So, I'm a new student and I joined Shadow City Force Five and I went into town and got like two dozen shadows from the fireworks last night. They're kinda freaky looking but I think they'll be cool. I will bring them to the sewing circle!

I've had it with people stealing my shadows! I'm so angry I could chew nails and spit rivets!

@Moira Angela: When I signed up for Shadow City Force Five, you told me that everywhere west of Main Street was my territory. But what's this I find? I found @Bella on the west side harvesting shadows that should be MINE. I followed her and watched her plucking shadows at the park and the pool and the police station - all on the west side of Main and clearly in MY territory.

How am I supposed to fill my quota of shadows if they're getting poached out of my zone? You've got to control Shadow City Force Five, and you need to make the rules clear to @Bella and any other new recruits to Shadow City Force Five and tell them to stay out of my territory or there will be trouble. Dark, shadowy trouble.

Whats good, @Bella?

I hope they have Mayan Mind Wrestling masks. I need a new one.

Hey how do you become a Sky Sailor, @The Sky Wolf? I've been talking to the crew around campus and it sounds totally great! I'm not afraid of heights and climbing the rigging around hull in flight wouldn't bother me at all. Plus, I worked in a tourist shop back in my home town and know how to work a till so I'd be happy to work the tents and do customer service when you're in ports. Oh, and, I'm quick with languages so wherever you go I'm sure I could pick up the local lingo quick.

I would join your crew! Let me know!

Thanks,

Louis

Application for Internship with Zephyr Air Transport Inc.

Name: Louis C.

Objective: To gain experience as a working member of a merchant airship crew.

Work History:
June - August 2015. Harry's House of Smells, outside the Haunted Hole in Fort Pierre, South Dakota. Served customers and maintained inventory of smells in jars captured outside of the Haunted Hole.

Education:
Psychic High School, 2015-present
Terrifying Middle School, 2012-2015
Momotarō Shinto Immersion Elementary School 2007-2012

Essay Question:
Have you ever had a conflict with a boss, professor, fellow employee, or classmate? How did you resolve it?

I did have a conflict with a fellow employee at Harry's House of Smells. She would not screw the lids on tight after allowing customers to sample the smells in the jars, which not only caused the smells in the jars to dissipate (leaving less smell for future buyers) but also filled the shop with a terrible, complicated odor, combining musky wild animal scents with feces and roadkill. This created a toxic environment in my workplace. Eventually my continued exposure to these loose smells caused me to become a Chiye-Tanka, which is sort of like Bigfoot. My hair grew longer, my patience with customers became shorter, and resulted occasional rampages in the store, creating a further loss of inventory. The employee in question was Harry's niece, so ultimately the problem was resolved by me being fired. After leaving Harry's House of Smells I soon reverted by to my old self, and only very rarely transform into the Chiye-Tanka (who is really kindly by nature. I was just mad at the situation, I think).

I also had a small conflict with a fellow member of Shadow Force Five named @Bella, but it was solved by calmly relating our issues and working them out with our boss, @Moira Angela. But now that there aren't really any shadows left to gather it doesn't really come up anymore.

Oh, I should have mentioned. Corn Mazes are one of my weaknesses.

Boy was I getting sick of that maze. I thought I loved corn mazes, but after three days of row after row after row, I began to lose all sense of time and direction. If it hadn't been for the swarm of enormous winged ants burrowing up through the soil and breaking me out, I could have been trapped there forever.

This particular clan of enormous winged ants consider themselves revolutionaries, or at least pirates. They feel that imposing your will on the world (planting rows of corn, dividing days into hours and seasons into months) traps us within it, "like an old wasp nest" as they say. They feel it's their duty to ignore the rows and the rules and the straight lines, and swarm their way through the worlds as they see fit, wherever the spirit takes them.

That's how they found me, and that's how we (accidentally) found @Ava Elisabeth, trapped in a particularly nasty bit of the corn labyrinth. I was mounted on Chuk-ee, the leader of this squad of enormous winged ants, wearing a pair of chaps and spurs the ants pack with them for just such occaisions. We were tumbling around in their swarm when Chuk-ee sensed something through his antennae. He made some calculations, and suddenly we dove right into the closed time loop @Ava Elisabeth was circling in, smashing down rows and rows of corn in all directions. One of the other ants scooped her up and off we flew.

