Major Creepy Thread

[Talon_Tantalize]

XxHushXHushxX

Talon_Tantalize

MEREANA MORDEGARD GLESGORV

There is a video on YouTube named Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv. If you search this, you will find nothing. The few times you find something, all you will see is a 20 second video of a man staring intently at you, expressionless, then grinning for the last 2 seconds. The background is undefined. This is only part of the actual video.

The full video lasts 2 minutes, and was removed by YouTube after 153 people who viewed the video gouged out their eyes and mailed them to YouTube’s main office in San Bruno. Said people had also committed suicide in various ways. It is not yet known how they managed to mail their eyes after gouging them out. And the cryptic inscription they carve on their forearms has not yet been deciphered.

YouTube will periodically put up the first 20 seconds of the video to quell suspicions, so that people will not go look for the real thing and upload it. The video itself was only viewed by one YouTube staff member, who started screaming after 45 seconds. This man is under constant sedatives and is apparently unable to recall what he saw. The other people who were in the same room as him while he viewed it and turned off the video for him say that all they could hear was a high pitched drilling sound. None of them dared look at the screen.

The person who uploaded the video was never found, the IP address being non-existant. And the man on the video has never been identified.

Available Footage From The Video

OMFG, thank-you. I heard about this video about a year ago and never watched it. I then lost the name of the vid. ><

lol no problem  

[XxHushXHushxX]

Out With A Bang

I’ve decided to kill myself.

I think it’s important someone understand why, so I’m making this video before I blow my head off. The first time I remember it happening I was nine. Johnny Weller and I were playing in his back yard. The sun was setting over his back fence, warm oranges and reds shining through the bone-white slats like a creamsicle against pearly white teeth. Johnny was the cowboy and I was the dirty redskin, stealing his horse. We ran around the swingset, him laughing and me whooping and threatening to scalp him. When he tripped, I ran to where he laid in the dirt, scooping up a handful of air, pointing my finger at his nose and proclaimed, “I got your gun now! BANG!”

Johnny’s head exploded in a tremendous blossom of crimson blood, slate-gray brain and chips of skull that sparkled in the setting sun. My hand fell to my side, and I stared, open-mouthed, unable to understand what just happened. Someone was screaming. At first I thought it must be Johnny’s mother, until she tore open the back door and I realized I was the one screaming. Johnny’s mother crumpled against her son’s headless body, adding her broken sobs to my horrified cries.

Johnny’s funeral was the next week, closed casket. I forgot the sparkling light shimmering across the cloud of Johnny’s blood. I forgot Johnny’s mother rag-dolling my little body, begging me to tell her what happened to her son. I forgot the sherrif telling my mother Johnny was hit by a falling bullet, one of twenty six cases each year. I forgot my father’s quiet talks with my mother about how they never found the round that spattered Johnny’s smile across the grass. I adjusted. I coped. I forgot.

I didn’t forget the next time it happened. I never played cowboys and indians again; in fact, I can’t remember a single instance of any shooting game played by little boys anywhere in my childhood. I do remember the little girl in the park, pop pop popping her little nerf balls as she bounced around. She ran up to me, brandishing the weapon and shouting, “Hands up!”

I smiled and complied, dropping my sandwich in mock terror. I lifted my hands to the sky and petitioned for mercy. A true homicidal maniac in the making, she executed me with a flurry of staccato pop pop pops. I dutifully played dead, sprawling across my bench. She giggled and proclaimed, “Your turn. Shoot me!”

A sudden sensation of intense discomfort slithered up my spine. I thought of flowers, glittering crimson roses, wet with morning dew. She eyed me impatiently, apparently convinced she might have to nerf me once more to provoke a response. I lifted my finger weakly, pointed at her and whispered, “Bang.”

This time I wasn’t the one screaming. Her mother cradled her baby’s dismembered limbs, frantically clutching an arm, then a leg. I had pointed my finger at the little girl’s belly button. The moment the word left my lips, she ruptured like a water balloon filled with punch and soaking bits of crimson colored fruit. Johnny Weller’s decapitated body filled my vision, the slow red of sunset sliding down the front of his striped shirt. I ran.

I can’t do this anymore. I got pissed at Laura yesterday and put my finger in her face to tell her off. I didn’t even say it. I couldn’t bring myself to sop my girlfriend’s brains off the kitchen floor. I can’t do this anymore.

All I have to do is put my finger against my temple and say it.

At least I’ll go out with a bang.  

[XxHushXHushxX]

Doors

I was adopted. I never knew my real mother; rather, I knew her at one time but I left her side when I was too little to be able to remember. I loved my adopted family though. They were so kind to me. I ate well, I lived in a warm and comfortable house, and I got to stay up pretty late.

Let me tell you about my family real fast: First, there’s my mother. I never called her Mom or anything like that; I just called her by her first name. Janice. She didn’t mind at all though. I called her that for so long, I don’t think she even noticed. Anyhow, she was a very kind woman. I think that she is the one who recommended my adoption in the first place. Sometimes I would lay my head against her in front of the television and she would tickle my back with her nails. She is one of those Hollywood mothers.

Second, there’s Dad. His real name was Richard, but he never really liked me much so I began to refer to him as Dad in a desperate attempt to gain his affection. It didn’t work. I think that no matter what I called him, he would never love me as much as his own child. That’s understandable so I really didn’t press the matter. The most notable attribute of Dad was his unmoving sternness. He was not afraid to pop his children when they did something wrong. I found that out before I could use the restroom properly. He didn’t hesitate to spank me. Well, I’m in line and it’s because of his methods.

Lastly, is my sister. Little Emily was really young when I was adopted, so we were about the same age, but she was slightly older. I liked to think of her as my little sister, though. We got along better than any sibling could possibly get along. We would always stay up late together and just talk. Well, she did a lot of the talking; I mostly just listened because I loved her. It was a great setup that we had! We were short on bedrooms, so- because I didn’t want to sleep in the living room by myself when I was littler- I had a pallet set up for me next to her bed on the floor. This is where I have slept since. But it was cool with me because I enjoyed being with her and I had always felt pretty protective of my little sis.

Everything changed on a horrible Wednesday night. I was at home taking a nap when little Emily opened the front door. The sound of the door opening pulled me to a state of consciousness and I walked from the room down the hall to the living room. That’s when I first remembered it was Wednesday. I was never any good at keeping track of what day it was. Actually I’ll just go ahead and say it: My sense of time was HORRIBLE! But nevertheless, I knew it was Wednesday because Emily had just come home from her Church’s youth group gathering. She walked in the front door and hugged me, and then was followed in by Dad and Janice.

“You have a good nap?” Janice said teasingly as she ruffled up my hair. I just shook my head away and snorted in a manner that clearly expressed that I was teasing back with her.

“Don’t you snort at your mother like that!” said my father gruffly with authority. He shut the door behind him and hung up his coat.
“I was clearly joking…” I growled under my breath. He must not have heard me because I didn’t feel him smack me. Emily then proceeded to our room and I followed. She started telling me about her day. You know… usual teenage girl stuff. But I listened so that she would feel better. After her summary she suggested watching TV and I obliged and jumped onto the couch as she was going for the remote. She rolled her eyes at my little-brother-like immaturity and scooted me over and sat down. The TV turned on and we watched it together until the sun went down. Emily was the kind of girl that- instead of watching cartoons and soap operas- would rather watch Discovery and Animal Planet and Natural Geographic. I like those too so I didn’t mind. Actually, those were the only channels that can hold my attention.

So it got late and Janice walked up behind the sofa. “Emily it’s past your bed time. Turn off the television and go to your room. You too.” she pointed at me. Emily turned off the program we were watching grudgingly and stood up. She started down the hallway to our room. As I followed I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.

We went into our room and Emily turned off the light. Just as she did, I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. It was out the window, but as soon as I redirected my line of sight to where the window was no longer in my peripheral vision, what it was that I thought I saw was gone. I still remained alert. For my sister’s sake.

I laid there in the darkness with nothing but the thin ray of light from the street lamp outside to illuminate the room. It wasn’t much. Time and time again I could have sworn that I heard subtle sounds just out the window… a twig break, leaves crunching, clothes jostling. And all the while I could smell a faint stench of sweat and blood. I kept my eyes open most of the night.

The sounds outside subsided and the smell left my nose. I began to feel at ease. My eyelids closed.

Not long after that, I heard a very loud crash on the other side of the house. I was up in an instant. “THERE’S SOMEONE IN THE HOUSE!” I barked with extreme adrenaline coursing through me. “Wake up!” I shrilly pleaded with Emily. She did, and as soon as I saw her sit up I ran to my parent’s room…

Dad was dead. His neck was splayed open and gaping as blood spilled out of it, off the bed, and onto the floor. I saw that the master bathroom’s door was closed and just before it- on the outside- was a man.

A man… I don’t feel comfortable calling it that.

He was very large and rugged. He turned around and saw me and that’s when I saw him accurately for the first time. I wont forget it. His eyes were large and beady and trapped with lust. He was styling a beard that was badly unkempt with blood dripping off. His clothes were dirty and his face was cold. Just then I noticed the same horrid smell of sweat and blood from earlier, but this time it was overwhelming.

