CreepCast - The Lurker on the Stairway | CreepCast

Episode Date: October 11, 2026

A reclusive writer holes up in a small room in Cambodia and witnesses an unbelievable late night encounter. Ready to be seen? Check that appointment off your to-do list with Zocdoc ✅: https://zocdoc.com/creepcast #sponsored One thing to pack, five ways to power! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code CREEPCAST at https://www.Ridge.com/CREEPCAST #Ridgepod Sheath. The underwear of legends. Go to https://www.sheath.com/CREEPCAST and use code CREEPCAST for 20% off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to Creepcast. Today we're going to be reading The Lurker on the Stairway. Apparently a member of our team that was vetting some stories said that this one was pretty interesting. It's an older one, seven years older. It only has 18 upvotes on R slash No Sleep. So this is a good one. Maybe check it out and check out this author. Who's the author?

The author is Stygian sagas, which looks like they have a website and a YouTube channel where they do readings of their own stories and stuff. They have some longer like near novel length looking stories. they've read out in parts on there too. So if this story's cool, then there's a plethora of other stories to check out from this person. It looks like they posted a lot to no sleep up until about five years ago. And then they started posting to their website and YouTube and stuff like that. But their most recent YouTube uploads four weeks ago.

So they're still certainly active, writing and stuff like that. So could be a hidden gym. Could be a cool author who just hasn't got a ton of recognition yet. Which is looking at their YouTube videos, like, you know, a lot of the time, if you just post a story you write, just a reading of it on YouTube, you know, it typically wouldn't do that well,

but most of it has over like 10,000 views. Oh, that's cool. So there is some kind of core fan base for this author already. It's just nothing that's... They have one called the Fayette Mall incident that has 899,000 views. Wow.

So near a million views on just seemingly a story they wrote and posted a year ago. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, good for them. That's fucking sick. Well, hopefully we can direct some attention over there. And I mean, that's amazing that also novel-sized stories broken up into certain parts.

I mean, it's awesome. And I think that's a really smart move for an author to do. Well, I mean, like, I mean, obviously YouTube has been a good platform to, like, showcase stories and talk about them and stuff like that. So an author being like, yeah, I'm just going to read mine over there. Especially just in this longer format. I know TikTok and people talking about like book stuff on book talk, as it were, usually just shorter. And it's usually people just talking about like, oh, I like this book, whatever. But to actually have your full story there.

It's pretty sweet too. Just give it out to people like that. Yeah. So, I mean, it seems that whoever Stygian sagas is, which I don't see any name or stuff like that on their profile, they do say that they are in their bio on Reddit. It says they are a writer and war gamer from Kentucky. So one of my-

One of my Appalachia peoples up there. Red boy. Yep, that's right. That's right. Lurker on the stairway, though. I like that title. You know what reminds me of is, what's the story you read about the guy who it's like someone's trying to

to him at the door in like a doomsday bunker or something or maybe not a bunker but it's like apartment right and he doesn't want to um the one psychosis yeah kind of reminds you i don't know why but it has like a similar vibe just maybe just because of the actual visual of a lurker on the stairway but i'm like almost imagining someone like looking through a peephole or something yeah yeah you know i could see that i think uh i mean well i was about to say we haven't covered stuff lately that's just like a creature feature but we have right i mean the most notable one is the fish people. The two gay dads.

Yeah, I know that's, I know that's your scariest creature you can come across. No, no, no. The fish people were infinitely scarier. Oh, were there? They were. The, uh, I don't know.

I'm stoked on this. I think it's going to be a fun time. Guys, if you want some extra content, feel free to check out our Patreon, Patreon. Patreon.com slash creepcast, feel free to check us out there. Also, if you're listening to this on Spotify,

Apple Podcast, or anywhere that you can listen to a podcast, consider giving a nice rating. It helps us out. Isaiah, lurking in the stairway. Are we ready? We are ready to begin. Let's go.

Let's begin. Cambodia was not a place I'd been before, nor was it a place I'd ever planned to go. Well, immediately bashing all of my expectation. You talking psychosis, I'm like shut in in the house or something in the house. It still might be. First sentence, Cambodia was not a play. Could be, could be. But now I'm immediately thinking, like, not for the worst.

Now I'm thinking CIA vibes, jungles. Oh, really? See, you know, it's weird in my mind what's like empty man. something, friends going out doing something and they stumble across something and like some kind of, you know, and empty man, I think it's like in the mountains or whatever. He falls into a cave and he gets cursed there. Which one's empty man? It's the one where it's like the guys are like going to like Tibet and they're going to go across. It's a movie. But it's like fucking three hours long. But he like falls into a cave or something and then he gets hypnotized. But basically it brings this curse back with him. I see. Okay.

It had that popular clip where the guy is like moving and the whole crowd like there's across the river. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. This whole disastrous expedition started when a friend of mine pitched it as a solution to my looming monetary woes. It offered me a cheap cost of living, many times lower than that I could have found back in the States. A way to continue to work for myself as a copywriter without having to seek part-time work at some soul-crushing depression factory in the service industry. Perhaps more importantly, though, she saw it as a way to force me out of my shell into more regular interactions with the world around me. I know a little biased because we just covered a story like an hour ago. But this is similar to what we were talking about in that story.

Sear of possibilities, because I don't know what order of these will be posted in. But you were talking about how the older stories had like a punch. You know, it was all about like, okay, you're in the monsters here. And then they kind of have that payoff near the end. Much the same now, especially on no sleep, it's kind of like it takes its time. lowering you in, building plot and stuff like that. But it goes to what you were saying about. Difference in writing styles.

Yeah, I think it's just the different time periods. Yeah, yeah. The sign of the times, whatever. Though I've never been prodded and probed for any traditional diagnosis, I am an excessively reserved person. With the disruptive distaste for interaction with new people and places, it has long dictated the ebb and flow of my days. I would not describe the way I interact with the world as fearful,

but rather disinterested. I find great comfort in stewing alone among my thoughts for long periods, undisturbed by the intrusion of anything I don't grant permission to intrude. The king of my own keep, in a sense, with the drawbridge firmly fastened against all but the most familial and vital company. It's crazy how similar. I was thinking the exact same thing. The seer of possibilities and these different approaches.

That's such a clear, concise way of understanding the character versus before. It's just like, yeah, people say that I'm content or that I'm competent. Yeah. Or whatever. It's like two drastically different approaches to the same almost kind of character. It's like describing the same kind of symptom. There's sort of a shut-in doesn't get along with a lot of people. Not even really a shut-in. They're just not that sociable, interact well with others. But the difference in writing style gives starkly different approaches. In the, in Sear of Possibilities, we're talking like, ha-ha-in-cell, ha-ha, like shooter vibes. Which maybe elaborate a bit more on that in case it's not coming out in order. If it's, yeah, so in the story of the seer of possibilities, the character was a similar kind of character that they were described as not being a lot of friends.

Yeah, not a lot of friends, trouble and social situations and stuff. But because of how kind of direct the language was where it's like, I get along with people, but I don't like people sort of thing. It gave a more like apprehensive, like a harsh vibe to it. It gave definitely a more aggressive. And that's where I think the insult rhetoric, I guess, came from. Was because it felt so abrasive. In that story, I would argue, may have been kind of intentional. Sure.

But here, like you said, the same kind of character being described in not even flowery, but a more kind of roundabout language, you know, better worded. It creates a softer feeling to it, where even though it's the same character, it's not the same vibes. Yeah, more of a loner than like a threat. kind of person, yeah. 100%. Yeah.

Having seen me forced into a semi-regular schedule of public outings and social gatherings in college, my longtime friend thought this trip abroad could solve the dread of a 9-to-5 job and my pension for self-isolation in one fell swoop, allowing me fiscal security and independence on my own terms, while also forcing me to do a bit of learning and exploring to find my way in a new place. Ever the schemer, she had sold the idea with a salesperson's gusto, made her hard to rebuff. And the initial plan had been for us to go together, for she too was in

search of greener and significantly cheaper pastures. The passing of her mother and the subsequent stress this placed on her family prevented this, though, and a departure together turned into a sort of delayed injury plan, with me deciding to keep my booked flight and go ahead and her promising to follow in five or six months' time when things at home allowed her to operate for herself again. The first week or so went smoothly enough. up the social lubricant words, hello, please, thank you, that sort of thing.

I made myself get out and see some of the museums and Phnom Penh. It was uncomfortable. The heat and my desire for quiet scratching at the back of my skull, but I was busy and entertained enough exploring temples and seeing sights to ignore it. It all changed once a week or two had passed,

and I'd gotten settled in. Stripped of the excitable tourist fresh eyes and forgiving demeanor, the city became a different, animal as experienced stripped away the veneer of charm, and I laid eyes upon the true face behind the mask. So, strikingly, the language, the way it's described, and even the setting of being an explore in a different area who has problems with like the world they came from and now discovering it here, this feels so much so like a HP Lovecraft or a Edgar Allan Poe even

way of describing this like turn of the century era with people traveling into different worlds. Like this feels like the way Lovecraft would write an explore writing about an ancient city he's come across. I like the idea too that's in Cambodia. Yeah. We don't very rarely have that as like a setting,

but you can almost just like already like just because of just saying the Cambodian thing, I just think of like the sweltering heat, humidity kind of thing being in a landscape that is just, just like so much more foreign than you expect. And now the charm of being there for a while has worn off. And now he's like finally seeing it almost more as like not necessarily a civilian, but it's like normalized to where he can see kind of just how grody some of the city environments are. Yeah. I think it's just a really fun visual setup. Like I like the setting that we're in.

