CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "An Exploration into Liminal Spaces" Creepypasta

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

CREEPYPASTA STORY►by Darkly_Gathers: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comm...Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO-SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd...iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS-►"Good Places to Start"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7YCb...►"Personal Favourites"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEa2R...►"Written by me"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX6RA...►"Long Stories"- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...FOLLOW ME ON-►Twitter: https://twitter.com/Creeps_McPasta►Instagram: https://instagram.com/creepsmcpasta/►Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/creepsmcpasta►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CreepsMcPastaCREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪-This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only-

If you have some time, please allow yourself to look at these images. Let them wash over you and take a moment to consider how they make you feel. These are liminal spaces. A liminal space can be defined as the physical spaces between one destination and the next. Different for us all, but always vaguely familiar, yet foreign. They are the bridges between the world that we know and the plains. beyond, beyond and between. An airport after dark perhaps,

picture it in your mind's eye. The escalators have been switched off and the restaurants are shuttered away. Your footsteps make gentle clacks against the cold ground as you walk. Soft lights blink in the distance and beyond the thick glass of the wide windows is nothing, only black.

Consider an arcade glistening in the gloom, the colors of the game's flashed right, but you do not recognise a single one. There are no people, and there is no sound. There are no windows here either. Not this time. Only doors.

Only simply patterned wallpaper and there are endless labyrinth walls. Step into your school in the shadows of night. The corridors are empty, and they are longer than you remember them being. The layout is not quite right to realize. There are staircases and places there shouldn't be. The electrics are all turned off, but there's an impossible level of light that hangs thick and heavy in the air all the same. They number in their thousands of these places, and the other gateways. I am sure of this now.

We've all seen them, we've passed them by, we've tight-worked the threshold in our dreams, the backward shadows, the other sides, and the twisted lines that run between the gaps. There is one in particular that always rests in the back of my own mind. It comes to me in my dreams, this space. I think on it between the findings and my obsessive explorations, my research. It comes to me, bizarrely, as a gift shop. The dreams very little. I am always a child again as I wonder the gift shop's aisles, wide-eyed and staring.

The shelves tower up to the eye. artificial light to the indiscernible ceiling above. They stretch out far in all directions. They are full of toys from my childhood. Things I wanted but could either never afford or could never find. Some of these objects around me do not actually exist. When I wake, I struggle to remember precisely what they were, only that they were precious, mystical even.

And there is never enough time. Never enough time to see it all. and of course I can never take anything back with me I never see doors for an exit or an entrance for that matter but I know there is one I know it inherently

this place exists somewhere I'm sure of it and part of me will always long to know where it would lead where I to pass through its elusive exit doors I rub a hand across my forehead as the winds blow cold across the evening fields

clouds rumbled softly overhead they gather in the sky as they do my mind and I look to her to Evangeline There were lots of us at the beginning And now there is only her and I I love you she says I love you too

I reply Everything's going to be okay She says as I hold her in my hands A smile dances in her eye And I return a quick sad smile of my own sure i say as the wind shivers across my skin the field we find ourselves in is now one of many the wheat comes up to my knees and stretches out far in most directions

in the distance so i left is a line of shadowed trees up ahead are a series of low hills rising steadily to mountains as they grow this is where we're going now if i can just some of the will to keep on going Not just yet, just a minute or two, I just need a minute. I sit down with Evangeline amongst the wheat with a weary sigh. Do you remember? I begin softly, reminiscing for its own sake. When we first set out on our own and away from the group,

we were only taking a detour, just a quick change of plans, but it took us a whole week to find them again. Do you remember? She grinned at me, and I keep a kid. Keep talking. The night we found our first liminal space as a duo and the monster inside. I can picture it as clearly as if it were yesterday. Allow me, if you would, to try and paint it for you with words.

And please forgive my disoriented narrative. It flows as the thoughts come to me. I can only apologise. So, picture this place, listener, and picture it well. A McDonald's restaurant, long abandoned, sits alone out there in the desert. It squats in an ever-present, sickly warmth, and the road is empty of cars as we approach. Evangeline and I. Our team is, for now, scattered, and they are not central to this story.

