Lash Clusters For Hooded Eyes

i have hooded eyes and constantly lift my eyes to hide that. i really like the idea of lashes bc my natural eyelash points downward and even when i try to curl they fall within a matter of minutes. I want lashes that pop my eyes out more while also matching my preference of bold liner. obviously i have not mastered putting them on as there is lot of lifting and i can see the band still on the inner part of my eye. i feel like my lashes overwhelm my face? im not really sure how to describe it but it just seems off putting. maybe i should do smaller clusters??please ignore smudgy makeup, went to a cookout earlier and it was raining. if you have any other advice on anything else other than my lashes i’m always open for suggestions! sorry so many pics i wanted a little farther and close ups submitted by /u/Kokichi_Liar to r/makeuptips [link] [comments]

Have you ever wondered why certain lash styles look amazing on some people but not on others? The reason is usually eye shape. A lash map that flatters one eye shape may make another appear droopy, overly round, or heavy. This guide breaks down the most common eye shapes, the goals for each eye shape, which lash maps suit them best, and what lash curl works best. If you still feel unsure about your eye shape after reading, don’t hesitate to ask for help. ● Different Eye Shapes ● ♡ Almond Eyes Almond eyes are slightly pointed at both the inner and outer corners. They are naturally balanced and symmetrical. How to identify almond eyes: • The iris slightly touches both the top and bottom eyelid • Little to no white shows above or below the iris • The eye appears longer horizontally than vertically Celebrity examples: Tyla Alexa Demie Addison Rae Lash goal: Almond eyes are considered the most versatile eye shape because almost every lash style suits them. The goal is usually enhancement rather than correction. ♡ Round Eyes Round eyes appear larger and more open. More of the iris is visible compared to other eye shapes. How to identify round eyes: • White is visible above or below the iris when looking straight ahead • The eyes appear wider and more circular rather than elongated Celebrity examples: Anya Taylor Joy Avantika Vandanapu Jenna Ortega Lash goal: Round eyes already look naturally open, so the goal is usually to elongate the eye rather than widen it more ♡ Upturned Eyes Upturned eyes have a natural lift at the outer corners. How to identify upturned eyes: • The outer corner sits higher than the inner corner • If you imagine a straight line across the eye, the outer edge slopes upward Celebrity examples: Ryan Destiny Jennie Kim Halle Bailey Lash goal: Enhance the natural lift while keeping the eyes balanced and soft. ♡ Downturned Eyes Downturned eyes slope gently downward at the outer corners. How to identify downturned eyes: • The outer corner sits lower than the inner corner • The eyes appear to slope downward slightly Celebrity examples: Laura Harrier Tate McRae Sadie Sinks Lash goal: Create lift and avoid styles that drag the eyes downward. Placement is very important for this eye shape. ♡ Hooded Eyes Hooded eyes have extra skin that partially or fully covers the crease. How to identify hooded eyes: • The crease is partially hidden when the eyes are open • Less visible eyelid space is seen looking straight ahead Celebrity examples: Mikey Madison Olivia Rodrigo Chanel Iman Lash goal: Create visible lift and open up the eye area without making the eyes appear heavy. ♡ Monolid Eyes Monolid eyes do not have a clearly visible crease above the lash line. How to identify monolid eyes: • No defined fold above the lashes • The crease remains minimal or invisible even when eyes are open wide Celebrity examples: Yoonmi Sun Dahyun Kim go eun Lash goal: Create dimension, definition, and visible lift using curl and layering. ● Different Lash Maps ● ○ Cat Eye Longest lengths are placed toward the outer corner to elongate the eye. Example maps: • 8mm 10mm 10mm 12mm 12mm • 10mm 12mm 12mm 14mm 14mm • 12mm 14mm 14mm 16mm 16mm Effect: Creates a lifted, elongated appearance. Best for: • Almond • Round • Upturned • Hooded • Monolid Avoid if: You have heavily downturned eyes, since extra outer length can pull the eye downward. ○ Doll Eye Longest lengths are placed in the center of the eye. Example maps: • 10mm 12mm 14mm 12mm 10mm • 12mm 14mm 16mm 14mm 12mm Effect: Makes the eyes appear larger, rounder, and more awake Best for: • Downturned • Monolid • Almond Tip: This style is especially flattering for downturned eyes because it lifts attention toward the center instead of the outer corners ○ Fox Eye A sharper, more dramatic version of the cat eye with strong outer elongation Example maps: • 8mm 10mm 12mm 14mm 14mm • 10mm 12mm 14mm 16mm 16mm Effect: Creates a snatched, lifted, and more seductive appearance. Best for: • Almond • Round • Hooded • Monolid • Upturned Tip: Avoid making fox styles too long or heavy on naturally upturned eyes, as it can overpower the shape. ○ Kitten / Squirrel Eye The longest lengths are placed slightly before the outer corner rather than directly at the end. Example maps: • 8mm 8mm 10mm 12mm 10mm • 10mm 10mm 12mm 14mm 12mm • 12mm 12mm 14mm 16mm 14mm Effect: Soft, lifted, and natural-looking enhancement Best for: • Round • Downturned • Upturned • Monolid • Almond Tip: For downturned eyes, placing the peak near the arch of the brow creates the most flattering lift ○ Natural Eye Balanced lengths that mimic a natural lash pattern Example map: • 8mm 12mm 12mm 12mm 10mm Effect: Soft everyday enhancement without dramatic shaping. Best for: • Almond • Upturned ● Best Lash Maps for Each Eye Shape ● ♡ Almond Eyes Almost every style works well. Best styles: • Cat Eye • Doll Eye • Fox Eye • Kitten/Squirrel • Natural Because almond eyes are naturally balanced, they can wear both dramatic and soft styles easily ♡ Round Eyes Best styles: • Cat Eye • Fox Eye • Kitten/Squirrel Why: These styles elongate the eyes and balance the natural roundness. Avoid: Very dramatic doll eye styles if you do not want the eyes to appear even rounder. ♡ Upturned Eyes Best styles: • Cat Eye • Fox Eye • Kitten/Squirrel • Natural Why: These styles complement the natural lifted shape while keeping the eyes balanced ♡ Downturned Eyes Best styles: • Doll Eye • Kitten/Squirrel Why: These styles create lift and help the eyes appear more awake. Important: Avoid placing the longest lengths directly at the very outer corner. ♡ Hooded Eyes Best styles: • Fox Eye • Cat Eye Why: These maps help create visible lift and make the eyelid space appear more open. Important: Lightweight lashes with stronger curl usually work better than overly dense styles. ♡ Monolid Eyes Best styles: • Doll Eye • Cat Eye • Fox Eye • Kitten/Squirrel Why: Monolid eyes benefit from styles that create structure, dimension, and visible curl ● Lash Curl Guide ● ○ C Curl Soft, natural-looking lift. Best for: • Almond • Round • Upturned Best if: You want a subtle everyday appearance ○ CC Curl More noticeable lift while still looking soft Best for: • Almond • Round • Upturned • Downturned Best if: You want a balanced dramatic look without going extremely curly. ○ D Curl Strong dramatic lift. Best for: • Hooded • Downturned • Monolid • Almond Best if: You need extra visibility or lift ○ L Curl Flat base with a dramatic upward lift Best for: • Hooded • Monolid Best if: You struggle with lashes touching the eyelid or disappearing under the lid space. No eye shape is better than another. The best lash map is simply the one that enhances your natural features. Lash styling is all about balance, placement, and finding what makes you feel the most confident. Hopefully this guide helped make choosing the right lash style a little easier. If you’re still unsure about your eye shape or which lash map would suit you best, feel free to ask for help. Sometimes even a few small adjustments in placement or curl can make a huge difference. If you’d like a guide on choosing the best lash cluster styles or lash clusters, let me know if you’d be interested. submitted by /u/Warm_Cup_87 to r/lashclusters [link] [comments]

i don't dive kelp anymore. I still freedive pools, sandy bottoms, clear drop-offs where you can see the bottom from the surface and there's nothing behind you but open water. Kelp is the one place I can't make myself go back to, not where the light breaks into columns between the stalks and you can't see what's an arm's length from your face. If you looked at my Instagram you'd think I was lying. There's a video from last year: bright early morning off the Central Coast, ocean flat as a parking lot, a six-pack charter rocking on a kelp bed while Tom and I do warm-up drops off the float. Sea lions loop the hull, glossy and unhurried. The filter makes the water look jade green. It's the kind of clip that gets comments about ocean therapy and how peaceful it must be. Nothing from below fifteen meters in that forest. I deleted all of that footage. The official story is that Tom blacked out at depth and got tangled in the kelp. "Freediver error." Our fault, technically. The incident report uses that phrase more than once. It doesn't mention the band of dead water where the fish refused to go. It doesn't mention the thing that pulled our float line from below, slowly, like it was testing how much weight we'd offer before we reacted. It was Tom's idea to book the trip. We'd finished a level-two freediving course a month earlier, down in La Jolla. Two weeks of theory, pool work, and open water until we both hit thirty meters clean, learned the mechanics of a blackout rescue, learned why you never hyperventilate before a breath-hold, learned the correct equalization technique so your ears don't feel like someone's threading a needle through your skull at twenty meters. We came home with new dive watches and a level of confidence that seemed reasonable at the time. Tom went all-in the way he went all-in on everything. He sold his longboard to buy carbon fiber fins that cost more than my first used car, and started timing his static breath-hold in the bathtub with his phone propped against the faucet. He was DMing comp divers he'd followed for two years like he was asking for mentorship, networking himself into a community that hadn't invited him yet. He wanted depth records and a sponsor logo on his suit. He talked about the sport the way some people talk about a relationship that hasn't started yet but already feels inevitable. I just wanted to stop feeling like my chest was going to cave in at ten meters. Those were different goals and I didn't think about what that difference meant at the time. The morning of the trip he texted me at six-fifteen. I was in the kitchen in the clothes I'd slept in, waiting for the coffee machine to finish. That specific morning tiredness where you're already a beat behind before you've done anything. "Glass out there," it said. "Harbor webcam looks like a lake. You working today?" I had my phone in one hand and a mug of terrible Keurig coffee in the other, still too hot to drink. My boss had dropped a new schedule on my desk the afternoon before, two solid weeks of back-to-back shifts with no gaps, and I'd spent most of the night lying awake on top of the covers going through it. The ceiling had nothing useful to offer. "If I say no, will you leave me alone?" I wrote back. He sent a picture instead of an answer. He was already at the dock, standing next to a faded white charter with KATE LYNN stenciled on the stern in chipped blue letters. His 5mm wetsuit peeled down to his waist, hood hanging against his back, tank marks along his arms from where the neoprene had been. Behind him stood a captain who looked like he'd been assembled from years of sun damage, Marlboro smoke, and open-water contempt for schedules. "Spot's paid for," the caption said. "You can sleep on the way out." I looked at my calendar. Two weeks of fluorescent lights and break room silence and the specific slow grind of a job I was getting tired of pretending didn't bother me. "Give me thirty," I typed. "Don't let that captain leave without me." He sent a thumbs-up. The harbor was doing its usual morning routine when I got there. Gulls screaming over the fish processing dock three slips down, a couple of guys in orange rain gear wheeling tank carts along the gangway, diesel exhaust mixing with salt air in the specific combination that smells exactly like every harbor I've ever stood in at sunrise. The kind of morning that looks like a tourism brochure if you don't look too hard. KATE LYNN sat low in her slip. I could smell cigarettes before I got close enough to read her hull number. The captain checked our names off a clipboard without looking up, then ran through the safety briefing in the flat cadence of someone who stopped caring whether anyone retained it somewhere around the two-hundredth time. "Life jackets under the bench, O2 kit here, first aid here." A knuckle on each. "Don't vomit on my deck. You're seasick, go to the stern. And if you're going to black out, please try not to do it directly under the hull. Makes my paperwork miserable." He looked at Tom's orange dive float and the coil of hundred-foot line clipped to it. "You two are breath-holders. No tanks." "Just freediving," Tom said, smiling that reflex smile of his. "We've got our own float and line. We'll stay on it." The captain looked at the float the way a mechanic looks at a car that's already been in one accident. "Every man tells me he stays on the line. Every season I'm on the radio with the Coast Guard because someone chased a rockfish into a current. If you want to screw around on someone else's time, find a different charter. We clear?" "Yes, sir," Tom said. Still smiling. We ran out of the harbor and past the breakwater into a long, slow swell that was about as gentle as late October gets on this coast. Pale sky, maybe a four-knot breeze out of the northwest, the horizon a soft gray line. The kind of day that tricks you into forgetting the Pacific has its own agenda. The captain yelled over the engine: "I'll put you on the outside edge of the big bed. Sounder reads twenty-eight meters under the canopy. Good bait and bass in there. You'll have plenty to look at." Tom was already fitting his GoPro to the mount above his right eye, clicking it into place. "Record or it didn't happen," he said, mostly to himself. "Or you could just be present," I said. He gave me the look he gave anything he considered missing the point. "I'm always present. The camera is just documentation." From the surface, a kelp forest is a mat of bronze-green, dense enough that the boat slows when you cross into it. You feel it before you see it, the water changing texture, gaining weight. From underneath, it's different in a way that's hard to explain until you've been inside one. The stalks rise from rocky holdfasts on the bottom in tight clusters, going straight up like columns, blades streaming sideways in the surge like flags in a permanent slow wind. Light comes down between them in separate shafts, shifting with every pulse of swell, turning the water gold and gray-green in alternating bands. You can be ten meters down and still feel the light on your face. Fish everywhere in the upper section: blacksmith schooling in loose packs, a fat orange Garibaldi hovering near a stalk with the energy of a small landowner surveying property, a sea lion cutting through the whole thing at speed and not caring about any of it. The forest is busy in a way you don't expect. There's a lot of living happening in a small space. We started with warm-up drops. Tom floated face-down off the float, going through the slow exhale and relaxed inhale cycle that drops your resting heart rate if you let it work. His shoulders came down, the tension went out of his neck, and then he jackknifed and pulled himself down the line, fins trailing. He dropped into the lower canopy and the light gave him up in sections until he was gone. My watch ticked on my wrist while I kept my eyes on the spot where he'd gone under, twenty seconds, forty, fifty-five. The stalks moved in the surge. A blacksmith bumped my fin and was gone. He surfaced at about a minute ten, blew his recovery breath, ran the short panting sequence. Eyes bright. "Bait ball around ten, twelve meters," he said, still slightly breathless. "Bass working underneath it. Big ones. The viz is better than I expected." He wiped water off his face. "Your turn." "I'll go to fifteen," I said. "Stretching my ears out slow." I floated, let the breathing slow, felt the small mechanical shift of my pulse backing off. One comfortable inhale at the end and I tipped forward, hands on the line, and the water closed over my head. Cold came in along my jaw under the hood, found the gap at my wrists. I equalized every couple of meters, pinching my nose, feeling the pressure release behind my sinuses. The green deepened. The sound of the boat disappeared, replaced by the small creak of kelp in the surge and the low hum of my own blood. At ten meters, the bait ball was right where he'd said. A few hundred small silver fish revolving slowly in a loose column, catching the light on each pass, throwing it back in bright fragments. Below them, two bass hung at a careful distance with the patient look of animals that had done this particular waiting many times before. I held the line and just watched for a second. You do that down there, even when your oxygen budget is running. You stop because the thing in front of you makes stopping feel necessary. Twelve meters. Thirteen. Fourteen. The light went grayer. The stalks thickened, the blades longer. I stopped at fifteen and looked down. The life just ended. From where I hung on the rope, I could see fish at my depth, adjusting position, responding to current, doing everything fish do, and then below a certain point, maybe three meters below my fins, nothing. No fish working the water column. No crabs on the holdfasts. No flatfish on the rocky sections of the bottom visible through the stalks. Just kelp, slow surge, gray-green empty water going down to the bottom. I've been cold-water diving enough to know what a thermocline looks like. You feel the temperature change before you see any change in the life around you, and life thins gradually around a thermocline, not all at once. The line I was looking at was too clean for temperature alone. It was like someone had drawn a horizontal mark, and everything with a nervous system had received the memo and complied. The hair on the back of my neck prickled under my hood, which is an unpleasant sensation underwater because there's nothing you can do about it. My lungs were past their comfortable window. I turned, looked up at the brighter water above, and pulled myself back toward the surface. I came up next to the float and held it. "How's it look?" Tom was already back on the float's other side, mask up on his forehead. "Busy up top," I said. "Below about eighteen, nineteen meters, nothing. Hard line between the two. The change is too fast. It feels wrong." He frowned. "Thermocline?" "Feels different from that." I unclipped my slate and wrote: FISH STOP AT 18-20M / NOTHING MOVES LOWER / LINE IS TOO CLEAN / FEELS WRONG. He read it. Tapped his pencil against the board for a moment. Then wrote: COULD BE TEMP + O2 COMBO / I'LL GO LOOK / STAY ON LINE. He flashed the okay sign. He duck-dived and I watched his fins track down the rope. Past the bait ball, past the bass, into the section where the life stopped. He kept going past where I'd leveled off, through the empty zone, settling somewhere around twenty-two or twenty-three meters. He let go of the rope and drifted a few feet to the side, turning in a slow circle, scanning. He was down there looking at the nothing when I saw the pale shape for the first time. At first it was just a quality of the light between two clusters of kelp stalks at about thirty meters, a paleness that didn't match the color of the blades or the rock behind them. I thought it was a reflection traveling strangely, the way light behaves in surge. Then it moved. A fish turns in one continuous flex. Head, spine, tail, one smooth curve from front to back. The shape between those stalks didn't do that. It moved in sections. One portion of its body pivoted first, then the section behind it caught up, then the next section after that. The same way a train takes a corner, each car following the one ahead at a slight delay. The articulation was internal and sequential, which is not how anything I'd ever seen underwater moves. I couldn't find a head on it. I could see length and those segmented turns and the pale body sliding between the kelp stalks without disturbing them much more than the current already was. My hand found the knife handle on my belt. I hadn't decided to move it there. The pale shape slowed and stopped behind a cluster of stalks, partially obscured. That stillness sat in my chest in a way I didn't like. There was an attention to it, the quality of a waiting animal that has registered something and is deciding what to do about it. Tom's hands found the rope and he started up, pulling himself hand-over-hand with good controlled form. He broke the surface, blew his recovery breath, closed his eyes for a second. "Yeah," he said, coming back to normal. "That line is real. You feel it when you cross it. Goes from a full city to absolute nothing." He looked at me. "Kind of cool." "There's something down there," I said. "Below where you were. Pale. Long. The way it moved was wrong." He looked at the water. "Wrong how?" "Segmented. Like it had internal joints. Not like any fish." I pulled the slate: SAW SOMETHING BELOW YOU / LARGE AND PALE / MOVED IN SECTIONS / I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS. He read it. The cheerful energy went out of his expression for a moment, replaced by something more careful. "Could've been a big bat ray," he said. "They blur at depth with bad viz." "I know what a bat ray looks like." He turned it over. The cheek-chewing thing. "Okay," he said finally. "Okay. Let's go down together. You stay above me, safety-diver setup, we both stay shallow. If either of us sees it, we come up." STAY IN UPPER CANOPY I wrote. IF IT APPEARS WE ABORT. He tapped okay. We floated side by side for the pre-dive, breathing slow, letting surface noise fall away. His fins drifted next to mine in the small chop. The cold was already working in along my cheeks; my lips had gone slightly numb at the edges. We duck-dived together. Two people on the same line have a specific shared weight, you can feel the extra tension in the rope, the small tugs and micro-adjustments when one of you kicks slightly harder or reaches a bit further. His silhouette was just off my shoulder the whole way down, and I was more grateful for it than I let myself think about. We leveled off in the upper canopy at around fourteen meters. The bait ball was still working, the bass still circling. A sea lion shot through the space between two columns at high speed and vanished into the forest. For maybe ninety seconds everything was normal. Tom hovered at fourteen meters and I stayed above him at twelve and the fish did their things and the GoPro's red light blinked above his eye. Then I looked down into the empty zone and the pale shape was there again. Closer this time. Moving along the outer edge of the bed at maybe twenty-five meters, parallel to us, tracking parallel to us the way an animal circles wide of something it hasn't decided about yet. I could see it more completely than the first time. Eight meters in length at minimum, probably more, though the kelp and distance made it impossible to measure with any accuracy. Thick through the middle, tapering toward both ends. Along its sides were the ridges I would later try to describe to a Coast Guard officer: small raised structures evenly spaced, moving independently of the body's larger motion in slow, controlled waves. The way cilia move in microscope footage of something small, but scaled up to a size that made the comparison feel wrong to even hold in my head. Tom had stopped moving. I turned toward him and saw it in his eyes before anything else, the pupils wide and flat, fixed in the direction of the pale shape below. He was locked on the rope with his fingers going white around it, completely still. I got my hand around his forearm and pointed upward with the full arm, the exaggerated abort signal. He held for another second, too long, then nodded and started up. We rose through the empty band and back into the busy zone. I kept my face turned down until the last possible second. The shape below had stopped its lateral movement. It sat at the outer edge of the forest, partially behind a cluster of blades, and I couldn't read its orientation from that angle. Something ran along my fin during the final few meters of ascent. I know what kelp feels like, the smooth-soft drag of a blade, the give, the way it releases as soon as you pass it. This had body behind the contact. The pressure traveled from the toe of my blade to the heel in one slow, continuous line, deliberate as a hand drawn along a surface to feel its texture, and then released cleanly. Too specific for surge, and too deliberate to pass off as coincidence. Every muscle in my legs wanted to kick hard and open distance. I kept the rhythm slow. Hard kicks burn oxygen fast. We came up together. I kept my breathing steady by focusing on the physical mechanics of it. "Something touched my fin on the way up," I said. "Deliberate. Ran the whole length of the blade." Tom was quiet for a moment. "Maybe it was curious," he said, which I could tell he didn't quite believe. "Curious is worse than aggressive," I said. "Curious means it's still deciding." He didn't argue that. I pulled the slate: I'M DONE. GOING BACK TO THE BOAT NOW. He read it, glanced at the boat, thirty-five meters away and feeling like more, and then back at the water with that particular look. The look that meant the decision was already made and what followed was just the part where he explained why it was going to be fine. CONDITIONS ARE PERFECT / SHALLOW ONLY / 10M MAX / STAY IN SIGHT OF HULL / THEN WE GO. I should have held firm. In hindsight it's obvious. In the moment I had a bad feeling and a blurry shape and a touch on my fin that I couldn't prove was anything to someone who was determined to explain it away, and Tom's certainty had a mass to it that was hard to push against when I was cold and tired and not entirely sure of my own read on things. "Ten meters," I said. "Nothing deeper. You stay in my sightline the entire dive. You see that thing, you tap out immediately." "Deal," he said. We swam the float toward the hull, into the shallower zone at the bed's edge where light came down clean and I could see the bottom clearly at eight meters. I clipped the anchor between two holdfasts. The line hung straight down into visible water. We did three easy drops. Upper canopy, good light, nothing alarming. Tom moved through the stalks with clean body position, the camera running. The sea lion came back once and shot through between us close enough that his pressure wave hit my suit, and then he was gone. The bait ball had broken up and scattered into thin schools through the upper zone. For maybe twenty minutes I almost managed to be okay with where we were. I kept checking the lower zone every time I looked down. The line where the fish stopped was still there. The empty water below it was still empty and still. On the surface between drops Tom was talking about footage, about the clip he'd cut together, about a brand contest he was planning to enter. "If I'm not a complete kook on camera, this is a real submission," he said. "Tag it 'screamed internally,'" I said. "That's accurate." He laughed and put his face in the water and floated. I was on my back between drops, staring at the sky, listening to the hull creak and the low rattle of the anchor line, when the float yanked. Hard. A sudden, downward jerk with no ambiguity about what kind of pull it was. The buoy dipped below the surface completely for a moment, water washing over its top, and the line running from the float went taut enough that the nylon made a short strained sound, something between a creak and a note. I rolled over fast, mask down, heart slamming. Tom had just surfaced from a recent drop a few meters away. I could see him there, his weight accounted for. The line dipped again under my hand, harder this time, pulling the buoy down at a slight diagonal, as if whatever was pulling was positioned to the side and below simultaneously. The small metal clips on the float's lashing rings rattled against each other. The rope vibrated through my palm where I'd grabbed it. The tension built. I held the float with both hands and felt the pull increase in a slow, steady ramp, more like a test than a grab, the pressure going up in increments the way you'd add weight if you wanted to know exactly how much something could take before you committed to pulling harder. Then the line tugged again, slower. A pause. Another pull, steadier than the ones before. My stomach turned over. Tom was next to me now, one hand on the float. We held it together. The tension ran through my arms and into my shoulders, steady and patient, for another four or five seconds. Then it released. The rope went slack so suddenly we both jerked with it. The float settled level. The line straightened slowly in the water and swayed. I put my face in immediately. Between two stalks at about nine, ten meters, I caught the pale shape pulling away from the rope, that same segmented, jointed movement, sliding deeper into the kelp without hurry. Then gone into the shadow of the lower forest. It had been holding our line. It let go when we grabbed the float. I hauled the entire rope up hand-over-hand until the end broke the surface. I checked the whole length for kelp, for debris, for any innocent explanation I could write down. There was nothing. Just the bare wet rope and the clip at the end, swinging and dripping. "I'm going back to the boat," I said. My voice came out flat in a way I didn't fully control. "Right now. This is done." He looked at the rope in my hand. He was doing the cheek-chewing thing. "One more," he said. "Just the one. I'll stay in the upper canopy, ten meters absolute max, won't go past the first line of holdfasts. One clear angle for the camera and then we bail. You hold the float and watch me the whole time. If you lose me for five seconds, I come up." He said it the way he said everything he'd already decided, like the asking was a formality, like the outcome was settled and the conversation was just filling in the paperwork around it. There's a particular helplessness to trying to stop someone like that. It's like grabbing smoke. "Ten meters," I said. "Nothing deeper. You stay in my sightline the entire dive." "Ten meters," he said. "I'll be right back." He took three slow breaths, duck-dived, and leveled out in the upper canopy at about eight meters. I hung at the surface with my face in and watched him move. The GoPro's red light blinked above his right eye. He moved parallel to the hull, weaving between stalks, turning his head for the camera. Kelp blades swept across his suit. The light up there was golden and clean, the best of it. A school of white sea bass materialized from the direction of deeper water, thick-bodied and pale-striped, slow and unhurried, moving through the upper canopy at Tom's depth. Six or seven of them spreading out loosely as they passed him. Tom turned and followed their direction for a few meters, pulled along by curiosity the way you walk alongside something interesting for a few steps before you remember where you were going. He stayed at eight meters. Still in clean light. Still in my sightline. The sea bass snapped upward. All of them at once, in one coordinated burst, the whole school compressing into a tight column and shooting toward the surface in under a second, breaking apart around me as I floated. Silver pieces of them scattered through the light and were gone. The pale shape came up from the lower zone faster than any of the other times I'd seen it move. It crossed the fish line in a second and it went straight for Tom. It went around his lower legs first, one coil catching his calves and wrapping tight, the body's momentum carrying the rest of it around in a single fluid motion. A second loop came up around his thighs and the ridges along its sides, which had seemed passive when I'd seen them from a distance, were flattened wide and pressing into his suit. Tom's arms flung out wide by instinct. His fins kicked once, hard, a single explosive reflex that helped nothing, and a gout of air escaped from around his hood from the force of the compression. Both coils tightened around the movement. His body went rigid. I was over the float rail and pulling down the rope before I'd finished processing it. The water hit me hard, cold down the back of my neck, the shock of an uncontrolled entry. I got both hands on the rope and kicked and pulled together. He was at nine meters. On a normal dive, nine meters is a casual stop. With something around your chest and no air in your lungs, nine meters is its own kind of deep. The creature was larger up close than distance had made it. Its body across Tom's chest was as wide around as my own torso, dull off-white, with faint irregular patterning under the surface, shadows of structures pressing outward from inside, moving. The ridges along its sides rippled in slow, independent waves, and where they pressed into Tom's suit the neoprene deformed around them, small indentations appearing and releasing in a slow, steady rhythm. Tom's face behind his mask was dark red. Eyes wide and fixed on nothing specific. Mouth strained hard against the mask skirt. A coil had come up across one shoulder and along the side of his jaw and was still shifting, still adjusting, the way an animal rearranges its grip when it hasn't quite found the position it wants. I grabbed the coil across his chest with my left hand and drove the knife in with my right. The outer layer gave after a moment of resistance and I felt the density underneath, hard and cartilaginous, nothing like what I expected, and I had to lean my bodyweight into the handle to push through it. Dark fluid came out of the cut in a slow billowing cloud, almost black in the dim water. The section of the creature I'd cut convulsed. The whole length of it flexed in one long shuddering wave, a full-body response rather than a directed one, and the pressure change in the water around us hit my eardrums like a door slamming in a sealed room. Kelp blades around us snapped hard sideways, several of them whipping across my mask. A stalk edge caught the corner of my mouth through the mask seal. I tasted blood and salt together. The coil across Tom's chest loosened half an inch. I got my fingers under the ridge structure and pulled, trying to work it wider. The creature responded by releasing his chest and re-coiling higher, across his collarbone, up along the side of his neck, tightening there instead. Tom's head was forced sideways at an angle that looked wrong. I went for the lower coil next, the one across his thighs, and drove the knife in. The blade found something dense almost immediately, ground against it, slipped sideways. I changed the angle and pushed and it found a gap between two ridges and went deeper. I had maybe ten seconds of useful oxygen left. Maybe less. Some part of me was running that math in the background without my permission and the answer it kept coming up with was bad. The creature torqued hard. I was still holding the rope with my left hand and I had Tom with my right arm and the torque turned all three of us sideways in the water, my sense of vertical briefly unreliable. A section near the creature's far end, whatever end that was, flared outward. The ridges there spread wide and flat, and underneath them a circular aperture appeared, opening once and closing, opening again. The vibration moved through the water and into my chest. I've tried to describe this to the few people I've told the full version to, and I always land on the same inadequate phrases. Felt it in the sternum before I heard it. Low frequency, the kind below normal hearing that you register as pressure before you register it as sound at all. It moved through the water and through my suit and into my ribs and jaw simultaneously, a single sustained pulse. Something in me answered it that had nothing to do with reasoning or training. A vocabulary older than any of that, responding with one word: away. My lungs had been past their comfortable window for a while. My throat was doing the involuntary flexing that means your body is starting to override your decisions. I drove the knife at the lower coil one more time, got it partway through something hard, felt the blade grind and slip. I adjusted and pushed and the blade caught. Tom's body had gone wrong in my arms in a way I recognized from pool drills. The specific deadweight of someone who has stopped holding themselves up. I'd practiced unconscious-diver rescues on a mat in La Jolla with an instructor timing me. I knew what that shift felt like when it moved into someone. The coil on his neck shifted, still adjusting, still seeking the position it wanted. It caught his mask strap in the movement. For a moment the strap held, pulling the mask sideways against the pressure, and then the strap gave and the mask spun free and tumbled upward past my shoulder. His face was bare in the water. I looked at it for one second. Eyes open, lids too relaxed. Lips slightly apart. Small dark streaks of blood at the corner of his mouth where a ridge had found the skin at his cheek. His hand, which had been moving against the coil, dropped. I know what that weight moving into a person feels like. We drilled it until it was a reflex to recognize it. I recognized it. I let go. I grabbed the rope with both hands and kicked toward the light. Hard, continuous kicks, everything I had left. Something brushed my fin during the ascent, a brief pressure along the blade, and then released. I kept kicking. The canopy blurred past. The empty band. The busy zone. The light changed from gray-green to gold to the bright silver-white of the surface layer. I came out of the water coughing and couldn't stop. My vision grayed at the edges for a second and came back. My hands shook on the float in a way I couldn't control. The boat was there. The captain was at the rail, leaning over. "Where's your buddy? I don't see your buddy." I couldn't answer yet. I was still coughing, still getting air back. "Diver under!" I finally managed. It came out wrong, too high. "He's under. He's not coming up. " The captain hit the air horn three times and started clearing the other divers, tank divers who'd been working a different part of the site on the same boat, off the water. Someone threw a life ring from the deck. It splashed about ten feet to my left and drifted away. I put my face back in the water and looked. Eight meters of visibility through the upper canopy. No Tom. No pale shape. The float line hung loose and swaying in the surge. The Coast Guard came in under two hours. A second vessel arrived with sonar equipment not long after. They marked our position with a buoy and ran overlapping passes through the bed. The ROV went in on the second day and came back with footage of kelp and ledge and kelp and one of Tom's fins sitting on a rocky shelf at twenty-six meters. Not the fin I'd felt along my foot during the ascent. That one they didn't find. Tom's GoPro was on his head when the creature wrapped around his face. I'd seen the red indicator light through the water. They didn't find that either. My statement to the incident officer was given in a metal chair in the harbor patrol office around four in the afternoon, still in my half-peeled wetsuit with someone's fleece thrown over my shoulders. The officer was maybe fifty, tan and tired, a clipboard on his knee and a cup of coffee going cold on the desk beside him. He asked about our depth profile, our buddy protocol, our surface intervals, whether Tom had shown any signs of hypoxia on previous dives. Then I told him what I'd actually seen. I described the shape. The length, the color, the way it moved in sections. I described the ridges and the aperture and the vibration and the coils. I described the dark fluid from the cut. I told him about the float line being pulled from below with that steady, testing pressure, the bare rope when I hauled it up. He wrote as I talked. The longer he wrote, the more I could feel the mental classification changing, the word "compromised" settling into his assessment like a fact. "Long and pale," he repeated carefully. "No fins visible." "Correct." "Ridges along the sides. Wrapped around your buddy." "That's right." He tapped his pen on the clipboard. "I've been running incident reports on this coast for almost twenty years," he said. "I know the local fauna. Sixgill sharks on rare occasion, sperm whales, harbor seals, bat rays. Nothing in the regional database describes what you're telling me." "I know what I saw," I said. "I believe you experienced something," he said, with the tone of someone who had just made a careful distinction. He wrote in neat block print: reported unknown animal, disorientation artifact cannot be ruled out, consistent with hypoxic cognitive effects. I could read his handwriting from where I was sitting. The news story ran the next morning. Local freediver missing. Tom's social media photo, mask on his forehead and wide grin, under a headline about breath-hold diving dangers. Subhead about shallow water blackout and the importance of trained buddies. They called me his "training partner" and said I "attempted a rescue but was forced to surface." Nothing I'd described in my statement appeared anywhere in the article. The captain didn't return to that kelp bed for the rest of the season. I know because I checked his charter calendar and asked around quietly. He ran other sites and talked up other reefs, and when anyone in his circle asked about the big bed he'd say conditions weren't right that week. He never elaborated. The online freediving community cycled through the story the way they cycle through all of them. People said he seemed so careful. They said you never know. They shared links to blackout statistics and tagged training reminders. Cautionary framing. No cruelty in it. Just the vocabulary available when the actual explanation isn't one that fits in a safety brief. I didn't correct anyone. The conversation that would have followed would have cost more than I had left. Three weeks after the incident, a private message from a diver I barely knew. We'd been in the same regional group chat for about a year and traded maybe a dozen messages total. "Hey," it started. "Sorry about your friend. Didn't know him but followed his posts." A pause in the text where you could feel him working out how much to say. "I was at a different bed, different site, up the coast a ways, maybe two weeks before your thing happened. We had what you described. The fish line. Hard boundary, same kind. Below eighteen for us. My buddy said thermocline. I don't know what it was. We bailed after an hour in. Gut said to go." I asked if anything had pulled their float line. "No," he wrote. "But we lost an anchor weight. Clipped to the end of the rope when we put it in, just gone when we hauled it up. Could've been current. Probably was." I asked if anyone had gone below the fish line. A longer pause this time. "My buddy dropped to twenty-two on one pass," he wrote. "Came up faster than planned. Said it felt like being watched. He's not a dramatic person." Another pause. "We don't go back to that spot." I thanked him and set my phone face-down on the table and sat in the dark kitchen for a long time. The refrigerator compressor in my apartment runs at a low, steady hum. I've lived with this fridge for four years and I know exactly what it sounds like. For about two weeks after the dive I was getting up at two or three in the morning and standing in the kitchen, just making sure. Confirming that the sound I was hearing was the machine and not something else. One night around the third week I unplugged it and stood in the silence and listened and confirmed that when the machine stopped, the sound stopped. It did. The fridge was the fridge. I still heard the other thing anyway, for weeks after that. Lower and slower. Not in my ears. In my chest, against my ribs, steady and patient, the way something sounds when it's running at rest and not in any particular hurry. There's not a clean ending to this. I could write out a list: always stay on the line, always have a buddy, always respect your depth limits. All of that is true and you should do all of it and we did all of it and Tom is still down there somewhere in that forest. What I can tell you is what to watch for. Pay attention to what the fish are doing at different depths. They know the neighborhood better than you do and have been learning it longer. If you cross a line in the water where every living thing, bait fish and bass and crabs and flatfish together, has made the same collective decision about a specific depth, and the line is consistent and sharp, pay attention to that. Thermoclines don't work that way. They don't scare every species to the same exact depth with that kind of precision. If your float line gets pulled from below with a steady, testing tension that builds slowly and releases when you grab it, pull the whole rope up and look at what's on the end. If nothing is on the end, you go. You don't pack up neatly. You don't finish the conversation. You go the way the fish went. And if somewhere near the boundary of where you have to breathe, you feel a low vibration moving through the water and into your chest with no mechanical source you can locate, come up. Right then. Don't wait to understand it. Some things have figured out where the ceiling is. They learn how deep you can go and how long you can stay there, and they wait at the line between your world and theirs, patient, testing the rope to see what you'll do when it moves. I let go of him. I know why I did it and I know the math was right and I know that holding on longer would have made two bodies instead of one. Knowing all of that doesn't change the weight. It just tells you where the weight comes from. I check the charter calendars for that stretch of coast sometimes. I'm not sure what I'm looking for. Another report, maybe. Someone else who pulled up a bare rope in good conditions and made the mistake of thinking that was the strange part. I still get in the water. Pools, sandy bottoms, places where you can see everything from the surface. Sometimes I put my face in at the edge of a kelp bed and look down into the canopy, and something in me that predates my training says no, and I get out of the water. I don't argue with it anymore. I don't try to name what it is I'm listening for. That's the part I've learned. submitted by /u/pentyworth223 to r/TheDarkArchive [link] [comments]

