As The Raven Dreams Podcast - Scary Stories For Dark Dreams - Vol 39 | ATRD Podcast

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Today we have more than 1.5 hours of true scary stories with a late night ambience. Scary Stories For Dark Dreams is a collection of older stories, remastered and put together in a long form episode. This Collection includes the following stories; Scary School Stories (09/2022), Scary Hotel Stories (08/2023) & Scary Internet Creep Stories (01/2024). So we definitly have one heck of a range on topics and time here today. So, turn down the lights, tune in, and let the haunting tales of everyday people take you down that dark and creepy road. Remember, these aren't just stories... these are true experiences that remind us that our world can truly be scarier than fiction. 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 TIMESTAMPS One Ad Break after the first story, none after that. Story 1: 00:24 Story 2: 09:08 Story 3: 22:11 Story 4: 30:12 Story 5: 42:51 Story 7: 50:40 Story 8: 59:34 Story 9: 1:05:01 Story 10: 1:10:07 Story 11: 1:20:55 Story 12: 1:25:12 Story 13: 1:32:28 ----- 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 ➤ And Remember; You are loved, you are important, and you are valid. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're aboard Via Raii, Embarked and profite. Embarked and celebrate. Rigolet. Publiere. Savouring. Admirate.

And profite. Viarai, the voice that we love that we love. If you have a true scary story, you'd like to share with the podcast, go to ashtheravendreams.com and click the button to send it my way. Also, if the platform you're on

has the option to rate the podcast or leave a comment, please consider doing so. And as always, thank you. So, I've been a bit down on my luck as of late, and unfortunately have had to move out of my apartment due to the building being shut down, because there was a major issue. I don't know the whole story, but I think it had something to do with mold in the inner walls or something. Basically, we were kicked out and told that we could come back eventually, but there's been

no updates about it for weeks. It's incredibly stressful not being able to be in your home because of something out of your control, and to not know if you'll be told that you can't come back, and to just get your stuff, really sucks. Thankfully, because this was an issue with the property, and not my doing, nor the fault of anyone that lives there, the rental company has to cover our living expenses, until they get everything sorted out. However, they also have the ability to restrict where they are willing to let us stay, and they chose a hotel that is an extended stay kind of place in a rather

mediocre part of town. Now, I don't want to complain about a free living space, but this place needed some major TLC. The first thing I noticed when I went to check in was that the main lobby's carpet was horrifically dirty, like stained multiple colors and fraying at most of the edge kind of dirty. And the TV in the lobby was a thick CRT-style TV that was really small. I know that I sound like I'm complaining, but it's just one of those things that, in 2022, if you see a CRT TV in the lobby of a hotel, it kind of speaks to the quality of the overall hotel. Some people may disagree with that, and that's fine, but that's my opinion.

Anyways, I checked in and got my key to my room, which was room 203. I got to the room and went in, and it was nothing special. It was a pretty bland and plain single bedroom, and really that was fine. As wary as I was of the hotel, I was still happy that I had a place to sleep, and that I didn't have to pay for it. Honestly, it was decent here for the most part for the first couple of weeks. Until one night, on the second week, I got a phone call to my room. I answered it because it was kind of weird, and I assumed it was the front desk because who else would have the number directly to my room.

I say hello, and the person on the other end says, Hi, this is Howard from the front desk. There was an issue with your payment, and we need you to come down to the front desk to clear it up. It shouldn't take but a moment or two. I mentioned that I wasn't the one paying for the room, and that it was being paid for by my apartment complex. And after a moment the guy said,

Huh. Well, if you could just come down, I'll get your info, and we'll get this squared away. Obviously, I was annoyed, but just said okay and that I'd be down in a moment. I grabbed my wallet and phone and went to the elevator, and then down to the main lobby. I got down to the desk, and the same woman that had checked me in two weeks ago was working. I mentioned to her that I got a call from someone at the front desk, saying that there was an issue with my payment. She kind of looked at me confused and mentioned that she was the only person.

working the front desk that night, and that she wasn't aware of any issues. I asked that there was anyone named Howard that worked there, as that was who had called my room, and she told me that there wasn't. After a few moments of her checking with my booking and making sure that everything was okay with everything, I thanked her and mentioned that it must have just been a prank caller or something. She agreed, but told me to come back and tell her if it happened again. or if there were any other issues. I went back up to the second floor, went over to my room,

and as soon as I entered, I realized what had happened. I got in, and my suitcase with all of my clothes was gone. When I went downstairs, the suitcase was sitting on the chair in the corner, as I always do, and when I got back, it was just gone. I immediately called the front desk and told her that my room had been robbed, that someone had broken in while I was downstairs and stolen my items. She was a bit confused on how that could have happened since I was the only person that should have had the key to the room,

but she said that she would call the police and would send one of the hotel staff up to the room right away. I just sat there, honestly feeling violated, like I was a lot of her. like I should have realized something was up because there was no way something would have just gone wrong with my payment, as I wasn't the only tenant staying there. I should have asked more questions and pressed the guy, and I would have realized that it was BS. But hindsight is 2020, right? After a few minutes, I had a knock on my door from one of the hotel staff,

and then the police showed up, and I explained what happened to, All of them. I told them that I had gotten a call on the phone, saying there was an issue that I needed to come downstairs for, and I fell for it. I then said that when I got back into the room, my stuff was just gone. The police asked me if I was the only one that had a key to my room, and I told them that I was. And the staff member mentioned that the only people that could get into the room were the customers that rented it and the cleaning crew. It was at this point that one of the officers asked if they had cameras in the hallways, and they confirmed they did.

I'm not going to get into the specific details of all that happened, but they checked the security camera, and they did see someone entering my room. Sure enough, he was using a cleaning crew key to get in. It was a different color than the normal room keys, and the staff confirmed that it was a staff key. Even worse, the front desk knew exactly who it was that was on the camera, stealing my stuff. It was another tenant of the building that I lived in.

It was seriously someone else that was in the same situation as me. They had decided that they would take the time that they were stuck in this hotel to steal a key from a staff member and rob the other people staying there. I think he was surprised when I mentioned that I was from the apartment complex, because I think he was targeting other people, but he still saw opportunity and took it. After the front desk confirmed who he was, the officers went up and checked out his room,

and, well, long story short, he was put in cuffs. He'd mostly stolen small things from people while he was there, but when he got to my room, there was nothing sitting out, except my suitcase full of my clothes. so he just snatched the whole thing and ran hence why i was the first to complain about this i was the first to have noticed in the end he was arrested and i got my stuff back i am actually as of the time of writing this still staying at this hotel because i don't have much of a choice really there haven't been any more issues thankfully but i'm kind of paranoid now about everything i here in the hallways, thinking it's going to be someone breaking in.

I know that's dumb, but it's just a response to having my temporary home violated like that. Hopefully I get to move back into my apartment soon, like hopefully by the New Year's kind of soon, but I'm not holding my breath. Lazzang sur-gillet, puissance-moyerned for 15 minutes. We'd say that's their dojo. Pre-to-joo? Vive the pleasure with Leo Jo, the casino in-line that proposes the most recent machine-ass-sou and the game of casino in direct.

Profite of 50 tours gratu on Big Basnezzanza, without exigance of mise and with payments instantane. Hey, I've got gained. Woo-hoo! Sontire the pleasure, Leigho!

