r/Nonsleep

The Last Pew!

Every Sunday, at exactly 9:00 AM, a woman was seen sitting in the last pew of a small church.

She arrived before the service began.

She left immediately after it ended.

No one ever spoke to her.

And she never spoke to anyone.

Multiple attendees later confirmed the same details.

She always wore dark clothing.

Sat in the same position.

And remained completely still throughout the entire service.

She did not participate.

No singing.

No prayer gestures.

No visible movement.

At first, her presence went largely unnoticed.

Church staff assumed she was a regular attendee.

Someone who preferred to remain private.

But over time… small details began to stand out.

No one could recall seeing her enter the building.

Despite arriving early themselves.

No one saw her leave through the main doors.

Even those seated near the exit.

And no one could remember the first day she appeared.

Then, one Sunday… she didn’t come.

For the first time in months, the last pew remained empty.

After the service, the priest walked toward the back of the church.

On the seat where she normally sat… there was a folded piece of paper.

No one had placed it there during the service.

No one had seen anyone approach that pew.

The paper had appeared without being noticed.

The priest made a brief inquiry among those still present.

No one claimed ownership.

No one reported seeing it being left behind.

Several attendees confirmed that the last pew had remained empty throughout the entire service.

The priest opened the note.

Inside was a single handwritten message.

“I’ve been dead for 12 years. Thank you for letting me sit here.”

The handwriting was steady.

There were no additional markings.

No signature.

The note was shown to members of the congregation.

Some dismissed it as a prank.

Others were unable to explain it.

Attention then shifted toward identifying the woman.

The priest began asking direct questions.

No one knew her name.

No one had spoken to her.

No one had seen her outside of the church.

Descriptions remained consistent.

An older woman.

Thin build.

Pale complexion.

Dark clothing.

There was no record of her joining the congregation.

No documentation.

No introduction.

The church maintained attendance records.

Her name did not appear in any of them.

In an effort to identify her, the priest reviewed older parish records.

Baptisms.

Funerals.

Membership logs.

One entry drew attention.

A funeral held approximately 12 years earlier.

The deceased was described in terms that closely matched the woman seen in the last pew.

Age.

Physical features.

General appearance.

No photograph was attached.

No direct confirmation could be established.

The connection remained unverified.

Despite this, the timing matched the message written in the note.

Following the discovery, available security footage was reviewed.

Cameras covered the main entrance.

Recordings showed attendees entering before each service.

However, in multiple recordings, a discrepancy appeared.

The last pew was occupied during the service.

But no footage showed the woman entering beforehand.

In each case, the seat was empty at the start of recording.

At some point… she was already there.

No timestamp captured her arrival.

Review of exits showed similar inconsistencies.

Attendees were seen leaving.

But the last pew was not clearly visible in the final moments.

There was no confirmation of her departure.

In one instance, an attendee reported looking toward the back during the service.

The seat had been empty moments earlier.

When he looked again… she was present.

No one nearby reported seeing her sit down.

No sound was associated with her movement.

After the note was found, the priest returned to the last pew later that day.

The seat was empty.

No additional items were present.

However, one detail was noted.

The surface of the bench where she had been sitting showed no dust accumulation.

In contrast to surrounding areas.

It appeared as though that specific section had been consistently occupied.

Despite no confirmed physical presence.

No further sightings of the woman were reported.

The note was preserved as part of internal records.

No external investigation was formally opened.

The priest continued reviewing historical documents.

The funeral record was examined in greater detail.

It listed a burial location.

A cemetery not far from the church.

A visit was made.

The grave marker matched the name in the parish log.

Dates confirmed the timeline.

The individual had been deceased for twelve years.

No recent activity was observed at the site.

No evidence suggested disturbance.

The connection remained circumstantial.

After the incident, attendance declined temporarily.

Several members avoided sitting near the back.

The last pew remained unused.

No formal restriction was placed.

But it was left empty.

Over time, services continued as normal.

No additional notes were found.

No further sightings were reported.

The final status of the note remains unchanged.

No fingerprints were identified.

No ink source was matched.

The handwriting has not been linked to any known individual.

The message remains the only direct statement connected to the presence.

“I’ve been dead for 12 years. Thank you for letting me sit here.”

No explanation has been provided.

No record exists of anyone placing the note.

No witness observed the act.

The identity of the woman remains unverified.

Her presence was never formally recorded.

And her absence… was only noticed after she was gone.

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u/Rich_Ad718 — 15 hours ago

TALES FROM THE NIGHTMARE VAULT: Patricia

Cave creek was pretty much what you would expect.

It was night fall by the time my parents passed the sign for the high school that i would spend the rest of my teenage years at.

"What do you think, kiddo?" my fathers bright white smile could be seen, even in the darkness, in the rearview mirror.

"I don't understand why we couldn't stay back in Chicago for two more years, just so i could finish out high school with the little friends i DID have". I said ripping my air pod out of my ear.

My moms head turned so fast i thought heard her neck crack "Noah!". She hissed through gritted teeth.

"Its ok hon" my dad said softly "Listen Noah i know this isn't ideal but the offer Mr.Kensington made me to open the new quarry was too much money for us to turn down. Please try to remember there will be life after high school and postsecondary is not cheap. You will make new friends. Think of Cave Creek as a fresh start!".

"and maybe even meet a girl" a little voice came from beside me.

I signed deeply, and turned to face Macy. Her spider man pajama shirt was crumpled and had a little wet spot from drooling on it for the last 3 hours.

"Oh yeah?" i smiled and tossed her hair.

She giggled and stuck her tongue out at me.

The last month of summer crept by into an uneventful start to my grade 11 year. Classes were long and boring and my classmates seemed less than interested in meeting me.

One kid, Elijah, had waved me over at lunch on day one and had been a sort of companion at least. He had sandy blonde hair that shook in waves when he laughed, and face full of brown freckles.

My hair was almost black and my skin was darker in comparison, but i guess that what happens when you grow up in a town called cave creek, known for tall trees and more rainy days than sunny ones.

I had convinced myself that that was the way life was going to be till i could finish school and go back to my real friends in Chicago for university.

So on that dreary mid-September morning when everything changed, it came as quite a shock.

Just as i was about to doze off in my first period History class i felt something hit the side of my head.

"Ah!" i startled as my hand slipped out from under my chin and my head hit the desk.

"Noah Martin" My teacher Mr. Garcia announced "Nice of you to contribute, do you know which 4 famous people all live in Vienna in 1913?".

I turned to Elijah, guilt spread across his face, as he was obviously the one who threw this pencil at me.

"Stalin, Hitler, Trotsky and Tito" i spat sitting back in my chair, stretching my long legs under my desk. Atleast with the lack of socialization i had time to study and actually enjoyed it for the most part. Lucky for me in that moment, history was my favourite subject.

Mr. Garcia looked defeated and scoffed under his breath turning back towards the white board.

"Sorry" Elijah said beside me "he called you twice".

"What are you doing after school?" Elijah asked catching up to me after last period just outside the exit doors.

"I promised my parents i would take my little sister to the library to meet her friends" i said hoisting my backpack over my shoulder and starting towards my Truck.

"Man, you have been telling me for weeks now you would come down to ghost rock with me so i can show you what our town is famous for" Elijah whined as my hand found my door handle and pulled. It took everything in me not to tell him i couldn't care less and this move would one day be just a distant memory.

That when everything changed. The moment my eyes found hers, the whole world slowed down. Her long icy blonde hair fell down her shoulders in a straight water fall. Her pink polkadot dress was cut just above her knees, revealing pail petite legs that ran down to white ballerina flats. She was perched against a tree in the school garden with thick book in her small hands.

"Elijah... who's that?" i asked pointed to the back of the school.

Elijahs head whipped around.

"Who? What are you talking about?" he groaned.

"The girl in the garden" i said motioning in her direction, right in front of where Elijah was looking.

"Dude i don't see anyone, look if you don't want to hang out after school its fine, just let me know when you are available because..." i cut him off "i gotta go" and slammed my truck door shut.

I glanced back toward Elijah who had slumped off as i made my was toward the garden at the back of the school, and it sent a pang into my heart. I didn't know why i felt so sour towards him, it was more about my situation, but as i turned back towards her the world cleared again.

Her eyes were still locked on me and she began to lower her book as i drew closer.

"Hi" i said managing a goofy smile.

"Hello" her voice like velvet hit my ear funny and made my knees weak. I stumbled a little which made her jump.

"I... Im Noah" i said thrusting my hand in front of her awkwardly. She downturned her lips and looked at my outstretched palm it like it offended her. When she looked back up at me her beautiful almost sea foam eyes softened.

"I am Patricia".

We sat there for about 2 hours just chatting. She sat cross legged about 4 feet away from me, that beautiful dress blowing occasionally in the wind.

"Noah... thats a nice name" she breathed.

"My mom told me once it means rest" i said leaning in but careful not to get to close.

Her big eyes looked sad at that for a brief second "rest... that sounds nice".

She had moved here last year but had yet to make a friend. It was just her and her father living down on Riverstone drive in an old Cape Cod style home.

"I admit" my cheeks turning purple "i'm not great at talking to people either... you are actually the first person i approached since i started here".

"I saw you talking to that boy earlier" she pushed her hair behind her ear. God her voice was beautiful, and those eyes.

"Thats Elijah, he's very friendly i'm actually surprised you haven't met him yet he approached me on my first day".

"He seems nice but no i haven't spoken to really anybody" she looked embarrassed as the words left her lips.

"He is nice, i feel bad i told him i could hang out with him tonight because..." i shot up startling her into dropping the book she had pressed against her chest into the grass.

"Patricia, i am so sorry. I need to leave i promised... it doesn't matter, can i drive you home?" i half shouted reaching my hand down to help her out of the grass.

"No..." she whispered leaning away from my outstretched hand "Im okay, thank you".

"Okay" i said pulling my hand back "I would really like to see you tomorrow at school".

A small smile spread across her lips and she nodded.

I turned and sprinted to the truck not risking a glance back, fearing she would be gone and i had imagined the whole amazing experience.

Little Macys eyes were red and swollen when i burst through the front door. She sat on the bench in the mud room clutching her back pack with shaking hands.

"Two hours" She chocked out, her lips quivered as i threw my own back pack into the closet.

"Macy, i'm so sorry" i said falling to my knees beside her.

"No" she said wiping a big wet tear from her cheek "This is the only thing i asked you to do since we got here. You never want to see me, all you do is sit up in your room playing music with your door closed" she stood and kicked her shoes off "You don't think it was hard for me too coming here and starting grade 8 in a new school?! I don't even know who you are anymore!".

I watched her bolt up the stairs and audibly gasped when her door slammed shut.

"Shit".

Dinner was quiet that night. My dad made small talk about the quarry and how things "couldn't be running more smoothly". My mom listened intently poking at her mashed potatoes. I looked up once at Macy but she never met my eyes. To be honest i was lost in my own world thinking about Patricia.

The night as i drifted off to sleep, all i could think about was her. She was the most beautiful girl i had ever seen. Her long blonde hair, her pouty soft lips. The way she giggled and cocked her head to the side when i made a joke made my cheeks throb with heat.

The next morning i rushed to get out the door.

"Pancakes?" My dad called as i ran past the kitchen.

"No, i gotta go. Sorry dad" i called grabbing my jacket and flinging the front door open.

Finally a sunning day. I pulled out of our sloped drive way and turned onto the street to start towards school.

Maybe if i went in early i could catch her before class started in the halls, she had said she was in the same grade as me but i would have remembered seeing her in one at least in home room.

The day went on and as hard as tried i didn't see her. lunch rolled around and i spotted Elijah sitting at a far table with a couple classmates, his hands flying in the air probably telling some elaborate story i had already heard a million times.

I slid in next to him with my tray just as another one of the kids started talking.

"I have to talk to you" i whispered poking him in the shoulder.

Elijah turned to me rolling his eyes.

"I expected at least a text last night after you ran off" he said taking a bite of his apple, some juice squirting onto the top of my hand.

"Whatever... sorry... look" I almost couldn't catch my breath "do you know a Patricia?".

"What is this a riddle?" he asked.

"What? No. She's a student here, since last year?".

Elijah shrugged and began collecting discarded wrappers from his lunch.

"Are you actually telling me you have never seen her, she absolutely stunning and funny and..." He cut me off.

"Well i'm glad you found someone you want to hang out with, Noah but no... i have no clue who your talking about" and with that he stood and left me at a table with complete strangers.

The next couple of days were miserable. Elijah had barely said a word to me and i didn't run into Patricia again. The Friday bell let school out and i walked slowly towards my truck.

Out of the corner of my eyes i spotted her. a jolt running up my spine.

"Hey!" i screamed, a little to loud.

There she was perched against the same tree, a different novel in her hand this time.

As i ran toward her she looked up and for a split second i could see fear in her expression.

"Patricia, where have you been..." I went to touch her arm but she pulled back just in time.

"Noah look..." she started.

"I told you i wanted to see you again at school and you were... just gone".

"Noah i'm not really supposed... i have to go". She knelt down to shove her book into her bag.

Thats when i noticed it... the same pink polkadot dress she was wearing on the first day i saw her.

"Patricia..." I mumbled again reaching for her arm.

She fell back this time, bumping against the tree.

"Leave me alone! Im not supposed to speak to boys, my dad... well he..." she stood then, all 5'4 of her to my 6'2.

"He just doesn't like it" she said finally, starting to walk off.

"But" i said "I really like you...".

She froze.

Turning around slowing her eyes were so glassy, those beautiful sea foam eyes.

"Really?" she asked.

"Yes, please stay and talk with me again" i begged.

"Do you know where ghost rock is?" she said.

"I can find out" i nodded anxiously.

"Ok i will meet you there, after 11, i can sneak out" she blinked away a tear and smiled shyly.

"OK YES!" i shouted. She flinched then giggled, "ok i will see you tonight then".

The floor boards creaked as i made my way towards the door.

Mom and dad had gone to bed an hour ago. A soft light came from under Macys door, i assumed she had left her tv on and fallen asleep.

Grabbing my keys from the hook i turned to open the door and came face to face with my very awake little sister.

"Really?" she said placing her hand on her hip.

"Macy look, i met someone" i said.

"What?!" her whole demeanor changed then.

"A girl?!" she grabbed my arm.

"Yes Macy... actually" i said pulling her towards the living room "her name is Patricia, have you seen her... or heard of her in our school?".

Macys jaw worked for a second then her eyes met mine.

"No, what does she look like?".

"5'4, blonde, green eyes... actually i have only seen her in a polkadot dress, does that sound familiar?" i sat in front of her on the couch.

"Actually Noah... no" she said "i have never seen her, but if you like her, thats all that matters" she smiled broadly down at me.

I pulled up to the parking for ghost cave, not a single other car for miles down the road and certainly no sign of life here.

i pulled my jacket closer around me and clicked the flashlight on to begin the decent down the wooden path towards the cave.

The cold night air licked at my cheeks and shiver ran down my spin. An owl hoot in the distant set me back onto my heels.

"Noah" her voice cut through the freeze and i sped up as the cave came into view.

"Patricia?" i called.

Scanning the rock wall with my thin flash light i finally found her, seated on one of the massive boulders.

"I like you too" she blushed and beckoned me over.

When i reached the rock and sat myself down beside her she leaned in closer than she ever had before. She smelled like fresh flowers sitting in a windowsill. Her breath brushed against my cheek, sending shivers down my body and making my hair stand on end.

"Tell me more about growing up in a big city, Noah" she said softly.

And i did. It must have been 2am when we finally fell into silence. She had told me she lost her mom when she was younger and how hard it was on her and her father. We laughed, we cried... it was the best night of my life. When we were leaving she kissed me on the cheek. Her lips were impossibly cold, i had offered her my jacket then but she turned it down saying "i'm used to the cold".

I rolled the thin piece of paper, Patricia had torn out of the front page of her book and wrote her number on, between my fingers. Laying on my bed, i felt butterflies in my stomach. I had had girlfriends before, but no one i ever met could measure up to this sweet girl. I decided i would call her tomorrow evening if i didn't see her at school and drifted into a dreamless sleep.

"Good morning" Macy yawned walking into the bathroom.

"Hey buddy" i said through a mouthful of foamy toothpaste.

Her dark hair was nothing short of a rats nest as he grabbed her comb and began ripping at the knotted end.

"I have something weird to tell you" she said, setting the comb down.

"Mhh?" i rinsed my mouth out under the tap and dapped at it with the towel hanging off the door.

"After you left last night i went on the schools online directory to see if i could find Patricia".

I froze then, looking down at my little sister "why? what did you find?".

"Well i just wanted to see who you were talking about, i thought it was weird i never saw her in the hall ways".

"And?" i said impatiently.

"Thats the thing Noah... i couldn't find her. No record at all. No one by that name".

My head swam heading into school. She said she had started there last year, its impossible for there to be no record of her. Right?

The day dragged, Elijah had obviously let whatever grudge he was holding against me go because our conversation at lunch was light hearted and he even asked if i wanted to come over on the weekend to play video games.

My engine roared as i pulled back into my driveway after school that day.

I signed heavily putting the old truck into park and leaned back into my seat.

I closed my eyes and listened to the wind hitting the metal on my door, the truck swayed slightly with the gust.

When i opened them again i saw something stuck under my wind shield wiper that i hadn't noticed the whole drive home.

"Huh?" i muttered, grabbing my backpack and stepping out the door.

I unfolded the paper as i stepped through my door. Written with wobbly black ink were 4 simple words, that sent a stab of panic through me.

"Stay away from her".

I squeezed my cell phone in my hand so hard i though the poor thing would crack. The clock on my bedside table read 11:02.

Sitting on the edge of my bed i though, her dad has to be asleep. I need to talk to her, to ask her about the school, why they had no record of her. Why was i getting threatening notes about her?

The line rang only twice when a soft voice picked up on the other end.

"He... Hello?" she said in a whisper.

"Hey Patricia, i need to talk to you" i ushered.

"Noah? I cant right now im sorry my dad might..." she started.

I cut her off "The school has no record of you ever attending it, and i found this note on my truck" the words came out so fast.

"Patricia..." i said slowly "i have this weird feeling like... you might not be real... like im imagining you or your..." i didn't know how to finish my sentence.

"Oh... yeah well" suddenly a loud bang could be heard through the phone speaker.

Patricia screamed and the line went dead.

"Patricia!" i pressed the phone against my ear but the dial toned hum was all i could hear.

"Oh shit" i hit the redial button but i hadn't even rung.

I grabbed my keys from the night stand and ran off into the freezing night.

It was started raining as i turned down River Stone Drive. I didn't know her address but she had mentioned she lived in an old Cape Cod, which i googled and had a vague idea of what i was looking for.

As i got closer to the end of the street i thought i saw it. The moon was reflecting off the steep of the gabled roof. The central chimney was a dead give away, it was the only one of the street that had one.

This couldn't possibly be where she lived though? It didn't look like anyone had lived there in 50 years.

Stepping out into the rain i noticed the boarded up windows. The front door appeared to be hanging at a weird angle, and slightly ajar.

As i approached the house another load bang sent me running full speed through the front door and into a dimly lit foyer.

Patricia lay sprawled out wailing on the floor. A ridiculously large man towering over her small frame.

