Small Story Rant: Hi I rarely ever get callbacks after applying to jobs of anykind. Recently though through a friend i got a painting job for $22/H they never asked for a resume and i think i am the lowest paid worker they have, (i think their minimum is $23.5) but i was pretty deperate for a job so i took it. They already increased my pay by $1 (it was $21), the company also does pay under average, anyways its spring/summer and because of that I thnk I have alot of leverage in my market, as the hot season for painting is during the summer, I want to be paid above average a bit at $27/h and in the past have been up up to 30/h or nightshift for 40/h in my field.
My resume: My current template goes like this
Objective: Seeking a position that will allow me to have strong communication skills, work ethic, and ability to work well in a team to contribute to company success.
Skills:

1. Communications: Excellent presentation skills, written and verbal
2. Solid Time Management
3. Bilingual (Spanish)
4. Fast Learner
5. Hard Worker
6. Creative and Adaptive (Problem Solver)
7. Teamplaye Leader

Experience:
2015-2020 Commercial painting
I was around 15ish when i started as an apprentice and I was employed by alot of different companies during this time some as little as 2 week (i think as a subcontactor) but it was pretty independent work but my summary is:
Consisted of Manual Labor, Moving Equipment and supplies, Cleaning sites, Taping, Scraping, Sanding, Painting, and Varnish in a predominantly Outdoor environment consisting of Fences, Decks, Doors, Trim, and Stucco painting (using a Paint sprayer)
Then I decided to work for 1 company for a year because i realized i couldn put the above on a resume properly
Painting Company 2019-2020
Interior painting (idk what else to but that was really all i did and i added the other things i did to my previous)
I got tired of painting after like my 18th bday and was really depressed cuz of covid and stuff and took a long haitus and decided i wanted to try other industries so my next job was
Job at healthcare facility as servehousekeeper october-may
Worked isolated and independently; preparing and Serving food, Setting tables, Sweeping, Dishwashing, and Housekeeping.
But recently ive been self employed a bit trying differnt industries ( i was an apprentice for this in one of my other jobs but never added it)
Self employed wallpapering @ differnt places (i have them named but dont feel comfortable sharing)
Feb-September 2022
Worked in a pair to create beautifully wallpapered rooms
Volounteer
2 Places 2018-2019
Availability
ALL WEEK ALL DAY (Can do nightshift)
Education
Highschool
Refrences
Available upon request
I have no refrences noone has ever asked and i never added them because i dont keep track of numbers and have noone to vouch for me im also super uncomfortable adding them tbh (not cuz im a bad worker i just have a bad upbringing and get anxiety when people ask about me or my life)
and thats it I havent added my current company though
I have about 7 years of experience in Painting
1.5 Years in Wallpapering
and i was an apprentice last summer for Tiling and flooring for like 3 months (just tiles tbh but on the floor) I didnt add it though ebcause i felt it was useless to add since no job would hire me as a tiler with a 3 month apprentership so never added it
During covid though i was fired twice but only during trainings and never added it to my resume (I was extremely depressed and it was a struggle getting out of bed and it was really hard to motivate myself to go do mundane tasks for 8 hourrs and bus for an hour or 2 for a few bucks)
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I also need a resume template because my resume is white and red and i dont think its a good template but i would prefer one that would somehow highlight my more relvent experience and not go mumbo jumbo everywhere :/ I just want one so i can see if i can get a higher paying job and just switch but also recently tried starting a business (that is currently burning to the ground and taking me with it) so i also want to work less hours but thats negotiable tbh working about 70-88/h (mostly 88) biweekly worked 100 one time though and usually work 10H/Day cuz i want to have friday sat sun off.
Also im in Canada if that helps cuz the flare asked for location but i have a question or something i guess
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tldr: need resume template and help formatting//

I purchased a used RV and the only flaw is a grease spot on the carpet near the engine compartment cover. I’ve tried spot treating it with carpet cleaner (no effect) and oxy-clean (very little change).
What is the strongest treatment I can try that won’t dissolve the carpet?

My kitten is a 4 month old bangle male, not yet neutered and we weighs 6.86 pounds. He’s an indoor cat who has one sister kitty and they are both fully vaccinated, but do not have the vaccine required for outdoor cats as they’re both fully indoor. We are located in central California.
A few weeks ago my male kitten got diagnosed with Giardia after a positive poop sample. I had no idea I needed to clean everything everyday so adamantly, so I just gave him the medication they provided for a week as prescribed and cleaned his poop right away and didn’t find out until reading on Reddit how hard it is to get rid of Giardia!
I’ve been out of the country due to a family emergency and my boyfriend refused to bring the poop sample to the vet so I only brought in his second poop sample (like to see if it’s gone) yesterday and he is still positive for Giardia, in fact they said it’s gotten worse.
So, I’ve just picked up his new doses of medication and this time I want to make sure I do this right! MY MAIN QUESTION is can I use Lysol fabric spray on my couch if I wait for it to fully dry before letting my other cat into the area again or will it still be toxic? I’m wondering because I can’t find any disinfectant sprays that are pet safe and made for fabric, but my cat with Giardia goes on the couch all the time so I know I need to disinfect it. If it’s not safe even if I wait, what can I do to disinfect my couch? Please help!!
If you want to stop reading here no worries but I figured I’d explain my plan to get rid of it here too to see if anyone has any suggestions:
I bought “veterinary pet safe disinfectant wipes” to clean his litter box everyday. I’m planning to change his litter everyday as well and ofc pick up his poo and pee right after he goes! I’ll make sure to wipe his butt and paws each time he uses the litter box with pet wipes (there’s just no way he’ll let me bathe him everyday) and he’ll be isolated in one room until the end of treatment:( I’m going to wear gloves whenever I’m cleaning/ handling his business and thoroughly was my hands after petting him. As usual I’ll wash his water and food bowls everyday. Before he’s isolated, I’m going to deep clean that room and will do the same when the treatment is done. While he is isolated, I plan to wash all my clothes, bedding, floor mats, etc (anything that can go in the washer) and deep clean my entire apartment. To clean the apartment my plan is to wipe down all the hard surfaces (counters, tables, etc) with Lysol spray, then after letting it sit a bit wash it with soap and water incase my other cat jumps on one of the surfaces (which she doesn’t really ever do). Also going to clean the carpet with a cleaner that has quartanary ammonium compounds (I read to do that somewhere, but if anyone has any other recommendations for carpet cleaner that disinfects I’d love to know!). Lastly, disinfect my couches which I’m hoping someone will give me a suggestion for:)
And of course I’ll be giving him his meds everyday for the week as prescribed.
Anything helps, thank you for reading all this!
Edit: Omg I’m now reading quartanary ammonium compound are not safe for cats I didn’t even know what that meant before but saw it recommended for cleaning carpets when pets have Giardia. So now I need help with a carpet cleaner too! I can’t afford to get it professionally cleaned unfortunately.

