This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/therealdocturner on 2024-10-05 22:42:53+00:00.
I had left San Francisco for the town of Bass Lake up in the mountains. I had been there before, but never by way of the route my phone told me to take. The road had not been paved in quite some time. It was cracked, crumbling, and dotted with potholes for so many lonely miles. I wasn’t able to drive very fast. The open pastures, deteriorating barns, and rocky hills showed no signs of anyone, and I hadn’t even seen another car for over an hour. I was on my way to a family reunion, and I didn’t even have enough service to make a call to my family to let them know that I was going to be late.
I was deep into the foothills when an unfortunate urge struck. It was either run off somewhere into the weeds, or hope and pray that I came across somewhere with a bathroom very soon. Just as I had resigned myself to crapping in the open wilderness, I had finally come to something that looked like it used to be a gas station.
I pulled up, grabbed some fast food napkins out of the glove box, and walked out into the smoky autumn air of Central California. All the oak trees had been ravaged by a fire some time ago; gnarled and girthy sticks of alligator skinned charcoal amongst waving weeds of a golden brown. The solitary gas pump was rusted over and the windows of the station had been broken long ago. It was an apocalyptic scene to be sure.
Around the side of the building, I found an open door to the bathroom. When I opened the door, the moldy smell was overpowering. The walls were covered in graffiti, an orange fungus was making a slow creep down the walls from a downward bulging ceiling, threatening to collapse at any moment. Half the sink was broken on the floor, and the mirror that hung over it was brown around the edges and giving off a distorted reflection of the scummy toilet against the opposite wall.
The fetid swill in the bottom of the bowl had an oily sheen over the top of it. I swore that I saw the thick liquid inside move slightly, but I convinced myself that it was my imagination. The need to go was too great to care.
Everything went dark as I closed the door behind me, so I turned the light on my phone and went to business. The harsh light pointed upwards as I layed the phone down on the top of my left foot, and I saw that someone had drawn a large smiling face on the ceiling with large X’s for eyes. I tried not to look at the clownhouse version of myself in the mirror while I strained and hovered. Instead, I turned my attention to the discolored walls and started reading the graffiti. Besides the usual profanities I noticed something unsettling; several warnings not to look in the mirror. The largest message on the wall was written directly over the mirror.
“PLACES LIKE THIS ARE ABANDONED FOR A REASON…”
My stomach knotted when I heard guttural, unintelligible whispers coming from the mirror. All the straining ceased as my muscles let go and everything came rushing out at once, splashing the putrid contents of the toilet bowl all over my ass. I realized that my reflection was no longer in the mirror. I felt the room turn cold, and I began to see my breath in the light. The whispers began to get louder. I didn’t even clean myself before I pulled up my pants with shaking hands.
I wanted out.
As I reached for the door, something in the shadows pushed my shoulders from behind and I pitched forward. My face crashed against the mirror while my phone fell to the ground. I felt pressure from behind, as if someone was grinding my face against a reflective surface that was not displaying what was happening in front of it. I pushed against the wall against the force from behind, but it was no use.
The whispers erupted into an ungodly cacophony of laughter. The mirror began to crack, and I felt my nose tear and rip as my face was pushed through it.
Everything went dark. Then I began to see visions. That’s the best way I can describe it.
I was in darkness save for a small square of ghastly light in front of me. I was staring back through the other side of the mirror. Another version of myself was staring back at me. It spoke in a voice that wasn’t mine.
“Thank you.”
It walked out of the bathroom, leaving me screaming inside of my prison, slamming my fists against a surface that was no longer cracked.
Darkness again… and then just thoughts…
I have been here for so long now. The whispers never stop. I never see what makes those sounds, but I can hear them, the things moving just beyond the light.
I stay close to the mirror. I can feel my mind slipping, going dark.
I fear I’m becoming one of them, feeling an urge that gets stronger to leave the light.
I could feel the strain of my arms again. That’s what snapped me back into reality, and with all the strength I could give, I pushed back. Blood erupted from my face and sprayed everywhere. I was in the bathroom again. My face was inches from the bloody mirror where I was not reflected.
I pushed with my arms again, and broke free from whatever was behind me. I opened the door, and threw myself out onto the crumbled pavement outside.
I was on the ground, sitting in my own mess and bleeding from my face. The hot wind warmed me and I looked back through the door to the bathroom. Everything had looked as it did before I went in. There was no crack on the mirror.
I jumped in my car and drove back the way I had come, no longer wanting to continue on the road that my phone had taken me down.
To this day, people have told me that I might have had an immediate reaction to whatever mold may have been inside of that bathroom, but the patchwork scars I have on my face now and the vivid memory of it all speaks to some other explanation.
Some places are abandoned for a reason.