The Town Of Blanche

If you visit France’s Cote d’Azur in your lifetime, do everything you can to avoid a small town called “Blanche”. I was in the country once with my parents, around 8 years ago (I was 12 at that time; we were on a family vacation), and we found ourselves looking for a place to get some rest and enjoy some of the local color. We were getting really hungry on the road, so it was with some luck that a town, unmarked on our map, rose unexpectedly on the horizon. This was the town of Blanche.

Immediately after we entered Blanche, we noticed that the colors of the houses were darker than anything I had seen in my entire life – it’s not like they were black or grey, they were normal colors for walls – they just look… not right. It’s hard to explain; almost like it was a color that we don’t even have a word for because it’s so dark and strange.

A few minutes after driving around the town, we all began to notice the fishy stench – like a Friday market, except for the fact that no fish were being sold. The people in the town also had a really weird skin tone, almost frostbitten and tinged a deep blue – if I recall correctly, my father said something like “These guys sure look like the sea.” We had originally planned to stay in the town for a while, but my mother and my sister were so disturbed by the creepy atmosphere and the town’s denizens that they insisted that we keep driving and find a different town to stay the night.

When we arrived in the next town, it was like we all gave a gigantic sigh of relief at once – we felt that we were back in normal civilization. However, the people who ran the inn that we stayed at in the second town did tell us some very freaky stories about Blanche – stories that made us really glad that we didn’t stay there…

House of Mirrors

In the heart of Washington, there’s a house that used to be owned by a family of five.

Nobody really knows what happened to them. Their neighbors at the time say that there were no signs of weirdness or fear in the family. The common testimony is that one day there was nothing wrong.

The night that followed, there were very loud noises coming from the house, and although people in the area came to investigate what was keeping them up, the windows were blocked by millions of post-it notes, and the windows would not break.

The following day, the house was empty.

Nobody has lived in that house since. But people have gone inside. In every bedroom, there is a mirror facing the corner of the room. If you turn it around, it won’t show your reflection. The area you’ll be standing in will be empty.

They say that on the rare occasion, you’ll see the person who used to sleep in that room, mutilated and bandaged from head to toe. If you turn around with your eyes open… All they know is that you don’t exist afterwards.

The Orchard

You’re in a strange room. You don’t remember how you got there, but you know that you don’t necessarily need to be there. As such, you decide it would be a good idea to leave. You turn around, and find yourself in an enclosed garden with a single row of orange trees on the left, and a single row of apple trees on the right. Behind you, a door covered with locks. Since you have no keys, you head down the only direction available to you.

You walk down the small dirt path, looking forward into the nothingness that awaits you at the end of the path. The fruit becomes more luscious with each step you take. You sniff the air, taking note of the lovely smells as they seem to call out to you. Although it is beckoning you to come forward and sample some of this beautiful harvest, you feel as though you should know better than to take anything from these trees and decide against it.

You consider turning back, and as you walk towards the end of the path, the fruit starts to return to its previously pleasant shape, color and smell. It’s as though no time has passed from when you were at the beginning of the path and this point, which puzzles you for some reason. As you continue walking down, you notice that your hands are turning into shrinking husks and that it’s getting harder to breathe through your nose. You decide to return to the start, where you “entered”, and your hands start returning to normal.

The fruit starts shriveling up as you walk past each tree. Each apple turning from their once beautiful, luscious, full redness into a dry, desecrated gray. Each orange losing its peel as it shrinks to the point where the juices are squeezed out of the center, leaving a husk with dried, rotten fruit lying on the inside.

Suddenly, one of the apple trees loses its bounty instantly. All the fruit withers into a deep black, early purple shadow of its former glory. The apples fall with a thud onto the ground, and it gets sucked into the soil, leaving no holes or marks to show where they had gone. The oranges go next, the juice no longer seeping out slowly. They squash into themselves, releasing a violent spray of what looks like clear oil into the air.

You head back towards the beginning of the path with earnest now, not bothering to look back at the trees. You don’t have to. You can hear the life squeezing out of them, hitting the ground with a thud and drawing back into the soil hard and fast. The damage done to your body is reversing quickly, and you notice several improvements appearing as well. Your fat is slipping off, defects in your skin fall away like stone being chiseled away at by a sculptor, and you start breathing in more deeply; as though you could never get enough. You run faster towards the locked door.

While your improvements take effect, you slowly notice that the apples are all but gone, and the oranges have all disappeared. As the last one goes into the ground, the first of the orange trees dives into the ground. You stop at this, and the trees seem to call out your name. They scream bloody murder, echoing in your head. Your legs return to motion, slightly wobbling with each threat slung directly at you. The voices shrink with the trees, but for some reason they continue coming on faster as though they were multiplying their ranks each second.

You finally reach the door. As you pry the locks open with your newfound superhuman strength, you turn to see a giant, rotted log careening down the path right at you. Hurriedly, you attempt to rip off another lock, fumbling with the smaller ones. You can hear the thudding of the log as it calls for your head, hitting the ground hard and lifting into the sky each time as it bounces towards you. The final lock comes off as the log is forming a great shadow over your body, tumbling down.

You exit the orchard, and the log comes down with a crash. As you run from that place, you look back to see the splintered mess that now prohibits entry or exit from that depleted garden of death. You start running towards the brightest light you can see… and fall face first into a furnace, pitchforks raised and ready to escort you into your final resting place for all eternity. The small, hideous fiends rake at your body, rending the flesh off every piece of your body until it resembles the desecrated log.

As a final act of anger, the imps defecate upon your charred corpse, filling it with seething hatred and a burning desire for revenge. Taking your now completely destroyed body, they return to the orchard, and you can feel yourself being buried in a vacant spot. You remember seeing many of these, and as the final patch of dirt is placed, the demons light the ground with unholy flames. Right on the spot, your body grows into a hideous tree, along with the others that you had destroyed in order to escape your unholy prison. After all the trees were regrown, you sprout apples on your many arms.

As you see the demons leave, locking the door, you see your next victim fall from the burning sky into the orchard…

Credited to Joreal Conners

The Prophetic Monolinth

Somewhere in the Pacific ocean is an island, surrounded by a swamp filled with the carcasses of fish and other, less recognizable things poking out of the mud. The mire extends as far as you can see.

Every so often, the mud will dry enough under that you can walk on it; about a days travel from shore is a large mound, at the top of which is an immense canyon, the bottom of which cannot be seen, although if the moon is large enough you will be able to see the slope of the canyon, and eventually the bottom, which is covered by a strange body of water. Rising from the water is a monolith, which is covered in bas-reliefs.

