nosleep

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/EclosionK2 on 2024-11-09 17:49:57+00:00.

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It happened abruptly on a plane. 

I was woken up by some turbulence, and instead of going back to sleep, I stood up and demanded the nearest stewardess to bring me some sugar water. 

My voice was coarse, and I could feel every muscle tense across my body—as if I was preparing to do a backflip.

After crushing a Mountain Dew, I practically barked like a dog: “More! MORE SUGAR!”

It was terrifying.

Something awful had seized all executive functions of my brain—that’s the best way I could put it. It's like my consciousness got kicked out of the driver's seat, and was forced to watch everything from a cage.

I could still see, and hear, and feel every sensation in my body … I just had no input. No control over what I did.

“Mam, please calm down. We’ll get you some soda.”

“Sugar me, NOW!”

Horror quickly blended with embarrassment. I guzzled a dozen soft drinks in less than three minutes, which resulted in vomit all over my pants. People gasped, got up and moved away. I became ‘that woman’ on the plane.

“Do we have to restrain you mam?”

“Not if sugar I more have.”

***

Instead of heading home towards my husband and two daughters in Toronto, I went straight to the travel counter to book a new flight.

“Lost. Angels.”

“Excuse me ma'am?”

“Plane me.”

“You'd like to book a flight to Los Angeles, is that right?”

Despite speaking in broken monosyllables, everyone was very willing to help.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m very thankful that I live in a very progressive, nice part of the world that somehow tolerates strange speech and vomit-stained pants, but for once I just wanted an asshole to call me out for a ‘random screening’.

I wanted someone to detain the insanity controlling my body. Instead, I helplessly watched my visa get charged a fortune.

First Class. Extra legroom. Next available flight.

***

Upon arriving in California, a group of women dressed in very fancy blazers held out a sign for me. The sign said Simone. Which was my name.

The palest one wearing cat-eye sunglasses approached with a glossy-toothed smile. “Hello gorgeous. How was the flight?”

“Divine.” The Thing Controlling Me said.

“Good. Let’s freshen you up.”

*****

In public, the women laughed and talked about fictional renovations. Everyone would take turns talking about ‘sprucing up their patio’ or how they were ‘building a yoga den’.

In private however, the women spoke in wet gagging noises—as if they were trying to make speech sounds not designed for human mouths.

The whole car ride from the airport, I was engulfed in drowning duck sounds. As a means of distraction (and potential escape), I tried to focus on what was being ‘squawked’, but that got me nowhere. The language was indecipherable. The one who wore a sunhat which obscured her eyes was honking at me especially. “Hreeeonk” she said,  pointing at me, over and over again. “Hreeeonk! Hreeeonk!”

The only consistency I could make out in their language is that whenever they spoke to the sunglasses leader, they would make the same double gagging sound. “Guack-Guack.”

And so, imprisoned in the backseat of my brain, I mentally started to make notes. 

• The leader I will call ‘GG’.
• My name is … ‘Hreeeonk’ ?

***

As we swerved through a busier commercial district, GG slowed her driving, in fact, everyone in the minivan became quiet and started scanning the surroundings.

The car pulled over a curb, near a preacher who was proselytizing by a rack of pamphlets. He might have been a Mormon or a Jehovah's witness.

GG stepped out first, followed by what I would call her right hand loyalist— a woman who perpetually wore a violet scarf. 

From the crack of my window, I watched GG and Violet introduce themselves as fellow evangelicals. They said we were all going to a public prayer, and that we could use more preachers outside to attract attendees.

“That's very kind of you to invite me,” The man said. “ But I'm used to just sticking to my corner here.”

They insisted, and said it was all for the greater good, but the man still politely declined. 

“You should know something,” GG said, and took off her sunglasses. Something in her eyes had the man absolutely captivated. 

“We are angels. Sent by God.”

There was a pause. The preacher continued to stare without blinking. “You're … what?”

“And we're having a congregation.”

The car's windows rolled down, revealing our six woman crew. At this point I should mention that before I became bodysnatched (and even before I became a mom), I was a fashion model for many years.

In fact, all of these possessed women looked like idyllic models, with their long shiny hair and unblemished faces. We were basically a postcard for Sephora.

“You … “ The preacher gawked at all of us. “ You're angels?”

He didn't object when Violet grabbed his rack of brochures, and placed it in the trunk. And he also didn't object when GG led him into the passenger seat in front of me.

The car doors closed and we were off again in seconds. 

“So does this mean the end times are near?” He was visibly stunned. Laughing.

Violet, who sat beside me, secured a gold ring along her finger. A dart-like needle protruded from it.

“Something like that.”

She slinked an elbow over his shoulder and stabbed the ring into his neck.

“Ow! Hey! What’re you? What is that?”

Violet pulled away. “What? This? It’s Bulgari. Off Sak’s on Ventura.”

“Why does it burn?” The man clasped his wound, patting it as if it were on fire.  “Ahh! AAAAAAHHHH!”

After a few squirms and moans, he fell completely limp. All the women honked an aggressive nasal sound. A celebration. The Thing Controlling Me joined in, honking at full volume.

***

The abandoned hotel they inhabited was somewhere between Los Angeles and Bakersfield. It was hard to be precise because my eyes weren't always looking out the window.

“Let me give you the grand tour,” Violet said, or at least that's what I assume the seal-like barking coming from her mouth meant.

The foyer was filled with flats upon flats of energy drinks. Monster, Red Bull, Rockstar, and dozens of other brands that all looked the same.

Our bedrooms looked all like normal hotel bedrooms. Except there were massive locks on the outside handles.

Violet also gave me a peek at the rooftop balcony patio—where I wish I could have averted my gaze, or closed my eyes, instead of staring right at the pile.

There were about two dozen bodies. Each one lifeless, each one dressed in very nice clothes, their ‘’Sunday best”. The preacher was dumped to the back half of the pile. The side with all the priests.

It reeked bad as some of the corpses were clearly decomposing, but The Thing Controlling Me wasn’t bothered by the smell.

Violet laughed her goose-honk laugh and took me downstairs.

***

It was in the dining room where everyone stood in a circle, awaiting my arrival. 

Formerly, this must have been a space where they held buffets and parties, but now it was just a completely bare room with energy drinks and glass pipes on the floor. 

GG came up and handed me a four-pack of Guinness tall cans. The Thing Controlling Me proceeded to guzzle each one.

For the first time, my conscious state became fuzzy—the jet lag and sleep deprivation was finally catching up. I slowly brought myself to the floor.

The rest of them smiled and honked as my hands curled beneath my head. I fell asleep.

***

A kick to the stomach woke me up. I rolled away and grimaced, staring at the black Prada heels worn by GG.

It was a full minute of reflexive dodging before I realized that it was now me who was crawling and sniveling.  The real me. I was moving my own limbs and shielding my face. I was shriveling up in a corner and screaming like a maniac.

“Please! Let me go! Please!!”

Somehow, when Thing Controlling Me fell asleep, I was able to take command again.

The honking entities surrounded my corner and nudged another frightened young woman towards me. I had never noticed her before because she had worn that massive sun hat that whole day.

It was Shula.

I was so caught off guard, I barely realized that I had control over my speech too.

 “... Shula?”

She used to work at the same modeling agency as me, and we often booked the same gigs because our skin tones were complementary. We even did a big eyeliner commercial for MAC once.

“You have to do everything … exactly as I say …”  Shula’s MAC eyeshadow now streamed down her cheeks.

She looked as sorrowful as I felt. 

“If you don’t listen  … they’ll only hurt us more.”

I stood up in my corner, eyeing the four other possessed humans. Their pupils were all dilated, probing me with intensity. 

“What? What do you mean?” I asked.

Shula’s head hung low. “This is your initiation. They want us to fight.”

“Fight?”

She stood up with reluctance and rolled back the sleeves of her oversized sweater. “We are going to have to make it look like I beat you up.”

“What? No. No no Shula. I’m not fighting you.”

“It’s not up to us. You have to do it.”

I wasn’t about to fight in some perverted boxing match. So I decided to run. I tried to bolt to my left, past Violet who was watching Shula. 

But the entity’s reflexes were too quick.

Violet seized my wrist and hurled me against the back of the room.

I slammed into a vinyl counter, breaking a nail, but miraculously, not my skull. By the time I stood up, the circle of women had surrounded me again.

“There’s no escape, Simone.” Shula curled both her fists...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1gnfn38/something_possessed_my_body_at_30000_feet/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Saturdead on 2024-11-09 17:02:12+00:00.

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[1] – [2] – [3] - [4] - [5] - [6] - [7]

Nick and I had to isolate ourselves. Not only because we had to stay up for 72 hours straight, but because we were scared we might spread what we had to others. Neither of us knew what this SORE thing might do to us, but if 72 hours of being awake was what was necessary to keep us and others from getting sick, we were gonna do it.

Luckily, the weekend was just around the corner. A couple of us had Memorial Day off. Nick managed to get a hold of Reggie, who could cover his shift in return for Nick taking a shift on Independence Day. Fair deal. So with a three-day weekend, we had our work cut out for us.

Caffeine was a given, but Nick also had to get some heavier stuff. The kinda thing that gets your heart racing to levesl it shouldn’t. I’m not gonna go into detail, but we needed a serious push to get past those last few hours. Remember; both of us had already been up for a full day when we first got exposed to this thing, so we were looking at almost four whole days, and no preparation.

 

We made the best of it. We played games, we ate takeout, we set new records on Nick’s old Guitar Hero games that he dug out of storage. The plastic guitars were a bit stiff and sun-yellowed, but they worked just fine most of the time. The green button would get a bit stuck though.

We went for walks, we took turns taking cold showers, we had a spontaneous karaoke thing going on in the living room… anything we could to keep the ball rolling and our eyes open. Sometimes I’d almost fall asleep standing up. Just leaning against a wall was bad enough. My knees would lock into place, and my body would slump a little. That’s when Nick would shake me back to life.

I had to get him a couple of times too. He once laid down face first on the couch, and I immediately flipped it over; almost wrecking his coffee table as he came tumbling down. It was stupid, but we had to be stupid to make it through this.

 

We’d been up for over 40 hours, and neither of us were making sense. We were out for a walk, hearing the frogs croak in the distance. The sun had just set, but we could still see the light peeking over the horizon. We tried to keep a good pace, but we could both feel it; we were slowing down. I had to keep us focused on something, so I brought up the first thing that came to mind.

“Your wife left you for a Salt Lake City stripper?”

“Yup,” Nick nodded. “Had the biceps and the stomach thing and all of it.”

“They still together?”

“What? No,” he laughed. “They were never together. But she tried, you know.”

“I’m not following.”

“She went for the guy. She called me up, said it was over, and went for the guy in this big, romantic hullabaloo.”

“And he blew her off?”

“He was gay,” Nick shrugged. “So it wasn’t really like that.”

 

Nick looked up, as if counting the stars. He sighed. The bags under his eyes looked darker than usual.

“I guess when you’ve seen the greener grass, everything else starts to look gross, right?”

“You ain’t gross, Nick. You’re just another kind of grass. Sorta… bluegrass, you know?”

“Bluegrass,” he chuckled. “I like that. Bluegrass kinda guy.”

 

Those last few hours, we ended up watching re-runs if Family Matters and chugging Four Loko. I had the Swedish Fish flavor. Nick knew a guy with boxes of the stuff. It was vile, but we had to get over those last few hours. Nick was pacing back and forth but was tired enough to almost fall over.

“Done,” Nick slurred. “I’m… I’m done. It’s just… it’s two hours.”

“You can do two hours,” I assured him. “You can do it.”

“I’m gonna go stick my head in the freezer.”

He did just as he said and stuck his head in the freezer. I was trying to keep up with the Winslows and their goofy adventures, but it was hard to pay attention. I had to fill in the blanks a lot, and it didn’t make a lot of sense. I barely registered the strange colors on-screen as Steve Urkel.

“You know what we can do?” Nick said. “We can… we can prep.”

“What do you mean?”

“We can … make it comfortable. I’m gonna make my bed with all new stuff, you can crash out here. And we get like… tea. And… ice water, for when we wake up. And I get, like… scented candles. And we put on whale song, and-“

“And we sleep like goddamn… royalty,” I added. “Right?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, getting more enthusiastic. “Yeah, that!”

 

So we got to work. Nick prepped his bed, and I went to his car to get a couple of extra blankets for the couch. Problem was, those were really soft blankets, and there was something about the back seat of his car that calmed me. Maybe the smell and feel of the synthetic leather. So I crawled in the back seat. There was a cold wind blowing, so I closed the door. And in that silence, I figured… what’s one hour? It’d just be an hour. Would that really be so bad?

And so, I crashed in the back seat of his car.

 

I was out for 14 hours. Nick got about 12. I woke up with a massive headache, but the ice water that Nick had prepped helped a little. I’d made us a couple of sandwiches. I thanked the past-us for thinking ahead, as the two of us prepped for work. By all metrics, we ought to have been fine. 72 hours had passed. Nick drove me to work – my car was still back at my place.

The conversation dulled as I chugged a full bottle of ice water, pouring the last few drops on my face. Nick looked like he’d been trampled by some kind of depressed parade. Even his hair looked tired.

“We’re not doing that again, “ I said.

“No, we’re not,” Nick agreed. “So we’re… we’re dropping this.”

I didn’t answer. I had pulled Nick into some bad shit one time too many. And yeah, the ends justify the means. I was looking for this lost girl, and I’d stumbled upon the very thing that got her lost in the first place. Nick looked over at me and sighed. He took a moment to choose his words.

“I get it,” he finally said. “You wanted to help. You still do. But let’s just… let’s think about it. Let’s be careful.”

“If you want me to back off, you gotta promise me something, Nick.”

He rolled his eyes, then looked at me. I wasn’t joking, and he could tell. With a sigh, he nodded.

“You gotta promise me that if you pick up any lead, whatsoever, on Adam’s missing girl – you’re telling me. You can call the shots, but there’s gotta be shots to call. I’m not the only one here to serve and protect, right?”

Nick tasted the words, throwing a glance in the rear-view mirror.

“Alright,” he said. “Deal.”

 

It took us a full work week to get back on our feet. My sleep schedule was a joke. One night I’d be in bed by six, another night I couldn’t sleep at all. I’d zone out at work, missing a word every now and then, much like I’d missed the story beats on Family Matters. I’d lag behind a bit, trying to piece together the context and make it make sense.

As I slowly got my routine back in order, May rolled into June. We started getting some proper heat. People were talking about a dry season, with no hint of rain for a long time to come. They weren’t wrong; there wouldn’t be a drop of water for two and a half weeks.

Midway through June, I was back on patrol duty. Charlie and Reggie were back to covering dispatch. Nick and I were on the same team, courtesy of a thankfully short conversation with sheriff Mason. I got the impression that the DUC were backing off – like some kind of situation had sort of resolved itself, seemingly.

 

I was on my way home from a particularly rough shift. A couple of tourists had tried to shoplift from the local grocery store. After resisting arrest and racking up two counts of obstruction, they managed to fail themselves all the way into a felony charge. Hysterical people were part of the job, but they were a shitty part of the job. But yeah, Tomskog doesn’t have a lot of those. It was nice to have something regular to do, for once.

Coming home from that shift, I felt like things were getting back to normal. The first drops of rain spattered against the hood of my car as I pulled into the driveway of my house. The moment I stepped outside, it felt like bliss.

The water was cooling. Reassuring, in a way. Like Mother Earth was whispering to me that things were gonna be okay. I just stopped for a second, put down my groceries, and basked in it. I found myself with my arms outstretched, and my mouth wide open – just drinking it all in.

I stood there for 35 minutes.

 

I’m not gonna lie, that was worrisome. Up until that point, I’d been fine. Could that one hour of SORE linger in your system that long? Could that be what caused it?

I tried to rationalize it, thinking I was overreacting. But in Tomskog, there’s no such thing as overreacting. If anything, people tended to shove life-threatening bullshit under the rug way too fast; myself included. So just to make sure, I gave Nick a call, explaining what I’d done.

“Yeah, that’s a symptom,” he said. “But I think some folks would just sort of stop at that, especially at the ass-end of things.”

“So it could mean that’s the last of...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1gnekus/where_the_bad_cops_go_part_7/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/ezekiel_h_graves on 2024-11-09 12:05:52+00:00.

---

I log into the video call, like I do every week, joining faces that appear one by one on the screen, each set of eyes weighed down by shadows I know all too well. We’re all here for similar reasons—each of us dealing with something knotted inside, wounds that go back further than any of us want to remember. The therapist tries to get us talking, to break the ice and help us make sense of it all. So, every week, we share a “Rose” and a “Thorn”: one small moment of light, and one thing that’s still holding us down.

Most weeks, I keep it simple. My rose is always something like “I got out of bed every day.” And my thorn? Well, I usually just say, “I’m still here,” and leave it at that. They don’t push for more, and I can see it in their eyes—these people know what it’s like to wrestle with things you don’t want to talk about.

One Thursday, after our call, I decide to tackle my garden. My therapist suggested that working with my hands could be good for me, maybe help me feel more in control. So, I find myself out there, staring down the wild rose bushes that have been growing untouched in the yard, twisting over themselves with dark, thorny branches. The garden almost feels like a mirror—overgrown, tangled, clawing.

I grab the shears and start hacking away. As I reach for a particularly twisted branch, a thorn lunges out, slicing into my wrist, deep and fast. It takes me a second to even register the pain, but when I do, it’s like a jolt of ice running up my arm. Blood starts to seep down, thick and dark, and I stumble back, heart pounding. The thorn glints in the fading light, cruel and sharp, as if it’s mocking me.

The next morning, I’m drawn back to the garden with this strange, sinking feeling. And there it is—the thorn I’d cut yesterday, standing tall again, curling toward me like it had never been touched. My wrist starts throbbing beneath the bandage, the pain twisting in rhythm with my pulse. I grab the shears, hands shaking, and clip the thorn again, watching it drop to the ground. But as I turn to leave, a chill settles over me, deep and bone-cold.

That night, I sink into an uneasy sleep, and then the dream begins.

I’m back in my garden, only it’s grown into this dark, endless forest, with thick, twisting shadows stretching out toward me. The thorny vines wrap around my legs, coiling up my arms, each thorn digging deeper into my skin. I try to move, but I can’t. I’m rooted in place as they tighten, winding around my bones, piercing through flesh, leaving searing, jagged trails. I try to scream, but nothing comes out—only this low, chilling whisper.

Just before I’m pulled into the earth, I hear it clearly: “Sometimes the thorns we cut away are the ones that refuse to ever leave.”

I jolt awake, gasping, my heart hammering in my chest. I look down, and there it is—my wrist, bleeding again, the cut fresh and raw, as if I’d never bandaged it. In the mirror, my face is pale, and my eyes look darker, sunken. The whisper from my dream echoes in my mind, sinking in, like those thorns had taken root beneath my skin.

When the next video call comes around, I can barely speak. My voice trembles as I force out my rose: “I made it through the week.” But when it’s time to share my thorn, my throat tightens. My fingers brush over the fresh bandage on my wrist.

“There’s… something in my garden,” I say, barely above a whisper. “A thorn that won’t stay gone. Every time I cut it back, it comes back sharper. It cuts me deeper.” Silence settles over the call, and I can feel the tension in their faces. Some look away, eyes flickering with worry, but my therapist just watches me, her face shadowed.

“Sometimes,” she says softly, “it’s the thorns we cut back that grow the deepest.”

That night, I dream again, and this time it’s darker, sharper. I’m back in that endless, twisted forest, with thorns reaching up toward a blood-red sky. I look down, horrified, as thorny vines start to push up through my skin, curling around my arms, piercing me from the inside out. The whisper comes again, louder this time, filling my mind, consuming me.

“Sometimes the thorns we cut away are the ones that refuse to ever leave.”

I wake up to find my wrist bleeding again, the wound cutting through scars that barely had time to heal. Outside, the garden looms dark and wild, each thorn glinting in the morning light, reaching as if it knows. I realize, in that moment, I’ll never try to cut them again.

As I close my laptop after the next call, the whisper comes one last time, creeping through the silence like a voice I know too well:

“Some thorns are yours forever.”

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Important-Victory-25 on 2024-11-09 07:27:20+00:00.

---

It’s been one year since my sister Evelyn vanished. One year of dead ends, empty searches, and a silence that eats at me. People say you’re supposed to move on, but that’s impossible when there’s no closure, no answers—when it feels like she’s still out there somewhere, waiting for me to find her.

 

She disappeared near a hidden lake deep in the woods outside our town, Laketon. The place is called Mirror Pool. Even the name makes people tense up; locals have whispered about that lake for as long as I can remember. No one ever really explains why, just mutters things like, “Never go there alone,” or “Don’t look too long into the water.” You’d think it was a myth to scare kids, but Evelyn… she became obsessed with it. She was never one to ignore something so curious and forbidden.

 

I remember her standing in front of that lake, watching the water as though it had answers she needed, something she couldn’t put into words. And then, just like that, she was gone.