It's cool. Yeah. Yeah. And if like I'd be interested to look at some of their other writings. because Stygian like refers to like the river sticks and stuff like that like the darkness specifically Stygian is like the darkness related to the underworld and stuff like that so because of that name and because of this writing I wonder if all their stuff kind of has that I don't want to say old school but like classical feel to it in the language or if that's like a language put on for this story either way I like reading it I'm like wow this feels like I'm reading Call of Cthulhu when it's describing like the explorers coming across the cults. Also probably helps that we got done just reading something that was very

very like polar opposite to this entirely. So that also makes you like, oh my God, this is like a master at one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, not not just Lovecraft in like how good they are at writing, but just like the verbiage. No, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The filth and Phnom Pen is omnipresent. Its trash heaps ever-looming and spilling into the streets. While dogs run over weeks ago burst with maggots in the heat upon streets smoldering after decades of neglect. The canals, murky stewpots filled with sewage and the rain-sought-and-garbage, knocked down from the streets, stink under the heat of the sun as it rises through the day, making certain sectors of the concrete forest almost intolerable.

Rats, the size of a man's forearm and roaches longer than my thumb, flourish in the tropical heat amidst the murk, bold enough to leap over shoes and scuttle underfoot as pedestrians walk after dark. Watfnam, a well-aged jewel of a temple, the better part of a thousand years old, is stalked by as many prostitutes as trinket vendors. Its beauty lost in the sea of social decay. My Rerian in southeastern Kentucky had taught me of poverty, but it was the utter dissolution of shame and restraint that truly shook me.

southeastern Kentucky. You're from Harlan County? Me and this guy from the same neck of the woods. Getting awfully specific. He's better. My name is Isaiah and I'm in Campa. Yeah.

Yeah. I understand. It's going to be like, I went to high school here. I'm like, huh? What? It's just a story about me dying in some ancient temple. I just like look up like, should we be reading this, man?

I don't like this. Yeah. It's set like a year from now. Yeah. Kayla calls me, do you want to go to Cambodia? No, I'm good, babe. No, I'm all right. One reading this might think this is an indictment of Cambodia's capital,

but it isn't uniquely a Cambodian problem. Cities in my home country, from New York to San Francisco to Atlanta, exhibit the same kind of disarray and filth, even if a better urban organizational structure keeps the visual horror in check. Human beings, packed in on top one another, and numbers beyond a tally, loose grasp of what life was like outside the towers of stone, and loose grasp of the niceties and boundaries

that made existence tolerable before such terrible numbers were brought to bear. Even as the residents of such urban strongholds as Chicago or London proclaimed their cultured produce of theater or art, they live existences that would make the founders of civilization weep. If whatever priests kings raise Sumerius cities and the cradle of civilization could have witness the Phnom Pen today. They would burn their creations to the ground to spare future generations such torment.

The Mouse Utopia Experiment comes to mind. All right. Do I know you? Do we did go to school? Yeah, I loved the Mouse Utopia experiment when I was like in high school. I thought it was so cool. It's pretty horrifying.

Yeah, it's like if you put mice into a big city, like they will develop a cast system. and become like have their like debauchrous gangs who won't affiliate with the top wasn't the whole mouse utopia or mouse city thing wasn't that in practice or wasn't it supposed to be something to show like how humans would even act yeah that was the idea they it was like i forget the exact setup but a bunch of mice were placing this huge colony that had different tiers and stuff and immediately like the stronger mice separated themselves from the weaker ones and the weaker ones had to get by on scraps from the larger ones and the weaker ones couldn't mate and so they devolved into fighting and stuff like that. So like a higher echelon of my started to almost rain over the lower tiers and stuff like that. I should have expected such things, for I'd seen cities of scale whose occupants numbered in the millions before. But the starry-eyed hope of the tours combined with the sense of adventure and challenge promised by a new and uncomfortable environment blinded me to the weight of the Stygian nightmare that is metropolitan life until I was already,

set up in my apartment with a six-month lease to my name. The apartment, however, was comfortable, my landlady hospitable, and my rent spectacularly low. I resolved, as those first few weeks came to an end, that I would keep my head down, avoid discouragement, and get as much work done as possible while I rode out the inexpensive rent and mitigated my exposure to the outside world as much as possible. In half a year, with 10 or 12 months of work, under my belt and half the time, I could return to the States, either bolstered by more steady clients or stabilized by enough stored cash to keep me secure while I sought other ways to buoy my income. My friend, should she still aim to follow me then, could have the urban sprawl. I had seen

more than enough already. My existence was one of nearly monastic solitude, scheduled around outings which were planned with great care to ensure the least friction possible. I left my room just once every week to walk about eight blocks to a 24-hour grocery store on a street not far from mine. During the first of these trips each month, I would stop by an ATM down a side street along the way and withdrawal around $400 for rent and groceries. On the way back, I would drop the $200 owed for the month's rent through the slot on my landlady's door. the trips initially were plotted out to avoid the heat of the day starting around nine at night

but after being accosted by a trio of toothless lady boys stride and motorcycle looking for clients during one of these trips i moved the schedule past midnight to around two in the morning at this hour the residential streets were entirely empty save the occasional honking passage of a cab or motorbike and offered me as placid an atmosphere to navigate the trash warns as was possible. My safety for my city's occasional knife crime ensured by the fact that I was nearly a foot taller than the tallest Cambodian man I had seen since landing in the country. I was left alone with the rats and stray dogs to operate like clockwork, counting the paces from block to block, knowing that it would take me nine minutes out and nine minutes back to complete my grocery run.

That paragraph talking about his unwillingness to go outside and stuff reminded me of what this reads so much like. Have you ever read The King and Yellow? No, but I know that you've brought it up on the channel before. The Robert Chambers book, yeah. Written around is actually the King and Yellow

that was a huge inspiration to Lovecraft and a lot of his writings. And he incorporated some of the entities from that lore into his world. but Robert Chambers' book, the first four passages at least, that are about people beginning to go mad and starting to feel like the king's presence or more specifically the book's presence in their life. It like from the verbiage to the style of the writing and kind of someone describing their

kind of dive into being a recluse, very similar to the verbiage here. Between these walks and the solitude of my apartment, only the occasional gecko scurrying in under the balcony door of the fourth floor room to escape the heat by camping on the cool interior wall troubled my doorstep. And I didn't mind the silent intrusion. I ate, worked out, scanned email and job posting boards for writing contracts, and typed. My focus was so complete that I could forget the days of the week, the hour of the day, and the posturing of the world beyond, the heavily curtained windows of my room,

keeping the dreadful humid sun of the equator at bay. There are many who would balk at that sparse a schedule, but with the occasional call to a friend or sibling back home keeping me connected, I had all the contact I needed. I thrive in a space all my own, on my own, and with nothing save a concrete hell beyond my door to distract me, my work flourished in the months I spent, hold up in Phnom Penh. Right up until I took my second to last walk,

as the day of my escape closed it on me. I had just over five weeks to go before April 22nd, my planned departure date. I began my walk aiming for the familiar store down the street and following my route without a single hiccup, mulling over a braggadocious biography I was working on for an Indian businessman's personal website. My mind staying as far away from the squalor of the street as was possible.

The road was unusually vacant, with only one or two loud bikes sputtering past during my initial trip. My shopping was done with mechanical skill, the same 12 items bought with the same three bills, a thank you to the now familiar night cashier and away I went, tossing a few cashew nuts to a friendly and legendary mangy mutt that haunted the corner a block down from the shop when he approached to greet me, as was tradition.

Things only went south near the end of the trip when I reached one of the canals on the way back. The canal, perhaps 15 feet deep with a stew of stagnant liquid haunting its innards, ran off to both sides. Visible in either direction for a block or so before another concrete bridge, similar to the one I crossed, blocked my view. It abutted the road which intersected my own, and as I looked down the way to ensure no speeding rickshaws or bikes were heading my direction, a burst of motion on the bridge to my left caught my eye. My initial thought was that a mugging was underway, but as I slowed and took in the scene on the quiet streets of this sleeping quarter of the city, I quickly dismiss that possibility. An older man, who I can remember spotting on prior walks leaning against the canal rail as he dragged on cigarettes, had been seized from behind.

A large figure, nearly enveloping him as they struggled on the far bridge. This figure, a man at first glance, was over. overstretched and disproportioned. It skinned, greenish-gray color of mold and its nude form tapering from a man's wiry torso into a writhing lower body that looked almost like a snake's. This tail, if that's the word to describe it, was affixed to a rusted metal beam beneath the bridge, the willowy creature having clambered up over the rail to seize its target unaware.

Its massive hands enveloped the old man's head. Whatever protest or screaming might have been done muffled before it could begin. When he fell, perhaps four or five seconds after I first spotted this baffling struggle, the creature let him fall. A fleshy tongue latched to its prey following the man's throat as he went down. It stayed there, perched on the rail, for a few more seconds as it finished its work. Then the tongue came free with an audible pop, a spike at its end making me think of a hyperdermic needles or a mosquito's probosciscus.

This tongue withdrew with lightning speed like a frog's before in one fluid motion. The creature swung back under the bridge and dropped with a muted splash into the thick suit below in the canal. The ripples of its impact invisible in the shadows cast by the streetlights above. An approaching truck, perhaps the source of its departure, rumbled past on the road along the canal, jolting me back to awareness. after a glance back up at the man on the bridge now laying lifeless on the pavement the gleam of the truck's lights brought my eyes back down to the water of the canal where two glimmering pools of yellowish light gazed at me from the obscuring shadow i didn't need any more motivation than that man what a cool description it's like a weird snake person of some kind yeah it's like slithery has like a tongue like it's uh which, oh, I bet it's in a swang. Yeah, because Cambodia is pretty close to... A-S-W-A-N-G, yeah, because...