Hi, I will be traveling in Europe this summer with my girlfriend. We will mostly be moving around a lot, but for a couple of weeks at the end of June I have a big work project to finish so I want to have a base to work from. It doesn't have to be dirt cheap but a reasonably cheap place would be great. I'm European but my gf is on a single entry Schengen visa so it has to be a Schengen country.
I would love your advice of a nice cheap city to stay a few weeks. The main things I'm looking for are:

1. Nice, clean city with plenty of things to do
2. Safe and with friendly people (not racist). My gf is Thai and haven't been to Europe before so I want a city where she will feel safe exploring on her own while I'm working.
3. Cheap accommodation (ideally a decent airbnb for under 60 EUR per night)
4. Great (cheap) food, nice cafes, bars, etc.
5. Fast WiFi and good places to work from like coworking space or cafes

Thank you so much for your input. :)

Hi, I will be traveling in Europe this summer with my girlfriend. We will mostly be moving around a lot, but for a couple of weeks at the end of June I have a big work project to finish so I want to have a base to work from. It doesn't have to be dirt cheap but a reasonably cheap place would be great. I'm European but my gf is on a single entry Schengen visa so it has to be a Schengen country.
I would love your advice of a nice cheap city to stay a few weeks. The main things I'm looking for are:

1. Nice, clean city with plenty of things to do
2. Safe and with friendly people (not racist). My gf is Thai and haven't been to Europe before so I want a city where she will feel safe exploring on her own while I'm working.
3. Cheap(ish) accommodation (ideally a decent airbnb for under 75 EUR per night)
4. Great (cheap) food, nice cafes, bars, etc.
5. Fast WiFi and good places to work from like coworking space or cafes

Thank you so much for your input. :)

Edit: TLDR my flatmate is a grown man and he can’t wake up without me, can’t go to sleep without me, can’t clean, throws away my food because he thinks I’m too fat, rarely pays his bills and owes me over a grand which I doubt I’ll ever see, and once nearly set our flat on fire.
Things have been tense between my flatmate and me for a while. (He’s 24M, I’m 25F. We’ve been best friends since aged 11, and we moved in together nearly 2 years ago).
I work shifts in a 24/7 hotel bar, so I have an odd schedule where sometimes I have to wake up at 4am for work for an early shift and other times I’m still awake at 4am after a late shift. Management sucks so I often work 9/10 days in a row (usually 10-12 hour shifts) before I get a day off, and I’m on my feet that entire time. My flatmate on the other hand (no hate towards him, just facts) works 8 hours per week for extra money because his side of the rent and bills are paid for by his parents who are wealthy. (It’s maybe worth noting his parents are not happy about this and he argues with them on FaceTime every night, which I hear, because our walls are very thin).
He doesn’t understand how it is to work shifts, and he wakes me up at 7am every morning regardless and says I can’t sleep the day away. No amount of telling him to go away or covering my head with my pillow or even literally crying and yelling will make him go away. I have literally walked him outside and closed the door in his face and he just came back in. (Also we aren’t allowed locks, we don’t even have a lock on the toilet door). Not only does he wake me up after late shifts, he also keeps me awake before early shifts until after 1am with loud music and constantly coming into my room to tell me random things after I’ve said I’m going to sleep. Plus even if he goes to sleep at 1am I’m then so angry I can’t sleep at all and I end up going to work on nothing. One time I was so tired after I’d worked a 20 hour shift (double shift 7pm-7am, then a 7-3pm shift because someone called in sick), I told him to please not bother me unless the place is literally on fire, and he woke me up to get me to watch a midnight drug raid across our street (bare in mind we live in a shitty area so I’ve seen it all before as he knows, and I wasn’t in the mood for neighbourhood drama).
He also has an eating disorder, which isn’t his fault at all. However he projects a lot of his issues into me. I actually used to be obese and I am still overweight but I’ve lost significant weight. He is very skinny and always has been. I eat home cooked meals every day that I make for myself (unless I’m eating socially). He eats cereal and nothing else and even then he often skips his cereal dinner. I’m just glad he’s eating something and not nothing. The reason I’m mad is he throws away my food and when I ask where it went he says I don’t need it and he’s helping with my diet (I am not on a diet, I am changing my habits, I never said I was on a diet). It’s a huge waste of my money and it’s also so upsetting to come home after a 12 hour day especially when I didn’t get time to eat at work all day, and all I want is a hot meal, a blanket, and some mindless scrolling until I’m ready to pass out and sleep, and I can’t even have that because I’ve no food left and everywhere is closed, so I have to have a glass of water for dinner. For context he’s not throwing away chocolate and sweeties he’s throwing away things like broccoli and peas which I was gonna use for a healthy meal. He even once threw away my lentil and carrot soup which I put in the freezer. I don’t even care if I’m fat I still deserve a warm bowl of soup after 12 hours of Karens and and managers and stress (also this incident was in January and we live in the north of Scotland btw, so I was literally so cold and just wanted to warm up and I had to have water for dinner again because he threw out my food that I’d made specifically to warm me up after work).
Speaking of money he spends a lot of his parents cash on stuff for himself (usually Pokémon games or merch), so I often cover for him which I know I shouldn’t but we have one of those electricity sticks that you manually pay for, so if I don’t pay for it then and there we straight up don’t have electricity which affects me too. I also clean for him, not because he asks me to, but because when he does his own dishes he’s so awful at it I worry about him. He washes his dishes and leaves whole bits of food stuck to the plate and just soaps it up and carries on. So obviously I later have to take it and re-clean his dishes. He drinks a lot of tea and he literally scrubs the mug with the teabag still inside, then sticks it on the drying rack and seems to think it’s clean.
He is also dangerous around the flat, for example the worst thing he’s done is he once he left his washing in the machine too long so it smelled a bit when it came out. Rather than washing it again like a sensible person he decides to hang it up on the clothes horse, light a few candles underneath his clothes to “get the smell of the candles on the clothes”, then leave the house and go to lidl for an hour or so (our local shop). He also didn’t use candle holders. I got back from work to discover this and quickly blew out the candles which thankfully only burned a hole in the carpet, which I also paid for.
He’s still my best friend and I know I’m probably not a perfect flatmate either but I’m so tired of being his mummy he’s 24 ffs.

Alright, so she hasn't before displayed issues with her litter box. And this box, was this wooden box my boyfriend made me for Christmas gifts and I was keeping plastic in there, gift wrapping stuff. I was laying in bed doing school work when I noticed that she was squatting and peeing in the box. I cleaned it out and noticed that she had also pooped in there.
I'm concerned that either she is displaying unusual non litterbox use and will continue to do so even after removing the box and throwing everything away. I tried my best to clean whatever got on the carpet through the lines of the bottom of the box. I'm wondering though if maybe this was just human error on MY part and she truly thought it was another litterbox(due to the plastic and stuff inside and the shape of the box).
I had just never noticed and assume maybe she started doing it while I was at work? She had new poops in her real litterbox today and I watched her pee in there this morning. So she is still using her litterbox. She only pooped in the wooden box once and I hope only peed once? I really couldn't tell, I think I would’ve noticed because she literally got pee all over herself because of the plastic so I bathed her(to which she was suprisingly docile and fine with because it was my first time bathing her). I feel like I wouldve noticed unless she did it too while I was at work and just cleaned herself.
I don’t have the best sense of smell to cat pee I’ve noticed just the poo but I genuinely had no idea. I’m at home for the summer and my family’s dogs’ go for her so she stays in my room with her litterbox in my bathroom (my room is big don’t worry).
But I’m just concerned because she’s my first cat and I’m not the most familiar with behavior and if this was just a genuine accident because she was confused.

I have a laundry list of physical disabilities that make it so i cant even go to school, i could if i had a wheelchair but my parents wont prioritize that.
i want to go to regular school and see my friends and have a normal social life but my mother doesnt see it that way, she even takes away my weekend hangouts with my friends when i dont do dishes/laundry/cooking for my little sister and no one else picks up my slack.
on one hand we are poor and i get it to some extent but we got six flags season passes and i still dont have a chair. {im also autistic and might have adhd)
my mom doesnt force me to do all the physical chores my other siblings have to do like taking out the trash or bringing groceries inside but i still do as much around the house as i can.
whatever i cant do my siblings end up having to do for me and i feel like shit about it even tho logically i know i physically couldnt have done it
and my mom doesnt help at all with this, she always has an eye roll at best and a yelling, doorslamming and grounding at worst when i cant do as much.
she is also always telling me abt how i "just sit around doing nothing all day" even though i have a homeschool curriculum and am writing a book on top on taking care of my parrot and snake (by myself because no one else likes the bird or is willing to help with either)
my room is constantly a mess because i use up all my energy cleaning up whatever i can with the rest of the house and my parrot is a messy animal.
my mother doesnt waste any opportunity to tell me how gross it is and ask me if i like living in dirt.
i dont even think my room is THAT messy for what it could be.
tonight i overheard her complaining on the phone about my "back talking" re. being disabled and how my very abusive very violent father never would have allowed me to get this "disrespectful" re. going to my room after being berated abt my disabilities.
its just a lot to handle and being the only one i know to deal with any kind of disability (barring my 10yo little sister) is very isolating i just feel super alone and wish i just wasnt born like this.
i wish i could help instead of just being a burden and forcing my siblings to do more work just because i cant get out of bed.

