Creepy + Pasta has moved!

The blog has moved to Tumblr.

Why? Well, there are a number of problems with Blogspot now, and I don't want to deal with them. The search function I had on the site at one point NEVER worked properly, and recently there have been changes in Blogspot's internal code that causes the archive to be almost always broken. Tumblr, on the other hand, has a working search function and the archive never breaks.

There's also the issue of accidentally posting stories on Blogspot that have screwed up formatting. You have to go searching for the HTML that has broke it, and switching back and forth between compose and HTML mode makes it even more difficult as it seems to break the formatting even more.

Overall, this is a change for the better and I'll be much happier about the fact that everything will be so much easier to fiddle with from now on.

If you're viewing this within a month or two of this post, don't go expecting much, as most of the stories right now will be older ones I'm simply moving to the Tumblr for those who haven't yet viewed them.

Click here to go to the new site.

The Shady Grove

On the outskirts of a town called Pottsboro, there is a place called the Shady Grove. The only people that remember anything notable about it are all in their 70s or 80s and almost all of them refuse to speak of it.

There are a few, however, that will break their vow of silence and tell of the horrendous events that happened there. They spoke to me bout how they had seen what hell truly looked like and how soon they would pay for what they've done.

During the 1960s, a cult had formed in the town. They had taken to sacrificing people to summon their "master," who their leader had claimed would banish the filth from the Earth and begin a time of true peace.

The only catch was that they had to sacrifice only female children, but only if they were deemed impure after a night with the leader. After he had collected about ten little girls, he told them the day of judgment was upon them and to prepare the circle about five miles outside of town.

That night, at 3:00 AM, they began to ritual by covering the girls in the blood of pigs and cutting the children's arms and legs about one to two inches apart from each previous cut.

The next part was the cover their bodies in oil and light it. After this step, their bodies burst into blue flames and from the flame came a woman with eyes as black as coal and skin as white as snow.

The woman walked straight at the leader while saying something in an unintelligible language and he instantly burst into flames. After that, the group I was interviewing told me they all blacked out, only to find themselves in their beds with a ticket in their hands that had the word "HELL" stamped on it.

The group told me that if anyone attempted to enter the circle where the ritual took place, that would wake up instantly, have an intense vision of themselves burning alive, and then pass out and wake up in their beds holding the ticket to HELL.

Super Mario 128

Mario has been a gaming icon for decades and has been in more games than can be counted. Although no year in recent memory has gone past without some type of Mario game being released, series fans will remember the nearly decade long drought of original Mario platformers.

From 1997-2005, there was only one new Mario platformer released: Super Mario Sunshine. During the second part of this drought (after Sunshine's release), the mysterious Super Mario 128 was the main focus of the fanbase.

No concrete information was given on the game and, eventually, series creator Shigeru Miyamoto claimed it had simply been a series of test concepts that were never intended to be an actual game.

The mystery faded from memory as the Mario drought finally ended and most people forgot about the game that had once been the center of every Mario fan's imagination.

The Mario drought corresponded with a bad era for Nintendo in terms of console sales. The Nintendo 64 and GameCube did not have the financial success of the earlier Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo, or the later Wii.

For a very proud company that relied solely on video games to make money, this was quite upsetting for the higher ranking employees that were attached to the company and felt its success or failure reflected on them personally.

Nintendo started working on a sequel to the 1996 Super Mario 64 shortly after the game was released, but during the late 90s it became clear that Nintendo was not winning the console war. The Super Mario 64 sequel was restarted from scratch, since the company believed that it was not a substantial enough improvement over the original to turn the tides of the market battle.

Seeing the generally more realistic and violent games on Sony's Playstation, the market leader, Nintendo considered making a Mario that was closer in tone to what the public seemed to want. There was quite a bit of internal ocnflict over how far to go with this new direction and the new mario was clearly not going to be ready until Nintendo's next console, the GameCube.

The only hint of this that was released to the public was a comment by Miyamoto that he thought Mario and Luigi should act "more like grown ups" in their games for the (then soon to be released) GameCube.

The new Mario project was ultimately split into two games: Luigi's Mansion, which reflected the darker tone that many felt the series should turn to (although it was still toned down quite a bit compared to what some Nintendo executives and developers wanted), and Super Mario Sunshine, which went in the completely opposite direction.

Both were released within a year of the GameCube and Nintendo felt confident that their new system and Mario games would return them to their former glory as market leader.

As those familiar with gaming history know, they didn't. The GameCube did even worse in market share than the Ninendo 64 and the mass market's taste shifted even more toward violent, realistic games.

During this period, the somber mood at Nintendo intensified and the darker Mario project was revived, this time code named "Super Mario 128." It isn't clear exactly what happened at Nintendo during this period. As we know, nothing called Super Mario 128 was ever released or publically shown.

The source that revealed the internal strife at Nintendo during the later N64 era refused to discuss what was happening during the time of the GameCube's failure, but released a prototype of Super Mario 128 online that can be played on the Wii homebrew channel.

The following is a recollection of my time playing it.

The game was clearly an early beta; the title screen was nothing but white text saying "Super Mario 128" against a black background. There was no options menu or save file selection, either. After the title screen, the game started. Bowser's laugh from Super Mario 64 looped in the background while a plain text box displayed this dialogue:

Mario,
I have taken Princess Peach and she will not live to see the sun rise tomorrow unless you take her place. You know what to do and where to go. Do not try to stop me unless you want to hasten her death.

The game certainly was going for a darker tone. After I made the text box go away, I was thrust right into gameplay. The first thing I noticed was Mario's character model. His body was as detailed as in Super Mario Galaxy (although a little more realistically proportioned), but his head was taken from his SM64 character model. Obviously his design wasn't finished yet.

The setting was a sky level. There were some simple platforms floating in the air. The rest of the area was just blue sky with several clouds scrolling in the background. The clouds seemed more realistic than the usual cartoony puffs in Mario games. They were quite graphically impressive.

There was no music or full voice samples from Mario, but there were sound effect/grunts when he jumped. The jumping was more subdued than in other Mario games. Mario didn't jump as high as he usually did and had little control over his movement in the air. The different types of jumps in every 3D Mario weren't present.

I played through the level. There was nothing especially notable about the gameplay - enemies didn't seem to have been added yet. I just jumped from platform to platform and it wasn't very challenging.

As I went through the level, I noticed the graphics gradually changing. The sky became more and more cloudy until it was entirely composed of clouds, and the cloud background gradually turned to a dark gray.

After this, it started to rain. I reached a small platform with a Toad on it. It looked like the Super Mario Galaxy model. When I landed on his platform, dialogue appeared.

We don't want you any more, Mario. You don't belong here. Just give Bowser what he wants. Die.

After the text box went away, I no longer had control of Mario. Mario just stood there for a while, then turned around and walked off the platform. His body seemed to go limp as he fell.

Eventually, it was revealed that there was a realistic, modern city under the sky. The buildings looked neglected, but there were people on the street.

Mario hit the ground with a realistic-sounding thud, but he didn't explode or show any visible wounds. He just lay there. The people in the city just kept walking by, ignoring Mario, although I thought I saw a few glance at him with cold, somewhat angry expressions.

This went on for a few minutes and eventually, people stopped appearing. Mario got up - I was back in control - but he couldn't jump at all and had a reduced walking speed.

The large buildings of the city didn't appear to be interactive, so I just kept walking down the street for a while. Eventually, I found a small house that seemed out of place among the larger buildings.

When I approached the door, Mario opened it. The screen went white and some black text appeared.

House of Torn Memories

This seemed to be the level title. When I pressed a button, the screen faded back to Mario. He was inside the house from before. Everything seemed bigger than it should. It wasn't gigantic, but scaled as if Mario was a very small child.

The house was filled with normal object covered in dust and signs of neglect. There were no people on the ground floor, just things like broken lamps and rotting food. I found a door that opened to a set of stairs going down, leading to a basement.

In the basement, I found a dilapidated couch and a broken TV. However, what really caught my attention was what was on the couch: two skeletons that appeared to be children, judging by their size. Due to the scale of the house, they were still larger than Mario.

I was starting to get really disturbed by now. How had a Mario game containing this been programmed to this extent?

I went up to the skeletons and tried pressing buttons to interact with them or the TV, but nothing seemed to happen. I was about to turn around and look elsewhere when i was nearly scared to death by a deafeningly loud crash coming from the game.

What appeared to be Bowser seemed to have broken through the floor from below and landed in front of Mario. I say "appeared to be" because this was nothing like the way Bowser is usually rendered.

The reptilian monster in the game had Bowser's basic brownish-yellow and green color pattern, but looked far more threatening than any Bowser model I had seem before.

It was not proportioned like the Bowser I knew. Its arms and legs were far longer in relation to its body and ended in razor-sharp claws. The green shell didn't look like it had spikes glued on; they were more jagged and organic looking with the same dark green color the rest of the shell had.

The face had small but intense pur black eyes and a mouth full of jagged teeth that took up far more of the face than it should have. Mario was cowering in fear from this thing. A dialogue box appeared.

You've kept me waiting long enough, Mario. I will taste flesh soon. Will you finally surrender, or does Peach have to die?

I still didn't have control. Mario just stood there, shivering for several seconds before nodding his head. Bowser impaled Mario with his claws. There was no blood, but it was clear from the animation and sound effects that the sharp digits of Bowser's hands had gone through Mario's body.

In one swift motion, Bowser dragged Mario up to his face and bit his head off. Again, there was no blood or graphic details left behind on Mario's neck - just Mario's character model being destroyed.

The screen faded to black. In white text, another level name appeared.

Mario's Eternal Home

Mario's character model was whole again when the level started. It was the only thing on the screen besides the black background. It was floating, as if in space. I could somewhat control it, but it felt more like I was deciding the general direction in which Mario would tumble than fully controlling him.

As I drifted towards no apparent destination, voices faded in. They were echoing, deep voices telling Mario that he was worthless...that the world no longer had any use for him and everyone would be better off if he was dead.

