This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/IamHereNowAtLeast on 2024-09-17 18:51:52+00:00.
Every night around 7pm, the door to my dimly lit bedroom creaked open.
My dad always entered with a glass of water and two white pills, his footsteps soft, measured, as if he was afraid of waking something.
“Time for your medicine, Sara,” he’d say gently.
I swallowed the pills without question. The bitter taste clung to my throat as they slid down.
Then the drowsiness would set in as he sat and watched me.
“You’re on the road to recovery now. Soon you’ll get to go to college,” he would say.
I would feel myself nodding off, dreaming about the future life waiting for me.
The next day was the same.
Endless tests. Blood drawn like ritual offerings. Nurses plunging needles into my skin while my dad talked about my health and future treatments.
My dad analyzed my blood for hours, believing it held the answers we needed.
I trusted him. He was my dad.
And then Emily arrived.
She was different from the other nurses.
Most of the other nurses had faded into the background, their faces blurring together in the shadows. But Emily was sharp, alive. Her eyes were deep and warm.
“Hello, Sara,” she said the first time we met, adjusting my blanket. “How are you feeling today?”
“The same,” I said, weakly.
Emily stayed in the room longer than the others. She waited until we were alone one night, then asked me a question no else ever had.
“Do you ever wonder why you need these pills?” she asked one night, her voice calm but probing.
“They are helping me get better,” I said confidently.
Her gaze softened, and she gave me a smile, but it was an odd smile, almost sad. “Maybe,” she said, before moving on.
From that day forward, the questions grew louder in my mind.
Why did I need the pills? What was wrong with me?
One stormy night, Emily stayed even longer than usual.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, rain drumming furiously against the window. There was an odd calmness inside. It almost felt like the house itself was holding its breath.
“Sara,” Emily whispered, leaning closer to me, her face more intense than ever. “You’re not sick. You’ve never been sick.”
“What? My dad says I would die without my treatments.”
“He’s lying to you,” she snapped back, her voice almost a whisper, but still urgent. “He’s keeping you weak, keeping you from remembering.”
“Remembering what?” I asked, confused.
“What you are,” Emily replied, her face grim. “You’re not human, Sara.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but a creak from the hallway froze us both. Margaret, my oldest nurse, stepped into the room, her usual bad mood visible across her face.
“Your shift ended an hour ago,” she hissed at Emily. Her eyes darted between us, cold and calculating. “It’s time for you to go.”
Emily stood tall, her shoulders squared up towards Margaret.
“Sara deserves the truth.”
Margaret slowly reached into her pocket, pulling out a syringe filled with a glowing liquid. “You’re meddling where you shouldn’t be.”
My bedroom seemed to darken as Margaret took a step towards Emily, but Emily’s hand shot out, stopping Margaret in her tracks. And then everything changed.
Emily’s body began to twist, her bones cracking and reshaping.
Her skin rippled as her form expanded. Her once human face distorted into something monstrous, both hulking and terrifying. Long claws sprouted from her hands, and her teeth, now sharp and glinting in the dim light.
Her eyes remained locked on Margaret with an intensity that chilled me to the core.
Margaret stumbled backwards, her eyes in disbelief.
“What... what are you?”
Emily let out a low growl before lunging at her, faster than I could have imagined. She slammed Margaret against the wall with such force that pictures hanging on the wall fell to the ground.
Margaret screamed, but it was cut short as Emily’s claws ripped into her, tearing through flesh and bone. Blood sprayed across the room, the sounds of ripping fabric and muscle filling the room.
I watched, frozen in horror, as Margaret’s body was torn apart, her limbs flailing uselessly before finally falling limp. The metallic scent of blood drifted in the air.
When it was over, Emily stood over the mangled remains of Margaret, her chest heaving, her monstrous form covered with blood.
I couldn’t breathe.
My heart raced in my chest, fear surging through me.
Emily then turned to me, her terrifying features softening as her body slowly shrank and returned back to its human shape. Her eyes, still sharp and warm, found mine.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” she said softly, wiping the blood from her hands. “But she wasn’t going to let you leave.”
I couldn’t find any words. My whole body shook.
“I know you’re scared,” Emily continued, stepping closer, her voice gentler now. “But you need to know the truth. You’re yōkai, Sara. That’s why Eddison has been giving you those pills, drawing your blood. He’s been using your blood for transfusions to keep himself and his friends young."”
“Yōkai?” I asked.
“We’re not from here. You must trust me.”
The world tilted.
My mind was reeling.
Yōkai? My dad was stealing my blood? Nothing made sense, and yet… it felt right. Like a piece of a puzzle finally clicking into place.
“Eddison’s not your real father. You were taken from your real family in Japan,” Emily continued, pulling a small wooden charm from her pocket. It was a small raccoon, intricately carved from dark wood.
“I have been searching for you ever since.”
As soon as I looked at the charm, memories I didn’t know I had flooded back. I was running through forests and changing… into anything I could imagine.
“You are tanuki and I am kitsune.”
“I am tanuki?”
She nodded.
“We are both yōkai. You must remember. Feel it,” she said. “We have been great friends since we came to being. I was there the day Eddison’s company kidnapped you from our home in Hokkaido.”
Emily held up her left arm and pulled up her sleeve, revealing a deep, jagged scar.
“They almost got me too,” she said.
My hands trembled as I clutched the edge of the bed, gasping for air.
Emily knelt beside me, her expression soft but serious. “It’s time to go, Sara. He’ll come for you soon. I don’t know what tools he has at his disposal.”
I nodded, my mind still swimming in confusion and fear. But beneath it all, something else stirred, something powerful, something ancient.
Emily offered me her hand, and though my heart was pounding, I grabbed it. I could feel the strength returning to my body. Strength I didn’t know I had.
She helped pull me up out of the bed.
We stepped out through the window into the night together, leaving the only life I knew behind. I knew it would take time to remember my life before captivity.
The storm outside was raging, but I wasn’t afraid.
I was something else.
Something more.