Creepy - Have You Ever Experienced the Mandela Effect? & I Know Exactly How I'll Die

Episode Date: September 29, 2022

Have you ever experienced the mandela effect? I have.***Written by: ShadowSwimmer77 and Narrated by: Jimmy Ferrer***I know exactly how I'll die***Written by: ArchieNem and Narrated By: Nate DuFort***Content warnings: Suicide, Teenage Drinking***Find our reward tiers and how to get your bonus magnet at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/creepypod***Title music by Alex Aldea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the bloody disgusting network. No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastors and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of books. violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

Creepy Presents. Have you ever experienced the Mandela Effect? I have. Written by Shadow Swimmer 77 and narrated by Jimmy Ferrer. A phenomenon I've noticed getting more and more attention lately is something called the Mandela Effect. The way it's described is a collective false. memory. A bunch of people, something happened a certain way, even though every shred of evidence proves to the contrary. The name comes from Nelson Mandela, who became president of South Africa in

1994 and died in 2013. Despite these facts, a lot of people remember him dying in prison in his 80s while he was an activist fighting a part hide. There are a ton of other examples, several of which I've experienced myself. I remember the color-shunds. I remember the color-shunds, chartreuse being a shade of pink, almost like magenta. It's a greenish yellow. I definitely looked on Wikipedia to figure out when Jif Peanut Butter shortened its name from Jiffie. They never did. And I don't care what the internet of books in my parents' addicts suggest. It was always spelled B-E-R-E-N-S-T-E-I-N-Baronstein growing up. But it was actually B-E-R-E-N-S-T-A-I-N. Though the general consensus is just that, boy, human memories sure are imperfect.

Another half-serious theory about these phenomena is that, at some point, people of false memories have actually crossed over from a parallel dimension, almost exactly like the one they exist in now. Those dimensions are so similar, in fact, that the only difference is one fairly minor detail in question. The Monopoly guy wears a monocle, for example. he doesn't. If someone has a bunch of false memories by this theory,

it would indicate they've jumped dimensions a number of times, perhaps slightly flummoxed at the inconsistency of reality with how they remembered it, but otherwise unharmed. Aside from being general easy to make mistakes, the one other aspect of the Mandela Effect phenomena share is that people are unable to pin down the specific time in which they cross dimensions. In most cases, the false memories originated years ago, often in childhood, but people can't name

the instant things changed. There was one time I've experienced the Mandela effect, however, that while it comes from my childhood, I remember the exact moment the jump happened. Really? I can pin it down to a period of a minute or two. And the thing that changed? Well, it wasn't a minor detail. The summer of 1994 was destined to be memorable for me, one way or another.

My dad's youngest brother, Uncle John, and his wife had just had their third daughter. Their two older girls, Abby and Allison, were aged nine and seven respectively. To help the happy couple get adjusted to the new addition, my dad's older brother, Uncle Mike, offered to take the kids on a road trip for a couple of weeks. Mike was always a bit of an eccentric. Not in the least that he always drove around, in an old Winnebago camper as his primary mode of transportation. I don't think you can afford to do that these days, what with the price of gas and all, but I digress. My parents agreed my brothers and I should go on the trip to keep my cousin's company.

At 17 years old, my older brother Danny was along for purely practical reasons. Uncle Mike's plan was to take us up and down a good portion of the mid-Atlantic region. to visit distant family members and see some of the sites. Daniel was way too old and cool. To hang out with a bunch of kids still in elementary school, but having another person along with the driver's license seemed to make sense. My brother David, though, I truthfully thought there was no good reason to bring him along.

He was only five, though I certainly loved him. In my 10-year-old mind, he was the most annoying little kid in the world. I argued and argued with my mom that he shouldn't come, and that he would only be a hindrance, but she made no bones about it. If I wanted to go, then David would be coming too. At last, I relented. The trip itself was amazing. We started off in Ohio at a festival run by a distant uncle, who was the pastor of a local church,

and that had rides and cotton candy, the works. We went through Harrisburg to see Hershey Park. and tour the governor's mansion, lost air conditioning on the way to the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, and spent time with some second cousins on a river ferry near Annapolis. The trip was scheduled to be ten days long, and looking back, it's amazing the number of things we managed to see and do in that short period. The motor home itself was relatively small, as such things go. Sure, there was a kitchenette, a table, couch, even a bathroom.

