nosleep

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Seiqe on 2024-11-05 03:38:59+00:00.

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Hi, I’m Seiqe, and I’m the poster who got banned off X (twitter) for posting my occult findings. No way the pics I posted were a violation of TOS. I don’t think the content was half as horrible as the Ukraine videos I’ve seen scrolling, but somebody reported my account.

Today, I’m here to clear my name. If this thread gets popular enough, I might get my account back.

All you need is context about me and what I do. It’s plain nothing I showed, or demonstrated, was evil (as they said in the ban letter). But they’re going to pretend like they’re the arbiters of what’s good and true? A ridiculous, wrong, and unseemly thing for a company to do.

So, let’s get this out of the way, I believe in magic. If you don’t, fine, even more of a reason I should get my account back. I would wager most reading this are skeptics and non-believers, but there are a few folks who might be in tune with the spiritual — who’ve seen the power of mysticism. Because magic is faith, but magic is also fear.

You’ve all tried magic at least once in your life.

How many scary games did you play when you were a kid? You know the ones like Bloody Mary, or Cat Scratches — everyone experimented with them. And they’re thematic of what I’m talking about when I say magic is faith and magic is fear.

Stay with me:

Bloody Mary is a mirror game where you perform a ritual to summon the ghost of Bloody Mary in a mirror. I first played it when I was eight with my neighbor Sam and his older sister Aggy. I didn’t see anything, but when Aggy tried it, the mirror cracked, and a glass shard cut her cheek. She said she hadn’t seen Mary, but she had seen something. Out of all of us, Aggy had been the most afraid to play the game. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was her fear that had given power to the ritual.

They’re all invocations: The Midnight Game, Light as a Feather Stiff as a Board, Devil’s Face, Ouija Boards etc… all of them are rituals; played by children, invoking faith, fueled by fear. You cannot have one without the other.

So that’s the baseline, the undercurrent beneath all of this. Like folks believe in gods and money, I believe in magic, ritual, and supernatural powers.

I think I always have. Although, it wasn’t until I was in high school and I ran through The Ars Goetia, that I was inspired to start my own book of spells. I categorized all spells and rituals that I wrote down in my little book by religion, difficulty, and potency. Not that they were potent at first. Not until I proved to myself that there were doors to truth that could be reached through them. I wasn’t looking for an almighty, or a way of living; rather, for powers that lie outside of our metaphysical realm.

Which I didn’t really encounter until college.

Remember I mentioned I grew up with Sam? I also went to college with Sam. We shared a dorm.

We spent our late nights watching horror movies. He was a goth kid in high school, and I was a weirdo. In college he became a stoner art major, and I stayed the same weirdo. But by then we’d been friends long enough that me lighting candles and mumbling over archaic books didn’t weird him out.

But it did weird out his girlfriend, Tina.

She wore overalls that were always covered in some kind of oil paint. She’d stay over some nights and drink a little, and I think I annoyed her with my chanting.

“Could you put out the candles? It’s three in the fuckin’ morning,” she grumbled at me, as she unfolded the pillow from her head.

“I’m almost done,” I muttered, “and don’t interrupt me.”

“Stop with the bullshit. That’s fake, go to sleep.”

“You wanna bet?” I asked, looking up from my summoning table (which at the time was a fold out meal tray.) I practiced my sigil carving on a chalkboard, but only burned candles inside after I set off the fire alarm our first week.

“Yeah, I do want to bet; if it’ll make you go the fuck to bed.”

“Next time you stay over — I’ll prove it.”

“Fine, now fuck off with the chanting.”

Tina didn’t stay over until again until a week after mid-terms.

Which gave me time to prepare. See, dear reader, skeptics are notoriously hard to convince. Even then I knew that it took a certain state of mind to experience the occult, like the kind I tried to achieve through rigorous arcane practices.

But stuff like summoning was too in depth for novices — they don’t know their cardinal points from their elbows. They didn’t have the faith to find real power. But then, I theorized that all it might take were the right conditions to inculcate fear to fuel faith. And I was reminded of those old games that I mentioned we used to play as kids. Something like a game, but heavier, with more substance might do. One game in my spell book stood out to me: Three Kings, which was famous for its strict rules, and was designed to set about certain conditions. Once met, they might affect anybody.

“What’s with the mirrors?” asked Sam, the night Tina was to stay over. 

“Remember when we played bloody Mary as kids?” I asked.

“Yeah, Aggy still has the scars.”

“This is like that, but a lot more powerful. I made a bet with Tina that I would convince her that the supernatural existed, by the way” I said.

“And you’re just now telling me? That’s kinda fucked,” Sam said, not looking super happy about it.

“Ugh, don’t be jealous. I’m not making a move on her; I’m showing her the occult.”

“Man, sometimes you take it too far,” he said. “This is why I can’t bring you to parties, you talk about all this weird fucking bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit. Don’t you remember how Aggy saw something?”

“When we were eight!?” he exclaimed. “Whatever, if Tina agreed, I guess. But after this, if she still doesn’t believe you, you’re done,” Sam said, pointing a finger at my chest.

The rules of the Three Kings game were simple. Wake up at 3:30am exactly. Within 3 minutes go into a dark room that’s prepared with all the materials: a lit candle, a fan, two mirrors, and three chairs. Two chairs should be set facing one chair, with tall mirrors placed in both of their seats. Put the fan behind the empty chair where you’ll be sitting. The idea is to sit down with the lit candle in front of you to block the air. Gaze above the candle flame into the darkness. Do NOT look directly into the mirrors.

And soon two others will join you, seated in the mirrors on either side. The game’s premise is all about asking them questions. They will answer and ask in turn. Together you make the Three Kings.

By the time Tina arrived it was close to 11pm, and I already had the mirrors set up. For the chairs — I used lawn chairs, which was what we had. I’d also shut our curtains.

"So, what’s the candle actually for?" Tina asked, after I explained the game to her.

"The candle is a kind of tether, if something were to happen — like you falling off the chair, the fan would put out the candle and end the ritual," I explained. “Oh, and don’t look directly at either mirror.”

She laughed. I rolled my eyes. 

“You gotta wake up when I wake you up, promise?” I asked Tina. 

“I regret this,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. "But sure." 

“You have to take this seriously if you want to be convinced,” I said. And she shrugged. 

Sam and Tina kind of ignored me after that and smoked a little, then went to bed. I was too excited to sleep. I was supposed to wake up with the alarm clock, according to the rules, but I was still awake when the clock struck 3:30.

I woke the two of them up, their eyes bleary, and they followed my instructions with much yawning and cursing. Tina took her seat in front of the mirrors. I handed her the lit candle and turned on the fan. Sam and I went out into the hall.

“How long is this supposed to take?” Sam asked, his eyes drooping.

“I don’t know, but we’ll give her like fifteen minutes," I said. Sam was already dozing off against the wall.

Our dorm room had a peephole that saw clear through both ways. Most students put tape over them, and so did we. But I removed the tape that night so I could watch. I remember looking through the peephole, and I saw Tina was awake and not sleeping in the chair. She was sat bolt upright, staring straight ahead. Surprisingly, it seemed she was taking this seriously, like I’d asked. 

Tina did not move for 10 minutes.

I began growing worried around the time I saw her gasp, like she was coming up for air. She started panting, hyperventilating. Wide-eyed, I almost woke Sam. But I decided to watch a bit longer, because something was wrong.

A low, muffled groan rattled the room.

And then rising behind it were deep voices murmuring words I couldn't make out. Sweat beaded on my brow and I started bouncing on my toes. Was this really happening? Would I finally see the supernatural after believing in it for so long? 

The voices grew louder and more guttural but stayed distant. I heard Tina sobbing. But Tina was sitting there, not moving, completely still.

This bothered me. And despite how much I wanted to see what would happen next — what powers would reveal themselves; I woke up Sam.

“Tina’s in trouble.”

“What?” he asked, snapping alert.

Sam went to open the door. It was locked. He tried our key, but it didn’t turn. He pounded on the door, calling Tina. He slammed his shoulder into it, but it didn’t budge. I shushed him; if he was going to be loud, he might wake up the whole dorm.

“Who the fuck cares!? I’m getting others,” he said, pulling away from the peephole. And he sprinted down the hallway, shouting for help....

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/CreepyStoriesJR on 2024-11-04 19:32:38+00:00.

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I never thought I’d be the one to cover the night shift, but I guess that’s how life throws things at you sometimes. I’ve always been the day shift clerk at this quiet supermarket, a regular, dependable guy doing regular, dependable work. My routine was simple: clock in at 9 AM, deal with a steady stream of customers, and head home by 6 PM. Easy. Predictable.

But last night, that all changed.

It was around 8 PM when I got the call from my manager, Linda. Now, Linda's been nothing but kind to me since I started here. She’s a sweet woman, always understanding when someone needed time off or when the schedule had to shift around a bit. So, when she called and I heard the urgency in her voice, I didn’t hesitate to listen.

“Tom?” Her voice crackled through the phone, tense and fast. “I need you to do me a big favor tonight.”

I could tell something was off right away. I leaned against the kitchen counter at home, glancing at my leftover dinner. “Sure, Linda. What’s going on?”

“It’s…well, it's about Jackson.” Her pause felt heavy, like she was picking her words carefully. “The night shift guy. He’s not answering his phone, and nobody saw him leave this morning.”

I frowned. Jackson? He’d been working the night shift for a few months now, quiet guy, kept to himself, but never struck me as unreliable. “Maybe he’s just sleeping in, forgot to charge his phone?”

“I wish it were that simple,” Linda sighed. “I checked the cameras, Tom. He didn’t leave the store.”

“What do you mean he didn’t leave?”

“I mean,” she continued, her voice dropping to almost a whisper, “he was here at 6 AM when the morning shift arrived, but then…nothing. He’s was gone. It’s like he vanished.”

My heart skipped a beat. This was getting weird. “So…you need me to cover for him tonight?”

“Just this once,” she assured me. “I know it’s short notice, but you’re the only one who’s free. Please, Tom. I’ll owe you big time.”

Something in her voice made me uneasy, but I agreed. Linda had been good to me, and I couldn’t leave her in the lurch. After all, what was the worst that could happen on a quiet night shift?

“I’ll do it,” I said finally. “But only this once.”

Linda let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Tom. I owe you.”

By 10:30 PM, I was on my way to the supermarket, mentally preparing myself for what I assumed would be a long, boring night. The store sat on the outskirts of town, nestled in a quiet suburban neighborhood. It was one of those places that never saw much action, especially at night. I figured I’d probably be alone for most of my shift.

As I approached the back entrance, I noticed something strange. The employee door, which was usually locked at this time of night, was blown open. A gust of wind pushed it back and forth on its hinges, creating an eerie creaking noise. And then I saw him, Jackson.

He was standing just inside the doorway, shivering like a leaf in the wind. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and filled with something I couldn’t quite place, terror, maybe? He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, his face pale and gaunt.

“Jackson?” I called out, more confused than concerned at that moment. “What the hell are you doing out here? The manager’s been looking for you.”

Jackson didn’t respond right away. He stumbled toward me, his steps unsteady. When he got close enough, I could see the sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool night air.

“Tom,” he rasped, barely able to form the words. “Don’t…don’t cover the night shift.”

I blinked, taken aback by the urgency in his voice. “What? What are you talking about?”

“You don’t understand,” he muttered, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “This place…it’s not what it seems. You don’t want to be here at night. Trust me.”

I couldn’t help but feel a little irritated. Jackson had always been a bit odd, but this was too much. “Come on, man, you’re freaking out. Maybe you just need a few days off.”

He grabbed my arm, his grip surprisingly strong for someone who looked so weak. “No. I’m serious. Don’t stay."

I looked at him, puzzled.

Then he continued "But If you do stay…check the last drawer of the counter. There’s something there that will help you. And for God’s sake, leave at 6 AM. Not a minute earlier, not a minute later.”

“Jackson, listen to me”

“I’m not going back in there,” he interrupted, shaking his head violently. “Not ever.”

Then, before I could say another word, Jackson bolted, sprinting into the darkness as if his life depended on it.

I stood there for a few moments, watching Jackson disappear into the night. His behavior was bizarre, but I chalked it up to exhaustion. Working nights had probably gotten to him, people don’t always think straight when they’re sleep-deprived.

Still, something about his warning gnawed at the back of my mind.

When I finally entered the store, I found the day shift clerk, Sarah, getting ready to leave. She greeted me with a tired smile, but I could see the relief on her face, she was more than ready to clock out.

“Hey, Tom,” she yawned. “Thanks for covering tonight.”

“No problem,” I replied, glancing around. “By the way, did you see Jackson earlier? He was acting kind of strange.”

Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Jackson? No, I didn’t see him"

I frowned. “What do you mean? He was just outside a minute ago, freaking out about something.”

She shook her head, clearly confused. “I didn’t see anyone. And I’ve been here the whole time.”

A chill ran down my spine, but I forced myself to shrug it off. “Weird. Maybe he was hiding out somewhere.”

“Maybe,” Sarah said, unconvinced. “Well, good luck tonight. It’s usually dead quiet, but…” She hesitated, biting her lip as if she wanted to say more.

“But what?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly, grabbing her coat. “Just…don’t let it get to you. See you tomorrow.”

And with that, she left, leaving me alone in the quiet, fluorescent-lit store.

The first few minutes were uneventful. A couple of customers wandered in, buying late-night snacks or picking up a few items they had forgotten. I scanned their goods, made small talk, and settled into what I thought would be an easy shift.

Around 11:30 PM, the store fell completely silent. There were no more customers, no more cars passing by outside. Just me and the hum of the refrigerators.

I began to relax, thinking maybe this night shift thing wouldn’t be so bad after all.

But then, as I sat behind the counter, I noticed something odd. At the far end of the store, in the dimly lit aisles, there was a figure, a customer, maybe? But they weren’t moving. Just standing there between two aisles, like they were waiting for something.

“Hello?” I called out, peering into the darkened aisles. No response.

The figure stood perfectly still at the far end of the store, where the lighting was poor, casting long, eerie shadows between the shelves. I squinted, trying to make out any details, but it was hard to tell if it was a person or just my mind playing tricks on me. The store was silent, except for the faint hum of the refrigerators and the low buzzing of the fluorescent lights above.

“Hello?” I called out again, louder this time.

No response. The figure didn’t move. It was unsettling, but I convinced myself it was probably just a customer lingering in the shadows, perhaps deciding on a late-night snack. I turned my attention to the security monitor, thinking I could get a better look at whoever it was.

Oddly enough, the camera that had a direct view of that aisle showed nothing. Just empty aisles, shelves lined with products, but no person in sight. I frowned, glancing back up toward the aisle itself, and my heart skipped a beat. The figure had moved. It was closer now, just beyond the poorly lit section, but still standing unnaturally still.

My eyes flicked back to the monitor. Still, nothing. The figure wasn’t there. It didn’t make sense.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to shake off the unease settling deep in my gut. Maybe it was a trick of the light, or maybe they were standing just in a blind spot of the camera. That had to be it.

But when I looked back toward the aisle again, the figure had moved again, this time, much closer. Now, it stood under better lighting, but somehow, the shadows still clung to them. I couldn’t make out a face, just the vague silhouette of a person. They stood there, unnervingly still, as if waiting for something.

My body moved before I could stop myself. I got up from behind the counter and made my way toward the aisle. As soon as I rounded the corner and entered the aisle… nothing. No one was there.

I stood still for a moment, the hair on the back of my neck prickling. The store was empty. There was no one there but me.

I checked every aisle, walking through each one slowly, trying to find any trace of someone having been there. But no one was inside. Eventually, I returned to the counter, telling myself that whoever it was must have left the store quietly.

I checked the cameras again. All clear. No sign of any movement.

And then I remembered what Jackson had told me.

The drawer.

I hesitated, looking at the monitor again. Midnight had just passed, and the store felt even quieter now, the silence pressing in on me. Reluctantly, I opened the last drawer behind the counter, expecting maybe some keys or supplies. Instead, my fingers brushed against a folded piece of paper.

I unfolded it and read the first few lines:

These are the rules that you need to follow to make it through the ...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/mR-gray42 on 2024-11-05 00:13:01+00:00.

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That’s the thing about getting old, isn’t it? The perspective. When you’re a kid, you think the whole world loves you. You can’t comprehend the idea of someone hurting you, and when someone or something does, it hurts that much more because of that lack of understanding. You can’t comprehend why the mean ants in the anthill began biting you after you stepped on their home. Then you become a teenager and you start thinking the whole world is out to get you, so you lash out at it. You want to make yourself known to the world. You get to adulthood, and you start thinking you can take on the world. It’s not until you realize that everyone else thinks something similar, that everyone else has that same ambition whether they realize it or not, and they’re willing to do whatever it takes even if it means trampling you unless you do the same. You ask yourself why someone would do this to you, and you realize something else. You realize that you’re little more than a blip, a gnat, dirt under someone’s fingernails. It hits you that you’re an ant, and something just destroyed your anthill.

My anthill was destroyed in the year 1968, when I was 27. Back then, I was studying archeology with the intent of uncovering evidence of civilizations people overlooked, nations beyond those born in Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica. I wasn’t some rugged, handsome adventurer type. Between my skinny build, glasses, and my mild-mannered disposition, the folks I spoke to probably thought I was some kind of clerk. I will say for the record, though, that I did carry a snub-nosed .44 with me whenever I traveled. Between the very real possibilities of grave robbers and the Kremlin’s finest, it was always comforting to have that weight on my belt.

The search I conducted took place in an Eastern European nation that I won’t name. For all I know, it lost its name during the collapse of the USSR anyway, as I’ve never found any records of it existing. I went there with a small team funded by an anonymous donor who had expressed interest in uncovering evidence of a lost civilization before the Soviet Union could find it. My team consisted of five others, Mike, Leo, Martin, Charles, and Keith. Mike and Leo were the medic and armed guard respectively, Martin and I were the people who handled the cultural and historical aspects of our journey, Charles was a linguist, and Keith was a quiet man sent by our donor to oversee the expedition, document our findings, conditions among the team, among other things. We often joked that he was also a hatchet man that our donor would use to keep us quiet about the operation. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. If I knew then what I know now, I would have begged him to just shoot all of us there and then. I would have handed him my gun.

The ruins we found were located 120 kilometers outside of a small village beneath a mountain range, the name of which I won’t mention. It was a sad, empty place, to put it lightly. The moment we entered, we could see that the few tired, fearful villagers outside seemed to know what we were after, and they didn’t want us to find it. Even then, I couldn’t help but liken it to Jonathan Harker’s experience with the locals of Transylvania. This comparison persisted when Charles began to ask about the ruins, as he asked a local man about surveys conducted on the mountains. The man grew agitated and began to say things that Charles translated as, “We don’t talk about that place.” Naturally, this piqued our curiosity, so Charles offered to buy the man a drink at the local tavern in exchange for telling us what he knew. This gesture being the universal icebreaker, the gentleman, however reluctantly, took him up on it. He and Charles went into the tavern, and the rest of us waited, feeling the oppressive gloom of the town weighing on us.

We tried to keep things casual, but that sensation persisted up until Charles emerged about an hour later. He said that he had used up half of the money in his wallet that he brought just to get the man to tell him anything, and what he said had been equal parts fascinating and eerie. According to the man, nobody who ventured into those mountains ever came back. At least, they never came back as themselves. There was always something odd about them. This oddness had resulted in no less than fifty people dying in his lifetime alone. He never discussed the exact circumstances, but Charles had enough empathy to not push him further, especially not when the man said own brother had been a casualty. He had told him that he didn’t know what lay in those mountains, but whatever it was, we would be entering at our own risk. At the time, we dismissed it as local superstition, as anyone would, and reasoned that anyone who came from the mountain and died had been affected by isolation, changes in air pressure, pre-existing mental and medical conditions, virtually anything that wasn’t supernatural. This village was old, and saw very few modern commodities, so it would make sense that they would rely on such things to see them through. Perhaps we were trying to reassure ourselves.

At any rate, the man had told Charles where to mark the location on his map, and with that, we soon departed from the village to begin the trek up into the mountains. As we left, I looked back and was unnerved to see that everyone in the village had turned out as if to bid us farewell. They said nothing, but the somber expressions on their sallow faces said that they genuinely thought we were headed to our dooms.

We hiked through the forest that grew along the mountain and by the fifth hour, we had thoroughly convinced ourselves that there was nothing to be afraid of. We took occasional breaks for meals and rest, but we were all quite eager to see what had our client so interested in these ruins. Martin and I engaged in frequent conversations over what civilization the structures belonged to, or if it was possible that people might even live there. This possibility in particular intrigued Martin, who postulated that we might happen upon a tribe or race of humans more cut off from the civilized world than the village. He regaled us with fantastical possibilities of our respective civilizations learning from each other. None of us had the heart to remind him that if there had been people still there, the mountains wouldn’t be as wild as they still were, lacking footpaths and markers among other man-made things that would keep them from getting lost. About two days passed, and we continued hiking deeper into the mountains. The further we climbed, the mistier the air became. It wasn’t until noon of the second day that we stumbled upon it, literally. Martin’s foot connected with a loose rock and he almost tumbled off the side of the mountain. Luckily we caught him and hoisted him back up. He was shaken, but no worse for wear. However, it was when we looked in the direction in which he almost fell that we saw it.

