nosleep

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Street_Camera_1258 on 2024-11-11 16:29:48+00:00.

---

Hello again,

Finn slipped into a coma last night. The doctors didn’t see it coming, but I had a feeling it would. My wife won't leave the hospital and it seems that she will not eat anything. I needed to go back home, and I tried to take our baby girl with me. My wife wanted our daughter with her.

On my way out the local priest Father Milton, a 60-year-old man tried to enter Finn's room. I tried to get him to leave but my wife insisted. I watched for a moment while he prayed over my son.

I got back home and grabbed my bottle, not knowing what to do. I was scared, tired, and confused. The only thing I knew now was how to tip this bottle and try to forget. That's what I did. I sat staring at a black screen and started to think about my boy. I even thought about my brother. How they seem so connected, but the strings are invisible. The light taps of rain hitting the window were drowned out by my thoughts.

That's when a knock on my door echoed through my silent and empty house. The bang made me jump, knocking the bottle on the ground as the liquid sank into my carpet. I sprung up and picked the bottle up, capping it and sliding it under the couch. I wiped my eyes and opened the door.

There he stood in the rain off of our porch, as if he had jumped off at my answer. His black lightweight jacket took a pounding, and his hair was drenched underneath the hood. He looked up at me, his eyes sunken in their holes, black underneath.

"Anthony?"

I don't like to talk about Anthony, not to anyone it's just not my place. Because of all that he has been through it's best for the town to forget. Anthony was why I never looked back at religion, and why he is how he is today. He isn't the bright kid that would come over and play with Kevin, not anymore. He was now a child in a man's body, shaken by what happened to him, never to grow to recover. The town turned its back on him, an open secret, that many wanted to forget. Myself being one of them.

"Hi Doug."

"Come on in here, get out of that rain."

He shrugged and took a ginger step onto the porch. He was not a small man by any means, but he slouched always. He stood under the awning, looking into my eyes.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I... I am not crazy, Doug. I am just a little confused."

"Anthony, I don't know if you have heard but it's not a good time-"

He cut me off.

"Finn slipped into a coma tonight didn't he?" His eyes darted to the ground.

I couldn't even make a sound, everything got caught in my throat, and my mouth dropped.

"How did-

"I know because I saw him last night. In my apartment. Do you mind if we go somewhere?"

I didn't know what to do.

"Let me get some things."

He stood under the awning, as I grabbed my wallet and walked out of the house.

"Anthony, where's your car?"

"I don't have one."

Maintaining my sober act, I nodded and walked to mine.

We drove down the road. Both of our eyes looked at Anthony's old home as we passed by it, it was old and falling apart. He stared longer than I did. 

We decided to go to a bar. The Settler’s Den was pretty empty. I haven’t been here for years, but it seems like Anthony knew the place. We sat ourselves and slid into a small booth in the corner. It took a minute. I looked at Anthony's hands, they were shaking. I was hoping it was due to the rain and not other things. I ordered a beer, and Anthony ordered two rum and coke's at once. He downed one right away as he licked his lips, not a drop spilled, nor wasted. I sipped mine.

"You remember what happened back in the day?"

"Anthony I thought we were going to talk about last night. I mean, we don't need to bring up what happened to you."

"I know, but you do right?"

I nodded. "I am sorry about that."

"I didn't."

"What?"

"Listen to me when I say this Doug, and don’t judge me until after. But, I didn't remember. Not for the longest time."

"What? You probably blocked it out. It was so traumatizing."

"Yeah, that's what I have been told my whole life. That it wasn't my fault, that I wasn't to blame. But still for years to come everyone looked at me differently, even today. I see the way you look at me when we run into each other at the liquor store. That gnawing feeling, like I am a bad memory of this town that people want to forget, but when they see me this scar reopens. Yet, I don't know why."

"Anthony..."

"Why Doug?"

I was completely fazed by his question I had to spit out the truth.

"Anthony you were abused by that priest."

He just looked at the table.

"You were sick and he came in when you were at your lowest and he took advantage of you. You went up on the stand, you told everyone. He got caught because you were so brave."

"Father McCleary." He said softly. You know the last thing that I remember from that time? I walked out of my house that night, to pick up some toys, and I looked down the road the one leading to your house. I saw a person walking down it, walking right towards my home. It took a second but then I saw - it was Kevin. He was wet, each step with a squeak. He came up to me and said that he was sorry. I turned back to my house confused. My mom told me that Kevin was sick. I turned back and he was gone. That happened on the third of October, after that, I remembered nothing."

I looked up at him. October 3rd was the night that Kevin died.

"Anthony, what do you not remember?"

"Doug, none of the time I was sick, nothing after that moment."

Anthony told me it was all blacked out. He only remembered that when he got out of his illness. That was when he started to remember, a day after that his parents started acting weird. They started to get convinced something happened with that priest.

"I was scared. I mean my parents were telling me what happened to me, they were all that I had. They told me that I was molested, and taken advantage of by this man, and this was when my parents were religious. So I trusted them."

"Anthony, why are you telling me all of this?"

"Because I went to my house the other day, before the first rainfall. It was like it was calling to me in my dreams. I walked over to it. You know no one has bought it since my issues it just stands there rotting away. The door was of course opened, so I just walked inside."

"You broke in?"

"I walked up the stairs to my room. It took a lot, even though I couldn't remember why. It was like the house was pulling me towards it while pushing me away. Heavy steps got me there, and I stepped into it. Where so much took place, and none of it I knew. The air was dead, no wind even through broken windows. I just stood there, ultimately saddened by no gained memory. It was in the end just a room. My bed frame was still there, the mattress taken probably by some homeless man. I walked up to it."

He took a quick sip of his other drink.

"For some odd reason, I wanted to touch it, and I did. Doug, I am not kidding to you, it was as fast as a flood, all the knowledge all of the memories, all the screaming and pain all compressed into my brain and melted into its halls. I fell onto the floor, as tears just shot out of my eyes already pooling onto my hands. After that night of seeing your brother, that was when I started to see the man in my room."

I didn't interrupt. I just stared at Anthony telling me what happened to him.

"Back then I couldn't recognize him, he was tall and he was smiling. He stood all the way up and waited in the corner of my room. All night just staring at me. I couldn't move, I barely breathed. It was as if each breath was if I was drowning in the air. For several nights I saw him. But, now it's easy to know who it was Doug, it was me, literally me today staring at my younger self."

I shuddered at the thought.

"I was completely bedridden after that. I couldn't talk to my parents, I couldn't control my movement. I was a passenger in my own body. I didn't know what took control, but I could hear them as if they were a million miles away but, still barely whispering in my ear. It was a sharp voice, maybe even a little high-pitched. It was a language I never heard. But, it was terrifying. That was when Father McCleary and Father Milton came to the house."

"Father Milton the priest who is still at St. Innocent's?"

He nodded.

"Wait wait what are you saying?"

"It took a little bit of time. This was when I was floating away, I couldn't hold any control and whoever took it from me was pushing me towards the exit. I was floating into the darkness, no more whispering, no more seeing, all I could hear was one thing and it was growing louder and louder, it was the soft running of water. Maybe a ravine."

He snapped at me.

"Just like that I woke up and I fell about 10 feet onto my bed. Both of the priests ran to me, throwing a blanket over me, trying to tend. Then a day or two later, my parents were telling me that I was you know that… that I was a victim."

"Anthony are you saying-"

"I think that this thing plays with memories it makes people forget, or remember wrongly. It burrows its way into your brain and fog up where it left off, so no one knows. Because, my parents witnessed a miracle, but only perceived it as the worst act imaginable. It then made me forget completely until now."

He was holding back tears.

"I testified against the man who saved my life, and he had to stand there and take it. He died in jail you know? Not so long after I put him in there. Stabbed in the stomach and chest eighteen times. The only person to tr...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1gow9r9/my_child_hasnt_been_sleeping_part_2/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/megaman638 on 2024-11-10 20:45:28+00:00.

---

My husband, David, and I were always avid campers. We were both always the outdoorsy types and felt most at home in the woods sitting by a campfire. Something about the peace of nature and silence of the forest would always put my mind at ease. However we could never find that peace at a state park or private campground. It just wasn’t the same as the primitive camping we enjoyed so much. We always picked up the best spots from locals and other primitive campers. There are so many beautiful views and peaceful sites that are hidden away.

One such site we heard about was about 5 miles off of route 3 in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. We heard stories about the mountain views and a peaceful lake that was one short hike away. We drove up to one of those dirt rest stops for when you need to use the bathroom or switch drivers and began our hike from there. After about 2 hours of hiking, we found a clearing in the forest. It was roughly 30 feet across and just as wide. We immediately began setting up camp. David began to set up the tent and I went to collect some branches for kindling. While collecting some kindling I heard something off in the distance. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but then I heard it again and the noise was much clearer. Laughter. I mentioned what I heard to David and we agreed it was most likely just someone else camping nearby. I was a little disappointed at the idea that this site wasn’t as isolated as we thought. But I wasn’t going to let this ruin our trip.

After setting up our camp, we went looking for the mountain view we heard so much about. Amazingly, it was only a 15 minute hike from our site. The view was beautiful. The vibrant oranges and reds of early autumn spread across the rolling mountains was something I never tired of. We sat on the edge of the cliff and enjoyed our trail mix while taking in the nature Vermont is known for. Once we began to pack up and head back, I heard the laughter. Closer this time. It was coming from down the cliff and it was much clearer. It was high pitched and giggly, like that of a small child. I pointed this out to David but he didn’t hear anything. He played it off as being the wind or maybe the campers I heard earlier. I really wanted to believe him but something about the laughter was just wrong.

I pushed down my concerns and we returned to camp. The sun was starting to go down when we got back to camp so David got a fire going while I started prepping dinner. We sat in our chairs roasting hot dogs over the fire just talking when I heard that damn laughter a third time. At this point I was getting a little freaked out. David heard it this time and agreed that it was creepy but said it was probably nothing to worry about. He rationalized that it was probably just other campers but just in case we would load the Glock 19 and keep the handgun and bear spray close when we went to sleep. This made me feel more comfortable about staying. I didn’t want the trip to end but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I eventually relaxed enough to fall asleep. I woke up a couple hours later in the pitch black. I wasn’t sure why I woke up or why I could seem to get back to sleep. That was until I heard that fucking laughter again.

Only this time, it was so distant. It was close. Very close. I sounded almost right outside my tent. It almost seemed to bounce around, coming from different directions until it was coming from every direction. It was almost deafening when it suddenly stopped. I quickly turned to David and yelled for him to grab the gun. When I didn’t hear him, I grabbed my flashlight and tried to shake him up. I grabbed at him only to realize I was shaking an empty sleeping bag. The moment I realized he was gone was when I heard a smack on the side of the tent. It was a hand. The small hand of a child. Then another and another and another all accompanied by that same laughter. Coming from every direction was that fucking laughter so loud I thought my ear drums were going to pop. Suddenly, to my horror, the hands started pressing in on the tent and the walls began to close in on me. Between the deafening laughter and claustrophobia of the tent being pressed in, I felt myself freezing up. I only broke out of my daze when thoughts of David crept into my end. Where was he? Did whoever or whatever was doing this have him? Did it hurt him?

I felt a rush of anger and adrenaline like nothing I’d ever felt before. I grabbed my gun and flashlight and tore out of the tent. I screamed into the night and let off a shot. That shot brought the woods to an instant silence. I quickly scanned the clearing, calling for David. That was when I noticed a pile of leaves on the other side of the clearing at the base of a large tree. I slowly crept over terrified of what I might find. I quietly called for David until my flashlight caught a glimpse of David’s flannel under the leaves. I brushed the leaves aside and was met with David. His skin was pale and cold to the touch. His eyes were still and lifeless. My David was dead. Upon seeing my husband dead, all my confidence was replaced by pure dread. This dread was closely followed by laughter. That damn laughter, taunting me.

My fight or flight hit me hard and I chose flight. I grabbed my bag and ran in the direction of the trail head, the laughter following me the whole time. When I arrived at the car, I locked myself inside and called 911, begging for help. Some rangers and state troopers showed up with an ambulance in tow. They scoured the woods finding my campsite and my David but little else. David’s death was officially ruled an accident though they never could explain how the accident happened. But I know what happened. Something in those woods killed him. It’s still out there and I think it might have followed me home. Sometimes, on quiet nights, when I listen closely on my back porch, I hear the faint sound of a child’s laughter.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/DJ_Storytime on 2024-11-11 01:34:30+00:00.

---

Rainbow Creek isn’t the most interesting town, and it likely wouldn’t exist at all if not for the two colleges it was built around, or the federal prison a few miles outside of town. It’s a small city nestled in the Montana mountains, and while the locals are happy to live the small city life, college students, like me, crave things that remind us of the cities we came from.

That’s what brought me into Gannon’s antique shop. Back home my mother would take me antiquing with her. She had a taste for the old and unusual, and as I was nearing the end of my first semester of my freshman year, I found myself feeling homesick. So, one day, as the cold late autumn air nipped at my skin on my evening walk, I finally decided it was time to drop into the old antique store.

There was an old bell that rang as I opened the door, and the old man behind the cash register barely acknowledged my presence, looking up from a stack of old documents he was reading that I guessed must have something to do with the jeweled sword laid out on the countertop.

I started browsing the wares and was quick to notice that this was unlike any antique shop I’d ever been in before. The antique stores I was used to shopping at with my mom had old things, some up to maybe two-hundred years old, but this place was in an entirely different class.

Old was not a strong enough word for many of the items old man Gannon had for sale. Many of them would be better classified as antiquities. The newest item I found was labelled as being from the year 1852, but most were older than the fifteenth century, and some were even marked as being over two-thousand years old.

It was one of these older items that caught my attention. It was a bronze figurine, roughly six inches tall of a winged, goat-headed, hermaphroditic creature with serpents crawling across its belly. The craftsmanship was exquisite, showing every detail in clear relief with such a lifelike appearance that I could almost see it move. The eyes were made of some kind of deep red jewel that seemed to glint with a light all their own. The body was completely corrosion-free and shone like it had just been polished.

It was ugly and beautiful. It was alluring and horrifying.

I had to have it.

I checked the label next to it. It read simply Idol of Baphomet Circa 500 CE $3,600.

I was no expert on ancient artifacts, but I did know that high quality art from before the renaissance was ridiculously expensive, and this figurine, this idol, was far more finely crafted than anything I had seen in museums. If it was real, it was a true masterwork of antiquity, and that made it vastly underpriced.

Still, $3,600 is a lot of money. It was, in fact, exactly as much money as I had in my bank account after paying bills for the month. I’d been saving for a rainy day, setting aside something from every paycheck I’d received since I got my first part time job at the age of sixteen, and it represented my life savings, but this idol was too good an opportunity to pass up.

I took it to the checkout counter and got old man Gannon’s attention. “I want to buy this,” I declared.

He looked at me, and he looked at the small idol I had set on the counter, then back at me again. “I don’t think you want that particular item,” he replied. “It’s special. You don’t pick it, it picks you.”

I scoffed. “Don’t insult me old man!” I replied testily. “I may just be a student, but I have enough money for this!” I handed him the label with the price listed, and he examined it intensely.

“That’s not the price I put on it,” he said slowly.

“It’s the price,” I replied hastily, sensing that the old man was going to claim the idol was supposed to cost more before jacking the price up. In fact, I was certain of it. An item of that age and quality was definitely worth more. He probably left a zero out of the price by accident.

It’s the price,” I repeated, and I have exactly enough money to pay for it.” I produced my debit card from my wallet and held it out to him.

He stared at me thoughtfully for a moment before taking my card and running it. The charge came up as good.

“It seems the idol has chosen you after all,” he said, and I could swear I detected a hint of sadness, maybe pity in his voice. “Be careful with it.”

“Wait here,” he commanded, then went into the back room before reappearing a minute later with a binder. “This is the provenance of your antique,” he said in a businesslike tone. “Be sure to read it as soon as you get home. It tells you the story of this particular item as far back as is known. There are gaps in the history, but that’s expected for an item of this age.”

I took the binder from him and flipped it open. It was filled with documents in protectors, half of them old and in other languages, and the other half new translations to English placed in a separate protector behind each original document.

“Don’t forget to read them,” old man Gannon said warningly as he packaged my new idol for transport home. “Always know the details of anything you buy, new or old.”

“Sure thing,” I said dismissively as I took the package from him and scooped up the provenance binder. “I’ll read it at my first opportunity.”

If only I had actually done as I said, maybe I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in now.

I hurried home with my prize and placed it in the center on my desk’s bookshelf.

I stepped back to admire it, snapped a picture with my phone, texted it to my mom, and called her to tell her about my amazing find. We spoke for a little more than an hour, a lot of our conversation being speculation about the true value of such an artifact, wrapping up with a promise that we would take it to an appraiser when I came home for the summer.

It was early evening by that time, and all of my friends were done with classes for the day, so I put the binder of provenance on the bookshelf, left to go party with the girls, and promptly forgot about it.

I got home late and exhausted, so tired that I fell into bed fully clothed, and I swear I was asleep before I even hit the mattress. I had vividly troubled dreams. Visions of damned souls screaming in eternal torment in Hell. Images of violence and bloodshed among the living. Lies, pain, and betrayal were all around. Behind it all, ever in the background, was a winged, goat-headed figure with glowing red eyes and an evil smile splayed across its caprine lips.

The next day was tough, not just because I stayed out too late and my first class was early, but also because my dreams seemed to have sapped the rest from my sleep, leaving me slow and foggy all day long. I barely made it through my classes, went to my dorm, and promptly went to bed despite it being early afternoon.

My dreams remained troubled, filling my head with the same visions as the night before, only closer, more present this time. I could swear I actually smelled the stench of sulfur and burnt flesh. I could feel the pain and anguish of betrayed lovers. I could taste the iron blood in my mouth as people were gruesomely murdered.

Mixed in with the overwhelming cacophony of torment, I began to feel my own response. Horror and revulsion gripped my heart, and I felt like I was suffocating, barely able to breathe as I choked on the smoke of billions of damned souls. I felt physical pain, and my mind screamed to wake up, but I could not. I was trapped in the hell world of my dreams, and there was no escape. I was bound to sleep, forced to suffer along with the many, many tortured souls that filled my every sensation.

It felt like a lifetime that night, and when I woke up to my alarm blaring next to my head, it was with a great gasp for air, trembling, and a racing heart that took many minutes to slow down as I went from gasping to hyperventilating as the panic overwhelmed me. It was only when I was able to convince myself that it had all been a dream, a horrible, horrible dream, and the waking world was safe that I finally was able to slow down my breathing, and eventually get myself under control.

I looked over to my desk and set my eyes upon the idol of Baphomet sitting in a place of honor where it was easily visible. Seeing it, I was reminded of how the demonic figure in my dreams had taken on the form of my new relic, and I wondered for a moment if the two were somehow connected. I walked over and picked it up, examining it closely from all angles. It was so lifelike, and the gem eyes were so lustrous that they seemed to glow much like the eyes of the dream demon.

“How peculiar,” I muttered quietly. “Why are you showing up in my nightmares? You’re beautiful.”

