nosleep

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/EmmaWatsonButDumber on 2024-10-19 21:42:11+00:00.

---

I’m a resident in my 3rd year and I’ve just been transferred here. So far, I can’t say it’s been boring. Can you, ever? I’ve met countless patients with the rarest diseases, and been through a lot of difficult situations - I guess that’s the adrenaline inducing med life everyone craves. I was prepared to feel confused, disgusted, even scared… and, yet, not in this way.

I haven’t been too precise. Let me rephrase. The hospital I’ve been transferred to is in the middle of nowhere. I’m talking, forgotten village in a valley, almost no signal, maximum 300 people. Why would I take this job, you ask?

Well, they pay me well. And you know how difficult is for residents to actually make some money.

My parents were skeptical at first. “Why would they look for staff so desperately, that they’re willing to pay you that much?”

“Well, mom, frankly, it’s not my business.”

“It is, if they’re making you do weird shit.”

“Jo, no bad language around little Mel” my mother shushed my sister. “Will they, though?” She followed, frowning.

“I don’t think so. They’re just lacking personnel. Think about it. No one wants to go to Fucksville in the middle of nowhere and waste their time - pardon, I meant gain experience - for 7 months. They have to attract you in some way.”

“Okay, but call.”

“Or don’t.” My dad said. “Spare us. It’s enough I have to listen to you complain 24/7 here. Don’t want a mini you on the phone saying the same stuff.”

“All right.” I mocked him.

I really didn’t think anything interesting was going to happen anyway. Mostly old people going for the billionth check up just to get out of the house and make sure they don’t die and they live up to being 188, and kids with a cold.

I get there, and it’s worse than I imagined. I have to rent this “flat”, which is mostly the first floor of an old building in the central plaza (the 4 square feet town center), and stinks of cigarettes and alcohol worse than I do. I have a roommate I barely see and a landlord that instructed me from the beginning not to smoke. Hm.

The hospital is 2 miles away, in what I like to call the suburbs of this mega populated area. It’s a rotting building with mold in like half of the rooms, and a questionable basement, but at least the staff is nice. I don’t know how they passed all safety and health checks, but fuck if I care.

Anyway, I start, and there’s nothing unusual going on. I don’t have much to do, as I anticipated. Walk around. Do check ups. Draw blood. Assist. Talk to patients. “How are you feeling, ma’am? And how often do you say that happens? All right, I’ll see what I can do.”

I took some night shifts in the first weeks, but it was extremely boring and the mold was bad for my lungs, so I stopped.

Nothing interesting happened during the first few weeks. It was truly just me and the cold mountains, a lone and mysterious wolf against this darkness we call life. I don’t know what was going to kill me first - the mold, or the boring routine.

Sometime around 9PM, as I wanted to leave, one of the nurses approached me and asked whether I wanted to take an extra shift for the night. Before I opened my mouth to tell her kindly to fuck off, she said something that stopped me.

“We need help at the morgue.”

I paused, mouth open. I narrowed my eyes. “Who died?”

She didn’t answer.

“People really die here? Wouldn’t the population go down by like half?”

She scoffed. “You should really take things more seriously.”

I accepted, just to break this endless cycle of waiting around.

I was writing a report for an old lady, and she tried to make small talk. She looked at me, narrowed her eyes and asked me where I was from.

“Does it matter? I’m here now.”

“Of course it matters. You’re transferred to the basement now? They must really like you.” The old lady looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her anywhere in my mind. She wore this flowery coat and had blue eyes, that moved around a lot.

I frowned. “Yeah?”

“Mm. Yes. Tell me what you saw the next time we meet.”

“Okay?” Whatever that meant, I thought.

The winter air was really getting to me, so I closed the window, then remembered the mold situation and opened it again. When I did, as the glass moved, I saw the old lady’s reflection suddenly bending down and turning her head really quick, but when I turned to look, she was sitting in the same position, looking at me and smiling.

I looked back at the window’s reflection, and there she was, still bent down. I figured I must have been hallucinating due to the mold. The high pay was beginning to matter less and less.

Lights flickering, the air got considerably colder as I got to the basement. It looked depressing. And the hallways were really narrow, with yellow walls and creaking doors. For the first time, I missed the familiarity of my tiny flat.

There was one doctor there, bend down over something.

“Uh, hi. You’re Mr. Lake?”

He didn’t answer. He was humming something. I noticed he had his stethoscope on, so I patted him on the shoulder.

He didn’t flinch, just calmly turned around and looked at me. I saw a dead squirrel behind him, the subject of his examination.

“I was listening to some tunes, hi!”

“Inside… the squirrel?”

“Yeah! You get it.”

I stared at him puzzled as he stumbled to a drawer and pulled out something. “You must be Mr. Hannigan. Sign.”

“Is this… an NDA?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Um, I actually will worry about it. I’m not signing this. What’s going on?”

He paused and remained like that for a while. I could hear the creaking floors in the hallway. “Is there someone else with us?”

“Well, yeah. You’d think we were alone here? Who in their right mind would be alone here?” He laughed.

I frowned. “We’re together, we’re not exactly alone…?”

“God, you’re still talking. Be quiet, Mr. Hannigan. Sign this and be quiet.”

I don’t know why, but I did.

Dr. Lake went into the hallway and I heard some whispering, then he came back. “Okay, they’ll bring them in very very soon.”

“Them? There’s more?”

“Yeah, we die in pairs around here.”

“…Right.”

That was the least weird thing I'd heard tonight. I didn't even question it that much.

We sat next to each other in the cold room for a while, and nothing happened. Just waiting in the silence, disrupted by one ticking clock and the wind moving the branches outside. As much as I was freaked out, it was… interesting. I was a bit curious to see what was going to happen next and, judging by the non-disclosure agreement I had to sign, the night was not going to be uneventful.

"Is your name really Dr. Lake?" I asked.

The man flashed me a smile. "It used to be Blake, but I gave a letter up."

Then, right as he looked up to the door frame, his expression dropped. I turned to look, but nothing was there.

"They're here." he mumbled, half excited, half nervous, as he sprinted through the door. I followed and, to my surprise, someone was really there: a nurse wearing three crosses around her neck, bringing two bodies on two distinct tables. When she saw us, she nodded. Her face was made only from sharp angles and rough tones, and her eyes had no warmth, no movement, even when she looked at me. Her lips were paper thin and violet, and her hands - covered in cuts.

She didn't speak, but Dr. Lake thanked her and we pulled the two tables inside the room.

The post-mortem room was cold and sterile, its metallic surfaces gleaming under the harsh, clinical lighting that cast sharp shadows across the space. In the center of the room, the two stainless steel tables stood like grim altars, each one slightly angled with drainage channels for fluids. The air smelled faintly of disinfectant, a sharp contrast to the heavy silence that seemed to settle over everything. Along the walls, cabinets held an array of gleaming surgical tools—scalpels, bone saws, forceps—all meticulously arranged for easy access.

A ventilation system hummed quietly, ensuring the air remained cool and sterile, while a sink in the corner provided a steady trickle of water, the sound a soft but constant reminder of the room’s grim purpose. Yeah, air ventilation. Good luck beating the mold. I thought, but noticed that this room seemed to be free of mold. It was almost as if it didn't belong to the hospital.

"Mr. Hannigan. I need you to take out a notebook and write down what I tell you."

I obliged, expecting instructions, initial observations or anything like that.

"Write. Rule 1."

Rule 1.

"Don't talk to strangers."

I smiled at the joke, then hovered my pen above the paper, waiting for the actual rule.

"You done?"

I looked up, still expecting. Dr. Lake was studying me, impatient. "Rule 2."

"Wait, rule one was..."

"Don't talk to strangers. Come on, hurry. We have to be done before the sun rises."

"What do you mean? I'm sorry, was that a joke?"

"I am dead serious. In this, uhm, area, you don't talk to no one. Just me or anyone you know. You see others working in the basement, you do not approach them. You don't talk to strangers."

I pressed my pen into the paper and distantly wrote don't... talk... to... strangers.

Rule 2. Always examine everything around. A death is not just the end of a life. It is a separation that bends the universe and snaps it in half. Such thing disrupts the atmosphere, so be mindful of your surroundings. Sometimes the clues are not in the dead body, but everything else around them.

Great, I thought. This doctor was fucking crazy. Maybe that's why ...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1g7jg4n/the_hospital_i_work_at_has_very_strange_ways_and/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/TheLastRiter on 2024-10-19 18:21:52+00:00.

---

Fourteen days. It has been fourteen days since my little brother and his friends were declared missing. Fourteen days since my family heard anything from Peter. He could be difficult, but he’d never just disappear like this.

Peter and his two friends, Michael and Corey, fancied themselves urban explorers. They enjoyed creeping through crumbling malls and abandoned theaters that people whispered were haunted. The police had searched every likely spot within a hundred miles and found nothing but old squatters and empty spaces. They shrugged it off, convinced Peter and his friends had taken off for spring break. But Peter’s phone, always glued to his hand, had gone straight to voicemail. And it stayed that way.

Frustrated with the lack of progress, I took a leave of absence from my job and returned to my hometown, determined to find Peter myself. The first place I went was our childhood home.

It was early morning when I arrived, and the house was quiet, or so I thought. My parents were awake, moving through the house like ghosts, their eyes hollow and tired. They hadn’t slept. How could they? Peter’s room was a disaster, made worse by the police rummaging through it for clues. His computer sat untouched in the corner. When I turned it on, I was greeted by my first obstacle, a password.

I tore through his desk, notebooks, and every scrap of paper I could find, desperate for a clue. A poster of some grungy, tattooed band caught my eye: Vexor. Peter loved that band. I typed the name into the computer. Incorrect it said bouncing back. I sighed, leaning back in his chair, frustration bubbling up. The room felt suffocating, as if Peter's absence left a void I couldn’t fill.

Then I caught sight of the poster again, reflected in the mirror. Backwards. Vexor read “Roxev.” It was a long shot, but I typed it in. The screen unlocked.

I exhaled, a small victory in a sea of uncertainty. I clicked through his files until I found a chat between Peter, Michael, and Corey. One message stood out: a link to a YouTube channel called The Unexplained Adventurers Club. I clicked through their videos which were well-edited shots of the three boys exploring decaying buildings and forgotten places. The latest video was of them at an old mill on the outskirts of town, and in the final minutes, they mentioned their next destination: St. Dismas Asylum.

I Googled the asylum and immediately felt a chill. It was an old, abandoned place, shut down decades ago amid rumors of human experiments. The photos online were grainy, but enough to show a crumbling building shrouded in decay. The idea of Peter and his friends exploring that place made my stomach twist. Still, if that’s where they’d gone, that’s where I’d have to go.

The drive to St. Dismas was long and oppressive. The sky darkened as I left the highway, and the backroads leading to the asylum were barely roads at all mostly just dirt paths winding through thick woods that seemed to close in around me. The trees were lifeless, their branches clawing at the sky like skeletal hands. My headlights barely cut through the gloom, and with each mile, the silence grew heavier.

Finally, after what felt like hours, I saw it. St. Dismas sat perched on a hill, towering over everything like a malevolent giant. It looked wrong, almost as if it was leaning toward me, beckoning me closer. The building’s jagged silhouette was barely visible against the night sky, but it exuded an aura of decay and abandonment. Yet, even from a distance, I felt eyes on me, like the asylum itself was watching.

I should have stopped. I should have turned back. But as I neared the gate, I spotted a Jeep Grand Cherokee, partially hidden by overgrown bushes. My heart hammered in my chest. It was the same Jeep the boys had last been seen in.

I pulled up alongside it and stepped out, the cold night air biting at my skin. My flashlight beam swept over the Jeep, and dread coiled in my stomach. Two tires were flat as if they had driven over something sharp. My breath caught as I tried the doors, but they were locked tight. The back hatch gave way after a few tugs, and I climbed inside. The keys were still in the ignition, but the engine wouldn’t turn. The battery was dead.

I rummaged through the glove box and found the insurance papers. Michael Cromwell. I was right, it was their car. But where were they?

I checked my phone again. No signal. Of course. I could go back, try to find service, but the thought of leaving them behind felt like abandoning them. I had to keep going.

The gatehouse beside the fence had a faint glow coming from inside. I hesitated, then entered, my nerves frayed with every step. The light inside flickered, casting long, wavering shadows. An old computer sat in the corner, but it was the bright orange button on the wall that caught my eye. It had to be for the gate.

With a deep breath, I pressed it. The gates groaned as they slowly creaked open, their rusted hinges screaming in the silence. I jumped, startled by the sudden noise. For a moment, I stood frozen, staring at the gaping entrance. There was no turning back now.

I passed through the gates, and they slammed shut behind me, the sound echoing through the air like a final warning. My flashlight beam cut through the darkness, illuminating the dry, brittle ground beneath my feet. The earth seemed dead, drained of life, much like the trees that stood sentinel around the asylum. In the distance, I spotted a single light in one of the upper windows. It shouldn’t have been there, there was no reason for a place like this to still have power.

I made my way to the front doors, their heavy oak frames bound with thick chains and a rusted padlock. I shook them, but they wouldn’t budge. My flashlight beam flickered as I peered through the grimy windows. Inside, I could see the outline of an old waiting room, but there was no movement, no sign of life. I swept the light around, looking for a way in, but the shadows seemed to twist and dance just out of reach, taunting me. I figured there must be a similar orange button inside the lobby to open the front gate again, there had to be or else I would be trapped here.

Then, I noticed the footprints. Three sets, leading around the side of the building, directly under the window with the light. I followed them, my flashlight flickering as if struggling against the oppressive darkness. The prints led to a metal trellis climbing the side of the stone wall. Several bars were broken, and my heart raced as I realized this was how Peter and his friends had entered.

I looked up at the window, the only sign of life in this dead place. I had no signal, no backup, and no way out until I found them. I took a deep breath, gripping the trellis. The metal flexed under my weight, but I climbed anyway, feeling the pull of something far darker than I’d expected waiting for me inside.

Hand over hand, I went until my fingers scraped against the rough stone of the window sill, and with a final heave, I pulled myself into the room, only to stumble and land hard on my chin, a cloud of dust erupting around me. Cursing under my breath, I rolled to my feet, the silence in the room heavy and oppressive, wrapping around me like a shroud.

The administrative room was oddly preserved, an old bank teller's lamp casting a weak glow over a desk cluttered with disheveled papers. Despite the dust covering nearly everything, some sheets bore the official stamp of St. Dismas, their pages oddly missing a layer a dust as though someone had been examining them recently. I rifled through the documents, noting the sterile language detailing procedures and consents that felt cold and clinical. A low hum pulsed in the air, reminiscent of faulty electrical wires crackling somewhere in the depths of the building.

As I approached the door, a sudden crash echoed through the hallway, sharp and disorienting. My heart raced as panic surged within me. I was seconds away from bolting back through the window when I hesitated. Peter could be in danger; I couldn’t abandon him, even if fear gnawed at my insides.

That sound was heavy and metallic but might have been the boys. What if they were trying to escape from somewhere? The thought froze me momentarily, but I steeled myself, pushed down the dread, and opened the door to the hallway.

Peering into the murky darkness of St. Dismas, I aimed my flashlight into the gloom. A long, hospital-style corridor unfolded before me, lined with doors that whispered secrets. Some were slightly ajar, as if beckoning me closer, while others were locked tight, guarding their horrors.

A crooked sign hung on the wall, the word "ADMINISTRATION WING" scrawled in blood-red letters. I quickly checked my phone, praying for a signal, but the screen remained obstinately blank. With every step I took, the linoleum floor creaked, each echo amplifying my sense of vulnerability.

Then, I heard it. A faint dragging sound, like something heavy being pulled along the floor above me. My heart raced. Was it Peter? Or was it someone, or something else lurking in the shadows? Perhaps a deranged ex-patient or a sadistic doctor conducting nightmarish experiments on the unwitting?

A shiver danced down my spine. Calling out would be foolish; I needed to remain hidden, to find the source of the noise before it found me.

At the end of the hallway, I rounded a corner and stepped into a grand atrium that ...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1g7f6f0/it_has_been_fourteen_days_since_my_little_brother/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/MikeJesus on 2024-10-19 18:10:32+00:00.

---

I apologize for any odd phrasing or typos. For the past couple of days, I’ve been having trouble eating and I’m feeling pretty light-headed. Sleep also hasn’t come easy. Honestly, being behind a computer is probably the last place where I should be, but I need to get this off my chest before I can carry on with my life.

We live in a time of constant distraction. Some spend their days with podcasts buzzing in their earbuds, some calm their minds with a constant stream of YouTube shorts and others make ambiance for their apartment with quiet Netflixed sitcoms. For the past couple of months, my choice of attention duller has been unsecured CCTV cameras.

I’d eat my lunches to feeds from vape shops in Bangladesh or quiet intersections in Stockholm. Working home office has instilled a sense of gentle claustrophobia in me. The live feeds assured me that life existed beyond the three rooms of my apartment. For a long time, I found those assurances soothing.

But then I found the warehouse cam.

It was in an unsorted directory and there were no identifying marks in the footage. I was looking at a feed from the side of some warehouse that bordered the edges of an industrial district. The camera was low, but the streets were empty. I had seen feeds like that before, yet what caught my eye was the gentle snowfall.

Beyond the warehouse there was a forest of pine trees. When I had started my lunch, they were their usual dark green. Yet, as I ate, and as the first snow of the season fell, the trees slowly turned heavy with white. The tranquil scene had kept me distracted from my thoughts as I ate and I was getting ready to search for something new, but then I saw people.

A procession, to be precise. At least three dozen people dressed in lab coats walked down the road towards the forest in a single file line. They weren’t dressed for the cold and none of them seemed to be pleased with their journey, yet they walked without pause or stumble.

I watched the camera long after the scientists had marched by, hoping for at least a hint of explanation, yet none came. The snow stopped falling and the empty streets and forest became a near static image. I went back to work, but I did bookmark the camera address and took note of the time.

The next day, as I took my lunch break, I caught the procession once more. They arrived at the same exact time as they did the day prior. More snow had fallen, and it covered much of the sidewalk, yet the scientists moved no slower.

With faces completely blank of expression and clothes not suited for the winter, the scientists marched through the snow and disappeared into the forest. On the third day, when the snow turned to slush, they marched once more.

The people in lab coats made the same trip at the same time every day of the week. Even during the weekend, when I didn’t have to be behind my computer, I would attend our scheduled lunch appointment. Every day they walked by and every day I was there to watch them. 

I found the mystery of the scientists exhilarating and its regularity allowed it to be a constant in my days. Even when I wasn’t on my lunch break, I would keep the camera feed running on the background of my browser in hopes of catching a passing car’s license plate or anything else that would help me locate the feed. I wanted to know where the scientists were. I wanted to know who they were so that I could understand their daily march.

Yet no such opportunity presented itself. The nature of the camera feed remained a frustrating mystery. It irritated me. I wanted to know more about the scientists.

I was naïve back then. I did not realize the comfort that existed in my unknowing.

Three days ago, on my lunch break, I was once again counting down the minutes to the usual appearance of the scientists. I had gotten into the habit of only eating when they finally appeared on screen and I was quite hungry that day.

The moment I saw them, however, I lost my sense of appetite.

They still marched through the snow of the sidewalk and mud of the forest trail. They still wore their lab coats and they still moved in their orderly single file without pause, yet the scientists had changed.

They were burnt. They were all horribly burnt.

With some, the flesh had slipped off parts of their face and revealed the bone beneath. Others still had eyes and skin, yet the extend of the damage was undoubtedly fatal. None of them should have been capable of walking. None of them should have been alive.

I watched my screen with utter shock and disgust. The innocent questions I had about the daily procession of scientists turned into sheer terror. My heart was seized with fear and my stomach had been thoroughly robbed of all appetite, yet my mind still hungered for knowledge.

Knowing that no one would believe me on my word alone, I decided to record the procession the next day. I had hoped that, perhaps, with video evidence of the scientists someone would be able to see something I had missed.

The next day, I attempted to record the procession and it was a grave mistake.

Over the months I had gotten used to the unfriendly weather that would occasionally accompany the scientists, but when I tuned into the feed the following day there was a snowstorm the strength of which I had never witnessed before. The sidewalks were engulfed in snow and the road itself seemed impossible to pass through by car. The weather was horrid, yet the line of burnt scientists still marched.

They forced their way through the snow without rest or pause as they always did. That day, however, as the final scientist of the march passed the camera, they stopped. Their skin was too charred for me to get even an inkling of their identity, yet they clearly stopped and looked at the camera.

Slowly, but clearly noticeable on my screen, the scientist shook their head.

It was as if they knew I was watching them.

Though I was in my warm apartment, looking at the snow-filled scene made me shiver. It wasn’t until after the scientist had left, however, that I felt true fear.

I do most of my work on the computer. I have not skimmed on making sure I have a strong rig. A simple screen recording is nothing my machine couldn’t handle, yet when I tried watching back the footage from the procession the video was a complete slideshow.

I had tried collecting evidence of the burnt scientists, but all I have is pixelated shots of a snowstorm. When I woke up the next morning, I was committed to making another attempt at capturing the procession.