108 and plus, 1,1,000, expusely on Ontario. 50 tours gratuys on the machine-ass-Ban-A. Depos, minimum, of $10. Beye! Payne! You'll play to play the phone,

all, that, all the world can be a guy of the finance. Not no need to have a gross monger in gold, to be a pro of the crypto. Not a business. No, no more. In any case,

you have always done with the appellee-tit-titred-T-D you add to renewing with your instinct of negotiation. With the support 24-hour-pard-hour-pard, no amount of minimum,

nor fray-mensue. You're made for negotiate, and the apply-nogist-tit-T-D is made to you help. This happened to me when I, female,

was about 18, around six years ago. I had just graduated high school and was still living at home with my parents, as I figured out what I wanted to do for my future. I was working full-time, but outside of that, I was at home hanging out with my parents, or just hanging out in my room. Sometimes I would meet up with a few of my closest friends, but for the most part, we would all talk in a group or play games together.

and life just kind of took up a lot of our time after school and that's where Facebook also helped too I've had one since I was about 14 and I've mostly used it to see what my old friends were up to or to save a bunch of memes that I'll never look at again then one day I got a message request as well as a friend request from someone that I didn't know their profile said Gabe

and he just had some generic stock photos that was a silhouette of a dog, and a man walking on a beach at sunset. It was one of those that I would expect to see some kind of inspirational quote going across the bottom. Other than his name in the single picture, there was nothing really else on the account, not even a birthday or location. It was almost like this account was just recently made. Then there was the message that he sent. I remember basically what it's said, but I no longer have it.

Hello, Feliz. My name is Gabe. I saw your picture, and I think you're very beautiful. I would love to get to know you. Please, accept my friend request, and message me back. Thank you. I was a bit surprised, but not alarmed or creeped out in the slightest. I just assumed that it was some random guy who found my profile,

maybe through mutual friends, or maybe a friend's account. was hacked, and I was just his next target. Either way, I decided to ignore his message and deleted his friend request, not really thinking much of it. However, I got another message request from him exactly a week later. This time he sounded a bit more desperate, and this message I kept for reasons you'll soon understand, too. Hello, Feliz.

This is Gabe again. I messaged you a few days ago, but I never got a report. I really want to talk to you. You're the most gorgeous woman I've ever seen, please. Accept my friend of quest and message me back. I promise you, I'm a nice guy, and you won't regret it. By this point, I was annoyed, but there were also some things I was curious about. Like, why me?

How did he find and choose me in the first place? Did we have any mutual friends or something? So I went back to his profile to see if maybe I missed something, looking for his friends list for any mutuals, but it was barren. There were still no posts or photos, and he had a handful of friends, all of which looked pretty basic too. This only solidified my thought that it was a scammer even more. So I figured there was no harm in responding to either see how they found me,

or maybe I could just waste scammers time. I did not accept his new friend request. Instead, I just left it there and replied to his message with something simple. Hello, who are you? Do I know you? To my surprise, he replied before I could close Facebook. Hi, I'm so happy to hear from you. My name is Gabe.

I'm 29, and I live in a state north of you. I found you through a mutual friend. You don't know me, but I would love to get to know you more. You are so beautiful. And I cannot stop thinking about you. Can we get together soon? I was confused and quite honestly taken aback by how blunt he was, not to mention his age. How could a 29-year-old have a mutual friend with a 19-year-old?

I couldn't think of anyone around that age or anyone that would hang out with a 29-year-old. year old, let alone from another state. So I was curious who this mutual friend was, so I asked him. He seemed to avoid the question, and instead just became more pushy. Our friend showed me your picture, and I was so blown away by your beauty. You have a gorgeous smile. I want to see more of you. Please, accept my friend request, and we can exchange photos.

I would love some personal photos of you. I was pretty well creeped out at this point. It seemed less like a scam, but this guy was obviously obsessed, which was not healthy, and downright disturbing that he was saying this to a 19-year-old. So I responded trying to be polite, for some reason. I just said that I wasn't interested in him, and since I didn't even know who he was, I didn't think it would be a good idea, and that was it.

But he still did not seem to get it or let up. No, please, don't go. I love you. You're the only one for me. We were meant to be together. I know it. Please don't reject me. I need you in my life.

So, clearly, this guy was delusional. He didn't even know me and he claimed he loved me. It was beyond creepy, if not. pathetic, dare I say it. I hope no one is silly enough to follow up with these type of confessions. I didn't know what to say to him, so I just blocked his account

and hoped that that would be the end of it. But, of course, it wasn't. I got another message request to the next day from a different account. The profile picture was a crappy screenshot of my profile picture, with a heart around it,

and the profile name was I Love Her. This gay person had made a brand new account, sent another friend request and message. They basically said the same thing about how they miss me and they want me to talk to them. This guy was persistent, and still very much creeping me out, so I didn't even respond. I reported his account since he was using my picture. sure and then blocked him. But it seems like every time I blocked him, he would make or have a new account. I couldn't seem to win or get him to understand that I was not interested.

But then, I got a familiar-looking email that made me pay attention. I didn't use my email as often after high school, so when I saw what looked like a personal email, I checked it. It was Gabe. He said that he had first. found my email and wanted to try to reach me by it instead. He then said that he found out more about me and pretty much just listed random things about me. He knew what high school I graduated from.

He knew the company that I worked for but didn't give the exact store location. He also listed the city that I lived in. He knew the name of my parents and my cat and claimed to have even seen me in person. He followed all that up with saying that he was hoping that we could meet up soon. He made it seem like I would appreciate it more that he knew so much about me, or that maybe I would take it as a threat, and either way would meet up with him. One thing was for sure.

I definitely took it as a threat, and I was freaking out. Did this guy really see me somewhere? He said that he lived in a different state, so... Did he really travel to try to find me? But instead of meeting up with him, I mentioned it to my parents. I knew this was no longer something that I could handle alone, and they needed to know, even if it was kind of embarrassing for me. They, of course, took it very seriously,

and told me that I should have mentioned it to them sooner, just so they could know and possibly help, but otherwise they were very supportive. They took me to the point. police station to ask what we could do, since we didn't even know what the guy looked like, or if Gabe was his real name. The police seemed to feel the same way, and since we couldn't ID the guy and he hadn't really done anything yet, there wasn't much we could do.

They suggested that I get a new email address and Facebook, or just get rid of them in general to try to avoid him. So, ultimately, that's what I did. to my surprise it seemed to actually work. I changed my name on my new Facebook. I used a picture of my cat instead of myself. And my email was very professional sounding. I needed one of those anyways.

So I hoped that he wouldn't be able to find me. I didn't receive any more messages, friend requests, or emails from him, and I started going back to live life as normal. But then I got to be able to find. a package in the mail. I order stuff from different places all the time, so I didn't hesitate to open it. And yes, I know how dangerous that is, and I pay more attention to packages before I open them now.

Inside the box was a jewelry box with a ring inside, as well as a card, and the card said happy anniversary, which was weird, so I thought that this couldn't possibly be for me, but then I read the card. I no longer have it, but basically it said, I hope that you like this, and I hope you understand how serious I am about you. I love you, and I will make you mine. See you soon, Gabe.

I lost it, and immediately showed my parents what it was. There was no return label, so once again, we couldn't even see where it came from. They brought it back to the... the police station who agreed to take it and see if there was a way they could trace it, but they told us not to get our hopes up. I was worried about how much this guy knew, so my parents suggested that I'd go and stay at my grandma's place for a little bit, and I even contemplated switching stores that I worked at. My grandma lived about 20 miles from my parents, and there was

another store closer to her, and I realized that I didn't want to drive that far daily for work. Thankfully, they were willing to let me transfer, and for some reason, not being around people I knew, it made me more comfortable. I still didn't know if that gay person truly knew a mutual friend, and if so, if the mutual friend gave them any information about me. It's pretty messed up for them to do that, if so, but I still haven't figured that part out. Once I moved, my parents said that I got another package, and after confirming it wasn't something that I ordered, they marked it as return to sender, saying that that was not my address anymore. They said the post office told them to do so, and even if there wasn't a return address, they would take care of it. Whatever that meant. For whatever reason, though, I never got another package, and I never received any more messages.