 

The police searched every inch of Mirror Pool and the surrounding forest. They dragged the lake, combed through the woods… but it was like she’d been erased. Not a single trace. No footprints, no clothing, not even a broken branch to suggest where she might have gone. Just… gone.

 

The only thing left behind was her journal. I found it under her mattress a week after she vanished, buried beneath her usual mess of books and drawings. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it. Evelyn was private, and something about prying into her thoughts felt wrong. But desperation does strange things to you. So, one night, I opened it, hoping maybe she’d left some kind of clue.

 

Most of the journal was typical Evelyn—sketches, story ideas, observations about people she’d seen around town. But then I reached the last few pages, and things took a darker turn. Her writing became frantic, almost erratic, like she was on the edge of something, teetering between fascination and fear. She wrote about Mirror Pool with an intensity that left me chilled.

 

There was one line in particular that I can’t shake, no matter how hard I try:

 

“The water… I saw something in it, something that looked just like me but wasn’t. It was smiling, and I know I wasn’t smiling.”

 

I’ve read that sentence a hundred times, feeling a chill creep down my spine every time. It’s as if Evelyn saw something in that lake that she couldn’t unsee, something that took hold of her in a way that scared even her. And yet… she kept going back.

 

Days turned into weeks, then months. People stopped talking about Evelyn, and life in Laketon went on as if she’d never existed. But for me, her absence is like a hole in my chest, an ache that never goes away. And that one sentence from her journal—it lingers, clawing at the edges of my mind, making me feel like there’s something more out there, something I have to understand.

 

I told myself I’d stay away, that I’d let the past stay buried. But on the anniversary of her disappearance, something snapped. I needed to know. I couldn’t keep living with these questions, these half-imagined horrors. I had to see Mirror Pool for myself. I had to know what had drawn her in, what she saw in those waters.

 

The hike to Mirror Pool is longer than I remember. The path twists and winds through dense forest, the trees thickening as if they’re trying to keep me out. The sun is setting, casting long shadows that stretch like fingers across the ground, and the air grows colder with each step, an unnatural chill that settles deep in my bones. I tell myself it’s just nerves, just fear messing with my head, but part of me can’t shake the feeling that something in these woods is watching me.

 

When I finally reach the clearing, I stop short. Mirror Pool lies ahead, nestled between dark trees, its surface unnaturally still. It doesn’t look like water at all, more like a sheet of black glass reflecting the bruised sky above. There’s something… wrong about it, a presence in the air that makes my skin prickle. I can’t explain it, but it’s as if the lake is alive, aware, watching me just as intently as I’m watching it.

 

I take a step closer, then another, feeling the weight of the silence pressing down on me. The only sound is my own breathing, quick and shallow, as I approach the water’s edge. I stare into the lake, and my reflection stares back—pale, tired, hollow-eyed. But there’s something else, something I can’t quite place.

 

Then, slowly, my reflection changes. The corners of its mouth twitch, curling up into a smile. It’s a small, subtle thing, but I feel my stomach drop. Because I know I’m not smiling. My face is blank, expressionless, but she is grinning back at me with a look that’s both familiar and wrong, as though there’s something lurking behind those eyes that isn’t me.

 

I stagger back, my heart hammering in my chest, and the reflection vanishes. The water is still again, a perfect, unbroken mirror. I tell myself it was just a trick of the light, my mind playing games, but there’s a tightness in my chest, a feeling that I’m being pulled into something dark and terrible.

 

As I turn to leave, I hear it—a faint whisper, so soft I almost miss it. But it’s unmistakable, a voice that sounds like mine, but twisted and hollow.

 

“Come back,” it murmurs. “Stay with me.”

 

The words send ice through my veins. I glance back at the lake, but the water is silent, unmoving. I try to shake it off, tell myself it’s just my imagination, but as I make my way back through the woods, the whisper lingers, following me like a shadow, repeating over and over in my mind.

 

“Come back. Stay with me.”

 

I make it home, barely able to catch my breath, and collapse into bed, telling myself that it was just a dream, a trick of the mind. But as I lie there in the darkness, I can’t shake the feeling that something is waiting for me. That something saw me in that lake, something that’s calling to me with my own voice, waiting patiently for the moment I look back.

 

And I know, deep down, that this is only the beginning.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Clairelenia on 2024-11-09 05:03:13+00:00.

---

A few months ago i was taking the usual walk around the lake of my town, which takes around 2 hours and leads also through some really nice neighborhoods aswell. I was listening to my classical music, drifting away in my thoughts and i was starting to relax after a long day while passing a house where something was drawing my attention.

In the yard of this house there was a big mirror leaning onto a tree with the sign "free to take" taped onto it's front.

It was a really pretty mirror with the frame encased in black leather, in absolute flawless condition. I was looking at it and was asking myself why anybody would ever wanna get rid of that beautiful mirror and continued with my walk.

But i could not get the mirror out of my head anymore. It would fit just perfectly into my apartment; the style, the shape and the size were just perfect and were calling for me that i should take it home!

So, after around half an hour later i turned around, i was now even jogging back to this house, and thank goodness, the mirror was still there! I picked it up and dragged the surprisingly heavy thing back home, where i even had the perfect spot for it on hand: right in my living room across the couch between two white dressers topped out with smooth and elegant, dark-brown walnut wood.

I was really happy and could not believe my luck. I was searching exactly for something like that as decoration!

But after a while strange things were happening, now when i think of it afterwards... in the first few weeks i was always unconsciously looking at the mirror when i was passing it. Every single time. It was on the side of my living room, never directly in my path, but i always turned my head into it's direction and looked straight into the mirror when i was passing by.

Then, at some evenings, i was even sitting down in front of the mirror and just staring into it. 1, 2 or 3 minutes at first, which became often 5 or even 10 minutes or even more after a while. It was just such a pretty mirror and i could not stop looking into it, it had some draw to it that i could not explain and it let me drift off deeply into my thoughts and inner self.

But something was changing; inside of me, but also the energy/vibes of my apartment. It felt off, which I could not tell at first.

One day my best friend was visiting me and he also had his dog with him. A beautiful, black and very friendly Labrador. She was very kind and wholesome and never started any trouble with any other dogs or humans; and she loved to cuddle, too! But at this day when she was entering my living room, she started to get afraid and tucked her tail away.

When she passed the mirror, she suddenly started to growl at it. I never ever have heard her growling before, it really set my best friend and myself off. My best friend then asked where i got this mirror from, because he never saw it before and I told him that I found it for free on the street in another neighborhood.

He said he did not like it and it felt off to him, aswell as the whole story. Such things usually only happen in horror movies and i should never ever have touched the mirror, rather bringing it home into my apartment!

And somehow he was right, i now also felt that something was off about this mirror and i got really cautious/afraid of it. I never looked at it again when passing it and i also never sat in front of it again, aswell.

Suddenly a few days later i started to get nightmares. People, or rather "Entities" were talking to me, following me around in my dreams. Often they were people from my past, my deceased Grandma or people from school or even my Ma and Aunt. But they were never truly like the real person i know/knew. Often i also did not see them directly in my dreams and they were just talking to me from behind, but i knew they were there and were watching over me.

When this voice/person was my Grandma in my dreams, i was especially happy, because i missed her so much. She died in 2020 cause of cancer and it was a pretty agonizing way for her to go. In my dreams I could talk to her and she always asked how i was doing. To see her again or even to hold her in my arms again was a very emotional experience. But something was a bit off; her face was always a bit blurry and she often would not answer my questions or talk to me incomprehensible or in changing tones.

After a while I realized that these were just dreams and one night, when i told my Grandma that this is just a dream and that she had died a few years ago and she was not real and just a memory anymore, things became uncomfortable.

She got really angry and screamed at me and the location, a previous apartment where i lived in my childhood with my Mum and my Grandma together, turned all of a sudden dark/cold and this dreamworld was cracking apart.

I was shaken by fear and suddenly somebody was calling my name louder and louder until i woke up in panic, drenched in sweat and shivering to the bone. I went up to go to the bathroom and at this night i felt very paranoid and like something was watching me. That was a really scary experience.

It was awful, and now i was sure that i have indeed brought something else into my life when I was picking up that mirror and that i have to get rid of it ASAP!

The next day I went to the mirror to pick it up when i was seeing everywhere black dust on the floor below of it. I was wiping my hand across the black leather frame and my whole hand was covered in this black dust, which had an awful smell of sulphur or burnt wood. When i picked it up a few weeks ago, this dust was definitely not there. No idea where this dust was coming from, so i went to the bathroom to get a wet towel to clean it up, before I threw the whole thing out.

But when I was entering the bathroom, suddenly there was this loud bump followed by a shattering noise ... the mirror tipped over and fell onto the floor, shattering into a dozen or so large, long and shimmering shards.

That was it; i picked up the frame and threw it into a container at the back of my house. But when picking up the last shards, one of them lacerated the back of my thumb and turned it open into a 2 inch long, gaping cut. I put a towel around of it and threw the shards in the trash bins outside, afterwards I tended to the cut with disinfectant and had to call my doctor, who sent me to the hospital for stitching up the finger. What a mess.

6 months are now past since i threw out the mirror and since i got the cut on my thumb. It took more than a month to heal and now i have a huge scar there as permanent memory for the rest of my life. Aswell as all the other horrible dreams/memories, aswell.

I really hope this mirror got shredded apart and nobody else had to deal with it anymore. The cute and friendly Dog of my best friend was also visiting me again and she was not afraid and did not growl at anything in my apartment anymore. And i also never had any nightmares of my family/friends or deceased Grandma anymore, thankfully.

Never pick up any random furniture that you find for free in the streets. Who knows the backstory of this item.

You could maybe bring something else into your home with it, too.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/mallratserf on 2024-11-08 12:33:50+00:00.

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I believe we should just jump right into this story. This all began two years ago, when I was still posted up north and lived close to the mountains. Five-thirty in the morning, we get a shepherd boy come down to the station saying he “found a witch engaged in some sort of blood ritual”. Now I’d been posted at this station, in this small town located up in the mountains for a while now, and I knew how the locals were. I cannot count on my fingers the amount of times we’d get a call at the station reporting some sort of paranormal activity, when it was usually just some small animal scuttering in the night. The locals were a superstitious folk. Urban legends ran amuck in the town – from the haunted woods to the abandoned bank to the “DogMan”. But after the events that would unfold that night, perhaps they were right to be that way. There was something in those mountains even if I didn't believe any of it. Still, we had to do our due diligence and investigate the call regardless.

Six-thirty or so we reach the site of this supposed ritual and in reality it was a ghastly, tragic sight. A young woman, somewhere in her early-twenties, who’d lost her life to herself. Wide and deep slits ran down both her forearms like half closed eyes, letting the blood drain, stain her hands in its ghastly deep velvet red. Surprisingly however, she looked at rest. Her gentle arms softly set on the grass, her posture as though she were only sleeping, her lips curled in a soft satisfied smile. But her gaze, oh her gaze, I can’t ever forget those deep, piercing green eyes, illuminated by the sun as it was just climbing over the mountains, gazing straight through me. Though she was not more than just a child – early twenties is practically infanthood when you're forty-five – her eyes told a different story; of a life that had seen a great deal before somehow ending up here.

The case could’ve been dismissed as a tragic loss of a life still in its infancy if it wasn’t for two key details. Firstly, none of the locals recognised her and if anything, she looked to be a foreigner, somehow in this small town up in the north. Secondly, the woman was completely naked. This complicated things. Was this a case of sex trafficking? Did someone take advantage of this woman and left her here to die, setting it up to look like a suicide? There were no signs of struggle visible on her body, we had to investigate it anyway.

First thing we did was cover up her body and sent her off with the paramedics for an autopsy, and we got to investigating the locals and finding out the identity of the woman. In the time it took for us to investigate the locals to no success, they all had sound alibis, the preliminary autopsy report came through about twenty-four hours later, quenching our fears. All signs, in the initial report at least, indicated that this was not the work of some crazy sexual deviant on the loose. The report basically outlined that all signs pointed to this being a suicide (which was good news, for me atleast, since it meant less work for me) but it led to even stranger revelations in the case. Long story short, the woman could not be identified.

In the upcoming weeks, as the toxicology reports and the more detailed autopsy report came through, it confirmed that this was in fact a suicide. There was no poison, or any drugs detected in her system and the cause of death was determined to be suicide by blood loss. While this was all good, we still could not identify her. The woman had no fingerprints, as if they’d been burned off. No employers, or family, or friends came looking for her. We couldn’t find anything – no passports, no properties, no dental records, no medical records at all in fact. The strangest thing however, was that we could not even determine her nationality. We looked into every nook and corner one can possibly imagine and still came up empty handed. It was as though as far as the world was concerned, this woman didn’t exist.

Yet she did. There she was in our town with an ongoing investigation on her. Posters went up everywhere yet to no avail, no one came to find her. At last she had to be buried in an unmarked grave on state property. Grave number 201, that’s where she found her eternal resting place.

In the upcoming weeks we would go from the officers down at the station talking about the mystery woman, making up theories about her identity, talking about how her “tits were out to the wind when they found her” and how “some freak probably trafficked her all the way here and left her here to die”, to complete radio silence regarding her. The rains came down and washed away the posters, washing away her memory alongside.

But I didn’t stop investigating. I, along with some of my closest buddies at the station, officers I trusted the most; we kept our investigation going in secrecy. This was, yes I’ll agree, simply because the mystery captivated me and I wanted to reach some kind of conclusion regarding her story.

My buddies, however, got tired of it all. Of coming up empty handed all the time and so after a year of this, I called off the investigation. I don’t blame them for being disheartened and losing interest in the case, it was going nowhere and I knew it. And so time does what it does best and another year passed.

All this now brings us to the present day, two years have now gone by since the day we found the woman yet she won’t leave my mind. I’ve gone and visited her grave twice now: on the day she was buried and on her first burial anniversary, last year. In these two years the superiors talked amongst themselves and I’ve been promoted and soon I’ll be down south, in some other station. I’d be lying to you if I said this didn’t bum me out; I’ve grown accustomed to the cold of the north and the thought of the warmer, tropical south feels alien to me now.

Last week on this day was supposed to be my last day at that station, which was also coincidentally the day of her second burial anniversary. The morning after that I was supposed to leave and then the morning after that I would’ve reached my new place of employment – they were sending me far away from this tiny town I’d grown in love with. None of that happened because of the events that ended up unfolding that day.

On that day, I went and grabbed some drinks with some people from the station and my best friend, let’s call him N for his and my own privacy's sake. We reminisced about the past, laughed at a few old inside jokes. I asked him about the missus and he told me she’s doing just fine, with a baby on the way. Things were going great, hearty laughs, red cheeks and friendly banter, until I brought up the case of the mystery woman. A strange look of unfamiliarity swept across his face. He gazed at me with suspicion and asked what the hell was I on about. Well sure, it’d been two years since that day but that doesn't mean you just forget about a case as interesting as that, right? I started going into the details of the case and his brow only burrowed further upon this new information and he asked if I’d drank too much. This frustrated me because how can one possibly completely forget about such a case. Hell, we worked on it together in secrecy for a whole year.

Something was wrong. I called V over and asked him about the mystery woman and the same look of unfamiliarity and suspicion swept across his face. They were both looking at me like I was crazy. I called the others over, I was screaming now and they were all looking at me with those same eyes that said “did he finally snap? Has he actually gone insane this time?” Hell maybe I had. How could none of them possibly remember?

But when N grabbed me by the shoulders and told me I’d had too much to drink was the final straw for me. I wasn’t gonna have them thinking I was some crazy drunkard doing what drunkards do best; ramble. I made my way for the storage where we kept all the files, sure they might have forgotten but the files should still be there. I pulled up the files. Scanned through them meticulously and I found nothing and I started questioning if maybe I had actually had too much to drink.

This couldn’t be happening, I was certain her files were kept in the drawer I was checking yet they were nowhere to be found. I went through all the files all over again and again but they weren’t there. Somewhere in the middle of my mental spiral N came down and tried to drag me away but I pushed him back. I wasn’t going to be made a fool of. I still had one last piece of evidence left of her existence – the posters. The posters, physical ones, were all gone now obviously but I still had a copy of the posters left on my phone. So I took it out and I scanned through the files, went back two years ago around the time where we would’ve put up the posters and there she was looking straight at me.

I pushed my phone up against N’s eyes, showing him the poster. I wasn’t crazy, I wasn’t making shit up you see?? Look at this poster right here, this isn’t some tall tale, the evidence is right in front of you! I was yelling like a maniac by this point and I’ll admit it maybe I’d had too much to drink which perhaps contributed to this mental spiral. N’s eyes didn’t change though, he was still looking at me with those “you’re insane eyes”. He remained quiet for a while waiting for me to shut up. When I did, he simply asked me why I was showing him the calculator app. I looked back at my phone and he was right.

I don’t re...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/than_odium on 2024-11-07 21:22:51+00:00.

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Have you ever known true fear? No, I’m not talking about the heart palpitations you get when watching a scary film, or even the extreme discomfort that say a fear of heights or spiders may bring on. I’m talking about raw, unfiltered terror. If you haven’t then allow me to describe it to the best of my abilities. It’s like having a split personality, one side of you is paralysed, numb to everything around you, every sound muffled and distorted, even your own thoughts. On the other side of it your mind is simultaneously screaming at you, neurons firing in overdrive as it begs your nerves to release their death grip on your muscles and let you get away. I’ve experienced such a feeling once. I’d only known Katie for a few weeks but when I awoke at 3am to see her kneeling astride me on my bed, the painfully wide, manic grin that split her face bouncing as she gave those deep , earsplitting, inhuman giggles. Behind the kitchen knife raised over my chest, her gaze was locked onto mine, empty but for the cold, furious madness dancing within her almost glowing blue eyes. If my sister hadn’t shrieked from the doorway at the sight, snapping me out of it long enough to instinctively punch the distracted girl in the face before throwing her to the floor and making a run for it, I know my life would have ended that night. It was pure luck that my little sister had fought with her parents earlier that day and begged to crash at mine for the night. Pure luck that she had woken to use the bathroom when she did and heard the giggles. Pure luck that I’m alive to write this now. However, what I’ve learnt over the past few days has taught me a valuable lesson.

I thought nothing would come close to the fear I felt that night, somehow, living through such an event made me feel stronger. Until I read those damned books. Until I started questioning my own mind, my own… sanity. I thanked my lucky stars every day since that I’d remained in the world of the living. Now though? Now I’m starting to think I’m the unlucky one…

Apologies because this is going to be long.

I first met Katie almost exactly four years ago. From the moment I laid eyes on her I felt this strong protective urge which made sense considering the circumstances. I was walking home from work on a Friday night following a blazing row with my boss that I was pretty sure would mean more job hunting in the near future. I’ve never been good at holding down employment. The weather reflected my mood, the cloying, gray clouds seemed to smother any light coming from the street lamps while the downpour of rain drenched my clothes leaving them clinging tightly to my defeated form. I hadn’t realised one of my shoes had suffered a tear until part way into my walk but the wet squelch every time my sodden right roof met the pavement was a constant reminder. I was only about five minutes from home, the bottle of whiskey in my cupboard mentally calling to me after my shitty day when I heard it. Barely audible over the raindrops thundering against the floor, there was sobbing. I slowed and looked around before I spotted her. Sat huddled against the wall in a small alleyway was a young woman. Her hands were clasped against her ears as if trying to block out the world while she rocked back and forth, uncontrollable sobs wracking her tiny, soaked body, strands of hair clinging to her cheeks matted with both rain, and the tears freely flowing from her eyes. She was pretty, even in the state she was in it was easy to see how attractive she was. That probably helped in my following decision. I like to think I’d have done the same for anyone but I often didn’t make the best choices in life and the way I’ve treated people has left me with plenty of regrets, I’m ashamed to say. Shaking some water from my hair (not that it made the slightest difference) I sighed quietly and walked over to her.

She didn’t notice my approach, between the palms clasped to her ears and the tightly shut eyes, I was all but invisible to her. It was only when I reached out and gently touched her arm did her soft, brown eyes spring open in surprise, looking like a startled animal debating whether or not to flee. I stepped back, hands raised in a peaceful gesture with what I’d hoped was a kind smile on my face. Her gaze remained firmly locked on me and I suddenly had doubts as I realised how out of my depth I was.

“Are… are you ok?” I’d asked, flinching as I finished upon realising what a stupid question it was. The girl regarded me for a few more seconds before shaking her head as fresh sobs began to bubble up. I wanted to run away, I wasn’t equipped to deal with this, this was so far out of my comfort zone that all I wanted was to be far, far away. But I didn’t. There was something about her, her frail, tiny build, looking even smaller in the curled up position. The kindness swimming behind the distraught veneer in her eyes. This was someone without a malicious bone in their body, to just abandon her like this would be human. “S-sorry, I don’t want to be rude but I want to help… I’m Will…” I trailed off helplessly. The ghost of a smile appeared on her lips if only for half a second.

“Katie,” she whispered back hoarsely after a few seconds, “and thank you, but I don’t think you can help.” Despite the situation, the warmth and authenticity of her tone made me glad I hadn’t run, increasing that protective instinct I felt towards her.

