As The Raven Dreams Podcast - Scary Stories For Dark Dreams - Volume 09 | ATRD Podcast

Episode Date: August 25, 2024

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF THE BACKGROUND AUDIO AND THE VOLUME OF THE STORIES IS BETTER! Today we have more than 2.5 hours of True Horror Stories with a lovely late night ambience. This is part of the "Scary Stories for Dark Dreams" series, which is a collection of stories put together for the sake of sleep or simple background noise. This collection includes The following true scary stories; Craigslist, Cryptid Encounters, Party Stories, and Other Stories from Subscribers. 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. Support the channel for Early Access AND more! Patreon ➤ https://patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Join ➤ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkW0ihdMHfBUjQrMKjRto6g/join Or Check out the Merch Store! ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Much Love, and Sleep Well... ----- #TrueScaryStories #AsTheRavenDreams #RedditStories ➤ Stories include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Viewer discretion is always advised. ➤ ALL Audio of this Podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format, without explicit permission ➤ If you like any of the following stories, consider subscribing! - Dark Web horror stories, creepy lets not meet stories, stalker stories, Glitch In The Matrix Stories, Unexplained Horror stories, Paranormal stories, cryptid encounter stories, Crazy ex lover stories, creepy neighbor stories, quantum immortality, true scary stories from reddit, or any other True horror Stories! ➤ And Remember; You are loved, you are important, and you are valid. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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$1% $1mine $0 million to pay If you have a true scary story you'd like to share with the podcast, go to as-the-ravendreams.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. A while back, when I hit 19, I kind of ended up in a situation where I wanted to get out of the house and get my own place.

mostly because I was tired of living with my parents. It was more that I was tired of living by others' rules. I love my parents dearly. I really do. But they were also pretty strict with things, and it was definitely holding back my social life. I'm kind of a free spirit, and I like to be out-socializing,

and they wanted me home by 8 p.m. every night. and that's not me complaining. Their house, their rules, and all, but it was enough to make me realize that I could just move out and get a cheap place nearby, keep them close, and make sure that I had my freedoms. So, that's what I decided I was going to do. After looking around for a while, I actually found a decent apartment that I could afford with my job that was less than ten minutes away from where my parents lived. I went through all the motions to get the apartment, paid the deposit, and got it.

Moving day came, my parents helped me get everything in and set up, and it was at that point that I realized I didn't have a whole lot, and definitely didn't have enough to fill a full apartment. My bedroom had my bed, my desk, my dresser, and my living room had a table with a TV on it, and that was pretty much it. I started talking to my dad about it and trying to figure out a list of things that I needed for the apartment or what I could use, and my dad made a suggestion. I should look for cheap furniture on Craigslist. We talked about it for a bit, and he actually mentioned that if I found some stuff for the apartment on Craigslist that would work for me, and it wasn't terribly expensive, he would go in on half, and he would go with me to get him.

at all. I thought this was a good idea. He had a truck, plus having him with me would make me feel a whole lot safer in dealing with strangers. I agreed. I told him that I would look online and get a hold of a few people over the next couple of weeks, and we would meet up when I had everything ready to go. So I did just that. I got on Craigslist and went through a number of postings, sent a few emails. Some responses I got were obvious scams or bots, so I ignored those. I had a few people that were interested in selling to me at first,

but ended up disregarding me after I told them that it was going to be about two weeks before I could pick it up. Apparently they weren't willing to wait to sell things, which is fine. After sifting and sending, I was actually able to get a few people that were willing to hold on to their items for me, so at least it wasn't a huge waste of time.

Then I found a post that was, more or less, furniture, men's clothing, electronics, and more. I wanted all gone, $200. I clicked through the pictures that this person had posted, and looking through it, they were selling a lot of things for such a low price. There were a number of furniture items, a couple game consoles,

a decent desktop computer, And then clicking through it, I noticed that the men's clothing were mostly my size. I was over the moon, thinking I had hit the jackpot. Sure, it seemed a bit sketchy, but at the same time, if this was legit, I would have furnished my whole place and had a bunch of what would basically be luxury items for $200. The post had a phone number on it, so I immediately grabbed myself. phone and called the person. I mentioned the post, and I asked the woman that had answered why she was selling things for so cheap, because it did seem a bit odd. She then said that she and her

boyfriend had split up, and that she hadn't seen him for over a week at this point, and all the items that she wanted gone were his. She even sent me a few pictures of herself in front of all the items while we were talking to prove that it was all real. I told her that I would give her the full $200 if she could just hold it for me for two days, as it was the Thursday before we were supposed to go get the items, and that I would take every single item off her hands that she wanted to sell. She actually agreed. She mentioned that I was the first person to call and said that she would go ahead and mark it all as sold.

Again, I was over the moon. I had just struck Craigslist gold. I called my dad and told him that this lady had a bunch of items that she wanted to get rid of for 200, and he seemed a bit concerned at first. I explained the situation, mentioned that she had sent me proof that it was all real, and then told him that it was all left over from a bad breakup, and that the boyfriend hadn't come back for it. It took a bit of extra convincing,

but I was able to finally get him to go with it. Saturday morning comes around. I text the woman mentioning that we would be there within the hour. She responds with, Okay, and that was it. Not the best response to get, but it was enough for me. We headed to the house, and I was feeling even better about this transaction. The house was nice.

Like, multi-story and well-tebril, taken care of so she could afford to just get rid of these things for way under retail value. Kind of nice. We pull into the driveway, walk up to the door, and I ring the doorbell. Nothing. No response. We wait for a little while, but after a couple of minutes with no response, I rang the doorbell again and still no answer. I pulled up the messages between the two of us to make absolutely sure that this was the

dress, and it definitely was. I then decided to go ahead and give her a call. When I did, I could hear the phone ringing inside the house, like just on the other side of the door. I actually glanced over toward the window by the door and started looking inside. My dad chastised me at first, saying that I was being rude, but I had this really weird feeling that something was off. this was a nice house.

The woman I spoke with was friendly and seemed like she really was wanting to get rid of these items. And I was really wanting to get the stuff that she was selling. Then I realized why I was feeling off about this whole thing. And what it was that I was actually seeing, there was someone lying on the floor just inside the door. I mentioned it to my dad, saying that I think something had happened to the lady. He came over, looked in, and then he told me to call 911.

I could tell by his tone that something was definitely wrong. I called them, and I tried to explain the situation to the person on the other end. It was a bit weird having to tell them that we had no idea who this person was, just that we were here to buy stuff, and then tell her that there was a person unconscious on the floor inside the house. It was just as awkward trying to explain it to the first cop that pulled up to the house as well, but I think they understood it better than the dispatcher did. Sure enough, the officer agreed that there was a person unconscious in the house, and decided that that was cause enough to kick the door in and call the medics.

They obviously kept us out in the driveway, and we had to answer a lot of questions about why we were there, how we were connected to what was now a crime scene, which, after the medics showed up, the potential crime scene was confirmed to be a crime scene. And it was pretty clear how serious this really was. The long short of it, the woman was deceased. And based on how the officer explained,

it, it was a pretty obvious homicide. Thankfully, I had all the text messages and screenshots of the post to help and show that we weren't who killed her, but I was also able to explain to them that she had told me about her ex and how they had split up. They ended up taking my information and telling me that they would be in touch with me if they had any more questions, and we had to leave at that point. They never called me back, nor asked me to come in at all. I don't know if they ever ended up solving the case,

but it definitely seemed like this was a situation where the ex-boyfriend came back and did the unthinkable. What makes it worse, part of me still thinks that he may have done it because she was selling his stuff. And if I hadn't set up the meeting to pick it all up, he may not have done it. But if it weren't me, then someone else would have jumped on this deal. I don't let it tear me up, but it does bother me just a little bit.

I did end up getting a couch from my living room from another cellar and a few other things, but that was the only time that I ever used Craigslist. I know that this isn't a common thing to happen, but I didn't want to ever be put in a situation like that ever again. I have a really weird and creepy story from when I was a kid, and I really don't know what it was that I saw, but whatever it was was not human. On top of that, I want to start this story with what I guess would be a trigger warning.

This story is not a happy one, It does not involve a happy ending, but it does involve my childhood dog. If you choose to read this one, this should serve as a warning to your listeners that, if they can't stand things happening to dogs, it's recommended that they skip this story. So, this story happened back when I was a kid. I believe that I was around 10 years old at the time, give or take a year. I'm in my 50s now, so it was a subjective. long time ago, to be honest.

I'm sorry that I can't remember the exact year that this happened. At this time, I lived with my parents, my big brother, and my pet dog, Aries. Aries was a small dog, smaller than a retriever, but bigger than a Shizu. I don't remember what exactly he was, mostly because he was pretty much just a mutt. But he was a good dog. and he was very protective of me and my brother. When I say protective, I mean really protective. When my uncle came over if he tried to give me or Brian a hug,

Aries would bark and try to bite his leg. That was actually why we called him Aries. He was like a little warlord, attacking anything that he didn't want near his family. Now, where we lived wasn't heavily populated, but I can't say that it was completely dead. desolate, just that there weren't many houses in the area. There were a lot of woods, however, and with the woods come things like coyotes, foxes, and

things like that. I'd seen all that in my few years alive, and I knew what they were, how they looked, and what they sounded like when they cried. There were also claims of wolves and wildcats living in the woods near the house, too, though I had never seen any of those. This may all sound like I'm just rambling, but I'm trying to show that I knew what all these things were, and if what I saw was one of those, I would have most likely been able to identify it. The first time that I saw this thing was one day when I was outside playing after school.

It was the middle of autumn, and the leaves were starting to turn color, and it was starting to get a bit colder. I was out back, swinging a stick, probably probably, pretending that I was a knight and battling for my made-up kingdom, when I heard what sounded like a person crying out behind my yard. This didn't sound like a child. It sounded like an adult was weeping out in the trees. Like they wanted to sob, but they were controlling themselves and holding it all in as best as they could.

I remember that this caught me off guard, and my curiosity ended up getting the best of me. I needed to know why there was not. adult out in the woods and why they were crying. I went over to the back of the fence, and I looked out into the woods, trying to see if I could find the person that was crying. At first, I couldn't see anything. But after kind of glancing around the trees, I noticed that there was what looked like a man

standing out in the woods near one of the trees, and I remember chuckling to myself because he looked like he was naked. Again, I was like nine or ten, so it was just kind of funny to me that this person was standing naked out in the woods like that. But as I kept staring, something about him felt wrong. He looked like he was too skinny to be alive, really. Like, his skin was the only thing blocking his skeleton from the wind. And as quickly as I thought it was funny, I started feeling a bit scared.

It was at this point that Aries started growling and barking at the person, and as soon as he did, this thing turned around to look at me, and I will never forget its face. It was flat, like there was no nose. His eyes were dark black, his mouth looked larger than a normal person's, and it looked like he had fangs or sharp and really cut teeth. I could see all of this from where I was standing, and he wasn't anywhere near me. And that should tell you how much of an impact that visual had on me. I freaked out. I immediately ran back to the house. Ares was following me, but he was also stopping and barking at the back of the yard every few steps.

But after a few moments, he ran with me back to the house. I had no idea what to really do with this event. so I just kind of sat in my room and had what I now know to be a panic attack. This thing was terrifying. It looked human, but it definitely wasn't. And it wasn't any of the aforementioned creatures. I remember my brother coming into my room and asking if I was okay because he said he could hear me crying from his room,

which was a surprise to me, because I wasn't even aware that I was actually crying. I told him that I saw something in the woods that scared me, and when I tried to explain what it was, he said that it sounded weird, but that it probably wasn't a big deal, that it was just a sick animal or something. He was older than me,

so I assumed he was probably right, but deep down, I knew that that was wrong. Now, if that was the only time that I ever saw this thing, it would have been won too many times. But it wasn't. And the next time that I saw it was where things got worse. I want to add again that this second time is the disturbing event that I mentioned earlier, and this is your fair warning that things did not end well.