I guess maybe he either gave up, or if they were messing with me, they figured they did enough damage. The situation was really rough for me. The creep was unsettling enough, but they left a lingering thought that there may be people out there, people that I thought I could trust, that were putting me in potential danger, which did ultimately affect some of my friendships. I'm still working on that. I just hope that I never have to deal with Gabe or anyone he associated with ever again. I used to teach high school way back, and while it was mostly uneventful, there was one time where things went pretty bad, and I'll never forget what happened.

I was an English teacher for freshmen, which for those that aren't used to the high school nomenclature, I was teaching ninth-year students, which are kids that are around 14 or 15 years old at the most. I don't know if they use the same labels outside the U.S., so I figured it would be helpful to explain. Teaching kids that age meant that you are dealing with a lot of really dumb and dramatic things. These are really young kids that are doing their best to figure out what life actually is, and they're on the cusp of that adulthood transition, where things fall into place. So you can't really blame them for their mistakes

or when they do something stupid. That's not to say that they are without fault, just that when they do something, it is hard to pin blame on them fully as they tend to emulate what they see outside of their own lives. They also tend to try and be, cool, and they have no idea what cool actually is. This story involves two young girls that I'm going to call Katie and Kylie.

These two young ladies were in the group of people that really wanted to be cool kids, but were definitely on the outside looking in, which is a common thing, and there's nothing wrong with not being in that clique. The two of them were both smart girls. but they were also beginning to hit that phase where being smart wasn't what they wanted. So they started lashing out and pushing back against authority. The two of them were in my class that I had immediately after lunch, so they would be in my room right after eating.

I never really had much of a problem with either of them until this situation occurred. They were both good students and they both did their work to an acceptable degree. The day that this event happened was pretty normal until it wasn't. We were doing the standard normal assignment that I had them do at the beginning of class when I glanced over and saw that Katie looked a bit out of it. At first, I thought maybe she was just tired or bored. But then I noticed that she looked a bit pale and like she was going to get sick. I stood up and walked over to her and asked her if she was okay,

and she seemed like she wasn't really able to respond to me. She sort of glanced over, but didn't really say anything. I knelt down and tried to talk to her again, but she was completely not there. Her eyes were glazed over, and she looked like she was barely breathing. At that point, I knew that something was going on with her. I told one of the other students to run next door to the health class and get the teacher because we had a medical emergency. They were a certified nurse, and I figured that they could help.

I was trying to get Katie to focus and was trying to talk to her, but it was not happening. Obviously, my class was freaking out a bit, and I was panicking inside, but I didn't want to step away from her just in case she collapsed until the other teacher got into the room. After a moment, she ran in asking what was going on. I explained the situation, and she told me to call 911. I ran over and picked up the phone, and right about the time I got to the operator, Katie just fell over unconscious.

There are several minutes in this situation where I really don't remember all of what happened. I remember telling the operator everything and the other teachers starting CPR and doing everything to keep Katie breathing and alive. But between that and the paramedic shoving into my room and taking her away, I don't recall much. I won't go over too much of what happened after this,

because there was a lot of paperwork I had to do and a couple of meetings with the administration that I had to have, that aren't really relevant, but I will explain what all actually happened. I will start by saying that Katie did survive this event, but barely. From what I've been told about this, she was teetering over the edge for most of the ambulance ride, and it took them a while to bring her back to a conscious and living state.

As for how she ended up like that, we actually figured this out pretty quickly, because Kylie spoke up when the paramedics had taken Katie away, and the principal had come down to the classroom. Apparently, Katie had decided that, in order to be one of the cool kids, she and Kylie needed to do drugs. However, neither of them knew what drugs they should or could do,

so she just decided to swipe a bottle of pills from the medicine cabinet. The pills in question, were decently strong pain pills that her mother had from when she had broken her arm or something like that. Katie had taken them, and during the lunch break, she and Kylie went to the bathroom to take them. Kylie took one because she didn't like swallowing pills, apparently. Katie, on the other hand, had taken a handful of them, because she, in her words, wanted to really feel it. Like I said, these were kids just trying to figure things out, and apparently neither of them had ever been told about overdosing or what happens.

When they got to my class, Kylie was fine for the most part, just kind of tired. Katie, on the other hand, was getting hit by the medication really hard, and that's why she went pale. Her body was pretty much shutting down. Katie came very close to accidentally dying that, day. Kylie nearly lost her best friend, and I almost lost a student because she thought it would be cool to take a handful of pills that she was ignorant about. They were able to get her stable, and she did eventually get to come back to class, though when she came back, she was a completely

changed person, for the better, of course. I think the fact that she almost accidentally ended her own life really affected her, as it would anyone. I'm thankful that she didn't die, obviously, but I will honestly never forget that day. The look on her face, the absolute terror in Kylie's voice when she told us about the pills. So, I ask everyone out there, please make sure that your children are fully aware

of the dangers of medication, and keep things like prescribed pain pills far away from your kids. if possible. I didn't lose a student that day, but if I had, it would have been the most devastating thing for not just myself, but those kids, the staff, and her parents. I used to be a pretty heavy user of social media pages like Insta, Facebook, and so forth. I'm part of the age group that has pretty much always known them.

When I was a very young kid, they were coming into popularity. So when I hit my adult years, I was well-versed on pretty much all of them. And I had these stupid delusions that I would one day be an influencer. So I had a page on every single one of these apps. I liked to make content for people to enjoy. I think it was more about the self-satisfaction of getting the likes and comments, but I also had a personal side where I would keep up with my friends and family. They were two separate accounts, and never the twain shall meet, as they say.

I kept my personal life away from my influencer life, and vice versa. Unfortunately, I did break my own rule one time, and that was the worst decision I could have ever made, because it led to what I have to say is the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me. Before I start, I want to mention that when I say that I was an influencer, I mean that I was just a micro-celebrity on these platforms. I wasn't a huge name, and I did not have a massive following. I had enough of a following for it to be neat and to get that dopamine rush, but I wasn't shilling eyeglass brands or meal kits. I barely even ever got paid, but I barely even ever got paid for anything that I did.

Nothing wrong with those that do. I say get that cash, but I never hit that point. Anyways, one day on my personal account, I got a friend request from a girl named Alara. It was a name that sounded familiar, but I wasn't 100% certain where I had seen it. I sat on it for a day or two, thinking that it sounded super familiar, so... It was likely someone from high school or something. And after that, I figured I would go ahead and accept it. I then got a direct message from her that said,

Oh my God, I'm such a fan of your content, girl! You are such a blessing. At this point it clicked. This wasn't a friend. This was a fan of my other stuff, and she'd somehow found my personal page. I was always pretty careful with not putting out who I was on any of my influencer pages. I never mentioned my real first name, never said my last name.

I was referred to myself by a nickname that I'd been given a long time ago. How she found out my name, I do not know, but she did. And I had made the mistake of adding her on my personal page. Because I didn't want to be rude, I wanted to keep up that I was a nice person. I responded and said, Hey, thanks. This is my personal page, though. I don't use it for that stuff, but I do appreciate it.

Lara then replied with a heart and said that she was so happy that I added her because she wanted to be besties with me. I just kind of accepted it and thought, okay, well, I guess I have a super fan. Hopefully this doesn't go south. It did. It did go south. After a bit of talking back and forth,

I thought that Lara was all right. But then she would message me in the middle of the night saying things like, I have a great idea for a video that you could do. Or, hey, you should go check out this brand of makeup. Maybe they'll sponsor you. Which would be fine. if they were just that, but she would send it and then send things like, Hello?

Within five minutes. And then would go on and on about how I wasn't talking to her. Again, this was the middle of the night. I was sleeping. But if I didn't reply to her, she would accuse me of being rude or ignoring her, and then would go on about how she was going to ruin my career and get me cancelled. After a while, like two days, I got pretty well fed up with it. So I messaged Alara back asking what was wrong with her and why she was being like this toward me.

