As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 194 - Scary Internet & Other Strange/Scary Stories

Episode Date: September 21, 2025

Today, on the 194th episode of the As The Raven Dreams podcast, we have 14 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 that occur on the internet, as well as some OTHER true strange and Scary Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like or rate the podcast, and leave me a comment with your thoughts if the platform your own supports it! I upload episodes every 3 days, so there are 2 days between new uploads. The podcast consists of new scary story collections, Glitch in the matrix collections, and also what I call the "Dark Dreams" collections (which are older stories, remastered and layered with rain sounds). If you have a story to submit, would like to find where to listen to the podcast, or want to find me on social media platforms, all of that info can be found at https://www.astheravendreams.com You can also send stories into my subreddit (r/theravensdream) or email them to me at [e-mail] Want to check out some ATRD Podcast Merch? ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Or for signed merch ➤ https://ko-fi.com/AsTheRavenDreams I wrote a novel, "The Insomniac's Experiment" by Raven Adams! Check it out on amazon (Or you can email me for a signed copy!) Join Patreon to get early access and support the Podcast! ➤ https://www.patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Check out my gaming channel with my pal Ghost_Ink ➤ @superNefariousBros On YouTube Thank you to all of the authors that have stories in todays episode... OzarksOracle, Mysterious Girl, Horror_obsessed_88, Tango, Mike in KY, Beldon C., First name Last name, Alexander S., Maggie, Crystal Allen, Christina, MikeyG, Tom K., DadTheModerator As Well As Any Author That Has Requested Anonymity. TimeStamps… Ad breaks after Story 1 & Story 5 1 ➤ 2:00 2 ➤ 14:40 3 ➤ 19:50 4 ➤ 23:23 5 ➤ 30:11 6 ➤ 44:20 7 ➤ 50:20 8 ➤ 54:16 9 ➤ 57:23 10 ➤ 1:00;46 11 ➤ 1:08:40 12 ➤ 1:10:43 13 ➤ 1:13:20 14 ➤ 1:16:53 ----- Disclaimer ➤ Episodes include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Listener discretion is always advised. ALL Audio and visuals on this podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format. Bless This Mess. None of my audio is AI Generated, I am a real person reading real stories into a real microphone. #ScaryStories #UnexplainedMysteries #GlitchInTheMatrix Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, hey there, friends. Hope you are having a lovely week so far. It's Sunday, so that's been what? All of 14 hours, if you're in Central Standard Time? Unless you're one of those people that believes Monday is the start of the week, in which case it's been seven full days. So hopefully you're having a great week so far. I've always been of the mind that Sunday is the start of the week.

I look at the week ends as the ends of the week, the book end to the week. Sunday being on the left, Saturday being on the right. Is that relevant? No. But it's how I see things. How do you see things? Honest question, if you're on Spotify, leave a comment with that. Do you believe Sunday is the start of the week, or do you think it's Monday?

Are you like me or not like me? I was going to say against me, but I'm like, that's such a silly thing to do in us versus them on, so I'm not going to do that. But anyways, today we have some internet stories and other strange and scary stories. Some decent ones, interesting ones for sure. These are always fun to read. So hopefully you enjoy them. Yeah.

If you have a story, send it in as the ravendreams at gmail.com or straight to the website as the ravendreams.com. I need some interesting stories from you all if you have them. unexplained stories or anything that's kind of like really scary and unexplainable for you. Inner city stories, stories that have like in the city. Creepy encounters, like Let's Not Meat Style stories.

Need some of those if you have them. You all have a Craigslist encounter, anything like that? I need those too. And of course, anything happened to you on Halloween or wild trick or treating. Please do send those in. I do need them.

Anyways, enjoy the stories. See again here soon. And of course, much love. Hey, Raven. I was reminded of something. that I found a long time ago that I wanted to share with you. We're close in age,

so you might have some clues on this too. I can't remember the exact year or even month, unfortunately, when this took place, other than it was winter because I remember being home on a snow day. But this was back when I was in middle school, and the internet was full of weird and funny sights that you could surf through. You also may have heard of this,

but this was also when the site Stumble Upon was a big thing. In case anyone doesn't know what that was, Stumble Upon was a site that would send you to random websites. It was like a big surprise me button for the whole internet. It was pretty amusing for me and my friends. We've come across some pretty mediocre and boring sites like a cheesy realtor site, but then it's also taken me to places that I was happy to find.

It's how I found one of my favorite bands, actually. So in my free time and when I had access to the internet, I would press my luck on this website to amuse myself. I live in the Midwest, so snow days were pretty common for us. On this snow day, it was apparently colder than normal too, and my mom didn't want us to be outside, fearing that it would be too cold. So while my siblings busied themselves playing together, I took our old and heavy laptop to my room and started playing on that.

I started playing games at first, but when I got bored, I turned to stumble upon. I started shuffling through, not getting much in ways of entertaining places, until I found this one streaming site. I unfortunately don't remember what it was called. The background was black with white and yellow and orange accents. The front first asked for your age. I don't recommend ever doing this, but I lied and put that I was 18. Yes, I understand why that was a bad idea, too.

Upon entering the site, the front page had a featured stream. It looked like it was a random stream. Nothing looked too exciting about it. It was the back of two guys' heads, and they were hunched over on a couch. Staring at a small TV, playing some. some old racing game. We're talking about some old school game streaming type deals. Nowadays, it definitely reminds me of a badly discounted Twitch TV.

I watched them for a bit and then decided to look around the site more. Along the side, there was a list of a bunch of different genres, I believe. There were lists such as gaming, movies, talking, politics, acting, male, female, adult only, and so forth. My room was off the living room, so I wasn't going to try anything risky. But I did want to look at some of the other streams. I watched another gaming stream. I went to the girls section and saw one that was just four girls basically gossiping and bashing on their teachers and other people they went to school with. Pretty boring to me.

Then I checked out the talking section. It listed out different ones in a grid that you could scroll through, but the site was. also showed you ones that weren't currently online. It would just show a black screen. I checked out a few until I came across one that I thought was offline. The title was called Night Shift, and the small thumbnail was not a black screen, but instead to be a camera pointing at a small desk.

The light was off, so it was pretty dark, and there was no one at the desk. Without any movement, I figured it was offline, but it was still strange to me that it wasn't a black screen, so I clicked on it to see if there was something more to it. Going to the stream, I could see a bit more on the screen. The camera was pointed at the old desk. The chair had a jacket draped over the back.

