A high-pitched scream woke me up. My eyes took some time to adjust despite it always being dark in here. The building is made out of concrete, and for protection, there are no windows. Well, I guess that is a lie. Supposedly, our senior officer has a window in his room that he can open and look through in what he refers to as “extenuating circumstances.” I’ve never been sure what that means. I’ve never even really seen a window. Maybe when I was young.

The rustling of whispered, confused, voices traveled through the room, everyone looking for the scream’s owner. About five rows of bunk-beds down, I see a woman. She’s sitting upright in her bunk, frantically looking for something in the covers of her bed. Wait, no. She’s not looking for something. She’s trying to get something off of her. I see it now.

Her bed sheets tangle and eventually slide off her bunk bed as she flails. She screams again, trying to swat at and shake off whatever is beginning to cover her legs. It’s dark, whatever it is, because her seemingly pail skin disappears beneath whatever is beginning to cover her. Hidden within her screams are a few words I can decipher:

“GET – OFF —! — BITING ME!”

There are 324 bunk beds here, all lined up nicely in rows of 12. There’s little room to move around, but that’s okay, as most people tend to stay in their beds. Tonight is no different. As the woman shrieks and thrashes, everyone remains shielded by the safety of their own covers.

What I know to be blood begins to pour down her bunk as her legs melt beneath the weight of whatever is eating her. Her body looks as if it is deflating by the time her screams thankfully stop. She’s nearly fully encompassed now by what looks like a blanket of tiny black beads– no, bugs. I think it’s definitely bugs because I can hear what sounds like thousands of tiny feet pitter-pattering over this woman.

I know what bugs are because despite the best efforts of our officers to keep the outside out, somehow what my mom called “bugs and beetles” still break-through our barricades of concrete.

The lady’s gaping face is now covered in these bugs and after a few brief moments it looks like she has completely disappeared. If it wasn’t for the blood still dripping onto the floor, and her unmade bed of course, there would be no sign that anyone had been sleeping there. She’s simply gone.

The bugs are just gone too. Not gone in a puff of smoke, or anything like that. They didn’t disperse around the room. They’re just gone. Faded into nothing. Like they never existed in the first place.

It’s weird, being in a room where everyone is awake. Usually, some people are sleeping, while others are quietly whispering to their bunk-neighbors or engaging in some sort of soft hobby like crocheting. But now, wow. I look around and nearly every person is sitting upright in their bed awaiting more information about what just happened. Although eyes are hard to see in this dark, I do know what direction everyone’s head is pointed in and it's to the senior officers door. He’ll know what just happened; what this was.

So we wait.

I found this dvd box set at a yard sale, it looked normal enough except for one thing…it had the words DO NOT WATCH written on it…i wish I hadn’t…i got home and put it in…i put on my favorite episode chocolate with nuts, it was normal with the usual cheery music and happy vibe until the scene with the crazy fish popped up, but instead of yelling he just pulled out a knife, and he stabbed SpongeBob 27 times, this did nothing which is what caused the yelling this time, he stabbed Patrick and both SpongeBob and Patrick screamed, he stabbed him until he was dead by just impact alone, SpongeBob ran and the fish chased, he got away and went to talk to sandy, sandy looked weird, she turned around but only to spongebobs dismay was it the fish again, he chased SpongeBob who was crying at this point, he went into the krusty krab only to find squidward dead on the ground and Mr krabs no where to be seen, he want to his house and cried himself to sleep he heard a dingdong at his door and then he saw a box, he opened it and inside were chocolate bars, they had red liquid and opened one, he screamed as he saw chocolate bars made out of blood and bones for nuts, CHOCOLATE WITH NUTS, needless to say I’ll never watch SpongeBob or see him again.

I was bored and thought “why is there no smile.cat”. Well, now there is. I guess everyone who looked at this is cursed…sry bout that!

Just want to know because I’m board

Did anyone else become a participant in the social experiment known as Flat Stanely?

I went to elementary school in the mid-nineties (95-2001) and I was in third grade when our teacher announced that we would be taking part in the Flat Stanley Project. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, Flat Stanley was a series of books about this flat kid who goes on all these weird adventures to famous places. New York, The Grand Canyon, France, Australia, this guy went everywhere and was like a flat version of Curious George. We started reading them in class, making them part of our English hour, and one day Mrs. Gazle told us we were going to have a contest.

"Today's English lesson is to create your own Flat Stanley. It can look however you want, but the winner of the contest will get three prizes from the prize basket, and be the classes Flat Stanley that we send into the world to participate in the Flat Stanley Project."

We were all excited. This was a chance to see our work in the pictures that would come back, not to mention get some cool stuff from the prize basket. We all drew out our own concept for Flat Stanley and set to work coloring and designing him. My Flat Stanley was a spy, wearing a big trench coat, a wide hat, and carrying binoculars. He wore his regular clothes under it, and he just looked so goofy that I thought I had a real chance of winning. My friend, Todd, laughed when he glanced over at it, telling me it was cool. His Flat Stanley was a football player for the Georgia Bulldogs, his favorite team, and I thought his Stanley looked cool too.

So when the class voted on the displayed Stanleys, I figured Kaylies Flat Stephany would win. It had a sparkly tiara and a ball gown she had made with felt. That was the one I had voted for at least, since we couldn't vote for our own, and if not hers, I figured Matts would win. His Flat Stanley was a truck driver, complete with a net hat and sleeveless t-shirt, and he had put a lot of work into it. I knew some kids thought mine was funny, but I didn't figure I stood a chance. I hadn't used any special materials or done anything really innovative, and I figured I'd hang him in my room when I got him back.

So when Mrs. Gazle announced that my Flat Stanley had won, I was shocked.

I went home that night with a new super bounce ball, a pocket-sized Stretch Arm Strong, and an eraser shaped like a Pikachu.

I also went home to tell my Mom that I had won the contest and that my Flat Stanley would be going out to other schools and other places so we could get pictures back and see all the cool places he'd been. She said that sounded really neat, and we brainstormed where he might end up. Paris, DisneyLand, the Moon (we both laughed about that one), or maybe even at an Atlanta Braves baseball game. We had a good afternoon thinking about where he might end up, and when Dad got home he joined us in our daydreaming.

I went to bed that night thinking of all the cool places Stanley might go, and what we might see when he came back.

It started out pretty normal. Mrs. Gazle sent the package out to a school the next town over and they sent us back pictures a week later. Stanley had been to a volleyball game, an art museum, and finally to play put on by the class. They sent it up the road to the next school, where Stanley went on a hike, went to the zoo, and then to a baseball game. It wasn't the Atlanta Brave, it was a t-ball game, but it was still neat. This went on for a couple months, Flat Stanley traveling to Texas, New Mexico, California, Idaho, and Kansas. We hung the pictures up, sent out thank you cards, and talked about the places that Flat Stanley had gone to. It was a good time, and we used it in our Geography class to help us learn our states. It seemed that Flat Stanley was in all our lessons that year. Math (if Flat Stanley travels from Burbank California to El Paso Texas, how far has he traveled?), Geography (If Flat Stanley is at the Alamo, then where is he?), and of course English where we read the books and the letters we got out loud.

It was approaching April when we came to class to find that Mrs. Gazle wasn't there. We were all pretty bummed, because Wednesdays were usually when we got our Flat Stanley letters, and the sub told us that Mr. Gazle would talk about it when she got back. There was no Flat Stanley that day, and when Mr. Gazle came back the following week, we moved on to something else. All the Flat Stanley stuff had disappeared from the class, and its absence was as noticeable as our missing teacher had been.

She never told what had happened, and it was a mystery talked about in hushed tones well into the fourth grade.

It would probably still be a mystery if I hadn't decided a decade later to pursue teaching.

I'm in my second year of college now, and I've progressed into student teaching. I decided that I wanted to try my hand at being an elementary school teacher, something like fourth or fifth grade, and when they gave me the name of my mentor, I realized I knew her. It was Mrs. Gazle, my old third-grade teacher. She taught fifth grade now, her retirement coming up on the horizon, and she smiled when she realized who I was, giving me a big hug.

"Welcome back, I'm glad to see you decided to take up teaching."

Her classroom was in the same room her third-grade class had been in, and the kids reminded me a lot of me and my friends when we had been her students. She had a good group. They were hungry to learn, and they liked her a lot. Mrs. Gazle was the kind of teacher who kept kids' attention effortlessly, and I hoped it was a skill I would learn from her. The kiddos in her class took to me pretty quickly, and soon I was teaching classes while Mrs. Gazle just sat back and observed.

Something about being in her class again made me remember my days as a third grader at this school, and that made me think about Flat Stanley again. There was nothing like that in her fifth-grade class, the kids would have probably thought it was babyish, but it did rekindle some of the mystery I had felt from a decade before. I tried to find a good time to bring it up, but nothing seemed to present itself.

Until Friday of my second week.

I was packing up to leave when Mrs. Gazle offered to take me out for drinks. I was a little surprised, and she must have noticed because she laughed airily at my look of chagrin.

"What?" she asked, her coat over one arm, "You didn't know teachers drank?"

I decided to join her and found a small group of other teachers waiting for us when we arrived. Some of them I knew, most of them I didn't, but it turned out that this was a regular thing for them. They drank and talked about their week, complaining about some students who were especially difficult, and generally blew off steam. Mrs. Gazle and I sat in the corner, nodding and listening to them, and she smiled at me over the lip of her fourth glass of wine sometime near eleven.

"I've been sending glowing reviews to your professors," she confided, "You're one of the better student teachers I've ever worked with. I think you're probably a shoo-in to be hired at the end of your training period, and I'll recommend you to the principal myself if he doesn't extend you a position."

I thanked her, sipping my second beer as I took it all in.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" I said suddenly.

"Neither of us is nearly drunk enough for you to offer me a ride home yet, big fella," she said, snorting into her glass.

"No, no, nothing like that. Something's always bugged me from my time in your class, and I was wondering if you remembered the Flat Stanley Project we did?"

Some of the color fled from her cheeks and I could swear she shuddered a little.

"I'm surprised you even remember that. It was a long time ago."

"Well, everything disappeared from the class so quickly, and when you came back you never brought it up again. All the books were gone from the class library, all the letters were gone, everything was missing. I think we talked about it for half of the fourth grade before something else caught our attention."

She looked far away for a moment as if contemplating whether she actually wanted to answer me or not.

"I think I need a little air. Would you care to escort me?"

