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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/ChronicAwesome15 on 2024-10-31 23:19:51+00:00.
I'll be censoring all names for privacy. You'll understand why.
For context, I come from a fairly rich family. Not uber LA rich, but rich enough that we had a small place in the mountains where we'd vacation for the summer. I genuinely loved that place, always did; the huge forest and sounds of nature were a welcome relief from the hustle and bustle of the city. There was even a basement that had been converted into a sort of lounge, with a big TV, a movie and games collection, and a pool table. We'd go out there, my brother, father, and mother, and we'd have an amazing summer every time.
However, I learned when I was about six that we had only started going to this place after my grandfather died. I was one and my brother was two when it happened, so we didn't remember him at all, but apparently he inherited it from his father sometime in the 1960s, but once he moved to the city and made it at some hedge fund he had turned it into a vacation home. Then he retired to live there full time when my dad was in his 20s, and then he'd passed it on to him when he passed away.
There was really nothing amiss about it. It was a log cabin that had been built out rather than up, high up in the mountains of a state I won't name. It really was the perfect getaway. But when I was 17, the summer before I left for college, I overheard a strange argument between my mother and father.
It was the dead of night, and I had gotten up to go get a snack after a bad nightmare. As I walked down one of the long hallways towards the kitchen, I happened to pass by the bedroom my parents were sleeping in. However, I could see light shining from below the door, and I could just make out their hushed yet passionate voices.
"I can't believe what I'm hearing!" my mother said.
"XXXXXX, listen to me-" My father said
'No, no, no!" she said. "I don't know if this is some out of season April Fools prank, but I refuse to believe that you're part of this!"
"My father and his father did this so that we could enjoy the fruits of their labor!"
"Labor? Labor? They've done something awful, and you're part of it!"
"I didn't ask for this, it was forced on me! And if I'm stuck with it, why not benefit from it?"
"I can't believe what I'm hearing."
"I'll show you-"
"No. No. We will go back to sleep, and we will never speak of this again."
"Honey-"
"Don't call me that."
That was that. I heard them get back into bed, and I crept back to my own bedroom, my appetite gone.
Dad and Mom's relationship was rocky form that point on. They stayed together, but Mom grew cold and distant from him. I left for college, and I got a phone call from my mother that we wouldn't be going to the cabin next year. At the time I thought nothing of it. But my mind began to turn over with the possibilities of that argument I had heard the last summer. Grandpa had been in finance; maybe his fortune had been made by less than legal means, and my mom was mad about that. But it wasn't as if my dad would be responsible for that. Maybe it had something to do with something at dad's company? No matter how I approached it I just couldn't figure out what they could have been arguing about.
But when summer came around I got a call from my dad.
"Hey Dad, what's up?" I asked.
"Hey, XXXXX." He said. "How would you feel about coming up to the cabin again?"
"Wait, really?" I said. "I though Mom didn't want us to go up there anymore."
"Oh, it took a lot of haggling, but I got her to see things my way." He said. "We'll be heading up there next Monday. I'm thinking you can pick up your brother on your way north from his school and meet us there."
"Yeah, that sounds good." I said. "We'll talk it over."
"Oh, this is gonna be great." Dad said. "I got something special planned for all of us. It's gonna be a treat!"
After that I called my brother. We worked out a plan where I'd do as Dad said, drive north and then grab my brother from his school, then head north to meet up with Dad. My brother had finals a week later then me, so I told Dad that we'd meet him at the cabin the Friday of the week he and Mom would arrive. He agreed and that was that.
I packed my things and headed up towards the cabin. I picked up my bro and we made it there just as the sun was beginning to set. We saw Dad's car in the driveway of the house, but there weren't any lights on in the cabin. We thought this was weird, so we walked up to the door and knocked.
No answer.
I found a key under a nearby rock and we let ourselves inside. The place was dark and quiet. Our footsteps echoed through the long hallways as we searched for our mom and dad, but there was no one there.
