nosleep

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Wannabe_writer87 on 2024-09-16 13:46:43+00:00.

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Sometimes I doubt the events of that night so many years ago are any more then a half remembered dream, yet in my heart I know they are true. That particular night started out quite normally. Having just arrived home from grocery shopping I deposited the few bags I had upon the kitchen table and before I put my foodstuffs away, I realized that the morning feeding of the cat had been neglected . So I walked toward his dinner bowl calling out “Dinnertime H.P.” and I proceeded to fill his bowl as I waited for him to arrive. After his bowl was full H.P. still had not showed himself. So again I called out slightly louder this time “H.P. It’s time for dinner, get it when it’s fresh” then after about ten seconds the “thump thump thumping” that could only be his hungry trot came echoing from upstairs. Down the stairs and around the corner he walked into his room. As I looked down he glared up with that “Where have you been with my food” look that all cats seem to have and then strolled to his dish and began to eat.

The master fed, I decided that I had better put away my foodstuffs lest I forget. To this means, I began to deposit all of my items into their respective places. As the last can of soup was placed in the cupboard a low sound came from upstairs as if a heavy person was standing and had shifted weight. But it being an older house, and being in need of numerous repairs it was passed off as just another creak. I began to walk toward the den heading for the bookcase when the sound came again. This time I couldn't just pass it off, there was something in my house that did not belong.

There is only one room in the upstairs of my house, the bedroom. Believing it to be an animal that had wandered in through the window above my bed I decided it would be best to either chase said animal back out the window or, failing in that goal, catch the creature and release it back outside. After making a momentary stop in the utility room to grab my burlap bag that I keep for times like this, and another in the den to pick up the hunting knife just in case. I proceeded toward the bedroom. As I entered, H.P. rubbed against my leg. Not wanting whatever was in the room to harm him, I pushed him out of the door and quickly closed it behind me. Scanning across the room I noticed that the single window had indeed been left open, however there was no animal in sight. I did notice a peculiar odor I had not smelled in years, not since my wife dragged me to that New England town.

The smell of the sea, of fish that were not quite rotten but not far from it. My search began under the bed, and except for a few dust bunnies, nothing could be found. I moved to the closet, and again nothing out of place. Behind the dresser, I found the copy of Bentley Little's "The Collection" I had believed stolen the week before, but still no sign of any wild animals. Having realized that whatever had made the noise must have left through the window by which it had entered I stuck my head out of the window to look for tracks. As my hands laid on the window I drew them back quickly. A thin layer of slime covered it. Closer inspection revealed it was the source of the odor. Leaning out the window, being careful not to touch it, looking for what had left the slime. I could hear the splashing in the river of large catfish but sadly the time of night made seeing the ground below impossible. Deciding that all that mattered was that the animal had left I closed the window.

Upon opening the door and stepping out I was greeted with a bite on the ankle from H.P. and a look of “Why do you always leave me out of the fun stuff”. Dropping down to my knees and rubbing him generously behind the ears was all it took for forgiveness. Rising back to my feet I glared at my watch and observed that the hour hand rested just before 9. Seeing as I like to get in at least an hour of reading before I surrender to sleep, I set my course for the den bookcase.

Walking through the house with H.P. trotting along behind me, the memory of my late wife Jamie arose in my mind. Why the lord decided to take such a sweet and beautiful creature from this world I will never know. I plan on asking him in twenty years or so, maybe sooner. Arriving at the case and having my beautiful Jamie still on my mind, I picked her favorite book “Green Comes, And Green Goes”. I settled myself in my favorite reading chair, a simple wooden chair picked up one summer on vacation in Vermont. I began to read, however my mind quickly wandered back to thoughts of Jamie. I began to think about what had taken my Jamie away from me.

I sat remembering the day five years before when I discovered her in our bed. She had just returned home from a month long research trip to the hills of eastern Kentucky, a town called Rock Nest. Curse that damnable place. She was researching for her new book about the folk gods that still lurk in the black holes nestled in America. She told me she wanted to take a nap and half an hour later I found her with an empty bottle of sleeping pills in one hand and a note in the other.

All the note said was "Ka-ish waits in his lair for me dreaming.” At the time I did not know what it meant, except that my life had changed forever. I searched through her notes for days trying to make sense of it all. I learned more then I could ever what to know the Ancient Gods. Information about Ka-ish proved to be not as simply found. Only one harshly scribbled note revealed anything. I found a napkin tucked into the back of a notebook, it said only “The hills of Rock Nest worship a creature they call Ka-ish, son of the dark . I will speak to the elder tomorrow”

Before long I realized that I had sat there remembering my lovely Jamie for an hour without reading a single page. I closed the book, intending to return it to the case, when again the same noise sounded from the bedroom. Being sure that I had closed the window and knowing that H.P. could not of made such a noise, I became a sight nervous. Walking back toward my bedroom once again, having my knife at the ready just in case, I kept hearing the noise.

Upon reaching the door I paused a second to steel myself, and then opened the door. The same odor assaulted me, only stronger. Again I searched the room and again found nothing. Checking the window it was still shut tight. I jumped as something hit me in the back of my knee, spinning around ready to gut the foul creature. The face that greeted me was none other than H.P., I had forgotten to shut the door. “Damn it kitty, you trying to give me a heart-attack. If I die, I can't feed you.”

It was then that I saw it, I grabbed H.P. and ran out of the room and out of the house. I do not care to return to that house, what I saw that night has seen to that. For on the stand beside the bed sat our wedding photo with a note written in her hand stuck into the frame. Written on the note were these words “Now Ka-ish waits for you”. God save me, as I turned to flee the picture winked.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/ramslie on 2024-09-16 21:58:17+00:00.

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I am a lawyer.

Er, rather will have been a lawyer… pending the outcome of my disbarment hearing next week.

Before that happens, I have a story or two to get off my chest in the hopes that someone else will make better choices.

This all started when I was a public defender, not all that long ago. I won’t tell you which state I was licensed in but let’s just say the use of the death penalty was encouraged.

I was assigned such a case a few months back. I won’t go into detail, (1) because it’s grisly and (2) I don’t want any of you sleuths looking it up.

Like any other case, the first thing I did was visit my client. 

I’m not proud to admit it but this meeting was the last thing on my mind, just another box to check on my ever-growing to-do list. I had one thought and one thought only as I sat under those flickering fluorescent lights in the nondescript, beige-painted meeting room at the country jail: the smell of the toasted hoagies floating in through the cracked window from the truck stop diner up the road. 

I loved living rural but man do I miss having dining options. 

My daydreams of melted provolone and capicola were interrupted by the clinking of my client’s restraints as a guard shuffled him in.

He hadn’t even sat down yet before the guard started to rush out.  I stopped him, imploring that he take my client’s restraints off. Being handcuffed to the table was more than enough.

“He killed his whole family boss.”

My reply felt silly but it needed to be said, “allegedly.”

The guard shrugged and left anyway.

I turned to my client, hands in his lap, orange jumpsuit highlighted against the peeling paint behind him. For some reason, he smelled vaguely like a creek. 

Brushing off this intrusive thought, I started into my spiel and was quickly interrupted.

“I didn’t do it.”

I’m sure to none yinz surprise, I get that a lot.

“Mr. Ramirez, we’ll…”

“John.”

“Ok, John, we’ll get to all that.”

“No, I’m serious, I couldn’t’ve done it.”

I drew air quotes, “By ‘couldn’t’, do you mean you have an alibi? Verifiable or at least someone semi-reliable that could place you elsewhere?”

“Well no, I was home, but I just couldn’t’ve.”

I’m sure he could hear my internal sigh because he went on.

“You ever hear someone stranglin’ someone with one hand?” He brought his hands up to the table, resting them gingerly in front of me.

“Can’t strangle no one with this stump.”

Without revealing how creative some of my former clients could be, I’ll say this: I was skeptical at best.

So I asked my next question, “If not you, who?”

I was met with silence. 

“I’ll level with you John, it doesn’t look good, your outdoor cameras didn’t catch anyone coming or going other than you and later the police. Without someone else to point the finger at…”

The look of resignation on his face deepened. 

“It just couldn’t’ve been me.”

I told him I’d look into it, called the guard to collect him, and made my way out of the jailhouse. 

It was late afternoon at this point, a Friday, so I decided to stop by the crime scene and at least poke around as much as the police would let me. 

The keyless entry to my car beeped as I put my hand on the door but nothing happened when I pulled on the handle. Still locked. I muttered to myself, swearing for not having locked my car before coming inside. 

I plugged John’s address into CarPlay, a 30ish minute drive.

I pulled up to John’s lengthy, sloping, gravel driveway expecting cop cars or news trucks, after all, these murders supposedly happened last night.

But there was… no one. Police tape on the front door, sure, footprints and tire marks on the grass, oh yeah, but not a soul in sight.

I chalked it up to it being a Friday evening and continued on my mission.

The Ramirez’s house was odd. It was a true shotgun house, long and narrow like it had been dropped in our modest state straight from New Orleans. It was recently painted, sky blue, with a bright yellow front door and matching shutters adorning the small single windows pockmarking the facade. Small security cameras were mounted on the corners of the house. I couldn’t see the back from where I had pulled up. 

I parked at the end of the gravel drive. Stepping out of my car, I intended to first walk the perimeter of the house to find the rest of the cameras and establish if there were any blind spots, though I wasn’t hopeful. 

I hadn’t yet shut my door when my phone dinged. One text, all lowercase: “Garage.”

I had a brief flashback to my ex-wife passive-aggressively telling me I had left the garage door open.

I checked to see who had sent it “Maybe: unknown”. I clicked the contact, but no number appeared. Weird, I thought.

I slid my phone back into my pocket and set off around the house, trying to decipher the text. I found no garage on the back side of the house, only an adjoined wooden shed, no bigger than a walk-in closet. 

I had thought the camera footage covered the entire backyard but I didn’t recall the shed being present.

My palms were sweaty as I approached the shed, nervous for no other reason than the cryptic text I received on my arrival. I turned the tarnished brass handle and pushed… but the door wouldn’t budge. 

It was then that I noticed the hinges were on the outside, so I pulled and the door swung open without protest. 

Inside the shed was bare, light streamed in through a few dusty windows, a few shelves with forgotten paint cans, a threadbare rug covering the concrete floor, and what must have been a workbench along the back wall. 

Not realizing that I had been holding my breath, I let out a sigh and took another step into the room and onto the carpet… before I even knew what was happening I was tumbling.

The carpet had given way to a hole dug into the floor and I fell several feet onto my back. I blinked the stars out of my vision and physically checked myself to make sure nothing was broken.

I sat up, my breathing ragged and uneven. I flicked on my flashlight, barely cutting through the inky blackness. I noticed the rough, earthen walls, and the faintest hint of a musty odor.

I stood cautiously and spun my flashlight around the room, revealing a crude ladder nailed to one wall and a tunnel leading off in the opposite direction.

Obviously, I’m not some horror movie protagonist, so I took my chances with the ladder.

I climbed quickly, the ladder shaking with every step, each rung feeling like it could give way. At the top, I pushed against what I hoped was the shed’s floor, but it wouldn’t move. It was as if it had been secured from the outside.

Desperation gripped me. I pounded on the trapdoor and shouted, but no one answered. I pulled out my phone and tried to call for help, and was greeted with another cryptic text: “I’ll be here soon. Good luck.”

Distantly, I heard sirens. I cursed myself for ever coming out here. They grew louder, and my heartbeat quickened with every passing second. The sound was reassuring yet maddening because as much as I wanted to believe help was on the way, I was still trapped.

I pounded on the trapdoor once more, but it remained firmly shut. My flashlight flickered, casting eerie shadows across the walls of my makeshift prison. I knew that I’d be in real trouble if I couldn’t find my way out soon.

Then I heard it — a faint scuffling noise coming from the shed. Panic surged through me. Desperately, I climbed back down the ladder and moved over to the tunnel’s entrance. The tunnel was narrow, barely wide enough for me to crawl through. I squirmed along the dirt passage, my flashlight reaching just ahead of me.

As I moved, I heard the rungs of the ladder shaking behind me. My mind raced with possibilities, but none were comforting. 

Just as I reached a bend in the tunnel, my phone died, killing my flashlight, and plunging me into darkness. My heart pounded as the sound of scuffling grew behind me. I could hear breathing now, ragged and uneven.

Suddenly, a glimmer of light appeared in the tunnel ahead, moving rapidly toward me.

I pressed myself into the tunnel’s side, barely able to contain my panic. The figure came into view — a shadowy silhouette of a person, moving with alarming speed. I let out a scream.

The figure jumped and stopped, its headlamp casting a harsh beam that made the tunnel’s shadows dance wildly. I scrambled back, my hands scraping against the rough dirt as I retreated. 

The figure was close enough that I could make out a police uniform, but his face was obscured by the shadows of his hat. Relief flooded through me, mingled with confusion.

“Are you—“ I began, but the man held up a hand, signaling silence.

“Stay back,” he ordered, his voice low and terse.

I didn’t need convincing to stay still. The man’s headlamp revealed his hand gripping a walkie-talkie, and he seemed to be speaking to someone on the other end. His presence was reassuring, yet unsettling.

Footsteps echoed from the direction the firefighter had crawled, and I heard muffled voices. My heart leaped into my throat. 

The officer turned around, beckoning me to follow. As we moved, he explained in hurried whispers. “We’ve been tracking a suspect who uses these tunnels. He’s very dangerous. The texts you received were meant to lure you here. The officers are closing in, but you need to stay quiet.”

I nodded, momentarily forgetting about the scuffling I heard behind me. My throat was dry and my breaths came in shallow gulps. We reached a junction in the tunnel where the officer guided...

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Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1fihas4/what_being_an_attorney_is_actually_like/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/BroodjeMargarine on 2024-09-16 21:32:48+00:00.

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It’s always the same story with him since the girls’ birthday. He comes home from work, puts his stuff away, sits with me and the kids for about half an hour, and then he goes to his shed. I am stuck here doing all the housework, while working part time and trying to keep everyone fed and content. I’m so tired of it.

The intimacy is gone. The love is gone. Well, at least from my side it is. He doesn’t even kiss me when he gets home anymore, just the usual and quick goodnight peck. He gets up early every morning so I don’t get to speak to him then either. And even when he’s physically with me, he always seems so out of it. I’m missing my husband, while we live in the same damn house! This is insanity.

The last time I tried to talk about it he kept going on and on about how important his alone-time is for him. Sure, everyone needs time alone, but he goes in there around 3pm, and only comes out when dinner is ready. And to top it off, he goes back in there after dinner! He just leaves me alone with the kids. Entertaining them, feeding them, putting them to bed. They’re three six year old girls with never ending energy. It’s chaos all day for me, without a single break.

They always want to play with me. I can’t blame them, kids want attention from their parents. And I expected him to be a little more involved since he knew we were having triplets as soon as I did. But because daddy isn’t interested in them, they come to me. That’s okay. I just wish they would ever want to do something other than playing doctor. It’s always the same: I am the patient, my daughter Ariel is the doctor. The other two, Adena and Gabriella are the nurses. I have to lay down on the table, and some part of my body has to be amputated. They also need to take a lot of blood for tests and whatnot. They have very.. Broad imaginations. They’re good kids, but just a little too much for me at times. I love them dearly. They’re my little angels.

But today I was fed up. Something needed to change, now. It was very convenient for me that my husband was going to be home later than usual. I dropped the kids off at my mother’s place around 5pm. As I got home, I wasted no time and ran towards the backyard. Looking at the door I saw there were three locks on it. So I did what any pissed off woman would do, and got the bolt cutter from the basement. We had extra locks lying around somewhere, so I’d just replace them when I was done.

It was dark inside the shed, and the lamp wouldn’t turn on either. I guess the wires got too old. He didn’t even bother to tell me, he just put down some candles and left it at that. The lack of light gave me the creeps. I figured I would just open the curtains and let the daylight shine in. I didn’t bring a lighter and couldn’t be bothered to turn back. As I was walking on the creaking floorboards, I started questioning everything. Was he cheating on me? Am I asking too much? Doesn’t he love me anymore? The kids? Does he even care at this point?

I opened up the curtains and turned around to see.. Nothing out of the ordinary. Well, apart from the candles everywhere. Then I started pulling the drawers of my late father’s workbench open. There was a book in there, it looked old and was pretty damaged. Inside were a ton of vague pictures of goats and stars, with text in a language I didn’t recognize. A few pages had been ripped out, and while observing the torn edges i accidentally cut my finger. As the blood poured on the page I was cussing myself out for being this stupid. Now he’d know I have been in here, and I had a gut feeling he wouldn’t appreciate me snooping through his stuff. As i put the book down however, the text started changing and lighting up. Not only that, but the walls and floors started.. pulsating? There was this dark red hue, and it seemed to move around slowly.

As I backed away from the wall, the pages of the book started turning rapidly. There was no wind in here. I wasn’t touching the book. As I was trying to process this, I realized I needed to get the fuck out of here. I bolted for the door, but it slammed shut in my face. I screamed for help, banged on the door and tried to force it open when the corner of my eye I saw something. The candles had turned on. Not all of them, just the six which were standing on the workbench. The book’s pages had stopped flipping so furiously, and as I slowly moved towards it I saw the text glow in a sparkling gold.

“The sixth of June, at directly 6 hours past noon, the offering shall be completed. If not, thou shall lose everything thy possess, even thy soul.”

My mind started racing, and that’s when I heard him behind me. I didn’t even hear him coming into the shed, but all I knew was that I needed to get the hell out of here. “It’s not what you think”, he said. “Well what is it then, Levi?” “I believe I owe it to you to tell you my full name at least. I’ve always used a nickname in day to day life, since everyone would be onto me in a second if they knew..” I stood in front of the workbench as he spoke to me, looking at me with these dark eyes i had never seen on him before. “My name is not Levi, darling. I am Leviathan. And today, after all these years, will be the day I finally get back at God for taking away my body.” I couldn’t quite comprehend what he was telling me, and honestly would have thought he was out of his mind if it weren’t for the color shifting walls and the book turning it’s own pages. “.. Wh- What do you mean? Levi what is all this shit, what are you doing in here??” “It’s alright darling,” he shushed, “For you will be by my side forever after I finish the offering. I have made sure of that. What happens to the girls however, I do not know. But I heard Lilith was feeling lonesome, so I can only assume she will treat them as her own.”

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/MPZ1968 on 2024-09-16 23:00:42+00:00.

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That night was like many others before… a cool breeze coming off the ocean, embers from the campfire floating through the air like fireflies, the feeling of the warm sand between our toes, and the soothing sounds of the waves crashing.

It was truly magical, well, at first it was.

We were five newly graduated teenagers, enjoying our last midnight party at the beach… Tower Beach… or as we used to call it, “Shower Beach”, simply because it was the only beach within a fifty mile radius to have an actual shower facility on sight.

Anyway, Tower Beach is named after the two fire control towers that sit about 30 yards from the shore line, built to defend the Delaware Bay and River, from a potential German attack during World War II, although no shots were ever fired.

Now that we’ve had our little history lesson, let’s continue with the story, shall we?

Like I said, we were 5 older teenagers, enjoying one last get together at the beach, before heading off to college, joining the Armed Forces, or “selling our soul” to “The Man”, and becoming a working class dog.

That’s a Rick Springfield reference, you know, that old 80’s Pop Star.

No! Ok! Never mind.

Where was I? I can’t remember shit! Getting old sucks! Um! Uh! Ok! Got it.

Donna and Stacy were heading off to college in different states. Donna was suppose to start the next week, and Stacy the week after.

They never made it.

Jason had just signed up to be a Marine, as he filled out all the paperwork, did well on his practice ASVAB test, as well as his official ASVAB test, passed the physical, took his oath, passed his drug test, and was scheduled to report to MEPS in four days, then off to boot camp from there.

He didn’t make it.

