As The Raven Dreams Podcast - The Best SCARY STORIES Of 2023, Part 1 - Over 7 HOURS Of Scary Stories

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

Today We have probably the BEEFIEST Scary story compilation to ever grace this channel - Part of the BEST OF Scary stories for 2023. This collection only goes through MAY of 2023. Part 2 coming soon! Have a Story To Submit? ➤ https://www.astheravendreams.com Or Post to the Subreddit ➤ https://reddit.com/r/TheRavensDream Support the channel for Early Access AND more! Patreon ➤ https://patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Join ➤ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkW0ihdMHfBUjQrMKjRto6g/join Or Check out the Merch Store! ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams 'As The Raven Dreams' is a community where we explore the darker parts of human existence through true and harrowing stories. From sinister encounters with strangers and stalkers, to terrifying experiences that defy explanation and unsettling mysteries that linger in the shadows, I am here to tell you the most haunting narratives ever whispered. Much Love, and Sleep Well... NEW True Scary Stories Posted every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 5:30 PM CST ➤ https://www.youtube.com/c/astheravendreams?view_as=subscriber?sub_confirmation=1 Listen to the Podcast on... Spotify ➤ https://open.spotify.com/show/1EFYMKPBTTkmKyDla2JE1Q Apple/iTunes ➤ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/as-the-raven-dreams-podcast/id1543612283 Follow me on Twitter ➤ https://twitter.com/RavensDreamYT Everything Else Raven ➤ https://astheravendreams.com/the-nevermore [TimeStamps] 0:00 ➤Hit That THUMBS UP Button if you like Today's Stories! 38:02 ➤ Story 5 1:22:11 ➤ Story 10 2:00:32 ➤ Story 15 2:40:41 ➤ Story 20 3:32:47 ➤ Story 25 4:04:10 ➤ Story 30 4:41:44 ➤ Story 35 5:34:13 ➤ Story 40 6:30:14 ➤ Story 45 7:35:15 ➤ Story 50 7:50:13 ➤ Leave me A Comment letting me know what you thought! ➤ Men are over 4 times more likely to be struck by lightning than women. **Stories used with explicit permission from respective authors. True stories are unverified and considered 'supposedly true'.** ----- ➤ Videos include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Viewer discretion is always advised. ➤ ALL Audio and visuals in this video are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format, without explicit permission ➤Consider Subscribing if you enjoy any of the following! Glitch in the matrix stories, creepy lets not meet stories, dark web horror stories, stalker stories, unexplained horror stories, paranormal encounters, cryptid encounters, paranormal stories, crazy ex stories, creepy neighbor stories, or True Scary Stories! ➤ BlessThisMess #TrueScaryStories #AsTheRavenDreams #RedditStories other tags.... (ignore) true scary stories,lets not meet,scary stories,true horror stories,Blue_Spooky,true scary stories from reddit,reddit stories,reddit scary stories,horror stories,creepypastas,creepypasta,true creepy stories,reddit horror stories,home invasion stories,true scary stalker stories,stalker horror stories,scary stalker stories,scary night shift stories,scary stories told in the rain,scary stories in rain,rain sounds,rain asmr,scary true stories,lets read --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/astheravendreams/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/astheravendreams/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This was something that happened when I was driving across the state to visit and reconnect with an old friend. I was doing the driving by myself, which I had only ever done one other time. This meant that I would have to keep myself entertained as I made the nine-hour drive. I packed myself plenty of snacks and drinks so that I wouldn't have to stop, which worked out for most of the trip. However, towards the tail end of my drive, I started to really crave fries. I could tell that I was going to need some more caffeine anyways, so I decided to find a quick place to eat and refuel. I stopped at a fast food chain that was popular in the Midwest to grab something to eat and a soda. It wasn't busy when I arrived, but there were a few people sitting in the lobby and eating.

and I saw a few workers behind the counter. I approached as I normally do, greeting the person at the register, but I noticed immediately that they did not look to be in a good mood. In fact, they looked pretty irritated. I hoped it wasn't because of me, so I tried to be as nice as possible. I was working retail at the time, so I completely understood how bad some days could get working with the public. The man at the counter quickly said in a hurried manner,

What can I get you? So I started giving my order, and when he was repeating it, he stumbled over his words and then also said the wrong item. I politely corrected it, which made him look down, and he started jamming buttons with his finger, and then loudly sighed and apologized. I giggled slightly and told him that it wasn't a big deal and was trying to be nice. I told him that I appreciated him repeating back the order for reasons just like that.

It's amazing how far a little kindness can go. He then sighed again and told me that he was just having a bad day. I apologized, told him that it was okay though and that we were all allowed to have our bad days. Apparently, this was enough for him to give me a quick synopsis of everything that he was dealing with, which was definitely a lot for one person, and I just tried to be polite. This all was happening while I paid and stood there with my receipt for a moment. After a few minutes since our conversation winding down, he said that he appreciated me listening to him rant,

and that he would bring me my food so I could go sit down. I said thank you and went and found a seat. I sat at one of those bar tables with the stools that faced twas. towards the parking lot, with my back to the counter. Enough time passed for me to text my friend to let them know where I was at, and responds to a few other messages, when the same guy brought over the tray with my food. I thanked him, and he walked away, so I just began enjoying my meal.

I was probably about halfway through it when I heard a familiar voice approach my spot from the side and say hi to me. It was that same guy. He asked if he could sit with me for a moment while he was on break. I did think it was a little weird, but I wasn't going to be there much longer, so I told him that it was fine. That is when the guy just unloaded. He was talking about how he was stressed because his car broke down. He thought his girlfriend was going to leave him.

His parents were pressuring him about his schooling because he wasn't passing all of his classes in college. because he was getting burned out, and he didn't think that he wanted to be in that field anymore. Then he topped it all off with something along the lines of, and I have to pick up shifts here because my worthless boss's kid can't be bothered to work their own damn shift. That last part, he said a bit louder and looked towards the back, like he was wanting to make sure that somebody heard it.

these were all definitely terrible things to have to deal with, and I did feel bad for him, but in that exact moment, I had no clue what to do or say other than, wow, I'm so sorry. He just stared at me and let out a heavy sigh. You know what? It's all right. At least I got it off my chest, which helped more than you know. I told him that I was glad I was in.

able to help him and that everything would work out in the end. He then stood up and thanked me and asked me for my name. Hell, I didn't even live in that state and I would probably never see him again, so I told him honestly what it was. He told me his name, which I think was something like Mac or Mark, something like that. Then he walked back to the kitchen. I had a small moment at that point thinking, well, that was something. And I went back to my meal, preparing to call my friend when I left to tell them about it. I was just about finished, but was distracted doing something on my phone, when I heard someone from behind me shouting, which startled me.

I just heard someone shout, shut the, mm, up. I turned around to see Mark and who I assumed to be the manager, because they had on a different colored shirt, standing in the kitchen. The manager had his hand up in a manner like he was shrugging, while Mark was throwing his hands around angrily. The manager was talking a lot quieter, as I could only hear Mark shouting. It's now gotten the attention of the others in the lobby and the two other workers and the other side of the kitchen, and after a short conversation between the two,

I heard Mark grab something to his right, and before I could blink he had to be able to had swung it at the manager. The next thing I remember was hearing the agonizing screams coming from the manager, while the two workers on the other side are also now yelling at Mark. I quickly got up and ran over to the counter where I saw the horrifying scene. Mark was now on top of the manager and swinging this hot fry basket at his face. I was frozen in place. I knew what I needed to do, which was call 911,

but I couldn't move. I just stood there horrified by the situation unfolding in front of me. I finally did come to my senses when one of the other employees jumped on Mark and was fighting to get him off of the manager. I went back to my seat to grab my phone and called 911, and thankfully they were able to get my location because I barely knew where I was. They asked me to stay there so that they could talk to me, so I had to stay there even longer to wait for them.

A couple other customers had run out the door while one of them tried helping the manager by applying cool towels to their face and arms. Somehow, he was still conscious, or had regained consciousness, but his moans of pain, I will never forget that. To this day, they still haunt me.

Meanwhile, after the other employees got him off the manager, Mark ran towards the back and I didn't see him again. I wanted to do something, but I was scared that he may come back out and try to do something again to all of us standing there with him. I just stood by the door hoping to see the cops or an ambulance soon. After what felt like an eternity, they did finally show up. The cops went in first and immediately went to the back, and then the EMTs came in and started caring for the man. manager. I then had to tell them everything that I saw, as well as everyone else that was still there. Apparently, there was another exit out the back, and Mark had left through it, and he was

long gone. Unfortunately, I wish that I could tell you more about this, but that was pretty much it. After all that, and I was given permission to leave, I got sick and then called my friend from my car, now shaking and crying. I explained everything to them, and when we couldn't talk anymore, I called my sister and told her. There was no way that I could finish this drive by myself with my own thoughts. I definitely needed a distraction. I only had about three hours left to go, which was enough time to get it all out,

calm down, and then even pull over to take a quick, much-needed power nap. I got to my friend's place late that night, and after a few drinks, I crashed. I was thankful that I was with good company after that because the thoughts and sounds kept circling my mind, and definitely made it hard to sleep for a few nights. I have no idea the conditions of the manager or if the mark guy was ever caught, but I just hope that both of them got the right help they desperately needed. Oh, and if I'm ever on a road trip like that, I only do the drive-through now. This story takes place several years ago, but the memory is so heavy that I can see it and revisit it as if it happened last night.

The whole event had a profound effect on me, and I'm hoping that by sharing my story, I can help others get an outsider's perspective of the paranormal. Prior to this all happening, I was honestly quite the skeptic when it came to the paranormal. I wasn't the type to say that I didn't believe people, just the type to say, I believe you, but there's no way to prove what happened to you actually happened. I guess I was sort of agnostic when it came to the paranormal, if that makes sense. The experience occurred during the summer when I was house-sitting for a family friend. They had a beautiful old colonial-style house on the outskirts of a rural town, surrounded by dense woods.

It was probably the most beautiful house that I have ever seen, and I absolutely adored everything about it. The house had been in their family for a few generations, and while it was well-maintained, It still had that unmistakable air of antiquity, creaking floorboards, musty smells, creepy little shadows in the corners of the room, all of it. The woman that owned the house was actually childhood friends with my grandmother,

and her kids knew my parents and so forth and so on. And that's why when it was mentioned at a get-together that they needed someone to watch the house for a bit, I immediately jumped at it. I had spent some time there as a little girl, so I knew the area, too, and I was nothing shy of excited to stay in the house. The first two days and nights were completely uneventable. They had asked me to do some cleaning for them, which I had no issue with, and since no one was there, it wasn't like the chore list was extensive. I was just enjoying the days to myself, and I was curling up with my Kindle and their little study room,

enjoying the feeling of this beautiful house. Now, the third night, that was when things got creepy. The day was fine. I had actually gone to the store to get some food for myself that day, and had spent some time actually having a lovely little picnic in the woods. It was that evening that the feeling changed. The first thing I felt was this deep sense of unease. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I felt an inexplicable sense of dread, as if I was being watched by something.

I tried to shake off the feeling and distract myself with a movie, but the whole time I was watching it, I just kept feeling like something was going to sneak up on me and grab me. I thought that maybe I was just feeling a bit homesick. It kind of made sense. I was feeling off because I was missing my own bed. I figured I would force myself into getting comfortable and would just stay up late watching my cue on Netflix until I passed out. I did just that too. I watched like three movies, and at some point late into the night, I ended up completely passing out on the couch.

At some point, around two or so in the morning, I jumped up, like I was having one of those, falling dreams and I shot awake. After catching my breath, I laughed and closed my eyes again, but I was struggling to fall back asleep. I kept hearing what sounded like a light tapping sound. Like someone was tapping on the wall or a door or something. For a while, I was adamant that I was going to just ignore it and go back to sleep, telling myself that it was an old house,

so it was just something to do with that. But then, that light tapping turned into a really loud bang. That bang made me jump up again and look around, trying to see if someone was breaking in or something. I got up, glanced at the doors and out the windows, and as one would expect it to something in the morning, there was nobody there. I went back to the couch, but before I could sit down, I heard that same bang again. and it was definitely coming from the back of the house, near where the bedrooms were. I walked down the hallway towards the guest bedroom, and the whole time, I could feel that static feeling you get on your arms when you're starting to freak out.

I got back to the guest bed, and I pushed the door open to see what it was that was making the noise, and that's when I pretty much lost any semblance of calm. The room was super dark, but I could see a figure standing in the room and staring out the window. It looked to be an older woman, in a long nightgown. Her face was gaunt and her skin looked pale, almost blue. I stood there freaking out inside, staring at what was clearly some kind of apparition just watching the side yard from the window. I was thinking that I needed to scream or run or run or.

or something. Then she turned to look at me, and her eyes were seriously hollow. There was nothing but darkness there, but I could tell that she was staring at me. I got hit with this horrible feeling of despair and sadness. Until she reached out towards me, and then it was fear again.

I admit that I screamed. I wasn't really screaming at her, just the situation, and I pulled the door shut and took off down the hallway. I kept running until I got outside. I ended up saying screw it and camping out in my car that night, mostly because I couldn't bring myself to go back inside. When the sun came up, I figured I should stop being so pathetic and went back into the house. It took me a bit, but I did muster up the courage to go to the guest room and see if, for some

reason she was still there. She wasn't, of course, but I did figure out what that banging sound was. Both curtain rods that were on the windows had been pulled off the holders and thrown to the ground. I didn't realize it's the night before when I saw her looking out the window, but it makes sense. I actually called the owner to tell her about the story, because she's the type that I knew would love it.

and she laughed when I finished my retelling. She said that she knew who it was, that it was her great-grandmother, and that the current guest room was once her bedroom. She mentioned that, in her words, her spirit sometimes gets antsy in the summer and wants to get outside into the garden, and she basically throws a fit.

When I mentioned the curtains, she said that she had recently replaced them, and that her great-grandmother must not have liked them. She asked me to just put them off to the side, and that as long as her grandma could see out the window, she probably wouldn't be too much of a problem. I really wish that she would have mentioned that the house was haunted and that she knew it.

It would have been really helpful for me, though I probably still would have freaked out. I did what she asked. I moved the curtains off to the side, and I made sure to tell her spirit that she apologized for blocking the view, and sure enough, nothing else happened. I didn't feel uncomfortable again in that house for a single minute after that. Since that night, I have never been able to shake the memory of that ghostly woman,

and that profound sadness that seemed to emanate from her. She lived in a very different time, and it seems really sad that she's stuck in her home like that, but I guess so long as she can see the garden, she's okay with it. To those that hear this and maybe skeptical of the paranormal, I understand. I was like that too,

unsure of the idea of ghosts and haunted houses, but my experience in that old house has forever put me on the side of being a believer, and I see that there are indeed things that exist beyond our understanding. I hope that by sharing my story, I can help others who have experienced similar encounters to feel less alone, and, perhaps, encourage those who are curious to approach the unknown with both caution and respect. After all, sometimes the scariest things are the ones that we can't see or understand,

and the mysteries that lurk in the shadows may be far more real, than we ever imagined. Hi, Raven. I was listening to one of your recent videos, and it reminded me of something similar that happened to me while I was in college. So I thought that I would just share it with you. Unlike all the crazy stories I've heard

about college students going on trips for spring break, I was far too broke to do any of that. But, thankfully, I wasn't alone. I lived in a small town, going to a local college, and living in one of their dorms. My two roommates and I didn't have a lot of free time or money to plan something crazy, so we just went to parties our friends hosted or friends of friends. That way, we could still have a good time, and it was cheap to free. I remember one party, though, that I will never forget.

It was nearing the end of spring break, actually, and we learned of a local party that was open to anyone. They just asked that you B-Y-O-B. That was reasonable for me because I wasn't picky and could stomach some pretty cheap beer, so the three of us all got a 12-pack and drove over to the party. We got there, and we found some of our friends and just let loose. We drank, we played drinking games, we did stupid press, ranks to each other. It was a good time. I met a few people that I didn't know and even some people that I just knew in passing at school. At one point, I ended up outside and was watching

some people do stupid stunts into the pool. I was standing on the patio next to a guy that I didn't know and made a comment about one of the stunts that they pulled saying it looked like it hurt. The guy laughed and explained how he should have done this instead, and he probably would have pulled it off better. I don't remember the exact thing he said, but it was something to do with some kind of aquatic thing. The dude sounded like he was a professional swimmer or something, so I asked him about it, and he said that he was on the swim team. He told me a bit more about the science of swimming, I guess, and some of it was pretty cool. I threw some dumb scenarios his way, and he assured me of how it would work or how much of an utter failure it would be, and we just had a good laugh. After a bit of time, he said that he had to go, and he walked off.

My last thought was, eh, cool guy, and moved on with the night. After some time, I was talking with some other friends, and I brought up the swimming guy. None of them seemed to know who I was talking about, so I just kind of dropped. it. It wasn't unusual for uninvited people to show up, and as long as they weren't a problem, there was no sense in trying to make them leave. But later on, I ran into the friend I was talking to earlier and spotted the swimming guy passing by the living room. I pointed him out, and my friend said that he didn't recognize him either. He wasn't on the swim team either, so we just assumed that he may have been in a different year or different program,

That's why we never ran across him. I tried to get his attention, but he looked confused as to why I was flagging him down. He just had an annoyed look on his face since he ignored me. My friend laughed, but I just shrugged it off. People are weird. And it wasn't like I knew him on a personal level, so no loss to me. Again, queue up more of the same for the night, including some people starting to leave or pass out all over the place. The music was still playing, though, as it had been throughout the whole night, so other than the people dispersing, the party was the same as it had been.

So while some of us were in the kitchen talking about one of our classes, we all jumped when we heard somebody yelling. We went and checked out the living room, where we thought it was coming from, and saw some people staring down the hall towards the bedrooms and bathroom. I walked down the hall and I could hear more yelling and grunting sounds. As I approached the bathroom, I saw the swimming guy standing in there holding some kind of pipe. One of my friends was standing behind me, but otherwise, nobody was doing anything but staring. So I just asked him if he was all right. That's when he turned to look at me and just started rambling about things that made no sense. He said it was too loud, even though nothing had changed all night.

And, in fact, since there were fewer people, it wasn't as loud. I wanted to clarify with him because I didn't understand why it was all of a sudden a problem, but he just continued talking. I don't remember exactly what he said, but he was saying things like, They won't stop laughing. I know that they're laughing at me. I know that they're talking about me. Stop it.

Why won't they stop it? I just stood there, confused, not knowing what to do. This was obviously not about the music. This was something else. So the only thing that I said was something like, Hey man, maybe you should relax a bit. But before I could finish that, he started screaming and swung the pipe in my direction.

He was still in the bathroom with me outside, and with him being intoxicated or on something, he instead hit the door. I was not going to stick around at this point and risk getting hit. So I rushed back into the living room and told them that we needed to leave before things got worse. As people started shoving themselves back towards the furthest wall or running out the back door, the swimming guy went running out of the bathroom, screaming, No more, no more, please! And then out the front door. I watched him from the front door as he ran into the road

and was subsequently struck by a car. A bunch of people were still inside and they saw this, causing them to scream. I ran to call 911 from the landline that I had seen, and it was just pure chaos. I barely knew the address. so I had to go check that. I didn't even know the guy's name and was trying to explain what exactly it happened.

All the while, people were screaming in the background and me not being in my right mind either. I kept walking back to the front door and saw the person in the car did stop. There were a few people from the party out there now, but I had no idea of the condition of the guy. An ambulance finally showed up, so I got off the phone and ran out of the car.

side to them. They already had him on a stretcher and was putting him in the ambulance. I didn't see him move once. I didn't hear anything from him, and I was afraid that this man that I had just met was now dead. I was horrified, not knowing what else to do. I went back into the house and watched as many people left crying, shoulders and heads low, just saying nothing. The next day I tried contacting people that were at the party, trying to figure out the name of that guy, but nobody knew him. There were so many people that I knew from the party that I found it difficult to believe that no one else knew this supposed student. He gave details about the school and some of the teachers, so I found it hard to believe

that he could have been lying. I even tried going to the hospital and describing him and when he got there, but all that they could tell me was that he was that he was. wasn't there anymore, and couldn't provide any more information. I guess that that made sense. I went in looking for someone that I couldn't even give the name of. But, at least by the way that they were talking about him, I was reassured that he hadn't died. It may be a bit anticlimactic, but that's where my story ends.

I never did learn who that person was, and those that I still have contact with, still cannot recall him. his name or even remember him at this point. And since then, the memories of that party have stayed in the back of my mind. I took a small break on partying, but when I got back into that scene, I feared experiencing something similar to that. Thankfully, I never did, though. You just never know what someone else is going through, so no matter where you are, it doesn't hurt to learn names and all possible escape.

routes. Anyways, thank you for letting me share my story. 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 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 at. 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 past 2 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 had 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-saucer-sized silver circular light flash in the water. I honestly went light-headed 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 totes 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 light 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 neutralize 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 tentacle,

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 state room and knocked on the door. No reply. I opened it a crack and said that I'm ready for my wheels shift. The captain, in a drunken mutter, asks, have he rested?

I reply, it's time to head back. I haven't worked on the ocean since. 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 ten 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 to be. 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 ten 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 10 days, and then she was just gone. Just like that. She was no longer in the 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. Hello, long-time lurker, first-time poster here. After having spent hours reading so many truly terrifying tales on this forum, I finally decided that it wouldn't hurt to share my own, and that maybe it could help others stay out of similar situations. This happened to me a very long time ago.

and it still haunts me to this day, and it's the reason that I vowed to never get into a car with a stranger ever again. I won't even get an Uber because of the possibility of something like this happening again, and I'm way beyond college-aged now. At the time, I was a deeply broke college student. I had made a very dumb mistake of going home to my very unsupportive parents for the holidays that year, and that was a mistake that I will never live down because of all this. It's not really relevance to the story, but I'm not the person that my father wanted me to be. I live a lifestyle that he abhors, and he was very clear that because I am quote unquote different.

He no longer loved me, and that, to him, I was dead. Then, that year, I thought I would go ahead and get a bus to make the long trip, to them to surprise them for Christmas. That lasted about a day. My father refused to talk to me, and the only time he did say anything to me was to tell me that he wished I would keel over so that he never had to see my face again.

Of course, my mother was never willing to go against his wishes, so she just sat there and let him say it. Sorry, this was a bit of a tangent, but it does show that my home life was tumultuous to say the least. Longer story short, after that first night my father told me to get out. So I did. I grabbed my bag and I walked out the front door. The only problem with that was that I didn't have a lot of money and now I needed to get all the way back to my apartment,

which if I had to walk, was going to be a very, very long walk. Add that on to the fact that this was December and it was snowing. It was more likely that I would end up dead on the side of the road about a quarter of the way there. So, I did the next best thing. I decided that I would trust some random stranger to get me at least part of the way there, or somewhere that I could afford to take a bus to get closer and then repeat the cycle. After about an hour of walking and waving down cars as they passed, an older rusted pickup truck actually slowed down and pulled over to the side,

of the road. I was a little hesitant, but the cold wind was absolutely making me less susceptible to red flags. When I got to the window, it was a middle-aged looking man with a scruffy beard, older, slightly tattered clothing, including the generic lumberjack plaid overshirt. He looked like someone you would expect to drive an old slightly rusted-out pickup truck in the middle of December in the Midwest. He reached over, rolled down his window, and asked where I was headed. I told him that my destination was where I lived, but then said that I would appreciate literally going anywhere in that direction. He then said that he could probably get me about halfway if I could spare a few bucks for gas. I told him I could do that and tossed my bag into the back under his tarp, and then I hopped into the

passenger seat. As we began down the road, the conversation was cordial enough. He was making small talk about himself, what he did, asking me what I was doing out in the cold. I told him that it was a family thing, and that I was no longer welcome at home anymore. He sort of scoffed when I said that, and then said something about how parents aren't supposed to abandon their kids. I noticed that, as he was talking, though, he kind of kept glancing over at me. His eyes lingering a bit, his hands kept hitting the seat near my leg. I was really hoping that I was just imagining it, and maybe he was just really relaxed with strangers and talked a lot with his hands. But I kept my guard up a bit more than normal. My instincts were starting to tell me that something was a bit off. After a little while,

he kind of circled back to the family question, asking me what the family dispute was about because I had been a bit vague when he asked the first time. I mentioned that my dad was less than accepting of who I was, and he kept prying, asking what it was about me that my father had an issue with. I tried to dance around it a bit, but after being asked numerous different ways, I had to just tell him that it was because of my sexuality. My dad was unhappy with the fact that I was gay, and that because of it, he had disowned me. I will say that when this happened, the world was a lot less accepting of people, which is why I was a bit evasive of the question.

After I said this, the man nodded and basically reiterated that a parent should never abandon their child, which made me let my guard down, just a little bit, thinking that maybe he was on my side. Of course, the bells started ringing when the man took a turn onto an exit ramp off the highway, and then started down a bit more into a remote area. As he drove, I started to take in everything around me, noting various buildings and landmarks just in case things went south. I won't say what he said to me next,

but I will say that, despite his cousin, comments about how it was wrong that my parents didn't accept me, he very clearly did not accept me either, and he knew that my life was in his hands. Then he mentioned that he was sorry for what he had to do, because I seemed like a nice enough kid, but he didn't have a choice. I tried to play dumb and ask him what it was he meant, and he kind of just laughed and started to reach for something in the center console of the truck. I knew exactly where this was going to go. And thankfully at this point, he had pretty much slowed down to a stop, so as he reached,

I unlocked my door and I hit the ground running. As soon as I jumped out, I could hear him screaming at me, yelling about how I wasn't going to get far, and that me running was just going to make it hurt more. I ran in the direction of where I knew the nearest buildings would be, and I did what I could to hide in the trees off to the side of the road to make sure that he didn't find me. I have no idea how the hell I got away, but I did. Honestly, I'm not even sure if the man really looked for me or if he had just accepted that I had gotten away and that he had successfully scared the hell out of me.

The part that really sucked was that I had to leave my bag in the back of his truck, so I lost all of my clothes. I had my wallet on my person, so at least he didn't get that. I took a few minutes in the woods to catch my breath and just waited out, but then started off toward the gas station that I had noted earlier. Thankfully, nothing further really happened. I got to the station, and I told the clerk what happened, and he offered to call the police for me.

I took him up on this offer. The cops showed up and I tried to tell them what happened, but of course they didn't really seem to care. Because I was making a report on this, though, they did offer to drive me to the station, and then from there I could at least get to the bus stop and wait for the next bus. If nothing else, the guy had driven me quite a bit closer, so it was much easier for me to get home from there. I never hitchhiked again after that, like I mentioned above. And I got a really good lesson on trusting people. Some people have this deep, ingrained hate that they will not let go of, no matter how friendly they are.

Obviously, I got home okay after that, but I pretty much never went anywhere that wasn't available by a bus, and I got my own car soon afterwards, so that I could just drive. myself. To anyone out there that reads this, please do be careful, and remember that not everyone, no matter how polite, will be a good person. Trust your gut, find alternative ways to travel, and do everything you can to avoid situations that don't feel right. Back in the early 90s, when I was about 10 years old, I had a really creepy close encounter with someone that honestly could have ended a lot worse than it did. And if I had been a bit more gullible, it likely would have ended really badly.

At the time, I honestly didn't fully comprehend the potential danger of the situation, but as I've gotten older, it clicked pretty hard how unsettling this experience really was. As mentioned, this was back when I was about 10 years old. My parents both worked full time during the day, and most days when I got home from school, I would be in an empty house for a couple of hours, until my mom was able to leave work and get home. They trusted me to be responsible enough to take care of myself. I was the type of kid that liked to just spend time in my room playing my Super Nintendo, instead of being a problem for other people.

We lived in a neighborhood that was pretty much just a bunch of old people, so it was relatively safe. Honestly, it never seemed like that big of a deal. On this day, I'd been home for maybe half an hour. I'd finished my homework and had turned on the TV to watch something and grabbed Pop-Tart for a snack. When I thought I saw something outside of the living room, window. It was a pretty big window, and it faced to the west. So if you walked by it in the

afternoon, it would cause a bit of a shadow in the room. I glanced over for a moment to see if I could see anything. I saw a man, probably in his late 40s. He looked a bit older than my dad. He was slowly walking along the sidewalk in front of our house. He seemed to be studying the house. He seemed to be studying the house, staring at the ground, the roof, almost like he was seriously trying to memorize how the house looked. Then, it got creepy. As I was watching this guy analyzed the exterior of our home, I watched as he put his face up to the glass with his hands cupped around his eyes. He was absolutely looking in the window and trying to see if there was anybody in the house.

And, of course, he saw me sitting on the couch just staring at him. He smiled and waved, and then I watched as he walked over to the front door and put his hand on the doorknob, then tried to push the door open. Thankfully, my parents had always told me to keep the door locked at all times, and I was pretty obsessive with doing so, so he wasn't able to get in. when he realized that he wasn't getting the door open, he walked back to the window and started knocking. By this point, I was having a mini panic attack in my mind,

screaming about how this was some weirdo trying to get into the house. But I kept trying to calm down and tell myself that he must have been a neighbor or something. He kept knocking on the window, rapidly, just tapping on it with his knuckle for several moments, and then he started tapping hard on the door. At this point, I had no idea what to do. I walked into the kitchen near the front door and just stood there.

Because I was so unsure of what to do, I just figured that I could tell him he's at the wrong house and to go away. I did not open the door, obviously. But I did shout out to him saying, who are you and what do you want? When I asked this, I could hear him laugh a bit and then say, Could you open the door for me? I said no, and again asked who he was.

He then said that he was a neighbor and he wasn't going to hurt me. I may have been only ten, but I knew that this was a weird thing to say to a kid. You don't just tell a kid, I'm not going to hurt you, unless you plan to hurt them, at least not in this kind of scenario. I told him that if he was a neighbor, then he needed to come back later when my parents were home, which I now realize was a stupid thing to say, as this was me literally telling him that my parents were not home. When I said this, he paused for a moment and said,

Look, I work with my mom's name. I'm a friend of hers. She'll vouch for me. Can you please just let me in? Now, this is where things got a bit confusing for me. This man knew my mother's name specifically, and it's not a common name. So it wasn't like he could just guess a name and get it right. But I also knew my mother's co-workers.