That, however, would not be possible.

My internet access had been completely shut off. When I called my ISP to figure out what had happened, I was placed into a two-hour waiting queue. When I finally managed to talk to a representative, they were cagey.

Apparently, my internet had been shut off due to criminal use.

Apparently, the police would contact me about the details.

I write this post on my phone while sitting at a bistro. I do not know which law I have broken and I trust the situation with the police will be quickly resolved, yet I fear staying in my home. I fear that whoever is responsible for that procession of burnt scientists knows my IP address.

I write this post on my phone while sitting in a bistro. This place used to be one of my favorite lunch spots whenever I wanted to treat myself and order in. I’ve never refused a burger from this place. It’s the best in the city.

I’m hungry and the air is filled with delightful smells, yet I can’t bring myself to eat. I can’t bring myself to eat, because whenever I try, all I can think of is the burnt scientists.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Saturdead on 2024-10-19 15:46:51+00:00.

---

[1] – [2] – [3] - [4]

Nick and I didn’t get much time off after our run-in with the mask folks. Enough for February to make way for March, but that was pretty much it. I spent most of that time making myself comfortable in my house again, but no matter the furniture and the ‘new floor smell’, I still had that feeling that something was out there; just out of sight. The town of Tomskog was relentless that way. You could never really be sure that you were alone, or safe. I had no idea how the long-term locals did it.

Once the dust settled, we were put back on active duty. Nothing big, just surveillance. John Digman and his relative were holed up at this old ranch by the southwestern exit of town. There weren’t a lot of spots to position ourselves for a stakeout without outing ourselves, but we settled on a hill within a viewing distance. The station had plenty of binoculars.

There were three surveillance teams. Nick and I ended up on the evening shift, starting at 5pm and ending around midnight. Round-the-clock surveillance.

 

Being forced into such a proximity with another person has a couple of unintended effects. I think this is the time where Nick and I became real, actual friends. Up until that point we were still sort of work buddies, but we hadn’t really sat down and just talked.

I learned a lot about Nick during those days. I’d no idea he used to be married, for example. His wife had run off with a male stripper from Salt Lake City. Six years of marriage down the drain on a single ill-timed company retreat. Then there were his ridiculous pink sunglasses. As he described them;

“They make you brave, you know. When you look at the world through rose-tinted glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.”

 

One evening, as we bonded over shrimp and fried rice, the conversation lulled a bit. The Digman’s were keeping to themselves, so there was nothing to report. We were just sitting there, vibing to his classic hard rock collection. I decided to bring up something that’d been on my mind for a while.

“I don’t get why everyone doesn’t know about this town,” I said. “It’s unreal. It’s literally unreal.”

“You forget,” Nick explained. “You just sort of forget. All these things, they’re so unlikely that you start to fade it out from your mind over time. Like a story you forgot you read. It’s like it never really happened to you, you know?”

“Yeah, but people around here go missing too. Do y’all just forget about them and move on?”

“Sometimes,” Nick nodded. “But it’s not like… a willing thing. Sometimes things just disappear, like they were never here to begin with.”

He tapped the dashboard, as if trying to conjure a thought. Then he snapped his fingers.

“Your desk!” he exclaimed. “Remember how it had no name?”

“Yeah?”

“It most definitely did, once. But whoever used it is just sort of gone. Poof.”

 

After our shift, Nick took me on a ride to show me what he meant. There were a couple of houses that were fully furnished and clearly inhabited, but there were no names registered to them. No initials on the mailbox, nothing but empty frames on the walls.

“These show up from time to time,” Nick explained. “There’s nothing we can do about it. Even if they were our best friends at some point, how would we know? It’s like they never existed.”

“You know what’s causing this?”

“Take your pick,” Nick shrugged. “Ain’t just one thing that can cause it. It’s like… once you go too far and touch something you shouldn’t, it takes you away.”

We just stood there for a moment, looking at this ghastly house. The fancy living room rug, painstakingly selected. Empty plates from a dinner finished months ago. A shirt casually tossed over a chair, now the home to a curious spider weaving a brand-new web.

It was a life frozen in time, waiting for someone to come home. Someone that wouldn’t.

 

I tried not to think too much about it, but the thought surfaced every now and then. The next time Nick and I went down to the station, I took some time to go through the desk I’d been assigned to when I first joined. There were still a few items left. A couple of empty picture frames, that was to be expected. A pack of gum, an empty wallet, a couple of blank receipts. The strangest things were a set of smooth keys. There was no way to tell what they’d be used for. Handcuffs?

It was pointless. Whoever this person was, I’d never find out. And while the rest of Tomskog PD seemed perfectly happy with not knowing, it just gave me the creeps. If something could affect people on such a personal level, nothing was off the table. I tried not to think about it too much, but the implications were mind boggling. You could just disappear, and no one would know.

Nick didn’t seem too bothered though. He saw me rummaging through the desk and gave me what can only be described as a sympathetic shrug. I guess he figured I had to come to terms with this in my own way.

 

That night, as I went to sleep, I had the strangest feeling in my stomach. It was like a new kind of worry. We’ve all had those nights when we twist and turn, worrying about something, but this was different. This was, like… world-shattering. Like existence itself was a fragile thing. It felt like the universe itself was cruel, wishing me only harm and pointless indignance. I lay awake staring up at the ceiling, hoping a comforting thought would look back.

And when it didn’t, I cried. That kind of cry where your sinuses burn and you can’t close your mouth. Where you look like you’re just silently screaming as you stain your pillow with tears.

That night is when I started to write this all down. I figured I hadn’t been forgotten yet, and that in case of my sudden disappearance, there was at least a chance something might be left behind. A remnant. But I saw it more as an act of defiance; a challenge. That if I was taken down and removed, they would have another thing to remove. And I would keep adding to that pile, so that taking me out of the picture would at least be as inconvenient as possible.

 

I remember I was halfway into my recollection of coming to Tomskog (what would later be my first post here), when I leaned back. As I did, my head bumped into something. Something where there ought to be nothing.

I spun around, but there was nothing there. I figured that was a good indicator to stop for the night. I wasn’t coping very well, but at least I’d gotten some of that pain out on paper. That’d hold me for a bit.

 

Over the next few days, I regularly took down notes about strange things I’d seen, or stray thoughts that ran through my mind. I was scared that I might end up forgetting something. It was a safety blanket, in a way.

Nick didn’t say anything about it. He’d probably seen something like it before. Hell, maybe he’d been that way himself. It was nice not to have a judgmental stare over my shoulder, while still retaining some form of normalcy. Our stakeouts were drawn-out and frustrating, but at least we didn’t have to worry too much about what we were gonna do that day.

 

But what stuck with me was the little things. The little moments in between. Nick and I would sometimes have these long talks over dinner, for example. I remember the takeout bag from the gas station still warm on my lap.

“Digman uses no power,” Nick once said in-between bites of his second hot dog. “Nothing. He’s completely off the grid.”

“So?”

“So?! So look!”

I brought up my binoculars and had another look. There were plenty of lights on at Digman’s place; and that was only what we could see. There were also satellite dishes on the roof, a large radio antenna, and a couple of large black cables running from the main building to the guest house.

“You can’t say that’s not weird,” Nick insisted.

“Sure, yeah,” I agreed. “I see no solar panels, so it’s gotta be something else.”

“I’ve been saying that for years,” Nick sighed. “But it’s just one of those things, you know. One of those weird, weird things.”

“Digman,” I sighed, shaking my head.

“Fucking Digman.”

 

We ended up taking turns checking out the place, making notes whenever someone came or went. We’d use the binoculars for an hour each, letting the other one use the charger as we browsed on our phones. It made things bearable, but the long hours would get painfully slow at times. We couldn’t move around too much, or there was a chance we’d be spotted, but by the fourth day or so we were almost praying to get noticed. But hey, at least we didn’t get the night shift.

I remember getting out to stretch my legs. It was about 10 pm or so, and the clouds had slowly settled overhead. There was pressure building; we’d probably have bad weather within a couple hours. I took out my phone to check an article from my hometown, when a red light came on. As I tapped the screen, there was a second brief flash of bright red.

I blinked it away and looked up. Something had changed. For some reason, my heart was beating a little faster. March in Minnesota can get real dark real fast, so no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t see anything. There could’ve been a hundred people in those woods staring at me, and I’d be none the wiser.

I got back to the car, suddenly feeling vulnerable. Uneasy.

Was this wha...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1g7brq9/where_the_bad_cops_go_part_4/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Embarrassed-Bug5392 on 2024-10-19 12:42:56+00:00.

---

I wasn’t going to write this. I mean, who would even believe me? But it’s been a week since I got home, and I can’t shake the feeling that something is still… watching me. Maybe sharing this will help. Or maybe I’m just hoping that if someone else reads this, they’ll avoid the mistake we made.

It was supposed to be a quick road trip. Just me, my girlfriend Lisa, my best friend Ryan, his girlfriend Megan, and Danny—our goofy, comic relief friend who kept us laughing even when we shouldn’t have been. We were driving through the mountains for the weekend, a much-needed escape from city life. We didn’t plan on going off-route. But you know how it is when you’re with friends and feeling adventurous. When Danny suggested we take a detour to this old, abandoned ski resort he’d heard about, we thought, “Why not?”

I wish we’d said no.

It started off as a joke, all of us piling out of the car and into the snow, making ghost sounds as we approached the rundown resort. The place looked like it had been forgotten for decades. Windows boarded up, snow covering everything like a thick blanket, and this eerie stillness in the air. You could almost feel the weight of history there, like the place was holding onto its secrets.

We should’ve turned back the moment we saw the first set of footprints. Fresh ones, leading into the building. But we were curious—hell, we were stupid. Ryan was the first to go in, shining his phone’s flashlight into the darkness. “Come on, guys, it’s just an old building!” he laughed, stepping inside. One by one, we followed.

The inside was even worse. Dust coated everything, the walls were lined with faded photographs of people who probably hadn’t been seen in years. There were some half-burnt candles in the lobby, like someone had been there recently. And that’s when it hit us—someone might still be here.

We heard the first noise an hour later. It was just a shuffle at first, like someone dragging their feet across the wooden floor upstairs. Danny joked that it was a raccoon or something. But then we heard it again, louder this time. Lisa gripped my arm, and we all stopped laughing. Something felt off, like we were being watched.

“I think we should leave,” Megan said, her voice shaky. For the first time that night, we all agreed on something. We turned to head back to the car, but when we stepped outside, our hearts sank. The car wouldn’t start. Ryan checked the engine—someone had ripped out wires. Who the hell would do that in the middle of nowhere?

We were trapped.

We decided to spend the night in the lodge. It was better than freezing in the car, right? We found a room with old mattresses, and tried to make ourselves comfortable. We barely slept.

Around 3 AM, I woke up to a sound that will haunt me forever: footsteps. But this time, they were closer. Right outside the door. Ryan, always the brave one, stood up and opened it, shining his flashlight into the hall.

Nothing. Just empty, creaky floorboards.

But then we noticed it. Megan was gone.

At first, we thought she’d just wandered off, maybe gone to the bathroom or to get some air. We searched the whole lodge—no sign of her. Lisa started crying, but Ryan… he was in denial. “She’s fine. Maybe she went back to the car.”

But deep down, we all knew something was wrong.

The next day, we split up to look for her. Ryan and I went deeper into the woods behind the lodge, while Danny and Lisa stayed behind to check the lodge again. That’s when we found it: a small wooden shed, hidden behind snow-covered trees. The door was slightly ajar, and inside… we found Megan’s scarf. It was tied to a chair, along with other signs of struggle. Blood. But no Megan.

I looked at Ryan, and for the first time in my life, I saw true fear in his eyes. We raced back to the lodge, but when we got there, Danny was gone too. Lisa was hysterical, saying he’d gone to check the basement and never came back. We ran downstairs, but the basement was empty—except for an old diary we found in a pile of rubble.

I’ll never forget what was inside that diary. It belonged to the caretaker of the lodge… from the 1960s. He wrote about strange disappearances, sacrifices, and a dark entity that the lodge was built to contain. The final entry said, “The ritual must continue. If it stops, it will come for us all.”

That’s when the lights went out.

In the pitch black, I heard Ryan scream. I felt Lisa grab my arm, and we ran—blindly, desperately, through the hallways. I don’t even remember how we got out, but when we finally burst through the front doors into the freezing night air, Ryan was nowhere to be found.

It was just me and Lisa.

We made it back to the car. Don’t ask me how. The wires were still cut, but somehow the engine roared to life. We drove. We didn’t speak. Just kept driving, faster than I’ve ever driven in my life, until we reached the nearest town. I don’t even know how much time had passed.

The police never found Ryan, Danny, or Megan. They searched the lodge, but there was no trace of them—or the diary. They called it a “tragic accident,” but I know better. Something in that lodge was waiting for us. Something ancient. And I have this horrible feeling that it’s not done with me yet.

Lisa hasn’t spoken since we got home. She just sits there, staring at nothing, like she’s still trapped in that place. And me? Every time I close my eyes, I hear footsteps outside my door.

I don’t know how much time I have left.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/PietvanSandwijk on 2024-10-19 14:05:48+00:00.

---

Something strange is happening at the small church near my house. I’ve stumbled upon some horrific things there, and I’m not sure what to do.

I live in the suburbs, in a quiet area with 15 houses scattered around. Going into the city takes 40 minutes by car. I don’t know any of my neighbors; I only know John, who lives closest to me. I work as a Data Engineer for an insurance company, but I won’t bore you with the details. What matters is that it takes me two hours to get to work, so my days are long. I wake up at 5 a.m. and don’t get home until 8 p.m. I usually don’t do anything once I get home because I am too exhausted. Only on the weekends do I have some time for myself, which I use to work on my photography skills.

Last Wednesday, I went to a restaurant with my colleagues for a team outing after work. I still had to work a 9 to 5 that day, so I felt drained before it even started. Socializing is already tough for me as an introvert, and keeping up with the group was exhausting. I mostly stuck to polite conversation, as I’m not sure what kind of conversations I’m supposed to have with colleagues that aren’t work-related. We stayed at the restaurant until 9 p.m., and since it was in the opposite direction of my house, I had a two-and-a-half-hour drive ahead of me to get home.

As I was driving back, I hit another delay—a crash on the highway that added another 30 minutes. I was frustrated, knowing I’d barely have any time to rest before the next workday. It was nearly 11 p.m. when I finally got onto the quiet suburban roads near my house. It was pitch black, and even with my headlights on, I had to be extra careful because wildlife could jump out at any moment. It once happened to me that a deer jumped in front of my car and just stood there. I barely managed to stop in time, but ever since then, I’ve been extra careful.

When I was about 10 minutes from home, I passed by the small church. It always seemed a bit eerie to me. It’s never really used except for the occasional funeral. The building seems to be on the older side, so I assume it’s kept around for its historical value.

The church looked particularly sinister that night. Despite my tiredness, I saw an opportunity to take a good picture for my photography portfolio. I stopped the car and took a few photos, then went back inside to review them. In one of the photos, I noticed something. After adding some filters to the photo to enhance the quality, I saw a bike and a person sitting on a bench near the church. It wasn’t visible in the other pictures, probably because of the angle and the darkness.

It was strange for someone to be at the church that late, so I looked back at the bench from my car, but I could not see the person sitting there. Curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to check it out. I got out of the car and walked toward the church. The bike was still there, but there was no sign of the person. Then, I heard a noise coming from inside the church. Why would someone be inside at this hour?

Looking back, my tiredness had clouded my judgment, as I decided to investigate. I walked up to one of the windows and peered inside. Instead of seeing the main hall, I saw a small side room. I couldn’t get a view of the main area, so I quietly made my way to the front door and opened it. As soon as I did, I could hear chanting. I moved further in, hoping to hear what they were saying. I found myself in a small hallway that led to the room I had seen earlier and another door that opened to the main hall. The chanting was coming from there.

I peeked inside, and what I saw made my stomach turn.

Six people were standing in a circle, chanting in front of the altar. I recognized one of them as my neighbor, John. He’s always been a down-to-earth guy. I could not find a reasonable explanation for why I found him in a situation like this. In the middle of the circle was a young girl, tied up with a piece of cloth in her mouth, presumably to stop her from screaming. The chanting continued, and that’s when a seventh person entered the room, holding a staff. He must have been their leader because the others immediately turned toward him as he approached the altar.

“Tonight, we will live. The world is against our practices. Therefore, we shall not engage. But sacrifices must be made. Not for us, but for him. Fearless leader, accept our offering. Bless us with your guidance, your wisdom, and riches.”

I realized I had walked into some kind of cult ritual. The group resumed chanting as the leader approached the girl. After they finished, each of them cut their arm with a knife, letting the blood drip onto her. “Please accept our offering and bless us with your guidance, wisdom, and riches.” Before I could fully grasp what was happening, the leader plunged the knife into the girl’s stomach.

Without thinking, I screamed, “No!”, which I instantly regretted. Their heads turned toward me. One of them started running toward me, and I bolted out of there as fast as I could. I made it to my car, locked the doors, and started the engine just as the man tried to open the door. He stared at me with a big, twisted smile as I sped away.

I called the police as soon as I got home, explaining what I had witnessed, but they believed I was prank calling them. I didn’t sleep at all that night. The man who chased me saw my face. John knows who I am. They’ll find me.

This morning, I found a letter in front of my door. “You are invited to celebrate the church’s 350-year anniversary."

Please help me.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/StanIsBread on 2024-10-19 02:45:19+00:00.

---

There is something wrong with my ~~town~~****.

 

For the past six months, I’ve been spiraling deeper into a realization that horrifies me. I’ve uncovered evidence that my entire life has been a lie, but the biggest concern is that something far more sinister is happening, and I’m at a complete loss for what to do next.

 

About six months ago, I was visiting my friend’s house, which is located next to mine. Both of us being homeschooled, having each other to talk to is a relief, because living in a rural town, there wasn’t really anyone else our age to connect with.

 

We ended up spending the afternoon watching TV, flipping through the few channels our remote ~~town~~ could get. Since his parents were away, we could do anything we wanted.

 

Suddenly, my friend suggested that he would go downstairs to the kitchen to grab some snacks, I was relieved, since I really needed to use the bathroom but was too shy to ask. As a quiet, homeschooled kid, I always hesitated to ask for anything, even from those I considered close friends.

 

We both got up from my friend’s bed and walked toward the hallway, where we ended up splitting up. He was heading towards the kitchen, and I was going to the bathroom.

 

After finishing up, I stepped out and, on my way back to the bedroom, I noticed something strange. The door at the end of the hallway was half open.

 

I’d visited my friend’s house for about four years at that point and had never seen that door open before-nor any door, for that matter. My teenage curiosity peeked, and so did I.

 

With adrenaline flooding my veins, I approached the door, knowing I shouldn’t be snooping around, but the urge was impossible to resist. As I reached the door, I pushed it open, expecting to see an office or maybe a bedroom. What I found confused me.

 

The room was completely empty.

 

Backing away slowly, I carefully left the door just as I had found it and returned to my friend’s room, waiting patiently for his return, I had already decided not to mention my discovery to him, knowing full well that I shouldn’t have been snooping in the first place.

My friend returned, having an unsettling look painted across his face.

"Were you in that room?" he asked, his voice low and trembling.

"I wasn't," I replied, trying to shake off the sense of dread creeping in.

He sat next to me, his movements awkward and jerky, like reality had fractured. There was something unnatural about the way he carried himself, as if he were a puppet.

"Were you in that room?" he repeated, flipping through channels, as if searching for something he couldn’t name.

“Man, I wasn't in the room,” I insisted, my heart racing.

In an instant his head snapped toward me, eyes wide, pupils dilated.

"Were you in that room?" The words came out in a rush, tumbling from his lips like a chant.

"Dude, you're freaking me out! What's wrong with you?" I shot back, the unease bubbling over into irritation.

But he didn’t hear me; “Were you in that room? Were you in that room? WERE YOU IN THAT ROOM?” His voice grew louder and more frantic, each repetition a jarring reminder of my own unsettling discovery.

I could feel my pulse quickening, the silence of the house pressing in on me. The air felt thick, almost suffocating. It was like he was pulling me into a trap, ensnaring me in his obsession with that empty room.

I tried to turn away, to focus on anything else, but his gaze locked onto mine, unyielding. It was as if he was trying to read my thoughts, to pull the truth from my mind.

“Stop it!” I shouted, my voice breaking the spell. “What’s going on?”

But he just kept staring, his lips moving soundlessly, trapped in a loop that I couldn’t escape. 

"Goodnight" he suddenly said, turning the tv off, and laying down.

The hours passed, and eventually, my ~~friend~~ fell asleep. I was staying over at his house that night, trying to calm down and go to sleep, by thinking that he was just messing around. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fall asleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I kept thinking about that empty room, and what had happened afterwards. There was something about it that pulled me in to investigate, like a magnet.

 

What I do next is what gets me into the situation I’m in now.