Those who have seen in related that everything carved onto the surface of the great monolith was a depiction of every major event that happened from the beginning of time: From the destruction of the dinosaurs to the black plague, all the way up to 9/11 and the Iraqi war.

Even stranger, people have stated many seeing depictions of events that had not yet happened. When questioned further, the majority would merely shake their head, refusing to elaborate.

However, the others who dared speak would all say something [mostly] similar to, “Just let it happen. It can’t be stopped, anyhow.”

Sokushinbutsu

Scattered throughout Northern Japan are two dozen mummified Japanese monks known as Sokushinbutsu.

Followers of Shugendô, an ancient form of Buddhism, the monks died in the ultimate act of self-denial. For three years the priests would eat a special diet consisting only of nuts and seeds, while taking part in a regimen of rigorous physical activity that stripped them of their body fat. They then ate only bark and roots for another three years and began drinking a poisonous tea made from the sap of the Urushi tree, normally used to lacquer bowls. This caused vomiting and a rapid loss of bodily fluids, and most importantly, it killed off any maggots that might cause the body to decay after death.

Finally, a self-mummifying monk would lock himself in a stone tomb barely larger than his body, where he would not move from the lotus position. His only connection to the outside world was an air tube and a bell. Each day he rang a bell to let those outside know that he was still alive. When the bell stopped ringing, the tube was removed and the tomb sealed.

Not all monks who attempted self-mummification were successful. When the tombs were finally opened, some bodies were found to have rotted. These monks were resealed in their tombs. They were respected for their endurance, but they were not worshiped. Those monks who had succeeded in mummifying themselves were raised to the status of Buddha, put on display, and tended to by their followers.

The Japanese government outlawed Sokushunbutsu in the late 19th century, though the practice apparently continued into the 20th.

The Unremarkable Service Station

In Central Australia, there is an unremarkable service station along a straight and barren stretch of road.

If you walk straight in and ask for the key, you will be given an unremarkable key attached to an unremarkable piece of wood. The key will unlock a door at the service station, leading to an impossibly long stepped corridor, dimly lit from an unseen source.

If you follow these stairs, you will begin to hear hungry cries of birds of prey that grow louder as you descend. After an amount of time, the light will vanish, leaving you in the dark, and a rasping voice will ask for your desires.

For each desire, you will experience all the sensations, unforgettable, branded into your memory, of bodily mutilation, of being torn asunder by impossible strength, of having an arm slowly flayed, each nerve individually pulled from your flesh.

You may speak as many desires as your sanity can take. Then you must turn and return up the steps and never look back. Return the key and go about your life. Your desires will be granted, but you will always have to live with the memories given to you in that dark place.

The Grove

In the heart of the Rockies, lies a grove of trees growing in a perfect circle. A grove that, aside from this geometric oddity, appears perfectly innocuous from the outside.

If one should step foot into this grove however, the inside with be as dark as any moonless night in those mountain woods, even on the brightest summer’s day. Those who have mistakenly wandered into the grove are rarely in any condition to say what happens inside, many simply never come out.

However, if you are very brave, or very foolish, you can attempt to camp within the grove. Go in with your eyes shut tight, lie down in your sleeping bag, and no matter what you hear, no matter what you feel, do not open them again.

If you somehow manage to find your way to sleep before the grove takes your sanity or your life, you will awaken in the middle of the day to the light of the sun on your face in a the middle of a grove; a grove that, aside from growing in a perfect circle, and containing your heart’s one greatest desire, is perfectly innocuous.

If one should step foot outside this grove however, they will find the outside to be dark as any moonless night in those mountain woods.

The Bay of Kola

The Bay of Kola, off Murmansk, is a graveyard for old Soviet submarines, which spill nuclear waste out into the Barents Sea.

Many a Western explorer has braved the subzero temperatures and biting tainted winds, but few have lived to tell the tale.

The locals of Murmansk say that sometimes, when the wind is high and is dashing the grease-iced waves on the choppy waters of the bay, one can hear the voices of those who died as a result of boarding those submarines.

The only problem is that only the strongest to go have ever survived, and each one of those surviving visitors to Kola dies within ten weeks of telling their story to the barman at Rokossovsky’s in Murmansk.

More-Than-Historical Monument

Somewhere in Brooklyn, New York exists a narrow old-style 12-story building. It looks as though it was built sometime in the late 1800's or early 1900's, however the only documentation of the building was in the early 1900's, when it was first noticed. Nobody really knows where this building came from, but nobody has really bothered to tear it down or do anything with it for as long as it’s been around.

In May 1902, a couple of teenage kids explored the building. Inside, they found a single hallway on each floor of the building. Down each hall there were several doors on each side of the hall. On some floors, there were 31 doors; on others, 30. One even had 28 doors. All the doors, the halls, and the stairwells appeared to be very worn out.

For some reason, all the doors had the same rusty labels on them (the label read “1902?), and they were all unlocked. All the rooms looked to be the same; old, dusty, and appearing to fall apart. The first 5 floors of the building were the same, but the teens said that they couldn’t go down the whole 5th floor hallway; they said that there was something about it that seemed to give them chills, practically immobilizing them.

4 months later, they went mad and committed suicide.

After this incident, local scientists began to conduct experiments concerning the building. They sent in mental patients for a period of time, then obesrved their behavior for a period of 6 months afterwards. All but 3 patients were able to emerge from the “haunted” building. It has officially been reported that only the truly heartless and insane are able to go into the building and emerge unharmed (considering that they were already insane before they went in).

The bulding still stands today; it’s just that not many people can locate it. A small group of ghosthunters in December 2008 located this building, thinking that it’s phenomena was the result of ghosts (go figure…). When the went inside, it still looked the same way it was reported over 100 years ago.

There’s just a few slight differences:

1. All the labels on the door, although still rusty, no longer read “1902?; they now read “2008?.

2. There appeared to be an extra room on the second floor of the bulding; it was still the same as all the other rooms, however.

3. The ghost hunters were able to make it to the last floor of the building, before that same chilling feeling set into them.

4. There were 3 doors this time around that were locked. Their locations are:

• On the 6th floor, the 28th door down the hall is locked. Its label reads “1914?, and the smell of death seeps out from under the door.
• On the 9th floor, the 1st door is also locked. Its label reads “1939?, and it also reeks of death and a German Swastika can be seen carved into the door.
• Also on the 9th floor, the 11th door down the hall is locked. Its label reads “2001?, and a light layer of smoke can be seen drifting out from under the door.

In February 2009, the team of ghost hunters were admitted into a mental institute for violent and abrupt behaviors. They have been deemed insane. Nobody really knows what evil surrounds this building, but if I were you, I wouldn’t go looking for it…

Credited to Neo.

