As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 139 - Terrifying Stalker/Stranger and Divorce Stories

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

This is re-upload/fix to the messed up episode yesterday. Today, on the 139th episode of the As The Raven Dreams podcast, we have 10 True Chilling stories. These stories come from the shadowy corners of reality, where everyday life takes an eerie twist & ordinary people experience the extraordinary. Today we will be diving into The horrors of Ex spouses, and Some stranger/Stalker stories. So, turn down the lights, tune in, and let the haunting tales of everyday people take you down that dark and creepy road. Remember, these aren't just stories... these are true experiences that remind us that our world can truly be scarier than fiction. Have a Story To Submit? ➤ https://www.astheravendreams.com Or Post to the Subreddit ➤ https://reddit.com/r/TheRavensDream Support the channel for Early Access AND more! Patreon ➤ https://patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Join ➤ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkW0ihdMHfBUjQrMKjRto6g/join Or Check out the Merch Store! ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Thank you to all of the authors that have stories in today's Video... Kith Michael, Zephyr, midwestfarmkid, shookonept2, Carla Base, DivorcedButLearning, Monicaaah, Cassii... As Well As Any Author That Has Requested Anonymity. 'As The Raven Dreams' is a community where we explore the darker parts of human existence through true and harrowing stories. From sinister encounters with strangers and stalkers, to terrifying experiences that defy explanation and unsettling mysteries that linger in the shadows, I am here to tell you the most haunting narratives ever whispered. Much Love, and Sleep Well... ----- #TrueScaryStories #AsTheRavenDreams #RedditStories ➤ Stories include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Viewer discretion is always advised. ➤ ALL Audio of this Podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format, without explicit permission ➤ If you like any of the following stories, consider subscribing! - Dark Web horror stories, creepy lets not meet stories, stalker stories, Glitch In The Matrix Stories, Unexplained Horror stories, Paranormal stories, cryptid encounter stories, Crazy ex lover stories, creepy neighbor stories, quantum immortality, true scary stories from reddit, or any other True horror Stories! ➤ And Remember; You are loved, you are important, and you are valid. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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is there to you know, you know, friends. Apparently whenever I uploaded this episode yesterday, there was an issue with the volume being ironically, too loud. It was causing some audio distortions. It was clipping, which is to me for some reason completely hysterical since I've had so many issues at the volume of my podcast being too quiet and then I upload one where I do minor changes and it completely gets too loud. I think,

however, that does highlight the importance of audio balancing. So, this is a re-upload of yesterday's episode. If you've already heard the stories and don't want to listen again, I understand. Makes sense. Audio should be better. Let me know if it's not, please. And of course, enjoy. I got married in my early 30s to a man named Kyle.

I met Kyle at a fundraiser that my local church was hosting. I often volunteered at it, because it was actually for shelter animals, and I loved playing with all the animals. He had stopped by when he saw the signs, and when he came over to see the dog that I had been brushing, we seemed to connect pretty quickly. He was very kind and funny, and yes, very easy on the eyes. He asked me out for coffee that night, and to my surprise, I actually agreed. I'm painfully shy when it comes.

to meeting new people, so I guess that's why I volunteer for a lot of animal events. You don't have to worry about awkward small talk. We hit it off pretty quickly and started dating shortly after, and when he proposed to me two years into our relationship, it was certainly unexpected, but I had no reason to say no. I loved him. We had been great together, and even talked about moving in to. together. When we married, I moved into his condo and I could not have been happier. However, things unfortunately started to fizzle out. I told him early in our relationship that I wanted to have kids, and he said that he did too. But as the years went by and I got closer to 40, he was

four years younger than me, we still weren't there. And in fact, he said he no longer wanted kids. I was pretty crushed. I was a middle child of five total. All of my siblings had kids at this point, and I wanted my own too. He knew this. Why would you want to be with someone who had such important plans like that that you didn't feel the same about? We had some serious conversations about it, but he was very firm on his choice, too. At the time, I felt all I could do was accept his choice, but I could tell that it was eating at me. I started becoming depressed, and there was a lot of self-reflection. Kyle and I weren't the same outgoing and bubbly couple we once were,

and I'm sure a big part of that was because of me. But it also didn't help that he never wanted to do anything either. He wanted to be at home a lot, and he always worked doing something on his computer or in his office. He worked at IT, so I understood, but we used to go out and do things together or with friends. But he never wanted to do that, so it only made things harder on me. Eventually, it all boiled over, and we had a pretty big fight. A lot of stuff came out.

Feelings were hurt on both sides. And the only thing we seemed to agree on was a divorce. It turned out we both wanted completely different things in our lives. The next few months were a bit of a blur. We started the process. I moved out since it was his condo and stayed with the friend until I got my own apartment. We didn't really have all that much to split, really. We both had our belongings and just split other things as we saw fit.

It was amicable after. after all, so we still talked throughout the process. I got my own place about a month after moving out. I didn't want to be a burden on my friend, even though she had no issues with me being there, and I still paid her rent anyways. It was after I had my own place that things started getting weird. At first, it all seemed like normal stuff.

I started getting an influx of spam emails. Some were about counseling, divorce lawyers and even some therapists. It was odd, but my first thought was maybe I was added on some list due to searches I had done about my divorce, or hell. In the world we live in now, maybe the lawyers sold my information. I just marked him as spam and moved on. But then, I started seeing similar ads on my personal pages like Facebook or Instagram, as well as some other types of ads. There were a lot of sexualized ads, and I was getting several requests from a lot of similar pages daily.

