Roulette

During your day, there are probably a half a dozen moments where you can’t see, if only for a split second.

Not like blinking, of course, that’s far too quick .

Just that moment when you’re taking off your shirt, or wiping your face with a towel.

That brief instant where you’re plunged into darkness.

Every time this occurs, you’re playing roulette. A game.

Unbeknownst to you, of course.

Every time that happens there is something waiting, eagerly, to pull you into that darkness.

That only happens if you lose, of course.

One day you might open your eyes to find that you’re not where you were before.

There are unsolved missing person cases every week.

Those people? They lost.

By: JHubbbb

Inspiration

You know those long, involved ritual creepypastas, the ones that involve a million different steps, the ones where if you breathe at the wrong second you die? Ever wonder who figured it out? It couldn’t have been trial and error – you don’t get a second try at something like that.

The answer’s actually pretty simple. Nobody figured it out.

He already knew.

There’s… an entity, I suppose you could call it, although I always think of it as a him. A little boy, to be exact. He seems to enjoy playing around with people, you see.

And he knows all the rituals, or at least all the real ones. So sometimes he spreads out the information. Ever felt inspired to write some piece of horror that seemed to contain elements that didn’t even exist in your nightmares? Ever had a disturbing idea for some horrible but compelling rite, that seemed to ‘just come to you’? It might have been him working through you.

If you get one of those flashes, write it down and post it. I can’t guarantee your health if you don’t – he can be awfully persistent about getting his little messages out, and even if you’re just babbling it to your safe padded walls you’re still saying it.

But, at the same time, if you get one of those flashes… halfway through writing it, stop, open up the instant messenger of your choice, and IM yourself. If all you see are your own normal words echoed back at you, give up there. Either it really is just your imagination that gave you the idea, or he doesn’t want to talk.

But if the message comes back with odd typos that weren’t there before, or new capitalization, or different punctuation marks… well, I’m sure you’ve seen enough pasta with puzzles in it to know what to do to find the message and respond.

If he likes you, or finds you amusing, he’ll talk to you directly there. If he gives you a new puzzle… keep going, but be careful. They get harder and harder, turning from simple wordplay to numerology to esoteric mystical references to God knows what else, but also more and more compelling. It’s harder to just close the window and walk away, and the feeling that you’re just about to reach a solution never eases. And so the next time some poor soul’s found slumped over their computer, killed by starvation and exhaustion and neglect… well, maybe it was just some game, right? But maybe he just wanted to solve that one damn puzzle.

If he does greet you directly, you can name three things you desire – any three at all. He will give you, in complete detail, rituals to achieve those three things – if you’re lucky, it will be a single rite that grants all three. They may be dangerous, but they will be clear and detailed paths to gain what you want through paranormal means.

But, of course, there are catches.

The first: you have to spread the rituals on. You can embellish them as you wish, add your own spin, even lie outright, but you have to leave the goal and most of the steps intact, and you have to put it somewhere where people will see – a forum, a notice board in real life, on the door of a building, wherever. The more popular it is, the happier he will be, and you want his blessing.

Because the second catch is that he always omits some key step. As long as you’ve posted the ritual up in public, you will know when the time comes what that step is – but it could be anything from drawing a simple squiggle to murdering your true love in cold blood. You could have to give up your soul, or mutilate a limb, or drown yourself… or you could just have to hop backwards two times. And you won’t know what it is until you’re buried deep in the rite, unable to stop.

So when you talk to him, be nice and friendly, and make sure you amuse him. He’s kind enough, most of the time. Just a bit mischievous.

How did I learn all this, you ask?

I don’t really know. It just came to me. Inspiration, you could say.

Ground Control to Major Tom

“Did you take your protein pills? Good, now put your helmet on.” Ground Control commanded and Major Tom obeyed. Ground Control droned on as Tom sat in his seat in his cramped capsule and waited. “Commencing countdown, engines are active.” Tom counted down with the man on the microphone as he felt the rush of anxiety flow through his veins. “10… 9… 8…” Tom checked the ignition and heard one final phrase from Ground Control. “May God’s love be with you. LIFTOFF.”

Thats all Tom remembered. He woke up to a deep black outside of his spaceship windows and an eruption of cheers from his headset. “Good work Tom, you’ve really made the grade. Just exit your capsule and pilot the ship.” Tom obeyed and exited his capsule, and floated in a most peculiar way to the pilot’s seat.

Floating through space a hundred thousand miles from Earth was the spaceship of Major Tom. It had been three months since the launch and the only company Tom had was the reiteration of pre-launch instructions in his head, over and over. He looked out his window to observe the moon and stare out to the lonesome lifeless abyss that was deep space. The stars looked very different, Tom thought. More vivid. Bigger, even.

Tom’s view was distracted by a sudden movement. Something had swiftly darted behind the moon. Something quite massive had hidden itself behind the moon. Perhaps an asteroid, Tom thought. But they don’t move that quick. Out from behind the moon jetted what looked like a piece of space itself. It was something very large, black as the night sky and dotted in large glowing lights. And it was coming right for Tom’s ship. Thinking quickly he reversed the thrusters on his ship. The massive space thing had narrowly missed the ship, but had enough momentum to spin the ship rapidly.

Tom was thrown into the ships walls. The familiar voice of Ground Control buzzed in Tom’s ear. “Tom, the ship has received damage all over the hull, what happened?” Tom could only reply “Tell my wife I love her very much.” A different voice from Ground Control echoed “She knows.”

The space thing was coming back for a head-on collision with Tom’s ship. All Tom could do was get into his spacesuit and wait. As the space thing got closer and closer, Tom could see how large it really was. It was snake like and had to be at least a mile long and hundreds of feet wide. As it came within miles of Tom’s ship, it slowed. Eventually it had stopped and just sat there. Staring, it seems. Then, it began to coil itself around Tom’s ship. Metal groaned from the pressure and glass cracked. Tom looked outside his window at the beast. It was just like space itself was tangling itself up around him.
Machinery began to beep and lights started to die. Tom frantically checked everything he could; the energy was slowly being sucked away. It didn’t take long, perhaps a few minutes, for the ship to be rendered completely powerless. Then, nothing. No more metal groaning and no more glass cracking. Tom was stuck floating around in a powerless ship and he could do nothing about it.

Ground Control had buzzed in his ear one last time. “Major Tom, your circuit is dead. Something is wrong.” Tom didn’t reply. “Can you hear me Major Tom?”

Tom still didn’t reply. “Tom, can you hear me? Major Tom!”

Tom turned off his only contact to human life. He turned off his life support systems and stared out his window. He saw a floating bit of space going towards a blue planet. With his last breath Tom sang quietly, “Here I am floating in a tin can, far above the moon. Planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do.”

By: Steve M.

The Forgotten Vending Machine

There is a village somewhere in England that has not been inhabited for over 20 years. It has long since been forgotten off of most maps, and only has one road in and out of it.

If you manage to find it, it will seem a peaceable enough place, the derelict buildings being overgrown and nature taking back the land for herself.

However somewhere within the village is a vending machine which still has power. it will still have it’s original look and sell ordinary brands of drink (though with 20 year old packaging) however the one at the very bottom will be marked “E”. Pay only in 10p pieces to buy this drink.

Before drinking the mysterious beverage, peer inside the can to check it’s colour (do not try to pour some out. it will refuse to leave the can despite any vigorous shaking you may attempt).

If it is green in color, drink heartily, as it will give you an unnaturally long lifespan and good luck in everything you do.

If it is red, however, drinking it will spread a horrific pestilence over you, claiming one of your senses every 10 years after the date that you first imbibed.

Congratulations Isn’t Always The Right Word

As I got out of the car, my pulse quickened. My palms started sweating. Tears formed in my eyes.
I just got back from the doctor. He confirmed it. Pregnant. And it wasn’t my husband’s.

I walked to the door, hands shaking, fumbling for keys.

I let myself in. I heard whistling from the kitchen. As I walked in, I saw my daughter, Carol, coloring at the dining room table, looking nervous. My husband, Peter seemed to be washing the dishes by hand. I watched as a plate was lifted, wiped, and put down.

“Hey sweetie,” I heard Peter say as another plate was set down. “How was your day?”

“Carol, can you go upstairs please?” I asked. Carol gave me a brief nod, and bolted out of the room.

“Is something wrong?” Peter asked, concern in his voice.

When I was sure Carol was out of earshot, I turned to Peter’s voice. “I’m pregnant.”

“But….that…isn’t….possible.” I heard Peter say, confused. “Wait….unless….”

Those last words were spoken in anger, and I felt a hand close around my throat and slam me against the kitchen wall.

“You slut! You cheated on me?!”

“No!” I cried. “I never cheated! I was always faithful to you!”

“Then how?!” I could feel my feet lifting of the ground as I was forced up against the wall.

“I fulfilled my vows! Til death do us part!” I cried. I felt a tremble, then heard a sob. I dropped to the ground, curling into a ball and crying.

I heard one more sob, then nothing. I felt an emptiness around me. I think Peter finally moved on.

–
Credits to: KMApok

Nightmare

I’ve been having the same horrifying nightmare for almost a week now. I’m chained down to a metal table and a man wearing a welding mask is laughing like a psychopath while sawing my arms off.

First he started with my left arm, and for three nights in a row he sawed little by little until I’d wake up in cold sweats. By the end of the third night he had sawed it completely off. Then he started cutting away at my right arm.

Before I woke up this morning he had just finished cutting that completely off. The pain always feels so visceral too. With each slide of the blade I would scream out in pain. But the weirdest thing is ever since I’ve started having this nightmare, weird stuff has been happening in my real life too. Unexplainable things.

Like I’ll be watching television and look down at my phone really quick and when I look up the channel will be changed. One time the T.V. was just turned completely off. The other day I was hanging out with my friend and all of a sudden he was gone. I called him and he acted like we weren’t just hanging out. I must be losing my mind due to lack of sleep.

