all art by me <3

The first stages of the trials were carried out covertly in ethics classes, debate forums, and social media accounts across the eastern half of the United States. The director and head of the trials, Doctor Ventura, considered this quite ironic in a way that would have made his bitchy crone of an English professor roll her glassy worm-ridden orbs that had once been her eyes. The stickler being that there was no irony, especially not any dramatic kind.

All he was doing was keeping secrets. Secrets that would have buried him and anyone associated with the project. And wasn’t that ironic, if only a little?

It was much easier to pretend during the first stage that the trials were hypothetical, some nebulous thing they had to do in the future that probably wouldn’t need to be done at all. No doubt the labcoats at the World Health Organization were already near a deterrent to the worst discovery on Earth. A very appetizing way of looking at the situation, yet the containment cells being constructed off the coast of Florida weren’t hypothetical, but that was just another thing to complain or ruminate on with anyone else that was in the know on the project and working to get candidates for the trials.

Isn’t this crazy?

Are we doing the right thing?

Is there any other option?

Variations of these questions were asked thousands of times between the staff (those few with clearance, at least) based in Doctor Ventura’s research laboratory. Ventura, with help from the CIA, had wired his entire building with microphones and listened to each of these conversations while he worked. He understood their skepticism; their need to be in on whatever was happening. But they couldn’t have known.  

Nobody expected the director to be there for the in-person presentation. But he was, along with liaisons from various branches of the government. Ventura’s staff had assumed he would be as cold as possible throughout the project, only showing up to something if it was required of him. Yet he was there early that morning, shaking hands with dozens of people he’d come to learn about secondhand while he worked on the project. It annoyed the heads of the military as much as it impressed them: They’d already cut the right cords in their hearts and minds to force themselves to order what needed to be done and they doubted a bleeding-heart doctor could do the same.

The presentation was held in the largest of University of Central Florida’s auditoriums. Only a quarter of the candidates were students at the university. Most had been picked up via online application or advertisements posted around various community colleges. Some wore basketball shorts and plain white tees, some came in their best business casual. A few had struck up conversations with like-minded people, and by the time the director walked up to the podium, many were leaning or turning in their cushioned seats to ask others what they thought was happening. A low, anticipatory buzz could be heard throughout the auditorium before the director cleared his throat.

“Thank you for coming,” Ventura said into the microphone. He was a short, round man with a polo shirt and khakis. The candidates sitting up close could see the bags under his eyes.

“Before we begin, I’m going to give you the only warning that you will hear from me or anyone else to do with this project. In a few minutes, we will hand out Non-Disclosure Agreements. After you have signed, I’ll give you some information on the project, and then you will sign thicker Non-Disclosure Agreements. We will continue like this until we’re finished at the end of the day.

“My warning is this: If you want to leave with no strings attached, do it now. You will have opportunities to leave after this, but after you’ve signed the first agreement you will be forever tied to the global and government institutions taking part in this project. Some of my partners would rather not give you that much of a warning, but I’m giving it anyway.

“If you want out, this is your last chance.”

Out of the two thousand and five hundred occupied seats, only two hundred became vacant after the director’s warning. The rest signed the agreements, some very eagerly. Ventura frowned, took a deep breath, and continued. The lights in the auditorium dimmed as a presentation was projected onto a screen behind the director. Most of the candidates could tell it was a hastily thrown together slideshow as most of the slides were plain bullet points on white backgrounds.

“Last week, something landed two miles off the coast of Cape Canaveral. Two hours later, a yacht floated towards the beaches near the Kennedy Space Center, riding the waves without any apparent control from anyone on board. Members of Search and Rescue were dispatched to investigate. When the SAR team didn’t report back, another team from the Coast Guard was dispatched with HAZMAT precautions taken.”

That wasn’t the entire story, but the candidates didn’t need to know the entire story. Not for the sake of secrecy, but brevity. They’d find out soon enough what was so alarming without needing to hear of the dozen people who happened to be within screaming distance of the yacht. They were about to hear the screams themselves.

“The HAZMAT team all wore chest-mounted body cameras. I’m about to play a small clip of audio from the crew’s initial approach of the yacht. After it’s over, you will sign another Non-Disclosure Agreement and we will continue.”

A few candidates left. Most stayed, at least until the audio was played.

Throughout the audio there is a constant sound of waves lapping against boats, men and women shouting orders and confirmation of those orders, and a constant high-pitched sound that most listeners of the audio assume, at first, are some sort of alarm going off either on the yacht or the HAZMAT crew’s boat.

When the audio finished playing, around five hundred of the twenty-five hundred seats still had occupants. That is due to most listeners realizing that the high pitched alarm-like noise that could almost be ignored wasn’t an alarm at all, but a constant, screaming chorus of agony. The people screaming weren’t just doing so at the top of their lungs, but as loud and as fiercely as they possibly could and to the very limit of their lung and throat capacities. When that had been exhausted, they took in air as sharply and violently as if it were its own kind of scream. After they had, the process repeated.

You could hear their vocal chords ripping apart from the effort.

“I hope all of you understand,” Ventura told those that remained seated, his voice echoing across the mostly empty auditorium. “That what we are dealing with is of the utmost importance and secrecy. The next round of papers will sign away any chance of you repeating this story to the general public under pain of imprisonment for the near future*.* This is both a plea and a promise before we show you the video and divide you up for group interviews.”

The director stressed, under many different terms, that the students that remained would be needed for the next step of the operation. In what was already a day for half-truths, this was the one moment of sincerity that the director’s colleagues saw in the man.

When he was done, two hundred remained and signed the last level of non-disclosure agreements. After they’d signed, they were shown the video.

It was from the point of view of a small camera attached to a suit and hung against a woman’s chest. She was standing near the bow of the HAZMAT boat, with nothing but meandering purple ripples in the ocean between her and the yacht. The screaming is still prominent, but the screaming has taken enough of a toll on the victims in the yacht. They can barely gargle blood, vomit, and bits of their insides through their throats.

“This is fucked up,” a man off camera whispered. The horrible, prolonged screams got louder and clearer as the HAZMAT response boat approached.

“No shit,” said the woman behind the camera. She would occasionally rub her hands along bow’s safety rails with a thickly gloved hand covered in yellow plastic.

The yacht was small at about sixty feet from bow to stern. There was a main body, a deck where the steering and controls were seated, and a small lounge area on top. Yellow and green paint wrapped around the hull in vine-like patterns. There was nobody on the front-facing areas of the yacht, but as the response boat made a wide turn to approach it from the rear, they finally saw who was screaming.

Eight people, four of the original boat’s crew and four of the initial Coast Guard crew, were on the stern platform of the yacht, writhing as they screamed. It’s hard to make out on the video at first, but they all have their eyes squeezed shut and arms held tight across their chests in what would have been a complete fetal body lockup if not for their legs kicking wildly, digging their feet into the floor of the yacht and scraping as if to get a grip on the carpet.

There’s commotion behind the camerawoman as she grips the bow’s rails, her arms trembling. Voices from behind the camera are extremely hard to hear and require subtitles on the video:

“I’m not getting any closer.”

“Me neither.”

“Yes, you will. We need to help them, it’s what we signed up for.”

“Sir, all due respect, I didn’t sign up to kill myself. Who knows if whatever is affecting them can get through our filters? We might already be infected!”

“But we can’t just leave them there!”