There was a small shelf on the back wall behind the desk that appeared to have a couple of books and VHS tapes on it. I couldn't make out the writing on the tapes, but they definitely appeared to be. be homemade, or at least home recordings. On the right wall where the camera was more so facing, was a large map that appeared to have writing and circling on it. Again, I couldn't make out what was written because the camera was pretty crappy. At first, it looked like a pretty standard office to my young self. I just assumed that maybe someone left their camera or stream on by mistake, or maybe it was

It's just a mood that was way too early for its time, based on how the cozy room with the lo-fi music is a popular thing nowadays. But something told me to keep watching, so I kept it up. I went to a different tab to keep doing what I was doing and would check back on that one every few moments. Then as I was messing around, I heard a bang that made me jump. Then I realized that it came from my headset. I checked my tabs and realized it was coming from that night shift stream.

The lighting had changed on the screen, where there was clearly a light on behind the camera, so I went back to giving it my full attention. I heard another bang that I believe was a door slamming shut, and then a man shouting at someone. I couldn't make out what he said because he wasn't in the room, but I could clearly tell that he sounded angry. I also only heard one voice, so I'm not sure if he was shouting at someone in another room, or maybe on a phone call.

Then the person I heard entered the room with the camera. I heard more shuffling and grunting, and then I jumped as they very dramatically dropped a box on the desk, bumping the camera, now pointing slightly up. The light was then turned back off, so it was back to only the soft glow. I'm not sure where it was coming from because it wasn't very bright. Then, someone pulled out the chair and sat in it. They were wearing a hoodie and a ball cap, as I could see the bill sticking out, but unfortunately that was all I could see.

Their hood was up, so I couldn't see their face either. They sat at the desk and started pulling out papers from the box. These were single pages, many with words like it was part of a longer piece. Some were pages from a newspaper and some were photos. They didn't look to be in any order either, just loose pages. They were hunched over the desk, spending several seconds on each one. Sometimes they would pick up a marker, maybe a highlighter, and then mark on the page. But he continued pulling them out one by one.

He would mark on some of them, put them behind the box, others he would put on the shelf. And the ones he didn't mark at all, he tore up or crumpled and then threw them over his shoulder. Sometimes he would mumble something and occasionally he slammed his fist on the desk. I even heard him speak once after punching the desk. He shouted, I know it's related. It made me jump again. There was no music, no other sound other than the shuffling of papers and the squeaking of the marker. It was starting to feel more and more unsettling, but I couldn't.

not stop watching. I wanted to know what I was looking at, what he was writing down, and what the purpose of all of this was. Unlike current day Twitch, there was no chat option. There were no comment sections. It was just the videos, so I couldn't even ask them myself. All I could do was continue to watch. It had been over an hour since I started watching this stream based on the counter it had on the site. I don't know how full the box was because I couldn't see into it, but he had to have gone through a lot of it at this point. But after some time, he clasped his hands on the desk and put his head down. I could hear him whispering something, maybe praying.

And then he finished, stood up, and looked at the map on the wall. He wrote a few things on it, and the only thing I remember was seeing him circle one part and draw an arrow to another part. Afterwards, he sat down and spun the chair around to face the camera, and this is where it creeped me out the most. He pulled his hood down so I could see his face just a little bit. He had some stubble on part of his face, but on the right, and also looked pretty badly scarred,

like what I now recognize as a possible burn scar. It went from his chin and crept up the right side of his face, on his cheek and stopped right under his eye. I don't know how far back it went since he was still wearing a baseball cap and it was dark, but what I could tell was that he was now looking straight into the camera. And the look itself made me squirm. It was a combination of the parent look when they want you to fess up to something and almost a predatory look.

I know that he had no idea that I was specifically watching him, but it really felt like it. I even remember pointing the laptop slightly away from me, and I didn't even have a camera on it. After staring into my soul for what felt like forever, he finally spoke, but it just left me even more confused. He held up a picture of a girl that he pointed at the camera. It was of a young girl with long, dark hair.

There was nothing else significant that I can't remember about her, though. Then he put the picture down and went, went back to staring at the camera. And all he said was, I see you. I know you see me and all the work I've put into finding you, and now I know where you are. I'll be with you soon, I promise you that.

Then he looked over the camera like something behind it, and nodded. He started adjusting the camera like he was taking it off its holder, but I was too freaked out to see what happened next. I quickly closed the browser and shut off the computer. I know it seems silly now, but I was afraid that I was going to get into trouble. Like maybe they would find me, or for some reason, this had to do with me. So after staying off the computer for an hour or so, I opened it back up, deleted the history for the day, and then even cleared my cache. I know, once again, I know that seems silly, but back then as a kid and not knowing much about computers, I thought that would at least protect me.

The days following that were completely normal, other than me feeling paranoid. No one strange called our house or showed up at the door looking for me, and there were no signs that I was in trouble by anyone. Life went on just as normal. I told one of my friends about it, and he wanted to see it too, but since I had found it by chance, I didn't even know where to start. I didn't even know the name of the site, and I never found it again. Thinking back on it as an adult now, all it can really piece together is that the girl in the picture was either missing and the guy was trying to find her, or maybe he was a stalker and she managed to get away.

I have no idea of either of those theories are correct, though. So, that's my story of how I scared myself as a kid. I would be interested in finding that site again if it still exists. It's hard to find streaming services outside of the popular red and purple ones these days. I'd love to see if it was still around and maybe even try to find that one. But at the same time, I don't want to freak myself out again because just thinking of the way he stared into the camera, it gives me goosebumps all over again.

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Beinue at BIA Embarked and and profite Embarked and relaxes Sirot, bookine, oh, that also, and profite. Via Rae, the voice that we love. Dear Raven, I love listening to you read The Glitch and other stories.

Thank you for sharing and giving so many of us a sense of community. Thank you for listening. I've been saying for months now that I should take the time to share some of my phenomenal experiences with you and your audience. When I heard you announce you are running short on Glitch Stories, I told myself that it was the universe telling me now is the time. The first of my stories is just a spooky story of a real place that no longer exists. I will preface this story with a few statements about myself and where I'm from.

I'm 51 years old, Gen X with a redneck twist, and I grew up in the rural Missouri Ozarks, in a small town with a reputation for evil. Many, many years ago, the town I'm from was located in a city. a place once known as Booger County. Every child in the present-day county in surrounding areas had grown up hearing the legends of the boogeyman that was said to live like a shadow among the trees. For those of you who immediately thought this was a Bigfoot story, you're so wrong. My granny often described the boogeyman as a creature of appetite.