I stared into the luminous gemstone eyes of the idol as I spoke, and it felt as though they were staring back at me until I finally set it down in its place of honor and left to attend my first class of the day.

My friend, Geraldine, could see that I was out of sorts during our first class and caught up to me when it was over. “What’s going on?” she inquired. “You look like something’s eating you.”

“You have no idea,” I replied exasperatedly.

“Then give me the idea,” she quipped.

Her manner may have been on the sassy side, but I knew she was sincere. “I’ve been having nightmares the last couple of nights,” I told her. “Real bad ones, and they feel more like I’m actually there than like I’m dreaming.” I trailed off at the end, then continued. “But that’s ridiculous, right? They’re just dreams. I don’t really feel, smell, and taste anything in them any more than I s...

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Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1gogpe7/the_idol_of_baphomet/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Spoopychillz on 2024-11-10 23:56:04+00:00.

---

When you think of McDonald’s, chances are that you have fond memories. Whether it be the old commercials with Ronald, Grimace and all their friends, or immersing yourself in childhood whimsy at the small themed playgrounds outside your local McDonald’s, many associate McDonald’s with fun.

Yeah, that’s what I originally thought too.

The year was 2005. I had just come back from working my shift at the police station. Nothing overly eventful had happened, save for the occasional cat stuck in a tree or whatever. Nothing much really even happened in my town at all. Apart from one random missing children incident years before. I say children, but that’s relative. They were in their early adulthood and I was in my mid 40s. But that ended up being a cold case. Although, we would talk about it from time to time at the precinct

Back when I was starting out, I had received a case that five children in different neighborhoods had gone missing without any sign of leaving or a struggle. The thing they had in common was that all of them had a VHS playing in the TV at the time. However, unfortunately, the tapes were mysteriously blank when submitted into evidence. So all we could do was just chalk it up to coincidence. I remember that day, I had a small bit of time to kill acter. And that’s when I remembered it was a yearly yard sale nearby. There was a family on the next block over from me that did this on the exact same day every year. After a few minutes of perusing and checking out what was available, my eyes landed on one particular VHS tape. In thick, squiggly letters I read: “THE WACKY ADVENTURES OF RONALD MCDONALD: WEEKEND AT RONALD’S!”.

I hadn’t heard of this VHS tape before. I thought it was rare. So naturally, I was practically ecstatic about the find. I was grabbing at my wallet to snap it up within seconds.

From what I could understand, there had been seven of these tapes in total. All centred around the titular Ronald McDonald and all his friends in McDonaldland. The group consisted of Ronald, Birdie the Early Bird, Grimace, Sundae the dog, the hamburglar, and two kids called Tika and Franklin.

“Take it. It’s free”

I jolted back as an old woman appeared from seemingly nowhere behind the other side of the table.The video seemed like it might be a fun, lighthearted watch while drunk. Why not spend 40 or so minutes watching whimsical, brainless content?

“Sure, I’ll take it.” I responded.

I reach out to take it and she quickly grabs my wrist. Near bone breaking for an old woman.

“Oh, but, when you see it, it sees you...”

I looked at her and felt like there was nothing behind her eyes. Maybe alzheimers or something. Honestly, this strange encounter made me want to watch the tape even more. ———————————— Once I reached home, I got out the VCR, which, I’ll admit, hadn’t been touched in some time.

The tape began with nothing really interesting happening in the live action segments. Just regular, kids show stuff. Ronald McDonald goofing off and the like. However, the animated segment is where things got just a little more interesting.

Ronald and the gang had been invited to a Halloween party in a mansion and just had to get there. But the thing was, the mansion was so big they didn’t know which room the party was being held in. Poor Birdie had become so terrified they wouldn’t make it that she popped out three eggs, all of which came out with screaming, pulsating baby birds.

It was just the kind of weird stuff I was looking for . I was having a bit of fun with the musical numbers, even.

That all changed about 10 minutes in though. Members of the gang had started going missing one by one, and only Ronald was left standing. As Ronald creaked his way down the crumbling stairs, with his eyes being the only indicator of him moving, he flicked on the light, and let out a scream which sounded like it came from wild animal. Then the scream turned into laughter. Maniacal laughter.

It was the missing kids who disappeared all those years before. But at the same time, everything was different about them. To this day I can remember the grotesque detail on how they looked.

The kids were dressed as the McDonaldland gang.

Hamburgular’s mouth looked as if every tooth, save for one, had been forcefully torn out of his head, blood, cascading down his pinstripe suit.

Grimace was nowhere to be seen, but I didn’t dare question where he was.

The children, Tika and Franklin, were also nowhere to be found. But then again, they hadn’t been seen much the whole episode.

Sundae the dog was a raspy, heavy-breathing monster, his face covered by his fur. I wouldn’t have even known it was him if not for his brick-red hair.

And Birdie had what I hoped to god to be ketchup on her bib, her wings looking like mangled limbs, what sounded like a dozen pops and cracks emanating each time she moved. What looked to be a beak was crudely stitched on to her face, threatening to break off easily.

Meanwhile the McNugget buddies barely looked like their cartoon counterparts. Where there would be crispy, flaky batter, they were just covered from head to toe in blisters.

I felt nauseous. What had they done to these kids?

Theaudio and video started breaking up, but one thing was crystal clear. The gang. Theyjust stood there, smiling at the viewer. Somehow seeming to smile at me.

And then Ronald began edging closer and closer until I could see his seemingly mascara ridden eyes boring into mine. A distorted voice said:

“There’s always room for one more in Mcdonaldland.”

The TV cut to black, and without warning, a pale white hand attached to a red and white striped sleeve shot out of the television along with the top of Ronald’s head peering out. Along with pieces of broken glass stuck into it.

He moved faster than I expected and grabbed my ankle.

He started dragging me in. Behind him I could see the typical McDonald’s mascots holding the kids by the shoulders, all of them laughing with a gigantic grin. However, in all the kids’ eyes all I could see was pain and fear.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!!” I screamed, kicking the clown hard in the face.

“ “Youre going to join us all in here eventually”” Ronald laughed, bleeding from his face

And then, with several clicks from his irregularly contorted bones, he crawled backward into the TV.

It was over. Or so I thought.

For months after, I was constantly plauged nightmares. These nightmares would have me stuck in a hellish version of Ronald McDonald’s house. There would be a distorted, deafening version of the show’s theme song, as if it was being played on a broken tape or vinyl.

During these dreams I would be chased by one of the nightmarish mascots of the Mcdonaldland gang. Each time one would find me, they would stop dead in their tracks, grin and hold up a different number. Each counting down to something. Ten, then nine, then eight, and so on.

Each character had their own creative way of disposing of me. Ronald would maniacally bash my brains in, Sundae would maul and mangle me. Or, the McNugget buddies would all jump onto my stomach and begin piercing my flesh with their little beaks. Until it all ended one day and I woke up in a hospital.

As it would turn out, Ronald McDonald had knocked me unconscious and the “nightmares” had put me in a coma. A concerned colleague stopped by my house, after not hearing from me for a while and had found me unconsioousnext to the coffee table. Needless to say, I was in very bad condition.

Im on my journey toward healing now and have not been plagued with any nightmares since. However, there’s still one thing that worries me. What were they counting down to? Was it a countdown until the end of my coma? Or was it a reminder that one day I would eventually cross over into their world? I guess only time will tell.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/InformationRemote865 on 2024-11-11 04:25:37+00:00.

---

I was babysitting my niece one night while her parents went out for a well-deserved date night. They live in the basement of an old house, where the low ceilings and dim lighting give everything a heavy, shadowed look. At first, things were fine. She was laughing, pushing her toy car across the carpet, making little “vroom” sounds as it skidded along. I watched her, amused, letting her energy fill the quiet room. But then, mid-laugh, she froze. Her gaze drifted to an empty corner across the room, her mouth slowly opening as if she’d seen something terrible.

Then, without warning, she started screaming. The sound was raw, piercing, as if she were in pain. She scrambled into my lap, clawing at my shirt, her little fingers trembling. I held her tightly, feeling her heart pound against mine as she buried her face in my shoulder. Her cries echoed off the walls, and as I tried to calm her, I found myself glancing at the corner too—feeling a creeping sense of dread that had no reason to be there.

"Ellie, there's nothing there," I whispered, trying to keep my voice steady as I rocked her gently in my arms. She clung to me, her tiny fists clutching my shirt as her eyes stayed locked on the dark, empty corner. I looked over again, forcing myself to focus, trying to see what could possibly be frightening her so much. Shadows lingered there, but nothing more.

I kept speaking softly, and after a while, her grip loosened, her cries quieting to small hiccups as her gaze finally drifted back to me. I breathed a small sigh of relief and turned her away from that corner, cradling her head against my shoulder and talking about her favorite toys, anything to distract her.

But then, her little body tensed, and her gaze snapped back over my shoulder, to that same spot. This time, her scream was louder, more desperate—a sound that cut through me. She struggled in my arms, twisting to look at the corner as if something there was reaching out, pulling her in.

Her gaze was fixed on the exact same spot, unwavering, wide with terror. Against all my better judgment, I turned to look, my eyes following hers to the empty, shadowed corner. The basement light buzzed softly, casting faint shadows, but there was nothing—only the bare wall and darkened space where two edges met. Yet, as I stared, goosebumps prickled up my arms and across the back of my neck.

Ellie’s little fingers dug into me, clutching with surprising strength, her nails pressing almost painfully into my skin. Her whole body was tense, coiled with fear I couldn’t explain away. They say children are more sensitive to things we’ve long since blocked out—that they see what we can’t, that they’re open to things beyond understanding. The thought crept into my mind, gnawing at my sense of reason, and with it, a cold, uneasy fear took root. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear or feel a thing, but the look on Ellie’s face told me she was seeing something that I couldn’t. Something that terrified her down to her core.

I decided it would be best to take her upstairs, so I grabbed a few of her toys and we left, heading upstairs to the living room.

The stairs creaked as we climbed, Ellie clinging to me, her head buried in my shoulder as if hiding from whatever had haunted that corner. I kept talking, my voice low and steady, hoping it would keep both of us calm. By the time we reached the living room, her grip had relaxed, and I was able to set her down gently on the couch.

I turned on the TV and put on Dora the Explorer, her favorite. Slowly, she seemed to forget about the basement, her eyes brightening as she started singing along with the familiar theme song. Relief washed over me as she began to play with her toys again, her laughter filling the room and pushing the eerie silence from my mind.

I headed into the kitchen, glancing back occasionally to make sure she was okay. Opening the cupboard, I grabbed a can of soup and popped it into the microwave. The soft hum of the microwave was oddly comforting, grounding me after the strange, tense moments in the basement. Just as the timer ticked down, I heard a faint, familiar sound—a quiet whimper from the living room. I turned around, and there was Ellie, standing frozen in front of the TV, her wide eyes staring back down the hall toward the basement door.

I rushed over, glancing down the hall into the empty darkness lingering at the top of the basement stairs. The shadows seemed thicker somehow, pressing against the doorway like a solid weight. For Ellie’s sake, I tried to stay calm, smiling as I knelt down and reassured her, even though my voice felt shaky.

“Let me just close the door, alright?” I said, my words more for my own reassurance than hers. I headed down the hall, each step making my pulse quicken. I kept telling myself it was nothing, that I was only spooked because of Ellie’s fear, but the closer I got, the heavier the air seemed to grow. I reached the door and swung it shut, feeling the weight of it as it clicked into place. I tested the latch, making sure it wouldn’t swing open.

Turning back, I forced a smile, hoping she couldn’t see the uncertainty in my eyes. “There’s nothing to worry about, Ellie. Uncle Mikey’s got you. You’re safe.” But even as I said it, a chill ran through me, the words feeling hollow. I could feel something lingering in the silence behind me, something I couldn’t see but somehow knew was there.

We settled into the routine, Dora the Explorer playing in the background as Ellie sipped her soup, seeming more like her usual self, her earlier terror fading with each spoonful. I relaxed a bit too, thinking maybe it had all been a child’s imagination running wild.

Then my phone buzzed, breaking the comfortable lull. It was a text from my sister, checking in, asking how things were going and if I wouldn’t mind switching the laundry over. I smiled, telling her we were fine, that Ellie was loving her Dora marathon and her SpaghettiOs.

After a moment, I texted back, asking where the washer and dryer were, hoping it was somewhere upstairs. Her reply came a moment later, casual as could be: In the basement, by the shower.

I sighed and replied, Sure, I’ll get it done. Almost instantly, my sister sent back another message, Thanks! You’re the best brother.

Her message brought a small smile to my face, a warmth that helped push back the unease simmering beneath the surface. But as soon as I looked up, my gaze landed back on the basement door, standing there like a silent challenge. I knew I couldn’t avoid it, so I took a deep breath and stood, telling Ellie to stay put and keep watching her show.

She gave a little nod, her attention glued to the screen, and I headed toward the basement door. I opened it, stepping into the stairwell, and as I descended, that unsettling chill crept back up my spine, my skin prickling as though the shadows themselves were brushing against me. I tried to shake it off, telling myself how ridiculous it was, how there was absolutely nothing to fear.

“Get a grip,” I muttered under my breath, gripping the railing tightly. I was an adult, for crying out loud. The dark had lost its hold on me years ago, so why was I letting it crawl back now? Each step down felt heavier, as if I were walking deeper into some unspoken dread waiting at the bottom of those stairs.

I flipped on every light switch I could find as I stepped into the basement, flooding the room with harsh, flickering light. The hum of the bulbs felt oddly comforting, like a barrier against the silence that had settled here. The shadows shrank away into corners, giving the basement an almost normal look. For a moment, I managed to shake off the tension, focusing on the rhythmic task of moving damp clothes from the washer to the dryer.

But then, just as I was nearing the bottom of the pile, a strange, uneasy feeling crept back in, sinking deep into my bones. Goosebumps prickled across my arms, and a chill slithered up my spine, like a thousand tiny legs scurrying up my back. I froze, my fingers gripping the last damp shirt, my breath caught in my throat. The lights overhead flickered slightly, and the sensation grew stronger, heavier, as if something just beyond my sight was watching, waiting for me to turn around.

I moved as quickly as I could toward the doorway, every step feeling like I was being watched, shadows stretching to reach me. Just as I was about to escape, a sound stopped me in my tracks—the unmistakable, slow rhythm of breathing coming from behind. My heart thundered, almost drowning it out, but the sound was there, steady, coming from the direction of the shower.

I froze, every instinct telling me to run, but something stronger—curiosity, dread, something unnameable—held me in place. Slowly, I turned, my legs shaky, the adrenaline making my entire body feel like it might give out. And then I saw it: a figure, crouched near the shower in the dim light, a mass of pure shadow, darker than anything around it, a silhouette that seemed to absorb the darkness itself. It looked twisted, almost monstrous, something that shouldn't exist in this world.

In an instant, it began crawling toward me, its movements jerky and unnatural, closing the distance with terrifying speed. A scream tore from my throat, and I spun around, racing up the stairs. Just as I reached the first step, something icy and firm wrapped around my ankle, yanking me back. I crashed onto the stairs, pa...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1gojv7g/my_neice_is_terrified_by_something_no_one_can_see/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/No_Focus8984 on 2024-11-11 02:28:48+00:00.

---

The night started out like any other—cold, quiet, just a light flurry of snow coming down. I was working the late shift at the Pine Hollow Lodge, a little inn tucked away on the side of a winding, half-forgotten road up in the mountains. It was mostly empty this time of year, except for the occasional stranded traveler.

It was around midnight when the phone rang. I jumped, hearing the old rotary phone shriek into the silence. There was a delay before anyone spoke, then a woman’s voice, soft and trembling, crackled through.

“Please… do you have any rooms left?”

“Yes, we do,” I replied, trying to sound reassuring. “But the weather’s picking up. If you’re not nearby, it might be better to wait until morning.”

“No, I…” She hesitated, and there was a strange rustling on the other end. “I don’t have much time. Please, I’m almost there. I have to make it before the snow traps me.”

It sounded odd, but people get anxious during snowstorms. So I reassured her again and told her I'd leave the light on for her. She thanked me and hung up, and I waited, glancing out the window every few minutes. The snow was falling thicker now, like a wall of white descending around the lodge.

About twenty minutes later, I heard a car crunch to a stop in the parking lot. I stepped outside, letting the bitter air rush into the warmth of the lobby. But when I looked, I saw nothing. No headlights, no car—only endless snow stretching out under the dim glow of the lodge lights. I shook it off, assuming maybe she’d parked around the bend or out of sight.

Minutes later, the door opened. She stepped in quietly, her face pale, lips almost blue, clutching herself as if she’d been out in the cold for hours. She looked… worn, like she’d been on a long journey through the dark. Her hair was tangled, wet with melted snow, and her eyes were wide, scanning every corner of the room.

“Are you alright?” I asked, feeling an eerie unease prickling up my spine. She just nodded, giving me a weak smile.

“Yes… I’m alright now. Just… a long drive.”

“Do you have any luggage?”

She shook her head, eyes shifting to the door as if expecting someone. “No, I had to leave everything behind. I just needed to… get here.”

I didn’t press her further. It wasn’t my business, and she looked like she needed rest. I checked her in quickly, handed her a key, and told her I’d be at the desk if she needed anything.

But as she walked down the hall to her room, I noticed her shoes. They left no wet footprints on the floor. I blinked, figuring I must be imagining things, but then a gust of wind rattled the windows, and the lights flickered.

For the next few hours, I tried to focus on paperwork, but I kept catching movements in the corner of my eye. Shadows, faint sounds of footsteps that would vanish the moment I looked up. The woman hadn’t called down for anything, and by three a.m., I was about to go check on her when the phone rang again.

“Please…” The same woman’s voice, but this time lower, frantic. “Please… you have to help me. I’m trapped in my car. I don’t know if I’ll make it.”

I froze, staring at the guest register, seeing her name scrawled there in my handwriting. “You’re here… you checked in an hour ago. Are you alright?”

There was a silence on the other end, then a horrible, strangled sound, like she was choking. “He’s coming… I see him. He’s walking through the snow. He’s—”

The line went dead.

Heart pounding, I hung up and sprinted down the hall to her room. I knocked, but there was no answer. I fumbled with the master key, feeling sweat run down my back despite the chill in the air. The door creaked open, and the room was dark, empty, the bed untouched.

I backed away, my mind racing, trying to make sense of what was happening. Then I heard footsteps behind me. I spun around and saw her standing at the end of the hall, eyes hollow, face twisted in a terrified expression as if she was looking at something right behind me.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe. Her lips moved silently, forming one word: Run.

Then I felt a hand on my shoulder—ice-cold, pressing down with an impossible weight. The air around me was filled with a smell, sharp and metallic, like old, rusted iron. I turned my head slowly, and in the darkness of the empty hallway, I saw a face. It was nothing human—just a dark, twisted grin under hollow, bottomless eyes, his face graying and cracked like ice.

I tore away, stumbling and running for the lobby, my skin crawling as I felt that icy presence following close behind. I didn’t look back until I’d burst out into the snow, the wind slicing through me, almost comforting after the suffocating cold that had filled the lodge.

