full image - Repost: [P] Building an Reinforcement Learning Agent to play The Legend of Zelda (
from Reddit.com, [P] Building an Reinforcement Learning Agent to play The Legend of Zelda)
A year go I started trying to use PPO to play the original Legend of Zelda, and I was able to train a model to beat the first boss after a few months of work. I wanted to share the project just for show and tell. I'd love to hear feedback and suggestions as this is just a hobby project. I don't do this for a living. The code for that lives in the original-design branch of my Triforce repo. I'm currently tinkering with new designs so the main branch is much less stable.Here's a video of the agent beating the first dungeon, which was trained with 5,000,000+ steps. At 38 seconds, it learned that it's invulnerable at the screen edge, it exploits that to avoid damage from a projectile. At 53 seconds it steps up to avoid damage, even though it takes a -0.06 penalty for moving the wrong way (taking damage would be a larger penalty.) At 55 seconds it walks towards the rock projectile to block it. And so on, lots of little things the model does is easy to miss if you don't know the game inside and out.As a TLDR, here's an early version of my new (single) model. This doesn't make it quite as far, but if you watch closely it's combat is already far better, and is only trained on 320,000 steps (~6% less than the first model's training steps).This is pretty far along from my very first model.Original DesignI got the original project working using stable-baselines's PPO and default neural network (Shared NatureCNN, I believe). SB was great to get started but ultimately stifling. In the new version of the project I've implemented PPO from scratch with torch with my own simple neural network similar to stable-baseline's default. I'm playing with all kinds of changes and designs now that I have more flexibility and control. Here is my rough original design:Overall StrategyMy first pass through this project was basically "imagine playing Zelda with your older sibling telling you where to go and what to do". I give the model an objective vector which points to where I want it to go on the screen (as a bird flies, the agent still had to learn path finding to avoid damage and navigate around the map). This includes either point at the nearest enemy I want it to kill or a NSEW vector if it's supposed to move to the next room.Due a few limitations with stable-baselines (especially around action masking), I ended up training unique models for traversing the overworld vs the dungeon (since they have entirely different tilesets). I also trained a different model for when we have sword beams vs not. In the video above you can see what model is being used onscreen.In my current project I've removed this objective vector as it felt too much like cheating. Instead I give it a one-hot encoded objective (move north to the next room, pickup items, kill enemies, etc). So far it's working quite well without that crutch. The new project also does a much better job of combat even without multiple models to handle beams vs not.Observation/Action SpaceImage - The standard neural network had a really tough time being fed the entire screen. No amount of training seemed to help. I solved this by creating a viewport around Link that keeps him centered. This REALLY helped the model learn.I also had absolutely zero success with stacking frames to give Link a way to see enemy/projectile movement. The model simply never trained with stable-baselines when I implemented frame stacking and I never figured out why. I just added it to my current neural network and it seems to be working...Though my early experiments show that giving it 3 frames (skipping two in between, so frames curr, curr-3, curr-6) doesn't really give us that much better performance. It might if I took away some of the vectors. We'll see.Vectors - Since the model cannot see beyond its little viewport, I gave the model a vector to the closest item, enemy, and projectile onscreen. This made it so the model can shoot enemies across the room outside of its viewport. My new model gives it multiple enemies/items/projectiles and I plan to try to use an attention mechanism as part of the network to see if I can just feed it all of that data.Information - It also gets a couple of one-off datapoints like whether it currently has sword beams. The new model also gives it a "source" room (to help better understand dungeons where we have to backtrack), and a one-hot encoded objective.Action SpaceMy original project just has a few actions, 4 for moving in the cardinal directions and 4 for attacking in each direction (I also added bombs but never spent any time training it). I had an idea to use masking to help speed up training. I.E. if link bumps into a wall, don't let him move in that direction again until he moves elsewhere, as the model would often spend an entire memory buffer running headlong straight into a wall before an update...better to do it once and get a huge negative penalty which is essentially the same result but faster.Unfortunately SB made it really annoying architecturally to pass that info down to the policy layer. I could have hacked it together, but eventually I just reimplemented PPO and my own neural network so I could properly mask actions in the new version. For example, when we start training a fresh model, it cannot attack when there aren't enemies on screen and I can disallow it from leaving