Granny would warn us to be cautious by repeating a little poem to us before we would go outside to play that goes like this. Child, don't you walk around with your head down and pouty in a place called Buger County. This is where the boogeyman takes his bounty. Keep your head up and keep looking around or the boogeyman might swallow you down. According to Granny, the boogeyman would swallow children whole, but would eventually spit out the bones once he came across a new victim to swallow. I was born in 1973.

I grew up hearing that rhyme throughout the 70s and 80s and knowing that children often disappeared without explanation, investigation or an arrest, not ever. I'm over half a century old now, and I can tell you for certain that in my lifetime, numerous children, young adults, and women have disappeared without a trace from the place and their skeletal remains are eventually found, but not until after another goes missing.

Not once have I ever heard of someone finding a body in the woods, but I've heard of entire skeletons of the missing found randomly throughout the county on many occasions. In 2012, a young man went missing and the family contacted the closest news station when he had been missing for three entire days, because the sheriff's department refuses to search or even acknowledge he was in fact missing. When the sheriff was interviewed, he said there was no need to search, that everyone that's come up missing has eventually returned in one of two ways. Either they return on their own when the statute of limitations has expired,

or when the remains are found. I believe it was in or around 2020-ish. His skeletal remains were discovered in a farmer's field. The story that made the news was that the remains had washed into the field during recent floods. His family would finally have closure, etc. No one asked how all of his remains were found in the field. Why there weren't any missing bones? Or pointed out that the farm was just outside of town,

and most residents knew damn well that the remains were found in a hay field that is seeded, rolled and cut yearly. And, true to legend, another was reported missing shortly before. I understand that folk are inclined to dismiss this as a rural version of an urban legend. But it's true, every word. I assure you the thick forest and rugged terrain of the Ozarks hides and holds many terrifying secrets. Actually, this is just one of several curses the people of my hometown. I'll write again and tell you another story someday soon, Raven.

And don't worry, I've got glitch stories I'll send next. I wanted to introduce myself in my homeland to you properly first. It's important context for your audience to comprehend that I grew up different, gifted, in a different kind of place where the mysterious, paranormal and impossible just happen, and the people shrug it off and carry on. I do have a few more things to say on the boogeyman that I'll add that I ask you all to consider. The boogeyman hunted my granny's generation as children, my generation, and my millennial child's too. I believe some monsters are not immortal, but timeless.

Do you? Hi, Raven. Firstly, I would like to thank you for your channel and storytelling gift, as it has helped me through many dull household. chores. Thank you so much for listening. Let's jump right in. I've had many strange occurrences happening to me in my 50 years on this earth, starting from as young as eight years old. Here is one such occurrence. English is not my first language, so I do apologize for any grammatical issues. I was sitting in a shopping mall having lunch with a friend. In the distance, I saw three men and one woman standing and staring emotionless at the people walking by.

They caught my eye and they were all very attractive with dirty blonde hair and an air of authority. They all wore black clothes. The woman was in an elegant business suit and the men were in similar attire. The one man then started staring intensely at me. I felt very uncomfortable and I tried to look away to not make it obvious that I, too, was rudely staring. He then slowly walked over to our table, stood right in front of me, and just looked at me not saying a word. I also couldn't speak. I felt frozen in place. I then inhaled deeply as I felt a sort of panic attack come over me. He had the most intense gaze and the bluest eyes I have ever seen. He looked me straight in the eyes without saying a word, and I felt dizzy and disoriented

for a moment. And then his eyes seemed to become a pool of water, and it felt as if he was looking straight into my soul. He held my gaze like that for what felt like several hours, but it really wasn't. It was just a few seconds. For a split second, the blue pool of water, which was his eyes, became the blackest black that I have ever seen, and I felt the sensation of being sucked into this black hole. I then saw what looked like stars piercing through the darkness. At that stage, a feeling of awe and wonder mixed with fear and angst ripped over me. He then broke eye contact, turned around slowly and walked over to his friends.

He nodded at them and they all walked away as if nothing had just happened. My friend, who witnessed this whole exchange, asked me, Who was that, and what just happened? I was so unnerved and out of breath that I just muttered that I probably knew him from somewhere. She could see that I was visibly shaken, and she didn't probe me anymore on the matter. For days after, I felt physically drained and very tired. I also had a few dizzy spells. To this day,

I really do not know who they were, and what all this meant. I am a Christian, and I do have a few theories that align with my belief system, and that's all I have to cling to. Thanks for listening. I'll be sure to share more of my glitches and weird experiences. As I mentioned before, I have books full as I write everything down that happens to me, as I find them both unsettling, yet fascinating. Hey, Raven, love the channel.

I always eagerly await each upload. Thank you. Okay, on to the story. When I was seven years old, my family moved from a small town in Nebraska to an even smaller town about an hour and a half strife away, where my parents opened up their own music business. My parents couldn't find a house they liked right away, so we, that's my mom, my dad, my little five-year-old brother and myself,

lived in the small apartment above the store. This building was over 100 years old, and the whole town had stories of all the old downtown businesses being haunted. Things started happening right off the bat. The weekend we moved in, we drove up to the new apartment and dropped off a load of our stuff. My brother and I were going to travel back to our old house with our dad to load up more stuff. Well, my mom stayed the night at the new apartment, cleaning cupboards, vacuuming, etc. She started hearing weird noises as soon as she was alone. She tried to ignore it, but when the noises continued at night,

she said that she was so scared that she almost got up in the middle of the night and drove the hour and a half back to the old house. But she told herself that she was being silly and convinced herself to stay. The first night together in the apartment, my parents were woken up by the sound of talking in the living room. It sounded like a group of people having a conversation. They got up and walked into the living room and the voices ceased. They checked the whole place.

Even the store downstairs, but there was no one. This happened every night. But after the first few nights, they knew nothing would be there, so they stopped checking. My brother and I slept like the dead, so we never woke up at night. My dad dreams every night but never remembers them. We know that he dreams because he likes to talk in his sleep. Much to my mother's amusement, but that's a story for another day. Anyway, when we moved into the new apartment, he started remembering his dreams,

and they were the same every night. He would dream that he was standing at the entrance to the apartment. He would open the door, and he would see black shadows dancing, dancing around the dark hallway. The hallway had old apartments that hadn't been occupied for years. The neighbor used them for storage. So we were alone in the building at night. He would always wake up feeling uneasy.

