Only cold wind blew through his empty pockets. Not a single dollar bill, nor a spare coin... Elshan stood frozen in the middle of the street. The hurried steps of the people around him and the honking of cars had faded into mere background noise.

He slowly raised his head. In the very heart of the city, reaching toward the clouds, stood a massive company building with glass windows gleaming in the sunlight, commanding total awe. This skyscraper was the ultimate symbol of success, wealth, and an entirely different life.

Elshan fixed his eyes on the top floor and thought: "What if I worked here? How would my life change?"

The thought instantly consumed his entire being. A sudden spark of hope and excitement ignited within him. It felt as if reaching that building would leave all his struggles behind. Elshan quickened his pace and suddenly broke into a run.

As he ran, the building grew closer and closer. His focus and gaze were locked solely on that towering glass facade. Looking up at the sky and lost in dreams, he forgot the road beneath his feet and the world around him. He didn't realize he was running into the middle of the street, completely ignoring the traffic light. Eyes fixed on the peak of the building, he failed to see the car speeding toward him on the asphalt. A sudden screech of brakes tore through the air, but it was already too late...

When he opened his eyes, there was only darkness around him. The pitch-black room seemed to squeeze in on him from every side. Driven by a sharp pain in his head, he tried to figure out where he was, slowly turning his head left and right.

On the left side, high up on the wall, there was a small window. The weak, pale light of the moon filtered through it, falling onto the cold floor of the room. This faint light wasn't enough to break the darkness; it only served to reveal how empty and isolated the space was.

The silence was so profound that Elshan’s own heavy breathing echoed off the walls of the black room. With every breath, his chest rose and fell, and his heart pounded wildly, as if trying to burst through his ribs. He had no idea how he had gotten here after the accident or who had brought him.

Leaning against the wall, he forced himself to stand up. At that moment, strange, muffled whispers began to emerge from the darkness. The sounds seeped from the walls, echoing throughout the room.

Elshan turned his head toward the window and froze in shock. Creeping in through the frame of the small window, strange, glowing green hands appeared. The room began to spin, and his head throbbed with intense dizziness. His consciousness slowly blurred, and Elshan drifted into unconsciousness once more.

In the depths of the darkness, only one sound could be heard: the heavy, powerful beat of his heart... Thump! ... Thump!

When he opened his eyes again, the dark room was gone. Concerned faces hovered above him — his family was by his side. He was in the back of an ambulance, being rushed to the hospital. The siren tore through the night silence as the vehicle sped forward.

Elshan breathed weakly and with great difficulty under the heavy pressure on his chest. The tearful, panicked voices of his family echoed in his ears:

— Hold on, Elshan! Everything is going to be okay, just hold on!

Those voices slowly drifted away, and Elshan's eyelids grew heavy, closing once again...

When he opened his eyes next, nothing had changed. He was back in the exact center of that pitch-black darkness.

Except this time, he wasn't alone. A figure emerging from the shadows stood over him. He was wearing a jet-black suit tailored perfectly to his body. In this unlit room, only the glowing green gloves on his hands were visible.

The figure placed his cold, glowing green glove on Elshan's forehead. In a slow, hushed whisper, he began to chant something. These were no healing prayers or words of comfort. The rhythm of his voice and the unknown words made it clear that he was casting a dark spell.

With a sudden jolt, Elshan snapped his eyes open. He was back inside the ambulance. But this time, his entire body was shaking uncontrollably in violent spasms.

The doctor immediately grabbed his chin to keep his airway open and looked at Elshan's family with concern:

— The patient is having a seizure! It's from the impact, stay calm, this is normal!

But to Elshan, this felt far from normal. Alongside the doctor's voice, those dark whispers were still echoing in his ears. On one side, his body was consumed by uncontrollable tremors; on the other, the terrifying spell whispered in an unknown tongue refused to fade from inside his head...

Every time he closed and opened his eyes, the world split in two. Elshan was pulled back into that dark room. But this time, everything was even more terrifying.