A-S-W-A-N-G, yeah, because... A-S-W-A-S-W-Legon, but that's right around the same region as Cambodia. And a Swong... It's like a shapeshifter, it says. Yeah, it's a shapeshifter. It's kind of like a demonic vampire thing, or like a spiritual vampire. So they can change their shape and become different things, but they're always characterized by a tongue that it sticks into you like a mosquito and it drains the blood and enters out of you.

The swang is often associated as an imposter. So like say it kills your family member and then it pretends to be them in the house and it waits for you to go asleep and then attacks you. So it can take like if it kills someone, it can take the form of them kind of thing. Which I did a video about how when the CIA was trying to take over the Philippines in the 50s, they did a bunch of like sci-op campaigns on the locals. of the things they did is they killed a Filipino militia member and put two holes in his neck and drained the blood from him and threw the body back on the trail so that the other

militia fighters would think there wasn't a swung in the jungle. Wow. Yeah. And it seemed to work because they cleared out of that encampment like the next day. Jesus. That or they thought the CIA's in the woods draining people's blood. Both would make me well leave. Either way it's like we got to get out of Yeah, yeah. But that's how, like, culturally known the Aswong was to the locals and stuff like that. So, yeah, it's like, it's like a kind of like Skin Walker-ish, like mimic thing. But as opposed to those that are more spiritual, the Aswank is a physical creature that, like, has a layer and goes and hides away and stuff like that. It's cool.

I mean, I like the idea of it, like, hiding under a bridge, almost like a fucking troll and lurking and snapping at someone. It does make me think it's going to be kind of sweet than if it is. a shape shifter is going to take the appearance of people that he knows, like that shopkeeper that he sees every day or something. Which for a guy who's so paranoid of outside interaction is the worst case scenario. 100%. Now anyone I'm interacting with could be the shapesifter. It amplifies it 10 times over.

Yeah. I really like the idea of telling what is, if you, like so far at least, if you were to lay bare bones, guy goes to Cambodia meets a vampire creature, right? Oh, yeah. But describing it with such, like, ornate language. gives it like a almost legendary, not saying like quality of the story, but like it is an old legend. Like you're reading about some old manuscript someone wrote and stuff like that. I really like that detail. I like giving so much weight to effectively a vampire cryptid,

you know? Right. It's time to talk about something scary. Your health. I know I don't go in the doctor as much as I should. If I'm feeling sick, I'll just lie in bed and sleep it away. But that's only because I don't want to have to deal with the appointments, insurance, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's why I have Zoc Doc. Zoc Doc is a free app and website where you can search and compare high-quality in-network doctors. Choose the right one for your needs and click to instantly book an appointment. We're talking about in-network appointments with more than 100,000 health care providers across every specialty, from mental health to dental health, eye care to skin care, and much,

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doctor today. That's Z O-C-D-O-C-com slash creepcast. Zocdoc.com slash creepcast. Thank you Zoc-Doc for sponsoring the episode. Back to our spooky story. I sprinted across the next street and up the following four blocks. Almost to my building's locked door

and an alleying off the road and fumbling with the keys in my pocket before I risked a glance back down the road towards the canal. The street was empty despite the pursuit I imagined was underway, but that didn't stop me from shouldering through the entrance the second the key was turned and tossing my bag groceries to the floor without mine for the noise, spinning to bar the metal door at my back the second I was safely inside. I gathered them up, stormed up the steep steps, winding their way through the haphazard building and hastily unlocked my own door. Suddenly, painfully aware,

of how close my top floor apartment sits to the open exit onto the covered roof where the laundry machines set just up the stairs. Once my own door was bolted behind me, I could catch my breath, dwell on the insanity of what had just occurred, and weigh my options. Bass deciding there was no way a report to the local police could end well, I opted to stay silent for the moment and tell my story in a slightly edited form should I ever be questioned. With the seemingly inexplicable nature of the attacker evaded as best way possible. I settled into my usual routine as faithfully as I could. A vexation about what it occurred kept me from being the paragon of focus that was the norm.

My work suffered, and my sleep suffered more. My already nocturnal schedule, now a godsend as paranoia made me tread the thought of slumber in a darkened room. There was little rational drive to fear when I was locked away in my sturdy old apartment. but the feeling of fear haunted me all the same. It was, perhaps, this heightened sense of paranoia that ballooned my awareness enough to allow me to perceive the odd sounds which infiltrated the neighborhood

in the days following my sighting. In the dead of night, hours after the early rising city had closed its doors and dimmed its lights, a kind of cackling screech could occasionally be heard echoing down the alleys and through the streets. A far cry from the cat screams and dogbeck. barks native to the area, which themselves seemed to have been erased from the night's ambience. The best I can do to describe it is to indicate the more otherworldly vocalizations of foxes,

but these calls were of a much deeper pitch, carried a far greater distance around the rotten city they stalked. My isolated mind invested these noises with the shape of that thing from the canal, bringing its corpse-like flesh to my imagination as a companion to every scream through sleeping Phnom Pen. This persisted throughout the next week, growing more pronounced as the due date for my rent and the dwindling food in my small kitchen marched closer by the day. When the 22nd of March came, I'd formulated a plan. One I felt sure would both appease my paranoia and keep me safe and secure until my departure in a month's time. I would depart the building, braving the crowds, hookers, and curious children of the early evening

to feel more secured against things that go bump in the night amidst busier streets and hit the ATM, retrieving my final rent payment and the money for the month's groceries. Then, I would buy everything I could carry at the store, cautious to ration it once I got back to my building, eliminating the need for any more shopping excursions during my stay in Cambodia. finally I would slip my rent through my landlady's door finalizing my fortified existence until April 22nd finally released me from myself in post-prison all while safe from the twisted phantoms

I now imagined behind every corner on the streets outside Why do you think he doesn't just like break his lease early and just leave? Because he talked earlier about how he's staying down here and making money so that he can be better off when he gets back and because money's an issue I think the fact that he has the lease early and he's going to be here is like well

I still don't have enough money to go back and like the rent apartments so it's just not possible financially from what he's imposed no I don't think it's possible financially and also I think there's a bit of himself that thinks maybe he was seeing things or he's parent because now he's like

every noise is that creature everything's that creature So as a guy who is already paranoid, part of it may just be him convincing himself that he's paranoid. And then just for food for thought, just for conversation's sakes, why not just basing Kentucky and do an American cryptid versus a Filipino crypted? I think putting him in an unfamiliar region enhances the isolation because he talked about he has friends and family and stuff like that. if he was back in Kentucky, he could call a family member or a friend or someone. Sure. So there's just less resources for him. There's less. He's more alone. He's more trapped over here. And I mean, it also could just be the fact the writer wanted to talk about in a swang.

So rather than using like a Cambodian local, he's taking an every man for him, like a guy from the same region he's from, placing him over there as an alien without a lot of means of help. Sure. Yeah. Because he said he'd be down here. for six months total, right? So for five months, he's been, yeah, for five months, his expenses has been 400 bucks a month and he's making money to try to get in a better position when he moves back. Yeah, I mean, I understand all that. I think it's just the matter of seeing something extremely supernatural and seeing someone die. I think to a degree he has to be, because he talked about

his paranoia and how like he's afraid of every shadow. There has be some kind of self-doubt of like, did I really see what I saw? Yeah. Like, if I saw that, like, obviously I'd be freaked out. I wouldn't immediately assume, I wouldn't immediately assume it was a monster though. Yeah, exactly. I'd be like, why did I see that? What was that? I mean, even weird, like, obviously much less tame, but even if I'm in like a haunted place and see something out of the corner of my eye, I'm like, oh, well, that's my brain playing tricks on me or whatever. If you see a mosquito thing, eat a guy in the middle of the night and you don't immediately see it again, you would have to be like, I must have been so sleep deprived. saw something, you know. You'd be scared, but like I wouldn't cross over that bridge again at night.

Yeah. But there has to be a layer of like doubt. Yeah. Yeah. Especially for someone as calculated and thought out as he is. I want to take a moment to think today's sponsor Ridge Wallet. The brand of wallet that I've been using for years is here with even more to offer. See being a dad and running around the house between all of the wires I have for this stuff and the plug-ins for baby monitors and for bottle washers, things like that have made me realize I've got a lot of cords. And sometimes it would be nice to have a few less cords, which is why I didn't realize how useful Ridge's power bank could be until it came in. And especially with the holidays coming up, it would be nice to gift that special someone in your life something that they'll actually use and, well, you know, be special.

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closing up shop for the night, making my heart leap at the sound. I diverted from my road toward the ATM one block down from where I usually walk to the Sutherly Street, not wishing to walk alongside the canal where I had seen that inexplicable sight a week prior. I still had to cross the bridge on the way over, though. The process made only slightly easier by the passage of a loud band of drunken Australian expats on their way back from a bar. The racious laughter, making it seem like, less treacherous. Without incident, I rounded a corner and came with inside of the ATM.