He saw me. He saw me and grinned with a set of crooked yellow teeth. That smile threw me off. I thought that I was going to die, but then he turned back to the bathroom door completely unperturbed by my presence. I was terrified and didn’t no what to do. I just yelled and cried. I watched as he shouldered through door that was Mom’s only protection. I watched as he raised the large razor that he was carrying, but had obviously neglected to use properly. I watched as he sliced her open and tore her to shreds…

I then heard something; the last thing that I wanted to hear… It was Emily’s scream coming from behind me. The large monstrosity looked up from my butchered mother and stared at my little sister. I was distraught. He stood up and quickly started walking toward us. My sis turned and ran, and I was at a loss when he bypassed me and went straight after her. Why was she still in the house? Had she not assessed the situation and run? Apparently not, and now she was dead and I was alone.

I ran after them both. I expected the man to kill her as he had the rest of my family, but I was sadly mistaken. He grabbed her by the arm and jerked her as a way to make clear that he was in control. He dragged her through the house… I was making all of the noise I could now, hoping and praying that someone would come to my aid. He mustn’t take her. Not her.

As he passed me I backed against the wall and whimpered with terror, “Why?” He didn’t respond except by putting his free hand on my head while Emily screamed in the other and saying “Good boy.” He gave another crooked grin and a very cold, unnatural laugh. I followed him to the door where he dragged my helpless sister after him. He opened it, pulled her out, and slammed it shut behind him.

I am now sitting in the house with my mutilated adopted parents, shivering and whimpering with dismay. He’s out there with her. Doing who-knows-what to her, and I can’t do anything. I would if I could, but I can’t. I would chase after them in a heartbeat, but I can’t. I sit here, looking at the front door. I look down at my paws. If only I could open doors…

–
Credited to aCJohnson  

[Talon_Tantalize]

Necropotence

This journal was found in the attic of a fully furnished and abandoned town house in 2007 next to the last purported owner’s death certificate.

I.

My life is so perfect that it scares me. I see smiling faces from my wife and coworkers, my boss tells me that I’m doing a fine job, and the pastor pulls me up in front of the choir to set an example for the congregation.

They know nothing of my desire. If my priest knew what I was meddling in, he would condemn me to the fires of hell.

When my life was difficult, I felt more alive. Each day when I open my eyes as a successful family man, I feel as though I’ve slipped one rung further on a downward spiral of age, wrinkles, and systematic failure of my body as it repeats a daily crucible of perfection that most would envy.

I know some are jealous of my life when they see me on the street, and yet I would trade life, limb, and soul to live in their shoes for one day.

I crave INTENSITY.

The easy life is mind numbing.

II.

Routine, routine, routine. Every day is exactly the same as the one before it. There are a few minor details that I barely have a measure of control over. I can order a ham and swiss instead of a turkey and pepper jack for lunch, and I can scratch my dog’s left ear before his right. Coors Light, Michelob Ultra, Budweiser Select, Sam Adams Summer Ale. It doesn’t matter if I ******** my wife from behind, if I finish up on her glasses, or if she swallows.

Drunk is drunk. p***y is p***y.

Everything is always the same. Soon, I’m going to try it.

I’ve waited long enough.

III.

This is the last week I’m going to keep myself locked in this prison of endless repetition. I have all my affairs in order. I’ve written a note to my family and provided for everything and everyone.

In case I get senile, this is a typical morning in my life on a normal day.

I wake up at five thirty on the dot because my bones have internal timers in them, and my hip catches on fire at around five thirty four. I take a swig of mouthwash on my way to the toilet to save time, and I spend a three minute stretch swishing Listerine through my mouth and managing to squeeze out inconsistent bursts of urine. I’ve had to prop my hand against the wall since I was fifty. Standing straight up to piss is beyond me these days.

My third young trophy wife Margerie can only make decent eggs over easy, and sunny side up is out of the question unless we go out. The bacon is microwaved for two minutes and thirty seconds because although her rack is perfect, she can’t cook to save her life. She spends every morning breakfast session explaining to me that my children from previous marriages are ungrateful and deserve to be cut out of my last will and testament. This all comes while I’m chewing spongy bacon and drinking cofee that tastes like engine oil.

By seven thirty, after I’ve s**t, showered, and shaved, I’m in my boring Saab, puttering twenty minutes to work on economy cruise control. This twenty minute window is the highlight of my day. There’s no traffic, the morning show I listen to is sometimes funny, and I take my first valium as soon as my rear tires hit Nutwood Street.

For the record, my life was once gritty and unpolished, but also glamorous in a way that it was poetic. I miss being piss poor, living paycheck to paycheck, and not knowing what the next day would hold in store. I miss my first marriage, when everything was new, including some positions that I can’t do anymore because my fake hip would crucify me with pain for trying. I miss my 1970 Oldsmobile 442 that got six miles to the gallon. It was a one fifty five big block with a superstroke and a twelve second ignition top out. You felt like you were going to die if you lost even a smidgeon of control on a country road.

I was young then. It all comes back to age.

Old people all go out the same way. Heart attack, stroke, brain aneurism, cancer.

I want to be different.

It’s still sitting on my mantlepiece, but it doesn’t have to beg me anymore.

I’ll soon be determined to take it down and use it of my own free will.

IV.

I did it. I’ve been carrying it in my jacket pocket. I can feel how cold it is through my shirt.

In case I lose my mind, let me describe a normal work day, more for myself than for you. I am the second in command under a tyrannical office crone by the name of Jana. She runs a tight ship and she’s only been in the business for five years. She inherited the company from her father —- my old business partner. Soon, she had the support of everyone else, and I became the sideshow with some measure of plastic authority. She still wields the iron rod.

I usually sneak a second valium in for the morning meetings, and I smile and nod more than anything else. I make Jana feel like her ideas are good, like the employeees actually care about what she has to say. When we break for lunch, I use my hour to go to one of five places.

I can’t go anywhere the costs more than eight bucks. I made one hundred and sixty two thousand dollars last year, but Margerie doesn’t put out for me if I eat expensive food without her. She IS a trophy wife, after all. My choices are always limited to the Taco Bell Pizza Hut two in one, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, or the China Spring. The best deli in town is open before three, three blocks down, and I get to eat there once a week when our meetings cut short. They always have to put the meat back out because I stroll in at two fifty eight, and they glare at me with the utmost loathing. There’s no telling how many pastrami and loogie sandwiches I’ve had, courtesy of Jana’s rambling motor mouth.

When I get back from lunch, Jana is always gone, and I spend three hours walking around the office and telling my employees how good they are at their jobs. The truth is, some of them really ARE good, and they know they deserve a raise. I have to tell them that I need more out of them because Jana is too much of a tightwad b***h to pay them higher salaries. She saves the extra cash for botox and the newest Corvette every year.

No matter how good my day at work is, it ends in absolute frustration. I live eighteen miles from my office in the city, but in five thirty traffic, it takes me ninety minutes to get in to my driveway.

The best day at work I ever had was the last day for one of our interns, Sally. It was about ten years ago, but I still remember when she unzipped my fly, pulled out my c**k, snorted a line of cocaine off of it, and then drained me dry.

It took me two hours to get home because of a jack knifed tractor trailer that day. Work always ends on a bad note, even when Sally is there for your afternoon delight.

I hope my wife doesn’t find this diary if something goes wrong. I never cheated to hurt her. I just like to feel intense. This ******** crazy thing is so cold in my pocket now that I have a red spot on my chest from where my skin is chafing against my shirt. I think I’ll sleep with it under my pillow tonight.

I’ve had enough of normal.

When I wake up tomorrow, I’m opening it.

V.

For such a long time, it was a smooth, hard stone, not unlike something you’d pick up out of a creek and throw through Jana’s front windshield. It’s been that way since I was ten.

When I was young, this town wasn’t much more than a church, a gas station, and a diner. I rode my Schwinn to service on a normal Sunday morning.

He wandered in after the offering prayer, and I know most of the Methodists thought he was a homeless vagrant, sliding from town to town with three handles of whiskey inbetween. He wasn’t.

He pulled me aside behind the cemetery graveyard in broad daylight before I went home because my folks weren’t at the service that day. Everyone talked and gossiped and I got plenty of warnings about talking to strangers afterward, but he was different than anyone I’d ever met. He didn’t have much to say, and he had to be at least a hundred years old, but one thing sticks in my mind, seventy one years later.

“You’ve got the blood to use it, boy. I have none left. It’s someone else’s turn.” he said with dry, cracked lips.

I wasn’t interested in his gift at first. Here’s an old man waving a rock in front of me and gibbering on about some lost art called “necromancy.” I told him I wasn’t interested in any work that was not of the good Lord’s. I was brainwashed.

To persuade me to take the rock, he used it on my bike. As of right now, you’re the third person to know about this.

