As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 002 - Dark Web And Subscriber Submitted Stories - 8 True Scary Stories

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

Hello and Welcome to the 2nd episode of The ATRD Podcast! Today we have some intriguing and terrifying stories submitted by everyday people. In Today's Episode we will have stories about some of the horrors found on the Dark Web, and Stories of various categories submitted by subscribers to my youtube channel! ➤ Want your story featured? Go to https://www.astheravendreams.com/Submit ➤ Want to know where to follow me on the internet? Go to https://www.astheravendreams.com/the-nevermore for all my links! ➤ You can also get EARLY ACCESS By joining my Patreon! https://patreon.com/astheravendreams Today's Video contains stories by the following Authors... Norman Osborn, GatorPuppetOfficial, Otis McNutt, Jay, And several authors that prefer to remain anonymous. ➤ All stories within are used w/ Either direct permission from the author- or under some level of CC license (where noted) True Stories are not verified, and should all be considered 'supposedly true'.  And Remember; You are loved, you are important, and you are valid. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/astheravendreams/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/astheravendreams/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Oh, that also. And profite. Villaray, the voice that we love that am. I have an interesting dark web story from a perspective that most people don't get.

Namely, from the perspective of someone that used to actually work for an associate. of a site that was kind of like Silk Road. Nowadays, I do work for a company that contracts out cybersecurity stuff, mostly penetration testing and threat hunting. It's fun. I like working on the safe side of things, doing work for the man,

and getting paid to break things for them, and I will never go back to the dark side of things, especially after what happened. I'm not trying to hype this up. What happened was absolutely horrifying, but it is the truth. And it's what happens when mistakes are made working with criminals. So, like I said, I used to work with a couple guys that did Darkweb-style business, mostly selling illegal stuff, like drugs, and mostly drugs.

In fact, yeah, it's... It's best to say that we just sold a lot of substances to people that couldn't or wouldn't get a prescription for a premium. We had a lot of customers, and most of them were repeat customers, and we had a very well-encrypted list of everyone that we had ever worked with in the past, including their regular orders. And we had a very well-constructed method of shipping. We would ship the items in boxes that looked like they were from other. companies, and we would hide the good stuff with the other stuff in ways that made it unlikely

to be found. This was also a long time ago, back before Silk Road was actually busted, so people weren't really looking for substances like that in the mail. My part of this operation was actually system security. I was in charge of keeping the site running, and making sure that no one ever got the information that we held, including who was in the operation and the list of customers. I was good at my job. We never got hit by a honeypot operative.

I was good at sniffing out cops that were trying to do purchases, and we never had any security or downtime issues. I also kept the overall site looking clean, which may not be something that really means anything, but, to me, we had the nicest-looking dark-web market that ever existed. I was actually quite proud of the work that I had done on it. Now that you know me, the operation, the site, and all that stuff, let's talk about the part of it that became problematic.

A man that we will simply call Rob. Rob was the ringleader of the whole thing, and we knew that he was in charge. Hell, most of us just accepted that it was his business and as long as we got paid, we didn't really care what went on. Rob was the business major that had decided working doing illegal stuff was the best way to pay back the money that he owed on his student loans. And, I will say, he was a bit cocky when it came to doing the work that he did. He was actually arrested at one point on unrelated charges,

and we thought we were going to be next, seeing as how he liked to talk. Thankfully, nothing happened, and he was let go. He said it was because he had a good lawyer, but I don't know. Anyways, let's talk about the situation that actually happened. As I said, we all ran a little business on the dark web selling illegal substances. Things went smoothly, and everybody was happy. That is, until they didn't, and nobody was happy.

Despite all the minor hiccups that did happen, it wasn't a huge deal until we had one specific customer that was very displeased with our services. We are going to call this customer Chris. Chris had a drug addiction, and Chris was probably our most frequent customer. Also, Chris was a very aggressive person when it came to communication, I know what you're thinking. Why are you in frequent communications with a customer if you're selling illegal items on the dark web? Unfortunately, it was Chris that was in communications with us.

There was always something wrong with his order. Now, I wasn't involved in getting the content, the shipping, or the business side of things, so I just kind of ignored the situation. I ran the back-end servers, which included our messaging system, so I saw all the communications that went on. Unfortunately, Rob, being the hard-headed jerk that he was, liked to antagonize Chris when he was being irrational. He would message him saying that he was an idiot,

to never purchase from us ever again, things like that. The last time this all went down, Chris messaged back saying that if we didn't get his order right, he was going to go to the cops. Now, there are a handful of things you don't do when you're dealing with people on the dark web, and one of them is to threaten contacting the police and shutting down a lucrative operation. When this message came through, Rob sent out a correspondence to all of us that this customer was to be blacklisted, and that he would be contacting people within other markets

to make sure he was never sold to again. The problem is, Rob also sent this to Chris as, well, my guess was that it was to send some kind of message, like, you mess with us, I cut you off. While there are things you don't do to those that operate dark web businesses, there are also things you don't do to irate and irrational drug addicts that know how to use the dark web. The situation went from unsavory to an absolute hellstorm. At the time of all this happening, I was actually staying with Rob for a few days due to some personal issues at home.