 

I quietly slipped out of bed, careful not to wake my ~~friend~~, and left the bedroom. I went back to that room, but nothing seemed different. Still, something didn’t feel right. I decided to check around the rest of the house, letting only the moonlight from outside guide me. I moved from room to room, opening each door one by one, and discovered that every single room was empty.

 

The only furnished rooms were the kitchen, the living room, the upstairs bedroom, and the bathroom.

 

Even his supposed parents' room was completely bare.

 

Now, I wasn’t just confused, I was overwhelmed by a growing sense of unease. It was as if the house was designed so only the rooms someone could visit were furnished.

 

I hurried back to bed, eventually falling asleep and waking up early the next morning. Before my friend even woke, I quietly left his house, leaving a note with a flimsy excuse for my early departure, and headed back home.

 

Sitting at my desk, staring blankly at the wall in front of me, it hit me like a wave, fifteen years of blocked memories came flooding back. My heart nearly stopped as a terrifying thought crept into my mind: what if my house was the same? My parents had always forbidden me from entering any rooms except the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and my bedroom. I knew I had to find the strength to check the rest of the house.

 

But that was easier said than done. The last time my parents caught me trying to sneak into their bedroom, they revealed a side of themselves I never knew existed a side that, even now, a decade later, still haunts me.

 

I stepped out of my room and made my way toward my parents’ bedroom. My heart raced as I took a deep breath and turned the handle, bracing myself for the worst.

 

The room was empty.

 

After the initial shock, the realization hit me: these houses aren’t real. They’re constructed like video game levels, just enough detail where it’s needed, but empty and hollow where no one is supposed to go.

 

I stumbled backwards, falling to the floor and crawled back to my bedroom and shutting the door, staying there the entire day, trying to process what I had just uncovered.

 

As night fell, I decided to try one last thing, hoping the issue was confined to my friend’s house and mine.

 

I quietly climbed out of my window, but as I dropped to the ground, I sliced my leg in the process. Ignoring the pain, I moved toward a neighbor’s house. Unlike that night at my friend’s place, the moonlight was hidden behind thick clouds, making it difficult for me to see.

 

I snuck into the backyard and crept toward a window. Peeking inside, I couldn’t see anything it was pitch black, but then a violent crack of thunder lit up the sky, giving me just enough light to glimpse the Woods family.

 

All five of them, including their six-month-old baby, were standing there, in the dark, completely motionless. No TV, no lights, nothing. Just standing, frozen in place. You can image yourself being in a pitch-black room, doing nothing, not even breathing. That’s what I saw in those brief seconds, before the darkness swallowed them up again.

 

Gathering myself, I moved closer to the glass, desperate for another look. Just then, another crack of thunder split the sky, and in that flash of light, I saw Carol Woods' rotten, blue, smiling face, pressed up against the glass, staring directly at me.

 

My lungs expelled all remaining air from them, as I started to run towards my house, the skies cracked open and bled water.  

 

I opened the door, climbed up the stairs, while my damaged leg was generating an excruciating pain, I skipped past my room and ran straight for the attic, where I’m currently writing this from.

It all makes sense now, why my town isn’t on any maps, why I’m homeschooled, why we never visit other people, why we never go into public buildings, and why I’m locked out of half my own house. None of these things exist.

 

But why?

 

Am I even real?"

 

As I’m writing this, bleeding out, I know it won’t be long before I’m found, either by my bloody trail or the open front door behind me.

 

I’m hoping you’re real because I’m all alone and freezing.

And for the love of god -if such entity exists- I hope by the time I’m found by whatever these creature actors are, I’ll be dead.

 

As I look around, the attic is empty.

I’m freezing.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/houkuu on 2024-10-19 00:34:56+00:00.

---

I moved into my first apartment a few months ago, excited to finally have my own space. It was a modest one-bedroom in a quiet building, and I loved the peace it offered. I quickly settled into my routine, enjoying the independence and solitude.

One night, after a long day at work, I returned home and immediately noticed something felt off. My front door was slightly ajar. I was sure I had locked it, but I shrugged it off, thinking maybe I’d forgotten in my rush to leave. I pushed the door open, calling out, “Hello?” just in case I had a visitor.

No response. I stepped inside, locking the door behind me, and went about my evening. I noticed nothing seemed out of place, so I put it out of my mind and went to bed.

The next day, I got home late again. As I entered, I felt a chill in the air and again noticed the front door was ajar. My heart raced as I cautiously stepped inside. This time, I glanced around, and my heart sank when I saw a pair of shoes by the door—shoes that didn’t belong to me.

I froze, adrenaline pumping through my veins. I considered calling the police but decided to check things out first. I moved silently through the living room and into the bedroom, but everything seemed untouched. The shoes were the only sign that someone had been in my apartment.

I quickly went back to the door, locked it, and called my best friend, Jess. I explained what happened, and she urged me to stay somewhere else for the night. But I didn’t want to seem scared, so I brushed it off and insisted I’d be fine.

The next day, I took off work, still shaken. I didn’t want to be alone. I spent the day at Jess’s place, but by the evening, I decided to return to my apartment. I needed to confront whatever was happening.

When I entered, the first thing I noticed was that the shoes were gone. I felt a mix of relief and unease. I locked the door and spent the night on edge, jumping at every sound.

The following days were more of the same. Every time I came home, the door was ajar, and there were new items that didn’t belong to me—a jacket, a half-empty soda can, a set of keys. Each time, I’d lock the door behind me and wonder who was entering my apartment while I was gone.

I finally reached my breaking point and called my landlord. I explained the situation, and he assured me that no one had access to my apartment besides me. He suggested that I might be paranoid or imagining things.

Desperate for answers, I decided to set up a camera in my living room while I was out. I left it recording and went to work, feeling a mix of dread and hope. When I got home, I rushed to check the footage.

My blood ran cold as I watched. There, in the middle of my living room, was a shadowy figure, dressed in a dark hoodie, rifling through my things. I watched in horror as they casually opened my drawers, going through my personal belongings.

I felt sick. I couldn’t believe someone had been living in my space without me knowing. They were in and out as if it were no big deal.

I immediately called the police, and they came over to check things out. When they arrived, I played them the footage, and they assured me they would investigate. They also advised me to stay with friends or family until they found out who the intruder was.

After that night, I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in my own apartment. I spent the next few nights at Jess’s. The police kept me updated, but they had no leads, and I felt like I was losing my mind.

Then, about a week later, I got a call from the police. They had apprehended someone, and they wanted me to come in for questioning. When I arrived at the station, I was shown a mugshot of a man I didn’t recognize. They informed me that he had a history of breaking and entering.

But what shook me the most was what they said next: “He claimed he thought this was his apartment.”

He had been living in the building before I moved in, and for some reason, he believed he still had a right to enter. The officers assured me he wouldn’t be able to get near me again, but I knew I’d never feel safe in that apartment again.

I moved out a week later, and even now, I can’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me. Sometimes I still hear noises at night, and I find myself looking over my shoulder more than I should. I learned that some things can hide in plain sight, and they can be scarier than any horror movie.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Manofmystery202 on 2024-10-18 21:25:04+00:00.

---

I would not consider myself a stupid person in any sense of the word. But I, like every person, am prone to stupid moments. That’s why I decided not to go to school but instead, tried to start my own business, in which I would sell my own clothing brand that I was so sure was going to make me millions. It didn’t last more than 4 months. Now I’m stuck in my shitty one-bedroom apartment with almost a thousand T-shirts that I am too embarrassed to tell you what they actually say. With nothing else going on in my, I just started looking for any job I could. But no one seemed to like the gap in the resume so I had no offers, none, zero. Except for one. A weird sketch Indeed ad that simply said, driver. It provided no information besides that, which I honestly didn’t think was possible for there to be so little on Indeed. But here it was. I assumed it was for a taxi driver or a delivery driver. I was more than confident I could do that, I’d been driving since I was 15 so how hard could it be?

With really nothing else to lose, I figured at the worst they would try to rob me, unless they wanted my clothes they weren’t getting much. When they did ask if I wanted the job I just took it. Then I was told to meet the guy on the edge of town tonight. I asked what if I was busy and he just responded “Then no job”. Well, shit guess I had no other choice. I don’t know what I expected, but it definitely wasn’t one dude standing next to a van. Great, I thought I’m gonna get robbed, murdered, or kidnapped.

“You Colton.” Said the shaggy-looking man with scruffy-looking brown hair and beard, he reeked of weed.

“Yep, that’s me,” I thought, just get it over with man.

“You're gonna be driving this van down that road,” he pointed off to the left.

“Ok, where I’m driving it to?”

“You’ll know when you see it.”

“Ok, um well you didn’t really explain much about the job. I mean I don’t even know what the pay is.”

“It ain’t much but I figure if you responded that you must really need money, I mean you come out here in the middle of the night to meet a stranger with no prior information.”

He was right.

“Well you haven't told me much, am I delivering drugs?”

“Why in the hell would I post a drug-running job on fucking Indeed.”

“That’s fair.”

“You ask one more question, I'm revoking the offer, So either take these keys and get in the van or get out of my face.”

Remember how I said prone to stupid decisions this was one of them. I took the keys and got in the van. God, it smelt bad trying to grab the crank to roll down the window. But it didn’t work. “Oh this is fun,” I said, already regretting my choices. I checked what else was wrong with the van. The ac didn’t work but the heater did. Oh cool, I needed that in the middle of the summer. The windshield wipers worked but no fluid, the back seat had been torn out and there was a gross-looking mattress in their place. As well as a duffel bag, I opened to check its contents fully expecting the drugs to be in it. But instead, it had a couple of pairs of clothes weirdly in my size, some bottled water, and snack bars. As well as a flair gun and a med kit. I went back to checking the van you know what did work. The radio, except it was stuck on one channel that only played Christian music, no offense to anyone who follows that religion in all but I was not listening to that. I shut off the radio and put music on my phone. I looked over at the man but he was gone. Was I really about to do this I told myself. I guess I was cause I put the van into drive.

I never got used to the feeling of driving at night, especially on country roads. As soon as you leave the city limits, you become suddenly aware of how dark nighttime is. The further you drive the more and more the anxiety sets in. This was one road with no lines to keep you on one side. So I drove in the middle of the road until I saw someone coming on the left. Another fun thing about the road was just how bad it needed to be redone, it felt like I had to dodge a pothole every 40 feet or so. After driving for what felt like forever but turned out to only be 43 minutes I came on my first building. A small gas station, with one pump. Upon seeing it I began wondering how the hell I was gonna fill up the van. I looked down to see the gas gauge was still on full so that meant either this thing got pretty good gas mileage or that the gas gauge was also broken. I felt like it was the second one. I pulled over in hopes that it sold air fresheners. The smell only seemed to get worse as I drove. I was more than willing to spend what little money I had left on one.

The place was extremely worn down. It only had one pump and no diesel nozzle. There were water stains running down the building and a small breeze kept shaking a piece of the sheet metal roof. It clanked against it and for a few short seconds I stood there listening, this was enough to annoy me, and I felt bad for any workers. I pulled the door open but it got stuck against the concrete and I heard someone from inside yell “You're gonna have to shimmy through!” I feel like that had to break some sort of law or safety violation. I slowly made my way through the gap my jacket got stuck about halfway through, in which I then had to pull it off from the door in the process ripping a small hole in the side. I looked over at the worker, he had his face buried in a book and it seemed like he was trying to ignore me.

“You sell air fresheners?”

“Auto sections at the back of the store next to the medicine section.”

I took that as a yes. The air fresheners were 7 dollars for one talk about overpricing, I knew I only had like 12 bucks left in my account. My credit cards were maxed out and I drained my savings so I knew I had nothing to fall back on. I checked my bank app to make sure I had the money I thought I had. To my surprise, I had more, Finally something good. I had a whole 23 dollars that I was about to completely blow at this random gas station. Still unsure if I was even getting paid for this. Why was I still driving? I mean really there was no job security here. I still don't even know what I'm delivering or if I am even delivering something. Was I this desperate? Just then like he was reading my mind I looked down to see a text from Charlie. Wait, who was Charlie? “Don’t worry kid you're getting paid, you already have been.” I went into my deposits. To see that 9 dollars had been put into my account a couple of minutes before I came to the gas station. The memo just said from Charlie. So Charlie was the man who gave me the van I’d put that part together. I had so many questions. Where did I get his number, I mean I don't remember exchanging numbers. I don’t remember learning his name or making a contact with him. I know I didn’t give him any banking info. My mind was racing I tried texting him back but it just said undelivered. You know what fuck it I was still alive and getting paid so I’m not asking any more questions.

I picked up the air freshener and went to the counter, on the counter I saw some chargers so I picked up one that goes into the lighter port. I at least wanted my phone if I was gonna be driving for god knows how long.

“How much for these,” the man picked up the items and scanned them.

“$13.78.”

I fished in my pocket for my wallet and put my card in the reader. “So you're actually real,” the man behind the counter said.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t worry about it.” He said, shoving his face back in the book.

What a weird interaction I thought to myself on my way out. I got in the van and put up my new air fresheners. The man slapped the side of the van startling me in the process. I opened the door to yell at him but he cut me off.

“Unless you pull into somewhere with people, stay in your damn car.” He walked away before elaborating. I was half tempted to follow him but I decided against it.

I was back on the road. I decided to put on a YouTube video as I was getting sick of my music. It was a video of someone explaining The Waco Siege which I had already listened to a couple of times. But I liked the YouTuber and he was slow between uploads. It got to the part where they “accidentally” lit the compound on fire. Just then a large creature jumped out from the darkness bailing in front of the Van. I tried to swerve so as not to hit it but I wasn’t quick enough. The Van collided with the creature smacking it with the front before it proceeded to roll over the top. I slammed on my brakes, stopping to catch my breath, my heart was pounding in my chest. I took a second breath and got out to inspect the damages on both the van and whatever I hit. The van was fine, not even a scratch on it, what a tank. The animal was not fine, It was a deer. One of its antlers broke off in the impact and its face did not seem to enjoy the asphalt, there was a small trail of blood where it skidded across the road. One of its legs was broken and was sticking in the wrong direction. “Oh shit that thing is dead.” I ate my words as I heard them huff.

Now I felt like it was my obligation to put it out of its misery. I found a big enough rock on the side of the road to crush its head. Shuffling over with the heavy thing I raised it as far up as I could and dropped it. The thing came down with a splat blood shot up from it and splattered on my face. “Welp,” I said, wiping the blood off my face onto my jacket. I had done my civil duty. At least that's what I thought before...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/AhAhA_itsAri on 2024-10-18 19:19:50+00:00.

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I had always been afraid of being alone. I hated the dark. I hated the little noises and creeks that the house would make when I was little. Nobody thought I would ever move out and be on my own, and truthfully, I started to feel that way too. Until I found my small, cluttered apartment on the outskirts of town. The neighbors were scarce and quiet, but I didn’t mind because it was in the good part of town. The apartment itself was, like I said, small. Barely big enough to fit one person inside the kitchen, and the bedroom was the size of a walk-in closet, but I didn’t care because it was mine and the rent was cheap. I worked as a secretary for an accounting firm, which doesn’t pay too well, but the people there are kind and I’ve made friends with many of them. So, countless, mindless days I would spend filled with work, running errands, and occasionally meeting my friends for drinks. It was boring, and it was simple, and I loved it. Until I couldn’t anymore.

It was four months ago to the day. I was returning from the grocery store when I first felt it: that tingling, prickling sensation, like eyes boring into the back of my skull. I stopped mid-stride, glancing around the dimly lit street. It was empty, aside from a stray cat darting into the shadows. I shook it off, attributing it to fatigue and the coming darkness. Despite pulling myself together and moving on my own, I was still a good bit afraid when the night came. There were way too many possibilities, and not enough of me to fight them off. The store wasn’t too far from my apartment though, so I quickened my pace and when I got home, the weird sensation had faded from my mind.

But, over the next few days, the feeling grew. Subtle things began to shift. I would leave my keys on the kitchen counter, where I religiously left them in plain sight because I was prone to losing things, only to wake up the next morning and find them on the coffee table or stuck in the couch. My mail was shuffled and some of it was opened, as though someone had rifled through it. I brushed it off and attributed it to my forgetfulness, but in the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t me. At night, I heard faint creaks—footsteps—coming from the hallway. Each time I would check, the apartment was as still as ever. I began sleeping with a nightlight, and I definitely felt silly doing so, but it gave me some peace. I decided it was just the natural sounds of the apartment settling, but I lived on the bottom floor and, up until this point, my apartment didn’t creak and no one lived above me.

One night, I caught a glimpse of something—or someone. I had gotten home later than usual, probably around 1 a.m. I fumbled for my keys at the door, and I just so happened to glance across the street and saw a figure. Just standing there. Unmoving, watching. I froze in place for a minute and just stared back at the person. I snapped out of it and I turned the key, hurried inside, and slammed the door. By the time I had the courage to peek out the window, the figure was gone. I was officially scared. I stood there at the window for a while, and after not seeing anything or anyone strange, I retired to my room. Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks. Stress from work, too little sleep. But something had changed, a creeping presence had wormed its way into my thoughts. No matter where I went, I couldn’t shake the sense that someone—or something—was always near.

Paranoia gripped me like a vise. The feeling of being watched intensified until it was suffocating. The few neighbors I had now felt like enemies. I didn’t know how they were getting in, or who was following me. I was scared to stay put, and too scared to leave. My once comfortable apartment now felt like a prison, each shadow harboring something unseen.

One morning, after waking from a fitful sleep, I took my usual morning shower. I was washing the conditioner from my hair when I heard what sounded like the quiet resistance of fingers on damp glass. I froze in fear once again, my mind racing. My bathroom door creaks loudly from the rusty hinges and I knew for certain no body had opened it. I was the only one with the key to my apartment and I always double checked my locks. I stayed stuck in the shower until the water turned cold, body paralyzed, the whole time listening intently for any sound of another presence in there with me. I couldn’t see anyone through the shower curtain when I finally found the courage to open my eyes. I slowly turned off the water and reached out carefully to grab my towel. When I stepped out of the shower, I found a message scrawled on the bathroom mirror, written in the condensation from the shower: "Just let me in." I stared at it, pulse roaring in my ears. Sobs racked my body as I realized that I wasn’t crazy and someone had been here. The words were faint, almost ethereal. I turned to the door, and it was locked, just as it had been when I entered.

I called the police, but their investigation turned up nothing. No signs of forced entry, no evidence to suggest anyone had been inside. I shoved my phone in his face, forcing him to look at the picture I snapped of the mirror again. The officer looked at me with that practiced, half-pitying expression I would come to despise. He didn’t believe me. Nobody would. None of the locks were broken, no windows smashed or opened. No fingerprints. Just the picture I had taken. Did he think I was making this up?

My days became a blur of anxious rituals—triple-checking the locks and windows, drawing the curtains, and listening to every creak of the building. Every sound sent me to the verge of tears. At night, the nightmares started. They were vivid, terrible dreams of being hunted by a faceless figure, always just out of reach. I would wake drenched in sweat, my heart racing.

My phone began to vibrate at odd hours—unknown numbers, never any sound on the other end. But the worst part was the photos. It started with one, a picture of me walking down the street, taken from a distance. Then another, of me at the grocery store, and a third of me sitting on the couch in my apartment, alone. The last picture was taken from my kitchen. I hadn’t seen anyone. I hadn’t heard anyone. I once again went to the police. I showed him the pictures I received and he collected my phone as evidence. Once again, it turned up nothing. The sender couldn’t be traced.

My mind frayed. It was like this person was getting inside my head, twisting my thoughts, making me doubt everything and everyone. I tried to talk to my friends about it, but they either laughed it off or grew distant, uncomfortable with my growing paranoia. What’s wrong with them? Why is everyone so casual about all of this? Do they think this is a game?? I became suspicious of my friends, and the ones who did try and reach me, I didn’t give them the opportunity to do so. My sleep became shallow and broken, the hours blending together as fear gnawed at my sanity.

The presence grew more brazen. I started finding my windows unlocked, though I never touched them. One night, I woke to a cold breeze drifting in through the bedroom window, curtains flapping. I know I’d had it closed and locked before I went to bed. Heart hammering, I bolted upright, scanning the room for any sign of an intruder. There was none. Yet I knew something had been there. The air felt charged, thick with an unseen weight, pressing down on me. I was slowly going insane. The nightmares worsened. No longer confined to sleep, they began to seep into my waking hours. The world around me felt distorted, stretched. Every shadow seemed to move, every flicker of light a threat. I saw the figure in my peripheral vision—just standing there, watching—but when I turned, it would vanish.

And then the whispering started. At first, just faint mutterings at the edge of my consciousness, barely audible, like a faint wind. But, the voice grew clearer. "I see you. I’m close. So close. Just let me in." I no longer heard it just on the verge on sleep, I heard it right over my shoulder as I was watching TV, making coffee, staring out of the window. It wasn’t a voice I recognized—it was something else, something inhuman, cold. I didn’t recognize myself anymore. I barely left my apartment, kept every light on, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t escape it, couldn’t sleep. My mind was slowly unraveling.