They were inviting me to their private paid-for pages as well as other things. I was confused. Sure, it was entirely possible that it was all just spam, but it was really strange how consistent the requests were. I certainly didn't have anything that screamed that I was interested in any of it, so... I didn't understand. All I could do was delete, block, and mark not interested, which became nearly a daily chore just to keep up with them all. I got fed up with it at one point and started poking around in my settings to see what could possibly be causing it.

To my surprise, I was following a lot of similar pages. I never followed anything like that. Why would I? I had no reason to. I thought maybe it was just some bizarre thing. Maybe they were once pages that I followed that were changed, bought out, or hacked, even. I just spent a few hours unfollowing and blocking people and pages, and moved on. The request and messages soon stopped, which was good, but then there were more alarming occurrences.

There would be random posts for my account where it had just shared my location. I would be at the store, at word, maybe even out with friends and it would show Cassidy updated her location sometimes I would make a post when out with friends sure but I always said something about it and to just share my location was a bit odd I just assumed maybe it was a setting I had turned on so there I was once again going through my settings but I couldn't find anything. I will say that I may use social media, but I am far from a pro at it, nor do I know about all the bells and whistles that come with it. So I just disabled location

through the apps and moved on. But again, the posts kept happening. I decided to try and look further into it when there was a post made when I went to the doctors, and it wasn't just my primary doctor either. So there was some embarrassment there. A month. the comments left on it, so I had to do something. When I started digging into things, I noticed that there were several active login sessions from different locations. They were all within my area, as in the same city, but they were on devices that I didn't recognize.

This was pretty alarming, so I immediately logged them all out and changed my passwords, just in case. Surprisingly, the location posts stopped happening, too, so... I thought maybe my account had just been hacked, but all was well again. Or so I thought. Then, while I was at a friend's house for a small get-together, my friend was notified of a post that I made, and it once again tagged the location.

But this time there was texts that said, Where am I? I didn't make the post. How was this happening again? Together we both looked through my logins, and again there was a new login from a device, I didn't know. This time, the location was different and pretty specific. It was the city and state that my ex-husband worked in. It was just the next state over. We lived close to the state line, but I never went to that state. I had no reason to.

I didn't know anyone there, and in fact, I only ever went there a few times when I visited him on his lunch breaks. Of course, I couldn't be sure that it was him either, and, well, why would he do that? It's not like we were on bad terms when we split up. And it's entirely possible that someone else got into my stuff that was there, but it was a little suspicious to me. I was still confused as to how it happened. I changed my password. How were they able to make the post? At that point, frustrated and upset, I once again changed my password and set up multi-factor authentication to hopefully prevent this from happening.

But then, one morning, I woke up to an excessive amount of messages on Twitter, texts, and missed calls. Once I finally started taking a look, I was horrified to see not only all of my private messages on Facebook were posted as screenshots there, But so were my bank statements. My bank was already calling me about alerts they were getting. People were upset with me because I had some pretty private conversations with friends, and now it looked like I had just aired all of their secrets. Before this moment, the only thing that happened on my Twitter were the earlier friend requests, so I didn't even think to check that.

So I went through the process of deleting it all and changing all of my security settings. I was devastated. I had several friends that were heartbroken, and I had to change all of my banking info. I was stressed, and I just remembered not thinking straight and decided that I would take a shot and call Kyle to see if he might know anything and maybe even help me out.

That turned out to be both a good and a bad idea. I called him and he actually invited me over for dinner, and I agreed. The night was, was actually fine, and he seemed like the guy that he was when I first married him, almost making me forget why I was there in the first place. So I explained what was happening, and he agreed to help me, at first. But then he had his own ulterior motives. He made some very suggestive comments, and when I refused, he became very angry. He started throwing

things and punching the wall. It terrified me because I had never seen him like that before. I ended up just leaving that night and went home feeling used and defeated. He had to be the one behind all of it. And it was just this

way of getting me over there. It even confirmed my suspicion when later that night there was a new post with my location at his place that made a comment about running back to my ex. To not make this any longer than it needs to be, the torment from him continued no matter what I did.

I even went to the police, and they said that they couldn't even do anything about the cyber-stalking unless I could prove that it was him. I couldn't figure out any solutions that would work long-term, so I just took the nuclear option. While at a friend's place, I logged in from her computer, changed my email to a completely new one that I had just created from her computer. Set up multi-factor authentication, and removed my phone numbers from the accounts, and then I deleted the profiles. Some of the things I did probably weren't necessary, but I wanted to check all layers to make

sure he couldn't reopen anything. The last thing I did was get a new phone number and a new phone. No, I was not going to take any chances. and of course only then did everything stop. To this day, very few people have my phone number, and I only just recently got a new Facebook account so I could connect to some people whose number I don't have. I just don't ever want to be in that situation again.

It was honestly terrifying knowing that he probably knew my every move, and I have no idea how he did it. Hey, all, I wanted to share a recent experience. I think it's possible that I was being paranoid or overthinking, but either way, it made my spidey senses tingle, and I'm a big believer in trusting your gut. I, 31, female, was recently visiting Amsterdam and had been traveling solo, so mostly seeing some museums and landmarks during the day. I visited a museum in the Red Light District during the daytime. so it was mostly filled with tourists. Despite that, I'd felt very safe walking around.