He had turned the back half of his basement into a bit of a spare room and server closet. So, I was lucky enough to sleep where my work was. Anyways, I was actually downstairs working on something irrelevant to the situation when I heard what sounded like somebody kicking in a door. I immediately ran up to the top of the stairs, but I stopped in the doorway to see what the hell was going on. There, I see a six-foot-something guy that had to be somewhat north of 300 pounds, standing in the doorway with what looked like a shotgun in his hands.

And Rob on his knees, literally begging this guy not to kill him. I heard Rob call this guy Chris, which told me all I needed to know. This wasn't going to end well, and I was likely going to be next. I stepped quickly down the stairs as quietly as I could and went down into the area beneath the steps. basically behind the server closet. Then, I dialed 911 on my burner phone.

When they answered, I just told them the address and said that I needed officers immediately because there was a man with a gun that had just broken in, and then I hung up. I didn't want to give them any of my information, since, you know, I'm kind of a criminal. No more than a few seconds after I hung up, I heard screaming and, gunshot. I knew what that meant. I waited there until I was certain that he had left, and then I did the most cowardly thing that I could. I climbed my way up and out of the basement window with my backpack, and walked calmly to the McDonald's that was pretty much across the street, so I could see what played out. The cops showed up, then the ambulance, and then the coroner and the crime scene guys. I listened to

the police radio to see if they ever caught the guy. There was some cross-talk about the situation, but in the end, they jumped to encrypted channels, and I lost track of what they were doing. My stay at Rob's house was a very temporary thing, and I had most of my life in my backpack, so I wasn't overly worried about them knowing I was there. I did go into cleanup mode with the servers, though. They were nuked entirely, so no information was ever pulled. It was a pretty messed up situation, and I really did feel bad for what happened to Rob, but in the end, if you're going to work as a criminal, you have to be ready to face the consequences of being a criminal.

Did he deserve to die? No, absolutely not, but that's not how Chris saw it. So, my final suggestion, just avoid the dark web. Deep web stuff is fine, it's pretty safe, but do not go down that rabbit hole because sometimes what you find on the other end may be unpredictable. I used to be one of those people that liked to go on the deep web for the fun of it, and I would frequent a number of underground-style sites. I work in the IT industry, and for some reason the Deep Web and Dark Web are these strangely taboo things that we aren't supposed to discuss with normal people. But it's not exactly like it's the best kept secret. Those of us that do go out on tour and look at things that are at their best questionable,

well, it's almost like we can smell it on other users. We all have this weird sixth sense that can tell if the person next to us is one that peruses the deep. Okay, not really, but typically we can tell by your demeanor, if you are someone that knows what they're talking about, and most of the time something about the deep web will come up. Now, I'm the kind of person that knows what they're talking about. Probably a bit too well. Let me put it this way.

If it was something that was shady, sketchy, unsavory, or otherwise in a legally gray area, I was probably spending some time each and every day looking at it to see what was what. I spent more than my fair share of time on a few deep web community boards, mostly chatting it up with like-minded people that also had way too much spare time. on their hands. My favorite pastimes, we're posting on conspiracy boards. It's crazy what people will say when there's no limit or filter, and honestly, some of the things that they say out there may be more true than we like to believe.

Case in point, hitman's sites totally exist and are more than likely legitimate businesses. Well, the ones that aren't honeypots anyway. Aside from that, there are also. a lot of marketplaces that exist on the deep web for things that are questionable. But the dark web? Now that's where things turn to the downright illegal. I will admit to having spent my fair share of time and money on dark web markets. I have bought things that are illegal to own,

and I have seen things that I shouldn't have seen, and things that I definitely did not want to see. That said, I wanted to write this quick story about one of the marketplaces that actually kind of freaked me out and made me pull away from the illegal stuff. There was a particular marketplace that existed that touted itself as the be-all and end-all of dark-web markets. And it was essentially this massive dark-web version of Craigslist or Facebook market. If you were looking for something that you shouldn't have been, and were willing to spend some Bitcoin,

well, then you were in luck, because odds are, they had it. Bootleg movies, check. Viagra from another country, check. Computers potentially stolen from a government facility. Somehow, check. However, it got a bit deeper than that. They also had services that.

that you could pay for. Nothing like those hit men's sites at all, but if you wanted to, quote, unquote, have a good time with someone who might be about to die, then you could. Hey, I don't judge others for what they do behind closed doors. I keep my opinions to myself and just live my life. You do you. That said, I actually stumbled on to something

that I initially thought there's no way that's real. until I messaged the seller, and then, well, I'm not so sure anymore. It could have been a honeypot or a fed trap or something, but if so, it was a damn good one. I was perusing the market one afternoon, looking for something stupid, I think. I was looking for shoes or something, don't ask. When I stumbled upon something that was simply labeled new, I like new things, so. I eagerly clicked it and went on to read what was so interesting about this new product. Well, this new product wasn't really a product.

