what the world would look like in another decade, bu-
Oh wait, he did have a question. What WAS the doctor’s nam-
-------------------------------
​
Part Two is gonna come, maybe in a day. I've already finished it, but the first part will serve to as a way to observe this communities reactions to this little thing, and see if I should post another. I expect about ten to twenty chapters, with hopefully not all of them being as long as this one, so yeah, hope y'all like this.

Okay, so I have made lots of ricotta over the years. We make paneer where I'm at now and the recipe says to curdle the milk at 155F and then over medium heat, bring it to a boil, break up the raft and reboil, repeating twice.
Now it came as no surprise to me that the bottom of the pot doing it this method ends up being a burnt, cheesey mess. In my mind, the longer you have the mixture over flame after it's curdled, the more of the curds are going to settle and burn at the bottom of the pot. Sometimes you can even taste the burn even if you're careful not to scrape any of the bits off the bottom of the pot.
To prove my point, I made a batch by scalding the milk, curdling it, and taking it off the flame immediately, then letting it sit for around an hour, occasionally scraping the bottom with a spatula. The yield was higher this method (duh, less of the curds settled and burnt), but it also took way more time to strain the whey from the curds. The texture was ultimately a little softer and less crumbly as well.
I can't seem to convince anyone that this is just how you make fresh cheese and the response I get when I ask why the recipe is written the way it is is: "that's just how we've always done it." Okay? If you've been doing something wrong, it's okay to admit it and change your recipe.
Is there some secret paneer method I'm just unaware of that requires you make it the way our recipe is written? Seems dumb to me, but I'm not super familiar with Indian cooking technique so maybe I'm the idiot? Help me set the record straight, chefs.

My parents beat the shit out of my brother and I. Now he's dead and they're dying. Idk how to feel. AMA.
I'm a 30/m son of two very religious parents. It took until I met my future wife to learn how fucked up my childhood is and I think it would be therapeutic to tell people.
Growing up I was my mother's favorite between my older sister and younger brother. Good little Christian son who would go to church 3 times a week. If we got into trouble we were dragged away and hit with a leather belt bare ass. Sometimes my father would tell us to "go get my belt" and lash us.
On one occasion in 5th grade, my dad asked me to get the remote from the coffee table after I took off his shoes. I told him to get it himself and he spanked me until there was blood. I went to the school nurse because of the pain the next day. She took me to the counselor and my parents got a visit.
The school nurse lived two doors down so she drove me home. My dad was fuming. I'll never forget him saying, "I'm going to beat the shit out of that boy." And my mom calmed him down and we talked. They said they would never spank me again. After that, my dad ignored me the rest of the time growing up.
Things were good. I stayed out of the house as much as possible, did my chores and found a family with my friends. My dad became less angry and we became a stronger family. Then when I was 15, I got a girlfriend. When we broke up, I was sobbing and he told me to come help with chores. I told him "I can't." And he choked me against the wall lifting me off the ground. Then he spat in my face and dropped me before walking out of the house to take care of the lawn.
My mom found out and asked me about it. I told her and she told me that if not for us kids, she would have killed herself years ago. I tried to do myself in that night with a belt and the ceiling fan. My dad walked in and I told him I was just measuring my neck for a collar. (Stupid but he believed it. Or didn't care.)
Looking back on it, my dad probably beat my mom. She became mentally abusive to my brother and sister after that. Pushing them away and even told my little brother she doesn't love him. He went to the park that night to stay there and I joined him. We stayed there all night while I held him. We went home and it was back to church or being ignored.
At 18 I got the fuck out. Walked 4 miles to work every day. I had been working since 14 to get out of the house so I had money and enough skills to be hireable. No longer religious after teaching Sunday school and knowing the Bible so well I went to the world championships for Bible quizzing.
My brother got into drugs when I left and started stealing. He broke in to my home, pawned my items and then basically dropped into a makeshift crime ring. My dad beat him bloody and my sister called me screaming to come over. My dad was crying outside and I gave my brother first aid, then cleaned him up and took him to my place.
Shortly after, he had a son and my parents took him in with the mother because they had nowhere to go. He was caught smoking pot and kicked out. They brought me over to help kick him out and he swung at my mom. I grabbed him and threw him against the wall telling him if he ever swung at a member of our family he'd have to crawl out of the house. I became my father. Fuck.
The mother stayed. 2 months later, his son died from SIDS. He went full send on drugs and depression. I promise you this. Nothing in life prepared me to see my infant nephews body. I can't imagine what it was like for him.
Every now and then my brother would swing by. He got clean a few times and then eventually was arrested for robbery and evading police. My parents had long abandoned him. He was in jail for years but when he got out, I was there to pick him up for a burger and music. He was clean and religious again. I rolled my eyes but took him in for a while.
He got into another stint with the law and went back for 7 years. When he was out, he went to a halfway house. Our family had pretty much disconnected from him and had a party he couldn't attend the week he was out. I told them I wasn't going and invited him to my home to meet my future wife.
He was clean. He was bigger than me. He was hilarious and we had a great night. He had a job and was making great money immediately out of the prison. We'd been writing and reconnected so it was just like when we were kids. We talked about our entire childhood and he disclosed everything that our parents did that led him to his path. He didn't remember anything he had done while drugged out and apologized. He'd also talked with a therapist and realized that we were abused. By that time I had learned the same from talking with my future wife. We hugged. We cried and he left.
The next week I got a call that he OD'd.
I was sobbing. We went to the funeral where everyone that didn't care about him the week before attended. I sat with my future wife, her parents and all the friends that had replaced my family there to support me. Everyone that spoke pissed me off. Even the pastor at my parent's church mispronounced his name then made a joke about it.
Shortly after I was hospitalized for a month. I got two visits from my parents to see their only living son. Every visit with my mom since ends in crying that I'm her only living boy.
Now their health is rapidly declining with my mom requiring oxygen at all times and my father's brain shutting down from a disease. I'm furious with them but still have a lot of love for who they are. I'm getting married and they're reaching out to me a lot but I can't forget being choked, cleaning my brother's blood up or how we were treated.
Sorry for the novel. Just been thinking about this for a while. I'll probably delete it later and write a book when they're gone.
He's been dead for a couple years. I'm still mad.

