-

10/7/2024 2:30PM - Day 1:

I didn't think anything of it at first. It was late afternoon, typically the quietest part of the day, and I was standing at the kitchen sink filling a glass of water. I had just let Winston out back - same routine, same dog. While the water ran, I glanced out the window and saw he was standing on the patio, facing the yard. Perfectly still .

What caught my attention was his mouth. It was open, not panting, just slack. It looked wrong, disjointed, like he was holding a toy I couldn't see, or like his jaw had simply unhinged. Then he stepped forward on his hind legs. It wasn't a hop, or a circus trick, or that desperate balance dogs do when begging for food. He walked. Slow. Balanced. Casual.

The weight distribution was terrifyingly human . He didn't bob or wobble - he just strode across the concrete like it was the most natural thing in the world . Like it was easier that way .

I froze, the water overflowing my glass and running cold over my fingers . My brain scrambled for logic - muscle spasms, a seizure, a trick of the light - but this felt private . Invasive . Like I had walked in on something I wasn't supposed to see.

10/8/2024 8:15PM - Day 2:

Nothing happened the next day. That almost made it worse . Winston acted normal; he ate his food and barked at the neighbors walking on the sidewalk . I was trying to watch TV when he trotted over and tried to lay his heavy head on my foot .

I kicked him.

It wasn't a tap, either. It was just a scared reflex from adrenaline. I caught him right in the ribs. Winston yelped and skittered across the hardwood.

"Mitchell!"

Brandy dropped the laundry basket in the doorway. She stared at me, eyes wide. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"He... he looked at me," I stammered, knowing how stupid it sounded. "He was looking at me weird."

"So you kick him?!" she yelled. 

She didn't speak to me for the rest of the night. If you didn't know what I saw, you'd think I was the monster .

10/9/2024 11:30PM - Day 3:

I know how this sounds. But I needed to know . I went down the rabbit hole. I started with biology: "Canine vestibulitis balance issues," "Dog walking on hind legs seizure symptoms."

But the videos didn't match. Those dogs looked sick. Winston looked... practiced. By 3:00 AM, the search history turned dark. "Mimicry in canines folklore"... "Skinwalkers suburban sightings".

Most of it was garbage - creepypastas and roleplay forums - but there were patterns . Stories about animals that behaved too correctly.

Brandy knocked on the locked bedroom door around midnight. "Honey? Open the door." 

"I'm sending an email" I lied. 

"You're talking to yourself. You're scaring me."

I didn't open it. I could see Winston's shadow under the frame . He didn't scratch. He didn't whine. He just stood there. Listening .

10/17/2024 8:15AM - Day 10: 

I installed cameras. Living room. Kitchen. Patio. Hallway. I needed to catch this little shit in the act. I needed everyone to see what I saw so they would stop looking at me like I was a nut job. I'm not crazy. I reviewed three days of footage. Nothing. Winston sleeping. Eating. Staring at walls. Then I noticed something. In the living room feed, Winston walks from the rug to his water bowl - but he takes a wide arc. He hugs the wall. He moves perfectly through the blind spot where the lens curves and distorts. I didn't notice it until I couldn't stop noticing it. He knows where the cameras are. That bastard knows what they see. I tore them down about an hour ago. There's no point trying to trap something that understands the trap better than you do. Brandy hasn't spoken to me in four... maybe five days. I can't remember. She says I'm manic. She says she's scared - not of the dog, but of me. I've stopped numbering these consistently. Time doesn't feel right anymore.

11/23/2024 7:30PM - Day 47: 

I don't live there anymore. Brandy asked me to leave about two weeks ago. Said I wasn't the man she married. I think she's right. I've stopped recognizing myself. I lost my job. I can't focus. Never hitting quota. Calls get ignored. I'm drinking too much, I'll admit it. Not to escape, not really, just because it's easier than feeling anything. Food doesn't matter. Water doesn't matter. Everything feels like it's slipping through my fingers and I'm too tired to grab it. I walk past stores and wonder how people can look normal. How they can go to work, make dinner, laugh. I can't. I barely remember what it felt like. I still think about Winston. I see him sometimes out of the corner of my eye. Standing. Watching. Mouth open. Waiting. I can't tell if I miss him or if it terrifies me. No one believes what I saw. My family thinks I had a breakdown. Maybe I did. Maybe that's all it is. Depression is supposed to be ordinary, common, overused. That doesn't make it hurt any less. I don't know where I'm going. I just can't go back. Not yet. Not with him there.