Anyway, I’m about to go to sleep now. I just took some sleeping medicine so hopefully I’ll sleep through the night. I don’t even feel the effects of the medicine but I still manage to fall asleep rather quickly.

Of course I’m now on that metal table with both of my arms missing. The psychopath was sitting patiently in a chair waiting for me, as if my subconscious didn’t want me to miss a minute of agony. He picked up the saw and put his welding mask back on.

He walked up to me and said, “Today we start the legs, but if you keep passing out this is going to take a very long time…..”

–
Credits to: Sage (short-horror-hits.tumblr.com)

Baby Monitor

My husband and I had a baby a little over a year ago and he’s just starting to be able to say his first word. ‘Mommy’, though he can’t pronounce it well yet. It sounds like he’s saying ‘bommy’, but just the fact that he’s learning so fast makes us both proud. He’s a great kid too.

During the day he almost never cries, and at night he hasn’t cried once. Or so we thought. The other day my husband realized he left his cell phone in the baby’s room right before we went to sleep. He went in and got it, but I noticed that I didn’t hear him on the baby monitor. When he came back to bed he told me that the baby was crying and calling out for me. Apparently our baby monitor wasn’t working anymore.

So that night we let the baby sleep in our room and the next day we went out and bought a brand new one. We set it up and it worked fine. Later that night we were woken up to the baby crying and calling out “Bommy! Bommy!”

My husband said he would go check on him since I had work early in the morning. Just as he walked out of our room the baby monitor cut out. Again I could hear nothing, and this monitor was brand new. After about ten minutes of hearing nothing I decided to go check it out myself.

When I walked into the baby’s room, my husband wasn’t there. The baby was still crying, “Bommy Bommy!”. I walked over and picked him up. I called out to my husband but heard no answer. Then I heard the closet door creek open behind me.

I spun around and saw my husbands lifeless body fall out and crash to the floor. My baby continued crying out, “Bommy! Bommy!” Then a shadowy figure stepped out from behind my husband’s limp body. I held my baby tight and backed up against the wall.

The stranger bent down and yanked a buck knife out of my husband’s back. He took a few steps closer and said, “Hi, I’m Bobby….”

–
Credits to: Sage (http://short-horror-hits.tumblr.com/)

Olfactory

They say that the olfactory senses (the sense of smell) is the sense closest linked to memory. Go on eBay, or to a high-end antiques dealer.

Find an item made a good amount of time before you were born that was hermetically sealed, vacuum packed or tightly packaged in some way.

Make sure you are in surroundings of completely neutral smell with little or no wind. Open the package. The smell should hearken back to your collective subconscious or memory of a past life.

If you are successful in choosing the right item, with the right smell, you will have at least a memory flash, or likely a memory flood of years before you were born.

Mile Marker 254

I passed mile marker 254 about a day ago.

I remember telling myself that I’d stop driving one day. I couldn’t do this job forever. Hauling freight was tiring. From railyard to railyard. Over and over again. I’m tired. I’m tired of driving. I should quit this job. I should’ve quit this job a long time ago. But I didn’t. And so here I am.

I passed mile marker 254 about twelve hours ago.

I even told my wife that I’d quit driving. She said it wasn’t good for the kids. Seeing me only once every two weeks as a best case scenario. Often it was for a month at a time. I mean, I was good at my job. We always had money. I liked making it like that. My family never had to struggle. Growing up, I had nothing. I was just a poor kid of a drunk. My dad drank until all the car titles were loaned out and he’d stop drinking just long enough to buy em back. He’d start all over again. It was just the way it was. I didn’t want that for my kids. My dad died of cirrhosis of the liver about ten years back. I missed his funereal. I was on the road between Las Vegas and Barstow. I said they could bury him without me. I should’ve quit then, really. I’m probably just a ghost to my kids as my father was to me.

I passed mile marker 254 about half hour ago.

I did tell my kids that one day I’d quit driving. I promised them. I swore. But in the same way a man takes solace in his off time at the bar, I took my solace in the road. The road had a hypnotic effect on me. I let my mind spread out over its asphalt. In a way, it was my therapy. I laid to rest my resentments from my father and the way he’d wasted away. I found my peace over the death of my mother five years back. So I guess like all therapeutic drugs there was the potential to start abusing it. I came home less and less and I honestly couldn’t say why. I just couldn’t sit still. The feeling of not moving forward was a lot like drowning. I’d wake up gasping. I should’ve quit then. The signs were too obvious. Not highway signs white and green. But red on black. Bold. Bleeding. It wasn’t any good for me. The money kept coming, though, and my kids had everything they needed. Well, except, you know.

I passed mile marker 254 about ten minutes ago. Five minutes ago I passed it too. A minute ago.

I want to quit driving. I really really do. The road appears beneath my headlights like a treadmill. The dry sands on both sides of the road are a pale, ghostly white. I crawl forward in this old Pete and the fuel gauge has been stuck on empty for a week and I keep on going anyways. It’s always night. A minute ago I passed mile marker 254. And in the darkness, crawling ever closer, are the numbers yet again. It’s all the same. Over and over. At first it seemed like a dream. Then it was a nightmare. And now I feel like it’s a little bit like hell.

I should’ve quit driving when I had the chance.

–
Credits to: Out-ofmind

Blown Kisses

Some time ago, a man punished his 5-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of expensive gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became even more upset when the child used the gold paper to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree.

Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift box to her father the next morning and said, "This is for you, Daddy." The father was embarrassed by his over-reaction earlier, but his anger flared again when he found the box was empty. He spoke to her in a harsh manner, "Do you know, young lady, that when you give someone a present, there is supposed to be something inside the package?"

The little girl looked up to him with tears in her eyes and said, "Oh, Daddy, it's not empty. I blew kisses into it until it was full." The father was crushed. He fell onto his knees and put his arms around his little girl, begging her to forgive him for his unnecessary anger.

An accident took the little girl's life a short time later and it was said that the father kept the gold box beside his bed for all the years of his life. And whenever he was discouraged or faced difficult problems, he would open the box and take out an imaginary kiss, remembering the love of the child that put it in there.

Mirror Mirror

I woke up, sluggish. As usual.

I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and stepped out into the dressing room to change. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Then I look in my mirror. And I pause. That’s not right. I’m not smiling.

Why is my reflection smiling?

I move. He doesn’t. He stands straight. Facing me. Smiling.

Something is strange about his eyes.. the irises.. they’re black..

I don’t know why, but I hold my face an inch away from the mirror, getting a closer look. Studying him. And that’s when it happened.

He moved. He grabbed me by the back of my neck, pulled me in, and stepped out.

Now I was inside, trapped. I panicked, ran around my room’s reflection. There was nowhere to go, nothing I was able to do.. and he just stood there..

Smiling.. that evil, sinister smile..

He blinked a few times, and his eyes suddenly looked like mine. Then he turned around and left my room.

It wasn’t long before I heard my family’s screams.. it wasn’t long before the screaming stopped…

–
Credits to:  D.Ashtizadeh

Speed Kills

I was nineteen. It was 2:33am. I was driving down an empty highway, and I was doing around 150mph in my father’s jeep. Then I saw the blue lights flash behind me; cops. I pulled over, they suspended my driver’s license, and escorted me home.

I’m twenty-one. Since that day, I decided I’d cut off all my friends. I stopped becoming so social. My family don’t even care about me anymore, it seems I’ve disappointed them to the point where they’ve given up, so I don’t talk to them much.

I was nineteen. It was 2:33am. I was doing 150mph. I was making a mistake.

I’m twenty-one, and I still drive my dad’s jeep, he has a new car now. I rarely stay at home anymore, I spend all day driving around alone, smoking, drinking, making no human contact. Anything to keep me away from all the crying and constant barging into my room.

I was nineteen. I saw the blue lights flash behind me. I did not pull over.

I’m twenty-two in a couple of days, but I’m not going to celebrate. Everyone ignores me on my birthday, just like the rest of the year, except they also pretend to be depressed in case I actually want to do something. I don’t mind, I don’t care for them much anyway. I just want to drive around.

I was nineteen. It was 2:33am. I was driving down an empty highway, and I was doing around 150mph in my father’s jeep. Then I saw the blue lights flash behind me; cops. I urged the car to go faster, and just then, one of the front tires exploded. The car flipped a few times and then I woke up in my bed. Imagine my surprise when I found myself and the car completely unscathed.

I’m twenty-two in a few days, and I love to speed, even if they say speed kills.

–
Credits to:  D.Ashtizadeh

Wait, Something’s Not Right

A sound wakes you up, sounded like a knock on your front door.

It’s way past midnight, you’re lying on the sofa with the TV on static. The house is dark, the lights are off. You’re all alone. You look out the window, see there’s a full moon, shining its light through the glass pane.

You get up and head towards the front door. You look through the peephole. No one outside. You open the door. Find no one. You check around the porch. Still no one. Maybe kids were playing tricks on you.

Annoyed, you shut the door, turn off the TV, close the window, and head upstairs to your bedroom for the night.

–
Credits to: morasyid

Girls Love Confidence

She was always talking about them. Brandon’s thick black hair, Aiden’s bronze skin. Josh’s sexy biceps and Will’s tight ass.

I was so fucking sick of hearing about all these perfect guys that I could never be. That look in her shining blue eyes, that lust. The way she didn’t even notice that I was gut-wrenchingly, agonizingly in love with her.

You’re my best friend, Tom she told me often. I smiled and agreed, but I didn’t want to be her friend. I wanted to be wanted.

It took months of hard work, but I finally did it. I walked confidently up the stairs to her bedroom, smiling at my reflection in every mirror and pane of glass that I passed. It was amazing, the way a change in appearance changed my whole attitude.

I turned on her light. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes for a moment before she focused on me and gasped.

I don’t blame her, I thought as I ran my fingers through Brandon’s thick black hair and admired the way Aiden’s smooth bronze skin glowed in the dim light. I really am a whole new man.

Or, you know… the best pieces of several.