I carry with me a journal of my interactions with the people and places, monsters and mayhem, are the liminal spaces we have found so far. They are pieces of a much larger and much greater puzzle And our work continues The trail has led us here to the outskirts of civilization I'm not sure about this Evangeline mutters in a low voice upon our approach This one feels different to the others

It is, I reply My dusty coat blowing out behind us as we walk This one wants to be found Can you sense it Yes, she says after a beat. I can. She laughs nervously. And I don't like it.

We've got this, I say, as I nudger's shoulder. We approach the dark and empty restaurant. Graffiti, more artistic than most, has been painted in black and white on the wall by the door. It depicts a crying young boy, trapped in a cage, and I grimace with unease. Come on, Evangeline whispers as she turns to me. I thought you were the one supposed to be encouraging me. I nod, her half-smile. Same procedure as always.

Don't look through the windows, want her inside. Don't break the spell, I finished, and sugar wraps my hand. I squeeze it tight, then lead the way, pushing through the doors and stepping into the restaurant's deserted, gloomy lobby. The walls are decked. decorated with McDonald's cartoon characters from the early 2000s, the ones they don't really use anymore. In the corner stands a video game, controllers plugged and fixed into long-dead screens embedded in the wall. I am careful not to look directly through any of the building's windows.

For now, the desert outside is invisible. We see only reflective darkness in the glass from the corners of her eyes. Evangeline steps to the right and examines the seating area. seating area. I head toward the counter, shining the beam of my electric torch over the cast registers across the menus above my head. It doesn't take long before we find what we're looking for. It's here, Evangeline says from around the corner, and after a brief but sudden spike in nerves, I follow a voice to get a good look at what she is found. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary so far. Physically is a simple staircase, leading down to the door to the

down into a basement, to further seating perhaps, bathrooms, employ the only areas, whatever. But we can both feel the energy from these stairs, rising up from beneath. I cannot tell if I detect a soft frumbling at the edge of my hearing, or if it's simply my imagination. Here we go then, I mutter. I scratch at my jaw and step forward and onto the stairs, steadily descending down into the darkness below. down, down, down, down. The level below is just as I expected. Three doors for bathrooms and an employee's only storeroom.

I would be inclined to try these doors, if not for the fact that there is another set of stairs at the opposite end of this narrow corridor we find ourselves in, and this one does not look like it leads into further darkness at all. In fact, a faint but very visible light glows from the steps. and I realize that this is where we need to head. Not through any doors. Not this time.

But a little further down. So across the corridor we go, shoes tapping on the hardwood floor and down the next set of stairs. The light gets brighter. This is creepy as hell, Evangeline murmurs, clicking off the beam for a light, as it is no longer needed.

I do the same. It is not a welcoming light that we step into. No burst of daylight for the explorers freed from the cave, nor the first rays of warning. The light down here is clinical. It creates a sense of timelessness and disorientation, and I blink a little as we arrive on the lowmost floor. The corridor is narrow and short. There is an open arch in the wall to our left and an open arch in the wall to our right. Overhead, and it would seem in the most.

rooms, the source of the light comes from faintly pulsing beams that run the lengths of the ceiling. The room to my left is a party room of sorts. There are colourful tables and chairs, mostly in red and yellows that match the walls, and the walls themselves are adorned with simple geometric patterns. It's the sort of place you could have a kid's party. Balloons litter the floor. Whoa, Evangeline whispers aloud, and I turn to follow a gaze. into the room on the right. This will be it then, I say, under my breath, scanning a cautious eye across and over this scene ahead.

It's less of a room in truth than a great and endless hall. The walls are impossibly far apart, and they extend far off into the distance. There is no hardwood floor here, only old faded blue carpets. The Georgian's play zone billows up from the ground, maybe 30 or so meters ahead, and it's unlike anything I've ever seen.