“Well, at least let me call you a taxi to get home, sitting out in this can’t be helpful, unless you’re a secret mermaid,” I tried to joke and cheer her up, instantly cringing at how decidedly unfunny it was. But she laughed, it was a short, weak laugh, I’m sure she was only doing it to be nice, or maybe she was laughing at the weakness of my humour but either way, it thrilled me to see that momentary cheer slipping through her devastated facade before she crumpled once more, whispering about how she couldn’t go back to that place, even the thought of it seemingly terrifying her. “I only live round the corner, if you want to at least get out of the rain I can fix you a coffee.” I mentally facepalmed as I said it. As if she would just accept an invite to someone’s house who up until two minutes ago she’d never laid eyes on.

“Ok..” she sniffed, a little warily, fixing me with those glistening, trusting orbs. In that moment I wanted to keep her safe from all the evils of the world, I hated the fact that such an innocent looking, trusting person could be in so much pain. I held out a hand and she gingerly took it, letting me help her to her feet. That was how I met Katie.

Upon returning to my house, she had slumped exhausted into a chair, gratefully accepting a towel while I muttered an embarrassed apology about the mess (which she waved away, of course) before going to flick the kettle on. It was only when she took the mug that I realised how badly she was shivering, she must have been outside for hours. The grateful smile I got after fetching her a blanket made my heart melt a little. I nearly dropped my mug when she explained the source of her misery. Her older brother had been found dead in a park that very morning. I remembered hearing of his death when I got to work, the latest in a string of vicious murders that had rocked the area over the past few months. The prevailing rumour had been that he’d been walking home drunk after a night out and passed out in a park bench only for his cold, mutilated corpse to be discovered by an unfortunate jogger early the next day. Upon telling me this, she had once again dissolved into helpless tears. Me, with my limited skills interacting with women, had decided the most comforting thing I could do was lean forward and gently pat her shoulder (yes I know, pathetic really). The tight hug she pulled me into as she sobbed into my chest filled me with a calming, blissful sensation I only ever experienced with her.

Throughout the evening I slowly got more information from her. She lived with her brother, at least she had, hence why she couldn’t face going home. After a couple of hours, I asked if she was hungry and offered to order a takeaway. Sure, I had food, but I didn’t think offering her a pot noodle was the best course of action. She’d smiled and nodded but insisted that she would cover the cost to thank me. I tried to disagree but she wouldn’t budge and that was how we ended up huddled beside each other, eating Chinese and watching Netflix within four hours of meeting each other. I offered her the spare room that night. My roommate had moved out about a week back so the room was empty, and it had a bolt on the door I reassured her. I could tell she didn’t want to be a burden but the exhaustion after her day had begun to get overwhelming so she agreed and thanked me with a peck on the cheek. Katie ended up staying with me all weekend and it was the happiest I'd been in a long time. Seeing her slowly coming out of her shell and gradually begin to smile more gave me an indescribable rush.

On the Sunday night she said she was ready to go home, but shyly asked if I could come with her. I agreed without hesitation. She had sobbed upon entering her apartment, despairing at seeing her brother's things that he’d never lay eyes on again. Once more, I comforted her and helped to calm her down. She begged me to stay the night with her and once again, my agreement came without delay. When she tiptoed into the living room at midnight, just as I ...

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Trash_Tia on 2024-11-08 21:54:42+00:00.

---

I'm currently completely at a loss what to do.

I (21f) have just escaped my parents, after finding something horrifying in my dad’s beach house.

I've always loved mermaids.

Yes, I was one of those kids obsessed with everything mermaid—whether that was TV shows, movies, books—any marine-related media, really, but mermaids especially.

I loved everything about the sea, about water, until I almost drowned on my fifth birthday.

So, with a newfound fear of even dipping my toes in the shallows, I became fascinated with fake water instead.

Mom called it a mental illness. (I can see where she was coming from, considering I asked for every pool or water-related game ever made.) But I was just a kid.

I preferred water to land, and even terrified of it, I still wanted to submerge myself in it, imagining a whole other world.

I barely remember almost drowning, only the contorting fear twisting inside me and swallowing me up, the inability to speak, my voice cruelly torn away, my breath stolen as I sank further into the abyss—also known as the deep end of our neighbor’s pool.

Mom said I didn’t realize it was that deep since I was used to our own pool.

There I was, sitting on the edge with my legs swinging and a plate of birthday cake in my hands, when I had the bright idea to show the adults how cute I was.

This is my mom’s retelling, so it's probably exaggerated, but apparently, I dropped headfirst into the pool, cake and all, and sank straight to the bottom.

Dad dove in after me, pulling me back to the surface, dragging me from the shallows.

But it was too late.

I was screaming, hysterical, backing away from the pool like it was filled with lava.

The crazy thing is, I remember this exact feeling. I remember staggering back, the ice-cold breeze tickling my cheeks feeling wrong compared to the warmth of the water that was supposed to protect me.

The ice cold concrete of my neighbor’s patio felt wrong.

Land felt wrong.

The water, that had almost killed me, felt right, and I could never understand why.

Instead of caressing me, this cruel underwater world had dragged me down, down, down, squeezing my lungs and stealing my air, crushing instead of cradling me. I avoided water and didn’t go near any pool after that, even ours; the very one I used to spend every spare hour splashing around in.

When Mom tried to bathe me, I insisted on the water being ankle-deep, with her using a cup to rinse my hair as I tilted my head back, squeezing my eyes shut.

According to Mom, I would scream until my throat was raw if there was too much water.

Even washing my hands and brushing my teeth, I remember timing the flow just right, so I could stick my toothbrush or soapy hands under, count three elephants, and then dive out of the bathroom. I flooded the floors on multiple occasions when I forgot to turn off the faucet.

But still, somehow, I was fascinated with water itself.

I loved how it was still, how it ran and trickled and filled my cupped hands….

According to Mom, I told my therapist I wanted to be a fish.

However, my therapist had a sort of resolution. She leaned forward and grabbed my hands, squeezing them tight.

“Okay, Sadie, well, if you're scared of real water, why don’t you try fake water?”

Which, I guess, is how my mermaid obsession started.

My therapist started me with little kids’ games about solving puzzles underwater—and immediately, I was hooked.

Through my fascination with digital water, I found mermaids—beautiful, human-like fish people who could breathe underwater, living in vast, towering cities deep, deep under the sea.

I watched every Little Mermaid, bingeing mermaid-themed movies and TV shows.

By the age of nine, I was fully convinced I was actually a mermaid, and touching water would magically transform my legs into a tail.

It didn’t, obviously, so I did what any supposedly mentally ill nine-year-old would do. I swallowed two teaspoons of salt mixed with tears of terror before sticking my head underwater for ten seconds.

Again, nothing happened.

But I was starting to slowly overcome my fear of being submerged in water, so I lowered myself onto the stairs in the shallow end of our pool and forced myself to get used to it.

I was still acclimating when my brother shoved my head under, quickly reminding me of that sensation—the squeezing of my chest, the inability to breathe, choking on bubbles exploding around me. After that, Dad insisted on teaching me how to swim.

Like me, he’d always been fascinated with water, so he refused to have a child who couldn’t swim. Before my older brother and I were even born, he enrolled us in lessons. Harvey was five years older than me, so he could already swim. Dad wanted to take me to the sea, though I was more comfortable in the pool.

However, my swimming classes were short-lived (I barely learned how to keep my head afloat) when Dad left in the middle of the night and never came back. But… neither did my brother.

I woke up around midnight to Mom hysterically crying. I discovered the next morning that Dad had taken my brother hookah diving without proper equipment, and Harvey was in the emergency room.

Initially, I was told my brother was very sick, which, obviously, I believed.

I was playing Sonic with my brother only yesterday! In my head, he was just sick in the hospital.

I spent the day expecting him to drag himself into my bedroom at any time, knock something over, call me a name, and run away. But the house was empty.

Mom didn't come out of her room.

Not even to take me to school. Instead, I watched Cartoon Network all day. I poked my head in my brother’s room, and it was a noticeable mess, clothes strewn everywhere and a half-packed suitcase.

When I asked to see Harvey a few days later, Mom told me he was dead.

Brain-dead, at least.

She explained it the best she could, choking on her own words.

Harvey had gone too deep, and when trying to resurface, his blood had bubbles and his brain had popped.

I don’t think she was mentally okay enough to explain to her nine-year-old daughter that her brother was dead.

Yeah, no, considering she used our soda stream and a grape to demonstrate the accident with a hysterical smile on her mouth, almost like she thought it was funny. I didn't find it funny.

Watching the bubbles in the water and my mother pop a grape between her index and thumb with a huge grin on her face was actually fucking traumatising.

I know people grieve in their own way. Even as a kid though, I was confused when my brother didn’t get a funeral.

Dad did come back, but only to try and justify his trip with Harvey. He said it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and that he was just doing what was best for his kids.

I already despised him for taking my brother away, but the way he talked about him, insisting that “Harvey loves the water!” made me want to scream.

He was wrong. While I was obsessed with water, my brother had steered away from it, especially the sea. Mom called him a psycho and threw him out.

Dad moved to the other side of town, and it was just Mom and me once again.

For a long time, I hated my father. I ignored his letters, calls, texts, and the mermaid figurines he sent me for my birthday. I didn’t understand grieving, and worse, post-grieving.

Did such a thing exist?

I understood that I was sad, and sometimes I was happy—before feeling guilty for catching myself smiling.

I missed him, so I got a diary. I wrote to my brother, telling him everything and nothing, sometimes just what I did that day, or telling him how mom was.

I started attending group therapy.

One girl said she forgave her father for killing her mother in a car crash but her words became entangled in my mind, frustrating me, bleeding into confusion and anger I couldn't control.

How could she forgive something like that? I asked her after, and she shrugged and said, “It wasn't his fault.”

“But it was my dad’s fault,” I told her, leaning forward in my chair. “He killed my brother.”

The girl, Mia, I think her name was (I could never read her name-tag– it was either Mia, or Mira) folded her arms, shooting me a glare. “Well, maybe you should forgive him.”

When I asked Mom in the car on the way home, she said the exact same thing.

“It was an accident, Sadie,” Mom said. “Your father took your brother diving, and he wasn't ready.” She averted her gaze, her hands tightening around the wheel. “Harvey asked him to take him out during a storm.”

Something ice cold trickled down my spine. “But you said—”

She said Harvey didn't want to go diving.

There wasn't a storm that night. I would have heard it.

She said my brother hated the ocean, and he wanted no part of it.

Mom’s eyes darkened, and she opened her mouth like she was going to speak, before changing the subject, flicking on the radio. “Do you want to get takeout tonight?”

I wanted to question her, but I didn't even know what to ask.

But then I was questioning my own memories.

Did Mom say what I remembered, or did I mishear her?

It took me a long time to realize maybe Harvey's death wasn't Dad’s fault after all.

After a while of therapy, and listening to other kids’ stories, I started to wonder if hating him was the right thing to do.

Mom was talking to him civilly, at least. The two of them met for coffee every Saturday, and Mom seemed like she had genuinely forgiven him.

The other kids asked me if my Mom was *ove...

---

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Hobosam21 on 2024-11-08 20:54:54+00:00.

---

I had people ask me about the journal I found on my last journey. I had no intention of sharing its contents because it’s author was not worthy of The Lot. But seeing as no one has the courage to join me for my next voyage to the new world I shall share the writings. Maybe it will inspire someone else to seek the treasure waiting us.

Here below is the contents of the book I obtained.

I’ve never been much of a writer. Never been much of anything really, I lived my life one ordinary day at a time.

I would say I was nearly an NPC. Weeks would go by without a change in my routine, I was living the life I thought I needed to. And it was a total waste, those dreams and ambitions are gone now.

I should probably start at the beginning. Damn that sounds cliché but I’m writing in pen and I’m not going to scribble it out. You would think I would plan out what I’m going to write, but that’s just not how I do things so instead you get my ramblings.

My name is Chuck, I’m a six foot one white guy who graduated middle of my class. I’ve been working a fairly dead end job as an online retailer for three years.

That all changed when I found myself in this pocket dimension. At least that’s what I’m assuming it is, I have no idea as to what’s going on but alternate universe seems like as good an explanation as any.

Like any other Tuesday or Thursday I was at the gym. When you sit for a living you have to keep moving in your off time. It was late, I had taken my sweet time showering.

I would kill for a shower right now.

So I walked out of the building, my mind on other things and I couldn’t seem to find my car.

And it was dark, there wasn’t a single street light or building within sight. I reasoned that the power must be out, I kept clicking my key fob.

My brain filled my ears with faint ringing in an attempt to comprehend the silence. Fear coursed through me, I knew something was horribly wrong.

But when I turned to run back into the gym I found myself looking out over an endless expanse of metal humps.

Every direction I turned showed more of the same. As animal instinct took over, I started to run.

I ran and I ran, there was no end. It wasn’t long before I collapsed, it was both impossible and undeniable. I was no longer in Boulder.

I screamed for help until my voice grew weak. I wandered back and forth looking for some glitch, some portal between worlds.

The sun rose on the first day, it’s light revealing just how absolutely screwed I was. I couldn’t see an end, cars stretched on for dozens of miles. Rolling hills covered in black top and vehicles.

The pattern was unbroken in every direction, an open lane, a car, a car and another open lane. No light poles, no flowerbeds. I almost felt dizzy, like my brain couldn’t comprehend the sheer vastness of this place.

Despite it’s familiar appearance it felt wrong, twisted and distorted. This place wasn’t good, I wasn’t meant to be here.

I had to shake away those thoughts on order to survive, if I focused on them I could imagine my body changing into something else. Something wrong.

I reasoned that my best shot at escaping was to remain as close to the beginning as possible. If I had accidently entered perhaps I could accidentally exit. It was a flawed yet comforting logic.

It only took a couple hours before I started to loot vehicles. After all, they were either not real, or the damage would lead to someone discovering me.

I even tried to hotwire a dozen or so vehicles, but without Google I was just blindly connecting wires. Only one started but then I could steer it. So I burnt it and pissed on its corpse.

I found myself growing accustom to the life of looting and vandalizing. There was this one time I had a chain reaction of burning cars get out of hand, but the fear made me feel alive again.

After a week I had exhausted the resources in the area, I had to move on to fresh pastures.

That’s when the first curve ball got me. After sleeping in a new area I remembered I had left a tool bag behind. I went to retrieve it but all the cars were in pristine condition. And they were different, my dozens of smashed and burnt cars were gone. Replaced by new vehicles

At the time I thought this meant infinite resources. It took a few more weeks for me to realize time moved forward. The cars didn’t spawn, not like I had thought.

Rather than rendering as I moved forward they appeared to have already been here. But at the same time it was like things hadn’t started to age until I arrived. At first this didn’t bother me, but I soon realized this meant fresh food would soon be spoiled.

I had found so many center consoles filled with rotten fruit but it took finding a moldy granola bar, my most common staple for me to worry about surviving.

The fun had left once I thought about starving to death. I needed to get out. It had been over a month and nothing positive had happened.

So I decided to push forward. I spent a long time figuring it out but I finally got an older GMC van to fire up. It took a ton of effort but I managed to break the steering lock. With all but the drivers seat removed I had plenty of room inside for supplies and sleeping.

I barreled between the cars at a reckless speed. Quite often pushing 90mph, the little humps became ramps that would send me into the air for a brief second.

I found myself thoroughly enjoying the drive. The near death moments just made me feel alive. That was until I clipped the back of a pickup that was poking out a little farther than expected.

The van spun with the impact and I felt myself leave the seat. Before I could react the van was flipping. At first sideways and then end over end.

It happened so fast I didn’t have a chance to register what was happening. I found my self sitting on the asphalt bleeding from a dozen small cuts. My van lay on top of a 90’s Thunderbird it’s wheels still spinning.

When the pain hit I knew what to do. No matter the distance traveled there was always a truck somewhere nearby that would undoubtedly have alcohol in it.

This time was no different. It took a full case of shitty beer to numb my injuries but at last I was able sleep.

I spent a good bit of time in that area. I hadn’t broken any bones but my entire body hurt. I took the time to carefully recover and to get in some exercise.

The food situation was getting worse but it was not lethal yet.

Two months into my journey I had visitors. I had strung my cobbled together hammock between two vehicles and was sleeping comfortably when something woke me.

I lay still listening, my instincts told me I wasn’t alone. Sure enough I soon heard the slap of hard flesh on asphalt.

Someone nearby was running barefoot. I sat up and came face to face with a grinning man. My eyes were drawn to his blackened teeth. Without warning he lunged forward.

The hammock spun under our combined weight sending him over me. I had barely gotten my feet under me when he turned. His face now bloodied from its impact with the ground.

He moved to grapple me but met my fist instead. I gasped in pain, I had never punched someone without gloves and head gear before. I should have held back a little.

The blow knocked the crazed man onto the ground again. He was spitting blood and growling in an uncivilized manner. Rather than let him gain his footing I kicked the back of his head.

And then I repeated that action until he lay still.

Breathing heavily I leaned against the nearest car. I looked around me, my blood ran cold.

There had to have been half a dozen people watching me. They were dirty, scarred and mostly nude. But most of all, they were hungry.

I could see it in their eyes. I was nothing more than a Christmas ham to them.

With their intent clear I slowly reached down, I managed to get my hand into my tool bag before the first pair sprinted towards me.

They were so quiet, the only sound they made was slapping of feet and the grinding of teeth.

My hand wrapped around the smooth handle of my 2.5 pound hammer. Taking a risk I grasped it firmly and pulled it from the bag. In a single movement I threw it at the nearest attacker.

My throw was good, the hammer nearly disappeared into the man’s forehead and he dropped instantly. Before I could grab the next tool the second man was on me.

I grabbed him and using his own momentum I tossed him over my hip into a nearby car. He struck it hard leaving a dent in the door.

But unlike his companion he was back on his feet in a flash. I managed to drop an elbow through his collar bone as he grappled me. With his left arm limp it was easy break free. I kick to the chest sent him tumbling over a car.

That was enough for him, he turned and ran into the night.

I spun around in case the others had decided to attack but I was once again alone. Save for the two bodies that lay motionless.

I grabbed my tool bag, retrieved my hammer and walked away.

That attack changed things, I traveled by night more often. At least when I had flashlights to see with. Those people returned a few more times, each time I was able to fend them off with my homemade weapons.

My walking stick now had a blade secured to the top. I also fashioned a short club and carried a knife in my belt. The weapons didn’t add much weight and were very effective on human flesh.

But my attackers grew more cunning. I noticed a change after a week, they went from barely human savages to more stealthy people with some clothing.

They di...

---

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/02321 on 2024-11-08 21:06:01+00:00.

---

This happened a few years ago. To be honest, I’m only now ready to get it all off my chest.  

It was Halloween and the parties were insane that night. The tips in leftover candy almost made working that night worth it. The last house of the night belonged to a person I hated. Actually, to the person I hated the most in the world.  

Back before I got into college, I did some dumb stuff. Or, mostly the group I hung around did some dumb stuff. We were bored without any cash to entertain ourselves. The one time we took it too far and broke into our high school at night to trash it. I hung back and mostly watched. I did doodle on some chalkboards and arranged the dead animals in jars from the science room around the school for people to find. I didn’t do that much damage, but I watched my friends cause trouble. I regret my teenage actions and have been trying since then to be a better person.   

Ken somehow found out about what we were going to do back then. He recorded the crime but did not hand it in to the police, but to use the footage for blackmail. If he emailed that recording to my college that was it. I would be kicked out. In all those years he only demanded free food from my jobs leaving me to foot the bill. It was entirely possible the recording wasn’t clear enough to build a case on, but I hadn’t wanted to take that risk.  

I wanted to put it all past me. I didn't even know why I let myself hang around people like that back then. That Halloween I decided I refused to be blackmailed any longer. I would confront Ken and make him pay for his own damn pizzas. 

I knocked on the door as hard as I could to be heard over the music. It took a while before someone answered. The costumes that night so far were all pretty creative. When I saw the one who opened the door it made me pause. His makeup was too damn good. It made my skin crawl in a way I didn’t expect. It was a simple costume and yet it worked. The one side of his face looked as if mushrooms were growing out of his cheek. His eyes were a dull blue as if he was a corpse. When he smiled it looked as if he wasn’t really looking at me but rather at something else no but him could see. This guy was mostly likely high as a kite.   

“There is a nice lady at the door.” He said over his shoulder to no one behind him. 

The music poured from the open doorway and I hesitated. I could just go inside and confront Ken, but didn’t want to do so if there was a crowd. From the sounds of it, there were at least a few people inside. I waited for someone else to come by for a few minutes. When there was no sign of that happening, I asked the man who answered the door if I could see Ken. He nodded stepping aside. Honestly, the guy was a bit of an airhead and I couldn’t help but like him. Even with that creepy costume. What on Earth was a guy like this doing at Ken’s place?  

