As The Raven Dreams Podcast - "Winter Kingdom Pt. 3" by Aakash Sharma

Episode Date: December 13, 2020

I woke up in a place I didn't recognize, cuffed to a bed for something I couldn't remember... yet everyone seems to think I'm guilty of something.  All stories come with a Mild Content Warning for Language and/or Graphic content. Viewer Discretion is advised. If you have a story you'd like me to narrate, send it my way! https://astheravendreams.reddex.app/submit  ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬  【Join The Nevermore】 SMASH That Thumbs Up Button! Subscribble to the Chibble! ➠ https://youtube.com/c/astheravendreams Sub to my SECOND channel! ➠ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX9TQVx8YUuuI5gBP58NTtA Check out my Website!  ➠ https://www.astheravendreams.com Audiocast on Anchor/Spotify! ➠ https://anchor.fm/astheravendreams Send me Spooky stories! ➠ https://astheravendreams.reddex.app/submit EARLY ACCESS on Patreon!  ➠ https://patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams One Time KoFi Donations  ➠  https://ko-fi.com/astheravendreams Official Merch Store ➠ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Follow me on Twitter  ➠  https://twitter.com/RavensDreamYT Join Our Discord ➠ https://discord.gg/ncT9j9H Check out my Subreddit ➠ https://reddit.com/r/TheRavensDream ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬  【Credits & Times】 0:00  ➠  Be Sure To Like The Video! 0:08  ➠  "Winter Kingdom Pt. 3" by Aakash Sharma  ➠  https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRavensDream/comments/joqkrs/winter_kingdom_part_iii/  ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬  【Disclaimer】 All stories used with permission, or under some level of Creative Commons License. Some stock footage from https://freestockfootagearchive.com. If music IS NOT credited above, it is either free to use or original. All thumbnail art, if not credited, is under Creative Commons. Thank you to EVERYONE that watches my videos, and thank you to all my  subscribers. Have a nice day, much love, and Sleep well. --Raven.  ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬ ✯ ✬  Be sure to *subscribe* if you like any of the following; Glitch In The Matrix Stories - Deep Web Horror Stories - Cryptid Encounter Stories - Creepy Encounter Stories - Let's Not Meet Stories - Reddit Ghost Stories - Scary Horror Stories - Creepypasta - Missing 411 Stories - Backwoods Horror Stories - Dark web Horror Stories - True Scary Stories --- 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

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love that we're I'm. I woke up to the sounds of a beeping monitor. My body felt stiff. My mouth was

dry in my eyes squinted, barely able to adjust to the bright room of the that I was in. Bars of golden sunlight sat at my feet, seeping in through the blinds of a tiny window located somewhere on my left. A woman stood next to my bed. Her eyes were locked on to the

beeping monitor as she studied my vitals. Judging by her uniform, she was probably a nurse. Water! I groaned. My throat tightened. from the awful dryness. She gave me a nervous glance and hurried out of the room. I tried to sit back up, using all of my strength in the process. I felt an overwhelming amount of weakness. Cold steel dug into my left wrist. I was cuffed to the bed.

Using only my right hand, I had to push myself to be able to sit upright. An oxymeter clipped to the thumb of my wrist. right hand. Two, twelve, the clock read. Judging by the light, I knew it was still day, but I didn't know what day it was. I didn't know how long I was out for and what I was doing here, cuffed to a hospital bed. I wanted to call for someone.

My throat felt parched. I really needed a glass of water. I couldn't get out of the bed either, thanks to these cuffs. I tried thinking back to the last thing that I remembered, but that door of my memories broke open and everything that had happened leading up to where I was now, from the house, to the police car, all came flooding back vividly in my mind. I looked down at my clothes. I remembered being covered in blood before I blacked out. I wore a simple blue hospital gown, not a single drop of blood on it as far as I could tell.

I remembered the dream about the snowy landscape. I'd walked right through the window in Aunt Greta's living room and right into an eternal winter, a place that I was used to seeing in my dreams. I remembered picking up a bone key, which was placed in a puddle of dark, warm, and disturbingly fresh blood, and then I answered the door to two cops,

while covered head to toe in it. I had trouble processing all this. I couldn't tell which parts were real and which were belonged to a vivid dream. For a moment, a disturbing thought made itself known to me. What if none of it was a dream? I dismissed the key in the window as being, just products of my mind, and the cuffs had confirmed the cops being real.

