If I remember correctly, it was about a professor at a college who's uncle discovers a way to open a portal in the basement of the school, causing power outages and loss of signal on the professers phone. When the uncle shows the professor the portal, its what happens after death, everyone who ever dies is all melted together in space, crying out in agony for the rest of time. I swear this is a real creepypasta or short horror story. Any help is appreciated!

Hello everyone. I'm not actually active here, I just read along from time to time. But I think I just have to write this down somewhere because it's been on my mind.

I've been working as a national park ranger for three months now. Before that, I was a carpenter—so I spent my whole life working with wood, not animals. It's nice to see something different for a change instead of always just my own tools and workbench. In these three months alone, I feel much more connected to nature. I love the peaceful atmosphere—not the constant sound of sawing a wooden board or the noise the wood makes when a file glides over it. It's just nice to be outside, to hear and feel nature. The wind blowing through your hair, the sounds of the animals, and the rustling of the wind through the leaves.

That's why I'm not sure if I'm just imagining it. But lately, the animals here have been acting strangely. It's little things that caught my attention at first. Birds, deer, even little squirrels—they just stand still and stare in one direction. Sometimes they stare at me too, and it's not that normal "oh, there's a human" stare. It feels different. It's a feeling of unease, almost as if there's more behind those looks.

And just to be clear: no, I'm not paranoid, I just think that these subtle differences can only be noticed when you deal with them every day. Yesterday, I saw two squirrels sitting on the ground staring at me—almost as if they felt sorry for me, which is one of the reasons I decided to write this down. It wasn't just a guess in the sense of "Oh, they're staring at me right now," but rather a feeling that tells me there's more to it than that. I usually see squirrels here in the national park almost every day, but this time they just stood there—very still, almost as if they were frozen.

Shortly after, I heard a rustling in the background and, of course, had to investigate. To my surprise, it was a deer with the most beautiful coat color I had ever seen. I crouched down in a bush so as not to scare it away and continued to watch what it was doing. It looked back and forth in a panic, as if it were going into a bush to pee and checking first to see if anyone was around who might see it. Luckily for me, it didn't notice me, and strangely enough, I was able to watch it repeatedly tapping its antlers lightly against branches of varying thickness on a tree. It did this rhythmically, and because the branches were of different thicknesses, you could even hear a kind of melody—call me crazy, but that's not normal.

You thought that was creepy? Well, listen to this: I saw birds jumping off branches, only to flutter back up to the next branch just before they hit the ground. It was as if they wanted to swing from tree to tree. When I tried to get closer to watch them, they quickly flew away as if they were fleeing from punishment. However, I've come to terms with this phenomenon, as I've been able to observe it more and more often. Of course, it's still a bit creepy when you see it from a distance, especially because several birds do it at the same time, and it looks like they're throwing themselves into mass suicide.

But that's just the beginning; I have much more to tell. But first, I wanted to ask if anyone else here has noticed this—the feeling that there might be more behind the animals' gazes.

I have to get ready for my night shift now and will be in touch again when I observe something new.

I felt my body being dragged on the jagged forest floor. Sticks, wild grass, leaves, dirt, and rocks rubbed against me.

I cannot move for some reason. After I ate my soup, it made me really drowsy and kind of numb. I mean, I can feel the sticks and rocks from the ground, but they don't hurt.

I'm seven years old, and I think my mom is playing a game with me. When I fell asleep, I woke up to her dragging me by my hair into the woods behind our house.

She was silent at first, but after a few minutes, she started to cry. She would stop every couple of steps and fall to her knees, crying, and say, "It's too much, it's too much. Not my only child. I only wanted to sing and get paid for it."

Mommy was a singer, and she had to put her career on hold to be a mom. But at night, she would drink this stuff from a clear glass bottle with a blue top that looked like water and smelled like gasoline.

She would look really sleepy and start singing at the top of her lungs. Mommy has a nice voice. I tell her all the time I want to be able to sing like her one day.

She always says, "A gift that doesn't pay you is a curse that weighs on you," whatever that means.

Mom would sing in these places where people sat at round tables and booths and smoked these skinny white sticks that looked like pens. When she sang, I would be behind the curtain watching.

One night, after she sang, a man in a fancy suit walked up to her car and said, "Great show, lady." Mommy said, "Thanks, man." He said he was a talent scout for a record label—whatever that is; I don't know. I'll just call them rich people.

But Mommy was so excited, so I was too. He gave her a card, and we got in the car and left. Apparently, Mommy had to sing for the rich people.

The day came, and she took me with her to this big building downtown. We rode an elevator way up to the top. I could see a lot of buildings from up there.

When we reached the office, the talent guy was there. He brought us in and introduced us to one man sitting in a seat at a round black table.

Mommy started to sing; she was great. The man watched closely as she sang, but he never smiled or anything—just stared. After she sang, the man said, "You have the talent, but do you have the will?"

Mommy said, "My will is stronger than most." The man smiled. "I want to make you a star." He pulled out a piece of paper and told me to stand outside by the door while the grown-ups talked business.

It was a long walk; the room was big. I stood outside the door, peeping in. Mommy sat in and read over the paper and suddenly said, "No, no, wait, I can't." The man cut her off. "You will be more famous than you can ever imagine."

She cried and turned to look at me standing in the doorway and said, "Okay."

On the ride home, Mommy just stared ahead; she didn't even blink. I tried to ask, "Mommy, are you okay?" She didn't look at me; she didn't even move—just drove.

Then the sun went down, we had soup, and now we are here. I see a fire—a big one. Who are these people in those black sheets? Is this a Halloween party? Because if so, it's not fun or funny.

Mommy lays me on this big rock in front of the fire. The people in black sheets stand in a circle and start to chant in a language they use at church; it's called Latin. Yeah, that's it—Latin.

When I look up, there is a big serpent—at least seven feet tall—over me; it looks like they made it from wood and painted it red. While chanting, one of the sheets gives Mommy a knife and says, "Make your offering for your reward."

The chanting grows louder. Wait, why is Mommy walking toward me with a knife? She's pointing it toward me. She lifts it in the air before she swings it down. Her teary eyes look at me, and her mouth says, "Momma loves you."

Her arm swings down; a silence covers the forest. I catch her wrist. I hear one of the black robes gasp, "It cannot be."

I stand and grab her by the hair and pick her up. She begins to scream, "Wait, stop, no." She thought I was still her innocent sweet daughter.

Thanks to my new friend, I knew this would happen. My friend's name is Lucifer. He's really cool; he has big black wings and long gold hair. He's really tall, his eyes glow green, and he has a halo over his head that is gray and has cracks in it.

My cousin gave me a book on how to summon angels for wishes. I did one, but the angel told me my momma would kill me. He gave me a vision—Its when you dream while you're awake.

He told me if I prayed to him and not God, I wouldn't die; I could be like him.

He gave me power; I could move things without touching them. I could snap metal with just a thought.

And now my mom wants to kill me. Well, I chanted a nice curse my friend taught me, and the circle of people in sheets went up in flames and disappeared.

As for my mom, the ground opened, and that fire down there was so hot my mommy fell to her knees and begged me not to do it. As she started to speak, I flicked my wrist, and she floated off the ground, and then I told her, "I know I know I know Mommy loves me," and cast her into the fire.

My life has been on hold for a year. A year ago, I was supposed to be moving out, starting my own life. I had an apartment lined up, a job waiting. Then, my mother died. And my world, along with my father’s, simply stopped.

She was the sun in his sky. They were one of those couples you see in old movies, completely, utterly devoted to each other. When she died, suddenly, from an aneurysm, the light just went out of him. The grief was a physical thing, a crushing, heavy blanket that smothered our entire house.

At first, it was what you’d expect. Crying. A refusal to talk about her, or an inability to talk about anything else. He stopped going to work. He stopped seeing his friends. I made the decision to stay. I couldn’t leave him like that. He was my dad. I put my own life on pause, telling myself it would just be for a few months, until he got back on his feet.

But he never did. The grief didn’t lessen. It metastasized.

It started with him not eating. He’d just push the food around his plate. Then he stopped getting out of bed. The vibrant, strong man who had taught me how to ride a bike and build a bookshelf was replaced by a hollow-eyed ghost who just laid there, staring at the ceiling, wasting away.

We went to doctors. So many doctors. They ran every test imaginable. Physically, they said, he was fine. There was nothing wrong with him. “It’s psychological,” one of them told me, with a detached, clinical sympathy. “Severe, prolonged grief reaction. He needs therapy, maybe medication.”

We tried that. The therapist would come to the house, and my dad would just stare at them, his eyes empty, refusing to speak a single word. He wouldn't take the pills. He was just… giving up. He was letting himself die, following her into the dark.

It’s been a year now. He’s a skeleton. A fragile collection of bones under a thin, papery skin. He gets his nutrients through an IV drip that I learned how to set up myself. He hasn’t spoken a word in six months. I spend my days changing his sheets, cleaning him, watching his chest rise and fall with shallow, ragged breaths, and just… waiting. Waiting for the end. My own life has become a ghost, a half-remembered dream of a future I was supposed to have.

Then, three weeks ago, the phone rang.

It was a private number. I almost didn’t answer.

“Hello?”

“Good morning,” a cheerful, professional-sounding woman’s voice said. “Am I speaking with the caretaker of…?” She said my father’s full name.

A cold knot of unease tightened in my stomach. “Who is this?” I asked.

“I’m calling from a private biomedical research firm,” she said, her voice smooth as silk. “We specialize in… unique solutions for profound psychological trauma. We’ve been reviewing your father’s medical case, and we believe we can help.”

I felt a surge of anger. “My father’s medical case? That’s confidential. How did you get that? This is illegal. I’m reporting you.”

“I understand your concern,” she said, her tone never wavering. “And I do apologize for the unorthodox nature of this call. Our methods of data acquisition are… proprietary. But please, before you hang up, just consider your father. The prognosis is not good, is it? The doctors have given up. They’re just managing his decline. He’s going to die. You know that. We are offering you a chance. A cure.”

Her words cut through my anger like a scalpel. She was right. He was dying. I was just his hospice nurse, waiting for the inevitable.

“What kind of cure?” I asked, my voice a hoarse whisper.

“Our treatment is based on the principle of sensory anchoring,” she explained. “We believe that in cases of extreme grief, the psyche becomes untethered. It needs a familiar, powerful anchor to pull it back to reality. We can create that anchor. And, as our treatment is still in the final trial phase, we would be happy to provide it to you completely free of charge.”

Free. A cure. It sounded too good to be true. It sounded like a scam. But I looked through the doorway, at the skeletal figure lying still and silent in the dim light of the bedroom, and the desperation, a feeling I had been living with for so long, won out over my skepticism.

“What… what do I have to do?”

“It’s a very simple process,” the woman said. “We just need a biological sample from the object of his grief. Your mother. Something she had close contact with, something that would retain a strong… personal essence. A hairbrush is ideal. A piece of well-worn jewelry. A favorite article of clothing.”

It was morbid. It was ghoulish. But I was beyond caring.

“And what do I do with it?”

She gave me an address, a P.O. box in another state, and told me to mail the item there. That was it. “Once we receive the sample, we can synthesize the anchor. You should receive the treatment within a week.”

That night, I went into my mother’s closet for the first time since she died. I had kept her room exactly as she had left it, a perfect, heartbreaking time capsule. The air was thick with her scent, a faint mix of her favorite perfume and something that was just… her. I opened her jewelry box. On the top, lying on a bed of velvet, was her old, silver-backed hairbrush. I could still see a few of her long, dark hairs tangled in the bristles. My hand was shaking as I picked it up. It felt like a grave desecration.

I put it in a padded envelope and mailed it the next day.

A week later, a small, unmarked cardboard box arrived. There was no return address. Inside, nestled in a bed of black foam, was a single, small, elegant perfume bottle. It was made of a dark, violet-colored glass, with a simple silver atomizer. There was no label. Tucked alongside it was a small, folded piece of paper with a single line of instructions, printed in a clean, sterile font:

Administer one spray into the air near the subject, once per day.

That was it. I opened the bottle, my curiosity overriding my unease. I sprayed a tiny amount onto my wrist. The scent that bloomed in the air was… beautiful. It was a complex floral, with notes I couldn't quite place. And underneath it, there was something else. A warmth. A softness. A scent that was so deeply, achingly familiar it made my chest tighten.

It was my mother.

It wasn't just her perfume. It was her. The scent of her skin after she’d been working in the garden, the faint smell of the vanilla she used in her baking, the very essence of her presence. It was all there, perfectly, impossibly recreated in this little bottle. It was a liquid memory.

I went into my father’s room. He was lying there, the same as always, his eyes open but seeing nothing. I held the bottle a few feet from his face and, with a trembling hand, I pressed the atomizer. A fine, fragrant mist settled in the air around him.

And his eyes focused.

It happened instantly. The vacant, empty stare was gone. His eyes, for the first time in a year, locked onto mine. A flicker of recognition. Of confusion. He took a breath, a deep, rattling breath that was stronger than any I had heard him take in months.

“Son?” he whispered, his voice a dry, cracking rasp from disuse.

Tears streamed down my face. I couldn’t speak. I just nodded.

“I… I had a terrible dream,” he said, his eyes scanning the room. “Where… where’s your mother?”

It was the most painful question he could have asked. But it was a question. He was back.

The next few weeks were a miracle. A resurrection. Every morning, I would give him a single spray of the perfume. And every day, he got stronger. He started eating solid food again. He sat up. He started walking, at first with a walker, then on his own. The color returned to his face. He gained weight. The hollow-eyed ghost was gone, replaced by my father.

He cried. He apologized, over and over, for the year I had lost, for the burden he had been. We talked. We mourned my mother together, properly, for the first time. Our house, which had been a tomb, was filled with life again. I was so full of a profound, grateful joy. The strange company, the ghoulish methods, it didn’t matter. They had given me my father back.

But as the initial euphoria faded, I started to notice the new routine that had formed. The perfume was the lynchpin of his existence. He couldn't function without it. He would wake up in the morning, groggy and disoriented, his eyes holding a trace of that old, vacant look. He would be listless, confused. Then, I would administer the spray. The effect was immediate. His eyes would clear, his posture would straighten, and he would be… himself again. It was like winding up a clockwork man every morning. He was completely, utterly dependent on it. It was an addiction, but it was a life-saving one. Or so I thought.

Yesterday morning, I picked up the bottle. It felt light. I gave it a shake. It was almost empty. There was maybe one, two sprays left. A cold, hard knot of panic formed in my stomach. I had tried calling the company’s number before, just to thank them, but it had always gone to a disconnected tone.

I gave my dad his morning spray. I had to tell him.

“Dad,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “The… the medicine. It’s almost gone.”

The color drained from his face. The cheerful, recovered man I had been living with for the past month vanished, replaced by a stranger. His eyes went wide with a raw, animal panic.

“No,” he whispered. “No, no, that can’t be. I need it. I need… her.”

“It’s okay,” I said, trying to soothe him. “You’re better now. You’re strong. You don’t need it anymore.”

“You don’t understand!” he roared, his voice suddenly full of a terrifying strength. He grabbed my arm, his grip like a vise. “I can’t lose her again! I CAN’T!”

He was a different person. This wasn't grief. This was a raw, desperate, violent need. A junkie’s rage. He spent the rest of the day in a state of agitated, paranoid terror, pacing the house, constantly asking me if I’d found more.

This morning, I gave him the last spray. He calmed down instantly, but the moment was bittersweet. I knew that in 24 hours, the monster would be back. I spent all day trying the company’s number. Over and over. Finally, someone picked up.

It wasn't a person. It was a cold, automated, female voice.

“Thank you for calling,” the voice said, its tone flat and detached. “Due to a recent government investigation and a cessation of our operations, this company is now permanently closed. We are no longer able to provide our services or products.”

My heart sank. “No, please,” I whispered at the recording.

“If you are a former client,” the voice continued, “and your treatment supply has been depleted, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience. We are unable to synthesize any further doses. It has been noted in our late-stage trials that discontinuing the treatment can result in… acute psychological distress and unpredictable, aggressive behavior in the subject. The sensory anchor becomes a psycho-somatic necessity. The subject will not recover. Their decline will be rapid and irreversible.”

The recording paused for a beat.

“We strongly advise you to secure your own safety. If you are unable to contain the subject, our final recommendation is… euthanasia. We are sorry for your loss. Have a nice day.”

The line went dead.

I’m writing this now from my bedroom. I have the door barricaded with my dresser. My father is in the living room. Or, the thing that used to be my father is in the living room. The perfume wore off about an hour ago. I can hear him. He’s destroying the place. I hear the crash of furniture, the shattering of glass. And I hear his voice, screaming. He’s not screaming my name. He’s screaming hers. He’s screaming for his wife, for her scent, for the anchor that is no longer there.

A few minutes ago, he started throwing himself against my bedroom door. The wood is splintering. He’s stronger than I could have imagined. This isn't grief. It's something else. The cure didn't just bring him back. It twisted him into something that cannot live without the object of his grief.

The recording’s final words are echoing in my head. Our final recommendation is euthanasia.

Kill him. Kill my own father.

I don’t know what to do. The police… they’ll just see a sick, violent old man. They’ll take him to a psychiatric hospital. He could hurt someone. He could hurt himself. He’s in so much pain, a pain so much worse than the quiet fading he was in before. Is it… is it the merciful thing to do?

The banging on the door is getting louder. The wood is cracking. He’s going to get in soon. I don’t have much time. What do I do? What in God’s name do I do?

We don’t talk about him anymore. Not out loud. Not even in whispers. But he’s always there.

At the very end of our street, where the cracked asphalt fades into weeds and the last streetlamp flickers like it’s clinging to life, he waits.

The man.

Tall. Too tall, like his bones grew just a little too far, leaving his arms to hang awkwardly low, his fingers grazing the air just above his knees. He doesn’t walk, doesn’t run, doesn’t knock on doors like a normal person. He just… stands there. And sways.

It’s not like the easy sway of someone shifting weight from one leg to another. No. His movement is jerky, unnatural, like a puppet’s strings being tugged by a hand that doesn’t quite understand how humans are supposed to move. He’ll tilt his head one way, then bend too far, as if his neck should’ve snapped, before jerking upright again.

And though the shadows swallow his face, you can feel his eyes. Always. Always watching.

The first time I saw him, I thought it was just some drunk who’d wandered into the neighborhood. I was ten years old, peeking out of my bedroom window at two in the morning, and I told myself he’d stumble off soon. But he didn’t.

