Delivery Man Possession (M/M) (Part 4 Updated 23 Sep)

[yamato810]

Part 1: Marcus-Daniel's Rendezvous

Marcus had learned to read a street the way some men read weather: by small gestures, by the tilt of mailboxes, by the rhythm of footsteps on cracked pavement. He left his building early so he could walk the long way, past the bakery that smelled of browned butter and sugar, past the laundromat with its soap-slice laughter. He had left the apartment he’d grown up in—not because it was too small, but because his heart had already outgrown it.

On the third morning he saw him.

The delivery man was not flamboyant. He wore the ordinary armor of his trade: a fitted uniform, a canvas satchel, an easy, efficient gait. His forearms were solid, not for show but for work. He moved through the light as if he belonged to it. Marcus’s chest tightened the way a trap snaps. He felt something old and dangerous—the taste of wanting—rise in his throat.

It was more than a crush; it was a verdict. Marcus told himself stories about the man—kind, focused, solitary—building a life inside those neat assumptions. At night Marcus replayed the walk, the small tilt of the man’s head, the way he ducked into a doorway with a half-smile for the building’s tiny dog. The fantasies arrived fully formed and stubborn. They sat at his dining table and drank his coffee.

He tried to be practical first. He learned the delivery windows by watching the street from the café with a lemon tart and a notebook full of neat, obsessive observations. He rented a place on the same block under an excuse that sounded reasonable: a temporary studio while his old building was renovated. He told himself it was coincidence that the new address put him on the man’s route.

The reality of living next door to someone you have turned into an emblem is different from the ease of imagination. There was a bureaucratic bitterness to it—boxes to sign, parcels to reroute, the tick of keys in locks. Marcus began making unnecessary orders: a lamp he did not need, a book on birdcalls he never opened, small things that produced the soft, gratifying chime of someone’s footsteps outside his door. Each time the bell did not summon the man he wanted, disappointment accumulated like lint in his throat.

The longer he waited, the more his day-plan narrowed. Work, sleep, the rehearsed patience of stakeouts. He learned the delivery man’s habits—the route geometry, the doors he always avoided, the buildings where he paused to check his manifest. The man never knew he was being studied. Or maybe he did; Marcus couldn’t tell anymore whether the delivery man’s slight sleepless gaze had been curiosity or irritation.

There were cracks in Marcus’s certainty. He began to notice other people on the route: a woman who laughed too loud, a teenager with a skateboard, another courier who waved and called a name Marcus did not recognize. Life continued around his fixation, indifferent and alive. People were not props in the theater of his want.

On the third week on a humid Wednesday, his doorbell actually rang while he was watching a baseball game on silent in his jersey. He peered through the intercom camera. The delivery man filled the small screen: sun at the edge of his jaw, uniform perfectly in place, expression unreadable. Marcus felt a little ridiculous and a little electric. He hit the release.

He opened the door in a cheap, genuine-looking baseball jersey he’d bought the week he moved in. The jersey fit like a costume, sleeves rolled, cap backward. “Hey,” smiled Marcus. He handed over a box—no signature required—and the delivery man’s voice—low, careful—thanked him. For a moment their hands met over the cardboard edge; Marcus felt the warmth of the other man’s palm and the solid weight of the muscles beneath the jacket.

As the delivery man turned to leave, he produced a small amber bottle from his pocket and shook it. The bottle had a label: “isoflurane.” The delivery man’s stride slowed. He stood with his back angled just so, as if about to climb a step down the hallway. Marcus gently lifted the bottle, exhaled the vapor, and breathed it toward the man’s shirt collar. The delivery man's knees give a fraction of an inch and sagged into Marcus’s arms. He murmured and the man relaxed.

Marcus caught him before he could crumple. The weight was real, heavy with muscle and fatigue. He hooked an arm beneath his and dragged him backward down the corridor, sneakers scuffing. Every echo in the narrow hall sounded like a siren in Marcus’s head.

Inside the tatami room, he lowered the man carefully onto the floor. That was when Marcus saw it—stitched in neat white letters over the breast pocket: “Daniel.” He whispered the name aloud, testing it, tasting it. Daniel. It fit.