My mom worked at a hair salon. She was one of the big names of the store, alongside my aunt. They had about five employees that they worked with, and I knew all of them because I would always hang out there during the summer, and I loved all of my mom's co-workers. The thing is, all of her co-workers were either older women or younger ladies trying to break into the industry. This guy was neither of those. I responded by saying that I didn't think I could let him in and that he should just come back. later. At this point, he got really angry. He started banging on the door saying, I know your mom. Her name is mom's name. You need to let me in right now. When he started

getting aggressive, I ran over to the cordless phone and hit the button to call the salon. When they answered, I told her who I was and told her that I needed to talk to my mom right away. I explained the situation to her and she told me to hang up, go to the laundry room and lock the door, and call the cops. She then said that she would be there in a few minutes. I did exactly what she said. I ran to the laundry room, I locked the door and then called 911, telling them that a guy was trying to break into my house. After about ten minutes, I heard my mom yelling my name, along with the voice of an officer. I came out to see them standing at the door and looking at a pile of glass.

Apparently, after I had run down to the laundry room, this guy had smashed the window on the front door and tried to break in. The officers took my statement, asking me a bunch of questions about the guy and what he looked like. I told them all that I could, and I told them that the guy knew my mom's name specifically, and they said that they would drive around, the area to try to find the guy, but I have no idea if they

ever caught them. My mom thanked them, and after all was said and done, she told me that I had done everything right and kept telling me that it was all okay. I could tell that she was freaking out about this as bad as I was. After that, I wasn't allowed to be at home alone

for a few years. My mom worked with one of our neighbors, an older lady that was actually one of the lunch ladies at my school, and I stayed at her house until they got home every day until I was in high school. She was pretty cool, though, and she always had food for me when I got there, so I didn't mind. That day is something that has been burned into my memory, and when I was at that age, I was definitely scared,

but as I mentioned, I now realize how serious it actually was. was. I'm thankful that, even at that age, I was smart enough to realize that this guy didn't want anything good. I have no idea how he knew my mom's name specifically. Maybe he looked at the male or something, but I'm just glad that I trusted my instincts, and that I was able to avoid a much worse fate. Many years ago, my girlfriend, Maya, and I, spent our spring break on a road trip to St. Louis, Missouri from New Mexico. We wanted to see the Gateway Arch and check out some other sites nearby. She also had grandparents that lived in the area and they welcomed us to stay with them while we were there.

This gave us a bit more wiggle room in our budget and helped us greatly. We planned on leaving super early to get a head start on traffic and taking turns, driving, and sleeping, so that we could save more time and money on hotels, which did work out in our favor. Well, for the most part. Most of the drive went smoothly. We had printed out our drive and directions and even planned our stops.

And yes, I said printed directions. This should tell you how long ago this was. We ate, made our planned stops with minimal detours or extra stopping, and slept all according to plan. But we did. to count for, though, were the Midwestern storms. We had stopped at a gas station in eastern Kansas to fuel up, and it had then started raining. No big deal.

We had a fully functional car, so the wiper blades worked just fine. We got back on the road and continued on, knowing that we only had about four, maybe five hours left of our drive. But it hadn't even been an hour later when the rain began pouring. I've lived in New Mexico all my life. Now, I'd seen some rainstorms and some pretty bad ones, but I had never experienced anything like this. So, yeah, I'm not afraid to say that I got a little nervous. Maya, however, wasn't as concerned and just offered to drive if I wasn't comfortable.

Seeing her calm demeanor did help calm me down some, and I continued on. Unfortunately, the rain would not let it. up and it became louder as it hit my car. That's when we realized it wasn't just rain. It was also now hail. I have never seen hail so big in my life, and still haven't since. It became so loud and heavy that I thought it was going to smash my windshield. I couldn't really hold back my fears, so Maya suggested that we pull over so that she could drive.

This time, Maya agreed. We pulled into a gas station. I went in asking to use their phone. Maya didn't have a phone, and I just had a prepaid one that I was trying to save the time on in case of emergencies. I called my parents and let them know where we were. I then explained how bad the weather was, and my mom sounded worried and suggested that we take shelter at a hotel until it passed.

Of course, this didn't really help relieve any of my concerns, but I told them I would consider it and ended the call. I went back to Maya, and after sharing with her, she said that she would continue the drive, saying that we would probably be fine. I tried my best to remain calm and just trust her judgment. We continued to drive, but it seemed like we were honestly going further into the storm. The rain and hail continued and the wind was so strong. I thought it might even blow us off the road.

And speaking of the road, I could barely see the lines on it, let alone a few feet in front of us. We were on a pretty empty stretch of road with no exits nearby, but I looked over at Maya to ask if we should maybe just pull over and wait it out, and her face told me all that I needed to know. She no longer looked so confident. I pleaded with her to pull over, and she agreed. We were now on the shoulder and parked,

and we sat there in the dark and silence just trying to decide the best thing to do. I grabbed my phone from her purse to at least call her grandparents, or my parents, with an update, and of course I didn't have any signal. It was a bit disconcerting to see, but I told myself that we were parked, so we should be okay. We tried keeping each other calm by just talking and occupying ourselves, which did start to work. We probably sat there for about 30, 45 minutes, when we noticed that the hail had stopped. It was still raining pretty hard, but since the hail cleared up, we could see the road a bit better and decided to give it another go. But as it goes, there's always something. Now, the car wasn't moving.

It started just fine, but it appeared to be stuck. We got out and checked, and sure enough, the tires on the passenger side had sunk into the mud. This road didn't have any sort of barriers on the side, so it just went from road to grass and dirt. I tried pushing it while Maya steered, but it was not budging. Then, when we finally got some movement, it began sliding more into the shoulder, almost like it was fish-tailing. Sorry, I'm not good with cars at all, and I'm not sure how to better describe it.

At this point, there was no way we were going to be able to get the car out alone. We got back in the car, now so far. and grabbed our beach towels from our bags. Cue the worried feeling again. Now we were definitely stuck in this storm, in seemingly the middle of nowhere, late at night, and we had no real options. I still didn't have a signal on my phone,

and neither of us had any other ideas. I just really hoped that we weren't going to start hearing the tornado sirens. We just grabbed some snacks from our food bag and tried to wait it out and hoped for the best. Honestly, this whole thing took a lot out of us, not to mention the whole drive prior, so we both started getting pretty drowsy. As we were laying back, trying to relax and just stay calm,

we saw lights coming from the opposite direction towards us. To our surprise, they actually slowed down, stopping next to us, and they rolled down their window. It was an older man in a pickup, and he said probably the best thing I had heard that night. Y'all need some help? We probably should have been a little hesitant at first, for the reasons mentioned above.

Middle of nowhere, stranger, dark road, etc., etc., but we were so desperate that we decided to take the risk. The man got out of his truck, but some kind of bored between my back bumper and his front and pushed my car while Maya steered it. it came out like it was nothing, and the man's truck plowed right through the mud, too. By the end of it, we were all completely exhausted, soaked, and freezing, but finally with the man's help, we managed to get our car back on the road.

He even followed us to the next exit, which had a McDonald's to make sure that we made it out okay. We were incredibly grateful to that man. He could have kept on driving. He could have been a creep, and we would have been a creep, and we would have. would have had nowhere to go, but instead he stopped, and he helped two dumb girls stuck in a ditch. We tried to pay him as a thank you, but he refused and said that he was just happy to help. We went in and used their phone to call my parents and her grandparents to give them an update, and then decided to sleep in our car in the parking lot for a few hours,

hoping that by the time it was lighter out, the rain would have dissipated. Thankfully, it did, and we made it to her grandparents' place with no other issues. Overall, it ended up being a great trip, but I told Maya that I would never again drive anywhere with her in the rain, only partially joking, but it was also nice to see that there are still good people out there that are willing to lend a hand. I have a weird experience that I wanted to share that was just... I honestly don't know what words to use to describe it. It was creepy in its own right, and honestly it left me feeling a bit shaken.

Thankfully, I came out of the whole thing unscathed, but I kind of feel like it could have gone much, much worse. So, to start off, I'm a delivery driver for a restaurant that isn't the normal kind that does delivery. I'm the only driver for this specific restaurant, and while we aren't as busy as, say, pizza shops, we do get enough orders to keep me busy for an entire shift. Because of this, I put a good number of miles onto my car, and I drain my tank pretty frequently. Sometimes I have to stop at random stations along the way or in between deliveries to make sure that I have enough miles left to get to the next stop, or something.

stops, and then back to home base. It takes a good amount of coordination, and I have honestly pushed it once or twice to a limit that I don't like to push it to. This was, unfortunately, one of those times. It was near closing time, and I was on the last three deliveries. It was a triple, so I had to take one, then the next, and then the next as quickly as I could. I had gotten the first one done, looked up the location for the next, and as soon as I did, I noticed that the mile counter on my car showed three.

Basically, I had three miles to go until I was on a hard, empty. I wouldn't say that this is the most accurate reading, but again, I don't want to end up randomly stranded with two people's dinner sitting in my passenger seats. I hit the button for the nearest gas station, and sure enough, there was one that was between a mile and two miles from where I was sitting. It looked like it was kind of tucked in between a couple of neighborhoods. Like this was a really weirdly placed station, but I was thankful that it was close. I pulled away, made the quick trip to the station, and sure enough, it was there. Google wasn't lying to me this time. The building was dark, like they'd closed up the shop for the night, but the pumps had card readers and were definitely still on based on the light shining on the screens and overhead.

I pulled into the parking lot, got up next to one of the pumps, got out and swiped my card, basically did all the things that one does when they're going to fill their tank. After a couple of seconds, I noticed a couple of guys standing next to the building. one of them was sitting on the ground and smoking. I could see the embers glowing in the dark, and the other was staring at me from underneath his hood. Of course, I was a bit on edge. I did have cash on me from the deliveries,

but at the same time with where he was standing, I would have had time to throw the pump and jump into my car before he could even get close. So, assuming he didn't have a gun or anything, I was cautious, but pretty sure I would be safe. I go back to filling up, and as the amount hits five gallons, the pump just suddenly stops. I stare at it, squeeze it once or twice, but sure enough, it was done with me.

I looked up at the machine and then towards the building, as if there was going to be someone there to help me. When I noticed that the man with the cigarette in his mouth was now standing at the emergency shut-off valve, which explained why the pump stopped working. Within the second that it took me to realize that it was just him, I heard footsteps behind me and thought, I really just let this happen. After telling myself that I was going to be fine, and that I would have time to jump in my car, I'm seriously about to get robbed by this creep. I turned slightly, and, as expected, the man with the hoodie on is approaching.

approaching me. But strangely enough, he's not getting very close. Like he was walking towards me, but stopped about six or so feet from me. He lifts his head a bit to stare at me, and I look at him, and there were several awkward moments that we shared while standing at this gas station pump. The whole time I'm just thinking, I'm dead, while glancing between him and the man at the shutoff valve on the building, making sure that neither of them is getting closer or pulling a gun, or something. I honestly have no idea why I did this, but I looked up at the man in the hoodie and just kind of shyly said, um, the pump isn't working. Like this man worked there and was going to go troubleshoot my problems. I really don't know why I said it. I guess it was just me being

scared and confused as to what was about to happen. The man smirks, looks down at me, and and then up at the machine and says, Station's closed. As if I wasn't already being awkward and weird, I pointed toward the card reader and said something like, oh, but I should be able to still get gas, right? The readers are 24-7. The guy in the hoodie seriously started laughing.

Like I had just told him the most hilarious joke and he could not hold it in. After shaking that off, he shook his head and looked back. at me to say, no, mate, the station is closed, no more gas, hint, hint, and then motioned for me to get into my car and leave. I stood there for a moment and thankfully my brain finally clicked that he was telling me to get the hell out of there. I nodded, replaced the pump and told him to have a good evening and got back in my car. As I did, I looked in my rearview mirror and I watched this guy.

put his fingers up to his head and motion as if he was shooting himself and start laughing again as he waved at me. I obviously took off from there, and it took a few moments for me to really get a grip on the whole thing, but I think he was basically telling me that if I came back, I was dead. I made a note of where I was, and, well, I left. Now, I'm not sure, but I think that his original plan was much more. more sinister than what he had ended up doing. And I think that my awkwardness may have actually saved me. Like, I made my dumb comment, and it tickled him to the point that he felt bad,

and he thought, oh, I can't kill this pitiful idiot. Obviously, I have no idea if that's true, or if he was just willing to give me the opportunity to leave, and if I didn't, then he would take action. But I'm glad that he decided I wasn't worth his time. Thankfully, that five gallons was more than enough to get me to my destinations and back to the store to clock out. I made a mental note to never go back to that station, and I haven't, thankfully. If I have a delivery over in that direction, I fill up before I go that way, just in case. I know it's not the creepiest of stories, but it scared me, and like I said, I came out unscathed,

but I feel like I was pretty close to something pretty terrible happening to me. I have always been more of a lurker than someone who is active in groups like this, but I finally come to a point where I thought that sharing the experience that happened to me a few years ago was a good idea. Honestly, this whole thing haunts me still to this day, and I've never been able to come up with anything rational to explain any of it. And I understand that it may not be too exciting to some, but to me, it was terrifying. I figured sharing my story here would be a good idea, since a lot of you seem to have a lot of insight to offer. So if anyone has an explanation for me, please do share.

A bit of background. I live in the north where spring storms are pretty common. You know, the kind with really heavy rain. Explosive thunder, raging lightning and the occasional random tornado that will fly through and rip everything apart. As terrifying as they can truly be, I've always found these storms to be both thrilling and eerie. But I never really thought that I would have an experience of something genuinely terrifying during one of them. The story takes place on one of those very stormy spring evenings. I was home alone.

My parents had gone out to visit some friends a bit before the storm started, and because of how bad it was getting out there, it was unlikely that they would be home any time soon. They left me with a short list of chores to do around the house, which, while annoying, was good enough to keep me occupied, since I wasn't going to be able to go outside. I was 16 at the time, so being home, alone wasn't a big deal, even during storms.

As the evening progressed, the storm got even worse. The wind was blowing like crazy, rain and hail were smacking the sighting, thunder was shaking the glass each time it hit, and it was nearly pitch blackout at 6.30. To put it lightly, it was a really intense storm. I was doing the dishes, finishing up my chore list with an episode of SpongeBob, playing in the other room for noise. The lights flickered, and the TV actually shut off. The old TV had this really annoying feature or something

that would cause it to completely power down if the lights flickered like that. I don't know if it was to protect it from a surge or something, but it happened any time we got a strong storm like this. Anoyed, I rinsed off the plate I was washing, turned off the sink and went to dry my hands so I could go turn the TV back on. As I walked into the living room,

I went to reach for the remote when I realized how silent and creepy the room was, despite the storm. And I think I noticed this because the silence was broken by what sounded like a whispering sound. I stopped for a second, trying to see if I could pinpoint

where exactly it was coming from, but when I actually tried to listen to it, it was gone. I shrugged it off, thinking it was probably just something to do with how the wind was catching the house, and decided that I would leave the TV off while I went back to finishing the dishes. When I started washing the dishes again, I heard another voice. But this time, it was above a whisper. It was very soft, but it was at least audible, and I swear I heard it say,

I'm scared. I remember when I heard it, I jumped. and I turned around thinking there was going to be someone standing behind me, but there was nobody. I looked down the hallway, checked the front door, looked out the front window, and again, there was nobody. Then, I looked out the back window and nearly needed a change of pants. Out in the backyard, standing by the back corner where there were a few trees, I saw what looked like a little girl. I squinted to make sure that I wasn't just seeing things, but my assumption was 100% confirmed when she lifted her hand and waved at me, and then walked back towards the trees at the back fence. I had two thoughts go through my mind immediately.

One was where the hell are her parents and how did she get in my yard, and the other was, she's going to die if she stays out in this storm. Then I started thinking about what I should do. Should I call the cops? Should I go out and try to help her? I ultimately ended up choosing the second option, grabbing my rain poncho, which, with how bad the storm was, did nothing, and grabbed a flashlight and started out into the backyard.

I walked out and was immediately pelted by cold rain and hard winds, to the point that I was almost blown over. I kept on into the yard and started shouting for the little girl but didn't get a response. When I got to the tree line in the back, I turned on the flashlight and looked around, but she was nowhere to be seen. I kept shouting hello, looking around to see if she had just run off, but it was as if she had never existed. There was no way that a girl her size could have climbed that fence either. She looked like she was about four or five, and we had a wooden privacy fence around the entire yard,

which, again, made me question how she could have ever gotten into the yard in the first place. I looked around only for a couple of moments. The rain was getting to be a bit too much for me, and when I was basically satisfied that I was crazy and that she wasn't there, I went back to the house. I stopped on the back deck standing there, drenched and crouched. confused, just trying to piece together whether or not I had seen the girl or if I had been hallucinating.

Almost as if on cue, I hear the voice again saying, it'll be okay. But this time, it was coming from behind me, which was the house. I immediately said nope and went back inside, shutting and locking the door behind me. I dried off, turned on every single light, and went back to watching SpongeBob at a volume that was way too loud. I just sat there completely ignoring every other sound that I heard from the storm, or the house creaking and focused on the show. When my parents got home, they asked me why I was still awake, and when I tried to explain the whole thing, they laughed and said that I was probably just seeing things. I laughed and said, Yep, and then went straight to bed.

I have no earthly idea what exactly this all was. Part of me is screaming that it was paranormal, as the girl didn't seem to really exist. But I don't think that it was a black-eyed kid, as she wasn't at the door or begging to come in or anything. She was just there. I need to do some more research on them, though, because I don't know,

enough about them to confidently say that it wasn't. But that's my story. Does anyone here have any thoughts? Was this just a spirit out in the storm? Or was this something potentially much more malicious? My name is Cal, and I got a pretty creepy story for you. It was so bad that I ended up leaving my job for another shortly after this happened. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's move on to some information.

Like the title states, I was 16 when this happened. I was also working at the place where dreams go to die. Walmart. I absolutely hated working there. But thankfully, this encounter was the straw that broke the camel's back. Now, another thing I should mention, I look a few years younger than I actually am. I have a baby face, so even though I was only 16, I looked 13. It was during the day when this incident happened.

It was a pretty slow day. I had spent most of my shift wandering around, helping where I could. I was already done with everything in my department. I was in the middle of heading back to my area when a man approached me. He was a bit of a creepy dude, but I didn't want to be rude by not helping him, even though everything in me was telling me to walk away. Anyway, creepy guy was asking me to help him find a gift for his niece. I asked him if he had any idea what he wanted to get his niece.

He said he wasn't sure, so I took him to the kid's section so he could choose something. While he was browsing, he started asking for my name. If I lived in the city, how old I was, that sort of thing. I obviously wasn't overly keen on providing this information. So I was pretty vague when answering. Other times I would completely avoid the question altogether and redirect the conversation to his niece. It was evident that he was not interested in discussing his niece,

so he provided one-word answers and went right back to his intrusive questioning. He started asking me more personal stuff, like if I had a boyfriend, if I'd ever had sex before, etc. Now, I was horrible at communicating when someone crossed a boundary. I hated confrontation, and my managers sucked. They would give me hell for the stupidest crap, which made me really anxious whenever I had to talk to them. As a result, I did everything I possibly could to avoid talking with them. Anyway, I asked him if there was anything else that he needed.

I just wanted to hurry up and end this whole interaction. But, of course, he told me that he needed a card and a bag to put the gift in. So I begrudgingly directed him to the card section, all the while he upped the creep factor and began asking me extremely personal questions. He was now giving me compliments. He would tell me how beautiful I was, how I had such a great-looking back-end. Keep in mind, I don't look a day over 13, and yet that did not seem to stop the creep for making these crude remarks. While he picked out a bag and a card, I kept my distance, but I remember that he kept giving me,

the best I can equate it to, is bedroom eyes. It made me sick to my stomach, but I figured that he would eventually get everything he needed and be on his merry way. He eventually got a card and a bag, and he asked me to lead him to the till since he didn't know where they were. Obviously he did, but I just sucked it up and directed him to the checkouts. When we got within walking distance of a till, I politely excused myself and felt relieved to finally get rid of him. Unfortunately, he ran ahead of me and asked me for my number.

Even go as far as making this horrible comment, I like my girls nice and young. They can just keep going and going. You and I will have lots of fun. It's not the exact word-for-word thing he said. Nobody needs to hear the real things that he said. That made my skin absolutely crawl. I told him I didn't have a phone. I did, of course, and it was sitting in my vest pocket.

He thankfully didn't seem to notice it, but I was beyond paranoid that he would spot the phone and call me out on my lies. Despite being repeatedly told that I, I, in fact, did not have a phone. He kept insisting that I gave him my number or a social media where he could contact me. It got to the point where I was backing away from him because he would get so close to me that I could smell his breath. Unsurprisingly, he didn't take the hint, and he kept inching towards me. Want to know the real punch to the gut?

I had a couple of my managers walk past. They definitely saw this guy harassing an underage employee. and they did screw all to help. I was getting desperate. No one was coming to my aid, which made me feel hopeless on top of it. I thought I would never get rid of this guy. My saving grace was my manager walking through the front door

before this creep got handsy with me. My manager was my absolute favorite person. He was pretty intimidating, used to serve in the military. He was also a pretty big fellow, pure muscle could probably break me in two with one hand, but he was a gentle giant. Whenever customers got rowdy with the employees, he would intervene. It was always hilarious to see people who were red in the face deflate the moment they saw him approaching.

I spotted my manager, and I gave him a look of desperation when he glanced over at me. I can't tell you how relieved I felt when I saw him make a beeline for us. He placed himself between me and the creepy dude, slapped on his customer service smile, and asked if he could assist the creep, since I was supposed to be on my break. I happily took the hint and practically ran to the back of the store. I went to the staff room and was shaking from the adrenaline and on the verge of crying. I was in the staff room for about 20 minutes before my manager called me into his office. He asked if I was okay.

I said I was shaken up, but fine. He assured me that he'd have me working in the back for the next week just to ensure that if the creep came back looking for me, he would not be able to find me. He then told me that the guy kept asking where I went, what my number was, what my name was, but my manager told him that he couldn't release that information. My manager literally escorted this guy out of the store

and watched him drive away before coming back to talk. with me. I never did see the guy again. Then again, I left my previous job shortly after this encounter. I got another offer to work with my best friend at her dad's restaurant after I told her what happened, which I happily took. I admit, I was a little sad to leave, mainly because I really did adore my manager, but my hatred for Walmart and my fear of that dude was ultimately what pushed me to leave. So, to that creepy guy who harassed me at my job, let's never meet again. And on the off chance that we do, I owe you a punch to the teeth.

I want to start this story off by saying that it isn't necessarily a horror story, though it was absolutely scary for me. Some people may come out of this story thinking that I'm preachy, and I don't really care. if that's how you feel by the end of it. This story is one that is a necessary, cautionary tale for anyone that may put themselves into these kind of situations. This happened when I was 21, and honestly, it wasn't that long ago.

I was in the early 2010s, actually. Back then, I was the type of kid that thought that I was invincible. I ran on Red Bull more than sleep, and I know that there are a lot of people out there that seem to do the same. I hope that this story does get through to some of you, and, again, preachy, I know, but it's an important experience that needs to be put out there. I was driving home from college on a Friday night, trying to get out to my parents' place to spend a few days

so that I could get away from campus. I'd made this drive numerous times. always late in the evening, and I had never had any issues with it. It was a long, monotonous drive, one that was partially main roads and partially winding side roads. On this night, I had been on the road for a couple of hours, and it was pitch blackout, and I thought that I was doing okay. I had just chugged a second Red Bull for the drive, and the caffeine was causing my heart to beat fast and my mind to race.

I was getting jittery, my left leg bouncing on the floor and my right foot holding the gas pedal down. My eyes kept frantically wandering onto the dull glow of the headlights as they passed, and despite the fact that I was starting to feel a bit light-headed, I was determined to make this drive without stopping. As the next hour wore on, I started feeling my eyelids grow a bit heavier, which was actually making me angry. as I was running on the caffeine of the energy drinks, yet I was starting to feel tired.

My brain was focusing way too hard on how I was feeling, how tired I was starting to get. I started to think that I should pull over and take a minute to take a breath, that me getting light-headed was something serious, but the stubborn guy that I was, I was telling myself that I only had about half an hour left to go. It was probably the rush of adrenaline that was kicking my ass at the same time that my brain was begging me to sleep. But I was arguing with myself inside about stopping.

In the end, my stubborn side won. And I slapped my face telling myself that I wasn't going to give up that easily. And that is where things went completely wrong. And my life would be changed permanent. It must have only been for a couple of seconds, but in the brief moment that my eyes fell shut, my car veered slightly to the side. The sudden jolt of the tires hitting the gravel on the shoulder snapped me awake, only for me to see that I was heading off the road.

Panicking, I overcorrected, and I quickly went from correcting to trying to maintain, to completely losing control of the situation. My car skidded across the road, and I slammed into a guardrail, causing my car to flip multiple times before finally coming to a hard stop just before hitting a large tree. The force of the impact is beyond description. The glass all shattered, and the only sound alongside the metal crunching was me screaming, my lungs out as the whole thing happened.

Time completely seemed to slow down as I felt myself being violently tossed around the interior of my car. When it finally came to a rest, I was nothing shy of disoriented and in shock. I could feel my breathing slow down. The world was spinning and I could feel blood dripping down on my face as the pain of the situation slowly settled in. Despite my injuries, I was able to crawl through the destroyed door

and pull myself close to the shoulder of the road. I don't know how I got as far as I did, but I had managed to get close enough to be seen. As I lay there, trembling, crying, screaming as loud as I could while an excruciating pain. After what was probably a couple of seconds, a car drove by and they saw me. I will say that after I heard him say,

oh my god call 911 I completely blacked out there is a huge chunk of time that is completely gone my memory goes from hearing that to seeing doctors trying to keep me alive and then waking up when everything was done the aftermath of all this was a nightmare I spent a couple of months under medical care undergoing surgeries and physical therapy

my body was broken in ways that I can't imagine, and the worst of it was my left leg, which was so damaged that they had to amputate it above the knee. From what I was told, it was completely destroyed, and the fact that I didn't bleed out while crawling up was nothing shy of a miracle. At the age of 21, I was permanently scarred and handicapped to the point that I now spend a lot of my time in a wheelchair,

I've had to adapt to having a prosthetic, and everything has been completely different. I have so many scars from that night, and I often find myself jumping up in the middle of the night, screaming, as the memories of the crash keep playing in my head. I have adapted, thankfully, but it hurts so much to know that had I made a better decision that night, had I just pulled over and maybe taken a quick nap, I would have been okay. I would have been none the worse for where, and I would have made it to my parents' house,

and life could have just been normal. But I didn't. I didn't make good decisions, and I have to live with the consequences. Again, this isn't for pity, but a warning for anyone that thinks it's smart to push themselves to the end of their rope, that thinks it's okay to keep going when they're tired. The consequences of falling asleep at the wheel can be devastating and life-altering,

of which I am a prime example. It's not worth it. Take care of yourself and listen to your body, and don't end up with a story like mine. So I've been listening to scary story channels for ages, and I've always been a skeptical believer in all the stories. I feel like some of them are certainly fiction, but others sounded more true than some,

but I've always looked at them as probably made up. That actually changed recently for me because I had something happened to me that I would have listened to and immediately thought it was fiction. It's not super eventful. It's actually pretty straightforward, but it was seriously weird and is legitimately the stuff of nightmares. It was a regular Wednesday night to begin with. I had woken up somewhere around three to what I would say was the most annoying feeling in the back of my throat.

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night, your throat feeling like the Sahara, and you absolutely have to go downstairs and down half a calendar? of water. Yeah, it was one of those nights. It was my own fault. I had eaten a whole bag of pretzels, and I knew that the amount of sodium I had consumed was probably close to fatal. I grumbled to myself, not wanting to leave the comfort of my bed, but after a few minutes of trying to ignore it and go back to sleep, I sighed and I relented. I stumbled my way down the stairs in the dark, nearly eating the hardwood floor in the hall. way at the bottom. I made my way to the kitchen, grabbed a glass from the cabinet, and then walked over to the sink.

Now, like a lot of kitchens, there's a big window over my sink that faces out into the backyard, and at night it's pretty much pitch black. There's a small light on the shed that's on the far left side, but that's about it. Normally I wouldn't even bother looking out back, or would and wouldn't think twice about seeing nothing. But this time, something actually did catch my eye. Right there, in the middle of my backyard, was a figure. Well, not a figure like something I couldn't make out. It was a person, and they were just standing there.

Seeing someone in my yard was enough to startle me in and of itself, but the creepiest part was that this person was wearing a mask. This mask was terrifying. It had a weird twisted jaw with spiked teeth that were stretched out. The eyes were hollow and dark and really just was terrifying. Now, my brain made me stand there and just kind of stare at this person wearing a weird mask that was standing in my backyard for several moments. At first I thought I was hallucinating or dreaming, or that I was just seeing something else and only thinking it was a person in a mask. But as I sipped my water, watching this person watching me, my mind finally clicked in to drive,

and I realized that I was staring at a person wearing a creepy mask standing in my backyard. Like, this was not a normal thing to see at three in the morning. I started freaking out at this point, and I dashed back up the stairs to put on my pants and grab my phone on the way down. I had 911 already dialed, and I ran back to my window, but was surprised to see that the person was gone. The backyard was back to being empty, and there was zero trace of this masked person. I had already dialed 911 at this point, and the operator was asking me where the emergency was, and I didn't want to just say, oh, never mind, I'm just crazy. So I explained to her that I saw a person in a mask in my backyard,

but that they seemed to have left? She was a bit confused, but I explained that I saw this person, and when I went to grab my phone, they had disappeared. And after explaining things like the idiot that I am, she reassured me that they would send a unit to drive around my neighborhood. After I got off the phone with her, I stayed downstairs and just kind of watched out the front of, window, feeling paranoid and creeped out.

After a while, the police had pulled up to my house and knocked on the door, and I opened it to speak with them. The officer asked me a few questions, mostly about what I saw. I described to him the guy with the mask, described what else they were wearing to the best of my abilities, and I could tell by the look on the officer's face that he was as confused as I was. He even said that it sounded really strange, and then asked if it was okay if they have a look around the property.