I stared back at the building, panting, watching as the windows flickered with a sickly, pale light. And just for a moment, I saw her face there, pressed against the window, mouthing that single, desperate word: Run.

I never went back. And every winter since, I’ve heard stories about Pine Hollow Lodge, about the woman who appears in snowstorms, begging for help from the side of the road. They say if you stop, she’ll vanish, but her warning will echo in your mind long after you’ve driven away:

He’s coming… and you don’t want to be trapped in the snow when he does.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Sorry-Draft-7183 on 2024-11-11 01:55:04+00:00.

---

I (21m) stumbled across here a couple weeks ago and have been reading lots of the posts. I thought I would share a story that happened about a year ago that has changed how I view living alone.

 

At the time I lived at my parents’ house because the cost of living was so expensive. I was a university student working casual jobs and couldn’t afford to move out. One day, my parents left to go on a business trip in France and decided to make a family vacation out of it. It was in the middle of exam period so I couldn’t go, but they took my four siblings. I was ecstatic since I could have the whole house to myself.

They left early Monday morning. I looked forward to being “the man of the house” for the upcoming week. Everything was great until around 7pm the next night. I was driving back home on a long, dimly lit road leading towards my street. Suddenly, I spotted a bald, shirtless man walking alongside the street carrying a shovel. Even though I saw him momentarily, his figure is etched in my brain. He was as pale as the moon and his eyes were lifeless and empty. We live in a suburban area, far from any farmland, I couldn’t imagine what someone would need a shovel for at this time of night.

I kept driving. Checking no one had followed me, I drove into the garage and closed the door. “Of course no one followed me,” I chuckled to myself as I went about making dinner.

By the next day, I had convinced myself that he might have just been lost or had dementia or something. Having three looming exams around the corner helped me forget about the man. I studied at home that day, which meant I got to practice a new prelude for piano, as I studied music theory. I studied hard, only to stop for food and the occasional YouTube video until I noticed the time, 7:34pm. “Damn it,” I muttered as I realised that I had forgot to bring my washing in. It would have to go in the dryer now. I grabbed a basket and went outside, soaking in the soft night sounds of crickets and rustles in the leaves.

Suddenly, I heard movement down my driveway. Moving quietly, I tentatively approached the end of the driveway, outlined by a perimeter of bushes. “Hey, who’s there?’ I asked nervously. No answer. As I waited near the bushes, I braced myself for a shovel to come towards my face. There was only more rustle of leaves, then silence. I stood there for what felt like hours, waiting for someone to appear. But no one did. Returning to the clothes lines, I grabbed the basket and went back inside, ensuring the door was locked behind me.

It was now Wednesday, and I was more than just a bit nervous. I checked that every window and door were locked several times before leaving for university. I couldn’t focus in class, I was still thinking about the man I saw on Monday night. When I arrived home, I took out a packet of two-minute noodles and watched Breaking Bad. We live in a bigger house, which unfortunately means it creaks a lot more on its own when no one is making any noise.

The house is equipped with a motion detecting system, but I don’t trust its accuracy, so I did laps throughout the house whenever I heard a creak that was a bit too loud. Every time I walked past the windows outlooking our backyard, I expected to see that pale face pushed up against the window looking inside. I wanted to call the police to just ask them to drive around my street and see if anyone was lurking, but I felt embarrassed for getting so worked up over no physical evidence. I decided against calling the police and shortly went to bed, accompanied by nothing but the howling wind outside.

It was now Thursday, which meant another day of practicing at home. Having finished my practice at around 8pm, I got up to make myself a sandwich. As I gathered the cheese, ham and lettuce for my sandwich, I paused to remember what I needed for school tomorrow. That’s when I heard it, a singular high-pitched piano note echo throughout the house. The blood drained from my face as I looked down the stairs of our home. I froze in fear, unable to move a muscle. Slowly, I turned and saw the motion detector panel. It consisted of six lights, one for each room a sensor was in. I saw the lights for Room 2, which was where I was, and Room 6, which was where the piano was. They were flashing. All I could do was watch as the light for Room 6 turned off and subsequently the light for Room 5 began flashing. It was then when I could hear running down the hallway.

Grabbing the knife on the bench, I ran for one of the bedrooms and lay underneath the bed. I could hear someone running up the stairs as I lay there. Walking around the kitchen table, they tapped their fingers on the bench. Holding my breath, I waited as he approached the bedroom I was hiding in. He entered the room, but all I could see were his legs. He stood there silently, peered into the closet, then turned and left.

Now was my chance, I left the bedroom quietly, clutching at the knife. I crept down the stairs slowly. However, as I reached the bottom stair, a soft creak left the floorboards. I ran towards the front door, reaching for the keys that hung next to it. I could hear him coming as I tried to unlock the door. Once I flung the door open, I ran towards the end of the driveway, screaming for help.

The police were shortly called but couldn’t find anyone in the house or in the nearby area. After giving the neighbours the description of the man I saw on Monday, I was told that the description sounded like someone who used to live a couple of streets away, however he had gone missing six months ago. For the rest of the week, police patrolled my street for the next few days but didn’t find anything.

But to this day, the image of the man walking down my street is permanently stuck in my head. I’ve since moved out into my own place, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t check the house carefully every time I come home late at night.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Important-Victory-25 on 2024-11-10 07:37:33+00:00.

---

[1] - [2]

After my visit to Mirror Pool, sleep is no longer the escape it once was. Nights are fractured into a string of feverish dreams, each one pulling me back to that lake. I wake up in the dark, feeling like something cold and wet is clutching my wrist. I tell myself it’s just leftover adrenaline, but I can’t shake the feeling that my reflection—or whatever I saw in the water—followed me home.

 

I try to keep it to myself, but when I start seeing her in every reflective surface, I lose it. I find myself avoiding mirrors, covering anything that might show my reflection. Yet, every glimpse, every accidental glance, shows her lingering, waiting. And each time, that twisted, unsettling smile is there, barely concealed. The worst part is that I’m beginning to feel it pulling at me. It’s like every sight of her in glass or water leaves a trace, a calling that digs deeper and deeper.

 

Today, though, I decide to confide in Eli. Eli’s my best friend, and he knew Evelyn almost as well as I did. He’s got this logical, level-headed way of looking at things—exactly what I need right now. We meet at Laketon’s only diner, a place where the lights are bright, and there’s no chance of finding my reflection in a window or a pool of water on the floor.

 

"So, how’ve you been holding up?” he asks, sipping his coffee. His expression is careful, but I can see he’s worried.

 

“I went to Mirror Pool,” I say, and his face darkens. He knew this would happen eventually.

 

“Why would you go back there?” he asks, looking around as if someone might overhear us talking about that place.

 

I tell him about the anniversary, about the things I saw, the voice that called to me from the water, and the reflection I keep seeing in mirrors. As I speak, he listens without interrupting, but I can see the doubt creeping into his eyes.

 

“You’re saying your reflection is… haunted?” He’s trying to keep his tone neutral, but I can feel the skepticism. I can’t blame him. It sounds insane.

 

“I know how it sounds, Eli,” I snap, but my voice wavers. “But Evelyn wrote about it in her journal. She saw it, too. There’s something wrong with that place.”

 

He pauses, his coffee cup halfway to his lips. “Look, I believe you, okay? You’re not… making this up. But are you sure it’s not just… I don’t know, your mind trying to fill in the gaps? You’ve been through a lot, and grief does weird things to people.”

 

“Maybe it is grief,” I say quietly, glancing out the window. “But if you’d seen what I saw… you’d understand why I can’t just ignore it.”

 

He sighs, setting his coffee cup down. “Fine. Let’s go back, then. Together. Just to prove to you there’s nothing there.” He says it like he’s trying to convince both of us.

That night, we set out. The forest is darker than I remembered, the trees looming taller, as if they’ve grown in the time since I last came here. The air feels thick, almost suffocating, and I can’t shake the sensation of being watched. The crunch of leaves and twigs underfoot is the only sound, and it feels obscenely loud in the stillness.

 

Eli’s flashlight sweeps across the path as we make our way closer to Mirror Pool. When we finally reach the clearing, the lake looks even more unnatural under the thin moonlight. The water is too still, reflecting the sky in a way that’s too perfect, like it’s waiting for us to step closer.

 

“You see?” I whisper, nodding toward the lake. “There’s something off. It’s like it’s not… real.”

 

Eli frowns, scanning the lake’s surface. “It’s just water, man.”

 

But I can see him tense as we approach the edge, his steps slowing as if he’s feeling the same unease. I take a deep breath and kneel, peering down at the water.

 

At first, it’s just us—our faces reflected in the glassy surface. But as I stare, my reflection begins to change. Her smile starts to creep onto her face again, lips curling upward into that same eerie, knowing grin. She tilts her head, as if she’s inviting me to come closer.

 

And then… her hand moves. It presses against the water’s surface from underneath, fingers curling upward as if she’s about to pull herself out. Her eyes are locked onto mine, filled with something dark, something hungry.

 

Eli’s face pales. “What… what is that?” he whispers, stumbling back. I can tell he sees it too.

 

Before I can respond, her hand breaks the surface, dripping with dark, murky water as it reaches toward us. She’s climbing out, her eyes fixed on me with that same smile, that same twisted expression of glee.

 

Eli and I stumble back, nearly falling as she reaches for us. My heart is pounding so hard I can barely hear anything else. I try to drag Eli back with me, but he’s frozen, his gaze locked on her as if he’s trapped.

 

“Eli!” I shout, and that seems to snap him out of it. We run, tearing through the woods, our footsteps echoing through the trees. I can feel her watching us, sense her lurking just behind, her voice a faint whisper that’s growing louder, repeating over and over.

 

“Come back… stay with me.”

 

I barely remember getting home. I stumble through the door, slamming it shut behind me, heart racing as I lean against it, trying to catch my breath. Eli follows a moment later, wide-eyed and silent.

 

“You saw it too, didn’t you?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

 

Eli nods, his face pale. “It… it looked like you, but it wasn’t. That smile… God, that smile. What the hell is going on?”

 

I don’t have an answer. All I know is that she—whatever she is—wants something from me. And now that I’ve gone to the lake, now that I’ve seen her, she’s not going to stop.

That night, sleep is impossible. I hear her voice in every shadow, every creak of the floorboards, every whisper of wind outside my window. I cover every mirror, every reflective surface I can find, but it doesn’t matter. She’s there, lurking in the edges of my vision, her smile growing wider each time I look away.

In my dreams, she’s waiting by the lake, her hand outstretched, beckoning me forward. Her mouth moves, but her words are a distorted version of my own voice.

“Come back… come home.”

I wake up in a cold sweat, my heart hammering, and glance at the covered mirror by my bed. For a moment, I swear I see her silhouette in the darkness, her hand reaching toward me.

I don’t know what's going on. All I know is that going back there has made something much, much worse.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/abiroadwrites on 2024-11-11 00:02:56+00:00.

---

“Are you sure you want to do this, Landon? You hate camping.”

My girlfriend sat cross-legged on our bed, watching me cram things into the hiking backpack my foster dad had given me for my birthday, the year he passed away. The plan had been for us to spend one weekend every summer hiking through the mountains together. I wanted to get more fit, and we both wanted to spend more time with each other. So in March of that year he gave me this great backpack for my 22nd birthday, and then he went and died in June, three weeks before our first trip.

To be honest I had been so mad at him for going and dying on me that I had thrown the backpack in my closet and forgotten about it until now. I had never been crazy about camping, I’d only wanted to spend time with Hank.

I looked back at her and said, “Yeah, I’m sure. And it’s not really camping, more like-”

She smirked, “A rescue mission?”

I chuckled, but there was a deep pit in the bottom of my stomach as I said, “Yeah, more like a rescue mission I guess.”

My best friend Patrick had gone on a solo backpacking trip a few weeks prior. He started in Grand Teton, and was supposed to be back by now. He’d been using his emergency SatNav device to send me the occasional message, and as time had progressed his messages were only getting weirder, harder to understand. I got my last ping for his location a few days ago, then he fell off the map. So I and a few other people were heading out to look for him. We were all going to start within a few miles of his last location, and hike through the area to see if we could find him or any trace of him.

The next morning before the sun even had a chance to rise I piled into my friend Max’s jeep, Tyler and Cody were already there, and he drove us out to the middle of nowhere. The four of us were quiet as we sipped gross instant coffee out of a thermos and listened to the early morning talk show hosts on the radio as they discussed some video that was trending.

When we got to the parking spot below the first hiking trail we all got out, collected our things and made sure the SatNav devices Cody had ordered online were all working. They were, and he explained that in order to message each other we would have to keep our phones on, charged, and connected to the device via bluetooth. We had all brought small, solar powered battery packs, so we didn’t expect to run into trouble there. He also told us, very begrudgingly, that he had bought the monthly subscription so we could send as many messages as we needed to.

We all thanked Cody, then split off in four separate directions and started hiking.

My girlfriend, Harissa, had been pretty upset when I told her we were going to split up to look for Patrick, but we all felt like it would be the best way to cover as much ground as possible. The parks service had told us they would send people out to look for Patrick, only after his family filed a missing persons report. Patrick's mom was too busy trying to score meth to make that happen, so we decided to take matters into our own hands.

The first morning was beautiful, and I told myself that I was stopping every hour to admire the scenery, not to catch my breath. By mid afternoon I felt like I had found my stride, and I was starting to enjoy myself. I felt a little weird, like I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I kept telling myself that I was doing the right thing in coming out here.

Cody, Tyler, Max, and I kept in touch as best we could without wearing down our batteries, letting each other know how far we had made it and that none of us had found any signs of Patrick yet.

I made the mistake of pushing myself to keep walking even as the shadows grew longer, and I wound up having to set up camp in the dark. I was frustrated and kept making small mistakes trying to put my little one person tent up. I gave up and decided to look for firewood instead, promising myself I would plan my day better tomorrow so I would have time to set up my tent.

I built my fire, cooked my dinner, then made the comfiest sleeping spot I could and curled up on my sleeping bag.I lay there, staring up at the stars through the tree branches, until exhaustion overtook me.

I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep, until I woke up in the middle of the night needing to pee. I rolled over, getting ready to push my stiff body up so I could find somewhere to relieve myself, when I saw a dark shape hovering around the edge of my campsite.

It looked like a halloween decoration at first, as weird as that sounds. There was a vaguely human shape, but it was hunched and slightly more animalistic. I laid on my side, staring at it, until it melted back into the treeline and became just another shadow.

I got up then, making sure to go in the opposite direction, and tried to convince myself that it was just a shadow, maybe some kind of animal. Some totally normal animal to find in the woods.

With that I managed to convince myself to go back to sleep, and I woke again to the first rays of sunlight poking me in the eye.

The first thing I did was check my messages on my SatNav device. Cody had sent us a message in the middle of the night about how creepy the woods were alone, and Max replied a few minutes before I woke up, saying he had felt like he was being watched all night.

I remembered the strange shape I’d seen in the trees, and felt a shiver work its way down my spine. It was probably just shared anxiety between the four of us, worrying about our missing friend. But it was still hard to shake the feeling that something was watching us, following us, and we didn't know what.

I felt that cold drip of fear on my spine again, and did my best to shake it off. The sun was warm and bright, and despite my sore muscles I was looking forward to the day's hike.

I packed my things, ate a protein bar, then sent a message to the group letting them know I was heading out and which direction I was going in. I got three messages back from the group with the directions they were going, and a reminder from Cody not to kill our batteries. Zach sent a message back that said, “Shoot, should I stop using the SatNav to torrent videos then?”

Cody didn’t send a reply back, but I knew he was rolling his eyes and laughing.

I started walking, and despite my fatigue and nerves I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful it was. The pale yellow sunlight filtered through the trees, casting a patchwork of green and yellow onto the rocks and path in front of me. It was actually kind of mesmerizing, and I found myself beginning to understand why Hank and Patrick liked it out here so much.

Thinking about my foster dad reminded me I had already lost one person, and it gave me renewed energy to find my best friend. Patrick had been there for me in the years since losing my foster dad, and I knew I couldn’t have made it this far without him.

An idea occurred to me and I stopped walking, then pulled out my phone and my SatNav. I pulled up the messages I had been getting from Patrick, and sent a message to his SatNav number. I knew it was unlikely I would get anything back, but I really felt like I could sense his presence in the forest.

I slid my technology back into my pack and kept walking, picking up my pace as I did. We had a lot of ground to cover, and I knew four people weren’t enough for a search party, but we had to try.

I hiked for hours, sometimes going off trail so I could explore an area I thought Patrick would have liked, other times stopping and just calling out his name. Around mid afternoon I stopped to make a real lunch, rather than just tearing into another protein bar, and allowed myself a peek at my SatNav. Nothing. I tried to swallow my disappointment along with my flavorless freeze dried food.

I ate and got back on the trail, but doubt had started to creep in. We were probably never going to find Patrick, and I knew that. Grand Teton was huge, wild, and kind of dangerous. If we hadn’t heard from him in a few weeks, we were probably never going to hear from again.

I found a place to make camp (early enough this time, so I could put my tent up) and began to settle in, trying not to plan my best friend's funeral in my head as I did.

I made my fire and settled in, wishing I had Netflix to take my mind off things. I woke up again in the middle of the night to the same shadow hovering over my campsite. This time it was holding something that cast a light on its face. The light was dim, like it was holding an old gameboy, just barely lit up in the darkness, so I couldn’t make out the features very well, but I could tell it had an almost human shape.

I say almost human because every detail I could make out was just a little wrong. The eyes glinted like an animal, seeming to open and close independently of each other. The mouth seemed to stretch back too far, and the body was hunched and straight in all the wrong places.

But for some reason, I didn’t feel at all threatened by it. Whatever I was looking at didn’t seem to mean me any harm. It stared at me for what seemed like a long time, then it was gone. Once again, I drifted off into a fitful sleep.

That night my dreams were stranger than usual. I found myself walking through the woods, trying to find pieces of myself. Every time I would find one piece, an arm, a hand, I would realize I was missing something else. It was like trying to hold water in a sieve, I couldn’t seem to keep myself in one piece.

W...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/MouseCurtains on 2024-11-10 22:30:06+00:00.

---

I met Dr. Harper about a year and a half ago. He was recommended to me by my sponsor in AA, who had nothing but good words to say about him.

I’ve never liked therapy. There’s something just so forced about letting someone pick your brain; questioning you about how you feel and think, when you’ve already waded through all the possibilities in your mind. I’m not here to dog on therapy—it can be extremely helpful and lifesaving for some. For me, it felt gruelling, and no matter who I saw or where I was, I couldn’t bring myself to fully engage in the process.

I think a part of me just so desperately wants to be liked. I’d find myself saying what I thought they wanted to hear, and I’d charade a persona that wouldn’t allow them to get too close, or understand me too well. It felt too false—too unrealistic, and although that could be entirely my own fault, there wasn’t any way for me to act otherwise. I’d deduced that therapy simply wasn’t for me, and unless someone literally altered my brain chemistry by cutting and siphoning out neural pathways in my head, it never would be.