I walked into the living room, the music getting louder. Scanning the room, I spotted my mortal enemy, and he noticed me at the same time. The party was just some loud music with a small crowd of his good-for-nothing friends all smoking and drinking. It made the room smell awful; I already had a headache. Ken walked over, his face hadn’t aged a day since high school.  He was tall and skinny. His front teeth were a bit too large for his mouth and his eyes were a bit too small and dark giving him a rat-like appearance. Rat Face was a nickname that stuck with people behind his back. He said something but I couldn’t head a damn thing over the music. We needed to step halfway through the hallway to talk.  

“I don’t see any pizzas in your hand.” He said with that rodent grin of his.  

“I don’t see any cash in yours.” I shot back arms crossed. 

He almost looked scared for a second someone was standing up to him. The mushroom guy from before was coming our way, not even aware of the fight that was about to happen. I didn’t think he was aware of much right then. Ken reached out to grab his wrist and pulled the guy in closer. From what I heard Ken didn’t care about anything when I came to partners. As long as he could get into someone’s pants, he was happy. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like any of this. The mushroom guy was barely present. Ken shouldn’t be around someone like that. Without any doubt, he would take advantage of this guy if I left them alone. Hell, I bet Ken was the one who loaded him up.  

“You need to get people high to get them to even touch you?” I said disgusted. “What’s his name? I’m getting him home and taking your pizzas with me if you don’t pay for them.”  

“Aw Gary, she’s being so mean. We even ordered them with extra mushrooms for you. He likes mushrooms in case you can’t tell.” Ken wasn’t taking my threats seriously.   

He let out a cackling laugh that got on my every nerve.   

“Gary, sweetie you can leave with me if you want. I’ll get you home.”  I offered hoping my voice got through to him.  

“He wants to stay. I didn’t even give him anything. He came like this. A nice little guy we stumbled into. He'll do anything you’ll ask. Like, anything. We wanted to see how far we can take those requests tonight, you know after we eat some pizza. Isn’t that right Gary?”  

I could have punched Ken’s little rat teeth out. I looked down at the mushroom-covered face expecting some sort of worried or confused expression. Gary simply smiled and nodded as if we were talking about the weather. Ken had to be lying that Gary wasn't drugged up. That far off look in his eyes simply wasn’t natural. I couldn't leave him here with other dirtbags like Ken. I reached out my hand to grab Gary, only to have Ken pull him in closer.  

“Pizzas for my new friend, please. Or do you think I only have one video of you? One of the girls owed me something and I got her to record a bunch of you changing back in school. If you don’t listen to me, that is going to be put on the internet before you can scream.”  

He was bluffing, he had to be. My face grew pale and my hands started to shake. No one would do something like that for him. I thought back to school of how many times I’d gotten changed after gym class. Thankfully I always went very quickly and never fully got undressed.   

“You know that shit is illegal right? You’ll-” I started and his squeaking laugh cut me off.  

“Do you know how hard that is to get taken down? And how many pervs will see it before you can even get one video removed? I can make it so it’s never leaked back to me. And it’s your word against mine! So run along and-”  

This time I cut him off. I punched him as hard as I could in his face. His nose gushing blood the moment I pulled my fist back. I was so sick and tired of his bullshit. He lived his entire life making up lies trying to make himself appear like a hot shot and I bought into it for too long. This bastard already took up far too much of my time thinking about him and dreading a video that might not even be real. Within seconds I lost all sense of reason. I got him on the ground and unloaded years of frustration into his face. And I soon realized this wasn’t all just for me. I’ve heard so many stories of him tormenting every person he ever comes across. How many girls had he recorded without their permission? If it was even just one, he deserved this beat down.   

He got some blows in. My nose also started to bleed and he was able to yank out some hair when he ripped off my hat. Overall, I was winning.  

A friend of his noticed what was going on. A set of hands lifted me from under my arms and I was dragged kicking and screaming out of the house. I swear if someone didn’t pry me off of Ken, I would have killed him. I was placed on the front porch to calm down. No one called the cops because they didn’t want that kind of attention.  

A while passed and I couldn’t bring myself to leave. I just sat, dabbing at my bleeding nose.  

The door opened and Gary came out with my hat and a red scarf. He handed me both.   

“It’s cold out. The scarf should help.” He said sitting beside me.   

His calm smile helped me settle down. I really didn’t want to leave him behind and was glad I got some punches into Ken for even considering taking advantage of this guy. I used the scarf to clean off some of the blood and put my hat back on.   

“Do you really understand what is going to happen to you if you stay? I can take you anywhere you want.” I should have just grabbed him and dragged him away.  

In the back of my mind, I was certain Ken really did have something on me and would drop it all online if I took away his new plaything. He might already have done it as revenge after getting his ass kicked. Gary paused to look off into the distance considering his choices. When he finally smiled again, I wanted to believe he would be alright.  

“I like making new friends. I’ll be fine. I'm tough, I won’t do anything I don’t want to do. I promise.”   

I chewed on the inside of my mouth still on the fence about leaving him. I would have pressed the matter if a car hadn’t pulled up next to mine. A friend of mine rushed out towards us, his face twisted in concern.   

“Aiden, what are you doing here?” I asked having no idea why he just arrived.  

We’ve known each other since high school. I’ve had a crush on him for years. One I never acted on always feeling as if he was way out of my league. He knew of Ken, but I didn’t think he knew where he lived.  

“One of the guys called me. Did you really get in a fight?” Aiden asked the moment he stoppe...

---

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Theeaglestrikes on 2024-11-08 18:51:01+00:00.

---

The second-worst mistake was arriving.

The worst mistake was leaving.

There’s a certain arrogance to human exploration. Driving the flag into the dirt first, as if that means a damn thing. Of course, I'm not entirely cynical. Charting the world is about more than greed and glory — it’s about overcoming that ancient fear of the unknown. Mapping every plot of land so there are no more hidden crevices to keep us up at night. Nonetheless, our endeavours are selfish. And we have, for many centuries, blindly considered ourselves superior. When discovering new land, we’ve never considered a haunting possibility.

That something other than man may have already staked a claim.

“Temper your expectations,” Dr Crenshaw, our expedition leader, warned loudly as we scaled the cliff-face of a thousand-metre-tall mountain.

I grunted whilst finding handholds and footholds in unreliable nooks. We were ascending no ordinary mountain. The rock-formed skyscraper jutted from the dirt like a square, or perhaps a squircle, poking out of a sorting cube’s hole. It was a flat-topped mound rising almost unnaturally out of the ground-level forest. A misshapen mountain sprouting bushy trees, like hairs from its level head. That old-growth rainforest, we hoped, would be untouched. We wanted to discover it before anyone else.

It was an inselberg — meaning “island mountain”. Such natural formations, which tower above flat land, are difficult to climb, on account of their near-vertical sides. That was why we doubted any early humans would have managed to reach the top of the berg. We were ecstatic to be the first explorers to tread on that sky-high soil. An undiscovered piece of land is a rarity in the twenty-first century.

It took nearly two hours to reach the mountaintop. Crenshaw was the first to disappear over the sharp edge. He crawled onto the grass, unclipped his carabiner, and gasped loudly — prompting Howard Williams, Rachel Garcia, and me to speed up a little, as we were eager to experience that momentous event for ourselves.

I was the second to cross the threshold and see the rainforest in reality, rather than a photograph. I pushed up from the grass with my palms, and my jaw fell as I stood. As I witnessed the splendour of the wooded ocean ahead. A canopy of leaves nearly entirely blocking out all sunlight, creating a sense of calm in the forest. A sense of peace that we were about to disturb.

This was a team of biologists and researchers who had spent years following in the footsteps of others. We did not stop to think. We were all enchanted by the possibility of doing something original. The possibility of making history.

“What do you think, Steph?” Howard asked, collecting our climbing equipment.

“It’s pretty,” I said, brushing mud and debris off my clothes.

He rolled his eyes. “I was hoping for something a little more, y’know, scientific.”

“And I was hoping for more than thirty seconds to conduct my research, Howard,” I teased.

He chuckled and replied, “That’s fair.”

“I’m eager to see this cave,” Rachel said.

Dr Crenshaw pointed ahead. “Well, if we push ahead, we’ll be in and out long before nightfall.”

“You seem confident,” Howard said. “Do you need a moment to get your bearings?”

“Not at all, Williams. I’ve been studying the aerial mappings religiously for the past month,” Dr Crenshaw said. “To the detriment of my health, I must admit.”

“Yes, it was a little disconcerting to have a yawning man climbing directly above me,” I pointed out. “But, after watching you work for so many weeks, I don’t doubt that you would be able to sleepwalk your way to this cave entrance.”

Our leader laughed, letting a glimpse of emotion loose. “I won’t argue with that, Smithson. Come on. Let’s get moving.”

Crenshaw was such a tightly-wound man. I was relieved to see him letting his muscles loosen. Letting himself enjoy something. He rarely looked joyous. His hunger to climb this inselberg in Mozambique was driven by necessity, not desire. It was an itch he simply had to scratch, no matter how apprehensive he felt.

He wasn’t a cold man. In fact, I’d always viewed him a little as a father figure. Stoic and silent, but layered. I wanted to help our leader. Wanted to ease some of his anxiety about the excursion. That was why I rushed through the tall, mopane trees of the forest, which formed a sun-obstructing canopy overhead. Rushed to catch up to Crenshaw. The man was twice my age, but barely broke a sweat. His pace was hard to match, so I settled for tagging along just behind him.

“This is a historical moment,” I breathlessly said.

Crenshaw grunted. “If…”

“If?” I repeated between heavy pants.

“If we haven’t been beaten,” he finished.

I shook my head. “We haven’t been beaten. I’m sure of it. We were the first to locate this forest with the aerial—”

“I’m not talking about recorded history,” Dr Crenshaw interrupted. “At some point, long ago, man may well have walked here.”

“How?” I asked. “The sides are so steep. So difficult to climb even with modern gear.”

“Sometimes,” the man began, slowing his stride, “things are difficult to see, Smithson.”

And then he stopped, causing me to almost bump into his back.

“Careful, Steph!” Rachel said, almost colliding with me. “What’s the hold-up, slow-poke?”

“We found it,” Dr Crenshaw whispered.

The leader stepped aside, allowing the rest of the team to see what he had found.

There was a hole in the dirt — the entrance to the cave. To a pocket within the mountain.

“I’ll unload the gear,” Howard said, starting to unzip his rucksack.

“No need,” Crenshaw replied, pointing his torch into the chasm. “Look.”

The four of us crept towards the edge of the cave entrance below our feet, and we followed the bright beam. It illuminated a walkway protruding from cave’s inner surface. A slope of rock hugging the wall and spiralling downwards.

Not a single member of the team spoke for the next thirty seconds. Our gazes traced every surface revealed by the beam. I did not know for certain, but I presumed the sloping walkway continued right to the bottom, as the torch did not illuminate the cave’s floor one hundred feet below.

Eventually, we all accepted the hole’s inescapable purpose.

“A stairwell,” Rachel whispered.

Crenshaw nodded. “Yes, Garcia. A stairwell.”

“So, we’re not the first,” Howard sighed. “All of that effort—”

“To find a long-lost remnant of our ancestors,” Dr Crenshaw finished, taking a tentative step onto the stone slide.

“That doesn’t seem like a good idea,” I said. “We have no idea how old it might be.”

“It’s more than a primitive staircase,” the leader announced, bouncing his boot soles on the sturdy slope. “It feels sturdy. Just imagine the advanced craftsmanship necessary to construct something like this, Smithson. Those ancient hands could’ve merely carved a tunnel into the cave’s wall, but the attached stones. Joined them together to form an intricate ramp. Imagine what marvels might lie below.”

Howard and Rachel followed their leader into the entrance, but I frowned and firmly stood my ground. “It doesn’t feel right. What kind of prehistoric civilisation would’ve been able to achieve this?”

None of my team members answered. And I realised, as they kept walking, that I would either have to follow or be left alone. Left in a forest which did not fill me with as much wonder as I had expected.

I chose to follow.

I hurried to catch up to my colleagues, hardly noticing that they had stopped walking. Had stopped to stare in awe at the wall.

“Careful!” I laughed, echoing Rachel’s earlier caution as I nearly bumped into her. “There’s no handrail up here.”

She pointed at the wall. “Look at this, Steph.”

I followed the light of Crenshaw’s torch to several lines of markings on the cave wall. The four of us moved closer to the symbols, with incremental waddles, as there was little room on the three-feet-wide slope. But moving nearer did nothing to answer burning questions. The marks, falling somewhere between drawings and hieroglyphs, became less discernible the closer I looked. It was as if the shapes were shifting. Endlessly restructuring.

I told myself, of course, that—

It’s just a trick of the light.

I felt silly, as I’d explored countless cave systems across the planet, and I’d never been afraid of the dark before. Never been afraid of the unexplained. But there was a secret in that place I knew we weren’t meant to learn. Something in my mind, or perhaps my very body, rejected the cave. Reacted violently, screeching at me to drag the four of us out of there.

Some small part of me, however, wouldn’t cooperate.

“You’re the expert,” Howard said to Crenshaw. “What is this?”

“It’s beautiful,” the leader answered in a faint whisper.

There was a detached expression on his face. An absent, unwilling nature to the way in which he raised a shaky hand towards the wall. Crenshaw was always detached, of course, but never like this. He was always lost in thought, but there no longer seemed to be anything behind the man’s teary eyes.

Get a hold of yourself, I berated myself. This is once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for your career. Do not fumble it.

“We should record this,” Rachel timidly suggested as our leader brushed his fingertips against the etchings. “Dr Crenshaw, I don’t think we should do that. We wouldn’t want to damage it.”

“Damage it?” Howard asked, before laughing. “It’s a stone etching that’s lasted for millennia. It’ll ...

---

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Necessary_Walrus1703 on 2024-11-08 14:11:22+00:00.

---

I don’t remember hearing it right away. I think, at first, I convinced myself it was nothing more than the natural sounds of an old house.

 Houses make noise, that a given—creaks, groans, the wind lashing against the windows, the floorboards

settling. That’s what I told myself when I first heard the dripping. 

But now, standing here in the basement, the sound dominated my senses. The steady drip of water hitting a

surface filled my head, growing louder with each passing moment.

I’ve followed it, searched for it, but no matter where I went, it remained just out of reach.

My eyes scan the aged stone walls of the basement, meticulously searching for the elusive source of the

disturbance.

But it wasn’t always like this. There was a time when this place felt like home—quaint and charming, a bit

rough around the edges sure, but full of potential.

Sarah and I had fallen in love with the house at first sight.

The realtor had given us a brief tour, and when we reached the basement, he quickly brushed past it,

barely mentioning the fact that it existed at all.

It seemed odd at the time, but we didn’t think much of it. Old basements are creepy; everyone knows that. 

Now I wish we had listened to our instincts. And I wish we had never set foot down here.

The dripping had started about two weeks after we had moved in. I remember Sarah complaining about it while we were eating breakfast one morning. 

"Adam, do you hear that?" she’d asked, her brow furrowed the way it always does when she’s

frustrated. "It’s driving me insane." 

I hadn’t noticed it until she pointed it out. And that’s when I heard it for the first time.

A faint, rhythmic drip was coming from somewhere beneath us. I dismissed it—probably a leaky pipe, I

thought. It’s an old house; these things happen, I reasoned.

That very night however, the sound, it seemed to get louder. As I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, I

could hear it clearly this time.

 drip… drip… drip… drip

It sounded close, too close.

I tried to block it out, but the more I focused on it, the louder it became.

Sarah turned over next to me, restless, and I knew she was hearing it too. I could sense the tension in the

air as she was trying her very best to ignore and sleep through it.

"Can you check it out tomorrow?" she finally whispered to me, her voice barely audible over the

steady drip. 

"Yeah, I’ll look into it," I replied, though I was already dreading the idea of going down into

the basement. Something about it felt off—like a cold weight settling over my

chest.

The next day, I made my way down the narrow stairs to the basement.

Boxes were still piled up against the walls, remnants from the move we hadn’t bothered to unpack yet. The

air smelled musty, like old earth and damp concrete. 

The dripping echoed all around me, but I couldn’t pinpoint its source.

The pipes along the ceiling looked fine—no signs of leaks or condensation. I checked the corners, the

floor, the walls.

Nothing.

I even crouched down near the floor drains, but they were bone dry. The sound seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. 

Frustrated, I climbed back upstairs and told Sarah I couldn’t find anything. She looked disappointed.

She somehow hoped I would come up with some sort of magic fix.

"You didn’t look hard enough," she said, her eyes dark with concern. "That sound is getting

louder."

And she wasn’t wrong.

Over the next few days, the dripping grew more insistent. It followed us from room to room, a constant,

maddening noise we couldn’t escape.

In a peculiar way, the dripping reminded me of those Chinese torture experiments I’d heard about on TV as a kid—where a person is secured in a fixed position, and water slowly drips onto the same spot on their forehead. Over time, the rhythmic dripping becomes psychologically distressing and physically uncomfortable, leading to anxiety, irritation, and even psychological breakdown, though this felt like a milder version.

And it wasn’t just the sound. The smell started shortly after—faint at first, like damp wood, but soon it became overpowering, rancid.

It clung to everything, seeping into the walls, the floors, our clothes. It chased us around like a shadow. The

whole thing was driving Sarah mad with rage.

I finally called a plumber, thinking it had to be a hidden leak, maybe a burst pipe we couldn’t see. 

But something strange thing happened when the plumber arrived at our doorstep.

 The dripping, it stopped the moment he set foot in the house.

He came, checked the entire house top to bottom, and found nothing. Not a single drop of water where it wasn’t supposed to be.

The rancid smell we had grown accustomed to, seemed to vanish in his presence too.

As we watched him go through every room, running his checks, we could hardly believe our senses. Sarah and I looked at each other perplexed.

"I don’t know what to tell you," he said finally, scratching his head. "Everything looks fine to

me. Are you sure it’s not just in your head?"

I wish it had been in our heads.

That night, the smell grew worse. Sarah was coughing, gagging from the stench, and I wasn’t doing much

better.

We couldn’t sleep, not with

that goddamn dripping and the rotten odor.

Desperate, I grabbed a flashlight and headed back down to the basement in the middle of the night,

determined to find the source. 

This time, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before.

In the farthest corner, behind a stack of old furniture the previous owners had left behind, there was something odd—a patch of the wall that looked different. The wood was older, splintering, almost as if it didn’t belong to

the rest of the foundation. That’s when I realized it was a fake wall. The dripping sound seemed to be coming from behind it.

I cleared away the furniture, my heart pounding. As I removed the last piece, I saw it—behind the wall was a sealed well, hidden away, as if someone had wanted it forgotten.

It was small, barely large enough to fit a person, with a rusted metal cover and bricks haphazardly piled around it as if someone had tried to seal it off quickly.

My stomach turned as the rancid smell hit me full force. I gagged, pulling my shirt over my nose, but I

couldn’t tear my eyes away. 

The dripping had stopped.

I called Sarah down to see it for herself, and her reaction was much like mine—horror and disgust. We debated

what to do, but the smell had become unbearable. We needed to open the well,

air it out, get rid of whatever was causing the stench. 

The moment I pried the cover off, a wave of cold air rushed out, thick and stale, like something had been

trapped down there for decades.

I peered inside, shining the flashlight into the well, but there was no water. It was dry—bone dry. 

That’s when I saw it.

Wet, slick footprints trailed up the stone walls from the bottom of the well. My heart skipped a beat. There

were only footprints and nothing else.

"What the hell is this?" Sarah whispered, her voice trembling.

"I don’t know," I replied, stepping back, my legs weak. "We need to seal it."

We hastily put the cover back on, but it was too late. The damage was done.

That night, the dripping returned—louder, more insistent. And this time it was followed by footprints as

well.

At first, they were subtle—small, damp marks near the basement stairs, as if someone had walked

through water.

But as the days passed, the footprints grew more frequent, larger, appearing where they shouldn’t: on the

walls, the ceiling, even in our bedroom. They materialized without warning and

slowly faded away, leaving us frozen in terror.

It felt like something invisible was living in our midst, casually keeping an eye on us at will.

I suggested to Sarah that maybe we should leave, but she refused. We had sunk all our life savings into this

place. Walking away was unthinkable.

"This is our home, Adam," she said, her voice firm. "We can figure this out. Give it a

few more days. We’ll get to the bottom of it."

I wanted to believe her. I wanted to think we could fix whatever was wrong. But all I could hear was

drip... drip... drip.

But what truly made me paranoid were the whispers.

It started during dinner. At first, faint—barely audible, like an echo.

 But soon, they grew louder, more distinct, as though voices were calling out from the depths of my

mind.

"Adam... whhhhherrree  arre  youuuuuuu..?," a raspy voice echoed in my head.

“Come down the stairs….. to the basement,”

“Open the lid and set me free Adam.”

“I am waiting…..”

I tried to brush it off, telling myself it was just stress.

But then I saw Sarah’s face go pale, her eyes darting away as panic consumed her. I knew at that instant that she heard it too.

Finally, I put my foot down and told her we were moving out. If it meant spending a few nights in a cheap

motel, so be it—we were leaving first thing in the morning. I didn’t care about the money anymore; I was ready to sell the place or even tear the house down to the ground if that’s what it took.