So I had accepted that part. But what unsettled me was the fact that reality and the dream I saw seemed to strangely merge into a seamless narrative. Not a lot of time had passed when the door finally opened, ending my isolation and a doctor walked in, followed by the same nurse that I saw before, her fingers twisting the cap off of bottle of water. I drank hurriedly as she raised and tilted the tiny bottle to my lips. Tiny streams of it leaked down my chin and onto my gown. I didn't really care. Can you hear me, Mr. Vale? The doctor asked. She pulled a tiny flashlight out of her coat and turned it on with a click, using gloved hands to open my eyes wide as she shone her light in to both of them. I gave a tiny

nod in response. Your name is Daniel Vale, correct? She asked, rising back up again. My eyes focused on to her name tag. Anna J. Levitt. Levitt. That name seemed familiar. Yeah, I answered, dismissing all other thoughts that I had.

How are you feeling now? She asked, looking down at me, anticipating my answer. I feel all right, I guess, just a bit weak. She nodded, almost absently. My answer hung in the air as she seemingly waited for me to tell her more. Either that or she was lost in thought. The beeping which filled the void was now almost soothing. Realizing that I was done with my answer, she left the room in a hurried pace.

The nurse followed after her. I parted my lips to ask about the date, holding back the storm of other questions I had for now, yet I was too slow. As a result, I was met with a closed door in silence. I leaned back and let out a sigh. I anticipated desperately for someone, anyone, while I sat alone with only the beeping to keep me filling the emptiness and holding me back from screaming out loud, though I don't think, I had the strength to do that either.

The door opened again, sooner than I anticipated. Expecting the doctor I began to speak, the question about the date rising up right to the tip of my tongue. How long my dad shut the door behind him? He walked up to the bed and took a seat next to it. He wore a long brown coat, which he didn't bother to hang. Dad? I muttered as a way of greeting. All questions I had quieted for a moment.

He looked over me from the top of his glasses, studying every inch of my face. His brows wrinkled and his teeth gritted behind his lips. How much had this man changed? The last time I remember really passing out before this was the night I saw the old woman's ghost for the first time. That night, I was met with something that I truly feared.

It had been my dad's voice I had woken up to. But that was back then, when he used to be a cheerful and a pretty enthusiastic guy. And now, looking at him, and the way he silently observed me, as if mentally preparing himself to speak with his own son, had upset me more than he could ever know. But I sighed, swallowing my feelings and my feelings. awaiting whatever it was he had to tell me. Your Aunt Greta,

what were you doing at her place last night? He asked gravely, his tone cold and unfeeling. Well, I... I was visiting the old house. I needed a place to stay in the neighborhood. It was too late. I was tired. Why did you go there?

He said. His eyes had a dark intensity to them. I was familiar with that look, yet I still wasn't used to it. Well, last night, I paused for a moment, before giving him an answer. I had too many questions of my own as well. Why are you here? No, he dismissed my query. Why were you there last night?

What did you go to do? Do you even remember the fact that I am your son? I said bitterly. I don't know why you came here. I'm so fucking lost. I have no idea what the fuck is going on. I'm cuffed to this bed for some reason. You never even asked me if I'm feeling okay.

How about some fucking decency for once, Dad? It's always about you, isn't it? He said, unflinching, in that same calm and cold tone. Your Aunt Greta has been missing since last night. Those words tore right through me like a spear. My lips quivered. I was unable to get any words out. They found this, he said, pushing his hand into the pocket of his coat and pulling out a photograph.

Maggots crawled, devouring every last bit of flesh that still clung to the skull. The flash of whatever camera had been used to capture it illuminated the walls, and the corner of the skull had been... almost carefully placed in. I wretched, feeling sick. I used my free hand to shove the photograph my dad held firmly aside, and then covered my mouth with it. This was taken from the old house you had been visiting last night,

before you went to Greta's place. He breathed, closing his eyes to think for a moment. The neighbor saw you leaving in a panic. I don't... I felt... a complex feeling, an amalgamation of fear and disgust. The darkness, in that corner, it was crawling with something that night. I had been there, and there was also that stench in the air.