Tourist Trap

In rural Wisconsin, there is an old abandoned park. Built in the 1920s, it served as the town’s gathering place for everyone.

That is, until a newly developed Train and Tunnel for Tots™ ride was installed in 1932. It was an innocent looking childish train, with one main (mechanized) head car, with three small trolleys pulled behind it. It went around some loops before going into a small tunnel.

But this is where the story gets weird. There were numerous cases of child deaths that year, all of them happening after the child rode on that train system. Some kids went missing in that short tunnel (about ten feet), and others went comatose after leaving. One, upon exiting, was found to be dead. Her dress was covered in what looked like small bloody handprints. Some killed themselves by scratching at their throats until they bled out, and one of them even killed another child before hanging herself with razor wire at the family’s farm.

The park was closed, and the town’s popularity as a tourist town plummeted.

Recently, a team of scientists were sent out to the park. They taped a video camera to the train, and put a new intern in with it, before sending it on its way onto the tracks.

When the train left the tunnel, it was empty, except for the camera.

The last ten seconds were nothing but static, save for the sound of children laughing.

Credited to Arachne.

The Post Office

In the panhandle of Oklahoma, along the interstate, there is a lone brick building marked “Post Office No.56?, and is marked with tape at the door as “Closed”.

The building has no doors, and looks like a small box of bricks from a distance. The door is always locked, and will never budge, no matter how hard you try.

Every July 7th, if you are positioned to the west of the building with the door opposite of where you stand, your nose will begin to bleed. If you drink some of the blood, one of your teeth will fall out.

Take the took and go to the door. The tape will no longer be there, and the building will have one small eye shaped window.

If you go to the window and place the tooth in it, the door will click open. Do not look in the window.

Never look in the window.

When you open the door, a slow salty breeze will blow out, and the entire room will be pitch black.

Enter the room and shut the door. You will wait 10 minutes to 40 minutes, depending on the last time you saw your parents.

After the time is up, a single shrill scream will sound. If you flinch, you will wake up in your bed, sweating. If you don’t flinch, close your eyes quickly and start running. You will run for about 4-7 minutes depending on how fast you are, then you will hit a wall. Do not open your eyes.

The ground will feel warm, and your eyelids will see the color red. Do not open your eyes. Just feel around until you find a ring on the floor. The ring will be cold as ice. Pull on the ring and a trapdoor will open. Enter the trapdoor.

After doing this, you will fall through the roof of an office tile in a building in downtown Tulsa, in a bathroom stall. In the toilet will be a wallet and a gold ring. Take the gold ring, do not touch the wallet.

The Void

Rumor has it that every Halloween during the hours of 2am and 5am, there exists a void. You must stand in front of a mirror in a pitch black room with your gaze fixated on the mirror.

If you remain in the room when the moment arrives, you will feel a chill seize your body. Place your right hand on the mirror and whisper “I accept.” If done correctly, in the mirror, there will be a faint image of an infant with no flesh and pitch black eyes. He will stare directly into your soul and you will hear the buzzing of flies and nervous whispering.

You will not be able to make out the image in the mirror, but you will be filled with unspeakable terror. The infant will ask you five questions about events that have occured within your life.

His voice will sound like the rubbing of sandpaper and will be devoid of all human emotion. For each question that you answer incorrectly, one of your five senses will be consumed and lost to you forever. For each question that is answered correctly, you will be able to recite the name of someone you know.

That person will be found dead the next morning with their flesh removed and their eyes missing.

The Most Beautiful Thing in the World

There is a certain website online that seems to serve no purpose.

The website is completely black, with nothing to click on, no links, nothing.

It is said that if you logged on at exactly 2:59 AM, an image labeled themostbeautifulthingintheworld.jpg will be uploaded and having seen it, you will vanish, never to be seen again.

Some say that the picture contains the portrait of a person, whereas others say that the picture is in fact something terrifying.

Whatever the case, at exactly 3:00 AM an image will be uploaded that makes you wake up instantly in your bed as if awoken from a dream.

The Houseboat

In a private terminal at the Port of Boston there is a houseboat. This houseboat has been anchored there, permanently, for at least 50 years. The eccentric owner has maintained all fees and taxes and is in good standing with the Port Authority.

Still, even if the owner wasn’t financially responsible, no one would ask them to depart. Despite the owner’s friendly, hospitable, if odd nature, there is a persistent air of unease around the boat and the area of the Port surrounding.

Very few people have taken the owner up on offers of hospitality, but those who do recount a wholly unbelievable tale: When you step into the houseboat, it’s as if you’re sent backwards 50 years in time. Looking out windows depicts a cityscape of antiquity and the television receives live broadcasts of programs of the era (including news programs). If you look out the open door, you see the city as it stands today. When the door closes, you can see the 50 year old skyline through the port opening.

Some visitors who spend time with the owner notice something particularly disturbing: an almost uncanny resemblance to their host, despite obvious age differences. Though this is odd, the owner is friendly and trustworthy (ignoring the air of unease most feel), so it isn’t surprising if casual friendships build between a guest and the proprietor.

All this would, of course, be very strange and worthy of note, but dismissed as some form of elaborate hoax or illusion, if it weren’t for one additional detail. Whenever someone elects to spend the night in this houseboat after an evening of conversation and a few drinks, they are never heard from again.

When the guest awakens in the morning, the owner is nowhere to be found and suddenly, the city skyline never changes back to its contemporary appearance when exiting the boat. Under the bed there is a briefcase full of $100 bills with a letter stapled to a list.

The letter simply reads, “You have 50 years to follow these instructions if you wish to free yourself from this hell. The clock is ticking. Get to work.”

The Lottery Number

The lottery gives you a three digit number and a four digit number each day, right?

What else has seven digits split into three, then four?

That’s right, it’s a phone number.

The lottery is a telephone oracle.

Whoever is on the end of the line when you call that number knows something that you need to know, though sometimes getting the prophecy out of them can be difficult.

It helps if you have a winning ticket, I believe.

The Reanimated Corpse

Somewhere in the middle of the Desert in Nevada, there’s a place where, if you look to the west at sunset you’ll be able to make out a tiny, house-shaped structure in the far distance, Wait for the sun to set completely and then you must WALK straight towards that structure without deviating.

As the night wears on, you will hear groans and cries of pain in the distance. Ignore them. You must continue to move towards where you saw the building. The night will seem much longer than any normal night, but if you continue walking until the sun comes up again behind you, you’ll find yourself suddenly in front of a battered, dusty shack. Inside, you will find no windows or doors (including the one you just came though) and in the center of the room will be a body. Reports of the decay vary from recently dead to a skeleton with clothes.