To my surprise, she didn’t fight me this time.

As I watched her lay down for bed that night, relief washed over me, and I fell into a fitful sleep.

But when I woke up in the middle of the night, she was gone. She wasn’t in the bathroom either. My heart

raced as I passed the kitchen and saw the baseme...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1gmjepd/we_moved_into_our_new_home_and_things_were_not/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/InformationRemote865 on 2024-11-08 02:11:58+00:00.

---

I used to think Mammoth Cave was just another adventure, a tick off our list. It was supposed to be fun, a weekend to explore the shadows with my best friends, to test our nerves in the endless dark. But somewhere down there, under miles of stone, something went wrong. Now, one of us is missing, and I swear… I can still hear him calling.

We’d been going for hours, our voices echoing through the tunnels, each one mocking the confidence we had when we started. There was me, Sam, and my friends Luke, Jared, and Ben. Ben was always the daring one, the first to wander ahead, the one who’d get us into trouble just to laugh it off. But when he didn’t come back, no one was laughing.

It’s strange. We retraced our steps, searched every crevice, calling his name until our voices scraped raw. Nothing. Just an endless silence, heavy and swallowing. And then… the faintest echo, like Ben’s voice, drifting from somewhere deep in the shadows.

Luke was the first to hear him calling. He stopped dead, his hand shooting up as we walked, telling us to listen. We froze, straining against the thick silence.

“Did you hear that?” he whispered, his voice barely louder than a breath. None of us had, but as we stood there, letting the silence settle around us, we heard it—a faint, distant call, almost swallowed by the stone around us.

It was Ben’s voice, unmistakably. He was calling out, the sound barely reaching us but bouncing off the cave walls in strange, warped echoes. The direction was wrong, though. The call wasn’t coming from where we’d last seen him—it was coming from one of the tunnels we hadn’t even traveled down. But maybe, somehow, the paths were connected. It wasn’t impossible for cave tunnels to intersect.

We were probably about two miles down at this point, so deep that the silence felt alive, closing in around us. The chill in the air seeped into our bones, and every breath echoed back like a reminder of how far we’d come. The walls felt tighter here, the space around us shrinking with each step.

Our lights cast shaky beams on the rough stone, cutting through just enough darkness to keep us moving. We’d packed extra batteries, sure, but even with the supplies, an uneasy feeling twisted in my gut. Still, leaving wasn’t an option. Ben was down there somewhere, and we couldn’t just abandon him in the dark.

We walked down a few hundred feet, calling out Ben’s name into the dark, then waiting in silence, hoping for any kind of response. The cave swallowed our voices, leaving only the faint drip of water somewhere far off. Then, after what felt like ages, we heard him.

It came from behind us.

“What the fuck?” Luke whispered, his voice tight and shaky, eyes darting back toward the path we’d just covered.

Jared, louder than any of us, shouted back, “Alright, Ben, you can stop messing with us now, man! This isn’t funny, bro!”

I wanted to believe it—that Ben was just messing with us, hiding in some shadowed nook and waiting to jump out. But as I stared into the empty tunnel behind us, a chill crept over me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow… it wasn’t really Ben.

We backtracked, our lights slicing through the shadows as we searched every inch of the area. We moved slowly, scouring every nook, every crack in the walls, but there wasn’t a single trace of Ben. Not a footprint, not even a scuff mark. He was just… gone.

Eventually, we returned to the central cavern, slumping down on the cold stone to catch our breath and regroup. I told the others what had been gnawing at me, the dread curling around my thoughts. But Luke was quick to brush it off.

“Oh, come on, man, you know Ben is just fucking with us,” he said, his tone forced, like he was trying to convince himself as much as me.

“Well, how did he end up back here, then, when he was down there before?” I shot back. “I’m telling you guys, something isn’t right.”

Before anyone could answer, Ben’s voice echoed again, faint but unmistakable. This time, it came from the tunnel we’d seen him go down first.

“C’mon, guys… this way,” his voice drifted down the rocky corridors, a lazy drawl that somehow felt… wrong.

Jared sprang to his feet, shouting down the tunnel, “Screw you, Ben! When I see you, I’m gonna beat the shit out of you!”

Then, we heard it—a low, chuckling laugh, the sound echoing, but from a completely different tunnel. Luke and Jared exchanged glances, the bravado draining from their faces. It was like the air had thickened, and now they felt it too. Something was off.

A chill crept over all of us, settling in our bones as Ben’s laughter faded into the shadows. We huddled together, whispering hurriedly about what to do. The idea of leaving came up quick, but Luke shut it down fast.

“We can’t just leave Ben down here, guys,” he insisted, voice firm but edged with unease.

Jared shook his head, glancing toward the distant exit. “I’m going. I’ll call the cops and tell them our friend’s missing. I’ll come back with a search party.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, honestly. Part of me felt relief at the thought of professionals with equipment and experience. But Luke wouldn’t budge, his jaw set, determination in his eyes. He wanted to keep looking, convinced that Ben was close, just around the next corner.

Jared didn’t wait for more argument. With a last look back, he took off down the path toward the exit, his flashlight bouncing along the walls until he was out of sight.

Luke and I stood there in silence, the weight of the decision hanging heavy between us. Eventually, we decided to search a little longer. Just a little longer, we told ourselves.

After Jared disappeared from sight, Luke and I ventured down the same tunnel Ben had vanished into. We called out, voices barely steady, and after a moment, Ben’s voice drifted back, faint and distorted, like it was caught in a slow echo. The sound seeped out of a dark, narrow crevice ahead, just wide enough for us to squeeze through.

We moved cautiously, each step slower than the last, feeling a prickling sensation on our necks, like unseen eyes were watching us from the shadows. The path bent sharply to the right, creating the illusion that it might loop back toward one of the other tunnels. Luke forced a chuckle. “See? He’s just messing with us…”

But as we rounded the corner, our lights caught something that made us stop dead. A jagged hole yawned open in the middle of the path, wide and deep, cutting off the tunnel. The space was too narrow to walk side by side, so I trailed behind Luke as he edged forward and aimed his flashlight down into the darkness below.

Luke went silent, his light fixed on something I couldn’t see. I waited, the quiet pressing in, until the tension grew unbearable. “What is it?” I whispered, trying to peer around him.

When he turned to me, his face was drained of color, eyes wide, lips parted like he couldn’t quite find the words. He swallowed, barely managing to get it out.

“He’s down there,” Luke said, his voice trembling.

My blood ran cold. “What do you mean?” I stammered, heart pounding against my ribs.

“He’s down there, Sam,” Luke whispered, voice cracking. “Dead…”

The words hit me like a punch. I stood there, numb with disbelief, until Luke grabbed my arm, his grip almost painful. “We have to get out of here,” he said, voice tight with terror.

Without another word, we turned and started back, moving fast but steady, our lights casting frantic beams along the rough stone walls. As we reached the tunnel that led back to the central cavern, another voice echoed through the darkness.

“Guys…”

Neither of us paused. We broke into a sprint, feet pounding against the ground, breaths ragged with panic. We didn’t care where it was coming from; we just wanted out.

In his haste, Luke stumbled over a jagged rock and fell hard, his flashlight skidding across the ground before shattering into pieces. I stopped, reaching down to pull him up, my light sweeping the walls as I moved. And that’s when I saw it—a figure, pale and naked, crouched at the far end of the tunnel, watching us with hollow, empty eyes. It looked almost human… but something was horribly, horribly wrong.

“Oh my god…” I muttered, my voice barely a whisper, trembling as I stared at the figure. Luke turned, catching sight of it, his face twisting in terror. He grabbed my arm, jolting me out of my daze.

“C’mon, Sam…” he urged, pulling me forward.

We didn’t look back, rushing through the darkness, desperate to put as much distance as possible between us and whatever that thing was. Every shadow felt like it was closing in on us, every echo stretching our nerves tighter.

As we reached the main tunnel that led out of the cave, we saw a figure lying on the ground ahead. Jared. He was sprawled face-down, motionless, his flashlight lying a few feet away, casting an eerie glow on the stone.

“Oh god…” I breathed, heart racing as we knelt beside him. He must’ve tripped, maybe knocked himself out in his rush to get out. But when we turned him over, the breath left my lungs.

His face was unrecognizable, crushed and bloody, as if something had beaten him down, over and over. The horror of it froze us in place, and I could barely think, only feel the cold grip of fear sinking deeper into my bones.

That’s when we heard it—a voice drifting from the shadows, but this time, it wasn’t Ben’s. It was Jared’s.

“C’mon, guys… this way…” the voice called, soft and taunting.

I swung my flashlight towar...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1gm7rvu/i_went_cave_exploring_with_some_friends_im_the/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Physical_Sky_8721 on 2024-11-08 02:04:18+00:00.

---

Until a couple of days ago, I was certain cell phones saved my life.  

Back in the before-times (I’m bringing out my old man voice here), we wrote so many things on paper:  Quick notes, directions, addresses, and most of all, shopping lists.  When used up, they mostly made it in the garbage bins since those were on many street corners.  

Even with the bins everywhere, some of these papers ended up on the ground. Sometimes they slipped out of our purses and pockets, other times they just missed the garbage.  There these papers would lie until a good Samaritan picked them up for garbage, or folks like my friend, J, and I picked them up. 

J and I enjoyed collecting these scraps of paper.  We loved figuring out the stories about the hidden lives of the people all around us through the hints in these pieces of paper.  We were fascinated to see what things people were buying.  Sometimes you would find a common theme around the list: “tomatoes, bell peppers, Italian seasoning, noodles” … the person is planning an Italian meal; “bread, lunch meat, cheese, juice, nuts” … someone planning their lunches.  

The fun ones had stars or underlined items emphasized, something that set those lists apart from all the rest.  If we were really lucky, my friend and I would find a short note or letter instead of the shopping lists.  Go near a school and you’d be more likely to find the special mom note: “Love you honey! Have a great day at school.”  Maybe it had the rare dad note: “You can never go hungry at a magical beach … not with all the Sand Witches around!”  These notes, though, could appear anywhere.  It was the special notes that we found just wandering the city that had the special appeal to us.  

For the two of us, this became a joyful hobby.  Lots of scraps of paper that we’d pick up and eventually recycle, so we were saving the planet as well.  It was harmless fun.  

Until it wasn't.

I still have the piece of paper that started everything off.  Below is everything it says:

“3/15/05 Groceries.  Sodas.  Waters.  Powerade.  Pizza.  Pasta Dinner.  Lasagna (party next week).  Chips (party next week).  Salsa (party next week).  Tomatoes.  Peppers.  Cayenne.  

I see you picking these up.”

I called my friend with the paper in my hand.  

“Umm, J.  Just found this on the ground.”

“That’s a cool one!”

“Yeah … cool.”

With just a quick phrase, we blew this off as just a list with a special note and moved on.  

A couple of weeks later, I got a call from J. 

“So, maybe that wasn’t just a cool note after all.”

“Huh?”

“That ‘I see you picking these up’ note.  Yeah, I don’t think that was just a cool note.  I found one too.  Starts out with a shopping list.  But then it ended with ‘I see you picking these up also.’”

J and I got together and compared the shopping lists.  The handwriting on the items was the same on each slip of paper.  The handwriting at the bottom was the same on both slips of paper too … but different from the handwriting of the items.  While technically we were invading the privacy of others (especially when those weren’t shopping lists lying on the ground), we were also picking up trash in public spaces.  This was the private lives folks didn’t mind leaving around town (or maybe it slipped out of their pockets, but still, in the public space).  These messages seemed … directed.  Like an invasion of OUR privacy.

“What do you think these mean?”

I shrugged.

“I guess we have our own special note now.”  J’s voice - if my memory is correct - lifted at the end of the sentence.

"I guess so.  Not sure I want it.”

“Me neither. "

Through the next weeks, we could see the effects of the cell phone’s advancement.  Cheaper and cheaper phones had cameras and texting was easier, so paper was less necessary.  Still, we found some slips here and there.  There was nothing out of the ordinary on those slips.  Not until the middle of the summer. 

“It says, ‘Why are you still picking these up?’”

“You got that one too?”

“Yeah.”

“Are we doing anything wrong?”

“Wrong?  What is wrong about picking up paper?  We’re cleaning up the sidewalk at the very least.”

“Right, right.”

December of 2005.  The loose paper is harder to find, but every slip now comes with a message from this thing that’s following us.  

“Ha!  Cleaning the planet.  Whatever you say.”  “This is what you had for dinner last night.”  “You two have predictable patterns.”

More details slipped into the notes.  Whatever was leaving them could hear and see us.  It commented on our clothing, our meals, even our sleep.  

The stalking became more obvious with the last few slips that we found.  

“Watched you snooze your alarm twice.”  “I have a knife.”  “Do you recognize these?” and some squares of our clothing.

The last slip we ever found happened when my friend and I were out together.  We passed a school and a piece of paper was lying on the sidewalk.  We looked at each other and debated on picking it up.  On the one hand, the possibility of a guardian’s note - the prize finds.  On the other hand … we didn’t want to know what the bottom would say.  The wind picked up a little and one of us stepped on the paper so it wouldn’t blow away.  

“I guess that means we’re picking it up.”

This slip of paper was only a special message to us.  This time, the coloring was off, a dried rust color.  The message was “I’m watching you right now.”

We ripped up the paper and found the nearest trash can.  

J and I took any of the papers we hadn’t yet recycled and we quickly made plans to burn them all, especially those with the strange directed notes.  We created a bonfire on the night of a full moon.  We threw whatever spices and plants we could find into the fire between notes.  J and I knew nothing (still don’t know anything) about demonology and exorcisms.  We just knew we needed a little nature and something cleansing between the notes.  

My friend and I hoped this would be the end of everything.

2007 brought the advent of the iPhone.  With that, the slips of paper were done.  

I hadn’t thought about these messages or the time my friend and I had this hobby for a while now.  Except I found a piece of paper in front of my car at a parking lot.  It was flipped written side up and all it said was: 

“I’m still watching you.”

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Nicky_XX on 2024-11-08 01:55:26+00:00.

---

I need to find DJ Erich Zann.  

Or, more specifically, the DJ formerly known as Erich Zann.  He’s changed his name; his Spotify and YouTube all his socials have been nuked.  He’s definitely left New York.  But he’s out there somewhere.  Making more of his strange, disynchronous, yet hypnotic music.  Building a new fanbase.  Luring them in, before… well, a repeat of what happened at The P***** in Bushwick.  

Twenty-nine people dead.  An electrical fire, the investigators claimed.  Faulty wiring.  You know how it is with these poorly-maintained, converted warehouses.  A fire, the local news repeated.  “Fire” was the story they were sticking to.  If anyone from the FBI or the CIA or any shadowy X Files agency knows any better, they aren’t saying anything at all.  

*****

A bartender buddy of mine, Andy, recommended me for the DJ Erich Zann gig.  

Dude you up to work a concert in Bushwick?  He’d texted me.  A guy called last night, said he found my business card.  But I’m already booked on the Lower East Side.  Pays $100 for the night, plus tips.  Really small gig, shouldn’t be much work.

I said I’d do it.  I recognized the address.  The P***** was an old warehouse at the ass-end of Bushwick, wedged into a corner between the Queens County border and the cemetery, surrounded by other abandoned warehouses - tagged up, with metal-roofed awnings and those huge roll-up doors you see on industrial properties.  The owners had re-wired and re-designed the inside, to be rented out for art shows, concerts, and club nights.  

Andy sent me a photo of the event’s promotional flier.  It was shiny black, with a childlike drawing of a stick-figure girl leading a huge, fluffy monster on a leash.  The design appeared cute at first glance, but the longer you looked at it, the more disturbing it became.  The monster's crudely-drawn human face was too large for its body.  Its toothy mouth seemed less a friendly smile than a threatening sneer.  DJ Erich Zann.  10pm. 

I spent some time internet-stalking DJ Erich Zann.  The guy played up the mystique, for sure.  I found only one photo of the DJ himself, and it wasn’t a particularly revealing one.  Just a man, in a Cthulhu mask and turtleneck, standing behind a sound board, with long sleeves and gloves on his hands.  

I clicked into his YouTube.

DJ Erich Zann, the profile read.  We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity.  

H.P. Lovecraft.  He’d also stolen his stage name from an H.P. Lovecraft story.  Adorable.

I hit play on a video titled Asenath #14.  25K views; 1,500 likes; comments disabled.

The music started slow and low, pounding bass over a hazy, barely-perceptible electronic rumble.  On the video screen, against an empty background, bits of white light swirled and exploded and pulled back together, then split into pulsating stars in primary colors.  A trilling instrumental melody stretched over the repetitive bass-line, rising and falling and shooting off into a million different directions, as the colorful stars on screen spun like pinwheels, light blending and shifting and modulating, before a frenetic piping overcame the instrumental tapestry…

“Wow!  FIFTY percent off!  Bill’s Better Secondhand Furniture post-Labor Day sale!”

I muted my laptop as an ad replaced the hypnotic EDM melody.  Asenath #14 had been really short.  

Except, it wasn’t.  Asenath #14 was 33 minutes, 45 seconds long.  

I frowned.  No way I’d listened to that song for over a half an hour.  

*****

I called the number Andy gave me; no one picked up.  So, around eight thirty, I walked from the train station to The P*****, down an alley to the back parking lot and employee entrance.  There was clearly something going on - I could hear the thud, thud, thud of electronic bass.  But, unlike every other time I’d worked the venue, there were no roadies trudging in and out with heavy equipment.  There were no people around at all.  

No cars in the back parking lot either, except for one camper van.  That, in and of itself, wouldn’t be surprising - plenty of touring musicians live out of vans.  But this one was odd because it was completely blacked out.  I’m not talking about tinted windows.  Someone had taken the effort to cover every spot where light might seep through with opaque, dull black material.  

Asshole’s committed to the aesthetic, I thought.

Even stranger, the rolling door of the loading dock was still closed and locked.  As was the employee door. There was a handwritten sign posted there: ABSOLUTELY NO ENTRY UNTIL 10PM.

My next thought was the one that, in a roundabout way, saved my life.

It went: screw that upside down, backwards and sideways.  

The promo fliers said the event started at 10:00.  Which meant, the moron who’d posted the sign assumed I’d be able to set up a full bar while dealing with a line full of guests wanting to get liqueured up before the show.  Lucky for me, I’d poured wine at a gallery popup at The P***** two weekends before.  And I’d forgotten to return the key.

The way The P***** is set up, the bar is in a separate, smaller backroom, connected to the showroom by a squat hallway.  The employee door opened into the backroom, where I found my crates of liquor already deposited on top of the bar.  The throbbing bass line I’d heard outside emanated from the showroom, rhythmic and looping.  I saw moving shadows.  I assumed the tech guys were all in there.  

I got to work organizing bottles as the last of the summer evening light faded to darkness, bass booming in my head, guiding my movements like a conductor.  An hour later, I had to pee.  I didn’t want to annoy the roadies, or piss off whoever didn’t want me in The P***** before ten, but the venue’s only bathrooms were in the showroom, and the building was isolated amongst a sea of empty warehouses, and my only other option was to whip it out in the parking lot.  

So I went.  At the end of the hallway, I froze.

There were figures setting up the stage, but they weren’t roadies.

They were pitch-black automatons shaped like naked, featureless, sexless humans; mannequins at the mall become animate.  Their skin looked the consistency of clay.  They moved fluidly, more organic than robotic.  There were six of them.  Each had arms and legs and, in lieu of a head, a cube-shaped protuberance emitting small peals of grey smoke as they lifted crates of lights and arranged amps on the main stage.

I yelped.  I backpedaled.  My foot caught on something; I stumbled, a weight gave way, and the music stopped.  I realized the looped bass-line had come from a laptop, plugged in on the floor.  I’d tripped over it.  I’d hit a button or two.  I’d killed the music.  

SLAM!  CRASH!

Metal framing was dropped.  The sound board hit the elevated stage with a hollow THUD!  Everything the claylike, pitch-black, humanoid faux-roadies had been carrying fell to the ground.

As the faux-roadies themselves melted, like butter in a pan, into gelatinous black puddles.

*****

After The P***** incident - after that night - I scoured the internet for people who knew DJ Erich Zann.  People who could explain to me who he actually was.  Or who he’d been before he was DJ Erich Zann.

He kinda just appeared on Spotify in 2021, one Redditor wrote.

I thought he was an AI, said another.  

Didn’t he die in a fire at his concert in Brooklyn?  Asked yet another.  I dunno, maybe start there?  His family must’ve said something.

His family - if they existed - hadn’t uttered a word.  I’d scoured the internet for an actual photograph of DJ Erich Zann, or even a recording of his voice, and came up with nothing.  

Finally, User Gregg87 direct messaged me.

DJ Erich Zann was my roommate, he wrote.  I’ll be in NYC next week for Tech Week.  I can tell you everything.  