High pitched crying was layered onto the voices after a bit. It sounded like it was supposed to be Mario's cries. This really disturbed me and I found myself fighting back tears. For reasons I couldn't understand, this was effecting me on an emotional level.

The voices and aimless wandering went on for several minutes until I spotted a light grey speck in the distance. I moved towards it. It took a very long time to reach, and grew closer at a much slower rate than it should have.

When I was close enough to make it out, I saw that it was a tombstone. It was a very plain one with cracks in several places. When I got right next to the tombstone, I could see writing on it.

I turned off the system right after reading it. I'm not going to play the beta or hack or whatever this was again.There was a single word written on the tombstone.

Innocence

(This story is credited to a person called KI Simpson.)

Normal Porn for Normal People

Everyone knows that if you surf the web long enough, you'll see some sick shit. This is especially true if you intentionally dwell into the dark underbelly of the Internet. I've seen quite a few things I don't care to admit to, but the one thing I'll always remember is a site called "normalpornfornormalpeople.com."

The first thing about the site was that I didn't find it by actually looking for it. It was emailed to me by someone I didn't know. The email was as follows:

hi there

found this site is very nice thought u might like

normalpornfornormalpeople.com

pass it on for the good of mankind

It was a pretty standard issue chain letter, though the URL and the last remark really piqued my curiosity. I was having a very boring day when I received this, so I made sure my antivirus was working and clicked the link.

It was a very average, generic-looking site. It gave the impression that the creators just BARELY gave a shit about making it look professional. The author seemed to have a very tenuous grasp on English and, on the front page, was a long, boring, and incoherent rant I don't remember or have saved.

The site had a strange tagline. Even today, people still haven't figured out the meaning of it.

Normal Porn for Normal People, a Website Dedicated to the Eradication of Abnormal Sexuality

From the sound of that, I wasn't sure whether I was here to watch porn or if I had stumbled onto some kind of eugenics program. However, I was here now and I was very, very curious to see what "Normal People" get their rocks off to.

So I scrolled down through the rant and...nothing. The page didn't seem to link to anywhere else and I was about to leave when I noticed every word of the rant was its own hyperlink.

I clicked on one of them and was sent to a white page with a very long list of links.

normalpornfornormalpeople.com/ (random letters)

I stopped for a minute and asked myself if I really wanted to waste God knows how much time clicking random links that will likely give me a virus that will rape my computer.

I figured I'd just try it for maybe five minutes, just to see if anything came up. I clicked one of the links and was sent to another page. This page apparently had totally different URLs than the last one.

I was just about to say "fuck this" when I clicked on the third link and a video download came up. It was called "peanut.avi." It was a thirty-minute video of a man, a woman, and a dog in a kitchen.

The woman would make a peanut butter sandwich and the man would set it down for the dog to eat. This was all that happened for thirty minutes. It was obvious that the cameraman had to stop filming and wait until the dog was ready to eat again, and the dog seemed rather sick by the end of the video.

I know what you're thinking. "What the hell does that have to do with porn?" I have no clue. I've seen a little over two dozen videos from this site and the majority had no sexual activity at all.

After watching peanut.avi, I went on a certain image board I frequent to play online show and tell like I always do with weird shit like this. However, someone already made a thread about it - someone who had received the same chain letter I did. The thread got lots of people with nothing better to do than dig through the site, so that's how I saw other videos.

Most of the two dozen videos were very uneventful and consisted of people talking to the cameraman in a room with nothing in it but a desk and a few chairs. I mean literally nothing - no furniture or anything on the walls. The whole room had a very cold, sterile feel to it.

The conversations were just idle banter about previous jobs or embarrassing childhood moments. I kept expecting some kind of discussion about what the people were filming or what the site was about but, of course, nothing came up.

You would never know these videos had anything to do with porn if you saw them out of context. I will say one thing, though: the people who appeared in these videos were quite attractive.

However, the other videos that actually did feature content I suppose could be called "sexual" is where things got weird.

I'll give brief descriptions of the stranger videos. If you're really eaten u with curiosity, you can try to hunt them down on a torrent site.

lickedclean.avi

A ten-minute video filmed by a hidden camera, in which we see a repairman working on a washing machine for the first two minutes. When it's fixed, the repairman talks to the owner briefly and then leaves. The owner checks to make sure the repairman is gone and begins to lick all over the top of the washing machine. This goes on for seven minutes.

jimbo.avi

A five-minute video of an obese mime performing his act. It was actually pretty funny - particularly one part where he pretends to pull up a chair then pretends that it breaks due to his weight. In the last thirty seconds of the video, the camera cuts to static briefly and cuts back to the man sobbing quitely, still wearing the mime outfit and makeup. Some kind of obscure fetish?

dianna.avi

A four-minute video in which the cameraman talks to a woman in a room different than the "interview room." This room looks like one you'd find in a normal person's house. Exactly where they are is never specified, as "Dianna" only talks about her violin playing. She obviously plays her violin, but she keeps getting distracted by something.

I didn't notice this until someone on the image board thread pointed it out, but if you look at the mirror in the background, you can see a fat man in a chicken mask masturbating.

jessica.avi

Another four-minute cameraman video. This time he's outside a house, talking to another young woman. They talk about canoe rides. The camera zoomes out to reveal the city streets behind them occasionally. The strange thing is that no one has been able to identify where this street is. Guesses have ranged everywhere from Europe to Australia to the Phillippines, but there's yet to be a match for the street shown in the video.

tounguetied.avi

A ten-minute video. The fist five minutes consist of an elderly woman making out with a mannequin. The video cuts out like it did in jimbo.avi halfway through and the scene changes to a group of mannequins huddled together ina circle around the camera. The lights have been dimmed and the elderly woman is nowhere to be seen. From this point on, there is no sound.

stumps.avi

A five-minute long video where a manw ith no legs is attempting to break dance on a DDR mat in what looks like the kitchen from peanut.avi, but much dirtier. There's a radio playing music unseen in the background, but it stops at the four-minute mark when the man collapses on the mat in exhaustion.

He breathes heavily and pleads with someone off-screen to let him rest. This off-screen person becomes terrifyingly enraged and yells at him to keep dancing, which he does. You can hear this off-screen person begin to scream as the video ends abruptly.

privacy.avi

The woman from dianna.avi is masturbating on a mattress in the "interview room," while the man from stumps.avi walks around on his hands while wearing some kind of goblin mask. The door in this room was always closed in other videos, but now it's open.

In this video, the only light is in the room and the hallway is dark. Near the end of the video, you can see an animal quickly run through the hallway.

And, finally, the last video we uncovered: useless.avi.

In this eighteen-minute video, a blond woman from one of the previous interview videos is tied down to a mattress in the "interview room." She attempts to scream, but her mouth is taped over. After seven minutes, a man in a black suit and mask opens the door but does not enter.

He holds the door open for the animal that was running in the hall in the previous video. It's revealed to be an adult chimpanzee, its hair shaved and its entire body painted red. It seems to be starved and abused, with several wounds along its shoulders and back.

When the chimp enters the room, the masked man closes the door behind it. The chimpanzee sniffs the air for a moment (it may have been blind) and notices the woman tied to the mattress. It goes into a frenzy and begins to maul her. This assault goes on for a grueling seven minutes until the woman finally dies. The chimp eats flesh from her corpse for four minutes and the video ends.

The thread exploded with activity after this video was uncovered and people discussed it long into the night. When I came back to the image board the next day, I found the thread was deleted. I tried to start another one and the mods banned me. I tried emailing the guy who sent me the chain letter with the site's URL, but after sending five messages I never got a response.

I have tried to discuss this website on various sites and got banned frequently. The site itself was also deleted about three days after useless.avi was uncovered, likely because someone contacted the authorities about it.

The only proof that normalpornfornormalpeople.com ever existed was a few screencaps people took and videos from the site that people saved and uploaded onto torrenting sites. The most popular was useless.avi, which found its way onto a few gore sites.

Wherever you upload them to, all of the videos from normalpornfornormalpeople.com get deleted after a while.

(This story is credited to a person called Cosbydaf on the Bogleech forums.

DO NOT GO TO NORMALPORNFORNORMALPEOPLE.COM! THEY ARE NOT ASSOCIATED WITH COSBYDAF AND ARE TAKING CREDIT FOR HIS IDEA AND MAKING MONEY OFF OF IT!)

Tower of Silence

January 19, 2003 --
Indian officials ventured into a deep jungle, investigating several missing persons reports from a nearby city. What they found was a "Tower of Silence," or dakhma. Zoroastrians use these sites to dispose of bodies in the open air.

While sites like these are not uncommon in certain parts of india, several peculiarities hint at something more unusual...

1. None of the bodies depicted in the photograph were identified. Villagers from nearby, though initially surprised at the sheer number of corpses in the dakhma, proved unable to recognize the bodies. The corpses also do not match the descriptions of the missing people.
2. There were no animals around except for maggots and flies. Zoroastrians rely on birds (i.e. buzzards) to dispose of the bodies, in the belief they are contributing back to the Earth. Officials found the corpses relatively untouched by any sort of animal.
3. There is no official count of the bodies. In fact, little work was actually accomplished at the site and, perhaps, this is why only one photograph has emerged. Officials avoided the spot - not only because they felt uneasy looking at it, but for the following, as well:
4. The deep pit in the center of the photograph was filled with several feet of festering blood - far more than the bodies on the outside could ever supply. The stench was so unbearable that many of the officials began to get nauseous when they first approached the dakhma.
5. The expedition was ended when a villager accidentally kicked a small bone into the pit, penetrating the coagulated surface of the pool. A massive burst of gas from the decomposing blood erupted from the pit, splashing those looking into it, along with the photographer.

Those caught in the explosion were immediately sent to the hospital, where they were quarrantined for possible infection. They became delirious with fever, shouting about "being tainted with the blood of Ahriman" (the personification of evil in Zoroastrianism), despite never having admitted having any familiarity with the religion.

In fact, many of them had no idea what the dakhma was when they had found it. Delirium turned to insanity as many began to attack hospital staff until they were sedated. The fever eventually killed all of them.