I still tried to stay pretty alert to avoid pickpocketing, and also since I'd been clearly traveling alone. While I was in one of the rooms in the museum, I accidentally made eye contact with this older, maybe 50-ish man a few times. You know when you're looking around the room and it happens, well, that just kept happening, maybe four or five times, to the point where I started to get a little squicked out that I wasn't imagining it. So I stayed in the room even longer than I would have,

reading all the signs and entries before moving on, not making more eye contact, thinking that he'd of course continue to the next room. Well, he didn't. when I finally moved on to the next room, shocker, so did he. I did the same thing, taking my time to go through all the exhibits in the room, waiting for him to proceed without me. When that didn't happen, I actually regressed back into the previous room to reread the items in there,

again, just thinking that he would move on and then I could relax and enjoy the museum. So, now I go back. into the next room, thinking surely he will be gone. And he's not. And we make eye contact again. Crap. I just moved forward to the next room, and so does he, right after me. At this point, I'm kind of freaking out internally.

I'm alone and creeped out, but he hasn't really done anything to me, you know? I continue to read the signs in the room, and I notice that he moves into the room. the next room, without me. I'm initially pumped, but as I'm moving around the room between the signs, I can see him standing right by the entrance to the room that I would be entering next, just standing there. It's hard to explain, but he had turned around, and I managed to end up in a corner of my room where there was no way for him to see me from his vantage point. So I stayed there extra long reading the entry. After a few minutes, he actually came back into the room that I was in

and immediately looked over at me again, making eye contact. That was enough for me. At that point he could probably tell, I think, that I was very aware of him, and it seemed to me that he tried to play it off nonchalantly that he had re-entered the room. So he walked over to some of the other signs on the opposite wall. I took that chance to progress through the museum, lose myself in the other groups ahead, and exit as quickly as possible,

looking back to make sure he wasn't following me. I am glad that nothing happened and that I wasn't followed, but I'm also a little bummed that I didn't actually get to enjoy the museum and missed out on a lot of it. Relax. Syrote.

Bookine. Oh, that also. And profite. Via Rae. The voice that we love. Hey, Raven. Longtime listener, first-time poster. Recently, there was a post regarding creepy co-workers reminding me that I had a creepy co-worker.

And I could share that story, since I feel like the rest of my stories are quite frankly too short to share. When I was 15, I needed to share. to get a job. This was because I had lost my parents' very expensive camera. I had gone to several places to try to get a job and I was too young for most of them, even though online it was a different story. I ended up getting a job at a popular pizza place near my home. It didn't pay much, but it was something. Well, I worked there for a couple of months before they introduced a guy named Jesus to the team. He was a smaller Hispanic. He was a smaller Hispanic. Man. Still taller than me, as my heightened body build often made people think I was significantly

younger than I was, along with my mannerisms regarding how I treat people. I'm a very trusting person as long as I'm not given any reason not to trust you. I will trust you. Hesus seemed to have an interest in me right from the get-go, which I didn't much care. It wasn't a big deal, and I'd had plenty of pursuers before. About three days before we met, Hesus approached me. Hey, I think you're really cute. Can I have your number and perhaps go on a date with you? Well, my family had a rule that I couldn't date until I was 16, as it was a part of our religious beliefs.

I would be turning 16 in about a month, so my response was, my family has a rule that I can't date until I'm 16. I turn 16 on April 5th. How old are you? Jesus said, I'm 17. I'll be turning 18 about a week after you turn 16. Age gaps have never bothered me, as long as they were small enough.

Though the legality of dating an adult did bother me. So I offered him my number and said that we could probably go on one date, and that was it. A couple of days later, I was sitting in class when I got a text from Jesus. He asked what I was doing, so I explained that I was in class. We went back and forth for a bit, him revealing that he wasn't in school anymore and me just being confused. A lot of the things he said didn't add up to the age he said he was. So I brushed it aside as high school dropout, as they are rather common. It wasn't until he called me Baby that my red flags started flying.

I felt rather offended even. He had known me for what, two weeks? It only talked to me in person twice and he already was calling me baby? I went off on him saying how sketchy it was for him to be acting how he was. Flirting with the 15-year-old even though he knew he was turning 18 soon, even if that was the truth. Which it wasn't. as minors in my workplace always had an M next to their name and Jesus did not.

And how I was not going to go by baby to anyone I had just met. He stopped contacting me and my mom called me in later that night, as I had forgotten to tell her, but it was a habit of hers to make sure I wasn't talking to any bad people. She praised me for taking the action I did and contacted my boss about Jesus. My boss immediately said that if he made any further advances, to tell him and they would talk to the police if necessary. I never did see Jesus again, and I hope that other young girls are able to be just as sharp as I was.

Those close to me have heard this story so many times. It took me a while to finally get to the point that I could talk about it openly, but it wasn't always like that. It took many years as well as support in therapy, but I'm doing a lot better nowadays. Back when I was 22 and still a young guy, I had met a girl through a mutual friend. I'm going to refer to her as Anna. I went to a party that she was also at. We would talk here or there not really knowing each other.

Turned out she was the sister that tagged along who was a friend of the host. So basically my friend's friend. sister, if that makes sense. I didn't really know the friend very well, but we had met at previous parties. Anyways, we got to talking that night, and I think it was pretty obvious to a lot of people around us that there was definitely some chemistry between us. Too bad I didn't notice that it wasn't all good. We started dating shortly after and quickly became inseparable.