Dr. Harper was different. He only held sessions in his own home, and refused to start unless he’d cooked a meal to share between him and his patients. He’d send a message asking for what you’d want for dinner, and then go and cook the meal from scratch, regardless of how complex or difficult the recipe was. My sponsor, Jim, said he’d made him the best Kimchi Jiggae he’d ever had—second to his Mom’s, and it really felt like he was sat across from a family friend, all the way back in Korea.

Dr. Harper said that food was a way to really break down barriers; allowing people to feel more comfortable in a setting where they’d usually be adverse to sharing issues in. Therapy, to him, wasn’t just about talking things out, or feeling listened to. It was about knowing that you were safe, and safer than you’d ever been before. Somehow, food was the perfect key to unlock that.

I’d asked for my Nonna’s—Grandmother’s—lasagna. My Mom wrote a recipe down for me once I’d left home, and I kept it—all crumpled to the point of feeling like fabric more than paper, and sent a picture to him. I didn’t expect it to be great; my Nonna’s recipe was long and gruelling, and required a ragu to simmer for 2 days straight. Yet, when I turned up to Dr. Harper’s apartment, the aroma brought me straight back to being a young bambino—kid—again. I was inundated with warmth and welcoming, and my shoulders relaxed against my will.

We shared a few glasses of wine, and he pulled out the piping hot lasagne; crust bubbling and spitting with the fat from pancetta layered underneath. I was salivating at the mouth, and I knew from the moment the first bite was placed on my tongue, that this man must’ve made some deal with my deceased Nonna. How he could’ve replicated her recipe so perfectly was beyond me, but it truly allowed the walls I’d built up to crumble down in the same manner I chewed on those delectable layers of food.

He’d asked me why I was here; what I wanted to gain from this experience. So, I told him.

“My Dad wasn’t a bad man, but he did bad things.”

A gulp. A swallow. A glug of wine and a wipe from his chin.

“How so?”

An offering of more wine. I shouldn’t, because I drink. I took it anyway.

“He, um…”

A pause.

“He knew my brother was going down the wrong path, and he allowed it to continue.” I responded. Wiping my chin and giving a coy smile.

“Which was?”

He cocks an eyebrow.

“Dad…” I found it hard to speak, but knew that if I didn’t, I’d never be able to. I was tipsy, and fed enough, and this had to be the time to say my piece. My peace. “Dad was involved in the gang business—mafia, perhaps, but way less important to the community. He organised petty crimes… theft, extortion from non-payers…and drugs. Enzo helped with that.”

“The drugs?”

It seemed like no matter how much I drank, my wine glass never came close to empty.

“Yes. The drugs. Crack and cocaine, mostly.”

“I see.”

No matter how much I ate, my plate never seemed to decrease either.

“And what happened to Enzo?” Dr. Harper asked, swirling the wine glass in his hand.

“He died of addiction.” I stunted, feeling my appetite diminish. Perhaps it had sobered me, and I dabbed my napkin against my chin. “My parents are dead, now…and there’s no rectifying what had occurred. All I want to do is find peace in myself, and be able to live my life without the fear of making the same mistakes.”

I don’t remember much more of the evening, bar throwing up profusely in my toilet once I returned home. The next day, in my hungover stupor, I received a text from Dr. Harper, asking me if we’d like to continue the sessions. I felt like crap, so all I did was lug my body from the bedroom to the bathroom, and sit in a bath of lukewarm water—too hot had convinced me I’d boil alive, and too cold, freeze to death—and wait until my body could handle anything.

Jim, my sponsor, called me at around 2pm; asking me how it was. I told him I’d drank, and he just laughed. He told me that was part of the process—make you realise how crappy alcohol makes you feel after a period of sobriety. I trusted him, he was my sponsor.

I responded to Harper. I told him that yes, I would like to see him again, but not in the same circumstances. No matter what Jim said, I didn’t want to end my sobriety again. He understood, and offered to meet at a coffee shop this time—early morning where we could just discuss some things that had been bothering me.

That was last Tuesday. We met, had a conversation about my AA and how I may need to come to terms with forgiveness.

Maybe I’ve been lying, or withholding information, but I don’t forgive. For the past three years, I’ve been trying to pin down a dealer by the alias of ‘Stacks’—a latino guy who deals fentanyl in the Manhattan 8th Avenue district. I’ve tried private investigators and everything, but because of my family’s history with gangs, it’s hard to discern any credibility.

My conversation with Dr. Harper ended abruptly, and I will admit I was rude. I don’t want people to tell me that forgiveness for an unforgivable act is normal, or necessary, for healing. I want revenge for what Stacks did to my brother, and I will be doing the world a service by removing him from it.

I got back into drinking. I’d been sober for so long, and even the hangover didn’t help me continue. I kept drinking and drinking until I’d pass out in my apartment, and still continue. Jim stopped responding to my calls, and the AA meetings changed place—they weren’t at the Church anymore. I was so alone, until I got a text from Dr. Harper.

‘There’s a program for people like you—the FORGIVENESS program. It will help, I promise. It aims to relieve the stress and pain, and remove any negative feelings that impact you more than the persons you want revenge against.’

I was desperate. I needed sobriety—normalcy. I craved being able to think coherently and not just think about how to get my next drink. So I asked him:

‘When does it start? Where do I meet you?’

‘A block from my apartment. 65C Vemodig Road.’

So I turned up. I had no choice. It was either suffer and drink myself to death, or find out what could truly help me. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and it made me realise how much I’d been comfortable sharing my story with Dr. Harper in the first place. How I’d been able to break down those barriers and actually indulge in therapy properly.

He greeted me, in full scrubs, and asked me to come stand in the waiting room. The hallway was dark, and had a sole, dim, flickering light on the ceiling. He ushered me through a beaded curtain into a dingy room, which held an eclectic mix of people. A woman, sat in the far left-corner was cross-legged on a metal stool, biting her nails profusely. She was deathly thin, and covered in bruises—puss seeping from her seized-close left eye. A man, bleached blonde and acne-ridden, licked up and down her forearm, which was laden with puncture marks. On the other end, a man in a suit with terrible sniffles and a deviated septum continued to cough—pulling out his cellphone and continuing to lift it to his ear, and sigh loudly when there was no response.

In the middle sat a very fat, black woman who cried uncontrollably, wheezing with every breath she took. I decided she was the one to sit next to, as she seemed the least irritable and harmless. She continued to weep, and grasped my knee, pulling out a napkin to wipe her tears away.

“Are you alright?” I asked, sympathetically. She turned to me, frowned, and began to wail more. I put my hand in hers, and tried to soothe her. The man in the suit kissed his teeth.

“I-I’m sorry—it’s just, my son…he’s in there. This was the only thing we could do and—oh God, I’m a terrible mother!” She cried, gripping my hand so tightly my blood rushed to my fingertips.

“I’m sure that’s not true. Hey—look, I’m going in there soon. Sometimes the normal stuff don’t work?” I offered, and she ceased crying. She gripped my hand again, and gave me a nod to show appreciation.

“I thank you for that.” She sniffed, and sneezed loudly. “I hope you get what you need too.”

She continued to rub soothing patterns on the palm of my hand, but I could never be sure if that was for me or for herself. I could hear the couple in the corner whispering foul things to each other, and the suited man tap his leather shoe aggressively on the ground.

Eventually, a w...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/bobbdac7894 on 2024-11-10 08:09:32+00:00.

---

It was the summer of 2022. I just finished my freshman year at college. I wanted to get a job over the summer. Especially since my college tuition was so high. My roommate, Troy, suggested working at his father’s restaurant. I considered taking him up on this offer but then I saw a job on craigslist.

 “No experience necessary. Work is for one month. 24/7 on the clock work. Location: Oregon Pay: $100,000”. The job posting was only up for a few minutes. I immediately rushed and applied. Thinking back on it now, I was a dumbass for not questioning the job posting at all. It had no details. Location was in Oregon, which would mean I had to travel across the country (I lived in Massachusetts). But I didn’t question it. A few minutes later I got a text. It said my application was accepted and gave me an address, date and time to meet.

 The next week I flew out to Oregon, rented a car and drove to the specified location at the specified time and pulled up to a mansion. The mansion was in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t one of those modern mcmansions. It had gothic style architecture that you would see in Europe. It was beautiful. Standing outside of the mansion was a middle aged man. He wore a suit, his dark hair was combed back and he had a well trimmed mustached. I extend my hand and said, “I’m Samuel. Nice to meet you”.

 He didn’t shake my hand. Instead he stared at me intently for a few seconds before saying, “Henry Butler”. He took out a one hundred dollar bill and put it in my shirt pocket. “There’s more where that came from”.

“Uh… thank you, Henry?”, I puzzledly said.

“Please, please.”, he said, “Call me Mr. Butler. We should be on casual, friendly terms”.

 I was so confused. Don’t people who are on casual terms call each other by their first name instead of last name? I shrugged and followed him to the mansion. I opened the front door for him. He smiled and said, “Thank you”. Took out another one hundred dollar bill and put it in my shirt pocket. What a strange man, I thought to myself.

 He showed me a tour of the mansion. Constantly putting hundred dollar bills in my shirt pocket. Near the end of the tour I had over two thousand dollars in my shirt pocket. The mansion was sick. Had a movie theater, swimming pool, basketball court.

 “I have to say, you’re really brave for taking this job Sam”, Mr. Butler said walking in front of me as we were continuing the tour.

“So … what is the job exactly?”, I asked.

He immediately stopped and turned towards me, “It’s quite simple really. You just take care of this mansion for a month while I’m away. You’ll have to live here 24/7. There’s a bedroom upstairs for you to sleep in.”.

Wait, that’s the job? I thought to myself. For $100,000, I pretty much do nothing and enjoy this sweet mansion? This is the sweetest gig ever.

Trying to not sound too excited I asked, “What is the catch”.

“Uh, well”, he nervously replied, “Well … you know what. Maybe it’s better if I show you. Walk with me”.

We walked down a large hallway. He immediately extended his arm to stop me when we reached the end. “Don’t get any closer”, he sternly ordered.

About 5 meters in front of us were stairs which looked like they were leading to the mansion’s basement. The basement was pitch black. All you could see was the stairs leading down darkness. But the weird thing was I could hear moaning and screaming coming from the basement.

“What is that screaming and moaning”, I whispered.

“Well … um”, he sheepishly replied. “What if I tell you this is an entrance to hell?”.

He studied my face to see what I was thinking. To see if I thought he was crazy.

“Excuse me?”, I eventually blurted out.

“What if I told you that if you go down these stairs you will be going to hell and you won’t be able to get back up to the living. The screaming and moaning is the sounds of people getting tortured. If you get any closer than where we’re currently standing someone from hell could grab you and drag you down to hell with it. And again, you won’t be able to come back up once you’re down there”.

I started bursting out laughing, “You got me for a second. I actually belie...”. I was suddenly interrupted by even louder screams from the basement.

“Oh great, now they know you’re up here dumbass”, Mr. Butler said shaking his head, “They want you down there with them. They’re jealous that you’re alive.” He turned around and started walking away from the basement.

“So yeah, never go near the basement”, he said as he continued walking, “If you avoid going near that area you should be fine.”

I just stood there, bewildered. Trying to take in what I was just told.

“Well, are you coming or not”, he said while continuing to walk away and not looking back. After a few seconds, I rushed towards and started following him.

“There is one more thing”, Mr. Butler said, “The demons and other souls from hell can come up the stairs and roam the mansion from 12am – 6am everyday. And trust me, based on the reaction we just heard from them, they want you. They want you bad. The only safe place in the mansion during those hours is in your bedroom. Close and lock your bedroom door from 12am – 6am every day. You must do this!”.

He looked at me sternly. “A few other things. You can’t leave the mansion once in this month. You should have more than enough food in the fridge and food cellar to last you that long. Just stay in this mansion. If you do this I will give you the $100,000”.

“But why”, I asked, “What exactly is the point to all of this?”.

He smiled, “My job is to watch over this gateway to hell. I’ve been doing this for decades. Someone must monitor and be in the mansion 24/7. Your job is to watch over it while I’m away”.

We walked back to the entrance of the mansion. “And that should be it, as I soon as I leave this mansion you’re in charge. Any questions?”.

I thought for a few seconds. Honestly, it is kinda creepy. But it still should be a pretty easy job. Just avoid the basement, lock my bedroom door from 12-6 am everyday. Easy. And $100,000 after all of this. Should be enough to pay off my college tuition and still have some money left over.

“Nah, I’m good”, I said, “I’m ready”.

“Great”, Mr. Butler exclaimed, “You have my number if you have any questions”. He took out another one hundred dollar bill and put it in my shirt pocket.

“Why do you keep putting money in my shirt pocket?”, I asked.

“I like showing off my wealth”, Mr. Butler said chuckling. "He is a strange guy", I thought to myself.

The first few days were pretty easy. The place had no internet. So that was a bit tough. I honestly spent most time in the movie theater. The place had cable and a large selection of movies. So yeah, even though there was no cable, I was still entertained. At midnight I did what he said, went to my bedroom and locked the door. The first few nights I had trouble sleeping because the concept of people from hell roaming about in the mansion while I was in the bedroom was kinda disturbing to me. I could sometimes hear footsteps and moaning outside my bedroom door. I think they were trying to find me and didn’t know I was in the bedroom. But after the first few days, I started to sleep like a baby. But then, after the first week, they figured out I was in the bedroom.

I woke up on the 8th night to screaming and banging on my door. They were trying to get in. I decided to call Mr. Butler.

“Hello?”, he replied.

“Mr. Buter”, I whispered, “They know I’m in the room”.

“Speak up, dude”, he sounded annoyed.

“They’re… they’re banging on the bedroom door”, I said a little bit louder, “They know I’m hear”.

“Is your door locked?”.

 “Yes.”.

“Then you’re fine”, he said and immediately hung up the phone.

 The nights continued like this. Constant screaming and banging on the door. The stress started to get to me and I couldn't sleep. I started sleeping during the day and stayed up during the night. I would put on airpods and listen to music to drown out the noise.  Eventually I started getting used to this.

 But then things got even worse during the third week. I was catching up on sleep during the day when I woke up to a moaning sound. “That must be my imagination”, I thought. I’m in the bedroom. I only hear the moaning or screaming sounds during the daytime if I’m near the basement.  But then I heard even more moaning and screaming sounds. It wasn’t my imagination. In fact throughout the whole mansion I could hear it. I soon figure out the sounds were still coming from the basement. It just that the residence from hell were now being much louder and it was echoing throughout the hall mansion. I decided to call Mr. Butler again.

“No worries”, he said.

 “What do you mean no worries?”, I asked, “I can’t deal with this shit. It’s now 24/7 screaming”.

 “They just want you really bad and are getting annoyed that they can’t get you”, he chuckled.

"Is that suppose to make me feel better!", I shouted.

“But they can’t get to you. Don’t worry. They can’t come out of the basement during the day. And as long as you lock the door during the night, they can’t get to you.”

“But the screaming is now 24/7! I can’t take this anymore!!!”.

“Look, you have less than two weeks left. You can manage”. Then he hung up the phone.

 So I tried to deal with it. But I couldn’t get any sleep. 24/7 sounds of agony and screaming started to torment and traumatize me. Eventually, during the night, the demons started replicating my family and friends voices out...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/CQ-Erickson on 2024-11-10 19:01:55+00:00.

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The thing nobody gets right about the Satanic panic is that there were two phases. First Wave Dirtbags, (1978 to 1985) were victims of the panic. They never actually messed with the occult. Black Sabbath records, role playing games, and cutting gym class did not make you a wizard. Second Wave Dirtbags (1985 to 1992) however…we were created by the panic.

We heard that heavy metal and D&D led to black magic. We couldn’t wait to sign up.

Of course we got into Satanism. For like a week.

Then we found a copy of The Magus at Waldenbooks in the mall. Followed by someone’s older brother telling us why Jimmy Page bought Boleskine House, and suddenly kids who couldn’t pass freshman English were trying to decipher Aleister Crowley.

Magick is an oral tradition. We heard about Robert Anton Wilson from the weirdos at the record shop and Austin Osman Spare from the hippies who sold crystals in the flea market.

We were in our senior year when we heard about The Chattering Storm.

By that time my core crew was Inga, Dizz, Richard, and me. Inga got hired at the hippy shop and we would hang out there and visit her. That was how we heard about the Storm, from Creepy Craig, one of the regulars.

Craig was maybe 30, and way too excited to hang out with high schoolers. Anyway, he told us about the game, and when we were interested, he wrote down the directions. With his off-kilter block letters, the instructions looked like a ransom note written by a third grader.

Saturday nights were always a sleep over at Dizz’s house. His parents weren’t big on rules, and we were able to keep all of our band’s gear in the basement, which became our rehearsal room/clubhouse/occult science lab. Scattered among Richard’s drums and Inga’s and my amps were the remains of dozens of seances, rituals, and ouija board sessions. Candles, sigils, and beer cans littered the place.

We weren’t doing any of it with any real intention other than trying to scare ourselves. We fell asleep to slasher movies and woke up to Slayer, so that was increasingly hard to do.

The night that we summoned the Chattering Storm was the middle of January. There wasn’t much else going on. Creepy Craig’s directions were detailed. Too detailed. There was no way we were doing all these steps.

The entire first paragraph was rules. Burn sage in all four corners of the room. Pass. Draw two protective circles, one salt, one ash. No thank you. Red, yellow, blue and white candles burning in the four sacred directions. Nope.

The thing is, we had the stupid candles. But the thing about dirtbags (or heads, heshers, burnouts, depending on your region) is… if we wanted rules, we would have played a sport.

The one rule we followed was the music. The game needed instrumental music. We argued over whether to use Orion by Metallica or Transylvania by Iron Maiden. We settled on playing a demo of one of our (very long) original songs. I was not thrilled with this choice, as I secretly thought that the only thing our band had going for it was Inga’s lyrics.

Dizz went first, sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, blindfolded. The rest of us sat in a semicircle around him. Dizz did the singing chant, pitching his voice twice low, once high, then low again. We recited the same four words over and over. They looked vaguely Scandinavian written down, but spoken they sounded like speaking backwards.

According to Creepy Craig (and confirmed by some of the crystal shoppers) this should lead to the person in the chair automatically speaking in tongues… demonic gibberish that should last 30 seconds, tops.

That is not what happened.

Dizz’s voice was still his, but it was like he found a different gear in his vocal cords. The first few words were gibberish, but then in a clear, over enunciated voice like an old time radio announcer he said “THE REAL REASON RICHARD CANT HANG OUT ON MONDAYS IS BECAUSE HE GOES TO THE CHURCH YOUTH GROUP…HE CONFESSES ABOUT THE STUFF HE STEALS, INCLUDING MY LANDSCAPING MONEY AND INGA’S DELAY PEDAL…”

We were supposed to keep chanting the whole time, but we sat there with our mouths open. By the time I finally got up and paused the stereo Dizz had moved on to what Inga did at camp. As soon as the music stopped Dizz was back to normal.

Nobody was mad at him. We all just knew that was not him talking. We continued, like idiots.

I went next. Same thing: chair, blindfold, chanting.

Then I went away.

Where my mind used to be was a torrent of pure information. I could see my friends. Not just them, but their secrets, their histories… the real them, not who they presented to me. I knew i was talking but I also knew it wasn’t me. I was part of something else, and it was delicious.