But there was only one small bed situated up over the cabin. While we were all more than comfortable while driving, there was really no way the Winnebago could accommodate all six of us to sleep. Accordingly, my dad and Uncle John had given Uncle Mike money so we could stay at hotels along the way. Like I said, Mike was a bit of an eccentric. For one reason or another, we could only stop at Speedway stations for gas. The only hotels he would stay at,

were Marriots. At the hotels, we would always reserve two adjoining rooms, one for Uncle Mike and Danny, another for the four of us younger kids. In the kid room, Abby and Allison would share one bed, and that meant that David and I got the other. If I thought David was the most annoying little kid in the world before the trip, well, now I was sure of it. I'd shared a room with him at home since shortly after he was born.

but at least we had separate beds. Now his thumb-sucking, he was way too old for that, kept me up late into the night. Once I'd finally managed to fall asleep, I'd inevitably get woken up, an hour or two later when he'd encroach in my space. His sucking and slurping practically in my ear. It was awful, and after a week I was ready to be done with it.

One last thing I need to make note of. Even though the different locations we visited were awesome in and of themselves. Some of the most fun for us four younger kids was at the hotel pools. Despite us only staying at Marriott's, we were continuously surprised by the varying designs at each of the franchise locations. Alice and Heavy David and I spent hours in the pool at every stop, splashing, racing, and generally having a good time.

Our last scheduled stop was in New York City, and we got in an extremely late at night. I'm not sure how many tourist groups of mostly ten, and unders have walked the streets and ridden the subways of Manhattan at two in the morning. But on July 8, 1994, we made one more. As always, Uncle Mike had booked us rooms at the Marion, specifically the one right next to the World Trade Center. We slept in late that morning, toured the Empire State Building,

and found our ancestors' registries on Ellis Island from when they came through. We had just gotten into the base of the Statue of Lestown, Liberty when Uncle Mike gave us two options. We were due to head home the next morning, and the estimated wait to get to Lady Liberty's crown was almost three hours. Did we want to stay in line or go back to check out the hotel pool? The vote was unanimous. I remember among his other annoying traits it took David an inordinately long time to change

into his bathing suit. He was just getting the hand of tying the knots. It made me want to scream watching him fumble with the cord on his suit. vehemently refusing to let me help him. I told him impatiently that every minute he wasted getting ready was one less minute we had at the pool. It closed at six and it was already almost five. But no matter what I said,

he refused to let me tie this stupid thing for him. At last, David was ready and we raced to the elevator with the girls. As I mentioned multiple times, despite only staying at Marriott's, we'd seen a number of different pool layouts through the trip. Some had cabanas, others had diving boards, one with the actual palm trees in a fake beach.

But this was the first to ever have an honest-to-goodness water slide. Even better, this one had three. And best of all, we appear to be the only guests using the pool. The bottom of the slides dumped into a main section that was sort of an annex next to the main pool, with the stairs to the right that you took to get up to the top. There were three flights, 15 stairs each, a sign posted on the wall, red, slide at your own risk, no lifeguard on duty.

I know because every detail of that pool trip is burned indelibly into my brain. The pool itself was pretty standard hotel affair, nothing to write home about. So, of course, we started at the slide. We had limited time after all. I checked my time X once we got to the top of the slide to see how much. much we had left. It read 502. Darned that David in his knot tying. There were three slides and four of us. Abby and Allison claimed the first two and I went to move to the third. David grabbed my arm, the sort of unfounded fear in his eyes that only a five-year-old can muster. Wait for him,

he begged me. I tugged away, left his fingers clutching only air. I told him not to be a baby. to just come down right after me. The girls had already gotten a head start. I didn't want to be left out of the race. I threw myself down the slide. I shot out into the pool at surprising speed. It was so fast. I could tell this was going to be an amazing last day.

