Late Night Texts

I have been seeing this girl for around 9 months now. She is a wonderful person, always been the light of my day. She has her quirks, but everyone does; that is just what makes us who we are. One of quirks is her sleep texting. I will wake up in the morning to usually 3 or 4 text messages from her. Most of the time it is just a gargled message of auto-corrects and letters jumbled into nonsensible words. Most of the time.

That was until last night. It was around 3 AM I believe, when I was woken by my phone vibrating. I rolled over and picked my phone up to see that I had received a text from my girlfriend. A part of me thought about not even looking at it and just going back to sleep. The paranoid, anxiety driven part of me however, wanted to know if something was wrong. So I opened the text message.

“Tom”

That was all it said. I found this particularly odd for several reasons. One being that the message made decent sense; I mean it was my name. However, my girlfriend never calls me Tom it is always Thomas. My curiosity got the better of me and I responded. Almost immediately after I sent the text, I received one

“Help”

The hair stood up on the back of my spine. I felt a cold shiver and my stomach tossed. I immediately stood up, got changed and got into my car. It was only a short drive to her house, but if felt like hours. I decided I would phone her on the way to her house.

Ring

Ring

Ring

The line connected. On the other side I couldn’t hear anything except for heavy breathing. I said hello several times, as panic and fear overtook me. As I said hello for the fourth time I heard something. I heard the sound of feet shuffling and then a deep, loud, hysterical laugh. I screamed into the phone demanding to know who had my girlfriend’s phone. But it was too late, they hung up. I arrived at my girlfriend’s house at this time.

I threw my car into park and ran up her walkway. I unlocked the door quicker then I ever have before. I ran into her room expecting a horrible scene. What I saw next blew me away. 

My girlfriend was lying in her bed, sleeping. I slowly walked towards her and woke her up. As she awoke she was surprised to see me, which I found incredibly odd. I asked her if she was alright and she responded with “yes” in a quiet annoyed tone. I checked her phone but there was no record of the text messages, or the phone calls. I checked underneath her bed, and the rest of the house. But I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Was I just imagining things? Did I imagine all the text messages and the phone call? 

Nonetheless, I stayed with my girlfriend for about an hour, who fell back into deep sleep almost immediately. When my panic and anxiety slowly died down, I stood up from her bed and showed my way out of the house. As I walked down the path I ran through what just occurred over and over again in my mind.

The drive home still took longer then usual. My mind still was racing over the possible scenarios that could have played out. As I pulled into the driveway I felt the vibration of my phone in my jean pocket. Fear once again crept up on me as I slid open the message from my girlfriend.

“You forgot to check the closet”

–

Credits to: ThePanicPanda77

The Slow Apocalypse

It was referred to as the slow apocalypse.

Honestly, we didn’t expect the long term effects, at all. It was a new synthetic type of shatter proof glass that was very cheap to produce. The compound was touch sensitive so it was used in a wide array of items, such as phones, televisions, computers, and as bulletproof windows in homes, businesses, and industrial companies. It was added to plastics and rubbers to strengthen durability.

Symptoms didn’t show up until five years later. People just went to bed one night and stayed asleep. They laid in a comatose state while reactive to stimuli, which turned out to be horrible. The nerves responsible for pain did not go away as their organs cooked themselves. Followed by their skin weakening which resulted in rips and tears.

At this point they would start screaming in pain as hypersensitivity would ensue on their awakened bodies. Analgesia would not ease any of their suffering. People who had been anesthetized couldn’t metabolize the drugs being used and expired soon after.

People who hadn’t fallen asleep yet but knew they had made contact awaited their destiny in fear. My brother fell asleep last night and I can’t awaken him. Family members usually go together. I’ll try to stay awake. This is my goodbye.

--

http://photofreecreepypasta.tumblr.com/

Sweet Dreams

‘Its 2 AM. Why can’t I sleep?’ You think to yourself, laying in a bed that seems to get colder and more uncomfortable by the minute. Your legs are restless, your brain is on overdrive and no matter how you position yourself it all feels the same. You feel a slow ache in your head, but only briefly. Frustrated, you sit up, and start to get out of bed.