I told I would, and we left amidst a hail of catcalls about "cradle robbers" and "cougars on the prowl." I had taken her arm, and she was trying to be unbothered by it, but she was stiff and a little unsteady as we walked out onto the patio. Something had her spooked, and I didn't think it was the half-hearted teasing of her peers.

When we came outside, she leaned against the railing outside the seating area, looking at the waves as they crashed against the water below us.

I came to lean beside her, realizing she was trying to figure out where to begin, and having trouble getting started.

"Are you sure you wanna know? That's a pretty messed up story, but I suppose we could count it as a part of your education. Maybe it'll help you avoid something that got me in a lot of hot water and canceled the Flat Stanley Project for the whole school."

I told her I did, pretty intrigued with what could have happened to make a whole school ban something as benign as a kid's art project.

"Well, you remember that we sent the little guy around to a school in the next town over? Well, they sent it to another school, and that school sent it to another school, and so on and so forth. We had about the best result of any other classes, getting back twice as much material as is normal. I started integrating it into the curriculum, as you remember, and it was such a huge part of our class. I appreciated the material, sometimes it's hard to keep kids' attention when they're that young, but Stanley really helped. Then, one day, I arrived to find that a new package had come the day before."

She stopped, shivering a little as she watched the waves.

"Someone had sent our Flat Stanley back, and I was excited as I opened the envelope. We were starting fractions that day, at least, we were supposed to, and I wanted to see if there was some way I could work fractions into the package. I would get my wish, but not in the way I wanted."

I had reached into my pocket for a cigarette, and Mrs. Gazle asked if she could have one.

I had never seen her smoke before, but as she inhaled that first mouthful, she closed her eyes and looked euphoric.

"Flat Stanley was supposed to go to Carter Wilde Elementary school in Boise, but it appeared he had gone somewhere else. You're too young to remember it, but there was a pretty terrible person in the Midwest in the late nineties. He was picking up young women who were hitchhiking, and the police would find them later after he was done with them. Somehow, he got our Flat Stanley and thought it would be funny to use him to taunt the police. He had murdered five girls that week," her voice broke as she said it, the tip of the cigarette jittering as she spoke, "and attached pictures of them to the Stanley he sent back. They were horrific, and as I spilled them out on my desk, I recognized what I had at once."

She was shaking, and as I put my jacket around her, she smiled ruefully at me.

"You're a good kid, despite making me relive this. We knew that the kids in my class had all kinds of wild ideas about what had happened, but we also knew that none of you knew the truth."

She took a long pull off the cigarette and let the ash dribble down.

"The first girl he sent pictures of was Ashley Mankse. He had cut her chest open, the X going right between her breasts, and skinned her open like some kind of flower. Her face was set in the worst possible look you've ever seen, and right there in the middle of her chest, was Flat Stanley; YOUR Flat Stanley."

I thought I got it then, but Mrs. Gazle hadn't even got rolling yet.

"Then there was Francis Carmichael, the girl he took from the fair. She was looking for a ride, and he gave her one. He cut her arms and legs off while she was alive, burning the wounds closed with an iron so she'd bleed out slower. He finally cut her throat, and after that, he put one foot from that Flat Stanley in her teeth and took a picture. He was standing upright, her body on display, and her burnt nubs are something I still can't quite get out of my head."

"I'm sorry," I started, but she cut me off.

"No, no. You wanted to know, so let me get it all out. It's like the confessional I used to go to when I was little. If I get it all out, maybe it won't haunt me as bad. He got Dawn Caimbridge and Betsy Caimbridge next, split their backs, and made a pair of blood angels out of them. He set Flat Stanley in the middle of them, the crevice between their sides, and snapped a picture. They were still looking for them when they found Ashley. Finally, he got Melanie Fasterly, and she was probably the worst. He beat her with a sledgehammer until her bones were like glass shards. The picture he sent back was unrecognizable as a human being, and if it hadn't been for the hair I would have never known what it was. He stood the cut out between her lumpy legs as if to save her modesty, and she honestly looked about as flat as he was if you don't count all the bone spurs sticking out of her."

Mrs. Gazle's jaw was shaking, the skivering causing her to stutter over the last few words, and when she looked back at me, there was regret on her face. All the alcohol had been burned out of her, the fear having shaken it all loose as her mind remembered what had likely been the worst day of her life.

"I called the police, of course, but my real concern was for you guys. If this psycho had mailed this back to us, then he had the address of the school. If he knew where we were, then he could pay us a visit and make us his next photo collage, and I couldn't have lived with myself if that had happened. So, I gave the police everything, and they agreed to keep an eye on the school for a while. I needn't have bothered. This twisted fuck had a particular hunting ground and a particular prey, neither of which were children in Georgia. He never did pay us a visit, but it took six more girls before they caught him. I didn't sleep well until they had him in custody, and I didn't sleep soundly until they slipped the needle into him last year. He was a rotten, twisted individual, and he deserved every ounce of what he got. I had to take the rest of the week to recover from his little present, and there was talk that they might want me to undergo counseling. When I got back, the school had scrapped all the Flat Stanley stuff. It was too much of a risk that some students would get a hold of it next time, and they couldn't have that. Some of the teachers thought we should tell the students, some of them thought we should tell the parents and a few of them thought I should be fired for some reason. It was decided that we wouldn't tell any of them, and we would never speak of it again. In exchange for not causing an uproar, I got to keep my job. I thought it was a pretty fitting trade back then. So that's the whole sad story, cure your curiosity?"

It did.

Mrs. Gazle was right, too. They offered me a job at the end of my training, and it turned out it was her job. Mrs. Gazle retired at the end of that year, wanting to spend more time with her grandkids and her daughters. We still get drinks sometimes, and she really is a lovely woman. As for me, I noticed one major part of the contract as it was presented to me. They put it in bold so you can't possibly miss it, and so if you break it, you really only have yourself to blame.

Under no circumstances will our students participate in any program that sends documents to other schools or entities without the express permission of the administration. This includes penpal programs, Hands Across the Water, the Flat Stanley Project, and other affiliated projects there within.

I signed that contract ten years ago, and now I instruct student teachers myself.

In the decade I've been teaching, I have never broken that rule, and I have Mrs. Gazle's story to thank for that.

When you send something like that out into the world, you never know who might answer back, and what they might have to say.

Chapter 3: Prices to pay

I lock my crappy little car, not that I really need to there's nothing worth stealing in there. Two beeps ring out into the chilly October night. The rusty Toyota Corolla has served me well over the last five years. 11:00 pm. Wednesday, halfway through. Let's hope I survive until the end of the week. Amy and Laura are finishing wiping down their last few tables. They give me a nod as I walk straight to the coffee machine. The bells jingle as Joann walks in behind me.

"Oh my god what happened?" Asks Amy.

"My cat got a little worked up yesterday." Says Joann with a small smile.

Her makeup is done but if you look closely you can see she is covered in ghost burn scratches. They have gone purple and bubbled a bit. My own hands have done the exact same thing. The crew is starting to look a little rough.

"Whats wrong with it? I hate cats, little devils" Says Laura.

"He just doesn't like getting his nails cut I guess, as for your information, Joey is an absolute angel." Joann rolls her eyes a little and ties her apron.

I head to the back. George jumps a little as I walk into the kitchen. I catch him chugging the last of a straight vodka nip. He quickly throws it in the trash.

"I don't know why you even try to hide it George everyone knows. You're not very good at cleaning up after yourself."

"It's the illusion that I feel bad about drinking on shift that matters." He says with a wink. He has a point I guess.

"We're all stocked up today right?"

"Should be. Not really my problem my shift ends... now. Goodnight." He grins reaching into his pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes. He places it between his lips and lights it before he's even out the back door. Ted comes up from the basement as I'm taking out fresh ingredients for the night.

"Good news, the graveyard got scrubbed clean so everybody should be more relaxed tonight. Also Frank is out of the hospital, he called an hour ago said he'd be here." I shudder a little at the thought of what the diner punished Frank with. He was seriously messed up and Ghostburn doesn't age well.

"Speaking of the Devil." I say as someone buzzes for the back door to open. Ted rushes over to open it.

"Holy shit Frank." Ted takes a step back.

Frank almost stumbles through the door. His skin is pale and he's very sweaty. He is wearing a neck brace. His cap hides his face and his breathing is labored. All of the skin visible is in some way touched by various degrees of ghost burn. It looks like it hurts him to breathe. He looks up and that's when me and Ted gasp. Frank is missing an eye.

The wound is messy. This was not done surgically, this was the diners cost for missing a night of work. Me and Ted just stare as Frank stumbles over to the dish station. He doesn't say a word, just labored breathing as he starts the dishwasher. He puts his headphones in and adjusts his cap to cover his face again.

"Give him space. I'm going to head out I have some paperwork to do at the office I'll stop back around four." Says Ted.

"I was planning on it." Ted heads out the back just as midnight rolls around. The front doors jingle as our first customer walks in.

Hilda, back to her usual sweet self chats Joanns ear off. She sits in the same booth she always does, ordering her cup of tea and her extra hot muffin. I make sure it is thoroughly heated this time. She disappears as Kyle, Logan and Morty walk in. They order coffees, taking their seats at the bar.

"Goodnight love." Says Kyle grinning. "You look better already." Says Joann.

"A good days rest will do that to you. Now that my grave is clean I'm able to sleep like the dead." He gives her a wink and Morty glares at him. Joann ignores the flirty little remarks Kyle tosses her way. Morty however, does not.

"How are you feeling? You hide that Ghostburn pretty well." Says Morty, gazing at her shamelessly. Like a lovesick puppy. Joann blushes a little, her cheeks turning the same red as her hair. I'm sure in another life the two would've gone on a few dates. Luckily for him his face isn't crushed as Kyle's or Logan's so maybe he'll have a shot when she dies in 60 years.

"I'm alright, It's a good thing this whole mess is cleared up. What can I get for you guys?" "The usual." Says Logan.

"But-" Kyle starts to protest.

"Again, unless you're paying shut up and enjoy your half off pancakes." Says Logan.

"We're going to have to listen to him bitch about that for the rest of eternity and still never pull out his wallet." I say as Joann puts the slip on the line.

"You got that right." She glances over at Frank and gasps under her breath. He turns around quickly.

"Poor thing." She mutters and heads back out front. Joann knows the high cost of missing a night at the diner. Fortunately for me I have always been on time.

"What the fuck?!" Comes a man's shout from the diner.

Even Frank looks up from his dishes. He looks at me, shrugs, and adjusts his headphones. I don't blame him Frank has dealt with more than enough paranormal bullshit this week. He gets a pass. I run out front.