One night, in a desperate attempt to confront the entity, I stayed up, hiding a knife under my pillow. I heard the footsteps again, louder this time. A figure moved in the hallway—I was sure of it I could see the shadowy imprint of feet from underneath the door. I leapt out of bed, knife in hand, but when I swung the door open, there was nothing. No one in the whole apartment.

Except, when I was getting back into bed, I saw something in the mirror—a reflection, not my own. A dark silhouette, featureless, standing where I should have been, whispering to me all the while. It wasn’t long before I understood the truth. This thing wasn’t just stalking me. It was becoming a part of me. My paranoia, my fear—it was feeding off me, driving me mad.

I found myself outside more often now, pacing the streets at night, lurking in the shadows like the figure had once done to me. I could feel its influence inside my head, whispering to me, guiding my actions. The whispering wasn’t something to be afraid of. It was comforting. It would keep me safe. I didn’t feel watched anymore—I felt compelled. Com...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/BlairDaniels on 2024-10-19 01:37:42+00:00.

---

If you're ever driving down Route 106 in Michigan, and you see a sign for the Greenbriar Motel, you better just keep on driving. Because there is something terribly wrong here, and the last thing I would want is for more people to die.

I started working at the Greenbriar Motel a week ago. It wasn’t a dream job by any standards: night shift at the front desk, checking people in and out, doing some inventory in the back. I liked the peace and quiet, though: as a little rundown motel on a stretch of isolated highway in Michigan, it gave me a lot of time to read and play computer games on the clock. It also helped that the owner, Frank, didn’t seem to care I was a high school dropout with a rap sheet.

But on the very first day, I felt that something was terribly off.

For one, there was the smell. When the wind shifted, the entire parking lot smelled like rotting meat. I ran to close the windows, but even then I could still smell it, seeping in through the HVAC system. The motel is surrounded by deep woods, so I figured maybe we were near the kill grounds of some animal. Or maybe it was just the endless roadkill of deer and possums on the highway.

Either way, it was unsettling. And definitely not enjoyable.

The other thing that struck me as odd were the guests’ rooms. Some of them didn’t have windows—and it seemed like that was intentional. I could see the lines in the paint, the seams outlining where windows had once been. When I asked Frank, he told me that some of the guests asked for windowless rooms. That they were in high demand. He didn’t elaborate, and honestly, I was a little scared to press him on it.

Things went from strange to downright creepy, however, as soon as Frank left. As I got set up at my desk, a woman walked into the room.

She was in her 40s, maybe, with black hair and very pale skin. As soon as she stepped inside, she locked the door behind her. “Frank left, right?” she asked me.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Uh… who are you?”

She introduced herself as Matilda. She’d been working here for a decade, cleaning the motel rooms after the guests checked out. After a few minutes of small talk, she suddenly came up to the counter and lowered her voice.

“I want to make sure you’re safe around here,” she said, glancing back towards the door nervously. “So I need you to listen to me. Okay?”

My heart dropped. “Uh… okay?”

“Whatever you do, don’t ask questions. Just check people in, check them out, and mind your own business. And then, you’ll be fine.”

My stomach did a little flip. Okay, so it was that kind of motel. Illegal business of multiple kinds, probably, all being conducted under our dilapidated roof. “What… what if the police come? Will I be arrested, too?”

She gave me a blank stare. “The police?”

“Say they find… evidence of illegal activity in one of the rooms. Will that get me in trouble? I already have shoplifting on my record and can’t—”

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about the police. Just don’t ask questions. And don’t make eye contact, or look at their faces for too long.”

I swallowed. They don’t want witnesses. They don’t want me to be able to pick them out of a lineup, I thought.“Okay. I won’t ask questions, and I won’t look at them for too long. Got it.”

She smiled at me. “You have nothing to worry about.”

As it turned out, though, I had quite a lot to worry about.

That night, I checked in three people. They were almost like caricatures: a big, strong guy in sunglasses that looked like he’d stepped right out of The Godfather. A woman dressed to the 9s, wearing a more makeup than a clown. A skinny young guy in a hoodie that smelled of something chemical and strange.

But I listened to Matilda. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t even ask the questions I should’ve been asking—like when Hoodie Guy gave me an ID that was clearly fake. Don’t ask questions and you’ll be fine. I kept repeating that to myself. And I kept my eyes glued to the computer screen, never even glancing up at them.

When it hit midnight, I assumed the rest of the night would be smooth sailing. On this lonely stretch of highway, it was unlikely anyone else would check in. I pulled up Minesweeper and played some music on my phone.

My peace and quiet, however, was interrupted by the door swinging open. At 2 AM.

I glanced up to see the guy in sunglasses—the guy who looked like he’d stepped out of The Godfather.

Oh, no. I should’ve locked the door… I swallowed and kept my eyes glued to the computer screen as he approached. “Can I help you?” I asked, watching him in my peripheral vision.

“Do you have any razors for purchase?”

I froze. Razors? At 2 AM? I instantly got a mental image of him slashing someone up in his room. Blood all over the sheets, soaking into the carpet. “Uh, no, we don’t have any razors,” I said, keeping my eyes on the computer screen.

“Can you just check in the back, please?”

I swallowed. I really, really didn’t want to go check. As soon as I turned around, he could do anything. Pull out a gun. Tackle me. Force me into a chokehold and keep me hostage.

But refusing him was just as bad, if not worse. It might make him mad. Really mad.

I sat there, staring at Minesweeper on the screen, weighing my options. Paying close attention to him out of the corner of my eye.

And that’s when I saw it.

There was something… off… about this guy. His sunglasses looked like they were slightly too low on his face. Like the eyes they were covering weren’t in quite the right place. And not only that, but I couldn’t see his eyebrows poking above the frames, or the contours of his brow ridge. Everything above the glasses was perfectly flat and smooth. Like he had no eye sockets at all.

“Can you check in the back, please?” he asked again, his voice taking on an annoyed tone.

“Y-yes. Sure.”

I sprung out of the seat and ducked into the back storage area. I quickly glanced over my shoulder to make sure he wasn’t following me—but he wasn’t. I had half a mind to just stay there, hiding out in the back storage room, until I heard his voice calling me.

“Did you find them?”

He sounded angry. Approaching furious.

Thankfully, I did find a few packaged razors next to some spare toothbrushes and soap we kept. I grabbed them and handed them over, keeping my eyes trained on the floor. “Thank you,” he said, sounding pleased.

And that was it. He turned around and left.

As soon as the door shut, I ran over and locked it. I closed the blinds and sat back down at the front desk, my heart hammering in my chest. All I could picture were the strange contours of his face.

And as I sat there, I realized something. All three guests that I’d checked in since the start of my shift—the Godfather guy, the Makeup woman, the Hoodie guy—had something covering their face or head. I mean, I wasn’t exaggerating about the woman having enough makeup for a clown. She was wearing foundation so thick that it cracked around the corners of her eyes and lips, and wore false eyelashes so long they gave the appearance of spider legs. And Hoodie Guy had kept his hood pulled so tightly over his head that his ears and hair weren’t visible.

It was like they all had something to hide.

Morning couldn’t come soon enough. As soon as the day shift workers arrived, I got the hell out of there. I floored it back to my house and slept for a long time, my sleep plagued with nightmares of faceless people and spidery eyelashes. 

Then it was time to go back to the motel for night #2.

Thankfully, it was a quieter night. Although the VACANCY sign glowed brightly in the darkness, no one checked in during my shift. They must’ve all come earlier, during the day shift. I locked the door, sat down with a cup of coffee, and enjoyed getting some reading done in the quiet.

Unfortunately, the quiet didn’t last long. Around midnight, I heard a loud slam from outside.

I threw my book down and ran over to the window. 

The door to room 16 was wide open.

I looked around. Nobody appeared to be outside; the parking lot, and the sidewalk, were empty. The room itself was dark—none of the lights were on.

I walked over to the computer and looked up the room. To my surprise, no one had booked it for tonight.

Should I go out and close the door?

I hesitated. It was late. There was no one around, except for the occasional passing car. If someone had broken into that room… and then attacked me… there would be no one to hear me scream.

So I kept the door locked tight and accessed the security camera feed instead. As I rewound it, I saw what happened: the door had opened, and then a woman had walked out of it. I couldn’t see her face—just her long dark hair.

She then disappeared into room 22.

I checked room 22 on the computer, and saw it was booked to a woman named Cassandra Johnson.

I frowned. Looked like Cassandra might be going into our vacant rooms and possibly stealing stuff. Matilda must’ve forgotten to lock up the room after she cleaned it. I sighed, opened the door, and began walking towards the open room.

I thought of knocking on room 22, but then thought better of it. Keep your nose out of other people’s business. I’d just lock up room 16 and go back to the lobby, like a good little employee.

I walked towards to the open room. But as soon as I got close, a horrible smell wafted out of the room. Like something rotting, decaying. My stomach turned. What did Cassandra do in there? Throw up? Stash all her garbage in th...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Jayaarc on 2024-10-18 16:06:46+00:00.

---

It was the fall of 2016. My first semester at college, and my first time living away from home. Me and my best friend Tommy moved into a dorm room on campus together, and life was great. We stayed up way too late every night eating microwavable food, playing video games, and partying with the other students on our floor.

Halloween landed on a Monday that year, but that didn’t stop us from throwing a wild rager. it wasn’t a typical party, everyone on the floor was in on it. Some people even decorated their rooms to be all spooky. You couldn’t walk five feet without running into a cooler full of beers or a bottle of gin. Parties like this were not allowed, but we knew we could get away with it on Halloween.

I remember walking down the hallway with Tommy, going in and out of all our friends’ rooms. One room had Monster Mash blasting while they were playing drinking games, another was lit with a black light as they attempted to hotbox the room with vape clouds. Whenever we had enough of one room we just hopped over to the next one. It was like the college kids version of trick or treating.

After a few games of beer pong and way too many shots, I ended up crashing on somebody’s bean bag. I don’t know who’s room I was in, but they had a cheesy horror movie playing on the TV and I got sucked into it. Eventually, I snapped back to reality when somebody kicked the bean bag.

“There you are!”

It was Sydney, the girl I sat next to in photography. She lived a few levels up, and I invited her to the party earlier in the day. Though nothing had been said out loud yet, It was obvious that she had a thing for me. To be honest, I liked her too. I’ll never forget how she looked that night, dirty blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, black framed glasses, a t-shirt with a purple witch riding a broomstick, and a light gray denim jacket unbuttoned.

“You showed up!” I was still laying down, bent backwards and looking at her upside down.

“How drunk are you right now?” She crossed her arms and glared at me with mock disapproval. I just grinned ear to ear and chuckled.

She helped me to my feet and I was hit with an intense wave of dizziness. After a few minutes of regaining control of my body we joined back up with Tommy and everyone else for more games. No more drinking for me though, I was too far gone already. People were constantly coming in and out of our room, and I started to notice a trend in their conversations. They were all talking about room eleven thirteen.

Dorm room eleven thirteen belonged to a guy named Levi. He didn’t have a roommate, it was just him in there and I never found out why. He was a weird one, the kind of guy to randomly derail a conversation into something completely unrelated and sometimes really dark. None of us were very close with him, but it wasn’t like we hated him or anything either. I will admit though, if I knew he was going to be somewhere, I would make a point to avoid that place. Levi was hosting some sort of haunted house in his room that night. I just laughed and said “fuck that” when Sydney said we should go check it out. She looked up at me with a sad expression on her face.

“But I love haunted houses, you’re not too scared are you?” She said with a sarcastic smirk.

“Of Levi Crawford? Yeah, I’m terrified.”

She laughed and we continued our game, but we kept hearing passing conversations about the crazy shit that was going down in Levi’s room. I decided to ask Tommy if he knew anything about it. He told us that Levi was charging five bucks for a trip into his haunted closet.

“Haunted closet, Are you for real? Five dollars to go stand in a rectangle?” I thought he had to be joking.

“I haven’t gone down to see it yet, but Chase was saying it’s fucking crazy man. Like I guess there’s a whole other room connected or something.” Tommy replied.

This piqued Sydney’s interest.

“A secret room in his closet? Nate, we have to go see it!”

The closet in room eleven thirteen was the last place on earth I wanted to be, but Sydney was so excited, how could I say no? I pulled out my wallet to make sure I had a five, I did. She lit up with joy and I rolled my eyes.

“Okay, let’s go see this creepy closet. Tommy, if I’m not back in 20 minutes you better call the police.” He laughed and agreed.

We walked down the hallway and found a line of five people waiting outside the door that read eleven thirteen. I asked them if they had been through yet, but none of them had. They all had stories from their friends though. Each story was different, and completely unbelievable. I just chalked it all up to inebriated exaggeration. There’s no way Levi Crawford was pulling off these Hollywood level effects in his little homemade haunted house.

Sydney interlocked her fingers with mine as we listened, and gave my hand a squeeze. My heart leapt a bit, this was the first time we had ever held hands. I squeezed back and all feelings of regret disappeared. I remember thinking, “Hey, I guess this five bucks isn’t for nothing after all.”

The door opened and a lanky dude with an afro came out. He didn’t say a word, but he was visibly shaking and his eyes were wide. Then he just slowly walked out the front door of the building. I don’t know what he saw in there, but it must have been pretty bad. The two girls at the front of the line exchanged nervous glances with each other and then walked into the room, closing the door behind them.

They were inside for about ten minutes before the door opened again. They came stumbling out into the hallway. One was crying and the other had her arm around her friend, trying to console her. We were all concerned and asked what happened.

“I don’t know.” Replied the girl who wasn’t crying. “She got really scared by something, but I never saw it. She won’t speak and I don't know what to do.”

The next three people in front of us went in one at a time. The first was gone for ten minutes too, but he came out fine. He actually laughed when he saw us.

“Pretty freaky shit in there!” He chuckled and pointed his thumb back at the door behind him.

Then it was Cate’s turn, one of Tommy’s many ex-girlfriends. She was gone for less than five minutes before the door swung open, unleashing an outburst of rage.

“What the fuck is wrong with you Crawford?” She looked absolutely pissed. “How could you do something like that? Fucking freak!”

Levi peered around the corner. “It’s not real Cate, I’m sorry!” But she was already storming away.

“What the hell happened?” I asked Levi.

“Sometimes things just seem too realistic, that’s all. It’s nothing to worry about.” He gave a smile that was probably meant to reassure us, but it wasn’t convincing. Nervously trying to move things along, he shifted his attention to the next in line.

“Collin! You're up next buddy! Got the money?”

“Actually uh, I just realized that I didn’t bring my wallet.” An obvious lie. “Sorry Crawford.” He scurried away from the door, and then it was just me and Sydney. Levi shifted his gaze to us.

“I guess that means it’s our turn!” Sydney said, bouncing up and down with nervous excitement.

I wanted to follow in Collin’s footsteps, but she grabbed my arm and led me into Levi’s room. Once the door closed behind me, I found myself trapped in an atmosphere of the pungent aroma of old take-out food and sweat. A wad of cash was sitting on his bed surrounded by pizza boxes. He added my five dollar bill to the pile and ushered us to the closet. I opened the door to reveal a super regular looking closet. There were some coats hanging up, shoes on the ground, and no Halloween decorations.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“Step inside and see what happens.” Levi replied.

I looked at Sydney and she stared back with a puzzled expression. I think she was finally having regrets, but it was too late to back out. We stepped inside the musty closet and Levi shut the door, engulfing us in darkness.

We stood in silence for half a minute and I let out a sigh.

“Is this some sort of joke Levi?” No response from the other side of the door.

“Maybe it’s a puzzle, like an escape room!” Sydney said optimistically.

“I don’t see how that could be possible.”

“Tommy said there was a secret room, remember?”

“Tommy likes to talk out his ass, he hasn’t even been in here.”

I couldn’t see a damn thing, but I could hear and feel Sydney fumbling around in the dark. She shuffled to the back of the closet, blindly patting the wall. Then she let out a gasp.

“Holy shit there’s a door!”

Suddenly, light poured into the closet. There was actually another room connected to Levi’s. It looked just like a typical dorm room with the same colored walls, carpet and light fixtures, but it was completely unfurnished. There was nothing in the room at all.

“This is so weird. Who’s room is this anyway?" Sydney asked.

“I don’t know, I guess nobody’s using it this semester. Why the hell are the closets connected? That seems like a privacy issue.”

“Maybe that’s why it isn’t being used.”

As we paced around the empty room, I was expecting a jump scare or something but nothing happened. I realized that I couldn’t hear the music playing from the hallway anymore which was odd. I made my way to the front door and placed my fingers on the handle, and hesitated. It hit me that this was the obvious path to take. Certainly Levi had something set up on the other side of the door to scare anybody who opened it. I lowered my hand and looked through the peephole first. Complete darkness.

“The ...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1g6lsxk/the_closet_in_dorm_room_1113/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/NomNomNomNation on 2024-10-18 15:46:15+00:00.

---

What is it about spirits that we fear so much?

That they'll harm us?

Make us jump?

That nobody will believe us?

For my husband, it's what they can show us.

"I don't want to see!"

It was the first time I had ever heard him truly terrified. We were new to the area at the time, walking through a local park for the first time. After living at our previous apartment for so long, where the landlord had a strict "no pets" policy, we were seriously considering getting a dog.

I asked about when we would go to a local dog shelter. That's when he said it.

"I don't want to see!"

He froze still, too, looking far ahead. Past the horizon - Beyond even any of the buildings past the park's edge.

I tried to meet his eyes, but they stared right through me. I turned to find where his gaze lay, but saw nothing. Turning back, concerned and confused, I tried to get clarification.

"You don't want to see the dogs?"

"Please," his voice now shakey, begging, "don't make me see."

He turned and sprinted in the other direction, in a straight line. As the pathway curved, he did not adjust his route - Running straight onto the grass, and climbing the fence, despite an open gate standing just 20ft to the left.

I ran after him, of course. Even climbing the fence. When your partner makes a break for it like that, as if their life is in danger, you trust them. You assume they saw something that you hadn't spotted. I was too afraid to turn around, to see whoever was chasing us. Yet, as I landed the other side of the fencing, he was already down the street. He hadn't helped me up, or down, or even waited on the other side. Did he care that little for my safety?

Then he collapsed.

---

The hospital staff were not helpful. A brain scan showed no signs of anything abnormal. They seemed to take my word that he didn't do any type of drugs - Although I'm sure in their many tests, quite a few of them were for hallucinogenics.

"Your husband is perfectly healthy," the nurse told me, "just make sure he rests well and drinks enough water."

"Healthy?" I looked at her with a scowl. "Healthy? You think collapsing to the ground after a manic episode is healthy?"

"Ma'am, I can only tell you what our tests show. We can prescribe certain medications, but we can't imagine it helping. The odds are that this was a strange, one-off situation. Lack of sleep, lack of water, lack of any basic need can cause this type of behaviour."

"What do you think, honey?" I asked my husband.

"I think we should go home."

---

He didn't seem normal over the next week. He was never quite himself. He would still talk, and help me with dinner - But between all those moments, he felt hollow. Never smiling, or laughing.

One moment in particular, we were watching a movie. I don't even remember the name, just some random crap on TV. But I caught myself watching him more then the screen - Analyzing every little movement of his face. Willing him to do anything that makes him him!

Through all the jokes, watching the corners of his mouth, unmoving. Not even a little bit. What was on his mind?

Believe me, I asked him about the day at the park more times than I can count. And that was just on the drive home from the hospital. But he had very little answers for me. He just insisted that he "saw something" that he didn't want to be "shown again."

He turned to me.

"Sorry," I spoke, "I was just looking at you."

I smiled, hoping for him to return the gesture.

He was silent.

"Why don't you smile anymore?" My own smile faded. "I miss it."

His mouth opened, then closed slightly. Like he had lost his train of thought.

"I don't want to see."

"No, no. Don't do that to me."

"Please, please. I don't want to see."

"No, don't you dare, don't."

He started to get up. I tried to hold him, but he just backed away. He was staring at the living room door.

"Please, don't make me see," he turned and ran. He didn't let the window stop him, he just smashed the glass and climbed outside. As he ran down the street, I heard a tyre skidding on the road, as a car had to brake suddenly to avoid hitting him.

I saw him run right through the garden across from us, and down their side-alley, out of my sight.

It was like he had to run in a perfectly straight line. Escaping by the way the crow flies. Like a slight deviation from this path wasn't even conceivable to him.

This only got more frequent, with his mental wellbeing declining. Every time this happened, he came out of the experience more paranoid.

"I saw it again," he'd tell me, "please, don't let me see it again."

I wanted to help him, but he would never explain to me what he saw. What was he running from?

---

The weeks turned into months. He stopped talking much at all. I knew when he was about to have an episode from the sudden staring at an empty location.

His escape was always preceded by a simple "I don't want to see."

2 days ago, we were in the bathroom. It's important to note that our bathroom has no windows. It's in the centre of the house, structurally speaking, so they wouldn't be able to lead anywhere. I had just got my husband to brush his teeth after days of him hardly leaving the bedroom. But this was also the longest he had gone without running away for a while.

As he finished washing his face, he looked in the mirror, then turned around, staring at the bathroom door.