‘Maybe a run will help. Get all this energy out, and give my brain a rest, something else to focus on.’ You put on your running gear, head to the workout room, and start warming up.

A small tingle goes up your spine as you head to the treadmill. You slowly look around for someone else in the room. Surely you locked the doors, you checked twice, but there’s the undeniable feeling of eyes on your back. Seeing nothing, you return to the treadmill and start it up. After 45 minutes of walking, jogging, running and then back down, you feel exhausted.

‘Finally’ you think, heading for the fridge for a bottle of water. As you reach in, there’s a small tingle on your back… almost like a hand just barely touching you. Heart pounding, you look around, the light from the fridge illuminating only a small part of the kitchen.

You fumble along the wall reaching for the light switch. As you flip it, light floods the room showing..

Nothing.

‘What the… what is going on?’ You think, slowly rubbing your temple. You didn’t realize you still had the headache. It’s a little worse, but you’re sure once you re-hydrate and get some sleep it’ll be gone.

Turning out all the lights, you head back to your bedroom, sleep beckoning. You fall asleep almost instantly. The next five nights are the same routine, the same feeling of being watched when no one is there gets worse. You hear whispers, see shadows running along the wall as you turn on lights.

‘My mind is playing tricks on me’ you tell yourself. Its because you’re so tired, right? And this headache can’t be helping either. Maybe you should see a doctor or something. You make the call the next morning and after a weeks’ wait to get in, the doctor finds nothing “wrong” per se, just stress from work maybe? Too much electronic use, cell phone and tv. Cut down on that, and excess sugar and caffeine, and that should help both the sleep and the headache, which is probably just from eye strain. Being tired.

She gives a prescription for some sleeping pills “just in case” and sends you home. That night, you aren’t taking any chances. You go to the kitchen for some water, pill in hand. You set the pill on the counter and get some water from the tap. You turn around to grab the pill and the glass slips from your fingers, crashing to the ground, shards of glass flying across the floor. You stand frozen to the spot.

Across the room stands a… thing. Its not a man. Not exactly.. it’s like an ever-changing black mist trying to shape itself like a human. It glides towards you slowly, grayish protrusions where a mouth would be appear, almost as if it were its way of a grotesque smile.

It raises a hand and caresses your cheek. The throbbing in your head grows to an unbearable sharp pain. The tingling you’ve been feeling the last two weeks follows and you start to scream, only to be silenced by unseen forces.

The figure slowly starts to disappear, and you swear you hear someone whisper “sweet dreams, soon you will be mine” as you faint into the broken shards. Your head hits the counter on the way down.

In the morning, when you don’t show up for work, people come looking for you. They find your lifeless body and your cause of death will be deemed a mix of aneurysm and head trauma from the counter top. They will never know that the real reason remains in the shadows, with you screaming for them to look at you, to help you, please, help you!

You’re just another restless soul in its keep.

Sweet dreams, my dear.

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

Don’t Breathe

Most people have heard the old superstition about holding your breath as you go by a cemetery. Few people are as serious about it as my grandmother was, though. Don’t take a breath or you may breathe in an unbound spirit!

Every time we got in a car she would remind us, on the off chance that we happened to pass cemetery during the trip. My family always did as she said, no matter how ridiculous it may have seemed. I did it out of respect (and secret fear that she was right) as a child, but as I grew older I was able to see how serious she was when she told us. I never did ask why it was so important to her…

Eventually, after so many years of being reminded, it became a habit. I continued to do it even after she had passed away, usually without even realizing I was doing it until I my lungs started telling me that I needed oxygen. It was a frequent topic of teasing by my friends. But I never really believed in the reasoning behind it. At least, not until a couple months ago.