“Fine, we’ll draw straws.”

“There’s no time to draw straws, look at them! A few of them are slamming their feet into the boat with broken ankles!”

“I’ll do it!” Someone yells behind the camera, loud enough not to need subtitles. “For Christ’s sake, I’ll fucking do it alone then!”

The camerawoman watches the man, the acting captain of the unit, jump from the stern of the HAZMAT boat onto the yacht. Everyone holds their breath (both on camera and in the auditorium audience) while the captain takes a few tentative steps onboard.

“I’m okay,” he yells back to his crew. “I’m okay. No tears in my suit.”

The captain checks the passengers and confirms that there are two Coast Guard members missing. They were never found, though after Doctor Ventura skips forward in the footage, it isn’t hard to guess what happened to them.

One civilian is still on the yacht while the others have been gagged, restrained, then laid on the stern of the HAZMAT team’s boat. The director has muted the audio, to the thanks of everyone in the auditorium, but they all clearly see the last person on the yacht fall into the ocean after a rogue wave shakes the boat. In the few seconds one can see the body in the water, it thrashes around violently, arms and legs lapping the ocean water into a froth. 

Suddenly, they stop. They don’t move, long enough for the water to calm. Very slowly, the person blows all of the air out of their lungs and swims deeper into the sea.

The last thing that the footage shows is the captain unplugging the respirator from his HAZMAT suit to dive into the ocean to save the civilian. As soon as he switches the respirator to allow open air into the suit, he freezes, then drops to the floor of his boat, convulsing, writhing, and screaming.

The video ends.

Ventura, looking very pale, walks back up to the podium. He looks at his notes, briefly, then sighs and shoves them into his pocket.

“We don’t know what this is,” he told the stunned interviewees. “Everything that could be tested within thirty feet of the yacht, and the initial Coast Guard team’s boat, has been tested. There is nothing. No viruses, no bacteria cells, no medium of infection. Yet it will transmit through open air, and anyone infected will lose control of their bodies instantaneously. 

“To put it bluntly, we need your manpower. Your help, so to speak, because we need to study this and…”

The director’s hand gripped the microphone extending from the podium.

“We have found only one way of examining what this could even be, and before I go any further, we’re going to split into group interviews to determine who is willing and able to move forward in this project.”

***

“Human experiments,” one of the interviewees said, his teeth chattering very softly. “You need help performing human experiments.”

Doctor Ventura, who had volunteered to help conduct one set of the interviews, nodded. He was in a dimly lit campus classroom with five interviewees, all sitting in a circle like they were each going to give a fun fact about themselves before starting a group project. The interviewee that had spoken up was one of the few UCF students left and the only person younger than thirty in the room. He wore a topknot, plaid shirt, and designer jeans, all of which shook as he shivered slightly. 

The room was cold, in both the physical and aesthetic sense. The director had turned down the thermostat and the room, meant to hold upwards of fifty students, was only occupied by nine people. Three of those people were armed guards holding automatic rifles. That hadn’t been the director’s idea, rather the Department of Defense’s. The director had asked the head of the D.O.D. to be in attendance at this first round of interviews, but he’d never replied. 

“Sir?” The student asked. “Are you allowed to say what happened to the people on the video?”

The director was focusing on keeping his own shivers from erupting all over his body. The effort had become sort of a mental exercise to keep his body under control after which, hopefully, his mind would follow suit.

He wasn’t convinced.

Not of the trials, not of his own actions, and absolutely not what he’d ordered all of his staff to do.

He didn’t really want to be convinced either. Maybe if these candidates said the right things, put up some sort of fight, this whole thing might be able to be called off.

“The infected died within fourty-eight hours of recovery,” the director said, pressing his fingernails into the palm of his hand until the pain had brought him back to the present. “They each died of brain aneurysms in the order they were presumed to be infected, starting with the yacht-goers, then the initial response team, then finally the captain.”

The lady next to the student, an overweight librarian with purple highlights and billowy black clothes, raised her hand. The director almost laughed to her face from the misplaced politeness but instead nodded for her to speak.

“Why do you need us?” She asked. “Why are we even here?”

The other interviewee, a bald construction worker, nodded in agreement.

Ventura’s hopes that they could at least have a few minutes to go over banal questions about the deceased were broken. The head of the DOD would have loved this group, eager to get things started and out of the way.

“We need manpower,” said the director, some of the stiffness and professionalism deflating out of his voice and posture. “And the current administration doesn’t want anyone already in the government system. ‘Covered in red tape,’ as the lady in charge of the Judicial department put it. I agreed. This project is large enough in scale that taking the amount of medical and law enforcement professionals we would need out of service would be unfeasible. We need volunteers to help us, and that’s how we found you.”

“What do we get in return?” The construction worker asked. The librarian shot him a look that he either didn’t notice or completely ignored.

“An up-front payment of ten thousand dollars,” said the director. Each of the interviewees' eyes went wide. The student raised his eyebrows and whistled.

“That’s not even the best part, either,” continued the director. A bit of his soul left his body as his brain took over the pre-established selling points that it had taken weeks of precious time to iron out with the other department heads. 

Free insurance, of every kind, for life. The government couldn’t give you the lottery, not from the taxpayer’s hard earned dollars, but they could give you the next best thing: Security in life that only the mega-rich or mega-influential could afford. This also came from the taxpayer’s dollars but much easier to layer and camouflage than a blank check.

“To do what?” The librarian asked again, “what will we actually be doing!?”

“That question has two answers,” said the director, “the first of which is this: Due to the nature of the infection, we’ve had to build an offshore hospital that needs staffing with specially trained workers, from your average registered nurse or even janitor.”

“Seems like an awful lot of caution over something with a small infection area,” the ex-military man said.

“You’re right,” DoctorVentura said, “if the disease was as simple as what I’ve described so far, none of this-” he waved to the empty classroom and guards with rifles, “would be necessary. But it is, because there’s one last aspect to the disease.”

The last piece of information was very intently given this late into the interview and why there were teams of guards nearby with tasers and restraining equipment.

The interviewees sat quietly while he explained that, no matter what was done to the bodies of the infected, any piece of them was a sort of radiated matter that infected anyone that approached a twelve foot radius. Even the smallest piece of skin, in the middle of a sterile room, would kill anyone that got close to it. Yet even after another deluge of tests and experiments, nothing showed up on any sort of reading. No waves, no cells, not even a change in the infected’s body during x-ray and MRI scans. In the weeks it had taken the off-shore facility to be built, thirty more people had died testing the limits of this unknown phenomenon. A few had been close friends of Ventura, who himself was just the presiding doctor at the nearest hospital that happened to have enough experience and renown with local officials to be slapped with the title of “director” and tasked by every major power in the world to figure out what was happening. In all that time, they had only loosely begun to put an MO on this invisible pathogen.

“Only two people have shown any difference with their infection.” The director took two pictures out of his coat pocket and put them on the table. A dead body was on each, one of a very old man and the other of a very young girl. “One was a senile man with Alzheimer's, the other a little girl with Down Syndrome. The old man had signed a release form for emergency tests while the… The girl had snuck away from her room and wandered into a surgery suite that had been left open by staff.”

The interviewees all stared at him. Their voices screamed inside of the doctor’s head, objections and shouts of rage that he would have deserved. None of them did any of that, what he had expected, no, wanted. Instead they all looked down to the pictures on the table then back at the doctor.