She then launched into a long-winded apology, saying that she had issues, and that she didn't mean to be rude to me, that she loved me and that she didn't have any friends. Stupid me bought into this. saying that it was okay as long as she understood that it was inappropriate, and that she needed to take a step back. She didn't, of course. Literally the next day she started sending me her ideas, and when I didn't reply to her immediately,

because I was at work, like my actual job, she started going on about how she was going to hurt herself because she had hurt me, and that I hated her and so forth. I finally messaged her again, saying that if she had all these great ideas, that she should start her own channel slash page. And that, unfortunately, the friendship was not going to work out, as I didn't have the energy to deal with her. After I sent this message, I unfriended her and then immediately blocked her. I figured that that would be the end of it, then she would get the hint and maybe get some help.

I really didn't need to deal with a really awkward parisocial relationship like that. And I wasn't going to, since I had the ability to block her. I wish that that was the end of it, but a couple of days later, I got a package at my apartment. It was marked as being from Amazon, so I thought nothing of it, thinking I probably ordered something and just forgot about it. I opened it, and inside was a stuffed cat, that looked exactly like my actual, in-real-life cat. It had one of those little gift tags that you can send with items on Amazon, and it said,

I'm so sorry, please forgive me. And it was signed as being from Alara. Two things about this. Obviously, I never gave her my address, nor is it on my Facebook anywhere. And to the best of my knowledge, my cat had never been in any of my photos on my Instagram. influencer page, nor my personal page. I had only had her for a month, maybe two, and I hadn't

taken pictures of her for my socials, mostly because that just wasn't something that I did. Yet, somehow, she knew what my cat looked like, and my home address. I honestly had no idea what I should do, so I called my dad about it and asked him for some advice. He mentioned that it was unsettling and told me to ask my apartment office if I could install one of those doorbell cameras. I thought it was a great idea, and I decided that I would do that ASAP. And, of course, as soon as possible, was not soon enough. About three days after I got the package, I was at home making dinner for myself, and I got a knock on the door. I wasn't expecting anyone, so I was a bit confused, and I opened the door with the chain attached, thankfully.

On the other side, was a young woman that looked vaguely familiar, but it didn't click who it was at first. I asked her if I could help her, and she looked at me offended at first, and then followed that up with, You don't recognize me? It's me, Alara! Okay, at this point, I will say that inside, I was freaking the F out. But on the outside, I knew that I needed to be firm with her and tell her that she needed to leave me alone. So I did. She then started sobbing and then screaming at me, saying that she had driven all the way from Arizona to meet me. I know that I haven't mentioned where I lived in this story,

but let me just say that I am closer to New York than I am Arizona. Like, significantly closer. I really didn't know how to deal with this, so I just reiterated that she needed to leave me alone, that what she was doing was stalking, and that as much as I didn't want to hurt her, she needed to go home and forget that I ever existed. I then pushed the door shut and locked it,

which was immediately followed by her screaming loudly and banging on the door, and then kicking my door repeatedly and saying that she wasn't going to leave until I came out, and that when I came out, she would show me what she was capable of. I did call 911, and I told them to get an officer there as quickly as possible, that someone was trying to break into my apartment, And the whole time I was on the phone with dispatch, holding a damn kitchen knife, and standing in the middle of my living room thinking my door was going to give, she just kept kicking it over and over the entire time while I was waiting for officers to show up.

After what felt like forever, I finally heard a voice shout that she needed to get down and put her hands behind her head. I thought for sure that she was going to comply. not surely she wasn't crazy enough to do anything else. And then I heard her shout, You're going to have to effing kill me. Shoot me! Followed by more shouting and then a screaming noise and an officer shouting, Taser.

I kept my place in the middle of the living room just waiting for whatever was happening out there to clear up. And about ten minutes after all of that, one of the officers knocked on my door. Yeah, that was a fun chat. that we had. I mentioned that she was a stalker from the internet, and that I had no idea how she found where I lived. He then mentioned that it was a really good thing that I called, and that I didn't open my door, because she had a knife on her, a rather large one, in her hands.

Thankfully, they were able to take her down with a taser shot, and he mentioned that he was seriously worried that one of them was going to have to use lethal force, and he really didn't want that to happen. She was obviously charged with a handful of things, and I'm pretty sure she ended up in prison for a while. This was the

absolute end of my influencer career, as small as it was. I deleted my accounts, I opened new Facebook accounts that were fully locked down, and re-added only my family and closest to friends.

And my social media upset was pretty much over. Alara obviously had some problems, and she needed help. And I'm very hopeful that she got the help that was necessary. But, honestly, as bad as it may make me sound, I'm glad that she went away for what she did. If I hadn't chained the door, I'd very likely had been dead. If those officers had gone straight for their guns,

she likely would have been dead. Thankfully, no one involved did die. But it's terrifying to think just how close it really was. When I was in middle school, we had a handful of elective classes that we could take that were pretty 101-level basic stuff. There was a computer and tech class, Homek, and then there was what was known as industrial arts, which was more or less a shop class.

These weren't all of them, but these were the ones that I personally remember. My first year of junior high, I took the computers in tech class, and then the second year I decided that I wanted to see what shop class was all about. The class started out well enough. The teacher went over everything involved in the class and what he expected of us. He then went over all the machines and tools that we would use. He was very detailed and thorough when it came to explaining for each of the machines and how they worked. He even had a demonstration for the bandsaw.

When it came time for him to explain how the bandsaw worked, he walked over to his office and grabbed a raw chicken leg. He then turned the saw on. It was a good demonstration, honestly. Watching the saw blade rip open the chicken leg and tear through the meat and bone and definitely got the point across that this was not a toy. My point in all this is that he was a very safety-oriented teacher. He was excellent at showing what could go wrong,

and he watched all of us like a hawk when we were working on our projects. When the event happened, we were actually in the second quarter of the class. We were on our third or fourth project, and actually remember that we were supposed to be designing a small wooden race car from a block of wood. We had some specific requirements that we had to use, like how much of the wood we could or couldn't cut off. Pretty basic stuff. One of the final parts of the project required us to drill two holes into the bottom for the axles.

On the specific day that this happened, our teacher was actually out sick. However, his son was a substitute instructor for the district. So they called him in to take us place, which on paper sounds like a great idea. The problem with that is that his son was absolutely not as mindful of the fact that we were all dumb kids. And he was a lot more relaxed when it came to monitoring us. The problem with that is that we did have a couple of boys in the class. that were absolute a-holes, and were just waiting for the moments to do something stupid for attention.

The two of them were actually cousins that had grown up together, and in their early teenage years they had made it a point to torment each other for fun. For the sake of the story, we're going to call them E and M. On this specific day, they were supposed to be drilling the holes into their cars, but E had the bright idea that he wanted to play chicken with the drill press. He bet M that he could put his hand on the drill's press and get the bit closer to his hand before chickening out than he could. M, not to be made a fool of, accepted the bet,

and the two of them set off on their stupidity-filled game. E placed his hand on the press plate and lowered the bit to just above his hand and held it there for several moments before lifting it back up, and then laughing at M in its haunting manner. M, of course, said that he could do better, and he placed his hand on the drill press plate and slowly started lowering the bit down.

This is where things went from stupid to medical emergency in record time. M was sitting there lowering the bit close to his hand as slowly as he could, and was just focusing on the space between the quarter-inch bit and his palm. However, E decided that he wanted to, I don't know, be funny, I guess, and scare M by nudging the lowering mechanism and trying to get it to hit his hand and scare him. I'm really not 100% sure what his plan was in this situation. But when he hit the lowering mechanism, he hit it way too hard in his way to make. a downward motion, and the drill bit ended up going straight in to M's hand.