Hi everyone!! I’m way too excited this subreddit exists!! A whole little corner of the internet dedicated to hooded eyes 😍 Why am I just finding this now? Anyways—I need help with lash clusters because every time I try to figure them out my brain just shuts off. There are wayyy too many options (styles, curls, lengths??) and I feel like I understand less the more I look into it. I usually keep my everyday look pretty natural, so I’m just looking for something that opens up my eyes and makes them pop a little without looking like I’m doing the most but at the same time I would love some options for when I do want to go all out like when I have an event or just want to do it up a little extra Also…clear bond vs black bond?? Invisible band vs black band?? My initial thought was clear/invisible bc I do want to stay more natural looking but I’m also a total newb to this and I genuinely cannot decide. Any advice or recs would be amazing—thank you everyone in advance 💛 submitted by /u/Low_Landscape4777 to r/HoodedEyes [link] [comments]

Babes who do their own cluster lashes, how long does it take you to do them? I’ve been doing my own clusters (bond and seal) for nearly a year now, and cannot seem to do a set in less than 45 mins 😭 I either use a lash map or use the pre sized sets, so it’s not like I’m wasting time picking lengths or anything. Thankfully a set lasts me a full week, but it’s still frustrating. I do have hooded eyes, but don’t have placement issues, so it’s not that either. I see ads for clusters on FB saying ‘do your lashes in under 10 mins!’ - Are they dead ass lying, or am I just super slow?? 😅 submitted by /u/Puzzleheaded-West356 to r/lashextensions [link] [comments]

I’ve been experimenting with cluster lashes and noticed the mapping makes a huge difference depending on eye shape. For hooded eyes I found shorter inner clusters and gradually longer outer ones (10/12/14) gives the most natural lift without looking heavy. Curious what mapping others use because some styles like kitten mapping seem to droop my eyes a bit. submitted by /u/theonesami to r/lashextensions [link] [comments]

Part 3 Someone noticed it before I did because I was still stuck on the horn in my bones. We’d been sitting on the mats in the cafeteria, breathing through that aftershock quiet, trying to pretend the walls weren’t listening. Mr. Haskins had his back to the barricaded doors, yardstick across his knees like it was a rifle. Tyler kept rubbing his hands on his jeans like he couldn’t get something off. Jaden paced in a tight loop and kept stopping at the same ketchup-colored scuff on the floor like his brain needed a landmark. Eli sat cross-legged, eyes down, humming under his breath in a tone that didn’t match any song I knew. Mia hadn’t moved much since the stairwell. She’d been folded into herself, hoodie pulled tight, her shoulder turned away from everyone. Nina stayed next to her, one arm around her back, doing that steadying thing where you squeeze without looking like you’re squeezing. Then Nina froze. It wasn’t dramatic. It was the kind of freeze you see in a grocery store aisle when someone realizes their kid isn’t next to them anymore. Nina leaned closer to Mia and said, very quietly, “Mia. Can you lift your sleeve?” Mia didn’t answer. She didn’t look up. Her fingers kept worrying at the hem of her hoodie like she was trying to pick a thread out. Nina tried again, voice still low but tighter now. “Mia. Your shoulder. Let me see it.” Mia shook her head once. Small. Refusal without words. Tyler had been watching from the other mat. He sat up. “What’s wrong with her shoulder?” “Nothing,” Mia whispered. The word sounded scraped. Nina swallowed. “Mia, you’re shaking.” “I’m cold,” Mia said. It didn’t match the sweat on her hairline. Mr. Haskins lifted his head. “Mia,” he said, gentle and exhausted. “We need to check you. If you’re hurt, we need to know.” Mia’s hands clenched into fists in her lap. Her breathing got fast. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t touch it.” Jaden stopped pacing. “Touch what?” Eli’s humming shifted a half-step, like he was adjusting to a frequency in the room. Nina’s fingers moved to the edge of Mia’s hoodie sleeve anyway, slow, like she was approaching a skittish animal. “I’m not trying to scare you,” Nina whispered. “I just need to see if it’s… if it’s worse.” Mia jerked back so hard she hit the wall behind her. The movement made the hoodie pull tight across her shoulder and for a second the fabric looked wrong. Not wrinkled. Not stretched. Wrong like it had a shape underneath that wasn’t her body. Tyler’s eyes narrowed. “Hold up.” Mia looked at him, and I saw her left eye catch the dim cafeteria light. It didn’t reflect like an eye. It had a sheen, thin and oily, like someone had breathed on glass and smeared it with a thumb. A film that made the pupil look deeper than it should, almost wet-black, like the hole went somewhere. Nina saw it too. Her face went pale fast. “Mia…” Mia’s jaw tightened. “Stop.” Jaden took one step closer, then another, then stopped like he remembered we were all trying to keep our movements small. “Your eye,” he whispered. “Mia, your eye—” Mia flinched like the word itself hit her. Her hand flew up to her face, covering the left side. Mr. Haskins pushed himself up, slow. “Nobody crowd her,” he said. Then, to Mia, softer: “Look at me. Just look at me for a second.” Mia’s shoulders started shaking, like she was trying to hold something inside and it kept pushing. Nina reached again, fingers hovering, and Mia slapped her hand away. It wasn’t hard. It wasn’t meant to hurt. It still made Nina gasp and pull back like she’d been burned. Tyler’s voice came out sharp. “Dude, what the hell.” Mia stood up in one sudden motion that made all of us jolt. The mats squeaked. Somebody’s empty water bottle rolled and clinked softly against a chair leg, and the sound felt like a flare in the dark. The hoodie rode up at her waist and the fabric over her shoulder didn’t move with her the way cloth should. It tugged like skin. My stomach turned. Mia backed away from us toward the stage, breathing through her teeth. Her hand stayed on her face. The other tugged at her hoodie sleeve. “Take it off,” Nina pleaded. “Mia, just take it off, okay? Just—just take it off and we’ll—” Mia yanked at the hoodie collar. The fabric didn’t lift. It pulled her skin with it. A tiny wet sound happened at her collarbone, like tape coming off something that shouldn’t have tape. Mia made a noise I’d never heard from her before. A tight, animal sound. She stumbled back, eyes wide, panicked. Her left hand clawed at the hoodie like she could rip it off and get her body back. The hoodie didn’t tear. It held. It was fused. Tyler whispered, “Oh my God.” Jaden’s face twisted. “That’s stuck to her.” Mr. Haskins took one slow step forward. “Mia,” he said. “Don’t pull. You’ll—” Mia pulled again, harder. This time the fabric lifted half an inch and her skin lifted with it like it had become one surface. A thin line of blood welled along the seam of cloth and flesh. Nina cried out, hands to her mouth. “Stop! Please!” Mia stared at the blood like it wasn’t hers. Then her left eye—uncovered now—flicked upward for the smallest second. Her whole body stiffened like a string pulled tight. She inhaled fast, sharp, like a hiccup. I saw her expression change. Not a movie flip. More like someone hearing a voice through a wall and realizing it’s calling their name. Mia’s head turned toward the cafeteria windows we’d papered over. Her feet shifted, angled. Mr. Haskins lunged forward, not running, but moving fast enough that the mats squeaked again. “Mia,” he snapped. “Eyes down. Right now.” Mia’s gaze dropped, but she looked furious, like he’d interrupted a sentence she needed to finish. Her left eye shimmered. She blinked once and the film shifted like oil on water. She whispered, barely audible, “It knows.” Eli’s humming stopped. The cafeteria felt colder for a second. Not temperature. Pressure. Like the air got heavier and decided to sit on our shoulders. Mr. Haskins went still. “Mia, stay with us,” he said. His voice shook, just a little. “Look at the floor. Look at Nina’s shoes. Look at anything down here.” Mia looked down. She looked at Nina’s shoes. Then she looked past them toward the kitchen doors, toward the hallway, toward anywhere that wasn’t us. Her shoulders rolled like she was shrugging off a weight she’d been carrying. “I can’t,” she whispered. And then she bolted. She sprinted across the cafeteria, shoes slapping the linoleum loud enough that my skin crawled. She hit the stage stairs, took them two at a time. The stage curtains swayed as she shoved through the gap behind them. Nina screamed her name and took off after her. Tyler grabbed Nina’s wrist. “Don’t just run—” Nina yanked free and kept going, eyes shiny, face set like she’d made a decision she couldn’t unmake. Jaden swore and ran too. I moved without thinking because if I didn’t, I’d be stuck in that moment forever. Mr. Haskins shouted, “Stay together!” and followed, yardstick in hand. Eli was last, drifting after us like he’d been waiting for the scene to start. We hit the stage. Backstage smelled like dust and old paint and that weird musty theater scent, like velvet seats and sweat. There were prop racks. A rolling ladder. A stack of folding chairs with a ripped “Property of Westbrook” sticker on one leg. A plastic bin labeled WINTER CONCERT LIGHTS in Sharpie, half-open like someone had been rummaging. Mia’s footsteps echoed ahead, fast and uneven. Nina shouted, “Mia, stop!” Mia didn’t. She made a hard turn into the backstage corridor and disappeared. We followed. The corridor felt narrower than it should. The walls were closer. I brushed a bulletin board and it felt damp, like the cork was sweating. A couple paper flyers were sagging, their tape loosened, corners curling like they’d been steamed. We burst into the side hallway. This hall was supposed to run parallel to the gym. It had trophy banners on one wall and those faded posters about school spirit and attendance on the other. It looked like that. It also looked like the building had grown tired of pretending. Something pale and fleshy bulged along the baseboards. At first my brain tried to file it as spilled insulation or some gross mold. Then I saw it pulse. The substance wasn’t just on one patch of wall. It had spread in branching streaks like veins, creeping up the cinderblock and around the edges of the posters. It looked wet but not dripping. It had a texture like raw chicken skin left out too long, stretched thin, slightly translucent. In a couple places it had grown over the poster edges and the paper underneath looked… softened, like it was being dissolved. Tyler skidded to a stop and almost slipped. “What is that.” Mr. Haskins held up a hand, forcing us to slow. “Don’t touch it.” Jaden breathed, fast. “That wasn’t here yesterday.” Nina didn’t stop. She ran straight down the hall after Mia, like her brain had decided danger didn’t count if you loved the person running from you. “Mia!” she yelled again. Mia’s footsteps were still ahead, still moving. We chased. The flesh-stuff thickened as we went. It climbed higher up the walls and started to lace across the ceiling in thin strands. It looked like someone had brushed a wet, translucent paste up there. Every few feet it gathered into thicker nodules, swollen like something underneath was trying to push through. One of the nodules twitched, and I realized it wasn’t just pulsing. It was shifting position, slow, like it was adjusting itself to sound. I kept my eyes level and low like a habit. I couldn’t help seeing it. We rounded a corner by the gym entrance. The gym doors were open a crack. The rubber smell leaked out, strong. The gym lights were dead, but the far wall windows let in that same wrong white daylight. It painted the floor in long rectangles. The rectangles didn’t line up cleanly with the window frames. They looked skewed, like somebody had placed them there from a slightly different angle than reality. Mia cut across the gym without hesitation. Nina chased her into the open space. Mr. Haskins’s jaw clenched. “Gym is exposure,” he muttered, more to himself than to us. Tyler spat, “We’re already exposed.” We ran in. The sound of our shoes changed immediately, louder in the open gym. The echoes piled up and bounced. It made me feel like we were announcing ourselves with every step. Somewhere near the bleachers, a basketball rolled a few inches on its own—just a soft rubber scrape—and my brain tried to make it a sign until I forced it back down. Mia was halfway to the opposite exit, hood half-off her head now, hair stuck to her face. Her left eye flashed wet-black as she glanced back at us for a fraction of a second. Fear was on her face. Something else was there too. A kind of urgency that didn’t look like panic. Like she was trying to get somewhere before something else got there first. She hit the far exit doors and shoved through. Nina followed so close she nearly collided with her. “Mia, please—” Mia didn’t even slow. She sprinted into the hall beyond. We hit the doors in a cluster and spilled out after them. The hall on the other side of the gym should have connected back toward the cafeteria via a short corridor. It didn’t. The corridor stretched longer than it should, the same way it had the first time we went for the water fountain. The distance to the intersection looked like someone had pulled it like taffy. The lockers along the wall had dents that weren’t school dents anymore. They looked pressed in with careful force, like a thumbprint scaled up. Tyler whispered, “That’s not right.” Mr. Haskins said through his teeth, “Keep moving.” We ran. The walls along this corridor had more of the flesh-growth. It had climbed shoulder height now. It bulged around locker seams and oozed through the little vents like the building had been stuffed with meat. In one spot it had grown around a lock and the lock looked swallowed, half-melted into it. The smell hit me a second later—warm, organic, like a butcher shop dumpster with bleach thrown on it. It made my throat tighten. Mia’s footsteps were ahead, then suddenly stopped. Nina almost ran into her. Mia stood at the intersection, breathing hard, staring down the main hallway that led toward the front of the school. The front hallway had windows. Big ones. Papered or not, it was still the front. Mia’s head tilted as if she was listening. Nina stepped closer, hands out. “Mia. Talk to me. Please. Look at me.” Mia didn’t look at Nina. She stared at the floor where the corner met the wall like she couldn’t risk letting her gaze drift. Her voice was thin. “I have to go.” “Go where?” Nina whispered. Mia swallowed. Her hoodie collar moved weirdly with her throat like the cloth was part of her now. “Away,” she said. Jaden ran a hand through his hair so hard it stood up. “You can’t just run into the front hall. That’s where the windows are.” Mia’s left eye flicked to him. The oily film caught the light and shimmered. “I didn’t choose this,” she said, and her voice cracked on it. Mr. Haskins stepped forward carefully. “Mia,” he said. “We’re not letting you go alone into a danger zone. If you’re compromised, we handle it together. If you’re not, we still handle it together.” Mia stared at him, and for a second she looked like she was about to say something normal, something human, something like sorry. Instead her lips parted and she whispered, “Compromised.” She said it softly, like she was trying it out. Eli, behind us, murmured, “Marked. Marked turns into guided.” Tyler snapped, “Can you shut your mouth for once.” Eli shrugged, eyes down. “You can dislike it. It still happens.” Mia’s breathing sped up. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second like she was fighting something inside her head. When she opened them again, her left eye looked darker, the sheen thicker. Nina’s voice went small. “Mia, did you look… outside?” Mia flinched. “No.” Nina swallowed. “Did you look up at all? Ceiling? Windows? Anything?” Mia’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t. It touched me. I didn’t ask it to touch me.” Mr. Haskins said, very quietly, “Where did it touch you.” Mia lifted her sleeve with shaking fingers. The hoodie didn’t move like fabric. It slid like skin being peeled. A patch of the fleshy substance clung to her shoulder under the fused cloth, darker than the wall growth. It looked like a bruise made of meat. The edges of it weren’t clean. They feathered out like it was spreading under her skin. Jaden gagged. He turned his head fast and swallowed hard. Nina made a soft sob, like her throat couldn’t handle it. Mr. Haskins’s eyes got wet and he blinked hard. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. We can still manage this. We can—” Mia took a step back. Then another. Her gaze snapped toward the front hallway again, like something tugged her attention. Nina moved with her, trying to keep distance without losing her. “Mia, please don’t run again. Just tell us what you’re hearing.” Mia’s voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s… loud.” “Who is?” Tyler asked, voice rough. Mia blinked. The film shifted. “The ones that say… fear not.” Hearing those words again in her mouth made my stomach dip. Mr. Haskins’s face tightened. “You don’t listen to them,” he said. “You listen to us.” Mia’s right eye flicked toward him. Her left stayed on the hallway like it was magnetized. Her voice trembled. “It says I’m safer moving.” Nina shook her head hard. “It’s lying.” Mia’s shoulders trembled. “Maybe.” Then her head snapped toward the ceiling above the intersection. Not a full look up. Just a tilt. Like a dog hearing a click. My ears pinched. That pressure behind the eardrums hit again, hard enough that I swallowed reflexively. The flesh along the wall near the corner pulsed. Tyler saw it and said, “Back up.” We all backed up without arguing. Mia didn’t. She stood frozen, head still tilted, like she was caught in a thought. Mr. Haskins grabbed her wrist. Mia jerked as if shocked. Her gaze snapped down. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed. Mr. Haskins loosened his grip but didn’t let go. “I’m not leaving you,” he said. “I’m not.” Mia stared at his hand on her wrist like she didn’t recognize what touch meant anymore. Then the flesh on the wall to our left made a wet sound. Not a drip. A stretch. Something inside it shifted. A bulge formed, pushing outward like a fist under skin. Jaden whispered, “What is that.” The bulge split along a seam. A thin tendril slid out, glossy, pale, and it moved like muscle, not like a plant. It didn’t thrash. It tested. It made tiny, searching movements like fingers learning the air. Mr. Haskins released Mia instantly and backed up. The tendril tasted the air. I know how insane that sounds, but it did. It waved, then angled toward us with intent, like it had found vibration. Eli whispered, almost admiring, “The building’s getting hands now.” Tyler grabbed Jaden by the shoulder and yanked him back. “Move!” We moved. Mia moved too—straight toward the front hall. Nina screamed her name and chased. Mr. Haskins cursed, a real adult curse that sounded like it hurt him to say. He ran after them. The tendril snapped out behind us. It hit the floor where my foot had been a second earlier, leaving a wet smear like snot and blood mixed. We sprinted into the front corridor. The air changed immediately. It smelled less like gym sweat and more like old carpet and office paper, like the administrative part of the building had its own stale breath. I caught a whiff of something familiar too—cheap vanilla air freshener from the front office, the kind that always made my head hurt during parent-teacher night. It was the smallest normal thing and it made me feel like crying. The windows at the far end were papered over, but the paper looked thinner here. More gaps. More places where light leaked in like needle points. Mia ran right down the center of the hall as if she couldn’t see the danger. Nina chased her, shouting, “Mia! Stop! Please stop!” Mia didn’t stop. The flesh-growth was here too. It had climbed the walls and begun to lace across the ceiling in thick ropes. A few strands dangled like something had drooled from above. One strand brushed the top of a “Visitor Sign In” poster and the paper puckered like it was reacting to moisture. We ran under it anyway because there was nowhere else. Behind us, I heard that wet stretch sound again, closer. The tendril was following. Tyler panted, “It’s behind us!” Mr. Haskins yelled, “Keep your eyes down! Keep moving!” That line sounded stupid and desperate and also like the only rule we had. Mia reached the front double doors that led to the main entrance and the lobby. She shoved them open. The lobby was bright. Not sun-bright. Bright like output again. The paper on the lobby windows had been ripped in places. Thin ribbons fluttered. Daylight, wrong and white, poured through the gaps and painted the floor in shapes that didn’t match the window frames. The light looked thick on the tiles, like it had weight, like stepping into it would change something about you. Mia skidded to a stop at the edge of the light like her body finally remembered what it was afraid of. Her shoulders rose and fell fast. Nina reached her and grabbed her arm. Mia yanked away, eyes wild. “Don’t,” she snapped, and her voice wasn’t just fear now. It had an edge like command. Mr. Haskins stopped a few feet back. He scanned the lobby fast, eyes low, taking in details without letting his gaze climb to the windows. There were bodies. Not close enough that I had to label them, but close enough I saw shoes and limbs and abandoned bags and one spilled cup from the front office coffee machine, still stained on the tile. I saw a lanyard with keys that didn’t look like it belonged to a student. I saw a stapler on the reception counter tipped on its side like someone had knocked it over while grabbing for something. The sight hit me anyway, like a punch to the chest. The school wasn’t just dangerous. It had already taken people. Tyler stumbled in behind me and whispered, “Jesus.” Eli drifted into the doorway last and paused like he was smelling the air for fun. “This is where it started spreading,” he murmured. Mia stood at the edge of the light. Her left eye shimmered. Her right eye was normal and terrified. The contrast made my stomach twist harder than any monster shape. Nina’s voice cracked. “Mia, come back. We can keep you in the cafeteria. We can watch you. We can—” Mia shook her head, fast. “It won’t stop in there.” Mr. Haskins said, low, “What won’t.” Mia swallowed and looked at the floor between her shoes like the answer was written there. “The pulling,” she whispered. My skin went cold. “Pulling?” Mia nodded once, stiff. “It wants me closer to the light.” Eli whispered, “Marked gets called.” Tyler snapped, “Shut up.” A new sound filled the lobby then, faint at first. Clicking. Not the ruler-bugs. This was heavier. Slower. Like knuckles cracking in sequence. The sound came from the hallway behind us. Mr. Haskins tightened his grip on the yardstick. “Back,” he whispered. “Back to the cafeteria. Now.” We turned to retreat— —and the flesh-growth above the lobby doorway pulsed. A strand dropped, thick as a wrist, slick and pale, and it slapped onto the tile in front of Tyler with a wet thump. Tyler jumped back, swearing. The strand twitched. Then it reached. It moved like muscle. It curled toward his ankle. Tyler kicked at it reflexively. His shoe connected and the strand didn’t recoil like rubber. It flexed and tightened, like he’d just alerted it he was here. Jaden shouted, “Tyler!” Tyler stumbled backward and the strand snapped forward, fast, hooking around his lower leg. It tightened. Tyler’s face went instantly white. He grabbed at it with his hands, then hesitated like he remembered every warning about touch. It didn’t matter. The thing was already on him. Mr. Haskins lunged and swung the yardstick down on the strand. Metal hit flesh-matter with a wet clang. The strand spasmed but didn’t let go. Mr. Haskins hit it again, harder. The strand loosened for half a second and Tyler yanked his leg free, stumbling back so hard he fell on his ass. His jeans were smeared with that pale residue. It clung like mucus and didn’t slide off. It sat there, thick, like it was deciding whether to soak in. Tyler stared at his leg, breathing hard, like he couldn’t decide if he should scream or vomit. Nina grabbed Mia’s arm again. “We’re leaving. Now.” Mia didn’t move. She stood at the edge of the light, trembling. Her left eye flicked toward the torn paper on the window like it was magnetized. “Mia,” Mr. Haskins said, voice sharp now. “Move. We can’t stay here.” Mia whispered, barely audible, “It’s quieter here.” “That’s a lie,” Nina hissed, and tears ran down her face without slowing her. “You’re listening to a lie.” Mia’s lips parted. And then she did something that made my stomach drop through the floor. She stepped forward. Into the light. Nina screamed and grabbed her hoodie, trying to yank her back. The hoodie didn’t shift. It held like skin. Mia turned her head slowly and looked at Nina with that oily left eye shimmering like a puddle under streetlights. Her voice came out flat. “Fear not.” Nina froze like she’d been slapped. Mr. Haskins stiffened. “Mia,” he warned. Mia blinked and for a second her right eye looked like Mia again, horrified at what she’d just said. She whispered, “I didn’t mean—” The clicking sound behind us got closer. Something heavy moved in the hallway. Mr. Haskins snapped, “We are leaving. Mia, we are leaving right now.” Mia’s shoulders shook. She took one step back out of the light as if it burned. Nina exhaled like she’d been holding her breath for a year. Then the lobby lights—dead, but still there—made a soft pop sound. Every emergency exit sign brightened. The white daylight at the windows flickered. I felt that pressure in my ears again and the metallic taste flooded my mouth like I’d bitten a penny. The clicking became a wet clicking, like joints moving with lubrication. From the hallway behind us, something slid into view. I didn’t look straight at its face. I saw it in pieces. A long limb. Another. A body that stayed low and then rose like it could decide its height. A surface that looked like it was made of the same flesh-stuff as the walls, but organized into structure. The strands on the ceiling above it seemed to tense as it passed, like they were attached to it by invisible thread. And at its front—one huge eye, glossy and black, reflecting the lobby light in a way that made it look like it held the whole room inside it. The Watcher. It moved into the lobby with slow certainty, like it owned the air. Jaden made a sound that was almost a sob. Tyler scrambled backward, smearing residue across the tile. Nina pulled Mia toward us, desperate. “Move!” Mia stared at the Watcher. Her left eye shimmered harder, like the film thickened. The Watcher stopped a few steps into the room and tilted its head. Not up. Sideways. Like it was listening to Mia. Then a voice came, not from its mouth—there still wasn’t one I could see—more like from the space around it, vibrating in the tile and in my teeth. “Fear not.” Mia whispered it back, quieter, like an echo. Mr. Haskins’s face broke for half a second, like he was watching a student get pulled into a current and he couldn’t reach. He shouted, “Mia, look down! Look at me!” Mia’s right eye flicked toward him. Her left stayed on the Watcher. Her voice trembled. “It says I can stop the pulling if I go with it.” Nina sobbed, “That’s not true.” The Watcher moved one step closer. The flesh-growth along the walls responded. Strands tightened. Nodules pulsed like they were syncing to its movement. The strand that had grabbed Tyler lifted off the floor and coiled back up the wall as if called. Mr. Haskins grabbed Mia’s wrist with both hands and yanked her toward the hallway back to the cafeteria. Mia resisted. Not fully. Not violently. Like someone half-asleep resisting being woken. Tyler shouted, “Run! Run now!” The Watcher’s huge eye rotated slightly, tracking. A strand of wall-flesh snapped loose and lashed across the doorway behind us, sealing the corridor we’d come from with a thick, pale rope that stuck to both sides of the frame. We had the cafeteria direction behind us, blocked now. We had the front doors… which led outside, into the light. My stomach dropped. Mr. Haskins looked left, right, down, like he was doing impossible math. The Watcher moved again, closer. Mia’s left eye shimmered like oil disturbed by a finger. Nina clutched Mia’s arm so tight her knuckles went white. “We go anywhere else,” Nina gasped. “We go anywhere, just not outside.” Eli spoke from behind us, calm as if he was discussing a homework assignment. “Outside is the only exit that isn’t grown shut.” Mr. Haskins turned on him, voice raw. “Shut up.” Eli didn’t flinch. “It wants you to choose,” he said softly. “Inside, it grows. Outside, you look.” The Watcher’s voice came again, closer now, vibrating through the tile. “Fear not.” Mia whispered, “It forgives.” Mr. Haskins shook her hard, just once, not to hurt her, to anchor her. “Mia,” he barked. “You are here. You are in this room. You are with us. Do you hear me?” Mia blinked. Her right eye focused. For a second it was her again, fully, and she looked terrified and ashamed all at once. Her lips trembled. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Nina made a broken sound and tried to pull her into a hug, but the fused hoodie made the motion awkward, like hugging someone wrapped in tape. The Watcher moved. Fast this time. It slid forward with a glide that ate distance. Mr. Haskins shoved Nina and Mia behind him and raised the yardstick like a spear. The Watcher’s long hand extended, fingers jointed like tools, reaching for Mr. Haskins’s head. I saw his face in that moment—fear, yes, but also something else, a decision. He wasn’t going to step aside. He wasn’t going to bargain. He swung the yardstick straight at the Watcher’s eye. Metal flashed. The yardstick hit something invisible a foot from the eye and stopped dead, like it struck a wall of thick glass. The recoil jolted Mr. Haskins’s arms. The Watcher didn’t flinch. Its hand closed around the yardstick and bent it with slow pressure, folding metal like a cheap spoon. Mr. Haskins’s eyes went wide. Tyler grabbed my shoulder and yanked me backward. “Ben—move!” My heel caught on a tile seam and I nearly went down. Nina screamed. Jaden shouted something useless. Mia made a thin strangled sound. The Watcher’s other hand reached past the yardstick, past Mr. Haskins, toward Mia. Toward that oily left eye. Toward the mark. And the flesh-growth on the walls answered like it had been waiting. Strands snapped loose from the ceiling and whipped down across the lobby in a net of pale tendrils, sealing off the open space, blocking the hallway, closing around us like the building was making a fist. Mr. Haskins shouted, “Down!” We dropped instinctively, faces to tile, eyes on floor. A tendril slapped the ground inches from my head. I felt droplets hit my cheek, warm and sticky. They smelled like salt and copper. Nina was sobbing somewhere close, trying to keep quiet and failing. Mia whispered, frantic and small again, “I don’t want this.” The Watcher’s voice came down through the net of flesh and dust. “Fear not.” Something wrapped around my ankle. It tightened. Hard. I grabbed the tile seam with my fingers as the pull started, my whole body jerking forward. My nails tore. Pain flared. Tyler grabbed my wrist, yanking back, teeth bared, face twisted with effort. Jaden grabbed Tyler’s belt and pulled. We became a chain on the floor, sweaty hands slipping, shoes squeaking as we braced. The tendril around my ankle tugged again, stronger, dragging me toward the lobby light. The paper on the windows fluttered like something outside had breathed on it. Mr. Haskins screamed Mia’s name, like the sound could pin her in place. Nina screamed too. And in the middle of it, as my body slid across tile and the tendril tightened like a winch, Mia’s voice cut through—clearer than it had been all day, panicked and human. “Ben,” she yelled, “don’t let it make you look—” The tendril yanked hard. My head snapped up despite myself. My eyes lifted toward the lobby windows. Toward the torn paper. Toward the white, flickering daylight beyond. And in that split second, before I could slam my gaze down again, I saw something move on the other side of the glass—something vast, bright, and layered with too many shapes to hold in one glance. It didn’t look like a person. It didn’t look like an animal. It looked like a presence wearing geometry, stacked on itself, bright enough that my brain tried to flinch away from the idea of it. My stomach dropped out. The world tilted. The Watcher’s huge eye reflected it all. And the pulling on my ankle turned into a full-body haul, like the building finally got purchase. Tyler’s grip on my wrist slipped. My fingers tore free of the tile seam. I opened my mouth to scream and only air came out as I got dragged across the lobby floor, straight toward the light, straight toward the torn paper, straight toward whatever was waiting on the other side. submitted by /u/pentyworth223 to r/horrorstories [link] [comments]