We've landed at the top of a desert mesa, high above the fields of corn. @Ava Elisabeth is trying on a pair of chaps and spurs, and Chuk-ee and the rest are conferring about what to do with us. They use the Mind-Speak with us, but with each other it's all mandible clacking and ant-dancing and we have no idea what they're saying. Can they return us to Psyhigh? Or catch up with the Sadie Hawkins? I'd be embarrassed to do either. But what other alternatives do we have? And I don't know what @Ava Elisabeth would like to do. But for now, we rest. And it's corn chowder over an open fire in the high desert bluffs for dinner.

Uh, me and demons don't really get along. Did I mention I have borderline demon anxiety disorder, @Miranda Ashdove? Mayan Mind Wrestling is supposed to be an outlet for it, but I haven't really had much time in the gym lately. If I run into one, my Chiye-Tanka form will emerge and take over pretty quickly.

But I don't want to hold @Ava Elisabeth back. You guys better take this chance. I'll wait for a bus or something out here on this deserted road. That brown shack with the deer skull on it looks like a bus stop. Or an outhouse. For a demon.

Did I mention I don't get along with demons? Well I definitely picked the wrong demon out house/bus stop to wait around in that's for sure.

I entered the little clap trap wooden shack and had a seat on the bench inside and looked through the magazines they had in there. Field & Scream, Popular Theurgy, Pentagrams and You, Eternity... I should have gotten the picture. Suddenly my stomach leapt almost out my mouth as the whole shack shot straight down like an elevator with a broken cable. Eventually it slowed down and eased me to a stop.

I cracked open the door and the heat, stink, flames, and acrid smoke were almost unbearable. Almost. Luckily I had my Mayan Mind Wrestling mask to put on which helps a little.

Since then, I've been wandering. Wandering past pits of screaming souls, crying out with unbearable pain each time they check their phones. Which is continually. Others are force fed energy drinks for hours, then made to program unprogrammable smart TVs. With no bathroom breaks. The list of horrors goes on and on.

Luckily, it must be the ferocious face printed on my Mayan Mind Wrestling mask, but the demons who run this place have let me be. I try and look busy, sorting through stacks of printed emails (written in Enochian) or picking up the dried bones and teeth that litter their offices.

I hope that @Ava Elisabeth made it ok. And it sure makes me wonder what @Miranda Ashdove sees in these people.

Well I had a pretty close call waiting around for @Miranda Ashdove but luckily everything worked out. Kinda.

Even though I was wearing my Mayan Mind Wrestling mask, the demons started to get wise. I was looking busy pretending to file some of their printed-off emails when a few of the guys in the office started making fun of me. The main one was super big, like 8 feet tall, with one big eye and one big horn and three big arms. He looked like he hit the demon gym every night.

They started making fun of me, and I'm not sure why, because they looked pretty dorky themselves in their khakis and dress shirts. But I don't understand demon tongue and I don't understand demon culture anyway.

In any case I did find their remarks rather cutting because I flew into a rage and sure enough turned into my Chiye-Tanka form on the spot. Suddenly I found myself moaning in rage and batting my long furry arms around and kicking my long furry legs and I wrecked their demon office and stomped out of the place.

That felt really good. I was getting sick of that job.

However, when I'm in my Chiye-Tanka form and get in a rage, I get kind of emotional. So I ran and wandered and cried and I think I remember some purple crystal caves, and eventually ended up back above ground.

In New York City.

Hell's Kitchen, to be exact. They call it that because of the very pathway I traveled. I came out in the end of an alley and the demon guardian said "Have an egg!" and I said thank you and wandered into the city.

My Chiye-Tanka form hasn't worn off yet. So I've kept my Mayan Mind Wrestling mask on, because I figure a Big Foot walking around Manhattan in a wrestler's mask will freak people out less than if don't wear it.

When @Miranda Ashdove gets to Demon Land I hope she's not disappointed I'm not there. Maybe she can say hi to her relatives.