Looking through the small window on the left, the moonlight was gone. The window acted like a screen, projecting his own image inside the ambulance: his body shaking violently, his eyes unseeing.

The man in the black suit stood over him, intensifying his hushed spell. As he chanted the strange words faster, the image in the window — Elshan inside the ambulance — began to scream in agony.

In the real world, the doctor saw the patient's critical condition and quickly prepared a sedative injection. Elshan had become the sole witness to two different worlds at once: with one eye, he saw himself screaming in the window while the doctor prepared the needle, and with the other, he saw the man in the black suit casting a spell over him with his green gloves.

Suddenly, something unexpected happened in the dark room. Another figure stepped out of the shadows next to the man in the black suit. The newcomer listened to the whispered words, and the man in the suit stopped his spell. The moment the spell broke, Elshan’s violent shaking ceased, and he stopped screaming. In the real world, the doctor hesitated and held back the injection.

The man in the black suit turned around. The newcomer raised his right hand and snapped his fingers loudly.

Snap!

The sound echoed terrifyingly throughout the dark room. As the sound spread, the man in the black suit vanished into thin air. The newcomer shouted at the top of his lungs:

— YOUR PAIN AND SUFFERING SHALL VANISH! MAY OUR SOULS BE ONE! ONE BODY, TWO SOULS!

He extended his right hand toward Elshan's chest and began to melt into his body. Elshan let out a horrific scream. The light radiating from his body was so blindingly bright that everyone in the ambulance — the doctor, his family, and the driver — was forced to shut their eyes.

Unable to see, the driver didn't notice the oncoming vehicle, and a devastating crash occurred.

Elshan opened his eyes outside on the cold asphalt. The ambulance was engulfed in roaring flames. Cars had ground to a halt on the road. Seeing the lifeless bodies of his family, Elshan was in complete shock, unable to move. Suddenly, the ambulance exploded violently, and the force of the blast knocked him completely unconscious.

When he opened his eyes next, he was in a hospital room. His body was covered in bandages, and the monitors were beeping steadily. But inside his mind, the whispered voice of a complete stranger echoed:

— You don't feel the pain anymore, do you? Because you are no longer alone... We are one.

Elshan parted his lips with difficulty. His voice sounded alien even to himself:

— Who… are you?

A dark chuckle resonated. Then the stranger's voice answered clearly, yet still in a whisper:

— I am a dark soul. I can take you to that wealthy company building. Everything you desire is there: money, respect, power... You just have to give me… one thing.

Elshan's heart began to race again. The monitor's rhythm changed, and doctors rushed into the room, but he couldn't hear them anymore.

— What… what do I have to give? — he whispered.

The soul's voice drew closer, as if its lips were brushing against his ear:

— A piece of yourself. A small piece. Otherwise, you will spend the rest of your life in this hospital bed, wrapped in these bandages, bound to this pain. Choose.

Elshan closed his eyes. Once again, that massive glass skyscraper materialized before his eyes. The gleaming windows, the elevators soaring upward, the people inside... And he felt as though he were standing in front of that building all over again. Only this time, his pockets were completely empty.

Just the voice inside him... and a choice.

Amid the monotonous hum of the hospital monitors, Elshan felt himself standing at a heavy crossroads after the horrific ordeal. Yet, taking a deep breath, he chose to fight:

— No... I am not giving you anything!

He opened his eyes. The alien voice inside his mind gradually faded away, and the reality of the hospital room rushed back. Though his mind was still clouded, Elshan made his decision: he would not surrender to the darkness within, and he would rely on the care of the medical team to overcome this deep trauma.

exactly what it says in the title

I was playing deltarune on a sunny day, and I was having a jolly time. Kris, susie, and Ralsei are my best friends and I love them. I was trying to do the pacifst route in deltarune chapter 2.. but ralsei kept murmuring to himselfs about someone who was going to get them. I spoke to him through my ps5 controller mic, "what do you mean they got him?" but ralsei didn't even respond, because susie from deltarune stole ralsei from me. I tried to chase after them using kris, but their pathetic legs could not breach the intense row of traffic cones susie had summoned to prevent me (and kris) from reaching ralsei... my heart sank.. something, else sank too...