–
Credits to: baconreasons

Monster

A monster lives in the alley beside my house. It hides below the fire escape ladder, sleeps beneath dumpsters. It is thin and long and smells like cooked vinegar, popping, sizzling. When I visit it sniffs me, walks around me, then lays at my feet and mewls. I counted seventeen ribs under its paper skin. I fed it scraps and dog food and those ribs sank below its stomach. It cooed when I fed it.

Mom would snort at my bruises. She would sit in the kitchen chewing tobacco while dad shouted. The monster would finger brush my hair and nuzzle my cheek.

Sometimes loud people stumbled into the alley, beers in brown bags. The monster curved its spine and opened its mouth wide, tongue spilling out, and the people ran. Only I was allowed there. The alley was ours, our place to hide and listen.

One day dad followed me and saw the monster. The monster scared him, and he shouted and hit it. The monster wrapped its fingers around dad’s neck, twisted, cracked, and killed dad. It ate his body in two long slurps, shivered and cooed.

I told mom that he’d fallen asleep in the alley. Twist, crack, slurp slurp.

The monster liked people food. It grew longer, its head brushing the fourth story, its arms wrapping twice around me. Bringing other people into the alley was easy; I wore mom’s feathery coat and waved. Men went with me, hand in hand, to feed the monster.

Then one man hurt me, stuck a knife in my stomach before the monster pulled him apart. My blood steamed on the snow, but the hole was cold and prickling. The monster held me to its chest, mewling. Rocking as mom used to, in my first memories. I tried to pet its cheek but my arm fell.

It dug inside its chest and took out inky meat. The monster pressed the meat against my mouth, cooing slowly. A piece of its heart. It was chewy and moldy, and swallowing hurt, but I did. Then I fell away, asleep or dead, until the monster finished.

It was going to make me like it.

 –
Credits to: http://hematitecucurbita.tumblr.com/

I’ll Kill You For This

The man I killed was my cousin.

I didn’t really want to, but it had to be done. It was just business. You can’t be a part of our family and be a rat. He had to go. So I stopped by his house the other day and when he opened his door I shot him in the chest three times with my .22.

I did feel bad about it though, I mean I grew up with the guy, so I knelt down while he was still gasping for air and I told him how sorry I was and that I loved him. He grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me in closer to him. The last words he said to me, before his eyes stared blankly through the ceiling of his house and he made that gurgling sound, was “I’ll kill you for this.”

Now he’s dead, so how’s he going to do that, right? But some real weird stuff has been going on since I killed him. The night I did it, on my drive home, a semi truck coming in the opposite direction starts veering into my lane. I was able to swerve out of the way but I went off road and just missed smashing into a telephone pole by about an inch.

The next day we had some kind of tropical storm and I’m sitting down watching T.V. when my wife called me into the other room to help her move something. I only took a few steps away from my seat, when a huge branch broke off a tree and crashes right through the ceiling and right on the chair I was sitting in. It scared the hell out of me. If i was still sitting there I’d be dead, no doubt about it.

The next day we spent at my brothers house, since ours was all bashed up. I boiled some water to make some spaghetti, and I swear, I know, I turned off the stove. When we were eating, my sister in-law said she smelled gas. I looked over at the stove top and sure enough, the dial was turned but the flame was out. This stuff was really starting to freak me out.

We had the viewing for my cousin yesterday and I’ve never felt to paranoid in my life. Nothing bad actually happened, there was just this weird aura around the place.

So today’s the funeral, and for some reason I feel much better. I don’t know why but for the first time since I whacked him, I feel kind of at peace. I shaved, fastened my tie on, tied my shoelaces tight, threw my suit coat on, and was was off to the funeral. I’m one of the pallbearers so, I take my place in the front left of the casket and we start carrying it down the church isle.

Now I swear to you, I know, I tied my shoelaces tight. Tight! But as were walking, one comes untied and I trip over it. Like an idiot, I tried to hold on to the casket to keep my balance, but instead I fall to the ground and I pull the full weight of it right down on my head.

–
Credits to: Sage (short-horror-hits.tumblr.com)

Copper Canyon

SATURDAY                                      
07-23-2011
Transcript of call from witness R.L.
2:20 p.m.
Dispatcher: 911, what’s your emergency?
Caller R.L.: I need to report an accident. Somebody- a car just went over the barrier on the I-17. Northbound.
Dispatcher: Sir, do you see a mile marker?
Caller R.L.: Yeah, we’re, ah, we’re outside of Camp Verde in Copper Canyon. I’m walking towards the mile marker. There’s- it looks like 282.
Dispatcher: How many vehicles are involved?
Caller R.L. I think it’s- oh fuck, did you hear that? Whatever ran off the cliff just exploded. There’s smoke coming up over the side of the mountain.
Dispatcher: We’ve got someone on the way.
                                       -          
07-23-2011
Transcript of call from witness D.W.
2:22 p.m.
Dispatcher: Yavapai County 911, what’s the emergency?
Caller D.W.: Yeah, an SUV just went over the cliff. The car is on fire and there are people screaming. It’s…it’s fucking chaos out here.
Dispatcher: Is this Northbound 17 just south of…Camp Verde?
Caller D.W.: Yes. People are trying to get down the cliff.
Dispatcher: Can you see any injuries, ma’am?
Caller D.W.: Yes, there’s people, there’s [inaudible] in the ravine outside the car. There’s, oh my god, there’s kids. There’s kids and an adult. A woman, I think.
Dispatcher: Is anyone injured?
Caller D.W.: No, they’re all dead.

                                     FRIDAY
I leaned back against my truck and took a few deep drags of my cigarette before snubbing it out on the tire and flicking it under the car next to me. Stella should be pulling up with the kids any minute and she’d flip her shit if she saw me smoking.

As I watched for headlights coming around the corner of the hotel parking lot I popped a breath mint and took a swig of water. Phoenix was hot in July - oppressively hot. And even though the sun was almost down I couldn’t last out here much longer.

While it was a nice escape from my frigid hometown of Flagstaff in the winter, Phoenix left much to be desired in the summertime. I tried to come down as infrequently as possible during the during the summer months but sometimes work made that impossible. I always hated leaving the mountains. Even though the valley was only two and a half hours away from Flag, it may as well have been a thousand miles. My small, mountain town and the sprawling, desert city might as well be different countries all together.

I saw the headlights of Stella’s silver Mazda peak around the corner of the building and I pushed myself off the truck.

She pulled into a nearby space and I smiled as I went to greet her. I could tell by the look on her face when she got out that she was tired and worn down.

“How was the drive?” I asked her as I opened the back door to let Aiden and Wyatt out.

“Long. You know I hate that drive, I don’t know how you do it so often.”

I laughed. “Well that’s what I get paid for. A necessary evil to keep my family living in luxury.”

“Dad, do I have to go tonight?” Aiden yelled from the trunk of the car where he was trying, in vain, to pull his overnight bag out of the jostled mess of luggage.

“What you don’t like dressing up?”

He made a face at me. “I hate it. Plus there’s not gonna be other kids there.”

“That’s not true; Dani and Paul’s kids will be there.”

“They’re girls, they don’t count.”

“You’ll have your brother.”

“Daaaaad, he’s only three.”

“Aiden!” Stella yelled as she propped the door into the hotel open. “Quit complaining and get your brother inside. What’s the room number, Matt?”

“323. Door’s open.”

Aiden took his brother’s hand and walked him inside and down the hall. When Stella and I were alone, I eyed the trunk with confusion.

“Why so many bags? You know we’re only here for tonight, don’t you?”

“Yes, Matt, I know that.” Stella rubbed her temples.

“You feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.”

“This heat probably isn’t helping either. Do you want to go inside? I’ll get the bags.”

“No, I’ll help. Have you seen Dani and Paul yet this week?”

“Not yet. They’re been busy.”

Dani and Paul were very close friends of my wife and I. The only reason Stella and kids were even in Phoenix was to attend their tenth anniversary dinner this evening. I’d been here all week working on campus and I was tired of the heat and ready to go home.

As much as I loved our friends I couldn’t wait to depart in the morning for higher elevations and cooler temperatures – even with Dani and Paul’s three daughters in tow. Stella had graciously offered to watch their kids while they spent next in Mexico.

“Do you have an Excedrin, hon?”

“Inside. Is your head hurting again?” I asked.

“Just a bit.”

“You’ve been tired and nauseous a lot in the past few days, Stel. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. I’ve just been getting a lot of headaches lately.”

                                  SATURDAY
07-23-2011
Eyewitness account of K.B.
10:23 a.m.
I don’t know why I noticed it, maybe just because it was sitting there for so long. It was a blue suburban - 2009 or 2010 model maybe? – and it was parked on the side of the highway outside of New River just idling. I had to take multiple trips in and out of New River that morning for work and that truck probably sat there for 25 minutes. It barely fit on the shoulder even though it was parked right up next to the guard rail. It was definitely a road hazard. I was planning to check on the car the next time I went out but by the time I got back it was gone.
                                        -
07-23-2011
Eyewitness account of L.L.
11:01 a.m.
I was in the far right lane getting off of Northbound 17 at Exit 144 in Black Canyon City. This blue suburban suddenly merges over two lanes and cuts me off. It was so sudden that I was surprised it didn’t roll. I got pretty angry and laid on my horn. I was going to pull up next to the truck at the stop sign but I saw little kids in the car so I just kept driving. The woman in the driver’s seat didn’t even look at me. She looked so dazed - I’m not even sure she heard my horn.

                                    FRIDAY
“You look amazing, Stel.”

My wife, after 8 years of marriage, was still one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. Not that she believed it, of course; in fact I was pretty sure she never had.

Stella was a few years older me and I knew that had always bothered her. When I first met my wife she was a quiet, nervous girl who still lived at home with her parents. We met at an engagement party for a mutual friend and I used the next few months to slowly nudge her out of her shell. It didn’t take me long to realize that Stella was already in love with me by the time I formally met her. I married my wife a year after I’d met her and got her pregnant immediately. Stella was over the moon, all she’d ever wanted was to be a mother. She told me the day of Aiden’s birth was the happiest day of her life.