You might recognize the clothes or possibly the face. This body is yours. You can inspect it for as long as you dare. Check it for wounds or clues to your death… check its pockets for clues about your future if you wish. But you must figure out how to leave the room and do it before your corpse awakens. If you make it out of the room, you’ll find yourself back at the edge of the desert where you started. But if your corpse stirs before you can find the way out, you’ll be trapped in that room for eternity while your corpse is allowed to roam free. What does a corpse do with a second chance at life, you ask?

Well, remember those groans and cries you heard crossing the desert? A reanimated corpse has to eat, too…

The Eisenhower Interstate Phenomena

Little known fact, is that the Eisenhower Interstate system is built over major leylines. Rumor has it, that if specific conditions are met, weird phenomena will occur.

Phenomena of the First

The first sign of this phenomenon is that you will lose ALL radio reception, and devices such as MP3 players, Discmen, tape decks and other music players will cease functioning. Your heater will begin to only dispense cold air, regardless of setting. after the first mile of this, you will notice a fog growing at the edges of the road, and you will see no exits, regardless of whether they were supposed to be there.

If you continue on, you will begin to see the occasional pedestrian. Some of them will gesture that they would like to hitch a ride. Under no circumstances should you stop for them, no one has ever stopped and survived. If you see lights approaching from behind, and it is a hearse, do NOT let it pass you. No matter what. After 13 miles, the phenomenon will end, and you will be safe.

Phenomena of the Second

Investigated by the witnesses after they read instructions they found in a book, left behind in a rest stop bathroom. Participants must mix a shot of whiskey, a drop of their own blood (One drop for each participant), a pinch of salt, and a small amount of used engine oil. Mix with water from a rest stop fountain in a glass bottle, and smash it on the interstate in the evening or morning. If the instructions were followed correctly, the way will become densely foggy. An unmarked exit will appear, and if you pass it by, it will be closed to you for six years. If you take the exit, go left and under the interstate.

Half a mile down the road, is an old gas station. Inside, it is said that a full glass the coffee sold there, will keep you awake all night, and the other food and beverages are purported to have various properties themselves.

Pay the proprietor only in metal coinage, no bills, no checks, no cards. There are also some arcade machines near the back of the store, as well as an old fortune telling wizard in a glass case. He knows how you will die. Accept no sexual favors that are offered to you while there, and do not anger anyone. Your life depends upon it.

Observe & Absolve

There is an abandoned mental hospital at the top of a hill in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Once every 5 years an old rusty box spring appears within the courtyard of the hospital.

If you can sneak inside and sleep through the night on the bed, in the morning a man with a shirt that reads “Observe and absolve” will take out his wallet and give you a picture.

This picture will show you how you will die.

If the picture is of the man standing before you, running won’t help.

The Classified Ads

Every year, for an unknown number of years, an ad is published in the New York Times Classifieds section. The advertisement is short and lists a seemingly mundane household appliance: a refrigerator, a vacuum, a piece of furniture. A select number of people in the U.S., and indeed the world, search for this advertisement, which contains three keywords seemingly unusual for a simple ad. Once found, these people wait exactly one week for a second ad in the NY Times, also ostensibly a normal–if strangely worded–ad, but combined with the first, provide both a code key and message.

The code, when completed, is a series of numbers, which correspond to the Washington, D.C. Yellow Pages, and page number, column, letter number, etc., and this in turn creates a text message. The text of the message is vague, but contains the following information: soon, a gathering will be held in
Washington, D.C. The searchers are instructed to bring a fellow guest to accompany him/her to the gathering. The destination is a very old hotel in Georgetown, a establishment dating back to the time of the founding fathers.

Sometimes searchers are instructed to bring a scientist, such as a physicist or biologist. Other years the instructions are to bring along an engineer or a doctor; the requested person is always a professional of some kind.

The seekers and their guests are admitted to the restaurant on the appointed night only after giving a password, also in the message, to the masked maitre’d waiting at the entrance. What follows after that is unclear and there are conflicting accounts. The general consensus is that the seekers are rewarded for solving the puzzle, and are made wealthy for the rest of their lives, provided they remain silent about what they discovered. The fate of the professionals is unknown.

Dargaia's Nectar

If you ever find Dargaia’s nectar, you’ll probably be one of the ones who have been looking for it all their lives, and thus won’t need any instructions on what to do with it.

Just the same, it’s pretty simple, at least to start with. Make sure your affairs are in order (incase you have a bad reaction), and then? Bottoms up.

The coming months are the least pleasant part. You’ll find yourself unable to keep food down long before you’re far enough along to stop needing it. Same with sleep. The color of your blood will be off, and your veins will consequently stand out more. Expect a few ingrown body parts; little things, just fingers and ears and teeth, usually pressing up against the skin. Make sure you’re caught up on your booster shots because you’re never going in for a checkup again. Or wearing anything more revealing than a trenchcoat in public, most likely.

Eventually, a little cut on your belly will start ‘unhealing’, becoming a puss-filled wound in a few days. Over the coming week, three things will emerge from this.
The first object resembles a greasy black beechnut with maybe a tooth or two growing from it. When you’re dead someone will eventually find it and use it to make a new batch of Dargaia’s nectar. Hide it well, make things fun for future generations.

The second object basically looks like a softball-sized cluster of veins, many of them broken and leaking oily black stuff, all wrapped around something. Then it’ll squirm and you’ll notice the twisted little skinless fetus in the middle. It will only survive for about twenty seconds. Burn the remains.

The third object will—

well, let’s just call it “object 3?. It’s easier that way.

You can plant it anywhere you want. I advise some place where you don’t mind spending all your time and no one else would go. Your back yard or under your cellar works if you don’t have any roommates; as long as there’s fertile soil. Dig at least five feet down. It won’t want to be buried, but just keep piling dirt onto it (if you can still hear it when you’re finished you didn’t go deep enough).

Its veins (or roots, I guess) will eventually spread in all direction about a foot and a half for every year of your life. Grass and weeds will grow stiff and bony, or black and oily, or take on the color and texture of a spider bite, or rice paper. Wood will be infected too; you’ll hear the arteries in your walls pulsing on quiet nights. The ground will rot with dead insect and animal life. Don’t mow your lawn; it bleeds like hell.

This is your sanctuary.

No matter what threats or injuries beset you outside, here you will be safe and healthy. Well, what passes for ‘healthy’ for you now. And if you really hate someone, bring them here. Trick them into coming. They’ll get infected, one way or another; a lungfull of spore, a thornprick, a bit of residue on their hand. They will blood-vomit and the blood will have tiny centipedes in it. They’ll shit out their own spinal fluids. Their eyes will milk over and hatch; little spines and brambles will grow from the sockets. They’ll survive for months or years, doctors will be baffled, it will be completely fucking great.