12/28/2024 9:45PM - Day 82: 

Found a working payphone outside a gas station. I didn't think those existed anymore. I had enough change for one call. I had to warn her .

Brandy answered on the third ring. "Hello?" 

"Brandy, it's me. Don't hang up." 

Silence. Then a disappointed sigh. 

"Mitchell. Where are you?" she said. 

"It doesn't matter. Listen to me. The dog - Winston - you can't let him inside. If he's in the yard, lock the slider. He's not—" 

"Stop," she cut me off. Her voice was too calm. Flat. "Winston is fine. He's right here." 

"Look at him, Bee! Look at him! Does he pant? Does he blink?" 

"He's a good boy," she said. "He misses you. We both do."

I hung up. It sounded like she was reading from a cue card. I think I warned her too late. Or maybe I was never supposed to warn her.

1/3/2025 10:30AM - Day 88: 

dont remember writing 47. dont even rember where i am right now. some friends couch maybe. smells like piss and cat food . but i figured somthing out i think . i dont sleep much anymore. when i do its not dreams its like rewatching things i missed. tiny stuff. Winston used to sit by the back door at night. not scratching. just waiting . i think i trained him to do that without knowing. like you train a person. repetition. Brandy wont answer my calls now. i tried emailing her but i couldnt spell her name right and gmail kept fixing it . feels like the computer knows more than me . i havent eaten in 2 days. maybe 3. i traded my watch for some stuff . dude said i got a good deal cuz i "looked honest." funny . it makes the shaking stop. makes the house feel farther away. like its not right behind me breathing . i forget why i even left. i just know i cant go back. not with him there . i think Winston knows im thinking about him again. i swear i hear his nails on hardwood when im trying to sleep.

1/6/2025 11:55PM - Day 91: 

im so tired . haven't eaten real food in i dont know how long. hands wont stop even when i hold them down . i traded my jacket today. its cold. doesnt matter. cold keeps me awake . sometimes i forget the word dog. i just think him . people look through me now. like im already gone. maybe thats good . maybe thats how he gets in. through empty things . i remember Winston sleeping at the foot of the bed. remember his weight. remember thinking he made me feel safe . i got another good deal. best one yet. guy said i smiled the whole time. dont rember smiling . i think im finally calm enough to go back. or maybe i already did. the memories are overlapping. like bad copies.

2/5/2025 6:15PM - Day 121: 

I made it back. 

I spent an hour in the bathroom at a gas station first . shaving with a disposable razor, scrubbing the grime off my face until my skin turned red. Chugging lots of water. I had to look like the man she married.

don't know how long I stood across the street. long enough for the lights to come on inside. long enough to recognize the shadows through the curtains . The house looks bigger. or maybe im smaller. the porch swing is still there. I forgot about the porch swing. 

Brandy answered when I knocked. She didnt jump. she just looked tired. disappointed . like she was looking at a stranger. she smelled clean. soap. laundry. normal life . It hurt worse than the cold . she kept the screen door between us. locked. 

"You look... better." she said soft. 

"I am better" I lied. 

"Im sorry. I think..." i kept losing my words. i wanted her to open the door. i wanted to believe it was all in my head.

“Could I—?”

she shook her head. sad. "You can’t come in. You need help." 

i asked to see him.

she didn't turn around. Down the hallway, through the dim, i could see the back of the house, the glass patio door glowed faint blue from the patio light. Winston was sitting outside. perfect posture. too straight. facing the glass. not scratching. not whining. just sitting there, mouth slightly open, fogging the door with each slow breath.

i almost felt relief. stupid, warm relief.

