CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "I was paid to be in an exclusive piece of livestreamed performance art" Creepypasta

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

CREEPYPASTA STORY►by ChristianWallis: 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►by Ted Arfken: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Qr...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

So that's where... Where she'll be sitting? A gesture to the glass wall that made up one side of the room. On the other side was an empty chair lit by a single spotlight, like something out of an interrogation scene. Yes, the aide answered, you'll spend three months in here and right over there will be the corpse. Will it smell? I asked,

unsure if the question was inappropriate. No, he replied. The room is airtight. Nothing could get in or out. That includes flies? There will be no flies, he said. Just the body, which will, as you know, and have been told, decompose over time. How did you find her?

I asked. Mr. Brinshaw has his methods. I assume you've seen her then, I said. Did she look? Really? identical to me? I am not allowed to answer that question, he replied. You'll have to judge for yourself once the exhibit begins in earnest.

How did you guys find her? She's not related to me, is she? This poor dead girl? She's not some long-lost twin. Mr. Brinshaw is an astonishing man, the aide replied. Many of his exhibits are organized decades in advance, and the considerable wealth at his disposal means there are very few obstacles he cannot overcome.

His wealth is second only to his remarkable insight. I wouldn't worry about the how of it all. That's for the critics to scratch the heads over. All you need to concern yourself with is staying busy for the duration of the exhibit and when it's all over, collecting your payment. I could read between the lines. He was telling me to shut up and take the money. On to the computer, he said, moving swiftly over to the nearby laptop.

It cannot connect to the internet and the only application installed is a custom messenger service that allows you to communicate with a staff member elsewhere in the facility. I was told it'd be like having a personal shopper. Exactly, he replied with a reptilian smile. You're encouraged to use the service to acquire whatever comforts, creature or otherwise, you desire. For that reason, the room will we bear except for the laptop and a bed on the first day. I have been instructed to remind you that nothing is off limits. Our staff are creative and enthusiastic. It doesn't matter if you ask for oil paints, a pound of cocaine, or even

a human heart. We'll be able to find it for you. I can't imagine I'll need much more than a Kindle and Netflix, I joked. We'll see, he smiled, and then, pointed to the camera on each wall. Quite literally, the live stream begins tomorrow. The premise of the exhibit was painfully simple, but also frustratingly clever. The kind of thing you hear and immediately wish you'd come up with it yourself. I was going to spend a month in a room, sat across from a decaying corpse of my own doppelganger. When it was all done, the footage would be edited into some weird art house film,

I could spend the four weeks doing coke, or I could spend it learning to play the piano or just binging TV. It didn't matter. It's all too easy to imagine how anything I did could be twisted into some commentary of my own fear of death. At least I figured it'd be easy. But no one could have prepared me for what it felt like to look at my own dying face. This wasn't a mere resemblance. she was my ghost. God, I thought,

did they have to leave her eyes open? She looked sad. More than anything, that's what surprised me. She was posed upright in the chair and clothed in the same plain outfit as me. Her features were an almost perfect mirror of my own. She was not a mirror image,

but neither are identical twins. There are always subtle differences and the effect was eerily uncanny. Out of some morbid curiosity, I pulled up my own chair and placed it opposite her. I sat down and studied every feature of her face in the same way I would with a mirror. Why if she's sad, I wondered, only to feel a little stupid. She's dead, I thought, before getting up and trying to shake off the goosebumps that were crawling up my back. There was no need to look so close.

She and I were going to spend enough time together. A slot on the door opened and a small package came through. It contained the e-reader I'd asked for just a few minutes ago. Better than Amazon, I grumbled before looking up and catching her eyes. I tried not to look away, but it was hard not to. The room was so bare, so plain, and the human form is naturally attention-grabbing, especially when its cold-dead eyes are claring right at you. To my surprise, I realised she had a kindle in her hands.

That's elaborate, I said. Then looked at each one of the cameras. I didn't want to look shocked. Even though deep down, I was pretty damn impressed they'd manage to slip it in there and give her a prop without me noticing. I was also a little unsettled, though I swore it didn't really mean any. anything. They were playing games, I thought. You knew it wouldn't all be spelled out to you. You knew there'd be little surprises along the way.

