CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "I do academic research on the paranormal. But I took it too far" Creepypasta

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

CREEPYPASTA STORY►by beardify: 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...CREEPY THUMBNAIL ART BY►Timofey Razumov: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/w6...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-

This is a bad idea. My best friend, Alfie was yelling in my ear above the pounding music. This is beyond a bad idea. This is such a bad idea that the horror movie protagonist creeping around the haunted mansion in her underwear with nothing but a flickery flashlight would stop. Look you dead in the eye and tell you that this is a stupid, terrible, horrible, bad idea. I felt some of Alpha's beer sloshed down the front of my shirt. As usual, he couldn't hold his drink.

We were crammed like sardines into the sticky basement of the least run-down bar in my hometown and I just finished telling Alfie that I was going to a remote town in the Pyrenees Mountains to look for my father. I remember his response verbatim because, as it turned out, I should have heeded his advice, but that came later. For the moment, I was trying to make Alfie understand that while my father, hadn't disappeared. Not quite. I still felt like I was owed an explanation. My father, Jamie, had been a professor of sociology, a hardworking man who always came home smelling like

orange peals, chalk, dust and desk polish. For most of my childhood, I remember him being quiet, kind and fair. What he did to our family when I was a teenager though was anything but. My father's area of study was medieval witchcraft and his views on the topic were controversial. The scholarly consensus about the thousands of witch trials that plagued Europe was that they were a result of small-town feuds, mass hysteria, a lutenogenic fungi in the food supply or some combination of the three. My father, however, had a different opinion.

He was convinced that, despite the existence. exaggerations and persecutions, there had to be a grain of truth at the bottom of it all. His career was spent proving that a cult of witches, and at least people who believed they were witches, had really existed and persisted up to the present day. The hunt for evidence to back up such an extraordinary claim led him to obscure locales around the world. But he always came back with a lot of stories, local sweets and a sunburn on his beaky nose. until his last trip. A few days before my father was due back from Spain almost 20 years ago now,

we received a letter postmarked Madrid. In it, my father described how he'd fallen in love with his research assistant. He was moving to the mountains for a simpler life and that, although he was very sorry, he was sure we'd understand and that it was all for the best. The handwriting was my father's,

but the message wasn't like him at all. We were all sure that something terrible had happened. The authorities involved dragged their feet, not wanting any part of a messy international domestic dispute. They responded to my mother's hysterical pleas with pity, not concern. When the local Basque authorities confirmed that my father was indeed alive and well in a small Pyrenees town, the case was closed. It might not seem fair, they told my mother, but people have a right to start over and be forgotten.

After that, my hatred of my father knew no bounds. I destroyed the gifts he'd given me, changed my last name, majored in history, and dedicated my doctoral thesis to disproving any historical basis for the evidence of witchcraft. So my father had destroyed my family, I would destroy his life's work. My presentation had been a resounding success and I was back in my hometown hence Alfie in the bar to celebrate my mother took advantage of my visit

for some help with chores around the house one of which was disposing of the few cardboard boxes of my father's things that we still had stuffed away in the back of the closet I could take anything I wanted my mother shrugged and ditch the rest there wasn't much left but it brought back memories.

The tackle box from our first fishing trip, ticket stubs from movies we'd seen together lovingly preserved in a folder. It was hard to imagine that a man who would keep such things could have just abandoned us. I also found his final postcard, a sun-bleached hilltop town with a crumbling bell tower in its centre, surrounded by pine trees and snowy mountains. What if I went?

I told myself, what if I finally got some closure? What if this was what I needed to open a new chapter in my life? I checked the faded print beside the stamp. Lapixuri, Navara, Espania.

I had a location. All that I needed was a plane ticket. Once that was bought, I headed out for a blurry night with my high school friends, the only part of which I really remember was Alfie's drunk. prophecy. Four weeks later, I was in Madrid. Then it was a train, a bus, another bus,

and a two-mile slog of the unmarked stop where the river dropped me off. As the dusty door closed, he shot me a strange look, halfway between fear and pity. Then I was left alone in the steep, zigzagging road that led up to Lappig Suri. My dad's postcard was from the 9th, but it was eerie how little the town had changed, weathered bone white houses, narrow stone streets, the crumbling bell tower. The room I'd rented was one of only three options in the whole region and the only one where English was spoken. The owner Erskine was a big, energetic woman in the 50s who spent her youth in London and had decorated her rural Basque home with images of double-decker buses, police booths and everything British.