I panicked and rushed the man only to be knocked back by his brick like body.

"So this is the boy?!" he yelled thrusting his thumb in my direction.

"I homeschooled you to keep you safe! To keep you away from people like him, who just want to take you away from me" he howled.

"Im sorry daddy!" she cried, pulling herself up from the floor.

"You just want to leave me, like your mother did!" his face was beat read as he reached down and wrapped him hand around her throat.

"There was only one way i could keep her safe, keep her with me" he lifted her off the ground by her neck.

All i could do was stare stupidly as she clawed and kicked at the large man.

All at once, he threw her at the fire place. Her head made a sickening crack as it connected with the jagged grey rocks that made up the ledge.

I dove for her then and bundled her up in my arms. The cold skin of her forehead pressed against my lips.

"What did you do?!" i cried at the man now panting heavily walking towards me.

"Same thing i did to her mother and the same thing i'm going to do to you, boy" he outstretched his arms and reached for me.

The blood pouring from Patricias beautiful head soaked her light hair and ran down my arms and legs.

I smelt him before i felt his rough hands grab me by the shoulders, pulling me away.

"Let me go!" i screamed. He was only a few feet taller than me but ungodly strong.

"You made me do this, i warned you with the note!" he said lifting me off my feet the same way he did Patricia.

I felt myself fly through the air and land abruptly on the fireplace ledge.

"You want to be with her... fine be with her" he grunted and stalked out of the room.

I could only turn my head enough to see the pretty girl out of the corner of my eye.

Her chest had stopped rising and falling and despite her face only being and inch from mine, i couldn't feel her breath.

I grabbed her hand and squeezed as hot tears poured down the sides of my head.

Well she was real... was real. Not a ghost. Not a figment of my imagination.

The red and blue lights started pouring in through the big bay windows of the open living room.

Macy must have heard me leave, tracked my phone and called the cops.

I gotta tell you... Cave Creak wasn't feeling like the fresh start my dad had hoped for me.

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u/Old_Following_3732 — 13 hours ago

The victim becomes the god

I can see it now seeping from your eyes, curling over the edge and sliding down your cheek like a tear, but we both know it's not water you cry but the seep from the injection stabbed into your neck by a syringe full of blue slosh. I see it sliding down your nose, and your other eye is completely shot red as blood vessels break open and pour out from behind the lens. The bubbling blood from your mouth like foam is the most unsettling reaction yet witnessed. You convulse on the floor, your skin melting into goo as it slides down, mixing with the puddle of blood under your body. I then looked at all of you behind the glass, the observers taking notes on touchscreen pads and swiping at numbers. I had no idea what they meant. I wondered if we were the numbers displayed above us, just out of sight. If so, were the numbers dropping faster than we wanted? I looked down at what used to be a human but had morphed into a pond of red and tan swirls, seeping into each other to create a darker shade of red.

Who was next? 

Three men in sterile yellow hazmat suits entered the observatory to collect samples of the goo on the floor, making the effluvium in the room a stench of busted intestines and antiseptic from a hospital before someone else arrived to contain the rest of the slosh for further analysis. I watched what used to be a woman get scooped just like melted ice cream into a large glass container and carried out the door. We all gawked at the scientists with scribbling hands and men in sharp suits who were murmuring to one another, never out of order, walking around talking on phones and typing notes on their computers. We were the subjects, all here voluntarily under false pretenses.

Real starvation makes anyone do the unimaginable so you can get something to eat, and this man wearing his spicy musk cologne, in his sharp suit had a buffet for me, waiting just beyond the horizon. I was introduced to a stern looking woman sitting behind a large white desk which was stationed in the front of  a massive glass building that the man in the suit led me to. We went to the shiny elevators and pushed the down button. A ding came as our cart arrived and we stepped inside the elevator on a velvet carpet freshly cleaned and I watched the man in the suit push the very bottom button of the building. I gulped as my stomach dropped on the way down. We entered a floor I assumed was the only half-legal operations center for the system I was now locked into. We passed through a rambunctious laboratory running around with men in undressed suits sitting behind computer screens typing away like their fingers were on fire and reached another elevator that went deeper than the sub-basement we were in currently, beneath the building’s basement. If a lower sub-basement was our destination, I was about to experience many illicit programs that would mark me to never see the light of day again.

I would not live through this. Understanding the situation but having no solution was an agony threatening to burst me like a balloon. The elevator opened to a common area, a place of gathering and understanding. The room was furnished with chairs and couches and the smell of febreeze was a nice tickle to my nose. In the back of the room, I saw a full liqueur bar with a man in uniform making drinks for everyone.

“Come with me,” the man in the suit was taking me past the other waving volunteers and into an office where I had to sit across from him at a wooden glossed desk. 

There was a lot of paperwork I needed to sign quickly, but the blurred words project, Dr. Neil Price, injections, and results were bolded in my brain. I suddenly felt an impending doom I had never felt before and with that feeling came a copper taste that invaded my mouth like poison. 

“My name is Mr. Joe, and here is where you will be living until the project has concluded. You will be provided with all of your needs, and you will be properly taken care of.” His smile was so charming, and the way his dimples came out made you want to say yes to any offer, but how could I enjoy any of this without questions?   

“I think there is a lot more to be said about that. I wasn't expecting to be an experiment for some company that is obviously doing illegal shit. I want to know what is going on and if I am going to die here.” Coming to terms with my reality was hard to swallow, but one I had to accept if I didn't want to go mad.

“Okay, whatever.” Mr. Joe got nonchalant with me after that little candid outburst he probably wasn't expecting from me, even though everyone else was frantic about the situation once they understood, kind of, what was going on. I just wanted to know how this operation was running and if my death will be helpful or useful at the end of it all. “Our people have found an algae that adapts well to a certain chemical compound made in a lab. We are testing the syrups made by our people with each volunteer that has agreed to be here. Everyone will get an injection everyday until we have the one we are looking for.” Watching Mr. Joe swivel around in his chair made me want to punch him in the face, and I did. He didn't see me coming as my balled-up fist hit the side of his face as hard as I could, and he fell over, sliding out of his seat onto the floor.

“You don't trick people.” It was ludicrous he had to keep this secret to invite volunteers. You can find people desperate enough to do anything for survival. “I would have said yes to anything to get off the streets, but you shouldn't lead people into this experiment blindly. You have gone past caring about human lives, I know this, but I hope you understand when I say you're an asshole.” He got off the floor and straightened up. Being hit by a girl wasn't fun, but not that impactful either.

“Welcome to the project. If you need anything, we are always listening.” Mr. Joe showed me to the door, and without any more answers, I left, having nothing else to do. 

Finding an empty place to sit was easy since there were only six people in the room, not including me. I didn't want to interact; I just wanted to wait until the dinner bell rang and the food came to us, which happened sooner than later. All of the volunteers sat at a long dinner table which featured a full buffet lining down the table runner, brought in by men who looked like servers in their uniform and posture. I was introduced to meals I had only seen in movies, and the drinks that went around the table were the best spirits I had ever tasted as some were as sweet as a nectarine and others were bitter like fire and wood. Everything was perfect, too perfect. Considering we were all going to die because of this, it was the least the man in the suit could do for us. I wondered what he promised the others to get them down in this charade paradise. After dinner, I was shown into the observatory, where the other six followed me into a blank white room with a giant window at least twelve feet from the ground. Through the window I could see men in white lab coats and others in pristine suits that made the wealthiest look poor.

The doors shut behind us once a man in a white hazmat suit followed us inside. I could hear his heavy breathing when he got close to me. He had a cart with seven syringes, each a different color and texture from the others. The needle pierced my neck with a spiked purple liquid that felt like ice hitting my bone when injected through my flesh. The needle went so deep I thought it had gone through my windpipe. The man in the hazmat suit left after all injections were administered, and the seven of us were left standing, looking at one another, waiting for something to happen. Then, a girl my age hit the floor as she began to aggressively convulse and spew red foam from her mouth like a rabid animal. I watched as each humerus unlocked from its position in the shoulder socket and twisted backward, making her skin twirl like a cyclone. Her hands were flat on the ground, sticking inward on crooked elbows. Then you could hear the loud pop of her femurs getting yanked from her hips as they too dislodged from their place and rearranged themselves in distorted ways. Witnessing the bones turn backward, I was shocked at the elasticity of her skin as it rolled with her bones and stayed twirled up like a cone of soft serve.

Her torso was faced up in the air, and her stomach was sunken so far inward that her ribs were sticking out like twigs under her thin protective layer of skin. The woman’s face was not backward like it should have been in her current position, but instead her head was upright, and she was looking at us all through bloodshot eyes, which cried rivers of crimson staining her face. I put my hand over my mouth as I saw the webbed black veins under her paper-thin skin spreading through her head like a virus. The woman suddenly began skittering around the room, running on all four broken, warped limbs, and barking like a dog. I couldn't believe I would see a person’s head imploded like hers did, as her whole head popped like a squished grape, sending brain matter and gushes of blood in every direction just in some random decided moment. Shards of bone flew like glass and pierced through a few people as they held their faces from the injury. No one knew what was going to happen next, and that’s when chaos broke out. 

The ones around me went ballistic as they ran for the doors begging for help, trying to escape this horrible scene that had just unfolded before them. I, however, looked at the headless corpse, and I thought about all the shit I have seen on the streets, and going through this was much better than dying in the cold on a street corner from an overdose on fentanyl or heroin. If I were going to die here, I would be warm and well-fed while also getting the proper health care that I need. Staying here was the best for me, but from the others' reactions, they didn't really know what they were in for. They didn't ask questions about the paradise laid out like a fashion show before them. All of the volunteers were ignorant and hadn't accepted what was coming, accepted what I had already known in my heart to be true, and found some kind of peace in the situation. 

I looked up at the glass, at the ones who were watching us, and I met eyes with one of them in the suits. He had no expression on his flawless face, and there wasn't a speck of indignity located anywhere near his aura. He was a true man of power with a force of reckoning that he was commanding to come down upon us. He was our onslaught, there to watch us all die and then take notes on the process. Who knows what they were looking for or trying to manifest in their labs, but whatever it was must have been some sort of bio weapon if it causes these reactions. 

I snuggled into my padded mattress and wrapped myself around the furry, soft blankets, and I did not fall asleep to thoughts of death or nightmares of torture. I went to bed thinking this was the first time in almost ten years that I felt this warm in bed. The next morning, I was awoken to the sweet fragrance of cinnamon frosting and sizzled cooked bacon, along with the most beautiful aroma of freshly ground coffee beans. I was truly in heaven. I got up and put on the drab grey, basic attire provided by the company. I slid on the cotton t-shirt, covering all the scars I had collected over the years on my torso, and put on the hoodie to cover my track marks on the inside of my elbow and between my fingers. I couldn't believe how soft the sweat pants were when they were put on next, and the fibers that stitched it all together were coarse on the outside but like woolen pelt within. I slipped on a pair of grey slippers before heading out of my sliding open door, which moved automatically open and shut by the determination of how close I was to the entrance. 

I followed the redolence to the dining hall where an entire spread was laid out on the table in a very empty room. No one seemed to have an appetite after going through such a grotesque murder firsthand with no mental preparation. At least my mind was a stone now, made that way by the string of deaths I had followed throughout my life. I was desensitized by bloodshed and murder because that is what I was raised knowing. I didn't know any of these other people, and I sure didn't know what they did or where they were from, but I understood that none of them had experienced death firsthand before, and seeing it presented like that was the most horrific thing they would ever witness. I sat down, glee in my eyes, and enjoyed the bounty before me, eating until my stomach bulged and my body felt warm.

I found the coach and tucked myself between the pillows before finding a sweet sleep that I had never had the chance to fall into willingly in my life. I was awoken to a voice over the intercom telling everyone to gather in the observatory. I let out a huff at the intrusion on such a slumberous nap, but followed my directions and witnessed the others emerge from their rooms for the first time all day. We all stood idle in the room of no color, no emotion, nothing but waiting for death, and we complied to the needle of different colored serums entering our bodies to be tested on our human form. The color I got today was a bubbly yellow, and it felt like a jab into my bone as the needle was inserted into my neck once again. I shivered after being struck and found somewhere in the room to sit, to wait, to see what was going to happen today. 

Almost everyone in the room was crying, but there were a few like me who were just dull with acceptance, and we were waiting for our fate to unravel in whatever way it did. Today, it was another woman who got the infection, and her death was the most painful one of all so far, as I watched her body become more and more bloated with liquid and goo. Her clothes ripped off as she blew up like a wrinkled balloon, and her flesh sagged in curtains which only grew wider and wider. The woman could no longer scream or talk as her throat became so swollen it stretched wide, and the skin was droopy as it sagged further and fell to her chest. Her torso looked like it had a set of utters, and you couldn't distinguish her breasts from the rest of her upper body. She was too heavy to stand as she landed backward on her ass, barely able to sit upright. 

An effluvium of spoiled milk and deep musk escaped the woman’s flabs like vapor, and the fumes swallowed the entire room whole as everyone tried to stay as far away as possible, as she still continued to bloat. The woman couldn't move her thousand-pound body in any kind of way, but she found a way of flailing her chubby, melted arms around. Four men came into the room with a lift, and the driver scooped the woman up and took her out to a place I knew I didn't want to go to. We left the observatory, and it was time to eat, and of course, I ravaged my meal as the others poked and prodded at their meat. I couldn't understand how they could all waste so much food that I could be eating, because I didn't leave leftovers or let my food spoil. I ate everything. 

That night, I slept in a cold sweat as the side effects of the injection began to hit my nervous system. I was locked inside my body, desperately yelling at my limbs to move, and I cried out from cramps in every twisted muscle. It felt like I had been dehydrated for years, and now I was receiving the results. But I was not dehydrated; this was not due to negligence but to the bubbly, yellow liquid swimming freely through my veins. Suddenly, I unlocked, and everything stopped for a moment. Then I ran fast to the metal toilet in my room and spewed out yellow bile like it was exploding from a fire hydrant. After that, I passed out and didn't wake until a voice on the intercom told us to meet in the observatory.

I knew I looked like hell from my night of torture, but everyone else just looked depressed but well rested. I found a corner to sit in away from everyone else and spat out my spit until the taste of vomit was void from my mouth. A man fought the injection this time today and tried to fight the man in the hazmat suit who was struggling to keep his suit from being damaged, and in this attempt of mutiny, security came in and subdued the volunteer long enough to get the injection through his neck, while the company men also had time to leave without any more assaults. The man got up and began screaming vulgar things at the men in the window, and not only did I know he was wasting his breath, but he knew it, too, and decided to continue with the dramatics anyway. 

My injection today was like thick grey sludge, and it was injected into my vein like bloating slime with its sloppy substance and then slowly dissolving as it ran through my bloodstream. It felt just like it acted, like someone was filling my veins up with something gooey, and then the feeling just melted away with my body. I wondered if today was the day I was going to die when a frail man, probably in his sixties, started to blast blood from his mouth as he had no time to heave or breathe, and his back was hunched over as far as it could go. As soon as the old man took a breath, the waterfall of blood came back with a reckoning. This happened until the man fell limp on the floor with blood still trickling from his mouth and collecting with the pond of crimson he left behind. A hazmat team came in and took samples of the body before the others came in to actually dispose of the cadaver. Everyone was weeping, and they were just as desensitized to all this as I was, and that was good for them in this situation, but if they end up living through this hell, they will never see life the same way again. 

That night, I had continuous nightmares that rocked my entity and twisted fantasy into things that were reality. I gasped for breath every time the demons let go of their hold on me, only to fall back into the desperate grasp once more, making it a maddening cycle of torment. It didn't matter how I felt in the morning; I still went to the dining hall and ate breakfast, as the three that were still with me were not eating at all at this point in the project, and I'm sure the company was taking down notes about their melancholy behavior, and of course, the nonexistent mania that has not affected me thus far. So many notes I wanted to read to see how these doctors saw and evaluated us, not as people but as subjects. I could see the glory of not being the subject of this experience, and I wondered what kind of response they really wanted from us. So far, we have witnessed horrifying deaths that seem to happen to one of us at a time. Is it random how we are dying, or is it already planned, and is the reaction what is being evaluated? Which would mean the company is using murder to see the mind’s reaction to the first-hand experience of torture. 

I wondered what else they were looking for as we all went into the observatory, the others walking in like zombies, animated only by pure will. Today, my injection was a metallic liquid that shimmered silver on the way into my vein. Needles were not a big thing for me in any way, considering the addictive abuse I have already put on my body. Maybe that is what makes me different from everyone else: the profound infection I already might have manifested itself differently in my body than in theirs, and to prove this theory, I was the only one who was going to live through this. What I saw took me out of my thoughts and focused me on the man and woman facing each other, their heads as far back as they could go. Their jaws were gaping open as if they were silently screaming the sound that erupted around us, one we couldn't hear, and their eyes rolled back, leaving only thin red and blue vines in a white pool of blindness. 

I watched with only one other healthy person as these two bodies fell back onto the floor with a skull-breaking shatter, and we witnessed their bodies being mummified right in front of our faces. It was like every organ inside their carcass had just disappeared. A group of four in hazmat suits came in to take samples of the deceased before the pallbearers came forth and took away two more lost souls that were destined to die like this, the moment their pens hit the paper. It was all of us who signed up for what was happening. I wondered if I was the only one they told about what was really happening down here. I was prepared for all of this because Mr. Joe filled me in, as the others seemed to be blindsided by a mirage of glamor and riches. 

The only other person left with me stared at me while I ate my dinner with a sense of solace in my heart for still experiencing such a glorious way of living. I was a queen in a palace, and I was given everything I could ever want. Why would I refuse my meal as this man did, and why must he judge me so harshly for knowing the truth that he was only now witnessing? It wasn’t my fault. I demanded answers and the truth before stepping into this bullshit, and apparently, the others were so blinded by the offers and promises that they didn't read the fine print. The man and I stayed in the commons that night, each of us being awake as we knew what was coming as soon as the sun came up. The man stared at me all night until the intercom called for us. 

I wondered how they kept the bloodstains from staining the interior of this room, which was so white. And yet, stepping into this room every day, it was flawless, spotless and smelled sterile and clean. The man and I stood together as we were both injected with our shots, mine being a slimy green and his being a metallic blue. The hazmat team left, and then the two of us waited to see who was going to die next. It was me, and I could feel it in my body as my organs became rearranged, and I started to vomit blood. I wasn't alone; however, the guy next to me was seizing on the ground with his limbs curled in like a dead spider. My mouth was filled with the taste of copper and super glue, and I felt like my throat was getting sewn together from the inside. I felt like I was suffocating, and I wondered if one of us would live or if both of us would die. The reactions are still what they are looking for, and seeing two people fight death at the same time for different reasons was apparently fun to explore. 

Every bone in my body felt like it was shattering into a million shards, and the pressure in my head was becoming more and more dire. I fell back onto the ground. I could feel that, but after the fall, there was nothing. Only darkness. The darkness didn't stay for long, however, and I woke up to see a hazmat team leaning down in front of me. One of the guys was helping me up, and I saw my. Joe standing over me. I was pushed onto my feet, disoriented and in a daze, as I tried to collect my bearings and see the world around me clearly. Then I saw the other volunteer, and his face was so distorted in a way that it looked like he had died from experiencing something so terrifying that it left a mark even in death. 

