As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 226 - 10 True Scary Stories (Creepy Neighbors, Cult Stories & Pranks Gone Wrong)

Episode Date: May 24, 2026

Today, on the 226th 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 creepy Cult Stories, Creepy Neighbor stories and stories where Pranks ended with disturbing consequences. Today's episode was partially written by Tom K, Find his other works here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DBVX81W7 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 on 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... Brandon, Tom K, JustJoshinAround, Cloverfield, Always Recovering, JustForKicks87, LTP+AMP As Well As Any Author That Has Requested Anonymity. TimeStamps… Ad breaks after Story 1 & Story 4 1 ➤ 1:36 2 ➤ 9:31 3 ➤ 21:35 4 ➤ 31:32 5 ➤ 44:07 6 ➤ 52:32 7 ➤ 1:02:04 8 ➤ 1:06:14 9 ➤ 1:16:18 10 ➤ 1:25:29 ----- 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. Note: The podcast nor the host endorses any advertisements played during the podcast, ads are not chosen by ATRD or Raven Adams, they are chosen automatically by the advertisement systems by the platforms that host the podcast. I do not endorse, support, or promote any opinions or statements made in any adverts played during the show. #ScaryStories #UnexplainedMysteries #TrueStories Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello there, friends. Hope you are doing spectacular on this Sunday the 24th of May. Today, we have some pretty scary and interesting stories for you all to enjoy. We have some creepy neighbor stories, some pranks gone wrong stories, and some creepy cult-related stories. Hopefully those are stories that you enjoy. I guess I should do some sort of promotion of something in the intro here. So just as a reminder, if you guys care, on Saturday nights, I do live stream over on YouTube at 6 p.m. Central. It's most Saturdays, I will say. Not every, sometimes the week just doesn't work out. Saturdays are bad, whatever. But most, I would say most Saturdays.

I've successfully done it every Saturday this month, so. If you're free on a Saturday night, around 6 p.m. Central, comment over to the YouTube side. Just go to YouTube, search as the Raven Dreams, same channel. and come on over and say hi in the live streams. I also stream some Fridays, so really I recommend just subscribing to the YouTube channel if you're over there, because I stream randomly on Fridays too.

As a matter of fact, the 22nd, we did Bingo Night. That's right. We played bingo with the audience. And people want hoodies for bingo night. Just come over and say hi if you want. It's a good time, I promise. Anyways, enjoy the scary stories. much love, and I'll see you next time.

I lived in this small Oklahoma neighborhood for about six years. I had a decent little house, nothing too crazy, because it was just me. My girlfriend stayed over most weekends and randomly throughout the week. The neighborhood was pretty quiet, and most people kept to themselves. I knew a few of my close neighbors, like the older woman that lived Caddy Corner from me, and there was an older couple across from me that had three small Pomeranian-looking dogs. My neighbors to the left were a middle-aged couple, close to my age, actually, that had just had a kid. And the neighbor to the right was a rental that had about four or five people living there.

It was a couple, I think her mom lived with them, and then there were two other people, that I saw coming and going a lot. They weren't as talkative, but they were still chill, and didn't really cause any problems. Now, the owner of that place was getting up there in age, and decided that he didn't want to do the whole rental thing anymore, so he sold it. The people living there moved out,

and I saw the old man walking around with some people, and he often chatted me up. He was telling me how he was redoing a lot of the inside, and boy, did he. I almost wished I could have swapped houses. He tore out all the carpet, put in nice hardwood floors, replaced all the windows, and completely renovated the kitchen and bathroom. It looked spectacular, so I wasn't surprised when the place sold near instantly.

The new owner was another guy, like myself, and it looked like it was just him. I never saw anyone with him. I waved at him a few times, and when he was trying to drag a mattress in on his own, I offered to help. and he seemed pretty happy with the assistance. We introduced ourselves, his name was Mike, and he mentioned how he had just moved to the city to be closer to his place of work. Definitely didn't give off any weird vibes or anything of that sort.

But then I started hearing the hammering. It was probably about a month or so with him moving in completely. I was mowing the front yard and when I would stop, I could hear the sounds of drilling and hammering. Mike had his garage door open, and I could see him out there cutting up boards and hammering some pieces together. My first thought was maybe he worked with wood.

Maybe it was some kind of project he was doing because the house being fully redone. I couldn't imagine he was doing any sort of DIY. Ultimately, it wasn't my business, so I just let it go. But then it kept happening. I could hear him hammering daily. After work he would be in there and I saw him bring in more wood. But the wood was always different sizes.

It's not like they were all uniform or even the same type, which is why it was odd to me. But again, I brushed it off. Not my business. But after a few days of this, my curiosity finally won. My girlfriend had just left and I was still sitting outside when I saw Mike pull up and start pulling more boards out from his chest. truck. I figured I could be nosy while pulling off the helpful neighbor disguise, and I walked over

offering to help him carry in the boards. He looked incredibly tired. He had dark circles under his eyes, but he gave me a genuine smile and said thanks. I started grabbing the pieces, which is where I realized the pieces weren't even treated, so it made me even more curious about what he was doing. I asked him if he was doing some kind of DIY project, trying to sound casual. And I remember him shrugging and saying, well, something like that. He shrugged towards the door of the house. He had an attached garage and offered to show me. So I agreed and followed him inside.

I could see the kitchen and living room and notice that there were still a lot of boxes around, which I did find kind of odd. Personally, I know I would focus more on unpacking before working on something extra, but to each their own. Then, we headed to the basement. The basement was just as new and fully redone. The drywall was new with recessed lighting, but in the far corner behind the furnace, I could see what he was working on. He had a framed out section of the wall where a small, heavy wooden door sat. It looked like an old shoot or maybe an access hatch for the plumbing.

But it's not like Mike was fixing it. He had nailed four thick and uneven boards horizontally across the door. As we set the wood down, I saw a small plastic container filled with random loose nails and two different hammers. I asked him what he was trying to do because, to me, it looked like he was just covering up the door. Now, Mike wasn't acting manic or scared. He stood there, just smiling. Like, we were just admiring something that he made, and he nodded. Then he explained in a completely normal, upbeat tone,

it wouldn't stay shut from the other side. It's the weirdest thing. I'd close it, and a few minutes later I could hear it just flapping around. As he mentioned this, all I could think about is that, door. It was just a door to what I can only describe as a crawl space. Granted, I never saw blueprints or got to do a full walk through of the house, but based on the location we were at and considering we were in the basement, it had to be just dirt and foundation. Maybe a little concrete? Not knowing how to respond to this, I just remember

nodding and saying something like, oh, cool, all right then. And that was it. it. He led me back out front and shook my hand, thanking me for helping him, and I walked back over to my house. As I walked back inside, I looked at the basement window and thought back to what he said. The basement wasn't any cooler than the rest of the house. I didn't feel like there was a draft, nor did he mention wind blowing it open. He specifically said it wouldn't stay shut from the other side. But there's no way that a door was opening on its own from the other side. So, what the hell did he mean by that?

And why was his solution using wood planks to board up the door? Was I just overthinking the whole thing? I heard him hammering more that night and the next, and then after that, radio silence. I didn't see him again for about a week, and then afterwards he seemed like a pretty normal neighbor. And by that, I mean, he just kept to himself. When your only real first and last interaction with your neighbor is like that, where does one go from there? Because I've just left it alone, not wanting to think about that door,

or what was on the other side that could have been opening it. I don't talk about this often for reasons that you will all soon understand. But there were moments in my life that it gets brought up. Something happens or gets said that reminds me, and sometimes I just have to work through it. I do my best to live my life without making it a part of me, because sometimes people like the morbid details not realizing how it really affects me. but I decided that it was time to share my story again as part of my way of continually healing and moving past it.