The way I see it, this had to have been intentional, because it was almost like E had pushed the lowering handle down way harder than he should have, and the only way for a drill bit to go through like it did would have been with pressure. This, of course, caused M to freak out and push the lowering mechanism up, which lifted his hand. hand to the top of the machine, which then caused him to try and pull his hand off, which made the whole thing worse. This whole time, M is screaming about the literal drill bit that had gone through his hand, fronts to back.

At no point did E press the emergency stop button, or do anything to actually try and stop the machine. The teacher ended up running over to shut it off and asked what the hell had happened, and was screaming to someone in the room to go. go to the desk and call 911 and tell them that we needed an ambulance. The whole thing was incredibly disgusting. I'm not going to go into the detail of it here, but I do remember that it was a bloody mess. The drill bit had actually gone through the center of his hand, and he was losing a lot of blood,

and the teacher was doing everything he could to keep M for passing out and losing too much. At the end of this whole thing, E ended up getting expelled, and obviously everyone in the school knew about what had happened. He claimed it was an accident, and that while they were playing chicken, he didn't mean to hit the press. We all knew it was a lie, but Em ended up vouching for him,

saying that it was an accident. Em actually ended up losing use of half of his left hand and was out of school for quite a while. Apparently where the bit had gone into the hand was a bad spot for it to do so, and it damaged a lot. He couldn't really move his ring finger or pinky anymore, and this was honestly a really traumatic event for a lot of us as middle schoolers, and was enough to pretty much shut down the shop class for us for the rest of the year.

From then on, any time one of us wanted, to use the machines, we had to do it one at a time with a teacher watching us. It slowed down the projects a lot, but honestly, I get it. I guess the moral of my story is that kids can be evil to even their own family, and power tools like drill presses are not something you should play around with. Also, playing chicken with a drill press is probably one of the dumbest things you could ever do. I have to travel a lot for work,

and I have stayed at countless hotels. Because of this, I've come to expect the usual disturbances. Loud neighbors, creaking pipes, old rattling air conditioners. There was one night, however, that I wanted to write about because it was super weird and kind of creepy. The hotel was nice. It was in a smaller coastal town and was decently priced. It had a really ornate facade, and the lobby was gorgeous.

It looked like they had done a lot to maintain the history of the building. There were a ton of sepia-toned images of the founder, and other images that were pretty clearly over the history of the building. I had checked in late, worn out by a really long. drive and I was given the key to room 312 I remember being a bit annoyed by having a room on the top floor especially since I saw the parking lot and I knew that the building was not full but I shrugged it off just assumed that it was something to do with logistics or whatever and I lugged my suitcase to the elevator the room was charming but definitely

had an air of what I would say was a faded grandeur. You could tell that it had seen better days. The walls were faded. The bed and bedding was definitely old, and it still had one of those small tube televisions sitting on a dresser facing the bed. In the end, it was a bed, and that's all I really needed. I unpacked, took a really quick shower, and then settled in for the night.

night. About ten minutes after I settled in is when I first heard it. A soft, distant melody that seemed to drift through the walls. It seemed to cut through the late-night silence of the hotel. It was an old piano tune, filled with a bit of melancholy that sent a chilled on my spine. I listened for a while, sort of entranced by the haunting beauty of. it, completely ignoring the fact that it was almost one in the morning. Eventually, my fatigue got the better of me, and I drifted off to sleep. I had the weirdest dream while I was sleeping there that night, a dream that I was basically a fly on the wall in the hotel way, way back. It was a strange dream that I wasn't really

part of. It was like I was just watching the front of the hotel back when it first opened. Nothing really happened, but I remember seeing people dressed like it was the 1920s, running around like crazy, and seeing the man that was labeled as the original owner downstairs at the front desk. He was helping customers, getting luggage upstairs. When I finally woke up, I assumed it was just my brain being influenced by the last interesting thing that I had seen that night. which was all the stuff downstairs about the hotel. The next day I went to the front desk, and I asked them about the music, asking if they had music playing in the hallways or something, or maybe a lounge downstairs where someone was performing. But the receptionist just looked at me puzzled.

She informed me that the only music that played in the hotel was in the restaurant, but that it wasn't live. and it wasn't that loud, especially not loud enough for me to have heard it on the third floor in the back end of the hotel. I asked if there was anyone in any of the rooms around me, but she mentioned that the rooms near me were both empty, that they weren't heavily booked at the moment, so it was unlikely that it was coming from the rooms near mine.

I was a bit skeptical, definitely unsettled, but I decided to brush it off and just assume that I was hearing music from somewhere. It wasn't disruptive. Sure, it was late, but it wasn't like it was keeping me awake. That next night, the same thing happened. This time, though, the music was a bit more insistent, a bit louder. It sort of lingered around the room like a cool breeze, if that makes sense. and I decided that I would go ahead and investigate.

I put some clothes on, and I headed out into the hallway to see if I could figure out where it was coming from. And sure enough, I could tell that it was coming from my left. I stepped out and went over to room 313 to see if it was there, but it wasn't. The only other room in that direction was 314, which was the last room on the floor at the end of the hallway. As I approached, I noticed that the door was actually slightly open, in that it wasn't locked. I assumed that maybe a member of staff or the cleaning crew was in the room,

and maybe they didn't realize that their music was so loud. So, I figured I could just ask them to turn it down really quick, and that would be that. I pushed the door open, and I was hit by this rush of freezing, cold air, and just as strong of a feeling of shock and confusion. When I opened the door, I swear I saw an old piano being played by a man. It wasn't just any man, though. It was the owner, the man that I saw in my dream. The man that was in his 50s or 60s in the photo december. downstairs, that photo that was taken in the 1920s.

He was sitting there at the piano and just running his hands around the keys, playing out this beautiful tune. I stood there, wide-eyed, and obviously very confused, unable to comprehend what it was that I was staring at. And then, it was over as quickly as it had started. I blinked, and, The piano was gone. The man was gone, and the music just stopped.

I was just left there standing in a room that was empty, clearly being remodeled, a room that was very clearly not occupied by a piano, nor its talented player. I turned around and went back to my room and just went straight to bed, deciding that I just needed some sleep. I mean, there was no logical. a way that I just witnessed a spirit in that empty room, right? The next morning, I checked out, and the receptionist asked me how my stay was. I mentioned that I heard the music again, and thought about telling her about seeing the owner's ghost, but just decided against it.

She gave me a concerned look, saying that she was sorry if it had disturbed me. I told her that it wasn't a big deal, that it was actually... kind of pleasant. I'm just wanting to keep the overall sense positive. In case the owner's spirit was present and listening. I'm not much into the paranormal,

so I don't know how any of that works, but I figured keeping a trapped soul happy was the best way to do things. I haven't had to go back to that town for work since. Either fortunately or unfortunately. If I

have to, I'm considering staying in that hotel again and asking if I can get room 314. It's been a few years, so there's no way that they aren't done renovating it by now, and I kind of want to see if I can have another experience. Just to reassure myself that what I saw was real. When I was a freshman in high school, I was a bit of a troublemaker. I used to be the kid that would talk crap to the teacher, and then when they would try to send me out of the room, I would take that as an opportunity to go do whatever I wanted.