Part 2 The horn didn’t fade the way a siren fades. It held. It rolled through the air like something huge was exhaling right over the roof, and the cafeteria turned into a box of vibrating objects. The papers taped over the windows quivered. The trophies in the case rattled against their little metal stands. Even the gym mats under us trembled like we were lying on a drum. Mr. Haskins kept his head down, eyes on the floor, and still flinched like the sound had hands. The second blast hit a few minutes later. Longer. Lower. The kind of note you feel in your teeth. It made my stomach do that empty drop like an elevator stopping too hard. Jaden whispered, “Is that… outside?” Mr. Haskins didn’t answer right away. He was listening the way you listen to a parent arguing on the other side of a wall. Like the tone matters more than the words. “It’s above,” he finally said, voice rough. “And it wants us thinking about above.” Tyler sat with his back to the stage, eyes fixed on the floor. “So it’s bait.” Eli, sitting a little apart with his hood up, breathed out a quiet laugh that wasn’t funny. “Everything is bait.” Nina had Mia pulled in close. Mia’s breathing was shallow and fast like she was trying to sip air through a straw. Her hoodie was cinched so tight around that darkened spot on her shoulder that her knuckles were white. Mr. Haskins looked at the spot and then looked away like staring would make it worse. “Water,” he said softly. “Small sips. Then we decide.” “Decide what,” Tyler asked, and the edge in his voice made it obvious he’d been holding it down for hours and it kept slipping through. Mr. Haskins took a breath, slow, controlled. “How long we can keep this room ours.” “That’s the first floor,” Nina whispered. “The windows are… it’s a lot.” “It’s also the only place we’ve got mats, food, and a barricade,” Mr. Haskins said. “We’re not wandering.” Eli hummed under his breath again, a single note, steady like he was matching the building’s pulse. Jaden’s eyes kept flicking toward the kitchen doors, like he expected something to glide out, polite and calm, saying his name. Nobody moved for a while. The horn didn’t come again, but it left a pressure behind, like the air had been compressed and wasn’t done expanding. We sat there in the dim cafeteria, listening to the building settle. That’s when I noticed the smell. It was under everything at first. Under sweat. Under old food. Under the lemon cleaner that seemed fused into the school’s bones. It smelled like a wet Band-Aid. Like when you peel gauze off too late and it’s warm and sour. I thought it was my imagination. Then Tyler shifted and his face tightened. “You guys smell that?” Nina nodded without looking up. “Yeah.” Mr. Haskins sniffed once, cautious like even inhaling could be a mistake. His eyes moved toward the windows, then toward the ceiling, then toward the stage curtains. “Kitchen,” he said. We moved in a tight cluster. No one wanted to be the person crossing open floor alone. The cafeteria felt too wide, even with our barricades. I kept my eyes on the scuff marks and dried stains on the linoleum, on the little metal bolts in the table legs, on anything that wasn’t the windows. In the kitchen, the smell was stronger. It wasn’t coming from the sink. It wasn’t grease. It wasn’t the trash. It was coming from the wall. A section of painted cinderblock near the freezer door looked… wrong. The paint had bubbled outward like it had been heated from behind. Tiny cracks spidered across it, and in those cracks there was a damp shine, almost clear, like condensation, except it clung in strings instead of droplets. Jaden leaned in a fraction, then stopped himself like he’d been burned. “What is that.” Tyler’s voice went quiet, which meant he was scared. “Mold?” Mia made a small sound and pressed her fingers to her mouth. Eli stepped closer than any of us. He didn’t touch it. He just stood near it, head angled slightly, like he could hear it if he listened hard enough. “Skin,” he murmured. Mr. Haskins snapped, “Back.” Eli rocked back on his heels like he’d been told not to step on a wet floor. “It’s not a guess,” he said. Mr. Haskins stared at the wall, jaw clenched. “Nobody touches it.” We backed away, but the smell followed. It was in the air now, and once your brain caught it, it kept pulling at you like a loose thread. Back in the cafeteria, I noticed more. The trophy case glass had fogged in the bottom corners, as if the air near the floor was warmer than the air higher up. The tape on the window papers had started to peel at the edges in slow curls. The cafeteria doors had faint damp streaks down the middle, like something had leaned against them with a wet shoulder. It wasn’t the school getting dirty. It was the school getting… soft. Mr. Haskins gathered us back at the mats. He kept his voice low and even, like he was teaching a lesson with a gun pressed to his back. “Listen,” he said. “We’re going to treat the building like it’s changing. Because it is.” Tyler swallowed. “Like shifting halls?” “Like everything,” Mr. Haskins said. “We don’t assume a route is the same route. We don’t assume a door leads where it led yesterday. And we don’t assume surfaces are safe to lean on.” Nina nodded slowly. She looked like she hadn’t blinked enough in a week even though it’d been days. “So what do we do?” Mr. Haskins stared at the floor for a second, and I could see him making himself not fall apart. “We stay here,” he said. “We reinforce more. We map what we can without wandering. We keep watch. If we have to move, we move with a plan, not a panic.” Jaden’s laugh came out too sharp. “Map with what? Our dead phones?” Mr. Haskins didn’t take the bait. “Paper. Markers. Our eyes. We note landmarks that don’t change.” Eli murmured, “Landmarks are the first thing that changes.” Tyler snapped, “Dude, you ever shut up?” Eli smiled faintly. “You’ll miss me when I do.” Mr. Haskins’s voice hardened. “Eli. Enough.” Eli’s humming stopped. He stared at the floor, lips still moving like he was listening to a song we couldn’t hear. We spent the next chunk of time doing chores, because chores keep you from thinking about dying. Tyler and I added more tables to the cafeteria door barricade and wedged chair legs under the handles like crude braces. Jaden and Nina reorganized food in the kitchen into piles: stuff that would last, stuff that would go stale, stuff nobody wanted but would eat anyway if it came down to it. Mr. Haskins tore butcher paper into strips and taped the gaps in the window coverings again, overlapping layers. Mia sat on a mat, knees hugged, watching her shoulder like she expected it to open. Every once in a while, the building made a sound that didn’t fit. A slow pop like glue separating. A faint squelch like a shoe stepping in something wet, except nobody was moving. A soft click from above, like a ceiling tile shifting without permission. Each time, we froze. Each time, nothing came through. That was the torture part. The waiting that didn’t pay out. The fear that never got to finish. By mid-day, the cafeteria smelled like damp paper and human breath and that wet-Band-Aid stink that kept getting stronger. Mr. Haskins tried to ignore it until he couldn’t. He led us back into the kitchen and pointed with the yardstick. The wall patch had grown. Not by a foot. Not by some obvious horror-movie amount. By inches. The bubbled paint had split in two places, and underneath wasn’t cinderblock anymore. It was pale and slick, like the underside of a tongue. Veins of darker pink ran through it, faint as pencil lines. It pulsed once, subtle enough I almost convinced myself it was my eyes twitching. Tyler whispered, “No.” Jaden’s voice cracked. “That moved.” Mr. Haskins’s face went tight. “Nobody touches it,” he repeated, and this time it sounded like a prayer. Mia whispered, “It’s inside the walls.” Nina, eyes locked on the floor, said, “Or the walls are inside it.” Nobody had an answer for that. We backed out of the kitchen. And when we did, we found the first clear proof the structure was changing in a way we couldn’t control. The cafeteria doors. The double doors that led into the main hall were no longer sitting straight in their frame. They had sagged inward at the top, like the metal had softened. The gap along the side was uneven now, and the rubber seal at the bottom had bulged outward like a lip. Tyler grabbed the edge of a table and shoved it tighter against the doors, hard. The doors flexed slightly under pressure, then returned. Like pushing on a mattress. Tyler’s breathing sped up. “That’s not—doors don’t—” Mr. Haskins stepped closer, yardstick ready like he could fight a door. He crouched and looked at the bottom gap. Something wet gleamed there. A thin line of shine, like saliva. He leaned back quickly. “Okay,” he said, and his voice went thin. “Okay. We’re not using those doors unless we have to.” Jaden swallowed. “What if we have to.” Mr. Haskins stared at the floor like it was safer than looking at the truth. “Then we go out the kitchen service hall. Smaller. Less open. We can barricade behind us.” Eli whispered, “Smaller is easier to feed.” Mr. Haskins snapped, “Eli. Stop.” Eli’s mouth twitched. “I am stopping,” he murmured, and went quiet, which somehow made it worse. We tried to rest, because bodies don’t run forever. I dozed sitting up, head against the mat, and woke to Nina whispering my name. “Ben.” I opened my eyes and kept them low. Nina’s face was tight. “Listen,” she whispered. “Do you feel… warm?” I swallowed. “Like sick warm?” She shook her head. “Like the building. Like the floor.” I pressed my palm down to the linoleum. It was warmer than it should’ve been. Not sun-warmed. Under-warmed. Like heat coming up from below. Tyler noticed too. He sat up, face shiny with sweat. “Why is it hot,” he whispered. Mr. Haskins looked exhausted. “Because it’s alive,” Eli whispered, like he couldn’t help himself. Mr. Haskins didn’t argue. He just stared at the floor, and that silence was worse than any answer. That’s the moment I realized we weren’t just hiding in a school during a disaster. We were trapped inside something that had started to claim the shape of a school. Later, Mr. Haskins made us do something that felt insane and necessary at the same time. He took butcher paper and taped it to the cafeteria wall near the stage and wrote at the top in thick marker: RULES WE KNOW. It was blunt. It was human. It made my throat tighten. Under it, he wrote in plain block letters: DO NOT LOOK OUT WINDOWS. DO NOT LOOK UP. DO NOT ANSWER VOICES. STAY TOGETHER. MOVE QUIET. WATCH FOR MARKS. He capped the marker and looked at us like he expected someone to laugh. Nobody did. “Add,” he said. Tyler stared at the list, then said, “The halls stretch.” Mr. Haskins added: HALLS CHANGE. Nina swallowed. “The walls… grow.” Mr. Haskins hesitated, then wrote: SURFACES CHANGE. Jaden said, “Sound matters.” Mr. Haskins wrote: SOUND DRAWS ATTENTION. Mia, voice small, said, “They can… tag you.” Mr. Haskins added: TOUCH CAN MARK. Eli said nothing, but his eyes were on the list like he was reading something familiar. We were halfway through the day when Caleb’s absence finally stopped being a shock and started being a gap you had to step around. Like Seth. Like Olivia. Like there was a growing pile of missing that we didn’t have the energy to mourn properly. That’s when the new person broke. It wasn’t Eli. Eli had been breaking in slow motion since the first day. It was Mason. Mason had been quiet since the beginning. Sophomore, lanky, always looked like he was trying to fold himself smaller. He’d said maybe ten words in two days, and most of them had been questions he didn’t finish. He’d been sitting near the stage with his back against the wall, head down, hands clasped so tight his fingers were pale. I noticed him because his breathing changed. It went shallow, then stopped for a second like he’d forgotten to inhale. Then his head lifted. Not high. Just enough that I saw his eyes. The whites had that oily sheen. Thin film over water. Shimmering in the dim. Nina’s hand shot out toward him, then froze mid-air like touching him might infect her. “Mason,” she whispered. Mason’s mouth opened, and at first I thought he was going to cry. Then he screamed. It wasn’t a kid scream. It was a man scream. Full chest. Raw. The sound tore out of him and bounced off the cafeteria walls like a thrown brick. He stood up so fast his knees cracked against the floor. His eyes weren’t looking at us. They were looking through us. His head tilted slightly as if someone above him had tugged a string. He screamed again, and this time words came out with it, loud and shaking, like a quote ripped from inside his skull. “AM I MY BROTHER’S KEEPER?” The cafeteria went dead still. My stomach clenched hard. That sentence didn’t belong in Mason’s mouth. It belonged in a church. A Bible. A story about someone pretending they didn’t know what they’d done. Mason’s head snapped toward Jaden. Jaden flinched back. “Bro—Mason, stop.” Mason moved. Fast. Too fast for a kid who’d been sitting still for days. He crossed the mats in three strides and slammed into Jaden like a tackling dummy. Jaden hit the floor hard, breath blasting out of him. Tyler lunged forward on instinct, but Mr. Haskins grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back like he knew something we didn’t. “Mason!” Mr. Haskins shouted, voice cracking. “Stop!” Mason didn’t. He got his hands on Jaden’s throat and squeezed. Jaden’s face went red instantly. His legs kicked. His hands clawed at Mason’s wrists. Nina screamed, “HASKINS!” Mr. Haskins moved then. He swung the yardstick down across Mason’s forearms. Mason didn’t even react like it hurt. He leaned closer to Jaden, eyes shimmering like oil in light, and whispered something I couldn’t hear. Jaden made a choking sound that turned wet. His hands slowed. His feet kicked once, then twice, weaker. Tyler surged forward and grabbed Mason from behind, trying to pull him off. Mason jerked his head back and slammed it into Tyler’s face without looking. Tyler stumbled, hands flying to his nose, blood immediately pouring between his fingers. Nina grabbed Mia and dragged her back like she was trying to keep Mia from being seen. Mr. Haskins hit Mason again, harder. Mason finally shifted his attention, and it was like watching a dog turn toward a sound. He looked at Mr. Haskins with that wet shimmer in his eyes and smiled. Not Mason’s smile. Then Mason did something that froze my blood. He let go of Jaden. Jaden lay still, eyes open, mouth parted, chest not moving. Mason stood over him for half a second, like he was admiring work. Then his hands went to his own neck. He twisted. Hard. The snap was clear. Loud. Like cracking a chicken bone. Mason’s body dropped straight down, limp, hitting the mat with a soft, heavy thud. Silence hit us so hard it felt physical. Nina made a small broken noise in her throat and covered her mouth with both hands and started crying. Mia started rocking, eyes huge, staring at the floor like the floor was the only thing keeping her from floating away. Tyler stood swaying with blood on his hands, nostrils flaring, eyes wide like he wanted to vomit and punch something at the same time. Mr. Haskins froze over Mason’s body, yardstick still raised, chest heaving. I couldn’t make my brain understand the sequence. Attack. Kill. Self-snap. Like something had used Mason and then discarded him. Eli whispered, very softly, “It can puppet.” Mr. Haskins turned on him like he might actually swing the yardstick at Eli this time. His face was wet again, tears mixing with sweat. “Shut up,” he said, voice shaking. “Shut up.” Eli’s smile didn’t come. His eyes stayed low. “I’m not talking to you,” he murmured. Mr. Haskins dropped to his knees beside Jaden. He didn’t look at Jaden’s face. He looked at Jaden’s chest like he could force it to rise by staring. “Ben,” he said, voice thin. “Help me.” My legs moved even though my brain was still stuck. I knelt on the other side. My hands shook so hard I had to pin them to my own thighs. Mr. Haskins checked Jaden’s neck. He pressed two fingers, then more, searching. His mouth moved like he was counting silently. He looked up at me, and the teacher mask was gone. It was just a man in a bad building with kids dying around him. “He’s gone,” he whispered. Nina made a sharp sound like she’d been punched. Tyler whispered, “No. No, no, no.” Mia’s breathing went fast and shallow again, like she was going to spiral. Mr. Haskins closed his eyes for one second, then opened them and became the adult again by force. “Okay,” he said, and his voice cracked on the word. “Okay. We move them away. We keep our eyes down. We do not… we do not fall apart.” He didn’t say don’t engage. He didn’t have to. We dragged Mason’s body first, because he was closer. Tyler grabbed the ankles with shaking hands. I grabbed under the arms. Mason’s head lolled in a way that made me want to gag. His neck looked wrong. Too loose. Too final. We moved him into the far corner by the stage where the curtains hung. We set him down gently, like gentleness mattered. Then we moved Jaden. Jaden was heavier than he should’ve been. Or maybe grief made him heavy. Mr. Haskins insisted we put Jaden near Mason, away from the main mat area. He didn’t want us stepping over bodies every time we moved. Nina sat with her back against the wall, knees hugged, eyes locked on the floor so hard I thought she’d burn a hole in it. Mia whispered, “He killed him.” Tyler’s voice was raw. “Mason killed him.” Eli’s voice was calm, almost bored. “Mason was used.” Mr. Haskins snapped, “Enough.” He stood and walked to the RULES WE KNOW paper and stared at it like it might tell him what to do next. He added a new line, hand shaking as he wrote: PEOPLE CAN BE TURNED. Then he stood there for a second, marker still in his hand, shoulders shaking slightly like his body wanted to collapse and he wouldn’t allow it. After Mason, the cafeteria felt smaller. The air felt thicker. Like the building had learned something and we had too. Tyler pressed paper towels to his nose until the bleeding slowed. He kept sniffing and wincing, eyes glossy with pain and rage. Nina tried to get Mia to drink water, but Mia kept flinching like the bottle was something dangerous. Mr. Haskins made us all check each other. Hands out. Sleeves up. Look for wet spots. Dark marks. Anything that wasn’t ours. It felt humiliating and necessary. Mia’s shoulder spot was darker now, and it looked less like a wet stain and more like bruised tissue under fabric. She kept pulling away whenever anyone looked too long. Eli had no marks. Tyler had none. Nina had none. Mr. Haskins had none. I didn’t either. That didn’t comfort me. It just meant the danger wasn’t as simple as a mark. We spent the rest of Day 4 in a new kind of quiet. Not the expensive quiet from earlier. This was broken quiet. The kind where any sound feels like betrayal. The building kept changing anyway. By late afternoon, the wet smell had spread beyond the kitchen. The cafeteria walls near the floor looked damp, paint slightly glossy. The seam where wall met floor had started to bulge in places, like something underneath was pushing up, trying to surface. Tyler noticed first. He pointed with a trembling finger. “That wasn’t there.” A strip of pale tissue had appeared along the baseboard near the trophy case, thin as a ribbon at first. It clung to the wall in a way that looked organic, not stuck-on. It had a faint pattern in it, like fibers woven under skin. Mr. Haskins didn’t approach. He kept distance like it might lash out. “It’s spreading,” Nina whispered. Eli, sitting with his back to a table leg, said, “It’s building.” Mr. Haskins looked at him. “Building what.” Eli’s mouth twitched. “A place to stand.” Mr. Haskins didn’t answer that, because there wasn’t an answer that didn’t sound insane. We tried to sleep in shifts again, but after Mason and Jaden, nobody wanted to close their eyes. It felt like giving up control. Like letting something slip a hand under your chin. I took a half-sleep, head down, listening with one ear, and woke to Tyler nudging my shoe. “Ben,” he whispered. “Look. Don’t look up. Just… look.” My eyes slid toward where he was pointing, low. The tissue strip by the trophy case had grown into a patch the size of a dinner tray. It wasn’t just on the wall anymore. It had climbed onto the floor, a thin film spreading like spilled egg white. It glistened in the dim, faintly pulsing. I swallowed. My throat tasted like metal again. Mr. Haskins woke too, like he’d sensed the change. He sat up and stared at it. “Okay,” he whispered, to himself more than us. “Okay.” Nina’s voice was tiny. “What do we do if it reaches us.” Mr. Haskins didn’t lie. “We move.” Tyler’s face tightened. “Where. The whole building is like this now.” Mr. Haskins looked toward the kitchen service hall, then toward the stage, then toward the papered windows. “We find a place that hasn’t softened yet,” he said. Eli’s voice came through, quiet and steady. “There won’t be one.” Mr. Haskins stared at him hard, and this time there was no anger left, only something tired. “Then we find a place it hasn’t finished,” he said. That night, the horn didn’t return. Something else did. A low vibration started under the floor, subtle at first, like a truck idling outside. It increased in waves, then eased, then increased again. The tissue patch by the trophy case seemed to respond. It tightened, almost, like it was drawing breath. Mia whispered, “It’s like it’s… awake.” Nina put her hand over Mia’s without looking up. “Don’t think about it like that.” But I couldn’t stop. The building felt like an animal trying to get comfortable around us. Around what I guessed was the middle of the night, the cafeteria doors flexed again. Not a rattle. Not a knock. A slow inward bow at the top, like someone outside was leaning with weight. Mr. Haskins sat up instantly, yardstick ready. Tyler shifted to his knees, fists clenched. Nina pulled Mia behind her like her body could be a shield. The doors bowed, held, then relaxed. Silence. Eli murmured, “It’s checking.” Mr. Haskins didn’t tell him to shut up this time. He just listened. And then, from the kitchen, we heard a wet sound. A soft peel. Like tape being pulled from paper. Mr. Haskins motioned for me and Tyler to follow. He kept the yardstick between him and everything like it mattered. We moved into the kitchen with our eyes low. The wall patch had spread across half the cinderblock section now. The freezer door handle was partly swallowed, encased in pale slick tissue that looked stretched thin over metal. It shimmered faintly when the light stripes from the cafeteria windows twitched. Tyler whispered, “That’s… that’s fast.” Mr. Haskins’s voice came out flat. “It’s not waiting for us.” Mia made a small noise behind us. I turned my head slightly and saw her pointing without lifting her eyes. There was tissue on her mat. Not on the floor across the room. On her mat, near the edge, a pale smear like someone had brushed it there. Her face went blank with fear. Nina whispered, “No. No, no.” Mr. Haskins stepped back into the cafeteria and looked around. There were three new patches, thin and wet-looking, spreading from corners and seams. One near the trophy case. One near the stage wall. One under the nearest table leg. Like it was moving toward us in multiple directions. Mr. Haskins whispered, “We pack now.” Tyler’s face tightened. “Where are we going.” Mr. Haskins swallowed hard, eyes down, thinking fast. “The library.” Nina blinked. “That’s… third floor.” “It has fewer windows,” Mr. Haskins said. “It’s enclosed. Carpets. Thick doors. We can use shelves as barricades. It’s away from the kitchen, away from the cafeteria seams.” Eli’s quiet laugh returned. “You think it can’t climb.” Mr. Haskins’s voice hardened again. “I think staying here guarantees we get surrounded by it. I’d rather move while we still have choices.” Nobody argued. After Mason and Jaden, arguing felt like wasted oxygen. We packed what we could. Water bottles. Food. Tape. Markers. The butcher paper with the rules, ripped off the wall and rolled tight like a scroll. Mr. Haskins grabbed a first aid kit from a kitchen cabinet. Tyler grabbed a heavy metal baking tray like he wanted something to hit with. Nina kept Mia close, one hand on her elbow like she was guiding a drunk person through a crowd. Mia’s eyes kept drifting upward and then snapping down hard, like her brain was fighting itself. Eli moved lightly, calm, like he’d been waiting for this moment. We didn’t move through the main cafeteria doors. Mr. Haskins didn’t trust them anymore. We went through the kitchen service hall. It was narrow. It smelled like spoiled food and bleach. The walls in there were less glossy. The floor was cooler. For the first time in hours, I felt like the building wasn’t pressing its face right against us. We moved fast, shoes quiet as we could manage. Mr. Haskins led, yardstick forward. Tyler stayed behind him, tray ready. I stayed near Nina and Mia, because Mia looked like she might fold. We reached a stairwell near the service corridor, a back stairwell I’d barely used in normal life. The door creaked when Mr. Haskins pushed it open, and the sound echoed up and down like a thrown pebble. We froze. Nothing answered. We started up. Second floor. The air changed immediately. Cooler. Metallic. That burnt hair smell returned faintly. The hallway outside the stairwell looked longer than it had any right to. The lockers were dented. Some were peeled open like tin cans. A poster about prom hung crooked, the paper soggy at the edges. Tyler whispered, “Why is it wet.” Mr. Haskins didn’t answer. We moved. Halfway down the hall, we passed the science wing. The lab door was cracked open. From inside, we heard a soft clicking chorus. Ruler-bugs. Mia’s breathing sped up. Nina squeezed her elbow hard. “Keep moving,” Mr. Haskins whispered. We reached the main stairwell to the third floor. The metal door was warm. Not sun-warm. Under-warm. Like heat coming through it. Mr. Haskins hesitated, then pushed. The third floor hallway smelled like old books and dust and something faintly sweet, like wet cardboard. For a second, it felt… almost normal. That should’ve been comforting. It wasn’t. It felt like walking into a room where the music stopped. We reached the library doors. Double doors with narrow glass panels. Mr. Haskins didn’t go near the glass. He kept his eyes on the floor and the handles. He pushed. The doors opened. Inside, the library was dim and still. Carpeted floor. Tall shelves. The circulation desk. Posters about reading levels and college essays. The windows were on the far wall, big, but they were already covered by old blinds and long curtains. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than the cafeteria’s wide-open glass. Mr. Haskins motioned us in quickly. Tyler and I shoved the doors closed. We dragged a table in front of them, then a rolling cart, then two chairs jammed sideways. Nina pulled Mia deeper into the room, away from the windows. Eli stood near the entrance, head angled like he was listening to the doors breathe. For a moment, we were just inside. Breathing. Alive. Then Mia made a sound. Small. Choked. She stumbled forward a step, fingers digging into her hoodie near the shoulder. Nina caught her. “Mia? Mia, what—” Mia’s face twisted. She looked like she was trying not to vomit, but it was more than that. Her eyes lifted slightly, not to the ceiling, not to the windows—just enough to make Nina tense. Mia’s voice came out thin. “It… it hurts.” Mr. Haskins moved toward her, careful. “Show me.” Mia shook her head hard. “No. No, it’ll—” Her hand slipped. The hoodie collar pulled aside enough for me to see the skin at the top of her shoulder. The dark spot wasn’t a bruise. It was a wet-looking patch of pale tissue fused to her skin like a second layer. Veins faint beneath it. The edges feathered outward like it had grown into her. Nina’s face went white. “Oh my God.” Tyler whispered, “It’s on her.” Eli’s voice came soft, almost satisfied. “It kept her.” Mr. Haskins’s eyes flashed. “Eli. Shut up.” Eli raised his hands slightly, palms open, calm. “It’s true,” he murmured. Mia started shaking hard. “I didn’t do anything,” she whispered. “I didn’t look. I didn’t answer. I didn’t—” Mr. Haskins crouched near her, keeping his eyes down and focused on the floor between them like he was afraid staring at the patch too long would invite something. “We’re going to keep you covered,” he said. “We’re going to keep you with us. You’re not alone.” Mia’s breath hitched. “It feels like… like something is under my skin.” Nina wrapped her arms around Mia carefully, like she was afraid to touch the patch. “You’re here,” she whispered. “You’re here.” Mr. Haskins stood, face tight. He walked to the nearest shelf and put his hand on the wgood, steadying himself. “We stay in the library,” he said. “We block windows better. We use shelves as walls. We ration water again. We keep watch.” Tyler’s voice was raw. “And if she turns like Mason.” Nina snapped, “Don’t say that.” Mr. Haskins didn’t answer right away. When he did, it was quiet. w “If anyone’s eyes go oily,” he said, “we treat it as danger. We do what we have to.” Mia started crying, silent tears slif64ding down her cheeks. Nina’s jaw clenched like she wanted to fight the whole building. Eli sat down against a shelf, humming again, like none of this touched him the way it touched us. We worked fast. We pulled library curtains tighter. We used bulletin board paper and tape to cover the narrow glass panels in the doors. We pushed shelves to create a barrier zone around our mats, a little maze we could retreat into if something got in. Tyler wanted to knock over shelves to make a full wall, but Mr. Haskins stopped him. “Noise,” Mr. Haskins whispered. “We do controlled moves.” Tyler looked like he might explode, but he nodded and swallowed it. We settled into the library like it was a new camp. And then we noticed the first sign the tissue was already here too. Near the baseboard behind the circulation desk, a pale smear clung to the carpet edge, glossy in the dim. Mr. Haskins stared at it for a long time. He didn’t say anything. He just turned away and started taping another poster over a door window like denial could be built in layers. Time in the library felt different. The air was cooler. The light didn’t flicker as sharply through the curtains. The sound of the building was muffled by carpet, which should’ve been comforting. Instead it made every new sound stand out like a knife. Sometime later, we heard it. A soft wet sound from a wall we hadn’t touched. Tyler’s head snapped toward it. He stood slowly, tray in hand. Mr. Haskins whispered, “Stay.” Tyler didn’t listen. He moved toward the sound with careful steps, eyes down. I followed a few feet behind because leaving him alone felt worse. The sound was coming from the back corner near the encyclopedias, behind a shelf. We rounded the end. The wall there had a pale patch about the size of a handprint. It glistened. It pulsed faintly. And from it, a thin strand of tissue hung like a drip, stretching toward the carpet. Tyler whispered, “It’s following.” Mr. Haskins appeared behind us, yardstick ready, face drawn. “We keep distance,” he said. Mia, from the mats, whispered, “It’s in me.” Nina hugged her tighter, eyes wet. Eli’s humming kept going. The night came without the horn, but with the same slow, building pressure, like the sky was leaning close even if we couldn’t see it. We did shifts. Mr. Haskins insisted. Two awake near the doors. One awake near the windows, but facing away, watching the curtains, not the outside. One awake near Mia, watching her face like that wasn’t the cruelest assignment. I took the Mia watch for a while because Nina looked like she’d shatter if she had to do it. Mia lay on a mat, hood up, hands clenched. Her breathing was uneven. Every few minutes, her eyes flicked upward slightly, then snapped down hard like she was forcing them. “You okay,” I whispered. Mia’s voice was tiny. “No.” Fair. I swallowed. “Does it… do anything?” Mia hesitated. “Sometimes I feel like… like someone is standing behind me.” I felt a cold ripple go down my spine. Mia continued, eyes locked on the carpet fibers. “Not in the room. In my head. Like pressure behind my eyes.” “Tell Mr. Haskins,” I whispered. Mia shook her head. “He already knows. He’s just pretending he doesn’t.” That hit hard because it felt true. Around early morning, the library made a sound like a deep breath. The tissue patch behind the circulation desk expanded slightly, creeping onto carpet. The pale smear in the encyclopedia corner thickened into a slick strip. Mr. Haskins saw it and didn’t speak. He just tightened our barricade. Tyler stared at the wall like he wanted to punch it. Nina barely moved, still glued to Mia’s side, whispering to her, keeping her grounded. Eli finally stopped humming and said, very quietly, “It’s making the building compatible.” Mr. Haskins’s eyes lifted toward him, then dropped again. “Compatible with what.” Eli’s mouth twitched. “With standing.” Mr. Haskins didn’t ask the next question because he didn’t want the answer. By mid-day, the library didn’t feel like a library anymore. It felt like a throat. Quiet, damp, full of paper and breath. We tried a supply run anyway, because we were running out of water again. Mr. Haskins didn’t want to risk it, but dehydration wasn’t a theory. He chose me and Tyler again. Nina begged to come, and he said no because Mia couldn’t be left alone with Eli. Eli smiled faintly at that, which made my skin crawl. Mr. Haskins handed me two empty bottles and a roll of tape. “If we find any sinks with pressure,” he whispered, “we fill fast and we leave. If we hear anything calling us, we don’t answer. If we see tissue in the hall—” “We don’t touch it,” Tyler muttered. Mr. Haskins nodded. “We also don’t brush against it. Keep space.” We opened the library doors a crack and slid out into the third-floor hallway. The air out there was warmer. The smell of wet Band-Aid was stronger. The hallway carpet had darkened along the edges, like it was damp. Tyler’s jaw clenched. “It’s everywhere.” We moved toward the stairwell, eyes low, steps controlled. Halfway there, Tyler stopped so abruptly I almost bumped him. He pointed. On the wall near a classroom door, a pale strip of tissue ran upward like a vine, clinging to the paint. From that strip, a thin tendril hung loose, swaying slightly, like it was tasting air. I froze. My mouth went dry. The tendril moved. Not a twitch. A deliberate curl, like a finger. Tyler whispered, “No.” Mr. Haskins held up the yardstick like he could keep distance with inches of metal. “Back,” he mouthed. We stepped backward slowly. The tendril extended. It didn’t lash. It reached, slow and purposeful, like a hand in a dark room looking for a doorknob. My chest tightened. I kept my eyes low and moved carefully, but the tendril kept tracking, following the movement like it could sense us without seeing. Tyler’s shoe squeaked slightly as it slid on damp carpet. The tendril snapped toward the sound. Fast. It whipped out and wrapped around Tyler’s ankle. Tyler’s breath exploded out of him. “Oh—!” He clamped his mouth shut, but it was too late. The tendril tightened like a rope being winched. Tyler stumbled, grabbed the wall with one hand. The tissue strip on the wall rippled, and another thinner tendril slid free from it, reaching for his calf. Mr. Haskins swung the yardstick down hard on the tendril at Tyler’s ankle. The impact sounded wrong. Not a clean smack. A wet slap with a dull internal thud, like hitting a water balloon full of sand. The tendril loosened for a fraction of a second. Tyler yanked his foot back, dragging the tendril with him. It stretched, elastic and glossy. Mr. Haskins hit it again, harder, and this time the tendril tore. It didn’t snap like a rope. It ripped like wet meat. Tyler stumbled backward, almost falling. His shoe was smeared with pale slick residue. The torn end on the wall wriggled and pulled back into the tissue strip like a tongue retracting. Tyler’s breathing went fast and panicked. He pressed his hands to his mouth to keep from making sound. Mr. Haskins grabbed Tyler’s sleeve and hauled him back toward the library. We moved fast. Controlled fast. Like trying to sprint underwater. Behind us, the tissue strip on the wall pulsed once. And then, from farther down the hallway, we heard that soft tapping sound start up. Light. Quick. Coming closer. Mr. Haskins didn’t look back. He just pushed us harder. We got into the library and shoved the doors closed. We dragged the table tighter. Tyler collapsed onto the carpet and ripped off his shoe with shaking hands. His sock was damp where the tendril had touched. A pale smear clung to the fabric. He stared at it, breathing hard, face gray. Nina rushed over, still keeping Mia behind her. “What happened.” Tyler swallowed, voice raw. “The wall grabbed me.” Mia made a tiny choking sound. Mr. Haskins walked to the RULES WE KNOW paper we’d re-taped inside the library and added one more line, hand shaking: THE WALLS CAN REACH. Eli sat against the shelf and watched Tyler’s ankle with quiet interest. Tyler looked up at him, eyes wild. “You like this, don’t you.” Eli’s expression didn’t change. “I like truth,” he murmured. Tyler surged forward like he might swing. Mr. Haskins stepped between them instantly, voice sharp. “Stop. Both of you.” Tyler’s chest heaved. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, smearing sweat and blood. Nina looked at Mr. Haskins with fear and anger mixed. “What do we do now.” Mr. Haskins stared at the floor, and I saw him swallow something heavy. “We survive,” he whispered. “We adapt. We don’t let it split us.” Outside the curtains, the light twitched again. A faint blink through fabric. None of us looked. We just listened to the building settle and shift, and to the soft wet sounds of tissue moving in the walls like it was getting comfortable. And somewhere deep in the school, something made a low, satisfied vibration, like it approved of the new shape it was becoming. submitted by /u/pentyworth223 to r/horrorstories [link] [comments]