Glad on one level that there were no people around this little street to witness a foreigner withdrawing cash, but equally perturbed by the silence that seemed to rule this little stretch of roadway. The hum of the Khmer Rogue Aero street lights overhead seemed to strangle the honks and engine growls of neighboring streets, my footfalls sounding catastrophically loud to me in a way that I knew was imagined. I ignored my nerves and pressed into the little booth, focusing on the task at hand. Flying through the process of the withdrawal with practices urged on by the oppressive memory of the canal just up the road from where I stood, I emerged with Money Stowed safely away less than a minute later. I thought I noticed, during my paranoid scan of the roadway upon exiting

the booth, a flurry of motion in the direction of the hated canal, but there were several gargantuan rats running here and there upon the roadway, so it was easy to shrug this off as a peripheral misinterpretation. Still, I made with speed for the store, going about my business with the same level of calculated efficiency as I had in the ATM. Outside, I was momentarily distracted by the absence of the familiar dog that haunted the street corner. But even after shaking the tin of cashews, I bought, he didn't surface, and I resolved to move on. By the time I passed the canal, balancing three dangerously overfilled plastic bags on each side of me like some surf hauling grain i estimated i had better time on this final outing than any other walk i'd made in the country thus far glances to either

side of me showed nothing but the stinking cauldron of refuse below and the omnipresent thrum of engines and voices guided me safely past the water and into the home stretch of this expedition into the urban unknown it was only in the last harrowing minutes of the trip that things truly went south i arrived at my building's door, about a third of the way down an alley, which led to a little courtyard of dumpsters between the adjacent buildings and set my bags on the ground to get the door unlocked. Keys fast springing to hand. It was only after I had the door open and bent to grab the bags one more that I thought I spied a silhouette as it jerked back around the corner. My impression was of a head and shoulders rapidly withdrawn, but as I stood there in the bluish glow of the street line, staring

after movement, I wasn't certain was real. Nothing resurfaced, and I forced myself to move into the door and barred behind me. My fortress now closer than ever. My rent dropped off in typical fashion. I brushed past and up the steep stairs, turning on and off lights at each floor to show me the way through the dark, mindful not to crush gecko spending the night in the cool stairway. I rounded one corner, then the next, finally reaching the top floor apartment, and my I'm once more setting down my bags to undo the padlock and enter my hold fast, safe from the world outside. I glanced to the rooftop doorway, thankful to see no trace of movement, and brought my bags inside,

setting them right against the fridge and doubling back to lean out my door and turn off the light on the stairway. It was then that I saw it. With the light clicked off, I turned, hand on the sturdy metal door handle to close my apartment behind me, and as my eyes passed the moonlit canvas through the rooftop exit up the little stairway next to my door, I froze. Hanging from above the top of the doorway, which had been empty just a moment before, long fingers gripping the top of the doorframe like a window seal, was a noiseless, slack-jawed face with great reddish eyes not dissimilar to those of a frog,

blessedly obscured by the newly fallen darkness in the stairway. Beneath the wavering flap of skin making up its fleshy jaw, a tapering worm of pinkish sinew weaved back and forth like a snake charmer's charge. Its needle-like tip glinting with noxious spittle that dripped in moldering pools upon the tile of the stairs. The second's hesitation felt long, halted, as if played out at half-speed, But as it moved to swing itself into the stairway, I slammed shut the door in one fluid motion, the bolt being jammed into place with another. The door, forged of heavy metal and built to deter burglars, shouldn't budge, but I backed away nonetheless,

expecting some terrible clatters the thing pounced against the gatehouse of its escaped prey. Instead, silence fell. and I was left standing in my front room between the sink and the fridge. Groceries forgotten for a half hour as I listened for noises from the stairway which never came. Once I finally made myself move, I crept up to the metal door and listened. Minutes stretched on and still, no sound came. Rolenting after nearly an hour on watch by the door, I backed away. at a loss as to how I should interpret what had just happened.

All I can do in that moment was to ensure the padlock holding the bolt in place on the door was fastened and the lock set into the handle was turned. Put the groceries away and dim the lights. There were just three rooms in the apartment with the kitchen and an adjoining bathroom up front and the bedroom in the back. And it was here that I hold up for the night. The balcony door of the same. metal makeup as the front door was kept permanently locked and the bars upon the window were well

positioned and close together giving me more than enough security to feel at least mildly safe. Man, to see that thing and to convince yourself that it was partially paranoia or to, you know, to think that you'll make it to be okay and then it's found you and it's at your house, you know, in the apartment stairway. My gosh. Do you think it's only attacking him just because he saw the other murder or is it just like, I just got done feeding on that thing. It was lurking in the water looking at him. Was it just fixated on him since then, you think? I think so. There's also the implication that it's been killing other things like the dog's gone. He doesn't hear the rats and like the other noises as much. Like it's killing off life that it can strip away. And honestly,

he's not around that many people. He's one of the only lone targets still around. It's probably targeting him for that reason that he could disappear and people wouldn't notice. The night passed in silence. My mind on nothing save the rooftop doorway and that thing from the canal. Until, at long last, the sun rose and the noises of the street swelled outside, allowing me enough ease to finally find sleep. Waking that afternoon from dreams stalked by rock bathed, wraiths, and skittering rats, I immediately checked and double-checked that my rationing plan was in order,

and that my stored food could last me through the next. next four weeks. Then, stealing myself for the weight and trying my best to focus on work, I sat before my computer and pecked away at its keys, finding myself absently staring at the curtained window and pondering the streets beyond much more frequently than I'm comfortable admitting. When the sunset, stripping the thin lines of light from the edges of the curtains, I allowed paranoia to creep back in, silencing the music I had been playing and killing the loud fan in my room despite the heat, working in silence over my laptop with my ear honed for anything amiss. The first night passed peacefully. My greatest disturbance being that those fox-like screeches had

rather conspicuously disappeared from the streets outside, leaving the world beyond my curtained window, an occasionally motorbike desecrated churchyard of hushed anticipation. I planned my meal so that I did all my cooking in the front room kitchen near the stairs before the night had fallen. So the relative safety of my backroom aided me in feeling at ease while I played in my mind the image of the slinking wretch from the canal hanging from the roof. I made an effort to sleep before the following day, settling in earlier in the morning and rising later in the afternoon. That didn't stop me from feeling haggard, worn by nightfall. The days of fretting starting to catch up to me. The second night would not go so smoothly.

It was two hours past midnight when I noticed a sniffing, not dissimilar from a dog's, but pitched low like that of the black bears back home emanating from the bottom of my balcony door. It sounded once, drawing my eyes to the door in the dark, the blackness of the balcony beyond preventing me from making out any shadows cast on the small space between the door and the tiled floor. I froze and made as little sound as I could manage, ear straining for more sound. None came for 15 or 20 agonized minutes,

the air itself seeming cooler under the icy press of this terrified atmosphere. Then a tindral of glistening flesh crept in beneath the door, snaking along the tiles like a scepting. serpent. It's dark, wet form, easily visible in the darkened bedroom against the pale linoleum of the ground. The stink of the canals after a daze boiling in the sun slunk in with it, permeating the room almost as soon as I spotted the intrusion. At its tip, the familiar pointed stinger or a needle gleamed, leading its exploration of the room. From where I set upon my bed, situated in the opposite corner of the room from the door,

I inched back upon the mattress into the furthest corner, still endeavoring to make as little noise as possible. The thing on the balcony seemed to sense this, though, and the seeking tongue made its way for the bed, bringing the worst sorts of fear conjured images to mind. Fortunately for me, the length of the vial protrusion fell short, and after several moments of straining there, against the door in vain, it was withdrawn, disappearing back out into the night from

which it came and leaving a sort of slick snail trail in its wake. The Tung's owner did not depart, though, occasionally sniffing up the crevice over the next hour or so, seeing if its quarry would attempt to move. When dawn began to approach, the noises died away as the thing returned to whatever safe hideaway it kept during the sun's waking hours, and I fell into a nightmare addled sleep. continuously waking to check the balcony door and sleeping with my closed eyes honed on the entryway ready to snap open at the faintest sound this is give me you know what this is kind of remind me of a little bit is uh my dog was missing for three days or something well let me see

i had it pulled up here my dog was missing for three days oh yeah the one the one where we learned about your grandfather and your dog i don't know was that that episode yep wow uh but that one was pretty much just like the thing was lurking on the outside and like the, you know, he was like sleeping in the cabin, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. It's giving me similar vibes to this. And one thing I think it's kind of interesting is not that everybody from Kentucky is just like, oh, cryptids are real and all this kind of stuff. But I feel like there's a lot more folklore and stuff that goes into those areas that have these kind of urban legends and stuff. Oh yeah, we all grew up with ghost stories and stuff. I was wondering how that is him being like from

Kentucky in those areas, how that could have prepared him for something like this or if there was something where he's like, I don't fuck with that stuff back home or any of that. If there was any kind of translation that could happen between that culture and this one, because it is similar, just different sides of the world. Yeah, yeah. I mean, everyone has, I always say everyone. If you're like me and you grew up with like a grandfather who talked about old legends and stuff like that, because I mean, obviously there's people from there just don't care. We're not familiar with it. But growing up, I had a lot of stories. about things that go bump in the night around the woods and stuff like that.

My grandfather used to tell me about hide behinds, right? Creatures that you would see them out of your, the corner of your eye, and they would hide behind trees in the woods. And they would only kill you if you try too hard to see them, right? So if you ever see anything out the corner of your eyes, just leave it be. Just, you know, sometimes stuff happens in the woods, and you're not supposed to ask too many questions. Most people who've camped out, you know, long enough have stories of hearing really weird

sounds or coming across or seeing a glimpse of something that doesn't make a lot of sense, things like that. So if you're primed with that, you kind of have the knowledge of like, you know, sometimes things happen and you just let him be sort of thing. But he's in a unique position where the thing is happening directly to him. Well, also, I mean, just to reiterate on kind of what you're saying, like, you know, if you see something, don't, you're almost like, I'm supposed to look. And in this case, he did look and he did see. And he made eye contact with the thing, almost like that was an invitation to just be like, by the way, you're my next fucking target.