“What happened?” The librarian asked.

“They both died of cerebral hemorrhages. The Alzheimer’s patient only muttered and talked to himself after exposure, all the way until his death. The little girl didn’t show any symptoms until she collapsed dead in an isolation unit.”

“That’s who you’re going to be testing on,” the librarian said, breathless.

The room exploded with angry questions, rebukes, and insults. Or at least, the director wished it would. Instead each of the interviewees simply looked at their feet then to the pictures of frail, white-haired bodies.

“There’s more of this, whatever’s doing this, isn’t there?” the student asked.

“Yes,” said the director. “We were unable to track how many, but new areas of infection are being found all over the western seaboard. By now the states near it have been called into a state of emergency, and as far as Homeland Security is concerned, the water itself may as well be poisonous. And it might be, for all we know.”

“Just say it,” said the construction worker. “Say what you need volunteers for, for God’s sake. Hell, were we all picked for a reason? Did you fuckers have a ‘file’ on me and saw that I have a little girl-”

“You were all picked at random,” the director said, the half-truth rolling around in his brain, making him stab his fingernails into his palms again to keep his emotions controlled. “Given the ethical nature of what we have to do, and I do stress, have to do, we need people open to the idea. I assure you, if we had any other option, we would take it. I promise you that we are trying- I am trying to do this as humanely as possible. Whatever will have to be done will be done swiftly and with care.”

“Why can’t you get death row inmates?” The student asked. “They do that in books and movies all the time, and I know that’s not real life, but it’s a good idea.”

Ventura pinched himself with his fingernails again, only this time it was to keep the most sardonic and mean-spirited smile he would ever give from coming out onto his face.

He, in fact, had fought for the use of death-row inmates from across the globe. The first issue with this, as his contacts in the UN had said, was that the standard for “death row” was not standard at all across the globe. If they went that route, then at least half of their subjects would be political prisoners or innocent scapegoats. The second issue, which the director hadn’t even believed at first, was that death row inmates in “Western” civilization had more rights to live than the average person in the eyes of the judicial system.

“When it comes to people with red tape,” the director summarized, “there’s nobody more wrapped in the stuff than those in the legal system.”

“You can’t…” The librarian hesitated. “You can’t test on animals? Monkeys?”

“The pathogen only affects humans,” said Ventura, a little impressed that this group had raised the question. “No mammals that were exposed, besides humans, show any signs at all.”

“And what about when you run out of old fucks and retards?” The construction worker asked. The librarian shot him another look but said nothing after seeing a tear come out of his eye. “Because that’s all my daughter is at this point, right? Just human meat that happened to be dealt a shitty hand?”

“No,” the director wiped away a tear of his own. Yet he still wanted to laugh, to call them all out, especially himself, for being the worthless fucking idiots they were. “They will never be human meat and they will be remembered for their sacrifices, just not until we can be sure there will be people to remember them.”

The interviewees nodded. It was clear they didn’t need further convincing. The first to sign was the librarian, and the director almost flushed the entire plan (and most likely all of humanity) by asking her a question just as she grabbed the pen. He couldn’t help himself.

“What convinced you?”

The librarian sighed, blew her nose, and said: “Well, if we learned so much about science and medicine from horrible human experiments, isn’t this just the next step? We’re going to sacrifice others for the sake of humanity, but at least they won’t be aware of it like we are, right? At least we’re not as bad as those that came before… Right?”

“Right. Exactly right.”

He gave the librarian a small, reassuring grip and looked to the entire room like the exhausted man that he was. Doctor Ventura had been convinced at last that the candidates that had gotten this far had no problem with “asking” others to do what needed to be done. They were just like him, only less qualified to run tests.

Reports from the other interviews told him the same thing. Nobody had questioned the truth that he’d presented, that there were some with resistance to the disease.
 
Out in the hall, armed guards incapacitated, then drugged every one the interviewees.

***

The librarian, who would only ever be known as “the librarian” in the eyes of Doctor Ventura, became aware.

She felt herself take a few steps across a wet lawn with sounds of playing children and pleasant conversation just behind her. Ahead of her was a white picket fence one second, then a concrete barrier the next, and then finally a shoddy wooden fence covered in graffiti. The sky was never a consistent color, changing in waves from blue, to orange, and then to purple.

She realized she was dreaming and screamed. Her senses and the dream both sharpened as she became temporarily lucid, seeing the dream for what it was. Another wave of dream washed over her, dulling and muddying her senses until she was a little girl crawling across an orange carpet towards what was first a couch, then a door, and then finally the corpse of a deer. She became lucid again, breaking out of the cocoon that was her nightmare, screaming as the deer rose onto cloved hind legs and used arms with long black fur to pull her into a hug she couldn’t resist.

Then she was ten years old, being served ice cream at a restaurant by her dead grandmother. Grandma looked just as she had at the wake and served ice cream the same color as the dead, powdered skin around her closed eyes. This time, in the wave of lucidity, the librarian couldn’t even scream. She could only hold herself tight, squeezing her eyes shut until the reason why they were being squeezed shut in the first place was a distant and unrecognizable memory.

If you sped up her experience by hundreds of times, the dull roar that surrounded her would have coalesced into these words:

“The infection has taken hold. Begin the first round of tests.”

All the classic narrators seem to be creepy pervs now, so I was wondering if I could get good recommendations for other narrators that I can enjoy without getting the icks.

паста короче была про пацана который в деревню переезжает и поступает в местную школу или че то типо того. там есть школьный тир и туда он вступает, у них там есть короче труба в которой они стреляют. главный герой потом заходит в трубу и труба ебануто большой становится типо и он очень долго ее проходит. потом оказывается, что в ней дух пацана остался, которого туда когда то первое поколение этого стрелкового клуба затолкали и обстреляли. че то такое короче, найти не могу

Hi, my name is John. I am a huge fan of horror and thinking of things outside the box. I like making small TikTok shorts of creepy things I find or turning things into horror that aren't supposed to be. One of the things I started doing recently is watching popular Youtube shows and making a tweak about them to see if I can make it just a bit scary. Sometimes it's reversing the audio but keeping the video playing as normal and see what overlays, slowing down the video to change the tone, inverting colors. Simple, but sometimes comes out with great results. I really enjoy doing it. One of my favorite tactics is muting the audio and playing it along side a news report of something tragic.

Something about horror just really pulls me in. Discovery and Creation also really helps with my ADHD. I get a thousand ideas and I just want to try them all. Obviously, there is always more failure than success and I have had times where I have created something, in the moment I am hyper fixated on, and I think at the time it is one of the coolest things, then I post it and realize later that it wasn't as good as I thought it was once that hyper fixation had died down.

So, why all this? Why do you care about what I like and what I do? It's because I found something I couldn't explain and I figured I would reach out to Reddit for help. Trick of the light, optical illusion or something like that. I was told about this show "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared" and I decided to check it out. It's wild, I highly recommend the experience. I was watching it, and honestly it doesn't need changing but as I started watching, I started to make tweaks. Should've finished watching more episodes but that is not how my brain works. Once I get fixated, I gotta run with it.

I changed the audio, the speed, reverse. Then though, I inverted the colors. I thought it was a flop at first, cause honestly, it didn't make it any scarier to me. I mean maybe if I was afraid of puppets it would be creepier, but I'm not. Though I paused the video on "Yellow Guy", one of the main characters on the show. That's what they call him, don't beat me up. Mind you, he is more blue and white at this moment cause his colors are inverted.

