Latest / INSPIRE STORY / The Macabre Secret of the Rat King That No One Can Explain

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The Macabre Secret of the Rat King That No One Can Explain · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the group. Guest.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Today, we are doing a grab bag.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: We haven't done that in a while, but it's gonna
• 0:21
  be a fun grab bag because we are reading an
• 0:23
  author that we've never read, and then we are coming
• 0:25
  back to an author that we love their story, the
• 0:28
  first author or Isaiah, you take the authors. So the
• 0:32
  authors we've got.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Today, we're gonna have two stories from Max Voyage. I
• 0:36
  believe that name's in reference to the Voyage Manuscript, which
• 0:39
  very cool. Max Voinage seems to have posted a lot
• 0:43
  in No Sleep, like five to ten years ago, but
• 0:47
  it looks like he hasn't posted anything in six years.
• 0:50
  He has enough of a following that there is an
• 0:52
  r slash max Voyage subreddit that people seem pretty hype about,
• 1:00
  but he has Looking on that subreddit, they have a
• 1:03
  bunch of his standalone stories put up.
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: He has two of the stories we're going to be reading.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Today, which include the Rat King and If We Misbehaved
• 1:14
  We Had to Stand in the Shed.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: In addition to that, he.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Has a ton of other cool titled stories like help
• 1:19
  I'm Trapped in a Sitcom, as well as one titled
• 1:23
  sex Cannibal Psycho Freak Killer, which sounds like the kind
• 1:27
  of story you'd be interested in.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Hunter. No, No, No.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Then and then after we get done reading him, we're
• 1:35
  going to have a story from an author we've all
• 1:37
  come to know and love, Dopa Bean, And we love
• 1:40
  Dopa Bean because they wrote the incredible story. What was
• 1:44
  the correct title for the dead Girl in My Yard?
• 1:47
  Was the best friend I ever had?
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: What about like the wind to go thing in the
• 1:52
  backyard that like try to lure him in?
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: That one?
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: So that story was sick. So today we're going to
• 1:58
  be reading their story. They told me I was nothing
• 2:00
  but a dog, So yeah.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Pretty stoked.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: All the titles, I mean Max's stories rat King, Uh,
• 2:07
  it's just awesome.
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: Love that.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: And then also even just the full title of his stories.
• 2:12
  If we misbehaved as children, we had to stand in
• 2:14
  the shed, something else stood with us. So just a
• 2:17
  two fun ideas. But we haven't done a grab bag
• 2:19
  in a bit, so it'll be fun to read some
• 2:21
  shorter stories and see if in the future, if we can't,
• 2:24
  we maybe have Max is a longer story that we
• 2:25
  can dive into.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: But for all of our wonderful audio listeners, thank you
• 2:30
  for listening on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Thank you for
• 2:33
  giving us a nice rating there. You know, one of
• 2:35
  these days we're gonna be number one on Spotify. Boys,
• 2:38
  we've gotten I think the highest we've evergotten.
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: Is too.
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: And no, we hit one. We hit one for a
• 2:45
  couple of days. Remember that.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Will Well, we'll get back there. We need to be
• 2:50
  up there. I think right now we're in the forties.
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: We need to.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: This is like, this is a war cry to everyone
• 2:56
  to rush over there and listen to that episode, listen
• 2:59
  to this episode on Spotify and help us out to
• 3:02
  be good, or just keep watching on YouTube.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I don't really give a shit.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: And thank you to patrons as well.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: All of our Patreon members have been getting some live streams,
• 3:11
  new episodes and just exclusive episodes and stuff. Isaiah also
• 3:16
  is doing a reaction to the episode that I read.
• 3:19
  He's going to give it a nice critique, so looking forward.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: To which I know nothing about yet at the time
• 3:23
  of recordings.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: So that'll be great. I'm sure you'll love it. You'll
• 3:26
  love it. I'm sure he.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Doesn't say anything offensive or anything that I would object to.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Or no, no, no, no, no, no, definitely not. And so
• 3:35
  thank you for our patron members who are supporting the
• 3:38
  channel as well. So if you want some free content,
• 3:40
  or if you if you want some extra content, be
• 3:42
  sure to head over to Patreon and check out our
• 3:45
  creep cast Patreon.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: All right, without further ado, let's get into well, I will.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: Stay real quick while looking at dopa Bean's account. So
• 3:58
  dopa beans readit account actually got the h and I'm
• 4:01
  seeing a post by a friend of theirs explaining that
• 4:04
  it got permanently deleted. So they're trying to figure out
• 4:07
  where to go from here. So we'll link some of
• 4:09
  dopa Bean's other stuff in the description. They have that
• 4:12
  series the North American Pantheon, which we talked about before,
• 4:16
  seems kind of like SCP adjacent with like a society.
• 4:20
  It keeps track of supernatural entities. And there's a subreddit
• 4:25
  for that where like some new links have been put,
• 4:27
  so we'll link that subreddit. I think, oh, do they
• 4:32
  make a new account. I think they made a new account,
• 4:37
  dopa beans, So that's clever to get around the dopa
• 4:41
  bean branded now dopell be uh.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: We'll be sure to link that.
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: We'll link that.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: And they also have a sub stack that has a
• 4:47
  bunch of their stories, compel stuff. We'll have a bunch
• 4:49
  of places to support them, because that's got to be
• 4:51
  rough to build up this much of a following around
• 4:56
  writing on Reddit and then Reddit.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: It's just like no, no, bye b Yeah.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: So we'll have a bunch of places that you can
• 5:03
  support them linked below, and please do that because they're
• 5:05
  a fantastic author. They deserve it, all right. So anyway,
• 5:09
  without further ado, we're gonna be getting into the first story,
• 5:12
  rat King from Max Voyage Hunter. Are you ready, Let's
• 5:15
  do it, Let's do it. Rat Kin now a collection
• 5:21
  of rats whose tails are intertwined and bound together by
• 5:23
  one of several possible mechanisms, such as entangling material like
• 5:27
  hair or sticky substances like sap, we're gone, or getting
• 5:32
  tied together. Have you ever seen a rat king before? Yeah,
• 5:36
  it's horrifying. It's pretty fertile seeing all their tails just
• 5:39
  like basically woven together and.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: They're all trying to run and tear in different directions.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're all running in different directions, and it's the
• 5:46
  high pitched squealing and stuff. It's horrifying.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, have you done?
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: I feel like you had an animation that had something
• 5:54
  to do with a rat king.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Mmmm.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: In fact, there was some visual of like people tied
• 6:01
  together trying to run away something.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Not sure. I don't think so, I could be wrong.
• 6:06
  I don't know. Too long.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: Oh funny note speaking of your animations.
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: Uh.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Our Patreon editor and like my editor, Caitlin was over at.
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: My place and I was like, oh, have you seen
• 6:22
  Hunters Short?
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: He didn't.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: She was like no, So I showed her your your
• 6:25
  meat Canyon short, you know the live action midway through
• 6:29
  she was like, is he okay?
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: You know what the fire like this?
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: You know what fucking fire did?
• 6:41
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's reasonable.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: If video employee criticizes you in the slightest.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: That's well, that's what it has to be.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: You have to realize you have to rule with an
• 6:48
  iron fish. Isaiah, you don't understand that.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: Doesn't That doesn't work for me because her included every
• 6:54
  editor I have despises me and constantly uses their platform
• 7:00
  to find ways to destroy my reputation. Oh did I
• 7:04
  tell you what Nate did?
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: No?
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: Okay, don't let him edit this part because he'll edit
• 7:09
  it out. I was talking to Nate and he was like, Isaiah,
• 7:12
  I have a confessed Nate for those of you that
• 7:14
  don't know at its Creek cast a lot. He also
• 7:16
  edits a lot of windy goon stuff. He was like,
• 7:18
  I have a confession, and I'm like, what he says,
• 7:21
  in most of your videos for the past year, I
• 7:25
  will add a very subtle and very quiet fart reverb
• 7:30
  sound effect fart reverb subject. Yes, just enough to sound
• 7:35
  like I farted loudly. But it's but it's not like
• 7:40
  it's not like an obvious sound bite. It's like just
• 7:44
  subtle enough to where it's like, oh.
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: Did he do that?
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: And I remember that one time I was listening back
• 7:49
  to a video after it was posted to YouTube and
• 7:52
  I heard that and thought I did it. So from
• 7:56
  for the past year, I've been paranoid every time I'm
• 8:00
  recording that I'm going to fart too loud for it
• 8:03
  to be heard. And it turns out it was all
• 8:04
  a syop by him because he thinks it'd be funny
• 8:09
  if it sounded like I farted.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: That goes to show how welcoming your community is, though.
• 8:14
  If you're just shitting your pants all the time and
• 8:16
  no one cares, and if there's no there's no outcry
• 8:19
  of like Isaiah, my god.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: But it's it's not like a loud sound effect everyone
• 8:25
  would hear. It's just enough that if it's quiet while
• 8:27
  you're listening to the video, you're like, did A Maybe,
• 8:30
  I don't know, Like it's it's just the idea that
• 8:34
  I did. We welcomes get through. We welcome people shitting
• 8:37
  their pants.
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: That's what we welcome.
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: Okay. My point is my editors try to effectively kill
• 8:43
  me with like these Tom and Jerry contraptions, with like
• 8:46
  you know, like making me look stupid and stuff like that.
• 8:48
  So I think Caitlin's allowed to say that you're not
• 8:53
  okay because well.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: That's that's you, and that's this is me and fired,
• 8:57
  So it still stands.
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: Me or her.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I don't think you can find it almost be both.
• 9:02
  It's almost both.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: I don't think you can fire me. I don't think
• 9:05
  you don't employ me anywhere. You don't employ me. You
• 9:08
  can delete the chainnel think, and you can you can
• 9:11
  sink the boat to kill both of us if you
• 9:13
  really want.
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: I will do what must be done.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I will done, and I don't want to be tested.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'll keep that in mind. Yeah, rat King the
• 9:23
  first time he coughs like that. We're halfway through a game,
• 9:27
  sweat and rasping, and he doubles over as he tries
• 9:30
  to force it out his throat. I stop, are you sick?
• 9:34
  He rolls his eyes. Kings don't get sick. I can
• 9:39
  see that look on his face, like he doesn't want
• 9:41
  the world around us to change, Like he doesn't want
• 9:44
  the dragons to turn back to trees, or his crown
• 9:46
  to turn from gold to twigs and string. He doesn't
• 9:50
  want this imaginary world to collapse in on itself. I
• 9:54
  don't want to stop playing either. The second cough drops
• 9:57
  him to his knees, and he has to reach his
• 9:59
  small arm out to steady himself against my leg. I
• 10:02
  bend down, pick him up by his armpits, moisten him
• 10:06
  until he's back on his own two feet, and tug
• 10:08
  on his hand.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Let's go, and Kings don't get sick. The little brothers do.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: I gave his hand to squeeze, and we set off home.
• 10:17
  It takes us a little while to get back. This
• 10:19
  coughs me and we have to stop every few minutes,
• 10:22
  and we have to take extra care to avoid the tunnels.
• 10:24
  Once it starts to get dark, I'm sure they're just rumors,
• 10:28
  just fiction, but I can help letting parts of them
• 10:31
  take root in my mind.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: The river's changed depending on who.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: You speak to, whether it's told to you by an
• 10:37
  old trunk or a cautious teacher, but all have a
• 10:40
  few things in common. They say that years and years ago,
• 10:44
  sometime in the fifties, there was a huge underground complex
• 10:49
  under our town. Complex. It's spread out in all directions
• 10:52
  like a fungus. Something happened down there, although what this
• 10:57
  event actually was changes from person to person, and it
• 11:01
  was abandoned. Some claim that a whole city actually lived
• 11:04
  down there, were forced to evacuate after the nuclear reactor
• 11:08
  when in a meltdown. They say that it was a
• 11:10
  huge government cover up, and that this is the reason
• 11:13
  that strange aircraft make flybys over our otherwise boring little town.
• 11:18
  Some claim that the complex was populated by a strange
• 11:21
  cult that made a deal with something so terrible and
• 11:24
  ancient they can never see the light of day again.
• 11:27
  I've even heard people say that the junkies found the
• 11:30
  labyrinth of tunnels under the city and used it to
• 11:33
  navigate the town and smuggle and dope until they stumbled
• 11:36
  upon something that trapped them down there they call the
• 11:39
  people who supposedly live under the surface. Rats claimed that
• 11:44
  after years without sunlight, they went pale and lost their vision,
• 11:47
  and that they'll chase you using only the sound of
• 11:50
  your feet if you wander too deep wayward, little boys
• 11:53
  and girls will get chased by rats, rats with milky
• 11:56
  eyes and long fingers until they're caught in heat. Whole
• 12:00
  reminds me of the Descent. It sounds like the Descent.
• 12:04
  It also sounds like that Australian found footage movie Oh
• 12:08
  the Tunnel, The Tunnel. Yeah.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's something very like just frightening about like people
• 12:13
  who acclimate to darkness and just live down there, breed
• 12:18
  down there to where now it's like these weird inbred
• 12:20
  kind of uh like a new inbred species that exist underground.
• 12:25
  You know that's that's just blind almost like mole people
• 12:28
  or something.
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: I like the idea of.
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: Oh, what's the word for it, speculative evolution.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: I think that's the word where it's like, oh, what
• 12:39
  would humanity or like different species look like, given you know,
• 12:43
  I mean obviously this is only like fifty years, but
• 12:46
  given like thousands of years, what traits would we develop
• 12:48
  what would be bred out stuff like that? I think
• 12:51
  that's a fun kind of thought process, and I think
• 12:54
  that's why the mole people's stuff is so scary, because
• 12:56
  it's like, man, if we were in complete darkness, what
• 12:58
  will we look like?
• 13:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah?
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Nature uncanny nature of Like if if you're walking through
• 13:04
  one of these tunnels and you just see like it's
• 13:06
  like a ba almost entirely a regular human, but completely
• 13:10
  bald and like eyes wide open but obviously can't see
• 13:14
  like that. It's just like little things like that really
• 13:16
  fucking creepy.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, think about, like, think about someone born to that,
• 13:20
  because you know, like babies in the womb were like
• 13:22
  in total darkness and then they're born into total darkness
• 13:25
  and they just never developed those senses. It's like, what
• 13:27
  would the rest of their body look like?
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I became such a son I was born. Man, I'm
• 13:32
  so claustrophobic now, and just think I spent nine months
• 13:35
  in a little sack. Oh didn't bad, and I didn't care,
• 13:40
  so as it was fine. I became a bitch. Yeah.
• 13:43
  Can I ask you a question, who do you think
• 13:45
  would be scary or bald, completely hairless me?
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: Or you?
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Don't. Don't you dare because you know, I know that
• 13:53
  you immediately closed your eyes and you saw my fat
• 13:56
  gut and you just saw my and you saw like
• 13:58
  a giant larvae. And I'm gonna put I'm gonna I'm
• 14:02
  gonna put a Okay, we just don't smile the uh
• 14:06
  the I'm gonna say, I'm gonna put it at least
• 14:08
  an argument out there that I think that if you
• 14:11
  did not have a beard, if you'd have a mustache
• 14:14
  or anything, and a bald head, no eyebrows, your lips
• 14:17
  would be so much fatter, so much larger, that I
• 14:23
  think that it would offset, It would offset the folds
• 14:27
  and grundle and and and and textures that cover my
• 14:32
  fat skin.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: So we're talking like alopecia, right, We're not just talking
• 14:37
  about bald on the head.
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: We're talking about.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, if we're going this far, i'm gonna say,
• 14:41
  like alopecia. But we're also going like mole people, like
• 14:45
  we're blind. We've definitely been underground that kind of vibe.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: It's hard to imagine you without the beard, to be honest,
• 14:54
  it's hard to imagine. I feel like we would both
• 14:58
  look like weird grub th because I have such a
• 15:01
  weird head.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: I don't think of us you would look good. The
• 15:05
  problem with me, I think I look terrible. The problem
• 15:07
  with me is I you at least the bat. You
• 15:10
  ever see a like a like a lake, like a
• 15:13
  still lake, you know what I mean, like a still
• 15:16
  lake and then a breeze goes by and it ripples
• 15:19
  the water. That's what like the entire backside of my
• 15:22
  leg looks like.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: And it's horrifying, serious saying, the body here is doing
• 15:30
  you a few favors.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: The body was it's not doing me favors. It's keeping
• 15:34
  me human. It's it's it's the only thing that shields
• 15:39
  anyone who sees it. It's just a general public. There's times, man,
• 15:42
  where I go out in public. I'll have like a
• 15:45
  pair of basketball shorts on. I'll go to a grocery store.