It's one of our living regulars, trucker Dave. He is standing in the doorway and I watch the blood drain from his face. I see Kyle, Morty, and Logan turn in their seats to face him. Oh shit. I see Kyle, Morty, and Logan turn in their seats to face him. The dead are still in the diner. A living regular is still in the diner. This isn't supposed to happen.

"What's going on, who are they?" Dave can see them. He's shaking and the ghostly construction crew just look at each other and shrug.

"Joann, Ivy, what the hell?" Shouts Dave, the red coming back into his face. Dave never seemed very bright, and dim people tend to get angry when they don't understand something.

"Dave calm down. It's okay they won't hurt you." Joann say.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and text Ted. There are very few reasons to call Ted back to the diner. Ted doesn't like to be disturbed when he goes to do whatever the diner needs done on the outside. This however is one of Ted's specifically stated reasons to call him back.

Come quick, we have both types of regulars.

I shoot the text and receive an immediate response.

On my way.

"I don't bite." Gurgles Logan through crushed teeth.

Dave looks at me and then Joann one more time. He notices the scars on her face.

"Dave cool it." I warn taking a step around the counter.

"Demons. They're demons!" He steps back and runs out of the diner. Logan starts laughing so hard I see ghostly blood fly out of his mouth and onto his plate of pancakes. It's a good thing all of that will disappear when they do. If they do.

"What if he tells people?" Says Joann. "No one will believe him." Chimes in Morty reassuringly. "That's not true." Says Logan. "He didn't recognize me, but I used to know Dave. He has a reputation for honesty. I guess my face really is messed up."

"We can't risk it. The consequences are to high. Ted will handle it." I say, walking to lock the doors. The dead can still come in, but we can't risk any more normies tonight.

Ted comes flying in from the back. He's so sweaty his glasses are forming condensation.

"Who was it?" He asks panicky. "Trucker Dave." Me and Joann reply in unison. "Fuck. Fuck. Shit. Lock the doors. How long ago did he leave?" Asks Ted.

"Only a minute ago he might still be in the parking lot." Says Joann. Genuine pure fear possesses his face. Ted turns and runs outside as fast as I've ever seen him move. We all sit in silence, staring at each other.

"This has never happened before." Whispers Joann. She looks scared.

"I'm sure it will be fine. Ted's going to handle it." I say.

"How is he going to do that?" Asks Kyle.

A loud gunshot rings from the parking lot. Frank comes to the door and waves me to the back. "Stay here Jo." I say. Things are about to get ugly. Me and Frank step out the back door and into the night.

"Over here." Says Ted. He is standing by Dave's long haul truck. He has the door open and Dave is on the floor. He has a gunshot wound to the head. Ted is holding a gun.

"Hell no." I say and turn to go back inside. I don't get paid for this shit. Frank grabs my arm so hard I wince.

"Help out. Or pay the price. We need to preserve the diner." He says in a raspy voice. It sounds like it hurts to breathe never mind talk. I reluctantly follow Frank back to the truck.

"Get his legs." Says Ted, grabbing Dave under the arms. I do as he says and we lift Dave into the passenger seat. Great, now I'm an accessory to murder.

"Frank, you take care of the truck text me where you dump it I'll come pick you up. Make sure it's really going to blow." Frank nods. He's so casual about I'm starting to think there's more to Frank. It's like he's done this before.

"Dave was a good man. I hate that I had to do what I did, but there would be severe consequences if I didn't. Luckily the diner gave us enough time to fix this ourselves. The amount of lives that would've been lost if a ton of normies came barging in is bad. Real bad." Says Ted solemnly.

He hands Frank the keys to the truck and nods at me to head inside. Ted fills two buckets of soapy hot water and hands me a sponge.

"This better not come back to bite me in the ass." "It would be a lot worse if we didn't do it. Remember that Ivy. The veil is thinning and I'm not sure why." says Ted. Joann pokes her head out the back door.

"Slips are up." Says Joann, she is trembling and looks like she wants to puke at the sight of blood on the concrete. She does the wise thing and doesn't ask any questions.

"Go handle that. I have to finish this then go pick up Frank." Says Ted, he takes out his cellphone and puts it to his ear.

I listen and head straight to the back to make the several orders of toast and eggs on the board. The construction crew are gone. A few elderly dead men have taken up a booth out front and are contently chatting away. Joann is serving them coffees with shaky hands. One of them gives her a dirty look as she overfills his cup and spills some on the table.

Me and Joann spend the next few hours scrubbing everything we can. This place has to be completely clean. Around five o'clock Ted and Frank come back in. Ted gives us new uniforms to change into and takes our old clothes to burn.

Someone bursts through the front door. We all gasp as a translucent, dead, trucker Dave starts looking around furiously. I hear the doors behind me swing open as Ted books it into the back. The diner allows him to leave, so he takes the advantage.

I don't blame him really. If we could dip too we certainly would. Joann grabs a hot pot of coffee prepared to defend herself. She's had enough Ghostburn to last a lifetime. I'm not even sure if you can fight them, but I don't want to find out right now.

I glance at dead trucker Dave, then at the clock, then at trucker Dave again. Thirty seconds until six am. Dave storms towards me angrily.

"Where the hell is he? Wheres Ted? I'm going to kill-" He is abruptly cut off as the clock hits six. Dead Dave and the old men in the corner booth disappear. Good. My shift is over and none of this is my problem until eleven o'clock tonight.

"Goodnight Joann."

"Goodnight Ivy." She says placing the coffee pot back on the burner. She breathes a deep sigh of relief as the early opening shift, Derek, and Jackie walk through the door.

I can already hear Jackie mumbling about the mess. This place has been polished top to bottom. Matter of fact, it's had crime scene cleanup level deep cleaning and she still finds a way to complain about some dirt on top of the register.I fill up my to-go cup of coffee, grab my coat, and head straight out the back. I'm going to bed.

The engine's hum faded into stillness as the last of our belongings thudded onto the wooden porch of the new house. The town, nestled in a crook between looming mountain peaks, held the silence of a forgotten secret. I stepped out of the car, stretching limbs cramped from the long drive, my breath visible in the crisp air.

"Jordan, help your mother with those boxes," Dad called out, his voice disturbing the quiet like a stone rippling a still pond. I nodded, muscles already aching at the thought of more lifting, but it was the surrounding wilderness that beckoned me with a siren's call.

"Let him take a break, Mark," Mom intervened, her soft tone wrapping around me like a protective cloak. "He's been cooped up all day."

With a grateful glance at her, I slipped away from the familial duties and the scent of cardboard and dust. The mountain's shadow stretched over the town as if to claim it, and I wandered beneath its touch, eager to explore the fringes where civilization gave way to wild uncertainty.

The forest loomed, an ancient guardian of secrets, and I felt its pull. The trees stood like sentinels, their branches weaving a tapestry against the sky, and I found myself drawn to them. A chill ran down my spine, not from the cold, but from excitement laced with a hint of fear.

As I ventured deeper, the forest closed around me, a verdant embrace that seemed to breathe with unseen life. My footsteps were muffled by the undergrowth, and I could feel the thrum of the earth beneath my boots.

Then, I saw it—an overgrown path, almost hidden by years of neglect. It wound away from the main trail, disappearing into the dense foliage. A weathered sign, half-swallowed by ivy, warned against straying from the established route. But warnings were for those who feared the unknown, and fear had never been enough to quell my curiosity.

I hesitated for only a moment before the path's mystery ensnared me completely. Each step led me away from the known world and deeper into a realm that whispered promises of discovery. The air grew thicker, scented with decay and the musk of damp leaves, and though reason nagged at me to turn back, something primal urged me onward.

An inexplicable pull tugged at my core, as if the path itself were alive and guiding me toward a destiny written long before my arrival. The forest seemed to watch, its ancient gaze heavy upon my shoulders. Yet, I moved forward, driven by the relentless force of my own wonder, stepping into the shadows that danced just beyond the reach of the fading daylight.

The path unfurled before me like a serpent, beckoning with its silent and sinuous appeal. I should have turned back, heeding the warnings that were etched in weathered wood and whispered in my mind's cautionary tales. Yet, each step I took was a note in an irresistible siren song, drawing me deeper into the heart of these woods where sunlight dared not linger.

A shroud of mist began to rise from the earth—a ghostly exhalation—and with it came a change in the air, a chill that seeped into my bones and coiled around my heart. The forest grew denser, the trees now sentinels standing guard over secrets time had long ago buried in their roots. The path, once merely overgrown, now twisted into a labyrinth of gnarled branches and thorns that seemed almost deliberate in their placement, as if to ward off the unwelcome.

I paused, listening. The silence was absolute, yet within it, there stirred faint whispers. Not voices, not quite, but echoes of something ancient, a resonance left behind by lives long since faded into the loam. That eerie chorus, murmuring indecipherable hymns, set my skin prickling with the awareness of being an intruder in a sacrosanct domain.

Moonlight filtered in frail beams through the canopy above, casting shadows that moved with an autonomy that defied the stillness of the night. They flickered and played across the path, as though the dark itself were alive, and I felt the presence of unseen eyes upon me—watchful, knowing, and patient.

"Who's there?" My voice was but a whisper, a betrayal of the trepidation that welled up inside me. There was no reply, save for the mocking rustle of leaves in a wind that I could not feel. An involuntary shiver coursed through me, not from cold, but from the creeping realization that this place held memories—it breathed with an essence not entirely its own, an amalgamation of the past that clung to the present.

The silhouettes of twisted trees became specters, reaching out with claw-like branches, while the ground beneath my feet felt unsteady, as if treading upon the very fabric of history. Each echo, each movement of shadow, was a thread unraveling from the tapestry of this place, revealing glimpses of something altogether more sinister, a narrative woven with strands of dread.

"Jordan," the forest seemed to sigh my name, and I couldn't tell if it was a warning or a welcome. But one thing was certain—I was no longer a mere visitor in these woods. With every breath, every heartbeat, I was becoming part of its story, a tale that promised neither mercy nor escape. And despite the danger that I felt encroaching upon me with the suffocating inevitability of darkness at twilight, my curiosity blazed brighter still, an inextinguishable flame amidst the looming shadows.

My footsteps crunched on the forest floor, a staccato beat in the otherwise silent night. The path ahead was choked with overgrowth, yet I pushed through, drawn by an unseen force that beckoned me deeper into the woods. With each step, I disturbed centuries of undisturbed earth; roots and leaves whispered secrets to the dark sky as if my presence had stirred them from a deep slumber.