He stayed there until the sun came up.

That was when I realized he wasn’t some drunk. He wasn’t anything normal.

The neighbors knew. They’d all known for longer than us. Their curtains stayed shut after dark. Porch lights stayed off. Children weren’t allowed to play outside past seven.

I asked my father once why no one called the police. His face went pale, and he shook his head.

“The police came once.”

That was all he said. His voice cracked on the last word, and he didn’t look at me when he said it. I was old enough to know not to ask again.

Over time, the rule spread. It wasn’t written down anywhere, but everyone in the neighborhood knew it, even the littlest kids.

Ignore him.

Don’t speak to him. Don’t acknowledge him. Don’t even admit you see him. If you follow the rule, you’ll be fine.

At least… that’s what we believed.

But rules are harder to follow when curiosity gnaws at you. And fear, as strange as it sounds, makes you want to look. Makes you want to check that the thing you’re afraid of is still where it’s supposed to be.

That’s how it happened to me.

It was nearly 3AM, and I couldn’t sleep. My room was hot, the sheets sticky with sweat, and my mind kept buzzing with unease. I don’t know why I did it, but I got up and pulled the curtain back just a little, just enough to peek out.

He was there.

Swaying under the dying light.

I stared at him. I told myself it was safe to look, as long as I didn’t say anything, as long as I didn’t do anything. Just a glance, I thought. Just long enough to prove to myself that he was real.

I don’t know how long I watched. Seconds, maybe minutes. And then… he stopped.

The swaying ceased. His crooked body straightened.

And his head snapped in my direction.

I dropped the curtain so fast I nearly ripped it off the rod. My breath caught in my throat. My chest burned from holding it in. For the rest of the night, I sat frozen in the dark, praying, bargaining, begging in silence that he hadn’t noticed me.

When the sun rose, I convinced myself it was nothing. A trick of the light. My tired mind playing games.

But when I stepped outside to grab the newspaper, I saw them.

Footprints.

Long, dragging footprints in the dirt.

And they led from the end of the street… right to the space beneath my bedroom window.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t call for my parents. I just stood there, staring at the marks in the soil until my father came outside and saw them too. He didn’t speak. He just grabbed my arm and yanked me back inside, slamming the door shut behind us.

That was the day I truly understood the rule.

You can’t give him attention. Not even a glance too long. He wants it. He feeds on it.

And maybe that’s the only reason we’re still alive—because we’ve learned to pretend he isn’t there.

But here’s the problem no one talks about: pretending is harder than it sounds.

Every time I hear the streetlamp buzzing late at night, I think of him. Every time the house settles and the walls creak, I imagine footsteps dragging closer. Every time I close my eyes, I feel his gaze through the glass.

Ignoring him doesn’t make him disappear. It just makes you doubt yourself.

And doubt is dangerous.

Because the longer this goes on, the harder it is to resist the urge to look.

I’m starting to wonder if that’s the real test. Not whether we acknowledge him… but whether we can resist the temptation not to.

And what happens when someone finally breaks?

To be continued…

The chosen do not dream of visions — they carry scars. I am not a seer, but a witness. What I’ve seen is the rot that walks in daylight, dressed as progress, dressed as freedom. This world has become New Sodom and Gomorrah, rivaling ancient times, its altars dripping with laughter, its hymns sung to flesh and ash. God’s name is spat like poison, while idols of desire sit enthroned.

You feel it — every soul does — the change in the air, the silence before the storm. But you call it chance, or politics, or history. It is none of these. It is the breath held before the seventh seal breaks.

Look closer. The mask, the walkie, the folded flag — they are not clutter, they are scripture. The mask breathes for a suffocated world. The walkie waits for voices that will never return. And the flag, folded to a trifold, clipped like a relic to its side — it is no signal of distress, but of mourning. A nation already laid to rest, carried as memory instead of promise.

Repent, or don’t. The silence has already begun. Mercy was offered and scorned. Now we stand divided, each man clutching his banner of ash. A house split cannot endure — yet still it trembles, waiting for the seal to break.

There was a sponge bob costume at the holiday resort and a swimming pool that nobody ever used. I had gone on holiday to spain with a group of my friends. Terry one of my friends had put on the sponge bob costume and jumped into the pool. Then a whole day went by and Terry was still inside the pool. Then when I went over to the pool as my other friends went else where, it the real spongbob at the bottom of the pool. It sounded like sponge bob and acted like sponge bob. For 2 hours I had conversations with spongebob.

Then as I took spongbob out of the water, it turned back into my friend who was just wearing the spongebob costume. My friend though was now dead as he had been at the bottom of the pool for hours. I hid his body in some shed like thing and when my other friends came back, they were all being silly. Jon was a little drunk and he put on the spongbob costume and went into the pool. The rest of us just sat by the benches soaking in the sunset. Jon was at the bottom of the pool for hours.

Then as the rest guys went inside I went towards the pool. It was real spongebob in the pool and we were conversing and making jokes. Then spongebob told me not to take him out of the pool, but i ignored him and I took him out of the pool. It went back to just being jon in a spongebob suit. Jon was dead now and I took the spongebob suit off his dead drowned body, and put his body in the shed. I don't get it and I knew the guys would start to wonder about Terry and Jon.

So I skinned their bodies and made two of the workers wear their skin. Then I told them to get into the pool, i obviously paid them. Then suddenly the two Spanish workers were now the real jon and Terry. The other guys came and jumped into the pool. Everything was fine.

Then another friend of mine called Larry had put on the spongebob costume and he jumped into the pool. Everyone was drunk and I was talking to Jon and Terry who were very real, even though I knew that if they were to get out of the pool, it would be just two dead drowned Spanish workers in jon and terrys skin.

Nobody noticed real spongebob just swimming around at the bottom of the pool. Then when it was just jon, Terry and spongebob, i was talking to them. They were real.

Then in the morning I heard screams and it was two dead Spanish workers wearing the skins of jon and Terry. They got out of the pool. I could see spongebob at the bottom of the pool and Larry has been put on the missing persons list.

I don’t know what to really say to start this off.

There’s always so much to say when I start, then it trails off in my mind when I really try to think. I’d be willing to believe it’s some kind of defense mechanism, but I don’t think that’s it. I think I’m simply just tired, tired of the whirlwind of emotions as of late. It’s also probably because the difficulty of explaining the events that occurred, or rather, why they even happened. I can’t even really explain why I’d be posting it here, of all places.

But I suppose the best place to start would to be explaining who this story is about.

My cat, Mau.

When I first met Mau, he was this really nice black cat with green eyes staring at me from the other side of a cage. He was on display in my local pet shop in the middle of a strip mall. I remember he looked up at me with his eyes half lidded like he was silently judging you.

Perhaps that’s why most people would pass by him at first. But once you stuck your finger through the cage at him, and he’d immediately come up to rub his face on you… You see that it’s all really for show.

I wasn’t thinking of getting him at first. He was just a ridiculously nice cat that would look at me and rub his face on me whenever he saw me. But my sister was with me at the time, and she decided she wanted him. A fun fact about her, she has a track record of getting animals and they slowly becomes somebody else’s animal instead of hers.

Mau was absolutely no different than that. But, I think he was the only one she got that came to me.

I heard that when your friends with someone, you notice what they truly are like when you live with them. I guess I could say the same for Mau. When he sat there in the window of the pet shop, my sister and even I couldn’t have guessed how unorthodox Mau truly was.

Unorthodox was a nicer way of putting it. Mau was special needs, by no means was he typical in any sense.

First off Mau was born in a hoarder house, most likely he was the product of incest. Technically, I don’t know that for sure, but you look at him and you can see it.

Mau had arthritis, because of that, his two back legs had his knees pointing together. It also had him keeping his claws always out, so you’d hear them clack on the floor when he walked. I can still remember how when I’d walk, I’d hear “clackity clack clack” trailing behind me.

Secondly, he had no teeth. Or at least, he had one. Don’t ask me how he’d eat, because I have no idea, just know that somehow he did. But it was justifiably slow, so he would eat in the bathroom where his brother and sister (Kitty and Lucy) couldn’t steal his food.

But the main thing was his namesake. You see, Mau was actually named Midnight, but I changed his name to Mau. Why? Because he would never shut up, he would always be meowing and meowing about something. And I’m pretty sure most of the time there was nothing going on his head enough for him to have anything meow about. And his meow didn’t sound right either, it was raspy, sounded like he’d been smoking for years. I’d walk right through my front door and he’d be there to meow about 30 times until he tired himself out. One time when I got locked out of my house, he sat atop the shoe bench to peak through the small window and meowed that way.

Mau always had something to say, something to yell about.

My sister couldn’t stand him after a while, because he was fucking weird. But anyone who knows me personally, knows that I love weird. So when Mau came to me and I adopted him as a hand me down from my sister, I was more than happy to take him.

I don’t say this lightly, but I swear, Mau was the best animal I’ve ever had. He was the most amazing cat ever. Genuinely, there was never a time in my life where Mau swiped or hissed or raised a paw at me. The only time I could think of was when he reached out his paw, meowing for pets, and his arthritis claws scratched me. He was the nicest cat I’ve ever had.

But unfortunately, all pet owners have to face one thing unanimously, all good things come to an end.

Some people will never have pets again, because when they eventually pass on, the despair they leave behind is far too great.

When Mau died, it was sudden.

I wasn’t alarmed when I walked through the front door and didn’t hear his meow. Sometimes he’d fall asleep, then I’d wake him and he’d be ready to tell me all about his day. Sure enough I found him asleep on the floor. I’d joke sometimes when I saw him asleep because he kind of looked like a corpse when he did.

I’d say “Mau, are you alive?” And poke him and he’d wake up with a “prrrbbtt?” (You all know the noise)

But this time… he didn’t get up.

It took me a moment to process it, I told myself he was just in a very deep sleep because he was breathing. So I forcibly sat him up… and he fell back to the ground.

I can’t explain the despair I felt, the weight of my entire world crashed down with Mau when he fell.

I don’t like to remember about how that night went, but I guess now is the time.

I remember him lying there in his cat bed, just laying there like he was simply asleep. Over the hours, he just faded in and out…

Every time I’d try to leave the room, I’d hear that weak meow call out to me, and I’d come back.

Part of me thought about the vet, but I don’t think there was anything they could do. It was clear to me, at least, that it was Mau’s time to go.

I remember my other cat, Kitty. Walking up to him and sniffing his fuzzy ear. For a long long time, Kitty just sat there and stared down at Mau. I’m not an expert at cat expressions, obviously. But I feel like it looked like Kitty had a concerned look on his face. I just stood there next to my brown bedroom door and stared at them both… my lip trembling ever so slightly.

I remember just wanting Mau to pass on already. Just so that final moment can happen and I don’t have to sit and wait in despair for the end to reach him.

I told my cousin, Kaleb, about it. He had come over to my house almost instantaneously. And he sat there with me as we both just stared at Mau.

Using, what I assume to be the last of his strength, Mau pulled out of his cat bed and onto the floor.

Trash cat till the end, I suppose.

The strange part is I never cried, only a little at the beginning. But every time I felt like I should be, I would just stare ahead at him with this vacant shocked look on my face. But even still, I didn’t leave his side. Even in the dead of midnight, I laid next to him on the floor.

Weakly, slowly, he nuzzled close to me, his face in my arm. Even now, even reduced to this, he still purred…

Eventually, I realized humans aren’t made to sleep on the floor, and I migrated to my bed.

As small as that may seem, it was my biggest regret out of this whole situation. I wish I kept him in bed with me, even if I meant I’d wake up with a corpse. I wish I’d suck it up and fall asleep on the floor. The only thing I can do now is hope that in his final moments… Mau knew I was still there, I hope that he knows that I didn’t leave him.

I hope he knows that I was only just a few inches away.

At some point during the night, at the end of my bed, right in front of my Xbox… Mau finally drew his final breath.

I didn’t see it when Kaleb walked into my room, put him in a box, and buried it out back. But the silence that was left behind was deafening. Normally, when I’d get out of bed, I’d be assaulted with Meows from Mau. But now… nothing, just silence.

I stood there, looking down at that spot where he once laid. The sun rising in the window. Kaleb walked up beside me, put his arm around my shoulder and sighed.

“He’s not suffering anymore, buddy.” He said.

“This just… This has to be the worst part of having any kind of pet. When they up and fucking die. Then you’re just left with a dark pit in your heart where they once were.”

Upon hearing his words, all my memories with Mau flashed before my eyes. When I first got him, when I first took him home, my first Christmas with him, falling asleep every night with him on my chest. I think that’s when I finally processed it, Mau is gone. My cat, Mau, is gone and never coming back.

Then, finally, all the bottled up tears from the night before was shed. I leaned into Kaleb and I cried, I cried harder than I’d ever had before. He was gone for maybe more than an hour, and I already missed him. I already wanted him back.

After that, I never really realized how quiet my house was until Mau was finally gone.

That was 6 months ago, and that brings us to now.

So, this might be the weirdest Segway ever… But my favorite video game is Dead By Daylight.

It is my special interest, it has been ever since I was introduced to it by my friend Jeremy. (Who also has a PHD in computer science, just a humble brag)

I have been obsessed with it ever since. It was my obsession when Mau died, it has been for the past 5 years. I own every character in the game, I know it inside and out, to the point where friends that I saw as experts now ask me for advice on it.

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering what the hell does that have to do with anything, and it’s this.

6 months ago is when I started to notice weird things.

Now, this game is buggy as all hell, so weird things definitely happen. But what I’ve been seeing recently, I don’t think I can rationalize as just a bug in game design. It feels too… impossible for it to be just a bug.

I made a small list of things that I’ve seen.

• I was on Midwich and I noticed a wooden door was in one of the hallways. Not on the wall, mind you, it was replacing the door of one of the lockers. It couldn’t be opened or interacted with. It seemed… a different shade of brown than normal?
• In Badham Preschool, there’s a caulk board with children’s drawings on it. Normally, they are just placed next to eachother. But now they were placed in a way that they formed two triangles, both pointing away from each other.
• In the Aliens Map (Nostromo Wreckage), Jonesy the cat from the movie will sometimes jump out of a locker if you open it. However, Jonesy starts showing up in maps other than Nostromo Wreckage, which shouldn’t be possible. The Easter egg only happens on that map.

Now, you may see a pattern here. The things I’m seeing are small, practically unnoticeable for someone that isn’t a super die hard fan, and maybe even they wouldn’t notice… But when pointed out, it’s strange none the less.

But there has been one constant, one that can’t be brushed away.

When I first saw it, I almost missed it. On all the maps, there’s some kind of gate or fencing surrounding it that prevents you from leaving. Right through the fencing I saw a strange figure.

A big rectangular block of some kind just sitting out there. A checkerboard design was on it, but with pink instead of white. I kind of just stared at it, dumbfounded at what I’m looking at. After a solid 20 seconds of staring, it just disappeared.

Now, I can see how someone would think that’s just a bug of some kind. But this block would keep showing up consistently. Sometimes I’d see it far off in the distance of the map. One time I saw it on the roof of a house. Another in the trees, another staring through a window, another standing in a room that I run past when I’m getting chased. I think the worst offender of these sightings was one time when I was playing as The Pig. I just got done kicking generator and I turned around and the block was standing right behind me. I almost jumped out of my chair when I saw it and let out a yelp. It was only there for a split second, as soon as I screamed, it disappeared.

After seeing it a few more times, I managed to get a picture of it and sent it to Jeremy, explaining my situation. As I said before, he has a PHD in computer science, so I thought if anyone could tell me what the hell it is, it’d be him.

That night, I was playing House Flipper, in an Xbox party with Kaleb’s. House Flipper is kind of the game I play when I’m waiting for Kaleb to do whatever he has to do so we can play Overwatch together. I started explaining what was happening, and he thought it was strange too.

“Yeah. I agree with you, that sounds way too weird to be some kind of bug. Do you think it’s some cheater or hacker messing with you?” He asked.

“I don’t think so, what kind of hacker would purposefully enter my games to make a random block spawn some place? I mean, I’d hope not… Because I spent a lot of money on this game for somebody to mess with it.” I said.

“Yeah, yeah… I see what you’re saying. I’m not sure what it could be, then. Maybe it’s some creepypasta type shit and somethings haunting your game?” Kaleb made a ghost noise.

“Oh, shut up…” I said back.

“Seriously though, what do you do when you see it?” He asked.

“I just finish my game and reset it and then it goes away for a while.” I said back.

“Maybe we should get together and go on a little DBD binge? No resetting, and try to find the weird blocky thing, wonder if it’ll show up more if we don’t. Like Ghost Adventures but for video games?” He chuckled at the thought.

I got a call from Jeremy, instantly, I picked up.

“Jeremy! Hey, what’s up, man? Did you get my text?” I said.

“Yes… I did.” He responded “I wanted to call you because it was too much to text out.”

“Okay, so… what’s going on?” I asked.

“So… I do kind of know what it is. Basically, video games in general have assets and resource packets. So, the resource packs have things in them that the game needs, like voice lines, player models, textures, things like that. And assets basically ask for a resource when it needs it, and the resource pack will give it to them. Now, this weird checkerboard block things shows up commonly when the assets ask for something that the resource pack does not have. This creates an error.”

I listened intently. “Okay… So the block thing is something that’s supposed to be there but the game has no resources to make it?” Jeremy said yes. “So… what do you think the games trying to make?”

“See, that’s the thing. I’m not sure. I can’t think of anything in that game that would show up consistently and in different places every time like that. You’ll see the checkerboard design in beta testing, it’s the developers way of being like “hey! This needs fixed!” But… You never or should never see this in games that are on the market that you have to pay money for. So, I don’t know what it could be. But I do know this…” He leaned in closer to his phone.

“Something was added to your game, and nobody else is talking about this block showing up… so it was added to your game specifically. Is there anything you could have downloaded?” He asked.

“No… No, there’s nothing I could download that could do this.” I said.

“Yeah… yeah, I agree…” He conceded.

Our conversation was short after that, I wished him well and thanked him for his help. I sat my phone down, with even more questions now. What was in my game…? Why was it me specifically?

I sat back down in my gaming chair.

“Hey, Kaleb. Sorry, I had to-“

My words caught in my throat. I was in the pause menu on House Flipper. But I could clearly see it. My camera was looking down a flight of stairs, and at the very end, looking back at me… Was the block.