The ropes came next. Marcus worked methodically, sweat slicking his palms as he looped and tightened, pinning wrists to thighs, ankles together, chest encircled with a firm harness. Each knot cinched with deliberate pressure, until Daniel’s breathing slowed to shallow, uncertain pulls. The loop over his feet is then brought to his chest to underpin him into a hogtie.

Then Daniel stirred. His eyes cracked open, a dazed flicker of awareness. He tried to shift; the ropes flexed and held. Marcus tightened his grip on the coil still in his hand, leaned in, and pressed two fingers to Daniel’s jawline.

“Stay still, Daniel,” Marcus whispered.

A strip of black duct tape unfurled with a harsh rip that cut the quiet. Marcus wound it around Daniel’s mouth, then again, and again, layering until only muffled sounds remained. The glossy black sealed his lips, the edges tugging at his skin, leaving him no space to form words. Daniel’s chest rose faster, breath hissing through his nose, shallow and panicked.

Marcus crouched close, listening to the rasp of every inhale. He pressed a palm flat over Daniel’s nose for a count—one, two, three—before letting go, watching the desperate pull of air flood back in. Daniel jerked against the ropes, body twisting weakly, a muffled sound vibrating behind the tape.

“Good,” Marcus muttered, voice low, almost to himself. He leaned close enough for Daniel to feel his breath. “Fight all you want. You’re not going anywhere.”

The tatami creaked as Daniel writhed, ropes digging into his arms. Marcus sat back on his heels, watching, waiting for the panic to soften into exhaustion. He reached for the bottle again—not to use, just to set it down in Daniel’s line of sight, a silent reminder of how this had started.

Daniel’s eyes locked on it, wide, flickering with fear and something darker.

Now it was alive, here, between them.

[yamato810]

Part 2: Blackened World

Marcus tore another strip of tape and pressed it across Daniel’s eyes. The glossy black sealed shut what little vision remained, and the room shifted for Daniel into a prison of breath and sound. He thrashed once, uselessly, and then stilled, listening.

“Better,” Marcus murmured. His voice was close, then suddenly far, as if he were circling. “Sight just distracts you. You see only what I choose anyway. Without it, maybe you’ll hear the truth.”

Daniel swallowed against the tape. The sound of his own breathing filled his head, jagged and loud. Somewhere to his left, something scraped—the deliberate drag of a chair across tatami.

“You’re wondering what happens next,” Marcus said. Calm, conversational. “But you already know. You’ve felt me watching. Every time you walked past the bakery, every parcel in your hands. You noticed. Maybe you pretended not to, but you noticed.”

Daniel shook his head, a muffled sound pushing against the tape.

“No?” Marcus leaned in close enough for Daniel to feel the warmth of his words against his ear. “Then why did your eyes linger? Why did you smile at that dog on the corner—knowing I was there?”

The room went silent. Daniel’s heart hammered so hard it seemed to echo in the floor beneath him.

Marcus let the silence stretch, feeding it. “See, Daniel, the mind betrays faster than the body. A glance. A hesitation. A laugh you didn’t mean. That’s where you gave me permission.”

Daniel’s body jerked against the ropes, but the blindfold robbed him of target or aim. His world was nothing but the pressure of bonds and the predator’s voice.

“You’ll deny it, of course. They all do.” Marcus’s tone softened, almost tender. “But soon you’ll stop denying and start listening. And once you’re listening, you’ll believe. Because the only voice you’ll have left… is mine.”

Another silence, broken only by Daniel’s shallow, rapid breathing. Then, a sudden sound—liquid sloshing in a bottle—set Daniel rigid. He couldn’t tell if Marcus was inches away or across the room.

“Not yet,” Marcus whispered. “You need to think first. You need to understand why this is happening. Why you.”

The tape over Daniel’s eyes pressed tighter as sweat gathered at his brow. The room swayed with shadows he couldn’t see, only imagine, and every imagined shadow belonged to Marcus.

Daniel’s lungs dragged in air like it was rationed. Behind the blindfold, the darkness pressed against him, but it was the inside darkness that mattered more: the spiral of thought he couldn’t stop.

You’re tied. You’re silenced. You’re blind.

Panic surged like a tide, but he fought it with small anchors. He counted heartbeats, forced them into groups of five. He pictured his sister’s laugh, sharp and unselfconscious, the way she’d teased him when he wore his cap too low. He imagined the feel of sun on his arms during the first delivery of the day, the normal rhythm of walking, moving, choosing. If he could hold to those, Marcus couldn’t reach all the way in.