I told them that I had no issues with that. After a few minutes, they had actually come back to the door, and the officer asked me if my gate had been broken, and I looked at him like, huh? He motioned for me to come out, and sure enough, my gate was busted. The fence was wooden, and the gate was fairly large, and the latch had been completely pulled from the wood, like pried out with a crowbar or something. I told him that, no, it wasn't broken like that before, and he then told me to stay there while they checked the backyard out really quick just in case.

They looked around for a few moments, and when he came back, he asked me if what he'd found was the mask that I had seen. It was. It was that same creepy-ass mask the person was wearing. After that, they seemed to take this a bit more seriously, and they asked if they could come in and if I could give them an official statement. That's pretty much where this ends, really. They took my statement, they gave me the report information for the insurance company,

since the gate was destroyed. and they left, telling me to call them if I saw anything else. I have no idea if they ever found anything past this, as they have never contacted me about it. Now, I know that this sounds like some creepy event from some dumb B-rated horror movie, and I would have had that same thought had I read or heard this story. But I lived it. And even though nothing further has happened,

what did happen was enough to be terrifying. I was paranoid in watching the backyard the entire rest of that night, but when morning came around, I was feeling better. Now, when I go to bed, I double-check all the locks, and the gate that I had installed is reinforced way better than the old one. I have no idea how they pried that gate open, or why they did it, but they did. I also installed a floodlight that is motion-activated that shines into the backyard, just in case I wake up at 3 in the morning again and feel the need to look outside.

I must have been around 5 years old when this happened, still cocooned in the world of childhood innocence and endless curiosity. My father passed away in a car accident shortly after my third birthday. He was struck by a drunk driver in the early afternoon while he went to pick up McDonald's for our lunch. The other driver was a 30-something-year-old man that had apparently passed his Saturday morning staring at the inside of a 40-ounce,

and then decided that he wanted to go too fast down a main road. My dad apparently pulled out of the parking lot thinking that he was just bringing my mom and I some chicken nuggets it's when that man came over the hill. My dad didn't see him, and he wasn't cognizant enough to avoid my dad, and, well, that's how my father lost his life. It may not be relevant, and I know McDonald's had nothing to do with it, but I can't even look at the Golden Arch's logo

without feeling this sharp wave of depression wash over me. Obviously at this time I didn't understand, but being an adult now, this, kind of thing really weighs heavy on your mind. That incredibly depressing intro to this story is to simply say that my father has been gone since I was three, and this event took place around two years later. In those two years, my father's absence was this strange fact of life that was largely abstract to me.

Growing up, my mother would tell me these stories about him, how he loved to fish, how he was quite the jokester and how he loved me with all of his heart. Being the age I was, I don't think I had any detailed memories of how my father looked or how his voice sounded, and all the visuals that I had of him were from photographs. However, no photograph or second-hand story could have ever prepared me for this encounter that would have a profound impact on me. It was around Christmas. I remember that night it had snowed and my mom was worried because our house seemed to lose power

any time that it snowed or rained heavily. I remember her putting me to bed. I remember her telling me that she loved me and that daddy would watch over me and keep me safe, like she did every night. But for some reason, this night felt different. It felt heavier. It felt more energetic. She put me to bed and shut my door, but I didn't want to go to sleep.

I wanted to get up and do something. I didn't know what. I just remember having this undying amount of energy that was built up in my little body. After playing with my trucks in the dim light of my little plug-in nightlight, I remember sitting there and staring at the shadows on the wall, just thinking about nothing. Like I said, I was five in the nightlight. this is probably my first core memory, so I'm pretty sure I was just blankly staring at how

the light cast the shadows of my little trucks onto the white walls, and probably just chuckling at how spooky it was to me. But then, as I was staring at the shadows, I remember looking toward my door and seeing a figure standing in the corner of the room. This silhouette had an aura that was completely familiar to me. I wasn't afraid of it at all. Instead, curiosity tugged at me and told me that I didn't need to be scared. I remember in complete and vivid detail looking up at this tall, kind-faced man with a beard growing from his chin and thinking,

that's my dad. This wasn't some sort of visual hallucination. I'm sure of that. This was like a living, breathing entity that was, that was my father. His smile was radiant, his eyes were filled with tears, and I could tell that he was watching me and smiling.

Then I heard his voice. He said, Hey, kiddo, I know this might be confusing to you, but I wanted to stop by and see you now that you're a little older. I remember that, after that, we talked about everything and nothing in particular. The conversation that ensue that ensue, is hard to put into words.

It was like it wasn't spoken, but just communicated between the two of us, like some kind of conscious dream. It felt real, more real than anything else I can remember from those years. I remember him telling me that he loved how curious I was, and that I was going to be such a smart boy. I think I told him about my trucks.

I was really into the trucks at the time. I remember him smiling and laughing each time I explained which truck was which and what their purposes were. After a while, the conversation wound down and he gave me one last comforting smile, and then spoke his last words to me, words that I can play in my head as clearly as how I heard them that night. He said, I'm sorry that I have to go again, but I hope you'll always remember how much I love you. I'll always be with you.

Okay. I remember nodding at him and smiling back saying, Okay, or thank you. And with that, he was completely gone. And I was once again alone in my bedroom. That conversation, it left a lingering sense of peace and understanding that even at five resonated with me. Even now, after all these years, the memory of that night is crystal clear in my mind. Some might say it was nothing more than a dream or just something created by my imagination, but I am convinced of the reality of that encounter.

The spirit of my father came to visit me that night, to have that last conversation with his son, and to impart that sense of peace that has stayed with me ever since. It's a night that I've kept close to my heart, a reminder that my father never really left me. that he'll always be there to guide me. I believe with every fiber of my being that my father is with me, guiding me, and he's been that silent hand that has pushed me to be the man that I am today. 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 seem 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 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 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. The 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 had 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, zombified. 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. I hope my story has its place in this subreddit. I still don't know if it really happened or not. I don't even think I've told anyone this story. I've always been a shy kid. I didn't think anyone would believe me because I had a hard time believing myself anyways. So I kept the story for me.

This kind of story stays in the back of your mind and comes back up once in a while having you thinking, dang, that was crazy. When I, currently 28 female, was around 10 years old, My parents, my little brother and my little sister, my grandma and I went for a road trip to Virginia Beach for a one-week vacation. During the vacation, one day we were at the beach, as you do in Virginia Beach, when we saw a bunch of wild dolphins in the water that seemed not that far away from the shore. My grandma and dad decided to take foam bodyboards to try to get as close as possible to them, which is kind of crazy now that I know how cruel dolphins can be.

As a 10-year-old that loved water and was far from afraid of it, I tried to join them a little later, so I took a bodyboard and started swimming to where they were. I remember swimming for a while when I heard a lifeguard whistle and tell my dad and grandma to come back to shore, because I guess they were a little too far for them. I looked back to see how far I was, and I realized I had swam a good distance. It had been a while since my feet touched the sand at the bottom of the ocean. I wasn't afraid at all. I've always been a good swimmer and knew that I could come back to shore any time I wanted. But I remember I started to panic a little, not really realizing why. I started thinking about the fact that there was a lot of water between the seafloor and myself.

I usually don't care, but this time I started thinking about sharks. Since my brain started thinking about it, I had the reflex to look around me while I was on the board and looked down in the water. I was already telling myself how silly I was for being afraid of sharks, and that there would be absolutely nothing there when I locked eyes with it. I honestly think that my heart stopped. I saw a shark's face underneath the waterline just looking up at me. Then I did something incredibly stupid, which was to try and get to the shore as quick as possible,

probably looking like running prey, but nothing happened. I managed to get to shore, and I don't think I have ever swam that fast. From what I researched and what I remember, I feel like the shark, if it was real, could have been a sand tiger because I remember vividly that I could see its teeth even if its mouth was closed, and its size would match the size of the head that I saw. I've never had hallucinations for things that I fear before, and I don't even especially fear sharks, and I have anxiety.

So, I highly doubt that it would happen only once and then never again. Don't really know what to think with that one. I'm wondering, did I have a premonition that danger was close? Or did my brain make up a shark because I was scared? I would love to have opinions on that encounter, even if I'm never going to know for sure if what I saw was wrong. real. This is something that happened to me a long time ago, when I was a freshman at college. But it was like no other college. Though I suppose there were plenty of other esoteric places then. It was 1980, exactly. The college was barely accredited. It would sometimes lose standing and be

called institute instead of college, making it all the more impossible. to grasp. It had started in the 1960s with hippie-c-C-I-A roots. It was a world college, a world institute, and the headquarters were on an old estate gracing the northern harbor. Years later, I would learn that the money which built the main house, the show barn up the road, the servants' quarters, it all came from a fortune hunter who struck it rich under the employ of the East India Trading Company. He had offices in Hong Kong but later came to settle on the eastern seaboard. The family was eccentric, and they donated an austere quasi-religion who, in turn, gave it to a

corporate visionary who made it his Disneyland, this institute of frugality and utopian idealism. It became filled for a time with bearded, bespecta, bespecky, and a little. practical to men, and passionate in their beliefs and discussions as they talked about world events in the beautiful but rotting chambers of the main house. A mansion full of original French doors and moved in 1970s office environs. Women and scarves and overalls going through files. The odd man in the suit, clean-shaven on the new push-buttoned phone. When I came there, though, it was as if it were Brigadoon itself.

existent only in the mist. I took a limo from the airport and the man driving had never heard of the place, but as I gave him directions, we found our way to a dirt road, with a small sign only noting the lane name. There was no signage of the college. Going downhill in what was now forest, there was one sign that was a yellow yield sign with three handwritten words upon it, animals at play.

and suddenly it was as if time itself was different. I was sent to live in Don House, a house that was on the bottom part of the campus, or the main campus as it was known. It was across the giant dirt circular driveway for the main house, with a gargantuan tree in the center that every class would climb for a group pick with the swinging, daring ones at the top.

Dawn House was a single-story place that was unusual because of its paint job. It was bright orange with black trim, like Halloween, and it stuck out from the graceful aging estate, with its algae clumped ponds and crumbling formal gardens. It also sported a wreath on the front door, plastic, hung over a picture of some naked hippies in a semi-formal pose. It was a weird look, aberrant, in this otherwise bucolic place.

I would learn soon enough who was responsible for the paint. My house father, V. He wore the same black pants and bright orange turtlenecks. Had jet black hair slicked back like the 1950s. At the end of his maintenance day, he would sit in a ragged, overstuffed chair, eat his mono-diet meal of elbow noodles with one solid can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup stirred in. He paid for that. He went to the hospital, and that is a little bit of a hospital.

as what they told him was wrong. So never go on that mono diet. And from that chair, he would watch this big TV far away at the other end of the room. It was furnished with a couple of dusty couches, a few cheap end tables, and a payphone. Sometimes a glowing orb made of plastic with colored lights inside would appear on the coffee table, a creation of V's. Mainly, it was idyllic there. We would sit in comfy places and listen to lectures about Pulpot or whoever they chose that day. There was this guy who had unruly hair, and he asked me to weave chopsticks into it, and it was very meditative.

Students were from all over the globe. They were laughing because no one could really understand each other or the lecturers who were also from all over. There was one student there who was different from the rest. Instead of falling into the good fields, he was breaking into the main house at night and reading old and new student files. Some had lost their minds in third world huts overseas, overcome with malaria, madness. There was one student in our class who thought they were an alien from space. He invited me to go with him one night.

I didn't want to, but it seemed more fun than watching V watch TV, his favorites. Prison Flicks. Old, black and white. Prison Flicks. I had no idea that there were so many, or that they were even a thing. I think I only saw Cool Hand Luke and Papillion, but these were more prison-like than those. It was weird that he got into those movies, late at night with his TV guide to search for them, but I was scared of old dark, creepy mansions at night. I knew how unpleasant it would be, rummaging around that creaky place with its shadowy corridors, long, narrow halls. He had a couple of flashlights that were not super great, and we headed down to the old main house.

We only stayed on the first floor. There were executive offices upstairs, but I got too scared on the third step up, so we went to the lower admin in Records area where he had been before, but in no way had exhausted. Soon, the old metal filing cabinets were creaking open. I found a drawer that had been part of the original house. It was built in, probably for silver in the old dining room. It had manila folders, and I held the flashlight and began to go through them. It didn't take very long to find something so startling that I just gasped and begged for Jeff to come over.

He saw it in an instant. This beginning to yellow newspaper clipping, but... from some sort of private paper, like a journal of professionals type of paper. We couldn't see where it was from. There was a photograph as well. I think it went with the article. It was of several men walking in business suits and hats,

older, almost from another era, but they could be from now, conservative dress, and the heading was something about an experiment. They were going to take an axe murderer, out of prison and put him into society without society knowing what he had done. It was part of their reform theory. His base? Where did they put him?

Yeah, at the Institute. Who was it? You guessed it. V. I felt sick. I was only 18. A new freshman in a new state in an already surreal environment, but this? I was shaking.

We got out of there not before looking down into the basement and switching on a light to a high-backed psycho-style wheelchair, and even that could not rattle us the way that we were rattled. We walked for miles to an all-night diner. We were too creeped out to even be on campus. The walk was so long that we had to laugh. I think the sun was beginning to rise by the time that we ordered food and listened to Sugar-Sugar on the little jukeboxes. I later moved to Upper Campus. an old military installation with a dome put on top by a nudist doctor who lived there,

in a glass dome of plants upon the roof. And then, I was gone, traveling, not to be back there for years. But I did go to visit the campus. I'd been living in New York, and it was hot. Summer came with no spring, and I grabbed a friend and we hopped a train to that rather magical place. When I came to see old Dawn House, it was painted a modest white, and as we appeared, so did a couple from inside. School was on break, but they stayed as parents of the house. I told them that I lived there when it was orange and black.

The woman opened her mouth wide, and then they both began to talk at once. V. Oh, the scandal. V had gotten grants for free camera equipment and video equipment when he came. He was to flourish in his hobbies. But there was nothing wholesome about his media grab worth around 30,000 or more. He had set up the house as his own Peeping Tom film studio, with small holes that no one ever noticed, especially in the bedrooms and the bath.

It's so chilling now to think of those afternoons when I thought I saw something and would turn and there would be nothing there but the tree. But I know now that he was spying. The secret experiment murderer sprung from prison by reform theorists after chopping someone to bits with an axe had made me, us, or whoever was in Dawn House, his experiment. This was something that happened when I was around four or five years old. Of course, I know this was really young, so I didn't have all the details, so this was also put together with the help. from my dad, as it did involve the two of us. I remembered parts of this from my perspective, but I'll also include what my dad saw and experienced, too, so I apologize if it does jump around a bit.

This was sometime in the early 90s. My family, which was my mom and dad, my baby sister, and myself lived near the border of Oklahoma and Texas. My dad had gotten a phone call about his mom falling ill, and they were afraid that she wouldn't make it much longer, so he wanted to go be with her in Mexico. Both of my parents were working full-time jobs, so they were kind of stuck. My mom wouldn't be able to watch both of us while working, but they also couldn't afford to have us all go.

So they decided that my dad would take me with him since I was older, and my mom would stay home with my sister since she was a newborn anyways, and she could bring her with her to work. So my mom made us some food for the road, and after packing a bag for both of us and bringing my favorite toys, we headed out late one night. That way we could get through a lot of the driving while I slept. Plus, it was a little cooler.

It was the middle of summer, and it was unbearably hot. The AC barely worked, and we couldn't do that. have it on at all times, otherwise the car would start running funny. We also had a very old car that could fall apart at any time, so driving at night was almost preferable. Unfortunately, we started having troubles with the car in the middle of the drive. I remember seeing a lot of white smoke and my dad said that it was sputtering. Thank God we weren't on a deserted and empty part of the highway, though. With his hazards on, he was able to slowly taken exit, got past and stared at by multiple cars, and then rolled into the parking

lot of a run-down truck stop. I do remember being my younger self asking some form of, are we there? To which my dad told me that he had to fix the car. Instead of pulling into a parking spot, he pulled up to the curb close to the building. There was a picnic table in the grass nearby that had an umbrella over it. My dad pulled me out of the car and had to me sitting at the table, and he gave me a few of my toys in a juice box. He told me to stay there no matter what while he looked at the car. As mentioned, it was very hot at the time, and when we talked about this when I was older, he told me that he didn't want to leave me in the car and risk me overheating, so he thought

the next best thing would be for me to sit there in the shade. I was still pretty close to him, where all he had to do. was turn his head to the left and he would see me, and he would probably hear me if I tried talking to him. The problem, however, wouldn't be with me overheating, but himself. He said that he was already feeling ill and felt like his blood pressure was high, but he chalked it up to just being stressed out and hot. He said after finding out what was wrong with it, he would sit with me to relax for a bit before we got back on the road. But he wouldn't get that far. He popped the hood, got into the driver's seat to get something, and ended up passing out. I didn't know that anything

was happening. I just sat on the bench as I was told and shared my juice with my stuffed animal that I'd had. At one point, I saw a man walk out of the store, and I remember thinking that he reminded me of my uncle. My uncle Lewis was a truck driver, and he always had on a pair of overalls, a cowboy hat, and sunglasses. This man was dressed the same

way, so when he looked at me and smiled, I smiled and waved back. I watched him as he walked along the side of the building seeming to be looking around, and then did a sharp turn and headed back in my direction. He then stood right across from me

and said, hello. I remember saying hi back, and I think I asked him if he knew my uncle Louis. He laughed and said that he thought he might, and then asked who I was with. I told him I was with my dad and pointed at our car. The guy then said something like, Looks like your daddy could use some help. How about we surprise him with some ice cream? It's really hot out here.

Again, I was really young. I knew it was hot because my dress was sticking to me, starting to make me feel uncomfortable. I could tell something was wrong with my dad by the way that he was acting and how much he was sweating. This guy also seemed very nice. And because he did appear to be like my uncle, I thought it would be okay. I also thought that this was supposed to help my dad, either with the car or to cool off, or maybe just to make him happy.

And that's, of course, what I wanted. I wanted to help him, so I agreed to go with this guy. I stood up, and I went to walk around the other side at the bench and grabbed the man's hand. As we started walking, that was about the same time that my dad woke up. He said when he came to, his immediate thought was me. He didn't know how long he had been out, so he jumped out of the car and saw me walking away with an unknown man. That's when he started running toward us, but he said that his legs felt like concrete.

So his next option was to yell. The only thing he managed to get out was Maria, Peligra, which was basically danger in Spanish. My dad's bilingual, and I was starting to learn Spanish alongside my English, but I didn't know it very well. However, one of the things I was taught was stranger danger. However, he would later learn this, but my dad was amid heatstroke, so, with being very weak, all he could muster was danger. After shouting this, he stumbled forward falling onto the ground, hitting his head on the curb. Hearing the fear in my father's usually booming voice definitely startled me, and when I saw him fall I immediately screamed

and the guy that I was walking with took off my dad and I both remember the guy being white but of course we don't know if he knew Spanish and knew what my dad had just said or if it was the fact that my dad had caught him so he took off I ran to my dad who was now on the ground and all I knew to do was scream cry and shake him trying to wake him up

A lady in the truck stop heard all this and ran out to try and help, and after that, it all kind of ran together. I remember a few other people helping by putting cold rags on my dad. I remember the ambulance coming and then my dad waking up. They had to calm him down as he was panicking because he couldn't see me initially. The lady was sitting on the bench with me trying to keep me calm and keep me out of the EMT's way. When I called out for him, though, he knew I was okay, so he calmed down too. I know the EMTs wanted him to go to the hospital to see if he'd gotten a concussion, but he refused. After he cooled down, he said he was feeling much better, and that he needed to fix his hot car still so that we could get back on the road.

The lady that was with me had my dad pull the car into the truck garage to take a look at it while he rested inside in the AC. My dad said that the issue had something to do with the radiator, and they only asked him to pay for the part, which they had, and that they weren't going to charge him for labor. I remember the lady being very kind. She asked me questions about myself, my family, all while the EMTs were there to keep me calm. She gave me a push-pop and some water, and let me keep the little pool stuffed animal toy thing she gave me. It was like one of those water footballs that you'd toss around in a pool, but it was a rabbit, I think. She'd soaked it in cold water to keep me cool as well. To wrap things up, the guy unfortunately fled.

He was driving a big truck, so they had his license plate number and knew the business, thanks to the giant logo on the trailer. We used this to contact the company and police to report it, but my dad said that he didn't. never heard anything back, so we just assumed that they either never found him, or, more likely, didn't take it seriously. We did make it to Mexico, with only a day to spare before his mother passed away. It was one hell of a trip for us, and I became even closer with my dad after that. It's like we really became partners, always watching out for each other. I have always been an avid gardener, or at least I think that's the word for it. I'm not one that actually does things like fruits or vegetables, but I've always had a green

thumb when it comes to flowers and bushes and such. I've always found joy in peace in cultivating plants and spending time outside during the early days of spring. When I lived in the apartment complex that I lived at, my mother was actually a property manager for the location, and I worked with them to create. create a flower bed for the main office. I used my own money and took two weeks to actually get everything built and planted. And in the end, the landscaping could only be described as award-winning.

Yes, I'm talking myself up, but also it was that damn good. When I bought my first home, I couldn't wait to personalize my front yard and create this beautiful and welcoming atmosphere for everyone who passed by. My house was quite small. I was the only one living there, and it was perfect for me. The yard was big and open, and there was a huge spot open on both sides of the porch that I knew I could make look really good. Little did I know that my green-thumb dream would lead to a nightmarish encounter with a neighbor that I can only describe as an absolute nutcase. I will say that the day that I moved in, I had encountered a few neighbors that.

were great, and one neighbor that was a bit off. The first encounter I had with that neighbor, I was moving my boxes and furniture into my house, my brother helping, and it was around noon, and we were dutifully moving stuff in. She came over to the yard and just stood there watching us. After a few moments, I waved and went to introduce myself,

and instead of shaking my hand, she asked if we were almost done, because we were making too much noise. At this point, I knew for a fact that she was going to be just another Karen that I'd seen on the internet. This may not seem important, but it helps to demonstrate who this neighbor was. Back to the house and the gardening, I decided that I wanted to plant some bushes in front of the windows on both sides of the porch, like I mentioned. I decided that they could add charm and character.

After a bit of thinking on it, I opted to plant a beautiful mix of azaleas and hydrangeas, opting to mix the warm colors of the azaleas and the cools and white tones from the hydrangeas. These bushes were, in my opinion, eye-catching, and they would look gorgeous as they bloomed. Of course, what I thought would be gorgeous were a blight to my local Karen. One weekend, I had spent most of the morning planting the bushes and had gotten through about half of them, when Karen walked over to my yard and again just stood there staring at me. I noticed her, looked back and waved, and then went right back to it,

assuming that not engaging would be enough to get rid of her. Of course, it wasn't, though. She walked right up into my yard and asked, Why are you planting those hideous bushes? I paused, looking at these cute little, unassuming, plants, thinking, how are they hideous? I mentioned that I liked them and that when they were grown and bloomed, they would have a ton of really pretty colors.

She told me that they were ugly, and I asked her why she would judge them before she saw what they looked like when they were fully grown. She stared at me angrily for a few silent seconds and then said, you need to get rid of them. I laughed, like literally. laughed at this suggestion. I asked her if she knew how much money I had spent on these bushes, sarcastically, of course, and then went immediately back to pushing dirt around the bush. She scoffed at me, and then said,

If you don't get rid of them, I'll get rid of them for you. I stopped, stood up, and looked her face to face. At this point, I was pretty upset, and I was done dealing with this woman. I looked her square in the eyes and said, You know what, I'd like to see you try. Now, get off of my property, before I call the police and have you trespassed. And I really don't want to do that my first week living here. Apparently, this was the worst thing that I could have said to her because try and, well, succeed, she did.

It was about a week after the incident with the Karen in the front yard, and would have been within the first three weeks of me living. living in the house. I was lying in bed completely passed out when I was tugged out of my slumber slightly by a beeping noise. I instinctively reached over to smack my alarm clock, but after hitting it, probably a dozen times, I noticed that the beeping was not stopping. It was then that I realized it wasn't my alarm clock that was waking me up. It was my upstairs smoke alarm. As this clicked, the smell of burning wood crept its way into my nose, and it all came together. Panic set in as I stumbled out of bed, fumbling with my phone to call 911.

Disoriented, confused, and slightly choking on the smoke, I ran out the back door just in time to see that the smoke was on the front of the house. I ran through the gate of the front yard, and sure enough, the front of my house was burning. As I was explaining this to the 911 operator that my house was on fire, I glanced over across the street and who should I see, but Karen, sitting on her front porch and sipping on a cup of coffee while smiling and waving at me. My heart dropped when the realization hit me. She had deliberately set my house on fire, all because of a few bushes.

Thankfully, the fire department arrived in time to prepare. put the fire out, and the damage wasn't as extensive as it could have been. But my sense of security was gone. Replaced by this deep-rooted fear that someone so close to my home could harbor such malice, over something as simple as not liking the bushes that I was planting. As I was standing there talking to the firefighters about the whole thing, I was approached by another neighbor, specifically the neighbor that lived directly next to me.

He asked me if I was okay, and I told him that I was, and then explained that the damage wasn't too bad. And he followed that up with, I called the police to come out already, but I wanted to show you something. I was a bit confused at first, but why he approached me became very clear, very quickly. He showed me his phone,

and mentioned that he had a security camera that faced out the front window, and that it actually picked every single. everything up. Right there, on his screen, I could clearly see Karen walking across the road with a gas can towards my house. You couldn't see her actually pouring the gas or starting the fire, but you could see her approach, and then could see the fire start lighting up the street and see her running back towards her house and standing there watching it burn. The look on her face was horrifying. Even in the slightly pixelated footage, You could tell that she was laughing and see that she was actually clapping and jumping up and down as she celebrated her victory.

She then ran back to her house and came back out a few moments later with her coffee and just sat there, watching her handiwork. Thankfully, the footage was pretty clear, and she was wearing the same clothes as she was sitting on the porch. The cops arrived and asked a few questions, and we showed them the footage. The whole situation was pretty straightforward. She'd committed arson. When the police went over to talk to her about things, she tried to claim that she had been home all morning and that she had never left.

And when she was questioned about why she smelled like gasoline, she literally told them that she liked the smell and that that wasn't a crime. They arrested her for what she had done, determining that there was enough evidence to actually take her in, for arson. The repairs were costly and took a while, and I had to move back in with my mom for a bit

until it was all done. I couldn't live in a house that was partially charred like that. Obviously, my bushes were lost to the flames, as they were the main target, but I took solace in knowing that Karen wasn't going to be a threat to myself or anyone else. When I was able to move back into the house, I did install a ring camera, and I actually went ahead and planted new bushes in the same spots. And now, when they bloom, I'm reminded of that image of seeing Karen cuffed and shoved into the back of a police car. 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 hosts 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 you, 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, surrounded him. 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 to be able to be able to be. 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. While 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 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. I've never really shared this story before, mainly because it still causes me mental distress every time I think about it, even all of these years later. But after reading a bunch of other stories posted in this group

and seeing that a lot of people have gone through terrible things, some of them even similar to mine, I decided that I should put this out there and see if it helps me get past it. Maybe it'll help others see the severity of obsessive behavior, and if it helps anyone, then that would be an added bonus in my mind. Back whenever I was in high school, there was this kid named Carter, who was always a bit odd and out there. He was quiet, very quiet.

He kept to himself for the most part, but he had a bit of a fascination with me. In that, where he never really spoke to anyone else, he always treated me like I was a good friend, like we had talked all the time. Now, I didn't mind Carter. He seemed like an okay person, but outside of that, I never really paid much attention to him, assuming that he was just shy or that he might have had a bit of a crue. rush on me or something. I figured it was completely harmless,

that it would pass, and that would be that. However, of course, that's not how things went. What started as him having just that small crush turned into him getting a bit creepy.

He started seeming to always be around, seemingly by coincidence. He would be in the hallways nearby when I walked to class. At lunch, He would sit at the table next to where I was, regardless of who else was sitting there, or he would stand with his back against the wall near the table if there were people already there. He joined the drama club randomly, and would be there every day after school when the meetings would occur.

I tried to pretend that it had nothing to do with me, that I was just noticing a bunch of coincidental occurrences, and that he wasn't doing it to be around me. Then the notes started. There was a random note in my locker one day, handwritten and not signed, and it was filled with a bunch of compliments and declarations of love. Flattering, sure, but it was cringe-inducing too. It had compliments about random things that really didn't make sense to me, like the straightness of my teeth and how I walked.

And, of course, That wasn't the only one. Oh, no. It happened every day for a few days. And then there were a few days where there were multiples, and it started getting beyond unsettling. They started mentioning details about my life that no one should have known. One specifically mentioned the color of the underwear that I was wearing that day

and how it matched the color of my bed covers. Worse yet, it was actually accurate. When I read that, I started to feel sick to my stomach, realizing that this guy was stalking me. I could no longer pretend that it was all a coincidence. I had to accept an address that this boy was pushing boundaries. I will say that I was only 16 and I really didn't know what to do about it beyond telling an adult. And I figured that I should tell my school counselor, since it technically was happening at school. So I went to my counselor, and I explained everything that was going on, and I gave her those notes,

including the last ones that I mentioned. She read them, and after getting through it and taking a few moments to think about it, she looked at me and said, and you think you know who sent these? I told her that it was Carter, and she asked me how I knew for sure. I tried to explain that he had been stalking me, that he was always around and such, but she mentioned that none of the letters were signed, and that I couldn't just accuse him without being able to prove it. I asked how I was supposed to prove it, and she shrugged me off, saying that, as serious as this sounded, there was nothing to show that it was actually him, and that I should talk to him about it. She seriously recommended that I talked to him about this whole thing.

That I talked to him about how obsessive he was, about the fact that he had obviously been peeping in my window at some point. That was not going to happen, obviously. I walked out of that room and I finished the day, and when I got home, I just went and laid down in my bed and sobbed. I was feeling paranoid. freaked out, like he was watching me while I was sitting there crying. I kept glancing out my window thinking that I would see him, thinking he would be right there for some reason.

When my dad got home, he asked me what was going on, and I explained the whole thing to him, and I even told him that I tried to talk to my school counselor, and that she basically told me she couldn't do anything about it. He was shocked and angry. And when I told him about the counselor and he read the part about how the guy was looking in my window, he became furious. He told me that he was going to talk to the counselor that next morning. The next day he drove me to school and went in to talk to her and when he came out, it was pretty clear that everyone was unhappy. He told me that I was going to be staying home from school that day, and we left.