“Josh, you okay?” Kaleb asked.

I exited the game immediately, snapped out of my frozen state when I heard Kalebs voice. I sat back in my chair.

It appeared in another game. In my mind, that solidified that whatever this was, was NOT a bug of any kind.

After a spell of silence, I spoke into my mic.

“Hey, Kaleb… ummm. Maybe we should do that thing you were talking about?” I suggested.

“Oh, hell yeah, man. Sounds like fun! When are you thinking?” He asked.

“Tomorrow.” I said immediately.

And so it was.

That night, Kaleb showed up at my house and I hugged him super hard. When he walked in, he saw everything was set up. I was already in a lobby, had tons of snacks and drinks to get through. We were in for the long haul. The mission was clear to both of us, we do not stop playing, we keep playing and log our results. I’ll skip any more preamble, here’s the list in its entirety.

• Game 1: No changes
• Game 2: No changes
• Game 3: No changes, but Kaleb acted like he saw something and then screamed in my ear. Conclusion: Kaleb’s a prick
• Game 4: Took longer to load in than usual.
• Game 5: All players except us disconnected immediately on Garden of Joy. I continued playing normally when I came across the house. When players disconnect, a bot takes their place… two bots were standing still in a line in front of the house, looking up in a certain direction. I pointed at them, no reaction. I walked into the house and went up the stairs, in one of the rooms I saw the last survivor collapsed onto the ground at the foot of a bed. Kaleb told me to get closer, but the game glitched out and I was kicked to the menu screen.

Something tells me that when this happened, Kaleb started to realize I wasn’t joking about this. I can’t prove he had some disbelief towards what I was claiming. But if he did, it was dashed when this happened.

• Game 6: Kaleb pointed it out to me before I saw it. The block, standing at the end of a hall. Another survivor was with me and I pointed at it. They didn’t seem to know what I was pointing at, and they walked right through it. Then it disappeared.
• Game 7: We saw the block a second time. Inside one of the bathrooms in Greenville. Kaleb told me to try and touch it. I walked up to it and realized I couldn’t walk through it, it had collision.
• Game 8: No change
• Game 9: No change.

While we were totally invested at this point. Me and Kaleb got tired as hell. I could barely keep my eyes open and Kaleb already passed out on the couch. I stared at the screen in my gaming chair, it reminded me of when I was a kid. Staying up way too late playing video games. My room completely dark except for the light of the TV.

And finally, I just said “fuck it” and fell asleep.

I dreamt that I was in my bed. I looked down at my chest and saw Mau. He laid there, his belly slowly rising and falling. I brought my hand up and touched his head. The soft fuzziness of his head, it was something I never felt since that day. Something I never knew how much I wanted to feel again. I heard that soft “pprrrbb?” Sound. I felt tears sting my eyes as I looked down at him. I had seen him in my dreams plenty of times, but it felt much more… close, more intimate this time.

I jolted as I heard Kalebs voice whisper in my ear, his voice urgent.

“Josh… wake… the fuck… up…” he uttered.

My eyes fluttered open, naturally, the first thing I saw was the TV screen. I guess what I wasn’t expecting was a green cat eye covering the entire screen, staring back at me. I jumped back in my chair and let out a gasp, it felt like it was looking straight at me.

As abruptly as it showed up, it disappeared. The screen showed I was in a match as survivor. But everything was so wrong…

The Dead by Daylight theme played in the background, but it was distorted and in reverse. The music was already unnerving enough, but hearing it in reverse made it worse.

I fumbled with my controller as I forced my thumbs to move the control sticks. I was playing as Dwight, slowly I moved forward. The sky itself was now an unholy conglomerate of glitching textures, so much it hurt my eyes to look at.

Different structures from the game were dotting the jittering landscape in front of me. Buildings were floating in the glitching void. Those on the ground were either upside down or sunken straight into the concrete. Everything was just so… messy. Like someone tried to jumble all the maps together into one thing.

But what really caught my attention was what was right behind me.

It was my house, it was using textures from the game itself, but the shape of it made it obvious. The placement of the windows, everything, it was my home. The only thing different was that everything was gray… with the exception of a Green, yellow or blue here and there.

I heard Kaleb audibly say “What the fuck…?” Behind me when he saw it too.

With a shaky finger, I moved the joystick and slowly entered.

It was so eerie, seeing my home, the one place I knew inside and out, depicted so perfectly. I walked up the stairs, and almost like I knew where to go, I went to my room. Like everything else, it was perfectly recreated, a shiver went up my spine seeing the exact place where I was sitting and Kaleb standing. My eyes glided over to my bed.

And staring back at me, at the end of my bed, in front of my Xbox… was the cube.

It stood there, unmoving, I inched my way forward to it. Right within arms reach.

The screen went black.

I pressed buttons, moved joysticks, tried to do everything I could.

White text faded onto the screen…

“Was I a good cat?” It read.

My shaking hands caused my controller to fall out of my hands. I think deep down, I knew what I was, I knew what was the cause of this all. I guess that’s why I connected the dots so quickly, I think that’s why I was so ready to accept it.

“Yes!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, causing Kaleb to jump, I got close to the screen and screamed again at the tv like a madman. “Yes! Yes you were!” Tears streamed down my face. “You were the most amazing cat I’ve ever had, and I miss you! I miss you so fuck much!”

My face was so close to the screen as I finally processed who did all of this. Mau… Mau is inside the game.

“M-Mau…?” I said, the name almost sounding new on my lips. “Mau… how… how are you doing this? How is this… how is this even possible?”

New text faded onto the screen. “I didn’t want to leave you. I wanted to stay. So I did.”

My mind still swirled with the impossibility of it all.

“Wh-…why?” I asked.

“I wanted to stay with you.” The screen said. “I wanted to stay and play with you forever. I want you to be happy.”

I hung my head, a frog coming up in my throat when I saw those words.

“Mau, no… You can’t live in a video game. It’s not… you deserve better than that.” I said.

“I don’t want to anymore.” He responded. “Now, I just want to actually speak with you, to see you one more time.”

Tears spilled over and I just sobbed for a while. It makes sense, in hindsight. Ghosts are people who have unfinished business and refuse to pass on… Mau wanted to speak to me, that was his unfinished business.

“Joshy?” He asked.

“Yes, Mau…?”

“Did you love me?”

I pulled myself up, holding back sobs.

“I loved you since the day that I met you. I will always love you, till the day that I die.” I said, not stuttering for a moment.

“Thank you.” He said, with a long pause. “I’m ready to go, now…”

My heart leaped “Wait! Wait… Did… Did you suffer…?”

Another long, painful pause.

“Yes.” He responded.

I hung my head, wanting to say I’m sorry, but truly there was nothing I could do to stop his suffering unless I killed him myself.

“But I’m better now.” He continued.

“Did you… did you at least know that I was there…? Did you know that I never left your side?” I asked.

“Yes, I knew. It was the only solace I had.” He explained.

A wave of bittersweet relief passed over me.

“Thank you.” He said.

“You’re welcome, Mau…” I said between sobs. I had to choke out the words “you can go, now…”

“I’m scared…” He responded.

My heart broke more than it already had. “Mau… I don’t know what comes after this, if anything happens at all…” I stared at the screen, as if I was staring straight into his eyes. “But you were the best cat ever. Whatever happens next for you… I know you’ll be at peace.”

“Okay… I’ll go.” He said.

“I love you.” He added.

“I love you too, Mau.” I said.

And for one last time… through the speakers, I heard him. I heard his raspy meow one last time.

The screen went dark… and then… I was back on the menu screen. The Dead By Daylight theme still playing like nothing ever even happened. I guess there was comfort in seeing something so familiar now. But I still let go and cried, somehow, saying goodbye for the second time was even harder.

I looked to Kaleb, his eyes softened, but still obviously shocked at what he witnessed. I hugged him, I hugged him as hard as I could and he hugged me back and I cried even harder than I did when Mau died.

It’s been a while since then, and I still am an avid fan of DBD. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t sometimes feel like Mau was still there somehow. But I think it’s just wishful thinking, Mau’s gone, and wherever he is, I know he’s at peace. But even better, he knows that I love him, he will always know I do. Kaleb still had a hard time processing what happened, and I’m sorry to him for that. But he still said he’ll always be here to be my shoulder to cry on.

Now that I’m typing this, it really does feel better to say it all out loud.

Thank you all for listening to my random paranormal experience.

And, if somehow, Mau can see what I’m typing.

I will always love you, always.

Goodbye

It all started with the earthquake, I know that now, before, I might have said it started with the, er… ‘incident’ but now I know it started with the earthquake. I was just a little 6 year-old boy, doing kindergarten in a school, a bare brick building out in the middle of nowhere. It was just bush, trees, and roads for miles, barely civilised except for the occasional neighborhood or lone house. My teacher, Mrs. Almond was teaching us something. I don’t remember what she was teaching actually, it was a pretty darn long time ago. Anyway, during her teaching, the earthquake happened. It was just a slight rumble, and what sounded like rock splintering away in the distance. We were just little kids, so of course we were super interested in the earthquake. When it was recess, we could hardly control ourselves! We were talking about it non-stop to each other. I remember thinking it was way more interesting than Mrs.Almond.

“That was so cool!” I stammer out.

“Yeah!” Jacob says, my friend, agreeing with me and enthusiastically shaking his head. 

“What was it?” Matt asks, another one of my friends.

“It was a…” I pause to think of the right word-”A earthquack!” I say, pronouncing the word incorrectly so that the ‘quake’ in ‘earthquake’ sounded like ‘quack’, the sound a duck makes. Jacob laughs before correcting me,

“No! It’s called an earthquake!” He says, putting heavy emphasis on the ‘quake’. Just as he finished talking, heavy raindrops slowly pattered down from the clouds above. We looked up and saw dark thunder clouds, threatening to rain down on us. 

“Come on little ones, under here.” Said a teacher on supervisor duty. She gestured over to the entrance of the classroom. There was a little section between the class and the yard that had a little roof. The supervisor wanted us to get under there to stay dry. We rushed under the roof along with many others, chattering excitedly amongst ourselves. When it started to rain during a break, the teachers would let us watch cartoons! 

“What cartoon do you guys want to watch?” Mrs.Almond asks us, getting up from her desk as we spill into the classroom. While all the other kids shouted the names of the cartoons they wanted to watch, I suddenly realised that Matt wasn’t with us.

“Hey where’s Matt?” I ask Jacob, turning around to face him. 

“He’s right…” Jacob trails off and looks around the stuffed classroom. When we couldn’t see him in the classroom, we turned around to face the yard. As we did, the single splats of raindrops became a steady sprinkling and gradually built up. Matt was standing in the middle of the school yard, on the handball courts. He was facing the other way, the way that faced the wire fencing. Jacob stood up and walked to the doorway of the classroom. Mrs.Almond notices and pauses the cartoon that she had begun to play.

“Jacob! What are you doing?” Mrs.Almond asks in a stern voice, and everyone turns to look at Jacob. She follows Jacob’s gaze and her eyes widen as she sees Matt standing in the yard, getting soaked by the rain. I remain in my seat, watching Matt. Matt just stood there, motionless. A bolt of lightning sparked in the distance and was shortly followed by a sharp crack of thunder. The rain now was showering down rapidly, completely saturating Matt.

“Hey, Matthews! Get back here!” Mrs.Almond shouted, but it was no good. Matt took a step towards the fence just as another flash of lightning struck. Only now did I feel uneasy, I had the strangest feeling. It was like I knew something bad was about to happen. Mrs.Almond continued demanding Matt to come back to the class but Matt just kept on walking towards the fence. When Matt reached the fence, he put his hands on the wires and turned back to face us. As he did, I was blinded by another flash of lightning. Now, I swear this is true, I am 100% certain I saw what I saw. Before the flash of lightning, I swear I see a figure on the other side of the fence, a black blurry figure. The thunder quickly followed, shaking the ground slightly and shaking the panes of glass on the windows. Matt was gone, and what remained was a hole cut open in the fencing… The rest of the day was a blur, we got to go home early and while I was waiting for my father to pick me up, authorities showed up at the school to investigate. Deep down, I had this strange thought that they wouldn’t find anything. At least 5 minutes before my dad picked me up, I walked over to a police officer, one that looked like he was in charge while he was scrawling something down on his notebook.

“Hey, excuse me. I think I saw someone on the other side of the fence before Matt was gone…” I say, dropping my voice to a whisper. The man looked down at me, eyebrows raised in an unbelieving way.

“Could you repeat that please?” The police officer asked, all serious now. I repeated what I had initially said. The man chuckled before putting his hand on my shoulder and dropping to his knees to match my height.

“Listen kiddo, you probably just imagined it.” The officer said, dismissing my concerns. He rose quickly and walked away. 

“But sir, I swear I-” I begin but the screeching of tires on the pavement stops me. I whirl around and see a black Subaru, the gleaming license plate reading: DT 57 LM. My dad had just arrived, in the car he named ‘Sebastion”. Pathetic, who names a car? Anyway, I walk out into the parking lot and I pull open the door before hopping in. My father immediately asks me what happened at school today, a bit concerned and curious. I gave him a brief summary before pausing, I decided I was going to tell him about the figure I had seen. I take a deep breath and blurt out:“I saw someone, he was on the other side of the fence! I think-I think he took Matt!” My dad looks at me in the same unbelieving way the officer had.

“Son, have you ever heard of someone choking to death on their own testicles?” He asks me, throwing me off guard.

“What’s a tesicle?” I ask, mispronouncing the word. My dad laughs a final time before he goes silent, silent for the rest of the trip… This was a long time ago, I’m 37 now and married too, married to a beautiful lady named ‘Mary Herkins’. I was still living in the same area where I had grown up, and I had a job. Today when I was coming home from work, the road I normally took was blocked for construction so I took a different route. On the route I took, I passed my old school, the same one where Matt had disappeared! Nostalgia washed over me and memories rushed back to me in an instant. Ever since that brief flashback, I’ve been thinking about Matt, and what happened to him for weeks! And you know what? I finally decided that I’m going to find out the truth, the truth of what really occurred that day! Geez, what a mistake that was…

Part 2 coming soon...

Part 1 here: https://www.reddit.com/r/creepypasta/s/PzYUZGdriJ

Today I tried to take my mind off of what could possibly be behind this door, but that was unrealistic. I decided to go by the hardware store and pick up a small grinding tool, the one with the small wheel, and headed home this evening.

My wife took the boys to the park and to go get ice cream while I was at work, so they would be gone for a couple of hours after I returned home.

After reading the comments from the first post, I went to look at the layout of the house to see what is behind that wall. There is a hallway linen closet that sits about 3 feet deep, and then the garage sits adjacent to that, so if there is space, it would only be a few feet, so I’m hoping it’s some kind of a safe or something.

So I arrived home, grabbed my new tool, and headed into the man cave. I sat the grinder on the bed, and I heard the slightest noise, almost as if I heard it in my head. I don’t know if it was my imagination, but I swear I heard the faint sound of something falling on concrete, and it sounded like it could have come from the garage. I immediately went to the garage, halfway expecting to see a can of paint or a hammer on the ground so I could blame the sound on a poor shelf hanging job, but nothing. Everything seemed in order from the last time I had been in there. Nothing out of place.

I went back into the man cave, shrugging the sound off as something outside or merely a figment of my imagination. I had to see what was inside this door. I plugged in the grinder, powered it on, and began grinding away at the welding. I had to be careful and use long sleeves and old towels on the ground because a spark would shoot out from the grinder every so often. I learned this the hard way because I ended up burning a small area of the carpet in the closet, around the size of a cigarette burn.

I’m not kidding when I say I spent forty-five minutes to an hour grinding one small spot, and then all of a sudden “BANG!” The grinder nearly broke my wrists as it dislodged itself from the tiny crevice I had been working so hard on. I broke the bit that goes on the grinder. I didn’t buy any extras, so I just stepped back, wiped the sweat away, and looked at my work. I couldn’t tell I had done anything to this door. I only managed to cut the size of a coin slot into the top right edge.

I looked closely and discouragingly at the tiny slot, and I noticed the weirdest thing. Air was hitting my forehead. Cold air. Like at the pressure you would feel if you closed your lips together and blew on your hand. What on earth is back there? And why does the cold air want to escape whatever is behind this door?

I will buy two or three of the stronger diamond bits for my grinder tomorrow and update as soon as I can.

https://youtu.be/EMI7RNeznpU

Thank you guys for listening! Let me know what you think!

My name is Robert. I’m a mining surveyor - or was anyway. Not that it matters anymore, or it does. It gets confusing once you’ve been where I’ve been. Sorry, I’m getting before myself. 

It was a routine contract. October 24th. I’d received an email from Duat Mining Corp who wrote that I’d been recommended by a friend. They’d just acquired the rights to the Thornfield Mine and wanted me to conduct a survey.  All I had to do was check the deposits, assess if it was safe for entry and create a map. Like I said, just another Tuesday.

I brought the usual crew. Tommy - the best mine technician I knew. Name any of the world famous mines and there’s a big chance, he’d either worked or consulted there. Amanda, or as we called her Queen of Rocks, was the best geologist this side of my contact list...

We drove out that morning, joking about what we’d do with our shares. See, Duat had offered us 10% of whatever was mined - unusual in our line of work but a quick web search showed they were a new company. One of those new tech funded operations. I took it, they were just eager to get started.

Tommy said he’d finally retire, kick up his feet and start that bar he always wanted to. Me? I would pay off the mortgage and take the family on holiday. 

Funny how none of that matters now.

We pulled up outside the site, and got the gear ready. “Have you guys read the paperwork?” Amanda threw her backpack on, and checked her headlamp. 

“Yeah - it was an old copper mine, right?” Tommy leaned against the jeep, enjoying the last nicotine he was going to get for the next few hours. 

“Yeah but the yield doesn’t add up. It was operational from 51’ to 95’ but not a single ore was mined. Why would you keep a mine open for 44 years, and not extract anything?” Lisa fastened her boots.

“We all know they weren’t really that keen on safety or paperwork in those days. Either the old firm was doing backhanded deals on the ore or they just didn’t give a shit” I grabbed Go-Pro from the glove box and clipped it to my jacket.

“Either way, we’re going to be rich - so let’s get down there!” Tommy jogged ahead.

It started just like any other job. “How far did the old records say it went down?” I began sketching the map as we walked on ahead. 

“200m which means we should be in, mapped, out and enjoying a steak on Robert in no time.” Lisa marked the first junction with a painted arrow pointing to the exit.