Do you think you have the skills to survive a Depression?
Let’s face it. We may say we’re preparing for winter blizzards or freak hurricanes, but down deep, if you’re a prepper, what you’re really preparing for is a collapse of America’s economy. It may happen within a few days, or it may be a continual downward slide over many years. Its causes may include numerous Katrina-size natural disasters, a toppling federal government, chaos on Main Street, and the odd meteor or two.
Regardless of the causes, we want our families to be as secure as possible for the long haul.
So, the question that naturally arises is: How do you prepare for a Greatest Depression? Is it even possible to prepare for something that may last a decade or much, much longer? Is it better to be a homeowner, even if someday you’re unable to make your mortgage payments, or is it better to have mobility and rent? Should you leave your life savings and retirement funds where they are or take the tax and penalty hit and invest in land, or gold, or a year’s worth of food?
While there are no definitive answers to these questions, you can take stock of your level of preparedness, see where the gaps are, and work to fill them.
​

Assess Your Depression Survival Skills

Let’s begin by evaluating your skills that would help you survive a depression. Answer yes or no to the following questions:
​

Easy skills level:

1. Do you know how to sew on a button?
2. Do you know how to use an oil lamp?
3. Do you know how to boil an egg?
4. Do you know how to ride a bike?
5. Do you know how to keep houseplants alive?

If you answered yes to all five, move on to the next level.
​

Medium skills level:

1. Do you know how to cut up a whole chicken?
2. Do you know how to hem or fix a rip in clothing?
3. Do you have a stocked first aid kit in your home?
4. Do you know how to build and maintain a fire?
5. Do you know how to cook and season dried beans?