Jordan and I were joining the overworked and underpaid work force. Jordan was supposed to start in the Meat Department at Food Lion on Route 8 the next Monday.

He didn’t make it either.

I got a job at ACE Hardware starting on the same day, and I’ve been there ever since.

I was the only one who survived that night.

It was Saturday, the first week in September, of the year 1986.

I’m only remembering what happened now, because I just heard on the news, a little while ago, that the State just finished remodeling one of the Towers at Tower Beach, and it was now open to the public.

The memory, well, the nightmare, of what happened that night, immediately came rushing back.

It took me over 3 years, and a whole lot of “couch time”, to put it all behind me, and to let go of the guilt that had consumed me, for being the only survivor.

But, it looks like I’ll be calling my therapist again shortly.

Damn News!…

Anyway, Jason had three-wayed Jordan and I, earlier that afternoon, and asked if we wanted to have one last get together at “Shower” Beach that night.

I had nothing better to do, and Jordan said he didn’t feel like listening to his mom bitch about his long hair, and choice of music.

He listened to Heavy Metal, hell, we all did.

The girls listened to the poppy radio friendly stuff, while us guys listen to the underground non mainstream kick ass stuff.

I still listen to it today… Metal Rules.

Anyway, Jordan called Stacy, and I called Donna. They agreed as well.

We had all been friends since 6th grade. We were all in the same class.

One day the lights went out at school.

Jason and I started telling ghost stories to each other, during the blackout, (we’d been friends since 3rd grade.) that’s when Jordan, Donna, and Stacy all joined in, and we’ve all been friends ever since… well, until that night…

That night… I lost all my friends.

After several calls back and forth with each other, we decided to meet up at Jason’s house at 7 p.m., and take Jason’s van to the beach.

I arrived about 6:50. Donna and Stacy were already there. Jordan showed up a little after 7, saying that his car wouldn’t start, and he had to borrow his mom’s station wagon.

We all piled into Jason’s van, after he loaded up some large pieces of firewood, and some sticks from his yard.

We loaded the beach chairs, the boom box, and the cassettes that the girls brought with them.

We left his house around 7:10.

We stopped off at Wawa and got some snacks, a bottle of lighter fluid, and some matches.

Wawa is a convenient store, for those of you not from this area.

We then hit Larry’s Liquor’s and got a bag of ice, one of those cheap styrofoam coolers, and a few cases of Keystone beer. (Courtesy of Jason’s fake ID.)

Man, that was the best tasting beer back in the day, and it was cheap.

Anyway, we also got a 4 pack of wine coolers for Donna, (She wasn’t a big drinker, and agreed to be the designated driver, just in case.)

Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Wine coolers are still alcohol.”, and you would be correct in that statement.

But in all my time of knowing Donna, I had never seen her drink more than two, at the most, and that’s well below the alcohol level for it to be considered Drunk Driving.

I put the ice in the cooler, put some beer, and the wine coolers in there, closed it up, and put it in the van.

Anyway, we left Larry’s Liquors and headed to the beach about 8 o’clock.

It usually started getting dark around 8:30ish, and would be almost fully dark by the time we made the hour long drive there.

We were coming from Dover, in case some of you live in this state

We arrived at the beach about 9, and I immediately sensed that something was wrong.

There was no moon in the sky when I looked out one of the back windows, which was really weird, because there had been on the way down.

The sky got real dark, as soon as we pulled into the spot in the woods, where we always parked the vehicle, or vehicles we were in, since the parking area was closed and blocked off by a large metal gate about 30 feet away from where we parked the van.

The beach was accessible by a path that led through the trees.

The only light around was from the two security lights shining dimly on the empty parking lot.

We all then exited the van.

“Isn’t it strange that the moon just disappeared, You Guys?”, I asked.

They all looked up at the sky.

“So what! It’s probably just behind some clouds or something, Man!”, Jason responded.

“Yeah! That could be. But it happened all at once, like someone turned off a light switch, not gradual like it should have, if that was the case.”, I said in return.

“Maybe it’s a fast moving cloud, Man. I don’t know. Who cares? Let’s party!”, he said.

I just looked at him funny.

“That is weird!”, Donna said looking at Stacy.

“Yeah, it is!”, she said, agreeing with Donna.

“Don’t worry, Stacy! I’ll protect you!”, Jordan chimed in, and tried to put his arm around Stacy’s shoulder.

“You wish!”, Stacy replied snidely, pushing him away.

You see, Jordan had the hots, Um! I mean… had feelings for Stacy ever since 7th grade, something about a dodgeball game and gym shorts, I don’t remember.

But she always shot him down.

“Are we just going to stand here, and talk about the damn moon, or are we going to rock out and PARTY!”, Jason said, screaming out “Party” singsongish at the end.

“He’s right, Man! We came here to have fun. Let’s get this party started.”, Jordan said, grabbing the beach chairs, as Jason grabbed the firewood, the sticks, and some old newspaper ads that were laying around in the van.

I grabbed the cooler.

Stacy grabbed the boom box, the lighter fluid, and the matches.

Donna grabbed the handful of cassettes that she brought with her.

We all then started up the path that led to the beach.

Jason went first, then Donna, then Stacy, then Jordan, then me.

The light from the parking lot giving way, as we moved through the trees, and into complete darkness.

Jason stopped walking, put down the wood and sticks and said, “Wait here, you guys! I got a flashlight in the glovebox, I’ll be right back!”, then jetted past us, leaving us there, in complete darkness.

Something rustled in the trees, scaring us all.

Donna screamed a little, “What was that?”, she said nervously.

“I don’t know!”, Jordan said, “But it sounded big!”

“Jason! Hurry the fuck up! It’s creepy out here!”, Stacy yelled.

Suddenly, there was a low scratching sound, intensifying as it did, reaching almost a Fever pitch. A small beam of light then came from behind us, we all turned around.

“Jason… Jason! Is that you?”, I asked.

The light was moving sporadically, up and down, and all around.

The light was getting brighter as it came closer.

Since we were all holding things in our hands, except Donna, she had one hand free. She raised it ti shield her eyes from the light. The rest of us just squinted.

Suddenly, there was a sinister laugh, which sounded muffled, making it even scarier.

Stacy screamed.

The light shot down quickly, then shot up to the sky.

In the light was a face, which tilted slowly to the right.

We all screamed.

“Gotcha!”, the face said laughing, as the light was moved away.

It was Jason, waving it around and holding the light underneath his chin, being the asshole that we knew he could be.

“What the Fuck, Man!”, I yelled.

You’re a fucking asshole!”, Donna said.

“Dick!”, Stacy remarked.

“You scared the shit out of me, Man. But that was a good one.”, Jordan said.

Stacy then punched him in the arm.

“Ow!”, Jordan said, holding his arm and grimacing.

“C’mon Guys, I couldn’t resist!”, Jason said.

“Something moved in the trees while you were go...

---

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/googlyeyes93 on 2024-09-16 22:05:44+00:00.

---

Every small town has its own little quirks, legends, shit like that. Blackshear isn’t any different, coming straight from a near lifelong resident, and there are plenty of weird things that you learn to not mess with early on. Unfortunately, I was a stupid-ass kid at one time, and my stupid-ass friends enabled a lot of things that, in hindsight, should have gotten us killed.

Of course, we probably deserved it. We were pretty mischievous back in the days before we had the money to do anything and had to make our own entertainment. It didn’t take long to learn our lessons about what was safe and what wasn’t, though.

The first thing you’ll need to know is that Blackshear is a small town in the heart of Southeast Georgia. The old Okefenokee swamp is right nearby, a bunch of old trainyards mean there’s always something rolling through, but otherwise it’s a tiny place, all things considered. Plenty of old buildings along the main street, pretty small population, and definitely still learning to leave the antiquities of the south behind. Especially when I was growing up, because being a queer kid who didn’t know much about who they were wasn’t easy there.

That’s what led me to my little friend group. Evie, Nick, Avery, Chris, and a few others like Erin and Sarah. Other than Chris and Nick, we were all in the same graduating class of 2012. Nick was a grade below us, and Chris was my best friend and neighbor who was about two years older. All amazing people, but we didn’t always make the best decisions when it came to self-preservation.

One of our favorite places to hang out was the park. It wasn’t much, just a small playground, a couple of picnic tables, and a swing set. But it was right smack in the middle of town, easy enough for all of us to meet up with the most minimal of transportation. Which was a good thing because I was the only one with a damned car, and everyone else was a freeloader. Nonetheless, every Friday after school got out, and even after graduating, we would all meet up to just shoot the shit and let off steam from the week. Then we would figure out where to go from there, often staying out until the morning hours despite having work the next day.

Right next to the park is one of the town’s most famous landmarks- the old Hanging Jail. That’s what everyone called it, at least. It was finally made a historic landmark back in 2020, with the state of Georgia even putting money forward to restore and maintain it. Though I don’t know if they would have done that if they knew what was in the place.

I’ve had two experiences here. One as a small kid, only ten years old. The next was nearly a decade later at nineteen.

Before I knew what it was, my stupid self just thought it was a jail cell suspended in the air. Yeah, the real thing is definitely much worse.

This place isn’t huge. It was built in 1894, brick and steel that’s still there today, though in much worse shape. It’s two stories, with the bottom being holding cells and the jailer’s desk. The top floor was where it got the reputation from. I’m including one of the historical pages on it so you can get a better picture, but there’s a cell up on the top floor for the more long-term occupants, and one solitary tower that juts out higher than the rest of the building. That’s the interior gallows.

One small, white door opens up to what amounts to a very toll closet. It extends above the jail, a noose hanging from the ceiling, and a drop down from the initial door. The idea was that any criminals deserving of the noose would walk through their final door with the rope on their neck, dropping into the empty space below. Then, the jailer and everyone else could avoid seeing the terror in the condemned person’s eyes by just shutting the door until the deed was done. Impersonal and effective, the American way.

Granted, there was never a hanging recorded in the entire history of the jail, which was shut down in favor of a larger police department right across the road and a separate jail just down the highway in the mid-1900s. Then the place was allowed to fall into disrepair over the years, with broken windows and rotting boards becoming the trademark of it. Despite all that, nobody ever put forward to take the place down, and the town continued to evolve as it decayed in the center, gathering graffiti and dust.

Now, with all that in mind, even without any hangings actually happening in it, you’re about to say ‘What the fuck’? Because the school system here has one hell of a way of teaching history.

In third grade, we took a “local civics” field trip. What that meant was basically taking a bus down to the courthouse on Main Street and making our way down from there. We went into the courthouse, saw where the cases were heard, visited the police department, the post office, then stopped off for sack lunches in the park before heading back to school. Overall, pretty boring for a bunch of kids who just wanted to trade Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

Now, I don’t believe that the teachers wanted to fuck with us, but they definitely wanted to give us a scare considering it was early October at the time. Actually it was the day after my birthday, now that I think about it. God, that just makes it worse in hindsight. Happy birthday, have some childhood trauma!

So one of the last stops on the tour was a piece of Blackshear history- the fuckin’ Hanging Jail. Now, seventy ten year old kids in an old, rotting building doesn’t seem like the best idea to me now at thirty years old, but hey, it was 2003, shit was weird. They paraded us into the small first floor, the old police chief accompanying us in and telling us the history of the place. The old cells were rusted, and the smell of mold is the most prominent memory I have of the place. Sebastian, one of my best friends through middle school, was joking around about something stupid, but all I can remember was the chill when we entered.

It wasn’t even cold out, we were barely into what we refer to in the south as “Fallse” or False Fall, where the temperature starts to cool off to a lovely seventy-five degrees high instead of the feeling of sweat on Satan’s ballsack that permeates most of the year. Still, when we stepped into the hanging jail I felt my bones chill, despite how warm it was. There was no reason for it either, considering this place was so old there was no ventilation other than the broken windows, with heat and mosquitoes coming and going as they pleased.

We listened to the little spiel of the chief before they led us upstairs, which again, seventy ten year old kids in a rotting jail that wasn’t structurally sound on the best days was certainly a choice. There, the chief told us about what they used the gallows for (again, we were TEN) and opened the door to the chute so we could see.

Now, I don’t know if the noose was left up intentionally, but good lord it was swinging around like there was a cyclone going in that closet. The next few minutes are something I still haven’t forgotten two decades later.

”…so when someone would get hung, they would close the door after they push them in. Then, they would just go about their business for the rest of the day, and take them down later!” Chief said, miming pushing someone in before slamming the creaky door shut. Then, as he talked about coming back for them later, he opened the door again.

There, now slowly swinging back and forth was a body, neck bulging out from around the old, moldy rope that was suspending it. He was probably middle-aged, balding with wisps of dark brown hair falling over his face and ears. His mouth was open in a scream that didn’t have any air to make it audible, blood crusted around where the rope was digging into his pale blue skin.

The part I remember the most though is his eyes. Bulging out of his skull against the pale face, a disgusting yellow with red fissures jutting from the edges, threatening to pop and escape their prison. I’m sure he was supposed to be dead, considering the state of his skin tone and the crusting blood, but I saw his hands and feet jerking sporadically, like he was still trying to escape his damnation.

I started crying right then and there, freaking the hell out and melting down. I swear, the next week didn’t allow me to think of anything else. Every time I closed my eyes, the only thing I could feel was his bulging eyes staring me down, almost looking right through me through time.

Nobody knew why I was melting down. One of the teachers had to walk me out to get some fresh air, and I was almost to the point of puking from nausea. I thought I was going fucking crazy at only ten years old because nobody else seemed to notice the hanging corpse when chief opened the door. My teacher called my mom to come pick me up when we got back because I was… I don’t know, terrified doesn’t even seem to do it real justice when it comes to how I felt in the moment.

I told my mom about what I saw and she just shrugged it off as an overactive imagination, not that she was happy about the school taking us in there in the first place though. I had nightmares all night, thinking that the body was going to come get me at any moment, or that I would open my closet to get dressed the next morning and be face to face with him. But nobody believed me.

The next morning was one of the first times I ever spoke to Evie. She came up to me a...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/EclosionK2 on 2024-09-16 20:31:27+00:00.

---

The park was supposed to release a statement about the third kid going missing, but because there wasn’t quite enough evidence that it happened on company grounds, technically they didn’t have to.

So they didn’t.

Obviously, it would’ve been a PR nightmare if news spread that three kids in total had gone missing at the theme park.

I felt terrible for the missing kids; all the employees did. But no one wanted to cause a stir because the park employs about 70% of the people who live on this tiny island.

That’s right, the theme park is confined to a tiny Japanese island and has become the de facto economy here.

No tourism means no pay for anyone.

Being the only Westerner on staff, I really didn’t want to be the self-righteous white dude who thought he could solve everything.

But of course, Aiko (my girlfriend who got me the job in the first place) had other ideas.

Ideas that led me to uncover, well… a horrific conspiracy involving kidnapping, bodysnatching, and basically unexplainable shit that I think is probably aliens.

If you already don’t believe me, you can stop reading. 

I won’t judge you.

But regardless of what you think, I will lay out everything as it happened chronologically, as clearly as I can.

Perhaps after reading this, you might be willing to get involved. You could help me find Aiko.

I hope she’s still alive.

***

I was an English teacher in Tokyo between 2022 and 2023, and that’s where I met Aiko, who was the receptionist at my school.

She was a smart, hard-working girl, who always wore different eyeglasses with cartoons on the rims. Toward the end of my employment, I gathered enough courage to convince my pasty self to ask her out on a date. 

Somehow (to my very own welcome surprise) this first date turned into several more dates.

I don’t want to delve too deep into our relationship, but you should know that I liked her a lot. I probably would have told Aiko that I loved her if everything continued as normal.

If you can read this Aiko: I love you.

Aiko was the only person I had met who could speak English as well as me (and liked all the same anime as I did.) She was also the one who invited me to work at the summer job on her hometown island. 

A job at the theme park. For our purposes I will call it: ベーカリーパーク (Bakery Park). I’m not going to reveal the actual name or location of the park because I don’t want to disparage the island locals. 

It’s a very peculiar place. 

It started as just a tiny bake shop which sold delicious cakes made by hand, but after a news article in the 80s, the popularity blew up, and like all things in Japan, the bake shop created adorable cake characters to increase the appeal for children and families.

Soon, staff wore the cake characters as mascot costumes, and following that, they built the merry-go-round and pirate ship ride. One thing led to another, and now we have every Tokyo locals’ favorite little secret.

Aiko and I started working in May 2023 as general laborers. Which meant we were greeting people, cleaning areas, doing the recycling, that sort of thing.

I really enjoyed working there for the first two months because I was able to practice my Japanese in public, and the summer weather was amazing.

But then the third kid went missing. 

The third kid in like a span of six months apparently. There was a real concern that could be felt among the staff, people were worried that there was some kind of serious human trafficking, or serial kidnapping going on.

But we’d all been explicitly instructed to let the island authorities take care of it. We could not let word spread among the guests.

So I did as instructed and didn’t get involved. Why ruffle feathers when there were professionals to handle something right?

Well, Aiko saw things differently.

***

“I'm going to try and find him,” Aiko told me one fateful evening.

“What?” 

“I'm going to try and find the third kid.”

We were in the employee mess hall. One of the big perks of working here is that everyone ate together at the end of the day.

“They already searched for the boy,” I said. “They're combing through the forest now.”

“I don't think he’s in the forest,” Aiko whispered. “I think he's stuck in the heap beneath the pirate ship”.

Beneath Bakery Park’s pirate ship ride was a ‘sea’ of blue tarps, which were actually covering tons of old props and discarded junk.

“Why would he go in there?”

“He's a kid. I dunno. Maybe he thought that's where he could find a rare flavor.”

I scoffed, but it could have been true. All the kids with their phones were constantly looking for cartoon nutmeg and vanilla sticks to complete their virtual cakes on Bakery Park Hunt™. (It was the park's trendy AR app riding on the coattails of Pokémon Go.)

“We're not supposed to look for the kid, Aiko. It's going to make everyone uncomfortable.”

“That’s why I’m going at midnight,” she said. “Are you coming or not?”

***

Of course I had to join. 

On top of everything else, it was Aiko who was allowing me to stay at her aunt’s cottage on the island. 

The last thing I wanted to do was to return to Aiko’s aunt and give some excuse of where Aiko was supposed to be.

I was a bad liar in English. And in Japanese, I was truly god-awful.

***

Somewhere around 11:30 PM we snuck our way past the front gates, skirting around all of the security cameras. All of the animatronics looked creepy. 

The normally cheery Chef Choco-Ducky, who would blow bubbles at the entrance, was now this dead, scary statue, leaking soap water from its mouth.

And the pastry-pig guy (I always forgot his name) who would usually give friendly waves to everyone, instead had his arms frozen in a pleading prayer, as if to say: Help me. Please. Don’t leave me here.

We stuck to the shadowy rear of the attractions until we came across the pirate ship in question. It was a massive boat, attached only by a single swinging joint above the blue tarp ocean. 

Aiko lifted one of the tarp flaps and directed me inside. It was a massive crawl space, about the height of a child. I could see why she thought this was where the kids would go hunting for ‘flavors’ on their phones.

My flashlight illuminated many rows of support beams, the kind you would find under bleachers. I could see old food carts laying on their side, and wooden signs that said たこ焼き (Takoyaki) and 唐揚げ (fried chicken). 

“Okay, let’s stick together and cover the whole area.” Aiko said. “We'll go row by row.”

“Let’s do it.” I gave my standard Western thumbs up.

We checked under every shadowy nook.

There were tons of cut outs of smiling mascots, and old cardboard stands of desserts to peek under, but all we found were cobwebs.

The kid’s name was Kaito, so we went by each row calling: “Kaito-kun, kikoemasu ka?” Kaito-kun, can you hear me?

“Kaito-kun, minna sagashiteimasu!” Kaito-kun, everyone is looking for you!

We searched most of the place and didn’t find anything.

 That is until Aiko pointed out a hole in the tarp. It was child-sized and led outside towards the entrance of the Confection Showroom.