I was born in a cult. That is the part that some people struggle to understand. I never had a before. There was no moment where I chose to join. No one who lured me in with false promises. That was for my parents. The Colt was simply the entire world, as I understood it, from the moment I opened my eyes. The community was maybe 100 or 200 people at its peak,

spread across a collection of properties outside of the U.S. So, yes, you may not have heard of this one, too, and that's how I would prefer to keep it. We were told that the outside world was a wasteland of moral decay, and the man that led us on the righteous path was a pastor, I'm going to call Eli, though I'm sure that wasn't his real name. Pastor Eli had this thick theatrical way of speaking, where every sentence was a sermon,

whether he was delivering a doctrine or just asking you to pass the salt. But the problem was that he was such a confident and smooth talker that everybody believed him. We really didn't know any different. The worst part of the whole thing for me was the doctrine around children. It was probably the most calculated cruelty of the whole operation. Eli, I still struggle with not referring to him as someone of power,

taught us that children were spiritually incomplete. We were beings worthy of only bidding until we reached adulthood, and formally proved our commitment to the community. Until then, we solely existed to serve them. There was no negotiating that, no matter who you were or how important you thought you were. What this looked like in practice, the kids did most of the work. Real labor, not chores. We were taught how to fix clothing and small appliances, the stuff that was done better with small hands.

We cooked the communal meals, we cleaned, and. everything, many of us didn't even really go to school. Those that were brought in later were convinced to take their kids out of public schools stating that they were indoctrinating them. Instead, we were taught how to cook, clean, sew, and build. The closest thing we were taught to actual school was math, fractions, the things that we would need for those skills. We weren't allowed to speak in communal spaces unless we were directly

addressed. We stayed in our own dorms, basically. Once you were able to eat and use the toilet on your own, you were kicked out of your family's quarters, because you were not worthy. If you cried or talked back, you were taken somewhere private and that was somehow worse than crying in front of everyone. There was a room in the back of the main meeting house that I experienced a few times, but I don't let myself think too hard about that room. Eli also had what adults called a corrective relationship with the children in the community. Everyone allowed it. My parents allowed it.

Encouraged it, even. I remember my mother's face when she would hand me off to him. It was almost this serene or proud expression, like she was tithing something better than any amount of cash to a church collection plate. I won't go into details about the things that we, the children went through, but if you can think of it, it probably happened. And I can never forgive my parents for it either. My father was just as bad, but in a different way.

He was a hardcore believer, possibly one of the truest in the whole compound. He wanted to become Eli in pretty much every way. I actually learned many years later that he had actually attempted to take on multiple wives the way Eli had, something Eli only permitted for himself and very few other pure believers. My father was not considered worthy enough for his sins, and he was punished. I don't know how, but part of me kind of hopes it was severe. But it all ended for me and many others when I was 11 years old. I was scrubbing out the oven, and I remember my hands were hurting so bad.

I wanted to cry, but I had learned to hold it in until I went to bed. We started hearing the adults talking outside. We climbed up on the table to look out to the tall window and we saw the lights. We saw cop cars, a few vans, and a lot of people standing around talking. Until the talking became louder and angrier. Then we could see Eli talking to the visitors. He was waving his arms around calmly and was talking softly enough that we couldn't hear what he was saying. That's when two of Eli's wives, we called them mothers, came into the kitchen and were rushing us to bed.

We explained that we weren't finished, and they ignored us and just kept trying to push us to bed. This is how bad it was for us. We weren't scared about the people outside shouting. We were scared that they were trying to push us to bed. before the kitchen was completely cleaned. We knew what would happen if someone saw that we had failed. We would be punished. But they pushed us along anyway.

One mother would make us strip out of our cleaning gear, while the other one would quickly and roughly wipe us down with a wet, cold rag, and then demand that we get into bed. We lied there, silently, wondering what was going on, but we didn't dare open our mouths to ask. It was so quiet that we could hear the mumbling voices outside. And then they got louder and closer. Lots of people were walking towards us, getting louder and louder.

The cops were yelling at others to stay back before they were arrested too. Now, in our sleeping corridors, we still didn't move. The cops walked over to our beds, flashlights in our faces, and looked at us. I remember one that crouched down in front of us. of my bunk and asked me what my name was. I gave him the name that I was given. She asked if I could walk, so I stood up, and when she realized I didn't have anything on,

she quickly wrapped my sheet around me. I remember immediately feeling like I was in trouble, because she looked me over and had such an incredibly sad look on her face. I would learn much later that it wasn't anything I did. It was how I looked. I was 11, but was incredibly malnourished at the time. I weighed somewhere around 52 pounds. And that was all of us kids.

We ate after the adults, and what we ate was the leftovers. Sometimes we had a full plate, which was a piece of meat, some rice, and a vegetable. Sometimes we were just told to throw what was left in a pot and make a stew out of it. a family member of someone in the group reported our community. They hadn't seen their family that joined us, and when they showed up unannounced, they saw things that were very alarming to them, which made them report it to the police. The problem was at first that if they were all consenting adults, then there was nothing they could really do about it.

But then they learned about the children's roles, and that's when things started to raise eyebrows. They had received multiple reports of child abuse from concerned family members, former members that left early on, and even some teachers that started noticing a difference in some of the kids that lived with us and started missing school. We were all put into foster care. A lot of parents were arrested, and most of them held their stance that they had done nothing wrong.

My parents actually had no record of my birth because I was born there, so as far as they knew, I was abandoned. My parents never bothered to claim me. Life afterwards was very hard. It was hard to break away from that life, that mindset. I remember the panic attacks that I would have in bed when I wasn't allowed to clean the kitchen or help with dinner. I remember my foster mom having to check on me in the bathroom

to make sure I was actually bathing myself and not trying to clean it. It was so hard to run around and play with the kids outside. I remember my foster brother teaching me how to go down a slide, how to ride a bike and even blow bubbles. Learning about bubbles for the first time was one of the most magical things of my childhood. I remember sobbing,

and my brother thinking that he hurt me. I can actually laugh about that now, thankfully. It wasn't until I was 18 that I received a letter from someone that I knew by the name of Daniel, another boy I had known in the community. My foster mother told me that someone had asked to send it to me, but gave me the choice to read it or ignore it. I decided to accept it. Daniel was the closest thing I had to a friend back then.

He told me about his name. life, the struggles he went through, but that he had a moment of clarity and was finally able to heal. He tried to reconnect with his parents as well, which is how I learned about my father. His parents actually disowned him, even though he didn't have a choice in leaving. After healing in therapy, he decided to reach out to the only person that he had an inkling of care about, which was me. We both seemed to be what we needed to. to complete our healing process, and finally close that door for good. I have not searched further for my family or anyone else from that group.

I know they disbanded, as they were required to by law. I don't remember all the laws that were brought into it. My foster family, the only family I have and claim, did a great job at keeping me away from it all because I was very clearly a traumatized child, and they had a lot of patience. However, I have made my peace, at least as much peace as a person can make in a situation like that. I am no one's bidding anymore,

and I never will be again. Hey, Raven, I don't really have a lot of scary things that have happened in my life, which I should be thankful for, but there is one thing that I can share with you that was a pretty scary moment for me. So, here goes. Back when I was in high school, around 2007, my friends and I, all male, were big on messing with each other and pulling pranks, just things like that. We almost got kicked out of art class because we nearly spilled an entire jug of paint screwing around. It's always in light fun. We do our best to not hurt each other or something like that.

Sometimes, not very often, but sometimes we did take it too far. First, I'll give a little context for this story. One of my friends named Josh had been dating this girl named Kayla for about a year now. I knew Kayla through some other mutual friends and had actually been crushing on one of her friends. She was actually the reason we started dating, too. I had hung out with him before at his place, and they were a very normal couple. She would be holding his arm on the couch, leaning her head on his shoulder, or just had her hand on his leg if we were playing something. Nothing really stood out.

One afternoon, I was hanging out at another friend's house, Michael. We were just chilling in his room when we got on the subject of prank phone calls. I hadn't really done many prank calls, and with the ability to text, I really wanted to mess with someone. Michael knew Josh, but they never really hung out like we did, so I know that he wouldn't have his phone number. Josh had also been in our little schemes in the past, so I knew that he would be a good sport about it, and even laugh it off once we admitted to it. So, with Michael's permission, he handed over his phone and I started the text. Hey, it's Kayla. I think we should break up. I was already snickering, thinking that I was a genius.