Were you a reader? I asked the pale figure, before I even realized I was talking aloud. Of course, she didn't answer, but she looked like a reader. What did you read? I asked. Romance, horror, historical fiction? She didn't answer. Nor did you she move, but I felt that she was listening to me anyway. The idea was ridiculous, so I shrugged it off and went off to read a bit of Agatha Christie. My room was looking a bit fuller. I had a bookshelf, a desk, a switch, and a pretty down nice desk chair. Duplicates of everything had somehow made their way into the other room when I wasn't looking, which was starting to annoy me. It always happened in the few seconds of the

when my back was turned. But it wasn't like I spent every minute of the day staring at her. If I wasn't sleeping, my head was buried in a book or watching TV. Would it really be so hard to run in there and shove a book on the table next door? I told myself it wasn't a big deal that this was just part of the game being played by the artist. Before the exhibit began, I was convinced that the hardest part of this job would be the solitude. but between the cameras and her classy dead eyes, I actually felt claustrophobic,

almost suffocated under the weight of so many potential gazes. I looked up to see if anything about her had changed, and nothing had. It had been 20 minutes and I'd read the same six lines because my eyes kept darting upwards to catch sight of her sitting there, always in the background and out of focus. If I put on headphones and turned away, I knew I'd get a chance of ignoring her. But as the days ticked on, it was getting harder and harder to turn my back to her. I had no way to explain the feeling, except to say that she didn't feel dead.

I'd seen bodies before, and I'd never felt anything around them. They were just meat. They weren't pleasant to be around. Sometimes they made me feel sad. But I never felt like I was a lot of. looking at anything other than an inanimate object. A person is what goes on inside the head, and without that, they're just inert matter. But with her, it was like she was looking right at me, and my brain didn't know what to do

without information. I told myself, and I admit this is a pretty morbid thing to think, that the creepiness would probably get better as time went on. the more she rotted the less she'd look like me and the sooner the illusion would fall apart sure it'd be gross but at least i wouldn't see my own features reflected back at me like i'd floated on down to attend my own funeral without knowing why i got up from bed and walked up to the glass feeling hopeful i looked at the first signs of decay but some subtle change in the fit of her clothes that told me she was starting to bloat. There was nothing, but as I watched a little fly emerge from behind her ear, it flew as short figures of eight in the air, before landing on the glass and sluggishly crawling around. I didn't like it there, didn't like knowing where it had come from.

It must have started life as a maggot, and I already had a good guess as to what it had feasted on, just out of sight. I stuck out my hand and hit the glass. I only wanted to scare it off. Imagine my surprise when it died beneath my palm in a fuzzy splat. I woke up later that night to find the stain on the glass gone. I flicked a switch and the lights came on with a rising wine. Slowly they brought the rest of a room into focus.

The Kindle lay in the table, much like mine, the bed covers were ruffled. much like mine. Some bugs were on the mattress, much like mine. But she hadn't moved an inch. There were no scrape marks by a chair. If anything, you could see the first few signs of dust gathering by her feet. I knew all of that background stuff was just theatre. It had to be.

She was hardly climbing into bed and sleeping just like me. But I had this strange pit in my stomach that stopped me from letting it all go. Quietly, almost stealthily, I got up and approached the glass to study it. I told myself that I was only interested in understanding how that rich asshole had pulled off the fly trick. But that didn't ring true to me. The fly had come from her, quite literally emerging from behind her neck and making its way towards me.

It couldn't have magically passed through the glass. It just couldn't have. I touched the window and in an instant my thoughts were filled with images and were gossamer wings and writhing maggots. I gasped and pulled away, nearly stumbling over the chair that had slid behind me without me noticing. How it got there without me moving it, I couldn't say, but I hardly noticed it. The images in my mind had felt so vivid it was almost like an attack. I put my hand to my neck, just to check nothing was crawling there.

