Movie theater with beds san antonio

I apologize as it's a bit of a novel and doesn't quite make grammatical sense in some spots. I can read goodly now and again lol. The reason it says M4R is because I mainly like women and trans women but I also like a very very very specific type of guy and certain trans men as I'm partially bi. Chances are you aren't that type but feel free to ask if you are. (Didn’t want to offend anyone so I’d rather say in private) Just throwing that out there as it's a deal breaker for most women. Which why would it be? The number one reason I get is I'm going to cheat on them with a guy. As if being bi has any bearing on cheating and not the persons character.
I'm a 35 year old guy living in the middle-ish of Texas looking for a female partner. Partner as in LTR. That's Long Term Relationship meaning boyfriend and girlfriend and holding hands type of stuff. You know, adult things? I had someone comment I was too vague so this is me being specific. I'm gonna be honest and kinda sad so bare with me.
So I spent New Years alone (I realize June is like tomorrow lol but I have yet to meet someone and I think the story is still somewhat relevant). Rang in the New Year in bed staring at the ceiling listening to fireworks go off into the night. The next day I cried randomly while browsing for a movie to watch on TV. At first I didn't know why as I'm not much of a crier but I realized for the first time that I genuinely felt alone. I have no partner, no family that I speak to, no friends just acquaintances, really no one there for me. That's my own doing which took years to accomplish through me being closed off and just shutting people out, so I figure it might take just as long to fix. I'm not complaining as I got myself into this predicament. It's gonna sound dumb but I wanted a New Years kiss. I'd never had one and it seemed like a fun dumb silly thing to do. Eh maybe one day. Ok well back to my spiel. (I'm not depressed or anything or wanting attention) Some of my hobbies and interests are movies, reading, cooking, kayaking, records, video games, board games, snorkeling, bowling, swimming, escape rooms, puzzles and antiquing. I would describe myself as more goofy and dorky than nerdy. I like to go out and do fun things but also stay in and cuddle and relax. I guess it depends on my mood and the weather. I prefer the cold and would love to live in a state with actual seasons and snow. I'm 5'10, stocky AKA fat and open for adventure and new experiences.
Here are some random facts about me:
Some of my favorite bands are: The Black Keys, Kings of Leon, The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The White Stripes.
Christmas is my favorite holiday, mainly because of the cold and festive activities.
I come from a medium-ish family.
I'm exceptionally patient but every person has a breaking point lol
I like traveling a lot. It's a basic thing that lots of people like. But I've found lots of people hate to leave their house, town or state so if that's you we probably might not be a good match. I also enjoy the mountains. But I don't like roughing it (give me that sweet AC in the summer). Hiking is so hard on my knees and I haven't done it in a while that if I were to I think about doing it I'd about die or twist a kankle.
I don't eat seafood, mushrooms, artichokes or pineapple on pizza (Who cares about this? Doesn't mean I won't go to a restaurant with you that has these things)
Never went to college as I'm horrible in a classroom setting and at taking tests.
Have probably the most boring job imaginable (Ask me about it)
Overweight but trying to work on it and make better choices (Get healthier and lose weight together maybe?)
Non religious but no issue with what you believe. (If anything)
Looking into sterilization. If you are already maybe you can give me some info or tips?
My own red flags 🚩
I work too much and oftentimes can't talk.
I send selfies often. I'm a visual person and like receiving photos. Apparently it's a generational thing. Hopefully you think pictures are neat as well? Is it really that weird to want to see you and your life and show you mine?
I sometimes speedily become attached to people, not in a weird way, but if I like you and we have some kind of connection, I will enjoy talking to you and want to do it often.
I'm a very organized person and will plan out pretty much anything from a vacation to a road trip to a birthday. This makes being with a go with the flow type of person hard at times I've learned but still very much doable.
Due to childhood trauma I'm secretive which can be annoying.
MY own "HELL YES" 🏁
I know how to cook.
I will always drive if you want. (Within reason)
Great at escape rooms and jigsaw puzzles.
Can read a map.
Decent at reading backwards upside down writing.
What I'm looking for:
Is my age or older. But I'm willing to go quite a bit lower if you are neat and we have stuff in common. But super young isn't my goal here.
Mature, considerate, responsible and funny (Dorky wouldn't hurt)
Someone who never cheats, honesty and trust are important to me.
Someone who is open-minded, willing to try new things, be adventurous, funny and nerdy.
Someone who believes in sharing household chores equally because we are both adults.
Be open and frank about issues you or I are having. Not pushy or jealous. Won't yell or argue about stupid things, I've had enough of that.
Willing to push me to become a better version of myself (Can you turn me into Batman?)
If this sounds like you then feel free to reach out and say hi or challenge me to a game of Scrabble/Pictionary/hand to hand combat maybe? Maybe Wordle or some online vidya game?
P.S. I realize my post isn't for everyone but if your seeing red flags from my post then I'd say trust your gut and please don't message me as we probably aren't compatible. I honestly don't mean that in a mean or hurtful way. I've just been messaged quite often with women saying they pushed aside red flags to get to know me. Please don't, it never ends well and you end up wasting both of our time. Wouldn't you rather spend it finding your person with no flags?

I apologize as it's a bit of a novel and doesn't quite make grammatical sense in some spots. I can read goodly now and again lol. The reason it says M4R is because I mainly like women and trans women but I also like a very very very specific type of guy and certain trans men as I'm partially bi. Chances are you aren't that type but feel free to ask if you are. (Didn’t want to offend anyone so I’d rather say in private) Just throwing that out there as it's a deal breaker for most women. Which why would it be? The number one reason I get is I'm going to cheat on them with a guy. As if being bi has any bearing on cheating and not the persons character.
I'm a 35 year old guy living in the middle-ish of Texas looking for a female partner. Partner as in LTR. That's Long Term Relationship meaning boyfriend and girlfriend and holding hands type of stuff. You know, adult things? I had someone comment I was too vague so this is me being specific. I'm gonna be honest and kinda sad so bare with me.
So I spent New Years alone (I realize June is like tomorrow lol but I have yet to meet someone and I think the story is still somewhat relevant). Rang in the New Year in bed staring at the ceiling listening to fireworks go off into the night. The next day I cried randomly while browsing for a movie to watch on TV. At first I didn't know why as I'm not much of a crier but I realized for the first time that I genuinely felt alone. I have no partner, no family that I speak to, no friends just acquaintances, really no one there for me. That's my own doing which took years to accomplish through me being closed off and just shutting people out, so I figure it might take just as long to fix. I'm not complaining as I got myself into this predicament. It's gonna sound dumb but I wanted a New Years kiss. I'd never had one and it seemed like a fun dumb silly thing to do. Eh maybe one day. Ok well back to my spiel. (I'm not depressed or anything or wanting attention) Some of my hobbies and interests are movies, reading, cooking, kayaking, records, video games, board games, snorkeling, bowling, swimming, escape rooms, puzzles and antiquing. I would describe myself as more goofy and dorky than nerdy. I like to go out and do fun things but also stay in and cuddle and relax. I guess it depends on my mood and the weather. I prefer the cold and would love to live in a state with actual seasons and snow. I'm 5'10, stocky AKA fat and open for adventure and new experiences.
Here are some random facts about me:
Some of my favorite bands are: The Black Keys, Kings of Leon, The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The White Stripes.
Christmas is my favorite holiday, mainly because of the cold and festive activities.
I come from a medium-ish family.
I'm exceptionally patient but every person has a breaking point lol
I like traveling a lot. It's a basic thing that lots of people like. But I've found lots of people hate to leave their house, town or state so if that's you we probably might not be a good match. I also enjoy the mountains. But I don't like roughing it (give me that sweet AC in the summer). Hiking is so hard on my knees and I haven't done it in a while that if I were to I think about doing it I'd about die or twist a kankle.
I don't eat seafood, mushrooms, artichokes or pineapple on pizza (Who cares about this? Doesn't mean I won't go to a restaurant with you that has these things)
Never went to college as I'm horrible in a classroom setting and at taking tests.
Have probably the most boring job imaginable (Ask me about it)
Overweight but trying to work on it and make better choices (Get healthier and lose weight together maybe?)
Non religious but no issue with what you believe. (If anything)
Looking into sterilization. If you are already maybe you can give me some info or tips?
My own red flags 🚩
I work too much and oftentimes can't talk.
I send selfies often. I'm a visual person and like receiving photos. Apparently it's a generational thing. Hopefully you think pictures are neat as well? Is it really that weird to want to see you and your life and show you mine?
I sometimes speedily become attached to people, not in a weird way, but if I like you and we have some kind of connection, I will enjoy talking to you and want to do it often.
I'm a very organized person and will plan out pretty much anything from a vacation to a road trip to a birthday. This makes being with a go with the flow type of person hard at times I've learned but still very much doable.
Due to childhood trauma I'm secretive which can be annoying.
MY own "HELL YES" 🏁
I know how to cook.
I will always drive if you want. (Within reason)
Great at escape rooms and jigsaw puzzles.
Can read a map.
Decent at reading backwards upside down writing.
What I'm looking for:
Is my age or older. But I'm willing to go quite a bit lower if you are neat and we have stuff in common. But super young isn't my goal here.
Mature, considerate, responsible and funny (Dorky wouldn't hurt)
Someone who never cheats, honesty and trust are important to me.
Someone who is open-minded, willing to try new things, be adventurous, funny and nerdy.
Someone who believes in sharing household chores equally because we are both adults.
Be open and frank about issues you or I are having. Not pushy or jealous. Won't yell or argue about stupid things, I've had enough of that.
Willing to push me to become a better version of myself (Can you turn me into Batman?)
If this sounds like you then feel free to reach out and say hi or challenge me to a game of Scrabble/Pictionary/hand to hand combat maybe? Maybe Wordle or some online vidya game?
P.S. I realize my post isn't for everyone but if your seeing red flags from my post then I'd say trust your gut and please don't message me as we probably aren't compatible. I honestly don't mean that in a mean or hurtful way. I've just been messaged quite often with women saying they pushed aside red flags to get to know me. Please don't, it never ends well and you end up wasting both of our time. Wouldn't you rather spend it finding your person with no flags?

Animated Film! Here are options for downloading or watching Shin Kamen Rider streaming the full movie online for free on 123movies & Reddit, including where to watch Disney’s latest live-action adaptation movies at home. Is Shin Kamen Rider 2023 available to stream? Is watching Shin Kamen Rider on Peacock, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Netflix or Amazon Prime? Yes, we have found an authentic streaming option/service.
Watch Here: Shin Kamen Rider Movie Online Free
Watch Here: Shin Kamen Rider Movie Online Free
“Shin Kamen Rider” is one of the most popular and beloved animated films of all time. The story of a young mermaid who dreams of becoming human has captivated audiences for generations, and the film’s iconic songs and characters have become timeless classics. If you’re a fan of “Shin Kamen Rider” and you’re looking for a way to watch the film for free online, there are a few options available to you. One popular way to watch movies and TV shows online for free is to use a streaming service like Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime. These services offer a variety of movies and TV shows that you can watch on your computer or mobile device. Most of them have a free trial period that allows you to watch a certain number of hours of content before you have to start paying. Another option for watching “Shin Kamen Rider” online is to find a free movie streaming website. These websites offer a variety of movies and TV shows that you can watch for free. However, they often have a smaller selection of titles than paid streaming services. If you’re willing to watch a few commercials, you can also find “Shin Kamen Rider” for free on YouTube. YouTube offers a variety of full-length movies and TV shows that you can watch for free. You can also find “Shin Kamen Rider” on DVD or Blu-ray. This is a great option if you want to watch the movie in high definition. You can usually find DVDs and Blu-rays at your local grocery store or online. Finally, you can also listen to “Shin Kamen Rider” soundtrack for free on Spotify. Spotify is a music streaming service that offers a wide variety of songs, including many from Disney movies. You can create a free account and start listening to “Shin Kamen Rider” soundtrack right away.
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“Shin Kamen Rider” Movie Free Online
“Shin Kamen Rider” is a movie that can be enjoyed by people of all ages. It is a charming story about a young mermaid who falls in love with a human prince and must make a difficult decision between staying true to her family or following her heart. The movie has some great messages about staying true to yourself and being brave enough to follow your dreams. “Shin Kamen Rider” is a timeless classic that is sure to bring a smile to your face. There are a few ways that you can watch “Shin Kamen Rider” movie free online streaming at home. One way is to sign up for a free trial of a subscription service like Netflix or Hulu. This will give you access to a library of movies and TV shows that you can watch at your convenience. Another way to watch “Shin Kamen Rider” free online streaming is to find a website that offers the movie for free. These websites typically stream movies from their own servers, so you will need a good internet connection to watch the movie. Finally, you can also rent or purchase “Shin Kamen Rider” from a digital retailer like iTunes or Amazon.
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“Shin Kamen Rider” Movie Free Online Streaming
“Shin Kamen Rider” is one of the most beloved animated films of all time. The movie tells the story of Ariel, a mermaid who dreams of becoming human. Though she is content living under the sea with her father, King Triton, and her friends, Flounder and Sebastian, she can’t help but be fascinated by the world above the waves. When she meets a handsome prince, she takes a leap of faith and makes a wish that she could live on land and be with him forever. “Shin Kamen Rider” is available to watch for free online streaming on a number of websites. To watch the movie, simply search for it on your preferred streaming site. The movie can also be found for purchase or rent on a number of digital platforms. “Shin Kamen Rider” is a classic film that captures the imagination and hearts of viewers of all ages. The movie is perfect for a family movie night, a date night, or simply when you need a dose of nostalgia. So, grab some popcorn, curl up on the couch, and enjoy “Shin Kamen Rider”!
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“Shin Kamen Rider” Netflix or HBO Max
Assuming you want a500-word discussion of whether “Shin Kamen Rider” is available for streaming on Netflix or HBO Max: “Shin Kamen Rider” was released in 1989 and is thus not available on Netflix. It is, however, available to stream on HBO Max. HBO Max is a new streaming service from WarnerMedia that includes content from HBO, Warner Bros., Turner Classic Movies, and more. “Shin Kamen Rider” is part of the HBO Max catalog. To stream “Shin Kamen Rider” on HBO Max, you’ll need to sign up for the service. HBO Max costs $14.99/month. Once you’ve signed up, you can watch “Shin Kamen Rider” on your computer, phone, or streaming device. So, if you want to watch “Shin Kamen Rider” streaming online, the best bet is to sign up for HBO Max. However, if you’re looking for a cheaper option, you can always wait for “Shin Kamen Rider” to be added to Netflix.
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“Shin Kamen Rider” Movie Streaming On Peacock
Shin Kamen Rider is one of the most iconic Disney movies of all time. It was the movie that launched Disney’s success in the 90s and is still loved by fans today. Thankfully, you can watch Shin Kamen Rider online for free on Peacock. Here’s how to watch Shin Kamen Rider streaming on Peacock: First, you’ll need to sign up for a free account on Peacock. You can do this by going to their website and entering your email address and creating a password. Once you have an account, sign in and hover over the “Browse” tab at the top of the page. From there, you’ll want to select the “Movies” option and then scroll down until you find Shin Kamen Rider. Once you click on the movie, you’ll be able to watch it for free. Peacock is a great option for watching Shin Kamen Rider online because it’s free and you don’t have to worry about ads. You can also create a watchlist of movies and shows so you never miss an episode of your favorite show or a new release.
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If you’re a fan of “Shin Kamen Rider,” you’re in luck. The movie is available to watch for free online streaming at home. All you need is a computer or mobile device and an internet connection. Simply go to the website of your choice and search for “Shin Kamen Rider.” You’ll be able to watch the movie from the comfort of your own home with no hassle.
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What Is the Release Date for Shin Kamen Rider?
Ariel’s quest to go from a mermaid into a human begins anew when Shin Kamen Rider premieres this Memorial Day Weekend on Friday, May 26th, 2023. The film will be going up against not one, but two stand-up comedians and their films that weekend, with Sebastian Maniscalco’s About My Father and Bert Kreischer’s The Machine premiering on the same day. That said, Shin Kamen Rider will almost certainly be the choice for younger audiences and families.
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While some Disney films are heading straight to Disney+, Shin Kamen Rider will first be shown exclusively in theaters.
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Is Shin Kamen Rider Available On Hulu?
Viewers are saying that they want to view the new animation movie Shin Kamen Rider on Hulu. Unfortunately, this is not possible since Hulu currently does not offer any of the free episodes of this series streaming at this time. It will be exclusive to the MTV channel, which you get by subscribing to cable or satellite TV services. You will not be able to watch it on Hulu or any other free streaming service.
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Shin Kamen Rider Cast and Characters
Shin Kamen Rider was written by David Magee and directed by Rob Marshall. It stars the following actors:
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Halle Bailey as Ariel
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Melissa McCarthy as Ursula
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Javier Bardem as King Triton
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Noma Dumezweni as Queen Selina
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Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric
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Daveed Diggs as Sebastian
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Awkwafina as Scuttle
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Jacob Tremblay as Flounder
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Art Malik as Sir Grimsby
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What is Shin Kamen Rider About?
The official synopsis for Shin Kamen Rider by Walt Disney Studios read:
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“Shin Kamen Rider” is the beloved story of Ariel, a beautiful and spirited young mermaid with a thirst for adventure. The youngest of King Triton’s daughters and the most defiant, Ariel longs to find out more about the world beyond the sea, and while visiting the surface, falls for the dashing Prince Eric. While mermaids are forbidden to interact with humans, Ariel must follow her heart. She makes a deal with the evil sea witch, Ursula, which gives her a chance to experience life on land, but ultimately places her life – and her father’s crown – in jeopardy.There is not much mystery in Shin Kamen Rider’s plot. As seen in Disney’s many other live-action remakes, it is anticipated that the film’s plot will largely stick to the original. With the well-known song “Part of Your World,” in which Ariel sings about her wish to be a part of the world beyond the water, i.e., the human realm, the teaser already alluded to Ariel’s fascination with the human world. Fans will get to see Ariel and Prince Eric’s romance as they deal with the challenges posed by their differences.

I apologize as it's a bit of a novel and doesn't quite make grammatical sense in some spots. I can read goodly now and again lol. The reason it says M4R is because I mainly like women and trans women but I also like a very very very specific type of guy and certain trans men as I'm partially bi. Chances are you aren't that type but feel free to ask if you are. (Didn’t want to offend anyone so I’d rather say in private) Just throwing that out there as it's a deal breaker for most women. Which why would it be? The number one reason I get is I'm going to cheat on them with a guy. As if being bi has any bearing on cheating and not the persons character.
I'm a 35 year old guy living in the middle-ish of Texas looking for a female partner. Partner as in LTR. That's Long Term Relationship meaning boyfriend and girlfriend and holding hands type of stuff. You know, adult things? I had someone comment I was too vague so this is me being specific. I'm gonna be honest and kinda sad so bare with me.
So I spent New Years alone (I realize June is like tomorrow lol but I have yet to meet someone and I think the story is still somewhat relevant). Rang in the New Year in bed staring at the ceiling listening to fireworks go off into the night. The next day I cried randomly while browsing for a movie to watch on TV. At first I didn't know why as I'm not much of a crier but I realized for the first time that I genuinely felt alone. I have no partner, no family that I speak to, no friends just acquaintances, really no one there for me. That's my own doing which took years to accomplish through me being closed off and just shutting people out, so I figure it might take just as long to fix. I'm not complaining as I got myself into this predicament. It's gonna sound dumb but I wanted a New Years kiss. I'd never had one and it seemed like a fun dumb silly thing to do. Eh maybe one day. Ok well back to my spiel. (I'm not depressed or anything or wanting attention) Some of my hobbies and interests are movies, reading, cooking, kayaking, records, video games, board games, snorkeling, bowling, swimming, escape rooms, puzzles and antiquing. I would describe myself as more goofy and dorky than nerdy. I like to go out and do fun things but also stay in and cuddle and relax. I guess it depends on my mood and the weather. I prefer the cold and would love to live in a state with actual seasons and snow. I'm 5'10, stocky AKA fat and open for adventure and new experiences.
Here are some random facts about me:
Some of my favorite bands are: The Black Keys, Kings of Leon, The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The White Stripes.
Christmas is my favorite holiday, mainly because of the cold and festive activities.
I come from a medium-ish family.
I'm exceptionally patient but every person has a breaking point lol
I like traveling a lot. It's a basic thing that lots of people like. But I've found lots of people hate to leave their house, town or state so if that's you we probably might not be a good match. I also enjoy the mountains. But I don't like roughing it (give me that sweet AC in the summer). Hiking is so hard on my knees and I haven't done it in a while that if I were to I think about doing it I'd about die or twist a kankle.
I don't eat seafood, mushrooms, artichokes or pineapple on pizza (Who cares about this? Doesn't mean I won't go to a restaurant with you that has these things)
Never went to college as I'm horrible in a classroom setting and at taking tests.
Have probably the most boring job imaginable (Ask me about it)
Overweight but trying to work on it and make better choices (Get healthier and lose weight together maybe?)
Non religious but no issue with what you believe. (If anything)
Looking into sterilization. If you are already maybe you can give me some info or tips?
My own red flags 🚩
I work too much and oftentimes can't talk.
I send selfies often. I'm a visual person and like receiving photos. Apparently it's a generational thing. Hopefully you think pictures are neat as well? Is it really that weird to want to see you and your life and show you mine?
I sometimes speedily become attached to people, not in a weird way, but if I like you and we have some kind of connection, I will enjoy talking to you and want to do it often.
I'm a very organized person and will plan out pretty much anything from a vacation to a road trip to a birthday. This makes being with a go with the flow type of person hard at times I've learned but still very much doable.
Due to childhood trauma I'm secretive which can be annoying.
MY own "HELL YES" 🏁
I know how to cook.
I will always drive if you want. (Within reason)
Great at escape rooms and jigsaw puzzles.
Can read a map.
Decent at reading backwards upside down writing.
What I'm looking for:
Is my age or older. But I'm willing to go quite a bit lower if you are neat and we have stuff in common. But super young isn't my goal here.
Mature, considerate, responsible and funny (Dorky wouldn't hurt)
Someone who never cheats, honesty and trust are important to me.
Someone who is open-minded, willing to try new things, be adventurous, funny and nerdy.
Someone who believes in sharing household chores equally because we are both adults.
Be open and frank about issues you or I are having. Not pushy or jealous. Won't yell or argue about stupid things, I've had enough of that.
Willing to push me to become a better version of myself (Can you turn me into Batman?)
If this sounds like you then feel free to reach out and say hi or challenge me to a game of Scrabble/Pictionary/hand to hand combat maybe? Maybe Wordle or some online vidya game?
P.S. I realize my post isn't for everyone but if your seeing red flags from my post then I'd say trust your gut and please don't message me as we probably aren't compatible. I honestly don't mean that in a mean or hurtful way. I've just been messaged quite often with women saying they pushed aside red flags to get to know me. Please don't, it never ends well and you end up wasting both of our time. Wouldn't you rather spend it finding your person with no flags?

I (F 19) started talking to my friend (M 19) at a football party in February. We had seen each other around before the party, but that was when we actually really began to talk. We texted all week and went on a day trip with other friends that next weekend. Once we got back, we hung out at my place and he ended up sleeping over after watching a movie and a bit of second base. He was the first person who ever slept in my bed with me. Shortly after, we decided to be physically exclusive... for three days because then he decided we were moving too quickly for him and being just friends for a bit would be better. I was a bit hurt but decided it was better to be friends with him than to possibly hurt him or get hurt.
During the time we were just friends we were both pretty flirty with each other and spent hours texting. On his birthday, I made sure to FaceTime him at midnight and I bought him a semi-expensive dinner ($47 which can be a lot for a college student, especially since if you include what I got for myself, it was about $70) the next day. Neither of us went back home for Spring Break, so we spent even more time together and eventually he slept over again. He went on a trip towards the end of break and on a FaceTime he asked me to be his girlfriend and said I could take my time to decide.
Note: When I was just friends with him, I was starting to develop feelings for someone else and I told him about this person throughout our friendship. They do not know each other, but they know of each other. He also told me that he still had feelings for a past hookup after we decided to just be friends since he had hooked up with that person just a few days before we started talking. Well, in the end, the person I was developing feelings for did not like me back.
I was still getting over that person when he asked me out. Plus when he slept over the second time he did a few things to me (third-base related) without asking for consent first (I was a bit confused by what he was doing in the moment and asked him about it and he asked for consent then, but not before he started doing it). After that experience, I did not know how I felt about him doing that to me. On the day he got back from his trip, he came over and we had a discussion about how I was not ready for a relationship yet and about what he did to me. He apologized for not asking first and we had a very emotional conversation in which we decided to not be in a relationship.
Over the next two weeks, we still spent nearly every day together and ended up going to third base a few times. He was a good friend that I felt comfortable with and I began to regret saying no to being his girlfriend. I then decided to ask him out (this was about two weeks after he asked me out). I bought him a few things he liked and went over to his place. I must admit, he is the first person I have ever asked out, so it wasn't the best it could have been. He said he would have to think about it because he moved on from wanting a relationship with me, but we decided to hang out afterward. I don't know why, but I ended up losing my v-card to him that night. The experience was not good at all and I wanted to cry after because it was nothing like I imagined it to be. I always wanted it to be with someone special, who really cared about me, but I guess I just really wanted to feel connected to him in the moment so I did it with him. The entire experience was awkward and even thinking about it now makes me sad.
I never told him how I felt about my first time and continued hanging out with him. We ended up having sex again. Two days later I went to a banquet and talked to one of his friends about my feelings for him. They told me he was probably ready for a relationship since he asked someone out the day before, but got rejected since she has a bf. I was shocked and a bit hurt because that meant he asked someone out the day after we spent the night together cuddling and having intercourse. He and I hardly talked during the banquet and he left without saying goodbye to me. Even though I was hurt, I still wanted to see him so I literally ran (in heels) to catch up to him. We talked for a bit about random stuff and he invited me over. Sadly, I went to his place again. Looking back at it, I really regret going over because at that point I should have realized that he was just using me, but I truly wanted to be with him. I was just an emotional wreck.
We've barely talked since then because of finals, but we are both taking summer classes so I will start seeing him again soon. I still try to text him to at least maintain a friendship, but he doesn't seem to be putting any effort in anymore. Before it was about a 50/50 on who started the conversations and now I'm lucky if he even responds to my messages.
I'm sorry, I know this is a mess, but that is kind of how I feel right now. I thought he and I were good friends because we have literally used that term with each other, but I don't think a good friend should use the other like he used me. If he didn't like me and wanted to ask someone else out, why did he still sleep with me? To this day, he doesn't know I know about him asking someone else out and I would have never known if his friend hadn't told me. Where do I go from here? I know I am going to keep on seeing him for the rest of college because we run in close circles and I really do want to continue being friends with him, but I just don't know what to do.