Sometimes he said he would be running through the halls with something chasing him. My brothers and I would stay in the apartment alone after school because my parents were in the store, just down one staircase. Weird stuff happened all the time. time. We would play hide and seek, running through an open door only to turn back to find the door shut. I felt breezes lift my hair when no windows were open. One time it was around 6 p.m. And the store was about to close. My mom was bagging up the last customer CDs, and there was a loud swish-swish sound. The customer turned and looked toward the store, looking for the source of the

sound. My mom knew that sound, and she said that it was just a poster that fell off the wall. The store had music band posters taped up all over the walls, and they did fall off sometimes. The customer nodded and left. My mom locked the door behind them and walked through the empty store, and there were no posters on the ground. She has no idea what that sound was. A year later, we moved into a house, but we still had a room and back. bathroom upstairs that we stayed after school until the store closed and then we actually went home. My mom would go upstairs to use the bathroom during the day, and since my dad was downstairs, she would never close the bathroom door when she was upstairs alone. The bathroom was strange.

You would walk through an accordion door and turn right, where you had to walk about ten steps to reach the toilet. The sink was to the left of the door. My mom would sometimes walk through the open accordion door and use the restroom, and she would walk to the other side of the door to wash her hands, and the door would be closed. She never heard the door close. This was a thin accordion door, and it would not open or close silently.

My parents decided to sell the building a few years later to move the store to a different location in town. The day they signed the papers, they heard loud footsteps upstairs all day long. There was never anyone up there. One time after school, I said, Mom, someone's up there, and she gave me the same excuse I always got when I heard weird noises. No, there's not, it's just the building settling.

Okay, Mom, I thought, but you'd think after a hundred years the building would be done settling by now. For the next five minutes, she kept looking over at me where I was standing, and nervously staring upwards at the ceiling. She said, do you want to go up and check with me? I nodded, and we went upstairs. The footsteps stopped, and there was no one there. For a while, my brother and I thought the ghosts were messing with our TV in our bedroom

since it was muted every morning, even though the sound was on when we went to bed. But that was less about ghosts and more about my parents being big. kids. They used to sneak into our bedroom at night, mute the TV, and then play Mario Brothers on the original Nintendo. That building, it still gives me shivers when I think about it. The entrance to the apartment from the street was an indoor staircase. It was very outdated, and was an ugly pea-green color. And to this day, 30 years later, I still have nightmares where I'm in a different building, but there's an ugly pea-green staircase.

And I'm terrified of this staircase in my dreams. I know that it's covered in ghosts, and for some reasons I have to go up it. So I associate green staircases with terror all these years later. This was something that happened quite some time ago, but I think it was about 2003 or 2004, back when all those random online chat rooms were really popular. During my junior year, I was looking for some part-time work that I could maybe do remotely.

I didn't have a car at the time and was working part-time at a fast food place near my home, so I could just walk there. But I wanted to make some more money so I could save up and get my own car. I started looking in the best and worst place possible, which was Craigslist. I found an ad asking for help on a chatroom-style site. They needed help with moderators to watch the chat, making sure that it stayed appropriate and the such.

After looking over the site, it appeared to be made for children. It was very bright and colorful in the About Us section explained how it was supposed to be a place that kids can go to talk to other kids their age, to get help with homework and just to have fun. They had small games in different rooms that you could play based on that subject, or you could just use the chat room feature. I didn't get to actually see much of the site beyond the About Us, because you had to sign up with, quote, parental consent.

It had a whole section you had to fill out for your child, and then your contact information, which I thought was pretty cool. Parents had to be in the loop about what they were doing on here, and that made me feel good about the site and the people behind it. Of course, I know there's always the possibility that people lie, but we'll get into that a little later. Anyways, I contacted them about the position, and they were quick to bring me on.

They needed someone to monitor during the evenings and nights, and that worked out perfectly for me. They sent me my login credentials, which I had to activate, and then I accessed the actual site using an admin code. Once I was in there, I realized that this was actually a pretty nice setup.

It was directed for kids between the ages of 6 and 12. There were a few different worlds there, such as Science Land, Art Studio, and Math Mountain. Each one was dedicated to their own subjects, and there were, as it was explained to me, two to three licensed tutors in there helping the kids. Then we had our normal mods, such as myself, that would keep an eye on the chats.

To be honest, it was an easy job. The pay wasn't great, but I could literally do it from my room while I did my own homework, so I couldn't complain. Plus, I loved working with kids and helping others learn, so it really was a win-win for me. Another safety measure I saw was that there was no private messaging between users, so kids couldn't do direct messaging. The mods and tutors had their own chat and could DM each other, including the users in kids' accounts, but it was supposed to be used for automated messages,

such as telling a kid not to do something, giving them a warning for behavior type of deal. Otherwise, everything else just stayed in the public chats. So the place seemed pretty safe, considering what we were dealing with, and the mods and tutors all seemed to get along and work together effortlessly. They immediately welcomed me to the team, and it just felt like a good place to be. The first few months went about how you would expect them to, kids asking for homework help and complaining about said subject,

sharing nonsensical jokes and posting drawings of their pets. Typical wholesome kid stuff. The biggest issues I dealt with in that time were a kid or two trying to share their real name, and one fight that I had to break up and send out warnings for arguing, about which Pokemon was the strongest. Like I said, not that hard of a job. I also worked later, so the site was pretty dead after 10 p.m. There were maybe a handful of kids online at that time,

maybe some up later on the weekend or some international users, which we also did get. But one of those nights, I started noticing a moderator that was there just about every evening. It may not seem odd at first, seeing how I did it just about every night too, but even I took some nights off. But when I would come back, I would see him online with the counter of active hours. They had this counter to also limit kids and make sure they weren't on for several hours at a time, forcing them to take breaks, too. His name was Mr. Helper, and he seemed to stick around the art studio. It wasn't really my place to say anything, so I just shrugged it off, as maybe this was their only job, and they were trying to get as much as they could.

Maybe the mods would limit his hours eventually. So I found myself in the same chats as him on occasion, and would see some of the conversations he had. At first they seemed supportive and helpful, complimenting the kids in their artwork and offering helpful suggestions. But then he started prying a little more than I liked. I saw him ask a few times if they were a boy or a girl by phrasing his comment as, You're a pretty creative girl slash boy.

And they were kids, so they were quick to correct him if he got it wrong. He did similar things when it came to asking their age and where they lived. I knew this was not okay. as we prohibited kids from even asking each other that. So I sent a DM to Mr. Helper telling him to stop with the personal questions because it wasn't appropriate. He was quick to apologize and claimed he didn't realize how it looked and agreed to stop asking, thanking me for pointing it out. I told him no problem thinking that was it, just someone trying to be friendly and relatable for the kids.