The description read something like, and I am paraphrasing here, I have access to any age up to seven, and I can't deliver. Forged paperwork extra must have payment ready for any and all offers. Obviously my first thought was that this was a full-on honeypot or a scam for people that were looking for children, which would be a fairly niche scam if you think about it. So I mentally defaulted it to a honeypot. And because I was a bit of an edgy 20-something,

I decided I would message the seller and mess with them a bit. I logged into my account on the market and I went to the user to send them a message. I asked something along the lines of How do we know you're legitimate and not a Fed trying to arrest someone? They responded with, you don't. Which kind of solidified the honeypot idea that I had in mind already. I responded with,

Can you prove that you're legitimate? I have the Bitcoin ready if you're an actual seller. Again, I was just trying to goad this person into giving me anything that would confirm my personal bias. They sent me a message back saying, Boy or girl, and how old? I had to think on this one for a second. I wanted to give him something that may be tough to respond with,

so I said, boy, around five. He then asked me for my name. He sent back some pictures of a little boy that looked to be around four or five years old. In the pictures, the boy looked pretty, happy. He was in a basement area, playing with toys, and there was one of him watching SpongeBob on TV. I was actually getting a bit nauseous with this whole thing, so I responded back saying, Is he the one that's for sale? At this point, I felt like I needed to gather as much information

as I possibly could to maybe take to the authorities. The seller responded with, He's one of them, yes. I then asked him to prove that he didn't just send me a picture of his own kid to try and bait me. He, once again, asked me for my name, which was something I had tried to avoid answering prior. I was a bit nervous at first, for obvious reasons. So I just told him my name was Marcus. It's not. But you don't tell people on the dark web your real name.

after I told him my name, I hadn't gotten a response back for about an hour, and I was almost certain that he was a Fed that was now tracking me at this point. That is, until he finally did respond. I got a message back from him with an MP4 attached to it, and in the video was the boy playing with a couple hot wheels. In the video, you could hear a man talking, and I'm assuming, that was the seller. The man asked what the boy's name was. The boy said Tony. Then the man asked who was filming him.

The boy said, Uncle Will. Then the man said, And who's the video for? The boy then said, It's for Uncle Marcus. He then said, And why are we making this video? The little boy laughed and then responded with,

To find me a new mommy and dad. There was a bit more back and forth to prove that this kid was legitimate, and to show that the seller wasn't messing around. He then ended the video with, Now that you can see that little Tony here is very real and in need of a good living home, let's stock payment. I prefer Bitcoin, but I'll take any of the current stable coins if you have them. I'll be waiting for your response. you'd better believe that I took that information and video straight to the authorities in the form of an anonymous communication.

I know, I'm a bit of a coward, but when you're a criminal taking down bigger criminals, it's best not to put your name on anything. I don't know what happened to the case. I'm assuming they passed it on to the FBI division that handles this stuff, but I haven't been hunted down and arrested, nor have I been killed yet, so I guess things are going smoothly. And, unfortunately, this should serve as proof that, yes, you can literally buy anything off the dark web. I have a story that actually got me off the dark web altogether. I actually didn't know much about everything.

I was aware of what Tor was, all the encryption stuff, and whatnot, but I really wasn't very well versed in what exactly made the deep and dark web different from the surface web. Well, I knew the dark web was the illegal stuff, but I was curious how it was able to exist, how things worked, why the cops hadn't taken it down and so forth and so on. It was a bit of a weird, ignorant view of things. things, but as time went on and I educated myself, I started to understand how encryption and anonymity worked. Unfortunately, as I learned, I found myself feeling more confident. I started out as just looking at the things, then I started commenting on forums,

then I moved on to actually communicating with the people instead of just making mindless comments. I kind of felt at home in a few of the communities, and it was nice to kind of live amongst a bunch of people all over the world and just talk about random things that had no real bearing on everyday life. It was almost my escape from reality, which isn't something that a lot of people can say. Well, as I quickly learned, the Deep Web isn't all rainbows and unicorns.

Actually, I don't think it's rainbows and unicorns at all. I just got in with decent people. As I was perusing my usual forum, I found a post by someone that I had spoken with a few times, and I thought they were pretty cool. The forum post said something to the effect of, message me for an invite to the Red Friday party. I was all about parties,

and again, I was pretty comfortable with these people, so I figured it would just be a good time hanging out online with some of the anonymous people from the internet, chatting about nothing in particular. What I got, however, it was not a party. Now, I'm sure you can see where this is going, and I can hear you probably thinking,

but O.P., red rooms don't really exist. and I can tell you that while they don't exist as an easily accessible node on the dark web, at least one does exist, and it shared very privately. This Red Friday party was set up to look like a basic live stream, a camera, some dimmed out red lights, and a girl that was in front of said camera. She looked fairly normal. She didn't look upset or terrified or anything, and she was reading the chat pretty nonchalantly.

At first, I thought this was going to be one of those just chatting streams or whatever. People were asking her questions about herself, and she would answer shyly. Most of the questions were pretty normal. A few were a bit sexual and direct, but she pretty much just avoided them. After watching her describe her everyday life for a few minutes, I noticed a timer on top of the screen that was counting down and was a couple minutes away from zero. I sat there and waited for it to count down, and when it did, there was a ringing noise.

And a guy's voice came on from off-screen. He said something to the effect of, All right, chat time is up. Now we will go into donation requests only. Get your coins ready because it's going to be a blast. I could see the look on her face shift from shy to straight up nervous. She said something like, I don't think I want to do this. The other voice very firmly and very loudly said,

You stole from me and these guys are going to pay your debt. You do what they say until we're scorn. or things are going to go south really fast. You know the saying, it's like a train wreck you can't look away? That's how this was with me. I wanted to close this out and never think about it ever again, but part of me had to watch. The whole thing started pretty mundane.