It was then that I sensed it—a prickling on the back of my neck, the telltale sign of unseen eyes upon me. I paused, listening intently. The stillness of the forest seemed to contract around me, like the breath of something colossal and unseen. It was as if the very air had become a conduit for ancient malice, slipping through the leaves and winding its way around my limbs.

I could feel it now, a malevolent presence awakening to my intrusion. It was subtle at first, a mere brushing against the edge of my consciousness. But with every heartbeat, it grew stronger, feeding off my mounting apprehension. There was no mistaking the intent behind this force—it was old, older than the trees that sheltered it, and it coveted the warmth of life that I carried within me.

The moon hung low, a pallid witness to my trespass. Shadows twisted beneath its gaze, coiling and uncoiling like serpents ready to strike. They seemed to reach for me, elongated fingers grasping, trying to pull me into their inky embrace. A chill ran down my spine, not from the cold, but from the realization that these were no ordinary shadows—they pulsed with a hunger that was almost palpable.

My breath quickened as I pressed onward, unable to quell the mix of excitement and dread that surged through me. The forest itself seemed to close in, the trees leaning closer, their branches creaking ominously. Each whisper of wind sounded like a hushed directive, urging me forward and sealing my fate with every step. The darkness clung to me, a second skin that I could not shed.

"Who's there?" My voice came out barely above a whisper, betraying the tremor of fear that I fought to control. No answer returned, only the stifled laughter of leaves rustling against each other. Yet the silence that followed felt charged, brimming with anticipation for what was to come.

I could feel it now, the eyes—more than eyes, a presence that observed my every move with predatory interest. It didn't just watch; it learned, discerned my fears, tasted my vulnerabilities like a connoisseur savoring a fine wine. And with each revelation of my innermost self, the force grew bolder, more insistent.

There was a draw to this place, an inexplicable magnetism that compelled me to uncover its mysteries, even as I understood the peril such knowledge might bring. I was an intruder here, a living aberration in a realm of spirits and forgotten rites. The whispers grew louder, not in volume, but in intensity, and I knew they were meant for me—for Jordan Walker, the boy who trespassed in a domain where the past never truly died.

An owl hooted somewhere high above, its call a solitary note in the symphony of the night. Or was it a signal? A herald of something far more sinister that lingered just beyond the veil of visibility, waiting for the right moment to reveal itself.

"Show yourself," I commanded, my voice steadier than I felt. But the darkness held its secrets close, and I knew then that my journey had only just begun. Whatever slept within this ancient burial ground, it was awake now—and it knew my name.

The forest floor seemed to pulse beneath my feet, a heartbeat syncing with my own racing pulse. I stumbled forward, the pull of the path guiding me like a siren's song through the gnarled trees. Their twisted limbs reached for me, grasping, as if trying to warn or ensnare. My breath fogged in the chilled air, coming in short gasps that did little to soothe the mounting fear constricting my chest.

A shiver raced down my spine, not from the cold, but from the sudden onslaught of visions that flashed before my eyes—flickering and fragmented like a film reel possessed. Images of people, their faces contorted in terror, flickered against the backdrop of my reality. The ground beneath them stained a deep crimson, their screams silent yet deafening in the quiet of my mind. I clutched at my temples, willing the ghastly parade to cease, but the spirits buried in this unholy soil had found a conduit in me.

Their stories became mine, whispered secrets that clawed at the edges of my consciousness. A woman pleading for mercy, her eyes hollow mirrors of despair; a man's rage boiling over, his hands painted with the evidence of his sin; children, their innocence torn away, swallowed by the shadows of cruelty. Each vision was a piece of a grotesque puzzle, assembling a history marred by violence and sorrow.

I staggered under the weight of these revelations, feeling the very essence of the ancient burial ground bleed into my soul. It was as if its roots had wound around my ankles, anchoring me to its past, chaining me to its fate. A profound sense of responsibility settled upon me with a crushing inevitability. This malevolent force that had slumbered here, fed on anguish and silence for centuries, it sought release—and I had unwittingly turned the key.

"Jordan," it hissed, a sound that was both alien and intimately familiar, as though it resonated from within my own fractured psyche. I could no longer deny the truth that screamed in the silence between my hammering heartbeats. This force, this entity born of forgotten atrocities, would not rest until it had claimed what it deemed rightfully its. Our souls were the currency it craved, and I, in my insatiable curiosity, had drawn its ravenous gaze upon us.

"Stop," I uttered, the word a feeble shield against the dark tide surging forward. But it was all I had, a singular plea cast into the abyss of night. I knew then, with a clarity that cut deeper than any blade, that I must find a way to confront this horror. If not, the blood of those it would consume would be on my hands, indelible stains upon my conscience.

The moon, a sickly pale eye in the sky, watched impassively as I accepted the mantle of this grim crusade. With each step I took, retreating from the embrace of the forest, the resolve hardened within me. I would unravel the secrets of this place, unearth the means to bind back the darkness I had awoken.

I would fight, not just for survival, but for redemption—for the whispers of the past demanded nothing less.

The echo of my own footsteps through the forsaken corridors of the local archives was a grim metronome, counting down the moments left to us. Dust motes danced like mocking spirits in the shafts of light that cut through the gloom. My fingers traced the spines of ancient registers, their leather covers cracked and peeling like dry skin, as I sought answers among the dead.

"Be careful what threads you pull at," croaked Mr. Darnell, the archivist, his voice a ghostly whisper that seemed absorbed by the musty air rather than carried through it. His rheumy eyes followed me from his perch behind a fortress of paperwork, but he offered no further counsel.

The records were cryptic puzzles, pages upon pages of obituaries and land deeds, baptisms, and curses scrawled in the margins by hands long turned to dust. As I delved into the town's history, the past unfurled before me like a sinister tapestry woven with tragedy and secrets soaked in blood. The burial ground was more than a resting place; it was a seal over something ancient and malevolent, a binding that I had unwittingly loosened.

Each revelation, each fragment of lore gleaned from the crumbling documents, sent a chill down my spine. The tales were disjointed, but the essence of dread they conveyed was unmistakable. Beneath the foundations of this quiet mountain town lay an inheritance of darkness, one that now knew my name.

"Those who wake the old powers seldom live to regret it," murmured Mrs. Kessler, one of the few remaining residents brave—or perhaps resigned—enough to speak with me. Her words slithered into my mind, rooting themselves like seeds destined to sprout nightmares.

The price of my family's safety became a tangible thing, heavy upon my shoulders. Sacrifice... the word tasted bitter on my tongue, laced with the iron tang of blood yet unshed. It echoed in the hollows of my soul, a dirge for the innocence we had lost upon our arrival.

What would I have to give to rebind the shadows I had released? Who would pay the cost of my folly? The answers eluded me still, slipping through my grasp like smoke, leaving only the acrid scent of fear and the certainty that some prices were too steep to pay willingly.

"Enough," I whispered to the dark corners, to the lingering spirits that hungered for more than just knowledge. "I will find another way."

But the darkness did not relent, and the silence of the archives mocked me with the weight of centuries. The whispers of those long departed entwined around my thoughts, binding me to a fate I could no longer escape. There was no turning back from the path I had chosen; there was only forward, into the heart of the night.

With each breath, the chill of the encroaching darkness clawed at my lungs. The town's lights flickered against the twilight, a dying heartbeat resisting the inevitable smothering embrace of the night. I plunged through the desolate streets, my footsteps resounding with a desperate urgency that was swallowed by the towering pines encircling the town like sentinels.

In my hand, the brittle pages of the ancient tome flapped wildly as if seeking escape from their grim truths. The words of long-dead scholars, scrawled in fading ink, promised a solution steeped in ritual and sacrifice. My mind reeled with incantations and sigils, each one a piece of the arcane puzzle that I prayed would lock away the malevolence seeping from the forest's heart.

The forest loomed before me, its threshold marked by an archaic stone gateway overgrown with creeping ivy. I hesitated, the knowledge of what awaited me beyond those gates warring with the need to protect those I loved. The darkness had tasted our fears; it hungered for more. My family's safety hinged upon the success or failure of what I was about to do.

"Jordan," whispered the wind, carrying with it a chorus of voices that were not voices—a cacophony of despair from the past. They knew my name. They knew my intent. And they were waiting.

With a fortitude borne of desperation, I stepped into the shadows beneath the canopy. It closed around me, a shroud woven from the very fabric of dread. The moon, nearly full, cast a pale light that seemed to mock my efforts with ghostly illumination. Each step forward was a defiance, a silent scream into the void that answered with chilling laughter.

The path twisted, a serpentine track marred by roots that grasped at my ankles, as though the dead themselves sought to hinder my progress. The air grew thick, pressing against me with tangible malevolence. It was as if the forest itself breathed, exhaled whispers that crept under my skin, burrowing into my flesh.

"Turn back," they hissed, a seductive lullaby coaxing me towards surrender. But I pressed on, clutching the book tighter, its edges biting into my palm. Every line I had scoured from those cryptic pages became a mantra, repeated until the words lost meaning and became part of the symphony of fear that orchestrated my advance.

As I neared the heart of the woods, where the burial ground lay hidden like a festering wound, the very earth began to tremble. A gust of wind tore the pages from my grasp, scattering them into the night like carrion birds taking flight. Panic seized me, a cold vice that threatened to crush my resolve. Without those pages—without the knowledge they held—I was as good as dead.

"Please..." It was a plea to the indifferent stars, to the spirits I had unwittingly disturbed, to any flicker of mercy that might reside within the encroaching gloom.

Yet it was the land itself that responded, the ground buckling and heaving as if some colossal beast stirred within its depths. Trees bent and snapped, their sinewy limbs reaching out to ensnare me. The force I had awoken roiled with triumphant malice, sensing the nearness of its prey.

Running now, I dodged and weaved through the labyrinth of destruction, each breath a sharp stab of pain. My heart thundered in my chest, a drumbeat heralding doom. The realization crashed over me with the weight of ages: my actions, my insatiable curiosity, had brought this upon us all.

The malevolent presence coiled around the town, a serpent ready to strike. In the pit of my stomach, the icy tendrils of dread solidified into a stark understanding. All I had done, all I had sacrificed, was but a prelude to the horror yet to come. The darkness grew stronger, fed by the terror it inspired, an ancient entity reborn through my folly.

"Forgive me," I whispered into the night, knowing that the words were as futile as my attempts to contain what I had unleashed. Ahead, the burial ground awaited, its secrets now a curse that bound me to a fate far grimmer than any I could have imagined.