What we had previously mistaken for a mountain range was a circular formation of smaller “mountains”, something that shouldn’t have been geologically possible. It was as if a colossal mountain had previously existed, but something large, a meteor perhaps, had struck the pinnacle. The resulting impact had changed the mountain into something resembling an enormous “crown” of rock and trees. Between the mist and the illusory mountains on all sides, one would need to have traveled in the direction we had to understand the nature of it. But what struck us more than that was the inside of that “crown.” We all saw it clearly, even with the fog tenaciously blocking out the sun. We said nothing, but I know we all believed the same thing: what lay before us was impossible.

It was an edifice of immaculate and bizarre construction. It was constructed of a material like obsidian and possessing an almost pyramid-esque shape. The dread and confusion that had gripped us broke when Leo gruffly asked what we were waiting for. Pushing the dread to the side for now, we began to descend the other side of the mountain, which was far smoother than the outside. We were able to reach the bottom with ease, and, given Leo’s military background, he estimated that we could make a quick and easy escape. As he said that, I felt the dread that already permeated the air around us slither down my spine. Why would we need to escape? If these ruins were mere ruins, then the only thing to fear would be hostile locals, which should have been little issue to a man accustomed to warfare. But the tone of his voice told me that it wasn’t men he was afraid of. No, he didn’t know what he was afraid of, and that in turn frightened us.

Trying to put brave faces on it, we began walking towards the structure, and the closer we got, the more it seemed unlike anything made on Earth. What I had initially mistaken for a pyramid had eight sides, and at the top of it was a strange, cube-like object that rotated slowly, letting out odd pulsing sounds as it glowed. Had I not known better, I might have thought that this thing was acting as a kind of artificial sun. Something I also noticed was that it seemed smaller in scale than it appeared from a distance, like some kind of optical illusion. What I had taken to be a twenty-foot-tall behemoth was in truth no bigger than an average suburban home. Before us stood a narrow entrance that was lit up perfectly by the cube. Without warning, the cube ceased its motions, and the structure shifted. All of us had, until that point, ba...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/InformationRemote865 on 2024-11-05 03:57:17+00:00.

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My friend Alex and I went camping at Red River Gorge last year. He never came back. The police say I made up what happened, a twisted way of coping with losing him. They think it was an accident, or maybe that I’m hiding some horrible truth. But I know what I saw out there. I know there’s something in those woods—a creature, a monster. It’s out there, hiding in the shadows, watching, waiting.

I can still hear the crunch of leaves and the way the night seemed to breathe around us. It started as a perfect autumn hike, the forest glowing red and gold in the setting sun. But when darkness fell, we weren’t alone. We thought it was just nerves or our imaginations running wild in the quiet, but that was before the thing in the woods started stalking us.

It was just past midnight when I heard it for the first time—a faint rustling, almost like footsteps, circling the edge of our campsite. I opened my eyes and looked over at Alex, who was lying stiff in his sleeping bag, staring wide-eyed at the trees. His breathing was shallow, barely a whisper above the crackling embers of our fire.

“Did you hear that?” he murmured, voice trembling. I nodded, my throat too tight to answer. We sat up slowly, peering into the darkness, trying to convince ourselves it was just a deer or a raccoon. But the sounds were too careful, too deliberate, as if whatever was out there knew exactly where we were.

Then, just as quickly as it started, the rustling stopped. Silence filled the air again, thick and oppressive. We waited, our ears straining, but there was nothing. Alex exhaled, his shoulders relaxing as he mumbled something about going back to sleep. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever had been there was still watching, lurking just beyond the reach of our firelight.

By morning, the fear had faded, almost like a bad dream that didn’t quite stick. The golden sunlight trickled through the trees, painting the forest in a warm glow that made everything seem safe again. Alex and I exchanged uneasy smiles as we packed up our gear, shrugging off the strange sounds from the night before. Maybe we’d just psyched ourselves out; it was easy to let the dark play tricks on your mind.

We decided to take the Auxier Ridge Trail that morning. Known for its sweeping views and jagged cliff faces, the trail felt like the perfect way to ground ourselves, to let the beauty of the gorge erase the eerie feeling that lingered. We hiked along the narrow path, laughing off our shared paranoia, enjoying the crunch of leaves underfoot and the crisp autumn air.

As we reached a clearing, we stopped to take in the view. The gorge stretched out below, a stunning cascade of fiery reds and deep greens. For a moment, it felt like we’d escaped whatever darkness had brushed against us last night. But as we continued up the trail, a nagging feeling crept back in. The forest was too quiet—no birds, no wind, just the sound of our footsteps echoing through the trees.

As we rounded a bend, the trail dipped back into a dense stretch of woods, and the comforting sunlight faded under the thick canopy. Shadows stretched long across the ground, and a chill pricked my skin. I tried to shake the feeling creeping up my spine, but then I heard it—a faint stirring in the leaves, not too far off. I stopped, grabbing Alex’s arm.

“You hear that?” I whispered, my voice barely steady.

Alex paused, listening, then shrugged, giving me a reassuring smile. “Probably just a deer, or maybe a fox,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. “This place is full of wildlife. Don’t worry.”

I nodded, but something about the sound felt… wrong. As we moved on, I kept glancing over my shoulder, catching the barest hint of movement in the distance. The rustling started again, closer now, and it seemed to follow us, stopping whenever we did and picking up again when we walked.

Whatever was out there, it wasn’t just passing through. It was following us, and every step sent a fresh wave of dread down my spine.

After another hour of hiking, we came upon a shallow, natural cave—a perfect spot to set up camp for the night. The rock face overhead offered some shelter, and the area felt secluded. Alex set off to gather firewood while I unpacked our gear, arranging our things to make the space as comfortable as possible.

As I finished unrolling the sleeping bags, I heard leaves rustling somewhere in the distance. Assuming it was Alex on his way back, I went back to my work, but the footsteps sounded strange—light, almost fleeting, like something or someone was darting through the trees. Then, as suddenly as they’d started, the footsteps broke off, disappearing into the silence.

Moments later, Alex emerged from the opposite direction, carrying another bundle of wood. He was whistling, completely unfazed. My heart lurched. Whatever had been moving out there, it hadn’t been him.

“Hey, everything okay?” he asked, noticing my expression as he dropped the wood by the fire pit.

“Alex… I heard footsteps,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Just now. I thought it was you, but… but it was coming from the other direction. And they ran off right before you got here.”

He raised an eyebrow, glancing over his shoulder into the darkening woods, then back at me with a reassuring smile. “Sarah, it’s probably just an animal. This place is full of them. You’re spooking yourself.”

I shook my head, my hands fidgeting as I tried to explain. “No, it was different, Alex. It sounded… like someone was following us. First on the trail, now here.” My voice cracked, and I could feel my pulse pounding.

Alex stepped closer, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, look at me,” he said, his voice calm. “It’s just us out here, okay? I’ll keep the fire going tonight. Whatever you’re hearing, I promise you, it’s nothing that can’t be explained.”

But even as he said it, I could see a flicker of doubt in his eyes. And as the firelight danced across the mouth of the cave, the shadows seemed to stretch just a little too far.

After we finished our meager dinner, Alex tended to the fire, piling a few larger logs onto the embers to keep it burning through the night. The warmth and steady crackling sound, along with the clear, star-studded sky above us, calmed my nerves. Slowly, I drifted off, the tension of the day slipping away as sleep took over.

I don’t know how long I’d been asleep when I felt a hand shaking my shoulder. My eyes flew open, and there was Alex, wide-eyed, whispering urgently.

“I heard something,” he said, barely above a murmur. “It sounded like sticks breaking, just over there in the trees.” He pointed to the edge of the campsite, his voice tense but steady.

A chill swept over me, and immediately, my mind flashed back to the rustling footsteps I’d heard earlier. Every nerve in my body was on high alert as I sat up, scanning the dark edges of the trees. Alex had his flashlight, its beam cutting through the darkness, darting back and forth as he listened, peering into the shadows.

For a moment, it was silent except for the crackling of the fire. Then, just beyond the circle of light, I thought I caught the faintest rustling—barely there, like something moving through the underbrush but trying to stay hidden. My heart raced, my breath coming quick and shallow. Alex and I exchanged a glance, and in his eyes, I could see he was no longer dismissing it as just an animal.

Something was out there.

“Stay here. Keep the light steady,” Alex whispered, gripping one of the smoldering logs from the fire. He flicked his flashlight off, nodding toward the edge of the woods. “I’m gonna get close, see if I can catch it off guard.”

My heart pounded as I held my flashlight steady on the spot he’d pointed out, illuminating the edge of the trees. Alex slipped down the hill quietly, moving just at the edge of my light’s reach. I could barely make out his figure as he neared the trees, and then, in one quick movement, he stepped into the shadows.

Suddenly, there was a loud rustling, and whatever had been lurking there bolted deeper into the woods. Alex turned his flashlight back on, its beam bouncing wildly as he sprinted after it. My light caught a flicker of movement—just for a second—but it was enough. I saw a figure, barely visible, dressed in dark, earth-toned clothing, vanishing into the trees.

“Alex! Stop! Come back!” I screamed, my voice cracking. But he didn’t even turn. He kept chasing, his light flashing sporadically through the dense trees, growing fainter with each step.

I strained to listen, my breath held tight, but after a few moments, his footsteps faded into nothing, leaving me alone with only the sound of my own heartbeat echoing through the silence.

The wait felt like an eternity, each second stretching longer than the last. The forest was silent, the fire crackling softly beside me. Then, finally, I saw it—Alex’s flashlight, a steady beam cutting through the darkness, aimed directly at me. Relief washed over me at first, but it quickly faded when I realized he wasn’t saying anything. He just kept walking, the light fixed on me, growing closer.

“Alex?” I called, squinting, trying to make out his face beyond the blinding beam. But he didn’t respond. The light stayed on me, unwavering, unblinking, illuminating every inch of me while he stayed hidden in the shadows.

A strange unease settled over me, tightening in my chest. My heart pounded as I forced myself to ask, “Alex… ar...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/kittyotterpancake on 2024-11-05 00:29:18+00:00.

---

To explain what’s happening now, I have to go back to when I was nine, alone in a trailer buried deep in the Midwest woods. Our house was so isolated that anyone who passed by was family or friend. Instead of normal crime your concern was Bobcats, bears, foxes eating your chickens, but not people.

It was storming after school and the power was out. I was in my bed listening to the heavy rain on the roof, and that was always weirdly comforting to me.

I started to drift off, then suddenly felt myself falling into what felt like an endless void. It’s as if I were sinking into darkness with lights above me, like a boat floating on a vast, empty sea.

But a heavy knock woke me up just before I could hit the bottom.

It was the kind of knock that any traumatized kid would know too well. I thought it might be my stepdad, and that he was drunk again. The door was bulging from the force and I quickly opened the door trying to apologize for whatever I may have done only to find that no one was actually there.

When my mom came home from bartending I told her about it and she told me I need to stop reading so many scary books at school and we both dismissed it as a nightmare.

This kept happening, and the worse my life would get the more frequently it happened. A dream of falling into darkness and being woken up by a terrifying knock.

A friend from school who I don’t think believed me and was wanting to just prove I was lying stayed over a few months after. They kept asking me to show them something scary and making jokes about it and I tried to explain how scary it all really was and that it wasn’t a joke.

“BOOM” the door flexed like it did whenever it woke me up but this time I and my friend were in mid conversation fully awake. The jokes were gone, his face turned pale white because he thought we were both in big trouble for something, the same way I did the first time I heard it.

I sat, not moving, and let the knocking continue because I already knew if I opened the door no one would be there. He however, was fully convinced I was playing a prank so he ran up to the door and threw it opened then ran around looking for anyone to be there only to realize we were alone.

When I tried to explain to him it wasn’t jokes we both heard a voice, it sounded to me like my mother but to him he heard his mothers voice and it said our names followed by “get your *** out here now!!” In the most menacing, angry voice you could imagine. Then it just laughed, but the laugh wasn’t like either of our mothers, it was— barely human sounding.

There is more to it but that sets the stage for today. That situation kept happening randomly through my life but changed to mostly being when a friend or family member died. This month I lost my grandmother who I loved and who loved me.

This time instead of falling I dreamed I was walking towards a house I have never seen before and as I tried to enter I heard my grandmothers say a name that no one has called me since I was a child, a name no one would call me and I have never heard in my dreams ever. This voice sounded urgent, terrified almost, and I jolted up awake the same way I used to and heard the knock on my bathroom door.

I am at a friends moms house as the dorms were getting expensive and frustrating and they offered me to stay on the first floor which has its own bedroom, living room, and bathroom areas. I haven’t had these experiences in so long I forgot about the original situations and opened the bathroom door only to hear that terrifying laugh that brought all the haunting memories back.

I left out a lot of details and things that ended up coming along with those knocks as a kid and now I am terrified it could ramp up to that same level again. Every mirror I pass I shield my eyes, every open door I am scared to look down, and I have been maxing out my fans and white noise to cancel the random noises, voices, knocking, and whispers.

My biggest fear is I will see it again, the monster I have been running from since I was a kid. The thing that existed outside of me and then inside of my dreams before being inside of me. I’m scared it will do what it used to and of the harm it will bring.

Every knock might be him.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/MaxMic11 on 2024-11-04 22:06:25+00:00.

---

The blood was fresh and being soaked up fairly quickly in the old shag carpet. It was a relief honestly. The blood dulled the smell of the cigarette residue that had been built up in the carpet for what I can assume to be decades.

Retched woman. I found her sprawled out on the floor with her curled gray and white hair, and wrinkled, shriveled-up body covered in liver spots. Whoever did this really wanted to get the job done. They not only slit her throat but both her wrists as well. Her children and grandkids won’t be too happy about this, but many more people will sigh, feeling an immense weight lifted off their shoulders.

Two weeks ago I was on the verge of going completely broke. This was nothing new though. Finances and I have never had a good relationship. I know I had a problem, at least half of me acknowledged it. The other half kept spinning that roulette wheel and betting on that one horse to beat the odds. I was always close, but not close enough. I was counting down the dollars at the grocery store, but being careful as to not forget the tax. I refused to be that person who would have to put some food back while checking out. “I think I got this one” I told myself. $45 with some wiggle room. That’ll last me… maybe five days? If I’m lucky?

I was walking through the bread aisle when an old woman with a back hump was pushing a shopping cart in the other direction. As we passed each other, I noticed not only the waft of cigarette smell, but something had fallen to the ground in my peripheral view. I looked down and saw that the old lady had dropped some money. As I went to pick it up, I saw it was two, crumbled-up $100 bills. I felt in my chest what I can only describe as getting giddy like a child. I had the immediate instinct to shove it into my jacket pocket and walk away. But, I didn’t. Caution override the desire of thievery. 

It’s $200. I’m sure she would report the money missing to the grocery store just to be safe, and they would catch me on camera taking it. There was one of those black orb-looking cameras on the ceiling in the aisle right next to me where the blacked-out cover of it was to prevent people from knowing where the camera was looking. Also, the bills were in rough condition. What if she just managed to save enough money for a full grocery shopping trip for once? She very well could be broke like me. For some reason, this oldie hit a soft spot in me.

“Excuse me ma’am, I think you dropped this.” She turned to me to see if I was talking to her or someone else. She had bright turquoise eyes. I’ve never seen eyes that color before. They were very pretty, but they sent a shiver down my spine because of how odd they were. I noticed I had paused too long looking at her eyes.

“....Sorry, I think you dropped some money.” I handed her the $200.

She was shocked. “Oh, thank you very much. How did I manage to do that? Thank you.” I nodded, and as I began to walk away, she continued.

“Wait, I have something for you.” She reached into a small purse, and with the crumbled bills I handed back to her, she handed me two more crisp $100 bills. $400 total. I assumed she was not aware of what she was doing.

“Ma’am, no need.” I put my hand out to gently push her hand back.

“I’m aware,” she said.

“And now it’s yours.” She re-extended her hand, now eagerly getting me to take the money. 

I replied, “That’s very kind of you, but there’s no way I could take this. That’s a lot of money.”

She replied, “You could have walked away with what you found. But you didn’t. Now, you have double.” There was a brief pause while I contemplated taking the money or not.

“If I needed it I wouldn’t be giving it to you” she said. I took the money from her.

“Thank you,” I replied.

“You don’t know how much this means to me.”

She looked at my shopping cart which so far only had a loaf of bread and a can of baked beans. “It looks like you have some shopping to do” she said with a smile before turning around and pushing her cart away.

If you know the mind of an addict, I’m sure this comes as no surprise. I spent $150 on groceries and the rest I immediately went to the casino that is conveniently seven minutes away from my apartment. The next horse race was the next day, but I couldn’t wait. I knew I was going to make it big this time. Screw the tables, I didn’t want to waste my money having to tip the croupier. I went first to the slot machines. I was going to spend maybe $20, $50 at most if I didn’t win, which I thought at least I’d make a little. But only half an hour later I realized I spent $200. I got caught up in it. I needed to get my head in the game. 

I went up to the “self-serve” roulette table. A chair was open. Six other people sat around the wheel staring as it went round and round. Everybody anticipating that big break. That spin concluded. Some people groaned, some said nothing. I looked at my digital screen. Normally with roulette I like to spread my chances out; pick multiple numbers, overlap, etc. But something was telling me to put my whole $50 left on number seven. The guy sitting next to me saw my bet and scoffed.

“I’ve been losing money here for an hour. You’re not going to win that bet” he said. He noticed the others at the table were looking at us. He grinned.

“If it lands on seven, I’ll give you an extra $50. If you lose, you owe me $50” he said. There was a short pause. 

“Same here. No way you’re winning that” a woman sitting across the table said.

“I will too” the man sitting next to her said. All six people were putting in $50 each. An extra $300 on top of my incoming winnings. I couldn’t resist.

“Alright” I said confidently. My heart sank. My face went flush. What have I done? The roulette ivorine was released, and round it went. I glanced back and forth between the wheel and the others. They were glancing back and forth between the wheel and me. It landed. Eight. It landed on eight. They cheered. Fight or flight kicked in. I reached into my jacket pocket. I decided I was going to pretend to get the money out of my wallet and then book it out of the casino. 

When I opened my wallet, expecting nothing, were multiple crisp $50 bills. Seven of them. I tried to hide my shock and play it cool. I started to hand out the $50 bills to each of them. I sat back down. I was left again with $50. I… did seven. I put it all on seven again. I don’t know why, but I did. Everyone at the table laughed at me. Pity laughed. 

“You must really have an issue” one of the guys said. The wheel spun. Everyone at the table was grinning, watching the wheel, waiting to make fun of me again. It landed. It was seven. The $50 that appeared in my wallet turned into $250. I made my money back. Everyone looked at me in utter disbelief. Again, I don’t know what took over me, but I put the whole $250 on eight. Now everyone was getting really irritated.

“Are you kidding me?” one guy said.

“This is ridiculous” another woman said.

The wheel spun. There was an anticipation at that table I had never experienced before. It landed. It was eight. I had won another $250. I had never won a single dollar gambling before. Not a penny. Everyone got pissed; in general, at the circumstance. Not at me. Thank god. Three people at the table got up and walked away angry. The force that had overcome me “told” me to leave the table. So, I did. I walked out of the casino. Normally I would keep going, but something was telling me to stop. Something.

I entered my little apartment and tossed my keys onto the kitchen table. Very cliche for a person struggling with money, I looked at the two overdue credit card bills and electric bill notice also sitting on the table. I sat down. What just happened? Finally winning with anything involving gambling didn’t feel as good as I thought it would. Facing again the fact that I am an addict, how was I even able to walk away from the table without spending all my winnings away?

I honestly became alarmed when I felt the urge to deposit my winnings at the bank tomorrow to start paying off my debts. Responsibility was a new desire for me. I got up and grabbed my jacket and keys. I felt antsy all of a sudden. I decided to go grab a coffee at the coffee shop across the street. 

I got my iced Americano and decided to stand outside the coffee shop to feel the breeze. After a couple of minutes, an older woman with a cane started to walk up the sidewalk. It was weird. I hadn’t seen her cross the street or walk up from down the way. I realized after a moment that it was the same woman from the grocery store.

“Oh hello there. What a pleasant surprise. How are you?” The woman said this to me as though we had known each other for years. Her smile was kind, but her turquoise eyes showed no emotion.

“…Good, just grabbing some coffee. How ‘bout you?” I said.

“Me too. An iced Americano always makes my day” she said. She stopped in front of me and continued.

“How has the rest of your day been?” referencing since we met at the grocery store.