I didn't really date much in hindsight. school, so with little to no experience, I fell pretty hard for her. It also didn't help that she seemed to be just as infatuated. We did everything together, went everywhere, together, and we rarely had a disagreement. It was no surprise to anyone when I proposed to her on our one-year anniversary. She dropped some not-so-s subtle hints at it, too, so I knew it was what she wanted. We had a pretty nice ceremony. My parents owned their own accounting firms, so they paid for most of it. We had a great honeymoon afterwards, and life continued, with her moving into my apartment. She dropped some hints about getting a house, wanting kids in the future, and I was all aboard

the idea, so we started looking soon after marriage too. Thankfully I already had decent credits, and with my parents' help, we were able to find a nice little three-bedroom house that was perfect for us. Everything was right. I was happy, couldn't be happier even, and we were ready to even have our own family and all of this at the age of 25. Nevertheless, things started to shift, but it started slowly until it just exploded.

On the surface, we still seemed like the perfect couple. and both of us in successful careers. I was working for my parents' accounting firm. Anna was still working at a daycare and was one of the managers. She absolutely loved working there and being around kids, and we did well for ourselves. We shared hobbies and had a close circle of friends that we all knew and hung out with. But the more we were alone with each other, the cracks would form,

and they grew bigger and bigger. It would start with just little arguments, things that would set her off easily. If I made something for dinner that I made last week, or expecting her to make dinner when she was off and I got home late from work, then the arguments would grow and she would become so angry that she would lock me out of the bedroom, making me sleep in the living room, or she would leave for hours and not come home until late that night.

Now, I understand having arguments, and not wanting to be around the person, but one of the times she exploded and left for the night was literally because I was making stuffed peppers for dinner, when I had used peppers for fajitas two or three nights prior. I remember that argument to a tea because it will not leave. Anyways, she left and wouldn't return for several hours. Then, when we would go out with friends,

she was the cheerful and loving Anna and it was always such a nice time. But then when we got home, she would get upset and accuse me of flirting too much with the server, or talking too much with one of our female friends, and eventually would even accuse me of having an affair. I was always faithful to Anna. As mentioned, she was my first for a lot of things, so she was all I knew and could want. eventually the accusations aid at me

and her jealousy was out of control to the point that I stopped talking and especially hanging out with a lot of our friends I never spent time with any female friends and the few guys I hung out with only happened if she was around me so even those friends stopped coming around as much because she stopped being very fun to be around

I quickly became reclusive and didn't like to go anywhere because I didn't want to listen to her and try to explain why I took 17 minutes at the store so she started doing everything except she would be out for hours she gone off work around four or five but wouldn't even be home until much later I didn't know what to do yeah I know what you all are thinking to it's fine but at the time I was lost. I didn't know what any of this could mean. I didn't know this wasn't really normal. My parents always had a loving relationship and they would go somewhere without questioning

the other. They rarely had arguments, but when they did, it always worked out. I had nothing to compare my own too. But I was also too embarrassed to talk to anyone about it. My friends didn't wants to hear it, I'm sure, and I was already feeling like a burden, so I certainly wasn't going to talk to my mother or siblings about it either. So I just suffered alone. But I knew there was one thing that you could never spin to be acceptable, and rarely could be worked out. One night, while I was watching TV in the living room, Anna got a notification on her phone making it light up. and she grabbed it before I could even look at it, said she was going to bed and then left the room.

If you're ever in those situations, I think you kind of get the idea that something is going on, but either have no way to prove it, or maybe you're too afraid to confront it. In my case, I was a coward and didn't ask any questions. But later on, when I went to bed that night, she was already asleep. However, her phone was still.

still going off. I looked down to see a message from one of my friends, Blake, and it just said nice with a winking face. It definitely caught my attention, so yes, I checked her phone. From the texts and pictures, it was obvious they were having an affair. I knew there was no coming back from this, so I took screenshots of the conversations, sent them to myself, and slept in the living room. well, I tried to sleep.

I still sat on this info for a few days before I finally confronted her about it, and that conversation was messy. It started as being my fault, and then she mocked me and made fun of me, until I said I wanted a divorce. Then she scoffed and said that I would regret it, as she was the best I would ever have. Then it cycled to her becoming kind, and asking me to reconsider. claiming that we could work it out. She almost had me.

She almost made me think about it, but I quickly came too. She completely made me change who I was, and I hated it. So I was firm and told her nothing would change my mind in that that was that. The divorce was not clean and easy. She tried to get a lot from me because, yes, I was doing well financially because I worked for my parents. Unfortunately for her, since I had pictures of the affair, the only thing she had access to was the new car that I got for her and the house. But she didn't want the house because she couldn't afford it on her own. I got lucky, and that's not me bragging either.

We ended up selling the house and just split the profit when it finally did sell. I had lost not only my wife, but someone I considered a good friend. but I was ready to learn from this and move on with my life. However, Anna apparently was not. It started out as the usual post-breakup behavior that I would expect from a teenager, that is. I would get random calls from blocked numbers, or text messages calling me names.

Sometimes I would even be at a restaurant or out with a friend somewhere, and Anna would conveniently show up. The restaurant I was at, she hated. It was a Thai place, and she hated ties, so she had no reason to be there other than to get to me. But I let it go. She was the reason we weren't together, so she could be bitter all she wanted. But then it escalated. One night, after having some drinks with an old friend, I went back to my little duplex, and there was a cop there talking to my neighbor.

and that's when I spotted my broken window. Someone had broken in. Apparently it was loud enough that my neighbor called the police, but she was also a little old lady, so she didn't go outside to check it out. So she also didn't see anybody. But when they asked me to walk around to see if anything was missing, I knew that it had to be Anna.