“Could the kid have wandered in there?” I asked.

“We have to check.”

The Confection Showroom was slated to open a while ago, but Covid delayed it. And now the park’s been struggling to compete with inflation, so it put the Confection Showroom and other future attractions are on hiatus, even if they were partially built.

Aiko tried her keycard at the door, but it wouldn't work. We circled the hexagonal building and found a side entrance— it was also closed.

“Guess not,” I shrugged.

“Wait. Let’s check for flavors.”

Aiko took out her phone and opened Bakery Park Hunt™. 

On her screen appeared a crappily animated candy cane. It was dancing on the moonlit gravel by Aiko’s feet.

“Peppermint!” 

She proceeded to tap her screen, collecting bits and pieces of the candy.

“So is that … a rare flavor?”

“Yes! Usually only obtainable on Christmas.” She followed the cane as it bounced behind weeds and circled the building. “It shouldn’t even be here right now.”

I followed skeptically. “So the app is glitching?”

She tapped her screen, chipping away at the flavor. The biggest reason Aiko liked to work here was for the novelty of course. Sure the pay was mediocre, and sure the park was run down, but the board still released new interactive desserts each season, as well as new characters. If you could get past the sun-bleached décor and occasional graffiti, you could see there was a lot of passion in creating a world that kids could enjoy.

“Look! He’s climbing the door!” Aiko showed me her phone, and I could see the virtual candy cane skitter up the front entrance door. It phased through solid metal.

I went up and tried pushing on the handle. This time the door opened. Woosh. 

“Woah. Did you know that was going to happen?”

Aiko checked her phone. “No idea. I had heard the app used to interact with the park. But this is the first time I've seen it.”

Before going inside, I grabbed a big stick to wedge in the door, to make sure we didn’t get locked in.

We both entered side by side, painting the darkness with our yellowy flashlights. In the middle was a lowered floor composed of LED panels arranged into a circle, all facing upwards. Guard rails surrounded this floor, leading you around the circumference.

Aiko aimed her phone along the perimeter. There were little plastic displays of cakes, quiches and statues of Chef Choco-Ducky.

“That pe...

---

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/myrasam79 on 2024-09-16 18:14:30+00:00.

---

About seven and a half years ago, my sister Sarah told me she wanted to adopt a dog, I didn’t think much of it. I thought it would be good for her, something to lift her spirits after a rough break up with her fiancé. And plus, she used to have this rescued dog Vince and loved every moment of his company, so it wasn’t surprising when she mentioned she wanted to adopt another one. She said she wanted to check out the local animal shelter to find “the one.” Naturally, I agreed to tag along, not realizing at the time how strange things would become.

You see, my car AC condenser broke a couple of weeks back, and I hadn’t had the chance to get it fixed. So, we drove to the shelter with my raggedy-ass car, windows down, elbows out. The sun was high up, and after several days of rain, humidity was at its peak. Pits were sweating like crazy, if I had balls they’d be sticking to my thighs. I was just complaining the whole way through on an hour and a half drive.

Finally, we got to the shelter, the place was a bit rundown, with faded signage and peeling paint, but it was the closes one we got. Sarah’s been excited, talking about different breeds and how she wanted to adopt a dog that “needed a second chance,” a dog that might not be chosen by most people.

Inside, the shelter was filled with incessant barking and whining, paired with the sweet, sweet aroma of the outside dog smell. The air was heavy with the scent of wet fur, disinfectant, and something musty that seemed to seep into the walls. A tired-looking volunteer greeted us with a humdrum hello, Sarah enthusiastically jumped in front of me and introduced her name politely, with excitement written across her face. She told him she’s looking to adopt a dog, so he led us down the rows of kennels, where dogs of all shapes and sizes wagged their tails, some barking with excitement, others looking up at us with forlorn eyes.

It was near the back of the shelter that Sarah stopped. There, sitting quietly in a kennel, was an older, medium-sized dog with salt-and-pepper fur. His eyes, dark and human-like, gave me the chills. I tried to contain myself, but couldn't help letting out a stifled laugh. She gently slapped me on my arms and whispered, “stop it.” Sarah lowered down to its level and greeted it softly, almost a whisper, she goes, “hi, big guy.” The dog’s weird eyes locked onto hers almost immediately. He wasn’t barking or jumping around like the other dogs. Instead, he sat there, still and composed, as if he already knew she was the one who would take him home.

"This is him," Sarah said softly, her voice full of certainty.

The dog’s name was Charlie, according to the small plaque on his kennel. The volunteer explained that Charlie had been there for a while. Most people passed him over because of his age; he was somewhere around eight or nine years old, and while his health was stable, he didn’t have the energy or youthfulness that many people wanted in a dog.

I guess Sarah didn’t care about any of that. She fell in love with him instantly, and there was no doubt in her mind that Charlie was coming home with her. After filling out the necessary paperwork and gathering some supplies, we left the shelter with Charlie in tow. He sat quietly in the backseat on the ride to his new home, his eyes half-closed, occasionally looking out the window as if he knew he was headed toward a new chapter of his life.

Over the next week, Sarah and Charlie became inseparable. The dog, despite his age, seemed to brighten up her home. He was sweet and calm, just as he had been at the shelter, following her from room to room, his tail wagging gently. She sent me pictures every day, grinning as she showed off her new companion lounging on the couch, sleeping at her feet, or sniffing around the backyard. I couldn’t help but feel happy for her. She’d found exactly what she was looking for in Charlie.

A week later, I decided to visit her place. Sarah had a business trip out of town for a couple of days and had asked if I could check in on Charlie while she was gone. I agreed, of course. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time—just feeding the dog, making sure he had enough water, and letting him out into the backyard when needed.

When I arrived, the house was quiet, and Charlie was lying on his bed in the living room, just as calm as ever. But as soon as I stepped into the room, I noticed something unsettling. Charlie’s eyes were fixed on me in a way that felt different from before. He wasn’t just looking at me—he was staring, his dark human-like eyes following every movement I made. It was unnerving, to say the least.

I shrugged it off, assuming he was just curious about the new person in the house. I greeted him with a “Hey buddy,” but he just continued to give me that unsettling poker face. As I sat down on the couch, Charlie let out a low, guttural growl from where he was lying. It wasn’t loud, but it was enough to make my skin prickle. He seemed to be fixated on the spot I was sitting in, and I quickly realized it’s probably his “spot” on the couch. Feeling a little silly, I scooted over, giving him his “spot.”

Charlie got up from his bed, he then climbed up onto the couch, settling into the spot I had vacated, but his demeanor didn’t relax. Instead, he started barking—loud, sharp barks that echoed through the living room. His years-stained canine teeth, full on display, letting me know he ain’t playin’. I stood up quickly, startled by the sudden aggression. This wasn’t the sweet, calm dog I’d seen before. Something about him felt off, different. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but a strange unease settled over me.

Rather than dealing with his aggressive behavior, I decided to leave. I filled his water bowl, left plenty of food, and made sure the back door was locked but left the doggy door open so he could go outside if he needed to. I figured it would be easier to check on him the next day. I didn’t need to be there if he was going to act like that. On my way home, I left a message to Sarah’s phone. Yes, I tattled on her dog. I told her that Charlie was acting weird and all, I figured that he might not be feeling well.

The next day, I returned to my sister’s house, hoping everything would be back to normal. But when I opened the door, I was greeted by chaos. The house was a mess, a pigsty. The floors were covered in trash, and the unmistakable smell of dog feces hit me like a wave. It was everywhere, in every corner, as if Charlie had completely lost control. And then there was the pantry, which I checked and made sure it was closed when I left the day before. The door was wide open, and the shelves looked ransacked. Sarah had a box of MREs—Meals Ready to Eat—that she kept for emergencies, and they were scattered across the floor, torn open, and half-eaten. But the dog food, which sat in a bag right next to the pantry, had been left untouched. What struck me as even more bizarre was that the pantry has a door knob, I can’t imagine how Charlie’s dog paw turning the knob.

I stood there, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Now, before you ask, yes, I checked everywhere to see if there were any signs of breaking and entering. Everything was locked. And the only way in and out was the doggy door. Unless the thief was a small child it’s possible. Charlie, meanwhile, sat in the middle of the room, his eyes once again locked onto mine. That same eerie stare. He didn’t bark this time, didn’t growl. He just watched me as I cleaned up the mess. His gaze, never wavering. Still gives me the heebie-jeebies, thinking about it.

After cleaning up the house, I filled Charlie’s bowl with food and water again, left the doggy door open, and got out of there as quickly as I could. I blocked the pantry door with one of Sarah’s dining chairs to make sure it would stay closed. The entire situation was starting to make my skin crawl, I could still picture Charlie’s weird fucking stare, his human-like eyes. On the drive home, I called Sarah again, telling her what had happened. I expected her to be concerned, but instead, she just laughed.

“You’re being ridiculous,” she said. “He’s an old dog. He probably just got confused.”

Confused or not, something about Charlie wasn’t sitting right with me. But my sister seemed unconcerned, and she told me she’d be back the next day, so I let it go. Maybe she was right. Maybe I was overreacting.

The next afternoon, my sister returned from her trip, and I went over to check on her and Charlie. To my surprise, the house was spotless. Everything was back in order, and there was no sign of the destruction I had witnessed the day before. And Charlie—well, he was back to being his sweet, calm self, sitting next to my sister with his tail wagging gently as if nothing had ever happened.

As we sat in her living room, I brought up the strange behavior I had noticed. I told her about the growling, the barking, the pantry being ransacked, the untouched dog food. I even told her about the door knob being round and smooth, “it’s impossible for a dog to turn it,” I said. But my sister just laughed, brushing it off like I was making a big deal out of nothing.

“Charlie’s a good dog,” she said, scratching his ears affectionately. “You probably just stressed him out. He’s old, you know? He’s not used to having other people around.”

Maybe she was right. Maybe it was just the stress of her being gone, the ch...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/EmmaWatsonButDumber on 2024-09-16 20:31:01+00:00.

---

This is how the human mind works: when you're walking through a forest, you don't think too much.

You just let the silence surround you, feel the soft breeze and the branches crack under your feet. It's in our nature to yearn for such scenery - no matter how much we thrive in busy, concrete soaked cities, forests are always welcoming and refreshing to us. The air is clear and crisp, and daylight plays hide and seek through the tall branches. It's inspiring and beautiful.

Sometimes, though, as you walk on your path, your mind begins to focus on small things - noises, gusts of wind, shadows in the trees. Such silence can be both welcoming and unsettling - depends on how you view it. Forests are double-sided coins: they hide you away from the tiring city landscape, but expose you to another environment.

You're not in control anymore, because this is not your home.

You can lie to yourself and build a house there, but you don't belong in a forest. You're merely a visitor.

That's national parks for you: an illusion of being in control. The fake freedom you feel when you walk on those marked paths and camp in the square assigned to you, when you think the silence around you is peaceful, but even the silence is an illusion.

Visit a forest again: even when it's silent, is it, really?

It's not. Complete, absolute silence means death. Fear it.

My father taught me that.

He's a park ranger, and he's been doing this job since forever. I wasn't much of a fan of national parks, especially because most of the time there's no service and the hikes are killing me. I'd rather enjoy nature by swimming in a lake or skiing. Why break your legs to end up to a high point, just to see a random valley?

Not to mention the animals - they were everywhere, and the insects always got on my nerves. I never understood his love for the forest. I guess that was one of the reasons why he started telling me scary stories from his night shift. Looking back, they were obviously made up, but to younger me, they seemed believable. I used to think he was so brave for working the night shift.

As I got older, I got into horror and, even if I didn't believe in his forest creatures anymore, I still liked the idea of spending the night in a small cabin in the middle of nowhere, just for that dose of adrenaline. When my father said he wanted to take me with him, I accepted immediately.

I knew why he offered. See, over the past years, our relationship had taken a big hit. I guess I was growing up and he didn't know how to handle that. He'd become emotionally distant and seemed to repel any of my tries to open up to him. In return, I'd become uninterested and irritable. In the words of my mother, this would have been a fun way to bond, I guess.

We arrived at the park around 9PM. His shift started at 10PM and ended at 6AM. His Jeep pierced through the darkness and ventured into the woods - the headlights flashed the trees, turning them white against the black sky. I'd never been on this route but, again, my visits to the park were rare.

We drove for a while. Most of the time, people underestimate the size of national parks. It took us an hour and a half to get to the cabin, which wasn't even in the heart of the forest. I saw it, one single trace of humanity in the middle of nowhere: a tiny, wooden cabin with flickering lightbulbs and watchdogs.

Before we got out of the car, my father stopped me.

"Listen. There's some instructions you need to follow here. I know it might seem unimportant, but they're crucial."

Then, he handed me a piece of paper. A list of handwritten rules.

At first, they were ordinary: don't go out alone in the park, don't leave food out, etc. I thought the rest of the rules had been put there just to freak me out.

"Dad, I'm not twelve anymore. You can't freak me out with this shit."

"I'm not trying to. You wanted to come here with me, so act accordingly."

"What even is this? If you see a man without an arm, don't help him..."

"We have all kinds of weirdos around here."

"And this? If the whistling is near you, it means they're far?"

My father smiled, but his eyes didn't. "Some of these are added by superstitious fellas. It's more of a what-if. It's not gonna happen to you."

1. Don't go out alone in the park. Always have a working contact device.
2. Don't leave marked paths, unless instructed to and / or with proper equipment.
3. Don't leave food out, and lock the trash bins.
4. Always keep on the whistle and the badge.
5. If you see a man without an arm, don't help him.
6. Your family is not in here. Remember. There is no reason for you to hear their voices from outside.
7. Lock your car doors, even when you are driving.
8. Check the marks on the trees. There's only three types of marks, all triangles. Red, yellow and green. Other marks are not ours. Don't follow them.
9. If the whistling is near you, it means they're far. If it's far away, it means they're near.
10. Beware of Dead Blue.

"What is Dead Blue?" I asked.

My father sighed. "You know when you're out in the woods? When you think what you hear is silence, but you realize there's dozens of sounds around you, from birds to crickets to leaves rustling?"

"Yeah."

"That's because there's no such thing as silence. Absolute silence. Never. There's always sound. Movement. Life. Dead Blue is complete and utter silence. That's our... um, code name for it. Deaf inducing silence. Unnatural."

"Right. And when that happens..."

"It won't."

"But if it does?"

He paused, staring at the steering wheel. Then, his head turned to me. His eyes darted from mine to the window behind me. "You leave."

That being said, he got out of the car and I followed. The cabin was dusty and cramped - I couldn't understand how he could spend 8 hours in here. He had a small TV, but it wasn't working, a desk, and a minifridge. "You sit here all alone?" I asked.

"Yeah. Why, that freak you out?"

"Don't you get bored?"

"Martin's post is ten minutes away. Sometimes I just drive over. Nothing really happens out here anyway. My spot is pretty far from the campsites - I just have to patrol from time to time to make sure no one wanders off into the night, but that rarely happens. This is one of the wilder areas - less explored."

"You haven't explored it all?"

His eyes sparkled. "Wouldn't be possible."

"So you don't know what's out there?"

"That's the fun of it. You said you wanted adrenaline. There you go."

I nodded. He opened the minifridge and threw me some juice. Orange juice. I'd mentioned I liked this brand once, and he'd remembered.

Maybe our relationship wasn't so bad.

We sat next to each-other in the small cabin. Dad locked it.

"I'm not gonna lie to you, most of the time I just sleep. Literally nothing ever happens."

"So you really didn't see any creatures out there, like the ones you told me about when I was little?" I jokingly asked.

"The only creature out there is my manager, and I'd rather face a million cryptids than talk to him."

I laughed. I leaned in to look out the windows. "I can't see anything. Just my reflection."

"Want me to dim down the light?"

"Yeah."

He did, and darkness crept inside the tiny cabin. The woods became more prominent, more vivid. The light made by the moon was unbelievable, and the stars were actually visible, compared to the polluted city. The cabin was on a hill, propped up a tree, with a trap door and a ladder leading to our car. We could actually see above the tree line, into the valley.

We spent the first hours talking. Somewhere around midnight, I began dozing off. I didn't want to, but I caved in and fell asleep with my head on the desk.

He woke me up. I rubbed my eyes in confusion. "What time is it?"

"I got a call from Martin."

"Right. Who... was Martin?" I mumbled.

"The other one in the area. He says he got a call from the campsite, and someone's missing. We need to go search for him."

"We? As in us?"

"Yeah. You'll stay in the backseat. I'm on the phone with Martin right now."

I could hear Martin's muffled voice through the speaker. Wait, don't take the kid.

"Why not? He'll stay in the car."

Paul, it could be one of... those nights.

"We won't get out of the car."

You can't guarantee that.

"Well, I can't leave him here. Alone. In the dark."

A pause followed. Look, Paul, I understand you wanted to do a take your kid to work day, but I don't know about this one. It could be dangerous.

"We're literally just going to drive around for a bit. It's fine."

Leave him in the cabin.

Dad put his hand over one of the speakers, so I didn't understand what Martin told him. His eyes kept darting to the window behind me. He sighed. "Martin will come pick me up. You are staying here, locked. Turn the lights off and wait for me to return. It's gonna take a minute and you'll be safe here."

"What? I'm not staying here alone! What did Martin tell you to change your mind?"

"It doesn't matter. I'll return in maximum half an hour. You can go back to sleep if you want. Or I can call you and we can talk."

I was afraid. Truly afraid. I did not want to show it, especially after I'd complained that nothing interesting happened around there, so I reluctantly agreed. My dad opened the trapdoor and climbed down the ladder, then his face disappeared into the darkness.

I saw Martin's car pick him up and drive away.

Silence followed. I wished I'd been home, in my bed. Instead, I sat...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/thelibrarianchick on 2024-09-16 18:00:31+00:00.

---

I hadn’t seen my father in years. It had been two decades since I had set eyes on the man. My last clear memory of him was the one of him walking out the door when I was five years old. I had been watching cartoons.

I turned just in time to see my dad’s back as he walked out the door, wearing his standard blue jean jacket, with his head down as the door slammed behind him.

My mother was on the floor, sitting cross legged and crying a few feet away from me. The sight shocked me. My mom never cried, she was my rock and I had ever never seen even as much as a tear from her.

I crawled over to her and sat in her lap while she sobbed, completely at a loss of what to do. I remember I stroked her hair to comfort her. Something she had done countless times for me when I was sick or upset.

“Where’s dad going?” I asked innocently.

My mom looked at her, her eyes red and puffy from the crying. “Your daddy is gone sweetie. Your daddy left us,” she mumbled.

The divorce had to be done in absentia. No one knew where he had gone. I remember walking around town with my grandmother putting up missing posters of my father. She could never accept that he had simply walked away from all of us. The posters stayed up for a few months before they all got torn down.

Years passed, mom remarried a great guy; I got therapy to deal with my dad leaving and eventually went off to college. Life was normal. Though I never stopped thinking about my dad, not really. Even when I thought I came to terms with it, I’d get the urge to Google his name or search for him on social media. But nothing ever turned up.

That’s why when he finally did message me it came as a complete surprise. I was at work, messing around on my phone while I had reports to write when it popped up on my screen.

Is this David Lewis? From Topeka? And your mom’s name is Penelope? If so, then this is your father. I have been trying to get in contact with you.

I sat and starred at the message in disbelief. I set the phone down. Then picked it up again and read the message. While I was processing everything more messages appeared.

David, I’m so sorry for everything. For these years I stayed away. I really need you to answer me. I need you to agree to come meet with me.

My first instinct wasn’t to reply. I was half convinced this was some kind of scam, someone knew about my past and they were going to ask for a Venmo or money transfer.

I finally replied.

How do I know this is really my father and not some kind of scam?

I waited for a reply. My heart was pounding, and a rush of thoughts were going through my head. If this was really my dad, I had a lot of things to say to him. Most of them weren’t good.