When we got home, he told me some of the first. what was said and he mentioned that the counselor was going to have a conversation with Carter and then said that things would be okay. The day when I went back, the next day, I was nervous that I was going to run into Carter in the hallways. But from what I could tell, he wasn't at the school, which made me feel a bit better. That is, until I got home. When I got home from school, as was normal, my parents weren't.

home yet. I went in and grabbed something to eat and then sat in the living room to watch something on TV. After about 20 minutes, I heard something in the garage, like something had fallen down and without even thinking I got up to see what exactly it was. When I opened the door, my heart dropped. There, in the middle of the garage, was Carter, just standing there trying to pick up what he had knocked down. He looked up at me and gave me this horrible grin, and then immediately started toward the door. Thankfully, there were two things that were going to be my saving grace. The door upstairs from the garage, had a deadbolt lock on it, and my dad was going to be home within only a couple of minutes. I slammed the door and locked it, with the dead bolt and the knob lock. After a couple of

minutes, I could hear Carter smacking the door and yelling at me, telling me that I needed to let him in, that he loved me, and that I needed to let him be close to me. With the door locked, there was only one way out of the garage, and that was through the garage door, which was now opening because my dad was pulling in. I heard my dad pull into the garage, I heard the door open, and I heard my dad shouting at Carter, yelling at him to get on the ground and Carter saying that he wasn't there to do anything wrong. That may have been believable had he not somehow broken into the garage to wait for me to get home. A bit after this, my dad told me to call the police and tell them that Carter had broken into our home, and, long story short, the police did show up. I explained what had happened,

that I'd come home and found him in the garage. After a lot of talking to the cops and then putting Carter into the back of the car, I was just sitting there staring at him in the back of the police car as they asked us questions and got more info. They pulled off, and I had never been happier than that day. Thankfully, that was pretty much the end of it. I don't know how far into the legal system Carter ended up getting, but I never saw him at school. again. Obviously, I never got another note in my locker either. I never had to deal with his

craziness again, and my life got back on track almost immediately. I'm thankful that my dad took me seriously, and screw that counselor for not even thinking to address the whole thing beyond saying, oh, we can't prove it. Oh, and Carter, I'm glad that you and I never met again. And please, stay the hell away from me. Back when I was fresh out of high school, I used to be a pizza delivery driver for a certain pizza place that is open really late, like way later than it needs to be.

I admit that delivering pizzas at like one in the morning is a genius way to get business from drunks and stoners, but I also have to say that the pace sucked, and I was never more tired than the nine months that I worked at that place. This experience was a few months back, but thinking about it and how it could have gone, it seriously makes me feel like I want to get sick. I won't. I'll push through getting the story written out, but it really does cause a bit of panic in me.

It was a pretty typical Friday night. I was nearing the end of my shift and was actually on my last delivery from a triple that was thrown on me by my jerk of a manager who knew that I was about to leave. This being my last delivery, it was the furthest out of the three, and it was definitely in a more spread out and remote part of our town. I don't live in a big city, but it's fairly concentrated with houses that circle the epicenter, and then there are the neighborhoods that are spread out in every direction. This delivery was in one of those out on the edge neighborhoods.

I pulled up to the house after circling the neighborhood a couple of times trying to find the numbers, which, tangent, if you order pizza delivery, please turn on your lights so that we can see your house numbers. Anyways, I circled a couple of times, found the house, and grabbed the pizza to walk it up to the front door. The house looked decent. It wasn't run down or anything. It was just really dark. Like maybe the occupant was in bed, or not home. Which, yes, did make me feel a bit uneasy about this delivery,

though it wouldn't have been the first time that I had taken a delivery to a drunk person that had passed out after putting it in. I knocked a few times, but no answer. I pulled out my cell phone, and I called the number on the order, but it was disconnected. At this point, I assumed that the delivery was either a prank or the aforementioned drunk person. I sent my boss a text message saying,

knocked, no answer, phone disconnected, heading back, and walked back to my car. I tossed the pizza bag into the back seat on the passenger side and started to walk to the other side of my car to get in. When I started hearing footsteps, come up from the side. My dumb self thought that maybe it was the customer

coming out to say, Hey, sorry, I fell asleep, can I get my pizza? But of course it wasn't. No. Instead, it was a man wearing a pink hoodie, dark jogging pants and walking straight towards me, with a gun pointed in my direction. I put my hands up and immediately

braced for him to rob me, but after a moment, and he finally spoke up and said, Keys, now. I nodded, reached into my pocket, and handed the guy my keys. And after a few moments of my heart racing and my face being drenched in sweat,

he motions towards the car and says, Get in the passenger's seat. At first I was thinking I was about to die. And then I was thinking that I could try to run as I got around the car, but again, where was I going to go? I was in the middle of a mostly empty cul-de-sac, nowhere to go but open fields, and he could easily put a round in my back if I ran.

At this point, I realized I had no choice but to follow what he wanted me to do. I quickly complied with his demands, and I got in the passenger seat of the car, thinking that this was seriously going to be my final few moments. He got in the driver's seat, started the car, and started driving down the side roads. I just sat there helplessly, silently staring at the streetlights as we passed them, thinking about what I could say to plead for my life. My hands were seriously shaking, and my mind was racing as it occurred to me that, this man, he wasn't wearing a mask, which meant that he didn't care if I saw his face. To me, this meant that he didn't plan to leave anyone to identify him,

so I was definitely going to die. As we drove in silence, the carjacker seemed to become more and more agitated, glancing around nervously, muttering things to himself and staring at the clock in the road randomly back and forth. It felt like several hours were passing, though it was honestly only a few minutes. I actually started thinking about whether anyone would notice that I wasn't back after a while. I assumed that my manager would notice after a while since I had cash that belonged to the store and had text him, but that was about it.

A lot of strange things go through your mind when you're in this kind of situation. Because really the only thing that I could think about was how I was going to get fired if I got killed. Again, not logical, but it was all I could think about. After another few moments, the carjacker pulled over to the side of the road and started breathing really fast. I didn't look at him. I didn't turn my head. I just shut my eyes thinking, well, this is where he cracks. After a few moments, he screams,

This wasn't what I effing planned! And then punches the steering wheel. I jumped and I couldn't help but look in his direction and he was seriously crying like sobbing his eyes were filled with a strange mix of anger desperation and regret and he turned to me and just said

I'm sorry I'm sorry that we had to meet under these circumstances his voice cracked as he said this and he just shook his head like he was seriously upset a couple more seconds pass of this awkward silence, and then he turns, reaches behind me, grabs the pizza bag, and exits the car, walking off into the woods on the side of the road.

For a moment, I was too stunned to move. But as the feeling in my arms and feet slowly started to come back, I realized that the danger had passed. I hopped over to the driver's seat and sped away, eager to get the hell away from that man in this place. The entire time I was driving, my lip was quivering, my teeth were chattering and I was shaking, thinking that it wasn't actually over, that someone else or something was going to jump out at me and attack me. Obviously nothing did, and I was able to make it back to the store. I got into the safety of the building and I broke down.

I was bawling my eyes out trying to explain that I was carjacked by this man, trying to explain everything that I had just gone through. Thankfully, my co-workers were able to get me settled down, but then after a few moments, my manager asked me why I hadn't called him or called the police. Honestly, at no point did it occur to, to me while I was driving away from the situation to grab my phone and call anyone. Stupid, I know, but panic makes it hard to think clearly.

They did call the police, and they took my statement, but I couldn't tell them the exact location that he had gotten out of my car, only where he had actually carjacked me. I doubt that he was ever caught, because all I could tell them was what he was wearing in a vague direction of where he could. have gone. I'm thankful that he didn't decide that I was a threat to him, or that he needed to do worse than he had, and I honestly think about that night's a lot.

The fact that I got out unharmed, that he apologized and then stole the pizza, what kind of situation does one have to be in to do that? I don't work there anymore, as mentioned, and I don't do anything related to driving my car. or working with the public. I work in a warehouse now, and I love it. Because there's literally no opportunity for anything like this to ever happen again while I'm at work. This was something that my dad and I witnessed many, many years ago. I was a kid, so some of the more business-related details are provided, thanks to my dad.

my dad used to partially own a lawn and landscaping company with a friend of his. They went in on it 50-50. I knew a lot of people that worked there because I often went with my dad and hung out in the back office, or I would go there with my mom to drop off lunch for my dad. My mom was a 911 dispatcher, and often worked odd and long hours, so instead of leaving me home, my dad usually took me to work. work with him, and let me hang out in his office. He had a TV in there, and he had bought a VCR so that I could watch movies, and then I had a small chest in there with random toys and craft stuff to keep me occupied.

However, as I got older, I became more curious about what he did, and I started following him around as he worked. Sometimes I even helped him when he was in the shop. He didn't let me go to customers' homes, though, because they can use some pretty dangerous equipment and even some harsh chemicals, so he felt that it wasn't safe. But the shop could have its own danger lurking. I was at least smart enough to avoid things and to not touch anything that I wasn't given explicit permission to. Yet, even with all those precautions, some of the adults were a little more careless. There was a guy named Mickey that was a little newer to the company.

I was young, but I think my dad said that he had been working there for around six to eight months. He was also a younger guy, compared to my dad, and some of the other people that worked there. I don't know if it's related or not, but he was also a bit more carefree. He never seemed to devote his attention to one project that he may be working on. He may have been watching TV that was in the shop. He may have been shouting to someone else, like they were talking or joking around, not out of anger. And this stuff had also gotten the attention of my dad and others,

calling out to Mickey to pay attention and to be more careful. He, again, would always brush it off like he wasn't doing anything wrong. However, there was one time that I was up there when my dad seemed upset as he talked to somebody else. I learned that this was because Mickey was supposed to be wrong. working, but hadn't arrived yet. He was late. About an hour or so after this, he finally walked in the door, and I remember him looking a little

rough. They all had matching shirts, and some had vests, and then they wore whatever pants or shorts they wanted. He didn't have on either the shirt nor the vest, and when he came over to greet us and give me a high-five, I could smell something sour. what I would later learn to be alcohol. He was drunk, or at least still reeked of the previous night's activities. Now, as mentioned, I didn't really know what that meant at the time.

I was about 10 or 11 at this point, and my parents were far from alcoholics. My mom didn't drink and my dad would occasionally have a beer when he had some friends over, but it was literally one or two. And he never acted differently. If I was older and understood more of what was going on and the risk that it was, I definitely would have said something. Anyways, he seemed to try to avoid my dad being the boss on duty that day and just tried to immediately get back to work. This was also a Tuesday, and for some reason, it was their least busy or job-demanding days.

so there were a lot more people in the shop side of things. This is where they might schedule jobs, fix equipment, and tools for customers, or even the stuff for the business. So Mickey had grabbed one of the store mowers because either the blades needed to be sharpened or repaired or they could have even been stuck. So he was working on that. I remember walking over towards him at one point to see what he was doing, and he did tell me that I shouldn't be too close. close because he was working with some pretty sharp parts. I started asking him a few questions and what he was doing, so he began answering them, I think causing him to forget about telling me to walk away.

That was about the time that my dad walked over to tell me the same thing, while also getting on to Mickey about being late and then being drunk after he noticed the smell. My dad seemed pretty upset, and, told him that after he finished what he was doing on that mower, he wanted him to go home. He tried to assure my dad that he wasn't drunk and that he would be okay, but my dad would not hear it. After that, I walked away to kill time, doing something else. It couldn't have been too long after this that I decided to go back into the office to play a game on my dad's computer.

The office was right next to the entrance to the back area, where they do a lot of testing on mowers or weed whackers. I saw Mickey had pushed the mower out there and was using it. I remember hearing it, seeing him adjust his hat, and then I walked into the office. The door was still open so I could hear when the mower was turned off, and not maybe a minute or two later, I then heard a blood-curdling scream. It made me jump up and run out of the office, worried that something bad had just happened. I followed the screams to the back and saw Mickey holding one hand with another, and it was covered in blood.

He was just screaming, and from what I could tell and piece together from what he was saying, the blades had cut his fingers off. I stood there frozen in fear and watched as other people ran past me trying to help him. What was even more terrifying to see and think about was that there were people walking around. looking in the grass, for his fingers. I was then yelled out to go into the office and not leave, which is where I stayed until my grandma came to get me. I heard that scream for months in my head, in my dreams, or more so nightmares.

All I could see was the terror in Mickey's eyes and the bloody stumps on his hands. It took me a while to get past that, but even to this day, I still get queues. thinking about blood like that. Now, obviously, Mickey lived. He lost three fingers and part of his pinky. They were able to save two of them and even reattach the nerves or whatever

so that they were usable, but the strength isn't 100% back. The last one was too mangled to be saved. I got to see him when he came back into the shop a month or so later. The scars at least looked pretty cool and he stayed optimistic about it, at least towards me joking

how it looked like he was pieced back together with other parts. My dad later explained to me that the mower he was working on was pretty old, and it didn't have a working safety thing on it, so when he thought it was actually off, there was still a kill switch thing he had to flip before you did anything with the blades.

He apparently did not toggle that switch. And when he went back down to check them out, because they had stopped moving or something, it all kicked on. And, well, you know the rest. He said it was a pretty big eye-opener for a lot of things for them. They replaced any outdated mowers so that they all used the same ones with all the new bells and whistles. They went through a lot more safety measures to prevent other accidents, and to this day, that was still the worst event they've ever had.

I always knew that my dad worked with some pretty sharp and dangerous things, but that event really drove it home for me. And now, even as an adult with my own kids, I don't even like them being in the yard when I'm mowing. You just can't ever be too careful. I work the overnight shift at a gas station that is situated in a suburb area that isn't fully incorporated. By that,

I mean that there aren't houses everywhere, and there are quite a few spots that are just dense forests. When you live and work near areas that are just trees like this, a lot of weird rumors and stories get thrown around. And this area was no exception. I had actually heard some dumb stories about the woods from co-workers. There was a rumor that they, whoever they were, had found a bunch of mutilessing. related deers out in the woods, and that a man had once been camping in the woods and got attacked by something. I don't know why a man would be camping in the woods behind a neighborhood, but it is what it is.

They were just silly stories told by people to scare others. Of course, now, I'm a bit more of a believer because of the fact that I saw something in those woods that I can't really explain. It was a pretty quiet night. We weren't very busy, so I was taking the opportunity to do some restocking and cleaning of some of the shelves. As I was stalking some of the chips, I heard what sounded like a thud coming from where the dumpster was on the side of the building.

Unfortunately, we'd had issues with the homeless guy that kept trying to sleep in our dumpster. and as much as I felt bad for the guy, I couldn't let him do that, because the truck came for the dumpster at like four in the morning. So if he was sleeping in it overnight, well, bad things could happen. I stepped outside to check it out and see if it was him, and if it was to tell him that he couldn't stay there. As soon as I stepped outside, I got hit with something that I actually, actually struggle to describe beyond a hit of adrenaline that sent chills down my spine.

It was like I needed to be scared of something, and my body knew that I needed to be scared, but I didn't know what I needed to be scared of. I slowly turned toward where the dumpster was, and I really don't know what it was that I was looking at. Whatever it was, it had dropped the dumpster onto its side, and it was tearing into the trash. I just sort of stood there staring at this nasty mass of fur that was eating the garbage. I think I was trying to place a name to this thing, and it was like some kind of dog, or like a wolf or a coyote. But no. I can say with certainty that this thing was canine-like but was not a normal canine.

Its body was lanky, like its limbs were extended like a person's, and it was way too large to be any sort of dog. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. If I had to put a number to it, I would say that it could have easily stood six foot tall. Its fur was matted and dirty and dark, and I could see that this thing had hellish claws on its hands or paws or whatever. After a few minutes of me just standing there and watching this thing, it noticed me. It kind of just sniffed in my direction, but then ended up turning away and crawling back into the trees. I watched it as it went back into the forest and just kind of stood there watching me,

as I watched it, though it was probably just waiting for me to leave. I was watching it because I was horrified. When I regained control of my legs, I ran back into the station and just stayed at the counter pretending that this whole event never even happened, because I didn't want to think about this possibility that that thing could be out there, lurking. I tried to rationalize what I saw numerous times, saying, it was a wolf or just a really, really skinny bear. But I know for a fact that it wasn't.

I don't know what it was, but I don't have a name for it, other than creepy, dog-looking, crypted thing. I'm sure that someone else will probably say what they think it was, and I welcome that because any information would be helpful. I haven't seen it since that night, and I still work the same shift, but it hasn't come back, thankfully. Though I will say that now, every time I hear something out by the back of the store messing with the dumpster, I tend to ignore it. 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 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 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 events. 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 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 upstairs. 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 poke 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. I like to believe that I'm a fairly careful person, and that I do a pretty good job keeping myself out of trouble and away from dangerous situations. That said, as much as I've done a good job at keeping myself safe, I have one thing that happened to me that was genuinely terrifying. And while I wasn't personally hurt, it still messed with my head. It was one of those moments that you never were. think you'll end up in the middle of, and afterwards, it just kind of sticks with you and creeps up into your mind while you're lying in bed at night.

The day that this happened, it was in the middle of summer. I had literally just turned 18 a couple days prior, and had spent a couple of days at my friend's house in a nearby town. I was actually driving home in the mid-afternoon. I think it was around 3 p.m. or so. I had the windows down and the wind blowing through the car because of how nice it was, and was just jamming out to some summer pop song enjoying the drive. As I was driving down a quiet and slightly rural road, I noticed that there was a young woman down the way with her thumb outstretched,

which I honestly didn't know was a thing people did. I thought that the whole thumb thing out on the road was a movie cliche, but there she was. She looked to be in her early 20s, long, dark hair, and a simple and quite cute sundress. Though I was always warned about the dangers of picking up strangers, something about her seemed harmless. She almost looked like my little sister just older, so I guess part of me saw some familiarity in her and immediately thought, if my sister was out on the road like this, I would want someone to stop for her to see if she was okay.

I decided to stop and see if she just needed a quick ride down the road or if she needed to go a long distance. She told me that she was needing a ride to a specific gas station about 10 miles up the road. It was in the direction that I was going, and I would have passed by it anyways, so I told her to hop in and said that I could. could get her there. At first, the conversation was incredibly casual and friendly. She told me her

name, I told her mine. We chatted about the weather and how absolutely gorgeous it was that day. She made a comment about the song that was playing on the radio. I don't remember what song it was, but it was some top 40 song and she was nodding along to it singing quietly. She even told me a bit about who she was, how she was a bit of a vagabond, and she was doing an experiment to see how far she could go on the kindness of others. This was before van living was a thing, so it was a bit of a foreign concept to me, and I was shocked that it was working out the way that it was for her. After a bit of chatting and friendly back and forth, she started talking about how much she liked to listened to true crime podcasts and such.

It started with her saying that, being out and alone like this, she listened to them to be aware of the horrible things that could happen. But then she started talking more and more about various murders, cold cases, and such to the point that I could tell that she was a bit obsessed. I don't mind true crime stuff. It's not my favorite, but I was with. willing to hear her out because she was very clearly passionate about them. However, it shifted from her talking about the podcasts to her talking about very specific cases

in very, very vivid detail. The way that she got excited when she talked about the people dying, it made me feel a bit uneasy, to say the least. She then turned to me and literally asked, What do you think it feels like to die? If she had just made the comment, it would have been one thing. But she said it, turned to me and just stared at me like she really wanted an answer. I sort of just stammered and mumbled that I didn't know, and that I guessed it would just be painful.

She laughed and commented that it would probably be. the best feeling you could ever have, because, in her words, it would be the final explosion at the end of all the build-up and hype. Then, it got worse. She turned back to me and said, I wish that I could find out what it felt like, without actually dying. And she seriously smiled at me, like she was expecting me to volunteer to help her. I just, sort of said, Huh, yeah, and tried to keep going without making eye contact, thinking that maybe she would get how creepy she was being.

But she followed that up with, If I asked you to help me, would you? I was pretty obviously taken aback, and I told her that I would not be able to help her and said sorry, and that I just kind of wanted to focus on driving. She fell back into her seat and said, well, all right, before just turning to focus back onto the road ahead of us. This made the whole situation feel super awkward and heavy. Like, how do you come back from that kind of comment?

Well, her idea of coming back from the comment was to literally throw the door open and jump out of the car while I was going 50 down the road. She opened the door, undid her seatbelt, and just jumped out onto the road while I was going full speed. I slammed my brakes and screamed as she jumped, the whole situation playing out in a horrible series of chaotic seconds. I threw the car and park, grabbed my cell phone, and then ran over to check on her. She was pretty messed up, but was definitely still breathing. I called 911 and told them about what happened. They sent an ambulance and a few police officers, as this was definitely a suspicious situation. For some reason, the memory of them lifting her on to the stretcher to get her into the ambulance is seared into my brain.

Just seeing them trying to lift her gently so as to not further her injuries, I could tell that she had broken a few things, though, and it was not. pretty. I had to explain to the police that she wasn't a friend, and how I had just picked her up and was giving her a ride. They looked at me like I was crazy. Part of me thinks they were debating whether or not they were thinking I shoved her out of the car. I explained what she said right before she jumped, and after a while I think they got the idea, and maybe they realized with how distraught that I was, that it wasn't my doing. They did call me back a few days later, and asked me to come in to give an official statement,

and I was actually informed that they were treating this as an attempted suicide, and that they were needing my statements to help get her into a mental health hold. I gave them what they asked for, and that was the end of it. I have absolutely no idea what happened to this girl. and I'm terrified to think that she may not be with us anymore. She was such a sweet young lady when we started talking, but she switched over to the crazed person in literally a second. I do hope that they were able to get her the help that she needed,

and that she was able to continue on her trip to wherever she was going. But this event really instilled a strong lesson in me about not judging a book by its cover. While I was going to school to become an RN, I took a job working the front desk at a local hospital. The job itself was pretty easy. I checked people in and out, took calls, directed them to different units, scheduled appointments,

pretty simple stuff. To be honest, the hardest part was probably dealing with the printer. Even better, I typically worked the graveyard, yard shift. My classes started around nine, so I would get off in time to sleep a few hours, go to school, eat, and sleep some more, and then right back to work. So there was even less work to do over nights, unless it was a Friday or a Saturday. Those seemed to be the busiest nights. And no, I didn't have much of a social life at the time. I had plenty of friends. I just chose to get straight into schooling and work as much as I physically could to save up money.

That way I could have more money and possibly free time whenever I landed my dream job. I guess I had goals, if anything. Anyways, so this happened on one of those nights. The only person to have shown up had already been called back, so the waiting room was empty. The TV was on some kind of game show, and I was sitting at the desk working on my homework. The whole front of the building was a plain wall except for a small cutout that had a glass sliding door that led into another small square glass area. Then there was another set of doors that brought you into the building. So if someone comes in straight from the front, I could see them enter both sets of doors.

However, if someone were to come in from the side lot or walk up from the side, I may not see them enter the first set of doors. That's what happened with this lady. I had my face down in my textbook when I heard the whooshing sound of the doors opening. I looked up and saw a lady approaching the counter. Because of where I work, I do pay attention to how people look and try to understand the current state that they may be in. And with her, I noticed right away that something was not right. She was very thin and frail-looking. But judging by her overall build, demeanor and way of talking,

she looked like she couldn't have been more than 40. She had on a huge jacket that she was nearly swimming in, which immediately alarmed me because we saw people dress like that when they were trying to hide a wound, a weapon, and for women, sometimes a very pregnant belly. Her hair was stringy and oily and pulled into a bun, and her face was sunken in with dark bags under her eyes. I asked her how I could help her,

and what she was there for, and she said she actually didn't need a doctor, but she asked for my help specifically. She was talking a mile a minute, jumping around in her story, but what I got out of it was that her car broke down, and she asked if I could come look at it. She said that she was trying to get to see her mom,

who lived a few hours away, who had been at home dying of cancer. But that's why she ended up here. At first, I really did feel bad for her. I knew my fair share of friends and family that had had cancer, and I knew how scary that could be. So that immediately got my sympathy. However, I was not and never have been a car person.

Even though I'm a guy and I guess people expect me to know these things, I can get my own gas and check fluids, but that's about it. So I told her that I wasn't really a car guy, and she said it was okay, but insisted that I'd just come to see if I might notice anything. I again explained that I couldn't be of any help, and also said that I couldn't leave the building, since I was the only person working the front desk. She started to become more agitated and pushy on having me look,

look at it, and as she pleaded, she started adding to her story, and it wasn't making sense. She kept saying that her kid was dying and needed to get home to her, but earlier she had said it was her mom that was dying. I was catching all these discrepancies, and it was starting to make me feel more suspicious of the whole situation. So I tried to slow her down, as I walked with her towards the door, hoping that this would also help. And I asked her what exactly was happening with her car. She, at first, wouldn't say more than it just wouldn't start. So I tried clarifying to see if it died while she was driving, or if she was trying to start it,

did she get any lights, and so on. But no matter how much I tried, she would not give me any more information other than, I don't know, it won't start. Please, can you just come look at it? The more that I questioned her, the more flustered and agitated she became. Almost in tears that I wouldn't go out there, so I just stopped and asked her if she was okay, if maybe she was in some sort of trouble, which is when she finally let go of my arm and stepped back saying that she was fine.

I told her that I would call a tow truck for her, as they could at least be more helpful than I was, and she screamed at me to not call anybody. I stood there, waiting to see what she would do next when she walked out angrily, saying, Just never mind, I'll figure it out. I stood there to see where she would walk to and noticed that she walked to the side of the building where I could no longer see her.

I thought it was weird, but then went back to my desk. However, the whole interaction was still eating at me, so I decided to ask one of the med techs in the back if they could watch the desk while I stepped outside for a quick break. They agreed. I wasn't lying about that part. I could not leave the desk unattended. They agreed, and once they came up, I walked outside and towards the side of the building, staying as close to the wall as I could.

That's when I saw the woman, and what I assumed to be her car, as well as some guys. They were seeming to be in a pretty heated argument, by the way, they were throwing their hands, and he was punching the car. I wasn't close enough to really hear what was being said, but the only thing I could make out was, no, you go. Even worse, after a few more minutes of back and forth, they both got in the car, him and the driver's seat and her in the passenger's seat, and then drove off, without a single issue. I went back into the building, pretty spooked at that point, and I told the guy watching the desk what had happened. He agreed that it was really suspicious, but since they left and didn't really do anything, said that ultimately there was nothing that we could do. I continued working that night, but that weird feeling kept on lingering.

What was her end goal? What was her plan after I got outside? The fact that there was a guy out there with her and that the car started just four. fine freaked me out, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I may have avoided a horrible situation. I'm curious if anyone else has heard similar stories like this. Could this have just been an attempted robbery, a kidnapping? I have no clue, but I try not to think about what could have happened anymore. Thankfully, I never saw them again, and I hope that no one else ever fell from

their sinister scheme. I had a really weird encounter with the guy online about two years ago that I thought would be interesting to share. In the end of the whole thing, nothing really happened to me, but it was a bit eye-opening to the fact that these people exist in our modern world, and this kind of thing happens, even to this day. What's worse, it was on Facebook, of all places, that this whole thing. whole thing unraveled.

So, a couple of years ago, I got a friend request from a name that was vaguely familiar. Like, I knew the person's name from somewhere, but I honestly could not place where I knew him from, nor could I place a face to the name. Their profile was pretty well locked down, so going to it, all I could see was his profile photo, and that wasn't his face. It was a photo of a young child. child fishing. Like I said, his name seemed really familiar, but I just could not seem to figure out where

I knew it from. So I just kind of assumed that it was someone from high school that didn't make much of an impression on me, or something. I ended up accepting his friend request, and as soon as I did, I got a direct message from him, like, immediately, to the point that I almost assumed that the this could have been a bot, and they were going to pitch some kind of scam to me. The message said, Hello, G-Man 12, thank you for accepting my request.

How have you been? Which was definitely a bot-like message. I ended up responding with something like, I'm fine, but how do I know you? He replied with the sad face and a, You really don't remember me? I told him that I didn't. And he mentioned that he went,

to the same high school as me. Of course, this information is easily accessible, so I kind of just prodded a bit extra to see if they were just scraping my page for information to claim that they knew me. But then he mentioned a specific class. Ms. Browers, biology class, fourth period of sophomore year.

He said that he and I were partners in the Cell Biology Project, which made it all click. I actually did know this guy. He was someone that I was acquaintances with. I wasn't super close to him, but he was someone that I had met in the past. So I was a bit more comfortable with adding him as a friend.

I mentioned that I knew who he was now and apologized for not remembering him, saying that it had been a long time and that I had a bad memory, just trying to make light of the situation. We chatted for a bit, just catching up on a few things that had happened over the years. And, really, it was a pretty normal conversation. The next day, I had actually gotten another message from him.

It was just a hey. So I responded and asked what was up, just making small talk again. He sent a message that said, I promise that what I'm about to say to you is not a scam or anything, it's not an MLM, but I have to shoot my shot. Obviously this message did not bode well I assumed that he was about to try to sell me on some kind of pyramid scheme but it was actually weirder than that

He mentioned that he was about to go on a retreat for a group that he was a part of And that he wanted to talk to me about going with him I asked what kind of group he was referring to Because it was a bit weird to put it that way And he told me that it was like a church group and that it was what they called a self-focus and healing retreat. And they encouraged people to bring friends that may benefit from it. He then mentioned that he saw I was going through some tough times

and that it may really help me. I told him that I wasn't really religious and that I did appreciate the thought because I was going through some things. But I didn't really see me fitting into the group if it was for a church. He pushed it a bit further, saying that it wasn't a religious retreat, and that all were welcome. I said that if it was for a church, how could it not be religious? And he mentioned that they were not the type of group to push faith on their visitors,

and that they would not be trying to convert people. It was simply about trying to find yourself and committing to self-reflection. This all sounded really weird. an event called a self-focus and healing retreat for a church group that wasn't faith-based or religious in nature. I was definitely curious, so I asked him if he could give me any information on his church, expecting something like a website or something. He then told me that he could actually get me in on one of their sessions, which was, again, a weird word to use. I asked if it was an in-person thing, trying to get out of it, and he mentioned that, thanks to COVID guidelines,

they had moved their normal sessions to be online through Zoom calls. I relented and said that I would just go ahead and sit in on the next one and see what it was all about. It was an hour of my time on a Tuesday. It wasn't a big deal to me in the end. The minute that Zoom call started, I knew that this was way more than just a little church get-together. When the session started, there was a group of like ten men that walked into the camera's focus,

and they were all wearing white robes and masks. Not like a certain group that one may associate with this kind of dress. They were actual masks, not hoods. They covered the entirety of the men's faces, with holes only cut out for their eyes. The ten men then started chanting and stepped in unison to create a circle on the stage, and after about five minutes of chanting, they formed a line and stared straight into the camera. No joke, this entire line of men then started to undress, like stripping down from their robes to literally nothing except for the masks.