If you answered yes to any of the five, move on to the next level.
​

Hard skills level:

1. Do you know how to grow your own vegetables?
2. Do you know how to use a pattern and sew your own clothes?
3. Do you know how to can fruits and vegetables?
4. Do you know how to start a fire without matches?
5. Do you know how to raise chickens?
6. Do you have a fully prepared emergency kit in your home?
7. Do you own and know how to use a gun?
8. Do you or someone in the home know how to fish and hunt?
9. Do you have a well-stocked pantry?
10. Do you know how to make a quilt?
11. Do you know how to bake bread from scratch?
12. Do you know CPR and basic first aid skills?
13. Do you have the physical ability to ride a bike?
14. Do you know how to purify water for drinking?
15. Do you know how to cook in a dutch oven with charcoal?

​
If you answered yes to all in this level, congratulations! You will survive.
If you passed the easy and medium levels but failed the hard level, not to worry. You are teachable. A Boy Scout learns 99% of these depression survival skills! Select a skill to learn, make a plan, and then work the plan! Rinse and repeat.
Now, let’s consider a question.

Readers Respond: How Should We Prepare for a Greatest Depression?

If we could talk with survivors of the first Great Depression and ask them, “If you could go back to 1925, how would you have prepared for the Great Depression,” I wonder what they would say.
We’re preparing for something on a worldwide scale, so I asked Survival Mom readers this question: How should we prepare for a Greatest Depression? Here is a curated selection of those responses.