The second time that I saw it was about a week later. I was out back again, just sitting on my slide and staring out into the woods. After I saw that thing, I was actually scared to do much outside, but my parents were the type to tell me to go play outside all the time, so I would pretty much just sit there and stare out into the woods, seeing if this thing would come back. And, unfortunately, it did. This time it was a lot closer. I was watching the trees, and I noticed that this thing was standing out in the woods, basically just crawling. on its knuckles. This time, in a moment of stupidity and bravery, I actually shouted at it, telling it to go away.

I don't know if I thought this thing would understand me or what, but that's what I did. When I shouted, this thing turned to face me, and it started to do its weird crawl, walk motion in my direction towards the fence. Unfortunately, this was enough for Ares to face me. freak out. He actually ran towards the fence and dug out the small spot in the corner and went under the fence out into the woods, barking aggressively and chasing this thing. The creature did start to run, I guess, further into the woods, but Aries was unrelenting, and he kept chasing him. I started shouting for him, but he completely ignored me. I ran back to the house,

and I shouted from my dad saying that Aries, got out and was chasing something into the woods. I wanted to tell him that it was some kind of monster, some human-like beast, but the only word I could get out of my mind was something. I won't bore you with a conversation and how he went out to call for him beyond saying that my dad jumped the fence and went out into the woods looking for him while I stayed at the fence. After a while, he told me to go inside and get my mom.

and to stay inside until they came back, which I did. I later found out that the reason he told me to get my mom and stay inside was because he did find Aries. But what he found wasn't pleasant. They both explained to me that Ares was unfortunately gone, and they then had to explain that things like this happened sometimes in nature. I tried to describe what the thing was that I saw, but they basically told me that it was likely something like a wolf that had gotten to him.

I was insistent, but they just dismissed me and told me that they would bury him out in the woods, and that it would be okay. Obviously, I was devastated. Aries was a good boy. He just wanted to protect me, and whatever the hell this monster was had killed him. That was actually the last time that I saw this thing, and unfortunately my family just accepts that it was probably a wolf or something, and Aries just wasn't big enough to hold his own.

But I know that's wrong. I know that this thing was some sort of humanoid monster, not a wolf. I hate that this whole thing was probably my fault. If I hadn't shouted at it, it probably wouldn't have started approaching, and Aries probably wouldn't have gone after it. But I can't blame myself. Aries was trying to protect me from this thing, and he did his job, as it never did come back.

I will always love and honor that pup as being the guardian that he was, and I will never forget what that thing was that I saw. That horrifying face and the disgusting frame that this thing had, as it slowly approached me that day. This is coming aboard of Vyaray. Embarked and profite. Embarked and relax. Cirotay. Bookine.

Oh, that also. And profite. Viaray, the voice that we love that we love. This happened back when I was 13. Since I was involved, but I wasn't the prime target here, I'm going to be using fake names for everyone's privacy. I did get permission to share this, though, as I feel like it's very important for people to hear. I had been invited to a friend's 14th birthday party.

We'll call him Sam. We actually used to live on the same block until the year prior when his family had moved. He was still within the same school district, though, so we never lost any time. Along with me, there were probably about a dozen kids there, boys and girls. and most of them I knew and were also friends with. The party went as planned. Everyone showed up. We played for a while in the backyard because it was huge.

They had one of those play sets, a tire swing and some other things. Then we sank to Sam, had some cake and ice cream and opened his presents. After a few party games, we again were left to our own devices for a few hours. Everything was going great. Sam enjoyed his presence. I got him a special Yu-Gi-O deck pack that came with a collector's box. He got a special foil card in it that a lot of us were pretty excited about, so that made me pretty happy all by itself.

At this point, the party was dying down and some kids were being picked up. At the end, there were probably about six of us left, all boys, and two of them actually lived nearby, so they were going to be there until their parents called them home. The other three of us, Jack, Kyle, and I, were going to be spending the night at Sam's. After it started getting dark, the six of us went inside and started dueling at the kitchen table. We were getting a bit loud and rowdy, I'm sure, so Sam's parents told us we needed to quiet down. But we were young boys and were hyped up on sugar and some heated duels,

so we had the genius idea to go back outside and play hide-and-seek. After a bit of begging, Sam's parents finally relented and let us go. They told us that we could go outside and play for an hour, but that we would have to check back in at that point. We ran out back as we shouted our okays and buys, ready to go play hide and seek. It was still the six of us at this point. The two neighbor boys, Charlie and Brent, wanted to play before they went home, and we had no problems with that.

The more the merrier wouldn't come. comes to hide and seek, I say. The first couple of rounds went fine, and then it was my turn to be it. I counted down, and then I started looking for everyone. Charlie wouldn't stop giggling, so I found him pretty quickly. Then I found Kyle. The way we play, though, if you could get back to the base, or where the person counted down, you win or were considered safe.

So I caught Sam going back to the base, and soon after that, Brett. I still had to find Jack. The others were standing around doing whatever while I continued looking, but I was starting to become stumped. Other than the play set that I mentioned before, their yard had a small playhouse, a few things that belonged to Sam's dad that lined the outside of the shed, and was covered with the tarp, and then of course the shed itself. The shed had a lock on it, and we knew that it was off limits anyways, so I knew that he wasn't. and there. The only place that I hadn't looked was in the small patch of trees behind his house.

It separated their yard from the house behind them. We didn't really say it was off limits, but between the other sessions and no one hiding there, I guess we all assumed that we wouldn't. I honestly didn't have any other ideas, so I went back to the others and told them that I needed help. They all agreed, and we spread out looking over the yard again, not teasing me, saying, that I gave up. When he still didn't make an appearance, we all agreed that we should search those trees then. It was darker back there, as the light on the porch and shed didn't reach that far.

I think we all were trying to be brave, but I know that I was a little creeped out. To make it even worse, we still were not finding Jack. We started to address it amongst ourselves that we were concerned, but we didn't know what to do. Should we go tell his parents? Should we just continue looking? Could he have been playing some elaborate prank on us? Right as we were about to walk back to the house to tell his parents, we heard what sounded like someone whimpering or crying.

This scared us even more, but we became worried that Jack was out here. Maybe he was hurt. We started looking closer, trying to make the light work as best as we could, until I tripped over what I thought was a rock or a tree root, until I heard the whimpering clearer. I looked over toward the tree that I had just walked by, and when my eyes had finally adjusted, I could make out a person.

It was Jack. But this was not the way that we had last seen him. He had something on his head, and I realized that it sounded funny because he was actually muffled. Then as I tried to help him up, he seemed to be stuck. I again used my hand to trace down his neck, shoulders, and torso, and I felt some kind of rope. By this time, I had yelled to the others that I found him, so they came running over.

I told them to help with the rope, and thankfully it seemed to be a pretty simple knot that we were able to undo. We pulled off the thing that was on his head, as well as the tape on his mouth, and the first thing he shouted was, run, and we all ran behind him towards the house. I could tell in his voice that he was terrified. I was terrified, too, because I didn't know why we had found him like that. He immediately ran to the living room where Sam's parents were, crying, visibly shaken, trying to explain to them what happened. I just remember him saying, somebody grabbed me, they tied me up and put something over my head,

and that he wanted to go home. Sam's parents thought that one of us did it, and it took a few minutes before we finally convinced him. His dad then took us to the kitchen, made us a bowl of ice cream in hopes to calm us down. And his mom went to the living room and was talking on the phone. Shortly after, Jack's parents showed up and a few cops, so we had to go through everything again.

I remembered this because all the rest of our parents showed up too, and I was becoming irritated. The cops questioned us all when our parents arrived, and kept making comments about how it was important for us to tell the truth, and it was okay if us boys were just playing a prank. Honestly, we should not have had to convince them so hard that it was none of us that did it. Even Jake said he was certain it was not us. But while they were talking to us, they had other officers out in the truth. taking a look.

We weren't really told by our parents what all they found until we were older, and I can understand why. Jake remembered having something pulled over his head and said that someone covered his mouth telling him not to scream. Then they taped his mouth shut, tied him to the tree, and told him to count to 100. He counted to himself as he heard the footsteps fade slowly. He could hear faint laughing and talking from the rest of us, but We weren't close to the trees by that point.

Then, about the time that I went toward the trees alone, he could tell that it was one of us, but since he hadn't reached 100 yet, he was scared to call out. But when he started hearing all of us, that's when he decided to try calling out for help, the best that he could. With how terrified he seemed, I have no reason to not believe him or the rest of our friends.

So, many years later, I was a teenager at this time. The situation came up and they explained a bit more to me. They said that the cops were searching the woods and found something like a burlap sack. That's what was most likely over Jake's head. They also found the rope and the tape. The most eerie part of this, however,

was the note that was pinned to the sack. It simply said, found you. That's what convinced the police that it probably wasn't our doing after all. I mean, that had to be intentional, right? Leaving a prepared note like that? I know that Jake doesn't really like to talk about it unless he's in a particularly good mood, but I can't imagine what he had to go through.

Who knows what this guy's intentions actually were? He must have been watching us, at least, because that note was relevant to our game. But was that his whole thing? Just to scare us? As far as I'm aware, and from what I've heard from Jake and Sam, they never found who did it. They questioned the people on the other side of the trees, but it was just an older couple living there, and the guy had to walk with a cane, so I doubt it was him. What I do know is, for those of us who still talk and hang out,

we will never forget the fear that we felt that night. And that lingering dread, that that guy still may be watching us, somewhere. In 2014, I finally decided that it would be my last year working on the high seas. It paid very well, but there's a reason for that. It's extremely hard being in the middle of the ocean for three months at a time on a non-laugurious 50-foot freezer boat. Living on the ocean is a constant reminder that humans are not meant to be there. From the stench of rotting fish bait mixed with diesel to the constant.

motion of the swells under your feet, combined with the vastness of nothing, I always compared it to being an astronaut. It tends to drive you up the wall eventually, no matter how fortified you are. For context, just being able to sit on non-moving furniture back at home was an ethereal experience. The last day of the season tends to be the longest, as we have to pick up every long line that was in rotation and detail the deck of the mess left behind. This would take us very late into the night. On this particular night, we ended our day around 1.30 a.m. We were 17 hours away from land, so our captain decided to take a nap and allow us two

hours of rest before we took our wheel shifts. Yes, not standard practice. He was an alcoholic. We were so far offshore that our captain put us in a slow off. autopilot, which essentially would just keep us from not drifting further from land as everyone took power naps. My little ritual every night was to make tea and smoke cigarettes by myself on the deck. It was the only time that I got to myself in such small quarters. This night, however, was both the last night of the season and of my career on the ocean. Although I was relieved, I felt a weird, bitter sweetness knowing that I'll never be this far out in the Pacific.

ocean again. I climbed to the top of the cabin where I had secretly stashed a joint in the outdoor freezer. It was sort of my little secret treat at the end of the season. I lit it, and I stared out into the moonlit ocean. I went into deep thought for a while. As I climbed back down, my jacket got snagged on a fishing hook, which was from a fishing rod, stored behind the ladder. This is when my 19-year-old brain concluded,

you should do something you will never be able to get to do again. And that was, well, letting all of the fishing line out on a 200-plus pound test rod into the near infinite depth of the ocean. Just to see what would happen, I guess. I wasn't at all concerned at the time, as I've seen essentially 99% of the fish that lived out here, but I've yet to see certain deep-sea oddities, such as angler-fish, and as such, my fascination took a hold of me.

I proceeded to clamp on a bigger, heavier halibut lure onto the fishing lines carabiner, which wasn't really designed for rods, but I felt it was heavy enough to sink further down. I began to let all the line out at the A-beam port of the vessel. Standing there for what seemed like in eternity, I began to give up on actually letting it all out. At this point, it was a little pass. two a.m. My day's work was starting to become more apparent on me. I started reeling in quite

quickly as I lost interest in this whole idea. I just wanted to sleep at this point. When suddenly my rod got hooked on immense dead weight. Extremely dead weight. It wasn't like a fish. I knew what those felt like. I instantly realized that I'd gotten snagged on a kelp patch on my way up. I just wanted to get this done and over with. As I got the kelp patch closer to the boat, I peered over the railing and I noticed the water was absurdly black, even for dimly lit night

conditions. Almost Vanta black. I talked to my rod trying to assess where the kelp was when I saw a T-sosser-sized silver circular light flash in the water. I honestly went lightheaded not knowing what I was looking at.