• 15:48
  I'll bend down and just get like, I don't know,
• 15:50
  some cheese or something, and I just know that like
• 15:53
  a little bit of my hamhocks peeking out just from underneath,
• 15:57
  like right near my hamstring or something. And I'm like,
• 15:59
  whoever seeing this must be absolutely revolted. Looks like a beehive,
• 16:03
  just like to the textange is absolutely unbelievable, and I
• 16:08
  refuse to make changes, which is the worst part. I'm
• 16:10
  two set in my ways.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: Right right, I need you were talking about my lips,
• 16:17
  and I need to show you this. So I was
• 16:20
  switched dentists recently, right because we moved. And then they're like, oh, well,
• 16:25
  you need to send your records over from one dentist
• 16:28
  to another. And they the first dentist office sent me
• 16:36
  like their records of X rays and photos and stuff
• 16:39
  like that, and they were all X rays and like
• 16:42
  inside my mouth pictures of my teeth, but they sent
• 16:44
  one image of my mouth. I'm gonna be honest, I
• 16:49
  don't appreciate the angle.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Shows.
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: Hold on, I'm abdo.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: Said it to you. I just I'm gonna send it
• 16:59
  to you directly, and I want you to keep it.
• 17:01
  Keep in mind that we're business.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Partners, not not even sending it in the creepcast server. No,
• 17:07
  this is just for you.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: This is a we keep in mind we're business partners
• 17:13
  and we're professionals first and foremost.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: So, First, why the image looks so oddly sexual?
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: Doesn't it about.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Say that I wouldn't a heartbeat. You know, it looks
• 17:42
  like a fucking Sabrina Carpenter album covers. I'm like that.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: I saw that picture and I was like, maybe it
• 17:49
  is that bad. Maybe I do have a problem.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: It looks like a donkey's mouth or something.
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: It looks like it looks all right that we don't
• 17:59
  need to go and all that.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, you better show this on the episode to
• 18:05
  some context, because good god, that's fun. These said these
• 18:11
  are two like fucking Peruvian pillows just stacked on top
• 18:14
  of each other. Good lord, look at these sons of bitches.
• 18:18
  How how is your top lips so impossibly white? It's
• 18:21
  like they drained all the blood out of your supple lip.
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: And yeah it didn't.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: It didn't lose any flash bawled in my face when
• 18:28
  they took the photo.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Well, this is the thing, is that your bottom lip
• 18:31
  is almost blister red and the top lip is like
• 18:36
  translucent white. Yeah, you's the most fucked up thing. Though
• 18:39
  there's no blood in there. They didn't lose shape at all.
• 18:42
  It is still you got too excited and peaked. What
• 18:44
  did you say there?
• 18:45
  Speaker 7: Wow?
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: I don't need to hear what.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Hell?
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: You don't delete it?
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: What are you doing?
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Also to the file size is so small, so whenever
• 19:06
  you open it you have to like zoup man, like
• 19:10
  four hundred times to even see the fucking image. Why
• 19:16
  why aren't they give you a higher rest deal?
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: They sent me, Okay, it's funny, funny image that because
• 19:21
  the new office was like, we can't use any of these,
• 19:24
  and I'm like why not? And they like the image
• 19:27
  quality is way too small, And I pull up the
• 19:30
  email and I go to the images. Every single picture
• 19:34
  was clauned onto one page of Microsoft Word.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: It was eighty pictures.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: There wasn't there wasn't enough ink in the printer to
• 19:43
  get those lips in there. Sorry, buddy, we have to
• 19:45
  do just teeth from now on. You're like, good, That's
• 19:49
  what I wanted.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: The image you're saying now is just a crop screenshot
• 19:53
  I took of the little That's why it's there is
• 19:56
  actually phrase because actually there's.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Know whether your dentist doesn't use this to kiss and
• 20:03
  to and and and to have some kind of I
• 20:06
  feel like this is his just like perfect lips folder
• 20:08
  and he puts it in there and he does, oh
• 20:09
  my god, perfect lips. I'd go back in and I
• 20:13
  would say I would say, what are you doing with this?
• 20:17
  I'd say, I go back, I demand it. He's like,
• 20:19
  you want some flossips? Like, no, put the fucking flossil
• 20:21
  away from me. I'm like, what what do you what
• 20:24
  are you doing with these pictures? I'm like, I'll go
• 20:27
  to a dentis and there's this. This is eighty percent
• 20:29
  lip like, there's barely any teeth in this.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what are you get in with this picture? There's
• 20:35
  forty x racist. This is for you.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: This is such an anomaly to your bottom robe teeth.
• 20:41
  There's like four teeth there. It's this level of detail.
• 20:45
  I'm pretty sure this highlights hippa. This is like, God,
• 20:52
  I've never seen teeth look so big yet so small.
• 20:55
  It's so organic. It's like a goddamn Salvador Dolly painting. Like,
• 21:01
  God Lord, all right, we got it for fucking read
• 21:05
  a story. You should have never sent that picture to me.
• 21:09
  You should that.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Because I'll tell you what, that's just.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: For my own personal health. And I'm like, I don't
• 21:16
  know what I'm gonna do with that. I downloaded it too.
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: I can't.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: I can't, I can't.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: I can't clad get in so much mileage out of
• 21:25
  this I can't picture.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I can't go a world without having that picture. If
• 21:31
  you deleted that, If I deleted that, I'd freak out.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: Okay, oh gosh, okay, Well yeah, glad we had that aside.
• 21:45
  So the story the rat King, I like the set
• 21:51
  up with the uh the younger brothers sick, and I
• 21:55
  really like that one line they said where they were
• 21:59
  describing UH like the cough and everything, and it's like,
• 22:03
  I don't want to stop playing either the second cough
• 22:07
  drops to his knees. Kings don't get sick, but little
• 22:11
  brothers do. So establishes like this very idyllic world, and
• 22:14
  it's a very simple way to give us some weight
• 22:18
  to the characters and their connection, Like the older brother
• 22:21
  wants to be stronger for the little brother and the
• 22:24
  little brother's ill, but he doesn't want to stop like
• 22:28
  this world he has with the older brother, and it
• 22:30
  gives us a lot.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: Of relationship context very quickly.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: And also, just like like we were talking about with
• 22:36
  the tunnel and stuff like that, the idea of people
• 22:38
  underneath the town, like you know, subterranean people.
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: It's just a cool idea.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: What all I'm picture it is that big white lip
• 22:54
  flattening up and down, being to being able to form
• 22:59
  words that's.
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: Actually can understand.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, but you must have so much muscle
• 23:05
  in your face to flap those big fucking beaks around.
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: It looks pretty rough.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: Okay, but but when you when you look at me
• 23:16
  in the face, it makes sense in contact.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: Okay, it's fine.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: You you were really people have been like, oh, you
• 23:27
  have big lips, but you're You're the.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: First person I'm really honed in on that.
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: It's like avoidable.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: You're like the kid and glass in his pants and
• 23:39
  everyone's trying to pretend to get smell it. Bullshit. I'm like,
• 23:42
  look at this, Look at you.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Look at these lips flapping around.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: I'm this photo. I'm telling you. I mean, it's we'd
• 23:50
  in February, and I feel like it's Christmas and this
• 23:52
  is un This is this is a treat. This is
• 23:55
  a true gift you just gave me right here. Wow,
• 24:00
  thanks so much.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: I've already said it to Harry.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: I'm done all kinds of stuff. I think this is
• 24:10
  going to pop up in all corners of the Internet, the.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: Same invation about privacy.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: Carry just set it out showing to me Canyon cartoon.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: There's no avoiding it.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: What are you done with this?
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: Picture?
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Was promised to me three thousand years ago?
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Picture?
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Where are we even at?
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: What we're in?
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: The story? Yeah?
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: Where?
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: But we're at? Are we at some.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Oh? God?
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: Trying to get back on courtse We're back.
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: I'm back. I'm back on dor.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I was talking about how I like the dynamic. Oh
• 25:07
  my guy, I heard on that.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I'm saying, where are we at? On the text deal?
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, it's time to talk about something scary, your health.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: I know I don't go in the doctor as much
• 25:18
  as I should. If I'm feeling sick, I'll just lie
• 25:20
  in bed and sleep it away.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: But that's only because I don't want to have to
• 25:24
  deal with the appointments, insurance.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: And blah blah blah blah blah. That's why I have
• 25:29
  zok doc. Zoc doc is a free.
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  ie care, to skincare.
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  Speaker 2: And much more.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: And the nice thing about zok doc is that you
• 25:55
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• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Are nearby, and are highly rated.
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• 26:13
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• 26:16
  but you should probably see a doctor. So stop putting
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  Speaker 2: That's z oc doc dot.
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  Speaker 1: Com, slash creepcast, ZocDoc dot com, slash creepcast.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you zoc doc for sponsoring the episode.
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  Speaker 1: Back to our spooky story, I.
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  description and we are now back to the episode. Whatever
• 28:12
  the truth is, there's something below the surface, something wrong,
• 28:17
  something that makes the children sick and the adult's.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Weary and paranoid.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: When we get home, my parents rush my brother to
• 28:24
  the hospital and he stays there for several days whilst
• 28:26
  they run all kinds of tests. I'm allowed to visit
• 28:29
  on the third day, and I find my mother sat
• 28:32
  in the waiting room holding his twig crown in her hands.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: She gestures to the crown contamination risk.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: My brother seems to have somehow shrunk in the past
• 28:42
  three days, although perhaps that's just perspective. He is, after all,
• 28:47
  surrounded by huge machines that were in beep tubes that
• 28:51
  loop over the side of his bed. He smiles when
• 28:55
  he sees me, makes a movement to give me a hug,
• 28:57
  but a doctor calmly puts his hand on his chest. No.
• 29:01
  Out of movements, I try and hold it together to
• 29:04
  be the best big sister. I can be kissing his forehead,
• 29:07
  stroking his hair, telling him he's going to be all right.
• 29:11
  I try and ignore the look in the doctor's face.
• 29:13
  At the end of the third day, they take my
• 29:15
  parents into a separate room, and I can only make
• 29:18
  out their silhouettes through the misted glass. I can see
• 29:21
  my mother put her head in her hands, my father
• 29:23
  put his arm around her. They don't say anything until
• 29:26
  we get home or my father calmly takes every plate
• 29:29
  out of the drawer, smashes them against the wall, doesen
• 29:34
  porcelain explosions, and he collapses to the floor with huge
• 29:37
  animal sobs. I cook dinner and we eat it out
• 29:41
  of the pan. I understand our life has become a
• 29:45
  series of trips to and from the hospital, and I'm
• 29:48
  entrusted with carrying out tests that were meant for my brother.
• 29:52
  It's strange, although he was far younger than me, six
• 29:56
  years to be precise, there must have been some tradition
• 29:59
  about these falling about the man in the family. Each week,
• 30:03
  I take bundles of food and water several spots just
• 30:06
  upstream from various tunnels or sewer entrances, there, I place
• 30:10
  them in the water and watch as they follow the
• 30:12
  course of the water down and round and eventually disappear
• 30:16
  into the black mouse of the tunnels. Sometimes, if I
• 30:20
  leave it until it gets dark, I can hear things
• 30:23
  coming from these entrances, paranoid whispers, muted whales, something like humming.
• 30:29
  It's as if a hundred people are speaking all at once,
• 30:32
  one thousand miles away, and the echo of the echo
• 30:35
  of the echo of their voices is drifting out into
• 30:37
  the night. So is she saying that it's part of
• 30:42
  the family, like the men are supposed to go feed
• 30:45
  whatever whatever's down this river.
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: Well, I think that it's saying that.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Well, I think she's saying that the men in the
• 30:51
  family are like ones that get sick. Are the ones
• 30:54
  that are being like it seems like men in this
• 30:57
  family are, at least that's how I read it, are
• 31:00
  people that are are appearing like That's why it's affecting
• 31:02
  her brother. I know which I want to I want
• 31:05
  to say, I do love that line. How creepy is
• 31:08
  that to like, uh, you take you take the bundles
• 31:13
  of food down to the tunnels whatever, and then from
• 31:15
  there you can hear like the echo of an echo
• 31:18
  of an echo of like thousands of like tons of
• 31:20
  people talking thousands of miles away, just such an interesting
• 31:24
  like like picturing that in your head, just hearing it.
• 31:26
  It's so soft and so like just like a just
• 31:30
  a slight whisper into your ear. Really funny.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, I make sure that. Whenever I visit my brother,
• 31:35
  I bring him strawberries, his favorite food, till he grows
• 31:39
  too weak to eat them, till I have to cut
• 31:41
  them up with a knife and fork into small, bite
• 31:43
  sized pieces, which I feed to him. We pretend for
• 31:46
  a while that he's still the king. I'm just denied
• 31:49
  who's making sure my king is fed and healthy. But
• 31:52
  it soon becomes too painful. It's a reminder of the
• 31:56
  year's spent outside long summers, with the promise that we
• 32:00
  both my someday ro old. Around A month later, he
• 32:04
  comes home. He's almost skinning bone at this point, but
• 32:07
  we still make the effort to have a little welcome
• 32:09
  home party. My father acts strange at dinner. I can
• 32:13
  see it in the way he moves, the redness around
• 32:16
  his eyes, and that suggests he's been crying.
• 32:20
  Speaker 8: A boy like that shouldn't have to face death. He
• 32:23
  shouldn't have to grapple with it to try and understand it,
• 32:26
  to rationalize it.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: He looks to me, a boy like that should live forever.
• 32:32
  My brother was always the favorite, and I knew that.
• 32:35
  I didn't mind it was my favorite too. That's a
• 32:38
  that's a heartbreaking line. That's so sad.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: It's heart It's heartbreaking but sweet given the context. But yeah,
• 32:47
  I mean it's it's uh. I think that it's uh.
• 32:51
  I don't think it's supposed to be something where it's malicious,
• 32:53
  or it's not supposed to be something where it's like
• 32:55
  the parents are obviously loving the child more. I think
• 32:58
  it's just that, like this is a being that is
• 33:00
  impossible not to love to, like you know what I mean.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Also, it does remind me of what is that
• 33:14
  thing with there's a word for it, but kids who
• 33:17
  was raised with a six sibling while the attention was
• 33:20
  directed towards the six siblings, so because of that, they're
• 33:22
  kind of neglected. There's a word they have for But
• 33:24
  it kind of reminds me of that which I don't know.
• 33:28
  I may be just paranoid, but something about the father's line,
• 33:30
  A boy like that should live forever. It makes me
• 33:32
  feel a little suspicious.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, don't be wrong, it's it's a it's a
• 33:39
  weird line. But also if your son is dying of
• 33:42
  cancer or I.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Mean, it's it's a really like outside of the context
• 33:47
  of it being a no sleep story, yeah, that's perfectly reasonable.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: But because it's in a no sleep story, I mean,
• 33:51
  it's a red har hanger. But yeah, it's a it's
• 33:54
  a sign that's coming.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: That night, I hear wrestling, hush whispers, and the lock
• 34:00
  to the back door spring open. Curious, I pick out
• 34:03
  my blinds and see, still partially illuminated by the light
• 34:06
  from inside, my father, and in his arms bottle of
• 34:11
  white cloth and a face my brother. Immediately, I get
• 34:15
  dressed and make my way noiselessly downstairs and out the house,
• 34:19
  following as best I can in the dark. I follow
• 34:23
  him down the back roads, through the fields, and eventually
• 34:26
  to the mouth of a tunnel. The roar of the
• 34:29
  water coming from it muffles my movements, and I lurked
• 34:31
  at the very edge of my father's glow as we enter. Thankfully,
• 34:36
  it does not look back. Often when he does, he
• 34:38
  seems to be in a trance. Eyes glazed over, a
• 34:41
  grim expression on his face. It gets quieter as we
• 34:45
  get further and further into the tunnels, and I have
• 34:47
  to take care not to make any sound, holding my breath,
• 34:51
  taking exaggerated short steps.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: There are noises, though.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: My father holds an old fashioned lantern in his hand,
• 35:00
  a small sphere of light across the tunnel, and every
• 35:02
  now and again he'll freeze and hold it in front
• 35:04
  of him as if challenging someone to come out from
• 35:07
  the dark. Whisper its bounce of the walls of the tunnel,
• 35:11
  saying all sorts of strange and horrible things. I hear
• 35:15
  the faint sound of manic laughter over some tuneless hum.
• 35:19
  My father carries something that makes strange periodic clicking noises,
• 35:23
  and every so often starts clicking rapidly until he moves on.
• 35:28
  There's writing on the walls, and the further we get,
• 35:31
  the more demented it gets. He goes from teenagers graffiti
• 35:35
  to genuine warnings telling people to stay away, that they
• 35:39
  must not go any further, welcoming us to Hell, then smaller,
• 35:44
  stranger writing and scrawled, almost childish letters. Stay Awhile I
• 35:52
  think about the rats we were warned about imagining them
• 35:55
  as a pack stalking me in the same way. On
• 35:57
  following my father, milky eye and hungry, peering at me
• 36:01
  from crevices in the wall and from under the surface
• 36:04
  of the water. You start going down and incline, and
• 36:07
  I have to hang further back, trying to tie my
• 36:09
  steps from my father so he doesn't hear me crouching
• 36:12
  and covering my face whenever he turns around. Voices are
• 36:16
  getting louder now and more manic. There's so many of them.