“Good. Thanks again” I replied. The woman grinned.

“Be careful now. Nothing stays for long. The good and the bad come and go” she said. I assumed she was making a corny old-person comment to spend the money she gave me wisely. I pretended her comment wasn’t annoying and arrogant, like how people want the barista to see and thank them for putting money in the tip jar. I gave her a “warm” smile.

She walked around me. I heard the little metal bells the coffee shop put on to...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/northerndreamer1 on 2024-11-05 00:40:51+00:00.

---

It all started when I woke up in the middle of the night and found a strange, suffocating weight on my chest, like someone was sitting on me. I could make out an outline of someone’s figure above me, their back outlined by the orange light from the street lamps seeping through the window.

I tried to scream for help, or turn my head to look at my husband, but I couldn’t move. I didn’t regain control of my body until after the weight had lifted, and I heard a deep, male grunt, from a man pulling himself off me. I heard his footsteps too. I saw his silhouette leave through the door.

And it was only hours later of laying in that same position that I felt I could move again. It started with a pinpricking sensation through my toes and fingers, then spread through my entire body – like the feeling you get when your leg falls asleep and you have to wake it back up. 

I immediately went to my husband and shook him awake. He was distraught and confused, asking me to slow down, to tell him what happened. He was so scared by my hysterics he was moved to tears. Even still, he didn’t believe me. He said he was right next to me, he’d have woken up if someone came inside our room. He assured me it was all a dream and rubbed my back to soothe me until I could fall back asleep. 

But a week later, the same paralysis came for me. It was after an argument with my husband over finances. The same terror, the same feeling of someone sitting on my chest, then getting up and leaving the room. This time, I saw something in their hand. A knife? I couldn’t know. It was far too dark. My husband again told me it was just a bad dream, that I couldn’t afford to keep stressing myself out so much over money. 

 Ever since I lost my job, we’ve been struggling to make rent. My husband keeps telling me he’ll take care of it, he’ll take care of us. I think that's some weird masculine bullshit from his time - (he's 43, I'm 26).

 That’s the other problem with all this: I’m pregnant. Five months around this time. The financial strain had been weighing on my psyche and causing me so much stress that I’d resorted to my own means of making money for us (since I couldn’t seem to find another real job). 

 I’d been participating in paid clinical trials in order to make ends meet for us. My husband never asked where the extra money was coming from, he had no idea. He’s always been so protective over me, he would’ve died knowing I was “selling my body” to “big pharma.” It was a clinical drug trial for preeclampsia, and all they did was give me a small pill, take my blood and my vitals, and send me on my way once a week. 

 Maybe the pills were causing these sleep paralysis episodes. I wasn’t sure. But I could never confide in my husband about it. 

 Anyway, a week ago I went over to my neighbor’s house with my husband for a little Halloween party. My neighbors Sara (40f) and Tom (40m) are both so, so sweet. They left baked goods on our porch every Saturday since I announced my pregnancy. Sara checked in on me almost daily, texting me asking me how I am, how I’m feeling, if I’m having any morning sickness. 

Their kindness makes this whole thing all the stranger. 

At the Halloween party, I asked Sara for a soda. Everyone else was having beer, but, you know. She told me they have some in her outside fridge – down the stairs in the unfinished basement / garage. So I headed away from the party, fumbled for the string light and made my way down the creaky wooden steps to the basement. The floor was concrete and cold on my bare feet, so I tiptoed past Tom’s latest mechanical mess to the kitchenette and old, rusted white fridge in the far corner.  

The first thing I noticed here was a red splatter of what looked to be blood on the inside of the washbasin. There were power tools and saws and such down here, as the basement is also Tom’s workshop. He could’ve cut his finger, washed his hands and not the sink?

I shrugged it off and opened the fridge. I was immediately hit with a strange whiff of iron as I swung the door open. There were at least a three dozen milk cartons coating the shelves inside, with two Sprites in the fridge door. 

I don’t know what compelled me then to reach for the milk. Maybe I was really thirsty for it. Some pregnancy craving. Maybe I knew something was wrong, I had some intuition about it. But I grabbed a carton. It was heavy, and the liquid inside didn’t slosh the way I expected it to. It sounds strange, like something you wouldn’t be able to notice, but I did. I placed it down on the single countertop of the kitchenette, found a glass in the top shelf of the cabinet above, unscrewed the cap of the milk carton and began to pour. What came out wasn’t milk. It was red. 

It was blood. 

I vomited in the sink. Tom must have heard me, or knew I was digging where I shouldn’t have been. He came down and held back my hair while I emptied my stomach, whispering calm words like easing a brood mare. He called down my husband, who took me back upstairs. He threw my coat over my shoulders and talked quietly with Tom and Sara by the door. She’ll be fine. Just scared is all. No worries. Thank you, yes. 

I stood there with nothing to say, eyes wide, unsure of what to make of it all. My first ridiculous thought was that Tom and Sara were vampires. It wasn’t till we were walking back across the street to our house that I was able to ask Tom, “What was that?” Tom looked at me strangely, his brow furrowed. 

“Why were you poking around where you shouldn’t be?” 

 “Are you serious? They had blood in their milk cartons!” Tom sighed, pulled away from me. He was obviously frustrated.

“They own a farm, Liv.” 

“Okay?”  

“You don’t know how slaughtering an animal works, do you?” He was so so angry, I could see his hands bunched into fists, shaking slightly. 

“What are you talking about?” 

“They drain the pigs of blood after slaughter.” I chewed on this, shaking my head, both of us standing at odds with each other in the middle of the road. 

“So? Are you trying to tell me they’ve filled milk cartons with pig’s blood?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why the hell would they do that?”  

“Because it’s a thickening agent, high in protein. It’s used in a wide variety of dishes. You’ve probably eaten it before and haven’t even known it.” I stared at my husband indignantly, feeling shame rising up in me. The last thing I wanted to do was apologize. But here I was, saying sorry in the middle of the street, just to get us back inside the house.  

My sleep paralysis stopped for a few months after. At my seventh month of pregnancy, it started again. Once a week, usually Sunday nights. I would take my prenatal vitamins before bed, and wake up around midnight to find it almost impossible to breathe. At this point, I was no longer sleeping on my back. I was sleeping on my side. Still, the sleep paralysis demon, or, “man,” would straddle my shoulders, his back rising above me like a mountain so I couldn’t see anything but the bottom of his feet. Bare. Black soles. Long toenails that scrapped against the sheets. Dirtied jeans. 

Sure enough, it should’ve been a dream. But one night I woke, crying once again, and after I settled, I found dirt rubbed off on the white pillowcase by my head. A deep red stain on the bed. That same morning in the shower, I checked myself for any hints of damage. When I was paralyzed like that, I couldn’t feel a damn thing except the relentless weight on top of me, the inability to fully breathe. 

The only injuries on me were the bruises on the inside of my elbows on both sides, right where I had weekly blood draws at the clinical trial. The clinical trial my husband still didn’t know about. Though he should’ve seen the discoloration on my arms when we had sex, which now, was more and more frequent. 

Leading up to my birth, my husband’s behavior toward me became even stranger. He worried incessantly over me, taking me to sleep trials which revealed no abnormalities, arguing with doctors that something was wrong. Describing my dizziness, my fatigue, the bruising on my arms (the first time I realized he’d noticed). The doctors said this was all normal for someone during pregnancy, especially nearing the end.

I remember at the end of my seventh month of pregnancy, I again had a bout of sleep paralysis.

This time, during it, I swear I could hear my husband crying softly. It was hard to make out over the grunts and heavy breathing above me. I asked him over breakfast what he’d been crying about. He was very, very quiet, and told me only that he had a bad dream that I was being hurt.  

Maybe, at the time, I thought my paranoia a problem. Either way I obeyed it. I no longer trusted my husband. Nor did I trust my neighbors, even my own parents. I stopped eating any food anyone made for me, and cooked only for myself. I lost weight, became even paler and weaker than before. I stopped attending the clinical trials, and my husband came home with more money, having recently gotten a promotion I didn’t believe, as he clocked out of work hours early every day to come check up on me. 

Except, strangest of all, my sleep paralysis stopped completely. Instead I slept dreamless, and it was nearly impossible to wake me. I slept for twelve, thirteen hours at a time without waking up once.

One morning, in the shower, weeks after I’d stopped attending the clinical trials and getting regular blood draws, I found strange bruising over my inner ...

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/ChickenJeff on 2024-11-04 14:52:06+00:00.

---

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3[Final]

I didn’t have time to be startled, as a familiar voice immediately accompanied the knocks, “Hey. I’m back. I stayed an extra night. I bet you loved the peace and quiet. Anything happen? You didn’t call so I’m hoping we’re all good, you gave me quite a scare.”

 

Jane… In her normal, casual, optimistic Jane voice. I wanted to be able to trust her so badly. I needed a friend right now. And she made it so easy to trust her.

 

So easy…

 

How do I talk to her… It… What could I say? I couldn’t find the words.

 

“You there?” She asked calmly.

 

“Your number… It said it was out of service.” I muttered, weakly.

 

“Really? What the hell? Are you sure you typed it in right?”

 

“Yeah I’m sure.” I couldn’t put any energy behind my voice.

 

“Are you okay? What happened?” She responded, sounding genuinely concerned.

 

“You know, don’t you?”

 

“Know what?”

 

“You’re part of it. You’re this thing.”

 

“What are you talking about? Leigh, you’re not making sense.”

 

“Is your name really Jane?”

 

“Well, yeah. Obviously. Why wouldn’t it be?”

 

“Jane Lewis?”

 

The wall fell silent for a moment.

 

“What the hell. Are you looking me up or something? That’s messed up.” Jane said, sounding shaken.

 

“Maybe I should look you up. Maybe I should. Since you’re dead.”

 

“What the f-. Leigh you’re scaring the shit out of me, okay. I think you need some help.”

 

I lost my composure again, “You’re dead! You died! Jane Lewis died so who the fuck are you and why are you doing this to me!?”

 

“I’m not dead! Why are you saying I’m dead!?” She shouted.

 

She sounded so convincing… Maybe she genuinely didn’t know she was dead. Or maybe this was another trick.

 

“Your apartment is vacant. Nobody has lived there for eight years. It’s empty. You aren’t real.”

 

I heard her laugh. That kind of exasperated laugh when you hear something so ridiculous your brain has trouble processing it. It was a very human like response.

 

“Leigh. That’s not true. I don’t know who’s telling you this shit, but it’s not true. I can assure you. I am real. I signed a lease. I have a fucking parking spot. I just went to see my sister and my nephew. We played Mario Kart and ate pizza. Pretty sure I wasn’t a ghost to them... Listen to yourself. You’re in your own head. I am real. I am your friend. At least I’m trying to be.” Her voice began to crack at the end. I could almost hear the tears welling up.

 

I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I began to cry. She was trying to pull me back to a reality I had drifted so far from. God, I wanted everything she said to be true. Across the wall I could hear a few quiet sobs. It was so… real. It had to be real.

 

“You’re really scaring me. If this is a game, please just stop. It’s sick. I’ll leave. I’ll pack my shit and I’ll leave, just please stop.”

 

My heart broke. I never wanted this. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry Jane. I don’t know what’s happening with me. Nothing makes sense. The building manager told me all this shit and I don’t know what’s real anymore. I – I need help.”

 

I almost let it all go. I almost convinced myself that I had totally lost it and it was all in my head. It would have been so easy. All the pieces would fit together if none of it was real… But I had one more idea.

 

I have a phone. Like I said to her, maybe I should look her up. If she went missing there would be reports. All I have to do is type in her name.

 

Jane Lewis… plus the name of the city… Enter.

 

My heart sank further than I thought it could. There she was. The article came up immediately, and I saw her face for the first time… But I didn’t think she was lying, not on purpose anyway. Those tears couldn’t be fake. I refuse to believe it. She… really doesn’t know. She’s still stuck in that room… Thinking she’s alive.

 

I looked at her picture for a while… So different from the ones my mind conjured up when we spoke. But her face fit her voice and personality like a glove. It radiated positive energy. The image of her in my mind was replaced with this new one instantaneously. Something about being able to attach the voice to the face made me trust her ten times more. I knew this was really her, in some form. I wasn’t being tricked. I was certain.

 

I didn’t know if I should tell her that she was dead. A part of me thought there wouldn’t be a point. There’s no way she would believe me. But… I felt like I had to. No more secrets. I needed this all out in the open. Whatever happens.

 

“Jane…” I said hesitantly. “I looked you up. I’m looking at the article right now.”

 

“Leigh please…” she begged. I continued and began reading the article aloud.

 

“Jane Adrienne Lewis, 26. Last seen October 12th 2015, reported missing October 14th 2015, declared dead October 14th 2022. Multiple searches turned up no leads. The initial suspect, ex boyfriend Devon Aaronson whom had at the time been serving a restraining order from Jane, was exonerated. Her sister Carrie and mother Lynn continue to urge the public to come forward with any information they may have.” I recited coldly, trying not to break.

 

“Jane was loved by her family, friends, and community – and is described as a kind soul, funny, passionate, and selfless. Her entrepreneurial spirit led her to start up multiple small businesses, dating all the way back to eight years old when she would make and sell beaded bracelets and homemade baked goods to her classmates. Her mother, Lynn, quotes-“ I stopped myself. This was a lot to throw at her, and I think she got the point.

 

She was silent for a minute, and then she spoke “October 12th 2015.”

 

“Yes. Eight years ago, last month. That was the last time you were seen.”

 

“Eight years ago…”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“October 12th 2015 is today.” She said. “You’re telling me I go missing today.”

 

Everything turned upside down once again… I stammered; words struggled to form. She was living out her final days all over again somehow…

 

“Nobody remembers the stupid bracelets... Only my mom remembers that shit.” She continued.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s not true. You’re sick. You’ve been stalking me. Gathering all this information, what the fuck do you want??” She screamed.

 

“There’s a video… Can I play it for you?”

 

She went silent. I took that as a yes. I turned the volume up, held the phone to the wall, and hit play on the embedded video. An older woman and a younger woman stood together in front of microphones on the front lawn of a small house. I could only assume her mom and her sister. She wouldn’t accept it from me, maybe she would accept it from them.

 

Her mom didn’t get through two sentences before I heard the most horrific sound I had ever heard coming from the other side of the wall. It sounded like all the air was sucked out of her while at the same time she screamed and wailed. It was like the scream I heard the day before. All she could say was “No.” over and over again. I heard her rocking back and forth on the bed.

 

It hit. She believed.

 

“I’m sorry!” I cried. But all I could do was wait and listen to her violent sobbing. Her awful cries. I couldn’t imagine what she must be going through.

 

After a few minutes the crying stopped and she spoke through her sniffles, “Read me more. There has to be more.”

 

I obliged and continued skimming the article. The words “an early prominent lead” jumped out at me and I read the paragraph out loud.

 

“Jane’s older sister told police about conversations the two had the day prior to her disappearance. Jane talked about making friends with a neighbor named Lee…” I paused. The last thing I expected was my name to appear in this, albeit spelled wrong. My heart began to pound, and I continued.

 

“…Whom she claimed she could hear through the unit’s wall. However, when police searched, they found nobody by that name living in the building and weren’t able to find any evidence of this mysterious Lee.”

 

“What the fuck?” Jane said, echoing my sentiments.

 

“You’re… You’re alive. I’m really talking to YOU, eight years ago.” I surmised. It was the only way that could make sense.

 

“I’ve been trying to tell you I’m fucking alive!”

 

“Wait… Maybe that means I can help you. You’re supposed to die today… But maybe I can save you.”

 

“Okay, how?”

 

I thought about it for a second and the most obvious answer popped into my mind. “Get out. Get out of the room. Now. It’s in the room. You have to leave.”

 

“What do you mean it’s in the room?”

 

“It’s 402. Something bad is in 402. I hear it at night. You have to go, right now. Stay with your sister.”

 

“Okay… Okay I’m going.” She said frantically. I heard the bed shift as she began making her way off, then I heard something else.

 

“WAIT.” I shouted. “Don’t move.”

 

“What? Why?”

 

“Don’t step off the bed. Stay on the bed.”

 

“Why!?”

 

“…It’s breathing. I can hear it. It’s under your bed.” I softened my voice to a whisper. Even though I didn’t think ...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1gjg31e/the_girl_in_402_final/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/greenclayoftheearth on 2024-11-04 21:18:44+00:00.

---

I'll keep this short and sweet because I just need to get this out of my head. I've already told everyone I know now all my closest friends think im fucking crazy. It's all his fault it's all landons fault he's the crazy one with all his stupid pranks trying to get a rise out of me. But this most recent shit is fucking horrible.

My brother ever since he stopped seeing me as his cool older brother (he's 4 years younger than me) as loved messing with me making me angry. It started with pouring salt in my drinks or covering my bed in toilet paper and man that shit pissed me off. But I learned to acknowledge it but not let it get to me. You know I figured this was all because I wasn't spending enough time with him. So recently I did im now 19 and hes 14. We started watching all of dragon ball from the beginning it was our thing on fridays. He seemed to love it I'd always find him waiting for me on the couch. We'd have stupid arguments about who would win just normal brotherly conversations. But I guess I must've upset him somehow because he started again.

A couple weeks ago I walked into the living room and sat down on the couch and called his name to come join me. And then his hand jetted out from under the couch. I cursed and asked him if he was okay under there. He just giggled. I laughed it off and leaned the couch back so he could crawl out. But when I saw him there on the floor this uneasy feeling came over me. He was sprawled out flat on his stomach every part of his body seemed perfectly flat on the floor. His arms and legs were all at 90 degree angles and his chin was perfectly flat on the carpet it looked like it hurt but he still had a stupid grin on his face. So I set the couch all the way down and picked him up by his arms. He let out a deep groan as he stood up not one like a kid his age would make. Then he turned to face me smiled innocently and asked, "What episode are we on again?" In this casual way like he didn't just scare the life out of me. He acted completely normal all week.

Friday came back around. I was filled with dread when I walked through the kitchen towards the living room with Landon being nowhere in sight. The clicking of the ice maker in the freezer making me jump as I creeper into the living room and looked under the couch both of them but he wasn't there. So I took a deep breath and I figured our mom hadn't brought him home yet. I live with my girlfriend Julie but I come over for the weekends to visit. So I walked to the kitchen and grabbed a glass from the dishwasher and walked to the fridge, the freezer right next to it was still making that awful noise so I banged on it trying to dislodge the ice, it would sometimes get stuck in the ice maker and make a clicking noise. When it didn't stop I frustratedly opened the freezer door only to scream when it swung open and I was met with my brother in the small freezer knees to his chin making a sickening click in his throat as he grinned at me wildly. My brother is not a huge guy but he is 5'10 and 140 lbs but looking at him curled up with bits of ice on him he looked like a five year old. I yelled angrily and yanked him out the fridge. I dragged him to the bathroom while he giggled not even attempting to stand up or stop me from dragging him. I brought him to the bathroom, through a towel around him, got in my car, and drove home. I told my girlfriend Julie about it and she really did feel for me, we'd been together for 4 years and she was well aware how I was trying to fix my relationship with Landon. I stayed in the house with her all weekend.

I went to classes and worked like usual all week and part of me thought I should call Landon but I couldnt bare to hear that fucking giggle again. When next Friday came I got a call from my mom saying Landon broke his arm playing inside the house and that he seemed pretty bummed that I wasn't there. And I'm glad I wasn't cause I didn't want to be the one to find him "playing" inside the house. It fucked me up I felt like I was going crazy he had taken this shit to far. The week passed and again I had no plans to see my "brother" on Friday.

Julie has been my best friend for six years and my girlfriend for four and I plan to propose (if you see this babe sorry for spoiling the suprise) She is the best thing that ever happened to me and one of the reasons I stopped spending so much time with Landon. She's always pushed me to spend time with my family and they love her, I just don't get along with them too well they never wanted me to move out until my brother did. My brother has always hated Julie and once he started playing harmless but bothersome pranks on Julie was when I stopped bring her over. I've known I've loved her since our first kiss and I will never let anything happen to her no matter how small.

Julie could tell that the situation with Landon was really messing with me so she wanted to cheer me up. We watched a movie together and when it ended we went to our room for some personal time. We had both partially undressed so I leaned over to grap protection from the bedside dresser. As I opened the drawer I heard the last sound I wanted to hear. I heard that fucking giggle I heard that giggle from a three foot tall one foot deep dresser. I fucking lost it I grabbed my girlfriend and ran out to our car and drove for hours. We ended up driving to her parents house where I am now.