My girlfriend, Shayla, and I were on our way to my house from town, taking the back roads. We had spent most of the day at the mall- it was really the only interesting place to hang out in the area. We did a little shopping but mostly we people watched, spinning stories about stranger’s lives to pass the time. Her parents were out of town for the weekend on some business trip, (not that they were there very much anyway) so she was spending a couple nights with me. Not that that was unusual, either- we spent most weekends together anyway. With her parents usually gone and my parents being open minded as well as fairly hands-off, we rarely were apart for more than a day or two. It was also almost the end of the school year, of our senior year, and we would be parting ways for college soon so we wanted to spend as much time together as possible.

Anyway, off to the side of the road was the local graveyard. Old, but still occasionally used for members of the original families in the area. Like I said, holding my breath was a habit to me, so as soon as we rounded the curve before the driveway to the cemetery, I took a deep breath in.

“Oh, come on, Carlee. You don’t need to do that,” she teased, poking me in the side. “I promise no ghosts are going to get you. Watch.” She winked at me, rolled down the window, and inhaled deeply. And immediately started coughing. I managed to hold in my laughter until we were past.

“Shayla? Are you in there?” I asked, acting scared. “Oh spirit, please let her go!” She punched me lightly on the shoulder while taking a long drink from her water bottle.

“Ugh. I think I swallowed a bug. That was gross.” I laughed again and she joined in. The rest of the drive passed pleasantly and uneventfully. We spent the rest of the night watching movies and went  to bed around midnight. I fell asleep quickly, but she woke me up a few times with her restlessness. Around four I woke up again, this time because of the realization that I was alone in the bed. I knew that she’d had problems with sleepwalking before, so I got up to make sure she was alright.

I found her standing in front of the kitchen sink, looking out the window, with one of my father’s cigarettes in her hand.

“Shay!” I hissed. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What?” She turned, looking startled. She stared at the cigarette smoking between her fingers. “I don’t… I don’t know. I just…needed it.” She seemed bewildered, like she didn’t understand herself what she was doing. I took the cigarette from her and ran it under water from the faucet then tossed it in the trash.

“Come on,” I said, taking her hand. “Let’s go back to bed.

She woke up early the next morning and asked me to take her home. She said she wasn’t feeling well. I tried to convince her that if she was getting sick, it would be better if she stayed there with me instead of being home alone. I also offered to stay at her house with her, but she said no, that she wanted to be alone.

That was the last real conversation we had. I texted her throughout the day and evening to check in but only got single word replies. At school, where we were usually inseparable between classes, I was barely able to catch sight of her before she disappeared into the crowded hallways. After a couple days, I managed to catch up with her, intending to demand to know what was going on. But the look in her eyes… A mix of disdain and unfamiliarity, like she didn’t know who I was and didn’t want to. It threw me off so much that I lost what I wanted to say to her.

Not like it would have mattered anyway. That wasn’t Shayla anymore. Her eyes had always been bright blue, like the sky on a clear day in the middle of summer. But now…they were any icy gray. Cold. Her bouncy, playful personality was gone. Even her hair was different, dyed a dark brown instead of the beautiful auburn I loved. The way she walked wasn’t the same anymore, either.

I heard through the grapevine that she started hanging out with the kids known around the school as the druggie crowd. I got asked countless times by friends and other students who knew that we were together what was going on with her, but I couldn’t give them answers. I watched as she grew more pale every day. She lost enough weight that it was noticeable even from the quick glimpses I saw of her in the hallways. She stopped coming to school three weeks before graduation. I know her parents filled a missing child report but since she was 18, there wasn’t a lot that they could do. I don’t know if she is still alive.

Then again, I don’t know if the Shayla I knew and loved had been alive since the day we passed that cemetery. I truly believe that exactly what my grandma had always warned me about is what happened to her.

It’s not just a habit when I hold my breath anymore.

House Guest

“Good to finally see you again man,” I greeted Landon and shook his hand as he and his new puppy walked through the door.

“Yeah dude, ever since you moved up here it just hasn’t been the same. This is Briggs,” Landon motioned toward the dog. “He’s only like 6 months old. He loves people.”