• Is it possible to prepare for something that may last decades? Yes, but it’s not easy. I think it involves home ownership (not a mortgage, which means the bank pretty much owns your home), enough land for self-sustainability, and the skills to utilize that land. I see prepping as something that will help me get through lean times. Hopefully, we never have to survive totally off our food storage. Instead, our food storage will just help us stretch our budget if things get hard. (Bitsy)
• I remember my grandparents and uncles talking about the Great Depression and WWII rationing; honestly, I don’t think they noticed a huge difference in their lives. They lived very simple lives in eastern Kentucky, my grandfather quitting school at 7 to go to work. But they also had skills that most of us preppers can only dream of. Inflated food costs were no big deal if you were growing most all of what you needed. They kept gardens, orchards, chickens, and cows. Made their own clothes. Mended their own shoes. Never really strayed too far from home. If we’re going to survive something long-term, we HAVE to relearn those basic skills and learn to take care of ourselves. (Andrea)
• The way I look at it, my food storage and other preps are giving me OPTIONS and increased flexibility at a time when we might all need to be extremely creative to thrive. I won’t be nearly so dependent on a steady paycheck, so even if I lose my job, I can make it for some amount of time without facing utter hopelessness. If I’m fortunate enough to have a job and steady pay, I can use my money for needs other than food. All I’ve stored is insurance and wealth for bartering. (Linda)
• We know how to can, dehydrate, and we are saving many staples, but do we know how to fix and repair? Can we stitch a wound or have an understanding of herbal remedies for when doctors are not in the budget? The preparation we need to do is on every single level of our lives. (Kris)
• I think of food storage as a supplement if things somehow manage to limp along. If things completely collapse, then food storage becomes not a supplement but a bridge to tide us over while new ways of growing and transporting food are worked out. Keep in mind that there are basic differences in types of food. Grain is relatively easy to transport for long distances and is more likely to be at least somewhat available. Perishable items like meat, eggs, and fresh vegetables are likely to only be available according to what is locally produced or from your own backyard. Basic gardening skills can be ramped up fairly quickly, but those basic skills take years to learn. If you anticipate the need to produce your own food, get started now. Even if it is on a very small scale, you need to learn by experience what works and what doesn’t for your situation. Once you’ve got the basics covered, expanding the output is just a matter of doing more of the same. Buying a can of “survival seeds” and thinking that you’ll just plant them if the need arises is not a plan – it is almost guaranteed to fail at a time when failure could have very serious consequences. Can we prepare for something that will last for generations? That is really the question in a society such as ours, where the same systems that make us so efficient and wealthy are extremely fragile and interconnected by their very nature. Our system has no resilience, so if one part collapses, it can take everything else down with it. My preparations for a multi-generational collapse take a different approach than the typical prepper. Long-term preparations include a home-schooling library for our grandchildren, an extensive library on a wide variety of topics, “obsolete” technology in the form of slide rules (they were used for all the calculations that put man on the moon and built the Boeing 747), and quality basic hand tools and fasteners of various types. The worst thing that could happen in this regard is for our society to lose the basic knowledge we have built over the past 6,000 years. (Stephen M.)
• Before the Great Depression, most Americans did not live the life of affluence, that is the middle class and above standard of today. They were not poor by that era’s standard. As a matter of fact, compared to their immigrant parents’ life in the old world, they were very well off. Go look at a middle-class house built around the turn of the last century. Rooms are small to conserve heat. The closets are tiny because that’s all the room they needed. Few people had more than two or three changes of clothing. My Grandmother rarely owned more than four dresses at any one time. The newest one for church and special occasions. The next older one is for going out in public, such as visiting and going to town. The next older one for everyday wear. (and I mean every day, the same dress.) The very oldest one, oft mended and patched, for doing dirty work. The house I live in now, built in 1920, originally had a total of only four electric sockets. Nobody thought someone would have enough appliances to need more. My point here is that many people like my grandparents didn’t feel much difference once the Depression hit because they didn’t have much to lose. They were accustomed to a life that we consider austerity. Modern Americans are more spoiled than they think. $8 a gallon for gas is no big deal when you don’t own a car and never did and only dreamed you ever would. (Barbara)
• I think it will be a different type of depression than it was back in the 30’s. People were closer to the earth and didn’t count on the government as much. They also “networked” alot and used barter with friends and neighbors even in the good times before the depression. This is one thing I have been working on myself. (Woodnick)
• Zero DEBT!!! (George)
• I would consider every purchase NOW in light of how it would be viewed if LATER we were in a Depression. For instance, would your child benefit more from a pocket knife or a new video game? A book or a plastic toy? An emergency radio that doubles as an MP3 player or an iPod? Buy things of quality, too. I would replace things now that you can. (Katy)
• I think learning skills to survive a depression and teaching those skills to your children is important. My daughter can knit, sew, and crochet better than I can. In fact, my son can sew better than I can. We homeschool, so we have lots of books, including stockpiled curriculum for grades my children have not yet reached (in case we can’t afford to buy a math textbook then). Textbooks get low priority compared with food. I guess I am looking at a scenario where life is likely to get much harder and everything but food and shelter is considered a luxury. (Katy)
• You get comfortable with populations shifting around, little or nothing in the way of government public services, and surviving without a job. You get used to using absolutely every part of everything you have. You “fix it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.” You learn how to plant and harvest and butcher and shoot. (Sunshine)