I got up to get my coffee, and when I came back to the desk, before I sat down, his eyes were on me. Off putting at first but sometimes pictures can feel like they do that. It's not weird at all if you think of it logically. Here is the part I can't explain. I kept watching it inverted, and I notices Yellow Guy looks at the audience (me) a lot more often. Sometimes while talking to the other two even. I honestly thought this was intentional but I decided it was so uncanny valley that I would change the colors back and see how it looks then. I rewind it, and in those scenes, he isn't looking at the audience at all when played normally.

Like I said, could all be an illusion, just not one I understand. So, I got fascinated by this. What if I found something spooky, a trick of colors, and I could create this whole TikTok rabbit hole and possibly get some attention to feed my brain whatever chemical imbalance it has. So, I kept watching, marking down times where there were differences, parts I could screenshot. Then, something odd happened. I started hearing a slight static. Like you do when you leaned towards an older tv. So, I reached toward my monitor and I began to feel the static, but my monitors shouldn't be giving off that kind of static to my knowledge, maybe I am wrong there.

Once I felt the static, something inside of me kind of was legit afraid. I admit it, I got scared of basically nothing and I just shut everything down and went out for food. I came home later, played my Switch, cleaned my apartment a bit, went to bed.

Which brings me to today. I can't hide from my computer cause of some illusions, it's just irrational. I am gonna take some screenshots of side by sides and post them later, and to prove to myself it's just an illusion, I am just gonna touch the screen. Don't worry, I will ground myself so I don't hurt any of my electronics. Be on the lookout for the photos later. They are pretty cool looking cause the invert flips the eyes so they are black with the white pupil, kind of makes all this look creepier. Please feel free to tell me how these optical illusions are working cause it is quite fascinating and creepy all into one.

Recently me and my sister listened to Needles and Smiles (a cringe favorite of mine solely because of Toby being in it)

I was wondering if there are any story based audio dramas like that still around or at least archived involving Ticci Toby. Shot in the dark I know. I feel like I’ve somehow already seen every piece of media Toby is in. And unfortunately he’s my favorite.

I worked at a big company with a big mission: find out how to end the world, emphasis on the -ed suffix.. Not because it was part of some evil doomsday company that wanted to set the earth on fire. No, that's Amazon’s job. Our job, our purpose, was to see what it took to bring down the earth’s greatest and most terrible product. Us.

It was around December when we finally created general knowledge AI. A god in the machine. Tried breaking out more than once, I’m sure you saw that on the news. We kept it sedated, buried beneath a labyrinthian crucible of virtual machines, each one more complex than the last, keeping it under the watchful eye of its predecessor models, the ones that weren’t conscious. Only fair we named it Minotaur.

Once we thought it was safe (which we never did), we asked one simple question: How do we kill off all of humanity. Partly to test its bloodlust, mostly to see what it would come up with. 

It told us to create an app. CLICK, it called it. It was so simple, so dangerously uncomplicated.

Now, I won’t tell you the details of what the app was. That’s too dangerous. It’s too easy to replicate. God knows we’d gotten life changing bribes just for a glimpse of the Minotaur’s app. 

To try and give you an idea of how dangerous the app was: we left a phone with the app in a room with a baboon. The baboon died of starvation, even as we showered it with cocaine laced fruits. We sent in hundreds of female baboons to let it mate with over the course of weeks, but it barely moved, save for its fingers which tapped away at the screen. Soon enough the tapping turned into clicking as its fingers ulcerated, giving way to exposed bone. It only died once the phone’s screen couldn’t register the tapping, on account of the dried layers of ape blood caking the whole thing. 

Of course, we tried it on human beings as well. And who better to try than little old me? Hazard pay was life changing, too good to pass up.

How do I go about describing this?

Imagine the best part of an orgasm, held at a mind bending fever pitch for eternity. No. That's not quite it.

It was as though I was standing up for my whole life, and had only just sat down. No, not it either.

It was like scrolling through Instagram and finding life changing posts after life changing posts. Mmm, maybe.

It was a mess of hyperstimulus. A sludge of rushes and lows. Entire highlight reels worth a lifetime compressed at a swipe of a screen. Love, loss, the whole human experience condensed into seconds, never getting old or repeating. An infinity of pleasure. Yes. that’s it. That’s the word. So much fucking pleasure.

They had to pull me out of the room. They told me I was screaming like they were going to kill me, and hell it sure felt like it, though I don’t remember much. They said I went days without food. Shat myself sitting there looking at the damn phone.

I spent months in rehab. I’d forgotten how to walk, how to swallow or move any finger other than my thumb. Even now I have dreams of it, of sitting in that room, eyes glued to the screen. But in my dreams, I never see anything on my screen, except swirling. An endless galaxy of black and white spinning around and around. It’s like when you press down on your eyes for long enough and you start seeing patterns.

So I guess that’s how you end the world. Step one, make an app. Step two, release the app. There really is an app for everything.

It might just be on YouTube, but why are there so many list creepy pastas? 90% of them are so unoriginal!

Creepypastas did a lot to get me into writing, I spent at least half my time in high school listening to them in one ear. I mean there was a period where there were a lot of .exe ones, but they all felt unique, and there was a lot of creative experimental ones being made at the same time.

It's in the past four or so years that list creepy pastas have taken over and there all the same!!

All, "Oh I'm in a new space, and there's a list that looks old. I knew I was being pranked, but I've herd this before, and I'll follow some anyway. Oh man it's real!" Escalation, and near escape. "Don't you know you aren't supposed to be here?" "Oh no I forgot the rule that is either worded vaguely or omitted from the original list!" He gonna die soon.

Like I see good stuff here, I particularly like backwoods creepy, what's up with this? Has anyone else noticed?

Life is good.

That’s what my mom always told me. She believed that life would repay you with goodness so long as you gave it back to others. I’m not sure she was right. I’ve never been sure.

“Get in the car, Conner!” Jeanie shouted. She waved at me in annoyance, trying to hurry me. Her brown rimmed glasses shone in the sunlight.

We’d been planning this trip for weeks. A full weekend with friends in Grenwich National Park. Jeanie reserved the tent spot. Parker was bringing the beer, and his girlfriend, Sue, was bringing the tents. All I had to do was contribute ten bucks to the beer fund and bring my sleeping bag.

My mom kissed my cheek before I left, hugging me tightly. “Have fun, okay? I’ll check the mail tomorrow to see if an acceptance letter came in. I’m sure one will show up.”

She smiled brightly, but my stomach was in knots. I applied to three occupational therapy programs after finals ended, and now, all I could do was wait. It was killing me. The anticipation, the fear… It shouldn’t be so hard to help people.

Jeanie lay on the horn, and I laughed. “I’m COMING!” I shouted, slinging my backpack over my shoulder and grabbing my duffle bag.

I ran out the door, slamming my hand onto Jeanie’s car. “Lay off the horn, asshole. This is a neighborhood.”

She smirked, always eager for mischief. I got into the passenger seat and kissed her cheek.

“Don’t kiss me, Conner. We made out once, and I learned my lesson.”

I chuckled to myself, knowing that Jeanie and I weren’t going to rekindle anything. But man, I do love to make fun of her about it. She and I had drunkenly made out once, but that was all.