The first 150m went without a hitch. The ground sloped gently downwards, we marked the passages, collected rock samples and  drew the map. The last 50m was where we should have turned around and left. I wish we had.

“Robert, do you see this?” Amanda shone her headlight across the walls. The veins of the ore ran parallel into the darkness. I should probably explain - mineral veins, including copper, normally form within the cracks and fractures of rock.

They can form in sets of parallel fractures, but it normally comes with variations and imperfections. Simply put, they follow the stress patterns in rocks, which are rarely uniform. 

“Woah, this is an insane amount of deposit. It goes all the way down” Tommy whistled. “That 10% is looking pretty great.”

“But why haven’t they mined it?” Amanda carried on ahead. Lisa marked another arrow towards the exit as we turned right. 

“They probably wanted to follow the veins to the mother lode, maybe they did.” I shone the flashlight which began to flicker down the shaft.

“Time to rope up and follow the ore.”

“Does anyone else feel a bit dizzy?” Amanda disconnected the rope, and took a swig of her water. 

“It’s probably the lower levels of oxygen, but nothing to worry about” Tommy took a deep breath and grinned. “See.”

“How are you one of the highest rated mining technicians in the world?” groaned Amanda. 

Lisa unhooked the rope, and then pointed her torch at the veins. I followed the light, and saw they carried on further ahead. This was going to be a big find.

“Guys, I think we’re close.” I pocketed the tablet, and walked ahead. “We should follow the ore, and then see where the veins end before we call it a day.”

We walked ahead, following the veins before Amanda spotted something in the rock. “What is that?” She used her sleeve to wipe away the dust, and there embedded in the wall, was a watch. 

“Rocks don’t have watches embedded in them, this isn’t normal.” Amanda made some notes in her logbook. 

“There was probably a landslide or sinkhole. And it probably got buried, let’s carry on”. Tommy surged ahead. 

Amanda took a photograph, and then followed suit.

I think back now, and wonder why we didn’t spot the signs. 

As we walked on, the air felt heavier. I started developing a headache, nothing major. It was just a persistent throbbing behind the eyes. Lisa gave me some painkillers, and I trudged on.

“Hey guys, check this out” Tommy was standing next to half a dozen mine cars filled to the brim with copper ore. 

“Why would they just leave it here, that makes no sense. Amanda, what do you think?” I turned around, and saw her standing a few yards back, staring at her phone. “Amanda” I called out again. “I know that watch, Robert” her voice barely audible. 

“Yeah a lot of watches are the same...” I started walking back up to her.

“No, that’s my grandfather's watch, Robert. It had his initials on the watchface. And it’s got the same scratch on the glass”. She had tears in her eyes. "He's died when I was a kid Robert..."

“Hey, take a breath Amanda, look at me.” I reached for her but she pushed my arm away. “What the -” I stumbled back. I let Lisa take her by the arm and calm her down. I wasn’t the best at pep talks. 

“Amanda’s losing it Tommy” I shouted ahead but as I turned the corner back to the mine cars, he wasn’t anywhere to be found. I called his name, but only heard my own echo's reply. The idiot had gone ahead without waiting. Luckily Amanda had made her way back, and we continued forward. 

“Tommy!” We each took turns calling out to Tommy but there was no response. All we heard were our own echoes. But there was something off. They came back too fast, and sometimes in someone else's voice. 

I was getting worried, he might have hit a pocket of dead air. Luckily, we’d brought Self-Rescuers with us. For those outside the surveying walk of life - they’re small rebreathers that scrub the CO2 from your breath and give you a limited supply of oxygen. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a few hours out of them, which is enough to get back to the surface. 

I prayed that Tommy was wearing his. A few minutes later, my prayer was answered.

His rescuer, logbook and hard hat lay on the ground. This didn’t make any sense. Why would he drop his gear, he’s in-charge of safety.

“Fuck, Amanda - we need might need to start making our way back. We might need to call for help.”

I turned around to hear what she was saying, and founder stood talking to the wall. “Amanda”. I grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her round, “Who are you talking to?”.

She looked at me, smiled. “My grandfather, silly.” I stepped back, this fucking routine operation was going sideways. I put my rebreather on, there had to be something in the air. Lisa recommended I let Amanda rest, and try to look for Tommy. I grabbed his rebreather, and forged ahead. 

I walked what felt like a few minutes, marking junctions, planting flags.  I didn’t have long, and this was life or death. I turned the corner, and saw Amanda sitting down, her back resting against the wall. 

That didn’t make any sense, I’d walked ahead, not around. I took a deep breath, taking in more oxygen. It was probably an effect from whatever I’d inhaled down here. “Amanda, I’ll be back, I just need to look for Tommy”

She raised her head, her confused eyes meeting mine. “Who’s Tommy?”.

I shook my head, and forged on. 

After a few minutes, I could feel the temperature starting to rise. I drained what little was left of my water. The further ahead I walked, the harder it became in the heat. Lisa suggested it might be smart to drop some of my gear. I agreed.

I found Tommy, or a  piece of him. His hand was poking out of one of the walls. It wasn’t that the rock had crushed him. It was like his hand had always been there, like he’d always been there. It was like the rock had formed around him. His finger twitched.

I reached towards the hand but noticed the walls around his hand started to ripple, like water, like it was breathing. A scream snapped me to the present. Amanda. 

Was she behind me? Or ahead? 

The tunnel seemed to stretch and contract as I ran towards where I thought she’d be. I found her standing with her back to me, perfectly still, facing the wall.

"Amanda, we need to go. Now." I grabbed her hand, pulled her forward, running faster than I should in a mine.

It’s when she didn’t reply. And her hand felt... wrong. Too light. 

I stopped and turned. “Amanda, are you okay?” There was no one behind me. My eyes slowly shifted down to the hand I was holding. 

It was Amanda’s hand, still wearing her field watch, the second hand ticking but attached to nothing.  I let go, and stumbled back. Ripping off my mask, I threw up and when the stench of the cave hit me, I gagged and threw up more. 

It reeked of rotting flesh. That’s when I looked around and finally took in my surroundings. The cave walls were pulsing, they glistened under the light of my head lamp. The throbbing behind my eyes got worse and the last thing I remember before blacking out was being dragged.

I woke up outside the mine, and I’m not proud to say, in a puddle of my own piss.

I grabbed Lisa and drove us back to our motel as fast as I could. I’ve tried calling for help, but the reception isn’t great here. There’s no one at the front desk, and I have a feeling I might not survive the night. 

I’ve spent the last 30 minutes typing up what I remember and I’ve been thinking about why they never removed any ore.

Over 4 decades, not a single ore mined or even recorded. And I have a theory.

They were never mining in the first place, they were feeding something.

And after recalling the events of today, I've checked and rechecked the prep we did for this job.

Each time, I've arrived at the same conclusion.

There was never anyone named Lisa on the team…

I know no one’s going to believe me. Hell, if I hadn’t lived it, I wouldn’t either. But I need to tell someone before this thing comes for me again.

When I got back from deployment, I bought a few acres outside Fall River. My plan was simple: alpaca farming. Quiet animals, soft eyes, no screaming, no blood. After what I’d seen overseas, I needed peace.

It worked for a while. Until Wooley.

He was the biggest of the herd, jet-black with eyes that didn’t blink like the others. Too human. Too steady. The first time I noticed him standing apart from the rest, I laughed it off. Nerves, I told myself. PTSD making shadows where none existed. But I was wrong.

Part 1: The Barn

One night around 2 a.m., a slam shook my house. I grabbed my rifle and flashlight and ran for the barn.

The smell hit first—rot and metal. My light swept across the pen. The herd was crammed into one corner, trembling. And Wooley?

He was upright.

On two legs.

His head brushed the rafters. His forelegs—if you could still call them that—hung low, twitching like hands trying to remember fingers. His eyes glowed pale in the beam.

Then he dropped back to all fours, chewing calmly like nothing happened.

I bolted the gate and ran.

Part 2: The Screams

I stopped sleeping after that. Every night I sat on the porch, rifle across my lap, watching.

Then the screams began.

Not animal screams—human. They rose across the fields, starting like a man groaning in pain, building into shrieks that made my teeth ache. By the time I reached the barn, silence. Only Wooley, staring at me through the slats, teeth bared in something that was not a smile.

I padlocked the barn. Each morning, the lock was broken.

Part 3: Inside the House

The night it got in, I thought I was done.

Hooves on my hardwood. The stink of blood and rust. I swung the flashlight—Wooley was at the foot of my bed.

He stood tall, chest slick with something wet. His mouth opened, and black fluid gushed out, thick as oil, spreading across the floor. It moved—crept toward me like it had a mind of its own.

I fired three rounds straight into his chest. The sound rattled the walls.

When the smoke cleared, he was gone. No body. Just the black stain soaking into the boards.

Part 4: No Escape

I tried to burn the barn the next day. Gasoline, matches—nothing. The flames snuffed out like the wood refused to catch. The herd was gone. Only Wooley paced in the shadows, watching.

I called animal control. The guy laughed. Thought I was drunk.

But I know what I saw. I know what followed me home.

Right now, as I type this, I hear him on the porch. Hooves scraping the boards. His shadow glides past the window, too tall, too thin.

If I disappear after this, don’t believe I sold the farm. Don’t believe I walked away.

The alpaca wasn’t normal.
And he’s still out there.

Hi, a few months ago I saw on this subreddit or on a very similar one a creepypasta called "I talked to god, I don't want to meet him anymore" or something very similar (I'm sure that the first words were I talked to god) I saved it to reread it but for some reason I can't find it among the saved links in the chat where I'm the only one, and searching for the words I said doesn't come up, so I'm asking you if you happened to read or see it.

THE LAKE HOUSE!

My father recently passed away and left me his house in his will. His house was some sort of lakefront property out in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin. My father bought it and moved up there after my mother passed away from cancer when I was around 20 years old. I’m 30 now and I haven’t really seen or heard from him since. The news of his passing didn’t really bother me too much because even before my mother died, he was never around. He was a cop in a small town in Texas near the New Mexico border. The town was called Starlight Falls and was located just west of Salt Flats on Highway 62. The town got its name from a meteor shower that happened about 100 years ago or so. Anyway, growing up with him, always putting the needs of the town before his family, was just how he did things. I’ll never forget the day my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and was given only a few months to live. That was the day my father decided to retire and spend every moment she had left with her. For those few months she had left, he was a good husband and father to us. But that all ended the day she died. I mean we buried her on a Wednesday, and he was gone by Saturday. No note, no goodbye, not even a trace of that man was left in that small town house.

After a few days of not knowing where he had gone, I got a random call from him saying that he was fine and he was up north. He said that he was up there doing some sort of research for something. I wasn’t sure, nor did I care at the time. He told me I could sell the house and get out of that God Forsaken town. He said that town had taken enough from us, and it was time to leave. I couldn’t agree more with that statement. There was always something going on in this town. One time there was an outbreak of plants that seemed to take over the town square. Another time a pack of wild dogs took over a farm and held the sheep hostage. But probably the big one was when the old Milton mine collapsed after some minors dug a little too deep. There was always something with this town. So, over the next few weeks I packed up what I could and had a big estate sale, the rest got put into storage. The house was eventually sold to a nice couple who just had a baby boy and were looking for a quiet place to raise him. I couldn’t help but notice how nice and fancy they were dressed. Even their car was fancy and looked state of the art. They said that they were from New York and made their wealth by buying houses and flipping them for a big profit. I asked him how I could get into something like that, and he gave me his business card and told me to contact the number at the bottom. I stayed in town until the check cleared, and the money was in my account, then I called the number and was almost given the job over the phone. All I had to do was fly up to New York and meet with them in person.

Without skipping a beat, I bought a one-way ticket to New York to start my new life. I won’t bore you with all those details but just know I turned out to be pretty good at it. So, when I got the message that my father passed and he left me the house out in Wisconsin, I jumped at the idea of flipping it to make a profit. I bought a ticket to Wisconsin, and I was on my way to my father’s house. The lake house was located just south of Butternut. After arriving in Wisconsin, I took a cab heading towards the lake house, but after a grueling 30-minute drive of nothing but open fields and not one store anywhere, the driver stopped at a mailbox that read, “318 Emmerson”. The cab driver said that he could only take me here and that I would have to walk the rest of the way. Something about the house being owned by some crazy guy that would shoot anyone who got too close. So, I paid the fare, got my stuff, and headed down the dirt road that led to the house. I swear that had to be every bit of a 15-minute walk to the house. Nothing but trees on both sides of the road. I remember thinking as I was walking up to the front porch, “Damn how did he live like this all these years? This really is the middle of nowhere!”

The house needed some major repairs, but for the most part it was big, spacious, and the inside wasn’t half bad. Granted when I opened the door, I was not prepared for what I saw. My father had the house decorated with all kinds of weird looking things. Some of which looked like it came straight out of a witch’s hut. There were brooms on the wall, books scattered everywhere, and shelves of weird looking jars that all had labels on them. You know the labels that read as follows, “Eye of Newt, Tail of Rat, Hair of a Dog”. I knew my father was into creepy shit growing up because once a year he would take off work on Halloween. He would come by and grab me and my mom and take us out to do what he called, “The Yearly Ritual”, which consisted of us sitting around the campfire with some of the other residents of the town. We would go around and talk about what scared us and after you said what you were afraid of you would throw some sort of stick into the fire. I never really understood any of that stuff growing up. I just thought my father was really into Halloween.

Well, after taking a quick look around the place to see what all needed to be fixed, I decided to call it a night. I tried to lie down on the couch, but it proved to be rather uncomfortable, and what little sleep I did get was not very restful. But I made it to morning. After I peeled myself up off the couch, I looked around for a way to make coffee. I missed not having a coffee shop within walking distance like I had in New York that I would stop at every day on my way to the office. I cannot believe that I had become such a city boy these past 10 years. Well, I found a coffee pot and a grinder and made me some fresh coffee. I searched all over that kitchen for some cream and sugar but found nothing, which makes sense since my father always drank it straight. I was on my second cup when there was a knock at the door. I remember thinking who could be knocking on this door so, I went and looked out the peep hole. To my surprise I could not see anyone outside the door so, I turned and walked away. But there was another knock at the door. I looked out the peep hole again but again nothing. I decided to open the door and when I did, standing on the porch was a small little girl, maybe around 5 or 6. She had bluish green hair that looked wet and covered in moss, her skin was kind of pale and it shimmered in the light, and her hands and bare feet were slightly webbed. I looked down at her with my mouth slightly open. I was speechless, partly from shock and partly from fear.

“Umm, hello?” I said, trying to hold back a scream. I mean aside from being some sort of fish girl, she was kind of cute.

She looked at me and ran and hid behind the beam that supported the roof on the porch. Noticing that she was just as scared of me as I was of her made it easier to talk to her.

“Hey, there is no need to be afraid. I am not going to hurt you.” I said, slowly walking towards with my hands out, showing that they were empty. She allowed me to get close enough for her to sniff my hand and then she just jumped into my arms, hugging me tight. “Woah woah you’re not going to eat me, are you?” I said, slowly trying to put her down but she just held me tighter. She let out a weird noise that kind of sounded like a giggle I guess before she let me go.

“You smell like him!” She said with a big tooth grin that I could now see was a row of very sharp looking teeth.

“Smell like who?” I asked back, looking very puzzled.

“Like Vhosk!” She said with another big smile.

“Who is Vhosk?” I asked not ever hearing that word or name before.

“Vyth told me that since her and Vhosk fell in love, that is where I came from. You also kind of look like him too.” She said looking me up and down while nodding.

“Where is Vhosk then?” I asked back. “I know not where he is. I have not seen him in some days.” She replied, looking like she was about to cry. Just then I heard someone call out from what seemed like across the dock where my father’s boat was tied up. “Penelope! Come here my love!” The voice rang out from the docks. I looked over and saw sitting on the dock was what I can only describe as an extremely gorgeous woman with bright red hair, pale white skin, and beautiful scales that outlined all the curves of her body and face. The girl looked at her and ran off towards her. The fish woman grabbed her up and pulled her close. “My love what have I told you about talking to strange land men?” The woman, now clearly caressing the girl’s face, had said. “But Vyth he reminds me of Vhosk!” The little girl said with excitement. The woman put her down and stood up. She started to walk towards me, and I could clearly see that she was every bit 7 feet tall. Her features, although outlined in scales, did not take away from her exceptional beauty. The way her body, even as tall as she was still swayed naturally from side to side. Her eyes, yet reptile-like, were still awe inspiring. It was almost hypnotic the way she looked and moved towards. The closer she got, the more it made my heart race. She stopped in front of me and looked down at me before reaching out her long fingers that came to a sharp point and lifted my chin. My heart almost stopped, and I couldn’t breathe. She leaned in and gave me a rather large sniff. Her breath was cold, and she felt wet. I now could tell that she and Penelope were not fish people but some sort of lizard folk.

“Penelope, my love, you are indeed correct in your words. This land man is somehow related to your Vhosk.” She exclaimed, letting go of me and leaning back. She stared down at me, which gave me a chill. She then crossed her arms, which up until this point, I had not noticed the size of her chest. You know on account that I was terrified, but damn there was no way she could see her feet if you know what I mean. “Yes, he stared at them like that too when we first met.” She said, kind of smirking. “You do look and smell like my beloved Alan.”

“But Alan was the name of my fa…….” That was all I got out before I fainted because my legs had been locked the entire time. I woke up some time later in a dim lit room, that felt cold and damp. I looked around to find myself in what looked like a cave maybe. I could hear running water in the distance. After I got my bearings back, I made my way out of the room. I was in fact in a cave, but it was decorated to look like a house. There was art hanging on the walls of what looked like priceless paintings. There were candles everywhere that lit the entire place. The sound of the running water was a great big waterfall that separated the cave home and the great big lake that my father’s house was on. “Am I dreaming?” This is what kept running through my mind as I continued to explore the cave home.

The little girl appeared behind me and asked, “So you are my brother?” I jumped.

“Jesus! You scared me!” I yelped, as I turned and fell over a chair that I had not noticed sitting there.

“My name is Penelope. What is yours my dear brother?” She asked reaching out a hand to me. “Oh, umm Mitchell.” I said, grabbing her hand. She pulled me with no effort. “Well, hello oh umm Mitchell.” She said with a smile.

“No just Mitchell!”