I pet the dog for a moment, then we headed into the living room to sit down and catch up on things. He told me about his new job and the band he started up. I told him how I recently got fired. He talked about how his wife left him for his neighbor… basically we went back and forth for about an hour filling each other in on what we had missed in the last year. At some point he realized that Briggs wasn’t near us anymore. We figured he was probably just sniffing around the house and checking things out, but Landon said that he did like to chew things up sometimes so he went to find him.

I turned the T.V. on when I realized the news was about to start. My brother was a prison guard and some psychopath prisoner managed to escape last week. I’ve been following the story ever since. Just as the news started, Landon walked back into the room.

“Briggs is fine, your roommate is laying down on your bed with him.”

“What!” I jumped up off of the sofa alarmed.

“He’s just chilling in there with him..” Landon said a bit confused by my reaction. “I introduced myself and told him we’d be out here. What’s wrong?”

My mind flooded with the different possibilities of what could be going on. Maybe my cousin, maybe my neighbor…… “Landon, I don’t have a roommate.”

 Landon’s face turned from confused, to shocked and horrified. He seemed to be staring past me now. “What did he look like?” I asked.

Landon pointed at the T.V. behind me which was now showing the picture of the escaped convict. “Him….”

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

Retractions

Something about newsprint… the smell, the texture… always intrigued me. I can trace it all back to when I was a kid, playing under the dining room table. Within this shelter of table legs coupled with the legs of adults, I created an entire world of made-up, half-baked adventures.

Every so often, a page from the newspaper would descend to my level, working its way back and forth through the air before making that final, decisive slash toward the floor.

These discarded, lost pages would become any number of playthings. Boats, hats, (same thing), or even perfectly rectangular islands. If they were crumpled, all the better for mountain exploring.

Through these pages I learned little bits of world events, just what my attention span would allow. I learned who “Fergie” was… no, not THAT Fergie… I saw Princess Diana marrying some guy, and I saw the Challenger exploding in mid-air.

This is part of why I was hit by a mixture of nostalgia and guilt when, as an adult, I saw someone trying to sell newspaper subscriptions. The guilt came from the fact I’d gotten all my news from television and the web for a little over a decade.

The newspaper guy was standing near the entryway of the local supermarket. He had a folding table of “The Morning Star” newspapers, all crisp and folded and lined up like perfect roof tiles.

“Hey,” he was basically accosting anyone who passed, “Can I interest you in a free newspaper?” People shook their head “no” or just blew past without acknowledging him.

The guy looked exhausted. His face was stubbly, and his clothes looked as if he’d put them on in his car. He might’ve lived in his car, for all I could see… with only heaps of newspapers to keep him warm.

“Hey,” he noticed my interest and locked eyes, my mistake, “Can I interest you in a free newspaper?”

The situation struck me as so awkward that, before I even thought about what I was doing, I had stepped up to the table. I had now abandoned my safe distance in which I could have forgivably ignored him.

“What’s the deal?” I asked, casting my eyes to the papers instead of the man.

“The papers are free, and we’d like you to sign up for a trial subscription. You can cancel at any time.”

“Well… Okay. What do I have to do?”

I figured I could just cancel right away, and I’d at least have the free paper and the look of relief on this guy’s face. Only after I was walking away with the item tucked under my arm did I realize he’d probably lose his commission if I didn’t stay subscribed for a certain period of time.

After shopping, I stopped off at a Café in town. I hadn’t been there before… hadn’t been to a café at all, really… but it seemed like the kind of thing a man with a newspaper would do.

Ordering a pastry and a coffee whose name I had pronounced incorrectly, I sat at a table by the window and began dissecting the paper’s inky, black and white cadaver.

That’s how it felt. Like I was studying the body of a well and truly dead medium.

Headline. Page one.