I apologize as it's a bit of a novel and doesn't quite make grammatical sense in some spots. I can read goodly now and again lol. The reason it says M4R is because I mainly like women and trans women but I also like a very very very specific type of guy and certain trans men as I'm partially bi. Chances are you aren't that type but feel free to ask if you are. (Didn’t want to offend anyone so I’d rather say in private) Just throwing that out there as it's a deal breaker for most women. Which why would it be? The number one reason I get is I'm going to cheat on them with a guy. As if being bi has any bearing on cheating and not the persons character.
I'm a 35 year old guy living in the middle-ish of Texas looking for a female partner. Partner as in LTR. That's Long Term Relationship meaning boyfriend and girlfriend and holding hands type of stuff. You know, adult things? I had someone comment I was too vague so this is me being specific. I'm gonna be honest and kinda sad so bare with me.
So I spent New Years alone (I realize June is like tomorrow lol but I have yet to meet someone and I think the story is still somewhat relevant). Rang in the New Year in bed staring at the ceiling listening to fireworks go off into the night. The next day I cried randomly while browsing for a movie to watch on TV. At first I didn't know why as I'm not much of a crier but I realized for the first time that I genuinely felt alone. I have no partner, no family that I speak to, no friends just acquaintances, really no one there for me. That's my own doing which took years to accomplish through me being closed off and just shutting people out, so I figure it might take just as long to fix. I'm not complaining as I got myself into this predicament. It's gonna sound dumb but I wanted a New Years kiss. I'd never had one and it seemed like a fun dumb silly thing to do. Eh maybe one day. Ok well back to my spiel. (I'm not depressed or anything or wanting attention) Some of my hobbies and interests are movies, reading, cooking, kayaking, records, video games, board games, snorkeling, bowling, swimming, escape rooms, puzzles and antiquing. I would describe myself as more goofy and dorky than nerdy. I like to go out and do fun things but also stay in and cuddle and relax. I guess it depends on my mood and the weather. I prefer the cold and would love to live in a state with actual seasons and snow. I'm 5'10, stocky AKA fat and open for adventure and new experiences.
Here are some random facts about me:
Some of my favorite bands are: The Black Keys, Kings of Leon, The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The White Stripes.
Christmas is my favorite holiday, mainly because of the cold and festive activities.
I come from a medium-ish family.
I'm exceptionally patient but every person has a breaking point lol
I like traveling a lot. It's a basic thing that lots of people like. But I've found lots of people hate to leave their house, town or state so if that's you we probably might not be a good match. I also enjoy the mountains. But I don't like roughing it (give me that sweet AC in the summer). Hiking is so hard on my knees and I haven't done it in a while that if I were to I think about doing it I'd about die or twist a kankle.
I don't eat seafood, mushrooms, artichokes or pineapple on pizza (Who cares about this? Doesn't mean I won't go to a restaurant with you that has these things)
Never went to college as I'm horrible in a classroom setting and at taking tests.
Have probably the most boring job imaginable (Ask me about it)
Overweight but trying to work on it and make better choices (Get healthier and lose weight together maybe?)
Non religious but no issue with what you believe. (If anything)
Looking into sterilization. If you are already maybe you can give me some info or tips?
My own red flags 🚩
I work too much and oftentimes can't talk.
I send selfies often. I'm a visual person and like receiving photos. Apparently it's a generational thing. Hopefully you think pictures are neat as well? Is it really that weird to want to see you and your life and show you mine?
I sometimes speedily become attached to people, not in a weird way, but if I like you and we have some kind of connection, I will enjoy talking to you and want to do it often.
I'm a very organized person and will plan out pretty much anything from a vacation to a road trip to a birthday. This makes being with a go with the flow type of person hard at times I've learned but still very much doable.
Due to childhood trauma I'm secretive which can be annoying.
MY own "HELL YES" 🏁
I know how to cook.
I will always drive if you want. (Within reason)
Great at escape rooms and jigsaw puzzles.
Can read a map.
Decent at reading backwards upside down writing.
What I'm looking for:
Is my age or older. But I'm willing to go quite a bit lower if you are neat and we have stuff in common. But super young isn't my goal here.
Mature, considerate, responsible and funny (Dorky wouldn't hurt)
Someone who never cheats, honesty and trust are important to me.
Someone who is open-minded, willing to try new things, be adventurous, funny and nerdy.
Someone who believes in sharing household chores equally because we are both adults.
Be open and frank about issues you or I are having. Not pushy or jealous. Won't yell or argue about stupid things, I've had enough of that.
Willing to push me to become a better version of myself (Can you turn me into Batman?)
If this sounds like you then feel free to reach out and say hi or challenge me to a game of Scrabble/Pictionary/hand to hand combat maybe? Maybe Wordle or some online vidya game?
P.S. I realize my post isn't for everyone but if your seeing red flags from my post then I'd say trust your gut and please don't message me as we probably aren't compatible. I honestly don't mean that in a mean or hurtful way. I've just been messaged quite often with women saying they pushed aside red flags to get to know me. Please don't, it never ends well and you end up wasting both of our time. Wouldn't you rather spend it finding your person with no flags?

Trade scenario:
Boston receives: 2023 1st overall pick (Victor Wembanyama)
San Antonio received: Jayson Tatum, Jalen Brown, Marcus Smart, 2-4 first round picks
Boston’s core hasn’t been working, so they get a fresh start with a new young talent. Meanwhile in San Antonio, Pop has a chance to lead a team deep into the playoffs again. Who says no?

I apologize as it's a bit of a novel and doesn't quite make grammatical sense in some spots. I can read goodly now and again lol. The reason it says M4R is because I mainly like women and trans women but I also like a very very very specific type of guy and certain trans men as I'm partially bi. Chances are you aren't that type but feel free to ask if you are. (Didn’t want to offend anyone so I’d rather say in private) Just throwing that out there as it's a deal breaker for most women. Which why would it be? The number one reason I get is I'm going to cheat on them with a guy. As if being bi has any bearing on cheating and not the persons character.
I'm a 35 year old guy living in the middle-ish of Texas looking for a female partner. Partner as in LTR. That's Long Term Relationship meaning boyfriend and girlfriend and holding hands type of stuff. You know, adult things? I had someone comment I was too vague so this is me being specific. I'm gonna be honest and kinda sad so bare with me.
So I spent New Years alone (I realize June is like tomorrow lol but I have yet to meet someone and I think the story is still somewhat relevant). Rang in the New Year in bed staring at the ceiling listening to fireworks go off into the night. The next day I cried randomly while browsing for a movie to watch on TV. At first I didn't know why as I'm not much of a crier but I realized for the first time that I genuinely felt alone. I have no partner, no family that I speak to, no friends just acquaintances, really no one there for me. That's my own doing which took years to accomplish through me being closed off and just shutting people out, so I figure it might take just as long to fix. I'm not complaining as I got myself into this predicament. It's gonna sound dumb but I wanted a New Years kiss. I'd never had one and it seemed like a fun dumb silly thing to do. Eh maybe one day. Ok well back to my spiel. (I'm not depressed or anything or wanting attention) Some of my hobbies and interests are movies, reading, cooking, kayaking, records, video games, board games, snorkeling, bowling, swimming, escape rooms, puzzles and antiquing. I would describe myself as more goofy and dorky than nerdy. I like to go out and do fun things but also stay in and cuddle and relax. I guess it depends on my mood and the weather. I prefer the cold and would love to live in a state with actual seasons and snow. I'm 5'10, stocky AKA fat and open for adventure and new experiences.
Here are some random facts about me:
Some of my favorite bands are: The Black Keys, Kings of Leon, The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The White Stripes.
Christmas is my favorite holiday, mainly because of the cold and festive activities.
I come from a medium-ish family.
I'm exceptionally patient but every person has a breaking point lol
I like traveling a lot. It's a basic thing that lots of people like. But I've found lots of people hate to leave their house, town or state so if that's you we probably might not be a good match. I also enjoy the mountains. But I don't like roughing it (give me that sweet AC in the summer). Hiking is so hard on my knees and I haven't done it in a while that if I were to I think about doing it I'd about die or twist a kankle.
I don't eat seafood, mushrooms, artichokes or pineapple on pizza (Who cares about this? Doesn't mean I won't go to a restaurant with you that has these things)
Never went to college as I'm horrible in a classroom setting and at taking tests.
Have probably the most boring job imaginable (Ask me about it)
Overweight but trying to work on it and make better choices (Get healthier and lose weight together maybe?)
Non religious but no issue with what you believe. (If anything)
Looking into sterilization. If you are already maybe you can give me some info or tips?
My own red flags 🚩
I work too much and oftentimes can't talk.
I send selfies often. I'm a visual person and like receiving photos. Apparently it's a generational thing. Hopefully you think pictures are neat as well? Is it really that weird to want to see you and your life and show you mine?
I sometimes speedily become attached to people, not in a weird way, but if I like you and we have some kind of connection, I will enjoy talking to you and want to do it often.
I'm a very organized person and will plan out pretty much anything from a vacation to a road trip to a birthday. This makes being with a go with the flow type of person hard at times I've learned but still very much doable.
Due to childhood trauma I'm secretive which can be annoying.
MY own "HELL YES" 🏁
I know how to cook.
I will always drive if you want. (Within reason)
Great at escape rooms and jigsaw puzzles.
Can read a map.
Decent at reading backwards upside down writing.
What I'm looking for:
Is my age or older. But I'm willing to go quite a bit lower if you are neat and we have stuff in common. But super young isn't my goal here.
Mature, considerate, responsible and funny (Dorky wouldn't hurt)
Someone who never cheats, honesty and trust are important to me.
Someone who is open-minded, willing to try new things, be adventurous, funny and nerdy.
Someone who believes in sharing household chores equally because we are both adults.
Be open and frank about issues you or I are having. Not pushy or jealous. Won't yell or argue about stupid things, I've had enough of that.
Willing to push me to become a better version of myself (Can you turn me into Batman?)
If this sounds like you then feel free to reach out and say hi or challenge me to a game of Scrabble/Pictionary/hand to hand combat maybe? Maybe Wordle or some online vidya game?
P.S. I realize my post isn't for everyone but if your seeing red flags from my post then I'd say trust your gut and please don't message me as we probably aren't compatible. I honestly don't mean that in a mean or hurtful way. I've just been messaged quite often with women saying they pushed aside red flags to get to know me. Please don't, it never ends well and you end up wasting both of our time. Wouldn't you rather spend it finding your person with no flags?

I apologize as it's a bit of a novel and doesn't quite make grammatical sense in some spots. I can read goodly now and again lol. The reason it says M4R is because I mainly like women and trans women but I also like a very very very specific type of guy and certain trans men as I'm partially bi. Chances are you aren't that type but feel free to ask if you are. (Didn’t want to offend anyone so I’d rather say in private) Just throwing that out there as it's a deal breaker for most women. Which why would it be? The number one reason I get is I'm going to cheat on them with a guy. As if being bi has any bearing on cheating and not the persons character.
I'm a 35 year old guy living in the middle-ish of Texas looking for a female partner. Partner as in LTR. That's Long Term Relationship meaning boyfriend and girlfriend and holding hands type of stuff. You know, adult things? I had someone comment I was too vague so this is me being specific. I'm gonna be honest and kinda sad so bare with me.
So I spent New Years alone (I realize June is like tomorrow lol but I have yet to meet someone and I think the story is still somewhat relevant). Rang in the New Year in bed staring at the ceiling listening to fireworks go off into the night. The next day I cried randomly while browsing for a movie to watch on TV. At first I didn't know why as I'm not much of a crier but I realized for the first time that I genuinely felt alone. I have no partner, no family that I speak to, no friends just acquaintances, really no one there for me. That's my own doing which took years to accomplish through me being closed off and just shutting people out, so I figure it might take just as long to fix. I'm not complaining as I got myself into this predicament. It's gonna sound dumb but I wanted a New Years kiss. I'd never had one and it seemed like a fun dumb silly thing to do. Eh maybe one day. Ok well back to my spiel. (I'm not depressed or anything or wanting attention) Some of my hobbies and interests are movies, reading, cooking, kayaking, records, video games, board games, snorkeling, bowling, swimming, escape rooms, puzzles and antiquing. I would describe myself as more goofy and dorky than nerdy. I like to go out and do fun things but also stay in and cuddle and relax. I guess it depends on my mood and the weather. I prefer the cold and would love to live in a state with actual seasons and snow. I'm 5'10, stocky AKA fat and open for adventure and new experiences.
Here are some random facts about me:
Some of my favorite bands are: The Black Keys, Kings of Leon, The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The White Stripes.
Christmas is my favorite holiday, mainly because of the cold and festive activities.
I come from a medium-ish family.
I'm exceptionally patient but every person has a breaking point lol
I like traveling a lot. It's a basic thing that lots of people like. But I've found lots of people hate to leave their house, town or state so if that's you we probably might not be a good match. I also enjoy the mountains. But I don't like roughing it (give me that sweet AC in the summer). Hiking is so hard on my knees and I haven't done it in a while that if I were to I think about doing it I'd about die or twist a kankle.
I don't eat seafood, mushrooms, artichokes or pineapple on pizza (Who cares about this? Doesn't mean I won't go to a restaurant with you that has these things)
Never went to college as I'm horrible in a classroom setting and at taking tests.
Have probably the most boring job imaginable (Ask me about it)
Overweight but trying to work on it and make better choices (Get healthier and lose weight together maybe?)
Non religious but no issue with what you believe. (If anything)
Looking into sterilization. If you are already maybe you can give me some info or tips?
My own red flags 🚩
I work too much and oftentimes can't talk.
I send selfies often. I'm a visual person and like receiving photos. Apparently it's a generational thing. Hopefully you think pictures are neat as well? Is it really that weird to want to see you and your life and show you mine?
I sometimes speedily become attached to people, not in a weird way, but if I like you and we have some kind of connection, I will enjoy talking to you and want to do it often.
I'm a very organized person and will plan out pretty much anything from a vacation to a road trip to a birthday. This makes being with a go with the flow type of person hard at times I've learned but still very much doable.
Due to childhood trauma I'm secretive which can be annoying.
MY own "HELL YES" 🏁
I know how to cook.
I will always drive if you want. (Within reason)
Great at escape rooms and jigsaw puzzles.
Can read a map.
Decent at reading backwards upside down writing.
What I'm looking for:
Is my age or older. But I'm willing to go quite a bit lower if you are neat and we have stuff in common. But super young isn't my goal here.
Mature, considerate, responsible and funny (Dorky wouldn't hurt)
Someone who never cheats, honesty and trust are important to me.
Someone who is open-minded, willing to try new things, be adventurous, funny and nerdy.
Someone who believes in sharing household chores equally because we are both adults.
Be open and frank about issues you or I are having. Not pushy or jealous. Won't yell or argue about stupid things, I've had enough of that.
Willing to push me to become a better version of myself (Can you turn me into Batman?)
If this sounds like you then feel free to reach out and say hi or challenge me to a game of Scrabble/Pictionary/hand to hand combat maybe? Maybe Wordle or some online vidya game?
P.S. I realize my post isn't for everyone but if your seeing red flags from my post then I'd say trust your gut and please don't message me as we probably aren't compatible. I honestly don't mean that in a mean or hurtful way. I've just been messaged quite often with women saying they pushed aside red flags to get to know me. Please don't, it never ends well and you end up wasting both of our time. Wouldn't you rather spend it finding your person with no flags?

Been looking to set up a projector in the bedroom for casual Criterion Channel viewing, and it's a more complicated rabbit hole than expected: long story short, I'm hearing that the CC doesn't work even on some projectors that have Android TV or Android OS onboard (due to DRM and HDCP stuff -- which also might discount casting from a phone to the projector). But I've also heard that some projectors with newer versions of Android are OK with CC? I've gone back through three years of criterion posts and haven't found any recs.
So before buying blind (not many reviews mention the Criterion Channel), I'm curious if anyone uses a casual/portable projector to successfully stream the Criterion Channel app? I likely have two options, not looking to spend more than $400 for either (again, casual bedtime viewing, not a home theater situation here):
THE IDEAL: Android TV or Android OS onboard the projector so I can run the Channel natively via its Android TV app. Decent on-board speakers for low-key indoor movies (I ain't shaking any walls here) so I don't have to fiddle with a Bluetooth speaker every night. 720P minimum, projection size doesn't have to be huge, some form of keystone correction as I won't likely be head-on. I'll be in a small bedroom space, very dark, casual viewing.
OR
THE OTHER PLAN: Anyone have an affordable projector that they can confirm plays nicely with the Criterion Channel using an HDMI streaming stick (Roku, Amazon Fire, Chromecast, etc.)? It's not as ideal as an all-in-one thing, but I'd be really happy to know of a specific model that folks can say "yep, I plug in my Roku and the Channel works fine." I love the app, but have been burned by DRM/HDCP and weird refresh rate compatibility issues too many times to go in blind on another device, especially when Criterion Channel is the primary purpose.
Thanks for any recs, I appreciate the help

I should have known the job was too good to be true.
Make two hundred dollars a night to sit in an undisclosed location from sun down to sun up. No previous experience required. Non Disclosure to be signed before hiring. Candidates who break NDA will be sued for breach of contract. Must have a strong constitution and high moral fiber. Interested parties call (number below)
For a college student who was struggling to pay tuition, car insurance, and keep food in the dorm fridge, this sounded too good to be true. I looked at the party offering the service and discovered that I knew them. Doctor Crandler was a BioMed teacher who had a bit of a reputation for being out there. He was said to conduct experiments after hours in the science lab and if he hadn’t had tenure, it was pretty likely that he would have been fired. These were all rumors, of course. I’d had Doctor Crandler last year for entry level human biomes and he was a delight. He turned out to be a huge Romero fan and loved to talk about zombies and old horror movies. We had really hit it off, and when I called the number, he sounded happy to hear from me.
“Oh thank god, I was hoping someone reliable would call. I’ve lost three this week, and I’m beginning to think I’ll have to stoop to drastic measures.”
Whatever drastic measures were, Doc C didn’t elaborate.
He just told me to come to the science lab at five fifteen sharp.
“And not a minute later!” he added before hanging up and leaving me with more questions than answers.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but two hundy was two hundy, and that would be able to put something in my body other than ramen noodles this week if the job was legit. So, about four thirty, I hopped on my bike and made my way across campus to the Verner May Science Building. It’s a huge old brick building that's been on campus since the nineteen forties. They say its been home to a lot of famous research and more than one questionable clinical trial. I had started to wonder if Doctor C was gonna try to experiment on me, and that's why he was being so secretive. I decided that if that was the case, two hundred was not enough. I had enough trouble scoring ladies with my pizza face and I doubted having four arms or two heads would help matters much.
I stepped through the doors at five o'clock sharp and Doctor Crandler looked up excitedly. “Prompt as always! I remember that from my classes. You were always early, and I like a student who is punctual. Come this way and let me show you what I’m working on. Before we start out though,” he set a Non Disclosure Agreement in front of me and I looked over it before signing my name to it. It was pretty standard stuff. Don’t talk about what you see, don’t talk about what I’m working on, don’t tell the media, don’t post it on the internet (guess I messed that part up), yada yada yada. After that, he tossed a black hood onto the table and told me to put it on.
I hesitated, not having asked him anything about what we were doing yet.
“You’re, uh, not gonna experiment on me, right Doc?”
He laughed, but it didn't sound particularly merry.
“No no, my boy. I would never experiment on you. I have specific parameters and I'm afraid you just don't meet them.”
I wasn't sure whether to be glad or insulted, but I put the hood on either way. He led me through a door, down some stairs, outside, back inside, and then down more stairs. Finally, we came to our destination, and when he took the hood off, I was in a little room about the size of your average dorm room. Inside was a table, a chair, and a glass jar with something floating inside. It was roughly the size of a spud, though if it was a potato it was one of those big ole Idaho job. I'd say it was about two feet tall, maybe half a foot wide, and it just sort of floated there placidly.
“This is your job.” Doctor C said, pointing to the jar.
“What? Just watch this thing? Easy peasy!” I said, not yet understanding what I was agreeing to.
“Just watch it till I get here to relieve you. Be careful, it's very tricky. It may try to get you to let it go. Do Not let it go under ANY circumstances. For that, I'll pay you two hundred dollars a night.”
I put out a hand, being a man who signs deals with a shake, and Doctor C pumped my arm one good time before saying he was going to leave now.
“I'm going to lock you in. If you have to urinate, there's a bucket in the corner. There are snacks and water in the mini fridge over there, though I would prefer it if you don't take your eyes off that jar.
I started to protest about having to wizz in a bucket, but I just nodded and told him not to worry about it. A deal was a deal, as my old man liked to say, and when he left, I heard the door lock behind him. So, I settled in and took out my phone as I surfed Reddit. I kept an eye on the jar, looking up about every thirty seconds, but mostly I just sat there and tried not to fall asleep. That was the hardest part. It was so boring, just sitting there for ten to twelve hours, and I made a mental sticky to bring coffee tomorrow. Doc had some snacks in his fridge, but Kale chips and pita chips with hummus are not what a man desires when he's trying not to zonk out.
The weird little thing in the jar didn't help much either. It was boring. All it did was float there, but I guess thats not quite true. Sometimes I would look up and find it looking at me, its weird brown body seeming to watch me. It couldn't really be doing that, since it didn't have eyes, but I still felt very seen as I sat there on my phone. I made a note to bring a charger too, but luckily it lasted till the doc came back, and he smiled as he handed me my two hundred dollars in cash at the end of the shift.
“Do you feel anything? Any headaches or nausea?” he asked.
I told him I didn't and he invited me to come back tomorrow night.
I told him for sure, and left two hundred bones the richer.
I kept watching the little science project for the next week and ended with an extra fourteen hundred bucks in my pocket. I agreed to do it seven nights a week, and as spring began, the nights got a little shorter too. Soon the sun was going down closer to eight, and I didn't have to show up till seven thirty or eight o'clock. Getting a couple of hundred bucks for ten hours of work was boss, and I got a lot of Raid Shadow Legends played and Reddit scoped while I sat there and collected mulla for sitting on ass.
When I arrived Tuesday of the next week, however, something had changed in my little potato cash cow.
The thing had an ear.
Doc sat me down and as the hood came off, he asked if I noticed anything different about the little blob. I looked at it critically, but couldn't really see anything different. Doc didn't really like this answer, and told me to look harder. After a few minutes of coming up with nothing, he sighed in exasperation and pointed.
“It has acquired an auditory openings for vocal registration.”
The look I gave him must have told him all he needed, because he just shook his head and tapped the tank.
“It has an ear hole.” he said, and I finally got it.
After some looking, I realized what he was talking about and he seemed pretty proud of himself.
“We've been working with chemical stimuli and had a breakthrough when it finally developed some form of communication peripheral.”
“How do you know it can hear you?”
It was his turn to look puzzled, until I pointed out that it didn't have any way to let them know if it could hear them.
“Well, it kind of wiggles around when we talk to it or play music. It hadn't done that much before, so we think it must be able to hear us.”
He left after that, and I made sure to turn the volume up on my videos so the little dude, or dudette, could listen too. It definitely bounced around a little, dancing in the water a bit as it moved around in its glass tank. I thought it was a little funny, and turned the volume way up as it wiggled and wobbled.
By the end of the week, it had two ear holes and some little baby ears to go with them. The Doc told me to take a week off after that, saying they had some experiments to run on the little thing, and I told him to call me back when he needed me. I took some time and spent a little of my money paying bills and settling debts. By the end of the week, I was praying for a call from Doc C, and Sunday night, he obliged.
“I could use a set of eyes next week, if you're free.”
I told him I'd be there, and pumped my fist in excitement. When he took the hood off monday, he was rewarded by a “whoa” of interest from yours truly. The little sucker had a toothless mouth that it seemed to be opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“I came in Sunday to find that it had grown it. It's pretty interesting stuff,” Doctor C told me, “Has it spoken to you before tonight? Some of my assistants claim it has spoken to them by way of telekinesis, but you don't seem to have suffered from any of the symptoms they've talked about.”
“Thankfully not, Doc. All the little guy does is float and make me money.”
Doc C nodded, looking thoughtful before leaving and locking me in for the night.
I had just brought my phone out to start scrolling Reddit for the night, when I heard a muffled voice from somewhere. I looked up, thinking someone was outside the door, but the door was solid wood. I looked at my phone to make sure I wasn't accidentally butt dialing someone, but thats when I heard the slight tap from in front of me. I looked up to see the little potato thing as it bumped the glass with its body, its toothless mouth forming words from behind its prison.
“Hello? Are you there?” it asked, its words muffled by the water and the glass.
I looked at it, not sure if it could even hear me when I responded, but when it floated back a little, I guessed it probably could.
“Hello, you sound different than the good doctor or his friends. Are you someone new?”
“Not really,” I said, half laughing, “I've actually been here watching you for a couple weeks.”
“Oh,” it said, very interested, “You must be the one I couldn't reach. I'm glad we can finally speak properly.”
I sat my phone down, leaning in a little closer as I watched the little brown thing float in the off color water that held it.
“What do you mean? You only just got a mouth.”
“Yes, well, there are more ways than one to communicate, aren't there? I've been trying to touch your mind for weeks, but you don't seem overly receptive to my advances. Thus, I had to find alternative means of communication if we were to speak.”
Its voice, despite being muffled by the glass, was very smart sounding. Little dude was the smartest floating potato I had ever met, though the list was just him for the moment. He sounded like the doc a little. He used a lot of big words, and sounded like he knew a lot of stuff. I put my face a little closer to the glass as I looked at him, watching him float there, and wondering what he might know?
We talked a lot that night. Well, I talked a lot. The little just kind of floated and listed, throwing something out every now and again. He wanted to know where he was, how he had come to be in a fishbowl, and what the Doc intended to do with him? I didn't know most of these things, and I told him that. He didn't seem too thrilled with that answer, but he still kept talking to me. He asked about me and what I was studying and what sort of things I liked to do. I didn't pick up my phone much that night. Instead, I told the little guy about myself and we talked for hours about nothing in particular.
The clock said it was about four am when the subject finally turned to what he really wanted.
I wish now that we had just kept talking about me.
“So, despite the fact that you cant leave this place, you could still take me out of this tank, right?”
I snorted, “Why would you want to? It's really not much better out here than in there.”
“True, but I would very much like to experience life outside my bowl. I lack hands or I would do it myself, but you could help me out.”
“Sorry, little dude,” I said, and I found that I was kinda sorry, “you're a good hang, but I promised the Doc that I wouldn't take you out. I think it was one of those papers I had to sign to get this job.”
“No one has to know,” it said, its voice kind of sneaky as it pressed its brown side against the glass, “you could take me out for just a second and then put me right back in.”
“No,” I said, looking at the door like I'd been doing something wrong, “I...I really shouldn't.”
“Please,” it begged, “You have no idea what its like to live in your own filth. Now that I have a mouth, I can constantly taste the stagnant water I live in. It's pure hell.”
“Dude, stop it. That's not cool. You know I can't take you out, I told Doc I,” but then it did the last thing I would have expected.
It started to cry.
I don't mean it was pretending to cry, the thing started loosing these tortured sounds that made me think of someone going through a bad break up. It sounded super hopeless, and it began to bump it's body against the side of the tank. I picked up my phone and tried to ignore it, but its hard listening to something just cry and cry like that. I had a room mate once who just kinda gave up after his girlfriend dumped him and he just lay on his bed and cried until his parents finally came to get him. I never saw ole dude again, but I can still hear his sobs sometimes when I close my eyes.
It was heartbreaking, and infuriating, and I wanted to console him as much as I wanted him to shut the hell up.
“Please! Please just let me out! I can't stand this anymore! I need to get out! I need to get out! I NEED TO GET OUT!”
It yelled and screamed and begged and cried for another hour and a half, and when the key turned in the lock, I was never happier to see the Doc.
Doc C looked at the little creature in the jar and asked me what had happened?
“Nothin,” I said, “It started talking after you left and then when I wouldn't let it out, it started screaming and crying.”
Far from being angry or disturbed, Doc C seemed amazed. He started studying the thing through the glass, before I reminded him that I was done for the night and needed to leave. He pulled himself away begrudgingly before handing me my money and putting the sack back over my head. I found an extra hundred in the pile that night, for my suffering I supposed, and thought about not coming back that night. The blubbering and crying had been a lot to handle, but I couldn't deny that the money was good and it was helping me pay down a lot of my outstanding debts. Another month of this, and my rent would be paid for the next year. Another two months and my credit card would be paid and I could afford that new flat screen for the living room. The things wailing had been a lot to handle, but what was a little more next to financial freedom?
I made sure to pick up some earplugs before I came back the following night and that's how I spent my next week.
In that week, the little creature grew an eye and four small fingers, two on each side of its body.
The night I arrived to find it had an eye, it told me all night how I looked like a kind person, and how it didn't understand how I could just sit here and watch it suffer. The earplugs helped a little, but it seemed like I could still hear it through the plugs. It would start out trying to talk to me, trying to flatter me, trying to reason with me, but we would always end up with it crying and me trying to ignore it. It became harder and harder as time went on, and every night seemed to be a battle to not open the tank and let it out or to just flip the table and smash its tank into a thousand pieces. In the end, it always came down to the money and I always managed to stop myself from doing something stupid.
It was a Tuesday when something I hadn't considered happened.
Tuesday night started out just like any other. Doc C brought me into the room, took off the hood, and there sat the little creature in its glass prison. It smiled at me, and I could see a couple of teeth breaking the gums. It had six fingers now and they made it look a little like a bug as they wiggled energetically. It still had only the one eye, but the beginnings of a nose had started to form under it. It was a repugnant little thing, and as the Doc left and I settled in, I kept my mind on the money, reminding myself that I just had to power through tonight.
It would be over in ten hours and I could go back to my room and sleep.
It spent the next ten hours talking, pleading, crying, and trying everything it could to gain its freedom. Well, that's not quite true. It never tried to threaten me. It probably realized that such a thing would have been pointless. It could no more have hurt me than my two year old nephew could and had decided on a different gambit. When it started its piercing wailing again, I popped the ear plugs in and shut most of it out. The plugs tuned the thing down to about a two, and made it easier to ignore. I was just thinking that I might treat myself to some really nice noise canceling headphones and forgo the tv for another week, when I saw someone familiar in a piece of Reddit News.
I almost dropped the phone as I read over the article, not sure what to make of it.
“Doctor Joseph Crandler arrested after trying to buy biological materials from an undercover agent.”
The picture showed Doc C looking very unhappy as he was led away in cuffs. He was wearing the same clothes I had seen him leave in the night before, and the article that followed didn't cheer me up. He had been buying materials from his experiments from some disreputable people, and finally he had put his trust in the wrong one, or maybe the right one, I guess. The agent had arrested him and they were holding him for questioning. I felt a cold chill as I looked over at the little freak in the tank. Was this the sort of experiment he'd been buying materials for? I had never thought to question if this thing was something the college had sanctioned or not, and now I realized that I might be part of an illegal experiment. They'd be coming for me next, me and this thing, and they'd assume I was the Egor to his Doctor Frankfurter or whatever.
As the creature wailed and thrashed, my brain started putting blocks together that it should have a few minutes ago.
My biggest problem wasn't that they would think I was involved, it was that if they didn't come and the Doc didn't come, then I would have no way out of here.
I was trapped with this little crying dude for god knew how long.
I thought about calling for help, but that could be bad too. What if they thought I was part of this? I'd have a hard time convincing them that I had nothing to do with this when they found me with the evidence. What's more, all the Doc had to say was that I was his assistant, that he had paid me, and I'd be in the same prison chow line as him. I started looking around the room for escape routes, but there was nothing but the very locked door. The little creature kept asking what was happening, but I just kept ignoring him. There were no windows, no other doors, not even a vent to squeeze into, like in the movies. All the while, the creature wailed and pleaded to be released. It knew something was wrong, and it wanted to be set free. It could help me, it could get me out of here, it could do anything as long as I would take it out of the tank.
After searching the little room again and again, I finally just sat and tried not to go crazy.
My phone will make calls, but I have no idea how to tell anyone to find me or even if they could. I tried to explain to the police what was happening, I even mentioned Doctor C, but I think the dispatcher thought I was high. They started hanging up on me when I called back, and if they trace my number, all their going to find is my dorm room, which is empty. Luckily, I have a charger on me, so I can keep calling out and trying to get someone to help me.
I checked the fridge, and there's enough bottled water and snacks in there to last for three or four days. Less if I feed this little bastard, but I'm not even sure what he eats. I've never been given any feeding instructions for him, and I'm not going to waste my food on this squalling thing. I threw a tarp over him, but it isn't doing anything to dull the screaming. It sounds like he might have grown more mouths because I can hear his shrill little voice from every angle as it bounces off the wall.
One things for sure, if it doesn't stop screaming soon, I'm going to give him some kind of release.
If it goes on much longer, I'm going to wrench the lid off that tank and stomp the life out of him.
If someone doesn’t come soon, I’m going to release him from his suffering forever.