Then we got a response from Josh pretty quickly asking what happened and why I was texting him from a different number. I responded back that my phone had broke, so I had to get a new one, but then said that I was serious and to never talk to me again. As expected, he tried calling. We answered and were going to reveal ourselves, but then we almost started laughing, so we hung up immediately. He tried calling two more times, but we just ignored them, and that's when it stopped being so funny. First, he asked for an explanation, accused her of cheating,

and then said some pretty unsavory things that, to be honest, I did not expect him to say. I thought it was pretty harsh, but was happy that it was us versus Kayla seeing them. After those came through, we didn't get anything else and thought that we had very well pissed him off, and that we probably needed to fess up to what we had done. First, we called for Michael's phone, but he didn't pick up. So I tried calling him for mine.

Still no answer. I sent him a text from my phone telling him that it was just me messing around, and that I didn't even know where Kayla was. Still, he didn't respond. I figured that he was probably pretty mad at us, and was too embarrassed to talk, so I left it alone. We were both kind of taken aback by his response, but still, being who we were, we laughed about it and just continued on with our night.

But throughout the night, we both kept checking our phones, expecting anything, even if it was just him threatening to knock us out for being jerks. But we got nothing. So, I told Michael that I was going to text Kayla as well, and maybe it would be a warning that he might be a warning that he might be. may be upset and tried to call her. I didn't get a response from her either, but again, I figured that she was pissed off at me, too. I was starting to realize that I really had messed up, but all I could do was try to make amends.

That night, on my way home from Michaels, I called my girlfriend, since she was friends with Kayla and asked if she had heard from her and explained myself. She was pretty mad at me for what I did, and again, I understood why. But then she said something to me that I didn't understand. I remember her telling me that I truly didn't know how badly that can mess people up. And she asked me how well I knew Josh. I told her that I had been friends with him for a few years now, and she said that she was surprised I was even friends with him because he was a real jerk.

But I was nothing like him. At least, up until I told her what I had just did. I got quite an earful, but afterwards she said that she would try and get a hold of Kayla too and hung up. This was not turning into the dumb little prank that we all thought it would be. I just didn't realize how much of a problem I had caused. The next day, I had tons of texts from Michael, another friend, and my girlfriend. First, she broke up with me, saying that I really messed up and that she was through. I double-checked the phone number thinking maybe someone was trying to get back at me, but it was definitely her.

Then Michael told me to call him ASAP. I called him, and he told me that he went out for a ride with his older brother that night, and he asked him to drive by Josh's house. There was a cop car there. Kayla didn't live far, so they drove by her place, and there were three more at hers with several people standing in the yard. Now I was pretty freaked out. What the hell happened?

And was it all my fault? Could whatever happened be the result of my prank? That was all we really knew. And I tried calling my now ex-girlfriend to see if she knew but she wouldn't answer or respond to my texts. It wasn't until the next day at school that we started hearing the rumors. Apparently, after Josh got our texts, He left his house, drove to Kayla's, and caused a huge scene. She was home alone watching her two younger siblings while her parents were out.

He went in yelling and screaming at her, claiming that she was cheating on him. Rightfully so, Kayla was completely confused by all of this. Things escalated quickly, and while it did get a little physical, it stopped before anyone was seriously hurt because her parents got home and caught him. I finally got the details from my ex after she tore me a new one too. When Josh called and heard Michael's voicemail that just said, Hey, leave a message, all he heard was a guy's voice and he assumed the rest. He left his phone at home and his rush to Kayla's house.

She tried to convince him that none of it was true, showing him her phone. He threw it. She told him to leave and he refused. He had grabbed her, knocked her to the floor, and was trying to drag her into her bedroom. Of course, her younger siblings heard all of this too, and were terrified of what was happening. I had never seen this sight of Josh.

He was a bigger dude and looked intimidating, but he was also super chill with all of us. Apparently, I learned that he was actually a horrible human being and was always very cruel to the girls that he dated. He was verbally abusive and manipulative. He had even been physical with Kayla before, but nothing like that day. She hadn't told anyone either. That was the first time he had done it in front of others.

And while he was clearly doing all of this prior to my involvement, I can't help but carry this overwhelming sense of guilt that I caused this. I caused her siblings to be traumatized. And it was all for some stupid joke. Now, Kayla did get those texts. from me, same with Josh, showing that all of it was my doing. Even my ex knew about it, so I ended up being involved. Josh even threatened me, via a mutual friend, because he thought maybe I was messing around

with Kayla too, which made things even worse. Not only was he fooled by a prank, but he thought there was actually something going on between us. It goes to say that I had a lot of people very mad at. at me. And it was deserved, and I don't disagree. I didn't see Kayla or Josh in school anymore. My ex was still talking to me when she wasn't hating my guts, but she did say that while Kayla was very mad at me and hurt, she eventually forgave me. Almost 20 years later, and I still don't think I deserve her forgiveness. Clearly this was a long time ago, and I'm not the immature kid that I

used to be, but this is something that I still think about on occasion, especially when I hear people talking about pranking a friend or just teasing them about something. I changed the lives of a few people there, just from trying to do something stupid. So, I guess learn from my mistake and try to think twice about your actions. Hey, Raven, as my wife and I were watching one of your older videos, she reminded me of a story that I should share with you. It's a little strange, but I figured you could still use it. My wife, Alicia, and I have been living in our home for almost 12 years now.

At the time of the story, we had been living there for around four. It's a great little neighborhood. A lot of people here have young families, so they're more outgoing than I was initially used to, but they're all good people. Back in 2018, an older couple that lived next to us sold their house to move closer to their kids and grandkids. The whole thing was pretty uneventful. I saw the sign in their yard, the old man told me what was happening, and then we saw people coming and going for a while. Eventually the home was sold, and the new owner was a gem of a lady named Vanessa.

When we first started seeing her around, she seemed normal enough. She came over while we were unloading groceries to introduce herself. She was 46. I know this because she mentioned how she was four years older than me. That she was a cougar, which I found weird because she was only 46. She also made her to point to mention that she was newly single and very much available after a messy divorce. Again, Alicia and I were both standing out there just talking to her, and we both kind of looked at each other.

offered a polite welcome to the neighborhood and then went inside. Over the next few months, the flirting started. It began small, her accidentally being outside every time I went to mow or get something from my car. She would go out in her backyard wearing outfits that weren't exactly guard inappropriate. It was like she was ready to go to the club, and just walking around in heels and all around her backyard. literally just walking around, like she was on a catwalk. She would stop when we made eye contact and pull the whole, oh, I'm so embarrassed reaction.

One time she told me that she was a model and an actress, and she often practiced her poses and walks. Then she started making more suggestive comments. She'd see me working on my car and say things about needing a big, strong man to hold her like that. She would offer me a cold drink inside where it was private. I would always just laugh and brush her off. Alicia actually thought it was hilarious. She'd watch from the window and just roll her eyes and laugh.

When she saw her outside, she always tease and say, Oh, hey, your girlfriend is out there again. We'd been together for about 18 years at that point. We were happily married and saw it as a rock, so we just treat her. treated it like a desperate, sad attempt for attention. That was until she stepped up her attempts. It was a nice day out. Alicia and I were out back playing fetch with our two dogs.

Our neighbor, two houses down, the ones on the other side of Vanessa were also outside. They had three younger kids, and they were all out on the play set that they had. We all had basic chain link fences, and never really thought about needing anything more than that. Vanessa certainly changed that. Suddenly Vanessa walks out onto her back deck and she is 100% completely naked. No towel, no robe, nothing. She didn't even look around to see who was watching. She just laid out a yoga mat and started doing all of these exaggerated stretches right in our line of sight.