People donated small amounts of Bitcoin for stupid things. Put a shoe on your head. show us your feet, try to lick your elbow. Honestly, really stupid stuff. It wasn't that bad for the first few minutes. But then the higher amounts started to pour in for other things. They were telling her to take her clothes off, do things that I won't mention here.

She was visibly distraught the whole time, but she complied. As bad as it was, I really didn't expect the next part. One person chimed in with two whole Bitcoin, which was a lot of money at the time, and told her to cut her cheek with a knife. She shook her head no and said that she couldn't do that, but the man chimed in again, said to do it,

and handed her a small pocket knife. She started to sob and quickly sliced her cheek, causing herself to bleed, and then there was another donation for several more Bitcoin that said, Cut off a finger. She was already sobbing at this point and screaming no, saying that she was done, that she wanted to leave. Then he started yelling at her, grabbed her hand, and did it for her.

This was mortifying, obviously, but the last part got worse. There were people starting to donate dozens of people. of Bitcoin to this stream, and the things they wanted were sick. Then, one person chimed in with a 50 Bitcoin donation that said, I'm bored. Get rid of her. This was then matched by a number of other people, donating similar amounts and echoing the same sentiment.

I just sat there for a moment, watching her scream, and cry begging for her life, and then watched a man walk on to the scene of the camera with what looked like a machete. I did not continue watching. I will say that the thought of all this made me physically ill. I literally threw up in the trash can by my desk. That was the worst thing I had ever seen, and it completely made me swear off anything beyond the surface web.

Hell, since then, I've been nearly... scared to use a computer and do anything beyond Facebook or surf the front page of Reddit. I have no idea if what I saw was real or a pre-recorded snuff-like horror movie, but it may have been a legit red room-style party. I don't know if the chat was real or pre-recorded, but part of me tells me that she was being held hostage, and what I saw actually happened. While red rooms may not really be a big thing like the movies make them out to be, something akin to them does exist,

and I highly recommend never, ever going to a dark web live stream, just in case. I have a fairly short story about a personal experience I had on the dark web, and honestly, it was actually more so a weird story than a creepy one. There's absolutely a creepy aspect to it, no doubt about that, but for the most part, it was pretty much just one of those things that you look at, get curious about, and then move on with your life from there. Well, that's what I did anyway.

So, obviously, I'm a deep web user. I like to hit up a bunch of random pages that exist out there. Some are pretty tame. Some of them could probably coexist along. alongside pages like Twitter, but I also like to spend some of my time on sites that a lot of people would consider to be detestable, or some other random adjective like that. No, I don't really spend time on illegal or gross things or any content like that, but I like what I like, and really it's just a few pages that may be morally in a gray area. No, I'm not going to name the pages. I'm just going to say that I am an adult and I can do what I want.

Just leave it at that. I'm trying to over-justify this and I shouldn't. One of the pages I like to go on is a bit of a marketplace where you can buy odds and ends, and even the occasional oddity. There have been a lot of things that I wanted to spend money on, but then couldn't justify. Things like vials of blood from certain celebrities that are into Scientology.

Various bootleg DVDs of early cuts of movies. There was even a book one time that was supposedly signed by Charles Manson. Now, it was a certain book that I wouldn't be caught dead owning, so as cool as having Manson's signature would have been to me, I just kind of moved on and accepted that it was something I would never own. Now, as most of you know, there is a certain niche on the dark web for illegal items. Things like the aforementioned bootleg DVDs, stolen movie scripts, drugs, of course.

There's a lot that you can buy on the dark web that you really shouldn't. One thing you don't usually expect to find are accessories, like personal accessories. There was one page in the market that I found that sold things like wallets, shoes, watches, etc. And they had what they stated to be exotic leathers available. My curiosity definitely got its grip on me, and I started looking through their wares. And I was shocked at what they claimed to have. The first thing I saw was a ton of leather made of alligator skin. Not terribly crazy.

there's certainly a market that exists on the surface for it. Then I clicked through and they claimed to have camel leather shoes, which I thought was kind of cool, but again not terribly weird if you live in a place where camels are common. Then I saw some of the weird stuff. Dog leather wallets. It actually started to make me feel a bit, uh,

thinking of someone's pet being turned into an animal. accessory. And then I saw dolphin leather and that, I'm pretty sure, is illegal. So, yeah. But then, finally, there was a small section on the store dedicated to human leather. You read that right. Leather made of human skin. They promised that it was durable and that it was well worth the extra money it would cost to source it. There was even a customization section where you could choose the ethnicity of the product if you wanted to change it up. Again, my imagination kind of took over, and I started thinking about who the hell was buying

this stuff, but with the process they would have to go through, with the amount of money they were charging, there had to be a market for it, right? Anyways, like I said, that's my story. I know it was short and a bit weirder more than creepy, but it's actually pretty sickening that it exists. And honestly, I think I'll stick with my crappy pleather and Velcro wallet. If you ever spend your time up at the Adirondack Mountains, then be careful of what lurks around Mount Gore.