I pulled myself out of the water using the rails on the pool side and looked at the slide expectantly. Allison and Abby were talking excitedly. already heading back up the stairs. I thought about going with them, but a small, very small, brotherly instinct made me want to make sure David didn't need help, extricating himself from the pool. I waited and waited some more.

I heard twin high-pitched streaks echoing from the inside the tubes, and seconds later the girls came flying out with enormous splash. I asked them where David was. Was he up top, too scared to come down on his own? My cousins both gave me a look of confusion. What was I talking about? Who was David? I thought for sure they were messing with me.

I told them it wasn't funny to stop screwing around and to be serious. Where was David? They rolled their eyes in unison as only sisters can. They went back up the stairs telling me they weren't going to waste pool time with dumb jokes. I stood there. dripping and flabbergasted. My eyes fixed on the slide, willing for David to emerge from one of the tubes. I waited another two minutes.

The girls completed another two runs. I didn't ask them about David again. I wasn't going to play into whatever trick they were trying to pull on me. My watch read 506, when I finally went back up to the top, telling myself at three flights and 45 stairs that I could find David waiting there. sniffling and trying not to cry, but alive and well. The entrance of the slide was completely vacant. The only sounds from the girls again hitting the water far below.

I went to find Danny and Uncle Mike. They were sitting in their room watching something on the television. Now I was the one barely holding back tears. Danny sat up concernly on the bed. Uncle Mike rushed to where I stood in the doorway asking what was wrong. if I'd had gotten hurt. It took me a minute to gain my composure, to haltingly explain that somehow

I had lost my little brother. But neither of them knew who I was talking about. I sort of lost it then, screaming, thrashing. Where was he? Why was everyone being so mean? Danny awkwardly tried to give me a hug, but I pushed his arms away.

No, I scream. Where was David? Uncle Mike picked up the phone on the nightstand between the two beds. He told me I was freaking him out. But if that would help, we could call my parents. I yelled at him to do it. Abby and Allison peered through the door, eyes wide, wrapped in the towels. About the time the connection went through.

My mom's voice was concerned as she asked me what was going on. But it had an instant calming effect on me. Everyone was being terrible, I told her. David was missing and no one would help me find him. She got quiet for a few long moments, then told me not to worry and put Uncle Mike back on the phone. He'd talked to her for a couple of minutes, softly so I couldn't hear,

periodically casting glances to where I was sitting on the bed, before finishing the conversation and letting me say goodbye. My mom told me to do what Uncle Mike and Danny said. that she'd see me soon, but that David was fine, and then I'd see when I got home. I got changed in the same bathroom that not an hour ago, I'd argued with David to let me help Ty's bathing suit. We quickly picked up the Winnebago and left. Abby and Allison stayed together on the sofa as the back of the camper. Abby and Allison stayed together on the sofa at the back of the camper, watching me nervously.

While I sat at the little table in the kitchenette, I didn't say a word, the entire eight-hour drive home. It was after midnight, and Uncle Mike had barely rolled the camper to a stop in our driveway when I jumped out. Rushing to the back door where my mom stood, bathrobe held clutched around her, dad waiting anxiously behind her. Where's David? I asked her.

Was he all right? Gently, she took my hand and led me into the house, back towards our room. When we entered, my jaw literally dropped. Everything was changed. My loft bed was still there, sure, but underneath, where David's twin bed usually resided, sat at desk covered in drawings I'd done, a small bookcase bursting with Bruce Covill paperbacks and Star Wars novels. My mom told me it had been a very long, busy trip, that I needed to get some sleep in my own bed.

She said that everything would be better in the morning. But that if I wasn't, she could call make me an appointment with the doctor. She told me that either way, I shouldn't worry, that everything would be all right. I felt something drop in my chest, just above my stomach, heavy as a stone. I felt to my knees, gut-wetching sob, ripped from my throat. I started shaking so hard that I couldn't manage to stop. Heartbreak and pain and guilt tore through me as I cried uncontrollably.