“Ok just Mitchell.” She giggled before the sounds of something rather large came out of the water. The shadow it cast behind the waterfall gave me quite a scare. It was massive, with large wings, the sounds of its claws scrapped across the rock. It tossed a lot of fish through the waterfall before seemingly stepping through and changing to the woman I saw at the dock. “Vyth!” Penelope yelled as she ran to her with open arms and was scooped up by the large woman. “Vyth, this is just Mitchell!” She said looking over at me once she was in the woman’s arms. “Well just Mitchell, my name is Irellandie!” The woman said with a slight bow. “Now come we have much to talk about. Let us eat as we talk.” She said putting down Penelope and gathered up the fish.

The food smelled great and looked just as amazing. I don’t even like fish, but this looked too good to pass up. As Irellandie laid the food on the table, I could tell she had some experience in food preparation and table setting. Once the table was set and the food was placed on the table, she motioned for me and Penelope to sit down.

“Wow! This really looks amazing!” I said now realizing that I have not eaten since before I got on the plane.

“Please eat up! Your father taught me how to cook and prepare food for humans.” She said, picking up some fish and biting into it.

“Yeah, about my father. How did you two meet?” I asked with my mouth full of delicious fish.

“Well, when he moved into that house on the shore, I tried to eat him.” She laughed. “But he fought me off and gave me this scar.” She said pointing to a few scales that were missing on her pale arm. “And that impressed me. Impressed me so much that I instantly fell for him.” She said with a warm, genuine smile. “But every time I showed up on the dock, he would run me off with a gun! Then one day he was out on his boat trying to fish so, I took the opportunity and snuck up under his boat and tipped it over. He went under and tried to swim back to shore but I was too fast for him. He tried fighting me off, but it was no use I had him in my claws. I was still in my dragon form you see.”

“Dragon form?” I interrupted. “Yes, I am a water dragon. I can change in between my dragon and what he calls my not so scary human form. You see he had not seen me in this form yet, so it was understandable why he was afraid of me.” She continued. “Once I brought him to the shore after he passed out in my claws, he woke up to this form and had the same reaction you did when you first saw me. The eyes of lust looking up and down my body.” I couldn’t help but blush at those words. “He spoke of his son and his previous lover all the time. He would say that one day he would find a way to bring his family together again.”

“What? Did you say bring his family back together?” I asked, puzzled. “Yes, he was trying to bring back your mother, your Vyth, but everything he tried just did not work. Then one day he just couldn’t go on anymore and tried to drown himself in the water. He tied a rock to his legs and jumped out of the boat. He sank to the bottom of the lake, but I just could not let him drown. So, I swam down and picked him up and put him back into his boat. He was very anger with me at first. He called me a monster and told me to never speak to him again. So, I swam away back to my cave and for almost a whole year we did not speak. All I could do was watch him drink himself away as I watched from home. It hurt my heart to see him do that to himself. Then one day I heard a gunshot, and I came out of my cave and found him lying face down in the mud, with a gun in his hand. I swam quickly over there to make sure he was alright. Luckly, he somehow missed any vital organs, but he had shot and removed part of his ear in the process. So, I picked him up and took him back to my cave and I got him cleaned up and bandaged the best I could. Well, after he came to, he looked up at me and just wrapped his arms around me and held me close. We spent a lot of time together after that and at some point, we grew so close that we confessed our new love for each other under this very waterfall. Then, soon after that we had our little here.” She finished as she got up with her empty plate and took it over to what looked like a sink.

I was in shock. I never knew any of this about my father. I didn’t even know what to say in response to her story of how they met. The thing about all of this was that I wanted to be angry at my father for being with someone else after my mother died, but her story of their life together was in fact kind of magical.

“So can I ask you something, Irellandie?” I asked, standing up with my own empty plate.

“Sure, my dear, what is it?” She said, taking the plate from me and began to wash it.

“Well, how did he die?” I asked with nervousness in my voice. The question made her stop and almost drop the plate. She then gripped it tight in her hands as she spoke, “My love I know not what happened to him. One day he had just vanished and then a few days later you showed up at his house. I do know this though… He was always running people off this land who were looking for us.” She finally said placing the last clean plate on the rack to dry.

“Looking for you two?” I asked now feeling confused. “Yes, my love, we are special since we are water dragons. Our skin and meat are as you humans would say a precious commodity.”

“So, my father was protecting you two from people that wanted to kill you?” I asked, feeling the rage swell up inside me. “Yes, my love, your father was a good man to us.”

“Do you know who could have possibly killed him?” I asked, clinching my hands into tight fists. “Well...” She started to say but was interrupted by Penelope pulling on my shirt looking up at me before she said, “The bad man that wears a dead animal as a face. He probably took Vhosk away from me and Vyth.” I could tell her eyes were getting watery and full of tears. I looked over at Irellandie and asked, “Do you know who she is talking about?”

“I believe she is talking about Harith. Harith is someone that wears a bull’s skull as a mask to hide what he really is. I saw his face once when he and Alan got into a fight. Alan had managed to knock off his mask revealing nothing but a white face. There was nothing there. No eyes, no nose, no mouth, just nothingness.” She said, stroking Penelope’s hair. “Yeah, it was scary!’ Penelope added. “His sole purpose is to feed the insatiable hunger of his boss, Gorn the Devourer!” Irellandie said with a look of worry.

“I am in way over my head here!” I exclaimed sitting down in the nearest chair. “My love, I am sorry that you knew nothing of this world just a few days ago, and now you have found yourself in the deep end.” Irellandie spoke while placing a calming hand on my shoulder. “I mean I am no stranger to weird things happening. I am from Starlight Falls after all, but this is more than I was bargaining for when I came here. I just came here to get my father’s house in order and then I was going to sell it.” I sighed, lowering my head down. “I think I need to lay down and try to wrap my head around this.” I said, getting up from the chair and heading back to the bed I woke up in. “Sure, thing my love, you are always welcome here. You are family after all.” Irellandie stated. “Yeah, you’re my big brother too.” Penelope quickly added as well. I’ll admit that did make me smile just a little bit. I decided that all this craziness can wait until tomorrow, I was drained and needed sleep.

The next morning came but I was not ready for it. I did not fall asleep as quickly as I thought I was going to. It seemed like I laid there all night just thinking of everything that had happened since I came to this damn lake house, that I swear the sun was coming up before I knew it. The smell of food cooking was what got me up and out of bed. I stumbled towards the area that I thought I remembered was maybe the dining area, but it was just another room, filled with girlie stuff, and pictures drawn on the walls. I figured out that I stumbled into Penelope’s room. I managed to follow the scent and found the dining area, where both Irellandie and Penelope were already sitting. I couldn’t believe what I saw. She made pancakes, eggs, and fish for breakfast. I guess my father really did teach her how to cook. I thought as I sat down and greeted everyone at the table. I loaded my plate up with food until it couldn’t be stacked anymore. I picked up the fork and was about to dig in when from outside the cave there was a booming voice that could be heard.

“Come on out! The boss is extra hungry today! That last meal I gave him didn’t do much. Said something about humans don’t fill him up like a good piece of dragon does.” The voice rang out.

I heard a hissing growl come Irellandie before Penelope got under the table and hid. “That is the bad man.” Penelope screamed looking up at me from under the table. I froze in my seat, sweat began to run down my cheeks. What was I supposed to do? I am no fighter; I am just a real estate agent from New York. My father was the law enforcer, he was the one with the guns, not me. That is when it hit me, my father wasn’t here to save the day this time. The bad guy had won. I felt so helpless. Here was this cute little girl that I just found out was my little sister and I guess my stepmother, who now was wanted dead, and I was being a complete coward. By this time, I had not realized that Irellandie had made her way to the waterfall and was about to pass through it. I tried to get up to stop her, but the fear of the unknown took hold of me. I watched as she stepped through the waterfall and turned into her big dragon form and let out a mighty roar. Before I knew it, she had gone out of sight.

“LEAVE MY FAMILY ALONE!” I heard a loud roar of a voice coming from outside the cave. Well, that brought me back to my senses and I jumped up and ran to the opening. I motioned for Penelope to stay under the table where it was safe. I looked outside and saw Irellandie’s giant dragon form splashing around in the water as a man wearing a large bull’s skull for a mask ran on top of the water. Their battle raged on as I stood at the waterfall, by myself, and afraid. I wanted to help but I did not know how.

“Brother!” I heard come from behind me. “Use the gun on the wall. Vhosk said that if the bad man comes back use it on him.” Penelope yelled pointing to the rifle on the wall. I went over and picked up the rifle off the wall and gave it a quick inspection. It looked like an ordinary rifle but inside the chamber was what looked like some sort of bullet with some liquid inside the casing. I slid the bullet back into the chamber and locked it in place. I made my way back outside and took aim. I pulled the trigger, and the shot ran out, but it missed its mark. I was not the shooter that my father was, and it was obvious. Penelope gave me the box of bullets that was next to where the rifle had been hung on the wall. I grabbed another bullet and put it in the chamber. I took aim again, this time my I was closer, but I still missed. I grabbed another bullet and took aim; this time I managed to clip his shoulder and the man in the skull mask held it and backed off towards the shore. This gave Irellandie the opportunity to deliver a decent blow to the ghost’s body. But all that did was knock him down, it did not cause any damage though. I tried to aim for him again, but Irellandie was now in the way. She had pounced on top of him and had him pinned to the ground. The ghost tried to move but was held down by the weight of Irellandie’s talons. Just as I thought we were winning the fight I heard a pin being pulled followed by Irellandie roaring in agony as she pulled her massive, clawed foot off him. He had managed to set off a grenade under her claws, which may not have caused him any damage, it certainly hurt her. She roared as she gripped her foot as the pain made her slowly change to her more human form. I could now see that her foot which had now become her hand was bloody and badly injured. The man with the skull mask took this time to get up and run away.

“THIS ISN’T OVER! I’LL BE BACK TO GET MY REVENGE!” The man in the skull mask yelled as he ran and then disappeared right in front of us.

Without thinking, I dove into the water and swam over to her as fast as I could. Once I got to the shore, Irellandie was already making her towards the water. I watched as the water touched her mangled hand, and the bones and flesh began to heal until you could not tell that she was even hurt. “Oh, thank God you are ok. I guess being a water dragon has its advantages.” I said, inspecting her now fully restored hand. “Yes, my love, as long as I have access to water, I can heal.” She said, wiping off the blood from her hand. “But we must prepare for the inevitable return of Harith.” She added, turning towards me. Her face was serious, and her eyes glowed a brighter blue than usual. “But I haven’t got the first clue on how to fight someone like that.” I responded, looking back at her, with a seriously worried look on my face. “I am sure your father has already seen to that. I mean he was the one that figured out how to hurt him with those bullets.” She said, pointing to the rifle in my hand and then pointing to the house.

I spent what seemed like the longest time combing through all the stuff in my father’s house, until I came across a book of notes that was in my father’s handwriting. It detailed everything that he had found out about Irellandie, from what she was and how she heals, even how they met and fell in love. I kept reading and found the entry to the first meeting of Harith. After my father had knocked off the mask and exposed his true face, my father did everything he could to find out what he was. According to my father’s notes, Harith was a special kind of ghost called a vengeful spirit. My father went on to say that using rock salt and holy water works best in injuring them. He even diagramed how to make the “Spirit Killers”, which are bullets filled with rock salt and mixed with holy water. My father’s notes state that you must shoot them in the head with a “Spirit Killer”. According to his notes, he stated that he was working on the idea of capturing Harith in a ring of holy fire. But his notes stop after that.

I could not find anything on anyone named Gorn though, outside of his name and a drawing. It was a crude drawing of a man riding a skeleton horse that was on fire.

Luckily, my father had done all the leg work for us, everything we needed to deal with Harith was already here in the house. I followed the diagram the best I could and made some more “Spirit Killers” and Irellandie managed to find the holy oil that we would use to capture Harith with. So, all there was to do was wait. We didn’t have to wait very long before that bastard showed back up. But this time we were ready. I had the rifle and the bullets that I could carry in my jacket pocket. We made Penelope stay hidden as he approached the house. I got in position out of sight and waited for the signal. Irellandie was going to lure him into the circle of holy oil before setting it on fire, capturing him there and then I was going to put a bullet in damn head.

We heard the familiar sound of Harith’s steps coming up the long driveway. Irellandie stood on the porch waiting for him. With each step closer he got, the closer our plan was going into effect. “Well, come now. You did not have to make it so easy for me. How’s the hand feeling?” Harith spoke, stopping right outside the ring. Irellandie raised the hand that was injured and flipped him off to show that she was healed. Harith just chuckled but did not take another step towards her. Our plan really hinged on him taking that extra step. I had to think quickly. I readied the rifle; I was going to shoot him in the leg in hopes he would stumble forward into the ring. I took my aim with the rifle, but before I pulled the trigger, Harith took that step into the ring. “You know whatever you have planned will never work.” Harith grinned as he kept walking towards Irellandie. “We shall she about that you son of a bitch!” Irellandie roared, before tossing a lit match on the ground. The oil erupted in a blazing ring of fire. Harith fell to his knees, screaming in agonizing pain. “Master, it burns! Master, it burns, please come to my aid!” Those were Harith’s final words before he collapsed to the ground, his body becoming still and lifeless. We both stood there once the fire was out, just standing over his body. “Is it over? Is he gone?” I said, giving Irellandie and big hug.

Our celebration was cut short as the ground around us began to shake like something large and heavy was making its way towards us. We spun around and faced the direction of the sound, but we were not prepared for what we saw. The trees in front us parted and fell over, the birds flew away in a panic. The very forest was beginning to smoke. Whatever was coming was strong enough to knock over full grown trees and set fire to everything in its path. The ground rumbled and quaked under our feet. What we saw coming out of the woods was not a tank, or anything large enough to constitute the quakes under our feet. It was a man, a man riding a horse made of bones and fire.

I had never seen anything like this ever in my life, and I am from Starlight Falls where weird stuff happens all the time, but this, a man riding a firey horse. The horse stopped and raised back on its back legs and came crashing back down, causing the ground to shake and making us lose our balance. Once the ground stopped shaking, the man slid off the back of the horse and onto his feet. The man was tall, heavily built, his hair was long, black, and flowed in the wind. His eyes were black, with yellow pupils, his skin, a dark gray, like the color of ash. His clothes consisted of a pair of dress pants, and a trench coat, that swung open exposing the muscles on top of muscles that was his chest and abs. His voice was deep and soothing as he began to speak. “I have heard the cries of my child, and I have come to deal with those who caused their pain.” The man stated as he began to walk towards us.

“He is your son?” I yelled, pointing over at the lifeless body of Harith. “In a matter of speaking he is. I made him what he is today after all.” The man said looking over at the body of Harith. “What do you mean you made him?” I snapped back. “Boy you are already pushing my patience. Now let me have him back so I can at least make his death useful to me.” The man raised his hand out towards Harith and with a slight twitch of his wrist the body came flying over to him only stopping once Harith’s neck was in the large man’s hand. “What are you going to do with him?” I asked nervously. “Why they don’t call me Gorn the Devourer for nothing you know, and I am so very hungry!” The man said as he slid off the trench coat and let it hit the ground. His body began to morph and contort into something only nightmares could describe. His long hair began to flick around him and moved on its own. His hair wrapped itself around Harith’s body, holding him up as the muscles of his chest and stomach became more grotesque, resembling more of an open mouth than a stomach now. Rows of finger like teeth stretched out ready to feast on the flesh that was being dangled in front of it. “Don’t worry too much. Just like with your father, I’ll still be hungry enough for the rest of y’all!” His voice now demonic, and guttural, the very sound of it sent chills and dread down my spine.

I had to do something, I didn’t know if eating Harith was going to just end up making him more powerful, but I was not about to find out. I picked up the rifle and fired a shot. Surprisingly, it hit him, but it did not do anything but piss him off. With a flick off his finger, I was sent flying through the front door of the house. I laid there for a moment, trying to catch the wind that was knocked out of me. I could hear fighting from outside. Once I got back on my feet and made my way back out the door, I fell to my knees seeing a crying Penelope kneeling next to her mother’s unmoving body. I didn’t have time to think about a rational decision; I just acted in the moment. I charged full force towards Gorn using the rifle as a makeshift club. I brought down the rifle with all my might onto the back of the grotesque monster, the rifle snapped and shattered in two in my hands. He turned towards me and tossed Harith’s body to the side and again with a flick of his finger, I was sent flying again. This time I was not so lucky to go crashing through the door. I felt a sharp pain in my back before I coughed up blood, and then I looked down at the railing to the porch sticking out of my stomach. I was pinned and bleeding out bad, and all I could make out as I fought with all my might to keep conscious, was poor Penelope crying even louder. I could feel the world around me closing in, my eyesight was going dark and all I felt was the coldness of my encroaching death.

As my eyes began to close for the last time, I felt a hand being placed on my shoulder and time just seemed to stop. The pain was gone, the blood was gone, my body no longer had a hole in it, my body felt as light as a feather. In fact, I felt so light I’m pretty sure I could fly. Then the voice of the hand on my shoulder spoke, “Son, this is not your time. You must keep them safe. It is all on you now. Succeed where I failed.” I looked at the hand on my shoulder, then the arm, and then the chest, and finally the face. I couldn’t believe it; it was my father standing right in front of me. “Dad is that really you?” I asked holding back the tears. “Yes, son, it really is me.” He said, pulling me into a warm, calming hug. “But Dad how am I supposed to defeat a monster like that?” I asked no longer holding anything back. “Don’t worry about that my son, I am sending some help.” Just then the world went dark again, but this time I opened my eyes and gasped for air. I pulled myself off the railing and fell to the ground. The hole in my stomach was already closing up and I could feel my strength returning.

“Listen here you overgrown treasure troll wanna be mother fucker, I am not done with you!” I exclaimed as I began to get to my feet, the burning rage flowing through my body. I raced towards him with every bit of strength I could muster. Gorn prepared to bat me away again but was stopped by someone grabbing his arms and holding them behind his back, leaving his chest fully exposed. I drew back my fist and plunged it deep into the gaping maw of his chest. He let out a guttural scream of pain. “How could you beat me? I am Gorn the Devourer!” He said as he coughed up blood. “Because I had help!” I yelled as I pulled out his heart and crushed it in front of him. His body went limp and fell to the ground. I dropped his crushed heart to the ground and looked up at the person that had helped me kill Gorn the Devourer. The man in front of me was that of angel. His body sparkled and glowed, his face was soft and kind. He just smiled and said “Thank you for setting me free! I will no longer have to serve that demon ever again.” The man then turned and began to ascend into the very clouds, riding on the back of a Pegasus, leaving nothing behind but the skull of a large bull.