• 36:22
  I can hear arguments, confessions, laughters, songs, monologues.
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: You never never wanted to hear.
• 36:28
  Speaker 6: I love.
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: You, never never.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: It makes me WinCE. Sounds like all the thoughts of
• 36:37
  an asylum, and the smell starts to rereak, not only
• 36:41
  of shit, but of sweat and viole and curdled milk.
• 36:44
  In wonder if it's the rat speaking, or if it's
• 36:47
  some great mind leaking. They're worries and anxieties and desires
• 36:51
  spilling out it into our world. My father pushes on,
• 36:54
  and we get deeper. The tunnels turned from brick to concrete,
• 36:57
  and the graffiti turns to actual printed texts. Plaza one
• 37:02
  mile approximately oh so I guess that does point to
• 37:05
  the idea that there was a city down here at
• 37:09
  one point.
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: Right, yeah, like there's like roadsides.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: The noise starts to hit me like a wall, and
• 37:14
  I grow my confident, standing up straight. There's no way
• 37:18
  you can hear me over this.
• 37:21
  Speaker 6: Fuck.
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: Why do they live for year? Why are they living?
• 37:22
  Speaker 6: The fall?
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: This place.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: And comprehensible, so many words layered over each other. It
• 37:30
  sounds like TV static. And then we emerge into this
• 37:41
  vast underground chamber seems to be illuminated by small lights
• 37:46
  around the edge, although they're so faint it takes a
• 37:48
  while from my eyes to adjust. But even in the
• 37:51
  dim light, I can see how big this thing is.
• 37:53
  How massive of each light is a star hinting an
• 37:56
  unknowable depth and height. Something changes as we My clothes
• 38:01
  and skin have the texture of use gum. Everything becomes sticky,
• 38:06
  like a leather seat on a hot day. My vision
• 38:09
  swims slightly. A wall of stale heat hits me, the
• 38:13
  temperature of sweat, hot breath, whatever it is, it's here,
• 38:17
  It's emanating into the room and reality around us. It stinks.
• 38:22
  The voices are deafening. I can see the bundle of
• 38:25
  clothes in my father's arms start to wiggle and shake,
• 38:28
  and he holds his lamp up and I can see
• 38:30
  see it first as a wall, a wall, the color
• 38:33
  of pallid skin, until I can make out familiar shapes, hands, arms, faces,
• 38:42
  all coming from attached to this wall. Legs and ears
• 38:47
  and fingers, all bursting from this wall like spots or growths.
• 38:51
  Hundreds of mouths moving, hands endlessly grasping at nothing, legs
• 38:56
  spasming and trying to move along the slick ground. In
• 38:58
  some shapes are more than others. You can see somebodies
• 39:02
  that are half absorbed by this wall, some that still
• 39:04
  up the shape of a human shoulders, bellies, and some
• 39:07
  that have been completely absorbed, so that all that's left
• 39:10
  is facial features spread out of a massive skin. And
• 39:13
  it occurs to me that these are were people. And
• 39:18
  the sound and the stenches coming from this thing, whatever
• 39:21
  it is, this thing that laughs and screams and whoops
• 39:24
  and mutters and spits, until it dawns on me that
• 39:27
  it's not just a wall, because somehow, slowly and with
• 39:30
  great effort, it's moving, swaying and stumbling, and fraction by
• 39:35
  fraction it starts to make its way towards us, the
• 39:38
  eyes that litter its surface fixed on the white bundle
• 39:40
  in my father's arms, the mouth filled with yellow teeth,
• 39:44
  hollering and wailing, fingers across the surface, contracting and spasming,
• 39:48
  like dying insects and frozen in horror. It's all I
• 39:52
  can do to watch my father take my brother out
• 39:54
  from the bundle of clothes and hold him out, the
• 39:57
  grabbing hands and flailing arms until they take him, pull
• 40:02
  him in and he's too weak to resist, and the
• 40:06
  voices seem to reach a fever pitch united for just
• 40:09
  a second as he joins, and I can hear him
• 40:11
  scream louder and louder till I lose his voice amongst
• 40:16
  the others. We watch for a while, trying to keep
• 40:19
  track of my brother's body, before the thing shifts and
• 40:23
  wobbles and new faces appear. Whileas once my brother disappears
• 40:27
  into the dark, my father turns around, walks straight towards me,
• 40:32
  grabs my hand and pulls We have to go now.
• 40:36
  I have so many questions. How did he know I
• 40:39
  was here? What is this thing? Is my brother okay?
• 40:43
  But he's stronger than me, and when he tugs in
• 40:45
  my hand. I stumble after him. He says only one
• 40:48
  thing to me. Once we're far enough away for the
• 40:50
  sound to turn back to whispers. He says it with
• 40:53
  tears in his eyes, and for a moment I can
• 40:57
  see that he's not just a man but also a
• 41:00
  boy deep down, and they just as scared and hurt
• 41:04
  and confused as I am.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: That the thing, it does not die.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: It does not h A pause as he wipes the
• 41:13
  tears from his cheeks.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: He will not die down here.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: When we return home, my mother has fallen asleep at
• 41:20
  the kitchen table, waiting for us. When we wake her,
• 41:23
  she looks at us as if we had killed them ourselves.
• 41:26
  I think, on my father's words, we will not die
• 41:30
  down there. I wonder if perhaps death might have been better.
• 41:36
  Bro Oh my gosh, Okay, we're almost over. Then I'll
• 41:39
  talk about ah Man. I still do the jobs that
• 41:42
  were meant for my brother, the strange rituals that were
• 41:44
  meant for the man of the family. I still pack
• 41:47
  and send the bundles of food into the tunnels, but
• 41:50
  now that I know what's down there, I take a
• 41:52
  few extra steps. I make sure to put strawberries amongst
• 41:56
  the food, picking the biggest and juiciest I can find.
• 42:00
  If I've got a spare hour or so, I'll make
• 42:03
  a little crown twigs and string and hope that it
• 42:06
  finds them somehow in the dark. And if I get
• 42:11
  close enough, close enough to hear the whispers and shrieks
• 42:14
  and laughter, sometimes I can make out his voice amongst them,
• 42:19
  the voice of my little king, my rat king.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Oh brother, b oh oh oh oh.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: I forgot about the title of the story. It gave
• 42:30
  me chills there at the end. Oh, that was sick.
• 42:34
  Speaker 6: Bro.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: I love this, I really like and horror. You kind
• 42:37
  of see this with like I mean like I'm a
• 42:39
  huge Cronenberg fan and with uh, stuff like the Fly
• 42:44
  and these horror narratives are these things were stories where
• 42:49
  the main character is it's like somebody's just dying in
• 42:53
  front of you and there's nothing you can do. The
• 42:55
  kind of moral dilemma of people having of like, well,
• 42:58
  do you like dad giving his son off to this creature,
• 43:03
  this thing in the sewers, this rat king itself.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: Uh, it's like a pet cemetery.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: It's just like it's just a it's a fun act
• 43:11
  of desperation. And the unwillingness to be able to let
• 43:14
  go and be and be able to say goodbye is
• 43:17
  such a personal and human thing that I feel like.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Everybody would have so many people would.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Have a different response to that what that dad did.
• 43:27
  I think some people would be like, oh, I would
• 43:28
  do anything to keep my child alive as well. But
• 43:30
  I think that like it does. You know, even in
• 43:34
  the story, they do have a there's literally the pet
• 43:37
  cemetery line of sometimes dead is better, you know, it's
• 43:41
  like that kind of thing. I love that it.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: I think the context a little different because I I
• 43:48
  agree with the sister at the end where she's like,
• 43:50
  maybe you know, sometimes dead is better versus becoming a
• 43:54
  part of this amalgamation of eternal flesh.
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: But I think important context is the mention that one
• 44:02
  of the theories people have around this thing is that
• 44:06
  it was started by a cult sometime in the past, right,
• 44:08
  that they conjured up something so awful and now people
• 44:11
  are trapped down there, which seems to be cult or something.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: The dad's a part of that family for generations. Yeah, yeah,
• 44:19
  the family is definitely a part of it. And I
• 44:20
  think even that's why the mom is like you might
• 44:22
  as well have just killed him because she knows exactly
• 44:24
  what she knows what it is.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, they're the one, it says, the men of
• 44:27
  the family take the food to the river, right, and
• 44:29
  they feed whatever's down there the whole time. So it's
• 44:33
  different for him, who is a part of this cult
• 44:36
  and has seen this thing for generations, possibly to be like, oh,
• 44:40
  we'll give it to the eternal mass rather than you know,
• 44:43
  let him die, which goes back to that line the
• 44:44
  dad's always like a boy like that should live forever,
• 44:46
  where he comes to the decision of like, I guess
• 44:49
  I'm going to give him to the mass, right. But man,
• 44:53
  the opening where the sister was like they were playing
• 44:56
  and pretend and he was a king, and then at
• 44:59
  the end she puts strawberries and the crown on the food.
• 45:01
  She sends it's so heartbreaking. But that last line, my
• 45:04
  rat king, Oh my.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Gosh, what's a fun uh, it's a fun idea of that.
• 45:08
  You're playing dungeons and dragons at the at the beginning,
• 45:11
  and then you literally go into a sewer that is
• 45:13
  like a dungeon, and that's where, yeah, he gets to
• 45:15
  be a.
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: King, you know what I mean?
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: And then there's like the description where he's talking about
• 45:20
  or the sister is talking about how she was his night.
• 45:23
  She would rank him food and take care of him
• 45:25
  while he was sick in his hospital bed, and now
• 45:28
  she's continuing to do that as he's a part of
• 45:29
  the mass.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: This is one of those stories where sometimes you know,
• 45:36
  after sometimes when these stories because this was a nice
• 45:38
  short story. Sometimes we read these short stories, I'm always like, man,
• 45:41
  I wish that there was more, But with this story,
• 45:44
  I just there. It was so I just really loved
• 45:47
  how everything was approached. You know, you got to understand
• 45:50
  that the child was sick, You get a little elemond
• 45:52
  of the colt, like nothing was ever overstepping itself, and
• 45:55
  you've got just enough of information to make it satisfying.
• 45:59
  Like I really do feel like that's just like a
• 46:00
  perfect link through this type of concept. In the way
• 46:03
  that they executed, I think Max did a great job.
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, this this was fans.
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: This is the first story we've read by this guy,
• 46:09
  and that was a banger like that, down to the
• 46:12
  pacing of it and the execution. I like how the
• 46:14
  father knew she was there the whole time, but was
• 46:16
  like I guess she has to see this at some point,
• 46:18
  especially if she's going to be the one feeding this
• 46:20
  down here right well, yeah, and.
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: He lets her follow.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: I always love in these cult like in these stories
• 46:26
  where somebody knows, somebody knows about a monster or they're
• 46:30
  dealing with a monster. We kind of had this in
• 46:33
  the story where the Moth with the Mahesy.
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, very very similar.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: The I love when there is when there's a character.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: You I mean, even in the Mahesy episode, it was
• 46:46
  like there was the uh father who even kind of
• 46:50
  knew what the son had to do. It's this thing
• 46:52
  of like when you have your beliefs and it's hard
• 46:54
  to swallow. And it's like even the the dad at
• 46:58
  the end, I don't think that he's particularly stoked that
• 47:00
  his son is just a part of this monster, this amalgamation.
• 47:03
  Now he's not, you know, but it's a thing that
• 47:05
  they obviously still believe in, they take care of, and
• 47:08
  they do that. So in a way, it seems it's
• 47:11
  just I like that because it's justifiable why he would
• 47:14
  be like, you know, it's better than death in his eyes,
• 47:18
  because it's obviously something that he cares about that he
• 47:20
  takes care of.
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: So it's still like he can't let go of his
• 47:24
  son yet.
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: So now he's like, oh, well, if I do this,
• 47:28
  my son will be there in some way, right. Yeah,
• 47:34
  even if I don't get to see him directly, I
• 47:35
  know I'm still taking care of him. I know he's
• 47:37
  still in the dark somewhere, right. Also, like the subtle
• 47:41
  kind of world building stuff where it's like they go
• 47:45
  down there and there was a plaza, so it's like,
• 47:47
  was their city down here?
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: Is this all part of whatever this spell this ritual is.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: But then the description of the room where there's lights
• 47:55
  in the distance that might as well be stars because
• 47:57
  they give off impossible depth to the space. It reminded
• 48:00
  me of John Milton. Not John Milton, the other John,
• 48:04
  the guy that did the Paradise Lost depiction. Hold On,
• 48:09
  there is one piece of art from Paradise Lost that
• 48:15
  I think about all the time. John Martin's who I'm
• 48:20
  thinking of. John Martin. John Milton was the author of
• 48:24
  Paradise Lost. Yeah, Pandemonium. Okay, hold on, let me send
• 48:28
  you this image real quick. So when describing Hell and
• 48:33
  Satan's Throne Paradise Lost, John Milton gave this depiction of
• 48:40
  it and what I love about this image is you
• 48:44
  see Satan on the throne and then you see like
• 48:46
  the rows of people behind, but you see the lights
• 48:49
  hanging on the ceiling, and you kind of have a
• 48:52
  sense of depth on the first row of how far
• 48:54
  back they go, but then there's rows and rows of lights,
• 48:57
  and it's like this room he's in is impossibly large.
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: Right m hm.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: So I when she talked about walking into the room
• 49:06
  and then seeing lights that were impossible death through reminded
• 49:08
  me of this. And now I'm thinking maybe the because
• 49:10
  the author is Max Voyage, named after Voyage Manuscript, obviously
• 49:14
  into like some weird esoteric stuff, maybe that's kind of
• 49:17
  the idea he was conjuring, the idea of this underground
• 49:21
  like circle of demons, this infinite cask of like the
• 49:25
  devil in his power, and that probably ties back into
• 49:27
  the cult and like the creatures is made.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: But all that's done.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: But the point I'm trying to say is I got
• 49:33
  all these ideas off of a sign that said plaza
• 49:37
  and then a description of how big of the room was,
• 49:39
  and it's like, oh, maybe it's this, maybe it's that.
• 49:41
  And he does so much with so little by using
• 49:45
  the time he has to get these really cool ideas
• 49:47
  across and like, maybe these cool theories theory crafting you
• 49:51
  could do with the little pieces he gives. It's like
• 49:53
  he has a cohesive idea of where this stuff came from,
• 49:55
  how it all came to be, but he just sprinkles
• 49:57
  clues of it so you can try to put it together.
• 49:59
  And I think that it's really neat. Yeah, I really
• 50:01
  love this story. I thought it was awesome.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: The use of the body horror two at the end
• 50:05
  is awesome. Might eat that shit up all day, but
• 50:07
  it's also something where it's a fine line. You got
• 50:09
  a ride, because sometimes that shit just it all sounds
• 50:11
  the exact same, so sometimes you have to just be
• 50:14
  And I feel like that was just it was just
• 50:16
  enough to give you a fun understanding of this like
• 50:19
  actual rat that is tied together in a literal, flush
• 50:22
  sense without just being something that's like generic. You know,
• 50:26
  it served its purpose in a great way to that
• 50:28
  lends itself to the story versus trying to take the
• 50:31
  limelight and be like, isn't this crazy. It's just like
• 50:33
  a fun accent to the story, which was nice. But
• 50:36
  I'm excited that we get to read another one from him.
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and like I said, we'll all have his
• 50:41
  stuffs linked in the description. This guy has a ton
• 50:44
  of stories on his Reddit. It's a shame he hasn't
• 50:46
  posted in six years. I want him to keep writing.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: Who knows, maybe with some support here and maybe with
• 50:51
  uh once he sees this, maybe maybe the it could
• 50:55
  be something too. Maybe he's cooking something huge, could but
• 51:00
  very cool.
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: If you all, if you like this, to show him
• 51:02
  some support so that you know he gets on board,
• 51:05
  that'd be cool. Or he gets to making more stuff
• 51:08
  or something, because I want more of this anyway. Our
• 51:10
  second story from him today is called if we misbehaved
• 51:14
  as children, we had to stand in the shed. Something
• 51:16
  else stood with us. So are you ready, Hunter.
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: Let's do it.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: It was as simple as that he misbehaved, he stood
• 51:24
  in the shed. As I've grown older, I've come to
• 51:27
  realize that it wasn't just if we were naughty, but
• 51:29
  if our parents wanted some space, some time alone, to
• 51:32
  get rid of us. When they had guests over, they
• 51:35
  were always throwing these lavish and expensive dinners with services
• 51:38
  in Latin incense, and all the guests masked and dressed
• 51:42
  in black.