I think my mind broke a little bit. The next day was a Saturday, but my mom managed to call around and find a counselor with weekend hours. His name was Mr. Calabrese, but he let me call him Mr. C, and I had sessions with him twice a week for five years. We talked a lot about different things,

though David came up with a lot of all of all. obvious reasons. We talked about a lot of different things, though David came up a lot for obvious reasons. Mr. C helped show me that there was no way my entire family had conspired to trick me, that they loved me, that somehow the memories that I had of David were just false. The times when he wanted to play his stupid kitty games or accidentally broke my toys had never happened. Neither had the ones from when he was little, had been scared of his own crib at night.

When I would reach down from my loft bed so he could stand and just barely grab my fingers with his own. My memory of the feeling of his hand and mind weren't real. And neither was he. I've lived a generally happy, productive life since the trip. I went to college, got married, have a couple kids of my own. I still stay in touch with my parents and Danny. Dare I say it, we're very close.

We take turns visiting for holidays. Go on vacations to Disney World, the whole shebang. Uncle Mike died of a stroke in 2018, so that sucked. Uncle John and his wife Abby and Allison, their little sister, Anna, are still doing well, though. My mom waited a good many years to bring it up, mostly because I think she was trying hard not to upset me or mess with my therapy. But long enough down the road and a few apparel sprits in one night, she told me that she and my dad had tried for a third kid for years after me. He even gotten pregnant when I was

four and a half. She'd miscarried at eight weeks. If it was a boy, they were going to name him David. Someone reading this account might argue my story isn't an example of the Mandela effect. After all, by definition, the phenomenon is a collective false memory, shared by a bunch of people. To that, I'd say last Christmas I was visiting my parents and went to mid-day-year-old. night mass with them. After the service, I happened to be talking to a woman a few years younger than me, whose family my parents have known for a better part of 30 years. She asked me how my brother David was doing, and that she hadn't seen him since their eighth grade graduation. Took me a second to answer, but I told her he was fine and left it at that. I figured it would just be easier

it that way. If the alternate explanation for the Mandela effect is in fact the real one, that these memories are not actually false, but that those who hold them are in fact cross-dimensional travelers, and David is out there somewhere. I wonder at times, was I the one who crossed dimensions, or was he? The Marriott and New York we stayed at was destroyed along with the rest of the World Trade Center complex during the terrorist attack on 9-11. So even if I want to go back now and check things out as an adult, to see if I could find evidence of tachyons or wormholes or whatever, I couldn't. I did manage to find one picture of the pool slide, or at least one exactly like I remember it.

But the hotel and everything around it is gone. To David, wherever you are. I hope you know that you're loved. I hope someday, as remote chances it may be, I cross back over to another dimension with you in it. I hope it's one you get to meet your niece and nephew. I hope there I made a different choice, and we went down the slide together.

I hope it's one where we both came out the other side. Creepy Presents. I know exactly how I'll die. written by Archie Namm and narrated by Nate DuFort. When I was ten years old, my mother took my older brother and I on a picnic to Newman's Lake, about a half-hour drive from our house. She'd been looking for cheap ways to get us out of the house for the summer, and this was one of many picnics.

This one in particular, however, stood out because it's when I found out how I would die. Nobody swims in Newman's Lake. Nobody smart does, anyways. There are signs every few feet leading up to the water's edge that warn about alligators. Every once in a while, you'd hear talk of drunk teenagers who fell in and the grisly fate they'd suffered. All this to say, I knew that when I died in Newman's Lake, it would be no accident that got me in the water. After we'd had our little sandwiches and fruit snacks by the water, my mom sat on a blanket to read a romance novel

and left my brother and I to our own devices. My brother ran to a nearby woods to find a good walking stick, and I slowly made my way to the rickety little dock that stretched nearly to the center of the lake. It looked ancient like any sudden move could collapse it, and there was no railing between the decaying wood and the algae green lake. As I approached, I felt a sudden bout of dread. Did I really think it wise to walk along the barely standing dock?

