I wish I hadn’t told macy what to do. We were just kids, trying to get a good life for ourselves. On days when when we didn’t have much to talk about we sometimes talked about our future. I had got the idea in my head that it was the perfect job. It didn’t require ten years of college like becoming a doctor would.
“I’ll give people shots for the flu. It’s a good job.”
“Yeah I think it’s a good ide-”
“I don’t do cutting into people. I can do anything else, not people.”
“..Where do you think we could work?”
“You can be a nurse anywhere. It’s easy. “
After high school I started working as a nurse and my best friend became a paramedic.

I wish I hadn’t become a nurse, but the money was important. Everyone needs money. 

Scalding hot protected in a layer of cuneiform golden ooze. burned black, brown, and red skin, the honey-mask that was not really protecting. It stuck to the skin like glue, forcing agonizing pain until we could pry or cut or wash it off.
I think the devil lives there in the honey, you can see him if you look close enough. The devil lives there but it is lifted up on the shoulders of the father of the son of the cousin of the holy ghost, well I don’t know the basics of religion. You can really see him, I can see something in the stuff, something with a soul.

A troupe of Apologists came in yesterday. You could tell which side they were on.

Burning the thin glaze through, burning the chests of the innocent, sinful creatures. They used to move freely along the banks of rivers or roads, like rabbits.
It still tastes sweet so they don’t stop. Even when their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends say to them: “don’t let it in”, they take more in, everyone crying their f***ing faces off.

~~~

A Golden light filled ball in the sky- it’s not the sun, it’s moving across the night sky at eight o clock. What could it be? Was it some sort of new weapon invented by the soviets? It was probably a dream, right? My wife woke up, tugged at my sleeve. She asked, “honey, what’s going on?”. I told her I didn’t know, but we needed to get to the basement fast. We were in the stairway next to a window when I saw the ball of light again, this time it was just about to hit the ground a block away. I thought I saw something in it. I imagined the souls of the dead collected in it. When it hit the ground they went out flying. Gravel, pavement, and dirt was shooting everywhere, then our neighbor’s house destroyed and splinters coming our way, hitting her face. She was dead. There were people watching on the street before, but now everyone was gone. Were they all dead as well? No, I saw survivors in the corner of my eye. A crowd of people walking the same direction. They were moving toward a stunning, beautiful light emanating from the impact crater. Immediately, I wanted to have a look for myself. The light was a perfect color, looking like heaven’s gates had opened up right there  in the ground. I didn’t notice the screams coming from people who had walked into the mess. That beautiful light drew me in. I didn’t notice the stuff seeping into my skin and coating half of my face and arms.
A hand grabbed my shoulder- I turned around and there was a woman who looked like she must be a paramedic. I noticed two ambulances were pulled up to the scene. How long had I been there? It would have taken atleast 20 minutes for them to get here from the hospital. The paramedic directed me into an ambulance and I sat down. The pain started. It got so bad that I collapsed and lay writhing on the floor of the ambulance.  There were about five or 6 paramedics running around the neighborhood, trying to stop people from touching that glowing stuff. No one listened to them until they started yelling or grabbing. Soon the Ambulances and a truck they borrowed from jeff were full. We sped away toward the hospital.
I spent 12 days in the hospital healing. I don’t remember much of the first four days. I was in and out of reality, passing out every time I woke up. In one weird coma dream I was back in my house, except this time I knew what was going to happen. I couldn’t move. I tried to jump in front of the piece of wood flying towards Helena. But I couldn’t. In the next dream the same thing was happening except I was licking up a bunch of that golden glowing stuff from my arms. It tasted like maple syrup infused with drugs. I woke up every once in awhile for around 2 seconds at a time, just long enough to stare at the ceiling or catch a glimpse of someone near me. The dreams kept coming, It felt like an eternity. On the third day i woke up for longer than normal, probably a full minute, long enough to talk to someone. There was a nurse there taking care of me who was very gracious and kind. Although my first impression of her was fine, the next time I woke up was different. On the fourth day of my stay at the hospital i woke up while I was being moved to make space for another person to share my room. I got a chance to have a conversation with the nurse and get a good look at her. She was a fast talker and didn’t seem to care very much about what I was saying. It got a little annoying, but being in the hospital, I was grateful to be alive and healing. I wondered why they had to move someone into my room.. It wasn’t a very big room, and the hospital would usually be half empty in a town like this. Before I could come to any conclusions or ask the nurse, I fell asleep. Over the next few days, I was awake much more often, now taking naps rather than taking “wakes”. My arms and face still hurt like hell, but the doctor told me that they were able to remove the substance from my body, so I shouldn’t have any problems with it. I tried to ask the doctor what had happened, but he didn’t reply. The nurse told me to focus on resting and healing, then set a tray of hospital food on my bedside stand. Right as she was leaving I realized who she was. I exclaimed: “hey, weren’t you a paramedic before? I remember you saved me that night , I was walking toward the light.” Her expression changed completely. She went from a fake cheery but really annoyed look to a very sincere somber expression. “ I’m not really a paramedic. “ she said. “I fill in for the paramedics now.. Most of the originals died… or are injured too badly to work.” . The room fell silent, she stood there, looking completely empty. I felt like asking another question would be pushing her too far, but this one was really urgent: “what was it that killed all those people?”.