I watched a clumsy, rusty contraption that had been handed down from poor kid to junk yard to dirt poor kid transform before my eyes. The stone glowed almost digital green, like the display you’d get on a high tech wilderness watch or something.

The problem is, back then, digital didn’t exist. Neither did color television.

I watched rust melt away in liquid red flakes, and dents faded like the metal was made of silk. In a few seconds, my bike was brand new.

“I’ll be dead soon, boy. Use it on something that breathes.” he said. He looked to be in such ill health that I was scared by the prospect of his death. He dropped the stone in my pocket, and I fled.

Back then, I thought honesty was the best policy. I told my parents an old man fixed up my bike for free in the graveyard with a rock. They kept me locked in the house for the next three months and told me it’s not nice to lie. I never told them about the stone. I kept it hidden in a safe place. It stayed in the back of my mind, but I ignored it for a long time.

When I was fifteen, my dog Becky got caught in the wheels of the neighboring farm’s tractor because she liked to chase things. It was an accident, but she lost an eye, broke both her back legs, and she was on her way out. It was horrible.

Of course, my father wanted to spare me the pain and grief with a blast of buckshot. Everyone told me it was the easiest way — that Becky would die an agonizing, slow death if my father didn’t end her life now.

An hour before he got home from work to put an end to it, I took the stone and wrapped Becky in a blanket. I still remember her crying from the shifts in weight as I carried her broken body to the graveyard. Every footstep was painful to her.

It took me six hours to figure out how the thing worked. I had to cut myself and give it some blood. As soon as my blood touched the surface, it opened up and became soft, like a fleshy sponge opening its mouth. The more droplets I gave it, the more it glowed, and the more frozen it became in my hand. My skin was numb with the cold — I couldn’t even feel my pocket knife.

I know I didn’t do it the way he did, because I ended up with a puppy with both eyes, but two broken legs.I couldn’t bring Becky back to my family as a pup without them asking questions, so I gave her to a gypsy trying to hitch out by main street.

My father tanned the living s**t out of my backside when I got home, but luckily, he was the type of man who would beat you and stop asking questions afterward. He considered the matter finished, and I was grateful for that.

After feeding my blood to the stone, I felt a few years older, and my body showed the signs of it. I shot up to six foot three, got hairier, and started looking at girls more often. I can never say for sure, but I think giving that time back to Becky cost me most of my adolescent years. I went through high school as a twenty year old pretending to be a teenager. My birth certificate said otherwise, but for all intensive purposes, I was older than everyone around me.

I’m not asking for sympathy. I just want to pull you in to the sad affair that has become my life. My past is interesting. The present? Not so much. If I don’t explain all of this, then you’ll think I’m a horrible person for what I’m about to do. The future holds the most potential of the three.

Maybe these words can put you on my side. The only explanation I owe the world is “why.”

I don’t want sympathy or forgiveness; I only want you to understand.

VI.

I always had an inkling that my own blood wouldn’t work if the target of the stone was myself. It’s much worse than I imagined.

Here’s the last part of my daily routine. I know you have no interest in it, and that by now you’ve certainly heard enough of my babbling about how terrible normal can really be. I need this from you, and you can skip ahead to the end of the grimoire if you’d like, but it will help me to write it down. I feel so old that I can’t keep it straight in my head anymore.

When I pull in to the driveway on Nutwood Street, Margerie meets me when I open the garage. She tells me whatever concoction she’s left in the oven for me. It’s a game of mundane surprises. Tonight it’s meatloaf.

Before I can open the door in the garage that leads to the kitchen hallway, I have to shell out some cash for my darling wife. She’s most fond of Ulysses S. Grant and Bejamin Franklin, but today, Roosevelt will have to suit her.

To this day, I truly have no idea where my wife takes that money, or what she does with it. I’ve never asked, and I never will. This is possibly why I’m in my third marriage, but the intensity in life that I crave does not come from prenuptial feuds and accusations of infidelity. She shows me the movie tickets and provides better reviews than Ebert and Roeper. I’ve grown quite fond of her cinema rants.

After I pay my wife and she leaves, I spend a brief moment of time at the dinner table. Usually, I attempt to eat the food as quickly as possible, and I rarely finish half of it. Mostly, I’m looking forward to the after dinner valium and a glass of wine.

When I finish dinner, I watch recorded episodes of Jeopardy on the DVR with my new mutt, Sasha. I have her trained to bark in time with the bells when someone hits the Daily Double. Usually by Final Jeopardy, I’ve fallen asleep, but sometimes I keep my eyes open long enough for the Skinemax porno. More often than not, I fall asleep with my c**k in my hand, and Margerie wakes me up to escort me upstairs for a goodnight romp.

You think these nights of the routine don’t sound so bad, but after so many years, it gets vicious. You can substitute Margerie for my first or second wife, change the house, and put new cars in the driveway, but the routine will never, ever change without something drastic to pour in to the mix.

Tonight, after forcing half of her dry meatloaf down my throat with a generous helping of Heinz 57, I opt to place the rest of the scraps on the kitchen floor for the dog before I lock the house. I grab this grimoire of my darkest confessions, and then I get in to my Saab and start the engine. I rarely see the dashboard lights and I’ve driven the Saab after the sun goes down less than a dozen times.

Driving on the open road with a dying sun rehabilitates my sense of danger and excitement. Not a single human soul knows where I am right now.

My first destination is the vast library at my country club. I haven’t used my membership in three years. My second destination is a back alley by the corner of Norfolk and Phelps Avenue, where the railroad tracks intersect the city between the haves and the have nots. There, I will surely find a soul in desperate need of my resources.

I’ve read enough, researched enough, and toyed with this stone enough. I should have known you can’t drain yourself to make yourself younger. It’s like moving money from your checking to your savings and saying that you have more money, when really, nothing changes. Eventually, if you do it enough times, the bank will get pissed off at you.

It won’t go from soft to hard again. It’s sitting here in my pocket, gaping wide open, expecting what it knows it’s eventually going to get.

I need someone else’s blood to make the magic truly potent.

VII.

She looked vulnerable enough. I never would have imagined that she was packing a Smith and Wesson.

The struggle was brief, but exciting. I didn’t open with a ruse or story. I told her that she looked hungry and down on her luck, and that I would like her to accompany me to dinner at the Cajun Kitchen, a short distance away.

She ordered a shrimp po-boy with red beans and rice and devoured it with an intensity that I truly envied. I’ve never suffered the pains of true hunger. I paid the tab and we left to walk a few blocks back to her alley.

She pulled the revolver from her torn coat around the same time that I shanked her with the dinner knife I swiped from the back of the restaurant. I waited until the train passed through at nine, and thank the heavens I did, for someone surely would have heard the gunshot otherwise.

Her eyes bugged out around the same time that her finger depressed the trigger, but the shock of being run through with a butcher knife overpowered her sense of depth, timing, and perception. She didn’t have time to aim the weapon and shot herself in the stomach. She made it easy for me.

I tried scooping her blood out with the stone, but that wasn’t enough. I used mason jars to store it in my trunk. When I got home, I went straight to the attic to give it what it needed all at once. Margerie wasn’t back yet.

I was able to retrieve large sections of the Munich Manual of Demonic Magic, despite the odd stares of the librarian hussy and her ill repute towards my interest in the subject.

I learned about the power of circles and the danger of using the stone without standing in the middle of one. I learned about fire and ash and the requirement of sacrifice to complete any true necromantic ritual. My sacrifice tonight was the neighbor’s cat —- or its organs, if you want to be specific.

Kiss my routine goodbye. Nothing will ever be the same again. Do you know how it feels to stand side by side with the spirits of eternity?

With each new drop, I saw the lives the stone had consumed. I could only guess which ones were victims of the old man who possessed the artifact before me, or how far back the lineage of sacrifice went. My homeless vagrant was last, and her stomach still had a gaping hole in it. She gnashed her teeth and tried to lash at me like a demon, but the barrier of the circle impeded me from harm.

If I’m going to be alive forever, I need some form of companion, and Margerie won’t cut it. She’s a terrible cook. God, just the thought of eating her eggs for eternity makes me want to find a random sewer rat on the street and give it a brand new lease on life at the cost of my own. I used the blood of the homeless woman to rejuvenate my dog. Sasha growled at first, but once she was in the circle with me and the stone took its hold over her, she seemed to enjoy it.

Even animals aren’t beyond the lure of eternal youth.

I still don’t know whose soul I will use to make me youthful again. A few names come to mind —– it’s choosing one of them and not the others that really challenges me.

The ritual ran in to the early hours of the morning, and Margerie was wary of my secrecy in the attic. How many owners has this thing had?

I doubt I will ever know the answer to that.

VIII.

Sasha has been bouncing off the walls when I get home and she paws at the locked bedroom door when Margerie and I have sex. She hasn’t done that in five years.

The term I’ve coined for the accuracy and power of these rituals is “necropotence.” The sacrifice, the environment, the time of night —- these are all factors that determine the extent of your success.