• For a large-scale long-term Depression, I’d continue to store food and basic necessities as there may come a time when we have to completely rely on them. However, if there is no telling how long it would last, then money and storage would eventually run out. I have written about coming up with a personal economic crash plan to fall back on if or when a worst-case scenario happens. Not pretty to think about, but it may have to include moving in with family to pool resources, selling off belongings, possible bartering, etc. The main thing is survival and learning to live on less now. Imaging the worst-case scenario would help in preparing and not being in a state of shock if it happens. (Bernie)
• Lately, every time I shop and buy something, I ask myself, “What would I do if I couldn’t buy this thing? How would I make do ?” It’s really made me think and has caused me to stockpile some items I hadn’t previously thought about, like repair supplies for water hoses and shoes and iron-on repair patches for clothes. Sometimes, I’ve gone to the internet and printed off recipes for homemade cleaning products, vinegar, fruit pectin, and instructions for darning socks, making paper and homemade ink and glue, etc. I don’t have time to learn to do all that stuff right now, but I want that info in my survival notebook for later, just in case. (Linda)
• My mother will soon be 88. She was young during the depression. She said there wasn’t a change in their living standard. They lived in a rural area on a working farm. If they didn’t raise it or make it, they didn’t need it. They never had much to begin with, and when the depression began, they couldn’t tell any difference. I suppose somewhere in that story is our lesson. I am afraid that we may have lost enough of our morals and skills and have grown so used to our creature comforts that perhaps a depression could be much harder on us than the last one . . . much harder. (Reggie)
• I advise stocking up on tools and tools and more tools. Especially consumable tools. A bow saw with a dozen extra blades. Extra drill bits. My cordless 14.4 drill is going on 12 years. I advise a solar panel for recharging. If you have the motivation, tools will help you tremendously in building what you need. I think that there will be an abundance of emptied structures to strip for raw materials. We will be pulling screws and nails from buildings. Every one will have value. But stocking up on extra boxes now is not a bad idea. (Sierra D.)
• We are concentrating on learning skills to survive a depression. This year we are learning to save seed from our garden produce. I learned to knit this summer and have gotten some yarn on clearance from different places. I just watched videos on how to make tallow candles and pemmican….we have never saved the tallow from the deer and elk that the boys harvest each fall…now we will! Hopefully, the skills we learn will help fill in the needs as they arise as times get harder. (Sheri)
• I think we’ll be seeing high prices and scarce commodities (if only because fleets will be grounded for lack of fuel or too-high fuel costs) and an actual lack of petroleum-based products like gas, plastics, and rubber. So one thing we’re doing is stocking up on spare tires for our biodiesel vehicles and bicycles, tire patching kits, plastic bags, etc. – anything made from petroleum that we think we need during a major transition to a different lifestyle. Oh – and fabric, thread, needles (besides food & seed). (Mary)
• This is why I’m learning skills: gardening, animal husbandry, repair, crafting (practical things like knitting socks), cob building, and the like. I think if you already know how to do these things, it will be much easier to make the transition. (Herbwifemama)
• My mom lived in a NYC tenement during the depression, and it was pretty bad. She said the only time she got enough to eat was when they went to my great-aunt’s farm in the summer to work. Sickness was everywhere and you couldn’t afford medicines. My grandmother lost her hearing due to ear infections. All my mother’s teeth were cracked and broken due to poor nutrition and illness. (Vicki O.)
• My parents both lived through the depression before they married. My father, at times, nearly starved and worked at any job he could find. My mother’s family owned a farm and always had food. They didn’t have extra money and were very frugal, but they were able to eat well. I think preparations must include knowledge….how to grow food, both animal and vegetable. (Bernadine)
• Practical, hands-on knowledge is, by far, the best thing we can do for ourselves. What good is an emergency seed bank if we don’t have the proper soil for it and don’t know what to plant when? How do you can your produce and meat over a campfire? Do you know the medicinal properties of the common herbs we use for cooking? (I didn’t know that Thyme tea is excellent for upper respiratory problems–specifically the ears!) What about hunting without a gun? Butchering what you’ve managed to kill? Get past the squeamishness and learn how while there is time to make the necessary mistakes along that learning curve. (Patty)
• Has anyone thought of blacksmithing? Back in the day, every village had a blacksmith. I figure we’d need at least one skilled blacksmith for every few hundred people. (Chandra)
• Interestingly enough, I had a grandmother and mother who lived through the Great Depression with lots of info! My grandmother lived on a farm, worked hard, lived frugally, and wasted nothing ( even cooking water went back to water the gardens…and amazing gardens she had!). She reused paper towels and foil later on in life, composted, and never bought anything without purpose ( big lesson there!). She spoke of hard times but not starvation. My mother grew up in New York City and painted quite a different picture: standing in food lines for bread every week, no heat or electricity ( too expensive), cooking potato soup on a potbelly stove, clothing from the Salvation Army, quitting school at nine years old to work in a pencil factory for food for her family, getting Christmas presents from the local church ( one gift, a wooden cradle, her father promptly broke up and burned to keep his children warm…heartbreaking). While hard times are ahead, I think the standard of living is so different now that we have many ways to downgrade and still live very well. It goes back to living intentionally, shopping with purpose, and planning ahead. We do need to learn to provide for ourselves and learn long-lost skills should our modern conveniences ne’er return. We also must return to forming communities, getting to know our neighbors beyond a wave of hello at the mailbox as we hurry inside. (Doctorb)
• I used to have a class in a large city teaching people skills and urging them to make the move to the country. We had a very interesting large panel discussion on the depression. We invited people who had lived thru the depression and could relate stories of what they went thru. I’m glad we filmed it (quite amateur but a good record). It was fascinating! One consistent thing was that those who had lived in the country had gardens and lived like “kings and queens” compared to those who lived in the cities. They often said that as children, they didn’t know they had it bad. They ate well, played outdoors with siblings, cousins, etc. People in the cities often went hungry, stood in bread lines, and made meals out of the most meager ingredients. (Jan D.)