I promise you I’m your dad. When you were a kid you had a ginger cat named Polka that died when you were three. You had a stuffed teddy bear you slept with every night whose name was Mr. Simon. Please, David, this is really me and I need you to agree to meet with me.

I stared at my phone. I was racking my brain trying to think of what to say. Tell him off? Tell him I’d gladly meet him because I had missed him all these years? I did neither.

I need some time to process this. Let me write you back later this evening. I’m at work and I need to focus.

Holding the phone I waited for his reply. It came quickly.

I understand. But please, I need an answer by tonight*.*

Going back to my desk to work on the reports was almost surreal. It was like I was a ghost in my own body. I did get everything done though. It gave me something to focus on.

Once I was home, I went straight to the bedroom and flopped on the bed, phone in hand. My fiancé wasn’t home yet. Today was her late day at work. Of all the people I wanted to talk to the most it was her, but she wouldn’t be able to answer even if I did call. I read over the messages again. Honestly, I didn’t have to reply at all. I could block him. Let him sit around and wonder what he did wrong to make me abandon him.

But I did finally message back. The curiosity was too much.

Why do you even want to meet with me? If there’s anything you want to say to me just type it out.

His reply was almost immediate.

David! I’m so glad you wrote back. I was afraid I had lost you. Trust me, I need to see you in person. If you never want to see or speak to me after that I promise, I’ll never reach out to you again.

I lay the phone down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. This was just too surreal to me.

The front door opened, and Alicia walked in.

“I’m home!” She called out. She walked into the bedroom when she couldn’t find me in the living room. She looked down at me and furrowed her brow.

“Are you okay? Did something happen?” She asked concerned.

I shook my head and held up my phone.

“My dad. My dad just messaged me. He wants to meet me to tonight to talk in person. I don’t know if I should agree to go or not,” I explained holding out the phone to her so she could read what he wrote for herself.

Her eyes went wide. Of all the things I could have told her this didn’t seem to be one that she expected. She took the phone and read over the messages.

“What do you want to do babe? I know he’s your dad but he’s essentially a stranger. You don’t owe him anything. You still don’t have to meet with him.” Alicia assured me, holding my hand.

“I think I want to meet him. Even if it’s just to find out why he left. I want to hear it from him,” I said squeezing her hand back.

I turned back to the phone and typed out the message.

Where do you want to meet? Send me the address.

His response

Thank you so much David! This means everything to me. I’m sending the address now.

I was only mildly surprised when the address he sent me was only thirty minutes from our apartment. I looked it up on Google maps and it showed a tiny cabin out in the woods. I felt a stab of anger from knowing he was this close to me and was only now reaching out to me. How long had he lived there. Years? Months? I would find out soon enough.

Alicia insisted on coming with me, but I convinced her to stay at home. She had the address where I would be and if she didn’t hear from me in two hours she would call me. And if she didn’t hear from me, she’d call the cops. She wasn’t convinced yet that this wasn’t some elaborate scam.

I had plenty of time to think on the drive out to my dad’s place. When I arrived, I felt a pang of anger at the house. It was a lovely little log cabin. I knew enough about the area to know it wasn't cheap, and I wondered what he had been doing all this time to afford such a nice place. Not paying child support that was for sure. The car had barely come to halt before the door opened and a man opened the door and awkwardly walked up to the driver window.

 "David!" the man said, breathless, a small smile on my face.

It was my dad. Now that he was here in the flesh it didn't feel real at all. He looked haggard and thinner than his photo had let on. I stepped out of the car and be backed away to let me out, the small smile still on his face. Everything I had planned to say to him vanished from my head as he gestured towards the house.

"Come on. Let's get you inside. I have a lot to explain before it's time," he started moving to the cabin, not looking back to see if I was following.

I followed. I started at the back of his head, glaring. He hadn't tried to hug me or touch me in any way, for which I was glad, but I was also disappointed that he hadn't tried. The inside was nice. Minimally but tastefully decorated. It had a woman's touch as Alicia would like to say. Maybe he had a girlfriend or even a wife.

 "Mom remarried. His name is Steve, he's a great guy," I blurted out.

My dad turned and looked at me. The smile fell from his face and his eyes dropped.

 "I know. I saw that on social media. She looks happy," he said softly.

I shrugged. I had said that to hurt him, but now all it did was make me feel a little guilty.

"Why did you ask me to come here? After all this time? I just want you to know if you are going to ask about getting a kidney or money from me you can forget it," I snapped, my voice sharper than I had intended. I wanted to play it cool, collected, but I was too frazzled.

He stared at me. His eyes were watery as if he was fighting back tears. He seemed at a loss for words. I shifted awkwardly on the couch, averting my eyes.

“I just needed to see you. I wanted to explain why I left. I’m not going to ask for forgiveness, but I do want you to understand why I did what I did,” he said in a rush.

I looked up at him. The obvious answer was that there had been another woman. Or maybe some kind of debt to the mafia, anything really. But now that I was about to learn the reason all I felt was a slow simmering anger. No matter what excuse he gave me it wouldn’t be good enough.

“I’m a werewolf,” he said simply, spreading his arms in a gesture of resignation.

I had to admit that all the things I had thought he might say this was not one of them.

“I see,” I said slowly.

He was mentally ill. Maybe he was schizophrenic or had some kind of mental break.

“Look, if you brought me all they way out here so you could spin some kind of fairy tale about why you left, save it. I can tell you’re doing well for yourself. There’s no need to lie to me,” I gestured angrily around the cabin.

His eyes followed my hands as I pointed to our surroundings and a tiny smile formed on his lips.

“Oh, this isn’t my h...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/orangeplr on 2024-09-16 15:48:23+00:00.

---

The house was beautiful. It was like a dream. 

Two stories, two bathrooms, two beds - the living room dropped down like in the 70s, and the kitchen was complete with an island and a beautiful view of the garden and a large, towering apple tree. There was even some decor left by the previous residents: little bird feeders, a stone Buddha by the front step, a tree of life tapestry hanging in the living room. The realtor had told my parents the previous resident wouldn’t be needing these things back, but she would remove them before we moved in, but my parents told her not to. It made the space feel cozy and lived in. 

We moved in at the beginning of summer, so I didn’t have to worry about school for a while. It was nice to have no additional stress, but it made me sad to have those months free without much opportunity to see my friends. I found myself worrying about what they were doing, if they were having more fun without me, if they’d already forgotten I existed. 

It didn’t take long for me to realize: moving was lonely. 

I spent my summer in the garden, pretending I was a forlorn maiden, cast away from everything she knows. I lay in the cool dirt beneath the apple tree, watching the leaves flutter in the warm breeze. Sometimes I would even eat an apple, but they were always a bit too bitter for my taste. I would wonder about the sliver in the wood, like someone had hacked at it with an axe, then gave up. Who would try and chop down such a beautiful thing? 

That apple tree became a sort of sanctuary. The shade protected me from the blazing sun on the hotter days, and the trunk became an incredibly comfortable backrest to lean back on and read. 

One day, while I was doing just that, something blew up against my leg. A dirty, stained piece of paper. I set my book down and picked it up, curious. 

I scanned it quickly. It looked like a letter, from what I could make out, but it cut off at the end, and there was no backside. 

I shifted from my spot against the tree, digging my fingers into the soft dirt and searching around. I thought that if this letter had been here, maybe, just maybe, the rest were too. I was desperate for excitement at that point, and I wasn’t beyond getting my hands dirty to find some. 

Sure enough, soon my fingers were prying at dampened notebook paper, carefully edging it out of the soil. I think I found most of them just searching in the dirt: they weren’t buried very deep. 

As soon as I finished reading those letters, I went to find my parents, heaving. 

We left that house, and we never came back.

I’ll do my best to relay to you what the letters said. At least, what I could read of it. 

Dear Silvia, 

I miss you the worst in summer. The winter here is cold and unforgiving, but the summer is worse. I cannot even bring myself to leave the house anymore. 

I fear some days that death follows me, like a stray dog nipping at my heel. Now that you and Elsie are gone from my life, I have nothing left to run from. How could I be meant to stay here when you were not? Even so, I feel very strongly that dying now would be a betrayal to you, no matter how much I would love to join you, wherever you are. 

My days are lonely and plain now. I eat nothing but what I can take from the garden. Thank you for my nourishment and my survival, my dear wife. There isn’t much flavor to my food without the smell of you cooking it in the kitchen. 

I think often of my time as a butcher. I used to be happy with that kind of work, but now it only disgusts me. The thought of slicing through meat, meat that was once a living creature, nearly brings me to tears. Some nights, when I close my eyes, all I can see is muscles twitching. It haunts me in your absence. I swear, Silvia, I will never consume that stuff again. 

The apple tree is the only piece of you I have left. The only living piece. I could go catatonic for hours, just watching it sway. When I see that tree, I feel that you’re nearby. 

I miss you. 

R. 

Dear Silvia, 

Yesterday I went to sit under our tree. 

It pains me that when you were alive, I didn’t spend much time in our garden. Perhaps I had old hermit in my blood, even then. I preferred to watch you from the kitchen, admiring your gardening prowess from a distance. Perhaps that makes me a bad husband… but I think you liked that about me. How I always gave you enough space. 

It’s nice out here. Very peaceful. The fresh air feels like you, touching me. I could have sworn I could hear Elsie’s laughter in the breeze. 

I noticed something strange, as I sat against the trunk, enjoying the sunshine on my skin. It felt like the tree moved against my back, almost as if it were squirming. Perhaps my mind is not what it used to be. But perhaps it was you. 

If it was you, thank you. I hope you’ll reach out again. 

That night, I had a very hard time falling asleep. No matter what I did, I could not feel comfortable. My bed felt wrong, felt lumpy and strange, as if it were not made for me. I gave up and went to our kitchen, and I watched the tree through the window until my eyes grew heavy. It was so beautiful in the moonlight, glowing gently, drawing the eye. It was so quiet, so dignified. It made me feel uneasy, but in a comforting way, as odd as that may sound. 

When I got back to bed, it didn’t feel wrong anymore, and I was finally able to rest. 

R. 

Dear Silvia, 

These days, all I find myself doing is wandering the house, reminiscing. I don’t dare move or change anything. I want to preserve everything just the way you left it. 

Our house is covered in little trinkets, hippie things that I don’t entirely understand. You always had such an earthly style. Some of it I don’t care for, it simply isn’t my cup of tea, but I never would’ve told you that. I would never want to step on your toes. 

It’s apple season again. I remember watching you and Elsie climb our tree, shrieking and laughing uproariously as you hung from the branches like monkeys. Elsie… my little monkey. I know she never cared for that nickname when I called her it, but it stuck. 

You were such a good mother, Silvia. I hope you knew I knew that. 

I used to love apple season. I loved watching you pick them, dropping the ripe ones into wicker baskets in the grass, and a couple of days later, the entire house would smell of pie, sweet cinnamon and sugar, and it would linger for days, even all the way up in the attic. This is something I miss dearly. 

Please come back Silvia, and bake one last apple pie. 

R. 

Dear Silvia, 

Today I went out to pick apples. I thought maybe I could take a crack at your old apple pie recipe, perhaps treat myself to something besides wilted vegetables. However, something very strange and disturbing happened to me. 

I was collecting the ones that looked the ripest: I am not the most well versed in things like this, but I can make an educated guess. I found one that looked so perfect. It was red and shiny, not a scratch on it or a single worm hole, which felt lucky. I went to take a bite, and what I found caused me to vomit into the grass. 

Inside of the apple was meat. Raw meat. It was not quite the kind of meat I used to butcher, although it twitched as such. I could see white muscles and tendon. It oozed with pink plasma where my teeth had parted the skin. It tasted metallic and rotten on my tongue. The flavor still hasn’t passed. 

I cut open every single apple I had picked. The tree seemed to shudder. They were all like that. Made of meat. Some entirely, and some as if a rot was spreading over them. I can’t help but wonder how long it has been this way. 

I feel unnerved. I feel that I can’t trust my brain, my vision or my tastebuds. I feel I may vomit again. I do not know if what I experienced is real, but if it was, I do not know what to do. It is unholy, what I have experienced. 

Tonight, I will pray. 

R. 

Dear Silvia, 

Today, someone knocked on the door. 

I was still feeling shaken up and disoriented, so this caused my nerves to be completely shot. I do not enjoy interacting with strangers, or anyone, for that matter. 

It was a man, and he was carrying a box. He asked me for you, and for Elsie. 

I told this man that you had not lived here for a while. He seemed confused, so I clarified that I was your husband and Elsie was my daughter, and you had both passed away in a tragic accident. That caused him to look even more confused. 

Forgive me, but I felt defensive, and uncomfortable. I figured maybe this man looked so confused because I am old, and you were younger. Oh, how I wish I could rid this planet of all judgement. 

This man seemed as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. He left then. He did not give me the box, which I assume was meant for you. Perhaps he was a coworker of yours, or an old friend, or maybe even just a mailman. I feel sorry that he had to hear the news from me, even despite my disdain. 

I cried today. I didn’t dare go back out to the tree, but I wanted to. I feel as if I may be losing my mind. That interaction with that man at the door made me feel unnerved. I wish he had not come. 

I only wish to be with you again. 

My bed feels strange and alien. It feels too soft, and I swear something smells rotten. Perhaps an animal has gotten trapped in the walls and died.

I cannot sleep. 

R. 

Dear Silvia,

The smell of rot has become unbearable. I cannot live this way. 

When I sleep, what you could barely call sleep, I see you....

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/MrBlackBook on 2024-09-16 13:37:35+00:00.

---

It was the early 2010s when I found my father’s camera. A relic from another era; one of his countless forgotten things confined to the attic after his passing.

In life, he had this... obsession with it. Not like someone obsessed with photography, but something deeper, stranger. It was like the camera had consumed him, his hands bound to it as if it were one with his flesh, and in most of my memories of him, his face is hidden behind it. He existed only beyond its lens like the world didn’t matter unless he was seeing it through that damned viewfinder.

Rediscovering the camera felt like a chance to reconnect with him after all of these years. I was seventeen at the time, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little excited to find it. It was an old QuickTake 100, clunky and covered in dust. The thing looked ancient, by tech standards, and holding it, it felt... heavy. Not just in weight, but in something else. Almost like I could feel my dad’s attachment to it, his love for it tangible in plastic and metal. And for a moment, I thought maybe I could see what he saw. Maybe I could understand why it seemed to matter more than we did.

This was his totem - his artistic lifeline - and perhaps knowing this I should’ve left it undisturbed.

I should’ve left it there, buried beneath old furniture and junk.

But I didn’t.

The first incident - it all happened so fast. I had just wiped the dust off the lens, standing by my bedroom window. My best friend, Charlie, he lived across the street, and I remember seeing him in his room, just a blur of motion through the glass. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the neighbourhood, and it seemed like a good time to test the camera, to see if it even worked after all these years. And so, I lifted the viewfinder to my eye, lining up the shot, and pressed the button on its side.

The flash went off, bright and glaring.

And then - chaos.

A deafening boom rocked the air, shaking my house as if we were caught in an earthquake. I stumbled back to my bed, hands covering my face as a burst of radiant life seared through my window. My heart raced as I tried to make sense of what had just happened. I smelled smoke - it assaulted my nostrils almost instantly - and the scent of burning wood; it was strong. So I pushed myself off my bed, staggering over to the window, and that’s when I saw it.

Charlie’s house... was gone.

Where his house once stood was nothing but a hellish crater, flames licking up into the sky. The remains of his home were scattered in all directions, as if something had reached down from the heavens and ripped it apart. The noise, the smoke, the screams... they were everywhere. My mom rushed outside - I heard the door hit the wall as she tore it open - pulling my sister with her, both of them in hysterics.

But I couldn’t move.

I just stood there, staring at the chaos, paralysed by the shock of what I’d just witnessed. I remained frozen until the fire engines arrived, beginning their futile attempt to quell the inferno, but God, how it burned. 

It burned and it burned and it burned, the flames raging on into the night, glowing like a second sun in the darkness. Charlie and his family... incinerated in an instant. Gone, just like that; wiped off the face of the earth. They never stood a chance.

A few weeks later, the official report blamed it on a gas leak. And I believed it at first - I had to. What else could explain something so sudden, so violent?

But I was naive. I had no idea at the time - it was just a freak accident. I had just happened to capture it.

A year or so later, I found the camera again. It was like it reappeared in my bedroom. Hidden in plain sight amongst the clutter, I rediscovered it whilst packing up for university - I was moving far from home - and I plugged it into the family computer, hoping to find some of my father’s old photos. These cameras, apparently they can only hold about 8 photographs at a time, so I was curious to see if he’d left a few on there before his passing. But he hadn’t; I discovered that quickly. The curious smile on my face fell into a frown.

But there was one photo on there; a singular file in its memory.

Just one horrifying photograph that made my heart stop. I opened it up, the image exploding onto my screen, and tears rolled over my cheeks.

In the image, the house had been caught mid-explosion, walls buckling, windows shattering, fire erupting from the ground. I’d captured the exact moment the house was obliterated. And something about it... felt wrong. Like it wasn’t just a coincidence. Like I had caused it, somehow, with the flick of my finger, the button akin to the trigger of a gun.

Terrified, I deleted the photo. I didn’t think, I just wanted it gone; away from my tear-filled eyes. But even after it was wiped, that feeling stayed. This nagging sense that the camera was more than just a piece of equipment. That it held onto things... dark things. My father had been obsessed with it for a reason.

So I didn’t touch the camera again for a while.

But, like a cursed object from an old horror movie, I couldn’t shake its presence. When I left home one year for my final term of university, I brought it with me; I don’t even know why. It just... ended up in my bag, like it wanted to come along, and for months, it sat on a shelf in my dorm room, collecting dust. It stared at me from its spot, its lens like an unblinking eye, and sometimes I felt like my father was watching me through it. I swear I could see his eye in the lens from time to time, but I knew I was just being paranoid; perhaps I'd had one too many coffees during a late-night study. So I left it alone. I let it - him - watch over me undisturbed.

Until one day, I couldn’t.

It was late and I was stressed out from a final project; it was going to be making up most of my grade. I needed a distraction, so I grabbed the camera, telling myself it was harmless. I stood in front of my mirror, holding it up to my face, and for a second, I considered taking a picture of myself. My finger hovered over the button, a smile blooming on my face, but something stopped me. I felt... dread. A cold wave of fear washed over me, and I remembered the explosion. The fire. Charlie.

I put the camera down. I relived the explosion all over again, and for a while, I was frozen to the spot.

But then the next day, I took it with me to campus.

I can’t tell you why, but I just felt like I needed to. My friend Sarah and I were hanging out by a smoking shelter with a few other students. They were fascinated by the old camera, calling it a piece of history. They begged me to take a photo of them, Sarah and these three other girls I didn't know, but I was hesitant; I was shaking at just the thought of it. Every instinct screamed at me to stop, but they kept urging me on.

So I agreed to it, against my better judgment.

I stood up, and they moved into place behind a row of bollards, posing and pouting; it was by no means a serious photograph. Lifting the viewfinder to my eye, I struggled to still the shot, my hands still shaking with anxiety, but I calmed myself, slowing my breathing; I thought I was simply scaring myself. What happened to Charlie, that was a freak accident. There was no way this camera had any part in its doing.

And so I pressed the button; I pulled the trigger. And what happened next, it was all on me.

The flash went off. The world transformed into white light and my eyes burned as if I had stared into the sun.

But screaming followed.

I heard bodies hitting metal, then the sound of flesh pounding the ground, bones breaking upon impact. The gargled sound of blood pooling in someone's throat. The continuous, monotonous beep of a car horn.

It came out of nowhere, swerving wildly down the road. I’d heard it coming, but I never foresaw this happening. The driver, a drunk student, had lost control of the wheel. The girls were thrown into the air like ragdolls, killed the moment their skin touched the bumper, but I had witnessed none of it. I’d held my eyes shut after the flash as if I knew what was coming, and instantly I regretted not trusting my gut. I knew this was going to happen. I just knew something would happen; I could feel it.