You know what I mean when I say play zone, don't you? An indoor play area. Your country probably has its own name for it. Slides, ball pits, colorful, phone-padded tunnels, and climber wall netting. But this thing, this thing that lies ahead is monstrous. As much as physically possible has been packed and crammed and twisted into the limited available space. Tunnels wind around the edges of the wall near the ceiling.

Ball pits the size of actual pools, all larger, stretch out into the shadows cast by the colorful pillars and interwoven passages. I cannot see the complex in its entirety and have no idea how far back it might go. It also gives off the impression that it extends up higher than the ceiling shows. Between the entrance to the complex

and our current position by the door is very little. There is a small, mattering of tables and chairs, but not much else. And all of a sudden, I feel incredibly small. This sense of smallness is bolstered by a new surety that these tables and chairs are larger than they should be, impractically so, creating the illusion that we have lost size upon our arrival. Something clanks and words from the shadows of the complex,

and the echo dances down the walls towards us. This is one of the worst, Evangeline says. This feeling, it isn't usually this bad, not soon after arrival. I know, a reply as I start walking the length of the room. Do your best. We learn what we can and get out. We'll log it and map it with the others. Right, she says, and she falls in step alongside me.

We pass by the tables in the oversized chairs. and the complex draws nearer. Nearer and nearer. There are several ways in, so to speak. Multiple colourful yet dark tunnels that lead away into the unknown, round twisted corners and past warped fun house-style mirrors. We opt for the one directly ahead, and as we step foot over the threshold,

the sound of the rumbling grows just a little louder and more present. We look at each other, Evangelionians. and I. Then, with hearts bounding, we set on into the shadows of the complex, to what we can find. As we walk, we mark the foam-cladded pillars we pass with chalk crosses, quick scrollings that will help us on the way back, should we need them. I don't fail to notice that Evangeline and I seem to be able to struggle the funhouse corridors with relative ease, despite the fact that by appearance, it looks clearly designed for children and should really be a great deal smaller.

We cross the faded foam bridge that spans the wide pool of colorful plastic balls, and, as we do so, I struggle with a sensation. There is something down there, something lurking beneath us in the shadows, unseen and watching, waiting

perhaps. I wonder idly how deep down the pool goes, how many thousands of colorful balls there are between the bridge and the bottom. A twisted thought creeps, unwanted into my head, that the balls never end, well perhaps that they eventually give way to some icy, dark and unforgiving water below,

an abyss hidden beneath the plastic. I shiver with second and cold and press on, checking on Evangeline with a quick glance. Tunnels wind off to our left and right as we make a way deeper into the complex. We ascend up a series of phone steps to a level above and push past great sweeps of climable nests. Less light reaches us in here and Evangeline switches on a torch. I make the decision to keep mine off for now.

We ascend another level and look out over the gap in the platforms ahead. The pillars and bridges and tunnels give way to reveal a series of slides, some red, some yellow and one blue, tunnels full of hungry darkness. Evangeline casts the light across the nearest one and tries to use the beam to follow the tunnel's spiring path down. path down through the netting in various apparatus of the complex. I adjust the color of my shirt. The sense of claustrophobia grows stronger as we have further inside. And whilst you might think that we are mad for what we are doing, listener, you must understand the desperate need to know to find out once and for all

what it is that connects these impossible places. But there must be something. There must be. They are all unique in their own bizarre and curious ways. But the similarities and general rules are too close for coincidence. We are all explorers at heart, and once you've explored your first true liminal space, the need to know how and the need to know why do nothing but grow stronger and stronger and stronger. The blue one doesn't go anywhere, Evangeline mutters.

I follow the beam of a light with my eyes. What do you mean? I can tell where the red and yellow one slides go. Roughly, two of them finishing the ball pit down there, two of them wind around and head off into the shadows on the other side. But the blue one, you see, gets lost in the pillars and the tunnel just disappears. It doesn't lead to anywhere at all. It'll lead to somewhere, I think. Just perhaps not somewhere we can understand.