That’s all for starters. You’ll learn more as you go. Much more. But if I told you everything now you might not do it.

Whatever you do, just guard it with your life, with your very soul. If you think you’re in danger of loosing it, dig it up, kill it with a silver needle, let someone else make a new one some day. You’ll feel as if you’ve pierced your own heart, but it’s better than letting it fall into the wrong hands.

Because you’re a Holder now.

And you’d better not let them come together.

One of Them

Any night, around 10 or 11 pm, take yourself to a flat, open area where you can walk in a straight line for two minutes or so without running into anything.

Once there, face in the direction you plan to walk, with your arms at your sides and your hands relaxed. Close your eyes, and take a deep breath. At precisely 11:09 and 20 seconds, start walking. Be sure to take one step every second, no more, no less. Do not open your eyes, and do not hesitate.

Count your steps in your head as you go. On the one hundred and eleventh step, say the word “One” out loud, and stop. Your breath will catch in your throat, and your hair will stand on end. For the next ten seconds, you will be unable to move a single muscle in your body, no matter how hard you try.

After these ten seconds, you will be able to move and breathe again – however, you will then start to feel the sensation of cold metal claws seizing each of your fingers by the base and plucking them clean off of your hand. It will not hurt. You will surely be horrified, but do not open your eyes, and do not move. If you move or open your eyes, all that anyone will ever find of you is your two fingerless hands, severed cleanly at the wrist.

Once the claws have stopped, and all of your fingers have been plucked off, stay still for another ten seconds. It may help to count. After these ten seconds have passed, you may open your eyes. You will find that your fingers are still quite firmly attached to your hands.

Go home immediately, and go directly to bed. Speak to no one for the rest of the night, and enter no building that you do not consider your home.

The next day, you will have become One of Them. Once per day, as long as there is even a sliver of sunlight, you may point at someone and speak the word “One.” That night, he will face the same trial that you faced.

If you see that person the next day, you will know that he, too, has become One of Them. If not, then do not be alarmed if you do not feel hungry the rest of the day.

The Feeling

Go to any mirror and put your hand against the glass.

Don’t worry, nothing will grab you.

Wait. Sometimes it takes half a day, sometimes it takes a moment. But you’ll yank your hand away when you feel it.

Worms or centipedes, who knows? All pressed in tight like there’s no more room on that side, wriggling against your skin.

When you pull back, the glass is the same and you’ll be unharmed.

But now you know it’s there.

Trick or Treat

Don’t bother trying to find it. You won’t find anything about the name of the town or what happened here. This manuscript will be found long after the events that transpired in this place, but I hope against everything else that you’re someone in a position of power. I pray to God himself that you can prevent this from ever happening again, but I don’t want to give you too much credit. Like me, you are only human, after all. They are not. They’ve been around for a very, very long time.

Fat chance, really. You probably don’t want that responsibility, and even if you did take it upon your shoulders to track them down, you can’t single-handedly stop the children. Their manipulators are not “on the grid.” Whoever engineered this is in control of the world on a very disturbing level.

This is what I want you to do. Read these pages, if they’re still legible, and take what you will from them. Don’t go on a wild goose chase, and realize that when you find this book that it will not be in the place where I left it. They’ll move it somewhere else, to deceive you. I’ve left my mark on a tree there. Only then, when you see my name, will you know, “this is the place.” You may have even heard of it in the history books, but be assured, any rumors on Wikipedia or Google pages that you pull up will be guess-work at best. None of them are even close to the truth. When you find the place, there may already be another town just like it. That’s what I’m trying to stop. If we’re not successful, then just realize, above all things, that evil exists. I’m not talking about bad people, or tragic accidents. I’m talking real, intelligent, ancient evil. It is calculated, and it is always one step ahead of you. Should you decide to take my place and become the paragon to prevent the corruption of the hearts and minds of children, I thank you in advance.

I told you that I’m human. I lied. I used to be, before All Hallow’s Eve on that fateful night. I’ve been alive since then, far longer than any human being, and the reason is because I love children. I’ve always loved them in their purity and their innocence. That’s why I was taken in by their ruse. That’s why I’ve finally decided to put all this down, centuries later. I won’t be here much longer, and someone has to take up the burden.

I’ve waited….. until I saw them return. They’ll be back this year. They’re planning the same thing again, and I can’t stop them. Again, I can’t expect that much from you, but I’m only giving you all this so you’ll believe me. I have to be believable. If you think I’m crazy, you’ll throw this in a garbage can, and more people will disappear. It’s time to tell you what happened. I’m rambling.

Back then, All Hallow’s Eve was the time for evil’s ascension. You’ve all forgotten. If you left your house on that night in the old country, you were a devil worshipper. “Halloween” was not the term we used. We fled to the shores of this country because we were persecuted for our lifestyle choices. We worshipped nature, the changing of the seasons, the solstice of spring, autumn, winter, and summer. In the purest sense of the word, we were druids. Our names and accents were English, but we were servants of the earth.

We were some of the first to celebrate it as a holiday. The natives here were puzzled by our behavior, but also frightened by it, and so they left us alone. They misunderstood. We were not the ones to be afraid of. At the time, I was relieved. They’d attacked us in our settlements, time and time again, but as it drew closer to the end of October, they stayed away. Maybe in their own noble bonds with the earth and soil, they knew something terrible was on the horizon.

They were right. John Hunter’s little boy wanted to be a native, with a bow and arrow and a real headdress. Little Mary Taylor made a dress that was crafted after the local schoolhouse teacher’s prettiest outfit. She idolized her educator, of course. They all had their get-ups; they were the first trick-or-treaters in what was to become the United States of America, one hundred and fifty years later. We sent them out to frollick about the settlement, collecting apples and tarts and other sweet things in to their burlap goody bags. They were no Snickers or Milky Ways, and yet, the magic of this “holiday” held no less sway over them than it does the youth of our current time. They dress up as the Joker, the Power Rangers, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. These children were their predecessors.

I sent my daughter with Mary and John Hunter junior. Despite our mistrust and wariness of the Anglican church and the monarchs that presided over it, my little girl was dressed as the queen of England. I refused to crush her fantasy world, and so I simply indulged her. We heard promises to return after sundown, to say yes ma’am and no sir, and not to linger too long if they were invited inside the households of our community.