certain areas.The new model actually understands splitting swinging the sword short range vs firing sword beams as two different actions, though I haven't yet had a chance to fully train with the split yet.Frameskip/Cooldowns - In the game I don't use a fixed frame skip for actions. Instead I use the internal ram state of game to know when Link is animation locked or not and only allow the agent to take actions when it's actually possible to give meaningful input to the game. This greatly sped up training. We also force movement to be between tiles on the game map. This means that when the agent decides to move it loses control for longer than a player would...a player can make more split second decisions. This made it easier to implement movement rewards though and might be something to clean up in the future.Other interesting detailsPathfinding - To facilitate rewards, the original version of this project used A* to pathfind from link to what he should be doing. Here's a video of it in action. This information wasn't giving to the model directly but instead the agent would only be given the rewards if it exactly followed that path or the transposed version of it. It would also pathfind around enemies and not walk through them.This was a nightmare though. The corner cases were significant, and pushing Link towards enemies but not into them was really tricky. The new verison just uses a wavefront algorithm. I calculate a wave from the tiles we want to get to outwards, then make sure we are following the gradient. Also calculating the A* around enemies every frame (even with caching) was super slow. Wavefront was faster, especially because I give the new model no special rewards for walking around enemies...faster to compute and it has to learn from taking damage or not.Either way, the both the old and new models successfully learned how to pathfind around danger and obstacles, with or without the cheaty objective vector.Rewards - I programmed very dense rewards in both the old and new model. At basically every step, the model is getting rewarded or punished for something. I actually have some ideas I can't wait to try out to make the rewards more sparse. Or maybe we start with dense rewards for the first training, then fine-tune the model with sparser rewards. We'll see.Predicting the Future - Speaking of rewards. One interesting wrinkle is that the agent can do a lot of things that will eventually deal damage but not on that frame. For example, when Link sets a bomb it takes several seconds before it explodes, killing things. This can be a massive reward or penalty since he spent an extremely valuable resource, but may have done massive damage. PPO and other RL propagates rewards backwards, of course, but that spike in reward could land on a weird frame where we took damage or moved in the wrong direction.I probably could have just not solved that problem and let it shake out over time, but instead I used the fact that we are in an emulator to just see what the outcome of every decision is. When planting a bomb, shooting sword beams, etc, we let the game run forward until impact, then rewind time and reward the agent appropriately, continuing on from when we first paused. This greatly speeds up training, even if it's expensive to do this savestate, play forward, restore state.Neural Networks - When I first started this project (knowing very little about ML and RL), I thought most of my time would be tuning the shape of the neural network that we are using. In reality, the default provided by stable-baselines and my eventual reimplemnentation has been enough to make massive progress. Now that I have a solid codebase though, I really want to revisit this. I'd like to see if trying CoordConvs and similar networks might make the viewport unncessary.Less interesting details/thoughtsHyperparameters - Setting the entropy coefficinet way lower helped a TON in training stable models. My new PPO implementation is way less stable than stable-baselines (ha, imagine that), but still converges most of the time.Infinite Rewards - As with all reinforcement learning, if you give some way for the model to get infinite rewards, it will do just that and nothing else. I spent days, or maybe weeks tweaking reward functions to just get it to train and not find a spot on the wall it could hump for infinite rewards.Debugging Rewards - In fact, building a rewards debugger was the only way I made progress in this project. If you are tackling something this big, do that very early.Stable-Retro is pretty great - Couldn't be happier with the clean design for implementing emulation for AI.Torch is Awesome - My early versions heavily used numpy and relied on stable-baselines, with its multiproc parallelization support. It worked great. Moving the project over to torch was night and day though. It gave me so much more flexibility, instant multithreading for matrix operations. I have a pretty beefy computer and I'm almost at the same steps per second as 20 proc stable-retro/numpy.Future IdeasThis has already gone on too long. I have some ideas for future projects, but maybe I'll just make them another post when I actually do them.Special ThanksA special thanks to Brad Flaugher for help with the early version of this, Fiskbit from the Zelda1 speedrunning community for help pulling apart the raw assembly to build this thing, and MatPoliquin for maintaining Stable-Retro.Happy to answer any questions, really I just love nerding out about this stuff.