i have extremely hooded eyes and have always put off trying makeup cause it feels scary and impossible. im worried that nothing will help me look pretty. i have dark thick eyebrows, a straight hooked nose, oval face shape, and an average (maybe the slightest bit long) mid face. my eyelids aren't visible when i relax my face and when i raise my eyebrows you can see them slightly but not much. imjust starting to wear makeup but will probably go out bare faced with lashes most days if they make me look feminine. unsure what style or lash map numbers, just not too short but not too long and not too full but not too natural. 10 to 13 perhaps? i’ve tried strip lashes before but found it easier to cut them into clusters so any cluster recommendations would be nice too. any tips? what styles/brands would u recommend? i heard that natural wispy LC curl lashes could work. also individuals i live in england so any uk brands would be great also any asian brands because i know they make lashes for hooded and monolids. (by the way im unfamiliar with facial feature/makeup terms so apologies if i made any mistakes haha) submitted by /u/Ok_Reporter_5635 to r/HoodedEyes [link] [comments]

Any tips on brand, lengths, curl, etc. greatly appreciated! submitted by /u/Ok-Cryptographer1302 to r/makeuptips [link] [comments]

submitted by /u/Ok-Cryptographer1302 to r/beauty [link] [comments]

I was thinking about getting the brown manga lash kit from veyes beauty but am not quite sure that would suit me. My eyes have an almond shape, they are hooded, not like crazy but are pretty deep set. submitted by /u/mindfulmanderine to r/lashclusters [link] [comments]

I have super super hooded eyes, any recommendation for L curl lash clusters on shein or preferably amazon? NATURAL LASHES, so preferably not past 16 mm I want to open my eyes up submitted by /u/Mimi98_ to r/lashclusters [link] [comments]

Hi! Would like to start using cluster lashes but I’m now sure what brand. Also not sure what type should I use. Can you recommend your trusted cluster lashes and what variant? I have hooded eyes. Thank you! submitted by /u/WolfQuick4488 to r/beautyph [link] [comments]