I have never clicked off of a Zoom call so damn fast. This was a cult. This guy was trying to recruit me into some kind of cult, and apparently they needed to be naked to do whatever they did during their weekly meetings. I will give them credit for taking it online to be considerate of those that may not be able to make it in person, but yeah, not for me. The guy then sent me a message about two hours later asking me what I thought, and I mentioned that it seemed a bit cult-like, and that I didn't stay for the whole thing.

He got pretty irate and asked me when I left. I mentioned that I left whenever the old men on stage started getting naked, and he went off. He started on about how I didn't understand the importance of what they were doing, what they're stripping down signified, and since I left, I missed the entire point of the session. I told him again that this was a cult, and that I didn't need to understand it.

needless to say, he blocked me, which was fine with me. I wasn't really interested in all this because, yeah, cults are not my thing. That's the strangest thing that I've ever dealt with online, and I'm kind of glad that I haven't gotten a message from him about it again at all, and that he decided that blocking me was the proper way to deal with it. And if I'm being completely honest, I kind of almost wish that it was just a pyramid scheme. This happened to me and my boyfriend when we went on a road trip a few years ago.

It wasn't our first one, nor the last one, so we were pretty accustomed to the road. We knew our limits when it came to how long we could drive without stopping, when we needed to sleep, things like that. We both typically stayed awake to keep each other company, but one of us would occasionally take a nap if we knew we were going to be switching out and driving through the night. That's actually what takes us to the incident that I wanted to share. We were taking a road trip towards the northeast to see one of our favorite bands, and it was only about a 20-hour drive.

We wanted to do it in one go, giving us more time and money to spend at our destination, so we made arrangements and planned out how long we would buy. both drives so as to not have one person drained or driving more than the other. I feel like this is something that a lot of people don't think about, which can lead to a lot of accidents. So make sure to plan this out to some extent before getting on the road. The drive started fine, and I agreed to drive first, and it would be more during the day, as my boyfriend, Wyatt, has better eyesight. and I also don't like to drive at night.

We stopped as the sun was going down to fuel up and grab something quick to eat, and then we started back on our path, knowing that we still had a bit of a drive ahead of us. However, I was starting to feel a bit drowsy, and after letting Wyatt know, he suggested that I tried to sleep some to prepare in case we needed to switch out.

I asked him if he was sure, and he said that he was, affirming that he didn't feel tired in the slightest, so I got comfortable in my seat and started to drift off. It started off as the light dozing where I could still hear the music playing, but then your body starts to feel heavy and you know that you're starting to really fall asleep. Soon after, I was pretty clean out, as I remember I couldn't hear the music anymore. I don't recall the details of it now, but I know that I was sleeping. heavy enough that I was dreaming at the time because I remember thinking it was weird.

However, I was abruptly awoken by the worst scream I had ever heard coming from Wyatt. I just remember it sounded like he was terrified and when I opened my eyes, all I saw was a bright light that pretty much swallowed us. It was dead of night, yet all I could see was this light. That's when Wyatt hit the brakes and swerved the car over towards the side of the road. However, this ended up being a dream within a dream, I guess, because I woke up screaming, startling Wyatt enough to try to pull over and calm me down. I remember tears streaming down my face and asking him what happened, and what that was, but he looked confused and asked me what I was talking about.

After I finally stopped talking and listened to him, I realized that everything was fine. He said that nothing had happened on the road. In fact, there hadn't even been any cars in sight, and I woke up, screaming, causing him to jump. So I explained to him what I had seen, or dreamt, I guess, and he comforted me again saying that we were okay. Everything felt so real. down to even hearing the music playing and the low humming sound of the tires on the road. We sat there on the shoulder with our hazards on, just giving ourselves a moment to compose ourselves,

talk and just calm our nerves before getting back on the road. Wyatt then made some kind of joke and then asked me to grab a snack from our bag in the back. I reached back to grab it, and as I was turning back around and putting my seatbelt back on, we'd started to see some lights in the distance, coming from the opposite direction. It was one of those quick glances for me at first, and I went back to opening our bag of chips. When we then started to hear the blaring sound of a semi-horn, being on such an empty and dark road, it was odd to hear it, which caused us to look back up at it again.

We watched, as we heard the horn get louder and saw the lights get close to. and brighter. We watched, and as it got closer, we were able to make out another light coming from the side of the truck. We continued watching as it got close enough to finally make out what the light was. It was actually sparks from where a tire should be. The truck had its cabin light and brights on, and was practically laying on the horn. We watched as it passed us, horrified, as this huge semi-slow drifted through to the other lanes of traffic. It was grinding the cement barrier on our side.

We turned around and saw this until the light was barely visible and we could no longer hear the horn. I didn't know what's to say or what's to do. If we were still on the road, what would have happened to us? And my dream, it had to be related, right? I woke up to Wyatt's scream, but also a bright light, like what you would expect if a large truck was coming right at you, right? I think Wyatt was trying to keep me calm, or maybe himself, and said, Well, that was pretty scary.

I nodded in agreement, but we just continued to sit there. After a few minutes, he pulled out his phone and called 911 to report what we had just seen, while I sat there silently. After the call ended, we got back on the road and drove in silence, practically tensing up at every car that we saw that came from the opposite side. I think that this incident did a number on both of us, because we ended up stopping at some grocery store and just slept there overnight. The next morning, I still felt a little shaken,

but I tried to move on thinking that we got lucky. we'll just continue being vigilant on the road and enjoy our vacation. The rest of the trip didn't have anything similar happen and why it seemed like he had gotten past it, but I still had this lingering in my head as to what all of that was about. I know deja vu. I've experienced that many times before, but this dream felt so real.

Like it happened, but we just reset. or something. Wyatt and I have since gone our separate ways, but we're still friends. We never talked about this since the time of that road trip, and when I had tried to bring it up before, he never really wanted to have the conversation. Other than my sister and a friend,

I haven't really talked to anyone about this because it's something that still disturbs me. But I finally felt the urge to share it to see if Anyone else has experienced something similar. That way, at least I would know that I'm not alone. So I'll start this off by saying that when this happened, I was a senior in high school and was just shy of turning 18. It was prom night, the night that everyone had been waiting for

from the first day that the plans for the night came to be. I had a sparkly dress, one that I thought was the moment. most gorgeous dress that I had ever seen. All my guy friends were in full suits, and we were all feeling like we were on top of the world. I mean, why wouldn't we? This was the peak of our last year of high school. We were all dressed like we were upper class, all while living in pretty much the middle of nowhere in the Midwest.

The night was young, the music was loud, and everyone was having a blast. The school had gone all out, transforming the gym into a fairy tale ballroom, which was actually the theme that our class had agreed on. Everything was pastel, pink and blue, there were balloons, the tables were all decorated. The entire room was like this bubble of pure bliss and excitement. And through all of this, we were all completely unaware of what was brewing outside. The weather forecast had mentioned that there could be some nice. night-time storms, but this was the Midwest. The thunderstorms in the spring are as common as a trip to McDonald's.

It happens more or less once a week. No one really thought much of it, least of all me, especially while I was getting lost in the moment with my girlfriend. We were all enjoying the night, having a lovely time, when the power kind of flickered. It wasn't anything major, just a bit of a dim and then back up. A couple of girls jokingly screamed to add to the drama of the moment, and we all laughed, until the lights dimmed again.

The music stuttered and then all the lights just completely shut off before the emergency lighting kicked back on. The entire room was filled with this sickly greenish hue as we all just kind of looked around confused, like, are we really going to lose power on prom night? The room slowly did grow quieter as we waited for things to come back, but that silent was broken by that disgustingly loud, piercing wail of the tornado sirens. That first blast of sound was enough to make me feel like my heart was going to stop. It's not that I hadn't heard them before. They were just always so loud and unanticipated. Our vice-principle, Ms. Haig, came over the intercom.

Her voice was normally stern and kind of aggressive, but when she came over the speaker, her voice actually sounded slightly shaken. She told everyone to remain calm and to proceed down the stairs and into the south hallway, which was basically the band and drama hall. We all looked at each other, and after a few nervous laughs, we realized that this was pretty serious. That change in atmosphere was jarring. From a night of celebration, we were suddenly plunged into a night of uncertainty and dread. We all made our way down the stairs and into the band hall. The teachers that were helping with the night were guiding us down and into the specific places down in the shelter. We all huddled together, an uneasy silence settling over the group.

The air was heavy, filled with a palpable fear of, of what was happening. I didn't realize how freaked out I was until my girlfriend asked if I was okay and mentioned how tightly I was squeezing her hand. This was supposed to be a night of fun. A night of us all just letting loose and spending quality time with those that we'd come to know, but there we were, wondering if this night could be our last. As the storm raged on, you could honestly feel the building shake.

you could hear the deafening roar of the wind. Time seemed to slow down and minutes stretched into what felt like hours. And there were moments when the whole building felt like it shuddered with this intense pressure, followed by several moments of quiet. We all held our breaths, praying, holding each other, and just waiting. After a bit, the all-clear did come over the intercom, but that dreadful feeling definitely stuck around. Going back up and emerging from the school, it felt like stepping on to a movie set from some post-apocalyptic film.

The once familiar parking lot was unrecognizable, strewn with debris, cars flipped, and what could only be described as a small taste of what happened throughout our town. Houses were torn apart, trees were uprooted, power lines were downed, and people's lives completely destroyed. miraculously, there were no casualties, just a town full of shaken and distressed people and a high school full of teenagers trying to piece together how this night that was supposed to be a moment of youthful innocence could turn into the most terrifying night of our lives.

All of this was a harsh reminder of how things can quickly take a sharp turn, how life can take that sudden turn when you least expect it. even now, years later, I can't really think about that night without getting that anxious feeling that I felt in those hallways. It was meant to be a night of celebration, joy, one last hurrah with everyone before we graduated, and yet it was a night of devastation and stark reality. I'll never forget that moment when my mom pulled up to the school and saw me, and how she started bawling when she wrapped me in a tight hug. We were one of the lucky ones in that our house was mostly untouched.

There was minor damage to the roof shingles, and we lost half of a tree in our backyard. But most weren't so fortunate. Some lost cars, some whole houses, and we all came together as a community offering hospitality to those that lost their homes and hoping to clean up and rebuild as quickly as we could. It may sound dramatic to some, but... that night honestly felt like a clear line had been drawn, a line between life before and life in our town after. After all was said and done, we did still have a graduation ceremony, and we all still had to apply to our colleges, and we still had to finish out our finals. Yet, it all seemed so trivial compared to what we had gone through. It's been years since that night, and our town had to our town had.

has completely regrown and rebuilt. Thankfully, we haven't had another tornado ripped through our town like that. Plenty of harsh storms and several tornado watches, but nothing like that night. I'll finish this out by mentioning that the only reason I thought about typing the story up is that my daughter is now in her senior year

and her prom is coming up. Even worse, the class actually decided on fairy tale ballroom as, the theme. So that hit a bit close to home for me. Now, odds are, it'll be a night like any other and it will go off without issues. But part of me is still a bit paranoid that something could happen. After hearing some similar stories on a few forums that I follow, I felt compelled to share an experience that I had as a child. This happened when I was a little. I went to my friend Brody's birthday party around the age of 11.

Brody and I were pretty decent friends at the time. We hung out after school at each other's houses before, but it was usually at mine. That was typically both of our preferences, thanks to his older brother. Brody had a brother that I'll just call Chad. He was around 16 at the time of this event. Chad was a complete ass. He bullied not only Brody, but any of his friends that he had over, including me. He would barge into his room when we were in there, make remarks about us,

throw things at us and leave. He even on occasion would try to do things physically to hurt us, like if we were walking by, he would stick his leg out to trip us, smack us in the back of the head, or push our head down on the table as he walked by. It didn't matter to him, as long as he had some. some way to bully us. And if he wasn't afraid to do it to me,

I'm sure that he treated Brody's other friends the same way. The only time he didn't really do this was when his mom was around. She wouldn't tolerate it, and would immediately stop him, yell at him, whatever she had to do to make him stop. Needless to say, when she was home, I prefer to be in the same room as her. For the party,

Brody's mom was renting out the local community center to have the party, which meant more people and more opportunities to get lost in the crowd of people. There were probably about 20 kids or so that showed up, and most parents stayed there too. My parents had dropped me off and left. After a few hours and all the games being played and cake being eaten, we started trying to come up with other ways to pass the time. One of these ways was a version of tag where one person was it,

but if they start chasing you, you have to call out someone else's name so they chase them instead. So as we started playing this, who else walks in but Chad and two of his friends? I know I was pretty disappointed in this, but the fact that a few of our mutual friends had the same reaction told me everything I needed to know. He came over to us,

grabbed Brody by the head, and told him happy birthday. Then, he asked what we were playing. When we told him, he said that he wanted to play too. My fear that he was going to ask to be it, and one of us was going to get seriously hurt. Well, I was half right. Surprisingly, he did not ask to be it.

But he and his friends got in the circle with us, and we all began. Our friend that was it started chasing someone else, and as my attention is on the friend, being chased, I failed to notice Chad approaching me until I had the wind knocked out of me. I fell to the ground trying to figure out what had happened when I suddenly felt a bunch of pressure on my back. Once I could finally breathe again, I realized that the pressure is someone on my back, like sitting on me or holding me down. Chad then got on his knees with his head to the floor looking at me, with this ugly and creepy grin.

I tried fighting it to get up, but the one on my back had a hold of my arm and was twisting it backwards. I was an excruciating pain from my arm to my face and stomach, and I was already having trouble breathing. Just when I was thinking that I was probably going to get beat up, I see Chad bring a little pocket knife up to my face, and he asked me if I wanted a party favor. I started screaming, and then I heard other kids screaming and crying. too. At the same time, Brody was letting out these horrible cries for help but didn't know what to do. I could tell that he was scared as hell. Too scared to approach or do anything? We were only 10 and 11 years old. We were not a threat to these three 16-year-olds. Thankfully, after what felt like an eternity,

I heard Brody's mom yelling for Chad to get off of me. I could see his face instantly change. He tried to scramble to his feet, all while hiding the knife. However, he didn't do a very good job because the way he stood up and slid his hand back, he still ended up cutting part of my neck and chin. Once he was up, I got up to my feet as well, holding my face from the pain. His mom yelled at him and made him and his friends leave immediately, which they did. She then rushed me to the restroom to help clean up my face, but I could tell by the look she was giving me that it wasn't good.

She kept apologizing to me and hugging me with tears in her eyes. I was only 11, but, man, I felt so sorry for her. She was always such a kind lady, and Brody was always chill too. I never understood how or why Chad turned out the way he did. Once we finished in the restroom, she brought me back out to the others and asked me to stay by her so that she could call my parents. They came and picked me up shortly after, and took me to the hospital.

I ended up getting eight stitches. The night was pretty crappy after that. My mom was pissed about the whole thing, and I remember her blaming Brody's mom for not paying attention, but she wasn't even at the party. I tried to tell her that he wasn't at the party at the start and just showed up, so I didn't think that he was supposed to be there, but it didn't matter to her.

She thought the right thing to do was to try to press charges against Chad. Thankfully, that didn't really go anywhere, and his mom settled it by agreeing to pay the hospital bills. I may have been a kid at the time, but as an adult now, I don't really feel like that was the best course of action. But I also don't really talk to my mother anymore. That may be related. Who knows?

Unfortunately, this definitely should be. strained the friendship between Brody and I. I definitely was not allowed to be over there anymore, and any time I asked if he could come over, there was always a reason why he couldn't. Because of this, we did hang out at school, but that was it. And we slowly drifted apart until we eventually moved, and I completely lost touch with him.

I really feel bad for Brody, because I'm afraid that I probably wasn't the only friend that he lost because of his brother. Chad just for some reason was evil and I still have no idea why All I know is that I now have a permanent scar on my chin and large gatherings still kind of scare me I do hope that Brody and his mom are doing okay and I hope that Chad got whatever kind of help he needed

and I hope I never meet him again Oh and sorry about my mom too I have a strange and creepy thing that happened to me a while back. And honestly, it's something that I genuinely cannot explain. I used to be a driver for a ride share service that's pretty well known. And because of that, I was out on the road for a lot of the afternoon and evening. I would typically do the job until around 10 p.m. at night, and then head home from there,

and go to bed to wake up to do my day job. It was a rough schedule to follow, and I was losing a lot of sleep because of it, but it is what it is. This whole thing took place in mid-April, and we were getting hit with some pretty intense spring storms. Where I live, we get the major rain and thunderstorms through April to the point of getting tornadoes. But money is money, and I was at the point where I needed to get paid. Plus, rainstorms meant that there was a chance of more clients, because people don't want to walk out in the rain. I was out taking the riders to where they needed to go, and I had finished what I planned to be my last ride, and I was heading back to the gas station. I then saw a young man walking on the side of the road, soaking wet.

Part of me said that he was fine, but the other part of me thought that I should. should ask him if he was okay, at the very least, because I would want people to do that for me. I pulled over, careful not to splash him as I stopped, and rolled down the window asking if he needed a ride. At first he seemed a bit standoffish and hesitant, but after a few moments he nodded and thanked me, then walked around and got into the passenger seat. I asked him where he needed to go, and he asked me if I could take him to the Walmart that was in town. I lived over in that direction, so I was more than willing to do so. I mentioned that I could get him there and mentioned that I did have to stop at the gas station, though,

because I was about to be on E. He said that was fine, and that he could use something to drink anyways. We headed off, and the whole time we were driving, he just kind of stared at the road. not saying anything. I didn't want to push him into any small talk if he wasn't comfortable. I just mentioned the storm and said it was pretty crazy, and he nodded with a slight smile. The whole ride, this guy looked like he was really upset,

like he wanted to cry but was holding it back, which was why I really didn't want to push him into chatting. We pulled up to the gas station, and I parked at the pump, and he just kind of stood around for a moment while I filled my tank. I then asked if he was going to go inside to get his drink, and he mentioned that he didn't have his wallet, that he left it behind.

I could tell that this kid was going through a tough time, so I told him that I would buy his drink if he wanted it, and again, he seemed a bit standoffish. I said that it was fine, and that I would be happy to do so so long as he paid it forward and helped someone else out in need in the future. He nodded and again thanked me. We walked into the gas station,

the guy at the counter greeted us, and as soon as we got in, the guy said that he was going to use the restroom really quick. I said okay, and I watched him walk toward the back where the restrooms were. I then went over and got my soda and then waited near the counter. After a few minutes, the clerk kind of looked at me and asked if I needed help with anything, and I said that I was just waiting for the guy that came in with me.

He gave me a very confused stare. I mentioned that the guy I came in with had gone to the restroom, and then said that I was just giving him a ride to the Walmart. He then said, You didn't come in with anyone, sir? I described the guy indeed. and mentioned that when we walked in he went straight to the restroom. The clerk said that that was impossible because the restrooms were locked after 9 p.m.

And in order to use them, you had to get the key, and he still had the key. He then pulled the key out from under the desk, attached to a little keychain animal thing, and said that in order to get into the restroom, he would have had to have used that key. I was a bit confused. I watched the kid go into the restroom, or at least I thought I did. I watched him go to the door and reach for it and then went to get my soda, which was by the front counter. The restroom was in front of me the whole time until I was standing there by the counter, waiting for the guy to come out, at which point I was near the hall where it was.

I asked if I could go check on him in the restroom. because I was certain that he was in there, and the clerk said that that was fine. He handed me the key, and I went to the restroom. I knocked, and when I got no answer, I unlocked it. It was completely empty, and it looked like it hadn't been used for a few hours. I looked back at the hallway, and there was no exit there. It was just the one door to the restroom, and the closet where all the soda syrup pumps were.

There was literally nowhere to go in this area. He was nowhere to be seen. At no point could he have exited this hallway with the restroom without me seeing him. There was no exit, hole, window, or method that he could have gotten out of the building. I walked up and just kind of stared at the clerk like, what the hell? He returned my very confused look and asked if I was okay. I kind of mumbled that I must have been losing my mind and just paid for my soda, thanking the clerk for his time and help.

I walked out to my car and sat there in the driver's seat and just pondered what the hell this hall was. There was no way for him to have gotten out of that station without me seeing him, outside of him somehow climbing through the ceiling, which, yeah, I don't think that happened. The clerk said that he didn't see me, walk in with anyone, which makes me think that this kid never existed. But he got in my car, and I spoke to him, and I drove him to the gas station. I honestly have no idea what to make of this event, and it's one of those things that

seriously messed with me for this last year. I swear that this kid existed. I swear he got in my car and walked into the station. But everything else seems to point at him never having existed. Was this some kind of spirit? Did I give a ride to a ghost or some kind of paranormal anomaly? I have no clue, and I honestly don't think I'm ever going to know. I grew up in the 90s, in Minnesota.

My parents divorced when I was eight, and we spent every other weekend at my dad's haunted house in East. Bethel. This house had every type of ghost that you could think of. A shadow man in a trench coat and brimmed hat, another separate shadow figure that danced down the hallway, a man dressed to go fishing, a doppel ginger of my father, two giggling little girl ghosts and many other unseen entities. The dishwasher, radios, and lights would turn themselves on and off randomly. Loud banging would be heard on walls and doors, door handles would jiggle and turn on their own, feelings of being touched or caressed in the shower were reported. My father also had an incident where he felt

someone crawl into bed with him in the middle of the night, when he was the only one home. My uncle reported hearing two little girls giggling and singing in the basement one night while sleeping downstairs. Upon awakening the next morning, he discovered that there were no kids in the house that night. Also, there was a salamander plague one night. The entire yard was covered in slimy, slithering salamanders. It only ever happened once. I'm not positive if that's paranormal, but it's certainly strange. One sunny Saturday morning while visiting my dad, my brother and I were up early watching cartoons. I was eight years old and my brother was three. As we sat on the couch, we heard three knocking sounds on the wall five to six feet behind us. Just knock, knock, knock.

Our heads quickly snapped back to look at the wall where the sound was coming from, but we saw nothing. My brother and I quickly turned to look at each other with frightened eyes. I, being the bolder sister, tried to be brave. I told him it was nothing. As we turn our attention back to the cartoons, my little eight-year-old brain is spinning. What if that banging noise we heard wasn't just the pipes, as I'd been told so many times? What if it was a ghost? I hate when the ghosts come around. Why isn't my dad around whenever this happens? As these thoughts swirl in my head, we hear it again. Knock, knock, knock. This time it is coming from somewhere in the kitchen off to our left.

It's not as loud as the first time, and the sound is... different. Like someone is knocking on the kitchen counter this time instead of the wall. We quickly strain our necks to peek inside the kitchen, with lightning speed to catch whomever or whatever, is making that noise. Again, there's nothing there. I take a deep breath, and once again, I pretend to be brave and tell my brother, it's nothing, just to ignore it.

My heart is thumping in my... chest and there are butterflies in my stomach as the familiar anxiety grows worse and worse with each passing second. I tuck myself up on the couch and a ball not wanting my legs to tangle off the edge. I no longer feel safe and nothing is to be trusted. Knock, knock, knock. This time the sound is coming from the dining room. I could tell the noise is coming from the wooden dining table this time. I can see the entire table from where I'm sitting with ease, and there is nothing on the table that should be making that noise. No one except myself and my brother are awake. There's no one in the dining room. There is no logical reason for this knocking noise to be moving around us.

Just then, I realized the knocking sounds have been moving in a big circle around us. If the invisible entity is to move any closer to us, the next logical place would be for it to be in the living room, where me and my brother are currently sitting. No sooner than that thought crossed my mind, it happened again. Knock, knock, knock. This time the noise was coming from the coffee table sitting less than one foot away from us. I instantly flip over the back of my couch

in a reverse somersault-like motion, and I run at superhuman speed to my father's bedroom. In my panic, I completely left my little three-year-old brother behind to fend for himself. Luckily, he wasn't too far. behind. We sneak into our father's room and quietly lay on the floor. Our dad would have been super mad if we woke him up early on a Saturday morning, even for a ghost. In our commotion, we wake up our six-year-old sister who's sleeping on our dad's floor. Us three kids always

slept on his floor together when we were visiting. So we quietly whisper what just happened out in the living room to our sister. As we're telling her the story, something catches our eye. We could see a black shadow under the small space between the bottom of the door and the plush carpet. This black shadow is slowly pacing back and forth in the hallway just on the other side of the bedroom door. Just back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, like the shadow is waiting for us. Unfortunately, I don't remember what happened after this point. Somehow the rest of that memory has been lost with time, but I know for sure that we did not, open that door.

As an adult, I often wish that I would have been brave and opened the door. What would have been waiting? Would the entity have entered the room and attacked? Would we have been shocked and confused to find the hallway empty? Would the gray shadow just keep pacing the hallway?

Oblivious to our frightened, curious eyes? I've done a lot of research on the home and property over the years, and I can't find any evidence of a death or tragedy that would account for so much paranormal activity. I've also reached out to the previous and current owners to see if they had any strange experiences. The two families who lived there previously said they never had any strange

experiences, nor did the family who lived there right after my family. The family currently living there did not respond to my question, and in hindsight, I regret even asking them. It wasn't cool of me to even put that thought in their heads. Prior to the home being built, all I can find is that the land the house sits on was part of a farm for a family that I could find very little information on. So, was my family haunted, or were we all suffering from a 12-plus year mass hysteria? 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 seven.

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 him. 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 heart. 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. 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 friends, 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 when it 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, 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 in 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, 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 and 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 trees 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. and 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. The story is really reaching back to a time before all the dating sites were really a thing, and way before smartphones and apps. were the center of our lives. Back then, before everything was so simplified, I used to be a longtime member of a certain IRC. For the kids out there, that's Internet Relay Chat Room.

These were chat rooms that were more or less embedded on websites, and they were pretty much anonymous in the fact that all you really had to have was a display name, and not much else. Hell, most of them had a feature that, would let you join in as an unnamed guest, and the rooms would sometimes be filled with guests 04, 2, 3,5, and such. They were a lot of fun, and I kind of miss those days, but nowadays the internet is all about look at me specifically, so the idea of anonymity being a core concept is relegated to

pretty much just the dark web. Now, despite the fact that there was this layer of anonymity with IRC chatro, rooms, it was actually quite common to, quote unquote, find love while chatting with these people. There was a direct messaging system, too, so you could have conversations one on one, and you could get to know the person on the other end pretty well, even if there was no way to confirm literally anything they told you were said. I am certain that some of the people I spoke with were interested in me were probably, probably 60-year-old guys pretending to be women in their 20s.

And that's okay. I could safely say that this was a long time ago, or that that was the old me. Now, there was one person that I spoke with in these chat rooms that I actually did have a bit of a relationship with, albeit only for a couple of months. Her username was the title to an evanescence song with some exes and numbers thrown in the mix,

but I can safely say that her actual name was Taylor. Taylor was a year older than me at the time. I was 21 and she had just turned 22 when we met and had started speaking. I don't remember why we started talking one-on-one, but we did. And after a while, things seemed to get to a point where we both wanted to start a relationship. Now, long-distance relationships back then were a bit different than what they are in

2023. Long-distance phone calls were expensive, and cell phones had set text and talk minutes, so it wasn't like you could be as close to the other person as you can in the current year. Because of this, we had our IRC conversations, and we also had emailed each other a few times. and before anybody mentions that Taylor was probably one of the 60-year-old men that liked to roleplay as a young woman, I actually knew that Taylor was legit. We had sent pictures to each other, including picks, to prove that we were real. This was essentially a picture with the date, time, and our username, written on our hands in Sharpie and covering one of our eyes.

Yes, things were that complex back then. You had to be creative to come up with something that was difficult to fake, to prove that you were who you said you were. Now, all of this is to say that Taylor was gorgeous. She was exactly what you would think of when I say, 22-year-old girl with an evanescence username that likes to talk in IRC rooms. Died black hair, bright blue eyes, liked the color black on everything,

had a few face piercings, and let me tell you, I instantly fell in love with her. I even told her that she was literally the girl I was looking for in life, and she thought that that was the funniest thing ever. From there, we did say that we were dating, actually. We would chat every night, send pictures of ourselves through email,

and while things never went past PG-13, this was the happiest I had ever been in my life. We had our little relationship for almost three months on the dot, and everything seemed great, until there was a stretch of time that she just didn't log in. I didn't see her in our chat rooms, and I would email her, but she wouldn't reply. I was genuinely upset,

thinking maybe something happened to her, maybe she wasn't really as interested in me as she had claimed. I was almost heartbroken, thinking I had messed this up, and that this was a once-in-a-lifetime thing that I had just ruined. I kept emailing her every night just hoping she would see them or maybe send a response like, oh, my internet was out for a few days, sorry about that. Or I was out of town.

I was basically holding out hope that she would say anything to bring it back together. And then, I did get a response. But it was a rather strange one. It was just, hey, hop on IRC. It actually made me almost giddy to hear from her again, so I did what she requested and logged in. Immediately she sent me a DM saying hello. I replied, asking how she was. and if she was okay,

she completely ignored those messages and just said, what's your address? I want to send you something. I have to pause here to say that I was dumb, and I was in love with this girl, so I didn't hesitate at all in giving this random internet person my address. Nowadays, I would be lambasted for doing something so stupid, and rightfully so,

but back then, there really wasn't this concept of internet strangers are not your friend. So I responded to her, told her my address, thinking that this was maybe the start of us moving into something a little more serious. Of course, the response that I got back was not what I expected, nor what I wanted. The message that I got back from Taylor was clear as day, and I actually remember it word for word. This is Taylor's husband. Stop messaging my girl, or else you'll be next.

And that was it. What I would be next for was anybody's guess, but this was pretty clearly a threat. I mentioned that she never told me she was married, and then mentioned that she and I were really good friends, and if he was really her husband, and I would respect that. After a few moments of silence,

they logged out of the account, leaving me confused, devastated, and just overall feeling kind of betrayed. That was the last time that I ever spoke with that account. They never logged back into the server, and Taylor never responded to any of my emails. So that was effectively the end of my relationship, but not the end of the story.