I stumbled forward, the chill of the night clawing through my sweat-drenched shirt. The forest was alive around me, a symphony of creaks and groans as though the trees themselves were in agony. My mind raced with the images of the past, each one a grotesque tapestry woven from the threads of my own undoing.

The path was no more; it had become a twisted mockery of nature, winding like a serpent's back through the gloom. I could feel it—the malevolent force—slithering behind me, an insatiable darkness that hungered for my soul.

"Jordan!" The wind seemed to hiss my name, every echo a chilling reminder of my fate.

My legs trembled beneath me, each step an effort in defiance against the pull of the abyss. I could taste the metallic tang of fear in my mouth, sharp and overwhelming. But still, I ran. I ran because it was all I had left—a desperate flight from the inevitable.

The moon cast ghostly shadows upon the ground, elongated fingers stretching out to grasp at my heels. I dared not look back, for I knew what lurked just beyond the veil of darkness: the culmination of my reckless pursuit for truth, the punishment for my arrogance.

The air grew colder, the breaths I took now ragged and uneven. The whispers swelled, an ancient chorus that bore down upon me with the weight of centuries. They spoke of torment, of vengeance, of a curse that would not be denied its due. A clearing loomed ahead, the burial ground bathed in an ethereal light that did nothing to dispel the terror that clung to it like a shroud. Here lay the heart of the darkness, the nexus of all that had come to pass.

"No more," I gasped, my voice barely audible over the din of my own pounding heart. I was at the precipice, the moment of reckoning that would decide all. There was no turning back, no reprieve from the horrors that awaited.

With one last surge of will, I crossed into the clearing, the malevolent force roaring in triumph as it closed its grip around me. The visions came fast and furious now, a deluge of suffering and sorrow that pummeled my senses.

And then, silence. Eyes wide with terror, I looked upon the ancient stones that marked the resting place of souls long forgotten. The air crackled with malevolence, the darkness palpable as it pressed in from all sides. Frozen in place, I could only watch as shadowy tendrils emerged from the earth, writhing and twisting as they reached for me. This was it—the gruesome end that had been written the moment I set foot upon that fateful path.

As the shadows enveloped me, dragging me down into the cold embrace of the grave, the chapter of my life closed with a final, chilling whisper:

"Welcome to eternity."

Hello everyone. What do you think about ClockWork?

I frantically threw my shirt off my head, covering my bare chest and staring down at the fabric on the ground as my heart played a tune. I had felt the bugs inside the shirt as I was putting it on, but none emerged from its openings. My skin still crawled and adrenaline still darted through my veins and tickled my nerves. Bugs. Tiny bugs. They conquered my life. Crawled, slithered, and buzzed their way into every thought I had.

They were everywhere at every moment of the day. I’d take a sip from my drink: bugs shot up the straw and into my mouth. A bite from my food and they were pummeling down my throat and eating their way out through my intestines. I would shower: bugs emerged from the drain hole and swarmed my feet. They sprinkled out through the showerhead and made nests in my hair. I would sleep: disrupted bugs from my pillowcase tunneled into my ears and wiggled out my nose, mouth, and eyes.

A dreadful circumstance I found myself in, persistently tormented by imaginary insects. I knew they were imaginary, for every time I’d feel their tiny legs dance across my flesh, I’d slap or scratch my skin but the parasites always remained. It drove me mad at first, diseased in a frantic mania I’d spend hours picking and digging nails into my inflamed epidermis. I’d bleed and bleed beads of blood that the bugs would swim in.

I even tried drowning them, submerging myself into the boiling hot bathwater and soaking for half the day. But they swam, and as they swam they reproduced and laid their eggs, which hatched in the span of a few minutes. They flocked to my body, frantically kicking their insect legs until they’d reach me like an island and crawl up to catch their breaths. But they would never drown.

I learned to accept them. It was almost impossible to ignore the constant tingles and pricks on every surface of my body, but I managed, and over time, I noticed they wouldn’t bother me as much if I stayed calm and still. It became a game where I’d block out every itch and tickle until it became unbearable, and eventually, I was able to hold out longer than ever.

One particular night, I lay in bed in my dark room doing my best to block out the tickles on my skin as my mind wandered to sleep. That’s when I felt them, behind my eyelids. They wormed their way through the thin skin that separated my eyelids from my eyeballs. It forced my eyes open, what an uncomfortable feeling. They’re not real. I had to reassure myself to preserve my sanity.

But the movement persisted and as it did, my eyeballs twitched and tingled in discomfort. I rushed to my bathroom mirror, planting my feet on the frigid, tiled floor and toying at my eyelids. I pulled them outward and raised my chin up to look underneath. Cream-colored maggots squirmed and inched across my bare eyeball, irritating the sclera and causing me to blink away tears.

Scratch them out. An impulsive thought rang in my head but I would not surrender. I knew better than to believe these parasites were real. Countless times I’ve asked strangers if they could see the vermin fragmenting all along my body, but their answers were always the same: “What are you talking about?” “Are you okay?” “Do you need me to get you some help?” “Get away from me, freak.”

That night, I didn’t get a wink of sleep, and the morning after only ushered in more insects to accompany my drowsiness. The imaginary bugs decided to take shape as mosquitoes today and swarmed me up in a cloud of bites and buzzes. I felt their tiny stings which made me itch and itch until my skin was a flaming crimson. But there were no bumps, no visible marks that would prove their existence.

I couldn’t leave the house like this, it was the fourth day in a row and food was nearing a shortage but I couldn’t stop scratching. “Leave me alone!” I screamed and batted at the frenzy of mosquitoes but they were right back on my skin. Pinpricks of blood beaded up on my face and limbs and I knew I needed to try everything in my power to disregard their bites. I launched myself face-first onto my living room sofa and held my breath in hopes I’d pass out.

And then everything stopped: the buzzing, the biting, the itching. The only sensation I felt was the burning inflammation of my flesh where I had been scratching. I opened my eyes and whipped my head around in search of the mosquitoes, but they had vanished. In a fit of shakes, I raised myself up from the couch and stared down at the blood-stained cotton. Too many times I had curled up scratching on the tarnished thing, shedding my DNA onto the fabric and leaving it there to soak and soil.

But the bugs were gone for now which meant I only had the span of a few minutes before new insects would emerge to agonize me. I was still oozing red but I had no time to waste. I would pick up a few cups of instant noodles and a case of water, that’s it. I didn’t want to be out in public too long and risk causing a scene if the bugs should return.

My shoes and coat were on and I was out the door before I had time to let my conflicting thoughts settle. The grocery store was a two-block walk from my one-bedroom apartment and I anticipated making it a short walk. I speed-walked the whole way, not too fast so as to not draw attention to myself. The last thing I needed was for the police to be called for a complaint against my erratic behavior. It didn’t help that I was covered head-to-toe in fresh scratches either–they’d probably mistake me for some streetside tweaker.

I was welcomed by the supermarket’s ungodly bright fluorescent lights and still, the insects did not bother me. I remained a calm composure as I paced the colorful aisles stacked full of grocery items and focused on the ground, avoiding eye contact with fellow customers in fear that they’d take notice of my restless mania. I was distinctly aware of my appearance.

Dark bags underline my eyes and contrast against my pale, scarred skin, teeth chattering in anxious clops, a shield of tangled, greasy hair from weeks of neglect, and clothed in a filthy, oversized gray hoodie. Anyone passing me wouldn’t hesitate to think I was a homeless man. Hell, I felt like one.

I spotted the instant noodles and beelined for them, snatching a pack of them up in my arms and heading to the front of the store to collect a case of water. But then, I felt a tickle on my ankles. No. Please, not now. A steady glance down proved exactly what I imagined. A multitude of long legs darted about my ankles and spread up my calves. The worst of all the imaginary vermin that plundered my mind were the spiders. They were the hardest to ignore.

They reigned their terror across my body, skewering my flesh with agonizing fangs and injecting pretend poison into my veins. I felt every excruciating second of it but I couldn’t react, not now. I was rushing now, I didn’t care what the others were thinking and I pretended they weren’t watching in a stupor as I sprinted across the market.

By the time I arrived at the register with my supplies, the arachnids were sneaking up my pant leg and frolicking through my leg hair.“Will that be all?” The teenage cashier with her wispy, blonde hair and braces gawked at me as I ran up in noticeable hysteria.“Yes, yes, thank you. I’m in a rush, sorry.” I spoke back concisely as an indication for her to hurry it along. But her procession continued painfully slow as the spiders made their way to my thighs.

Back out on the street, I was scampering home as fast as I could. The spiders bounced with my steps until one finally had the courage to bite me. It set off a chain reaction as they all began puncturing my legs violently. I faintly heard them hiss as they ejected their venom. “Fuck!” I couldn’t help but cry out.

I pummeled through my front door with such force that the doorknob caved a dent into the wall. I didn’t care, nothing mattered except for the bugs. I just needed to calm myself down. Once again, my face was plunged into my sofa as I tried to keep still and control my breathing. In. *They’ll stop soon.*Out. Just a little longer. In. God, why won’t they stop? Out. It hurts.

Then there was another sensation, a buzzing from the inside of my ears. I felt something tunneling its way out, it vibrated aggressively in my canal. Zip. Something flew out. I jolted my head to the side as more and more vibrating plagued my head. Zip. Zip. Zip. One after another, hornets popped out from my ears and surged my head, landing on my face and in my hair. They gyrated their thin wings in a cacophony of whirring and droning.

Stay calm. Don’t let them bug you. Ha. “Bug,” get it? My stomach feels weird. It was churning like spoiled butter and I felt bile rising in my throat. No. I’ll startle them. I tried and tried to hold back the vomit but it was aggressive, stronger than me. It reached my lips and spewed out before I had time to react, but it wasn’t the remains in my stomach–that’s right, I haven’t eaten. There couldn't possibly be anything in my stomach. So what was ejecting from my mouth? Beetles.

In an assortment of colors and sizes: scarabs, stags, and longhorns all gushed from my body like an unclogged pipe. I had no control over my body after that. Moths flew from my nostrils, worms wiggled out of my eye sockets, red ants emerged from my rear end, and cicadas entangled themselves in my hair.

The tiny assailants ambushed me all at once: the spiders bit, the hornets stung, the red ants lit a fire underneath me, the cicadas and moths clung on and antagonized me, the worms left slimy entrails down my cheeks, and everything went black at once.