full image - Repost: AITA for not wanting to hang out with my roommate? (
from Reddit.com, AITA for not wanting to hang out with my roommate? )
I (21F) moved into a shared suite a few months ago. I’m sharing the common areas with another girl (20F). When I signed the lease I told her and my landlord that I was just looking for someone to cohabitate with, I’m a busy person so I’m out/in my room working a lot. Not a bestie. But like if we got along amazingly I’m not opposed to it. Anyways fast forward a few months in and my roommate is driving me crazy. She tries to start conversations anytime I’m in the common spaces (like she’ll come out of her room when she hears me in the kitchen) and I’ve started just hanging out in my room the entire time to avoid her. The thing is she’s just super passive aggressive. Like all she tries to talks to me about is how men hit on her all the time, how she thinks she’s so beautiful and how she only eats one meal a day/has a perfect body. Every conversations is so negative and it impacts my mental health honestly. I don’t care if she’s obsessed with her appearance that’s her life, but it’s really annoying when I’m trying to live and she won’t stop talking to me. Also she keeps trying to get dinner/go to movies/spend a day downtown and I keep telling her I’m busy because we literally have zero vibes/chemistry. We’ve hung out twice and it was super awkward and she just talked about herself the entire time and asked me invasive questions about my life (like how much money I make, why don’t I talk to my mom, etc.) I’m also in the same industry as her and quite a bit more successful so part of me feels like she’s just using me as a networking tool. Which feels icky. The thing is I know she doesn’t have any friends (I mean I understand why) so I feel bad. And I’ve really tried to give her a chance and see if a friendship is there. So, do I just hang out with her as the nice and polite thing to do, or how can I nicely explain that we live together but we aren’t friends? Any help would be appreciated I really don’t want to accidentally hurt someone’s feelings.
full image - Repost: Collabora security (
from Reddit.com, Collabora security)
Hello Nextcloud community,I have a Nextcloud Docker instance and a separate Collabora CODE Docker instance running alongside it. My network is port-forwarded behind a reverse proxy (NPM), and while Nextcloud is publicly accessible, Collabora is only available within my local network.Documents in Nextcloud through Collabora works fine within my network, but when I try accessing it externally, documents won’t load. When I made Collabora publicly accessible, it worked from outside the network.I don't want to keep it publicly accessible long-term, as Collabora doesn’t require authentication. How do I best secure this?
full image - Repost: They made a massive clicking noise in my head. (
from Reddit.com, They made a massive clicking noise in my head.)
They made a noise that sounded like gears winding when you back pedal on a bicycle, in my head just now and they say I have 20 minutes left to live. My head hurts and they were attacking me all night and morning long. I am exhausted and in pain. I wonder if this means I'll die shortly. I was the wrong person to have attacked all night long. They keep trying to blame everything on me, their hostage, but how can you blame your hostage for the wild and crazy shit that you are doing to them. Does that work in a bank heist scene ever? They blame the hostage and victim and the police just buy it? "OH well must have been the hostages fault"... That doesn't work in real life situations, so why should it work here?My heart is periodically siezing up over and over as they mess with it and every time it seems to grow greater in magnitude. I wonder if it will be a heart attack that they do me in with or the damage to my spine and neck and head? I gather that whoever this family is, someone in their system must hate them enough to set this situation up in order to get me and or all of them killed too. The person threatening me mist and attacking me most seems to want anarchy leading to everyone's demise and he thinks he is untouchable probably due to his position in their system and or government. His whole plan is to force me into publishing about them in order to try and get then to kill me and or me to get all of them killed but it isn't me doing this all it is him and he is trying to make everyone point at me and blame me but hey, I am just a hostage like his other hostsges. Sure I try to fight him and not develop Stockholm Syndrome but I am just one person and I'm not the source of everything that is going south. It was entirely him and he is victim blaming what he's doing on me. Don't blame me! I tried to save lives a lot of times but they just laughed at me and ridiculed me. Now I'll probably die soon and all of them will surely be following shortly after I am gone. I sure hope someone tracks down my main attacker and removes him from their network and system so nobody else has to wrongfully suffer.Robert William Christie 💙
full image - Repost: struggling to confirm insurance for Denver Health (