I found the dead man washed up on the beach on my third day at the new job. My first day was almost as bad. They didn’t want me and they wouldn’t like me; I knew all of that going in. What I didn’t expect was getting the silent treatment from every other ranger at the park. “You shouldn’t take it personally, Ranger McCoy,” the head ranger told me as I closed the door to his office. “Everyone here was just expecting Marco to get the position. He was a great intern.” George was middle-aged, with a black beard going gray at the edges. His office was full of old pottery, stone tools, and the top third of an entire wall was devoted to Native American weavings, particularly dreamcatchers, each one larger and stranger than the last. I nodded toward the dreamcatchers. “Are those local?” I asked. George beamed, clearly proud of the collection. “All of them, yes. Most were made right here on the island.” “Are they old?” “Some of them are darn near ancient." I smiled politely. My smile faded when I noticed one large dreamcatcher in the corner. At least, I assumed it was a dreamcatcher; it had the typical spiderweb swirl but instead of being a flat circle, it was three-dimensional, closer to a globe. The material used in the weave appeared unusual as well. It wasn’t string or twine but more leathery, rough and not at all pleasant to look at. “Very…unique,” I said “Hey, I have a question if you don’t mind.” “Shoot.” I leaned in. “Are the stories about the park true?” “Which stories?” “That the park is haunted. Ghosts in the woods, shadows in the water, and campers going missing now and then. Is any of that-” George shook his head. “I know everyone loves a ghost story but the scariest thing you’ll encounter at Snowfall is a pissed off pony.” He turned his attention to my open resume on his desk. “This is a pretty solid pedigree here, ranger.” “Thank you, sir.” “Don’t do the ‘sir’ thing here. The team is already inclined not to like you, sorry to say, and if you call me sir, they’ll think you’re sucking up. You can just call me, George. And please sit down. You’re making me nervous.” I sat. “Okay, George. I’d rather go by Ashley, then.” “Why, exactly, do you want to work at Snowfall, Ranger McCoy?” “I…don’t.” George raised a bushy eyebrow. “I mean, I don’t have any issue working here,” I explained. “I’m happy to. It seems like a great park and I like being by the ocean. Actually, I used to come here a lot as a kid.” “But you don’t want to work here?” “I didn’t request being placed here is what I was trying to say. People here, you know, I’m sure they probably think that I stole your intern Marco’s promotion but I had nothing to do with the assignment.” The older ranger was silent. He leaned back in his chair. I’d never seen anyone working so hard to look relaxed and I had no idea why. George smiled and nodded. “I’m sure you’re a hard worker and a heck of a ranger. We’re just a little…unique at Snowfall and, prior to the current superintendent, we kept a lot of say locally in choosing our rangers. Marco was with us for two years between seasonal and probational and all of that. He had a lot of friends here. But they’re good folks and I know they won’t hold it against you.” But they did. There were three other full-time rangers other than George at Snowfall. Directly under George was the Assistant Head Ranger Jennifer. She was about the same age as her boss and had a presence I would describe as, “matronly.” Gabe was in charge of the camping areas and supervised seasonal rangers in the summer. Other than maybe myself, he was the youngest of the Snowfall Shore group. I doubted he was more than twenty-five, tall and thin and animated when chatting with the other rangers. Then there was Peter. While George was polite but distant and Jennifer and Gabe were just distant, Peter radiated hostility. Other than the collective cold shoulder and George disappearing after our conversation, my first day was uneventful. No one gave me anything to work or a place to work so I spent the day getting familiar with the park and wondering how many years I’d need to endure at Snowfall before I could fuck off to bigger and better things. With no assignments or even trainings, I decided to spend my second day exploring the park. There was a spider-web of trails crossing Snowfall centered around half-a-dozen small inlets. I chose a trail at random that ran through the woods near the office and set off on a hike. My goal was to see one of the infamous Snowfall ghosts. Stories claimed that hundreds of lost souls, many drowning victims from centuries of shipwrecks, wandered the park. When I was a kid, one of my friends told me they’d personally seen a specter, a faceless woman wailing and stumbling around the north beach at night. I didn’t see any ghosts but I did encounter something that made my skin crawl. It was a tiny stick figure shaped like a person hanging from an elm right next to the trail. A tiny scrap of green fishing net was wrapped around the totem’s head like a mask. The object swung gently from a long piece of twine that was tied around the lowest branch of the tree. I chalked it up to eccentric campers just being weird. One other moment stood from that trip through the forest. I rounded a bend to find a large rabbit in the middle of the trail. It had black fur and the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen. And right in the center of each sapphire eye, a black iris big enough for me to identify even at a distance. The creature stood up when it noticed me, paws in the air. It looked to be nearly the size of a small cat. “Uh, hello bunny,” I said, trying not to startle it. “Do you live around here?” The rabbit stood completely still, watching me. Then one sharp ear twitched and it raced away faster than shadows in a basement when you flip the light switch. “Bye, bunny,” I said. The rabbit’s blue eyes stayed with me. There was something unnatural about them. The blueness reminded me of the ocean on a clear day, the dark irises like where the water goes from shore-shallow to open deep. I looked back over the ocean before returning to HQ. For a brief moment, I thought I saw something in the water, a shadow like a fish just under the surface. But the silhouette was too large to be an animal. I decided it was a storm-shadow from one of the clouds above me. Then I turned around and quickly walked toward the office, the rabbit’s eyes blazing in my memory. I got back to HQ around lunch time, hurrying at the end because the sky was beginning to look a little dark. The other rangers were gathered around Jennifer’s desk when I walked in. They were watching the radar. A wall of red was barreling down on the park only a few hours away. For my first official assignment, George tasked me with riding along with Peter to pick up a spare generator from the equipment shed. Peter didn’t say a word to me for most of the trip, despite me hammering him with small talk. We passed a small group hiking one of the trails on our way. Two kids and, I assumed, their parents. The foursome waved as we drove by; Peter surprised me by waving back. “Friends of yours?” I asked. “Regulars. The Roberts family. They stay here every year. Dad is into fly fishing. Mom is a marine biologist. Nice folks.” When we got back to headquarters, George thanked me and then told me to take the rest of the day, as well as the next day, off. “We’ll just be doing storm cleanup,” he told me. “No need for the full crew. We’ll see you again the day after tomorrow.” I decided on my drive home that, even if I wasn’t working, I wanted to spend more time getting familiar with the park. So I woke up while it was still dark the next morning, drank three cups of coffee, and headed to Snowfall to explore more of the trails. I figured I’d start the day by watching the sunrise. The office parking lot was half-empty when I pulled in, which was strange but I assumed the rangers on-duty were out dealing with storm damage. I left my truck and took a short hike through the wooded area between our headquarters and the nearest slice of beach. The light was gray in the pre-dawn, made worse by the lingering clouds and a light drizzle. There were little stick-men and stick-women and some that might have been animals, all hanging near the trail. Here and there, the stick figures had those tiny strips of old fishing net covering their faces. Halfway through the hike, I failed to spot roots winding across the path and nearly rolled my ankle. “Shit, fuck, ouch.” I pulled out my phone and turned the flashlight. When I did, I noticed that I had zero service, despite having full bars back at the office. I remembered George’s advice about always taking a radio out into the park and considered turning back, but I wasn’t sure if he meant even when I was off-duty. “If I break my leg, I’ll just yell super loud,” I promised myself. The rest of the trip to the beach was smoother with a light. My only regret was not wearing a better jacket since the rain was picking up. I stepped onto the sand, boots crunching as I rounded the first set of tall dunes. My eyes were on the ocean, a darker shade of gray than the sky above it. Whitecaps grew and broke and grew again while the wind snatched spray from the tips of waves. I could see the water clearly; the highest edge of the sun was already past the horizon. I shivered against the chill, lost in thought and staring at the seas. There were gulls crying all around me; I didn’t notice the other birds among them until I saw a large shadow drift across the sand. I looked up to see buzzards coasting among the gulls, heavy and slow with those raw, red heads. Whatever the vultures were circling was just around the next cluster of dunes. I picked up my pace, worried that I’d find one of the island's famous ponies dead…or dying. Once I was clear of the dunes, I saw the body. Three vultures stood hunched next to the corpse. I was too far to be certain but I was pretty sure at first glance that I was seeing a dead man washed ashore. The body was facing the water, dressed in waterlogged clothes that looked like what you’d find on a lot of day-hikers and campers. As I approached, I heard the dull hum of flies. A buzzard and half-a-dozen sea gulls took off when I came closer. I stopped twenty feet or so from the body, worried that I might already be disturbing the scene. But I wanted to at least see who the man was. An irrational fear that I might know the victim caused me to move in a wide circle so that I was nearly standing in the water and able to see the man’s face. Except there was nothing there. The face was gone, peeled away to reveal bloody muscle and the hint here and there of bone. There were no features left, nothing but an open wound from his hairline down to his jaw. “What the fuck.” I threw up, turning away so it landed in the ocean. Shaking, I moved away from the corpse, not stopping until I was nearly back to the dunes. I sat in the sand and pulled out my phone, dialing 9-1-1 without taking my eyes off of the body. The vultures and gulls were back, pecking and pulling. The flies had never left. The call didn’t connect so I tried again and again. I was breathing heavily when I dialed for a fourth time, almost on the edge of hyperventilation. It was too surreal, like a nightmare that lingered after waking. I kept shooting glances at the dead body, terrified that it might have rolled over while I wasn’t watching. Taking a deep breath, I forced my eyes closed and counted to ten. When I opened them, the body was exactly where it had been since I walked onto the beach. I felt myself calming down and realized that my calls weren’t going to get through. There was zero service on the beach. I’d have to go back to the office for help. I took one last look at the body sprawled on the beach then took off running over the dunes. The morning drizzle was turning back into rain by the time I reached the woods between the beach and headquarters. Even though the sun was up, it was darker than before dawn. I stumbled through the forest tripping over roots and rocks. At one point, I almost ran eye-first into one of the little stick-men that was hanging above the trail. There were a few more trucks in the parking lot when I got back to headquarters. I nearly crashed into Gabe when I ran through the door. I’d taken the last quarter-mile of the return at a sprint and stood, winded and drenched, trying to convey to Gabe through a series of coughs and gestures that there was a dead body on the north beach. Jennifer rounded the corner with a cup of coffee and watched me breathlessly pantomiming for a moment. Then she handed me the coffee, forced me to sit down, brought me a towel, and made me dry off and steady my breathing before telling my story. “Dead man…north beach…” I wheezed. “...near trailhead…he…he’s been…mutilated.” Gabe’s eyes went wide. “Mutilated? How?” “Take your time,” Jennifer added, passing me another towel. “Breathe.” “The body is bloated but fresh. His face is gone. Missing. Removed, I think.” Gabe whistled. “Fucking crabs around here. Vicious pricks.” I shivered. “I don’t think it was crabs or vultures or any animal that did it. Everything was too precise, too many straight lines. Too clean.” “Do you need another towel?” Jennifer asked. “Or a blanket?” I shook my head. “I’m okay. We need to call the police.” Jennifer and Gabe exchanged a look. “What?” I asked. “We’re in DNR’s jurisdiction,” Jennifer said, heading for the radio room. “We should start with the Natural Resource Police. But this storm has them running around all over the island. Let me call George.” “Fine, but we need to be out there with the body to make sure the scene isn’t disturbed.” Gabe tilted his head toward the window. The rain had gone from a downpour to a solid wall of water. It lashed the windows and drummed the roof. A gust of wind shook headquarters, filling the building with a sound between a howl and a rasping whistle. “The scene is already going to be disturbed,” Gabe said. “No real reason for us to drown standing out there waiting.” I shook my head. “I found him, I’m staying with him. Come with me or stay here, either’s fine, just call it in.” “Just did,” Jennifer returned with an extra rain parka and radio. She handed me both. “I’ll go with you.” Gabe sighed but shrugged on his poncho and grabbed a set of truck keys. “Just let me heat up some fucking coffee for the road and I’m with you.” “I don’t understand.” “What?” Gabe asked. I raised my voice, trying to speak over the roar of the rain. “I said, ‘I don’t understand.’ The body, it was right here.” Fifteen minutes after leaving headquarters, the three of us were standing on the beach, using the dunes for a windbreak. It didn’t help much. The storm was whipping sand and water across the shore while the rain came down nearly sideways. Temperatures were dropping and the sky and ocean were the same violent grey. The corpse I’d found earlier with its face removed was missing. Jennifer took a step closer to me, shouting over the wind. “Are you sure this is the spot? Could it be further north?” “No, I’m positive it was here by the trailhead. Shit. Shit. Why did you need to stop for coffee?” Gabe held up his hands. “One, it's miserable out here and, two, it’s not like the body got up and walked off the beach.” “Maybe it…maybe he washed away?” I guessed, scanning the beach again. I became aware of a soft rumble getting louder, too quiet and too mechanical to be thunder or the crash of waves. George rounded the corner of the dunes on a four-wheeler, followed a moment later by Peter on another ATV. Both had their parka hoods cinched tight against the wind. “Everyone okay?” George asked. “We were up north when we heard the call.” “Living the dream,” Gabe replied. I shot him a hard look. “Did you guys see the body? I was sure it would be right here but, uh, maybe I got mixed up in the storm. It’s close, though, I’m sure of that.” “No dead folks on the beach between here and Point Bay,” Peter replied. “We’ll check south for a quarter-mile or so,” George told me. “I’m sure we’ll find it.” “You are?” Peter asked. I got ready to snap back but saw George stare Peter down. The younger ranger shifted uncomfortably on his four-wheeler. “Okay, yeah, we’ll find it,” Peter promised. “Hell, I’ve been here nine years and never found so much as a dead tourist in a bath house. You’re here two days and you already discovered a body on the beach.” “Some people have all the luck, I guess,” I said but Peter was already driving off, disappearing into the rain and ocean mist. “You did good,” George told me. “We’ll find the scene and then get MRP over here in two shakes.” He took off after Peter. I stood watching until both were out of sight. It didn’t take long. Even their tire tracks in the sand faded under the relentless drag of the wind. In less than a minute, it was like the two rangers had never been there at all. “Come on,” Jennifer shouted, tugging the arm of my parka. “Let’s get back to the truck before we drown.” A deep rumble made me look around, expecting to see George or Peter zooming back to tell us they’d found the body. But this time, the rumble was thunder, followed quickly by a blue-black flash of lightning that connected the ocean and the sky like some bright, skeleton tree. I hurried after Jennifer and Gabe. We lost power almost as soon as we got back to headquarters. Luckily, the backup generator was easy to get going. Gabe put on a new pot of coffee and the three of us stood looking out the windows at a scene that might have seemed familiar to Noah. “What in the Hell kind of spring storm is this?” I asked. “It almost seems like an early hurricane.” “Very early,” Gabe muttered. Something about the tone of his voice caused me to raise an eyebrow but he just shrugged and handed me a mug of coffee. “You must have been a barista in a former life,” I said. “Sometimes feels like in this life, too.” “Maybe we should call DNR now,” I said, resisting the urge to pace. “Get them over here to help look for the body.” Jennifer put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure George and Peter have already found it. They’re probably calling it in already then will head right back. Drink up, Gabe’s not good for much but he brings in the good coffee from home.” I smiled and took a sip. It was pretty good. “I have to bring in my own stuff,” Gabe said, “you could strip paint with the shit they stock in the breakroom for free. Damn budget cuts.” “You spoil us,” Jennifer teased. “And on your own dime.” “What can I say, I’m a giver.” Gabe put his hand next to his mouth to fake whisper to me. “But I steal so, so many office supplies to make up the difference. I built my nephew a playhouse just using stacks of Post-Its.” I chuckled, smiling for the first time since I’d found the faceless man. But, again, the memory of the body came back as red and raw as its wounds. The white gulls circling, hard to see against the rain-swollen clouds above them. And the fat, black horseflies buzzing and crawling across the pink muscle of- A wave of sudden exhaustion made me bend over, causing me to spill my drink. “Ashley? Ash, are you okay?” Jennifer asked, moving next to me. “Fine,” I lied. “I’m fine. I just might need to sit for a second.” “Gabe, go grab her a chair. No, not that one, the one from George’s office. The comfy one. And get her another cup of coffee.” George and Peter coasted into the parking lot on their ATVs before I finished my next mug. I stood up immediately, nearly vibrating as the pair fought the wind to get the door open and then closed again. “Jesus,” Peter gasped, peeling off his rain parka and collapsing into the nearest chair. “It’s getting Biblical out there.” “Well?” I asked, looking between the two. “Where did you find him?” The two rangers shared a look. “What?” I demanded. “Why don’t we talk in my office?” George suggested. “Look, I’m not crazy,” I said. “I didn’t imagine a dead body out there this morning.” “Nobody is saying that,” George promised. Peter cleared his throat but stopped when Jennifer glared. “There’s a dead man out there,” I said. “Missing his face?” Peter asked. “Yes. Fucking yes. I know how it sounds but that’s what I saw.” “You’re sure?” George asked. “You don’t have any doubts at all?” “None. Zero. I’d swear on my life.” George sighed and sat down, signaling Jennifer and Gabe to find chairs so we’d all be seated in a rough circle. “Ashley, I want you to know that I believe that you saw something out on the beach.” I bristled. “I know what I saw. I saw-” George held up his hand to finish. “Look, storms like this, no visibility, rain coming down like Heaven sprung a leak-” “It wasn’t raining like this when I found the body,” I said, trying to keep a growing tint of anger out of my voice. “True,” George admitted, “true. But it was raining. And there was mist, the cold fog that rolls off of the ocean here in the morning. It plays tricks on even us old-timers. Heck, this whole island is a little…weird. Haunted, even. Maybe.” “Spooky as all get out,” Gabe agreed. I took a deep breath. “I didn’t see a ghost. I didn’t imagine anything. There’s a dead man out there and if you’re not calling the police, I will.” I got ready to stand up but felt faint again, dropping back into my chair. “Are you okay?” Jennifer asked. “You look tired.” “You do,” George agreed. “This has been a heck of a morning. Why don’t you lay down in the breakroom for a bit?” My head was swimming. I took a long drink of coffee and rubbed my eyes. “I’m not going to sleep. Not until I talk to the cops. What channel is NRP on the radio?” Peter was watching me. For some reason, I thought he looked curious more than anything. “It’s no good calling,” he said. “The natural resource guys and girls are all busy this morning with the storm and looking for the missing camper.” “Missing camper?” I asked, stumbling a little over the last word. I was actually feeling tired. Damn near exhausted. “Peter…” George said quietly. “C’mon, boss, you know she’s not letting it go.” Peter gave me a sad smile. “Dr. Roberts went missing last night. She wasn’t at her family’s campsite this morning. Might have wandered off.” “Roberts?” I drawled. It was almost like I was drunk. “The…the…biol…biologist?” “Marine biologist,” Peter corrected. “Nice lady. It’s a shame.” The room was spinning and the rain sounded far, far away. “Somethin…something not…right,” I said, using the back of my chair as support while I tried to stand. The empty coffee mug slipped out of my now numb fingers. Jennifer caught me as I fell. “You really should have taken George’s offer and slept today off,” she said, helping me back to my chair. “She should have stayed the Hell home,” Peter muttered. “She shouldn’t be here, George. It’s not right.” George was watching me, expressionless. His blue eyes seemed as gray as the ocean in the rain. “Coming in on your day off,” he said. “That’s dedication.” My last memory in the headquarters before the room went black was George disappearing into his office and several hands laying me gently on the floor. The universe shook. I woke up feeling like I was drowning. Cold water splashed over my face, and I turned away, only to feel more water. For a panicked moment, I was certain I was drowning. Then something soft, warm, and damp wiped my face. “Do you think that’s helping?” I heard Gabe ask. “The towel is soaked.” “Just focus on driving and don’t let us fucking capsize,” Peter replied. I opened my eyes, blinking against the rain. My vision was gray at first; as it cleared, I realized it was just the world that was gray. I was half-sitting, half-laying in a small boat rocking in the storm. As I tried to pull myself into a more comfortable position, I found that my arms were handcuffed behind my back and my legs were bound at the ankle. “What the fff…” I slurred, still groggy. “Sleeping beauty is awake,” Gabe said from somewhere behind me. Peter was kneeling next to me. He leaned over to help me sit up straight but didn’t say anything. I did my best to get a full look at my surroundings. George was also in the boat, sitting near the bow, staring out across the water. There was a woman slumped behind him. It took me a moment to recognize Dr. Roberts since she was bundled up in a ranger parka but there was no mistaking the blonde hair plastered across her face. The boat hit a wave and thumped down hard, causing the woman to slide. I realized that she was unconscious. “What the fuck is going on?” I mumbled. The wind snatched my voice away but Peter understood my look of confusion. “It’s okay,” he shouted above the storm. “We’re almost at the cove. It will be calmer there. You’re okay.” I tried to move, to struggle against the cuffs, but I was so tired. The best I could do was hunch over to keep the worst of the rain out of my eyes. Peter shifted and leaned toward me. The wind and rain let up ever so slightly. I don’t remember most of the boat ride. I might have passed out again or maybe there just wasn’t much to remember other than the rain and the occasional roar of thunder and the endless gray above and below. Eventually, the boat stopped jumping and the wind died down until it was not much more than a heavy breeze. I sat up straight and looked around. Our boat was coasting across calm waters, a smudge of shoreline just visible maybe three- or four-hundred yards away. “This cove isn’t on any of the maps,” George said without turning around. I was surprised that I could hear him so clearly. The storm was barely above a spring bluster in the cove, though I could still see it raging dark and cold behind us where a break in the beach led back to the open ocean. “Where are we?” I asked, glad to hear my voice was back and the fog was lifting from my mind. “What are you doing?” George turned around and I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a man in his middle years look so old. “I’m giving you a choice, Ashley. A terrible, unforgivable choice, but I’m afraid it’s the only one I can offer you.” “It’s one we knew we’d need her to make eventually,” Gabe said. George leaned back and looked up at the clouds. “True. But it should have been years from now. Time when we could have prepared her, made her understand. Shit, remember how long it took you to understand, Peter?” Peter didn’t reply. He was watching me and looked sad. “It should have been Marco,” Gabe said. “That’s the whole point of the damn internship. Did you ever find out what happened?” George turned, searching for something. “He had a breakdown. Killed himself last night. I just got the call this morning.” “Damn,” Gabe said, crossing himself. “Poor little guy.” Peter closed his eyes. “What is happening? Tell me what the Hell is happening,” I demanded. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to,” George replied. He stood up and waved twice. I followed his gaze and saw that a second small boat, identical to our own, had anchored about thirty-yards away. Even in the drizzle, I could clearly make out Jennifer sitting in the vessel pointing a rifle at us. At me, I realized. She’s pointing that at me. George sat down. “Jenny is just there for insurance but she’s a crackerjack shot, so please don’t do anything…sudden.” I swallowed and stayed quiet. He continued. “What I’m about to tell you, Ashley, it’s going to sound, well, it’s going to sound crazier than a looney bin in an earthquake. But it’s the truth and I promise you’ll believe me. And I’m very sorry for that.” The Roberts woman was waking up slowly, groaning. “Miss? Dr. Roberts? Can you hear me?” I said. “M’am, you’re going to be okay. We’re fine.” George smiled. “Good makings of a ranger. I knew it as soon as I saw you. But, and I’m eternally sorry for this, only one of you is going to be fine.” I felt like I’d fallen into a tub of ice. I could hear my pulse thumping in my ears and my mouth was suddenly dry. “You don’t have to hurt anyone,” I whispered. “Whatever this is, you don’t have to.” “True,” George agreed. “But you do.” He turned his back to me and began rummaging around in the storage area at the bow. Briefly, I considered throwing myself at him. Maybe I could knock him overboard if I took him by surprise. But I felt Peter shifting next to me, maybe sensing the adrenaline firing through my bloodstream. And then there was Gabe behind me and, of course, Jennifer nearby with her rifle ready. I slumped, realizing that whatever was about to happen, there wasn’t anything I could do to change it. George turned around holding two duffle bags. They were olive green, bland, the kind that you could find in any army surplus story in the country. He sat the bags down next to the captive woman. “First, I do want you to know, you’re not at all crazy,” the old ranger told me. “You did find a body on the beach this morning. I apologize for lying to you but you weren’t supposed to see that. The whole reason I gave you off was to keep you away from the park today. Sure is bad luck you came in anyway and worse luck you couldn’t be talked out of pulling the cops into this.” “You moved the body?” “Yep, me and Pete while the others kept you occupied. We were out looking for the guy, anyway. We knew he’d be washing up.” “You knew? Did you…are you the one who-” George nodded. “Killed him? Technically, no, it was Gabe’s turn, but from a philosophical point of view, we’re all guilty of it.” “Why?” I whispered. “We had to. We have to send one down every three or four years.” George splashed the surface of the water with his fingertips. “It used to be only once a decade or so when I was younger but she’s been restless lately.” “I…I don’t understand.” “There’s a thing sleeping under the water here. We think it’s probably at the bottom of this cove but it might be somewhere deeper. All I’m sure of is that this little inlet is a special place. The weather’s always nicer here and this is where she likes her meals.” I kept glancing Dr. Roberts. Her eyes were flickering behind closed lids. She’d be conscious any moment. “Who is, ‘she?’” I asked. George was staring into the water. “I’m not actually sure she is a ‘she.’ That’s just the impression that I got the one time I, uh, communicated with her. You’ll see what I mean.” I scooted closer to the head ranger. “Listen, whatever this is, the woman is still out cold. Drop her off on the shore. Just let her go.” “I don’t think you want to make that choice quite yet,” George replied. “This will be easier if I just show you.” He opened the first duffle bag. “I’ve been saying just show her from the beginning,” Gabe said. “Rip off the band-aid.” “She needed context,” George countered, pulling a clear plastic box from the bag. It looked like a shadow box, the large, clear plastic kind you’d use to display an autographed football or basketball. There was something large and flat inside of the case. George held it closer. “Take a look, Ashley.” “This is some kind of insanely tasteless prank, right?” I asked, glancing around the boat. “Or are you all completely fucking nuts?” “Ashley,” George repeated, bringing the box closer. “Look.” I did. For a long moment, every thought left my head. Then one came rushing back in and I couldn’t stop screaming. Inside of the box was a face, pulled taught and hung on thin wires. The eyes and mouth were open holes, the cheeks pale but remarkably life-like. There was even a hint of a five o’clock shadow on his jaw. Though I’d never seen the dead man on the beach while he was whole, I was certain I was looking at his well-preserved face. I turned away to throw up over the side of the boat. Gentle but insistent hands pushed my temples so that I was facing the box again. “I’m sorry,” Peter said. “But you have to see all of it.” “No. No.” I jammed my eyes shut. George sighed. “Either open your eyes or I’m going to have to push Dr. Roberts into the water.” Whimpering, I slowly opened my eyes to look at the face. It was moving. I stared, unable to understand what was happening. The dead man's mouth was opening and shaking while his face convulsed. It was as if he was silently screaming. “Jesus. God,” I whispered. “What? How?” George, thankfully, returned the box to the duffle bag. “As I’m sure you guessed, that belongs to the fella you found this morning. It was sitting still as a picture up until yesterday afternoon when it all of a sudden started…well…you saw. That’s one of the signs that she’s waking up. When we send one down to her, we’re supposed to keep the faces. It’s sick but those are just the rules that got passed down. The face acts as a warning that the bitch is restless. That and the storm. Then it’s time for a new sacrifice.” “This is evil,” I said. George nodded. “Maybe. But what we do here at Snowfall, it goes back a long time, Ashley. Like, before this was a park, before there was a town. Even before the first Europeans built a couple of stick sheds and called it a colony, the local tribes were sending down sacrifices to keep this thing sleeping. One life every few years might be evil but the last time something like her woke up, I understand a whole colony disappeared in North Carolina. This thing is ancient, Ashley. And it only tolerates us as long as we keep it fed and dreaming satisfied dreams." A sudden, mad panic made me try to rip my hands through my cuffs. To Hell with the bastards and Jennifer and her rifle. I would not let them skin me alive and throw me into the ocean. “Easy,” Peter said, pinning my arms. “Easy. I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But everything he’s saying is true.” “You’re all fucking crazy,” I screamed, feeling like I was losing a grip on my own sanity. “You’re sick. There’s nothing down there. You’re just murderers.” George opened the second duffle bag. “I was hoping the face would be enough to convince you but I understand it’s a lot to take in.” He pulled out a device made of sticks and what looked like strips of leather. I recognized it as the strange dreamcatcher from his office. “I’m sorry about this part,” George said, placing the object over my head. “I’m sorry about all of this but this in particular.” “What are you-” The netting came down until my head was covered. Instantly, I knew I wasn’t on the boat anymore. I was standing on a wide, black beach at night. The sky was clear but discolored, like a fresh bruise slowly going purple. There was a full moon hanging above the horizon but it was wrong, too. It was far too large and seemed so close I was worried it would fall into the ocean. There was only one star; a bright red one that I couldn’t look at for long. It was like a wound just before it began to bleed. I shivered and crossed my arms. My cuffs were gone and my legs were also free. It was cold, colder than anything I’d ever felt before. Despite the clear conditions, the ocean was rough. Whitecaps stood and hung and crashed down, breaking at the shoreline. There was something in the water. Many things. People. Each was missing their face but somehow all of them were screaming, clawing at the blank flesh where their faces should be. The sound was horrible, a muffled gurgle that was amplified to a buzzing wind by the hundreds or thousands of throats that were trying to shriek. A large wave pushed a dozen of the naked, squirming figures onto the beach. Most were stunned but a few tried to crawl away. Before they could, a human hand the size of a small parking lot emerged from the water and raked the sand with fingers like huge, crooked trees. The miserable things were dragged back into the tide. Another gigantic hand was rising from the ocean, then a second, and a third. They towered above me, blocking out the light of the swollen moon. I screamed- -and kept screaming as someone pulled the dreamcatcher from my head and shook me. “Ashley, Ash.” Peter’s voice. “It’s okay. I know it’s awful but you’re safe. You’re not there. You’re not there.” “Not yet,” Gabe said. I opened my eyes to see Peter glaring at the other ranger. Gabe was looking out over the calm waters, an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He flicked his lighter and cupped his hands but couldn’t get it going in the drizzle. Sighing, Gabe tossed the cigarette into the ocean. “Don’t litter,” George said, putting the twisted dreamcatcher back into the bag. “You saw the beach, right?” I was shaking uncontrollably, unable to answer. My screaming had woken Dr. Roberts. She was looking around the boat, confused but growing more afraid by the moment. “What’s this? Where?” she mumbled. “Dan? Dan…the kids…” “I know what you saw,” George said. “We’ve all seen it, too. This cove…I guess it’s like a window, or better yet, a doorway, to wherever fucked up place she calls home. We send her food but not just to eat. She keeps them forever, she feeds on their pain and their minds and their memories. An ocean of screaming. Hell of a lullaby. "Remember I said that I’d need you to make a choice, Ashley? Now is the time. We do a terrible but necessary thing here. You weren’t supposed to discover it so soon but the cat’s out of the bag. So now we all need to know you really have what it takes to be a park ranger at Snowfall.” I shifted my gaze from George to the camper handcuffed next to him. “No,” I said. “No. No. No.” The old ranger held up his hands. “That is one of the answers you can give but I strongly suggest you take a moment to consider your situation. No matter what happens, the doctor here will be sent down. There’s no way around that. You only get to decide if you are going to be the one to send her…or if you’re going down with her. I’ll give you two minutes to decide.” “What is going on? Let me go,” the camper mumbled in a haze. George slipped a gag between her teeth. “I’m sorry doc but the ritual requires you to be awake. Bad, bad luck. Try to put your mind in a happier place.” “Ashley,” Peter said, leaning down to put his face close to mine. “You have to do this.” “I can’t,” I whispered. “I can’t.” “If you don’t, you see where you’ll be going.” I started sobbing, nearly hyperventilating, but he was right. The only thing I could imagine being worse than killing that poor woman was going into the water with her. So when George told me my time was up and he offered me a bone-handled knife, I took it with the one hand they let free. Gabe and George dragged Dr. Roberts close to me and forced her head still while Peter kept one hand on my wrist just in case I tried to stab one of them or myself. George told me what to do, where to cut, and Peter helped counter the shaking in my hand. Even with the gag, I’ll never, until the day I die, forget the sound the camper made while I worked at her face. It’s a sound I hear in my nightmares now, along with the buzz of flies, and a wind that moans. When I was done, George placed the dreamcatcher over her head. Gabe and Peter tossed her, still screaming, over the side of the boat. As soon as she hit the water, the remains of the storm began to clear. By the time we made it back to headquarters, the sun was shining brightly and the air smelled like it had the edge of summer on it, clean and warm. No one spoke a word the entire trip back. They let me loose from my bonds. Gabe even offered me a cigarette. Peter had to light it for me; I was shaking too badly to use the lighter. He also helped me collapse into a chair when we were back in the office and brought me a blanket. George brought me a mug of tea that smelled like honeysuckle and citrus. I eyed the cup suspiciously. George laughed. “Don’t worry, nothing in your drink this time. No need. Welcome to the team.” submitted by /u/Grand_Theft_Motto to r/nosleep [link] [comments]

So, I have very hooded eyes. A little while ago I bought some lash clusters for prom from Amazon. I picked ones that seemed more natural looking since that’s what I heard suited hooded eyes, but I found that they just looked too thin and weren’t very noticeable, and the band part was too thick so it made my eyes look even more droopy. So, recently I’ve been wanting to get into using lash clusters again, but I’m not sure what will suit me best. I’ve been thinking of buying Manga lash style and fanning them out a bit to make them less thick and heavy, and using the shorter clusters maybe. Any other suggestions? And if anyone has any specific recs that would be great too!! (From Amazon preferably and affordable recs would be amazing!) submitted by /u/Spirited-Spinach-733 to r/MakeupAddiction [link] [comments]