Pale blue fluorescent lights, clean, white sheets, and a loud, periodical beeping. The last thing I remembered was the insects crawling in and out of my orifices, now I was in a hospital bed. What happened? There were tubes pumping clear liquid into my veins and an oxygen tube up my nostrils. The first thing I noticed in the hospital was that there were no bugs. No tickling, no tingling, no buzzing, no biting.

I repeated a silent prayer in my head as I felt the sensation of my skin burning and my head aching in a way I’d never felt it ache before. I struggled to piece things together but I must’ve blacked out and done something to myself. I heard the hurried tip-tapping of flats clopping across the linoleum floor, and sure enough, a young, petite nurse emerged in the doorway of my hospital room and immediately shot me a sympathetic smile.

“You’re awake. How are you feeling, hon?” She arrived by my side and began toying with my many tubes while actively avoiding eye contact. I oddly appreciated that she did.“Fine. What happened?” I answered bluntly. I could’ve told her I was having the worst headache of my entire life and my skin felt like someone peeled it off raw, but I needed to know what happened to me first. She let out a prolonged sigh and put her hands on her hips while she stared at the IV in my arm.“Why don’t you tell me what happened sweetheart? Neighbors reported that you were rolling around in the road last night screaming to ‘get the things off you.’”

Finally, she met my gaze and raised a questioning eyebrow. I didn’t know how to answer her. I couldn’t just tell her I blacked out and entered a state of psychosis thinking there were bugs all over me. So instead, I said: “Must’ve been sleepwalking,” I let out a quiet chuckle but quickly realized it only made me look more like a liar. Her mouth turned into a thin line as she gave me an “Oh really?” look.

“Could I please get something for my head? It hurts like Hell.” I changed the subject so she wouldn’t question me any longer. “I’ve already got you on 5 milligrams of Morphine. Let’s wait to see what the doctor says.” She flicked my IV tube and exited the room. Her departure was immediately followed by the doctor’s arrival. A middle-aged, handsome man with round glasses greeted me with a loud, “Hello!” My head pounded at his words and I wanted to shout at him, but it wouldn’t help my case considering I was found rolling around in the street.

Before he had a chance to ask me how I was feeling, I started up with my relentless pleas for pain medication, pointing at my head and squeezing my eyes shut to prove my point. He gave me the same look as the nurse, doubtful and concerned.“I suppose we could give you a CT scan and make sure you didn’t hit your head.” Though it wouldn’t relieve the pain, I was grateful for the offer. I was eventually given something to help me relax, but nothing too sedating and it didn’t stop the pounding in my brain.

Inside the CT machine, I closed my eyes and shut my brain off, almost dozing off. Here they come. The tickles. This can’t be happening. The CT machine warbled with its loud swooshing noises and beeps. And faintly, I heard a slight clicking. I couldn’t move my body or head in the claustrophobic space, but I felt the tickles on my chest.

Then, something buzzed loudly and knocked against the walls of the machine. I spotted it in the corner of my eye, a wasp. It saw me and beelined for my forehead, landing and twitching its butt up and down in between my eyes. Then, sting. I shot up and slammed my head against the ceiling of the machine. “Get me out!” I shouted at the doctors who stood behind a glass wall in another room. The machine began ejecting me but there were more wasps waiting for me on the outside. They were stinging me in a matter of seconds.

I hopped off the bed of the machine and threw myself from corner to corner in the room, I couldn’t see anything over the yellow and black horde circling my head. Hospital staff rushed in and subdued me before I could start scratching myself again. I felt a prick in the back of my thigh and assumed it was another sting from the wasps, but when I felt lightheaded and weak in the knees, I knew they had sedated me.

The doctor’s voice had awoken me this time. He was in a deep discussion with one of the nurses and talking hysterically. His once friendly, buoyant demeanor was now replaced with a hectic, paranoid composure. He spoke quickly but stopped as soon as he saw my eyes flutter open.“Mr. Muata, I know you must be exhausted, I don’t blame you.” I took notice of the pitiful look on his face like I was some man slumped over on the street. “We have unfortunate news regarding your CT results. If I may ask, have you been experiencing hallucinations? Specifically insects?”

I don’t know how he figured it out so quickly. I must’ve slipped up and said something in my psychosis. Anyway, it was time to come clean.“Yes, for the past year now, I've been seeing them all over my body but I can never kill them. They sting and bite me. That’s why I scratch off my skin. It hurts, doctor.” I already knew what he was going to say. He’d tell me I was suffering from schizophrenia or delusional psychosis or some other strange mental disorder.

But instead, he surprised me by saying, “I thought you’d say that. You see.” He flipped around a file in his hands and revealed to me an X-ray scan of my brain. It looked like any normal human brain except for the little dots that littered the entire organ.“Those little dots–I’m appalled to even say this–are bugs. We’ve never seen anything like this before. We believe you’re suffering from a new, rare parasitic disease in which these little organisms tunnel through your brain’s cells and cause hallucinations. But they aren’t regular hallucinations considering you can feel them. We want to conduct a few follow-up tests to make sure the disease isn’t contagious– or worse–could be fatal.”

This can’t be real. Brain bugs? Yes, I felt them now, tickling and biting my brain causing it to throb and pulsate in pain. “How do we get them out?” I asked him, praying for a positive answer. “That’s the thing, we won’t fully be able to. These critters are so deep in your membrane that removing them would put you at risk of permanent brain damage. We’re so sorry.” The doctor’s voice cracked and I almost thought he’d burst into tears. He sounded as upset as I should be. “But just remember, the bugs you see are not real, Mr. Muata.” He gulped and his jaw quivered as he spoke.

But now I had an explanation, a reason for my delusions. Sure, I might be dying but at least I’m not crazy. I felt the little legs but I wasn’t frightened this time, I welcomed their presence. The tingles were on every inch of my skin, they swallowed me up in a black horde. Ants. They wouldn’t hurt me, they were here to comfort me under my condition. My brain soothed for a second and I knew the guys up there were allowing me a few moments of peace. I was grateful.

I was still staring at the doctor when I noticed where he was looking. He was eyeing me up and down with a wild look in his eyes. I don’t blame him, I was patient zero of this new, dreadful phenomenon. I told him he could go and let the ants cover me like a blanket as I closed my eyes. They didn’t try to crawl into my openings, instead, they just rested on my skin and slept with me. Maybe, I would finally find peace.

As the doctor made his exit, he was panting like a dog and sweating bullets. What could this disease mean for the rest of the world? Certainly, the man inside the hospital room was going to die, no doubt about it. What man could possibly survive having living insects in his cranium? The doctor was hyperventilating now, he was mortified. He couldn’t tell anyone. The man covered in ants lying still in the hospital bed…he saw them too.

There was this person who was an avid thrill seeker and kept trying to summon demons or have some supernatural experience. Their friend is moving off or something and itll be the last chance they can try to do such a thing together, so they decide to summon one with the friend (I think) and then eventually the friend sleeps over with them. Except... they find out its not their friend when their friend calls and says it was going to be at some other time. The person with them is some kind of sleep demon, and it tries to get them to look it in the eyes.

Ive been trying to search on and off for this story and I probably butchered the description. Anybody who can help me find it, Id appreciate. I don't know if this counts as discussion.

It was 2019 I think, I still lived in my house with the woods behind it. It was dark out and I was watching YouTube on my phone when I looked out my window and saw someone maybe about 10 feet away from my window staring at me. I closed my curtains, turned off my phone, got under the covers and didn’t make a sound. I only fell asleep at about 4AM and got like 3 hours of sleep that night. Anyway I went to my backyard right next to the woods and saw the exact place the man was standing the night before, except he wasn’t there, there were just embers of a fire. I went back inside and told my dad about the whole thing and he told me to hide under my bed immediately and to not come out until he told me to, so I listened. As I was under the bed I heard the hose turn on and I heard the gate close. I still have no idea what my dad was doing out there but I never saw that man again.

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https://preview.redd.it/m8jhs0hxrpsc1.png?width=275&format=png&auto=webp&s=aed9e6c5a1cd9d0e3f8fd428f31d57df41827b56

Interesting UFO video scenes from different places, watch them and tell me what you think.

Clear video footage of a UFO, amazing scenes filmed in Italy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiVurDFJ6AA

Clear video footage of a UFO, filmed by a military helicopter over Sakhalin Island, Russia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Q580DTDak

Clear video footage of UFO showing what's inside, appeared in Turkey 2008 three times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUNUGu5dFSg

H

Hi, I'm looking for an old post (not sure if it's a creepypast or nosleep etc).

The story was about a crime scene cleaner working in a basement where a bunch of people were killed. He's working with one other guy that has a distinctive lighter and towards the end of the job the second cleaner leaves in a hasmat suit and they never hear from him again. Later it's discovered the original killer is in a hidden room and swaps places with the cleaner to escape in the anonymous hasmat suit. They find the original cleaners body in the hidden room with other decaying corpses and his lighter that shows he wasn't dead when he was first put there.

I may be misremembering but I'd love to read it again. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

Edit: sorry for title typo! *An old post

(Limited Time was originally made by Anonymous)

I'm Thomas, and I just wanna start off by saying that I live on my own and I work as a retail worker. Not the most glamorous job, but it pays the bills. I still keep in touch with my friends from college. Well, some of them anyway. They still live where I do, that being Connecticut.

Now that I've introduced myself, let me tell you another fact about myself. I'm a pretty huge fan of Cute Mario Bros. I've watched it since 2011, and I was hooked ever since. I was 13 at the time, but now? Now I'm 26. You're probably wondering why a grown-ass man like me is watching Cute Mario Bros of all things. Well, let's just say I'm a foolish old man wishing to look back on nostalgia.

Yesterday, I went on YouTube to find some Cute Mario Bros to watch for nostalgia's sake. However… When I got to a channel, I saw what I can only describe as… Concerning. Apparently this channel (I can't remember its name now) uploaded a scrapped Cute Mario Bros video called "Borrowed Time". I assumed it was fake seeing as how it was uploaded by a smaller channel, but I got curious and watched anyway.

Before I can get to talking about the video, let's talk about the thumbnail. It appeared to be Mario (an action figure) and Luigi (a plush) sitting on a bed in darkness. As for the views, it only has 200. Not surprising, as it was uploaded by a smaller channel than MarioMario8989.

