Ratking | Creep Cast

Welcome back to Creepcast. Today we are doing a grab bag. We haven't done that in a while, but it's going to be a fun grab bag because we are reading an author that we've never read and then we are coming back to an author that we love their story. The first author, or Isaiah, you take the authors. So the authors we've got today, we're going to have two stories from Max Voynich. I believe that name is in reference to the Voynich manuscript, which is very cool. Max Voynich seems to have posted a lot in No Sleep, like five to ten years ago. But it looks like he hasn't posted anything in six years. He has enough of a following that there is an r slash Max Voynich subreddit that people seem pretty hype about. But he has, looking on that subreddit, they have a bunch of his standalone stories put up. He has two of the stories we're going to be reading today, which include The Rat King, and If We Misbehaved, We Had to Stand in the Shed. And in addition to that, he has a ton of other cool title stories like Help, I'm Trapped in a Sitcom, as well as one titled Sex Cannibal Psycho Freak Killer, which sounds like the kind of story you'd be interested in, Hunter. No, no, no. Then, and then after we get done reading him, we're going to have a story from an author we've all come to know and love, Dopa Bean. And we love Dopa Bean because they wrote the incredible story. What was the correct title for it? The dead girl in my yard was the best friend I ever had Yeah What about the Wendigo thing in the backyard That tried to lure him in? That one That story was sick So today we're going to be reading their story They told me I was nothing but a dog Yeah, pretty stoked All the titles, Max's story is Rat King It's just awesome Love that And then also even just the full title of his story If we misbehaved as children, we had to stand in the shed. Something else stood with us. So just two fun ideas, but we haven't done a grab bag in a bit, so it'll be fun to read some shorter stories and see if in the future we can't, maybe a maximum longer story that we can dive into. But for all of our wonderful audio listeners, thank you for listening on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Thank you for giving us a nice rating there. You know, one of these days we're going to be number one on Spotify, boys. I think the highest we've ever gotten is two. No, we hit one. We hit one for a couple days, remember? We'll get back there. We need to be up there. I think right now we're in the 40s. This is a war cry to everyone to rush over there and listen to that episode. Listen to this episode on Spotify and help us out to be good. Or just keep watching on YouTube. I don't really give a shit. And thank you to patrons as well. All of our Patreon members have been getting some live streams, new episodes, and just exclusive episodes and stuff. Isaiah also is doing a reaction to the episode that I read. He's going to give it a nice critique, so looking forward to it. Which I know nothing about yet at the time of recording, so that'll be great, I'm sure. You'll love it. You'll love it. I'm sure he doesn't say anything offensive or anything that I would object to or put my foot in about it. No, no, no, no. No, definitely not. And so thank you for our patron members who are supporting the channel as well. So if you want some free content, or if you want some extra content, be sure to head over to Patreon and check out our Creepcast Patreon. All right, without further ado, let's get into Ratt King. I will say real quick, while looking at DopaBean's account, so DopaBean's Reddit account actually got deleted, And I'm seeing a post by a friend of theirs Explaining that it got permanently deleted So they're trying to figure out Where to go from here So we'll link some of Dope of Beans Other stuff in the description They have that series, the North American Pantheon Which we talked about before Seems kind of like SCP adjacent With like a society That keeps track of supernatural entities And there's a subreddit for that Where like some new links have been put So we'll link that subreddit I think Oh did they make a new account? I think they made a new account Dopa Beans So that's clever to get around the Dopa Bean We'll be sure to link that We'll link that and they also have a sub stack That has a bunch of their stories We'll have a bunch of places to support them Because that's got to be rough To build up This much of a following around writing on Reddit And then Reddit's just like no No, bye-bye. Yeah. So we'll have a bunch of places that you can support them linked below. And please do that because they're a fantastic author. They deserve it. All right. So anyway, without further ado, we're going to be getting into the first story, Rat King from Max Voynich. Hunter, are you ready? Let's do it. Let's do it. Rat King. Now, a collection of rats whose tails are intertwined and bound together by one of several possible mechanisms, such as entangling material like hair or sticky substances like sap or gum or getting talked together. Have you ever seen a rat king before? Yeah, it's horrifying. It's pretty brutal. Seeing all their tails just like basically woven together. They're all trying to run and tear in different directions. Yeah, they're all running in different directions, and it's the high-pitched squealing and stuff. It's horrifying. Yeah. Have you done? I feel like you had an animation that had something to do with the Rat King. It's like there was some visual of people tied together trying to run away. Something. I'm not sure. I don't think so. I could be wrong. I don't know. Too long. Funny note, speaking of your animations, our Patreon editor, and my editor, Caitlin, was over at my place, And I was like, oh, have you seen Hunter's short he did? She was like, no. So I showed her your Meat Canyon short, you know, the live action. And midway through, she was like, is he okay? Okay. You know what? The fire. You like this all the time? You know what? Fucking fire, dude. All right. Yeah. That's reasonable. If any employee criticizes you in the slightest. Well, that's what it has to be. You have to realize you have to rule with an iron fist, Isaiah. That doesn't work for me because her included, every editor I have, despises me and constantly uses their platform to find ways to destroy my reputation. Did I tell you what Nate did? No. Okay. Don't let him edit this part because he'll edit it out. I was talking to Nate, and he was like, Isaiah, I have a confession. Nate, for those of you that don't know, edits Creepcast a lot. He also edits a lot of Wendigo and stuff. He was like, I have a confession. And I'm like, what? He says, in most of your videos for the past year, I will add a very subtle and very quiet fart reverb sound effect. Fart reverb sound effect? Yes, just enough to sound like I farted loudly. But it's not like an obvious sound bite. It's like just subtle enough to where it's like, oh, did he do that? And I remember that one time I was listening back to a video after it was posted to YouTube, and I heard that and thought I did it. So for the past year, I've been paranoid every time I'm recording that I'm going to fart too loud for it to be heard. And it turns out it was all a psyop by him because he thinks it would be funny if it sounded like I farted. That goes to show how welcoming your community is, though. if you're just shitting your pants all the time and no one cares. And if there's no outcry of, like, Isaiah, my God, just wait a little bit. It's not like a loud sound effect everyone would hear. It's just enough that if it's quiet while you're listening to the video, you're like, maybe, I don't know. Like, it's just the idea that I did. We welcome people shitting their pants. That's what we welcome. My point is my editors try to effectively kill me with these Tom and Jerry contraptions with making me look stupid and stuff like that. So I think Caitlin's allowed to say that you're not okay because she's right you aren't. Well, that's you, and this is me, and fired. So it still stands. Me or her? I don't think you can fire. It'd almost be both. It's almost both. I don't think you can fire me. I don't think you can employ me anywhere. You don't employ me anywhere. You can delete the channel, I think. You can stink the boat to kill both of us if you really wanted to. I will do what must be done. I will do what must be done, and I don't want to be tested. Okay, I'll keep that in mind. So, yeah, Rat King. The first time he coughs like that, we're halfway through a game. It's wet and rasping, and he doubles over as he tries to force it out his throat. I stop. Are you sick? He rolls his eyes. Kings don't get sick. I can see that look on his face, like he doesn't want the world around us to change, like he doesn't want the dragons to turn back to trees or his crown to turn from gold to twigs and string. He doesn't want this imaginary world to collapse in on itself. I don't want to stop playing either. The second cough drops him to his knees, and he has to reach his small arm out to steady himself against my leg. I bend down, pick him up by his armpits, voicing him until he's back on his own two feet, and tug on his hand. Let's go. Even kings don't get sick. The little brothers do. I gave his hand a squeeze, and we set off home. It takes us a little while to get back. This coughs mean we have to stop every few minutes, and we have to take extra care to avoid the tunnels once it starts to get dark. I'm sure they're just rumors. It's fiction. but I can't help letting parts of them take root in my mind. The rumors change depending on who you speak to, whether it's told to you by an old drunk or a cautious teacher. It all have a few things in common. They say that years and years ago, sometime in the 50s, there was a huge underground complex under our town, a complex that spread out in all directions like a fungus. Something happened down there, although what this event actually was changes from person to person and it was abandoned some claim that a whole city actually lived down there were forced to evacuate after the nuclear reactor went into meltdown they say that it was a huge government cover-up and that this is the reason that strange aircraft make flybys over our otherwise boring little town some claim that the complex was populated by a strange cult that made a deal with something so terrible and ancient they can never see the light of day again. I've even heard people say that the junkies found the labyrinth of tunnels under the city and used it to navigate the town and smuggle and dope until they stumbled upon something to trap them down there. They call the people who supposedly live under the surface rats, claim that after years without sunlight they went pale and lost their vision and that they'll chase you using only the sound of your feet if you wander too deep. wayward little boys and girls will get chased by rats rats with milky eyes and long fingers until they're caught in the hole reminds me of The Descent it sounds like The Descent it also sounds like that Australian found footage movie oh The Tunnel The Tunnel yeah there's something just frightening about people who acclimate to darkness and just live down there breathe down there to where now it's like these weird inbred kind of like a new inbred species that exists underground, you know, that's just blind, almost like mole people or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like the idea of, what's the word for it? Speculative evolution. I think that's the word where it's like, oh, what would humanity or like different species look like given, you know, I mean, obviously this is only like 50 years, but given like thousands of years, what traits would we develop? What would be bred out? Stuff like that. I think that's a fun kind of thought process, and I think that's why the mole people stuff is so scary, because it's like, man, if we were in complete darkness, what would we look like? Yeah, just that uncanny nature. Uncanny nature of, like, if you're walking through one of these tunnels, and you just see, like, it's like almost entirely a regular human, but completely bald. And, like, eyes wide open, but obviously can't see. It's just, like, little things like that, really fucking creepy. I mean, think about someone born to that. Because, you know, like, babies in the womb are, like, in total darkness, and then they're born into total darkness, and they just never develop those senses. It's like, what would the rest of their body look like? I became such a kid when I was born, man. I'm so claustrophobic now. I just think I spent nine months in a little sack. Oh. Bad and I. Didn't care. As soon as I was born, I became a bitch. Yeah. Can I ask you a question? Who do you think would be scary or bald? Completely hairless. me or you. Don't you dare because I know that you immediately closed your eyes and you saw my fat gut and you saw like a giant larva. I do. I'm going to put a... Don't smile. I'm going to say I'm going to put at least an argument out there that I think that if you did not have a beard, if you didn't have a mustache or anything, and a bald head, no eyebrows, your lips would be so much fatter, so much larger. I think that it would offset the folds and grundle and textures that cover my fat skin. So we're talking like alopecia, right? We're not just talking about bald on the head. We're talking about your completely very less. If we're going this far, I'm going to say like alopecia, but we're also going like mole people. We're blind. We've definitely been underground. That kind of vibe. It's hard to imagine you without the beard, to be honest. No, it's hard to imagine you without the beard. I feel like we would both look like weird grub things because I have such a weird head. I don't think either of us would look good. I think I'd look terrible. The problem with me is you at least, you ever see like a lake, like a still lake? You know what I mean? Like