First Wither POV Wither found himself riding in the back of one of Vitmori's carriages with Legosi, which Lostrill had fetched from one of the public lots as the group exited the inner city. He couldn't help but watch as the people came and went, living their lives and doing whatever that entailed as what appeared to be the working day ended, and the nightlife gradually got set up. As they approached the first major intersection along the main road, which led to the gates to this side of the inner city, Wither noticed that the Boss was also people-watching with what looked to be a slight smile on his face. The man seemed to be eagerly watching as people walked with their families and friends, doing what appeared to be nothing special at all. Before long, a crossing guard who looked to be working the intersection signaled for Lostrill to pull forward, allowing them to continue down the road with the flow of traffic. As the minutes ticked by, Wither was suddenly pulled from his thoughts when Vitmori piped up out of nowhere, a charming little grin on his face as he gazed into Wither's eyes. "Do you want to go explore the city? At least for a little bit." "W-what? What do you mean, Boss?" Wither replied with a vague uncertainty. Sure, he had been thinking about it, but he hadn't planned on acting on those thoughts. Vitmori chuckled softly at that, leaning back against his seat at the front of the carriage. "I wanted to explore, too, but unfortunately, I'm pretty busy. So, with that said, how about you go and explore for me? Take a walk around, eat some food, and buy a trinket." Vitmori mused as a pouch of what sounded like coin appeared in his hand before passing it over to Wither with a gentle, underhanded throw as he looked at the lizardkin. "Say, Lostrill, how long do you think it'll take us to reach the woods and return?" The lizardkin hummed in thought momentarily, tilting his head from side to side before speaking up. "Based on earlier today, I'd say it would take us another twenty to thirty minutes to reach the forest and then a minimum of thirty minutes on our return due to the overall traffic decrease later tonight." He explained methodically before looking over to Vitmori. "Though I'm not sure how long it'd take you to fell a tree, Mister Vito." Vitmori nodded slowly in what looked like consideration before turning to look back to Wither. "So it'll likely take us an hour and a half, maybe two hours if I don't find any trees I like right away." Before Wither could respond, Lostrill cut in, sounding somewhat astounded and unsure. "Are you saying it'll take you less than an hour, possibly less than thirty minutes, to cut down and process a tree?" Vitmori barked out a laugh before shaking his head a little. "I never said anything about actually cutting the tree down. I planned to take the entire tree straight from the dirt, from the leaves to the roots." He mused, clearly reveling in the confused expression the lizardkin had on his face. "I also never said it would be just the one tree either. I will need quite a bit of wood to furnish my entire building." Lostrill just went quiet, his scaled face scrunched in apparent contemplation as he seemingly focused on the road again. With Lostrill focused on other things, Wither spoke up as he made his way closer to the front of the carriage. "Are you sure, Boss? You won't need me around?" Vitmori just nodded slowly. "I mean it most kindly, Wither, but I won't need you for this. So, feel free to explore for the next couple of hours, have fun, and enjoy yourself, and maybe you can show me around another day." He stated rather cheerfully. Ultimately, Wither didn't intend to make more than a token effort to question his Boss's reasoning and bobbed his head at Vitmori's words. "Very well, Boss, I'll do my best to explore." Vitmori chuckled at that as he looked back at the road ahead. "Enjoy yourself, Wither, and you'll be doing enough." Wither wasn't entirely sure what to say, so he nodded at Vitmori's words. Once the carriage stopped at another intersection, Wither hopped out and stood at the street corner until the carriage moved on, leaving him alone for the time being. The seconds turned to a couple of minutes as Wither was left with almost overwhelming indecisiveness at the utter freedom he was just granted. Having at least moved out of the way of incoming traffic, he leaned against a wall before peeking into the coin pouch Vitmori had given him. He was surprised to see gold in there, even if it was only two pieces, accompanied by eight pieces of silver and fifteen pieces of copper. As Wither stood by and watched the crowds as they passed, he decided to look himself over, noting his tattered and torn robes that long had the symbols of the Gaian Church ripped off of them. They had certainly seen better days and were far from being the cleanest, given that they have yet to be maintained even once these last few months. After another moment of consideration, he decided his first stop would be a clothing store of some kind; he knew he already stuck out because of the mask he needed to wear due to the condition his face was in, along with the general pallor of his skin, so a change of clothing should help him stick out a little less. Instead of aimlessly walking around, he asked the various individuals who were going about their day for directions to a possible clothing store, and while it did take more than a few attempts since he was brushed off as either some strange beggar or unnerved the people he approached; he was eventually given some proper help by a confident rabbitkin couple who sent him on his way. Having navigated the streets and taken in the few sights here and there, Wither arrived at the Traveler's Trunk clothing store and made his way inside. Curiously looking around, his first impression was that the clothes here looked warm, sturdy, and decently well-made for being mass-produced. Approaching one of the tables with neatly stacked piles of similarly styled long-sleeve shirts, he noticed a small sign offering free tailoring services to accommodate people with wide horns or wings. Even though it didn't apply to him, he couldn't help but consider the issues that people with extra appendages or growths had to deal with, if only for a moment, as he took up a shirt and held it to his chest to try and gauge the size he needed. The store was mostly empty, with only a couple of other patrons looking over shelves and tables of clothing. Before long, a petite birdkin woman with a generous spattering of dull blue and grey downy feathers across her shoulders and chest approached Wither, the woman having first checked in with the other patrons before eventually making her way up to him as she flashed a polite-looking smile. "Good afternoon, sir. Do you know what you're looking for, or could you use a little help?" She asked, tilting her head ever so slightly while looking up at the relatively tall and masked man. Wither watched the woman for a moment, tilting his head slowly to match her without considering it before it suddenly dawned on him that he should probably say something. "Erm... Yes... I... I could use some help if you don't mind." The woman nodded intently as her eyes trailed across the shirts Wither had been checking before looking back up at him. "Very well, sir, what do you need?" Wither looked at the shirt he was holding before setting it down and turning to face the birdkin woman. "I think I need a new outfit altogether... A shirt, an overcoat with a hood, pants, shoes, maybe some gloves." The birdkin procured a small stone slate and a piece of chalk as she quickly scribbled down the relatively short list of items before looking up at Wither with a pleasant smile still on her lips. "Do you intend on wearing armor under or over these clothes?" Wither couldn't help but pause at that comment, blinking to himself for a couple of moments before shaking his head. "Probably not. It isn't my role to engage in combat; my duty is healing others." She just quirked a brow at that, looking somewhat skeptical of that comment. "Even if you aren't fighting, you should probably wear armor anyways; you never know when it'll come in handy." She said before shaking her head and sighing. "But it isn't my place to critique." "I'll be fine." Wither said after a moment, though he wasn't sure why he was trying to reassure her as he regarded her again. "Ideally, I'd like not to show any skin if you could help me in that endeavor... Oh! And dark colors that don't show bloodstains easily." She nodded at his words, adding more to whatever she had written down on her stone notepad and looking relatively unphased by his requests. "Very well. Do you happen to know your measurements?" She asked, though as Wither silently shook his head, she nodded some more. "I see; if that's the case, would you mind following me to the back so I can get your measurements? Of course, you're not getting anything fitted, but this way, I'll know what size range I can pick from for you." Wither took a moment to look where she had gestured before slowly nodding and making his way over to a private room with a two-foot wide standing mirror. He couldn't help but just... Stare at himself while the birdkin woman walked around the room and set up whatever she needed to. Before he knew it, Wither was reaching up for his mask, his fingers touching the smooth wood as he gazed into the reflection of his own eyes. Though before he could do anything else, the clacking of a wooden step stool being pulled open pulled him from the moment as he looked to the petite birdkin as she smiled up at him with a roll of measuring tape in her hands. "Alright, sir, if you don't mind, please pull those robes off." "Oh... Uh, sure." Wither replied hesitantly before starting to disrobe, leaving on only his pants as he carefully laid them on a nearby rack. "Wow, you're awfully pale for a human, sir, maybe even a little grey... Do you happen to have a little orc ancestry, perhaps?" She asked conversationally while getting her step stool into position. As he pulled off the last of the cloth that covered his torso, she couldn't help but let out an eep of surprise as her wings and feathers poofed up at the sight of his back and shoulders. "S-sorry, that was rude of me." She quickly apologized, eyeing his body before stepping up on the stool to get level with his shoulders. "If you don't mind my asking... Didn't you say you were a healer? How come you haven't tended to these... Err... Wounds." Wither just impassively shook his head, eyeing the scars that marred the flesh of whoever this man used to be. "They were left alone for too long after I had been, um... Downed... By a powerful mana beast. The near-death experience and that beast's magic left me this way, and I haven't found anything to cure it." He explained away, eyeing the hints of claw marks along the side of his jawline that peeked out from behind the mask, and then the more apparent teeth marks where his body's throat had been ripped out and then put back into place and the clear ripping claw marks on his right shoulder and down his back. He had never really seen them like this before, and they looked more brutal than he had realized now that he was more aware of himself, but they didn't hurt. Blight was the one who was physically better off between the two of them since Blight's body had been killed by being choked out while having its vitality drained by Oururu—a relatively bloodless, if not still painful, death. "I can see why you'd not want to show any skin." She said softly, her eyes trailing the neck wound while measuring Wither's shoulders before wincing at her own words. "My apologies, sir. That wasn't proper for me to say." "It's okay... It happened a lifetime ago." Wither stated as he maintained eye contact with his reflection while the birdkin measured his waist before measuring his legs and feet. She finished taking her notes before long, scribbling the measurements down on her stone notepad when she looked up at Wither with a vague expression of pity and concern. "Feel free to wait here while I gather some options for you." She offered while heading for the door, but she stopped short as she watched Wither momentarily. "W-would you like a scarf to go with your requested clothes?" She asked while gesturing to her neck and shoulder while looking at the distinct scars on his body. Wither was silent for a long while, and as she turned to leave when she thought he wouldn't respond, he finally piped up. "I'd like a green one... If you have it." "Of course, sir." The birdkin said as she managed to smile before shutting the door behind her. Now left on his own, Wither looked back at his reflection, staring into the eye holes of his mask. He examined his body for a few more moments before reaching up for his mask again and placing his hand against it. He wasn't sure why he was hesitating about removing it this time; he'd done it a few times before without a problem. But now? It may be that he's actually going to look at himself. What if... What if he doesn't like what he sees? For all intents and purposes, he received this mask at the same time as his name. This mask is the only face he's ever really known. It is his face. The face Vitmori made for him, however casually that may have been. Should he even be curious about such a thing? About what's under the mask? After another minute passed, Wither finally came to a decision. If he doesn't like his face, he doesn't need to look at it again after today. Despite making the decision, Wither was still rather hesitant about actually taking the mask off and went about it the slow way, untying it from the back instead of lifting it straight off his face and... Vitmori was right. He was rather disturbing to look at... Maybe it was just the idea of seeing his own face for the very first time—or rather, the face of the body he was given. Before him was a tired-looking, sickly man in his late twenties or early thirties with a ruined face and beautifully vibrant green eyes. Deep gouges from Basti's magically enhanced claws ripped over his right eye, cheek, and jawline. In some places, he could see through his cheekbones and jawbone and even look at his teeth and gums from where the claws had cleanly gone through his cheek flesh. He had seen enough corpses and enough of the other zombies to know that the face of the man in the reflection would frighten and disgust most people, especially children. He also knew that he didn't want to disturb people more than he already did, and even though this wasn't the face Vitmori had given him, he decided to do something about it. With a pulse of his slowly beating heart, he began gathering his mana to his hand, focusing on the magical energy's nature to be that of life and rejuvenation before pressing his palm against his cheek. In the silence of the room, he could hear his flesh squelch and squish together more than he could feel it as he watched the deep gouges in his face become more shallow, the gaps in his flesh mending until every hole that wasn't supposed to be there had been properly closed. Pulling his hand away, he leaned in closer as he began slowly tilting his head from side to side, examining himself more properly now that he didn't look as mangled as he did a few minutes ago. He didn't... He did not dislike his face anymore, and the more that he looked at the face, the more a strange expression crept onto it... Is that... A smile? It's a nice smile if he could say so himself. He also felt he could claim this as his face now that he changed it himself. Well... At the very least, he put in a modicum of effort since he had initially been given this body and the face as it had been back then. Maybe one day he could learn to love his face, but for now, he still preferred the face Vitmori had given him as he pulled away from the mirror and secured the mask back to where it belonged. After a couple more minutes, the door to the room swung open as the birdkin shop attendant made her way back inside, literally walking backward into the room as she pushed the door open with her body before turning on her heel as she carried in the bundle of clothes. "Thank you for your patience, sir; I think you'll like what I picked out for you." She enthused rather cheerfully as she brought the clothes to a small table and set them down again. "Go on; I'll be waiting right outside, so feel free to change into whatever catches your eye." She said before leaving and shutting the door behind him again. Looking over the array of clothes before him, he chose a pair of dark brown cotton breeches, calf-high black boots secured by leather straps, a dark gray long-sleeve shirt, a soft hide vest, and a black hooded overcoat. After pulling on a pair of black leather gloves, he spotted the scarf among the remaining clothes he hadn't picked and decided to pull it on. He carefully wrapped it until it entirely covered his neck before pulling up his new hood and looking himself in the mirror. He looked... Well, he still looked fairly intimidating in these dark colors, but at the very least, he didn't look like a ragged mess. He looked and felt cleaner than he could remember, and something about that feeling brought him a strange sense of joy. He could feel that smile growing again but under the mask this time, of course. Gathering up and folding his robes and old clothes, he tucked them under his arm and stepped out of the dressing room. The petite birdkin woman immediately approached him as she looked him up and down and flashed a rather sincere-looking smile. "You look much nicer now, sir; you certainly cut a more distinct look now, that's for sure." She politely expressed before gesturing to the front counter where another employee was speaking with a goatkin woman. "Shall we get you checked out, or would you still like to shop around?" Wither didn't respond immediately but spoke up faster than before: "I... I'm ready to go. Thank you... for all of your help." She smiled still, seemingly pleased by his response, as she led him to the counter before reviewing her stone notepad and then fiddling with an abacus. "That will be... forty-three copper, sir." Slowly nodding, Wither procured two silver coins from his pouch and placed them in a tray already on the counter. The woman took up the tray and walked off with it before returning with seventeen copper pieces and a small burlap sack. "What is this for?" Wither asked, staring intently at the bag she brought before looking over at her as he gently collected the copper coins. "It's a complimentary bag for your purchases, sir, but since you're wearing them out, you may as well put your old clothes in it." She readily explained and suggested, her eyes following Wither's hand, as he collected each copper coin one at a time and dropped them into his coin purse. Such a valuable little thing that he didn't even need to buy? Wither couldn't help but smile at that as he nodded slowly in understanding. "You've helped me quite a bit today... Thank you very much." She chuckled softly and waved a dismissive hand. "You're welcome, sir. Don't worry about it. I'm just glad we were able to get you sorted so quickly. Will there be anything else today, sir?" She asked as she watched him methodically tuck the clothes away into the sack before tying the drawstring around his arm to hang it off of himself. "Actually... Yes. If you don't mind helping me a little more." Wither started to say as he met the woman's gaze. "Do you know where I can go, have fun and enjoy myself?" She blinked a few times before a smirk of amusement grew as she brought her hands to her mouth to stifle a chuckle. It took her a moment to recover, and she just shook her head at herself before finally speaking up. "I'm so sorry about that; it was rude of me to just laugh like that." She mused before looking up at him again. "I don't know what I expected you to say, but it wasn't that..." She explained almost mischievously before leaning forward on the counter and propping her chin up with her arm, which was now resting against the countertop. "What sort of 'fun and enjoyment' are you looking for? Just so we can be on the same page, sir." Were there many kinds of 'fun and enjoyment'? "I'm... not sure," Wither replied as he tilted his head to the left uncertainly. "My Boss... He ordered me to explore, have fun, and enjoy myself... Oh, and to buy a trinket." She nodded intently, still looking somewhat amused but a little more relaxed now as she flashed an almost cheerful smile. "I wish I got orders like that from my boss." She mused before tilting her head from side to side in consideration. "You could try visiting the South Gate Street market. It usually has a fun evening-to-nighttime crowd around there. Still, it's even more active nowadays with all the travelers coming to town for that elite gathering or summit, whatever it is." She explained away with a small handwave of her free hand. "We even have travelers who come out from the inner city docks, so there might be something mighty interesting there." She enthused as she pushed away from the counter. "Of course, there's a market square at the north gate and an even bigger one in the inner city, but the south market's more local for me, so obviously, it's my favorite." Wither was already starting to reel at the options of the north, south, and inner city, but after a few quiet moments, he nodded slowly. "Very well... The South Gate market... How do I get there?" The scents of food, perfumes, sweat, incense, and animals, along with all the noises, chattering, clattering, and even music that come with those things, assaulted Wither's senses as he did his best to follow the flow of the crowd and take in the busy sites around him. It... Was beautiful? He wasn't sure of it, but the controlled chaos of all the people around him stirred something inside of him, and he couldn't help but want to experience even more of it all. As the seconds turned to minutes and the minutes became an hour, Wither became distinctly aware that the time to return to Vitmori was drawing ever closer. But... He wasn't ready for all this to end quite yet. With a burlap sack stuffed with a variety of clinking and clacking trinkets and his coin purse somewhat lighter, he had found himself approaching yet another stand of curious curios; this time, it was a number of ornate-looking pieces of equipment, bracers made of polished grey and black metal, a brown and blue breastplate with fine engravings, red boots with complex stitching among other things. "Young Basmori might enjoy those." He said aloud to nobody in particular as he studied the bracers. Of course, the young halfling man running the stand perked up at Wither's interest; he leaned forward against the stand's counter and attempted to meet Wither's gaze. "You have a good eye, sir; if you look even closer, you'll find that each of these items are actually made to be enchanted, ready to be turned into tools and artifacts worth dozens if not hundreds of pieces of gold." He explained with no small amounts of charismatic bravado. "But alas, they lay incompleted and magicless... However, the potential is still there. What do you say, sir? While their potential could one day turn to gold, I'm willing to part with these for mere silvers." Wither didn't really know anything about all of that, though the bracers did look nice. "How many silvers?" The halfling smiled a bit more before stroking his chin in thought and piping up. "For those bracers, I'd be willing to part with them for six silver. What do ya say?" Wither lifted the burlap sack and looked inside the coin pouch that he had left in there. "I'm afraid I'm a little short on silvers. Do you happen to have change for gold?" A flash of emotions crossed the halfling's face: disappointment, which was soon followed by surprise and delight as he eagerly bobbed his head. "Of course, sir, I'd be happy to make change for you." He enthused as he held out his hand, palm up, for the coin which Wither procured and set in the waiting palm. As the halfling began digging through a lock box that had been physically bolted to his stand to fetch Wither's coin, Wither went about carefully tucking away the bracers into the burlap sack before turning his attention back to the halfling who held the coin out in both of his hands. Of course, Wither proceeded to collect each coin one at a time, dropping it into the pouch in the burlap sack as each coin audibly clinked, much to the growing annoyance of the halfling merchant who did their best to maintain a sense of professionalism despite the circumstances. Though as the last coin was dropped into the coin pouch, Wither was suddenly accosted by a blonde furred rabbitkin, and with a flash of gleaming metal, the drawstrings of the burlap sack were sliced, and the rabbitkin child began sprinting away. "My... Things..." Wither couldn't help but murmur, unsure of what to do as he turned to look at the rather surprised halfling. "Well, go on and give chase; that brat is gonna get away!" The halfling spurred on, looking even more surprised that Wither hadn't immediately started moving after the little thief. With a direction set before him, he looked after where the rabbitkin had run off and proceeded to start running. However, he soon realized that he wasn't even sure where he was running to as he did his best to avoid bumping into anyone until there was no one left to bump into. Before he knew it, Wither had ended up hopelessly lost as he wandered the backstreets and alleyways of the outer city, finding himself somewhere in the middle of what appeared to be the boundaries of the commercial and residential districts. He would occasionally meet other people also wandering the alleyways, though they seemed to be more intimidated by his general appearance and would leave him alone rather than try to mess with him. He walked and wandered until a commotion suddenly drew his attention, a clattering of wood against stone and a thwump of flesh dropping on the ground that sounded worryingly small. "Fuck-! The little shit kicks hard." A man muttered and hissed from around the corner. "Pfft~ Well, what do you expect? That's all those little bunnies are good for." A woman mused with hissing laughter. "Now then, let's see what goodies they were carrying for us." Another man said excitedly as the sound of clattering coins on concrete rang out, followed by the crunching of glass and the clattering of a number of other things. As he rounded the corner, he came across a trio of lightly armed and very lightly armored individuals clustered around the rabbitkin child while a scruffy human man poured out a couple of bags worth of items, along with Wither's things. Upon seeing his belongings, Wither approached, only to be immediately held by a bladed tail point as the snakeskin woman noticed his approach. Her tail had moved rather fast as she flicked her tongue out at him. "Hold it, where do you think you're going?" Wither didn't even bother with flinching at the woman's threat as he stared down at his belongings. "Those are mine." The first man, a somewhat rough-looking dogkin, flashed an amused sneer, ears perked high as he regarded Wither up and down. "Oh? So the brat stole from you? Sure, feel free and help yourself." He mused as he stepped away from the crumpled body of the young rabbitkin while reaching around behind him. Wither didn't bother to acknowledge the man, stepping closer to the scattered pile of his things when he finally noticed the rabbitkin on the ground, the blood dribbling from their mouths as they shuddered and desperately clung to life. It was then that something seemed to twist in his stomach, a heavy, almost burbling pit that weighed him down and caused his throat to tighten and his teeth to clench. Wither wasn't sure what this feeling was, and he was certain it wasn't the knife that the dogkin had just buried in his lower back while the human and snakekin cackled with clear delight. "Y-you hurt the child... W-why?" Wither muttered with a cold intensity that was unfamiliar to him. "Because why the fuck not, shithead?" The dogkin mused, a vague look of confusion bleeding onto his sneering expression as he twisted the blade before pulling it out and running it between Wither's ribs and one of his lungs. "Brat wouldn't give us their stuff; they were asking for it." Now Wither remembered the emotion... He had felt it radiating off of Vitmori back at Lucfan's Rest when they came across the field of prisoners. This was the emotion that bled into every order he gave from then on; it fueled the horde and drove them to rip apart those he deemed to be his enemy. As the dogkin pulled the knife out of Wither's body again, he made the decision to stop being himself, just for now, and to embrace the nature that Vitmori had instilled in his horde, the very nature that he had suppressed as a healer of others... He would devour. As the knife buried itself in Wither's left shoulder, his right hand came up, ripping off his hood and mask as he lunged for the dogkin and plunged his teeth into their throat. His manaheart pulsed with unfiltered life magic as he could feel the muscles in his jaw start to tear and repair themselves from the sheer force he was outputting; the squelching ripping of skin and veins followed by the desperate gurgling of the dogkin as they fell to the ground while clutching their throat to pointlessly stop the bleeding. ‘His flesh is soo… Delicious… Is this how people taste to the other zombies?’ Wither rounded on the snakekin and human, blood spilling down his chin as he swallowed and dashed forward, each step causing his heart to pulse as the life magic coursed through his body. The human stumbled back, turning to run while the snakekin lashed out with her tail blade while simultaneously coiling her body to put some distance between her and Wither. “W-what the hell are you?!” She cried out, managing to launch herself to the left by rapidly uncoiling her tail and getting out of Wither’s way as he smashed himself against the alley wall, leaving a blood-soaked imprint behind as he pushed off and wheeled around on her again. This time, the snakekin coiled her tail before launching it out at Wither, impaling him with the blade as it pierced clear through his stomach and out through his back. But instead of going down, he suddenly experienced a rush of energy as the dogkin succumbed to his injuries. Reaching up and ripping the dagger from his shoulder, Wither used his other hand and grabbed the snakekin by her tail, his fingers easily piercing through the thin scales before swiftly slicing through the slim part of her tail as the blade and the rest of the tail clattered with a bloody thump to the ground behind him. “M-my tail!” The snakekin woman cried out, losing all semblance of composure as she lunged for the severed flesh, shoving Wither aside with a burst of manic strength before scooping the still wriggling flesh and cradling it to her chest. Though that was little comfort as she was tackled to the ground by Wither, his jaw, and cheeks audibly ripping and repairing themselves as he dug his teeth into her throat while peeling away the scales of her neck and shoulders, this time savoring his meal, going back for seconds and thirds, slurping and chomping down on the reptilian flesh as he was flooded with yet another rush of intoxicating vital energies. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but the next thing he knew, a voice broke him from his stupor. His eyes quickly darted up to its source when his sense of self came rushing back at an all-too-familiar presence. “Hey buddy, it looks like you’ve been busy. I hope I’m not interrupting.” Vitmori says in a soft, almost soothing voice. It was then he noticed that he was cradling the rabbitkin child in one of his arms while holding Wither’s mask out to him. “You let one get away, but don’t worry, he didn’t get far.” He mused almost cheerfully. “Now come on, we should probably get going.” Taking up his mask with both hands, blood staining the unpainted wood, he gazed into the empty eye holes before looking up to Vitmori and speaking up, sad exhaustion just seeping through every word. “I… Ruined my new clothes.” Prev First Next Hey guys, sorry about the wait! Things just got away from me last month, and I couldn’t focus on my writing nearly as much as I usually do. So, I hope you all enjoyed this extra-long chapter while I enjoy the next five days on the coast. When I return, refreshed and maybe a little more tan, I’ll do my best to get back into the swing of things again. Also! If you want more direct contact with me and somewhat regular updates about delays and maybe a few jokes, then I really recommend joining my Discord! Withering Gaze(WIP 1) Join the Discord Interstellar Combat Courier Chapter Wiki Future Art Comissions Vitmori Enters the Clearing (Finished) / Vitmori’s Heart (Finished) / Expedition Start(Completed) / His Last Stand (Finished) / Candidate Located: Begin Transfer (Finished) / Mama Cat (Finished) / Courier Interrupted (Finished) / Siege Breaker (Finished) / In Vitmori’s Care (Finished) Sally_the_Sow/Artist Join the subreddit! RoyalRoad Patreon PayPal submitted by /u/ScribblingFox98 to r/HFY [link] [comments]