I was taken to the shower before putting on fresh clothes as a few doctors led me back into mr. Joe’s office. He was sitting at his desk with his two-hundred-dollar loafers resting on his fine maple wood. He did not adjust his position as I entered the room. 

“Come on in and take a seat.” His charismatic smile was back, and those dimples made my heart beat quickly. “What you have done is just finished the project successfully.” He pulled a cigarillo out of his pocket and lit it, making the room smell of spicy tobacco, with a woody sweetness on my tongue. 

“What does that mean?” I wanted to know how far into the experiment I was allowed to fall before they probably were going to kill me for knowing about any of this in the first place, but at least my curiosity would be satisfied. 

“You have two choices now.” The man sat up straight now and let out a puff of smoke before looking me dead in the eye. “You can work for the company, or you can go back to the streets where you were digging for heroin and hoping not to die from an accidental fentanyl overdose.” The guy in the suit laughed like he already knew my answer, and I really considered both options. 

“Tell me what this project was about,” I spoke firmly, wanting to be let in on the light instead of staying in the shadows, staying ignorant of any ongoing experiments. 

“We are testing a weapon of sorts.” He bobbled his head and let out a sigh as he let me in on all the secrets. “Doctors are hired here to make a an injectable drug and this serum will specifically affect the subject in the way that the doctor’s intended it to react.” He cleared his throat and thought hard on something while he smoked for a bit before going on with his explanation. “Imagine the worst thing someone can go through physically, and our doctors and professors we hire make that happen for us.” I watched as he let the ash of his small cigar settle in a glass ashtray that was as clean as this entire office. 

“You want me to work for the company. What does that mean?” I wanted to know what kind of clearance I would receive if I accepted this offer, or if I would continue to be a lab rat in their maze of different venoms. 

“It means you help the doctors come up with specific ideas for a bio weapon, and they make it.” It was that simple; all I had to do was tell someone how I wanted another human being to die, and they were going to make it happen. 

“What do I get out of all this?” Was there payment involved, and was it enough for me to finally survive on? 

“The company will give you a house on the compound, and you will be financially secure for the rest of your life in the company.” He was giving me everything on a silver platter, and my mouth was watering for all of it. 

“Will I ever know what company I will be working for?” I wondered if this company was well known in the underground, surfaced every now and again to grab its victims, and then just disappear. 

“No. You will work with the professors and the doctors.” That was all of an answer he was going to give me, and I really didn't think I needed more of an explanation. 

“What do I have to do to work for the company if I were to agree?” My morality was teetering at this point, and I wanted to see just how much I could get to have that teeter-totter fall in one direction. 

“All you have to do is follow me.” That was it; there was no paperwork or signatures, it was just as simple as walking down the road. 

“Alright. I'll work for the company.” How could I not agree to a life of grandeur? 

“You understand we will be testing your work on other subjects like yourself.” He wanted to make this clear before I made my decision to become a god, an act only a few could handle. 

“I understand.” I was just as stoic as the man in the suit, and the firm break in morality felt like a rubber band snapping my skin. 

I was going to be god in a world that I had control of, and all my desires would bloom into reality, and never again would I feel the cold streets beneath my feet, nor feel the biting wind of winter coming. There wouldn't be newspapers to help me keep my warmth, and there would be no dumpsters outside nice restaurants throwing away scraps that I could have for dinner. None of that. I was done with that. Now I could be someone. Now I could control my own reality and others'. This was it for me; I now worked for the company. 

reddit.com
u/GothMomi — 22 hours ago

We rented a cabin in the woods near a small town in Kentucky. The locals warned us not to arrive after dark.

“Damn it, Olivia… it’s 4 p.m., we were supposed to leave 3 hours ago,” I said angrily, holding the phone to my ear and packing the last suitcase into the car.

“I know, there’s nothing I can do about it. I was supposed to stop by the office for two hours to help the girls with a few things because there are a lot of clients, and my boss kept piling more work on me. I can’t say no, you know we need the money,” she said in a raised voice, then added after a moment.

“I’m finishing up now. I’ll be home in 30 minutes at the latest. Pack the car, I’ll get back and we can go.”

I hung up.
It wasn’t the first time her boss had made her come into work, even on her day off.

She worked at an insurance company and they always had problems finding employees.

Olivia agreed to it, and even though it irritated me, I kept quiet because she was the one mainly supporting us. She made really good money.

I’m a graphic designer. I pick up jobs that are becoming fewer and fewer every year, while I fight competition and the rise of artificial intelligence by offering rates that sometimes translate into less than minimum wage.

This trip was our dream honeymoon, delayed over and over again.
We got married over a month ago, but because of work, we had already postponed the trip several times.

We agreed together that we simply wanted to go somewhere where we would have peace from people, technology, and could focus only on each other and resting.

So I found us a cabin in the woods near the town of Pineville, Kentucky.
It was beautiful, nothing around it but forest, silence, and peace, and if we needed anything, we had about 2 miles to town, where there were local shops.

Forty minutes passed, and Olivia still wasn’t there.
I dialed her number again.

“Are you on your way back? Damn it, that’s like a 4-hour drive, we’re going to arrive at night,” I said, losing the last bit of my patience.

“Yes, Liam. I’m just leaving the office. I’ll be there in 15 minutes. Did you call the owner to let her know we’ll be this late?” she asked, clearly irritated.

I hesitated, but after a moment I answered, “Of course I called. Everything is arranged.”

“Good. Let’s not argue. I’ll be home soon. I love you,” she said, and hung up.

A chill ran down my back.
In all the stress and chaos, I had forgotten to call Mrs. Sofia.

In theory, we were supposed to be there in 20 minutes to pick up the keys. How was I supposed to tell her that we were only just leaving?

I started pacing around the living room in panic.

“You can do this, Liam. She’s just an old lady. Worst case, she yells at you,” I said to myself, trying to build myself up.

“She won’t cancel the reservation. The cabin is already paid for,” I continued my monologue.

Alright. I’m calling.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Sofia,” I said a little too enthusiastically.

After a moment of silence, the old woman’s voice came through the phone.

“Hello. Are you already here?”

“You see, there’s a situation. My wife got held up at work, we’re only just leaving,” I said uncertainly.

“Sir, you told me you had a 4-hour drive. It will be after 10 by the time you get here. Why are you calling me only now? I’ll already be asleep. I don’t leave the house after dark,” the old woman said dryly, irritated, and I felt my hands start to sweat.

“I’m very sorry, ma’am. With all the stress and confusion, I forgot to call earlier. We’ll try to get there as quickly as possible.”

A long silence followed, and I sat there on pins and needles.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Hello, Mrs. Sofia? Are you there?”

“I’m here. Come tomorrow morning,” the old woman answered firmly.

“Please, have mercy. It’s our honeymoon. We only have one week off, every hour is worth its weight in gold to us,” I said in a pleading tone.

After another pause, she spoke.

“It would be better for you if you came in the morning, but if that’s what you want… I’ll leave the key on the porch. Take it, and when you’re done with your stay, please leave it in the same place.”

“Thank you so much, you’re really saving me…” I stopped mid-sentence, realizing the old woman had hung up.

I sighed with relief.

I knew the cabin owner would be angry, but I didn’t expect her to take offense to that extent.
Older people are naturally punctual, and apparently that really got under her skin.

The doorbell rang, and I nearly jumped, suddenly pulled out of my thoughts.

Olivia had arrived, finally…

On my way to the door, I thought how good it was that I had managed to handle it before she got back.

If she found out I hadn’t done it earlier, I would have listened the whole drive to her going on about how I rushed her, how I didn’t take care of such an important thing, how I lied to her, and who knows what else.

“So? Are we going?” I asked, opening the door.

Olivia looked at me with a wide smile and answered playfully, “I still have to pee.” She seemed very excited.

We set off.

The drive from Cincinnati to Pineville is about 220 miles, which is roughly a 4-hour drive.

The route went by pretty quickly. We talked trash about Olivia’s boss, laughed, joked around.
We were simply enjoying free time and the lack of pressure from responsibilities the next day.

“We should be there in 20 minutes. I can’t wait until we arrive, drink some wine, and get into bed,” I said, grinning from ear to ear.

After a moment, I added in a low, lively voice, “you know… and I don’t mean sleeping.”

Olivia giggled with the look of a little troublemaker and said, “Stop it, you goof.”

“What? It’s our honeymoon after all,” I said, looking at her and tickling her around the ribs.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, concerned.

Olivia had a frightened expression, wide eyes, and she was pale.

After a moment, she answered, “Liam, I think I saw something weird.”

I looked around.

“What did you see? Where?”

“By the road. It looked like someone was crouching. I think he was completely naked and emaciated,” she said in panic, and shoved her hands between her knees.

I looked in the mirror. I saw nothing there except forest and darkness.

“Calm down, baby, you must be exhausted, you imagined it. We’re almost in Pineville, I’ll grab the keys quickly, and from there it’s only a few minutes to our cabin.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her turn her head toward me.

“Damn it, Liam, that thing was looking at me.”

I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her head against my chest.

“Maybe it was some homeless guy, or some sick animal. Don’t worry. You’re safe.”

She nodded and forced a smile, but her eyes were still terrified.

A moment later, we arrived at Mrs. Sofia’s house.

“Wait here a second, I’ll be right back,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt.

I got out of the car and walked onto the property.

The keys were lying on the porch with a cheap tourist keychain.

I took them and made a step toward the car.

Suddenly, from a doghouse I hadn’t noticed earlier, a medium-sized dog burst out with a roar and charged straight at me.

My heart jumped into my throat. I started running.

I barely managed to slam the car door shut behind me before the beast reached me.

The dog pressed its front paws against the window, barking.

I threw the car into reverse and backed out.

“Jesus, what was that? That old lady could’ve warned me there’s a dog on the property,” I said, catching my breath.

It clearly improved Olivia’s mood. For the rest of the drive to the cabin, she giggled quietly to herself.

“We’re here. Beautiful spot,” I said, turning off the engine and opening the door.

Olivia got out right after me and added, “and poorly lit.”

We took the suitcases and headed toward the vacation cabin.

“Yeah, there really isn’t much light here,” I muttered, struggling with the bunch of keys and trying to aim for the keyhole.

I managed. We went inside, and the smell of pine wood greeted us.

The front door opened into a small hallway with a coat rack. On the right side, there was a kitchen made up of a piece of countertop and three cabinets beneath it, and on the left side there was a large living room with a couch, a dining table, a fireplace, and stairs leading upstairs.

Everything was done in a typical vacation cabin, wooden style.

“I’m exhausted. We’ll unpack tomorrow. Can you turn on the heat? It’s cold in here,” Olivia said, taking off her jacket.

“Sure, there should be instructions for using the cabin on the counter,” I said, setting the suitcase against the wall.

I picked up a small notebook and started reading.

There were instructions for using the gas stove, turning on hot water in the shower, information on where the breakers were, and at the end, instructions for heating the cabin.

I started reading out loud.

“The cabin is heated only and exclusively by the fireplace. In the woodshed behind the cabin, there is an amount of wood matched to the number of nights booked. It must be chopped into smaller pieces. The small axe and chopping block are next to the woodshed.”

I quickly scanned the fire-starting instructions and read out loud, “Heating the cabin takes 2 to 3 hours. Please do not leave the burning fireplace unattended.”

I froze.

“Good luck lighting it, Liam… tonight you’re sleeping downstairs so you can bravely guard the burning fireplace,” Olivia said, irritated, dragging her suitcase upstairs.

Shocked by that information, I took out my phone and opened the listing.

“But how only by fireplace? It says here there’s electric heating and fireplace heating,” I said, angry.

I looked out the window.

There was no lighting around the cabin at all.

How was I supposed to chop that damn wood in the dark? On top of that, it was 11 p.m. If I started the fireplace now, I wouldn’t go to sleep until morning.

I changed into sweatpants, lay down on the dusty fabric couch, and covered myself with an equally dusty blanket. I felt scratching in my nose and eyes.

“Beautiful. Tomorrow I’m calling that woman and demanding a partial refund,” I said, closing my eyes.

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of cabinets slamming and pots banging coming from the kitchen.

I opened my eyes and propped myself up on my elbows.

“Do you have to make that much noise?” I asked, slowly getting up from the couch.

Olivia, with a sour look on her face, continued taking her anger out on the kitchen equipment, and after a moment replied, “How did the fireplace go? Not too great, I guess, because I woke up with a cold nose. Great place you picked.”

I theatrically tapped my finger against my forehead.

I opened the door and stepped outside. It was definitely warmer than inside.

It was May, so the evenings were cold, and apparently nobody had heated this place since the beginning of the season, which left the cabin chilled through.

I stretched slowly, looking around the property.

I called Olivia, who came over after a moment with an offended expression.

I hugged her and said, “Look how beautiful it is here. There’s a fire pit, a grill, a big bench, forest all around, and instead of enjoying it, we’re arguing for no reason.

The listing said there was electric heating, so I’ll call the owner in a second and ask, because maybe this fireplace thing is a mistake.”

I went back inside, opened my call history, and pressed the green call button.

“Good morning, did you arrive?” the old woman asked on the other side of the phone.

“Yes, we arrived. Mrs. Sofia, how do I turn on the electric heat?” I asked.

“Electric heat? Didn’t you read the instructions? There is no electric heat, there’s the fireplace. Unless you mean hot water, then you just have to plug in the water heater in the bathroom,” she said calmly.

“Mrs. Sofia, the listing says there are two sources of heating for the cabin, fireplace and electric,” I said, angry.

After a moment of silence, the old woman answered, “Well yes, electric for heating the water, and fireplace for the cabin. Did you read the listing? In the additional information from the host, everything is explained.”

I switched the call to speaker and opened the listing.

Sure enough, in the panel on the left side, there was a section labeled “additional information,” and that information was included there.

“I didn’t read that part…” I said, defeated.

“Well, that’s exactly how it is with you young people these days. All excited, don’t read, and then you have complaints. In case you didn’t read this part either, if you run out of the wood assigned to you, you can buy more from me,” she said bluntly, with a hint of malice in her voice, and hung up.

I looked at my phone. I felt heat rush to my head.

When I talked to her for the first time, she was a kind, sweet old lady…
After the payment, she had turned into a nasty old lady.

I took three deep breaths, slowly letting the air out of my lungs. I wasn’t going to let this trip be ruined.

I walked over to Olivia, who was just finishing unpacking our things.

“Listen. I’m sorry. I checked the listing badly. In the details it said the heating is only by fireplace.”

“Oh well, it happens. So what are we doing?” she asked.

“Maybe you could run into town and do a little shopping, and I’ll chop the wood in the meantime?” I said, taking her hand.

She smiled at me and said, “That’s a good idea. I’m hungry.”

Olivia drove off toward town, and I stood there looking at the small stack of wood, wondering how I was supposed to go about it.

I set a piece on the chopping block, raised the axe over my head, and swung with all my strength.

I missed, and the axe flew down with force, grazing the wood and landing in the ground millimeters from my foot.

A cold sweat ran through me.

“Damn, that was close,” I thought, stepping away from the place of my near-tragedy to a safe distance.

Suddenly, I heard a voice from behind the fence.

“Hello, what are you doing?”

An older man was standing there, leaning on the handlebars of a bicycle.

“Good morning. I’m trying to chop wood,” I said, embarrassed.

He straightened up and said, amused, “First time chopping? You almost said goodbye to your leg.”

“First time. I’ve never held an axe in my life,” I said, walking toward him.

The man leaned his bicycle against the fence and stepped onto the property.

“I’ll show you on a few pieces how to do it.”

“Thank you. I’m Liam,” I said, holding out my hand.

“James,” he answered shortly, returning the handshake and heading toward the woodshed.

The man took the axe in his hand and said, “Listen, Liam. Feet apart, aim a little past the center, hold the axe firmly, and bring your whole body down. The movement should come from your knees.”

The axe cut through the air, splitting the piece of wood into two perfect halves.

James looked over the axe blade, turning it in his hand as he spoke.

“This little axe is too small for these pieces of wood, so you’re going to struggle a bit.
Seriously, Sofia could invest a little here if she wants to rent this cabin out to people.
Anyway, when did you get here?”

I looked at him, full of admiration.

“My wife and I arrived last night.”

James looked me straight in the eyes and grew serious.

“At night? You arrived after dark?”

“Yeah, that’s just how it worked out,” I answered, a little thrown off by his sudden change in behavior.

This whole time he had been mostly smiling, and now that icy tone and serious face?

The man set the axe down, stood up, and walked toward his bicycle.

“I have to go. I wish you both luck.”

“Thanks,” I called after him, scratching my head.

I took the axe in my hand and started chopping. James was right. His instructions made it so even I could do it relatively safely and effectively.

What is it with them and arriving after dark? First Mrs. Sofia, now him.

“I wish you both luck.”

People here are really strange.

I chopped the wood and stacked it next to the fireplace.

Why isn’t Olivia back yet? I thought, looking at my phone.

She had left over an hour ago. The town was only a few minutes away.

I opened my contacts and called her.

At that same moment, I heard a vibration coming from the kitchen. She hadn’t taken her phone.

A strange shiver went through me, and I started to worry.

I’ll walk toward her. Worst case, we’ll meet on the way. There’s only one road leading here.

I locked the door and started down the little road toward town.

I had maybe taken 10 steps when I noticed a car approaching in the distance.

I felt relief.

“Well, great, she’s coming back. She’s going to make fun of me for worrying for no reason,” I said, stopping and waving in her direction.

She was driving a little too fast. Something was wrong.

I looked closer and froze.

The front was dented on the right side, the headlight was smashed, and the fender was cracked.

I started running toward her. She pulled up and got out without turning off the engine.

“I wanted to call, I forgot to take my phone,” she said, sobbing.

I quickly wrapped my arms around her.

“Baby, what happened?”

“I hit a tree. Liam, I saw him again,” she said, trembling.

A shock ran down my back.

“Are you hurt? Who did you see?” I asked, looking at her.

She didn’t look injured, but she was completely shaken.

She pressed herself tighter against me.

“I want to go back to our house.”

We stood like that for a moment longer.

“Come on, for now we’ll go back to the cabin. You’ll tell me everything, okay?” I said gently.

She nodded and sat down in the passenger seat.

The car must have hit the tree at an unlucky angle, which was why the outside damage was so visible, but probably not very hard, because the airbag hadn’t gone off.

I parked the car and we went inside.

Olivia sat down on the couch without a word and stared at one point.

In the meantime, I made tea and sat down beside her.

“Baby, please. Tell me what happened. What did you see?” I said, placing my hand on her shoulder.

She started speaking in a trembling voice.

“I was coming back from town. I was somewhere halfway along the road, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed some kind of shadow between the trees.”

She sniffed, and tears ran down her cheek.

“I thought it was some animal, but a little farther down, that thing suddenly appeared on the road. I saw it literally for a split second. It was crouched, unnaturally hunched over, and staring at me. I closed my eyes and hit the brakes. The car went into a tree. I was scared, I wanted to call you. When I opened my eyes, there was nothing there.”

I went cold.

“That thing again? What is going on here? Could these be hallucinations caused by too much stress and exhaustion, finally looking for a way out?” I thought, worried.