The pictures that I had hanging up were all family, and any of the ones that I was in were broken and on the floor. My cabinet with all my model trains and stuff from my grandpa, he gave me the trains before he passed, and then after I was given some of his other stuff, and it was all knocked over, crushing some of the trains. Nothing seemed to be missing of value, but just about everything that had sentimental value to me

was damaged or destroyed in some way. I couldn't say for certain, but I had a very high suspicion that she had something to do with it. I made a report with the cop, but that was about all that could be done. But the break-in and semi-stalking was just a scratch compared to what she tried after that. Tormenting me wasn't seeming to work for her, so she targeted my friends. She tried convincing them that I was abusive, and that I had done these horrible things to her. The problem is, some people believed her.

Her sister, of course, and our mutual friend from the party way back took her side immediately. They all started calling me and accusing me of things. And even worse, they started doing this on public forums. Facebook, Twitter, wherever they could post it, they did. This caused distant relatives to call, not only me, but my parents to ask what was going on. I had even more friends starting fights with me and accusing me of being a bad person, and then even complete strangers. It was mentally and emotionally draining.

I was losing friends by the day. People didn't want to talk to me because they didn't want to get involved. So I found myself right back to where I was when we were together, locked in my home and not going anywhere, thinking that I had no one left. people even started calling my work. The problem with that is my boss was technically my father, so when he heard all of this, he was pretty upset. Thankfully, he believed and trusted his own son,

but the calls weren't good. I started working from home a lot, hoping to avoid her calling the office, and my father suggested that I should talk to my lawyer about it. He had a good point, if these accusations were true, why didn't she bring them up in the divorce? Because they weren't true, and she didn't have proof. After speaking to them, we took legal actions, but the damage was already done.

I had a few friends that stood by me, but I also lost a lot because of Anna. From the moment I found out about her affair, she had turned my life upside down. With the suit we filed in the restraining order, I finally stopped hearing from or about Anna. It seemed like she finally got the point. It took years to finally get there, but somehow I made it out. The whole time, there was never any physical altercations between us while we were together or afterwards. But the mental and verbal abuse was astronomical. The worst part was that being a guy, I didn't share this with anyone, not wanting to look weak, and that was my own doing.

I should have shared with someone what I was going through. No matter who you are, you are not immune to that kind of mental turmoil. When I finally confided in my sister, of all people, she helped me understand that, and I went to therapy. It's taken some time, but I think I can finally say that I have healed and moved on. I wanted to share this with all of you as proof that anyone can get out of these dark spots, even when it seems impossible. Maybe this isn't so much creepy to the general public, but it definitely made me nervous at the time. When I was 12 years old in 2007, I was home alone.

babysitting with my two younger siblings while my parents were out at an event. It was summertime, so it stayed light out for a while into the evening. Just as it was starting to get dark, I went to the kitchen to make a bowl of popcorn to watch a movie

with my brother and sister. When I looked out the kitchen window, I saw that there was a car parked hiding in the tree line of our yard. For context, we live in a fairly rural place, and we were rarely had people out our direction unless they lived down our gravel road, and we knew our neighbor's cars.

This was a junkie beater, and the license plate had been taped over. It was not one of our neighbors. I was a kid who was pretty aware of my surroundings, and I decided to step back from the big kitchen window and go into the dark entryway hall to get a better look. There was just a single man sitting in it, staring directly at the house. with the lights off. Immediately I locked the front and back door. I told my little brother and sister calmly to play in their rooms

and to not come out until I came and got them for the movie night. I then went back to the kitchen to get my phone to call my mom, but she didn't answer. I watched him through the curtains sit in the dark tree line and just stare at the house for what felt like ages. Finally, someone drove down our road and their headlights reflected off of the car. He started the engine, drove out of the trees, and booked it down the gravel.

I was still very nervous and tried calling my mom again. No answer. So, for the rest of the time, I just played with my siblings in their room with the door shut and curtains pulled until my parents came home later that night. When I tried telling my parents what happened, they were convinced I was making it up, and that I was just being a dramatic kid. I swore up and down that I saw this car with blackened out plates in the tree line, and they weren't interested at all. I know I saw it, but I'm the only one who did.

Maybe it was just a random guy who didn't know there were three young kids home alone, hiding for some reason, but I'm still glad that I locked all the doors. Hello, dear people have read it. I would like to share a creepy story of mine that has been bugging and making me paranoid for quite some time now. Just to clarify, I am a male, and this happened to me when I was 16 in May. It was just another regular day at school.

I had just exited my bus and began walking home. The path's not that long, so it only takes me about 12 minutes to get home. I kept walking as usual, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. At some point, there is a very narrow road that leads between two buildings, so cars have to squeeze between them. I always walk on the edge of the road so the cars can easily pass me. There was this one car that I hadn't seen around my area before.

I didn't see it, I just heard it behind me. As usual, I moved to the right side of the road to the car could pass. It did not. And that has happened before, so I thought the driver was just being careful since you could damage your car fairly easy. Again, there was a small opening, and I moved to the right,

clearly signaling with my body language to the driver that he could pass me. He did not. He was just slowly driving behind me. At that point, I started getting paranoid. Something like this had never happened to me before, and the driver or the people in the car clearly wanted something from me. Just to clarify, there wasn't a single other person or car nearby. I quickened my pace.

I eventually exited the narrow road and came upon an opening. It's possible to either turn left or right, but drivers could also turn around on the same road and go back the way they came. I walked on the right road, and, at that point, I heard a shout behind me. It was a male voice, and he said, Hey! In an angry and rude voice. I did not turn around. I just kept speedwalking.