from Reddit.com, struggling to confirm insurance for Denver Health)
I'm planning on going to Denver Health for top surgery and I submitted my surgical interest form a couple months ago. they responded with an info packet with guidelines and steps for the process. I've finally had time to sit down and work on the first step, which is confirming if United Healthcare will cover my surgery.I must admit I don't understand a lot about insurance, or my policy. every year before open benefits enrollment at my job begins we have a 2 hour long meeting going over what all the terms mean, and they still don't make sense to me despite trying desperately to understand them. plus, the website for my policy is garbage and isn't helpful at all either. so I'm not exactly 100% sure what's going on. I've never had to do any of this before.I called the number on the back of my card and spoke to an advocate. I asked specifically if a mastectomy would be covered under a gender dysphoria diagnosis, and she said yes, but also mentioned that prior authorization was needed first. I understand that prior authorization is a process that the doctor has to initiate, which doesn't make sense to me because I have to confirm all of this stuff and send in my letters of support before I can even schedule a consultation at all.I asked about the letters too, like how many I'd need, and she literally just told me that the doctor has to tell me which again makes no sense at all. I can't find specific details about my plan, I can only find the general guidebook which says that I need 2 letters of support from a therapist and physician. but should I just assume that it's the same for my specific policy?I did get confirmation that both of the top surgeons there are in network, so at least there's that. I'm just at a loss now for what I should do next. it seems like they'll cover my top surgery but I really didn't get a lot of clarification about literally anything. I know that Denver Health has patient advocates for their LGBTQ services but they explicitly said in the info packet that they can't help me with the insurance process.should I just keep going along in the process and pretend that everything is fine? the next step is sending my medical records and letters of support in. should I begin asking my doctor and therapist to write them for me? should I keep calling my insurance? am I just overthinking it all?basically, if anyone who knows more about insurance than me can offer advice or help clear some of this stuff up for me, I'd appreciate it. Denver Health's guidelines are really confusing for me and I'd really appreciate any insight anyone might have. thank you so much!!!
full image - Repost: Family in the Treehouse (
from Reddit.com, Family in the Treehouse)
My names Javier . I was born 1995 on the 4th of July in Austin where most of my family was born and raised for generations. My Uncle Tony said I was a big surprise to the family since my mom was told it was very unlikely for her to have another child after my brother Pedro. She had a very hard time giving birth to Pedro. In fact I was told she was in labor for almost 5 days before they resorted to a C section. I don’t remember much or anything at all about our home in Austin, Mom moved me and my brother to SoCal when I was 6. We moved close to that theme park with the mouse, I remember Pedro was really upset with the move but was really happy about being so close to the happiest place on earth. The one thing I remember very vividly is the treehouse that was in the backyard. The treehouse was so old that it almost appeared to be rooted into the tree. Treehouse was painted pink but looked bleached from the California Sun. She was a single mom, and she was the best mom you could ask for. She was always so happy, always making dumb jokes to make me and Pedro laugh.Our mom Nora was everything to me and Pedro, until the summer of 2004. Everything changed after that damned day and that god damn Treehouse. That treehouse took everything from me, I never forgot that fucking treehouse no matter how much Don Julio I drank.I’m 29 now, living back in Austin with my Uncle Tony. Writing true crime novels for a living while picking up shifts at the local bar when I can. Which is where I would be right now if it wasn’t for the phone call I received this morning. Spam likely it read with a 714 area code I answered thinking it may be my publisher Mark with a new phone number, he gets a new one every few years it feels like. I answered. “Mark this you?”…“Hello?”