Inga went next, and the storm sounded different through her. Her voice was high and clear, like a song. I don’t remember what she said, I only know that it was cruel, and beautiful, and for those few minutes I was in terrified of her. That face that I had known since first grade and had a tiny crush on since fifth grade was unrecognizable… the set of her jaw, the way her lips moved… this wasn’t Inga.

Whatever she said broke Richard. He ran out of the room and out of our lives. He never spoke to any of us again.

Monday morning I had an oral report in Spanish class. Normally I would blow it off, but I was trying to graduate, so I put AC/DC in my Walkman and psyched myself up.

I hate people looking at me. Which should have been a red flag considering i was planning on being a rock star. But I wasn’t big on thinking things through.

As I stood up to face the class, the normal panic wasn’t there. In the back of my head the chords from Dirty Deeds kept playing. Something like adrenaline flooded my body and I felt…good? I didn’t have to think about the words, they just flowed out.

In perfectly accented Spanish, I explained how Mexico is a country where they love soccer and boxing and dancing, and how our teacher recently relapsed after three years sober.

Lo siento, Senor Gottlieb.

The adrenaline was gone and I was terrified. I tried to see my friends. I found Richard first, his locker was right by mine. He wouldn’t talk to me, the look on his face made my blood run cold. He was scared of me.

I saw Dizz in the cafeteria. He was not at the dirtbag table. Somehow he was the center of attention at the wrestling team table. Whatever he was saying must have been fascinating, where they were laughing and hanging on his every word.

Seeing Dizz as the newly crowned jock mayor freaked me out more than getting possessed in Spanish.

I headed for the girls gym, it was fifth period, so Inga should be there. In the hallway two girls that were sure of in our social circle were beating the crap out of each other. Motley Crue t-shirts were torn, hair sprayed bangs were ripped. Inga was in the crowd, with a smile that I didn’t recognize.

My first thought was: she did this.

My next thought was: it did this.

A thought in a voice that wasn’t mine said: we did this.

I left school out the emergency door, my heart racing, and headed home. I could barely drive from the adrenaline shaking my hands. I was scared of my only friends. I was scared of how good I felt Saturday night. Most of all I was scared of how that voice started murmuring in my head the second I turned on the car stereo. It was like it was feeding off of the music. Or how the music made me feel.

Mom was in the kitchen when I got home, and it took all my willpower not to tell her all the dirty details that I suddenly knew about dad. The Storm wanted to be heard. I kept my head down and made it into my room. Barely.

I tried to clear my head with the only thing that ever worked. I plugged my guitar in and forced myself to practice scales for twenty minutes before opening up and improvising.

My head didn’t clear. It filled up again. The Storm came calling again and suddenly I was in it.

I am Apollo, in Delphi they praise me and I give them music and prophecy.

I am Brigid, granting poetry to the Celts on the banks of the River Barrow.

I am u/CQ-Erickson, five years from now, playing to a stadium of adoring fans. This is the future if I just relax and…

No.

Trying to snap out of it was like a combination of sleep paralysis and amnesia. My mind didn’t want to remember who I am… finally one last burst of sheer panic jolted my body and I shook it out of my mind. I forced myself to remember: I am not a god. Gods don’t have back acne. I am a 17 year old dirtbag who will be taking Spanish in summer school.

I never picked up my guitar again.

It probably looked, from the outside, like we just drifted apart over the next few months before graduation. It wasn’t gradual on my part. I loved my friends, but I didn’t recognize them. The look in Dizz’s eyes scared the hell out of me. The look in Inga’s eyes broke my heart.

Richard never spoke with us again. I think he is a priest now. Dizz started a conspiracy theory show on public access television when he was 18. I watched it once. It wasn’t his voice. It was the storm. I assume it still is, but I can’t bring myself to listen, even though he is tough to avoid these days.

Inga never played stadiums but she sold her first song right after high school and hasn’t stopped quietly working in the industry since. She has a place in Malibu on the cliffs.

I’ve never heard her songs. Or anyone else’s.

That is what it cost me. Not only my frien...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1go81cm/for_those_about_to_rock_burn_some_sage_first/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/lets-split-up on 2024-11-10 20:13:01+00:00.

---

Every year, we have this cabin trip, and every year, each of us writes a secret and puts it in the hat. After dinner we dump all the secrets out and start guessing whose is whose. It’s a fun activity that always teaches us new surprises about each other. Whoever guesses the most secrets correctly wins a basket. What the basket contains is different every year—everyone donates a gift.

This year, for example, my wife donated a box of fancy chocolates, “So that Kim stops eating yours,” she joked to me.

Dan often was the winner. A jovial extrovert, he was the glue that kept our friendships together long after college.

Melody won the basket nearly as often. An analytical thinker, she kept samples of our handwriting, and she usually spent quite a bit of time analyzing the slips of paper to try to ascertain who wrote which secret.

Then there was Zuri, who always made sure the basket had a bottle of (very) expensive wine. She didn’t even drink herself, but she liked the rest of us to have a good time. She was a terrible guesser.

Kim was our resident joker, always donating something silly to the basket, like “the world’s spiciest chip” or a giant gummi bear. He won the basket only once before.

Steve was the blandest guy imaginable, and usually donated something boring—bath products or pistachios or coffee. He never really got our in-jokes or quite fit in with the group.

Our tradition’s been going on strong ten years now. We’ve always had a good time. And that’s why what happened makes no sense at all.

My wife dropped me off at the cabin on a Friday evening. Kim, Steve, Dan, and Melody arrived, each putting slips in the hat. Zuri couldn’t make it this year but wine came with a note for us to enjoy ourselves.

After dinner, we pulled the slips out of the hat. Five slips of paper with our five secrets that read:

I have a secret crush on someone.

I spent fifty-two cents on the prize I bought for the basket. :)

I have a star named after me.

It’s a girl!

I’m going to murder one of you.

We read them all aloud, laughing and shouting guesses until we got to the last one. Everyone went quiet. Someone wondered if it was a joke—we all looked at resident joker Kim, but he said his was the fifty-two cents one. Everyone began snatching their slips, until each of us was holding a slip except me.

“It’s Mia!” They all said. “Mia’s planning a murder!”

“No I’m not!” I sputtered. “I wrote ‘I started a new diet’!”

Who had swapped my secret for the murder one?

To say that tensions were high would be an understatement. In the end, Dan suggested we skip the game and share the basket. But everyone’s mood was sour except for Kim, who happily ate all the chocolates and drank half the wine bottle himself. I wondered if he really did put that murder slip in there as a prank, just so we’d wind up splitting the basket and he’d get a share.

But the next morning, we woke up and found Kim lying blue-faced and wide-eyed in the bed, vomit staining the pillow and sheets beside him.

And suddenly we were all screaming, panicking, wondering which of us had done it. We hurled accusations while waiting for police.

“The wine,” said Dan. “He was obviously poisoned. It must’ve been the wine!”

“Maybe it was the chocolates,” said Melody.

“But they weren’t even out of the plastic wrapping!” I said.

“It was the wine,” Dan insisted. “Think about it. One of us wrote that incriminating secret, right? But Zuri’s got an alibi because she’s not here. The police look for someone involved in the game. And she gets away with murder in the perfect crime.”

“Okay, but how does she get the slip of paper into the hat if she was never here?” said Melody.

We reviewed the secrets again. Steve had a secret crush, Dan’s wife was having a little girl, Melody had a star named after her (“You know those are scams, right?” I told her). Mine was still missing.

That’s how all suspicion suddenly turned on me. When police arrived, everyone was interviewed. I was the prime suspect, even after I told police someone swapped out my secret slip about a new diet before we drew them from the hat. I even searched the trash cans and recycling but couldn’t find mine to prove my innocence. The remaining papers were turned over to check for fingerprints. The authorities took the wine bottle and what was left of the chocolate box too.

My friends all thought I was a killer. I knew one of them was.

Later that evening, when I was finally back home and still wondering who had lied, the dog was whining to go out, so I grabbed a coat and took him out. And suddenly everything clicked horrifyingly into place. We had all been right. Dan was right about the perfect alibi. Melody was right about the chocolates—not the ones in plastic wrap in the basket, but the ones in my bag that were supposed to be mine, that Kim stole like he did every year. And I had been right that my slip of paper had been switched.

Fear coursed through me as I pulled a crumpled slip of paper from the pocket: I started a new diet

I'd put on my wife's coat by mistake.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Froglich on 2024-11-10 15:57:59+00:00.

---

My grandmother, when she was alive, lived on an old farm on the side of a hill in a remote village in northern Sweden, right next to a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. Whenever we were there, we would spend all day swimming or fishing for perch and crayfish. Grandmother was however always very assertive that we must never get out on the lake during the night, though she never gave us any reason. I always assumed she worried that something would happen while no one was around to help.

Of course, time passes, and last year so did my grandmother. My grandfather died when I was very young, so my grandmothers passing left the house empty, and neither my mother nor any of her siblings were interested in moving out to the middle of nowhere. I, on the other hand, work remotely most of the time, and even though I don't really expect to work the land, the solitude sounded quite appealing. Along with the house itself, I inherited furniture, a tractor, some old farming equipment, and, of course, the small wooden rowing boat we would use whenever we were visiting.

I had a single neighbour, a strange old man named Lennart, who lived in a small cottage further up the hill across the road from me. He mostly liked to keep to himself, but I had offered to let him use the boat if he wanted to do some fishing, and to help out with clearing snow during the winter.

One night after I had finally settled in, and was mostly unpacked, I stood by the window in my bedroom looking out over the lake. The moon was peaking out over the mountain opposite, and cast a beautiful glow on the still water. Suddenly, I was reminded of my grandmothers warnings not to go out on the lake during the night. Curiosity got the better of me, and I made my way down to the boat house.

As I made my way down to the lake, I heard footsteps, and a voice calling out behind me. Startled, I turned around to see Lennart. He seemed flustered and asked me, almost accusingly, why I was going down to the boat house at this hour. Confused, and a little annoyed at his sudden intrusion, I told him that I felt like taking the boat out for a little midnight trip since this was such a beautiful night. He insisted that going out on the lake during the night was unsafe! Had my grandmother not warned me?

In hindsight, I feel extremely childish about this, but his insistence just made me more motivated. I told him that I was fully aware of the risks of taking a boat out at night, but that I was a grown adult and capable of making my own decisions. Lennart grumbled, and I could tell that he was still very agitated, but he relented and with a grunt and a dismissive wave, started making his way back up the hill.

I pushed my boat out on the water and jumped in. The water was very still, and the combination of the moonlight, and almost complete absence of any sounds made for an incredibly soothing experience. I settled around the middle of the lake, perhaps 300 meters from the shore. At this point, I could see most of the houses in the village, and the neighbouring village. Looking over toward my house, I suddenly realised that Lennarts cottage was entirely dark. He usually had some lights on in the windows, so that was certainly odd, but I could only assume that he had blown a fuse.

Around me, the stillness of the water was disturbed by bubbles. Before I knew it, the water was filled with frenzied activity, and with a lurch, the boat suddenly started moving back toward the shore. I was moving significantly faster than my rowing had taken me out onto the lake, and I was holding on for dear life. I worried I would crash into the boat house, but whatever pushed my boat along navigated it safely back to the spot where I would normally keep it moored and it slid softly back on to land. I stood up, scared and confused, and looked around.

Three dark and bloated silhouettes emerged from the water. In the moonlight, they looked almost like soldiers in gillie suits, but they clearly wore no diving equipment. They approached swiftly, and grabbed me. The creatures smelled vaguely of fish and decaying vegetation, and they spoke in a language I could not comprehend. I managed to make out a single word that was repeated multiple times: "mermolgard."

They dragged me inside the boat house. One of them looked me dead into the eyes and covered my mouth as it made a gargled hushing sound. It's face was clearly not human, with bulging eyes without eyelids, two slits in place of a nose and no visible ears. I realised it was in fact not wearing anything. However, its leathery dark brown skin seemed to mimik the appearance of decaying leaves. Of course, I was scared nearly out of my mind at this point, but for some reason I didn't attempt to flee. The creatures seemed almost as scared as I was. So, I complied and kept quiet. They turned off the lights and settled down around me.

We waited in there for what felt like an eternity, but was most likely only a couple of minutes. The silence outside was suddenly broken by a loud splash and the sound of wood splintering. I could hear that something was emerging from the lake, followed by heavy, damp footsteps. From what I could tell, it seemed to be moving up the hill as the footsteps were getting more and more distant. As I sat in that boat house, my senses tuned to max by all of the adrenaline coursing through my body, the sounds of breaking glass and splintering wood reached us. Eventually the footsteps returned, and whatever had come after us out of the lake made its way back into the water.

A couple of minutes later, the three creatures that brought me into the boat house quietly exchanged a few words. The one that had hushed me earlier gestured that I was free to leave, and then they left. I could hear them going back into the water. I fell back against the wall and slid down to the floor as my adrenaline abated and the fear truly set in. I didn't move from that spot until the following morning.

My house looked like a crime scene. The front door, along with its frame, had been torn out of the wall and lay several meters away on my lawn. Most of my windows and furniture was in pieces, and pools of water dotted the floor throughout the house.

Lennart clearly knew more about the creatures that live in the lake. I resented that he hadn't been more forceful in stopping me from going out with the boat. However, logically I knew I wouldn't have believed him if he had started going on about monsters, and what was he supposed to do? Nevertheless, I marched over to his cottage and banged on the door until he eventually opened it. He seemed both surprised and relieved that I was standing there and he offered me a cup of coffee and an explanation.

The lake is inhabited by a creature known as Mermolgard and creatures known as the Vattnora. Generally, they live together in piece, but they have very different opinions on us humans. Lennart and my grandmother used to spend time with the Vattnora, and they understood some of their language. Their word for human roughly translates as "foolish ones." They say that humanity are not mature and they mostly settle with observing us. Mermolgard is an ancient creature that sleeps during the day and hunts at night. He is resentful of humanity for settling around his lake, eating his fish, and disturbing the darkness of the night with artificial lights.

I still live in my grandmothers old house, Lennart has promised to introduce me to the Vattnora, in their own time. I feel an obligation to thank them, and to protect others from Mermolgard. I will never go out on the lake during the night again, but I feel strangely safe to do so during the day.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/HerScreams on 2024-11-10 14:12:35+00:00.

---

My parents never explained why we had to play the Game of Silence. All I knew was that, every night at exactly 10 PM, we would sit in the living room, completely still, our lips sealed tight. Dad would set the kitchen timer, and that’s when the game would officially begin. We weren't allowed to make a single sound until the timer rang again. The rules were strict, and breaking them? Well, I’d rather not think about what happened when we did.

I made a mistake once when I was younger. It was just a cough. One small, innocent cough. But the moment the sound escaped my lips, I felt it. A sudden, icy brush against my skin, like something sharp and cold dragging across my shoulder. My skin split open, thin and precise, like a paper cut made by something unseen.

Even as a child, I knew. I knew that if I screamed, if I made even the slightest noise, I wouldn’t survive the night. My parents didn’t need to yell or scold me. The terror in their eyes, the pale horror etched into their faces, told me everything. That night, after the timer finally rang, my dad took me aside. “You can’t ever break the rules again,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “They don’t like it.”

After that night, I learned to hold my breath, no matter what.

The rules were simple: no talking, no moving, no noise. I never understood why. There was never any explanation, just the same old ritual.

Now, years later, I still don’t know who they are, but I do know one thing: when you break the rules, they can touch you.

Tonight, the house feels wrong. Something in the air is different. Mom has been nervous all day, pacing the kitchen, wringing her hands. Dad hasn’t said a word, but the tightness in his jaw tells me he’s just as worried. My little sister, Emma, clings to her stuffed rabbit, her eyes darting around the room like she can see something the rest of us can’t.

The timer ticks down. The silence is suffocating. My heart beats in my chest, loud enough that I wonder if it counts as noise. I keep my eyes focused on the floor, trying to block out the rising tension. But then there’s a noise: a soft thump from upstairs. It’s faint, but unmistakable. Something fell. My pulse quickens. Dad’s grip tightens on the armrest. We all know what happens now.

Nothing happens at first. We sit frozen, waiting. Then, the footsteps start, slow and deliberate. They come from upstairs, moving toward us. Mom’s breath hitches. Emma squeezes the rabbit tighter. We’re all on edge, waiting for what’s coming next. The sound grows louder, closer. My chest tightens, fear curling around my spine like an icy hand.

The door to the living room creaks open. But there’s no one there. Just an open doorway, leading into the dark hallway.

The coldness in the room intensifies. The air feels thick, like something is trying to push its way inside.

We sit there, staring at the open doorway, waiting for something to move in the dark. The footsteps have stopped, but the tension hasn’t. The room is freezing now, and I can see my breath in front of me. Emma is shaking, her fingers digging into the worn fabric of her rabbit.

I glance at Dad, his eyes fixed on the doorway, his jaw clenched so tight that I’m afraid he might snap. Mom hasn’t moved an inch. I want to ask her what’s happening, why things feel different tonight, but I know better. The rules don’t allow for questions.

Then, a sound breaks the silence. It’s faint, like a whisper carried on the wind. I can’t make out the words, but I know it isn’t good. The voices, whatever they are, are back. I know from experience that you don’t want to hear what they have to say.

Mom tenses, her eyes wide. She’s heard it too. Dad slowly shakes his head, as if telling us to ignore it, to stay quiet. We’ve been through this before. We know the drill.

But something feels wrong tonight. The air is heavier than usual, the shadows in the hallway darker. It’s like the house itself is changing, warping. I feel a knot of fear twist in my stomach.

The timer on the kitchen counter ticks loudly, counting down the seconds until we’re free. But it feels like an eternity away. I can barely stand the tension anymore, and I’m not sure how much longer Emma can hold out.

Suddenly, there’s another noise. This time, it’s a low scraping sound, like something being dragged across the floor. It’s coming from upstairs again. My heart skips a beat. I don’t dare look at Emma. I know she’s barely holding it together.

The scraping sound stops, replaced by a soft knock on the wall. Three taps, slow and rhythmic. Then another three taps, a little louder this time. It’s coming closer, moving down the stairs.

Mom’s breathing grows rapid, her eyes darting toward Dad. But Dad doesn’t move. His hands grip the armrest of his chair so tightly that his knuckles turn white. He’s afraid too, but he’s trying to hide it. It isn’t working.

Then, without warning, Emma stands up. My heart leaps into my throat. She drops the rabbit on the floor, her small body trembling as she takes a step toward the hallway. “Emma!” I want to shout, but I can’t. I bite my lip so hard I taste blood.

She’s sleepwalking. She does this sometimes, but not like this, not during the game.

Mom moves to stop her, but Dad holds up his hand, stopping her in her tracks. His eyes are wide, and there’s something in his expression that sends a chill down my spine. He’s not stopping Emma. He’s letting her go.

I don’t understand. Why isn’t he stopping her?

Emma takes another step toward the dark hallway, her eyes half-closed. She’s not awake. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. The shadows in the hallway seem to shift, reaching out for her. My heart is pounding in my ears, and I want to scream, but I can’t.