About two weeks later, I actually got a package at my house. The return address just said, Taylor. There was no address or city or anything like that. It was just her name. I hesitated to opening it, thinking that it was going to be something messed up, and, well, it was. When I opened the box and moved all the packing materials, there at the bottom of the box was a kitchen knife, and on the blade of the kitchen knife was a hard, crusty, brown-red substance, that I assume was blood.

I immediately called the police, asking them to send an officer to my house, because I had gotten a package with a potential murder weapon. That was a really fun story to try to explain to the officer when he got there, not going to lie. I had to tell him that I had met a girl on the internet, and that we were dating, but then her real-life husband had threatened me after I gave him my address, and then today the package showed up. I feel like if I had to tell this story to an officer this year,

it would be less strange, but back in 2003, it was like explaining foreign concepts, and they had a lot of questions. I ended up having to go to the station to pretty much be interrogated, and after answering questions for about four hours, they decided that I was probably telling the truth, and they took the knife, saying that they would look further into it.

I don't know what they were looking into. All I had was her first name, online username, and a picture of her. I have no idea if their investigation ever went anywhere, nor do I know if that blood was human. But it was definitely sent to me as a threat, and it told me what he meant when he said, I was next. All of this was

20 years ago. And looking back, I do kind of miss the old internet. Hopefully this can trigger some nostalgia for your older audience and maybe educate your younger audience on how things used to be. Remember, kids,

don't tell strangers where you live, or you may end up with a bloody knife in your mailbox. Back when I was younger, my mom had a garage sale. every summer. I had three older brothers and I was the only girl, so hand-me-downs weren't really a thing for me. So after my last brother couldn't fit into the clothes or shoes, they were in the sale. I honestly enjoyed helping my mom on these, as it was like playing a real-life shopkeeper.

I used to play that with my brothers a lot as a kid. I also had this genius idea, like a lot of kids do, to sell lemonade. and cookies too. When I got a little older, I think I was around 14 or 15, I was always trying to make my own money. So when my mom offered to give me the money I made on my stuff, I agreed to sell a lot more. I had some old clothes that I didn't want to get rid of, even though they didn't fit or were torn up. They held good memories, so I didn't want to part with them. I also had some toys that I didn't play with that I kept for similar reasons.

My mom didn't like the clutter, so any extra stuff that wasn't necessary, she always tried to get rid of it. So I pulled out all the stuff that I didn't need anymore, and she set up a table specifically for my stuff. And they all had pink stickers, so I knew what belonged to me. I was ready to collect my shopping funds at this point. The sale started slow, but it was all right. I sat out there by the cash box, typically doing stuff on my phone while my mom organized, put more stuff out,

and then mingled with the neighborhood shoppers. At one point, there was a guy who showed up alone in a small convertible. He looked normal. He was in jeans and a t-shirt and just slowly made his way to each tape. and bin that my mom had set out. He paused at the box of my dad's stuff, which I think had some old tools and shoes in it, and then he walked by the table that had my brother's clothes on it.

He picked up a couple pairs of pants, and it looked like he checked the sizes, and then folded them back up and laid them back on the table. The next table had my mom's clothes and my clothes on it. He again picked up a few items, and one of those was a pair of my old. jeans. I remember him holding them out and looking them up and down, almost as if he was inspecting them. Then he flipped them over to the back and kind of smirked. I figured it was because the back had something

written across the pocket, like Angel. He looked around and noticed that I was making eye contact with him, and he smiled. I smiled back and then quickly looked back down at my phone, thinking that it was awkward of me to stare. I knew that it had been a few minutes because I had been watching a video that I was in the middle of. He walked over to me and said hello, and I responded.

He asked if I was the manager, joking around, and I said that my mom was, but I was just watching over as she got more stuff. He asked a few innocent questions about the day, and myself, but it was nothing weird. So I answered. I remember even making a comment about his car because I thought that it looked pretty cool. It was a deep purple color.

He looked over at the car and then back at me and smiled and said that since I liked it, he could take me for a ride in it if I wanted. Now, even though he didn't seem weird and nothing felt off, I knew better. So I just smiled and said, Thanks, but no thanks. He then asked if I was selling any of my stuff, and I confirmed. I pointed to the table as he had already looked at my pants. I also remembered this because I felt like my stuff was pretty obvious.

My mom was out there when he got there, and it's pretty obvious that there were two different sizes. The tables were also sorted out by type of clothing and sizing, as my mom was a neat freak. and so he smiled again, thanking me and walked back over to the table with my stuff. I snuck a few glances up from my phone to see him still looking through my clothing. I thought it was kind of weird that he was looking at my clothes and nobody else's. But I also tried to be reasonable in thinking that maybe he had a daughter around the same age. Then the guy came back over to me and had a few more questions. This time they seemed a bit more intrusive.

He asked how old I was, and I answered honestly. He asked me how tall I was, and I again was honest. But then he asked me what size I wore, which was kind of weird, because if I told you where my clothes were, you could check the sizes on them and assume that I'm probably around that size. So I just told him the same size on the pants that he was holding. He kind of laughed a bit, and I guess he could sense my uneasiness and claimed that he was thinking about his daughter. I thought that it was still possible, so I tried to be polite, but I was also starting to feel awkward at this point.

He stood there for a moment, so I was expecting him to walk away, but instead he leaned down towards my face, looked around and then quietly asked, are you getting rid of any old sports bras? I wanted to yell at this guy, but I was also afraid that he might try to do something. If he was brazen enough to ask me that with other people around, what else was he willing to do? However, my dad was in the garage behind me, talking to someone else as I could hear his voice. So, I decided to take the chance and call this guy out. No, I'm not selling you my underwear, you creep, I loudly shouted.

This was the exact reaction that I was hoping for. I looked back at my dad who was already quickly walking toward the front. The guy dropped the item that he was holding on the table in front of me and started walking away and looked at another table. He really thought that he was going to be able to play that whole situation off. My dad immediately approached him, shoved him back, and told him to leave. No questions, no nothing.

He just told him to get the F off of our property right there. The guy walked back to his car, holding his hands up, and looked offended like my dad was in the wrong. He quickly burned out while other shoppers looked around at him and started asking questions. I explained to my dad what happened, and he made my oldest brother sit out there with me, Well, he went in and told my mom. He didn't want me out there alone, nor did I want to be alone. It wasn't even that long after that they both came back out the front door. We were all talking and helping people pay and leave when I looked up to see a purple convertible driving by.

Really, slowly. Before I could even say anything, my dad looked up too and noticed and shouted something out at the guy, causing him to take off again. My brother was ready to go follow this guy in his own car, but my dad stopped him. Instead, he did call the cops to report him, which we did. They said that they would drive around a few times, but said that if we saw him again, to call 911 immediately and they could patch him to one of the officers so that they could try and stop him if he was out front.

At this point, he was being intimidating, and with what he said to me, and the fact that he was bordering on trespassing, they took it very seriously. We ended up putting all of our stuff away early because we didn't want to give that guy something to look at. But we didn't see him again that day. However, my mom decided that she was going to try the sale again the next day, but I didn't want to be out there, so I ended up staying inside and cleaned and organized my room. and yet that same creep drove by again. I was getting pretty worried,

and every bump that night had me wide awake thinking this guy was going to come back. My dad was getting pretty angry too. He ended up sitting in his car, parked on the street across from my house, and he waited for the guy to drive by again. My room faces out into the front yard so I could hear him talking to my mom and brother about it, while my window was open and I could see him sitting in his car. I guess that must have really spooked the guy because he was brave enough to drive by one more time and my dad was ready to follow him.

I heard my mom shout, the convertible guy burned out again, and then my dad followed them. We had more cops over as my mom explained to them what happened. I don't remember how long it was when my dad finally came back. He said he was following him for a while until he got on the highway, going at some pretty dangerous speeds. My dad wasn't willing to humor this, so he slowed down and came back home. As far as I know, they never caught the guy, but we never really saw him again after that. The conversation I had with him was creepy enough, but knowing that he was driving past our home, not only the day of but the day after that encounter, it was pretty disturbing.

It still creeps me out thinking about what he was planning, but thankfully we never did see him again. I just hope he didn't try to do that or anything else to another unexpected girl. 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 us. 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. 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. 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 it 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 my cell 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-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 address, 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.

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 doesn't. bothers 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. This took place

in the little town close to the border of Alabama and Georgia. I've moved since then because there wasn't much in that area. To put it simply, for entertainment, you had the grocery store, a bowling alley, and town gossip. Even around my age of about 12 or so, the gossip was definitely more exciting. The older people with their stupid leagues pretty much took over the bowling alley anyways. My family lived in a small three-bedroom house with my parents, myself, my twin brother,

and our older sister. We were never really the ones being talked about unless something happened at my dad's job. He was a cop. Otherwise, we were typically the ones that people told everything too. Some stuff our parents tried to keep us out of, but we typically found out by overhearing them or from the rumors going on even at school.

Seriously, that's all that we had going for us around here. This story involved a house and a couple that lived about two houses down and across the street from us. It was a man and a woman. For the sake of simplicity, let's call them Bonnie and Bill. I'm not sure if they were married or just together, but thankfully I never saw any kids over there. I have never seen two people argue that much in my life. I think they've actually got Jerry Springer beat. The three of us kids would walk to the bus stop, which was in their direction,

and sometimes he would be leaving and you could hear them hollering as he left. Bill would usually proceed to burn out from the driveway, so my sister would always harp on us to make sure that we didn't walk too close to the street, not knowing what he could possibly do. While playing outside in the front yard, sometimes we would be interrupted as we could hear them screaming at each other. We would all run to the fence and watch, and we weren't the only ones. When Ms. Sampson was outside in her garden, she would pause and walk over by the street to see what was going on too.

Within a few moments, anybody that was outside was now looking down in that direction, waiting to see or hear something worth talking about for days. One of the fights got pretty intense, as I had been riding my bike with one of my friends around the block, when I saw Bonnie angrily carrying handfuls of stuff and throwing it on the corner. We slowed down to see what it was, and noticed it was mostly clothing. I saw one of those plug-in razors and a small portable radio that was smashed, like it had been thrown, dropped, or crushed. Bonnie noticed us looking and told us that we were free to take what had been. whatever we wanted, all while still talking to herself and just randomly screaming.

We didn't dare touch any of it, because, just as I expected, Bill came flying around the corner in his car and stormed over to grab his stuff and bring it back inside. Then the argument ensued again. This was pretty much the norm for these two. The cops were occasionally called, and I think most of them, my dad ended up on. so we would always hear him talking to my mom about what had happened. They would argue about the silliest things from how dinner was made wrong, how he laughed at something that she didn't like.

They thought the other one was having an affair, or maybe they just woke up in a bad mood. It was crazy, but I just figured it was two people that probably shouldn't be together, and they would be better off working on themselves alone. and one day I assumed that's what they finally did and we heard them arguing again on our way to the bus stop when we got home that afternoon it was quiet and Bill's car was gone

again we just assumed that he had left to cool off the next day his car still wasn't there and then the next day and the next rumors were that he finally got tired of her or they got tired of each other and they split. Bonnie even tried giving away some of Bill's stuff to random people. When we were at the bus stop, she hollered for us and said that we could have whatever we wanted. She had haphazardly thrown a bunch of stuff in the bed of her truck and told us to take whatever.

We all politely declined, but then she tossed me a pack of baseball cards. I've collected them for years and I was a kid, so it was pretty hard to say no to. to them. That night, I had started going through them and showed my dad what I had gotten, but he wasn't too thrilled with the idea of me having these cards. So I reluctantly handed them over, and as far as I know, he gave them back to her. It was probably about two weeks or so, where it was pretty silent around the neighborhood. We rarely saw her, and she started putting stuff on the windows to block anyone or anything from seeing through it. She had newspapers and plain white paper all over, even on the small etched glass window on the door.

Then there was a new car that showed up at the house, being driven by a slightly older lady. I, of course, didn't notice until we heard the familiar sounds of screaming. So we did what any of us would do and went to check it out. The only thing I remember hearing from that conversation was Bonnie yelling things like, Get off my property. Leave me alone. And the new lady talking about calling the cops or reporting something. My dad went out there to see what exactly was going on,

which resulted in the lady leaving and Bonnie telling my dad to leave too, and then storming off back inside. Then, being nosy, we heard my dad talking to my mom and some of his friends about it a few days later. I guess the new lady was Bill's sister, and she hadn't heard from him in about two weeks. So she came over looking for him. From what he found out, they'd had an argument, he left, and then never returned.

She said that he called her once, saying that he was moving to Florida, didn't want any of his stuff, and would never be coming back, which is why she was just getting rid of all of his crap. That was really the last time we ever heard about him. Apparently, over time, his sister still came around looking for him and asking questions, but since he was an adult,

and there were no obvious signs of foul play, they couldn't really do much. So, fast forward, all three of us kids have graduated and moved out of that town. My parents still live there, but my dad has since retired a little earlier due to a bad accident messing up his back. We've all pretty much forgotten about the situation and moved on with our lives. It was probably around 2008. Us kids were visiting my parents for a little get-together. I think it was Labor Day weekend or something. At some point in time, we started seeing a few cop cars and detectives,

according to my dad, showing up at Bonnie and Bill's old house. They hadn't seen Bonnie for around six months to a year, and it was assumed that the house was abandoned, especially due to what we know as the housing crash around the same time, it was entirely possible. A new couple had actually bought the house, and they considered themselves house flippers. We were all standing outside like old times,

trying to see what was going on, and my dad decided to walk down there, Kane and all, to see if he could figure out what exactly happened. One of his friends was there and was more than willing to fill him in, since he was familiar with the previous owners. And, of course, now that we were adults, my dad was willing to share the details with us.

The new owners of the house had gone to complete the basement since part of it was just dirt or loose gravel. There was a weird spot that had concrete pretty much poured over, but it wasn't leveled or smoothed out, so you could pretty much just stick your foot or hand under it and lift it right off the ground. This was exactly what the new owners had done, curious as to why that was there, with the soft ground underneath. Then, they kept digging, and, well, they got their answers.

They found human remains. They immediately called the cops to report it and brought them all out to investigate. We wouldn't find out more until after us kids had left, but the local newspaper reported it, and they were able to identify them as Bill. My dad told us that the remains had a fractured jaw and skull, so now it's rumored that Bonnie was the cause of it all. The problem is Bonnie is now gone, and no one knows where she is,

or hell if she's even still alive. So while I didn't personally see or witness anything, I was living on the same block as a potential killer. The same block where a man died and was left in a makeshift grave in his basement. I was even given some of his property. This creeped me out and still does. She never did anything violent towards any of us kids, but it was still a thought that was in my mind. We got close enough to her windows to see what she had covering them,

but would she have tried to do something to us if she had caught us? Would she have done something if the sister had pushed her luck? It was crazy. This is the stuff that you just hear about in the news or on some true crime television show, but I actually lived it. So that's my small town story. I know this can happen in any town to any one, but it's surreal when it's truly that close to home. 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, and 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, the 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 subjectively 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 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 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 an 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. That should tell you how much of an impact that visual had on me. I freaked out. I immediately ran back to the house. Aries 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 one 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 disdemean, 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 that 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 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 Ares 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 the 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 in was because he did find Ares, but what he found wasn't pleasant. They both explained to me that Aries 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 happened a few years back when I was visiting with my family for Easter. I was living on my own at this point, but since my grandmother's birthday wasn't April,

and we typically did a small Easter and birthday get together with my parents and siblings. This year I was bringing along my girlfriend, who I had been with for almost a year, so that she could meet some of my family, so I was pretty excited about that, and thankfully she was too. My grandparents lived in a quiet little neighborhood that was basically like a retirement community, They lived in what was essentially condos, because they were connected, but they were also more house-like, more so than an apartment. They had their own buildings and even backyards and patios. It was a pretty nice area, and their neighbors were your fairly typical retired people.

They left you alone for the most part, but would always make sure to greet anyone they saw coming or going. I had been there and stayed overnight a few times when I was younger, so I had fond memories of the place. So we went over there on Sunday afternoon. It was about an hour's drive for us, and we got there a little earlier than anticipated. My parents were already there, so I introduced them and my grandparents to my girlfriend, Whitney, and we all just sat around and talked for a bit. and shortly after, my siblings started to show up one by one. My younger sister and older brother both had a kid,

so my grandparents were pretty excited about hiding eggs for them. After the egg hunt, we had dinner about an hour or two later, and then we all just kicked back while the kids dug into their Easter baskets. At one point, my grandpa, my dad, and I were sitting in the living room talking while the rest of the family was scattered about. my dad was mid-sentence when we heard what sounded like someone softly tapping on the door. It stopped my dad as we listened to see if there was maybe one of the kids playing around when the knocking happened again.

So my dad got up and went to the front door to see who it could be. Yet when he opened the door, there was no one there. So we went back to our original thought of, it was probably someone messing around and continued our conversation. Shortly after, the tapping happened again, so my dad shouted towards the kitchen and asked where the kids were. My mom responded that they were out back with my sister and Whitney playing, so my dad got up and walked into the kitchen and continued their conversation.

My grandpa and I sat there silently for a moment until Whitney walked back into the room and asked me what that knocking sound was. It caught me off guard at first because I asked her what she meant, and after she explained the same five-knock pattern that happened twice, which was similar to what we heard. However, what we heard was a quieter tapping sound. What she actually heard startled her and my sister, as it sounded like a very loud banging.

The condo was decent-sized, but it definitely wasn't big, so if there was a loud banging, we should have heard it too. After talking to a few others there, my mom and grandma in the kitchen said they didn't hear anything. My brother who was in the bathroom didn't hear anything either, nor did my brother-in-law who was out front smoking. My sister and Whitney heard a loud banging out back and the other three of us in the living room just heard it tapping.

It was odd to us that those of us that did hear something was so vastly different. Yet those in the kitchen, who were in between the living room and the back door, heard nothing. With no explanation, we just continued with our night, shrugging it off as something that was just weird.

As it started getting a bit dark, everyone came back inside, but we had the screen back door open because it felt nice out. As we were all talking between the living room and kitchen table, We then heard another knocking. This time, everyone looked towards the door, telling me that everybody heard it. My grandpa made a joke about my sister-in-law being late to the party,

and we all chuckled as he walked to the door. Yet again, when he opened the door, there was nobody there. He walked out front looking around and then came back in with the look of confusion. There was no one out there. We all had heard it clear as day, but, my grandma tried to make light of the situation saying that someone must just be playing a prank. My dad didn't like that idea, though, and said that he wanted to walk around to see if he could spot someone. My brother-in-law agreed to go with him and they shut the door behind them.

Shortly after they left, as we were starting back up the conversation, we were all startled by a blood-curdling scream. It sounded like a woman screaming for her life. I think we all pretty much jumped up when we heard it and looked at each other to make sure everyone was okay. This then caused my brother to head for the door and I followed closely behind him. I was worried that something had happened outside or maybe my dad and brother-in-law found something or someone. As we walked out, I didn't see anyone in the front yard

and the street was seemingly clear, other than a few parked cars on the side. That's when we heard it again, a very loud and piercing scream, but I couldn't pinpoint a direction that it was coming from. I called out for my dad with panic in my voice when I saw him and my brother-in-law approached the front yard from the privacy gate that separated the front from the back. He ran up to me and my brother and asked if we were okay and what had happened. We then explained to them that we had just heard the scream and wanted to make sure they were okay. They pretty much told us the same story. However, they said that they only heard one scream, and that was the second one.

How the hell could they have not heard the first one when it was clear to us in the house? They said that they walked around the entire condo and didn't see anything. They told me to go back inside and call the cops, while the other three continued to walk around. I ran back inside and grabbed my phone to call the police with trembling. hands. I remember trying to stay calm as I looked over to Whitney and the rest of my family, to tell them that I was just calling as a precaution. It felt like hours before the police finally showed up, but it hadn't really been that long. My dad and brother-in-law greeted them in the driveway and explained what had happened. There were two that came, and they actually called for a few more

so that they could check the surrounding area. They had us all stay inside, but my brother, and law didn't really leave the front stoop. So, this is where things went from terrifying to bizarre. They came back and asked us all specifically what we heard, when we heard it, and from what direction did it sound like it had come from. We all described the exact same thing, except when it came down to where it sounded like it had come from. My dad and brother-in-law claimed that they never heard the first scream, but the second one

sounded like it was coming from the front. While we were inside, those that were at the kitchen table, closer to the open back door, said that it sounded louder from back there. If so, it makes even less sense how they hadn't heard it. But for me, I could not pinpoint a direction. Both times it sounded like it was right in front of me. Like I had my eyes closed and if I were to open them, I would see who the screams were coming from.

The cops were trying to pinpoint a direction, but we really weren't that much help, so they said they were going to ask some of the neighbors because clearly they would have heard this too. But they came back shortly after and said that the about dozen or so other homes they knocked on claimed that they did not hear anything. Not a peep.

They also said that they didn't have anyone tapping or knocking on windows or doors, either. I think if it weren't for all of us having such a similar story, they would have probably thought that we were lying. So they looked around a bit more and even drove by a few nearby streets, but when they found nothing, they said that they would have to leave. They then told us to call back if it happened again, or if we spot anything suspicious. After they left, we were all dumbfounded by the situation and had lost any kind of party mood. We all started dispersing and going home.

My mom later informed me that they ended up staying the night there, because after we had all left, they started hearing what sounded like someone pounding on a window in one of the rooms. But once again, there was no trace of anybody. The grass hadn't been pulled down near the windows, there were no marks or smudges on them, My grandma was getting worried and my dad didn't want to leave them alone, so they stayed. However, that was the last event that they'd had for the night.

Thankfully, I guess. We all kept an eye on the news for a while, wondering if there was going to be a report on someone who was injured, killed, or kidnapped in the area, but nothing ever came of it. My grandmother even went and talked to some of the neighbors herself, and they all told her the same thing. they had never heard anything. It was definitely a freaky situation, but it was the only thing that ever happened in the area. It was, however, enough to spook my grandma enough to want to move,

which they did a year after that. We still to this day have no explanation for the screaming or the knocking, but I just hope that there wasn't someone really out there in distress. and honestly, it's something that sticks with me to this day. Way back when I was 15, maybe 16, I used to be a member of a medium-sized online forum that was designed for indie authors to share their work and get feedback, or even win small prizes for little contests and competitions that they held.

I was actually one of the most active users on the forum, because I was really giving being an author everything I had, and I was putting a lot of effort into writing short stories for my collection. My whole situation started during one of the writing competitions that I mentioned. I don't recall the theme. I just remember that I was super confident that I could write a decent little story for it. Much to my surprise, I actually won the competition. The prize was a $20 target gift card,

So it wasn't like it was some big contest for a major reward, but to me it was an amazing feeling knowing that I had won this contest, where dozens of people had entered. The day that I won, I received a private message from one of the head mods of the forum. At the time, I only knew him as white oak, and after a while, which I'll explain in a bit, I did learn what his full legal name was. That said, for the sake of the story, I'm just going to refer to him as White Oak.

So White Oak sent me a DM with the message saying, Congrats on winning our monthly writing competition. Your story was chosen by a majority vote of the mod team, and, as such, you have won a gift card. I just need to know where to send it to and to whom I'm sending it, and I'll get it in the mail right away. and being a super-excited 16-year-old girl that was feeling like she had just won the entire world, I responded with my first and last name, as well as my home address.

At no point did I pause to think that maybe I should have asked my parents, or not sent this random person my home address, because I thought this was going to be a professional trade-off. I won a contest, I was getting a prize. After I sent that, he told me that he would get the card in the mail here as soon as possible, and once again told me that my story was perfectly written, and just really talked up my prose. I was elated that someone that was so important was giving me attention.

He was important to me, at least, because he was a big shot on the forum. I thanked him. We had an informal conversation, and that was pretty much where I thought. it was going to end. I thought it was just going to be him complimenting my work and me thanking him. Of course, that's not where it ended. About a week later, I hadn't received any word on the gift card, or whether or not it was on the way, and while I didn't want to be pushy, I decided to send White Oak a message to just ask if he had sent it yet, as I was super excited to get it. He messaged me back pretty much right away and said that he was going to send it in the next day or two.

But he hadn't yet. I thanked him again and just mentioned that I was still excited about the whole thing. After a few minutes of not getting a response back, I thought that that was the end of the conversation. But then, White Oak sent me a message saying, You know, you're really beautiful. I was a bit confused. He had no way of knowing what I looked like. I messaged him, asking where that came from,

and he responded by saying, Oh, I looked you up and found your Facebook. I was looking at your pictures and just wanted to tell you that you were beautiful. To say that I was a bit shocked would be an understatement. I responded by saying, Oh, I didn't expect you to look me up. In his words, he couldn't help himself because of how sexy my name was. And he said that he was very happy to know that I was just as sexy as my name.

At this point, I knew that he was probably just going to keep going with it, so I figured I would go ahead and shut him down and tell him that I was only 16, and that he should probably move on. He then told me that he, again, in his words, preferred girls my age because they were less likely to fight back. I was mortified by this comment. I didn't respond to this message. I figured that I would move on instead and it would just go away.

Unfortunately, on this forum, there was no method of blocking people or ignoring them, which was either a major design oversight for the page, or was done maliciously, based on what happened later. So, because of that, I had no... way to stop him for messaging me. And he did keep messaging me. He would send me a message daily telling me how much he loved me. He would send me random messages asking me to send him naked pictures of myself. He would send me messages telling me all the things that he was doing to himself while thinking of me and creeping through my Facebook. After several days of putting

up with this, I decided I would move to take action against White Oak. I figured I would contact the owner of the forum with a message and tell him what his second in command was doing. This did not go as I expected. Of course. I sent him a message with screenshots of the messages that White Oak had been sending me, and I explained that I had given White Oak my information for the gift card that I won in the contest. I tried to give him as much information as I was I could and explain the whole thing as best as possible. And the screenshots that I took were more than enough to really display what was happening. He did reply, but his response was that he would just have a talk with him about it.

He didn't say sorry, he didn't seem to really care or that he was shocked at all. About two days later, he sent me another message that said, I spoke with White Oak about the situation, and he told me that it never happened. I believe him, please do not contact us about this again. I was livid. He was literally believing that White Oak had never sent me any of the messages, even though I literally had receipts. I messaged him back saying just that,

asking how he could believe White Oak over me when I had screenshots of the conversation. And then I mentioned that I would be passing the information on to the police, since I was a minor. I thought for sure that he would see this and see that he needed to take it seriously. But then, the next day, when I went to log in to see if he had replied to me,

my account was gone. Like, completely, gone. I tried to log in and had kept giving me an error saying that my account didn't exist. When I tried to do a forgot password, it said that my email didn't exist in the system. He had completely purged my account, it probably as a way to cover for White Oak.

As now, I had no live access to my account. I still had the screenshots, but a lot of good that would do me if I couldn't prove anything was on the site. At this point, I decided to bring my mom and dad into the situation. I told them that I had won a writing contest, and that I had given the site my information for the gift card. I told them about how the guy had found me on Facebook, and I gave them my screenshots and explained the whole thing.

They were not happy, obviously. And they implemented several controls in my internet usage, which was fine, but when my dad contacted the police, they basically told him that there wasn't much they could do without information on the person, since all I had was a username on a random forum. Again, disappointing. But this was around 2008 or so,

so I don't think they had the forensic capabilities that they do now. I can't really say that I fault them for it. Maybe they could have done something more, but it was what it was. And then, the final bit of the story. About a week after this all happened, I had signed into my Facebook, which I admittedly should have deleted it, considering that's how he'd found me. I saw when I logged in that I had a friend request from a man named Gary T. At first, it didn't click in my head who it was.

I accepted it, and as soon as I did, I got a message saying, I'm sorry we had to delete your account. I miss you so much, and I'm glad that you accepted my request. I responded with some harsh words, and thankfully, Facebook does have a block option. And I blocked him. I felt sick that he had really found my Facebook, and that he thought I would seriously just sit there and let him stay on my friends list. Thankfully, that was the last time that I ever heard from White Oak, or Gary T.

The only reason I thought about submitting this story was that White Oak came up in a conversation with my sister. I had completely put it out of my mind after all of these years, but she mentioned him for some reason during one of our conversations, and it led to me thinking about the whole thing. That night, I actually went home and googled his name, and after a bit of digging, I found out that he was in prison, at least probably. I found a story about him being arrested and charged for lewd behavior with a minor,

as well as several counts of soliciting minors. From what I read, he's going to be in prison for a very long time. So, at least with that fact out there, I guess I never have to worry about meeting White Oak ever again. This happened to me back when I was in middle school, about 15 or so years ago. Spring break was never anything special to my family, other than just a week off from school. There were four of us kids, and now having two of my own,

I understand why we didn't really go anywhere. Kids are expensive. But it didn't really bother us, as we all entertained ourselves and each other quite well. However, I did have a friend whose family was pretty well off. His dad had some very official job. I was a kid at the time, so I don't know what it was. was exactly, but I remember him working long hours. He always wore suits, and he never really

talked about work around us. However, they did always take some pretty awesome vacations. I'd seen pictures and souvenirs from when they went to different countries. So, for this story, I'm going to call my friend Levi, just in case his dad has some job that I wasn't really supposed to be talking about. Levi has always been pretty cool. We always got along really well and we hung out quite a bit. In fact, I've even been invited to go with them to their lakehouse, which was a lot of fun. So, for spring break, I was invited again to join them at the lake. With my parents' permission, I did not waste time packing a bag to go. However, there was one little wrinkle in the whole place. plan, or at least the plan in my head.