"There's nothing there," I hugged him as I spoke, knowing that it wouldn't stop him.

"I don't want to see," he started to cry, "please, please don't make me see again. I can't see it again."

He started backing away, into a wall. It was only then that I noticed he had no way out - He would never leave through the door, not if that's where he was staring.

Without fail, every time, he would run in the exact opposite direction of whatever he was staring at.

I tried to take his hand, "come with me, let's get out of here."

"I can't see it."

"I know, you don't have to," my voice was trembling now. I wanted to help him find a place to run, I was afraid of what he might do if he felt trapped.

He was silent. He had usually ran by now.

"Come on, let's go to the bedroom, and you can run."

"No." He sounded so determined through his tears. "I can't see."

He turned around, punching the wall.

He didn't scream, or flinch. The shriek echoing through the room was my own.

He punched again, harder. I heard his bones crack.

"I will not see."

Blood marks were left on the wall where he threw his fists.

thump

thump

thump

"Please stop", I cried, wanting my husband back, "please, let me help you."

thump

thump

He started to dent the wall. The paint flaked off in the area he was aiming for, precise with his strikes.

thump

thump

thump

thump

I could hardly see anymore through the tears in my eyes, but the blurry flurry of red on the wall made me not want to see.

As he started to collapse, he continued.

thump

Slower with his knocks now, his body simply unable to keep the same momentum and energy that his mind wanted to exert.

"I'm about to see," a puddle of blood on the floor soaked into his clothes where he lay. I held him as tight as I could. "Don't let me see," he continued.

"I won't, I won't let anything happen to you." I'm not sure he understood me in his state, but I kept repeating it to him as his voice got quieter and quieter.

---

He's in the hospital again now.

He still hasn't woken up.

I haven't returned home.

I'm afraid of what I might see.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Relative-Obscurity on 2024-10-18 17:30:16+00:00.

---

Fourteen weeks had passed since an old cracked cell phone was left on our doorstep and my daughter had fallen under its curse.

I thought I had destroyed it, back at the abandoned train station that her friend Bobby and I had rescued her from. But by the time we got home, the device's now even more cracked display had somehow turned back on and, sure enough, Rebecca was scrolling away at it again, her face illuminated by the light of its screen.

Not knowing what else to do, and fearing Rebecca might be discovered, my wife and I fired up our camper and brought her deep into the woods upstate, where we holed up and waited. Waited for what we hoped would be a cure to her obsession. But week after week, she kept scrolling...

...And scrolling...

...And scrolling...

...While I wrestled between prying the cursed phone from her hand, and risking another violent attack, or leaving her alone.

Ultimately, I chose the latter, and let her be, as she simply sat there, day by day, at the campfire, scrolling away on her phone in silence.

And then one day, just as my wife and I were adapting to our new life in the forest, my daughter suddenly...

...Stopped scrolling, as she looked up from the phone, placed it in the grass beside her, stood up, and stretched.

"What's for dinner, dad?"

"Um, what's that, dear?" I replied, shocked to hear her voice.

"I'm hungry."

"Oh, um, don't worry, Becca. Dinner's almost ready." I said, as my wife stepped out of the camper, a look of both shock and happiness in her eyes.

An hour later, as we all sat around the fire, eating some charred burgers that I had cooked too long, having been distracted by the recent development, we tried to catch up with her.

"So, honey, are you okay now?" My wife asked our daughter.

"Yeah, mom. Why wouldn't I be?"

"You know, ‘cause of the whole scrolling thing. You relapsed, Becca. For fourteen weeks, we've been waiting for you to... get better." I said.

"I'm better now, don't worry, dad."

"But, what happened?" My wife continued to pry, trying to get to the bottom of the mystery. "How did you get better?"

"I got to the end." My daughter said.

"The end of what?" I asked.

"The scroll." She replied in a matter of fact fashion, as she chomped away at her dinner.

"And what's at the end?" My wife asked.

"Nothing. That's why I stopped."

"And what were you scrolling through?" I continued.

But my daughter didn't answer. She simply took her last bite, stood up, and walked off to the tent she had built not far from the camper.

"I'm tired." Rebecca said, as disappeared into the tent.

I looked at my wife, who gave me the same look she always did, when I asked that question.

"Come on, eventually someone has to tell me what's on that phone. Or should I scroll myself?" I threatened, picking up the old cracked phone from the grass.

"Honey, please. Just stop." My wife pleaded.

"Just tell me." I insisted.

"We're lucky she stopped. Let's just be thankful for that and move past it."

"Stopped for how long? Erica, it's time I know."

"You really want to know?"

I looked down at the old cracked phone. "Yes."

"Bodies." My wife said.

"Bodies?"

"Dead bodies. Just photo after photo of dead bodies."

I stopped for a moment to process what she was telling me.

"You're telling me that she's been scrolling through photos of dead bodies for months now?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"But why? It happened to you too. What about them is so addictive?" I asked.

"I honestly don't know. But then again, what about social media is so addictive?" She joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"You have a point." I said, looking back to the phone. "Well, I guess I'd better go destroy it either way."

I stood up, but before I could take a step, my wife interrupted.

"No. Let me do it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, all you've been doing is complaining about how tired you are. And having been under its spell before, I'd like to destroy it myself. In fact, there are some rocks by the river that would work perfectly for that very purpose."

"Alright." I agreed, not thinking much of it, trusting my wife of many years.

And like that, Erica set off into the woods, as I returned to the camper, where I went I passed out in the bed in the back of the vehicle, where my wife and I slept.

Later that night, I was suddenly awoken by the sound of the camper door opening.

Assuming it was my wife having returned from destroying the phone, I didn't think much of it.

"Honey, close the door, the mosquitoes will get in." I mumbled into the darkness, as I tried to fall back asleep.

But she neither complied, nor replied.

"Erica?" I asked, once again met with silence.

That's when I felt a sharp metal object plunge into my shoulder.

"AAARGHHHH!" I screamed out in pain, as my attacker swung at me again but missed.

Not knowing what else to do, and unable to see in the dark, I made a dash for the door of the camper, and ran outside, where the light of the moon was bright enough to illuminate my assailant.

"Becca?" I asked, as I saw my daughter lashing at me with a steak knife that she must have found at the grill.

"Dad, you've gotta die." She said with a blank stare, her eyes rolled back in her head, as she walked slowly towards me."

"Rebecca, stop!" I cried out, as I backed away, attempting to snap her out of her trance.

"Dad, just let me." She said.

"But why dear? Why are you doing this?"

"I told you. The scroll. It ended. We need more bodies."

I continued to back away, but must have tripped over the smoldering fire pit, and fell to the ground nearby.

That's when she seized the opportunity, and lashed out at me again, this time plunging her blade into my leg.

"AAARGHHHH!" I screamed out again.

As my daughter tried to remove the knife, surely intent on attacking me again, we locked eyes, and I saw up close and personal, the inside of her hollow eyes, as they rolled back in her head.

Wounded and unsure of what to do, I suddenly remembered that Erica had gone off to the river, and realized that she was probably still out there.

Seeking my wife's help, I pushed my daughter away and painfully hobbled to my feet, before limping off into the woods.

"Daaadddy, why are you running?" My daughter called out eerily into the forest, as she casually walked through the woods behind me.

I didn't reply. I simply stared in the direction of the river, as I could hear its waters streaming away close by.

"Daddy, I want to scroll. And I can't scroll without more photos." Rebecca called out again, as she began to close in on me.

But I continued to keep quiet and hobbled on, as I could feel the blood draining from my body, knowing that if I could just get to my wife, she might be able to help overtake Rebecca and mend my wounds.

But when I arrived at the riverbed, I found Erica sitting on a rock by the river, scrolling away on the old cracked phone with a hypnotized look on her face, her desire to scroll having clearly overcome her mission to destroy it.

I limped over to my wife and tried to pry it out of her hand.

"Honey, get off the phone! Rebecca, she's trying to kill me! Help!" I exclaimed.

But my wife simply growled at me, lashing at my skin with her nails, before snatching the phone back.

My skin burning from the scratches, I leapt back, landing on my wounded leg, only to hear my daughter closing in from behind me.

I turned to look at Rebecca, as she approached, then back at my wife, who had returned to scrolling.

Unsure of which direction to go, I walked back to my wife and ripped the phone from her hand as hard as I could, causing her to cry out in horror and swing at me, knocking me into the shallow river, where my body was half-submerged into water.

My wife stood up, hopped into the river, and began attacking me, desperately trying to get the phone back, as my daughter joined in and began shoving my head underwater, attempting to drown me.

"Just die already, dad." Rebecca said, in a hauntingly matter of fact tone.

Lying there in the river, my head submerged under water as I held my breath, I did the only thing I could think of, taking the old cracked phone that I was still holding in my hand, and plunging it into the river behind me, holding it there for as long as possible.

A good minute or two must have gone by, as I struggled to hold my breath while they continued to attack me, until I eventually couldn't hold it anymore, and resigned to die there in the river, a victim of the old cracked phone's curse.

Until suddenly, just as my eyes were glazing over and I couldn't hold my breath any longer, my wife and daughter stopped what they were doing, and backed away, out of the water and onto the dry land of the river bed.

"What happened?" My wife asked, awaking from her trance, as I sat up in the river, coughing frantically. She turned her gaze from my scratched body to her bloody fingernails, and her eyes opened wide in horror.

"Where are we?" My daughter added, as she too, turned her stare from my wounded, bleeding body to her own, which was completely soaked in my blood, and had the same reaction.

As I continued to clear the river's water from my lungs, I looked down to find my hand still clenching the old cracked phone cell phone.

I looked back at my wife and daugh...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1g6nrvq/my_daughter_has_been_doomscrolling_for_fourteen/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Theeaglestrikes on 2024-10-18 14:44:33+00:00.

---

You might be shouting, “They’re just pranking you, dude!”

That was what I thought when I first arrived.

One hour later, I’m boxed in an en-suite with nothing at my disposal but weak phone reception and weaker ideas. I’ll make this post brief, as I very much doubt I have a lot of time before the bathroom door parts with the frame. Before the formless man makes his way in here. I’ve already seen him do things that defy explanation.

I’m praying that one of you knows how to save me. Please.

“Aston!” Jack joyously announced, greeting me at the door with open arms.

He was the only person I knew at the party, but most of the faces in that common room were familiar. I joined a tightly-packed cluster of students by the kitchen counter. A circle of ten people, once Jack and I had joined the group — ten people to my eyes, anyway. I know that because I counted each of us again, again, and again. I wanted to ensure that I hadn’t lost my mind after Jack introduced an invisible eleventh person wedged between Alexandra and Teagan.

“And that’s Lucas,” he said.

Still, after twenty or thirty minutes of conversation, I’d forgotten about my friend’s gesture towards the empty spot — dismissed it as an odd moment. And I summoned the courage to make conversation with Teagan.

“So why did you choose Law?” I asked her.

Teagan smiled. “Overbearing parents. Dad said I’d be putting my brain to waste if I were to take Journalism. But I’m not planning on becoming a lawyer, so I’d call this a bigger waste of time.”

“Shit,” I said. “That sucks.”

She shrugged.

“What about you?” I asked the other girl.

Alex answered, “Well, unlike Teegs, I do want to be a lawyer, but… Ah, my story’s boring. You should hear why Lucas has taken this course.”

Then the other visible people in the circle all turned to face that gap between Alexandra and Teagan. Once more, I was left dumbfounded.

Sure, I’m aware that we’re all still young and immature — everyone at this party is a first-year university student, after all. But we hardly know each other. This is a socialising event for freshers. A mixer. Whatever you want to call it. And I doubt that so many people would be this cruel.

Why would a group of fifty-something Law students collaborate to torment, at random, a stranger named Aston? It’s not as if I’ve done anything to warrant such mistreatment. We’ve only been studying here for a little over a month, and I’ve been sitting quietly in lectures.

Those were the thoughts coursing through my mind in a simultaneous jumble as the other visible folk listened to a silent story. Listened and laughed as an unseen person told them something. Something that they all heard, but I did not.

“He cracks me up,” Jack whispered to me as members of the group had a one-way conversation with air.

I nodded my head slowly, unsure as to what I should say. I must’ve turned a ghostly shade because my friend frowned at me.

“You all right, man?” he asked. “You’re usually a bit cheerier than this. Too much pre-drinking before we arrived?”

I cleared my throat, speaking quietly whilst the others communed with a ghost. “I don’t understand this ‘Lucas’ thing. Is it a game?”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Fucking hell, Aston. You really are wasted. Maybe have a glass of water or something, pal.”

Then all eyes in the circle turned to me. There followed an awkward pause, and Teagan started to match Jack’s frown.

“You okay, Aston?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. Just tired.”

Teagan nodded, then she and a few others turned back to the Lucas-shaped hole — the missing link in the chain. A couple of seconds later, those heads had returned to face me, as if waiting for my response. Several members of the circle were scowling at me.

“Why are you ignoring him?” a student named Colin asked. “Lucas asked you a question, Aston.”

I tugged at my shirt, feeling my perspiring neck start to redden. The fabric was coarse, but fear was the thing that had slithered under my collar. Irritated my skin. This wasn’t social anxiety. There was something entirely wrong about the room’s atmosphere.

I’d felt that way before Jack even introduced me to Lucas. Felt off. Even the dozens of people who weren’t standing in the kitchen — weren’t making conversation with Lucas — seemed to converse and chortle with an erratic, unstable energy. I caught snippets of conversations that I shouldn’t have been able to hear, but every voice in the common room was unbearably loud. And a key word kept spilling out of mouths from all corners of the party.

Shrine.

Jack was right. I’m often an extroverted, sociable chap, but not tonight. Since showing up at this place, I’ve felt only the primal urge to run.

“Listen, guys,” I eventually said, whilst backing out of the circle. “I just need some air.”

As I walked towards the door, I heard a couple of students chuckle at something the invisible, inaudible man had said.

“I’m sure you’ll get your answer eventually,” Colin whispered to thin air in an odd tone.

Once outside, taking in the crisp autumnal breeze, I seriously considered going home. That was about thirty minutes ago, and I wish I’d just done it. Run for my life.

That was my only chance.

Things had changed when I re-entered the building. The eerie atmosphere had been polluted with something new. Everything was quiet. Not quite silent, but hushed. And the thought of a practical joke — some grand conspiracy to humiliate me — returned to my mind. The possibility that everybody was laughing at me.

That would’ve been simpler. Just some light hazing. But I returned to find the fifty-or-so party guests clumped together, all facing a white wall at one side of the large room. A wall with nothing at all displayed upon it.

Jack beckoned me over, before lifting a finger to his lips.

“What’s happening now?” I whispered.

“Just watch the film,” Jack quietly replied with a heavy whisper.

But there was no film. Only that empty wall which had transfixed every person in the common room.

Chest thumping, I noted that Alexandra, a few rows ahead, was facing the wrong way and twitching vigorously. Her nostrils bled, but that wasn’t why I moaned in terror. It was the gunk oozing from her eye sockets. Not blood, but lumpy waves of pinkish-grey wrapping around her eyeballs and spilling down her cheeks — as if Alexandra’s very brain were itching to escape from her skull.

It’s not that, I lied to myself, mouth half-open in some state of paralysis.

Then I began to croak, “What the fuck is—”

A hand slapped against my lips, clamping them tightly together. And I turned to find Jack silencing me, though he still looked at the wall ahead. Still sobbed and sniffled with joy as he and dozens of others watched an imaginary film at the front of the room. I released a muffled gasp as I noted the trickles of grey spilling from his own orifices.

“Lucas wants quiet,” Jack whispered.

I was too frightened to move. Too frightened of what the hypnotised members of the crowd might do to me. Frightened of my own innards fleeing from my body.

Then, after half an hour of watching nothing, there came a new horror from the front of the crowd.

Directly ahead of me, in the front row of the ‘audience’, two side-by-side students crumpled to the ground. Their bones shattered. Bodies imploded. The sounds of crunching and splashing. I don’t know how else to describe whatever the fuck I saw. A spectre scrunched their very skeletons inwards like balls of paper.

And then the same happened to two audience members in the second row. The third followed. Something was flattening bodies to create a path. Parting the crowd and forming a direct line towards me.

“He asked you a question,” Jack groaned.

My friend had finally turned to face me.

I ran towards the building’s still-ajar front door. Ran as fast as my legs would carry me, but it was no use. A gust slammed the door shut.

And it wouldn’t open, no matter how hard I tried. No matter how forcefully I tugged. I was trapped in the hallway.

When the crunch of compressing carpet sounded behind me, I stopped rattling the door handle. Stopped and turned to see recesses forming in the carpet. The shapes of loafers or misshapen feet. These were the only physical indicators I had seen of Lucas’ existence, other than the trail of crumpled corpses and the supernatural door-slam.

But as he walked towards me, the man’s form remained unseen. His voice remained unheard. And I saw only the dozens of party-goers standing in the common room behind him. Tightly huddled together. No longer watching Lucas’ invisible film on the white wall. Their heads were turned to the right.

Were turned towards me.

I dashed upstairs. There was no other way past the thing in the corridor, and no escaping out of the front door. I entered a hallway with dorm rooms on either side, and I hurriedly tried handle after handle. Stairs creaked below. One after the other. Slowly.

By some miracle, I eventually found an unlocked room, so I scurried inside and locked the door behind me. That didn’t feel safe enough, of course — I locked myself in the en-suite for good measure.

I don’t know what Lucas asked. Don’t know what Lucas might be. All I know is that he’s still out there, either searching or waiting, and I need help before he finds me.

I think death would be more merciful than hearing Lucas’ question.

Than seeing his face.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/EmmaWatsonButDumber on 2024-10-18 14:27:06+00:00.

---

It started when I was a kid. My parents had warned me to stay out of the attic. "Too much junk up there," they'd say, waving me off whenever I asked. But of course, the more they told me to stay away, the more curious I became. So one afternoon when they were out, I climbed the narrow, creaking stairs to the attic and turned the rusty knob of the old door.

The attic was just as dusty and cluttered as I'd imagined—boxes piled high, old furniture draped with moth-eaten sheets, the smell of stale wood and forgotten years filling the air. But it wasn’t the mess that caught my attention. It was the silence.

It was too quiet. The kind of silence that presses in on you, that makes you feel like you're not alone. I stood in the middle of the room, feeling a cold draft brush against the back of my neck, even though none of the windows were open.

I don’t know why I did it, but I whistled. Just a simple, soft tune, something my grandfather used to hum when I was younger. I was about to turn back toward the stairs when I heard it—a whistle. Faint, soft, but unmistakable.

Only it was wrong.

The sound didn’t echo my tune exactly. It was off. Like someone trying to mimic what I did but failing, their tone slightly warped, distorted, like an old record played at the wrong speed. I froze, my heart hammering in my chest. I waited, listening, but the attic remained quiet again, just as it had before.

I should have left. But I didn’t.

Every time I went up there after that, I’d try it again. Turn off the light, stand in the dark, and whistle. Every time, something whistled back, always off-key. Sometimes it was slow and drawn out, like whoever—or whatever—it was, was struggling to remember the melody. Other times it came back quickly, like a mocking echo. But it was always wrong.

As I got older, I started visiting the attic less. The whistles became a story I’d tell at sleepovers, something to laugh about with friends. But I always left out the part where it truly terrified me. How every time I heard that off-key sound, a chill would crawl up my spine. How it felt like something was just beyond the edge of the dark, watching, waiting.

Years passed. I grew up, moved out, went to college, started a life. I didn’t think about the attic much anymore. But after my parents passed and I inherited the house, I found myself standing in front of that same door again, the old knob cool under my palm.

I hadn’t set foot in the attic in years. But as soon as I pushed the door open, the air hit me like a wall—stale, cold, the same sense of something lurking just beyond sight. The boxes were still there, the furniture still draped, but there was something else now. A weight to the space, like the room itself had been waiting for me.

I don't know what possessed me, but I turned off the light and whistled.

It came back instantly, faster than it ever had before. And this time, it wasn’t just off-key. It was garbled, like too many voices trying to whistle at once, their tones clashing and scraping against each other. The sound filled the attic, growing louder and more twisted with every second.

Panicked, I scrambled for the light switch, but in the dark, my fingers fumbled. The noise grew louder, closer, like it was coming from the very walls, wrapping around me. And then I felt it—something cold brushing against my arm, like a hand, but not quite.

I slammed the switch on, flooding the room with light.

The whistling stopped. The air went still, but I knew it was there, just beyond the light, waiting.

I stood frozen in the attic, my breath coming in ragged gasps as the light flickered overhead. The sudden silence was worse than the sound of the broken whistle, worse than the garbled tones that had filled the air moments before. Because now, I could feel it.

Whatever had been whistling back all those years, whatever was lurking just beyond the dark, was closer than ever.

I took a hesitant step toward the door, my legs stiff with fear, when I heard it again. Not a whistle this time, but a soft, shuffling sound, like feet dragging across the floor behind me. I turned slowly, my heart in my throat, expecting to see nothing but the same old boxes, the same forgotten furniture.