It was surreal to sit beside the hearth of a sunken medieval antechamber and sip tea in front of a giant painting of Winston Churchill with a bulldog. With a few hours of daylight left to kill, I decided to take a walk around town. Old men in slouch hats and unbuttoned shirts playing cards were putting along in rusty tractors. Shaw wrapped grandmothers carrying baskets of vegetables, bored teenagers in fake leather jackets huddled on street corners smoking. I received a lot of handwaves and short curious conversations on my stroll. People in the pixery seemed welcoming, even if we didn't share a language, but also

watchful. Like they expected something terrible to happen to me at any moment and didn't want to miss it when it did. The language barrier was actually a blessing in disguise. I hoped to avoid any questions about what I was doing in La Piccery. If people knew my true purpose, it might affect what I could learn from them. Even worse, someone might dip off my father before I could confront him. Besides, I wanted to see for myself what made this sleepy town worth abandoning a family for.

When the sunset, the temperature plummeted, and a howling night wind blew down from the mountains. The stone walls were thick, however, and the wood-fied hearth heated my room marvellously. I expected to sleep deeply after so many days of travel, but I saw something just before I closed my eyes that disturbed my rest all night. As I took my last glance at my room's high medieval window, I saw something darker than the starless sky scamber away from the ledge. Whatever it was, it had been watching me. Who knew for how long? Maybe it was just the black cat. But what was it doing on a window ledge two stories up from the street?

I set out early the next morning. I'd written down the local sites that my father had deemed especially important and my plan was to use them as a rough guidebook, walking from spot to spot and asking the locals as incoherently as possible about the other weird foreigner who seems so interested in these forgotten places. Walking down the foggy dirt roads,

I kept imagining that I suddenly turn a corner and see a weathered figure with familiar round glasses and a sunburned nose leaning on his hoe, content with the morning's work. Would he recognise me? I was so lost in thought that I nearly fell into the first sight my father had mentioned, So again Ojaska, the witch as well.

The road twisted and I found myself in a shady hollow, about to step into a phoeia so deep I couldn't see the bottom. Springwater dampened the dark stone and filled the gulch with colorful flowers. I recognize Belladonna, Mandrake, Henbane and others that, according to my father, the witch-cults used in their rights. some had been harvested just a few days ago. I shivered, and not just because of the cool air of the valley. There was no good reason to be collecting those plants in those quantities, unless you wanted to poison quite a lot of people, or at the very least, make them hallucinate for weeks on end.

Even later, eating lunch beside a golden field with white-capped mountains all around me and the warm sun of my face, my thoughts went back to the neatly snipped plants of that gloomy grotto. I felt a presence behind me while I ate. I spun around as he had tired, hungry donkey, just a few feet away. It was just standing there staring at me, but there was something unsettling about his big, pitiful brown eyes. The sadness in them seemed almost human.

A farmer came by to shoe the poor beast off, and I was finally able to ask a couple indirect questions about my father. Yes, he confirmed, a guy like that had come to town a while back. He lived nearby with a young lady, but they had since moved on. He wasn't sure where, my heart sank. If my father had moved without leaving a forwarding address, how would I ever find him? I reminded myself that this was just one farmer's opinion. It might be wrong.

Maybe they just moved to the next village over and so on. Even so, my heart was heavy as I set out for my next objective. Aramu Beltzak, the Black Plains. Local legend held that it was the meeting place of the witch cult, and my father considered that the disuse of such prime grazing and planting land was proof enough that something very disturbing happened there. As I passed the last of the old stone farmhouses, The road narrowed to a trail that zigzagged through the pine forest before the last opening to the plains.