I am writing this because I just got off the phone with my mom who was in hysterics about my father and Landon. I was later informed by the police that my father had been stabbed seven times in the chest and once in the temple. They said he dies instantly but the officers apprehension makes this hard to believe. They believe that Landon has ran away from home taking the murder wepon with him. A younger officer pulled me aside and gave me the actual briefing it makes me sick to just think about it. My father hadnt been stabbed seven times and he certanly didnt die instantly. He had his achilles tendon severed and was forcibly crammed into a fucking ac vent. He then showed me one of the crime scene photos it was of the bloody ac vent cover,l and next to it was a picture of me and julie when we were kids that my parents kept in the living room. On it in read was wrote, "You 2 will fit in." I don't know exactly what that means, but i have an idea. I have no fucking clue what happened to the my brother but i promise I'll kill that little shit before I'd let anything happen to Julie. We're safe right now but her parents are in Europe so it's just us here.

Hopefully this won't go any further but if it does you'll be the first to know.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/voidevangelist on 2024-11-04 19:17:55+00:00.

---

In my twenty-six years of life, I've never seen anything like this, and I don't know who to tell. I work for a construction contractor, and we gotta renovate an old high school that has been in use since like the 20's. I think it had been an alternative high school called Caron Hill High. Some folks around Hillside say it's haunted. 

I don't pretend to know much about all that. I dropped out of high school at seventeen and never got a GED and I’ve been kinda there most of my life. But this thing with Kennedy Lavalle still eats at me: why wasn't this in the news? There's no news of this girl or Charlotte Cruz, and I don't know what’s going on. 

Me and my buddy Lyle are supposed to do the girls' bathroom. We took down the stalls with all the fuckin’ graffiti and weird symbols and whatever. There was a weird one on a door, but teenagers are weird. It was quick work and I was like whatever, then we tackled stripping tile and gutting drywall. When we pulled back the tile, though, a sandwich ziploc bag fell out from a hole in the wall. In it was a thumb drive, a sticky-note with a weird symbol on it, maybe the one from the stall door, and an old vape pen. I probably should have reported it, maybe whined about the extra work to fill the hole in, but something just felt, I don’t know, off.

There was only a video file on the thumb drive. Here’s the transcript of it. It was just a teen girl talking, a few snippets of other videos edited in. She's sitting in a stall in the bathroom, I think probably this one. She was more on the goth side, I probably would have wanted to date her when I was younger. But she looked scared, really fucking scared, the mascara running down her face. She said impossible shit. 

She said ahem and started talking.

My name is Kennedy Rose Lavalle. Um, I'm seventeen years old and I'm a junior at Caron Hill High School. My address is 726 Ironwood Lane and 22 East 9th Street North, depending on which parent I'm living with. My parents are Susanna Dee Burton and Jake David Lavalle. My mom drinks and lives in a trailer with my heroin-addict stepdad Danny Burton. My dad works on the oil fields in North Dakota for months on end. I have one blood brother, Peter, and a bunch of step-siblings I can't keep track of, including Danny's daughter Maya, who calls me her sister. That feels nice sometimes.

I'm telling you this because I'm nobody, I'm trailer trash - and no one will look for me when I'm gone. But someone has to know. If you find this, I'm probably gone, just like Charlie. Try to get this to my family if you can - this is my last will and testament, I guess. The vape pen in the bag is if they find a body but can't identify it. Maybe my DNA can be identified as me and my family will finally give a fuck. If they don't, my best friend is Jordan Clark. Uh, he's a junior like me and is, like, extravagantly gay. I don't know his middle name. Sorry.

I'm at Caron Hill High School for possession. Most kids get caught with a vape, but I got caught with a full-ass blunt in the Hillside High School bathroom and off to Caron Hill I went. My mom said I'm the best "self-sabotager" or whatever she knows, but it runs in the family. That's what made Charlie so intriguing to me.

Charlie Cruz is a girl from my class. Her name is short for Charlotte. Her Spanish heritage, her blond hair and olive skin, makes her glow in the halls. We went to elementary school together and she was always beautiful. While most of us at Caron Hill are here for possession or behavior, Charlie took her freshman year off to help her mom recover from surgery. I forget what kind. Either way, she got behind.

When she got here she immediately caught the eye of Michael Duran, the most popular guy at school. He was another one with a spotless record, although he and I smoked weed a lot with friends on the weekend. Michael was making moves on me and we had slept together once maybe after a party with too much tequila, so when Charlie told me he asked her out on a date, we realized how fucking shady that was. So Charlie and I made a pact and it made us friends, although I realize now that I probably took it more seriously that she did. She and I agreed that we would both ditch Michael and date each other to spite him. My heart leapt at the idea, because I'm pretty sure I loved her.

Long story short, it didn't work out like that. Charlie dated Michael and I didn't really talk to either of them much again. Until Charlie went missing.

Charlie's issue was absenteeism, sure, but she always kept Michael in the loop. I don't know, things like watching her brothers or her mom taking surprise trips to the city were normal, if I remember right. But this time there was nothing. No contact. Michael even asked me if I had heard from her, but nothing. He mentioned he went to her house and her mom said Charlie was supposed to be with him, but she was, like, knee deep in a bottle of rye whiskey and a hookah or something so she slammed the door in his face. Charlie was another nobody to the law so no one looked for her.

Then the rumors started. I don't know who started them, but I heard them from Jordan that there was a TikTok or Instagram Live video somewhere Charlie had started at Caron Hill, and that the school security cameras showed that she never left the building. I managed to track down the video, which Charlie had posted to her Instagram story. Here.

Kennedy cut to a screen capture of the Instagram Live. It was night, in selfie mode looking at the sky. Charlie walked around, her face in view, trees and streetlights in the background. She was a pretty girl too, but there was something wrong. Something in the way that Charlie's eyes glinted in the nearby streetlights, in the way her smile stretched just slightly too far across her face, in the way she kept quiet and just kinda looked at the camera, that grin plastered on her face. I couldn't help but wonder what she was doing. The two-floor brick building of Caron Hill High School was right behind her. What was she doing at the school? Kennedy cut back to her video and continued talking.

Yeah, I don't know either. That's not the Charlie I know. That Charlie grins too much, and I knew something was off. I got the help of Ben Ewing, or, uh - a senior who was at Caron Hill because he hacked into the system and changed his grades. He showed me how to view the surveillance footage from my phone. Sorry, I don't mean to implicate anyone.

I could definitely see Charlie wandering around campus that night, late. She was just looking down at her phone while recording live, probably made at least five or six circuits around the school just looking at her phone. But then she just, I don't know, went into the building. I don't know how the door got open.

Through the cameras I saw her movements, and what I saw I can't believe. I recorded what I could.

Kennedy cut to a screen capture again. This time of grainy surveillance from WideAngel, a grid of different screens showing the full campus, inside and out. One box was picked, and a camera above the front door showed Charlie enter and turn right, down the steps into the basement. Kennedy picked another view to the camera at the end of the basement hallway, and you could hear the door out of view open and close. I thought Charlie would start walking the length of the hallway, but it seemed she stopped just beneath the camera, so I couldn’t see her.

The hallway was long, and I had seen it myself. It runs the entire length beneath the gym and beyond, with windowed double doors at the end. I could hear Kennedy say "Here, let me fast-forward," and the grainy footage sped up, the only movement the pixels, I don’t know, dancing, on the dark hallway and the slightly lighter windows at the end of the hall.

Then I saw it. Kennedy resumed normal playback. A silhouette of a man filled the windows at the end of the hall. Hands and face pressed against the frosty glass, but I couldn’t see nothing, but I couldn't tell if it was the glass or not. 

Two hands shot up from beneath. Charlie was still there beneath the camera, but her hands raised to the ceiling into view. Kennedy cut back to herself and continued:

I don't know. I really don't.

This continues until the sun rises nearly six hours later, Charlie's hands still up in, I don’t know, worshiping form. The figure disappears in the sunlight and her arms go down. But here's the thing: she never goes back up the stairs or down the hall, and there are no other ways out. School just resumes like normal the next day. ISS happens down there, so you can see Mr. Telles escorting kids down to the room and some others wandering through for lunch, but nothing more of Charlie.

I tried to show my family, but they claimed I was smoking too much and wouldn't give me the time of day. Even Peter and Maya laughed. What was I supposed to do? The police would never take it seriously, especially given me as trailer trash and also having a probation officer for possession.

So I took matters into my own hands. I hid in the bathroom one night, when I knew the janitorial staff was off, with my vape for courage and a can of Monster to stay awake. I cracked the can, took some puffs, and waited in the stalls.

I tried so hard to stay awake but I couldn't. When I woke up I was slumped over against ...

---

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

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/RubinOkami on 2024-11-04 15:50:14+00:00.

---

So, for those of you who don’t know, four days ago I went into my backyard to have a cigarette and found myself unable to escape. Some sort of force stops me every time I try. Just for example, the first time I tried to get a running start and jump over the fence, I was repelled and ate dirt. My tongue literally touched the soil. It would've been extremely embarrassing, but given the circumstances... anyway. Something prevents me from climbing the fence, the gate won’t open, and I can’t break the windows of my house. I've attempted scaling the walls, but the brick isn't deep enough to support me, and I'm not strong enough to get a grip.

Furthermore, the cops can’t find me, my family and friends don’t believe me, and the locals are mad. Even if I escaped this place, I’d probably go straight to jail. They all think I’m faking this. At first, I denied it, but… then I thought maybe I was going insane. I mean, if someone called you over a hundred times claiming to be lost in their own backyard, would you consider them mentally stable? I wouldn't. But now I'm in that exact situation, except it's real.

That’s when I originally turned to Reddit. I know, I know. Posting this here isn’t going to help me, or get people to believe me, but it will get my story heard in a community where people will actually listen, even if it's just to laugh or roll their eyes. Even if none of you believe any of this, at least someone will know what happened to me if I... never make it out.

Here’s a link to what happened when I got trapped here in the first place:

I'm stuck inside a pocket dimension and nobody can help me.

For those of you who didn’t know, or don’t remember, I live in a townhouse. It's a small unit at the back and we have a fenced backyard. It’s small, but it’s big enough for my dog to run around a bit, as well as for small get-togethers. I used to quite like sitting back here to smoke or bird-watch, and I'd do it often... but not anymore, as that's how I got trapped here. If I ever escape this place, I'll never leave my room again.

Behind my house, there’s a small forest. It’s not tiny, but it isn’t huge. If I had to guess, it’s maybe an acre or two. And in the fence that squares in my backyard---at the very back corner facing the forest---sits a hole.

Last year, a bolt of lightning or some strong winds or something broke a dead tree back there, and a large branch fell on the fence. Both the corner of the fence and the branch that fell got obliterated into a tangled mess when it hit the ground, but we never had the time or money to get it fixed. Since our dog couldn’t fit through the rubble to escape, we never dealt with it.

When I first got here and realized I couldn’t escape through climbing the fence or going through the gate, that hole was the first area I tried to get out through. Of course, nothing could’ve been that easy, and I couldn't get a single piece of wood to move even with all my strength. This place was preventing me from escaping at all costs.

I pretty much gave up after that and went back to the only area of shade I had back there; the bench under the living room window. As I’ve stated before, the sun doesn’t move from high noon anymore, and it’s pretty much the height of summer. It’s hot as hell (and somewhat humid), but the shade keeps me just cool enough to survive.

But something worries me more than my own survival, and it's the supposed time dilation between my posts. When I realized that, I had a severe panic attack. I really hope that it's just a delay or some sort of queue, but Reddit is saying that my first post from a few days ago is actually from ONE YEAR ago. I can only imagine how many years in the future this post will go through, but I'm hoping it's less than one. For me, the current year is August 2nd, 2023. Oddly enough, I was able to reply to the lovely people in my comment section in real-time. It's as if every day here is 3 months back home. This whole thing is breaking my brain.

Eventually, I realized that if I didn't occupy myself as much as possible, I'd go insane from both the lack of stimuli and the panicked thoughts of the world leaving me behind. I'd go crazy before I even got close to dying. I find myself dissociating often, staring off into the heatwaves that rise off the barbecue. The other day I thought I heard talking on the other side of the fence, and when I investigated I found nothing. I started hallucinating noises and conversations almost constantly after that. I could barely get any sleep without hearing whispering in my ears. I kept seeing people poking their heads over the fence---like a person hopping up and down before disappearing---but never could I catch it in action. Then, yesterday, I blinked and found myself standing up halfway across the yard with no memory of how I'd gotten there.

That's when I really started panicking. Realizing that my entire life in this place would consist of heat-dazed hallucinations, gaps in memory, and paranoia... it almost made me pass out. It did, however, instill me with a newfound fervour to escape this fucking place as soon as possible.

I tried everything again. I took a running leap to clear the top of the fence but an invisible something threw me to the ground. I took a running leap at the window to break into my own house, but it didn't budge, nor did it make a sound. I gathered stones and bricks from my patio and launched them at the neighbour's front door, but nobody ever came. I tried climbing the walls until my fingernails broke. I screamed until my voice went hoarse. I slammed my fists on the fence gate. I cried and screamed until I threw up.

I closed my eyes in a last-ditch attempt and tried barreling through the tangled mess of sticks and branches blocking the hole in the fence, but I found myself hitting the ground once more. I couldn't bear the thought of opening my eyes to see the fucking green grass and the dumb blue sky with the stupid bright sun straight over the top of me. It mocked me. It all mocked me. I remember screaming and grabbing myself by the throat almost instinctually as if trying to strangle myself to death, but when I opened my eyes to find a rock to bash my own brains out, I stopped in my tracks.

I wasn't in my backyard anymore. I was sitting on the forest floor. I hadn't noticed when it happened, but I... made it through. I looked behind me to see that the sticks and branches blocking the way through the fence weren't there anymore. Not a single flake of wood, and the hole was a perfect rectangle. Like that section of the fence and the mass of rubble were just cut out somehow.

Without pause, I passed my hand through the perfectly rectangular hole in the fence and felt no repulsive force. I even jumped back in and out of the hole to test it, and nothing prevented me from entering or leaving my backyard.

Thing is... there are still no people. No animals, passersby, city sounds... nothing. I was gonna make a run for it straight into town, just in case, but my Wi-Fi signal doesn't extend past the backyard. I'm not out yet, and I don't know if I'm close to a breakthrough, or maybe I'm just being let out without a catch, or maybe this is all some sort of trick... but I need time to think about this.

I'll post again in the coming days, but I can't do that without a Wi-Fi connection, so I'll have to think of something in the meantime to make sure that if I leave my backyard and can't make it back inside, I still have a way to update you guys. For now, this is goodbye.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Objective_Skin_1291 on 2024-11-04 12:09:23+00:00.

---

A little backstory: I was fresh out of college, broke, and desperate for work. I had bills, student loans, and no one was hiring in my field. Then, this job popped up on a tech job board: Social Media Content Moderator. The description was pretty vague—“Review and filter flagged content to ensure a safe online experience”—but it was remote, paid decently, and had benefits. So, I applied, got it, and started right away.

At first, it was just as I expected. Spam posts, bots, fake profiles. Nothing major. But then they started putting me on “sensitive content.” This was where things got dark. I’d go through videos of animal abuse, disturbing accidents, graphic violence—you name it. You get a tolerance for it after a while, or at least I thought I did.

Then they started assigning me to “special cases.”

For those, I had to log into this separate portal, super secure, with layers of encryption. I was told it was for “government partners” who needed specific types of content flagged for “national security reasons.” They didn’t explain much beyond that. I figured, okay, maybe terrorism or something. But no.

The content in there was… different.

The first time I opened a video from this portal, it was security footage of a convenience store robbery that ended in a murder. Except, it wasn’t on the news anywhere. I know because I checked. And I checked every day after that, thinking the story would come out eventually. It never did. And that wasn’t the worst of it.

The more I reviewed, the stranger it got. Videos from what looked like interrogation rooms, people being questioned while bound to chairs, others in dark rooms with these empty, lifeless looks in their eyes. I’d see people breaking down in front of the camera, confessing to things I don’t even want to repeat. And every time, I’d check for a news story or a police report. There was nothing. These videos were ghosts.

Then one day, I saw a video of a man sitting in what looked like an abandoned warehouse. He was crying, begging, but I couldn’t hear anything—just muffled audio. There was a timer in the corner of the screen, counting down. When it hit zero, the man’s chair dropped through a trapdoor. I didn’t see where he went, but I heard his scream. The video cut to black. The message on the screen read, “Content reviewed and flagged for internal record.”

After that, I had nightmares, couldn’t sleep. I told my supervisor I needed a break, but she brushed me off, said they needed all hands on deck for a “high-priority contract.” They even offered me a pay raise to keep going. I thought about quitting, but the money was too good, and I was too hooked on finding out what the hell was going on.

Then, about two weeks later, I found her. My sister. Sitting in one of those videos, strapped to a chair, looking terrified out of her mind. She’d gone missing six months before, and no one had found a single trace of her. The police told me it was likely a runaway situation, that she’d come back on her own eventually. But there she was, on my screen, in this hellhole, begging for her life, as a faceless figure stepped into frame, holding a knife.

I started screaming, crying, trying to message someone, anyone, but my chat feature was disabled, and all I could do was watch. They did things to her I can’t even bring myself to describe. When the video ended, the screen went black and showed the same message: “Content reviewed and flagged for internal record.”

I lost it. I threw my laptop across the room and quit on the spot. I contacted the police, told them everything, showed them what little evidence I had saved. They started an investigation but, weeks later, they claimed they “couldn’t find any proof” of the videos. They looked at me like I was crazy, like I’d imagined the whole thing. After that, things only got worse. My email was hacked, my bank account frozen, and I started getting anonymous messages, warning me to “stay quiet” or “face consequences.”

I don’t know who those people were or why my sister was there. But I know this: whoever is behind these videos has eyes and ears everywhere. I keep my head down now, avoid social media, never talk about it. Because if you’re seeing this, just know—there’s a price to looking too deep. And some things, once you see them, never let you go.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Cosmic-Chart on 2024-11-04 06:53:33+00:00.

---

Life was tough as a kid. I grew up in a small town down south. I’ll leave out the details so none of y’all can recreate my mistakes, but it was a one stop light, one store kind of deal. My daddy hated it, always said he wanted to leave. Came home drinking more often than not, kicked me and my mamma around a bit. Finally she’d had enough, and got the cops to come chase him out of town. The officers drove in from the next district over, that’s how small the town was.

Mama said things would be different after she kicked daddy out, calling him a no good drinkin’ and swearin’ sonovabitch. She swore on the stupid gold tooth he had that she’d never let him back in the house. She promised me that she’d pick up a few extra shifts at the diner and that there would be no more lousy man threatening to ‘tan my hide’ every time I wandered too far into the woods alone. 

I didn’t believe a word she said until she brought home the dog, a scruffy looking brown and yellow thing that scratched itself more often than it breathed. He was big and energetic, with paws that splayed out like maple leaves. She said it could keep me company while she was working, rather than me just watching TV all day. I said sure thing and called him Rowdy.

Rowdy might’ve been a mut but he was a quick learner. It only took two Sundays alone together for him to learn sit, and after two more I had him fetching. It was fun, finding sticks and tossing them into the woods. He’d always come back, panting and wagging. I loved him for it. Still, the house was awfully quiet without daddy around. There’s only so much the whining of a dog can do to replace the ‘slugger’ and ‘champ’, let alone a good ‘tan your hide’. A dog can’t even pass you a pigskin on its good days.

It didn’t take long before I started to push him, trying to see how far I could throw and still have Rowdy trot to me. It was a natural progression, he’d always come back and so a part of me figured he always would. I stopped looking after a while, just wandering through the woods and throwing sticks. I’d lose track of time, and more than once was only brought back by the yelling of my mama at night.

And then everything really did change. We’d wandered a little too deep. I was throwing a little too far. I was sitting on a stump, real mad at the kids from school who’d called me no-daddy and was imagining punching their stupid fat faces when I realized that Rowdy hadn’t come back. He always came back.

I found him on the side of the service road, the red puddle at the corner of his mouth still sticky but his eyes long gone. His legs were still splayed out like he was running, trying to get back to me. The stick was still in his mouth.

I buried Rowdy under a pile of rocks by the creek and cried until Mama got home. I think she must’ve known, because the first thing she did after hugging me was start calling up the local shelters, looking for another mutt we could pick up to be just like Rowdy. Knowing wasn’t the same as understanding, though, because I didn’t want another mutt to take his place. I wanted him back.

Around the same time the TV stopped working, and no grown ups around the house left it silent as a cell. Maddening, too, cuz we hadn’t had money to buy me anything new for christmas and I didn’t feel like playing with my child’s set of army men. I started picking the house apart from sheer boredom, opening every nook and cranny for no other reason than to fill the silence with the creaking of rusty hinges.

I found it in a trunk with some other stuff from a second-uncle, the one that didn’t come to the family gatherings anymore. It was bound in squishy leather and felt heavier than anything made of paper should. I flipped through the first few pages and immediately knew I’d hit the jackpot.

The book told me the exact steps to take, what I’d need to go through with the spell. I snagged a couple of the extra candles from the church building and got as close as I could to lavender while picking plants out in the woods. I practiced drawing the signs over and over in the dirt so I wouldn’t mess it up when the time came. I knew I didn’t have much time. Buried dogs don’t keep long.