Just as Emma reaches the threshold of the door, something happens. The scraping sound returns, but this time it’s fast and frantic. It rushes toward us, and Emma freezes, her tiny frame standing at the edge of the darkness.

The whispers grow louder, more insistent. They seem to wrap around her, calling her name.

Mom can’t take it anymore. She jumps up, rushing toward Emma, but Dad grabs her arm, pulling her back with a strength I didn’t know he had. “No,” he whispers, his voice strained. “Let her go.”

Let her go? The words don’t make sense. What is he doing? Why is he letting her walk into the dark?

Emma takes one more step, and suddenly, the door to the hallway slams shut. The whole house shakes, and the lights flicker. The cold air vanishes in an instant, replaced by a suffocating stillness.

The timer rings, breaking the silence. The game is over.

But Emma, Emma’s gone.

The timer rang, signaling the end of the game, but my sister had vanished, taken into the darkness beyond the door. My mind raced, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

I turned to my parents, expecting them to react, to rush toward the door, to find Emma. But they sat there, frozen, their faces pale, eyes wide with that same deep-rooted terror I’d seen before. It was as if they were waiting for something.

"Where is she?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "Why aren’t you doing anything?"

Mom finally moved, slowly shaking her head. “We can’t,” she said softly, her voice barely audible. “The game is over.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Emma was gone, and they were just sitting there. I stood up, my body shaking with fear and anger. “We have to find her!” I shouted, louder than I should have, but I didn’t care anymore. “My little sister is out there!”

Dad’s voice was firm when he spoke, though his eyes betrayed his fear. “It’s too late,” he said. “The game has its rules.”

“Rules?” I repeated, incredulous. “What about Emma? We can’t just leave her!”

“We can’t go after her,” Mom said, her eyes filling with tears. “Not now.”

The fear in their eyes, the trembling in their voices … it wasn’t just fear of losing Emma. It was something else, something much worse. They knew something I didn’t, something they weren’t telling me.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I ran toward the door, throwing it open and stepping into the hallway. The air was colder, denser, as if the house itself had changed. The shadows seemed darker, thicker. I called out for Emma, but there was no answer.

As I crept through the hallway, my footsteps echoed unnervingly. The house felt larger, more expansive than before, the walls stretching out into places that hadn’t existed before. It was like the game had taken over completely, twisting the space around me.

Then I heard it, a faint sound, almost like a sob. It was coming from upstairs.

Without thinking, I rushed toward the stairs, my heart racing. I had to find her. I had to bring her back. Each step creaked under my weight, the air growing colder with every breath I took. I reached the top of the stairs and paused, listening. The sound was closer now. It was Emma. I was sure of it.

I followed the sound down the hallway toward her bedroom door. It was cracked open, just a sliver of light spilling out. I pushed it open slowly, stepping inside.

And then I saw her.

Emma stood in the center of the room, her back to me. Her rabbit lay discarded on the floor, and she was whispering something, too low for me to make out. Relief flooded through me. She was here. She was safe.

“Emma?” I called softly, stepping closer.

She didn’t respond. She just kept whispering, her voice steady and calm. I moved closer, but something felt wrong. The air in the room was thick with tens...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1go1ie8/my_parents_never_explained_why_we_had_to_play_the/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Handle-Personal on 2024-11-09 19:32:17+00:00.

---

I’m taking to the internet to hopefully find someone else with a similar experience and maybe someone who can explain it.

A few weeks ago some friends and I decided to go on a a camping trip.

The first time I heard the humming was when we got to the entrance booth to the park. It was a low hum, almost guttural and without a source. Like the fog around me was choking the forest of its voice.

The window to the hut slid open, and a friendly woman greeted us. The conversation was filled with your basic pleasantries, but behind her, there was a tall man, another ranger I presumed, but he was facing away from us all, staring out the exit window on the other side. We checked in and drove off to the parking area, where the humming finally disappeared. We quickly unpacked and walked the mile to our secluded campsite, far from the drive-up campers. The nearest campfire was just a distant flicker. It was perfect—just us and the woods.

As the sun began to set, we had our tents up, s’mores were being made, and the fresh air of the woods filled our lungs. Deep breaths and sighs were constantly heard as the weight of our everyday life fell off our shoulders.

That first night, I woke up with a minor headache. I lay still, listening to the breeze—and then I noticed it again. The humming, faint and constant, barely beneath the wind, made my stomach twist. As I tried to focus on it, my eyes began to shut, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up again to what I could only assume was morning.

The sky was overcast, dull. The forecast didn’t call for rain, so if that was all we got, I counted myself lucky. My headache was gone, and even while looking for it, I couldn’t hear that humming anymore. Feeling much better, we ate a quick breakfast and had a short midday hike.

During that hike was my third encounter with this humming. Standing on an overlook with a view of a few hills, I caught sight of what I thought was that same ranger I saw from the booth. The one standing behind the lady. Once again, he was turned away from me, across the valley. I couldn’t make out any distinct features besides the clothes, but I remember that as soon as I saw him, the humming started. I immediately began to feel ill again, and that damn humming just kept getting louder the longer I stared. He was still. So still. No movement, almost as if he was a sculpture amongst the trees. I snapped out of the stupor of tunnel vision I was in when my friend choked while trying to drink water of all things, and they braced themselves on me for dramatic effect.

“Wrong pipe,” they squeezed out of their throat with lost breath. I looked back to find the man, and no one was there.

Our final night, we stayed up late around the campfire. I finally brought up the humming. No one else had heard it. It was only me. Feeling a little crazy, I recounted the day’s events and mentioned seeing the ranger from the booth across the valley.

“Honestly, that would be my go-to job if I could start over,” said my partner.

Aaron lit up. “Do you think she gets to drive those sweet off-road go-karts to get across all this land?”

“Oh, I meant the guy behind the lady from the booth.” I corrected

“What guy?”

Beth’s voice rose with curiosity. “I’m pretty sure it was just the girl in that booth. I remember thinking, damn, they got her out here alone?”

“Maybe it was someone on the other side of the booth?” my partner added.

I was silent. The only thing that came to my mind was a solemn “maybe” as I questioned my own memory and, honestly, my sanity at this point.

When the night set in, we repeated our s’more ritual and laid down. Trying hard to push the thought of the ranger out of my head only made me think about him more. Late in the night, it struck again. Like a needle going into my ear, the humming started, and my head immediately began to hurt. It sounded so much closer. I got up with the excuse of needing to use the restroom, but I wanted to find where this was coming from.

I took the flashlight and walked out in the direction that felt the most correct. This humming didn’t seem to have a direction; it just existed. From all around me. The further I walked into the woods, the louder it got. I didn’t want to get too far from camp, so I made the conscious decision to turn around so I couldn’t get lost. The humming suddenly got worse and made me keel over. It didn’t just feel around me; it felt inside my head like a balloon slowly inflating behind my eyes, pushing against my skull. Permeating my thoughts. I became dizzy.

I saw what appeared to be the ranger about 15 feet away. The fog was so thick, and he was so still that I must have thought he was a tree at first and didn’t notice him, but no. This was the ranger I had seen earlier. I managed to blurt out a single, “Hey,” but no response was returned. The humming became louder, and if it hadn’t been for my obsession with who this was, I would have just walked away. I crept around the figure, my unsteady hand moving the light up his body. Tattered, mud-ridden boots. Old, shredded pants. I began to stutter on nothing when the light revealed dark, red stains leading up his shirt. Terrified, I couldn’t look away.

I saw a hanging bit of flesh in front of his neck. It took my mind a moment to understand what I saw: his tongue, hanging. His bottom jaw was gone, leaving only a row of upper teeth and a gnarled mess of tongue and flesh hanging beneath it. Before I could wrestle myself from the fear that strangled me, I saw his eyes. Empty, sunken dark holes stared back. They seemed to reach out, trying to pull my eyes out to fill the space where his should have been. I couldn’t speak. Barely a breath could escape me.

I immediately felt tears welling up as I realized the humming finally had a creator. This thing was humming, almost growling. After every detail was burned into my mind, I ran back to camp. But I quickly realized he didn’t chase me. The more I thought about it, he maybe didn’t even know I was there.

I made it back to camp with wet eyes, out of breath, and tried to get out any coherent word to explain what I saw, but it was all a panicked, panted mess. We all walked back to the car together and sat there until sunrise. I could not sleep. We went back to the site to gather our things, and not a single hum was heard. As we pulled out of the campgrounds, we passed right by the booth, and I looked in the mirror to see if the man was there again. He wasn’t,

If I could go back and find him then I’ll know it was real. I feel crazy. Like I can’t even trust what I’m writing here but it felt so real. But going crazy is the only explanation I can think of as no one else heard the hum or saw the man but maybe someone else out there has and I can get some consolation on the internet. What should I do?

I think I’ve obsessed over it too much. My partner has even told me I’ve begun to hum in my sleep.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/K-H_Alsbjerg on 2024-11-10 09:17:10+00:00.

---

I just won the lottery, with the jackpot and everything - I’m now a multimillionaire! Am I happy? Well, sort off…but, I have this nagging feeling that I have made a huge mistake. Is it all in my mind? Am I overreaching? What should I do? This seems like the right place to ask…

I guess I better fill you in. I work at a military installation in Europe, where some fancy future tech weapons systems are developed. I can’t go into much detail about the installation or the layout, but just imagine an underground military base - bleak and sterile, with endless gray corridors, warning signs that tell you to always keep your ID visible and a throng of heavily armed guards.

I’m not one of the clever scientists. I’m just a simple orderly at the medical wing. It’s quite a nice job. Well paid and nothing much happens at my night shifts since all the accidents happen during the day. Some accidents are weird though, but what do I know? I’m not one of those weapon specialists.

So what happened? 

Well, yesterday evening when I checked into work, the base was like a beehive. Scientist jogged awkwardly past me in the hallway, closely followed by some of the technical staff. Something was in the air. A strange feeling of anticipation. I noticed how many of the guards had a firm grip on their rifles. One of them even tightened his grip when I made eye contact with him.

The putrid smell slowly intensified as I neared the medical ward. A scream made it to my ears - then another. I felt a huge knot form in my stomach. This was going to be a long night, I thought to myself. 

I had never seen such horror in my entire life! All the beds in the ward were occupied. Some even laid on makeshift beds along one wall. Are those poor things supposed to be humans? Their screams certainly suggest it. It had not been more than a minute at most before I was out in the hallway again, fighting my urge to spill my evening dinner everywhere, but it was a losing battle. After I had emptied my stomach, two guards each grabbed one of my arms and marched me to a small room at the end of the corridor. Even though they said nothing when they left the room, I knew I had to stay put.

The wait was unbearable. The horrible images and smells still lingered in my mind. My supervisor entered the cramped room and gave me a choice. Get a hold of myself and help in the medical ward, or report to the D Wing and relieve one of the orderlies there. I quickly choose the second option. Anything must be better than whatever I had to do in the medical ward. She sighed and, with a flick of her head, signaled for me to follow her. Out in the corridor, she wasted no time and told one guard to take me to the D Wing.  

“Yes, ma’am!” the brute of a guard promptly replied with a crisp salute. Still occupied by the sights I had seen just ten minutes before, I followed him like a zombie. Before I knew it, I stood in front of a strange-looking door. Strange in the manner that it had a large poster on it that covered most of the door - I got the feeling that it was there to hide something. Over the door was a big sign that simply read “PATIENT - #ZERO FIVE ALPHA”.

The guard scanned his keycard and opened the door. We walked inside a small office-like space. A small desk, chair - hell, there was even a sofa and a small bathroom beside another door. 

A person sat at the small desk and read a book. This person completely ignored the guard’s calls - after a moment, the guard walked up to him and slammed his hand hard on the table. The person made a jolt and almost fell off the chair. 

Immediately, the person signaled with his hands. The guard looked back at me, then at the person again. The Guard told the person to follow while he tried his best to signal the words with his hands. 

After back and forth, the meaning finally got through to the deaf person. Before he left, he said something to me in sign language. When I shook my head and sighed, he looked surprised that I didn’t understand him. He pointed towards the top drawer in the office desk and then gave me a look of concern. Then, they left me alone in the room.

A bit confused, I opened the office drawer and found a laminated page with some instructions on it. Apparently, my only job was to refill a water container in the room next to this one - and - I was not to talk to the patient in there under any circumstances. I shrugged. This task seemed easy enough, and I was curious, so I thought it was a good time to see who was in the next room - albeit just to get my mind off the recent events. Before I left, however, I went to the bathroom to get some water for my sore throat, as I still could taste the puke. Then I grabbed one of the gallon jugs of water next to the door and stepped through the door.

I could hardly believe what I saw. A plain white room, with a white carpet - the only carpet I had ever seen in this place. All the edges were poorly finished, and to be honest, it sort of look liked it could be pulled off quite easily. In the middle of the room, a metal bed and on it, a person laid. He had straps on his head, torso, arms and legs - he was completely immobile. 

What’s stranger still? His whole body except for his head was covered in white cloth - like a mummy. A leather mask covered his head. The mask had a small hole in front of his mouth, which allowed for a small tube to enter. Another strange feature was a zipper on the left side, presumably used to reveal this guy’s face.

The instant the door slammed behind me, I sensed something. I was being watched. By him? It hardly seemed likely. I could see some movement around his mouth. 

I slowly walked up behind the bed and took the lid of what I summarized was the water container. I filled it up, put the lid back on and the moment I took a step, he started to spasm, as much as the tight restraints allowed.

He must be choking, I thought. Perhaps I had done something wrong? With little thought, I unzipped the mask to reveal his face.

“Please, scratch me on my nose, “ he said with a voice soft as silk, “it itches so terribly.”

“Yeah, no.” I replied. 

“I’ll make it worth your while, Daniel…”

“What?”

“Forgive me, but that’s what your mother planned to call you.”

I frowned. I really had no desire to talk to a mentally ill person. I had read a lot about what “cold reading” was and how easy someone could imitate knowing things about you. I felt like a fool and decided it was best to zip up the mask.

When I leaned over him, we made eye contact. His eyes pierced deep into my soul. They were so mesmerizing. It was like laying outside at night, staring up at the endless abyss of stars. The more I looked, the more was revealed to me. I felt drawn in. 

“Scratch my nose, Daniel.” He asked again. I felt his breath on my face as he said the words. I tried to look away, but the endless array of stars and nebulas in his eyes made that impossible. 

“Do you want me to release my hold on you, Daniel?” 

I blinked. Then forced both of my hands up in front of my eyes. I walked backwards until I hit the door and then turned my back to him.

 “Alright, Daniel, that was most impressive. As a gift, your throat is all better. Did it not help, Daniel?”

I stood stupefied. My throat? My throat was better! The taste of puke, gone?! But, how?

“Please, scratch my nose before you leave. Come now, Daniel…”

I shook my head and chuckled. I must have been more shocked about those awful images than I thought. I turned around and moved up to the bed again. With a raised eyebrow, I scratched his nose gently. I was drawn in again by the deep abyss in his eyes.

“I have a use for you, Daniel. Do something extraordinary and think of me when you do. If you do, be sure to make it back to me, otherwise…strange things will happen, Daniel…” he said and closed his eyes. 

It took a moment before I got to my senses. I zipped up his mask and walked out. For the rest of my shift, he laid so still I almost thought he had died - but I could hear how he gulped at the water, so he was definitely alive. 

In the morning, I was relieved by another orderly, who used his hands to signal me something. Just like the other Orderly I relived, this one also seemed surprised that I wasn’t deaf. 

Things seemed to have calmed down at the base. Even the strange putrid smell had passed - thank god!

On my way home, I stopped at the same gas station I also do to get something to eat. As I stood in the que, I noticed the lottery sign. Hundreds of millions were in the pot. Nobody had won in six months. I thought of the strange person in the room, this patient #ZERO ALPHA FIVE or whatever his real name was. A chill went up my spine. The cashier yelled if I needed help. The four people who had waited in front of me had vanished. I must have drifted off. I bought the food and a lottery ticket.

And I think you know the rest of the story. I won! I’m now a multimillionaire. I’m sitting here typing this with a nagging feeling of despair. Should I go back to the military base tomorrow? What if I can’t get another night shift with patient #FIVE ALPHA ZERO? Am I overreaching? Should I just enjoy my new life?

What should I do?

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/myrasam79 on 2024-11-10 06:31:21+00:00.

---

Life is a fragile, flickering ember in a vast, indifferent night. I’d always thought about how easily it could be snuffed out—how quickly it could slip between the cracks. Death was never far from my mind; it wasn’t something I feared but something I felt an uneasy kinship with, as if the darkness had always been waiting, just outside my peripheral vision. Maybe it was because of the countless funerals, the whispered condolences, and the heavy, solemn silences that had clung to my childhood like a damp, suffocating fog. Or maybe, it was the grim fascination that bloomed in my chest each time I read about some poor soul’s end in the morning paper.

You grow up hearing the clichés: “Life is short,” “You never know when your time will come.” But they don't prepare you for how trivial, how fragile, it all really is. I found myself dwelling on these thoughts even more the day I saw my reflection staring back at me from a store window, the tired eyes, the sunken cheeks. I almost didn't recognize myself, like I was staring at a stranger caught in some private, wordless agony. It should’ve been a wake-up call, but it felt like a bad omen.

That day, the air was thick with the scent of rain and gasoline. I drove my rusted old car along the stretch of highway that cut through town, thinking about the time I had wasted, the jobs I had lost, the friendships that had dried up. There was an ache inside me, deep and gnawing, a frustration with the shape of my life and the endless, gnawing emptiness that nipped at my heels.

The rain started softly at first, just a gentle pattering on the windshield, but it grew into a torrential downpour, a curtain of water that turned the road into a river. I barely noticed when I passed the turnoff for home—my thoughts had drifted too far away. The music in the car was playing some melancholy tune, the lyrics washing over me without sinking in. Maybe it was that distraction, or maybe it was just fate, but I never saw the truck until it was too late.

The headlights came out of nowhere, blinding and hot, cutting through the rain. I slammed the brakes, but they locked, tires shrieking against wet asphalt. The car spun, my body lurching forward as if trying to escape the inevitable. The impact was violent—a crunching, splintering explosion of metal and glass. My head snapped back, and my body folded around the steering wheel like a rag doll.

In that moment, everything became a blur of red and black, a whirlpool of pain that seared through my ribs and snapped through my bones like brittle twigs. The air was filled with the coppery scent of blood, mingling with the acrid stench of burning rubber and engine oil. Glass shards bit into my skin, burying themselves in my face, my arms—tiny, gleaming teeth that tore through flesh and left me choking on my own breath.

The pain was all-consuming, an unending tide that crashed over me, pulling me down into a deep, endless cold. My vision dimmed, narrowing to a dark tunnel as the world outside the shattered windshield blurred into nothingness. I felt my pulse slowing, a sluggish rhythm, like a drumbeat fading into the distance.

For a moment, I thought that was it—that I’d finally reached the end of whatever strange and unremarkable story my life had been. But then, in that fading twilight, I saw something—something that shouldn’t have been there. A figure, standing just beyond the cracked glass, watching. A silhouette framed in the haze of rain, unmoving, like it had been waiting all along.