“Sweetheart. It must have been some animal,” I said, trying to comfort her, but inside I felt fear myself. Not because of some imaginary creature, but because I was worried about Olivia.

We sat like that for a while longer.

I managed to convince her to stay, and I promised that if needed, I would be the one driving into town.

Olivia needed this vacation. She had to rest, and I would do everything I could to make that happen.

We ate breakfast and drank coffee outside.

To improve her mood, I told her about my adventure with the axe and the older man. I left out the ending and his strange behavior so I wouldn’t stress her out more.

I even managed to make her laugh a little.

The day passed pretty quickly. It was genuinely pleasant.

We spent most of it outside, enjoying the sun and the charm of the place.

It was getting close to 6 p.m., and it slowly started getting dark.

We went back inside.

Olivia started making dinner, and I lit the fireplace and took out the wine glasses.

The previous evening hadn’t gone well. I hoped this one would be different.

We ate in a pleasant atmosphere, enjoying the wine and the warmth coming from the fireplace.

The fire slowly started dying down, so I suggested going to the bedroom.

Olivia went to take a shower, and I sat on the couch, finishing the last sip from my glass.

Unfortunately, the shower stall was too small for the two of us.

After 15 minutes, she came out, and a cloud of steam rolled out of the bathroom.

I stepped into the shower base, turned on the water, and shouted, “Damn it with this cabin…”

A stream of cold water shot from the showerhead, pouring over my head and the rest of my body.

The hot water must have run out, I thought, looking at the small electric water heater.

After my unplanned cold shower, I went up the wooden stairs and crossed into the bedroom.

I looked at Olivia. She was lying on her side.

I slowly lay down beside her and… realized she was asleep.

I was a little disappointed. I had hoped for a somewhat more intimate evening, but I understood she had to be exhausted. She had gone through a lot of stress and emotions today.

I put my head on the pillow and fell asleep.

I woke up with a dry, slightly scratchy feeling in my throat.

I slowly opened my eyes and sleepily glanced toward the window. It was dark outside.

“I need to drink some water. I must have made the fireplace too hot and dried out the air,” I thought, glancing at my phone. 3:40.

I looked toward the other side of the bed.

The place where Olivia had been sleeping was empty.

“Maybe she went to the bathroom, or also went to get something to drink,” I thought, but I felt that something was wrong.

It was too quiet.

I sat still for a moment.

A huge wave of anxiety passed through me, and I felt my stomach tighten.

I couldn’t hear any footsteps or any other sounds.

I quickly got out of bed and went downstairs.

Standing halfway down the stairs, I froze, and my heart beat harder.

The door to the outside was open, and Olivia was nowhere to be seen.

reddit.com
u/Aftermire — 23 hours ago

I factory reset my phone today. One photo stayed. I didn’t take it.

u/SomBudy_ — 3 days ago
▲ 13 r/Nonsleep+1 crossposts

My life at Larry’s storage and it's cheap storage

u/GothMomi — 3 days ago
▲ 18 r/Nonsleep+1 crossposts

I thought the girl with the unicorn bag was just weird. I was dead wrong

I had felt a strange unease in my stomach since the morning.

Maybe it was the flu, or maybe just nerves.

“Step up! Step up!”

The shout of a TSA agent pulled me out of my thoughts.

Security was moving slowly. Plastic bins slid along the belt, people nervously emptied their pockets, placing their things into the trays, whispering arguments and searching for their documents.

“Empty your pockets! Phone, keys, wallet in the bin! Carry-on on the belt! Shoes off! Let’s go, let’s go!” the irritated woman by the belt shouted.

For most of my adult life, I had worked at one company as an IT consultant.

It sounds like a stable, calm job. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In my case, it meant constantly putting out fires for clients across different states.

Whenever something broke and couldn’t be fixed remotely, Jessie, my supervisor, would call me in a cold tone and tell me to pack because my flight had already been booked.

Usually she would tell me one or two days in advance...

One time she called in the evening and told me I had a flight in the morning.

She didn’t care if my schedule was already packed.

Whenever there was a trip, I had to work overtime, sometimes almost all night, just to catch up.

The couple in front of me finished their check.

I stepped up to the belt, taking off my belt as I did.

“Laptops out! Bins! Everything out of your pockets! Belts off, shoes off! Phones, keys. Everything in a bin! Keep it moving!” the TSA agent shouted, looking like a special forces instructor.

“Easy… I’m doing it…” I muttered under my breath, placing my belt into the bin.

I emptied my pockets, took off my shoes and jacket, and stepped into the scanner.

I raised my hands, and it suddenly went off.

I jumped as I felt a wave of heat rush through me.

What did I forget? I took everything out, didn’t I? I thought, standing barefoot on the cold platform

“Back pocket, into the bin, and back through the scanner!” I heard an irritated voice from behind the wall.

I slipped my hand into my pants.

Damn it, some coins must have fallen out of my wallet.

“I’m really sorry, I’ll just put them…”

“Move!” she cut me off, already irritated like a wasp

What an asshole, I thought, tossing the coins into the bin and stepping back into the scanner.

This time I got through without a problem.

I grabbed my things and walked away, feeling the TSA agent’s eyes on me.

Night flight from Atlanta to Newark. A meeting first thing in the morning.

The client reported an outage after a data migration. They pay the company millions of dollars a year, so they sent someone on-site who would sit there and pretend everything could be fixed, me.

I arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson after dark, as always, just in time before departure.

I stopped for a moment and leaned against the wall. I felt dizzy.

I had barely slept the night before and hadn’t eaten anything all day, trying to wrap up the most urgent tasks.

“I need coffee,” I thought, and started looking for a place.

I went with a black coffee, no sugar.

For balance, I grabbed two Snickers bars.

As I opened the candy bar, I noticed a young woman.

Even though she wasn’t unattractive, that wasn’t what caught my attention.

Something else did.

Most people around her showed some kind of emotion. Some were annoyed, others sad, and some were smiling as they walked.

She just stood there, completely still, lifeless, staring at one point.

She was pale, her face completely blank.

There was one more thing that caught my attention.

She looked about thirty, and yet she was wearing a backpack with a unicorn head sticking out of it.

As I stood there watching her, eating the candy bar and sipping my coffee, she suddenly turned toward me and looked me straight in the eyes.

Her gaze was empty, cold, and absent.

I flinched and quickly looked away, spilling coffee on myself.

“Great… karma for staring at people…” I said, annoyed.

Good thing I had brought a spare shirt.

I sent Jessie a short message that I was already through security and we would be taking off soon. She expected updates regardless of the time.

She replied within a minute “Ok. Client wants to see you at 8”

I read it, scoffed, and put my phone away.

“No thank you, no safe flight” Typical Jessie, I thought, and headed toward boarding.

I got on the plane with the rest of the passengers, squeezing past people blocking the aisle with their carry-ons.

I had seat 14B. Middle. The perfect place to have no view and no comfort.

I sat down, slid my bag under the seat, fastened my seatbelt, and started looking around the cabin to kill time.

At one moment, a cold sweat ran down my back.

The girl with the pink backpack walked onto the plane.

“Please don’t sit anywhere near me” I prayed in my head, but she was clearly heading toward my row.

When she reached row 12, I closed my eyes.

I felt stupid for being caught watching her, but it wasn’t just that.

Something about her made my unease grow stronger.

I opened my eyes thirty seconds later and looked around. She wasn’t there.

I glanced over my shoulder.

Row 22C.

She was sitting a few rows behind me, on the other side of the aisle. The backpack rested on her lap, held by one arm.

I felt a slight chill run down my neck.

I told myself I was overreacting. Airports are full of weird people.

Maybe she was just having a bad day, like me.

And yet something about her intrigued me enough that I kept glancing through the gap between the seats.

She was almost completely still, not looking at her phone, not fixing her hair, not looking out the window. She just sat there staring at the seat in front of her.

The flight attendant finished the safety instructions, and the plane slowly began to taxi.

After a moment, I felt a strong acceleration pushing me back into my seat, followed by the familiar sensation of lifting off the ground.

Atlanta began to shrink.

The lights dimmed, and shortly after, the seatbelt sign turned off.

A low murmur filled the cabin.

The woman by the window next to me fell asleep with a loud snore,

the guy in front asked for water, and a few people got up, pushing their way toward the restroom.

“People… we just took off…” I thought, holding my head.

Light turbulence appeared.

Even though I’ve been flying for years, it always gives me a knot in my stomach.

I glanced to the left and saw the wing bending in the window.

I knew it was normal, especially during turbulence, but looking at it still gave me chills.

I glanced back at the girl with the backpack.

She sat motionless, completely unaffected.

Her head moved slightly with the small forces, but the rest of her body, and her gaze were rigid.

The captain’s voice came through the intercom

“We’ve entered an area of light turbulence, please fasten your seatbelts.”

I did.

At that moment, the fear eased a little, and I felt the accumulated exhaustion of the last two days.

My eyes started closing, I felt myself drifting into a calm state and fell asleep.

It didn’t last long.

Suddenly, I felt a strong, blinding light on my eyelids.

I opened my eyes and looked ahead to find the source.

The idiot with the laptop in front of me had turned on a movie at full brightness.

“Damn, people really don’t think?” I said quietly.

I tapped the seat in front of me and asked politely “Excuse me, could you dim that? It’s really bright in my eyes”

“Fuck off, man” he replied without even turning around.

“What an asshole” I thought and pressed the call button.

The light above me turned on, and a flight attendant approached

“How can I help you?” she asked with a wide smile.

“Sorry, but the guy in front of me is doing something on his laptop and it’s really blinding me. I asked him to lower the brightness, but he refused.”

I said, staring at the seat in front of me.

The flight attendant leaned toward the row in front “Please dim your laptop. You’re disturbing other passengers”

The man reluctantly lowered the brightness, muttering under his breath.

“Thank you” I said to the flight attendant, settling into my seat as comfortably as possible.

About an hour had passed, so roughly halfway there.

I couldn’t wait to get there, take a shower, and go to sleep.

I hoped Jessie had booked me a hotel near the airport this time, not like last time on the outskirts of the city...

I stretched in my seat and felt a strange sense of unease.

The same one I had felt since the morning, but stronger.

I instinctively looked back and froze.

The girl from seat 22C was starting to stand up, slowly putting on her backpack.

She stood up and began walking down the aisle toward the front of the plane.

“Maybe she’s going to the restroom” I thought nervously, but why did she put the backpack on?

She walked slowly and stiffly, almost mechanically.

Her movements were unsettling.

I looked around, I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

People glanced at her and then quickly looked away.

I kept staring, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

When she passed me, I felt a strange cold.

She was almost at the front when the cockpit door opened.

One of the pilots was coming out, probably to use the restroom.

A flight attendant stood by the cockpit entrance, blocking access.

Suddenly, the woman with the unicorn backpack lunged forward, running straight at them.

Her face showed pure animal fury.

It looked like something inside her had received a signal to attack.

I froze, my heart pounding like crazy.

What the hell is happening? I thought, gripping the seat in front of me.

She slammed full speed into the pilot, hitting the flight attendant with her shoulder, sending her flying to the side, her head hitting the first row of seats

The pilot, shocked and confused, was thrown backward into the cockpit.

The door slammed shut behind them.

A deadly silence filled the plane, and the air was thick with fear and panic.

It lasted about ten seconds, during which I felt tingling all over my body.

There were two pilots inside, they should be able to handle her, I thought, staring at the cockpit door.

Suddenly, a short scream of pain came from inside.

I felt a strong jerk in my hips.

Pressure hit my head, and my stomach jumped to my throat.

The woman next to me was thrown out of her seat.

Something heavy hit the ceiling behind us, and the laptop from the guy in front of me flew into the air, bouncing off the ceiling and hitting someone two rows behind me.

The plane dropped harder, and the entire cabin exploded with screams.

All loose objects and people without seatbelts were thrown into the air, pressed against the ceiling.

The force felt like it was tearing me apart, I felt a snap in my neck, and all the blood rushed to my head.

The engines roared, and the plane violently jerked upward.

I bent forward, hitting my forehead against the seat in front of me.

Everything that had been lifted now crashed down with force.

It was accompanied by a horrible sound of muffled pain and the distinct cracking that makes your insides twist.

The plane leveled out, and only quiet sobbing cut through the air.

The intercom crackled.

For a long moment, there was only static, which turned into heavy breathing.

Suddenly, a hoarse female voice spoke.

“We’re almost there.”

The intercom went silent.

A shock ran through my battered body.

I felt a heavy tension in my gut.

I could hear passengers groaning in pain, rapid breathing, scattered prayers.

A flight attendant on her knees tried to say something, holding her head, but her voice failed her.

I stared at the cockpit door, feeling a tightness in my throat.

Another surge hit.

The plane turned so sharply to the right that entire rows of people and objects slammed to one side.

The woman from 14C slammed into me, her face pressed against mine, digging her nails into my forearm and screaming into my ear

“We’re going to die! It’s over! We’re going to die here!” before going silent after being struck by a flying phone.

The plane began dropping again violently, and the pressure started tearing at my eardrums. It felt like going down from the very top of Kingda Ka.

“Please, let this end...” I said in a choked voice.

The nose of the plane shot upward.

I was slammed into the seat. My face felt heavy. My chest was being crushed under the force.

I fought for every breath as everything around me began to blur.

This rollercoaster could mean two things.

Either one of the pilots was still alive and fighting for control, or that lunatic was simply playing with us.

Everything stabilized, and the cockpit door slowly began to open.

The woman with the unicorn backpack stood in the aisle.

She looked around the plane, carefully observing her work.

Barely alive, I looked at her, and she looked at me.

Straight into my eyes.

A feeling of overwhelming dread and pressure washed over me..

Suddenly, her eyes widened and she smiled broadly without breaking eye contact.

I felt like I was face to face with a starving predator.

I froze, I couldn’t move at all.

The woman turned and went back into the cockpit.

The intercom crackled to life “We’re landing, fasten your seatbelts!”

The plane tilted almost straight down.

I felt my face distort, and all my insides were pressed into the seat.

I knew there was no way to stabilize this flight anymore.

We were diving down, and through all of it I couldn’t stop thinking about the pink unicorn.

reddit.com
u/Aftermire — 4 days ago

I work as a cinema usher. A man brings a different girl to the late show every Thursday, but he always leaves alone.

u/gamalfrank — 1 day ago

Bait

'Bait' is what the sign read on an enormous wooden shark effigy. Someone had once mentioned to me that it was carved over a hundred years ago. The owner of the tackle shop had bought it, propped it up, and painted a four-letter word on it in red.

I hate sharks, can't stand the look of them. Advertisements for Shark Week turn my stomach. Sometimes when I am sitting in a bathtub or in a pool, I get this feeling like a shark could be coming up behind me. It's a phobia, I suppose, to feel that way, but I've never considered phobias to be irrational, since phobias are always something that could kill you, since anything can kill you.

Mentioning my fear, my phobia, Galeophobia, contrasts the courage associated with the work I do for the coastguard, as a rescue diver. Sharks are ubiquitous in the waters I work in. The internet misinforms people about the waters that sharks inhabit, saying sharks don't like cold water or that they can't handle fresh water. To a shark, those aren't facts. Sharks go wherever it pleases them to go.

My favorite quote about sharks is from one of the Jaws movies, where a character says, "Sharks don't seek revenge." which is a strange contradiction of the title 'Jaws: The Revenge'. I suppose a more accurate thing to say is that "We shouldn't anthropomorphize a creature that has evolved from the depths of natural history with our emotions, nor should we believe it has no other motivation than to eat and swim."

Perhaps I spent too much time ruminating about sharks.

Our rescue helicopter was flying low, during a break in the storm. The flooding was worse than ever before, and the waters were rising two inches per minute, ten feet in the last hour. With hurricane winds, it wasn't safe to fly, but the winds had died down. We heard over our communication network that the storm was returning soon. We circled the flooded neighborhood, searching for trapped survivors.

After I had glanced at the shark effigy, the 'Bait' sign, I had felt a premonition, a kind of terror, foreshadowing the horrors to come. All my thoughts and feelings about sharks had rushed into my mind, quaking my body with dread.

"There's a whole family of them." Michael pointed them out. To rescue most of them, we would have to take their place on the rooftop. Both Michael and I volunteered to give up our places in the rescue helicopter.

We fit as many as we could on board, and then waited on the rooftop with the strongest neighbors, having evacuated the women and children, the injured and those too afraid to stay behind. As we watched the chopper head for safety, I told them we were on our own, that it couldn't return until after the next wave of the storm had passed. I looked at the rising and swirling waters all around us. On the rooftop we would watch the waters rise, and we would probably lose our high ground.

To make it worse there were more winds coming.

"We have to hold out here. But David and I have dealt with worse." Michael told the others.

As the sky darkened, I noticed a glow in the water, from the headlights of submerged cars. Several vehicles still had their batteries intact, despite the angles of the upturned wrecks. The lights created an eerie underwater landscape of lawns and streets that were underwater. There were many chunks of floating debris and garbage and clouds of sediment churning and mixing with the seawater that had flowed in, mixing in swirls of different salinity and temperature.

I watched it as the waters rose and the rain fell around us. I hoped the storm would miss us and the waters would begin to recede. While I hoped I heard two of the men with us praying loudly.

That is when I saw the dorsal fin of the shark. I turned the beam of my flashlight on it, and I clutched the flare gun in its holster. Everyone was wearing life jackets we had brought, but Michael and I both had survival utility belts on with waterproof fanny packs containing first aid kits and extra flare cartridges for our flare guns. I could see that the shark was fifteen or sixteen feet long, and a sandy color with tan stripes all over it.

My beam shone into its eyes, and I realized it was staring at me, swimming effortlessly against the current and appearing to hover over the lawn in the clear part of the waters. A cloud of oil and garbage flowed over and around it and all I could see was its fin.

"There's a shark in the front yard." I said.

Everyone looked, and Michael's flashlight beam and mine illuminated it as the flow of water cleared up around it. The shark was still there, as though it was waiting. The waters were still rising, and it was slowly beginning to circle the house. We kept following it around, as the waters were visibly climbing towards us. Soon it had made a complete circuit, and all the while we could see its watchful gaze, staring into the light of our flashlights and seemingly aware of us.

"We are safe up here. Sharks can't leave the water and they don't attack people on rooftops." One of the men stated. I shuddered, and I did not believe him.

My fear had started out cold and numb but had risen to crackling waves of panic as I realized it wasn't going to leave, and that it actually could reach us. Sharks can jump out of the water, they can and do attack prey that is seemingly out of reach. I wished that the concept of sharks and jumping were as silly as they sounded together, but I had seen those images of Shark Week, and I knew it was possible for sharks to lunge from the water at prey that should be safe.

As we watched the shark and it watched us, the distance grew thinner. We had waited on the roof for nearly an hour, the winds hadn't come, but the shark arrived. The water had risen most of the way up the roof, leaving us all clustered on the very top. The movements of the shark terrified me in their deliberation. It swam lazily and calmly and patiently, like a primeval force, as old as the flood, as old as predation.

"We aren't safe." I said. I got out my flare gun, intent on using it if the shark decided to attack.

"Sharks don't eat people. It is just curious." One of the men said with confidence.

