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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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