I should have known the job was too good to be true.
Make two hundred dollars a night to sit in an undisclosed location from sun down to sun up. No previous experience required. Non Disclosure to be signed before hiring. Candidates who break NDA will be sued for breach of contract. Must have a strong constitution and high moral fiber. Interested parties call (number below)
For a college student who was struggling to pay tuition, car insurance, and keep food in the dorm fridge, this sounded too good to be true. I looked at the party offering the service and discovered that I knew them. Doctor Crandler was a BioMed teacher who had a bit of a reputation for being out there. He was said to conduct experiments after hours in the science lab and if he hadn’t had tenure, it was pretty likely that he would have been fired. These were all rumors, of course. I’d had Doctor Crandler last year for entry level human biomes and he was a delight. He turned out to be a huge Romero fan and loved to talk about zombies and old horror movies. We had really hit it off, and when I called the number, he sounded happy to hear from me.
“Oh thank god, I was hoping someone reliable would call. I’ve lost three this week, and I’m beginning to think I’ll have to stoop to drastic measures.”
Whatever drastic measures were, Doc C didn’t elaborate.
He just told me to come to the science lab at five fifteen sharp.
“And not a minute later!” he added before hanging up and leaving me with more questions than answers.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but two hundy was two hundy, and that would be able to put something in my body other than ramen noodles this week if the job was legit. So, about four thirty, I hopped on my bike and made my way across campus to the Verner May Science Building. It’s a huge old brick building that's been on campus since the nineteen forties. They say its been home to a lot of famous research and more than one questionable clinical trial. I had started to wonder if Doctor C was gonna try to experiment on me, and that's why he was being so secretive. I decided that if that was the case, two hundred was not enough. I had enough trouble scoring ladies with my pizza face and I doubted having four arms or two heads would help matters much.
I stepped through the doors at five o'clock sharp and Doctor Crandler looked up excitedly. “Prompt as always! I remember that from my classes. You were always early, and I like a student who is punctual. Come this way and let me show you what I’m working on. Before we start out though,” he set a Non Disclosure Agreement in front of me and I looked over it before signing my name to it. It was pretty standard stuff. Don’t talk about what you see, don’t talk about what I’m working on, don’t tell the media, don’t post it on the internet (guess I messed that part up), yada yada yada. After that, he tossed a black hood onto the table and told me to put it on.
I hesitated, not having asked him anything about what we were doing yet.
“You’re, uh, not gonna experiment on me, right Doc?”
He laughed, but it didn't sound particularly merry.
“No no, my boy. I would never experiment on you. I have specific parameters and I'm afraid you just don't meet them.”
I wasn't sure whether to be glad or insulted, but I put the hood on either way. He led me through a door, down some stairs, outside, back inside, and then down more stairs. Finally, we came to our destination, and when he took the hood off, I was in a little room about the size of your average dorm room. Inside was a table, a chair, and a glass jar with something floating inside. It was roughly the size of a spud, though if it was a potato it was one of those big ole Idaho job. I'd say it was about two feet tall, maybe half a foot wide, and it just sort of floated there placidly.
“This is your job.” Doctor C said, pointing to the jar.
“What? Just watch this thing? Easy peasy!” I said, not yet understanding what I was agreeing to.
“Just watch it till I get here to relieve you. Be careful, it's very tricky. It may try to get you to let it go. Do Not let it go under ANY circumstances. For that, I'll pay you two hundred dollars a night.”
I put out a hand, being a man who signs deals with a shake, and Doctor C pumped my arm one good time before saying he was going to leave now.
“I'm going to lock you in. If you have to urinate, there's a bucket in the corner. There are snacks and water in the mini fridge over there, though I would prefer it if you don't take your eyes off that jar.
I started to protest about having to wizz in a bucket, but I just nodded and told him not to worry about it. A deal was a deal, as my old man liked to say, and when he left, I heard the door lock behind him. So, I settled in and took out my phone as I surfed Reddit. I kept an eye on the jar, looking up about every thirty seconds, but mostly I just sat there and tried not to fall asleep. That was the hardest part. It was so boring, just sitting there for ten to twelve hours, and I made a mental sticky to bring coffee tomorrow. Doc had some snacks in his fridge, but Kale chips and pita chips with hummus are not what a man desires when he's trying not to zonk out.
The weird little thing in the jar didn't help much either. It was boring. All it did was float there, but I guess thats not quite true. Sometimes I would look up and find it looking at me, its weird brown body seeming to watch me. It couldn't really be doing that, since it didn't have eyes, but I still felt very seen as I sat there on my phone. I made a note to bring a charger too, but luckily it lasted till the doc came back, and he smiled as he handed me my two hundred dollars in cash at the end of the shift.
“Do you feel anything? Any headaches or nausea?” he asked.
I told him I didn't and he invited me to come back tomorrow night.
I told him for sure, and left two hundred bones the richer.
I kept watching the little science project for the next week and ended with an extra fourteen hundred bucks in my pocket. I agreed to do it seven nights a week, and as spring began, the nights got a little shorter too. Soon the sun was going down closer to eight, and I didn't have to show up till seven thirty or eight o'clock. Getting a couple of hundred bucks for ten hours of work was boss, and I got a lot of Raid Shadow Legends played and Reddit scoped while I sat there and collected mulla for sitting on ass.
When I arrived Tuesday of the next week, however, something had changed in my little potato cash cow.
The thing had an ear.
Doc sat me down and as the hood came off, he asked if I noticed anything different about the little blob. I looked at it critically, but couldn't really see anything different. Doc didn't really like this answer, and told me to look harder. After a few minutes of coming up with nothing, he sighed in exasperation and pointed.
“It has acquired an auditory openings for vocal registration.”
The look I gave him must have told him all he needed, because he just shook his head and tapped the tank.
“It has an ear hole.” he said, and I finally got it.
After some looking, I realized what he was talking about and he seemed pretty proud of himself.
“We've been working with chemical stimuli and had a breakthrough when it finally developed some form of communication peripheral.”
“How do you know it can hear you?”
It was his turn to look puzzled, until I pointed out that it didn't have any way to let them know if it could hear them.
“Well, it kind of wiggles around when we talk to it or play music. It hadn't done that much before, so we think it must be able to hear us.”
He left after that, and I made sure to turn the volume up on my videos so the little dude, or dudette, could listen too. It definitely bounced around a little, dancing in the water a bit as it moved around in its glass tank. I thought it was a little funny, and turned the volume way up as it wiggled and wobbled.
By the end of the week, it had two ear holes and some little baby ears to go with them. The Doc told me to take a week off after that, saying they had some experiments to run on the little thing, and I told him to call me back when he needed me. I took some time and spent a little of my money paying bills and settling debts. By the end of the week, I was praying for a call from Doc C, and Sunday night, he obliged.
“I could use a set of eyes next week, if you're free.”
I told him I'd be there, and pumped my fist in excitement. When he took the hood off monday, he was rewarded by a “whoa” of interest from yours truly. The little sucker had a toothless mouth that it seemed to be opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“I came in Sunday to find that it had grown it. It's pretty interesting stuff,” Doctor C told me, “Has it spoken to you before tonight? Some of my assistants claim it has spoken to them by way of telekinesis, but you don't seem to have suffered from any of the symptoms they've talked about.”
“Thankfully not, Doc. All the little guy does is float and make me money.”
Doc C nodded, looking thoughtful before leaving and locking me in for the night.
I had just brought my phone out to start scrolling Reddit for the night, when I heard a muffled voice from somewhere. I looked up, thinking someone was outside the door, but the door was solid wood. I looked at my phone to make sure I wasn't accidentally butt dialing someone, but thats when I heard the slight tap from in front of me. I looked up to see the little potato thing as it bumped the glass with its body, its toothless mouth forming words from behind its prison.
“Hello? Are you there?” it asked, its words muffled by the water and the glass.
I looked at it, not sure if it could even hear me when I responded, but when it floated back a little, I guessed it probably could.
“Hello, you sound different than the good doctor or his friends. Are you someone new?”
“Not really,” I said, half laughing, “I've actually been here watching you for a couple weeks.”
“Oh,” it said, very interested, “You must be the one I couldn't reach. I'm glad we can finally speak properly.”
I sat my phone down, leaning in a little closer as I watched the little brown thing float in the off color water that held it.
“What do you mean? You only just got a mouth.”
“Yes, well, there are more ways than one to communicate, aren't there? I've been trying to touch your mind for weeks, but you don't seem overly receptive to my advances. Thus, I had to find alternative means of communication if we were to speak.”
Its voice, despite being muffled by the glass, was very smart sounding. Little dude was the smartest floating potato I had ever met, though the list was just him for the moment. He sounded like the doc a little. He used a lot of big words, and sounded like he knew a lot of stuff. I put my face a little closer to the glass as I looked at him, watching him float there, and wondering what he might know?
We talked a lot that night. Well, I talked a lot. The little just kind of floated and listed, throwing something out every now and again. He wanted to know where he was, how he had come to be in a fishbowl, and what the Doc intended to do with him? I didn't know most of these things, and I told him that. He didn't seem too thrilled with that answer, but he still kept talking to me. He asked about me and what I was studying and what sort of things I liked to do. I didn't pick up my phone much that night. Instead, I told the little guy about myself and we talked for hours about nothing in particular.
The clock said it was about four am when the subject finally turned to what he really wanted.
I wish now that we had just kept talking about me.
“So, despite the fact that you cant leave this place, you could still take me out of this tank, right?”
I snorted, “Why would you want to? It's really not much better out here than in there.”
“True, but I would very much like to experience life outside my bowl. I lack hands or I would do it myself, but you could help me out.”
“Sorry, little dude,” I said, and I found that I was kinda sorry, “you're a good hang, but I promised the Doc that I wouldn't take you out. I think it was one of those papers I had to sign to get this job.”
“No one has to know,” it said, its voice kind of sneaky as it pressed its brown side against the glass, “you could take me out for just a second and then put me right back in.”
“No,” I said, looking at the door like I'd been doing something wrong, “I...I really shouldn't.”
“Please,” it begged, “You have no idea what its like to live in your own filth. Now that I have a mouth, I can constantly taste the stagnant water I live in. It's pure hell.”
“Dude, stop it. That's not cool. You know I can't take you out, I told Doc I,” but then it did the last thing I would have expected.
It started to cry.
I don't mean it was pretending to cry, the thing started loosing these tortured sounds that made me think of someone going through a bad break up. It sounded super hopeless, and it began to bump it's body against the side of the tank. I picked up my phone and tried to ignore it, but its hard listening to something just cry and cry like that. I had a room mate once who just kinda gave up after his girlfriend dumped him and he just lay on his bed and cried until his parents finally came to get him. I never saw ole dude again, but I can still hear his sobs sometimes when I close my eyes.
It was heartbreaking, and infuriating, and I wanted to console him as much as I wanted him to shut the hell up.
“Please! Please just let me out! I can't stand this anymore! I need to get out! I need to get out! I NEED TO GET OUT!”
It yelled and screamed and begged and cried for another hour and a half, and when the key turned in the lock, I was never happier to see the Doc.
Doc C looked at the little creature in the jar and asked me what had happened?
“Nothin,” I said, “It started talking after you left and then when I wouldn't let it out, it started screaming and crying.”
Far from being angry or disturbed, Doc C seemed amazed. He started studying the thing through the glass, before I reminded him that I was done for the night and needed to leave. He pulled himself away begrudgingly before handing me my money and putting the sack back over my head. I found an extra hundred in the pile that night, for my suffering I supposed, and thought about not coming back that night. The blubbering and crying had been a lot to handle, but I couldn't deny that the money was good and it was helping me pay down a lot of my outstanding debts. Another month of this, and my rent would be paid for the next year. Another two months and my credit card would be paid and I could afford that new flat screen for the living room. The things wailing had been a lot to handle, but what was a little more next to financial freedom?
I made sure to pick up some earplugs before I came back the following night and that's how I spent my next week.
In that week, the little creature grew an eye and four small fingers, two on each side of its body.
The night I arrived to find it had an eye, it told me all night how I looked like a kind person, and how it didn't understand how I could just sit here and watch it suffer. The earplugs helped a little, but it seemed like I could still hear it through the plugs. It would start out trying to talk to me, trying to flatter me, trying to reason with me, but we would always end up with it crying and me trying to ignore it. It became harder and harder as time went on, and every night seemed to be a battle to not open the tank and let it out or to just flip the table and smash its tank into a thousand pieces. In the end, it always came down to the money and I always managed to stop myself from doing something stupid.
It was a Tuesday when something I hadn't considered happened.
Tuesday night started out just like any other. Doc C brought me into the room, took off the hood, and there sat the little creature in its glass prison. It smiled at me, and I could see a couple of teeth breaking the gums. It had six fingers now and they made it look a little like a bug as they wiggled energetically. It still had only the one eye, but the beginnings of a nose had started to form under it. It was a repugnant little thing, and as the Doc left and I settled in, I kept my mind on the money, reminding myself that I just had to power through tonight.
It would be over in ten hours and I could go back to my room and sleep.
It spent the next ten hours talking, pleading, crying, and trying everything it could to gain its freedom. Well, that's not quite true. It never tried to threaten me. It probably realized that such a thing would have been pointless. It could no more have hurt me than my two year old nephew could and had decided on a different gambit. When it started its piercing wailing again, I popped the ear plugs in and shut most of it out. The plugs tuned the thing down to about a two, and made it easier to ignore. I was just thinking that I might treat myself to some really nice noise canceling headphones and forgo the tv for another week, when I saw someone familiar in a piece of Reddit News.
I almost dropped the phone as I read over the article, not sure what to make of it.
“Doctor Joseph Crandler arrested after trying to buy biological materials from an undercover agent.”
The picture showed Doc C looking very unhappy as he was led away in cuffs. He was wearing the same clothes I had seen him leave in the night before, and the article that followed didn't cheer me up. He had been buying materials from his experiments from some disreputable people, and finally he had put his trust in the wrong one, or maybe the right one, I guess. The agent had arrested him and they were holding him for questioning. I felt a cold chill as I looked over at the little freak in the tank. Was this the sort of experiment he'd been buying materials for? I had never thought to question if this thing was something the college had sanctioned or not, and now I realized that I might be part of an illegal experiment. They'd be coming for me next, me and this thing, and they'd assume I was the Egor to his Doctor Frankfurter or whatever.
As the creature wailed and thrashed, my brain started putting blocks together that it should have a few minutes ago.
My biggest problem wasn't that they would think I was involved, it was that if they didn't come and the Doc didn't come, then I would have no way out of here.
I was trapped with this little crying dude for god knew how long.
I thought about calling for help, but that could be bad too. What if they thought I was part of this? I'd have a hard time convincing them that I had nothing to do with this when they found me with the evidence. What's more, all the Doc had to say was that I was his assistant, that he had paid me, and I'd be in the same prison chow line as him. I started looking around the room for escape routes, but there was nothing but the very locked door. The little creature kept asking what was happening, but I just kept ignoring him. There were no windows, no other doors, not even a vent to squeeze into, like in the movies. All the while, the creature wailed and pleaded to be released. It knew something was wrong, and it wanted to be set free. It could help me, it could get me out of here, it could do anything as long as I would take it out of the tank.
After searching the little room again and again, I finally just sat and tried not to go crazy.
My phone will make calls, but I have no idea how to tell anyone to find me or even if they could. I tried to explain to the police what was happening, I even mentioned Doctor C, but I think the dispatcher thought I was high. They started hanging up on me when I called back, and if they trace my number, all their going to find is my dorm room, which is empty. Luckily, I have a charger on me, so I can keep calling out and trying to get someone to help me.
I checked the fridge, and there's enough bottled water and snacks in there to last for three or four days. Less if I feed this little bastard, but I'm not even sure what he eats. I've never been given any feeding instructions for him, and I'm not going to waste my food on this squalling thing. I threw a tarp over him, but it isn't doing anything to dull the screaming. It sounds like he might have grown more mouths because I can hear his shrill little voice from every angle as it bounces off the wall.
One things for sure, if it doesn't stop screaming soon, I'm going to give him some kind of release.
If it goes on much longer, I'm going to wrench the lid off that tank and stomp the life out of him.
If someone doesn’t come soon, I’m going to release him from his suffering forever.