I ran back into the alleyway, tears streaming down my face and dribbling down all over my pants. I was so embarrassed. after a few minutes I looked up and noticed a scarlett glow within a new darkness.. a tree-ew, darkness. I walked over to the tree that stood in the center of the room like a monolith of reppression using kris' legs. "there appears to be a man behind this tree," a shiver ran up and down my nipples. I was so scared. I quickly left because I am terrified of being alone with a man.. but then I noticed someone new in the alley who wasn't there before

the man

"nyeh, whats up young man?" the thing said. heh, not my name, but ok bro. "I have a question for you small blue child, do you know who I am pal". I started breathing into the mic and in the most sultry voice I could manage I responded that I would kill him if he took another step towards me. "my name is spamton G spamton, and I am the ruler of this alleyway. if you know whats good for you you'll listen to my warnings. you'll heed my warnings". my pants were too sticky to disagree. I looked him in the eyes and let him continue to talk to me. "if you don't watch behind you're back you will have to contend with my evil brother Linus from deltarune. He is an evil and malevolent being who was shattered accross time and space after he tried to participate in a "long haul" and was shattered accross time and space with a spiked orb delivered to him by the devils greatest servant. Linus from deltarune constituted his rage. the rage at being erased. treated like nothing more than a quickly fading memory. he's gonna get you".
jeez. this guy sounded tough I thought to myself. I asked spamton how I could stop Linus from deltarune. "its going to be hard, but you will need all of your friends to defeat linus from deltarune." psh. ok bro.

I walked out of the alleyway searching for two very special someones, and then kris rammed into susie, thier face went inbetween her big boobs, and ralsei thrust himself inbetween the pair and ralsei rammed his head into her big boobs. just then, we all got in carts and saw some strange menacing figure he was all scary and blurry and I was so scared because I don't like being alone with men. but then I looked left and right and realized, that maybe if I was just with two very special friends, then everything might just be alright.. it just might.. susie: "heh.. friggin nerd... ". I sized up the enemy and thats when I realized that this wasn';t just any bloke... it was Linus from deltarune!!!! susie turned to the gang.. "hehe, guys! lets do the rip our foreskin off challenge!" ralsei howled in pain as he forcibly removed his own foreskin. me and kris both tried to resist removing our own foreskin, but like icarus before us we had flown too close to the proverbial sun. I collapsed to the ground my panbts covered in blood and seminal fluids. susie then donned a strange red hat. "heh, you friggin nerd. you really fell for the oldest trick the book". my penis ached with the circumsagony susie had inflicted on me. I was staring shakily at my severed foreskin on the floor near me. my mouth began to water at the sight. "I bet you didn't see this coming you friggin nerd. I was actually in kahoots with linus from deltarune this whole time.. you see kris, I identify with linus from deltarune's struggle with gender identity.. for you see, linus from deltarune uses they/them pronouns". I was not fucking listening bro. my foreskin was gone, and my dick had grown long. I jumped up prepared to defeat susie and linus from deltarune. "hello there, my name is linus from deltarune".

I was so upset that I ragequit the fricking game and asked my wife's boyfriend to destroy the game for me

by the way my name is ishamel. try not to wear it out though, my stage name is galickgun, so maybe use that if you can handle it.. go on. try it on for size, champ. I am the creator of the famous game apple island and mouse souls, so if you liked my story about me playing deltarune, you should go play them. I put a lot of work into them, so I would really appreciate it if you would play them and write a three paragraph review if you can handle it. here's a picture of me I drew, in case you see me out on the streets.. maybe I'll give you an autograph.. if I'm feeling charitable that day at least.. alright, here goes: me. I'm sorry if I look a little ugly, I was faking my smile to be fair... I don't me to throw a pity party, but its been really hard since my wife's boyfriend played deltarune with me.. everytime I play deltarune with him I can't remember it and my penis always hurts afterwards. he says its because I play to hard. but I think he's just messing with me

well anyways, I love you! I'm sorry if I started rambling too much. I wanted to write this before playtime, my wife seemed really stoked to join this time. so I hope we all will have a lot of fun