‘When all has been arranged, merely prick your finger. A drop of vital ichor is enough to complete the spell, and the spirit of the one you desire most shall be returned to the cadaver.”

I took my swiss army knife and speared a drop of blood across his forehead, tracing around the places where the skin was starting to split and ooze. I said a quick prayer that Rowdy wouldn’t mind the worms in him, then I waited, sitting with my dead dog across my knees in a circle in the dirt. 

I waited for minutes, then hours, until the sun went down and my Mama started to call my name again from the back porch. Rowdy never moved, but I figured his spirit must've been real far away. That, or the book was bunk in the end.

I got my answer at midnight. I don’t know what woke me, the wheezing too strained to be the wind or the dripping too slow and sticky to be the rain. Perhaps it was the stench of dead animal and maggot, perhaps it was the feeling of eyes on your back.

The red glow of the electric clock painted a messy painting, six foot tall in my doorway. The spine bent unnaturally, pulling chunks of dirty bone and ligament from skin that didn’t fit quite right, like a second hand coat. Its paws dangled at its rotting flanks, spindly white finger flesh pushing through the matted fur and claws. In one hand it held a waitress’ apron, covered in liquid too dark to make out.

It reeked like spoiled meat in the fridge, rocking gently with each tortured inhale. The cracks in its body tricked out dark liquid that pooled on the carpet. It had a long, canine skull balanced atop its crooked neck. Two eyes leaked from their pits within the bone, sunken and reflective. I’d seen coyote eyes before at the edges of the porch light, but this was different. Coyotes didn’t stare back in quite the same way. They didn’t hate you like those two eyes did. 

It let out a noise, maybe a growl or maybe a whine or maybe a scream. It jerked to life, trashing towards me and dropping gristly bits of Rowdy to the floor in a storm of wet smacks. It reached out a hand,  dripping muscle tearing dog skin out of the way to wrap its long fingers around my neck. It wheezed again, popped balloon chest forcing air through its throat it a cry of rage. Its breath was like the smell of infected cuts, clogging my nostrils as I gasped for air. It began to squeeze.

I stared down its maw, a bulging tube of pus and bulging teeth. They weren't all sharp canines. A lot of them looked human.

I put all my strength into the kick, maybe for myself, maybe for Rowdy and what this thing had done to him. My foot crunched through ribs into a warm sludge, mashing the soft bits inside.

It screamed, falling backwards and retching. Its mouth opened, spewing out liquid and little bits of itself, then larger pieces. Lungs, guts, bones. It wheezed, screamed, wailed, whatever you want to call it, but this time it was different. It wasn’t all angry, more afraid. More like a dog taking its last breaths on the side of the road. I took my chance and ran.

I did look back, once, just as I sprinted through the door and out into the woods. 

It stood in the pile of flesh that was within it, hunched so low I could almost believe it was an animal. Its shoulder blades pushed through the skin of its back like wings as it rooted through the puddle beneath it. It was too dark to see, but I swear to you I saw, as I ran from that house for the last time ever, the glimmer of a golden tooth in its hand.

They ruled what happened to my mamma a suicide, and I got tossed into foster care. I got lucky a few times, met some good folk. I live far, far away now, with a new family and good job. We even have a new dog. 

But every night, I make sure each and every one of the doors in my house is locked. I clean the piston in my dresser weekly, and sleep with it loaded. I never let the kids play at night without me there. To this day, I’ve never heard anything from my dad. But sometimes, when the night is dark and the lights of the house are bright enough, I swear I can see those eyes reflecting back at me.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/GN0515_ on 2024-11-04 05:56:00+00:00.

---

He sat behind the long, heavy table, his small body almost swallowed by its size. His eyes were glassy, stained with tears that had fallen on his freckled face. I walked over and sat down, gazing at the dark-haired boy as his mother, with similar hair and features, held his small hand. "Derrick, can you tell me the last time you saw your friend Jimmy?" I inquired softly.

"I saw him at the edge of the woods," Derrick stuttered, his hands clenching his mother's tightly. "He was looking in there and said he heard something."

"Did you see anyone, like anybody strange?"

He shook his head. "I didn't see anyone, officer."

"What about before that?" I asked, my mind flashing through a slideshow of little Jimmy's body, found in a shallow creek bed, the side of his head stained with a mixture of dried mud and blood. Each image paused in my mind before the next one appeared. 

“No, I didn’t see anything,” Derrick said softly. His mom looked at me with concern. No parent wants to see their child questioned, no matter how gently, by a detective in a police station.

“I promise, it won’t be much longer,” I said, trying to reassure her worried expression. I paused, carefully choosing my next question so as not to overwhelm the ten-year-old boy. “Did Derrick say anything before he went into the woods?”

“He said he heard a boy laughing in the woods,” Derrick sobbed, more tears welling up in his eyes. I handed him a tissue, and he wiped away the tears from his soft cheek. “He said it sounded like the boy was having lots of fun, and we tried to tell him not to go in there because we needed to go home.”

“Did he say he saw the boy?”

“No one ever sees it when Kyle laughs in the woods,” Derrick squeaked, his eyes wide with fear. “No one ever can ever see Kyle until it’s too late.”

“Alright, Derrick, go home. Just know that we’re on the case and we’ll find out who hurt your friend,” I replied, standing up and looking over at his mother, whom Derrick was now gripping tightly.

“Danny Patterson has put that scary story in his head,” the mother seethed. “He came up to us at the grocery store and kept saying how Kyle loves to laugh in the woods.”

“Danny Patterson, you say?” I inquired, my curiosity piqued.

“Yeah, he’s your friend. Tell him to leave us alone, Jake,” she said.

“Me and Danny Patterson haven’t really been close since junior high,” I remarked, slightly annoyed. Even to this day, in this small town, and as a police officer, I was still associated with Danny Patterson, a drunkard who I only ever interacted with in the drunk tank or on the street. “But I’ll talk to him.”

– 

“They should really just put a fence up around that creek,” Sam said dismissively. If I hadn’t been in the car and listening over the speakers, I would have shot him an annoyed look. “It’s a steep fall, and all the rocks below it make it even more hazardous.”

“I’m just as aware of that as you are, Sam,” I huffed, passing the small gas station where we used to get soda and candy bars when we were wandering the small town looking for adventures. “This is the third time in ten years a body has been found in that creek.”

“Yeah, because kids fall in it, and the town should do something about it!”

“The kid said that his friend heard a boy laughing in the woods before he disappeared.”

“Oh God, not the ‘Kyle loves to laugh in the woods’ bullshit again,” Sam grumbled as I continued to drive past Dirkler Road’s Church of Christ. “They’ve been saying that since we were kids!”

“It started when we were kids, Sam.”

“Yeah, it did, but that doesn’t mean we have to obsess about a town’s legend,” Sam retorted. “Do you think some ghost kid bashed another kid’s head in?” 

“Of course not, I want to know if someone else did!”

“Or if he fell into the creek bed like the others.” 

As I was formulating a way to convey my annoyance, I saw something small, with dark hair, running across the road. My car was about to collide with it. I could see a boyish smile on the figure’s face.

“Shit!” I yelled, stomping on the brakes. The screech of rubber and pavement echoed through the car as I turned the wheel right. My car slid onto the shoulder and into the grass.

“Jake, are you there?” Sam shouted as my heart raced. I quickly put the car in park and looked around, but there was no sign of the little boy. “Jake, do I need to call the police?”

“I am the police, Sam.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am. I almost hit a kid.”

“Where are you at?”

“I’m at the park close to the Dirkler Road Church.”

“Wait, you’re going to the crime scene?”

“I am,” I replied, as I saw the ghosts of my childhood past: the sway of swings in the fall wind, the crack of branches scraping against each other in the canopy of the woods, and the sight of playground equipment. The once-red slide was almost white from being sun-bleached over the last twenty years. The monkey bars were rickety and dangerous; hardly anyone ever came to this playground. “I’ll call you back. I’m going to check on the kid.”

“Alright, call me back when you wrap up.” 

“Sure,” I said, hanging up the phone and opening the car door. The wind roared briefly as I looked around, trying to find the kid, but there was no sign of him. I began walking towards the playground, where I could see the treeline that led to the woods where Jimmy had gone before disappearing and later being found dead in the creek bed.

“Hey anyone out there?” I yelled out. “I just want to make sure you are okay?” 

I heard the snap of a few sticks, as if someone was running through the woods. I picked up the pace, awaiting a reply, but none came. When I said, "I'm with the police," the sound of small footsteps running continued from the woods.

I stopped at the edge of the woods. More ghosts of the past came to mind, another slideshow playing in my head: Sam, Danny, and I running around these woods, on a sugar high from candy bars and soda.

"Kid, I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to make sure you're alright," I said, taking a deep breath before stepping into the woods. Another footstep crunched through the leaves, coming from what sounded like the left. I turned to see what looked like small fingers curled around a tree, as if someone was hiding.

"Come on out now," I shouted, walking towards the tree. I slowed down as I observed the fingers. They were discolored, almost a rotten green, and looked far too wrinkled to belong to a child.

"Hey, I need you to come out from there," I said, feeling uneasy. I unclipped my holster and placed my hand on my gun, but something stopped me. The sound of laughter, like a child trying to imitate a demonic cackle, filled the air.

"Come out now!" I shouted.

My command was greeted by more chortling and giggling.

"Just because you're a kid doesn't mean I can't detain you, you know?" I insisted, standing about ten feet away from the tree. The fingers curled further, almost as if trying to dig into the trunk. The sound of heavier footsteps rustling through the leaves came from behind me. I pulled out my gun, gripping it tightly with both hands, and whipped around.

A haggard man, with a beer belly protruding from his deep red flannel shirt, his jeans stained with dirt and dead leaves. His dark beard and hair showed signs of aging, streaked with gray, and his heavy-lidded eyes met mine with surprise.

"Jake, what are you doing here?"

"No, the question is what are you doing here, Danny?" I huffed angrily. "You know a crime happened here, right?"

"Yeah, I know that. I'm here to get answers."

"And how the hell are you going to do that?" I asked, turning toward the tree. The fingers were gone, replaced only by silence. No more laughter. "I'm handling the case."

"Just because you're a cop now doesn't make you superior or a better person," Danny mocked as I walked to the tree and peered behind it. Nothing remained, not even an imprint in the soil or the dead leaves on the ground.

"No, but it makes me wonder what you're doing here."

"I told you what I'm doing here."

"Walking around the park after harassing a little boy who just lost his friend."

"I didn't harass anyone, Jake," Danny grumbled as he approached, and I holstered my gun. "He knows what happened to him."

"And what is that, Danny?"

"You know Kyle loves to laugh in the woods."

"I'm done here," I snapped, scanning the ground for footprints. Danny shuffled quickly behind me. "You know someone could think you're the suspect, walking around here."

"Are you going to arrest me, Jake?"

“For interfering in a police investigation.” 

"Come on, you and I both know that it's very real," Danny insisted, trying to keep up the pace. "You can pretend all you want, but you know, I know, and Sam, wherever he is, knows."

"No, only you think an angry boy ghost is killing kids!" I shouted, turning to face Danny. His breath and clothing reeked of cheap whiskey and cigarettes. "Sam thinks it's ridiculous too!"

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I want to know what happened to that poor fucking boy!"

The sound of laughter echoed through the woods as I paused, trying to pinpoint its source. I looked at Danny, who seemed frozen, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. "You can't tell me you aren't hearing it," Danny prodded.

"Yeah, I saw a kid run across the street as I was driving here."

"It was him, Jake."

"No, it was some kid with black hair! He was very real."

The laughter grew louder as I glanced past Danny's shoulder to see a small figure standing about fifteen feet behind hi...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1gj7kpv/kyle_loves_to_laugh_in_the_woods/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/IamHereNowAtLeast on 2024-11-04 04:35:22+00:00.

---

Two years ago, my best friend, Maggie, vanished.

One night, she was out with friends celebrating finals being done, laughing, living, just a college kid letting off steam. And the next morning? Gone. She was driving home to visit her parents for the weekend. Her car was found empty on a remote highway just outside of Meridian, Idaho, miles from town.

The police combed the area, but their conclusion was maddening.

“She'd been drinking with friends. We know that much. Something happened on the road. She stopped. Went looking for help and probably ended up succumbing to nature.”

Maggie probably had a drink or two after finishing finals... But no way she was drunk driving, if that's what they were insinuating. That wasn't Maggie.

Then one of the idiots even suggested she’d just taken off, like she’d decided on a whim to leave her life behind. But I knew Maggie. I knew she would never just disappear.

I knew something had happened to her. Something dark.

The police haven't made any progress and consider Maggie's case cold. I feel terrible for her and her family. Every time I pressed the police, I'd get the same tired answer.

“These things happen sometimes...”

I knew better.

Maggie didn’t just wander off, and neither did the two other college kids who’d vanished over the past five years after nights of partying, found only by their abandoned cars along these lonely mountain roads. Someone was out there, lurking, and if no one else was going to do anything about it, then I would.

Or I guess I'd try my best...

When my grandma passed away earlier this year, she left me an inheritance.

It wasn’t a fortune, but it was enough to change my life. Enough that I could take a break from work, enough that I didn’t have to worry about paying rent for a while. Enough to make a difference. I could’ve put it toward something practical, something responsible, but what good would that do when my best friend was still missing and the police weren’t even trying?

There was no better way to spend it than to find Maggie’s killer.

So, I put the money to use.

I bought five used cars at a local auction, all different models, different colors, all registered with different plates. I outfitted each with a dash cam on the front and back, and made each car as inconspicuous as possible.

My goal was simple: make myself look like a random college kid on the road each night, and hope that I could draw him out. I’d change my appearance too... wigs, hats, glasses.

I needed to blend in. I needed to look like an easy target.

For months, I drove that damned mountain road.

I mapped out a pattern from all the disappearances I could track, finding the routes where people had vanished while driving them alone in the dead of night.

Five nights a week, I was there, just waiting for him to follow me. I imagined what I would do when I caught him, how I’d turn the tables and make him face the consequences once I got him on camera.

But tonight, as I sat on the edge of the lonely highway, at 3 a.m., waiting in the black Toyota Camry I’d picked up, all I felt was exhaustion. The kind of tired that sits behind your eyes and digs in.

Too many nightmares, too many nights lying awake, feeling the weight of everything pressing in. Part of me thought about skipping it tonight, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t risk missing him. I climbed into the car, threw a thermos of coffee onto the passenger seat, and set off.

The road was empty, silent. The only sounds were the hum of the engine and the occasional rustle of branches in the breeze. I followed my usual route, the same one Maggie would have taken home that last night. For the first hour, there was nothing. Just empty darkness stretching ahead and behind. But then, just as I was about to turn back, I noticed headlights in the rearview mirror.

My pulse raced.

Cars sometimes popped up on this road, but not often.

And this one felt… wrong.

I tried to ignore the sense of dread building in my chest, telling myself it was just another driver, but my instincts wouldn’t let it go. The car was too close, its headlights glaring in my mirrors, keeping an unnerving distance.

I slowed down, just a little, just to see.

The car behind me slowed too, matching my pace perfectly. A chill crawled up my spine, but I kept my expression calm, my hands steady on the wheel. This was it. This had to be it.

I eased off the gas, letting my speed drop even further, almost to a crawl. If they wanted to pass, they’d have their chance. But they didn’t. They stayed right behind me, hanging back just far enough that I couldn’t make out the make or model of the car.

The seconds dragged on, my heartbeat loud in my ears.

I told myself to reach for my phone, to start recording from my POV as well, but my hands were frozen. I was too scared. I kept my eyes on the road, feeling my pulse thundering in my temples.

And then, just as suddenly as they’d appeared, the headlights veered off onto a side road, disappearing into the trees. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, feeling the tension drain from my body. Relief washed over me, followed by a sickening disappointment.

Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe I was just scaring myself.

I pulled over at a small turnout, resting my forehead against the steering wheel, my eyes stinging with exhaustion. My mind raced with doubts, questions, anger. What if I was wasting my time? What if Maggie was truly lost to something I could never find?

The world was silent, pressing in on me, but I forced myself to take a deep breath and close my eyes, just for a moment. I thought I’d rest for a few minutes, clear my head.

Then the sound of gravel crunching snapped me awake.

I looked up, heart pounding, to see headlights creeping up behind me. My blood ran cold as I recognized the car. It was the same one, back again. They’d been watching, waiting. I felt a surge of fear and anger as the driver’s door opened, and a figure stepped out, a tall, stocky man in a white shirt.

He didn’t hesitate. He was sprinting toward me, his steps heavy and determined.

Panic took over, and I fumbled with the keys, my fingers trembling as I jammed them into the ignition. The engine roared to life, and I slammed on the gas, the tires spinning on the gravel before gripping. I shot forward, the headlights disappearing behind me as I sped down the road. In the rearview mirror, I saw him standing there, his face twisted in anger or disappointment. I couldn’t tell which. But I’d seen that look before, on other men, other nights. The look of a predator who had just lost his prey.

My hands were shaking as I drove, adrenaline flooding my veins, my mind a whirlwind of fear and fury. I’d been so certain I was in control, that I could outsmart him. But in that moment, I realized how wrong I’d been. I’d been playing with fire, and it almost consumed me.

I kept driving, my eyes darting to the rearview mirror every few seconds, half-expecting to see those headlights reappear. But the road remained empty, stretching out ahead of me like an endless, dark tunnel. It was only when I reached the lights of Meridian that I finally pulled over, my entire body shaking as I gripped the wheel.

I sat there in silence, staring into the darkness.

I still didn’t have the answers I wanted. But I felt like I was closer to finding the truth about what happened to Maggie. One thing was abundantly clear: He was still out there, waiting for someone else to stumble onto that road, another college kid, just like Maggie.

Honestly, I'm a little overwhelmed tonight.

I'm going to go get the USB memory cards from my dash cameras in the morning. I'm not ready to look at what's on them yet. I know once I do... there's no going back.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/confused_corgi_35 on 2024-11-03 05:35:28+00:00.

---

"Sleep. Just go to sleep. It'll be over in the morning. You can do it. You can sleep it off. Ignore the knocking," I tried to keep myself from going completely crazy from the knocking on my window. "Don't open your eyes," I either thought, or I whispered under my breath. Everything is a blur.

Ever since I accepted the job offer, my life's become a living hell. I can't go to the grocery, exercise, or even go to work without ~~feeling~~ knowing something is following me.

I'll provide some context. Last month, I, Jonathan Michaels, fresh out of college at 22, I applied for a job at a new company, Brighter Days Inc. It was a sort of... well, I don't wanna say asylum... it didn't seem like it was that serious. Just a mental health facility.

I was so excited to pursue my dreams, helping people understand the power of their minds. For brighter days, as the company said.

For the first 3 days, I worked as an assistant, helping the other nurses, serving people coffee, things like that. On the 4th day, I was finally tasked to serve a patient. I was nervous, but more excited, probably.

"So, are there any problems you're currently facing?" I asked the patient before beginning the consultation. I was working as a psychologist, with my own office and everything. She maintained a fairly friendly aura, before she actually started speaking.

"No... it's more like... a problem is facing me," the patient replied.

I was intrigued, not too scared yet. I didn't study 4 years to give up from that. "What exactly is this problem*?*" I asked next.

She paused. Then she said, "It started with a dream." She paused again. I still remained silent, as she looked to be thinking of a way to speak the next sentence. "A man. No, wait..." she struggled, "A figure. It was a figure. Was it? No, maybe not," she retracted every explanation she tried to give, as my curiosity peaked.

"An entity," she spoke, sounding sure this time. "It was an entity. A black shadow-like figure. It had a hunched back, glowing white eyes, and dinosaur-like arms and legs, clawed and everything. It was like a breed of a shadow, some demonic contorted T-Rex, and a disturbingly tall man."

I paused, maybe a little nervous this time, but not backing down. "Ok... and what did he do?" I asked.

"He stared. That stare... it haunts me in my dreams. In life. He's everywhere," she cried quietly. Whenever my nervousness increased, my curiosity increased 2x more.

"He stared?" I asked, "When did he start staring? Why did he start staring? Did he do anything else?" I had a million other questions, but I bit my tongue to hear her out.

"He lurked around me at times, following me wherever I went. It seemed like he was growing bigger the more scared I grew of him. This is the only place I've ever felt safe. I made a good decision coming here," she said.

"He started staring around when my husband died. He went missing and was found drowned in a lake a week after. Always screaming that he would kill someone," she added, "And I don't know why the entity started coming after me."

I paused for a while, trying to collect my rushing thoughts. "Alright. When was the last time you saw this entity?" I asked.

"He chased me here, but I never saw him again since being here. It's been about a week," she replied.

"Ok, Alice, I need you to know that you're safe here. That he won't hurt you, ok?" I spoke.

"I know," she said, eerily. I always wondered what it meant. For someone who had been so scared speaking of it, "I know" seemed like a weird thing to reply.

