Mirrors

 

Date-With-A-Dragon

 

Veins

 

Frankenstein Part 1

 

Twlight

 The other day whilst going For a walk I defected on my journey with weights which started in the year 1984 in Essex .I used to train 3 days a week and walk roughly a mile there and back to get to the gym.it's here I did a power lifting competition in 1987 in which I came last.T hen through to present day I have done various forms of weights,a few times I could not due to various reasons.I am know in the twilight of my weights journey and to come to that conclusion was a hard decision but I shall do what I can until no longer able.

best deadlifts s-330 lbs -245 lbs for 2 reps

in local leisure centre gym I could do full stack of all the machine s -80-90 kg

dumbbell up to 30 kg

due to various reasons I don't go to local leisure centre gym anymore I am at a different place with different set of of thought

I do train at home although the weight is limited .

I don't believe my own bullshit about being strong with good muscle anymore as I realise this was is just my own ego boost.

New Dawn

 The city was a skeleton, picked clean by fire and fallout. Twisted rebar clawed at a perpetually bruised sky, and mountains of pulverized concrete and shattered glass formed a new, treacherous landscape. A perpetual twilight hung heavy, the sun a distant memory swallowed by the ash and dust that coated everything.

Elara led the way, her silhouette a grim, determined figure against the backdrop of ruin. Her faded military jacket was patched in a dozen places, and the rifle slung across her back looked as much a part of her as her own arm. Behind her trudged Jonas, a man whose gruff exterior hid a surprising tenderness, clutching a battered first-aid kit. Lena, her face perpetually etched with worry lines, held the hand of Finn, a boy no older than eight, whose wide, innocent eyes absorbed the devastation with a terrifying, silent acceptance.

Their destination: the old Central Library's underground vault, rumored to be blast-proof and deep enough to offer respite from the lingering radiation. It was a twenty-mile trek across what used to be a bustling metropolis, now a necropolis.

"Are we close, Elara?" Finn's voice, small and reedy, broke the oppressive silence. He tightened his grip on Lena’s hand.

Elara glanced back, her gaze softening slightly. "Close enough, Finn. Just a few more sectors." She didn't add that "close enough" meant another eight hours of hell.

Each step was a calculated risk. The ground was a shifting mosaic of glass shards and pulverized concrete. Buildings loomed like hollowed-out giants, their facades stripped away to reveal the intimate, tragic details of lives abruptly ended: a child's forgotten swing set on a balcony, a half-eaten meal decaying on a kitchen table, preserved by the initial blast's sterilization. The wind, when it stirred, carried the metallic tang of irradiated dust and the faint, sweet smell of decay.

Jonas pointed with a scarred hand. "Looks like a clear path through that arcade, Elara. Might shave off an hour."

Elara squinted at the skeletal remains of what had once been a glamorous shopping mall. The glass roof was gone, leaving jagged teeth of metal framing a treacherous descent into darkness. "Too risky, Jonas. Too many blind spots. Could be… anything down there." Her voice held a note of caution born from brutal experience. They’d encountered other survivors – some desperate, some animalistic – and the occasional mutated creature, a grotesque echo of the world that was.

They stuck to the main thoroughfares, or what remained of them. An overturned bus, its frame contorted into abstract art, blocked their path. Elara scouted ahead, her movements fluid and silent. She found a gap in the rubble, a precarious climb over a pile of twisted girders.

"Okay," she called softly, "one at a time. Jonas, you first, help Lena and Finn up. I'll cover the rear."

Jonas, despite his weariness, moved with surprising agility, his large hands careful as he guided Lena, then Finn. The boy, surprisingly nimble, scrambled up, his small face streaked with dirt but his eyes bright with the thrill of the climb.

As Elara prepared to follow, a sound ripped through the silence. A high-pitched, metallic shriek that echoed off the skeletal buildings. It wasn't human. It wasn't anything they'd encountered before.

"Down!" Elara hissed, pushing herself against a crumbling wall, rifle raised. Jonas and Lena instinctively pulled Finn close, shielding him.

The shriek came again, closer this time, followed by the clatter of something heavy scuttling over rubble. A flash of movement in the shadows of a nearby building. Too fast to identify.