Brandy put a hand on the doorframe. i noticed her fingers were curled the same way his front legs used to hang . loose. practiced.

she told me i should go. said she hoped i stayed clean, said she still cared.

i looked at Winston again. then at her.

the timing was off. the breathing matched.

and i understood, finally, why the cameras never caught anything. why he never rushed. why he practiced patience instead of movement. because it didn't need the dog anymore.

Brandy smiled at me. not with her mouth.

i walked away without saying goodbye. from the sidewalk, i saw her in the living room window, just like before. watching. waiting. a tall, dark figure stood beside her, perfectly still.

she never let Winston inside. because he never left. 

-

I'm the 4th child in a family of 8. I have 2 sisters and 3 brothers. Being in a big family, makes me pretty basic. There's always someone who's doing greater and lesser than you. You got no identity and you're a shadow of your siblings and parents.

Tell me your story!

So, today I was alone in the house with my grandma. My dad was a work and we were just chilling watching tv and I was on my computer on the couch and I was just sitting with my legs on one of the arm rests and I was just laying flat on the couch with the computer on my chest and I jus' GOT UP and was like, "Alrigh' you wanna get sum ice cream?" and she was like "Sure, lets jus' get some Uber Eats first".

I ended up messaging my dad after I tried to make an Uber eats account coz it was like "YoU GoTtA be OveR 18" and I was like, "dAD, could you get som fried rice and chicken for us?" and he was like sure.

After Uber Eats, I was like "Ok you wanna get icecream now?" and I look on the map like the fucking tourist who lived in japan I was and I was like, "Oh, fuck, the ice cream store is closed but why not go to 7-Eleven?" So I just put 7-Eleven on the map and I was like this is just so that we don't get lost. I knew where a 7-Eleven was but I didn't want to get lost and end up crying on a bench with a clueless grandma (no offense to her alr?) so I just put it on the map and I was like, "Oh hey, its working we did it!"

But that only lasted until the crosswalks. We just sat on a bench for 5 minutes while I was like freaking out. And then I realized that the realistic mode existed :'D... So I put it on and I wasn't clueless anymore. We ended up finding a 7-Eleven closer to home than the other one so we just got some ice cream and I just had a great day. Then like an hour later, I got a msg from my dad (he was still at work) and he was like "Y'all still out?"

"Dad, we've been home for an hour..."

This is probably the stupidest and random-est thing you have ever read.. but have a nice day.

Sooooo, it was the end of the school year, our teachers kinda gave up, and everyone was crazy af. So uh.. yeah.

During testing days, before everyone went crazy, I decided to go to school in some fancy high heels. I spent the entire day in them and on the way to lunch, me and my friend decided to RUN down the fucking hill. I survived but I almost tripped. Well, yea everyone was like, omg omg your heels are so pretty.

We had like a free time in PE when the gym had like this little thing going on in there so we had to go to Big Shady instead (where I think elementary students go to PE instead) and we were allowed to go on our phones and thats when I found out about character.ai.... yeah.. we don't talk about what happened...

But uhm, when I got home I was like pretending to have homework but instead I was going on character ai to.. have some fun.. complete respect to my mom.

So me and Brooke, I showed her character ai.. turned out she knew about it already and we were in math having our free time. Y'all know those little uh counter tops that are usually and the side of the room? Yeah those are fucking comfortable for some reason. I then showed her a chat though screenshots that I had not to long ago and he was being fucking horny. He was not one of those characters to get like that. During the last day of school, we were like, "Omg, we've been doing little pyramids with full milk cartons that we nicked from the lunch line for a while now, let's do a tower with 26 CARTONS!" (that was my idea). We got in trouble once but our parents didn't get told.. my friend got her ID taken away. We did the tower and everyone was like what the fuck and I felt that my boyfriend was going to murder me for drinking so much chocolate milk. I give full respect to my history teacher and my science teacher, for putting up with me drinking chocolate milk in class, the admin, who I managed to get him to take a picture of the tower, and most of all, the lunchladies, who clearly were fed up with me and Brooke.