When officials returned with HAZMAT gear the following day, the site was empty. All the bodies had been removed and, astonishingly, the pool of blood inthe pit had been drained. All that remained of the incident was this photograph.

The Creature of the Road

There was once a very small, quiet rural village. It was so small there was only one main road leading out of it, along which visitors often travelled to and from the village. However, there was one important rule the townsfolk held about this road: never go it alone.

This was strictly enforced by the villagers, but one curious young boy from the village decided to break this rule; he set out one day, when no one else was round, to explore the road alone.

As he approached the trail for the first time, he realized there was something very odd about it. Although he knew there were always people coming into town, the road itself looked like it had hardly been used.

Grass and weeds had grown across the whole path, and it was so poorly maintained that they reached all the way up to his waist, making it difficult to walk quickly. However, this did not deter the boy.

Determined to make his trip worthwhile, he pushed on into the overgrowth, looking back over his shoulder occasionally to make sure no one was watching. He moved quickly, hoping to get out of sight by any passers-by.

However, the boy's pace was cut suddenly short by the sound of something moving in the grass next to him. The boy's heart skipped a beat as he stopped in his tracks, looking and listening for the source of the disturbance.

The overgrowth was so thick he couldn't see anything, but he could hear the sound of something crawling in the grass near his feet. He could tell it wasn't very big, but something about it gave him a horrible feeling...the feeling of being hunted.

The boy was overcome by a growing sense of hopelessness as he realized he had travelled too far down the road to make it back before the creature reached him, and the grass made it hard for him to move quickly.

Suddenly, the boy sensed he was being watched. The creature had spotted him. From the corner of his eye he could make out a wide pair of eyes and long, sharp fangs fixated on him. The boy's heart was pounding as he turned to face it.

Suddenly, a hand gripped his arm. The boy jerked and looked, only to see the face of one of the elders of the village. "You fool! Don't you know better than to come here alone?" The man grabbed the boy and ran with him back to the village.

The boy's heart raced as he sensed the creature following him, but it never overtook them. They ran, gasping for breath, until they had escaped back into town.

After they caught their breath, the old man scolded the boy for ignoring the villagers' warnings. When he was done, he looked up and sighed. "I guess you're old enough. You deserve to know."

The man led the boy to his house. It was a very big house and, as they entered, the boy saw massive shelves filled with books about creatures he had only heard of in myths.

Mysterious men in lab coats sat around, studying them. The old man led the boy to a back room. He faced away, saying, "I'm going to tell you the truth about what you saw today..."

All of a sudden, the man turned to the boy, glaring at him, his piercing gaze freezing him in place. "But first, I'm going to ask you one question..."

All That We Have

"Get well soon," my granddaughter says as she's ushered out of my hospital room by my daughter-in-law.

I won't be getting better soon, but nobody has the heart to tell her. I am dying of brain cancer. I haven't been out of my bed in three months. The doctor won't give me any direct information, but I know what my outlook is if they've placed me in Hospice. That's where you go to die comfortably.

The IV in my arm is running low. A nurse should be here soon to replenish it. It's one of the few things I have left to look forward to. My family barely visits anymore; the hospital is a two-hour drive from home.

I understand though. It's hard to watch your father die slowly of something no one can control. I'm not scared though, I have my next life to look forward to.

The constant beeping of my heart rate monitor is slowly driving me crazy. Sometimes, I wish it would just end already, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to die just yet. I've been in and out of this hospital for a long time now.

Last summer, I broke my hip. I've been confined to a wheelchair ever since. Losing your mobility after having it for almost seventy years is a terrifying thing.

I can hear the Doctor talking outside of my room. Another man down the hall has just died, and his family can't afford to fly him to their hometown for the funeral. They're going to stick his body in a freezer until somebody drives up to collect him. I can't stop myself from thinking about my fate. My family lives far away, will the same thing happen to me?

The Doctor looks in my room as I lay here, pretending to be asleep. Maybe I'll learn something about my condition. He eyes a clipboard before sighing. The usually cheerful nurse has a sad look on her face. I know I'm close to dying. They're keeping something from me. Who do they think they are? I have a right to know about whatever is going on with me!

The reality of my situation hits me like a brick wall for the hundredth time today. Now I'm not sure if I want to know how bad I've got it. I don't know if I could handle knowing that I'll die tomorrow.

How will my family react? The last thing I told my daughter was that I never wanted to see her again. That was twenty years ago. I've regretted that every day since; even more so now that I'm on my death bed.

She can't even be bothered to visit me. At least I know she made it in life. She's a lawyer. The day she got accepted to that Ivy-League school was the proudest day of my life. I never got to see her graduate. After all these years, she still won't answer my calls. I shouldn't have let something so simple as a religious argument get in between us.

My son may not have been as successful, but at least he still goes to God's house on Sundays. I'm proud of him for that. He's a mechanic for a big franchise. It's not much, but it's honest work, and it puts bread on his table.

The nurse enters my room, but she won't look me in the eye. I didn't even get a smile today. Normally she greets me with an exaggerated hello, and a big grin. I miss that. I still thought I'd survive back then. I know better than that now.

She wordlessly changes out the bag that my IV is connected to. Normally she'll tell me a little bit about some sort of change in whatever is going into my wrist, but today she just mumbled something before hurrying out of the room.

I wish I had somebody to talk to. My son insists on keeping me all alone, though. Says it would get annoying having to hear somebody ramble on all day. Right now, I just wish I could hear somebody that talks too much. There isn't any topic that would bother me right now, as long as I get to hear somebody.

The Doctor enters my room shortly after the Nurse left. He's got a phony smile on, but something's different. His practiced expression falters for a moment as he checks out another clipboard at the bottom of my bed. He gives me some lie about 'looking better' before leaving the room.

I wonder how many days I have left? It's a sad thing, when you measure the rest of your life in days. Maybe hours for all I know. I don't even know what day it is anymore. I lost track of that a week ago.

I haven't cared enough to ask, not that I could do so very effectively. I haven't been able to speak very well ever since the cancer spread to its more recent boundaries.

A hiccup in my heart rate brings me to better awareness. It happens every now and then, but its been happening more frequently lately. I'll probably go later today, if not tomorrow.

It's probably for the best. I'm nothing but a burden anymore, ever since my medical bills got more expensive than my social security. I wish I'd gotten better life insurance. I don't think I'd get a very good deal if I tried to get a little coverage today.

I wonder if I've been good enough in life to get to Heaven? I've followed the Good Book all of my life, but I'm still not sure. I guess nobody's sure at this point in their life. Will the Lord be merciful of my sins?

Does the Lord even exist?

No! I can't be doubting him now. Not when I'm so close to meeting him. It's just my nerves. I know I'm going to his kingdom soon, and it's normal to be thinking these thoughts. It's all in my head.

The sun is setting now. I reckon I've got about thirty minutes left before I can't see it anymore. I've gotten used to using the shadows to tell time.

There's a clock in here, but the batteries died a while ago. Nobody thinks it's important enough to change them. Judging by the time it gets dark, I would be able to tell what the actual time is, but I don't know what day it is. It was so close to daylight savings time when I lost track, that I don't know if it's seven o' clock, or five.

I can see a plane landing at the airport nearby. I watch them land and take off all day. It's a busy airport; there's usually a bunch of flights every day. It's not often I can look out the window without seeing a plane.

I've never been in a plane before. I wonder what it's like to be that high above the ground? I get a sinking feeling in my chest when I realize that I'll never know.

The pain is back. It starts with a dull ache in my head, but pretty soon it's going to erupt into a crippling sharp pain that renders me near incapable of coherent thought.

I've never felt this kind of pain all of my life, and that's saying something. I've felt a lot of pain; I used to be a diesel mechanic. Dropping one of the heads of a semi's engine on your foot is painful, but it's nothing compared to this.

The Doctor won't give me any more painkillers than are necessary. He says they should still be working when I cry out in pain, and he tells my family that I'm just being dramatic. I hear screaming all around me all day. I know they're all suffering from the same thing. He won't give them any more of the medication either.

The pain is getting worse. I want to pull my hand up to my head and try to rub my temples, but I can't muster the strength to move. I haven't been able to move my hands more than a couple of inches for a few days now.

In about an hour, the pain will get bad enough for me to start screaming. Then I go through that for another hour before they finally give me another dose. It's all routine for me now.

Only a faint glow is left of the Sun as it lowers itself over the city skyline. If only I could see the treeline at my house one more time. I haven't been to my house in ten years. My wife got that in the divorce.

Ever since then, I've been living in a retirement home. At least when I was there, I had somebody to talk to. Those old people always wanted to play some card game, but they were great company when my family wasn't with me.

I get a terrible feeling in my chest before I cough up a mixture of blood and bile. I'll have to wait until the nurse visits me in a little while before that gets cleaned up. I can't even wipe my face anymore.

Maybe the blood is a sign that I'll die soon. I kind of hope so, as bad as that sounds. I know I shouldn't want to die, but it's hard to maintain the will to live, when there's nothing worth living for.

My heart rate monitor is fluctuating constantly now. Maybe that's a good sign. Or a bad sign. However you want to take it.

I can't help but let out a groan as the pain in my head gets worse. Maybe I can muster up the energy to ask for painkillers when the nurse comes to check on my heart rate. I hope so. The pain comes in waves. It's always there, but every few seconds, it grows in intensity for a short while before subsiding to a dull ache that never leaves my attention.

The Doctor and Nurse rush into my room. Maybe my heart rate is worse than I thought. They're both shouting things at each other. I close my eyes and say a quick prayer, hoping they'll stop; hoping that the pain will end this time.

My vision starts to blur as my brain begins to shut down. It's going to happen today. Probably within the next couple of minutes. I wonder if my granddaughter is home yet? I hope they break it to her gently. I've never been able to tell her how much I love her, but she's the greatest thing to happen to me in these last few years of my life.

I can't hear them yelling anymore; my ears are failing me now. I can see their lips moving, but I can't hear anything except the pain. The Doctor is doing all sorts of different things to me that don't really make sense. I guess they probably would if I had any medical knowledge.