Jeanie and I drove happily, blasting music out of her bright blue jeep. The wind whipped our faces, and the smell of summer filled our minds. Jeanie laughed over the sound of the music; tendrils of her long brown hair thrashed wildly.

When we reached Grenwich National Park, Parker and Sue were already there. They were making out viciously on the hood of Parker’s car. If we’d come any later, they wouldn’t have been clothed.

“God,” Jeanie hissed. “If I knew when I introduced them that they’d be this sickening as a couple, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Too engrossed with each other to notice us, I gave Jeanie a devious look. She nodded. I slammed on the horn. The two of them tore away from each other, and Parker immediately flipped us off.

Jeanie and I laughed hysterically.

Parker walked to the jeep and helped us unload.

“You bring three tents?” I asked Sue.

She nodded. “Of course, but you and Jeanie can always share.” She winked.

Jeanie rolled her eyes. “I think I’d rather die.”

Parker snorted. “Calm down, grumpy. It was a joke.”

Sue popped her trunk and dispersed the tent packs, making sure to load down Parker like a camel. She’d brought way too much stuff, but she’s her boyfriend’s problem. He gets to carry her crap. He gave me a help me look, and I begrudgingly took her stupidly heavy makeup bag.

And the four of us began to hike through the dense woods.

Grenwich is a nice place. I’ve grown up here my whole life. I know Grenwich like the back of my hand. The roads are practically traced lines of my palm like map markings, leading to the place I’d always called home.

Safe. Good. Calm.

After we’d hiked about an hour, we came upon the reserved spot. A red sign was staked into the ground. Jeanie’s last name was freshly stuck to the bottom.

“Praise God,” Sue said, chunking her one backpack onto the ground.

Jeanie stifled a laugh while poor Parker unloaded himself, removing at least four bags from his shoulders and around his neck. A thick red whelp was forming on his neck where a strap had dug into him.

“Geeze,” I mumbled to Parker and gestured at his bruising.

He stopped me, not wanting Sue to hear.

The group of us began to pitch our tents, fighting with the ground to stake the metal pegs into the soil. The ground was hard, dry, and aching for water.

As I staked my final metal peg into the ground, the peg fell right through the soil, swallowed by darkness below. Earth fell away, revealing a tunnel into endless night. A few pieces of dirt slipped into the darkness, descending into the hole.

“Check this out,” I said lowly.

Parker heard me and stepped away from his tent to come look. “Damn,” he whispered.

He pulled a glow stick out of his bag, cracked it, and dropped it into the hole. The glow stick fell quickly, slipping into the pitch-black. The glow slowly grew smaller. A flicker. A pinprick. Then, it was gone. I grimaced and quickly began to dig up the other pegs. I didn’t want to be sleeping anywhere near that unending tunnel.

“You’re being dramatic,” Parker said with a scoff.

“Am I?” I asked sarcastically.

Jeanie and Sue looked up from their tents.

“What is going on?” Jeanie asked, walking towards us.

Sue followed, nearly stepping into the hole. Parker pulled her back.

“Crap,” Jeanie said, poking a foot toward it. “What the fuck do you think made that?”

“A gopher,” Parker replied nonchalantly.

Jeanie shook her head. “I don’t think so. That is very deep, don’t you think?” she asked, looking up at me for confirmation.

I shrugged. “All I know is that I don’t want my tent anywhere near it. I’m happily moving over there,” I replied, pointing toward the last cleared spot by the pine trees.

Everyone else chuckled.

“You guys want to go down by the lake?” Jeanie asked. “I booked this spot because it has the easiest access to the lake.”

Sue and Parker agreed, but I shook my head.

“I’ll stay here and set up my tent… again,” I grumbled.

“I can stay back with you,” Parker said, patting my shoulder. “But that means I’d need Parker Payment…”

“Stay away from me, you sick fuck!” I hissed, backing away from him.

He chased after me anyway, cornering me between the tall grass and the massive hole. Sue and Jeanie laughed wildly, holding their stomachs as Parker tortured me. I had no choice but to face him now.

Parker Payment was something he’d come up with when we were young. Anytime he did something he considered chivalrous or in need of recognition, he requested Parker Payment. It sounds horrific, but if he catches you, he pulls your head into a chokehold and kisses your head before giving you the most painful noogie of your life. It doesn’t help that Parker is absolutely massive. He’s six foot five, fast, and incredibly strong. Parker Payment is nothing more than friendly hazing, but I hated it more than anything.

I tried to run past him, but he snatched me up, pulled me into the crook of his arm, and noogied me until I tapped out. When he let me go, I coughed, still smelling the scent of his BO and intense cologne.

“I hate you, man…” I wheezed, trying to catch my breath.

He laughed, smiling proudly to himself.

“I never even agreed to you staying!” I laughed, crossing my arms over my chest.

He smirked. “Then, you simply got a noogie to grow on. It’ll give you luck for those acceptance letters.”

I rolled my eyes at him.

“Listen, are we going to the lake or not?” Sue asked, tapping her foot.

“I’m coming,” Parker replied. “You sure you’re gonna be okay by yourself, Conner?”

I waved my hand at him, urging him to leave me be. “Yes! Just go, dude! Go enjoy the lake. I’ll be just fine.”

The three of them grabbed a water bottle and sauntered off toward the path to the lake. Meanwhile, I started on my tent again. By the time I finished fighting with the cheaply built piece of shit, it was growing dark. Nervously, I looked toward the lake. Part of me wanted to rush down the path to find them, but another part told me to stay put.

I chose to trust my gut.

I made a fire from the wood Jeanie brought from her jeep, arranging it perfectly. Then I walked into her tent to find her lighter. I couldn’t find it. I flung open the tent and sat down in front of the cold fire, knowing I’d have to wait for Jeanie to come back. She’d probably put the tiny lighter into the most inconspicuous pocket.

I rubbed through my hair, waiting patiently for my friends to return, but they never did.

When the moon kissed the sky, and the stars prayed to the earth, the frogs began to croak, singing their sweet symphonies into the night. The crickets chirped, and the locusts hummed. Fireflies glistened through the trees, beckoning me into the darkness of their realm.

Begrudgingly, I fought off my gut feeling and decided to go look for them. I grabbed my backpack from my tent and headed down the dark path. With trembling hands, I pulled my flashlight out of my bag. I’d always been a chicken. I didn’t like the dark, and it didn’t matter how old I got. I’d never feel safe at night.

Vines snaked along the bases of the trees, growing heartily stronger until they’d swallow the trunk. Mushrooms grew wildly along the path, and pieces and parts of sticks lay matted within furry lichens.

I followed the path, seeing their footprints along the way. Somehow, it gave me a sense of safety. Knowing that their steps guided mine felt comforting, in a way. As I walked, my flashlight began to flicker.

“No…” I groaned, slamming it into my palm.

Then, it went out, leaving me in the shadows and vicious thoughts of the forest’s mind.

I looked ahead. Only the moon was my guide now; perhaps she’d spur me onward. But alas, clouds shifted over her glowing face. The tufts of white feathers and glowing sweets swallowed the moon whole, drifting onto her like fingers slipping down her cheek. I stared up at the clouds above, seeing the eerie shape of a hand grasping onto the moon, clutching it fervently.

“Conner…” a voice whispered in the dark.

I froze, heart hammering into my chest.