"Sharks don't eat people?" I asked with disbelief. I recalled stories of sharks both killing and eating people. "Where did you hear that?"

"Surfers get attacked on rare occasions and they survive because the sharks don't eat them. They just mistake them for seals." The man said. He sounded so sure. I shook my head.

"That's superstition, isn't it? You don't hear the stories where the shark kills someone and eats them afterward because there isn't a survivor. Sharks kill and wait and then they eat. They aren't in a hurry. Not every attack a shark makes is predatory, they are capable of territorial aggression." Michael argued with him.

I said nothing. I felt terrified and some instinctive part of me, deep in the fear, worried that hunger and territory were not the only reasons that sharks had. As I watched our shark, I knew somehow that it was enjoying our plight, that the shark was happy to terrorize us, that it was motivated only partially by hunger or territory. The thought that it simply enjoyed what it was doing, scared me to sit frozen, with my flare gun in one hand and flashlight in the other. My only movement was to slowly track it with my aim, as it slowly rotated me as the shark gradually circled the house.

Then I said, speaking from the voice of fear: "We don't know what it wants, only what it does."

And somehow my words ended the conversation. We all knew I was right, that we couldn't know what the shark was thinking, only what it was doing. Then, without warning, the shark moved at calamitous speed and turned towards us, thrashing wildly up the side of the angled roof and splashing us and tearing loose some of the shingles with its abrasive skin.

Its teeth and eyes sped out of the water, and it snapped its mouth shut mere inches from the face of the man who had assured himself that the shark wouldn't attack. It missed, but barely. Somehow the imperfection of its sudden attack seemed to anger it, for its swimming had taken a decidedly less casual pace. It swam at speed around and around the house, following its pattern but with energy and force.

I gasped as I saw the litter and spills in the water were leaving a trail, a sort of churned eddy or whirlpool around us. I realized that I was imagining that the shark felt frustrated, but it was the best idea I had about how it seemed. I reminded myself there was no way of knowing what it was thinking or feeling, but to me, it seemed like it was angry.

Michael fired the first flare at it as it swirled around and came at us for another attack. The flaming ball bounced off of its side and popped in the water, floating for a few seconds before it sank. Then he was screaming and falling off the roof. The shark swam away, letting him roll into the water, which turned a sickly crimson color.

I holstered my own flare gun and handed away my flashlight so I could go and help him. When I saw what the shark had done to him, I nearly let out a scream of horror. The hand and arm he had held the flare gun with were shredded, hanging as ragged flesh from the cracked bone. In an instant, the shark had done that, rendered his arm into a ragged bloody mess.

"Help me get him up." I commanded, my voice hoarse and shaking. I'd seen some pretty gruesome injuries before, but never when the cause of them was a massive predator watching me and about to make more such attacks. Fear could have frozen me in place, but I forced myself to turn my back on the water and help him.

When a tourniquet was tied around his arm I used my radio, but there was no communication. We were on our own. The winds were starting to pick up. The only chance we had for rescue was to reach higher ground. If we didn't act, he would die.

"We have to evacuate this position." I said. I looked at the shark, sensing that it had forced this decision on purpose. I took back my flashlight and shone it around, spotting something large and floating past us. I cringed as I realized it was the wooden sign from the tackle shop, the massive shark totem, broken free and drifting.

"We will use that as a raft." I decided. "I will need help bringing it here."

"Are you crazy?" The man who was an expert on the harmlessness of sharks asked me.

"Don't worry. Sharks don't eat people, remember? Now that it has had a taste it knows we aren't food." I retorted. My fear was mixed with some kind of anger, and I found those words. Michael was in real danger if we didn't get him into surgery, in a hospital. The shark, I told myself, was only a danger in my mind. I handed off my flare gun and the flashlight.

I thought about being in a bathtub or in the pool. There was never any shark, just my fear. I somehow called upon that fear to help me pretend that all the fear I felt was just in my mind.

I had the paracord and was swimming out to Bait. When I reached it, I finally let myself hear the screams of alarm and terror. The same screams were bursting within me as I frantically splashed across the street, swimming the deep flood waters to reach the flotsam raft. I looked and the shark was certainly interested in my efforts. A flare landed on it and it submerged, losing the burning ember. Then it came back bumping into Bait with considerable force and nearly knocking me off of it.

"Pull me in!" I cried out, the panic breaking in my voice. The men on the roof were reeling me in, but something was resisting. I turned and my eyes widened with horror and disbelief. The shark had bitten onto the tail of the wooden one and was pulling it. For a moment it held like that, its eyes locked on mine, and then it let go, swimming under and then around me, nearly brushing my legs that were dangling in the water as I straddled the raft.

When we had the wooden shark alongside the roof, we loaded Michael onto it and lashed him to it. The anatomically correct shark effigy had stayed upright, even with my weight upon it. Whoever had carved it had done a miraculous job with it.

"Give me the flare." I said. I shoved off, telling them to come with me. We had to swim, using kicking power to move it. Each of us had a position on a fin, a hand or two on it as we swam beside it and kicked. Bait floated on its own, and could be steered by one person, while the rest relied on their life jackets for buoyancy.

I rode upon its tail, facing backward, steering and aiming. Before long, our enemy shark came for us. In my mind it briefly flashed that it would come at us in a frenzy, biting each of us and letting us linger and bleed and scream, finishing us off one by one at its leisure. I knew that is what it wanted, and I didn't tell myself I was wrong. I had never felt so sure of the thoughts of another person or creature before. I just knew.

It started with me, having lost its respect for the flare guns, which had proved useless against it. But when it lunged for me, I was steady, although shaking with fear. My aim was both, I did not miss despite the fearful trembling in my hand.

The flare struck it inside of its mouth. The shark was done. It thrashed crazily, turning over and over and then it stopped, it was sinking, and its body convulsed in spasms. I watched it sink and I thought that I had killed it.

When we reached higher ground, we were also able to call for help. The storm had passed, and an ambulance helicopter came for Michael. He wasn't conscious, but he told me after his recovery that he remembered a ray of light.

"It was like a break in the clouds, a beam of sunlight shining down on me. It felt warm, and I knew something was looking out for us, in our darkest hour."

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u/dlschindler — 5 days ago
▲ 3 r/Nonsleep+4 crossposts

"My Wife Waved At Our Neighbor Every Morning For 6 Years. She's Been Dead For 14 Months."

u/Nightmare_hub2026 — 2 days ago

I worked in security at a tech firm, I saw tech i was never suppose to understand.

I worked Security for a long time in Ottawa. The city is dubbed the most boring in Canada, all politics and no night life. Only the first half is true. The night life in this city is hidden at night, which is why most places close no later 11PM. Some things are just not made to be seen and often need to be up and out much later for this city to finally smile back. I've debated where to start, I've seen so much that must at least be documented, but at the same time tell it in a way to expose the truth without NDA's being broken. It's been well over 10 years since i left the security business, so perhaps It should be safe to unveil Ottawa's Teeth. Let's star at one of my first gigs.

In Ottawa, there's a place dubbed the old Nortel Complex. Y2K anyone? Probably showing my age... anyway the complex is now belonging to National Defence, probably for good reason... but between Nortel's bankruptcy and National Defence taking over the complex, It was rented out to other tech companies from the silicon valley. All doing their own work. I was doing security guard work at one of them. For NDA reasons i wont say which, and only Initialize any persons mentioned to keep them safe. If they read this they'll know who they are. Believe me I learnt NDAs are not actually there to keep companies safe, they're for your safety, that is to say the public.

The Job was simple enough, 2300-1100, Friday and Saturday, At minimum 12 staggering patrols with a punch wand with one partner at all times at the desk, 2 way Radio. All things that were standard practice. The one Oddity, which was for safety reason, there was a blue wrist band we had to wear on the property even before entering the parking lot. We never knew why, It wasn't to swipe anything for access, those were our ID badges, it wasn't for patrols, the two guards would swap their punch wands between Patrol. All we were told was for staff safety the wrist bands must be warned. At the time it's whatever, but today I still have mine along with only 5 extra, I wished i had more.

My Partner, A.C. was a great guy, we hit it off on the first shift, we'd talk Anime and Metal and bring roms and emulators for whoever's turn it was at the desk. Long nights like that, you needed anything to keep you awake. If mobile patrol passes by and you were sleeping, instant termination, caught playing a link to the past on a snes emulator, they'd just shrug, at least you were alert. Couple with all you drink free Van Houtte coffee, and this was a solid gig for 1.50$ above minimum Wage. Pay was not why I left, but a good excuse.

During Patrols, mostly the quiet of office cubicles who's silence would only be broken entering server rooms for patrol was about the Majority of the run. No one was normally in the office after 11 at night. and there was the weekend warrior regulars in around 8-9 AM. It didn't take long to know routine. Routine became mundane and often boring. So I would often settle curiosity during my turn on patrol and read the latest tech they were testing. 5G networking. Something we all use today sure, but this was at the time when the Blackberry Pearl and Torch were top of the line. Cell communication to my understanding was 2.5G with 3G around the corner. So reading 5G at the time was huge! And the majority side effects... well let's just leave it at say one thing wrong in public often leads to cancellation. But I had no idea at the time, Science and research often use math and equations not often privy to a regular dude just getting into college. But still, great reads, was looking forward to speeds and network stability.

I'd often meet A.C. after patrol back at the entrance desk and we'd grab our keys and have a quick dart just outside of the entrance. I've since quit smoking, but at the time, it was something to do every hour to kill the boredom. I'd often tell A.C. what I've read up , 50/50 if it was anything he'd be interested in, often citing ( you know the NDA is a lot easier when the less you know the better right?) I'd often reply (yea yea I know, just fucking bored is all). I remember commenting once of an upcoming test they were doing in the lab for the 5G trials, the only reason was the next week on the Friday night we were in, we all got an email from our Supervisor K.S. that an employee had been fired and arrest for nearly killing an assaulting another employee during the 5G testing. It was crazy, me and A.C. were flabbergasted. The two guys were best of pals often working together on the weekends, they were some of the weekend warriors I've mentioned earlier. I won't dare mentioning their initials here but the incident was messed up to say the least.

That Saturday morning, the other guy would come at his regular 8:30 time on the dot, and I was waiting for A.C at the desk. I'm to curious for my own good, but I needed to ask what Happened. I would have Morning coffee with these guys all the time, and the employee that commit the assault was one of the nicest family man a person could know, often asking if i wanted to go on fishing trips with them during the week, only turning them down for professional reasons. Security has to be imperative when dealing with clients so there's no conflicts of interest, blah blah blah. But I was happy to have weekend coffee with these dudes, they were cool and nerdy like me and A.C. Naturally When A.C. came back from patrol, I told him I'd skip this morning dart hack to just check up on the employee. He told me i shouldn't pry, and i promised i wouldn't over do it.

So I went to his cubicle, 2 cream 2 sugar French Vanilla Van Houtte in hand ( Hey..., seen the email was wondering if you wanted coffee and maybe an ear to listen). He knew I meant well, I wanted to ask him about the heavy duty belt and pant suspenders, Dude was often casual wearing the typical rapper baggy pants. Never knew him for the uptight apparel but i didn't bat an eye. (yea,... can't talk about it much) he glance at my blue wrist band (... good your wearing it... yea he... ugh... we were doing a maximum capacity test... look you can't take this out of here but i really need to tell someone) I looked around the cubicle area quickly, saw no other desk light on and wheeled a computer desk from the cubicle beside. (all ears man, just us, you know J.T. doesn't come in till after 9, usually it's you and well... that come in before 9, all that to say, you clear to speak openly.) I told him with a relaxing expression.

He nodded (Listen, we did a maximum capacity test of the prototype 5G rig in the lab, He forgot his bracelet, I think it's what made him snap, he was fine before that, we just had a double date the day before with our wives... but then.... It wasn't just the chocking... One hand grabbed my neck while the other...) He began to sob and cry before finishing. You ever see a grown man cry? my neither, it was fucking jarring. Comforted the employee best I could, told him no worries he didn't need to explain further. a cell signal turning people violent, possible but come one, the blue wrist bands were nothing more than glorified negative ion bracelets found in the health food stores, a pseudoscience at best... or so i thought.

Nothin happened for a couple of weeks, post incident led to stricter patrols, our supervisor K.S. was a little harder on our ass, stating only one person could go for smoke break at a time, no one should leave the desk, blah blah blah. K.S. was a royal Cee yoU Next Time kind of boss, but it was a job and we listened. Though me and A.C would prank K.S. often reorganizing K.S's cubicle for fun. It passed the time and between us and the other daytime guards could she really say it was us. Not for her lack of trying, K.S. got one of those camera clocks from WISH, i guess the equivalent of TEMU at the time, man I'm old... Anyways it was a great plan, until the memory card was popped out of it, Come on K.S., if your reading this today, for our boss your wit should of been better. Anyways about a month goes by and we receive an email from K.S. Stating this weekend there was to be no outdoor patrols, which also meant no going outside for hacking a dart. They made the first prototype 5G tower and were doing a perimeter outdoor testing remotely between the indetermined hours of 2-5 AM. Sure, no problem, but I was having my smoke anyway.

A.C. warned me, ( dude you can't go out for a smoke, she'll fire you) I replied (please our Union would never allow it, the worst she'd do would ask the paying client for a DNR <DO NOT RETURN> and really for a smoke, it's overkill, even if she suspected us reorganizing her desk now and again. I'm not worried, besides I forgot my blue band in the car, that employee from the weekend begged me to make sure I was wearing it today.) A.C. shrugged.

So about 1:30 AM, I finished my patrol, came back to the entrance desk, got my car keys and smokes to which A.C. gave a single finger salute because i wasn't following the rules like a good boy scout, and left the front entrance. The pathway to the car was very foggy, not all that uncommon for March, the cold snow melting in the warmer air. Spring was nearing. Got to my car, got my blue band from my glove compartment, and light a dart on the way back, the puff of smoke barely adding to the mist. getting back on the main path to my left was a group of three male deer. Hard to tell this time of year as their antlers fall during winter, but the buds of new antlers to be were visible. Dad's a hunter so you pick up a few things, and the old Nortel Complex is surround in the woods. It's a nice thing to see, I checked my watch, 1:55 AM. I grabbed my Radio (B.D. to A.C., be advised, just gonna be 10-47 for an extra 5-10 Mikes. Got some Delta Echo Echo Romeo's present near my 10-20, just outside the door.) (10-4 Alpha Hotel) Alpha Hotel and abbreviations for a clever way to say asshole as I'm taking an exterior break right before the test. (10-4 I got my 10-21 if you get lonely, should be 10-8 around test time.) The wildlife in the area was always a meditative experience. Wasn't uncommon to share chips with racoons or birds. A complacency this night would never again let me forget.

The male deer became more and more agitated all of a sudden, Grunting, snorting. Then they started to ram each other. I was trying to make sense of it, Turf war? no... they were chilling the last couple of minutes... what was happening? I started to walk back towards the entrance when i snapped a small branch under my feet, alerting them to my presence. Before I even had a moment to react, I herd them pause a moment, and guttural yell towards my direction. Not good I started to run for my life towards the entrance hearing the clacking of hoofs behind me, I made it to the entrance quickly swiping my pass on the reader and moved to open the door and close it fast as I can, moment i was inside, the 3 male deer crashed against the window of the door. ( WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!) A.C. yelled as i fell down from the entrance doors panting. (I don't know, they were cool one sec, fighting each other the next then they chased me bro) The deer kept smashing the door for a few more minutes, their guttural noises could be herd clear as day beyond the double doors. then as if they suddenly stopped the proceed to attack the other deer, and then... mounted themselves. Me and A.C. could not believe what we were seeing, first off Mating season is over, second those were all male deer. I might have had a hard time seeing the fresh beginning of antlers before, but they were clear now beyond the glass. Me and A.C. could not make any sense of it, It was levels of wrong, beyond so, they we're biting each other in the mix of it, me and A.C. went thru the security Turnstile beyond the security desk. Fuck protocol for a second, we needed to be safe, and that glass double door despite holding wasn't a guarantee, we made for the first floor Van Houtte machine and got some much needed coffee... As we got there, the clock on the wall read 2:15 AM. The 5G max capacity exterior test was under way... looking at my blue wrist band, something finally clicked. The male employees, the male deer, the employee begging me today of all days to make sure i had the bracelet on.... I knew where to get more and more I got.

It's been years now, needless to say, yes K.S. did get the client to DNR me on the accusation of meddling with supervisor desk.... but little did she know I didn't want to come back,... this was years ago, the 5G cell towers have long since been active, evidence of their working is subtle but... well that day made it obvious what the real side effect was, and more and more i hear about it. Not to say there wasn't always, I'm no fool, the only thing in 2026 is how many are genuine and how many are the towers influence, seems they got a hold of the proper power rating at least, nothing violent has come from it yet anyway so that tells me one thing, the current 5G towers are not at max capacity, none the less... I'm keeping this blue band on me even years later. And I'm never going back there....

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u/KnightMareGiver13 — 1 day ago

Arachne: Chapter 6

“Don’t you guys think we should check in on Alex? I’m a little worried about him.”

Zachary Beck lowered the novel he had been so thoroughly invested in to ponder the question.

 Usually, it would take more persuasion to break the seventeen-year old’s engrossed journey of an enticing book, and such an immersive book it was. The Da Vinci Code; the latest novel to incite a series of thrills and chills in the boy’s imaginative mind. However, the mentioning of Alex’s name raised Zach out of his literary stupor. 

He inclined a view to the right which sat a broken down, rusting sedan with the inner metallic rims absent of tires but were instead balanced firmly on cement blocks. Laying on top of the gleaming, tan hood was a girl of similar age- dressed in khaki pants and light blue tie-dyed long sleeve. She finished a lengthy bong rip and waited for the universe to reply to her question. 

Starly was always like that though- getting high and feeling the pain of others. The pothead was as free-spirited as they come; acting as a conduit made for dabbling in the empathetic disorders in the world was her essential purpose in life, as she so claimed. Zach thought maybe smoking too much was the issue, but his worries were consecutively shut down with undeserved judgement.

Nevertheless, Starly was a dependable friend, even with her weird quirks dancing in the limelight. 

“I already tried. Won’t pick up his phone,” the fussy reader answered curtly. 

While exhaling fumes of oncoming relaxation, Starly brushed away the curtain of black bangs from her freckled forehead and initiated the process of pulling the hair into a ponytail.

“Hmmm. I wonder if he’s doing ok. I even kinda miss his know-it-all atti-”

“Hey! You guys need to stop talking about depressing shit in my junkyard!”

The hollered threat that was playful in nature, sliced Starly’s words into paper ribbons. Zach swiveled direction to peer across the mountainous rubble to see a shaggy blonde-haired boy bearing a torn band tee and jeans. Holding a beaten-up lacrosse stick, the teen whipped a dirty tennis ball against a massively dented metal sheet leaning against a steep hill of dirt.  Bouncing back with similar acceleration, the ball found shelter within the nesting carriage of the lacrosse stick once more. 

Zach watched uninterested and meant to return to the pages fertile with fiction of the current novel at hand, but the tone-deaf voice of his friend, Rocco, blasted across the clearing yet again.