I started hearing something reminiscent to hot tub jets spewing out water, except much, much louder. The louder it got, the blacker the water became. At this point, I'm just confused until I see an arm roll up the side of the boat. As the water cleared from the inky blackness, I saw an eight-foot-long cigar-shaped creature. It was a squid. Out of everything I've caught in these waters, this was by far the most unexpected. as squid don't tend to make their way this far up north.

But I do remember hearing about an instance a few years back where they got stuck in certain ocean currents, which pulls them further up than normal. My mind instantly went to, how can I get this thing on the deck? The bragging rights that I would have amongst the crew on our entire trip back would be a poetic end of my career. I began to look for a gaff hook,

one arm on the rod, one arm pushing toots, around on the deck frantically looking, I kept a lot of tension on the rod just to ensure that it was still there. But I noticed that my rod was starting to bend very aggressively, nearly pulling the tip to the underside of the boat. The power of this thing felt almost like a hydraulic winch. No gaff hooks in sight. They must be stored in a storage compartment as we were going to be docked tomorrow. It was standard practice so that they wouldn't get stolen.

I rushed back to the railing peeling over the side. No squid in sight. But the immense tension was still there, and I haven't let any line out. Until I noticed the unfortunate sight, the squid had latched itself on to the bottom of the boat like a tree trunk. I put both of my feet on the railing nearly pulling my back to the floor. I felt a huge release, almost like a giant Velcro strap being pulled. apart. I nearly fell on my back end. I lunged towards the railing again, trying to shorten the line even more to inch this thing out from underneath. But my skinny teenager arms buckled almost

instantly, as I could see this thing rolling its whole body and arms back to the bottom of the boat. My anchoring foot slipped on a coil of loose rope on the ground, nearly throwing me off the deck. My gut hit the railing, face to the water, its huge head with its silver saucer eye peered out for a moment. They were darting around aggressively. Almost like it was analyzing me. I neutralized myself to put my feet on better grounding. I begin to accept that the risk here might be higher than the reward. Accepting my strength and its immense power, I began to contemplate cutting the line.

I noticed the three-pronged hook was attached. to the base of its tentacle. In an optimistic attempt, I pulled the rod tightly. The tip starts to bounce and flick. The squid began to contort and twist its whole body, pulling its tentacles close to itself, wrapping one tentacle around its hooked leg. Knowing it has compromised its grip on the bottom of the boat,

I pulled once again until, suddenly, the rod snaps straight. There's a cleanly cut, amputated squid arm, on my hook. This thing performed surgery on itself. The whole length of the squid slowly pulls forward out from under the boat, and I swear it stares at me for a moment. With one graceful contraction of its arms and a jet stream of ink, it then disappears into the depths. I stood there for a moment waiting for my heart rate to hit baseline. I placed the rod on the deck with a squid tentacles still attached and just stared at it.

I pick up my teacup from the ground, and I walk into the galley. I throw the remainder of that day's cold coffee into my cup, head my way to the captain's stateroom, and knocked on the door. No reply. I opened it a crack and said that I'm ready for my wheel shift. The captain, in a drunken mutter, asks, have you rested? I reply, it's time to head back. I haven't worked on the ocean since.

Greetings. I almost did not write this in because this paralysis happened only one time to me, and I say thank goodness to that, because it was a most disconcerting experience. Back in the mid-90s, I know, I'm old. My then-boyfriend and I decided to move west from New York City and slowly made our way to Los Angeles. and we crashed at his old employer's office slash warehouse combo in a light industrial area. It was a little creepy to hang out in too long. There were no windows in the room we were staying in, but otherwise it was a large, clean, carpeted, and unused conference room.

I did like the peacefulness of it and did a lot of artwork in there after going for long walks in the mostly charmless area that had once done. been home to miles of orange groves. There was just one really sad handful of trees in front of some paper distributing plant in the historic honor of Southern California in a more agrarian time, the three trees hanging on between an electric fence and an urban throughway. Once I had been outside long enough, then I would come in for a nap, while we'll call my ex-Shawn, would be in one of the front offices that Jim, the owner and his ex-exearn.

boss had supplied him. It was a nice office. It did have a big window that looked out onto not much, but the sun did come in. And there was a computer, printer, phone, big desk. Everything was there for David to start up working again. Because we lived there, he would sometimes go on to the computer on Sundays and put her around in the office after we'd come back, from a great Chinese place down the road that fed everyone who worked in these corporate parks.

I went for a nap, as I was working nights on the phones for another company, and Sean would join me and that as well. I turned out the lights, and it was always a bit creepy just how very dark that room got when the lights went out, and we had no computers or anything set up in there, save for a phone way at the other end of the giant room, flashing a little red light. It was tomb-like quiet there. being a Sunday especially, and I fell asleep quickly in the dark, cool room. And then at some point I woke up.

I don't know if it was an hour, two hours, 20 minutes, I had no idea. At first I just opened my eyes and saw directly above me an annoying light. It's purely a rectangle, as if one of the boards got moved above me. It was one of those types of ceilings. I wondered if there was a workman who pulled out a panel and had lights up there working. I was super confused and went to sit up, and that was when I experienced the paralysis. I could not move. It was terrifying.

The fear hit me fast, and I realized I could not talk either. I was trapped in this dark room with this light above me that I was now realizing did not illuminate the rest of the room. It was this singular light of rectangle that did not in any way illuminate the rest of the room. I began to panic. Was I drugged? Was I dead? I knew that Sean was deep into whatever he was doing.

He never came back this way when he was up front and working on projects. If I needed medical attention, it would be hours before he would come back. I wondered if I was going to die of just the panic itself. because I wanted more than anything to not be in that room and not staring up at that rectangle. I started pushing, just pushing, with all of my might, and it felt like I weighed a thousand pounds, but I managed to roll over and out of the bed onto the industrial carpet, where I saw the rectangle of light beaming onto the carpet, as if mirroring it. But again, no light from it illuminated any other part of the room.

I heave and pull myself up. I felt like metal, like wood. I couldn't breathe, and I inched my way to the door and still could not talk or scream or anything as I pulled myself up and made the most difficult trek of my life. Way harder than anything, including a climb up Mount Rainier, few years back. I didn't feel the nausea or confusion or any pain that might come from being drugged. I just knew that I probably should not be able to move at all, and it was sheer will getting me

down the hallway. I just leaned against the wall and moaned as best as I could, but I know that he wouldn't hear me. This boyfriend was quite kind and mild-mannered, but deeply bookish and near-sighted. He would just fall into whatever he was doing like deep meditation. And finally I made it to his office, using every ounce of strength that I could muster. And I had to really let my hand go on to the desk with a bang to get his attention. His back was to me, but I saw what he was doing on the computer.

He was writing to various chain stores about the product, and I saw that he had a new one in the name of the person. I saw everything on the letter. It was kind of just background. My main concern was that I was in a state that I had never been in before, and I had no reference for it. And I was telling him that it took me at least an hour and a half from waking to now to even get out of bed and down the hall. I may have even began to cry. I felt like just too much of an ordeal. And how could I even explain it when the last time he saw me I was perfectly full?

fine. I may have asked him to open the front door. I may have asked for error or something. I can't recall what happened next. I really wish he would have just called 911 or something, because I think he just sort of shrugged like it was bizarre, but did not see the danger of what I had gone through. I somehow made my way back to the bedroom conference room and turned on the light and fell into the bed again, because I didn't know where else to go or what else to do. and I fell back asleep. Later, at some point, I woke up and I felt more normal, though maybe tingly, hot, cold, or disoriented, but able to move.

I was still panicked somewhat from the unexplainable events, both the rectangular light and the inability to move without the most intense effort. This time I really wanted out, and Sean was still most likely in his office. I was a little upset that he had not checked on me after I told him what happened, but I made my way down the hall again, this time with more ease, and I told him I was so grateful to be better now than when I saw him last. When I saw him when I was mostly paralyzed. And he just said, what?

He had a decent memory, and wasn't the gaslighting type, but he swore that I had not come into the office at all. And yet when I told him what he had been doing, The letter he had been writing and who he had written it to on the computer, his eyes opened really wide, because the only way I would know that is if I was in the room with him. He swore that I had not been, and that the conversation had not taken place,

and yet I knew exactly what he had been doing. I told him again, for me, but the first time for him, about the creepy light in the bedroom slash conference room, and having, for lack of any other better explanation, sleep paralysis. I have no idea what happened, and it confounded both of us. I really thought that at first he was messing with me, but that wouldn't explain the light that did not illuminate, or just the general weirdness that took hold on that otherwise uneventful afternoon.

But it certainly has been confounding. I went to a lot of parties in my 20s. So, when a friend invited me to another friend's party, there was no part of me that would have said no. The host, Danny, was more so just an acquaintance to me, but I wasn't going to pass up free access to alcohol and entertainment. The party was supposed to be at Danny's great aunt's house, as he claimed he was house-sitting and he wanted to take full advantage of it.

However, you can imagine. Imagine my surprise when I pulled up with my friend and Danny, and the house was boarded up and abandoned. I asked them if that was the right place, and he said yes. He then explained that his great aunt had recently passed away, and that she had been living in a care facility and no one kept up with her house, so it just sat empty. He said since it was still in the family, he thought it would be a good idea to use it for parties.

But what kind of party can three guys have in an abandonment? house. I know that none of us had brought any refreshments. I'm sure that they noticed I had a soured or disappointed look on my face and tried getting me to loosen up, saying that more people were on their way. Shortly after, we did have a few more people arrive. There was another car with three girls in it, one of which I knew from high school actually, and then a truck with another friend of mine and his girl and a guy in the bed. The others got out carrying a couple cases of beer and cups, and we all walked up to the door where Danny was.

Then we watched as he went behind one of the bushes near the door, heard what sounded like metal-on-metal scraping, and then he came back out with a key. He then went, unlocked the door, and had to slam it with his shoulder because it appeared to be jammed. and then we were all waved in. The house, however, was in better condition than expected. It was still fully furnished, at least for the most part. It makes sense now as to why Danny had lugged some old stereo with us.

That way we weren't sitting in silence and darkness. The lights didn't work either, so the girls had brought a bunch of candles and flashlights. Despite the location and lack of details that I was given, The party was actually pretty fun, and we all had a good time. We listened to music and drank. Someone brought a deck of cards and twister, and it was hell of funny watching the girls drunkenly tried to determine which hand was left versus right. At one point, everyone kind of started to wind down while a few were trying to make a house out of cards.

I got bored and decided to just walk around the property inside and to check it out. Yeah, I may have been a little nosy, but it's not like I was a thief or anything. I legitimately just liked exploring new places. So, as I walked around outside, I noticed where part of the house jutted out to the right. It caught my attention because it wasn't big enough to be a garage. But I didn't remember anything being on that side other than a closet in a bathroom. Not to mention the part that went out was all connected. and the bathroom and closet were not.

This had to be a separate room. I made a mental note of this and continued my walk around the house. There was nothing else particularly interesting, but I was still curious about that room, so I went back inside. I checked the bathroom first, but I had a feeling it wasn't connected to it since it was further back than where it was positioned outside. Then I checked the closet.

It seemed pretty silly at first, when I opened it, and I just saw a few long coats hanging in a mop and broom leaning against the wall. I was about to close the door when something told me to look again. So I moved around the boxes on the shelf above, and I didn't even see a door or anything. But then I pushed the hanging coats as far against the wall as I could. Then I pulled out my phone and started looking at the rear wall. I knocked on it, and wouldn't you know it, it sounded hollow. like there was nothing behind it.

Then I traced around the edges and can feel a slight dip in the wall. It was like someone had plastered and painted over a door. While I was doing this, Danny scared me by coming up behind me and asking what I was doing. I explained what I had seen outside and what I just noticed in this closet, and he was just as surprised as I was. I moved out of the way and he went and examined it too and came out scratching his head. He said that he had only been here on occasion, but it was when he was a lot younger, so he never really realized it until now. Before I could ask him what we should do, he walked away into the kitchen, and then came back with one of those meat tenderizers and a butter knife.