But the voice came anyway, patient, needling.

“You’re breathing too fast,” Marcus observed. His tone was casual, like a coach correcting form. “That means you’re scared. Fear is honest, Daniel. Fear doesn’t lie.”

Daniel shook his head, harder than he meant to. The tape muffled the growl he tried to force out.

Marcus chuckled softly. “See, there it is again—that defiance. It’s sweet, but it’s useless. You can’t see me. You can’t touch me. And yet, I’m closer to you than anyone’s ever been. Right now, I know what you’re thinking.”

Daniel screamed into the tape, a raw, broken sound, not because he believed Marcus but because he didn’t—and he needed to drown that certainty out.

“Oh, you’re strong,” Marcus whispered. He shifted, so his words came from the other side, playing tricks with direction. “But strength has a curve. It burns fast, like fire. What matters is not how loud you shout, but how long you last when no one answers back.”

Daniel tightened his fists. He thought of the courier warehouse, the clatter of boxes, the banter of other drivers. Ordinary things. He had to believe in the ordinary.

Marcus seemed to sense it, because his tone sharpened. “You’re holding on to something, aren’t you? Some little memory. Some name. Maybe you think that makes you safe. But I can strip even that away.”

A pause. The scrape of the chair again. Then a whisper so close it felt carved into Daniel’s skull:

“What if they forget you first?”

The words crawled under Daniel’s skin. The idea of vanishing from the world—routes reassigned, coworkers shrugging, family growing silent—hit deeper than any rope. He jerked his head violently, shaking, as if he could fling the thought out of himself.

Marcus sighed with satisfaction. “There. I felt that. The crack. Not yet a break, but soon. Soon you’ll understand the only world that matters is the one I build for you in here.”

Daniel pressed back into the floor, heart pounding, clutching desperately at the fragments of his own mind. He had to keep them, had to guard them, because Marcus was already writing over everything else.

[KidnappedCowboy]

Wow! Excellent two chapters. Marcus takes Daniel's freedom from him, deprives him of movement, sound, and sight...isolating him. And now, Marcus is playing with his mins...slowly stripping him away from any anchor holding him steady.

Love it!

[yamato810]

Wow! Excellent two chapters. Marcus takes Daniel's freedom from him, deprives him of movement, sound, and sight...isolating him. And now, Marcus is playing with his mins...slowly stripping him away from any anchor holding him steady.

Love it!

Thanks a lot @KidnappedCowboy! It really motivates me to continue with this story

[DeeperThanRed]

Really intriguing. I wonder where Marcus's desire will take them both.

[yamato810]

Part 3: Daniel's Left Alone to Psychological Exhaust

The door closed with a soft click.

Silence swallowed the room. Daniel strained, listening for Marcus’s footsteps beyond the wall, but the absence was worse. The ropes pressed against his skin like questions with no answers.

“Mmmhhffhh—hhhnnngghh—mmphhh!”

He twisted, the tatami scratching his cheek through sweat. Each movement only pulled the knots tighter, but still he fought, lungs pushing air against the tape in short, furious bursts.

“Ngghhh! Hhhmmmfff! Mmhhhnnnn!”

The sounds echoed back at him, damp and shapeless. With the blindfold plastered across his eyes, he couldn’t see the corners of the room, couldn’t measure distance, couldn’t even track the shape of his own body. Every muffled cry dissolved into the blackness pressing in from all sides.

He tried to slow his breathing—count, focus, anything. But the panic kept seeping through, rising like water.

“Mmmhhhffhh… mmhhpphhh…”

The noises softened to a whimper, then spiked again when he jerked his wrists, scraping rope against skin. His throat vibrated with a low, trembling groan.

“Hhhhnnngghh—mmmfffhhh!”

The tatami creaked beneath him. Shadows shifted behind the blindfold—imagined footsteps, Marcus returning, or worse: Marcus listening silently, savoring every sound from the other side of the door.

Daniel froze, chest hammering. Then another muffled cry broke free, smaller, almost pleading.

“Mmhhphhh… nnnhhhmmm…”

The room gave nothing back. Only the echo of his own gagged voice, thin and trapped, circling him like a taunt.