The mountains are beautiful, and is like an entire new world compared to the busy and loud city life. So when my great-aunt gave me an opportunity to spend time with her, my great-uncle and my second cousin, I think, I don't know how that family stuff works. At the Adir and Dac Mountains in upstate New York, I quickly said yes. Months came and went, and it was time for me to head to where they lived and fly out to the mountain. We finally arrived at a condo complex called The Summit. It was near a small town called North Creek, and it overlooked Mount Gore, which was famous for skiing.

Well, was, that is. The towns up here are slowly dying out, and all you could see were for sale signs everywhere. That's probably because the town thrived upon the logging industry back in the 1800s. We went out to a restaurant, the Adirondack Pub and Brewery, that had an outstanding view of Lake George. All the boats and parasailing, the calm waters and mountains creating a valley that is all centering around this lake. As we were looking at the menu, I glanced over at a painting on the wall. It seemed to be an extremely old painting. If I were to guess, I would say 17 or 1800s.

It had people lying on the ground, I'm assuming they were dead. A child running toward a house with a woman in it. And an odd-looking person on all fours eating a baby from what the looks of it were. The painting intrigued me, but it was just a painting after all, right? Night 1. We arrived back at the condo. The place was still as we left it. Luggage everywhere.

A fridge full of food. I spent a few hours watching TV and scrolling on Twitter to see what pointless arguments were being made. It was about 9 p.m. and I had the windows open to see the stars, but, unfortunately, it was overcast. But it was still a sight to see. Everyone was asleep upstairs, which just left me in the dark living room with only the TV and streetlights illuminating the atmosphere. I was watching a show about a Skinwalker ranch. a supposed hot spot for UFO and creature sightings. Well, I sure saw something tonight.

I was zoned in on the TV, and I didn't notice what was outside until it stepped into the light. Across the small street was another condo next to a large forest. In my peripheral vision, I saw a large, dark mass step out of the tree line. I look over to see what it was, as it slowly made it. its way to the edge of the light. I dropped my phone onto the carpeted floor as I see what this figure is. It was at least seven foot tall, a bipedal creature.

It had a body similar to a bodybuilder. The head reminded me of a German shepherd, but much larger. It had thick, dark gray fur and a somewhat long tail. It made its way around the condo across from ours, and it sniffed a round. From what I know, there was nobody in there. I waited for it to completely turn around so I could close the curtains. I kept the curtains cracked open to make sure that this thing didn't come towards our condo. It investigated the place, but ultimately it lost interest. It went on all fours, dropping to a height of around four feet, and it ran off at jaw-dropping

speed. Shaking, I closed the curtains and quickly went upstairs. I don't know how, but eventually I fell asleep. The morning came, and I tried my best to forget about the events, which I somehow did. We spent ten days there, so the first night gave me a bad impression of the place, but as more uneventful nights passed, the more forgettable the event got. until the last night. Night 9. The day was very fun. We went back to Lake George and went on a steamboat called the Mini,

ha-ha, and went around the lake and saw some more pretty views. We came back and I go upstairs into my room to wind down. My room faces away from the mountain and towards the heavy forest. I was on my phone watching YouTube. The battery got low, so I plugged it into the charger, and I set it on my bedside table. I usually left the windows open to breathe the natural air and listened to the sounds of the night. Except there was nothing.

It was already hard for me to sleep in silence because I was used to the hustle and bustle of zooming cars, planes, dogs barking, and whatnot. This startled me because if the wildlife... goes quiet, typically that means a predator is about. I keened in on every little noise, branches cracking, leaves, crunching underneath something large, as I hear the forest floor thud. The sounds were far, but they got closer by the second. I sat up in bed to look out at the dark forest in front of me. I wanted to see if it was a bear or something like that. Nope, not a bear at all.

I see an abnormally large doghead peeked out from behind a tree. It was a couple feet off the ground and about 30 meters away. The dog or wolf was faced away from me as it sniffed the air. Its sharp ears perked up and quickly faced toward me. The eyes had a yellow glow to them. I was confused because there was no light within the area. As we stared each other down, I started to get bad vibes from this thing. I lowered my head out of sight and maybe give the sign that I wasn't interested.

Moments passed, and I hear the leaves crunching again coming towards me. I heft in frustration and I looked outside. It was now about 20 meters away at this time. And the eyes were now about seven or eight feet off the ground. I could see part of its upper torso, and its arm was wrapped around a tree. It had a hand resembling that of a human, but gray, hairy, and it had sharp fingernails. It gave out a snarl as it exposed its teeth. They were like your typical canine teeth, but much longer and sharper.

I quickly hit the floor and started shaking as tears filled up my eyes. I looked towards a mirror that reflected a good bit of the tree line. I could see human-like feet step into frame and legs with the joints bent backwards, a lower and then upper torso, and then it was fully in view. Scandarcondo for a minute, that felt like it lasted forever. It reached out to a tree to prop itself up. I was trying my best not to breathe loudly as I cried, but I think I accidentally gasped too last.

I fearfully looked at the mirror, a decision that I will regret to this day. It was looking right at the mirror, and it was looking at me, with a huge grin on its face. It walked over to the porch, and it started pacing around. I felt each step as it tried to find its way in. Thank God I locked the door. What felt like a generation passed, and it lost interest, and it walked. walked back into the forest, not forgetting to glance a smile back at me as it was doing so. Throughout the restless night, all I could hear were howls and the cries of unlucky animals.