My last thought before slipping under was absurdly clear: I knew that face. I’d seen it before, somewhere—maybe in a reflection, maybe in a dream. But that realization faded, swallowed by the cold darkness that took me in its arms.

The world returned slowly, first as a dull, throbbing ache that pulsed through every inch of my body, then as a suffocating, metallic taste in my mouth. Consciousness crept in, unwelcome and hazy, dragging me back from the comforting, indifferent darkness I had drifted in. I opened my eyes, expecting to see the shattered remnants of my car, the highway strewn with glass and twisted metal, maybe even flashing lights or concerned faces. But there was nothing. Just a strange, cold quiet.

I was lying in a bed—a stiff, unfamiliar one, like those cheap motel beds with too-thin sheets and a mattress that smelled faintly of antiseptic. The walls were bare, no windows, no light except for a dim glow that seemed to have no source. It was as if the room itself exhaled a faint, sickly luminescence, barely enough to see by. I tried to move my arm, to test if I was still whole, but even that slight shift brought a fresh wave of pain, sharp and biting, cutting into my bones.

Then, out of the silence, I became aware of another presence. I hadn’t heard footsteps, hadn’t felt any shift in the air, but I knew I was no longer alone. A figure stood by the foot of my bed, half shrouded in the murky darkness that swallowed the edges of the room. My heart pounded, a sickening thud against my ribs, as my eyes adjusted, taking in the stranger.

He was tall, his frame wrapped in something dark and flowing, almost like shadows had gathered and clung to him. His face was pale, ghostly, and stretched with a tightness that seemed unnatural, as if his skin had been pulled too tightly over the bone beneath. His eyes were deep-set, black as voids, drawing in all the faint light around them. There was no expression in them, no spark of life, just an endless, impenetrable darkness. I knew, in some instinctive way, that this was no doctor, no rescuer.

He said nothing for a long, agonizing moment, simply watching me. The silence stretched until it felt like a physical weight pressing against my chest, making it hard to breathe. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft but unnaturally clear, each word cutting through the stillness with an almost surgical precision.

“You were meant to cross over,” he said, his tone devoid of warmth or malice. Just a statement, as simple and cold as if he were telling me the time. “But you hesitated.”

Hesitated? The word felt absurd, foreign. I hadn’t hesitated; I had been hurled into that blackness, helpless against the pull of whatever lay on the other side. Yet there he stood, as though my very struggle to hold on had somehow defied the order of things.

 “Who… Who are you?” I managed to whisper, but my throat was parched, every word a jagged scrape against my vocal cords.

For a moment, he didn’t answer, his head tilting slightly, as though studying some peculiar creature. “Names matter little here,” he replied, almost a whisper. “But I am what you would call the end. The last sight, the final word.”

The Angel of Death. The thought clawed at the edges of my mind, bringing with it a visceral, primal fear that twisted in my gut. But there was something else there too, something I couldn’t quite understand—a strange feeling, as if I’d seen him before, felt his gaze on me in some hidden moment of my life. Like he had been lingering in the corners of my existence, waiting for the right moment to reach out his cold, unfeeling hand.

“I… I don’t want to die,” I said, the words raw and trembling, a futile plea against the inevitable.

He offered no comfort, no reassurance. Instead, he raised one pale, bony hand and pointed to the far corner of the room. My gaze followed his gesture to an object that hadn’t been there before—a mirror. It loomed large and ominous, leaning against the wall as if it had been waiting for me. Its surface was tarnished and veiled with a haze, the kind of imperfection that spoke of centuries buried in darkness before being exhumed and placed here with deliberate intent.

“In life, you lingered on the edges,” he murmured, his voice distant yet impossibly close. “Staring too long into reflections, watching yourself as though you were an observer instead of a participant. You invited me in long before you realized it.”

A chill crept through my veins, an icy numbness that mingled with the dull haze of pain meds coursing through me. It was an unsettling sensation, as if frost had seeped into my blood, but even the chemical fog clouding my senses couldn’t blunt the oppressive weight of his presence. It was true—I had always felt a strange detachment, an unsettling awareness of my own mortality that had gnawed at me, even in moments of happiness. I had flirted with the concept of death, letting it dance at the edges of my mind, fascinated by the void that seemed both foreign and familiar. But this? This was something else entirely, something that turned my stomach with a sick dread.

“You have been given another chance,” he continued, his gaze returning to me, unblinking, unwavering. “But there is a condition.”

A condition. The words came with a heavy weight, like stones tied around my ankles. “What… what do you mean?”

His gaze flickered toward the mirror again. “Reflections are dangerous things. They hold pieces of us, echoes that can linger and grow, feeding on our fears, our doubts. You will return to your life, but there is a rule you must follow—an unbreakable rule.”

My mind raced, struggling to make sense of his words, to grasp the meaning hidden beneath his expressionless gaze. “W-what… what rule?” I stuttered, my voice barely holding together under the weight of the moment.

He stepped closer, his form blurring slightly as he moved, as if he were made of smoke and shadows. When he spoke, his voice dr...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/myrasam79 on 2024-11-09 06:27:33+00:00.

---

You might think I’m stupid for posting this, admitting to a crime. And yeah, you’re probably right. But I don’t care anymore. The person I used to be, the guy who broke into a stranger’s home for thrills and a quick payday? He’s long gone. My name doesn’t matter—you can call me whatever you want. Let’s just say this is your anonymous warning.

This all started three years ago, back when I was still pulling small-time jobs, mostly houses in affluent neighborhoods. I wasn’t a mastermind or anything, just someone with sticky fingers and a knack for finding ways inside. When I heard about the abandoned Greystone Mansion, I thought it was the perfect score. The place had been sitting empty for decades, and rumors swirled about treasures left behind by the original owners.

Of course, there were also stories about why no one stayed in the mansion for long. Ghosts, curses, people vanishing without a trace—your usual small-town nonsense. But I figured those stories kept the amateurs out, leaving more for me. I drove out one moonless night with a flashlight, a crowbar, and a backpack, ready to haul away anything that looked remotely valuable.

The mansion sat in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by overgrown trees and weeds as tall as me. The windows were mostly shattered, and ivy climbed its walls like nature was trying to reclaim the place. Inside, the air was heavy with the smell of mildew, and every step I took on the creaking floorboards echoed through the silence.

I hit the usual spots first—drawers, cabinets, anything that might hold old jewelry or forgotten cash. Found nothing but dust and rats. Still, I wasn’t ready to give up. The mansion was huge, with more rooms than I could count. There had to be something worth taking.

That’s when I saw the portraits.

They lined the walls of a long hallway on the second floor, each one larger than life and painted with unnerving detail. At first, I thought they were just your typical old-money portraits—stuffy men in suits, stern-looking women in elegant dresses. But the longer I looked, the more they unsettled me.

The faces weren’t just detailed; they were too lifelike. The paint seemed to glisten in the faint light of my flashlight, and the eyes... God, the eyes. They followed me wherever I went, their gazes drilling into my back even when I wasn’t looking at them directly.

But that wasn’t what stopped me in my tracks. No, what froze me to the spot was the last portrait in the hallway.

It was blank.

At first, I thought it was just an empty frame, but when I stepped closer, I saw faint outlines—shapes that seemed to shift and twist the longer I stared. And at the bottom of the frame, there was a small brass plaque with a single word etched into it: “Unfinished.”

A cold dread started creeping over me, but I shook it off. This was just a painting, I told myself. A creepy one, sure, but just a painting. I turned to leave the hallway, but something caught my eye—a small, leather-bound book sitting on a pedestal near the blank portrait.

Curiosity got the better of me. The book looked ancient, its pages yellowed and brittle. The text was handwritten in a language I didn’t recognize, though some of it looked like Latin. Near the back of the book was a crude drawing of the hallway I was standing in, complete with the portraits—and a set of instructions.

The words were written in shaky English:

"Stand before the Unfinished. Speak the names of the Chosen. Do not falter."

I should have left right then and there. Tossed the book, bolted down the stairs, and never looked back. But I didn’t.

Instead, I flipped back through the book, scanning the faded text for any mention of these "Chosen." There they were—names, dozens of them, written in a tight, slanted script. They were eerily familiar, though I couldn’t place where I’d heard them before.

Then, almost without thinking, I found myself standing in front of the blank portrait, the book open in my hands.

As I stared at the empty canvas, my flashlight flickered and died, plunging the hallway into darkness. The silence pressed in on me like a weight, and for a moment, I considered running. But something held me there—a morbid curiosity, maybe, or sheer stupidity.

I whispered the first name on the list.

Nothing happened.

Then the second name.

Still nothing.

But as I spoke the third, I heard it—a faint rustling, like fabric brushing against the walls. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as the sound grew louder, circling me, closing in.

I fumbled for my flashlight, but it wouldn’t turn on. My heart pounded as I flipped through the book, trying to figure out what I’d unleashed. That’s when I felt it—a presence behind me, so close I could feel its breath on my neck.

I spun around, but there was nothing there. Just the portraits, their eyes gleaming in the darkness.

No, not just the portraits.

They were moving.

The figures inside the frames shifted and writhed, their painted expressions twisting into something unrecognizable. Their eyes burned with a malevolent light, and one by one, they began to step out of their frames.

Panic surged through me as I dropped the book and ran, the sound of footsteps—no, many footsteps—chasing me down the hallway.

I didn’t stop until I was out of the mansion, my chest heaving and my hands trembling. I never went back for the book, and I’ve spent every day since trying to convince myself it was all just a bad dream.

But I know the truth.

The eyes in those portraits weren’t just paintings. They were people—real people, trapped in those frames, waiting for someone stupid enough to set them free.

And the worst part?

When I got back to my car, I caught my reflection in the window.

For just a split second, my face didn’t look like my own.

It looked like a painting.

I didn’t go back to the mansion right away. For weeks, I kept telling myself to move on, to forget. But ignoring what happened wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

It started small. At first, I’d feel like someone was standing behind me when I was alone. Just a faint pressure, like the air shifting. I told myself it was paranoia, the fallout of a bad break-in that shook me up.

Then things got worse.

It wasn’t just a feeling anymore. I began to notice people watching me—or at least, I thought they were. A guy sitting across from me on the bus would stare until I turned to meet his eyes. Then he’d suddenly glance away, like nothing had happened. In line at the coffee shop, a woman behind me would shift uncomfortably, her head angled slightly in my direction. When I turned, she’d be looking at the menu, her face calm and unreadable.

At first, I chalked it up to coincidence. The mind plays tricks when you’re on edge, right? But it kept happening.

It wasn’t just random strangers, either. It was everyone.

Even people I knew—friends, acquaintances, the guy at the bodega who rang me up every morning—they all started to do it. I’d catch them looking at me from the corner of my eye, their expressions blank, neutral. But when I turned my head, they’d act like nothing had happened.

And then there were the smiles.

Not big ones. Not obvious. Just the faintest curl of their lips, like they were sharing some private joke I wasn’t in on. It was subtle, almost imperceptible—but once I noticed, I couldn’t unsee it.

They all looked like they knew something.

By the end of the second month, I’d stopped sleeping. Every time I closed my eyes, I’d picture the hallway in the mansion, the way the portraits had moved, their hollow faces and grasping hands. I knew it wasn’t over. Whatever I’d set free, it was still with me.

I finally broke one night after a particularly bad encounter. I was walking home from the grocery store, arms weighed down by bags, when I passed an old man sitting on a bench. He wasn’t doing anything—just sitting there, staring straight ahead.

As I passed, I glanced at him, and his head turned to follow me.

It wasn’t a normal movement. It was too smooth, too precise. Like the way the portraits had moved.

I stopped dead in my tracks, the plastic bags digging into my hands. The old man didn’t blink.

“Can I help you?” I asked, trying to sound casual, but my voice cracked on the last word.

He didn’t answer. He just smiled. Not a warm smile, not a kind one—just that faint, knowing curl of his lips.

I staggered, the bag slipping from my grip as a few cans clattered to the ground. I didn’t stop to pick them up—I just left them behind and ran the rest of the way home.

The next morning, I packed my things. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew staying in the city wasn’t safe anymore. Maybe it was paranoia, but I didn’t care. I moved to a new town, rented a cheap room in a run-down motel, and tried to start over.

For a while, it worked.

The people here were friendly but distant. I kept my head down, took odd jobs to pay the bills, and avoided unnecessary conversations. For the first time in months, I felt almost normal again.

But it didn’t last.

One day, I was fixing a fence for a farmer on the edge of town when I felt it again—that prickle on the back of my neck. The feeling of being watched. I glanced up, and there was a woman standing at the edge of the field, half-hidden by the tall grass.

She wasn’t moving.

Her face was partially obscured, but I could tell she was staring right at me.

I called out to her, but she didn’t respond. She just turned and walked away, vanishing into the ...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/PleasantNightLongDay on 2024-11-10 01:32:06+00:00.

---

A lot has happened since I asked ya’ll for help. It’s been a week since the crazy lady knocked at my door, urging me to leave, and I’ve taken the advice you gave me.

The morning after her visit, I went over to my new local electronics store and bought myself a doorbell camera.  On my way out, I stopped by the security booth at the entrance of my complex and chatted with the guard.  He was a middle aged, unshaven, reeking, fat man - the embodiment of the consequences of overdrinking.   I explained what had happened, giving him a condensed version of what you read.

“Crazy lady? I haven’t seen no crazy lady,” he murmured without lifting his gaze from his phone. He watched his YouTube video as if his life depended on it.

“Hey man,” I said, trying to sound as understanding and amicable as possible. “This is a pretty serious situation.  Besides freaking me out, is this not a ‘safety’ issue? Take the ‘crazy’ out of the equation. Isn’t it concerning that someone is knocking at my door in the middle of the night and threatening me?” 

“If there was a crazy lady, I would have seen her…” His voice droned monotonously. 

I know a hopeless cause when I see one - he was set on dedicating his attention to YouTube. 

“Alright, thank you for your time. Can you do me a favor?”

He grunted, neither a yes or no.

“I’m sure you’re not here 24 hours a day. Can you share this with whoever else works this booth? I know you probably think it’s nothing, but it would make me feel a lot better.

He muttered the most unenthusiastic “sure” I have ever heard.

I drove off and bought the doorbell camera.  I set the alert level to max sensitivity, but yielded much help.  Besides flying birds, cars, or the occasional neighbor walking by, my camera’s motion sensor remained dormant.  No crazy lady in sight.

Next, I took your advice and went to my local police department yesterday. But my conversation was just as fruitful as the one with the guard.

“Do you know her name?” the officer asked.

“No.”

“Do you know anyone who might know her?

“No. I just moved here a few days ago.”

“Can you describe her besides as slim and crazy looking?” He smirked when saying the word “crazy” as if I were the crazy one.

“Not really”

“So there isn’t much we can do, now is there?” he said with a smug smile.  “So if this crazy lady appears again, you give us a call at that moment.”

I didn’t have the energy.  I thanked him for his time and left. 

Driving into my complex, I stopped by the Community Center, where our individual mail boxes are located.  I stood in the mail room, filtering the mail still being delivered to the previous tenant, when someone tapped my shoulder.

“You the new guy at 217?” he asked, referring to my apartment number.  He was a thin African American man in his 30’s.  He wore khakis, a dressy shirt tucked in, and black-rimmed  glasses.  He oozed positivity and friendliness - the anti security guard. 

“I am.  Why do you ask?”  

He shook my hand enthusiastically, big smile across his face.

“My name is Michael - Mike - , I’m new here, too.”  

He chatted for a few minutes with great ease. He explained he was an attorney at a firm whose name I can’t remember.  He had also just moved here and had made a few friends around the complex.  I guess he’s more sociable than me.

“You’re famous, you know?” He eyed me, testing the waters to see if I were open to joke about this  topic

That piqued my interest.

“Really? Why is that?” I asked, trying to sound calm and cool.

“Well, you know…” he smirked. “You’re the new guy in 217.”  he stared at me as if saying, come on, you know!

His phone began to ring, and he began pawing at his pockets, trying to find it.

“I don’t know…What do you mean?”

“Oh come on! You have to know!” He said.  “Everyone knows!” He located his phone and began examining it with a squint 

“Who’s everyone…wait no, who cares…What does everyone know? I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” My heart rate elevated noticeably.

His eyes peered above his glasses reading his phone.  

“You know,” he said, reverting to his attorney’s slow monotone autopilot  voice, still staring at his iPhone. “The apartment complex is legally obligated to disclose if such activity occurred in your apartment before you signed your lease.  If you did not receive verbal and written notice of it, they could be liable to a….Sorry bud, gotta take this. Work, ya know?” He flashed his smile; the attorney was gone, the friendly neighbor was back.  “I can’t be the new guy who doesn’t answer his boss, regardless of the time.”

“No no - hang on!” I said louder than I should have.

But it was too late.  He lifted his finger at me, holding the phone to his ear with his other hand, indicating a hang on. I stood there waiting for his call to finish.

“Ah shit! I mean…sorry… Yes, let me get you that info…give me a few minutes.” he blurted to his phone. His cheeks flushed upon having cursed at his new boss.

He tilted his phone a bit away from his mouth, still at his ear.  

“Hey man, it was nice meeting you, gotta run.” he said, flashing his smile.

“No Mike, hold on!” I said to his back.  But it was futile, he was out talking rapidly to his iPhone. 

I locked up my mailbox and ran out trying to catch him, but only saw his talking head through the driver’s seat window as he drove off in his Mercedes.  I got in my car and drove around frantically searching for that car.  He must have a unit with a garage, because it was nowhere in sight.  

That night - which was last night - at 2:30am, my doorbell camera’s motion sensor went off.  I was in bed reading, when my phone received the notification. At that moment, Chance jumped our of bed and ran to the front door, huffing and puffing. I ignored him and opened my camera app as quickly as possible.  Chance began to let out wild barks, pawing at the door.  

My camera feed was a black screen.  

I refreshed it, but the black screen persisted. I refreshed it and refreshed it. I closed the app and restarted my phone.  Still, the black screen taunted me. 

Chance fury intensified.  Something was angering him on the other side of the door.

Staring at the black screen live video feed, I raised the volume and realized I was receiving an audio feed. Chance’s barks emitted from my phone on a 3 second delay, echoing his real life anger.

It finally clicked for me.

I couldn’t believe it, but I had to verify.  

My camera saves the last 30 seconds before the motion sensor is triggered.  I clicked the notification I had received a few minutes early.  My heart sank.

Chance came trotting back into my room triumphantly, as if his duty as the guardian of the house was fulfilled - danger had been averted.  

I stared at the saved video feed that triggered my camera’s recording.  The video began with an image of the front of my apartment. Everything was calm, unmoving, and motionless.  Suddenly, a hand from the corner of the feed emerged, blocking the camera’s view, leaving it entirely black.  The video ended.

WIthout thinking, I rushed to the front door, swung it open, not caring of the noise I was causing at that late hour, and looked at my doorbell camera.  

A black strip of electrical tape had been placed on the camera lens. I shut the door to began removing it, and my heart sank even lower. 

At the corner of my eyes, I noticed 3 dark lines marking my door.  They formed an arrow pointing downward.  I touched the lines, and whatever was used to mark was still wet.  Once again, I wondered if this was blood; I rushed to wash and disinfect my hand.