*****

Gregg87 is a real guy, with a real name and a family and a life in Pasadena, California.  But for privacy purposes, I’ll refer to him here as, simply, Greg.  Greg is an aerospace engineer with a Master’s degree.  We met at a quiet coffee shop in Williamsburg.  He’d known DJ Erich Zann while they were both college students in the late two thousands. 

“James Hadley,” Greg told me.  “That’s his real name.”

James Hadley and Greg shared a Pasadena apartment, a few blocks from the university they both attended, during Greg’s senior year of college.  James, though a year younger, was already three years into a Ph.D. program in theoretical physics.  Their residential situation had been arranged by university student services; for half a semester, Greg said, it felt more like living with a skittish cat than another young adult.

James spent every minute he wasn’t on campus barricaded in his room, working through equations or practicing his electric violin with headphones in.  Whenever he inadvertently found himself in the same room with Greg, he’d lower his eyes and scurry away like a cockroach in the light.  

Greg felt sorry for him.  He made it his mission to befriend his reclusive roommate, approaching the task as one would set about domesticating a feral pet.  Greg stopped studying in his room; instead, he’d arrange himself on the couch in the common room, hook his laptop to the TV, and play old Star Trek episodes as background noise.  On the rare occasion James emerged from his room, Greg would invite him to sit and watch.  At first, James might linger for a few ...

---

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Connect-Committee-56 on 2024-11-06 18:14:06+00:00.

---

I was about twelve years old when I first took notice of my ‘condition’. I had lived in the middle of Philadelphia all my life up until that point, and I had no reason to consider the night sky nor could I if I wanted to for the ever-present light pollution bombarding my light receptors. That is, until I met my lifelong friend, Jared. About three weeks after my twelfth birthday in March of 2009, my father got a job with the National Forestry Service, which transferred my family across the country to a very small town just south of Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming.

The move wasn’t nearly as hard on me as some might expect from a kid of that age. Honestly, I hated Philadelphia. Where we lived, I seemingly could never get a wink of sleep due to the constant traffic, which made school days miserable for me. In fact, I was probably the happiest I had ever been the week my mom and dad announced the move.

By the beginning of Summer break, we had officially moved into our small, ranch-style house among the small community of about ten other houses called Shuever, Wyoming. That first day when we drove from the airport in Denver to the town, I had serious jet lag and slept most of the time. But when my mother finally eased me back to consciousness upon our arrival, my head spun at the vastness of the sight before me. I had never seen such an expanse of open land in my life, a land mute, deaf, and blind to the man-made jungle spread across the rest of the planet. It was perfect. More so than I could have known.

That same day Mrs. Wilkins, who lived next door, invited us over for lasagna, which made my stomach cramp after the ten straight hours of moving boxes, and we all gladly accepted and essentially left immediately. The Wilkins’ house was quite a bit like ours, and the rest of the community for that matter: a small rancher built from dark brown brick and gray-blue metal roofing. We were all greeted by her husband, who led us across the house, down the central hallway, and to the right where there stood a modest table prepared with a from-frozen lasagna, various sodas, and butter-garlic breadsticks. And already seated at the table was the Wilkins’ only child. The one who I would come to know as Jared. He was about two years younger than me and spent most of the time with his head down, trying to keep from drawing any attention to himself.

Honestly, not much happened at that table. The Wilkins were all noticeably quiet for most of the time. Not awkwardly so, but they were just not quite as outgoing as many of my friends from Philadelphia. It was a nice change of pace. After about half an hour, Mrs. Wilkins finally spoke up, “Jared, why don’t you show Tyler to your room? Maybe you can show him your telescopes!” Jared grinned meekly and motioned for me to follow him back down the hallway where his room was. At the end of the hallway to the left was an off-white painted door with a faded bronze knob that was not unlike many of the doors from my old school which had not been renovated since the eighties.

With some force, Jared opened the door and I was bombarded with vibrant shades of blue and white. His walls were covered with posters and signage from long-accomplished missions from NASA. There were at least two Apollo posters, and several others for Mercury, Gemini, and the shuttle programs. Diagonally across the room from his bed was an admittedly impressive display of five telescopes, ranging from two to ten inches in diameter. After taking a pause to fully appreciate what I was seeing, Jared spoke up for the first time, “So…uh…yeah. These are my telescopes…” He trailed off, naming models and numbers that meant nothing to me. I had never cared to know about space, but hearing the crescendo of passion in his voice actually began to pique my interest. “So…I’m guessing you go stargazing out here a lot?” I asked. He responded, “Yeah, at least once or sometimes twice a week depending on the weather. I try to keep track of relatively close objects to see if I can determine their paths. I have schoolwork to do tonight, but you can go out with me and my dad tomorrow night to see for yourself!” “Uh…yeah! Sure!” I replied, this was probably going to be my only friend for a long while, so I wasn’t going to pass up his offer. “We can meet at my house tomorrow night at 8:00 if that’s okay with you.”

“I’ll ask mom, but I should be able to do that.” I responded, somewhat off put by his sudden preparedness. I spent the rest of the evening listening to Jared Wilkins ramble on about his now very apparent hyper fixation, squeezing in the occasional question or passing comment. By the time I had been in his room for two hours straight, I started to regret my decision of taking up his offer to go stargazing, but ultimately decided it was for the best. By 9:00 that evening, my mother called me back to the other side of the house to thank our hosts for the meal and make plans for the next night’s excursion, which my parents both wholeheartedly agreed to, seeing my need for a friend in this new and quite empty place.

The next day was somewhat of a blur. More unpacking and organizing interspersed with quick breaks to eat. We all tried to keep our food consumption to a minimum, considering the nearest town with supplies was an hour-drive away, but my parents assured me that they would get more food once we were all unpacked. Before I knew it, it was time to go next door. I had expected that they would just take the telescopes to their backyard and watch from there, but instead, they had a Kawasaki Mule loaded down with all our viewing equipment, cameras, and sleeping bags.

Jared explained that they were planning to go to a place called Reiner’s Point where there was no light pollution whatsoever and that they were planning on spending the night there to see planets that only appear in the early morning hours. I still agreed and we made the ten mile drive across the mostly empty land which was flat at first, but swiftly began to incline when we entered a sudden band of fragrant pine trees. From there, we drove for two more especially grueling miles heading nearly straight up over boulders and downed trees, which ended up taking longer than the previous eight miles, and by the time we reached the plateau above, the sun was almost fully sunken.

Reiner’s Point, it turned out, was a corner roughly situated on the southwestern edge of the plateau that was slightly higher than the surrounding land. It appeared slightly burnt and smelled of old charcoal where they had camped many times before. Of course, they weren’t planning on starting another fire tonight, though. We busied ourselves setting up the telescopes, and I mainly just helped out by holding parts for the other two who obviously knew what they were doing. All the while, Jared and his father were making comments about objects that were becoming visible as the sky darkened and how they had moved positions throughout the year. Jared then tugged at my shirt and pointed roughly northeast, “You see? There’s Capella, about 40 degrees off from Polaris. Using that, we can find the Andromeda Galaxy through the telescope. Isn’t it awesome! Bet you never saw anything like this back in Pennsylvania.” I looked almost directly up to where he was pointing and squinted and shook my head and rapidly blinked. For some reason, I couldn’t see anything.

I thought that maybe my eyes hadn’t adjusted yet, or that somehow my eyes had been ruined by my lifetime of near constant light pollution. “I…I don’t see it.” I said hesitantly, trying not to sound stupid. Jared continued to point vigorously, “It’s right there. The brightest star in this direction…don’t you see?” “I…don’t see anything up there…it’s just black.” I said, and immediately Mr. Wilkins stopped what he was doing, adjusting the telescopes to the correct focus, and seemed to contemplate something, then glanced over at Jared, who’s eyes had seemed to freeze over for a few seconds. There was an awkward pause for another 30 seconds or so before Mr. Wilkins finally spoke up. “Do…you wear glasses, son?”

“No, I’ve never worn glasses in my life. I’ve always read fine and never had problems with seeing far away things.” I said, concluding that I should probably ask my parents to go see an eye doctor, if there was one to be found within 100 miles, if I couldn’t even see the stars. I don’t know…maybe the sudden onset of symptoms could indicate something more serious? Maybe I injured myself at some point during the move? As if to respond to my very thoughts, Mr. Wilkins spoke up again somewhat coldly, “There’s an eye doctor over in Casper. You should see if your parents can take you there. His practice is on the end of Grant Street, should be easy enough to find from there.”

I was admittedly confused by his imperative attitude when he said that. I could see just fine…at least, for the most part. It wasn’t that serious. I just continued squinting into the ink-blackness, desperately trying to make out anything. Eventually, I think I counted about two discernible points of light with maybe three others, although I was much less sure if they were actually there. I pointed to the two points I saw, “Actually…I think I can see two stars now, one right above us and one over to the north.” Jared explained, “Those two actually aren’t stars. That one right above us is Saturn…that one over there is Jupiter. That’s really all you can see?” I r...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Creative_Dust_1199 on 2024-11-07 22:27:49+00:00.

---

The first incident occurred a week ago, three days after the mirror arrived. I woke up at seven thirty in the morning to a chilling cold, so disabling I could barely get out of bed. You might think that’s just me being a dramatic teenager, but it was a cold like I’d never experienced before. It cut through the skin. I’ve visited cousins in Norway on Christmas holidays that were warmer.

My first thought was that the central heating hadn’t been turned on, which was strange in itself considering that's the first thing my mum does in the morning. She wakes up each day at six on the dot, so when I get up an hour and a half later the house is usually nice and toasty. I don’t expect her to do these things like some spoiled brat, if that’s what you’re thinking, she just does them because she’s a considerate mother.

Anyway, I assumed she had either slept through her alarm or that, for whatever reason, it had failed to go off. Jane Harris isn’t exactly the type of person to sleep through an alarm, so I decided it must be the latter.

Once I’d plucked up enough courage to confront the piercing cold, I headed for her bedroom. In the corridor, the wood flooring felt like ice beneath my bare feet, and I instantly regretted not putting my slippers on.

Her door was closed when I reached it, which was odd because she usually keeps it slightly ajar for the cat to go in and out throughout the night. I put my ear to the solid wood but heard nothing. I knocked twice.

No answer.

I knocked again, the added force stinging my knuckles.

Again, no answer.

At this point I was quite worried, and a vicious image suddenly entered my mind of my mother in some type of danger. Hastily, I opened the door.

However, when I entered the room, I saw that she wasn’t in danger at all. In fact, she wasn’t even asleep. She was sat in her chair, fully dressed, looking into the mirror.

‘Is everything okay mum?’ I asked.

At first she didn’t notice me, but after a few seconds she caught my reflection and smiled.

‘Hello darling,’ she said.

I flinched.

There was something about her voice. Something that sounded… off.

I could feel my guts suddenly churn, and the sensation of a deep pit opening in my chest overwhelmed me. Inhaling deeply, I tried to gather myself. And then it hit me.

I’d heard that voice before.

It must be the cold, I quickly realised, shaking my head. God knows how long mum had been sitting there wearing only her work clothes. She had probably caught the flu or something.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked again.

She didn’t answer.

‘Mum?’

I caught the hint of a frown in her mirror’s reflection, so I called out to her again, and this time she turned around to face me. For a moment it was like looking into the eyes of a stranger, and then she sprang to life.

‘Sorry,’ she said, colour suddenly rushing into her face. ‘Something must’ve come over me.’ She pulled herself up from her chair, looked around the room and frowned. ‘Gosh, isn’t it cold in here?’ she remarked.

The second incident happened yesterday.

I woke up in the middle of the night needing to pee, accosted by the same violent cold. On my way to the bathroom, with my slippers on this time, I heard a noise from the end of the corridor. It was coming from my mum’s room.

Curious, I detoured towards the noise, my ears alert. It was dark in the corridor, so I tried flicking the table lamp on, and almost knocked a framed picture off the wall. It was my parent’s old wedding photo, the only image of dad mum refuses to take down. I turned on the lamp, readjusted the picture and continued moving.

I reached the end of the corridor and perked my head around the corner. Again, mum’s door was closed, but I gathered she was awake from the thin glow beneath her door.

And from the noises.

They were louder now, and they were coming from her room.

I crept silently forward, edging towards the door, turning my head to listen.

It was a cry. Someone was in her room crying.

A chill ran down my spine like a bolt. I wanted to run away but my body propelled me forward, my hand reaching for the doorknob and twisting. I flung myself into her room.

The cold was like a tundra. My mum was sitting in front of the mirror, staring into her reflection, her nighty barely covering her thin shoulders. Her body was still but her mouth was open, and a deep cry, a man’s cry, flooded out of it. A cry I’d heard before, but not from her lips.

I screamed. I ran over to my mum and shook her. She remained still, completely unaware of my presence, her eyes hooked to the pair in the mirror. I reached beneath her arms and pulled her from the chair. Her body felt like the heaviest object in the world, and it took every inch of my strength to lift her. We both went crashing to the floor.

The crying ceased.

‘What the actual fuck mum?’ I said to her, still shaking. I helped her up off the floor, barely able to lift myself. Her face looked gaunt and frayed.

‘We need to get rid of that mirror,’ I told her.

She turned to face me, her eyes like hollowed shells. ‘Your dad wouldn’t like that,’ she said.

And that’s when I freaked out. My dad’s been missing for almost two years. As soon as she said that I left. I’m at my friend’s house right now. I don’t know how long I can stay here but at some point, I need to return home. I don’t know what to do.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Last-Article-2640 on 2024-11-07 20:20:24+00:00.

---

Hey nosleep. I’m Trish, I’ve lurked on this subreddit for a while now, reading everyone’s experiences and what not. I always was skeptical of them, until about a month ago. I’m in high school, junior year to be exact, and at homecoming something happened.

My best friend, Mary, was always a bit of a recluse. Even when we were five she would fake being sick just to stay at my house for the day. Even after our parents stopped talking to each other my dad would always let her stay the night despite his own issues with her parents. I never knew what happened between them, I don’t think I ever will after what happened.

Mary liked to prank people, a lot. She got in trouble with so many of our teachers because of her pranks. I remember this one day in our freshman year, she was pitching a scheme to me. She wanted to glitter bomb our homeroom teacher, ended up suspended for a day because of it.

I think that fueled her pranks, honestly I wish it never did. I wish she just stopped. I wish she didn’t get worse. She kept pranking our teachers, kept getting suspended and getting detentions. It got worse. I didn’t think anything of it when it happened, I was like a frog in a slowly boiling pot. I didn’t realize how bad it was until it was too late. How could I?

She stuck to her glitter bombs for a long time, it was harmless minus the mess. No one would think anything of it. I certainly didn’t. When she started taking interest in those more advanced glitter bombs I didn’t care. It was just glitter. In our sophomore year she started taking a mechanics class.

She was so excited about it. She’d rush to my house after school each day and have me make things with her. I didn’t fully get all of it, but Mary was so happy. Even when she started bringing car parts over I didn’t think anything of it.

One time she came over and slammed this car engine onto the coffee table, I nearly fell out of the couch at the slamming noise.

“Be careful, that’s an old table!” My dad called from the kitchen. He always avoided her when she came over.

“Sorry, Mr. Davidson!” Mary called back, before whipping her head over to me. She blew some of her black hair out of her face, smiling wide. “Guess how much I got this for!”

I sighed, moving to stand up. “There’s a dump right by your house, I know you got it from there.”

“Actually that closed, dangerous conditions or something I don’t know. Nah, Mrs. Forrest gave it to me!” Mary said. “Completely free of charge. She phrased it as a school project, but apparently it’s not exactly for a grade.”

“Not exactly?”

“She phrased it weirdly.” Mary shrugs.

“Ah. So what do you need to do to it?” I asked.

Mary beamed. “Clean it out, get rid of some dents and the rust.”

“That doesn’t sound fun.” I point out

“Doesn’t mean I can’t make it fun.” Mary retorted

I shrugged, not knowing how to reply to that. For the rest of the day Mary and I worked at it until she had to head home. I never liked working at car parts, but she loved it. Mary always loved the mechanical aspect of things. Maybe she should’ve been a suspect when things first started to happen.

Mrs. Forrest, Mary’s mechanics teacher, ended up hospitalized three months later. I never learned too many of the details, but I remember when the cops came to my door. They asked me if I knew her, knew anyone who had a grudge against her in her class, all of that. Apparently a fuse blew while she was grading a project, and she couldn’t remember which one went off.

Everyone knew it was some sort of foul play, but no one knew who it was. I never suspected Mary, and maybe it never was her, but everything else lined up so well. She just seemed so worried. She was my best friend, how could I suspect her? Why would I? Surely the police would figure it out and make an arrest, but they never did.

More incidents occurred, all to teachers. Mrs. Forrest was the only one who taught Mary, but all of them had a similar case. Something blew in their house, and their face became heavily scarred as a result.

After the fourth incident, Mary started acting weird. She became fixated on her face. Whenever she came over she’d pick and scratch at it. Her face became red and raw. My dad started to buy her face creams, and he even considered talking to her parents. I didn’t know why he worried so much. I didn’t know why then.

Once the school year ended, the incidents stopped. Mary became more aggressive to other students in our year, but never to me. Then junior year began. It was going to be our first year having a prom. We were gonna go together, as we always did with homecoming.

Even then, we still treated homecoming as serious as we could. We went dress shopping where we always did. It was this small store owned by Ms. Ellen and her grandkids. Ms. Ellen would always make the most intricate dresses, and we loved them.

We were looking through the store, every year Ms. Ellen would make something new and we were excited to see what it was. This time all of her dresses had some sort of bow motif. Mary found a sleeveless red dress with a large frilly skirt, the waist was wrapped with a black ribbon with a bow in the back. It was beautiful, and Mary looked beautiful in it when she tried it on. I ended up with a blue dress, it was the same design as Mary’s, but with a white ribbon instead.

Mary seemed blank that day, staring into space almost every minute. I wasn’t bothered, she always spaced out. Yet this was different. It was longer, and she seemed focused on whatever she was staring at. Once I saw her moving her jaw up and down, almost like a dummy being puppeteered to talk.

It was creepy, but maybe it was nothing. I ignored it. I ignored every sign until it was too late, until homecoming came and I saw what she became. Maybe if I noticed sooner, maybe if I said something, maybe she’d be ok.

Homecoming was the same as always, at first. I got there before Mary, sticking by the food table as I waited for her. Music was going, and it covered up the squeaking of shoes on the gym floor. It was dark, only being lit up with colored spot lights.

I was focused on the doors, and soon enough they opened. Into the gym stepped Mary. She was completely barefoot, dirt and grass sticking to her feet, her hair was barely brushed, draping down her masked face, yet her dress was perfect, having no stains or tears. It was almost like a doll you played with too much.

For some reason, I didn’t walk over to her. My feet were glued to the ground. She slowly moved her hand to her face, her fingernails looked sharp and like they were stained with something. Mary carefully removed her mask, hair falling to the side.

She didn’t have a face. It wasn’t there. I mean it was there but it just wasn’t. Instead of the red and raw skin, there wasn’t any skin at all. Instead rough, patchy, bleeding flesh. She tore off her own face.

A chaperone quickly went to check on her, while another took out his phone to presumably call an ambulance. Before the chaperone approaching her could even get a word out, Mary lunged at her. She was like an animal, tearing at the screaming chaperones face.

The homecoming turned to chaos. Some braver students attempted to shove Mary away, only to get stabbed by the knife she wielded. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it at first. Many ran, the chaperone calling 911 got through. I’m still convinced that’s why so many survived. I doubt we would have without him. Mary got off of the chaperone she had mauled, and began to charge at whoever she could. She stabbed, she tore, she fought. Mary was like an animal. I didn’t run like so many others. No one tried to get me.

Soon enough, Mary and I were the only breathing things in that room. Bodies littered the ground, their faces all bloodied or gone. Mary limped forward towards me, I guess someone got a lucky hit. She tilted her head, hazel eyes shining in the remaining lights.

I finally managed to convince my body to cooperate, taking a step backwards. “Mary..?” I began slowly.

She let out an animalistic grunt, the muscles around her eyes contracting in what I could only assume was a smile.

For some reason, she didn’t seem like a threat to me. Don’t get me wrong, I was terrified, but I just knew she wouldn’t hurt me. Somehow I knew. I didn’t step closer, I wasn’t stupid, but when she got right in my face I didn’t step away.

She reached a hand up to my hair, tracing through it. Her fingers twirled through the blonde and her muscles contracted in that smile. Her fingers were sharp, almost like claws. I’m not sure what happened, I don’t think I’ll ever know what happened.

When the sirens approached, Mary jerked away from me and ran. Police rushed into the gym, and when they saw me as the only living thing there they took me away and wrapped me in a shock blanket. It wasn’t cold, but the heavy and uncomfortable fabric soothed me. I told the police what I saw, and when the other survivors confirmed the story the police got off my back.

There weren’t too many causalities, according to the police. Apparently only a few people actually died before making it to the hospital, I think our local news put it to three deaths? I don’t think anything’s made it to the big news networks, we’re a small town and it’s not like death is uncommon these days. They’d want something big, I don’t really know if this qualifies.