Now I knew what it was, and the fact that I was this close to that thing, it made my skin crawl. I was right to fear that place. I was trembling. My fists were clenched tightly and my stomach felt. as if I was going down in an eternal fall. Your aunt, Greta, is missing, he said. I don't know what happened that night you were there, but I need you to tell me everything

and I need to know exactly what you did. What I did? I spat, still unable to fully grasp all that had been laid in front of me. You came out looking like you had just been in a slaughterhouse, from what I know. We still don't know whose blood. it was, but in a few hours, we'll know for sure, he said. And this? He said, reaching into his coat pocket once more, was the only thing found in your pocket.

The key, I thought. The key I saw in my dreams. But my expectations were shattered when he pulled out a plastic pouch containing something. I thought I didn't really understand what he was showing me at first, but that would be a I did. I just didn't want to accept it. At the bottom of the pouch, crusted with blood, was a wrinkled human finger. The moment I saw that, I tried wriggling my fingers, trying to get a feel from each one of them, going so far as to even remove the oxymeter with the help of my jaws to check for my thumb.

When I did confirm that it was there, I put aside the medical device so that my thumb was in plain sense. sight. Finger wasn't mine. My dad had a frown on his face, as if the fact that I worried about losing a finger had somehow further disappointed him. It isn't yours, and now that you've checked, you know, he said, leaning closer to me. It isn't Greta's either. I don't know whose it is, but we will find out soon enough. It's never too early to plan your summer story in Europe with WestJet, from rolling countryside to cobblestone streets. begin your next chapter. Book your seat at westjet.com

or call your travel agent. Westjet, where your story takes off. I don't understand. I really don't understand what the fuck is going on, but I did not do whatever it is you think I did. I want to believe you, Dan.

I really do. And I think that to some extent, I do, actually. I'm here because I was able to pull a few strings with the guys at work, but they won't be giving me this case. And with the thing about the missing children, and you being a school teacher and all, what is that supposed to mean?

Now, I truly felt angry. I didn't know what he was trying to tell me, or if he was trying to tell me anything at all. But coming from my own father, being treated like this, I couldn't take it. Just tell me, get out, I said. I didn't have to repeat myself again, as he went right to the door, placing a hand on it before giving me one final glance, and then moving out. That day was no rest for me. I had rounds of questioning with other detectives. None of them mentioned my dad even once, and I held on to my side of the story pretty firmly.

I was taking a trip down memory lane, and it got too late, and I had to stay with my aunt who lived in that neighborhood, and no, I don't. know where she is. I spent almost the entire day answering questions, until the doctor finally had to intervene and got me some time to rest. An officer had been posted outside my room. I'm pretty sure I can't be in cuffs without a charge for more than 48 hours or something, but I wasn't sure. When the lights were dimmed, I rested my head on the shitty pillow and closed my eyes. I could still hear some mumbling outside the room. but that soon faded away and the thoughts of Aunt Greta came into my mind. I had no clue about her whereabouts.

Nothing. Even thinking back, picturing the previous night as clearly as I could, I couldn't catch a single clue as to where she had gone. Nothing made sense. I should probably let the police handle this one, but they were probably going to stay on me. And maybe, just maybe, even though I hate it. thinking about it, it could be too late whenever they start looking for her.

I didn't know who the skull belonged to or why it was there. Every reason that I was able to come up with went beyond the rationality of this world and into the paranormal. Every clue, every event that happened led to the dream I had, and back to the disaster of a funeral that my mom got, which she didn't deserve. The fact that her flesh was the only thing left behind, and the fact that I pocketed a key in my dreams, that in the waking world turned out to be a finger, and that I couldn't tell where the dream ended or where reality had taken its course. The fact that the dream itself took place in a world, my mother had painted so vividly with her stories when she put me to sleep,

led me to believe that it all starts there. In that house with a simple story, Winter Kingdom, she had called it. And even to this day, I know all of it so well that every word of that story brings detailed imagery to my mind. And with that realization, I knew that if I wanted to find my aunt, I had to start a step ahead of the place it all started, the window. But first, I had to somehow get out of it. of this room. I tried, wriggling out of the cuffs at first, but it was a stupid and vain attempt. I even considered breaking my own wrist to slide it out, but that idea was quickly put aside.