Again, Alicia laughed at her brazen attempts, but otherwise we did our best. to ignore her. However, the neighbor's kids' two houses down were not as good at ignoring. And I saw the two older boys watching her. It wasn't long before Marta, their mother, was out back and yelling at her to put some clothes on. Vanessa was sitting on her lounge chair and sat up to calmly argue with her. She laughed at Marta and kept saying that she could do whatever she wanted on her property, put on a pair of headphones and then lied back down.

Marta threw her hands up in the air toward us, both of us in the same agreement of not really knowing what to do, and then she told the kids to go back inside. Vanessa kept trying to get my attention for weeks. She opened her window that faced ours. She'd walk around her living room, topless or in her underwear, and would have her music up really loud so you would look over to see where it was coming from, and then there she was.

We had an office upstairs that we both used, and she would be in her room upstairs too. Granted, I don't know what she used it for, because I refused to go in her house. But if we were both doing something in our office, then she would end up in her adjacent room, window open, trying to get our attention. She really did become quite unbearable.

I know Alicia didn't have concern, but the fact that I was nearly stalked in my own house got pretty damn old. We liked to have our windows and curtains open to enjoy the air and sunlight. But we started closing them on her side just so we didn't have to see her. Alicia would open them when she was home alone, because she wouldn't bother her, of course, but it was still a pain. Then came the day that it all seemed to hit a boiling point. Alyssa and I had been out front working on the garden beds by our porch.

We'd been wanting to redo these beds since we moved in, but we just never really got around to it. With some extra time off, we finally decided to get it done. We made some decent progress and stopped to get some more water and decide what we wanted to do for dinner, as neither of us were feeling like cooking. As we were sitting there at the top of the steps, just talking, Vanessa walked out front, wearing only a very sheer and see-through robe.

She started walking toward her mailbox when she looked over at us and said my name in an almost seductive manner. Alicia nudged me, again, joking, but made a comment like, oh, here we go again. However, once again, the kids were out front riding their bikes. After Vanessa grabbed her mail, she was leaning over the fence, trying to talk to us. The oldest boy yelled at the other two to come on, and they went inside. Shortly after, Marda marched outside and she was pissed. And rightfully so.

Her kids, all under the age of 12, were trying to play outside. And Vanessa might as well have been nude, subjecting the kids to this. They didn't have a fence between their parents. property. We only had the small fence because of our dogs. I wanted them to be able to run around the yard without a leash. Marta stomped right over to Vanessa and started screaming at her. She called her a colorful list of things and demanded that she cover herself up if she was going to be outside. She even tried to defend me, saying that she was embarrassing herself because I very clearly was not interested and was happily married.

Vanessa, however, seemed to take this as a challenge. She argued with Marta that I had options and said she was just jealous because she didn't look as good as her. Alicia said that it reminded her of those fights back in high school. Words were said back and forth, and all the while, Vanessa would find the time to smile and laugh at Marta, which only made her more angry. Marta finally said something about calling the cops for indecency,

especially with minors being around. And then Vanessa crossed a line that you cannot come back from. She spat in Marta's face. We both stood up knowing exactly where this was going. Marta immediately pounced on Vanessa, knocking her to the ground. I quickly ran over and tried to break them up. One of the kids was yelling for their dad, but I didn't realize how strong Marta was until I tried pulling her off. She had a good grip on Vanessa's hair and was punching her head repeatedly.

Javier finally came running out and helped me pull Marta off of her. I was trying to help calm Marta down, but then Vanessa latched on to me, calling me her hero, and pressing herself as hard as she could against me. Now I had to pull her off of me, which then got Marta riled up again. Alicia was now pushing Vanessa back and telling her to go inside. Apparently someone else in the neighborhood must have witnessed this because I didn't notice the sirens until I turned around to ask Alicia where Vanessa went. There was a lot of talking between each other and the cops, and they tried to get Vanessa to come out, but she refused to open the door more than a crack. They finally got her to open up with the threats dragging her out,

and she still wasn't taking things very seriously. I heard the cops telling her about the possibility of having to register as an offender because of her being in the presence of minors. After some time of waiting in our respective properties, I was surprised that no one was arrested. We went back inside and ended up ordering a pizza, neither of us wanting to leave in case something else came up. I later saw Javier at the store, and we started talking a bit.

Apparently, Vanessa was going to press charges, but with the threats of having to register as an offender, all charges were dropped on both sides. I don't know how they managed to swing all that, but I was pretty relieved. Marta had always been a very sweet and very family-oriented woman. We bought stuff from their kids multiple times for their school sales, and she was always very polite. I had never seen that level of aggression from her, so it was quite a shock. Clearly, Vanessa set her off, and I think the Mama Bear side of her finally took over. Javier said that they were going to be putting in a privacy fence out back, and I understood.

The kids liked seeing and playing with our dogs, so I felt bad that they wouldn't be able to see them anymore, but I told him they were welcome to come by any time they wanted. She wanted. Thankfully, Vanessa did seem to learn her lesson. Her clothing was still pretty revealing, but she was never caught out front or anywhere nearby when Marta or the kids were present. She still tried to be flirty with me, but once she started seeing some guy, we all saw a lot less of her, figuratively speaking, of course. She still liked to leave her windows open when he was over. She only lived there for a little over a year after that. And I don't know anything about why or what happened, because I certainly wasn't going to ask. But I saw the sign go up, moving trucks, and then new people. Thankfully, the people that moved in after was another couple that ran a small daycare from their home and wore a lot more clothing.

I saw some of the neighborhood kids coming and going from there, too, so needless to say, they fit in much better than Vanessa ever did. and I think for both her sake and Marta's sake, it really was for the best. This is actually a story about my grandparents, so I have to be honest, it's kind of piecemeal together with the details from them and my mom, but you'll understand. If it weren't for my grandfather's decision, I wouldn't be here to share this with you all. My grandparents, Gertrude and Arthur, were the quintessential mid-century couple. In the early 70s, they were living in Indianapolis, but they were still trying to find their purpose. My grandfather had come back from Korea with a lot of weight on his soul. My grandmother was a woman whose empathy knew no bounds.

She was often exploited by people who didn't deserve it, and she continued being the generous woman that we all knew until she passed. They certainly weren't crazy or weak-minded. They were just genuinely good people who wanted the world to be better than the cynical gray reality of the Cold War era. But then things started to change for them. My grandfather learned about a group that back then wasn't throwing up many red flags. They were this revolutionary racial integration movement.

They were about helping people. They ran soup kitchens, clinics, and legal aid services. They were out there physically helping people, helping the less fortunate, and truly making a difference. And my grandparents saw that. My grandfather told me the first time they heard the preacher, and I want to put that in air quotes, speaking. He felt like they truly saw him. He said that he had the energy and the charisma. He knew what he was talking about.

He talked about a rainbow family where no one would be hungry and no one would be judged by how they looked on the outside, that they all belonged and that he loved each of them for it. And so, by 1974, my grandparents were all in. They were donating a large portion of Arthur's paychecks to the plant. They were spending their weekends at the temple, and when they moved to San Francisco, they went with them. Then the talks came of the promised land in Guyana, and they saw it as their ultimate escape from a country that they felt was collapsing into greed and hate. I have a feeling that a lot of you know what I'm talking about at this point.

My mom still had the paperwork that my grandmother never threw away. They had sold their car and were on the last part of selling their home. They were giving almost every cent they had to the temple. They were living with very little and reading about what all they gave up through my grandma's diary was unbelievable. Then they were given dates, dates that would change their lives forever. They were on the list, and all the while they thought they were doing the right thing. They would start a family there and they would have a purpose. But then, another tragedy would strike my grandparents first.

My great-grandfather, Gertrude's father, had suffered a massive debilitating stroke back in Indiana. My grandmother was torn. She knew how much this move would mean to them, but she couldn't just leave her father. He had raised her, and while I never met him, he was apparently an amazing man, from whom she got her empathy and generosity. My grandfather offered to call them once they arrived in Guyana,

but my grandmother wanted to see them. She described to my mom this overwhelming sense of dread that she experienced, how she herself had troubles breathing, and the amount of remorse that she felt considering the idea of leaving without seeing him. They even considered splitting up temporarily. She would go see her father and Arthur would go ahead and leave to get their place ready for them. But she wanted him with her. As long as I knew them and saw them together, they were always in love, side by side.