a still lake. And then a breeze goes by and it ripples the water. That's what, like, the entire backside of my leg looks like. And it's horrifying. So you're saying the body hair is doing you a few favors? The body, it's not doing me favors. It's keeping me human. It's the only thing that shields anyone who sees it. It's just the general public. There's times, man, where I go out in public. I'll have a pair of basketball shorts on. I'll go to a grocery store. I'll bend down and just get some cheese or something. And I just know that a little bit of my ham hocks peeking out just from underneath, right near my hamstring or something. And I'm like, whoever's seeing this must be absolutely revolted. It looks like a beehive. To the texture, it's just absolutely unbelievable. And I refuse to make changes, which is the worst part. I'm too set in my ways. Right, right. You were talking about my lips, and I need to show you this. So I switched dentists recently, right, because we moved. And then they're like, oh, well, you need to send your records over from one dentist to another. And the first dentist's office sent me, like, their records of x-rays and photos and stuff like that. And they were all x-rays and, like, inside my mouth pictures of my teeth. But they sent one image of my mouth. I'm going to be honest. I don't appreciate the angle. Hold on. I'm going to send it to you. I'm going to send it to you directly. And I want you to keep in mind that we're business partners. Not even sending it in the group cast server. No. This is just for you. This is going to be between me and you. This is, keep in mind, we're business partners. And we're professionals. first and foremost, so. Why does the image look so oddly sexual, doesn't it? I don't know if I'd say that. Oh, I would. Oh, I would in a heartbeat. It looks like a fucking Sabrina Carpenter album cover or something like that. I saw that picture, and I was like, maybe it is that bad. Maybe I do have a problem. It looks like a donkey's mouth or something. It looks like a barman. Okay, all right. We don't need to go and hold that deep. Oh, wow. You better show this on the episode. People have some context, because good God. You can show it on the episode. That's fine. These are two, like, fucking Peruvian pillows just stacked on top of each other. Good Lord, look at these sons of bitches. How is your top lip so impossibly white? It's like they drained all the blood out of your supple lip. And yet it didn't lose any form. It had a giant flashbulb in my face when they took the photo. Well, that's the thing. Your bottom lip is almost blister red. And the top lip is, like, translucent white. Yeah, the most fucked up thing, though, is there's no blood in there. They didn't lose shape at all. You got too excited. You peaked. What did you say there? Wow. I don't need to hear what you were saying. It's a fucking photo. Unbelievable. You know what? Holy hell. Don't delete it. What are you doing? Also, dude, the file size is so small. So whenever you open it, you have to like zoom in like 400 times to even see the fucking image. Why did they give you a higher res deal? Because they sent me. Okay, so funny you mentioned that because the new office was like, we can't use any of these. And I'm like, why not? And they're like, the image quality is way too small. And I pull up the email and I go to the images. Every single picture was collaged onto one page of Microsoft Word. It was like 80 pictures. There wasn't enough ink in the printer to get those lips in there. Sorry, buddy. We have to do just teeth from now on. You're like, good. That's all I wanted you to do. The image you're seeing now is just a crop screenshot I took of the little. That's why it's so small. There is actually no way. there's no way that your dentist doesn't use this to kiss and to have some kind of... I feel like this is his just like perfect lips folder. And he puts it in there and he does, oh, my God, perfect lips. I'd go back in and I would say, what are you doing with this? As I'd say, I'd go back, I'd demand it. He's like, you want some floss? I'm like, no, put the fucking floss away from me. I'm like, what are you doing with these pictures? I'm like, I go to a dentist and this is 80% lip. Like, there's barely any teeth in this. Yeah, what are you getting with this picture? There's 40 x-rays. What does this do for you? This is such an anomaly, too. Your bottom row teeth, there's like four teeth there. Yeah, we don't need to get into this level of detail. I'm pretty sure this violates HIPAA at this point. It's like, God. I've never seen teeth look so big yet so small. It's so uncanny. It's like a goddamn Salvador Dali painting. I'm like, all right. Good Lord. All right, we got to fucking read a story. You should have never sent that picture to me. You should have never sent that. I'll tell you what, just for my own personal health. I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do with that. I downloaded it, too. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I'm glad you're getting so much mileage out of this I can't I can't go a world without having that picture If you deleted that If I deleted that I'd freak out Okay Oh god Okay well Yeah glad we had that aside So The story The Rat King I like the set up with the younger brother sick. And I really like that one line they said where they were describing the cough and everything. And it's like, I don't want to stop playing either. The second cough drops through his knees. Kings don't get sick, but little brothers do. So it establishes this very idyllic world. And it's a very simple way to give us some weight to the characters and their connection. like the older brother wants to be stronger for the little brother and the little brother's ill but he doesn't want to stop like this world he has with the older brother and it gives us a lot of relationship context very quickly and also just like we were talking about with the tunnel and stuff like that the idea of people underneath the town like you know subterranean people it's just a cool idea what I don't want to picture it. I don't want to picture it. It's that big white lip flapping up and down, dude, being able to form words. That's actually what people can understand. I'm like, you must have so much muscle in your face to flap those big fucking beats around. I'll admit, this shit looks pretty rough, okay? But when you look at me in the face, it makes sense in context, okay? It's fine. You were really – people have been like, oh, you have big lips. But you're the first person I met that's really honed in on that. It's like a thing. Unavoidable. Unavoidable. Okay. You're like the kid in glasses shit in his pants and everyone's trying to pretend they can't smell it. It's bullshit. I'm like, look at this. Look at these lips flabbing around. Unbelievable. Oh, no. I'm telling you, we're in February, and I feel like it's Christmas. This is a treat. This is a true gift you just gave me right here. Wow. How does that mean so much to you? I've already said it to Harry. I've done all kinds of stuff. I think this is going to pop up in all corners of the internet. This is the insinuation of my privacy. You don't even care. You just send it out. This is going to be a meat canyon cartoon. It's done. There's no avoiding it. What have you done with this? This picture was promised to me 3,000 years ago. Where are we even at? We're in the story. Yeah, but we're at. Are we at some... Oh, God. I was trying to get back on course. We're back. I'm back on course. I was talking about how I like the dynamic. No, I heard all that. I'm saying where are we at on the text deal. Okay. It's time to talk about something scary. Your health. I know I don't go in the doctor as much as I should. If I'm feeling sick, I'll just lie in bed and sleep it away. But that's only because I don't want to have to deal with the appointments, insurance, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's why I have ZocDoc. ZocDoc is a free app and website where you can search and compare high-quality in-network doctors. Choose the right one for your needs and click to instantly book an appointment. 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I'm allowed to visit on the third day. And I find my mother sat in the waiting room, holding his twig crown in her hands. She gestures to the crown. Contamination risk. My brother seems to have somehow shrunk in the past three days, although perhaps that's just perspective. He is, after all, surrounded by huge machines that whir and beep, tubes that loop over the side of his bed. He smiles when he sees me, makes a movement to give me a hug, but a doctor calmly puts his hand on his chest. No set of movements. i try and hold it together to be the best big sister i can be kissing his forehead stroking his hair telling him he's going to be all right i try and ignore the look in the doctor's face at the end of the third day they take my parents into a separate room and i can only make out their silhouettes through the misted glass i can see my mother put her head in her hands my father put his arm around her they don't say anything until we get home or my father calmly takes every plate out of the drawer, smashes them against the wall. A dozen porcelain explosions, and it collapses to the floor with huge animal sobs. I cook dinner, and we eat it out of the pan. I understand. Our life has become a series of trips to and from the hospital, and I'm entrusted with carrying out tasks that were meant for my brother. It's strange, although he was far younger than me, six years to be precise, there must have been some tradition about these falling about the man in the family each week i take bundles of food and water to several spots just upstream from various tunnels or sewer entrances there i place them in the water and watch as they follow the course of the water down and round and eventually disappear into the black mouse of the tunnels sometimes if i leave it until it gets dark i can hear things coming from these entrances. Paranoid whispers, muted wails, something like humming. It's as if a hundred people are speaking all at once, a thousand miles away, and the echo of the echo of the echo of their voices is drifting out into the night. So, is she saying that it's part of the family? Like, the men are supposed to go feed whatever's down this river? Well, I think that it's saying that the men in the family are like once they get sick. Are they the ones that are being, like it seems like men in this family are the ones, at least that's how I read it, are people that are appearing. Like that's why it's affecting her brother. I know. Which I want to say I do love that line. How creepy is that to, like, you take the bundles of food down to the tunnels, whatever, and then from there you can hear, like, the echo of an echo of an echo of, like, tons of people talking thousands of miles away. Just such an interesting, like, picturing that in your head, just hearing it. It's so soft and so, like, just like a slight whisper into your ear. Really fun. Yeah, yeah. I make sure that whenever I visit my brother, I bring him strawberries, his favorite food, until he grows too weak to eat them, until I have to cut them up with a knife and fork into small, bite-sized pieces, which I feed to him. We pretend for a while that he's still the king, and I'm just a knight who's making sure my king is fed and healthy. But it soon becomes too painful. It's a reminder of the years he's been outside, the long summers, with the promise that we both might someday grow old. Around a month later, he comes home. He's almost skin and bone at this point, but we still make the effort to have a little welcome home party. My father acts strange at dinner. I can see it in the way he moves, the redness around his eyes, and that suggests he's been crying. A boy like that shouldn't have to face death. You shouldn't have to grapple with it to try and understand it, to rationalize it. He looks to me. A boy like that should live forever. My brother was always the favorite, and I knew that. I didn't mind. It was my favorite, too. That's a heartbreaking line. It's so sad. It's heartbreaking but sweet, given the context. Yeah, I mean, it's, I think that it's, I don't think it's supposed to be something where it's malicious or it's not supposed to be something where it's like the parents are obviously loving the child more. I think it just that this is a being that is impossible not to love You know what I mean Yeah Also it does remind me of what is that thing with there a word for it but kids who was raised with a sick sibling, who all the attention was directed towards the sick siblings because of that, they're kind of neglected. There's a word they have for it, but it kind of reminds me of that, which I don't know. I may be just paranoid, but something about the father's line, a boy like that should live forever. It makes me feel a little suspicious. Don't get me wrong. It's a weird line, but also if your son is dying of cancer. I mean, outside of the context of it being a no-sleep story, yeah, that's perfectly reasonable. But because it's in a no-sleep story. Yeah, I mean, it's a red-hanger. Yeah, it's a sign that's coming. That night, I hear a rustling. hush whispers and the lock to the back door spring open curious i peek out my blinds and see still partially illuminated by the light from inside my father and in his arms a bottle of white cloth and a face my brother immediately i get dressed and make my way noiselessly downstairs and out the house following as best i can in the dark i follow him down the back roads through the fields and eventually to the mouth of a tunnel. The roar of the water coming from it muffles my movements and I lurk at the very edge of my father's glow as we enter. Thankfully, he does not look back often. When he does, he seems to be in a trance, eyes glazed over, a grim expression on his face. It gets quieter as we get further and further