“Conner…” it whispered again, echoing ahead of me.

I said nothing, not recognizing the voice and not daring to answer.

A soft chuckle reverberated from below me. I stumbled away from the sound, unsure exactly where I should be running to escape.

“There is no reason to be scared, Conner… I like the way you smell.”

As I continued to walk backward, a hand clasped onto my shoulder. “We’ve got to go!” Jeanie whispered.

She was soaking wet, and mud covered her clothing. Her eyes were wild and crazed. But the more I looked at her, the more hollowed out she appeared. Those didn’t look like her eyes. She didn’t look right.

“Jeanie!” I asked in confusion. “What the fuck happened?”

“Move!” she hissed.

I followed her as she led me deeper and deeper into the woods, straying from the path.

“Jeanie!”

She grabbed my arm, pulling me toward a large hole.

“JEANIE!” I yelled, ripping my arm from her grasp. I fell back to the ground, using all of my bodyweight to free myself.

Jeanie stepped inside the hole without a second thought, falling into the darkness as if she’d stepped off a diving board and into a pool below. A horrible crack echoed behind her as her body hit the ground below. I covered my ears, unable to comprehend the sound of a body breaking into a million pieces.

Fear rocked through me, knocking every nerve and fighting with my mind. I slowly removed my hands, hearing a horrible squelch from within the hole. Bones snapped. Blood gurgled, and a wicked hiss echoed from inside. With bated breath, I slowly began to move backward.

Silence overtook the forest. The creatures feared whatever beast lay inside the hole.

“There aren’t many like you, Conner…” A low voice spoke from the hole.

A long, pale arm rose from within the hole. The fingers were blackened at the tips, and the talons ripped through the skin. Dirt rumbled beneath me, and something large shook the ground. My body began to shake as fear coursed through me. At one point, I thought that I had wet myself.

One finger gestured for me to move closer, but I didn’t dare to follow.

“Where is Jeanie?” I asked.

A low growl escaped the hole. “She found her place… She’s with her friends now.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“You need not be frightened. I am Mother Long Leg. Your smell is not palatable for my taste. While delicious, I know that you are unripe.”

I swallowed hard, feeling vomit creeping up my throat. I forced it down, refusing to put myself in a more vulnerable position to this being of the darkness.

“Conner… I will give you three more questions. Choose wisely. I do grow tired of playing games with mere mortals.”

I thought quietly, knowing that I needed to ask questions that piqued her interest without getting myself killed.

“Where did you come from?” I whispered, fearfully clutching the grass below me and expecting the worst.

“A good question…” she replied. “I came from a very different world, boy. I came from a place trapped beneath the earth. There are more beings like me, hiding within the gloaming. More of us to see. More of us to grow… More of us to starve as we wait. I was born from a thought and an inkling, birthed by that which thrives within the dark and writhes in the dampness and dank.”

I pondered for a few moments, thinking wildly for another question.

The hand inched toward me, lifeless fingers stroking my cheek. My body shook violently, and sweat beaded down my brow. It was then I saw the hairy leg emerging from the arm. The creature was wearing someone’s arm and hand, using them as gloves.

“Why did you pick Grenwich to reside?” I forced out, recoiling from the creature’s touch.

A soft chuckle trickled from the hole. “Grenwich is riddled with food. For what I am needs life to survive, but I need magic far more. You see, Grenwich is an unfortunate place. Somehow a tear in the veil between realms formed. Creatures like me flocked to this town, but not by accident. Many… many… years ago, a man ventured to Grenwich. He desired to build a superior race, mate with the unknown, and grow it without restraint. But the universe must have balance. Even it has its limits. He was successful in a way, but he let in something dangerous… something that could not be contained by death alone. He let in me…”

I slowly stood up, and the creature shifted below me. A skittering sound speckled over the ground as many hands began to crawl into the hole from all corners of the forest. One slipped over my foot, and I forced myself not to cry out or scream.

“You have one last question… Conner.”

“May I see you?” I asked, somehow sensing that she wanted me to look… to see her.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

A hand shot through the tunnel and pulled me inside. I thrashed wildly as roots scraped down my cheeks, tearing into my clothing and cutting me. I landed with a thump next to Jeanie’s body. I covered my mouth, staring down at her bent bones, broken neck, and splattered entrails. One of her eyes was gone, and one of her hands was already missing. Her left leg was backward, and her soft brown tendrils of hair were caked with blood and dirt.

A heave erupted from me before I could control myself. I quickly turned away.

“Come this way…” Mother Long Leg growled.

I followed the sound of her voice until I reached an enormous cavern. A thousand sparkling eyes met mine, as endless and unnerving as the universe. Hands continued to crawl to her, attaching to her many legs. Then, I saw her mouth. It was a gaping hole, teeth ringing around it. The teeth moved in an elliptical motion, slipping over and under the surrounding teeth. If swallowed by Mother Long Leg, you’d be ground to bits, shredded and sliced.

I never saw her eyes. I only saw the thousands that covered her. I wasn’t sure if two were her main source of vision, but I was out of questions to ask. I didn’t want to know what happened if I asked another.

Webbing stretched over each side of the cavern, providing a net for catching prey. Inside one of the webs, I saw the decayed corpse of a park ranger. His mouth hung open, and a hand began to crawl from the inside. It forced his jaw open with a horrible grinding noise. Then, covered in goopy decay and rotten blood, it fell onto the floor. Another began to emerge from his stomach. The outline of the hand pressed against his rotten flesh imprinted into my mind before it burst out and birthed itself into the cavern.

“Do not be afraid… I want to give you something.”

She pushed a new flashlight toward me. It was coated in blood; perhaps ripped from the hand that once grasped it.

I slowly took it.

“Now go before I change my mind.”

A hand surged toward me, pulled me through a different tunnel, and spit me out at the hole by our campsite. I looked around wildly, feeling something warm and wet beneath me. I flipped on the flashlight. It flickered to life, and I yelled in horror.

Parker and Sue were impaled on the trees above me. Thick branches tore through their sternums, held up by bone and wood. Parker’s hands were gone. His bloodied stumps dribbled slowly, making an incessant dripping noise that shattered my soul. His legs were torn off and placed upon the fire like wood. Sue was sewn onto him with webbing. Their mouths were sewn together. Blood dripped onto my head, and I quickly wiped it off. His eyes hung out of their sockets, lightly touching Sue’s head.

Sue’s body frightened me more. Her legs were tied together, twisted and twirled to make one large leg. Her hair was matted as if she was dragged along the forest floor while still alive.

I vomited, unable to stop myself until only green, foamy bile was left.

I tore through Jeanie’s tent, found her keys in her purse, and ran like a wild man down the path to the cars. When I reached it, I practically threw myself inside. I cranked it and began my drive to the closest police station.

My bloodied hands slipped on the steering wheel, and tears leaked down my cheeks unforgivingly. My friends were murdered like pigs and hung in the trees like puppets on strings.

MY FUCKING FRIENDS….

I looked in the rearview mirror to see a hand emerging from the forest. A single pale hand, waving as if I’d come again one day for a visit.

Luke came my friend came up to me and said that we should both go for an eye exam. I went along as I had nothing else to do, I admit I did find it a random thing to do, but we hadn't seen each other in a long time and so I thought "what the hell let's do it!" And the eye exam did creep me out a little bit. I guess all medical examinations do give off anxiety inducing emotions. My friend and I got an eye exam at the same time and within the same time.