But now they were dead. All three of them. Dead. And so too was the driver, his car wrapped around a concrete pillar, his skull crushed against the horn, the sound wailing like a scream.

And I was numb. It felt like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. The deaths. The destruction. The two times I used this camera, death had followed. And it wasn’t a coincidence; I was certain of that. It wasn’t just bad luck.

This camera was the cause; the murderer, the executioner. It killed. I don’t know how else to put it, and I know it sounds ridiculous, but if you held it in your hands, you would feel it too.

It was more than plastic and metal, this camera. It was satanic. It was hellish. It was under the influence of evil; possessed or hexed. And I should’ve destroyed it before it took another life, but for some reason - perhaps it was its power - I simply couldn’t.

That summer, I left the camera on my desk, untouched, as if ignoring it could somehow undo the damage. But it was still there, watching me. Waiting. Waiting for the day I’d pick it up again, once I convinced myself that everything was just a coincidence.

That day came when winter rolled around. Enough time had passed for the fear to dull, for ...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Cute-Blueberry-1133 on 2024-09-16 02:44:05+00:00.

---

Conversation Hearts: Part 3

Previous Update: Longing with Teeth

Sorry for the delayed update, I think I'm going to have to split this post into two parts as, evidently, I have exceeded the character limit. It has been a long week. We had a bit of a scare with the baby. Everything’s fine now. I had some light spotting the other night. I’m not all that shaken anymore, but it freaked Johnny out real good. The doctor says everything looks healthy. He even let us listen to the heartbeat for reassurance, though I think that was just to make Johnny stop crying. A little blood is supposed to be normal at this point in a pregnancy, the cervix is becoming tender or something. I don't know, I stopped listening after he said the baby was healthy, everything after that was placation. All the doctor’s mambo-jumbo didn't seem all that important to me, but Johnny ate it up. Honestly, I might start sending him to appointments without me, cause I certainly didn't need to be there for most of that with the way he and the doctor got on. On the bright side, they put me on pelvic rest, so I guess that's one less wifely duty to worry about. 

I fucking hate my life. 

Not actually. I’m super excited to be a mom, or literally anything other than “just Johnny’s wife”. This town is going to kill me. Sorry for the rant, I’m kind of struggling to adjust to the idea of parenthood, or maybe it's just the idea of parenting with him. Please ignore me. My life is wonderful and I couldn't ask for a more attentive husband, I’m just tired. Been tired for years and it hasn’t killed me yet so I doubt it will kill me now. Don’t worry.

Mags I miss you, so if you're reading this please stay away. I am hormonal as all hell and I don't think I have the bandwidth to chase you off if you come back.

Our town was the type where most folks didn't know nearly enough about birth control to keep their families from growing like weeds well beyond the borders of their houses. It was the perfect breeding ground for religious fanaticism when most kids were married by twenty and raising-up a new generation of followers before the ink could dry on their childhoods. It didn't help that no one ever seemed to leave. Year after year me and Mags waited for our turn, for our houses to fill with laughter and little feet but they never did. We were stuck, alone with each other, locked into our age-appropriate activities without any older siblings to teach us the lore of the town. So we started making our own kind of folklore. 

Mags would make up stories, at first silly little things like a baby raccoon who got adopted by the king and dressed in fineries. Sometimes her tales were closer to the truth. A queen who would spend hours in the library talking with the handsome scholar, whispering to him from time to time when she thought her husband wasn't looking. Dead princesses who waited by wells for their living little sisters to come play with them. A mother who had been so taken with the world she didn't notice when all her children left her one by one until she was alone in her huge house. That one had always seemed oddly sad to me, but knowing what I do now I just feel sorry for Mags. I knew her home life wasn't the best but to be forced to keep secrets so young, it's no wonder she never learned how to tell the truth. 

Back then Mags had all the words and I just did my best to capture her wild imagination on the paper. I had nicer spelling and handwriting than most of the others in our grade, but as the year went on it became increasingly obvious that my perceived prodigy was failing. I had no innate talent for academics, only the little step-up my mother had given me by starting my education earlier than most. I knew the game wouldn't be half as fun if I wasn’t useful to her so I put everything I had into learning how to draw. I like to think I got halfway-decent at it. The kids at the school used to think so anyway, but then again when you're a kid it's easy to find wonder in the world of adults. It made them happy at the least.

Mags and I kept to ourselves in those early months, not necessarily by choice, but we were used to isolation and things were not nearly as lonely when there were two of us. The tight confines of our friend group didn't bug us much. We were not welcome in the typical liminal spaces of childhood so we found our places to settle away from the spiteful eyes of the town. There was a small river valley in the forest that brushed up against the border of suburbia. The drop wasn’t large, maybe ten feet of high-piled boulders at the edge of the river's tempting expanse, and on a good day, a small child could almost think they could clear the jump to the other bank. We never tried, but I can't say we were never tempted to, the only thing that dissuaded us was the turbulent flow of the river and a story born so early in our friendship that neither of us could quite remember if it was really ours or some old relic of the town. 

According to the story the river had a hunger, or maybe the river was an embodiment of hunger. It's been years so you'll have to forgive my imperfect memory. Whatever the case, the important thing to know was that the river was responsible for swallowing up the weeping dead girls of the town. According to the story, there were two little girls— who may have been sisters but probably weren’t— who lived on the stubborn edge of the forest where the trees grew so thick the town had never managed to cut them back. It was the last bit of unbroken wilderness in the quickly spreading melancholy of industrialization and those two little wisps made their home at its mocking edge inviting in whatever primordial evils slumbered at the forest's heart.

The water was higher then. So high that the jagged rocks at the river’s bed, that gnashed at the water like hungry teeth, were nearly completely covered. Not lying in wait, but still thunderstruck with that terrible hunger. The river was a gentle bounty that raised the girls when their parents couldn’t be bothered to. It gave them delicate, salty fish and sweet crawdads to eat, clear clean water to drink, and a lovely melody of singing streams to listen to once they had had their fill. 

In many ways, the river was their mother, which might be why they were called sisters. Their lives were simple and sweetly mild back then. They could spend their days in meadows with berry-smeared faces, hair in wild tangles, and come home as the least burdenful children of their families with their full bellies and pretty faces. They were content. They wanted for nothing and in return, the river took nothing from them. Which is why the first dead girl was such a shock. It had been a temperate, sunny day, so perfect it was almost boring. The girls as always were at the river’s bank soaking up the rays of summer and chasing dragonflies along the water. 

It happened when the cracked egg of the sun sizzled high in the sky, the girls were so lost in themselves that they forgot who they were entirely. In their games of chase, it wasn’t clear what they were chasing, or perhaps what was chasing them. They were in stride with all of the insects and all of the birds unsure who should follow who. So, they just ran in the sun, overjoyed to have bodies that could run on such little legs when one of the girls, the taller one, was overcome by a sharp, hot pain in her foot. And then another, and then another. Her senses were overwhelmed by saccharine and gold, and above all else that terrible, droning pain. The younger girl could only watch as thousands of angry bees overwhelmed her friend forcing her into a blind stumble until her heel went over the edge of a rocky bank and she was swallowed whole by the river. She watched her friend's surprised face from under the glassy surface as the girl didn't even try to fight, instead smiling, twisting in pain, screaming, laughing, clawing at her throat, and floating with her arms out like an angel. Filling her lungs with fresh clear water until her body stilled and the river went calm. 

By the time the smaller girl had returned with adults her friend's body was picked clean of all but its bones which shone amongst the brightly colored river stones like gems. It was decided that there was no point in trying to retrieve a girl so scattered by nature. So there she remained one with the river that had raised her.

The smaller girl visited her friend as often as she could because— despite what the adults told her— she knew the other girl wasn’t gone. She had just changed shape, the same as the smaller girl would one day have to if she wanted to stay in the forest. The smaller girl grew up strange and pretty and the river grew with her pulling down the facade of soft waves to bear sharp, blood-hungry fangs rolling over a sandy tongue. The townsfolk might have whispered about how the girl would talk to the river when no one was looking, even dance with it, laugh with it, strip off her clothes, and frolic in her undergarments like a little girl on wobbly new limbs and throw her head back in a show of sharp teeth. They would say all of that if any of them had the guts to even get close to the forest after what happened. So the smaller girl spent her childhood alone, becoming plump wi...

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Historical-Plate-228 on 2024-09-15 22:51:29+00:00.

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My name is Alan. I'm fifteen and I live in a small town south of Wyoming. My Dad passed away last year and my mother has been trying to find the solution to her problems at the bottom of a bottle since his passing. She doesn't acknowledge me much but ive grown to get used to it in the last few months.

The pain in my left arm has been growing the last few days. A few weeks ago it was only a small itchy sensation in the forearm area. I paid it no mind of course, I mean who would? I was most likely stung by a mosquito or bitten by some other small bug. I would later be proven more wrong then I thought possible.

After the first week the itch had been replaced with a feeling of soreness. This was when I first started to put forward the idea that this could be more than a simple itch or bite. I pushed the idea aside. it's not like I could do anything about it. The nearest hospital is hours away so I couldn't possibly get checked out. It doesn't help that my moms car broke down a few months back. “it's just sore… nothing to worry about”.

That was until last wednesday. The soreness was a burning burning feeling. It was as if my forearm was filled with needles and each of them were scraping against the bone just hoping to make it to the center. I also noticed a small lump forming in the center of where the itch had first originated. I tried to tell my mom. Maybe she'd take me seriously and I'd be able to find some way to a clinic or hospital. However this attempt was met with an immediate “yeah yeah whatever go play outside”. So I decided to push through the pain. My Mom had a trip a few days after that and I didnt want to ruin that for her. God knows she needs it.

My mom left for her trip a few days before the incident.

A small needle-sized hole appeared on the lump. That and the lump had begun to grow. The itching and pain had become too much and I had begun to pick at the lump only slightly expanding the small hole. It was then that a small black toothpick-like line began to come from the hole…then another…and another…I froze in my tracks…spiders… I let out a scream as more spiders of all sizes began to crawl out of my arm and began to burrow into different parts of my arm. Then it hit me. they were going to turn my entire arm into a sort of nest. I panicked and walked into what used to be my dads study. I was hoping that he had left some sort of medicine or acid or I don't know anything to get these spiders out of my damn arm! I rummaged through all of his drawers and found only a bunch of books…and a gigli saw. I hesitated but was quickly snapped back to reality by the feeling of the spiders moving inside of my arm. I grabbed the gigly saw and bit onto one tip of the saw and held the other tip with my right arm as I began to move my arm back and forth. The saw line scraped into my shoulder as I continued to cut through my arm, tears coming to my eyes. Blood trickled down my side as the saw line moved through my shoulder muscle. Through the muscle as I hit the bone. I winced in pain and bit down on my shirt collar as I began to sob. My lifeless left arm fell to the ground as I began to crawl away from it holding where my arm once was. I got up and ran onto the street holding where my shoulder once was.

That leads up to today. I lay here in a hospital bed typing this out on my phone. I'm just glad it's over. The only thing that worries me is that the police had told me that they went to investigate my house and said that they found the gigli saw. However my left arm was nowhere to be found.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/No-Original890 on 2024-09-13 23:38:56+00:00.

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The first time it happened was when I was about halfway through a twelve-hour shift in my warehouse job- real draining, soul-sucking work- and I left the main packing area to go out through the back door and smoke. It's a habit I've been trying to quit for years but this job really puts me through my paces when it comes to patience and self control. I smoke to clear my head. The 'smoking area' of my job is pretty nice anyway- a nice little quiet street with dim little streetlamps and the occasional fox trotting by. I always like to stand out there and just stare into the street and try to listen to foxes.

I was standing statue-esuqe in my same spot, burning a hole into the ground with my stare and rolling a cigarette around my fingers. The smell of them made me dizzy and nauseous at this point- my exhaustion was catching up to me. A car started to creak around the corner with full beams on- as well as all of the lights inside of the car and a floodlight fixed to the top of the windshield. It was like being next to a heater with all of the warmth coming off of the light. it rolled up next to me, rumbling softly as it idled. I couldn't see who was driving, but they opened their window a sliver and started to speak in a deep, guttural croak.

"That's a terrible habit to have, you know."

I couldn't find any words to say back. It was like my brain had been wiped clean. I stood there gasping like a fish for a second, before gathering my thoughts.

"It helps whatever I have going on right now."

"Would you ever want to try to quit?"

Again, I felt my mouth clamp shut as I couldn't respond. I could feel a sharp pain impaling the back of my head. A warning.

The voice chuckled. "We all have our vices, I guess."

The bright light made me squint- like the headlights of the car seemed to be getting brighter. The driver had fully opened the window now so all of the light from the inside also streamed into my eyes. Every time I tried to look up, my eyes would snap shut- the blaring light blinding me. As I was going to put my arm over my eyes and shout at this asshole to turn their headlights off, a whisper of a voice brushed against my ear. The sharp warning pain in the back of my head turned into a full-on migraine fast. I couldn't make out what it was whispering, but it was whispering loudly something like 'pie-man' over and over again.

The voice was simultaneously surrounding me on the outside and filling the inside of my head, worming its way through my ear canals. It was a shill scream and a thunderous whisper that made me cry out, dropping my lit cigarette on to the damp concrete. There wasn't a chance I was opening my eyes at this point, my teeth gritted together as the voice had migrated from whispering to screaming in the inside of my head in a thousand shivering voices. This went on for hours. I guess the car must have moved on at this point, as the feeling of having a flashlight pressed against my eyelids left. Every nerve ending in my body crackled like a live wire and I felt myself curl inwards and keel over pathetically. After that, I don't remember much- I passed out on the wet concrete and one of my co-workers found me. He said that I was screaming in pain- wailing, convulsing and shivering whilst foaming at the mouth. He also said as he tried to reach his hand out to me I grabbed his hand and twisted his wrist so hard I broke it.

I had to take a few weeks off of work because the higher-ups were so spooked about the incident. After a few weeks of trying to remember what happened and only being able to think about the bright light and being so peculiarly drawn to the thought of it, I went back to work.

I got about half-way through my shift, again, and my co-worker asked me if I wanted to go and smoke. I went to say yes, but the words died in my mouth before it could reach my lips. I just kind of stood there gasping so my co-worker gave me a weird look and walked out to the smoking area. All I could think about was the bright light.

I don't want to assume things, but I haven't wanted to smoke ever since seeing the bright light and hearing 'pie-man' over and over in my head.

Ever since then I've tried to see the bright light again. I've tried to smoke, but now it makes me nauseous, and I stand in that same spot for hours. I'd been fired for weeks now, but I just stood in that spot for hours on end to see the bright light. I didn't care how long it took. I didn't sleep for days on end and when I did, I would wake up in agony, confused and covered in cigarette burns. This light was the best thing to ever happen to me. It was a beautiful, agonising experience- whatever had happened had changed me. I needed to see the bright light.

I'd become obsessed- I was rail thin and shivering constantly, my hands shook constantly and I slept rarely in a crumpled pile next to the spot where I saw it. I feel like I'd become a different person, like I'd split in two- and the person I'd become and the person I once was were fighting to take over me again. When I did sleep, I'd wake up with notes and signed burned into my body.

My old co-worker (who had since recovered from the broken wrist) decided that enough was enough and he let me stay at his apartment and sleep on his couch until I could 'get back on my feet'. I don't remember a lot from this time, but he says that in the middle of the night I would either wake up screaming about burning or he would have to wrestle me to the ground to stop me from leaving his apartment to go and sit in the spot again.

There is one night I could remember. The second time I saw the bright light.

There was a quiet buzzing in my head, like tv static, and chanting of the 'pie-man' name got louder and louder in my head. I could finally see the light again.

My co-worker was found with several broken bones, burns all over his chest and arms and and a snapped neck. He's seen it now as well.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Sudden-Zombie9098 on 2024-09-13 22:56:36+00:00.

---

A few years ago, my friend Tim and I were looking for a new adventure. We had already explored many popular hiking and camping spots, but we wanted something different this time. We wanted to go somewhere far away from the usual places. After doing some research and talking to locals, we decided on a remote area deep in a forest that was known for being isolated and a bit mysterious.

We set out early on a crisp autumn morning. The sky was clear and blue, and we were excited about our trip. We packed our camping gear into the car and drove for hours. The road wound through beautiful scenery, but soon the landscape changed to thick, dark woods. By late afternoon, we arrived at a small parking area surrounded by towering trees. The trailhead was hard to find, covered in weeds and vines. It felt like the forest was trying to hide its secrets.

As we ventured deeper, the trees grew even taller and their branches twisted in strange shapes. The path became rough and uneven, and the forest seemed to close in around us. We hiked for hours, our excitement keeping us going despite the challenging trail. The forest was eerily quiet, with only the sound of leaves crunching underfoot breaking the silence.

As the sun began to set and shadows grew longer, we found a small clearing. It was a quiet and peaceful spot, lit by the last rays of sunlight. Ancient trees surrounded us, and the ground was covered in a thick layer of fallen leaves. A cool breeze blew through the trees, making it feel like a perfect place to set up camp. We quickly set up our tent and gathered firewood. Soon, we had a warm fire going, and we cooked our dinner. The crackling of the fire was comforting against the growing chill of the evening. We enjoyed the peacefulness of the forest and chatted about our day.

As night fell, the atmosphere began to change. The usual nighttime sounds—crickets, owls, and rustling animals—faded away, replaced by a deep, heavy silence. The temperature dropped quickly, and a thick mist began to roll in from the trees. It spread across the clearing like a living fog, curling around us and making everything look strange and blurry. We tried to shake off the growing unease. We laughed and joked, trying to distract ourselves from the eerie mist and the darkness.

But then, out of the fog, a figure appeared. He was an older man, probably in his fifties, with a rugged face and intense eyes. He introduced himself as Mr. Glenn, a park ranger who patrolled this remote area. Mr. Glenn’s sudden appearance was startling.

He warned us that this part of the forest was known for strange and frightening events and advised us to be careful. His serious tone made us uneasy, but we thought he was just trying to scare us. We had camped in many strange places before and had always managed just fine. Before leaving, Mr. Glenn gave us one last intense look and disappeared back into the mist. We watched him go, feeling a mix of curiosity and worry. The fire continued to crackle, but the sense of unease grew stronger. 

The mist thickened, wrapping around the clearing and making everything look like a ghostly blur. The air grew colder, and the silence became almost unbearable. We huddled close to the fire, trying to stay warm. The mist seemed to make everything colder and more isolating.

Then, we heard a strange noise—a low, melodic humming. At first, it was soft and almost soothing, but it quickly grew louder and more unsettling. The sound seemed to come from all directions, echoing through the mist. We looked at each other, trying to figure out where it was coming from.

The humming was soon joined by whispers—faint and barely audible at first, but growing clearer and more frightening. The voices spoke in a language we didn’t understand. They seemed to come from the mist itself, surrounding us and making us feel deeply afraid. The whispers were accompanied by a rhythmic, distant beating, like a drum.

I glanced at Tim. His face was pale, and he looked scared. “Do you hear that?” he asked, his voice trembling.

Before I could answer, the mist grew thicker and started to form shadowy figures. These figures were tall and thin, with glowing eyes that cut through the darkness. They seemed to glide through the mist, getting closer and more menacing. Fear took over. We grabbed our backpacks and tried to understand what was happening, but the shadows seemed to close in on us. The whispers grew louder, filling our heads with terror. The mist felt alive, wrapping around us and making us feel trapped.

Suddenly, Mr. Glenn’s voice cut through the chaos. “Get out of here, now!” he shouted from the edge of the clearing.

Without thinking, we grabbed our things and ran. The figures and whispers followed us, but the mist seemed to part, creating a narrow path through the forest. We stumbled through the darkness, branches scratching our faces and roots threatening to trip us. The forest felt alive with a dark energy, and the mist seemed to try to pull us back.