The view was probably spectacular, but it was already dusk and low clouds were quickly covering the fields with fog. I'd planned a circular route back to town, so it was either crossed the plains or retraced my steps in the dark. I swallowed my fears, adjusted my headlamp, and set out into the cloud-covered field. The trail disappeared almost immediately. To make matters worse, the reflection of my headlamp of the fog made it impossible to see more than a few feet in any direction. Not only could I no longer find my way forward, but I could no longer find my way back. And if anything was skulking out there in the dark, my tiny headlamp would appear brighter than a lighthouse beam. No matter where I looked, it was the same hipp-eye grass and opaque mist.

I tried to keep from panicking, telling myself that as long as I walked in a straight line, I'd come to the end eventually. But in practice, it wasn't so easy. I had to scramble around ditches and boulders as I went, and it soon became impossible to tell which direction I was going. From down in town, the plains hadn't looked this big. Between the damp and the wind, my teeth began to chatter. I took refuge behind a boulder and consulted my GPS, but the signal was dead.

Finally, I got it together enough to proceed. I was nearly knocked up my feet by a black shape that went flying past. Even now, I tell myself it was probably just a cow. fleeing the rain clouds. But between the fog and my frayed nerves, it was hard not to see the black shrouded form of an old crone. Her eight-foot-tall frame bloated with gluttony and wrinkled like a rotten apple. I felt sure she looked at me with a single black pupil and left behind the reek of rotten meat. Other dark shapes whipped to the fog. I couldn't be sure how many. By then I was running for all I was worth, paying no heed to twisted ankles and slips in the mud.

I didn't stop until I found a tree line, and then, somehow, the dirt row that led to Lappixuri. My landlady, Erskine, panicked when she saw the state I was in, limping, shivering, and soaked in mud. She insisted I'd take a hot bath, and it wasn't until I sank in the tub that I realized how sore I was. I'd had a narrow escape from getting lost in the mountains and perhaps from something else as well I didn't mention what I'd seen to her more from embarrassment than anything else sitting here neck deep in hot water

surrounded by thick stone walls it was easy to imagine that what I'd seen had been a huge product of some lost cattle and my overactive imagination and so I thought I climbed into bed with a groan, wondering what my next day in Lappizuri would bring. The wind still howled outside, but no dark shapes haunted my window that night. I did, however, have the most frightening, realistic dream of my life, if indeed it was a dream.

It started with the rattling of Erskins' key ring and the heavy wooden door creeping open. As it did, several figures in hooded black robes scurried into the room. I say scurried because they crawled on all fours. Although I could tell by the moonlight, aged skin of their hands and bare feet that were definitely human, at least in form. They disappeared from view, huddling at the foot of the bed, or maybe under it. I felt the rustling of the sheets being lifted. My socks were pulled off, and I felt the strange sensation.

of some kind of ointment being rubbed into my souls, and one of the hands doing the rubbing had at least six fingers. I didn't run. I was too sore to move, half sure that I was dreaming, and if that weren't enough, I was also scared stiff. Yet, as the hooded, crawling figures

finished their disquieting work, a feeling of relaxation flooded me. I was being carried with them, up into the air, out the tiny window, toward the night sky. Beneath twinkling stars, the winds carried us to Enramu Beltzak, and even with the lights of Labixuri and the toy-sized pine trees far below, I was not afraid. Not until the witch's Sabbath started in earnest.

Glowing, fiery orbs circling the field provided light. A blind orchestra wrapped head to toe in black cloth. provided music. We descended from the sky to a set of tables set with food that ranged from five-star luxury fare to rotting trash. I was lowered to one of the latter tables. At the furthest point from the field from me, an enormous black he-goat sat atop an enormous throne of twisted black wood, and when its glowing red eyes landed on me, I felt compelled to eat. It didn't matter that the dead rats in front of me were swarming with still-living maggots

or that the potatoes were green with mold. I ate. I ate like it was the best meal I'd ever tasted. I ate with a mad grin like there never was and never would be any purpose to life except to gorge myself from the filth

in front of me. At the high table, just below the he-goats throne, I recognised the bloated witch, the farmer I'd met while having lunch, and my father. He raised. the golden goblet in Toastomy, then clicked his hooves gleefully. After dinner came the dance.