They’re still looking for Mary, and even if they haven’t found her it’s only been a month. We all know she’s still out there. They would...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Elegant_Butterfly_26 on 2024-11-07 20:52:47+00:00.

---

It started just after we moved in. Nothing dramatic at first - just my four-year-old Liam talking about "the man with no eyes."

"Mommy, he was in my room again," he said over breakfast, pushing his Cheerios around. I did what any mom would do - told him it was just a dream. But Liam wouldn't let it go.

"No, he's real. He stands in the corner and watches me. Even without eyes, he sees everything."

Every morning brought another story about the man. I kept telling myself it was just the stress of moving, that kids get weird about new houses. The price had been surprisingly low, but in this market, I hadn't questioned our luck. But then one morning, Liam said something that made my skin crawl.

"He told me his name," Liam whispered, clutching his dinosaur. "He says he's called Michael. He says he's lonely here. He wants someone to watch with him."

Michael. The name stopped me cold. The previous owner had been Michael - just another name buried in the paperwork I'd barely glanced at. The realtor had mentioned he'd moved out suddenly, leaving most of his furniture behind. But hearing that name from Liam's mouth felt wrong.

Things got worse. Liam stopped sleeping through the night. He'd wake up crying, saying Michael was getting closer. First the corner, then the foot of his bed, then right next to his pillow. He started talking about "the watching game" - how Michael wanted him to watch things with him, all the time, never blinking, never stopping.

One night, I couldn't take it anymore. I waited outside his door after bedtime, listening. At 3 AM, I heard him.

"Please... please don't come closer. I don't want to play the watching game anymore."

His voice was so small.

I burst in and hit the lights. Liam was huddled against his headboard, tears running down his face, staring at the corner by his toy chest.

"He's still there," he whimpered, grabbing my nightgown. "He doesn't like the light, but he's still there. I can see where his eyes should be. He says if I keep watching with him, I'll see everything too."

I called the realtor the next morning. To hell with the mortgage - we needed out. She seemed unsurprised, almost like she'd been expecting my call.

We packed in a rush, throwing everything into boxes. As we drove away, I felt like I could breathe again. Then Liam looked out the window.

"Mommy... Michael says he's sad you're leaving. He says he liked it better when he wasn't alone. He needs someone to watch with."

Days later, I couldn't help myself. I waited until Liam was playing with his blocks and looked up our old house. The first result made my heart stop - a news article from just six months ago about Michael Andrews, the previous owner.

Police had found him in the crawl space after neighbors complained about a smell. They'd ruled it a suicide, but the details were strange. He'd been a night security guard at an art gallery, and his final log entry mentioned "learning to see everything" and "watching without eyes." They found him surrounded by photographs of people sleeping, watching, always watching. His body was mutilated, especially his eyes. In his final note, he wrote about achieving "true sight" and needing to "share it with others." I slammed the laptop shut, but the damage was done.

I must have made some sound, because Liam looked up at me then. His smile was... different. Wrong.

"Michael says we're his new family now," Liam whispered, still smiling that awful smile. "He followed us here because he needs us to learn to watch like he does. He says once you start watching, you can never stop."

That night, I caught Liam staring at me while I slept. His eyes were wide, unblinking. Watching. Always watching.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/adorabletapeworm on 2024-11-07 17:46:37+00:00.

---

Previous case

Nessa here. To start, I'll give yinz a brief update on our well-being after Samhain.

(If you're not familiar with what Orion Pest Control's services are, it may help to start here.)

On my end, I have some more scars to add to my collection, but otherwise, I'm no worse for wear. Though, I do still find myself occasionally having nightmares about beheading. Can only imagine why.

The Dead Duo are back to normal. Wes came back from his recovery with only faint, jagged marks around his throat. So faint that you can only see them if you look in the right lighting. The only sign that he came scarily close to having his head chewed off.

In other news, Cerri put in her two weeks’ notice. Can't say I blame her. While she personally walked away from the incident unscathed, she had to witness what happened to the rest of us. She said it made her think long and hard about her future.

Ordinarily, leaving isn't really an option for us, unless it's in a coffin; I know that sounds morbid, but that's just how it is. You all have seen how the Neighbors are when it comes to vendettas. You'll see even more about that later on in this post. But with how Cerri kind of stayed in the background, she may have a chance to get back some semblance of a normal life.

I really do wish her luck.

After everything, office morale wasn't great for a while. It tends to happen after a rough job like that. It took a few days, but we're all back to joking with one another again. What can I say? We all love being idiots too much to let a little bit of maiming get in the way of that. (Exception: Victor is the holder of the only brain cell in Orion. He is more possessive over it than Iolo is over me.)

So there yinz have it. The world is still turning. The sun is still rising.

The rest of this post going forward will be an excerpt from Deirdre. Since she already had her thoughts conveniently written out, I figured it would be best to use that to update yinz on her situation. Straight from the horse's mouth. With her permission, of course.

Her entry is as follows:

Writing appears to help Nessa get her thoughts in order, so I'm hoping it'll do the same for me.

I suppose it would be best to begin by outlining the turmoil. Perhaps an answer will present itself there, hidden somewhere in the details. I suppose I could start with what I remember, which, admittedly, is not very much.

There isn't a hard line in my memories that marks the end of my human life or the beginning of my servitude to the river. Between those two points in time, there is only a thick haze that I can’t see through, no matter how hard I try. Mortality seems more like a dream rather than something I'd truly had, at one point. Had I ever been married? What about children? Surely, I must have left someone behind.

Through my servitude, I have died more times than I can count. While it doesn't happen to me in a literal sense, it is an experience I share with the doomed souls whose shirts I work tirelessly to scrub clean. I feel their last moments as if they were mine. Every suicide, every accident, every anatomical failure.

Yet, outside of the river and outside of my premonitions… nothing. Not the wind on my face, the warmth of the sun, or the touch of the woman I'm growing to love. Nothing.

As a Weeper, I'm secluded on the outside of both worlds. Only able to feel human for the brief moment where I live through their final tragedies. There isn't much kinship with the ones from the Mounds, either. For the most part, Weepers are relegated to the background. Rocks on the edge of the road. Unable to harness any real power. Nothing worth paying any notice to. Though, I would say that their usual apathy is for the better.

For the longest time, I simply existed. Drifting through the decades. Grieving. Washing. Singing. Grieving. Washing. Singing.

I didn't feel real anymore. There's a part of me that still doesn't.

But then the Lady of Orion told me that she liked my singing. She hadn't looked at me with fear, contempt, or pity, as I'm often accustomed to. She saw me as something else. Something more.

And those eyes… so dark. Dark enough to lose oneself in, yet so gentle. The kind gaze of someone who truly wants to see the world around her better. I thought of them often, as well as the woman who saw the world through their soulful depths. Our first interaction had been brief. Far too brief.

When she promised to return, I smiled. When was the last time I'd smiled? I couldn't recall.

For just a brief moment, I was real again. And in my selfishness, I couldn't let it go. Let her go.

In that regard, I truly am no better than he is, am I?

As the days passed before I could see her again, I found myself thinking of her. Who was she? What was she like? Was she truly kind or had I been imagining all of it, merely forcing my preconceptions onto her? So many questions that needed answers.

All I knew was that I looked forward to seeing her again. It’s truly a shame that the circumstances of our next meeting had not been better.

Her breathing was so labored that I could hear her long before she reached the river bank. Meanwhile, her pursuer didn't make a sound. Following her silently, patiently waiting for his prey to succumb to him.

My pulse had raced. I acted. Or, I tried to. I leapt out onto the riverbank to go to her.

Unseen hooks buried themselves into my intestines. Pulling. Stretching. Tears sprang to my eyes. Unable to breathe, I dragged myself back in. The sensation alleviated, though I still struggled to take in any air after the river's punishment. My chest quaked as my lungs refused me.

Unable to leave or make a sound, I listened, helpless to aid the woman I'd been so curious about.

Her frantic footsteps drew nearer. She collapsed by the bank, arms trembling. Behind her was a shadow.

Before he could reach her, I managed to gather enough breath to yell, “Huntsman! I need her!”

The foul shadow passed her, the moonlight illuminating the captain of the Wild Hunt as he glowered at me.

I didn't dare look into his eyes. Regardless, the sharpness of his stare pinned me in place. What cruelty is it that I can't feel her touch, but the Huntsman's gaze can penetrate through the numbness of the river? He skinned me with his eyes for daring to stop him from devouring her.

The more I argued for her life, the more the Huntsman's stare promised.

He is far worse than his predecessor. The captain before him had been vile as well, but more content to have their underlings do their work for them. The Dragonfly usurped them not too long ago, though I must admit that my perception of time is rather warped. It could've been three decades ago or three years ago. They've all blurred together.

Despite my apprehension, I gathered the courage to fight for her despite barely knowing anything about the Lady of Orion. The river showed me what the Huntsman did to her father. I felt it. My skin peeled off until I was nothing but a miserable husk of screaming nerves. Limbs twisted, then amputated. He'd barely resembled anything more than meat by the time the Huntsman had grown bored of mutilating him.

While the river never gave me the Lady of Orion's shirt, I didn't doubt for a moment that he had something similar in mind for her if I failed to convince him. After much back and forth while the poor woman clung to consciousness, he’d realized that he couldn’t break her vow to me and eventually acquiesced.

I have many regrets, but saving her will never be one of them. Nor will be giving her his name. Even if his terrible promises come to fruition and he destroys me someday, it will have been worth it to know that I'd done what I could for her.

What I do regret, however, is trapping her. She'd confessed to me once before that she believed love to be a cage. Not unlike the one her mother had fallen into. Even though I hadn't intended it at the time, I'd proven her right by trapping her in this bargain. I became her cage.

As such, it is my responsibility to break it.

I’d bargained with the Huntsman for her life using the rules of our world. Perhaps I can do the same for mine. And by extension, hers. At this point, we are tied together.

I waited until she went to work. She'd told me that she wanted to work to resolve our situation together and ordinarily, I would oblige that. However, she just survived a battle with the Dullahan. She's having to accept that the Huntsman will be her curse until the day either one of them gives in or perishes. Unfortunately, this Huntsman is terribly patient when it comes to matters like this. Old things like him know how to wait. He will eventually find some other way to try to enthrall her.

Nobody deserves this curse. Nessa least of all.

Against my better judgment, I sought him out in the hopes of reasoning with him. Reasoning with a lunatic… What was I thinking? Perhaps I’m the real lunatic. However, I had bargained with him as well as those under his command successfully in the past. Moundfolk are covetous by nature, always seeking something. I am rue to admit that I am no exception to this.

The Huntsman can't touch me with the hagstone. The river still has one thread left, tethering me to it. As long as that frail strand isn't severed, at the very least, he cannot take my life.

W...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Weird-Suggestion-152 on 2024-11-07 17:19:29+00:00.

---

When my best friend Cal and I started the channel, it was just for fun. Urban exploring in New York City had been our thing for years, and YouTube was just a way to share it. Abandoned buildings, forgotten hotels, that was our brand. But as our channel grew, so did the demands of our audience. They wanted the extreme, the more hidden parts of NYC.

It was Cal’s idea to investigate the “Sewer People” rumor.

“Think about it, man,” he said one night, eyes gleaming. “A whole network of people living under the city. If we’re the first to get that on camera? We’ll blow up.”

I couldn’t deny the appeal. Rumors had circulated for decades about the shadowy figures who lurked below New York, scavenging, surviving off rats and whatever the city discarded. But, like most urban legends, I assumed the stories were exaggerated.

Cal and I spent hours prepping for the sewer dive, making sure we had everything we’d need to face whatever was down there. We packed our bags with essentials: extra water, enough to last us for hours, and spare batteries for the flashlights, since darkness would be our worst enemy. I grabbed a few granola bars too, just in case we got stuck down there longer than planned. To keep any sewer pests at bay, we duct-taped our pant legs and sleeves, sealing off every gap to make sure nothing small and unwelcome could find its way in.

With our gear packed and GoPros ready, we made our way to a manhole cover in a quiet corner of the city. Cal pried it open, the metal scraping against concrete with an echoing screech, and we peered down into the black void below. The stench hit us first, a mix of mold and filth. Cal shot me a quick look, a mix of excitement and nervousness on his face. “Well, I guess this is it” he said before turning on his GoPro. He shot me a grin before he head down first, his flashlight beam slicing into the darkness.

One rung at a time, I followed him, my hands gripping the rusty metal as we descended into the underbelly of the city. The sounds of the street above faded with each step, replaced by the steady movement of water echoing around us and the hum of distant machinery. When our feet hit the wet concrete below, we stood there in the dim beam of our flashlights, our eyes adjusting to the darkness. The walls were slick with grime and patches of mildew growing along the cracked cement. Somewhere in the dark, we heard a faint scuttle, the unmistakable skitter of rats just out of sight.

Among the gear, I’d packed several rolls of reflective tape. In these dark, winding tunnels, getting turned around would be all too easy, and the last thing we wanted was to get lost down here. Every few yards, I peeled off a strip and slapped it on the wall, watching as it shined in the beam of our flashlights like a tiny beacon marking our way back. It felt reassuring, each piece of tape reflecting back to us, a reminder that we had a trail back to the exit, no matter how far in we ventured.

 For a while, this routine was all we had, exploring the narrow tunnels, stepping around filth and cockroaches, chatting to our cameras, cracking jokes to mask the tension. We spoke in low voices, our words bouncing off the walls and echoing down the tunnels. Every so often we’d hear scuttering, and faint splashes of water, but nothing more. No signs of human life, no movement. I started to wonder if the stories about the “sewer people” were just nothing more than rumors. I told Cal as much.

“I gotta say man, I’m starting to think the stuff about sewer people is just bullshit”.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. We’ll push a little further, then we’ll head back” Cal replied.

We kept pushing further.

The smell had been bad from the start, but now it was clawing its way into my head, thick and unrelenting. Every breath felt like I was swallowing damp rot mixed with decay, the odor sinking into my lungs. My stomach starting to twist and churn. I gagged, pulling my shirt up over my nose in a useless attempt to filter the air, but it barely helped. The feeling of nausea and claustrophobia began to take hold of me.

I glanced at Cal, who seemed focused, oblivious to my growing panic. I started to feel like the walls of the sewer were inching closer, getting tighter around us. My chest tightened, breaths coming shallower, and the concrete felt like it was pressing down on me. We were far away from our exit now, from fresh air, from daylight, and the reality of how deep we ventured hit me.

I wanted to turn around, to trace our way back to the manhole and climb out into the open air. I forced myself to take another breath, hoping it would steady me, but all it did was fill my lungs with that choking, nauseating stench.

“Cal, I think it’s time we get the hell out of here” I said.

Cal paused a moment, considering what I had said. I knew he was fumbling inside his brain, trying to decide if we had gotten enough footage for a video. “Alright… alright… yeah… let’s go” he finally replied.

Just as we were about to turn back, I felt something crunch beneath my boot. A sharp, brittle sound that sent a shiver up my spine. I froze, the weight of my foot still pressing down on whatever I'd just stepped on.

“Ah gross, what the hell…” I muttered, lifting my foot carefully and instinctively shining my flashlight downward.

The beam caught it instantly, casting a light on a line of severed rat heads stretched out across the floor in front of us. Each one was cleanly cut, like they’d been sliced off with a blade, neat and precise, the way a cook might prepare a fresh chicken. Their dead eyes stared up blankly, fur still glistening with damp, while rows of teeth that gaped out of tiny mouths in frozen agony. And there were dozens of them, arranged in a long trail leading deeper into the sewer, like some type of twisted bread trail.

Cal’s light joined mine, and I heard his sharp intake of breath as he took in the scene.

We both stood there, speechless. A faint smell of something else joined us, a dead smell, something like sulfur.

I felt my pulse quicken, a wave of nausea rising in my throat as I stared at the trail of severed heads. My mind screamed at me to turn back, to get out of here before whatever had left this realized we were here. It felt like something we weren’t supposed to see.

“We need to leave, man,” I said, my voice coming out quieter than I meant. I glanced over at Cal, but he was still focused on the trail of rat heads, his flashlight sweeping back and forth. “We’ve seen enough. No video is worth all this.”

Cal didn’t respond right away. He just kept looking at the heads. Then, finally, he turned to me, his eyes intense. “No, we need to go further,” he said, his voice steady but with a fire beneath it. “This is exactly why we’re here. This isn’t just some random mess. Whatever did this, they cut these off clean. A person did this.”

I felt a cold pit form in my stomach. I didn’t want to know who, or what, would do that.

“Cal, that’s... that’s insane. People don’t just—” I cut myself off, my words getting tangled. “We’re in over our heads here man. We don’t need the video that bad.”

But Cal was already shaking his head, his eyes wide, his excitement slowly turning to obsession. “No, we do need to find it. Think about it. We actually found something, right? This is what we came for. We’ve been talking about this for months, and now we have proof, man. This is the real deal.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but Cal was already moving, stepping forward.

I hesitated. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to stop him, to pull him back, but I couldn’t. Something about his conviction pulled me in, even though every instinct was telling me to run the hell out of there. I paused for a moment, before following him further into the sewers.

As we ventured deeper into the tunnels, I couldn’t help but notice the appearance of the sewer began to change. The smell, while still overwhelmingly foul, had begun to change in subtle ways; less stagnant. The walls, which had been slick with grime and mildew just moments before, began to appear oddly cleaner. The thick layers of mold were replaced with smooth concrete. It looked as though this area of the sewer was more maintained than the rest of it.

I glanced at Cal, wondering if he was noticing it too. He didn’t say anything, but I saw the way his flashlight flicked over the walls, a growing unease creeping into his expression. We were no longer in the decaying, forgotten part of the sewer system, but in some other area, one that looked cared for and used.

The tunnels felt more structured now, the path straightening, and the walls narrowing just slightly, giving the whole space a more controlled, less abandoned feel. It was unsettling in a way I couldn’t explain.

We kept moving, drawn by the hope of capturing something for the video, but I felt my nerves increasing with every step. The rats had all but disappeared also, like even they knew to avoid this area.

The deeper we went, I started to notice something. At first, it was so faint that I thought I might’ve imagined it. It was a low, rumbling sound, like the hum of machinery, a deep growl vibrating through the walls. I stopped in my tracks, holding up a hand to signal to Cal.

He turned, raising his flashlight in my direction. I could see the question in his eyes before he spoke.

“You hear that?”

I nodded. “Yeah. What the hell is that?”

We stood there for a moment, listening. The soun...

---

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/spnsuperfan1 on 2024-11-07 06:00:51+00:00.

---

Well, Halloween sucked. So much so, that it’s taken me a couple days to physically recover, but more on that later.

If you're confused, you can read my first case here.

I gotta be frank with ya, it felt like I was a chicken running around with its head cut off for most of the day. Being a rookie and working the busiest day of the year was not a fun experience.

And it definitely didn’t help that my Halloween started out on a pretty rough note. My barista asked me out on a date.

Yes, that’s a bad thing. I don’t date. Not since…

There’s this little coffee place by work that I liked to stop at before my shift- Conner’s Cafe. It’s quaint, cozy too, with a good rustic vibe going on and dim lighting. For some reason, it also reminded me of home. Chicago. Probably why I frequented there so much. That, and they gave me a good discount when I wore my blues.

The staff were all genuinely friendly and welcoming to me too. The coffee itself didn’t taste half bad either, so I quickly became a regular. Maybe a little too regular given the events that were about to occur.

The bell chimed above the door as I entered the shop. It was pretty empty in there. Gauging by the state the dining room was in, the morning rush had just cleared out, granting the employee’s a bit of respite before the inevitable lunch rush.

“He did it!” The barista manning the counter shouted at me with wide eyes, pointing to his co-worker behind him. I’d come in wearing my uniform.

The accused looked at me like a deer caught in headlights before dropping the stack of cups he’d been holding in his hands and booking it to the back.

A smile spread on my lips as a soft chortle escaped me. My cheeks pinked up immediately and I covered my mouth in embarrassment, giggling something fierce. The barista joined in with a hearty laugh as he bent down behind the counter and picked up the discarded cups.

The rabbit, his name is José. Don’t worry, he didn’t have any active warrants out for his arrest or anything, he just went out back to take his smoke break. Albeit in a very dramatic way.

The kid behind the counter was Noah. He was young, in his early twenties. He looked like an E-boy with his singular earring and that mop of curly brown hair atop his head, which usually covered up his brown eyes. In addition to his uniform green apron, Noah wore a headband with fuzzy wolf ears on them accompanied by a pair of fingerless gloves with paw pads drawn on the palms. Draped around his shoulders was a fake sheep’s pelt. He’d dressed up as a wolf in sheep’s clothing for his Halloween costume. Clever.

“Aren’t you going to get in trouble for wasting all those cups?” I asked, stepping up to the counter to order.

“Nah, it’s fine,” he answered, chucking them in the trash bin, wiping imaginary dust off his hands. “Our seasonal cups are about to come in anyway, so these ones won’t be missed. What can I get for ya, miss? The usual?”

“Yeah, but could you add two shots of espresso please? I’m going to need it.”

“Ooh four shots of expresso, huh, what’s the occasion?”