My absurd next Ghost Recon game wishlist. Randomly ordered by idea flow lol.
Please keep the different game types. I personally enjoy gear score but having both caters to both groups of gamers.
More HUD/UI adjustments

• Add an option to allow different types of POIs to be shown but not others. I may not want mission objectives, but i might want to have my drone spot generators for instance.
• A true HUD toggle. Sometimes during missions with no HUD you have no idea what the object you are searching for looks like. Instead of having to go into options to toggle it on. You should add another category for the HUD ootions that will only show objects you have selected when you show the HUD.

Civilians and Enemies

• They should both have sleep cycles. All guards won't be awake 24/7.
• Civilians screaming should alert nearby guards if you spook them.
• Civilians should panic and flee like in a real situation instead of cowering in place. I mean some might but again make it random.

Enemy stats

• Give all enemies a pool of random stats depending on their ramk. IE elite enemies have better stats than normal enemies. It would make each enemy unique.
• No enemy would ever have 100% Accuracy including Snipers.
• Add a new stat, Composure: this stat determines how an enemy will react when faced against an opposing force. So lets say the scale is 0-99%.
  • Example: an enemy has 50% Composure rating and 80% Accuracy there is a 50% chance that they will lose their cool under threat. This lowers their base Accuracy value by half. So they would have a 40% Accuracy rating
  • There is also a 50% chance that they remain calm and no penalty is applied.

Teammates

• Allow your squad to be assigned to roles. IE 1 guy is assigned gunner, other is driver and the other is passenger. This way you don't have to drive all the time. It also adds extra utilitiy to markers set by the player. Set a marker 13km away and your AI teammate will take the shortest road path there. If in a helo they will fly and land there.

Fast travel

• Have it a toggle option in the difficulty setting. Allow fast travel to only FOBs owned by you allies. See below for more on that.

FOBS (forward operating base)

• Take a page out of The Division 2 and add these locations as fast travel points if they are secured by your allies. Same mechanics as The Division 2 and have them come under attack from enemy forces.

Bivouacs

• No more fast travel camps. Instead do like RDR2 and allow you to setup your camp pretty much anywhere. And you would have to place it wisely to avoid detection.

Batteries

• Add drone, flashlight, goggle and binocular batteries. Each obviously it's own item. This can be used to limit the number of each carried and require use of multiple different items especially in a long engagement.

The drone

• It should require batteries and even more juice is used if you use NVG/Thermal vision with it.
• It should make more noise alerting enemies easier. This makes it so you have to choose between drone and binoculars.
• If it breaks you should have to rebuild it at a pretty high material cost or rebuy from a shop.
• The zoom should be less than the binoculars.

NVG and Thermal

• They should also require batteries, also DRASTICALLY increase NVG brightness. With no silly Vignette, or to much less of a degree.

Binoculars

• Binoculars should have a way higher zoom capability. Otherwise they are completely outclassed by a drone. They should also not require a quick wheel slot. It should be its own button. To use thermal or NVG would require their own batteries.

Weapon attachments

• Flashlights (useful bright ones) should be a weapon attachment. That would alert guards if you use them stupidly. But for running through dark wooded areas etc could be very useful. As it would lend itself to meshing with battery consumption.
• Red dots for handguns.
• Better iron sights. A lot of iron sights have tritium or something similar to enable them to glow in the dark.
• All weapon attachments should be usable on any weapon given it has adequate attachment points and rail space.
• Weapon slings. I think it is long overdue to add slings to the game.
• Suppressors should only lower the volume of a gunshot and in real life require subsonic ammo to really lower the decibel level by removing the sonic boom by breaking the sound barrier. But for game sake unless subsonic ammo is added just add different suppressors that lower by a certain amount possibly each better one also lowering damage, or for the best pretend the gun is being loaded with subsonic so the bullet has less range.

Weapon operation / function

• Add different round types that you assign to be carried. IE you go to a FOB and choose your ammo loadout. Say you can carry 6 magazines total. 3 magazines of hollow point and 3 magazines of armor piercing. Each being better vs soft target or armored.
• Add a jamming mechanic where rounds can misfire, fail to eject etc. Weapon condition would deteriorate over time especially if you fire it a lot, or go prone, or swim etc. This would lead to the necessity to clean your weapon with cleaning kit consumables. Clicking the consumable would take like 30 seconds to clean the weapon.
• A really out there idea … Modular plate carriers. Which gives you the ability to add different pouches visually on a grid each of which holds different things like 5.56 magazines, shotgun shells, this could directly correlate to your maximum carried magazines etc. You could carry more in your backpack of course but this would necessitate stopping to reload magazines with loose ammo. This actual layout would be shown on your character.
• Equipment weight. Determines agility, mobility, stamina depletion rate and fatigue rate. Heavy gear with lots of ammo would tire you way faster than a lightweight loadout.

Scope zoom

• Enable picture in picture rendering. Sure when you are using a scope you move your face a tad bit closer to match eye relief which does lower peripheral acuity. But the whole scene shouldn't zoom.

Hard Cover / Concealment mechanics

• Snipers should not be able to hit you while you are in a chopper flying away from them especially flying like 100 meters away rocking the helo or flying serpentine to avoid bullets. Basically no more Aimbot
• Enemies shouldn't be able to see through a treeline just because they spotted you before. They should fire in the general direction they last saw you. Not super snipe you as you are running through thick foliage.
• Foliage should grant a certain percentage of concealment depending on how much of the body it covers AND this is where the clothing color below could definitely be coded. You assign a color array value to the foliage. Which checks against the players clothing color.
• Clothing color and pattern changes concealment factor in general surroundings. Not sure how difficult this would be. But it would be a first implementation in the industry I think.
• Enemies should be able to spot your muzzle flash if you keep taking shots at them. And gunshots should be a higher alert status than simply "did you hear that I am going to check it out" after I just blew his friends head clear off his body. This would lead to players using items to conceal their flash and/or relocate after every shot.
• Certain calibers shoulds penetrate through hard cover.

Vehicles

• Please for all that is holy don't allow anything besides a dirtbike or some crazy off road vehicle to drive up absurd inclines. Even dirt bikes should have a really hard time climbing 70° slopes.
• 50 call mounted guns on these should obliterate enemies and other vehicles. But they also shouldn't have unlimited ammo. Most real-life counterparts carry a minimum of 500 rounds. With extra cans carried inside the vehicle. I believe most ammo cans only hold 100 linked 50 cal rounds. So for video games sake and size of vehicle 2000 rounds on average. Just for reference that is 19 cans measuring approximately 12.x 7.5 x 6 inches.
• Player bought vehicles should be customizable with paint and weaponry, armor etc. Each thing effects handling and weight characteristics.
• Vehicles should require fuel.