We didn’t realize that the house on the edge of the settlement existed until we saw the children go inside. There were no lanterns or sources of light in the windows, no fire or harvest dolls on the outside of the dwelling. As we sat in the middle of the town hall, imbibing in the pleasures of distilled moonshine (none of you will ever make it as potent as we did in those days) amongst our brethren, we watched our young ones gravitate across the middle of our town, to the foreboding household that had seemingly been constructed overnight. When we gazed upon it, it seemed as though the place were “shimmering.” It pained my vision to look upon the building, as if my senses were being forced and propelled in another direction. Such a thing is difficult to put in to words, but I seemed to be the only one who realized that our kids were all heading to the same place. When I questioned John Hunter as if something were odd about their actions, he stared at me as if I were insane.

“What do you mean?” He asked. “There’s no house there. They’re going to play by the stockades.”

The sun had set by that point, but as I said before, none of them were concerned. The natives hadn’t shown up for weeks. I decided to walk to the phantom dwelling that only I and the children could see, to peer inside and see who these new settlers were, and why it called to the youths as if it were a black hole in a sea of stars.

I tried to stand outside, to look through the window, but when I saw what was happening, it was too late. I breached the doorway with my buck-knife drawn, but there was nothing about the things inside that I could harm with a weapon.

There’s something deep inside of us, something embedded within the human spirit, that’s perfectly aware when we encounter something truly terrible. Fear, horror, evil, revulsion…. it all hits you in a spastic wave, like a fierce exploding bullet that shatters the innermost parts of your soul with a relentless and powerful fury. I saw it in that moment, standing in that darkened doorway. They weren’t people, and they weren’t spirits. They were halfway there, lingering over the unconscious bodies of my daughter and her peers in their hooded black robes of half-existence. There was one, in particular, who made me feel as though my eyes would pop like ripened cherries when I stared at it. It was the leader, the source of that tug, that pull….. and it was slowly fading, disappearing like a gaseous black cloud of death, through my little girl’s nostrils and mouth. She was gasping for air, as if every breath after the one that preceded it were filled with acid…. as if she were hungry for real, fresh air in her small lungs. With every breath, the figure faded deeper in to her, along with the rest of them.

I wish I could say that I was a hero, and that I hacked them all to bits; I wish I could say that I saved the day and made Halloween a night when the worst thing that children have to worry about is poisoned candy. It didn’t happen. There was one of them left, floating toward me on elongated, blackened tendrils of shimmering nothingness. By all real means of my imagination, it shouldn’t have BEEN there, but it was, and soon, it was going inside of me. The last thing I saw were their little feet, scurrying out of the phantom-house and in to the town. I FELT that something terrible was about to happen. I had no idea. Everything went black, and then, I was outside of myself. I was conscious, but observing my feet, my hands, doing things beyond my own scope of physical control.

They led me and our children in to our meeting hall, where, of course, the kids were embraced by the open, loving arms of their parents. I witnessed the betrayal, the brutal moments in which the truth instilled by the love for family and offspring would transform in to a cause for the destruction of our village.

They absorbed them. There’s no better adjective for what happened. One moment, they were there, and seconds later, they were nothing but dark essence, filtering in through the eyes and noses and mouths of their devil-children. It was over in minutes. A night that should have been a celebration of nature, of the seasons, had turned in to the end of everything that we knew and loved here in our new land.

I started to fight it. The kids knew. The moment I began to resist, to try and reclaim my limbs and mind from the corrupting influence within, their heads snapped back from their feast of souls to survey me in my struggle. My daughter’s eyes were sunken, black pools of the abyss, devoid of any emotion, any semblance of the bright-eyed stare that she once held for me in all her love and adoration for father. I miss that the most, really. The way she’d run to me when I came in from the fields every evening as the sun went down. I lived for that. What reason do I have to live now, other than to find her and stop them? I’m incapable. That falls on you, my friend.

They took the part of my daughter that counts, the part that I loved and cherished, and turned her in to a servant. You ask me why I’m still alive, and again, it’s because I love her, so very, very much. Her body is a hollow shell, filled with the malefice and blackness of evils beyond our world.

The black-robed things have grown as centuries have passed. They are from some place that is not of this world, but their urgency, their hunger, to devour and destroy, is insatiable. It’s an exponential, amplifying contagion on mankind, and All Hallow’s Eve is their pinnacle, their Christmas. I’ve done my best to warn you throughout history, to leave my mark in places where their desolation has left nothing but dust on the wind and empty houses. A deserted football field in a Texas ghost town. A card room in the back of a night club in Chicago, right under the nose of civilization. Roanoke Island, North Carolina, before Johne Rolfe found it in the aftermath.

The thing that I expelled through sheer force of will alone has left me with an unusually long and empty life, devoid of anything but my desire for revenge. I have failed. I’m pleading with you. October thirty-first is not long away. My little girl, or what’s left of her, is going to lead them to the same place. It’s been re-founded, except now, it hums with sport utility vehicles and cell phones. I don’t want this to happen to your child.

Go to Roanoke, and stop them from repeating the ritual. Those bodies they inhabit now are frail, on their way out. It’s been almost five hundred years. They’ll need new ones on this Halloween. Look for a building that appears as though it shouldn’t be there. It will be across from that very tree where I signed my name, where I made my mark. I changed my title, named myself after the tribe of natives who knew it was coming…. who, perhaps, tried to warn us, but for some reason, we failed to heed or recognize their warnings. They were more closely attuned to the earth than us, and yet, they were still wiped out, eventually.

Trick or treat?

Go now. You don’t have much time.

- Croatoan

Credited to Violent Harvest

The Socratic Method

A secret society meets once every three years at a small diner in West Virginia.

To join, you must come to the American Grill diner located in Cricket at 9:30 PM on September the twenty-first.

The only uniform is a heavy overcoat and a green tie.

Order an “Eggs and bacon platter with coffee.”

The waiter will tell you that the breakfast menu is unavailable, reply, “Well, just the coffee then.” You’ll be allowed to stay after closing time for the meet.

The meeting itself is a meeting of minds and philosophy regarding immortality.

The society is called “The Socratic Method.” They hoist their mugs at the beginning and end of the meeting and say “Death to Socrates.”

It’s rumored a little hemlock is added to the first cup, and an antidote to the last.

The Alternate Universe

There is another universe, a lot like ours.

Entrances to it are scattered throughout the world, in the places where the most psychological energy gathers. Schools, hospitals, that kind of place.

During any leap year, on February 28, this is the period of abnormal astral activity that opens the doors.

At exactly midnight, the minute between the 28th and 29th, if you’re lucky or unlucky enough to be by one of these doors, it will open and beckon you.

In this other universe, things are mostly the same, except all love and hate relationships are reversed. Your worst enemy is your lover, your best friend is out to kill you, that sort of thing. It’s a nice head trip, a good escape from this reality.