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: They needed us gone.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: The shed itself was rotting, an old wedge structure that's
• 51:49
  set at the bottom of our garden. Maybe three or
• 51:52
  four minutes walk from the main house. Sure that might
• 51:55
  not sound like the longest time, but try walking for
• 51:57
  four minutes in any direction you choose and see how
• 52:00
  far you get go on time it I think you'd
• 52:02
  be surprised. So after we'd made the mistake, she woued
• 52:06
  with our mouth open, asked a reird question, used the
• 52:09
  wrong cutlery.
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: We were sent off.
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: If we were together, Naomi, my younger sister, and I
• 52:15
  walked instinct too long, could talk, trying to take our
• 52:18
  minds off the shed, off the fact that it had
• 52:21
  its own wail, the fact that sometimes it was so
• 52:24
  dark you couldn't see one end from the other. We'd
• 52:27
  try and ignore the fact that sometimes the tapping on
• 52:29
  the windows sounded less like branches in more like some
• 52:32
  form of echo location, like some giant and curious creature
• 52:36
  on the other side trying to draw us out. We'd
• 52:39
  stand there, shaking hand in hand. I mean songs we
• 52:42
  could have, remember, whispering stories to each other, anything to
• 52:46
  make the time pass. I tried to keep her spirits
• 52:49
  up to make sure she wasn't as terrified as I felt.
• 52:52
  As I couldn't let on that I felt. Sometimes she'd
• 52:55
  repay the favor and she'd tell me about her favorite animals,
• 52:58
  how big they were, what they ate, where I might
• 53:00
  find them if I was interested. It helped the quiet,
• 53:04
  focused tone of her voice, the obvious pleasures she took
• 53:07
  in naming them all. Despite our situation, I was much
• 53:12
  worse behaved than Naomi. She was all blonde air and smiles, ribbons,
• 53:16
  long and looping, handwriting, and pristine diaries. I wasn't interested
• 53:20
  in any of that, Being a boy and being so
• 53:23
  proud of being a boy, brandishing my scrape knees and
• 53:26
  torn clothes, refusing to bathe until my father would hold
• 53:29
  me down and force me upstairs. As such, I spit
• 53:32
  a lot longer in that shed than she did. As
• 53:35
  time passed, I began to realize there was something wrong
• 53:39
  with it. Sure, the air in there was colder, stiller
• 53:42
  than the air outside. Sure, rats and my slipped under
• 53:46
  the floorboards, squealing anaw in and climbing over each other
• 53:49
  in the dark. Sure, if you came in the daylight,
• 53:51
  you'd see a flock of crows talk to each other
• 53:53
  as you entered trading little cause, as if discussing you.
• 53:57
  But there was something else. You were never truly alone
• 54:01
  there since that shivering and hidden in the dark, something
• 54:06
  was watching you. I like again Max's does a really
• 54:12
  good job and the two examples we've seen of giving
• 54:14
  you so much with so little, because there's a little
• 54:17
  description of the parents where it's like when they needed,
• 54:20
  you know, they sent us out whenever they needed time
• 54:23
  to their self, and it has a mention that they
• 54:28
  throw lavish and expensive dinners with incense and all the
• 54:31
  guest masks and dressed in black, So it's like their
• 54:33
  parents are some cult something like that. But then you
• 54:36
  have this shed that's probably related to whatever their practices is,
• 54:39
  and there's a ton of weird stuff that happens around it,
• 54:42
  like the crow showing up and things like that, So
• 54:45
  it's like, how much of that is supernatural and how
• 54:47
  much of that it's just like the eeriness that he
• 54:50
  feels being around a structure like this. I think it's
• 54:53
  almost interesting how from a kid's perspective, the masquerade parties
• 54:59
  your parents throw, like the ritual stuff isn't the interesting thing.
• 55:02
  It's the shed, but because of the mask garade, we're
• 55:05
  almost positive there's something supernatural about the shed, right, Yeah.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Well, coming from the perspective of like a younger kid, teenager,
• 55:12
  these things that are so normalized in their life are
• 55:15
  said in such a way that seems like, well, of course,
• 55:17
  you know they're a mass party, you know, as like
• 55:20
  it said so matter of fact that it isn't drawn
• 55:23
  out to be some kind of like creepy big thing.
• 55:27
  I just like how normalized it feels, and it just
• 55:29
  is a It's a piece of vital information that you
• 55:31
  could easily miss, which I think is kind of fun. Yeah.
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to take a moment to think today's sponsor,
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  will be in the description. We are now back to
• 57:14
  the episode. My suspicions were confirmed when Naomi was sent
• 57:18
  one evening for I'd even had a chance to misbehave,
• 57:21
  and as such I'd been sent to my room preemptively.
• 57:25
  The dinner they were hosting seemed special, and my mother
• 57:28
  spent the whole week fretting about who was setting where
• 57:30
  and what to served, and if they'd be able to
• 57:32
  find the house old and crooked as it was nestled
• 57:34
  on the edge of thick black woods that had no
• 57:36
  obvious markings to tourists. Something else, though, frenzy in the kitchens,
• 57:42
  my father holding a set of keys I had never
• 57:44
  seen before, heaving brass, the dogs locked in the kennels,
• 57:48
  my mother's hands covered in paint they had wanted us out. Interesting, okay,
• 57:54
  dogs and kennels, paint on her hands or maybe blood,
• 57:59
  and then a set of brass keys. Also, when it
• 58:02
  said the house at the edge of the woods dark
• 58:04
  and the crebit, I thought of the house where I
• 58:06
  saw the can man God the soul go far more
• 58:10
  disturbing to me, far more scary. And so I spend
• 58:14
  the evening in my room, head against the window, watching
• 58:17
  the guests come in, their long and pointed masks, the
• 58:20
  lanterns say carried, and the way they bowed as they
• 58:23
  met my mother At the door. There's a goat tied
• 58:26
  to a post a few feet from the entrance, and
• 58:29
  I was trying to work out why each guest would
• 58:31
  take a moment to say something to the goat, or
• 58:33
  bending to kiss its horns. Never seen the goat before,
• 58:37
  and I remember wondering if it was a gift or
• 58:39
  if my parents had brought it for some sort of game.
• 58:43
  I felt sorry for Naomi and the shed, the wind
• 58:46
  beginning to howl, which I knew brought strange lifelike noises
• 58:50
  from the holes, and the old wood made the window
• 58:53
  rattle and the rats shelter between the floorboards. Felt sorry
• 58:58
  for how alone she must have felt. That is till
• 59:02
  I saw her. When Naomi came back, her hair was braided.
• 59:08
  It was tied into one long plate that curled around
• 59:11
  her head, the hair bound together by neat red ribbons
• 59:14
  wild flowers, punctuating the plat every so often to give
• 59:18
  her the impression of a wild princess. Her nose and
• 59:21
  cheeks were flushed from the cold, and she spoke in
• 59:24
  between sniffles, wrinkling her nose each time, still shaking.
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: Asked her where she learned to do her hair.
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: Our mother was never one for anything like that, her
• 59:34
  very neither military ponytails or simply combing it until Naomi
• 59:38
  could fight back tears. And I thought perhaps Naomi had
• 59:41
  read it in a book somewhere. She'd loved books, but
• 59:44
  was clumsy, able to name all the animals of the forest,
• 59:47
  but forever scaring them off with her heavy footfall.
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: She shook her head.
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: No, it wasn't me, soone at the party, I asked,
• 59:57
  knowing full well that she wasn't supposed to attend, but
• 1:00:00
  that often guess couldn't resist saying at least a hello
• 1:00:03
  to the little blonde girl on the stairs. She shook
• 1:00:06
  her head again. Something turned to my stomach, caught in
• 1:00:10
  my throat. Who Naomi, I asked, trying to hold back
• 1:00:14
  the panic in my voice. Pointed to herself. Did this
• 1:00:18
  strange rasping voice, and on the in breath spoke her
• 1:00:22
  name in syllables, nay me dude for row.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: Imagine there is a little girl right and you're like, oh, hey, Sarah,
• 1:00:42
  how are you doing?
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: And she points herself, She's like Sarah.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: It's like, no, no, we got sorry.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: Hey, your daughter's nack.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: I'm leaving.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: I'm so sorry for your all's lost.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: You should burn that thing anyway by your dress.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 5: Is so cute.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: I have to go take a ship. I'll be right back.
• 1:01:00
  And that's what i'd run, Yeah, crawl out the window.
• 1:01:03
  Yeah yeah, Oh I'm sorry. I mean I have to
• 1:01:06
  go do that at home. I have to go all
• 1:01:08
  the way home. But it isn't my home because I'm
• 1:01:10
  leaving the state.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 6: Now.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: I said it again, firmer, this time the tone I'd
• 1:01:16
  use when I scolded her.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Who did this?
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: Who's in there with you? Who put the ribbons and
• 1:01:22
  flowers in your hair. The reply was the same on
• 1:01:25
  the end breath nay me. I knew neither of us
• 1:01:30
  could go back, and although I was on my best behavior,
• 1:01:32
  Naomi didn't seem to care. It seemed to be oblivious
• 1:01:35
  as to what waited at the bottom of the garden
• 1:01:38
  for us. My mother said the party was a success,
• 1:01:41
  that she'd be having another one. She seemed younger, I
• 1:01:45
  thought crows feet by Her eyes had smooth and her
• 1:01:47
  mouth seemed fuller. I tried to beg for her to
• 1:01:50
  hold off, but she replied by looking out the window
• 1:01:53
  towards the shed, and I had no choice but to
• 1:01:55
  shut up. Interesting, So it seems like they're doing this
• 1:02:00
  as like a rejuvenation spell, right, say. I wonder then
• 1:02:05
  how old they are and if this is even their kids, right,
• 1:02:08
  because they clearly have a contempt for them, like that
• 1:02:10
  brush your hair till she cries, and like super strict
• 1:02:13
  and things like that.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they almost see them like sacrificial victims
• 1:02:17
  or something.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe they're just like fatten them up, so to speak,
• 1:02:21
  for some eventual ritual might have already done it. If
• 1:02:24
  Naomi's now possessed by a skin walker or whatever. Yeah,
• 1:02:28
  I asked about the goat, and was told that there
• 1:02:30
  was no goat. Then I must have imagined it. And
• 1:02:33
  when I pushed her on this, she slapped me hard
• 1:02:35
  in the face till I tasted blood, and said the
• 1:02:38
  boys who lied spent weeks in the shed and had
• 1:02:40
  their food slid under the door until they knew better.
• 1:02:44
  The shed hung at the bottom of the garden, hit
• 1:02:46
  in a shadow. I tried not to look at it,
• 1:02:49
  terrified i'd see faces in the window, pressed up against
• 1:02:52
  the glass, staring back at me. I thought that maybe, somehow,
• 1:02:56
  if I tried as hard as I could to pretend
• 1:02:58
  it didn't exist, I'd be safe. I was wrong.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: My parents were looking for any excuse.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: The night of the party, before I even knew i'd
• 1:03:08
  done something wrong, I was sent to the shed. I
• 1:03:11
  tried to find Naomi, tried to ask if she was there,
• 1:03:13
  but she was nowhere to be found. My parents' patience
• 1:03:17
  grew thin. They said, if I didn't go right this minute,
• 1:03:20
  i'd be sorry. My father's lips shook like it did
• 1:03:23
  when he was angry or drunk, when he wanted to
• 1:03:25
  use his hands or his belt to bruise. The walk
• 1:03:29
  to the shed had me breathless. My old body was
• 1:03:32
  shaking in fear and anticipation of something I didn't understand.
• 1:03:36
  I could feel my knees weak as each step took
• 1:03:39
  me closer. The sun was beginning to set, and the
• 1:03:41
  trees cast long shadows on the grass. Crows were quiet
• 1:03:45
  this evening, stroning down branches to watch. The door to
• 1:03:49
  the shed was already a jar, and for a moment
• 1:03:53
  thought I caught motion inside. I was still silent until
• 1:03:58
  I heard the flapping of wings, a patter of rats.
• 1:04:02
  I took a breath. I was going to be okay.
• 1:04:05
  There was nothing in the shed that could hurt me.
• 1:04:07
  Now man learn to break her own hair.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: I decided, upon.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: Entering that I would do what any boy should do,
• 1:04:14
  what any man should do, and I slowly paced around
• 1:04:17
  the walls. I thought that this would dispel any ideas
• 1:04:20
  I had about something else being in there with me,
• 1:04:23
  about anything sharing the space. My footsteps were marked by
• 1:04:27
  the groan of old floorboards, a faint echo as they
• 1:04:29
  bounce from the wall, each footstep followed by an echo,
• 1:04:35
  a slight delay. And so after I'd walk three paces,
• 1:04:38
  i'd pause and hear step step step, I'd walk three more,
• 1:04:46
  same thing, step step step, except I realized it wasn't
• 1:04:55
  an echo. It was the sound of something behind me,
• 1:05:00
  something mimicking me, following my exact footsteps for fear of
• 1:05:04
  being heard, and I felt sweat began to break out
• 1:05:07
  on my back. My mouth went dry, couldn't breathe. Whatever
• 1:05:13
  was behind me knew i'd be listening out. A noise
• 1:05:17
  startled me, made me gasp, and I realized I hadn't
• 1:05:20
  taken a breath in almost a minute. The window in
• 1:05:22
  front of me, something was tapping against it. I still
• 1:05:26
  had the impression of something behind me, something huge, something watching,
• 1:05:29
  and part of me knew I had to turn around,
• 1:05:31
  but I couldn't bring myself to I think I had
• 1:05:34
  it somewhere in my head that maybe I could still
• 1:05:35
  pretend this was all a game or a mistake, that
• 1:05:38
  by turning around, I'd somehow make my fears real. Tapping
• 1:05:42
  on the window continued. I squinted to see better. There
• 1:05:46
  against the window was a crow, feathers, dark beady eyes,
• 1:05:52
  a huge and sharp beak. But it seemed bigger than
• 1:05:55
  I thought possible, or if in my reflection, and I
• 1:05:58
  thought maybe it was because I was still some paces
• 1:06:01
  from the window, and then the tapping came again, and
• 1:06:05
  I realized that the sound wasn't the crow. Couldn't be
• 1:06:08
  the crow, because the crow was completely still, and I
• 1:06:13
  could see it now, a long and low branch than
• 1:06:16
  actually was tapping. And I realized that what I thought
• 1:06:20
  was the crow was actually something behind, something huge and
• 1:06:27
  dark and still, and I turned around. It must have
• 1:06:34
  been about eight feet tall, huge and with thin limbs
• 1:06:39
  covered in black robes, robes so dark that unless you
• 1:06:42
  were really looking for them, really aware of their presence,
• 1:06:45
  that'd have seemed invisible, and emerging from the hood a
• 1:06:48
  long and pointed beak, two eyes that only appeared as glints.
• 1:06:52
  We stared at each other for a while, filled my
• 1:06:56
  heart beating so fast it hurt, attention on the left
• 1:06:59
  side of my chest that grew and grew slowly. The
• 1:07:02
  bird thing lifted its hand, pointing a long and gnarled
• 1:07:06
  finger at me. It opened it speaked to speak, and
• 1:07:10
  the sound reminded me of a parent father's friend had
• 1:07:14
  mimicking human speech, uncertain, grating, as if the words were
• 1:07:19
  not meant for it. Nay, I shook my head. It
• 1:07:25
  was all I could do. The thing caught, and the
• 1:07:28
  crows screamed. In response, it asked again, No, it was
• 1:07:32
  all I could manage.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 5: No.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: Then the thing seemed to fly into a panic, all
• 1:07:38
  limbs and frantic movement, bending itself, folding itself through the
• 1:07:41
  door and out into the forest. And as my eyes followed,
• 1:07:44
  I could see the faint glow that it headed for,
• 1:07:46
  some glow that threw shafts of orange light between the trees,
• 1:07:49
  and the sound of drums. Man, this dude, this is sick,
• 1:07:57
  like all the.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: Giant crowd, that giant crow god that's friends with Naomi.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like the parents are like this ancient like you know,
• 1:08:06
  religious practice, which also like how the thing that made
• 1:08:09
  the mom younger was at her crow's feet went away, hau.
• 1:08:12
  But it's like and the thing I said earlier, it's like,
• 1:08:15
  are the crows supernatural? Is that just a thing the
• 1:08:18
  kids noticing because the shed's creepy, But no, the crows
• 1:08:20
  are part of the supernatural aesthetic of this whole thing.