But something was different.

The sheets that had covered the furniture were moving—barely noticeable at first, just a subtle shift, like something was breathing beneath them. One by one, they seemed to twitch, the fabric rippling as though disturbed by a breeze I couldn’t feel. My pulse pounded in my ears, drowning out all reason. I backed up, my hand grasping blindly for the door behind me, eyes fixed on the stirring sheets.

Then one of the sheets slipped off, falling to the floor in a slow, deliberate motion.

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw underneath.

There was no chair, no box, no old forgotten relic. Instead, something crouched there—a shape, hunched and twisted, its back to me. Its body was wrong, unnaturally elongated and contorted, like a shadow stretched across a wall. The thing was pale, too pale, its skin thin and translucent, like the surface of a moth’s wing. Its head hung low, obscured, but I could hear the softest sound coming from it—a wheezing breath, labored and wet, like the thing was struggling to stay alive.

I should have run. Every instinct screamed at me to turn, to get out of that attic and never come back. But my feet stayed rooted in place, paralyzed by the grotesque sight.

Then it moved.

The thing’s head lifted slowly, unnaturally, its neck twisting with a sickening crackle of bones. It turned toward me, but it didn’t have a face. Not really. Just smooth, empty skin where its features should have been. And yet, somehow, it saw me. I knew it could see me.

It let out a long, drawn-out whistle—off-key, just like before.

That was all it took. The spell broke, and I lunged for the door, slamming it open and nearly tripping down the stairs in my rush. I stumbled through the hallway, my heart racing, the sound of that whistle still echoing in my head.

But as I reached the bottom of the stairs, I heard it again—faint, but unmistakable. It wasn’t coming from the attic this time. It was coming from behind me. From the darkened hallway that led to the rest of the house.

Something was following me.

I turned, my breath hitching in my chest, and saw nothing. Just the empty hallway, bathed in the dim light from the ceiling. But the sound was getting closer. The off-key whistle, garbled and wrong, growing louder with every step I took.

I bolted for the front door, fumbling with the lock, my hands shaking. The whistle was right behind me now, almost in my ear, so close I could feel the air shift. I yanked the door open and stumbled outside into the night, slamming it shut behind me.

The whistling stopped.

I stood there on the porch, panting, staring at the house in the darkness. Nothing moved. No sound followed me out. The attic window was still, the house eerily silent, as if nothing had happened.

I told myself it was over, that I had imagined the whole thing, that the house was just playing tricks on me.

But as I backed away, I saw something—just for a moment—in the attic window. A figure, standing there, watching me. Its head tilted, its body twisted and wrong, a pale hand pressed against the glass. And even though I couldn’t hear it, I knew it was whistling.

Off-key.

And now, every night, no matter where I go in the house, I hear it. That soft, broken whistle, coming from the walls, from the attic, from right behind me.

It’s waiting for me to turn off the lights again. And next time, I don’t think I’ll be able to escape.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/ritaculous on 2024-10-18 06:18:52+00:00.

---

The mosquitoes that weren’t dead yet were coming out in full force tonight. I slapped at my arms as we sat, crouched next to my Grandmother’s porch and wondered, again, why we were outside instead of watching cartoons.

My dad had been involved in an accident the year prior - a multi-lane pile-up on the Kennedy interstate right outside Chicago. Between taking car of my dad and having to go back to work, my mom hadn’t had time to raise me, so she’d shipped me off to her mother in the lower, farm-centric side of the state. They’d both told me that it was just for the summer, but school had been going on for weeks now, and there was no word of me returning yet.

My grandmother was okay, really, and I didn’t want to complain, so I’d started making more of a concentrated effort to get along with the other kids. Mom had always called me her little trooper, and if making friends so I could tell her how well I was doing on our weekly phone calls helped, then I would troop away. 

Which was why I was sitting outside, acting like a buffet to the bugs.

Damion, Jackson, and Meghan were all in eighth grade with me, and had been the most welcoming when my grandmother had dropped me off at the summer flag football program. The school was small enough that we were all in the same classroom, too, and we’d been, if not as thick as thieves, then as thick as petty crooks, at least. 

Presently, the three of them were discussing the “Omavolk” road, some kind of dare that had been cooked up in the highschool and was trickling down the grades.

“I could do it, no problem.” Damion said, puffing out his chest and discreetly glancing at Meghan. 

She didn’t notice. “You have to do it on a full moon?” 

Jackson, the one whose older brother had given him the scoop, swelled with importance. “Yeah, so we have to do it tonight, because it’s definitely going to be too cold by the next time.”

“And we’ll be like the only eighth graders who haven’t done it yet. Talk about lame.” Damion swatted at him own arms in solidarity with me.

“So it’s settled. We’ll go tonight.” Jackson beamed, and I scratched at a spot I’d left unguarded. 

“What’s this all about?” I asked, for the first time that I was being signed up to tag along.

Meghan took pity on me. “It’s an old town legend. How if you follow the Omavolk road, at the end, you get your wish granted. Step off the path though, and your wish will be twisted into something evil.”

“Okay… and where exactly is this road?” I took the bait, pulling my arms into my shirt. At this point, I didn’t care if it stretched it out.

They all looked at each other and shrugged in unison. Moments like these revealed that they had all grown up together, and I had not. “Guess we’ll all meet up after dark and see what we find,” Jackson said at last, and the others agreed.

I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of being out late on a school night, but keeping friendships going required sacrifice. And if that sacrifice was a pint of blood and a few hours of sleep, I could put up with that.

I had literally never done anything underhanded to my grandmother before, so sneaking out was easier than it should have been. I didn’t even bother putting pillows under my blankets, just grabbed a jacket, my flashlight, and slipped out the window.

The three of them were waiting for me down the road, flashlights casting an eerie glow on their faces. Jackson was the first to see me, and he waved me over, light bobbing erratically. “Rowan!”

“I asked my brother, and he said you have to turn off your lights, close your eyes, and wish really hard, and the path will appear,” he caught me up to speed as I joined them. 

I didn’t like the idea of standing in the middle of a road with all our lights off, either, but it would be quick, and the roads out here were nothing like the roads back home. I clicked off my light, and squeezed my eyes closed, involuntarily thinking of my dad, and of the pictures from the wreck on my mom’s phone. She hadn’t meant for me to see them, and I’d regretted snooping for than once. The image of the twisted car skeletons had burned itself into my braid, and I had trouble thinking of anything else in car rides now.

No on spoke. “Uh, Jackson, how long are we supposed to stand here?” I asked, and when he didn’t answer right away, I opened my eyes, annoyed.

In front of me was a path.

I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and clicked my flashlight. It didn’t turn on, and the path stayed there. I looked around quickly: no sign of the other three. Behind me there was a tall, dark forest, and the path in front of me wound through a gentle meadow, painted blue in the moon’s soft glow.

I zipped my jacket up as goosebumps erupted down my arms. 

“This isn’t funny,” I said, even as I knew it wasn’t a joke. I was on the Omavolk road, and I didn’t see any other option but to walk it.

I clenched my now useless flashlight to me. It was plastic, but heavy enough that I could maybe smack something hard enough with it to defend myself. Maybe.

I glanced back at the forest one last time, and started walking down the path. Whatever lay ahead, at least I could see in the meadow. The forest was too dim.

I was maybe twenty feet down the path when I heard it: a rustling behind me.

I spun around quickly, squinting, but whatever was there, it stayed in the edge of the tree line, where I couldn’t see.

I swallowed. I really, really didn’t want to turn around. I tried shuffling back a few steps, keeping my eyes on the woods, but stumbled and almost tripped when my heels  hit a divot. I spun my arms to keep upright - who knew if falling off of the trail would count. What had Meghan said about getting off? Something evil would happen?

Maybe that was the trick. Maybe whatever was in the woods couldn’t get to me so long as I stayed on the trail.

I slowly, carefully, keeping my gaze fixed on the woods, turned myself around, even as I had to crane my neck. So far, nothing. I inched along the trail, taking minute glances down and then right back up.

There, something to the right - or maybe not. I squinted, but couldn’t make anything out.

Picking up the pace, I heard the rustling again. There was definitely something there, right where I couldn’t see it.

Maybe it was one of my friends, I thought, but even I knew that was just me trying to comfort myself. My best option was to finish this Omavolk road quickly, and go home. 

Whatever was in the woods seemed stuck there, and while I kept glancing back fairly often, I was mostly concentrating on following the path. At part, the lines between it and the grass became blurry, and hard to tell apart. I was so focussed on looking back and looking down that I didn’t notice at first when the trail started looping back. It was only when I looked up that I realized that it doubled back.

Straight into the forest.

I hung back, dread twisting in my gut. No way. I couldn’t.

I looked around desperately, but no other path revealed itself. The only way was forward.

Whatever had been there had grown silent, but I knew that it was in there, waiting for me. I swallowed again, hoisted my flashlight like a club, and inched forward.

The trail itself was just wide enough that the moonlight reached it between the trees, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling of being swallowed as I edged my way past the treeline. 

In the woods, the darkness was so dense I couldn’t make out what was on either side of the path. Only inky blue darkness, and the promise of something dangerous lurking just out of my sight. 

There was a crack behind me, and I didn’t even want to look. Whatever it was, it was too close for me to fight. I’d rather not have to face whatever it was.

After a moment passed and I was still alive, I relented and looked back, only to see that the path behind me was gone. The forest had closed over it, making sure that I knew there was no retreat, only forward. 

Stupid forest, I thought, and then immediately regretted it. What if it could read my mind, and took offense to it? Nice forest, I tried to think, very hard, but I didn’t think it made much difference. The woods continued to follow my footsteps, doggedly swallowing my retreat. 

A glint caught my eye, and I almost sobbed with relief when The trees pulled back a little to reveal a clearing, with a merry bonfire crackling in the middle. 

I hustled over, glancing over my shoulder to watch the forest swallow the last of the path behind me.

Near the fire, it was warm, and the first non-blue thing I’d seen since starting the road. I huddled over it, before turning my back to it to scan the trees. They had grown quiet, but I didn’t trust them. 

Maybe I allowed the fire at my back to give me a false sense of comfort, because when I heard the thump behind me, I jumped and spun, heart hammering like woodpecker at my ribcage. I found myself almost face to face with a girl my age, eyes wide with shock. 

I noticed, belatedly, that she was carrying a dead branch and realized she must have built the fire.

“It’s okay!” I held my hands up, quick. “I won’t do anything!”

She eyed me cautiously, and then tossed her branch into the fire. It sent sparks crackling up between us, and I flinched back as the flames caught her eyes, making them glitter. “Why are you here?”

“I- I saw the fire, and I was scared, so-” I stammered, before thinking that she probably meant the Omavolk road. “Oh! Some friends and I though- Well, we didn’t think it was real, and-”

“It is a nice fire.” She cut me off. “St...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1g6bl4a/the_omavolk_road/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/chootiepatootie on 2024-10-18 02:58:51+00:00.

---

I work the late shift at a small convenience store near the train station. It’s a quiet job, mostly just stocking shelves and occasionally chatting with customers. But every night, right around closing time, I get a regular who makes my skin crawl.

He’s an older man, disheveled, with a long trench coat that seems too big for him. He shuffles in just before midnight, mumbling to himself. I know I should call the cops on him, but he never causes any trouble—just buys a pack of gum and leaves.

Last Thursday, as I was ringing him up, he paused and looked at me with wide, sunken eyes. “You hear the train, don’t you?” he said, his voice a raspy whisper.

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” I replied, trying to keep it casual. “It’s pretty loud.”

“No,” he insisted, leaning closer. “Not the train. The last train. It’s calling for you.”

I chuckled nervously, not wanting to engage too much. “Yeah, well, I have to get going soon.”

But he just stared at me, and I could feel a cold sweat creeping down my back. “You need to be careful. It’s not what it seems.”

He left without another word, and I tried to shake it off, but his warning echoed in my mind. After closing the store, I walked to the platform to catch the last train home. It was already late, and the streets were eerily quiet.

When I got to the platform, the lights flickered. I waited alone, listening to the distant rumble of the train approaching. But as the train pulled in, something felt off.

The train was empty, the seats eerily clean, not a single passenger in sight. I hesitated but figured I’d just ride it home. As I stepped inside, the door slammed shut behind me with a deafening clang.

I sat down, looking out the window as the train began to move. The conductor’s voice crackled over the intercom: “Next stop, nowhere.”

Panic surged through me. What did he mean? I pulled out my phone, but there was no service. The train rattled along the tracks, and I tried to convince myself it was just a malfunction.

Then I noticed the lights flickering again. It wasn’t the train’s lights this time; it was something outside the window. Shadows darted past, almost too fast to see. I pressed my face against the glass, heart racing.

That’s when I saw them. Figures, dark and featureless, standing by the tracks, watching the train go by. They were everywhere, lined up as far as I could see. I felt their gaze pierce through me, freezing my blood.

I stood up and banged on the door, desperate to get out, but it was locked tight. “Let me out! Let me out!” I screamed, but the train just kept speeding along.

The conductor’s voice echoed again, “The last train always takes its passengers.”

My heart sank. I remembered the man from the store, his words replaying in my mind. I stumbled back to my seat, overwhelmed by dread. As I sat there, the train slowed to a stop, and the lights went out completely.

In the darkness, I heard whispers surrounding me, a cacophony of voices. “Join us. Stay with us.”

I felt a cold breath on my neck, and I whipped around, but there was nothing there. The door suddenly swung open, revealing a long, dark tunnel ahead.

Something in me snapped. I bolted for the door, leaping off the train just before it disappeared into the darkness. I landed on the ground hard, rolling to my feet and sprinting away from the tracks.

I didn’t stop running until I reached the safety of the convenience store. I locked the door behind me and collapsed to the floor, gasping for air.

Now, every night, I wait for the old man to show up again, hoping he’ll give me some answers. The last train has become my nightmare, and I can’t shake the feeling that it’s still out there, waiting for me to return.

If you’re ever near a train station at midnight, heed my warning: Don’t take the last train home.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/LCDatkin on 2024-10-17 23:01:37+00:00.

---

The land had been a steal. Fifty acres nestled in the quiet of West Virginia Appalachia for what felt like pocket change. I’d spent years dreaming of a place like this, somewhere I could finally start my apiary and embrace a life far from the noise of the city. And now, I had it—rolling hills, thick woods, a quiet valley with only the hum of bees to keep me company.

When I first spotted the listing online, I figured it had to be a mistake. It was a 50-acre parcel, yet the price kept dropping with each year the listing stayed up. When I finally decided to reach out, I was surprised to hear back from a gruff-voiced realtor who sounded both eager and hesitant to get rid of it. He met me at the edge of the property on a misty, cool morning, his eyes darting around like we were being watched.

As we walked the property, I asked the question that had been bugging me since I first saw the listing: “Why hasn’t anyone taken it yet?”

“Most people around here think it’s cursed,” he replied, not meeting my eyes. “Coal mine on the far end of the property collapsed some sixty years back. Owner who inherited it lost his family to it. Moved off the land after that and never wanted to come back.”

He shifted his weight, kicking at the dirt. “He just needs the money now. But most folks won’t touch it.” He looked back at me, and I could tell he thought I’d run from the sale right then and there. But I wasn’t one for superstition. For me, it was just cheap land with a history I wasn’t part of. So I signed.

The house was solid enough for something built in the ’40s, though it carried the wear and tear of every Appalachian winter it had endured since. The front door had a stubborn gap, the walls wore rough patches where sealant had tried to cover long-standing cracks, and the appliances seemed as mismatched as they could be, thrown together as an “update” by the previous owner. Still, it felt like home.

After settling in, I spent my savings on a few dozen hive boxes and queens. I’d sourced bees from apiaries all over the state, setting them up across my property in carefully spaced groups, just far enough from the old mine. The countryside was idyllic, and I fell in love with the untamed beauty of the mountains. Each person I met, though, seemed to carry that same look of unease when they found out where I lived. The warnings all sounded the same: “Don’t go into the woods after dark,” or, “Keep your doors locked at night.”

When I asked if it was because of bears, they’d glance away and mutter about fae spirits or even the Mothman. I’d smile, nod, and let them tell their tales, chalking it up to local superstition.

The first year went by smoothly. My bees thrived, drawn to the untouched wildflowers and the perfect isolation. When the time came to harvest the honey, I set out to the hive site early in the morning, prepared for the sticky, sweet work ahead. As I checked each box, though, I noticed something strange. About a third of my hives were empty, yet they seemed full of capped honey. Or so I thought.

I cracked open one of the frames, expecting the usual golden bounty, but a foul odor met my nose—a sickly, rancid smell that made me gag. The honey within was a dark, reddish brown, thick and congealed like something dead.

As I inspected the abandoned hives, I kept running through the possibilities in my mind. No signs of parasites, no signs of moths or mites, and certainly no sign of the queen absconding. Earlier that spring, I’d done a few splits for the stronger hives, though being a new setup, I hadn’t needed to do many. All signs had pointed to healthy colonies, yet here I was, staring into boxes that should have been full of life, met only with the sticky weight of something foul.

I pried open another frame. Usually, the hum of the bees around me was like a kind of white noise, a calming background that made the solitude out here bearable. This time, though, there was nothing. Just silence, broken only by the scrape of my hive tool as I opened the frame. I held my breath, not knowing exactly what I was expecting, but as soon as the frame came free, a wave of stench hit me—like the pungent reek of something dead, rotting in the summer heat. I gagged, stumbling back, fighting the urge to empty my stomach right there in the field.

I forced myself to examine the honey. It wasn’t the golden nectar I’d been expecting; instead, it was thick, dark, and tinged a sickly reddish-brown. The sight alone was wrong, but the smell—like decaying roadkill mixed with something chemical and burnt—was almost unbearable. I took a marker from my pocket, labeling the infected hives in quick, shaky strokes, then turned to my healthy hives, hoping for something better.

But even the healthy hives weren’t right. I’d chosen Italian honey bees, known for their calm demeanor, yet today they buzzed in a low, angry hum, a noise that buzzed through my nerves. The bees seemed almost…disturbed. Each frame I pulled had bees frantically crawling over one another, and as I moved to collect honey, several stung me—more in one morning than I’d experienced in all my time keeping them. I chalked it up to bad luck but couldn’t shake the feeling that it was something more. I left extra honey in each hive, sure that they would need every drop of it in the cold months to come.

With what I’d managed to salvage, I made the first of several trips to a small barn on the edge of the property I’d converted into my extraction room. The barn was a little sanctuary, just far enough from the hives that I could work undisturbed. As I processed the honey over the next few days, though, a troubling pattern emerged—every time I went back to the hives, fewer and fewer bees buzzed around. 

My extractor spun the healthy honey just fine, and the thick liquid poured out in smooth ribbons, golden and sweet, exactly as it should have been. It tasted like honey should, clinging to my fingers and dripping in slow streams like molasses. Yet each time I saw the dwindling numbers of bees, that sickening image of the reddish-brown honey lingered in my mind, an unspoken warning in the silence of my emptying hives.

Days passed, and I kept asking myself the same question, a nagging worry that wouldn’t let go: where were all my bees going?

On my last day of extraction, I lost track of time, the sun slipping below the horizon as I finished bottling the final jar. Darkness had settled over the property, and as I locked up the barn, a thick chill settled in my gut. Out here, night came fast, drowning the hills in deep shadows and swallowing any trace of light. I wasn’t afraid of bogeymen or the local legends whispered by folks in town, but bears were another story. Still, the walk back to the house was short enough, so I tucked my head down and started off at a steady pace.

As I moved, though, the feeling crept up—the same uneasy sensation I remembered from childhood, when I’d turn off the basement light and dash up the stairs, convinced something was waiting in the dark behind me. I quickened my pace, the crunch of my boots filling the silence, but I could feel a prickle across the back of my neck, that ancient instinct whispering that I wasn’t alone.

Ahead, the house sat like a shadow against the dimming sky, but just as I reached the edge of the yard, a faint sound stopped me cold—a hum, rising from somewhere in the distance. I froze, listening. It was the sound of bees, unmistakable and growing louder with each second. Slowly, I turned to face the woods.

My eyes were still adjusting, but as I stared into the trees, a shape began to emerge. Something large, hulking, and black loomed in the shadows, shifting in sporadic jerks that reminded me of a bear, but something was… wrong. Its movements were jerky and uneven, not like any animal I’d ever seen. A strange buzz filled the air, not the smooth, calming hum I was used to, but a chaotic mix of pitches that clawed at my nerves.

I unslung the rifle from my shoulder, raising it to my chest as the figure moved closer. I squinted into the dark, my finger hovering over the trigger as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Its shape was bear-like, but the sound coming from it was… alive, as if the creature itself was buzzing. My stomach twisted, a sick dread creeping up as the figure stopped, just within the edge of the forest.

The creature’s eyes caught the faint light from my porch, reflecting back a sickly, unnatural glint. I couldn’t tear my gaze from it, feeling a pulse of raw, electric fear surge through me. Without thinking, I squeezed the trigger, the rifle’s sharp report ringing through the mountain air, loud and raw against the night.

