Take just a moment to close your eyes and picture this, comlete darkness. I'm not talking millions of little bulbs filling the sky with a faint glimmer. Nor do I want you to picture even a sliver of the big ole cheese wheel that offers us on Earth an eerie glow. Remember those beautiful days as a child playing hide and seek? Remember how you would hide in the closet behind all of the clothes in the absolute dark so as not to give away your position? That's the darkness I want you to envision while your eyes are closed. Next I want you to envision a world in which that darkness is what you have to endure each and every day of your life. No light. Just pure darkness. Do you feel that sinking of your stomach, like a ship that just hit an ice berg? Sit in that feeling just for a few agonizing minutes.

Now that you feel like a boulder is upon your shoulders with no hope of throwing it off, I want you to take a deep breath. Go back to the memory of hide and seek, the nervousness of being found radiating off of your skin. The fluttering in your heart and veins. The childlike joy you feel knowing that your friend is going to open that door with the biggest smile you've ever seen. An even bigger smile reflecting on your own face. The sense of peace as you crawl out of the darkness you were so brave to endure. Let that peace fill every inch of your soul. Now when you go back to that empty dark place of your mind, imagine what those feelings what be represented as.

For me it's a rainbow. The most powerful bursts of colors that burn your eyes in the most intense yet non painful way you could ever encounter. The deep red, orange, and yellow bringing the feeling of fall in the mountains. And while on that mountain in complete and utter tranquility, you take a moment to take in the deep dark green of the pine trees and the baby blue of the sky that surrounds you. These are the kind of colors that encompass the rainbow that shines only on the darkest of nights.

That dark night? That's what I encounter every time I close my eyes to sleep. And in that dream world, the rainbow? That's you.

Growing up in a house with eighteen other kids, is not ideal. The oldest of us being 25 and still living at home, cue the rolling of eyes. The youngest one being 2, and yes the terrible twos are a reality. What about me, you ask? Well I'm right smack dab in the middle at 13 years old. Most days I'm not even acknowledged and I just skate my way through life. Since I can get away with mostly everything, unless of course it's picking on the younger kids who will sacrifice you as if you were made of hot coal and burning them, I tend to do a bunch of experiments. My first ever experience was on our family cat, I'll spare you the gory details but let's just say I learned what the insides of a cat looked like. I know you may be thinking "what kind of sociopath cuts open a cat?", and honestly I can't blame you for thinking that about me cause I absolutely thought the same thing. Here's the thing though, I couldn't help myself. When I told my friends and family about it, I got so much attention that it gave me an adrenaline rush. Since that day though people never loooked at me the same, but if I'm being honest it didn't affect me any. In my opinion good or bad views on me didn't matter as much as how many people I could get to pay attention to me. I made a vow to myself shortly after that turning point in my life, I was going to be the most known person on the face of the planet.

I continued with animals for the rest of my childhood. Eventually making my way up to bigger game, like bear and moose. It was satisfying to say the least. My favorite part was the fact that I had gotten so good at it that I became the butcher for our small town. Everyone in our town knew who I was and I couldn't have been happier about it. But I knew it wasn't enough. I needed more. That's when I decided I would take things to the next level.

I had built a little spot inside of the bush next to her window. Just enough for my slender body to fit and peek over the edge of the window pane into her room. I toyed with her a bit, starting with tapping on the window in the middle of the night. Every time she would look outside and not see me, even while I was staring right at her, gave me a rush like nothing else. I would spend every night outside of her window and watch her do everything from calling her friends to getting changed. And before you get the wrong idea, no I wasn't being a pervert. I was just simply studying her habits.

Whenever the window was open I would risk a low whisper just to mess with her head. She usually ran out of the room whenever I did that, coming back soon after with her parents who thoroughly checked the entirety of the room. There was one night where I thought I was caught for sure. Her dad had opened the window, took out the screen, and started moving the top layer of branches on the bush to peer down. Luckily I had become an expert in hiding at this point and he couldn't see past my camouflage.

One night however, I came to her window to find the bush had been completely removed. I found a note left in its spot. I'll spare you the mundane contents of the note, but what caused me to snap was the simple fact that they didn't know who I was. They didn't know it was me under the window. Even with the tiny clues I had left in the bush, knowing her dad would get rid of it. I couldn't stand it anymore. I needed them to know it was me. So I did what anyone aspiring to be well known would do, I went to the front door and knocked.