The weirdest thing came next. The car had turned around and driven back to the narrow road. I couldn't see his registration number because he drove off too quickly, nor did I ever see him again. I kept looking back because I didn't want him to know where I live. There could have been many different possibilities. Maybe he was a friend of mine and just wanted to say hello, but if he was, he would not have shed.

shouted at me like that. Another theory is that he wanted to ask me for directions. And that has happened to me before, but people were always very friendly. I want to have this one as an actual explanation. On a darker note, that could have been an attempted robbery or even worse, a kidnapping. I don't know. Am I being paranoid? I just want to find a good explanation for this. I have a story about my ex

that I would like to share with you now that I've had the chance to sit down and write it all out. This all happened, I kid you not, within the span of two years. That's it. I met my now ex-Oskar when I was out with friends at a restaurant. He was our server, and after some flirting,

he left me his number on the receipt. I jumped on the opportunity because I had never done that before. I texted him the next day and not only did he remember me, but he was also surprised I actually messaged him. After a little back and forth, he asked me out that following weekend. The date was fantastic. We had dinner, went to see a movie, and then had drinks. Our relationship started pretty quick after that,

and we became pretty attached at the head. hip. Even when I would go out with my girlfriend, he asked to go. None of us ever had an issue with it, as my last semi-serious relationship. He didn't even care to get to know my friends. Oscar, however, was always fantastic with my friends and I loved it. But what I didn't expect was being proposed to on our six-month anniversary. We had done so well together and I was in love. We were happy. So I said yes. Life after that was the usual. We just had matching rings on our fingers. I did move into his place because he had a home that he had inherited after his grandparents passed, which was even better than apartment living. We still did everything together as normal and we were

both very happy, or so I thought. After about four months or so, Oscar started to change. It started as just him snapping at something that upset him. He would later apologize for his outburst and explain that he had a bad day or wasn't feeling well. Simple things like that. But then it seemed to escalate. Sometimes we would play harmless pranks on each other, like spraying each other with the sink sprayer or scaring each other, and we would laugh, and even had a counter on each other

for it. But one time I did it, he flipped out on me. He yelled at me about how stupid it was to do that, and left me in tears. Except that time, he didn't apologize. He didn't give any excuse for it. I mentioned it when we went to bed, and he just said that he wasn't sorry because I was stupid. I then slept in the living room that night. Things escalated, and sometimes Oscar got so angry that he started punching holes in the wall,

or would slam him on the steering wheel if we were in the car. It was terrifying, and I was honestly scared that one of those might land on me. I had an aunt and friend who went through hell trying to get out of a horribly abusive relationship, so I knew that I had to take action. I started on a good day. Oscar was in a good mood. I made his favorite meal, and as we were finishing, I asked him about it. specifically I asked him if something was happening that he wasn't telling me about

that was causing him to act that way. I even tried to word it in a way to be supportive, to see if there was anything I could do to help. Apparently this was the wrong thing to do, because after calling me a few names and me apologizing, telling him to forget about it, as a way to try and move on. But his response instead was to,

flip the entire dinner table, breaking everything on it. He then left, and I didn't see him for two days. I took this time to make some choices. I packed up a lot of my stuff, kept what I could in my hatchback, and stored the rest at my sisters, not ready to tell my parents, either. When Oscar came home, I was cleaning up the kitchen, something I had to do regularly, or I learned he got unreasonably angry about it. He quickly noticed some things missing

and started mocking me for thinking about leaving. This told me he didn't care. He was not the man that I fell in love with and married. And I have no idea what happened and why in such a short amount of time. I went to the house later that month with divorce papers and asked my sister to wait in the car. when I gave him the papers all he did was give a small

annoyed smirk and shook his head I tried talking to him about it but all he did was sign the papers and throw them at me then he went to his room without saying another word it could have gone worse but it could have been a lot better at least it was done and I learned my lesson

it was only maybe a month or so after the divorce that I started feeling watched Sometimes I would see his brother at the same store, but I would always catch him looking at me. And it wasn't a situation like you saw someone and you go, oh hey. It was like this guy is bad at asset protection. We would lock eyes and he would turn suddenly as if I didn't notice. Then I would get random calls from his younger sister.

She always got along with me and was always a very sweet girl. but when she would call and ask me maybe some relevant questions about things we normally talked about, then she would mumble something to someone in the background and ask something about my day, like trying to hear about how my day was going. It sounded forced, like someone in the background was asking her to say it. It felt like she was being put up to it. But what I found interesting was that it was never Oscar I saw in her. heard from. It was his family, and I would also see other random people that seemed to be

watching me, but never Oscar. To be honest, it was quite infuriating. It was like he was trying to keep tabs on me and watch me by making everyone else do it. The bigger problem with that was that meant I really couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't exactly put a restraining order on every person I saw staring at me, so all I could do was deal with it and just hope they would give it up one day. So, after a few months of this constant watching, stalking me by proxy, and calling me, I got used to it, but I was still never comfortable with it. In fact, I didn't like going anywhere alone anymore.

I would still go out with friends, but I never went to sit at a coffee shop or anything. I often did grocery pickup or delivery just to not be alone. I didn't want to take my chances. But most importantly, when I finally got my own apartment, I only told my parents, my siblings, and a few close friends where I lived. I wanted to avoid being followed home. However, as I was coming home from work one day, I saw someone leave my apartment complex that I didn't recognize.