…I waited for a response for a couple more second, as I was going to hang up I heard rattling or plastic on plastic tapping. Idk but It kept me on the line. Than a faint whisper came through that made my body go ice cold like I was instantaneously dumped in a ice bath. “Javi… come back to the Treehouse..sa-“The line went dead before I could make out the last word. I was frozen in shock, disbelief and frankly nauseous. Had to be a sick joke but I don’t talk to anyone from my time in California, Hell I was 6 when I moved there and 9 when I left. Who would have my number and how? But one thought kept coming to mind. Was it him? No way couldn’t be, it’s been 20 years. This is the reason I need to write down everything I remember about those 4 years I spent in that damned house before I go on any further. End Prologue Part 1I chose the top bunk, Pedro didn’t protest even though he was older by three years. He was really nice like that, he was nine but he acted older in my eyes. Pedro’s dark brown hair always went over his eyes, he motioned his head to the left to get the hair out of his eyes and asked if I was done packing. I was not even close but told him I can finish later. Pedro wanted to check out the backyard. The house was nice, not big but bigger enough for the family of ours. Me and Pedro had to share a room but we didn’t mind at all. We really preferred it, we would stay up late playing pirates or whatever movie we just saw that week. Only thing I didn’t like was Pedro’s sleep walking, he slept walked at least once a week it felt like and it scared the shit out me at that age. Me and Pedro walked out our new room and past mom’s room where she was unpacking and laying down shoes on the bed. Pedro tells her he’s taking me outside to show me the surprise. She agrees and makes sure that we’re back in soon because she ordered pizza that evening. I’m remembering more now, like a fog dissipating over a lake. It’s all coming back to me in fragments like a movie you haven’t seen in two decades but the memories were there the whole time collecting dust in the darkness of my mind. God help me I have to keep going. Pedro walks me outside and I see it.. a pink treehouse high in the air, has two windows like a real house. An old raggedy rope ladder that seemed strong enough. The yard was big enough to play flag football or basically any game me and brother could cook up.Before I could even look over the whole place Pedro was already half way up the ladder telling me to hurry up. I raced after him but he was inside before I even got to the rope ladder. When I arrived inside the treehouse I was let down. All that was inside was some old faded comic books, a tool box, matches, a poster of Rambo and a beat up cardboard box labeled “my things”.“Eww, Smells like rotten eggs up here” I said “That’s just your upper lip Javi”Not funny I remarked but it did get a chuckle out of me, he always knew how to make me laugh. Pedro was looking outside the windows and saw someone next door, told me to take a look. “Javi come look at our new neighbor. You think he has kids or grandkids?”“I don’t think so, wouldn’t they be playing?”“He’s staring at us… should we wave?” Asked Pedro.Pedro waved at the man wearing a white plain t shirt and gym shorts. But he didn’t wave back. Honestly now remembering back on it, I’d say he had a shocked expression like we weren’t supposed to be in the treehouse. “That guys not weird at all” Pedro said with his famous sarcastic tone. We left the window and our attention on the box labeled my things.Pedro opened the box and emptied it on the blue and black rug that laid across the floor of the treehouse. The rug smelled of mildew and dirt, looked strangely clean I’m now remembering. What lay on the rug now was toys. A green dinosaur (T-Rex) on wheels, a soldier action figure in green cameo, a blonde barbie doll in a pink dress, two witch like dolls with green skin and black hair wearing black robes, and a superhero action figure I didn’t recognize back than or tonight looking back on it. Weird because I love super hero comics and movie to this day. Maybe just one of those rip off Superman figures you can find at the swap meet for a dollar. Pedro grabbed the dinosaur and tried to see if it’s wheels were functioning properly. They did, however we heard mom scream for us that the pizza was here so we grabbed the toys and bolted to the house.A week later we were settled in, school started in the morning and mom got a job at the theme park down the street. Even said that she could get me and Pedro in for free soon. We were happy, our mom was happy.Mom feed us dinner and got us washed and changed for bed by 8pm, Pedro and I had the toys ready to play with under the bed as soon as moms bed time story. She read us a bit from Peter Pan but before she could finished a few pages we acted tired so we can with the toys. We’ve been playing with the toys like they were wrestlers, we were big in wrestling I remember that now. He used the commando guy most of the time, while I liked to switch it up but I did gravitate towards the red caped superhero with a White C over his chest, blonde fake hair which I find weird remembering now. Now thinking about it all the figures has fake hair like you would see on a lady doll. Even the commando guy. The dinosaur also had real fine peach fuzz all over the body. Strange but we paid no mind they were cheap knock off figures after all. Mom kissed us goodnight and close the door and we waited till he heard the tv go on in her room. We heard the news and we immediately hopped out of bed very quickly but as quiet as church mouse. We played for as long as we could before we felt our eyes getting heavy and moms tv go out. We crawled into our bunk beds and said goodnight to each other. I looked up at the ceiling of the room thinking