I should have known the job was too good to be true.
Make two hundred dollars a night to sit in an undisclosed location from sun down to sun up. No previous experience required. Non Disclosure to be signed before hiring. Candidates who break NDA will be sued for breach of contract. Must have a strong constitution and high moral fiber. Interested parties call (number below)
For a college student who was struggling to pay tuition, car insurance, and keep food in the dorm fridge, this sounded too good to be true. I looked at the party offering the service and discovered that I knew them. Doctor Crandler was a BioMed teacher who had a bit of a reputation for being out there. He was said to conduct experiments after hours in the science lab and if he hadn’t had tenure, it was pretty likely that he would have been fired. These were all rumors, of course. I’d had Doctor Crandler last year for entry level human biomes and he was a delight. He turned out to be a huge Romero fan and loved to talk about zombies and old horror movies. We had really hit it off, and when I called the number, he sounded happy to hear from me.
“Oh thank god, I was hoping someone reliable would call. I’ve lost three this week, and I’m beginning to think I’ll have to stoop to drastic measures.”
Whatever drastic measures were, Doc C didn’t elaborate.
He just told me to come to the science lab at five fifteen sharp.
“And not a minute later!” he added before hanging up and leaving me with more questions than answers.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but two hundy was two hundy, and that would be able to put something in my body other than ramen noodles this week if the job was legit. So, about four thirty, I hopped on my bike and made my way across campus to the Verner May Science Building. It’s a huge old brick building that's been on campus since the nineteen forties. They say its been home to a lot of famous research and more than one questionable clinical trial. I had started to wonder if Doctor C was gonna try to experiment on me, and that's why he was being so secretive. I decided that if that was the case, two hundred was not enough. I had enough trouble scoring ladies with my pizza face and I doubted having four arms or two heads would help matters much.
I stepped through the doors at five o'clock sharp and Doctor Crandler looked up excitedly. “Prompt as always! I remember that from my classes. You were always early, and I like a student who is punctual. Come this way and let me show you what I’m working on. Before we start out though,” he set a Non Disclosure Agreement in front of me and I looked over it before signing my name to it. It was pretty standard stuff. Don’t talk about what you see, don’t talk about what I’m working on, don’t tell the media, don’t post it on the internet (guess I messed that part up), yada yada yada. After that, he tossed a black hood onto the table and told me to put it on.
I hesitated, not having asked him anything about what we were doing yet.
“You’re, uh, not gonna experiment on me, right Doc?”
He laughed, but it didn't sound particularly merry.
“No no, my boy. I would never experiment on you. I have specific parameters and I'm afraid you just don't meet them.”
I wasn't sure whether to be glad or insulted, but I put the hood on either way. He led me through a door, down some stairs, outside, back inside, and then down more stairs. Finally, we came to our destination, and when he took the hood off, I was in a little room about the size of your average dorm room. Inside was a table, a chair, and a glass jar with something floating inside. It was roughly the size of a spud, though if it was a potato it was one of those big ole Idaho job. I'd say it was about two feet tall, maybe half a foot wide, and it just sort of floated there placidly.
“This is your job.” Doctor C said, pointing to the jar.
“What? Just watch this thing? Easy peasy!” I said, not yet understanding what I was agreeing to.
“Just watch it till I get here to relieve you. Be careful, it's very tricky. It may try to get you to let it go. Do Not let it go under ANY circumstances. For that, I'll pay you two hundred dollars a night.”
I put out a hand, being a man who signs deals with a shake, and Doctor C pumped my arm one good time before saying he was going to leave now.
“I'm going to lock you in. If you have to urinate, there's a bucket in the corner. There are snacks and water in the mini fridge over there, though I would prefer it if you don't take your eyes off that jar.
I started to protest about having to wizz in a bucket, but I just nodded and told him not to worry about it. A deal was a deal, as my old man liked to say, and when he left, I heard the door lock behind him. So, I settled in and took out my phone as I surfed Reddit. I kept an eye on the jar, looking up about every thirty seconds, but mostly I just sat there and tried not to fall asleep. That was the hardest part. It was so boring, just sitting there for ten to twelve hours, and I made a mental sticky to bring coffee tomorrow. Doc had some snacks in his fridge, but Kale chips and pita chips with hummus are not what a man desires when he's trying not to zonk out.
The weird little thing in the jar didn't help much either. It was boring. All it did was float there, but I guess thats not quite true. Sometimes I would look up and find it looking at me, its weird brown body seeming to watch me. It couldn't really be doing that, since it didn't have eyes, but I still felt very seen as I sat there on my phone. I made a note to bring a charger too, but luckily it lasted till the doc came back, and he smiled as he handed me my two hundred dollars in cash at the end of the shift.
“Do you feel anything? Any headaches or nausea?” he asked.
I told him I didn't and he invited me to come back tomorrow night.
I told him for sure, and left two hundred bones the richer.
I kept watching the little science project for the next week and ended with an extra fourteen hundred bucks in my pocket. I agreed to do it seven nights a week, and as spring began, the nights got a little shorter too. Soon the sun was going down closer to eight, and I didn't have to show up till seven thirty or eight o'clock. Getting a couple of hundred bucks for ten hours of work was boss, and I got a lot of Raid Shadow Legends played and Reddit scoped while I sat there and collected mulla for sitting on ass.
When I arrived Tuesday of the next week, however, something had changed in my little potato cash cow.
The thing had an ear.
Doc sat me down and as the hood came off, he asked if I noticed anything different about the little blob. I looked at it critically, but couldn't really see anything different. Doc didn't really like this answer, and told me to look harder. After a few minutes of coming up with nothing, he sighed in exasperation and pointed.
“It has acquired an auditory openings for vocal registration.”
The look I gave him must have told him all he needed, because he just shook his head and tapped the tank.
“It has an ear hole.” he said, and I finally got it.
After some looking, I realized what he was talking about and he seemed pretty proud of himself.
“We've been working with chemical stimuli and had a breakthrough when it finally developed some form of communication peripheral.”
“How do you know it can hear you?”
It was his turn to look puzzled, until I pointed out that it didn't have any way to let them know if it could hear them.
“Well, it kind of wiggles around when we talk to it or play music. It hadn't done that much before, so we think it must be able to hear us.”
He left after that, and I made sure to turn the volume up on my videos so the little dude, or dudette, could listen too. It definitely bounced around a little, dancing in the water a bit as it moved around in its glass tank. I thought it was a little funny, and turned the volume way up as it wiggled and wobbled.
By the end of the week, it had two ear holes and some little baby ears to go with them. The Doc told me to take a week off after that, saying they had some experiments to run on the little thing, and I told him to call me back when he needed me. I took some time and spent a little of my money paying bills and settling debts. By the end of the week, I was praying for a call from Doc C, and Sunday night, he obliged.
“I could use a set of eyes next week, if you're free.”
I told him I'd be there, and pumped my fist in excitement. When he took the hood off monday, he was rewarded by a “whoa” of interest from yours truly. The little sucker had a toothless mouth that it seemed to be opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“I came in Sunday to find that it had grown it. It's pretty interesting stuff,” Doctor C told me, “Has it spoken to you before tonight? Some of my assistants claim it has spoken to them by way of telekinesis, but you don't seem to have suffered from any of the symptoms they've talked about.”
“Thankfully not, Doc. All the little guy does is float and make me money.”
Doc C nodded, looking thoughtful before leaving and locking me in for the night.
I had just brought my phone out to start scrolling Reddit for the night, when I heard a muffled voice from somewhere. I looked up, thinking someone was outside the door, but the door was solid wood. I looked at my phone to make sure I wasn't accidentally butt dialing someone, but thats when I heard the slight tap from in front of me. I looked up to see the little potato thing as it bumped the glass with its body, its toothless mouth forming words from behind its prison.
“Hello? Are you there?” it asked, its words muffled by the water and the glass.
I looked at it, not sure if it could even hear me when I responded, but when it floated back a little, I guessed it probably could.
“Hello, you sound different than the good doctor or his friends. Are you someone new?”
“Not really,” I said, half laughing, “I've actually been here watching you for a couple weeks.”
“Oh,” it said, very interested, “You must be the one I couldn't reach. I'm glad we can finally speak properly.”
I sat my phone down, leaning in a little closer as I watched the little brown thing float in the off color water that held it.
“What do you mean? You only just got a mouth.”
“Yes, well, there are more ways than one to communicate, aren't there? I've been trying to touch your mind for weeks, but you don't seem overly receptive to my advances. Thus, I had to find alternative means of communication if we were to speak.”
Its voice, despite being muffled by the glass, was very smart sounding. Little dude was the smartest floating potato I had ever met, though the list was just him for the moment. He sounded like the doc a little. He used a lot of big words, and sounded like he knew a lot of stuff. I put my face a little closer to the glass as I looked at him, watching him float there, and wondering what he might know?
We talked a lot that night. Well, I talked a lot. The little just kind of floated and listed, throwing something out every now and again. He wanted to know where he was, how he had come to be in a fishbowl, and what the Doc intended to do with him? I didn't know most of these things, and I told him that. He didn't seem too thrilled with that answer, but he still kept talking to me. He asked about me and what I was studying and what sort of things I liked to do. I didn't pick up my phone much that night. Instead, I told the little guy about myself and we talked for hours about nothing in particular.
The clock said it was about four am when the subject finally turned to what he really wanted.
I wish now that we had just kept talking about me.
“So, despite the fact that you cant leave this place, you could still take me out of this tank, right?”
I snorted, “Why would you want to? It's really not much better out here than in there.”
“True, but I would very much like to experience life outside my bowl. I lack hands or I would do it myself, but you could help me out.”
“Sorry, little dude,” I said, and I found that I was kinda sorry, “you're a good hang, but I promised the Doc that I wouldn't take you out. I think it was one of those papers I had to sign to get this job.”
“No one has to know,” it said, its voice kind of sneaky as it pressed its brown side against the glass, “you could take me out for just a second and then put me right back in.”
“No,” I said, looking at the door like I'd been doing something wrong, “I...I really shouldn't.”
“Please,” it begged, “You have no idea what its like to live in your own filth. Now that I have a mouth, I can constantly taste the stagnant water I live in. It's pure hell.”
“Dude, stop it. That's not cool. You know I can't take you out, I told Doc I,” but then it did the last thing I would have expected.
It started to cry.
I don't mean it was pretending to cry, the thing started loosing these tortured sounds that made me think of someone going through a bad break up. It sounded super hopeless, and it began to bump it's body against the side of the tank. I picked up my phone and tried to ignore it, but its hard listening to something just cry and cry like that. I had a room mate once who just kinda gave up after his girlfriend dumped him and he just lay on his bed and cried until his parents finally came to get him. I never saw ole dude again, but I can still hear his sobs sometimes when I close my eyes.
It was heartbreaking, and infuriating, and I wanted to console him as much as I wanted him to shut the hell up.
“Please! Please just let me out! I can't stand this anymore! I need to get out! I need to get out! I NEED TO GET OUT!”
It yelled and screamed and begged and cried for another hour and a half, and when the key turned in the lock, I was never happier to see the Doc.
Doc C looked at the little creature in the jar and asked me what had happened?
“Nothin,” I said, “It started talking after you left and then when I wouldn't let it out, it started screaming and crying.”
Far from being angry or disturbed, Doc C seemed amazed. He started studying the thing through the glass, before I reminded him that I was done for the night and needed to leave. He pulled himself away begrudgingly before handing me my money and putting the sack back over my head. I found an extra hundred in the pile that night, for my suffering I supposed, and thought about not coming back that night. The blubbering and crying had been a lot to handle, but I couldn't deny that the money was good and it was helping me pay down a lot of my outstanding debts. Another month of this, and my rent would be paid for the next year. Another two months and my credit card would be paid and I could afford that new flat screen for the living room. The things wailing had been a lot to handle, but what was a little more next to financial freedom?
I made sure to pick up some earplugs before I came back the following night and that's how I spent my next week.
In that week, the little creature grew an eye and four small fingers, two on each side of its body.
The night I arrived to find it had an eye, it told me all night how I looked like a kind person, and how it didn't understand how I could just sit here and watch it suffer. The earplugs helped a little, but it seemed like I could still hear it through the plugs. It would start out trying to talk to me, trying to flatter me, trying to reason with me, but we would always end up with it crying and me trying to ignore it. It became harder and harder as time went on, and every night seemed to be a battle to not open the tank and let it out or to just flip the table and smash its tank into a thousand pieces. In the end, it always came down to the money and I always managed to stop myself from doing something stupid.
It was a Tuesday when something I hadn't considered happened.
Tuesday night started out just like any other. Doc C brought me into the room, took off the hood, and there sat the little creature in its glass prison. It smiled at me, and I could see a couple of teeth breaking the gums. It had six fingers now and they made it look a little like a bug as they wiggled energetically. It still had only the one eye, but the beginnings of a nose had started to form under it. It was a repugnant little thing, and as the Doc left and I settled in, I kept my mind on the money, reminding myself that I just had to power through tonight.
It would be over in ten hours and I could go back to my room and sleep.
It spent the next ten hours talking, pleading, crying, and trying everything it could to gain its freedom. Well, that's not quite true. It never tried to threaten me. It probably realized that such a thing would have been pointless. It could no more have hurt me than my two year old nephew could and had decided on a different gambit. When it started its piercing wailing again, I popped the ear plugs in and shut most of it out. The plugs tuned the thing down to about a two, and made it easier to ignore. I was just thinking that I might treat myself to some really nice noise canceling headphones and forgo the tv for another week, when I saw someone familiar in a piece of Reddit News.
I almost dropped the phone as I read over the article, not sure what to make of it.
“Doctor Joseph Crandler arrested after trying to buy biological materials from an undercover agent.”
The picture showed Doc C looking very unhappy as he was led away in cuffs. He was wearing the same clothes I had seen him leave in the night before, and the article that followed didn't cheer me up. He had been buying materials from his experiments from some disreputable people, and finally he had put his trust in the wrong one, or maybe the right one, I guess. The agent had arrested him and they were holding him for questioning. I felt a cold chill as I looked over at the little freak in the tank. Was this the sort of experiment he'd been buying materials for? I had never thought to question if this thing was something the college had sanctioned or not, and now I realized that I might be part of an illegal experiment. They'd be coming for me next, me and this thing, and they'd assume I was the Egor to his Doctor Frankfurter or whatever.
As the creature wailed and thrashed, my brain started putting blocks together that it should have a few minutes ago.
My biggest problem wasn't that they would think I was involved, it was that if they didn't come and the Doc didn't come, then I would have no way out of here.
I was trapped with this little crying dude for god knew how long.
I thought about calling for help, but that could be bad too. What if they thought I was part of this? I'd have a hard time convincing them that I had nothing to do with this when they found me with the evidence. What's more, all the Doc had to say was that I was his assistant, that he had paid me, and I'd be in the same prison chow line as him. I started looking around the room for escape routes, but there was nothing but the very locked door. The little creature kept asking what was happening, but I just kept ignoring him. There were no windows, no other doors, not even a vent to squeeze into, like in the movies. All the while, the creature wailed and pleaded to be released. It knew something was wrong, and it wanted to be set free. It could help me, it could get me out of here, it could do anything as long as I would take it out of the tank.
After searching the little room again and again, I finally just sat and tried not to go crazy.
My phone will make calls, but I have no idea how to tell anyone to find me or even if they could. I tried to explain to the police what was happening, I even mentioned Doctor C, but I think the dispatcher thought I was high. They started hanging up on me when I called back, and if they trace my number, all their going to find is my dorm room, which is empty. Luckily, I have a charger on me, so I can keep calling out and trying to get someone to help me.
I checked the fridge, and there's enough bottled water and snacks in there to last for three or four days. Less if I feed this little bastard, but I'm not even sure what he eats. I've never been given any feeding instructions for him, and I'm not going to waste my food on this squalling thing. I threw a tarp over him, but it isn't doing anything to dull the screaming. It sounds like he might have grown more mouths because I can hear his shrill little voice from every angle as it bounces off the wall.
One things for sure, if it doesn't stop screaming soon, I'm going to give him some kind of release.
If it goes on much longer, I'm going to wrench the lid off that tank and stomp the life out of him.
If someone doesn’t come soon, I’m going to release him from his suffering forever.

I should have known the job was too good to be true.
Make two hundred dollars a night to sit in an undisclosed location from sun down to sun up. No previous experience required. Non Disclosure to be signed before hiring. Candidates who break NDA will be sued for breach of contract. Must have a strong constitution and high moral fiber. Interested parties call (number below)
For a college student who was struggling to pay tuition, car insurance, and keep food in the dorm fridge, this sounded too good to be true. I looked at the party offering the service and discovered that I knew them. Doctor Crandler was a BioMed teacher who had a bit of a reputation for being out there. He was said to conduct experiments after hours in the science lab and if he hadn’t had tenure, it was pretty likely that he would have been fired. These were all rumors, of course. I’d had Doctor Crandler last year for entry level human biomes and he was a delight. He turned out to be a huge Romero fan and loved to talk about zombies and old horror movies. We had really hit it off, and when I called the number, he sounded happy to hear from me.
“Oh thank god, I was hoping someone reliable would call. I’ve lost three this week, and I’m beginning to think I’ll have to stoop to drastic measures.”
Whatever drastic measures were, Doc C didn’t elaborate.
He just told me to come to the science lab at five fifteen sharp.
“And not a minute later!” he added before hanging up and leaving me with more questions than answers.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but two hundy was two hundy, and that would be able to put something in my body other than ramen noodles this week if the job was legit. So, about four thirty, I hopped on my bike and made my way across campus to the Verner May Science Building. It’s a huge old brick building that's been on campus since the nineteen forties. They say its been home to a lot of famous research and more than one questionable clinical trial. I had started to wonder if Doctor C was gonna try to experiment on me, and that's why he was being so secretive. I decided that if that was the case, two hundred was not enough. I had enough trouble scoring ladies with my pizza face and I doubted having four arms or two heads would help matters much.
I stepped through the doors at five o'clock sharp and Doctor Crandler looked up excitedly. “Prompt as always! I remember that from my classes. You were always early, and I like a student who is punctual. Come this way and let me show you what I’m working on. Before we start out though,” he set a Non Disclosure Agreement in front of me and I looked over it before signing my name to it. It was pretty standard stuff. Don’t talk about what you see, don’t talk about what I’m working on, don’t tell the media, don’t post it on the internet (guess I messed that part up), yada yada yada. After that, he tossed a black hood onto the table and told me to put it on.
I hesitated, not having asked him anything about what we were doing yet.
“You’re, uh, not gonna experiment on me, right Doc?”
He laughed, but it didn't sound particularly merry.
“No no, my boy. I would never experiment on you. I have specific parameters and I'm afraid you just don't meet them.”
I wasn't sure whether to be glad or insulted, but I put the hood on either way. He led me through a door, down some stairs, outside, back inside, and then down more stairs. Finally, we came to our destination, and when he took the hood off, I was in a little room about the size of your average dorm room. Inside was a table, a chair, and a glass jar with something floating inside. It was roughly the size of a spud, though if it was a potato it was one of those big ole Idaho job. I'd say it was about two feet tall, maybe half a foot wide, and it just sort of floated there placidly.
“This is your job.” Doctor C said, pointing to the jar.
“What? Just watch this thing? Easy peasy!” I said, not yet understanding what I was agreeing to.
“Just watch it till I get here to relieve you. Be careful, it's very tricky. It may try to get you to let it go. Do Not let it go under ANY circumstances. For that, I'll pay you two hundred dollars a night.”
I put out a hand, being a man who signs deals with a shake, and Doctor C pumped my arm one good time before saying he was going to leave now.
“I'm going to lock you in. If you have to urinate, there's a bucket in the corner. There are snacks and water in the mini fridge over there, though I would prefer it if you don't take your eyes off that jar.
I started to protest about having to wizz in a bucket, but I just nodded and told him not to worry about it. A deal was a deal, as my old man liked to say, and when he left, I heard the door lock behind him. So, I settled in and took out my phone as I surfed Reddit. I kept an eye on the jar, looking up about every thirty seconds, but mostly I just sat there and tried not to fall asleep. That was the hardest part. It was so boring, just sitting there for ten to twelve hours, and I made a mental sticky to bring coffee tomorrow. Doc had some snacks in his fridge, but Kale chips and pita chips with hummus are not what a man desires when he's trying not to zonk out.
The weird little thing in the jar didn't help much either. It was boring. All it did was float there, but I guess thats not quite true. Sometimes I would look up and find it looking at me, its weird brown body seeming to watch me. It couldn't really be doing that, since it didn't have eyes, but I still felt very seen as I sat there on my phone. I made a note to bring a charger too, but luckily it lasted till the doc came back, and he smiled as he handed me my two hundred dollars in cash at the end of the shift.
“Do you feel anything? Any headaches or nausea?” he asked.
I told him I didn't and he invited me to come back tomorrow night.
I told him for sure, and left two hundred bones the richer.
I kept watching the little science project for the next week and ended with an extra fourteen hundred bucks in my pocket. I agreed to do it seven nights a week, and as spring began, the nights got a little shorter too. Soon the sun was going down closer to eight, and I didn't have to show up till seven thirty or eight o'clock. Getting a couple of hundred bucks for ten hours of work was boss, and I got a lot of Raid Shadow Legends played and Reddit scoped while I sat there and collected mulla for sitting on ass.
When I arrived Tuesday of the next week, however, something had changed in my little potato cash cow.
The thing had an ear.
Doc sat me down and as the hood came off, he asked if I noticed anything different about the little blob. I looked at it critically, but couldn't really see anything different. Doc didn't really like this answer, and told me to look harder. After a few minutes of coming up with nothing, he sighed in exasperation and pointed.
“It has acquired an auditory openings for vocal registration.”
The look I gave him must have told him all he needed, because he just shook his head and tapped the tank.
“It has an ear hole.” he said, and I finally got it.
After some looking, I realized what he was talking about and he seemed pretty proud of himself.
“We've been working with chemical stimuli and had a breakthrough when it finally developed some form of communication peripheral.”
“How do you know it can hear you?”
It was his turn to look puzzled, until I pointed out that it didn't have any way to let them know if it could hear them.
“Well, it kind of wiggles around when we talk to it or play music. It hadn't done that much before, so we think it must be able to hear us.”
He left after that, and I made sure to turn the volume up on my videos so the little dude, or dudette, could listen too. It definitely bounced around a little, dancing in the water a bit as it moved around in its glass tank. I thought it was a little funny, and turned the volume way up as it wiggled and wobbled.
By the end of the week, it had two ear holes and some little baby ears to go with them. The Doc told me to take a week off after that, saying they had some experiments to run on the little thing, and I told him to call me back when he needed me. I took some time and spent a little of my money paying bills and settling debts. By the end of the week, I was praying for a call from Doc C, and Sunday night, he obliged.
“I could use a set of eyes next week, if you're free.”
I told him I'd be there, and pumped my fist in excitement. When he took the hood off monday, he was rewarded by a “whoa” of interest from yours truly. The little sucker had a toothless mouth that it seemed to be opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“I came in Sunday to find that it had grown it. It's pretty interesting stuff,” Doctor C told me, “Has it spoken to you before tonight? Some of my assistants claim it has spoken to them by way of telekinesis, but you don't seem to have suffered from any of the symptoms they've talked about.”
“Thankfully not, Doc. All the little guy does is float and make me money.”
Doc C nodded, looking thoughtful before leaving and locking me in for the night.
I had just brought my phone out to start scrolling Reddit for the night, when I heard a muffled voice from somewhere. I looked up, thinking someone was outside the door, but the door was solid wood. I looked at my phone to make sure I wasn't accidentally butt dialing someone, but thats when I heard the slight tap from in front of me. I looked up to see the little potato thing as it bumped the glass with its body, its toothless mouth forming words from behind its prison.
“Hello? Are you there?” it asked, its words muffled by the water and the glass.
I looked at it, not sure if it could even hear me when I responded, but when it floated back a little, I guessed it probably could.
“Hello, you sound different than the good doctor or his friends. Are you someone new?”
“Not really,” I said, half laughing, “I've actually been here watching you for a couple weeks.”
“Oh,” it said, very interested, “You must be the one I couldn't reach. I'm glad we can finally speak properly.”
I sat my phone down, leaning in a little closer as I watched the little brown thing float in the off color water that held it.
“What do you mean? You only just got a mouth.”
“Yes, well, there are more ways than one to communicate, aren't there? I've been trying to touch your mind for weeks, but you don't seem overly receptive to my advances. Thus, I had to find alternative means of communication if we were to speak.”
Its voice, despite being muffled by the glass, was very smart sounding. Little dude was the smartest floating potato I had ever met, though the list was just him for the moment. He sounded like the doc a little. He used a lot of big words, and sounded like he knew a lot of stuff. I put my face a little closer to the glass as I looked at him, watching him float there, and wondering what he might know?
We talked a lot that night. Well, I talked a lot. The little just kind of floated and listed, throwing something out every now and again. He wanted to know where he was, how he had come to be in a fishbowl, and what the Doc intended to do with him? I didn't know most of these things, and I told him that. He didn't seem too thrilled with that answer, but he still kept talking to me. He asked about me and what I was studying and what sort of things I liked to do. I didn't pick up my phone much that night. Instead, I told the little guy about myself and we talked for hours about nothing in particular.
The clock said it was about four am when the subject finally turned to what he really wanted.
I wish now that we had just kept talking about me.
“So, despite the fact that you cant leave this place, you could still take me out of this tank, right?”
I snorted, “Why would you want to? It's really not much better out here than in there.”
“True, but I would very much like to experience life outside my bowl. I lack hands or I would do it myself, but you could help me out.”
“Sorry, little dude,” I said, and I found that I was kinda sorry, “you're a good hang, but I promised the Doc that I wouldn't take you out. I think it was one of those papers I had to sign to get this job.”
“No one has to know,” it said, its voice kind of sneaky as it pressed its brown side against the glass, “you could take me out for just a second and then put me right back in.”
“No,” I said, looking at the door like I'd been doing something wrong, “I...I really shouldn't.”
“Please,” it begged, “You have no idea what its like to live in your own filth. Now that I have a mouth, I can constantly taste the stagnant water I live in. It's pure hell.”
“Dude, stop it. That's not cool. You know I can't take you out, I told Doc I,” but then it did the last thing I would have expected.
It started to cry.
I don't mean it was pretending to cry, the thing started loosing these tortured sounds that made me think of someone going through a bad break up. It sounded super hopeless, and it began to bump it's body against the side of the tank. I picked up my phone and tried to ignore it, but its hard listening to something just cry and cry like that. I had a room mate once who just kinda gave up after his girlfriend dumped him and he just lay on his bed and cried until his parents finally came to get him. I never saw ole dude again, but I can still hear his sobs sometimes when I close my eyes.
It was heartbreaking, and infuriating, and I wanted to console him as much as I wanted him to shut the hell up.
“Please! Please just let me out! I can't stand this anymore! I need to get out! I need to get out! I NEED TO GET OUT!”
It yelled and screamed and begged and cried for another hour and a half, and when the key turned in the lock, I was never happier to see the Doc.
Doc C looked at the little creature in the jar and asked me what had happened?
“Nothin,” I said, “It started talking after you left and then when I wouldn't let it out, it started screaming and crying.”
Far from being angry or disturbed, Doc C seemed amazed. He started studying the thing through the glass, before I reminded him that I was done for the night and needed to leave. He pulled himself away begrudgingly before handing me my money and putting the sack back over my head. I found an extra hundred in the pile that night, for my suffering I supposed, and thought about not coming back that night. The blubbering and crying had been a lot to handle, but I couldn't deny that the money was good and it was helping me pay down a lot of my outstanding debts. Another month of this, and my rent would be paid for the next year. Another two months and my credit card would be paid and I could afford that new flat screen for the living room. The things wailing had been a lot to handle, but what was a little more next to financial freedom?
I made sure to pick up some earplugs before I came back the following night and that's how I spent my next week.
In that week, the little creature grew an eye and four small fingers, two on each side of its body.
The night I arrived to find it had an eye, it told me all night how I looked like a kind person, and how it didn't understand how I could just sit here and watch it suffer. The earplugs helped a little, but it seemed like I could still hear it through the plugs. It would start out trying to talk to me, trying to flatter me, trying to reason with me, but we would always end up with it crying and me trying to ignore it. It became harder and harder as time went on, and every night seemed to be a battle to not open the tank and let it out or to just flip the table and smash its tank into a thousand pieces. In the end, it always came down to the money and I always managed to stop myself from doing something stupid.
It was a Tuesday when something I hadn't considered happened.
Tuesday night started out just like any other. Doc C brought me into the room, took off the hood, and there sat the little creature in its glass prison. It smiled at me, and I could see a couple of teeth breaking the gums. It had six fingers now and they made it look a little like a bug as they wiggled energetically. It still had only the one eye, but the beginnings of a nose had started to form under it. It was a repugnant little thing, and as the Doc left and I settled in, I kept my mind on the money, reminding myself that I just had to power through tonight.
It would be over in ten hours and I could go back to my room and sleep.
It spent the next ten hours talking, pleading, crying, and trying everything it could to gain its freedom. Well, that's not quite true. It never tried to threaten me. It probably realized that such a thing would have been pointless. It could no more have hurt me than my two year old nephew could and had decided on a different gambit. When it started its piercing wailing again, I popped the ear plugs in and shut most of it out. The plugs tuned the thing down to about a two, and made it easier to ignore. I was just thinking that I might treat myself to some really nice noise canceling headphones and forgo the tv for another week, when I saw someone familiar in a piece of Reddit News.
I almost dropped the phone as I read over the article, not sure what to make of it.
“Doctor Joseph Crandler arrested after trying to buy biological materials from an undercover agent.”
The picture showed Doc C looking very unhappy as he was led away in cuffs. He was wearing the same clothes I had seen him leave in the night before, and the article that followed didn't cheer me up. He had been buying materials from his experiments from some disreputable people, and finally he had put his trust in the wrong one, or maybe the right one, I guess. The agent had arrested him and they were holding him for questioning. I felt a cold chill as I looked over at the little freak in the tank. Was this the sort of experiment he'd been buying materials for? I had never thought to question if this thing was something the college had sanctioned or not, and now I realized that I might be part of an illegal experiment. They'd be coming for me next, me and this thing, and they'd assume I was the Egor to his Doctor Frankfurter or whatever.
As the creature wailed and thrashed, my brain started putting blocks together that it should have a few minutes ago.
My biggest problem wasn't that they would think I was involved, it was that if they didn't come and the Doc didn't come, then I would have no way out of here.
I was trapped with this little crying dude for god knew how long.
I thought about calling for help, but that could be bad too. What if they thought I was part of this? I'd have a hard time convincing them that I had nothing to do with this when they found me with the evidence. What's more, all the Doc had to say was that I was his assistant, that he had paid me, and I'd be in the same prison chow line as him. I started looking around the room for escape routes, but there was nothing but the very locked door. The little creature kept asking what was happening, but I just kept ignoring him. There were no windows, no other doors, not even a vent to squeeze into, like in the movies. All the while, the creature wailed and pleaded to be released. It knew something was wrong, and it wanted to be set free. It could help me, it could get me out of here, it could do anything as long as I would take it out of the tank.
After searching the little room again and again, I finally just sat and tried not to go crazy.
My phone will make calls, but I have no idea how to tell anyone to find me or even if they could. I tried to explain to the police what was happening, I even mentioned Doctor C, but I think the dispatcher thought I was high. They started hanging up on me when I called back, and if they trace my number, all their going to find is my dorm room, which is empty. Luckily, I have a charger on me, so I can keep calling out and trying to get someone to help me.
I checked the fridge, and there's enough bottled water and snacks in there to last for three or four days. Less if I feed this little bastard, but I'm not even sure what he eats. I've never been given any feeding instructions for him, and I'm not going to waste my food on this squalling thing. I threw a tarp over him, but it isn't doing anything to dull the screaming. It sounds like he might have grown more mouths because I can hear his shrill little voice from every angle as it bounces off the wall.
One things for sure, if it doesn't stop screaming soon, I'm going to give him some kind of release.
If it goes on much longer, I'm going to wrench the lid off that tank and stomp the life out of him.
If someone doesn’t come soon, I’m going to release him from his suffering forever.