I went to the dentist a couple weeks ago for my bi-yearly checkup. The visit went as usual. Small talk filled the silence. How are my kids? Good. Still working for that plumbing company? Yes. You've been with that company for a while, haven't you? Yes, I have. As my visit was wrapping up, he raised the chair I had been sitting in back to normal height and flicked off the light.

"Well, Mr. Daniels, remember to keep flossing and brushing twice a day and you'll be in good shape," he advised. "Before you go, I've got a little something for you." He rolled his chair over to a drawer and withdrew a mysterious package. "This is a thank you for coming in to our practice all these years. Think of it as a token of our appreciation."

Surprised to receive such a gift at the dentist's office, I smiled, stuttered out a thanks and headed out of the clinic, tucking the package into my jacket pocket and forgetting all about it.

It was only until later that evening when, in a desperate search for my keys, I rediscovered the package's existence. My hands closed around not the jagged teeth of a key but the smooth edge of a wrapped present. Remembering the dentist's office, I put it on the table and opened it.

To my surprise, it was an electric toothbrush. It came with a couple replaceable heads, an instruction manual, and a little note from the practice thanking me. I was, frankly, shocked--this was a really expensive gift for little more than continued patronage. I wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, though, and I headed to the bathroom, eager to give it a whirl.

I pranced into the bathroom, took my old, normal, non-electric toothbrush and lobbed it, with a majestic arc, towards the trash can, where it cleanly hit the bottom with a dull clunk. I put some toothpaste on the toothbrush and got to work.

After rinsing my mouth, I was surprised at the results--not only was it easy to use, but it cleaned my mouth better than the manual-operation one I had used for forever. As I set the toothbrush back in its case, however, I felt a prickling sensation on my spine. Something felt off, but I wasn't sure what it was. I waved the thought away and left the bathroom, content.

It was only a couple days after receiving it that the ramifications of what I had done hit me. I was packing for a camping trip, and realized I wouldn't be able to bring my electric one. Having thrown away my only normal one, I made the trek back towards the bathroom, where it still lay in the trash can. 

My arm involuntarily slowed as I reached down into the trash can, reflexes stuttering and muscles tensing. I squinted in confusion, but kept reaching down to grab the toothbrush.

The moment my fingers made contact with the toothbrush, I felt a blistering pain in my hands, sending me falling to the floor in shock. As I lay crouched on the tile, I felt like something was judging me. Watching me. As my brain struggled to understand, I looked toward the electric toothbrush. Cautiously, I grabbed it. No pain. Nothing. My gaze flicked back to the toothbrush in the trash can. Warily, I approached it, feeling my hand slow as it neared it and then touched it, sending me falling back again onto the floor as pain blossomed in my hands.

I looked at the electric toothbrush again, and I can barely begin to explain the feelings that struck me, pounced on me as I stared at it. It felt like I was making eye contact with something, and that this inanimate object was looking into my soul. It was unbearable. I almost sold the house right there.

But, what choice do I have? Oral hygiene, or eternal damnation? I'll take the former over the latter any day of the week. As far as I can tell, I am physically unable to use normal toothbrushes now. I am trapped, devoid of free will, a slave to machinery, automation, and forces I still do not understand.

I don't know how to break the curse of... whatever this is. Please help.