Yeah, you shouldn't have seen that kind of thing. Yeah, because no one else is out on those streets at night. If it wasn't for him being a recluse, he never would have seen that. Was the person, I guess we didn't see who was the target? That was an old man, right? So it wasn't an old man. Yeah, it was an old man. But I'm guessing it was a local, though.

It wasn't like another. No, it's just an old guy who was out there at night. And if it wasn't for him making his 2 a.m. grocery runs. then he wouldn't have seen it no one would have... The Swong would have been able to kill someone with no witnesses. Oh, is that why you said it's like a vampire's because it can't be out in the sunlight or something? I don't know if that's explicitly a part of a swang lore, but I know they come out at night.

Or is it just Lex coming out at night because there's little... Like, it's an easier time to hunt people. Yeah. Because there's fewer... I think that's typically what it is. I mean, maybe the Aswong has a detail. It can't be in sunlight. But it's at the very least a nocturnal.

predator. What is it with the fill? What do you think that what do you think? Because usually I always assume that it's maybe not necessarily exactly animals, but in terms of like the assuong, is there an animal that like maybe someone mistook it for that and then it just started that role? Well, that kind of goes back to like old questions with like cryptid origins, right? So take for example, what's a universally understood one? Serpents, right? So like every culture, every religion, somewhere in there has a great serpent or snakes have something to do with it right so that leads to the idea that either everyone saw snakes and had a natural fear of them and that did or there was an original myth or lore that got disseminated across all the other cultures and then change like

you know the north called it yormengander and it's like the world serpent or whatever but then the indians called it nalah a car something like that like the great serpent that uh covers gods and stuff like that. And then you even have like in Christianity, the devil being represented as a serpent and stuff like that. So it's like you have this core idea that finds its way across the world and different ideas. So similarly, you have a lot of different cultures that have vampire-ish things, right?

Like blood-sucking creatures that are humanoid, but always have these like kind of bat-like features and stuff like that. So it's like, does that come from an or? original myth that made its way there, or if you want to get even more kind of heady with it, there's a lot of similarities between these and like medieval depictions of demons and stuff, right? Like winged creatures, horn creatures, stuff that comes out and has caused mischief. Obviously very different in like what they do, but in appearance-wise, there's more similarities. So it could be that.

It could be like a myth that has originated and been passed around so much. or it could also be there are have been historical cultures that have been described this almost like cryptid or like monstrous aspect

that could have been other groups of people or other attackers like I forget what the Yaoi I think they're called the Yowie maybe Japanese spirits

Yawi is like gay boys I'm pretty sure yeah do you have fact check on that yeah the way you're saying it that's that's the gay boy

is that what the I'm thinking Thinking of like the big foot people in China. It's another short word like that. It may start with an H, I think. Oh, I thought you were trying to, I thought you were going to like Yoki, but maybe not. No, not though.

Yeah, because usually there's like a Yowie boy dungeon in Japan where it's like a bunch of gay twink boys. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yaron is that it, the Bigfoot people? Yes, okay. So, I like the Yowie better. Yeah, I'm sure you do. Out in Philippines, just like these little boys.

Come here. You know, I was thinking in my head, I'm like, wow, we've managed, this story has actually managed to not give Hunter an opportunity to go that way. But here we are. It's been very interesting. I will say that. Oh, I'm super into. This is cryptids told this way. I'm up my alley right now.

But the Yaron, according to old legend, it's like, I want to say in like the Chinese farmlands and stuff like that, like more coastal getting had legends of these people called the Yeran. that were these men like Bigfoot creatures up in the hills that would periodically come down and like destroy their villages and take the women. Historically there is, do what? Probably just Mongolians. Historically, there's precedents to think that these were Mongolians that were clothed in furs and stuff like that, run attack people, destroy villages.

So what story gets passed around? Tribes of hairy men that come down and attack people and stuff like that. Well, it's always a game of telephone, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. It's always the thing where it's like, definitely the first guy was just like, yeah, it was a fucking Mongolian guy come down and took my wife. The next guy is just like, yeah, this fucking bastard monster game. Some hairy, some hairy dude came down. Across however many people and generations, of course, it's going to be something where it's just like the people up in the mountains, whatever.

Yeah, that guy. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So similarly, with like a swang and something like that, especially in the Philippines where there were so many different groups who had power at one point of the other. And there were explorers from like Asia that were coming and attacking and stuff. there is precedence to say maybe legends like the Aswong, these blood-sucking killers that come out of the night and attack you could have been like a foreign invader or something like that, right?

So it's either like an original myth because there is like characteristic similarities to other myths, or it could have been like a group of people that had these like evil traits attached to them because of what they did to the locals, stuff like that. So it's probably one of those two. The other option is that there are actual vampires in the Philippines that just kill people. That'd be so sick, though. I mean, that is the cooler option. That is the much cooler option. That's one of the reasons I like crypted so much

because like everything has a story, right? It's not like someone in the modern age set around as like, hmm, what if there was? A vampire snake thing. And then everyone's like, oh, let's write all these fake stories. Normally these things will date back like hundreds of years with people telling tales and stuff. And you can almost trace the game of telephone

to see where it might have come from. or how different ideas influence different cultures from different regions. And through the monsters they talk about, it kind of paints a story of the people who tell them. Because what was the fear of like, you know, the Filipino farmer for some time, something getting them in the middle of the night. So the culture kind of matches that.

Whereas you take, you know, the Chinese farmer who's worried about Mongolian attack, and now there's like tribes of hairy bigfoot men that come in a tank. Well, what is just the cultural fear, you know, of that time and they're going to manifest that? that's even like that that that still resonates even today with stuff of even like the 50s where it was like or like 50 60 space ray stuff so aliens is a big thing 80s with the air with this uh AIDS crisis and stuff you're going to see a lot more vampire stuff with blood all that kind of shit It's all relevant to what is happening culturally in the signs of the times. The monsters you make that are kind of these extrapolations off the things you are afraid of.

And that's where why a lot of the crypts, especially the old ones are things that go bump in the night, things that kill you. Now a lot of our fears are more abstract. It's around technology. It's around like crowds. It's around mass hysteria, stuff like that. Like we're doing the same thing. We've just done it more often. and so the ideas are a bit more refined

and a bit more abstract. Because now, like, America, modern age, we don't have to worry that much about, like, running out of food or being attacked by, like, or the cold killing us or something like that. But all those old legends did. They'll relate to that in some way. Whereas now, our greatest fears are around, like,

what can technology do in positions? Yeah, I also think there's a huge push for, like, nostalgic. There's a lot of, like, there's a lot of things for the technical, the technological side, think it's just about how people are like communicating with each other, which is also why I think like obsession was so fucking vague, because people have had those awkward interactions and stuff before. Well, I mean, take backrooms. Like you were saying with nostalgia, the thing that attracts so many people to backrooms is at a glimpse, it's vaguely familiar. Like, it's a part in your memory,

you're kind of spacing out, but there's something uncanny about it. And then I think Kane has really taken that idea to its highest precedence at making it like a manifestation of what was. Right. So in a way, the backrooms and like the idea around that is almost the same crypted mindset of us extrapolating our own like angst and fears and stuff into an embodiment. I am curious to see with a, which I mean, we've been under surveillance for a long time, obviously. But I am curious with how prevalent it is now with the flock cameras and everything. Even like the data centers, all that kind of shit. I'm curious to see how a generation grows up with that and transcribes that into something fucking, you know, probably like a big brother kind of thing of always being watched and all that kind of stuff.

There's been some media, but you know. There's been some media. And what's also interesting is, you know, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I mean, since Orwell, right? We've been talking about the big brother, literally big brother. And like these overwhelming leaders that like need to know what everyone's doing and like the level of control and stuff. Like those exasperations were there. And now we see them coming back into prominence as those become our fears again.

But I also just think it's so interesting how anytime something does go bad or like almost culturally this zeitgeist, like a spirit of a certain kind of unease starts to settle over us. Give it a few years, you'll start to see art that portrays that. Do you think that it's going to be something that manifests itself as, do you think that like obviously the thing back in the day with this, with an, what was it called again, an a swang? A swung. or a swan that's going to be a monster because it's like folk tale and their superstition

and like those kind of things and people are also like that's real. It's a real thing that can happen versus now obviously people are going to be like that there's monsters aren't real. Do you think that's going to continue

to be something that's more realized or more real of like a man in a suit versus something where somebody takes a idea of being surveying, like a surveillance thing and transcribing that into like an entity

or something that you know, monster-esque, like, you know what I mean? Like, creating a swung off of these newfound fears, or is it going to be more grounded, you think, still, in the idea of it just being like a fucking guy in a suit or like somebody, you would be like, this is somebody

who's in power over me, blah, blah, blah. I think what's interesting about the modern age and really the last hundred years that, I say, yeah, I would say has been unprecedented in history before it is the level of record keeping we have with everything, right?

So take for example Christian Okay not taking that I mean A heavily documented thing That is an example Sadly of what That was actually an earnest attempt to me

For me to actually bridge that But I see where you're going now And yes But like take like an old thing For like the original werewolves Sure right Um We have no idea

Exactly where that started Right like a wolf man hybrid killing people right But we see when the stories start to crop up and stuff like that, right? And were there cultures that taught and told stories of like actual Wolfman in the woods? Sure, absolutely. But these are all stories too.