I also skipped a lot of school, and was basically told that I had to go to summer school or else I was going to be held back. Being the kid I was with a home life and parents that obviously weren't doing much to change the situation, I actually failed summer school. I was given a final ultimatum at that point. I was basically told that I was going to be expelled

unless I attended what was essentially an alternative school in the district. For some reason, despite me being a problem child and pretty much being told that I no longer had to attend school if I chose expulsion, I decided that I wanted to do the alternative school. I don't know what I was. why I chose it, but I did. That alternative school was something else. There were a lot of people there that had done a lot of questionable things, and I was

actually scared of a few of the people that were in my core classes. Strangely enough, when I started attending the alternative school, I kind of started caring about my grades, and I wanted to do better. I also started making a few friends, including one girl that I will call D. Dee was a year older than me, but she was a bit out there. I don't know if she actually had a mental issue or if she was faking it, but I will say that she acted very bipolar. Most of the time, she was fine, but she would randomly lash out and start screaming at people about things that made no sense. For example, there was one day during lunch where we were eating, and she got up to the table, walked to the table next to us, and started screaming at this one kid because he had, in her words, looked at her like he wanted to F her.

The dude had no idea what was going on, and she threatened to smash his face in. She was pretty clearly not someone to mess with. obviously, but she was way too aggressive to people that did not deserve it. Now, the situation that the story is about actually happened near the end of the year. It was in our geometry class, which was one of the classes that semester that I'd had with D. We were in the middle of a quiz when she stood up and asked the teacher why she didn't know any of the answers. He asked her to please sit back down, and if she needed help, we could talk about the questions that she was stuck on as a class.

She then started yelling that she didn't want to talk about it, and that we never learned any of the stuff that was on the quiz, and that the teacher was just making fun of her for being stupid. By this point, everyone was just kind of sitting there staring at her and the teacher, and the teacher was doing his best to calm the situation, asking her to please sit down, asking her to, to tell him which question it was that she was struggling with, and then finally, after a bit of back and forth, asking her to come with him out into the hallway. He started walking toward

the door, and as soon as he got to the door, Dee literally punched him in the side of the head, like full weight of her body forward, smacking his face into the wall and knocking him down. She then started kicking him in the head and neck. For a few seconds, we all just sat there and watched it happen. But then one of the kids in the back ran up and grabbed her, pulling her off of him, and yelled for someone to go get another teacher. Someone did, and thankfully this guy was able to hold Dee back and keep her pinned. They ended up calling an ambulance and the police.

D was taken out of the school and subsequently exhumed. spelled. The teacher was pretty badly messed up. One of her kicks to his head actually gave him an orbital socket fracture and cracked his jaw. Thankfully, that was the worst of it, and other than a lot of bruising, he was mostly okay. I have no idea what caused Dee to just snap like that, and it was super crazy to watch it all in real time. I do feel bad for the teacher as he was just trying really hard to keep things calm, but she blew up in an instant. I never saw her again after that, but I assume she was probably charged and put in jail for a while because of the assault.

If anyone else cares, I did finish high school. Of course, I was a year behind, but at least I got through it. When I was in high school, I used to be in a school. I used to be in a number of clubs and after-school things, including band. Because of this, I would typically be at the school until around six or seven every night, unless there was a band recital going on, in which case I could sometimes be there until ten. I was the teacher's assistant, read as errand boy, for the band instructor. So every night that we had band practice or recital, or even a concert,

I was the one that was designated to reorganize the back room and the classroom to make sure that everything was where it needed to be. I didn't really mind it. It was just a lot of work for me to do alone, especially cleaning up the back recital room because I had to stack all the chairs and put away all the music stands into the side closet. and there was something like 50 of us in the school band. Most nights were fine,

but there were a few times where I would swear that there was someone else in the back room with me. I would be putting things away, and I would hear a chair move across the floor, which I'm sure most of you know that screech sound that it makes when metal scrapes across tile. I could hear it while I was stacking the chairs, and I would look over, but no one would ever be there. There was one night where I put all the stands away in the closet and shut the door, which was actually difficult. The door to the closet had an exterior latch,

because it was one of those doors where, if you didn't hook the latch, it would swing open. I don't know if the school tilted or shifted or what, but they installed that exterior latch to hold it shut. I put all the stands away and I started to start. started stacking the chairs, and I heard the slow creaking sound of the closet door slowly swing open. As soon as I looked over at the cabinet, the door slammed shut, like someone was standing there and threw it shut as hard as they could. When I finally got the courage to go check it out,

I noticed that it was staying shut without the latch. It didn't last long, though. I opened it and reshut it, and it immediately, went back to slowly swinging open. The creepiest event was actually in my senior year, when I was pretty much done with everything. I would spend a lot of my evenings in the band room studying because I didn't really have much else to do,

and it was kind of like my comfort zone after having spent four years in it. I was sitting there one night, and I started hearing footsteps in the back room. At first I thought it. was the instructor. But after he didn't walk out, I went to go check to see if he needed help with anything.

I opened the door, and to my surprise, the instructor wasn't there. But I swear I saw what looked like a person around my age sitting in one of the chairs in the back row. Like, I seriously saw a person around 17, dressed in jeans and a plain t-shirt, with long black hair just sitting in one of the chairs. I did one of those blinking double takes, and she was gone.

I don't know who she was, and I don't think anyone has died in the school, and I don't really see any reason as to why it would be haunted by someone that looked like a student, but then it kind of clicked that she was likely the spirit that liked to play tricks on me. That was the only time that I ever saw her, and it was actually the last time I had any sort of paranormal experiences there. The last two to three weeks were kind of boring. I was almost hoping to see her one last time before I left, but it didn't happen.

I don't know if it was the spirit of someone that had passed away a long time ago, or why she was connected to the school, but I never really felt like she was malicious in her intent. The things that happened were creepy, sure, but it almost felt like she was playing a prank on me. And she kind of looked like the type to do it, which sounds kind of weird when you're describing a spirit. Anyways, that's my story of when I was in high school and was scared several times by a spirit. I do hope that she found peace eventually, or if she just never wanted to leave, then I hope that her. her spirit was at least comfortable in the band room. Back whenever I was in college, I had a phase where I was very heavily into gaming.

I was kind of your stereotypical MMRP nerd. And if I wasn't in class or studying, I was online and playing with my crew. I'm not going to lie, I made more friends playing that dumb game than I ever did trying to socialize with my classmates. The people online were more accepting, and were more willing to accept me into their circle, even though I was a bit different. It's not fully relevance to the story, but I've always had an issue with self-identity, and obviously those years were a time for development. So it was a bit rough as I was trying to find myself. Thankfully, I had my crew, and I will always be grateful for most of them. note the word most.

There was one guy who, for the sake of the story, were going to call Gaines. That was part of his username. And that's what we all referred to him as when we were in the crew. So it's a valid way to identify him. Gaines seemed like an okay dude, from what I knew at first. He was funny.

He always had a quip ready or a joke to throw out there. And he knew pretty much every. everything about the game. He and I became pretty decent friends, often teaming up when no one else was online, and just chatting about random stuff. He was also in college, so we did have some common ground, and I think that that helped quite a bit. It was a fun time, but after a little while, Gaines started getting a bit weird. He started messaging me out of our gaming sessions, which was kind of this unspoken rule amongst the crew. For whatever reason, we all had this understanding that we only talked to each other in-game,

or about the game, and we never tried to get personal with each other beyond just being friends. It was probably an anxiety thing all around, to be honest, but it was what it was. At first, his messages were just friendly banter. He would send me an email about how much he hated the class he was in, how his professor was an a-hole or whatever. Nothing too far out there. I would respond with something short like, oh, damn, man, that sucks.

I know how that feels. Just basic responses like that. Then after a couple days of him messaging me on the side, he pushed further and started asking personal questions, like where I lived, questions about my family. if I was dating anybody, if I had any younger siblings, which, while unrelated, probably should have been a red flag, and random things about my daily routine. I figured that he was just curious, and probably just as awkward as I was, so maybe he didn't know how to start a proper conversation.