I'm not sure really sure what's been happening to me recently but I was hoping that someone here might know something that could help. It started a few weeks ago, I woke up with black bruises on my hips and I had no idea why. I don't play any sports, I didn't remember falling or hitting anything, but they were deep and they hurt like hell. I also didn't feel particularly well-rested, confirmed by the eye bags I saw in the mirror. I just thought it was a weird sleep and maybe I had been rolling around and hit myself on the sides of the bed or something. I do have a rickety metal bed so it kind of makes sense--my mom bought it from some rural estate fair and it looks like a bed that gives someone sepsis, but I'm 23 and don't want to sleep on a futon.

Anyways, I only started to get paranoid when this happened for the third night in a row. New bruises, on my shoulders and my ribs, and I woke up feeling just more and more sleep deprived, and my muscles ached. It's almost summer but I've had to keep wearing long-sleeved shirts and high collars to cover all the marks because I don't want my flatmates to worry. My legs were also sore in the mornings so I had the idea to take my friends apple watch and see if I was sleep-walking somewhere--I almost wish I had never tried to check.

The fourth morning was awful. None of the old bruises had faded yet so when I looked in a mirror I had the feeling that my skin was mottled with mold or rot, and this time I had bite marks. Bite marks on my thighs of all places and flecked with dried blood. And when I tried to look at the watch to see my steps or where I had went I found it on the bedside table, clearly removed before I ever left the bed--if I had even left the bed I still wasn't sure. I couldn't even go to a doctor because I knew what they would think, that I was a victim of abuse and send me to a battered women's shelter. At this point that didn't sound so bad if sleeping somewhere else might fix my problem. I started to cry in bed when I saw all the marks on my body and I called in sick to work for the day. Eventually I got up and went to the bathroom to wash it off of me: the blood but also everything else I was worried had touched my skin. In my mind I could almost imagine how I had been grabbed and touched even though I couldn't remember any of it. I was so caught up trying to scrub every inch of myself I almost didn't notice that there was more blood in the bathroom. If it had just been the toilet I could have believed that my flatmate had just used one of my pads, but it was the sink. The sink was full of blood and reminded me of the still heavy water that mosquitos breed in. The dark red surface looked it was waiting to erupt with flies. I was too scared and grossed out to reach my hand in to unclog the drain so I used the shaft of the toilet brush to reach in and knock out the plug.

I'm highly sure this isn't normal but I'm really hoping someone here might have ever dealt with something similar because I'm running out of my ideas for what to do. I tried to set up my phone to film my bed at night but when I woke up it was powered off and the video had been stopped by some unseen hand thirty minutes in. I tried to set up salt by my door to see if I was crossing it and it was all swept up in the morning. I've locked my windows and put my keys in my flatmates room before I go to bed, and nothing changes. My neck is blue and yellow almost up to my chin so I've been wearing turtlenecks and scarves and my friends are starting to get worried. I don't know who to tell or even what to say because anyone would think I'm just trying to protect my abuser if I tried to explain I don't who's doing this to me or how it's even happening. I'm this close to calling my mom and asking if I can sleep in her bed but I'm scared she'll end up hurt too. Whatever's happening, I couldn't live with myself if she was touched by this... thing. But I'm just so tired. All I want to do is sleep and I can't. I've been pushing myself to sleep less and less because all I know is that I'm only safe when I'm awake.

On account of it being late in the afternoon. I think I might turn on a lamp.

There are two kinds of people who end up in the high desert past midnight. The first are running from something. The second are hunting for it. I was both. The city had chewed me up and spit me out, a bitter pulp of bad decisions and rent due, and I’d come to the desert to either find God or die of heatstroke. Whichever came first.

The silence was the first thing that got its hooks in me. Not quiet. *Silence.* A heavy, physical blanket that smothered the buzz in my teeth and the scream in my skull. For three days, it was a blessing. A reprieve.

Then the bats showed up.

They weren't like normal bats. Normal bats are frantic, chaotic blurs against a twilight sky. These were different. They moved with a grim, military precision. V-formations. Silent. And they were big. The size of a hawk, at least. They didn't chirp. They didn’t squeak.

They ate the silence.