I can feel myself scream, but I can't even hear my own last garbled screeching. My vision has almost completely left me. I can only make out basic shapes now. I know that two more nurses have entered the room. It won't help, though. I'm going to die, and only God can stop it.

The pain vanishes as my vision leaves me. I can't see, I can't hear. I'm finally feeling peaceful.

I wonder what Heaven is like?

I ponder that last thought as I slip from life. A wave of panic floods over me as I see what awaits me.

Nothing.

Nothing awaits me. There is no afterlife.

This short, miserable existence is all that we have.

(This story is credited to a person called Brony-vas-Normandy.)

The Guardian

Do you know what it's like to see one of your charges murdered? Yes, you can try to imagine, but really, it's not possible.

I know.

I've seen.

I could see the grotesque plans forming in his mind as he assured her that his childish behaviour was now a thing of the past and that he would like to invite her to his house to watch the peculiar picture box humans seem to take so much pleasure in viewing.

I tried desperately to signal his hideous intensions to her, but alas, without success.

I felt each stab of the knife, each puncture the blade made in her skin. I watched her writhe in excruciating agony on the shabby lino floor. I saw the life drain from her features while a fire tore through my body in response. Every one of my appendages seemed to be wrapped in barbed wire.

The teardrops that cascaded down my cheeks burned like acid. I wept not only because of the pain we both felt, but also due to my failure to protect the delicate, fragile young human who'd called on me.

The hatred I felt towards the young male took shape inside me, and it began to transform my physical appearance.

My flowing hair, previously the colour of flame, darkened to a dull ash colour and the strands became lank. My halo was coated in a blood-coloured rust, now more similar to a bloody headband than a golden ring.

A black ink seeped through my dove-like wings, turning them pitch, and suddenly they were riddled with gaping, ragged holes. Nails and teeth elongated and sharpened until they resembled shards of broken glass, able to tear through mortal flesh with ease.

I threw myself at him, relishing the look in his eyes. His sadistic grin fell away, to be replaced with sheer horror.

I felt my talons dig into his eyes, my snapping jaws catching a hunk of flesh on his cheek. Several bones snapped as powerful feathered limbs made contact with his ribs, arms and legs. I delighted in his screams, his pitiful cries for help and mercy.

His thrashing limbs first weakened, then stopped completely. I beheld the life source abandoning his body, and revelled in it.

I prowled around the house, waiting for the arrival of the human peace-keepers. When they came two days later, I made certain the human boy would be buried in a murderer's grave - arranging everything in the house just so. I even requested the help of a pack of wild canines, who were more than glad to help. For their troubles, I granted them permission to each take a small part of him.

It was concluded that these dogs had attacked and killed the boy.

As a last gesture of devotion to my human, I scooped her essence from her body, and carried her to her final place of rest, where she is at last at peace.

(This story is credited to a person called VendettaVixen.)

Alone?

I sit up with a jolt, disorientated.

If it weren't for the sensation of my eyelids coming together to shield my eyes, I would not be able to determine whether or not they were open. The inky blackness presses in from all angles, suffocating me.

You'd think after all the time I've spent trapped in this murky prison I'd have adjusted. No, it's still quite a shock to be released from the depths of unconsciousness, only to be greeted by an infinite plain of shadows.

I glance around, looking for something, some object from long ago that will reassure me. I need to know some of my old world still remains.

Nothing.

I'm alone.

A white light flashes to the left of my... vision, if it can be called that. I ignore it. I've come to realise that its only purpose is to generate hope of this blanket of soot lifting.

I hear a creak -- a door opening.

"Cath, you’d better get up. We’re leaving for Granddad’s house in about an hour. Start getting ready, ok?"

I sigh. "Yeah, alright."

Oh, and your cane and shades are in the kitchen, near the bird cage.

I sigh again.

(This story is credited to a person called VendettaVixen.)

Mr. Mix

Does anyone remember an old PC game from the early 1990s called "Mr. Mix?" It's mainly a typing game (similar to Mario Teaches Typing) where you have to type words into a box to make a chef (the titular Mr. Mix) put ingredients into a bowl.

Unlike most typing games, hoever, this game is notorious for having an insane difficulty curve. The game has a "Words per Minute" requirement for each level, being as low as 10 on level one and as high as 85 on the third. By level five, the requirement reaches over 500, effectively making it impossible to proceed any further.

One of the main things that people noticed about this game immediately was the background music. The music on the first level was an unsettling pattern of growls that got progressively louder as the level went on, often causing damage to early computer speakers that were designed to handle extremely high volumes of sound.

The second level had no music at all and the third had what sounded like an extremely low-quality recording of a hair dryer playing in the background. The remaining two levels had an extremely loud high-pitched ringing throughout the level that caused severe ear drum damage to those who managed to get that far.

Another rather disturbing aspect of the game was the design of Mr. Mix himself. He was a large, round-faced, overweight man with large beady eyes and red spots on his cheeks.

Most children who played the game reported having vivid nightmares of Mr. Mix speaking to them in a quiet, raspy voice and threatening them to keep quiet about something. However, none of them could remember exactly what that was.

One psychologist who saw many of these children reported being disturbed by the sheer amount of terror on the child's face as they recounted the details of the nightmare.

Many of the children broke down into tears in the process, begging for their parents to "save" them. However, no direct relationship to the game itself could be determined by these few cases, as not all children suffered the same adverse effects.

For obvious reasons, this game did not sell very well. It remained in relative obscurity until a few years ago, when PC hackers got hold of a ROM of the game and started digging through it.

Using memory hacking software, they managed to crack the game's code and bypass the impossible fifth level. What they found, however, was extremely disturbing and caused many of them to quit the expedition altogether.

According to the reports these hackers left behind, the game behaves very strangely if the fifth level is bypassed. The game crashes violently and closes, writing a bunch of files to the user's System32 directory to the point that the RAM was almost completely filled.

These files are reportedly pictures of people with horribly deformed faces, appearing to scream in pain and agony with their eyes appearing to be bleeding from their tear ducts and their outer layer of skin torn clean off in multiple places.

If the user attempts to delete these files, the computer will violently crash and blue screen, causing permanent irreparable damage to the user's hard drive.

The hackers found that this was caused by a lone byte in the game's ROM that triggered when the fifth level was completed. After removing this byte, they were able to proceed to the sixth and final level.

Unfortunately, all of the original hackers declined to discuss what they saw in the final level. All of them became extremely paranoid and reclusive, refusing to talk about anything related to the game and showing astonishingly extreme symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Most of them ceased to be able to form coherent sentences within a week and, within a month, all of them went missing. All remaining copies of the game were destroyed.

To this day, no one knows what was in that game that caused them so much psychological damage. Maybe it's better that way.

Two years after this incident, a man was arrested after trying to kidnap an eight-year old girl from a grocery store. Through DNA and fingerprint analysis, the man was identified as one of the original hackers who viewed the final level of the game.

He was wearing a white chef's hat and had a look of unspeakable malice and insanity on his face. When interrogated, the man would only say one thing.

"I'm Mr. Mix. Shhh."

(This story is credited to a person called ingx24.)

Retributors

Some time ago, there was a picture surfacing on the internet. It came with a text file and a video. The picture was called "Cold.png," the video was called "Graze.mov," and the text document was called "Initialize.txt."

The three files had a list of different things they did to the viewer, each separate of the other.

Cold.png was an image of Perch Creek's sewer system overlaid on a map of Perch Creek. Overlaid over this was an image of Ichor Forest and a picture of an old man with very tired eyes.

The eyes, as people claim, look into the viewer's soul. Bowel problems, as well as Nausea, have been reported. Opening the file freezes your pointer and, after fifteen minutes, the computer the file was opened on crashes.

Gaze.mov is said to be a video of a sleeping baby in a crib. After ten minutes of this, distortions begin to occur. The final three minutes of the video are of a woman with an abnormally long neck brushing her hair. Something is wrong with this woman, but the cause cannot be placed...besides her neck, that is.

The video is not inherently bad for your heath. However, viewing it causes others around you to be disturbed by you. This will cause psychosis in you because, after all, humans are social creatures.

Initialize.txt was by far the worst. It was actually an executable file in disguise. Executing this file would download a torrent of viruses that would wipe most of your information and crash your computer. The motherboard itself would be corrupted beyond repair of even the most talented hackers.

This 'txt' file, however, did open a text document. The only thing written there was eleven words that explain what exactly the Piche is. This is fabled to be what the teenage Andrea Cole wrote on a note before killing herself.

Andrea's picture - the picture of the Piche - has been unecoverable, but that is a different story completely.

Regardless, there was a group of ten hackers that called themselves the Retributors. They mostly plagued forums about Perch Creek and how "God wants his retribution." Even those who believed in the Piche knew these guys were spewing bullshit.

However, one of them started acting really weird. As it turns out, he had gotten his hands on the first of the three files: Cold.png. He delivered it to the rest of the Retributors and they looked at it to check up on it.

None of them dared open it on their own computers. Instead, they pulled the file up on a separate computer that promptly crashed not long after. After a week of nausea, they came back together and sold all their laptops and bought a $25,000 supercomputer.

This computer was used to hack into Cold.png. The hackers noticed something fishy in the binary, however. They removed the code and copy/pasted it into another document, assuming this was the cause for the computer crashing every time it was opened. They didn't open the picture, though. They were too smart for that.

A day later, they opened up the binary to check again and found that it had rewritten itself. The hackers made sure to copy this to a paper document and left it at one of the members' houses.

There were no more leads for almost another month. Then, out of the blue, the group received Graze.mov from an anonymous user by email.

They didn't dare open this file, either. They simply opened the binary and traced every charater until they found a list of numbers that didn't quite fit. It was the same for Initialize.txt. They pulled these numbers into a new program and began working on it.

They locked themselves into their leader's house and took turns working on solving the program for two months. After that, the numbers finally set out to a pattern. It was miraculous - so much so they finally left the house for one day.

They had breakfast and came back to the house, only to see a note one of them wrote on their door, scribbled out with an arrow indicating to turn the paper around. On the back was written BreakaSweat.mov.