• 1:08:23
  And you have the family, it's part of the dark
• 1:08:25
  colts and does these rituals to stay young. And then
• 1:08:27
  you have this crow god, and there's this group of
• 1:08:29
  people in the forest with drums and stuff. It's so cool,
• 1:08:32
  it's just sick. I followed as fast as I could,
• 1:08:35
  my knees and chins whipped until they bled by wild grass, thickets,
• 1:08:39
  slow bushes.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: But I kept on pushing on.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: Something in its tone had disturbed me, some sense of
• 1:08:44
  panic or purpose, and I had only the safety of
• 1:08:47
  my sister in mind. I ran until the glow turned
• 1:08:50
  into a deep line that cast its own shadows in
• 1:08:53
  the dark, that illuminated pale figures standing in a circle
• 1:08:56
  around it, a fire surrounded by naked figures wore masks
• 1:09:00
  made from thin branches and reeds, prude shapes who were
• 1:09:04
  all flesh, some with drums made from bone, with a
• 1:09:07
  leather stretched, some empty handed, some holding books and totems
• 1:09:10
  and lanterns. There unconscious on a chair in front of
• 1:09:15
  the fire, in a red robe with a crown of wildflowers, Naomi.
• 1:09:21
  Some would come forward from the crowd on the beat
• 1:09:23
  of the drum and kiss her forehead gently, what you
• 1:09:25
  might do to a baby. She sat bolt upright, eyes
• 1:09:29
  closed as she dreamed. The figure in front of her
• 1:09:32
  read something from a book, her voice echoed by the crowd,
• 1:09:36
  growing louder and louder in the language I did not
• 1:09:39
  could not understand. The drums grew faster now, as if
• 1:09:43
  drawing in on something converging, and the voices grew excited,
• 1:09:48
  and I saw in the figure's hands something glint in
• 1:09:50
  the light. A knife, a long and thin knife they
• 1:09:55
  were slowly raising. I wanted so much to do something
• 1:09:59
  to stop this, but my limbs seemed to freeze to
• 1:10:02
  stop that.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: All happened so fast.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: There was a kaw, angry and clipped, and then the
• 1:10:10
  caw echoed the round the woods, coming from every angle,
• 1:10:13
  from the roots to the bows, to the tops of
• 1:10:15
  the trees, from behind me and above me. And then
• 1:10:18
  the fire was snuffled out like a candle. A commotion, screams.
• 1:10:24
  People began to run, only lit by the dim light
• 1:10:26
  of the lanterns, and I could see that somehow Naomi
• 1:10:29
  was gone, a robe and crown all gone. Revelers began
• 1:10:34
  to run towards me, heading into the forest to get
• 1:10:36
  away from whatever this was. Face is still covered by masks, screaming,
• 1:10:40
  and I know the choice. I couldn't tell what they
• 1:10:43
  do if they'd found me, if they'd run past, or
• 1:10:45
  if they'd grabbed me. Two taken me to wherever they
• 1:10:47
  were sheltering, and I ran until I was sure my
• 1:10:50
  lungs would collapse, and then ran some more. I ran
• 1:10:54
  until the spit dried in my mouth and in my lungs,
• 1:10:56
  and every breath made me shake. I ran until I
• 1:10:59
  was two towns over, covered in blood and my feet torn.
• 1:11:03
  They found me on all fours in the town center,
• 1:11:05
  renching onto the cobblestones. Took two days for me to
• 1:11:09
  finally speak. When they finally took me back, they made
• 1:11:12
  an effort to disapprove the parts of my story they
• 1:11:14
  didn't believe, although even then I could tell they were
• 1:11:18
  holding back. They cannot find my parents or the guests
• 1:11:22
  at the party. They found evidence of a bonfire, but
• 1:11:25
  no masks. They cannot find Iomi either, and the case
• 1:11:29
  would stay open for years.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: Decades.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: No one had seen anyone like her description come through,
• 1:11:35
  and it was assumed that for one reason or another,
• 1:11:38
  she had disappeared with my parents. They did comment on
• 1:11:41
  the sheer number of crows in the garden. Took me
• 1:11:45
  years after that to finally return to that house. Took
• 1:11:48
  enough time for me to have children of my own,
• 1:11:50
  undergo years of therapy, I found things that helped me
• 1:11:54
  piece together what happened. And in rooms, stone slabs, runs,
• 1:11:59
  carved wall, old books it's smelt like rotten, had strange
• 1:12:03
  diagrams in them, But I never found her. I like
• 1:12:07
  to think whatever took her saved her, although if I'm honest,
• 1:12:11
  I can't be sure. I like to think that she
• 1:12:14
  roams the forest now with their crown of wild flowers
• 1:12:17
  in her red robe, passing her blessing over all the
• 1:12:20
  creatures she loves so much. And although the shed has
• 1:12:24
  been demolished now, floorboards and walls removed to reveal the
• 1:12:27
  bones of livestock. Sometimes I'll hear it when I'm walking
• 1:12:32
  in the woods working in my room, whispered by the wind,
• 1:12:37
  cries of birds.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 6: No mean.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: Man zoom for two dude.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I uh. What I liked about both of these
• 1:12:50
  two is like, well, the it's hard to say this
• 1:12:54
  one seems like it has a bit of a darker ending.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: Well, both of them have like a darker, darker ending.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: But yeah, like the creature happy with the kid getting
• 1:13:01
  absorbed by the flesh.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: Wall the creature, like the crow. I don't think that
• 1:13:04
  the eight foot tall crow, dude, was like a bad
• 1:13:08
  he just wanted Naomi and then he left.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like his buddy.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: So then when Naomi wasn't there, he was like, wait,
• 1:13:13
  what the fuck, and that it seemed like he went
• 1:13:14
  out was freaking out.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 5: It looked like that.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: It seemed like the colt was going to sacrifice her.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, they're going to stab her.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: But then when the crow god saw her in the chair,
• 1:13:27
  it screamed and then the crows came from everywhere and
• 1:13:30
  the fire snuffed out and everyone ran in a panic. Yeah,
• 1:13:35
  and Naomi was just gone. Is She wasn't dead or anything,
• 1:13:38
  she was just gone from the chair. So it's like
• 1:13:39
  the crow took her.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: Well wondering it to be with her, Yeah, I'm wondering if.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 5: She like it's it.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: I think it braiding her hair is a good note.
• 1:13:51
  I think it's I think it's the idea that it
• 1:13:53
  cares about her and doesn't wish her harm.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: It the the the ending makes you think and it
• 1:14:01
  feels similar to two Well. It's interesting is it's two
• 1:14:03
  children that are afflicted by something. In the end, it
• 1:14:06
  seems like they are joining in on what the cult
• 1:14:09
  is worshiping. It to me, it seems like the crow
• 1:14:11
  is the god that those people are worshiping the mass
• 1:14:14
  I assume I was thinking of like a plague doctor's
• 1:14:16
  beak kind of mask and stuff. But I do wonder
• 1:14:19
  if she was able to ascend, Like this is a
• 1:14:21
  happier version of the last story. Like it seems like
• 1:14:24
  this is like maybe she was able to join in
• 1:14:27
  or like maybe she was transformed in some way that is,
• 1:14:30
  like not in a flesh wall, but more so, maybe
• 1:14:33
  she becomes a crow herself or does something that is
• 1:14:37
  acclimenting her into the nature that she loves so much,
• 1:14:40
  you know, because it seems like the entity or the
• 1:14:43
  god really seems like that they liked her a lot.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: Well, I will say that her life was miserable, right,
• 1:14:51
  Like these parents were cultist monsters and they abused her
• 1:14:54
  and all this stuff. So it's almost like when the
• 1:14:57
  crow god was probably summoned here by whatever was going on,
• 1:15:01
  it sees her and then it braids her hair and
• 1:15:05
  then it takes her away from this, right, So it's
• 1:15:08
  like it wanted to save her from what the parents,
• 1:15:09
  especially right before they were about to kill her, before
• 1:15:11
  our own parents were about to kill her. I also
• 1:15:14
  like the end where it's like the sheer number of
• 1:15:15
  crows in the garden was alarming. It's like, did the
• 1:15:18
  cultists get turned into crows? Is that the implication why
• 1:15:22
  more and more crows show up? Or maybe it's just like,
• 1:15:24
  you know, it turn the crows around the crow god
• 1:15:27
  that or did the or did the coltist get like
• 1:15:30
  did they get a come uppings?
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 6: And that?
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: Like are the crows positive spirits?
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: Are they positive entities?
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean?
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: It's it's I mean, like it probably makes more sense.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: That the entire cult got turned into crows of some kind.
• 1:15:42
  But regardless, it seems almost like the cult was going
• 1:15:45
  it seemed like the crow God was blessing the girl
• 1:15:48
  and it seemed like they were going to like sacrifice
• 1:15:50
  her and because she was blessed in some kind of way.
• 1:15:54
  I mean, I'm reaching, but that's just kind of what
• 1:15:56
  I'm taking from it. But once again, a really fun story,
• 1:16:00
  Max fun stuff, very fun. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: I think what's interesting is the similarities between both of
• 1:16:09
  those stories because they're both about an older sibling who
• 1:16:13
  is protective over a younger sibling who both of them
• 1:16:17
  are the victims of some cult or some practice that
• 1:16:22
  their parents are a part of who their parents in
• 1:16:25
  one story give them over or try to give them
• 1:16:27
  over to these dark forces for their own gain or
• 1:16:29
  their own selfishness in some way, even if the first
• 1:16:32
  story it was just the selfishness of wanting your kid
• 1:16:34
  to live forever. And then it ends with the older
• 1:16:36
  sibling reminiscing on hoping the younger siblings. Okay, yeah, it
• 1:16:44
  seems like the.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: First family in the rat King story actually loved their
• 1:16:48
  children versus the this story.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 5: I don't know if you felt it.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: This way too, but it seemed like almost like the
• 1:16:52
  children were just literally a commodity to be sacrificed. Yeah,
• 1:16:55
  they were the mother turning and not even like acknowledging
• 1:17:00
  the child or whatever. I was like, all right, yes, cool.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah it is uh, it is uh.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: They were the fatted calf. They were just saving them
• 1:17:10
  for the ritual whenever it was to come. Whereas in
• 1:17:13
  the first story, the father still did the wrong thing
• 1:17:15
  and he was still part of a cult that you know,
• 1:17:16
  turned your kids into these like flesh amalgamations, but it
• 1:17:21
  came out of a point of wanting his son to live,
• 1:17:23
  not out of like wanting to be younger.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: Right, well, should we both.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: Those were both excellent stories. So check out max Voyage again.
• 1:17:32
  He hasn't posted a while. I really want to see
• 1:17:34
  more stuff out of him. We'll post him his account
• 1:17:39
  in the description, and we'll also post the max Voyage
• 1:17:42
  subreddit where people discuss the stories and stuff like that.
• 1:17:44
  So be sure to show this guy some love and Max,
• 1:17:47
  if you're watching this, make more stuff.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: This was awesome. I enjoyed it.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 4: All right, So, uh, with that, you're ready to move
• 1:17:57
  on to Dopa Bean.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's finish off with the dope being story, which is,
• 1:18:01
  they told me I was nothing but a dog.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: Yep, and we all, like I said at the beginning,
• 1:18:06
  we're all familiar with dopa Bean wrote. Uh, the incredible
• 1:18:10
  story of the dead Girl in My yard was the
• 1:18:13
  best friend I ever had, which is it might be
• 1:18:17
  a top ten we've ever covered on this show, to
• 1:18:19
  be honest, because I think I know that story.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 5: I know fans love it.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: I know that we had a great time reading it,
• 1:18:24
  so much emotional depth. It's just it's hard not to
• 1:18:27
  fall in love with the character like that, that girl,
• 1:18:30
  the character, the spirit, this entity, and just kind of
• 1:18:33
  the the crazy I don't want to reveal too much.
• 1:18:36
  In case we haven't our new new viewers, if you
• 1:18:38
  haven't read that story or heard us talk about it,
• 1:18:41
  please listen to that episode or go read the story
• 1:18:43
  for yourself, because it is. It's really it's really really fun.
• 1:18:46
  So I'm excited.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: There's so many good like the dialogue moments where the
• 1:18:50
  dead girls describing like oh, well, the birds came with
• 1:18:53
  the trees in the first summers and stuff if.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: Haunting, magical, hauntingly like beautiful, like tragic.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, in my head, it takes up the same real
• 1:19:03
  estate as things like Chronicles of Narnia and where the
• 1:19:06
  wild things are, like it's like a child's almost imagination
• 1:19:10
  of this world they were on. But it has such
• 1:19:12
  a like like an undertone of death. I mean she's
• 1:19:15
  a dead girl, but also with his sick brother or
• 1:19:18
  sik mother and stuff like that. Like gosh, it was
• 1:19:22
  just such a good story. But yeah, so Dopa Being
• 1:19:26
  killed it. And now we're reading another story from them.
• 1:19:29
  This was supposed seven years ago and it's called they
• 1:19:31
  told Me I was nothing but a dog once again,
• 1:19:34
  Dopa Being. Their account has been deleted because read it slame,
• 1:19:39
  but we're gonna link their sub stack and We're gonna
• 1:19:42
  link the subreddit for the North American I was what's
• 1:19:45
  the name of that big series day right, the North
• 1:19:47
  American Pantheon. We'll have that linked in description all their stuff,
• 1:19:51
  and I'll verify that Dopa Beans is their new account,
• 1:19:54
  but if it is, we'll link that too. So be
• 1:19:56
  sure to show them some support, especially now when they
• 1:19:58
  need it.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 5: So that out of the way.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: They told me I was nothing but a dog. My
• 1:20:04
  father named me Laka because when I was born, my
• 1:20:07
  grandfather told him to treat me like a bad dog.
• 1:20:11
  Father Laca was synonymous with dog, used the name to
• 1:20:14
  remind me of my place in the hierarchy, less her
• 1:20:18
  beneath inferior. Nothing but a dog. Uh what is yeah,
• 1:20:25
  Lacas the dog the cosmonauts sent up. Kayla has a
• 1:20:28
  Laka tattoo on her arm. What When they were born,
• 1:20:35
  the father said, treat nothing but a bad dog. That's
• 1:20:38
  an insane thing for any human to say.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: Very not a healthy relationship.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 6: Right now.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, a newborn's there and your father shows up, like,
• 1:20:49
  treat that nothing but a dog, like a bad dog.
• 1:20:53
  My father meant to humiliate and degrade me with such
• 1:20:56
  a name, but he honored me instead. You see Laca,
• 1:21:00
  a stray dog from Moscow. On the third of November
• 1:21:03
  nineteen fifty seven, Soviet Union put her on Spotnick two
• 1:21:06
  and launched her into space.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 4: She was the very first animal to orbit Earth.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 3: The Soviets knew how to put a rocket into space,
• 1:21:13
  but they didn't know how to bring it back.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 4: This made Lake's mission a death sentence.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: Shortly after reaching orbit, the interior of Sputnik two became
• 1:21:21
  catastrophically hot. Are too hot for mammals to tolerate? Were
• 1:21:26
  hours after launch? Like had died an agonizing death. She
• 1:21:30
  perished the same way she'd lived, bless her beneath burier, abandoned, unloved,
• 1:21:39
  nothing but a dog. I spent many hours imagining her terror, pain,
• 1:21:43
  and loneliness. How did it feel spending my last hours
• 1:21:47
  hurtling through divine darkness in a metal bucket? What must
• 1:21:51
  it be like to not understand what I was seeing?
• 1:21:54
  Why I was suddenly so loud and so hot? What
• 1:21:57
  must it be like to not understand why it being
• 1:22:01
  plucked from cruel streets and drop into a bustling world
• 1:22:04
  of kindness? I was now alone? Perhaps I wouldn't think
• 1:22:08
  I'd been a bad dog. Perhaps I think this was
• 1:22:10
  my punishment.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, do what I said, Jesus Christ, I'm sad.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 3: God Like, I'm so sad now is an insanely heavy
• 1:22:23
  opening to a story.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 5: I have to pull up the picture of your lips
• 1:22:26
  and there it is.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: Does that make me feel better?
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 5: Slightly? She did kind of made me even more depressed, honestly.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: And why did the lips make you more depressed? It's
• 1:22:38
  we just gotta keep going, all right.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: Lakea is such a tragic tale. I think about her
• 1:22:45
  a lot, Such a cute dog. It's like she was
• 1:22:49
  just used for, you know, our understanding of something. But
• 1:22:53
  she was a casualty from the beginning.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: And that had to be so scary for you know,
• 1:23:00
  little dog. I didn't know what was going on. Yeah, tragic.
• 1:23:06
  That made you feel better, right, me saying that this story?
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: No, I was like, yeah, I'm really I'm in a
• 1:23:10
  good fucking headspace. I'm sure everybody too is just like now,
• 1:23:13
  just sitting here quietly thinking about existentialism stuff.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 5: It's pretty fun.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: Do you know?
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 4: Do you know the song Hall in nineteen forty five?