I lay in defeat, staring up at the white ceiling, hoping that by some miracle that the cuffs would just click open, leaving me to go about my way, but of course that didn't happen. Being in a dimly lit room didn't make things easy for me either. I felt uneasy being held in a room of dancing shadows, unable to even move at will. The moonlight had made its way through the window now, and I was so glad that the window had been behind my head and not in front of it. My thoughts began to slow down, and slowly they were weakened. and the only thing I could focus on any more was the rhythmic beeping of the monitor, pulling me slowly into a much-needed sleep.

I was not in the snow-covered landscape I usually found myself in. This time, I was at the front of that treacherous house. I stood at the door which was wide open for me to enter. I heard a creek come from within. and I took a step within. The moonlight was the only thing that illuminated my path, and I lost that too when I turned around and shut the door behind me. This was my body, but it wasn't me who controlled it.

Like a puppet, I reluctantly found myself following the creaking sound coming from upstairs, and my strings were pulled by some malicious puppeteer. I almost glided up the stairs. my feet hardly touching them, and I found myself next to that dark corner. I passed it absently, and followed the creaking into the door of my parents' old room not knowing what to expect. Lumps of terror formed in my body, as I was painfully aware of being alone in the dark, or rather expecting not to be alone. There, in the room, sitting on the floor half concealed by the darkness, with her arms crossed, pulling her knees to her chest was my aunt. She looked up at me as she rocked back and forth on the floor.

Dark bags had formed under her eyes from sleeplessness. I looked down at her hand, and she had all of her fingers. And then, I noticed a disturbing detail. An old wrinkled hand curled along her shoulder. A hand I knew belonged to a demon from my past. She sat there, holding Aunt Greta in her clutches, squatting down on the floor naked as she had been the first night I'd seen her. Bold patches among a head of white hair and cracked decaying skin was the least of what stood out about her.

She put her other hand over my aunt's face and pulled her into the dark with her. Her hand had only four fingers on it and she wanted me to see it. One of them had been cleanly chopped off. Then she opened her jaws disturbingly wide, revealing no teeth and no tongue but pure darkness. I woke up gasping. A woman screamed somewhere in the hospital building and a loud bang fall. followed, a sound that I knew was a gunshot. A hand curled on my leg and I froze.

My dad shushed me and tossed me a key. He then hurried to the door, gun in hand, before turning to say just one word to me. He decided against it and went out to wherever the gunshots were coming from. More gunshots rang out. There was a shooter at loose somewhere in the hospital and my dad rushed to help. awful as it was, I knew that this was my only chance. I had to get away. Knowing my dad, I knew that he didn't want me to escape the hospital, and he trusted me enough for that.

I put the key into my cuffs and turned. Another wave of screams rang out as more gunshots fired into the hospital. The shooter was one floor below me. Click. I was finally free. I pulled my hand out of my little captor and crept slowly to the door, making minimal sounds and turned it open. The entire floor seemed deserted from what I saw. The lights had been dimmed and the staff were either already hiding in here somewhere or they had gotten on to another floor.

I didn't have time to check. I sneaked to the desk at the floor, past the elevators, and reached the stairs, ready to make a mad dash down and out. the gates. That would not happen. I heard steps coming up the stairs, and I didn't want to risk being caught by someone who could potentially be the shooter. I ran away from the stairs, opening the door to a random room and forcing myself in. A man lay on a hospital bed there.

The lights had been completely dimmed. He was a younger man than me, and he was fully awake, shushing me with the look of absolute terror on his face. A gunshot came from the floor below, and I took this as an opportunity to escape. I pushed out of the room and fell down into the hallway as another gunshot blasted right next to me, and into the room I had left, most probably killing the man within. I got a good look at the tall, curly-haired kid with bright blue eyes, wearing a sports jersey and clutching some kind of a handgun.

I realized now that there were two shooters in this building, or at least those that I knew of. I ran, moving in a zigzag pattern as the shooter, I presume, took his aim. I knew that my dad was probably downstairs chasing one shooter, while the other one stood here probably still not found out by the policeman. The shooting downstairs started again, and this time it came from different sides. It almost sounded like a war zone down there. And in this chaos, the gunshots blasted again, this time going through my ear and blasting a huge part of it away.

I fell forward, rolling onto the floor, groaning in pain. But then I pushed myself up to all fours and crawled my way into a room hiding for a while. The shooter walked calmly. He was in no rush. And judging from his pace, that I could faintly hear over the shootout downstairs, he intended to make a visit to every room. Here. The shooting downstairs was getting more heated, and I felt so much about so many things.