I grabbed a flashlight and held it for him as he chopped away at this closet wall. It, of course, started getting the attention of the others, and we all joked about what we were going to find. Danny finally got a good portion around so he could pull the rest down with his hands. And behind the wall was a very small door, with a very antique-looking doorknob. And, of course, it was locked. Danny tried to just break it, but the angle wasn't right for it. When I say this door was small, I mean it was about half the height of the closet, which we were already having to lean over a bit to stand in.

But what other option did we have? We were all about to start looking for another key, but Danny, again, just started smashing the knob with the tenderizer, and soon enough it broke off. There was nothing really holding the door closed after that, so when he broke it, it slowly creaked open an inch or two. We were all hesitant to go in, but Danny finally got on his knees and crawled through. I followed him as well as others, but... Most of the girls stayed behind. This room was not something I would expect to see in the home of an old little lady. This looked like some kind of sacrificial room.

There was a large circle with symbols around it, painted on the floor in red. The circle was then outlined with candles, and they had all been burned and melted nearly to the floor. The walls were covered in writings in black and red. some of it looked like scriptures. Others, I didn't recognize, and just seemed to be gibberish. There was a single wooden chair in the corner of the room facing the corner,

but otherwise, there was nothing else there. Well, except for one other thing. There was a single photo of a young woman. The photo had clearly been ripped or torn, so that only this woman was in it. But it was clear that she was. She was looking at someone else to her left, and she looked very happy. Based on the color of the photo and how she was dressed,

I would have to guess that it was taken in the 40s. Danny said he had no idea who this woman was, and I had no reason not to believe him. He said his great aunt was blonde, and this person clearly had dark hair, so it wasn't her. Then we all started getting that uneasy feeling. The mood had started to shift as we all started to see what this room was for, and Danny looked just as confused.

He started swearing how he had no idea this was here or why anyone would do this. He said his great aunt was super religious, and didn't, or couldn't maybe, believed this could have been done by her. Then the room started to get really cold. I didn't mention this earlier, but this was in the early summer. It was already getting pretty warm, and there was no AC in this house either. So to have a random cold chill was kind of eerie. The girls quickly left the room at that point, and I was about ready to follow,

but I waited to see what they did. As we stood around waiting to see what Danny wanted to do, we heard one of the girls yelp, so we all left that room. We went out and one of the girls said that it felt like someone slightly grabbed her ponytail and tugged on it, which freaked her out. After that, there was no way to calm them down, and the three that had arrived together and the other girl all got in their car and refused to come out. I could tell that Danny was pretty freaked out too, but just didn't want to admit it. So he suggested that we leave too if the girls were all going.

We packed up all of our stuff and left, and the ride back was pretty silent. No one really said much, and I didn't know what to say, to be honest. We kind of just went about our life after that. Nothing creepy happened, no one was cursed or anything, but I even started hanging out with Danny Moore. We were both at a different party together months later, and something had come up that actually reminded me of it. I ended up asking him if he ever found out who that person was

or anything about the room. He seemed like he didn't really want to talk about it, but he did tell me that he asked his mom about the woman in the photo, and she basically interrogated him on where he found it, and then told him to never bring it up again around certain people. I don't remember who he mentioned, but that was about all he told me. I don't know if he really found out more or if that's all he knew,

but he definitely seemed uncomfortable talking about it. So I never brought it up again. If I was alone, I would have taken pictures to share with you all because it was really creepy. But I didn't, mostly out of respect for Danny, since I hardly knew him at the time. Based on his reaction to it all, I'm pretty sure something bad happened there. and his family may be keeping a dark little secret. When I was a kid, and through pretty much all of my time growing up, I used to live near a military base.

My dad was in the military, and he was important, I guess. I honestly have not the slightest idea what it was that he actually did, but he was pretty much never home, and I had practically no relationship with him up until the day that he died of cancer. My dad isn't the important part of this, but I think that the military base may be. I can't prove that this thing had anything to do with the military, but would it really surprise anyone if they were out there doing some sort of experiments on humans and mixing them with animals?

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, and I guess I should probably go through the entire event that has. happened before I say that. I'm not going to say when exactly this was, nor where, but I will say that I was in my early teens, probably 13 at most. We were living in our small two-bedroom house near the base, and really there was nothing special about it other than it had a basement that could have doubled as a bomb shelter. The night that this happened, I was in my bed and struggling to fall asleep. I remember vividly that I was having to have. having a lot of problems sleeping around this time, because I was feeling like something was watching

me in my room. I wasn't a paranoid kid, but for a few nights I was feeling like I was paranoid. It was like I was having major anxiety, but didn't know why. It didn't happen for very long, but it was something that I was dealing with for a couple of days prior to the actual event. On the night that I saw this thing, I was still having trouble sleeping, and I had pretty much given up on it. So I was sitting on my bed and reading something. While I was reading, I started hearing what sounded like raspy and deep breathing, like someone was struggling to get enough air. It's a hard sound to explain beyond just deep gasping.

The sound wasn't coming from my room, though. It was definitely coming from outside, but it was loud enough that I could very clearly hear what it was. I went over to the window to see what was going on, but at first I couldn't see anything beyond the darkness of night. I kept focusing, trying to adjust my eyes to the dark, and it was then that I saw the thing that was struggling to breathe. It was a man, or what looked like a man,

but he was covered in what appeared to be really mangy fur. It almost looked like he should have been covered in fur, but someone took an electric razor and shaved close to 70% of the hair off his body. I couldn't see him at first because he was struggling to stand up from under my window. He was basically sitting there and trying to crawl away. while also trying to pull himself up to his feet. It was at this point that I realized that the sound of the gasping was definitely outlined in pain.

This human-like thing was suffering, struggling to breathe, and part of me assumed that it was dying. It made me think that I needed to do something about it. Because I was still a kid, I decided that I needed to tell my mother. I went and woke her up, and I told her that there was a man outside my window that was choking. That was the only way that I could think to explain it to her. She told me to stay in her room and not come out until she came back, and she walked out.

I could then hear her get on the phone, and I heard her say my dad's name, and then tell whoever she was talking to which unit we were in. I wasn't sure who she was talking to, but I kind of assumed it was the point. police. After a few moments of waiting and listening to her talk, I actually left her room and went back to mine because I was genuinely curious what exactly was going on. I remember hearing my mom and then my dad talking, though they were talking in hushed tones, and I couldn't quite make out what they were actually saying. I could still hear the gasping and choking sound that this humanoid thing was making, but it was quickly cut out by the sound of a large truck pulling up into our yard, which was followed with what sounded like other military men, shouting that they were there to help.

As they approached, I started hearing the gasping getting louder and faster, almost like this thing was scared of the people that were approaching him. As soon as I started hearing this, I heard my mom and dad talking again and getting louder, which meant that they were coming up, stairs. So I ran out of my room and into the hallway. My mother was obviously mad at me for leaving her room, but I just told her that I had to go to the bathroom and she let it alone. I asked them what that was all about, and my dad just told me that it was a homeless man that was very sick and that they were taking him to the hospital. The fact that my dad was home told me that this was more serious than just a sick homeless guy, but I wasn't going to post.

him and ask for more information. That was the only time that anything like this ever happened, and my dad never told me any more info, nor has my mother. I don't know what this thing was, but I can tell you that it wasn't quite human. Or if it was human, it was not fully human. I saw this thing. Something was sincerely wrong with it,

or him, or whatever. I don't know if this would qualify as a cryptid really, but to me it was a creature that was unexplainable, which fits technically. Whatever it was, I could tell you that the military took care of it, and that was that. Back when I got my first apartment, I was working at a retail store and I didn't make a lot of money. So I tried to get a lot of cheap used stuff to furnish my place, which meant a lot of thrift store shopping and Craigslist scrolling. I found several great buys on there, too. I got a practically new couch and chair,

I got a kitchen set with pots and skillets, and even some window blinds. I had an older TV that my dad let me take from their place, since they didn't really use it. However, it had pretty bad screen burn. It went from being rarely used to being used daily, and it was an older tube TV, so it was bound to happen. So I started browsing Craigslist again to see if I could find a cheap, flat screen.

Even if it wasn't older or not in the best condition one, I thought it was better than nothing. After passing up several ads that were asking way too much or were too far away, I finally found one that was within my range. The title said it was a 32-inch LG, and almost all of the same. they wanted for it was $50. They included a few pictures of it as well, and it appeared that there was nothing wrong with it, so I was trying to figure out what the catch was. I messaged them, inquiring about it, and their reasons made sense.

They said they were moving out of state, so they were more so just trying to get rid of a bunch of stuff, so that they didn't have to take it with them. I thought that this was a total win for me and started making people. plans to pick it up. I was planning to get it the next day because I still needed to get the cash, but they were adamant that I pick it up that day because they were going to be busy. No problem. I just had to run over to the bank and drive out there, hopefully beating rush hour. I went and pulled out cash from an ATM to make it faster, but that meant that I would be giving them 60 instead of 50 since it couldn't do an odd amount. That was fine, though, since I was fine,

though, since I was still getting this TV for a steal at the time. I then set up my GPS to the address given, and I made my way there. The place was about 40 minutes away in a city that I had rarely been to, so I was going to be heavily relying on my GPS. When it said I had arrived, I had to go around the block as I had apparently driven right by it. By the third time, I finally slowed down and paid attention to the numbers on the surrounding houses to make sure I didn't miss it again. Then I realized that I was at the correct place, but why it was so easy to miss.

It was because it was an abandoned house. There was a nice light blue house next to it, and then a smaller run-down home. One of the windows was boarded up, the front door looked like it was either missing or off the hinge because I couldn't see one. There was a driveway, but there were no cars in it. nor were their cars parked on the side of the road. It may sound stupid, but I was trying to be reasonable in thinking that they did say they were moving. Maybe they were clearing out and renovating this place and they were getting rid of the stuff left behind.

Or maybe the place was condemned but squatters were living there, and maybe authorities caught them and told them they had to leave. I was pretty much trying to convince myself any way that I could, that this was reasonable, until I saw someone walk over and stand in the doorway. It was a disheveled-looking woman. She had on some old, beat-up-looking hoodie with her hair in a bun. She then turned to look back in the house, and then looked back and pointed at my car. And that's when I saw the guy approach the door.

This guy looked a little more intimidating. He was easily twice my size, also wearing a hoodie. but he had it pulled up so that I could barely make out his face. The guy started walking down the steps, this whole time while he was looking in my direction. Finally, my gut told me that I needed to get the hell out of there, so I burned out. This didn't stop the guy from running towards my car as I drove away. I kept looking in my rear view the whole way home to make sure that I wasn't being followed. When I got back, I went to my car.

computer and looked at the listing a little further. I zoomed in on one of the pictures, and the first thing that caught my attention was that it said the TV was an LG, yet the logo I saw had a V on it. So there wasn't even an LG TV. Then I noticed the window to the left of the TV. It was looking out to a street with the house across from it, and the porch railing had snow on it. This all occurred in May, so there was no... snow in sight, and there were no houses across from the one that I went to. It was an apartment

complex and a few small shops. The house also didn't have a porch, let alone a railing. I obviously had some tunnel vision occurring, and I didn't really inspect or notice anything in the pictures beyond the TV. I don't know if this was a picture they took elsewhere, or just one they took from the internet, or hell, maybe even another listing on Craigslist. I was disappointed that I didn't get the TV, but even more disappointed in myself for almost falling for what was obviously looking like a setup. I reported the listing and moved on. I ended up finding a TV at a local thrift store about a week or two later, and I pushed

past the incidents until I heard a story on the news. They were talking about safety and precautions. to take when meeting up with strangers, like from Craigslist, and for sale offers and newspaper listings. Then they mentioned how there was another couple that was attacked after responding to an ad on Craigslist. They were meeting up to get something when they were robbed at gunpoint and one of them stole their car.