When they ran the numbers, it produced a similar file they named BreakaSweat.mov. It was comprised of 55 binary digits, mostly 0s, in a demented loop. As it was with the files before, they didn't dare open it.

They put the file onto a flash drive and chose one member to watch the movie and record himself so the rest of the team could see what happens and promptly discuss what to do. The member was chose and he set up the video camera and turned on the movie.

The sound became distorted as soon as the movie opened, but the member didn't have any emotion for almost three minutes (about the length of the video).

Once it was over, the member stood up. Screaming could be heard in the background. After some time, the member sat back down. Both his eyes had needles plunged into them. He took a screwdriver and stabbed himself in the neck. The video was sent to the leader.

They all realized they couldn't watch the video. They let it rest and returned to their "God is angry" ways. One member, however, started his own project. He said he was going to watch the video and hand write everything he could about it.

The note was sloppy, at best. It won't be transcribed here, since it didn't make much sense. However, there were a few key things that should be mentioned. The video began at Ichor Forest's edge and ended at the tower. Between the two places were direct views of the Piche; it was almost as if it was looking back at you.

The member stopped the video before it ended and wrote one last thing: eleven words that struck horror into the rest of the hackers, who immediately disbanded, erased all files related to all of their work, and rebuilt their laptops. Those words were some of the most horrific words to a few members who strongly believed in the Piche.

The words?

Anything that takes the form of the Piche becomes the Piche.

So, remember as you read this. This speaks of the Piche. It takes the form of the spirit of the Piche and anything that takes the form of the Piche is the Piche.

(This story is credited to a person called Guiv.)

Memory Card

A few weeks ago, my parents were driving up to see my cousins. We always visit them during the summer. On the way there, we drove through a little village. Some church by the road was having a car boot sale. A massive banner told us it was in aid of charity.

My dad parked the car and got out, eager to have a little sniff around. He always had a thing for raking through people's old stuff and finding hidden treasures. While he was off treasure hunting, I decided to go off on my own little wander.

Most of the stuff on sale was the usual crap: cakes, ugly crockery, junk, etc. Someone was holding a raffle. An old woman was painting kids' faces, but only seemed to know how to do one animal; there were zebra-faced kids everywhere.

I remember a couple standing out over all the happiness and sense of community. There was just a man and a woman with dead eyes taking no interest in their customers at all. All they did was just stare into the distance.

Their table was full of kids junk. You know - toys, magazines, crap Playstation games, the usual. There were a lot of those Army Men games. A few sports games, as well. I reckon I missed all the good stuff.

I was losing interest when I spotted an old Playstation memory card out of the corner of my eye. Written on the front in chipped Tipp-Ex was the name SAM. Now this was a real hidden treasure. I bought it from the couple and tucked it into my wallet. Neither said a word or looked at me when they took my money.

After that, I found my parents once more. Eventually, we got back in the car and were once again on our way to my cousins' house. We stayed there for a few days. I enjoy hanging out with my cousins, so I was quick to forget about my purchase. In addition, neither had a Playstation, so it didn't matter anyway.

When I got back home, I retrieved my old Playstation from the attic and set it up. I had kept quite a few games, too. I had all the classics: Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid, Future Cop, etc.

However, before I played any of them, I turned on the console without a disc in. I remembered you could do this to check out the contents of your memory card. I stuck Sam's into the slot and selected it.

There were a few save files on it. Some of them were corrupt - just strange symbols hanging there that displayed a strange series of characters instead of details. Others were games I had never heard of.

However, there was one I recognized: Metal Gear Solid. It was the VR Missions disc, to be precise. It said it had been completed 100%. I had both Metal Gear Solid and the VR Missions, so I decided to check it out.

I could remember quite a bit about the VR Missions disc, but the parts that stuck out for me the most were the giant soldiers, the murder mysteries, and the photo shoot mode. I remembered they were actually a lot of fun. I booted the game up.

When I loaded the save, something odd happened: the title music stopped. This sounded especially weird because I had turned up the volume on my TV so I could get right into the game, but there I was, suddenly plunged into silence.

On top of that, there were no sound effects as I scrolled through the menu options. It was a little eerie, but I chalked it up to the game or the console being old and worn out.

I remembered you could wait for Naomi's legs to uncross to take a photo in photo shoot mode and there was nothing there except a black space where a pussy should have been. It was a little empty void left by the creators to disappoint a million pubescent kids. Amused, I loaded up photo shoot mode and selected Naomi as my model.

When the level loaded, I remember thinking the music sounded a little strange. It was nothing eerie, just a little odd. Maybe it was slightly slowed down or something. AGain, I chalked it up to either the game or the console's old age.

I made Snake duck down and looked through the viewfinder, staring at Naomi's crotch and waiting for her to uncross her legs. I was determined to get that snap that had destroyed my perverted hopes and dreams all those years ago.

It took longer than I thought and the first time it happened, I missed it. Waiting again, I almost missed a second time. Luckily, my reflexes had been sharpened by generations of gaming.

Click. Gotcha! A perfect snap of the little black zone where her pussy should have been. I smiled to myself and shook my head. It was funny that I had gotten so excited over something all those years ago.

I was getting a little hungry, so I decided to take a break. I was just about to head downstairs for some food when I noticed something.

I could hear crying. There were little sniffles and short intakes of breath. At first, I had no idea where it was coming from. For a moment I noticed it was behind me. Then I realised it was coming from the game.

I remember getting confused, sitting there to listen to some voice coming from my TV speakers. I just couldn't work out why it was happening. It started getting louder and a little more hysterical. I figured it was coming from Naomi. I tilted the camera upwards, wondering what the fuck was going on. Just as I got to her face, a horrible wail tore from my speakers and scared the shit out of me.

Naomi was screaming at me. I just had time to register her twisted mouth and horrible eyes when I gasped and dropped the controller. It landed on the ground on a button and the game came out of viewfinder mode.

Snake was just kneeling there in front of her. I stood there, shaking, watching the characters seem to stare at one another. I could no longer see Naomi's face. I couldn't tell if she still had that horrible look across it. There was no one in my house. My parents were both still at work. I jumped forward and turned the console off.

A little while later, I was lying on my bed thinking about that horrible face when it dawned on me that the characters in the game don't actually have eyes, just a darker shade of pixels.

Their mouths never opened, either. They just nodded their heads whenever they talked. Naomi's mouth, however, had been twisted open and her eyes were almost photo realistic. What the fuck?

After a while, I convinced myself I had imagined the horrible details. You always do in situations like that. It was just some lame kid's save that he had someone fucked with and managed to scare the shit out of me with. I wondered what else he had managed to do to VR Missions.

Later that night, when I my parents were home, I finally got the nerve to turn the console back on. I selected photo shoot mode and chose Naomi as my model again.

When the level loaded, I knew right away that something was wrong. The stage was empty except for Snake. Naomi was nowhere to be seen. There was no music, either. It was just like the title screen. I ran around a little and the footsteps sounded louder than they should have been. They sounded real, too, like high-quality sound effects recorded in a great hall.

The whole thing was a little unnerving, but I kept telling myself that it was just some whiz kid's stupid experiment. Still, I couldn't shake the horrible sensation that something else was at play.

There was nothing on the stage except Snake. I decided to look through the camera's viewfinder again, to scan the level for, well, anything. Panning around, I realised that all those graphics that usually floated in the background were gone. All of that scrolling information wasn't there. The level was just floating in a black, silent abyss.

Still panning, I suddenly spotted something in the distance: a vague shape in the darkness. Before I could focus on what it was, it was gone. I had no idea what I had saw, but it reminded me of one of those ghosts from Metal Gear Solid you could see if you took photographs in the right places.

However, you could only see them when you left the game and examined the photos in the in-game photo album. They had been really creepy. I remember when I was a kid, I stopped looking for them because one had scared the shit out of me.

Still facing that horrible abyss, I took a photo roughly in the space I thought I saw something. I turned around and started talking photos all around me, a few being where Naomi was supposed to be standing. I left the game afterward. I was relieved to get out of that horrible place.

The menu still wasn't playing any music. There still were no sound effects when I scrolled through, either. I loaded up the photo album and began to shuffle through the pictures.

The first one was of the abyss that surrounded the level, or at least I think that's what it was. It was just a black image with no features. There were a few more like this, too. I remembered you could mess with the colors and contrast, so I played around with it, hoping I would see something. Nothing materialized.

Eventually, I gave up. I scrolled across to the next image - the first shot of where Naomi should have been standing. What I was faced with was something completely different.

It was a picture of a little boy, tied up against a bed. It wasn't an in-game photo, but a real one. It was a real boy on a real bed with real ropes. The picture was slightly pixellated, but nothing compared to the low-resolution of the game. Just at the edge of the picture, I could make out a leg. Someone was standing by the bedside.

Something told me to turn the game off. Something darker told me to scroll to the next photo. I listened to the latter. The next photo made my stomach jump. Gloved hands were holding the boy's eyes open. They were forcing him to look at something off-camera. The boy's expression ws of absolute terror. A part of me was glad I couldn't see what he saw.

I continued scrolling. They were torturing him now - cutting open his skin and mutilating him in ways I won't describe. The photos only became more and more disturbing, never letting up. Each one was worse than the last. They violated him and tortured his young body. I'd never seen anything like it. I never knew humans were capable of such acts.

My body was shaking and my hands could barely hold onto the controller, but I kept scrolling through the pictures. I was unable to stop myself.

I came to another image. I was relieved to see it was no longer of the boy. This relief, however, was short-lived. I squinted at the screen, wondering what exactly I was looking at.

Then it hit me. My insides did a little wet flip and I froze. I dropped the controller again, no buttons being pressed when it hit the floor this time. I was staring at the image, mouthing "what the fuck" to myself over and over. I stayed like that for a while, my body completely functionless as I gaped at the screen.

It was a shot of Naomi with her legs uncrossed. It was the very first photo I had taken after switching on the game. It was the photo that had started this horrible journey. Now, however, I could actually see her pussy. It was a real image of a pussy - not pixelated or anything. It was just sitting right in front of me in incredible detail.