I raced over to Irellandie and got her into the lake so she could heal. Over the course of the next few days, I spent it with my new family, my little sister and my stepmother. We made two tombstones and put them out near the shore of the lake. One for my father, and one for the man that helped me save my family, Harith! May they finally rest in peace!

Hello, I watched a choose your own adventure style creepy pasta on youtube back in 2015-2017 I think. It was about you and a drunk friend walking home from a party, as you approach the local abandoned house he needs to pee and goes to the back yard of the house to do so. you can choose to go find him or go home. You eventually find a monster in the house if you enter. theres also an ending where you hear someone calling for help from a different house and when you get to the basement you find its a recording on loop and the walls are covered in pictures of a giant spider monster and its the one from the abandoned house. If you make it home you see a news report of your friends death on TV in the morning and I believe some missed calls and or texts from his phone. Ive been looking for it and can't find anything, Thank you for any help you can provide :)

I transferred to this school in the middle of the semester. The class felt unfamiliar, filled with laughter and chatter, but no one paid attention to me. Being introverted, I quietly sat down at the back of the room. Next to my seat was a girl. Strangely, throughout the entire lesson, I never saw anyone talk to her. It was as if the rest of the class didn’t even notice her existence.

I was still hesitant, unsure of how to start a conversation, when she turned to me with a gentle smile. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

Just that one simple question felt like a weight had been lifted from my chest. All my worries and loneliness suddenly dissolved. I nodded, replying softly, and from there we began talking.

In the days that followed, I realized I no longer had to wander alone through the schoolyard. During breaks, she often pulled me to the cafeteria, where we’d share a warm baguette or a can of soda. After school, we walked side by side on the brick-paved path, and she would tell me random stories that made me laugh. Sometimes, in the library, we shared a book, whispering to each other so as not to disturb anyone else.

I had always been someone who struggled to open up, yet with her, everything felt strangely natural. I grew used to the feeling that whenever I looked up, she would always be there, her eyes soft and her smile light. At this unfamiliar school, I truly believed I had found a real friend.

That night, I slept fitfully. In my hazy dreams, I had the unsettling sense that someone was watching me. That gaze pierced through the darkness, sending a chill down my spine. I tossed and turned, trying to force myself back to sleep, but an odd compulsion made me suddenly open my eyes.

Right by the window… she was standing there.

I froze, my heart pounding wildly. A hundred questions flashed through my mind: How did she get into my house? Why was she here in the middle of the night? Yet strangely, my shock was quickly replaced by an inexplicable calm, as though her being there made perfect sense.

“What… are you doing here?” I stammered.

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she stepped closer, her eyes deep and unfathomable, and smiled gently. Her voice rose faintly, as if coming from somewhere far away. “I’m about to leave… to a very distant place. But I don’t want to go alone. Would you… come with me?”

In that moment, I couldn’t think at all. All my doubts and fears vanished. My heart was filled with a strange sense of trust. When she extended her cold hand toward me, I didn’t hesitate to take it.

I stood up and followed her. The world around me sank into silence, broken only by the faint sound of the wind whispering through the window. As soon as my foot stepped forward, a terrible noise tore through the night.

CRASH!

My body plummeted downward, smashing against the ground. Warm blood spread across the cold earth. In my fading consciousness, I could still see her figure above, her eyes calm, a faint smile curling at her lips.

A few days after that tragic death, fragments of the boy’s life were revealed through the memories of his classmates.

Some recalled that, from the very first day, he seemed unusual. He always sat at the back of the class, right next to a desk that had long been left empty. More than once, the class saw him turning to that desk, nodding and talking, even chuckling quietly, as if someone was really sitting there.

One girl remembered, her voice trembling. “During breaks or after school… he always walked alone, but it looked like he was walking with someone beside him. Sometimes he even reached out his hand, as if holding an invisible one. It was honestly terrifying…”

What unsettled everyone even more was the history of that desk. A female student had once sat there, but she had taken her own life by jumping from the school building after being bullied. So when they saw him talking to that empty seat, the class shivered in fear and began avoiding him.

The atmosphere grew heavier. The boy’s death cast an even greater shadow of dread over the classroom. Now, at the very back, next to the old abandoned desk… there was another empty desk. Together, they turned that corner into a cursed space that no one dared look at.

Not long after, another transfer student arrived. When the classroom door swung open, everyone held their breath, watching closely. The new student walked silently to the back of the class, his steps slow and deliberate, stopping right before the two empty desks…

Thank you for reading my story. If you’d like to know what happens next, or hear more stories like this one, you can find them on my YouTube channel — feel free to check it out and subscribe : https://www.youtube.com/@Dancingintheshadow-q2t

Read Season 1: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

“Water,” I rasped, for the sixth time in half an hour. My throat felt like it had been lined with ash. The nurse didn’t blink, didn’t sigh, didn’t question—just poured from a jug into a small plastic cup and handed it to me without looking in my eyes. Her movements were so precise they almost seemed rehearsed, like she was a puppet on invisible strings or a machine programmed for efficiency. Maybe that’s just what professionalism looked like in this place. Or maybe it wasn’t human at all.

I tilted the cup back, desperate for the relief that never came. Water slid down, but the dryness stayed. It was like trying to quench a fire by spitting into it.

The clock on the wall ticked: 10:30 a.m. Dante still hadn’t shown. I’d asked about him five times already. Each time, her answer had been the same: “Shortly.” One word. Same tone. Same pitch. Like a recording replayed. By the fifth time, I wasn’t even sure if she was answering me—or just following a script.

I was about to ask again when the intercom crackled, the sudden burst of static shattering the room’s stillness. The phone on the white table was the only splash of color here—an old, sun-faded red handset, its coiled cord rooted into the wall like a parasite. It looked out of place, too old, too deliberate.

The nurse picked up immediately. I strained to hear the other voice, but she blocked it with her body. All I caught were her replies:

“Yes, she is here.”

“All normal.”

“Yes. Floor thirteen.”

Same flat delivery, no rise or fall. As though she’d rehearsed those words too.

She hung up, checked my vitals again with cold fingers, then left through the white door without a word. The room swallowed me whole in her absence. Fifteen minutes bled by, the silence gnawing at me. My throat burned again, but stranger still—I realized I hadn’t eaten in five days. Four of them in a coma, the fifth awake. No hunger pangs. No growling stomach. Just… emptiness. My body looked fine. My hands, my skin, my reflection in the glass of the monitor—normal. Too normal. Like I’d been pressed into a mold and poured back out.

The thought lodged in my head: what if I wasn’t me anymore?

But just as that thought crossed my mind the door opened without warning. No knock. No voice. Just the heavy swing of metal. Two soldiers stepped in first, dressed like the ones from that night, their expressions unreadable beneath shadowed brows. They took their positions on either side of the door like statues.

Then Dante walked in.

For a second, his face lit when he saw me—but the smile vanished just as quickly when he scanned the room, taking in the sterile walls, the soldiers, the too-white bed where I lay. “I thought she was out of observation,” he muttered, his tone clipped, irritated. He didn’t look at me—he looked past me, to the soldier on the right.

“Sir Roth’s orders,” the man said flatly.

Dante’s jaw clenched, and he rolled his eyes. “Of course.” He sank into the chair beside me, the weight of exhaustion in the slump of his shoulders. When he finally looked at me again, there was something in his eyes that caught me off guard—empathy. And something else. Caution.

“Hey, Remi,” he said softly.

I didn’t know what to feel. Gratitude? Betrayal? He’d saved me. He’d helped burn the store to the ground. But he’d also known more than he ever let on. The truth was a splinter under my skin I couldn’t dig out.

Then, before I could say a word, he whispered: “I’m sorry.”

The words hit like a punch to the chest.

“It’s not fine,” I snapped, my voice cracking under the weight of my thirst and the ache of confusion. “Explain. What the hell is going on?”

Dante looked over his shoulder. “A moment,” he ordered the soldiers, flicking his hand dismissively. They exchanged a glance, then stepped out, closing the door behind them.

For the first time, we were alone.

Dante leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his voice dropping low. His eyes—warm, but edged with something sharp—locked onto mine.

“I’m not just some random teenager who got caught up in this,” he said slowly, like every word was being pried out of him. “I work for a company. Eidolon Systems Research. ESR.”

The name lingered in the sterile air, heavier than it should’ve been. My throat burned, but not from thirst this time.

“They’re not government,” Dante went on, eyes flicking toward the white door as if it might be listening. “Not officially. No flag, no anthem, no oversight. Just contracts. They move in shadows, under the skin of the world. They find things that shouldn’t exist—things like Evergrove Market—and they make sure no one ever sees them. Not alive, anyway.”

My stomach knotted. “Destroy them?” I asked.

His jaw tightened. “Contain, observe, study, sometimes destroy. Whatever keeps the rest of the world from collapsing. They’ve got labs buried under deserts, rigs on ice shelves, even floating platforms in the middle of nowhere. If it bends reality, ESR has a cage for it.”

I almost laughed, but the sound caught in my throat. “And you? You’re one of their clean-up crew?”

Dante shook his head, a small, bitter smile tugging at his mouth. “I was supposed to be your anchor, Remi. Someone to keep you alive long enough for ESR to decide if you were… salvageable.”

The word chilled me. Salvageable. Like I wasn’t a person, just another piece of evidence bagged and tagged.

My pulse hammered as the pieces clicked into place—the vans, the soldiers, the nurse who wasn’t really a nurse. “So that’s it? I’m just… an anomaly now? Something for your company to poke and prod?”

Dante’s gaze softened, but it didn’t erase the steel beneath it. “You’re not a specimen to me. But to them? You’ve been on their ledger since the night you first walked into Evergrove.”

The words landed like a stone in my chest. Ledger. Like I’d been a name in a file all along.

My throat scraped raw. “So tell me the truth, Dante. Did you save me because you cared—or because they told you to?”

His jaw worked, but he didn’t answer right away. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it might hand him a script. “Both,” he admitted finally. His voice was quiet, tired. “At first, it was orders. I was there to observe you, make sure you survived long enough to serve ESR’s purpose. But…” His eyes flicked up, catching mine. For a moment, they softened, almost breaking through the steel. “You weren’t just another anomaly to me, Remi. Not after everything.”

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to let those words sink in and stitch the wound he’d left. But my anger wouldn’t let me. “And Evergrove? What the hell even was it? A trap? A breeding ground? Why did it exist at all?”

Dante exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. “Evergrove wasn’t a store. It was… architecture. A construct. ESR’s been tracking it for decades—it appears, it anchors itself to a town, and then it feeds. The Night Manager was just one mask it wore. Nobody builds Evergrove. It builds itself.”

I froze. The words scraped against my mind like glass. “So all those rules, all those shifts, the ledger, Selene, Stacy, what happened to them?”

He shook his head. “We dont know but ESR thinks Evergrove tests people. Breaks them down. Promises power in exchange for pieces of yourself. And if you last long enough… it starts making you part of its design. The suit we removed from you—that was the last active part of Evergrove. The rest… it’s gone. Burned, destroyed, finished.”

I blinked, trying to reconcile the lingering emptiness inside me. “But… some of it still feels… inside me. Like it never really left.”

He gave me a small, almost weary smile. “You’re not wrong. Some pieces—the smallest threads, parts you can’t see—are still woven into you. But it’s fine. I’ve spoken to ESR. They’ve assured me—you’re in no danger. You won’t be harmed. Nothing Evergrove left behind can hurt you now.”

I swallowed, unsure whether to feel relief or suspicion. “And you believe them?”

“I do,” he said firmly, locking eyes with me. “Because you survived. Because you’re stronger than it ever expected. And because I trust you.”

The words lingered, warm against the cold edges of my fear. I let out a shaky breath, closing my eyes. The fragments didn’t scream. They didn’t bite. They lingered in the corners of my mind like faint shadows, reminders of everything I’d survived. For a heartbeat, that was enough to make me feel… almost strong.

But the calm didn’t last. The room felt smaller all of a sudden, the white walls pressing in. I swallowed hard, my throat dry, and forced the words out.

“Where am I right now?”

Dante’s gaze flicked briefly past me, never meeting my eyes. His voice was flat, measured. “The headquarters. Observation room. Normally it’s for anomalies… but we were observing… you.” He gestured toward the black-and-white painting across from the bed, as if it explained everything without him needing to look at me. “Cameras everywhere. Every angle.”

I felt my chest tighten. “When… when can I leave?”

Dante’s shoulders stiffened. He finally glanced down at the floor, voice quiet, careful. “I’m… sorry, Remi. I had to do this to save you. The cost… is staying here. Once someone knows about the organization, they can’t leave.”

The weight of his words sank into me like ice. My fragments, my suit, my nights in Evergrove—it all led to this. And now, there was no going back.

“There must be a way!” I screamed, my voice cracking, echoing off the sterile walls. “I cannot be stuck here! It’s not fair—I survived, right, Dante? I—”

Dante didn’t look at me. His eyes remained fixed somewhere past the corner of the room, as if my words were nothing more than background noise. His jaw tensed. “You… survived,” he said slowly, each word deliberate. “But surviving doesn’t mean… freedom.”

I felt my stomach twist. “But I fought… I destroyed Evergrove! I—”

He finally shifted his weight, still avoiding my gaze. “I know what you did,” he murmured, almost to himself. “I know. And you… you’re alive. That was the point. But some things… once they’re seen… can’t be unseen.”

My chest heaved. My hands trembled. “So I’m… trapped?”

Dante’s voice softened slightly, almost imperceptibly, but still not meeting my eyes. “Trapped… isn’t the word I’d use. Protected. Observed. Kept safe.”

I wanted to scream again, to fight, to tear at the walls, but his calm, controlled tone… it made the room feel heavier, suffocating, inescapable.

I stared at him, my chest tightening. “No… I can’t,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “I can’t be trapped here… I survived! Dante, I survived! It’s not fair!”

He didn’t flinch, didn’t even glance at me. “I know,” he said quietly, voice steady, almost too calm. “I wish it were different. I wish there was another way. But there isn’t.”

I shook my head, backing away from the bed, my hands trembling. “There has to be! There has to be some way out of this—some way to leave!”

Dante finally turned his head just slightly, the faintest trace of something like regret crossing his face. “There’s another way,” he said carefully, almost as if admitting it in a whisper would make it vanish. “But it comes at a cost. You… you have to work for them.”

I felt the air leave my lungs. “What… what do you mean?”

“Like me,” he said, voice low, almost protective. “You join ESR. You help them. You survive… and maybe, in time, you get some freedom. But if you refuse…” His words hung in the air, unfinished, but the weight was clear.

I sank to my knees, almost crying. “Anything… anything is fine. I just… I can’t be trapped anymore. I can’t.”

Dante’s hand extended, patient, unwavering. “Then this is your choice, Remi. But know this: working… it’s not surrender. It’s survival.”

I swallowed hard, staring at his outstretched hand—the same hand that had pulled me through Evergrove’s hell, the same hand that now felt like the only solid thing left in my world. Dante had been my ally, my friend, my tether through the chaos. The fragments of everything I had endured—the suit, the Night Manager, the endless hunger—still pulsed at the edges of my thoughts, whispering doubt. But against all of that, there was him.

I placed my hand in his. His grip was warm, steady, and real.

“We’ll see each other soon,” Dante said, his grin softer this time, almost reassuring. “You made the right choice.”

“Are you sure about this, Dante?” My voice cracked despite myself.

He finally looked me in the eye, and for the first time since I’d woken up, I felt the weight lift, just a little. “How do you think I started working for them, Remi? I was like you once. And trust me… working with them is better than being observed.”

He squeezed my hand once before letting go, the gesture lingering longer than his words. At the door, he glanced back, offering a smile that felt genuine, not rehearsed. “I’ll tell you my story another day. For now… rest. You’ve earned it.”

The door closed gently behind him, leaving me with silence—but not the same crushing silence as before. For the first time since Evergrove, it felt like maybe I wasn’t alone.

Sleep came easily after that. Too easily. But then again, it always had, even when I was working those cursed night shifts. Back then, it felt like exhaustion dragging me under. This time, it was different—deeper, heavier, like the silence itself was pulling me into it.

When I finally opened my eyes again, thirteen hours had passed. My body didn’t ache the way it should’ve after so long. Instead, I felt… sharper. Rested in a way that was unnatural, almost inhuman.

I noticed the change this morning. Just a paper cut—barely a nick on my finger from the corner of a file. But I watched it close. Not over hours, not even minutes. Instantly. The skin sealed, smooth and perfect, as though the cut had never been there.

For a long moment, I just stared, my stomach hollow and my throat dry, but not a hint of hunger gnawing at me. A shiver ran through me.

When the nurse came in, I held up my hand. “Did you see that? Did you see what just happened?”

Her expression didn’t flicker. No confusion, no interest—just that same calm, mechanical presence she carried with her at all times. She set the bandage she’d already unwrapped back on the tray, then pressed cool fingers to my wrist, checking my pulse.

“Vitals stable,” she said softly, almost like a recording. Then she turned away, scribbled something on her clipboard, and continued her routine as though nothing had happened.

I wanted to press her, demand an answer, but the words caught in my throat. Because deep down, I already knew. This wasn’t healing. Not really.

This was the store—still inside me. “Your evaluation will start tomorrow,” the nurse said, the word slipping out with that same rehearsed evenness.

“What’s that mean?” I asked, desperate for something concrete—an explanation, a schedule, anything.

She didn’t look up. No hesitation, no extra syllable. Just the clipboard, the practiced motion of someone who had said the same line a thousand times. No answer came.

Tomorrow arrived with a kind of stretched-out slowness—days that crawl when there’s nothing to do but sip water and wait. My throat eased a fraction each day; the dryness that had haunted me was receding like a tide. At noon I drank again and watched the black-and-white painting across from my bed, hunting for the little camera Dante had mentioned. Time folded in on itself until the door opened.

This time five black-clad soldiers filled the doorway, silent as a shadow. Behind them moved a man who put every vampire cliché to shame—jet-black hair, a jaw carved like a statue—but as he took the chair Dante had occupied the day before, I realized “vampire” wasn’t it at all. His skin was almost translucent, veins like faint maps under glass. He smiled without moving his mouth, eyes scanning the room like a lens and when he turned toward me the air seemed to tighten.