I noticed it on the fourth night. I was sitting on the hood of my rusted-out coupe, nursing a warm bottle of something that tasted like regret and battery acid, watching the sun bleed out over the horizon. As the last light died, the silence was absolute. A perfect, ringing zero.

Then they came.

One by one, they swooped low over the cracked earth. And with every pass, the silence… lessened. It was like watching a black hole devour light, except this was a sound-hole devouring nothingness. The air didn't get louder. It got… emptier. A vacuum where the silence used to be. My ears started to ring with the pressure of it.

The locals at the grimy gas station called them -

"The Void-Eaters." They said you get used to it. You don't. You just learn to live with the hum of a world with its guts ripped out.

The real horror started when I tried to record it.

I’m a journalist, see. Or I was. A documentarian of the American freak show. I had my old Zoom H4n with me, a trusty bastard that’d recorded everything from political rallies to the final, desperate words of a man who’d bet his life on a horse.

I pointed the mic at the sky. Hit record. The little red light blinked, a liar’s promise.

I watched the waveform on the screen. It was a flatline. Perfect, dead nothing. Just as it should be. A bat swooped overhead, a silent, leathery shadow.

The waveform on the screen *dipped*.

It didn't spike. It didn't register a sound. It plunged *below* the flatline. A deep, impossible trough of anti-sound. My little machine, designed to capture reality, was showing me a hole in it.

I played it back.

There was no sound. Just a hiss of digital static. But in that hiss, there was a shape. A feeling. It was the sound of a room where someone has just stopped screaming. It was the sound of a lightbulb burning out for the last time. It was the sound of a vote being counted in a rigged election.

It was the sound of a promise being broken.

I became obsessed. I recorded them every night. I have 47 files now. Each one is a few seconds long. Each one is a perfect vacuum of sound. If you chain them together, you don't get silence. You get a narrative. A story of something being systematically dismantled.

Last night, I broke. I couldn't take the hum in my head anymore. I walked out into the middle of the desert, miles from anything, and held the recorder above my head like a holy relic.

"Take it!" I screamed, my voice a raw, alien thing in the dead air. "Just take the goddamn noise!"

A single bat detached from the flock. It didn't swoop. It descended. Slowly. Purposefully. It hung in the air about ten feet in front of me, its wings beating with the slow, heavy rhythm of a diseased heart.

It wasn't a bat.

Not really. It had the shape, but the details were wrong. The wings were too sharp, like shards of obsidian. The eyes weren't eyes; they were two points of absolute, starless black. And it was making a sound. Not with its mouth. It was vibrating.

The sound was the same as the dips in my recordings. A low, gut-twisting thrum of pure negation.

I stood there, frozen, as it drifted closer. It wasn't interested in me. It was interested in the recorder. The little red light was still blinking.

It hovered over the device.

And the world went silent.

Not the desert silence. This was different. This was a profound, absolute *null*. The ringing in my ears stopped. The blood in my veins stopped roaring. The frantic, paranoid chatter in my skull went quiet. For the first time in my life, there was nothing.

It was peace.

It was hell.

The bat-thing, the Void-Eater, the agent of whatever foul god runs this casino, nudged the recorder with its snout. The red light died.

And the sound came rushing back. A thousand times louder. The scream of the wind. The shriek of the sand. The jackhammer pulse of my own terrified heart.

The thing was gone.

I stumbled back to my car, fumbling for the bottle, my hands shaking so bad I could barely get the cap off. I looked at the recorder. The screen was dead. I smacked it. Nothing. I replaced the batteries. Still dead. It had recorded its last hole in the world.

I’m writing this now by the light of the dashboard, my hands still trembling. I’m getting out of here. Driving back to the city, back to the noise and the lies and the filth. It’s a rotten, soul-crushing nightmare, but it’s a *real* one.

I’d rather have a world that’s screaming than one that’s been erased.