[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki] It doesn't matter who you were or what you've done. What you've said or where you've been. The only thing that matters is what you do in that one single second. That one second. Where everything comes down to it*.* Two or three times. That's all. That's all you get in life to prove who you really are. Will you rise above? Or will you die on your knees? - Unknown, Terra, Age of Paranoia The dropship's engines screamed as it clawed for air, making a least time course for the Nell, which was still holding position, still lashing out at the enemy ships with missile pods, the C++ Cannon, and the other esoteric weaponry the little craft possessed. His mother and sisters were sobbing, still wrapped in the rescue cloaks, the hoods still pulled up, the littles around their legs. The Captain was standing off to the side, by the rear hatch, putting the SMG on the magtac on his belt. Netmwit noticed that the toothed chain entered the guard housing at a wide point in the blade, where the face of a chubby infant Terran with wide eyes, a slightly open mouth, and tousled hair was surrounded by a laurel. The Captain's armor had claw marks, pockmarks from weapons, and tooth marks on it, but seemed unbreached to Netmwit's untrained eyes. One of the robot Marines was bent down, saying soothing words in a decidedly non-mechanical voice to the little clustered around his baby sister's legs. It had pockmarks on its chest, part of its face had melted and ran, giving it a strange scarred/stroke victim appearance. Its head also looked like a Terran skull, with a red stripe brushed across the eyes and another from between the eyes, down the face, to end at the chin. Hetmwit saw that his baby sister still had her datalink with her. He reached out and grabbed it, his sister blinking at how fast he moved. He looked at, tapped two icons, and scrolled till he found the number. He hit the connect icon and waited. It picked up on the second ring. The Captain looked at him, the skull visage of the helmet concealing the Captain's thoughts. "Hello?" the voice asked. "Dad! Dad, it's Hetmwit!" he said into the communicator, yelling to be heard over the bursts of static and the warbling tone in the background. "Who? Het... Hetmwit! Son! Where are you?" his father managed to remember who he was. "I'm on a dropship," Hetmwit said. "Where are you?" he looked at the Captain. "We're coming to get you!" "Get your mother!" his father shouted back. "I'm in the shelter at the plant. They say it's a drill." "I've got mom, Revvie, Tylee, and Estlee, along with the littles!' Hetmwit said. He had to repeat it when a burst of static interrupted him. The Captain put his fingers to his helmet and Hetwmit felt the dropship bank hard and drop altitude. One of the Marines hit the stud and the side doors pulled back. Both Marines deployed the door guns, checking the action. Hetmwit saw the roofs of the buildings flash by as the dropship hurtled down to nap of earth, the engines screaming and the battlescreen crackling on the dust and airborne debris. "What? I can't hear you! Get your mother, get your sisters, get the littles!" his father said. "Dad, dad! I've only got a minute or two. It's bad. Real bad!" Hetmwit yelled over the howling of the wind and the engines. "It's not a drill!" One of the Marines cut loose with a burst from the heavy 20mm door mounted machinegun. Something exploded and debris hit the battlescreen. "Leave me!" his father said, his voice urgent. "Get them out!" "Dad, I... I..." Hetmwit said. The Captain was just staring at him, unmoving. Both door gunners started firing. Hetmwit could see out the doors that they were low enough that the banners and signs above the ground level windows of stores were visible out the doors from his angle. There was a clanking noise against the bottom of the dropship and Hetmwit heard the chatter of flares being released. "Shut up! Listen to me! You're the one who saved the family. I always forgot about you, but you didn't forget about your mother and sisters!" his father yelled. There was an explosion outside that rocked the dropship, but it leveled out before the battlescreen did much more than shred a hundred meters of the building it had tilted toward. "I'm coming for you!" Hetmwit shouted into the datalink. "Get them out!" his father yelled. "Dad..." Hetmwit started to say. "You can't save me, boy! Nobody can save me! Get your mother and sis ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC scrolled across the top of his vision in lurid red letters. The dropship's engines howled as the pilot suddenly stood the dropship on its tail, braking and scrabbling for altitude at the same time. One of the littles slipped out of the half-connected harness. The nearest Marine lunched forward, grabbing the little in skeletal hands, bringing her close to his chest as his knees came up and put his elbows out. He bounced off the bulkhead, stuck a foot out and got it tangled in the cargo net, slamming against the bulkhead. The little was just staring with wide eyes at the skull of the robot who cradled it close. There was a white flash. Sparks shot from consoles, arced off the surfaces, danced along long bars and cables. Sparks shot from the datalink as it went dead in his hand. The afterburners kicked on and Hetmwit stumbled slightly before Captain Decken's hand stopped him. The robots were all kneeling down in front of his family, holding the rescue cloaks, silvery again instead of a matte dusty black that was the visual equivalent of trying to squeeze jello in your fist, closed over the Pagrik inside. NUKE NUKE NUKE flashed in his vision. WARNING 20+ Mt WARNING Another white flash. The engines were screaming, the afterburners shrieking as they were pushed to the limit. The whole dropship was shaking, vibrating hard enough that Hetmwit was starting to see double. Both door gunners reached out and slapped the buttons next to the door. "Dad..." Hetmwit said, staring at the datalink. The first shockwave hit the dropship and the battlescreen projectors roared and crackled like ice-water being poured on a red hot griddle. They were visible to the naked eye clearly, a bright red grid of interlocked hexagons. The doors slammed shut, driven by pneumatic pistons rather than electric motors, just before the debris cloud hit. The dropship seemed to fall for a moment, a split second of pseudo-zero-G. The robot against the bulkhead that was cradling a little kicked off, spinning in midair even as the dropship tilted. The engines were out. The gravity came back as the dropship fell. The robot landed in front of the netting that made up the seat. Its hands and arms flashed as it quickly put the little in the harness, then it leaned over the little, protecting it with its body. The engines coughed and fired as the dropship sucked air like a drowning man just breaking the surface. The engines roared, then shrieked as the pilot kicking in the afterburners, looping and turning, but still climbing. 35Km sped by. There was another hard impact to the dropship. The engines choked, gagged, and the pilot cut them out before one sucked in too much dust and the thrust went imbalanced. Some of the littles were screaming, their mouths open, soundless over the all consuming roar of the explosion. The dropship was falling again. 35Km went by the other way as the dropship tilted and its nose lifted even further as the pilot fought with it. The engines kicked on, coughing and choking, but still coming to life. The dropship leveled out, leaped forward. The pilot kicked the afterburners. 35Km went by again. ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC flashed by ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC went by again NUKE NUKE NUKE 20+ Mt WARNING scrolled by. The afterburners howled and the airframe started to shake as the pilot did everything but get out and push. "Come on, baby, hold together," the Captain growled softly. There was a sudden silence. Hetmwit opened his mouth to ask what was going to happen when the grav engines kicked on with a warbling atonal shrieking. The whole dropship shuddered and vibrated, again making Hetmwit see double as his eyeballs were shivered in the sockets. The littles were silent, eyes wide, staring into the faces of the robots that helped hold them secure, their eyes only inches from the burning red eyes set into the black Terran skulls. "You are being rescued," one said. "It is okay be afraid." The little blinked and nodded. 85Km went by. Hetmwit stood up, moving forward to his mother. The grav engines were still howling, pushed to the max. The dropship shuddered again, heeled onto its side, then leveled out, but Hetmwit kept his balance. Everything went silent, just the low steady growl of the grav-engines, as he knelt down in front of his mother. She was huddled inside the rescue cloak, her face hidden by the hood. "I'm sorry, momma. I was going to try, I really was," he said. She looked up, her eyes full of tears. "I believe you, Hemmie," she said softly. She leaned forward and put her arms around him, pulling him close. "You came for us." He hugged her gently, the armor's dogbrain VI realizing the context and cutting the assisted strength. "I tried. I really did," Hetmwit started weeping. "Oh, Hemmie," his mother sobbed. The Captain just watched, the black macroplas eyes of his helmet unreadable. ----- The air smelled like ozone, burnt molycircs, scorched warsteel, hot lubricant, and carbonized metals as Hetmwit made sure his niece was sedated and strapped down. He looked up at the robot Marine who had grabbed her out of midair and nodded. "Thanks," he said. "You're welcome, sir," the robot answered. Hetmwit stood up and quietly left the room. The lights dimmed slightly and there was a clonking sound that seemed to come from outside the hull. He hurried down the primary access corridor and to the bridge. Captain Decken stood by the holotank, his helmet off, staring at the data. "Order Corvette-Four to support that Concordiant battlewagon formation," Decken stated. "Aye aye, sir," Mister Hefty said. He looked up. "Corvette-One reports cooldown and reload successful, they're ready to reengage." "Order them back in," Decken looked up. "My condolences on your father," he said, then looked back at the holotank. "Order Corvette-Five to run another sweep with its drones. We'll see if it comes in at the same distance and latitude as last time," he said. "Aye aye, sir," Mister Hefty answered, tapping rapidly on the keyboard in front of him. Hetmwit looked at the holotank. He had taken the correspondence course about naval fleet tactics during the two weeks to the capital system. Unlike the last system wide action, this time he understood all the icons, the dotted lines, the dashed lines, that made the holotank's contents look so complicated. "We're winning," the Captain said. He looked over at a new robot, the only one with the short T head. "Mister Chatty, tell Grand High Admiral Sherkus that Bogey-Ninety-Two is shifting to try to flank his Cruiser Division-Seventeen." "Aye aye, sir," the robot stated. "Admiral Sherkus? He's in charge of the entire Concordiant Navy," Hetmwit said. He gave a chuckle. "His name was on my last set of orders that ended me up here." "The Malevolent Universe smiles on him then," Decken said. "A simple, unnoticed action that changed the fate of his entire nation." It suddenly seemed less funny to Hetmwit. "STATUS CHANGE!" Mister Goofy called out. Hetmwit and Decken both looked at the robot, who had white stripes on his face where the Marines had red. "Enemy is helljumping out," Mister Goofy said. "Get ready," Decken growled. He looked over at Mister Fumbles. "Load the C++ cannon and the ammo locker with boosted rounds." "Aye aye, sir," Mister Fumbles stated. Hetmwit found himself leaning forward. "NEW CONTACT!" Mister Goofy called out. "Same signature as Bogey-37 in the last system," he checked his board again. "Bogey is accelerating toward the stellar mass." Decken checked the status. 135%. Good enough to prevent it from getting spiked, but he had hoped to get 160% or more for full stabilization. "Corvette-Five reporting target lock," Mister Hefty said. "You may fire when ready, Mister Fumbles," Decken said softly. "Last known units have helljumped out," Mister Goofy stated. "GUNS FREE! MAIN GUN FIRING!" Mister Fumbles yelled out. Hetmwit could feel the ship shudder, like it was being punched backwards, even as ghostly fingers plucked at his bone marrow. "Direct hits," Mister Goofy said. There was a second pause. "Targets are breaking up." "Magazine reloaded. Heat at 72%, slush at 54% and rising," Mister Hefty said. "GUNS FREE! MAIN GUN FIRING!" Mister Fumbles called out. Again, the ship shuddered. "Direct hits. Targets breaking up," Mister Goofy stated. "Scan for any launches," Decken ordered. Hetmwit felt tension fill him for long moments. "No launches detected," Mister Hefty said. "Captain, the Admiral is demanding to speak with you. His ships are maneuvering for firing angles," Mister Goofy stated. Hetmwit knew what was going to happen next. "Order all flotilla elements to engage full stealth and move to Rally Point Ticonderoga," Decken said. "Mister Smiley, you have your course and heading." "Aye aye, sir," Mister Smiley said. The ship turned, the effect palpable despite the inertial compensator. Hetmwit was used to it now. Everything tunneled down to a pinprick on the horizon. He was violently pulled toward it. The long moment that only took a split second was suddenly over. The flotilla sat out by the Oort Cloud. Hetmwit stood silently as the Corvettes reported in. They were all battered, beaten upon, and scarred. Captain Decken stared at the holotank for a long moment, then looked up at Hetmwit. He didn't pull those burning amber eyes from Hetmwit's as he snapped out his order. "Make for Confederate Space, least time," he said. "Aye aye, Captain," Mister Smiley responded. There was the queasiness inducing slide that Hetmwit knew was the jump to hyperspace. "We have to warn the Confederacy," Hetmwit stated. Captain Decken just nodded. [First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki] submitted by /u/Ralts_Bloodthorne to r/HFY [link] [comments]

disclaimers: i am NOT an expert or professional! please feel free to jump into the comments to correct me or add your own knowledge. also, all pictures are not mine, i stole them from the internet. first, i want to establish: i am NOT trying to dictate what is beautiful and what isn't. 'objective beauty standards' are subjective. i do NOT condone korean beauty standards as universal truths. i will discuss certain 'standards', features, concepts, and tips on how to adjust or achieve certain effects; i am NOT implying those without these are not beautiful, or that features 'need to be fixed' or look a certain way. i firmly believe everyone is beautiful as they are. if you don't care for a short midface, please disregard this guide! we are merely exploring a beauty trend. do not let restrictive, pedantic beauty standards be toxic, misogynistic, or detrimental to you. lastly please note this guide covers makeup techniques. i will not discuss skincare, or any other kind of cosmetic procedure including facial massage, fillers, botox, surgeries, etc., (as i just don't have enough knowledge on the topic) so if you are not interested in makeup, skip the tips section! ​ introduction when we consider what makes a face beautiful, we tend to single out individual features to measure - eyes, lips, skin, jawline - and often accidentally overlook the key factor of facial harmony. facial harmony is the interplay of features, their positions and composition on our face. it is the reason the exact same feature can be flattering on one, yet discordant on another; or why someone can have seemingly 'basic/average' features yet still be pleasant to look at. the more harmonious your facial features, the more 'objectively beautiful' the face. the midface is a crucial factor of facial harmony, and a small midface is a relatively universal and also especially a korean beauty standard. today we will explore what it is, why it is considered so attractive, and how to achieve it with oft-used east asian makeup techniques. if you already know what a midface is, skip right ahead on to the tips section! TLDR: a short midface is attractive because it creates the illusion of a 'younger, sweeter, cuter' face; it can be emphasised with makeup (and hair, accessories, etc.), mostly by 'breaking up' and filling the plane of the midface. go to the bottom for a tldr summary of the makeup tips. ​ the short midface the midface is the middle third of what is called the 'facial thirds', as described by leonardo da vinci in the old analysis of human anatomy. you might remember using this in art class to draw proportionate faces! i'll include a graphic below for reference; please note it spans the hairline to the chin. just for today, we will take the 'general standard' when considering the midface, spanning browbone to the upper lip. the midface clocks the position of all major structural features - eyes, nose, lips, brows, cheek/bone structure. in a shorter midface, features are more compact, closer together, with less space between them. this is considered a korean beauty standard (part of 'small face'). why? firstly, it is a characteristic of neoteny - that is, to essentially look like a baby. babies' features are compacted close together, with relatively big eyes; as we grow, generally the face enlarges and features spread, changing proportions. neoteny of the face is considered a universal factor of attractiveness in women, where youth innately connotes fertility, engendering subconscious preference. this is coupled with the appearance of youth, innocence, and purity being one of south korea's biggest and most longstanding beauty standards; 'baby face' is also an increasingly popular current western beauty trend as well. secondly, the concentration of features gives the illusion of a smaller face/head, making features (like eyes) seem bigger relatively, and the body longer proportionally, both of which are prominent korean beauty standards; a small head is also often a western beauty standard for the same reasons - many top models have it. (small face/head can also be measured by head size relative to body, size/shape of jaw, distance between lips and jaw/chin, etc.) overall, a shorter midface makes a face seem 'cuter', 'sweeter', 'younger', 'fresher', and more delicate. ​ one of the biggest current beauty trends in south korea is the 'sexy-cute' visual; you'll notice it in many of the current 'it girls', the trend-setting celebrities well known for their iconic visuals like blackpink's jennie and ive's wonyoung, and also famous faces like han sohee, lee sung kyung, blackpink's lisa, red velvet's joy, twice's tzuyu, etc. https://preview.redd.it/396y13dsmnz91.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=530cd49c4c75f3037087edd7bdd15cae0be695de many have shorter midfaces, and rounder cheeks (contributing to a shorter, fuller face), which lends a young, 'sweet' babyfaced vibe, which, with big eyes and heart-shaped/pouty lips and delicate features, contribute to the 'cute' factor while balanced by 'sexy' factors like body, full lips, feline eyes, facial expressions/etc. this trend is another reason why a short midface is currently so popular and trendy. so if you've ever felt insecure about a short face and full cheeks, now is your time to shine! that said, please remember a short mid-face is not the essential standard of beauty! many incredibly beautiful people have longer faces and spaced features, and are beautiful not in spite of, but along with and because of it - think blackpink's jisoo (considered one of kpop's current greatest visuals) or rose, sunmi, bella hadid, adriana lima, megan fox, liv tyler, etc. longer faces tend to have elegant, graceful, sophisticated, classy, mature, sexy, or even mysterious vibes - so every face has its benefits and unique beauty! https://preview.redd.it/jy8942evmnz91.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=b9339018a6a6d641e62c9beaf6d9e19a3e314c7f the essential factor is that the overall face is proportionate and harmonious - the 'perfect ratio' is for the facial thirds to be equal (but, even if your facial thirds are not exactly 'proportionate' by someone else's standards, you are still beautiful just as you are ok.) oki let's move on! achieving the short midface chances are, you may already use some of these techniques without realizing it shortens the midface! you might do it and think 'wow, my face looks better but i don't know exactly why' - but now you know. many of these also work by enhancing other features so even if you don't care for the midface you can still try them for other benefits. imagine applying full coverage foundation all over your face, blanking everything out. suddenly the face looks super flat and weird and lifeless, right? until you 'add dimension' back with blush, bronzer, highlight, contour, etc. these steps 'break up' and 'fill up' the face, and shortening the midface plays into this. we can break it down into several areas, which i will cover below. *before we go on, i want to emphasise again that we are NOT 'correcting' or 'fixing' features. we are just adjusting the appearance of features to fit a certain kind of visual. there are NO 'bad' features. SKIN. skin is the base of the whole face. texture can be used to give the illusion of varying volume - the greater the glow, the greater the volume. this is because when a surface reflects light, changes in shape are highlighted, and the perception of volume or curve is created. to create a sensation of more volume around the cheeks and midface, have glowy base makeup. it doesn't have to be super 'wet/dewy', but a healthy, hydrated, skin-like glow. you can achieve this with skincare, dewy primer or foundation, highlighter, luminous finishing powder or spray, or any method you prefer. if you struggle with looking 'puffy/swollen', consider strategic powdering - powder the areas you don't want so much shine or volume, such as the perimeter of the face and the nasolabial folds, and leave the rest glowy. stay balanced and realistic. try to decrease 'hollow' or 'sunken' areas like dark eye circles with concealer/colour corrector (sorry i don't know much about concealing undereyes, but there are lots of good tutorials out there). you want to create that illusion of fullness in the face, of bouncy fresh skin with a lot of collagen and hydration. ​ EYEBROWS. brows are the 'roof' of the midface. lower straighter brows shorten the appearance of the midface. if you want to compress the midface from the top, fill in your eyebrows lower and soften the arch; straighter, thicker brows tend to lend a more innocent 'youthful' vibe compared to thinner arched brows, which elongate the face and visually expand the eye socket area. the angle makes a difference; downturned brows give younger, sweeter, 'worried' wide-eyed vibes, while upturned eyebrows give a more intense, fierce, 'angry' vibe. left: straight / right: arched you can 'expand' the eye socket area by lengthening the brows to the side. shorter brows leave more of a vertical 'space' bar on the side of your face that has an elongating effect. extending the brow will convert more midface to 'eye area' and broaden the midface while making the head/face itself look smaller; but it might also give the effect of more spaced out features and counterintuitively a narrower face. so it depends on your natural face and technique; experiment to see what works. that said, please note that brows that are disharmoniously low and straight for your personal face can look heavy, masculine, or tired, especially if too thick/dark (it should be harmonious with your depth, saturation, size/shape of your personal facial features). it can give more of the effect of 'squashing' the midface than shortening if you're not careful. ​ EYES. the main idea is expanding the eye socket by 'claiming more area' as the 'eye area', and encroaching into the midface to shorten it or decrease its area. intuitively, the focus is the undereye (and avoiding the ~ sleep deprivation aesthetic ~). the undereye is fun to play with especially if you have difficulty with the upper lid (hooded eyes, monolids, etc. that traditional tips don't always play nice with). defining the lower lid and undereye can be a gamechanger both to shorten the midface, and also if you naturally lack lower lashline definition - this is common in east asians with light skin and sparser hair/lower lashes. adding back definition can emphasise the beauty of your natural eyes that previously wasn't as easy to see, or even tweak the shape if you want. basic tips include not taking your foundation/concealer all the way up to the lower lashline; leave a tiny bit of natural skin rimming the lower lashline. this 'claims' more area as 'eye' instead of 'cheek', and helps makeup look less stark. you can place eyeshadow or eyeliner in this area; keep close to the lashline - going too low can 'drag down' the face. follow the shape of your eye. the lower lid usually should not be darker or thicker than the upper lid; this can drag down the eyes/face. balance with the upper lid. curling the lower lashes downwards with mascara can claim more eye area and 'open up the eyes'. if you struggle with sparse lower lashes clumping, use a mascara with a thin brush and dry formula, take the excess off the wand, whisk lashes lightly for a wispier look, and comb with a clean spoolie. the advanced version is aegyo sal, the icon of kbeauty. what differentiates aegyo sal from 'eyebags' is 'eyebags' are generally shadowy, hollow/sunken (tho sometimes they puff), and lower on the face (which gives a 'dragging' effect); meanwhile, aegyo sal are closer to the eyes, bright, puffy, plump fat. they are also usually narrower. they not only shorten the midface by taking up cheek space, but add to 'attractiveness' by claiming more space as the 'eye area' (thus making the eye area take up more of the face and seem relatively 'bigger'), and creating a 'happy expression', since aegyo sal tends to be most prominent when smiling or tensing up facial muscles - either way, it demonstrates emotion. if you do not naturally have any aegyo sal at all, you might not be able to create aegyo sal that looks realistic in real life with only makeup. but if you don't mind, by all means go ahead and create them! these tips however are mostly for emphasising pre-existing aegyo sal. if your aegyo sal is very faint, smile to push them out and use that as a template to trace. drawing the aegyo sal too high encroaches into the eye and gives a swollen/puffy effect; pull it too thick/low and it looks like an eyebag; giving it too much of a deep curve can also make it resemble eyebag. harmonize the shape and thickness with the overall shape of your eye and upper lid - again it shouldn't be heavier or darker than the upper eye or it may drag the eye down. use a very light hand, build slowly; unless you have sharp/strong features/contrast, aegyo sal usually only needs to be quite light to look natural. try to use shades that already exist on your face - such as your contour or brow pencil to contour, and face or inner corner highlight to highlight (if you don't want shimmer, use a light matte to highlight) - this will harmonize it to the rest of your face. you can try those fine pens marketed for aegyo sal, but personally i find they don't look realistic on anyone in real life. if you need more visual guidance, there are tons of aegyo sal tutorials online. because the midface goes up to the brow bone, claiming more of that upper lid area as the eye and drawing attention to the eyes can help shorten the overall midface. curling your eyelashes, eyeshadow on the upper lid, contouring the eye socket (remember to follow the shape if you've lengthened your brow), thicker eyeliner, can help with this. much like the elongating the eyebrow, elongating the eye can either add to or subtract from the midface depending on your features, so this is another area you have to experiment on your own. this is a stretch, but circle lenses with a larger graphic diameter than your natural iris enlarges the appearance of eyes, which gives the illusion of taking up more space, hence a smaller midface and face; it will also draw people's attention more towards your eyes, which are in the middle of your face, drawing attention away from the periphery. (be careful not to go too big; if you lose too much eye whites, you can end up with a 'dog/horse eye' effect). observe the effect of lashes, aegyo sal, eye socket contour, and circle lenses (please note that the makeup in this image is quite exaggerated, it would probably look more unnatural and unrealistic in real life) ​ CHEEK & NOSE. the cheek/nose area (along with eyes) gives the most impact, and there are many techniques here. first, blush placement. the simplest most impactful method is the 'sunburnt' or igari style, across the bridge of the nose and the midface. this is why the 'drunk' flush is so cute. it 'breaks' and 'fills up' the midface and brings everything closer together. you can use bronzer if you prefer. it's helpful to go a bit higher, closer to the eyes, so it 'lifts' the face instead of 'dragging down' and lengthening the midface, but not too high that you leave a blank gap underneath; it may also be helpful to avoid 'draping' that brings blush up to sculpt the cheekbones and the temples - this will narrow and elongate the midface, though it will make your overall face appear smaller of course, and is great if you prefer slimming the appearance of the face. another placement is directly on the cheeks at the front of the face, close to under the eyes; again it draws attention upwards towards the eyes, and also to the fullness of the cheeks. it looks very sweet, and lends that adorable exerted or about-to-cry vibe. these aren't the only placements. play around! in general, place blush on the broad frontal plane of the cheeks, and avoid blush on the sides of the face that 'sculpt' or contour' the cheekbones (you can go the other way if you would rather narrow your face shape), though you can let your blush blend out slightly to the side to avoid that 'side vertical space bar' i mentioned under eyebrows. and try not to apply blush too low as this can drag the face down as well (if you have a habit of smiling and then applying blush to the apples of your cheeks, be aware that the area usually falls lower when you are no longer smiling). https://preview.redd.it/0cga1wtcqhz91.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=cffc034226dd59a84efe7a82e1f615558f038366 in terms of shade, choose a colour harmonious on your colouring (not necessarily 'natural'). a bright tone will draw more attention to the cheeks and add volume (that said, cheeks are not usually a main feature, so drawing too much attention to them can be unflattering). a colour with clear tone or pastel milky base will also add volume (if your skin is darker, beware white base getting ashy). and of course classic nude/neutral/natural blush always works. you can layer bright blush on top of soft blush in a radiating gradient to create more dimension. also, a blush with a glowy finish will emphasise volume and shape more compared to a matte blush, just like with base makeup. here is a great youtube tutorial by saerom min guiding blush shade and placement. remember that shiny highlight reflects light on curves that already exist. you may see beauty gurus carve out shapes that don't exist with highlight and contour and look good in youtube videos or posed instagram photos, but in real life, with moving around and shifting lights, it doesn't work as well. highlight and contour only really works on something that already exists. that said, you can still manipulate strategically! when highlighting the cheeks, instead of popping highlight high on the very peak of the cheekbones, consider highlighting a broader area over the front of the cheeks for more glow and volume. you can mix highlight with your blush, or apply highlight under blush/foundation for a more natural, blended look. if highlighting the nose, don't apply one long narrow strip down the bridge. break it up; highlight the bridge, then leave a gap before highlighting the tip. you can further contour the top of the tip (but if you don't naturally have a protruding tip, you don't have to do this; remember, contour and highlight only works realistically to emphasise features that already exist). you can also powder down or detract highlighting from the area between the brows; this will shorten the appearance of the nose bridge hence nose hence midface. you can contour more horizontal 'breaking' lines along the bottom of the nose tip. if you struggle with contour, consider a lighter greyer desaturated shade, or using your blush for a more harmonious/cohesive vibe. you can also place blush on the tip of the nose to add volume and break the length up. if you want volume without exacerbating texture or emphasising 'curved' volume, highlight with a matte shade - a matte bright surface can add flat volume. this is especially useful for areas like next to the nose to avoid lines or puffiness. try to conceal redness around the nose, especially if below the tip; otherwise it will pull attention and 'drag the face down'. nasolabial folds can also draw the eye down; you can use powder or other concealing methods to reduce the appearance of its fold/curve. ​ LIPS. the philtrum is the area between the nose and upper lip. a long philtrum may 'pull down' and create the appearance of a longer midface (and lower face, and bigger head/face in general). no such thing as 'ideal' philtrum ok all are beautiful but just use this to visualise its appearance can be shortened by contouring and highlighting lower on the tip of the nose (this will depend on the shape of your own nose), highlighting the ridges of the philtrum (this gives it a more raised appearance and breaks up the visual of a long flat surface), and most obviously by overlining the upper lip. depending on your lip line definition and shape, a defined vs. blurry overline might look better; if you have a very defined lip line, you might not be able to overline in a way that looks natural. using a shade similar to your base lip colour to overline can look more natural. you can also highlight the cupid's bow to emphasise its height, thus restricting the 'philtrum area', and also creating a more rosebud/heart-shaped lip shape (along with blurry-overlining only at the cupid's bow), which is very trendy in douyin makeup. overall, this step is tricky; it can look pretty and natural, but it can also easily look very fake and unflattering in real life, especially if overdone. experiment and see that works for you! https://preview.redd.it/zr1dgo4pknz91.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=634fb94b34ecb5811416a89df68d3f6890f7ddbd using a glossy lip or other lip makeup to distract away from the philtrum and draw attention to the lips instead or increase its fullness and volume relative to the philtrum, may also help (but it may also draw more attention to the philtrum, so ymmv). you can also try adding a fake mole/freckle/spot to fill up space. CHIN. okay this is cheating, because it's not in the 'midface', but it helps! traditionally the korean beauty standard prizes a slim v-shaped face, and enjoys contouring the entire cheek and chin to be v-shaped; but if you want to focus on the more baby-faced dolly trend, leave the cheekbones bare and only contour the chin to make it more v-shaped and small; a smaller chin will contribute to a fuller midface. you can also shorten the chin instead of a v-shape by applying contour horizontally at the base, or by applying blush to the chin. HAIR. again not part of the midface, but hair makes a massive difference in one's overall appearance and can alter the appearance of the midface. firstly, to minimize the appearance of the face and forehead, you can fill in your hairline, either with eyeshadow, eyeliner, or whatever product you prefer. this is a type of contouring and gives both the appearance of fuller healthier hair, and a smaller face and forehead. in terms of facial harmony, the eyes are 'meant to be' in the middle of the head (from tip of head to chin). if your eyes are higher than the midpoint, this can be adjusted by increasing your cranial top, that is the distance between the top of your head and hairline, by voluminizing your hair (or adding accessories, etc.) expanding this upper area will make your lower face (and your midface) smaller in comparison. dearpeachie has a few youtube tutorials on high cranial top, i haven't really watched them but they might be useful for hairstyling tips. left: low cranial top / right: high cranial top any kind of bangs like curtain bangs that halt by the side of the face and 'break up' the midface can also help. curls that voluminize the appearance of the head horizontally can also help broaden the perception of the face and make the face look smaller overall by comparison. earrings with a rounded, clustered, short effect can have a similar effect in breaking up the face. ​ CONSIDERATIONS remember -- you can skip the steps contraindicated by your own features!! for example, if you have a broad round face, straight thick low eyebrows can be super unflattering. sure, it might shorten your midface... but at what cost????? (though of course if you like how it looks then please by all means do it, the only person that has to like your face is you!) please also remember that you of course don't need to do every single step listed above!! nothing is 'essential'. if you don't like glowy skin, you don't HAVE to have glowy skin. if you just can't shorten your philtrum in a way you like, leave it out. choose the steps you like best and that work the best for you and focus on those! don't try to cram everything in and overcrowd your face or make it too short. at the end of the day, overall harmony (and being happy with yourself) is the most important thing. note which tips shorten the midface by vertically shortening the visual space (eg. placing blush across the nose), vs. broadening the visage relative to the rest of the face (eg. glowy voluminous skin). this may be helpful in choosing which steps flatter you the most. also this is not a comprehensive list of all tips, nor will every tip work for everyone!! ymmv. please try them out to your own discretion and adjust for your personal features and preferences. ​ MAKEUP TLDR: glowy skin low straight brows lower lashline definition aegyo sal eye-emphasising makeup circle lenses blush placement (igari, central, etc.) & shade highlighting broadly nose highlight & contour concealing redness and lines chin contour shortened philtrum others: high cranial top, bangs, curls, hair volume, hairline, earrings conclusion oki that's all, if you enjoy the look of a shorter midface and want to try it out, i hope this was helpful! if you prefer listening over reading and/or want more visual aids, i recommend this youtube tutorial by jeyu, which covers most of the tips in this post, plus she actually demonstrates it on your face so it's super helpful to watch and see it all come into play. and if you don't have, like, or want a shorter midface, that's also perfectly okay! you are fully entitled to your opinions, and are beautiful no matter what length or proportion of face you have. at the end of the day, please remember you are so much more than your face, your value is so much greater than someone else's subjective evaluation of your appearance. the midface does not change how beautiful you really are. many people prefer longer faces, and many incredibly beautiful people have longer faces. the most important person that needs to love you is yourself. beauty standards can be toxic and dangerous; do not let it hurt you. do not let it make you compare yourself to others. do not let it trick you into bringing down other women (or people). and never, never let it bring you down. beauty is for empowerment and self-love. use it; don't let it use you!! submitted by /u/softhorns to r/AsianBeauty [link] [comments]