Maybe that’s what she needs, I mused as I watched my wife lather her arms with hotel supplied vanilla scented lotion. Maybe another baby would make her happy again.

Stella had fallen into a sort of depression in the last year and refused to go to the doctor. I did the best I could to make the good times great and the bad times more tolerable for her.

“Did you hear me, babe? You look stunning.”

“I’m glad you still think that,” she said without looking at me.

“You know I’ve always thought that.”

Stella finally looked away from the mirror and gave me an impish smirk. “Would be nice if you showed me….physically, more often.” She winked.

I sighed and walked over to wrap my arms around her lotion-slick shoulders. God knows, we hadn’t been intimate in months. And I knew that a sensitive girl like Stella must be going crazy, thinking I was falling out of love with her or some other nonsense.

“Well, if we didn’t have five kids in the house over the weekend…” I trailed off and gave her my most seductive smile in the mirror.

She frowned. “You just always seem to have an excuse, Matt. If you’re not working late on campus, you’re down in Phoenix. I just don’t understand why you get pulled down to that campus so much when you teach at the Flagstaff campus.”

I dropped my arms from her shoulders and ran a hand through my messy hair. “Stel, I’ve told you, I’m helping out the chemistry department down there. I have to continue to do that if I want tenure.”

Stella walked away from me with a dismissive wave.

“Boys!” She yelled, knocking on the door to our adjoining room with the kids. “Aiden! Is Wyatt dressed? Bring him in here; we’re leaving for dinner in a few.”

                                   SATURDAY
07-23-2011
Eyewitness account of Officer J. Pendlo (Badge #2881)
11:27 a.m.
I had a driver pulled over in Black Canyon City on Squaw Valley Road in the shoulder of the Westbound lane. As I was running his driver’s license I noticed a dark blue 2009 Chevy Suburban stopped on the dirt road off Maggie Mine Road leading to the abandoned dog track. Plate number 22D4N12. The back bumper was heavily dented and the passenger side of the vehicle was sideswiped.
A woman had the back door open and was leaning against the vehicle’s frame talking to someone in the backseat. I heard yelling coming from inside the vehicle. The woman stumbled back a bit and then climbed into the backseat of the suburban. She appeared to be distressed. I intended to go investigate the vehicle when I finished writing the traffic violation. The vehicle was gone by the time I pulled out some minutes later. I searched the area but I believe the vehicle was back on the highway by then.
                                        -
07-23-2011
Eyewitness account of E.S.
11:27 a.m.
I was pulled over for running a stop sign and I was texting my wife while the officer was back running my plates. I looked up and saw a woman and a maybe 9 year old girl standing outside the car. The woman was trying to walk forward and the girl was pushing her back trying to get her to sit down. At one point the girl got back into the car and the woman slid down the car to the ground. She looked really out of it. Then all of the sudden she got a sort of second wind and sprung up and walked around the other side of the car, jerked the door open and started yelling at the girl inside. I could hear a couple kids in there crying. She had her hand in the car trying to reach someone. Then she crawled into the backseat and about a minute later the car left.

                                  FRIDAY
I shook Paul’s hand as I grabbed a scotch off the bar. “Congrats, old man! Ten years is quite an accomplishment in this day and age.”

“Well, you’re right behind me, there Matt.” He laughed.

“Very true,” I said, glancing over at our wives who were talking in the corner. “But loving a woman that long is so easy when she’s so beautiful.“ I saw her laugh then and admired the boistrous rise and fall of her chest, the swell of her breasts emerging slightly from the low cut glittering neckline of her gown. Even though she was so torn right now I hoped she knew how much I loved her.

"Thick as thieves, those two,” Paul chuckling, watching the scene beside me. “Ever since college.”

“Worse than sisters.” I nodded as Dani picked up her youngest, Ava, and handed the squealing 1 year old to my wife. Stella laughed louder than I had heard in the past year and bounced little Ava on her hip. I smiled as I watched her. Another baby may be the solution after all.

“Uncle Matt?” My attention turned to the lovely young lady standing behind me, Paul’s oldest. Izzy was intelligent like her mother but the spitting image of her father. The two had always been close. Paul put his arm around his daughterand kissed her on the head.

“Hi Izzy,” I smiled, “are you excited to spend the weekend in Flagstaff? I think Aunt Stella is going to take you hiking tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I’m excited. Um, Wyatt keeps trying to pull people’s wine glasses off the table and he’s already spilled sprite on himself.”

“Ugh, that boy. Thanks for the heads up, Iz, I’ll go get that little outlaw.”

I found my son sitting in between Paul and Dani’s other daughter, Emma, and his big brother.

“We were just holding him here. He’s trying to drink the wine.” Emma said confidently as Aiden nodded.
“Is that so?”

“Well, he was trying to grab it. I think he was going to drink it.”

“Yeah, he was. He was, Dad, but I stopped him.”

I shook my head lightheartedly and looked around for Stella. She was now sitting at a table chatting and laughing with Paul’s sister, not a care in the world. I watched her for a moment and frowned. My wife wasn’t one to neglect the whereabouts of her children, especially our youngest. Most of her days were spent following Wyatt around the world making sure he was safe and happy. It was very unlike her.

I picked Wyatt up from the bench. “Okay boys, it’s time to start calming down. We have an early morning so I think we’ll head out in about 20 minutes.”

“I want to stay and play with Emma.” Aiden stood up and crossed his arms.

“I thought you didn’t like girls,” I teased.

“Dad, STOP!” Aiden yelled so loud that people on the other side of the room turned to look. He ran out into the hall, his face reddening with every step. Emma and I both laughed and I looked over again at Stella hoping she was laughing too. But she wasn’t.

Stella was sitting down at the suddenly empty table with her head in her hands, rubbing her temples.

                                      SATURDAY
07-23-2011
Transcirpt of call from witness C.K.
12:08 p.m.
DPS Operator: Highway Patrol, where can I direct your call?
Caller C.K.: Hi, yeah, sorry, I didn’t know who to call but I thought 911 probably wasn’t it. Ah, there’s a truck in-
DPS Operator: Do you have a road safety issue, ma'am?
Caller C.K.: Yeah, I’m about 5 miles north of Cordes Lakes on the I-17 and there’s a truck in the left lane going slow. Like, really slow.
DPS Operator: I’m sorry ma'am, but we don’t handle those types of calls. Would you like me to put you through to emergency services?
Caller C.K.: No, I don’t think it’s an emergency. But I passed her and she’s going about 25 miles per hour in a 65 mile per hour zone. She just has this, like, blank look on her face. She needs to get off the road, because she keeps crossing the middle line. She looks really out of it.
DPS Operator: Would you like me to put you through to emergency services?
Caller C.K.: No, it’s fine. I’m way past her now, I just thought someone should know about it but yeah, I guess, I dont- I don’t need to report it at this point.
                                         -
07-23-2011
Transcript of voicemail from the cell phone of Paul Grigg (602-307-29xx)
12:14 p.m.
“Daddy, I’m scared, can you come get me- me? Aunt Stella doesn’t feel [inaudible] she’s acting really weird and scary. I don’t understand what she’s saying when she talks and Wyatt won’t [pause] stop crying and we’re scared. Ava fell asleep. She won’t listen to me, Dad, I told her to call you but she wouldn’t so the last time she [inaudible] [pause] I took her phone. Please come get us or send Uncle Matt to come get us. I don’t know what to do and I’m really scared. [crying] Aunt Stella keeps hitting stuff with the car and I saw her throw up [crying] [inaudible] and she’s not driving right. Please call me back, Daddy, or text the phone so she doesn’t hear you.”

                                    FRIDAY
“We’ll swing by around 8 tomorrow and grab the girls. What time is your flight?”

“10:30 but the earlier you get to our house the better. Dani and I wouldn’t mind some alone time.” Paul leaned back on his heels and winked at his wife.

“Alright, alright, Matt and I know how it goes,” Stella giggled and leaned her head against my shoulder. “How does 7:30 sound?”

“Earlier.” Paul growled wrapping his arms around Dani’s waist and nuzzling her ear.

I’d known my wife so well and for so long that I detected the instant she felt uncomfortable and intimidated. She laughed nervously and I could feel the envy radiating off of her. Stella had always wanted the sort of open affection, no apologies relationship that Dani and Paul shared. It had just never been that way with us. I opened my mouth to break the tension but Stella spoke first.

“You guys are like kids. Having sex all the time and in Mexico no less. Maybe you’ll babysit for us some weekend and we can go to Mexico.”

“Stel, are you drunk?” Paul teased. “You’re terrified of Mexico!”

“You know I don’t drink! And I’d risk being kidnapped in Mexico…for Matt.” Stella smiled up at me with the sort of eyes I hadn’t seen in so long I’d forgotten how beautiful they were.

I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her to me.

“Girls! In the car!” Paul yelled to his daughters who were running around the empty parking lot. “I swear they’re usually not this crazy.” Paul shook his head.

“Oh don’t worry about it;” Stella laughed, “we’ve got lots of room to run on our property. They’ll have the time of their lives and they’re in safe hands.”