The shadowy figures stayed just out of sight, their presence felt but never fully seen. We pushed ourselves harder, driven by fear and adrenaline. The mist seemed to close in behind us, making every step feel like we were racing against an unseen force.

Finally, after what felt like hours, we burst out of the forest and into a small clearing where our car was parked. We jumped into the vehicle, slammed the doors shut, and drove away as fast as we could. The mist began to lift, and the whispers faded, but the fear remained.

We drove in silence, the night’s events replaying in our minds. When we finally stopped at a diner hours later, we tried to make sense of what had happened. We talked about the shadowy figures, the humming, and the whispers, but nothing seemed to fit. The experience felt like a strange, frightening dream.

The next day, still shaken and desperate for answers, we decided to find Mr. Glenn and thank him for his help. We called the local ranger station, but when we described him, the woman on the other end went silent.

“There hasn’t been a ranger named Glenn here for over twenty years,” she said quietly. “He disappeared in those woods… and was never found.”

The news hit us hard. We stared at each other in shock, realizing the terrifying truth. Whoever—or whatever—saved us that night was not a man but something much older and connected to the forest’s dark history.

We never went back to those woods. The memory of that night still haunts us, a chilling reminder of the unknown and the unexplainable. The mist, the whispers, and the shadowy figures remain a part of our shared experience, a terrifying reminder of the supernatural and the eerie mysteries that lie beyond the edge of the known world.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/According-Oven-7597 on 2024-09-16 04:37:42+00:00.

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I’m getting married. The person I’m marrying owns many shops in town. My mom married my dad when she was 16. I’m already 19, so I should get married.

He’s a bit of ugly, but that’s not a problem to my family because, compared to my family, he’s wealthy, and my younger brother needs money to get married. My family tell me I’ll have three children, and live in a beautiful house, if things go well.

The only problem is, he’s not my lover.

My lover isn’t a good person, and she admits that. She think the reason is that her father isn’t a good person either. He drinks, and when he’s not drinking, he beats his wife and children.

But she is beautiful and has great ambitions. She says, "I’m going to Oxford to study." I tell her it’s impossible, that she doesn’t even know where Oxford is.

She says, "I’ll go." If people ask, we’ll say we aren’t lesbians.She once went to a school for internet addiction recovery for a year. She hated it there; it was hell. She doesn’t let me say I’m a lesbian because if I admit it, I’ll end up going there too.

"You should get married and have kids, not be with me," she told me when we first kissed.

Back then, I knew I wasn’t going to finish high school because my younger brother’s middle school fees were a huge expense. I’m not a man, and getting an education is useless compared to getting married.

Everyone says this, everyone believes this.So, we can’t not believe it either.

But she doesn’t. She doesn’t believe that’s our fate, which is why she’s seen as a bad person in our little town. All I had were those months after I graduated from middle school. During that time, you can drink as much as you want and run away from home because no one cares if you go to high school or not. I used to be a good student, and that time all I want to do was study to get first place. But I didn’t want do that anymore, because three months later, I wouldn’t be able to study anymore.

So, I spent three months messing around with her. My parents didn’t care, as long as I came home every night. If I didn’t get pregnant, then there was no problem. If I did get pregnant, they could force the father to marry me,then there was no problem.

Three months later, she disappeared again.

I knew she probably went back to that school. I really don’t understand why some people would rather spend 100,000 a year to torture their child instead of addressing their own issues.

She never told me the details. Our internet wasn’t developed, so I still don’t know exactly what happened, and maybe I don’t want to. But if reincarnation exists, I just want her to be born as my daughter. My fiancé wants a son, so I don’t know if I’ll have a daughter in the end.

The next time I saw her was at the police station. The police said she was cruel because she tortured her father for three days before he died. He was electrocuted and hadn’t eaten anything for three days.

But she wanted to see me, so I came.

"You’re smarter than anyone I know, so you should understand that I had to do it."

I knew why. She used to have beautiful long hair, but it was all cut off when she went to that school. Just like how she used to love drawing, but after learning how much art classes cost per year, she could no longer draw. To her, this was the only way to be free.

I’m different. Do I care about free will? No, because caring only brings me pain.

I used to love collecting stones because they were free. The pebbles by the river were actually very special, just no one noticed. But she was the only one who talked to me about it. My fiancé doesn’t care about that. When he talks to me, it’s about his business. He doesn’t care about intangible things, like the sky or love.

Of course, I’ll always remember our kiss, but you can only kiss, not marry. We both understand that better than anyone.

"I just… I just made him experience what I went through at that school. And the electric current was only a third of what I endured. I told him if I went back there, I would die, but he didn’t listen. I guess he never experienced what I did."

I guess I’m not a good person either because I didn’t save her. I was working in a clothing store at the time. Living at home suffocated me, so I never went back. I’d sleep on a mat on the floor of the store at night. If I had gone back, we could’ve talked. I don’t know where Oxford is, and I don’t know if I could ever get there because you need to fly. I’ve never seen an airplane in my life. I don’t even know how they fly. Once, I saw a diagram of a plane in a magazine, but whether it flies vertically or horizontally, we still have no answer.

But together, we always found a way. I asked her if there was anything else she wanted, and she shook her head.

"You once said you wanted to be a writer. I think you can do it because you’re much smarter than me. I once told you to get married and have kids, but I think you don’t need that after all."

You see, I really am not a good person because I let her down. All I can do is write this .

Once, after drinking beer, she told me that when people die, they don’t go to heaven or hell. We won’t see God. We’ll just go to the stars. I said that’s something you say to trick little kids. She said no, and when the time comes, you won’t need a spacesuit because you won’t need a body anymore.

So, when I found a beautiful little stone at my doorstep, I knew it was her way of saying farewell.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/sandboy810 on 2024-09-16 03:48:59+00:00.

---

I had planned for this story to begin at the very moment I discovered ‘it’ had arrived, but after a day spent doing nothing but running through last night’s events over and over again in my mind, I’ve realized that this story actually should begin hours earlier. Hours before ‘it’ showed up, there had been signs it was coming to visit, signs that I understandably missed before gaining the clarity of hindsight.

Innocuous as it seemed at the time, this story truly begins with the making of a cup of chamomile tea yesterday evening. Call me neurotic if you want but I’ve had a cup of chamomile tea before bed every night for the past six years. Back then I’d been suffering from a string of particularly nasty panic attacks and had tried to settle myself with some tea on the advice of a friend, and it did wonders. Since then, I’ve made myself a cup every evening, and at this point, if I’m being honest, the actual brewing of the tea calms my nerves more than the drinking itself- the ritual is soothing. I imagine it’s kind of similar to how smokers always tell me that they get more of a fix from the act of lighting up a cigarette than the nicotine itself, but that’s beside the point. 

The REAL point here is that I’ve had a cup of tea every night for the past six years, except last night. When I went to my kitchen yesterday evening, the last rays of orange sunlight seeping through my windows, I was unpleasantly surprised to find the sink broken. Turning the knob, I was graced with a few fleeting sprays of pressurised mist and a horrid grinding noise not dissimilar to the sound of a hefty chair being dragged across a wooden floor. 

With one hand over my left ear and my right ear buried into the crook of my neck to block out the awful sound, I quickly shot my other hand out and frantically twisted the knob the other way to shut off the sink. Thankfully, the sound soon faded away into a blissful silence and I could breathe a sigh of relief. 

I didn’t dare touch that knob again, as I was petrified of messing something up and flooding the place. I couldn’t help but imagine a cartoonish scene wherein the pipes under the sink swelled with fluid like a rusted copper water balloon before finally popping. 

Honestly, I was terrified that I’d already broken something, so I tried to take a moment of silence to listen for any signs of a drip. Crouching down to kneel on the floor, I pulled open the cabinet below the sink and poked my head ever-so-slightly inside, and I listened.

No drip. I could breathe a sigh of relief, but as I began to draw my head back out from the cabinet, I was struck by the realization that I was still hearing something. It was very faint, nearly eclipsed by the ambient hum of the fridge’s freon coils, but it was there.

I don’t exactly know how to describe it, but I’d say the closest comparison I could imagine for that perplexing sound would be half of a snore. You know how when people snore, there’s always the deep, pig-like snort of an inhale, and then the light, breathy exhale? Cut out the exhale, and I’d imagine it would sound almost like what I’d heard. Just brief, baritone, mucousy drawls interspersed with moments of utter quiet. 

I had certainly thought it was an odd noise, but then again, I was no plumber. I had no idea what pipes were supposed to sound like, so on what authority could I have surmised that this was in any way out of the ordinary? I just prayed that the pipes would be fine until I could speak to my landlord in the morning and shuffled off to my bedroom, anxious and agitated. 

Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t sleep a wink. Beyond the sheer anxiety that I felt that my pipes might burst at any moment, there was also the fact that for six years now tea had been a bigger part of going to bed for me than the actual bed itself, so obviously I was more than a bit distressed.

Needless to say, when I heard my dog begin barking up a storm from the next room after laying in bed wide awake and bleary-eyed for a full three hours, I was not very happy. For a while there I tried to stay in bed and tune it out, hoping if I didn’t engage, she would just stop of her own accord eventually. But no, she just kept on barking, and barking, and barking.

Eventually, I’d had enough. I knew she wouldn’t be able to understand a word of it, but I couldn’t help myself- I rolled out of bed, ready to tell her off. Staggering out of my room in a huff, I marched my way into the living room and fixed my furrowed, bloodshot eyes on the shadow shifting in the wire crate at the other end of the room.

“Quincy!” I yelled, almost startling myself with the ferocity. 

No response, she just kept on barking.

“QUINCY!” I shouted louder, clapping my hands as I stepped towards her crate.

Again, nothing. Just more barking.

I stopped inches away from the crate, eyes fixed on the young labrador barely illuminated by the gentle moonlight as she threw her head back, howling like there was no tomorrow. 

I tried snapping a few more times, hollering, and banging on the cage, but she just wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t even look at me; after every shrill bark, her gaze would return to a corner of the room, her dark eyes wide and terrified. And she was right to be, as when I finally turned my head to follow her gaze, I understood. I understood that if I were Quincy, I would also be terrified. For that matter, the actual me was already terrified when I saw it hunched over in the shadowy corner.

‘It’ was here.

I’m sure you’re dying to know what ‘it’ was by now, but I’m sorry to say that I really don’t know. From a distance, it looks a lot like a person, and when I saw it in that dim corner, hidden behind the fronds of a potted monstera, I thought it was a person. 

It knelt in the corner, a frond of monstera in its mouth and its hand clasped around the stem. Naked and bare, its eyes were as fixed on me as mine were on it, and its slow chewing of the broad leaf slowed to a halt.

We’d both been spotted.

It slowly rose to its feet, legs wobbling as it did so. Upright, beams of moonlight danced across its form, enough so that I managed to get a decent look at it. Bulbous and fat, smooth and hairless, its plump body was completely bare. I would say it was smooth from ‘head to toe’, but that expression doesn’t work here, as, yes, it may have had a head, but it didn’t have toes. Instead, its legs ended in mangled, fleshy blobs which were obviously difficult to stand on given how it staggered and swayed on its ‘feet’. Hair and toes weren’t the only things ‘it’ was missing, though. Nipples, nostrils, a navel, fingernails, and yes, even genitals, were all utterly absent from it. 

And its eyes… blank. Blank and white, like ping-pong balls in its sockets.

After a few terrified moments of just standing there, frozen in fear, staring at each other, I saw its eyes narrowing at me, as if, at that moment, it was trying just as hard to figure out what I was as I was trying to find out what it was.

It must’ve realized, as its eyes soon widened as if in surprise, and its body jolted forward, staggering towards me with legs quivering and bowed as if its bones were made of mere jelly. Its back arched backwards as it rushed me as it pushed through the stagnant air like a leaf bending in a stiff breeze, and I felt another surge of adrenaline coursing through me as I saw it shakily bring a hand up to its mouth, jamming two fingers deep into its throat like one would to try and make themselves vomit. I’d wager that was precisely what it was doing too, because it began to make these awful retching sounds like a cat trying to hock up a hairball. 

Maybe it was my instinct as an on-and-off boxer, but while my brain told me to run, my body had its own plans, and I found my arm swinging through the air to clock it with a left hook. I connected hard with its left cheek, but to my shock, my clammy fist didn’t stop there. It was like a bowling ball being dropped on a trampoline the way its face bowed inward, and I found its flesh so soft and malleable that my fist not only managed to connect with the outside of its right cheek but the inside of its left cheek as well. Don’t get me wrong- I hadn’t punched a hole clean through it- its face just crumpled beneath my fist like its skull was a flimsy house of cards toppling over.

I can’t be sure, but it seemed just as shocked as I was. Its head had caved in so immensely that while its lower jaw was still firmly attached to its neck, the rest of its head sagged so limply that its upper and lower jaws were now almost at a right angle to each other. As if in disbelief, it brought its hands up to its head and started frantically patting its face, before, perhaps realizing what had happened, a low, guttural moan began to croak out from its throat as it sobbed, red, gooey tears trailing down its cheeks, thick and congealed like strawberry syrup.

Still wailing, it made one more shivering lunge for me which I was just barely able to sidestep. Nearly tripping over a 25-pound dumbbell, I made a fumbling grab for it, holding it up above me, readying myself to club its head.

But I wouldn’t have the chance. ‘Tears’ still oozing down its concave cheeks, when it saw the weight in my hand, it bolted, barreling clumsily down the hall towards the bathroom, leaving a syrupy, gloopy trail behind it. 

Perhaps feeling slightly emboldened by the fear it now seemed to display, I charged after it, the dumbbell still raised above my head as ...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1fhvi6z/it_came_from_the_drains/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/NoPurpose_Story on 2024-09-16 02:03:49+00:00.

---

Working at a retirement home was never my dream job, but it paid the bills and gave me something to do while I figured out my next move in life. The job was straightforward: help the residents with their daily routines, keep them company, and make sure they were comfortable. It wasn’t the most thrilling job, but it paid the bills. The residents were mostly quiet, reserved people who had lived long lives and were just passing their time peacefully.

But last week, I quit my job at the retirement home. You’re probably wondering why anyone would walk away from such a stable gig. It’s simple: I wanted to stay alive. But even now, I’m not sure if I made it out in time. Let me start.

I worked the night shift. It was usually quiet; the residents were asleep by 8pm, and the rest of the night was a breeze. Most nights, I’d sit in the monitoring room, watching the security feeds, reading, or scrolling through my phone. That was until the weird stuff started happening.

The first incident was subtle. I noticed it about a month into the job. It was around 3 a.m., and I was half-asleep in front of the monitors. The cameras were showing their usual views—hallways, common areas, and the residents’ rooms. Then, I noticed Mrs. Carlson.

Mrs. Carlson was 86, frail, with a mind slowly slipping into the fog of dementia. But that night, she wasn’t in her bed. She was standing in the corner of her room, facing the wall. Just standing there, completely still.

I watched her for a while, expecting her to move, shift, or do anything. But she just stood there, like a statue. Uneasy, I decided to check on her. When I got to her room, the door was slightly open. I pushed it wider, and my heart skipped a beat. Mrs. Carlson wasn’t in the corner. She was lying in bed, asleep, just as always. I told myself I must have been tired, maybe imagining things, or that the camera had glitched.

But the next night, it happened again. As I sat in the monitoring room, exhausted and barely paying attention to the screens, I saw Mr. Hopkins—a former war veteran long incapacitated—standing in the middle of his room. At first, he was just standing there, facing the camera with the same empty eyes as before. But then, he started to lean backward, slowly and steadily, until his head was nearly touching his back.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. No one his age should be able to bend their body in such an unnatural way. Suddenly, Mr. Hopkins began to move—not with the heavy, labored steps of an elderly man, but with jerky, unnatural movements. He crawled on all fours, like a spider, slowly climbing up the wall with precise movements, almost without a sound.

I jumped up, my heart pounding in my chest, unable to tear my eyes away from the screen. I knew this frail old man shouldn’t be able to perform these kinds of contortions, but there he was, twisting his body in impossible ways, clinging to the walls and ceiling with his hands and feet, moving in a frantic, unnatural manner.

Then, he stopped. Everything went still, as if time itself had frozen. His distorted body remained motionless, his eyes still locked onto the camera.

My instincts kicked in, I knew I had to check on him. I bolted from the monitoring room, racing down the hallways to Mr. Hopkins' room, my mind reeling with what I had just witnessed. But when I burst into his room, ready to face whatever horror awaited me, I found him lying peacefully in bed, asleep, as if nothing had happened. The room was quiet, undisturbed, with no sign that anything out of the ordinary had taken place. It was as if the terrifying scene I had witnessed on the monitor had never occurred.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was horribly wrong, but every time I brought it up with the day staff, they dismissed it. “Old people do strange things,” they’d say. “Don’t worry about it.” But I couldn’t help worrying.

The incidents became more frequent. More residents would stand motionless in their rooms at night, staring into the cameras. A cold dread washed over me when I realized they weren’t just looking at the lens—they were looking straight at me, through the screen, through everything that separated us. It wasn’t just standing, either. Some nights, they’d be in positions that were impossible for people their age—standing on one leg, arms outstretched, heads tilted at unnatural angles. They’d stay like that for hours, only to vanish from the screen the moment I decided to check on them. And every time I’d find them peacefully asleep.

I started losing sleep myself. I dreaded going to work, but I couldn’t quit. I needed the money. So I kept showing up, every night, hoping it was all just a weird coincidence, that maybe I was losing my mind.

Then, one night, things escalated.

It was a quiet night, almost too quiet—the kind of quiet that makes your skin crawl. Around 2:30 a.m., the televisions in the common area started flickering. The static buzzed, filling the halls with a low hum. I stared at the monitor, watching the static swirl on the screens, feeling dread settle in my stomach.

The static lasted for about a minute before the televisions went black. And that’s when I saw them—on the monitors, in every single room. The residents were all standing by their beds, staring directly into the cameras. Not just a few of them. All of them.

I froze. This wasn’t dementia or sleepwalking. Something was terribly wrong.

Then, the cameras started flickering, the images distorted by static, and when the feed cleared, the residents were gone. Every single one of them had vanished.

I jumped out of my chair and bolted down the hallways, my footsteps echoing off the walls. I checked room after room, but they were empty. Beds unmade, personal belongings untouched, but no sign of the residents.

My mind was racing. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Had they all left? Were they playing some kind of twisted joke? But how could they? Some of them couldn’t even walk without assistance.

I was about to call the police when I heard it—the faint sound of shuffling, followed by a soft, wet noise, like something being dragged across the floor. It was coming from the common area.

I hesitated, fear gripping my heart, but I had to know. I walked toward the noise, every step heavier than the last. When I rounded the corner into the common area, I saw them.

The residents were all there, standing in a circle, facing away from me. In the center of the circle was Mrs. Carlson, lying on the floor, her eyes wide open, staring blankly at the ceiling. Her mouth was open too, but not in a scream. It was as if something had been pulled from her, leaving her hollow, empty.

Before I could react, the residents turned to face me, all at once, their movements synchronized like they were a single entity. Their eyes were black, empty voids, and their faces expressionless.

I stumbled back, my heart racing, as they started to move toward me, slow and deliberate. I didn’t wait to see what would happen. I turned and ran, my legs barely carrying me fast enough as I made my way to the exit. I didn’t stop until I was outside, gasping for breath, the cold night air burning my lungs.

I didn’t go back inside. I left my keys on the doorstep and drove home, my hands shaking on the wheel. I called the police from my apartment, told them there was a situation at the retirement home. They didn’t find anything when they got there. No bodies, no sign of struggle. Just an empty building.

The next day, the retirement home closed down, and the residents relocated to other facilities. I didn’t bother finding out where. I quit, and I’ve been trying to forget about it ever since. But I can’t.