My excuse was that I was starting a new service for the butcher business, the new service was to hand deliver their orders. So I handed over the meat to her dad, told him to make sure they ate it sooner rather than later cause of the freshness of it, smiled, and went back to my truck. The next day the entire family ended up dead. Can you guess what I did?

If you guessed poison you'd be absolutely incorrect. That would've been too easy, you amateur. No, instead I went back to my spot under her window and when I had knocked on it to cause her to call her parents in, I slipped away to the front door. Which I then knocked hard and fast to enforce the urgency needed. As I heard them come running to the front door I snaked my way back to the window and smiled at how well my plan worked. Her dad left the window unlocked. I made quick work of getting in and going straight to the closet. Making sure I didn't leave any disturbances. After some time I heard the family settle down to eat dinner.

Now what I did do to the meat was I put burandanga into the meat and when they had eaten it, they became zombie like and did everything I told them to do. So when I put a pistol in the dads hands and told him to shoot his wife, he obliged. Then I took the gun and put it in the daughters hands, my muse. She was truly fascinating. I told her to pull the trigger, killing her dad. Then I sat and watched as she came out of the trance and turned the gun on herself, realizing what she had done.

Last thing I did before leaving was left a single piece of paper signed with the daughters blood. The signature? "B", B for butcher. Then the games began.

Jake had quite the eventful morning. He was awoken by a smashing noise somewhere outside of his room. Which caused him to jump out of bed like a surfer who heard the weather forecast said there would be some knarly waves! As he fumbled around putting on his clothes, another noise came from what he had now determined was the kitchen. Like a panther on the prowl he had made his way to the kitchen and stopped dead in his tracks. The intruder was one of "The Unfriendly". They had been given this name because every single one is an outcast, having been shoved out by the community to the outskirts of town. Shaking his head he had remembered they were still trespassing no matter how bad he felt, so he had gone to approach them. However when he made a move to get closer, the girl ran away with her hair flowing out from under her hood. Jake was intrigued at that point so he made the decision to follow her. Eventually they made it to the only secret spot left in the whole town. Jake had found it years ago and as far as he knew was the only one who had ever gone there much less knew about it. When the girl sat down, Jake followed and sat down quite a bit of distance away just to keep her from being uncomfortable and running. Then they had just sat there watching the fish swim by and listen to the crickets go crazy. Not a single word was spoken between the two, not that she could have spoken at all anyways. See, "The Unfriendly" as a punishment had all of their tongues removed. But it was the most peaceful time Jake had ever experienced and when it got dark he told the girl he would be back tomorrow and if she wanted to join him that would be super cool! And she nodded with a smile as he smiled back and left for the evening. Who would've thought that "the unfriendly" could still create relationships!

Dear dad,

I did it again. This is the 17th time I've managed to murder someone and the police are running around in circles. It was actually a pretty genius idea if you think about it. I am the expert at making it look like these guys were murdered by one of their buddies and then when those guys get sent to jail they end up ending their life. Now this is a genius idea because it's like killing two sometimes three birds with one stone! I'm doing the world a favor, these guys are all bums. These guys are the absolute worst kind of losers possible. For whatever reason they think it's okay to slack off at work, causing the rest of us to pick up their slack. I can't stand bad work ethic and I know I'm not the only one. I hear my boss talk about it all the time to his partners when they're walking around the jobsite. It's pretty incredible the growth I've had at this company since I killed that first guy a year ago. Once the slackers are gone the rest of us guys can focus on what actually matters and get the job done! Plus all of us have gotten a pay raise since it's so hard to find good help that sticks around. I'm helping the company thrive! And nobody knows a thing! Tomorrow there's another one I plan on taking care of. He's been driving my foreman crazy and I can't take it anymore. We've given him a whole month to try and pick up his act and be the good helper he claims to be. However he has yet to show us that side of him and he needs to be taken care of so we can finish this job in peace.

Love your son.

P.s. it's been a really rough year without you. Mom misses you terribly. And I've had to take care of all of your junk in the garage to make room for my new workshop.