"I'm gonna try calling them." my brother said. He called Dad's phone, and we heard a ringtone from somewhere deeper into the house.
We walked until we came to an open doorway that lead into what my dad had called the study, but was really more of a bedroom that happened to have a desk and a bookshelf. Dad's phone was ringing on the desk next to what looked like an old leatherbound journal. That's when I noticed that the bookshelf had been pulled from the wall. I walked over a looked behind it. There was an empty alcove behind the shelkf that had been carved out of the wall. It looked just big enough to fit the journal that was now laying on the desk.
I walked over to it and picked it up. I flipped through it to the first entry. My brother came to stand beside me and we read it together.
May 24th, 1924
I had the most incredible experience in the nearby city of XXXXX this last week.
I went to visit XXXX at his family's home. He's an old friend of mine who'd just gone abroad on his parent's money. He returned to the States with a jar and a tale to go with it. He told me that he found himself in the bazaars of Cairo, and he stopped in front of a man selling jars of confectionaries However, there was one jar that was ludicrously priced; a hundred American dollars. My friend inquired about the jar's contents, and the seller said "Aw, these are most precious sweets of all; pieces of a mellified man. You see, beyond the desert, there are elders who will decide to become mellified men. They begin to eat nothing but honey. Soon, they begin to smell like honey, they begin to sweat honey, and finally they bleed honey. And once they have passed on, they are sealed away for a hundred years, and when their coffins are reopened, they have dissolved into a honey that can heal any wound, cure any sickness, and some whisper that it can even grant eternal life. Of course, such men willing to sacrifice themselves have grown rare in our time, and so these sweets have become all the more precious."
"And then," my friend said, "he showed me something that made me believe him."
"What's that?" I asked.
He produced a knife from his coat pocket and stabbed it straight through his hand, then pulled it back out, causing the wound to gush blood. I feel back and became nauseous at the sight, but my friend remained calm and relaxed, as if it were only as bad as a mosquito bite. Then he opened his jar and pulled out a golden sweet that looked like a clear type of toffee, and he bit off a small piece. At once the wound began to close, and soon there was nothing to indicate he'd ever been hurt at all.
"You see?" my friend said.
I was stupefied. I had just witnessed a miracle before my very eyes. I begged my friend for a sweet, and he gave me only one. One! Out of a jar full to bursting with them!
We argued passionately over the matter for an hour before I stormed out and returned to the inn I was staying at. The next morning I tried to return to my friend's house to discuss the matter further but found that he had gone somewhere in the middle of the night. i now believe he thought my fury over the sweets would lead me to do something irrational.
Turns out he was right.
For as I rode the train back to my town, I began to form a plan in my mind. There was a logging camp near my cabin. Accidents happened there all the time. Would anyone miss a logger?
How much did honey cost these days?
These questions have spun around in my mind over and over since I've returned. I know now what I must do.
May 27th, 1924
I have done it. I snuck into the camp int the middle of the night, incapacitated one of the workers, and brought him home. He is now locked up in my storm cellar. When I first laid the bowl of honey in front of him he tried to attack me. The chains stopped him, but it gave me a scare. He refuse to eat for a while, but eventually he caved and ate the honey.
June 1st, 1924
Today he smelled of honey before I even brought him any.
June 12th, 1924.
It's over. Today I went down to feed the man and he would not get up. I unlocked his chains and picked up his corpse, now slick with honey, and stuffed him into a barrel I had previously used to age beer. I sealed it as tight as I could and set it aside in a corner.
I know I will not live to enjoy the fruits of my struggle. But my children and my children's children shall. This will be my sacrifice to them.
"Oh my god..." I said. My brother made a sound like he was going to retch.
That's when we heard a thump from somewhere else in the house. We both froze.
"What was that?" I whispered.
"Stay here." My brother said as he headed for the door.
"Where are you going?"
"I need to do something right now or I feel like I'll b...
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