into the tunnels and I have to take care not to make any sound, holding my breath, making exaggerated short steps. There are noises, though. My father holds an old-fashioned lantern in his hand, which casts a small sphere of light across the tunnel, and every now and again he'll freeze and hold it in front of him, as if challenging someone to come out from the dark. Whispers bounce off the walls of the tunnel, saying all sorts of strange and horrible things. I hear the faint sound of manic laughter over some tuneless hum. My father carries something that makes strange, periodic clicking noises, and every so often starts clicking rapidly until he moves on. There's writing on the walls, and the further we get, the more demented it gets. It goes from teenager's graffiti to genuine warnings, telling people to stay away, but they must not go any further, welcoming us to hell. then smaller stranger writing and scrawled almost childish letters stay a while i think about the rats we were warned about imagine them as a pack stalking me in the same way i'm following my father milky-eyed and hungry peering at me from crevices in the wall and from under the surface of the water you start going down an incline and i have to hang further back trying to time my steps with my father so he doesn't hear me, crouching and covering my face whenever he turns around. Voices are getting louder now, and more manic. There's so many of them. I can hear arguments, confessions, laughter, songs, monologues. It makes me wince. Sounds like all the thoughts of an asylum, and the smell starts to reek not only of shit but of sweat and bile and curdled milk. I wonder if it's the rats speaking or if it's some great mind leaking. Their worries and anxieties and desires spilling out and into our world. My father pushes on and we get deeper. The tunnels turn from brick to concrete and the graffiti turns to actual printed text. Plaza, one mile approximately. Oh, so I guess that does point to the idea. that there was a city down here at one point, right? Yeah. There's like roadsides? Yeah. The noise starts to hit me like a wall, and I grow my confidence. Standing up straight, there's no way he can hear me over this. Fucking why do they leave me here? Why do they leave me here? Why do they leave me there? Why do they leave me there? Why do they leave me there? Why do they leave me there? Why do they leave me there? Why do they leave me there? Incomprehensible. So many words layered over each other. It sounds like TV static. and then we emerge into this vast underground chamber seems to be illuminated by small lights around the edge although they're so faint it takes a while for my eyes to adjust but even in the dim light i can see how big this thing is how massive as if each light is a star hinting at unknowable depth and height. Something changes as we enter. My clothes and skin have the texture of used gum. Everything becomes sticky, like a leather seat on a hot day. My vision swims slightly. A wall of stale heat hits me. The temperature of sweat. Hot breath. Whatever it is that's here, it's emanating into the room and reality around us. It stinks. The voices are deafening. I can See the bundle of clothes in my father's arms start to wiggle and shake. And he holds his lamp up and I can see. See it first as a wall. A wall the color of pallid skin until I can make out familiar shapes. Hands. Arms. Faces. All coming from, attached to, this wall. Legs and ears and fingers all bursting from this wall like spots or growths. Hundreds of mouths moving. hands endlessly grasping at nothing legs spasming and trying to move along the slick ground and some shapes are more defined than others you can see some bodies that are half absorbed by this wall some that still have the shape of the human shoulders, bellies and some that have been completely absorbed so that all that's left is facial features spread out of a mass of skin and it occurs to me that these are, were people and the sound and the cinches coming from this thing, whatever it is this thing that laughs and screams and whoops and mutters and spits until it dawns on me that it's not just a wall because somehow, slowly and with great effort, it's moving. Swaying and stumbling and fraction by fraction it starts to make its way towards us. The eyes that litter its surface fixed on the white bundle in my father's arms, the mouth filled with yellow teeth hollering and wailing, fingers across the surface contracting and spasming like dying insects. and frozen in horror. It's all I can do to watch my father take my brother out from the bundle of clothes and hold him out with the grabbing hands and flailing arms until they take him, pull him in, and he's too weak to resist and the voices seem to reach a fever pitch united for just a second as he joins and I can hear him scream louder and louder until I lose his voice amongst the others. We watch for a while trying to keep track of my brother's body before the thing shifts and wobbles and new faces appear. It was once my brother disappears into the dark. My father turns around, walks straight towards me, grabs my hand and pulls. We have to go now. I have so many questions. How did he know I was here? What is this thing? Is my brother okay? But he's stronger than me and when he tugs on my hand I stumble after him. He says only one thing to me, once we're far enough away for the sound to turn back to whispers. He says it with tears in his eyes, and for a moment, I can see that he's not just a man, but also a boy, deep down. And that he's just as scared and hurt and confused as I am. That thing, it does not die. It does not age. A pause as he wipes the tears from his cheeks. you will not die down here when we return home my mother has fallen asleep at the kitchen table waiting for us when we wake her she looks at us as if we had killed him ourselves think of my father's words we will not die down there wonder if perhaps death might have been better bro oh my gosh okay we're almost over then i'll talk about oh man i still do the jobs that were meant for my brother the strange rituals that were meant for the man of the family i still pack and send the bundles of food into the tunnels but now that i know what's down there i take a few extra steps i make sure to put strawberries amongst the food picking the biggest and juiciest i can find if i've got a spare hour or so i'll make a little crown and twigs and string and hope that it finds them somehow in the dark and if i get close enough close enough to hear the whispers and shrieks and laughter. Sometimes I can make out his voice amongst them, the voice of my little king, my rat king. Oh, brother. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh, I forgot about the title of the story. It gave me chills there at the end. Oh, that was sick. Bro. I love this. I really like in horror. You kind of see this with, like, I mean, like, I'm a huge Cronenberg fan. and with stuff like The Fly, and these horror narratives or these things or stories where the main character is, it's like somebody's just dying in front of you and there's nothing you can do. The kind of moral dilemma of people having of like, well, do you, like the dad giving his son off to this creature, this thing in the sewers, this rat king itself, it's like a pet cemetery. It's just a fun act of desperation and the unwillingness to be able to let go and be able to say goodbye is such a personal and human thing that I feel like everybody would have – so many people would have a different response to what that dad did. I think some people would be like, oh, I would do anything to keep my child alive as well. But I think that like it does, you know, even in the story they do have a, there's literally the Pet Sematary line of sometimes dead is better, you know, it's like that kind of thing. I love that. I think the context is a little different because I agree with the sister at the end where she's like, you know, sometimes dead is better versus becoming a part of this amalgamation of eternal flesh, right? But I think important context is the mention that one of the theories people have around this thing is that it was started by a cult sometime in the past, right? That they conjured up something so awful, and now people are trapped down there, which seems to be – Well, 100% is the dad is a part of that cult. The dad's a part of that cult, and the family has been for generations. Yeah, yeah. The family's definitely a part of it, and I think even – that's why the mom is like, you might as well have just killed him because she knows exactly what she did. She knows what it is. I mean, they're the one, it says the men of the family take the food to the river, right? Yep. And they feed whatever's down there the whole time. So it's different for him, who is a part of this cult and has seen this thing for generations possibly, to be like, oh, we'll give it to the eternal mass rather than, you know, let him die. Which goes back to that line the dad said, where it's like a boy like that should live forever, where he comes to the decision of like, I guess I'm going to give him to the mass, right? But man, the opening where the sister was like, they were playing pretend and he was a king. And then at the end, she put strawberries in the crown on the food she sends. It's so heartbreaking. But that last line, my rat king. Oh, my gosh, dude. It's a fun idea of that you're playing Dungeons and Dragons at the beginning. And then you literally go into a sewer that is like a dungeon. And that's where he gets to be his king. You know what I mean? And then there's, like, the description where he's talking about, or the sister is talking about how she was his knight. She would bring him food and take care of him while he was sick in his hospital bed. And now she's continuing to do that as he's a part of the mass. This is one of those stories where sometimes, you know, after sometimes one of these stories, because this was a nice short story. Sometimes after we read these short stories, I'm always like, man, I wish that there was more. but with this story I just really loved how everything was approached you know you got to understand the child was sick you get a little element of the cult nothing was ever overstepping itself and you got just enough of information to make it satisfying I really do feel like this is just a perfect link through this type of concept and the way that they executed it I think Max did a great job yeah this was the first story we read by this guy and that was a banger like down to the pacing of it and the execution I like how the father knew she was there the whole time but was like I guess she has to see this at some point especially if she's going to be the one feeding this down here right well yeah so he lets her follow I always love in these cult like in these stories where somebody knows somebody knows about a monster or they're dealing with a monster we kind of had this in the story where the moth with the moth OC yeah very similar I love when there is when there's a character I mean even in the Mothless episode it was like there was the father who even kind of knew what the son had to do it's this thing of like when you have your beliefs and it's hard to swallow and it's like even the the dad at the end I don't think that he's particularly stoked that his son is just a part of this monster this amalgamation now he's not you know but it's a thing that they obviously still believe in they take care of when they do that. So in a way, I like that because it's justifiable why he would be like, you know, it's better than death. In his eyes. Because it's obviously something that he cares about and that he takes care of. He can't let go of his son yet, so now he's like, oh, well, if I do this, my son will be there in some way, right? Even if I don't get to see him directly, I know I'm still taking care of him. I know he's still in the dark somewhere, right? I also like the subtle kind of world-building stuff, where it's like they go down there and there was a plaza. So it's like, was there a city down here, or is this all part of whatever this spell, this ritual is? But then the description of the room, where there's lights in the distance that might as well be stars because they give off impossible depths to the space. It reminded me of John Milton, not John Milton, the other John, The guy that did the Paradise Lost depiction Hold on There is one piece of art From Paradise Lost That I think about All the time John Martin Is who I'm thinking of John Milton John Milton was the author of Paradise Lost Yeah Pandemonium Okay hold on let me send you this image real quick So When describing hell and Satan's throne in Paradise Lost, John Milton gave this depiction of it. And what I love about this image is you see Satan on the throne, and then you see, like, the rows of people behind, but you see the lights hanging on the ceiling, and you kind of have a sense of depth on the first row of how far back they go, but then there's rows and rows of lights, and it's like this room he's in is impossibly large, right? Mm-hmm. So I, when she talked about Walking into the room and then seeing lights That were impossible death that reminded me of this And now I'm thinking, maybe the author Because the author is Max Voynich named after Voynich Main description, he's obviously into like some weird Esoteric stuff, maybe that's Kind of the idea he was conjuring, the idea Of this underground Like circle of demons, this infinite Cask of Like the devil and his power, and that probably Ties back into the cult and like the creature That's made, but all that's done the point I'm trying to say is I got all these ideas off of a sign that said Plaza and then a description of how big the room was. And it's like, oh, maybe it's this, maybe it's that. And he does so much with so little by using the time he has to get these really cool ideas across and like maybe these cool theories, theory crafting you could do with the little pieces he gives. It's like he has a cohesive idea of where this stuff came from, how it all came to be, but he just sprinkles clues of it so you can try to put it together, and I think that's really neat. I really love this story. I thought it was awesome. The use of the body horror, too, at the end is awesome. I eat that shit up all day, but it's also something where it's a fine line to get a ride, because sometimes that shit just, it all sounds the exact same, so sometimes you have to just be, and I feel like it was just enough to give you a fun understanding of this actual rat that is tied together in a literal flesh sense without just being something that's generic. You know, it served its purpose in a great way that lends itself to the story versus trying to take the limelight and be like, isn't this crazy? It's just like a fun accent to the story, which was nice. But I'm excited that we get to read another one from him. Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, we'll have his stuff linked in the description. This guy has a ton of stories on his Reddit. It's a shame he hasn't posted in six years. I want him to keep writing. Who knows? Maybe with some support here and maybe with once he sees this, maybe this, maybe it could be something too. Maybe he's cooking something huge. Could be. Could be. But it would be very cool if you all, if you like this, to show him some support so that, you know, he gets on board. That'd be cool. Or he gets to making more stuff or something because I want more of this. Anyway, our second story from him today is called, If we misbehaved as children, we had to stand in the shed. Something else stood with us. So, are you ready, Hunter? Let's do it. It's as simple as that. If you misbehaved, you stood in the shed. As I've grown older, I've come to realize that it wasn't just if we were naughty, but if our parents wanted some space, some time alone to get rid of us when they had guests over. They were always throwing these lavish and expensive dinners with services and Latin, instance, and all the guests masked and dressed in black. They needed us gone. The shed itself was rotting, an old, wet structure that sat at the bottom of our garden, maybe three or four minutes' walk from the main house. Sure, that might not sound like the longest time, but try walking for four minutes in any direction you choose and see how far you get. Go on, time it. I think you'd be surprised. So after we made the mistake, chewed with our mouth open, asked a weird question, used the wrong cutlery, we were sent off. If we were together, Naomi, my younger sister and I, the walk didn't seem too long. We could talk, trying to take our minds off the shed, off the fact that it had its own wail. The fact that sometimes it was so dark you couldn't see one end from the other. We'd try and ignore the fact that sometimes the tapping on the windows sounded less like branches and more like some form of echo location. Like some giant and curious creature on the other side trying to draw us out. We'd stand there, shaking hand in hand. Humming songs we could have to remember or whispering stories to each other. Anything to make the time pass. I'd try to keep her spirits up to make sure she wasn't as terrified as I felt. as I couldn't let on that I felt. Sometimes she'd repay the favor and she'd tell me about her favorite animals, how big they were, what they ate, where I might find them if I was interested. It helped. The quiet, focused tone of her voice, the obvious pleasure she took in naming them all, despite our situation. I was much worse behaved than Naomi. She was all blonde hair and smiles, ribbons, long and looping handwriting, and pristine diaries. I wasn't interested in any of that. being a boy and being so proud of being a boy brandishing my scraped knees and torn clothes refusing to bathe until my father would hold me down and force me upstairs as such I spent a lot longer in that shed than she did as time passed I began to realize there was something wrong with it sure the air in there was colder stiller than the air outside sure rats and mice looked under the floorboards squealing and gnawing and climbing over each other in the dark Sure, if you came in the daylight, you'd see a flock of crows talk to each other as you entered, trading little cause as if discussing you. But there was something else. The sense that you were never truly alone there. The sense that, shivering and hidden in the dark, something was watching you. I like, again, Max does a really good job, in the two examples we've seen, of giving you so much with so little. because there's a little description of the parents where it's like when they needed, you know, they sent us out whenever they needed time to their self. And it has a mention that they throw lavish and expensive dinners with incense and all the gas masks and dressed in black. So it's like their parents are some cult, something like that. But then you have this shed that's probably related to whatever their practices is. And there's a ton of weird stuff that happens around it, like the crow showing up and things like that. So it's like how much of that is supernatural and how much of that is just like the eeriness that he feels being around a structure like this. I think it's almost interesting how from a kid's perspective, the the mass, the masquerade parties your parents throw, like the ritual stuff, isn't the interesting thing. It's the shed. But because of the masquerade, we're almost positive there's something supernatural about the shed. Right. Yeah, well, coming from the perspective of a younger kid, teenager, these things that are so normalized in their life are said in such a way that seems like, well, of course, they're in a mass party. It's said so matter of fact that it isn't drawn out to be some kind of creepy big thing. I just like how normalized it feels, and it's a piece of vital information that you could easily miss, which I think is kind of fun. Yeah. Yeah. I want to take a moment to thank today's sponsor, Harry's Razors. Anyone with body hair can tell you that there are few things more annoying than a dull razor. You get midway through a shave, and then your face starts to hurt, and then you can't even shave the rest. And what you do shave is red and covered in blood, which Hunter may find attractive, but I don't. 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The dinner they were hosting seemed special, and my mother spent the whole week fretting about who was sitting where and what to serve and if they'd be able to find the house, old and crooked as it was, nestled on the edge of thick black woods that had no obvious markings to tourists. Something else, though. Frenzy in the kitchens. My father holding a set of keys I'd never seen before, heavy in brass, dogs locked in the kennels, my mother's hands covered in paint. They had wanted us out. interesting. Okay. Dogs and kennels, paint on her hands, or maybe blood, and then a set of brass keys. Also, when it said the house at the edge of the woods, dark and the crevite, I thought of the house where I saw the can man. God. Far more disturbing to me. Far more scary. And so I spent the evening in my room, head against the window, watching the guests come in. Their long and pointed masks, the lanterns they carried and the way they bowed as they met my mother at the door there's a goat tied to a post a few feet from the entrance and i was trying to work out why each guest would take a moment to say something to the goat or bending to kiss its horns never seen the goat before i remember wondering if it was a gift or if my parents had brought it for some sort of game i felt sorry for naomi in the shed and beginning to howl which i knew brought strange lifelike noises from the holes in the old wood made the window rattle and the rat shelter between the floorboards felt sorry for how alone she must have felt that is till i saw her when naomi came back her hair was braided it was tied into one long plate that curled around her head the hair bound together by neat red ribbons wildflowers punctuating the plat every so often to give her the impression of a wild princess her nose and cheeks were flushed from the cold and she spoke in between sniffles wrinkling her nose each time still shaking i asked her where she learned to do her hair our mother was never one for anything like that preferring either military ponytails or simply combing it until naomi could fight back tears and i thought perhaps naomi had read it in a book somewhere she'd loved books but was clumsy able to name all the animals of the forest but forever scaring them off with her heavy footfall. She shook her head. No, it wasn't me. So when at the party? I asked, knowing full well that she wasn't supposed to attend, but that often guests couldn't resist saying at least a hello to the little blonde girl on the stairs. She shook her head again. Something turned to my stomach, caught in my throat. Who, Naomi? I asked, trying to hold back to panic in my voice, pointed to herself, did this strange rasping voice, and on the in-breath, spoke her name in syllables. Nay. Oh. Me. Duh. Dude. Bro. Okay. Imagine there is a little girl, right? And you're like, oh, hey, Sarah, how are you doing? And she points herself, she's like, Sarah. But no. No, we got it. Sorry, hey, your daughter's dead. Cool. Sorry that your daughter died. I'm leaving. Yeah. Bye-bye. I'm so sorry for your loss. You should burn that thing. Anyway, bye. Your dress is so cute. I have to go take a shit. I'll be right back. That's right. Run. Yeah, crawl out the window. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I meant I have to go do that at home. I have to go all the way home. But it isn't my home because I'm leaving the state now. I said it again, firmer this time, the tone I'd used when I scolded her. Who did this? Who was in there with you? Who put the ribbons and flowers in your hair? The reply was the same, on the in-breath. Naomi. I knew neither of us could go back, and although I was on my best behavior, Naomi didn't seem to care. She seemed to be oblivious as to what waited at the bottom of the garden for us. My mother said the party was a success, that she'd be having another one. She seemed younger, I thought. Her nose feet by her eyes had smoothed and her mouth seemed fuller. I tried to beg for her to hold off, but she replied by looking out the window towards the shed. I had no choice but to shut up. Interesting. So it seems like they're doing this as like a rejuvenation spell, right? Stay young. I wonder then how old they are and if this is even their kids, right? Because they clearly have a contempt for them. like they brush her hair until she cries and like super strict and things like that. Yeah. I mean, they almost seem like sacrificial victims or something. Yeah. Maybe they're just like fatten them up, so to speak for some eventual ritual. Might've already done it. If Naomi's now possessed by a skin Walker or whatever. Yeah. I asked about the goat and was told that there was no go, but I must've imagined it. And when I pushed her on this, she slapped me hard in the face till I tasted blood and said that boys who lied spent weeks in the shed and had their food slid under the door until they knew better. The shed hung at the bottom of the garden, hidden in shadow. I tried not to look at it, terrified I'd see faces in the window, pressed up against the glass, staring back at me. I thought that maybe, somehow, if I tried as hard as I could to pretend it didn't exist, I'd be safe. I was wrong. My parents were looking for any excuse the night of the party, before I even knew I'd done something wrong I was sent to the shed I tried to find Naomi tried to ask if she was there but she was nowhere to be found my parents' patience grew thin as if I didn't go right this minute I'd be sorry my father's lips shook like it did when he was angry or drunk when he wanted to use his hands or his felt to bruise the walk to the shed had me breathless my old body was shaking in fear in anticipation of something I didn't understand I could feel my knees weak as each step took me closer. The sun was beginning to set and the trees cast long shadows on the grass. Crows were quiet this evening, strutting down branches to watch. The door to the shed was already ajar and for a moment, thought I caught motion inside. I was still, silent until I heard the flapping of wings, a patter of rats. I took a breath. I was going to be okay. There was nothing in the shed that could hurt me. Naomi had learned to braid her own hair. I decided upon entering that I would do what any boy should do, what any man should do. I slowly paced around the walls. I thought that this would dispel any ideas I had about something else being in there with me, about anything sharing the space. My footsteps were marked by the groan of old floorboards, a faint echo as they bounced from the wall. Each footstep followed by an echo. A slight delay, and so after I'd walk three paces, I'd pause and hear, step, step, step. I'd walk three more, same thing. Step, step, step. Except, I realized it wasn't an echo. It was the sound of something behind me. Something mimicking me. following my exact footsteps for fear of being heard i felt sweat begin to break out on my back my mouth went dry couldn't breathe whatever was behind me knew i'd be listening out a noise startled me made me gasp and i realized i hadn't taken a breath in almost a minute the window in front of me something was tapping against it i still had the impression of something behind me, something huge, something watching, and part of me knew I had to turn around, but I couldn't bring myself to. I think I had it somewhere in my head that maybe I could still pretend this was all a game or a mistake, that by turning around I'd somehow make my fears real. Tapping on the window continued. I squinted to see better. There, against the window, was a crow. Feathers, dark beady