I should have known the job was too good to be true.
Make two hundred dollars a night to sit in an undisclosed location from sun down to sun up. No previous experience required. Non Disclosure to be signed before hiring. Candidates who break NDA will be sued for breach of contract. Must have a strong constitution and high moral fiber. Interested parties call (number below)
For a college student who was struggling to pay tuition, car insurance, and keep food in the dorm fridge, this sounded too good to be true. I looked at the party offering the service and discovered that I knew them. Doctor Crandler was a BioMed teacher who had a bit of a reputation for being out there. He was said to conduct experiments after hours in the science lab and if he hadn’t had tenure, it was pretty likely that he would have been fired. These were all rumors, of course. I’d had Doctor Crandler last year for entry level human biomes and he was a delight. He turned out to be a huge Romero fan and loved to talk about zombies and old horror movies. We had really hit it off, and when I called the number, he sounded happy to hear from me.
“Oh thank god, I was hoping someone reliable would call. I’ve lost three this week, and I’m beginning to think I’ll have to stoop to drastic measures.”
Whatever drastic measures were, Doc C didn’t elaborate.
He just told me to come to the science lab at five fifteen sharp.
“And not a minute later!” he added before hanging up and leaving me with more questions than answers.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but two hundy was two hundy, and that would be able to put something in my body other than ramen noodles this week if the job was legit. So, about four thirty, I hopped on my bike and made my way across campus to the Verner May Science Building. It’s a huge old brick building that's been on campus since the nineteen forties. They say its been home to a lot of famous research and more than one questionable clinical trial. I had started to wonder if Doctor C was gonna try to experiment on me, and that's why he was being so secretive. I decided that if that was the case, two hundred was not enough. I had enough trouble scoring ladies with my pizza face and I doubted having four arms or two heads would help matters much.
I stepped through the doors at five o'clock sharp and Doctor Crandler looked up excitedly. “Prompt as always! I remember that from my classes. You were always early, and I like a student who is punctual. Come this way and let me show you what I’m working on. Before we start out though,” he set a Non Disclosure Agreement in front of me and I looked over it before signing my name to it. It was pretty standard stuff. Don’t talk about what you see, don’t talk about what I’m working on, don’t tell the media, don’t post it on the internet (guess I messed that part up), yada yada yada. After that, he tossed a black hood onto the table and told me to put it on.
I hesitated, not having asked him anything about what we were doing yet.
“You’re, uh, not gonna experiment on me, right Doc?”
He laughed, but it didn't sound particularly merry.
“No no, my boy. I would never experiment on you. I have specific parameters and I'm afraid you just don't meet them.”
I wasn't sure whether to be glad or insulted, but I put the hood on either way. He led me through a door, down some stairs, outside, back inside, and then down more stairs. Finally, we came to our destination, and when he took the hood off, I was in a little room about the size of your average dorm room. Inside was a table, a chair, and a glass jar with something floating inside. It was roughly the size of a spud, though if it was a potato it was one of those big ole Idaho job. I'd say it was about two feet tall, maybe half a foot wide, and it just sort of floated there placidly.
“This is your job.” Doctor C said, pointing to the jar.
“What? Just watch this thing? Easy peasy!” I said, not yet understanding what I was agreeing to.
“Just watch it till I get here to relieve you. Be careful, it's very tricky. It may try to get you to let it go. Do Not let it go under ANY circumstances. For that, I'll pay you two hundred dollars a night.”
I put out a hand, being a man who signs deals with a shake, and Doctor C pumped my arm one good time before saying he was going to leave now.
“I'm going to lock you in. If you have to urinate, there's a bucket in the corner. There are snacks and water in the mini fridge over there, though I would prefer it if you don't take your eyes off that jar.
I started to protest about having to wizz in a bucket, but I just nodded and told him not to worry about it. A deal was a deal, as my old man liked to say, and when he left, I heard the door lock behind him. So, I settled in and took out my phone as I surfed Reddit. I kept an eye on the jar, looking up about every thirty seconds, but mostly I just sat there and tried not to fall asleep. That was the hardest part. It was so boring, just sitting there for ten to twelve hours, and I made a mental sticky to bring coffee tomorrow. Doc had some snacks in his fridge, but Kale chips and pita chips with hummus are not what a man desires when he's trying not to zonk out.
The weird little thing in the jar didn't help much either. It was boring. All it did was float there, but I guess thats not quite true. Sometimes I would look up and find it looking at me, its weird brown body seeming to watch me. It couldn't really be doing that, since it didn't have eyes, but I still felt very seen as I sat there on my phone. I made a note to bring a charger too, but luckily it lasted till the doc came back, and he smiled as he handed me my two hundred dollars in cash at the end of the shift.
“Do you feel anything? Any headaches or nausea?” he asked.
I told him I didn't and he invited me to come back tomorrow night.
I told him for sure, and left two hundred bones the richer.
I kept watching the little science project for the next week and ended with an extra fourteen hundred bucks in my pocket. I agreed to do it seven nights a week, and as spring began, the nights got a little shorter too. Soon the sun was going down closer to eight, and I didn't have to show up till seven thirty or eight o'clock. Getting a couple of hundred bucks for ten hours of work was boss, and I got a lot of Raid Shadow Legends played and Reddit scoped while I sat there and collected mulla for sitting on ass.
When I arrived Tuesday of the next week, however, something had changed in my little potato cash cow.
The thing had an ear.
Doc sat me down and as the hood came off, he asked if I noticed anything different about the little blob. I looked at it critically, but couldn't really see anything different. Doc didn't really like this answer, and told me to look harder. After a few minutes of coming up with nothing, he sighed in exasperation and pointed.
“It has acquired an auditory openings for vocal registration.”
The look I gave him must have told him all he needed, because he just shook his head and tapped the tank.
“It has an ear hole.” he said, and I finally got it.
After some looking, I realized what he was talking about and he seemed pretty proud of himself.
“We've been working with chemical stimuli and had a breakthrough when it finally developed some form of communication peripheral.”
“How do you know it can hear you?”
It was his turn to look puzzled, until I pointed out that it didn't have any way to let them know if it could hear them.
“Well, it kind of wiggles around when we talk to it or play music. It hadn't done that much before, so we think it must be able to hear us.”
He left after that, and I made sure to turn the volume up on my videos so the little dude, or dudette, could listen too. It definitely bounced around a little, dancing in the water a bit as it moved around in its glass tank. I thought it was a little funny, and turned the volume way up as it wiggled and wobbled.
By the end of the week, it had two ear holes and some little baby ears to go with them. The Doc told me to take a week off after that, saying they had some experiments to run on the little thing, and I told him to call me back when he needed me. I took some time and spent a little of my money paying bills and settling debts. By the end of the week, I was praying for a call from Doc C, and Sunday night, he obliged.
“I could use a set of eyes next week, if you're free.”
I told him I'd be there, and pumped my fist in excitement. When he took the hood off monday, he was rewarded by a “whoa” of interest from yours truly. The little sucker had a toothless mouth that it seemed to be opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“I came in Sunday to find that it had grown it. It's pretty interesting stuff,” Doctor C told me, “Has it spoken to you before tonight? Some of my assistants claim it has spoken to them by way of telekinesis, but you don't seem to have suffered from any of the symptoms they've talked about.”
“Thankfully not, Doc. All the little guy does is float and make me money.”
Doc C nodded, looking thoughtful before leaving and locking me in for the night.
I had just brought my phone out to start scrolling Reddit for the night, when I heard a muffled voice from somewhere. I looked up, thinking someone was outside the door, but the door was solid wood. I looked at my phone to make sure I wasn't accidentally butt dialing someone, but thats when I heard the slight tap from in front of me. I looked up to see the little potato thing as it bumped the glass with its body, its toothless mouth forming words from behind its prison.
“Hello? Are you there?” it asked, its words muffled by the water and the glass.
I looked at it, not sure if it could even hear me when I responded, but when it floated back a little, I guessed it probably could.
“Hello, you sound different than the good doctor or his friends. Are you someone new?”
“Not really,” I said, half laughing, “I've actually been here watching you for a couple weeks.”
“Oh,” it said, very interested, “You must be the one I couldn't reach. I'm glad we can finally speak properly.”
I sat my phone down, leaning in a little closer as I watched the little brown thing float in the off color water that held it.
“What do you mean? You only just got a mouth.”
“Yes, well, there are more ways than one to communicate, aren't there? I've been trying to touch your mind for weeks, but you don't seem overly receptive to my advances. Thus, I had to find alternative means of communication if we were to speak.”
Its voice, despite being muffled by the glass, was very smart sounding. Little dude was the smartest floating potato I had ever met, though the list was just him for the moment. He sounded like the doc a little. He used a lot of big words, and sounded like he knew a lot of stuff. I put my face a little closer to the glass as I looked at him, watching him float there, and wondering what he might know?
We talked a lot that night. Well, I talked a lot. The little just kind of floated and listed, throwing something out every now and again. He wanted to know where he was, how he had come to be in a fishbowl, and what the Doc intended to do with him? I didn't know most of these things, and I told him that. He didn't seem too thrilled with that answer, but he still kept talking to me. He asked about me and what I was studying and what sort of things I liked to do. I didn't pick up my phone much that night. Instead, I told the little guy about myself and we talked for hours about nothing in particular.
The clock said it was about four am when the subject finally turned to what he really wanted.
I wish now that we had just kept talking about me.
“So, despite the fact that you cant leave this place, you could still take me out of this tank, right?”
I snorted, “Why would you want to? It's really not much better out here than in there.”
“True, but I would very much like to experience life outside my bowl. I lack hands or I would do it myself, but you could help me out.”
“Sorry, little dude,” I said, and I found that I was kinda sorry, “you're a good hang, but I promised the Doc that I wouldn't take you out. I think it was one of those papers I had to sign to get this job.”
“No one has to know,” it said, its voice kind of sneaky as it pressed its brown side against the glass, “you could take me out for just a second and then put me right back in.”
“No,” I said, looking at the door like I'd been doing something wrong, “I...I really shouldn't.”
“Please,” it begged, “You have no idea what its like to live in your own filth. Now that I have a mouth, I can constantly taste the stagnant water I live in. It's pure hell.”
“Dude, stop it. That's not cool. You know I can't take you out, I told Doc I,” but then it did the last thing I would have expected.
It started to cry.
I don't mean it was pretending to cry, the thing started loosing these tortured sounds that made me think of someone going through a bad break up. It sounded super hopeless, and it began to bump it's body against the side of the tank. I picked up my phone and tried to ignore it, but its hard listening to something just cry and cry like that. I had a room mate once who just kinda gave up after his girlfriend dumped him and he just lay on his bed and cried until his parents finally came to get him. I never saw ole dude again, but I can still hear his sobs sometimes when I close my eyes.
It was heartbreaking, and infuriating, and I wanted to console him as much as I wanted him to shut the hell up.
“Please! Please just let me out! I can't stand this anymore! I need to get out! I need to get out! I NEED TO GET OUT!”
It yelled and screamed and begged and cried for another hour and a half, and when the key turned in the lock, I was never happier to see the Doc.
Doc C looked at the little creature in the jar and asked me what had happened?
“Nothin,” I said, “It started talking after you left and then when I wouldn't let it out, it started screaming and crying.”
Far from being angry or disturbed, Doc C seemed amazed. He started studying the thing through the glass, before I reminded him that I was done for the night and needed to leave. He pulled himself away begrudgingly before handing me my money and putting the sack back over my head. I found an extra hundred in the pile that night, for my suffering I supposed, and thought about not coming back that night. The blubbering and crying had been a lot to handle, but I couldn't deny that the money was good and it was helping me pay down a lot of my outstanding debts. Another month of this, and my rent would be paid for the next year. Another two months and my credit card would be paid and I could afford that new flat screen for the living room. The things wailing had been a lot to handle, but what was a little more next to financial freedom?
I made sure to pick up some earplugs before I came back the following night and that's how I spent my next week.
In that week, the little creature grew an eye and four small fingers, two on each side of its body.
The night I arrived to find it had an eye, it told me all night how I looked like a kind person, and how it didn't understand how I could just sit here and watch it suffer. The earplugs helped a little, but it seemed like I could still hear it through the plugs. It would start out trying to talk to me, trying to flatter me, trying to reason with me, but we would always end up with it crying and me trying to ignore it. It became harder and harder as time went on, and every night seemed to be a battle to not open the tank and let it out or to just flip the table and smash its tank into a thousand pieces. In the end, it always came down to the money and I always managed to stop myself from doing something stupid.
It was a Tuesday when something I hadn't considered happened.
Tuesday night started out just like any other. Doc C brought me into the room, took off the hood, and there sat the little creature in its glass prison. It smiled at me, and I could see a couple of teeth breaking the gums. It had six fingers now and they made it look a little like a bug as they wiggled energetically. It still had only the one eye, but the beginnings of a nose had started to form under it. It was a repugnant little thing, and as the Doc left and I settled in, I kept my mind on the money, reminding myself that I just had to power through tonight.
It would be over in ten hours and I could go back to my room and sleep.
It spent the next ten hours talking, pleading, crying, and trying everything it could to gain its freedom. Well, that's not quite true. It never tried to threaten me. It probably realized that such a thing would have been pointless. It could no more have hurt me than my two year old nephew could and had decided on a different gambit. When it started its piercing wailing again, I popped the ear plugs in and shut most of it out. The plugs tuned the thing down to about a two, and made it easier to ignore. I was just thinking that I might treat myself to some really nice noise canceling headphones and forgo the tv for another week, when I saw someone familiar in a piece of Reddit News.
I almost dropped the phone as I read over the article, not sure what to make of it.
“Doctor Joseph Crandler arrested after trying to buy biological materials from an undercover agent.”
The picture showed Doc C looking very unhappy as he was led away in cuffs. He was wearing the same clothes I had seen him leave in the night before, and the article that followed didn't cheer me up. He had been buying materials from his experiments from some disreputable people, and finally he had put his trust in the wrong one, or maybe the right one, I guess. The agent had arrested him and they were holding him for questioning. I felt a cold chill as I looked over at the little freak in the tank. Was this the sort of experiment he'd been buying materials for? I had never thought to question if this thing was something the college had sanctioned or not, and now I realized that I might be part of an illegal experiment. They'd be coming for me next, me and this thing, and they'd assume I was the Egor to his Doctor Frankfurter or whatever.
As the creature wailed and thrashed, my brain started putting blocks together that it should have a few minutes ago.
My biggest problem wasn't that they would think I was involved, it was that if they didn't come and the Doc didn't come, then I would have no way out of here.
I was trapped with this little crying dude for god knew how long.
I thought about calling for help, but that could be bad too. What if they thought I was part of this? I'd have a hard time convincing them that I had nothing to do with this when they found me with the evidence. What's more, all the Doc had to say was that I was his assistant, that he had paid me, and I'd be in the same prison chow line as him. I started looking around the room for escape routes, but there was nothing but the very locked door. The little creature kept asking what was happening, but I just kept ignoring him. There were no windows, no other doors, not even a vent to squeeze into, like in the movies. All the while, the creature wailed and pleaded to be released. It knew something was wrong, and it wanted to be set free. It could help me, it could get me out of here, it could do anything as long as I would take it out of the tank.
After searching the little room again and again, I finally just sat and tried not to go crazy.
My phone will make calls, but I have no idea how to tell anyone to find me or even if they could. I tried to explain to the police what was happening, I even mentioned Doctor C, but I think the dispatcher thought I was high. They started hanging up on me when I called back, and if they trace my number, all their going to find is my dorm room, which is empty. Luckily, I have a charger on me, so I can keep calling out and trying to get someone to help me.
I checked the fridge, and there's enough bottled water and snacks in there to last for three or four days. Less if I feed this little bastard, but I'm not even sure what he eats. I've never been given any feeding instructions for him, and I'm not going to waste my food on this squalling thing. I threw a tarp over him, but it isn't doing anything to dull the screaming. It sounds like he might have grown more mouths because I can hear his shrill little voice from every angle as it bounces off the wall.
One things for sure, if it doesn't stop screaming soon, I'm going to give him some kind of release.
If it goes on much longer, I'm going to wrench the lid off that tank and stomp the life out of him.
If someone doesn’t come soon, I’m going to release him from his suffering forever.

I've only posted on this subreddit a few times before and I have been going back and forth on it for a long while now. I think maybe it's because of the fact that if I did, I would be fully admitting to myself just how lonely I actually am. But there's really no point in trying to mask and run away from the glaring truth, so, here I am again. Taa-daah!
As most people on here are, or I assume, given the context of the subreddit, I am a person who's unfortunately lived the forever alone lifestyle, well, for most of my life. The last person I was close with was way back in the 6th grade (I'm a fourth year in college), and the closest connection I've had since then was those types of people that would talk and hang out with you during class time, but the second the bell rings, instant transmission, they gone now. And if we're talking about my love life, well, let's just say the fact that I still haven't had my first kiss yet, should paint a good picture (or lack thereof I suppose) of that.
But I'm not trying to make this some sort of pity party for me, but rather to shed some background as to what I hope, fingers criss crossed, twisting and turning, and looping around each other, for what I want to potentially get out of this. Of course, having a partner would be spectacular, but the companionship beyond the romance is just as important, if not even more so. I'm tired of getting up everyday, doing college work, video editing (small time Youtuber), watching YouTube and playing video games, going to work (if I have a job at a given time if I'm not focusing on university), and going to bed, and rinse and repeat all alone.
I want that to change. I want to spend time watching stupid things with someone, having my butt kicked in Smash even though I've been playing it for years, arguing over which anime opening is better than another for no reason other than it being a means to spend time hearing each other's voice. To go out dates, to laugh, to explore, to cuddle, to do the things that come after that if you catch my drift (or technically before the cuddling, or both), and so much more. But every attempt I made well ehhhhh, well its led me to here.
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Here's a little bit of description about me 😁:

• 22 years old, though that one is probably already known given the title of this post
  
• Black, 6 foot 1 inches, and real skinny (119 pounds), with black hair and glasses (no facial hair and no body hair to speak of; I guess I can say I'm like semi-femboyish)
  
• Don't do drugs, don't have any STDs, don't drink, but I do smoke, so hopefully that isn't too much of an issue for you (and will totally understand if you don't want me doing it around you).
  
• Do have 1 tattoo, just in case that's a thing you may care about. It's a Kingdom Hearts heartless and keyblade tattoo where my heart is.
  

https://imgur.com/a/KDvNYqx (A few more face pics are avaliable in the link provided)
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My hobbies and interests ❤:

• Literally all things gaming 🎮. And no, I'm not talking 2K or Fortnite or COD or whatever, but JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, platformers like Crash Bandicoot and definetly Sonic the Hedgehog, adventure games like Zelda, etc. I'm open to pretty much all genres and my favorites include Mirror's Edge, Shadow the Colossus, No More Heroes, Asura's Wrath, etc. So kind of a jack of all trades I like to think
  
• Love anime, and like video games, I'm open to all genres but there's definitely ones I prefer more than others (mostly don't watch a whole lot slice of life, and seinen type shows). Favorites include Fate, Neon Genesis, Konosuba, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, Chainsaw Man, etc
  
• Love movies 🎬 but haven't been watching as much as I'd like to, but hey, only so much free time in the world. But I'm one of those people that likes to put on subtitles and rewind a lot, and I know that can be quite annoying so....I'll try not too? 😅
  
• Enjoy video editing for my channel, and watching YouTube mostly centered around gaming and anime content. I love listening to music, but once again, my library consists of mostly just anime and video game OSTs (I am a simple guy I suppose)
  
• And this is a weird one to end off on, but since this is a dating subreddit, I suppose it should be said, I am very sub oriented, and have a high libido, but I am also very very open minded, and won't shame you if you have a particular unusual fascination with something most wouldn't find attractive.
  

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I feel like a bit of an ass writing this next part, as if I'm placing some kind of order on what kind of people I accept or don't accept, and that is not my intention in the slightest, but there are things that I am looking for in a person, just so I know that we can get along quite well, instead of me ending up talking to someone I have very little likelihood of jiving with. I don't waste anyone's time, including whoever is reading this.
Some of the things I'm looking for 🔍:

• A gamer, and I mean more than just Animal Crossing and Just Dance, like an ACTUAL actual gamer. We don't need to play the same type of games, and like I said before, I'm really a jack of all trades. So whether it's an RPG, a casual game, a puzzle, a platformer, a shooter, a fighter, a rhythm game or whatever, so long as we're NOT hoping off of Battle Buses or the Gulag, I'm sure anything will work. This one is the most important because it's the thing I want to be able to connect to someone the most, because it's the thing I'm most passionate about. Can't have long late night cozy gaming sessions if my potential partner doesn't game now can I?
  
• Anime lover, weeb, otaku, whatever term you wanna call it. This isn't a necessity per say as the gaming one is, but it'd be nice to have none the less. There's a whole great of wall of anime/manga that I wanna watch/read, and I hope to be able to do that with someone. But if not, live action shows on Netflix or HBO is a okay with me.
  
• Someone who is more than just a copy of me, and can respect when I want some alone time. I tend to do the exact same, and know that not everyday, at any time, are we going to have the energy to socialize or hang out, and some days, we're just going to want to spend some alone time to focus on work or ourselves. And I want someone who doesn't just think the same way as me. I love discussions and find what seperates a person from another special, and what makes them unique, so long as we respect each other's opinion and don't get toxic with it (not trying to date a Twitter stand here)
  
• Someone who is preferably around my age, though if you're on the more older side, please don't let that stop you from messaging me if this post catches your interest. The older the grape, the finer the wine as they say. 😅
  
• No drugs, but it's okay if you drink or smoke or have tattoos, just so long as you're disease and drug free, you do what you consider your best and happiest you, and I won't mind in the slightest. I'd very much want someone who is fit/skinny; nothing against heavier body types, it's just not what I'm into.
  