For a few days, his chat behavior seemed to be. aimed to improve too. Nothing weird or prying. Back to just talking about the subject matters and questions about work. I felt good that it really was just an innocent mistake, but then I went through the automated reports from our flagging system. We get a log for the previous day that has words and phrases that flag our system, such as inappropriate words, sensitive information, such as names, states, or even apparent street. names. It flags them all and we get a report of it to review it to see if any warnings or

kicks need to be made. The thing is, I typically didn't work until one or two in the morning, so I never saw it. But it was a Saturday night, and I had nothing better to do. So I decided to get some easy hours and work late that night. The report came in a little after 1 a.m., and since no one else had said they would grab it, I decided to do something. so. I started going over the logs when I came across a lot of flags in a single conversation, and that was a private conversation between one of the kids and this Mr. Helper. He'd been using his mod privileges to send DMs asking for personal information. He was asking their names, where they lived under the guise of sending them art supplies. I was livid. Even if it was

innocent, which I was no longer thinking, he knew damn well. that this was wrong. I reported it to one of the admins there immediately, and thankfully they agreed that that wasn't allowed. And with my previous warning, he needed to go. They sent a message telling him this, informed all of us in the mod chat that he was kicked and fired, and that was that. I was proud.

I reviewed it, caught what he was doing, and they actually took actions. But the good feelings didn't last long. Two days after he was kicked, a new user account came in. Keep in mind, this is a user account, as in it's supposed to be a child. Their name was study buddy, and at first they didn't say much beyond the normal greetings and asking someone to work in a specific room with them. But shortly after this new person would start asking more personal questions. They would say, I'm Tommy, what's your name?

And one of us would stop them informing them that we don't share that kind of information. They would stop and then go right back into it. This went on for some time where they would stop and then start again and they clearly were not getting it. So eventually they would get kicked too. I caught on pretty quickly. It was awfully convenient that we got rid of Mr. Helper, and now we get new users trying to do the same thing. I had no way to prove it, but I was pretty confident that it was the same guy. I just kept reporting them and got them kicked one after another like some weird game of whackamol.

Finally, it seemed to stop, so I could let up some. And then we got a new mod that, to be honest, seemed like they tried too hard. I thought maybe that was just me being an ass as a teenager, but they quickly solidified it for me. Their name was cool teacher, and immediately they were joking around and getting the kids all excited. Normally this would be fine, but he would get them going on random topics, and they would get way too animated about it. Spamming emojis, all caps, the works. So we would have to bring them all back down. So really, this guy just seemed like he was trying to get the kids to like him more, which was weird. This person was an adult, or at least 16 or older, trying to get the approval of the

kids, which to me never ends well, so I was already watching this guy closer. It wasn't long after he started, maybe two weeks or so, and I found myself once again going through the flagged reports. I was still getting weird vibes from the guy, so I wanted to check his messages. And would you look at that? His messages were flagged multiple times. This time, it was a bit more alarming. He had asked two girls in one day for their names and addresses, doing the exact same thing. I couldn't prove it was the first guy, Mr. Helper,

but with the messages being almost identical, it was pretty obvious. I was livid. How could he seriously be trying it again, knowing this was how we caught him the first time? And why the hell was I the only one seeming to bring this up? The first girl that he talked to didn't give her address, saying that she didn't know it. So he was prying and asking what state and what was the name of her school.

The other girl did give a partial address. The other mods should have caught this prior to me. I know there wasn't much in terms of a background check or anything. They did ask me if I was a convicted felon and for PayPal details for the payment and that was it. This was quite some time ago, but I can admit that there definitely should have been better checks. So it was possible this guy just applied and gave new payment information. So I once again reported this and told them that we probably needed to report it to the

authorities because of the information the kids shared, and they seemed disinterested. They once again kicked the guy but never mentioned that they would do anything further. Hell, I was still considered a kid myself, still in high school, and I had young siblings. I would think any parent would want to know, so I still had the flags downloaded, and not knowing how to really report it, I told my parents about it. They knew that I was a mod for the site, but they didn't really know much else. I should have told them more, but I don't blame them at all. They said I was doing the right thing, but also requested that I quit helping,

explaining how it could look bad. I agreed. I stopped working with them after that night, and we looked up the local police. stations in the area of those little girls, and reported to them the potential predators. I don't know what happened after that, though. I pray that those girls lived outside of that guy's area so he didn't try anything. Or, if he did, hopefully the police were scanning the area and caught the guy before he could. I know I checked out the site a few years later, and had actually been shut down. It just sat there with a page about, that.

Thanks for learning with us, and that was it. No indication that it was moved elsewhere, and I think that's for the best. A site like that could be beneficial for kids that need help with schoolwork, but it definitely needs a lot more moderation and definitely some background checks. And private messaging should not be allowed whatsoever. But as a parent myself now, and seeing all that as a kid, it's made me restrict them from a lot of things. I may not be able to control others out there,

but I can do my best to keep my kids within arm's reach and safe. Hello, Raven. I hope you're doing well. I'm doing pretty well. I have and always have been appreciative of your narrations. You've always kept me from boredom of menial daily life. Thank you. I'm happy to help. I've submitted a few stories to you before,

and recently when listening to one of the stories, you narrated about a guy helping a woman on the train, it reminded me of the time when I was in my early 20s. For background, I'm from Vietnam, and after I graduated high school, I decided to take a few years off working and trying to figure out what I wanted to do in life. I lived in Hanway, and this decision was definitely uncommon. At the time, I was working at a bar, so they usually finish very late. around two or three in the morning. And, of course, Vietnam is a country with rich culture about ghosts in the afterlife. They consider around 2 to 3 a.m. to be the ghost hour,

when the gates of hell opened and the ghosts can roam free. We also have a saying, and I'm so sorry if I butcher this, Didem Lam Kong Gagapma, which loosely translates to going out at night frequently, you will eventually meet a ghost. This idiom could also mean that if you do something bad for a long time, you'll eventually get caught. So, anyway, one day I finished off my work as usual at 3 a.m.

I was heading home on my motorbike, usually I'll take a straight route back home, but on that day I decided to go the long way, which passes through a temple in an area with history where the war happened there a long time ago. The street was dimmed on that day, for some unknown reason. As I approached the temple, I saw a woman figure wearing a long white dress sitting on the pavement. Her black, thick hair was covering her face, and she seemed to be crying.

I heard that ghosts usually linger outside of the temple, as they're looking for salvation from Buddha. So, 20-year-old me was freaking out, and thought that I was seeing a real ghost with my own eyes. I was shaking but trying to keep it cool. I decided to just drive past her real fast. After a while, part of me was thinking that, what if that was a real person and she needed help? Maybe I should help. But could it also be a trick of someone trying to rob me?