Elara held her breath, her finger hovering over the trigger. Her mind raced, cataloguing threats. Was it a pack? A lone hunter? The urban environment, once their protector, was now their enemy, a maze of hiding places for unseen dangers.

The sound faded, replaced by the thumping of their own adrenaline-fueled hearts. Nothing else stirred. The silence returned, heavier, more sinister than before.

"It's gone," Elara whispered, though she didn't lower her weapon. "But it was watching us."

They moved faster after that, the unseen threat a palpable presence at their backs. The hours blurred into a haze of exhaustion and hyper-vigilance. Finn, uncomplaining, walked with a new, quiet determination. Lena hummed a tuneless lullaby to him, a desperate attempt at normalcy.

As the bruised sky began to deepen into a darker shade of charcoal, Elara spotted it – the unmistakable, reinforced concrete structure of the old Central Library. It looked like a tombstone, its grand entrance swallowed by debris, but its general form was intact.

"There," she breathed, a shard of hope piercing her weary resolve. "We're here."

Relief washed over the group, but it was fleeting. The front entrance was impassable. They spent another hour meticulously searching the perimeter until Jonas, leveraging a rusted crowbar against a loose slab of concrete, revealed a service tunnel entrance, half-buried but seemingly untouched by the main blast.

The air inside was stale and cold, smelling of damp earth and decaying paper. Elara led the way, flashlight beam cutting through the oppressive darkness, revealing shelves of moldering books, preserved records, and finally, a heavy, blast-proof door. It was locked, but a schematic pasted next to it showed a manual override.

Working together, their tired muscles screaming in protest, they cranked the heavy mechanism. With a groan of tortured metal, the door swung inward, revealing a deeper, darker void.

They stumbled inside, collapsing onto the cold concrete floor, too exhausted to light the emergency lanterns they carried. For the first time in days, the air felt still, safe from the unseen terrors of the ruined city.

Finn, nestled into Lena’s side, finally broke the silence. "We made it, Elara."

Elara, leaning her head back against the cold wall, closed her eyes. "We made it, Finn." But her voice was heavy. She knew this was just another temporary shelter, another pause in a never-ending journey. Outside, the city waited, a silent, ravenous beast.

As the echoes of their labored breathing filled the vault, Elara knew one thing had brought them this far: the fragile, tenacious spark of humanity, stubbornly refusing to be extinguished. And tomorrow, the fight for safety would begin anew.

Asylum

 The rusted gates of Blackwood Asylum shrieked in protest as Marcus forced them open, a metallic groan that echoed unsettlingly in the twilight. Behind him, Liam, the de facto leader and architectural history student, shivered despite the early autumn chill. "Remember the rules," he said, adjusting the headlamp strapped to his forehead. "Stick together, no unnecessary risks, and if something feels wrong, we pull out."

Chloe, already filming with a professional-grade camera, scoffed. "If something feels wrong, Liam, that's when the real fun begins!" Her eyes, bright with an explorer's thrill and a documentarian's hunger, gleamed over the viewfinder. Sarah, a medical student with a healthy dose of skepticism, merely adjusted her own lamp, her expression a mix of curiosity and mild apprehension. "Let's just get in, get the shots, and get out before anyone calls the cops."

Blackwood Asylum stood like a petrified beast against the bruised sky, its Gothic-revival architecture crumbling into disrepair. Fifty years of abandonment had taken its toll: shattered windows like vacant eyes, ivy strangling the stone, and an palpable air of decay that clung to the very bricks. Legends painted a darker picture: stories of cruel treatments, forgotten patients, and a superintendent whose "experimental therapies" veered dangerously close to torture.

Inside, the air was thick, heavy with the scent of damp earth, rust, and something indefinable – a stale, ancient sorrow. Dust motes danced in their headlamp beams, illuminating peeling wallpaper, overturned furniture, and the ghostly silhouettes of forgotten lives. The main hall was a cavernous space, a grand staircase spiraling into shadow.

"Impressive, even in ruin," Liam muttered, his historian's heart captivated.

Chloe's camera hummed, capturing every detail. Suddenly, a strange feedback squelched through her audio recorder. "Did you guys hear that?" she whispered, lowering the camera. "Sounded like... a child crying."