• Someone who is....uhhh...how do I phrase this, "sexually driven", but not like a lot (but it's even better if it happens to be a lot), but has a sex drive you know? You don't need to have a high libido, but I also want you to have some libido too. Also, like I mentioned before, I am very sub-like, so hopefully, you can be the dominant one if this turns out blossoming into a relationship.
  
• Someone who is close and can host is a huge plus as well. I can host as well, but those times aren't always avaliable, as I do currently live with my family while working on my college degree in Computer Game Design in the next year or so.
  
• Someone who's looking for a MONOGAMOUS relationship. Not really a debate on this one. I'm not against those who like to have multiple partners, but is that something that I wanna engage in? Yeah, yeah, that's a hard no.
  

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• Finally, preferences, NONE OF WHICH ARE REQUIRED ❌️, buuuuuutt, still, if you fit into any one of these, I very much hope this post catches your interest:
  
• Dominant, both in the relationship, and in the bedroom, and who is open-minded to experimentation
  
• White, which feels weird to say, just, I like white guys. I mean, what can I say, as well as Asian, and or UK/British, they're accents just...AAHHHHHH! 😖
  
• Packed full of energy. I'm very animated, so hopefully you can also match the vibes, and bring me up mood wise when I'm down
  

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And that's about it for now. Like I said before, I've only ever posted on here a few times before, so I don't know if I checked off everything that I should have said in a post like this, but hopefully (man I've been saying that word a lot here), this was enough to catch your attention and be willing to give a potential connection/relationship with a guy like me, and if not I understand, and hope you find whatever you're looking for in someone else here. But if I have caught your eye, feel free to message me. It's been a long and lonely 22 years, and you'd probably make a wonderful change of pace.
Until then, bye! 🤗

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO SAY HERE! NYEH HEH HEH!
I HAVE OPENED THE GAME, SKIPPED THE STORY, AND PRESSED CONTINUE! AND I AM IN THE CHECKPOINT ROOM! AND MY FIRST INSTINCT, IS TO GO BACK TO SNOWDIN TOWN AND GET THE RIBBON OUT OF THE BOX! I MUST LOOK THE BEST FOR MY DATE WITH GAME ME! I PUT THE RIBBON ON AND COME BACK TO GAME ME! THE GAME IS VERY ACCURATE, AND DOES THE SAME JOKE THAT I DID WHEN I DATED FRISK! AND THEN I ENTER MY HOUSE!
I INSPECT SANS' PET ROCK, UNFORTUNATELY I CANNOT FEED IT! BUT IT'S FINE, IT HAS FOOD ALREADY! I GO UPSTAIRS AND INSPECT THE VERY MEANINGFUL PAINTING! BUT I ALREADY KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING IN MY HOUSE, AS IT'S MY HOUSE, AND I ENTER MY ROOM! AND IT'S LIKE LOOKING AT REAL LIFE! JUST WITH NO FLOWERY, LESS ACTION FIGURES, AND MY BED ISN'T A REAL CAR! JUST HOW I REMEMBER IT USED TO LOOK! BUT ENOUGH TOMFOOLERY, IT'S TIME TO START THE DATE FOR REAL!
I ENTER THE DATE, AND ACCIDENTALLY PRESS C, WHICH BRINGS THE DATING HUD OUT EARLY! WHICH IS PROBABLY A GOOD THING! BUT NOW IT'S TIME FOR STEP TWO! GAME ME ASKS ME OUT ON A DATE, AND I SAY YES! TIME FOR PART THREE!! GAME ME HAS NOTICED MY RIBBON, AND ACCUSES ME OF ALWAYS WANTING TO DATE HIM!! WHICH IS ONLY PARTIALLY TRUE! SO I SAY NO! AND LIKE THE COOL DUDE GAME ME IS, HE FINDS A WAY TO MAKE IT SUPER ROMANTIC AND COOL!! AND MY DATING POWER RISES!
GAME ME PUTS ON HIS COOL DUDE OUTFIT, WHICH IS VERY HANDSOME! I GIVE MYSELF A GENUINE COMPLIMENT, AND MY DATING POWER RISES ONCE MORE! HOWEVER, I HAVE FORGOTTEN ONE SMALL THING! I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE HIDDEN POWER BEHIND THE OUTFIT (EXCEPT I ACTUALLY DO) AND THUS, MY COMPLIMENT IS INVALID! OH NO!! HOWEVER WILL I GET OUT OF THIS ONE, I PONDER! BUT BY SEER LUCK, I ACCIDENTALLY MOVE DIRECTLY UP TO THE HAT AND COMPLETELY UNINTENTIONALLY PRESS Z! AND WOWIE, I'VE FOUND THE SECRET PRESENT!
I OPEN THE PRESENT, AND GAME ME ASKS IF I KNOW WHAT IT IS! AND OF COURSE I DO! INSIDE THAT PRESENT IS THE FINEST SPAGHETTI MEAL THE UNDERGROUND HAS EVER SEEN! HAND-CRAFTED IN THE LAND OF MY KITCHEN, A DANGEROUS AND SPECTACULAR PLACE WHERE ONLY THE BRAVEST CHEF WARRIORS DARE ENTER! AND I WOULD EAT IT! HOWEVER, FLOWERY SAYS I SHOULD LET GAME ME HAVE IT INSTEAD, AND SO I DO! AND I DEFEAT GAME ME IN DATING!
WOWIE! I HAVE FORGETTEN HOW AWKWARD THIS ACTUALLY WAS! I DIDN'T NEED THE REMINDER, BUT I'M THANKFUL FOR IT ANYWAY! I HAVE OBTAINED MY PHONE NUMBER, AND NOW I CAN CALL GAME ME WHENEVER I WISH! NYEH HEH HEH! WHAT A NOT THAT GREAT TIME!
I RE-ENTER THE CHECKPOINT ROOM, AND GET FILLED WITH DETERMINATION FROM THE SOUND OF RUSHING WATER, AND SAVE THE GAME! THEN, I TALK TO MONSTER KID! WHO HAS SNUCK AWAY FROM SNOWDIN TO COME VISIT "HER", WHOM I AM ASSUMING TO BE UNDYNE! AND I THEN TALK TO THE ECHO FLOWER EXPLAINER PERSON, AND THE ECHO FLOWER! AND LASTLY, I TALK WITH SANS, WHO INVITES ME TO GRILLBY'S TO TAKE A BREAK FROM JUST STANDING AT HIS STATION DOING NOTHING! UNFORTUNATELY SANS, I HAVE STANDARDS, AND GRILLBY'S DOESN'T MEET THOSE STANDARDS (SORRY GRILLBY), SO I SHALL DECLINE THAT OFFER! AND THEN, I ENTER THE NEXT ROOM!
I FIND THE BOX, AND GRAB MY MANDANNA OUT OF THERE! AND I WALK ACROSS UNDYNE'S "PUZZLE", BUT FLOWERY TELLS ME TO GO BACK AND GO INSIDE THE WATERFALL! AND SO I DO, AND THERE IT IS! THE OLD TUTU! BACK TO THE BOX WITH YOU, MANLY BANDANNA! AND THEN, I ENTER THE NEXT ROOM!
OH WOW! WHAT A VERY ACCURATE MEETING BETWEEN UNDYNE AND GAME ME, THAT I HAVE LIVED THROUGH! THIS GAME HAS GOTTEN FRIGHTENINGLY GOOD AT BEING ACCURATE! GAME ME TRIES TO CONVINCE UNDYNE NOT TO KILL ME! BUT ALAS, UNDYNE DOESN'T LISTEN TO GAME ME'S PERFECT REASONING! I TRY TO ESCAPE, BUT UNDYNE NOTICES ME, AND PREPARES TO THROW A SPEAR!! THANKFULLY, THE GRASS HAS SAVED ME! SO I ESCAPE THE GRASS, AND SO DOES MONSTER KID, WHO HAS BEEN FOLLOWING ME I GUESS! AND THEY FALL OVER! WHICH SUCKS TO SEE! I STAY DETERMINED DESPITE THE FEELINGS OF DREAD, AND SAVE THE GAME! AND THEN I ENTER THE NEXT ROOM!
AH, A PUZZLE! THIS SHALL BE EASY! ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I'VE DONE THIS PUZZLE TO GET TO UNDYNE'S HOUSE BEFORE! BUT I SOLVE THE PUZZLE WITH EASE, AND ENTER THE NEXT ROOM! BUT BEFORE I CAN GET TOO FAR, AN AARON ATTACKS! I DECIDE TO FLEX ON IT, FOR I AM VERY GREAT! AND HAVE THE ABILITY TO DO SO! BUT AARON FLEXES BACK, AND BOTH OUR ATTACK INCREASES!! AND I GET HIT! I FLEX ONCE MORE, AND ONCE MORE, AND THEN AARON FLIES OUT OF THE ROOM? BUT ANYWAY, I HAVE SOLVED THE OTHER PUZZLE, AND GET A CALL FROM GAME ME. WHO IS ASKING WHAT I AM WEARING! I TELL GAME ME I AM IN FACT WEARING A DUSTY TUTU, BUT INCASE THE GAME IS GOING TO GO HOW I THINK IT'S GOING TO GO, I SHALL SWITCH BACK TO THE MANLY BANDANNA, AND I ESCAPE TO THE NEXT ROOM!
IT'S THE WISHING ROOM! I WISH THAT I WAS TALKING TO GAME ME! AND WOWIE, IT'S COMING TRUE!! AND NOW, I AM TALKING TO ALL THE ECHO FLOWERS IN THE ROOM! I TRY TO TALK TO THE SECOND ONE, BUT WOSHUA APPEARS! I ASK IT TO CLEAN ME, THEN GET HIT 4 TIMES! BUT DON'T WORRY, BECAUSE I TOUCHED THE GREEN PROJECTILES! AND I HAVE HEALED IN THE OVERWORLD, SO IT IS FINE! I TALK TO ALL THE ECHO FLOWERS, LISTENING TO ALL THEIR STORIES TO TELL! SOME WISHING TO SEE REAL STARS, SOME TALKING ABOUT REAL STARS, ONE TALKING ABOUT THE HOROSCOPE! BUT AFTER TALKING TO ALL THE ECHO FLOWERS, I ENTER TO NEXT ROOM!
IN THIS ROOM, THERE ARE SIGNS ABOUT THE WAR! I WONDER WHY THE HUMANS ATTACKED US? I'M SURE THEY HAD A VERY REASONABLE AND UNDERSTANDABLE EXPLAINATION! BUT THAT QUESTION IS ANSWERED ALMOST IMMEDIATELY! THEY WERE SCARED THE MONSTERS WOULD TRY TO TAKE THEIR SOUL! THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN! MONSTERS ARE KIND AND GOOD! AND NOT MURDEROUS AND SCARY! BUT I FINISH READING, AND GO ONTO THE NEXT AREA!
AND UNDYNE THROWS A SPEAR AT ME!! I MUST HELP FRISK TO ESCAPE UNDYNE'S WRATH! I RUN AS FAST AS THE GAME ALLOWS ME TO, AND GET HIT ONCE! BUT I ESCAPE TO SOME GRASS! AND MONSTER KID HAS SAVED ME BY SOMEHOW GETTING IN FRONT OF ME, AND UNDYNE RETREATS BACK TO WHEREVER SHE WENT! MONSTER KID IS SUPER EXCITED ABOUT UNDYNE TOUCHING THEM, WHICH IS COMPLETELY UNDERSTANDABLE! BUT YOU SHOULD PROBABLY WASH YOUR FACE. AND ALSO PLEASE STOP FALLING ON IT!! BUT, THE CHASE IS OVER, AND I CAN RESUME MY ADVENTURE!
I ENTER THE NEXT ROOM, AND IT'S THE MOUSE AGAIN! AND SOME CRYSTALIZED CHEESE! I GET FILLED WITH DETERMINATION FROM THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THE MOUSE MAY ONE DAY EXTRACT THE CHEESE FROM THE CRYSTAL, AND SAVE THE GAME! THEN I INTERACT WITH THE MOUSE, AND MOVE ON!
OH LOOK, IT'S SANS! WITH HIS TELESCOPE! I'VE BEEN DENYING MY BROTHER A LITTLE TOO MUCH I FEEL, SO I'LL DO THIS ONE THING! OH BUT OF COURSE IT'S A PRANK! AND NOW FRISK HAS PINK EYE! I GO UP, AND FIND THE NICE CREAM MAN!! AND I BUY ANOTHER TWO NICE CREAMS, SINCE I USED ONE TO HEAL EARLIER! I ALSO READ THE SIGN, AND PONDER WHAT IT COULD POSSIBLY MEAN! BUT FLOWERY GETS BORED AND TELLS ME TO MOVE ALONG! I GO BACK DOWN, AND TALK TO THE STAR MAN! AND I GO RIGHT, AND I SEE THE BIRD THAT CARRIES PEOPLE OVER THE DISPROPORTIONATELY SMALL GAP! I WAVE IT HELLO AND GOODBYE, AND CONTINUE MOVING ON!
WOWIE, SO MANY ECHO FLOWERS! I'M SURE THE WISH ISN'T STUPID, STRANGER! AS I AM WALKING LEFT, I GET ATTACKED BY TWO MOLDSMALS! SO I FLIRT WITH ONE, IMITATE THE OTHER, AND SPARE THEM BOTH! I CONTINUE MOVING LEFT, BUT THERE'S NOTHING BUT A BUSH IN HERE! SO I GRAB THE BALLET SHOES THAT WERE IN THE BUSH THAT FLOWERY TOLD ME ABOUT, AND THEN I INSPECT THEM! 7 WPN AT?! HOW DEADLY! I DON'T NEED THIS, BUT LITTERING IS BAD AS I HAVE LEARNED FROM THE TOY KNIFE, SO I SHALL GO PUT THIS IN MY BOX! I GO DOWN, AND GET A CALL FROM GAME ME!! BUT OH NO! THE GAME HAS OUTSMARTED ME!!! GAME ME HAS TOLD UNDYNE WHAT I AM WEARING, AND SHE HAS ALREADY SEEN ME WEARING IT! CURSES!! I WILL JUST HAVE TO THINK AHEAD! I WILL GO PUT THE TUTU BACK ON! BUT ON MY WAY TO THE BOX, I GET ATTACKED BY ANOTHER WOSHUA! I GET CLEANED, SPARE THEM, PUT ON THE TUTU, PUT THE MANDANNA BACK IN THE BOX, AND GO BACK DOWN! BUT I GET ATTACKED BY WOSHUA AND AARON! I ASK TO BE CLEANED BY WOSHUA, AND THE WATER IS BLUE THIS TIME, HOW EASY FOR ME! I SPARE WOSHUA, FLEX WITH AARON, AND MOVE ON!
I FINALLY ENTER THE NEXT ROOM, AND IT'S ONIONSAN! WE HAVE A NICE CONVERSATION AS I WALK INTO THE NEXT ROOM, AND I BUMP INTO SHYREN! I SHALL HUM WITH SHYREN! AND I CONTINUE TO HUM, AND SANS IS SELLING TICKETS MADE OF TOILET PAPER, BECAUSE OF COURSE HE IS! I CONTINUE HUMMING! AND THIS IS THE FINAL HUM! THIS HAS BEEN A VERY FUN BATTLE! BUT I MUST EMBARK ON MY JOURNEY! SO I GO RIGHT, AND SEE THE STATUE BEING RAINED ON! SO OF COURSE, I GET AN UMBRELLA AND GIVE IT TO THE STATUE, AND A MUSIC BOX STARTS PLAYING! WHAT A COOL SONG THAT FLOWERY DOESN'T WANT TO STOP LISTENING TO! BUT HE HAS AN UPGRADED VERSION IN HIS MIXTAPE, SO I DON'T GET WHY HE- OH WAIT NO NEVERMIND THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE SKY! OKAY NOW HE'S TELLING ME TO GO BACK AND GO UP, AND THERE'S A PIANO HERE! I THINK I UNDERSTAND THE PUZZLE! AFTER A COUPLE ATTEMPTS, I FINALLY COMPLETE THE PUZZLE! IT'S TIME TO CLAIM MY REWARD! BUT I'M CARRYING TOO MANY DOGS. SO I- WAIT WHAT?!
GAH!! CURSE THAT MEDDLING CANINE!!! IT STOLE MY LEGENDARY ARTIFACT! OH WELL, IT'S FINE! I GUESS I DON'T NEED IT! I SHALL CONTINUE MOVING FORWARD! AND I HAVE MET UP WITH MONSTER KID, WHO IS FOLLOWING ME, SINCE THEY DON'T HAVE AN UMBRELLA! AND THEY TELL ME A COOL STORY ABOUT HOW ASGORE WENT TO SCHOOL AND TAUGHT THEM ABOUT RESPONSIBILITY AND SUCH! AND THEN WE VIEW THE CASTLE TOGETHER! AND THEN THERE'S A LEDGE THAT BLOCKS OUR PATH! CURSES! BUT THANKFULLY, MK HAS DECIDED TO SACRIFICE THEIR ADVENTURE FOR MY ADVENTURE'S SAKE! WHAT A HERO! I'M SURE THIS WON'T BE THE LAST I SEE OF THEM!
I CONTINUE READING ABOUT THE WAR, AND OUR TRAGIC TALE, AND THEN I CONTINUE MOVING FORWARD! BUT UNDYNE WANTS TO ATTACK ME ONCE AGAIN!!! I RUN AWAY, AND GET STUCK AT DEAD ENDS SEVERAL TIMES! BUT THANKFULLY, I HAVE ESCAPED WITH MY LIFE, AND WITHOUT GETTING HIT! BECAUSE I AM JUST GREAT THAT WAY! I TRY WALKING BACK TO FIND A WAY OUT, BUT UNDYNE SHOWS UP!! AND I AM CORNERED! OH NO!! BUT, SHE JUST... DESTROYS THE BRIDGE? THAT SEEMS A BIT COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. GOOD FOR ME HOWEVER! AND NOW, I'M BEING SAVED BY SOMEONE??
FLOWERY TOLD ME HE HAS TO DO SOMETHING, AND I CAN JUST KEEP PLAYING WITHOUT HIM! STRANGE, BUT OKAY! WHEN MY VISION HAS RETURNED, THERE WAS NO ONE THERE. STRANGE, I GUESS IT WAS A DREAM! BUT NOW I AM IN THE DUMP! THAT MEANS I'M CLOSE TO UNDYNE'S HOUSE! I GET FILLED WITH DETERMINATION FROM THE ENDLESS CYCLE OF VERY WORTHY NOT WORTHLESS AT ALL GARBAGE, AND SAVE THE GAME! I FIND SOME ASTRONAUT FOOD, AND DECIDE TO TAKE IT! I INSPECT IT, AND LEARN IT HEALS 21HP! THERE'S ANOTHER ONE, BUT I SHALL LEAVE IT FOR SOMEONE ELSE! AND I FIND A TRAINING DUMMY, AND I DECIDE TO TRAIN WITH IT! BUT FRISK FEELS BAD. I SHALL LEAVE IT ALONE THEN! BUT THEN, IT GETS ANGRY AT ME!! I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS ALIVE! WELL, NOT REALLY ALIVE, BECAUSE IT'S A GHOST, BUT I JUST THOUGHT IT WAS A NORMAL TRAINING DUMMY!!! AND THEY'RE MAD AT ME FOR SAYING SOMETHING TO THE DUMMY IN THE RUINS!? WHAT DID FRISK SAY, THE NARRATOR DIDN'T DESCRIBE ANYTHING!!!
BUT NOW I AM IN BATTLE! I TRY TO TALK THEM OUT OF THIS, BUT THEY DON'T SEEM MUCH FOR CONVERSATION, OH NO!! BUT MY ACCIDENT, I HIT MAD DUMMY WITH THEIR MAGIC BULLETS, AND THEY REACT IN PAIN! THEY THREATEN TO TAKE FRISK'S SOUL, WHICH WILL NOT BE HAPPENING! NOT ON MY WATCH! AND I ACCIDENTALLY ATTACK THEM AGAIN!! OH NO! I KEEP TRYING TO TALK, BUT IT'S NOT WORKING! MAYBE IT'S LIKE TORIEL WHERE I HAVE TO SPARE OVER AND OVER?? THEY KEEP FLYING INTO THEIR OWN BULLETS! I'M TRYING NOT TO HIT THEM!!! OKAY, SPARING THEM'S NOT WORKING. MAYBE I SHOULD KEEP TRYING TO SPARE THEM! I KEEP SPARING AND TALKING, AND ACCIDENTALLY HITTING MAD DUMMY! BUT IT'S NOT WORKING!!! I REFUSE TO FIGHT, THERE'S A WAY TO SPARE THEM, I JUST KNOW IT! IF ONLY FLOWERY WERE HERE, HE'D KNOW WHAT TO DO!
EVENTUALLY, MAD DUMMY GETS TIRED OF GETTING HIT OVER AND OVER, WHICH I APOLOGIZE FOR! OR I WOULD, IF I COULD. BUT NOW ALL THE MAGIC DUMMY BULLET THROWERS ARE FIRED!! THIS IS ALL JUST INCONVENIENT FOR EVERYONE, SO I THINK WE SHOULD STOP! BUT MAD DUMMY DISAGREES! NOW I HAVE TO DODGE THE HOMING MISSILES! I STILL DON'T KNOW HOW TO SPARE THEM. MAYBE I SHOULD TRY FIGHTING, BUT THEN INTENTIONALLY MISSING? GAH! IT'S NOT WORKING!! MAYBE IT'S LIKE MY FIGHT WHERE THEY'LL SHOW MERCY ON THEIR OWN! I'LL TRY WAITING IT OUT THEN!
AND I WAS RIGHT! I'VE BEATEN THE FINAL ATTACK! NYEH HEH HEH! BUT THE MUSIC HASN'T STOPPED. AH! A KNIFE!! IT WAS JUST ONE THOUGH. I THINK I'VE WON! WAIT, NO! NOW I'M STUCK HERE! CURSE YOU, TURN BASED COMBAT SYSTEM!! OR NOT. WOWIE! NAPSTABLOOK SAVED THE DAY, ALBEIT ACCIDENTALLY, THEY STIL SAVED THE DAY! AND NOW I AM GOING TO VISIT THEIR HOUSE! I GET FILLED WITH DETERMINATION AND TRANQUILITY, AND SAVE THE GAME! AND BEFORE I VISIT NAPSTABLOOK, I SHALL VISIT THE BIRD THAT CARRIES PEOPLE OVER THE DISPROPORTIONATELY SMALL GAP! AFTER DANCING WITH THE BIRD, I VISIT NAPSTABLOOK, AND LISTEN TO THEIR INCREDIBLE MUSIC, AND THEN I LEAVE! AND FLOWERY HAS RETURNED! HOORAY! AND I SHALL PLAY THUNDERSNAIL TO CELEBRATE! AND I GOT SECOND PLACE!! CONGRATULATIONS, YELLOW SNAIL! IT THINKS IT WON, SO ACT LIKE I WON FIRST TO MAKE IT HAPPY! HOORAY!! AND NOW, I MOVE ON!
AND I HAVE REACHED GERSON'S SHOP! I ONLY HAVE ROOM FOR ONE ITEM, SO I SHALL BUY A CRAB APPLE! AND I TALK TO GERSON FOR A BIT, AND THEN I LEAVE! AND I READ MORE ABOUT THE WAR! AND THEN I AM ON THE MUSHROOM BRIDGE PUZZLE, AND FLOWERY WANTS ME TO GO TO THE TEMMIE VILLAGE! AND SO I DO! WHAT A STRANGE PLACE! AND AFTER SOME HANGING OUT, AND SELLING ITEMS TO TEMMIE, I ENCOUNTER TWO MOLDSMALS! I FLIRT WITH ONE, IMITATE THE OTHER, BUT IT WAS MOLDBYGG IN DISGUISE!! I TRY HUGGING MOLDBYGG, BUT THAT JUST SLOWS ME DOWN! SO I UNHUG INSTEAD, AND I CAN SPARE THEM! I GET HIT, AND THEN I SPARE THEM! AND I AM NOW AT 4HP, SO I SHOULD DEFINITELY HEAL! ANOTHER NICE CREAM FOR ME! AND THEN I ENTER THE NEXT ROOM!
AND IT'S THE LANTERN MAZE! I NEVER REALLY LIKED THIS PLACE. THE CRYSTALS ARE PRETTY THOUGH! ON MY WAY TO THE NEXT ROOM, I GET ATTACKED MY WOSHUA AND AARON! FLEX WITH AARON UNTIL HE FLIES AWAY, GET CLEANED, AND WIN THE BATTLE! AND ON MY WAY I SHALL BE! AND I HAVE ARRIVED IN A DARK AREA! I FIND AN ECHO FLOWER, AND UNDYNE SHOWS UP OUT OF NOWHERE!! BUT THANKFULLY, BEFORE UNDYNE CAN STEAL FRISK'S SOUL, MK SHOWS UP AND SAVES ME ONCE AGAIN! UNDYNE DRAGS MK AWAY, AND I AM FREE TO ESCAPE ONCE MORE!
I AM NOW ON A BRIDGE, AND MK HAS ESCAPED UNDYNE! AND MK NOW KNOWS THAT FRISK IS HUMAN! BUT NOW WE'RE ENEMIES! OH NO! MK WANTS ME TO SAY SOMETHING MEAN SO THEY CAN HATE ME, BUT I REFUSE! MK IS GOING HOME, BUT THEN THEY TRIP AND FALL!!! AND UNDYNE SHOWS UP AT THE SAME TIME! AND I SHALL SAVE MONSTER KID FROM FALLING! MONSTER KID MAKES UNDYNE RETREAT, AND THEN THEY RUN BACK HOME! AND I SHALL CONTINUE TO MOVE FORWARD!!
AND THERE'S UNDYNE AGAIN! AND SHE'S NOT LETTING ME ESCAPE THIS TIME! SHE DOESN'T LIKE HOW I'M BEING KIND TO THE MONSTERS FOR SOME REASON? BUT SHE'S KIND TO THEM TOO! SO, I GUESS SHE JUST SAID THAT TO MAKE ME FEEL BAD ABOUT MYSELF?? WELL, IT DIDN'T WORK UNDYNE! I GET FILLED WITH DETERMINATION FROM THE HOWLING WIND, AND DECIDE I AM READY TO FACE UNDYNE!
I TRY TO PLEAD WITH UNDYNE, BUT NOTHING HAPPENS! AND I HAVE BLOCKED THE SPEARS! I TRY PLEADING ONCE MORE, AND NOTHING HAPPENS! AND I KEEP DOING THIS, UNTIL UNDYNE TURNS FRISK'S SOUL BACK TO NORMAL! AND IF THE GAME IS ACCURATE AGAIN, I SHOULD HAVE THE OPTION TO FLEE! WHICH I DO! ESCAPE! BUT UNDYNE CATCHES UP WITH HER INCREDIBLE SPEED, AND TURNS ME GREEN AGAIN!
I START SPARING HER INSTEAD, SINCE PLEADING WON'T WORK. UNDYNE ALMOST TRICKS ME, BUT I KEEP UP MY NO-HIT STREAK! I'M ALREADY USED TO BEING GREEN! NYEH HEH HEH! BUT TWO ATTACKS LATER, AND I GET HIT TWICE! BUT I AM NOW RED AGAIN, SO TO THE OVERWORLD WITH ME! SHE CATCHES ME AGAIN AND I AM GREEN ONCE MORE! AND THEN UNDYNE USES HER YELLOW SPEAR! OH NO!! THE YELLOW ONES ALWAYS CONFUSE ME. I SHOULD SURVIVE THOUGH! I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AFTER ALL! EVEN IF I ONLY HAVE 14HP, THAT'S HIGH HP FOR FRISK'S STANDARDS! I GO BACK TO PLEADING, STILL NOTHING! BUT EVENTUALLY, SOMETHING HAPPENS! AND HER ATTACKS GET LESS EXTREME! NYEH HEH! I GET HIT AGAIN, BUT I'M STILL ALIVE! AND ANOTHER TWO ATTACKS LATER, AND I AM RED AGAIN! FREEDOM!! AND THEN GAME ME CALLS! OH WOW, WHAT A TIME TO ASK ABOUT BEING UNDYNE'S FRIEND! WELL, HOPEFULLY THAT WAS INACCURATE TIMING! BUT NO MATTER, I WILL VISIT UNDYNE NEXT TIME I PLAY! BUT FOR NOW, I SHALL CONTINUE RUNNING FOR FRISK'S LIFE! AND THEN I MAKE IT TO HOTLAND, WITH A SLEEPING SANS! BUT IT DISTRACTED UNDYNE FOR A MOMENT, SO I GUESS I'LL ALLOW IT!
OH NO! UNDYNE HAS COLLAPSED ON THE BRIDGE OVER LAVA! THANKFULLY, THERE'S A WATER COOLER RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, WHICH SHOULD BE FIRE, BUT I DON'T HAVE TIME TO THINK ABOUT THAT RIGHT NOW! I SHALL GIVE UNDYNE THE WATER! AND SHE HAS WALKED AWAY. OH WELL! I'M SAFE! I GET FILLED WITH DETERMINATION FROM THE LABORATORY'S PLACEMENT, AND SAVE THE GAME! AND I SHALL CONTINUE PLAYING TOMORROW!! BECAUSE I NEED TO GET MY BONES TO STOP RATTLING! AND FLOWERY'S SHAKING, DESPITE HIM INSISTING THAT HE'S NOT! SO! WE SHALL SEE! NEXT TIME! WE SEE YOU! NEXT TIME ON I PLAYED UNDERTALE AND I AM REGURGITATING THE KNOWLEDGE BACK TO YOU!!
-NYEHFULLY YOURS, PAPYRUS AND FLOWERY