Do my cats still have fleas? Or are these symptoms something else?
So this might be a bit long but bear with me, there are a lot of factors that are making this confusing.
I live with my roommate in an apartment complex (relevant to this whole mess) and we each have a cat. I have Ernie (~4M, orange/white tabby, short hair, about 18 pounds(vet hasn't said anything about him being overweightfor his overall size and he isn't over fed just a big guy)) and they have Bear (~3F, tortoiseshell, short hair, about 8 pounds). Both are indoor cats, we never take them outside unless it's to the vet and even then they're in carriers. We live in atlantic Canada if that matters at all. In January they both got fleas (it was probably earlier than this but this is when we noticed. We had renovations done on our bathroom which spanned October-November 2022 and suspect this is how they got the fleas, as our maintenance guy has three cats one is for sure an outdoor cat and one had been missing for a while around the same time. There was also an older woman who lived down the hall and let her cat roam the hallway so it could have been any number of things I suppose.) and we have been treating them ever since but it hasn't seemed to have cleared up, at least not long-term, and recently has almost seemed to have gotten worse, even though we've actually been cleaning more of late.
We are religious with the flea treatment, they both get a dose every month and we have been doing our best to clean (vacuuming, washing, and flea furniture spray) but it does fall to the wayside at times because we are both disabled and hiring someone is not viable for either of us financially (although looking at the FAQ about parasites I think we have for the most part done okay). It's exhausting and I'm not sure what we're doing wrong, especially since the cats no longer show signs of having fleas except for the constant scratching, which in Ernie's case has gotten so bad that he made himself bleed today, which is why I'm so worried.
Looking at their fur, either from brushing or just parting it and looking at the skin, I do not see any flea dirt or fleas on either cat, both of which were extremely prominent when they first got them, and since the first time we treated them I haven't seen any of this. The only odd thing is that they seem to have reddish brown spots concentrated entirely around their nipples, closest to their bums. I have looked at these and from what I can tell, it isn't flea dirt (or if it is it's completely different than before, as before I was able to pick it out of their fur, this seems to be on the skin so I think it might be built up oil). The irritation seems to be entirely around their ears and necks and again, I can't really see anything there. They both had a shot for any flea dermatitis or other stuff the fleas could carry in January from the vet, but could it still be something like that? Ernie seems more affected than Bear but if it’s a skin problem it makes sense, he tends to have very sensitive skin. Bear is still very itchy but she doesn't scratch herself as violently as Ernie has been, though she has been cleaning herself a lot more than usual (I think this might be because she's shedding though).
I really don't know. My roommate brought them to the vet last time as I was out of town for a family emergency and couldn't be there, and they said the vet they saw wasn't very helpful so we're both hesitant to go back if it is still just fleas and we have to keep doing what we're doing, but something tells me this is different, I have never seen Ernie scratch so hard he bled before, even when he first got them. I have been an anxious mess about them on and off for six months and I'm not sure what to do at this point. I don't want to have to spend a few hundred dollars just for the vet to tell me it's fleas again but I recognize it's probably in their best interest if I do (and mine honestly). Any input or advice is greatly appreciated, I can answer any questions as well since I'm not sure how much sense this post makes as I am quite sleep deprived writing it.

I recently moved out of a double apartment into a single apartment in the same complex. I've received a final account statement that includes a carpet replacement charge over 1000 USD for replacing the entire apartment's carpet.
I contacted the leasing office, and they told me that there were notes that said that the carpet was damaged beyond normal wear and tear. I was told to contact the collections and maintenance and they provided photos and their justification. They stated that
"The carpet was overall is good condition (beyond normal wear and tear) but there were areas in the bedroom where it looks like a chair with wheels was placed that is damaged and not able to be restored with a carpet cleaning.
As it was only these areas that were affected (attaching some photos for reference), we can offer to reduce the cost billed to you by half. Bringing the amount for the carpet replacement down to $550."
Attached photos: https://imgur.com/a/meLk98m
Is their offer reasonable and should I accept it? If applicable, this is in California.
EDIT: First 3 photos are the bedroom, last photo is the living room

Hi! Are you breaking your lease and need a subletter? I am looking for a sublet of ANY length where I can ideally stay if all goes well. I'm looking for an unfurnished place. I am flexible on everything, but some preferences are laundry in the unit, facing toward the street (not internal), and no carpet. I prefer non-luxury buildings, but I know that is much of what is in this area. I have no pets, no car, am a non-smokedrinker, have excellent credit and references, and am very clean. Please let me know if I forgot any helpful informaiton. Thanks in advance.

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SmackDown Episode #1241
Venue: Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza (Wilkes-Barre, PA)
Attendance: ~9000

Results of Tonight's Show

Match	Stipulation	Winner
The Brawling Brutes vs. Austin Theory & Pretty Deadly	Six-Man tag Match	Austin Theory & Pretty Deadly
Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson vs. Hit Row	Tag Team Match	Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson
Zelina Vega vs. Lacey Evans	MITB Qualifying Match	Zelina Vega
Montez Ford vs. LA Knight	MITB Qualifying Match	LA Knight

IMPORTANT NOTES:

• Tonight begins with a tribute to the history of Roman Reigns' championship reign, running through his successful defenses and showing how many other champions whose reigns he has outstood.
  
• Austin Theory greets us from the ring. It's a special night because of Roman's title celebration, but what if you combined it with the greatest US Championship reign (aka Theory's reign) you'd have 1209 days. It's inspiring, like being the guy who beat John Cena at Wrestlemania. He knows he'll have a 1000 day celebration, maybe more thousands, but if he keeps being given guys like Sheamus he'll be US Champion forever. But he's here for those who do what was right, and that's why he's teaming with Pretty Deadly tonight. They join him in the ring and note it was their pleasure destroying those ugly gremlins, the Brawling Brutes. They want to show Austin their appreciation for him as a champion and gave him a YESSS BOYYYYYYY.
  
• Paul Heyman is speaking at Solo Sikoa backstage, talking about how they need to make tonight special especially after everything that happened at Night of Champions. He's going to go talk to Adam Pearce to make sure the Usos are nowhere to be found.
  
• Earlier today the OC was chatting backstage about taking out Hit Row.
  
• Post-match, AJ Styles takes down Top Dolla with a Phenomenal Forearm. And Cole attempted something that I'm not sure could be called a "rap"
  
• Adam Pearce is pre-emptive with Paul Heyman. The Usos's travel was canceled and he's promising there will be no issues.
  
• Seth "Freakin'" Rollins vs. Damian Priest World Heavyweight Championship match announced for Raw!
  
• It's the Grayson Waller Effect with guest Raw Women's Champion, Asuka. They replay Asuka's win over Bianca Belair at Night of Champions. Waller notes Money in the Bank is coming soon, plus Bianca will likely be coming for the championship again soon again, right? Asuka pops off with her screaming craziness and Waller agrees. IYO SKY interrupts, and the two begin screaming at each other in Japanese. Waller tries to interrupt when Bayley's music hits. She says obviously a member of Damage CTRL is going to win the Money in the Bank... and is then interrupted by Shotzi who wants to crush her dreams. And is interrupted by Lacey Evans, who says the contract is coming home to her. AND IS INTERRUPTED by Zelina Vega who says they're all underestimating her. It becomes a screaming argument while Grayson Waller giggles and says he loves America. Asuka reminds everyone that nobody is ready for her just in time for Bianca to attack from behind, with officials attempting to separate them.
  
• Cameron Grimes is talking to Adam Pearce about wanting to get his hands on Baron Corbin, but he's a free agent now showing up in NXT.
  
• During the break while they were cleaning up after the Grayson Waller Effect, Lacey cheap-shotted Zelina ahead of their match.
  
• After Zelina's win, the LWO meet to celebrate backstage, ahead of Santos Escobar also having a MITB qualifying match next week. Rey Mysterio says he can see it, Santos & Zelina, Mr & Mrs Money in the Bank.
  
• Post-match, LA Knight pulls out a super-tall ladder and poses with the dangling Money in the Bank briefcases.
  
• Spooky winter forest with spooky weirdos sacrificing things over a fire… it's a vignette for Alba Fyre & Isla Dawn.
  
• Triple H joins us in the ring tonight. He says we will be talking about this man for generations, welcome the Tribal Chief, the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion, Roman Reigns. Roman, Solo & Paul join the ring and Triple H congratulates him on a reign that hasn't happend in almost 40 years. To commemorate this, Triple H reveals the new WWE Undisputed Universal Championship belt. Roman removes the old WWE Championship belt and Triple H fastens the new title around his waist. Roman asks the entire universe to acknowledge him... and the Usos' music hits.
  