Have fun, but remember… If you enter, you are stuck there until next leap year.

Credited to Shadow2by4

The Only Sensible Ritual Pasta

You wake up to find yourself lying flat in an unfamiliar and utterly filthy room. Your head pounds as you sit up and survey your surroundings.

“Ohhhhww. . . What hit me?”

You notice the room is dimly lit by a hanging bulb that threatens to flicker out any moment. Large piles of debris are scattered about the small room, and there are no windows.

“Hey, who said that? Where am I?”

To your left, right and straight ahead of you there are sinister looking doors. You do not fully comprehend your situation, but you must choose one of these doors. One door-

“Hey! Are you ignoring me?”

-Leads to salvation. One leads to an endless maze of halls and passages that will trap you forever, and the third leads to eternal damnation. You must-

“Wait, what? Are you serious?”

YOU MUST CHOOSE A DOOR.

“Why? The exit’s right there.”

In the cold, frightened core of your heart, you know that there is no escape from the desolate predicament you now find yourself in.

“Dude, the doors right there. It even says so. See? ‘Exit’, right on the front. Big letters too.”

After a moments struggle, you come to realize the futility of resistance and return once more to the crossroads of passages. There is no way out.

“Only because some bastard locked up the exit-”

You grumble to yourself as you contemplate-

“It was you wasn’t it? Jerk.”

CONTEMPLATE YOUR FATE.

“Fine, fine. Eenie, meenie, miney. . . That one.”

-You say to yourself as you chose the door to your left. Unbeknownst to you is that that particular door leads only to misery, death, and the destruction of your very soul.

“What? Oh HELL no!”

A sudden burst of intuitive clarity causes you to leap away back before the door closes behind you, sealing your fate.

“It wasn’t intuition, you just said-”

You must make your choice between the remaining two doors.

With a sigh, you go towards the one in the middle.

“I know what I’m doing-”

You mutter-

“-I don’t need you telling me. Prick.”

You take hold of the doorknob to the passage that will lead you to wander the maze for all eternity, oblivious to the fate that will soon befall you. Deathless, mindless and hopeless, your rotting corpse will still walk on long after-

“Gah!”

-You cry as you once again leap back from your choice of passage.

“Don’t get snappy with me. So, one door left? Salvation, ho.”

-You say as you head towards the final door and grasp the handle. The path you have chosen will be long and frought with peril. You will face unsurmountable, blood thirsty foes and travel farther than the simple realms you think of as ‘life and death’. Should you fail, your tattered soul will serve as one of the tortures spectral servants of the lord of the underworld, Gwyn ap Nudd. Should-

“Wait a minute. . . ”

-You succeed, you will have all the unimaginable pleasures of this world and the next, though you will be doomed to remain in the underworld as Gwyn’s right hand man-

“HOLD UP YOU OMNISCIENT LYING PACK OF DOG CRAP! You said one of the doors would get me out of here! Salvation, remember? How is being trapped in the underworld salvation? Get me out!”

There is no escape-

“Don’t give me that! There’s always a way out.”

There is no- What are you doing? Where did you get that pipe?

“It was lying in one of those piles of trash. What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going to bust down the exit.”

You can’t do that! It’s against the rules!

“Oh, there are rules now, ehy? What happened to your big, scary, narrorator voice?”

There is no escape!

“There will be, just give me a minute! Just, a little. . . There! Ha, got it!”

You can’t-

“I just did. Goodbye and good luck, Mr. Scary voice. I’m going home, go find another stooge.”

I, ah-oh, fuck. I’m out of here too! This place gives me the willies.

Credited to Astonished Lemons.

Keeper of Eternity

Over the past millennium, science and medicine has advanced so far as to put miracles in the hands of men. Many of the diseases that were fatal merely five hundred years ago now have cures or at least treatments thanks to the brilliant minds of man. That being so, there’s still one fatal infirmity humanity has yet to overcome, and that’s mortality.

For those devoted enough, however, there is yet a way. Located just off the East Coast of North America somewhere is a shrine dating as far back as the earliest recorded civilizations. Lost to the ages now, there is but one path to this shrine, and it still sends its call, as if daring the hardiest of man to make that perilous voyage.

If you find yourself in Savannah, GA someday and think you’d like to play your hand at immortality, simply hop in your car and continue east out of town along E President Street and continue along it until it turns into Islands Expressway. If the forces deem you worthy, or if they’re simply in the mood to watch in amusement as you throw your life away, the sky will darken with rainclouds–even if it was clear and blue only moments before–and the forest about you will seem to glow. Keep your eyes peeled and you should see a turn-off into the woods a few minutes after this happens.

Now if you’re carrying a map you’ll probably notice this path is not indicated anywhere on it, but pay that no heed. Continue along the tight and densely overgrown path at a slow pace, for if you go off the road here, you’ll have no hope of ever finding your way out of this forest, and no tow-truck will ever find the turn-off to come retrieve you. Simply follow the path before you–for while there are many bends, there are no turn-offs from this one. The trees will only grow denser as you progress, until the limbs scrape like fingers along the top of your vehicle (you should probably note that it would be a very bad idea to undergo this journey in a convertible).

Eventually, after approximately forty-five minutes to an hour of driving, you should come to a dead end, where the trees tighten about you like a noose around a doomed man’s neck. If you have a GPS system in your car it will proclaim that you’re about fifteen miles into the Atlantic Ocean. Do not attempt to reverse at this point, for you’ll find that the path is no longer there. Check your watch, or your phone, or your car’s read-out for the time, for regardless of the time of day not a single ray of light will spill through these densely packed trees. If it is dark out, or if it will be dark out within the next few hours do not open your door, and do not turn off your headlights. You may turn off your car every so often to save gas, but you’ll want to crank it up again periodically to keep your battery from dying. If you let down your guard in this forest at night, you’re as good as dead.

If you were wise enough to start this trip early enough, and it’s still light out, you may exit the car at this point. You’ll notice the trees around you leaning in your direction, as if peering down at you curiously. In a loud assertive voice proclaim, “I am here to claim my fate, and none here shall stand in my way.”

You’ll hear a sound behind you. When you turn to look you’ll notice a small path that hadn’t been there before. Do not hesitate, do not question it, simply walk purposefully forward and start down the path before you’re trapped in that clearing indefinitely. The path may wind drastically, depending on which way you were facing when it was created, simply continue walking and do not look back, no matter how loud the rustling gets behind you.

You’ll soon find yourself ankle-deep in a swamp, and you may find the sound of frogs croaking a soothing change from the forest’s lively rustling. It would be most wise at this point to find the longest thickest branch you can, for the marshes of Georgia can hide the nastiest creatures in only a foot of water, so you’ll need to feel your way along like a blind man.