eyes, a huge and sharp beak, but it seemed bigger than I thought possible. or from my reflection and I thought maybe it was because I was still some paces from the window and then the tapping came again and I realized that the sound wasn the crow couldn be the crow Because the crow was completely still And I could see it now The long and low range that actually was tapping. And I realized that what I thought was the crow was actually something behind. Something huge and dark and still. And I turned around. it must have been about eight feet tall huge and with thin limbs covered in black robes robes so dark that unless you were really looking for them really aware of their presence they'd have seemed invisible and emerging from the hood a long and pointed beak two eyes that only appeared as glints we stared at each other for a while I feel my heart beating so fast it hurt a tension in the left side of my chest that grew and grew slowly the bird thing lifted its hand pointing a long and gnarled finger at me it opened its beak to speak and the sound reminded me of a parent father's friend had mimicking human speech uncertain grating as if the words were not meant for it i shook my head it was all i could do the thing caught and the crow screamed in response It asked again. No. Was all I could manage. No. Then the thing seemed to fly into a panic, all limbs in frantic movement, bending itself, folding itself through the door and out into the forest. And as my eyes followed, I could see the faint glow that it headed for, some glow that threw shafts of orange light between the trees and the sound of drums. Man, this, dude, this is sick. like a giant crow god that's giant crow god that's friends with naomi yeah yeah the parents are like this ancient like you know religious practice which i also like how the thing that made the mom younger was that her crow's feet went away haha but it's like and the thing i said earlier it's like are the crows supernatural is that just a thing the kids noticing because the shed's creepy but no the crows are part of the supernatural aesthetic of this whole thing and you have the family that's part of the stark cults and does these rituals to stay young and then you have this crow god and there's this group of people in the forest with drums and stuff, it's so cool I followed as fast as I could my knees and chins whipped until they bled by wild grass thick as slow bushes but I kept on pushing on something in its tone had disturbed me some sense of panic or purpose and I had only the safety of my sister in mind I ran until the glow turned into a deep light that cast its own shadows in the dark, that illuminated pale figures standing in the circle around it. A fire, surrounded by naked figures, who wore masks made from thin branches and reeds, proved shapes who were all flesh, some with drums made from bone with leather stretched, some empty-handed, some holding books and totems and lanterns. There, unconscious, in a chair in front of the fire, in a red robe with a crown of wildflowers, Naomi. some would come forward from the crowd on the beat of the drum and kiss her forehead gently the way you might do to a baby she sat bolt upright eyes closed as she dreamed the figure in front of her read something from a book her voice echoed by the crowd growing louder and louder in language i did not could not understand the drums grew faster now as if drawing in on something converging and the voices grew excited and I saw in the figure's hands something glint in light. A knife. A long and thin knife. They were slowly raising. I wanted so much to do something to stop this but my limbs seemed to freeze to stop. It all happened so fast. There was a caw angry and clipped and then the caw echoed around the woods coming from every angle from the roots to the bows to the tops of the trees from behind me and above me, and then the fire was snuffled out like a candle. A commotion. Screams. People began to run, only lit by the dim light of the lanterns, and I could see that somehow Naomi was gone, her robe and crown all gone. Revelers began to run towards me, heading into the forest to get away from whatever this was, faces still covered by masks, screaming, and I had no other choice. I couldn't tell what they'd do if they'd found me if they'd run past or if they'd grabbed me too taking me to wherever they were sheltering and I ran until I was sure my lungs would collapse and then ran some more I ran until the spit dried in my mouth and in my lungs and every breath made me shake I ran until I was two towns over covered in blood and my feet torn they found me on all fours in the town center retching onto the cobblestones it took two days for me to finally speak when they finally took me back they made an effort to disprove the parts of my story they didn't believe although even then i could tell they were holding back they cannot find my parents or the guests at the party they found evidence of a bonfire but no masks they cannot find iomi either and the case would stay open for years decades no one had seen anyone like her description come through and it was assumed that for one reason or another she had disappeared with my parents they did comment on the sheer number of crows in the garden took me years after that to finally return to that house took enough time for me to have children of my own undergo years of therapy i found things that helped me piece together what happened hidden rooms stone slabs runes carved wall old books that smelled like rot and had strange diagrams in them but i never found her i like to think whatever took her saved her although if i'm honest i can't be sure i like to think that she roams the forest now with her crown of wild flowers and her red robe passing her blessing over all the creatures she loves so much and although the shed has been demolished now floorboards and walls removed to reveal the bones of livestock sometimes i'll hear when I'm walking in the woods, working in my room, whispered by the wind, cries of birds. Naomi. Man, it's two for two, dude. Yeah. What I liked about both of these two is like, well, it's hard to say. This one seems like it has a bit of a darker ending. Well, both of them have like a darker ending, But yeah, the creature happy with the kid getting absorbed by the flesh wall, the creature, like the crow. I don't think that the eight foot tall crow dude was like a bad. He just wanted Naomi and then he left. Yeah. Yeah. It's like his buddy. So then when Naomi wasn't there, he was like, wait, what the fuck? And it seemed like he went out, was freaking out. It looked like it seemed like the cult was going to sacrifice her. Yeah. Yeah. They're going to stab her. But then when the crow gods saw her in the chair, it screamed and the crows came from everywhere and the fire stepped out and everyone ran into panic. Yeah. And Naomi was just gone. She wasn't dead or anything. She was just gone from the chair. So it's like the crow took her. Well, I'm wondering to be with her. Yeah. I'm wondering if she like it. I think it braiding her hair is a good note. I think it's the idea that it cares about her and doesn't wish her harm. The ending makes me think, and it feels similar to two. What's interesting is it's two children that are afflicted by something. In the end, it seems like they are joining in on what the cult is worshipping. To me, it seems like the crow is the god that those people are worshipping. and the mask, I assume, I was thinking like a plague doctor's beak kind of mask and stuff. But I do wonder if she was able to ascend. Like, this is a happier version of the last story. Like, it seems like this is like maybe she was able to join in, or like maybe she was transformed in some way that is like not in a flesh wall, but more so maybe she becomes a crow herself or does something that is acclimating her into the nature that she loves so much, you know? because it seems like the entity or the god really liked her a lot. Well, I will say that her life was miserable, right? Like, she's parents were cultist monsters, and they abused her and all this stuff. So it's almost like when the crow god was probably summoned here by whatever was going on, it sees her, and then it breaks her hair, and then it takes her away from this, right? So it's like it wanted to save her from what the parents, especially right before they were about to kill her, or before her own parents were about to kill her. I also like the end where it's like the sheer number of crows in the garden was alarming. It's like, did the cultists get turned into crows? Is that the implication why more and more crows show up? Or maybe it's just like, you know, there are crows around the crow god. That or did the cultists get like, did they get a comeuppings and that like, are the crows positive spirits? Are they positive entities? You know what I mean? I mean, it probably makes more sense that the entire cult got turned into crows of some kind, but regardless, it seems almost like the cult was going, it seemed like the crow god was blessing the girl, and it seemed like they were going to sacrifice her because she was blessed in some kind of way. I mean, I'm reaching, but that's just kind of what I'm taking from it. But once again, a really fun story. Max, fun stuff. Very fun. Yeah. Yeah, I think what's interesting is the similarities between both of those stories. They're both about an older sibling who is protective over a younger sibling who both of them are the victims of some cult or some practice that their parents are a part of. Who their parents, in one story, give them over or try to give them over to these dark forces for their own gain or their own selfishness in some way. Even if in the first story it was just the selfishness of wanting your kid to live forever. And then it ends with the older sibling reminiscing on hoping the younger sibling's okay. Yeah. It seems like the first family in the Rat King story actually loved their children versus this story. I don't know if you felt it this way, too, but it seemed like almost like the children were just literally a commodity to be sacrificed. Yeah, they were. The mother turning and not even like acknowledging the child or whatever. I was like, all right. Yes. Cool. Yeah it is It is They were the fatted calf They were saving them for the ritual Whenever it was to come Whereas in the first story the father still did the wrong thing And he was still part of a cult that Turns your kids into these flesh amalgamations But it came out of a point of wanting his son to live Not out of like wanting to be younger Right Well should we Those were both excellent stories So check out Max Voynich Again he hasn't posted well I really want to see more stuff out of him We'll post him His account in the description And we'll also post the Max Voynich Subreddit where people discuss his stories And stuff like that so be sure to show this guy Some love and Max if you're watching This make more stuff This was awesome I enjoyed it Alright So With that are you ready to move on to Dopamine? Yeah let's finish off with the Dopa Bean story, which is, they told me I was nothing but a dog. Yep. And we all, like I said at the beginning, we're all familiar with Dopa Bean. Wrote the incredible story, The Dead Girl in My Yard Was the Best Friend I Ever Had, which is... It might be a top ten we've ever covered on this show, to be honest. Because I think about that story a lot. I know fans love it. I know that we had a great time reading it. So much emotional depth. It's hard not to fall in love with the character, like that girl character, the spirit, this entity, and just kind of the crazy, I don't want to reveal too much in case we have new viewers. If you haven't read that story or heard us talk about it, please listen to that episode or go read the story for yourself because it's really, really fun. So I'm excited. There were so many good, like the dialogue moments where the dead girl's describing like, oh, the birds came with the trees in the first summers and stuff. It was so magical. Hauntingly, like, beautiful. Like, tragic. Yeah. In my head, it takes up the same real estate as things like Chronicles of Narnia and Where the Wild Things Are. Like, it's like a child's almost imagination of this world they were on. But it has such a, like, undertone of death. I mean, she's a dead girl, but also with a sick mother and stuff like that. Like, gosh, it was just such a good story. But yeah So Dopamine killed it And now we're reading another story from them This was posted seven years ago and it's called They Told Me I Was Nothing But a Dog Once again Dopamine Their account has been deleted because Reddit's lame But we're going to link their sub stack And we're going to link the subreddit for the North American What's the name of that big series they write The North American Pantheon We'll have that linked in the description and all their stuff and I'll verify that Dope of Beans is their new account but if it is we'll link that too so be sure to show them some support especially now when they need it that out of the way they told me I was nothing but a dog my father named me Laka because when I was born my grandfather told him to treat me like a bad dog my father Laka was synonymous with dog he used the name to remind me of my place in the hierarchy lesser, beneath inferior nothing but a dog what is yeah Lake is the dog the cosmonaut sent up Kayla has a Lake a tattoo on her arm what when they were born the father said treat nothing but a bad dog that's an insane thing not a healthy relationship right now no no no a newborn's there and your father shows up like treat that nothing but a dog like a bad dog my father meant to humiliate and degrade me with such a name but he honored me instead you see leica was a stray dog from moscow on the 3rd of november 1957 soviet union put her on sputnik 2 and launched her into space she was the very first animal to orbit earth the soviets knew how to put a rocket