This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Weird-Suggestion-152 on 2024-11-22 19:32:04+00:00.
It started with a single image of a cicada, black background, with simple white text. I was scrolling through a cryptography subreddit late at night, trying to distract myself from another evening of insomnia, when someone posted it. “Here’s something interesting,” they wrote, as if they didn’t know the rabbit hole it would lead to. The message on the image was simple: “We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. This is a test.” Below that, a string of random-looking numbers and letters, just sitting there like a dare. I don’t know what made me save it to my desktop. Maybe it was boredom, or maybe it was the voice in my head that said, You’ve always been good at puzzles. Why not try? Let's put that Master's degree to use.
The key was hidden in the image’s metadata, buried beneath its surface. At first, I thought the image was just a clever decoy, just white text on black, wanting you to waste hours chasing nothing. But when I opened it in a hex editor, the truth started to reveal itself. Among the strings of data, I found a clue: a URL leading to an unassuming page with an image of a duck. My stomach sank. Ah, trolled, I thought, until I remembered something from an old forum post about steganography. The message wasn’t in the image itself but within it, encoded. A free online tool exposed the hidden text, a long string that looked like gibberish at first glance, but resolved into another URL when decoded.
By this point, I wasn’t the only one working through the puzzles. Reddit was going wild online, the mystery spreading like wildfire. After the first couple puzzles were solved, it started to feel like there was a real mystery behind all of it. This wasn’t just some clever college kid making puzzles to troll Reddit. There seemed to really be something to all of it.
The second URL led to a page, just plain black text on white. “Congratulations,” it read. “You’ve made it this far. But there’s still a long way to go.” Below the message was another string of text: a Caesar cipher. Shifting the letters back by a set number revealed another cryptic message: a reference to a line in The Mabinogion, an old collection of Welsh mythology. I didn’t own a copy, but I found a scanned version online. My hands hovered over the keyboard, fumbling slightly as I searched for the passage. The solution wasn’t in the words themselves but in the placement of the letters. A careful pattern revealed yet another URL.
The next page wasn’t as simple. Instead of text, it hosted an audio file, low and distorted. Spectrogram analysis: I learned about it during a deep dive into cryptography forums; transformed the sound into an image, a string of numbers that looked like GPS coordinates. By this time, I was obsessed. I punched the numbers into Google Maps, half expecting to end up in the middle of an ocean. Instead, they pointed to a street corner in Warsaw, Poland.
Of course, I wasn’t going to fly to Poland. Others working on the puzzle shared images of the clue they found: a laminated poster taped to a light pole, featuring the same black-and-white imagery and a QR code. Scanning the code led to another page, but this time it required a key to decrypt. That’s when I realized the puzzles weren’t just about intelligence. People in forums collaborated, sharing their progress as we pieced together the solutions.
One solved cipher led to another set of coordinates, then another, spreading across the globe like a network. Each piece made us feel closer to answering the larger question: What is this, really? But the more I solved, the more I became obsessed. I decoded the PGP key that unlocked the next step. Then, the final puzzle cycle came.
The final puzzle cycle felt different. It wasn’t just a code to break or a text to decrypt, it was a test of patience and precision. The PGP key I’d received weeks earlier was the gatekeeper, verifying my identity and granting access to an unlisted Tor page. The page was bare, a single black screen with a string of numbers that had no immediate meaning. Hours turned into days as I chased down every possible lead, cross-referencing them with literature, mathematical sequences, even star charts. After several more puzzle cycles solved, with passages pulled from Agrippa by William Gibson, I found myself at, what I didn’t know at the time, would be my final puzzle. Decoding it, using The Book of Soyga, revealed an email address, plain and unspectacular. I sent a message, my hands trembling, and received a reply within seconds: “You have come far, but the journey is not over. Welcome.” Then the page disappeared, and my screen went dark, leaving me staring at my own reflection, anxious to see what happens next.
For a moment, I began to wonder if I had made some mistake and been kicked out, or worse, if the whole thing had just been one giant hoax. But as I sat and thought, I heard the faintest of clicks, and the light on my webcam turned on. “What the fu…” I said quietly to myself, frozen in my chair. It only stayed on for a few seconds before clicking back off.
Up until this point, I was going from goal to goal, obsession and curiosity fueling me. But with it now seemingly complete, the gratification was now wearing off, and a feeling of regret was slowly creeping in. Was this all a waste of time? What did I just allow into my life? What if it is something illegal?
That is the extent of what most people know about the mystery. But what most people don’t know, is that that was only the beginning. The very tip of the iceberg. They were being truthful; it was a test to find intelligent individuals. But if people knew what they truly wanted them for, nobody would’ve ever participated.
Nothing more happened that day after the webcam incident. I convinced myself it had been nothing. A malfunction, or maybe I imagined it. Maybe it was just the end of the puzzle, nothing. Perhaps I had messed something up along the way, missed a key clue, or I just wasn’t chosen. Or maybe it had all been an elaborate hoax from the start. Something designed to mess with people like me, who are too obsessive to see reason.
I told myself it was time to move on, maybe even take a break from Reddit altogether. For the first time in weeks, I let myself breathe again. I focused on the mundane; work, a few casual outings, the things I’d neglected for so long. My life went back to normal. It didn’t last for long though.
I was getting off work, walking home like usual. While walking, I started to notice a man in a black suit following behind me. He kept a steady pace, making every turn I made. It felt weird, but I shrugged it off. There are lots of people who walk in a city, after all. I picked up some food at the grocery store on the way, nothing special. But as I walked in, I noticed a second guy in a suit standing near the entrance. He didn’t look like he was shopping, just standing there, waiting, staring in my direction.
I began to feel creeped out, but tried to push it out of my mind, and do my shopping. While I was in one of the aisles, I saw another man in a suit. He walked past the aisle I was in and looked directly at me, then kept going. He didn’t stop or say anything, just walked by, but it felt off. By this time, I started getting uncomfortable, positive I was being watched. I hurried through the rest of my shopping and went to the checkout.
I left the store, trying not to think about it, but as I walked down the street, I saw the first guy again, a few paces behind me, walking in the same direction. He wasn’t in a hurry, just walking at the same pace, keeping his distance. I looked back once, and he didn’t seem to notice, but I felt like he was still there, following me. I knew by this time; it wasn’t just a coincidence. I was being followed.
I decided to break out into a run, wanting nothing more than to get to the safety of my home as quickly as possible. When I got to my apartment, I rushed upstairs and locked the door behind me. I stood by the window, trying to shake off the weird feeling, but as I peeked down at the street below, I saw something that made my heart race. A black SUV pulled up slowly in front of my building, then just stopped. I couldn’t see who was inside, but I knew it was there for a reason. I knew it had something to do with what had been happening, the puzzles. I freaking knew it was something illegal I thought to myself, probably the FBI, or something.
That, I heard a knock at the door. Just two, firm knocks. I peered through the peephole. Two men in suits stood outside, staring at the door like they knew I was watching. I froze in fear, unsure of what to do. They didn’t say anything, didn’t move, just stood there. I backed away from the door, my heart pounding. I ignored it, hoping they would just go away.
But then it happened again. A few hours later, another knock, same two men. I didn’t dare look through the peephole again, but I could hear their footsteps outside. Every few hours, the knocks would come, always the same. No words. No warning. Just the sound of knuckles against wood. I began to realize by this point, they weren’t leaving, and I wasn’t getting out of this.
I called out of work the next couple of days, not wanting to go outside. The SUV had not moved, and I didn’t want to confront whatever was waiting for me out there. Days went by, and the food supply in my apartment began to dwindle. It was also the end...
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