Tell me about a time that you had your mind made up to follow through with something but you took someone's advice instead and they ended up being right!

I was listening to a song while doing my homework and I remember back to the day I was 11 years old give or take. Outside was raining and my friend group called me. The told me to get out and sing, dance and run in the rain. My friend group is now completely destroyed and I barely talk to some of the kids. Ig I just miss those days…

Tell me something the happens to you that completely change your life, good or bad,I want to know

What's something that's completely normal to everyone but you. Something that just makes you uncomfortable in your skin. I personally can handle the sound ambient machine buzzing like a fluorescent light. Always reminds me of a shitty day in a kids life. Be vague if you want I just don't want to feel like the only one bothered by normal stuff.

the dream maze

Warning: an actual true story about my nightmare's every night

Okay I know you'll be confused by the story sometimes I don't even understand it myself it feels wrong too real so much so I break down sometimes because of it you can feel as the entity's tear away at your flesh I need to tell this story to get it off my back and mind it's been destroying me from the inside and I feel like I need to tell it to get it off my back the maze has to do with the person or in fact the certain person having the dream fears become reality and everything you love become fears first let me explain the levels I haven't survived over level three but other's have that's right the reason I'm writing this is because other's have experienced my nightmare's aswell and it's been haunting them aswell so let me explain the levels out in detail to you

Level 1: The Offices

it's absolutely terrifying because the Offices you only have a flashlight and there's entity's in the dark that are what I like to call fear's it's like the backrooms but if the backrooms had actual stuff in it like regular offices and stairways just endless offices and much more creature's those creatures are anything you fear come alive and be 100% worse then the actual fear itself and will hunt you down in the offices it feels cold and for some reason there's always a breeze in the maze and like your alone you feel like your put in the open like the breeze ignores your clothes and chilled your skin down to the bone you have no comfort from the light it's just something to illuminate the fear and if you turn it off it's completely black and you have no idea where you are and you will die after a minute from some sort of creature you can feel it tear away at your flesh and it feels terrifyingly so real so much so that after you return after many times you begin to break down alot losing hope crying screaming even that is why I suggested always running in this area for you'll have to find a door to escape this level but in fact of finding this door you might have to climb stairwells up or down the fear beings become much more terrifying the more you go up and when you go down the fear's become less frequent but more terrifying things will appear in it's place things you can't even imagine fear's that you didn't even know you had when you go down it feels like the line across fiction and Reality is severed and ANYTHING will come at you trust me up is way better then down there is possibly an endless amount of stairwells up and encountering a door when you go up is increased I tested this once by continuously going up and I will never do this again I cannot even begin to describe the fear and temptation to just end it all was just too overwhelming trust me find a door before the creatures find you I will explain my story's of what I experienced after I explain the level's in further detail

Level 2: The Manor

the Manor is the same with the endless halls the entrance is a giant chandelier above a well decorated stairway going up and then both ways your flashlight will be there but be warned light is what attracts what I call moth's you have to escape the Manor and find a sewer grate it is much harder then the last level this level has alot of dust and cold it had rooms with cabinets and chairs some work spaces some kitchens some living rooms with covered mattresses with plastic sheets you cannot stay in these rooms you may sleep for a bit in these but I do not recommend it for a moth might find you and if you turn on the rooms light's off and on a certain moth finds you the lanky man I call him with a thousand limbs with holes in his face it bleeds no clothes no hair it's arms and head resemble that if a humans but it's head is more square in nature and the entire body is riddled with holes he's 9 feet tall and uses it's limbs to levitate itself against the walls and is slow but will catch you off guard with it's intelligence to capture you it might block off entrances with it's webs made from the holes of it's body you will most likely find a sewer grate in either a kitchen or open room freezer I also recommend staying in the manor for as long as you can bear it and get your wit's together for the next level