These small details could be the difference between your body evolving in to an eternal medium for the dead, or shaving decades of wear and tear off of your lifeline. The line I walk is so very thin. I’m lucky I didn’t unleash something by mistake when I was younger. Sasha turned out halfway good, and halfway possessed, but at least she’s not human. If she becomes dangerous, so be it.

All spirits serve me now.

I’ve realized that this power makes me greedy, and I’m ashamed to say that it feels wonderful. I won’t relinquish this for anything.

I don’t seek revenge on them for letting me lock myself in to a lifetime of mediocrity. Instead, I will use their lives as an apology. They will become part of something greater. They don’t realize who they have become or how miserable they make the rest of the world around them, but I do.

I have a duty to find a meaningful purpose for them.

I have seen the dead face to face, restrained from consuming my soul by nothing more than a line of chalk on the hardwood floor. Their rotting smiles form insidious and leering grins at me when I funnel the blood of my subjects through the stone.

I call them subjects and not victims because they become a part of the kingdom of the dead when they pass in to my prized artifact. This is above and beyond anything they could have hoped to achieve on this plane, because I have chosen them by the very classification that their lives are pathetic.

As of right now, I am no longer a man of the routine, but a necromancer.

IX.

Sasha and I didn’t have to sleep last night. We went for a walk.

She helped me chase down another vagrant across the railroad tracks. Something tells me that it’s not exactly Sasha inside anymore. Whatever’s behind those amber eyes is in this with me for the long run. She’s better for it.

I concocted an impromptu ritual in the woods and used most of the old bum’s blood. Right before the sun came up, I fed the last of what I’d gathered to the stone. I was back in time to take my morning piss at five thirty five, and guess what?

I can piss standing up now, and I flushed my valiums. Soon, I’ll be on my way to work.

X.

I made my own eggs and bacon and I told Margerie that she’s never been good at it. I also told her I was donating my entire estate to the local funeral home and cemetery. I found it fitting. The owner and I run in close circles.

When I got to work, I quit on the spot and told Jana I hated her more than I hated her old man. I spent time writing checks to various people around the office who have never received a Christmas bonus, but earn more for the company than Jana does herself. People told me I looked good —- ten years younger, even.

I waited in the parking lot until she left and I followed her to her condo on the other side of town. I wasn’t surprised to see her whip out a bottle of Early Times as soon as she hit her living room.

Jana won’t have a drinking problem anymore, and if I were to approximate the years she gave me, I’d put myself right around thirty years old.

When I got home, I told Margerie that I dyed my hair and I’ve been exercising. She’s threatened by my new outfit I have going here, but she also can’t resist the urge to ******** me.

I waited until she was riding me reverse cowgirl, and I thought myself a warrior poet as I slid the knife inbetween her third and fourth ribs. The sheets did a marvelous job of soaking up all the blood. I was able to wring them out in to the circle.

I should bleed more people out in bed. I feel like a teenager again.

XI.

Those were all my changes. Maybe you’re sitting in my attic and you’re the first person to come across this monumental discovery. I can’t give you any more of the names on my list or reveal my plans for the future. You understand, I’m sure. Although I have the forces of the underworld on my side, I can’t have anyone meddling in my affairs.

If you’re the detective type and you have some great sense of right and wrong, I can imagine you’ll probably be on your way out the front door of my empty house to contact the authorities.

Maybe you are the authorities. My place has been condemned for so long that society has been forced to notice. In that case, good luck. You’ve never seen my old face, much less the face of my youth. Will you take this dirty journal to a precinct and place it in a folder where it will grow cold over the next twenty years until the statute of limitations expires?

Or, perhaps there’s a chance that you’ll change your routine.

Look around. I’ve left the stone in the basket of my old Schwinn in the corner of the attic. To have any chance of chasing me, you’re going to have to reject mortality.

Will your magic be potent enough to find me? How much are you willing to bleed?

Will you bleed for justice, or become one with the dead like me?

Do your research. Without enough necropotence, you’ll be nothing when you finally face me.  

[Talon_Tantalize]

UNHOLY HOUR

Perhaps you have heard the legend of the supposed “holy hour” that occurs on certain days of the year: Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, November 1, and the first of both February and August, each day between 7 and 8 am (not including Daylight Savings Time, mind you, because it is a human invention and supernatural entities do not observe it). When you were a kid, this was the hour in which you probably opened Christmas presents and started tearing apart your Easter basket after dragging your parents out of bed, and much to your parents’ chagrin refused to eat anything but leftover Halloween candy from the day before for breakfast; however, more than likely you had never gone into a darkened room in preparation for this ritual. However, perhaps you’ve heard others speak of it.

Go into a room with a mirror, preferably one without windows, between 7 and 8 am on any one of the dates listed above. You do not have to perform this ritual alone; if you have any friends, you may in fact want them to come in with you to help you perform specific tasks outlined that are difficult to do in the dark. (Important: The only light in this ritual must come from either a candle or a lighter - some tiny, flickering flame. Save for this light, you must be in total darkness - otherwise there is a strong possibility that you won’t see anything, hence the suggestion that you perform this in a room without windows. However, it all depends on your own sensitivity to the paranormal; when my friend performed this ritual last November 1, we had to shut all the doors in the hallway first because the light from the doorcrack kept distracting him.) Make sure that you perform this ritual in comfortable clothing - you want to avoid any unnecessary
discomfort.

Once inside this room, close the door and light your candles and/or your lighter. This/these flame(s) must remain lit until the end of the ritual, although I know of people who have chickened out and blown the flames out which instantly ends it and generally leaves them wallowing in their own cowardice for days on end afterwards. You may have your friend(s) hold or light the candles or lighter if desired, as long as the flame is reflected in the mirror. Now begin chanting some Christian prayer - any one will do, even the “Sinner’s Prayer” on the back of those Chick Tracts, as long as it mentions God, Jesus, or the Holy Ghost at least once - as you stare into the mirror. It must be the same prayer and, again, the number of times you need to chant this prayer varies depending on your own sensitivty to the paranormal, but generally twenty times is more than enough. (My friend chose Our Father, and he needed to chant it fifteen or sixteen times.)

When you have chanted for long enough, one of your flames will flare and then change color. (Ours turned red, but I’ve heard of flames turning blue, white, and even green and lavender before.) A few seconds later, an image will appear in the mirror of the archangel Michael - he looks a lot like the usual images of Christian angels, only he has this really nasty burn mark on the left side of his face. Also, he has really deep-set eyes.

Bow to Michael; again, it is important to make sure you don’t accidentally put out your flame(s) unless you wish to end the ritual. After you bow to him, Michael will ask you if you are entirely certain that you want to perform this ritual. I can’t really describe the voice, but it’s not the sort of voice you’d expect an archangel to have: it’s kind of scratchy and overall not very pleasant to listen to, and he has a faint accent of indeterminable origin.

After you answer yes, Michael will explain the conditions of the ritual: he will ask you seven questions, and if you answer at least four of them right, he will either allow or a conversation with a deceased loved one or give a living one immortality; however, if you answer three or fewer of them correctly, he will slit your throat and you will die right then and there. (I’ll admit that I actually do not remember any of the seven riddles from when my friend did this, but I do remember that they were rather arcane - i.e., not the type of riddles you would find in a riddle book - and he seemed to be fully aware of this. Also, if I remember correctly, each one consisted of seven words.) My friend never did well at riddles, so you can imagine that he didn’t get any right, which seemed to amuse the hell out of Michael, as by the end of the ritual he had this big, terrifying Joker-like smile on his face.

After you are finished answering the riddles (you only get one try at each, but he lets you think), Michael gives you the score. Again, if you answer three or fewer right, he smites you. While he smites you, he says something in the angel language - Enochian, I believe it’s called - and you’re left writhing on the floor in agony. My friend was screaming his head off when the ritual was over, and he started speaking in tongues; it was horrible and I’m currently in therapy for this. Really ******** horrifying.

But I digress. Anyway, the candles all went out, and the lighter he had me hold died at the exact same time. I left the room feeling dizzy, and passed out on my bed in my own vomit. Strange thing is I woke up eight hours later and went into the bathroom I performed the ritual in, and found no trace of my dead friend in there. Strange, I live alone and all my doors and windows were locked, there was no sign of anyone having broken into my apartment, the landlady was on vacation, and no matter how hard I looked in the bathroom I could not find a single trace of my friend’s blood anywhere.

A few days later, I got a call from his roommate, asking about my friend. According to his roommate, my friend disappeared on Halloween night and hadn’t been seen at all since. He had called all around, asking my friend’s parents, siblings, aunt, uncle, people like the guy at the convenient store where my friend bought his cigarettes, and even his old teachers from grade school if they knew anything about his whereabouts, only to get a resounding “no.” He decided to call me because apparently I was the only person out of the people both he and my friend knew that he hadn’t called yet. So I told him exactly what happened, down to my friend’s body mysteriously disappearing. He didn’t believe me, and reported me to the police, but, when the police came to investigate, they did not find any trace of my friend either, not even his DNA. It’s almost like he never came over my house and instead chose to fall off the face of the earth and leave his friends
behind.

