This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Sad_Ad7141 on 2024-09-26 10:46:31+00:00.
I've been a corn farmer for most of my life. I don’t even remember what it’s like to do anything else. The thing about corn is that it grows in a straight line, dependable as the sunrise, no matter what chaos is happening around it. That’s how it’s always been. Corn doesn’t ask questions.
Last week, something broke the rules. I was out walking the fields, like I do every evening, counting my rows like a deranged farmer with too much time on his hands. That’s when I saw it: a stalk that didn’t look like it belonged. It was tall—taller than any corn I’ve ever grown—and its color was wrong.
At first, I thought it was some kind of weed. I squinted at it like it owed me money. But it didn’t look like any weed I’d ever seen. The stalks were twisted, darkened with an ashen, burned tinge. I crouched down, got real close, and ran my hand along the stalk. I felt wrong. It felt wrong. Not like a plant at all. Warm, even, like it had blood pumping through it. I jerked my hand back and just stood there, staring at it.
That’s when I noticed: the blackness wasn’t just confined to this stalk. The corn around it was wilting, like it was being drained of something. The life was leaking out of it, and the black thing was spreading, slow but deliberate.
You’d think I would’ve done something. Most people would’ve tried, right? But the more I looked at it, the more I couldn’t. I couldn’t move. It was like my body and the cornfield had an understanding. You leave it alone, it leaves you alone. But that’s not true, is it? I should’ve burned it right then and there. But I didn’t. I told myself it was some weird plant I didn’t recognize, maybe something the wind carried in from another field. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The next morning, I went back out to the field, expecting the thing to be gone. But it wasn’t. In fact, it was bigger. The black stalks had spread, weaving themselves into the surrounding corn like veins. The corn nearby was rotting—turning black, shriveling up like it was being sucked dry.
I didn’t tell anyone. Not my wife, not the farmhands, not even the guy who comes by once a week to sell me overpriced fertilizer. Because, well, part of me already knew. I knew that nothing anyone did would matter anymore.
Two nights ago, I woke up from a sound. It wasn’t anything loud. No crash, no bang, no screams. It was more of a hum, a vibration, like an old freezer rattling away in the basement. But there was no freezer, and it wasn’t coming from the house. I stepped outside, barefoot on the cold ground, and the sound was everywhere—coming from the earth, the sky, from underneath.
I went to the field, though I don’t remember making the decision to walk. The black patch had spread again, but this time, something was different. There were gaps now—places where the corn had been, where it had just vanished, leaving nothing but holes in the ground. And in those holes? Nothing. Just empty space. Dark, yawning space where corn should’ve been. They weren’t craters, or pits, or anything I could explain. They were just gaps.
And then the humming… it got louder. Like something was tuning in. I stepped closer to one of those gaps, and I could feel it—a pull, like gravity had decided to focus only on me. I crouched down and looked into the space where the corn had been, and I swear to you, I saw my house. My house, but not as it was. It was decayed, broken, like it had been abandoned for decades. The windows were cracked, the roof sagging in. The front door was wide open, swaying in the wind. I stumbled back, looked around, but there were more gaps now, all showing something different. One showed the field covered in snow, though the sky above was still warm and clear. Another showed the corn withered and dry, but the next row over looked lush and healthy.
I don’t know how long I stood there, watching the field shift between these impossible versions of itself, each more wrong than the last. All I know is the humming started to sync with something in me, like it was pulling a string inside my chest.
I don’t sleep anymore. Haven’t slept since that night. The patch keeps growing. The holes keep appearing. And the more they grow, the more I can feel it—the field. It’s in my head now. Not voices, not whispers, but thoughts. Old thoughts. Ancient thoughts. Thoughts that don’t belong to anyone but the land itself.
I haven’t left the field in two days. I can’t. There’s something out there—no, not something. There’s just the field. It’s thinking, it’s remembering, and I think… I think it’s using me to remember.
It’s almost sundown now, and I can feel the air getting heavy again. The holes are bigger, and sometimes when I look into them, I see myself. But I’m not in the field. I’m somewhere else, somewhere darker, somewhere that doesn’t belong to me.
The corn is almost gone now. I know what happens next.
I don’t think I’ll be here much longer. But the field will be.
It always will be.