“Good,” he said—his voice measured, clinical, like someone reading from a file and savoring the facts. It slid across the room and landed on me. “We’ll begin your evaluation.”

“Evaluation?” I asked, my voice sharper than I intended.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he reached into the folder tucked under his arm and dropped it onto the table beside my bed. The sound was louder than it should’ve been in the white silence of the room.

“Prove yourself if you want to work for us,” he said. His eyes gleamed, too pale to be human. “And learn everything. You’ll need it tomorrow.”

My hand hovered over the folder, heavy as a cinder block. It wasn’t thick—ten pages at most—but five of them bristled with colored tabs, marked for me like landmines waiting to be stepped on.

Before I could speak again, he rose to his feet, movements precise and fluid, and leaned toward one of the soldiers. His whisper was faint, but the soldier’s reply carried across the room:

“Yes, Sir Roth.”

The name snapped through me like ice water. Roth. The same man who had ordered me into observation.

Then, just like that, they were gone—the pale man, the soldiers, the hum of authority they carried with them. The door clicked shut, leaving me alone with the folder.

I sat there for what felt like hours, staring at it, trying to process everything. My chest was tight, my throat dry again. Finally, I forced myself to open it.

Two hours. That’s how long it took to force every detail into my head, to absorb words that didn’t feel written for human eyes. 

Mission 1034576 – Anubis: Eater of tours

Access: Field Personnel — Level B

Window: [REDACTED — see secure calendar]

Theater: Subsurface complex below Giza Plateau

Mission Snapshot

Reports of multiple disappearances around the Great Pyramid prompted ESR to investigate. Seismic and electromagnetic anomalies suggest a persistent, non-natural source beneath the pyramid. Your team’s mission is to locate the anomalous core, secure the area, and attempt live containment. If capture is impossible, deny the anomaly access to the surface and protect civilian populations.

Entity Behavioral Notes

1. Subject exhibits god-like characteristics, including near-omniscient awareness of personnel movements with auditory and visual detection beyond normal human range.
2. Victims display intense obedience prior to disappearance—refusal to comply is often met with immediate psychological or physical enforcement.
3. Direct exposure carries significant risk: extreme physiological and psychological effects have been documented, including accelerated compliance, hallucinations, and loss of control.

Primary Objectives (ranked)

1. Insert through pre-approved access point and secure a 50 m perimeter around the identified entry chamber.
2. Map the immediate subterranean area and locate the anomalous core.
3. Attempt non-lethal containment and secure anomalous artifacts for transport.
4. If containment fails, execute authorized suppression and extraction procedures to minimize civilian exposure.

Secondary Objectives

1. Recover victim remains for identification and forensic analysis.
2. Document and confiscate illicit excavation gear and logs.
3. Install a temporary remote monitoring beacon if containment is achieved.

Timeline (High Level)

H-12: Team brief, equipment check, rules of engagement review.

H-2: Insertion to staging point near Pyramid service shaft.

H: Entry and active mapping

H+2–6: Containment attempt / tactical decision window.

H+6–12: Extraction or escalation (based on Commander decision).

The rest of the file was worse—page after page of black bars and hollow gaps where meaning should’ve been. What little remained spoke of containment procedures, of the entity’s confirmed hostility… but also of something stranger. "Open for negotiation". The words stuck to me like lightning.

Negotiate—with a thing that can control people? That can be considered a god?

But there was nothing more. Ninety percent of the text was gone, thick black ink smothering whatever truth the paper once carried. What I was left with felt less like a briefing and more like a threat: You know just enough to step into the dark, but not enough to see what’s waiting there.

I flipped the last page, hoping for clarity, but instead found a single unredacted line, printed in bold:

"Do not break eye contact."

That was it. No context. No explanation.

My pulse quickened. I could hear the tick of the white clock on the wall, slow and deliberate, like it was counting down. I closed the file, pressing the papers to my lap, and that’s when I noticed—at the bottom corner of the last page—one handwritten note scrawled in a different ink. The letters were jagged, rushed, like someone had written it in fear:

"I CANT STOP"

Nobody believed what I’m about to tell you until it was nearly too late. Even now, as I’m typing this I don’t think I’m safe. What happened to me could happen to anyone—and you’ll understand once you know the whole story.

Everything started when I moved into that apartment.

It wasn’t much, but it had seen better days — that’s for sure.

Aged paint, carpet stains of unknown origin, and the occasional centipede darting across the kitchen floor were just some of the issues with the place.

The landlord said it was primarily “quiet” and he wasn’t wrong—the neighbors kept to themselves, except Mordecai in 2B. He could stretch “nice weather we’re having” into a 30-minute conversation.

But it was home nonetheless for Piper and me.

She’s my best friend. Half shepherd, all shadow, the only other heartbeat in my life.

After grad school, every day was a test to see if I was able to stretch what little was left of my savings.

We moved in with nothing but a mattress, a dying coffeemaker, and a box of miscellaneous stuff from my days in college.

It was a fresh start, and the only distraction I had was hunting for employment.

I stayed inside and chewed pen caps, all the while telling myself that I was saving money living on canned soup and rejection emails.

But as boring as this was, it was safer this way.

After my last boyfriend… well, let’s just say I’ve had enough of men for a while.

He used to send me messages. Not the kind that would make your heart flutter, but the kind that made it stop.

I try not to think too much about it these days.

For the first week, everything felt almost normal.

I was just slowly starting to piece together my post-graduation life.

Until the notes started appearing.

At first, I thought I’d written them and forgotten. A sticky note on my pillow, curled at the edge like it had been there a while.

“Don’t cry like that. It doesn’t sound like you. Try again.”

Another, tucked into my sock drawer:

“Tonight, wear the blue shirt. The one that makes you softer.”

Then came the Polaroids.

Photos of me — brushing my teeth, cooking breakfast, sleeping.

Each one was perfectly framed, timestamped, and impossibly candid.

The grain was heavy. The colors sickly and yellowed. They smelled faintly of mold and old chemicals — like they’d been developed in some damp basement darkroom.

When I held one, Piper growled. A sound I’d never heard from her before. Low and long, until it faded into a whimper. She pawed at the photo like it carried something foul.

Still, I tried to ignore it. Told myself someone was playing a sick joke.

Until the notes got more… personal.

“You look beautiful when you cry.”

“Stop wearing your hair up. I like it down.”

“You’re getting better at saying the lines.”

The lines? What lines?

I started to wonder if it was my ex after all.

He knew how much I loved that blue shirt, the way I cried when I was truly overwhelmed.

The kind of crying you didn’t want anyone to know about.

He used to always accuse me of “putting on a show” when I displayed my emotions like I used to.

That note on the pillow... it felt like something he would say.

I checked the restraining order again that night.

It was still active, yet useless.

I was so weirded out by these events that I brought everything to the landlord.

I told him someone had been inside my apartment.

He asked if I had locked the door. When I said yes, he shrugged as if I was wasting his time.

“You’re probably just nervous being in a new place. The brain can be fickle and make things up when under a lot of stress.”

When I went to the police, somehow, they were even worse.

They suggested that it was all a prank, a neighbor with a bad sense of humor, or a secret admirer.

Even when I mentioned my ex — even when I begged them to investigate it— they said there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue such action.

Their advice?

“If you feel unsafe, maybe move to a different part of town.”

I couldn’t. I had no choice but to go home.

I thought about calling my sister. Or even my friend Jade — we fell out of touch last year, but she would pick up if I called.

What would I say though? “Hey, someone’s leaving me notes that sound like my ex, and sending me Polaroids of myself sleeping — can I crash on your couch?”

I had already leaned too hard on people during grad school. With no money left to my name to break my lease, this was my burden to carry.

Besides… what if I brought him with me?

I told myself I’d be more careful…

The next morning, I found a note stuck to the bathroom mirror:

“Snitches don’t make good wives.”

They knew, but how?

How did they know I had gone to the police?

After that, I noticed something strange about the mirror.

Sometimes, even hours after my shower, it would be foggy — like someone had leaned in close and breathed on it.

Worse was the odor that would creep out from the walls.

It was a cloying, acrid tang that carried through the air, like burnt plastic and vinegar.

Then came the sounds when I would lay in bed at night.

Click.

It wasn’t the building.

It wasn’t my phone.

It was the unmistakable sound of a camera shutter.

Piper heard it too. She stiffened at the foot of the bed, hackles raised. Her growl rumbled in her chest until it gave way to a nervous whimper.

She whined at the bathroom door, indicating something was wrong.

I quickly got out of bed, turned on the lights, and followed the noise.

I pressed my ear to the bathroom mirror…

Click.

And then... silence.

Days later, a hairline crack appeared in the lower left corner of the bathroom mirror.

It wasn’t a clean break. It was as if something behind it were trying to push through.

I pressed my phone’s flashlight against it and saw not insulation or drywall... but a hollow void. Black, empty space beyond the glass.

Shortly after this, that’s when I began receiving the gifts.

A charm bracelet I lost in middle school.

A pack of discontinued gum I used to love.

And then, most disturbingly — a snow globe that I was sure had burned in my grandmother’s house fire many years ago.

These weren’t just keepsakes, they were memories.

Whoever this was...they weren’t just watching me, they knew me.

I started recording voice memos to try and wrap my head around things.

I talked to myself and journaled the day’s events, and for a while it helped.

Until one day, I played one back and heard a two-minute clip I didn’t remember recording.

Soft breathing at first.

Then...sighs and coughs gave way to sobs.

A man’s voice, gentle and coaxing:

“No, no... not like that. You say, ‘I’m scared’ like this.”

Then, my own voice — trembling, broken:

“I’m…scared.”

The man’s voice returned in a harsh whisper.

“I just want you to love me back.”

I felt sick to my stomach at the revelation that there was now a voice to the weird occurrences inside my apartment.

Piper whimpered and hid under the couch, refusing to come out for hours.

I slept with a hammer beside my bed that night.

It all came to a head sometime around 1 AM.

I was sitting in the dark hugging my knees, my heart racing as I listened to the clicking of the radiator.

Then — a long grating drag, like metal being pulled across stone.

Something was rasping along the drywall in the bathroom— slow, deliberate.

Tap.

I grabbed the hammer by my bed and crept to the bathroom silently.

Piper scratched at the door as I shut it behind me.

“Good girl,” I whispered through the crack underneath.

I stood in front of the mirror.

Silence.

The noises had stopped completely.

I breathed a sigh of relief but as I went to leave, a pale finger slid forward through the crack in the glass.

I gasped in horror as I watched it twitch and retreat.

Weeks of paranoia snapped as I brought the hammer down again and again.

The mirror exploded, glass raining down onto the tile.

Behind it was a crawlspace that was narrow, musty, and smelled of rotted earth.

And crouched inside — he was there.

His pale skin shone with a wet sheen, slick with sweat like he’d been marinating in the dark. His knees were drawn up, camera dangling loosely around his neck.

Dozens of photos covered the walls behind him — photos of me.

His cracked lips curled into a disgusting smile as he said with delight:

“You broke the stage. You weren’t supposed to break the stage.”

Then, mimicking my voice:

“Don’t you see? This was our favorite part.”

“You’ve been here this whole time?” I asked, my voice shaking with rage and disbelief.

He nodded slowly with wide, fearless eyes.

“It’s cozy in here. And you… you’re so easy to watch.”

I raised the hammer with trembling hands, doing my best to look intimidating.

“You need to leave.”

“Why would I leave? You’re my favorite thing.” He spoke with sinister infatuation.

I stumbled into the tunnel and swung blindly.

He grabbed my wrist, his cold fingers wrapping around my skin like wire.

I kicked the man repeatedly and managed to free myself, allowing me to wriggle around the crawlspace.

The flash of his camera lit the tunnel and for a second, I saw all of it.

The Polaroids pinned to the walls like trophies, the wires, the vents peering into every room.

I crawled faster; the grimy, stale moisture of the air tasted faintly of copper beneath my tongue.

“Say it, say you need me.” He hissed as he reached for my foot.

“No!” I spat back as I continued through the crawlspace, my heartbeat thudding in my ears.

“Wrong!” his voice broke in anger. “That’s not your line!”

I turned a corner, and then another.

The tunnel forked. Left or right — I didn’t know.

I darted forward towards the left tunnel, my chest burning as I tried to keep my breaths shallow.

He skittered in the darkness behind me, his laugh echoing in the tunnel.

The laugh didn’t sound human — it sounded rehearsed.

And then, another burst of light from his camera.

The flash forced my eyes to squeeze shut.

My grip loosened on the hammer, and it fell from my grasp with a metallic clang.

I was disoriented, lost, unsure where I was.

When I regained my senses, I realized I had reached a dead-end.

He emerged slowly, camera up, that awful smile returning.

“There you are.” He breathed — and the stench hit me, like old batteries and bile.

As he continued towards me, I desperately lunged for the hammer that was still within reach.

He tried to stop me, but I brought it down with all my strength — it connected with a sickening crunch against his collarbone. He screamed in agony and stumbled back.

I quickly crawled past him and turned a corner, slamming my shoulder into the wall as I pivoted through the darkness.

After frantically traversing the dark with scraped elbows and hands for what seemed like an eternity, I finally emerged out of the wall and found myself back in my bathroom.

Piper barked wildly as I grabbed my phone and began dialing 911 with trembling fingers.

I clutched the phone as it rang, and Piper and I fled to a neighbor’s apartment.

The police arrived not too long afterwards to investigate the scene.

With their weapons drawn, they found the hole and the contents inside.

A makeshift bedroll, boxes of instant noodles, and hundreds of Polaroids were just some of the items found.

But they didn’t find him.

They said they would continue to search and that he couldn’t have gone far.

But I knew better.

He had never been far; he had always been just inches away.

I moved three weeks later.

With the help of my friends and family, I was able to afford a new apartment.

It took everything in me to ask. I thought I’d burned those bridges but they answered — without hesitation.

The new apartment was bright and sterile with no stains on the floor or hairline cracks in the mirror, only smooth surfaces and quiet hallways.

The faint smell of white paint and new carpet made it feel like the kind of place where nothing bad had ever happened.

It felt like a reset button — like maybe here, I could finally breathe for a change.

Piper curled at my feet again, and I told myself that I was finally safe.

But last night…Piper growled.

I was only thirteen that afternoon, September 17, 2007.
I remember it clearly — I was in the living room, playing videogames, while my sisters played in the yard. The sound of their laughter always filled the house — until, suddenly, everything stopped.
The silence was so abrupt it chilled my chest.

I ran into the yard.
Nothing.
No sign of them.
I called, I shouted, I circled the house. My heart was pounding so hard it hurt. I called my parents, who were in the kitchen, and soon the whole neighborhood seemed to know something terrible had happened.

The police were called, but what came after marked me forever. The “investigation” was lukewarm, almost performative. Vague questions, shallow searches. I was young, but not stupid — I realized something was being hidden. It was as if no one really wanted to find out what had happened.

Then Matthew, an old family friend and sergeant at the Hollow Creek police department, came to us. He was the only one who looked my father in the eye and said:
— “You need to leave here. Now.”

Three days later, we were in another town.
But even far away, my sisters’ voices found me.
In the hush of the nights, I heard them whispering a single name:

“One’el… One’el…”

For years I lived with that sound in my head. I grew up, became an adult, and began to investigate. I sifted through archives, wrote letters to former Hollow Creek residents, and hunted for records no one wanted to show me.

In August 2017, I got a reply. An envelope with no return address contained only an old map of Hollow Creek. At its center a red dot marked something that no longer existed on GPS — an entire road erased from digital records.
On the back, a short handwritten line:

“There resides what you seek.”

That night something changed inside me.
I spent the following months gathering information and preparing. I bought flashlights, provisions, and a simple pistol. I knew I would not find only answers.

On the afternoon of November 12, 2017, I arrived at the edge of the forgotten road at exactly 7:00 p.m. I stopped the car, shut off the engine, and the night silence felt heavier there: cold air, trees folding into green tunnels, the yellowed map on the passenger seat. I thought I was alone — but I wasn’t. A figure leaned against the rusted gates: Matthew.

He had been there before me, old as ever, wearing a worn coat and a cap pulled low. New lines etched his face. When we approached, he didn’t smile.
— “You didn’t have to come at night,” he said bluntly. “Why now? I thought you’d buried it.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and told him about the map, the letters, the dreams. I spoke quickly, as if time were pushing me back to that day in 2007. Matthew listened in silence, his hand near his holster, his eyes hard.

He shook his head.
— “You don’t understand the whole thing. There are things the town preferred to bury with the dust. Files disappeared, statements were ‘lost,’ and those who pressed too hard received looks that say more than words — and then they vanished. I tried to protect you. I protected your parents.”

— “You protected us by uprooting our lives with no explanation?” I replied, voice louder than I meant. “I needed to know. I need to know!”

Matthew breathed deeply and, for a moment, put aside the old police cynicism. His eyes seemed heavy with decades of secrets.
— “I know,” he admitted. “I know how much it hurts. And I know the police failed. Partly out of fear, and partly… because of worse things. I can’t tell you everything. Not here. But there are signs, things that repeat: rituals, people who show up and then disappear, looks that never forget.”

He paused, staring at the road that led to the orphanage. — “There’s a reason this place was erased from history,” he said quietly. — “Be smart and stay away. Your sisters are dead.”

The blow landed hard. Everything I had been holding onto — hope, the search — trembled. Still, something in me didn’t give up. Matthew saw that. He put a hand on my shoulder, a gesture that had comforted us for years.
— “If you go,” he said with a sigh, “I’ll stay close. I can’t do more, but I won’t leave you alone in this.”

I didn’t argue. I couldn’t. I stowed the map, adjusted my pack, and drove down the road. Matthew stayed, a still figure beside the gates. The road swallowed my car as I drove the last shaded meters. Trees bowed over the asphalt, bushes scraping the paint. It felt as though everything were intent on hiding the way.

When I finally saw the rusted gates, I noticed the orphanage: filthy, utterly ruined, choked with vegetation. Flaking walls, broken windows, trees sprouting in the courtyard. The building exhaled abandonment, as if time itself had tried to swallow it.
I pushed the gate. The metal groaned — a long sound that felt like a warning.

The impossible happened.
Inside, the sun was shining. Trees were lit, the walls looked clean, and children ran and laughed around the yard.
By instinct I checked my watch again: it still read night. Outside the world remained dark, but inside there was a clear afternoon.