That was a couple that I never saw fighting. She begged him to go with her and he said that he could never tell her no. They made the decision to leave Guyana behind, at least for the moment, and go see her father. My great-grandfather died two days later. They were able to see him when he was conscious and able to talk to them. He knew who they were and was able to pass with his daughter sitting next to him. Apparently the next few weeks were very difficult. They had to plan his services, all the while being bothered by people from the temple.

They tried to stop my grandparents from canceling. They told them all kinds of things, but my grandfather wouldn't go into details about, about it, but he did say that it started to alarm him. He was telling me how he felt angry and ashamed at the time, that he let his wife, my grandmother, down, and himself. And it took some time to come to terms with the fact that they missed an opportunity. But they told themselves they would start over back in Indianapolis, and they would find purpose there again, even if they had to build it themselves.

and if you've been following along, then you may remember a horrible, horrible day back in November of 1978. My grandparents said they had a friend that went there, and they wrote him a single letter and never heard from them again, assuming they just wanted nothing to do with them since they didn't go. They saw the slow descent of the temple, all the horrible things that were being said about their leader, and then the death, all those lost lives. My mom said that even though she was born after the tragedy, she could tell that it really impacted them. For the longest time, they didn't want to talk about it.

They didn't want to bring it up or have anything to do with it. Then my mom found my grandma's diary and learned a lot more. She learned how far involved they had gotten and told me, that if it weren't for my grandfather's condition, neither of us would probably even exist. I finally got some of these details from my grandfather himself. I don't know what changed, maybe just the passing of time and knowing his time was almost up. He finally wanted to talk about it, even if it was brief. He told me how depressed my grandmother became and how he tried to help her however he could,

but he was hurting too. Survivor's guilt is real and just as dangerous. But he told me that he was able to find himself by helping people locally. They both did. They started volunteering at a local shelter. They got involved in a small local church, a church small enough that they could fit everyone in a little chapel. My grandfather gave sermons and my grandmother helped with all the children.

They made a difference in that little city. And ever since then, they knew that family always came first. Since I was a kid, I felt that from them. They were always there for us, no matter what. Even when I got in trouble at school a few years back, my grandfather came to get me, and we had to talk about it. Like that, it was handled. The love they shared and emanated with everyone around them

was brighter than anyone I have ever met. if you had passed by them, you would never think they could have come close to being involved in something so horrible. And I'm lucky to have been born into such a loving family for multiple reasons. At 6.18 p.m. on December 28, 2017, several things were going to happen in the span of a few seconds that would change numerous lives forever. It all began when police responded to a reported double homicide and an active hostage situation, with the suspect threatening to set fire to the house. That combination alone triggers maximum caution from anyone responding to the scene.

Once they arrive, they don't rush the house. They follow protocol and position themselves to take control at a distance. Once they're in place, commands start getting shouted, towards the house. Commands to come outside to show your hands. 28-year-old Andrew Finch steps out onto his porch completely confused by what's going on. There are multiple overlapping commands being shouted at him. And that's when the unthinkable happens.

Andrew makes a move that, according to reports and footage, looks like he's going for his waistband. A single shot rings out. Andrew collapses on his porch. He was unarmed and would eventually die of his wounds, unconnected to anything that led to this moment. To understand what is largely a story that is not understandable, is to look at what this entire scenario was. Was it a successfully organized and executed operation?

Was it a tragic failing of the system? It can, in fact, be both of those things. Because, funnily enough, neither of those labels fully encapsulates the chain of events that led to Andrew Finch's death. And of course,

we're not going to pull punches with you all. So we're going to just say it as it is. What caused Andrew Finch's death was a chain of events that started over a match of call of duty. Most of us know this kind of petty argument. If you've spent five minutes in a cod lobby without muting other people's voice chats,

you know the kinds of arguments. It had started out as a friendly wager, not but one or two dollars. But by the end of everything, it wasn't about the money anymore. It was about pride and not wanting to lose. One person threatened to swat the other. The other person gave an address, a false address. Meanwhile, someone that had nothing to do with the argument but was in the audience and already had a record of sewing chaos, perked up. For those of you unfamiliar with swatting, it's technically a prank.

It's not meant to get anyone killed, but it is meant to cause a full-scale police response to someone's house. It's meant to intimidate and humiliate people. not exactly a harmless prank nor a justifiable one, but it's also not meant to be lethal. The person watching all of this unfold, like its entertainment or background noise, is Tyler Barris. As mentioned, he had a reputation of making false reports

and swatting people. And this is where we transitioned from a petty argument into something completely different, something far more simple. sinister. Because when Barris finds an address attached to the argument, he doesn't question it. He doesn't even hesitate. He uses it.

When Barris dialed 911, he didn't do it as a joke. He called them with a story, a very specific and horrific one. The story he tells is literally every first responder's worst nightmare. He claims that he had just killed his father and that he has the rest of his family hostage. Barris then goes on to say that he has spread gasoline around the house and is considering lighting it on fire. It's a detailed threat, credible, exactly the kind of thing that demands and forces a response, which is exactly what happened. The Wichita Police Department responded with maximum caution. They secured the perimeter, and then they ordered the person inside the house, Andrew Finch, to come outside.

Andrew has no idea why they're there. No idea why their weapons are drawn and pointed at him. Here the police are. Multiple officers shouting commands at him and ready and prepared to deal with a violent suspect. And, for whatever reason, Andrew makes a sudden and unexpected move. Officer Justin Rapp, believing that he was responding

to something far more sinister and violent, responded the way he was trained to respond, in that kind of situation. He fired a single shot and dropped Andrew Finch. That shot not only shattered the sound barrier, it shattered every assumption the chain of events up to this moment had been in response to. Andrew Finch was completely unarmed. He wasn't even connected to the events. The situation was not what they had been called to respond to.

Andrew Finch was no great villain. Andrew Finch was a completely innocent bystander, who was now lying on his own front porch, dying. And now it was time to figure out how and why this had happened. Of course, this begins with tracing that initial 911 call. This led to Tyler Barris being identified as the source of the hoax call. He's brought in, charged, and arrested. Later on, he sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The two original Cod players, Casey Viner and Shane Gaskill, are also brought in for questioning once they're identified. Viner is currently serving prison time for his role in the events leading to the hoax call. Gaskill cooperated with authorities fully and avoided any prison time as a consequence. This all brings us to Officer Justin Rapp. He was investigated. questioned, and let go with no charges brought against him. That's maybe why this story is so hard to understand, because it's impossible to point to a single moment and say, yeah, this is where it went wrong, because it's just a cascading series

of things going on, just as wrong as humanly possible. A petty disagreement, a measly one to two dollar bet that all turned into an argument, which turned into a threat of a prank, which turned into a prank executed, thus turning it into a moment of finality. Andrew Finch answered for crimes that he never committed. He ended up the butt of a joke that he had no part of. What was meant to intimidate and humiliate someone, in fact, ended in a killing that, in the context of the officers responding to a horrific threat, is not exactly unjustifiable.

But this is exactly the kind of thing that can happen when people take thoughtless actions. And if anything, I think it's the most painful kind of reminder that our actions, regardless of the intent behind them, can have far-reaching repercussions. This entire situation started the way so many things do these days. Online. In a gaming lobby. No real meaningful connection. no face-to-face altercation. It was just people randomly talking to and over each other,

making stupid wagers about a game. They never even saw each other. But that distance between them is what makes everything feel less somehow. A threat isn't a threat. An address really doesn't feel like a real place. And no one ever thinks that a call is going to have life-altering impacts for anyone that's, well, real. It's really easy to think about the internet and game lobbies

as these little self-contained bubbles that all exist separate and apart from the real world. Like the things in that bubble could never actually have consequences in the real world. But the truth is that they aren't little bubbles removed from reality. They're little pockets that exist inside the larger reality. And the things that happen there do. matter outside of those little bubbles. So maybe before you make that prank call, you should just take a second and think about

what could happen to the people on the other end of that harmless little prank. And may you rest in peace, Andrew Finch. So from summer of 2017 until spring of 2025, I had a very creepy neighbor neighbor. Of course, he didn't start out there, but over eight painfully long years, it escalated. In the beginning, he was just a younger fella, fresh out of the military that sold a little weed to supplement his income from being on a construction crew. And then the construction job went away, and he just started selling weed full time, and business was decent.