“Yo Zach. Think your dad is gonna find the guy who totally fucked that body? Or… maybe the creepy old witch wanted a playmate. Jeez….. bet that pussy is dry as hell,” Rocco jokingly remarked.

Starly took another hit from her crystal bong and disappointedly shook her head. 

“That's not funny, Rocco. Why do you gotta be so gross all the time?”

Zach added a conclusive nod to his friend’s statement and then gave the goofy mop of blonde hair a seething glare.

“Dude, not cool,” Zach said plainly

Rocco flashed an expression of shock, almost as if to feign the act of taking a sucker punch to the stomach.

“What?! I didn’t do anything! Let’s all just chill out,” he pleaded before scampering the thirty-foot distance to the overturned refrigerator on which Zach sat aloft with his book. 

Criss-crossed into a comfortable position, Rocco slunk out a crumpled box of Marlboro reds and pocketed one into his maw. While lighting the rancid stick, Rocco gave Zach a teasing jab.

“We should hit up the Chesseley house tonight. I got this feeling that some spooky shit is going down as we speak,” he jabbered on excitingly. 

“No way man. My dad would disown me if he found out I trespassed into a crime scene,” Zach retorted defiantly.

“Oh, come on now. Officer stick-up-his-ass will never know. Just say you're hanging with me tonight; it’ll be no big deal,” the blonde troublemaker chided. 

Zach clamped his book shut and shook his head towards Rocco’s pervasive efforts at peer pressure. 

“What do you mean no big deal!? Your dad’s not a cop–he owns a fucking junkyard.”

The reserved reader flailed a hand to the surrounding field of mountainous rubble and debris. Over yonder, past the hills of machinery scraps, displayed a vast acre of various landfill waste groups as well as a massive, lone brick building. 

“Don’t diss the junkyard man. We’re lucky to have our spot, you know, but going back to tonight–what if I asked Grace to come along?”.

The unexpected ring of the name had Zach blushing with heat comparable to steam rising from a fresh pile of coal. 

“Ooo la la,  Zach has that face again. Someone has a crush,” Starly teased while showcasing an act of kissing the imaginary. 

Similar to his friend Alex, Zach fell in the same personality category of being an introverted mess, leaving the teenager lacking in crucial areas to embodying a sociable life. Blessed to have friends that were more outgoing, yet indifferent to the young Beck boy’s reserved nature, it undoubtedly made him a target of relentless mocking. 

“So, what do you say? If Gracie shows up, you in?”Rocco probed in jovial persistence. 

The weighted decision had Zach flickering his gaze between the pair of delinquents, until he squeaked out, 

“I don’t know. Ever since hearing about what happened yesterday to Alex, it sounds like a really horrible idea to visit that old house.” 

The next voice to exclaim aloud was neither from Rocco nor Starly but came from a few dozen paces left to the group. 

“Who cares about that little faggot!” 

Leaning against a pillar or tires was that of a younger man, spying on the three teens with dust speckled eyes that were experienced in the realm of stalking. Portraying a build average in weight and height, the intruder lurched forward from the angled din of afternoon shadow with a stubbled jaw deep in the process of grinding tobacco. Parading in a wrinkled “Slayer” t-shirt besmeared in damp oil stains, the watcher spat a glob of chewed crud with spittle trickling down. 

Lout in physical appearance, he sneered defiantly, “Talking about the ol’ Chesseley house? Pfft y’all too old to be believing in that pussy shit around here.”

Goaded into leaping from his sitting position, Rocco flashed an array of clenched teeth that bore an expression of strong animosity.

“What the hell do you want C.J.?”.

The disgruntled figure known as C.J. lobbed another wad of tobacco merged saliva onto the ground.  

“Just want to check on my little brother from time to time,”C.J. sung in a tune of sarcasm

“Bullshit!”Rocco quickly snapped back. 

The hurling comment must’ve punctured deep enough as C.J.’s smile dropped and substituted in its place was a scowl– a scowl that glowered upon Zachary with saturated venom. 

“ ‘fraid of going to see the witch? Who knew the son of officer asshat would be such a little bitch.” 

Fighting the urge to gnaw at the inside of his cheek- an unwonted habit that only occurred while in a tizzy of nurtured rage- Zach remained durably calm against the crude taunt.

Calvin Jones Haggerty, Rocco’s twenty-one-year-old brother, was as cruel as he was moronic. Borderline callous in personality with an overemphasis in the perversion department, the lowly junkyard scrapper went out of his way to disturb the peace anywhere he went. In his youth, C.J. was no less than a sadist; infamously known for catching wildlife in twisted traps that were far from humane. That being said, embodying the role of amateur villain with his battalion of petty crime records granted C.J. the privilege of being the proverbial thorn stuck in the Porthcawl police department's side. 

From the get-go, Zach had never liked C.J. and likewise, the obnoxious bully had no affinity for him either, but that was due to trivial reasons at best. Endowed with the disdain of authority, many officers harbored a steady stream of hatred towards the Haggerty boy, especially Zachary’s father, who through time and time again, busted the law resistant delinquent to kingdom come. The reason alone fueled resentment in the prickled acne face loner to target his sights on the heir to the Beck name, making Zach a punching bag for future onslaught. 

As Zach sat-indifferent to C.J’s attempt to bait him into a cursing match but was more offended by the handcrafted acrid body odor of oil coated skin and greased slick hair wafting over- a flurry of movement caught his attention. The blonde blur form of Rocco flung past Zach in a sprint, closing the gap of distance rapidly and resulting in a head-on collision with the older of the familial pair. 

C.J. pivoted, shifting his heavier form to toss the seventeen-year-old onto the gravel like a sack of flour thrown with ease. 

Rocco skidded upon the jagged surface for several feet, a sight that prompted both Zach and Starly to jump to their feet in anxiousness. Before Rocco could even attempt at lifting his scraped and bruised body, C.J. was already on top, throwing arcs of punches that looked to steal the breaths of air Rocco so desperately needed. The younger brother tried to snake an arm around the aggressor’s waist to pull him down, but another wallop to the chin extinguished the idea. 

Starly shuffled over in swift deliverance. Wielded in her hands was a thick club of metal, which Zach concluded to be a dinged-up baseball bat, and from the way her eyebrows knitted together– exuding a lingering burden of anger– she was ready to swing with the utmost ferocity.

“Leave him alone asshole!”, Starly growled; the baseball bat was winded, prepped, and ready to shatter supple bones.  

Tightly spinning into a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, C.J. hopped off his victim and asserted a wry grin. The expression presented was all the more intimidating when accounting for the pair of shallow eyes cupped by an excess of gaunt, ashen skin which held an adequate amount of preserved wrath. 

“Fucking bitch, just do it!”C.J barked.

Starly wavered. A hint of post-clarity regret passed sluggishly over her gaze, and as Starly’s tensing muscles relaxed slightly, C.J mouthed off once again in a filthy tone marked with cruelty.

“Thought so. All three of you are whiny-ass pussies. Pfft, talking about going to that old house like you’ll actually find something. You guys are nothing more than children.”.

C.J focused attention onto his younger sibling and barreled another leather boot into the boy’s stomach before grumbling a command.

 “Dad says to stop fucking around and get back to work. There’s scrap to haul and I ain’t doing it all myse-”

“Shrimp Dick”

The insult catapulted out between Rocco’s busted lips in retaliatory spirit. 

C.J hurdled a casting scowl upon his bruised sparring opponent. 

“Say that again.”

Rocco managed a weak smile and with renewed confidence belted out,

 “Shrimp dick. You got a shriveled-up shrimp dick bro- might need to check that smell out.”

While Rocco boldly giggled at his brother, Starly and Zach couldn’t hold back but join in on the fit of spontaneous mockery. 

Greasy skin that seemed to boil red by unmeasured rage, C.J  punted another boot in Rocco’s thigh.  Then, after one last vengeful glare to the group, he stormed away, disappearing behind a low hill of rusted rebar. 

Starly was the first to flutter to Rocco’s aid while Zach kept a watchful eye for potential hostility that could return from its abode.

“Rocky, are you ok?” Starly questioned with a professing blend of disappointment, compassion, and affection.

His face was swollen and smeared in a fusion of oil, blood, and muck, but Rocco gave a slight nod. 

“He's such a major douchebag. I can’t stand when he goes after you guys.”

By the time the last string of syllables blubbered from the rebel's motor mouth, Zach was at his side helping him up. Whether it was the result of C.J ‘s sharp tongued barrage of insults or seeing his friend foolishly lose in a three minute brawl– the mischievous hand of the unexpected took hold of Zach's underdeveloped pre-frontal lobe, maneuvering the wires that ushered the Beck boy to state with borderline confidence.

“We’re going to that house tonight”. 

Rocco returned Zach’s peer-pressured driven exclaim with a novelty smile akin to a troublemaker's nature. 

“Now that's what I like to hear.”

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Fuckin’ shithead”, C.J spat; cursing eased the rising volatility that coursed through his veins.

He swiped at his grease-slicked face in irritation, the round bumps of splotched acne stinging with touch. As much as he needed to get back to the pile of steel instructed for transport, anger festered along dark, ugly places inside of him, and the only solution worth muddling with was checking the traps.

Two iron mesh wire cages had been set that morning with fresh gruel straight from the pot which was then mixed with rat poison. What the day would bring ruffled the isolated-junkers feathers in excitement. Squirrels, mice, raccoon, maybe even a fox or coyote- exhilaration waited for the moment he could dig his claws into their flesh.

The traps had been laid near the north perimeter of the forest grove that edged the landfill so traversing the route would take little time. As the evening sun began to cast shadows that contorted and stretched among his path, he was soon out of the filth and strolling through an empty lot of weeds and gravel, but the visual before C.J halted all movement. Quickly, a rush of sweat beads dribbled from his puffy fish lips.

Strewn about the tufts of grass were segmented pieces of metal wire with the largest piece of the animal trap upside down and encrusted in globs of food. Not far from the wreckage were the carcasses of two raccoons, one propped onto its side and the other facing belly up.

From the tattered beginnings of his youth, C.J’s fascination with the dead had led the boy across hundreds of deceased bodies– wildlife that had met an unfortunate demise either to nature or his own hands. Twisting the necks of robin hatchlings like twine, bashing open the skulls of muskrats and watching their grey matter fluid leak into the local creek, splintering an end piece of a rib bone from an abandoned whitetail fawn to treasure as keepsake–all these acts and more, a versatile method to appeasing the growing appetite for bloodshed.

He had seen a lot, done a lot, but the two dead racoons before him were killed in a way unimaginable to a predatory dolt like him, but nevertheless was impressive.

Both the mammals laid in positions that displayed their stomachs, which at one point were intact, probably covered in grimy grey fur and bloated from rummaging garbage, but now were gutted and the tarry black innards, weathered organs, displaced fluids mixed in a rotten concoction for some scavenger. From the way the drying tissue and organ matter appeared, it was as if an implosion set off in each of the raccoons' abdomen, scattering clumps of flesh a foot or two away from the body. 

As thinking wasn’t his strong suit, C.J walked over to the first tuxedo-masked rodent and placed one oil coated hand into the fly-infested pile of flesh, grabbing a mushy, blackened coil of intestine–one as dark as the downy feather from a raven. 

If someone–anyone could describe the smile plastered on his face right now– the only words to surmise such insanity would be “clinically unwell” or “Necrophile”, but labels were only labels.

As C.J clumsily shoved the entrails into his pant pocket, he swore a sultry whisper pierced the air around him, yet it had little meaning at the time. 

“...Find me…Find the Violet…”. 

It was such a miniscule detail passing through the atmosphere that C.J foolishly ignored it as the wind, singing its dire song among the branches and leaves, created a distracting blip of strange noise. All he could bring his attention to were the duo of corpses in front of him and the endless possibilities.

Written by me, Feeling_Sail (ACMichael)

reddit.com
u/Feeling_Sail4800 — 1 day ago

Arachne: Chapter 3

“Aww come on Officer B, I didn’t do anything this time.” 

Officer Steven Beck, who was well known for his non-toleration of bullshit, idly waited for the rebellious teen to finish his squawking plea before handing over the receiving end to a corded landline telephone. 

“This is your third time getting caught while skipping school, Rocco. Committing truancy isn’t nothing. What do you think your father is gonna say”?

Rocco flashed a sly grin. The boy was easily transparent to read, enough so that Steven had deemed him a naive nuisance years ago.

“Like my old man cares. He doesn’t give a shit if I graduate or not. School isn't gonna get me anywhere”.

With defiance that only a holder of limited youth could wield, Rocco toyed with the phone receiver, balancing the piece of wired plastic on two fingers.

Steven watched from across his desk- the little empathy the man mustered was rapidly evaporating into the invisible void. Before he could instruct upon the spectrum of law and order, the chattering adolescent veered off into a separate topic. 

“So Mr. B, Zach said you were the first on scene yesterday ....you know with that dead body. Is that true?” he asked with little to no pretension for social etiquette. An inquisitive spirit exuded off his syllables, manic and free like a raging bull; a beast that took favor in pinning the officer into a figurative corner.

A frown cracked into the aged skin of the officer’s hardy face. 

“My son shouldn’t be saying those things. Zachary knows better, and YOU should be calling your father.”

Steven tapped the surface of the desk with deliberate intention of promoting haste, knowing that getting the boy to do the simplest of tasks was like pulling teeth. 

It was clear that the response had deflated Rocco’s expression to a sullied contortion of gloom. 

“Whatever man” .

Then, the defeated teenager began the pseudo-shame ritual of facing his looming consequences. 

As Rocco puttered through the process, Steven couldn’t help but stagnate over the events of yesterday as it seemed word had trickled down the thinly veiled grapevine. 

It was an undeniable truth that officer Beck was the first to arrive at the crime scene near the Chesseley Manor. In all of his thirteen years as a deputy officer, he had never been so engrossed from a perspective of true fear. When laying eyes upon that disfigured corpse, which once harbored life of plenty, it brought a sense of archaic realism. The situation was bizarre, almost too incredulous from a pragmatic mindset, and the erratic strangeness only continued as Steven and other officers encountered two individuals in that nearby field, a witness and a possible suspect. 

Their witness, the Avaguyan boy, had found the body and the suspect. It was clear that the kid was in for a whirlwind of upcoming trauma as he recounted the events with sporadic haste and left the area trembling with a primordial chill.

The suspect– a young, sickly woman who had fainted near the body– was quickly rushed to Ambelle’s hospital fifteen miles outside of town. She looked horribly pallid, extremely malnourished, and wore a dried concoction of dirt and blood smattered onto her dress. It was shocking–an experience similar to viewing a prisoner who has waded through trials of harsh, inhumane conditions for long bouts of time. It raised a perplexing notion of how a woman, so fragile and cold to the touch, played any part into the situation. 

Later on, after authorities from all across Glenn County had intersected across the crime scene, an overbearing maelstrom began to brew inside Stevens' morally abiding heart. It was shame that unwillingly flourished; a shame brought about by the haunting portrayal of what Porthcawl really was. It was an undoubtedly difficult truth to swallow, but time had eased the journey to becoming more disheartened with this reality. 

Porthcawl within the past decade played the role of embodying the picturesque American town quite well, where little moments of solitude enticed the locals to stave off a lifestyle of grandeur. A quiet town in its own right, although it would be wrong to misconstrue the ambiance as perfect as petty crimes were still frequent under the full face of a glimpsing moon. Public Intoxication over at Bertie’s…. Break-ins over at Wrangles Gas and Convenience… it kept the handful of officers positioned in town on their toes. 

Then, a devastating development crept inconspicuously over Porthcawl and other surrounding towns within Glenn County. People started to disappear.

Ranging over a span of three years, 21 people of various age, race, and gender would go missing, either overnight in the confines of the town or along the rural roads leading up the coast. It was mostly out-of-towners; passerby’s looking for the comfort of shelter. Each situation seemed worse than the last…Sirens riled relentlessly, acres of lush land scoured meticulously, and solemn phone calls made with little to no hope. The police departments over Glenn County began to realize the searching attempts were amounting to nothing, mirroring feeble ants attempting an impossible climb to the top of the mole hill. 

Steven still remembered his search-and-rescue venture four months prior, aimlessly floundering twenty miles southbound off Thunder Lake for the restless purpose of the Cassidy Embers case. She was the most recent of the missing person’s reports; a situation in which a twenty-two-year-old woman- committed to a solo road trip- seemingly disappeared near the start of January. Her vehicle was found at the Marigold Inn, Porthcawl’s only hospitable travel shelter. 

With the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducting their own search for the resolve of the missing–although, they too, were experiencing an unsuccessful plight– the whole endeavor left a sour taste for Officer Beck, who now saw his town in an entirely different light. Missing people…. And now murder… the town of Porthcawl was but a vacant shell of what it once was. 

While Steven dawdled over mystifying ordeals that plagued the town’s domain, a pair of heavy footsteps smacked against the tiles, their trajectory leading towards the befuddled officer. 

“Beck, Simone and the captain are downstairs waiting. Want me to take over here?”

Steven swiveled around to see his compatriot, officer Hawkins, looming over the pair with tired eyes.

“Oh um, yeah if you don’t mind. Thanks”. 

Steven raised up from his seat with a middle-age body that ached in protest. He pushed the chair towards Hawkins, who nodded and sat with an uninterested look. 

It didn’t take long for Steven to reach the stairwell as he rushed past the entanglement of cubicle desks and reached the main lobby of the station in under a minute. Soon he found himself lumbering down to the coroner's lab; the basement hall was eerily quiet, yet the soothing tones of classical music bolstered proudly from within. The melody was charged with an element of profound melancholy that vehemently contrasted with the officers' neanderthal taste. He opened the door hoping to catch the tail end of his working associates, but the lab was empty of activity.

“Guess I’ll just let myself in…”, the officer muttered under his breath and marched in with curious-caught eyes.

To one side of the room sat a large stainless-steel trough-like sink with three slim rectangular windows above. An array of plastic tubing and sharp metallic instruments were arranged nicely on several plastic-colored trays sitting adjacent to the sink. In one corner of the room occupied a pair of flashy computer monitors that rested on a furnished oak desk, which was littered with small toys and collectibles.

Steven turned around and continued his stroll, still observing the room around him. Covering the walls on either side were immense cabinets filled to the brim with various chemicals and instruments that one could only guess were too dangerous to be left unsupervised. In the middle of the room were three stainless steel tables with two of the tables bare and spotless. On the third table was the corpse retrieved yesterday evening. An oversized white sheet currently covered the body from head to toe, temporarily hiding the grotesque imagery underneath. 

 Ignoring the malicious temptation to uncover the sheet, the officer distracted himself by pondering over the nearest tray of metallic trinkets when a bubbly tone nipped from behind with the utmost tease.

“Thinking of trading the badge and gun to be my assistant, officer Beck?”

Startled by the prodding chirp, Steven turned around to see Glenn County’s most dependable coroner, Simone Randhawa, staring with an exaggerated raised eyebrow. 

Amused by the officer’s reaction, Simone entered the lab with a confident strut, allowing the cascade of brown curls to bounce in her wake. She walked up to Steven, her eyes mischievous behind a set of thick framed lenses and gave him a playful jab to the bicep with one gloved-covered finger.

“A bit rude to enter and start touching things without asking”, She sarcastically quipped. Steven rolled his eyes and couldn’t help fighting the half smile spreading upon his lips. 