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 5: I love that one.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's my favorite song. I'm not crazy about Neutral
• 1:23:25
  Meal Hotel, but I love that song. But I see
• 1:23:27
  people attribute the end of the chorus to her all
• 1:23:31
  the time, where it's like, uh, and now she rides
• 1:23:34
  a comments flame and never coming back again. The world
• 1:23:37
  seems better from a star right down from where you are. Yeah,
• 1:23:42
  I see, I see all this stuff. It'll be like
• 1:23:44
  like Kayla's tattoo is Laka the dog with an astronaut
• 1:23:49
  helmet on her. It's just it's a sweet What I
• 1:23:54
  like about Laca so much is it was such a
• 1:23:56
  tragic moment and it's such a terrible thing in history
• 1:23:58
  where it's like, let's just let's just kill things, let's
• 1:24:01
  just ruin creation for our understanding of it, which I understand,
• 1:24:05
  like disease research stuff like that, there's a greater purpose,
• 1:24:08
  there's an end. But in Lake's case, it really was
• 1:24:10
  just for our knowledge, for our our getting to know something.
• 1:24:13
  Some life was lost and it's tragic. But now there's
• 1:24:16
  this reinvigoration of her where people see her as kind
• 1:24:19
  of a symbol of tragedy and what was lost, and
• 1:24:21
  because of that they make her beautiful. There's drawings of
• 1:24:24
  dogs with helmets and floating through space and on comments
• 1:24:28
  and stuff like that.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 3: I like seeing the art, like the beauty that comes
• 1:24:33
  out of it. You know, now you're in a good headspace. No, no,
• 1:24:38
  you're really ready to go. Punishment is my mother tongue.
• 1:24:43
  I know what it was like to be punished for
• 1:24:45
  transgressions I cannot remember or understand.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: We heard so badly.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 3: My heart rate triples, my mind flies out the window
• 1:24:51
  and soars into the stars. We're tracing Lakea's doom flight
• 1:24:55
  while my husk worms and weeps on the floor of
• 1:24:57
  a dirty house sixty eight miles will even so. I
• 1:25:02
  adapted to punishment. As I said, it eventually becomes a language.
• 1:25:07
  Given enough time, anyone can learn a language, and I
• 1:25:11
  cannot adapt to was fear as a child. I was
• 1:25:15
  afraid of everything you see in the deepest, most forgotten
• 1:25:19
  parts of the world. There are things that most people
• 1:25:21
  cannot believe, and even fewer would understand. Old ways, old things,
• 1:25:27
  old truths, and old monsters. Monsters like my father and
• 1:25:32
  my grandfather. How can I describe this in a way
• 1:25:35
  you will believe? Maybe I can't, Maybe I shouldn't try.
• 1:25:39
  So instead I'll describe my grandfather. He was called pavel.
• 1:25:45
  By the time I turned nine, he had gone through
• 1:25:47
  six bodies. By this, I mean he inhabited them using
• 1:25:52
  a variant of blood magic perfected by my forebears. Across
• 1:25:55
  many centuries. He left from body to body. Okaye, he
• 1:26:00
  was not a spirit. He had a corporeal body of
• 1:26:02
  his own, twisted, monstrous thing covered in scars and hard,
• 1:26:06
  glittering skin, a body that could shrink to the size
• 1:26:09
  of a garden snake or expanded the size of a house.
• 1:26:13
  But for all its marvels, its body was weak. Sunlight
• 1:26:16
  burned its eyes and blistered its flesh. So it entered
• 1:26:20
  other bodies like a hand inside a puppet, and wore
• 1:26:23
  them until they rotted away. I'll never forget the side
• 1:26:26
  of him, of many hymns and different bodies, as flesh
• 1:26:29
  degraded and fell away in wet, discolored strings, Or the
• 1:26:33
  way his eyes, hard round yellow eyes blended deep within
• 1:26:38
  their stolen sockets. Grandfather preferred the bodies of men, but
• 1:26:43
  sometimes chose women or children.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: Once he even wore the body of my mother.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 3: I was very young then, perhaps three, and the side
• 1:26:52
  of her familiar form standing before the fire, sent me
• 1:26:55
  into such transports of joy that I bawled from sheer ecstasy. Yes,
• 1:27:00
  Cayle just stepped in. We're talking about Lake of the
• 1:27:03
  Dog actually this episode. Can you show your tattoo?
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 4: Put pulled it up? Yeah right, Look at that.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 3: He got into the helmet.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: He's wearing your helmet.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 3: He's up in.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: Space like, okay, thank you.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: Then she turned around and in her bruised sockets, I
• 1:27:21
  saw my grandfather's eyes flat, glittering yellow, like rotted gold.
• 1:27:28
  I reared back, screaming. My father, who had been stroking
• 1:27:33
  a pair of old baby shoes, looked at me with
• 1:27:35
  contempt so.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: Deep it scorched my heart.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: Shut up, dog, I cringed, this was a mistake. His
• 1:27:42
  contempt exploded into disgust. He shot out of his chair
• 1:27:45
  and stomped upon me. Dirty squirmy pain exploded across my abdomen.
• 1:27:50
  Hobbled away wimbourine head under the stairs. I lay there
• 1:27:55
  alone for many hours. Eventually my mind left my body
• 1:27:59
  and soared into the reverse dive into a sea of stars.
• 1:28:04
  I drifted away, dreaming of diamond colored constellations and red nebula.
• 1:28:09
  At my side was a curly tailed dog with a
• 1:28:11
  striped face. My namesake Laca.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 4: Oh gosh, that made me really.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 3: Sad, the idea of an abused kid thinking about being
• 1:28:26
  in the stars with Laca.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: It's really.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 3: I remember that there's this one, this little poem I
• 1:28:33
  saw someone was talking about how Laca is up in
• 1:28:36
  space and kind of serves as like a river sticks
• 1:28:39
  figure almost for like all astronauts and animals lost in space. Uh,
• 1:28:45
  Lake of the Guardian, Lake of the Guide. Man, gosh,
• 1:28:49
  that's sad. That's so roughtoried about kids man not enough
• 1:28:55
  And the story, the story handles it in like a
• 1:28:57
  way where it's like part of it and it feels
• 1:28:59
  very respectful and and it understands the way to the
• 1:29:02
  subject matter.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 5: But still you.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 3: Also, why would you, as a grandfather possess your son's
• 1:29:12
  wife or at least your son's like concubine.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's very odd that this doesn't seem
• 1:29:19
  like some weird incest stuff would happen.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that seems weird. That seems very or just to
• 1:29:25
  know what if right now? Hunter you Allison was like, Hey,
• 1:29:29
  yesterday I.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: Was your dad, I'd probably kill myself. That's the only
• 1:29:35
  that's the only option, right, Like the uh, which I
• 1:29:38
  mean to be fair, he is like a fucking immortal
• 1:29:41
  blood wizard or whatever. So who knows?
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 5: Who knows what in the mind of a.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: Blood wizard, twilight vampire, sparkling guy wodows it's true? Who knows?
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 3: When I woke, I felt furry and warm, chest rising
• 1:29:56
  and falling under my hand. I opened my eyes for
• 1:30:00
  just an instant. I saw her in the shadows, and
• 1:30:03
  she shrank away, sinking into the ground. I tried to
• 1:30:07
  grab her, but the floor swallowed her. My fingers closed
• 1:30:10
  on cold, ard floorboards. I covered my eyes and wept.
• 1:30:15
  Several months later, grandfather within mother gave birth to a child. Okay, see,
• 1:30:20
  like that's weird, right, it's a little hey son, I
• 1:30:26
  possessed your wife while she gave birth to your treat.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: Treat your kid like a dog. Come over here and
• 1:30:32
  have checks with me.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 3: Treat your kid like a dog and let me birth
• 1:30:35
  my grandchild child. I'm pregnant with your baby. Yeah, this
• 1:30:40
  guy's a freak for being like a multi dimensional spirit,
• 1:30:45
  demon or whatever. He's just beard a baby boy with
• 1:30:48
  yellow eyes my father's curly black hair. Mere minutes after,
• 1:30:52
  the birth father picked up the baby and took him
• 1:30:54
  outside He returned an hour later empty handed. Spurred by
• 1:31:00
  I immediately ran out into the night. The cold was brutal,
• 1:31:04
  once invigorating and exhausting. I searched until I found the baby,
• 1:31:09
  whimpering weakly beside a snowdrift. He was still covered in
• 1:31:12
  birth blood. They named him Alexander and brought him home.
• 1:31:16
  When I walked in, Father immediately slapped me, reeled back
• 1:31:20
  at stars rocketed across my vision. Never he hissed, contempt,
• 1:31:25
  tripping from every syllable.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 5: Never disobey me again, Give him to me.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 3: Now he reached for Alexander. The grandfather stopped him. I
• 1:31:35
  looked up and swallowed a whimper. Grandfather stared back at
• 1:31:39
  me through my mother's rotting face, the mouth puffy and discolored,
• 1:31:43
  with an oddly detached look, quirked into a smile.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: No, let the dog keep up up. We have other concerns.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 3: They certainly did. They worked together, and they worked constantly.
• 1:31:57
  Father kidnapped victims, and Grandfather used them. Whenever Father brought
• 1:32:01
  a new victim to the cabin. Grandfather used his hands,
• 1:32:04
  long hideous things, marked with scars and covered in strange,
• 1:32:08
  glittering flesh, to tear out the victim's tongue and crush
• 1:32:11
  their feet. Then he would wait until nightfall, because remember,
• 1:32:15
  sunlight burned Grandfather's eyes and blistered his skin, and carried
• 1:32:18
  them to his chapel. His chapel was an ancient stone
• 1:32:21
  structure at the base of a wooded hill. Within the
• 1:32:24
  chapel three red windows and six rough hewn pews. At
• 1:32:29
  the end of each pew set desiccated corpses facing the
• 1:32:33
  altar like sentries. I hated Grandfather's chapel. The very air
• 1:32:38
  weighed upon me whenever I entered, crushing my heart and
• 1:32:41
  poisoning my lungs. The worst part was the fear, electric
• 1:32:45
  and paralyzing inescapable.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: Luckily, I was just a dog.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 3: Dogs do not spend much time inside chapels, but dogs
• 1:32:53
  here screams, even screams from far away, echoing down forested
• 1:32:58
  mountains long into the night. Grandfather did not often leave
• 1:33:02
  his chapel, but when he did, it was always in
• 1:33:04
  the wee hours of the morning. I know this because
• 1:33:07
  my father and I were required to hold vigil until
• 1:33:10
  he walked through our door. Never Grandfather came back from
• 1:33:13
  his chapel. He looked human again, smooth skin, wide smile,
• 1:33:18
  good proportions. Sometimes he looked a bit like father. Sometimes
• 1:33:23
  he looked like his victim. It was as incomprehensible to
• 1:33:26
  me as outer space would have been to Laika. The
• 1:33:29
  stream of Grandfather's victims never ended. Vacrants, the elderly travelers,
• 1:33:35
  orphans fleeing violence. There were so many, so so many.
• 1:33:42
  You think that maybe it's sane that uh oh on oh,
• 1:33:54
  that's a good stretch pop something. You think that it's
• 1:33:56
  sane that this isn't actually a grandfather. This is like
• 1:34:01
  a demon or something that the father invited in years
• 1:34:04
  ago and it was just kind of worshiping.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 5: Mmmm, it seemed.
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's got to be something like that. I mean,
• 1:34:09
  I'm still wondering why the why this motherfucker even had
• 1:34:11
  a kid, Like, why why even have why keep one?
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah? One the only thing I'm thinking is that if
• 1:34:17
  during the during the man's when he was with his
• 1:34:20
  wife during the pregnancy, they had the kid, and then
• 1:34:22
  between that moment and when the kid was born, he
• 1:34:26
  had made some deal with some kind of monster to
• 1:34:28
  where then the monster was just like, yeah, you gotta
• 1:34:31
  treat that thing like a fucking dog or whatever. You
• 1:34:34
  or otherwise, why would it be this generational thing.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 3: Or unless it's similar to our last story coincidentally, the
• 1:34:42
  crow one and the uh they need the kid for something, Yeah,
• 1:34:46
  I mean once like it gets to a certain age,
• 1:34:48
  they needed for a ritual.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: Well, with the continuous theme and the callback of Laika,
• 1:34:53
  I mean it is going to be some kind of
• 1:34:54
  sacrifice for some kind of exploration or some kind of
• 1:34:59
  you know, and then case to get you weren't.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 3: Supposed to give that away. You just told the audience
• 1:35:05
  what the theme for the episode is. I can't figure
• 1:35:06
  that out.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well, it's been two episodes and we're talking Aboutlaika,
• 1:35:09
  which was sacrificed for science. I guess if you want
• 1:35:12
  to count that, you mean the real religion. Yeah, well,
• 1:35:19
  the people's religion.
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 3: That's all. I read it post the other day some
• 1:35:24
  lady posted it was in like our slut whatever town.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 4: She was in San Francisco, Denver, whatever. She's like, Hey,
• 1:35:31
  my kid.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 3: Is really interested in Christianity and she wants to go
• 1:35:36
  to Sunday School. I'm not a Christian and my husband
• 1:35:40
  used to be, so we're just wondering if there's any
• 1:35:41
  churches in the area. Thanks, and the top apply. Someone
• 1:35:45
  said you should check out the local science center. Maybe
• 1:35:54
  teacher kid a real religion. Anyway, if it weren't for Alexander,
• 1:36:05
  I would have withered into nothing. He was more than
• 1:36:08
  a brother to me. For all intents and purposes, he
• 1:36:11
  was my son. Neither father nor grandfather cared for him,
• 1:36:15
  and even feet or clothed him. I had to feed
• 1:36:18
  and dress him with what little I had. Despite my
• 1:36:21
  best efforts, never learned to speak. That isn't to say
• 1:36:24
  he couldn't communicate. He could with gestures and facial expressions
• 1:36:28
  and nonsense syllables.
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 4: The language eluded him, but it was all right.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 3: He grew into a sweet, curious boy with freckles, long
• 1:36:36
  delicate hands. Over time, his terrible yellow eyes mellowed to
• 1:36:41
  a clear, bright green.
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: He was my life. He was my heart. But he
• 1:36:46
  wasn't enough.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 3: One night, as the little girl's screams came shrieking down
• 1:36:51
  the mountain from grandfather's chapel, I finally went to my father.
• 1:36:55
  I lay prostrate at his feet, which is how he
• 1:36:57
  taught me to approach him. Was rough and painfully cold
• 1:37:01
  under my fingers.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: Why father, why do you do this?
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 3: Set in his chair, watching the fire with his hands,
• 1:37:09
  yelled a pair of white baby shoes.
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 5: Because your grandfather and I must live a little dog.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: Well, I have to do this to live.
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 5: Yes, then I don't want to live.
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 3: I understand, he said, his grip tightened on the shoes.
• 1:37:27
  But you do not have a choice. I choked back
• 1:37:30
  a sob and waited for the dismissal. I could not
• 1:37:32
  come to him without crawling, and I could not leave
• 1:37:35
  until he told me so. Steady said stand up, Lika.
• 1:37:40
  Hearing my name was like being doused in ice water.
• 1:37:43
  Never used it by that point, in fact, I'd almost
• 1:37:46
  forgotten I had.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: A name, I said, stand up, Lika.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 3: It was a struggle to obey. Fear made my bones
• 1:37:52
  rubbery and my muscles weak. Father held out the baby shoes.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 5: What do you see?
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: Shoes? Old baby shoes.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 8: Little shoes belong to my sister, Alexandra. I loved her
• 1:38:08
  more than anything, more than life, more than my parents,
• 1:38:12
  more than your mother, more than you.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 5: She was my heart.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 3: I watched him, the firelight through his face in a relief,
• 1:38:20
  grating crevices out of wrinkles. His curly black hair shifted
• 1:38:24
  like smoke, and his long, sharp nose looked strange and monstrous.
• 1:38:29
  Paralytic electricity swarmed my skin so much like the chapel
• 1:38:33
  that I could have wept.
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 8: On my twelfth birthday, your grandfather boiled a pot of
• 1:38:38
  oil and called Alexander to him. She and I were
• 1:38:41
  going to pick wild flowers later, so she dressed in
• 1:38:45
  her finest clothes, a blue dress and white shoes. These shoes.
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: Father did not speak for a very long while.
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 5: She was my heart.
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 8: He finally repeated, when my heart broke, I broke it.
• 1:39:02
  It made me like grandfather. Someday I will be just
• 1:39:06
  like him. I will live forever.
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 5: You will too.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 3: That night, I had a nightmare of a little girl
• 1:39:14
  with sunken yellow eyes melting into blisters as my mother's
• 1:39:17
  rotted body doused her with boiling oil.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: I woke screaming.
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 3: Moonlight streamed through the window, drenching my room in celestial silver.