If I were still a teenager, I'm sure I would have been delighted that all my hard work had paid off. I'm pretty sure every kid who tried getting a photo of her snatch back then would have felt the same, especially when compared to the black void that too many of us actually faced. However, I was far from aroused in this situation.

I noticed the pussy was moving, pulsing with every breath as though I was watching a movie instead of an image. It was like some voyeur's spy cam or something and it was squelching.

As I sat there, speechless, blood slowly seeped from the inside, dribbling over her lips and legs and spreading fast. When her pussy was completely caked in red, Naomi finally began to move her body. She was slowly leaning down towards the camera. I really didn't want to see her face, but I couldn't look away.

Then she was screaming and staring at me with those horrible eyes and twisted mouth. She wasn't looking at the camera, but at me. I screamed back before she lunged.

Out of nowhere, I found strength. I watched as my arm shot out from my body and hit the power button. Her scream cut short. The screen went blank. I tore the memory card from its slot and held it as though it was some potent drug. I realised I was breathing heavily. I kept staring at the name SAM in white Tipp-Ex as my lungs gradually relaxed. I never plugged it back in.

That was the last time I ever played VR Missions. I still have the memory card in my drawer, but I daren't open it. A part of me wants to bind the damn thing, but the other part won't let me.

Maybe one day I'll give it another go, just to see how messed up the rest of the game is. Perhaps I'll buy some of the other games and see how fucked up Sam's saves for them are. Maybe I'll try to figure out what games those other, corrupt saves are for. Maybe.

But for now...well...the memory card can stay in that drawer until I'm ready.

Fantasy

I'm hoping this gets out to someone. I doubt it will, but there's always a chance that it could, right? I'm sitting here in what used to be my room as I type this. The TV is on, I have the window open, and the sun is shining. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, no. This isn't my room. This isn't my house. It's all a perfect replica created by him.

I don't remember being stalked. Hell, I don't even remember how or when I got here. I guess the memory loss is bad even after you've been destroyed by him. I say destroyed because I haven't been killed, yet I wouldn't really call what's happening to me "living." Wait, I haven't explained who he is. Though with words like stalk and memory loss, I think you can figure out who he is.

The internet meme. That overplayed bastard. Slender Man.

I know you must be sick of Slender Man stories, but please listen. I believe at one point I fell victim to him. Let me take you back to that day and a few other days as well, I suppose.

One day, I was at home getting ready to go out. I was dressed and about to open the door of my room to leave and next thing I knew, I was in a dark void. The void warped and twisted around me as I stood there, trying to get my bearings. There was no up or down, no left or right.

I was just there in a swirl of colors that made my eyes hurt with how vibrant they were and how fast they were moving. I rubbed my eyes and when they focused, I was back in my room. I threw my door open, expecting to see the hallway I desperately needed. Nausea hit me rather quickly, so I was trying to hurry to the bathroom just in case.

There was nothing there. It wasn't like there was no one in the hall, but rather there was literally nothing there. It was the black void. There was no sound or air, just darkness. It was like what had happened before the colorful terror.

I slammed the door shut and turned to bury my face in a pillow, as I was so confused and afraid. However, when I turned, I saw him. He stood there, towering over me in that idiotic suit, tentacle arms at his sides and head craned downward to stare at me.

"Welcome," he said to me.

He didn't actually speak, however. He has no mouth, after all. Instead, I saw words in the same scratchy, messy font from the notes he sends to those Youtubers. It was silly, cheesy, and dumb...all words I know you're thinking, but it's true.

He displayed that stupid font in front of me, suspended in the air. I swiped my hand across the letters to get them out of my face, but they remained. It was as if the words were being projected by an overhead projector. They remained there and distorted over the contours of my hand.

As I stared at the words, they began to fade and I realized my captor was gone. I had been taken by him and he was holding me hostage or prisoner or whatever he wanted to call me. I sat down in my armchair and looked up at my desk.

I saw that, as in the "real" world, there was my computer. Eagerly, I turned it on and waited for it to boot up. He had left me a means to communicate out! I was going to be free if I could get word out to someone.

I was wrong. I could sign on to AIM, Yahoo, and MSN just fine, but each list was empty. No one was online, not even people who never sign out. I changed my preferences to show people who were offline and everyone on the lists from before WERE offline.

I tried my browser to see if I actually had internet access. My finger twitched on the mouse button as the browser started up. Never had I been so eager to see vapid new stories and flash ads before me.

The homepage loaded and everything was there. News, games, everything. I went to Facebook to see if the homepage was just some catched page. I thought that if Facebook was updating, I'd be good.

Even Facebook loaded perfectly. I could see new statuses and links show up on my news feed, but my status bar was gone. Comment boxes were gone and even the chat bar was missing.

He was allowing me to go online and see life go on, but he wouldn't let me speak to anyone. I slumped back in my chair and watched the news feed update. It scrolled along, showing me what everyone was doing, but I could interact with none of it. What was I going to do? Was I dead? Was I in some other dimension? I had nothing now.

Over time, I began to just live my life again. I watched TV. I went on my usual websites. I enjoyed what I could. I don't know how he was piping all of this in, but he wasn. he would pop in now and then to check on me, too.

One day, he finally "spoke" to me again. He told me I wasn't dead. I was merely his and I wasn't going home, nor was I going to die. He told me I should never have looked into him and that this was all my fault.

From that point on, he started harvesting things from my brain. He was taking fantasies and the things I loved and began to make them real. Whatever I could think up - whatever was on my mind that I used to put myself into a happy place - was fodder for him.

Soon I was going on Pokemon quests. I was fighting in the Battle City tournament. I was flying through space on the Normandy beating up evil aliens. I was kicking ass with Nathan Drake and stealing treasures. I even owned my own successful business. Yet every time, he came and ripped it all to shreds. Each one turned into some bad creepypasta when he showed up.

That Pokemon quest? He was the League Champion when I got to the end. He had no Pokemon at all, though. I sent mine out to try and attack him, but he stabbed each one with a rigid tentacle. I saw my team fall dead to the ground as the world warped and distorted around me.

I was dropped at a Pokemon Center, where everyone's critters were dead and the trainers were all maimed. They screamed out that their Pokemon had turned on them before seizing and dying. They cried so much that many were hyperventilating while others were starting to go mad. The sky turned red and the screams grew louder. Then everything went out like a TV turning off.

In Battle City, he fought me atop the tower on Kaiba's Alcatraz. He had no deck, no Duel Disk...nothing. Every time I played a card, he had one better that he pulled out from anywhere. When I pulled ahead, he destroyed me with cheap moves.

His field would go from empty to full in a mere turn and all hope I had for winning was constantly dashed. Then, as I lost my last Life Point, he destroyed the tower and let us fall into the ocean. I fell, tumbling through the air as debris fell around me.

As I looked up, I could see him slowly descending - standing still - and merely "staring" at me. I hit the water hard and struggled to find the way up. Pieces of the tower knocked into me, sending me around in circles until I opened my eyes and saw the faint light of the surface.

I finally surfaced and looked out to shore, where I saw nothing but destruction. Demented versions of cards ransacked the city. They were so familiar, but looked so demonic I couldn't even begin to fathom any comparisons to describe them. It's as if they were an amalgamation of all that was evil in the world, but I know that makes zero sense.

Buildings fell, explosions went off, and the sounds of screaming were quickly drowned out by piercing laughter that ranged from demonically deep to squeaky and disturbing. Bodies were being flung into the water next to me by the grotesque monsters, blood and innards raning down onto me as I treaded water for as long as I could.

I swam to the shore, desperate to get out of this fantasy, but once again he shattered it. It went crashing around me, shards of my surroundings flying everywhere with a warped crashing sound ringing in my ears.

In the next one, I was fighting aliens and robots with Shepard. It seemed like no other crew was around. We were freeing people trapped on a remote planet and were so close to deactivating the forcefields holding them captive in a large cell when he came to ruin things.

We had spent hours collecting access codes and fending off hoards of guards, but we were still standing and about to make it through and he was here to ruin it. He caused the shield to generate more power once we went to punch in the last access code.

The amount of power building in the shield was too unstable, causing it to intensify to dangerous levels. Once the shield had overloaded, it sent out a surge of energy that electrocuted everyone in the cell, causing them to scream out in tinny, hollow yells of pain.

The console that controlled the shield was fried and electricity arced out and hit Shepard. His armor overloaded and glowed red due to the intense heat, every bit of it frying from the overload. He was being cooked alive in what was supposed to protect him.

Then Slender Man showed himself, standing in the space between us and the now dead prisoners. My eyes focused on him and everything went silent. I blinked. I was back in my room with the scent of burned flesh lingering in the air.

I won't recount the other stories here, as I don't have the energy. Each one is as bad as the others, so forgive me for not wanting to remember them. I bet you think they all sound like bad creepypastas written by teenagers and I did warn you.

I bet you think stories about Pokemon are stupid. You know what, though? You're right. He took every silly thought, every wish, every fun little fantasy I've ever had and turned it against me. He created the elaborate worlds to dangle happiness in front of my face, only to destroy them.

He's even been toying with the fake weather outside my window. Rain while sunny, tornadoes, intense heat, upside down rain...he'll do anything absurd to confuse me. He even changes the day/night cycles to keep me tired and confused.

None of the clocks in my room run properly, nor do any of them display the correct times. Nothing on the internet has times or dates attached and the TV schedule seems to change mid-show, so I have no other means to help me know where I am in time.

To make this all stop, I purposefully fantasized about killing him. I fantasized about ripping his tentacles off and stabbing through his blank head with as big a knife I could think of. He even let them come true. I got in every means of horrible torture I could in each fantasy.

Not once would he ever be able to live once I got through with him. But, of course, once I killed him, sat back, and reveled in my victory, he was gone. The body was gone and he was standing in front of me, staring. He laughed. There was no sound, no words, but I could feel the laughter.

Truthfully, I'm not even scared anymore. I guess when I think back to specific parts of his destructions of my fantasies, I get a bit scared. I'm not even pissed off anymore. Mostly, I'm just tired. I'm defeated. This is what he wanted, after all. He's keeping me alive only to torture me.