I didn't really answer most of the questions that he asked. I mentioned that I wasn't super comfortable telling him about my personal life, and he seemed to agree and understand, saying that he didn't mean to make me feel uncomfortable. Then, out of nowhere, I got another message from him that turned up the creep factor. He mentioned that he found out the two of us, apparently, lived in the same state, and he said that we were practically neighbors. I never told him where I lived.

I never mentioned what region of the country I lived in, so this revelation was a bit jarring. He started to insist that we meet up, saying, Since we get along so well, it'd be stupid for us to not hang out, IRL. I mentioned that I would think about it, but that I was super busy with college, and I didn't have much time for a social life. To which he responded,

But you have time for the game? I hated that he had a point with that, because he knew when I was in the game, and he knew that it was pretty frequent, mostly because he was also always in the game with all of us. I mentioned that the game was my way of relaxing, and that I wasn't a very social person. And Gaines said, let's just meet up once, and we can see how we like it. I genuinely did not want to meet up with him. But he kept pushing it and pushing it, and I didn't want to pick a fight with someone that was friends with everyone else that I considered a friend. So, I agreed to meet up at a small restaurant on the edge of town, something public and where a lot of people would be just in case. The next day, I got an email from someone else from the crew that asked if Gaines and I were dating.

It was a bit weird, but I mentioned no, that I wasn't interested in him, as he wasn't my target demographic, if you get my drift, and then asked why. He then forwarded an email that he had apparently sent to everyone in the crew, except for me, that said he and I were meeting up for the first time, after having been in love in an online relationship for months. I was so confused. I told him that we'd been talking for a couple of weeks through email, that he had contacted me,

and that he had been pushy about meeting up, and that it was nothing like that. He then told me that I needed to make sure that Gaines knew that, because he apparently had a very different idea of what we were. I was pretty fed up with it at this point. He had made me feel so awkward, and he was so pushy about meeting up, and I had given in because I thought it would be harmless, and I didn't want to make it awkward with our crew. And then he went and made it awkward in his own way. I went ahead and started a message to everyone else, including Gaines, and I made sure to put in the message that he and I were not together, that he was mistaken about our meeting up and that it was going to be nothing more than as friends.

I reiterated what everyone in the group should have known, that I was swinging for the other team, and that I was not interested in him at all like that. Apparently this was the wrong thing to do, and he did not take it very well. About ten minutes after I sent the email, I got a phone call from a blocked number on my cell phone. At first, I ignored it, and then I got a number. another one. So I went ahead and answered it. As soon as I did, the person on the other end, who I learned was Gaines, started screaming at me about how I had ruined his life. Worse yet, as he finished his rant, he ended it by saying,

If I ever see you, Elizabeth Mary, you are dead. So he threatened my life and used my first and middle names, which told him. me he knew who I was, which was terrifying. I had never given him any information about me like that. He knew me by my username. My email wasn't even registered with my real name. It was my character's pseudonym. And then there's the fact that he was able to get my phone number to call me.

I have no idea how this person knew so much about me, but he knew where I lived, my name, my number, but it was pretty clear that this was a dangerous individual. I did file a report with the police, since he was threatening me, but I didn't have much information beyond his email and username and that he lived kind of close to the area. The person I was talking to wasn't exactly a tech person, so it was a struggle to explain that I knew him from a video game, but the report was made.

and well that was it there was some more banter in the group email about the whole thing and I mentioned to one of the friends that had reached out to me that Gaines had somehow found all of my personal information he was nice about it gave me some tips on things to check and lock down on my social medias none of which was connected to my game account or email and I went through what he said

but honestly there was nothing indicative of how how he found me. After a while, I just kind of stopped playing the game. I was nervous that I would run into Gaines, or that the crew would treat me differently, because of all of this. So I stopped playing as much, and eventually I just quit altogether.

I do keep in touch with two of the people that were in the group, and it's been a few years, and from what they've told me, after Gaines pulled this, the group sort of dissipated. I also found out that I wasn't the only person in the crew that he had started messaging, and he managed to find all of her personal information as well, and that he apparently threatened her when she rejected him. In the end, I am grateful that nothing really happened,

that he and I never ran into each other, and that he just left me alone after all of this. But it was still... pretty damn creepy. He had way too much information on me, and I don't know how he found it, but he did. I feel like he could have done much worse, so I guess I'm thankful that he had some restraint in the matter, and nowadays, I only play single-player games or games without comms. I don't want anything like this to ever happen to me again.

Back when I was a very young kid in elementary school, we actually had a full school lockdown that I can't remember. And I remember that it was really scary and confusing when we were locked down, because we were all little kids and had no idea what was going on. I was either in fifth or sixth grade at the time, because it was definitely near the end of me being in elementary school. To start the story, I will mention that I grew up in a rather poor area of my town, and the school that I attended was definitely not in the best location either. At the time that this took place, it was essentially the start of gang activity in my town.

I know that sounds weird, but it was pretty much a situation where people were starting to create gangs or starting to create their own sect of existing gangs. It's kind of hard to explain, honestly. It's like there were no gangs in the area, and then one day there were. Anyways, on the day that this happened, things felt rather normal. My grade was outside at recess, and I was actually playing kickball with a group of friends. About halfway through recess, I remember,

seeing a group of guys that were walking down the street towards the corner where the school was, but not necessarily near or to the school, just on the same street. I thought nothing of it. They were just people to me, and I was like 11 or 12, so I didn't really care. I remember that I was up to kick, and I kicked the ball for a double, and as soon as I started running to the base, I heard a loud pop. and then the teacher blowing the whistle really loud and waving frantically for everyone to get inside. Obviously I was upset.

I finally get a good kick in and then recess had to end. But something was off about this. We were all walking inside to the building, but the teachers had that weird sense of urgency when they were usuring us in. They were telling us to go faster, telling us to get into the room. rooms right away, and as soon as we were in, the teacher started taking attendance really quickly and locked the doors. Well, come to find out, we ended up on a full-blown lockdown.

We were all pulled out of our desks and sat behind the teacher's desk while she went on with the lesson. I remember feeling really weird being told to sit on the floor in the back while we did math, but it was definitely their way of keeping us all collected and away from doors and windows. The overall story was that it was actually a gang shooting. Those guys were meeting up with another group to fight it out for the territory or something, and one of them pulled out a gun, which led to a small firefight. That loud pop was one of the first shots, but definitely not the only shot.

while we were sitting there on the floor doing multiplication, they were shooting at each other on the corner until the cops got there, and by then two of them had actually been hit and killed. As a kid, I remember just being told that there was a fight outside, and that's why they had us all come in. But I learned that it was actually a shootout when I was an adult, and my mom accidentally told me about the two guys that were killed outside. side of my school.

This was the only time I ever had to go into a lockdown, thankfully, and while the town I grew up and hasn't really improved, the gangs at least stay away from the schools now. I have a hotel slash lodging-related story that I wanted to share because it was fairly creepy in my opinion. It wasn't really a hotel. It was a small bed-and-breakfast-type place that was owned by a car. couple. When I booked this room, I was feeling kind of down about things. Having gone through a recent breakup, and I wanted to get away for a while. I assumed that a nice weekend getaway to a quaint

little bed and breakfast in a small town would be exactly what I needed to clear my head. This specific B&B looked like it was perfect. I booked the room and took the trip out to the house. When I got there, I immediately noticed a bit of a red flag about the guy that was checking me in. He saw me and I quickly noticed that he was giving me this really weird, flirty stare. I'm going to assume that most of you out there will know what I mean by that. He was giving me this half smirk, and I could tell that he was staring at my chest for most of the conversation. Overall, he was a creep, but I assumed that he was probably just someone that worked for them to do check-ins. I followed through with giving them all of my info for the reservation, and that was when I was greeted by a woman,

and she mentioned that she would be taking me to my room. On the way to the room, I asked her for the employee's name at the front desk, because I was planning on talking to the owner about him, and she answered with, The guy that checked you in? That's my husband. We are the owners. As soon as she said that, I dropped it. I just smiled and nodded and said,

Oh, lovely. She showed me my room. I set up shop and just decided to let it go and move on. The man was a creep, sure, but I assumed that he wouldn't do anything other than be a creep from a distance and stare. It was uncomfortable, yes, but... I wasn't going to let him ruin my weekend.