Worse yet, their car had their small child in it. This event took place in the same city that I went to for the TV. I was terrified, and I thought that it could have easily been the same people that I saw, and if I was stupid enough to get out of the car, it could have been me. I know that they weren't too smart taking their child with them, let alone leaving them in the car, but they were all unharmed as they abandoned the car too, probably because it came with a small child. Don't worry, this definitely steered me away from this kind of stuff.

I still occasionally will get things listed on next door because at least I know the area, and typically only when I have one of my friends with me to help. Just in case. There was a time in my life when things were really bad. Like, I was homeless and living as a vagabond. Getting food from trash cans, begging people for change kind of bad. This was a long time ago. and I'm doing a lot better in my life now, but this point in my life was really low.

And while some may say that I could have been hallucinating or seeing things, I was not a stereotypical hobo. I didn't do any sort of drugs. I didn't drink. I just struggled to get through every day, and what led to me being homeless was out of my control. I'm not going to get into all that because it's, not really important. But I will say that

I was basically living in a rust bucket with four wheels. That barely ran. Back when this happened, most cities weren't really bothered by people sleeping in their cars like they seemed to be today. And so long as you were out of the way

and not bothering anybody, you could pretty much just stay where you were for the night. No one would really care. Back then, because I was sleeping, sleeping in my car. I typically tried to park it somewhere that was away from people and wouldn't be an issue for anybody. There was one spot that I liked specifically that was in a small suburban area that was only sort of incorporated. It was mostly residential and there were woods that pretty much surrounded the streets. Like there were a good number of houses but if you kept

going, there was an area that was just a road with trees on both sides. I would go towards that area that didn't have the houses, and I would pull over and park on the side of the road as close to the trees as I could, and that's where I would essentially camp out. It almost felt like actually camping, to be honest with you, because it was surrounded by the trees, and I was safe in my little car. so I just tried to hold on to that optimism and make the most out of it. That is, until the event this story is about, happened. I had been camping there for a couple of weeks,

just thankful that I had a bit of stability in my depressing circumstance. On that night, I had actually managed to get a few dollars together, so I had gotten a Big Mac for McDonald's and a small soda. I was honestly happy as could be. It was around 9 p.m. and I was sitting there, savoring my meal, when I noticed what looked like a deer in a small clearing in the woods. I'd seen a few deer in this area before, so it wasn't really surprising, but I also really liked deer, so I was thinking that this was going to be an even better night. When you're in a bad situation, the simple things can mean a lot, honestly. as the deer started walking through the woods and getting closer to where I was,

I started to see that there was something wrong with it. At first I thought that it had some sort of parasite or something. I had read about those kinds of things, but I quickly realized that this was not a parasite. Whatever was wrong with this thing was really wrong. As it got closer, I was able to see that it looked like the skin was actually full. falling off of its face.

Like, I could see part of its jawbone from where its flesh was near, literally melting off its face. It took me a minute to really realize what the hell I was seeing. I was trying to mentally piece together that maybe it had been attacked and was dying. But no, the skin wasn't falling off like it had been ripped into. It was melting. And it wasn't just its face. It was all over its head.

legs, midsection, its antlers were sharp pointed and were also broken, and it looked like they had some kind of skin hanging off of them too. I was thinking that if this was a deer, it was really messed up from something. But after a few moments, I came to be certain that this was not a deer. As it stepped through the woods, this thing got towards a tree and slowly pulled itself up onto its hind legs, and started scratching at the tree with its hooves. Though, they weren't really hooves. They almost looked more like claws. This zambified deer monster thing was standing there,

its flesh falling off the bone, and clawing at the base of the tree for God knows what reason. I genuinely have no idea what this thing was, but I immediately started my car and drove off. I was not going to deal with whatever the hell this monster. was. I had nothing to protect myself or to fight this monster with if it decided it wanted to come and get me, and I was not going to die by some melting deer thing. I wish that I had a camera with me at the time, or that this was when camera phones were a common thing, because I

cannot properly explain how disgustingly terrifying this thing really was. And if I'd gotten a picture of it, then maybe I could get someone out there to hunt. it and kill it, because this thing was not natural. If it was a deer, then the only word I can think to describe it is, Zomified. And the fact that its hooves looked more like claws to me tells me that this thing was something else altogether. Obviously, I never went back to that area, ever.

I never camped out there again, and I pretty much kept my car in parking lots when I was still sleeping in it. I thankfully did get through this hard time and things are better now, but I will never forget the night that I saw that horrifying beast, and I'm just glad that I have never seen anything like it again. This happened my senior year in high school. My birthday is in May, and I usually have some pretty big parties with my friends. However, since we were going to be graduating that year, I told my parents I wanted to have a graduation slash birthday party altogether. While I did have a lot of friends, I definitely wasn't in the popular clique, and I definitely didn't like having all the attention on me. This way, I thought I could still have friends over, but it would be all of us celebrating... Well, all of us.

Not just me. I was also hoping my mom wouldn't try to make them sing to me this year. That was embarrassing after the age of like 14, at least for me. So, thankfully, it wasn't hard to get them to agree, and we started making a list of things I wanted to have, like foods and drinks, as well as entertainment. I, first, wanted to have it at a park shelter since it was going to be nice out, and that way we could all take senior pictures together if we wanted.

I also wanted to make it karaoke themed. American Idol was a pretty popular thing at this time, and I watched it with my mom and sister every time it was on, so I was pretty into it. And no, I don't think that I'm a great singer either. It's just a lot of fun when you're doing it with friends. So, we compromised, and my dad's friend actually agreed to let us use,

their bar for the party. Look, I know this sounds odd for an 18-year-old, but it was actually a nice place, and not like those gross, sketchy bars you see in the movies. The couple that owned the bar were actually like an aunt and uncle to me and my siblings. We'd been there during the day before and hung out in the back room if there was an emergency, and they were the only ones available to watch us. That was many years ago, of course. before I was older enough to babysit.

Anyways, this was our plan. We would get the whole bar for the day, and then he would still be able to get his normal business at night. I thought it was a great idea and was really excited for it. My mom was still adamant on handing out invitations since it was going to be somewhere other than our house, and the RSVPs would make things easier, so I agreed. I handed them out to my friends, some acquaintances that I was getting to know already, and then I decided to be brave.

I decided I would try inviting my crush to see if he would actually show up, and if not, at least we were graduating soon and I would just never see him again. I had a few classes with him, so as one of the classes ended, I walked by and laid the invitation on his desk and walked even faster out of the room. I had to take some time to regain my composure after that, but then I just hoped for the best. Fast forward to the day of the party, I got up early to go with my mom to help set up and decorate the bar. We had some graduation banners. We had tons of finger foods, including some that Heather and Mikey, the owners, had made for the party. My mom even came up with clever drink ideas. She got the glass bottles of root beer and cream soda, and even,

made her homemade punch. I also agreed to her making a birthday cake so long as nobody sang happy birthday. The bar was looking great, and I even had the karaoke machine set up, so I was pretty excited and looking forward to it. As people started to show up, we started getting a little rambunctious. However, I kept watching the door hoping that my crush would walk in. About an hour into the party and not seeing him, I was a bit discouraged, but I told myself beforehand to not let that ruin my time. He hadn't RSVP'd, so I had a feeling that he wasn't going to show up anyways. So I let it go, and we all started getting pretty crazy with the karaoke. We got so into it that I didn't realize my crush had not only showed up, but was now standing near the stage watching as I

made a fool of myself. I was pretty embarrassed, and ended up running off the stage laughing and went to get something to drink. While over there, I saw him looking past people, like he was trying to find me, but now being completely shy, I didn't know what to do. So, as a teenage girl does, I avoided him. A lot.

After some time, though, I did finally get the courage to talk to him. I did talk to him occasionally in class, but this was definitely the most I had spoken to him all year. At one point in the night, he asked me if I wanted to go walk around outside, and I agreed. I told my two best friends where I was going, and after we grabbed a cup of punch, we walked out. I know that I probably should have told my mom what I was doing, but, to be honest, I didn't want her to stop me. and I at least told my friends so they would have my back. My parents were great, but I doubted she would even notice with everything else going on. So we walked around the parking lot for a while with him walking on the outside,

which is how we ended up walking towards the back of the building, as he steered us to that direction. I didn't pay much attention as I was focusing on everything else, like how I looked, what I was saying, Was I talking too much? Did I possibly have a stain on my mouth from the punch? And then also reminding myself to tell my mom that the punch may have gotten too warm because it was tasting a bit bitter.

My head was being flooded with everything all at once, but then it all stopped when, basically, he admitted to liking me too. All I wanted to feel at that moment was happiness, and like I had achieved something. I remember the fluttery feeling and almost like I was floating. Then, I remember that feeling of being kissed. I was on cloud nine at that moment, but that feeling started to shift when he started implying things.

I don't want to be too graphic here, but I'll just say that there was some groping, some explicit offers or demands that he was making, and I was finding myself overwhelmed, and dizzy. I tried telling him no, but I found that I seemed to be fighting myself more than anything. My arms felt heavy, and I felt like I was going to pass out right there where I stood. I tried to just zone out and leave my body for that moment until I started hearing my name.

I recognized the voice as my dad's. And again, I wanted to call out to him, but I also just kind of wanted to sleep. After that, my consciousness continued to go in and out. I remember feeling like time had slowed down, yet I couldn't keep up with anything. Unfortunately, I don't remember anything else until I was fully awake in the hospital later that night. My parents were there, and they started asking me how I was feeling and what had happened when I left the bar. After a lot of talking and repeating myself, we pieced together the whole event. I had already had a cup of punch, and before we walked out, my crush offered to go and refill both the cups.

Then we left. That's when I mentioned to them that it tasted funny. They already had a feeling about what had happened, or at least the doctors and the nurse did. They called the cops and reported a potential drug. police arrived at my crashed party site, took samples of the food and drinks, and to our horror, they found some traces of something in my cup. I did tell my parents how I ended up outside, and my crush didn't get far. There was a small cluster of trees behind the bar, separating it from the highway.

They found him trying to hide out in the trees. However, he kept up with this claim that he didn't do a... anything to the dreams. The lab people, or whomever they were, said that the drugs that were in my cup were fairly consistent with sleeping pills. The authorities had also determined that my crush's mother had been prescribed some pretty strong sleeping pills, so it was assumed that that's what it was. I was devastated.

I had strong feelings for this person, and he tried to take advantage of me. I definitely understand now, and after the event, that he was not a good person if this was his first thought. But it was even worse at that age, knowing that he brought those with this intention. He didn't get very far before I started hearing my dad yelling for me, but, to add to that part, I've never been more thankful for my little sister tattling on me. She saw me leave the building, and she started to get a really bad feeling. She claimed that she didn't want to get me in trouble, so she checked out fronts to warn me to come back. But when I was nowhere to be seen, she became even more worried and told my mother.

That's when they started to look for me. I was pretty upset for a long time after that. I was embarrassed and disappointed in myself for falling for this guy's tricks. and for ruining my party due to doing something stupid, and, of course, having to explain this all to my parents and the police. I was hoping to hear that he liked me too and maybe hold hands, but nothing more. I wasn't ready to do anything else,

but I guess that's why he brought the pills. And to wrap up, I know that he was kicked from school, or at least wasn't allowed to attend, the graduation ceremony, so I don't even know if he graduated. I've put it all behind me at this point, now that it's been years ago, but I'm definitely more aware of who I associate with, and my drinks never leave my view. And, as for my crush, I don't feel like he deserves to have a name in this story, but I hope that he and I never meet again.

I have a story about an ex-girlfriend that went a bit crazy and really taught me a lesson about dating, mainly to get the hell away from anyone that starts to throw red flags at you in high quantities over a short period of time. When I met Ada Lynn, shortened to Lynn, I was immediately smitten. She was everything I wanted in a girl. She was a solid 10 for me,

was super polite to literally everyone, loved the same things as me, and she didn't really have a wild side. I've always been a bit of a wallflower, so I wasn't looking for anyone that had a crazy social life, or liked to be out in public all the time. Lynn was, as I got to know her over the couple weeks before we dated, perfect to me. And I fell super hard, super fast.