I live in my fantasies and try to make the best of it, but I know he will always come to destroy it all. I want out. Hell, I'll take death at this point so that I don't have to risk him coming back for me. Now I'm beginning to believe this happens to everyone. After all, the only things ever found of the abducted are bags of body parts so that might not even be them. They could be in their own pocket dimensions being tortured as well.

If this gets out, please try to find a way to at least save yourself. I can't get email to go out successfully, but he may let this one out to use it against me. After all, he may just end up stalking my reader. For that, I'm sorry.

Another fantasy is starting. I should go. I think this one is where I'm a detective...

The Raven

Apparently, you assholes on the internet don't take me seriously.
I'd like to live normally, to not have these 'wings.'

I'll retell this a little more clearly.

Day 1
My eyes are darker. It's the whole eye. They're a type of silver. They glow and reflect like a cat's eyes.

Day 4
It's getting harder to breathe. My eyes are completely black, not silver anymore.

Day 5
There are cuts on my back - huge, deep cuts. They reak like blood and decaying flesh.

Day 6
I passed out in a large pool of blood.

Day 9
I awoke. I have wings. They're black and look like a bird's.

Day 10
I can no longer speak, just...noises. Crowing. It's nothing a human could make.

Day 12
It's cold.

Day 16
I have nothing left to write. I can't talk and my vision is fading. I fear I will soon lose all my senses. I can barely hear or taste. Don't bother sending help, if you could. It's a lost cause.

-The Raven

(This story is credited to a person called Midnight Agony.)

DEAFFOUND

I was browsing /b/ on 4chan the other day when someone posted a link. Their name was Anonymous, which was usual for 4chan. There were a bunch of comments on it, so I decided to click the link.

The link was to a file on Megaupload called "DEAFFOUND." I downloaded it, but Norton rejected it due to it being infected with some sort of virus.

When I went back to 4chan, all posts said "DEAFFOUND." For some reason, my computer froze soon after. I turned the computer back on, but it didn't start up properly. It showed my background with no files, start menu, or anything of the sort (explorer.exe didn't appear to be running). Almost automatically, a file opened. It was called "DEAFFOUND."

It was a Nintendo 64 emulator. I tried opening any ROM files, but all that could be found in the file browser was a corrupted file with a URL for the title. I went through the back way to open Google Chrome and typed the URL in.

My computer's screen blacked out for ten seconds and it froze. For a split second, it looked like a word or two flashed on the screen, but I didn't have enough time to read it as it was too fast.

After the computer froze and the screen came back, the page opened. However, something was wrong with my browser. There were no words anywhere on the window...just the layout. When Youtube finally fully loaded, I was on a channel called "DEAFFOUND."

There were also no words on the channel, nor was there a layout or avatar. The weird thing was that it said the account was created on October 31, 2011. This startled me, as that's today.

I began investigating by clicking on the first video, "DONT_WAIT." It was one minute and eight seconds long. The first 42 seconds of the video were comprised of black video with echoing noises in the background.

The words "Don't Wait" appeared on screen before it went black again. Exactly ten seconds afterward, it showed a trail in the woods with a ton of distorted video. The sound sounded like a phone left off a hook. The words "FIND ME" appeared after that. What really frightened me is that the trail in the video was the same trail I usually ride my bike down.

I rode my boke down there and looked around for anything suspicious. After around ten minutes, I stepped on a thin, blank disc. Actually, not far from that blank disc was a whole box of discs. I took them home and put them into my computer one by one.

They were just dupe files called "new file," save for one. On one of the discs was written the number seventeen. I put it into the computer and, not surprisingly, there was a file on it named "17." I opened it and it turned out to be an HTML file that linked to DEAFFOUND's Youtube channel.

Afterward, my computer shut itself down. When I tried to start it back up, all I could get it to do was show the word "DEAFFOUND" on the screen. It doesn't do anything else. I wish I never clicked that link.

I sent my computer to get fixed, but they said there was nothing they could do to fix it. They would want me to get a new computer because the virus on my computer was fatal. Now I'm using my dad's computer. Everything is fine, for now.

http://www.youtube.com/user/DEAFFOUND

Hospital

I'm lying in what appears to be a hospital bed with my legs and chest strapped down. It's been about four hours or so since I woke up and I don't remember how I got here or anything that happened since a week ago, when I fell asleep holding my girlfriend.

I know it's been a week becuase my phone and watch both say the same date. I managed to reach my phone and hold it up enough to type this, but I'm not sure anyone will get this message.

There's white walls on every side of me and I can make out a light on the roof, but it's off. The only light aside from my phone is coming from the screen suspended above me. It's horrible, but my eyes won't close or look away for longer than a few moments...just enough to slowly type this.

The screen shows another white room, but this one's upright. In the middle of the screen I can see it.

I'm not sure what it is, but it's not human. Its shape is humanoid, but it's definitely not human. Its skin is grey - pale beyond belief - and its hair is pitch black, haing down messily and covering half its face.

I've been lying here in silence since I awoke. My throat is dry, but I know I'm capable of sound. However, my mouth won't open and my voice won't sound. My fingers don't make a sound on the touch screen. All I've heard is my own breathing getting shallower and shallower. I might not have long left.

I opened my mouth to take a deep breath and the screen above me moved. It hadn't moved until I opened my mouth, but now it's standing there with its mouth held open, a pit of darkness that shadows themselves seem to ooze from.

Just like mine, its mouth stopped. I can hear it. Not from the screen, but from everywhere. It's whispering to me, not in its own voice, but every one I've ever heard. I can't make out any words that make coherent sentences, but it knows my name.

I shook my head and clenched my teeth to try to block it out and, as I stared up at the screen, it mimicked me, looking right into the camera. Its mouth was open with horrible, pointed teeth grinning at me. I can see its eyes...if I can even call them eyes. They shine like light, but it isn't light; it's pure darkness, an area void of light at all, looking straight into the camera at me.

A tear rolls down my cheek sideways and down its. It's not a tear of water, but something black and burning. Why can't I close my eyes?

I couldn't take it anymore. I started screaming, convulsing under my restraints. What happened stopped me dead after a moment. It didn't shake. It took a step closer to the camera. It isn't screaming, either. It's laughing through a gap in its jagged, pure white teeth. The voices all laugh as one and tears pour down both its face and my own.

At the top of my lungs, I scream as I shake, desperate to get free...to escape this hellish torment. As my eyes focus on the screen, I see that it is gone. A tear of relief slides down my cheek. Next to my ear I hear a sizzling noise and black smoke is drifting up. I shift up my gaze, finaly free of the hypnotic screen, and the tears start silently again.

It's standing over me. Tears of darkest pitch drop down my face while the darkness of its eyes and mouth spreads.

Somebody help...

Modified

Most of the stories you read about haunted video games involve someone getting the game from a yard sale or from eBay. However, this is something I brought upon myself.

I love and collect Nintendo 64 games. I usually get them in boxes with other games I bought online and then takes the ones I want to keep and put them in my collection. The ones I don't put in, I mod. I've gotten kind of good at it, so I sold a few to some friends of mine.

About a month of time, one friend wanted me to hack a copy of Ocarina of Time for him. He told me he wanted it for a creepypasta he was writing. Personally, I like some of those sotries, but I didn't understand why he wanted the game for it.

I asked him why he couldn't just do the story without a game. He said he wanted to do a video of him playing it to make the story more "real." I just kind of laughed at the idea. At least I was going to get paid for it.

The story he sent me was nothing special. He gets a copy of Ocarina of Time from eBay. He plays it and odd things happen - pallate swaps, strange sounds, backwards music, bleeding eyes, jumbled text, and other cliches found in these stories.

As you know, modding can take a while. I finally finished two days ago and sat down to test it. I had everything set up to record my playthrough. Why? Because I wanted to see how it looked after I finished testing it.

I turned it on and everything was working fine. The game started with some static, but it was supposed to do that. Like I wanted it to, the game started up a file instantly. Link was standing in the middle of Hyrule Field at night.

Link's tunic and eyes were black. There was some low moaning and some thunder sound effects. The game played just like I wanted it to; it made me feel proud of my work. That's when things started to get weird.

I was walking through Kakariko Village when there was a high-pitched scream, followed by a strange animation from Link. He quickly looked from side to side, like he was in some kind of panic, and drew his sword. This freaked me out. I didn't program that animation, nor was the sound effect anything I had put in.

I sat down the controller and went over to my computer. I didn't remember programming any new animations and wanted to see what the problem was. I looked through my programs for a specific one.

Not that long ago, I got a program named Lace. It allows me to make custom animations for Link. According to the information on it, it was last used a few days earlier. Maybe I did use it, but forgot about it. But...what about the scream? I didn't have anything like it in any of my sound files.

Suddenly, there were noises coming from the game. I went back and Link was surrounded by ten Cuccos in a circle. They were just sitting there, looking at Link. I had made their eyes red to make them look creepy, and it sure did work.

As soon as I moved the analog stick, they all swarmed him and he was dead in an instant. If that wasn't enough, the Running Man (the guy you sell the Bunny Hood to) ran up. A dialogue box popped up for him.

"YOU POOR THING. IF ONLY YOU HAD MINDED YOUR OWN BUSINESS. YOU WILL LEARN. THEY ALL LEARN."

That's when the game froze. I didn't program any of that stuff. In a panic, I turned off the game and went to my computer. I looked at the video to confirm what just happened. None of what I had seen was on the video. The scream, panicked Link, the Cuccos, the Running Man...none of it was there.

It was just Link standing there for a while befor ethe game froze. I went through the game's programming and played it a few times again. I could never get that same thing to happen.I told my friend about it, but he thought I was just messing with him. I'm glad I no longer have that cursed thing.

I even got paid for it.

Hollow

She was beautiful.

She and I would sit with my laptop for hours on end, looking for the scariest things we could find. It was an odd relationship, but it worked. Something just clicked when I was with her. She was the love of my life and my best friend. Nowadays, I would give anything to have her back.