into space but they didn't know how to bring it back. This made Lake's mission a death sentence. Shortly after reaching orbit, the interior of Sputnik 2 became catastrophically hot, far too hot for mammals to tolerate. Mere hours after launch, Lake had died an agonizing death. She perished the same way she'd lived. Besser, beneath, fearier, abandoned, unloved, nothing but a dog. I spent many hours imagining her terror, pain, and loneliness. How did it feel, spending my last hours hurtling through divine darkness in a metal bucket? What must it be like to not understand what I was seeing? Why it was suddenly so loud and so hot? What must it be like to not understand why, after being plucked from cruel streets and dropped into a puzzling world of kindness? Let's now alone. Perhaps I wouldn't think I'd been a bad dog. Perhaps I'd think this was my punishment. Jesus Christ, I'm sad. Do what? I said, Jesus Christ, I'm sad. I'm like, I'm so sad now. This is an insanely heavy opening to a story. I have to pull up the picture of your lips and then there it is. Does that make you feel better? Slightly. It kind of made me even more depressed, honestly. Why did the lips make you more depressed? We just got to keep going. All right. Lake is such a tragic tale I think about her a lot Such a cute dog She was just used for You know Our understanding of something She was a casualty from the beginning And that had to be so Scary Little dog Tragic That made you feel better right No I was like yeah I'm really in a good fucking headspace. I'm not sure everybody, too, is just like now just sitting here quietly thinking about existentialism and stuff. It's pretty funny. Do you know the song Holland 1945? I love that one. Yeah, that's my favorite song. I'm not crazy about Neutral Milk Hotel, but I love that song. But I see people attribute the end of the chorus to her all the time, where it's like, and now she rides a comet's flame and never coming back again. The world seems better from a star. right down from where you are. Yeah. I see all this stuff. It'll be like, like Kayla's tattoo is Laka, the dog with an astronaut helmet on her. It's just, it's a sweet, what I like about Laka so much is it was such a tragic moment and it's such a terrible thing in history where it's like, let's just, let's just kill things. Let's just ruin creation for our understanding of it, which I understand like disease research, stuff like that. There's a greater purpose. There's an end, But in Lakers' case, it really was just for our knowledge, for our getting to know something. Some life was lost, and it's tragic. But now there's this reinvigoration of her where people see her as kind of a symbol of tragedy and what was lost. And because of that, they make her beautiful. There's drawings of dogs with helmets and floating through space and on comments and stuff like that. I don't know. I like seeing the art, like the beauty that comes out of it, you know. Now you're in a good headspace. no no you're really ready to go punishment is my mother tongue i know what it was like to be punished for transgressions i cannot remember or understand we hurt so badly my heart rate triples my mind flies out the window and soars into the stars retracing the lake is doomed flight while my husk worms and weeps on the floor of a dirty house 68 miles below even so i adapted to punishment. As I said, it eventually becomes a language. Given enough time, anyone can learn a language. What I could not adapt to was fear. As a child, I was afraid of everything. You see, in the deepest, most forgotten parts of the world, there are things that most people cannot believe and even fewer would understand. Old ways, old things, old truths, and old monsters. Monsters like my father and my grandfather. How can I describe this in a way you will believe? Maybe I can't. Maybe I shouldn't try. So instead, I'll describe my grandfather. He was called Pavel. By the time I turned nine, he had gone through six bodies. By this, I mean he inhabited them, using a variant of blood magic perfected by my forebears across many centuries. He leapt from body to body. He was not a spirit. He had a corporeal body of his own, a twisted, monstrous thing covered in scars and hard, glittering skin, a body that could shrink to the size of a garden stake or expand to the size of a house. But for all its marvels, his body was weak. Sunlight burned its eyes and blistered its flesh, so it entered other bodies, like a hand inside a puppet, and wore them until they rotted away. I'll never forget the sight of him, of many hymns, and different bodies, his flesh degraded and fell away in wet discolored strings or the way his eyes hard round yellow eyes blended deep within their stolen sockets grandfather preferred the bodies of men but sometimes chose women or children once he even wore the body of my mother i was very young then perhaps three and the sight of her familiar form standing before the fire sent me into such transports of joy that I bawled from sheer ecstasy. Yes, Kayla just stepped in. We're talking about Lake of the Dog, actually. This episode, can you show your tattoo? Hold it up. Yeah. Look at that. He got a little helmet. He's wearing a helmet. He's up in space. Okay, thank you. Then she turned around, and in her bruise sockets, I saw my grandfather's eyes. Flat, glittering yellow, like rotted gold. I reared back, screaming. My father, who had been stroking a pair of old baby shoes, looked at me with contempt so deep it scorched my heart. Shut up, dog! I cringed. This was a mistake. His contempt exploded into disgust. He shot out of his chair and stomped upon me. Dirty, squirmy pain exploded across my abdomen. I hobbled away, whimpering, and under the stairs. I lay there alone for many hours Eventually my mind left my body and soared into the sky A reverse dive into a sea of stars I drifted away Dreaming of diamond-colored constellations and red nebula At my side was a curly-tailed dog with a striped face My namesake Laika Aw Gosh That made me really sad The idea of an abused kid thinking about being in the stars with Laker. It's really, I remember there was this one, this little poem I saw where someone was talking about how Laker is up in space. It kind of serves as like a river sticks figure almost for like all astronauts and animals lost in space. Laker the Guardian, Laker the Guide. Man, gosh, that's sad. That's so rough to read about kids. And the story handles it in a way where it's part of it and it feels very respectful and it understands the weight of the subject matter, but still. Also, why would you, as a grandfather, possess your son's wife, or at least your son's concubine? I don't know. It's very odd. Doesn't that seem like some weird incest stuff would happen? Yeah. That seems weird. That seems very, or just to know, what if right now, Hunter, Allison was like, hey, yesterday I was your dad. I'd probably kill myself. That's the only option, right? Which, I mean, to be fair, he is like a fucking immortal blood wizard or whatever, so who knows? Who knows what in the mind of a blood wizard, Twilight vampire, sparkling guy would do? It's true. Who knows? when i woke i felt her furry and warm chest rising and falling under my hand i opened my eyes for just an instant i saw her in the shadows then she shrank away sinking into the ground i tried to grab her but the floor swallowed her my fingers closed on cold hard floorboards i covered my eyes and wept several months later grandfather within mother gave birth to a child Okay, see? Like, that's weird, right? It's a little ha-ha-ha-ha. Hey, son, I possessed your wife while she gave birth to your child. Treat your kid like a dog and come over here and have sex with me. Treat your kid like a dog and let me birth my grandchild. I'm pregnant, son. I'm pregnant with your baby. Yeah, this guy's a freak. It's not for me, like, a multidimensional spirit demon or whatever. He's just speared. a baby boy with yellow eyes and my father's curly black hair mere minutes after the birth father picked up the baby and took him outside he returned an hour later empty-handed spurred by horror i immediately ran out into the night the cold was brutal once invigorating and exhausting i searched until i found the baby whimpering weakly beside a snowdrift he was still covered in birth blood. I named him Alexander and brought him home. When I walked in, father immediately slapped me. I reeled back, and stars rocketed across my vision. Never! He hissed, contempt tripping from every syllable. Never disobey me again. Give him to me now. He reached for Alexander. Grandfather stopped him. I looked up and swallowed a whimper. Grandfather stared back at me through my mother's rotting face, the mouth puffy and discolored with an oddly detached look, quirked into a smile. No, let the door keep her, pup. We have other concerns. They certainly did. They worked together and they worked constantly. Father kidnapped victims and grandfather used them. Whenever father brought a new victim to the cabin, grandfather used his hands. long hideous things marked with scars and covered in strange glittering flesh to tear out the victim's tongue and crush their feet. Then he would wait until nightfall because remember sunlight burned Grandfather's eyes and blistered his skin and carried them to his chapel. His chapel was an ancient stone structure at the base of a wooded hill. Within the chapel were three red windows and six rough-hewn pews. At the end of each pew sat desiccated corpses facing the altar like sentries. I hated Grandfather's chapel The very air weighed upon me whenever I entered Creshing my heart and poisoning my lungs The worst part was the fear Electric and paralyzing Inescapable Luckily, I was just a dog Dogs do not spend much time inside chapels The dogs hear screams Even screams from far away Echoing down forested mountains Long into the night Grandfather did not often leave his chapel but when he did it was always in the wee hours of the morning i know this because my father and i were required to hold vigil until he walked through our door whenever grandfather came back from his chapel he looked human again smooth skin wide smile good proportions sometimes he looked a bit like father sometimes he looked like his victim it was as incomprehensible to me as outer space would have been the lake. The stream of grandfather's victims never ended. Bakrants, the elderly, travelers, orphans fleeing violence. There were so many. So, so many. You think that maybe it's saying that uh Oh, that was a good stretch. Pop something. You think that it's saying that this isn't actually a grandfather. This is like a demon or something that the father invited in years ago and I was just kind of worshipping. I mean, it's got to be something like that. I mean, I'm still wondering why this motherfucker even had a kid. Like, why even have... Why keep one? Yeah. The only thing I'm thinking is that if during the man's, when he was with his wife during the pregnancy, they had the kid, and then between that moment and when the kid was born, he had made some deal with some kind of monster to where then the monster was just like, yeah, you've got to treat that thing like a fucking dog or whatever. Otherwise, why would it be this generational thing? Or, unless it's similar to our last story, coincidentally, the crow one, and they need the kid for something. Once it gets to a certain age, they're needed for a ritual. With the continuous theme and callback of Laika, it is going to be some kind of sacrifice for some kind of exploration or some kind of, you know, in this case, you know, you weren't supposed to give that away. You just told the audience what the theme for the episode is. They can't figure that out. Okay. Well, it's been two episodes and we're talking about like, which was sacrificed for science, I guess, if you want to call it that. You mean the real religion? Yeah. Well, the people's religion. I saw a Reddit post the other day. Some lady posted it was in like whatever town she was in, San Francisco, Denver, whatever. She's like, hey, my kid is really interested in Christianity, and she wants to go to Sunday school. I'm not a Christian, and my husband used to be, so we're just wondering if there's any churches in the area. Thanks. And the top reply, someone said, you should check out the local science center. well maybe teacher kid a real religion uh anyway um if it weren't for alexander i would have withered into nothing he was more than a brother to me for all intents and purposes he was my son neither father nor grandfather cared for him and even feed or clothe him I had to feed and dress him with what little I had. Despite my best efforts, he never learned to speak. That isn't to say he couldn't communicate. He could, with gestures and facial expressions and nonsense syllables. The language eluded him. But it was alright. He grew into a sweet, curious boy with freckles and long, delicate hands. Over time, his terrible yellow eyes mellowed to a clear, bright green. He was my life. He was my heart. but he wasn't enough one night as a little girl's screams came shrieking down the mountain from grandfather's chapel i finally went to my father i laid prostrate at his feet which is how he taught me to approach him the wooden floor was rough and painfully cold under my fingers why father why do you do this sat in his chair watching the fire with his hands he held a pair of white baby shoes. Because your grandfather and I must live, little dog. Will I have to do this to live? Yes. Then I don't want to live. I understand. He said, his grip tightened on the shoes. But you do not have a choice. I choked back a sob and waited for the dismissal. I could not come to him without crawling, and I could not leave until he told me so. Instead, he said, stand up like a... Hearing my name was like being doused in ice water. Never used it. By that point, in fact, I'd almost forgotten I had a name. I said stand up, Laika. It was a struggle