She and I were very happy together for about three months. Things were perfect. She would stay at my apartment every weekend, and we were making plans for the future. Lynn seemed like she was the perfect partner for me, and I really thought that we had a very bright time ahead of us. Of course, with the good things come the bad. Around this time, my mother was hit with a cancer diagnosis,

And me being her only child, I felt the need to commit a lot of time to her, to help her where she needed. My dad hasn't been around since I was five, so a lot of it fell on my shoulders. I had no problem bearing this weight, as I love my mother and I wasn't going to let her struggle. Helping my mother, of course, meant that I wasn't home as much as I used to be. I ended up having to set time aside to take my mother to her treatments, and I ended up staying over at her apartment several nights because I didn't want her to be alone. And I had to shave off a lot of the time that I got to see Lynn. At first she was fine with it.

She hadn't met my mother, but she said that she understood and she was supportive of me being the one to help her. That lasted about two weeks. until one night when I got home she was sitting in the parking lot waiting for me. I was a bit shocked that she was there since it was like 10 at night and I hadn't told her I was going to be home that night. The only reason I came home is because my mom told me to go get some sleep in my bed

instead of sleeping on her couch and that she would be fine. She approached me as I walked up to my apartment and she seemed happy at first, until I mentioned that I was exhausted. She then immediately started asking me why I was so tired. I told her that I had been helping my mom all day, and that I'd spent the last few hours rearranging furniture

to make things more accessible, in case my mom got worse. And she came back with, Are you sure you were with your mom? Are you sure you weren't with another woman? I will say that I may have responded harshly to her when she said this. Something about being accused of cheating after I spent a whole day helping my mother, who needed me, compounded with the stress of my life at the time,

just set me over the edge. I went off. I asked who the hell she thought she was to even insinuate that. I called her a few names that I probably shouldn't have, and then I told her to go to hell. Like I said, as much as I was really head over heels for her, I was not in a good headspace, and her saying that really messed me up.

It was a quick and rash decision to end something that I held so dear, but if she was going to start down that route while I was dealing with my mother, then I was done. And, of course, that wasn't the end of it. In fact, that was where things started to go insane. A couple of days later, I got home from work, and as soon as I walked into my apartment, I wanted to freak out. Nothing was taken or broken, but it was pretty clear that someone had broken into my home,

and I could pretty quickly figure out who it was. There were post-it notes all over my apartment stuck to various things, and on each of them was a personal note. But they were such a mixed bag of emotions. For instance, one said something like, I miss our late nights together. And then the next would say, I hope you and your new girl die in a fire.

It didn't say girl, it used a different word, but I find it degrading so I won't include it here. You can figure out what it said. there were, if I remember correctly, a hundred and seventy-something notes all over the place. Clearly, she was a bit unhinged with her unfounded accusations. I called Lynn and asked her what her problem was, and she told me that she didn't know what I was talking about. I mentioned the notes, and she just kind of tried to play it off, like,

oh, yeah, that, I don't know, I was just in a bad mood. I told her that she had committed a crime by breaking into my apartment, and she laughed and told me that I couldn't prove that she broke in. I, once again, went off. I told her that I was done with her, that she needed to move on and get over me because I wanted nothing to do with her. She then said that she wanted me to reconsider my statement, and I doubled down,

telling her that she needed to leave me alone before I called the cops and got a restraining order. I didn't think I would actually be able to get one. I just wanted to put it in her head that she needed to leave me alone. That next morning, when I got up to go to my mom's, I went out to my car and once again she was waiting in the parking lot. She got out of her car and started to approach me, but I just got in my car and drove off as fast as I could,

hoping that she would get the idea that I was willing to ignore her existence. She then made it really hard to ignore her. When I got home and saw a fire axe sticking in my front door, like it was seriously dug into the wood and just sitting there. That was a really fun conversation to have with the leasing office, that I had come home to that, and they certainly thought it was confusing. I just had to tell them that I'd had a nasty breakup. I ended up having to pay for the door since it was technically vandalism,

by somebody that I knew, which was fine. I didn't really care. Over that week, every day when I would leave, I would see her sitting in the parking lot just staring at me. I wasn't even sure if she was leaving, or if she was living in her car in the parking lot just so that she could stalk me. What's even more strange was the fact that this went on for about ten days,

and then she was just gone. Just like that. She was no longer in the apartment. parking lot and I never saw her again. Like at all. She never attempted to contact me again. She never came back, and I have not seen her since that last day. I have literally no idea what happened to her. If she just realized that she should move on or if something actually did happen to her, but she's been out of my life completely. While I don't wish harm on anyone, Lynn did put a fire axe through my front door.

So, to be honest, I don't have a problem with her just disappearing. That's my story about my ex. The woman that I thought was perfect that went from zero to 60 on the crazy scale over the matter of a couple of days. And over something as dumb as me spending more time with my mother, who was going through cancer treatments. If anyone wants to know, my mother went into remission and has only had one concerning moment. since then. Right now, she is fully in remission and living a very happy life. I've also gone on to a couple other relationships, but nothing long-term.

This was a few years ago when this happened, but I thought it would be a good story to get out there. I'd gone to a party with the few of my friends and thought that it was going to be a good time, when it actually turned out to be pretty hard. horrifying. I'm going to be honest. I'm not the best storyteller, and I'm not really sure where to begin with actually telling the story, because it's one of those terrible events that was pretty messed up, and it affected a few people. I guess I'll just start by saying that my group was just myself and two of my longtime friends, and the party was at the house of one of our long-time friend of a friend that we'll call Jordan for the story.

Jordan is a pretty nice dude. I've known him for a few years, as have both of my friends. I only call him a friend of a friend or an acquaintance, because I don't personally know much about him. I know that he's a pretty laid-back dude, likes to have a good time, and so forth. I've spoken with him a few times over the years, but I know that he's the kind of person and if I spent more time around him, I would probably say he's a pretty good friend.

We got to his house a bit later than the start time for the party, and right off the bat, things seemed a bit downtrodden. We got there, greeted Jordan, and he just seemed like he was a bit upset about something, like he was trying to keep the conversation with us short. I asked him if he was okay, and he said that he was, but then mentioned that his brother was at the party,

and that his brother had some issues. The way he said it was like, you should avoid him because he is a problem, but without saying those exact words. It was like he wanted to warn us, but it was also his brother, so he didn't want to just call him out as being someone we should stay away from.

We told him that we would keep an eye out and make sure that if we saw anything, we would let him know. He thanked us, and he kind of seemed to change, his tune a bit to one that was generally more positive and friendly. He walked us in, introduced us to a few people that he thought we would like to know, showed us where things were, and then took us out back where the larger group of people was mingling.

We integrated into the group, just chatting it up with some random people, getting to know each other and enjoying the night. About 20 or so minutes into dancing, having a few drinks and catching up with some people that I actually recognized, we heard what sounded like somebody yelling, and the words being thrown out were not pleasantries. They were definitely aggressive comments. The whole group kind of just stopped what they were doing and turned their attention toward the house, where we saw Jordan and another man going off on each other. Based on his appearance, it was pretty obvious that the other man was his brother. They looked very much alike. After a bit of

of back and forth, Jordan yelled at the other man to get the hell out of his house. The two of them shouted a few more unpleasantries at each other, but after a bit more exchange, his brother did leave. Jordan apologized to everyone for it. We of course all told him that it wasn't a big deal and not to worry about it. We all thought it was just a family dispute and moved on, thinking that it was over. Less than half an hour later, things had gotten back to North. normal for the party and everyone had moved on from the whole situation.

The mood was very quickly killed, though, when we started hearing more screaming in the house. This time, not angry screaming between people, but more like panicked screaming. Of course, we all turned our focus to the house again, but this time we could easily see what was happening. There was smoke, billowing out from the front of the house, and we could see the people running out screaming and yelling to call 911. I watched as Jordan ran back in to see what exactly was happening, and he was helping get people out of the house while others were calling the fire department. Unfortunately, it didn't take very long for the house to go from, oh, there's smoke, to

there's not much of the front of the house left. The fire department got there as quickly as they could, but the fire had quickly spread from the living room into the hallway and kitchen, and it was rather destructive. To make a long story a bit shorter, they determined that the fire was set by what appeared to be a Molotov. Guess that were in the house said that they heard and saw something being thrown through the living room window,

and when it crashed onto the ground, the fire seemed to go in all directions. And, of course, you can easily assume who had thrown them. I learned that Jordan's brother had an addiction, problem and had been staying with Jordan while he tried to get his life back on track. Apparently he'd been doing a pretty good job, but he'd been bugging Jordan asking for cash for whatever drug he wanted to be on. When Jordan said no, he got mad, because it was a party, which meant he should be allowed to let loose. Jordan told him that he could join the party,

but anything he ingested needed to be legal. and of course this put his brother on edge. The argument that they'd had before his brother left was enough to send his brother over that very destructive cliff, and he decided to go find somebody to help him get high. Then he opted to set his brother's house on fire in retaliation. He was pretty quickly caught too, because he didn't really leave after he threw the Molotovs.

He'd actually stuck around so that he could watch the damage that he caused, and he was more than willing to confess it to the cops when they questioned him. Thankfully, by the end of this, nobody was physically harmed. Jordan lost his home, and what's worse, the only reason his brother was there was because he was trying to help him. It has been a while since all this happened. His brother is in jail, and the couple of times I've spoken with Jordan since then, he'd been rather optimistic, considering the fact that his brother had burned his house down. The property was a complete loss, and he ended up having to stay with family and tried to get everything sorted through insurance,

but I don't know how all that ended up. I just personally hope that the property loss was the worst of it. I can only imagine how much it must have hurt Jordan to have his own brother tried to destroy his life like that. I used to spend a lot of my summer vacation at my grandparents' house, which was essentially a small farm in the middle of nowhere. And as much as I loved my grandparents, I used to also get really bored. I used to go out and explore some of their land, and would oftentimes go out into the forest that lined their property,

despite the fact that my grandma would tell me that I needed to stay close to the house. One year, I had ventured out and found what was basically a small cave near the property line, and I loved it. It was a really small cave, like large enough to fit me comfortably in it when I was about 10, and that was about it. It was large enough for an adult to kind of crawl into, but it would be rather cramped and it would not be comfortable for anyone larger than a child to stay in for more than just a few minutes. I had actually painted one of the walls with my name and some other random things, just pretty much mark it as mine. It was dumb, but it was my little home away from my grandparents' farmhouse. As I got into my older teenage years,

I stopped going to my grandparents' house as frequently, mostly because my parents were more okay with me staying home alone. I hadn't been to the farmhouse for a few years by the time this all happened, as a matter of fact. About a decade ago, my grandfather passed away. So I actually spent several days with my grandmother at the house to try to keep her company and to make sure that she was doing okay. On one of the days while I was staying with her, I wanted to walk the property line and make sure things were okay. And after a little while, I remembered my little cave. I wanted to go see if it was still there or if it had been taken over by nature.

I headed out to the northern corner of the land, jumped the fence, and headed out into the woods, right towards where the cave was. After a few moments of fumbling with the location, I actually found where the opening was and was excited to see that it was still there. The next part was the difficult part, which was me trying to figure out

if I could even get into the cave at all without getting stuck. After thinking it through, I decided that I could pretty much get half of my body in if I turned the right way, and from there, I should be able to see if my name was still painted on the wall. I get down on the ground and I start to twist myself in, and as soon as I get my head into the cave, I start to smell something putrid. It was pretty obvious that something had died there, which was disappointing, but I just assumed that it would be a possum or a raccoon or something that had scurried away to die inside the cave.

It was gross, but it wasn't going to stop me from seeing if this was still my cave. I get my head in and what I saw was horrifying. It wasn't just a small dead animal. It was numerous dead animals. Like dozens of carcasses were lined up on the bed. back wall, there was also what looked like children's clothing piled off to the side and what looked like an old doll sitting on top of the clothes. At this point, I was out. I pushed myself out of the cave, not even caring if it was still marked, because something was staying in that cave, and I didn't

want to know what the hell it was. As most scary stories go, though, it didn't just end with dead animals in the cave. As soon as I pushed myself out, I started hearing what sounded like growling or hissing. I stood up and looked around, but I didn't see whatever it was that was so angry with me until I looked up. I have no idea what the hell this thing was, but it was about 200 feet away from me, standing in one of the trees and angrily growling at me. It looked human-like, but it 100% was not human.