His cousin, Skyler, was going to be joining us. Now, Levi was an only child, but Skyler hung around so much that you might have thought that she was their kid, too. She was a year older than me and Levi, but she always wanted to hang out with us. At first, I didn't have a problem with it, because she seemed pretty cool, and yeah, pretty cute too. She would play the dumb games that we played, watched TV with us, whatever, but I started noticing pretty quickly that she was a little weird. For example, we were outside trying to start their fire pit when we picked up an old log that was on the ground. Underneath it were tons of pill bugs

and other bugs that I'm sure. Being the type of kids we were, we started picking them up and throwing them at each other. I know that that was dumb and mean, but that's just who we were. Skyler was there, too, and she was even joining in on it. But then she just stopped out of nowhere and started humming. We noticed her doing this, so we stopped to see what was happening, and then she crushed them in her hand and rubbed them on her face. Then she started laughing and chasing us like she was going to wipe it on us.

so maybe not creepy, but definitely really weird, and especially with her being a girl. I was used to girls our age wanting to look pretty and nice, so it wasn't something that I expected at all. And by the look on Levi's face, he didn't expect it either. So, other than that memory, she had done some other weird things, such as when her mood would shift in the blink of an eye. We'd be watching a movie and laughing, and she would just stand up and storm off angrily. I've seen his mom try to talk to her, and she would be just screaming and pacing back and forth, or rocking. Now, before you say anything, I know a lot more now as an adult, but I didn't understand any of this as a kid. I just tried my best to steer clear from her and just dealt with it, as I really did enjoy

hanging out with Levi. So, anyways, back to our spring break. It was going to be me, Levi, Skyler, and Levi's parents. We got to the lakehouse, started making sleeping arrangements and planning on what we wanted to do. We took their paddle boat out on the lake and went fishing. We made a fire out there, too. And we even had a day out on their boat.

It had actually been a lot of fun. and even Skyler was manageable with minimal breakdowns. At some point during the trip, his dad had to leave and wouldn't be back that following night, so it was just going to be his mom with us. She decided that she would get dinner for us instead of making it that night, so she left to pick it up, which was probably about 20 to 30 minutes away. Skyler was out on the back deck reading a book, and we were still inside at the time playing a video game.

game. We'd both brought our DSs with us. His mom told us that she was leaving, that we could stay in or go out, but that we could not leave the property, which was fine by us. We decided to go out back and fish from the docks, as we didn't want to lug out the paddle boat again. When we got out there, Levi realized that we'd forgotten something, so he went back inside to look for it, and I decided to sit on one of the chairs next to Skyler, just trying to be nice to her. I asked her if she wanted to go fishing with us, and she said no. I asked her what she was reading, and she told me the name of it, but I can't remember it now, and I hadn't heard of it before. So I asked her what it was about. She explained how it was about a woman whose husband was

physically abusive towards her, and tried to kill her. However, she lived and was taking revenge and going about some long, drawn-out plan to kill him. I remember saying something about it being intense, and she agreed. Then we just sat there in silence. Out of nowhere, she said, could you imagine that? I asked her what she meant, and she said in almost a dreamy manner, someone you once loved trying to kill you, oh, or killing them.

I just kind of laughed and said, Yeah, that's pretty freaky, though. I guess that was the wrong thing to say because she slammed the book closed and gave me such an angry glare. She then stood up and said, Hmm, I guess you wouldn't understand. And stormed off inside.

It was a weird situation, but I just went over and set up my pole. Shortly after, Levi came back out and we started fishing, and I told him about what happened. He just laughed and mentioned that it was best to just ignore most of the stuff she said, so I shrugged it off and we continued fishing. After some time, I had to use the restroom, so I walked off to go back inside. When I went in, I found Skyler standing next to the room that she was staying in with her hands behind her back.

I wasn't expecting her to be there since the hall light wasn't even on, but I just made a comment about her scaring me. She didn't budge. She just kept staring at me, and I asked her if she was okay, and again, she did not respond. I decided to continue with what I was trying to do, which meant I had to walk by her. As soon as I did, she lunged out at me,

and I felt a sharp pain in my back, causing me to scream out. When I turned around, I saw Skyler was holding a huge knife with this crazed look in her eye. I was still a kid, so I didn't know what to do other than run to my destination, since it had a lock on the door. She swung the knife at me again and managed to cut across my shoulder before I got the door closed. I locked it, and then ran to the window, as it faced out to the backyard and yelled for Levi. While I'm yelling at him to get his crazy cousin, I hear her yelling at me, let me love you. You can love me too.

I saw Levi run towards the house and then could hear them yelling at each other. She was telling Levi that she loved me and just wanted us to die together. He kept calling her crazy, telling her to put the knife down, but the only thing I heard was her crying and then a door slammed closed. Levi then came into the bathroom with me, locking the door and helping me to cover my back. Then he went back out, leaving me in the bathroom to call his mother. That felt like an eternity as I sat in the bathroom, having Levi go back and forth between me and Skyler. When his mom finally did return, I could hear her pleading with Skyler to open the door,

and afterwards Skyler screaming and crying. They did both seem to calm down after a bit. She then came to check on me and took me to the hospital since the slash on my back was apparently pretty deep. I did have to get quite a few stitches on my back, and some on my arm as well, but then I went back to the cabin and called my parents to let them know what had happened. Levi's mom did most of the talking, and to my surprise, they let me stay the rest of the trip. I was expecting them to tell me that I had to come home. The rest of the trip went all right. Skyler was never alone with us again, but I was too afraid to even be in the trip.

the same room as her. So that did kind of ruin some of the fun for me. Overall, I did still hang out with Levi after this, but it left a permanent scar, both physically and mentally. I asked Levi why she was always around at one point, because she had many more physical breakdowns, but nothing towards me and I didn't personally understand. All he could really tell me at the time was that she was pretty much living with them now, my parents apparently even knew more than me, as they told me that she needed parents that loved and cared for her, so sometimes we just have to show other people patience and give time. It wasn't until I was much older that I learned more. Skyler's parents weren't really in the picture, and after a pretty bad event in their family,

Levi's parents won custody of her. Her childhood, obviously, was not a normal one either, leaving her with her own trauma that she had to work through. I don't know if what I experienced with her was something that she experienced, or was just how her brain worked, but I definitely do not blame her for it. But let me tell you, being chased like that and then stabbed with a knife when you're only 15, it was one of the most terrifying things that I have ever experienced. I think a lot of people would probably say that their freshman year of high school was pretty rough. And I'm sure a lot of those people are right and had valid reasons as well.

I'm definitely not one to say that they were just being dramatic because I too had a pretty bad freshman year. I didn't like to talk about it for the longest time, because I had some pretty bad self-esteem issues as is, but I've healed, and have become a lot nicer to myself since then. Also, I've come to understand that I also didn't deserve or warrant any of this, so I have no reason to blame myself. As my story goes, I was going to be a freshman at our local high school. new school but it was the same school district which meant that i would at least have friends there so that we could all be nervous and stressed together i was a pretty normal kid growing up or so i thought i was the oldest of four so i was the first to go to high school i wasn't outgoing but i wasn't reclusive and shy either i had a good amount of friends and i did fine in school too i always passed my classes with minimal issues. I hated math, but I caught through it, and I turned in a minimal amount of homework late. I didn't stand out in class or make myself known either. I was just there. But then things went a bit different in high school. Most of my classes were fine, except for my chemistry class. Science was one of my

favorite subjects, so I typically didn't have any issues, but chemistry. At least in depth as we went into this class, it seemed to be more of a challenge for me. That's a mention, the teacher did not help either. When I first started attending the class, I immediately got the feeling that Mr. Pendleton was going to be a hard ass. He was very curt in his speaking. He didn't really joke around, and was always on a very specific schedule. He would get upset very easily if someone interrupted him during a lecture, including slamming his hand down on the desk or the whiteboard. He would do this ear-piercing whistle to get people to pay attention.

He was always just very intimidating. I always thought it was weird to the point that, if kids bothered you so much, why even be a high school teacher? Anyways, I did my best in that class, but I admittedly struggled with locating the elements on the periodic table and remembering their symbols. I knew some of the common ones, but struggled with the rest. I tried asking him for help, like if he had any suggestions on making it easier, but with a dead stare, he looked at me and said, Just memorize it. It's not that hard. I walked away from that conversation thinking that I was truly in the wrong, as if I was the only one that ever had issues with it and that's how I took it.

Over time, I did not get better in that class. I continued struggling with some of the topics, and Pendleton did nothing to make me feel better about it. When I got my assignments back, he didn't just mark things as wrong. He would put some mean comments next to them. making me, again, feel like there was something wrong with me. We had a monthly quiz that we took going over all that we learned that month, and when he was passing out the graded quizzes, he would hand it to some saying things like,

do better, study next time, but never encouraging or optimistic words. Then he got to me. He flipped open my quiz and asked a question out loud, calling out a specific person to answer. He confirmed it was correct, and then pointed out my incorrect answer. He tossed my quiz at me and let the whole class know that I had the worst grade, singling me out. Everyone was staring at me, and I had never been more embarrassed.

I felt incredibly stupid at that point. I put my head down, feeling the eyes burning into me, I remember actually going to the restroom and crying. My parents did ask me about school and weren't dismissive, but they also didn't think the situation was that bad. I do blame myself for part of that, as I didn't really tell them how bad it was or how much I hated that class. I told them about how I didn't like the class, how the teacher was really unnecessarily mean, and how I seemed to be singled out. I showed them my assignments with his remarks.

I told them about being embarrassed in class and how I seemed to be the only one affected by it. They agreed that he seemed pretty mean, but said that they would talk to the principal about it. I even spoke to my friends and others that were in his class, and they all agreed that he was a complete jerk, but didn't understand why I was being picked on so much. except one friend that usually excelled in a lot of classes.

He basically blamed me saying that I needed to study more, and that he was just trying to push me to do better. I wasn't friends with that person for much longer either. So while I waited and hoped that my parents would actually be able to make a difference, I tried to push through the harsh words and embarrassment and really worked my ass off to at least pass the class. I had friends that helped and devoted a lot of time to get through it, but I did it. When we took our quarterly test, I passed it with a low B, and I was very proud of myself.

Apparently Pendleton was not impressed by this, though, as he slammed my test on the table and he made sure to ask out loud, did you copy off of X's test? X being the person that sat next to me. They looked at me funny too and actually started sitting somewhere else, so yeah. That didn't make me feel better either. He said because he couldn't believe that I miraculously got better overnight. I was pretty upset and quite frankly fed up with being treated like this, so I defensively told him no, and that I had studied more and he wasn't willing to help us.

The room was silent, and the tension was... thick, but I felt pretty good for saying it. Pendleton, however, was not amused and told me that I needed to stay behind after class. I was not looking forward to that, and in fact, I tried to blend in with everyone and leave at the same time, but he definitely noticed. He called me out with his booming voice halting me in my tracks. I waited by the door, and once everyone left, he told him. He told me to go over to his desk. He then asked me why I told the principal that he was bullying me. I replied that I didn't say anything to the principal, which was true, and he yelled at me again

saying that I was lying. He said some other unpleasant things to me, but for some reason, I was just over all of it, and I yelled back at him that I had told my parents that he was being a jerk and that he shouldn't be a teacher. He responded back by slamming me against the whiteboard, holding me by my shirt and once again yelling some pretty hurtful things at me. I was honestly expecting him to try to hit or strangle me. His face was beat red. I could see the veins in his temple bulging out. I was terrified. Thankfully, Miss Stewart in the class attached to the right, knocked and opened the door to see us in this position.

I wish that she wouldn't have knocked because the knock was enough time for him to let go of me. But judging by the look on her face, she knew that something was wrong. I was in tears and I walked towards her to leave. She asked me if I was okay and I said no, and Pendleton just sat back down at his desk.

I went to the nurse and asked her to call my parents as I'd gotten sick, so she did. When my mom came to pick me up, I told her what happened, and she immediately took me back to the school and to the office. She went to talk to someone about it, and I just remember sitting there worried that Mr. Pendleton was going to show up in the office. After that day, my mom would take me to school after the second hour, which was when I had his class, and I just collected my work for those first two classes. Miss Stewart also reported what she saw, so I guess having a witness was what gave the principal, or whomever, the authority to suspend Mr. Pendleton. I was entirely relieved that he was gone, and I could tell that I wasn't the only one. The first couple of days without him were weird, but the sub definitely helped lighten the mood.

By the end of it, though, we were all able to be less formal and actually had a little fun, in the class. I still had a hard time turning in tests and assignments, fearing that I was going to be made fun of or called out, and that anxiety bled over into my other classes as well. My freshman year was very difficult, and I struggled with myself image, as mentioned. It slowly got better over time, but I think I really had Miss Stewart to thank for that. She helped me build my confidence again and really assured me that it wasn't me but Mr. Pendleton. She actually confided in me, saying that she had heard him shouting on many occasions and even at students from other and past classes,

but that she had never seen him put his hands on any other student. I still wonder today if I was the only one, or if there were others that just were never caught or never said anything. Hell, I still don't understand why I was singled out so hard. I know I wasn't the only one that wasn't doing well in the class, but I was the only one that seemed to be targeted. And I don't know why. He never did return to our school, and I did much better after that. I just hope that he was never able to teach again, if that is how he treated students. So, this is something that happened to me when I was much younger.

I recently watched a YouTube video that reminded me of this, and I wanted to share it with you. Back whenever I was about eight or nine, I believe, I went to an Easter egg hunt with my family at our local church. Now, at the time, we lived in the middle of nowhere within the Midwest, and the state or county had recently started. projects to expand the area. It was mostly just open acreage, but wasn't even being used for agriculture. So I guess they just saw a lot of opportunity. Signs and fencing started going up all over where they were going to be building an apartment complex, some sort of strip mall, another grocery store, and even planned on expanding

some of the roads. I was a kid, so I didn't really understand all of it. I just remember my dad not being too keen on the idea, and my mom was constantly being optimistic about it. I just thought it was cool, because our teacher mentioned that we could be getting a new school eventually. Sorry for the run on there, but it is a little relevance to my story. We attended the same church for as long as I could remember, and every year they held an Easter egg hunt as well as their normal Easter service. On this year, with one of the apartment complexes being completed and applications being accepted, the church wanted to do something bigger, to hopefully attract more attendees.

They had signs everywhere, and kept mentioning that the egg hunt was going to be huge. And it was. I remember my family, which consisted of my parents, myself, and my little sister all being there. I had an older brother, but he was too old to do it. the egg hunt, so he was with his friends from church at the time. We all went to the yard behind the church to prepare for the hunt. The yard out back was huge. There were trees scattered within the flat grassy area, and then further back was another line of trees. I think that there was a walking path back there, but I also never went, so I wasn't sure at the time. They hid

the eggs all over the place. Within the yard, in the grass, the bushes, in crevices of trees and branches. There was a small side parking lot that was blocked off because they had a few booths over there for games and food, and there were even some eggs hidden over there, too. Us kids had free reign of the area to hunt them, but we're told to try to leave the ones just sitting in the grass for the very young kids, which was fine. I was very competitive at things like this, and maybe even candy motivated. They weren't all candy, though. Some had small trinkets in them, coins or small bills, and some had Bible verses.

So, since they weren't all candy, that meant that I wanted to get even more, to increase the chances of the candy that I got. Anyways, as the egg hunt began, my parents told me that I could go wherever I was. I wanted, while they held back to help my little sister. So, I immediately went by the parking lot and got a lot over there. I even grabbed a few that I found from the trees. I liked to climb the tree in our front yard, so it wasn't hard for me to do the same to get the eggs.

Now, because I was looking at my bag quickly filling up, it motivated me even more to continue and I thought of the genius idea to check all of the trees. I climbed up several of them, and I found even more. This led me further away from the main group and closer to the forest of trees in the far back, and before I realized it, I had made my way in to those trees. After searching a few more and no longer finding any eggs, I decided that I probably went too deep and that I should leave. However, as I looked around, I couldn't figure out which way I had come from, which way was the way out and which way was getting deeper.

And even worse, I didn't see a path anywhere like I was expecting. I thought maybe I could remember a tree that stood out to me, one with some kind of memorable markings or anything, yet I found nothing. I continued to walk aimlessly, but it was getting me nowhere. Being so young, the only thing I had left to do was scream out and cry. I fell to the ground and sobbed for a bit, thinking of all the different things that could possibly happen. At the time, I didn't think about just continuing to walk in one direction until I found an exit. I just assumed that I would get deeper into the woods and get even more lost. As I sat there, I opened one of my eggs and I ate a piece of candy.

While I did this, I heard a crunch from the ground and looked up. Near a tree that was a few feet ahead of me, there was a woman standing there and looking at me. Seeing a random person in the woods with me startled me at first, but the lady herself wasn't scary at all. Nor did she throw off any red flags. In fact, I remembered thinking that she looked like she was straight out of a fairy tale. She was wearing a wispy dress. It's the only way that I know how to explain it, as well as a fluffy and patchy knit jacket. She had long-braided copper-colored hair that also looked frazzled towards the top.

She had a brown burlap bag strapped to her back and was also carrying another bag by hand. Her face looked kind and concerned, though. After my initial jump, I asked who she was and she just asked, Are you lost? You shouldn't be in here by your head. yourself, but you know that already, don't you? I confirmed that I was indeed lost and explained how the Easter egg hunt had distracted me. She slowly approached and said that she wasn't going to hurt me, and began to dig around in one of her bags.

Then she sat down across from me and handed me something wrapped in paper. I stared at it for a moment, and she told me that it was a sandwich and that I could have it, as a way to prove that she was nice. Again, a few things here. I was nine years old. I guess you could say that I wasn't really talked to about stranger danger due to the small town that we lived in, and that everybody knew everyone else. I guess they didn't really find it was necessary. I'm not sure of their reasoning, but this is me, explaining my next actions.

Also, I had breakfast that morning and we wouldn't be eating. until later for our Easter dinner. Combined that with running around and climbing trees, yeah, I was pretty hungry. I unwrapped the sandwich and took it apart to see that it was just bologna and cheese and mayonnaise. I didn't like mayonnaise, though, so I scraped it off the best that I could and just ate it with one slice of bread. As I ate it, she just watched me with her chin resting on her hands.

As I finished it, she started asking me about things, such as my name, my age, if I had any siblings, where I went to school, just simple things. As I answered her, I started feeling more and more relaxed and calm. I don't feel like it lasted very long, but after some talking, I asked who she was, and if she was lost too. She just smiled and said, Oh, I'm just lucky. I remember at the time thinking that must be her name, partially because we used to have a dog named Lucky. And I told her this.

This made her laugh, and she seemed happy to hear me talk about Lucky. Shortly after, she then told me that my parents were probably worried about me, and that I should go. I agreed, but then made a comment about not knowing how to get out. She gave me another one of her soft smiles, took my hand, and said that she would help me, and started leading me in one direction. We came up to a tree that had a lot of vines wrapping around it, and she stopped.

She told me to keep walking in the direction that we were, and to not turn whatsoever, and to not look back. She then said I would find my way out before I could count to a hundred. At my age, I thought that that was an odd thing to say, but I just smiled, bragged about my counting skills, and began walking. It wasn't long after that that I found a break in the trees, and I could hear a few people shouting my name. But right before I continued walking, I heard the lady clearly say, Goodbye, Chase.

And since I wasn't good at following directions, I looked back. But the lady was gone. However, one of the reasons I looked back was because of what she had said. My name is Alexander, and I had told her that, earlier. But I hate the nickname Alex, so a lot of people call me by my middle name, which was Chase. If anything, I would have expected this lady to call me Alexander, or maybe Alex, but not Chase. How would she have known that? And perplexed, I continued through the trees and nearly fell over a small edge of dirt. I saw a few people that I recognized standing around

and several people shouting my name, including my mother. She sounded frightened, so I shouted back for her, and everyone turned to look at me. My mom ran over to me and asked where I had been, and I just told her that I got lost in the woods. She quickly disciplined me for going in there, but then just asked if I was hurt or anything. I shook my head and told her about the lady that had helped me out. She looked at me confused and looked back towards the trees, but then just picked me up and brought me back over towards the church. The thing I hadn't realized at the time

was that it had been several hours since I went into those woods. It certainly didn't feel like I was gone that long, but that's why everyone was so concerned. They were about to call 911. Later that night, I tried to explain to my parents what had happened, and I described the lady that helped me. I remember the look on their face was one of disbelief at the time, probably thinking that I exaggerated some details,

but it was all real. Every detail I remember about her was so vivid that I have not forgotten. I've been in those woods since I've gotten older, both alone and with my older brother, but I've never seen that woman again. I've even talked to other people that have gone into those woods, and they said they've never experienced anything like this before. However, since that experience, every time I've gone in there, I've had this strong sense of peace and felt safe, like there's someone that is always watching over me.

About ten or so years ago, I had a stint in my life where I was, really lonely, though I think maybe desperate is the better word. I guess I should say that I've had a few serious relationships throughout my life, but I hit 30 and a major level of depression because the man that I thought was going to be my husband, decided that he wasn't ready for commitment, and we had to go our separate ways. This was after a four-year relationship, mind you. And while he said it was a commitment issue, I'm pretty sure he was just wanting to see someone else. It is what it is, and sure I'm bitter about it, but I have to accept it and move on. He's not who the story is about, though, so sorry for the tangent.

Anyways, I was just out of that relationship, and then I turned 30 about two months later. And, as mentioned, I had a pretty deep low in my life. I was in that, I need companionship now mentality, and I immediately leaned into making a profile for one of the online dating sites back then. I don't remember which one. It was whichever one was most popular back in 2011. Probably plenty of fish. I remember it being a bit confusing. That, and it kept trying to match me with people that were nothing like me.

nothing like reading a bio that it's suggested to you and have it be the polar opposite of yourself. I know that opposites tracked, but when it says no tall women and no women that like Harry Potter, and my bio literally mentions that I'm taller than average and a huge Potter fan, it almost feels like a joke. So, after scrolling through all the BS, matching with a couple of guys, messaging a few people and really feeling like this was all a very hopeless venture, I finally found a guy named Dan. Dan was exactly what I was looking for in a man physically,

and all of his interest seemed to line up with mine. He had long black hair, looked to be taller than me, which was nice, although never a deal breaker. In all of his pictures had him wearing some pop culture referencing T-shirt that told me he was absolutely into the things that I was into. I marked that I was interested, just hoping that he would mark the same on me. And much to my pleasure, he did. I instantly sent him a DM and started off with something corny like,

Your hair is gorgeous. I wish I could get mine to be as shiny and straight as yours. I know, that sounds dumb, but I actually was kind of jealous. he responded almost immediately with some joke response about how he had made a deal with the devil to have hair like that. His off-kilter humor was actually one of the things that made me really like him, and I was excited to get to know him. I may have been desperate, but something in my heart was telling me that Dan could be the one.

Like, he could be exactly what I was looking for. and maybe we could have a future together. Having these thoughts after just a few conversations may not be healthy, but there was really just something about him. We ended up talking on the phone a few times, and I started liking him even more. He had a beautiful singing voice. He told me that he used to be in a band that was kind of popular locally,

but that they never went anywhere on the big stage. He told me that his last job was actually at an animal clinic, where he was tasked with keeping the animal's company if they had to stay overnight or needed to be taken care of outside of the normal medical work. The more that he told me, the more I absolutely adored this man. And after a while, I started having this weird nagging feeling in my mind. Why was he single? He was attractive,

talented, entertaining, and he loved animals. He was, overall, a really great and interesting guy. So why had nobody scooped him up and put a ring on his finger? I actually brought this up to him, and he mentioned to me that things were complicated. I asked, how complicated, mostly because that wasn't really an answer that I was looking forward to. He responded by saying that he'd had a wife, and that things had recently gone sour, so he'd no longer had a wife. That kind of made sense to me. He was married and things went bad, so he was out looking for someone else to fill that gap in his life.

I could relate. We ended up talking about our past relationships, or more so I ended up talking about mine. He seemed a bit evasive, but I just assumed a bit evasive, but I just assumed. that he wasn't really feeling up to discussing it because it was so recent. I was okay with that. It was nice to vent out some of my frustrations, and he was really good at listening, and helping me see things more clearly. Then the big day arrived.

We had agreed to meet up for coffee on a Saturday morning at a local coffee shop. I got there, and he was already seated in the back waiting for me. It was actually really nice to see him in person. He looked just like his photos. He had the same personality. He was the same funny and entertaining guy that I had come to know over these past couple of weeks. This was actually a huge relief because I was worried that I was going to get catfished. We enjoyed our coffee and companionship for a few hours,

and then I had mentioned that it was getting to be midday, and that I should probably be getting home at some point. but I would absolutely love to meet up again and maybe have dinner or something. This is when he mentioned to me that he'd had a great time as well. Then he kind of shyly looked down at the floor like something was wrong. I asked if he was okay and he looked up and mentioned that he needed to ask me a favor. I said of course. Not really thinking about what the favor could be,

but he then mentioned that he actually needed me. to give him a ride somewhere if I could. I realized that he was already there when I got in, so I hadn't seen him pull up, and he actually seemed rather embarrassed at this request, which was almost cute. At this point, I felt comfortable enough with him that having him in my car,

driving him a few blocks or miles to his apartment, it really wasn't that big of a deal. plus I was honestly thinking this could be a long-term thing if it kept up like it had so I was more than willing to do so I told him that was fine and just kind of mentioned that I didn't know that he didn't have a car and told him that he didn't need to be embarrassed about it he thanked me and we headed out to my car and we went to get him home as we were driving and he was pointing out where to turn he started telling us telling me more about his past, and how things had been really rough recently. I asked if the divorce had been a bad one, and he then dropped a bombshell. He mentioned that he and his wife actually hadn't gotten divorced. This killed me inside, and it kind of made things make more sense.

He wasn't actually divorced. He was still married. sure they could have been separated but if he wasn't divorced then it was likely that they could get back together or try to fix things and then there would be no room for myself in Dan's life I kind of shut down a bit after this and I just listened to him tell me about how bad things were between him and his wife not really paying attention to where he was telling me to go

Then he had me turn one more time, a turn into the parking lot of a police station. I parked and just kind of looked around confused. I asked why we were at the police station, and it was then that he went really quiet and just sort of looked at the building and away from me. This whole situation was really weird, and I was honestly starting to feel a bit freaked out. This is when Dan looked over at me and said that he really enjoyed the short time that we had together and said that I was a lovely lady

and that he was certain I would find somebody. He then said that he was about to go into the station and confessed to doing something that was really, really bad and that he was going to prison, most likely, for the rest of his life. He said that if things had gone differently, he would have loved to have spent more time with me. I asked what he had done and what he was talking about, and he just sighed and said that it was an accident,

that he never actually meant to hurt anyone, and then he pushed my door open and walked into the building. I just sat there watching him walk into the department with his head held high and stop at the front desk. I watched the whole thing play out from right there in the lot, watched him talk to the desk clerk, watched an officer walk up to him cautiously, and then watched as the officer put him in cuffs and pulled him away from the desk.

A few minutes later, another officer actually walked out to my car and spoke with me. He asked me if I knew the man that I had just dropped off. How I knew him, if I knew what had happened. I told him that we had just met a couple of weeks ago and that we had actually gone on our first date that moment. morning. I was more or less interrogated by this officer in the parking lot about Dan, and I told him all that I knew. He told me that Dan had just walked in and told them that he needed to confess to murdering his wife. I obviously didn't know anything about that. I thought he

was divorced. After a bit more talking, they gave me a card, took my info, and then let me leave. At this point, it was a little more clear to me how Dan had a wife, past tense, but wasn't divorced. And then, it occurred to me that I had had coffee with a murderer, and I even drove him to the station to turn himself in. I really don't know if our date was just him trying to get free coffee and then a ride to the station, or if he was really interested in me. But either way, it was the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me, not because he was a creep to me, but because he was perfectly normal the whole time we spoke during our date.

This man was a murderer, but he seemed like a calm and complacent guy that was all there, that was just a normal person. And this was the only time I ever went on a date with someone that I met online, and I actually shut down my account after that. Back in my early 20s, I used to work for a large tech company that made and repaired a lot of large expensive equipment. Most of it was medical related, but there were a few other cleaning and sanitizing things they did as well. Now, with that type of equipment, came a lot of pretty important partners and stacks upon stacks of confidential information. Of course, you can't really hide those kinds of machines easily, so that meant that the building I worked in was huge.

Not to mention the entrances in every room or office had restricted access. Everyone had a badge, and your badge would only let you in to the rooms and areas you were supposed to be in. When I started, I got lost once, and I learned my lesson. People gave you weird looks if they didn't recognize you, so I caught on pretty quickly. I was hired to do data entry, but pretty quickly they had me doing other tasks, including filing, and I even found myself helping with a lot of tech support questions. I would say that a majority of the people that worked there were older, so there was always an issue with someone's system. and they could never quite understand how to access the task manager.

But I did genuinely enjoy it. Other than them always thinking I was a genius with tech, everyone was kind and inclusive and never demanding, which honestly was not what I expected when I started there. Anyways, that was just to give a little background as to where I worked. That was where the story took place. I usually worked the normal Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. shift with occasional late nights when I wanted to get ahead, or if I was behind.

At this point, my wife was out of town visiting her mom, so I decided I would get in some extra work to get ahead of things. There was a new partner coming in, and from what I've experienced, it was going to get crazy. So if I was going to be alone that night anyways, I thought I might as well get to be. some more work done so I could be ahead. By 5 p.m., I started walking out, and most people were already gone by then as well. I went home, had dinner, took a shower, and then I went straight back to the office. By the time I got back, it was already dark, and the parking lot was nearly empty. I buzzed myself in through two sets of entry doors, and then used my card again in the elevator to get to the fourth floor.

It was pretty dark in the building with some of the main area lights being motion-activated, so as I walked away from the elevator and down the hall towards the east side of the building, where my office was, the lights were beginning to kick on as I passed them. Saying I got a bit of a scare when I saw some guy standing by the stairs would be an understatement. I lit out a small yelp and expletives, but then trying to be a grown man. and I laughed and just said something like, Hey man. And the response that I got back was, sorry.

But he didn't look up from his phone. I just took note of what he looked like and carried on towards my office. At first, the guy himself didn't alarm me. He was wearing the green and black striped shirts that our janitors normally wore with black pants. He also had a mop and bucket with him, so I just assumed he was one of the janitors working late. I go to my office, leaving my door cracked open, call my wife really quick to give her an update and then started working.

It wasn't too long after, maybe 30 to 45 minutes, when I start to hear something outside. It was talking. But it was just one voice, and the person sounded very angry. I couldn't quite make out everything that was being. said, but there was a lot of sighing and F-bombs. I started getting a bad feeling, so I slowly got up and walked to my door. Listening from the doorway, I could hear the voice a bit more, and it definitely sounded

like it was a one-sided argument. Like someone was practicing what they were going to say to someone else? If that makes sense. I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, though, and I didn't feel comfortable trying to leave, so instead, I quietly shut my door, locking it. I then closed the blinds in the narrow window by my door and turned off the light. I then went back to my desk and tried to continue working, but also kept getting distracted listening to the arguing. At one point, I stopped entirely as I could hear somebody dragging their

feet near my office. I remember nearly holding my breath as I heard the doorknobs being jiggled, and the sound of the card reader denying access. I didn't have panic attacks or anything of the like prior, but that's the only way I could think to describe how I was feeling. I was starting to feel overwhelmed, and I had this thought that I was in danger, but I just froze in place, hoping that the door lock and access machine would protect me.