On a side note, I’ve heard that someone in fact, by some miracle, did get all of the riddles right, and they wished for the immortality of whoever. However, the next day their loved one was not alive. They, much like my friend, were mysteriously spirited away, only this time on the wall of their room there was a message in some mysterious language, written in blood. Perhaps only God and the archangel Michael know what has become of the two of them.  

[Talon_Tantalize]

I DONT SLEEP ANYMORE

Earlier this week, on Sunday night, I had a dream in which I knew I was asleep. I was stood outside of my house in torrential rain at night and thought I needed to get inside in order to wake up. I approached the front door and placed my knuckles onto the door-window ready to knock. I knew that my next action would bring me one step closer to consciousness. The moment I knocked on the door, the thudding sound of the knock was so loud, so frightening and so real that it woke me from my sleep.

BANG BANG BANG

I jumped up immediately and listened out for a further knock at the door. I was roasting hot, sweating profusely and my heart was beating so hard, I don’t think I would have been able to tell the difference between a knock at the door and my thudding heart beat. After I came to my senses and realised that the possibility of the door knocking at the exact moment of dreaming it is incredibly low, I fell back to sleep.

Monday, the very following night, I had the same dream. Right back outside the front of the house in the pouring rain again, intensely staring at the house. I slowly walked to the front door, this time it was open. I walked in and went straight into the kitchen. I opened the cutlery drawer and pulled out the largest meat knife I have. I looked into my reflection through the blade of the knife.

If you stare directly into the reflection of your eyes for long enough, eventually it will hit you that someone is looking at you. You know it’s your reflection, but for just a second, you forget and become self conscious, as if it’s somebody else behind your reflection’s eyes. It didn’t take a second of looking at my reflection through the blade to realise that somebody else was looking back. The moment I realised it was somebody else wearing my grin in the reflection, I slammed the cutlery drawer shut.

BANG

Again, I shot up out of bed. The sound of the metal clanging in the drawer as it abruptly closed was so defined and so crystal clear, it couldn’t have been a dream. Really spooked this time, I went downstairs into the kitchen. I was half asleep and had to check. I opened the cutlery drawer. I was relieved to find the knife still in the drawer. I closed it and went back to bed. It took a little longer this time, but I fell asleep.

Tuesday night, my dream started with that grin in the reflection. From the look in his eyes, I could tell that the man in the reflection knew he was looking back at someone confused and scared. I found myself looking into the reflection of the knife, already in my hand, while stood outside of my house in the rain. The front door was open again. I walked into the house, directly up the stairs and into my bedroom. I looked at the bed and saw someone sleeping in it. It was me.

I knew what I was going to do, but also knew that I couldn’t stop myself. Instead, I kept think over and over again “Wake up”. My emotions were both in two extremes at once. I was terrified, but at the same time I was thrilled and excited to kill. “WAKE UP!”

I shot right out of bed and stood up. I was absolutely drenched in sweat, roasting hot, but relieved to find nobody stood in front of me with a knife. It took a few seconds to realise that I was gripping something tight in my hand. I knew what it was even before I looked down at it and saw my reflection in it. It was the meat knife, and this time the reflection in it looked terrified.

I don’t sleep anymore.  

[ABluejay]

The cabin

It's long, but definatley would leave you scarred. not scared. scarred.


I don't know what to do anymore. I’m so scared and I can't trust anyone. I went camping about 3 weekends ago in the Huntsville national forest in Texas. Me and 3 friends that came home for the weekend, they are all in college and usually we all get together at least once a year, old friends from high school. For the camping trip we planned to go backpacking deep in the forest, live off of fish that we catch and animals that we can trap. We have been doing this for awhile in Texas and in numerous places, Arizona, Colorado (if anyone is familiar with the Spanish peaks there), New Mexico, so we‘re pretty much used to anything you‘d encounter out there. It was my turn to pick where we went camping, so I chose Huntsville (more accurately it’s Huntsville/New Waverly). So we drive up there park our car in a camping park spot and start walking off into the forest. We had some laughs along the way, everyone catching up with each other's lives. We walked until it started to get dark and set up camp where we stopped. Everyone gathered wood to make a fire and we set our tent up. And we do what we always do: try and scare each other with weird stories.

Around this time we started to smell something very faint. It was noticeable, but not overbearing. We couldn't put our finger on what it was, so we just carried on. Mike had to go piss and he walked off in the forest. A second later he come running back, piss all down his jeans like he’d missed really bad. Immediately we all crack up and throw some jokes at him. Then we noticed that he was white as snow and trying to catch his breath. He starts screaming for us to follow him, and runs off.

We all get serious and go follow him, not knowing what the problem was. We start to hear a faint scream and crying in the distance, in the direction we were running. It was pitch black away from the camp and Mike had the only flash light (we left ours at the camp, he had his from his trip taking a piss), so at this stage we didn’t have much choice but to follow the light, which was frantically pointing here and there in front of him.

The scream gets closer and Mike starts to slow down. We then notice a ratty old cabin that looked like it was abandoned, except for a faint light that we could see from one of the old mildew covered windows. The crying was intense: whoever it was couldn't breathe enough to let out a full yell. We all followed Mike up to the front door and we could all hear the crying from inside. As soon as he knocked on the door it stopped. We all waited and heard really heavy footsteps walking fast to the door. There was a giant slam against the door and the sound of a bolt unlocking. Then nothing. We waited for a bit, knocked a few more times, but still nothing happened. We walked around the house (there was no ******** way any of us were leaving each other’s side) and noticed a window, which was a good way up. Alex took a deep breath and said asked us to give him a boost so he could see inside. Me and Mike lifted him up to the window. We watched him brush away dirt and webs from the window and place his face close to the window to try and see something.

There was a quick beat. Then suddenly he breathed in fast and let out a loud scream. Then he fell back from the window, screaming bloody murder the whole way. We all tried to calm him down but he was hysterical. We went to him but he started to shake, punch, kick, you name it, and then took off towards the camp.

None of us wanted to be separated so we all ran close behind him. We caught up to him and grabbed him and set him down. The fire was dying out so I grabbed some nearby wood that we collected added it to the fire. My hands were shaking and I had to do something. I went back to Alex and we all tried to calm him down. He wouldn't he kept screaming and was breathing so hard that he eventually fainted.

All of us are terrified now, and we all kept the fire high until sunrise. Periodically Alex kept waking up, screaming just like before. By sunrise he was up and looked catatonic, just mumbling to himself and whimpering. Me and Mike decide to go look at the cabin now it was daylight. We searched where we thought it was, except there was nothing there. Nothing at all. The indistinct smell from last night had now grown into a very strong smell of something dead, something stale. We headed back to the camping site. When we got there we found Alex had chewed into the sides of his face and swallowed so much blood that he was throwing up. John was at his back, and he looked like he was about to die from exhaustion. I guess we all looked that way, I just didn't notice until I saw his face. Alex said quietly that we need to leave. Now.

We all started to pack up the tent. It started to rain really heavily (it was about noon) and the sky started to grow really dark. Alex started to go into a panic. He went and grabbed a big stick and yelled at us to leave it and leave, now, or he‘d knock us out and drag us out of there himself. Mike started to yell at him, and they started to fight. We broke it up and finished packing, and then started to make our way back. After a little while we arrived at a creek we had crossed the previous day, only it was flooded over, and the water was moving to fast for us to cross it. Alex started to scream again, yelling at Mike for taking his time packing up the tent when we could have gotten out of here. This went on for a while until we finally convinced Alex to calm down and tell us what happened. He said as soon as he put his face to the glass, a face on the other side did the same thing, and started to smile really big. It had dark eyes and a dark mouth which was much bigger then Alex's, as the smile got as large as it could. A giant shadow behind it swung something down and sliced it‘s face off. The face was stuck to the window, and he said it started to laugh quietly as it slid down. Mike, still pissed off (and though he wouldn‘t admit it, beginning to get freaked out), started to argue with him again. We eventually started to follow the creek for a way to cross.

We then started to see toys floating in the creek. Really old toys, old Barbie dolls and baby dolls. This wasn't like any old trash floating in the creek, though… this was a lot of barbies, a lot of baby dolls. One washed towards the side and Mike picked it up. It had some kind of voice chip that was dying and started to say some gurgling words we couldn't understand, followed by it’s sad excuse for laughter. Then it sounded like it was whispering. We thought the batteries must be dying, he threw it down.

We kept going, and the sun was starting to set. Alex was freaking out more now, and was whimpering and breathing heavily. We all started to see shadows move behind trees, something we all called BS on until we all were seeing it. It was barely light out and we stop as we see the cabin right in front of us. None of us knows what to think. Mike says “This is bull, I’m going in there.” Alex tries to stop him. We all do, all of us just wanted to go home. Mike says to all of us to ******** off, do our own thing, he doesn't care anymore, this is all bull. We start to hear hundreds of the same sort baby doll as before, laughing, whispering and trying to sing. We start to move forward past the cabin, all of us, and kept pushing forward. We smelled something dead in the air, something stale. The same something as before. We started to hear something crying, and something screaming. We kept on going. We eventually crossed the creek and left the woods. We get back to our vehicle and got in. Its pitch black, and we drive. We are about to get on the 45 to Houston but the road is under construction and can't be accessed. It points to a detour. As we head towards the detour it seems to be small, bumpy dirt road going into the woods.