I wish I could tell you that it was all just a story, a product of my imagination. But it’s the truth. Even after I quit, the memories still haunt me. I’ve tried to forget about that night, but sometimes, in the quiet moments, I see them—those empty, black eyes staring back at me. I don’t know where the residents went or what really happened in that building, but I’m certain of one thing: whatever it was, it wasn’t human.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Suffocated-Soul on 2024-09-16 00:38:06+00:00.

---

Hey everyone, you may know me from this post, this is short but there's not much for me to say. I know I left my last post without much explanation but there honestly isn't much to give. I tried commenting to give a little context but I've lived in the middle of nowhere all my life so please forgive me for not really knowing how this stuff works. But I had wanted to make another post anyway to give some context that would be too much for a comment. I had tried asking my grandmother about the creek incident a few times but she could never give me an answer that wasn't vague and cryptic, but I was able to get her to say more about it later on.

My mom was understandably angry with my grandmother for that incident, she thought that my grandmother had kicked me out of the house or was just negligent in keeping an eye on me, at least that’s what I assumed she thought. My mother and I never really got along so I never asked her much, she’s always had a short fuse that missed my grandmother and I.

My grandmother passed not long ago, before I could get any concrete answers, but I'm staying in her house now and it's bringing up a lot of old memories. Most of my memories from this house are happy, so being the only one here is kind of a surreal feeling. Now that I'm the only one here the sounds of the house settling seem a lot louder. Every time the floorboards make a noise I have to remind myself that she's gone, and that it's not her I'm hearing. It can be a bit creepy from time to time, sometimes I’ll think I see something out of the corner of my eye, or hear what sounds like footsteps on the upstairs floor. I think there's rats or mice in the attic, but I haven't called anyone to take care of it yet. My grandmother always told me not to go up there, I think that's because she knew I would chase any rodent I found.

My grandmother took a bad fall at one point, she said she had been getting something from her attic and slipped on the ladder coming down. She had fallen a couple times in the past and always recovered fast, but I think the combination of old age and the surgery was just too much for her to handle. Her health declined fast, every time I saw her she looked worse.

I was in my first year of college when she fell and had to have surgery. I came to visit her when she was released and able to go back home, luckily my professors were understanding and emailed me the lectures and any work I was missing. She actually accepted using a wheelchair for once, so I moved the majority of her things from her bedroom upstairs to the spare room on the ground floor. The box she had been getting from the attic was still dumped on the floor from her fall, it was full of books. The majority of them were bound in leather.

After getting my grandmother something to eat and making sure that she had everything she needed while she was in bed, I took it upon myself to clean up that box. The attic was still open, the ladder still pulled down. I wanted to look through the books. Some of the things my grandmother had collected were nonsense that was only interesting to her, but other things were a genuine marvel to look at. I wouldn't know what category those books fell under until I read them though.

I had just finished putting everything back into the box when I decided I could spare a moment to read the last one I was putting in. The leather binding was soft like silk, when I opened the book I was surprised to find that the pages were also made of the same leather. I couldn't make sense of anything in the book, the writing was illegible to me but frankly I didn't have much time to look. A heavy thump from the attic made me almost drop the book I was holding. 

I couldn't see anything from where I was, but knowing that it was probably just some rodent made me feel a bit better. I put the book into it’s box, it was a bit of a struggle to carry the box up the ladder but after some adjusting I managed to get into the attic. 

I put the box near the entrance, but I took a moment to look around. It was surprisingly empty. There were maybe ten boxes in all including the one I had put back. I couldn't see any mice, and I didn't see anything that looked to be recently knocked over despite distinctively hearing something heavy fall a moment before. 

I wanted to find a light, it was too dark for me to see anything except the silhouette of things. I was running my hands along the walls to feel for a switch. Another thud made me immediately stop, it was close, in the attic. But I couldn't see anything moving. I didn't hear any scurrying or any sort of rodent noises, and whatever it was sounded far too large to be a rat or mouse.

I’ll be honest, I got out of the attic as quick as I could. I know that's probably not what people want to hear but come on, every person who decides to investigate in a horror movie immediately dies! I have plans for my future so I wasn't too keen on dying to some thirty pound rat.

I found my grandmother still laying in her bed. She hadn't touched the food I had made her, but I expected that. She was never hungry at that point, that probably contributed to her condition.

I didn't want to mention the attic to my grandmother but I probably should have, I think some part of me just didn't want her to get mad at me for going up there. Instead I decided to try and ask my grandmother about the night I woke up at the creek. She was much more willing to talk about things after her surgery, but she still wasn't very long winded.

"No, no... Don't worry yourself over things like that." She croaked the words as if she hadn't spoken in a long time.

"How can I not worry? All of it was so weird. From waking up by the creek to that guy showing up, it feels like it was all a dream."

"That man... That man."

I could tell she was upset, but any anger in her voice was covered up by her wheezing, which only got worse as she continued.

"That man is the devil himself. He is great and beautiful but he is not kind. He is not just and he is not fair! He is malicious and hateful like the rest of mankind. No matter what he says, he is the same as every other."

I could tell she was getting more upset by the second, and with her already fragile state I didn't want her to have any unneeded stress.

"Just- Okay calm down. I understand."

"No! You don't understand, I didn’t either! He will not harm you but he will harm others, your mother would not hear me but you will. Your father was his doing, and the father of your child will be his doing as well. Do not speak to him and do not ask for him."

I was quiet for a moment, it was always a bit hard for me to make sense of how my grandmother spoke. But I was especially confused about what she had said about my father. I had never met him, but my mom told me he had died before I was born.

"Mom said that dad shot himself on a hunting trip?"

"His death wasn't his own doing. He was made to be a spectacle, hung from a tree in a ceremony to honor your birth. Just as the mayor said it would be."

"Is that what happened to grandpa?"

I immediately regretted asking that. She never talked about my grandfather, only saying that he was a good person the few times I was able to get a response out of her.

She didn't want to talk anymore after that, only nodding as a confirmation to my question.

Later that week I got a call from her neighbor that she had passed. He had gone to check on her and found her seemingly sleeping on the back porch. He called me before he called the police, and called my mom. I helped my mother arrange a funeral in the days after.

My grandmother left me her house, luckily I was able to transfer colleges to one closer, but not all of my credits transferred over so I'm hoping I won't have to repeat a semester if I take some extra classes.

I have the house to myself now, it's creepier now that I'm alone and I still haven't gone in the attic again, but it still feels like home. I'm planning to go through some of my grandmother's old things to clear out any clutter. I'll give myself a little time to grow a pair and get the boxes out of the attic first, then I’ll move onto the rest of the house so I can put some things up there. 

I left that green jacket that she always sat in hanging next to the door, it feels too important to get rid of. Every time I see it hanging by the back door I regret not having it buried with her. I might take it to the cemetery and leave it at her grave, but I'm a bit worried about someone stealing it.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/HistoryCurious234 on 2024-09-15 22:51:53+00:00.

---

I don’t know where to start. I live on my family's 250-acre property. Being a farm, it's pretty open with rolling fields surrounding my home, except to the left of my house where there’s a small 2-acre woods. It took me a while to check it out, even though growing up I was always running through the woods wherever we lived, since this particular woods so thick I never spent much time in it. But one day I decided to explore, I grabbed my machete, knowing it would be a slow trek cutting down various plants and vines out of my way. I had made a complete circle around the outside of the woods instead of going through the center, which was full of vines and poison ivy. I had almost made it back to my starting point until I was stopped in my tracks. Sitting in front of me in a small clearing was an old, dirty mattress. I remember audibly saying, “What the fuck?” when I got close enough to see. Even worse, next to the mattress were two things: an old stuffed rabbit doll and a bowl full of water. While it obviously creeped me out being in the woods alone, with nothing but a now dull machete from hacking down various plants, eventually my curiosity got the better of me. I got closer and closer, almost chuckling at my reaction to what, albeit creepy, looked abandoned.

Still something seemed off, and I could feel a pit growing in my stomach. That’s when I looked up. I had been so focused on the mattress itself that I didn’t even notice it was pointed directly towards my house. The weeds in front of the mattress had been lightly trimmed—not enough to notice any difference against the thick backdrop of the woods, but just enough to see my home. I was feeling uneasy and decided it best not to dwell on it too long. “Probably just a spot some teenagers used to hang out on an old mattress,” I thought to myself, no doubt trying to ignore the multitude of questions flowing through my mind. Why would someone clear the weeds to have a direct view of my house? Why wouldn’t someone throw the mattress away? Why put it in the woods right off the edge? All these questions were an obvious distraction to the thought that was slowly growing on my subconscious: Is someone watching me?

By the time I got back to my house, I was almost laughing at myself for the stupidity of it. You really think you're interesting enough for someone to watch you? What are the chances someone is actually watching me? Eventually, the mattress fully left my mind while I got distracted watching TV. Still, I never felt completely comfortable knowing there that old, dirty mattress was just sitting in the woods next to my home. Every day when I got home from work, I would look towards the woods in passing, and each time I passed by, I got an almost uneasy feeling. Being on a farm in the middle of nowhere, it’s almost pitch black at night except for the light on my front porch that was turned on by a motion sensor that you had to get pretty close to for it to turn on. One night, while getting home from work pretty late, I got out of my truck and grabbed my keys to lock it. That’s when I saw it. As my headlights illuminated the woods in front of me for a split second, two dots reflected back towards me. They almost looked like eyes, but were too big and spread apart to be a person's eyes, and I convinced myself that I had been seeing things. When I tried clicking the lock button again, my headlights illuminated the woods once more, and I saw nothing. I went inside, feeling a little better, letting the thought slowly float away from my mind. If only I had known what I know now, maybe I wouldn’t have been so calm.

I should've called the cops, but can you blame me? If there really was someone there, they would’ve no doubt been gone the moment they saw a cop car pull up, and all that would’ve been found was an old mattress in the woods. While certainly creepy, I doubt the police would’ve given any serious thought to it. I should’ve done something—anything—because no matter how much I tried, I still couldn’t get the idea out of my head: someone was watching me from the woods, but I would never be able to confirm it. The moment I would go to investigate, the person could’ve run upon seeing me coming. I wish I would’ve thought of something, but I tried my best to just ignore it.

 

A few months had passed, and the idea that someone was watching me  had escaped my mind. At some point, my friend Ryan, who had been living with me, decided to make a dirt bike track through the woods. I showed him the mattress one day while we were walking through the woods, and he just laughed. For one reason or another, Ryan didn’t share the same feelings I had towards the mattress. We grabbed an old machine from the barn with a bucket on the front and lifted the mattress into it. We took it back to the barn and threw it away in the dumpster. I remember a feeling of relief when we left it in the dumpster.

 

Ryan slowly worked on the track, going back and forth from the machine to his dirt bike, tweaking every turn, jump, and straightaway until, after a few months, he had finished what actually turned out to be a pretty nice and fun track. Running through the woods, it had a few twists and turns going around trees and clearings he had made with the old tractor. Hearing him ride around on his bike and then the sound of an old diesel engine starting up had grown so familiar to me on the weekends that I would almost forget the sounds were even happening. God, how I miss those sounds.

 

“Hey, I'm gonna go work on the track. I think I'm almost finished with it. It's going to be awesome!” Ryan said on another Saturday morning. I had gotten so used to him disappearing into the woods weekend after weekend that it had almost become second nature. So much so that I didn’t even notice as the time rolled around to 11 PM that day; I hadn’t seen Ryan in a while. I didn’t even realize that the noise I had been so accustomed to over the last few weeks was also missing. I stepped outside to a silent, chilly night to check on where Ryan had gone. His truck was still parked next to the house, as were mine and my girlfriend's vehicles.

The old tractor was still sitting behind the house, just in front of the opening that led into the woods following the track. It looked like a deep, dark abyss with the faint light I could see coming off of the moon. I knew going in there alone at this time of night was the last thing I was going to do. So I resorted to every other option I could think of. I checked the barn where we kept the old tractors and found nothing but a calm breeze and crickets in the night singing. I checked the other houses that were on the property for the people who worked on the farm, hoping he had maybe gone over to one of them. Still, I found no sign of Ryan or his dirt bike. I tried calling his phone a few more times before giving up. After hearing his voicemail one last time, I knew there was only one thing left to do.

So I grabbed the only flashlight I could find, one of those old-style bulb flashlights that was barely bright and made everything have a yellow tint to it. After taking a few more deep breaths and desperately trying to think of any other possible place he could be, I finally made my way towards the deep, dark, almost tunnel-like opening that led into the woods. I walked around the entire layout of the track for what felt like an eternity, even though it had only been 45 minutes. I almost started to feel relieved that I could walk out of this dark, seemingly endless forest and think of another place to find him. Still, I had to look one last time…

 

As I rounded the third pin turn, something caught my eye. Just past the turn, lying on its side in the weeds, I saw something that looked like plastic and was red in color. My heart dropped when all the ideas ran through my head. What if he's out there hurt? What if he had been waiting for me for hours with various broken bones? Or worse, what if it was too late? What if one of my best friends died because I was too scared to go out into a small patch of woods right next to the safety of my own home? I pushed the thoughts out of my head while starting to move closer to the bike, hoping I’d find a possibly injured but at least alive friend. What I found, in a weird way, was so much worse.

 

Lying down on its side was Ryan’s dirt bike, with the same stickers that he had put all over it. But no Ryan. I searched everywhere I could, hoping he had maybe tried to crawl back to the house, but I couldn’t find a single sign of him—not in the woods, not near my home, not anywhere. It was almost like he had vanished. Against my better judgment, I went back into the woods, hoping to find some sort of clue. And while I somewhat found what I was looking for, it didn’t make me feel any better or answer the biggest question going through my mind: Where the hell are you, Ryan?

 

As I got closer to the bike, it looked seemingly normal; it was dirty, but that was to be expected on something with “dirt” in the name. I tried my best not to move it while searching for clues. I was looking closely at the side facing the ground when I noticed something. Sticking out of the back tire was a small piece of metal. I soon realized it was a nail sticking out of the tire—something that wasn’t unusual on a farm. But then I kept looking. There were maybe 15 or 20 nails all along the back tire—far too many for it to be a coincidence. I checked the fro...

---

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

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/SawyerJWRBLX on 2024-09-15 21:20:26+00:00.

---

The following script has been transcribed to a digital document, following the national park service's discovery ot a series of notes, weighed down my rocks.

I am lost.

All I can hear are the insects. They speak to me. They pester me. They buzz into my ear and remind me how clueless I truly am to find myself off the trail, a curious, large mistake.

I am alone, but I somehow feel accompanied in the empty shadows of this sunset. I have passed many tire tracks, of which the maintenance tractors left behind. Not only have I not seen a trail for 2 days, all I've been walking on is untouched forest floor. I have managed to outrun two bears and four coyotes. There is no food. No water. I am in pain. At a crossroads, and there isn't even anything to end my own life with that doesn't involve a bear mauling.

I think of my mother, my father. The girlfriend I left behind. Surely they've noticed I'm gone and have sent search parties. Oh, curse my curiosity.

Note 2

---

(Blood droplets of type O+ has been recovered from this note.)

I cut myself on a branch. I had to hop down a pretty steep embankment, I was being followed by a strange humanoid figure... Its eyes glowed. It was hungry for me. How goddamn far have I wandered? I have walked dozens of miles without food or water. I have been seeing rocks with cryptic engravings, that of a language I do not recognize to be earthly. They are chalked with a reddish-yellow substance. They are not trail markers. I feel watched whenever I stand near them.

Note 3

---

I continue to see the same trees and rocks over and over again. I have been walking in a constant direction consistently. If I've been going in a circle, then nixon is still president. Little things change. Maybe a small hole in the ground forms, maybe an oak tree is a birch tree the next time I go by. I am stuck in a wormhole, or I am going insane.

Note 4

---

On my 53rd pass of the paradox, I see piles of headless, rotting deer. On my 55th pass, I see headless bears hanging from trees. I am being closed in. It's coming for me.

Note 5

---

I caught a glimpse of it. It is hairless. It stands on two legs. It covers its pelvis with human hair. Its eyes glow red. I jumped into an old basement to avoid its presence and cried myself to sleep.

Note 6

---

(This is the last note obtained by the national park service. It, too, has type O+ blood, soaking nearly three quarters of the page. The following text was transcribed from aggressively scribbled letters in blood and what appears to be oak ash.)

IT GOT ME IT GOT MY LEGS MY LEGS ARE GONE MY FEMUR IS MISSING I BLEED I BLEED I BLEED LET ME DIE

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/CreepyStoriesJR on 2024-09-15 12:21:12+00:00.

---

The clock had just struck 9:30 PM as Eric and I walked down the fog-filled streets, our jackets zipped tight against the night’s chill. The city was unusually quiet, the mist swallowing sound and muting the neon lights that flickered above closed storefronts. I stuffed my hands deeper into my pockets, the anticipation building inside me. It was Eric's idea to come out here, to find the infamous diner that only opened at night. I wasn’t convinced it was a good idea, but curiosity gnawed at me.

"What's the deal with this place again?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, though I couldn't say why. Maybe it was the fog, or the unsettling silence around us.

Eric shot me a grin, his breath visible in the cold air. "Rumor has it the diner opens at exactly 10 PM and closes before dawn. Some people say it's older than the city itself." He paused for effect. "And, of course, the rules."

The rules. That's what everyone talked about. Online forums, late-night campus discussions, and even random whispers at parties. The 10 PM Diner's rules were legendary, each more bizarre than the last. Yet despite all the speculation, no one seemed to know why they existed or who enforced them. Some said it was just a quirky tradition to attract business. Others hinted at something darker, a power that the diner held over its patrons.

"You think it's just a gimmick?" I asked, trying to sound casual.

"Probably," Eric replied. "But isn't that part of the fun? Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?"

I forced a smile, more to convince myself than him. The idea of the rules didn’t sit right with me. But then again, how weird could a diner really be? We turned a corner and the building came into view. It sat at the end of a darkened alleyway, wedged between two ancient brick structures.

“There it is,” Eric said, nodding toward the dim glow ahead.

The diner’s façade was cracked and faded, its windows fogged up from the warmth inside. The only sign of life was a flickering neon sign above the entrance, casting a sickly yellow light onto the wet pavement. As we approached, I noticed a faint outline of people through the grime-streaked glass. My stomach tightened.

“You ready?” Eric asked, grabbing the door handle.

I hesitated for a split second, glancing at the street behind us. The fog seemed thicker now, swallowing everything in its path. It felt like the world was closing in on us. I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, let’s do this.”

Eric pulled the door open, and we stepped inside. A wave of warm, stale air hit me, carrying with it the scent of old leather, coffee, and a faint hint of something metallic. The interior was dimly lit, casting long shadows across the checkered floor. I scanned the room, trying to get my bearings. Booths lined the walls, their red leather cushions cracked and worn with age. A long counter stretched out on the opposite side, stools with torn fabric tops lined up neatly.

There were a few customers scattered around: a man sitting by himself, staring at the window; an elderly couple whispering over their cups; and a lone woman with her back to us, spooning sugar into her drink in a slow, methodical manner. But what struck me the most was how still everything seemed. The other patrons barely moved, their actions sluggish, like they were part of some strange, slow-motion dream.

I glanced at Eric, who appeared to have noticed it too. His usual bravado seemed to wane slightly as we walked toward an empty booth in the center of the room. The seats squeaked under our weight as we sat down. Eric, always one for theatrics, leaned forward and whispered, “Okay, this place is officially creepy.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” I replied, my eyes scanning the room again. Something about the diner made my skin crawl, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was as if the place itself was watching us.

Our conversation was interrupted by the silent arrival of a waitress. She appeared seemingly out of nowhere, placing two menus on the table without so much as a word. Her movements were smooth, almost robotic, and she left as quickly as she had come. Eric raised an eyebrow at me, clearly unnerved.

“Well, that was... something,” he muttered. “Guess we’re not getting the warm and friendly service tonight.”