• 1:39:28
  My heart thumped so wildly that I could see my
• 1:39:30
  night shirt moving. I wanted to escape. I wanted it
• 1:39:35
  to escape too, because without it I would die, and
• 1:39:38
  when I was dead, I could sell the stars with
• 1:39:41
  the other Like a small warm hands touched my face.
• 1:39:46
  I turned, expecting Alexander Instead, I saw my nightmare, great
• 1:39:53
  and flame. Blisters bubbled and bursts andding, rivulets of puss
• 1:39:57
  down her tiny, raw face. The skin around its mouth
• 1:40:02
  had burned away, leaving neat rows of milk, teeth fully exposed,
• 1:40:06
  burned scalp and dull bone glinted through black curly hair.
• 1:40:11
  The blue dress clung to her body, boiled dripped from them,
• 1:40:14
  soaking my blanket. Don't cry, he whispered. Alexander stirred between us.
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: Get out.
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 4: The girl's blistered chin quivered.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: But you made me come here.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 5: Please let me sleep, all right.
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 3: I whispered, because I did not know what else to say.
• 1:40:37
  The girl burrowed under my blanket. I watched a gasp
• 1:40:41
  as she threw a bony, burnt arm across Alexander, and
• 1:40:44
  drifted to sleep. That night, I did not sail to
• 1:40:48
  stars with Laika. Instead, I set awake, watching the apparition
• 1:40:52
  with mingled excitement and fear. Just before dawn, my door
• 1:40:57
  creaked open. I tried to shield the girl as my
• 1:41:00
  father stepped into the room.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 6: What is that?
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: Please?
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 3: Please don't The girl shifted and incredibly began to shrink.
• 1:41:10
  Her body flattened into nothing, leaving her dress crumbled on
• 1:41:13
  the floor. That sank away too, leaving the cold empty
• 1:41:17
  floor in its wake.
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 6: What was that?
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: I saw my sleep? Her her not good?
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 2: I saw her in my sleep. When I woke up,
• 1:41:28
  she was here.
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 3: So what gleamed on Father's skin reminded me of stars
• 1:41:34
  he dressed.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 5: You must see your grandfather.
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 3: Immediately felt my hands and knees and crawled to him. No,
• 1:41:40
  stand up, Bring the boy, alex she's because they did that.
• 1:41:47
  I imagine now that it's time for their turn where
• 1:41:50
  they have to sacrifice.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: He's here, Yeah, the like kid's gonna have to sacrifice, Alexander.
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Alexander wept angrily when I picked him up. Nordom
• 1:42:00
  and followed Father into the dark forest, full glory of
• 1:42:03
  early spring bays the landscape. Hill beams of light shafted
• 1:42:07
  through the canopy, cutting the thick shadows with gold. Fermint
• 1:42:11
  crept through the undergrowth. Deer watch from a distance. The
• 1:42:14
  forest was always full of animals. Grandfather was no danger
• 1:42:18
  to the birds or beasts after all. Soon the chapel
• 1:42:21
  came into view, an ancient little church with a black spire,
• 1:42:25
  red windows, and frost encrusted stones.
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 4: I love, I mean There's been a ton of.
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 3: Videos or episodes we've done that revolve around like an
• 1:42:36
  old steeple church in the woods, like spire in the
• 1:42:38
  woods and stuff, And I always love it, especially like
• 1:42:41
  in Deep Woods, the first part of Deep Woods, where
• 1:42:44
  you get the impression that hundreds of years back, there
• 1:42:47
  was some ritual that was performed here, or there was
• 1:42:50
  some spell, and now everything we see is the influence
• 1:42:54
  of that. Yeah, like back where it all began. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:42:57
  I love that trope. It gets me every time Father
• 1:43:01
  ushered us inside. The moment I crossed the threshold, my
• 1:43:04
  skin began to crawl. Dread and fears swept over me.
• 1:43:08
  Alexander burst into tears. Father shoved me toward the altar.
• 1:43:13
  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the
• 1:43:14
  sentry corpses twitching, chests, rose and fell and jagged senseless rhythms.
• 1:43:20
  One especially tall corpse with long copper hair turned. As
• 1:43:23
  I passed. I covered Alexander's eyes and stopped at the altar.
• 1:43:28
  Shadows thickened and rised against the back wall. Back in
• 1:43:32
  the pews, bones clattered and dried, joints creaked. Something blinked
• 1:43:37
  in the darkness behind the altar, great flat eyes like
• 1:43:41
  golden moons, shining into the cold shadows. Grandfather the dog.
• 1:43:50
  Grandfather intoned, and he snarled, a deep, bone shaking rumble
• 1:43:57
  that like that of a tiger, glinted in the shadows,
• 1:44:01
  a shining ivory arc wider than father's entire head pebble.
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 8: She had a nightmare. When she woke, it followed her
• 1:44:09
  out of the dream. It came alive.
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 5: I saw it.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 6: Oh, our little dog has telling after all, Oh, good
• 1:44:22
  and will if she loves her pop?
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 5: Do you love your pup?
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 3: Dark you heard up from the shadows, twisted and sinewy
• 1:44:31
  and utterly inhuman.
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: Do you love him?
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 5: Or do you feel obligated to him?
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 3: I opened my mouth to answer. Instead I burst into tears.
• 1:44:45
  Grandfather laughed, a low roar that shook.
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: Dust from the rafters overhead.
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 5: A with the bitch, indeed, a hopeless in the boy, Bega.
• 1:44:57
  It was awye in the boy. That is why we
• 1:45:01
  made him.
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 6: Now go.
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 3: Those great yellow eyes flicked to the pews.
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 5: I did not like my sentries, not when they are
• 1:45:15
  hungry as they are.
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 3: You're in disbelief, battled across Father's weathered face.
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 8: Do you not understand what I've told you.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: She creates life from thoughts, a.
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 5: Poor substitute from what we were.
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 3: Corner Leaf kid him, but Grandfather rocketed out of the shadows,
• 1:45:33
  a rippling mass of glittering skin and malfor and limbs,
• 1:45:36
  and knocked Father to the stones. The corpse centuries uttered
• 1:45:39
  a deep sign continued to twitch. Never Grandfather snarled. Sunlight
• 1:45:44
  poured through the crimson windows, imbuing him strange hide with
• 1:45:48
  a red flow. He looked like the sky, starry peace
• 1:45:52
  about her space, never defy me. I waited breathlessly for
• 1:45:58
  Grandfather's eyes to burst, in his skin to sizzle. He was,
• 1:46:01
  after all, exposed to daylight, but it did not. Many
• 1:46:06
  moments later, Grandfather shruck Father across the face and whipped
• 1:46:09
  back into the darkness.
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: We left.
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 3: Father did not speak again until the cottage came into sight,
• 1:46:16
  and he grabbed me and dragged me off the path.
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 5: Listen, listen, will I can protect you from him?
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 3: And he looked down at Alexander, eyes blazing with disgust.
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 7: When the time comes, I can protect you from him too,
• 1:46:34
  but only if you help me. Why should I need protection?
• 1:46:39
  He's small and loves me as a mother do you
• 1:46:42
  remember the story of Alexandra. I nodded, Your story is
• 1:46:46
  coming only ad only Alexander will be me, and you
• 1:46:51
  will be Alexandra.
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: My heart fell to the cold earth.
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 3: Carefully pressed Alexander's head into my shoulder, shielding his face
• 1:46:59
  from father.
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 5: Missing dog. When next you dream of my sister.
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 3: His voice broke, pulled away and ran his fingers through
• 1:47:09
  his hair. Tears shone in his eyes, which were huge
• 1:47:12
  and miserable, over his quivering mouth.
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 8: When she comes again, bring her to me, all right, father.
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 3: I never seen him weep before, so I was frightening
• 1:47:25
  and curiously thrilling.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 5: I will.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 3: Father nodded curtly and left. I nearly followed, but thought
• 1:47:32
  better of it, said, stayed in the forest with Alexander interresting.
• 1:47:38
  So it's like there's this discrepancy between father and grandfather
• 1:47:43
  where he thinks that Alexander's not worthy, I guess, and
• 1:47:46
  he would rather it be his daughter, even though he
• 1:47:48
  hates her, because I don't know. Interesting, I will say,
• 1:47:52
  I really love when it was describing his flesh, the
• 1:47:54
  red flesh, and said it looked like the nebula of
• 1:47:56
  space that worked so well with the Lake of metaphor,
• 1:48:00
  where the story's been chasing, Where like space, was this
• 1:48:02
  unknowable impossibility to Laika, And now we see that same
• 1:48:07
  image reflected in the skin of grandfather.
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: Right, that's such a cool motif.
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 3: As the morning brightened and bird songs swelled to a symphony,
• 1:48:15
  I sat Alexander upon the narrow path. He ran forward.
• 1:48:19
  I'm in a tune of his own composition. Shadow and
• 1:48:22
  sunlight dappled his skin, turning him into a woodland sprite.
• 1:48:27
  Trees were in full bloom. Metals drifted down like snow,
• 1:48:30
  carpeting the earth and glistening white. Alexander pulled ahead. After
• 1:48:36
  a while, I couldn't hear or see him. He drifted away,
• 1:48:40
  slipping under the deep shadows. Panic overtook me, Alexander, Alexander.
• 1:48:46
  I rushed your head, grimacing against the pain in my chest.
• 1:48:49
  My heart thumbed wildly so I could see my shirt move.
• 1:48:52
  Wanted to escape again, Alexander. He darted from between the trees.
• 1:48:57
  I halted, overcome with relief so powerful, I took my
• 1:49:00
  breath away. Pedals covered his head and shoulders as I watched,
• 1:49:05
  one drifted down and settled on his nose. Wide green
• 1:49:09
  eyes glimbered above it right as the promise of spring.
• 1:49:13
  For the first time in my life, my heart was
• 1:49:15
  so full that I wept. That night, Alexandra came to
• 1:49:18
  me again, blistered flesh tripping down her face. Her eyes
• 1:49:22
  had melted away. I mean raw, swollen masses of flesh
• 1:49:26
  and her melted sockets. Remembering my instructions, I set up Father,
• 1:49:33
  I quivered. Alexandra reached for me, blindly running, ruined hands
• 1:49:38
  closing on shadows.
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: Father.
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 3: Father burst into my room, gasping Alexandra. He shot forward,
• 1:49:46
  arms extended as if to sweep her up. She turned,
• 1:49:50
  Father froze. Alexandra tot her towards him.
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: Me kill me, kill my eyes hurt.
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 4: Father collapsed and covered his eyes.
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 3: As Alexandra approached, she left a trail of puss and oil,
• 1:50:06
  shining like a tiny river in the moonlight.
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: Or sorry, mikail, my hands hurt.
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 4: Father wheezed miserably.
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: We kill skin, some fire and it drips away.
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 3: She stopped before him and crouched. Father whimpered and whine
• 1:50:22
  like a beaten dog. Twisting away from her hands, she
• 1:50:26
  set her small hand on his cheek. Father squalled and rised,
• 1:50:29
  but couldn't break away from her.
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 6: We kill.
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: She wept you just like him now, she.
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 3: Jerked and began to shrink, to sink, disappearing into the floor.
• 1:50:42
  The moment her hand fell away, Father leapt up to
• 1:50:44
  his feet and ran. After that, he did not ask
• 1:50:48
  to see Alexandra. This is good, because I did not
• 1:50:52
  see her in my dreams. After that, I only saw Leika.
• 1:50:56
  Oh that makes sense as to why earlier in the
• 1:50:58
  story she saw the vision of the doe. I didn't
• 1:50:59
  put that together till just now that the reason she
• 1:51:01
  saw the dog is because she has its power to
• 1:51:03
  bring life.
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 3: I spent most nights drifting among the stars with that
• 1:51:08
  dear doomed dog at my side.
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: Imagined or not.
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 3: Sites were glorious, incomprehensibly beautiful star formations, planets, great multicolored
• 1:51:18
  expanses of celestial miss Sometimes I woke bleary and incoherent
• 1:51:24
  felt her fur against my skin. By the time I
• 1:51:27
  opened my eyes there was nothing. One winter morning, I
• 1:51:31
  woke very early. My stomach growled immediately, and no wonder
• 1:51:35
  Father had it fed me for days. I fed Alexander
• 1:51:38
  with table scraps and tree bark that I decided would
• 1:51:43
  change today. I crept into the kitchen. There wasn't much,
• 1:51:47
  or never was. I scraped together a little I could,
• 1:51:50
  and turned around. My grandfather said at the table, great
• 1:51:55
  golden eyes shimmering in its terrible face.
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 5: Bitch, what have you done to your father? He no
• 1:52:03
  longer hunts, he no longer eats, he no longer obeys.
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 3: I felt like I was back in his chapel, crushed
• 1:52:11
  by darkness, heavy with dread, on the verge of panic.
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 5: Your ability has not been seen on this earth for
• 1:52:20
  a thousand years or more.
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 4: Of course, the ability was an of Earth.
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 3: I no doubt come across it while sailing through space
• 1:52:27
  and breathing stardust.
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: It's just nightmares.
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 5: No, You take the dark things of the world, the fear,
• 1:52:38
  the hate, the pain, and channeled them into physical form.
• 1:52:43
  And that is just the beginning. You will be able
• 1:52:46
  to do anything. You will make bodies permanent, perfect bodies
• 1:52:53
  for me and for you.
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 4: Oh I see, then, why be so dismissive of her?
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 2: She can make you a perfect body?
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 4: Idiot?
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: I think that if you are like this is an omnive,
• 1:53:07
  omnipotent being. I think he probably wants to Uh. It's
• 1:53:11
  kind of like Zeus or it's a chronos being afraid
• 1:53:13
  of Zeus or something. It's like, uh, it's like almost
• 1:53:16
  like this thing is going to kill and replace me. Maybe,
• 1:53:20
  so maybe he's just like making it. He's making like
• 1:53:24
  I feel lower than what it actually is.
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 3: Potentially, yeah, because his whole thing is subservience, I guess,
• 1:53:33
  so it's like, yeah, but also make it a dog
• 1:53:35
  so it doesn't get ideas.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: But also he also probably just didn't know that she
• 1:53:38
  that you know, she had that power until now.
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 4: The relish in his voice made me sick.
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 5: He said, Oh, women have always been weak and talentless.
• 1:53:50
  I thought the same of you, little bitch.
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 3: Tears pricked my eyes, and my bones thrumbed, as if
• 1:53:56
  struggling to break through flesh and run away. There was
• 1:53:59
  no Destiny had already bloomed between my grandfather and I,
• 1:54:04
  heavy and foul, with the promise of despair. Grandfather whispered,
• 1:54:09
  listen closely for you hear this once.
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 5: Oh I was wrong.
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: He left.
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 3: I ran to the window and watched him hurtle through
• 1:54:19
  the trees as sunrise threatened back to his chapel.
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 4: I waited until the sun was up.
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 3: Then I ran to my room bundled Alexander in every
• 1:54:27
  bit of clothing I could find, and left followed the
• 1:54:31
  path for many miles. Our home was hours and hours
• 1:54:34
  from the nearest town, couldn't reach until long past nightfall.
• 1:54:38
  I could only hope the grandfather wouldn't notice our absence
• 1:54:40
  until the following day. It wasn't an unlikely hope. Grandfather
• 1:54:44
  spent most of his time in the chapel. The second
• 1:54:47
  this thought crossed my mind, a glittering, dark shape left
• 1:54:50
  out of the trees and knocked Alexander.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: From my arms.
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 3: I caught a blur of twisted limbs and nightmarish hands,
• 1:54:57
  of great yellow eyes like flattened moons. Alexander screamed as
• 1:55:01
  a torn of blood splattered across the snow. It sank quickly,
• 1:55:05
  melting red canyons through the pristine white. Grandfather at me,
• 1:55:09
  narrowing sides, heaving, and then he leaned down, tore out
• 1:55:14
  Alexander's throat, screamed, Birds took flight, and mammals ran through
• 1:55:19
  the undergrowth. The piercing note echoed off the mountains. The
• 1:55:23
  pain within it should have ended the world, that there
• 1:55:26
  was no one to hear, no one to care. Grandfather
• 1:55:29
  grinned Alexander's blood and sinews clung to his teeth.
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: I broke.
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 3: I felt it crushing weight of sorrow, the almost physical
• 1:55:40
  sensation of my spirit tearing and bleeding out into my guts.
• 1:55:44
  I fell to my knees and cradled Alexander's head for hours.
• 1:55:48
  My father finally found us around nightfall. He had a
• 1:55:51
  heel of bread and an oily chicken leg. He pressed
• 1:55:54
  them both into my hands, then left. I tore the
• 1:55:58
  bread into pieces and dropped them by one into Alexander's mouth.