The silence thickened until it felt like another body in the room.
Daniel lay still, chest rising fast, every inhale a ragged whistle through his nose. The blindfold was damp now, clinging to his skin.

“Mmmhhffhh—hhhnnnghh—mmpphhh!”

He thrashed again, but the ropes held, unforgiving. The tatami groaned beneath his weight, a lonely counterpoint to the desperate, gagged cries.

What if he never comes back? The thought slammed into him harder than any knot. If Marcus left him to rot here, bound and voiceless, no one would know. The world would move on—deliveries made, streets crossed, doors opened—without Daniel.

“Ngghhh! Mmmhhhhnnnfffhh! Hhhmmmpphh!”

The sounds bounced off the walls, echoing back like mockery. He wasn’t sure if Marcus was gone or simply waiting just outside, smiling at the chorus of muffled panic.

The tape across his mouth tugged with each groan, sticky and relentless, turning every breath into a reminder of his helplessness.

“Mmhhhfffhh… mmhhpphhh… nnngghhh.”

The noises softened into a rhythm—short bursts, broken sobs, whimpers cut off before they became words. His throat ached. His jaw throbbed. Still, he couldn’t stop. The silence was too heavy, too hungry.

Daniel pressed his head against the mat, blindfold scraping against the floor. Darkness pulsed behind his eyes. Each heartbeat felt louder, faster, filling the void where Marcus’s voice had been.

“Mmhhhnnn—mmphhh—hhhnnnffhh!”

His world collapsed into sound: the scrape of rope, the ragged hiss of air, the endless muffled cries that no one could answer.

And somewhere in that emptiness, he realized the torment hadn’t left with Marcus.
It had only grown louder inside him.

The room pressed in tighter with every second.
Daniel’s breaths rattled through his nose, quick, shallow, each one scraping the inside of his chest. Sweat beaded under the blindfold, stinging his eyes though he couldn’t open them.

“Mmmhhfffhh—nnngghhh—hhhnnnphhh!”

He jerked his shoulders, pulling hard against the ropes. They burned into his skin, refusing even the smallest mercy of slack. The effort left him gasping, body trembling.

“Ngghhh! Mmmhhhfffhh!”

The tape muffled everything into the same pitiful register. It didn’t matter how hard he tried—whether he screamed or sobbed, the sound came out identical, meaningless. Each muffled cry died inches from his face.

His pulse hammered at his temples. He tried to turn his head sideways to find air, but the mat only met him with its flat, unyielding surface.

“Mmmhhhhnnnffhh… mmhhpphh… hhhmmnnnfffhh…”

The noises spilled out involuntarily, like the body’s last defense against silence. They weren’t words, couldn’t be words, but he poured everything into them—anger, fear, begging, rage—and heard only the same broken syllables.

The stillness around him grew unbearable. Every creak of the building became magnified: a shifting beam, the faint pop of wood, the dull echo of his own writhing.

“Mmhhhffhh! Mmhhhnnn! Nnnghhphhh!”

His chest heaved. He tried to pace his breathing, but it kept breaking into frantic gasps, pulled too quickly through his nose, catching on the edges of panic.

The blindfold sealed him in a black world where sound was the only truth. And the only sound left was his own muffled torment, looping back at him, proof that he was utterly alone.

The struggle burned through him too quickly. Every jerk of his wrists, every arch of his back, only drained what little strength he had left. Sweat slicked his skin; his breath came in ragged bursts that caught against the tape.

“Mmmhhffhh… nnnhhhfffhh…”

The cries were softer now, dulled by fatigue. His throat rasped under the adhesive, the vibrations rough, uneven. The fight bled out of his muscles, leaving only shivers in its wake.

He tried to kick once more—an awkward lurch that ended with his ankles grinding against the rope. Pain shot through, sharp and fleeting, then dulled to a heavy ache.

“Mmhhhnnnhhh… mmmfffhh…”

The onomatopoeia thinned into little more than whimpers, sounds without shape, collapsing under the weight of his own breath. His chest rose high, stalled, then dropped, leaving him gasping.

The blindfold pressed hot and suffocating against his eyes. Darkness swam in pulses, timed with his faltering heartbeat.

“Mmmhhh… hhhnnnffhh…”

Even his muffled pleas slowed, like the voice of someone sinking underwater. Each one stretched longer, weaker, before fading into silence.