Shortly after, I heard what sounded like somebody kicking the door, shouting another expletive and then walking off. I waited several more minutes before I finally came back to reality and contemplated my next steps. I thought calling the cops sounded like the smart thing to do, but even if I did, they wouldn't be able to get past the first set of doors without security buzzing them in, and there was no one on the security post due to the time. So I would have had to have left my office, unprotected. just to let them in.

I decided to stay behind my locked door and called my wife again to let her know what just happened. I probably downplayed it a bit, not wanting to worry her. She told me that I should at least call my boss to let them know, and I agreed. I called my boss and had to leave them a message, and then I just waited to see if I could hear anything again.

When it was seemingly silent, I opened my door and looked out again, not hearing or seeing anything. I took this opportunity, leaving all of my stuff except my wallet and phone in the room, quietly letting it lock behind me, and I ran as fast as I could out of the building. I even took the fire escape stairs to not be in the center of the building, in case that person was still there. I was able to leave and get home unscathed, but was still pretty freaked out. The next day, I went into work as normal, prepared to tell my boss about what happened.

However, before I could even turn my computer back on in my office, my boss was at my door wanting to talk about the voicemail. I explained everything that happened, and I could tell by the look on his face that something was not right. He said that the janitors were only supposed to be there during normal business hours. so he was immediately suspicious when I told them they were there. Unfortunately, their access cards would still let them in. But the problem was that they all knew that they should not be there. Other than the fact that they were there so late, the rest of the experience was definitely not okay.

So he had me go with them to security to review the tapes that night. What I saw seriously scared the hell out of him, me, I was hoping that I was just being paranoid, but knowing now what was behind that door made me realize that my feelings were warranted, which I think was worse. We watched the footage as the guy scanned himself in, bringing with him the mop and bucket that I saw. He walked around the two floors that he could get to and then had stopped and was looking at and doing something on his phone where I saw him, so long that the lights had turned off. Shortly after, I walked in and saw the guy and then went to my office.

That's when the guy continued on going to each office door, trying his badge and, of course, being denied access. Janitors were not allowed in the offices, unless accompanied by someone with access to that room due to confidential information. So he even stopped and tried my door. while the fact that he was trying all these doors was pretty unsettling itself, it's what he was carrying that made it more terrifying. This guy was holding a hammer in his other hand. He had left the Mop and Bucket in the hallway and just had this hammer and the badge. You tell me what he was planning on using that hammer for.

As I stood there watching this, trying not to flip my lid in front of the boss, he asked me if I recognized the guy. I confirmed that he was the guy from last night, but I didn't know who he was. The problem was that the security guy watching the footage with us did not know the guy either, which was a problem. They see the janitors all the time and have had to help them with access to some rooms, so they were pretty familiar with them. This guy, he was not, though.

So, now, they had to go and review the access logs and see who was trying to get. get into these restricted rooms, which made things worse. My boss shared with me later that the guy who was there that night did not match the guy whose badge it belonged to. Like, it had been stolen. Even better. They ended up talking to the owner of the badge because he came in the next day, needing to be signed and let in and he was in a panic, because he realized his badge was missing.

And then he knew exactly what had happened to it. It was actually his roommate. Apparently he was kicking him out because he wasn't paying his part of the rent anymore. It was his home. He had just let his friend slash the roommate move in, and he had also been stealing some of his belongings. So he told him that he had to go. That night, the guy went on a rampage,

destroying things in the house while he was gone, and apparently stole his badge that he kept in his room. I guess that he thought he would be able to get in here, steal some things that he could sell or blackmail him for, maybe, but he didn't have access to anything like that, which made him mad. I, of course, just became a potential threat since I saw him. The guy whose badge was stolen was reprimanded pretty hard, but he didn't lose his job. He did come up and talk to me and apologized profusely for what happened, but I in no note. way had any ill will towards this guy. It's unfortunate that someone he called a friend would do that, but it's also not like he had

the badge out in the open. He at least kept it in his room, so other than hiding it or locking it up, what else could he have done? He did help in tracking the guy down, though, and he was arrested, so at least we didn't have to worry about him again. That was still just one of the scariest things I have ever experienced. knowing my gut instincts could have absolutely saved me that night. So, to wrap this up, I'll just say to trust your instincts.

Even if nothing happens, I think it's a hell of a lot better to be hypervigilant than to be in an I wish I would have done this situation. Back when I was a kid, there was a group of us kids that pretty much spent every day of our childhood together. For the most part, it was myself, Chuck, and Billy. The three of us were like brothers. We did everything together, camped in each other's backyards, spent way too many hours of our days off together. Billy ended up moving away sophomore year,

but beyond that, we literally grew up together, from elementary school, all the way through the year where we all graduated. And Billy actually came back home so we could all have to have to be together. a party when he and Chuck finally finished high school. My point is, we were inseparable best friends, and we're all still in touch with each other. Now, while the three of us were obviously really close, there was a fourth person in our group for a little while, and that was a little girl named Katie. Katie had lived on our block for a few years before we met, and the whole time that I knew her,

it was just her and her dad that lived at the house. He was a single parent. None of us had actually met her mother. Katie was my age, so a year older than the other two, and she was nothing short of a bit strange. Though we did end up figuring out why when all was said and done, and nowadays I actually feel bad for how we treated her for being weird. I met Katie when I was around eight.

She was, to the best of my knowledge, the only girl in the neighborhood that was in our age range. So when we met, it was pretty obvious that she was going to latch on to our trio. We were eight and nine-year-old boys, so we were a bit annoyed that there was going to be a girl with us, since we were still at that age where girls were a foreign concept. At first, Katie was fine with the three of us, though. She was interested in some of the things that we were, and she was willing to play our dumb games. We would sword fight with our toy swords, and she was willing to jump in and take a few hits. And she could actually hold her own.

She was interested in animals, so she was willing to help me dig up my yard to look for bugs. Basically, she was one of us for the most part, except when she wasn't herself. Katie was fine probably 95% of the time, but then, sometimes, she would just be a bit out there. Like, she was a completely different person. Those times where she would be different, she would sometimes get violence, angry, or just really, really strange. I know that that's vague, and I'm not going to get into all of the instances where things were wrong, but I'll describe at least one of them. The first event of note was one day while we were at Chucks taking turns playing the Super Nintendo.

This was typically something we did once a week. We weren't allowed to stay cooped up in the house every day, so it was always super exciting for all of us. I think we were playing one of the Mario games. I'm not sure which one, and it was Katie's turn. Katie wasn't great at that game, but she usually took her losses with grace and laughed about it each time she messed up.

Not this time. This time, she was playing and she misjudged a jump and ended up dying. Obviously, when this happened, we all chuckled as we did when one of us made a mistake and died, but she didn't. She had a flat stare as she stood up, and by the time the game took us, back to the level select screen, Katie had literally jumped up and stomped down on the Nintendo.

She smashed it with all of her body weight, and while the console was mostly okay, they actually built those things with this possibility in mind, something I learned later in life. The game ended up bending and snapping in half. Obviously, we all freaked out, and Chuck started bawling. The Super Nintendo was his pride and joy Katie then looked over at Chuck and put her hands around his throat literally choking him and she was telling him to stop crying

that he needed to grow up that he wasn't a baby and if he wanted to cry she would give him something to cry about Billy and I jumped into action and pulled her away from Chuck leaving this whole situation a confusing disaster and Chuck just sitting there looking to terrified. Chuck's dad came in to figure out what had happened, and we had to explain to him what Katie had done. Strangely enough, Katie actually agreed with our statements, and she was willing to

own what happened. She said that she was angry, that she wanted to destroy it, so she did. She said that Chuck was crying over nothing, and that he needed to grow up. I honestly don't know what really happened after that because Chuck's dad told us to go home. But I do know that Katie's dad bought him a new game, and Katie wasn't really allowed at Chuck's house anymore after that happened. In fact, I don't think Chuck and Katie really spent any time together after this, and for good reason. I don't really want to get into all the events that Katie caused, because this story would

go on for ages, but I do want to go over one of the last things. that ended up happening, the thing that I think may have caused Katie to be odd. This was around a year after the whole thing with Chuck happened. I was on my own that day and went out into the woods that were behind our neighborhood. I was out there, pretending that I was some kind of adventurer when, who else would I see, but Katie. I went over to talk to her, but as I approached, I noticed something a bit weird. Katie was sitting on the ground, her back against a tree, and she was eating a sandwich while talking to no one in particular. I walked up to her to ask her who she was talking to,

and when she noticed me, she jumped and screamed that I should not be there. I was obviously taken aback and a bit scared, and I asked her what I had done wrong. She then started going on about how I was upsetting her mother, how she was having dinner with her and I wasn't invited. I kind of just looked around and mentioned that she was alone, that her mom wasn't there. She flipped out. She started screaming at me aggressively that her mother lived in the woods,

that I wasn't allowed to be anywhere near her mother, and that I needed to go home before she hurt me. Again, I was confused. But I just said that I was sorry and that I didn't know. Strangely enough, Katie shifted from psychotic and ready to pounce to almost sympathetic. She said it was okay, that if I was really sorry that she wouldn't be mad at me anymore and that I was welcome to sit with them. I hesitantly agreed with her, mostly because I will admit that at this time in our relationship,

I did have a crush on her. So sitting with her was something I was more than willing to do. Yes, I had a crush on Katie, in spite of her random, strange behavior. I sat at one of the trees and just watched her eat her sandwich and talk. She was talking about school, about all the things that she was going through, what she was going to be doing that week. She wasn't talking to me, though. It was like she was just talking to no one in particular, like she was basically.

like she was basically telling her mother about her life. I was a bit curious, so I waited for an opening and then asked her where her mother was. This is where things turned to haunting. Katie looked at me and started crying, like full-on sobbing. I kind of freaked out. I didn't mean to make her cry, so I scooted over to her and I gave her a hug and asked her what was wrong. Katie then pulled away and told me that her mother lived in the woods because one night she and her father got into an argument and her dad hurt her. I will say that at this time we were ten, so this was a whole new thing to me.

My parents were always happily married, so I didn't understand the concept of my dad hurt my mom. That idea was impossible to me. I asked how he hurt her, why he hurt her, and so forth, basically interrogating this poor crying girl. She stopped crying, pushed away from me, and then told me something that makes my blood run cold to this day. She looked me in the eyes and said, My mom's not really living out here.

She's dead. My dad killed her. He killed her and buried her out here in the woods. I saw him do it. He doesn't know that I saw it, though. He doesn't know that I know what he did. He doesn't know that I watched him choke her until she died. He doesn't know that I watched him dig this hole, that I watched him bury her.

I watched him do it. She kind of started just rambling all of this and shifting between crying and not crying and looking back. She was clearly traumatized. I honestly think that this is what caused her to be so strange and aggressive. She saw this horrifying event and didn't know how to process it. Of course, I told my parents what she said. Being my age, I didn't know what else to do. But I told them what she said to me.

Of course, my parents called the cops, and they reported what Katie had said, and all of it was this huge mess. The cops ended up doing an investigation, talking with Katie about everything, taking reports from her and her father, asking me about everything, and then they did the excavation. This is where things went from weird

to just absolutely devastating. They dug up the spot in the woods, and they actually did find the body of a woman. Katie wasn't lying or making any of it up. Her dad actually had killed her mother, and he actually did bury her in the woods, which tells me that she really did watch all of this happen. To wrap this up,

Katie ended up leaving town to live with someone else in her family. Her father was arrested, and all of this was my fault because she trusted me and I told my parents. Obviously, I did the right thing. Her mother deserved justice and looking back at it as an adult, not telling anyone would have been the worst thing to do. That said, I will never let go of the fact that I changed a huge portion of this girl's life. She was a bit weird, but she was my friend, and I did like her.

And because I told my parents what she told me, her whole life changed direction. And I never saw her again. That day where she told me about her. about what happened was the last time we actually ever spoke. I never got to say goodbye or anything. I do hope that her life went back to normal after this, or as normal as it could be. I hope that she found peace because she deserved it.

And I hope that someday she and I can talk again, so I can tell her that I'm sorry for all that she went through. Katie, if you ever read or hear this, story. Please know that I've never forgotten you, and I mention your name every single time that I pray. I feel like this more so affected my mother instead of me, but being older now and also being a parent, I completely understand the fear and trauma that it would have caused her. This took place in a small rural town in Virginia. I won't say more than that out of respect for my mother, but if not for her, I would blast the hell out of the sky here.

Anyways, my parents lived there as a kid with their parents, and I do remember the town, because I remembered visiting my grandparents there often. But when I was about three or four, my parents moved out of there and into a larger, more populated city, saying that they wanted more options for me when it came to schooling and friends. since the previous town was pretty secluded. As for school, I had always done well until I started high school.

I struggled in history and algebra. I don't understand why, because I normally loved math, but for some reason, it was not clicking for me. The teacher was fine, but I can't say the same for history. They did nothing to help make anything interesting. he pretty much just made us read from this outdated textbook while he fell asleep at his desk. My parents saw the struggle the whole way, because they had their own parent portal, and during one of the parent-teacher conferences, we all brainstormed some ideas.

After some options were thrown around, we thought it would be best to get a tutor to help. Apparently, I wasn't the only one struggling in history, and until the board made changes, some students created a study group. It was basically just a group of students working together, and they saw improvements in their grade, so they asked me to try it. I did like the idea, though, because it made me feel like I wasn't singled out.

As for algebra, they did have tutor options through the school at no extra cost to my parents, so they suggested that I'd try that first. So, for history, They basically just told me to show up on Tuesdays in the library and let someone know that I was there for the study group. And then the algebra tutor was either a current or retired teacher that was volunteering. They tried to stay consistent as to whom each student would work with to make it smoother, since everyone teaches differently. They told me that I would meet with the algebra tutor at the school as well on Thursdays.

So, that following week, I went to the designated teacher. room and was introduced to Mr. Michaels. My algebra teacher told me that he was a retired teacher, but that he loved to help students, so he still volunteered for this, or even subbed a few classes before. I think I remember seeing him in passing in the past, but I don't recall ever seeing him in one of my classes as a sub. So, after a little talking between us and the teachers, and we finally got into the work, It was Mr. Michaels, myself, and about three or four other students.

The first thing I remembered about him at that time was how patient he was and how much he actually seemed to listen to us. Granted, I had never been in trouble with school stuff before, so I was expecting to see some grumpy adult complaining how they didn't understand what we didn't understand, and that the work was easy and then not actually help us. but instead he broke down the equations and really focused on the parts that we struggled with to help us understand it better. The more that I worked with him, the more confident I was feeling with my work and answers. After maybe just a few weekly sessions, I was starting to see improvements,

and my parents were really proud of me for sticking with it as well. They asked me how I was feeling about it, and I explained everything to them. I even told them about the tutor and how he was a retired teacher, but that I had never seen him before. As the sessions continued, I found myself just talking to Mr. Michaels more and more. The sessions would typically be about two to three hours, but sometimes we would be escorted out of the school with security

because we were staying so late. Sometimes there were other students that stayed behind with us, but usually it just ended with us in the room. so whenever it came close to the end of the first semester, I wanted to do a pretty hefty review to make sure that I still understood everything, as well as fill out our little cheat sheet index card. We were all given one normal-sized index card that we could write whatever we wanted on, and have with us whenever we took our midterm exams.

I remember it was getting close to closing, when I made a comment about it being easier if we just did this, outside of school, like a library, or a cafe. Mr. Michaels didn't mind the idea either, so I went to use the phone that was in the room. Cell phones weren't really a thing that many kids had at this point in time. My mom answered, and I explained to her what I was wanting to do. I could tell by the tone in her voice that she didn't really like this, and at the time, it kind of confused me.

She was reluctant, but said that we could come home and continue working in the living room or kitchen if we wanted, but she didn't want me to go anywhere else outside of the school. I was disappointed, but I told her I understood and hung up. I went and told Mr. Michaels about her response, and when I tried inviting him over, he said that he actually had things he needed to do as well. and he suggested that we just leave for the night and continue the session next week, since we still had one more week left before the exams. And when I went home that night, I was still upset, and I explained to my mom as to why. All she really told me was that, since it was school-related,

it was best to keep it at the school. This was a weird statement to me. Some of us from the history study group once met up at a local fast food place instead, and she was okay with it. Why was she treating this so differently? Unfortunately, or I guess fortunately, I did mention that there were occasions where it ended up being just me and Mr. Michaels, and I felt bad that they weren't able to clean the room until we were gone, and that's why I wanted to go somewhere else. This immediately caused a switch to flip, and my mother became visibly upset. She said, I thought you were there with other kids there with you.

How often do you end up alone with him? Is there anyone that ever goes in and checks on you all? I could tell that she was holding something back and not telling me, but since she was the parent, I wasn't going to push the matter. I just answered her questions honestly and watched as she became more and more visibly upset. She told me that I was not to meet with any adult alone ever again, and then told me that I needed to tell her or my dad immediately if it ever did happen. This obviously upset me as well.

I was doing so much better, and I was so proud of the improvements that I had been making. But my mom couldn't seem to see that, and was insane. Instead getting upset about something that she suggested I do in the first place? I went to bed that night pretty mad and confused, and I hardly said anything to my parents before I left for school the next morning. Since I didn't see Mr. Michaels until the following week, I was in my normal happier mood at school and at home. That next Thursday, though, all the emotions would come racing back when my mom surprised me with an early pickup from the tutor session. I would typically call her when I was done, and she would pick me up as I waited outside. Mr. Michaels was pretty quick to leave after that, so he was never around by the time she got there.

This time, however, she came into the school, and when she opened the door and made eye contact with all of us, all of the color drained from her face. She told me that we needed to leave right now and told me to pack up my stuff quickly. I was confused. She had never done this before, and this time we weren't even alone. It was myself and Mr. Michaels, as well as another girl and a guy. Mr. Michaels stood up and just, in a cold, non-personal tone, said, "'Oh, see you later.'

And then turned his attention to the other two. He had been sitting by me at the time, so he had actually gotten up and walked closer to the others. I didn't understand any of this. When we got to the car, my mom took off quicker than I had ever seen her drive, and the first thing she said to me with a shaky voice was, You are never to meet with Mr. Michaels again. Do you understand me? Not alone, not with a group of people, never.

If you see him coming towards you, you walk in the opposite direction. I didn't understand what was going on at all. all. I kept asking her what was wrong and to explain to me because she was scaring me, but I was also frustrated. Why was she doing this to me now? Again, as her voice cracked, I could tell that she was holding back tears as she said there are some things you just don't need to know about until you're older. I didn't even get the chance to really try and make any sense of this, nor would I ever be in a situation where I would possibly run into him again. My parents kept me out of school for the rest of that week, and the next.

Taking those exams were a pain, but at least I got it done. There were several meetings that my parents had with teachers and staff, but I was always left at home with my grandparents. At least we had the holiday break, so I didn't miss much school after that, but when I went back, I felt like I had so many eyes on me. Thankfully, my mom was always, already at the door waiting for me at the end of the day because I didn't even like riding the bus anymore. After the school year was finished, we would move again and now even further from their hometown, and the town in school that I had grown up in. It wasn't until I was older that I finally understood everything clearly. Mr. Michaels wasn't his real name, but it was just

the name he went by at that school. I don't know if maybe... he used his middle name or what. However, he was actually a teacher at my mom's old high school from the first town. He was the type that tried to fit in with the kids and be cool, and he succeeded at it. He got a lot of the kids to like him, including my mom. Unfortunately, his intentions were a little more sinister. Over a period of a few months, he actually assaulted my mother, taking advantage of her when they were alone.

It started when he gave her rights home, and he was even brazen enough to try that stuff at the school, all the while trying to convince my mom that it was for her own good so that she would pass. My mom ended up dropping out of high school because of this, and sadly her parents didn't believe her at first until she talked to some other girls that confessed to being a victim as well. I'm not sure of all the legal details, but basically, He was never actually charged with anything because no one had the evidence, and then he fled.

He was pretty much nowhere to be found. Like, he just fell off the face of the earth, and of course, no one really cared. After my mom met my dad and had me, they wanted to move away due to all the bad memories of that town. They settled into a place, and that's where I grew up, and began going to school. I'm sure her experience was always in the back of her mind, but she always went to the conferences and met any and all of my teachers and the staff to make sure that she was involved. Unfortunately, she never met the tutor,

because there was never really an opportunity to do so. Not to mention, everything else at the school so far had been fine. I don't think anyone really expected the same creep to show up years later in a town and school several hours away under a different name. So, of course, it was quite the shock to my mom when she saw him in the room with me. Sadly, I assume that he recognized my mom as well, because even with all the meetings and complaints she had with the school board, he was long gone.

Again. No one saw him again, and apparently the contact information they had for him did not work. anymore either. I don't know if he had any sinister plans with me or any of the other kids, but it just makes me sick these days knowing that I was in the same room as him, and alone at that. Not to mention that now he's gone, he could literally go anywhere. I don't think it would be fair to call me paranoid either when I say it's never a bad idea

to be suspicious of anyone, especially adults that are around children or other vulnerable people. And most importantly, not only do I hope I never see him again, but I hope he never sees another child. Back in 2017, I was in a pretty healthy relationship. Charlotte and I had been together for almost three years, and we were thinking about our future. We started looking at apartments together, and if things continued to go as well as they had been, I was going to save up to proposed to her. However, even though a lot of the places we looked at were her choice, and she seemed so excited about this, she then threw a huge curveball at me.

She told me that she had a great career opportunity in Oregon. We lived in Missouri. At first I thought, okay, a cross-country move is a huge step, but I was willing to do it if it meant a better life for the both of us. and even if it was kind of scary, moving out of state can also be exciting. But, much to my surprise, her plans did not involve me. She said she wanted to make a life for herself out there first before she thought about a long-term relationship.

And before I could even recommend it, she shot down the long-distance thing saying that she couldn't guarantee that she wouldn't cheat. It hurt, but at least she was honest. I didn't know how to feel, though. I understand wanting to do what's best for your own good, but why even consider apartment searching then? Why lead me on to believe that we had a future together? Overall, I was definitely upset and heartbroken, but I moved on and wished her the best.

But I wasn't the only one caught off guard by this. Even some of her family found it odd. I was actually pretty good friends with her younger brother, and that's how I met her. And he was telling me how their parents were shocked that she just left everything behind. They were worried that maybe something sinister was going on and forcing her to leave out of fear or something.

But she assured everyone that that was not the case. She even showed us pictures. of her new place and shared links to the place that she was going to be working for. It was an illustration company. Knowing that she was at least okay, we tried talking here or there, but I think overall it just made me feel worse, so we agreed it was best to cut ties. Now, it's been several years since this event happened. I've entirely moved on, and I'm happy. I decided to make some changes in my life, too, and got a new job.

I met a girl named Valerie that worked at the same place as me, and I could instantly tell that there was a connection. We went on a date, hit it off immediately, and we've been together for about four years now. Charlotte wasn't even a thought in my mind. I was still good friends with her brother, but we hardly talked. But that was just life. So, needless to say, I wanted to propose to Val, and when I had to be able to. got hints from her and her friend, I took it as the go-ahead. Things definitely felt different, but in a good way compared to Charlotte. And to make it the second best day of my life,

she said yes. At that point, life started moving pretty quickly, so when I was waiting in line to get coffee, I didn't notice the people around me until I heard my old nickname, making me look around. and that's when I saw Charlotte. We hugged, and I asked her what she was doing there. She explained that she was thinking about moving back, but was just visiting for a week. We quickly caught up for a bit, and she suggested that we'd grab a coffee or lunch together sometime.

I agreed. I gave her another hug, and then I left. I even went home and told Val that I had run into her. We were very open with each other, and she knew of Charlotte, so she saw no issues with us catching up either. It was probably a few days after that that we met up at the same place. We sat and talked about the past years. She showed me so many pictures of Oregon and places that she went,

and even a few famous people that she met through her work. So I asked her, since things were going so well, why she would ever want to move back. Her answer was vague, but said something about being able to work on her own time now and how she wanted to be closer to her family. Then she turned the conversation on me, and I told her that I was engaged. She looked surprised, but also said that she was happy for me. As we continued to talk, I noticed her becoming more and more hands-on.

She would touch my shoulder, go down my arm, she would grab my hands and even rub my leg with her foot. It was, well, it was a weird feeling, to say the least. It reminded me of who she was when we were together. I mean, I didn't feel anything as I was in love with Val, but the thought was in the back of my head. Was she trying to do something? Was this her flirting with me?

I tried not to think about it, and we parted ways after a few hours. When I saw Val that evening, I even told her what had happened, and she found it odd. And then she mentioned that maybe there was a hint of jealousy from Charlotte, but otherwise she wasn't really worried about it. So, again, we moved forward with our life, and I got random casual messages from Charlotte.

My phone number never changed, after all. However, we started having strange events occur and honestly never really connected them at the time. Val ended up moving to another location under the same business that we worked for, so we were no longer driving together. However, I had to take her to work one day because we went to leave one morning and her tire was flat. It wasn't like it just lost air or like there was a nail. I didn't even have to look for the cause. Towards the back side of the tire, there was a pretty big puncture in it. It wasn't a clear cut like a knife, but it wasn't mangled like the tire had just exploded.

Not to mention, there was no additional damage to her car either. We were confused, but I just took her to work and told her that I would take care of it. Val had a pretty new car. I went with her to test it out, and it was only a few. few years old at the time. But she ended up having a pretty scary issue with it. We kissed each other goodbye one morning and left for the day. And when we got to work, we usually texted each other one more, have a nice day with me usually being the first one, as my drive was shorter by about 15 minutes. When I didn't get a text back, I thought it was odd, but then just assumed that maybe she

had forgotten or someone stopped her on her way in, both of which have happened before. So after I got in and to my desk, I was prepared to text her when she called me hysterical. When I finally got her calmed down, she explained what happened. She said that she noticed her car hesitated a little when she shifted from reverse to drive, but ignored it as it soon went away. She thought maybe she imagined it, but made a mental note to tell me about it when she got to work. However, she didn't make it to work because as she rolled up to a red light, her brakes kicked back and did nothing else. She went right through that intersection at about 30 miles per hour, instantly teaboning a van. Her airbags deployed and she was obviously shaken up. She told me that

the police were already there and that tow trucks were on their way, so I left work immediately to go be with her. The sight was pretty terrifying, and I felt so bad that she had to be in that situation, and alone to boot. The van had a woman and her toddler in it, but both were in their seatbelts and the kid in the car seats, so they were okay as well, just a bit shaken up. After the scene was cleaned up, we went home and she walked me through the city. situation again. It definitely sounded like something happened to the brakes, so after they towed the car back, I had someone come take a look at it to see if they could diagnose the issues. They were certainly able to, and they told us that one of the brake lines had been cut,

and it was obviously done by someone that was not trying to replace a line or done by accident. He said you could see where they tried to cut it in multiple spots until they finally got through. We were terrified and confused. Who would try to do this? Val was such a kind person, and it's not like she had any enemies that came to mind, so

I just didn't know how to handle this. But then, she asked me if I thought Charlotte would do something like this. I also didn't see Charlotte as the type to do that, and while we talked,

it was still very casual conversal. She shouldn't have even known where we lived. While I was questioning this, she brought something to my attention that she hadn't really told me about. She said that she had gotten a few calls at work, like they were transferred to her office line specifically looking for her, but when she would answer, they would just hang up. She thought it was weird, sure, but nothing scary or worth mentioning. Then, a few days prior to the accident, she got another call and this time the person talked and said something with a slight giggle, like, nice car that you've got, and then hung up.

I was horrified. I didn't want to think about Charlotte possibly doing this or even entertain the idea, but then I remembered the way that she acted when we met up. I honestly could not roll it out. So I called her while Val was in the room so that we could hear her voice. I played it off like I thought that she called me and was returning the call, so it didn't last long, but I could tell by the look on Val's face that it was the same voice. I was furious. Why would she try to do this? She was the one that left me behind.

Now, almost a decade later, she wants to ruin my life? As mad as I was, I started coming up with the plan. I bought a camera, and I had it set up to face our driveway. Then I texted Charlotte asking to go get coffee again. When she showed up, I was not friendly at all like I was the first time. I asked her point blank if she was following or stalking my fiancé. She looked at me like I was crazy and denied it, but then I mentioned her stupid phone call. She had this dumb grin on her face and actually said that she was just trying to have a little fun, but she was pretty easy to track down.

She admitted to the calls but would never fess up about the car, but after I chewed her out some, she started to show her true colors. She said that I was the one in the wrong, that I was supposed to wait for her to come back and have a relationship with her again and her only. That was never the case. She broke up with me. She ended it because she obviously had plans to hook up with other people. Why did I have to wait around for her? I was supposed to just be alone all those years? Hell no.

I told her that she was crazy and that she needed to leave us alone because we were happy and that I would never be with her again, or even once to talk to her ever again. again, and I left that place feeling much better. I knew that we wouldn't really be able to take legal action, though, unless we had proof, and that was where the camera came in. I had this feeling that she was going to try something again, and I was right. It was three or four days later, and we checked the camera, as we do every time before we leave,

and we were also sharing a car at the time. There she was, clear as day, walking around and inspecting my car. She then proceeded to pour something in my gas tank, wiped off the side and the cover, for prints, I assume, and then she climbed on top of the hood, pulled her pants down and squatted. I'll let you fill in the rest.

Charlotte had lost. it. I had never seen that sight of her, and I was frustrated, and obviously embarrassed, that I ever let her back into my life. Sorry the story ended up being so long, but to wrap it up, we pressed charges. We filed a restraining order, and were at least able to sue her for the damages to my car. As expected, we never heard from her again, and thankfully, her brother had no ill-will towards me either. He said that she complained to him about me being engaged, and he basically told her to get the hell over it, like I did, because I had to move on. In the end, I think exes are better left at that. No friends, no contact, just old memories. Good or bad, I suppose.