about school and if I’d make any friends the first day, before I knew it I woke up to voices in the middle of the night.I don’t know how long I was out or even recall falling asleep, must of passed out. I still would have been if not for me being a light sleeper. It was Pedro talking very faintly facing the corner of the room opposite the door. Must be sleep walking, but usually he walks to the kitchen or moms room. He’s never talked in his sleep, this was the first time I saw Pedro do this in the middle of the night.I get up and walk close to Pedro while running my eyes trying to make out what he’s saying. “I don’t know how… I don’t believe you…”Was the only words I understood, I talked to softly and with his hand close to his face while facing the corner of the room. I was scared a bit but knew I had to wake him up. I tap on his shoulder and he grabs my hand so fast I jump back.“NOT OUR HOUSE! GET OUT!GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!”I fall on my back and Pedro is shouting at me saying the same words Get Out. I just noticed he’s holding Commando Steve and the Barbie doll in each hand. “What’s wrong!? Boys you okay? What’s going on?” Mom said as she rushed in our room turning in the lights. “Mom?”Pedro said coming out of his sleep episode.“Pedro mijo are you sleeping walking again?” “I…guess so” Pedro said exhausted like he finished running miles. “You were talking too”I said still in the ground shaken up.“Im sorry Javi, hope I didn’t scare you again.” Pedro said in a defeated tone.I Got up and got into bed, mom tucked Pedro back to bed and took the toys from his hands and placed them on his night stand with his Jurassic park lamp. This happened as long as I can remember living there. Two years go by and I became a heavy sleeper. I’d sometimes find Pedro on the floor with the toys or just sleep staring outside towards the treehouse. I though he would have grown out of it but mom said it all depends. Pedro started to grow distant with me. He would only wanna play with the toys alone and would spend a lot of alone time in the treehouse during the day.I also noticed the neighbor Mr Spitzer would be looking towards Pedro in the treehouse whenever he was out there, or maybe I’m just reading too much into Mr Spitzer. He was a nice man who actually worked at the school we attended.He taught 6th grade and was known as a push over, at least that’s what friends from school said about him. That and his sister disappeared along with her family ages ago. Mr Spitzer looked old but now remembering back he must have been in his 40s or early 50s. Bald, Dad bod without the kids, and always wearing shorts with a t shirt. Pedro would wave to him up there in the treehouse and Mr Spitzer would wave back and go about his business in his backyard. He spent a lot of time in his yard, don’t know what he was doing most of the time but he was a stickler for mowing his lawn and using his grill. Pedro started taking commando Steve to school with him even tho he seemed to old to take toys to school. Sleep walking got worse, I woke up in the middle of the night to my mom. She was frantic and asking where Pedro is. “I don’t know he was in bed when I fell asleep” I said looking around the room.My mom looked scared, more scared than I ever saw her and it scared me to death. Thoughts raced in my 8 year old head. I got up and opening the closet and other spots he usually crashes at after his sleep walking or sleep conversations. No where, but than I see a light coming from the treehouse. It’s gotta be Pedro.Me and mom went out there in jackets and slippers, called out to him and nothing but we saw the flashlight he brought up there shinning bright. My mom went up there cautiously, now knowing mom probably hasn’t climbed up a rope ladder in decades.I followed suit and saw Pedro surrounded by the toys we found up there two years ago muttering words so softly it was hard to make sense of it. She tried waking up him and and he just screamed louder than I ever heard someone scream “NOT YET! NOT YET! PLEASE! SAVE US!!” Pedro screamed that echoed in the house.He keeps shouting it while looking past us almost. Meanwhile I catch a glimpse of another flashlight shining against the window. It was Mr Spitzer in his robe and slippers with a cigarette in his mouth and cans of beer on the ground next to his lawn chair. Was he out there the whole night? When Mom finally got Pedro to come down from his episode we went back inside. Pedro wasn’t talking, seemed like he was still sleep walking. Just glazed look in his eyes while he was directed back to bed. I was done with this, Pedro was scaring me. He simply was becoming hard to play with and understand. He just wanted to play with his toys half the time alone. We used to play all the time but I guess he was getting older and maybe didn’t find me fun anymore. I tried to act older around him but nothing.He still hardly spoke to me, always told me to not worry about it that it’s not my problem. Sad to say and remember but that’s how drifted apart we became, I started to hang out with other kids in the neighborhood and slowly just stopped worrying about Pedro.June 20th 2004This is the