I don't have words to describe the writhing, ecstatic way we came together as one flesh, and I doubt any reader has the stomach to read through it. At some point, I drifted off into the sleep of the exhausted. When I awoke the next morning, I wasn't sure if the ache I felt in my whole body was a result of my exertions the day before or what had happened during the night. I wondered why my socks were off and laying at the foot of my bed. The moment I set foot on the stone floor, I knew I wouldn't be doing any exploring.

It was hard enough to hobbled downstairs and eat breakfast. If Erskine knew anything about what had happened during the night, she gave no sign. After some strong coffee, I recovered enough strength to try my plan of last I go down to the town hall and ask directly about my father. Walking into the quiet marble hall, I expected to run into the same stubborn bureaucrats who my mom had struggled with all those years ago. Instead, I saw a girl about my age in a smart grey suit, hanging toys and posters beside an enormous desk.

She was so focused on a work that I felt bad for interrupting her. Can I help you? She asked in perfect English. Um, I began. How had she known I was there, much less what language I spoke. News seemed to travel fast in Labixuri. I'm looking for my father. Dr. Richard Sheer, she finished for me, turning around with a smile.

The man who put us on the map. This was too much. How had she known my father's name? His books and the photos in them breathe a little little, life into this sleepy old town. Hardly a tourist comes by who doesn't mention wanted to hike the mountains from Dr. Shira's posters or search for the, you know, witches, she laughed. My name is Carmen Braggio, and I'm a great admirer of your father's. I'm Julian, Julian Chenot, well, formerly Shira. Did you ever meet him? My father, I mean.

I wasn't at all prepared for the direction this conversation was taking. No, I was just a girl when your father came to visit us. Carmen's face clouded. He didn't stay for long. Do you have an address? I gushed. Hmm, let's see. Carmen returned to the huge desk and searched through some filing cabinets. Here it is, 28C, Zeretta.

But it's been vacant for almost eight years now and... She scrunched up a brow, frowning. There's no forwarding address or any... further information, just a note that the owner moved and donated their home to the municipality, all paperwork in order. I was hoping to meet him here, I trawled off. It had all been a waste. I'd be going home sore, uneasy and with even more questions than I'd left with. It made me want to hit something, preferably my father, if only I could find him. The anger and disappointment must have been written all over my face, because Carmen gave my arm a little squeeze.

I'm sorry, she sympathised. It's been a while since you've spoken to Richard, hasn't it? Ten years, I grunted. Not a word. Well, Carmen put a finger to her lips thoughtfully. I have access to a government vehicle. I could drive you up to visit your father's former home, at least. Who knows? Maybe you'll find some sort of clue. She grinned like we were children playing some kind of detective game, only if you want, of course. Five minutes later, we were bouncing up a dirt track toward the mountains. The wind blew through the open jeep, making Carmen's raven hair swirl around her face. She noticed me looking and smiled.

I blushed and turned away toward the icy peaks. I finally understood how someone might fall in love in a place like this. My father's former home was far above the village, even above Eremu Beltzac and the pine forests. It must have been the summer home of some prosperous shepherd nestled as it was among the boulders beyond the tree line. We rolled through the fast-flowing mountain stream and parked just in front of the two-story stone structure. The wood shutters were closed and the place had started to show signs of abandonment, at least on the outside. The views were majestic, but after a few walks around the property, I didn't learn anything I hadn't known before. Carmen stood beside the Jeep, hand stuffed into the pockets of a jacket against the chill wind until I returned.

Any luck, she asked, I shook my head. You know, she added slightly, the house belongs to the city government. I have a key. In the dark and dusk we found some furniture covered by bed sheets On important papers scattered on the floor Some fruit preserves that had long spoiled And some wine that hadn't There was a whole separate wing of the house

But even with two of us pushing The old wooden door wouldn't budge I looked around helplessly Carmen held up the bottle of wine We should let any of this go to waste at least, right? I got a fire going in the hearth while Carmen washed out two cobwebby glasses in the stream and brought up some bread and cheese from the Jeep. We curled up in the blankets we found and clinked glasses.