to obey. Fear made my bones rubbery and my muscles weak. Father held out the baby shoes. What do you see? Shoes? Old baby shoes? Those shoes belong to my sister Alexandra. I loved her more than anything. more than life, more than my parents more than your mother more than you she was my heart I watched him the firelight threw his face in a relief creating crevices out of wrinkles his curly black hair shifted like smoke and his long sharp nose looked strange and monstrous paralytic electricity swarmed my skin so much like the chapel that I could have wept on my twelfth birthday The grandfather boiled a pot of oil and called Alexander to him. She and I were going to pick wildflowers later. So she dressed in her finest clothes. A blue dress and white shoes. These shoes. Father did not speak for a very long while. She was my heart. He finally repeated. When my heart broke, I broke it. It made me like grandfather. someday I will be just like him I will live forever you will too that night I had a nightmare of a little girl with sunken yellow eyes melting into blisters as my mother rotted body doused her with boiling oil I woke screaming moonlight streamed through the window drenching my room in celestial silver my heart thumped so wildly that I could see my night shirt moving I wanted to escape I wanted it to escape too because without it I would die and when I was dead, I could sail the stars with the other Laika. Small, warm hands touched my face. I turned, expecting Alexander. Instead, I saw my nightmare. Great inflamed blisters bubbled and burst, sending rivulets of pus down her tiny, raw face. The skin around its mouth had burned away, leaving neat rows of milk teeth fully exposed, burned scalp and dull bone glinted through black curly hair a blue dress clung to her body oil dripped from them soaking my blanket don't cry he whispered alexander stirred between us get out the girl's blistered chin quivered but you made me come here please let me sleep all right i whispered because i do not know what else to say the girl burrowed under my blanket i watched a gasp as she threw a bony burnt arm across alexander and drifted to sleep that night i did not sail the stars with laika instead i sat awake watching the apparition with mingled excitement and fear just before dawn my door creaked open i tried to shield the girl as my father stepped into the room. What is that? Please. Please don't. The girl shifted and incredibly began to shrink. Her body flattened into nothing, leaving her dress crumpled on the floor. That sank away too, leaving the cold, empty floor in its wake. What was that? I saw her in my sleep. Her! Her, not it! I saw her in my sleep. When I woke up, she was here. Sweat gleamed on Father's skin, reminding me of stars. Kid dressed. You must see your grandfather immediately. Felt my hands and knees and crawled to him. No! Stand up! Bring the boy! I'll accept. Because they did that, I imagine now that it's time for their turn where they have to sacrifice Alexander. The like is going to have to sacrifice Alexander. Yeah. alexander wept angrily when i picked him up i ignored him and followed father into the dark forest full glory of early spring bathed the landscape held beams of light shafted through the canopy cutting the thick shadows with gold hermit crept through the undergrowth deer watched from a distance the forest was always full of animals grandfather was no danger to the birds or beasts after all soon the chapel came into view an ancient little church with a black spire red windows and frost and crested stones. I love, I mean, there's been a ton of videos or episodes we've done that revolve around like an old steeplechurch in the woods, like fire in the woods and stuff. And I always love it, especially like in Deep Woods, the first part of Deep Woods, where you get the impression that hundreds of years back there was some ritual that was performed here or there was some spell. And now everything we see is the influence of that. Yeah, the aftermath. This is like back where it all began. Yeah, I love that trope. It gets me every time. Father ushered us inside. The moment I crossed the threshold, my skin began to crawl. Dread and fear swept over me. Alexander burst into tears. Father shoved me toward the altar. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the sentry corpses twitching. Chest rose and fell in jagged, senseless rhythms. One especially tall corpse with long copper hair turned as I passed. I covered Alexander's eyes and stopped at the altar. Shadows thickened and rized against the back wall. Back in the pews, bones clattered and dried joints creaked. Something blinked in the darkness behind the altar. Great, flat eyes like golden moons, shining in the cold shadows. Grandfather. The dark. Grandfather intoned. And who pop? He snarled, a deep, bone-shaking rumble like that of a tiger. Teeth glinted in the shadows, a shining ivory arc wider than Father's entire head. Pavel, she had a nightmare. When she woke, it followed her out of the dream. It came alive, and I saw it. Oh. Our little dog is telling after all. All good and well. If she loves her pup, do you love your pup, Doc? He weirded up in the shadows, twisted and sinewy and utterly inhuman. Do you love him, or do you feel obligated to him? I opened my mouth to answer. Instead, I burst into tears. Grandfather laughed, a low roar that shook dust from the rapture's overhead. Those great yellow eyes flicked to the pews. I do not like to take my centuries, not when they are hungry as they are. Fear and disbelief battled across Father's weathered face. Do you not understand what I told you? She creates life from thought. A poor substitute from what we were calling her. Leave me again. But! Grandfather rocketed out of the shadows, a rippling mass of glittering skin and malformed limbs, and knocked Father to the stones. The corpse sentries uttered a deep sigh and continued to twitch. Never! Grandfather snarled. Sunlight poured through the crimson windows, imbuing him strange hide with a red glow. He looked like the sky, a starry piece of outer space. Never! Defy me! I waited breathlessly for Grandfather's eyes to burst and his skin to sizzle. He was, after all, exposed to daylight, but it did not. Many moments later, Grandfather struck Father across the face and whipped back into the darkness. We left. Father did not speak again until the cottage came into sight. Then he grabbed me and dragged me off the path. Listen. Listen, Will. I can protect you from him, then. He looked down at Alexander, eyes blazing with disgust. When the time comes, I can protect you from him, too. But only if you help me. Why should I need protection? He's small and loves me as a mother. Do you remember the story of Alexandra? I nodded. Your story is coming. Only Alexandra will be me. And you will be Alexandra. My heart fell to the cold earth. Carefully pressed Alexandra's head into my shoulder, shielding his face from father. Listen, dog. would next you dream of my sister his voice broke pulled away and ran his fingers through his hair tears shone in his eyes which were huge and miserable over his quivering mouth when she comes again bring her to me all right father i'd never seen him weep before the sight was frightening and curiously thrilling i will father nodded curtly and left i nearly followed but thought better of it said stayed in the forest with alexander interesting so it's like there's this discrepancy between father and grandfather where he thinks that alexander's not worthy i guess and he would rather it be his daughter even though he hates her because i don't know interesting i will say i really love when it was describing his flesh the red flesh and said it looked like the nebula of space that works so well with the lake and metaphor the story's been chasing where like space was this unknowable impossibility to lake and now we see that same image reflected in the skin of green and father right that's such a cool motif as the morning brightened and birdsong swelled to a symphony I set Alexander upon the narrow path. He ran forward, humming a tune of his own composition. Shadow and sunlight dappled his skin, turning him into a woodland sprite. Trees were in full bloom. Petals drifted down like snow, carpeting the earth in glistening white. Alexander pulled ahead. After a while, I couldn't hear or see him. He drifted away, slipping under the deep shadows. Panic overtook me. Alexander? Alexander? Alexander! I rushed ahead, grimacing against the pain in my chest. My heart thumped wildly, so hard I could see my shirt move. I wanted to escape again. Alexander! He darted from between the trees. I halted, overcome with relief so powerful I took my breath away. Petals covered his head and shoulders. As I watched, one drifted down and settled on his nose. Wide green eyes glimmered above it, bright as the promise of spring. For the first time in my life, my heart was so full that I wept. That night, Alexandra came to me again, blistered flesh dripping down her face. Her eyes had melted away, being raw, swollen masses of flesh in her melted sockets. Remembering my instructions, I set up. Father, I quivered. Alexandra reached for me blindly, ruined hands closing on shadows. Father! Father burst into my room, gasping. Alexandra! He shot forward, arms extended as if to sweep her up. She turned. Father froze. Alexandra tottered towards him. Miguel. Miguel, my eyes hurt. Father collapsed and covered his eyes as Alexandra approached. She left a trail of pus and oil, shining like a tiny river in the moonlight. Or sorry. Mikael, my hands hurt. Father wheezed miserably. Mikael, my skin is on fire and it drips away. She stopped before him and crouched. Father whimpered and whined like a beaten dog, twisting away from her hands. She set her small hand on his cheek. Father squalled and writhed, but couldn't break away from her. Mikael. She wept. You are just like him now. she jerked and began to shrink to sink disappearing into the floor the moment her hand fell away father leapt up to his feet and ran after that he did not ask to see Alexandra this is good because I did not see her in my dreams after that I only saw Laika oh that makes sense as to why earlier in the story she saw the vision of the dog I didn't put that together till just now that the reason she saw the dog is because she has this power to bring life yeah I spent most nights drifting among the stars with that dear, doomed dog at my side. Imagined or not, sights were glorious. Incomprehensibly beautiful star formations, planets, great multicolored expanses of celestial mists. Sometimes I woke, leery and incoherent, felt her fur against my skin. By the time I opened my eyes, there was nothing. One winter morning, I woke very early. My stomach growled immediately, and no wonder. Father had it fed me for days. I fed Alexander with table scraps and tree bark. That, I decided, would change today. I crept into the kitchen. There wasn't much, there never was, but I scraped together where little I could and turned around. My grandfather said at the table, great golden eyes shimmering in his terrible face. Little bitch. What have you done to your father? He no longer hunts He no longer eats He no longer obeys I felt like I was back in his chapel Crashed by darkness Heavy with dread On the verge of panic Your ability Has not been seen on this earth For a thousand years or more Of course the ability wasn't of earth I no doubt come across it while sailing through space And breathing stardust it's just nightmares no you take the dark things of the world the fear the hate, the pain and channel them into physical form and that is just the beginning you will be able to do anything you will make bodies permanent perfect bodies for me and for you oh Oh, I see. Then why be so dismissive of her if she can make you a perfect body, idiot? I think that if you are like this is an omnipotent being, I think he probably wants to – it's kind of like Zeus – or it's like Kronos being afraid of Zeus or something. It's like almost like this thing is going to kill and replace me, maybe. So maybe he's just like making it – he's making Laika feel lower than what it actually is. potentially. Yeah, because his whole thing is subservience, I guess. So it's like you have to continue to make it a dog so it doesn't get ideas. But also he also probably just didn't know that she, you know, she had that power. Until now. Yeah. The relish in his voice made me sick. He said, Our women have always been weak and talentless. I thought the same of you, little bitch. Tears pricked my eyes and my bones thrummed as if struggling to break through flesh and run away. It was no use. Destiny had already bloomed between my grandfather and I, heavy and foul with the promise of despair. Grandfather whispered, Listen closely, for you all hear this once. I was wrong. He left. I ran to the window and watched him hurtle through the trees as sunrise threatened back to his chapel. I waited until the sun was up, then I ran to my room, bundled alexander and every bit of clothing i could find and left followed the path for many miles our home was hours and hours from the nearest town couldn't reach until long past nightfall i could only hope the grandfather wouldn't notice our absence until the following day it wasn't an unlikely hope grandfather spent most of his time in the chapel the second this thought crossed my mind a glittering dark shape left out of the trees and knocked alexander from my arms i caught a blur of twisted limbs and nightmarish hands of great yellow eyes like flattened moons. Alexander screamed as the torrent of blood splattered across the snow. It sank quickly, melting red canyons through the pristine white. Grandfather at me, narrowing sides, heaving. Then he leaned down, tore out Alexander's throat. He screamed. Birds took flight and mammals ran through the undergrowth. The piercing note echoed off the mountains. The pain within it should have ended the world. But there