date that changed everything. Day started out normal as another. Was summer break so I went over to Jake’s house 4 houses down, he had a PlayStation so I came over anytime my mom would let me. We played games for the whole morning up until 12pm, got hungry and went back home for some pizza rolls. When I got home Pedro was writing in a journal or something, don’t know how long he’s been writing but it’s nice to know he was doing something without those toys or having rage fits and acting all glazed and zombie like. Mom even hired a child therapist to help him with his night terrors the therapist called them. Got his brain checked out I remember my mom telling Uncle Tony on the phone. When my pizza rolls were done I grabbed them and turned on Cartoon Network while I ate. Pedro walked pass me opening the slider to the backyard. “Where you going bro? Wanna go to Jake’s and play smackdown? Jake has three controller now.” I said with a smile on my face anticipating beating Jake in a royal rumble match. “No…I have to do something.” Pedro said not looking at me.“What to you have to do? Homework?” I asked with an annoyed looking face.“You won’t understand, I have to do this alone.” Pedro said with a serious face.“Okay… well I’m going to Jake’s in 5 minutes. I’ll be home for mom gets home from work.” I said while I made my way towards the front door. Pedro than called out to me remember to clean up my plate before I leave. “Love you Javi..”“Love you too… you okay?” I asked, he rarely said I love you.“I will be soon” Pedro remarked after a long pause. “You’re being so weird, stop trying to scare me” I scoffed at Pedro.“sorry I scare you Javi”“Just make sure mom knows I’m at Jake’s if she gets home early okay?” I say as I pick up my plate.I didn’t wait for a response and threw my paper plate away and watched him walk out to the backyard with his backpack and go up into the treehouse. Mr Spitzer was outside drinking again. I waved from the kitchen window but I don’t think he saw me. I went back to Jake’s house and whooped him in smackdown on PlayStation 2 three matches in a row before Jake throws his controller at his tv. I remember being scared shitless like he was going to rush me but we shared an awkward silence and I said “No way we’re playing at my house”We laughed, got up and walked to the kitchen for some Mountain Dew. That was the last time I drank Mountain Dew. We then went and sat on the Jake’s Moms ugly gray couch with turquoise, pink and green interwoven into it like a gross skin infection. Must of been cool in the early 90s, I don’t know why I still remember these details of this day but they’re all rushing back like water trucking thru a broken damn. We watched a couple episodes of Billy and Mandy before I realized it was almost 5pm. I grabbed another Mountain Dew from his fridge and said “Laters loser, see you tomorrow ?”. Jake rolled his eyes and said“Yeah see you tomorrow turd licker”.I chuckle and refute “You licked a lot of turds in smackdown today loser, tell your mom thanks for the Mountain Dew.” I close the door and start going down the drive way drinking my Dew while I see one of the random neighbors calling out “Biscuit! Biscuit come here boy!”.In the middle of the street practically, must of lost her dog. She was an elderly lady wearing her pajamas, grey hair out into a bun. As I got the the sidewalk we locked eyes for a couple seconds before I ask“Did you lose your dog?”She turned to me and smiled “I’m afraid so, Biscuit was in my backyard the last time I saw him. I must of left the gate open by mistake, I can’t really remember these days.“I ask “What does biscuit look like?”. She looked around the yard that we were standing by and answered “He’s a golden retriever have you seen him?”I think for a second “Is that the type that has fluffy blonde fur?”Her smile fades away and says “That’s the one, your smart young man. Have you seen biscuit around here the past hour or so I don’t really know when he ran off. Not like him to run off like this he’s old like me. Your name sweetheart?”“Javier but my family calls me Javi” “Well Javi my name is Natalie I live at that red bricked house right down there 3 houses down that way” she says as she pointed at her house.“I live that way, I’m on my way home if I see him ill let my mom know to tell you”“Thank you Javi, get home safe”I say goodbye and make my way home.I loved dogs, but never got one for myself. Could never get myself to get one even when my ex wife practically begged me. I kept walking towards my house keeping in eye out for a cute dog but to no avail.I reached my driveway when I noticed the white screen door was wide open and the red wooden door was open but only ajar. Moms blue car isn’t in the drive way, I look around for Pedro and call out for him “Pedro? You there?”10 or so seconds go by and no response.