                                    SATURDAY
07-23-2011
Eyewitness account of J.S.
12:37 p.m.
I was buying cigarettes at the Chevron in Cordes Lakes when I heard somebody slam on their breaks outside and punch the horn. I looked out the window and saw a blue SUV drive by, just as calm as can be while this guy in a white pickup is yelling out his window at it.
Then I was driving over to Wagners and I saw the same blue SUV going down Stagecoach Trail. The driver pulled over to park the car on the shoulder and then suddenly changed her mind or something and flipped a u-turn instead. The tires left tracks in the road. I could see some little kids’ heads bobbing around through the back windshield. I decided to follow her because I thought maybe she was drunk. We see a lot of drunk drivers around here.
So I get in my car and follow her back down Stagecoach. She starts speeding up as she gets closer to the highway. I estimate she got up to about 75 and the limit on Stagecoach is 40. I lost her when she ran the light at Oasis. I would have called 911 to report her but I didn’t have my phone.
                                       -
07-23-2011
Transcript of call from witness M.M.
12:52 p.m.
Dispatcher: 911, what’s your emergency?
Caller M.M.: Hi, I’m calling to report a truck going the wrong way down the 69.
Dispatcher: You said the vehicle is going the wrong way?
Caller M.M.: Yeah, he’s going north, or…south, sorry, in the Northbound lane. Outside of Spring Valley.
Dispatcher: He’s going south in the Northbound lane?
Caller M.M.: Yes.
Dispatcher: Can you describe the vehicle, sir?
Caller M.M..: It’s like a blue colored SUV. A Tahoe, I think.
Dispatcher: Can you tell me-“
Caller M.M.: Oh shit! It just hit the guard rail. And it’s- [laughing] it’s still going!
                                       -
07-23-2011
Transcript of call from witness F.D.
1:11 p.m.
Dispatcher: 911
Caller F.D.: Hi, I need to report a speeding truck on the I-17 .
Dispatcher: You said it’s speeding?
Caller FD: Yeah, it’s speeding. It’s going at least 100 miles an hour.
Dispatcher: Where are you on the interstate?
Caller FD: I just passed the exit for the 169. He’s about a half mile ahead of me.
Dispatcher: Is the vehicle in the Southbound or Northbound lane, sir?
Caller FD: Northbound. It’s headed into Copper Canyon.

                                 SATURDAY
"Stella. Stella, wake up, we have to get the boys ready.”

She didn’t move a muscle.

“Baby, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she moaned, “Just another migraine.”

“Stel, we gotta get you to the doctor. These chronic headaches worry me.” “No, I’m fine, really, I’m fine. I already saw my doctor about it and he said it’s likely the start of menopause.”

I tried not to show the surprise on my face. I must have failed.

“Yes, Matthew, I’m going through menopause because I’m older than you.” She snapped. “You knew that when you married me.”

“It’s not that, I just-”

“Save it.” Stella rolled away from me and buried her face in the pillows. “Just go.”

“Go?”

“Yeah, just start heading home. I’ll be right behind you. I just need to sleep for another half an hour.”

“I can’t. We told Paul and Dani we would pick the girls up early.”

“Fuck them. And fuck you for caring so much about their sex life.”

I got up from the bed and awkwardly straightened my tie in the mirror just to give myself something to do. It seemed I had been right about Stella’s feelings of inadequacy last night.

I’d made a move on her as soon as we’d gotten the kids to bed the night before. I’d pulled her into me and slid my hands down her hips, then slowly pulled her shirt up over her head. I’d let my hand slip down into her lacy bra. I’d kissed her neck…

She’d jerked away from me then, complaining that she suddenly felt nauseous. I believed her too. Her face had grown pale and her hands were shaking slightly as she unzipped her pants and threw them in the corner.
Then she’d gone straight to sleep.

“I really don’t give a shit about their sex life, Stella, I care about being where we said we’d be when we said we’d be there.”

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered from the bed after a moment. “It just hurts so much.”

“Why don’t I take the boys and go get the girls and then I’ll come back here. It’ll give you some time to sleep.”

“No, it’s, it’s fine. I’ll take an Excedrin and I’ll go get the girls. You go ahead and head north, somebody needs to let the dogs out this morning.”

“Okay, sweetie. Want me to take the boys?”

“No, let them sleep in. Just take my car and leave me the suburban.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I’ll take the kids.”

                                   SATURDAY
07-23-2011
Transcript of the Eyewitness account of Danielle E. Grigg
8:12 a.m.
“She seemed [pause] normal. She came to the door, she was smiling, and she picked up Ava and tickled her. I mean she was just normal, old Stella. I didn’t know, I couldn’t tell that anything was wrong, [pause] um, [pause]excuse I’m, I’m sorry. [pause] [crying] I couldn’t tell that anything was wrong with her. Paul came to the door with all the kids’ bags and gave her a hug. She hugged him back.
He walked all the luggage out to Matt’s car and I kissed and hugged my girls goodbye. [pause] I’m sorry. Um, I kissed my girls goodbye and I held Ava for a minute. And then Paul kissed the kids goodbye. He talked to Izzy for awhile because she was crying and didn’t want to leave. Those two , they were like best friends.
Then we put the kids in the car and Paul and I said hi to the boys. Izzy, Ava and Wyatt were in the middle row and Emma and Aiden were in the back. Then she – Stella, sorry - hugged us both and told us to have a safe flight. She seemed happy, she told the kids they were going to have a Disney sing-along. [crying] Then she backed out of the driveway with my children and I never saw them again.”
                                       -
7-23-2011
Transcript of call from witness I.N.
1:16 p.m.
Dispatcher: Yavapai County 911.
Caller I.N.: Um, oh god. Fuck. Oh Christ, there’s, this, ah, there’s a car that was in front of me and it just went over the guard rail into the canyon. Just, oh god, he just [inaudible] and went over. He didn’t even slow down at all. I’m still going, should I turn around?
Dispatcher: Where are you, sir?
Caller I.N.: On the 17. In the canyon.
                                         -
07-23-2011
Eyewitness account of T.N.
1:16 p.m.
As soon as I saw the car go over, I stopped on the West shoulder of the road. I’d noticed that truck earlier because it’d been weaving in and out of traffic as it approached me. Something was definitely happening with the driver. She was really calm and steady, like real oddly serene, almost oblivious to what was going on outside of the car. She cut in front of me but I was prepared for it so I slowed down without a problem. She didn’t. She just kept going in that trajectory right over the side of the mountain.
Other people started puling over too and we tried to get down the cliff but it’s a pretty sheer drop right there. Then about, well, when I guess we were about halfway down, the truck caught on fire. There were bodies all over the place. Little kids, mostly. I’ve never seen anything like it. I saw photos of the accident on the news but they were taken after the police had been there and cleaned up a bit. When we first got down into the canyon, it was like looking into hell. All the bodies were still burning. Everyone was dead.

                              SATURDAY AND THE END
I made my first call to Stella’s cell phone at 11:04. It rang for awhile and then went to voicemail. This didn’t worry me as my wife usually turned her cell phone on silent when she was driving through the mountains; that road had always made her nervous.

At 11:30 I called again, and this time someone sent it to voicemail. I still didn’t worry too much. I’d talked to Dani before her flight left that morning and she’d told me Stella hadn’t come by to pick up the girls until 8:15 and that she’d planned to get the kids some breakfast before she got on the road. A 2 hours drive would put her in close to 11 but my wife was a slow and careful driver.

At noon I started to pace around my office trying Stella’s cell phone off and on.

By 1 p.m. I was a wreck.

At 1:14 I got a frantic call from Paul about a voicemail he’d received from Izzy. I immediately called the police and reported my wife missing and the phone call from inside the car. A woman called me back after the longest 40 minutes of my life. She told me there had been an accident and that they were sending someone to my house.

Everything that made me human had suddenly been stripped away from me. I lost everything that day.
Paul and Dani flew back from Cancun that night and got the news right when they landed. Paul had to be sedated at the airport. Dani was just numb.

Someone brought me what was left of our personal effects from the crash: Emma’s suitcase and Stella’s overnight bag. All the others had been destroyed in the accident.

Stella’s body was too badly burned to do any conclusive toxicology on her. No one had any idea what had happened to my wife, why she’d been behaving so strangely or how she lost control of the car. The investigation went on until December of 2012 when the case was closed by DPS. No one knew what happened to Stella but the general consensus, all evidence accounting, was that some sort of medical event had occurred on the day of the crash: possibly a stroke or a series of strokes.

I fought hard to clear Stella’s name in the press; they painted her as a drunk and a pill popper. The media also compared her case to something that had happened in New York a few years earlier, the Schuler case. But Stella didn’t drink - ever - or take pills recreationally and she loved her children more than the air she breathed. I hired a private investigator and a lawyer to help me get her body exhumed and retested. Afterward I was told the results were similar to the first tests but that this time the ME had ruled her secondary cause of death “Vehicle Crash due to an Unknown Medical Event".

The press finally back off.

Paul killed himself just before Christmas the same year of the accident. Dani told me he locked himself in his office everyday and listened to Izzy’s voicemail over and over until one day he hung himself from a cross beam in his daughter’s room.

Dani and I bonded deeply in our grief. We had both lost so much, almost everything. We talked and cried and suffered together for years. And all along Stella’s suitcase sat in my closet. I could never bring myself to unpack it - to unpack her - from my life. But then Dani moved in with me and my soul began to mend. And for the first time since the accident, I could see ahead of the agonizing pain to a more tolerable existence. I was finally ready to let it all go, to let her go. To emerge from under the crippling darkness into a dull, muted light that I knew would grow brighter with time.

And so one day, I opened the suitcase. And found out what really happened to Stella.

On top of my wife’s neatly folded clothes was a note she had written to me in black marker. It was only six words, six short words that cast me back into hell, never to return. I know about you and Dani.

It was written on a liquor store receipt.

–
Credits to: The_Dalek_Emporer

Uncle Dan Promised

December 5, 2014
In my dream, I see a younger version of myself. I’m guessing 5 years old? I was playing in a sand box with my GI-Joes when all of a sudden, a bunch of older kids approached me and started kicking sand all over my face. I see myself trying to block the sand with my little hands and arms but with no luck. I don’t know how it’s possible but watching the occurrence made me tear as well. I felt the sand pricking my own two eyes… It hurts. Little me pleaded for them to stop in between sobs but they just continued on satisfying their cruel intent. But then someone shouted not too far away from the scene and told the bullies to stop picking on me. They ran away laughing and giving high fives to one another as if their task for today was fulfilled. I saw Uncle Dan. He rushed forward and picked me up telling me that it’s going to be okay. His eyes full of concern.