Although the woman’s disposition was too carefree for his liking, Steven was gracious upon the fact that the county was lucky to have Simone. Arriving four years ago as a transfer from Greenwick County police station, she stuck out like a splinter among the masses but in a positive manner, plainly speaking. The thirty-year-old demonstrated knowledge on par with that of a genius in the domains of forensic pathology and medicine yet exhibited a humbleness foreign in such a professional field. Her free-natured, relaxed aura contrasted in many degrees with Steven’s serious, no-nonsense mantra, yet the officer held a soft spot for the comedy-relief gal.

“I was called down here for the debrief. Where’s the captain?

Simone matched his response with an animated wave back towards the hallway. 

“ She received a call from one of the forensic boys over in Eugene. Said she’d be back in a couple minutes. So… how’s the girl doing? Ambelle’s treating her, okay?”

Steven gave a shrug of uncertainty.

“Haven’t had the time to interview her with all the tests and doctors. They say she’s lucky to be alive due to the condition we found her in. The poor woman was looking rough.”

Simone listened to his words with a silent disbelief, then ushered Steven with a gesturing hand. 

“You know, now that you say that…Can you come over here for a minute?”

“This isn’t one of your jokes, is it?

“Oh, come on now Beck, you think I’d dip below the line of professionalism for a crude joke in front of a body…Who do you take me for?” she prodded while flashing a set of hazel eyes that masked subtle deceit.

The coroner then proceeded to gently uncover the white sheet, pulling the fabric down to the waist of the corpse. The unruly sourness Steven absorbed when seeing the body a second time was no different than the first, but it allowed him for better analysis of the upper torso.

Multiple gouging wounds littered the rib cage with some appearing deep enough to scrape the arching bones. The sternum pushed inward, intruding into the chest cavity as if a blunt weapon had been swung directly into the dead man’s torso with excessive force. There were numerous incision lines evident across the chest and abdomen with the skin flaps pinned on either side to reveal an undifferentiated mass of organs, although much of the insides seemed swallowed in a blackened, mucosal necrosis. Both arms were mangled beyond belief, twisted in impossible angles with pieces of bone piercing through the skin. The most notable anomaly was that of the missing head, prompting Steven to feel a prominent discomfort when staring at the discolored stump of a neck.

Forensics at the scene were able to identify the victim as Patrick Langley, a name that seared a brand of worry. Langley was a relatively new resident to the county, only claiming the title of a local for a year or so. He owned property over in Eugene, but visited the shopping grounds of Porthcawl's main street every so often, sometimes even spotting a seat over at Bertie’s. That’s where Steven had first met the man and decided further to conduct a thorough conversation to learn more about what brought him to Glenn County as he was a younger fellow and looking a little too green to be out in the big world. He didn’t give up much about himself; said he was looking for a new place to call home and needed work. A bit of an odd duck he was. Throughout the prior months, Steven would sometimes see Langley around town, working a handyman request here or there, but the guy kept to himself mostly. 

So how did he fit into all this? The enigma was out of the box and screaming for attention, yet the officer didn’t possess the puzzle pieces to formulate the whole picture.

While the officer magnified the persona of Patrick Langley in distracted solitude, Simone piped in; her carefully iron wrought statement peeling away the man from the blatant dead elephant in the room.

“So, the woman who was found at the scene…given the description, along with information the hospital included, she physically could not have committed the damage done to Mr. Langley.”

“Well from what our witness said, she seemed pretty manic and wasn’t making any sense whatsoever. What about mental illness or drugs? A little woman under the influence of something wild could take on someone twice her size. I've seen it myself.”

Simone shook her head, her next words ready to sink battleships without mercy’s hand. 

“Beck….hospital staff already performed a drug test as was instructed and it was clean.”

Steven sighed in irritation. He wasn’t satisfied to back down from the argument. 

“She’s connected to this case, even if she wasn’t the one to commit the murder. She’s seen something. Lived through something. We need to find out what. You speak the language of the dead to a degree Simone. Tell me what Mr. Langley has said.”

“Then allow me to explain my findings,” She exclaimed and began reading from her clipboard, yielding an amass of literary jargon to light that only one in a higher scientific nature could decipher. 

“So dental records did confirm the identity of our victim to be Patrick Langley, which frankly, was the easiest part of this autopsy. From my preliminary external examination, I noted a few striking observations such as this small, faded tattoo over his right shoulder which looked a bit-uh- weird I suppose,” Simone explicated and gestured to a dark etched tattoo on the cadaver’s right shoulder depicting what appeared to be a bull with a sword being thrusted into its neck.

“Huh, never was much of a tattoo guy.. wonder what it's supposed to mean” Steven muttered quietly and then returned his attention to the speaker. 

“Right. Along with the tattoo marking, I noted about twenty-three puncture wounds, each two centimeters in length and cylindrically symmetrical. Due to the peculiar observation, I surmise the victim was stabbed with a pole-like weapon, likely along the lines of a spear or dagger with a conical tip possibly, which seems insane to say out loud.  Once you add the fact the head was severed from the body cleanly and with no evidence of serration, we are looking for one deranged individual with serious psychopathic tendencies”.

The last sentence seemed to stick like glue in both of their minds. A frightening thought it was, to think that someone with the diabolic prowess had murdered an innocent person in such a fashion and now possibly roamed the town without a shred of suspicion on them.

Steven spoke up again, his rasping voice invoking the wheels of the conversation into full motion.

“What about the damage done to the chest? I can only assume you would say that it would be pretty difficult for our suspect to perform due to her condition?

Simone nodded in agreement, waving a hand over the concave chest cavity.

“Yes, I would agree with that statement based on the fact it would require a tremendous amount of power and force to create the damage to the chest cavity we are seeing here; an act that I can’t see our suspect committing with her physicality and stature. “

The officer nodded, accepting the facts with a reserved expression.

“And what of the internal examination? The toxicology report?”

Simone cleared her throat, looking uncomfortable with the words she was about to express.

“Yeah…that’s the thing. When I opened up the abdominal wall, this is what I was welcomed to. In my short tenure as the one who opens up dead people, I can for sure tell you this is a first for me.”

She pointed to an ample amount of organ matter, all melted together in a fused state of darkened, semi-liquidated flesh.

“The majority of organs- the liver, pancreas, kidneys- all have been liquified by an acidic-like substance that I’m finding difficulty in analyzing. It has completely engulfed the abdominal cavity…...and to answer your question on the toxicology report. The report revealed no indication for signs of prescription medications, drug use, or alcohol abuse, but what I did notice was the victim had a significant amount of an unknown neurotoxin in their veins. The toxin elevated levels of acetylcholine and norepinephrine, neurotransmitters tied to cardiac contractions, blood pressure, and our essential “fight or flight mode”. Basically, our victim here was paralyzed by someone or something and died while in fear. The only lead I have of what could cause this is the fact the body was covered in spiders when we found it”.

“Wait”, Steven interrupted rudely, “You think a bunch of spiders could paralyze a guy this size? Do we even have venomous spiders out here?

“Well, I’m glad you asked. I had one of the forensic guys on scene grab a couple of the critters for me so I could send them to a colleague of mine. He’s fancy’s a bit of entomology on the side, so hopefully he may be able to locate some answers. Besides that, I need more time to go over the findings to see if something was missed.”

Steven gave the coroner a softened look of appreciation and tried to convey the warmest of smiles. “You did good, Randhawa. Got us on the right track.”

Simone seemed to absorb the rare compliment like an amoeba engulfing its food and a wicked smile stretched upon her dark lips. She knew the officer was shackled as a last resort giving her the edge to employ a ridiculous menagerie of premeditated tricks and follies. 

“Beck….Giving out compliments? What happened to the hardened tough guy act? “

“Simone, Plea-”

“Uh uh, you gave me a compliment. Are you sick?”

“Would you stop?”

His barb-wired tone halted her torrential downpour of teasing for a moment of present clarity. While he waited for additional sucker punches to fly without a professional filter, a fiery luminosity glazed over Simone’s already amused stare. 

“I almost forgot. There's more.”

The unexpected left turn statement had Steven attuned with unwelcoming confusion. The cog work of cognitive thought started once more. 

“What do you mean?”

As the question left his lips, Simone did a double take of numerous plastic bags laying nearby on the back counter. With delicate preservation, the coroner laid the plastic wrapped items before the officer. Another flicker of pride streaked the woman's face as she carefully detailed the evidence to avoid deluded interpretations. 

“Here are two pieces of evidence that were found in Mr. Langley’s pockets. The forensic team over in Eugene determined that only Mr. Langley’s fingerprints were on the items, but hopefully we can make some headway in connecting them to the case. The first item was this newspaper clipping.”

As Simone lifted the bag for viewing, Steven let himself receive an eyeful of the mysterious piece of paper. Contained within the plastic confines was a roughly cut out six-by-six-inch piece of newspaper, weathered with time, that proclaimed the headline, “Third Week of Search for Missing Myers Couple in Glenn County Still Ongoing”. 

“Wait a minute… The Myers…?  It must be a little over a year and a half now since they disappeared.” Steven established with suspicion, “Why would Patrick have a newspaper clipping related to Bruce and Janie?”. 

The officer tried to reconcile with the current facts at hand. Bruce and Janie Myers, a lovely couple who had represented the community of Porthcawl with vibrant attitudes, suddenly vanished from the public eye, leading to all out investigation for their whereabouts. It was an overtly odd situation to endure.  Bruce, a devoted intellectual who dealt in the zoning laws of properties for the county, and Janie, a skillful veterinarian who had exuded kindness in ample bundles, were the kind of middle-aged couple to reserve a pocket of trust in the small township territory. Then, both of them just disappeared. They left everything behind; their house, personal belongings, even their dog. A few of the locals remembered seeing their SUV heading out along the northern road that snaked the coast, but authorities quickly found their vehicle among a ditch twenty miles out. That was the last shred of evidence of the Myers, even with the month and half long forest search and rescue attempt.

“I couldn’t tell you”, Simone interrupted with an inflection of backlogged interest, “ Maybe it’s worth going back through the Myer’s case file. Mr. Langley may have known them.”

Rubbing at his chin out of compulsion, Steven spouted out his entanglement of thoughts in hopes to stab the enigmatic conversation from spiraling further. 

“A little coincidental don't you think? Patrick was holding onto a newspaper piece regarding one of our missing couples, then met an unfortunate fate himself. Kinda seems like destiny is writing itself in a somewhat macabre fashion.”

“I agree. A little too on the nose regarding the mysterious. Other than this newspaper clipping, the team also found this.” 

The second bag contained a singular, wrinkled yellow slip of paper, about the size of a pamphlet. On the piece of paper, it read:

“To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

-Ephesians 4:22-24

 

“I don’t understand. It looks like a prayer slip you could get at one of the local churches around here,” Steven muttered with an uneasy feeling.

Simone shook her head and flipped over the piece of paper. On the back were but two questions and a statement.

How does one enter the violet?

Who is the maker of the hollow?

Follow the trail of Cassidy Embers. 

“Cassidy Embers…but I-”

“I know…. I don’t know what to make of this either..” Simone punctuated with a grim tailwind, “It was like he was doing his own investigation, but I don't know what the Violet or the Maker of the Hollow is.”

“I didn’t know Langley that well outside of the pub, nothing more than surface level stuff I mean. I never would have guessed he’d be swimming in the depths of lunacy. It could explain why he went to this church and actually…” Steven took a minute to examine the parchment, realizing he knew of the origin, “This is from Saint Olaf’s over on Rainier Boulevard in Eugene. I’ve stopped by a couple times when helping out with their volunteer events.. I should go stop by after th-”

“I actually have something more pertinent for you to handle officer Beck”, a voice barked from behind, their vocal prowess set in stone and attuned with monotony and callousness. 

Steven swung around to see a taller woman with a set of narrow, hazel-pooled eyes shifting with boldness. Dressed head-to-toe in pressed navy blues, the woman stood with unmatched authority, and despite the outwardly cold projection that defied the norms of social cues, there was always a good reason for the chosen action. That direct, unwavering aura, hardened like tempered steel, was what earned her the right to commandeer the leadership of the Porthcawl police department. 

Captain Miranda Gallagher was a native of Porthcawl, someone Steven had the chance to grow up with. Although the two contrasted in many different spectrums of means, they both held the philosophical views regarding law and justice close at heart. She was essentially a tough nut to crack, even for Steven who meandered past her lines of defense here or there, but not a soul on earth could traverse the space of her incomprehensible frigid attitude or meticulous ways of handling day-to-day projects. She set the bar high for the world and by God, the world came up short countlessly. Steven even praised her with the nickname of the “guillotine” for her semi-surprising cruelness when disappointment was pungent and plentiful. 

Bearing an exhausted frown gripped by angular bone cheeks, Gallagher paced towards Steven and motioned with a rapid flick of the wrist. Steven obliged the request and wandered near for the captain to explicate the instructions.

“I need you to go to Ambelles and speak with the girl ASAP. She is awake and alert enough.”

“Yeah, sure thing, but is something wrong?” he asked with rising suspicion.

Gallagher’s hawk-like stare softened and without trepidation towards secrecy, pontificated in her monotone calling voice. 

“The staff has informed me the girl is speaking of nonsense… sentences of pure nothing. Doctor Henn has remarked on her fascination for a certain word.”

“What word?

“She keeps repeating the word “violet” over and over again”

Steven’s eyes grew wide and he passed Simone a look of acute disbelief.

“There's more,” the captain continued.

Steven switched his view back to his boss with enraptured attention. 

“A patrolman over at the Eugene station ran her prints and got a hit upon the missing person’s registry. Twenty-three-year-old Darcy Hunter; originally from the town of Bellevue, Washington.”

A jolt of electricity linked from neuron to neuron within the officer’s bloated brain as Gallagher exchanged the bulk of information. He knew that name; it dangled carelessly on the tip of his tongue. 

“Darcy Hunter… it can’t be”. 

The captain nodded and let loose a seldom accepting hymn on behalf of the dubiousness claim

“ It is true. The same Darcy Hunter that disappeared four years ago near Charlie's Peak. She’s been gone a long time and… I bet she has some stories to tell.” Gallagher finished with blunt punctuation and gave an emphasized look towards the onlooking man that subconsciously told him: Do your job and begin at once. 

Without knowing what the future interview held in store, Steven marched out of the room in a sequence of robotic-esque movements and zigzagged through the police station to make way to his cruiser. While trying to focus on the clear destination in mind, another entity caused interference within his bustling mind, a defined word that repeated intrusively, as if illuminating the word would hold some purpose. 

As he squandered over the fractured tidbits of information essential from the previous conversation, the word kept its assault in an intense display of ignorance, signaling for the man to pause and revel in its meaning. 

Violet….Violet….Violet..

Written by me, Sailing_Fan (ACMichael)

reddit.com
u/Feeling_Sail4800 — 5 days ago

Arachne: Chapter 4

What is the foundation of all existence? Was it a twisted game of trial and error meant for those to decipher, or perhaps, the tendrils of destiny had forsaken its victims without care. Thinking about the notion could blur the lines of reality of a person's fragile, sinful nature. To face the undeniable means accepting the answer may not be received within this journey of life, yet these questions, both genuine and curious in origin, may not be answered until the end of eternity, but Elizabeth Greene sure unwound in leisure to the complexities of it. 

The nineteen-year-old was tending to her garden, abiding upon philosophies that many would deem trivial, while absorbing the radiance from the down casted sun. With the sudden charge of wind moving south of the cottage; the invisible hand of cool air whipped through the tall grass and brought a rosy blush of surprise to the young woman. Ignoring the mid-afternoon gale, she continued her work with an energetic green-thumb, moving on to the prolonged task of pulling weeds and shifting soil. Although this type of work would be boring for some, specifically those individuals who would rather bask in the sea of modern pleasantries, the garden was nothing less than a safe haven for the young woman and had been, reaching far back to the idyllic days of when she was just a babe. 

Elizabeth or “Elle”, as to what many named her in short, called this cottage with the attached barn house her forever home. Situated on a comfy plot of land just down the old, carving road out of Eugene, Elle found a deep sense of peace regarding the sort of living she endured out in the rural country, even with the added faults that grappled with her mental wellness. 

More than a decade ago, life had been grand in terms of family, hardship, and culture. Memories of that time were abundant. A period of loving embrace; a time before her mother left for good. 

Anna Greene, a woman that embodied a promise of divine whimsy and hidden charisma; an air of soft-spoken magic followed the beauty, apparent to everyone, even Elizabeth's young, careless eyes.  A favorite eyepiece among the belligerent and untasteful men in the vicinity, the bulk of the town back in those days ungracefully nicknamed her based on her looks, not the kind of woman she presented with heart or soul. No matter the sourness, Ana was undeniably a strong mother and led a precedent for Elle to follow in her heels. But strength could fade as did everything remotely tangible. Ana Greene could not overcome the impassable obstacle that was Joseph Green, who long ago displayed the temperance of a tame beast, but now was utterly lost to being a monstrosity. 

Before Ana’s departure, Joseph had been a manageable husband. He provided security, land, and healthy pockets of money here and there, yet as supportive as those resources were, they could not shroud the cancer presented within his aggression. 

In the present, even with the sun cooking the landscape, a sly shiver ran up the small of Elle’s back. Just thinking about her father’s bastard behavior was an omen wrought with prepared vengeance. Soon, in a couple hours, the pessimistic oaf would barrage the serene atmosphere with annoyance and find irritation with something miniscule no less. 

She guessed that her father had probably spent the night drinking over at the pub in Porthcawl as it wasn’t out of the ordinary for the wallowed stiff to black out far past the midnight hour and then lodge with a workmate. The hangover would not be much of an impediment, and it would be of no surprise to Elle if when he got home, the desire for alcohol would ring once more. 

No matter; clearing her distraught mind except for the faint image of her mother, Elle reeled back to the current state of the garden while listening to the melodious chorus of clucking from the nearby coop.

Over the next few hours, the hopeful woman went about her chores systematically, starting with the chicken feeding and ending by straightening the disheveled rooms that harbored the acrid fumes of expired cigarette smoke.

It was only when she passed by a hallway mirror did she realize that her appearance was that of someone pushed to the brink of exhaustion, an extremity all too familiar. 

Looking down, a collection of bluish-black splotches found territory upon her flesh; some birthed recently with an exterior both glossy and dark, while other shapes began the process of fading. The gifted markings of a beast. 

Ignoring the irregularities with profound willpower, Elle focused upon her reflection in meticulous scrutiny and honed in on the oppressed beauty she possessed, so similar to her mother. In fact, as she gazed into the mirror, it was as if all surroundings blurred into a chaotic, colorful mess, except for the figure watching back. Long, dirty blonde hair, that framed freckled cheeks and a chiseled nose–it was like Ana Greene stood on the other side of the translucent portal, admiring handiwork produced by the universe. 

Elle couldn’t hold back from uttering a string of words that imbued an inflection of true feelings that had been kept submerged for the longest of months.  

“I don’t blame you.” 

And then the young woman sauntered on, choosing to perch a spot on the top steps of the front porch and listen to the spirited lyrics of “Rocky Mountain High” that drifted from the living room stereo. 