Previous / First Writer's note: Mr. Torgue would love this chapter. Enjoy. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Veliry picked herself up from the desert floor with a groan of pain. Around her, other Petravian soldiers were shaking dust off of themselves and helping each other up. Others were looking around for their weapons or shields, or staggering toward the still noisy base that they had previously been besieging. The gunfire they heard from inside the camp was no longer aimed at them, only occasionally striking them, seemingly at random. Instead they heard screams of rage, and desperate bursts of fire from Earth soldiers who were now fighting in close quarters with their own people. But they all cringed and began scrambling when they heard the sound of whatever weapon had just struck their army for a second time now. None of them wanted to be in the open when it impacted this time. Some soldiers scrambled into the crater of the previous attack, burning their hands and feet on the hot sand and ash of their incinerated and pulverized comrades in a hope that the enemy wouldn't target the same area a second time. Veliry shook the sand from her hair. Her skin felt raw and burned, as though she'd spent too long in the sun, or had one of her experiments go wrong and explode in her face. Her ears rang, and her left one burned where the armored warrior had ripped nearly two thirds of it off while they'd been fighting. Still, she knew what the sound of the projectile meant, and as she looked around she realized that she was the only one in the now scattered formation that could do anything about it. "You there!" She yelled at one of the army mages nearby. The man was searching the ground around him and didn't pay her any heed at first. "Royal mage! Third circle!" She demanded. He looked over at her. "I need your help!" The mage shook his head. "We need to run ma'am." He said as he continued to feel around the sand. Veliry grabbed one of the soldiers and got his attention. "Another one is coming." The mage added. "Round up mages." She told the soldier. "Now!" The young Sergeant nodded, though she could see the fear in his eyes. Then she turned back to the mage. "No. If we run more people die." She said. She saw him turning to run away, ignoring her. She blurred over to his position and grabbed him by the hood of his robes. She spun him around and he beheld her rage. Her eyes glowed, red on the left and blue on the right, her hand emitted sparks of building deathbolts. "We fight." She said in a tone that would have made Amina listen if she'd heard it. The mage cowed and raised his hands while nodding emphatically. "You don't have to do anything." She said. "Just draw in energy. I'll do the rest. Tell the other mages to do the same." The mage kept nodding, but she saw the doubt there. "If I find you've run, you'll end up answering to me MAGE!" She spat with vicious venom. Then Veliry began floating upwards, energy building into her as she began summoning a shield above the portion of army that was still left around her. She reached into a pouch on her belt and withdrew a pouch that she'd made years earlier while still a student. It was an act of desperation, and she'd pay the price after, but it was also a necessity. She placed the pouch into her cheek and began sucking on the mixture of alchemical components inside, channeling energy through the pouch as she did. The glow surrounding her body intensified until she became difficult to look at for the people below. Use the trick James told you about. Even the prince confirmed that it would work. You just have to do it fast. With her enhanced vision she saw the small, almost arrow-shaped, projectile descending from on high. It was headed almost directly for her and she adjusted to get beneath it. She felt the building energy of the mages below her, she thought maybe three or four of them now, and she began to draw from it. More! And only a little over a little over a quarter of a mile away, trembling in fear and confusion for his teacher, Joey watched the small arch-mage rise to the challenge. But so did someone else. And they were not worried for the mage, but rather worried about the threat she clearly was to their side of things. Down on the sand below, a metallic hand reached out to grab at something. --------------------------- James watched Amina rage against the two Muck Marchers as he staggered forward. He'd tried to draw a bead on them with the stolen rifle once he'd seen what was happening. But his vision blurred in and out of focus, and he saw it darkening around its edges. Whatever had happened to him had concussed him about as badly as he'd ever been before. And he was pretty sure that the wet spot on his back was him losing blood too. So he'd closed the distance. James was all but oblivious to the carnage roiling around him as he moved. Several times soldiers from Earth had attempted to fire on him, only for his sword to lash out and stop the bullets in their tracks. James only had to keep the chain in the air for it to do its job. At one point a Petravian mage had mistaken him for one of the base soldiers, understandable given his clothes and the rifle, and had shot a blast of ethereal green mist at him, only for the blade to intercept that too. It drank the magical energy like it had before its reforging, only afterwords it had glowed with the same green light as the spell, and it had shaken erratically for a moment before moving on to its next target. Not that James saw. But the mage had, and they had realized that he must have been from this world and moved on. "Amina." He said weakly, though he couldn't even hear himself talk over the ringing in his ears. He was only twenty yards away when the third of the Muck Marchers finally seemed to come alive, moving from its statue position and raising its rifle to aim at his fiance. Like so many times before, James didn't think. He couldn't have if he wanted to. He was in too much pain, and things were moving too fast, now that he couldn't slow them down. The explosion he released was like none he'd ever summoned before. Before, they had always come from his feet, and occasionally his hands. He figured he could probably do it from his mouth too, like he could with the deathbolts. He'd also considered releasing one from his butt as a gag a few times, but he'd never been willing to risk it. But when James saw the third Muck Marcher aim at Amina, who was already hard pressed against the other two, he reacted on split second reflex. The resulting explosion emanated from his entire backside. From the top of his head to the soles of his already tattered boots. His wolf arm instinctively put itself in front of his face and shoulders, and the sword and chain pressed themselves into a coil over it, though he didn't CONSCIOUSLY tell them to. His upper body, wolf arm first, collided with the armored sentinel like a professional linebacker who could move near MACH1. Pain exploded across his entire existence as he and the Muck Marcher crashed into the tent that they'd been guarding in another mess of canvas and steel, and in this case the control systems for all the Miffy's around the base, destroying them in a flash of violence that resulted in five deaths, as James and the Muck Marcher's armored body crushed everything before them. And as Amina finally managed to score a crippling blow against one of her opponents, a stab of her sword through the weak point at the back of their knee, James slipped from consciousness. ---------------------- Johansson looked at the carnage that had just entered his tent, and destroyed the only thing he was responsible for in the process, with fear and confusion. He'd been spooling up another mortar shot when the computer panel in front of him had exploded from the impact of some massive, chain wrapped, bloody, tangle of bodies. It happened so quickly and so violently that the knob he'd been holding onto to adjust his targeting solution was still in his hand, despite no longer being attached to the computer it belonged to. There was blood, and bits of....hair, splattered across the right leg of his uniform. He dropped the control knob in surprised disgust as he recognized the hair as belonging to Airmen Ridena, whose seat was only a row behind and to the right of him. Or had been, anyways. He'd heard the gunfire outside. Heard the screams and the strange noises. But they'd had three Muck Marchers just outside of their tent. There was no way the locals could have gotten in. And they were in the middle of the FOB, surrounded by armed soldiers. How had this just happened. He jolted back out of his seat as he realized the implications. The tent was breached. The controls were destroyed. They had no air defenses, and the mortar was down. They'd only be able to use them if they sent people to man them at the vehicles. And he was one of only five people trained to do so. Ridena had been one of the others. He looked around the room at the devastation that had just occurred. He couldn't even see past the section of tent that had been crushed. But there was blood oozing out from under it. Something buzzed and crackled from one of the terminals nearby. "Come i-Bzzzt- Repe-SSSSS- ll Earth tr-**** come in." The familiar voice of the First Sergeant said, though it cut in and out and was almost drown out by the sound of the battle outside, which now made its way into the tent easily. "Repeat Sta-ZZZT- STAND DOWN!" What? He wondered. What did he say? "All Earth troops. -ZZZZZZT- down. Stand down now!" Did we lose? He wondered. But I just fired the mortar again. Then the side of the tent flew open as a sword slashed its way through it. A tall, blood soaked and crazed looking woman in armor stepped through like some kind of nightmarish super model. Her armor was riddled with bullet holes, so many that he wondered how she was even alive. Her face was glowing several different colors that didn't make sense to Johansson, who'd never seen magic before. When she spoke his ears ached from the volume. "JAAAAMES!" She yelled as she stalked toward him, sword aimed at him like a pointing finger. Johansson stumbled back and fell back into his chair. "WHERE'S JAMES!?!" Johansson felt his pants grow warm and wet as he stammered. "I don't know!" With his hands raised. ---------------------- Vickers pulled himself into the passenger side of the central Miffy's cabin with an audible groan of pain. He stopped with his left knee resting on the floor for a moment as he gingerly pulled his right leg up into the cabin with him. His knee had been thoroughly dislocated when he'd woken up, and it was swollen to almost twice its normal size now. He'd been surprised to wake up. After all, he hadn't really had an exit strategy for hitting the Muck Marcher with the C4. He'd mostly done what Choi would have, and reacted without thinking. It happened like that in combat sometimes. Then Choi had pulled his ass out of the fire at literally the last second. He'd have to buy the kid a beer or something. Then he'd woken up underneath a tent, and underneath a chow hall table covered in what he thought was spaghetti sauce. At least he hoped it was, it smelled like it anyways. When he'd finally extricated himself from the mess, aching the whole way after realizing how badly he'd been twisted and folded to get there, he'd found himself oddly alone. He'd also seen a clear path to the Miffy that had been his target in the first place. It had taken him a long time of limping slowly to get here. Well, probably not really. But it had felt like ages. His body had ached the whole way, his knee most of all. The Miffy had been on the verge of firing as he'd gotten close to it. He'd seen the barrel change its position, albeit minutely. Then he'd heard the telltale charging of its magnetic coils as it prepared to fire. He'd braced himself for the inevitable noise, planting his hands over his ears to help the plugs that were already in them. Then, after waiting for what felt like at least a minute, nothing happened. He'd wondered at that. But he wasn't one to look gift horses in the mouth. Especially not when the horse already had a tendency to bite in the first place. He grunted and swore as he pulled himself up into the field gunner's seat and sighed as he was able to straighten his much abused leg. Then he pulled down the screen that hung from the top of the cabin and flipped on the display. "Time to even things out a bit." He said as he pulled up the targeting map. He slid the map over to where he saw the cluster of defensive Miffy's. "Spiders? No spiders? C4 or no C4." He said as he initiated the mortar's charging phase. It took about five seconds for it to turn to aim at the new target. Another fifteen or so for the coils to charge. "Fuck." He said as he flipped the red cover of the firing panel. "Your." He continued as he waited for the panel to read READY. "Self." He said as he pressed his good hand on the big green button. And the Miffy roared again. Then Vickers went back to the map and looked at the "NO TARGET" zones that it had listed. "They really need to lock these things if they're not in them." He said as he scrolled through the options. "Grade-A.... Tactical.... Fuck up." [Next] submitted by /u/PepperAntique to r/HFY [link] [comments]

Background story: Eye makeup was a pain in the butt for me. I was born with extremely hooded eyes that appear like monolids and they are uneven. My right eye has a tiny bit of lid space and my left eye has barely any, which makes it look like I have one size medium eye and one size extra small eye. Due to my small lid space, whenever I apply eyeliner & false lashes, my eyelids just disappear. Instead of enlarging my eyes, false lashes actually shrink my eyes. Moreover, I have long (10-11mm) but sparse and straight lashes that grow inwards and slanted into my eyes. My own lashes are thick individually, which makes them extremely stubborn almost impossible to curl and no Western brand mascara will hold the curl. My eyes appear smaller than they actually are because my upper lashes grow downwards and my lower lashes grow upwards. It took me almost 10 years to finally figure out how to do eye makeup that flatters my eyes and I would like to share so people who have similar issues won't have to struggle as much as I did. Uneven eyelids: Correct with eyelid tape or eyelid glue, or even double eyelid surgery if you want Many different types of eyelid tape: Double-sided eyelid tape & eyelid glue: good for creating a new fold and sleeping with it on to secure the fold. This is how I essentially created a second fold on my smaller eye and now both eyes appear the same size, only my left eye had an extra fold. If you have any skincare product or makeup on your eyelids, it won't stick properly. Blinking with this on looks strange and unnatural, I would recommend it for nighttime use only "Normal" eyelid tape: these are sticky tapes that you can use to create a fold on your eyes during the daytime as they look inconspicuous. The medical tape ones are a bit thicker and create a stronger, deeper fold, but bc of the smooth surface, you cannot put eyeshadow over it. The fabric tapes are thinner and work only for people that have thinner eyelids. But you can apply eyeshadow over this kind of tape Mesh eyelid tape: these look almost invisible over eye makeup and you can cut the mesh in whatever shape that suit you. A lot more time-consuming to apply, as you have to mess with glue and clean up the tweezers after use as well ​ Uneven eyes without tape, but curled lashes help to distract ​ You can clearly see one eye is bigger than the other in this one Medical tape type eyelid tape for puffy allergy eyes ​ Fabric type tape for days that my eyes aren't swollen ​ Fabric type tape with makeup on Curling stubborn lashes: Always, curl and set your lashes before eyeliner You want a manual lash curler that fits your eye shape so that it can curl from the roots of your lashes and catches as many lashes as possible Electric lash curlers (that heat up) are not hot enough to create a curl on stubborn lashes, but they are useful for smoothing out a kinked curl, removing "spider legs" and melting clumpy mascara off Heating the manual lash curler with a blowdryer or lighter makes it a lot easier to curl stubborn lashes and the curl lasts longer, kind of like a curling iron for eyelashes Remember to test the manual lash curler temperature on your wrists before taking it to your eyes Curling in sections with different angles to avoid a kink. It also creates a more natural C curl; the J curl works better if you want to use false lashes on top You can curl bottom lashes with the manual curler held upside down, or just use the electric curler if your lashes aren't as stubborn as mine Immediately set the curl with a lightweight mascara base so the curl doesn't drop Uncurled lashes point straight down ​ Uncurled lashes close the eye off ​ Curled lashes open eye up, apologies for the allergy red patches With lashes curled Eyeliner: Tightlining to fill in the gaps between lashes Omitting eyeliner on top of eyelids along the lash line to save lid space for eyeshadow Extend the ends only to elongate the eyes I like using skinny brush tip liquid eyeliners or waterproof eyeliner pencils (the ones you can sharpen, not the twist out ones) and flick out the end with a skinny cotton bud In the small lid space I have, all space is saved for eyeshadow Only a tiny bit of eyeliner to extend the eye Mascara: Use a dry & lightweight mascara so your lashes don't droop Nothing works for me except the Kiss Me Heroine Make Long & Curl mascara... I guess this is just trial and error for your lashes, sorry :( False lashes: You may apply falsies on top or under your real lashes, but they should be as flush to each other as possible I like to apply under my lashes so I can save lid space for eyeshadow & the false lashes can push up my real lashes Squeeze tube type glue with a slightly thicker consistency works a whole lot better than the watery brush on type glue for small lash clusters. This is because the tiny lash will stay where you placed them instead of running down from the stem to the lashes and getting stuck to your tweezers. Trust me, I learned this the hard way. Apply glue on top of the falsies, close to the stem, if you are sticking them under your real lashes; apply glue under the falsies, close to the stem, if you are sticking them over your real lashes. Do not put glue along the stem for small false lash sections because it will stick to both your upper and lower lash and create a big mess, don't ask me how did I find out Strip lashes can make hooded eyes too overwhelmed, I like to cut them up in sections and apply the sections to fill in the gaps instead Alternatively, use individual lashes or lash clusters. These individuals are amazing for making my lashes appear fuller without the bulky feel You can pick whatever length lash clusters you want. I like to match the length of my own lashes for a fuller look bc I have gaps in my own lashes I also sometimes use clusters upside down as lower lashes Lash clusters applied under my real lashes, looks very natural You can barely tell I was wearing false lashes After: My eyes are even in size and enlarged :D submitted by /u/alisonnho to r/MakeupAddiction [link] [comments]

Context: Horus is out of time so he wants to muster his forces for the final push to Terra. Problem was, Fulgrim and Angron have gone full daemon and their priorities are all over the place. They will not answer his call to arms so he dispatched Lorgar to fetch Fulgrim, and Perturabo to grab Angron. Angron being Angron, doesn't want to go anywhere without a fight, Perturabo knows this and so he did his home work and went to face Angron, fully prepared with a plan. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Angron struck the summit of the hill as the Iron Warriors scattered. Steam poured into the air as the mud flashed to dust and then to glass. The daemon primarch rose, his movement a blur, the roar from his mouth shuddering through Argonis’ flesh. He had asked Perturabo about this moment, about how he would deal with the creature that his brother had become. ‘As all conquest begins – with his weakness,’ Perturabo had replied, and had given no further answer. On the summit of the hill, with the fire-wind of Angron’s presence beating against his body and mind, Argonis could see no weakness in what the primarch had become. Perturabo stood inside the ring of his Iron Circle. The hammer Forgebreaker hung in his left hand, its head alight with cold lightning. The automata had turned so that their shields faced in, forming a circle around the two primarchs. Beyond them, down the flanks of the hill, the walls of the Iron Warriors formation had driven through the World Eaters. Volleys of bolt-rounds had ripped holes in the tide of howling legionaries. Tanks had ploughed through them, crushing bodies. Shieldbearers had followed in their wake, forming new lines of blood-streaked plasteel. It was no longer a defence. It was strangulation. Channelled even as they killed, the World Eaters were now cut into pockets, contained. It would not hold, though. ‘This is madness,’ shouted Argonis. ‘It was always madness, Voice of Horus,’ said Forrix, the words edged with a cold chuckle. ‘Now it is just visible madness.’ On the hilltop, Angron reared to charge at Perturabo. ‘Fire,’ said Perturabo. The Iron Circle obeyed. Fist-sized rounds tore into the daemon primarch. Explosions shattered against brass armour. Chunks of flesh and blood tore free, foaming into black ectoplasm as they fell. More units began to fire. Angron roared, his wings snapping wide as missiles and las-blasts tore them to tatters. The volume of fire was blinding, a lattice of angry light against the storm clouds. Angron came forwards, muscles pushing his form against the fire. Ichor drooled from gaping wounds, smoke and ashes shook from him. His flesh was remaking itself even as it was torn from him, swelling him so that he loomed above the crest of the hill, shivering with rage, radiating pain. For an instant Argonis thought that the creature would fall. Then he seemed to shrink. Wounds closed. Armour glowed white and flowed into bullet holes. A high ringing noise filled Argonis’ head, blotting out the sound of gunfire and the roll of thunder. He could feel nothing else, just the pain boring into the meat of his soul and burning down his nerves, and he knew that it would go on forever unless he stood, unless he poured it into the world as rage and let it coat his hands red. The deluge of fire intensified, but Angron had taken a step forwards, and the blasts and shots were vanishing into the shadow of his shape. The daemon that had been a primarch charged. Space folded as he moved. Features dissolved in a blur. His wings were slices of fast-moving shadow, his strides a flicker. The storm dragged after him. Lightning arced down, spearing through warriors and war machines. A tank exploded, its ammunition and fuel cooking off and punching its turret up into the air. A cluster of World Eaters became ash as power arced through them. Blood cooked and rose in charring globules. Argonis watched, unable to move, unable­ to turn his mind to action. This was not simply a creature of destruction; it was a force of annihilation that was not meant to share the same realm as mortals. He saw an axe form in Angron’s hand. Its edge was a slit of sharpened light. Reality tore as it cut. Smoke bled from the wound left behind its edge. Perturabo was a statue of metal standing in the shadow of death. The axe cut. Perturabo moved aside. Even layered in armour and pistons, he was still faster than Argonis could dream, fast enough to almost avoid the blow. But nothing that was even half mortal could have avoided that cut. The axe struck his shoulder. White light blazed. For a second he could only see white, and then the neon scar burned onto the back of his eyes. He heard more blows fall, each one screaming louder than gunfire. In the pit of his soul, he thought of all of the duties he had done Horus in the hope of clawing back the feeling of brotherhood that had been everything but was now just a memory. This would not just be failure. This would be death. He would end here, another heap of butchered meat on a world that was a graveyard of bones in a galaxy they had set ablaze. It all ended here: redemption, brother­hood and the lie of a higher purpose. His sight cleared. Perturabo still stood. Impossibly, the Lord of Iron stood. Glowing scars marked the plates of his armour. Blood hissed as it ran over orange iron. But he stood, and Forgebreaker was rising in his grasp, its head a comet as it swung. Angron did not move to avoid the blow. He was swinging again, roaring, blood-slicked cables lashing around his head. Like all the other blows he had struck in the last second, it was faster than the eye that saw it. But Perturabo had timed his blow and slid it into the split-second gap as Angron swung back to strike again. The ­hammer struck. Forged by Fulgrim for the brother he had murdered, then given by Horus to Perturabo, it was a weapon that transcended even the craft put into its making. The hammer head hit Angron’s chest. Brass armour shattered. The shock wave ripped outwards. Argonis felt it pass through him. Angron staggered. Perturabo stepped forwards, the hammer swinging back in a blurred sheet of lighting. Angron rammed forwards before Perturabo could strike, and now it was Perturabo going back, armour blackening as furnace flame breathed from Angron’s teeth. The axe struck again and again, blows that could end Titans falling. Fresh wounds opened in Perturabo’s armour. But still he stood. ‘You think I am weak,’ Perturabo’s voice boomed from the grille of his helm. Angron struck him twice again. Splinters of metal fell from the Lord of Iron as he staggered once more. ‘But you have grown weaker, Angron.’ The daemon primarch lashed a kick into Perturabo and struck once, twice, three times as the Lord of Iron stumbled back and crashed to his knees. ‘I have learnt. I have remade my strength. While you have sold yours out of despair.’ Argonis heard the words, heard the spite in them, the cold bitterness. There was something else there, too, something that made Argonis think of the knife duels in the dark warrens of Cthonia – cuts meant to goad, not kill. Angron roared, and in the fraction of time that gave, Perturabo was on his feet, Forgebreaker moving faster than before. The air shook as its head struck and struck again, and there was blood on the baked mud of the ground beneath the two. Angron was scattering burning blood and broken armour. He lashed a fist at Perturabo. Claws tore the front from the Lord of Iron’s helm. Perturabo’s skin was pale grey streaked with blood beneath.‘You are weak,’ snarled Perturabo. ‘You are a slave. You were born a slave and a slave you remain.’ Angron cut Perturabo. Argonis did not see it done, just the Lord of Iron suddenly still, a crimson trail running down his chest and glowing gashes smiling across his torso. Angron was striking again, but somehow he seemed to be shrinking, the edges of his shadow-and-flame bulk retreating like a wave from the shore. Perturabo struck back, and hammer and axe met. ‘Your strength flees,’ roared Perturabo. ‘It does not belong to you. It is your master’s, and the chain that keeps you throttles you. The threads of blood are thinning. The meal of slaughter will only keep you here long enough to see your bastard sons die.’ Beside Argonis, Forrix heard the words and keyed a control on his vox. Rounds began to hammer into the divided World Eaters. It had only been seconds since the Iron Warriors formation had entered its last configuration, and now Argonis saw that its weakness to further attack up the hill was a simple trade-off: vulnerability sold to allow for slaughter. In a few more minutes the World Eaters would have broken out of their corral, Argonis had no doubt, but they would not have that chance. Mortars thumped explosives into the kettled XII Legion. Cannons roared in overlapping sweeps. World Eaters fell, torn apart, their fury no more than bloody mist coughed from shredding lungs. Angron turned towards the circle of automata surrounding them. His axe lashed out, burning gouges across the front of the circle of shields, again and again scoring deep. ‘Their skin is my skin,’ called Perturabo. ‘A gift of suffering at the hands of our brother.’ He was walking towards Angron, limping but hammer in hand. ‘You think that I would let your kind wield your weapons against me? I have taken their measure.’ Angron whirled, wings extending to carry him back at his brother. Perturabo raised his hands, weapon pods unfolding from his armoured shell. Angron’s tattered shadow wings beat. Perturabo fired. Streams of energy and exotic rounds blazed across the space between the two. Fire and explosions wreathed Angron. Ectoplasmic smoke billowed off him. His wings were broken frames of bone draped with scraps of skin. Perturabo came forwards as he kept up the fusillade, each step a slow thud of braced pistons. ‘They will die, here on this hill. They will die without striking a blow. All your best mongrel sons of slaughter. They will die, and your battered soul will watch as it sinks back into the dark.’ Angron was an outline now, a thing of threads remaking itself even as it was unravelled into smoke. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was another thread on Perturabo and Mortarion's scuffle and a few people were doubting Perturabo's ability to deal with Mortarion. Perty has very big brains. Maybe the biggest brain of them all. His problem is his personality defects compounded by an entire DSM edition's worth of mental illnesses (surpassed in quantity only by Curze). That said, he is still extremely competent. Unlike Dorn, who fully admits through the Siege of Terra that all this warp shenanigans is beyond him, Perturabo gets it. He gets that at the end of the day, warp stuff is just an esoteric branch of science that can be empirically measured, researched and countered. He identified that Angron is fueled by intimate combat and prolonged bloodshed, so he denied that kind of fight to him. He corralled the World Eaters and strangled them from afar, with no chance for them to even strike a blow. This kind of cold, bloodless and dispassionate culling is anathema to Khorne's passionate slaughter. It's also hinted that he's made some funky ammunition to deal with Angron himself. The result is obvious, Angron stood no chance. Perty had his measure to a T, he denied him his strength, and tanked all his blows until he was reduced to nothing but ashen shadow, forcing a capitulation. Now, it's possible that when he ascended he became less competent (as you do, when you go full chaos), but as of as the First Wall, Perturabo is by far and away the most valuable player on the Traitor's side. Without him, Horus would have no hope of prosecuting the Siege. He's single-handedly carrying the red team. submitted by /u/parasadi to r/40kLore [link] [comments]