Like as much as I talk about like growing up in Appalachia hide behinds and like things that go bump with the night, I know they're not real, obviously. But I also understand that those stories came from places where the idea of them was might as well be real. right there's things in the woods you let the woods pass sometimes stuff like that and the the hide behind's like an embodiment of that so it's like the beginning of it's kind of nebulous it just started getting talked around and to the people who began the legend they probably i mean the guy who made up the story knew he was making up a story right it's the funniest thing to think back in the day that like grim fairy tales or anything like that like a war wolf man was some guy who probably told his kid i wanted to scare him so bad to he never goes in the woods. Yes. Or whatever. So he doesn't drown

in a fucking creek or something. So he's just like, by the way, there's a seven foot tall. Made to fit a need of the time. There's a, there's a fucking seven foot tall wolf guy in the woods. He will kill you.

He will kill you. What? And then you take that as fact. He never debunks it. Because I bet you 100% they went their whole life too. Was it real? Oh yeah. Oh,

of course. Even when they're older. Oh, absolutely. So now you're going to pass that down. Did you ever see it? I think I might have saw it once or whatever. Saw him one time.

Exactly. Yeah. that people were just doing this as like basically just stories to prevent to scare you from doing X or you know just be like you remember that's why you shouldn't lie or like that kind of stuff yeah but the guy who started that story knew he was making up a story but for the generations after it became a legend like everything else did but take for example the last hundred years and like you said Christian right now every second of our lives from the inception of a story to everything we do with it is documented right so if today i start telling my kids the story

and I start telling like the internet, the world at largest story about a creature I make up, there's a fixed beginning point with that, right? And people know it was a story. So I feel like now because of how much information we have, a boogeyman can't really exist in the same context. Like even the backroom's image, right? We know exactly where that image started. We know now it was a hobby town and where it was and all that stuff. And it takes some of the mystique off of it, right, of it being this other place. Even something like that has like a consensus around, the framing of it. Whereas back in the day, these legends just started to appear out of cultures. So maybe they thought it was real. Maybe it was a story. Maybe it's somewhere in between.

Maybe it was based off real things that were happening and they extrapolated to it. But then in the modern age, because everything is so finite, I feel like if we were to take our modern aspirations and like you said, make them into a man, it would be too clear that it's just wearing sheepskin, right? Like it is it? Well, would it be too, would it be like the sheepskin as like Peter Thiel. Yeah. Would it embody a person? Like Woods, which is actually fucking horrifying.

Yeah. If you think about Sam Altman just being in your fucking room at night. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that's scary. Yeah, get out of my room, Sam. But like, so say there, say there is to create like a monster or something that was like the embodiment of Peter Thiel. Whereas, which is a funny idea.

Whereas back in the day, that legend would live on its own. Now forever, people are like, oh, yeah, that's the thing based on Peter Thiel. Stealing your kids. Which I would do. Not far off from the truth. Not above it. He'll at least watch him through a camera that for some reason,

every local government in the planet decides to adopt at the same time. But that story would forever be known for what it was. It couldn't have this cloak of mystique over it, I think, in the modern age. Now, can we still tell effective stories, obviously?

And we can still, like, make these kind of representations of them that are more far-fetched and out there. But I don't think, like in a swan, Wong, it would ever pass as real. No, well, yeah, no. Yeah.

Whereas these old legends could. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Interesting thought. Sorry. Yeah. No, I think, I think that's cool. Again, if you want a reading of these stories, you can find them somewhere else. That is true.

That afternoon, still at a loss as to how I would report such an invasion without being accused of lunacy, I took my defense into my own hands. I went about fortifying my position against this new threat. setting my suitcase against the door to obscure the crevice at the base and weighing it down with filled water bottles and Tupperware to add bulk covering these with shoes, clothes, spare cutlery, and anything else I could find that I felt would hinder the interlober. With perhaps 70 pounds crammed into the suitcase,

my mind could sit a little easier. The next few nights, the thing continued its visits. But, with its tongue rebuffed by the suitcase, its probing was limited to sniffing at the door. By the end of the first week, the stalker from the canal seemed to have moved on, with those familiar fox-like noises I had begun to attach to its jawless visage resuming their serenade out on the streets of the city,

echoing to my ears now and then. Days returned to normal, my paranoia gradually receding as first one week, then another was passed in relative peace. It was not to last, though. During my final week in the apartment, my nocturnal caller would pay me one last unexpected visit. Though my nights had become less dreadful, that did not mean I had grown careless. Always, I endeavored to have my lights dimmed to my apartment silenced by sunset. To have any food or water

I plan to consume during the night, squirled away next to my bed, and to get any necessary trips to the bathroom out of the way while the sunlight still shone on the roof above. That evening, I decided to shower before the night confined me to my back room, beginning around six, while the sunset had yet to deepen the hues of the horizon beyond my walls. With nights being passed without air conditioning to better acquaint my ears with the world outside the window, I valued going into what I knew would be an uncomfortably humid night, clean, and relaxed. I'd only been in the bathroom for three or four minutes, eyes closed against the water, when the fan mounted on the wall of the little space halted. It's sudden silence, oddly deafening. With power outage as common

in Phnom Pen, I fast shook away the water and backed out of the stream from the inexpensive wall-mounted water heating system on the wall, expecting my eyes to find the bathroom dark and anticipating a drop in water temperature after the loss of electricity. The cramped space. to my surprise, was still lit. Oh, it's found a way. It's found a way into his fan. Oh, no. The building was old, and I am fortunate that in the moment I didn't just ignore the halted fan go about my business.

Perhaps, even if I didn't consciously associate the stairs with the fan at the moment, I reflexively recalled on some deeper level how close the fan set into the wall was on the stairway walls outside to the rooftop doorway, where just one month ago, some unknown wretch had rithed its search for a new feast. My real salvation, however, was that wretched stink from the canals, reaching my nose and putting my heart into a ragged sprint. I looked to my right, eyes finding the small, dust-choked fan in the wall, and what I saw there sent me stumbling out the bathroom door and slamming it behind me with the water still running. It would stay that way for nearly two days,

only being switched off when my landlady walked upstairs one morning to complain about how much water I must be using. Hanging there, twitching and thrashing in an attempt to force its way through the small opening between the plastic fan blades, was the familiar sheen of that needle-like proboscis. Its bulk, having stopped the fan cold, while its owner hung latched to the wall of the stairway outside, like some twisted vampiric tree frog.

Invisible to me, save for that insectile, otherworldly tongue. Eventually, my departure date arrived, and I'd long worried that I would exit my apartment with suitcase and wallet in hand for my final walk down the precarious stairs to collect my security deposit and make for the airport only to find my unwanted visitor clinging to the stairway roof

in protest to the sunlight outside, ready to finish the job. No such tears came to pass. I arrived home about 24 hours after walking out the door for the final time, staying with friends until I could secure my own place, having survived that otherworldly visitor on the stairway. I have never, in several years spent pondering the events since, been able to piece together what that thing I saw beside the canal could have been,

or why it had such a fascination with me after my chance encounter with it on the rat-stalk streets of Phnom Pen. No major news, official or unofficial, out of the Cambodian capital, has commented on any strange disappearances or sightings, save a blog post I stumbled on one day by an animal shelter in the city, celebrating the sudden drop in the stray population in Phnom Pen, which I couldn't help but lay at the feet or tail, as the case may be, of a much more sinister presence

than increase civic awareness. Perhaps it was several entities. Stalking being not a symptom of singular awareness, but rather of a hungry and growing population. I find this hard to believe, though. For the number of missing exsinguinated vagrants and night workers would be monumental. Equally hard to believe is the explanation of hallucinatory paranoia.

For as comforting as it would be for me to sit here safe in the knowledge that no threat had ever been posed by the sniffing at my door and the snaking tongue warming its way through the fan. I have never in any period of stress or isolation since had any analogous experience,

whether waking or sleeping. Rather, I've been forced to accept the possibility that heavy as it weighs on my mind and disastrous as it is to my worldview, there's something monstrous, stalking the canals,

alleys and rooftops of nocturnal Phnom Pen. Mostly, perhaps, in feast on dogs, rats, cats, and chickens as it claws its way through the trash and across deserted streets. But occasionally, as I obsessively scroll through news feeds and blog entries made from Phenompen in the dark of particularly solitary nights, I stumbled across a story about declining homeless popular. in Cambodia's capital, praising the uplifting grace of this or that government or nonprofit initiative. And I'm inclined to wonder how often someone lying drunk or battered on the roads to sleep is dragged down to the waters of the canals never to surface again.

That is the lurker on the stairway. You know, I think I really like, like we said earlier, we read a story called the Seer of Possibly. possibilities, uh, similar characters, completely done differently. What I liked about this character and this story is a guy who's like, a bit of a loner,

disinterested in a lot of the world or the area around him, gets a helpful tip from a girl that he knows and she's just like, this is a really cheap thing that you can do, go experience some new shit and live. Kind of like a lot, you know, you won't even be able to speak with people because you don't speak the language. Yeah. It's kind of a dream.

Um, the guy is like, well put together. He's like, it seems like what I like about this thing is the way that he describes things is like, it's almost as if he's like meticulously thought about every single thing that is like going on or is going to be or it has happened before to where it really builds that level of paranoia pretty well with this idea that there's like a creature out there and trying to come to terms with it, even though you can tell that he's like in my rationalized brain, I definitely know what I saw. It almost reads like a confession. Yeah. Like you tried to deny this for years.

and he can't anymore. So he puts everything to paper. To me, I thought it sounded like a fucking college paper. The way that he's writing, it almost feels like a thesis or something about being like, it feels almost like that analytical or like that like, well, that's what I was talking about like it reminds me

a lot of the old explore stuff. They would write manuscripts about like the things they came across. And it almost reads like one of those, like an early voyage into the Congo or something. As a, as a guy who is from Kentucky, going across to Cambodia to do this thing,

do you think that the monster is supposed to symbolize something that is this, is it supposed to be challenging his worldview of being like this loner or this disinterested thing? Because at first I was wondering if it was trying to be like

an embodied, like, if this was an HP Lovecraft thing coming from a guy who was like just a racist dude who was just like, I'm afraid of all these other people. So these like aliens and stuff are these like Cthulul and all that kind of stuff.