The creature didn’t roar or stumble as a bear might; instead, it took off in a burst of movement, crashing through the underbrush with a speed and agility that made my skin crawl. The buzzing sound waned as it retreated, the forest swallowing its furious hum as it disappeared back into the blackness, leaving an eerie, consuming silence behind.

I stood there, breath clouding in the night air, staring into the trees long after it had gone, waiting for that horrid sound to return. But there was nothing—just the hollow quiet of the woods, an unnatural silence that somehow felt wrong. The only thing that moved was my hammering pulse. Slowly, I lowered the rifle, my heart pounding against the heavy weight of the weapon, and backed away toward the house, unwilling to turn my back on the forest. I ba...

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Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1g63xd0/there_is_something_wrong_with_my_bees/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/torremotumbo on 2024-10-17 02:14:20+00:00.

---

The university’s archives were a chaotic, neglected treasure trove. Decades of research papers, recorded lectures, and historical artifacts were scattered across ancient hard drives and outdated computers. No one had bothered to organize it, let alone back it up, until recently. It wasn’t just academic work stored down there; some of it was irreplaceable—rare interviews, field recordings, and data from long-gone professors that could never be replicated. The panic didn’t set in until a few of the older drives failed, and they realized that years of irreplaceable knowledge could disappear with a single corrupted file.

I had worked at the university for a while, mostly on routine tasks, but when the urgency of saving the archives became clear, my supervisor handed me the task. They needed someone to go down into the basement storage and catalog every computer, every hard drive, and transfer all the data to a secure online server. It seemed straightforward, though overwhelming in scale. But the moment I stepped into the basement—an odd, windowless labyrinth with flickering fluorescent lights—I knew something was off. The space felt strangely disconnected from the campus above, like it belonged to another time, another world.

Each room was crammed with old equipment: reel-to-reel tape machines, dusty computers, forgotten research equipment—all piled haphazardly over the years. I set up a small workstation in the first room, using an old desk covered in obsolete electronics, and began methodically searching through the clutter. As I moved from room to room over the course of several days, I felt an unsettling shift in the air. The deeper I went into the basement, the darker and more claustrophobic it became. And then I started working on the last computer, and it just would not open. 

I tried everything, and I mean everything, until frustration came rushing in and I just hit the unit really bad.

And it cracked. At first, I panicked. Then, I noticed something… grey sticking out. 

An USB drive, jammed inside a unit? How could that even work? Why would someone put it there? Were they… hiding it?

I connected it to a random computer, expecting nothing, but there it was—a folder on the desktop labeled Restart. Inside, a single audio file. I hit play: white noise. I connected external speakers; still nothing but a cold hiss. I copied the folder to my main computer.

When I opened it again, there were two files. And both played songs.

Each time I transferred the folder to a different computer, more songs appeared. The music was strange, unsettling, and the more I listened, the more it twisted something deep inside. The songs felt wrong—like they shouldn’t exist. I tried not to think about it, tried to ignore the creeping sense of dread, but the songs wouldn’t let me. They multiplied, shifting and warping.

The files from the unaccounted-for USB drive have parasitically attached themselves to my life over the last few days and have taken up most of my time and attention. With the way things have been going, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared.                                                                         

I haven’t listened to much else, despite being a prolific music listener and audiophile all of my life. I’ve developed a kind of obsession with these songs. I’ve come to know them like the back of my hand. Well…more or less. I came to know the lyrics, structure, instrumentation, arrangement, etc. of each song, and that’s given way to a series of dizzying problems.

Going back to my previous post, I mentioned how on first listen while in the basement, I had a strong feeling that there was something wrong with the songs. I don’t just mean with the strange behavior of the files but with the music itself - it really came off as ominous and threatening. Naturally, I assumed that becoming familiar with them, I would gradually outgrow those feelings.  

The opposite has happened. I mean, I did eventually overcome my fear of the music itself - in fact I find it to be quite profound and interesting. But something else is wrong.

I honestly don’t know how to write about this in a way that comes off as reasonable, so I’ll just write it as it has happened and let it stagger you the same way it did to me. The songs are changing.  

In multiple ways.  

It all started with trivial lyric changes that I chalked up to memory distortion. At first, I would notice how one word would change for another that sounded very similar to it, etc. I obviously thought that I clearly had not listened to the lyrics carefully enough - that perhaps I was mistaking the song structure. But then, it started to become clear that something really wrong was happening.  

Entire lines would change - at first the lyrics of one verse would swap with another, but eventually I was listening to completely new words that I knew for sure were not initially there. I tried to convince myself that it was just me, and that the mysterious origin of the files was feeding into my perception of them.  I needed to gain some clarity. I made a few notes regarding simple empirical things that could be known about the songs - I wrote down the lyrics for each song, as well as their root key and length.  I first started to notice variating lengths in the files when I went for a run that always takes me forty minutes to complete. By then, I knew without question that the full length of the project ran thirty-eight minutes in total.  When I reached the end of my run, the project was still running - it went on for a full seven minutes longer than possible, clocking in at forty-five minutes. I checked the time to confirm the phenomenon and it was 100% due to variations of time in the songs.  

Then, bigger changes began to happen. Entire structural changes were occurring within the songs. Verses and choruses were being switched around and arrangements played by specific instruments were being replaced with others along with general differences in tonality - sometimes by as little as a quarter tone to as drastic as a couple of whole tones. Recently, I clocked a song running for a full thirteen minutes when I had recorded its length at just under five minutes. How can it be possible that the musical content of these files is changing?

I haven’t even mentioned what is the most unnatural and terrifying thing about this whole affair.  The content of the lyrics seems to be aware of who I am, what I am doing and what I am thinking. I don’t want to include too many details about my personal life but I’ll say that throughout my life I have had a very difficult relationship with a particular member of my family, and that two days ago I had a falling out with this person that was way more destructive and toxic than any previous one (there have been many but this may truly be the last). In as few words as possible, I went through something unspeakable for many years during my childhood and this family member revealed that they knew exactly what was going on and did nothing to help.  After this confrontation I came home in a daze. I felt like my mind and body were going to give out - I’ve been sober for over 14 years and I’d never truly considered drinking or consuming drugs again for over 10. I was so tempted to make a quick stop before getting home to make the pain go away. But I did what I’ve done for the past 14 years that has never failed me - losing myself in a room filled with music.  

As soon as I arrived home, I quickly went up to my studio and put on a special playlist that I’ve curated over the years for when things get rough. I slowly started to come around and feel a little better. I remember I was listening to a J.J. Cale song when suddenly the song was cut off and a song that I immediately recognized as part of the Infinite Error folder started playing. Strange, I thought, but didn’t hesitate in just re-playing the song I was previously listening to. But it happened again. Too in the moment, I said fuck it and just kept listening - I had bigger problems to attend to than worrying about some computer glitch. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for that kind of music but there was something exhilarating about the song that I found distracting in a way that I really needed.  

Then it started happening again - the song was changing.  

But this time, the lyrics were unmistakably about me. About my past.

I will not go into detail about what it said but the lyrics were a perverse and cruel poem about my childhood, describing things that are so specific to my memories that I was left with no doubt in my mind that something evil and demonic was happening with these songs.  

It’s impossible to explain how crushed I felt in that moment - I struggled to turn off the music and my computer because my hands were shaking horribly. I felt as if the entirety of creation and its spiritual underside had spat on my face.  

I am lost. I am at my weakest. And I have no explanation for what is going on. I don’t know how to make it stop. I’ve copied the files, deleted them, and yet they spread like a virus, infecting every corner of my life. Now, I can’t tell where the music ends and I begin.

I'm afraid this is no mere glitch—something evil is attached to these songs, and it's pulling me under.

Oh, and there’s something else.

It started small, just a creeping sensation at the back of my neck, the kind that makes you glance over your shoulder for no rea...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/dlschindler on 2024-10-18 04:38:47+00:00.

---

I don't feel that way anymore - like we don't fit in here. My new job is perfect, it really is. I don't think my boss is creepy or that they have weird rules about the edge of the forest - where we have those two mossy picnic benches and people come outside to smoke on their breaks. I'm really good with it now.

My husband wasn't doing anything wrong. I know I said I thought he was up to something, like maybe having an 'the A word' or something. He is a really great guy and I trust him completely. It's fine.

The kids are both doing really great in school, making lots of friends and everything. In fact, that's what's up, the whole thing with the kids and the school. It's just going so well, I have to talk about that.

I would complain about one thing, though, off-topic, and that's my new car. I really can't complain though, since my new car is just fine. Everything is just fine.

I know we had some trouble when we first got here, like with my job and my husband and my car and the school and the kids and everything, but it's all going so well. Nothing is wrong, and everything is just perfect now. You don't have to worry, I am doing great.

Mike took Samual hunting the other day, since it is hunting season out here and all the guys go hunting. I was worried, because Mike knows almost nothing about hunting or the woods, but they were fine out there. They didn't shoot anything, but they went out into the woods with their guns and camped and bonded and came home without even so much as a tick bite. So everything turned out fine with that.

Mike has lots of new friends in town, and he goes and does Karaoke every Saturday. I'd go with him, but there's no need, it's not like he doesn't want me to come or that he stays out all night with those girls at the bar or anything. I fully trust him and I don't mind him going out without me.

Samual asked out Sheila Steihl to the Junior Dance and she heard he'd gone hunting with his dad and totally said she'd go out with him. So Samual is doing great, he's all smiles. I think we are starting to really fit in around here.

I know Iris was having some trouble, with the kids and the playground. She's doing okay now, the vaccine took hold really well and she stopped seeing the sick things. You remember those childhood drawings that were pretty upsetting - stuff she was seeing. Well, I was seeing them too, of course, but my vaccine worked too, and now we are fine.

Porter's Grove is a nice place to live, and I am so glad we moved here. I couldn't find work doing the conduit job that pays like it does here. The whole town is built on the metric revenue of our work. You should see how the local economy flourishes. This place was dying before Orange got here.

Sometimes, now that I got my promotion, I feel like we sorta run this whole town. My family gets treated like royalty. Sheila Steihl's parents didn't want her to go to the dance at-all and she isn't allowed to have a boyfriend - except she told them it was Samual, my son, who wanted to go out with her and they changed their minds. We're royalty.

That's why I love it here. Our lives couldn't be going better.

Yes, I know it was scary, at first, living in a paper town like this, but we adjusted. The vaccine we got helped, as the sick stuff went away after that. Iris had it the worst, since she was too young for the whole first year after we moved here.

I almost forgot what's out there. I haven't seen anything for a long time. They are drawn to people, apparently, at least that's my understanding. I'm not sure what those sick things want, but it isn't good, since they might try to get inside you.

There is a rumor that when Orange got here, that's when they started coming out of the woods, attacking people and getting into them. I've heard that several people got so full of those things that they actually exploded. Like really gross.

I can only imagine, with some trepidation, how it would work. If just one of those things got into you, they would change you right away, you'd get sick too. Then, how could you stop more and more of them from coming to you, climbing up all over you, getting inside of you, and - well I guess when that happens the human body can only take so much of the viral overload. You'd simply detonate at some point, the fermentation process going totally nuclear.

I was very afraid for a long time. I was afraid for myself, since I did get infected with one of them when we first moved here. I had to wear a special suit for awhile, kinda like a beekeeper's suit, to keep any more of them from getting into me. Iris was terrified, I was terrified and the whole town ostracized us.

My car broke down and it was within the compound on the way to work. Those things found me out there, crawling all over the outside of my car, trying to get in. I was panicked and trapped. They started finding their way into the car, through the vents and cracks and from under the floor. I was covered in them. While I was paralyzed with dread, trapped in my car, my special suit covered in those things, I knew it wouldn't be long until they got into the suit and into me.

I must have fainted from sheer terror, and when I awoke I was in the facility and they had my stripped down and in a decontamination. My car got repairs and I was administered the new vaccine, since it was too late to inoculate me. The needle was about five inches long and they had to put it into my thymus, through my neck. I really hate needles, and I was somehow even more terrified by the cure than the disease.

Mike wasn't very supportive before the company reeducated him. After that he was great, since he was no longer able to ignore me or disobey me or lie to me. That's how I know he's fine out there with the waitresses at the bar and the Karaoke. I'm holding all the keys.

Our house is awesome. We moved out of the old haunted two-story one we moved here into. Orange paid it all off and bought me a new house, within the compound. It's like living in a gated community. I did mention that I got a promotion, and I didn't say they made me Senior Director. I only answer to Kinley himself.

Some people say terrible things about him. I know I was afraid of him for awhile, but he's really not some crazy mad scientist billionaire. He's just eccentric and misunderstood. You just have to get to know him a little. I love my boss he's hard-working and really provided for me and my family.

So, things in Porter's Grove are good, and great and just living the dream.

Iris had one last incident, involving an animal that wandered out onto the playground. I went the teacher's conference, nothing to be worried about or anything. My kids get very good grades and never get into trouble. It's just that one thing that happened.

Yes, I was scared to hear about it. It reminded me of some of the terrifying things I encountered here. I thought back about seeing all that sick stuff. The gross, deformed critters, half dead, attracted to me because of what the parasites had done to their brain stems. Modified hosts.

I guess it is like that nature video we watched that one time, the one with the zombified ants or the beetle with the worm in it that flips onto its back and kicks its legs until a bird eats it, or the slug that gets that thing in its eyestalk that also gets eaten by birds. Those sick things, those former animals, little more than robots controlled by the parasite inside them.

Before we were immunized they'd come for me, for Iris. So, it got pretty scary, when something all mangy and twitchy would limp and hop towards us. Like watching roadkill come towards you, knowing that it is dead and rotting. I told Iris not to let them come near her.

I'd watch those woods, couldn't take my eyes off the edge of the trees all around town. Something was watching me right back, sending its probes, its spores, whatever they are. Iris was sitting outside at recess and the rest of the kids fled from it.

Iris just sat there, too terrified to move. My worst fear was that she'd come in contact with one of the sick things we often saw. They aren't animals anymore. I guess this one was like a puppy to her, somehow, although it had empty eye sockets, it knew where she was and came straight for her, wagging what was left of its tail, trying to seem friendly.

I was told she had finally snapped out of it, that she had jumped up on the teeter totter and brought it crashing down on it before she got up and fled inside. It never got to her, didn't have a chance. She was like a hero. The teachers praised her and told her how brave and special she was.

Somehow Kinley heard about the incident and asked me about Iris personally. I told him she's my daughter, and that we might be scared, but we take action. He nodded and told me he appreciates both me and my family, and said there's a place for us here. So, we are doing better than great.

As to us moving back out there, or just packing up and leaving all this behind and staying with you, that's not going to happen. I appreciate that you were willing to put us up like that, but it isn't necessary. In fact, my new house is huge. If you and Charles start having problems again, you can just take the kids and come live with me out here.

I know you'll love it here, everything is just perfect.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/KryptoXNooB on 2024-10-17 20:11:54+00:00.

---

Me and my friend Joseph have been best buddies for years. After a while we stopped counting and would just say 15 years to anyone who asked how long we’ve known each other. He was a new immigrant, shy, small and almost looked malnourished but I approached him nonetheless and quickly realized he wasn’t so different after all.

Over the years we slowly became family, it became the norm for him to rush into my house make a PB&J and rush back out mumbling something about how he forgot to pack lunch, of course his “lunch” was at the same time as my dinner since he got Night Shift at work but nonetheless I didn’t mind and even my girlfriend became used to it after the fifth or sixth time, they actually ended up becoming good friends and I still owe him for being my wingman and helping me meet her even after this whole ordeal but enough chitchat, I came here to write down everything in the hopes that it makes it more explainable maybe some of you can somehow explain the unexplained.

Since he started the night shift we’ve not had enough time to hang out so we decided to compromise and hold a weekly d&d campaign online between from twelve to two AM on every Friday, a mutual friend hosts and on this specific Friday, Joe short for Joseph couldn’t make it so he sent a message. From now on I will use quotes for our texts since that’s where most of this happened.

11:16 AM Joe - “Yo Eli I ended leaving last and my car won’t start, since all of my coworkers have left already imma wait on the security guard he should be here in like 15 so I’m gonna be late”

“That’s aright I’ll tell Mark” 

Mark is our DM

11:45 Joe -  “Security still not here, doubt I’ll make it in time sorry.”

Me - “Damn that sucks no need to apologize tho we’ll just delay it to tomorrow if everyone has time”

Joe - “ No no don’t do that, this is the perfect opportunity for Allison to hop in the campaign as like a side character or something, it’s about time you let your girlfriend play”

”Fine fine you’re right I’ll help her with the character sheet now” message failed to send - try again?

Weird but not out of the ordinary I simply clicked try again and when that failed I tried sending the same message to no avail, after a couple of attempts I decided to give up and try later.

12:15 AM Joe -  “Hey man sorry to interrupt you guys but could one of you come pick me up? I would walk to the train station but not only is it snowing but I don’t think I’d even get there in time before the last train”

“Yeah I’ll be there, just send me the address I only have your old warehouse saved on here not the new one” message failed to send - try again?

This is when I started to really get confused, how come I could get his messages but he can’t get mine. I called him but my call went straight to voicemail, he didn’t even have a recording of himself telling to talk after the beep, after all I was one of his few friends and he practically never left a call unanswered or didn’t call back in less than an hour but this? This was out of the ordinary and it made me uneasy thinking of all the possibilities. His phone must’ve died I kept telling myself but either-way I put on some clothes and just sat on my couch leaving my friends DND campaign and awaiting his next message.

12:16 AM  Joe -  “Yoooo? Why won’t you pick up? Nobody else is answering me either, that’s what I get for taking up the Night Shift but hey at-least the forklifts are now fully charged so I’m just gonna head inside and kill some time by cleaning the shelves and who knows maybe I’ll even accidentally trip the alarm and wake that security guards ass up”

At this point I was panicking, thoughts rushing through my head, none of which made the slightest bit of sense, I swear it felt like putting on my clothes and typing that message to him took way longer than a minute and yet I received the message 12:16 , I had to do something so I called his dad who answered grumbling and clearly on the edge of sleep, I didn’t want to worry him so I told him that Joe’s phone was dead and that he asked me to pick him up but I didn’t know where he worked. Fortunately his dad knew the address and gave it to me, god I was so panicked and shaken that I nearly let the address slip out of my mind before I even started the car, thoughts were rushing in and out of my brain and I felt scattered. I hadn’t even noticed the twenty something messages sent by him in the past 5 minutes.

12:18 AM Joe -  “ dude this warehouse is terrifying without all the whirring and grinding of the machinery, I would put on my headphones but I’m scared I’m gonna miss the guard getting in and in turn miss my ride, the alarm didn’t trip after all so he must still be on his way to turn on the security system. “

12:18 AM Joe - “ I just tried calling everyone on my contact list and literally no one answered, my service is fine and I still have minutes, oddly enough you seem to be the only person my messages get through to and you’re probably just in a drunk stupor. Damn it Eli pick up the phone or else I’m going to keep spamming”

12:18 AM Joe - “hey man, I’m tripping or something, maybe it’s just sleep deprivation? Honestly I’ve been in here for hours past my shift now and I was already sleep deprived going into the shift, at least the sun should come up soon and the day shift can let me out”

12:18 AM Joe - “I can’t get out, the doors are locked, IM LOCKED IN. Fuck it I’m breaking a window, what type of dumbass security locks the doors and doesn’t turn on the alarm system. PS: is the sun up for you yet?”

12:18 AM Joe -  “windows won’t break but I think my hand did, I really want to sleep but I can’t seem to even though the sleep deprivation is getting bad like real bad like I keep hallucinating figures in my peripheral but every time I look at them they duck and weave out of my vision in the blink of an eye, sometimes I swear that they get closer if they stay in the corner of my eye for long enough.”

12:18 AM Joe -  “the figures are not figures, it’s Allison. I think she’s smiling at me.”

12:18 AM Joe -  “Have you ever thought about how you guys got together? I do. Almost everyday I ask myself why in the hell I let you have her, I clearly hit it off with her, we had a lot in common and she was having a great time with me when I and only I approached her. YOU weren’t man enough to talk to her. Hell you were still mourning your shitty toxic relationship with your Highschool sweetheart and I got to pay for it. I’ll be honest. It's also my bad for not telling you just how much I loved talking to her but what was I supposed to do when you wouldn’t shut the hell up about your ex. I thought I’d tell you this because it’s been days and clearly no one is coming for me. I've been keeping Allison away by looking at her every time she tries to approach me in my peripheral but I’ve decided to let her get close now. I can tell it’s not really her but it’s as close as I’ll ever get to her. Tell her I said hi.”

I didn’t read these messages at the time, I was too busy keeping my eyes on the dark and icy road. I slammed my foot on the gas when I got to the highway and I was there in 15 minutes, the digital clock in my car reading 12:33 AM. Just like he said his car was the only one in the parking lot, oddly enough it was snowed in by now so either a blizzard hit this lone parking space or the car’s been here longer than a week, I walked up to the warehouse and clicked the big red emergency call button and explained my situation to the guard on the other line who was already inside the building but he got outside the warmth and comfort of the break room to assure me that we would know if someone was inside since the alarm would be tripped by any movement on the warehouse floor. 