I was here for me, and that was that. Sure, that was a bit ignorant, but again, this was a married man that co-owned a business, and I assumed he wasn't going to pursue it any further. The first night was fine, and the first day was a really good time, too. I enjoyed a few places in town, and when I got back, I spent some time in my room working on some art, on my laptop. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon, and evening.

And around 10 p.m., I decided that I should go ahead and go to sleep. I put my laptop away, got dressed for bed, and turned off the light. Somewhere around 10 minutes or so after I got into bed, I started feeling like something was off. It was one of those, did I forget to do something, or is something happened? that I don't know about that I should kind of moments. Like my instincts were saying that something was up. I opened my eyes a bit and kind of shifted to look around the room. As soon as I looked over at my door, I noticed that it moved.

I shot up out of bed and nearly jumped to the door pulling it open. And big surprise, on the other side of the door, was the guy from the front desk, just standing there like a deer in the headlights. I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, and he fumbled over his words for several moments before landing on, I thought I heard a noise, and I wanted to see if there was someone in there with you. I was nothing shy of livid at this point.

I asked why the hell he thought he would have the right to come into a customer's room like that, in the middle of the night. He started getting defensive and telling me that it was against the rules to bring people into the rooms that weren't on the reservation and started screaming at me about how he was going to kick me out. Right around this time, the other owner, his wife, stepped out of their room asking what was going on. This man seriously started shouting and saying that I had someone in my room, and then started screaming incoherently. about how I was doing drugs in my room, that he saw me with a crack pipe.

He was literally just throwing out everything he possibly could that literally made no sense. She looked at me bewildered, like she had no idea what was going on with her husband, and she then asked me what happened. I told her the truth, that I was in bed, looked up and saw my door open,

and then when I got up and opened it, he was on the other side. She looked at me and then at him, and he was seriously bawling his eyes out and mumbling something incoherent. She asked me if I wanted to stay the rest of the night,

but said that if I wanted to leave, she would give me a refund for the room. It was pretty clear that she really didn't know how to handle this event. I told her that I would like to go ahead and just get my stuff and go,

and she nodded. She said that she would see me at the front desk in a few minutes. I went in and grabbed my clothes and my backpack and went down to the desk. The woman was incredibly apologetic. She mentioned that she had no idea why he did what he did, and I really think that she was just in shock that something like this had happened. She did end up refunding me for the whole stay, and again mentioned that she was.

sorry. I accepted the apology, but mentioned that she really needed to deal with her husband. She agreed. After that, I went ahead and stayed the night in a close-by hotel and just put it behind me. Was it creepy as hell? Yes. And could it have gone really bad, really quick, depending on what his intentions were? Absolutely. Honestly, I was just glad it was over. and that I didn't have to think about it again. I clearly never went back, and I'm just hopeful that she got away from that creep of a husband, because he was most likely going to escalate at some point, if he wasn't dealt with. My self-care weekend was ruined, but it's all right.

I moved on and got past all that, and life is better now. Even though I am a bit iffy on staying anywhere other than large hotels. I have a creepy story that actually happened to me and a buddy back when we were sophomores in high school. This was after a few major events had happened, and our school was actually one that had a threat phoned into it at one point. And while they didn't follow through, nor was it credible, everyone that attended and worked at the school had a certain level of paranoia instilled in them. And while we weren't sitting around expecting a lockdown or something bad,

to happen, we all knew what to do if it did. Well, in my sophomore year, we actually had a lockdown that happened, and it was seriously terrifying. One of the reasons that it was so scary for me and my buddy Pete was because we were actually in the restroom when the sound came over the speaker for the lockdown. We had drills for lockdown in the school, and we had been given information on what we were supposed to do when they call the lockdown. But the problem is, the drills and information tell you to go to the nearest classroom.

Like I had mentioned, Pete and I were actually in the restroom at the time. We were both in our stalls when, out of nowhere, we heard, the building is now on lockdown. All staff and students follow lockdown procedures, this is not a drill. I could hear Pete's breathing start to get heavier, and I'm pretty sure he was hitting panic attack levels when he heard the call-out. I whispered to him from my stall that he needed to stay calm and stay quiet. He said that we needed to get out of the bathroom and to get into a classroom, but I told him that that wasn't a good idea, as it could be unsafe in the hallways.

It did kind of dawn on me when I said that, that the restroom was probably just as unsafe, but at least there was a door that blocked it. I mentioned to him that we should go sit by the door to stop it from opening, and he agreed. We both exited the stalls and went over to the door and just kind of sat there. Something about this whole situation was actually pretty creepy. Just sitting on the bathroom floor to block the door just in case an intruder were to enter the bathroom, the fact that there was an intruder in the first place. Something about the fact that someone was in the school.

that shouldn't be, and we had no idea if they had a weapon or a gun or something, it was the scariest thing I had ever had to deal with. There was one point that I had actually opened the door slightly to look out into the hallway so I could see if anything was going on, and I'm pretty sure that I saw the person that caused the lockdown. It wasn't some gun-toting maniac. It just kind of looked like a homeless guy. Obviously, he shouldn't have been in the school, but I did feel a little less scared with the whole thing, though I probably shouldn't have.

A few moments after I had seen the man in the hallway, I started hearing what sounded like loud and angry screaming. I assumed it was the man in the hallway because he was screaming something incoherent. And when I say incoherent, I mean complete nonsense. I'm pretty sure he said something about the students there were trying to kill him and that he needed to kill all of us first. Then I heard what sounded like banging on a door and the continuation of his ramblings. This guy was pretty clearly insane. Not much longer after that, I heard police screaming to get on the ground

and then someone shouting taser. Obviously, they hit him with a taser to get him, and I could hear him continuing to scream as he was being zapped. I had to calm Pete down while this was happening, as he was a bit of a panicky kid, which was fine. It was better that he and I ended up in the restroom at the same time, as he probably would have had a full-on panic attack without me there.

About 20 minutes after the whole incident happened, there was another announcement stating that we would remain on lockdown until the officers had cleared all of the rooms. Then, about ten minutes later, an officer started to open the door and hit me with it. I think we actually scared him when we jumped up, because he started reaching for his weapon as it happened. We both shouted that we were both students. He came in and asked if it was just us.

And then he peered in and told us to get out of the restroom and to get to class. We did. We went as quickly as we could to the, classroom that we were supposed to be in. And I will say that our teacher was not happy with the fact that we weren't in there when the lockdown was called. Based on what I had heard from some other students at the time, this guy was apparently some homeless dude that had lied to the receptionist about why he needed into the school.

He had told her that his son was in the nurse's office because he was sick, and there was, unfortunately, one student that was in with the nurse that was waiting to be picked up. I'm not sure how she could have believed him, as, like I said, he looked kind of scraggly and homeless. Anyways, he had apparently walked into the school, and instead of going towards the office, he started screaming his strange ramblings at the staff, and he did actually have a decent-sized knife on him. That was when they called the initial lockdown. Thankfully, it was just a knife, and thankfully we had all been prepared with what to do to some extent. And while Pete and I kind of dropped the ball, we were okay in the end.

It may not sound as creepy to some people, but I think that being in that situation is what made it so terrifying. Just sitting there, unsure of what was going on or what was going to happen, and not knowing whether or not this was going to end in bloodshed. I'm glad it didn't, and I'm glad that I never had to deal with anything like that again, but it still scared the living hell out of both myself and Pete.