“FIFTH BREAK-IN AT LOCAL ACTOR’S HOME”

“The home of actor R.J. Willis was the scene of yet another crime this weekend. The accomplished performer’s premisis has seen multiple break-in attempts recently, and authorities are at a loss to explain the motive…”

Interesting story. Page four.

“REWARD FOR INFO ON MISSING CHILD”

“Police say local boy Eli Stahl disappeared after school on Wednesday. Police say Eli had seemed troubled during recent weeks, and was being treated for an undisclosed psychiatric issue …”

Infuriating story. Page five.

“POLITICIAN SAYS PREZ SPACED OUT”

“City Councilwoman Gloria Peets says President Obama is engaging in wishful thinking. ‘All he does is talk, as if that will get anything done.’ She then went on to quote the Star Wars franchise, saying the President commands others to 'make it so’…”

Any geek worth his or her salt is now shouting: “That’s Star Trek, you idiot!” - I know, that’s what I said, too.

Funny photo. Page ten.

“BOYSCOUT LEADER HOLDS CHARITY BBQ”

“Dillon Troep takes two things very seriously. Shaping the nation’s youth through the Boy Scout Association… and grilling. This weekend, a BBQ will be held to raise funds for the reward offered in the Eli Stahl case…”

There’s nothing quite as hilarious as a bunch of doughy 40-somethings dressed in nasty-neat Boy Scount uniforms. So serious. So ridiculous.

I debated whether or not to call the paper about that Star Trek/Star Wars thing. This, I thought, is why nobody reads the paper. There’s no “edit” button so writers can take back a mistake instantly. No, with the printed page, your every flaw is permanently recorded for all time.

In the end, I decided that they would probably WANT to know… you know, to avoid problems like this in the future. Research your movies!

I dialed the paper’s number, only to be greeted by an automated system. After a series of button presses and exactly two accidental returns to start, I was nearly about to hang up and forget about it.

Then, someone picked up. A live person.

“Yeah?” Not a very good greating.

“Hi, I’m calling about a mistake in the paper…”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I’m not sure if there’s a department for that, or…”

Five full seconds of silence. If that sounds short, count it out in your head. It was brutal.

“You can just tell me.” The gruff, emotionless voice seemed more likely to ignore the information than jot it down.

“The political story, 'POLITICIAN SAYS PREZ SPACED OUT’. The quote you attributed to Star Wars is from Star Trek.”

“Is that it?”

“I guess so.”

Click.

This was yet another checkmark on my list of reasons to use the internet. I would’ve cancelled right then, just out of spite, but I couldn’t shake the idea of that haggard, tired guy losing money specifically because of me.

The next paper arrived at my doorstep. The thump of that heavy cylander against my door gave me the most fleeting vision of a pending home invasion.

I skipped through the paper that morning and went straight to the retractions. I wanted to see if Mr. Personality had actually told anyone about what I’d said.

I leaned back in my dining room chair and sighed with a satisfied smile. There was the line I had been looking for.

“In our last installment we attributed the quote 'make it so’ to the Star Wars film franchise. We meant to say that the quote originated on the television series Star Trek.”

I wondered what else they screwed up, and read on…

“We also expressed that authorities had no motive for a series of attempted break-ins at a local celebrity’s residence. We meant to say that the authorities know said actor’s spurned homosexual lover has been the cause of these events. At the man’s request, authorities have buried this information.”

…

That was odd. I never knew that guy was gay… I looked over to my entertainment center, where like five of his action movies were lined up on the DVD shelf. I didn’t hold it against him or anything, it was just weird to find out like that.

I read on.

“Additionally, we stated that Eli Stahl is missing when in fact he is dead.”

What?

I mean, I literally said this out loud. “What?”

I closed the paper again and looked at the cover… flipped through a few pages. there was no story updating the Eli Stahl case, and I hadn’t heard anything about them finding a body anywhere else. I mean, it’s not like I was glued to the story or anything, but they definiteily would have mentioned this on the local news.

The retraction seemed strange at best, and at worst it was an incredibly mean-spirited jokes.