• Jimmy stares down Roman in the ring while Jey paces. Roman tells Jey to kick him in the face. He needs to fix this, kick him in the face. Jey continues pacing and as Roman again demands him to kick Jimmy in the face and fix this, Jimmy says the only one that needs fixing is Roman. He did what he did because he was being a brother, and brothers treat brothers with love and respect... and lately Roman hasn't been such a good brother. What kind of brother manipulates, betrays, and beats down his own family? He's going to protect his brother, including Solo, as Roman will eventually turn on him too, use him up and kick him in the dirt. Roman says the only reason why the crowd champs Uso is because of him. He's the Tribal Chief, and Jimmy's the imposter. Roman says why don't we hear from Solo who he's loyal to & who he runs with. Solo stands contemplating with the mic in his hand before acknowledging his Tribal Chief... but these two here are his brothers. So then walks over to stand beside the Usos.
  
• Jimmy asks Roman, do they want to run this thing together or does he want to be on the Island of Relevancy all by himself? Roman tells Jimmy to shut his mouth but Jimmy hits him. As it looks to spin up Jey stands between them, telling Roman that they need him and they don't need to fight like this. Jimmy agrees saying they're stronger together, and let's run this place together. Jey is still pacing as Roman sweats it out before finally embracing Jimmy in a long hug... and replies... "no." Solo hits Jimmy with a Samoan Spike.
  

Additional Plugs

• Revisit the live thread
  
• Check out our SquaredCircle Twitter account for all sorts of AMA announcements and interaction!
  
• Join our SquaredCircle Discord for live chat!
  
• Be sure to follow @WWE on Twitter and Like WWE on Facebook!
  
• Like other wrestling promotions? Perhaps you're looking for other subreddits related to wrestling? There's a sub for that! Check out /AEWOfficial, /luchaunderground, /njpw, /ImpactWrestling, /ROH, /indiewrestling, /Wrasslin and more!
  

Next week's Smackdown will be live from Des Moines, IA.