He always told me that he had some very severe problems with Crystal, and that it had already ruined his life once. Well, then suddenly, he was selling crystal. And there were comings and goings at his house all hours of the day and night. Even this was annoying, but something that could be lived with. And then things really started to get weird. He and I had started off kind of friendly. I'd bought some weed from him and sold wheat to him.

Yes, I was a naughty boy back then. But the more the crystal ate him up, the weirder and scarier he slowly became. At a certain point, I cut ties with him and started a years-long, off and on kind of feud between us. Well, one day back in 2020, or maybe 2021, I was outside playing with my dog. And I saw this little white sedan pull up in the neighbor's driveway. I'm not going to say his name because I don't want to dignify him. This really pretty blonde girl, maybe 22 or 23 years old, gets out of the car and goes into the neighbor's house. She never came back out.

Her car sat there all day that day and overnight. In the wee hours the following morning, I saw one of the neighbors' more questionable friends come walking up out of nowhere. In brief context, there was zero reason for this guy to be walking. He had a vehicle. It worked, so this alone made me kind of think, huh, weird. And so, being who I am, I kept an eye on this. Homeboy walks up, climbs right into the little white car,

and after fidgeting with the ignition, assuming hot wiring it, he drives off. And neither the car nor the girl were ever seen again. I watched her walk into that, house and never come out. And then I watched one of his associates dispose of her car. I did try to contact the police because it was very unnerving, but of course since I didn't know the girl's name, etc., they didn't take me very seriously.

I just hope that I profoundly misunderstood what happened to that girl, that she is, in fact, safe and happy somewhere, but the realistic part of me, after I learned in the last year some of the things that my former neighbor got up to knows that I'm just wanting to make myself feel better about what I saw that day. Now, the lot where his house sat is empty. They bulldozed it last spring. I actually recorded some of the demolition on my phone. But in the days before he moved out or moved on or whatever,

I learned that he was very much a part of a human trafficking type of operation. Prior to the blonde girl disappearing, there were a lot of young women that came and went over at his house. After she vanished, though, fewer and fewer ever showed up alone. They either came in groups or had a boyfriend or male friend with them. So it tells me that among people familiar with him and his circle, people knew something bad was going on, and even they were taking precautions. This was something that happened to me and a few of my friends after a night of drinking. That's where the story starts off bad, am I right?

Three of my friends and I went out for some drinks as a very less than official bachelor's party for one of our buddies that was getting married. We didn't need to do anything crazy. Just go have a good night out, and that's what the plan was. There were supposed to be five of us, but one of our first of us. our friends bailed on us about an hour before we were supposed to meet up, saying that something came up and to start without him, in case he was able to show up later. And that's exactly what we did. We went to a bar that we didn't normally go to, to try and change things up a bit. We had a blast. One of our friends was getting hit on by two older ladies, and it was just one hell of a time.

We were all pretty buzzed, but we kept talking about how we were missing our friend Wayne. So, we decided to give him hell. We called him and started saying stupid things. We even had one of the older ladies beg him to come see us, all in innocent fun. He was laughing too, so I know that he wasn't mad, but he still said that he was busy, and that he would probably just have to miss out on the fun. We gave him a guilt trip, but all in fun.

And then we hung up continuing on with our night. After another hour or so, we were ready to move on to something else. However, one of our friends was adamant that we figure out a way to drag Wayne into our mess. So we thought up this bright idea of showing up at his house, busting in somehow, grabbing him and throwing him into the car with us. We all thought that there was no way. this could go wrong, and it would be a fantastic bachelor party memory. There were a couple things wrong with this plan, however.

First, we were all already a bit drunk, some of us more than others. Please, please, please do not drive under the influence like we did. It was stupid and reckless. Our friend Patrick, who drank the least, and was the least intoxicated, drove, but again, very big no-no. Second, none of us had his actual address. We had an idea of where he lived. Only two of us had actually been to his place.

I was one of them and the other was the bachelor, Tyler, who could barely talk already. So the two of us had to try and explain and give directions to Wayne's house. I remember that it was a grey house with wooden shutters and an attached garage. But the third problem was that it was dark, so we couldn't really make out the houses. We drove down the street slowly to make sure that we could find the house first. Once we located it, and my drunk friend swore that it was the correct one, we parked on the road and turned the car off, not wanting to alert him by pulling into the driveway.

Patrick immediately walked around the house, testing the windows to see which one would be the easiest to get. into while the rest of us waited by the car. Tyler tried being helpful and was trying to manually open the garage door, and James was helping him. I left those two to do what they were doing, and followed Patrick around when he waved me over. He showed me a window that didn't have a working lock and explained that the screen was even easy to pop out. The blind was also pulled up so we could see into the room, and all I saw was an old chair with some plastic, plastic tubs.

I didn't get a tour of Wayne's house, so it was certainly possible that he just had a storage room. Nothing stood out that would make me think otherwise either. Pat said that he would go through the window, and I agreed to ring the doorbell to pull his attention. When I walked back to the front, I didn't see Tyler or James, and the garage was cracked a bit,

so I assumed they actually got in. I ring the doorbell and wait. giggling about our whole plan. He didn't answer the door. I just figured that I would wait a bit longer and try going through the garage if he didn't answer. However, not only did he not answer, but I started hearing shouting, yelling.

It wasn't the playful and laughing kind of yelling either, like a friend being scared by another friend. This was anger. Something was happening. I went through the garage to get into the house thinking I could hopefully get in there and diffuse the situation, but when I got into the garage and saw the old truck in there, I was confused. Wayne owned a Mazda, not some old Chevy pickup. So whose truck was that?

That's when I could make out the shouting more. I opened the door and I realized I didn't recognize this kitchen. We had gotten the house wrong. I followed the shouting of my friends and the unfamiliar voice, and I nearly threw up. Patrick was sitting on the couch, Tyler and James standing against the wall with an old man pointing a gun in their face, shouting. The man was shouting at them, going back and forth between demanding to know who they were and who sent them, and nonsensical things. Patrick was telling the guy that we had mistook his house for a friend's, but couldn't get the words in time. entirely out. Tyler was in stunned silence and James kept telling the guy to let them leave.

I was frozen in place. I didn't know what to do at first. I saw all of their eyes shift when they saw me, and I guess the old man noticed too because he started turning around. I put my hands up, but he clearly wasn't expecting a fourth person as he turned and jumped at the side of me. He fired his gun and thankfully didn't hit any of us but his wall instead. The sound alone scared the hell out of me and made me lose part of my hearing. I put my hands to my ears and was telling the guy to let us go and that we didn't want to hurt him, but he was shouting too and waving the gun around. I seriously thought I was going to die right there,

all because we wanted to play some stupid prank on our friend. As we were all yelling at each other, James came up behind the old man and managed to grab the gun out of his hands. He threw it toward the back of the house, and the old man pushed James, but then went toward the gun. We all jumped up, ran to the front door, unlocked it, and made a mad dash to the car. Patrick struggled to pull out his keys, but we finally got it started and took off. The ride was silent for the longest time. of us looking around, waiting to see cop lights behind us, and figure out what the hell we were doing. We never did. We didn't even know what we should do at that point. Do we call Wayne to try and get his

address? Do we go to the police and report what happened? Or do we just go home? It sobered all of us up quite a bit, and even after Tyler and James argued that they didn't want to be involved, we did end up going to the police. This was all our fault. Even though he almost shot us, I couldn't stomach the thought that we could have given that poor man a heart attack or something. But I guess, lucky for us, the police didn't really take it too seriously. We had to explain it a few times, and then they made us wait while they looked into it.