Marcus, ever the daredevil, grinned. "Probably just the wind." But even his bravado faltered as a sudden, icy blast of air swept through the hall, extinguishing Liam's headlamp with an audible pop.

Darkness clamped down, thick and absolute. A collective gasp rose from the group. Liam fumbled with his lamp, then swore. "My battery's fine, it just… died."

Sarah, though unnerved, tried to rationalize. "Old wiring, maybe a freak draft."

Just then, a faint, rhythmic tapping echoed from deeper within the asylum, like a small fist repeatedly striking a metal surface. Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Alright, that's not wind," Chloe breathed, her voice tight.

They regrouped, their headlamps casting nervous circles. Liam, now using his phone's flashlight, led them towards the sound. It led them into the patient wards, a labyrinth of long corridors lined with identical, empty rooms. Each door was ajar, revealing a desolate space with a single, rusted bed frame. The tapping grew louder, coming from the last room on the right.

As they neared, the air grew heavy, pressing down on them. A faint, sweet smell, like wilting lilies, permeated the space. Liam pushed open the final door. The room was identical to the others, but in the center, a child's worn, wooden rocking horse rocked gently, tap-tapping against the bare floor, despite no visible draft.

A small, spectral figure, barely more than a shimmer in the corner of Liam's eye, flickered into existence, then vanished. Sarah cried out, clutching Marcus's arm. "Did you see that? A little girl... in a faded dress."

Marcus, for once, was speechless, his face pale. "This isn't just an abandoned building, is it?"

They stumbled back into the corridor, shaken. The rocking horse continued its mournful rhythm behind them. Chloe's audio recorder suddenly emitted a cacophony of whispers, overlapping and indistinct, yet filled with an undeniable agony. "Get out... leave... it hurts..."

"We need to find the administrative offices," Liam declared, trying to project a calm he didn't feel. "Maybe there are records, something that explains why this place is so... alive." He believed that understanding the history was their best defense.

The journey to the offices was a gauntlet. In the hydrotherapy room, claw marks appeared on the condensation-streaked walls, accompanied by the sounds of desperate splashing. In the common room, a phantom piano played a discordant, mournful lullaby. Marcus swore he saw shadows writhe and coalesce into gaunt faces in the periphery of his vision. Sarah, losing her scientific composure, began to openly pray.

They finally located the superintendent's office, a remarkably preserved space compared to the rest of the asylum. A grand oak desk dominated the room, covered in a thick layer of dust. Liam's light fell upon a leather-bound journal, oddly pristine, sitting atop the desk. He reached for it, a strange compulsion driving him.

As his fingers brushed the aged leather, the temperature in the room plummeted. The lights on their headlamps flickered wildly, threatening to die again. A low, guttural growl vibrated through the floorboards.

"Don't touch it!" Chloe shrieked, her camera lens suddenly filled with static.

But it was too late. Liam had already opened the journal. The first page bore a name: Dr. Silas Thorne. And the date: 1918. He began to read aloud, his voice trembling. " 'The patients of Blackwood are not merely ill; they are vessels of impurity, and it is my divine duty to cleanse them. Conventional methods fail. Only through profound sensory deprivation, through the severing of the mind's errant connections, can true purity be achieved.' "

As Liam read, the very air around them intensified. The whispers from Chloe's recorder turned into screams. The asylum groaned, the building itself seeming to constrict around them. A heavy metal door slammed shut down the hall, followed by another, and another, sealing off their path back to the entrance.

"He's talking about lobotomies, electroshock, torture!" Sarah exclaimed, horror dawning on her face. "He wasn't treating them; he was destroying them!"

Marcus, looking frantic, tried to open the office door, but it was jammed. "We're trapped! The doors are locking!"

Liam flipped through the journal, his eyes scanning feverishly. He found entry after entry detailing the doctor's descent into madness, his "experiments" growing crueler, more sadistic. He wrote of a specific patient, Elara Vance, a young artist institutionalized for "hysteria," whom he targeted with particular fervor, believing her creative spirit was a manifestation of impurity. Her final entry was chilling: "Elara resists, but her spirit will break. She will be a testament to my ultimate triumph."

As Liam finished reading Elara's entry, a chilling, triumphant cackle echoed from the corners of the office, cold and malevolent. It was not the sound of a patient, but a doctor. Thorne's presence.