I covered my mouth, yawning. “I’m working a twelve hour shift today. Twelve to twelve.”

Noah pressed his lips into a thin line, sympathizing with me. “Oof, yikes. I’ll get that coffee right out for you then. Wouldn’t want you to be off your game today, officer.”

“Thanks Noah,” I called out to him as he walked over to the espresso machine, “‘preciate it!”

A second later, he came back, placing my large cup of steaming hot supercharged coffee on the counter. I went to pull out my wallet to pay, but Noah waved me off. “It’s on the house,” he said with a glimmer in his eye and a dopey grin.

I smiled back, shrugging my shoulders and picking up my drink, not saying no to a free coffee. That’s when I noticed something written in sharpie just above the paper sleeve. The note read: Will you go out on a date with me?

My gaze flashed from the cup, to Noah, then back to the cup again. He stood there patiently, smiling like a puppy, eagerly awaiting my response.

“Oh, uh,” I let out a nervous laugh, gripping the straps of my purse for dear life, “no.”

The smile fell off of Noah’s face as he looked down at me, heartbroken. I didn’t want to kick the puppy, but I had to.

“I-it’s not you,” I blurted out, awkwardly waving my hands at him. “You’re great, really. A little young, but great! What are you, like twenty, twenty-one? You’re like five years younger than me!” I sucked a gasping breath for air. “It me, that’s the problem. You don’t want to date me. All I do is hurt the people that get close to me. I don’t mean for it to happen, it just does. But, yeah Noah, you’re great. Awesome, even! Best barista I’ve ever had, truly.”

As you can see, I like to word vomit when I’m uncomfortable.

Not giving him any time to rebuttal, I whipped my wallet out of my purse and haphazardly threw a five dollar bill across the counter, then ran out the door- all while abandoning my coffee in the process.

Great. Now I can never go back and show my face there again. That’s what I get for getting too comfortable. Should’ve known my safe place wouldn’t stay safe for long, stupid.

Guess I’ll just have to suck it up and stick to a certain chain coffee shop with a mer-person on the logo.

Now that I’m thinking about it, is their mascot a mermaid or a siren?

Ugh. The thought of sirens sent a shiver down my spine.

My throat is feeling a lot better, by the way. It’s still stiff and is a little bruised, but at least I can fully turn my neck again. Being able to keep my head on a swivel is pretty vital for the job after all. Never know when something might jump out at ya.

When I got to the precinct, everyone on our side was bouncing off the walls it was so hectic. Officers were bringing people in left and right. Our holding cells were packed full, the intake line stretching across half the precinct. Every time someone answered the phone, dispatch had a new incident for them to respond to. And as soon as the phone hit the receiver it would just ring again.

I set my things down on my desk, eyeing the coffee machine like a hawk. If I were going to survive this shift, caffeine needed to be flowing through my veins. Since it was Halloween, we had no clue which calls actually pertained to the supernatural and which ones were just humans being human. So that meant we just had to respond to all of them.

As soon as I stepped towards the kitchen, Dustin appeared out from nowhere and dashed all my hopes of acquiring a pick me up. “Rookie!” He called, slipping an arm through his black police jacket. The other followed and he adjusted the fabric so it rested comfortably on his broad shoulders.“No time for dilly-dallying, get in the car. We got ghouls to catch!”

A hefty groan left my mouth. I shuffled my feet forward a couple inches, my hand outstretched towards my lord and savior: coffee. Dustin called out to me again, causing me to flinch. With another huff and groan, I turned away from the source of my vitality and followed Detective Davidson out to his vehicle. I knew then that it was going to be one of those days.

Dustin wasn’t lying by the way. We’d been called out to a report of someone at the graveyard disturbing the graves. The groundskeeper caught the perp as he was sucking the intestines out of an old woman who was about to be lowered into the ground. After hearing that, it wasn’t hard to figure out we were dealing with a ghoul.

We classify ghouls as a type of vampire since they feast on flesh and blood, but mostly of the dead variety. You can think of ‘em as vampiric zombies. The classification is mainly because ghouls die just the same as regular vampires. Decapitation works best in most cases, but a wooden stake to the heart could do the trick too.

Here at WPD the last thing we want to do is end the life of a supernatural individual. Just like for us humans, supernaturals have the right to go to trial and let The Court decide their fate. Though, we are extensively trained to neutralize any threat if absolutely necessary, especially if that threat poses immediate danger to a human life.

Unfortunately, it was looking like that would be the case for this ghoul.

The groundskeeper had managed to detain him, but not unscathed, sustaining a gnarly bite wound on his hand. That’s when he called Winchester 911 and asked for an officer out to help him.

Getting that taste of fresh blood was like a shot of adrenaline for the ghoul. If he got loose, there was a very real possibility he’d kill the groundskeeper and eat until there was nothing left. Once a ghoul eats a live victim, the dead just don’t taste as good to them anymore.

We got to the graveyard just in time. As Dustin and I left his car, weapons drawn, the ghoul escaped from the groundskeeper’s binds and was trying to strangle him to death. The ghoul was an older, redneck looking man. His skin was pale and caked in dirt, human tissues, and viscera. The smell of death radiated off him.

“Help me!” The groundskeeper called out to us in a choked gasp.

Not wasting any time, Dustin drew his crossbow and aimed a wooden stake at the ghouls heart. I tensed, the groundskeeper was keeping him from a clear shot. The stake whistled as it soared through the air. My eyes clenched shut.

They opened again when the ghoul let out a ghastly cackle. Dustin had mis...

---

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/abiroadwrites on 2024-11-07 05:53:01+00:00.

---

Ever since I was a kid I've been fascinated with the ocean. My mom hated it, she used to tell me all the time “If God intended for us to know about the ocean, he wouldn’t have put so many obstacles between us and the bottom of it.”

I thought that was… a bit reductionist, but when I insisted on studying biological oceanography and ocean engineering she was as supportive as she could possibly be. College was the best time in my life. I loved my studies, my mom and I even bonded over it as she let me tell her all about what I was learning about the ocean. Even though she didn’t love the field I chose, she still pitched in for my education and encouraged me to live at home until I was done. She was my biggest supporter.

Two weeks after I graduated college my dad died, and with his death my mom seemed to lose all her will to live. She tried to hold on for me, but every day I could see the light slipping from her eyes a little more. She died the day after my interview for my dream job, and to this day I’m convinced she did that on purpose. She knew her time was coming, and she waited so I wouldn’t miss my interview. My friends always tell me that’s a little morbid, but when I light candles for my mom spirit I can feel her there with me and I know it’s true.

Anyway, I got the call with the job offer a few days after her funeral, another small blessing that I knew came from her, and despite wanting to just lay down and give up on everything I accepted the job. I was still heartbroken about losing both of my parents within a few months of each other, but the job was everything I had dreamed and more.

After a few years I was given the opportunity to join a team that was researching previously unexplored parts of the ocean, I got assigned to the coolest place ever: the Bermuda Triangle.

I know, I know, we all grew up hearing stories about the Bermuda Triangle and most of them can be explained by science and weather patterns. But the stories that can’t be explained by science, unfortunately, I can offer you an explanation for. Turns out my mom was right, sometimes obstacles are there for a reason.

The first few weeks of our research expedition were exciting. We had a place we were staying in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, but since that’s still a good 640 miles from our research site we also had a fairly nice boat we were staying on, and the team got funds for a submarine. I won’t bore you with all the scientific details of our expedition, but after about two months we were granted permission to send four people into the bermuda triangle, in a submarine.

Our team lead decided she would select three people to go with her, and out of our eleven person team, we knew there would be a lot of disappointed people. She said she would give us her decision individually, to avoid the awkwardness for everyone who wasn’t selected. I was a bundle of nerves for the whole week it took her to decide, but on a bright beautiful Sunday morning Marnie found me in my bunk and told me I had been selected.

To be honest, a part of me knew deep down that I was going to be picked. There was no way all of these things would have lined up so perfectly, just for me to be left behind while someone else went on the submarine trip. As it turns out, we would all be better off if someone else had been selected.

Three days later we were ready to take the submarine down to the ocean floor. The people in our group were myself, Marnie, an older man named Jacob, a guy about my age named Evan, and the ninety person crew running the submarine. We all had our hopes for what we would discover, but I think everyone was just elated to be a part of something so big.

The first few days in the submarine were mostly spent getting our bearings, charting, mapping, and getting used to being so deep under water. After that, we were able to use some pretty high tech equipment that looked a lot like the suits astronauts wear to actually leave the submarine. I still lay awake at night and think about what that was like. The ocean was dark, it reminded me of fog actually, the way you can see up to a certain point before it all blurs into one meaningless color. Only instead of fog, we were in an inky darkness all the time. I could see a few feet in front of me at any given moment, the wonders of the ocean hidden behind a cold, wet, dark veil, all there for me and my team to uncover.

After a couple days of collecting samples and specimens Jacob and I made a huge discovery. Caught between a rock and the ocean floor was a scuba suit, in a design neither of us had ever seen before.

Our suits, top of the line equipment not currently available to the public, looked a lot like space suits. This one looked like a toddler had tried to copy what we were wearing, but lacked the ability to really do it justice. The hands looked like mittens, almost exactly the way a small child would think to draw them. The helmet was oddly oblong and looked like a large bucket with holes cut out for the eyes and mouth. The eye and mouth holes were covered with glass, and the top of the helmet was rounded instead of flat like a bucket would be, giving it an odd misshapen appearance.

The body was misshapen as well, with a barrel-like torso and uneven arms and legs. While I couldn’t tell what the helmet was made from, it was clear that the body seemed to be made out of leather. The helmet and body almost seemed suctioned, or glued together. There was no zipper, no buttons, no way I could see to dismantle it in order to put it on. More importantly, it was clear the suit was very old, but it showed none of the signs of damage that something like that should have after sitting at the bottom of the ocean for so long.

Jacob and I glanced at each other, then rushed toward the strange sight as if we were both thinking the same thing. We worked together to move the rock off it, then cleared the debris that had gathered around the suit, mostly fish bones and small carcasses.

We did so in complete silence, but despite the lack of words I knew we were both beyond excited. Whatever this was, we were on the cusp of an incredible discovery.

We freed the strange looking divers suit and carried it back to the submarine. An hour later Jacob and I stood with the rest of the crew, everyone hovered around the table we had placed it on.

We had debated for a while if we thought it would hold up, bringing it out of the water and into a strange atmosphere, and Marnie logically decided we needed to resurface as quickly as possible, so we could get the suit to a temperature and moisture controlled storage facility. She told the submarine captain, and he said he would prepare us to resurface first thing on the following day. In the meantime, Marnie told us to work our asses off to get as much done as possible before departure. She told us that if the submarine went back down she would probably give other people on the team the opportunity to be on the crew. That was disappointing, but I agreed it was only fair.

We put the suit in the storage room we had reserved for samples, locked the door, and went back to work. That night was when the first unusual thing occurred. Around one in the morning I woke up to piercing shrieks and raced out of my bunk, into the hallway.

One of the crew members, Rodriguez I think, was kneeling on the floor clutching his head and screaming. The captain knelt next to him, trying to talk over the sound of his screams, but all we could hear was Rodriguez repeating over and over “the eyes, it’s eyes”.

Nobody knew what that meant, but his fear was both palpable and contagious. The captain assured us that sometimes people struggle with being underwater for very long, and Rodriguez would get the best medical and psychiatric care possible once we got back to the surface. He insisted we all go back to bed, and everyone complied, slinking off to our bunks like a bunch of chastised children.

The first thing I did in the morning was go back to the captain and ask if Rodriguez was okay. The captain smiled in greeting and assured me that Rodriguez was a bit sick, but they were sure he would be just fine.

I thanked him, and as I was leaving I heard him call out, “If God wanted us to explore the ocean, we would have gills.”

It was my moms favorite joke. Every time I talked about new advances in oceanic technology she would say that to me with a smile and a pat on the arm. I turned around and stared at the captain.

I said, “What was that?”

He was already facing away from me, and glanced back over his shoulder, “Sorry, what?”

I knew my face was tight, my voice reflecting my nerves, “What did you say? As I was walking away, you said something about exploring the ocean.” He gave me a concerned look, “Are you okay, Dr. Williams? I didn’t say anything.”

I nodded, every muscle in my body feeling like a tense rubber band, “Yeah, yes. I’m fine, thank you. I guess I was just lost in my thoughts.”

As I walked out he muttered, “Can’t have another crazy on my ship.”

I made my way back to the sample room, which was once again unlocked, and joined Marnie where she stood next to the area we had reserved just for the diving suit. Marnie had sent Evan out after Jacob and I came back to chip some pieces off the rock that had pinned the diving suit to the ocean floor, and he had also collected some bits of detritus around the area as well like fish bones, and other carcasses.

I walked o...

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Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1gljpk0/i_learned_a_secret_about_the_bermuda_triangle_but/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Agile-Newspaper on 2024-11-07 05:21:26+00:00.

---

I’ll get right to the chase, I was once part of a street gang. I’m not talking organized mafia type of stuff, it was small-time crimes; drugs, money laundering, that sort. “Victimless” crimes, as we’d refer to them as. I left that life, but it ain’t because I snitched on my boys or anything. It started one night when the boss called me in to do a job for him. 

It was a trade-off; you meet the buyer, they hand you the cash and you hand the supply. No words would be exchanged, if things went smoothly. The boss said to me, 

“This guy from South is pulling up to the spot for this,”

What the boss, who happened to be my dad’s cousin’s brother-in-law, pulled out from under his desk was this big-ass cooler which was still cold to the touch. When I asked what was in it, he said,

“None of your fucking business! You pass off the shit, you collect the cash. Got it?”

Simple enough. I didn’t want to piss off my boss as I didn’t want him to chew out my old man for my fuck-up. I asked the boss, 

“How much am I expecting him to pay?”

“Three grand in cash.”

Say no more, I took the cooler and went to the meet-up spot with the boss; which was this empty intersection in the middle of the night, only lit up by the lights from inside a lonely bodega. It was cold as shit outside and my thick-ass jacket did nothing about it. It felt like an hour before this black Rolls Royce Phantom drove up in front of our beat-up brown Jeep Cherokee.

Out of the Rolls Royce were these two suits; one who wore a silver Rolex and a pair of shades, and the other who was clearly packing as I could see the outline of his glock and silencer under his blazer. Rolex, who I assumed was the boss, said, 

“You got the stuff, Jerry?”

“Four thousand CCs, just like you ordered. You got the cash?” 

Rolex pulled out the wads of cash and handed it over as the boss handed over the cooler. Boss then said, 

“I better not see your people on my patch before the next trade-off.”

“I will make sure of it. We wouldn’t want another incident like the Bounce Castle.”

That… ticked me off. Jerry’s cousin, Fred, was killed at a nightclub called the Bounce Castle. Why was my boss dealing with someone who possibly had a hand in Fred getting knocked off? I didn’t want to fuck things up, so I didn’t mention it until they drove off back to South. 

When we were in the car, I finally brought up the question, 

“How did he know about Fred?”

“I ain’t talking about it-.”

“Jerry, what does that fuckhead know about the Bounce Castle?! Did he kill Fred!?”

“If you’re thinking of toe-ing up against him, you can forget about it! Trust me when I say that they will fuck you up!

“So he did kill Fred-”

“No! …One of his people did.”

You know when people say that they get a pit in their stomach? Yeah, it hit me that time. 

“Why aren’t you shooting them up?”

“We can’t fight them. We just can’t...”

In hindsight, it broke my heart to hear the man say those words. At the time, I was pretty angry that Jerry would pussy out of a fight like that over someone who killed a member of our family. It was two weeks before the next trade-off, but I was still thinking of how they killed Fred. 

Apparently from the papers, Fred was stabbed in the neck and got his blood drained. We had a cleaner that did the same thing but after they were dead. Fred was stabbed in a private room in the club and the crime scene looked clean. 

Seemed like these guys from South had a thing for blood. Back to the next trade-off. It was the same spot; the lonely bodega. In case something happened, I carried a deagle in my right pocket. We waited for the Rolls Royce to pull up and Rolex to come with his bodyguard. Before Jerry could hand over the cooler, I asked Rolex, 

“So you know about the Bounce Castle?”

Man raised an eyebrow like I said something stupid. He said with a smile, 

“Yeah, one of my associates owns the place. Why do you ask?”

“My cousin Fred was killed there, and apparently your people got him.”

Jerry tried to get me to back up but I was feeling it right then and there so I pulled out my piece and started yelling, 

“Why did you kill my cousin, you Gatsby-motherfucker!? Why?!”

I hated how calm Rolex was, even as his goon pulled out his piece in defense. Then, Rolex held a hand in front of his bodyguard. 

“I’ll handle this, Archie. You get back in the car, since we’re pressed for time.”

It was five in the morning and dark out as Rolex checked his watch like he didn’t have a gun pointed at him. Archie simply lowered his glock and went back to the Rolls Royce. Rolex said, 

“Put the gun down, sir. I know you’d rather live.”

“-and I want you dead, motherfucker!”

I pulled the trigger, but Jerry pushed me onto the ground. I looked around for Rolex but he was nowhere in sight. Jerry lashed out, 

“What the fuck, man?! I told you, we can’t fight them!”

He took my deagle from my hand and stuffed it into his pocket. We both took a glance around before Jerry lowered the cooler and backed away. Just when I thought it was over, I suddenly hear Jerry scream and disappear into an alley. I looked and heard Jerry gasping for air and some sort of wet gushing. 

Out of the dark, two red eyes looked straight at me. They were bright and pierced through the darkness like something inhuman was looking into my soul. I didn’t have my deagle, so my only option was to run. I ran straight home, and I wasn’t going to sleep that night. Fuck no. The next day, I heard on the news that Jerry was found dead by the cops and no blood at the scene. A handful of my boys were arrested for stealing from a blood bank, but none of them knew why.

I ran again to avoid getting dragged to the station as well. Rolex and his people seem to have their fingers in everything where I was. I’m now living in another state as some schmuck, but I’m not going back to the life if things like Rolex are out there. The color red makes me think of that night, and his eyes when he looked at me when he killed Jerry. I look out my window at night, wondering just how many of those bastards are out there.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/MoekkoLoli on 2024-11-06 06:47:09+00:00.

---

Okay, I'm Lizzie, and I'm a high schooler, I am a bit creeped out by my friend, Mika. Mika is a cute girl, a Japanese girl living in America. She's a pretty girl with a narrow, triangular face. She's very cheerful and tends to be really touchy with me, but I always feel a little drained when I hang with her. I wish she could come to my house but she says she doesn't visit anyone who has a dog. She has some weird habits, which are a bit cute, but still.

She once bit me softly to be...cute, I think?

She can be a real asshole. She has a tendency to mess with and lie to people. Like, one time, she somehow managed to get a guy to eat woodchips. I don't know how she did that, but she was bragging to everyone about it at lunch. She NEVER answers the phone, which is weird because I know she has a phone because she keeps messing around with her phone during class and the teachers just...Do not care?? She tells me stories about medieval times, but says them in ways that make them sound less like old legends and more like funny memories. Even when it's something like "AND THEN HE KILLED HER!"

Also, I know she's probably into the furry fandom, as she has this weird clip on (?) tail that moves as if it were real that she sometimes comes to school with before taking it off in the bathroom, and when surprised she screams in a way that sounds like a very angry wild animal. Her laugh sounds like this, which is cute, but weirds me out. She once said "I'm cat software running on dog hardware with a dolphin soundboard, but with a human external drive."

All of this is just...weird, but here's an encounter with her I had this weekend. She invited me to a sleepover at her house, and I went there. She didn't give me directions, she just said "You'll know it when you see it. It's a giant mansion!" After 20 minutes of walking, I saw a huge mansion, and she hugged me, telling me to come in. Parents were nowhere in sight, which was weird for a sixteen year old. She said they were on a business trip for the weekend. That sleepover was exciting, but also weird. I found a bunch of red hair piles in random places that didn't seem like human hair (she has black hair), and I always felt weirdly tired, as if some part of my energy had just been...stolen.

But what really convinced me she wasn't human was, when I went to bed, I woke up...on a mattress in a landfill, with her nowheere in sight. I passed out while walking home due to how exhausted I was (which was odd, as I was asleep for a while..) and was taken back home. I'm a bit afraid of Mika now...did she teleport me to a landfill or something?

She has also done many other creepy things, which may be rumors. Apparently, she hung out in the woods near our small town and invited a guy out to hang out with her, and he went missing for 2 weeks, and was so traumatized from whatever he saw that he hasn't gone back to school since. He also seems to have a pathological addiction to her.

She always eats the same thing every day, and pretty much every guy at school has a mega crush on her. They always give her gifts. She absolutely freaks out and screams like a banshee every time someone touches her necklace...Oh, I didn't mention she ALWAYS wears a necklace with a dark black and purple pearl (i think) pendant. Because she does. And sometimes it looks like something's moving in front of it. She calls it her "starbit".

All of this easily convinces me, this girl is not a human.

Does anyone have an idea what she is? Like is she a fae or something?