I may not have known all of my neighbors, but you could see the normal people coming and going. As soon as they noticed me, pulling in, they pulled their hood up and did a quick turn to walk away from me. I immediately felt something was wrong, so I called the police to report it. They checked the area and escorted me to my apartment, where they also checked, but nothing was found. Again, all I could do was let it go. But a few days after that, I had a cop show up at my apartment, and after several questions, he asked me to go back to the station with him. Turns out, someone had gone to the station saying that they were being paid to have me killed,

but that they couldn't do it. He explained that he was at the bar one night, and a man approached him, bought him a bunch of drinks, and gave him a thousand dollars to do it, and said that he would give him a thousand more, after it was done. The detective showed me the man who I did not recognize, except the hoodie that he was wearing. It was the same guy I saw at my apartment. And the man he described that approached him was none other than Oscar. I gave the detective a picture of Oscar to show to the man who confirmed that it was the same guy.

So I was sitting there, a crying mess, with the thought that my ex-husband really just tried to have me killed. Why? He was the one that completely changed. I tried to reason with him to make it work, but he didn't care. I thought I didn't feel safe before, and I sure as hell did not feel safe after that. He was definitely found guilty and went to prison for conspiracy, and the man even came up to me and apologized. He said that he had never done anything like that before, but he was in a really bad spot, drunk with self-pity and felt desperate.

But after sobering up, he knew that he could never do it. He was a father himself, and I think that really saved me. I'll be forever grateful that the man turned himself in, because if he just declined or gave the money back, who knows where I would be today, if anywhere at all. My girlfriend and I did a cross-country road trip around ten years ago. and eventually made it to Florida where my dad was living at the time. While my dad was at work, we would hop in the car and go sightseeing every chance we got.

My dad lived in the Tampa area, and there was plenty to see and do within a couple of hours of the house. Beautiful beaches, crystal clear rivers with manatees swimming about, palm trees, tropical plants and lots of things that were new to us as we come from the opposite corner of the country. all the way up in the Pacific Northwest. One day we decided to drive from the coast, where my dad lived, to the east. It was a part of Florida that we hadn't seen yet, and we were eager to see some of inland Florida.

We weren't disappointed, as we found ourselves driving through some really nice green rolling hills with cattle ranches, giant old oak trees, with moss hanging from the branches, and country roads that went on forever. I'd been driving for a while and wanted to take a break so I could be the passenger, and just stare out the window, taking it all in.

So my girlfriend took over the driving for the time being. Eventually we would decide to stop for a bathroom break, and I would drive the rest of the trip back to my dad's place. We were keeping our eyes open for a good place to stop when we saw a sign that indicated there was a park up ahead. and we pulled into the parking lot, parked the car, and headed towards the bathrooms. This was a big park with lots of grass. It really was a beautiful spot. We noticed that there was also a bike path that ran through the park and people would park their cars here and set out on this path for a bike ride.

Now this was midweek, and there were only two or three cars in the parking lot, and we didn't see any other people around. I headed into the men's room and popped back out, noticing that my girlfriend was still in the women's room, so I decided to have a look around while I waited for her. Across the field of grass, I saw what looked like a trailhead and some signage, so I figured I would investigate. I made my way over to the signboard and was reading some information about the park and the nature trail when I noticed a truck pull into the parking lot. My girlfriend was still in the bathroom, so I decided I would just wait here for her and try to get her attention when she was done, thinking that maybe we'd go for a short hike on the trail.

While I was waiting there, I noticed that a tall, slender man wearing a cowboy hat and jeans had gotten out of his truck and was standing there on the sidewalk. Just about the same time, I see my girlfriend come out of the bathroom. She saw me immediately and started walking in my direction. I also saw that the man in the cowboy hat was just standing there motionless, like a statue, staring as my girlfriend walked across the field. As this was happening, I started to get an uneasy feeling in my gut, like something wasn't right with the guy standing there and staring at us.

My girlfriend made her way across the field to the edge of the forest, where the trail began, and where I was. I was standing. When she arrived, I asked her if she had noticed the man. She turned around to look as the man just stood there, not moving a muscle, and staring at both of us now. We must have stood there for a couple of minutes. Both of us feeling uneasy.

It was like we knew that we should not walk any further into the woods. You know that apprehension that you feel when someone is just staring at you with no expression on their face, like a hunter watching his prey intently. That's what it felt like. The main problem was that we were going to have to cross that field, passing right by that man, to get back to our car. It was either go hide in the woods until he left, or make our way back to the car. We decided that we would walk back towards the car.

Actually, I came up with a plan and told my girlfriend about it. We would walk straight towards him, and because I had a 35-millimeter camera in my hands, my plan was to use that as a weapon if anything happened. I gave my girlfriend the car keys and said that if he made any move towards us, that I was going to rush straight for him and hit him as hard as I could with the camera in my hand, and she was to run straight for our car, get in, and get the hell out of there. When she got back to the highway, she could wait for me there. So we started across the field and not once did the man move or take his eyes off of us.

He just stood there, glaring at us from under the brim of his cowboy hat. Both of us had a really bad feeling as we got closer and closer to the parking lot, but I just stared right back at him and just tried to give off the vibe that I was ready for a fight if need be. When we were within ten feet of him, I muttered a... Hello, or how's it going, or something along those lines. I was so nervous that I could barely get the words out of my mouth. He said nothing and just continued to stare. Finally, we passed by him and hurriedly made our way to the car,

jumped in and locked the doors. This was the first time I saw him move at all. He slowly turned around and continued to size us up. Once we were in the car with the doors locked, we felt a sense of relief. I backed up, and as we turned to leave, I told my girlfriend to try and memorize his license plate number. We thought maybe this guy was some kind of predator

who was at the parking lot looking for prey. It was the perfect place for someone with bad intentions like that. A remote park with a bike path, midweek when there weren't a lot of people around. Honestly, the whole experience felt like he was sizing us up. Did we look weak? Was anyone else around who would witness it if he tried to do something? I still get the chills today when I think about him standing there and staring at us.