But I could feel it. I could feel something, some ghostly sensation that persisted, and that was when I got the strange idea that the thoughts I'd just seen never actually belonged to me. They'd been hers. Ridiculous, I muttered aloud, if only to hear my own voice. I shook it all of. and went back to bed, desperate to forget.

But from then on, the nights got really hard. Whether I was painting or reading or watching TV, I could feel the eyes glaring at me through the glass. I felt watched, the same feeling you get from creeps on the bus or train. And worse, it never went away. Every night these thoughts and sensations intensified, and that got me wondering if it was just the isolation playing on me. I consider myself a pretty robust person,

and I took the job knowing I could do it and make it out fine. But you hear all those stories about what happens to inmates in solitary, about cabin fever. So I started keeping a diary, only it didn't go very well. They delivered it within the air. and the first thing I wrote was have I overestimated myself. I immediately hated such an admission of self-doubt. Anything I made would be part of the exhibit

and the same went for those weak, sad little words. I refused to let that happen, so I tore the page out and what lay beneath was much like a punch to the face. There were words hadn't written in a fountain pen. the same one I was holding. The ink was still wet, but the writing wasn't mine. And the words? Reading them felt like reading my own death sentence.

I am so cold, they said. I shouldn't be here. I'm meant to be somewhere else. I'm meant to be nothing. I want to be nothing. Why do I still have shape? There are thoughts in this place that are not mine. They crackle like fireworks in the distance.

I can see things silhouetted in their light. Tall things. I am not alone in this place. Her name was Natalie. I typed into the computer. A few seconds passed before I got my reply. Somehow the digital word seemed nervous. You are not permitted to research the subject, they said.

It had been again. Or at least I thought it was. I'd woken up one night to find the name echoing in my mind, like the passing scream of a motorbike. It had pinged around in my head all day, and I was desperate to know if the impossible was true. So I came up with this little gambit to check. We will investigate your behaviour prior to entering the room

and check for signs of misconduct. If we find any evidence you had prior knowledge of the other woman's identity, we will discontinue the exhibit and payment will be revoked, the computer told me. I guessed it, I typed. She looked like a Natalie. We will tell you the results of our investigation when it is over, they replied. After a full week, she finally began to rot. I found myself constantly touching my own face to see if the skin felt puffy or cold.

I'd take my hair to make sure it wasn't falling out. I pinched my legs, my arms, to see if they're as skinny as the reflection in the glass. Rinkled skin, lips that pulled back, black gums, and unnatural teeth. She was changing in a way that I didn't expect. Her eyes were like glassy marbles embedded in her skull, grotesque, glistening off-white orbs whose surface was a road atlas of blue and crimson veins. She looked wrong. I'm not an expert, but I always thought that bodies lost their shape over time, but she looked as if she was coming together.

Her muscles looked hard. Her face was more expressive. Her fingernails had become sharp and chipped. The look in her eyes. It was a look of a torturer trying to decide where to put the first needle. I continued to check the diary every day. There was always something new, something else. harrowing. Most of it was just her talking about the empty, aching sadness she felt,

the sense of invasion, of her thoughts being shared. But over time, the entries were starting to change. The pain is unbearable. The tall things that live here won't leave me alone. Sometimes I think I dream another life, but I don't like to think about it. This is reality. The only one that matters. There is only pain and hunger and deprecation, all at their hands. I shouldn't be here. I was meant to dissolve into this place, but something is giving my thought shape. Something is keeping me whole. The tall things tell me there is another world, another me.

They gloat, they tell me about the comfort she enjoys. Sometimes I catch glimpses of her. Legs crossed on a bed while reading a book. The sight of it hurts more than anything I thought possible. Sometimes I feel as if my chest is going to cave in from the heartache and the tall things laugh and tell me I don't have a chest, not here, not in this place. My connection to the other world intrigues them,

excites them. They want me to hurt her. I woke up, retching and gagging, barely at a bit. able to breathe. For a second, I thought the staff were pumping gas into my room, choking me with some toxic vapors. I was sick all over myself, before I even got halfway to the computer. My eyes burned so fiercely I could hardly see. My nose was bleeding. My mouth ran over with spit and vomit. It was a smell. I was deep in something, inhaling it, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what. I looked over to her, and she was smiling. Of course she would be. This was her

stench, her rotting, rancid, grotesque miasma that she had somehow sent after me. I felt like I had my head inside a bloated, slick stomach. This was the odour of a sack city, of a mass grave. I reached the computer and banged out a message on the keyboard. while I gagged and heaved my way through each individual breath. I can smell her, I typed. Three dots. Someone was replying, That's impossible.