The rest of the days, she spoke about how she misses her kids, mother, and husband. I was always curious about this "husband" of hers. I assumed it was a sensitive topic, so I chose to steer clear of it for the time being.

About a week after the first incident, she looked scared to see me when I entered her room. "No! No! I want a different person! Someone else! Someone else, please! Not this one!" she screamed.

"Alice, it's me. Johnathan. Remember?" I spoke softly, trying to comfort her.

"I know! That's the problem!" she shouted.

The nurse tried escorting her out, but I told her to let her stay. I was intrigued. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"I saw it again." she lowered her voice, as her demeanor changed... more sinisterly. Mysterious.

"What did it do? Did it attack you?" I asked her.

"No, it doesn't want me anymore," she replied, before finally looking me in the eyes, almost smirking a little, "It wants you."

I felt a shiver strike through my spine. "Me? Why does it want me?" I asked, still trying to keep it light and maintain my composure.

She started laughing. Like a maniac**.** It scared me, for the first time since I started working here. Then, she stood up, and left.

I had a hard time sleeping that night. I kept hearing whispering, I assumed it was the wind.

And then I heard a female voice whisper, "She told you didn't she?" I gasped and jumped out of bed, my eyes still wincing from the rheum that had formed in my eyes. In the wincing state of my eyes, I thought I had seen a figure in the corner of my room, its' head peeking out from the side of the dresser.

But when I opened my eyes after rubbing the rheum out, it was gone. That's when it started. With a dream, as the woman stated. Upon the following days, I felt like I was being followed everywhere. Alice was discharged within 2 weeks, and I didn't see her for a while after that.

The man however, I saw frequently. Either from the corner of my eye, or in my dreams. It was just like she had described. A black distorted shadow figure, that just stared.

I would have rather it attacked me than just stared. That stare was soul-piercing. It's as if every fear I had ever had was morphed into existence in the form of this figure and stared at me with the intensity and passion of a million red giants.

I took a break from my job, after that. It was too much for me to handle.

Until it found me. Three nights ago was the first time I had ever seen it fully, standing in front of my bed, after I woke up in the middle of the night. Only this time, it didn't disappear. It continued staring, and it's as if the figure got bigger and bigger the longer it stayed. I couldn't speak to it or form any sentences or words. I just stared, and so did it. After what felt like an hour, my neighbor must have dropped a pan or something, loud enough for me to look away. And when I looked back, the figure was gone.

I was told I'd be fired if I took any more sick days from work, so I was forced to go back to work the next day. Alice was there, packing the last of the things she had brought from when she stayed here. I ran to her, and she looked shocked.

I had eyebags under my eyes, disheveled and wrinkled clothes, and messy hair.

I asked her, "Please help me! Please! Why is it following me this time?" Tears began to well in my eyes.

She hugged me, then looked me in the eyes. Tears formed in hers' too. "I'm sorry. I had to give it to someone. Like my husband did to me," she spoke, as she wiped the tears from her eyes, hiding a dark smirk across her lips.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Maleficent-Study-383 on 2024-11-03 18:22:11+00:00.

---

Hey there, allow me to introduce myself as Mark, I won't specify my last name for safety reasons but I have worked as a park ranger at Yellowstone National Park which all of you know and have heard alot about, especially if you live in the states. Apologies for my bad grammar, I am an immigrant that moved to the USA in 2008 from China so my English skills would be very lacking but I'm trying my best to share my experience in being a park ranger for 5 years.

Being a park ranger gives you the opportunity to see things that are not seen by city folk and some would even slide off the memory of the human race due to how hidden these things are and trust me, yellowstone is not different. They say the bears in Yellowstone are dangerous, which is true and along with the wolves and other predators but there's more than just bears and other critters that can tear you apart.....the yellowstone has very sinister inhabitants....

Now, you may have heard of the wendigo and may have considered them as folklore along with the skinwalkers but in reality, they are part of the ecosystem in yellowstone but what's even more disturbing is that they're not at the top....I found it out in my second year as a park ranger.

It was just like any other day, mundane....full of life, and I'm just carrying my tasks as a park ranger. Assisting the hikers, patrolling the park, and watching over in the tower to look for wildfires and other stuff and sometimes I do it out of curiousity. That day, I can remember chilling in the cabin and eating food though I don't remember what I was eating but I remember my radio buzzing and the voice of my partner coming out of the radio....

"Mark? Mark? Requesting assistance near the tree line close to where some hikers camped last week, there seems to be a scene that needed to be investigated." The radio crackles

I pick it up and answer "alright, be there in a few minutes"

About thirty minutes later, I arrived at the spot only to be greeted by a grizzly sight of a strange creature lying dead and full of wounds.....large scratch marks and it's body was battered and gored....perhaps this is what folks called the wendigo as the creature had a skull for a head and antlers...it looked formidable but it looked like it was the latest victim of something bigger and at the time, I am no in mood to meet the culprit but I stayed.

"Um..Kevin, what do you think that thing is?" I asked, clearly alarmed by it's dusturbing appearance and the horrible smell

"That's what we call a wendigo" he answered without signs of irritation or apprehension to the smell.

Now, Kevin was an older guy, a white dude in his 40s, tall and hugely built but even he was short compared to the thing that laid dead in front of us....

"What killed this thing?" I asked, disgust and dread etched on my voice but somehow Kevin answered with calmness...

"Bear, could be a mother bear defending her cubs or a male bear defending his territory, anyway...bears suppress the population of these creatures and seemingly compete for the same resources... it's tall and all but really doesn't stand much of a chance against a grizzly..." Kevin said,

Kevin went down on his knee to examine the stinking corpse while I put a distance between me and the desd wendigo as I cannot stand the smell. Kevin in the other hand, kept investigating.

"This creature seemed to have just died last night from all these injuries, it sure was a brutal way to die....though it's good that less of these creatures exist....they really are responsible for most missing cases here in Yellowstone" Kevin said with a satisfied grin

"I just need you to help me move thi-" he got cut off by the rustling in the nearby trees and we both reached for our service weapons. Growls of a bear are heard but what came forward was no grizzly....it was even more frightening as it ran towards us, me and Kevin knew better than to be a bear's next meal so we both rushed to the car and drove away but that bear was no grizzly.....

No....it was too tall to be one and the snout a bit shorter.....it was as tall as me when it was on all fours. Kevin drove us away and as we were going away, the bear stopped at the carcass and tore it apart in a brutal display.

I believe that, that was the bear that killed the wendigo...though it might be another bear but that bear was huge and it was the first time I ran into that huge bear.....

I still have more to share but sleep is calling me now, I'll upload more of my experience in the future but for the moment, can you help me with what that bear is? I've asked Kevin before but he has no idea too...so maybe some of you have and I would appreciate it...

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/rslnyc on 2024-11-03 19:11:25+00:00.

---

Since I was a child, the veil between our plane and the supernatural has been thin. Over the years, I've found ways to block my "gift" but every now and again I unintentionally open that door.

The night before Halloween, I turned on "Late Night With The Devil". Its that new movie where a late night TV host accidentally unleashes a demon into the cable network of American. Anyway,I tend to stay away from any movie dealing with contacting the dead, or dealing with demonic entities. Its not that I necessarily believe in those things, its just that when I let those thoughts into my head, it tends to be a beacon of light in whatever plane lays parallel to ours. Its like they are alerted to my presence.

Foolishly, I finished the movie and went to our bedroom to read and wind down for bed. After about fifteen minutes, my dog sits straight up on the bed and makes a little whimper. I assume it was a bad dream, but then I watch his eyes move from the doorway and track all the way to the top corner of our bedroom. Rationally, I believe this to be a bug or dust...something just catching his eye, but then I feel the feeling, the telltale sign I have a visitor.

Imagine walking into a large stadium full of people cheering, then they all stop...dead silent and just look at you. That is the best way I can describe it. I get this feeling no matter the spirit/entity/anomaly (whatever you want to call it)

The hairs on my arms stand straight up and I get this intense feeling of dread and sadness. This is the warning...this is how I know a malevolent energy is close to me. I quickly put the book down and take ten deep breaths to clear my head and think rationally. I probably just scared myself and I'm reading too far into it.

To bring myself some comfort, I go into my supplies and pull out a white candle. I carve my purifying sigil into the wax and anoint it with my mixture of oils. I ask for cleansing energy and to guide any sinister forces from my living space and my mind. With the candle lit and placed into a neat pile of salt, I turn to walk away. I get a strong urge to turn around and just as I make eye contact with the candle, I see it snuff out...like someone blew it out.

This is obviously concerning. I take another deep breath and recite the lines again, lighting the candle. I vocally tell the entity that it is not welcome in this home, and command it to leave immediately. To my surprise, the candle flame makes a large "whoosh" and burns twice as high as it was before returning to a normalized state.

Just to be safe, I burned a candle the next two nights. I don’t want to let any other entity think they are welcome or allow them entry. I wonder what I accidently let into my home...

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/venusfelix_ on 2024-11-03 22:05:22+00:00.

---

The street was lined with maples, their jagged leaves a violent, deep red against the brooding gray sky. Pale clouds swirled like the smoke from a just-extinguished candle. I pulled my coat around me as a brisk wind stirred. In the distance, I could hear the sounds of traffic and people; but the main streets were several blocks from the cafe where Geoffrey had asked to meet me.

Geoffrey and I had not spoken in some time. We had been close in university, but he had gone on to practice psychiatry in a hospital, while I had established my private practice on the other side of the city; and eventually it became so that we only saw one another at conferences or by coincidence. Nevertheless, I had heard about the incident with his patient from a colleague, and then again when it was published in the newspaper. Soon it seemed it was all that anyone was talking about. Poor Geoffrey, and his poor, delusional patient. Imagine having to do what Geoffrey did, they said in hushed tones. Horrific. And, Can you imagine? So when Geoffrey called me out of the blue and asked me to meet him, I already had an idea of what it was he wanted to discuss.

A bell jingled as I pushed open the door of the cafe, and the smell of coffee greeted me in the warm air. I rubbed my hands together briskly to warm them and scanned the cafe. Geoffrey was seated at a small, round table in the corner farthest from the door, his back to the wall. His eyes were round and darting, and his shoulders tensed up to his ears. I raised a hand in greeting, and he returned a sharp nod. 

I ordered a latte at the counter and approached the table. “Nice to see you,” I said as I slid into the seat across from him. He offered a tight-lipped smile. A cup of black coffee sat in front of him, seemingly untouched, looking still and cold. I removed my gloves. “How have you been?” I asked.

“I assume you’ve heard about my patient.” His brown eyes had a tired sheen and were rimmed with stinging pink, glassy against the dark circles beneath them. His face sagged with the gravity of exhaustion.

“Yes. I’m so sorry. What a horrific affair.”

Geoffrey nodded, lips pursed, eyes not leaving mine. “Right. But you don’t really know, do you? What happened. No one does.”

“I know the short of it.”

He shook his head. “You need to know what really happened that day.”

I wondered briefly if this would take longer than I had expected. I had a session at one o’clock; it was a quarter past twelve already. Book a session, I thought to suggest, but instead I leaned back in my chair and asked, “What happened that day?”

“Don’t do that.”

My eyebrows lifted slightly. “Do what?”

“Talk to me like I’m your patient.”

The waitress appeared and placed the latte on the table in front of me. I averted my eyes from Geoffrey’s and took a long sip. 

“I’m only telling you this because it pertains to you,” he added.

I placed the mug gently down on the saucer. “What do you mean?”

His lip trembled, almost imperceptibly, and he said, “I’ll tell you. But first, I need you to swear you’ll believe me.”

A hint of unease twisted in my stomach. “Alright.”

Geoffrey’s hands went to the table, flat against the wood, as if holding on for balance; and then he folded them and began. “The patient called me that day, in the morning. Six a.m. He was in great distress; I couldn’t understand him at first. He said he needed to speak to me. That it was an emergency. We made an appointment for that afternoon - I’d had a cancellation, luckily, so we were able to get him in.

“I’m no stranger to patient crises. Someone’s always in crisis; that’s the nature of working in a psychiatric hospital. But something about his voice…I was shaken.” He rubbed the back of his left hand with the fingers of his right, twisting his hands, and sighed heavily. “Anyway, by the time the appointment rolled around, I had all but forgotten it. Until I saw the patient.” He swallowed. “It had been two, maybe three months since he was discharged. I was hopeful for this one’s prognosis. Depression, anxiety, OCD, but no psychosis; and he had improved a great deal in my care. But the man sitting in my waiting room, he looked…” A brief shake of his head. “He looked like he’d been emptied out.”

“He’d lost weight?”

“Not that. Just…*deflated…*as if all the hope was gone from him.”

I took another thoughtful sip of the latte. 

“When he sat down in my office, he looked like a man on the run,” Geoffrey continued. “He looked – hunted. Haunted. So I asked him what had brought him in. ‘A dream,’ he told me. And I thought, What kind of dream would have a grown man in this state? This was a stable man, a healthy man, when I had discharged him. Yet he sat here before me now, a shadow of himself, because of a dream?

“He must have known what I was thinking. He was sitting on his hands, looking at me with trembling eyes. ‘It didn’t feel like a dream, Doctor,’ he said to me. ‘It felt like I was living it. I felt everything - everything. And when I woke up, it felt like it had happened - just not yet*.’* 

“‘Like a premonition?’ I asked him.

“He shook his head furiously. ‘Like a future I already lived,’ he said.

“I couldn’t understand what he meant,” Geoffrey said. His fingers went to his saucer, and he began to trace its edge absentmindedly. “But I asked him what the dream was about. He looked at me with fear in his eyes, and said, ‘You.’

“He went on to tell me that in this dream - this dream he was convinced was already reality, but a reality that had simply not unfolded yet - he had killed me.”

I frowned.

“He went on to describe it: he had approached my house sometime in the night. He had come up the front walkway, driven an elbow through the window beside the door, then reached his hand through and unlocked it from the inside. He entered and stood there in silence. He could hear the sound of his own breathing. The soft creak of the floorboard as he shifted his weight on his feet. ‘Part of me knew what I planned to do,’ he told me, ‘and was filled with hatred and rage. The other part was waiting in helpless horror to see it unfold. I knew what I planned to do was something bad. Something evil. But I couldn’t fully see it yet. And I couldn’t stop it. It was like this part of me had lost control of my body and mind. Had given it to the other part.’ He went on to describe what happened next. Perhaps you already know this part from the newspapers.” Geoffrey had been staring into his coffee cup while he spoke, but turned his gaze to meet mine. I felt a flutter of nerves.

“You mean to say…”

Geoffrey nodded. “Yes. What happened in the dream is exactly what happened later that night. With the exception of one thing: in the dream, it was I who had died.”

A shiver crept up my spine.

“When I told him it was just a dream, he begged me to put him away. Pleaded to lock him in a cell that night, so that he wouldn’t hurt me. ‘Do you have the intention of hurting me?’ I asked him. He said no. I told him I didn’t think he needed to be hospitalized. You see, I treated this patient for OCD - he frequently had disturbing intrusive thoughts about harming people. They caused him a great deal of distress. I believed the intrusive thoughts combined with the vividness of a realistic dream had been overwhelming to him, and that he needed to see he was in control of his actions, that he wasn’t going to hurt anyone. That he wouldn’t act on his intrusive thoughts. Everything he had learned during his treatment in the hospital.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“But when I returned home that evening, I found myself ruminating on the patient’s dream. Things he had said - details. How had he known there were windows beside my front door?”

“Most houses have windows beside the front door.”

Geoffrey nodded. “Yes. But the walkway, the foyer, the location of the staircase - it was all exactly as the patient had described.”

“Nearly every home has these things in a similar configuration.”

“Ever a skeptic.” A flicker of a mirthless smile touched his face. “Yet you already know my patient forcefully entered my house that very night, and attempted to kill me.”

There was a charged silence. Geoffrey sighed. “I admit I thought the same. I tried to shake off the feeling I had about my patient’s dream.” He paused and wet his lips. “I was in bed reading when I heard the window shatter. I won’t burden you with the details. You already know there was a struggle, and that I wrested his knife from his hands and killed him.”

“It was self-defense.”

“Yes.” He nodded, very slowly. For a moment he appeared lost in thought. Then he looked at me again. “Do you remember that case study in university? The patient with locked-in syndrome.”

“I remember.”

“I’ll never forget how it felt to look into that patient’s eyes. It was like he was trapped, somewhere deep inside his body.” A brief shake of his head; another moment of reverie. “In my house that night, my patient loomed over me on the stairs, raising that knife, while I held him by the wrists and fought for my life. I looked into his eyes then, for a brief moment. And they looked just like the eyes of that LIS patient. Like he was there, somewhere - but not on the surface. Like he was trapped somewhere inside.”

I shifted in my seat uncomfortably, thinking. “Perhaps a sudden onset of psychosis?” I said at last. 

Geoffrey furrowed his brow.

“An acute episode - or perhaps a neurological condition,” I went on. ...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/DottedWriter on 2024-11-03 20:54:53+00:00.

---

Every neighborhood had that one weird kid. For us, it was Abel Casey.

He was a 14-year-old, skinny, tall kid with shoulder-length pitch-black hair and bangs that covered his eyes. His presence always felt off-putting. Even with the smile he always wore on his face, some of us felt uncomfortable being near him.

Nobody ever talked to him, and by the chance someone even bothered trying to, he would drive them away by trying to base the conversation around the same topic: skulls. Whether human skulls or animal skulls, he'd talk about skulls nonstop.

Some kids rumor about how he goes to graveyards to dig up skulls and take them home. Others joked about how he probably held a shrine dedicated to skulls in his bedroom.

Overall, Abel was an outcast we avoided at all costs. Otherwise, we'd have to deal with his weird obsession with skulls. It became one of our neighborhood rules: Don't interact with Abel under any circumstances.

So Abel was the LAST person I wanted to spend my entire Saturday with. I wanted to spend it hanging out with my friends, not with him. But my mom insisted on it. I tried to explain that Abel was flat-out creepy and made me and every other kid uncomfortable, but she didn't listen.

I pleaded with her, trying to get her to rethink this, but she told me I was visiting him, which was final. I groaned in annoyance.

We went to Abel's house, and my mom rang the doorbell. The door opened, and who I assumed was Abel's mom stepped out. She looked even weirder than Abel. She had long, wavy, dark hair the same color as Abel's and was slightly paler than him.

My mom talked to her briefly, explaining how she wanted me to hang out with Abel. Abel's mom lit up, and I could see the excitement on her face. She was ecstatic, telling us that Abel never had any real friends, meaning he would probably love someone visiting him. I rolled my eyes, annoyed as they chatted.

It wasn't like I WANTED to be with Abel in the first place. The last thing I needed was someone spotting me, and I'd probably get ostracized, too. Not as much as Abel, but still.

My mom told me she'd pick me up at 7. As she left, Abel's mom welcomed me inside with a smile. As I entered the house, I noticed strange decorations on the walls. They were odd pieces of bone attached to a string and spread across the walls. Some of the skulls even had dots of paint on them.

"Uh, excuse me, Miss Casey?" I said. She looked down at me with that same smile.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"What's with the skulls?" I asked, pointing at them. She giggled. "Don't mind those; that's just a special decoration."

I raised my eyebrow. I was about to ask her but decided not to. His mom was already creeping me out.

She brought me to Abel's bedroom and gently knocked on his door. He calmly opened the door.

"Abel, sweetheart. Someone's come to visit! This is Vincent!" she introduced. As she finished her sentence, a smile bloated on Abel's face. She gestured for me to step inside and then closed the door.

"Be nice to one another!"

I must admit that Abel's bedroom was better than I assumed. It was well-cleaned and put together. Only he had several detailed skull drawings pinned to his wall. Additionally, there were those weird skull decorations.

I put one hand behind my head, not knowing what to say to him.

"So...." he began.

"So what?" I asked, becoming slightly creeped out by him.

"So glad someone came to visit me..." he said softly.

The silence was deafening and uncomfortable.

Then Abel broke the silence. "Do you wanna read some comics?"

I blinked in surprise at what he said. "Comics?" I asked. He nodded his head in excitement. "Yeah!". He went to his bed, reached under it, and pulled out a stash of different comic books. He was the last kid I expected to read comics.

We spent the rest of the afternoon reading, as I flipped a page through Injustice #29. Abel says something that causes me to stop reading.

"Vincent...did you know that the function of the skull is both structurally supportive and protective?"

I blinked as the question registered in my head. I turned to face him. "What?" I ask, still confused about what Abel just requested. Abel looked over at me and smiled. "Just a random fact!"

He turned and continued reading his comic, and I did the same. But my confusion remained. Five minutes later, Abel asked a question out of the blue again.

"Vincent...did you know that the glabella is a key midline landmark of the frontal bone?"

I looked at Abel, getting even more confused at what he said. "Uh...I don't understand..." I answered, but Abel just laughed, almost expecting my puzzlement.