My dream then shifted into a different setting. It was our old house. I was playing in our backyard. Little me was so happy with his new red bouncing ball. I felt his excitement just like when I felt his pain from the sand incident. The excitement died out almost immediately when little me kicked the ball a little too strong and went over the fence. I was so scared that my parents would scold me about losing a newly bought toy so little me went out the backyard right away. I followed him and watched as he pick up the ball across the street. He was so relieved and was hurrying back inside the backyard when suddenly a large dog blocked him. It was really, really large for a 5 year old boy.

I attempted to rescue my younger self but then I realized that I’m just dreaming. I felt him panic and ran away without thinking. The large dog immediately sprang over him and started barking very, very loud. Little me screamed and attempted to push the dog away. The dog bit his arm and locked its fangs on it. We wailed in pain in chorus. I felt the blood trickling down my arms and the numbness after the excruciating pain. Although I don’t see any bleeding. In fact, all I see on me is a fading scar on my right forearm. However, I watched my younger self helpless, bleeding and in so much pain. Then out from nowhere, someone shove the dog off him. It was again Uncle Dan. He saw the blood and his face lost all its color. He picked me up telling me that it’s going to be okay. His eyes full of concern as he drove me straight to the hospital.

The dream again shifted. I was at school. It seems like I’m waiting outside the Principal’s Office. There were noises inside the room. I woman and a man having an argument. I saw my younger self nursing his palms. I stepped forward to get a better look and saw that his palms were bright red. Then just as I saw them, my own two palms ached as if someone just lashed a ruler on them. I looked closely and his hands does look like they’ve been hit by something. Both me and my younger self winced in unison. Then Uncle Dan stormed out the Principal’s Office. He was absolutely fuming. He knelt down and looked at my palms. It didn’t help with his rage. He asked me if I’m alright. I nodded ever so slightly. He leaned forward and whispered something to my younger self. I know that it was a promise. He promised me something which I can’t hear nor remember. Then I wake up.

It has been like this for weeks now. Same dream as if I’m watching a very old film from a projector over and over again. Though regardless how many times I dream about it, I can never hear nor remember what he whispered. I can never get to the point where the dream would reveal what he promised. I wanted to know. I felt the importance of it. There is a reason why the dream is recurring. I am now 25 years of age. I never had this dream before and it’s really getting into me.

It’s important for me to know this because I love my Uncle Dan. He’s the only relative I have ever known. I know in my heart that I love him. Even though the only memory that I have of him is when cops rounded our old house and dragged him into one of the police cars. I can still remember the look on his face while they were putting handcuffs on him. He was very calm and just stared at me the entire time. I don’t know why they needed 4 cops to do this to a single man but they sure looked tense. He looked at me as if saying that everything’s going to be okay. Which I find out of place considering that he’s the one in trouble and I should be the one telling him that. I returned his stare and just when they drove him away, my younger self mustered the strength to say the only thing I can… “Uncle Dan…”

I never saw him again after that. I’m not even allowed to visit him. Mom and Dad will never accept any conversation that brought him up as if it’s a restricted topic. I resent them for this because Uncle Dan has always been my “parent”. They were never home and now he’s gone. What’s weird is that I don’t have any other memories of him before they took him away. That’s probably the reason why I feel the urge to know what really happened now that my dream is actually giving me a glance from my subconscious. I believe that the dream actually is a suppressed memory from my childhood and I want to know why I can’t remember.

December 10, 2014
I attempted to access my subconscious to free my suppressed childhood memories. I visited a “Hypnotist” and we had a couple of sessions. Just when I was about to give up, I had a completely new dream last night and I sure was not expecting what I’ve seen.

In my dream, I saw my younger self in my room from our old house. Nothing notable at first but then I heard a noise. I saw little me panning his face to where the noise came from. We both have this “intrigued” look in our face. We both came outside the room and tried to find where the noise is coming from. Little me actually holding a space gun in the process as if he was in the verge of finding a secret evil lair in which he was unfortunately correct . We ended outside the old house where a separate tool house is located. I know Uncle Dan is very fond of DIY “stuff” and would always stay in his tool house for hours. The noise grew louder and louder as we approached. It’s sounded like an electric round saw. Little me peeped through a hole on the wooden tool house and saw Uncle Dan sitting on a stool, his back at me. He looked so busy. Little me was about to leave out of boredom when a sort of “stench” caught his attention once again.

Then it happened… I saw my younger self petrified and wide-eyed. He dropped his space gun which made an unmistakable “thud”. Uncle Dan stormed outside. He was no longer the concerned, harmless Uncle I’ve known for years but someone with a wild, crazy look on his face. He was sweating so badly. He has dirt all over his work apron. Most of which looked like…. Blood stains? I was so terrified of him. Even my little self sat there unmoving. But Uncle Dan just stood in front of him for what seemed like a long time and walked away.

The dream shifted and I’m now inside the tool house. I am no longer a third person. I’m alone. The stench doesn’t help with my hollow breathing. It smelled of spoiled meat and wood carvings. My eyes immediately darted on the farthest corner of the tool house. The room was dim and dust particles danced with the light shining from the top window. I saw something hanging from the left corner. A large mass of… fur? I am so terrified but I garnered all the strength left in me and stepped closer. To my horror, the figure looked very familiar. I have been face to face with it. I felt my scar burned as I realized what it was. I unconsciously placed the back of my hand to my mouth and stepped backward. As I stepped back, my balance failed me and I lay flat on the floor. I surely stepped on something “wet”. As I lay there, I felt droplets of liquid gracing my face. I looked up and I saw… just on top of me the most horrendous thing I can possibly find in a tool house.

December 11, 2014 | 1:37 A.M
I woke up sweating. It’s all coming back to me. The memories from my childhood… and I don’t want it! I grabbed my hair and screamed out loud. It was just too much! I’m breathing heavily as I sat on my bed staring blankly. I unconsciously dialed the number of my mom. After a few rings she answered.

MOM: Danny, what’s wrong? It’s past midnight.

ME: M-mom… I remember.

MOM: Remember what exactly honey?

ME: H-he killed them, didn’t he? U-uncle Dan… H-He killed those bullies? A-and the t-teacher ??

MOM: I am so sorry, Danny.

ME: MOM! Just tell me! He killed them, didn’t he?!

……… long silence ………

MOM: You got it all wrong Danny, he would never do that… You did.
~
“It’s going to be okay, Danny. I will ALWAYS have your back, I promise.”

–
Credits to: darknight_18

They Beckon

The 18-wheeler rolled through the midnight terrain at a constant speed of 75 miles per hour. The trucker hadn’t given his name. The hitch-hiker with his mop of tangled blond hair, his ragged camouflage backpack, and his unchecked wanderlust wouldn’t have remembered it anyway.

It was a lonely stretch of interstate somewhere on the map between one coast and the other. It didn’t matter if it was Minnesota or Texas, Florida or Idaho, it all looked the same in the dark. The stars were a scattering of illuminated pin pricks on a blanket of impenetrable cosmic blackness. The vegetation along the road looked like an undulating mass of living shadows.

“Thanks again,” said the hitch-hiker.

The trucker nodded. “You’re welcome again. Glad to have some company.”

“I bet this job can get boring sometimes, huh?”

The trucker shrugged. “You get used to it.”

Then the engine whined and the wheels sputtered. The cab vibrated and the trucker whispered an irritated curse.

“I’m not a mechanic, but that doesn’t sound good,” said the hitch-hiker. He straightened up and scanned the highway for other vehicles. They were alone.

The trucker grimaced, clutching the gear shift and fighting back against the massive grunting engine. The semi decelerated. “Well, we might be walking if I can’t figure this out.”

The trucker pulled onto the shoulder then switched on the hazard lights as the semi eventually rolled to a stop.

“Well, the truck stop is only about five miles back,” stated the hitch-hiker.

“Listen to me,” said the trucker.

The hitch-hiker studied the trucker’s face. He saw large blood-shot eyes and quivering lips. A maddening fear had rushed up from somewhere deep within the trucker’s soul and the hitch-hiker suddenly wished he had declined the invitation for a lift at that truck stop isolated by miles of lonely highway.

The trucker took a deep breath before saying, “If you see people outside ignore them. They’ll try to get you to come with them. I’ve seen this before on isolated patches of road late at night. I can get the truck going again if you give me time.”

“Is this a joke?” asked the hitch-hiker. “Because if it is it’s not funny.”

The trucker shook his head. “Their eye’s beckon. Do you know what that means? Beckon. To summon, to invite. They’ll want to take you away.”

“Man, this is some weird stuff,” said the hitch-hiker. He went for the door, but the trucker reached out his hand to stop him.

The hitch-hiker recoiled from the trucker’s grasp as if assailed by something cold and unnatural.

“Look! They’re here,” said the trucker.

The hitch-hiker looked into the night. A figure appeared. Then another and another. In the glow of the headlights he saw a mob of somber faced travelers who seemed to stare back at the hitch-hiker as if astonished by his very existence. Men and women, young and old, casually swarmed the shoulder of the highway. And they did beckon.

One of them, a man in his 30s wearing dirty clothes, held a small suitcase in one hand and with other waved for the hitch-hiker to join their ghastly horde. Then the others waved and nodded and called out in silent cries for the hitch-hiker.

The sound of the ignition kicking up shattered the silent spectacle. The trucker turned the key, but it wouldn’t turn over. Instead the engine sputtered and whined. The trucker cursed under his breath.

“Who the hell are these people?” asked the hitch-hiker.

“I’ve seen this before,” was all the trucker would say.

The hitch-hiker locked the door. He looked at their desperate features and heard their soft wailing moans. A deep desire was burning within the small mob of maybe two dozen midnight interlopers. A pretty young woman with long chestnut hair moved through the crowd as if gliding. She came to the window and smiled.

“Come to us,” she whispered.

The engine shuddered and came to life.