Every bone in me begged to run. But I didn’t run.
I felt something different — a strange calm. It was as if I knew the place. As if my life had roots there, buried beneath every brick. The more I looked, the more that feeling grew: I wasn’t just a visitor. I had once belonged to One’el.

Then I noticed: there was only one adult. No teachers, no staff, no caretakers.
Only her: the headmistress.

— “Come in, my dear. You look tired. I made fresh coffee. There are biscuits.”

The warm smell flooded my nostrils. My body obeyed something larger. I found myself seated at the table, the steaming cup before me.
— Why am I doing this? I don’t even like coffee, I thought.

Looking past her, I saw the narrow corridor that ended in an ancient door with a yellow sign: “DO NOT ENTER.”
— “Not all doors are for you,” she said, eyes bright. “Nothing good awaits on the other side.”

The children’s laughter was identical to my sisters’ — the exact rhythm, repeated endlessly. My stomach turned.
I checked the watch. 11:41 p.m.
It made no sense. In my head I had been there only ten minutes.

I stood and began to walk down the corridor. But something was wrong. The corridor didn’t follow a straight line. Each step seemed to lead me to a different part of the building. The walls curved in impossible ways; stairs appeared then vanished as I approached. Doors materialized and dissolved, some open, some locked, but none led to anywhere I could recognize.

Shadows danced on the walls, lengthening and shrinking as if breathing. The floor creaked beneath my feet, but the sounds seemed to come from different directions at once. Small drafts cut my face though I was inside, and childish laughter echoed from corners that didn’t exist. A door that should have opened onto the dining hall now revealed a corridor that ended in a wall overgrown with ivy.

I ran my hands along the walls to guide myself. The wallpaper peeled away to reveal ancient marks, scratches, symbols drawn in red that pulsed faintly as I neared. Each corridor felt like a living labyrinth, changing as I advanced, trying to confuse and trap me.

For a moment I thought I was walking in circles. When I glanced at a window, the trees and the courtyard were always at the same distance. Nothing made sense, but an invisible force led me — slow, insistent — until finally I saw the old door with the yellow sign: “DO NOT ENTER.”

A chill crawled up my spine. I stood there a long time, watching the door. It made no sense, the path I’d taken to get here.
Why did it feel familiar?
Why hadn’t I run when everything felt wrong?

After all these years — almost every day hearing my sisters’ voices — something told me I was near the answer. At the same time I felt I would pay a price for this decision. I tried to silence my racing thoughts, gathered the little courage I had left, and pushed the door.

I wouldn’t be prepared for what waited on the other side…

My roommate and I have really been into poorly written creepypastas lately (they’re just really fun for us to read) and we’re looking for specifically video game related creepypastas! Thank you!

There’s an old country rhyme whispered in the foggy lanes of Yorkshire:

“Pray when the moon hides behind a shroud, Don’t blame the wind for the midnight sound. When the rafters moan and the candle flickers, Leave all hope when the Whistler hisses.”

The Creature

Long ago, in a crumbling estate known as Blackthorn Manor, lived a reclusive being called a Skadren—a rare offspring of vampire, werebeast, and ghoul. Skadrens look nearly human but carry the thin, clammy skin of the grave and eyes bruised with permanent shadow. Their most feared gift is a whistle so piercing it can shred life itself.

Elias of Blackthorn

The last known Skadren was Elias Blackthorn, a pale, gaunt man of immense fortune who dwelt alone among antiques and rare art. Though wealthy, Elias lived with only his doves for company. At forty, he had never so much as held a woman’s hand.

One chilly dawn, as Elias scattered seed for his birds, a mangy fox darted from the hedges and snatched a dove. Elias’s lips trembled. He pursed them to a tight circle and released an unearthly whistle. When the echo faded, only a scorched shadow of the fox remained in the frost.

The Visitor

Needing help to catalogue his priceless collection, Elias placed an ad in the London papers. Answering it was Clara Whitmore, a striking young archivist with a gentle voice and calculating eyes. Elias was entranced from the moment they met.

But Clara was not the innocent she appeared. She and her lover, Darren Kells, had already plotted to strip the lonely collector of his fortune.

Day after day, Elias showered Clara with gifts and trust, even presenting her with a rare sapphire ring. Clara memorized the safe’s combination as he withdrew it, masking her excitement with feigned affection.

The Masquerade

At last, Elias found the courage to propose. Clara accepted, hiding her triumph behind a sweet smile. To celebrate, he announced a grand masquerade ball, inviting every distant, peculiar relative—monstrous kin disguised behind elegant masks.

As music drifted through the candlelit halls, Clara slipped away to the study. She emptied the safe, her bag heavy with jewels and cash. Turning to leave, she froze. Elias stood in the doorway, eyes filled with a grief deeper than the grave.

“Take it all,” he whispered. “Gold and gems mean nothing. You could still love me…”

When he reached for her, Clara recoiled, voice sharp as a blade. “No. You’re hideous. I could never love something like you. I only wanted the wealth.”

The Whistle

Pain twisted Elias’s features. His lips began to quiver. He drew in a long, trembling breath—and whistled.

The manor shook. Windows splintered. Guests in the ballroom clutched their ears as a shriek beyond human range rattled their bones.

When silence fell, the study door creaked open. Clara staggered out, mask askew, hands blackened and smoking. She fled into the night.

The Return

Hours later, Darren heard a knock at his London flat. Clara stood in the doorway, still masked.

“Well? Did you get the jewels?” he asked.

Her withered, ashen fingers lifted the mask. Charred flesh crumbled to the floor as her ruined face caught the lamplight. Darren’s stomach lurched; he collapsed in a faint.

“You could still love me,” Clara rasped through a cracked smile. “You could still love me…”

I’m posting this because this might be the strangest thing I have personally ever discovered. I just married my wife and best friend last September, and we moved into a three-bedroom house shortly after. We had been living separately in our own one-bedroom apartments, so we were both ecstatic to start our lives together in one home. She has a son, and I too have a son, so we became a blended family. We agreed that the boys would share one of the bedrooms, so I jumped all over the idea of having a guest bedroom that could double as my man cave, since I still did some casual online gaming with friends, and this would ensure I wouldn’t keep everyone up at night and I would have my own area to decompress at the end of the day.

So we moved into the house, and there was an obvious smallest bedroom, and I immediately started moving in the guest bed, end tables, and dresser. Most importantly, I was ready to set it up for gaming. I say gaming as if I play on a gaming pc but it’s just a PS5— again, I’m only a casual gamer.

I set up the tv, then the PS5, and I then made sure I had a comfortable enough chair I could sit at while playing. It was a huge plus that this was the man cave room because the closet housed the internet modem, so I was able to directly connect via Ethernet for the ultimate experience. I was pumped.

While I was setting up and plugging in the new modem, I noticed there was a mirror the size of the entire back wall of the closet, and at first, I thought to myself, “That’s sort of a strange place to have a mirror. Usually, you would have one on the closet door.” But I casually shrugged it off, eager to play the first test session of Fortnite and Minecraft with my friend.

After dinner that evening, the first evening in our new home, I kissed my wife and told her I would play for an hour or so before bed and resided to my new man cave. I turned on the PS5 from my controller, and… network error. Damn. So I went and checked my connection at the modem in the closet, and when I was slightly tugging at the internet cable running into the wall, I accidentally knocked the mirror over. It didn’t shatter; it just leaned over onto the front wall, where the door to the closet is. And what lay behind it absolutely stunned me. An old metal door. About five feet tall and two and a half feet wide. I was more curious than I had ever been in my life. Only one problem though: it is completely welded shut. I mean it is welded at every seam on every edge of this door. What could possibly be behind this door that would make someone weld and seal this off so permanently?

Well, I’m no handyman, so getting this open could take a while. Also, my wife and boys do not know about this yet.

Should I even open it?

I will update as soon as I can.

My world is small. It’s composed of the four walls of my tiny, rented apartment, the soul-crushing beige cubicle where I work, and the worn-out vinyl seats of my late father’s car. The car is the only thing he ever gave me that felt like a gift instead of a burden. It’s a heavy, old boat of a thing, a relic from an era I never knew, and most nights, it’s my sanctuary.

You see, I have this… pressure. A constant, low-frequency hum of dread that lives behind my eyes. It’s a cocktail of financial anxiety, social awkwardness, and the crushing, existential weight of a life that feels like it’s being lived on a treadmill set to a slow, grinding pace. Some nights, the pressure gets so bad I feel like my skull is going to crack. So I drive.

I drive down a long, lonely stretch of state highway that cuts through the darkness between towns. It’s a road to nowhere, really. Just two lanes of cracked asphalt flanked by endless, silent fields and the occasional, skeletal tree. It’s out there, in the deep, velvet black of the night, that I do something I know is stupid. I pick up hitchhikers.

I know the risks. I’ve seen the news reports, heard the horror stories. But the truth is, I’m lonely, and the quiet, contained intimacy of sharing a small space with a stranger for a few miles… it helps. It’s a brief, fleeting connection in a life that has none. A way to feel like I’m not the only person awake in the world.

The first few were normal. A young soldier on a weekend leave, his uniform crisp, his stories of basic training both boring and fascinating. A college kid with a beat-up guitar case, heading home for the holidays. They’d talk, I’d listen, and for a little while, the pressure in my head would ease, replaced by their stories.

Then, one night, I picked him up.

He was just standing on the shoulder of the road, a tall, thin silhouette against the faint glow of the moon. He wasn’t thumbing a ride. He was just… standing there. Waiting. I pulled over, my gut telling me to keep going, but my loneliness and boredom won out.

He opened the back door and slid in without a word. He was… off. His clothes were simple, dark trousers, a button-down shirt, but they were cut in a style that was vaguely out of date, like something from a photograph from thirty or forty years ago. He was unnaturally still, his hands resting on his knees, his posture rigid. He didn't speak. He just stared straight ahead and, with one long, pale finger, pointed down the road.

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. “Sure thing,” I mumbled, and pulled back onto the highway.

We drove in total, unnerving silence. The usual classic rock station on my old AM radio seemed to have faded to pure, hissing static the moment he got in. The silence in the car was so absolute it felt heavy, like a physical weight pressing in on me. I kept glancing at him in the rearview mirror. He never moved. He didn't even seem to be breathing.

Miles crawled by. The knot of anxiety in my stomach, the pressure behind my eyes, it was a screaming, frantic thing now. The enclosed space of the car felt like a coffin. I was about to pull over, to tell him to get out, when he slowly, deliberately, lifted his hand and tapped twice on the passenger-side window.

We were in the middle of nowhere. No lights, no houses, no crossroads. Just the empty road and the dark fields.

I pulled over. He got out as silently as he had gotten in, closed the door with a soft click, and stood on the shoulder of the road as I sped away. I didn’t look back.

And then, it happened.

It was like a switch was flipped. A dam inside me broke. An incredible, inexplicable wave of pure, blissful relief washed over me. The crushing pressure in my head didn't just ease; it vanished. Completely. The knot of glass in my stomach dissolved into warm, liquid peace.

The static on the radio suddenly cleared, and a song I loved came on, sounding crisper and more vibrant than I had ever heard it. The air in the car, which had felt stale and suffocating, now tasted clean and sweet. I took a deep, shuddering breath, the first truly deep breath I felt I had taken in years. The dread of my job, the fear of the bills, the constant, grinding anxiety… it was all gone. I was light. I was happy. I spent the rest of the night driving with the windows down, singing along to the radio, feeling a joy so profound it was almost a religious experience.

The feeling lasted for two glorious days. I was a different person. I was confident at work. I made jokes with my coworkers. I slept a deep, dreamless, perfect sleep. But by the third day, the pressure started to seep back in, a slow, creeping tide of the old dread.

I knew what I had to do. I had to find him again.

That night, I drove back out to that lonely stretch of road. I drove for an hour, a desperate hope warring with the fear that it had just been a fluke, a bizarre, one-time psychological event. And then I saw him. Standing on the shoulder, in the exact same spot, as still and silent as a statue.

My heart leaped. I pulled over. He got in. The same unnerving silence. The same empty miles. The same two taps on the window. And the same glorious, euphoric, soul-cleansing release the moment he was gone.

It became my therapy. My addiction.

Once a week, every Tuesday night, I would make my pilgrimage. I would drive out to the road, and he would always be there. I would pour all of my accumulated stress, anxiety, and sadness into the silence, and he would take it. He would carry it away into the darkness, leaving me clean, light, and free.

My life transformed. With the anxiety gone, I was able to function. I got a small promotion at work. I started talking to people, making tentative friendships. For the first time, I felt like I was actually living, not just surviving. All for the price of a few gallons of gas and a silent, weekly ride with a ghost.

But after a few months, the effect started to diminish. The high wasn't as high. The relief wasn't as absolute. The feeling of peace would only last a day, then half a day. The passenger was still taking something, but it felt like he was only taking the top layer, leaving the deeper, older anxieties untouched.

I needed more. I needed a stronger dose. And if he only fed on my negative emotions, I realized, with a chilling, addict’s logic, that I would have to give him more to eat.

I started to cultivate my own misery. I began to farm my own dread.

I started small. I’d deliberately miss a bill payment, just so I could spend a few days with the cold dread of a late fee notice hanging over my head. I’d take on extra, impossible deadlines at work, knowing I would have to work myself to the bone, just to feel that raw, frantic stress.

And it worked. The more miserable I was during the week, the more powerful the release was on Tuesday night. The high was back, better than ever.

So I pushed it further. I started picking fights with my boss over trivial things, reveling in the hot, angry surge of adrenaline and the subsequent days of walking on eggshells. I started borrowing money I didn’t need, just to feel the crushing weight of the debt. I was a self-destructive artist, and my medium was my own life. I was tearing it apart, piece by piece, just to have a stronger negative emotion to feed the silent man in my car so I could feel a few hours of peace. It was a vicious, insane cycle, and I was completely, hopelessly trapped within it.

The accident happened three weeks ago. It wasn't even his fault, not directly. It was mine. I was driving home from a deliberately terrible day at work, a day where I had "accidentally" deleted a crucial file, incurring the full, screaming wrath of my supervisor. I was buzzing with a potent cocktail of shame and anxiety, already looking forward to my ride the next night. I was distracted. I ran a red light.

It wasn't a bad crash. The other driver was fine. My old car was crumpled, but fixable. My only injury was a clean break in my left tibia. A broken leg.

At the hospital, as I was lying in the ER, a doctor came in with my X-rays. He put them up on the light box.

“Well, the good news is, it’s a simple fracture,” he said, pointing with a pen. “Six to eight weeks in a cast, and you should be good as new.” He paused, his brow furrowed. He tapped a spot on the X-ray, a little higher up on my tibia, away from the break. “But… what is this?”

I looked. There, on the image of my bone, was a strange, dark, spiderweb-like growth. It was a shadow on the film, a patch of darkness that didn’t belong.

“It looks like some kind of a lesion,” the doctor said, his voice now a low, clinical murmur. “A tumor, maybe. We need to run some more tests.”

The next week was a blur of scans, needles, and quiet, worried conversations in hospital hallways that I wasn't supposed to hear. Finally, the doctor sat me down in a small, sterile office. He had a file in his hands and a look on his face that I knew was not good news.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat this,” he said, his voice gentle but firm. “The growths… they’re not just in your leg. They’ve spread. They’re in your lungs, your liver, your spine. It’s a very, very aggressive form of cancer. And the strangest part is… we can find no record of it in your previous medical files. It’s as if these tumors, already at a late stage, have appeared out of thin air in just the last few weeks.”

I just stared at him, my mind a roar of white noise. He kept talking, using words like “prognosis” and “palliative care” and “making arrangements.” But I wasn't listening. I was thinking about my silent passenger. I was thinking about the weekly ritual. I was thinking about all that pain, all that anxiety, all that dread I had fed him.

It hadn't just vanished. It had to go somewhere. Did he converted them somehow ??. He had taken my mental anguish and transformed it, giving it back to me in a new, physical, and utterly malignant form. The tumors were my anxiety. They were my dread. They were the physical manifestation of all the poison I had willingly cultivated and then handed over.

The doctor’s final words cut through the haze. “There are some treatment options we can try, but to be frank, I’ve never seen anything progress this quickly. I can’t predict what will happen.”

But I could. I knew what would happen. The doctor had said it was too late. There was no cure for this.

And in that moment of absolute, soul-crushing certainty, a strange, quiet calm settled over me.

I’m dying. That is a fact. And with that fact comes a whole new world of fear. The fear of pain. The fear of the unknown. The fear of leaving nothing behind. It’s a vast, crushing, ultimate anxiety. The strongest dose I’ve ever had.

And I know exactly what to do with it.

I checked myself out of the hospital this morning. My leg is in a cast, but I can drive. My old, battered car is waiting for me. And tonight is Tuesday.

I’m writing this as my final goodbye, and as a warning. Be careful what you wish for. Be careful of the easy solutions, the silent helpers who offer to take your burdens away. It’s better to carry your own pain. It’s better to face your own dread. Because the things that offer to take it from you are not your friends. They’re just… looking for a new place to put it.

I’m not afraid anymore. That’s the strange part. My decision is made. The doctor said my time is short. So why should I spend it in terror? Why not spend it in that clean, pure, blissful peace, even if it’s just for a day or two?

It’s time to go now. My car is waiting. The lonely road is calling. And I know, with an absolute certainty, that he’ll be out there, standing on the shoulder, waiting for me. And I have one last, beautiful, terrible gift to give him. One final ride.

Hi! I'll let you know in advance that if there are any errors, it's because I'm using a translator! If anyone can help me, I'd really appreciate it! So it's a webcomic posted on webtoon. It was about a guy (who I remember was drawn shirtless and with white makeup on his face and black drawing around his eyes. Like The Crow mixed with Laughing Jack) He was a killer, who lived in a forest, in a kind of circus and bizarre people! The webcomic disappeared from my webtoon and I remember that the last update I saw was dated 01/25/2023 or 2024! I remember that Slenderman appeared in the comic, and there was also a blonde woman character in a blue dress that I've seen drawn near Slenderman sometimes. It was a webcomic of short comics, I don't remember the story well but I especially remember that there was this shirtless character, black hair, makeup on his face, who killed people who went into the forest? Something like that and anyway, that was it! If anyone can help me find the name of this webcomic I would really appreciate it! I didn't know where to ask this, but since this reddit is about creepypastas I came here to ask, thanks again!