The cookies are out on the table and the milk is in the Christmas cup. Our kids are all nicely tucked into bed. So my wife grabs her wine glass and I grab my beer and we head to the living room to finish the Hallmark movie we started. It was actually pretty good, I enjoy the storyline. Sometime during the movie we ended up falling asleep cause here I am waking up with a crink in my neck. I get up and stretch while my eyes adjust to the dark. As I go to reach for my wife to carry her up to bed I notice she's gone. Confused, I head upstairs to see if maybe she had gone to bed and just didn't want to wake me. When I reach the landing I step in something wet, the dog must've peed in the house again. I peek my head into the kids rooms as I pass by and they're all sprawled out on their beds, which makes me laugh at what goofballs they are. All of a sudden this weird smell hits me like a freight train and I stumble back a little bit. I can't quite make it out, so I just shrug and make my way to the bathroom. After I take care of business I finally reach our room. I open the door, climb into bed, and snuggle up to my wife. She's freezing cold so I wrap the extra blanket around her and hold her tight as I fall asleep.

I wake up to find my wife still in bed, the sun is blaring in, and the clock reads 11 am! I jump out of bed and take the covers with me. I spin around to wake up my wife when I realize why she hasn't woken up. I scream, yes like a little baby, and run over to her while grabbing her into my arms. My beautiful wife's face had slashes across it like someone was trying to play X marks the spot. I sit there and cry for a minute before I remember the kids. Jumping up and grabbing my phone, I call 911 and run to the kids room. I slam the door open and find my kids chests both marked the same way my wife's face was. This can't be happening to me. Why would someone do this. My mind is racing as the 911 operator begins the usual line of questioning. All I manage to get out was, "Please you have to help me find who did this to my family."

My life in hell has finally ended! I escaped yesterday evening and managed to get across the river to the safety of The In Between. Waking up in a bed for the first time in my whole life was a very interesting experience. Yes you heard me right, see I was born in the City of Death. Because low and behold the king himself is my dad. I hated every second of it though. Every day was a miserable combination of hatred fueled rampages and anxiously trying to please all the souls at once. So needless to say the bed experience has given me a bit of a pep to my step! The bartender in the center of the pub gives me my plate of actual food; and I have to embarrassingly slow down when I look up from scoffing it down and the bartender is looking at me like I grew up in a barn.

(I have a goal of 100 words a day. And I actually think this storyline would be cool to explore more. So I'm gonna leave this opening scene and not rush it to make it a short story)

Today is our last hike to complete the 48 4000 footer challenge. We started at 5 am to start our climb up Mount Washington. My backpack was filled with protein bars, trail mix, and gatorade. My sister had hers stuffed with water and our extra layers. We both had hiking shoes, shorts, and a sweatshirt on.

Now that you have a good idea of what we were working with, here's the story.

So we got out of our car at 5 am on a Saturday in September. Which is the beginning of fall season, so think of chilly mornings and evening with a warm up mid day. I grabbed my headlamp, coffee, and backpack. My sister grabbed her backpack and we closed up the truck and headed to the trailhead. Over the last year of hiking the 48 4000 footers, we've bonded an incredible amount. We were always close but now it felt even stronger. Unfortunately Mount Washington is one of those hikes where it's become so popular, the solitude of a hike is nowhere to be found. We're making our way up and it is rough! Even with the training we've done, the elevation in such a short time is incredible. So we do what we do best and that's help each other keep pushing. We spend the next 3 hours just hyping each other up and pulling ourselves over the boulders. Our teamwork was on par and we managed to reach the summit! It was an absolutely incredible view. There's also a lot to do at the summit so we hung out for a bit to celebrate our successful challenge completion. The way down was about 10 times harder than going up. Which means we had to continue the teamwork and take our time. Slowly but surely we managed to finagle our way down the mountain and got back to the car in one piece. As we got in the car we both looked at each other and said, "Which ones next?"

Entry #125 August 9th 2024

The dream catcher came back last night, only this time he didn't keep the nightmares away.

As a reminder the dream catcher has been in every single one of my dreams for the last 125 days. Usually he's super friendly and we explore the world of dreams together. The world of dreams is a giant open world with different sections in the world being different dreams. Think of the movie "The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl". Every person in this world has a dream catcher and protects everyone from the army of bad dreams who hunts you down and traps you in an endless loop of your worst nightmare.

Well the reason why I'm writing this entry is because the dream catcher just watched as a hundred nightmare soldiers engulfed me. I'm talking opened their mouths to create a giant black hole that I was sucked in to and forced to spend the night in the same loop. Which for me is being up on stage and everyone in the crowd laughing at me and throwing their food at me.