Only about 10 yards from the forest-line the land drops off into the ocean, and unless the forces are feeling particularly cruel you should be able to see the log poking up out of the water right away. If not, you’ll need to search, and it may take a while but once you’re near it there’s no mistaking it. Walk until you feel the ground break away beneath you, then get into the water. When you’re touching the log, you’ll want to take in the largest lungful of breath you can manage, then dive under and swim to the bottom as quickly as you can. It will be a long swim but do not turn around, even if you think you’re about to faint. Swim as fast as you can and keep going down, keeping a hand on the log until you come out the other side.

You’ll resurface in a pond in the middle of a dark forest much similar to the one you just exited, only just at the edge of the pond will be an ancient building of indeterminable origin. Go inside. Fires will be lit, marking your path to the shrine of the Keeper. A large statue, the likeness of the Keeper, will stand at the far wall and at his feet will be an empty bowl. Address the Keeper in a loud, confident voice, saying “I’ve come very far, and all I ask for is something to drink.”

His response will be a single, very personal question, and he will speak it directly into your mind, so listen carefully. When he has asked his question, do not take too long to answer, and answer only in the truth. BE VERY PRECISE WITH YOUR ANSWER. He will know if you’re trying to hide something. Once you have answered him completely, the bowl at his feet will fill with a strange liquid. This liquid will reflect the entire rainbow’s spectrum of colors, and it will bear no scent. You must drink this liquid, or you will never leave the forest alive. Depending on whether or not the Keeper liked your answer and deems you worthy, the liquid may be plain tap water, or a lethal poison. If it is the latter, you will only know once the symptoms begin to take hold. If it is the former, you will be free to leave.

The forest will part before you, showing you the exit, much like the years will part before you, leaving you alone to endure the eons. You will see your family and loved ones die, and you will see wars begin and end, but you will never die. You will see the sun explode and the earth burned to a cinder, but you will never die. You will know the true meaning of eternal life.

Credited to Chris Phoenix.

Salvation

In Edmonton, Alberta, there is a hotel called the Canterra, off of Jasper Avenue and 109th Street. During the night, go here and ring the doorbell. Should you be let in, look to see who the guard on shift is. If the man looks in his mid twenties, yet the hair on his head and face both are white as snow, take a seat beside the security desk. If it is any other guard on shift, leave and return in a week’s time.

Here you must wait. The guard will say not a word, nor answer any questions you may ask. He hears you, but he will not respond. He will only give you a sad look, as if knowing something terrible awaits. When the time is 2:52 AM, the guard will rise to perform a patrol of the building. Follow him only on this patrol – if you follow him at any time before 2:52 AM, you will be forcefully removed from the hotel, and lose your chance.

Say not a word as you walk the halls behind the guard. He will check that the rooms are all locked, as well as patrol the stairwells. When you both reach the 5th floor, you will notice that it is remarkably colder than the last four. Yes, the floor is deafeningly quiet – it is normal. When the guard secures all the rooms on the floor, you will both stop at a door that seems much older than any other door you’ve yet seen in the hotel. This is room 512. Only this particular guard has access to this room, Take note of the key of which the guard uses to unlock this door – it will be important later.

At this point, the guard will open the room for you and allow you to pass through. It will be quite dark, but do not yet be afraid – the worst is yet to come. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and step through the doorway. Do not open them until you hear the door close behind you, for seeing the transition can be maddening.

It will be almost unbearably hot, here. You will find yourself in a long hallway with numerous turns. There will be thirteen doors lining this hallway – do not open any of them. Take note which door has a splash of white paint on it, this will be critical soon. When you reach the end of the hallway, you will find yourself in the living room of the suite. In each corner of the room you should see a tall figure, each with burnt flesh. They should all be sitting on the floor, hugging their legs with their heads upon their knees and facing their respective corner. Their fingers will be chewed away until their tips are nothing but sharp, boney talons. Do not address these figures; do not touch them: they are Her guardians.

In the centre of this room, there She should be. She will be sitting in an old, ragged reclining chair. It is impossible to say how She will look, for Her appearance changes for everyone. She should, like her guardians, be asleep. Do not awaken her from her slumber.

For now, you have time to rest. There will be food and drink set out upon the coffee table in front of Her, and you are welcome to it. Do not partake in the pie, however, for it will numb your legs.

Should you be so bold, take a look outside the window. It will resemble a hellish version of the avenue which the hotel is on. The buildings will be burnt-out husks of their former selves, the river valley beyond will be dry and cracked. Fire will appear to be on the horizon, and the ever-burning sun will resemble blood set ablaze. Should you stay for hours on end, you will find no reprieve from the heat – there is no night here.

Now, look to the streets – you will find the same figures there as the ones in the room. They, however, are awake – shuffling, screaming and wailing from their back maws. They have no eyes in their sockets, but by some twisted means they can still see. Take care not to attract their attention, for they will follow you back to our world and this venture will be for naught.

When you are ready, stand before Her and speak clearly these words: “Save me, Mother, please.”

Say nothing else and wait. You should start to hear Her breathe.

At this point, one of two things will happen. Remember the key which the guard opened this room with? Should She place that same key on the table in front of you, count yourself lucky. Should She, however, place a different key upon the table, you will need to give Her an offering. A knife that was not previously on the table will now be present. The blade will be rusted, bloodied. Take this knife, and sever a finger, placing it beside the key. Wait.

If She places the same key as the guard’s on the table, you may take it and leave. If not, remove another finger. This will only occur a maximum of four times before the right key will be produced.

Once the key is in your possession, She will once again return to Her haunted slumber.

Now pay attention, for you only have a short amount of time. The Guardians will be stirring, now. Slowly they will rise from their sleep and turn in towards the room to face you. If they see you, they will slaughter you. Run. You have 10 seconds before they will fully turn from their corners.

Remember that door with the white splash of paint? That is the door you will need to use to remove yourself from this hell. If you hear screaming from behind you, the guardians are fully awake and are coming. You don’t have much time. Find the white-marked door, and get out!

You will find yourself inexplicably outside your own home, exactly a week after you entered the hotel. Keep the key on you at all times, wherever you go.

One day in the future, distant or near, a ragged old door with the number ‘777’ will appear wherever you happen to be. Use the key and open this door immediately. Leave anyone with you behind.

Wherever it leads, it will be far better than what is about to happen to this world.

Credited to T Striethorst.

Attention

Attention:

Please read this sentence aloud: Hello, Molly.

If you read it out loud as I instructed, you should be safe.

If you read it in your head… Molly is now safe, too.

Inside your head.