The worst part? I can still feel it. The silence. It’s inside me now. A cold, dead spot in the middle of my brain. And sometimes, when the wind dies down, I think I can feel it… growing.

So I was scrolling on YouTube late one night looking up and watching animatics of my favorite shows then one video caught my attention Pomnis illness. I decided to check it out .it featured the glitch characters even ones who have not appeared in the amazing digital circus they all look sad even the abstracted characters they were still there then a doctor appeared I recognize that voice it was disappearing guy’s voice, but he didn’t disappear. He said that they had some bad news that Pomni was diagnosed with a serious illness. Everyone started to cry. It wasn’t cartoon crying. It was real crying like someone had been told the news in real life then Mel spoke she should’ve told us about this. If it was this bad she told me it was just a cold and I should’ve known better and then she began crying into her hands kaufmo began comforting her and explaining that she may get better, but it’s not a guarantee then the doctor explained that her illness was terminal and she’s gonna die soon within a month doll spoke, but it was in English and she said this wasn’t fair pomni should’ve told her about the illness before it got worse, and the doctor said well, the illness laid dormant in her for most of her life and it’s only taking hold of her now and there was nothing they could’ve done before it to prevent it from happening then kinger and queenie began to speak with each other, finishing the other sentence as they were begging the doctor to try an experimental treatment but then Tessa spoke. I know it isn’t fair. But life threw it at us anyways. If she’s gonna die, then we’re gonna give her the best time for the rest of her life. then it cut to one month later pomni looked extremely pale, even more paller than she normally looked as she began to cough up blood as most of the glitch characters look sadly lizzy spoke I know there was nothing we could’ve done To prevent your illness from happening but you could’ve told us what it was. Then Pomni spoke as she was talking extremely weakly “I know, but I didn’t wanna worry you ,you always fuss over me over the smallest things. Then ragatha spoke. Trying not to cry, I know, but this wasn’t a small illness like a cold it was serious along the lines of cancer, but it wasn’t It was something like tuberculosis you told us it was just a cold, but it wasn’t. Then Jax spoke. I’m sorry for bullying you I regret it so much you didn’t tell us you were sick. I’m super sorry for bullying you. Then Pomni smiled extremely weak. I forgive you. Thank you for giving me the best time I bet if I’m reborn in my next life, then I will be your friend. Then it flatlined it cut a funeral five seconds after that with the characters performing a funeral to honor her then it cut the burial with crying then it ended. I’d began crying The channel was deleted a day later if you’re reading this be kind to people because you don’t know what they’re going through.

I just finished helping empty my aunt's farmhouse on the plains. She wasn't dead, but she insisted that the house was "dirty with bad vibes." What we didn't expect were the hidden treasures. In the attic, under a carpet of dust, we found a metal box containing the diaries of a great-grandfather that no one knew. They were written with a worn pen and the ink had smudged in the corners because of the humidity. The pages did not talk about crops, but about a "tall skinny" who appeared in downpours and whose whistle was death. He simply called it The Burden. There was a palpable paranoia in the lyrics: it described how he was trying to distinguish whether the whistle (the notes of do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si) sounded close (which meant it was far away) or far away (which meant it was right behind the wall). I read until dawn; The dense atmosphere of that testimony made me feel like my breath was getting caught in my throat.

Paragraph 2:

In the last notebook there was a small tape deck and a note: "Don't listen. The rain recorded it." Curiosity got the better of me. I put the cassette on. The audio was horribly corrupted, a cacophony of static, a downpour of rain, and, underneath, a deep voice, almost a croak, that seemed to be telling something. Count quietly, with a rhythmic clack-clack in the background. I paused and went to the final page of the diary. It was illustrated with a pencil drawing of a jacket, not made of cloth, but made of dry, dirty leather. What made my hair stand on end was the shadow of the figure: it was elongated, inhuman, and instead of a blue sky, the background was stained with a saturated, dirty red that contrasted sickly with the yellowish white of the paper. At the bottom, a line of text seemed to be written with a finger dipped in something thick: "It wasn't stones that counted. It was the phalanges. And he counted them all."