Sunlight broke, and I ran downstairs to get breakfast ready for everyone before we packed up and left. Two hours later, we all ate, and got packed up. My cousin got his keys and some luggage, as he was making his way to the door, All the blood drained out of my face, and my heart sped up when I heard him say, Hey, who left the door unlocked? There's something else here now. Something new. From, exclusively on Paramount Plus, it's the series Stephen King calls Scarious Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real.

Sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules. Don't miss what the movie blog calls someone. you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From Binge All Episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. Quick note. This story, it mentions several sensitive subjects, including abuse, self-harm, the potential

of being a school shooter. So this story is not one that should be taken lightly. And it's not one that's easy for me to read. And I know damn well. it was not easy for this person to send it to me. So I ask, if you listen to this story, give it the respect it deserves. This is a horrible situation to be in, and this person was not in a good frame of mind,

and they saw what they were doing was wrong, which is important because things could have been much worse. But I just wanted to add here, like I said, just give this story the respect it deserves. This person submitted this story. I responded to them, and they responded to them, because they knew that they wanted to get this story out there, and I absolutely respect them for doing so. Thank you to the person that submitted this as well.

Here we go. This is not a creepypasta, or your run-of-the-mill-mill-meat's-not-meat story. This is not a story of how I escaped some creep or how I nearly became a victim. This is a story of how I almost became a headline. a story that people would pick apart for decades to come. This is a story of how I planned and nearly executed a plan to become a school shooter. I came close to destroying more lives than I could even fathom. This story is, unfortunately, true.

I do hope that at the end of it, you won't hate me. I hope none of you will. I never hurt anyone. I never took a life, but I came too close. I hope that you will understand why I planned what I planned, and why I didn't go through with my plans. Back in 2007, I started seventh grade. Up until that point, I had been bullied heavily.

I had to go to school knowing that I would be tortured by my peers in numerous ways, that I would be disregarded by teachers. I had to go to school knowing that no one would help me. No one had my back when I was a child. Absolutely no one. My home life was as stellar as my time in school. My parents divorced when I was really young. Less than a year old, I think.

No one ever told me when it happened or why it happened, but that's what I've surmised from the things my parents have told me over the years. I lived with my older brother and my mother until I was 11. That's when my brother moved away and things got even worse for me at home. My mother saw my brother's newfound independence as abandonment, and it broke her. My mother was always abusive, so much so that my first memories of her are full of pain and fear. In fact, most of my memories are.

I associate her with terror. She was abusive not only emotionally but physically. She would often hit me, berate me, call me names, tell me I'm lazy, stupid, worthless piece of crap. She would often force-feed me by either physically shoving food into my mouth and holding a hand over my mouth until I swallowed or yelling at me if I didn't eat enough. She was anorexic and had an alcohol dependency, and she would often drink heavily on the weekends.

Oddly enough, she was never violent when she was drunk, only when fully sober. I had to grow up watching her bow down to her porcelain god and picket her food. I had to grow up getting beaten at home and in school. I felt unsafe. Very unsafe. I admit, I wasn't an easy child in school. I was everything but.

I wouldn't listen. I couldn't concentrate. I wasn't disruptive or anything, but I would often rather read a book or write than listen to what the teacher had to say. And this annoyed every. I lived and still do with my head in the clouds. As soon as I started school at age seven, people started to bully me.

I don't know why. I can't point a finger at a certain event or anything. I was just an oddball. I was different. That I knew better than everyone else, even though I had no words for it back then. everyone else was light years away from me, beyond my grasp. I felt as though I couldn't understand others, and they scarcely understood me. Being constantly bullied and abused at home, it made my life hell.

Different people have different coping mechanisms. I, well, I was a fighter. I couldn't fight my mother, so I fought everyone else. I had no respect for authority. I would talk back to my teachers, and I was fairly violent as a child, attacking everyone, even teachers, if they tried to force me to do something, or if they tried to hold me still. I was an abused child physically, emotionally, and sexually. I was traumatized, so I fought everyone. I needed to stay afloat, even if it meant dragging it.

everyone else down in the process. So, back in 2007, I was at a breaking point, and I knew that I had to do something. My father is a hunter, and he has a rifle that I know how to use, and I knew the combination to his gun save. I don't know it anymore. I can't really remember it even if it were still the same, but I knew it back then. I don't, however, recall if it was too. 2006 or 2007 when I started feeling extremely scared. Like I was teetering on a ledge,

constantly terrified that I would fall and do something drastic. I was terrified I might kill myself or harm myself permanently. I was still cutting at that point nearly every day. Now those scars have faded, yet they are visible. My suffering can be read from the lack of smooth skin on my arms by anyone with a working pair of eyes. I have to add, I lived in Finland,

and in 2007 there was a school shooting here. I remember thinking that I understood why the guy did it. I'm not making excuses and I'm not saying that what he did was right, because what he did was wrong. It was a foul and horrible thing, but I did understand his motives. School shootings are extremely rare in Finland. But that school shooting in late 2007, it was everywhere.

Everyone was picking apart that shooter, trying to find rhyme or reason for what he did. But the thing is, I read those news articles and headlines, and I saw the news on TV, and I kept thinking, yeah, I would do the same thing. I would, given the opportunity, do the same thing. I decided that I had to do something, so I started playing. I picked a day, a day in December, a month that I loathe. I hate Christmas. My father would come to our place and he would make porridge and he would cook and then we'd eat and open presents in the evening. And my mother would yell through all of it.