A wild-eyed man with gray hair rushed up beside the woman. He looked ragged and crazed like most of the homeless men the hitch-hiker had met in his travels. He held out his hand as if waiting for the hitch-hiker to embrace it.

Now the trucker shifted the semi into gear and the cab jerked forward.

As the truck rolled onto the highway the mob followed along the shoulder. The hitch-hiker watched them beckon with their eyes and hands as if their very lives depended on luring him out of the cab. The truck gained speed and the mob continued their horrific pleas.

Eventually the truck went fast enough to put distance between the two men in the cab and the mass of specter-like people. The mob did not chase after. Sensing that their effort was rebuffed they became sullen.
The hitch-hiker watched them disband; some disappearing into the blackness of the woods on the right. Others spreading across the lanes to be engulfed by the darkness of the night. The hitch-hiker watched their silhouettes grow small in the passenger-side mirror. A minute later the two men were alone on the meandering highway once again.

Though the hitch-hiker wanted to ask questions, he couldn’t find the courage to ask them. They drove in silence for nearly an hour.

The trucker pulled off an exit. The hitch-hiker looked over.

“Where to now?” asked the hitch-hiker.

The trucker said, “I should show you what that was all about.”

Five minutes later the trucker pulled into the gravel parking lot of an abandoned country western bar. They climbed down from cab. The trucker led the hitch-hiker to the back of trailer. He produced a key and unlocked a padlock.

The hinges creaked as the trucker swung open the doors. It was dark inside. The trucker climbed inside. “Come on,” he said.

The hitch-hiker took a moment for a cautious glance of his environment. The darkened windows of the bar reminded him of the eyes of the roadside mob. He shuddered and climbed into the trailer.

“There’s a light. Turn it on,” said the trucker.

The hitch-hiker stumbled forward, grasping for the supposed light. Behind him he heard the gravel crunch beneath the trucker’s boots. The doors slammed shut. The hitch-hiker turned and rushed toward the back. He charged into the doors, trying to knock them open. He bounced off, falling to the floor. Darkness surrounded him as if to swallow him whole. He screamed. Then he heard the click of the lock.

He screamed again as the trailer lurched forward. They were on the road again. He flailed his arms searching for escape. In the dark he felt something hanging from the ceiling. There was a light after all. He pulled on the string and the trailer was awash in light.

Around him he saw faces staring back with cold dead eyes. He saw contorted bodies heaped into piles. Along the walls of the trailer he saw shackles and below those shackles speckled outlines of the human form painted in dried blood. He tried to scream again, but found that his lungs wavered in the stagnant air surrounding him.

He suddenly felt dizzy. His knees buckled then he feel to the floor. Scattered around him were the discarded items of dozens of the trucker’s victims. Backpacks, purses, wallets, clothes, shoes, and more.

The semi sped on into the night, mile after lonely mile. By three in the morning the trucker saw a sign for a place called Ruby’s Diner & Gas. In black letters plastered across the top of the billboard were the words: TRUCKER AMENITIES AVAILABLE 24 HOURS. His lips curled into a wicked grin. It got lonely on the road, thought the trucker. Thank god for truck stops.

–
Credits to: Nightwatch_SRB

The Screeching

It was the first and last time I went out with Tim Aubeck. I like to think that I was a good kid in high school, and he had a reputation for cruising the gravel roads half drunk, only stopping to grab another beer from the cooler. I went because Paul, my best friend at the time, told me I needed to get out more. We were supposed to just cruise the town. That’s what Aubeck said.

We ended up hanging out with Fortner, who lived in a trailer on a farm six miles from the nearest highway. Fortner was a year older than us, a college dropout turned tractor mechanic. He had wood panelled walls, a flat screen TV, and a hound dog. Oh yeah, and a lot of beer.

I had three beers, which was the most I’d ever had at one time. To be honest, I don’t like beer. I know I’m supposed to, being a guy–a guy with a beard, nonetheless–but I just don’t. Anyway, we were drinking and talking and a few hours into it Aubeck said he had to take a piss.

I went with him because I had to go, too, having just drank thirty-six ounces of the bitter stuff. I know Aubeck had way more, though. He was close to three-hundred pounds, and he almost fell down the two steps leading outside.

“Easy,” I said.

“Holy shit, Mike.” Aubeck steadied himself against a tree and went. I went by a different tree.

The night really is beautiful in the country. The sky all stars, nothing in the air but wind, and a moon as bright as a lamp. Sometimes you have to stop and take a piss to appreciate it. I lived in the city for ten years, and you couldn’t get that there. Never in a million years.

Then we heard the screeching. It was a sound like nothing I’d heard before, and I consider myself a very good listener. A screeching noise, there and then gone, far away but close enough to know it was real.

EEE-ERR.

Silence.

EEE-ERR.

It was the sound of a gate on rusted hinges, a loose old floorboard. I shivered and zipped up.

“Did you hear that?” Aubeck said.

“Yeah, it must be from that old barn out there.” There wasn’t any barn, but I really wanted to get the hell back inside. Suddenly the country wasn’t so pretty.

“Nah,” he said. “Wasn’t a barn. What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know man. I’m going inside.” My voice cracked, but I think Aubeck was too drunk to notice. I stepped toward the trailer, and he took two steps into the weeds.

EEE-ERR

“That!” Aubeck said. “You hear it?”

“Let’s–”

EEEEEE-ERR

My heart fell to the bottom of my stomach, then leapt into my throat. “I… come on, man. Let’s get another beer.”

Aubeck didn’t answer. He just kept walking towards that terrible sound. I don’t know why I followed him. I guess I felt responsible for his sorry ass. I still do sometimes. I wonder if things would be different if I’d stopped him.

Now the world truly was silent. People say silent but they don’t really know what it means. Really, really silent. No cars, no people. No wind in the trees. No groaning cattle.

I waited for that screeching to break the silence, but it was Aubeck’s footsteps I heard next. We were over the fence now, in a neighbor’s pasture. A cloud had slipped in front of the moon. I had only his drunken footfalls to go by.

And then they stopped. The moon shone on the pasture again. A cow mooed stupidly. Fortner’s dog barked. Aubeck was gone.

“Aubeck!” I called out. I stumbled around in circles, too terrified to move forward. There was nothing but weedy earth in front of me, but it felt like I was teetering at the edge of a cliff.

EEE-ERR

Softly this time, as if trying to pull me off that cliff.

EEEEEE-ERR

It seemed to float on the wind.

“Come on, Aubeck. This isn’t funny.”

Fortner, Paul and I, the state police, and the whole town of Oak Pass could not find Aubeck. Or a trace of him. I never told anyone about the screeching. “He just wandered off,” I said.

I listen for it every night now, going on three years. The fear is gone, replaced by a boundless emptiness far, far worse. I stare at the sky and listen, really listen, but it’s hard to find silence so complete.

Sometimes I try different places. A township cemetery between corn fields. The caves in Ahanu State Park. A supposedly haunted mansion on a bluff. But mostly I listen in the place where it happened.

When I fall asleep tonight, If I do, I’ll dream of that night. The grass bending under our feet, the moon in full glow, all the stars hanging in perfect brilliance. And then, setting up camp by the river. Pitching the tent with Kimmie.

And if nothing else I’ll dream of waking in the middle of the night, my little Kimmie on my chest. “Daddy,” she says. “Daddy, daddy.”

“What is it?”

“Me and Mommy heard a noise. Like a screech.”

At this point I’ll wake up, heart pounding and ears ringing. I’ll grope at my sides for my wife, and feel nothing. Then I’ll listen again and stare at the sky until my eyes won’t stay open, and then I’ll listen with my eyes closed, searching far and wide for that awful sound but only finding sleep.

“She went looking for it,” Kimmie tells me in my dreams. “She’s gone.”

–
Credits to: alanbsteeks

Faded Away

If anyone is reading this, I can honestly say that I’d be surprised. Not surprised that someone was reading this, but surprised that my words managed to reach someone. It would mean that in some way, I’m still here, and I still exist. It’s the only thing that I want. It started years ago; before I was aware of it. I faded away, and I’m not sure if I’m really still here, and the world is ignoring me, or if I really don’t exist anymore. I want someone, at least one person, to know my story, and I’m scared that it’s too late for me.

Like I said, it started happening years ago, before I was even aware of it. When I entered my sophomore year of high school (I’m in my late 20’s now), I had friends. I was happy. People knew who I was, and even though I was exhausted from all the after-school trips to the mall, I was grateful that I had people to talk to. Up until that point in my life, I didn’t have a lot of friends, and seemed to just blend into the background. In junior year, people didn’t talk to me as much, and I started staying home more often. That was fine, though, as it was more my speed, and I had time to recharge. I had always been a little introverted, after all.

In my senior year of high school, even less people talked to me. I had a tight-knit circle of friends, of whom I had almost every class with. We didn’t hang out too much outside of school, but that was fine with all of us, since we got to spend almost the whole school day together anyway. Teachers mostly ignored me, unless I specifically sought them out. At least I wasn’t called on during class, even if I was actually paying attention to the lesson. Sometimes, everyone in class would get their work handed back to them with their grades written at the top, but I wouldn’t get mine back. Nobody asked me to prom, which was fine with me. I didn’t feel like going, anyway. At the end of the year, I only got my grade for one of my end-of-the-year projects, and that was only because I had an oral presentation on it, which forced everyone to at least pretend to pay attention. It was odd, but I didn’t actually care that much. The weirdest part of the year, though, was at my class’ graduation ceremony, my name wasn’t called. I received my diploma in the mail a few weeks later. I brushed it off as an error on the student list, seeing as I was often mistaken for a younger student.

It’s normal that after high school, sometimes, friends drift apart. We all go to different colleges, different towns, sometimes even different states or countries. Social media keeps us all bound together, though, so at least we can always see what our friends are up to. I, like most of my friends, applied to a bunch of different colleges, and we hoped that at least some of us were accepted into the same schools. Out of the fifteen schools I applied to, I only got seven letters in response, and all of them denied my application. Again, I brushed it off. It was entirely possible that there were just so many applications, that mine would get lost; or maybe my other letters got lost in the good ole reliable United States Postal Service.

