#paranoia

“Hey y’all, it’s Red, White, and Ruin here with a new ghostbox urban exploration for you to watch from the safety of your home. Lucky you! Today, we’re walking through the dead Cherry Hill Mall. Let’s take a look, huh?” I said in my chipper announcer voice. I hit stop on the video I was recording and sighed. Being this perky all the time was exhausting. I sighed, took in my surroundings, and frowned. “Jesus, what a dump.”

Notice: This is 'section 2' of the story Ad Nauseam, I have ran into a unique issue due to the size of Ad Nauseam that I had to make this separate story just to continue until said issue is fixed; if you are new and interested please begin reading here: https://nightscri.be/s/89368/ad-nauseam If you are caught up to Chapter 33 then continue to the next page and enjoy! If you came later during this whole max size debacle, then you can skip some.

I uncapped the red pen and added another "X" to our calendar. A small one, as not to take up more space than needed. After all, the box already had three others inside just like it. Who knew how many more we would have to add?

“Jalen, you sell drugs?” “What? No.” “Family sell drugs?” I laughed. “You for real right now?” His stoic face answered for him. “Not that it should matter, but I don’t really have a family. So, no, they aren’t kingpins in the drug game.” “Consider yourself lucky. No family is the way to go. No hassles. No buying gifts for ungrateful nieces and nephews who think just because you own a coupla properties, you’re Diamond Jim Brady. Gives me heartburn just thinkin’ about it.”

I naturally fell into babysitting around the age of 14. As the oldest of two older siblings, I was used to watching younger kids a fair amount of the time. So through friends and family, I got leads for babysitting to score some cash, which definitely beat having to work at a restaurant. The job had its ups and downs, but overall it wasn’t a bad gig at all. Yet, as many good experiences as I had, they were all eclipsed by one night.

In case you’ve been following along with the events at the gas station on my blog, I apologize that my website was taken down so abruptly. For some reason, the city council found my public record of local events to be “troubling”--to the point that they hired a fancy Orwellian legal team to bury me in cease and desists. I tried fighting back, but as of last week, it looks like my entire site has been retroactively erased from existence. Presumably, these are the same guys who’ve been scrubbing…

The following story was originally posted across 8 different installments spanning the months from October to November of 2017. They describe the true events that occurred at a now infamous small town gas station. PART ONE

It was a slow, mild Fall evening. We were sitting in our local Irish pub, The Lion and the Lamb, watching a beautiful young blonde woman on stage. It was karaoke night, and she was singing “In Dreams” by Roy Orbison. The song was mesmerising; her voice was like an angel’s. I suppose that’s how we ended up talking about dreams. “Has anyone been having any strange dreams lately?” asked Selena.I looked at her and the others at my company, pondering the question.

I must confess this process hasn't exactly been easy for me. Wading through the memories of what happened feels like digging through the rubble of your home after a tornado. You look for anything worth salvaging. And try to ignore the rest. Those three days feel like an exposed nerve in my mind. The wounds, both physical and mental, are still fresh. But this is a process, and my shrink says the best way to heal is by facing the trauma head on. So I force myself to remember it one more time to…

I launched myself for the radio receiver, and jerked up the mouthpiece. I wiped away the film of sweat from my forehead before replying. “Receiving.” My throat was tight with a lump the size of a golf ball. “It’s good to hear your voice comrade.” “You too. How are you doing?” Leaning towards the porthole, I stared out into the cold void, hoping to catch some glimpse of the Soyuz capsule somewhere out in the twinkling stars. “All systems great. Amazing view of the Pacific right now.”

"'Tis midnight, let us hit this," He said, after procuring the previously mentioned drugs. Wielding the ever-convenient Ziplock bag, he started to make his way into the room, abruptly falling down without the slightest grace as his already-altered motor skills abandoned his legs. He hit the floor rather loudly.

The bell rang and I lifted myself from my seat and headed out of second period. My back was killing me from sitting in the hard, plastic chair for the past hour and a half; I was ready to get out of there.

Ralphie had just received a letter that irrevocably changed his life. A letter intended for him to receive almost ten years ago, though it had only just made it to him now, lost by unforeseeable forces of time. The letter itself wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary, it had been written by a girl who had once loved him and whom- though Ralphie wouldn’t openly admit it- he still loved quite a lot.