The tatami beneath him seemed to tilt, the room swaying though he lay bound and still. He let his head fall sideways, cheek scraping the floor, and for a moment he simply listened to the faint hiss of air dragging through his nostrils.

His body sagged into the ropes. The panic hadn’t gone—it still burned low, wild—but exhaustion smothered its flames, leaving only smoke and shallow gasps.

“Mmhh… nnnhhh…”

Barely more than a whisper now. The sound of someone reaching the edge of what he could fight.

The silence shifted.

A footstep. Then another. The door creaked.

Daniel tensed instantly, a shudder through his whole frame, but his voice betrayed him, emerging soft and broken:
“Mmhhhhh… nnnghhhhh…”

Marcus stepped back into the room, carrying something that clinked faintly, like glass or metal knocking together. He set the objects down with deliberate care so that the sound echoed sharp in the still air.

Daniel froze, listening, chest rising in shallow bursts.

Marcus crouched beside him, speaking low, almost kindly.
“You’ve been busy without me. I heard every sound. But you’re tired now, aren’t you? I brought a few things to help remind you that exhaustion doesn’t mean the game is over.”

[yamato810]

Thanks @DeeperThanRed, this story would bring more psychological torture towards Daniel

[DeeperThanRed]

Thanks @DeeperThanRed, this story would bring more psychological torture towards Daniel

It was definitely a pleasure to see him tormenting himself when left alone, tied up, gagged, and blindfolded for so long!

It'll be interesting to see Marcus increase the pressure with new toys.

[KidnappedCowboy]

"I brought a few things to help remind you that exhaustion doesn’t mean the game is over.”

Fantastic follow-up...Daniel's isolation is closing in on him, resulting in anger, resistance, frustration, and eventually fear. Breaking him down, causing him to panic at the thought of being left there and forgotten. Just when Daniel begins to fear all hope is lost, his captor returns to play with him some more!

Great story...A true tale of Stockholm Syndrome.

[Paris_bondage]

Fantastic. Please continue!

[yamato810]

Part 4: Igniting Desire to Flee

His hand brushed one of the objects; it rattled faintly, a sound Daniel couldn’t name. The uncertainty gnawed deeper than the ropes.

“Don’t worry, Daniel,” Marcus whispered. “You’ll learn what each of them means… one at a time.”

Daniel groaned weakly, the muffled sound shaking in his throat:
“Mmhhhnnn… mmppphhh…”

Marcus smiled. The silence had done its work. Now the real lessons could begin.

Marcus let the silence stretch as he slowly arranged the items on the floor, each one given its own deliberate sound.

A clink of glass.
A snap of leather.
A metallic ring that echoed as something heavy struck the tatami.

Daniel flinched at each noise, straining against the ropes, muffled cries spilling through the gag:
“Mmhhhhh—hhhnnnfffhh—mmphhh!”

Marcus finally spoke, voice calm, professorial.
“Three objects. Simple things. But for you, they’ll become whole worlds.”

He lifted the first, holding it just close enough for Daniel to hear the faint swish.
“A bottle of water. So ordinary. Yet you don’t get to drink from it. You only get to hear it, smell it, feel it brushed against your skin while your throat is dry.”

Daniel whimpered, gag rasping as he tried to swallow.
“Mmhhphhh—nnnnghhphhh!”

Marcus set the bottle aside with a sharp thud, then picked up the next. Leather creaked as he pulled it taut.
“A belt. Not for striking, no—that would be too obvious. It’s for sound. For the way leather sings when it snaps through the air.”

He cracked it once, the whip-like snap exploding in the silence. Daniel convulsed, muffled shrieks tumbling out:
“MMHHHHHHH! HHNNNGHHH! MMMPHHHHH!”

Marcus chuckled softly.
“Already effective.”

Finally, he picked up the third—something dense and metallic. He let it dangle so it clanged against the floor.
“And this… a chain. Not to hold you—you’re already helpless. But I’ll drag it across the floor, across your back, across the mat. You won’t know when it’s real or just sound. Your imagination will do the rest.”

He rattled it once, the heavy links grinding against each other. Daniel thrashed, the gag muffling him into broken syllables:
“Mmhhfffhh! Nnngghhhphhh! Hhhmmmfffhh!”

Marcus leaned close, his whisper brushing Daniel’s ear.
“You see, Daniel… the most terrifying objects are the ones that don’t even need to touch you.”