I took off, thinking this creature was definitely going to chase me, but about halfway to the fence, I looked back and saw that this thing was actually crawling on the ground toward the cave, which made this all worse. That thing, whatever it was, it was living there, and it was storing its spare car. Harkas is there. I just kept running towards the house and I decided that I would forget that this thing ever existed. I never mentioned it to my grandma and unfortunately she passed away that same

year. The estate was sold so I have no way of going back to see if that thing was still there. And I never got the chance to go back with a camera or anything. I really do not know what I saw. but it looked like some kind of feral human-like monster. It wasn't quite large enough, though. It almost looked childlike. It was small enough to live in that cave. It was nimble enough to climb and stand in the trees as it growled at me. It was seriously creepy as hell.

And I hope that I never see anything like it again. And to be honest, I hope that whoever now owns that property Never runs into that thing. Back when I was in college, I used to do the thing that most early 20-somethings like to do. Party. Like, a lot. Pretty much every weekend or week off from class.

I was always at a party somewhere in the nearby town. Yes, it was a very dumb way to live, but I was all about having a good time and trying to get the most out of life that I could. I've definitely gotten past this part of my life, and the story is actually part of the reason that I stopped partying, mostly because it kind of messed me up mentally. This party that I was going to was pretty much like every other party I've ever gone to. Too many people, people planning on drinking too much and crashing on the host's floor.

Probably some illegal activities occurring that I won't mention, because I'm not going to incriminate anyone. I actually knew the host, but I wasn't really friends with him. I guess that I would say that we were sort of acquaintances. When I say host, though, it's probably important to note that I just mean the person that rents or owns the house that we are going to have the party in. Because there were always a group of us crazy kids

that would supply the party with all it needed. We just needed someone to give us four walls, some furniture and a stereo. When I got to the house on the night of the party, it looked like it was going to be one hell of a time. A bunch of my friends were already there. The music was decent, and I was ready to let loose and have a good time.

I walked in, and just inside the door, I immediately ran into the host. We're going to call him Robin for the story, and I went in for a handshake to thank him for letting us use his house, and to tell him how awesome he was. I started off with a, Hey, bro, how's it going? Just trying to keep it informal.

And he literally just stood there staring at me with a blank stare. After a few moments of me reaching my hand out and him just staring at me like there was something on my face, several moments that were incredibly awkward, I may add. I just sort of readjusted and then asked if he was okay. He kept that, same dead stare and just shook his head slightly, saying, no, Cody, I'm not okay. Then he turned to walk away from me without as much as a second stare. I was pretty obviously

confused. This was an incredibly strange interaction that I definitely did not anticipate from Robin. The few times we met, he always seemed pretty chill, and I thought we were decent with each other, to the point that he would accept my conversation, but here we were. I shrugged it off and just went back to the table to get something to eat and to get myself a second drink. I figured maybe he was just in a bad mood or something, and I wasn't wanting to let it ruin my night. After a while, I was just having a good time at the party, chatting it up with people that I knew. I actually asked a few others if they had spoken to Robin or seen him that night. everyone else mentioned that he gave them that same cold shoulder.

But they said that they just assumed he was having second thoughts about hosting the party. I agreed that that was probably the case. But the other side of that is that he could have just not agreed to have been the host. In the end, I assumed that this was just going to be one of those parties where the host complained a lot after, and no one was allowed to crash on the floor. We'd had a few Killjoy host before, and it was fine. It was his house, after all, but it was still kind of a pain. Well, I thought that this was the case, until what happened actually happened.

This was about two hours into the whole party. Everyone was sufficiently loosened up, probably a bit too loosened up, to be honest. We were all doing what we did. when we heard what sounded like somebody screaming from a closed room off the hallway. It was incoherent at first, but after a few minutes of it, I walked over to hit the pause button on the stereo to pause the music and see what the hell was going on. As soon as I paused the music, the door swung open, and out came Robin.

He looked seriously mad. Like, he had an absolute scowl on his face, looking like he was about to beat the hell out of somebody. We all kind of backed off from him as he walked out of the hallways and into the main area, mostly because I think that none of us wanted to be the person he took his anger out on. He then stopped in the center of the living room, all of us surrounding him, and staring at him, of course, and then he asked, Who the hell turned the music off?

The whole crowd kind of looked around, but slowly fell off to the sides. pushing me towards the middle, basically singling me out. I just kind of shyly said, Oh, I did. We heard you yelling and we were wanting to make sure you were okay, man. I finished this sentence, and as soon as the last words came out of my mouth, I saw Robin lift his hand toward me,

and I was met with the business end of a handgun. I could feel my heart speeding up. The people in the room started screaming and trying to push back, but no one really did anything to help the situation. Not that I would expect anyone to jump in front of a gun for me. I slightly lifted my hands and I tried to tell him that I was sorry about turning the music off, that I didn't want any trouble, and that if he wanted, I would just leave the party and not come back.

I was basically just trying to plead for my life at that point because this guy that I didn't really know very well was about to shoot. me. After several more seconds of silence and me feeling like I was about to puke, he shifted his arm and he put the gun up to his own head. Then he just gave us this really messed up smile and creepy laugh. It was almost cartoonish how creepy it was, like something the Joker would do. The whole room just sat still and watched as this guy laughed and pulled the trigger. And I think there was a huge collective sigh of relief when nothing happened. He pulled that trigger with the gun against his own head,

and as soon as it was clear that the gun was not loaded, he started laughing like an absolute psycho. Obviously, this was a huge party killer. We were all speechless and freaking out, and I was trying to figure out how this situation was supposed to be funny. Obviously, he thought it was the most hilarious thing to ever happen, and honestly, I think the whole room was ready to beat the hell out of this guy. Well, he was just howling about how he got all of us

and how we really thought he was going to do it. Yeah, dude, you had a gun. And rule one when it comes to firearms is to assume it is always loaded, and that the person holding it intends to use it. Not to mention, you were acting weird and angry the whole night, and everyone in the room was a bit tipsy when you decided to put it to your head and pull the trigger. Without even saying a word, everyone pretty much just started filing out of the house, myself and my friend group included.

We were just done with that party. The whole time, while we were exiting, he was just laughing and asking why we were all leaving, calling us lame, saying that we needed to learn to take a joke. In my opinion, pretending to commit to. suicide is not a joke. Threatening somebody else with a gun, loaded or not, is not a joke. Nothing that he did was funny, and I was seriously scared for my life. Like I mentioned, this was actually one of the last parties that I went to.

Most of us pulled away from the party scene and just started doing hangout nights, where a few of us would meet up and do whatever. But there weren't any more big parties for that year. So, I guess I should just say thanks to Robin for getting me away from the party scene, because he definitely did that. I hope that he and I never meet again, because I will probably kick his ass if we do. And yes, I am still very much holding on to this grudge. A long time ago, I was a single mother with a young boy about seven years old.

I was doing my best to make ends meet with what little money I could scrape together working part-time. We didn't live in the best home, but I did everything I could to keep him happy, healthy, and fed. And I like to believe that I did a damn good job. I can say that nowadays things are much better. He's grown. I'm in a new marriage, and honestly, life is much happier.

And that said, There were times where I made mistakes and where things got really rough. This is actually about an event where the unthinkable could have happened, and I really shouldn't have brought him with me. But I'm also kind of glad that I had. Though I will say that my decisions weren't the worst part, I thought things were okay. I just ended up trusting someone a bit more than I should have.

So this was back when my son and I had. had just moved into a new apartment when he was about seven or eight at the oldest. My husband and I had been divorced for about a year, and I was just really getting into the world after losing the house. There's a long story there that we won't get into. I was working part-time, so I didn't have a lot of money, but I had a family member that was helping me with the rent for the time being, so it wasn't a huge deal. However, after having lived with them for a year and then moving into my own apartment, I realized how much I was actually missing being self-sufficient.

Then, I realized that one of the other big things I was missing was a vacuum cleaner. Vacuums are the one thing that you never really think about, and when you realize you don't have one and then go look for a good one, you come to the conclusion that they are rather expensive. So, in a moment of genius, I went to Craigslist to see if I could find a cheap second-hand vacuum that was at least decent quality. In my mind, if I could find one that I could use and keep for a year at most, I would most likely be able to get the money together to get a really good one that was new. As such, I went for a mid-low-priced tier when searching. I ended up finding one that I liked, and the person only wanted $20 for the vacuum.

I contacted him. Everything seemed reasonable, and honestly I didn't even get any red flags when myself and this person sent messages back and forth about the whole thing. Everything about this transaction seemed like it was going to be ideal. Like, I would bring $20, he would give me a vacuum, and that would be it. Of course, one of the dumb decisions that I did make was being willing to meet this guy at his house instead of a public place. I will admit that I was a bit naive back then, and I hadn't done many transactions online, and I thought that this would just be a five-minute thing. On that following Sunday, I started heading towards the address that he gave me, and I sent a message saying I was on my way. I pulled up to the house and there was a man standing outside on the front porch holding a glass of iced tea,

just kind of watching me as I pulled up. I got out of the car and my son followed pretty closely behind me. I thought about telling him to stay in the car, but I then thought that that would probably be the worst idea in a strange place. As I approached, the man on the porch asked if I was my name, and I said I was. He turned and opened the door and mentioned that I could step in the entryway and that he would go get the vacuum for me. We stepped just inside the door, and the man went over toward the other end of the house and into a bedroom. As he was out of my sight, he kind of started making small talk about the vacuum, saying it was still good, that he had just changed the belt on it,

and he then also apologized that he had lost one of the attachments. After this, he, out of seemingly nowhere, asked me if I was a Christian. I mentioned that I was, and because I was taken aback, I asked why that was relevant. He followed it up with, well, I was just asking, I'm sorry if I pulled you away from church to do this sale. He came out of the room with the vacuum and then continued. I'm pretty devoted to my faith myself. So I know how important it is to go to church.

Do you go to church? It was a bit weird, but I thought that maybe this man was just really religious. So I mentioned that we hadn't lately, because we had just moved and hadn't found one in the area to attend. He smiled and nodded like he understood, and then it got weirder. He said, and this is a direct quote, because I will never forget his words.

You know, God told me that you would be coming alone, and that if you did, I should take you as mine and run away into the desert. I just sort of stared at him like, what the hell is wrong with you? He laughed and then said, But you didn't come alone, you came with your son. I think he was testing me, and that this was his way of making sure that I'm truly faithful.

I was ready to run out of that house, but I was also afraid that, if I did, he would do something. After what was probably two or three minutes of panic-filled silence, he just kind of pushes the vacuum towards me and says, Here, you can have it. I don't really need the money. I grabbed it and just sort of turned away to leave. The entire time we were walking towards my car,

this man was seriously saying some prayer, one that I didn't actually know, so I don't think it was a real one from the Bible. I pulled away, and I drove out of that neighborhood faster than I should have. Thankfully, my son just kind of thought that the guy was weird, and it didn't really click that we were in the presence of an absolute psychopath. I just kind of laughed and said,

Yeah, he was a bit weird, huh? and thanked my lucky star that he decided that my son was a good reason to not hurt me. That was one of the only times I ever did any deals off of Craigslist, and it was the only time I ever did want it someone's house. After that, it was always store parking lots or other public places. I will also mention that I blocked his number after that, as he did try to text me one more time, asking if I wanted to go to his church.

I responded with, no thank you, and then blocked him. Thankfully, though, the vacuum did work. So, I guess that's a plus. This was about a year ago. For a while before I started taking melatonin, I had always had lots of trouble sleeping. Many nights I would stay up until 3 a.m. or so, and whenever I stayed up past midnight, I felt very weird.

I always passed this weird feeling of dread as my generalized anxiety disorder, which I have lots of problems with. I still get this feeling sometimes randomly during the day, too. A note before I get into the next part, I have a leopard gecko in my room, so there's always a bit of light coming from her tank. So one night, around 2.30 a.m., I still couldn't sleep. I rolled over as I do a lot when I can't sleep, but something was off. It took me a second to realize, but it was brighter in my room than normal. For this next part, let me go over some stuff about my house. My room used to be a porch, so it's almost entirely windows.