When the video started, it showed a black screen for a few seconds before text saying "MarioMario8989 presents: Borrowed Time- a Cute Mario Bros special episode." That was weird. It usually didn't show the episode name. But, whatever. I didn't pay it any mind. It starts with Luigi on the bed, and judging by the tone in his voice, I could tell he was depressed. I couldn't tell what he said, due to his voice being nearly a whisper. Finally, Mario came up to Luigi and asked him what's wrong. Luigi, now even sadder, said this. "Mario… Do you ever feel like our time is limited on this Earth and we're just… Wasting it all?" "Luigi, what are you talking about?" Asked Mario. "Don't you like the adventures we go on?" ". . . Mario." Said Luigi. "You don't understand. We could've been doing anything else. We could've been living normal lives, with you married to Peach, and me married to Daisy. But… I guess we'll never have that… Not as long as Bowser is still causing trouble…" There was silence before Luigi said something that nearly made me shit myself. "Sometimes I just want to kill him…"

I had to pause the video. What the hell did Luigi just say, and did he mean it?! Did he actually want Bowser dead?! Sure, he was an enemy in the series, but… He couldn't want Bowser dead and gone out of the picture just because he wanted to live normally. After some pondering about this, I pressed on.

Mario was shocked into silence before changing the subject. "Well Luigi… I'm gonna be in the kitchen, making spaghetti for us both." "Okay, Mario." Luigi responded. Just as Mario left, Fawful came in. This confused me, because to my knowledge, Fawful wasn't in Cute Mario Bros. Fawful, like Luigi, was a plush. Made enough sense I guess. Anyway, Fawful came in and tried getting Luigi's attention. But Luigi, sad as he was, simply said, "Go away, Fawful… Just leave me alone." "Luigi please, it's important! It's about Mario!" This caught Luigi's attention almost immediately. He slowly turned to Fawful and slowly said, "Go on?" Fawful tells Luigi that Mario had secretly been working with Bowser. Luigi was confused at first, but then became furious. "WHAT?! HOW– WHY?!" Fawful explained, "Mario has been trying to overthrow Peach since the beginning. That's the only reason he saves her. So that he can have the Mushroom Kingdom to himself. Bowser only pretended to be his foe." After that, Luigi screamed a horrible scream of rage and hate before dashing off.

Next, the screen displayed a time, 5:00pm. I assumed this was a timeskip. Mario was in the kitchen, finishing his spaghetti. "Mama Mia, that was good spaghetti. Wonder why Luigi didn't eat his?" Mario then heard knocking. He went to the door and opened it, only to find a rather pissed off Luigi with a knife. I had goosebumps seeing this. An angry Luigi about to kill Mario over a misunderstanding! "Luigi!" Mario exclaims, "What are you doing with tha–" Before Mario can finish, Luigi dashes toward him, knife in hand. He slashes the knife as a blood splatter sound plays. A scene shows the Mario figure's head coming off and thrown onto the floor, with Arby's sauce used as blood. This played for 10 seconds on loop at different angles. After, the camera did a close-up on Luigi, shaking in rage as he said through gritted teeth, "NOW… TO FIND… BOWSER!!!"

I paused again, shocked by what I've seen. Did Luigi actually just kill Mario? And why? Because he thought he was in cahoots with Bowser?!

I hit play again, seeing another timeskip. "3:30am". Luigi was awake in bed, not sleeping. It'd seem his obsession with finding Bowser caused him to have a lack of sleep. A closeup started playing of Luigi again. This time, mixed in with flashbacks of Fawful telling Luigi, to Luigi killing Mario, mixed with the sound of Luigi yelling, "WHERE ARE YOU, YOU STUPID DRAGON TURTLE THING?!" Reversed music started playing as Luigi grew crazier and crazier. He started laughing maniacally as he got out of bed and slowly searched the house for Bowser. I could tell Luigi had become a psycho at this point. I was scared of what he might do to Bowser.

The next bit of text showed up, saying "30 seconds later". I saw a bunch of Koopa plush heads cut off, with some torn up Goomba plushes, and even the Koopalings' heads. That Arby's sauce was used for blood again. Bowser looked around and screamed, "WHAT THE?!" Bowser was just as scared as I was at this point. After 16 seconds of silence, he looked down at his kids' heads and started to cry. I felt bad for him, seeing as how Bowser loved his children, especially Bowser Jr. He was such a good dad too. Poor Bowser.

Soon, Luigi creeped up behind Bowser with the knife. Bowser looked behind him and screamed "LUIGI, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Luigi chuckled and said, "This was my revenge for finding out from Fawful that Mario worked with you and pretended to be your foe to overthrow Princess Peach!" "What are you talking about?!" Bowser said. "DON'T PLAY DUMB WITH ME!" Yelled Luigi, who's absolutely psychopathic at this point. "I'm telling the truth! Mario never worked with me! He never wanted to overthrow Peach. He loved her! Don't you see, Luigi?! This is a big misunderstanding!" Bowser saying that is what got Luigi thinking… After a while, Luigi was absolutely shocked by what he did and dropped the knife… He looked around at those he killed in his rampage… "Wh.. Wwwhhh.." Luigi then yelled, with the most regret and guilt, "WHAT HAVE I DONE?!"

Bowser took a step back as Luigi kept yelling. "I KILLED THEM ALL OVER A MISUNDERSTANDING?! HUH?! IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE SAYING?!" "Luigi–" Luigi cut Bowser off as he kept screaming. "HOW COULD I DO THIS?! I'M A MONSTER!!!! A MONSTER!!!!" Luigi started to hyperventilate. Bowser stepped toward Luigi, in a caring way. "Luigi… Listen to me. You're not a monster. You just fell for a misunderstanding. Now c'mon, we can get you some psychiatric help." Bowser nodded after saying this. "Help?! HELP?!" Luigi was freaking out at this point. "LOOK AT ME!!! DO YOU THINK EVEN THE MOST SKILLED SHRINK CAN HELP ME?!" "Luigi, calm down." Bowser said.

Luigi then yelled, "IT'S TOO LATE FOR THAT NOW!!! I KILLED MARIO, I KILLED THE KOOPAS, I KILLED GOOMBAS, I EVEN KILLED YOUR KIDS!!!!! OVER A MISUNDERSTANDING?!" Luigi was obviously guilt stricken at this point. Luigi walked over to the edge of the counter, ready to jump. "LUIGI, NO!!!" Screamed Bowser. But it was too late. Luigi jumped off, killing himself. He laid in a pool of Arby's sauce blood as a text to speech whisper voice said "It's too late… Time's up…" "LUIGIIIIIIII!!!!!!!" Bowser screamed as he saw Luigi's body.

The video ended with a depressed Bowser on the bed. Bowser sighs as he lays face down on the bed… He looks at the camera and says, "This sucks… The plumbers are dead… Luigi died a murderer… My kids and army are dead… Peach still hates my guts for all I know… I'm so alone…" Bowser starts sobbing again. Magikoopa appeared, who, like Mario, is an action figure. This is strange to me. Magikoopa never was in Cute Mario Bros. He sees Bowser reduced to a crying mess on the bed, and tries comforting him during his grieving. The video faded to black afterwards.

I was absolutely flabbergasted. Stunned even. Luigi killing?! Bowser actually caring?! Bowser grieving?! What was this?! I was too tired to even think about what I saw as I went to sleep at 11:30pm. When I got up at 6am, I went to the bathroom. I saw my eyes were bloodshot. After flashing back to my teen years of picking on my younger brother, Ian, I sighed. I'd call Ian as I shook my head. As soon as I put my phone to my ear, I heard Ian talk. "Hello?" I responded by saying, "I'm sorry…" "What?" Ian was confused. "I'm sorry I picked on you when you were a kid, I should've been a better brother. The Mario to your Luigi. I should've been better. I…" "Whoa whoa, Thomas. Slow down." Ian said. "I get it. We were younger back then. You don't need to apologize. Truth is, I've never hated you no matter how much you teased me." "I was still an ass to you though!" I protested. "I know, Thomas. But you grew up. You grew out of it. That's more than what I can say for most." Said Ian. Every day, I still apologize to Ian and tell him I love him. I've learned two things from my experience. To always love your brother, and to not trust everything people say, otherwise you'll end up like Luigi. You'll end up insane, only to regret it when the truth is heard.

(Original story can be found here): https://trollpasta.miraheze.org/wiki/Cute_Mario_Bros_-_Limited_Time

Hey my follow redditors so this story is from my own experience and everything I’m going to tell you is real. This experience of mine still gives me chills, but I thought it would be cool to share it with you guys and who knows maybe one day MrBallen shows it works if not it’s still ok you will here it here first. You can choose to believe me or not  but I know everything I will tell you is true.

So in 2021 I was recently divorced and was looking for a place to rent, but in town where I was living there weren’t any affordable places because in our town there are a lot of tourists who like to buy apartments so the prices are way up there and if anything affordable gets on the market it’s gone by hours. So I’m living with my parents and one day I am surfing on internet and I see this 2 room apartament just near town I want to live with all new appliances for affordable price. So immediately I pick up my phone and call the owner and organise a meeting.

I get to the apparent and it’s great I mean all new appliances and it came with all the furniture ready to move in. Only thing for that moment that I thought was weird was that it felt really cold in there, but owner kind of calmed me down by saying that it was not being heated for couple of months because it was empty and that’s why it feels cold but as soon I will move in they will show me how to operate the heating system and it would be “ nice and cosy” so I said great, paid them down money and next morning I was planing to move in.

So next day I moved in the apartment and it was great I felt like I hit the jackpot, everything was fine and even heating system started to work and even trough it still felt a bit cold I thought with time the walls will heat and it will be fine. I went to local store and bought all the stuff I needed and was unpacking my things. So the evening came and I went to bed. I climbed in bed put my sheets on and tried to sleep. I just could not explain but at that moment I felt that bedroom is colder than other rooms I just thought maybe with time it will get better and just tried to sleep, but eventually I started to look outside my bedroom door which I left open for the heat from other rooms to get in and I suddenly got this uncomfortable feeling that somebody is watching me from doorway so I kind of glimpsed and there were no one., so I get out of my bed and went and closed doors. I still got this wierd feeling but I wrote it down of just being in a new place and went to sleep.

So a few weeks went by and my girlfriend started to visit me with her one year old boy. She usually stayed for 2-3 days a week overnight with me. Also my 5 years old daughter also visited and stayed with me 2-3 days a week. So there were always people in that apartment and everything was fine. When I was alone I always felt that something is off I just could not describe the feeling, but I rather was with someone in there than alone.

After few weeks my girlfriend decided to move in with me with her one year old and we started to live together. At first everything felt great but in one evening we decided to go for a walk around neighbourhood and I kind of noticed that all the lights in buildings around us and all the other apartments were kind of low like there were some lights but I just felt oddly quiet and like people just didn’t want to be seen. I told that to my girlfriend that and she said yeah I noticed that also. She also turned to me and asked do you feel like somebody is behind you? I said no why? And she replied I just feel that somebody is walking behind us. At that time I didn’t want to worry her so I did not tell her about my feeling in apartment. So we kind of laughed it off and went back home.