I should have known the job was too good to be true.
Make two hundred dollars a night to sit in an undisclosed location from sun down to sun up. No previous experience required. Non Disclosure to be signed before hiring. Candidates who break NDA will be sued for breach of contract. Must have a strong constitution and high moral fiber. Interested parties call (number below)
For a college student who was struggling to pay tuition, car insurance, and keep food in the dorm fridge, this sounded too good to be true. I looked at the party offering the service and discovered that I knew them. Doctor Crandler was a BioMed teacher who had a bit of a reputation for being out there. He was said to conduct experiments after hours in the science lab and if he hadn’t had tenure, it was pretty likely that he would have been fired. These were all rumors, of course. I’d had Doctor Crandler last year for entry level human biomes and he was a delight. He turned out to be a huge Romero fan and loved to talk about zombies and old horror movies. We had really hit it off, and when I called the number, he sounded happy to hear from me.
“Oh thank god, I was hoping someone reliable would call. I’ve lost three this week, and I’m beginning to think I’ll have to stoop to drastic measures.”
Whatever drastic measures were, Doc C didn’t elaborate.
He just told me to come to the science lab at five fifteen sharp.
“And not a minute later!” he added before hanging up and leaving me with more questions than answers.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but two hundy was two hundy, and that would be able to put something in my body other than ramen noodles this week if the job was legit. So, about four thirty, I hopped on my bike and made my way across campus to the Verner May Science Building. It’s a huge old brick building that's been on campus since the nineteen forties. They say its been home to a lot of famous research and more than one questionable clinical trial. I had started to wonder if Doctor C was gonna try to experiment on me, and that's why he was being so secretive. I decided that if that was the case, two hundred was not enough. I had enough trouble scoring ladies with my pizza face and I doubted having four arms or two heads would help matters much.
I stepped through the doors at five o'clock sharp and Doctor Crandler looked up excitedly.
“Prompt as always! I remember that from my classes. You were always early, and I like a student who is punctual. Come this way and let me show you what I’m working on. Before we start out though,” he set a Non Disclosure Agreement in front of me and I looked over it before signing my name to it. It was pretty standard stuff. Don’t talk about what you see, don’t talk about what I’m working on, don’t tell the media, don’t post it on the internet (guess I messed that part up), yada yada yada. After that, he tossed a black hood onto the table and told me to put it on.
I hesitated, not having asked him anything about what we were doing yet.
“You’re, uh, not gonna experiment on me, right Doc?”
He laughed, but it didn't sound particularly merry.
“No no, my boy. I would never experiment on you. I have specific parameters and I'm afraid you just don't meet them.”
I wasn't sure whether to be glad or insulted, but I put the hood on either way.
He led me through a door, down some stairs, outside, back inside, and then down more stairs. Finally, we came to our destination, and when he took the hood off, I was in a little room about the size of your average dorm room. Inside was a table, a chair, and a glass jar with something floating inside. It was roughly the size of a spud, though if it was a potato it was one of those big ole Idaho job. I'd say it was about two feet tall, maybe half a foot wide, and it just sort of floated there placidly.
“This is your job.” Doctor C said, pointing to the jar.
“What? Just watch this thing? Easy peasy!” I said, not yet understanding what I was agreeing to.
“Just watch it till I get here to relieve you. Be careful, it's very tricky. It may try to get you to let it go. Do Not let it go under ANY circumstances. For that, I'll pay you two hundred dollars a night.”
I put out a hand, being a man who signs deals with a shake, and Doctor C pumped my arm one good time before saying he was going to leave now.
“I'm going to lock you in. If you have to urinate, there's a bucket in the corner. There are snacks and water in the mini fridge over there, though I would prefer it if you don't take your eyes off that jar.
I started to protest about having to wizz in a bucket, but I just nodded and told him not to worry about it. A deal was a deal, as my old man liked to say, and when he left, I heard the door lock behind him. So, I settled in and took out my phone as I surfed Reddit. I kept an eye on the jar, looking up about every thirty seconds, but mostly I just sat there and tried not to fall asleep. That was the hardest part. It was so boring, just sitting there for ten to twelve hours, and I made a mental sticky to bring coffee tomorrow. Doc had some snacks in his fridge, but Kale chips and pita chips with hummus are not what a man desires when he's trying not to zonk out.
The weird little thing in the jar didn't help much either. It was boring. All it did was float there, but I guess thats not quite true. Sometimes I would look up and find it looking at me, its weird brown body seeming to watch me. It couldn't really be doing that, since it didn't have eyes, but I still felt very seen as I sat there on my phone. I made a note to bring a charger too, but luckily it lasted till the doc came back, and he smiled as he handed me my two hundred dollars in cash at the end of the shift.
“Do you feel anything? Any headaches or nausea?” he asked.
I told him I didn't and he invited me to come back tomorrow night.
I told him for sure, and left two hundred bones the richer.
I kept watching the little science project for the next week and ended with an extra fourteen hundred bucks in my pocket. I agreed to do it seven nights a week, and as spring began, the nights got a little shorter too. Soon the sun was going down closer to eight, and I didn't have to show up till seven thirty or eight o'clock. Getting a couple of hundred bucks for ten hours of work was boss, and I got a lot of Raid Shadow Legends played and Reddit scoped while I sat there and collected mulla for sitting on ass.
When I arrived Tuesday of the next week, however, something had changed in my little potato cash cow.
The thing had an ear.
Doc sat me down and as the hood came off, he asked if I noticed anything different about the little blob. I looked at it critically, but couldn't really see anything different. Doc didn't really like this answer, and told me to look harder. After a few minutes of coming up with nothing, he sighed in exasperation and pointed.
“It has acquired an auditory openings for vocal registration.”
The look I gave him must have told him all he needed, because he just shook his head and tapped the tank.
“It has an ear hole.” he said, and I finally got it.
After some looking, I realized what he was talking about and he seemed pretty proud of himself.
“We've been working with chemical stimuli and had a breakthrough when it finally developed some form of communication peripheral.”
“How do you know it can hear you?”
It was his turn to look puzzled, until I pointed out that it didn't have any way to let them know if it could hear them.
“Well, it kind of wiggles around when we talk to it or play music. It hadn't done that much before, so we think it must be able to hear us.”
He left after that, and I made sure to turn the volume up on my videos so the little dude, or dudette, could listen too. It definitely bounced around a little, dancing in the water a bit as it moved around in its glass tank. I thought it was a little funny, and turned the volume way up as it wiggled and wobbled.
By the end of the week, it had two ear holes and some little baby ears to go with them.
The Doc told me to take a week off after that, saying they had some experiments to run on the little thing, and I told him to call me back when he needed me. I took some time and spent a little of my money paying bills and settling debts. By the end of the week, I was praying for a call from Doc C, and Sunday night, he obliged.
“I could use a set of eyes next week, if you're free.”
I told him I'd be there, and pumped my fist in excitement.
When he took the hood off monday, he was rewarded by a “whoa” of interest from yours truly.
The little sucker had a toothless mouth that it seemed to be opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“I came in Sunday to find that it had grown it. It's pretty interesting stuff,” Doctor C told me, “Has it spoken to you before tonight? Some of my assistants claim it has spoken to them by way of telekinesis, but you don't seem to have suffered from any of the symptoms they've talked about.”
“Thankfully not, Doc. All the little guy does is float and make me money.”
Doc C nodded, looking thoughtful before leaving and locking me in for the night.
I had just brought my phone out to start scrolling Reddit for the night, when I heard a muffled voice from somewhere. I looked up, thinking someone was outside the door, but the door was solid wood. I looked at my phone to make sure I wasn't accidentally butt dialing someone, but thats when I heard the slight tap from in front of me. I looked up to see the little potato thing as it bumped the glass with its body, its toothless mouth forming words from behind its prison.
“Hello? Are you there?” it asked, its words muffled by the water and the glass.
I looked at it, not sure if it could even hear me when I responded, but when it floated back a little, I guessed it probably could.
“Hello, you sound different than the good doctor or his friends. Are you someone new?”
“Not really,” I said, half laughing, “I've actually been here watching you for a couple weeks.”
“Oh,” it said, very interested, “You must be the one I couldn't reach. I'm glad we can finally speak properly.”
I sat my phone down, leaning in a little closer as I watched the little brown thing float in the off color water that held it.
“What do you mean? You only just got a mouth.”
“Yes, well, there are more ways than one to communicate, aren't there? I've been trying to touch your mind for weeks, but you don't seem overly receptive to my advances. Thus, I had to find alternative means of communication if we were to speak.”
Its voice, despite being muffled by the glass, was very smart sounding. Little dude was the smartest floating potato I had ever met, though the list was just him for the moment. He sounded like the doc a little. He used a lot of big words, and sounded like he knew a lot of stuff. I put my face a little closer to the glass as I looked at him, watching him float there, and wondering what he might know?
We talked a lot that night. Well, I talked a lot. The little just kind of floated and listed, throwing something out every now and again. He wanted to know where he was, how he had come to be in a fishbowl, and what the Doc intended to do with him? I didn't know most of these things, and I told him that. He didn't seem too thrilled with that answer, but he still kept talking to me. He asked about me and what I was studying and what sort of things I liked to do. I didn't pick up my phone much that night. Instead, I told the little guy about myself and we talked for hours about nothing in particular.
The clock said it was about four am when the subject finally turned to what he really wanted.
I wish now that we had just kept talking about me.
“So, despite the fact that you cant leave this place, you could still take me out of this tank, right?”
I snorted, “Why would you want to? It's really not much better out here than in there.”
“True, but I would very much like to experience life outside my bowl. I lack hands or I would do it myself, but you could help me out.”
“Sorry, little dude,” I said, and I found that I was kinda sorry, “you're a good hang, but I promised the Doc that I wouldn't take you out. I think it was one of those papers I had to sign to get this job.”
“No one has to know,” it said, its voice kind of sneaky as it pressed its brown side against the glass, “you could take me out for just a second and then put me right back in.”
“No,” I said, looking at the door like I'd been doing something wrong, “I...I really shouldn't.”
“Please,” it begged, “You have no idea what its like to live in your own filth. Now that I have a mouth, I can constantly taste the stagnant water I live in. It's pure hell.”
“Dude, stop it. That's not cool. You know I can't take you out, I told Doc I,” but then it did the last thing I would have expected.
It started to cry.
I don't mean it was pretending to cry, the thing started loosing these tortured sounds that made me think of someone going through a bad break up. It sounded super hopeless, and it began to bump it's body against the side of the tank. I picked up my phone and tried to ignore it, but its hard listening to something just cry and cry like that. I had a room mate once who just kinda gave up after his girlfriend dumped him and he just lay on his bed and cried until his parents finally came to get him. I never saw ole dude again, but I can still hear his sobs sometimes when I close my eyes.
It was heartbreaking, and infuriating, and I wanted to console him as much as I wanted him to shut the hell up.
“Please! Please just let me out! I can't stand this anymore! I need to get out! I need to get out! I NEED TO GET OUT!”
It yelled and screamed and begged and cried for another hour and a half, and when the key turned in the lock, I was never happier to see the Doc.
Doc C looked at the little creature in the jar and asked me what had happened?
“Nothin,” I said, “It started talking after you left and then when I wouldn't let it out, it started screaming and crying.”
Far from being angry or disturbed, Doc C seemed amazed. He started studying the thing through the glass, before I reminded him that I was done for the night and needed to leave. He pulled himself away begrudgingly before handing me my money and putting the sack back over my head. I found an extra hundred in the pile that night, for my suffering I supposed, and thought about not coming back that night. The blubbering and crying had been a lot to handle, but I couldn't deny that the money was good and it was helping me pay down a lot of my outstanding debts. Another month of this, and my rent would be paid for the next year. Another two months and my credit card would be paid and I could afford that new flat screen for the living room. The things wailing had been a lot to handle, but what was a little more next to financial freedom?
I made sure to pick up some earplugs before I came back the following night and that's how I spent my next week.
In that week, the little creature grew an eye and four small fingers, two on each side of its body.
The night I arrived to find it had an eye, it told me all night how I looked like a kind person, and how it didn't understand how I could just sit here and watch it suffer. The earplugs helped a little, but it seemed like I could still hear it through the plugs. It would start out trying to talk to me, trying to flatter me, trying to reason with me, but we would always end up with it crying and me trying to ignore it. It became harder and harder as time went on, and every night seemed to be a battle to not open the tank and let it out or to just flip the table and smash its tank into a thousand pieces.
In the end, it always came down to the money and I always managed to stop myself from doing something stupid.
It was a Tuesday when something I hadn't considered happened.
Tuesday night started out just like any other. Doc C brought me into the room, took off the hood, and there sat the little creature in its glass prison. It smiled at me, and I could see a couple of teeth breaking the gums. It had six fingers now and they made it look a little like a bug as they wiggled energetically. It still had only the one eye, but the beginnings of a nose had started to form under it. It was a repugnant little thing, and as the Doc left and I settled in, I kept my mind on the money, reminding myself that I just had to power through tonight.
It would be over in ten hours and I could go back to my room and sleep.
It spent the next ten hours talking, pleading, crying, and trying everything it could to gain its freedom. Well, that's not quite true. It never tried to threaten me. It probably realized that such a thing would have been pointless. It could no more have hurt me than my two year old nephew could and had decided on a different gambit. When it started its piercing wailing again, I popped the ear plugs in and shut most of it out. The plugs tuned the thing down to about a two, and made it easier to ignore. I was just thinking that I might treat myself to some really nice noise canceling headphones and forgo the tv for another week, when I saw someone familiar in a piece of Reddit News.
I almost dropped the phone as I read over the article, not sure what to make of it.
“Doctor Joseph Crandler arrested after trying to buy biological materials from an undercover agent.”
The picture showed Doc C looking very unhappy as he was led away in cuffs. He was wearing the same clothes I had seen him leave in the night before, and the article that followed didn't cheer me up. He had been buying materials from his experiments from some disreputable people, and finally he had put his trust in the wrong one, or maybe the right one, I guess. The agent had arrested him and they were holding him for questioning.
I felt a cold chill as I looked over at the little freak in the tank. Was this the sort of experiment he'd been buying materials for? I had never thought to question if this thing was something the college had sanctioned or not, and now I realized that I might be part of an illegal experiment. They'd be coming for me next, me and this thing, and they'd assume I was the Egor to his Doctor Frankfurter or whatever.
As the creature wailed and thrashed, my brain started putting blocks together that it should have a few minutes ago.
My biggest problem wasn't that they would think I was involved, it was that if they didn't come and the Doc didn't come, then I would have no way out of here.
I was trapped with this little crying dude for god knew how long.
I thought about calling for help, but that could be bad too. What if they thought I was part of this? I'd have a hard time convincing them that I had nothing to do with this when they found me with the evidence. What's more, all the Doc had to say was that I was his assistant, that he had paid me, and I'd be in the same prison chow line as him.
I started looking around the room for escape routes, but there was nothing but the very locked door. The little creature kept asking what was happening, but I just kept ignoring him. There were no windows, no other doors, not even a vent to squeeze into, like in the movies. All the while, the creature wailed and pleaded to be released. It knew something was wrong, and it wanted to be set free. It could help me, it could get me out of here, it could do anything as long as I would take it out of the tank.
After searching the little room again and again, I finally just sat and tried not to go crazy.
My phone will make calls, but I have no idea how to tell anyone to find me or even if they could. I tried to explain to the police what was happening, I even mentioned Doctor C, but I think the dispatcher thought I was high. They started hanging up on me when I called back, and if they trace my number, all their going to find is my dorm room, which is empty. Luckily, I have a charger on me, so I can keep calling out and trying to get someone to help me.
I checked the fridge, and there's enough bottled water and snacks in there to last for three or four days. Less if I feed this little bastard, but I'm not even sure what he eats. I've never been given any feeding instructions for him, and I'm not going to waste my food on this squalling thing. I threw a tarp over him, but it isn't doing anything to dull the screaming. It sounds like he might have grown more mouths because I can hear his shrill little voice from every angle as it bounces off the wall.
One things for sure, if it doesn't stop screaming soon, I'm going to give him some kind of release.
If it goes on much longer, I'm going to wrench the lid off that tank and stomp the life out of him.
If someone doesn’t come soon, I’m going to release him from his suffering forever.