She knew of the things I had seen.

She dismissed it. Ah, Jordan, it's just your mind playing tricks on you. I wonder if she still thinks it was just my mind.

Really, she was always worried about me. I suppose that when you look at it from her perspective - the perspective of one who hadn't lived the way I had, who hadn't seen what I had seen - it would rationalize her train of thought. Sometimes, I wonder if she thought me insane. I know there were some times she did.

The love in her eyes when we lay together, when we made love, and when we scared ourselves silly...I just knew that it was because of that love that I would never lose her. She was mine 'till death did us part.

I really don't know how to describe the things I see - beautiful, lumbering, graceful, damned, hateful, loving...I wouldn't be wrong in saying slender and that's no allusion. Just as damned as the drunk that walks down the street from the bar each night, scratching his sickly face and adjusting the old worn hat on his head, only to have it fall on its slant once more moments later.

Just as loving as a mother to her kin.

They are us, essentially, with long, cracked-looking limbs and expressions that can be both grotesque and beautiful. They are young and old, just as we are, and they are all varied greatly. They are the walking souls that never lived, not unborn and not undead.

I've been seeing them for three years now, in numbers just as great as humans. They are their own society, treating us as though we do not exist. They do not behave as we do, however, and I told her and saw fear in her eyes...not of the beings of which I spoke, but for myself and my mental state of being. She loved me but, alas, she couldn't see. Seeing was believing.

There ws a day, about two months ago, when I walked with her. The same walk we'd walked a thousand times before. We lived on a circular road and often made the loop together while talking. I'd noted that, although the loop was our usual route, there'd only been one route we'd completely avoided in all those months we were lovers. It was the road the mayor lived on: Bowater.

This particular day, I suggested to her that we walk up through Bowater, as I'd never gone far enough to reach the end of the street in question. She devoutly refused and explained that there was a night long ago when she was followed down the road by a large, black, burly figure of insurmountable height. Knowing what I've seen, she also dismissed any nothing of paranormality. I was unconvinced, but I left well enough alone and we continued on our usual treck.

I really should have seen it coming, but we were so vulnerable.

Julia caled me one night...er, morning. Around 3:00 AM, to be precise. She told me she was scared, that she was seeing and hearing things. That she needed to talk. I stayed on the phone with her for two hours, just trying to calm her down as much as I possibly could. I did my best to calm her down. It almost worked.

She was dozing off and I was happy to hear it. I was really tired too. Then...a thump. It was almost a footstep, but not quite. I couldn't hear it really well over the phone, but I could tell it wasn't a footstep. Wait. Julia. Back to that.

After the thump, I heard her stop breathing. I panicked and said her name twice. She cut me off the third time with a scream. I heard a commotion. I heard her running. I heard a door slam and lock, then I heard more running and curtains moving. I spoke her name a couple more times.

"Julia? Julia?" I said.

"Jordan, don't go. Please don't go." came the reply.

"It's okay. What's wrong?"

"She's out there. In the hallway."

"Who's in the hallway, Julia?"

"I don't KNOW who's in the hallway, Jordan? It's just a SHE. It's white. It smiles with its eyes...SHE smiles. SHE."

"Julia, calm down. Calm down. What is she?"

"I don't want to talk about it, Jordan. I can't describe it. I just want to forget. Talk to me, Jordan. Talk to me, please, about anything. Just not that."

There was a reason I wanted to know. I wanted to know because I've never ever seen one in a house...until the night before that. What I'd seen was unlike everything else.

Everything else had remained very humanoid to an extent. This...this was like a mafia murder gone wrong. Like someone had stuffed her body in a suitcase and left her alive to grow that way. Her face...her face was smiling. It was a sickly black, toothless grin with wide, white bloodshot eyes. A black object that looked to be a horn with a ball end extended slightly from where her nose would have been.

What sickened me was that her face was hanging. LITERALLY hanging from this ball-ended horn. It was like a child's halloween mask. The gap between her face and head was held together loosely by blood-soaked skin, stretched to purple like tiny little slimy rope ligaments. Her face wriggled and spun loosely, hanging by the ball end and ligaments...making small squelching noises as she moved.

Her arms stretched under her legs and bent with four joints each to become hind legs of some sort. It was like some kind of sick, disfigured child was trying to play leap frog. Her legs were relatively normal, though I couldn't see them well under the pure white dress she wore.

The last defining feature of this thing were the three grotesque humps protruding from her back.

It was on my porch. I'd gone to use the washroom and decided to turn the kitchen light on so I could find the bathroom light switch (our bathroom connects to the kitchen for some reason). I turned on the light and there was nothing.

I went to the bathroom, finished what I had to do, and walked to the porch to turn the kitchen light off. I was greeted by the sight of that THING as I entered the porch. It looked up, its head lulled sickly to the side, and it smiled at me.

At that point, I was used to seeing things, but the sight of this creature sickened me so badly I felt that, instead of hitting the switch and making a run for my bedroom, I'd have to say "To hell with it" and run to the toilet to puke. I followed through with the former and kept my bedroom door locked for the rest of the night. I did eventually manage to sleep, but it was light and restless.

Now, I was sure that Julia was seeing exactly what I'd seen the night before. I couldn't pressure her about it, however, or I'd scare her even more. I talked gently to her and calmed her down. Soon, sleep was unavoidable and she drifted, allowing me to finally sleep myself.

The days went by and Julia now refused to go near Bowater road. There was also a new path she was staying clear of: a trail we'd always used to use to cut through to the park. She was hiding something and I resolved to find out what.

Soon after, I spent most of the days with her. The sweet summer air was a welcome change from the rain we'd been experiencing for the last week. I tried to ask her about that night, but she refused to talk. She just wouldn't say a word about it.

We walked and soon went to my place. She wasn't so excited about our scary hour any more, so we just cuddled. I swear to God there was never a moment that day that I doubted she was the love of my life.

We went our separate ways that night, parting with a long, lingering kiss. It was another reminder of our promise to one another. I told her to tell me if anything happened and that I'd be over in a second if she needed me. She did, after all, only live across the street.

That night, she never said much online. I tried to elicit conversation, but was met with a bunch of nondescript oohs, ahhs, and cools. Around 1:30 AM, she went offline. At 2:00 AM, I got a text and sighed with relief upon seeing it was her. The content of the text, however, set my stomach to unrest once more.

"Im going for a walk, sorry."

I looked out the window to her house and saw not a single light on. Not even in her bedroom. I noticed her front door open and she walked - or at least stumbled - out, cloaked in her long, pink jacket that was far too large to be wearing on a semi-cool summer's night. I couldn't see her face very well.

I tossed some shoes on and ran outside just in time to see her nearly disappear on the loop of Circular road. I walked fast, keeping my distance and keeping quiet. When she stopped, I got scared.

She was standing in front of the trail. The one she'd avoided so heavily.

She stood there for a good five minutes and I almost moved to go with her before noticing she was no longer alone.

One of the things walked out of the trail. This one was different, as well, but nowhere near as grotesque as the ones I'd seen beofre. This one wore a wooden mask. It was what I would have called a Plague Doctor mask. The long 'nose' of the mask descended to its chest and it was, otherwise, cloaked in black. A long, skinny arm reached out of the cloak towards Julia and she reached toward it, holding something in her hand.

No.

No no no.

It wasn't a hand she held outwards.

It was a foot.

My heart stopped. I knew. I just knew. I'd never bothered to question the way she walked, as though drunken. I'd never even bothered to look at her feet. Or her hands.

I looked down and, sure enough, there were two hands with spindly, long fingers stretched over the road in the street light's midst. My heart stopped and broke at the same time, for I knew that the face I looked at was that of my beloved.

My beloved. My Julia.

I yelled. I yelled with so much force and anger that the Plague Doctor himself flinched. Julia turned and I got my first clear look at her face - scared, regretful. Dead.

The Plague Doctor walked up behind her, grabbing the jacket from the front, as if hugging her, and tore it open. I was greeted by the girl thing from the night before, her body cozily hugged by my Julia's hollowed ribcage...for that a spine, a neck, and a head were all that was left of my beloved.

I cried. I cried out, to myself and to the things that killed her. I cried with rage and heartbreak, loudly and angrily, and began to run. I ran toward them, glaring at that detached face and waiting for its stupid fucking grin to fade. I glared, waiting for the satisfaction I'd get at seeing the fear in its bloodshot eyes before I bashed its fucking skull in.

It smiled widely.

I made it under the street light, merely ten feet away from the thing, sickeningly cradled by Julia's body, when I was grabbed. I spun around to see nothing, but when I looked to my side there was a bony, blue hand holding onto my shoulder.

I looked up and there was another one of them. It was hanging from the street light, a noose tightened around its neck. It sface was blue and old, like the rest of it, and it was smiling.

Unlike the girl thing, this being had no eyes. Rather, it had a crazy, wise glint in its empty sockets. Its feet were suspended three feet above my head, but its arms were disgustingly long - long enough to grab me.

I tried to run, to continue towards the killer, but those fragile looking limbs held me tightly in place.

I looked up again and cursed that stupid fucking thing for keeping me from killing the killer. It merely smiled a smile that would have looked encouraging on a normal old man and, for the first time, I heard the voice of one of them.

It spoke as it smiled, in an old man's soft voice. It spoke but one word before tossing me a good five feet back. I landed on my side and a sharp pain shot through my body, temporarily paralyzing me. I got up and they were gone. All that was left was the hollow body of my beloved, on the ground and staring up at me sadly.

I ran. By god, I ran. I ran home, snuck inside, and went straight to my room. I soberly reflected on everything I'd ever done with Julia. I reflected on all of it and smiled. That morning, I awoke with the firm belief that my beloved was alive and it ws all a bad dream.

I phoned her, to let her know how much I loved her and how thankful I was that I'd met her in the first place.

Her father picked up. He told me her body was found two hours ago by the park trail. I hung up and proceeded to break down. It's been a month since she died and I still think of what the hanged creature told me that night.

One word.

Samhain.

(This story is credited to someone called Jordan.)