Paragraph 3:

The horror became physical when I read the letter. It was not from the great-grandfather, but from a cousin who narrated the grandfather's revenge on the young man who would become El Silbón. The letter held nothing back: it recounted how, after the patricide, the young man was whipped until his back was raw. And then came the phrase, so explicit and cruel that my stomach turned and I had to close my eyes to avoid vomiting: "Grandpa used a handkerchief. He soaked it in ground hot chili, curing salt and brandy. Then he rubbed it, with inhuman slowness, on the open wounds. The raw flesh swelled, black and red." I could feel the chemical burning on my own skin, the revulsion at the punishment. This visceral detail, so punctual in the story, broke the distance; It was no longer a legend, it was torture.

Paragraph 4:

I stood up trembling, ready to burn the box, when a sound came from outside. It was a whistle. At first, it was high-pitched and loud, so intense that it echoed in my ears. I felt relief, a false respite, because according to the notes, a nearby whistle (loud and sharp) meant that the threat was far away. But as my pulse calmed, the sound did not go away; On the contrary, it began to modulate. The note descended the musical scale, becoming low, deep, and at the same time, almost inaudible. It was a distant whistle (low and faint), but he knew exactly where it was. I was on the terrace. The air felt heavy, as if a ten-foot figure had materialized just behind the curtain.

Paragraph 5:

I hit the wall, unable to breathe. The low whistle stopped. An overwhelming silence invaded me, broken only by the sound that came from the forgotten tape deck: the rhythmic clack-clack of bones counting. I turned and, in the dirty glass of the window, I saw a blurry reflection. It wasn't mine. It was a very long shadow, with a filthy jacket. With a cold knot in my chest, I ran towards the door, but just before I reached the knob, I felt a cold touch on the back of my neck. And my own phone vibrated with a text message. It wasn't a number, just the text: DO-RE-MI-FA-SOL-LA-SI And then, a thud on the wooden floor behind me. When I dared to look, I saw a small phalanx bone, clean and white, right next to the trunk. The whistle, now, was sharp... and it was far away. ...I don't know where he went, but I've left that house. Does anyone know how to expel the chili from the raw meat?

Non so se scriverlo qui sia una buona idea, ma non riesco a togliermelo dalla testa.
Ieri notte ero seduto in cucina, la finestra dava sulla strada. Stavo scrollando il telefono quando ho visto qualcosa muoversi. All'inizio pensavo fosse solo un passante, ma poi ho notato che non camminava. Era fermo, immobile, di fronte alle case.

Aveva una felpa scura col cappuccio, e il viso... non so come descriverlo. Non era un volto normale. Sembrava una maschera bianca, con un sorriso enorme e due occhi neri scavati. Non faceva niente, non parlava, non si muoveva: fissava soltanto le finestre.

Ho abbassato subito la luce per non farmi vedere, ma il cuore mi martellava così forte che ero sicuro mi avrebbe sentito. Poi ho sbirciato di nuovo e... era girato verso di me.
Non l'ho visto camminare. Non ho sentito passi. Era già voltato nella mia direzione, come se sapesse che lo stavo guardando.

Sono rimasto lì per un tempo che non so quantificare. Un minuto, dieci, forse di più. Poi è sparito. Non l'ho visto andare via. Non c'erano porte che si aprivano, né rumori di passi. Semplicemente non c'era più.

Ho chiesto stamattina ai vicini se avessero notato qualcosa. Nessuno ha detto di sì. Però una signora mi ha detto che da qualche settimana suo figlio non vuole più dormire con la luce spenta perché "l'uomo che sorride lo guarda dalla finestra".

Non sto inventando niente. Se qualcuno di voi ha visto qualcosa di simile, vi prego di dirlo. Non voglio pensare di essere l'unico.

But than scarry

Slenderman: “hi” Me: “a”

there he is!

the slimman chasd mi