I should have known the job was too good to be true.
Make two hundred dollars a night to sit in an undisclosed location from sun down to sun up. No previous experience required. Non Disclosure to be signed before hiring. Candidates who break NDA will be sued for breach of contract. Must have a strong constitution and high moral fiber. Interested parties call (number below)
For a college student who was struggling to pay tuition, car insurance, and keep food in the dorm fridge, this sounded too good to be true. I looked at the party offering the service and discovered that I knew them. Doctor Crandler was a BioMed teacher who had a bit of a reputation for being out there. He was said to conduct experiments after hours in the science lab and if he hadn’t had tenure, it was pretty likely that he would have been fired. These were all rumors, of course. I’d had Doctor Crandler last year for entry level human biomes and he was a delight. He turned out to be a huge Romero fan and loved to talk about zombies and old horror movies. We had really hit it off, and when I called the number, he sounded happy to hear from me.
“Oh thank god, I was hoping someone reliable would call. I’ve lost three this week, and I’m beginning to think I’ll have to stoop to drastic measures.”
Whatever drastic measures were, Doc C didn’t elaborate.
He just told me to come to the science lab at five fifteen sharp.
“And not a minute later!” he added before hanging up and leaving me with more questions than answers.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but two hundy was two hundy, and that would be able to put something in my body other than ramen noodles this week if the job was legit. So, about four thirty, I hopped on my bike and made my way across campus to the Verner May Science Building. It’s a huge old brick building that's been on campus since the nineteen forties. They say its been home to a lot of famous research and more than one questionable clinical trial. I had started to wonder if Doctor C was gonna try to experiment on me, and that's why he was being so secretive. I decided that if that was the case, two hundred was not enough. I had enough trouble scoring ladies with my pizza face and I doubted having four arms or two heads would help matters much.
I stepped through the doors at five o'clock sharp and Doctor Crandler looked up excitedly.
“Prompt as always! I remember that from my classes. You were always early, and I like a student who is punctual. Come this way and let me show you what I’m working on. Before we start out though,” he set a Non Disclosure Agreement in front of me and I looked over it before signing my name to it. It was pretty standard stuff. Don’t talk about what you see, don’t talk about what I’m working on, don’t tell the media, don’t post it on the internet (guess I messed that part up), yada yada yada. After that, he tossed a black hood onto the table and told me to put it on.
I hesitated, not having asked him anything about what we were doing yet.
“You’re, uh, not gonna experiment on me, right Doc?”
He laughed, but it didn't sound particularly merry.
“No no, my boy. I would never experiment on you. I have specific parameters and I'm afraid you just don't meet them.”
I wasn't sure whether to be glad or insulted, but I put the hood on either way.
He led me through a door, down some stairs, outside, back inside, and then down more stairs. Finally, we came to our destination, and when he took the hood off, I was in a little room about the size of your average dorm room. Inside was a table, a chair, and a glass jar with something floating inside. It was roughly the size of a spud, though if it was a potato it was one of those big ole Idaho job. I'd say it was about two feet tall, maybe half a foot wide, and it just sort of floated there placidly.
“This is your job.” Doctor C said, pointing to the jar.
“What? Just watch this thing? Easy peasy!” I said, not yet understanding what I was agreeing to.
“Just watch it till I get here to relieve you. Be careful, it's very tricky. It may try to get you to let it go. Do Not let it go under ANY circumstances. For that, I'll pay you two hundred dollars a night.”
I put out a hand, being a man who signs deals with a shake, and Doctor C pumped my arm one good time before saying he was going to leave now.
“I'm going to lock you in. If you have to urinate, there's a bucket in the corner. There are snacks and water in the mini fridge over there, though I would prefer it if you don't take your eyes off that jar.
I started to protest about having to wizz in a bucket, but I just nodded and told him not to worry about it. A deal was a deal, as my old man liked to say, and when he left, I heard the door lock behind him. So, I settled in and took out my phone as I surfed Reddit. I kept an eye on the jar, looking up about every thirty seconds, but mostly I just sat there and tried not to fall asleep. That was the hardest part. It was so boring, just sitting there for ten to twelve hours, and I made a mental sticky to bring coffee tomorrow. Doc had some snacks in his fridge, but Kale chips and pita chips with hummus are not what a man desires when he's trying not to zonk out.
The weird little thing in the jar didn't help much either. It was boring. All it did was float there, but I guess thats not quite true. Sometimes I would look up and find it looking at me, its weird brown body seeming to watch me. It couldn't really be doing that, since it didn't have eyes, but I still felt very seen as I sat there on my phone. I made a note to bring a charger too, but luckily it lasted till the doc came back, and he smiled as he handed me my two hundred dollars in cash at the end of the shift.
“Do you feel anything? Any headaches or nausea?” he asked.
I told him I didn't and he invited me to come back tomorrow night.
I told him for sure, and left two hundred bones the richer.
I kept watching the little science project for the next week and ended with an extra fourteen hundred bucks in my pocket. I agreed to do it seven nights a week, and as spring began, the nights got a little shorter too. Soon the sun was going down closer to eight, and I didn't have to show up till seven thirty or eight o'clock. Getting a couple of hundred bucks for ten hours of work was boss, and I got a lot of Raid Shadow Legends played and Reddit scoped while I sat there and collected mulla for sitting on ass.
When I arrived Tuesday of the next week, however, something had changed in my little potato cash cow.
The thing had an ear.
Doc sat me down and as the hood came off, he asked if I noticed anything different about the little blob. I looked at it critically, but couldn't really see anything different. Doc didn't really like this answer, and told me to look harder. After a few minutes of coming up with nothing, he sighed in exasperation and pointed.
“It has acquired an auditory openings for vocal registration.”
The look I gave him must have told him all he needed, because he just shook his head and tapped the tank.
“It has an ear hole.” he said, and I finally got it.
After some looking, I realized what he was talking about and he seemed pretty proud of himself.
“We've been working with chemical stimuli and had a breakthrough when it finally developed some form of communication peripheral.”
“How do you know it can hear you?”
It was his turn to look puzzled, until I pointed out that it didn't have any way to let them know if it could hear them.
“Well, it kind of wiggles around when we talk to it or play music. It hadn't done that much before, so we think it must be able to hear us.”
He left after that, and I made sure to turn the volume up on my videos so the little dude, or dudette, could listen too. It definitely bounced around a little, dancing in the water a bit as it moved around in its glass tank. I thought it was a little funny, and turned the volume way up as it wiggled and wobbled.
By the end of the week, it had two ear holes and some little baby ears to go with them.
The Doc told me to take a week off after that, saying they had some experiments to run on the little thing, and I told him to call me back when he needed me. I took some time and spent a little of my money paying bills and settling debts. By the end of the week, I was praying for a call from Doc C, and Sunday night, he obliged.
“I could use a set of eyes next week, if you're free.”
I told him I'd be there, and pumped my fist in excitement.
When he took the hood off monday, he was rewarded by a “whoa” of interest from yours truly.
The little sucker had a toothless mouth that it seemed to be opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“I came in Sunday to find that it had grown it. It's pretty interesting stuff,” Doctor C told me, “Has it spoken to you before tonight? Some of my assistants claim it has spoken to them by way of telekinesis, but you don't seem to have suffered from any of the symptoms they've talked about.”
“Thankfully not, Doc. All the little guy does is float and make me money.”
Doc C nodded, looking thoughtful before leaving and locking me in for the night.
I had just brought my phone out to start scrolling Reddit for the night, when I heard a muffled voice from somewhere. I looked up, thinking someone was outside the door, but the door was solid wood. I looked at my phone to make sure I wasn't accidentally butt dialing someone, but thats when I heard the slight tap from in front of me. I looked up to see the little potato thing as it bumped the glass with its body, its toothless mouth forming words from behind its prison.
“Hello? Are you there?” it asked, its words muffled by the water and the glass.
I looked at it, not sure if it could even hear me when I responded, but when it floated back a little, I guessed it probably could.
“Hello, you sound different than the good doctor or his friends. Are you someone new?”
“Not really,” I said, half laughing, “I've actually been here watching you for a couple weeks.”
“Oh,” it said, very interested, “You must be the one I couldn't reach. I'm glad we can finally speak properly.”
I sat my phone down, leaning in a little closer as I watched the little brown thing float in the off color water that held it.
“What do you mean? You only just got a mouth.”
“Yes, well, there are more ways than one to communicate, aren't there? I've been trying to touch your mind for weeks, but you don't seem overly receptive to my advances. Thus, I had to find alternative means of communication if we were to speak.”
Its voice, despite being muffled by the glass, was very smart sounding. Little dude was the smartest floating potato I had ever met, though the list was just him for the moment. He sounded like the doc a little. He used a lot of big words, and sounded like he knew a lot of stuff. I put my face a little closer to the glass as I looked at him, watching him float there, and wondering what he might know?
We talked a lot that night. Well, I talked a lot. The little just kind of floated and listed, throwing something out every now and again. He wanted to know where he was, how he had come to be in a fishbowl, and what the Doc intended to do with him? I didn't know most of these things, and I told him that. He didn't seem too thrilled with that answer, but he still kept talking to me. He asked about me and what I was studying and what sort of things I liked to do. I didn't pick up my phone much that night. Instead, I told the little guy about myself and we talked for hours about nothing in particular.
The clock said it was about four am when the subject finally turned to what he really wanted.
I wish now that we had just kept talking about me.
“So, despite the fact that you cant leave this place, you could still take me out of this tank, right?”
I snorted, “Why would you want to? It's really not much better out here than in there.”
“True, but I would very much like to experience life outside my bowl. I lack hands or I would do it myself, but you could help me out.”
“Sorry, little dude,” I said, and I found that I was kinda sorry, “you're a good hang, but I promised the Doc that I wouldn't take you out. I think it was one of those papers I had to sign to get this job.”
“No one has to know,” it said, its voice kind of sneaky as it pressed its brown side against the glass, “you could take me out for just a second and then put me right back in.”
“No,” I said, looking at the door like I'd been doing something wrong, “I...I really shouldn't.”
“Please,” it begged, “You have no idea what its like to live in your own filth. Now that I have a mouth, I can constantly taste the stagnant water I live in. It's pure hell.”
“Dude, stop it. That's not cool. You know I can't take you out, I told Doc I,” but then it did the last thing I would have expected.
It started to cry.
I don't mean it was pretending to cry, the thing started loosing these tortured sounds that made me think of someone going through a bad break up. It sounded super hopeless, and it began to bump it's body against the side of the tank. I picked up my phone and tried to ignore it, but its hard listening to something just cry and cry like that. I had a room mate once who just kinda gave up after his girlfriend dumped him and he just lay on his bed and cried until his parents finally came to get him. I never saw ole dude again, but I can still hear his sobs sometimes when I close my eyes.
It was heartbreaking, and infuriating, and I wanted to console him as much as I wanted him to shut the hell up.
“Please! Please just let me out! I can't stand this anymore! I need to get out! I need to get out! I NEED TO GET OUT!”
It yelled and screamed and begged and cried for another hour and a half, and when the key turned in the lock, I was never happier to see the Doc.
Doc C looked at the little creature in the jar and asked me what had happened?
“Nothin,” I said, “It started talking after you left and then when I wouldn't let it out, it started screaming and crying.”
Far from being angry or disturbed, Doc C seemed amazed. He started studying the thing through the glass, before I reminded him that I was done for the night and needed to leave. He pulled himself away begrudgingly before handing me my money and putting the sack back over my head. I found an extra hundred in the pile that night, for my suffering I supposed, and thought about not coming back that night. The blubbering and crying had been a lot to handle, but I couldn't deny that the money was good and it was helping me pay down a lot of my outstanding debts. Another month of this, and my rent would be paid for the next year. Another two months and my credit card would be paid and I could afford that new flat screen for the living room. The things wailing had been a lot to handle, but what was a little more next to financial freedom?
I made sure to pick up some earplugs before I came back the following night and that's how I spent my next week.
In that week, the little creature grew an eye and four small fingers, two on each side of its body.
The night I arrived to find it had an eye, it told me all night how I looked like a kind person, and how it didn't understand how I could just sit here and watch it suffer. The earplugs helped a little, but it seemed like I could still hear it through the plugs. It would start out trying to talk to me, trying to flatter me, trying to reason with me, but we would always end up with it crying and me trying to ignore it. It became harder and harder as time went on, and every night seemed to be a battle to not open the tank and let it out or to just flip the table and smash its tank into a thousand pieces.
In the end, it always came down to the money and I always managed to stop myself from doing something stupid.
It was a Tuesday when something I hadn't considered happened.
Tuesday night started out just like any other. Doc C brought me into the room, took off the hood, and there sat the little creature in its glass prison. It smiled at me, and I could see a couple of teeth breaking the gums. It had six fingers now and they made it look a little like a bug as they wiggled energetically. It still had only the one eye, but the beginnings of a nose had started to form under it. It was a repugnant little thing, and as the Doc left and I settled in, I kept my mind on the money, reminding myself that I just had to power through tonight.
It would be over in ten hours and I could go back to my room and sleep.
It spent the next ten hours talking, pleading, crying, and trying everything it could to gain its freedom. Well, that's not quite true. It never tried to threaten me. It probably realized that such a thing would have been pointless. It could no more have hurt me than my two year old nephew could and had decided on a different gambit. When it started its piercing wailing again, I popped the ear plugs in and shut most of it out. The plugs tuned the thing down to about a two, and made it easier to ignore. I was just thinking that I might treat myself to some really nice noise canceling headphones and forgo the tv for another week, when I saw someone familiar in a piece of Reddit News.
I almost dropped the phone as I read over the article, not sure what to make of it.
“Doctor Joseph Crandler arrested after trying to buy biological materials from an undercover agent.”
The picture showed Doc C looking very unhappy as he was led away in cuffs. He was wearing the same clothes I had seen him leave in the night before, and the article that followed didn't cheer me up. He had been buying materials from his experiments from some disreputable people, and finally he had put his trust in the wrong one, or maybe the right one, I guess. The agent had arrested him and they were holding him for questioning.
I felt a cold chill as I looked over at the little freak in the tank. Was this the sort of experiment he'd been buying materials for? I had never thought to question if this thing was something the college had sanctioned or not, and now I realized that I might be part of an illegal experiment. They'd be coming for me next, me and this thing, and they'd assume I was the Egor to his Doctor Frankfurter or whatever.
As the creature wailed and thrashed, my brain started putting blocks together that it should have a few minutes ago.
My biggest problem wasn't that they would think I was involved, it was that if they didn't come and the Doc didn't come, then I would have no way out of here.
I was trapped with this little crying dude for god knew how long.
I thought about calling for help, but that could be bad too. What if they thought I was part of this? I'd have a hard time convincing them that I had nothing to do with this when they found me with the evidence. What's more, all the Doc had to say was that I was his assistant, that he had paid me, and I'd be in the same prison chow line as him.
I started looking around the room for escape routes, but there was nothing but the very locked door. The little creature kept asking what was happening, but I just kept ignoring him. There were no windows, no other doors, not even a vent to squeeze into, like in the movies. All the while, the creature wailed and pleaded to be released. It knew something was wrong, and it wanted to be set free. It could help me, it could get me out of here, it could do anything as long as I would take it out of the tank.
After searching the little room again and again, I finally just sat and tried not to go crazy.
My phone will make calls, but I have no idea how to tell anyone to find me or even if they could. I tried to explain to the police what was happening, I even mentioned Doctor C, but I think the dispatcher thought I was high. They started hanging up on me when I called back, and if they trace my number, all their going to find is my dorm room, which is empty. Luckily, I have a charger on me, so I can keep calling out and trying to get someone to help me.
I checked the fridge, and there's enough bottled water and snacks in there to last for three or four days. Less if I feed this little bastard, but I'm not even sure what he eats. I've never been given any feeding instructions for him, and I'm not going to waste my food on this squalling thing. I threw a tarp over him, but it isn't doing anything to dull the screaming. It sounds like he might have grown more mouths because I can hear his shrill little voice from every angle as it bounces off the wall.
One things for sure, if it doesn't stop screaming soon, I'm going to give him some kind of release.
If it goes on much longer, I'm going to wrench the lid off that tank and stomp the life out of him.
If someone doesn’t come soon, I’m going to release him from his suffering forever.

I should have known the job was too good to be true.
Make two hundred dollars a night to sit in an undisclosed location from sun down to sun up. No previous experience required. Non Disclosure to be signed before hiring. Candidates who break NDA will be sued for breach of contract. Must have a strong constitution and high moral fiber. Interested parties call (number below)
For a college student who was struggling to pay tuition, car insurance, and keep food in the dorm fridge, this sounded too good to be true. I looked at the party offering the service and discovered that I knew them. Doctor Crandler was a BioMed teacher who had a bit of a reputation for being out there. He was said to conduct experiments after hours in the science lab and if he hadn’t had tenure, it was pretty likely that he would have been fired. These were all rumors, of course. I’d had Doctor Crandler last year for entry level human biomes and he was a delight. He turned out to be a huge Romero fan and loved to talk about zombies and old horror movies. We had really hit it off, and when I called the number, he sounded happy to hear from me.
“Oh thank god, I was hoping someone reliable would call. I’ve lost three this week, and I’m beginning to think I’ll have to stoop to drastic measures.”
Whatever drastic measures were, Doc C didn’t elaborate.
He just told me to come to the science lab at five fifteen sharp.
“And not a minute later!” he added before hanging up and leaving me with more questions than answers.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but two hundy was two hundy, and that would be able to put something in my body other than ramen noodles this week if the job was legit. So, about four thirty, I hopped on my bike and made my way across campus to the Verner May Science Building. It’s a huge old brick building that's been on campus since the nineteen forties. They say its been home to a lot of famous research and more than one questionable clinical trial. I had started to wonder if Doctor C was gonna try to experiment on me, and that's why he was being so secretive. I decided that if that was the case, two hundred was not enough. I had enough trouble scoring ladies with my pizza face and I doubted having four arms or two heads would help matters much.
I stepped through the doors at five o'clock sharp and Doctor Crandler looked up excitedly.
“Prompt as always! I remember that from my classes. You were always early, and I like a student who is punctual. Come this way and let me show you what I’m working on. Before we start out though,” he set a Non Disclosure Agreement in front of me and I looked over it before signing my name to it. It was pretty standard stuff. Don’t talk about what you see, don’t talk about what I’m working on, don’t tell the media, don’t post it on the internet (guess I messed that part up), yada yada yada. After that, he tossed a black hood onto the table and told me to put it on.
I hesitated, not having asked him anything about what we were doing yet.
“You’re, uh, not gonna experiment on me, right Doc?”
He laughed, but it didn't sound particularly merry.
“No no, my boy. I would never experiment on you. I have specific parameters and I'm afraid you just don't meet them.”
I wasn't sure whether to be glad or insulted, but I put the hood on either way.
He led me through a door, down some stairs, outside, back inside, and then down more stairs. Finally, we came to our destination, and when he took the hood off, I was in a little room about the size of your average dorm room. Inside was a table, a chair, and a glass jar with something floating inside. It was roughly the size of a spud, though if it was a potato it was one of those big ole Idaho job. I'd say it was about two feet tall, maybe half a foot wide, and it just sort of floated there placidly.
“This is your job.” Doctor C said, pointing to the jar.
“What? Just watch this thing? Easy peasy!” I said, not yet understanding what I was agreeing to.
“Just watch it till I get here to relieve you. Be careful, it's very tricky. It may try to get you to let it go. Do Not let it go under ANY circumstances. For that, I'll pay you two hundred dollars a night.”
I put out a hand, being a man who signs deals with a shake, and Doctor C pumped my arm one good time before saying he was going to leave now.
“I'm going to lock you in. If you have to urinate, there's a bucket in the corner. There are snacks and water in the mini fridge over there, though I would prefer it if you don't take your eyes off that jar.
I started to protest about having to wizz in a bucket, but I just nodded and told him not to worry about it. A deal was a deal, as my old man liked to say, and when he left, I heard the door lock behind him. So, I settled in and took out my phone as I surfed Reddit. I kept an eye on the jar, looking up about every thirty seconds, but mostly I just sat there and tried not to fall asleep. That was the hardest part. It was so boring, just sitting there for ten to twelve hours, and I made a mental sticky to bring coffee tomorrow. Doc had some snacks in his fridge, but Kale chips and pita chips with hummus are not what a man desires when he's trying not to zonk out.
The weird little thing in the jar didn't help much either. It was boring. All it did was float there, but I guess thats not quite true. Sometimes I would look up and find it looking at me, its weird brown body seeming to watch me. It couldn't really be doing that, since it didn't have eyes, but I still felt very seen as I sat there on my phone. I made a note to bring a charger too, but luckily it lasted till the doc came back, and he smiled as he handed me my two hundred dollars in cash at the end of the shift.
“Do you feel anything? Any headaches or nausea?” he asked.
I told him I didn't and he invited me to come back tomorrow night.
I told him for sure, and left two hundred bones the richer.
I kept watching the little science project for the next week and ended with an extra fourteen hundred bucks in my pocket. I agreed to do it seven nights a week, and as spring began, the nights got a little shorter too. Soon the sun was going down closer to eight, and I didn't have to show up till seven thirty or eight o'clock. Getting a couple of hundred bucks for ten hours of work was boss, and I got a lot of Raid Shadow Legends played and Reddit scoped while I sat there and collected mulla for sitting on ass.
When I arrived Tuesday of the next week, however, something had changed in my little potato cash cow.
The thing had an ear.
Doc sat me down and as the hood came off, he asked if I noticed anything different about the little blob. I looked at it critically, but couldn't really see anything different. Doc didn't really like this answer, and told me to look harder. After a few minutes of coming up with nothing, he sighed in exasperation and pointed.
“It has acquired an auditory openings for vocal registration.”
The look I gave him must have told him all he needed, because he just shook his head and tapped the tank.
“It has an ear hole.” he said, and I finally got it.
After some looking, I realized what he was talking about and he seemed pretty proud of himself.
“We've been working with chemical stimuli and had a breakthrough when it finally developed some form of communication peripheral.”
“How do you know it can hear you?”
It was his turn to look puzzled, until I pointed out that it didn't have any way to let them know if it could hear them.
“Well, it kind of wiggles around when we talk to it or play music. It hadn't done that much before, so we think it must be able to hear us.”
He left after that, and I made sure to turn the volume up on my videos so the little dude, or dudette, could listen too. It definitely bounced around a little, dancing in the water a bit as it moved around in its glass tank. I thought it was a little funny, and turned the volume way up as it wiggled and wobbled.
By the end of the week, it had two ear holes and some little baby ears to go with them.
The Doc told me to take a week off after that, saying they had some experiments to run on the little thing, and I told him to call me back when he needed me. I took some time and spent a little of my money paying bills and settling debts. By the end of the week, I was praying for a call from Doc C, and Sunday night, he obliged.
“I could use a set of eyes next week, if you're free.”
I told him I'd be there, and pumped my fist in excitement.
When he took the hood off monday, he was rewarded by a “whoa” of interest from yours truly.
The little sucker had a toothless mouth that it seemed to be opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“I came in Sunday to find that it had grown it. It's pretty interesting stuff,” Doctor C told me, “Has it spoken to you before tonight? Some of my assistants claim it has spoken to them by way of telekinesis, but you don't seem to have suffered from any of the symptoms they've talked about.”
“Thankfully not, Doc. All the little guy does is float and make me money.”
Doc C nodded, looking thoughtful before leaving and locking me in for the night.
I had just brought my phone out to start scrolling Reddit for the night, when I heard a muffled voice from somewhere. I looked up, thinking someone was outside the door, but the door was solid wood. I looked at my phone to make sure I wasn't accidentally butt dialing someone, but thats when I heard the slight tap from in front of me. I looked up to see the little potato thing as it bumped the glass with its body, its toothless mouth forming words from behind its prison.
“Hello? Are you there?” it asked, its words muffled by the water and the glass.
I looked at it, not sure if it could even hear me when I responded, but when it floated back a little, I guessed it probably could.
“Hello, you sound different than the good doctor or his friends. Are you someone new?”
“Not really,” I said, half laughing, “I've actually been here watching you for a couple weeks.”
“Oh,” it said, very interested, “You must be the one I couldn't reach. I'm glad we can finally speak properly.”
I sat my phone down, leaning in a little closer as I watched the little brown thing float in the off color water that held it.
“What do you mean? You only just got a mouth.”
“Yes, well, there are more ways than one to communicate, aren't there? I've been trying to touch your mind for weeks, but you don't seem overly receptive to my advances. Thus, I had to find alternative means of communication if we were to speak.”
Its voice, despite being muffled by the glass, was very smart sounding. Little dude was the smartest floating potato I had ever met, though the list was just him for the moment. He sounded like the doc a little. He used a lot of big words, and sounded like he knew a lot of stuff. I put my face a little closer to the glass as I looked at him, watching him float there, and wondering what he might know?
We talked a lot that night. Well, I talked a lot. The little just kind of floated and listed, throwing something out every now and again. He wanted to know where he was, how he had come to be in a fishbowl, and what the Doc intended to do with him? I didn't know most of these things, and I told him that. He didn't seem too thrilled with that answer, but he still kept talking to me. He asked about me and what I was studying and what sort of things I liked to do. I didn't pick up my phone much that night. Instead, I told the little guy about myself and we talked for hours about nothing in particular.
The clock said it was about four am when the subject finally turned to what he really wanted.
I wish now that we had just kept talking about me.
“So, despite the fact that you cant leave this place, you could still take me out of this tank, right?”
I snorted, “Why would you want to? It's really not much better out here than in there.”
“True, but I would very much like to experience life outside my bowl. I lack hands or I would do it myself, but you could help me out.”
“Sorry, little dude,” I said, and I found that I was kinda sorry, “you're a good hang, but I promised the Doc that I wouldn't take you out. I think it was one of those papers I had to sign to get this job.”
“No one has to know,” it said, its voice kind of sneaky as it pressed its brown side against the glass, “you could take me out for just a second and then put me right back in.”
“No,” I said, looking at the door like I'd been doing something wrong, “I...I really shouldn't.”
“Please,” it begged, “You have no idea what its like to live in your own filth. Now that I have a mouth, I can constantly taste the stagnant water I live in. It's pure hell.”
“Dude, stop it. That's not cool. You know I can't take you out, I told Doc I,” but then it did the last thing I would have expected.
It started to cry.
I don't mean it was pretending to cry, the thing started loosing these tortured sounds that made me think of someone going through a bad break up. It sounded super hopeless, and it began to bump it's body against the side of the tank. I picked up my phone and tried to ignore it, but its hard listening to something just cry and cry like that. I had a room mate once who just kinda gave up after his girlfriend dumped him and he just lay on his bed and cried until his parents finally came to get him. I never saw ole dude again, but I can still hear his sobs sometimes when I close my eyes.
It was heartbreaking, and infuriating, and I wanted to console him as much as I wanted him to shut the hell up.
“Please! Please just let me out! I can't stand this anymore! I need to get out! I need to get out! I NEED TO GET OUT!”
It yelled and screamed and begged and cried for another hour and a half, and when the key turned in the lock, I was never happier to see the Doc.
Doc C looked at the little creature in the jar and asked me what had happened?
“Nothin,” I said, “It started talking after you left and then when I wouldn't let it out, it started screaming and crying.”
Far from being angry or disturbed, Doc C seemed amazed. He started studying the thing through the glass, before I reminded him that I was done for the night and needed to leave. He pulled himself away begrudgingly before handing me my money and putting the sack back over my head. I found an extra hundred in the pile that night, for my suffering I supposed, and thought about not coming back that night. The blubbering and crying had been a lot to handle, but I couldn't deny that the money was good and it was helping me pay down a lot of my outstanding debts. Another month of this, and my rent would be paid for the next year. Another two months and my credit card would be paid and I could afford that new flat screen for the living room. The things wailing had been a lot to handle, but what was a little more next to financial freedom?
I made sure to pick up some earplugs before I came back the following night and that's how I spent my next week.
In that week, the little creature grew an eye and four small fingers, two on each side of its body.
The night I arrived to find it had an eye, it told me all night how I looked like a kind person, and how it didn't understand how I could just sit here and watch it suffer. The earplugs helped a little, but it seemed like I could still hear it through the plugs. It would start out trying to talk to me, trying to flatter me, trying to reason with me, but we would always end up with it crying and me trying to ignore it. It became harder and harder as time went on, and every night seemed to be a battle to not open the tank and let it out or to just flip the table and smash its tank into a thousand pieces.
In the end, it always came down to the money and I always managed to stop myself from doing something stupid.
It was a Tuesday when something I hadn't considered happened.
Tuesday night started out just like any other. Doc C brought me into the room, took off the hood, and there sat the little creature in its glass prison. It smiled at me, and I could see a couple of teeth breaking the gums. It had six fingers now and they made it look a little like a bug as they wiggled energetically. It still had only the one eye, but the beginnings of a nose had started to form under it. It was a repugnant little thing, and as the Doc left and I settled in, I kept my mind on the money, reminding myself that I just had to power through tonight.
It would be over in ten hours and I could go back to my room and sleep.
It spent the next ten hours talking, pleading, crying, and trying everything it could to gain its freedom. Well, that's not quite true. It never tried to threaten me. It probably realized that such a thing would have been pointless. It could no more have hurt me than my two year old nephew could and had decided on a different gambit. When it started its piercing wailing again, I popped the ear plugs in and shut most of it out. The plugs tuned the thing down to about a two, and made it easier to ignore. I was just thinking that I might treat myself to some really nice noise canceling headphones and forgo the tv for another week, when I saw someone familiar in a piece of Reddit News.
I almost dropped the phone as I read over the article, not sure what to make of it.
“Doctor Joseph Crandler arrested after trying to buy biological materials from an undercover agent.”
The picture showed Doc C looking very unhappy as he was led away in cuffs. He was wearing the same clothes I had seen him leave in the night before, and the article that followed didn't cheer me up. He had been buying materials from his experiments from some disreputable people, and finally he had put his trust in the wrong one, or maybe the right one, I guess. The agent had arrested him and they were holding him for questioning.
I felt a cold chill as I looked over at the little freak in the tank. Was this the sort of experiment he'd been buying materials for? I had never thought to question if this thing was something the college had sanctioned or not, and now I realized that I might be part of an illegal experiment. They'd be coming for me next, me and this thing, and they'd assume I was the Egor to his Doctor Frankfurter or whatever.
As the creature wailed and thrashed, my brain started putting blocks together that it should have a few minutes ago.
My biggest problem wasn't that they would think I was involved, it was that if they didn't come and the Doc didn't come, then I would have no way out of here.
I was trapped with this little crying dude for god knew how long.
I thought about calling for help, but that could be bad too. What if they thought I was part of this? I'd have a hard time convincing them that I had nothing to do with this when they found me with the evidence. What's more, all the Doc had to say was that I was his assistant, that he had paid me, and I'd be in the same prison chow line as him.
I started looking around the room for escape routes, but there was nothing but the very locked door. The little creature kept asking what was happening, but I just kept ignoring him. There were no windows, no other doors, not even a vent to squeeze into, like in the movies. All the while, the creature wailed and pleaded to be released. It knew something was wrong, and it wanted to be set free. It could help me, it could get me out of here, it could do anything as long as I would take it out of the tank.
After searching the little room again and again, I finally just sat and tried not to go crazy.
My phone will make calls, but I have no idea how to tell anyone to find me or even if they could. I tried to explain to the police what was happening, I even mentioned Doctor C, but I think the dispatcher thought I was high. They started hanging up on me when I called back, and if they trace my number, all their going to find is my dorm room, which is empty. Luckily, I have a charger on me, so I can keep calling out and trying to get someone to help me.
I checked the fridge, and there's enough bottled water and snacks in there to last for three or four days. Less if I feed this little bastard, but I'm not even sure what he eats. I've never been given any feeding instructions for him, and I'm not going to waste my food on this squalling thing. I threw a tarp over him, but it isn't doing anything to dull the screaming. It sounds like he might have grown more mouths because I can hear his shrill little voice from every angle as it bounces off the wall.
One things for sure, if it doesn't stop screaming soon, I'm going to give him some kind of release.
If it goes on much longer, I'm going to wrench the lid off that tank and stomp the life out of him.
If someone doesn’t come soon, I’m going to release him from his suffering forever.