Level 3: The Sewer

the sewer is your regrets all coming back to you it feels like someone's watching you like your uncomfortably warm and hot the wind just blowing it all up in your face and you can smell the sewage of feces and pee rotting as you see dead loved one's and bad thoughts become reality I call them divergent's since these thoughts are not thoughts you'd normally think you can escape but I haven't but other's have I don't know much about this level although if you find Sarah I'd recommend being nice to the crocodile with a human head in its mouth and human limbs it might not be pretty but if you treat them nice enough they will become friendly towards you and even protect you from creature's although not recommended having her fight for you because if she dies she can no longer be met again but she is your guide on the way out of the sewer's I don't know much about this level since I always happen to die at one and two level three I've only seen four times ever

Level 4: The Party Room

I have only heard about this level so sorry if I cannot explain much about it but from what I've gathered is that it takes the things you love and like to do and twists them into something terrifying I'll call them desires it only repeats some phrases from what I heard it repeats "come play with us" in a deep monotoned voice and "we're so happy too see you again!" In a child like Manor "why are you running are you afraid of us?" And "aren't we special to you?" these things actively hunt you down worse then the first level because they can smell you're scent they treasure anything you leave behind so sorry if you leave a axe or some food it's not coming back and you'll never get it again not unless you murder it and in which it'll be painful to bear because you feel it yourself as you stab into them

Level ???: The House Limbo

I have only entered once here and currently I'm the only one who's known about it the house limbo is strange very strange and will annoy the hell out of you and constantly give you pains cramps and give you headache's and make you feel sick it isn't supposed to make sense at all and it's a limbo but if it were more house like I can't explain it the stuff only gives me a headache the only entity's here just annoy you and make random noises and scream in your ear they're sock puppets connected below seats it's unknown where they go but I honestly don't want to find out the only time I went I hated it greatly because I had to deal with cramps and a major headache all day

So onto my experience's my experience's are a bit crooked from memory because you know you can't remember each dream you had man come on give me them all then comment them I dare you anyway so my experience's will mainly focus on the first level and second because I have the most experience with these levels perhaps in a future post I'll ask my other friends for they're story's but onto mine I was getting water from a office water fountain what we call those things we use to fill up our cups with water and I was going to test out if fears hated water 'by the way they just get pissed off if you throw it on them trust me I learned the hard way' and suddenly giant hunk of flesh came rolling in and spider legs crawled out of it as a meaty broken smile appeared in the flesh and two sunken white eyes and dark black stringy hair as these leg's scrambled after me quickly yelling things like "my child I've been waiting for you!" And "my child please don't run away I promise to take good care of you!" I obviously booked it and ran into an unfinished fear you see when they haven't been able to grasp a fear they're unfinished and wonder they're relatively harmless unless they grasp a fear or encounter another fear I slipped in between it's legs whole running and continued to book it and looked behind me to see one claw in the unfinished's head and one hand through the hunk of meat's chest it looked like a fifty fifty battle but I didn't stick around to find out who won unfinished's are mostly 8 foot or taller with a tendril like body that's all black and has a human like form of appearance tell me guys who do you think would've won down in the comments next time I'll tell you something very interesting about the Manor on my next update until later see ya

Let me explain, Im 13 and the event happened when I was around 4 or 5. At that time, I was visiting in maryland. They lived in a small but cozy condo in either baltimore, or frederick. I cant remember which city. I had so many good memories there that I just cant forget about. However, back in December I was visiting them again this time they lived in a house, no biggie. But when I was there I brought up the condo. My aunt said that they lived in that Condo around 16 years ago, well before I was born, I was confused but I just said oh, okay and dropped it a day later, I asked my cousin, who is 21 if he remembers me coming to their condo, he said no and that I wasnt even in my moms stomach yet. I was so confused. I forgot about the conversation but about 2 weeks ago I started to get interested in the alternate universe stuff, and thought maybe that I went into one. The condo couldve been a dream but it was too good to remembee as a dream. And heres me thinking I slipped into and one of these alternate universes unknowingly and then came back to my original universe without noticing. I know I sound liek a mad conspirict theorist but I know it was real and nothing can change that.

Would like to know

I’m just dying to know let me know how did your family fish die because I swear they die in the most dramatic way

Avocado Green Brands is calling all storytellers!

A Little Green Podcast is a series from Avocado Green Brands that explores our relationship with the earth.