And if I were to roll over, I would face my backyard. We have a wooden deck, and it covers most of the yard, except for most of the parts. that I can see from my window. Anyways, it took a few seconds, but I realized that the backyard motion sensor light was on, and it confused me since usually stuff that would pass by doesn't set it off. It hasn't been set off in the middle of the night before or since. I got up, wide awake, and I looked out the window. There I saw some really weird creature.

It kind of crawled like a cat, but way too fast crows. to be a cat. It was too big to be a raccoon or groundhog or something similar, though it was brown. It had no tail or ears, but it looked like it had very thin fur. Again, too big to be some kind of rodent. I had a good comparison for size of a nearby lawnmower. It was unnaturally fast, and it crawled unnaturally too. I could tell it was crawling because I could see defined shoalmers.

shoulders, and it was very low to the ground. This thing was again the size of my dogs, so about three feet tall if it were to stand up fully, and two feet long. It darted across my yard behind the deck where I could no longer see it. I stared for a while, but I never saw it come from anywhere. If it were to come back from behind the deck, I would be able to see it if I tried, which I was. It took half a second to move a solid 20 feet

And keep in mind that it was crawling My best guess is maybe it was some weird crawling coyote Since there are some in the area There was no way that this was a dream though Because I remember checking my phone for the time When I eventually went back to bed And I couldn't fall asleep for another hour Plus I don't really get nightmares

Another thing, it was not one of my dogs. I have no solid brown dog, and none of my neighbors do either. Though, I don't think it was a dog since it was crawling way too fast to be a dog, and it had no tail or ears. This may be related, but a while before this happened, I heard some kind of weird canine howling, and I even recorded it. I could hear it in the video, but everybody that I knew, never heard this thing.

This was happening for two solid days. I even showed them the video and they couldn't hear it. I felt like I was going insane because I could never find anything in the area that would howl like the howl that I heard, and it freaked me out. I have a story that happened just a couple of days ago on January 20th at around 2 to 3 a.m. I just want to write it to see if anyone has seen. anything similar. So, me and my boyfriend went to park at a parking lot, right by a church.

We were in his Jeep facing the church, and he was telling me his past life story, and I was listening to him talk because it was something heavy that was on his chest, and he felt he needed to let out to me. He works night shift, and was on break, so he gets a call to come back to work at three. So we're pulling out of the parking lot, and we noticed things. three deer. And there was an alleyway that went toward the direction to where you can get a good glance at them. My boyfriend asked me if we should pull in to see the deer, so I said yes, and we did.

We parked there for a minute straight staring at these deer, and two of them were male, and one was female. But it kept walking while the other two male deer stopped and stared. We just looked at them, and it was cool, and then we backed out with them. the headlights facing towards the third deer standing there. We stopped, and my boyfriend stared at it and said, That's an ugly, weird-looking deer. I looked, and it did not look normal at all.

It stared back at us, but this stare looked so eerie. This deer had a white face from the bottom to its eyes, and its nose was pushed downward like a flat face. The eyes were facing directly straight toward us, and not sideways as a normal dears would have. The body was that of a deer, and my boyfriend continued to stare and examine this thing, and I was questioning, like,

is that a deer or a different animal? And he's like, no, that's a deer. I stared at it and told my boyfriend, why are we just staring at it? And I looked away because I didn't want to stare at it anymore. I told him to go, and we left. I was just like,

that deer did not look normal, and he was like, you saw that too, right? I had the chills all the way back home. He told me to not tell anyone what we saw and tried to convince me that we had only seen the two male deer's and not the third one to help me feel not as scared, considering I was going home alone.

I got home safe and went right to sleep. The next morning me and my boyfriend talked about it and agreed what we both saw and then stopped talking about it because I can still see how it looked in my mind but that's my story it's just been on my mind because I've never seen anything like that in my life

we are next to a reservation where we were and I'm not sure if this is relevant but maybe 30 minutes before we left there were coyotes in the field whining, and we rolled our windows down to listen to them, and they stopped, so we had just continued talking. I'm a recovering addict who has done drugs for more than half of my life. I'm in my early 30s.

And once finally seeking help for my mental health, which was the leading cause to the addiction, I was diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety, and depression. The PTSD is from domestic abuse in every form. One day when I feel more comfortable opening up, I have some seriously insane in-life experiences that could, hopefully, help deter someone from making the same mistakes and choices. However, that's not the reason for this post.

I apologize for the long introduction, however I felt the need to set the scene. So, here goes, I guess. Due to the previous info, I suffer from terrible night terrors. Ever since moving back home, I know it's pathetic I'm in my 30s, but I couldn't trust myself living alone anymore. I've been told that I almost nightly scream, cry, or beg for my life in my sleep. My sister lives at home while she's in law school, and her bedroom is directly across the hall from mine. I've woken up screaming, begging, drenched in sweat, crying multiple times.

My bedroom shares the same wall as one of the upstairs bathrooms, so if my TV's on or I'm talking in my room, you can hear it pretty well in that bathroom. One night, my sister's girlfriend was sleeping over, and she heard me screaming and crying while she was in that bathroom. She went back into my sister's room and was genuinely freaking out that something was wrong. The next morning, they both told me that they thought I was being attacked, and that it scared her badly. I said to my sister, jokingly, Thanks for not making sure I was okay.

That's when she proceeded to tell me that this happens almost every night. So here lies my concern. I up until that point had no idea that it happens so often. As previously stated, I do know that I wake up completely traumatized sometimes, but not every night. The nights I've woken up, feeling scared or PTSD-related feelings, I can feel something waking me up by touching my legs or feet. I wake up, and I swear something quickly drops down or ducks where my legs and feet are hanging off the bed. Every time. The issue is that I never remember anything that caused me to be so terrorized.

So, please, if anyone has any advice, I would greatly appreciate it. Is there any way that I can maybe remember my nightmares? Or maybe it's best not to know. Maybe, even one day, I can lucid dream and fight along with whatever demons my subconscious is fighting. Also, I want to know what is waking me up, that I feel like. a physical touch and pressure pushing my legs or feet down every time. But thank you for your time and patience, and thank you for reading. I have a fairly short and really weird story about one time when I used Craigslist to find a rental.

At the time, I was living with my aunt and uncle, and I was working to find a new place. They weren't really pushy about me getting out of their home, but they were definitely wanting their space, back. I appreciated them letting me stay, and I could take a hint, so I decided I would go and try to find my own place. Enter Craigslist, the world of weird people selling things at a low price. I decided that I would hop on to the internet's version of Kmart and see what was readily available nearby. On the plus side, I didn't have much to move. I could get it all out and in within a few hours. It was really just a bed, a dresser, and a fish tank. Everything else could fit in my duffel bag.

Obviously, with only that going for me, I was looking for a small place to stay, like preferably a studio or something. After searching, talking to a bunch of weirdos, and blocking a few numbers, I found what looked to be a dream come true. a fully furnished, ready-to-move studio apartment that was in a decent part of town. I contacted the owner, and after a quick chat on the phone, we had set up the time for me to move in that following Monday, so long as I could wire him the deposit money by Friday before. At that time, it was Wednesday,

so I had two days to get him the money. Thankfully, I had this plan for a little while, so I did have some cash. set aside to get this all done. And he only wanted $500 for the deposit, which was going to be a bit more than half the rent per month. After discussing it with him and sending him the money via whichever transfer app we used,

he had mentioned that the deposit would cover the first month, it was the middle of the month so it was good with me, and that on the first of the month I would owe my normal $750. I was perfectly fine with this arrangement. Monday came around and I showed up with my truck filled with my few items and my clothes. When I got there, he was standing outside the studio apartment, and we chatted about the location as he gave me a quick tour. It was a nice little place, perfect for me,

and it had everything I could have ever wanted. I actually asked him about the furnishings, why he was renting it out with everything in it, and by everything I mean everything. There was a TV with a console connected to it, a stereo on the side of the room, and a bookshelf loaded with some pretty popular books. He then mentioned that he used to rent it as an Airbnb, which is why it was fully furnished, and that he was just tired of dealing with random people like that, so he wanted to rent it out to an actual, long-term tenant. It sounded like a really good arrangement to me at the time, so I thanked him, told him I would have the rent to him on the first of the month,

signed his contract that he had typed up, and that was it. Well, that wasn't actually it, in fact. It was not it at all. I lived there for a total of three days, from Monday to Wednesday. On Wednesday night I was sitting on the couch watching TV when I heard somebody talking out in the hallway of the apartments. I figured it was just the neighbors until I heard a key hit the lock.

And then the door opened. I cannot express the awkward moments that followed. The couple that walked into the apartment looked at me like I was a robber. I was looking at them like they were breaking into my new home. home, and I think we all just kind of wanted to scream in terror. They asked who I was. I told them I was the tenant. I asked who they were, and they said they were the tenants.

Long story short, and after a lot of loud talking and confusion, we figured out what happened. They were the real tenants. They had been out of town for a couple of weeks. I was actually not the tenant, and was basically sold an occupied unit by somebody that didn't have the rights to do so. I showed them my lease, and they showed me their much more official-looking lease. I showed them the messages and the email and the proof that I paid someone, and, well, they lived there, so they didn't really have to show me anything. What was worse?

They did not know the guy that I had. had paid. The app that I paid him with said his name was something like Mario, and they really had no clue who the hell he was. We ended up getting the police involved so that we could make a report for the whole situation, because it was so messed up. In the end, I apologized for eating their food and using their furniture, and we agreed that I could leave my stuff there for a couple of days so that I could move back into my aunt and uncle's house, mostly just my fish tank and dresser, as they were heavy and hard to move.

Thankfully, they were incredibly polite with me, considering I was basically an intruder in their home, and thankfully they believed me and didn't resort to violence or anything like that. Unfortunately, I was never able to get a hold of the landlord, or I guess supposed landlord, to give him a piece of my mind. And I was out $500. I did keep in touch with a couple that actually lived there,

and they never figured out how the guy got the key to their apartment, and they had the actual owner change the locks immediately. So that's my weird story about the time that I rented a unit that wasn't really for rent. I ended up finding a place that was legit on Craigslist, and moved in. And thankfully, there were no more late-night surprises. I know this story wasn't terribly creepy, per se, but it's still scary to think that this guy had the wherewithal to coordinate this

while the couple was out of town. And, worse yet, he had the key to their place without their knowledge. In the end, it's just one of those weird, creepy life lessons. I've been a subscriber for a long time, but I didn't think that I would have a story to submit. I feel as if my wife is no longer my wife. So the woman I married was a strong and religious woman who was proud of being three years sober. She was holding her own Bible meetings and doing church activities. We've been together for over three years and have been married since March.

March of last year. About six months ago, she was diagnosed with PMDD, which, for those who don't know, is premenstrual dysphoric disorder. It is a nightmare. It's as if there was a two-week-long period with higher emotions. Anyway, the main way to get rid of it is to have a hysterectomy. She was off for two months of work and then had the surgery, so she was out of work for five months or so, and in that time we got closer and went through more tough times together,

making us a better couple, I thought. After the hysterectomy, she had to have emergency surgery due to a hole developing, where she had the surgery, and getting infected. It swole up to the size of a baseball before she had the surgery. When she got home, she was not the same wife that I had, as when I dropped her off. She started to look at everything differently. It was all of a sudden, party time, and her morals and values don't matter anymore. Just a couple of hours ago, she left to go to her niece's house to drink with her.

A month ago, she was trying to witness her and get her to church more. It's so weird not knowing the person you've been with for three years anymore. I don't know if I went through a glitch in the Matrix, or if she was replaced with the body, snatcher or is possessed. I just know for certain that the woman who was with me today was not my wife. She told me that the marriage was over, which breaks my heart. I put all of my heart an effort into making our relationship work, but at the same time, I'm almost relieved, because I know that I'll be away from the cycle of weirdness that this lady is

currently going through. I just hope that the woman I was with is somewhere out there, because she was truly amazing.