We then see a young girl come up to us. She looks like she was in trouble, young and pretty. She approaches the passenger side door and she looks like she‘s really drugged up, or beaten up. Alex doesn't roll down the windows, nor does he open the door. She reaches for the handle and he immediately locks it. She puts her face on the window and starts to smile really big. We floor it, Alex starts to cry and scream and we are all breathing heavy. We finally cut on a street that takes us to the 45 and we take it the whole way. When we get back to my apartment everyone doesn't know what to say and we all break apart and go our separate ways. Mike messages me later and says he is going to go back. I try to convince him not to and all he does is say it was our own minds that were screwing with us. I think he just went to prove to himself he wasn’t scared. I can smell that stench everywhere now. I don't go out anymore, I just stay in and don't answer the door. Last week everyone I met was acting really strange, people that I knew for a long time and total strangers. My own dad, when I went to his place to eat supper with him he just watched me, strangely, when I was sitting down. He didn't say a word the whole time. I kept asking him “What’s wrong?” He just slowly shook his head.

When I was leaving to go home I turned to wave. He had black eyes and an open mouth like he was in pain. When I started to walk back he shut the door and bolted it. I stayed there knocking and knocking. Nothing. I called him, his phone was disconnected. I even called the police. Halfway through the questions they were asking me the connection started to fade into static. I could hear a faint mumbling, singing and laughing.

Mike has completely vanished. There is not even a record of him being alive. When I call Alex’s house they talk to me like I’m some salesman. They say they don't know any Alex and to please stop calling. The person who tells me that is Alex‘s mother. I can’t get ahold of John. Someone knocked on my door and when I went to look I saw a face completely covering the peephole and a giant smile started to form. I called the cops again and instead of it turning into static they got really strange. “Sir, are you affected by any drugs at the moment?” “No.” “Are you coming home anytime soon?” “Excuse me?” “Come home.” and the phone call ended. My mail slot swings every now and then. Someone is sliding pieces of baby dolls through it. I try to call people now and all I can hear is static and bad baby doll noises and this crying and screaming. My TV is busted but when I go to piss I can hear it on. I might be going insane.  

[Psychedelic Cactus]

THE THEATER

Have you ever heard of an old PC game called “The Theater”? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Probably because many people say it doesn’t even exist. You see, The Theater is an old computer game released around the same time as Doom. Today, if you ever find it, it’s only available on crappy bootleg CD-ROMs, which, more often than naught don’t even actually contain the game. The actual legitimate copies that they say were released back in the day feature a blank cover with nothing but the sprite of what has since been named the ‘the Ticket-Taker’. He is simply a poorly drawn, pixelated Caucasian, bald man with large red lips wearing a red vest over a white shirt and black pants. He is completely emotionless, though some say that if you smash the disc his face is shown as angry the next time you look at the cover. But this is just dismissed as an urban myth. What is peculiar about The Theater, though, is that there is no developer named on the jewel case, nor a game description on the back. It is simply the Ticket-Taker on a white backdrop on both sides.

The game was initially known for its inability to install correctly. The installation process immediately locks up the computer when the user reaches the licensing agreement. Also strange about the licensing agreement for The Theater is that whenever the development studio is supposed to be named, the text is simply a blank line. Anyways, most people who have claimed to owning one of the original CDs say that they figured out how to install the game by simply rebooting their computer on the licensing agreement with the disc still inside. Then they are prompted to press ‘I AGREE’ on startup. Then they continue with the installation. The game then starts up without any introduction besides a main menu that is simply the sprite of a movie theater’s exterior on an empty city street. The title fades in and then the 3 menu buttons ‘NEW GAME, LOAD, OPTIONS’. Selecting OPTIONS immediately crashes the game to the desktop. LOAD is said not to function at all. Even if you do have a saved game, nothing happens when you press it. Thus, NEW GAME is the only working menu option.

Once it is selected you are in the first person view. You are standing in an empty movie theater lobby, with the exception of the Ticket-Taker standing in front of a dark hallway which one can only assume leads to the theaters themselves. There’s nothing to do but look at the poorly-drawn, mostly illegible movie posters or approach the Ticket-Taker. Once the player moves towards the Ticket-Taker a very low-quality sound clip plays saying “THANK YOU PLEASE ENJOY THE MOVIE” along with a speechbox saying the same thing. You then walk into the hallway and the screen fades to black and you’re back in the empty lobby and you do the exact thing again and again and again.

While this may sound like a really horrible game, a number of peculiar things occur as you continue to play it. The number of times that you have to continue into the hall after giving your ticket to the Ticket-Taker before the strange events happen is unknown. Most state that it’s completely random and could take anywhere from the first playthrough to the four hundredth. What happens, though, has deeply disturbed some players.

The first occurrence is when the player fades back in after walking into the hallway. This time they will notice the Ticket-Taker is completely absent. The player then, without any other options, decides to walk into the dark hallway. The sound clip and text box mentioned previously still play in the absence of the Ticket-Taker, but when the player walks into the hallways the screen does not fade out. It goes pitch black as they walk deeper into the hall, but the player’s footstep sound clip is still playing as they continue to push the up button on their keyboard. Those claiming to have played the original game report to have felt extremely uncomfortable walking down the hallway, anticipating the whole way something horrible happening. Well, eventually the player is unable to move forward. There is nothing for a few moments before a strange sprite that is described as ‘the Ticket-Taker but with a swirl for a face’ appears and stands before the player. The original players of the game say their bodies immediately froze up and their stomachs churned they saw this sprite (which has been appropriately named the ‘Swirly Head Man’). Nothing happens as the Swirly Head Man stands before them. Then suddenly a piercing screech plays as the game glitches out. This lasts for a few minutes, with the screeching being continuous. Then the player is abruptly returned to the lobby with all the sounds and graphics being as they should be.

The game continues normally for the next couple of ‘cycles’ of entering the hallway, with a couple of the original players claiming the Swirly Head Man would briefly appear and disappear in the corner of the screen as a brisk ‘yelp’ sound effect plays. Then, at some point after meeting the Swirly Head Man, the player sees the Ticket-Taker pacing back and forth (though there is no walking animation - the sprite’s limbs are completely static, so he just hops up and down slightly as a substitute) with his eyes being wide and his mouth open to simulate a worried facial expression. Some players noted that the movie posters had been replaced with images of the Swirly Head Man, which caused them to immediately turn their character’s head away from the posters and approach the Ticket-Taker. Then another, different, low-quality sound clip plays, but the speech box contains nothing but corrupted characters that cause whatever text that would have been in the box to be completely illegible. Due to the extremely low quality of the sound, it is debated by players what exactly the Ticket-Taker says at this point, though it is widely agreed that he says ‘NEVER REACH THE OTHER LEVELS’. Then the screen fades out once again and returns the player back to their starting point in the lobby, but the Ticket-Taker is gone and the hallway is blocked by a large brick wall sprite. Touching the brick wall will immediately crash the game. And that’s all there is to it. No one knows what the ‘Other Levels’ are or how to gain access to them, nor is it known why the Swirly Head Man causes such acute fear in those who have seen him in the game. All the original copies of The Theater have either been lost or destroyed. But the creepiest part is the fact that is that all the original players of the game claim to occasionally see a brief glimpse of the Swirly Head Man out of the corner of their eyes…  

[Dicklicious]

Talon_Tantalize

SKINWALKERS

As legend goes, to become a skinwalker you must attain preisthood, and then kill a member of your own family. Then and only then can you gain the powers to shapeshift. Then, and ONLY then, are you a true skinwalker.

According to local folklore, a man had done just that. An Indian priest had supposedly not only killed one, but 5 immediate members of his family. They never caught this man. He disappeared into the woods, never to be seen again.

When Jason and Alex set out for their camping trip they knew all the old legends. And they laughed at the idea that a "skinwalker" would come get them it they trespassed on the old Indian land. The same land that the supposed murders had taken place. And why should they believe the legends? A man becoming a beast was probably the most ridiculous imaginable.

Jason and Alex were brothers. They spent their entire lives together until Jason had gotten married. Then Jason moved away, and started a family. But not Alex. Alex stayed in their hometown, tending to their parents, making an honest living off the land, and trying to be a good person.

And Alex had succeeded at this. He hadn't broken a commandment in years, and was well on his way (well in his own mind) to heaven.

3 years had passed between their last get together. And 3 more might have passed if Alex didn't insist on a camping trip. But insist he did, and there they were.

It was getting dark, and the two of them were laying out under the stars. They were deep in the woods, and they had no GPS or maps, but they knew the path back from where they were. They had gone there as kids.

"...never know"

"Huh?" Alex replied, he only caught bits and pieces sometimes.

"We can never let dad know." Jason reiterated.

"Know what?"