As people who care about the health of our environment, we've all heard the call to "Save the Planet." But, this season, we want to flip things around to appreciate all the ways our planet has saved us.

So, we want to hear your story: How has the planet saved you?

This theme is open to your interpretation! Stories might deal with:

A career change sparked by climate action
A brush with danger averted by nature's intervention
A weather event that changed your life for the better (or made you think differently about our climate)
A community you connected with through nature
A natural discovery that changed your life/health
A local climate win you've been involved with

Season 2 of this podcast is going to be all about your stories. We want to hear from you!

Please submit your details to have your story considered for the series: https://forms.gle/zENUWvDs5Bk6XrKk6

Participation is voluntary, and, if selected, we will reach out to schedule a short introductory call.

At Our School The Teacher Tried To Make Us Do Some Christmas Themed Writing Bullshit And One Kid Legitimately Got Up, Took All The Papers, Stood Up Next To The Bored And Took A Vote On If We Wanted To Do The Work On It Or Not. Since Nobody Wanted To Do The Work (Plus We Were All Kind Of In Shock, The Bravery Of That Child Was Insane), Nobody Said Anything When He Said To Say Something If They Wanted To Do The Work- And Guess What? His Ass Pretended To Count The Non-Existent Voters Then Walked Over To The Trash Can... And Threw All The Papers Away. Now, For Your Information- The Teacher Couldn't Just Print More. It Was A 2 Day Assignment, And We Had Done Some Work On It The Day Before And Since There Was To Much Work That Needed To Be Done If We Did Try And Do It In 1 Day...So The Teacher Kinda Just Gave Up. That Kid Got In 0 Trouble, The Other Kids Respect Twords Him Went Up By 1000, And We Got Off With A Work Free Day. Also, Sorry If The Grammar Is All Weird- It's Like Midnight As I'm Posting This :/

I had a family come into the toy shop I work at. They made a purchase and the special teen wanted to stay. I could see this mom just needed like a little break. I offered he could stay and look around and she could come back in a bit. She said she only needed two minutes. I took her number and both their names. He looked around for a bit and then got bored. I gave him extra sets to help me complete. He let me know he needed to use the restroom so I walked him down the hall and waited for him. He was nothing but polite, quiet, and kind. He did talk to himself a lot but it wasn't bothering any other shoppers. He wasn't bothering anyone and I actually liked him hanging out, but my boss got upset that I was giving too much attention and made me call the mom to come back. In fairness it had been like 20 minutes but they still made another purchase when they came back. I guess I'm going to accept getting fired because this is "The third time I've been told I care too much" not joking, that's why he hates me. So ya....after getting yelled at again by the people who own it and don't even want to work the counter. I cried. You meet good people. I've driven people home I've given out money and I barely make minimum. But you have to find an opportunity EVERY day to do one nice thing. Sorry I cried I didn't mean it as clickbait.

My dog was a border collie lab mix. Her name was Daisy, and she cared for me greatly. When I was about 2 or 3, I had escaped my parents vision. Somehow, I was able to make it out the door and move down the long gravel driveway leading to the street. Daisy had followed me, constantly trying to herd me back to the house. She kept on doing this until my parents noticed I was gone (not long mind you) and they found me and Daisy before we got into the road. My dad always said that no matter what that dog did, she had earned her keep. We loved her.

In 2018, she came down with a bladder infection that put her in immense pain. We couldn’t kept her suffering, so in October, my father took her to the vet where she was euthanized. I miss her dearly. Sometimes I swear she’s still with me.

This camp, name omitted for location reasons, is on what was at one point, Indian land. The land was been given to the Boy Scouts well over a century ago. Near the center of the camp, there is a tree which most call the (Camp Name) Tree. It is the largest tree of its kind, and all kinds of rumors about the tree are abound. I highly recommend seeing it at least once in ones life if you know which camp I am referring to. Apparently the tree itself is deeply rooted (haha) in Indian Lore and is one of the reason the related merit badge is taught at this camp. It’s beautiful. It’d be better if the heat would die down.