"It represents the anterior part of the forehead when standing perfectly erect and looking straight ahead."

I still didn't understand what he was saying at all. This was what an adult would understand, not a literal 13-year-old. "How do you even know that stuff?" I questioned him, and Abel's smile only widened.

"My dad taught me! He taught me everything about skulls!" he beamed. Then it dawned on me.

"Where is your dad?" I inquired, suddenly realizing I hadn't seen him anywhere, only Abel's mom.

Abel went silent, and his smile dropped. He stared at me. That uncomfortable silence returned, and it felt even worse now. It felt as if I had asked a question I shouldn't have. I wanted to break the silence or change the subject to something else, but that couldn't work.

Then, as if a switch had been flipped, Abel's smile returned.

"You'll meet him soon," he whispered. Let me get some lemonade for us! "Then he exited his room. Abel's reaction was still ingrained in my head, and I was still confused by what he said. It was like I struck a nerve with him.

Abel returned with two glasses of lemonade, I hesitated on drinking one but Abel insisted I do.

"Don't worry, it tastes great!" he assured. And he was right. It was some good lemonade. It tasted so sweet and amazing. We continued reading for half an hour. As I finished the comic I was reading, I noticed Abel staring at me, again.

"What?" I asked, Abel beamed at me and then spoke.

"Come over here...I want to show you something..." he answered. Reluctantly, I followed him to the bottom of his bed. Abel reached under and started searching for something. It took him longer than when he got the comics, and he excitedly gasped as if he found what he was looking for. He then quickly took it out and my heart skipped a beat.

He was holding a skull. An actual, human skull. There was also a large crack on it.

"Wha..." I mumbled.

"Yeah...this is a special skull...do you wanna know why it's special?" Abel inquired, but I didn't want to know.

My peers were right, this kid was out of his mind. My body began trembling as I quickly got up to my feet and to leave and never come back here ever again

But as I finished that thought, I felt myself become lightheaded. My vision blurred in and out, and I saw Abel's excited smile before everything darkened.

I woke up grass; my mouth felt dry, and my head was dizzy. Looking up, I saw Abel and his mom standing over, happy grins were painted over their faces. Abel was carrying the same skull he showed me in his bedroom.

"Vincent...I want to thank you so much for how you treated my son" Abel's mom began, "Usually, he tells me most of the other kids don't treat him well...but you're different..." she smiled.

"And because of that," Abel said, "I want to introduce you to my dad!"

They both stepped to the side, revealing an eagle skull on the grass. It looked like it was in clean condition too, confusion filled my head. I opened my mouth to question them but immediately noticed something happening to the skull.

A large amount of black liquid began quickly leaking from it. A puddle of the black liquid expanded underneath the skull until it stopped suddenly. Then the black liquid seemed to morph and change as if it was being sculpted like clay. I will never forget the sound of bones cracking and popping as the black liquid seemed to take the form of a large adult male.

It stared at me for a few seconds before walking towards me. Droplets of the black liquid fell off as it approached me. Abel and his mom's eyes were now wide, along with their grins.

Upon stopping at my trembling body, it lent out its hand.

"Hello, I am his father, it is a pleasure to meet you." the thing said distortedly.

Disbelief and panic mixed inside me, I pinched myself thinking I was dreaming. But I wasn't. This was real.

"No...no way...." I whispered

"Yes, way!" Abel giggled. I continued staring at the thing that had just claimed to be Abel's dad, my words becoming incoherent as they escaped my mouth.

It retracted its hand and then cleared its throat, bubbles of the black liquid gurgled up through his neck.

"I know this is shocking to you at first," it began. "I know your heartbeat increases with every second you look at me. But do not fret; I do not enjoy pain. Nor am I violent."

I was panting through bated breaths, I wanted to speak but couldn't muster up a complete sentence.

I could only say one word.

"How?"

The thing chuckled at my response.

"Well you see, I was once a normal man, with a splendid job as a craniologist and a loving family," he gestured towards Abel and his mother.

"Everything was wonderful, my life was pure and fulfilling...until....some filthy hooligan... ran a red light...and then he hit me...", I could feel the hatred and venom dripping from its voice. It took a deep brea...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Scarlett_Nocturne on 2024-11-03 19:19:35+00:00.

---

Hey love,

I know it’s late. Actually, I’m not sure when you’ll get this email. I’m sorry I haven’t called you back yet. I’ve been…busy. I wish I had listened when you told me to come home earlier. I’m writing this now because I don’t know what else to do. I need to explain what happened. I want to write down every detail I can remember. I need to tell you the truth, because I think I’m trapped here. I’m not sure if I will get to see you again.

As I’m sure you gathered, I stayed late at the office again and yes, I know, I’m an idiot. You were right. When you called earlier, I could hear it in your voice, how worried you were but I brushed it off. I laughed at your “bad feeling” because it sounded like superstition, and I didn’t want to hear it. I had work to finish. My deadlines, my clients... I wasn’t going to let a feeling pull me away. Stupid. So, so stupid.

I stayed until about midnight. When I finally decided to leave, I grabbed my phone, only to realize it was dead. Completely. It had been plugged in all day, but apparently, the outlet just wasn’t working. Of course. I didn’t think much of it at the time, figured I’d just charge it in the car on the way home. I wasn’t in a hurry. Big mistake.

I took the stairs instead of the elevator, thinking it would be a nice change to get a bit of exercise. Six flights down. The building was quiet, almost eerily so. There was this oppressive silence as I passed each floor, no distant chatter, no sound of typing. Just the dull hum of the building, the kind that starts to make your ears ring if you listen too long. And the air was heavy, like it was pressing down on me. I felt a little off, but I chalked it up to being tired.

When I reached the lobby, it was empty. No sign of Demarcus, the security guy. You know how he usually makes his rounds? Well, I figured he was doing that. Still, it felt strange not to see him at his desk. The place felt too big, too vacant. The kind of emptiness that makes you feel exposed, like something's watching from the shadows.

I didn’t stay long. I headed to the parking garage. You know how dim that place is, right? Tonight, it felt even worse. Most of the lights were out, and the ones still working flickered like they were dying. My car was parked alone, under the one working light, a flickering, buzzing light. I should’ve known something was off when I felt that…heaviness again. Like the garage was breathing, watching. I thought I was just being paranoid.

I got in the car, but when I turned the key, it wouldn’t start. Nothing. Not even a click. My phone was still dead, and all I could hear was the faint echo of…something. Scraping? Or maybe shuffling, coming from deep in the garage. I tried not to think about it. I thought it was a cat or something, but it didn’t sound right. I’m getting goosebumps just writing this.

I went back inside to ask Demarcus for help. Twenty minutes passed, and he never came back. It was so quiet, I could hear my own breathing. The only sound was the hum of those awful fluorescent lights, buzzing overhead like they were the only things keeping the dark at bay. Something didn’t feel right. Demarcus never leaves the lobby unattended that long.

That’s when I saw the flier for a taxi service pinned to the wall behind his desk. I figured it was my best bet. I used the landline to call them and waited outside for the cab. It was cold, but more than that, it was quiet. Too quiet. You know how there’s always some noise, even late at night? A distant car, maybe someone walking by? But there was nothing. Just me, standing there, feeling…watched.

Then I heard it again, the scraping noise. Louder this time. It felt closer, and it was coming from the direction of the garage. I tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was there. Watching. Waiting.

The cab took forever. Way longer than it should’ve. I was about to go back inside when headlights blinded me. I almost cried with relief. I jumped in, eager to just get home and put this night behind me. The driver was incredibly normal. We talked a bit, made small talk. It felt…calming. Safe.

We hit a red light, and I don’t know why, but I felt the need to confess. I told him about the real reason I stayed out late tonight. About our fight last night. How I didn’t want to come home because I was still mad, because we’d said things we didn’t mean. I wanted to be petty tonight. I wanted my absence to hurt you.The driver just listened. He gave me some advice, said relationships are hard work, said I should make amends. For a moment, it felt like everything was going to be okay. I felt lighter, like I was on my way back to you, and everything would be fine.

But then the light turned green, and he didn’t move.

I pointed it out. “Hey, the light’s green.”

He didn’t respond.

I nudged him, thinking maybe he didn’t hear me. Still nothing.

“Hey, buddy, the light!” I said, louder.

I reached out to shake him, but when I touched his arm, it felt wrong, stiff. But he was still breathing. I could see it, shallow and slow, his chest barely rising and falling. But he didn’t react to me at all. He was just…frozen. Staring straight ahead, hands on the wheel, blinking occasionally.

Panic set in. I jumped out of the car, looked around for help, but the streets were empty. Everything was closed. No one around. No traffic, no pedestrians. Just me, this unmoving cab, and the quiet. Too quiet. It was like the world had emptied out, like I was the only one left.

I went back to the car, but the driver…he was gone. Just…gone. The seat was empty. I tried telling myself that maybe he had gotten out, maybe he had gone for help, but deep down, I didn’t believe it. I was too scared to believe it.

I got in the driver’s seat, thinking I could make my way home myself. I started driving, hoping to find my way back, but I wasn’t familiar with the way the cab driver had been taking me. I just kept trying to head East but the streets kept forcing me to make unexpected turns. 

I drove for at least thirty minutes and then, I found myself on the street of my office building. Something inside me screamed that this wasn’t possible. I should have been miles away from it even if I hadn’t been close to home either.

But I still clung to hope that the bad feeling was all in my head. I thought of this as an opportunity, now I could head home the way I was familiar with. I pushed the accelerator to the floor and tried to race by the office but something went wrong. 

The taxi made some horrible, metal rending noises and slowed. It stalled completely, right there, in front of the building. The same spot where I started.

I got out. The street was empty, but the feeling that something was watching me was overwhelming now. Like it was right behind me, breathing down my neck.

I ran back inside. The lobby was still empty, but the lights…they were flickering, flashing. And…I swear to you, in the dark moments, I could see Demarcus. Or…something that looked like him. Sitting in the chair, twisted, like his body had been broken in ways that weren’t possible. But when the lights flickered back on, the chair was empty.

I didn’t look back. I ran for the elevator. I pushed the button and waited. I could see the elevator light was on the tenth floor due to the light up display above the elevator doors. I stood there, awkwardly. 

Then, I heard the scraping sounds again, still coming from outside the building. I stared at the lit up ten and tried to will the number to change. To my delight, it did, quickly changing to nine and then eight. But there it remained.I heard the lobby doors open. Instinctively, I turned back, certain that the sound was the result of Demarcus returning from a patrol. But then I heard the scraping. It was much louder. It was inside the lobby. That horrible noise echoed across the large room. 

I turned and sought out the light up display hoping to see progress. There was some, it now read six. But I could heard something new behind me, skittering, clicking on the floor.The scraping sound grew closer too.

So, I abandoned the elevator and rushed into the stairwell. I took the stairs two at a time, but no matter how far I went, I never passed any doors. I could hear the first floor doors open and something skitter in. The scraping sound accompanied it. I thought the scraping was something being dragged and my imagination thought of a giant centipede with a bloated body that scraped along. Either way, I tried to focus on the stairs in front of me. The last thing I wanted to do was trip and fall. Something told me that I wouldn’t be able to get up again. Yet, the stairs seemed endless, spiraling up and up, the thing behind me getting closer with every  step.

Finally, I reached the sixth floor. I bolted to my office, entered the side entrance and slammed the door behind me. I checked four times that it was locked. And…now I’m waiting here. I’ve tried everything. The outlets don’t work. My phone won’t charge. The computers are on but have no internet.

At least that thing in the stairwell never seemed to emerge. At least, I don’t think it did. Shortly after I started to settle in here for the night, I heard our front lobby doorbell ring. 

The echo of the bell reverberated through the hollow office hallways, sharp and unexpected. I ran to the door, hoping that it was someone coming into the office early. Something told me that if I just found one ...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Benjibip on 2024-11-03 09:53:00+00:00.

---

I never believed the stories when I was little. Grandmother would always tell me how the women in our family were plagued by a horrifying demon. An angry demon. She told us that once the woman it was attached too died, it moved on to the next female of the next generation. I asked her why the demon was so angry. Grandmother didn’t know, her best guess was that a female ancestor must have communed with the demon in some way. Perhaps she made a deal to trade the torment of her descendants for wealth, beauty, or power. Or maybe the demon was betrayed by the woman and sought revenge with a wrath strong enough to burn through the generations. There were many stories as too the origin of the demon. It had even become a family tradition to see who could come up with the best story of the mysterious ancestor that had supposedly started this curse. It was all good scary fun, but I never believed a word.

 

Grandmother was in hospice care, and my mother, father, and I were visiting after the doctors contacted us to inform us that grandmother could pass away at any moment. She looked frail and had a faraway look in her eyes as she lay in her bed during her final minutes. She looked at my mother and said, “Come here my darling Ellie.” My mother kneeled beside her. “It’s going to go to you now. Ignore it if you can and NEVER listen to it.”

“Sure mom, don’t worry, I’ll be okay,” my mother had said.

I could not believe that of all the things to have on her mind during her final moments, the demon was the focus of her last words. Less than five minutes later, grandmother’s lungs emptied her breath one last time, after eighty-one years of reliably circulating oxygen. I thought I would break down in tears. To my surprise I instead stood stoically as if frozen in time. I had no thoughts at that moment. No emotions, and a strange suspicion as to whether I even existed. Shock, I suppose.

Later that evening, my mom and I were in the kitchen washing dishes in silence. I could feel her eyes as she gazed over at me, “how are you doing sweetheart? You haven’t said much since we were with your grandma.”

I didn’t have much to say in truth, at least not about the loss of my grandmother. The grief had yet to really sink in. So, I replied, “I guess I just don’t really know what I should be thinking or feeling. Still processing I guess.”

“That’s perfectly normal sweetie, you don’t have to say anything. If you do though, I’m here.”

“Don’t you think it was kind of strange, that the demon story nonsense was what she talked about at the end? I mean…I guess I’d expected something more…family related or profound.”

My mother gave the expression she always has when she enters focused contemplation. As if her response to my inquiry could have some sort of critical consequences. “Well, she was very old, and sick. Sometimes the brain gets jumbled and confused when people get to that kind of state.”

“Yeah, I supposed that’s true,” I said.

“Okay, how about we try and see if we can get some sleep?” My mother turned to leave. Suddenly, she shrieked and jolted backward enough to bump into me. I dropped the glass that I had been holding, glass shattered and scattered across the tile floors. “Oh dammit, I’m sorry sweetie.” She bent down and began gathering up the larger shards of glass.

“It’s okay, what happened?” I asked

“Huh? Oh nothing, my emotions are just a little all over the place. Guess I got a little easily startled and wasn’t expecting to see Dax behind me when I turned (Dax was our family bulldog).

After cleaning up the glass, we all went to bed. I had trouble sleeping. The grief over the loss of my grandmother had finally caught up with me, right in the middle of the night. I had learned that night that I was going to be one of those people who have the tendency to defer difficult feelings to the quiet, dark, lonely night. Ironically, my lonely private time to be in grief ended when a high-pitched scream rattled its way through the halls of our house. It was my mother. I jolted from my bed and hurried down the hall to my parents’ room. My dad had his arm wrapped comfortingly around my mother’s shoulders.

An eerie sense of dread filled my heart. Something wasn’t right with my mother. “Mom…what’s going on?” Although, I wondered if I really wanted to know.

“It’s been a difficult day, I think the grief is just hitting your mother hard,” my father replied reassuringly.

My mother was shaking her head back and forth in short bursts. She held her hand up to the side of her face as if shielding her eyes. She was muttering, “It’s here, it’s here, it looks like her, but it isn’t.”

“Shhh, it’s okay,” my dad whispered, trying to calm her down. “Sweetheart, go back to bed, it’s okay.”

“Wait what was that she – “

“Go to bed, please, everything is okay. Just let me take care your mom right now, okay?”

“Sure, fine, whatever,” I reluctantly returned to my room. I knew that grief could show up in a lot of different and unexpected ways. But I also knew my mother, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something other than grief happening to her. I never would have imagined, however, that the conversation I had with my mother in the kitchen would be the last conversation I’d have before she entered a complete and total psychosis.

 

 

After losing my grandmother, followed by my mother’s mental breakdown, I went about my days almost completely in a state of apathy. After a month or so I began to appreciate being in that emotional state of non-emotion. Sure, the colors of the earth seemed a bit more faded, but all the pressures of things that used to seem so important now barely even entered my radar.

It had been seven months since my mother’s mental condition escalated to the point where my father had no choice but to seek the help of psychological professionals. This required my mother to be institutionalized. I fought with my dad about this decision. I didn’t think an institution was the best place for her. My dad had given up arguing and made the decision to have her sent away. We hadn’t spoken since.

I went to visit my mother at the mental hospital on chilly Wednesday afternoon. The orderly I met at the front desk had me follow her into what appeared to be a cafeteria area, judging by the tables that ran across each side of the room. My mother was sitting at one of these tables. When I joined her, I had to fight the urge to cry. I didn’t want my mother to see me in distress while she needed to focus on her own healing.

“Hi mom, how you are feeling?” I asked. Her eyes were a little bloodshot and her hair was wild and frizzy. She stared blankly down at the table. “Not saying anything today?” My mother remained silent. “When we spoke last in the kitchen, you told me that if I wanted to talk, you’d be here…is that still true?”

At this my mother’s eyes looked up at me. She still hadn’t spoken but just by looking at me I felt a rush of cautious optimism that I maybe could get her to speak.

“I wanted to ask you something. It could be important; do you think you can try to help me?” My mother nodded her head rapidly and leaned in closer. “Yes, yes, okay mom that’s good. I wanted to ask you, that night after we talked, and I came into your room when I heard you scream.” My throat was tight, and I could feel my heart pounding hard in my chest. I feared the answer to the question I was about to ask, but I knew that it was a question that needed to be asked. “You were muttering something about she or her being here, something like that, were you talking about Grandma?”

“Mmmmm—mmhmm,” my mother moaned. “No! No! Not Grandma. Just looking like grandma.”

I was confused, her words didn’t seem to make sense. “What do you mean? Did you or didn’t you see grandma? Please mom, I know it’s hard but please try.”

Taking a sudden deep breath my mother straightened up in her seat. “It likes to look like family.”

I didn’t want to accept what I suspected my mother was referring too, “I don’t understand.”

Mother smiled wide, eerily, “You will…soon.” This was the end of our conversation. Although I would not find out until later, my mother would end her own life that night. She had broken a glass and before the orderlies could respond she used one of the shards to cut her own throat. This news would not reach me until the morning of the next day. I would also learn another haunting piece of information.

Around the time that my mother had passed away in the mental hospital, I was in my room, sitting at my desk, and writing in my diary. It was around 2 o’clock in the morning. The house was old and had hard wood floors. I heard the sudden creak of the floorboards down the hall from my room, where the stairs were that led into the foyer. My dad had been away for the last couple of days for business. I wasn’t expecting him to be home for another day, but I thought perhaps he had gotten back ahead of schedule.

So, I called out, “Dad? Are you home?” There was no answer. I sat looking at my open doorway for a moment. I felt a chill, and the familiar pounding of my heart as fear started creeping through me. I never minded being home alone before, but something inside me sensed that the house now had darkness looming over it. I wished to myself that my dad or mom or a friend, anyone was there with me.

Another, louder creak of the floors echoed from down the hall. “Hey this isn’t funny dad!” That was last moment in which I had hope that my dad was going to enter my ...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/itsyaboiFaZeShrek on 2024-11-03 08:00:42+00:00.

---

I wish I could tell you exactly where this all started, but what I am going to be telling you right now is all just my best recollection as to how it began. I don’t know what is real anymore. Take whatever I say next with a healthy pinch of salt.

The only context that is really needed here is that I am a court reporter. I will go into civil court proceedings, criminal trials, questionings at law firms, you name it. And I will write down whatever is said on my trusty stenomachine. My first recollection of this person or thing is around 2 years ago.

The first time I remember seeing the woman, I was in a questioning about a minor car accident. These proceedings were always quite boring, though sometimes could be very entertaining depending on who was involved.

This particular questioning was of a witness by the name of Gillian Segal. I will use the actual name I was always given because, frankly, good luck finding absolutely anything about this particular woman’s existence. Believe me, I’ve tried. Something about Gillian was… well, something. I guess you could say “off,” but I can’t even describe it in that sense. There was nothing unusual about her appearance or the way she spoke. Gillian was a very unassuming woman and looked like just about anybody you would see walking the street on a normal day.

The one thing that I did find strange was how difficult I found writing her words. When I’m in a proceeding, because I am so used to writing on my machine at this point, I’m usually just staring at a wall. But even though how she spoke was completely normal and at a normal rate of speed, I just couldn’t write her words properly. I could only write her words effectively if I was staring directly at her, and even then it was difficult. When I’m in a law firm setting, I am usually just off to the side somewhere. This is why I found it particularly unsettling when I had to look up at her again to write what she was saying, and she was staring directly into my eyes, unblinking.