She would yell at my father, my amazingly kind and patient father. She would yell at me. She was just always yelling, my mother. She always had something nasty to say to everyone. So, December felt like the obvious decision. I decided that when I was visiting my father, the next time I would take his gun. I would take it, and I would bring it home, and then to school a few days after. It was supposed to happen less than a week before Christmas.

My thinking at the time was that I would give everyone, the teachers, the faculty, and the students, an early Christmas gift. I made a plan, a proper plan, that is. I drew a map of the school, where I would enter at what time, where I would go first, who I would shoot first. I was supposed to start at the cafeteria. I was to barricade the main entrance, go through the side door, and walk up to where the teachers ate. I was going to take them out, and then open fire at the students who bullied me the most. Seed nearby, with no way out. They would have been easy prey to that darkness that

had swallowed me whole. Someone would call the cops. I knew that. I was planning on shooting myself. So I wouldn't have to explain why I did it all. After all, I had a manifesto written up that explained everything. It was going to go out a few days afterwards to every single big newspaper in the country. I don't have that anymore that document's been lost to time years ago. I can't even remember what I wrote. Something akin to blaming everyone else, not taking responsibility for what I was about to do. I had nothing to lose. Nothing to live for. I was done. I wasn't at the end of my rope. I had no rope. It had been cut a long time ago. My plan was about revenge for sure, but that wasn't all.

I was abused. I was hurt. I was hurting so badly. See, when you're desperate, that deep in the darkness, that isn't of your own making, you're willing to do anything to stop the hurt. Anything. To be honest, I wanted everyone else to hurt like I had been hurting since I could barely walk. and I wanted to have control over something

because I had zero control over my life back then. My mother was a control freak and she would decide my clothes, my hair, every single freaking thing. Like I said at the beginning, I never took a life, I never took my father's gun and I never hurt anyone in any capacity. I guess what you're thinking now is why? Why after making a plan,

taking inspiration from a school shooting that happened in early November of the same year, why I didn't follow through. To be honest, I wish I could say it was because I didn't wish to take a life. I very much wanted to hurt those horrible people who had tortured me the past six years, day in and day out. I wanted their families to see what kind of vile people they were. I wanted their sins to be laid bare for the whole world to see, and I wanted them to burn.

And then it hit me. Their families. Assholes, some of them, sure, but most of them, innocent, collateral damage. And that is what I wanted to avoid. I saw those families mourning their loved ones on TV. I saw their pain and their grief. I saw how much they were hurting, much like I was.

It might seem a bit conscientious. but I didn't wish to hurt people yet at the same time I was ready to kill. Yes, it seems a bit odd to me too after all these years. I can't understand it, you know, not anymore. A few days after I decided I wouldn't follow through with my plan, my mother told me I was switching schools. I was to go to a different school. Well, the bullying never stopped.

It actually got way worse. but that's another story for another time. I'm not well, but I am better. I'm still fighting this time without dragging anyone else down. If there's something you all wish to take away from my story, I hope you'll walk away with this. There is always light at the end of the tunnel. There is always a way out of desperation,

without hurting anyone, including yourself, that is. It may sound so damned cliched, but it's not. Everything will get better, if given enough time. I'm now married to someone I met at that new school. Generally speaking, I'm happy and content, but this story is something I have never told anyone else, not even my spouse. I needed to get this off of my chest,

and things could have been so much worse. I could have done serious and permanent damage to a lot of people. So, before I start, I'd like to clarify that I don't really put stock in the paranormal, but the events that I'm about to relate to you certainly can't be explained by anything in the parameters of normality. Receive them as you may, but I must clarify that I'm telling everything as I truly, perceived it. You won't find any embellishment or fallacies in my recollection of these events. So, to give you a little background, I work at a movie theater.

I've been employed there for about five months, and in this short time, I have had some experiences I can't quite fathom. This particular theater has been around for quite some time, and only in the last decade, did it get some new additions added on to the back of the original structure. The theater only had three screens at the beginning, but after the additions, there are now seven screens. The original three have been left untouched, and still look the way they did when they were first constructed.

As theater floor staff, my job is to run the concessions up front and also sweep the individual theaters once shows have ended to get it ready for the next wave of customers. It's a pretty chill job, and because we're a fairly small town, we're usually extremely slow on the weekends, so all of us employees usually end up finding something to clean or stare off aimlessly at the wall for the duration of our shift.

When I first started working at the theater, half of my co-workers mentioned something in regards to certain theater rooms being creepy or haunted. I assumed it was just playing fun with the new guy, and I thought nothing of it. So, a few weeks passed, and I was getting into the groove of the job and had developed my routines

and knew my way around the building fairly well. Up until that point, I'd had nothing weird or unusual happen. It's kind of a job where you mainly keep to yourself, and you do your required work without much interaction with anyone, depending on the day. I even went a whole day once without speaking a word to the people I was on shift with. One day, I was supposed to work a full day shift, so I came to work ready for a long day of nothing, but as soon as I got there, I got an uneasy feeling right away. I didn't think too much of it and chalked it up to maybe anxiety about working or something.