****WARNING****
***
Body Horror, bugs, death, gore. Attempted horror.
By my own standards, this is fairly tame, your mileage may vary, content advisory.
***
Captain Van’tu, the Garaboosian commander of the Alliance of Free Stars light scout cruiser Mandrake, frowned, in the way of his species, and gestured with a lower lefthand at his human science officer to continue.
The woman turned back to her console, to peer into the hood of her ‘scope and minutely adjust a control.
“The ship is an old Terran Alliance Explorer class, the TAN Nebula Star. She was reported overdue for resupply a little over a hundred years ago, exact details are spotty as the station she was supposed to report to was destroyed in the Terran civil war. By modern standards she was little more than a heavy cruiser with an oversized jumpcore, and limited weaponry. The Terran Alliance Navy was very much focused on exploration and first contact, and several of their vessels vanished without trace only to show up decades later in pirate hands. However, this does not seem to be the case with the Nebula Star…”
The image on the holotable was mute testimony to this information. The old starship, much more massive than the Mandrake, but significantly less well equipped, looked derelict. Several holes gaped in her once-pristene white hull, the smooth lines marred and crooked, and the jumpcore bulb near the stern showed a terrible, blasted crater, black with soot and melted steel.
Captain Van’tu scrolled the smooth wheel of the holo controls, swivelling the image and zooming into the damage.
“What do we think of this, Sasha, that looks like an internal explosion, not battle damage.”
“Yes Captain.” Sasha, the science officer, agreed. She manipulated a pad on her side of the console. Several sidebars lit up. “Here, here and here. Chemical signatures we’ve picked up in the dustcloud around the wreck, and the blast pattern, indicates a high yield chemical explosive was utilised, we would need to get a scan from inside the wreckage to be certain, but I think I can confidently say this was caused by a c4 package commonly kept as part of ship inventories of that era. We carry a similar type of explosive even now, it has uses in a number of emergency protocols.”
The captain nodded. “I’m familiar with Human paranoia, ‘better to have and not need than need and not have’, which is why I learned to carry a backpack heavier than myself at the academy.” He smiled at the woman, who grinned back in that wolfish human fashion.
Commanding a Terran vessel as part of the Alliance Navy was a high honour for a non-Terran, and he’d earned it the hard way, he’d actually completed his officer training on Earth itself, heavy gravity, lethal flora, fauna, and practical jokes be damned, he’d always dreamed of command, and he had never planned to settle for anything less than the best ships of the fleet.
Somehow his determination to ‘make it’ had actually impressed his trainers and teachers, and earned him the interest of a senior Admiral, which explained his current command. And he was no ticket-puncher, his crew was, in his opinion, the best in the fleet, and if his ship was small, he was so proud of her, some days he could almost burst his hearts from it. She was his first, and with luck, not his last, and while scouting duty following pre-war exploration routes was far from glamorous, it was essential work for the Alliance, following up first contacts, reopening lost trade routes, and, now and then, coming across relics, and giving closure to the descendants of those vanished vessels.
“Alright. She looks cold, and her reactor is dead, but we don’t know what happened to her, she could have run afoul of pirates, or been captured and misused for decades, or been left boobytrapped, so pack up a SAR shuttle, and give them a leader drone, they don’t enter unless the drone clears the way in.”
“Aye aye Captain, I’ll get them on their way. Sidearms?”
“Yyy…esss. Yes. And overarmour. If someone’s left any surprises, it will help.”
Sasha turned and walked off, already tapping her communicator to summon the personnel she’d be sending.
He frowned again, looking into the depths of the hologram. Something was bothering him, the same sensation he’d felt while visiting a zoo on Earth. Humans around him grinning, nodding to one another, and the confirmation of his worry came as a boom of hundreds of pounds of apex feline carnivore crashing against the high density crystal he’d been standing with his back to…
Something was creeping up on them, he could feel it.
***
The shuttle launched from the brightly lit boatbay of the Mandrake, arcing smoothly through the glittering blackness towards the cruelly murdered starship. In front of it zipped the mote of the drone, its scanners and sensors slaved to the shuttle, giving the drone specialist on board an instant feed to all his senses, feeling, experiencing everything the drone saw.
It zipped around the gaping hole where the jumpdrive had once been housed, then around in a helical pattern, scanning every micron of the lost ships hull, mapping it in complete three dimensional perfection, then tracking towards the boatbay. Inside, two, much older, versions of the Mandrakes shuttle rested, crooked against their davits, the bay airlock doors lying open.
The drone slowly crept inside the dark corridor as the shuttle followed it in, nestling into an empty davit. Power hookups, identical after a century thanks to long ago agreed standardisation, marry up, pogo pins compressed and energized, drawing trickle power from the shuttle to latch securely.
The crew debark, except the probe operator who remained strapped in his jumpseat, guiding the drone deeper into the derelict.
Suited figures follow its path, jumping from the shuttle hatch to the airlock. They don’t bother trying to seal it, it had been lying open for a century, there was no air left within to preserve. The drone met a cross passage, and moved right, headed towards the bridge, following schematics downloaded from Mandrake’s computer. The scout crew followed, alert, and making note of damage to bulkheads, the carpets that once covered the floors looking torn, dark stains telling a worrying story.
The probe entered the bridge of the Nebula Star and paused. The LIDAR scanner illuminated the space in a slow pass of green laser light, left to right and back again. The chamber was empty, save the various consoles and chairs the crew would have used, and the lone figure of the Captain, in his central command chair.
To Captain Van’tu, observing the time delayed remote feed on his own bridge, it was remarkable just how similar the darkened derelict wreck was to his own vessel, down to the arrangement of bridge consoles and type of carpeting used. He’d read, in one of his intro to ship design classes, that Terran bridge layout owed much to speculative fiction of pre-spaceflight eras, and a lot of experimental wet-navy designs.
He'd brought it up once with his chief of engineering, who had responded with a ridiculous approximation of a Scottish accent, “Aye laddie, we Terrans owe an awfy lot tae an auld lass called the Enterprise!” and laughed, continuing his explanation in his more natural German accented standardised Terran. Van’tu had spent several informative evenings with his console, soaking up ancient Terran entertainment as a result.
The drone circled the bridge, slowly, keeping its thruster exhaust well clear of the mummified body in the central chair, making its way to the science console. A small arm popped out and slotted into the consoles data port.
Several lights flickered on the antique panel, the probe powering up the cold circuits to read the datalogs, then around the room, dim red lights came to life, as more of the bridge woke up. Through the hull itself, a faint whine transmitted, the probes oversized fusion battery providing enough current to trigger the startup of a backup generator below the bridge.
The scouting party stepped in, peering around. One, her grey skinsuit marked with a red stripe down the arms, moves across to the captain, a medical scanner in her hand.
“I’m reading significant trauma throughout the corpse, but remarkable preservation as well. Life support must have been glitching badly for a long time after… Wait…” She smacked the side of the scanner, then passed it back across the corpse. “Scanner keeps picking up my own heartbeat, trying to tell me this guys still alive, fucking thing.” She put it away in the side pocket of her suit and pulled out a smaller device. “I kept my old one, should be good enough to… Fuck me sideways…”
“Maybe later Carol, what’s the script?” A green stripe on the party leader’s arm. He was looking around, feeling… itchy, between his shoulder blades. Something wasn’t right, and not just the dead ship. He’d been lead on two other derelict searches, and they never went like this. Accidents happened, people died, usually horribly, and you always found, well, bodies. Whole or otherwise. Yet, aside from the clearly traumatic bloodstains on the floors, soaked long before the artificial gravity had failed, this ship hadn’t shown them a single body, nothing, not even fragments.
Not only that but he could swear he’d seen movements. No-one else had, but he also knew that his reflexes tested significantly higher than average, he was seeing something the others were simply not noticing.
Carol stepped away from the corpse.
“My old scanner says this guy’s alive Mark. Heartbeat, brain activity, oxygenated blood. He’s not breathing and he’s a fucking corpse, but both my scanners say he’s gooey in the middle. And I’ll be honest I don’t want to be here, send probes back across on AI control and let them explore, this is too freaky. I know you’ve been seeing shit, well, I’ve been picking up weirdness all along, and this is too much. We should leave!”
Mark bit back a curse. He agreed, but he was also supposed to be a professional, and as the leader of the scout team who first boarded the derelict, he’d have been slated for command of the ‘prize crew’ to bring her home. At the same time, he was holding back a growing uneasiness, his other two team members were shuffling nervously, and Carol was on the edge of panic.
“Alright, we head back to the shuttle and leave the probe to grab the logs. Something’s weird here, might be the atmosphere on this thing, I admit it’s spooky, but we all know I see weird bugs and things other folk miss, and Carol, you’ve had that personal scanner since high school, if it’s saying something weird, something weird is going on. If Captain… Morrison, is still alive after a century in vacuum, he can keep a few more hours until the AI probes can collect him. We’re not equipped for medical evac anyway.”
They stepped back through the hatchway, leaving the probe to its work. Emergency lighting flickered into life, adding a lurid red glare to the tableaux, Mark, last to leave, sharply snapping his head back around as something… He was reminded of a time as a child, he’d turned over a log in his parents’ yard, and hundreds of inch-long centipedes had scurried in panicked circles to escape the sudden glare of sunlight.
Nothing moved, aside from the slow pulsing of rebooting computers.
He followed his people towards the shuttle.
One by one, they made the leap back to the shuttle davit, and boarded, cycling back aboard, and taking their seats. The drone pilot barely moved to acknowledge them, clearly lost in the datefeed from the old computers, and aside from a quick glance across readouts to ensure the data was flowing cleanly to the Mandrake, Mark didn’t disturb the man.
He hit the switch to release the davit clamps, and the popped free. The shuttle turned, and smoothly glided out, aligning with the mothership and headed home. He blinked and shook his head. That motion again, out the corner of his eye. He glanced over, seeing the drone pilot’s faceplate swarming with legs for a fraction of a second.
“Uhh, Josh, you alright there?” He hated breaking into drone pilot concentration, but this wasn’t right, and Carol was gesturing desperately at him from her chair. He reached across, and nudged Josh’s shoulder, the skinsuit collapsing under his fingers and the skull clacking loosely against the faceplate.
***
Captain Van’tu listened to the soft report coming from Sasha, the scout crew had found the captain of the derelict but were returning early due to some unsettling information they’d found. He didn’t like it, but he also respected human instincts. If skilled officers felt there was a reason to withdraw before mission completion, he knew better than to override the human-on-the-spot.
He’d have a word with Mark later, in private, if necessary, but the man had never been wrong before.
Across the communicator, there was a sudden eruption of yelling, the shuttle on the holo spiralling wildly. Sasha was demanding a clear response from the screaming communicator.
Mark came over the channel. “Abort mission, contamination, alien threat…” His words ended in a gurgling scream, the kind that began high and ended, eventually, in a growling snarl of mortal agony. The line remained open, however, and the entire bridge crew turned to stare, mouths agape, as into the silence the faint sounds of gnawing began to echo.
Sasha shut off the feed with a shaky finger. “Captain, I…”
“I know. Arm several probes, get them to the shuttle, find out what happened and…”
Once more, attention fell to the holo display, as on it, the icon of the shuttle winked red. Sasha motioned, and the focus zoomed in. Where the shuttle had been, a spreading scatter of debris remained.
She pulled up the sidebars again.
“Right before Mark, uh, died, his authorisation codes were used to trigger an overload on the shuttle reactor. We didn’t pick up the feed in real time, they were returning after all, but all of them suffered catastrophic biological distress immediately before their lifesigns cut out. Mark was the last one alive, and severely injured when he triggered the reactor.”