• 1:56:02
  When he did not wake, I burst into tears and
• 1:56:05
  hurled the chicken leg into the woods. The moon rose
• 1:56:08
  into the cruel dark sky. Stars glimmered through the bare
• 1:56:12
  branches overhead, creating a breath taking fractal pattern. I plopped
• 1:56:17
  down beside Alexander, pulling him to my body. It was cold,
• 1:56:21
  terribly cold. I held him anyway, keep my eyes trained
• 1:56:25
  on the stars. My mind attached with great difficulty, like
• 1:56:30
  it was trapped in tar. Finally, I wrenched itself free
• 1:56:34
  and sailed upward, disappearing into a silvery sea of sky
• 1:56:37
  and stars, rocketing ever higher until I saw the earth
• 1:56:40
  spinning below MICA's rocket zoom passed. I reached out and
• 1:56:45
  caught one of the metal bars near the nose. I
• 1:56:48
  could sense Laca within her tear vibrated through the craft
• 1:56:52
  and eached end of my bloodstream.
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: It's all right, it's all right, like it. I'm here.
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 3: When you land, we'll help you out and we'll play together.
• 1:57:03
  Or fear diminished. And so did our pain, so did mine. Together,
• 1:57:07
  we sailed the stars, looking upon the earth, marveling at
• 1:57:10
  the incomprehensible beauty around us. I woke cold, sore, and
• 1:57:16
  more pain than I can describe.
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 4: Man, something about.
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 3: Story, just the idea of a child being in such
• 1:57:24
  an awful I mean, obviously this is like a supernatural,
• 1:57:27
  abusive situation, but they did have a child being in
• 1:57:30
  like a you know, such a physically distressing, you know,
• 1:57:34
  painful position and taking comfort in a dog. We had
• 1:57:38
  to go through something like that too, and then well
• 1:57:40
  so not only having the dog as a comfort, but
• 1:57:42
  wanting to comfort it.
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: As I say, just the idea of something being like
• 1:57:46
  understand it's also more tragic too that it's understanding how
• 1:57:50
  horrible situation is. Yeah, and like looking up to something
• 1:57:54
  being like, don't worry. We'll get through this and we'll
• 1:57:56
  play together. It's just yeah, heartbreaking.
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 3: I woke cold, sore, and in more pain than I
• 1:58:03
  can describe. I set up Alexander' stiff's body broke away
• 1:58:07
  from mine. I reached for him blindly. A thin scrim
• 1:58:11
  of ice covered his eyes. The wound in his throat
• 1:58:14
  was an open horror. When I couldn't look at for long,
• 1:58:19
  I drew my knees to my chin and wept. After
• 1:58:23
  a while, something warm bumped my hand. White nose touched
• 1:58:27
  my palm. I knew what I would see long before
• 1:58:30
  I opened my eyes. Like a striped face and dear
• 1:58:35
  curly tail made me smile even through my tears. Stars
• 1:58:39
  glimmering through her fur, gently pulsing pinpricks of light. Grandfather's
• 1:58:46
  voice echoed through the trees. Rage flowed through my blood,
• 1:58:51
  exquisitely corrosive.
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 5: Hate.
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 3: I learned thin. It's pleasurable, It is fury, and it
• 1:58:57
  is the basis of power. Grandfather erupted from the darkness,
• 1:59:01
  scald skin shimmering like a river under the moonlight.
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: You wish your.
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 5: Talent on a mutt, not even on your own pop.
• 1:59:11
  No matter, I will corrupt you.
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 3: LAKEA reared up and leapt snow, piercing one of grandfather's
• 1:59:20
  flat moon eyes. He screamed and shook his head back
• 1:59:23
  and forth like it fell to the snow, twisting and
• 1:59:27
  quickly right at herself. Then she bit his foot. Her
• 1:59:30
  teeth sank through that impenetrable, immortal hide like butter lake.
• 1:59:34
  It was not large enough or strong enough to kill him,
• 1:59:37
  but she tore holes in him the way a match
• 1:59:39
  scorches holes in paper. Soon Grandfather was on his knees,
• 1:59:43
  mere feet from Alexander's corpse, like it came to me, panting,
• 1:59:48
  then collapsed in my lap. She bled from a thousand wounds,
• 1:59:52
  some small, some undoubtedly mortal.
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: Good talk.
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 3: My voice broke A stroked her gently, willing those wounds
• 2:00:01
  to close.
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: I was a monster.
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 3: I used slika, just like the others had, calling her
• 2:00:08
  down on false pretenses, filling her with hope before throwing
• 2:00:12
  her into the void.
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: Good girl, good, good girl.
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 3: I looked up his grandfather's good eyes slid to my
• 2:00:19
  dead brother. Something dark bloom there a wicked, corrupted hope.
• 2:00:25
  He curled in on himself. Twisted body is shrinking to
• 2:00:29
  a withered husk. And slid down Alexander's throat. I screamed
• 2:00:34
  as Alexander's body twitched and shuttered. Then he set up
• 2:00:38
  boons creaking and frozen sinews cracking. He smiled, his eyes
• 2:00:42
  shone like molten gold, and a forge. Laka attacked again.
• 2:00:47
  Alexander's face curled into a snarl as she bit in
• 2:00:50
  toward his skin, exhibiting an energy at odds with her
• 2:00:53
  awful wounds. I watched, helpless and hoping and hurting, wishing
• 2:00:58
  I could detach and fly to the stars once more,
• 2:01:01
  Except there would be nothing there for me now, I called,
• 2:01:05
  like a down from the stars and doomed. Her snow
• 2:01:08
  crunched behind me. I whirled around. Father stood there, watching
• 2:01:12
  me with contempt, and his hands was a sleek, gleaming shotgun.
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 4: Relief and horror engulfed me.
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 3: This was the end, my mind would attach wherever this time,
• 2:01:25
  the fear would finally end, like a bit down on
• 2:01:28
  Grandfather within Alexander, who hit her. She whined, but it
• 2:01:31
  held fast. Father stalked past me and cocked the gun.
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: No, don't hurder, don't hurt her.
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 3: Father pointed the gun at Alexander's head and fired blood
• 2:01:44
  and viscera and dark, glittering flesh exploded across the snow.
• 2:01:49
  Father fired again, then reloaded, and fired again and again.
• 2:01:54
  Alexander's had evaporated into red mist. Finally, his body lurched
• 2:01:59
  and Grandfather small pleading scaled. Grandfather slithered out of his
• 2:02:05
  throat like a cot and held him. Father pressed the
• 2:02:09
  barrel of the gun against his good eye and pulled
• 2:02:11
  the trigger. As the sun broke over the mountains, Father
• 2:02:15
  stepped back. I reached for him, drunk on hope and gratitude,
• 2:02:19
  But you were cooled for me. In his withered face,
• 2:02:23
  I saw a despair, rage, and contempt. Kept his eyes
• 2:02:29
  trained on mine as he placed the gun in his mouth. No,
• 2:02:32
  he pulled the trigger. Half his head evaporated, leaving a
• 2:02:36
  glistening mass like a fleshy ge out. His body, stumbled
• 2:02:40
  forward a step and crumbled to the snow. Took a
• 2:02:43
  very long time for the son to burn Grandfather down
• 2:02:46
  to dirty oil like it. Held on until the last
• 2:02:49
  scrap of skin melted. Then she stumbled to me and collapsed.
• 2:02:54
  I stroked her until her body shrank and sank into
• 2:02:57
  the ground, leaving nothing but a scattering of tiny dim orbs,
• 2:03:02
  the stars i'd seen and refer a touched one. It
• 2:03:06
  was pleasantly hot. I gathered them up and slipped them
• 2:03:09
  into my pocket. I went to Alexander's body, ravaged beyond description,
• 2:03:14
  broken in ways that did not seem entirely real, and
• 2:03:18
  sat with him until nightfall. Then I stood and walked away,
• 2:03:24
  and life went on. At first, I brought them back
• 2:03:28
  from my nightmares, Alexander, father, grandfather, even Alexandra. But I
• 2:03:35
  quickly taught myself to starve and eventually kill my ability.
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 4: It's not a good power.
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 3: It's born of rage, despair, selfishness, and fear, and I
• 2:03:47
  cannot tolerate fear. Besides, dogs do not have such awful powers.
• 2:03:54
  It is good to be a dog because they're not necromancers,
• 2:03:58
  they're not monsters. They're nothing more or less the simplest,
• 2:04:02
  most loving of creatures. That's why I'll always be like
• 2:04:07
  at the dog when that is the end. Wow, Yeah,
• 2:04:15
  what a great one man.
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 5: I Uh.
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: What I love about dopabine stuff is that the way
• 2:04:21
  that they write it almost feels like these are like
• 2:04:24
  entirely fantasy, like they're like and it almost it feels
• 2:04:27
  like you're in the fucking landscape of like a Ghibbli
• 2:04:29
  film or something. Yeah, we're obviously in these times where
• 2:04:32
  at least the Russian experiment went so at least we're
• 2:04:35
  in the fifties at most sixties. Uh, But it feels
• 2:04:40
  like these things like just being in the woods and
• 2:04:42
  having the chapel.
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 2: It's not like it really like addresses it. I mean
• 2:04:45
  like we hear about it and we know it's there.
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: But in my mind, the way that they write about nature,
• 2:04:49
  especially like the mammals and the animals that live in nature,
• 2:04:53
  it just makes it sound so fantastical, and these stories
• 2:04:57
  always wind up being these kind of like grand fantastical
• 2:05:00
  conclusions as well. I mean I kept picturing the Grandfather
• 2:05:05
  as just this giant. I mean like I kept I
• 2:05:08
  don't know why, I kept picturing the giant like the
• 2:05:12
  bathhouse owner and spirited away like the big nose and
• 2:05:18
  you know, flying around and all that kind of stuff.
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 5: Oh the witch.
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah it makes me think, yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes
• 2:05:23
  me think of that. I just it's really very interesting too.
• 2:05:27
  The parallels too, with likea the dog and even the
• 2:05:30
  narrator calling the dog at the end and using it
• 2:05:33
  the same way that like the Russians did, obviously in
• 2:05:35
  a different context, but feeling that kind of like guilt
• 2:05:39
  and shame at the end was just so touching and
• 2:05:42
  also too what a fun way for the author to
• 2:05:45
  be able to write away of Likelika being able to
• 2:05:47
  come in and like bite and help kill the people
• 2:05:50
  that sent her out to space.
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 5: You know, yeah, yeah, in a lot of ways. It
• 2:05:55
  in so many different ways.
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 1: This would be so hard to pull off of being
• 2:05:59
  like yes, literally like of the dog shows up and
• 2:06:02
  helps defeat the monster. Like that sentence alone sounds so absurd,
• 2:06:05
  but I was so bought in and I love that
• 2:06:08
  the way that they just set it up that yes,
• 2:06:10
  the persons can conjure these things from their dreams to
• 2:06:14
  help them.
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 5: It just was just wonderful, just really really wonderful.
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: Dopebine has such a great way of writing, and it's
• 2:06:20
  just such a treat every time we get to read it.
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 4: I like, I like the parallels.
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 3: Between the like a story and like what's happening here?
• 2:06:29
  And I like how Grandfather's kind of a stand in
• 2:06:31
  for the Russians. What was the what was the name
• 2:06:35
  pav of all?
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Almost I thought it was Pavelo it was. I
• 2:06:40
  thought it was Pavlov for a second, which I thought
• 2:06:42
  was like a full dog.
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, the dog, Yeah, have all.
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 3: Cultism. I feel like that's a name from something. No,
• 2:06:55
  maybe not, but it's interesting, like the feel like the
• 2:07:00
  name Pavel would mean something.
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: But it sounds like a demonic entity, yeah, which I
• 2:07:05
  looked up.
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 4: And it's I'm not seeing anything immediately, to be fair.
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: It's just something from a different time. I mean even
• 2:07:12
  references that you know, this earth hasn't seen your power
• 2:07:15
  in thousands of years or more, so he would have
• 2:07:17
  to know about that. Maybe he isn't that old. But
• 2:07:20
  in my mind when I read that, I was like,
• 2:07:22
  this is like an immortal being that has been around
• 2:07:23
  for thousands of years.
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, very well could be.
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 3: But man, there it always obviously is heavy, like children,
• 2:07:36
  you know, being put in stressful situations. But I think
• 2:07:39
  this was done respectfully. I think it's done with an
• 2:07:42
  appropriate way. And I like between like this suffering and
• 2:07:45
  then like like at the like of the dog suffering
• 2:07:48
  and stuff like that, and like you said, all the
• 2:07:50
  stuff that had to come together for it to make
• 2:07:52
  sense and not seem like a jumping the shark to
• 2:07:54
  have la like a show up in the story and
• 2:07:56
  help at the end, but it came there's it was
• 2:07:59
  set up appropriately that I think it worked.
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think it worked really well. I think
• 2:08:04
  that it handles the themes in a great way, in
• 2:08:07
  a very influenced way. That's just a lot of fun.
• 2:08:09
  And I just, like I said, every time we get
• 2:08:11
  to read dope being, I mean, this is just a
• 2:08:12
  second story, but it's just such a fantastical, big experience
• 2:08:16
  that they just feel so they feel so tonally its own,
• 2:08:20
  you know, like it just feels it just it dives
• 2:08:23
  into that fantastical territory in such a way that it
• 2:08:26
  almost instantly I'm just like, oh, yeah, this is a
• 2:08:28
  dopabing story, which I think is just really really fun. Yeah.
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 3: Like I said, it feels very like Narnia, very like otherworldly,
• 2:08:36
  you know, legendary journey the kids go on kind of thing.
• 2:08:41
  There was something I was going to say about, Oh,
• 2:08:45
  I also kind of like how the ending of the
• 2:08:48
  story almost goes with what I was saying earlier, how
• 2:08:50
  Laca is such an interesting figure because she was one thing,
• 2:08:54
  but now culturally she's been made into something so different,
• 2:08:57
  almost as a way of saying sorry to what she
• 2:08:59
  originally was.
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 4: And here at the end of the story, we.
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 5: Have our.
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 3: We have our lake, the person physically called down lake
• 2:09:08
  of the dog, and then even then it suffers. So
• 2:09:11
  it's almost like an It may have not been going
• 2:09:15
  for this at all, but it's almost like a statement
• 2:09:17
  about the like the line at the end, it's good
• 2:09:21
  to be a dog, because they're not necromancers, the idea
• 2:09:24
  of bringing back these old tragedies for your own use
• 2:09:27
  or your own purpose. It's almost better to just be
• 2:09:30
  something that shows compassion rather than something that twists meaning
• 2:09:33
  and desire for one's own purpose, even if the purpose
• 2:09:36
  is altruistic.
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: Welling there, abandoning the powers and the the the line
• 2:09:44
  of dogs aren't necromancers. To me, it just seems that
• 2:09:47
  dogs are the epitome of innocence, and man, no matter
• 2:09:51
  good or bad, will always have corruption, like the the
• 2:09:54
  power is fueled off hatred. I think it's just another
• 2:09:57
  thing that just shows that, like man is like, it's
• 2:10:00
  better to be that of a dog than it is
• 2:10:02
  a man or whatever, just because they are at its
• 2:10:07
  core good, you know, I think that that's kind of
• 2:10:10
  the idea. But man, you know, for a theme today
• 2:10:12
  of being sacrificed. What a fun three stories we got
• 2:10:16
  to read. Really enjoyed getting to get in on Max's
• 2:10:19
  stories for the first time, and those are a lot
• 2:10:20
  of fun. But all in all, it's always fun to
• 2:10:23
  do a grab bag and I feel like all of
• 2:10:24
  these today were just great, really really great, especially after
• 2:10:27
  some last week's debacle, so you know, nice little palate cleanser.
• 2:10:32
  Thank you so much to our audio listeners over on
• 2:10:35
  Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and of course thank you to
• 2:10:37
  our patrons who do support the channel as well and
• 2:10:39
  get a little bit of extra content on the side.
• 2:10:42
  Until next time, guys, stay safe and hey, pet your dog.
• 2:10:46
  Pet your dog on the head, all right, needs a
• 2:10:47
  little pet. Go ahead, We'll take a little break for
• 2:10:50
  a second.
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 5: All right, there you go.
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 3: Thank you guys, and also be sure to support dumpe
• 2:10:56
  being at the links of the description again they lost
• 2:10:58
  the Reddit accounts well, and also check out all of
• 2:11:01
  Max Voyage's stuff incredible.
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 4: Authors.
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 3: Always like supporting people to write good stories because I
• 2:11:06
  like seeing more good stories get made. So be sure
• 2:11:08
  to show this love if you can, it would mean
• 2:11:09
  the world. And also be sure to not show Hunter
• 2:11:12
  love and if you see the picture of my lips
• 2:11:15
  anywhere from my dentist appointment, go ahead and report it
• 2:11:18
  as an invasion of privacy under hippo laws.
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 4: He can't do that.
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 3: It's illegal and a federal crime. So call the police
• 2:11:26
  and get him reported.
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: That would be great. Thanks,