I turned back to the retractions and made sure I read and understood that line correctly. There it was in black and white… how many times can you say that and have it literally be true?

I shook my head at the cruel text and read the final retraction.

“Lastly, we wrote about Boyscout leader Dillon Troep’s charity BBQ. What we failed to mention was that a portion of the meat served was human flesh, and for that we greatly apologize.”

Now I knew someone had been playing a prank. Some disgruntled employee, probably the asshole I talked to on the phone, had clearly left a last “Screw You” for his employers.

Then, the next day, I saw the television news update. A search party had found some of Eli’s clothes in a deep section of forest. Police said that marks on the clothing… knife-marks, I imagine… gave the impression Eli was no longer alive.

In my head, I connected the retraction to this new update. However, there was a missing child… now he was dead… unfortunately, this is all too common and there was nothing supernatural about it.

The story proceeded with no further information, and nothing to tell me I was wrong about this being just another sad kidnapping/murder.

Then, they ended the piece and the talking heads at their little anchor desk started conversing. It was that forced sort of banter you always see at the end of a big story. Not only do they expect us to believe these people care about the kid at all, but they also want us to think the anchors actually want to talk to each other.

“It’s so ironic,” started the bleached blonde who had no idea what the word meant, “I think they said the clothes were less than a mile from that BBQ.”

“Tsk,” the blow-dried douch clucked his tongue, “To think all those people were such a short distance away.”

I immediately started to get a stress headache. I felt shock, fear, and complete all-out rage within the span of a few seconds, and it gave me a full-on head rush. Within moments, I was on the phone to the newspaper. I wanted to ask how exactly they knew Eli was dead, and what exactly that final retraction meant.
I circled the automated answering service a few times, and never found the path back to that live person. It seemed a lot like the option had been completely removed, as I thought I remembered how to do it.

I went to the Police with the newspaper.

They took it from me… or rather, the person at the front desk did… and they said they’d be in touch. There had been hundreds, if not thousands of bogus tips in the Eli Stahl case by now, and I had little to no hope they’d actually look into this.

When “Psychics” were telling them the boy was all over the county, and when one had even claimed the boy was abducted by lizard men, I guess saying a Newspaper predicted the future sounded like just another wank job. I could’ve easily printed up the page, and by now there was nowhere I could think of to buy a fresh one and prove authenticity.

All I could do was wait and see if they ever talked to Dillon.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I could also drive by Dillon’s house… every day… several times a day. Whenever he was outside, he would wave to me just like any other passing car. There he would stand… t-shirt… khaki shorts… even his regular clothes looked like a man-child scout uniform.

On one occasion he was sitting on his porch, chewing away at a leftover hamburger.

Finally… FINALLY… there was a new report on the case. A Police sting had caught Dillon arranging to meet an underaged boy online. Little did he know he was actually chatting with a Cop. When they went into his house, they just found this massive megaton of pornography. Photos, videos, even full-sized posters on the sick idiot’s walls.

They brought out boxes and boxes of the crap, over the course of two days.

When they were taking boxes out of the cellar, they found the door. Behind the door, they found the room. Inside the room, they found what was left of Eli.

Eli and a handful of others from over the span of a decade.

That article… the one announcing this guy’s complete and utter downfall… I wanted to frame it and hang the thing over my fireplace. I was that happy to see him get what he deserved.

“AUTHORITIES ARREST BBQ BUTCHER”

That was the headline. Cheap, stupid, but leading a delicious story.

“Dillon Troep was arrested today on several counts of posessing illegal pornograhy. Authorities say that more charges are pending and it is likely Dillon will spend the rest of his life behind bars. A local man is said to have brought Dillon to the attention of authorities on a previous occasion, citing an unknown clue within a newspaper article. Fearing arrest, Mr. Troep doused himself in lighter fluid as Police arrived, and…”

Perfect.

I slept well that night. The past few had been hectic. I tossed and turned throughout until morning, and on a couple occasions I gave up and just watched infomercials.