We talked about it the whole drive back to my dad's place. Should we call the police and let them know that there was a weirdo hanging out at the park? Both of us were still kind of freaked out. We told my dad all about it when we returned, but he kind of just laughed it off and said that we were probably just being paranoid. We eventually decided not to report it to the police because what would we even tell them? Nothing happened, thankfully, but even ten years later, the thought of that guy freaks me out. And if I mention it to my now ex-girlfriend, she agrees that it feels like we got lucky that day.

I've always had a soft spot for older people due to a great relationship with both of my grandmas, and I never even minded, even as a kid, helping her older neighbors screw in a new light bulb that they couldn't reach, not wanting to climb up on a stepstool and lifting things that, to me, were light as a feather, and so on. I learned they always had stories of their lives that I've found interesting, like pages from a forgotten book. I'm still that way, and the older I get, the fewer of them are around. So I have this neighbor just down the story. So I have this neighbor just down the street. A few nights ago after she'd settled into bed, this scratching on her window, followed by a gentle knock, scared her badly. She'd recently lost her husband and hasn't lived alone, ever.

I'm in the security business and told her, as I will all of you, my friends, the first scratch on that window glass makes dogs react, so they know if they are in the house. But people sleeping rarely can hear it. And then the light knocking is to test if you are asleep, so they can sneak into the house's kitchen or bathrooms and freely walk around, though you set your security system. Your motion sensors are turned off on stay,

so only the door and any window contacts remain active. But sadly, a huge company only places a contact on the doors, so all they really want is your monitoring, but your perimeter is not really protected. I did not install her system, but I informed her of these things, saying to call me if they did this again. I could literally just walk right over there. First, we'd heard a side door knock when I was sitting with her this past Halloween,

so she wouldn't feel alone or scared. It was right as it was way too late for kids to come by, and I was about to go on home. Then the hand grasped her security, door handle, jingling it right and then left, making a distinct noise. They had tried that door. Fast forward a week ago, and there was a pretty loud knocking at her middle bedroom, at the back window near the kitchen.

So I got that call. Then, three nights ago, there was another knock on her bedroom window, and she was very freaked out. So, tonight, I placed percussion, or glass brawl. brake detectors for her. And I guess we shall see. It was 2007, and I was

13. The new Smackdown vs. Raw W.W.E. game had just come out, and I went into my small town on a Sunday morning to purchase it. After purchasing the game, I was in awe of the cover and the synopsis

on the back of the game, so I sat on a bench to read it and taken the excitement of buying a new game. I lived in a small market town in England, so Sundays were often very quiet. While sitting on the bench, I looked over to the bus stop across the road and noticed a strange-looking, scraggly man walking towards me. I was a bit nervous seeing this because, although I was 13 or 14, I looked about 11, as I was very small. On his approach, he asked me,

what's that you're holding? I explained it was my new game, and I then said, Look, I need to go. My brother's waiting for me in the mall. Although, he wasn't. I felt that I needed to say this. As I walked off, the man began to follow me asking me my name and my age. I replied, Lee, which is a fake name, and told him my age.

On entering the mall, I started walking quicker and quicker, but I didn't want to start running, as for some reason, I wanted to save face. He kept asking if I had a girlfriend, and as he got closer, I noticed he had a scar down his face and lots of jewelry on. To his question, I responded yes, as I thought that it may put him off if he knew I had a girlfriend. I then ran into a shop in the mall and started flicking through the magazines, but he persisted with the questions.

I then got up the courage to run, run as fast as I could. He began to chase, but I got away. When I got home, I didn't tell my parents. I just went upstairs and played my game. But later that day, I did tell my mom. She called the police immediately. I then had to go to a police station local to myself and tell them what happened and pick him out of a number of photos the police had on a laptop.

Apparently, this man had kidnapped and sexually assaulted many young boys. I was lucky enough, however, to escape. I later found out that he was given eight years in prison, after a couple of boys he assaulted came forward. However, my evidence was not enough. Hey there, friends, I hope that you enjoyed this collection of scary stories on this episode of the As the Raven Dreams podcast. If the platform you're on has the option to follow podcast and you enjoyed my work, please do consider doing so. Also, leaving ratings and reviews are super important for the algorithm to support the growth of the podcast. I'm just one guy doing this.

I don't have a team. It's literally just me doing everything. So any supports like that is greatly appreciated. Never expected, though. So if you go above and beyond with that, I do appreciate it. Some platforms also allow you to leave comments, and if you feel inclined to do so, please do. I would appreciate that. I do have a Patreon in a merch store that you can also check out if you want to support a little further.

The Patreon site of things get you early access to all of my content. It is formatted differently as it goes in line with what my YouTube channel is, but it is the same stories. Just different collections. There is also a website, astherravendreams.com, where you can check out pretty much everything about me. social media platforms, fiction stories I've written if you want to read those, as well as submitting your own stories, which there's a big button on the front page, you click to do so. And those stories basically keep the podcast alive, to be honest with you. So, yeah. All that said, friends, I do hope that I see you again here very soon. Until then, remember that you are loved, that you are

valid, that you are important. You're the best you that you can be. Don't forget it. And until next time, much love and sleep well