And now, here I am, once again coming to you for help.

I’m afraid of calling the cops at this hour, and once again, being dismissed as crazy. It’s the weekend, and my apartment complex administration doesn’t work weekends. You bet I will be there as soon as they open on Monday.  

I truly don’t know what to do.  More and more, I’m beginning to think that this is something serious.  I’m becoming convinced that the concept of an elaborate prank isn’t feasible.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/bohemiancouchpotato on 2024-11-10 00:50:45+00:00.

---

My family and I have been going through a very strange experience over the last couple of months. It's hard to even put into words or explain what is going on. I guess I can just start off from where it all started to feel off. 

A few months back my family had a big get-together. My parents both have two siblings. They all got married and had some kids. Well, all of them except Uncle Matt. He never got married or had kids. That means I have ten cousins. My aunts and uncles all live within two hours of us so we’ve all grown up together. 

That being said, we don't normally have all my aunts and uncles in a house at once, this was a rare occasion to have a family meal when they were all free.

I will not be naming every single family member in this post because that seems like a lot of information and honestly, you've already gotten more information about my family than you ever wanted, but I promise this context is important. 

Okay, enough with my babbling. Let's talk about what happened that weird night. 

My parents and I went over to my Aunt Margo and Uncle Ken’s house for a BBQ in the backyard. The backyard felt loud and chaotic. I tried to stay out of the way and get the night over with. I was honestly just there for the free food.

We were all sitting down at a big table outside. I was so focused on making sure none of the napkins went flying in the wind I wasn't listening to the conversation. My aunt Margo came over to the table with a plate of really burnt hot dogs. My mom immediately started to laugh at the sight of them.

“Is burning food genetic or something? How on earth do you guys always do that to food? The Jensens need to leave the cooking to the Millers.” My mom said with a sarcastic giggle. Uncle Ken looked at her confused. 

“What are you on about Liz? Uncle Ken snapped back.

“I mean, Margo burnt the hot dogs and Matt always burns food when he cooks. Remember we had to ban him for months from cooking because we had to order takeout like three times in a row.” Everyone at the table laughed recalling their memories. Sighs of recollection bounced back and forth from person to person when my dad spoke up in Aunt Margos' defense. 

“Honey, what are you talking about? Matt is your brother. I really shouldn't have to remind you of that.” My mom rolled her eyes in response to my dad.

I spoke up because I was suddenly confused about which side of the family Uncle Matt was actually on. You would think I would naturally just know that, but all my aunts and uncles act like siblings and call each other their siblings. My grandparents often refer to their son/daughter-in-laws as just their kids so it isn't something I always think about.

“Wait, I'm confused. Whose side is Uncle Matt on? What is the joke? I don't get it.” I asked but was only met with a laugh from all the parents at the table. I finally got an answer from my mom following the silence of the joke that somehow went over my head.

“Don't be silly baby, Matt is your dad's brother.” As the words left her mouth half the table looked confused. 

“Liz, what are you talking about? He is on your side. He is a Miller.” My aunt Margo said as she scraped off the burnt edges of her hot dog. 

“Okay, Now I’m with Amanda. I don't get the joke.” My mom said while looking at me with narrow inquisitive eyes and then at the rest of the group. 

“Wait, wait, everyone slow down.” Aunt June said, speaking up for probably the first time in the night. “This is dumb. Matt is not Liz and I’s brother. He has to be on the Jensen's side of the family.” 

I sat at the table watching my family in silence. Their eyes darted back and forth. They stopped laughing and were all just scratching their heads. 

After a few minutes, my mom got out her phone. She found an old family photo from when she was a kid. In the photo were her, my grandparents, my uncle Paul, and my aunt June. Nothing out of the ordinary. After looking at the picture, Aunt Margo got out her phone and looked for an old childhood photo. 

“Ah ha! Found one.” She stated as she showed off the photo on her phone. Yet again, the photo was normal. It had my grandparents, my dad, Aunt Margo, and Aunt Susan. 

The next hour consisted of both sides of the family going back and forth showing photos. None of them with Uncle Matt in them.

I had a few of my cousins there, but they all lost interest once they ate. I on the other hand couldn't be pulled away. I was engrossed in learning where the heck Uncle Matt came from. 

They kept talking back and forth. They figured maybe he wasn't anyone's sibling. Maybe he was related by marriage or a second cousin twice removed that I just called ‘Uncle Matt’ because that was the easiest thing to call him. We all have a relative like that, right?  

I know an easy solution you might be thinking of is to just call him up. That's also what I said but he was working and they didn't want to interrupt him, but guess what? I needed answers so I decided to call him. However, when I looked at my phone I couldn't find him In my contacts. I looked through it multiple times. I remembered texting him about something a few days back so he should’ve been in my text history. Still nothing. 

After being weirded out by his contact being gone, I mentioned out loud that someone should call him. Regardless of him being at work. No one agreed with me, but once I told them his contact was missing from my phone they all got curious and looked to see if he was missing for them too. 

We were all in shock to find him missing from all our phones. 

The family started to dig through their camera rolls and any digital libraries they had to try and find any photo of him. Uncle Andrew thought he had a photo of the back of him, but we soon found that we all remembered him looking differently. 

Uncle Andrew showed a picture of the back of a bald man who looked pretty tall. Aunt June called him crazy and recalled him having long curly red hair. 

It wasn’t like we hadn’t seen him in a year or that he was some kind of distant memory. I saw the guy last week. He came over to my house to help me with some homework, and I can tell you he didn’t have red hair or no hair at all, he was, well, shoot... I can’t remember what he looked like now that I think about it. 

It was safe to say we were all creeped out. As the sun went down and it got chilly out, the group moved inside. Normally, this is when everyone would go home, but I saw Aunt Margo start a pot of coffee. It was going to be a long night. The air was tense and full of unease. None of the adults wanted to go home until they had answers. 

I could tell the adults wanted to talk more but didn’t want to worry the younger cousins. My older cousin Maddy clearly didn’t care about anything that was going on. She just wanted to sleep. We convinced her to take my three young cousins into the basement so they could all get some sleep. But not me, I was invested. Uncle Matt and I are close. We see each other all the time. How could I not have a shred of evidence that he even existed? 

As my cousins shuffled downstairs, all the adults huddled around a big whiteboard Aunt Margo slapped on the kitchen island. They started to write down everything they could remember. What he looked like, the last time they saw him, memories of him. None of it was coherent. It seemed he was a completely different person in all our memories. Even if it was a memory where multiple people were around. 

One of the only things that we could all agree on was that the Jensens always thought he was on the Miller side of the family and the Millers always thought he was on the Jensen side. 

My Mom recalled a story of Matt and my dad going to a lake to fish, but the hook got stuck on Matt’s hat and went flying. My dad told us he remembered my mom telling him the same exact story many times. 

Everyone had memories of stories where he was on the other side of the family. 

Soon everyone was on the phone with a new family member trying to tell them the situation and asking what they thought about everything. My aunts and uncles were talking to realities on the phone I didn’t know I had. Relatives that probably only met Matt a couple times at best. All I heard was one dead end at a time. No one knew where he came from or where he went.

So the big question was who is Matt? Was he just some random guy who weaseled his way into the family? Telling one side of the family one thing and the other side another? Or was it something so much worse? 

As the sun came up that Saturday morning we were all still scratching our heads. The deeper we got into who Matt was, the more freaked out everyone got. I was honestly surprised they let me stay with them all night long. 

The more digging everyone did, the farther away we felt. The more rabbit holes we went down the less real he seemed. We couldn’t find any evidence that he ever existed. Some of us searched all over the internet for ‘Matt Jensen’, or ‘Matt Miller’ and a few of us searched for other last names in the family. Of course, it was kind of hard to know who we were looking for given we didn’t know what he really looked like. 

After hours of discussion, we compiled a list of attributes that never wavered about Uncle Matt. 

He was a man, he never had a mustache, he was tall, he was bad at math, and he loved Jim Carrey movies. 

That might seem like a random grouping of facts, but that's because it was. We couldn’t even rememb...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1gnon8g/my_uncle_matt_never_existed/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/miistermerlin on 2024-11-09 21:28:18+00:00.

---

I never thought I’d be in this position, sitting here, telling you all of this. But the truth can only be buried for so long.

I Can't tell you my real name, for obvious. What i can disclose is that for the last seven years, I worked as a research analyst for a government contractor. I was assigned to a project that I thought would just be about surveillance systems and data analysis. I had no idea it would lead me into something so dark, so twisted.

The project, codenamed "Erebus", involved building replicas of major cities miles underground. I’m talking about more than just shelters or bunkers. These were, are full-scale cities complete with streets, buildings, public spaces, and even parks, all designed to look exactly like cities above ground. I’ve seen replicas of New York, Chicago, and parts of San Francisco. But here’s the thing that’s going to blow your mind: they’ve created a system of artificial illumination that mimics natural sunlight. And I’m not talking about some dim, artificial glow. No, this was bright, warm, real sunlight, so real that people who were brought down there could live indefinitely without ever knowing the difference.

At first, I thought it was just a strange project for some kind of future crisis—like a massive bunker for elites, or maybe a contingency plan for global disaster. But then I learned the truth. This wasn’t just about survival. The government, our government has been kidnapping people for years. I mean that literally. They’ve been taking civilians, entire families even, and bringing them to these underground cities, where they’ve been held in secret.

They tell the people they’ve been relocated for safety, for a ‘new start,’ or some other cover story. They make them believe they’re part of a relocation program. But it’s all a lie. The truth is, they’ve been studying their psychological reactions to living in these replicas of the real world. They want to know what happens when people are placed in environments that are exactly like the ones they’re used to, but with no connection to the outside world. No contact with the surface. No real escape.

I’ve laid my eyes on countless reports. They monitor everything, their mental health, their emotions, their stress levels, how they adapt to the artificial sunlight, to the fake seasons, to the fact that they’re essentially trapped. They’re studying how people psychologically adjust to being isolated in a city that’s perfect on the surface but hollow and fake underneath.

Some of these people have been down there for years, and they have no idea they’re part of an experiment. They’ve been told their families died in a disaster, or that they’re part of some secret government program. But the reality is far worse. They’re being observed like lab rats in a maze, their every move tracked, their thoughts and behaviors analyzed. And some don't make it long before their sanity is fractured beyond repair....

I was part of the team that helped manage the data. I had access to the psychological reports. I knew exactly what was going on, but I stayed silent for so long. The reports showed the breakdowns, the depressions, the suicides, the violent outbursts. People who went down there as families, only to slowly devolve into something completely different. They’re trying to see how the human mind reacts when everything it believes to be real is taken away, when everything is a replica.

The worst part? There are more of these cities than anyone could possibly know. They’re scattered all over the place buried so deep, you’d never think to look. I’ve seen the maps. The entire project spans continents. And each city is more advanced than the last.

I tried to walk away. I couldn’t sleep at night knowing what was going on, but every time I tried to talk, they made sure I knew who was in charge. People disappear.. People I knew, people who got too close, were never seen again.

I can’t hide anymore. I don’t know if I’m going to make it out of this alive, but at least you’ll know the truth.

In closing, know this. There is a hell. It exists beneath our feet... there's no fire... No brimstone, just hollow buildings and empty streets.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Bongobongosrevenge on 2024-11-09 20:39:48+00:00.

---

"Hey, I just got a complaint that some guy is washing his dick in the men’s room sink, can one of you guys go deal with this? I had to kick the mad shitter out this morning, again.”

I groaned, then picked my radio up to answer.

"Alright Connor, but did the mad shitter try to kiss you again this time?" I said, grinning into my radio like he could see me.

"Fuck you, she had a handful of shit ready to go. I really don't know why she hates the GAP store so much. We seriously need guys posted at the front doors of this place at all times."

"Alright buddy, I'm almost at the bathroom, I'll get back to you."

I walked into the men’s bathroom, and sure enough, there was an older, homeless looking man with his junk in the sink.

“Hey, man, you gotta stop what you’re doing. I can’t have you washing your dick off in the sink here.”

“My dick?” The man replied perplexed, not stopping what he was doing for even a second. “Ohhhh! You must mean my wand!” he replied.

I groaned. “Whatever you say pal, just put it back in your pants, for the love of god.”

“No can do, I’m affected by evil ailments, I must cleanse the dark juices off before it is too late.”

I had had just about enough of this and walked up behind the man to detain him but he spun around with the quickness of a gazelle, startling me.

“I THINK NOT!” He exclaimed, jumping away from me. “I am a warlock of the highest caliber! I have been protecting this realm before you were a twinkle in your fathers eye.”

“Look, this doesn’t have to be difficult, I just need you to go and we can put this all behind us.”

“DID YOU HEAR THAT?! THEY’RE BACK!.”

The man screamed and started to windmill his dick around in a circle and began to piss. I ran out of the bathroom and grabbed my radio to fill my coworkers in on the situation and get some backup. There was no way in hell I was about to wrestle with a half naked pissing lunatic in a failing malls bathroom alone.

A few minutes later I finally saw Connor and my other coworker, Jeff, strolling down the hallway to the washrooms.

"Took your sweet time guys".

"Relax, I wasn't about to face off with your boyfriend on an empty stomach" Jeff said, sucking doughnut frosting off of his fingers.

Conner sighed "ok guys, we gotta work together here, we go in single file and surround this weirdo."

We all agreed and Jeff (bald, buff and the most intimidating of us) went in first.

"Helloooo? Mr wizard? Are you... oh god damn it!"

Me and Connor quickly ran in and noticed the air vent had been ripped off of the wall.

"This asshole went down to the basement!" Jeff yelled.

"What a pain in the ass, I guess we better go find him." Connor said, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb like an annoyed dad.

We made our way through the employees only doors and down a small hallway of offices until we reached a locked set of double doors. After trying almost half the keys on the cartoonishly large mall key ring, I heard a click and the knob turned. There was a rickety old set of wooden steps in front of us leading down to basement.

I turned on the little flashlight I keep on my security belt next to my taser and proceeded down the steps. Every board creaked and groaned underneath me and the middle of the steps bowed, threatening to break the deeper I descended.

I made it to the bottom and began looking around for a light switch when I heard a scream followed by a crash behind me. I spun around to see Jeff had fallen through the stairs, taking most of them with him.

"Jesus fuck! You ok down there?" I heard Connor yell from above us.

"I'm fine, I slipped in something" Jeff said, brushing himself off. "But there's no chance we're getting back up that way. Go look for a ladder or something while we look for that little shit ball."

I could see Connor nod and dart away from the door as me and Jeff explored the room. I found the small beaded chain from an overhead light hanging from the ceiling and pulled it, illuminating the room in a warm fluorescent glow. Unfortunately, I could now also see that the room we were in was covered with thick, wet looking black mold that consumed the walls and ceiling.

"That's the shit I slipped in, it's sticking like glue." Jeff said, scraping his boot across the concrete floor.

Behind me was the malls HVAC system for ventilation, unlabeled boxes of odds and ends, a few fake Christmas trees and... a trap door that led somewhere deeper then we already were.

"Well, he's not in here. Let's check that out." Jeff said, pointing at the trap door.

"We don't know if he's down there, we should wait for Connor."

"Well he's certainly not in this room, but he came this way." Jeff gestured at a piece of ventilation that had been kicked open.

Jeff wrenched the heavy looking door open and I was starting to feel claustrophobic just watching him descend the ladder.

"I really don't know about this Jeff..." I started to say.

"Oooooooh spooky hole in the ground, I'm shaking like Michael J Fox. C'mon pussy, get your ass down here!" Jeff snapped at me.

I followed Jeff down the ladder into some cement tunnel that seemed to stretch endlessly. I cautiously walked behind Jeff being careful not to touch the mold covered walls. Eventually the tunnel split into three different directions, then three more different directions.

"What is this?" I asked.

"City's old. People used to use these underground tunnels to connect businesses together. Made it easy for city repairmen to get from place to place faster or some shit." Jeff replied.

That's when I noticed the mold Jeff had slipped in had made its way from his boot all the way up his leg.

"Jeff, your leg-" I started to say, but the words caught in my throat. Jeff tried brushing it off with his hands but it clung to them and began rapidly spreading up his massive arms onto his face.

"What the fu-" Jeff couldn't even finish his sentence before his mouth began filling up with that black slime. He made some awful gurgling noises and I saw the black shit streaming out of his tear ducks as he clawed at his face before collapsing onto the ground.

"Jeff? Jeff?!" I yelled, I wanted to shake him but I didn't want that shit getting on me too. Then I heard a voice from behind me.

"I see it got your friend"

I just about jumped out of my skin. I shined my flashlight up to see the homeless man from the bathroom walking toward me.

"I warned you about the sinister things!" He screamed running up to Jeff and blocking my view of him.

"What is this shit, what do you know?!"

"It's from hell, it's from space! It's from the sixth dimension!!" The man began rambling nonsense off at a machine guns pace. I was so distracted I didn't even notice Jeff slowly getting to his feet until his huge hands clamped over the hobos mouth.

He slid his hands into the tramps mouth, one on the bottom jaw and the other on the top and slowly began pulling them apart. I watched the mans flesh tearing away and heard a snap! As his jaw broke. Then Jeff completely ripped the top portion of the man's head off, leaving only the bottom jaw attached to his neck.

Jeff's eyes were completely black and the mold was flowing out of his mouth and nose like a faucet. Then he slowly began to grin at me, I screamed and ran, trying desperately to retrace my steps all while Jeff thundered after me. Eventually I found the ladder and climbed it back into the basement, I struggled to close the heavy steel door but I got a surge of adrenaline as I heard footsteps climbing the metal rings of the ladder and slammed it shut behind me.

I stacked some heavy boxes on top of the door but I can still hear Jeff punching at it.

I don't know when, but at some point, I got some of that mold on myself too. If I don't move, it seems to slow down the spread of it, but it's still slowly making its way up my body.

I hope Connor gets back soon, I've been yelling but nobody's even come to check. If he takes to long, I'm afraid of what might happen to him. What I might do to him.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

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

---

It happened abruptly on a plane. 

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

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

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

It was terrifying.

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

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

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

“Sugar me, NOW!”

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

“Do we have to restrain you mam?”

“Not if sugar I more have.”

***

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

“Lost. Angels.”

“Excuse me ma'am?”

“Plane me.”

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

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

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

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

First Class. Extra legroom. Next available flight.

***

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

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

“Divine.” The Thing Controlling Me said.

“Good. Let’s freshen you up.”

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We are angels. Sent by God.”

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

“And we're having a congregation.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Something like that.”

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

“Ow! Hey! What’re you? What is that?”

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

“Please! Let me go! Please!!”

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

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

It was Shula.

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

 “... Shula?”

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

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

She looked as sorrowful as I felt. 

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

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

“What? What do you mean?” I asked.

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

“Fight?”

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

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

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

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

But the entity’s reflexes were too quick.

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

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

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

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

“They still together?”

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

“I’m not following.”

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

“And he blew her off?”

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What do you mean?”

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Alright,” he said. “Deal.”

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

I stood there for 35 minutes.

 

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

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

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

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

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