I threw it once more and passed out before I could let them know exactly what I thought of their impossible. The dust was no longer gathered by a feat. It was disturbed, and footprints showed that something had gotten out of a touch. chair and stalked his way into the darkness behind her. Right now, she was still in the chair, still looking at me, still grinning. At least the smell was gone, although I had to spend all morning cleaning my own vomit. Even worse, the computer was unresponsive to my demands

for cleaning supplies. I had to use some dirty bedding to mop it all up. I thought you said this place was airtight, I wrote in anger. I could clearly smell her. I waited and waited, but no one wrote back. I sat in my chair and reviewed my supplies. It had been two days and no one was doing anything for me. I told myself it would be fine, but I didn't feel it. The night before I'd woken up to the frightening sound of wet feet slapping against the tile floor. As I rolled over to look, there was a hurried pitter-batter

and the sound of a screeching chair. She was back in place by the time I got the lights on. It could have fooled someone else, but not me. I saw the path she had carved through the dust, and even worse, the viscous brown fluid, her rotting feet left behind.

I was alone with this thing. They'd stopped bringing me food and I had no way of opening the door. Unless I wanted to try eating my books, I was going to have to get inventive. I looked around. I remembered the smell and looked upwards. There was a vent and it was clearly as wide as my shoulders. I had no idea where it led. But it would be better than staying here, I decided.

But I figured I'd have one last go. at reaching the people outside. Please, help me, I typed. And then I waited. And waited. I didn't want to go for that vent. I wanted this to be part of it, to be part of the exhibit.

I wanted them to reveal this was all a big hoax, and I knew a lot of what I'd seen and experience could be a hoax. I knew that. With enough money, just about anything could be faked. Please, help me. I typed into the computer for the thousandth time.

I was crying again. Sometimes I wasn't sure I ever stopped. Three dots. My heart leapt. I was so happy. I led her a slobbery laugh. The kind where you don't even check if you let spit run all the way down your chin. But it quickly all came crashing down.

I'm so cold, the screen replied. I hate it here Why won't you let me die When I turned to face the window I saw That she was gone The vent came off easily I'd had to dismantle the computer

To find a strip of metal That was thin and sturdy enough To match the flat-headed screws And then I had to turn the desk over And stack it on the bed So that I could reach the ceiling It took me a good 10 minutes of balancing in the air

before I got the screws out. But when it was all done, the flimsy bit of cover was sent tumbling to the floor with a loud clatter. Above lay an empty square cut into the metal ceiling. It was freedom. Hard earned, but all the better for it.

I reached up and momentarily hung off the edges, just to see if they'd hold my weight. They buckled slightly, and the metal was sharp and wrought. rough enough that he was already starting to cut into my flesh, but the ceiling still held. I hauled myself up and took a look. The vents reached the long way to my left and right. There were no obstructions, and they clearly went past the boundaries of my room.

Hoping they'd be able to hold me, I dragged myself into the vent and made towards the right so that I was moving away from her side of the room. The only thing I had for light was a smartwatch that monitored my vitals. It wasn't under my control, but if I tapped the screen, it lit up with the time. So, that's what I did. I tapped the screen and used whatever meager light there was to shuffle forward a few feet at a time. I could have done it in the dark, but it was tight and uncomfortable, and my heart was already in my throat. Every voice in my head was telling me to go back, but I knew that wasn't an option.