Out the front door, the late afternoon valley opened up before us. Maybe it was the adventure of it all, or the intimacy of the fire, or the strength of the wine, but I taught more than I meant to, about why it had come, about my relationship with my father, about how I didn't know who I'd be without his great and terrible shadow hovering over me. There was something else that had been bothering me, something about the house, about what we'd found.

It was there in the back of my head like an itch I couldn't scratch. I looked into Carmen's eyes, as dark as the Sorgonohaska. She'd been so patient with me, so kind. Whatever it was, it could wait. I leaned in for a kiss. Carmen pulled back.

Aren't you going to finish your wine first? She whispered. I shot what was left without a second glance. Carmen stood up. I wondered, Woosley, where she was going. But when I tried to follow, my legs wouldn't move. I looked at them stupidly. They felt like two useless logs disconnected from my body.

I tried again. Nothing. As my vision started to blur, I remembered what it seemed strange to me before. There wasn't any dust on the wine bottle. It had been brought to the house recently. And why did my tongue feel numb? I tried to ask Carmen about it, but my mouth wouldn't work either. Carmen knelt down in front of me.

She lifted one of my arms, then let it drop. Apparently satisfied, she stroll me to the door. that led to the remainder of the house and opened it with a single twist of a hidden latch. Huckered me under the armpit, she dragged me like a sack of grain into the other wing, which I soon discovered was by no means abandoned. I can't swear by everything that happened next. As before, I was drugged, this time so heavily that I had been paralysed. But still, I insist there is a grain of truth to what I saw.

Carmen tied me to a chair with black silk ropes and draped me in a red robe with a tall peaked hood. She then proceeded to kindle the hearth, light five black candles and spread a red tablecloth over a long table. At its head was a throne of twisted wood that I thought I recognized. This done, she placed a small black cauldron to boil, adding water, herbs and fat to make an ointment. At first I couldn't see where the fat was coming from. As the fire glowed brighter, however, I recognised the source. I preserved human corpse. Only the head, torso and one arm were left, yet even after so many years.

I recognised my father immediately. You did say you wanted to meet him again, didn't you? Carmen smirked. Well, here he is. enjoy your family reunion while you can she continued to prepare the room for whatever was to come stopping only to pour some more wine in my feeble dribbling mouth the guests didn't begin to arrive until after sunset they exchanged a set of words i didn't understand like an incantation before stepping into the room a tall obese grandmother a middle-aged bold man with six fingers on each hand

a boy with lifeless eyes and slig back black hair. These and many others passed by me, remove their clothes and anointed themselves with Carmen's brew before taking a seat to the table. Finally, Carmen joined them as well, but not before leading a huge black goat to the place of honour. I was in no condition to take note to their rights or conversation, even if I could have understood it.

I felt like I was flying high above the twist, it seemed, surrounded by half-formed fiends who mocked and twirled me helplessly around the shadows of the ceiling. A few things, however, are clear to me. Firstly, the rite was almost like a reenactment of my visions from the night before. If the witches had dosed themselves in the same ointment that they rubbed on my feet overnight, no doubt they were having the same, terrifying, euphoric hallucinations that I had experienced. Secondly, this was some kind of initiation for Carmen. Unlike the others, she was clothed, wearing a simple white robe.

She sat at the furthest point from the black e-goat, barely eating bland food while the rest gorge themselves. A determined look burned in a dark eyes. She wanted to prove herself. Lastly, a phrase. As a Gilerian, Omei kept coming up. It was always met with raucous laughter and sideways glances toward where I sat drooling in my ridiculous attire. It occurred to me that it wasn't there as some kind of sacrifice. I was there as a joke.

A final prod at the man who they called Arazegal, the troublemaker, I later learned. I was Arazagalerian Omea, the troublemaker's son, and they didn't seem to care. if I lived, died, or told the world about them. Who would believe me anyway? Slowly, the feeling of flying faded. With an almighty effort, I realized that I could twitch my toes and fingers. The poison was wearing off, and Carmen was too focused in the ceremony to notice. Despite my desperate urge to flee, I forced myself to stay calm and wait for more strength to return.