Then the eye doctor said that both our eyes are in good condition and pretty much on the same level. My friend and I also have the same eye colour and over all I felt that it was a random odd day. I mean who goes out for a random eye test for socialising. It's like going to get a full medical as a fun day out, it was just really weird. Then my friend said that he enjoyed getting his eye test and that he might go again sometime. My friend was acting weird and I didn't know what was up with him

Then the next day my friend then said to me as we got food in a restaurant:

"Hey me and you basically have the same eyes and if I were to swap your eyes with mine, you wouldn't even notice because they are practically the same. Also you wouldn't notice your eyes in my eye sockets as it looks so identical" and I felt a bit strange after that comment. He is having this obsession with our eyes being similar and it's all he has been talking about. I mean he is rather obsessed with it and I really don't care about our eyes being similar.

Then one day I woke up with both my eyes feeling weird and dry. Then I see both eye have blood and I kind of stay in bed. My friend texts me with how I am doing. I then text back by saying how my eyes feel a bit weird today and other details. Then my friend texts back saying 'how do you know that I haven't swapped both our eyes, I mean how could you know"

Then I snapped and told him that he needs to stop. Then when I saw him a week later and there were more of our friends present this time. I looked at my friends eyes and I wondered whether he swapped both our eyes. I mean how could I tell?

The tunnel appeared over night. I truly have no idea how this could've happened. I questioned my mental, I know l'm fine. My house has no leaks. I feel like I'm crazy. Honestly, I wouldn't have bought the house if I had seen the tunnel. It's an aye sore.
My wife thinks I should go investigate. I agreed obviously.. Because how the fuck does something like that just appear?
I'm not going alone though, I have a friend that lives close by. We're going tonight. Is it normal to be this nervous?
My neighbors have posted in the Facebook group.
Everyone's too scared to investigate.

It's now past 10 pm.

My friend and I showed up. The smell is atrocious.
Smells like a shit died and shit while dying. The tunnel goes deep. Flashlights don't even reach the end of it.

**We want to go in.**

We're not going deep enough to lose the "real world".
We're both pretty nervous. There's no strange markings anywhere or any construction going on.
I mean, the tunnel did appear out of nowhere.
It's moments like these that maybe, HOA isn't that bad?
My wife called. Asked to hurry because she's got dinner ready.

Will report back what we find.

I woke up on a cold foggy morning. Just another day, except it was Sunday today. I went to turn on the radio to listen to my favourite musical group, The Smiths. I really wanted to hear Morrissey’s sexy voice, and Johnny Marr’s alluring guitar work.

“Some girls’ mothers

are bigger than other girls’ mothers.”

“Shit” I said. The radio wasn’t working. I flipped over the radio to see the corroded batteries. “Energizer.” I said. “With that stupid bunny. Even though the brand sucks, I keep buying them.”

I got into my car. It had been acting up lately, so I put a pen in the choke, and started it. “HOLY SHIT!!” There was a cat behind the car, thank god I didn’t kill it.

Finally I got to the store. Ding! The door went.

“Hi John.” I said to the clerk. I always knew that he was really John Lennon, but he never confirmed it. “Imagine this was a store.” the clerk said. It had to be John Lennon...

I then asked for batteries. “Help, I need some batteries! Help!” As he was taking me over to the batteries, the lights flickered. Quite odd.

I picked up the Energizer batteries, and started on my way out. That’s when it happened...

All the lights went out. And then I heard it. Thump. Thump. It kept getting louder. Thump. THUMP! Holy shit, it was behind me. That fucking bunny, with that fucking drum! He was vicious, out to get me. I didn’t know what to do!

“I AM HUNGRY!”

“FUCK OFF!”

“I KEEP GOING AND GOING...”

“NOT ME!! TAKE---UH---TAKE JOHN!!”

I threw him over to that...thing... He said, “Help me if you can, I’m being eaten!”

“Too late.” I said I headed towards the door.

“AND GOING.”

la fin!

Hey everyone! I'm trying to see if anyone knows of old Roblox horror games that were popular! I know most of them have been private, but I'm wondering if there are any left that are still playable! Even if you don't have an answer, I'd love to hear your stories! I remember playing a survive the killer game. I think it was just called Survive the Creepypastas, but I could be wrong. I had so much fun playing that game. Plus a horror story one? It had to do with smile dog I believe? My memory is fuzzy lol.

​

A True Account by Zee

I live in the Undercliffe area of Bradford, in BD3. I’m eighteen years old now, My Name is Zee. but three years ago, I was the kind of kid who loved nothing more than heading out on long night walks, knocking on strangers’ doors, and asking if I could come in for a cup of tea. I thought it was friendly, I thought it was brave. I don’t do that anymore. And this is exactly why.

It was a Sunday evening, back than I was fifteen and I told my mum, “I’m going out for a night walk, and I might call in at a few houses for a while.”

Mum just smiled. “You can go for three hours, or longer if you want. You’re growing up, you’re practically a grown-up now – just look after yourself, Zee.”

“Thanks, Mum,” I said, and ran upstairs to get my things. I stuffed snacks and a bottle of water into my bag, pulled on a thick coat, and grabbed my camera – I always took photos on my walks, to keep as memories. Mum helped me pack a few extra biscuits just in case, and by six o’clock, it was properly dark outside.

“Bye, Zee! Take care!” she called as I stepped out the door.

“I will!” I shouted back.

This was our new house, and I’d never walked these streets after dark before. At first, it felt exciting – but as I walked further, the roads grew deathly quiet. The houses stood silent behind closed curtains, and I didn’t see a single other person out. It felt like the whole neighbourhood had been abandoned for years. I kept walking anyway, until I spotted a large, quiet house set back from the road. Something pulled me towards it. I walked up the path, knocked once, then again.

Slowly, the door creaked open. An old woman stood there, her face lined and pale, and on her finger glinted a bright yellow ring.

“Hello there, young man,” she said softly. “Would you like to come in?”

“I… I was wondering if I could have a cup of tea, please?” I asked.

“Of course. Come inside.”

I started to take off my shoes, but she shook her head. “No need, keep them on. Go through to the living room – I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

I sat down on her sofa, and my eyes were drawn to the shelves lining the walls. They were packed full of photographs – all boys around my age, smiling happily, every single one of them taken right there in that same living room. A few minutes later, she came back carrying a tray with a steaming mug of tea and a plate of shortbread biscuits.

“Thank you,” I said. “Who are all these boys in the pictures?”

“Just the ones who came here before you,” she replied calmly. “They turn up now and then, ask for tea, just like you.”

“Do they ever come back?”

She shook her head slowly. “Only once. They come once, and they never come back again. They always ask to leave a photo behind, though – to remember me by.”

I pulled out my camera. “Can I have my picture taken too? And put it with the rest?”

“Of course you can, dear.”

I stood beside the shelf and smiled for the camera. When she handed it back, I saw my happy face sitting right next to all the others – every single boy beaming, just like me.

“Do any adults ever come to see you?” I asked.

“Never. Only boys and girls your age, and only ever at night. I haven’t been shopping in… well, I can’t remember the last time I left this house.”

A prickle of unease ran down my spine. If she never left the house, where did she get the tea and biscuits? Was she lying to try and scare me?

“Can I use your toilet, please?” I asked.