I'm not sure why the dream catcher didn't stop them but I intend to find out tonight. Wish me luck.

Entry #126 August 10th 2024

This will be my last entry. Unfortunately the plan to interrogate the dream catcher and find out why he didn't protect me like he had vowed to do. Instead of answering the question he had become enraged, grabbed me, and threw me into the mouths of the army that had surrounded us again.

Before I woke up the dream catcher revelead to me who he actually was. He was an imposter! He's actually the son of the general for the nightmare army! And he was instructed to find someone willing to accept a "protector" and then slowly devour them dream by dream. The dream catcher told me that once you've been in the nightmare dungeon you only have three nights before they take over your mind and you die.

Well tonight will be the third night and I have no idea what to expect except the fact that I need to stay up as late as possible and make sure someone knows... don't accept help from the strangers in your dreams. You never know who they actually are.

Let me introduce myself, I'm Jake Sutherford and I am a freak. Now let me explain what I mean, my entire life I've had the random power to stop time. Before you go calling me crazy, I won't deny it, I need to give an example. It started when I turned 18. I had a huge party with all my friends and family at my parents house and one minute I was grabbing a drink, no it wasn't alcohol and yes I already tried debunking it, then the next I was the only one moving. I'm not even kidding, everyone had frozen in time. I tried everything to get them to move, thinking they were just pranking me. And I'm not proud to admit this but I had even tackled my buddy to the ground and he just collapsed, not even flinching or acting like he got hurt. Then I went to the bathroom and splashed water in my face and by the time I walked back out everyone was moving again and my buddy, the one I tackled, was getting off the floor like it was normal for him to find himself on the floor. So fast forward to my 21st birthday and this occurance has happened at the most random of times. It's always when I'm around other people, I guess I wouldn't really know if it happened when I was alone but you get my point. Sometimes I've been at the grocery store, sometimes I've been at the movies, and it's happened almost every single party I've ever had. I've even tried controlling it, assuming I had been miraculously given superhero powers. Well today I'm having a party for my 21st and I know it's going to happen again. It's honestly become so normal that I kind of just play around with it. Sometimes I'll steal my buddy's money, yes I give it back, and sometimes I'll go around drawing mustaches on everyone's face. I always get a kick out of their reactions when they snap out of it and look all confused asking around about how this happened. As my friends begin showing up I can feel the nervousness building up as I try to anticipate when the frozen time will happen. So we're about an hour in and I'm grabbing only my second drink of the evening, yes this one has alcohol but I am not a lightweight so it takes me quite a few to get tipsy. Then it happens, everyone's frozen as I'm pouring liquid into my cup and my buddy's cup. So I do my usual rounds just to make sure I'm still not crazy and everyone's been doing some elaborate prank for the last 3 years. I make my way to the living room when I see her, my buddy's girlfriend. I swear she just moved. So I make my way over to her and as I'm within 10 feet, she jumps up and smiles at me as she runs to the door. So I do the only logical thing and drop my drink while I run after her. Eventually I catch up to her and tackle her to the ground. As I have her pinned we are both breathing like we just ran a marathon. And then I lay into her, asking her every question I've had for the past 3 years while also cussing at her cause I begin to put the pieces together and realize my buddy started dating her 3 years ago, big shocker. Once I've finished getting it all out she just takes a second to smile at me and tell me she'll explain when I'm ready and blinks out of existence. I am not kidding you guys! She literally just blinked out of existence and I'm left sitting on the ground staring at it while the neighborhood walkers begin staring at me, probably thinking I'm crazy. Which honestly I truly think I am. There's no way this can be real. But I pick myself back up and make my way back to my party. I'll save the figuring out for another day.

Freedom has cost me everything. Everyone, including me, craves being free. What does being free even mean? Well to me being free means I don't have responsibilities to another human being. Meaning I can do what I want, when I want, how I want, and with who I want. For the longest time I had thought something different though, I thought that I was free. I had a wife. I had a career. I was working towards being financially free, which to me was the ultimate freedom cause we could do whatever we wanted without worrying about it setting us back. However the most freeing concept I have learned from my divorce is that what I had viewed as freedom is not actually freedom. Like I said above being free means something completely different to me nowadays. Freedom is more of a mentality then a physical reality. Freedom is being able to have control over your own life without the input of other humans. And I had to lose everything I had and knew to learn that hard truth. However it is the most freeing thing I have learned in my life.