A few seconds of thinking it through had gone by and I decided to turn back and see if the person did need any help. I didn't have any money on me. The only valuable thing on me at the time was my dad's old motorbike and my phones, so not much to lose. I drove slowly trying to look around to see if there could be anyone hiding around that spot. After making sure there was no one else, I slowly approached her with my adrenaline rising to the moon. And it turns out that she'd actually been beaten by her boyfriend, who left her there on the side of the street, in the middle of the night.

She was very frantic, and asking me to help her. I was still skeptic about this being a scam or not, but I decided to take her on my motorbike. I asked her if she wanted to go home, and that I could take her maybe to the police station, but she was crying and begging me to take her somewhere else, since she was worried her boyfriend could be going back looking for her at her house,

so he could beat her again. She was also afraid to make trouble for her boyfriend if she went to the police. I couldn't take her to a hotel since it could create some misunderstandings, and with nowhere to go, I decided to find a 24-7 convenience store. Luckily, there was one nearby. When I got there, the staff were looking at me with worried eyes. I heard some of them calling me a pervert for some reason. After we sat down on the corner, I bought her some water and she started telling me her story.

Her boyfriend was the jealous, abusive type of guy. They were on their way back after a night of celebrating her birthday, and during that time she received some birthday wishes on her phone from one of her male co-workers. Her boyfriend got jealous, and he started making a fuss and wanting to go home. On the way back, they got into a fight, And that is when she got kicked off onto the street. She was a bit drunk, too. I could smell a very strong alcohol smell on her.

I did ask her about her family or if she lived with anyone. It turned out that she had moved to Hanwa a few years ago by herself, so she was living alone. After a bit of exchange, I told her that I would sit with her until she sobered up to make sure she was safe. She then started to knot off with her head on the table. Around 6 a.m., the street outside started to get more and more people on it. She said that she felt better and would be fine.

She told me that she could go home by herself since her house wasn't too far away. I was still worried about her, but my fatigue after a long day finally caught up to me. We did exchange contact information, and I went home right after that to rest. I texted her once after a few days to make sure she was all right, but after that, I never saw her again. I do hope that she is still doing okay today. This is a true story, and by the way, I love your channel as I go to sleep to your videos every night. Thank you so very much, Mike. For those unfamiliar on the Virginia-slash-West Virginia border, there are two tunnels.

They're roughly 30 minutes apart, and you drive through them when traveling north-south on I-77. In 2010, a friend and I were on our way back to Kentucky from Florida, and something very strange happened. We passed through both tunnels without incident, and we stopped at a convenience store that is off of the exit. Immediately, after you go through the second tunnel. It's literally right off the highway, and you can see it from the exit. the road. When getting back on the highway from the convenience store, it's an extremely short trip, and you'd have to be pretty stupid to get lost or turned around. Anyway, we leave the store and get back on I-77 North. I don't remember the exact time, but it was around 6 to 7 a.m. So, we drove for about

30 minutes, and we approach a tunnel. Now, there are only two tunnels there, and we had just gone through the second one. We knew this, but still we both began second-guessing ourselves. Maybe we didn't go through both tunnels and we were both mistaken or hallucinating. We started talking about it and wondering what had just happened, but we were open to the idea that we possibly just weren't paying attention and truly had gone through both tunnels. So this conversation went on for about 30 minutes, and it ended as both of our jaws hit the floor. We were approaching yet another tunnel, meaning that we were just now going through the second tunnel,

which we had already done an hour earlier. So how and why did we go through both tunnels again? The only way it could happen would be if we had turned around at the convenience store and gone the wrong direction. But if that was the case, then we would have gone back through the two tunnels. immediately, and there's no way that we wouldn't have noticed that. We would have turned around ASAP, but we never got lost or turned around.

We went through the two tunnels, stopped at the convenience store, got back on the highway going the same direction we had been going, and went through both tunnels again. It's like something picked up our vehicle and sat us back down 50 to 100 miles back. There was no lost time or any other anomaly, however. Also, we had gotten snacks and drinks at the convenience store, and we still had them as we approached the first tunnel for the second time, proving that we had already been through there. This has driven us crazy for the last 15 years, and we still have no clue what happened. We know that nobody else can tell us either, so we're resigned to the fact that we'll just never know.

First thought was an alien abduction. Lots of common denominators there, but usually there is lost time in those cases. Or people won't remember how they ended up somewhere. And as I said, we lost no time. We were both conscious and aware for the duration. Nothing about it makes sense. I know that nobody can explain it, but I'm curious if anything like this has happened to anyone else. especially if it or something else odd happened at those tunnels.

Hi, Raven. I'm a fan of your glitch stories, but I have this one that may be appropriate in paranormal or just scary stories. At the time of this event, I was about 19 or 20 in living in London. During World War II, London was devastated by German bombings, and after the war it took quite a few years to remove the rubble and debris of one of our neighborhood's Eventually, in the 1960s, my father bought a brand new house on one of these vacant lots. I think there were about ten new homes built where the old houses once stood. I do believe many people lost their lives on that street.

This could be relevant to the story. Anyway, growing up in that house was pretty normal for a while, but then on the odd occasion we had lights mysteriously turning themselves off by the wall switch. I once felt someone sitting on the edge of my bed. I felt the weight, but nobody was there. Another time, I saw a strange blue football-sized shimmering orb floating across the floor and disappearing under my bed. The most unnerving event, though, was yet to come.

I was out with friends one night. It was around Christmas time, a very cold night. I arrived home at 11 p.m. or midnight, and my bed. parents and three sisters were all in bed upstairs. I crept in, so as to not make any noise, but I don't think they had been in bed long and all the lights were off. I decided I wanted a snack and drink before bed, so I walked into the kitchen and turned on the light, and then I saw 20 to 25 large black flies on the wall and curtains. These flies were about the size of my thumbnail, very big.

I had never seen flies this large. They were not moving, and it looked like they were either dead or just still. I took a rolled-up newspaper, but thought not to approach them. I had no idea where they had come from, as the house windows were all closed, and when did they arrive? as they could not have been there long as my parents would have seen them before bed. I thought of calling my dad, but I didn't want to scare anyone, so I went upstairs to bed thinking these flies would leave to wherever they came from. In the morning, I went back downstairs,

and my mother was in the kitchen with no flies anywhere. Nobody mentioned any flies on the wall, and I didn't say anything. I didn't want to scare anyone, but I felt very weirded out by this. Where did they come from and where did they go? I've never told anyone about this until now, and I will never forget this. Hey, Raven, I'm an OG with your channel as I started listening in 2021. That's pretty much the life of the channel.