Not too long after, the cacophony of a sputtering engine bellowed into the late afternoon air, subsequently followed by a silver pickup rattling up the short gravel driveway. Elle watched in displeasure as her father fumbled out of the driver's seat and immediately popped a cigarette into his pursed lips and then marched towards the porch steps.

“Whatcha doing, L,” he grumbled, the syllables elongated and slightly slurred. As the words oozed out with a distinct vitriol, the silent watcher zoned in on the man’s lower jaw due to its swollen portrayal; the balloon-like mass jostled vigorously after each labored breath.

Usually conveying a demeanor of quiet ignorance, the young woman could not brush aside the severity, noting the darkening shades coating the rotund pocket of skin, and so she sought out comfort from a perspective of pity. 

“Dad, who did that to you? What happened?”

Joseph stumbled a bit while gently rubbing at the sensitive skin covering his bloated cheek and jaw. Expecting to be viciously retorted with cruelty for the sake of compassion, Elle awaited in anticipation of being struck. 

But ol Greene grumbled back, almost amongst a lucidity that starkly contrasted his emotional reservoir. 

“Eh’ that bastard Winfrey got testy with me. May have said something unkindly about his lady friend passing. Suppose I deserve it.” 

Elle nodded slowly. She knew the name; Arthur Winfrey was a barkeep over at the Bertie’s Pub who indulged a little too liberally on the house’s liquor. A bubble of guilt attached itself to the peppering thought—the poor man had lost his dearly beloved not too long ago, and that type of reservation of despair the tender must feel these days could be immeasurable. The complacent statement admitted by Joseph, one that revealed such a warped view on mocking a departed soul…it only made Elle brew with more contempt for the abuser. 

Through gritted teeth, she fought to placate the workers' flickering temper. 

“Should I go grab you so-”

“No, er, I want none of that shit. It’ll heal on its own.” The middle-age man sloppily barked. Then his watery globes gravitated towards the screen door and instinctively licked the outline of pale, cracked lips bent into an uneasy frown, “ Still got beer, don’t we? 

As quick with the reflexes of a scuttling mouse, Elle sheepishly shook her head and subconsciously raised to her feet. It was best to prepare before a tantrum could erupt.

 However, no such fury came and the tension subsided, leading to the oil-stained, overall-wearing grunt to march up the porch steps and stand tall upon the peak like a looming statue to inspire ruffians everywhere. He shot back a disappointed glance, although non-threatening– the expression held more weight that promoted an unbalanced night ahead of them. 

“Why don’t you head down to Wrangles. Hank always sets aside a twelver for me”. 

Elle cautiously nodded. 

“I was gonna stop by the Gordy house anyway so I can pick it up aft-”. But the crowd of words fell on deaf ears as her father darted through the door and out of sight. 

With a sigh of relief, Elle let the rising wind steal her worries for the shortest of moments, and then began the trek down the gravel driveway west. The final thought to materialize boldly and without compassion, was that of Arthur Winfrey and how he should have lobbed another rage-filled fist for good measure. 

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Donna Gordy was finishing a long drag from a crisp cigarette bud when Elle sauntered in from her mile long journey.

From where she stood on the slight decline of her front lawn, the fifty-six year old smoker took the unprompted initiative to examine the golden-haired guest, noting the bruised markings with eyes that failed to mask her developing fury. She didn’t care to feign surprise, especially when cycling emotions mounted the precipice of worry. 

“Oh my lord, that bastard is gonna get it one of these days. How many times is it gonna take until you get the damn authorities over there, Elizabeth,” the elder spat with a gob smacked look.

Elle shook her head, and subconsciously– most likely due her creeping insecurity upon the situation– drew a hand along the bruises as to magically dissolve each one inconspicuously. 

“It's really not as bad as it looks", she stammered, her voice imbued with hints of apologetic undertone.

Donna didn’t respond. Instead, she pleasured in another long drag of nicotine and inspected beyond the emerald lawn and onto the opposing corn field. 

“I know I promised to not get involved, for your sake as you put it. I understand you want to face him your way but this is getting to be too much. That man is a monster–how could he hit his little girl? I just can’t wrap my head around it.”

There was an expected pause between the two, the only other sounds accompanying the silence was a guttural coughing that boomed with unattractive force. Strived to change the subject to the purpose of her presence, Elle queried the older woman with a friendly pitch. 

“How is Mr. Gordy doing today? Is there anything I could do for you two? Anything around the house?

It had become somewhat of an established routine now that Elle had adhered to for the past couple years. On her days off from work, she would stop by to assist Donna and her debilitated husband, who suffered immensely from a scourge of dementia that raked away his mind of memories both near and dear. It was quite an unfortunate situation; it seemed that anguish had followed the pair throughout time–first, with their son, and now, Mr. Gordy. 

As she waited for Donna to respond, Elle directed her stare towards the wrap-around porch, noting the front door stood wide open with a flimsy screen barricade to obstruct the allotment of nature's miniscule pests from entering. Even as she tried to see into the interior, the foyer was unusually depleted of light– leaving darkness to have its way with the corners and crevices. The impediment of visualization mixed with the shifting shadows donned a particular costume of horror that the young woman had not brushed against since her childhood and while not letting a loose imagination dictate her inhibitions, it was almost as if something within the shadows themselves mov-

“ Oh dear, I’m so sorry. I forgot to call this afternoon–Gerald is having one of his bad days, today being a particularly nasty one at that, and I couldn’t bear for you to have to sit through one of his fits,” Donna assured in a display of swift gentleness.

“Oh, I’m really sorry to hear that. Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to ease your workload?”

“No, no honey, you do too much for us anyhow. Again, he’s not himself. Last night I went to bring him down for dinner and he thought I was an old war buddy. I’ve never seen that man so emotional in a long time, god bless his soul.”

Elle listened without objecting. It was wrenching to hear the process which occurred in scornful protest to those close, especially for Mr. Gordy. The young woman had encountered many of the mentally dissolving man’s senile fantasies, leaving a distasteful impression of the disease. She only hoped for a quick relief when the time came.

As Elle wormed about the notions of pain and death, Donna stomped out her cigarette and cocked the young Greene an inquisitive eye which forewarned a segue in topic and a venture into gossip. 

“Did you hear the police over in Porthcawl found a dead body near the Chesseley house? Heard it was that slob of a handyman that owns the rust bucket along the outskirts of Eugene. Murder they’re saying.”

Elle caught the elder’s pendulous irises set in motion.

“You mean Mr. Langley?! Oh my god. Do the authorities know anything at all?”, she pressed the conversation full throttle in the spirit of being nosy. Elle knew very little of the lonesome crafter who stuck to himself as the man had possessed a barbed wire fence of a personality to all strangers. He did stop in from time to time at the restaurant she waitressed at, but preferred minimal interaction– only to sit in one of the corner booths and read in silence. 

“ Frankly, I don't know anything more than that. What a shame, and at the Chesseley house for heaven's sake. You know, when I was a little girl, that manor, although a bit frightening to look at, was so well polished and taken care of in those days. It was the least the town could do. Now look at it! Porthcawl basically represents a town full of ingrates who break into that poor place in search for superstitions of witches and whatnot–leading to folks getting murdered. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of the damn teenagers. Read in one of those online articles and everything– about the youth these days and psychopathic behavior increasing. Becoming an epidemic y’know.”

With the elder know-it-all swiveling on a tangent, Elle ignored everything except for the detail centered on the Chesseley manor. Donna was correct regarding the local youth hanging around Clemmons trail and the property as it attracted the masses through folk tales. The young woman had heard of these stories herself, specifically of the Witch of Stolen bones– a flagrant rumor told in turn to stain and depreciate Porthcawl's already questionable history. 

Like many others, she questioned the validity around the reasoning behind the birthing rumor. A way to disguise an ugly fragment of town history? Most likely. 

Elle knew only of the barebone outline regarding the passed down recollection. Supposedly, after the massacre of the nearby Kalapuya tribe and the death of the town's Mayor, Martin Chesseley– it was discussed in a slithering hush upon Chesseley’s last breath of a curse, one that would awaken a daughter of blood that predated the era of wiccans. 

The sacrilegious tome called to the temptress who would go on to regale those souls that committed such atrocities by calling each and every citizen with a sirens falsetto and lead them to a promised torture beyond what a human is capable of. Additional tales would go on to depict the sorrowful years to follow that unearthly night as well as characterizing a grotesque hag in morbid fashion– a being fenced between the realms of human and nature. Regarding Chesseley’s beloved wife, Christa– no one could say for sure as to her whereabouts after that fateful night. Rumors weakly reconciled with claims that she took care of the manor until leaving the responsibility for Martin's younger cousin in 1836. Decades later, although seemingly abandoned to the effects of time, the ownership was still upheld within the family; albeit, no participating members dared to live in the stead owning such a property with deplorable history. It was a situation bred by misfortune; scarred by the agony that was the witch of stolen bones. 

Again, this was all hearsay as actual history of the township never recorded such an individual existing while wielding paranormal properties, and Elle, during her youth, ceremoniously checked such historic logs during her visits to the local library in Eugene. 

However, the teeming trends among the wave of younger folk today contrasted in stubborn bursts with what logic declared. The superstition of the cankerous witch still spread about like an indomitable fever sweeping the minds of the weak–if you lived within the vicinity of the county then you were bound to hear it. Although believed to be a harmless, small tale gospel, could the belief alone wrought someone to act in such insolent rage and proceed with murder? Elle wholeheartedly doubted this notion.

She returned an attentive stare back to Donna, who had now taken off her sunhat and flopped it through the air like a ragdoll to punctuate her animated speech. 

“It’s unfortunate, this county. Has so many issues. People going missing, and a dead one at that”. 

Then, her expression softened with tired eyes twinkling an expiring sadness unbeknownst to many.

 “My Nicky–I wish he would come back home.” 

The comment added an invisible pressure to the already devolving conversation. 

Nicholas Gordy had been Donna’s seventeen-year-old son who allegedly ran away long ago. The rumor from the horse’s mouth so to speak ( Or Hank, who doted on every patron with wisp of hearsay history), that back in 2002, an accumulation of speculative accusations floated around that the bug-eyed lad started the infamous fire that enveloped Thunder Lake High School and left it in cindering shambles. No one has caught sight of the teenager since. 

It was a piece of history seldom discussed in front of Mrs. Gordy as it only stoked the flames of intermittent bouts of sadness. It was then that Donna faced the young Greene girl and fluttered a stray tear or two with a down casted gaze. 

“He was a good boy, you know? Always did what he was told. He never deserved the reputation, not when he was picked on so harshly. Kids can be so cruel.”.

Elle nodded solemnly in agreement. Donna continued with surprised vigor, jostling and huffing in place. 

“When my boy comes back, Porthcawl will see how wrong they were to place blame. Revenge will come, Elle, and it's gonna hurt.” 

Elle buckled back a pace as the comfortability ingrained into the previous words set in like a slow-acting poison. What did she mean? It had been years since Nicholas’s vanishing. A wild look glazed in defiance within the elder’s eyes and she spoke once more, this time uttering a question enshrouded in ghastly tactics.

“Elle–dear, if you were given a chance to live beyond your means–immortality as some call it, what would you do with it? Would you do the things you’ve always wanted to do, or maybe, hurt those that needed it. That bastard father of yours– wouldn’t you love to see him dead.” Donna ended the question with a crooked smile that offered a glimpse of rotten gums and stained ivory teeth. The wild stare intensified.

“D-Donna, what a-are you talking about?”

“Haven’t you thought about it? At least a little? How quickly your life could change if you took it upon yourself to join us and slice the dead stump that once was blood and flesh. It’ll be amazing. It will change you, Elizabeth.”

A concert of spittle formed at the edges of her cracked lips while a putrid stench of decay escaped into the air. 

Elle took another step back, analyzing the words jousted upon her with such ludicrousness. Donna’s features seemed subtly warped–pulled and contorted by those who delved into the tidal wave of mental unwellness, and as she watched from behind beady eyes, no expression could be made except for a stale hatred.

Elle coughed out her next words, carefully poking through the unseen sheet and allowing the impatient danger to flow in turbid volume. 

“ Donna, what is “us”? What is going on?”.

There was a sharp, undulating fear within her words and maybe, because those words questioned from a tumultuous stance, the older woman stopped dead in her heels and peered about the surroundings. Her eyes showed brightness once again, the animated pair of irises that Elle recognized in an instant. It appeared that question had broken some mysterious stupor, yet the feeling of dread permeated between the two. 

Exchanging a confused glance, Donna stopped forward through the tufts of longer grass patches spotting the lawn, but Elle backed away as fright began to take hold with a menacingly powerful grip.

“Dear, are you alright? Did I say something?” 

The tone was much more implicative of worry, quite contrary to the manic demeanor displayed moments before. 

Elle waved off the inquiries as she neared the road. 

“It's ok Mrs. Gordy, I-I have to get going now. Tell Mr. Gordy, have a good night for me.”

The blond-haired escapee watched the older woman shrug, nod, and bid farewell. Then Mrs. Gordy lumbered the distance to her front porch, in which she was quickly absorbed by the insatiable shadows, her silhouette merging into engulfing crevices. 

The objective had been to walk away–actually, to rather flee and put as much distance between her and the house– but a startling curiosity halted Elle, instead convincing the pure-hearted questioner to observe the property one last time–which later in hindsight she would regret tenfold. 

As Donna blended into the inner void, Elle watched in petrified stasis as another shape shifted into being–something large and unruly, over six-feet tall and clad in clothing one would suspect to lurk around in the shadows. She watched as its hunched figure materialized around the slanted sunlight beaming from the horizon and as quickly as its introduction was, the figure swirled into nothing, shrinking into all-consuming nothingness. 

As the bizarre presentation unfolded and subsequently ended in the span of ten seconds, Elle charged the other way as fast as her shoes could strike against the ground. 

A hallucination perhaps? A sense of filtered skepticism wormed its way to the center of her overtaxed brain and belittled the current outcome of logic. 

And Mrs. Gordy’s behavior? A possible case of sundowning? It was the first time she ever showed a degradation in behavior at her wise age, yet the overall interaction sent ripples of erect hair to stand in unison upon Elle’s exposed skin.

For the time being, Elle would go to Wrangles and get the stuff her dad wanted, but she ran. She impulsively felt the need to

 She ran and ran and ran…but an itch consumed her vibrantly naive mind. The bothersome itch was a mental image. An image of her father sprawled out on the couch with a knife handle stuck out awkwardly and blood billowing from a thick, wobbling neck. That image stayed around a while longer until Wrangles peeked over the walls of corn stalks. Maybe Donna’s words were more infectious than she thought.

Written by me, Feeling_Sail (ACMichael)

reddit.com
u/Feeling_Sail4800 — 4 days ago

The voice in my head finally took control...

I'm not crazy. Everyone hears things sometimes, right?

You know.. that voice in your head.

I was brushing my teeth when I heard, “You could do it now.”

Normally, I could ignore it, but the voice was getting clearer.

Not louder... closer.

This was the first time in a while since it said something I understood.

The voice didn’t talk constantly. That would’ve been easier, I think.

Instead… it waited. It picked moments.

Like when my mom knocked on my door.

“She trusts you.”

Or when my dad laughed at something on TV downstairs.

“He wouldn’t see it coming.”

Trying to be rational, I googled symptoms at 3:12 AM.

Auditory hallucinations.

Intrusive thoughts.

Early onset something…

I couldn’t even finish reading half of it. I told myself it was just stress.

Then…

“You’re trying to prove I’m not here.”

I dropped my phone. What’s going on?

I panicked, quickly writing three notes to myself on paper:

THIS ISN’T REAL.

YOU ARE IN CONTROL.

DO NOT LISTEN!!

I taped them to my wall, staring at them until I finally fell asleep.

By the next morning, I woke up and noticed one was missing.

I found it... neatly folded, and placed on my desk.

Confused, I opened it and noticed the original message scribbled over.

And written in my handwriting, pressed even harder into the paper, it said:

BUT YOU ARE LISTENING!!!

I stopped sleeping entirely after that...

four days now.

It seemed like every time I closed my eyes, I’d see things.

Not dreams… flashing images.

Dad…

The hallway…

Mom in the kitchen…

The layout of the living room…

Like my brain was rehearsing something. Planning.

“Hun, you feeling okay?” my mom asked.

Her voice snapping me back to my senses.

“It’s been days… you need to eat something.”

I quickly ran over to the door, making sure it was locked.

“Mom, I’m fine. Just leave me alone... please.”

“Son, I’m worried about you.”

Silence… until I heard footsteps fading in the distance.

My mind is playing tricks on me. I can’t even trust myself right now.

I reacted, doing the only thing that made sense in the moment.

I barricaded myself in my room, pushing furniture in front of my door.

My desk.

My dresser.

Anything heavy.

Then, in the blink of an eye, I realized I was just standing there...

Desk and dresser pushed aside.

Door cracked open… my hand gripping the doorknob.

What the fuck?!

The voice spoke to me, calm and patient.

“See… you want this.”

“No,” I said out loud. “I don’t!”

It laughed.

Not a sound… a feeling.

Like something inside my head smiling.

“Then why did you open the door?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“You could end this.”

“You could make it stop.”

“One moment. That’s all it takes.”

Next thing I know, I’m realizing that I’m waking up on my bedroom floor…

Wait a second… what just happened?

I immediately grabbed my phone.

The screen lit up... 5:47 AM.

This can’t be real.

I looked around my room.

My door was now wide open.

I was confused… scrambling to remember my actions.

Then…

“You don’t remember a lot of things.”

I flinched, hands flying to my ears.

“Stop!”

It didn’t stop.

“Go downstairs.”

My eyes drifted to the hallway.

“No… I don’t want to. I’m staying here.”

But my legs were already moving... one step after the other.

“Mom… Dad?” I nervously called out into the silence.

No answer.

Something crunched under my foot.

I looked down… stepping over shattered glass.

“I didn’t break this,” I whispered.

My heart was pounding even harder now, as I stood in the kitchen.

Chairs out of place… the table flipped…

“Mom?” I tried again, my voice cracking.

I took one more step, and my brain…

It just… stopped.

My chest tightened.

My vision blurred.

“No…” I said, shaking my head.

“I didn’t… I wouldn’t.”

The thought came instantly.

Calm. Certain.

“You did.”

I stumbled back as something flickered in my mind... fragments of a memory.

Slipping away, like trying to hold onto a dream after you wake up.

I could see myself standing in front of my mom.

“Hey… are you okay?” she asked.

I hear something fall, then a chair scraping violently across the floor.

Her voice again...

“Stop! What are you—”

A quick flash.

This time, my dad.

I’m up close to him.

He yells, “Hey... HEY!”

My hands clenched tightly around his neck.

Then… time skips again.

Now I’m back in the kitchen.

I’m just… standing there.

Breathing calmly.

I feel a sense of relief.

Clarity.

Looking down at my hands, I say “It’s done.”

Now I’m here in the present, full of regret…

My parents on the kitchen floor, lifeless.

My knees hit the floor.

“No… how could I do this?” I cried out.

I hear a response.

“You stopped taking the pills… you made room for me.”

“You didn’t do this.”

Something inside me shifts, and the words come out loud before I can stop them...

“I DID!”

reddit.com
u/Dreadnight_Horror — 13 hours ago