I'd already eaten what food I'd had, and if I'd found a way out of the room, then surely, with enough time, she just might find a way in. I couldn't just stay there like some sitting duck. Thankfully, the vent held up, and I was making slow progress. But it was still progress. I couldn't exactly just turn around and look, but I did manage to sort of angle my head so I'd get a sense of how far I'd come. The only source of light was from the open panel

and it glowed behind me by a good distance. That meant I must be past my room and that if I could just find a way back down I'd be out and about in the main facility. That was something I was desperate to do. My paranoia was already firing on all cylinders. Whenever I stopped to get the light back up, I swear there was a moment where the rhythm of my feet carried on without me.

It made me think that something was behind me, stopping and starting to match my own movements. And even worse, I knew deep down that if this was true, it must be catching up with me. Slowly but surely it was taking its time, having its fun. I was all alone, trapped in the dark, metal walls compressing me so tight I couldn't even get my hands above my head. I had to inch along with my feet and elbows. Anything coming after me could take its time. I just needed to reach another vent that I could knock out.

But for some reason, this duct just kept. going and going. It never turned, it never sloped, up or down. It just kept marching on. And the longer I went, the more convinced I became that any second I'd feel something brush against my ankle or my heel before it clamped down and dragged me away. And each time I checked my watch, I saw that the seconds ticked by with agonising slowness. By the time I stopped and let out of the time.

a desperate, panicked sob. I'd barely been crawling for ten minutes. Please, I whined to no one in particular. Just let me the hell out of this place. A smell came wafting out of the darkness. It was the same overpowering odour I'd woken up to on that night. For a few seconds I remained frozen in place, acutely aware of how vulnerable and exposed I was while holding my breath, desperate to catch some sign of what might be coming my way. But deep down, I already knew what it meant. Sign or no sign.

She was in there with me. She'd realised what I was doing, and she'd slithered up here to find and take me. As if, to confirm my worst fears, I heard the sound of her breathing. long, labored and wet. It was like someone sucking oxygen through a stoma in their neck. I immediately began to wiggle forward, desperate to make any kind of progress.

But the metal walls rang with more than just the sound of my struggles. Somewhere behind me, her nails thrashed against the metal panelling with an excited and manic screech. There was no doubt in my mind now. She was chasing me, and the sound she made grew so loud, so quickly, they filled me with despair. But I didn't let it overwhelm me. Sobbing and shaking, I kept on inching forward for as long as I could before something in me snapped, and I tapped my watch to get a tiny slither of light. I wanted to use it to try and turn and get a look at her coming behind me.

Instead, it lit up a face just inches from my own. Wild, angry eyes, half-orbs bulging from a skull, glared at me, while the smile twisted her face into a rubber exaggeration. I went to scream, but it stuck in my throat. I was paralysed, so frightened I felt my heart swell, and I wondered if it was possible to die of fright. more than wondered actually I hoped

and then the light of my watch died a greasy palm smeared against my cheek she tittered with excitement I practically dislocated my shoulder so I could wrench one arm over and use it to defend myself

I'm still not sure exactly what happened next but I think she bit me There was a feeling of pressure on my forearm, intense, sharp, painful beyond imagining. But I used the leverage to push her away from me. Any distance between us, I figured, would be good. It must have angered her because she stopped giggling and started grunting. And with one hand, she awkwardly grabbed my face and began to dig her nails into the skin. It hurt like hell, and I kicked, screamed and thrashed.

with everything in my power. She responded by digging her talon-like thumb into the fleshy muscle of my cheek. Using a nail like a shovel, she began to dig and grind away past the skin. And then, with growing force, she just kept on digging and digging until there was a little pop

and a sudden release of pressure. And then her thumb was in my mouth. Salty and sour and foul in a way that will haunt me for ever. She laughed and used the leverage to pull me forward. I felt her teeth released from my arm, and I knew, even in the dark, she was opening her mouth wider than was possible, or yank in my face, and closer and closer to a dislocated jaw full of too many teeth. Meanwhile, my mind reeled from the alien sensation of a wrinkled leathery skin pressed up against my tongue. I'm not sure I ever really thought about my next action.