was no one to hear, no one to care. Grandfather grinned. Alexander's blood and sinews clung to his teeth. I broke. I felt it. Crushing weight of sorrow. The almost physical sensation of my spirit tearing and bleeding out into my guts. I fell to my knees and cradled Alexander's head for hours. My father finally found us around nightfall. He had a heel of bread and an oily chicken leg. he pressed them both into my hands then left I tore the bread into pieces and dropped them one by one into Alexander's mouth when he did not wake I burst into tears and hurled the chicken leg into the woods the moon rose into the cruel dark sky stars glimmered through the bare branches overhead creating a breathtaking fractal pattern I plopped down beside Alexander pulling him to my body he was cold, terribly cold i held them anyway keeping my eyes straight on the stars my mind detached with great difficulty like it was trapped in tar finally it wrenched itself free and sailed upward disappearing into a silvery sea of sky and stars rocketing ever higher until i saw the earth spinning below laka's rocket zoomed past i reached out and caught one of the metal bars near the nose I could sense Laika within her terror vibrated through the craft and leeched into my bloodstream it's alright it's alright Laika, I'm here when you land I will help you out and we will play together her fear diminished and so did her pain so did mine together we sailed the stars looking upon the earth and marveling at the incomprehensible beauty around us I woke cold sore and more pain than I can describe. Man, something about sorry, just the idea of a child being in such an awful, I mean, obviously this is like a supernatural abusive situation, but the idea of a child being in like a, you know, such a physically distressing, you know, painful position and taking comfort in a dog who had to go through something like that too and then not only having the dog as a comfort but wanting to comfort it. Yeah, as I say, just the idea of something being like, it's also more tragic too that it's understanding how horrible the situation is. Yeah. And like looking up to something being like, don't worry, we'll get through this and we'll play together. It's just, yeah, heartbreaking. Yeah. I woke cold, sore, and in more pain than I can describe. I set up. Alexander's stiff body broke away from mine. I reached for him blindly. A thin scream of ice covered his eyes. the wound in his throat was an open horror one I couldn't look at for long I drew my knees to my chin and wept after a while something warm bumped my hand white nose touched my palm I knew what I would see long before I opened my eyes like a striped face and dear curly tail made me smile even through my tears stars glimmered through her fur gently pulsing pinpricks of light. What is this? Grandfather's voice echoed through the trees. Rage flowed through my blood exquisitely corrosive. Hate, I learned then, is pleasurable. It is fury and it is the basis of power. Grandfather erupted from the darkness scald skin shimmering like a river under the moonlight. You waste your talent on a mutton not even on your own pup no matter I will correct you Laka reared up and leapt snout piercing one of grandfather's flat moon eyes he screamed and shook his head back and forth Laka fell to the snow twisting and quickly righted herself then she bit his foot her teeth sank through that impenetrable immortal hide like butter Laka was not large enough or strong enough to kill him but she tore holes in him the way a match scorched his holes in paper. Soon Grandfather was on his knees, mere feet from Alexander's corpse. Like it came to me, panting and collapsed in my lap. She bled from a thousand wounds, some small, some undoubtedly mortal. Good dog, my voice broke. I stroked her gently, willing those wounds to close. I was a monster. I used Slika just like the others had. calling her down on false pretenses filling her with hope before throwing her into the void good girl good good girl i looked up his grandfather's good eye slid to my dead brother something dark bloomed there a wicked corrupted hope he curled in on himself twisted bodies shrinking to a withered husk and slid down alexander's throat i screamed as alexander's body twitched and shuddered. Then he set up, bones creaking and frozen sinews cracking. He smiled, his eyes shown like molten gold in a forge. Laka attacked again. Alexander's face curled into a snarl as she bit and tore his skin, exhibiting an energy at odds with her awful wounds. I watched, helpless and hoping and hurting, wishing I could detach and fly into the stars once more, except there would be nothing there for me now. I'd called like it down from the stars and doomed her. Snow crunched behind me. I whirled around. Father stood there watching me with contempt and his hands was a sleek, gleaming shotgun. Relief and horror engulfed me. This was the end. My mind would detach forever this time. The fear would finally end. Like a bit down on grandfather within Alexander who hit her, She whined, but he held fast. Father stalked past me and cocked the gun. No! Don't hurt her! Don't hurt her! Father pointed the gun at Alexander's head and fired. Blood and viscera and dark, glittering flesh exploded across the snow. Father fired again, then reloaded and fired again and again. Alexander's head evaporated into red mist. finally his body lurched and grandfather small pleading scaled grandfather slithered out of his throat lake had caught and held him father pressed the barrel of the gun against his good eye and pulled the trigger as the sun broke over the mountains father stepped back i reached for him drunk on hope and gratitude but he recalled for me in his withered face I saw despair rage and contempt kept his eyes trained on mine as he placed the gun in his mouth no! he pulled the trigger half his head evaporated leaving a glistening mass like a fleshy geode his body stumbled forward a step and crumpled to the snow took a very long time for the sun to burn grandfather down to dirty oil like I held on until the last scrap of skin melted then she stumbled to me and collapsed I stroked her until her body shrank and sank into the ground leaving nothing but a scattering of tiny dim orbs the stars I'd seen in her fur I touched one it was pleasantly hot I gathered them up and slipped them into my pocket I went to Alexander's body ravaged beyond description broken in ways that did not seem entirely real and sat with him until nightfall. Then I stood and walked away and life went on. At first I brought them back from my nightmares. Alexander, father, grandfather, even Alexandra. But I quickly taught myself to starve and eventually kill my ability. It's not a good power. it's born of rage, despair, selfishness and fear and I cannot tolerate fear besides, dogs do not have such awful powers it is good to be a dog because they're not necromancers, they're not monsters they're nothing more or less than the simplest and most loving of creatures that's why I'll always be Blake of the Dog when that is the end Wow. Yeah. What a great one, man. What I love about dopamine stuff is that the way that they write, it almost feels like these are entirely fantasy. It almost feels like you're in the fucking landscape of a Ghibli film or something. Yeah. We're obviously in these times where at least the Russian experiment went, so at least we're in the 50s at most, 60s. but it feels like these things, like just being in the woods and having the chapel, it's not like it really addresses it. I mean, we hear about it and we know it's there, but in my mind, the way that they write about nature, especially the mammals and the animals that live in nature, it just makes it sound so fantastical. And these stories always wind up being these kind of grand, fantastical conclusions as well. I mean, I kept picturing the grandfather as just this giant. I mean, like, I don't know why. I kept picturing the giant, like, the bathhouse owner in Spirited Away, like the big nose and, you know, flying around and all that kind of stuff. Oh, the witch? Yeah. It makes me think of that. It's really very interesting, too. The parallels, too, with Like of the Dog and even the narrator calling the dog at the end and using it the same way that, like, the Russians did. Obviously in a different context, but feeling that kind of, like, guilt and shame at the end was just so touching. And also, too, what a fun way for the author to be able to write a way of, like, Laika being able to come in and, like, bite and help kill the people that sent her out to space, you know? Yeah. So in a lot of ways, in so many different ways, this would be so hard to pull off of being like, yes, literally like the dog shows up and helps defeat the monster. Like that sentence alone sounds so absurd, but I was so bought in. And I love that the way that they just set it up that, yes, the persons can conjure these things from their dreams to help them. It just was just wonderful. Just really, really wonderful. Dopamine has such a great way of writing, and it's just such a treat every time we get to read it. I like the parallels between the like a story and like what's happening here. And I like how Grandfathers kind of stand in for the Russians. What was his name? Pavol? Yeah, I thought it was Pavlov for a second, which I thought was like a philosophy. The dog, yeah. The dog, yeah. Pavolcultism. I feel like that's a name from something No maybe not But it's interesting I feel like the name Pavel would mean something Sounds like a demonic entity Yeah Which I looked up and I'm not seeing anything Immediately To be fair it's just something from a different time I mean even references that This earth hasn't seen your power In thousands of years or more So he would have to know about that Maybe he isn't that old, but in my mind when I read that, I was like, this is like an immortal being that has been around for thousands of years. Yeah, yeah. Very well could be. But, man, it always obviously is heavy, like children being put in stressful situations. But I think this was done respectfully. I think it was done with an appropriate way. And I like the connection between this suffering and then the lack of the dog suffering and stuff like that. Like you said, all the stuff that had to come together for it to make sense and not seem like jumping the shark to have Laco show up in the story and help at the end. But it came – it was set up appropriately that I think it worked. Yeah. No, I think it worked really well. I think that it handles the themes in a great way, in a very influenced way. That's just a lot of fun. And I just – like I said, every time we get to read Dopa Bean, I mean this is just the second story, but it's just such a fantastical big experience that they just feel so tonally its own. You know, like it just feels, it just, it dives into that fantastical territory in such a way that it almost instantly, I'm just like, oh, yeah, this is a dopamine story, which I think is just really, really fun. Yeah, like I said, it feels very like Narnia, very like otherworldly, you know, legendary journey, the kids go on kind of thing. There was something I was going to say about, Oh, I also kind of like how the ending of the story almost goes with what I was saying earlier, how Lekha is such an interesting figure because she was one thing, but now culturally she's been made into something so different, almost as a way of saying sorry to what she originally was. And here at the end of the story, we have our Lekha, the person, physically call down Lekha the dog, and then even then it suffers. So it's almost like a statement about the line at the end, it's good to be a dog because they're not necromancers. The idea of bringing back these old tragedies for your own use or your own purpose, it's almost better to just be something that shows compassion rather than something that twists meaning and desire for one's own purpose, even if the purpose is altruistic. I don't know. I feel like there's something there. Abandoning the powers and the line of dogs aren't necromancers, to me it just seems that dogs are the epitome of innocence. And man, no matter good or bad, will always have corruption. Like the power is fueled off hatred. I think it's just another thing that just shows that like man is – like it's better to be that of a dog than it is a man or whatever. Because they are at its core good. you know I think that's kind of the idea but man you know for a theme today of being sacrificed what a fun three stories we got to read really enjoyed getting to get in on Max's stories for the first time and those were a lot of fun but all in all it's always fun to do a grab bag and I feel like all of these today were just great really really great especially after some last week's debacle so you know nice little palate cleanser thank you so much to our audio listeners over on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and of course thank you to our patrons who do support the channel as well and get a little bit of extra content on the side. Until next time, guys, stay safe. And hey, pet your dog. Pet your dog on the head. Needs a little pet. Go ahead. We'll take a little break for a second. Alright, there you go. Thank you, guys. And also, be sure to support Dumpelbean at the links in the description. Again, they lost the Reddit account, so support them all and also check out all of Max Voynich's stuff. Incredible authors. Always like supporting people that write good stories because I like seeing more good stories get made. So be sure to Show this love if you can. It would mean the world. And also be sure to not show Hunter love. And if you see the picture of my lips anywhere from my dentist appointment, go ahead and report it as an invasion of privacy under HIPAA laws. He can't do that. It's illegal and a federal crime. So call the police and get him reported. That would be great. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.