Suddenly, a terrifying apparition materialized before them: a gaunt, skeletal figure in a stained white lab coat, its eyes burning with a sadistic fire. It lunged towards the journal in Liam's hands.

"He's trying to stop us!" Chloe screamed, her camera, now miraculously clear, pointed directly at the apparition. "He doesn't want his secrets exposed!"

"We need to get this out!" Sarah shouted, grabbing the journal. "We need to expose him, give these poor souls justice!"

The asylum responded with a furious roar. The ceiling above them cracked, showering them with plaster. The very walls pulsed with a dark energy. Marcus, seeing a small, boarded-up window high in the wall, sprang into action, using his parkour skills to scale a stack of unstable shelves. "Get ready to throw it!" he yelled, kicking at the rotting wood.

The spectral doctor, screaming silent curses, lunged again, its translucent hands reaching for Sarah. Just then, a wave of desperate, angry spirits rose from the floor, swirling around Thorne, intercepting him. They were the patients, finally finding strength in the hope of exposure.

Liam, remembering an old emergency broadcast system schematic he'd seen earlier, pointed to a dusty, console-like device in the corner. "Chloe! The PA system! If we can connect your camera, we can broadcast this to the outside!"

Chloe, her hands shaking, fumbled with the cables. Marcus finally kicked through the window, revealing a narrow, ivy-choked ledge outside. "Hurry!" he yelled.

Thorne's spirit, temporarily held at bay by the other patients, surged forward with renewed fury. The asylum itself seemed to twist, the floor cracking beneath them. The exit door they'd hoped to use was now completely caved in.

"It knows!" Sarah cried, holding the journal tightly. "It wants to keep us here, keep its secrets buried!"

Chloe, with a final, desperate push, slammed the camera's auxiliary cable into the PA system's input. A blast of static ripped through the asylum's ancient speakers, then Chloe's voice, amplified and terrified, filled every corner of Blackwood. "This is Chloe Miller, live from Blackwood Asylum! We've found evidence, a journal detailing unspeakable horrors, the crimes of Dr. Silas Thorne! He tortured his patients, he murdered them, and his spirit is still here, trying to silence us—"

Thorne's shriek of rage was unholy. The entity coalesced, a monstrous, distorted parody of a human, and lunged. But as Chloe's voice echoed, powerful and clear, a chorus of ghostly whispers rose to meet it, growing stronger, clearer, finally breaking free. They were the voices of the victims, given form by the truth.

"—Elara Vance, her spirit is here! They all are! Their pain is real! They need justice! We have the proof!"

The asylum bucked and groaned, as if tearing itself apart. The ceiling began to collapse in earnest. Marcus grabbed Sarah, pulling her towards the broken window. Liam snatched the journal, clutching it to his chest.

"Go! Get out! I'll follow!" Chloe screamed, her voice still echoing through the PA system, now intermingling with the liberated, vengeful cries of the spirits.

They scrambled onto the ledge, debris raining down behind them. Marcus helped Sarah climb down the ivy-covered wall. Liam, just as Chloe turned to follow, saw the floor beneath her buckle. He grabbed her arm, pulling her back just as the PA system sparked, exploded, and the floor gave way, swallowing the superintendent's office.

They fell, tumbling through darkness, landing hard on a pile of rubble in a previously unseen maintenance tunnel beneath the asylum. Liam coughed, dust filling his lungs, but he clutched the journal. Chloe groaned, her camera still in her hand, miraculously intact, though offline.

Above them, the asylum continued its terrible collapse, a final, guttural roar of defeat and fury.

They emerged into the moonlit woods, bruised, battered, and trembling, but alive. The Blackwood Asylum, a gaping wound in the earth, stood silent behind them, its secrets laid bare, its malevolent presence perhaps finally shattered.

They didn't speak as they walked, the terror still fresh, the echoes of screams still in their ears. But they had the journal. They had Chloe's footage. The voices of Blackwood had finally been heard. And as they drove away, Sarah swore she saw a faint, white light flicker in the remains of the asylum, like a grateful sigh, or a final, knowing glance. They were out, but Blackwood Asylum would forever be a part of them.