It's all manifested from things that he doesn't understand and that he's afraid of of that unknown, different cultures and all that kind of stuff. The other. Yeah. And that's why I'm wondering with this, is that swang supposed to be something to this guy? Because it just, because

with how, it's a very, I mean, beautifully written story. It's concise. I'm just, I feel like there's like a misconnection, unless the guy, unless it was just an experience of being like, I just want to make a story about a swang. Which could very well be it. But I honestly think, especially considering he lives in the end.

And he talks about this year's later. And like, I said it almost feels like he's confessing this like inner, almost like a bad dream he had that he can't shake. I think all of that prep on the front end talking about how he is afraid of interacting with others and how he came here to get away from people. And living that level of a recluse for so long made the monster manifest itself.

A monster that mind you solely preys on things that people won't miss. Right. Things that can get away with. True. Like, to the degree that the locals are like, oh, there's a lot less strays and homeless. Like, that's how good it is at taking away people that and living creatures. That's a good interesting thought. So him becoming that next prey item, I feel like is the narrative sort of screaming at him that if he wants to be forgotten.

Yeah. He will be forgotten. No, it's true. I do like that you're, I think that's a really smart. That's like a really, that's a really interesting, I think. take away from this that and maybe something that could have been reinforced in the narrative or something of like

like the idea of him walking away and he sees the thing on top of the roof being like damn you like walking away because he can't chase after it it would have been interesting if you have a thing at the beginning you've done a really good job being like I'm fucking I just don't like people I don't really need people I like being a loner even the way that he interacts his like social hours

or his like actual going out and about is all nocturnal when no one else is up to where is there something where maybe later on the story he had to rely on somebody out of his own like he fucking hates it maybe he doesn't even like the guy he befriends somebody and that's the thing that like at the end of the story what's it say he goes back home and stays with friends something he'd be super removed from I guess it would be nice to have it being Cambodia though would be interesting something where uh he he learns from that thing to where then he takes it back with him well even then I think that is kind

of what happened because he leaves because he's like you know what means more to me than my friends and family, low rent. So I'm going to go to a place where I can't make any friends. I don't even speak the language. I'm going to work on my laptop. And he comes back and now he's staying with friends. I think that is kind of like he went out there, realized like, if I want to be a loner, I'm going to be forgotten. And I'm going to be preyed upon by the thing that takes lonely things. Right. So when I come back, I am going to stay with friends. I'm going to be with people. I'm a changed man. It definitely makes it feel like his character arc is definitely somebody who's just like, I'd rather be by myself, whatever, to somebody who's like probably good to be around people.

Yeah. It does feel like a full character moment of like an actual character arc or growth of this guy happening. I just do, I do almost wish that something like that would have been tantalized or it would have materialized in Cambodia or him trying to interact with somebody. It's like almost coming to a realization or finding out that thing, but you're not even,

you're not even able to talk to the guy because they don't speak the same language. That would have just been a fun character dynamic between those things. I think too Another thing I liked is He tried all of his steps To make the thing go away Like oh I'll put heavy stuff by the door Oh I'm going to shut the bathroom for two days

Because it was trying to get through Isolation did not stop it Like sure it didn't get to him And he slowed it down But him just staying in his room Was exactly what it wanted He's more and more like Well I just back into a corner

He can't get out And it also makes him smell fucking sweeter or whatever. Like it makes him even more tantalizing. His paranoia and his loneliness, retreating into that did not help. What helped was leaving. You know what I thought it was going to be is I thought that there was going to be a full turnaround with the shopkeeper that he like,

he gives him the specific amount every time. And it's like, kind of like, all right, see ya. It's like his only interaction with somebody. I didn't know if that was going to come back around. I could,

I could, I would say that addition could have worked. Yeah. Like even something as minor is like accepting the companionship of a person, even if you don't know the language. It is cool. I mean, like, listen, what you're saying is correct. I do think that that's the end goal is like he comes back and he's like staying with people super out of his character. And it's based on a fear now. And it is like this kind of thing of like, hey, you better have fucking buddies in your life or else this fucking entity. You know, when things go wrong, it's better to have people in your life versus being a loner and have to face those things alone. It's almost like a Christmas Carol thing. In a way, it is. Is this the future that will be or might be? I think it works, though. I think that's the only thing is like it would have been cool to see some kind of big altercation, whatever he learns this thing.

And then when he goes back, it's even more solidified by him being like, yep, I got a roommate now. I'm doing whatever, you know. I think that like it's a fun thought at the end. I just, just as food for, I mean, like, whatever. Just for the sake of conversation. It would have been fun to see that. This is a story that I think deserves that level of eye for sure.

Like what you're doing right now talking about, like, well, this theme, how does that connect to that? This story is certainly in the caliber that it is playing with those things. It's not like we're going to Jeff the killer and being like, what's his theme? What's his whole deal? No, I mean, it's written well enough to where I do think you're right. It's like a grimed fairy tale of like it's trying to tell you. It's trying to give you this thing of this like life lesson.

Like isolation will let the monsters. And all I'm saying is that the, the in product being that like it's feeding on things that are isolated themselves. And I mean, I think that's like, I think that's. perfectly. I think that's exactly what's happening. But I love the idea of then you've gone to the farthest ends of the earth, whatever, and then you kind of come to this realization and you can't talk to anybody. Yeah. You don't speak. You can't interact or even like have that barrier with anybody. And it makes it even more impossible, I think is what I think that would have been, now that you say it that way, and I think I get what you're saying, yeah, that would have been hot to have to have a moment

where he is desperate for something, but he's in a place where he can't do anything about it. reach out or even trying to like make connections to the people and the people are given him the kind of maybe the cold shoulder too or even just this thing of like using a fucking app to try to talk to someone or whatever and it's just a very menacing position to find yourself in yeah yeah and even a thing too of like maybe he's affected by it and then like the locals know about this fucking thing so then whenever he's marked or whatever people are like get the fuck away from me yeah like i don't know i don't want you near me or whatever like his you know like almost like at the beginning i kept picturing like a shana the dead thing where he's going through his routine, he's like walking to the store,

Bing, Bong, and then later he wakes up and that's his zomification, but he doesn't even notice because it's like he's just so muscle memory with everything. The guy going through at the beginning and he has all of his normal routines with the store and everything, him going through with like the guy pays, whatever. It's like all those things become disrupted once people kind of get a sense of like, oh shit, you're fucking,

you're Mark now. Fuck that. Yeah. Even if it's something as easy as like he's, because he hasn't been showering, like some physical attribute of like he's a pariah now, which would speak. Because like, not to say this,

because the aswong is definitely real, but you can almost imagine the assuang is like his own manifestation of like his paranoid, which I don't think the story is saying that. But that is how personal his haunting is. Like it's messing with him and stuff like that. So you could even have like the consequences of his loneliness come off as something as physical as like he hasn't shown.

showered or something like that. Something to push others back. The now when he is seeking help, he can't find it. You could also probably go in an angle. I mean, this doesn't necessarily, I'm not saying that this is a, everything I'm saying, I like it, because I know I definitely don't want it to be like,

it would have been better if this. That's definitely not the case. It's just, it's a really good story. We got done. I'm just kind of throwing shit out there, but I am wondering if there's something where because of an isolation thing,

you become X, forced into isolation or like putting yourself into isolation, becoming a swung. or something or being bit by it and you slowly become it or just whatever it's like you kind of be you manifest yourself into the monster of the circumstances you put yourself in yeah it's another way that could have been but once again i i always like i could tell i'm interested in a story whenever there's like all these different other ideas and stuff and this was one another one of the stories that was just

so very quick boom boom i did like that it was uh almost like the last month we got to be in his in his like six months stay. Once the isolation is really set in. Yeah. Once the isolation set in and it's also like you're just right there versus it being something where it's like, okay, well, I have it over six months. Because that also too, and I think that because earlier I was like, why would you stay? But it's also another thing where it's like if it's good and you're like right at the finish line, you probably would just be like, I'm just going to fucking stick it out. Well, I was thinking about at the end where he's like hold up in there and he's got two days left and it's like he tries to get in through the vent. It's like, I don't even know if he could get out of the country in two

days. Like what's the process of like getting a plane ticket and traveling to the airport? Well, so I don't want to go outside. I don't even want like if I don't have to leave to whatever. I don't want to have to. Yeah, my tickets in 48 hours just got to stick it out there. So it makes it a believable circumstance. With the dog missing in three days and almost like this also slightly reminded me just of somebody we've, we've, there was a period of time when we first started the show. Fuck now, almost three years ago when it was a lot of stuff of people trapped in a cabin of some kind. That was that was a lot. There was a series of stores we'd where people stuck in a cabin or somewhere, like, isolated in a house. And that's why I was, like, kind of reminiscent on the dog missing for three days, stolen tongues, even Gregory 88, whatever, of like a guy in like a house out of nowhere, whatever. Do you, were you happy with the amount of like, or like, not happy? Like, did you enjoy the amount of like this, of the monster being in it?