Marcus picked up the bottle first, tilting it so the water inside sloshed loudly. He uncapped it with a slow crack, holding it near Daniel’s ear so every bubble and swish was amplified.

Daniel groaned, throat rasping behind the gag.
“Mmmhhhhh… mmpphhh… hhhnnnfffhh!”

Marcus tipped the bottle forward until a cold trickle of water dripped across Daniel’s cheek, down to his lips. The liquid spread under the duct tape gag but gave no relief—just wetness that teased and mocked.

“Imagine,” Marcus murmured, “your body begging for water… and knowing you’ll never taste it properly.”

He set the bottle aside and snapped the belt. Once, twice—each crack was sharp enough to slice through the air like lightning. Daniel jolted, muffled cries spilling:
“MMHHHH! HHNNNGHH! MMMPHHH!”

Marcus dragged the belt’s edge across Daniel’s neck, slow and deliberate, then flicked it away with another snap just inches from his ear. The sound vibrated through Daniel’s skull, leaving him trembling.

Then came the chain. Marcus lifted it and let it drop—CLANG!—across Daniel’s back. Not heavy enough to harm, just loud and shocking. Daniel writhed, gag choking out frantic syllables:
“NNNGHHHH! MMHHHHFFHH! HHMMMPHHHH!”

Marcus coiled the chain loosely over Daniel’s shoulder, letting the cold metal kiss his skin before yanking it away so it clattered to the floor again.

“You hear it. You feel it. But you don’t know when it’s coming next,” Marcus whispered, dragging one link across Daniel’s cheek like an afterthought. “That’s the beauty. Your body fights shadows.”

Daniel’s muffled screams broke into sobbing hums, weakening as his muscles strained against exhaustion:
“Mmhhhhnnn… mmphhhhhh… hhhmmfffhh…”

Marcus sat back, satisfied, watching the panic ripen into despair.
“You don’t need pain, Daniel,” he said softly. “You just need imagination. And I’ll feed it to you until you can’t tell sound from touch, touch from fear.”

Marcus left the room quietly, the faint clink of his shoes fading down the hall. The silence that settled over Daniel was almost suffocating at first. His body throbbed from the tight ropes, the prolonged struggle against restraint, but adrenaline surged in response to Marcus’s absence.

Daniel’s fingers flexed, testing the slack in the knots. A single loop gave a fraction, and he pushed harder, the ropes creaking in protest.
“Mmhhhhh… hhhfffhh… nnngghhh!” he muffled, jerking his shoulders against them.

Another tug, and the coil around his wrists loosened just enough to rotate his hands. Each movement sent small, muffled groans through his gag:
“Mmfffhh! Hhhmmphh! Nnnghhhhh!”

He worked systematically, isolating each knot, twisting and pulling with bruised fingers until his hands were finally free. Daniel’s chest heaved as he bent forward, struggling with the ropes around his ankles and torso. Every small motion produced muffled, ragged sounds:
“Mmhhhhh… hhhnnfffhh… mmphhh!”

Finally, his legs were unbound. Daniel grabbed the remaining tape and blindfold, ripping them from his face and mouth. He gasped in deep, freeing breaths, tasting the air he hadn’t realized he’d missed.

He moved carefully, then fast, out of the tatami room. The hallway was empty. Daniel didn’t look back, didn’t pause—every step carried him farther from Marcus and closer to safety.

---------------------------------------------
When Marcus returned, he froze at the threshold. The new objects in his hands were useless now. All that remained were the ropes, crumpled and slack, and the torn strips of black tape scattered across the floor. He sank slowly to his heels, a low hiss of frustration escaping him.

“So… gone,” he muttered, voice tight. The meticulous control, the carefully constructed games—all vanished. The room itself seemed to sigh in disappointment.
---------------------------------------------

Daniel didn’t stop until he reached the safety of his manager’s office. He explained quickly, breath still ragged, and asked that his delivery route be changed, away from Marcus’s block, away from the man who had haunted his days.

The manager nodded, understanding the urgency, and arranged a new route immediately. Daniel exhaled, relief flooding him like water.

But Marcus already knew.

Somewhere, unseen, Marcus observed the shifts, tracking every change. The new route, the altered schedule, the delivery patterns—none of it escaped his notice. The game was far from over.