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TDRL: friend during program has many irritating behaviors that has increased over a series of events. our group went from close to strongly disliking this girl.
I (18F) am currently studying abroad and have a small group of friends which includes my roommate Hannah (19F) and our friends Bree (20F), Jess (19F), and Allie (19F) who are all roommates with Jess and Allie sharing a room while Bree is in their apartment. Hannah and I are also roommates.(these are all fake names!!) We are apart of a very small program- there are only 17 people in total, with only 5 guys in the group in one apartment (important context)
I knew Jess and Hannah previously, but I met Bree and Allie upon arrival 2.5 months ago. We all got along very well but early on, my friends and I observed some…annoying behaviors from Allie. Just small little things that made us stop and think. She gets annoyed if we say no to her if we don’t want to do something just she wants to do (especially when it’s inconvenient). She says rude things at times. She is constantly asking for tiny favors that she doesn’t necessarily need to ask anyone to do for her. She pouts when something doesn’t go exactly her way. Nothing is ever her fault- she sat in a lady’s paid seat on an airplane. Instead of moving calmly, she put up a fight and called her a bitch. She tried cutting the line at a club and when someone called her out, she called them a bitch. She is so hypocritical- she won’t clean up after herself but complains about dirtiness and uses others things but no one else can do things like that. She complained about how this one guy was disgusting and to beware of him, but texts and hangs out with him. We were all still close but kept these behaviors in our minds. Until she had a 180° change.
One weekend, Allie didn’t go home after class, Jess sent her a text asking if she was okay but Allie didn’t respond. She came home the next morning at 7 AM to get ready as we had a school excursion that day. We learned that morning she stayed at the apartment of the guys in our program. During the day she was fine, acting like her normal self. The next two days though, she stayed at the guys apartment sleeping there and staying there all day. We were all very confused.
Allie started confiding in Bree, and Bree would then relate the problems to me, Jess, and Hannah. Allie had started to limit conversations with J, H, and me. As Bree is telling us conversations she had with Allie, we learn that she is dramatizing situations that happened, as well as lying about things that never happened. Ex- Allie asked Hannah to go to the grocery store with her and show her how to make fried rice while Hannah was at the gym. Hannah say she couldn’t go at the moment since she was at the gym, and also told her she didn’t have an exact recipe- she just mixes rice, eggs, and veggies together. Allie was saying Hannah absolutely refused to go and wouldn’t tell her the ingredients at all so she had to make something else for dinner.
It became obvious that she had a problem with Jess, Hannah, and I- especially Jess, but was not communicating anything to us. It became a routine for Allie to go over to the guys to hang out or sleepover. She will take Jess’s ingredients and make dinner at the guys but claims to buy them. She does not talk to us, then out of nowhere acts super bubbly and nice before asking if we can do something for her. We have heard through the grapevine of the small program of the shit she has said behind our backs yet when we go out on a club night, she acts like all is well and wants to take pictures with us to post on her socials. She then goes back to cold. After two weeks of acting like this she told Bree that “she’s ready to come back to the group”.
We had a trip planned to go to Paris, which we planned FOR her. She has invited the guys to go the same weekend because she wants to “ditch us and hang out with them instead”. Upon hearing that, the remaining four of us have decided we do not want to go anymore. We don’t have a place to stay booked so we aren’t leaving her hanging, especially because the guys are going.
I personally cannot wait to tell her that e are not going. My friends and I are completely exhausted from her personality changes, fake behavior, and manipulation. 2/5 guys coddle and baby her every need, letting her share in one’s bed during sleepovers. 3/5 are getting annoyed she’s over there and overstepping. The 2/5 think that Jess Hannah and I are absolute bitches from the things she has told them. But every other person in the program has seen through her shit. She also has said multiple times she has no friends at home, and we are beginning to think this behavior is the reason why. I am excited to remove myself from her when this semester is over, and just blocking her. I know this was long, but I had to rant on here because everyday there’s something new.