Or do you kind of wish that there was more to more to it? I think it depends. The tongue thing was fine. I guess I don't know why. Part of me is just I wish that there was just, something, and I don't know what the answer is to that, but I... I think it was about all you could show if you don't want to either, A, have a direct confrontation,

by confrontation, I mean, like an action set piece. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, B, make the creature less threatening, like it just stands there and looks at him or something like that. Because every time we see it, it is trying to kill him, right? It is right there, it's going to get to... I think that's the problem is that it was an aggressive sniff. like a rabid animal, which is cool.

But I think some of the other things that we have seen before is like the psychological element of like waking up and you're like something's been in my fucking house or whatever. Is it prepping him? Is it doing something that it's like fucking with the psychological aspects of this thing versus just being like, like tail coming? I think it's like, I think it's just stalking him like a predator because he sees it kill another person. And then it follows him to his house and it's hanging over the doorway. So now it knows where he lives.

That fucked me up too because there's like so many times where snakes will be wrapped up and Be like wrapped up in your door like when if you open your door and then the snake like falls down whatever My actual fucking nightmare. I forget how much you hate snakes. It's so funny And then it tries to get in through the patio so he bricks that up boards it off and then it tries to get in through the bathroom The one room he has that is not connected to the main house and he just shuts up the bathroom So the only thing left would be it gets to him or there's some kind of I do think you could have an action sequence in this. And I think that maybe not so much like wrestling.

But I love the idea of a character who wants isolation completely barricades himself inside of his apartment. And the thing breaks in and now he has to like rip the things off and actually get out. Yeah. I think that's like that. That could have worked. Yeah. I can see that work. It's something like that where now it's there and he has to leave.

Maybe on the final night or something. I think it's really cool though. I mean, I don't have that. And then he runs to the shopkeeper. Yeah. Just just something. You know, just a setup, you set up at the beginning to be paid off later.

It might have been cool. I still think that there, I think it was intentional to make a guy from Kentucky that goes to another place that has a crypted kind of thing. Yeah. I don't know why, but I like the idea of a Western that goes to an Eastern culture. That's a very, you know that old legend. I was waiting for you in, is it Arcadia? Arcadia, ergo. The old story about death, you know the one I'm talking about.

The man, there was. I'm going to make up the city names because I can't remember where the actual city names are but in the ancient times the man was in Jerusalem and while walking through the shops he looked through the crowd

and saw death the grim reaper standing there and the grim reaper looked at him and was surprised he had a shocked face so of course the man freaks out he gets on horseback and he rides and rides through the desert he loses that horse gets another one rides as far as he can till that night he's in Arcadia.

When he gets off the horse in Arcadia, death is standing there again. At this point, the man's too tired to run. So he goes up to death and says, I'll go with you willingly. I just have one question. Why, when I saw you in Jerusalem, did you look surprised?

And Death said, because I had an appointment with you tonight in Arcadia. So it's like by running and trying to get away, you come across the thing that, you know, you were trying to get away from. So my joke was Appalachian leaves Appalachia finds crypted in Cambodia. I think it's like fucking Moth Man or like Bigfoot. It's like in Cambodia like,

no way. I know you. Yeah. I'm going to kill you tomorrow. Yeah. Actually the Arcadia ergo thing's different. That's from Greek mythology. Whatever the cities are,

the in-death thing, which also that story kind of applies the same thing of like, he felt like he was trapped and didn't have people. So he's like, I'm going to go to this other part of the world where I can live with that. And he comes across the thing that he is kind of the manifestation and the consequence of him pushing other people away from so long. He comes across it while trying to find like an isolation. He's cool with. I like that this ended up being like a nice folklore, cryptid kind of episode.

It's using the folklore, like, again, on the surface, guy meets vampire in Cambodia. But it's using that. to tell a much bigger thing in its themes rather than just the crypted. But on the surface, it is just a crypted. And I think that's really cool. As a, I have a question. I hesitate to use this word as an Asian man, but is this the most exotic place we've been trapped in in a story of creepcast?

As an Asian man. I was kind of curious about that, too. Have we had any other Asian country besides what we did Japanese? But in terms of like an actual, what I liked about this one though was I mean it's it's like present day Cambodia but it's like a guy basically just stuck in a Cambodian apartment

right kind of slummy Cambodia right which my whole time I was Red Light District kind of idea the whole time I kept thinking about I'm like oh fuck are we going to go out into the woods or something or like the Cambodian jungle is just such a you know fucking crazy place but I like that it kind of stuck into like a concrete jungle

vibe that he kept talking about it was still and there's like something that was familiar to him about it, but still so kind of alien-like, so different. It might be. Have we, I feel like we've done a story in Africa, like African jungle. I may be confusing that with stuff I've read.

Well, we did the breathless story that kind of manifests like a woolly mammoth getting hunted, is maybe what you're thinking. But I don't think we've done the full-on Africa with a human narrator. Now, I mean, a bunch of Lovecraft stuff does, or it's like Southeast Asian or something like that. He comes across.

That's probably what I'm thinking of. but yeah, it probably is the most exotic one we've done. I'll tell you what would be interesting, though, and this might be something that I look into in future episodes, is like taking like maybe a Cambodian short horror story writer, or seeing if there is something from those parts of the world that do have done a creepy pasta thing and having them talk about it as normally as like some fucking kid

from the Midwest would about his creepy pasta, talking about like, you know, my girlfriend's on Facebook or whatever. Is there an equivalent to that that's happening in Cambodia that just is a little different just because culturally it's so much different? I think it would be more akin to like someone from the PNW talking about Bigfoot kind of thing, right? Because I feel like now this kind of goes back to what I was talking about earlier with like just the way modern culture is. Everyone around the world who has access to the internet relates to the Facebook stories and the stuff online. Yeah, because everyone has it.

Everyone has it. But like say you've got me in Appalachia talking about a hide behind or mothman or whatever, right? I'm sure there are cultural equivalents of that in other countries. I always just think the slight differences are fascinating. That's like some of my favorite parts about even late reading like Japanese horror manga, whether it's, you know, Jinji Ito or like Kazu Mez or whatever. It's just like it's all kids hanging out, but it's just culturally a little different. Yeah.

You know, but there's just like these little subtleties that are different that kind of make it a little more like intriguing to me because I'm like, that's just, it's just a little more fascinating. Like with Edo stuff, you'll be a lot of his stories are said around like high school age kids. And you get the vibe. You can understand the dynamic and the friendships. But it will just be, as an American reader, it's just a little bit alien enough that it kind of sets you apart,

especially in Uzumaki, where you spend so much time with those characters there. It places you just enough on the back foot where, like, I'm somewhere else now. And with Edo's work specifically, where everything's very cosmic, I think it adds to the delivery of it. But I'm sure if you were to look,

I'm trying to think of examples, but they're escaping me right now. I'm sure if you did the same thing in a modern age with writers talking about their own legends around the world, it'd have a similar effect, I would say. I actually wonder, here's a question to post to the audience, because I know we have a bunch of foreign listeners and stuff like that. Do they get some of that from the stories we read? You know? Like when we read Edo and we see it's a little different and it kind of adds to like not really the uneasiness,

but like the difference in it, I wonder if, which I'd say they would, foreign listeners get that from American stories. Yeah, I always wonder that too. If it's stuff like, I don't know, like lonely broadcast tower. Yeah. These things where I'm like in my mind, it's so North American,

does that kind of set up feel fantastical or fun? Yeah. Somebody who isn't just like, oh yeah, I feel like I've been to that place or whatever. Which, to be fair, fucking America is huge. So there's somebody who's on the East Coast

who hears something West Coast and they're probably like, whoa, and vice versa. Yeah. But I would hope so. I think that that would be a fun part of it Because that's just the... All of our Cambodian listeners sign off.

Yeah. Show up the... Editor, put up a percentage right now of how many Cambodian listeners we have. It's got to be less than a percent, right? How dare you? It has to be. It has to be.

How dare you? The only one... We have like 12 countries that are 1% or higher. And number 12's like, the Netherlands. All right. We've got to get the Netherlands numbers up. I remember we did this one time for fun. And we had a high listeners ship in comparatively. Japan.

And it was like... Australia. other than English speaking. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Like you had, yeah, because it was like UK, Canada, Australia stuff. But it was Japan and there was one that I was like, really? It was like, I want to say it was like Egypt or something.

It's like, oh, okay. Well, all of our Egyptian listeners out there. I don't know. It's always fascinating. It's just, it's the same shit of like Americans watching like a mummy movie. Yeah. Egypt. You know the same way versus I'm sure people in Egypt are just like, I know, it's cool, I guess.

I always wonder about that. But anyways, that's our episode today, guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. And once again, because you did such a great job, Stiggin Saga's on YouTube, his website. Yeah, please. I would love to read another one of his stories. That was so good. I would love to read a long, like a novel science thing would be fucking sick.

And we'll have all those links in the description stuff. And we'll probably even put like a little end card or something up just to go to a channel since we don't cover anybody who has just a full-fledged YouTube channel. Yeah. So we'll put that in the description as well. So please go check out their stuff. If you like what you heard today, give me in like it seems like they have a plethora of content there. And they're not, you know, probably breaking every three seconds to talk about some random bullshit.

So, you know, that's nice too. So thank you so much. If you want to support the channel, you want a little extra content, feel free to head over to patreon.com slash creepcast. Or if you've been listening to us on audio platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcast, be sure to give us a nice raining. It does help us out.

Until next time, guys, stay creeped. The snake vampire thing will come and kill you and smells really bad. So if you don't talk to that girl you like, you're going to die. Remember that. But if you do talk to her, she's going to get by an 18. It's really a loose-loose situation.