~~~

Worki Torki the muthafucking greatest. She was an engineer and scientist known throughout the gladdasphere for her accomplishments in biological energy. Torki’s research and development could probably be considered the most influential scientific work of the past 100 years. However, Torki fell into disrepute last year when she mistakenly released a dangerous experiment she was working on for the Hukdistani government. Using the “souls” of human brains, she was able to create a completely autonomous AI, capable of accomplishing feats no species could do alone. The discovery had huge implications: the ability to use human consciousness to power machines would increase our technological ability tenfold. Her research was about halfway through, and after 5 years of work, she had been able to create a containment method for souls, involving a highly volatile palladium-infused 0.0001 degrees kelvin liquid. This liquid would later be the cause of one of the most deadly incidents in the history of the gladdasphere.
On may 5th, 2018, about 210,000 humans died after the soul AI, energy source, goo, whatever you want to call it, was accidentally released. A carbon compression chamber in the north side of Torki-sana research station was beginning to overheat at 2:00, PM. According to eyewitnesses, the foreman on that deck was enjoying a late lunch with his superior when the chamber popped, at 2:14 PM. Workers were unable to seal the gap or turn off the valve in time to save the machinery, and soon conditions were too hazardous for anyone to go inside the room. Meanwhile, the main soulcantene in the central compartment of the research station was beginning to fail. The loss of carbon supply to the central board was causing extra strain on the other compression chambers, and soon all of the carbon compression chambers had been overworked to the point of destruction. When the carbon supply was diminished too much, the entire facility broke down, and the ectoplasm inside was released in an explosion. It travelled in space along black matter currents for two days. Our military failed to deploy interception ships fast enough, and it struck earth. Initial casualties numbered in the thousands, but the real killer was the golden soul ooze. It began to be sold by criminals as a new drug - very potent and addictive. Users had a 90% chance of death, but the confusion and misinformation caused by the earth people made it so that far too many humans ingested the substance without knowing it’s effects. Ingestion would cause severe chest pain and internal bleeding, followed by an intense desire to take more, followed by an increased effect, until death.
Many sources have speculated about the causes of the accident. Some theorize that the government orchestrated it all to further their own anti-science agenda. Although this argument can be appealing, I have to be realistic. All of the evidence supporting it is far too weak and circumstantial to be considered. I agree with people who say that we should not have invaded the Hukdistan sector, but It is very unlikely that the accident was created to incite the Hukdistan war.
Worki Torki  survived the disaster and returned to the Hukdistan home planet. She was given asylum there, and protection from the Federation. She was captured on may 24th, 2019, a full year after the incident. Today she is being held in federal prison while a trial goes on to determine her fate.
Federation officials are working on creating a plan to help earth humans without alerting them to our presence.
One thing is for certain: we have learned a lot from the accident. Today, work with supernatural forces like the souls of the dead is forbidden in all federation provinces, and more detailed regulations have been placed on deep space scientific research stations.
~~~

“It was the devil” She said. “It took Macy, and it took brian, and it took so many damm people.” “ I saw him, I keep seeing him, It was the devil.”

“ok”, I replied.
I told her not to give me orange jell-O anymore.