The thing that I found scariest about this is that her voice was conveying appropriate emotion, while her face and eyes were not. She continued to talk to the lawyers normally while just staring directly into me with a completely vacant expression. I gave a nervous glance to the lawyers, but they didn’t seem to notice that she was doing this. I turned back to her and she wasn’t staring at me anymore. I didn’t know what else to do but shrug it off, but I left that questioning very unsettled.

This would have been fine if it was a one and done situation.

But a few days later I was scheduled for a preliminary inquiry on a potential drug trafficking trial, in court this time. I’m always given the names of the witnesses beforehand for the purpose of preparation, and there was that name again. Gilian Segal. I have no idea why that name already started to fill me with so much dread. I tried to rationalize it and just laughed it off, just doing my best to find it funny how unlucky this woman was for being a witness to two events in quick succession where she needed to testify.

I arrive in court, and proceedings begin as usual. She was the second witness to testify; and, when she came in, I felt fine at first. Now, unlike the law firm setting, while in court the court reporter is always seated directly in front of the witness. So when she was in the witness box, I would have to do a full 180 degree turn to be able to look at her. This made me nervous because I remember how hard it was the first time to write her words.

It was no different this time. There was just something about this particular woman that inhibited my ability to write which was supposed to be second nature to me by now. I was just frustrated at this point; but, at some point during her testimony, the feeling I got from the previous questioning came back. There was something inside me that just knew that if I turned back, she would be staring directly into me again. My entire body went into a cold sweat.

I did my best to keep writing, and a huge feeling of relief washed over me when she was ordered to stand down. When she was exiting the courtroom, I looked at her, and there was nothing even slightly suggesting that she even knew I was there. I was angry at myself at this point. Why was I being so paranoid? She had done nothing wrong; and, to be honest, I felt guilty for being so scared of her.

When I got home, I sent the rough copy of the transcript and the audio of the proceedings to my proofreader and went about my day, and the thought of Gillian left my mind for a while. That is until I got a call from my proofreader. His name was Mike.

When I answered the phone, I could tell Mike was finding something funny. He explained to me that, at some point during the transcript, my writing began going way off of what was actually being said. He joked to me that it was like I had dozed off and began writing something from a dream or something.

Now, this isn’t unheard of. Sometimes when I have a rough night the day before a job, I will doze off and begin writing complete gibberish until I jolt myself awake again. But there was a feeling that I got when Mike was laughing about this. There was that knowing again. Knowing that, when I took another look at the transcript, I would not like what I saw. I hung up the phone and immediately opened up my file of the rough copy and scrolled down to where Gillian Segal was sworn in.

Everything was relatively normal at first. The difficulty of writing down what she was saying was apparent; although, I could fill in the gaps. But scrolling down further I immediately figured out what Mike was talking about. I started reading something that almost sounded like it was coming from the middle of a story from a children’s book. In the middle of Gillian’s testimony, I read the following:

“Now, this man was always a good reader. Ever since he was a small boy, people would always compliment him on how well he was able to read. His teachers, parents, and friends were always so very impressed by his skill!”

After this, there was something that couldn’t be taken as anything else but foreboding.

“Car. Car. Car. Car. I am on the highway. Stop— “

The regular testimony started again. Then,

“Henday. Weeks. 6.”

The only thing I could connect out of this was Henday and highway, as the Henday is the name of a highway that is close to my city.

The rest of the transcript was relatively normal.

Something about this oddity in my transcript suffocated me with a type of dread I didn’t know was possible. The part about the highway was clearly ominous, but I had no idea who the man the childlike passage was supposed to be about. I guess I would later find out.

Six weeks later I was once again scheduled for a questioning; and, there it was, oh so very unassuming, Gillian’s name again listed along with the witnesses. To be honest, because of how busy I was, while I hadn’t forgotten about her, she was no longer at the forefront of my mind. But reading her name again, a chill that wouldn’t cease for minutes ran through my body. I shivered uncontrollably. I couldn’t blame her showing up repeatedly as coincedence anymore. There’s just simply no way that someone could be called to testify this many times in different cases in such a short period of time. That morning, going to that job was the last thing that I wanted to do. But something pulled me to go, and I couldn’t resist.

When I was at this job, I didn’t even know what it was about. I was too terrified to care and just came to write. I would later find out while going through the transcript that it was about an assault.

The proceedings were mostly a blur to me, but then came Gillian. The familiar cold sweat started; and, as she was walking up to the witness box, for the first time since my first encounter with her, she made fleeting eye contact with me. Now, this could have been me being paranoid, but I swear I saw something in those eyes that seemed like she was smirking at me. There was nothing in her facial expression, but those eyes…

Her testimony started, and this time that horrible feeling was with me the whole time she was behind me. The feeling that at anytime I turned around, she would be staring at me with that horrible vacant look. Something even worse happened this time, though. At some point she just stopped speaking, and the courtroom went silent. As if this thing was just begging me to turn around to look at her. When I looked at everyone in the courtroom, it didn’t seem like everyone else was experiencing what I was. They all still seemed to be listening attentively, even though there was nothing to be heard.

The fear I felt in this moment was indescribable. I was trying to bring myself to look back at her, but as soon as I turned my head just a little bit, I looked down and saw her shoes. She was standing behind me. I immediately forced my eyes shut and tried desperately to convince myself I was imagining this whole thing. After about 10 seconds, I heard a grotesque snicker coming from Gillian that sounded neither like a man or woman. I was no longer able to keep my composure at this point and I almost dove out of my chair. I fell to the ground; and, when I stood back up, Gillian was back in the witness box again, looking at me in confusion. I looked around at everyone else, and they had the same look.

As a form of denial of what I just experienced, I just apologized and sat back do...

---

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Doug_Schablowski on 2024-11-03 04:16:01+00:00.

---

”Finally”, followed by a huge sigh of relief is what I thought after setting down the cardboard box marked “my stuff” in the living room of my new home.

The relief wasn’t that of any physical exhaustion since the house came furnished, it was more of a mental relief. Aside from the tedious search on the market for one that fit my “paid peanuts” salary, I cold finally say I was out of that fucking apartment.

Now you might think that’s a little ungrateful and exaggerated especially for those that have lived or are living in a shitty apartment, but trust me when I say mine was exactly that: shitty.

From the garbage heating system to the repulsive growing mold on every corner, I’m surprised it was even legally allowed to be up for rent but then again the neighborhood was’t all that great either. It was the kind that required every window to be barred and every street to be surveillanced passed sundown. If I’m being brutally honest though, all those things were just little gripes that fed the real reason I couldn’t live there anymore.

To me, the whole place felt like a cage and not because of the barred windows or my need to install four locks on my door, but because it was a reminder that I would be stuck there forever with no indication of a better future. So I began to save up some money. I laid off on the useless spendings, got a better job, two jobs actually. As much as I hated the place I will say it was a hell of a motivator.

Anyway, during the time I was saving up to move out, I came across a tear off flier as I was taking my morning jog down to the park. It read “Home for Sale” in bolded red letters and displayed printed images of the home. Two stories, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. It was ten miles north of where I lived in a city you can say lacked the kind of excitement you’d find down here. Below there was the price: $140,000. This immediately got me questioning the liability of the flier but then as if placed to diminish all doubt, all the flier’s labels except one blew loosely in the wind. I stared at it for a while and finally ripped the whole thing from the wooden pool and stuffed it into my pocket.

One phone call later and a lot of paperwork and here I was, in my own home and finally free from that cage. It wasn’t all that much but given I’ve been living in the saddest excuse for an apartment for over 6 years, it was basically a mansion. An old mansion that is.

It was as though the whole thing was pulled right from the Victorian era. There was a matching intricate floral design on the walls, carpets, and curtains throughout the entire house. In almost every room a large chandelier hung conspicuously around the furniture that was as chaotic as Van Gogh’s painting palette; mismatched colors and cramped knick knacks on every drawer.

It was odd to me that someone would sell a house that looked like someone was still living in it, I mean I’ve seen furnished homes for sale but the furniture was usually new, neat and appealing to look at, this on the other hand, gave me a sense of claustrophobia and made my eyes go fuzzy just staring at it. I found it even more bizarre that the house was up at such a low price and there were no other potential buyers. (Despite the torn labels from the flier). Still, I bought it. I mean, who wouldn’t.

The real estate agent representing the seller was a slender, older woman and judging by what she was wearing, time was having a pretty rough time passing through her too.

She wore a black pointed gown tightly secured with a corset that did more harm than good. Thick strands of greasy hair escaped from under her dark bonnet like snakes slithering out of their nest. She was friendly though there was almost this forced nature to her. Her voice was too soft for her appearance, her unusual boney fingers twitched anxiously on her hands like they had a mind of their own, and her smile sat on her face like a heavy dumbbell pulling down on her aged skin.

—

“Hard to imagine living here with all this furniture. I can’t believe someone would just leave like this.”

”I guess some people are just eager to move out.”

”Yea, tell me about it.”

”You know, this place can use someone young like you. Someone with enough energy to lighten up the place… Just think of it as a game.”

—

I stood there still in a state of pride and a little excitement. I scanned the living room, then the dining room and finally the kitchen. It felt odd not having them less than three feet from each other or the fact that the space between the three wasn’t a “bedroom”.

I found myself touring around again, occasionally examining some of the antique items on the shelves like I was in some yard sale. There is no way I’m keeping all of this up.

I moved to the kitchen staggering over my feet since the mattress my mind was so used to avoiding was no longer there. I opened the kitchen cabinets. The previous owner had even left his silverware. They looked new but I’d rather not take any chances. I turned to head toward the staircase leading to the bedrooms upstairs when I heard a door slowly sway open. The creaking of the hinges doubled in the silence. It was a door to a small empty closet in the living room. I walked over. I swear this was never here. I guess I never noticed. I closed the door and made my way upstairs toward my bedroom.

Naturally I chose the most spacious of the 3 bedrooms for myself. It also happened to be the one with the least amount of furniture. There was a mahogany wardrobe on one end and a king-sized canopied bed on the other. Next to it, a night stand accompanied with a night lamp that looked as though spiders had spun its lampshade. There was also a large built-in closet with sliding doors. I slid the closet door open, half expecting it to be full of clothes and shoes but it was empty. I guess the owner wasn’t gracious enough to leave his clothes behind.

Just then, I felt a cold breeze brush up against my neck. I turned, pawing at my neck. *Hm? No windows.*I can’t remember what drew me to look up at the ceiling but I did. I noticed a faint outline of an attic door above me. The ceiling was high enough so that no normal person could reach it without some sort of elevation and there was no drawstring to pull down a ladder either. The sales woman never mentioned an attic. Maybe it belonged to an attic long ago sealed. But why leave the entrance marked? Or maybe there was an attic and it too was filled with junk even older than what was down here. Either way, it was mine now and I was curious enough to investigate. I stared at it for a while because I remember the aching sting on my neck when I looked down for any possible way to get to it.

Then the phone call came.The loud ringing of a phone shot through the house. I instinctively looked down at my phone but there was no incoming call. With that, my ears honed in on the sound. It was coming from the living area, downstairs. As I made my way down, I noticed it had that old high pitched bell sound of an old dial phone.

The black dial phone was hiding among the many relics in the living room. I let it ring longer, hesitant to answer, somehow knowing the call would be unsettling. Finally, I answered.

”Hello”

A stretched static sound made me pull away from the phone. I called out again. No answer. Just static. Then a faint raspy and distant voice fighting through the static, spoke.

”Don’t look around.”

”What? Who is this?”

”Don’t— don’t look around— don’t play the game— just ignore it.”

Before I could give another bewildered response, the static fired a hard ring that stung my ears to their very core. I dropped the phone in pain, shutting my eyes so tight I saw white. In a fit of rage, I pulled the whole thing right from where it laid and threw it against the wall. It shattered.

What the fuck was that? A prank call?

Yea. And maybe the damn thing was too old to handle another call. Yea, that’s it.

That night, after pulling off the sheets that came with the bed and replacing them with my own, I laid there in the dark, chasing sleep. You would think that on my first night in my new home I would sleep soundlessly with a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction but that wasn’t the case. Everytime I’d close my eyes I’d hear the floor creaking downstairs. After a while the creaking would be accompanied by subtle kicks on the walls like someone was running or playing downstairs. The whole thing brought back those frustrating memories of my upstairs neighbors living their lives in the night like some nocturnal animals.

My restless mind echoed the warnings given to me through the phone. *Just ignore it. Don’t play the game.*Was this some sick joke someone was playing on me? What a coincidence that as soon as I got a call telling me to ignore it, the whole floor suddenly became some rickety bridge blowing in the wind. Maybe I was overthinking it. The phone call just had me on high alert. I read somewhere before that the creaking you hear in the night is just your home’s wooden structure contracting and expanding. I kept telling myself that and zoned out moments later.

The next morning I quickly noticed that the weak flooring was permanent. Everywhere I stepped the floor would creak despite it not ever doing that the day before or the times I was in the house with the sales woman. I also began to notice other changes or gripes I hadn't noticed before. The floral designs on the walls, carpets and curtains were fade...

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Theeaglestrikes on 2024-11-03 03:43:26+00:00.

---

The idea was that we would never face the apocalyptic aftermath of a failed experiment. They would.

But when that world ended, something came back with us.

“Like each of you, I joined this agency for a reason: to advance our species,” Director Stefan Blom announced at the monthly assembly. “Mankind must experiment to avoid stagnating, but we are rarely permitted to do so. We are constricted by bumbling bureaucrats who care only about preservation. Conserving the status quo.

“They fear change. Fear what it might mean for them. They do not understand that we will die if we do not take risks, which is why we owe our lives to Dr Gerard Weston. Our esteemed physicist has found a way to pursue experimental projects without upsetting politicians and militaries. His latest achievement, the Weston Tunnel, has created a doorway to another universe. One with a parallel version of our world.

“Earth Two. There, we will conduct our supposedly ‘dangerous’ work without putting ‘Earth One’ at risk. And our leaders will see. Presidents. Prime ministers. Commanders. When we achieve results, they won’t care about how we obtained them. They’ve never cared about their ‘neighbours’ before, have they?”

Dozen Minus is a callous corporation in every universe. One linked to the British and American governments. Governments you might already despise in the public sphere, so you wouldn’t want to know the dreadful things they do behind closed doors.

Dozen Minus rarely conducts ethical experiments. Your leaders only care about money, and we only care about progress. Director Blom has only ever cared about progress, I should say. He ensures that politicians get their payday, and they mostly let him do as he pleases. Governments only expressed concern when we began to develop technology that threatened humanity’s very existence.

Of course, as Blom explained in his speech, world leaders think nothing of their neighbours. And Earth Two was nothing more than a cluster of nations across the pond. The ‘pond’ being that multiversal tunnel between one reality and another.

Earth Two became Director Blom’s playground. A gargantuan laboratory for performing Dozen Minus’ experiments without repercussions. And when inventions were tested successfully, they were green-lit for use in our world.

How do I fit into all of this? Well, my name is Adriano Rossi, and I was a computer programmer who worked on the Nervorum Project. We were creating the world’s first superintelligence — a conscious, self-teaching AI named Nerv. Science fiction made reality.

Now, I know that AI has been snowballing over the last couple of years, but Dozen Minus has been ahead of the curve for decades. The Nervorum Project was, actually, near-completion in the late ‘80s. This organisation has always possessed technology beyond anything in the public realm.

But Nerv was obstructed. Was prevented from being ‘born’. The risk of humanity’s extinction was, and still is, too high. Roadblocks prevented programmers from ever taking that final step. From creating a self-sustaining, inorganic intelligence capable of growing itself. A digital mind.

And that was why Dr Gerard Weston changed everything. When he developed that tunnel to a parallel version of Earth in 2015, Director Stefan Blom saw an opportunity to finally test numerous deadly devices. Inventions with the potential to end the world. After all, politicians were no longer concerned when somebody else’s world was in danger.

We began by investigating the Dozen Minus of Earth Two. Seeing whether that parallel agency had also developed a tunnel — one that would risk Earth One. But there was no Dr Gerard Weston in that alternate world, thankfully. Earth Two was vastly different. Politically. Culturally. Historically. Dozen Minus existed, but not in the same manner.

After that, we threw all we had at the parallel world. Deadly experiment after deadly experiment. And when Earth Two survived one project, we moved straight onto the next. In early 2024, the Nervorum Project reached the top of the list. It was approved for testing.

Helen Harding and I stepped through Weston’s tunnel into that parallel world, and we prepared to become gods. In the banal setting of a hotel room, we set up a potentially cataclysmic device — a slim, rectangular gadget that held Nerv on its hardware. That digital brain had existed in some form for nearly thirty years, being tweaked and improved by each new influx of geniuses. A collection of binary commands waiting for some courageous, or foolish, Dr Frankenstein to yank the lever.

“You need to let it go,” Helen said.

She’d read the slight frown on my face. The slight sign of humanity. Only I seemed to see Earth Two as a real place. A planet barely different from ours. One teeming with life. Human beings in a drastically-different world, but human beings, nonetheless.

“We aren’t the first to come here and take a risk, Adriano,” she pointed out.

“But this experiment’s the worst, and you know it,” I said. “Nerv won’t have any use for humanity once he exceeds our intelligence.”

“Not our intelligence,” Helen reminded me. “Theirs. This is their world, Adriano. You keep forgetting that.”

“Even so, I still don’t think we were ready,” I said.

She sighed. “Director Blom was very clear that—”

“Yes, well, the director isn’t a programmer, is he?” I asked. “Nerv will have the ability to become exponentially powerful. He’ll see things that we, with our limited brains, physically can’t see. Who’s to say that he will stay within Earth Two — this ‘laboratory’, as Blom calls it? Nerv might find its way back to our world. Might slip through our tunnel.”

Helen frowned. “Adriano, why did you even get involved with this project?”

I shook my head. “You misunderstand. I’m not trying to act holier than thou. I was drawn to this for the same reasons as you.”

“Then what’s up?” she asked.

“I told you. We need more time,” I said.

“This has been ready for decades,” Helen answered. “All we’ve really done is tweaked and improved it. Added as many safety features as possible.”

“I know,” I replied. “This is my admission of guilt then.”

“Adriano…” my friend started.

I looked up from the device on the hotel bed. “What?”

“Are we going to do this?” she asked. “Or do you want to explain to Mr Blom that you’ve had a crisis of morality and changed your mind?”

I didn’t, and I hadn’t. With the tap of my thumb, I booted Nerv.

And you may think that the horror of my tale involves this superintelligence running amok. Annihilating the world. Well, it certainly did not take long for our artificial intelligence to study the internet, then teach itself things that mankind may not even be able to understand. But Nerv did not go rogue. Did not scorch the Earth. He improved it.

The artificial intelligence multiplied at a rapid pace. Not in the sense of procreating, but uploading itself to physical devices across the world. It revealed its plans to world leaders, offering to improve the global infrastructure, and quickly became something of a global celebrity. All within a single month.

Helen and I were instructed by Director Blom to remain on Earth Two, and we watched the planet flourish. Watched the intelligence put forth plans for tackling climate change, poverty, global debt, all known wars, and even resource shortages. Powerful folk on Earth One wanted Nerv to be implemented back home. Wanted our reality to enjoy the same economic, cultural, and scientific development as Earth Two.

However, after two months of staggering growth, there came an unexpected knock on the door of our hotel room.

Helen sighed. “Will that receptionist ever just—”

It wasn’t the receptionist, and the visitor did not allow me the dignity of opening the door. It burst inwards with a single thud — the forceful pummel of a thick boot. Then charged several dark-uniformed men, and the last thing I heard, before my environment slipped into a black ooze of unconsciousness, was Helen’s piercing shriek.

You may be shocked to learn that the above segment was only the preamble to the true horror. The story I am about to tell.

Waking in a drab cell with two single beds and my screaming colleague, it did not take me long to piece together the situation. I’m not calling myself a genius. I simply felt familiar with the layout of the prison. The grey décor of the small room in which Helen was pounding on a glass viewing pane and begging for release. The yellow badge emblazoned across the guard’s top pocket — a cold man who watched us with static eyes. My fellow inmate had, of course, also pieced things together.

“Adriano… You’re awake. Help me. You programmed these panels back home, didn’t you?” Helen asked, desperately fiddling with the screen by the locked door. “Do you know how to unlock it?”

I rubbed my sore brow and climbed off the bed. “I’ll try, but this isn’t our Dozen Minus, Helen. Things are different here.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice interrupted.

It did not come from the guard who observed us from the hallway. It came from some concealed speaker in a ceiling panel. And I recognised the dulcet tone of the speaker. It was, undoubtedly, Director Stefan Blom. His parallel self.

“Please just let us go!” I called.

“Not until I know why you’re here,” Blom continued. “Not until you tell me why I’m seeing double.”

Then two figures joined the watching guard in the hallway. I had expected their arriv...

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