We both swivel on the spot to the sudden sound of children's laughter. Damn. Hello, I call that once. Who's there? But the echoedby laughter from the gloom only shivers around and around. Evangeline is a trick. It must be. Something is creating an auditory.

I cut myself off mid-sentence as I turn to realize that Evangeline is gone. She has vanished. No, I shout out, turning this way and that. Evangeline! Something rumbles in the darkness. The foam when the padding becomes warmer. I can feel the heats radiating off of them as I stumble round the edge of a corner

and race across a narrow bridge. One that travels high above the sinister ball pit far below. She can't have gone far. A bubble of panic rises up my spine as I consider the blue slide. The slide that leads to nowhere. She wouldn't, would she? Go down?

No, she'd never. Up ahead is another great slide. Not a tunnel though, this one. Far wider, too. It starts the level above and drops down into the darkness. Down, down, far below the floor of the complex should go. I realize I have no true way of knowing how massive this place might be, how high up it climbs and how deep it descends.

The slide is slick and shiny, red like a great, yawning tongue. And, even as I think this, the slide curls in at his edges as if it were made of water. The foam-clad posts and pillars of the complex around the slide contort and isolate, yet burning yellow lights shine down at me through the netting from faraway shadows. Come and play, lonely wanderer. It says to me in a voice like the rumbling drawl of a nightmare. I freeze, every muscle at once tensed in utter horror. Where will this dream?

take you. It asks as my mouth drains dry. You struggle to remember, but you have not forgotten entirely. I cannot look away. I cannot run. I have always been there for you. And you have found me. Evangeline.

Evangeline is out here somewhere. I terror in my gaze and turn from the mouth of the monster. I push its words from my head. before they have a chance to sink into my conscience. Evangeline, I call out, please. Evangeline told me later what it was that had happened. She hadn't taken the blue slide, but she had heard something that I did not.

Behind the laughter and the whispered giggles of the children in the darkness. She heard sobbing. I plead for help from the very same source of the laughter. She saw a shadow at the end of the corridor reaching out for her. and she made the gamble to go after it. She called out to me, she said, told me to follow. But for one reason or another, I did not hear her. A trick of the complex, perhaps, or maybe even a dangerous preoccupation of my own mind.

But she raced down that corridor and rounded the corner, up another quick series of colorful, phone-padded steps, and there, in a small, soft wall room, she found no laughing children, only terrified ones. Two girls and a boy huddled together in the corner, dark shadows beneath their eyes and shaking in fear. The only decoration in the little room was a clear plastic half-bubble built into the wall, a window of sorts into the view beyond. A quick glance through it revealed its view. A veritable sea of ball-pit balls, way below, softly churning and frothing like waves against the pillars of the complex, disappearing away into gradual darkness.

It's okay, Evangeline said to them, holding out her hand. We're going to get you out. You can be safe again, I promise. I wanted to play, the boy whispers. I wanted to stay forever. He starts to cry. I'm so sorry. It's okay, Evangeline replies, a lump rising in the throat.

It's okay, but take my hand, all right. We're going to get out. and so he does the girl grabs hold of Evangeline's shirt they stick as close her as they can as she retraces her steps the complex to a dismay

has changed the corridors are not as they were but the chalk markings are still quite visible even if the locations have changed she follows them back and that's where she finds me calling out for her in the chaos

I stare at the children, but she only races right past. Come on, she shouts, following the little marks of chalk in her return. Right, I reply, sprinting ahead and round the corner to face the mouth of the beast. It rumbles hungrily from the shadows, into which the great slight slopes down. You are children of mine. Yours will be, and you do not wish to leave. The words race round and round the walls like a wind as Evangeline staggers to a stop, staring wide-eyed at the monster with a children in tow.

Go, I shout to her, grabbing a shoulder. Don't let its words into your head. I turn back to the monster. You're weak, I tell it with an accusatory finger, handshaking. Can't even keep a grip on a group of children. You are never truly free. You will always remember me for a long time. wherever you go.