“Pedro dude, stop trying to scare me. I’m coming in.” I hear a scream somewhere close.I was shitting my nine year old pants practically, but still holding on to my Mountain Dew. I walked in the house and nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary, living room is how I left it, kinda dirty. Move to the kitchen and everything looked the same, called out for Pedro but nothing. I thought he probably just left in a hurry and left the doors open. Moms gonna yell at him good for this one. How wrong I was. I wish I can rewrite time and make that the truth. I go to my room to grab a comic book, Batman of course. As I grab my book from drawer by the bunk beds I hear a yelp or something. I couldn’t tell where it came from though. Looked outside in the drive way but no car yet, should be home any minute now it’s 5:05pm. Bark!…YELP!!!I jumped out of my body practically, I knew exactly where that came from.The backyard, is Biscuit in my backyard trapped or something or injured? I slowly walked to the glass slider opened it and walked into the backyard. Didn’t see dog or anything. Than I heard the yelping noise louder and so much more clear, it’s a dog for-sure and it was coming from the treehouse. How could Biscuit be in the treehouse? I still can’t explain it to this day. Only way to get in the treehouse is by rope ladder, last time I check dogs can’t fucking climb ladders. My 9 year old self didn’t even wonder that thought, I had one thought running through my 9 year old brain.. is Pedro up in the treehouse too? Has he even left the treehouse? It’s been 5 hours there’s no way. Other animalistic sounds I couldn’t make out were coming from the that creepy looking treehouse with its roots caressing the house’s structure like a bleached pink baby. I wanted to go back inside but what if Pedro was hurt or something. He would try to help me if I needed help. I stopped thinking put down my Mountain Dew in the ground by the glass door and just walked towards that hell house on a tree. I reached my destination and climbed up the rope ladder as the sounds and yelps got louder and louder till my heart felt like it was gonna beat so fast my heart was gonna explode out of my chest. I close my eyes and get my footing before I open my eyes. What I saw was a nightmare, a nightmare that haunts me almost every night since.I open my eyes with the horrible sounds almost echoing in the treehouse like a cave. I see Biscuit dissected with his insides on the outside, his eyes placed by his cut up body with bones bent in way that I can’t even describe. Then there’s Pedro with a kitchen knife all covered in blood, he takes the knife to Biscuits neck and slices. I threw up my Mountain Dew and all 15 pizza rolls all over the bloodied rug. Crying , and screaming came after, Pedro didn’t even look at me. Than I try to go for the exit but step on something that felt like stepping on a burrito with crunchy chips inside. I look down and it’s a rat dissected as well, I was so focused on Biscuit’s body that I didn’t notice the other 4 animal bodies in a circle dissected and cut up to Hell. In the middle were of this horror were the 5 toys we found in this treehouse 4 years prior. The soldier, the blonde barbie, two green skinned witches, and the dollar tree variant of Superman With the red cap blue suit with a C instead of an S on his chest. Pedro starts to finally speak, but it’s just nonsense and made up words. Maybe even a different language my 9 year old self didn’t know yet existed. He started shake and he dropped his knife by Biscuit and shook even more violently almost screaming louder than I thought a human could scream. Pedro’s feet lifted off the ground. He was in the fucking air before my eyes while he was screaming noises and words I’ve never heard before or since. Arms and legs spread out like a doll in the the air eyes rolled back while blood flowed from his nose and ears. I can do nothing bad lay on my back by the exit screaming, crying and pissing myself for real. Before I think I’m about to pass out I’m suddenly dragged through exit by strong arms. I see grass and the rope and somebody carrying me. Everything gets foggy and I pass out. I wake up in a panic on the living room couch, my mouth so dry I can’t even speak. I see water on the table across from the couch and start drinking. That’s when I see the 3 officers in our living room. “Hello Javier, I’m Officer Gimbley, this is officers Brent and Kelly. Your mother found you unconscious on the grass in your backyard, you okay?” I noticed blood on his pant legs. “Where’s Pedro?” I asked He looked at me while getting down on one knee to meet me eye to eye. “We’re looking for him son, when did you see him last and was anyone her besides you and Pedro?”“I don’t know I…Biscuit..” I say.I threw up the water I just drank all over the carpet and table. The officers looks confused and concerned at the same time. Officer Brent handed a towel to my mom, she sat next to me rubbed my back and cleaned me up. “Biscuit?” Gimbley looked puzzled.“The neighbor Natalie’s Dog across the street, she’s in the treehouse… and other anam-“ pizza rolls coming up now.I threw up a little more but then just dry heaved till I was done. Crying at the same time with snot practically pouring out my nose like a snot faucet. My mom wiped my face after I stop throwing up. We looked inside the treehouse son, and nothing. Just a couple comic books, crayons, and a box. No dog, no other animals, and no Pedro. End Part 1
Social Media Icons