Captain Van’tu shook out his lower hands with a stress-shedding gesture. “The shuttle reactor is in a sealed compartment. He had to get from his chair to the access panel and enter his code, while suffering life threatening injuries which had already killed the rest of his crew?”
“Yes, Captain. I’m sorry, I missed it, my team is still processing the data, but it looks as if the drone pilot ceased responding several minutes before the shuttle departed the wreck. At five minutes into the flight, the three junior officers began exhibiting distress, but gave no verbal alerts. Mark seems to have reacted to something that triggered a fight or flight response, but within a few seconds was exhibiting the same injury markers as the others. At the six-minute mark, he sent his warning, while moving. It appears as if the cessation of his vocalisations was not the end of his life, almost thirty seconds later his code was entered into the shuttle reactor, and it detonated.”
Captain Van’tu moved to his command chair, and sat down, lower hands grasping the armrests, upper hands folding under his chin. “Helm, chart course back to the nearest Alliance outpost, and warm up the jumpcore. Tactical, bring shields to standby and start charging the grasers, I don’t like what’s happening, and I do not want to be caught with our backs turned.”
His crew moved into action, tactical alerts bringing various stations to readiness.
“Sir! We’re receiving a communications request, uh, from the Nebula Star.”
He stared at his communications officer, who looked equally shocked.
“Please, Jen, put them through to the main holo.”
The hovering image of the wreckage that had once been a shuttle vanished, replaced by the familiastrange image of the old bridge, and its captain.
The man was a corpse, there was no debate. The papery skin had pulled back from his eyes and teeth, his nose collapsed inwards, decades of icy coldness and baking heat as the derelict tumbled slowly from shade to sunlight had freeze dried the body, yet, it moved. The jaw flapped open, and the sticklike arms gestured against the command chair arms, clawed fingertips clicking uselessly.
“Gree. Tings. Un. Known. Vess. Sell. I. Am. Cap. Tan. Morr. Iss. Son. We. Come. In. Peace.”
The corpse in the holo quivered and twitched in some horrible mockery of life, the bared grey teeth clicking as the jaw spasmed open and closed, not, Van’tu noted, in time with the words being spoken. Inside the jaws, he also noticed, something black and shiny and segmented.
“I highly doubt you come with any sort of peace in mind, what are you really, and what did you do to the crew of the shuttle who boarded the ship you are on.”
The body twitched, a trickle of black ooze popping free from the corner of the sunken eye socket. Under the dried up eyelid, something squirmed around, curling with segmented motion, a few pointed claws poking briefly free before vanishing once more.
“I. Am. Cap. Tan. Morr. Iss. Son. We. Come. In. Peace. We. Rek. Wire. Ass. Iss. Tan. Sse. Let. Uss. Board.”
An alert flashed from Sashas direction. A gesture diminished Captain Morrison to a corner of the holo and expanded the view of the derelict. Two shuttles of archaic design had just launched from it and begun making their way towards the Mandrake. He muted his pickup and turned to his tactical officer.
“Jeff? They do not get close enough to board.”
“Aye aye sir, tracking has them locked and my grazers are charged.”
“Very good.”
He returned to the holo and reopened the grisly view of the dead man being puppeted on his display.
“You will not be permitted to board my ship. I demand to know who you are, what you represent, and why you are trying to impersonate Captain Morrison.”
“You. Are. Food. You. Have. Use. Full. Tech. Nol. Ogy. We. Will. Take. It. We. Will. Use. You. We. Will. Mul. Tip. Lie. This. Vess. Hell. Came. To. Us. In. Peace. We. Took. It. We. Came. For. Ter. Rah. We. Became. Trapped. We Became. Lethargic. We have waited. Now you have brought us. A new vessel to carry us. To Terra.”
Captain Van’tu shook his head. If these things were familiar with humans, they’d recognise the gesture. For the sake of understanding he’d long ago learned to at least emulate some human body language.
“You will not be allowed to go any further. I have a duty to safeguard the people under my command, and to the people of… Terra.” Whatever this species was, it was not something he wanted anywhere near a colony or, worse, defenceless homeworld, of any of the Allied or friendly species he knew lay between here and Terra herself. Best for all they only had Terra in mind.
“Sir! The incoming shuttles are not going for docking, they’re on a ramming approach! Firing solution lost on bogey one!” The Mandrakes grazers were firing, gunnery crews managing their weapons as they tracked automatically and fired, spearing one of the wildly corkscrewing shuttles with lances of gravitationally focused gamma radiation. The second shuttle however spun, and fell downwards, smashing into the still warming shields, and through, impacting the Mandrakes hull with tremendous speed.
The scouting vessel shuddered. The shuttle had breached through the outer hull and spilled into a mess area.
Thanks to the alert condition, all crew had been in skinsuits, not that this helped the two cooks who had been finishing off the lockdown of the mess kitchen.
Fresh alerts sounded, the sound of which sent crewpeople to arms lockers. Mandrake had been boarded.
Captain Van’tu pointed to his tactical officer. “Destroy that wreck! vaporise it!”
“Sir! Weapons are offline, on-mount crews are reporting power losses.”
Across the bridge, the communications officer looked up. “Reports coming in, boarders are breaking out of mess two!”
The captain snarled. Ancient Garaboosians had warded off predators with that sound, and his teeth bared in an animalistic threat display. He slammed a finger into the appropriate button on his armrest.
“All hands, all hands, defence stations, repel boarders!”
His head snapped around. “Sasha, do we still have telemetry from the drone on the Nebula? If so, I want it to shut that shitheap down, or overload its reactors!”
His science officer acknowledged with an “Aye captain!” and turned to her console.
He returned to his holo. Removed the mute. “You have attacked an Alliance of Free Stars vessel, while using a Terran Alliance vessel reported lost to causes unknown. I am hereby declaring you to be pirates, and you will be treated accordingly. Surrender now and you will be returned to your government or homeworld after serving a prison term to be determined by Admiralty courts.”
He did not expect the thing pretending to be Captain Morrison to surrender.
“There will be no surrender. We will take all you have and all you are. You will be ours to consume and use.”
His tactical alert flashed, somehow, the older ship was charging its weapons systems. He flicked a gesture, and the old vessels appeared, with sidebars. The weapons were underpowered, and normally not really a threat to a modern vessel, but the Mandrake had just been rammed by a shuttle, cutting power to her own weapons, and disrupting her shields, it would take several more minutes to regenerate them.
He glared at the grinning visage of the corpse which was still mimicking life. The left arm was still quivering against the rest, fingertips drumming against a keypad almost identical to his own. From the bottom of the sunken belly of the dead man, a slowly undulating shape crawled, a thick-pincered head, followed by a segmented body flowing with sharp-tipped clawlike legs. It moved upwards and climbed back in through Morrisons throat.
“Captain, boarders have been destroyed. Sir, they were humans, but they were dead. Like mummies. They had some kinds of bugs inside, we had to go in with plasma to clear them out.”
“I see. Ensure all the bulkhead seals around the messhall compartment are still green, and pull everyone back, full medical scans on exit. Once everyone is clear, blow the compartment.”
“Uh, yes, sir, understood. Engineering teams are saying they’ll have full weapons restored in eight minutes.”
“Good. We can’t allow any of these things to get back to inhabited space. I want that wreck vaporised. Mess compartment too.”
He continued to watch the dead mans fingers rattle against the old command chair. And nodded.
“Captain Morrison, it has been an honour. Captain Van’Tu, out.”
In the holo, the corpse finally went still. The creatures which had inhabited him began to swarm, black blood and ichor bursting from his skull as the mother of the monsters which had ridden his body and his ship since they had tricked their way aboard a century before, burst free from her manipulating, feeding grasp in his skull.
“Captain, the drone has fully copied the Nebula Stars database, but is unable to access any critical systems. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay Sasha. When we have weapons available, we’ll finish whatever is left.”
“Sir? I don’t understand what…”
The holo tank cut her off. The Nebula Star had fired its engines, angling towards an intercept with the Mandrake, it needed to be much closer to engage with its much more primitive weapons. As the engines flared to life, fire blossomed across the aft hull. Multiple explosions rippled through it, billowing outwards from within, as the reawakened fusion reactors, initially stirred to life by the probes batteries, then by crawling undead crew hidden in the ships dead spaces, all overloaded, and detonated in a final orgy of self-annihilation.
There was a shudder again, as the Mandrakes crew activated the emergency charges that blew an entire section of the ship into space, carrying with it the bodies of dozens of the Nebula Stars crew, hundreds of incinerated and still crawling parasitic alien monsters, and the corpses of two unfortunate cooks.
“Begin sweeping everything in range with fire, maximum power and aperture, everything must burn. I want medical and bio survey teams going around the clock scanning for any trace of those things that might have breached containment. For the record, I will be recommending the Mandrake be scuttled once all crew are cleared and disembarked. Needless to say, we will not be making any landfall or station docks before then.”
He sat down in his command chair. He couldn’t remember standing up. He stared down at his armrest, and the keypad on it. With the fingers of his bottom left hand, he began typing, sending the results to the main holo where Sasha watched, curious.
ENMY HMWRLD r41429.135 i334451 b-1.791 KILL BURN QURTN
The rest of the sequence was the override code that would trigger the Nebula Star to overload its powerplants and blow itself to pieces before it could be used against its creators.
“Captain? How did you get that message? The log entries are still being processed, but it doesn’t look like anything coherent survived, there’s no co-ordinates in them.” Sasha was confused, and Captain Van’Tu smiled.
“Humans, you’re all the same when it comes down to the wire. Mark blew his shuttle rather than let it dock with those things on board. Even while they ate him alive, he crawled through his command, to do his duty to his species, and to the galaxy. Captain Morrison held off death, kept those things guessing, somehow, as they tried to use him, his ship, to reach Earth, made them keep him in some sort of horrific half-life, until they were distracted enough that he could get back control of his hand. His chair Sasha, same as mine. Probably came out of the same factory, a century apart, and he was typing, while they tried to speak to us, while they tried to board us, shoot us, while we distracted them, he set them up to give us the knowledge he knew we would need to ensure they would never threaten anyone again.”
Fire was still blossoming across the larger area of the holo display, graser weapons detonating fragments of hull with nuclear fire.
“Once we’ve cleared the skies here, we head to an outpost, and start warning the Admiralty. Jobs not over until these things are completely contained.”
***
103 Years, 4 months, 5 days before.
Jack staggered, his leg still bleeding from where a crewman had slashed at him with fingers broken into sharp bone claws. He’d stamped the mans head until the skull popped, rupturing the centipede thing curled inside. He was close. The familiar, once comforting hallways of the Nebula Star had become nightmarish, red lighting and blotches of gore, streaks of blood on the pristine walls, he was living in a horror game, but he had a job to finish.
He pushed off the wall he’d leant against. Behind him, he could hear screaming, and begging. He didn’t stop. It was a trick. They found the noises amusing, and mimicked them, discovering that it could draw in ‘helpers’ they could ambush.
Aft section, frame fourteen, jumpcore bay. He slapped the button, and fell through the door as it slid open. Inside, the bay was immaculate, no-one had been in here since this had started. How they had gotten aboard, he didn’t know.
Inside the skull of a landing team member, he could guess.
He knelt beside the humming machinery. His vision was going grey around the edges, he could feel dripping around his knees, he was kneeling in a pool of his own blood after only a few seconds, he didn’t have long.
He pushed his burden against the drive casing, the chem-catalyst agent on the back bonding it to the drive with a molecular weld.
He pressed the keypad of the emergency c4 cannister, the detonator arming with a beep, and a green telltale.
He typed in a code, short, sweet, he’d forgotten it by the time he reached the end, it didn’t matter. The disarm code was only for when you wanted to be able to stop the countdown. Ten seconds.
They reached him, before it finished counting. Inside his brain, they couldn’t find the code to stop the bomb.
The Nebula Star would not reach Terra, he made sure of that.
As the jumpcore failed, blowing a ragged hole out of the sleek hull, a single shuttle spun away from the boatbay, damaged, lifeless, cold and drifting outwards into the depths of space, the mutilated human corpse within stirring once with scurrying life, then going still.