We were probably there for about an hour or so before they came. came back and confirmed the details again. He asked if anyone was hurt, or if we broke or stole anything. We confirmed that we didn't because we were expecting it to be our friend's place. Then he told us that no one had called in to report a break-in, or gunshot, and that we could go. I was shocked and confused. I didn't understand why the man hadn't reported it, and why they didn't just arrest us. we had admitted to a crime.

They did ask us for our contact information, to which we all obliged and then we left. I waited to get a call or police officer at my door over the next few days, but it never happened. Life went back to normal. We told our friend Wayne what had happened and he found it hilarious, and he confirmed how far off we were.

His address had a south in it, like south, walnut, street, and we went to just Walnut Street. It's just kind of crazy how the houses looked so similar between the two streets, but maybe that's just because it was dark and we were all drunk. Either way, we somehow gone out of that situation unharmed and without charges, and I consider that to be pretty damn lucky. Though, I promise you, I have never been involved with something so stupid since.

If my friends don't join our hangouts, then that's on them, and I won't be risking my life like that again. There is this unspoken promise embedded in architecture that most of us never really acknowledge. Not consciously, that is. Walls means separation and insulation. The floors under our feet are meant to hold. A locked door is supposed to mean something. Not absolute security, as nothing can never truly prove. provide that, but it's at least a kind of boundary. A line between the outside and the inside,

a marker of where the world ends and your personal space begins. And now, as I do, I'm going to tell you a story that violates that promise. In Calgary's southwest community of Coach Hill, a woman returns home, expecting the usual safety of her own space, inside her own apartment. Her door was locked and there were no signs of forced entry. Nothing was out of place in the way you think of when you envision a home invasion. There was no splintered wood, no shattered glass, but what she found was something that made way less sense to her, a hole in her floor.

Not some small crack, and not some kind of damage from wear and neglect. This was a deliberate opening carved from below and intentionally hidden behind a fireplace, an entry point that bypassed every safeguard we are taught to trust. Someone had been inside her home. And even worse, they had gotten inside without ever touching a lock or shattering a window. The police would later determine that the opening had been tunneled up from the apartment directly below hers. The man who lived there had allegedly created an entry point into her living space through an architectural blind spot.

The kind of area that would never be scrutinized unless things had already gone very wrong. And that's the detail that really matters. This wasn't a crime of opportunity. It wasn't impulsive. It wasn't even a crime of chance. A tunnel is a project. It requires time, precision. Repetition.

Noise must be managed, and debris must be concealed. You don't just accidentally burrow into someone else's home. It's not the kind of thing you do in a moment of rage either. You do it because you have convinced yourself, consciously or otherwise, that this boundary this person has established does not apply to you. That is the kind of thing that reframes an entire event. This wasn't just some random breaking and entering. This was an assertion of access.

The man arrested in connection to the incident, 46-year-old Ben Edward Mays of Calgary, was charged with breaking and entering with intent to commit criminal harassment, and mischief to property, over $5,000, as well as two counts of disobeying a court order. I think the phrasing the police used to describe the incident is both terrifyingly accurate and woefully insufficient in equal measure. It was a deeply disturbing violation of personal space and security.

Personal space usually implies proximity, standing too close and lingering too long. This was something far more evasive. It was the discovery that the very structure meant to contain and protect a person had been quietly and discreetly compromised. The security didn't fail loudly. It failed invisibly. There's something uniquely destabilizing about crimes

that exploit infrastructure over utilizing force. A broken window says where the threat came from. A forced open lock says the boundary was respected enough to be challenged. While this, well, this did neither of those things. The apartment was locked, the perimeter was intact, the threat itself came from below, a direction none of us are conditioned to guard against. That is the inversion that really makes this story linger. The home itself became an unreliable narrator.

It forces us to ask the uncomfortable questions. How many of our daily assumptions are merely habits we have never tested? Modern urban life is built on proximity that we pretend isn't intimacy. We share walls, floors, ventilation systems, and plumbing. We hear each other cough, argue, and watch television. We normalize this closeness because the alternative, actually acknowledging just how thin the separation is, is far more unsettling.

This incident really drags that truth into the light. The authorities have indicated that, the woman had pre-existing problems with the downstairs neighbor, but no details have been publicly elaborated. That omission is kind of important. It means this story resists full explanation. There's no clear motive to point at, no psychological profile,

no neat timeline of just how long the tunnel took to build, nor how long the space may have been surveilled before it was actually breached. The lack of information is part of the lingering harm. The human mind will fill gaps more efficiently than facts themselves ever could. How many nights had work continued right below her feet? How many times did she pass through her apartment, unaware that eyes from below were watching? How long had the idea been forming before the first tool touched the floor? These aren't the types of questions the justice system was designed to answer,

even though they very much are the kind of questions that people who survive the crimes live with. The language of the law speaks in terms of charges and court orders, clearly defined boundaries and thresholds of property damage. Meanwhile, human experience deals in terms of things like the loss of certainty, that sudden understanding that security isn't based on locks and alarms, but mostly on assumptions, assumptions that can be quietly dismantled. Even if every hole is repaired,

if every charge is convicted, it won't change the fact that certain perceptions have been irrevocably altered. That floor will never again feel like a given. This case also highlights a far more subtle truth about contemporary harm. The most disturbing violations aren't always dramatic. They're methodical and they exploit things

that we take for granted, such as routine. They thrive in the places that no one looks because everyone has been trained to look elsewhere. Fireplaces are decorative, crawl space is unremarkable, structural voids meant to remain abstract. But when someone exploits those spaces, that betrayal feels personal in ways that are almost impossible to articulate. It's not just that someone entered this woman's home, although that is very deeply personal, it's how they did so. by learning it, by studying its very bones. While this story may lack violence or a dramatic confrontation,

the reverberations of it somehow still register, and they linger. It attacks and tarnishes something fundamental, the foundational belief that our homes are static, liminal, and invulnerable to the intentions of others once they are secured. They're not. They are systems, and like most, systems, there are points that can be exploited. I know there's not a clean ending or some kind of moral lesson we can all learn here,

and there's no comfort to be drawn upon, and there's really none that I can offer you. It instead offers us a quiet and more unsettling understanding. Safety is less often about strength than predictability. When that predictability is breached, not with force, but with patience, the damage is hard to locate. and even harder to undo. Somewhere in Calgary, a woman learned that locked doors and walls don't always mean safety.

Sometimes the most dangerous access point is the one that no one thinks to defend. And once you learn that, no locked door ever feels the same again. Some of you may have heard similar stories to mine, but I wanted to share my experience nonetheless. I won't, however, mention where this took place in, or the actual name of the church. I'm not protecting anyone, trust me.

These people don't deserve protection, but because I still have extended family members loosely connected to that community and swear there was nothing wrong with what happened there. I'm not looking to blow up what little piece I've managed to build with them. With that being said, if you're familiar with the snake handling sects, you probably have a general idea of the world that I'm about to describe. And if you aren't, well, then lucky for you, you're only hearing about it and not experiencing it. This took place back in the late 80s to early 90s, for my experience specifically.

Most of my childhood was spent in that place. My parents got sucked into this world when I was around four and I remained there until I was 16. My parents both became heavily involved in the sect. Eventually, my mom would begin to handle the snakes and my father became a deacon. This was not something that was small to us. This wasn't a thing we went to on Sundays

and sometimes went to dinner with other members. It was the entire architecture of our family. The main church was a converted building that I think had been some kind of factory at some point. The floors were concrete, the main chapel had folding metal chairs. The only lights were those fluorescent ones that constantly made a buzzing sound and flickered all the time. They were never looked at or replaced because the flickering was interpreted as the presence of the Holy Spirit. But the smell was the first thing that hit you like a ton of bricks when you walked in. body odor, sweat, sawdust, and something underneath it all that I eventually understood was the snake enclosures.