As my shift went on, I started to feel even worse. My anxiety had tripled in intensity to the point where I was on edge and extra aware of my surroundings. I felt like maybe if I occupied myself with cleaning or something, it could get my mind off of whatever it was that I was feeling. I looked at my list and saw that one of the theater rooms had gotten out about 30 minutes ago. This particular screen was number three, one of the older theaters. As I walked down the hall and reached for the door handle to open it, The door began to shake, and then started to open as if someone was on the other side trying to push it open.

It seemed like they were having trouble, maybe like a small child. I didn't want to get in their way, so I walked a few feet to the second door and walked in. As I did, I looked over at the first door and there was nobody there. There was no longer any movement either. There was no one in sight, and nobody could have gone through that door in the time I walked to the next door. I would have 100% seen it happen. I turned on the lights, and the theater was completely empty. That feeling of tread returned.

I felt really uneasy, and I wanted to get out of there fast. I had to first sweep up the popcorn people had spilled, so I did it as fast. as possible so I could get out of there. After doing a mediocre sweeping job, I hurried and left screen three immediately. As the day went on, I couldn't help but think about the door and that feeling that I got.

I decided to mention it to the person I was working with, and they told me that they also always felt uncomfortable in that theater, and had similar weird things happened to them, too. A little while before I was hired, the staff even used a Ouija board in that exact theater. I was shocked. I never believed in that sort of thing, but the connection was rather startling. I spent the rest of that day feeling uneasy, and when my shift ended, I got out of there as fast as I could.

A couple of weeks later, I was sweeping that same theater again. It was after 11 p.m. and all the customers had cleared out. The only people left were me, my manager, and another co-worker. I could hear them up front talking and laughing, so I knew I was alone in the screen room, much to my chagrin. I hadn't seen or experienced anything weird in that theater since the door, but I was always on my toes every time I had to go in there. I was about halfway done when the speakers kicked on and started to drone with the faint static sound. I stopped and looked up through the projector window, and I saw the silhouette of someone looking down at me. I was caught dead in my tracks.

I could still hear my manager chatting in the other room with the other workers, so I knew it couldn't have been them. I blinked and I tried to look again, but there, still standing in the dark projector room was the silhouette. I dropped my broom and I ran out of there as fast as I could. Nobody was supposed to be up there if the manager was up front. I told my manager immediately that someone was in the projector room. She panicked a little and asked me to go with her and see if anyone was really there. I could tell that she didn't really believe me, but I was hoping that I was wrong and it was just a trick of the shadow.

Once we got up to the projector room, which is locked by a special code, only the managers know, all the lights were still off, and everything was fine for the most part. There was nobody in there, but the sound system for projector three was online, and my manager claims that she had turned it off earlier. She told me that she had also seen things in different rooms all over the theater, things that she could never explain. She said that she once saw the silhouette of a man in the manager's office, peering out at her in the dark. I still don't know exactly what or who I saw that night, but I haven't seen anything since, and I'm glad.

I'm quitting the job soon because I'm leaving for college, and I'm so ready to get away from there. I still don't know what I think about the paranormal, but there is a little bit of the paranormal, but there is a little bit of, definitely something strange happening, and I'm so glad that I can finally escape it. My name is Otis. I'm 38 now, and this happened when I was 27. This isn't exactly a scary story. I actually find it oddly comforting.

In 2005, I began to suffer from periodic septic fevers, brought on by a bacterial infection called cellulitis. These bouts would often result in prolonged hospital stays where I was hooked up to IV antibiotics. In 2009, during one such stay that, as luck would have it, occurred on my birthday, I was lying in bed watching late-night TV and would occasionally glance to the door and wave at the nurses passing by. As I scanned through the channels, hoping for something interesting,

I turned to look again at the door and saw a nurse standing in the doorway looking at me. Hello, I said. The nurse smiled a kind smile and then pursed her lips and brought her indexed finger to them. She responded with a shh, and then continued on her way. I sat there dumbfounded by what a good one. just happened, and then it dawned on me that she was wearing not the modern blue scrubs of a nurse, but rather the old-style nurse outfit. The white gown with the bonnet and the red cross. The next morning, I had wondered if I had dreamed the whole thing, and resolved that I had.

A few days later, I was released, and as I was wheeled to the lobby, we passed by a mural of the hospital history. and there was a photograph of a line of nurses wearing the same uniform. Upon reaching home, I couldn't get the incident out of my mind, and I decided to do some internet sleuthing on the hospital, Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut. And that's when I learned about the Hartford Hospital fire. On December 18, 1961, someone carelessly disposed of a lit cigarette which caused an inferno

that raged throughout all 13 floors of the hospital at the time. The place has grown significantly since then. Amongst those killed in the blaze was 15 in total, including patients, a doctor, and a nurse.

To this day, I like to believe that the nurse was watching over me, performing the same duty that she served in life. That was today's episode of, the As the Raven Dreams podcast. Thank you so very much for listening, and I really hope you enjoyed these scary stories. If you want to support the channel further,

please do consider checking out my YouTube channel. Just search As the Raven Dreams on YouTube and subscribing. You can also join the channel or go to my Patreon for early access to all of my content, all of it's appreciated, and never expected. But if it happens, thank you. All that said, friends, I will see you on the next. next episode of the As the Raven Dreams podcast. But of course, until then, sleep well.