I had never felt as conflicted in my life ever before. Was I to run? Should I do something? What about my dad? All these thoughts ate away at me, and I gritted my teeth clutching on to the window and slowly pushing it open. A chilly air met me, and I stood next to it, planning nothing, and thinking about almost everything.

All these thoughts met up at an empty conclusion. The door in front of me burst open, and in came the kid, his gun facing me. As he unloaded a shot on me, as I stumbled back, my shoulder had caught the bullet. I fell right through the second floor window, down onto the snow, rolling forward and onto my left shoulder, which sent up a hellish burning pain through my body. I clutched it, thankful for the short fall and that nothing seems. deemed to be broken and made my way away from there, all the while asking myself if what I was about to go after was even worth all of this. Adrenaline flowed through me, giving my body the strength to keep going, but I knew it wouldn't last, so I had to make wherever I was going count.

Car lights shone on me, but I went unnoticed. Police cars and news vans alike were making their way to the hospital. To them, I was probably some. drunk. A storm of madness had been raging and somehow I was caught right in the middle of it. Or maybe it was just me whose luck was cursed. Either way, there was something about this that went way deeper than the reaches of human hands. There was an element to this that was otherworldly. And fate willed it to have it fall on me. Maybe that's why I was still alive, even after having the claws of death almost grab at me. A car came by me, slowing down and following me at my own slow pace on the road.

I was too lost in my own cursed world that I failed to notice any significant details about it. The driver turned the window down and called out to me. Mr. Vail! he said, hushed yet loud enough. I turned to look at him, averting my eyes away, but he was to be. determined. I didn't want to be back in police custody, not after all I had just done. Mr. Vale, he called out once again. I sighed and turned to look at the driver accepting defeat. I couldn't get much farther anyway, not with a bullet through my shoulder. I walked up to him, clutching my shoulder, and he unlocked the door for me. I knew I'd find you here, the man said,

smiling, that familiar, friendly smile that I had known him to have. I would have called out his name, but after all I'd been through, I hardly felt sane anymore. Get in, Mathis said. Quick. I sat next to him, shutting the door after me with great effort. The car was completely silent. The radio had been turned off, and it smelled of absolutely nothing. There was something empty about the car.

He didn't start the car straight away. Instead, he turned to me. You look a little pale, he said. Are you all right? Well, I... Where are we going? I asked. As the car began to move, his eyes were fixed on the silent road ahead.

Look under your seat, he said. Yeah, right there. Pick it up. I pulled out a black bag and then turned to him in confusion. Put it on your feet. face, he said. At first, I really didn't choose to believe in what I was hearing. Then, he reached to his left and pulled a pistol out, aiming right at my gut.

Put it on, he said, stressing each and every word he spoke, the gun still aimed at me. I sat still, contemplating whatever. the fuck this was supposed to be. When he leaned to the side, right hand still on the wheel, and pressed the barrel of the gun to my crotch. After which, I did, as I was told, putting myself in a cloak of darkness. We're going to a special place. I have something to show you.

So that was once again, Winter Kingdom, Part 3 by Akash Sharma. Be ready. Part 4 is next Saturday. Part 5 is the Saturday. and the rest of it will be on Saturdays in January. Oh, sorry, morning stretch. Right, morning stretch after narrating a half-hour long story. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed that one. I know I didn't have a call out of the beginning for what it was,

but I kind of wanted to just start with the silence and the beeping. I thought that would be a better way to start this one with how the story began as he wrote it. So hopefully that's okay. Hopefully you guys liked that. If so, let me know. If not, tell me, hey, don't ever do that crap again, you idiot. but be a little nicer about it.

Like, don't, don't, like, berate me like that. I don't know. Anyway, if you guys would like more content like this or content that's not like this, please consider joining Nevermore to do so. All you got to do is hit that subscribe button and the bell icon next to it. Then you can also support the never before. Follow me on social media platforms such as Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all those pages. And you can also support

the channel, the Patreon or coffee. All this is optional and all of it is greatly appreciated. I'm never doing that again. That was stupid. Anyway, hope you guys have a great day. Great weekend. See you on the next video. Um, yeah, but until then, sleep well.