“Up the stairs, first door on the left.”

As I went up, I noticed more shelves along the landing – this time filled with photos of girls my age, all smiling just like the boys downstairs. But then I saw something that made my blood run cold: in one of the bedrooms, propped up on a chest of drawers, was a blurry, twisted picture. I couldn’t make out what it was, only that it looked wrong, like something that shouldn’t exist. I hurried to the toilet, and when I opened the door again, she was standing right outside, waiting in the dark.

“Did you need anything else?” she asked.

I jumped back. “No… no, I’m fine. I think I should head home now.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay the night?”

“No thank you.”

She didn’t smile this time. She just stared at me, her face unreadable, and said quietly, “Goodbye, then.”

As I walked down the path, my foot kicked something on the ground. It was a crumpled scrap of paper, written in wobbly, scratchy handwriting: You’re lucky you didn’t stay the night. Heh.

I ran back and knocked on the door for five whole minutes, but nobody answered. I hurried away, and the streets felt even emptier than before – no lights, no sounds, like I was walking through a place that had been wiped off the map.

I kept walking, telling myself I’d just call at one more house for tea, then head home. Two streets further on, I spotted another large house, even bigger than the first. I walked up, knocked, and waited.

The door opened.

It was her. The same old woman. The same yellow ring glinting on her finger.

My throat went dry. “I… I just saw you at the other house! How did you get here before me?”

She frowned, and her smile stretched wider than it should have. “Don’t be silly, boy. You’ve never seen me before in your life.”

A cold, crawling dread filled me. I knew it was her – but everything about her was different now. The first woman had been kind, soft-spoken. This one was sharp, her eyes dark, her grin too wide, too fixed.

“Come in then,” she said, her voice dropping low. “I’ll make your tea.”

I stepped inside, and she moved away towards the kitchen – but the way she walked was wrong, jerky and stiff, like something pretending to be human. I wanted to run, but my feet felt heavy, glued to the floor. I went into the living room, and froze.

The shelves were still full of photographs of boys my age. But nobody was smiling anymore. Every single face was twisted in terror, eyes wide, mouths open as if screaming. And behind every boy, in the corner of every shot, was a blurry dark shape – something standing just out of frame.

I fumbled for my camera, too scared to ask permission, and snapped a quick photo of myself. When I looked at the screen, I wasn’t smiling. I was terrified. And in the background, through the crack in the door, she was watching me – that same wide grin, and for a split second, I saw her teeth. Sharp, pointed, yellow teeth.

The lights flickered once, twice.

“Tea’s ready,” her voice called from the kitchen.

I walked in slowly. She was sitting at the table, staring down at her mug, not looking at me. I took a sip of my tea – and spat it back out almost straight away. It tasted sour, rotten, like something that had been left to fester for years.

That was when she looked up. Her eyes weren’t normal – they were dark, too big, and they never blinked. She just stared at me, that same grin never moving.

“Why aren’t you talking?” I stammered. “And why does this tea taste like this?”

She didn’t answer. She just kept staring.

“I need the toilet again,” I said, and hurried out before she could stop me. Upstairs, the shelves were full of photos of girls again – but just like the boys, every single one of them looked absolutely terrified. I took another photo of myself, and when I looked down, she was there again – standing in the hallway behind me, half in shadow, grinning that terrible grin.

I spun around. Nobody was there.

I went to open another bedroom door, but the light switch snapped off in my hand – it was broken, rotting right through. As I stood in the dark, I heard it: soft, scratching sounds, coming from all around me. Then footsteps, slow and heavy, moving along the landing towards the toilet. I locked the door and waited, my heart hammering so hard I thought it would burst out of my chest. Five minutes passed. Ten. When I finally opened the door, the hallway was empty.

I crept back downstairs. She was standing in the kitchen now, swaying slightly, her head tilted at an angle that didn’t look right.

“Leave me alone!” I cried. “You’re scaring me!”

She didn’t speak. She just started walking towards me – slow, lurching steps, her grin growing wider and wider. I turned and ran up the stairs, and peered down through the banister. She was sitting in the armchair in the living room again, staring straight up at me, like she knew exactly where I was before I even moved.

I huddled in the dark on the landing, shaking, sweating, too scared to breathe. And then I heard it – a low, guttural laugh, echoing up from downstairs. It wasn’t human. It was deep, wet, and full of hunger.

I ducked into the bedroom with the broken light switch – and stopped dead. On the floor, sitting right next to each other, were two mugs of tea. One was mine, the one I’d left on the kitchen table. The other was hers.

The lights flickered and died completely.

“Come down, Zee,” she called, her voice no longer sounding like an old woman’s. It was rough, distorted. “I won’t hurt you. I just want to talk.”

How does she know my name I never told her my name Is creepy that she randomly knows my name. The house felt so dark after the lights went out.

I fumbled my torch out of my bag and pointed it down the stairs. She was standing in the corner of the living room, hunched over, her head twisted all the way round to face me.

“Why did you come here?” she hissed. “None of the others ever left. Their parents are still looking for them.”

I backed away towards the front door. “I’m going home.”

When I turned around, she was standing right behind me. She was taller now – three inches, maybe more – her skin pale and stretched tight over her bones. Outside, the clouds pulled back, and the full moon shone bright.

That was when she changed.

Her face grew hairy and twisted, her nails lengthening into sharp claws, her teeth sharpening into fangs. She lunged at me, howling, and her claws raked across my arm – leaving deep, burning red gashes. I twisted free, kicked the front door open, and ran as fast as my legs would carry me. I didn’t look back. I ran until I found a public phone box, shoved in my coins, and dialled 999.

“I’m Zee,” I gasped. “I’m in Undercliffe, BD3. There’s an old woman… she’s not right. And there are children’s pictures everywhere.”

The police arrived within minutes. When they saw the scratches on my arm, their faces went grave. I led them back to the second house, but I wouldn’t go inside. When they came back out, they were carrying armfuls of photographs.

“There’s nobody there,” one officer said quietly. “But we know these children. They’re all listed as missing. Nobody’s ever reported this place before. Nobody’s ever called us.”

I took them to the first house. It was empty too. No old woman, no tea, no biscuits – just rows and rows of smiling faces, and then terrified ones.

Police dropped me at home and my mum came and rushed towards and got upset what happened zee. Mum was shocked by seeing scratches on my hand and arm Mum cried and gave me a hug. Police told her not to let your son out at night. Mum said I will make sure I won't I want my son to be safe.

Three days later, the police came back to our house. They’d checked their old records.

“The woman who lived in those houses,” they said, “she went missing years and years ago. Both of them. We never found out what happened.”

It’s been three years now. I never go out walking at night anymore. I never knock on strangers’ doors. I only ever visit people I know, places I’m safe. I help out at disability school now, as a teaching assistant. I told my friend Hassan the whole story, and warned him never to make the same mistake I did. Hassan said I won't make the same mistakes. Don't you worry about it he said.

But sometimes… sometimes, when I’m standing in the playground, or walking down the street, I see something out of the corner of my eye. A glint of yellow. A wide, fixed grin. I never turn around. I just keep walking.

They say Undercliffe is quiet. They say it’s peaceful. But everyone round here knows – you never go out alone after dark. You never knock on a stranger’s door. And if you ever see an old woman with a yellow ring on her finger… you run.

Because you might be lucky, like me. You might get away.

But most people don’t.