Trigger warning, some sensitive topics. Before I start, I know that this story sounds extremely unbelievable and incredible. but I assure you that it isn't. I was 15 to 16 when this story happened, so understand that I was very desperate and an insecure teenager, and this was also around the time where witch talk was viral. And I had been seeing love spells being casted on people by these influencer witches, moreover, seeing models everywhere on social media. It all started when I posted something on Reddit, writing about something.

Something along the lines of wanting a boyfriend through a love spell. And then another post about looking for recommendations of a good modeling agency. These posts were seen by someone with the name Cherry. You can replace this name if you want to, but I'll say it because they deserve to be known as a horrible person, even if it's a fake name. I'll leave it for that exact reason. So they DM'd me on Reddit, and then we had a conversation, and eventually they said that they could. could be of help on casting a love spell and for me being a model. So me, being a desperate and insecure 15-year-old teenager,

I would do just about anything at this point. So they asked me to send them nudes to see if I was a fit to be a model, and I did so. And whenever they would help me cast a spell, it always had to involve me doing bizarre acts while naked. I thought these were normal, but I also felt extremely uncomfortable, but I had no choice. I had to do them, given my desperation and hopelessness.

This went on for months until they told me to get my friends' videos, nudes, or else they would post my videos, and then threatened that I wouldn't become a model or have a love life. And my stupid self did so by telling my friend that my aunt was opening a new clothing line and needed volunteers. That way they would send videos of themselves. I was too naive to realize that I was being set up, manipulated and used by this cherry person for their pleasure,

for a promise that never even came true. I realized that this person was a scammer and not a real witch or modeling hiring agent. When I searched up their username and saw a post about them scamming other people asking for nudes. And I'm now currently reporting it all to the police. This experience was very traumatic for me because I was just a young, impressionable teenager, willing to do anything for my wishes,

and they just used me for their advantage, asking me to do unspeakable acts in front of a camera for their own pleasure, thinking it was for my benefit. Who knows what they did to those photos or videos? You can only hope for the best, and I hope that God punishes them. Given the fact that the Internet is still really, relatively young in the grand scheme of things in this world,

I think we can look at its documented and known history and be in awe of the sheer number of crimes that have taken place on the internet. Internet-based black markets where you can literally purchase anything, check out my last dark web video for some context, but it's not always something as straightforward as illegal purchases or people looking for victims. No, sometimes it's the internet itself, that's coming after you.

And I'm not talking about digital armies of keyboard warriors sucking down Red Bull in their basement, leaving incendiary posts meant to do nothing less than piss you off on the most fundamental level, as if the coding, the very essence of the internet, is attacking you personally. I am, of course, talking about computer viruses. And unlike in nature, we're all plants and animals, including humans, are prone to spontaneous infections that our body will fight off naturally. In cyberspace, every single existing virus has been hand-crafted, or hand-programmed, maybe, to do nothing but spread malice across the World Wide Web.

They steal your information, they turn entire server rooms into smoldering slag, usually all because you clicked on the wrong link or downloaded the wrong file, or visited one sketchy website too many. But sometimes, it requires even less of a mistake on the user's part. As the world learned, no uncertain terms back in March of 1999, with the spread of the Melissa virus. W97m.melissa.a. On March 26, 1999, the virus made itself known to the world when it began spreading like an absolute digital wildfire.

It quickly became one of the fastest spreading viruses ever, and one of the costliest outbreaks in the history of the digital realm. The virus was spreading using a combination of Microsoft Word documents and Outlook. Open the email which came from a person you knew, whose email address you knew to be authentic, click on the attachment, and you're infected. From there, the virus would scan the first 50 names in the Outlook Global Address book and send itself to those 50 names.

Once it infected another computer, it would do the same thing, replicating itself millions of times and constantly being sent en masse to other computers, other unsuspecting victims. Now, I'm sure there are no small numbers of listeners here that find the idea of clicking on an attachment in an email to, well, just be silly. But there are a few factors here that I want to remind everyone of, Back in 1999, the internet had been widely accessible to the layman public for less than a decade.

There wasn't a whole lot of common knowledge about things like internet worms and computer viruses. Plus, most of these infectious emails were coming from people you knew, people in your address book. So in 1999, most people had very little reason to be suspicious of these emails. although that common paranoia around unknown emails and such really are kind of the result of this incident. Always remember that on Monday morning everyone is the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. Now, I'm sure everyone here is curious about just where this virus originated from. What was the point of the first infection? Well, I'm sure it'll come as zero surprise to absolutely anyone, that as with all,

good internet stories, this one begins with a porn website. Yes, just as the brothels and other dens depravity are often the ground zero for public health crises. Such are their digital doppelgangers. The adult content sites often ground zero for internet virus outbreaks. From one content site, it spread to another, and then again to no one's surprise, it found its way into a corporate email server and then it just went gangbusters. The Outlook mail system was bogged down to a crawl by the countless numbers of emails being generated and sent on a near constant basis. Microsoft and Intel Corporation were both hit hard by the virus, as was the computer systems

of the United States Marine Corps. Reports came in from over 250 organizations, with reports that over 100,000 computers were infected with this virus. although it is suspected that the number was considerably higher. Over a million email accounts were hijacked by the virus, and it took days to contain the infection, and much, much longer to remove the virus fully from the infected networks. During the following investigation into the outbreak, of the so-called Melissa virus,

which was referenced to a fictional stripper, the unique method of delivery was actually the very thing that allowed authorities to trace the origins of the virus back to the very man who had written it. The suspect went by the alias Quigibo, this being a reference, of course, to the episode of the Simpsons called Bart the Genius from season one, and another reference to this was also written into the virus itself. Not only did the virus spread itself the second someone clicked on the document attached, but when the minutes of the day matched the date of the virus, it would send out a second round of infectious emails with the attached message.

22 points plus triple word score plus 50 points for using all my tiles, I'm out of here, man. Again, a direct reference to Simpson's Season 1 episode 2, Bart the Genius. How it all began was when Quigibow used a hacked AOL account to upload a packet to an adult news group called Alt-Sex. And it was from here that the virus would spread on. across the world. Headway and the location and identification of Quigibo was made when authorities analyzed the infected war documents and compared their unique global identifier numbers to other documents with the same identifier.