"That we stayed on the old Indian land past dark. We promised him as kids, and I wouldn't want to upset him now. He's getting pretty close to dead, and if we started an argument now we may not resolve it in time for...you know. Just don't tell him or Ma. Ok?"

"Ok. No pra-blom."

They both were silent for awhile, until up creeped a small raccoon.

"Well lookit that." Alex called, as he pointed towards the critter.

It stared at them for several minutes. Not moving, not attempting to flee when they motioned towards it. It stayed almost perfectly still. And then finally it left.

Minutes later came a deer. Again the creature stayed and watched them. Unwavering determination glared in its eyes.

For about 2 hours the duo was kept awake as every animal they knew to live in the Forrest, and some they were sure didn't inhabit the area, came to gaze upon them.

The final animal was a grey wolf. It slowly moved towards them, and when it was 5 feet away it stopped.

"Don't move. Don't panic. It'll go." Jason assured Alex.

The wolf slowly stood up onto its hind legs and then its limbs began to contort and pop. Horror slid over Jason and Alex's faces as they saw the fur tear open, revealing light brown flesh underneath. Finally, they gazed upon what looked like a man with a wolf head.

The skull of the wolf split open like a melon. The fur sliding off it, the bone chipping and falling like a fragile eggshell. And in its place slowly grew out the head of a man.

The man now stood before the paralyzed brothers. They couldn't seem to move.

"This is my land" said the man, with an almost supernatural smile.

"Now...Now...Mister I'm gonna have to ask you to g...g...g..." Alex trailed off.

"Get the ******** away from us." Jason said as fiercely as he could.

The man began to laugh. And as he continued to laugh the pitch changed. It grew deeper, from that of a man to that of a demon. And soon it sounded as if Satan himself was bellowing out at them.

The mans skin grew black as coal, and his eyes yellow like a cats. His demonic laughter echoed through the Forrest, as he drew closer and closer. The brothers being unharmed had no choice other then to flee. And thats what they did. They ran as fast as they could, except instead of out to their cars, they were cornered into running deeper into the woods.

For hours they seemed to play cat and mouse. Several times animals they passed would burst open in a grotesque manner, revealing the deranged man. But they continued to run.

Finally reaching a Cabin, they ducked inside. They were filled with fear, and the brothers felt that leaving the cabin meant for certain their deaths.

What they found in the cabin made them regret their ignorance on legends. For in the main bedroom of the cabin was corpses. At least a hundred of them. Every animal they had seen that night was there, along with some larger bodies...some human bodies...

It was then that the man burst into the room. Except he was once more a wolf. In his deep voice he snickered out

"Welcome home!"

The following week the authorities found the Cabin during their search for Jason and Alex.

Both brothers faces looked as if they were eaten by an animal of some sort.

6 days later a security camera several states over caught Alex filling up a car with gas. Several eyewitnesses also reported seeing the dead man. And on nearly all accounts he was seen smiling a wide, toothy, unnatural grin.

 

[Talon_Tantalize]

im back for a bit after being busy so here you go:

PLAYING WITH SOUND

Does anyone remember talkboys? They weren’t anything special, just a nifty looking tape recorder. They came out roughly around the same Christmas that Home Alone 2 was released, there was a whole load of hype over them, remember the trailer where Kevin plays back his hotel order down the phone after recording it? He uses the function that let’s you slow down the voice, posing as his dad. I thought that was awesome, I figured if I had one of those I’d be able to fool adults with ease, calling people up and ordering a new TV and stuff for the house…maybe my dad would even keep it, he’s pretty forgetful - you never know!

I never got one that Christmas, never really knew why but the huge collection of presents that Santa did bring me were enough to distract me from it’s absence, I was pretty happy with my new bike, that was the obsession of the moment. I forgot all about asking for it, actually, although I do remember seeing the ads on TV for a while. Instead I just let the snow clear and spent the next few months obsessing over the toys and games that I was given.

My birthday came in November much later the next year, I remember turning eight and having a party thrown for me at the house. Thankfully, the talkboy came too - along with Home Alone 2 on video of course. It was great unwrapping it, I mean I was never selfish and I didn’t really demand much as a kid but getting what you’ve asked for is a fantastic feeling. I ripped it out of the box straight away, tore off the packaging and carefully lifted it out in front of my friends. I was so pleased with it, it even looked cool. The microphone was extended towards you and it was so easy to hold, I grinned and laughed and pressed the record button.

“Hello!” I yelled into it before rewinding and playing it back.

“Hello!”

My voice sounded so odd, I’d never actually heard myself speaking before, it was such a strange sensation to hear how different it seemed. I looked at my dad, puzzled, and he laughed. Everybody laughed and I eventually joined in. I remember that Andrew reached over and tried to take it off me, demanding a chance to play with it but I pushed him away and shook my head.

“Nuh uh, I’m not done yet.” I lifted the receiver again and spoke into it:

“Andrew smells!”

He huffed and folded his arms, pouting and looking angry with me but I wasn’t phased, this was why I’d wanted it so badly in the first place. I rewound quickly, flicked that little black switch to make the talkboy repeat what I had said in the slow, deep voice like in the movie, I held it up so that everybody could hear me insulting Andrew in slow motion.

”Yes, he does,” said the talkboy.  

[Talon_Tantalize]

I've actually heard stories about this that are similar all my life, so seeing this legit story was pretty great so here it is

THE SUICIDE KING

Modern playing cards are filled with layers of meaning and symbology that can be traced back centuries. The four kings, for example, are based off of real rulers: the king of diamonds represents the wealthy Julius Caesar, the king of clubs is the brutal Alexander the Great, Spades represents the strong but kind David of Israel and Hearts represents the… emotionally disturbed, shall we say, Charles VII of France. It is this king that we will be dealing with today. It should also be noted that Charles was the only one of the four who was actually there to see the day that his face was printed on a playing card, which may rationalize why he acted apart from the others.

Charles’ visage was put on the king of hearts at the very beginning of his rule, but he never really got a chance to come into contact with playing cards until many years later when he became very ill with a fever and was informed that he would be bedridden for the rest of his life. It was during this period that Charles began learning card games to pass the time, such as an early version of black jack, “vingt-et-un” (twenty one).

Charles lay in his bed for two years, constantly fiddling with the cards and always getting weaker. As time continued to pass, there were reports that Charles had begun obsessing over the idea that the king being the thirteenth card in a suit was causing him bad luck. He talked about how he was starting to see the number pop up everywhere and that he was close to figuring out its secret. Of course, his ramblings were blamed on the fever, and by the end of the second year, he had been declared insane, and his son Louis XII took over the thrown.

One day, several months after the end of his reign, one of Charles’ physicians went to his chamber to find the frail old man standing in the middle of the room wielding a large sword. Before the doctor could react, the king said, “Ils m’ont montré la vérité de treize, et il n’est pas signifié pour les yeux mortels.” which roughly translates to, “They have shown me the truth of thirteen, and it is not meant for mortal eyes.” Without hesitation the king proceeded to ram the blade in through the left side of his head (between the ear and temple) until it came out the other side. He wavered a moment, before collapsing to the floor dead.

After the incident was announced and it was made public that the king had gone mad, the image of Charles on the king of hearts was altered to show himself offing himself. Although the picture is now shown significant-ly less graphically, the image of Charles thrusting the sword into his skull can still be found on modern day playing cards. Perhaps the strangest part of the whole story, however, is the day that Charles chose to kill himself: 7/6/1462. Whether or not it was intentional of the king, the facts that 6+7=13 and 1+4+6+2=13 can only be explained as coincidences.  

[some sequoias]

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

“Ohhhhww. . . What hit me?”

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

“Hey, who said that? Where am I?”

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

“Hey! Are you ignoring me?”

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

“Wait, what? Are you serious?”

YOU MUST CHOOSE A DOOR.

“Why? The exit’s right there.”

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

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

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

“Only because some b*****d locked up the exit-”

You grumble to yourself as you contemplate-

“It was you wasn’t it? Jerk.”

CONTEMPLATE YOUR FATE.

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

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

“What? Oh HELL no!”

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

“It wasn’t intuition, you just said-”

You must make your choice between the remaining two doors.
With a sigh, you go towards the one in the middle.

“I know what I’m doing-”

You mutter-

“-I don’t need you telling me. p***k.”

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

“Gah!”

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


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

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

“Wait a minute. . . ”

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

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

There is no escape-

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

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

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

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

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

There is no escape!

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

You can’t-

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

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

[some sequoias]

Talon_Tantalize

UNHOLY HOUR

Perhaps you have heard the legend of the supposed “holy hour” that occurs on certain days of the year: Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, November 1, and the first of both February and August, each day between 7 and 8 am (not including Daylight Savings Time, mind you, because it is a human invention and supernatural entities do not observe it). When you were a kid, this was the hour in which you probably opened Christmas presents and started tearing apart your Easter basket after dragging your parents out of bed, and much to your parents’ chagrin refused to eat anything but leftover Halloween candy from the day before for breakfast; however, more than likely you had never gone into a darkened room in preparation for this ritual. However, perhaps you’ve heard others speak of it.