Evangeline and the three children disappear from sight. I struggle with my fears, but do my best to hold attention of the monster for just another moment longer. What are you? I whisper. You know what I am, the thing replies. And with effort, I turn my back on it

and flee from my life through the complex, through the beating walls of the monster, following the markings of chalk round corner after corner and down step after step. The level of light changes as I run and I can see it. I can see the way out, back towards the hall with his primary colours and oversized tables and chairs. Evangeline is ahead with the children. She is safe and as I reach the edges of the complex, something brings me to a gentle stop. My paws, chest rising and falling and turned to look back at the world with the world.

Within are the colourful shadows, thinking, considering. Answers lie at my centre. The complex murmurs to me as the world slows down all around. I can tell you, explorer, where to find the gift shop. My heart rate quickens, my dream. I know what it means, and I know. where it leads it whispers it tempts and I consider returning only briefly I swear but I consider what would happen were I to go back into the complex for just a little

longer it's not until I feel Evangeline's grip on my arm that I turn in bewilderment She stares into my eyes and I know that I have to leave So leave we do without turning back we sprint the length of the hall with the children. We send the flights of stairs and through the abandoned McDonald's and out into the warmth of the desert night, panting and sweating. But damn, the outside air had never tasted so good. You idiot, Evangeline grunts once we've caught our breath,

smacking me lightly across the arm. What made you stop, huh? I don't know, Evangeline, I reply. I just, I don't know. I know, she said. folding her arms, still getting a breath back. Answers, you would give everything up for the sake of your curiosity. And I get it. I really do.

I'm here with you, aren't I? We're together exploring all these awe-inspiring, all these terrifying places, but you can't let yourself get consumed. Not ever. She looks up at me and puts her hand on my face as the children huddle closer to a side. It'll be the end of us. You know that, don't you? So promise me, promise me, you won't get consumed.

I look down at her and cannot help a little laugh, even despite everything. She looks so serious. This makes a smile in turn and she shakes her head and gently pushes me. I promise, I tell her with a smile and will always be together. I left my head to look up at the desert, then close my eyes, a lounge, a deep breath in as the breeze blows pleasantly over my skin. Now come on, I say with a grin, let's get these kids home, and we have to regroup with the others. And so we set off down the road, hands held with the warm for the night, washing welcomingly over us all.

That was quite the adventure, wasn't it? I say to Evangeline, as the wind blows cold and bitter across the fields. The wheat all around me rushes violently in the breath of the impending storm The first raindrop falls from the swirling skies above Just you and me on the hunt through the liminal spaces I chuckle holding her a little tighter I love you she says Do you remember that underground swimming pool the one that just kept going and going? The water came up to our knees but never any deeper

Everything's going to be okay she says a smile of dances in her eyes. Do you remember that mountain? I ask with increasing desperation. The mountain we climbed all the way to the top. It moved and spoke like a living thing, ancient and powerful. You must remember. Evangeline, please, just tell me you remember.

She grins at me as rain drops fall thick and fast onto her face. And the recording ends. I wiped the screen and tap play for the hundredth time. A thousandth time, perhaps. If Angeline looks at me, at the camera. I love you, she says. I love you too, I whisper. Everything's going to be okay, she says.

A smile dances in her eyes. To this I say nothing. I just wipe my screen of my phone for the second time and then slide it regretfully into my pocket. With a long and strange sigh, I rise alone to a stab. I open up my umbrella and lift it up over my head as the downpour truly begins. I look to my left at the faraway tree line, dark and watching, and lightning strikes above it.

I turn to my right, to the hills and the mountains. Something impossible lies behind them, and that is where my path now leads. I check that my logbook remains tucked away, safe and dry. It is my duty to reverse it. report my findings to share the stories of the travellers, of the explorers and the wanderers and the stumblers, of those who were changed, of the things that they found, of those who are lost, and of those who never came back. This is my promise to you. I will find the answers, one way or another, and so I set out across the field, through the rain and into, as always,

The Unknown.