Not the reason for it, or even the potential consequences. Something in my mind snapped and did it for me. I bit down. I bit down so hard that one of my teeth cracked. But I didn't let up. I didn't stop until I heard a loud snap and felt a hand slip away while something else came loose in my mouth. I spat the thumb out and screamed,

and with my free hand I began to rip and close. or at anything that might be in front of me. I was so out of it, so enraged and disgusted that I didn't even feel the air duct start to swing and move. In fact, I wasn't really aware of anything other than hate

and malice until something gave with an audible twang and the tunnel was flooded with light. I briefly felt myself falling. And then there came a blow so hard and knocked everything out of me all at once. When I awoke, I was still in the vent, only it had been relocated to the dusty concrete floor of a storage space filled with old boxes.

I immediately pulled myself out and looked around for any sign of her, but she was nowhere to be seen. The only thing left of her was a thumb, whose foul stink still permeated my mouth in sinuses. As my body crashed, I finally took the time to bend over and heave up what little bile and fluid there was in my stomach. Meanwhile, my skull pounded and my chest felt like I'd fallen asleep with a boulder on top of it. But in a way, I enjoyed the pain and discomfort. It reminded me I was alive, despite everything I'd been through. As soon as I was done going through the moment. motions, I straightened myself out and made for the nearest door.

I was shocked to find a hallway lit by the thin suggestions of sunlight. Windows up high, glowed blue, and the sight of it made me laugh out loud. But there was something else behind the appearance of escape, something unpleasant. When I'd arrived, the facility was thriving with people. The electric lights carried a warm amber glow. into every nook and cranny of the winding hallways. But from where I stood, there was not a single light turned on, nor was there the hum of nearby electronics or the passing of feet.

It was dead, abandoned. Looking around only confirm my suspicions, but perhaps not in the way I'd hoped. I found an empty office with a smear of blood across the walls, papers thrown around the place a canteen with a fridge turned over and the table smashed the pieces an archive with signs of a fire

having raged the filing cabinets one room looked like an altar with all kinds of funny symbols drawn on the walls whatever its purpose no one was around to tell me something had torn through this place and left no survivors didn't take a genius to guess what

After a while I found my observation room. Rows and rows of cameras showed every little inch of my room, including the toilet. Given the paycheck, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised that they'd had no respect for my privacy. But it still ticked me off anyway. Well, they weren't observing me anymore. A greasy trail of bloody footprints that led out of the room and towards a wrenched open bulkhead let me know that Natalie had gotten out and dealt with the staff. And from the smell, I'd have to say it happened a good few days ago.

Around the time they stopped replying to me. That made sense. I did find myself worrying a little about where the bodies actually were. Maybe they'd fled. Maybe they never got the chance. What Natalie might want with them, I couldn't imagine. But if she had taken them away, I only hoped they were dead.

I'd looked into those eyes and they were filled with a special kind of hatred. Natalie had at least returned to a room. What motivated her to stop attacking me, I couldn't say. But as I approached the screen that showed her, she turned her head slowly to gaze through the camera and write at me. And I knew she was aware of my watching her. I got the sense that it agitated her, that my mere proximity wound her up like a toy,

and the longer I looked, the more I risked her sparking into full-blown life and coming for me. So I turned away and moved on, and I eventually managed to make it out of there using a set of keys I found dangling, laying in a pool of blood. After a process of elimination, I found the parked car they corresponded to,

and used it to get the hell out of that place. I was all too happy to leave it behind, of course, to leave it all behind. Escaping with my life was more than enough for me. But a few weeks later, a check did arrive. That didn't bother me so much. It felt earned, if I'm honest, and I'm glad I got the money. I noticed that Mr. Brinshaw had signed it, and even worse, he'd written. a little note for me on the back.

My condolences on the loss of your long-lost twin sister. Along with those faintly mocking words was the diary Natalie and I had somehow come to share. A congealed brown handprint covered one side, and her name was scrawled onto the back. The sight of it made me feel sick. But that didn't stop me from reading the final entry. It was nice to meet you. Even though you weren't very nice to me.

You're lucky you fell asleep. When your thought stopped, so did mine. But that's not a permanent solution, is it? I'm still out here. Maybe I was a little impatient. But I won't make the same mistake again.