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.)