Ultimately, the trail led them back to one David L. Smith, the macrovirus writer for Vicodoness and Alt-F-11. On April 1st of 1999, police in New Jersey arrested Smith after a tip-off from AOL, and in a collaborative effort between New Jersey State Police and the FBI, among others. He stood accused of causing over $80 million in damages by disrupting personal computers and computer networks of businesses and government agencies. Before the end of the millennium on December 10th, Smith would plead guilty to second-degree charge of computer theft

and a federal charge of damaging a computer program by releasing a virus. His total sentence was 20 months in prison and a fine of $5,000. Kind of a light charge for causing so much damage, but I guess at the end of the day, at least he faced some kind of justice for unleashing what, at the time, was the most virulent and fast-spreading internet worm in internet history. So one day I was at my great-grandparents' house in Texas. We stayed there occasionally when my grandparents were at work. They had a huge house with a pool out back that we used to love to go swimming in.

My great-grandma asked me and my sister if we wanted to go swimming, so my dumb child ass screamed, Yay, swimming. I ran out back and jumped in the pool fully clothed. No idea why I did that. It was almost as if I had no control of what my body was doing. Well, I didn't know how to swim, and I needed floaties. I splashed into the water and saw bubbles in front of my face.

I was in a weird state and very confused. I remember asking myself, why did I just do that? I looked up to see Grandpa standing over me. Shortly after that, everything went black, and when I woke up, I was on their couch with dry clothes on. My throat was sore and I felt like I had been run over by a truck. Apparently I was out for a few hours. It took me a while of looking around to find anyone in the house. The whole time after I woke up, it felt like a dream.

When I finally found my great-grandmother, I asked what happened and she wouldn't tell me. I guess they didn't want to tell me that I almost died. And to this day, I have no idea what actually happened. years later, I asked my sister about it, who was the only one there who was still alive, and she said that she didn't remember me passing out, or much else about the event. I could have sworn that I did. I remember that part very clearly, but I guess I'll never know what actually happened that day. Dear Raven, I enjoy listening to your videos, even when some of the stories freak me out,

so for your consideration. This happened to me during the spring of my senior year of high school, so more than 20 years ago. My friend's family allowed her to have an early graduation party in the evening. They organized a bonfire and a hayride. A group of us got on the ride and off we went. The atmosphere was jovial and I wouldn't say anything about it was creepy. A while into the ride I noticed a man. man in the distance. He was completely shadowed. What I mean to say is that he appeared pitch black.

I could make out certain features, though. It was the most bizarre person that I have ever seen, and I still don't understand how my brain picked him up against the background, because it was quite dark. But the fact that he was basically a shadow could be why. He was muscular, and his hair was styled in a similar fashion to how a Native American warrior might style his hair, though I know that there were different tribes with different styles. But his hair was long and partly shaved on one side. I don't know how I picked up these features in this shadow person, but I did. Perhaps it was all my brain filling in the details.

This man, and I call him that because whatever he was, he was certainly masculine, and was crawling on the ground and digging for something. I pointed him out to the girl sitting next to me, and she said, Hello, Mr. Ghost Man. But she said it quietly, and there was no way that he could have hurt her because we were too far away.

And yet, I think he did, because at that moment, he got up from the ground, stood there, and there was an axe in his left hand, and looked at us. He had no face. I don't remember what happened next.

It's like it's blocked from my brain somehow. The cart turned back toward the party, and I never spoke to anyone about this. The girl and I never talked about it either, even after we got back to the party. By the way, no one else in the cart noticed him, just us too. Maybe it was a prank organized by the Hayride Company? I've always wondered. Hello, Raven. I listened to your story.

stories every day, you're awesome. Well, thank you very much. Here's my story. This happened around 2014. My husband and I were going through a rough time, let's call him Jake. We got married in 2004. It seems the second ring goes on and the honeymoon was over is when it began. Jake would start assuming and accusing me of cheating or talking to another man.

The morning of 2015, at 3 a.m. I'm being yanked up out of bed from the dead of sleep, and this man that I truly love was ripping me out of bed, screaming in my face, you effing B, you're an effing C word, nothing but a thief and a liar. You took money for my account. Well, remember, I was dead asleep, and my brain was like, what the hell? This is when I discovered my inner demon. I'll just call her Jake said that he saw my eyes turn black, and the ear in the bedroom turned cold. I headbuttered him right in the nose. Jake, all the sudden, dropped.

I started crying and felt lost. That same night, I saw a woman on Jake's profile, and I asked her how she knew my husband. After I asked, he suddenly burst the door and told me to leave her alone. Her name was Melissa Hedle. She's Jake's ex-girlfriend back in his high school day. Well, all this time, he's kicked my back end for stuff that he's doing. That night, I grabbed my grandpa's 22 pistol. I ran outside and I put the gun to my head.

As I closed my eyes and slowly pulled the trigger, my whole life flashed. I could see me setting in my parents' backyard, playing with my Shira, Princess of Power Dolls, and castles. I saw me riding my horse. I was happy and laughing when I hear click. I could see that I pulled the trigger and it clicked, but didn't go boom. I opened my eyes and I dropped the gun and I saw my grandpa standing there with a man. This man that he was standing with was absolutely breathtaking. It's hard to describe him.

I see my grandpa and this man both had tears in their eyes and then they both disappeared. I turned myself into a mental hospital, and now still to this day, me and my husband are married. We both got help and found out that he's diabetic, but didn't know at the time, and his sugar was very high, and he didn't know that high sugar could cause mental issues. But the guy that my grandpa was standing with, I still don't know who it was, and I've never seen that man again. My grandpa died in 91, and the gun is locked up. My husband kept the bullet that jammed the gun. I told him to just lock them both up.

Sorry this was long, I just needed to get this out of my thoughts. And to anyone who's thinking about ending their own life, please get help. Don't do something permanent for a temporary situation. You're not alone. Trust me, you have family and friends that deeply love you, and I love you all. Hey, Raven, when I was eight back in 1988, We went to a Fourth of July little fair, and my dad, bless his heart,

let me ride the Himalaya by myself. I lied to him and told him that I was able to ride it by myself, that my mom let me, and I was fine. They were divorced and I was visiting for summer break. So I get on, in a seat by myself, and the ride starts moving. So I grabbed the bar that's crossed about a foot away from my chest. The bars were painted black and were too hot to hold on to. So there, I go flying through the air.

I actually hit a wall and, in a cartoonish style, slid down on a heap of blood and fear of having to get stitches is all I remember. So, yeah, you asked for your listeners' ideas for stories, so I would like to hear scary fair stories at some point. Thanks so much, and if you end up using this one, go for it. and have a great day. 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 it. everything. So any support 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 side 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, my 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.