That smell lived on me. On my clothes? I didn't notice it because it's all I ever knew. But the kids who went to school with me did, and they made sure that I knew it too. We still went to public school in the beginning, and the kids knew. I remember having conversations with my teacher, asking if my family was okay, if we had running water, and I didn't understand why she asked that in the beginning. But back to the church, the snakes were kept in wooden boxes along one wall.

They were not meant to keep live animals in. They were rough, untreated, really. They were built with wire mesh lids, sometimes stacked three or four high. The conditions were not good. I want to be very clear here without going into detail, but a bit of warning for the next couple of sentences. People assumed that the handlers at least took care of their animals with some level of expertise. They never did, or at least ours didn't.

For the most part, these were wild-caught timber rattler snakes, and copperheads, mostly, with the occasional. cotton mouth. They were stressed. They were underfed. They lived on those dark boxes with nothing in them other than torn up fabric like old sheets or towels. Sometimes I saw them tossing something in those boxes for food,

but I couldn't quite tell what it was. I've also seen wild mice climbing around the boxes. Yes, the church had mice too, so I assume that if they got in the boxes, the snakes ate them. And of course, they were handled constantly by people who believed that faith alone was their protection. So, needless to say, a lot of them died in those boxes, and sometimes they didn't know it for days. But their whole theology, at least as I understand it, growing up, was rooted in a literal reading of a biblical passage about believers taking up serpents and being unharmed.

The idea was that if your faith was strong enough, the snake could not hurt you. If you were bitten, one of two things were true. Either it was a test from God, or your faith had been lacking in the bite was the consequence. Either way, you had to endure the bite without treatment. And may I remind you that these were wild snakes, rattlesnakes and cotton mouths that were venomous. people got bit a lot, and those people were left to suffer through it. Many recommended they stay in the church to pray for forgiveness,

but you could also go home if your family was willing to let you in, seeing as how this was looked at as a bad thing. I saw my first invenomation when I was eight years old. A man was handling a timber rattler during service, and I'm sure with all the loud noises and noise, movement in the room, the snake was fairly stressed out, and the man was bitten. He didn't stop moving immediately. He set the snake down, held his hand up, and continued praying.

His wife came up next to him and was crying and screaming and praying along with him. I remember watching in horror as his hand began to swell and everyone was praising this. He actually did survive. He lost significant use of two of his fingers and the tissue-disposed. damage was severe enough that the wound took months to close properly. I remember seeing him with the other adults one day and watching his skin just split open and start to bleed again. But once he could walk steadily, he returned to the church and was celebrated for his endurance.

He continued handling snakes after that, and shockingly was not bitten again. But not everyone was so lucky. When I was 12, there was a woman who went through the same thing. thing, but she died. I won't describe it in full detail, because I still have nightmares about it sometimes. However, I will say that a copperhead bite that goes untreated for a period of time, in what they called a summer revival tent, is not a peaceful thing to witness. She was in her 30s.

She had a family, a husband and four young children. But living with the loss of a loved one was not where this story ends. There was no celebration of her life this time. No talk of a warrior going home to God. Instead, the congregation suggested that her death proved that she was living in unconfessed sin. That her faith hadn't failed her, but that she had failed her faith. The snake was just God's instrument to reveal it. That her death wasn't a tragedy, and it was a consequence of her lack of faith.

And while the man's event of being bitten terrified me, it was her death that traumatized me for life. I remember sitting in that service and watching her oldest child, Abigail, who was two years older than I was, absorb the words in real time. Watching her world crumble around her as everyone talked about how horrible of a person her mother was,

how she deserved it, and her family deserved to be punished too. The pastor said that sins had roots and that they ran through families. Everyone would look at her family. They were shunned. The adults stopped including her husband in their groups. The kids were always left out or bullied. My heart was always so heavy for them, but I was too afraid to approach them,

fearing that I could be punished or even that maybe their sin could seep into me. That is how bad it was. when I was a child. That is what really broke me and shaped me into the person that I started becoming. After witnessing that first end venomation, I developed a profound fear of snakes. And of course, that probably sounds obvious from the outside. But it was more than just snakes. It was the fear of being bitten, the fear of the pain and health concerns that came with it, and even the fear of death. But the worst part of it all, of all the fears, was that maybe I was so afraid of them because I was a sinner.

My parents were the first one to say it out loud. My mom saw my hesitation to approach the walls of the church where the snake boxes were, and when we got home they pulled me aside and told me very matter-of-factly that I was feeling the devil working inside of me. that what I was feeling wasn't my fear but the devil and if I didn't root it out it would grow I remember my mother holding my face in her hands and saying that she was scared for me

that she could see darkness inside of me and that we needed to pray harder to fix this I was 13 years old 13 and I had seen multiple snake bites a few deaths, and was now being told that I was basically at risk of losing it all too, and disgracing my family. And at that age, I did the only thing that I could do.

I hid those thoughts. I learned to control my face and emotions. I hid them deep inside me to the point that I would make myself physically ill. I would sit on my hands during the congregation and pinch my thighs so hard to hide my hands and balance the panic I felt. I prayed constantly, begging to be forgiven and to not let my family suffer. I was convinced for the longest time that they were right,

that there was something deeply wrong on the inside of me. But then my chance came to escape. At 16, there were a combination of circumstances that I won't go into detail about because I don't want the people involved to be compromised. What I will say is that there were some good people that had their wits about them in the church. But the deprogramming of that mindset is a long, multi-year process. And it's one that I occasionally struggled with.

You don't just leave and feel free. You leave and spend a very long time being terrified of things that don't make sense to other people. It was like starting my entire life over. The family and community that I knew disowned me, my parents included. They actually had a chance to speak to me once, and they refused. I almost ended my life for it, too, thinking that I had messed up by leaving. I still have a tremendous fear of snakes, but I understand that it is just a fear. It's not because I'm some kind of demon.

I had to go to therapy for it. I had to first learn that fears are just irrational things. I don't need to fear snakes because I fear I'm going to hell. I had to separate the two things entirely. You can be religious and have a fear of snakes, or spiders, or heights, but I had to remember that they are two separate entities. I can tell you that I am no longer religious whatsoever.

but I still get nervous and anxious when I see a snake in a show, on a poster, or go to a pet store. My nervous system tries to go straight back to that church, but I now have a method to get me out of that spiral, and thankfully it rarely happens these days. I'm doing much better now that I'm in my 50s. I've been journaling my experiences, and a good friend of mine thinks I should write a book about it. I'm not sure if I'll ever take it that far, but I will say there is a small weight lifted from me as I share my story here too.

And I can only hope that maybe it helps to bring me just a little bit more closure. Hello there, friends, Raven here. Welcome to the end of this episode of As the Raven Dreams. I hope that you genuinely enjoyed this collection of scary stories as I enjoyed putting them together for you. if the platform you're on has the option to follow the podcast or leave ratings or reviews, please do consider doing so as it helps the podcast grow.

Of course, if you enjoy the content, that is. If you didn't enjoy it, then feel free to also leave a rating as honesty is important, and I take all feedback seriously. Also, I do have a YouTube channel. It's a lot of the same content, but we do live streams on Saturdays around 6 p.m. central, so if you're free one Saturday night and want to come over and say hi, I would love to have you there. We just kind of have a good time doing whatever we want for the few hours that I'm online. You can also join the Patreon, patreon.com slash as the Raven Dreams, for early access to all this content.

Check out the website, astherravendreams.com for information and where you can listen to the podcast, find all my social media links, find the merch store, and send in your own stories to keep the podcast going, is it pretty much exists on crowdsourced content at this point. All of you really do keep the show going, so a huge thank you for that. Also on the website is information about the book that I wrote, titled The Insomniacs Experiment by Raven Adams. It's a psychological thriller, and I think it's pretty good. You might actually like it.

Check it out. It's available on Amazon. Or if you want a signed copy, you can email me to see if I have any left, and I will absolutely oblige if I do. All that said, friends, I hope you have a lovely rest of your day. I hope I see you again here very soon. But until then, remember that you are loved. You are valid. You are important. And the world is a better place with you in it. Don't forget that. Until next time, much love and sleep well.