I picked up the menu, my curiosity piqued. It felt old, the plastic cover worn and sticky to the touch. Then, I noticed the writing on the front, bold, black letters spelling out “House Rules.” Beneath the title was a list of numbered instructions, each one stranger than the last.

RULE 1: Never sit facing the entrance unless you are the first customer to arrive.

RULE 2: Never greet the staff when they approach; only speak when spoken to.

RULE 3: If a stranger joins your table uninvited, offer them a sip of your drink, then excuse yourself to the restroom. Return only when the diner clock chimes.

RULE 4: If you hear soft humming while eating, immediately close your eyes and wait for the humming to stop.

RULE 5: If a waiter drops something, you must turn away and not look at them until they leave your table.

RULE 6: If you hear your name whispered from behind, do not turn around. Pretend you did not hear it.

RULE 7: Should your utensil fall, leave it there. Do not bend down to pick it up, or you risk seeing something under the table that shouldn’t be there.

RULE 8: If you hear footsteps following you as you leave, do not turn around. Slow your pace until the sound fades away.

I read through the list twice, each rule more unsettling than the one before. My mouth went dry as I realized how specific they were. These weren't rules for a quaint diner experience. They were warnings. My eyes darted back to Rule 1: Never sit facing the entrance unless you are the first customer to arrive. A chill ran down my spine as I glanced over my shoulder at the glass door.

"Look at this," Eric whispered, pointing at Rule 4. "If you hear soft humming while eating, close your eyes? What is this place, a haunted house?"

I forced a laugh, but my heart wasn't in it. "It's probably just some elaborate gimmick," I said, trying to convince myself. "You know, to get people talking."

"Yeah, right," Eric replied, his voice tinged with skepticism. "Well, we came here for the experience. Let's just roll with it." He looked at me, waiting for some kind of agreement.

I nodded, feeling a tight knot of anxiety form in my chest. We flipped open the menus and pretended to browse the food options, though neither of us really had an appetite. My eyes kept drifting back to the rules, especially Rule 1.

"Wait," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "We weren’t the first ones here, and..." I trailed off, glancing at the door. Through the grimy glass, something moved. I couldn’t make it out clearly, just a dark silhouette shifting in and out of the foggy night. It was tall, unnaturally so, and seemed to sway as it stood there. I blinked, trying to focus, but it faded into the darkness.

"What?" Eric asked, leaning forward. "What did you see?"

"There's... something out there," I muttered, not taking my eyes off the door. "I don't know what it was, but it looked"

"Don't mess with me," he interrupted, his voice strained. "This place is already creepy enough."

"I'm not messing with you," I snapped, turning back to face him. "I swear I saw something."

We both went silent, the unease between us growing thicker. The rules weren’t a joke. I was sure of it now. This place had its own set of laws, its own way of operating, and we were already violating one.

The tension between us grew thicker with each passing second. I kept glancing at the entrance, scanning for any sign of movement through the glass. My mind replayed the brief glimpse of that shadowy figure I had seen outside, and an icy fear gripped my chest. Eric shifted nervously across from me, tapping his fingers on the table.

We sat there in silence, waiting. The waitress reappeared, sliding up to our table without a sound, her hollow eyes staring straight through us. My skin crawled at the sight of her. Remembering Rule 2, I bit my tongue and stared at the menu in front of me, resisting the urge to greet her or even acknowledge her presence. Eric’s eyes widened as if he had to force himself to stay quiet.

After a long, unsettling pause, the waitress finally spoke, her voice monotone and distant. “What would you like to order?” She didn’t ask it like a question, more like a command. The words felt cold and wrong, echoing strangely in the air around us. It was as if the sound didn’t belong in this place.

Eric coughed and glanced at me, seeking some form of validation. I nodded subtly, indicating he should answer first. He took a deep breath and said, "I’ll have a black coffee and... pancakes." His voice trembled slightly, but he managed to get the words out.

The waitress turned her gaze to me, her eyes boring into mine like a predator assessing its prey. I swallowed hard, forcing myself to meet her eyes for only a moment before I replied, "Same for me, please."

She didn't react, didn’t even blink. She just scribbled something onto her notepad and turned to leave. As she walked away, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief, as though a great weight had lifted off my chest. I exhaled slowly, my heartbeat gradually returning to a more regular rhythm.

“That was... weird,” Eric muttered, breaking the silence between us. “Did you see how she looked at us?”

I nodded, rubbing my hands togethe...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1fhb7r7/night_out_at_the_10_pm_diner/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Giantgorgonzola on 2024-09-14 18:54:36+00:00.

---

I woke up to an unsettling stillness. No noise from the street outside, no faint hum of traffic. It was too quiet. I rubbed my eyes, half-expecting the usual chaos of the morning, the neighbor’s dog barking, the faint hum of a lawnmower, my phone buzzing with messages from work. I live in a relatively small town filled with folks I know But none of that happened.

I brewed coffee, as always, letting the warm aroma fill the air, trying to shake the feeling that something was off. I reached for my phone, no messages. Not a single notification. That was odd. Even the usual spam emails were missing. I checked the time, then the news, scrolling through article after article. Nothing was new, no breaking headlines, no chatter. It was like the world had gone dark overnight. but still everything seems in place.

I tried calling my brother. He checked in on me every few days, always pestering me to get out more, meet people, stop being such a hermit. But my call went straight to voicemail. That uneasy feeling was gnawing at me again, so I tried my mom next, hoping to hear her comforting voice. No answer.

That’s when I made the decision to head to her house. I didn’t live with her anymore, but she’d always been my go-to when things felt off. She lived in a small neighborhood not far from where I was, just a quick drive across town. The streets were deserted as I drove, more so than usual. No kids playing, no cars passing by, not even a stray jogger. I passed houses with open doors and running cars in driveways, but no people. It was as if they had vanished, leaving everything behind in a rush. I made a joke to myself saying did the apocalypse happened without me? am I the only survivor? I chuckled uneasily.

When I arrived at my mom’s house, it felt… wrong. Her door was cracked open slightly. The TV inside was still on, but there was no sign of her. I stepped inside, my voice echoing through the empty rooms as I called out for her. Her knitting was laid out on the armchair like she’d just been there. A coffee cup, still half full, sat on the counter. But no matter how many rooms I checked, she was gone.

I sat on the couch, feeling the weight of the silence press down on me. It wasn’t just my mom. The whole neighborhood felt empty. And the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was connected to my work. The dreams, the strange things I’d been seeing—people disappearing.

The last few weeks had been intense at the lab. They were running an experiment, something high-level involving teleportation?, maybe even dimensional rifts. I myself couldn't believe I was part of something this big, they say it could revolutionize everything we knew so far. But I wasn’t told much, I didn’t need to know. I was just there to keep the lights running, just your regular guy trying to keep a roof over his head. But there had been a malfunction with one of the underground labs—something had gone wrong, and they shut everything down. After that, I’d been having the strangest dreams—dreams where people would disappear into thin air.

I left my mom’s house with a heavy heart. I scribbled a quick note for her, hoping maybe she’d come back and find it, then drove to my brother’s place. If anyone would know what was going on, it would be him. He was practical, always level-headed in a crisis. But when I got to his apartment, the door was unlocked, and it looked like he’d left in a hurry too. Half-eaten food and his phone sat on the kitchen counter with my number dialed in on it, lights were still on, and his car was parked outside. He was gone, just like everyone else.

I was starting to realize the truth. This wasn’t just a coincidence. The strange dreams, the experiments at work… something had happened, and I was in the middle of it. But I still didn’t fully understand.

Then I saw them.

It was just a flicker of movement at first, something out of the corner of my eye. I pulled the car over and grabbed the binoculars I kept stashed in the glove compartment. My hands were shaking as I scanned the horizon. And then I saw them—people, standing in the distance, near the edge of a large open field. It wasn’t a large crowd, maybe five or six, but they were there.

My heart raced. Finally—other people. I waved, desperate for a response, but none of them waved back. They stood there, clustered together, looking around nervously. Something wasn’t right. I focused the binoculars, studying them more closely. They weren’t just watching me; they were on edge, shifting uncomfortably, whispering to each other. One man kept glancing over his shoulder, like he was ready to run at any moment.

I stepped out of the car, raising my hand again to get their attention, but their unease only deepened. One by one, they started backing away, moving further from the field’s edge as I approached. It felt wrong, the way they were retreating—like they were afraid of me. I took a single step forward, and that’s when it happened.

One of the women disappeared.

She didn’t run or hide. She just… vanished. Right there, in front of me. The space where she’d stood was suddenly empty. The others saw it too, and their panic spread. In a moment of confusion I step closer again while my hand's still in the air then it happened again one of them vanished again. The others that was left turned and bolted, trying to get away as fast as they could, but it was too late. One by one, they all disappeared—fading from existence with every step I took closer.

I suddenly froze. My mind reeled as I dropped the binoculars, the world spinning around me. This wasn’t a coincidence. This wasn’t some strange phenomenon happening to everyone. It was happening because of me.

I felt sick. The experiments at work—the malfunction, the strange dreams… they weren’t just in my head. I was the one causing this. Whatever cosmic force they had tapped into on that lab during those experiments had changed me, turned me into some kind of walking black hole. People disappeared when I got too close.

I staggered back to the car, my heart pounding. The notes I had seen earlier started making sense now. “Don’t come closer.” “You’re not alone, but you need to stay away.” They weren’t warnings to me. They were warnings about me.

I thought about my mom, my brother—everyone I had been near. Had I caused them to vanish, too? The guilt was overwhelming. I had come to them, hoping to find safety, but all I had done was destroy them, without even knowing it.

I sank into the driver’s seat, staring at the empty field where those people had been just moments ago. The weight of it all crashed down on me. The government experiment, the strange energy we’d been messing with, it had done something to me. Something irreversible. And now I was alone.

It wasn’t the world collapsing, it wasn't the apocalypse. It was me.

I was the cause of this. The strange cosmic force we had tapped into had made me a walking void, erasing anyone within a certain radius.

All this time, I had thought I was just trying to survive. But I was the one wiping everyone out.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/PageTurner627 on 2024-09-15 05:31:41+00:00.

---

The snow came fast, thicker than I'd ever seen it. One minute, I was tracking a buck through the pines, and the next, the world had turned white. No sound, no sign of life—just me, alone in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. I couldn't even see my own damn tracks behind me.

I should’ve headed back when the first flakes started falling, but you don’t give up on a good hunt. Not when you’ve been doing this as long as I have. Stubbornness, I guess. That’s what my dad used to say. "You're gonna die out here one day, boy, if you don't learn when to quit."

Well, maybe he was right.

By the third day, I had no idea where I was. The snow hadn't let up, and every step felt heavier, slower. The trees all looked the same—like they were closing in on me, watching. I hadn’t eaten in two days, not even a scrap of jerky left in my pack. My stomach had gone from rumbling to just feeling empty. Hollow.

I tried to keep my head on straight, but the cold does things to a man’s mind. I started seeing things—just flashes at first. Shadows in the trees. A shape moving just outside my vision. I told myself it was nothing. Maybe it was. But I knew something wasn’t right.

Then, I saw him.

At first, I thought it was another trick of the snow, but no. He was real. A man, huddled under a pine, shivering, barely holding it together. He looked like he'd been out here longer than I had—face pale, eyes wide and sunken. He didn’t say anything when he saw me. Just stared.

I should’ve been relieved to see someone. I should’ve helped him.

But all I could think about was how hungry I was.

I remember walking toward him, each step like wading through snowdrifts, sluggish and inevitable. His eyes got wider, like he knew. Like he could see the darkness in me, feel the weight of what was coming.

Without warning, I attacked him, fast and brutal. Before I knew it, I was on top of him, my hands around his throat, squeezing until the life drained from his eyes.

It didn’t take long. Too weak to fight back or even scream. I don’t remember much after that. Just the sound of tearing flesh. The warmth of blood on my frozen fingers. The taste of meat, filling that hollow place inside me.

When it was done, I sat there for a while, breathing heavy. My mind felt clearer, sharper. Like something had snapped into place. The hunger was gone, but something else was growing inside me. Something darker.

I wandered toward the stream not far from where it happened. I needed to wash the blood off. The water was cold, biting at my skin, but I didn’t care. I knelt down, cupping the water in my hands, splashing it on my face.

That’s when I saw it.

I looked into the water, expecting to see myself—muddy, worn, but me. Instead, staring back was something else.

The face staring back was skeletal and twisted, with hollow eyes that burned like coals. And from its head, long, jagged antlers sprouted, twisting up into the cold sky like the branches of a dead tree.

I blinked. Splashed the water again. But it didn’t go away.

The reflection grinned. Lips pulling back to reveal sharp, bloodstained teeth.

And I understood. It was me. Or what I had become.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Technical-Gas-8749 on 2024-09-15 04:10:39+00:00.

---

So let me quickly explain before I get into the events that changed my life forever.

I am a male who just recently turned 21 years old and last week a day after my birthday I saw an ad online for a night shift security guard position at my towns oldest train station. I always hated the night shift position at any job because you always got the weirdos and drug addicts that always seemed to want to hang out and cause trouble or destroy property that you were left to clean up at the end of the night. Unfortunately, I needed this job really bad as having a kid and one on the way tends to get very expensive.

Alright now that you got the backstory of how I ended up in this mess let's get on to the actual life altering events that changed me as a person and how I ended up seeing the world a bit more differently today.

As I walked down the dark wet stairs that led into the even more dark subway below, I came out onto a slightly lit up platform with an office sitting at the end of it. I proceeded over to the office door and let 3 consistent but hard knocks fall onto the door. An older man with grey rough looking hair that fell down in front of his face peered out the office window and seemed to be sizing me up before answering the door and asking in a raspy voice "can I help you?" I looked at the man for a second taking his appearance in before replying "Uh yes hi I am here for a job interview" The man cleared his throat before replying "Come on in have a seat my name is Ralph you must be Jack" I looked at the man for a second wondering if I was the only one who applied for such a great job I mean it was offering 22 bucks an hour who would pass that up. "Yep" I replied now letting my body slouch into the office chair.

He looked over some papers that were neatly stacked on the tiny desk in front of him "Can you start tonight?" he replied looking up at me still letting his hair fall in front of his face. I looked back at the man with an angry expression on my face as this after all was a last-minute thing to say to someone who just came in for the interview, "Uh yeah I guess that will work" I said back letting a slightly annoyed tone leave my mouth.

"Welcome aboard" he said now standing up from his chair extending his hand to me in hopes I would shake it. I took his hand and shook it all the while forcing a smile as I was still slightly annoyed that I had no time to even prepare. Ralph gave me the quickest tour I had probably ever had at a job, we returned to the office where he blurted out "Oh yes I almost forgot here make sure you read this and uh good luck" he set an employee manual down in front of me titled *Security manual for the second shift* and left the office leaving me alone in my thoughts.

Good luck? who wishes someone good luck I thought to myself as I flipped through the manual filled with what to do and what not to do in case of a dangerous traveler or a shooting/bomb threat when I came across something that really made me stop and pay attention to what I was reading. *Rules for the night shift* in big bold lettering now sat across the manual's old pages.

I began to read carefully as the last thing I wanted to do was break a company rule on my first night that is the last thing that I would want to happen to me.

*Greetings new hire, I hope you have had the time to get settled in and familiar with your office, as you will be there for most of your shift. Now each night there may be some minor inconveniences that may hinder your job here at Redacted Train Company but just follow the guidelines below and I am sure it will be no problem to you at all. *

1. At exactly 12:05 AM you will hear an announcement that train 102 which is the last train for the night has arrived on track 7, pay attention to your cameras if the train is on any other track but 7, we want you to get up grab the gun in the desk drawer below you and shoot every passenger that gets off that train and return calmy to your office don't worry they are not real people.
2. Every 2 hours after midnight you are required to do a sweep of the platform to ensure nobody has snuck in to the station, if you see a homeless man sleeping against the wall by track 2 simply wake him up and tell him it's time to go he will not hurt you and will leave when asked if it is anyone but him return to your office as fast as you can and do not make eye contact we cannot stop what will happen to you if you look for too long.
3. At any point between the times of 2 AM and 3:30 AM you have to go to the rest room please use the one closest to the exit of the station, if for whatever reason you use the one closest to your office between those times and you see you're not alone in the rest room simply turn around walk to the exit punch in the code for the time lock door and leave the station once outside call your manager and he will know what to do.
4. At 4 AM you may see a man approach the guard window asking for help simply close the window and get under the desk ignore him until he is gone, and you will be ok trust me you do not want to help this creature.
5. At 6:55 AM you may see a guy in a guard's uniform approach your office window claiming to be your relief grab the pistol in the desk and empty the chamber until the thing drops it is not your relief.

Please note that your shift ends at 7 AM on the dot that is when the day guard will appear no earlier!!!! refer to rule 5 for help.

I looked back over the rules 500 more times before it started to make any sense in my head, I get it I thought to myself there just trying to pull a prank on the new guy real funny guys. I glanced over to the clock which was to the left of where I was sitting 12:05 AM I nearly jumped out of my seat when a voice crackled to life over the intercom above me.

*Train 102 now arriving on track 7 all passengers please deboard next stop Willows Station end of the line* a shiver ran down my spine as I heard the voice slowly fade to nothing on that old intercom above my head. I slowly turned to face the camera monitors that sat adjacent to me on the right-hand side of my desk, there on track 7 was an old steam passenger train deboarding it's passengers onto the old rickety platform. I sighed a breath of relief as I re visited rule 1 and realized I would not have to kill anyone tonight the train was on the right track maybe this really was just a joke on the new guy after all.

The night proceeded on and 2 AM came and went with no incident on the patrol of the station's platform. I quickly found myself falling asleep however when an uneasy urge of needing to go to the bathroom fell over me. I shot up quick from the desk feeling like I was about to soil myself and shot a quick glance towards the clock 3:25 AM I sighed and opened the door to my office and proceeded to tug on the bathroom door that was adjacent to my office just as I placed my hand on the handle to pull the door open rule 3 hit me like a truck going 80 in a 40.

At any point between the times of 2 AM and 3:30 AM you have to go to the rest room please use the one closest to the exit of the station, if for whatever reason you use the one closest to your office between those times and you see you're not alone in the rest room simply turn around walk to the exit punch in the code for the time lock door and leave the station once outside call your manager and he will know what to do.

The words playing in my head as I stood outside the bathroom door. "shit" I yelled out loud as I turned around quickly to go to the opposite side of the station. Just then as I turned around a loud noise that sounded like a bottle breaking filled the train station.

I turned back to look at the bathroom adjacent to my office and almost fell backwards to the cold hard ground there laying against the wall was a man who seemed to be sleeping but was not breathing. "Sir?" I said holding my flashlight on him the guy was dressed in a clean blue suit with black loafers on his feet. "You can't" I stopped dead in my tracks when rule 2 hit me right in the face.

*Every 2 hours after midnight you are required to do a sweep of the platform to ensure nobody has snuck in to the station, if you see a homeless man sleeping against the wall by track 2 simply wake him up and tell him it's time to go he will not hurt you and will leave when asked if it is anyone but him return to your office as fast as you can and do not make eye contact we cannot stop what will happen to you if you look for too long.*

I turned away as fast as I could as sharp teeth began to appear in the things mouth, I continued back into the office as fast as I could slamming the door shut behind me and locking it. I continued to watch from the monitors as the thing just got up from the cold hard floor and vanished out of sight. What the hell is going on I thought to myself as I let my back slide down the steel office door.

I quickly shot a look up at the clock that hanged over my desk 4 AM it was time for my second security check of the station's platform, but I'd be dammed if I was going back out there not knowing if that man or thing was still out there waiting for me wanting to possibly eat me.

"Help me, is anyone there, I need help" a man's voice snapped me back into reality as I heard the whining calls for help. I turned and looked towards the security window only to be greeted with nobody. "Help me hello is there anyone there anyone ...

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