Ultimately, I ended up going to an online college, living at home, and got a part-time job working as a cashier at a large department store. I was perfectly fine with the arrangement, since that meant I didn’t have to pay for a dorm room, and I could still haunt all my old hangout spots from when I was in high school. Plenty of people I knew stayed in my hometown, and over time, I managed to befriend a couple of them.

Over the next year, some more odd things began to happen to me. After six months at my job, the automatic scheduling program on the computers stopped scheduling me completely. I asked the managers about it, and they just shrugged, saying it was probably a glitch, and that someone would manually go in and type in my hours. This worked for a couple weeks before I stopped being scheduled again. Every time I asked about it, they said that it must have slipped their minds, and someone would get on it right away. None of the managers ever got around to giving me any hours, so I stopped going to work. Nobody noticed.

Another issue was that my friends were hanging out with me less and less. We all worked around the same area, and since it wasn’t far from my home, I would still go visit them even after I “quit” my job. We would chat for a while, and then I’d ask them when they were off work, and if they wanted to hang out. I’d get a cheery smile in return and a “Sure! I can’t stay out too late, but I’ll be hungry when I get off, so I’m down to get a quick bite somewhere” or a “Yeah, I just gotta go run an errand first, is that cool? Can you meet me at Starbucks around six?” I’d always say yes, that’s fine, I’ll see you then. They rarely ever showed up, and when I would text them asking where they were, I wouldn’t get a reply. I stopped asking them to hang out with me. What was the point?

I had online friends, and began turning to them to hang out with me. We would skype, watch movies together, or play online games. Sometimes we would just sit and shoot the breeze, talking about our days. I’d complain about my job search, and how I never got callbacks, interviews, or even an email. Maybe I just didn’t seem appealing as an employee. After all, I had only ever had one job! Desperate for cash so I could pay for my classes, I started working online. I got a couple clients, for things like photo retouching or drawing commissions, but it wasn’t sustainable. I started selling things on eBay, but within a month, I never got bids on anything, even if it was a popular item like a gaming console or a pair of expensive, name-brand shoes that I never wore.

The most troubling event was when the professors for my classes stopped paying attention to me, or my work. On the website we used for class, each “classroom” had a tab for the current assignment, the instructions, and a message board where the students could post and talk to each other about it. My questions were rarely answered, even if I flagged a new topic as ‘urgent’. Every time we submitted our work, the teacher would grade it, leave their comments, and then there was a comments section for other students. It was required that for every assignment, we had to comment on everyone else’s work. People started commenting on mine less and less, until I got no comments at all, and just the professor’s notes. I still commented on everyone else’s work, however. Out of the blue one evening, I got an email from one of my professors asking me why I hadn’t been commenting on other people’s work, and reminding me that it was required for participation credit in the class. I didn’t answer. Within a month, the work I turned in stopped being posted to the website, with no professor’s notes. I emailed them all about it, but got no response. Eventually, I began calling all the professors, and even after several voicemails, I would get no response.

Eventually, I was locked out of the classrooms all together, and couldn’t even log into the websites. All of my calls, voicemails, and emails went unreturned. It just didn’t make sense! This online college was one of the most popular out there, and was accredited, with many awards. I supposed I would just pay the bills for it, and re-apply, since I already had a bunch of work done. I never received prompts to pay for my classes, and debt collectors never called me. I reapplied anyway, and never got back into the school.

By the time I was twenty five, I stayed at home all the time. Nowhere would hire me. I couldn’t find any sources of income, no matter how hard I tried. My friends acted as if I didn’t exist. My Facebook posts went ignored, just like they were on Instagram and Twitter. I didn’t have anything to share anyway. I knew my parents felt bad for me, since every time they would ask me how things were going and I would say “Still the same as always. I’m trying every day, though” and they would press their lips together and shake their heads, sadness filling their eyes. After a while, my dad started asking around to see if any of his friends needed help with anything, or if their employers were hiring. My mom was doing the same. They would give my number and email out to their friends, talking about how hard of a worker I was, and how eager I was to get back into the workforce. When prompted about why I hadn’t worked in so long, they would just say I was focusing on my studies, or say that I had been ill. It seemed to promise a lot of “Yes, thank you, I’ll call. I could use another worker!”, or maybe a “I think my uncle needs another set of hands. I’ll pass on the information.”, or even a “As soon as I get off work, I’ll see if I know anyone that needs help.” Nobody ever called or emailed me.

I went into a depression. It was understandable. My days were spent in bed, looking at my phone, or just reading. It was a classic case of depression. I slept all day, and my meals became smaller and less frequent. My room became my cage, and it was hard to make myself leave. In an act of trying to inspire some life back into me, my parents would dip into their savings in order to take me on weekend getaways. I went with them, of course, as to not disappoint them. They were trying their best. Even so, I was overlooked when we were on our little family trips. My parents would leave the itinerary up to me, and I would comply, but they always seemed to forget about that, and wake up before me in order to go have the vacation by themselves. Fine. Whatever. The hotel rooms had room service, but for some reason, my orders were never brought up to the room for me, and I would have to go out by myself in order to eat. After another year, the weekend getaways and the daytrips stopped happening. Or… at least, I wasn’t told about them, and would wake up to an empty house.

At this point in my life, I knew something was wrong. I was an only child, and was the apple of my parent’s eyes. They had always showered me with attention, and always supported every endeavor that I had. They were always on the border of being overbearing, but not quite. My mind would wander, and I started putting the pieces together. Employers. School. My friends. My parents… it was as if I didn’t matter anymore. Almost like I was fading away. I started to test my theory, and would knock over my mom’s potted plants, dump all of my dad’s shaving cream in the sink, and even intentionally create huge, elaborate messes in the kitchen. I was never questioned about it, and would just hear my mom say something along the lines of “How did this happen? Weird…”

When my mom stopped calling me down for dinner, I got even more worried. I would hear my mom setting the table and smell the delicious scents from the kitchen, but she never called me down. I would go down anyway, only to find that my mom had set out two plates instead of three, and was making less food. Hurt, I started marching right past them in the dining room, and would make a bowl of noodles or something simple, and carry it to the dining room table and loudly eat right in front of my parents. They didn’t acknowledge that they hadn’t made a place for me at the table, or that I was eating something completely different than them, but would still ask me about my day, if I had read any interesting books lately, and if I still wanted to go to Yellowstone over the summer. Eventually, they stopped speaking to me at dinner. Eventually, they stopped speaking to me all together. I could run naked through the house and they wouldn’t notice. Trust me, I tried it.

At the store, cashiers wouldn’t acknowledge me standing in line, and would skip over me, or leave the register all together when I was the last person in line. I would get my own bag, leave the money on the counter, and leave with my purchases, and nobody would say a word to me. I broke store rules by going in shirtless, without shoes, and once in just my underwear, and nobody would try to stop me. One day, I went to the gas station with my sleeping bag and a few books, grabbed something off of the shelf, and settled down by the entrance to read. It was as if I wasn’t even there.

At first, I thought this sudden freedom was awesome. I could go anywhere I wanted, and do anything that I wanted. I could live in a department store if I felt like it. I marched past security guards wherever I went, and even if they looked right at me, it was as if I were invisible to them. Maybe I was. I started going into people’s homes, staying with them for days, sometimes weeks on end, and nobody would even notice that I was bundled up on their couches, wearing their clothes, eating their food, and using their wifi connection. I would stay away from my own home for months, and every time I went back, my parents wouldn’t even look up from whatever they were doing. I was invisible.

Another year went by, and I was cripplingly lonely. Yes, I could do whatever I wanted, and go wherever I felt like. I could take anything I wanted, and use whatever I felt like. But.. nobody would speak to me. The most human interaction I was with strangers on chat sites like Omegle. Even then, the conversations were short. I would stand in the middle of crowded stores and scream, and people would walk right by me. I approached people and try to talk to them, and introduced myself. They ignored me, even when I physically touched them.

I had reached my breaking point when I was in a Starbucks, observing the baristas so I could finally learn how to make my own coffee. One of the new girls, Cassie, tripped over me while carrying a cup of scalding hot coffee. It landed all down the front of my shirt, the liquid soaking through and scalding me. I screamed, scrambling away from the baristas, and pulling off my ruined shirt. Cassie just looked down, noticed her shoe was untied, and tossed away the old coffee cup before re-tying her shoe and mopping up coffee that had gotten on the floor. A rage that I hadn’t felt in a long time filled my chest as my skin burned, and tears were furiously welling up in my eyes and rolling down my cheeks. She didn’t even fucking noticed that she burned someone with that coffee. She didn’t fucking notice. Nobody noticed. Nobody ever notices.

I ran over to her, and pushed her down onto the ground with all of my might. Her head bashed against the counter, causing her to scream out in pain. The scream was cut short by her injured head hitting the floor, and she passed out. The other baristas, and the customers, rushed over to the counter to see what happened.

“Oh fuck, she must have lost her balance and fell! Someone call 911!” Another coworker rushed to her side as blood pooled on the floor, and started examining her. I screamed out with all of my might, telling them that I fucking pushed her, it was me, she spilled coffee and burned me, she didn’t just ‘lose her balance’, it was me. I did it. My screams went ignored.

The only thing I could think of to do was run out of the Starbucks, and keep running. I ran until my legs were rubber and I could only feel the burning pain from going so fast and so far. When my legs finally gave out, I fell to the ground, sobbing. People on the street walked right by me. I laid there and cried until I couldn’t cry anymore, and fell asleep on the street.

When I woke up, my legs ached, and I could barely walk. I forced myself to go home. My parents, as usual, didn’t notice that I walked in. I decided that the best thing to do was get my story out there in the world, and what better place to do that than the internet?

Please, if you’re reading this, don’t wish you would fade away. It’s not worth it. It’s hell.

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Credits to: http://eridannyboy.tumblr.com/