Soon even my legs responded, and my left ankle was so slick from the heat that I could even slip it free from the black ropes. Around the table, the witch's chanting was rising to a high point. The obese grandmother and the six-fingered man stood on the table, stomping along with a chant as it rose to a crescendo. I chose my moment carefully. Just when their ecstasy reached this peak, I kicked myself into a standing position, aim for the door, and promptly fell over. The drug clearly hadn't faded as much as I thought. Carmen shot me a look of irritation before tying me with more black ropes.

She snipped off my clothes and hung me from the rafter in front of the hearth, like a pig waiting to be slaughtered. It was so hot that the sweat dripping down my naked back sizzled when it dripped under the flagstones below. It occurred to me, that maybe I'd been wrong about not being a sacrifice. After what felt like forever, Carmen closed in. She reached into the steamed cauldron of ointment

and began to spread it all over me, chanting as she went. The rest of the cult repeated after her in a diabolical chorus. As she finished smearing the goop around the top of my head, I finally understood what Carmen's test had been. It all went back to the herbs collected from the Saganahasker, This was a test of Carmen's ability to make the poisons, hallucinogens and other bruise that the witch cult used in its rights. I was horrified to think what the effect of this final full-body toxin might be. I didn't have to wait.

The witches watched me from the other side of their long table, Karmes' doctors attending an autopsy when my whole body began to shake and spasm. They nodded to one another at proving their long table. the slick-haired boy grinned and squeezed Carmen's shoulder congratulating her. I felt my muscles twitching, stretching and shrinking, like my body was being twisted into some horrible new form. I blacked out. The smell of damp hay and feces.

It was that cool blue hour just before dawn, and I was in a stable. I felt a cane lash against my back. I snorted and pushed myself to my feet with all four. for. Hoves? I tried to scream. I brayed and whinied instead. My face was stretched.

My back extended. Everything felt wrong, but there was no time to panic. The farmer struck mercilessly with his cane until I trotted out into the field, where the first load of the day was bound to my back. Firewood, bricks and construction, tractor parts, tools and animal feed.

up the hill and back down again with a cane never far behind I tried to catch a glimpse of myself in a roadside creek but I looked away immediately it was too horrible even worse with the mocking grins of Carmen

and the other witches when I passed them on the streets of Labixuri I thought about the other beasts I'd seen in town how many had once been men like me not that there was time to think Each overburdened step became a struggle not to fall And when I was finally led to the filthy paddock

I collapsed immediately into slumber Days blurred into weeks Each the same as the last I came to know each rot of the road all too perfectly As I hoard loads for half the village It felt like it would never end Until one morning I felt a prodding in my very human ribs

It was a police nightstick A flashlight shown in my eyes Someone was yelling in a foreign language I was laying naked Half-starved and delirious on a city park bench I didn't find out that I had been dumped in Pamploma Until I saw the city name above the police station As I was being taken in for booking

Unsurprisingly The blood test revealed that I'd been heavily drugged The problem was convincing the police That I hadn't done it to myself My tale about being used by a cult for the nightmarous initiation right didn't hold up. I knew how fantastical it sounded, but it was the truth, and I thought that meant something. It came down to my word against that of the local authorities in Lappiguri, who not only denied everything, but also claimed I was wanted for being under the influence of drugs in public there as well.

There was never any question about who the pleas. were going to trust. As far as the legal system was concerned, I was just another junkie tourist. There was a horrible waiting period while the authorities debated the merits of charging me with public nudity and public intoxication versus letting me off with a fine to avoid all the paperwork. In the end, laziness won out, and over a month after I'd left, I was on a plane back home. I don't know why I feel compelled to share this story.

After the sneers of the police, my academic co-workers and even my friends and family, perhaps I just want to be believed. Perhaps rather, my story is a warning. If you go looking for the strange and mysterious, you just might find it, and the world out there is stranger than we ever dared to dream.