When we got back home I told my girlfriend I will sleep on the coach in living room because her one year old was having hard time sleeping in bed while I was there so I thought maybe if they were sleeping alone he will get used to new place sooner. So we went to bed and I woke up at 2 in morning and my tv was on. I though well that’s weird because I know I turned it off and also it was playing some series from Netflix so I thought if I pushed remote in my sleep then maybe I could turned it on but still it did not explain why the series witch I have never watched was on. But I was too tired and didn’t think much of it and went back to sleep. Next day my girlfriend asked me why did you watch tv so late and I explained her that at 2 it was on and maybe I turned it on while sleeping just pushing against remote and she told me no tv was on multiple times trough night it seemed weird because you turned it on for few minutes and then switched it off. She could see tv from her bed wich was on wall in living room but she could not see me so I played it off by saying it’s a new tv maybe something is wrong with settings. Then after few days I started to notice than on mornings my shoe laces were tied in 7-8 knots., and that felt weird because I know I untied them every night when coming home and also there were no explanations why so many knots. I just thought maybe her one year old played with them, but still in my mind I knew it’s probably not what happened.

Then after few weeks things really started to get more serious. My girlfriend asked me why do I put her complex keys in right pocket of her coat. I said I did not do that and she told there is no way she would put them in right side because she always thought that was bad luck and she always makes sure keys are in her left pocket. I just said well you are being silly and maybe you just put them in the wrong pocket. We kind of argued for a while but we left it at that. Also we started to notice that we felt extremely low energy and lifeless at that complex like we did not have any joy in life and thinking back all the people from that village seemed that way like someone or something has drained them from their life force.

After key incident a few days passed and we were chilling one evening and her little boy was suddenly crying and pointing to the corner of complex he was scared out of his mind and did not want to get near that corner. I tried to calm him down and showed him that the corner is empty but for me I felt unsettling because even through the room corner was empty it seemed it was unusually dark there like someone or something was them with dark presence. So my girlfriend took a pinch of salt through it on the corner and immediately it went bright, and her child also became peaceful. We kind of talked about it but I just said maybe there was bad energy and kids can see it so it just passed through. You must remember me and my girlfriend it’s not easy to scare us even though it started to get to me that something is off. Later that night we stayed up until 3 after midnight and we started to hear scratching sounds, it came from our hallway wall like someone behind it were scratching it with long claws or nails I put my ear against wall and I could not hear anything else just this scratching it was otherwise dead quiet there. But we knew that right behind our hallway door was another apartament where old lady was staying with her grandson so I just thought maybe she has some kind of problems and that’s why she’s doing that even trough it felt incredibly creepy. The scratching sounds continued for a few minutes and then it stopped and there was dead quiet from our walls, but every night from then on right at 3 it came back.

Also I need to mention that at that point and few months later I always wanted a wooden cross but could not find one to buy. Then at one point I was walking from my job and saw one laying on the floor I picked it up and left it hanging so the person who lost it could found it a few days went by and cross was still there so I decided to take it and I put it around my neck. I don’t know why but it just seemed that I need it. So funny thing is while I was sleeping at apartment every morning the cross was off me like somebody has purposely take it off me durning night. So every morning I put it back on.

Then one night while I was sleeping on the couch like I usually did I was almost a sleep and I started no notice that something is bitting my hand and it felt like human teeth I just waived my hand in air and thought to myself that it’s just my mind playing tricks to me so I tried to sleep and there was this sense of voice telling me go to sleep you need to sleep and at that moment deep down I felt another voice telling me you can’t sleep it’s not safe so I slowly resisted sleep and as soon as I decided to stay up I felt someone bite my other hand which was hanging out of coach on the side and this time I definitely felt bite it was no dream. It scared me and for the first time I thought alright this is getting out of hand.

The next day my girlfriend and her boy went to her mothers and my daughter were visiting me, we had a great day and at the evening she was sitting in the sofa watching tv and I was in kitchen and then suddenly she looked at me with this scared face and told me me daddy I saw a face behind you with red eyes and sharp teeth I immediately looked around and there was no one so I told her maybe you just watched too much tv and that’s way you were imagining things she told me maybe and we left it at that. I did not tell my girlfriend that experience because I did not want to scare her and I honestly thought that it wasn’t real.

So the next day my daughter is with her mother and my girlfriend and her boy is staying at our place on the evening I drove to play some sports and left them at home I was 30 minutes in to my training when I got message from my girlfriend “drive home immediately there was something with red eyes and sharp teeth in apartment watching us” My heart just sink and I just immediately left the gym and went straight home I went in our apartment and there was my girlfriend sitting on our sofa trying to calm down her one year old boy who was crying without stopping. I immediately went through all the rooms and told her what happened? She told me she was sitting in sofa and her one year old was playing when she suddenly felt that apartment got cold so she went to check heating system. So she goes there and everything is fine and the she suddenly hears her one year old screaming and crying so she immediately goes back to living room and her boy is pointing at something in kitchen she looks over and she sees dark figure standing there with white face red eyes and sharp teeth just staring at them and smiling. Then I don’t know what went in her mind maybe mothers instinct but she slowly approached that thing and his smile went from creepy to angry like he was purposely showing his teeth and as closer she get the more cold she got. Then when she was about 6feet from him he slowly went through our wall/window just looking her dead in eye. She closed the curtains looked out and it was gone. And then she texted me.

When I heard what happened you must think I be scared but actually I was incredibly angry I wanted to see it and fight it because he threatened my kids I don’t know what got into me. So I took some church candles what we had in home light them on and they started to burn with bright light and black smoke came out of them also the lamps in kitchen started to swing and they were heavy lamps so there is no way a breeze could swing them. I said enough is enough we put all the lights on and stayed through night I did not sleep and just was kind of on guard.

Next day I drove my girlfriend and her boy to her mothers and went back packing things I did it as fast as possible but it felt that somebody was behind me all the time and I got cold sweats even though it was warm. Even trough I packed as fast as possible I could not pack all things so I knew I need to go back next day and I felt horrible about that but still what needed to be done needs to be done so I threw my last bag in car and went back in apartment and I saw that we had this church picture of saint Mary so I don’t know why but i decided to put it on closet shelf so it could be seen when going inside apartment because in my mind I kind of wanted to piss off that thing that was in that apartment. So I left went back the next day opened apartments door to grab my last thing and I immediately looked up at the closet and on the top shelf where this saint picture was from yesterday and there was other things put before it like somebody has made sure that that it’s hidden and not in plain sight. I must be honest here that scared me. I packed as fast I could and get away from that place. So that’s my story also the wooden cross I was telling you about I don’t know where it was but after all that it went missing for me I think it just did his mission and protected me through all this.

So I hope you enjoyed this it’s a true story and I hope no one of you guys would have to live through it.

My sister Anna and I never missed a year of trick-or-treating together growing up. My family was very into celebrating Halloween, so it was pretty fun in our household during the month of October. After a few hours of trick-or-treating, Me, Anna and my parents came back to the house. They headed straight for the living room, while I went upstairs to my bedroom, to play on my PlayStation 4.

I was sat on my bed, playing the final mission of the new Spider-Man game, when I suddenly started hearing someone crying. I paused the game, and looked all around me, feeling very confused. I thought maybe it was Anna messing around, but then I heard her laughter coming from downstairs due to my bedroom door being slightly open. So… it couldn’t have been her.

I sat there and tried listening for it again, but I didn’t hear anything. Mom shouted up to me that dinner was ready, i put my controller on the nightstand next to my bed and went downstairs. The crying I thought I heard was still heavy on my mind, but I started thinking to myself that maybe it wasn’t crying I heard, I mean it can’t have been. I started to feel slight relief, and then just gradually put that experience into the back of my mind.

When I finished eating my dinner, i headed back upstairs to finish the mission I was playing on my PS4. I entered my room, and immediately noticed that the controller I had put on the nightstand was now on my bed. I knew for a fact that I didnt leave the controller on my bed, which meant someone else had been in my room and moved it. It couldn’t have been Anna or my parents, they had all been downstairs since we came back from trick-or-treating.

Then I started to think about the crying I thought I heard 20 minutes beforehand. Fear started to creep into my very soul, thinking about the possibility of a stranger being in our house.

I was stood in the middle of my room, confused and frightened, when an unusually high pitched voice said “Come over to the closet, I have some more candy for you”.

The closet door then slowly opened, making a loud creeking sound as it did so. My heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest in those few seconds. The voice spoke again, saying that if I didn’t come over to the closet, someone would get hurt. Without even looking in the closet, I ran out of my room and downstairs to my parents. I told them about the voice in my closet, and they clearly weren’t taking me seriously.

My dad reluctantly went upstairs to my bedroom and checked out the closet. What he found, was a sharp piece of glass and an orange bag full of candy that definitely wasn’t mine. My dad was convinced that I was playing a prank and told me to stop, because it was scaring Anna. I told him over and over again that I wasn’t kidding, but he didn’t buy it. He threatened to ground me if I didn’t stop bringing it up, so I never mentioned it again.

That voice has been living rent free in my head ever since that night, and probably will for the rest of my life.

[im also not entirely sure whether it was a movie or a creepypasta]

Hi! would like to ask if anyone's familiar of this plot an old friend from years back told me. the plot goes like:

a guy was constantly woken up by knockings on his door but he doesnt know what makes this. so he consulted a medium and told him it was his girlfriend who died in an accident. if he want to help her pass over, he should offer him gift, lay out on his bed and hide (he hid under the bed). the medium kinda forgot to say that however she died (like what she looked like), will be the one he will see. he heard the knocking, turns out gf knocks on the floor and she crawls.

Something like Smile.jpg or Ben Drowned, anything with computer, software, videogames etc theme. Bonus points if it's with retro technology. Thx a lot

on january 11th 2010 a small ray of sunshine was born, who was named “jamie peacock”. jamie peacock was quite the typical boy and grew up in hood of la. one day he got home only to find: broken windows, unlocked door, all his valuables trashed, everything he cared about, gone. jamie rushes outside to see the perpetrators getting away in a dodge challenger 2015. he got on his small bike and chased after them. then, to his shock they pulled out a pump shotty. it fired, blew out his eardrums and also his left lung. to this day, he can only breathe out of one lung. this means, he can only get half headys.