I think the guard saw my fear and worry, he looked at me with pity and let me inside , I checked every corner, nook and cranny to no avail and on my way back to the car is when I did read the messages. I did what any sensible person would do and I called the cops who unlike the guard were of no use whatsoever, they kept telling me that his messages were probably some weird prank or a way for him to avoid our “childish games” they kept telling me that since his messages were proof that he was alive they wouldn’t even be able yo legally do a welfare check and so I decided to do it myself and drove over to his apartment.

At first I was knocking then forcefully pulling and pushing with all my might and before I knew it I was slamming my full body weight into his apartment door, it wouldn’t give. His neighbors came out and then gentleman was yelling at me, asking if I knew what time it is but when his wife came out she looked at me with pity, I didn’t understand why at first but I guess I was too focused on imagining Joe opening the door and telling me this was all some sick joke to notice my tears running down my cheeks. The lady asked me what was wrong and I simply said that I was worried for my friend, she asked if I checked under the doormat and I hadn’t, so I did and low and behold there was his key. I knew the second the door opened that I was too late, the stench hit me before I’d even noticed the shadow of his legs dangling on the wall next to the turned on tv. 

The cops told me he must’ve been dead for at least two days and I was shattered, I told Allison about his death and she took it worse than me, way worse. They were always such good friends, I guess some part of both of them at some point wished that the...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/IamHereNowAtLeast on 2024-10-18 00:17:08+00:00.

---

I might be 76...

And every joint in my body might crack and pop...

But I still recognize the smell of shit.

My lighthouse has always been a place of solace, a sanctuary from a world I was increasingly having trouble recognizing. Last night was supposed to be no different.

Ollie was asleep at my feet, his black fur rising and falling gently as he snored. I sat with my book, the pages turning lazily as I read in the soft yellow glow of a nearby lamp.

The night outside was pitch black, punctuated only by the occasional flash of the lighthouse beam as it swept across the horizon.

Then, without warning, the world shuddered, as if the earth itself had gasped in fear. A dull, distant boom echoed up from the cliffs.

Ollie leapt up, barking furiously, his hackles raised.

I was on my feet before I even realized it, my heart pounding. The ground felt like it had shifted beneath me, and there was a brief, eerie silence before the normal sounds of the night returned. The wind, the waves, Ollie's frantic barking.

I hobbled to the window, pressing my forehead to the cold glass. My whole body protested the quick movement. My knees, my back, even my neck felt like it needed oiling.

My breath fogged the window as I strained to see, but there was nothing. Just the restless sea and an emptiness that made my skin crawl. Whatever had happened, it was lurking beyond the cliffs, somewhere hidden by the dark expanse, waiting.

And I could feel it, deep in my old, aching bones.

Grabbing my coat, I clicked my tongue to Ollie, groaning as I forced my stiff knees to bend. My back ached, every vertebra protesting the movement. Getting old, I thought, wincing as I straightened up. He followed me, his ears perked up, as we made our way out into the cold night.

The wind had picked up, howling through the cracks in the rocks. I shuffled down the steep path towards the edge of the cliff, my knees groaning in protest with each careful step. My back felt like it could snap with the next wrong move, but I kept going. The lighthouse beam spilled across the ocean below, guiding me, even if every bone in my body screamed for me to turn back.

And that's when I saw it.

Wreckage, barely visible, bobbing in the water near the base of the cliff. The twisted remains of what looked like an aircraft, scattered across the waves. It was strange, almost surreal. There were no emergency lights, no signs of life, no fire. Just dark, twisted metal glinting in the water, appearing and disappearing as the waves swallowed it like some monstrous secret. The silence was suffocating, as though the ocean itself was conspiring to hide whatever had fallen from the sky.

The following day, the suits arrived.

They drove in on a convoy of black SUVs, grim-faced men who didn't look like any kind of rescue personnel I'd ever seen. They worked quickly, setting up tarps to cover the wreckage, barely exchanging words with one another or acknowledging me. It felt strange, as though I had stumbled onto something that wasn't meant to be seen, let alone spoken about. They gave me curt nods, and I tried to ask questions, but their answers were short, rehearsed.

“Nothing to worry about. Just a weather anomaly. A small craft malfunction.”

They didn't even seem interested in checking if anyone had survived. It was all about cleaning it up, covering the site, making it disappear. By dusk, they were gone, leaving only tire tracks in the muddy gravel and an unsettling silence in their wake. An unnatural silence, as if the world itself was holding its breath, terrified of what might come next.

I couldn't shake the feeling of unease.

There was something they weren't telling me, something just below the surface. Ollie could feel it too, pacing the length of the lighthouse's narrow hallway, whining softly.

I tried to sleep, but it was no use. The suits and the wreckage lingered in my mind, refusing to be dismissed. I finally gave up around midnight, groaning as I pulled on my boots. My back protested, my knees cracked, and I muttered curses under my breath, complaining about my whole body. One never expects every joint in your body to crack.

I went out on the balcony to get some fresh air.

I was still haunted by the fact that no one seemed to care about the crash. I don't know, I expected police to show up. Or news vans. Someone.

But the hours rolled on.

The sea stretched endlessly in front of me, the moonlight casting a pale, ghostly glow over the waves. Everything was unnervingly still. Too quiet, as if the world had slipped into some unnatural pause. The air was thick with an electric tension that made the hairs on my arms stand up, and the usual comforting sound of the waves had vanished.

Just silence, heavy and oppressive, the calm before a storm.

That's when I saw it.

A tall figure, glowing faintly, far in the distance along the path that led to the cliffs.

It moved slowly, almost as if it were drifting. A chill ran down my spine, and my heart pounded, each beat a sign to run. I blinked, hoping it was just a trick of the light, but the figure kept coming, the glow growing stronger, a sickly, unnatural blue against the darkness. It moved with an unsettling grace, like something that had learned how to mimic human movement but didn't quite belong.

Ollie began barking, low and terrified, a sound I'd never heard from him before.

I stepped back, my mind and heart rate acing.

The figure drew closer, and I could see now that it wasn't walking. It was floating, its feet hovering just above the ground. It looked human, but its proportions seemed all wrong. Too tall, too thin. And the light... it wasn't a natural glow.

Then I remembered the suits, their hurried whispers, the way they avoided my eyes. They knew something. Something about the wreckage, about whatever had fallen from the sky.

And now, it was here, looking for something, or someone.

The figure reached the door of the lighthouse, and without hesitation, it began pounding the door with its head, the door near blasting open.

I had to use all my weight to slam it back shut. Then locked the door.

I barely managed to keep it outside, pressing my weight against the door as it rattled in its frame. Heavy, echoing knocks shook the wood, and fear coursed through me. Ollie barked louder, his teeth bared, but the thing outside didn't flinch. It let out a low, guttural noise, so unnatural it seemed to vibrate inside my skull, freezing the blood in my veins.

The door pounded open violently, knocking me down.

The figure was inside the lighthouse.

The smell it emitted was like sulphur.

It was fixated on something.

In that frantic moment, I noticed something strange. The figure was following the light of my flashlight, its hollow eyes tracking every movement.

It was drawn to the light, moth to a flame.

An idea formed in my panicked mind, desperate and half-baked.

My hands trembled as I reached for a candle from the shelf, the darkness pressing in on me. I fumbled with a lighter, the flame catching on the wick, flickering to life. My breath was shallow, ragged. I slid the flashlight across the floor, the beam spinning wildly across the room in erratic arcs. The figure shifted, its hollow gaze fixated, following the frantic light until it settled in a corner.

A small reprieve. I was safe for a moment.

I took a deep breath, willing my heart to slow as I moved toward the stairs leading down to the lower part of the lighthouse. Each step was slow, deliberate, my body aching in protest. Knees cracking, back screaming. I held the candle carefully, the flame dancing, casting unsettling shadows against the walls.

I knew it saw me. It was following me.

With every flicker of the candle, the figure glided after me, its presence a sickening chill that crept down my spine. I led it deeper into the bowels of the lighthouse, my breath catching with each creak of the old stairs. The glow from its form cast long, menacing shadows, twisting in the narrow hallway, until we reached the storage room at the base of the staircase.

My hands shook as I set the candle on its tray inside the room, a prayer on my lips that the flickering flame wouldn't die. The figure followed, transfixed, hovering closer. I could barely breathe as I watched, my heart pounding in my ears.

I got lucky.

The figure moved toward the candle, its twisted form bathed in flickering light. I didn't hesitate. I slammed the heavy door shut, the metal hinges groaning as I bolted it, my hands trembling with adrenaline. The metallic clank echoed through the dark, sealing whatever this was behind inches of steel. I stumbled back, gasping for air, sweat trickling down my forehead.

I watched through the small window as the figure leaned over the candle, its hollow gaze fixated. It stayed there for what felt like an eternity, its glow dimming, almost breathing over the light. And then, with a sputter, the candle went out.

The silence was shattered by the figure's rage.

The door shook under its violent pounding, the heavy thud of its head against the wood reverberating through the narrow corridor. The stench of sulfur seeped through the cracks, and Ollie barked furiously above, the sound distant, desperate.

But it was trapped.

For now.

I didn't sleep the rest of the night.

The hours dragged on, the lighthouse unnaturally silent except for the occasional rattling from below. I sat with Ollie at my feet, the dawn creeping in wit...

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Previous

I opened my eyes, reading off the results before me with shock. The test designated it as blood, but it was so much worse… oh my god. It took a few seconds to hit me but I still managed to make it over to the trash can before puking my guts out into the garbage. The freshly downed alcohol burned its way back up like hellfire, making me wince and choke. Sho snatched away the paper before it could float to the ground, left behind while I was dealing with my own existential dread. I could see his face turn pale as the same results were read off.

”Human…” He whispered, scanning the paper again and again to see if he was imagining it. Desperately hoping that the results would change before his eyes. “The hell does this mean, Teller?”

I couldn’t even speak, just shaking my head as another heave of anxiety worked from my gut upward. It hit me then that we had another sample, the small, glowing organic material that Sandra took. I grabbed the tube from within the box, emptying it onto a slide to inspect it now. The spore was small, still giving off a faint blue light even out of the natural environment, but no bigger than the smallest grain of sand. Another slide was quickly pressed atop it, moving right under the scope to reveal whatever horrors we may have been down there with.

It wriggled under the pressure of the slide, trying desperately to escape. As I looked through, small pincers became visible on one end of it, with hundreds of small legs branching off in every direction, scurrying, stressed beyond its limits trying to get out of the new environment.

“It’s alive,” I muttered, moving over so Sho could take a look. “I don’t know what the fuck it is but it’s a living, biological organism.”

”Oh my god.” He whispered in return. Sandra sat in the corner, still out of it but now grabbing at her skin, complaining of an itch. Sho was trying to cry through bloodshot eyes, looking at me as he moved his eyes from the microscope. “We found life on Mars.”

”Great… fucking great.” I muttered, taking another drink and feeling it burn down into my empty belly. My mind was racing, not sure of if I would ever make it off this godforsaken desert planet. Sho continued staring through the microscope now, studying the creature before a thought came to him. As he grabbed a dropper and the remaining blood samples, opening the slide, I almost stopped him. It occurred to me that we’re about to do something bad. That we’ve discovered something that could inevitably kill us all. Yet I couldn’t stop him because of my own curiosity, and apathy surrounding my current situation.

“Look,” Sho told me, gesturing me closer to the microscope now. The thing inside the slide was absorbing the entire sample of blood Sho had just set on the slide, growing as it did. The blue glow pulsed as it absorbed more of the life force nearby, greedily sucking it all up as it grew like a damned tick.

“It won’t stop…” Sandra muttered, grabbing at her skin, pulling on it like she was trying to get something off of her. I noticed scratches beginning to show as her nails dug deeper into her arm. “The itching. It won’t go away. I’m so itchy it hurts.”

”What?” I asked, moving over to her. “What’s itching?”

”Everything…” She shuddered again, a cold sweat shining on her forehead. I could see her growing pale, eyes bloodshot like Sho’s. He was looking at me in fear, an understanding forming in his eyes as Sandra clawed at her skin more furiously. “Everything… crawling… AHHHHHH!”

She screamed as her nails finally tore through her skin, unleashing a small trickle of blood that began down her arms. Moving. The blood was… moving, pulsating down. As it dripped to the floor under her, it began to scatter, before disappearing, the luminous blue color pulsating, reflecting off the crimson blood like some fucked up police lights.

“Oh. Oh shit…” Sho said, grabbing the nearest sterile tray he could find and starting to beat at the micro-terrors skittering around the ground. It almost reminded me of that Mummy movie, all the scarabs bursting from skin… I shivered, fighting to keep my composure. These things were more like roaches, surviving the hardest hits from the tray as Sho fell to his knees, desperately smashing the tray into the ground to no avail as these things simply absorbed more blood, scrambling for every drop that fell from Sandra, bringing newcomers to the feast along with it. Sandra grew more pale, eventually beginning to shrivel from the blood loss, thousands of the things swarming around, feeding on her from the inside out. I was brought out of my stupor by Sho shouting once more, “TELLER! HELP!”

I don’t know what I was thinking, but I grabbed the bottle of whiskey off the table, took a lighter we used for some old bunsen burners nearby and getting ready, I heaved the full bottle back, getting ready to smash it toward the tile floor with all my might, “MOVE!”

He pulled away just in time, leaving the bloody tray rattling on the floor. The bottle hit the ground, exploding into glass and whiskey all over. I hit the lighter, getting ready to toss it right after, but before I could something began to happen.

Blue lights across the floor began to sputter out, the organisms stopping where they were and convulsing as the alcohol touched them. Everything that was touched by the spirits began to seize, staying where they were on the ground and thrashing in agony as they died. I could hear a small, guttural scream echoing out in chorus as they died, hundreds going silent one after the other. The occasional one would still crawl from one of Sandra’s wounds, falling to the ground into the drink before writhing in agony like those before it, dying on the floor.

”She’s dead.” Sho whispered, looking at Sandra’s drained corpse. “They… they killed her.”

”Sho, I need your blood.” I said, already grabbing a scalpel and holding it up to one of my fingers. God… please. I hesitated before making the incision, praying to whatever gods on Earth or Mars that I wouldn’t have those… things in me. Please…

The razor-sharp blade didn’t even hurt with all the adrenaline running through my veins. I grabbed a fresh slide, squeezing a drop out onto it. I closed my eyes as the other slide was put on top, loading it under the microscope and praying one more small plea before looking down.

“Oh thank fuck…” I breathed a sigh of relief, seeing no traces of the small creatures, just healthy swimming red and white cells. Clean blood. “Sho, come on. We need to be sure.”

”I know… I know. I’m ahead of you.” He said, grabbing a new scalpel and slide to take his own sample. The incision was made, his eyes closing with prayer like mine did just moments ago. We knew before we could get it under a microscope, before we could even get the slide on top. This blood was pulsating, a blue glow from millions of tiny dots almost made it look like there was glitter scattered into the crimson, mixing into a deep purple. He became more pale, “I’m going to be sick.”

”Don’t go on my yet.” I said, grabbing a bottle of isopropyl alcohol from a nearby cabinet. One drop on the slide and I put a top on it, sliding it under the scope to watch and see if my theory had any kind of hope.

It worked.

The spindly, glowing creatures were thrashing around on the slide, blue glow sputtering as they seized up just like the ones from Sandra. The blood was left alone, preserved by the alcohol for now as the creatures died off in huge numbers. My belief is fucking vindicated, there might be a way out of this after all. If I’m right, I might be able to save Shoto before he gets drained like Sandra.

The phone in the corner of the room began to beep, a signal coming in from wherever they were keeping an eye on us at. Running over, I was out of breath before they could even get a word out, making my demands as fast as possible.

“Strongest drinkable alcohol we have. I need it. Higher proof, the better. NOW!” I was almost yelling into the receiver, swear I could hear the guy on the other line retreating from the damn phone. All he gave me was a ‘yes sir’ before Pratt came on the line, voice gruff.

”The hell happened in there?” He asked, anger in his voice.

“Sandra’s dead. Sho might be too, if you don’t get me those drinks fast enough. You might want to have a few yourself, just in case.” I mentioned, pulling back for a moment and waiting for his answer, expecting him to offer some rebuttal to what was happening now.

“Okay. Do what you need to.” He mumbled. Something was off, something about how he was responding to the situation. He was too calm.

”Sir… you assigned this research point, right?” I asked, gauging my words carefully.

”That’s not a question for right now.” He shot back, hanging up the line.

“That bastard knows something.” I muttered, turning back to Shoto and seeing him begin to shake. Just in time, I heard the transfer drawer slam, two big glass bottles being shoved through in a bin. One whiskey like before, and one bottle of… holy shit, Everclear? No idea why anyone brought that up here when there were always better things, but who am I to judge? I uncapped it, shoving it to Sho, “Drink, don’t know how much, but just get drinking.”

”You sure about this?” He asked, grabbing the bottle and taking a huge gulp. His face contorted in disgust as the burn descended through his throat, down into his stomach. Assuming he was on a...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Various_Destinations on 2024-10-17 22:53:17+00:00.

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There are some things better left unfound. I did not always think this way. As a younger man I loved exploring abandoned and forgotten places. I loved finding old items that had been left behind by owners long since passed. That’s how I came across the red book.

I found it in a condemned hospital. I used to look up buildings scheduled for demolition so I could go poke around before they were forever lost. Bloody asking for something like this I was. I travelled for hours through rural countryside before I found myself in the outskirts of a sizable town. I arrived on a late Autumn day, and sized up the dilapidated building looming before me.

It was a Christian hospital, filled with crosses and portraits of Jesus staring down from the cobwebbed walls. The memory of the crucifix hanging above the chapel sticks in my mind; broken and upside down. That was where I found the red book, sitting upon the altar. I look back now at how foolish it was; how inviting it must have seemed for…

I remember the statue of Mary, seeming to bore a pleading stare into me as I took the crimson bound tome. I’m sure this was not the case… but when I think back to that moment, my memory presents her as weeping tears of blood.

I opened the book there. The words were written in what I recognized as Latin. I had seen many Christian artifacts before, but something about these pages felt… different. Heavier. My eyes skimmed the words, and though I could not understand them, I almost could not pull myself away.

The air become hazy, and I lost myself for a time. There was a whining in my ear, but when I finally shut the book, it vanished. I do not know what compelled me to take this item. No, that’s not true. I have always loved procuring these sorts of things. It has brought me trouble before. It will bring me trouble again.

But for this trouble, it had just begun. I took it home and placed it on a bookshelf in my living room. There it stayed, drawing my eyes whenever I walked by. I eventually took to opening it and gazing at the words that I could make no sense of. The whining would return, growing in intensity. When I focused on it, it started to sound like screaming.

Unsettled, I hid the book away in a locked chest. I tried to forget about it. I thought about discarding it, but something inside me reviled the idea. The more I tried to distance myself from it, the more present it became in my mind. The occasional whining in my ear began to trespass on my daily activities. At least, I told myself it was whining, like the tinny sound of tinnitus. But I knew it what it really sounded like. It was a faint screaming. A cacophony of voices all calling out together in agony. Then the nightmares began.

The same one, every night. A black figure with the head of a goat, only three eyes where each one should be. It would rumble to me in a language I did not understand. Then I would be presented with the horrors of hell. I would be nailed to a cross, forced to watch as thousands of bodies were mutilated and flayed before my eyes. I witnessed children ripped from their mother’s breast and eviscerated. I saw demons reveling in the violence and viscera. These things I saw every night in my sleep.

I began to see the figure in the shadows of my home. I heard the screams constantly, growing in intensity all the time. Despite this, I still hesitated to discard the book. I knew it was the source of my oncoming madness, but somewhere deep in my heart, I treasured it. I loved it.

Eventually I grew to understand what the beast told me in my dreams. It was always the same. “This is your eternity. Your soul is now mine.” One night, after such a dream, I awoke to find bleeding scratches torn across my face. Terror finally won over. I dug out the book, the bright and deep color of blood, and I took it to the nearest church. It was the middle of the night, but I had a penchant for getting into locked buildings. However, I found a conspicuously convenient unlocked door, and from there I brought the book to the chapel.

Looking back, I do not know why I didn’t throw away or destroy the book. Instead, I brought the red book to the altar, and placed it upon it. I looked up then, and I saw, clear through my haze, blood dripping down the face of the crucified Jesus above the altar.

I fled then, a sea of emotion inside of me. Shame and fear, mixed with a dark excitement. I could not place why at the time, but looking back, I fear the feeling was not my own. Two days later, the church burned, killing dozens inside. I do not remember where I was that day. There were clothes in my closet that reeked of gasoline.

That was years ago. I have since moved away. I still have the nightmares. I still hear the screams. I have told few of my story, and those who have heard it say that they too begin hearing the distant screams in the days following my tale. They tell me of the dreams of the beast.

I tell it now, against my own judgement. Against my own will. There is something within that desires this tale to be spread. Something that wishes for all to feel as I do. Desperate, terrified, and elated.