It was so good to get a full night’s rest that I didn’t even react when that loud newspaper “THUMP” against my door pulled me out of a dream. I just flicked one eye open… then slowly closed it again. I was happy.
The second “THUMP” did keep me awake. I’d either dreamt the first one, or a bird had hit the house. … Or maybe this time was the dead bird…?

Annoyed at being disturbed from such a cozy slumber, I shambled to the front door, flung it open, and scooped up the newspaper on the front step. There was just one, as I’d expected. I took off the rubber band, wobbled back to the dining room table, and opened the news of a new day.

Ever since that first paper, I’d made a habit of flipping directly to the retractions. Nothing quite as interesting had come up since, but there had been a few strange ones. For example, a glowing story about a football hero was retracted with comments about him being “a vicious drunken wife-abuser”.

There was only one retraction this time, and as I read it, I knew my good feeling was about to go away fast.

“In our last installment, we stated that Dillon Troep, murderer of missing child Eli Stahl, would spend the rest of his life in prison. We apologize for the error. Dillon will escape Hospital security and travel to the home of a man whose license plate he previously traced.”

I heard the floor creak behind me.

I smelled grilled meat.
–
Credits to: Slimebeast

The Closet

In my childhood I was obsessed with my closet. This simple object was the subject of all my fears and I was always having nightmares about it, just wondering what could get in and out of the dark and empty space inside.

One day, my mum left me alone for the first time in the house just to go to the grocery store downtown. I was in my room, playing around with my favourite toys. The front door of the house was of course closed and the door of my room shut. I was playing with a little car when I heard it. Yes, IT.

At first, I thought it was someone breaking in the house but I had a feeling that the noise wasn’t human. Not at all. With more attention, I found out that it came from the closet. I stepped near the closet’s door quietly and heard a whisper, saying my name, calling me and saying that I should now get out of my hiding spot. And then I heard other noises.

I didn’t understand a thing in this whole situation. I was so scared, that it just paralysed me and I couldn’t move. The noise was closer now, just behind the door. I spontaneously closed it with the key, led by my instinct.

And then nothing.

Just a quiet room in a normal day. I began to calm myself a little bit but the sense of serenity I just had vanished when my closet opened up with a loud noise. I almost had a heart attack at this moment.

A tall and hideous dark puppet-like toy was in front of me, having just exited the closet. The thing was moving on the floor like a spider and was whispering words I didn’t knew. And it was smiling. My brain froze. I was locked in my house with a monster.

I ran to the door of my bedroom and tried to open it. Locked.

Fear began to paralyse me again as I understood that I was now locked in my room with the thing. Without any further study of the situation, I rolled on the floor near the beast and rushed to the closet. The thing yelled at me loudly as I was running away from it. It managed to attach a white rope to my wrist when I was fleeing and it hurt. I closed the door of the closet and hid in it, thinking with strength about my parents and focusing on the warm light of the outside. The monster was hitting the closet desperately and it seemed like it wanted to get back in it at any cost.

And then no more noises. No more whispers. Just emptiness.

I opened my eyes and put my hand on the handle of the closet’s door. As I pushed it down, consequently opening the closet again, the black puppet monster vanished in the air, and let the image of my mom, kneeling on the floor and crying, appear. I ran into her as I was bursting into tears of fear but of joy too.

She explained me this day that it had been six hours since she got back and that she called the police. She also told me that she searched for me in the closet, calling me to get out, because she saw me play in it the moment she left. But I wasn’t there either. I was nowhere to be found this afternoon.

The white rope wasn’t attached to my wrist anymore.

The night came and I finally found some sleep.

The nightmares came too with the night, more real than ever.

The thing was there, waiting for me. I woke it and she owns me now.

And in my sleep, manipulated just like a puppet, led by the slow movements of the white rope attached to my wrist, I walked to the closet, opened it, and then closed it when I was inside.

I never opened my eyes again.

–
Copyright and credits to: realtime97 (http://realtime97.tumblr.com/)