I'd always hated my body. It wasn't a matter of gender, nor race. Nor was it about strength or lack thereof. The sight of my body disgusted me in a way that I couldn't articulate, in a way nobody else understood.
Layers of cloth were all that stood between me and acknowledgement by the world, flowing robes, cloth gloves buttoned tightly to prevent them slipping off, a mask worn, the edges hidden behind the cowl.
The clothing was cursed, of course, designed to never be removed, it was the first thing I'd learned how to do, adding onto it as needed without taking it off. I was the premier expert in curses, I dissected them as one might a living creature, teasing out new runes, new ways in which basic enchantments failed or degraded.
I was the first one to discover that curses became permanent when you accepted it, I'd tested out all forms of curse designed to transform and ensnare, developed new ways to break them, or to change them.
More than a handful of the student body at the Academy had used my altered curses to take on new shape, finding comfort that consistently eluded me in a way that at times enraged me. Yet I never took it out on them, jealousy only breeds malcontent.
As my assistant tested out the curse I'd developed to change physical gender- the joy in her eyes as she had a form that matched what she had outwardly tried to emulate- I filed away the curse as a success and would start applying it to rings to be sold, as per usual.
"Is that all, Professor?" My assistant asked.
"Yes, yes." I said dismissively, trying not to let my jealousy cloud my judgment. "You are no longer needed, however, you are allowed to assist me in the future."
"Professor?" She asked, confused.
I looked at her pointedly. "This was your idea." I stated. "Do not pretend that you did not hope I would succeed. Nobody creates a curse with pure intentions. Someone will always be hurt. You used me, acknowledge it, live with it, as I most assuredly used you."
Yes, she was a bright student, and her fresh perspective had given me some new insights.
"What is your impure intention, Professor?" She asked.
"To reject what I am utterly." I answered bitterly. "You are familiar with self-hatred, Briette, be content you no longer need hate yourself. Go."
She hesitated before leaving.
Every curse I created and studied was a weapon meant to cause pain, the joy they created was an outlier, a repurposing of malicious intent to spite the creator. It takes a special kind of malice to create a particularly potent curse, all-consuming hatred made them particularly permanent, and in the few weeks she had been my assistant, I allowed myself to hate her with every fiber of my being.
I leaned back in my chair, allowing myself to calm down, to let myself feel love, even if I couldn't feel it for myself. It was clarity, a willful separation from pain and loneliness to look upon the good I had done, and the evil I had wrought through my single-minded obsession.
The knock on the door was unusual, yet I allowed them in. The door swung open at my will, and the young student came in, carrying new supplies.
Ah, the new delivery, new materials found in the most recently unearthed dungeon.
"Deposit them at the door." I spoke. "And if you enter, understand any curses you contract will likely indelibly change you."
He walked in, there was fear in his eyes, but also desire. Yes, another one who would seek to use me. "You are either brave or foolish." I spoke calmly.
"I am." He admitted. "I want to make a monster."
"Oh?" I asked. "A foolish desire, one that will be the bane of countless innocents. Leave, you do not need to walk this path."
He shook his head. "No. I'm already familiar with the basics, I know how to safely protect myself from accidental cursing, and I've employed your Third Counterspell Trigram with perfect results." Technically impressive. but not enough to convince me.
"Why do you need to create a monster?" I asked.
"Simply because I need an army." He answered.
I smirked. A child with ambition. "You would ruthlessly use me to your own ends." I spoke.
"Without a second of hesitation." He replied.
"Good. I do not care how you use this army of yours, you will find in time that your ambition was pointless. I ask you, are you capable of hatred?"
"I would kill you where you are, if it meant my victory." He replied.
"That is dispassionate, cold, removed. Show me your hatred, boy, or leave."
He faltered, he knew how to talk the talk, but when pressured to show his might, he couldn't do it. I looked away. "You don't need a monster, boy." I said. "You're simply just angry. Talk with me."
It didn't take much probing for him to break down in tears. It was a common story, he came into his talents at a young age, fools saw his power as something evil, and mistreated him. I simply advised him as I saw fit.
"Be gentle." I said. "Live your life in peace and do unto others as you wish to be treated. There is no greater vengeance than proving them wrong."
He nodded, and we sat for a while in silence. After some time, he asked, "Why do you make curses?" He asked. "Who has wronged you so deeply, that you do this, in spite of your own advice?"
"Simple. I have a foe I hate with such fervent passion, that I will find a way to slaughter them and leave behind nothing." My hatred flared up once more. "The face in the mirror is my enemy, and I will destroy it."
He did not understand, nobody did. However... "Can I watch?"
I nodded. "Observe intently, this is how a curse is made."
Hatred of strong intensity is palpable, his breath caught in his own throat as the weight of my self-loathing crashed into me. He had wanted a monster, I would create one.
I weaved my transformation matrices, the malice coloring my mana blood red. I gathered the components he had brought to me, pieces of monsters, frightening beasts, and hellish fiends. One by one, I offered them up, filling the nascent curse with an all consuming hatred for mankind.
It was the first spell to ever backfire.
All at once, the matrices grew unstable, I knew there was mere seconds. I grasped the student with my power, flung the door open, and threw him down the hallway.
The pain that came was... excruciating.
My ears rang from the explosion, my eyes blurred from the agony that continued to assail me. My body was heavy, but I was alive. I felt my mask fall off and clatter to the ground. My vision began to clear, and I anticipated the revulsion I would feel at the sight of my face against its mirrored shell.
Something else gazed back at me. Thick, blackened flesh, covered in a form of chitin, eyes glowing red and maw replete with rows of fangs. My hands had six digits, each had an extra joint. I pushed myself up, standing was strange, considering my feet had taken on digitigrade stature, with my feet little more than tarsi with wicked claws.
The student, safely out of the blast radius, stared at me with horror. I tried to speak, but a hideous rasp emanated, I then opted for a basic spell, one that would speak for me. "That is what not to do when making a curse."
I began cleaning up my lab, which had fallen into disarray, the student helped, apologizing for putting me in such a position, apologizing for the hideous form I'd taken.
I chuckled, another spell released. "Do not apologize, I rather like what I've become." He looked surprised. "Please report to the Headmaster what has transpired, and let him know I am quite alright. My students will need to be alerted ahead of time that my form has permanently changed." I paused. "Even if I wanted to reverse it, the curse was ill-formed and there is likely some component I forgot to consider. Far better to have it happen to me than you."
He nodded. "I guess I did end up making a monster." He remarked.
"Thank you." I replied, before sending him off to report.