Go into a room with a mirror, preferably one without windows, between 7 and 8 am on any one of the dates listed above. You do not have to perform this ritual alone; if you have any friends, you may in fact want them to come in with you to help you perform specific tasks outlined that are difficult to do in the dark. (Important: The only light in this ritual must come from either a candle or a lighter - some tiny, flickering flame. Save for this light, you must be in total darkness - otherwise there is a strong possibility that you won’t see anything, hence the suggestion that you perform this in a room without windows. However, it all depends on your own sensitivity to the paranormal; when my friend performed this ritual last November 1, we had to shut all the doors in the hallway first because the light from the doorcrack kept distracting him.) Make sure that you perform this ritual in comfortable clothing - you want to avoid any unnecessary
discomfort.

Once inside this room, close the door and light your candles and/or your lighter. This/these flame(s) must remain lit until the end of the ritual, although I know of people who have chickened out and blown the flames out which instantly ends it and generally leaves them wallowing in their own cowardice for days on end afterwards. You may have your friend(s) hold or light the candles or lighter if desired, as long as the flame is reflected in the mirror. Now begin chanting some Christian prayer - any one will do, even the “Sinner’s Prayer” on the back of those Chick Tracts, as long as it mentions God, Jesus, or the Holy Ghost at least once - as you stare into the mirror. It must be the same prayer and, again, the number of times you need to chant this prayer varies depending on your own sensitivty to the paranormal, but generally twenty times is more than enough. (My friend chose Our Father, and he needed to chant it fifteen or sixteen times.)

When you have chanted for long enough, one of your flames will flare and then change color. (Ours turned red, but I’ve heard of flames turning blue, white, and even green and lavender before.) A few seconds later, an image will appear in the mirror of the archangel Michael - he looks a lot like the usual images of Christian angels, only he has this really nasty burn mark on the left side of his face. Also, he has really deep-set eyes.

Bow to Michael; again, it is important to make sure you don’t accidentally put out your flame(s) unless you wish to end the ritual. After you bow to him, Michael will ask you if you are entirely certain that you want to perform this ritual. I can’t really describe the voice, but it’s not the sort of voice you’d expect an archangel to have: it’s kind of scratchy and overall not very pleasant to listen to, and he has a faint accent of indeterminable origin.

After you answer yes, Michael will explain the conditions of the ritual: he will ask you seven questions, and if you answer at least four of them right, he will either allow or a conversation with a deceased loved one or give a living one immortality; however, if you answer three or fewer of them correctly, he will slit your throat and you will die right then and there. (I’ll admit that I actually do not remember any of the seven riddles from when my friend did this, but I do remember that they were rather arcane - i.e., not the type of riddles you would find in a riddle book - and he seemed to be fully aware of this. Also, if I remember correctly, each one consisted of seven words.) My friend never did well at riddles, so you can imagine that he didn’t get any right, which seemed to amuse the hell out of Michael, as by the end of the ritual he had this big, terrifying Joker-like smile on his face.

After you are finished answering the riddles (you only get one try at each, but he lets you think), Michael gives you the score. Again, if you answer three or fewer right, he smites you. While he smites you, he says something in the angel language - Enochian, I believe it’s called - and you’re left writhing on the floor in agony. My friend was screaming his head off when the ritual was over, and he started speaking in tongues; it was horrible and I’m currently in therapy for this. Really ******** horrifying.

But I digress. Anyway, the candles all went out, and the lighter he had me hold died at the exact same time. I left the room feeling dizzy, and passed out on my bed in my own vomit. Strange thing is I woke up eight hours later and went into the bathroom I performed the ritual in, and found no trace of my dead friend in there. Strange, I live alone and all my doors and windows were locked, there was no sign of anyone having broken into my apartment, the landlady was on vacation, and no matter how hard I looked in the bathroom I could not find a single trace of my friend’s blood anywhere.

A few days later, I got a call from his roommate, asking about my friend. According to his roommate, my friend disappeared on Halloween night and hadn’t been seen at all since. He had called all around, asking my friend’s parents, siblings, aunt, uncle, people like the guy at the convenient store where my friend bought his cigarettes, and even his old teachers from grade school if they knew anything about his whereabouts, only to get a resounding “no.” He decided to call me because apparently I was the only person out of the people both he and my friend knew that he hadn’t called yet. So I told him exactly what happened, down to my friend’s body mysteriously disappearing. He didn’t believe me, and reported me to the police, but, when the police came to investigate, they did not find any trace of my friend either, not even his DNA. It’s almost like he never came over my house and instead chose to fall off the face of the earth and leave his friends
behind.

On a side note, I’ve heard that someone in fact, by some miracle, did get all of the riddles right, and they wished for the immortality of whoever. However, the next day their loved one was not alive. They, much like my friend, were mysteriously spirited away, only this time on the wall of their room there was a message in some mysterious language, written in blood. Perhaps only God and the archangel Michael know what has become of the two of them.

This is one of my favorites!  

[ABluejay]

C4T S0UP

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

“Ohhhhww. . . What hit me?”

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

“Hey, who said that? Where am I?”

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

“Hey! Are you ignoring me?”

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

“Wait, what? Are you serious?”

YOU MUST CHOOSE A DOOR.

“Why? The exit’s right there.”

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

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

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

“Only because some b*****d locked up the exit-”

You grumble to yourself as you contemplate-

“It was you wasn’t it? Jerk.”

CONTEMPLATE YOUR FATE.

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

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

“What? Oh HELL no!”

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

“It wasn’t intuition, you just said-”

You must make your choice between the remaining two doors.
With a sigh, you go towards the one in the middle.

“I know what I’m doing-”

You mutter-

“-I don’t need you telling me. p***k.”

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

“Gah!”

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


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

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

“Wait a minute. . . ”

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

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

There is no escape-

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

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

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

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

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

There is no escape!

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

You can’t-

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

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

I read that hoping to be creeped out. Instead I was offended because this is like a parody of saw lmao  

[ABluejay]

Another lost episode, featuring doug!



Everyone remembers the show Doug, one of the original three Nicktoons. It seemed like a pretty normal show about the challenges a young boy faced in his daily life, but I always got a weird kind of feeling from it. Compared to other kid shows, Doug seemed more negative and anxiety centered. Doug was always worried about something, and in most episodes he’d have fantasies of everyone he knew cruelly laughing at him due to whatever problem he was facing that week. Doug always came through in the end, though, and every episode ended with him writing in his journal about how he had overcome his blown out of proportion problem.

In 2005, I started having dreams about the show for no apparent reason. I can’t remember the details, but they made me want to see the show again. The show hadn’t even been seen in reruns for years at that point, so I couldn’t think of any way to see it again. To my surprise, it came back for one week in Fall 2005, airing at 6:00AM on weekdays. I watched it for all five days. The first four were episodes I remembered, but they didn’t sync up with my memories perfectly. It had been a while, so I just chalked it up to flaws in my memories. The Friday episode, though, was something I’m positive I had never seen before.

It started with the normal intro with the line drawings, but the characters never appeared. The lines continued as normal, reacting as if the normal characters were there. When the episode began, it showed Doug in a dark room, writing in his journal. He wasn’t narrating his writing like he usually did. He just silently wrote for about a minute. The screen faded out, and the usual episode title screen appeared, but there was no skit this time. There was just the giant Doug letters forming the title Doug’s Real Life.
The episode opened with Doug eating breakfast. He was giving a voice-over about how there was a big test he hadn’t studied for. His family was having a normal conversation but the screen started flashing. The flashes seemed to be showing something, but they didn’t last long enough for me to figure out what they were showing. Doug left his house and started walking to school. He had one of his fantasies about his life being ruined. Mrs. Wingo announced that Doug had flunked the test, and the entire class started laughing at him, with their heads coming off their bodies and swirling around Doug. This went on for longer than most fantasies, and the laughter sounded crueler than usual.

When Doug got to school, the screen flashed again, but this time it stayed on the new image, or, rather, the new animation style. The colors were darker, many objects had changed color, and it resembled a film negative. Doug was walking through a school full of kids who had never been seen on the show before, and no one paid any attention to him. After Doug got to his desk, the animation switched back to normal. The scene changed to after school. Doug was walking home, worrying to himself about the test. When Doug reached his house, Pork Chop greeted him. Doug started talking to him, and then the screen flashed. Pork Chop turned into a hunk of rotting meat and Doug’s house became decrepit. Doug walked into his house and acted like he was talking to someone, but it was completely deserted. After interacting with invisible people for a while, he sat down at an empty table. The screen flashed again, and Doug’s family was there with him, eating dinner. The phone rang. Doug’s mom answered it. Doug had a fantasy of his parents yelling at him for failing the test. In it, they grew gigantic and their faces became twisted and dark red. The screen flashed back to the empty house. Doug was crying and apologizing, but there was no one else in the room. He went up to his bedroom, which was completely empty except for a book and a pencil. Doug picked up the book and started writing. He narrated this time.

“I can’t tell which one is real.”