Yet still, as if compelled, I walked forward. I knew that the moment I looked at the water, I'd lose my resolve. So I walked along the pier. I studied my own feet to get. the wood. It felt like a balancing act, simply to avoid the obvious rot and holes in the wood. But eventually, I reached the end of the pier, and I looked out into the green water. As soon as I did, I felt the water pulling me in, begging me to look closer. For just a minute, I did.

I looked at the weeds along the sand and at the snails and small fish in the water, and beneath all of it, almost as if it were on another deeper layer that none else could access. I saw a jet black fish made of smoke. It was about the size of a goldfish, and it swirled within itself like a cloud of dark, spinning sand. I knew what it was the second I saw it. It was my death. I didn't know how I knew, and I didn't know when it would get me, but I knew what it was.

I knew it meant that one day, be it soon or in the distant future, I would step off the pier at Newman's Lake and into the disgusting water, and I would let myself drown. some things cannot be explained by the realm of the natural. I understood that it was strange that I could see my own death, but I also understood it as fact rather than opinion. As soon as the blackfish noticed me looking at it, it hid among the weeds.

I knew it wouldn't come out while I was still there, so I walked back along the dock, back to my mom. It was odd. After witnessing your own death, you'd think I'd be afraid, but instead I'd just felt empty, as if my own demise were sad, but not something to dwell on. And in a way, it wasn't like I'd learned anything new that day. I'd already known that I'd die one day. It wasn't as if I'd learn when I'd die, just how.

I simply told myself that I wouldn't go back to the lake, not for a long time. And I let myself believe it. The next summer, when my mom asked if I wanted to go to Newman's Lake for another picnic, I suggested we go to a local park instead. My mother seemed confused, but off to the park we went, and we all had a good time. It continued like this each year,

with me finding some excuse not to go back to Newman's Lake. It continued until I was 17. My friend Sam, Jason, and I were drinking cheap beer at Jason's parents' house while they were out of town. We'd played so many times that we'd run almost completely out of truth or dare questions when Sam asked me the truth of how I wanted to die. And I answered as honestly as I could, that it didn't matter how I wanted to die. that death was waiting for me, already assigned, at the bottom of Newman's Lake.

I should have known not to tell them something like this, should have known when Jason's mouth formed a tiny O and his brow furrowed, or when Sam laughed out loud. But that was drunk and they were my friends, and I thought they'd at least understand. I should have protested when Sam, the most sober of us, dragged Jason and I into his old minivan. But I didn't.

I didn't want to be seen as a baby, so when they suggested we go to the pond, I went with them. My friends didn't need to know the dread that filled my entire body on the drive over or the chills on the back of my neck when I realized that I wanted to go back. They didn't need to know that

when they started heckling me to approach the now nearly falling over, pier, it took almost no effort on their part. They didn't need to know that I felt the strangest sense of home from deep within the murky depths of the water, as I performed the balancing act to the end of the pier yet again. My friends did not follow. I couldn't tell if it was fear of falling into the water or fear of whatever was clearly happening to me.

I didn't care. I reached the end of the dock, and in the water, yet again, I saw it. It was still just as pitch black as before, but now about the size of my hand. Because it was bigger now, I could more clearly see the swirling patterns within the fish. The extra pain of space it seemed to occupy beneath everything else. It was disorienting to watch, and yet I couldn't seem to pull my eyes away from it. It didn't seem to shy away from my gaze this time, but stayed completely still as if to let me watch the patterns on its back. I was mesmerized, and if my friends hadn't been behind me yelling my name, I don't know how long I would have stood there.

I walked back to the edge of the lake and saw them, looking terrified. What the hell was that? Sam asked, his voice almost accusatory. I told you, I'm going to die here one day. Some things are just meant to happen, I said blankly, already missing the sound of the water jostling the dock. Sam looked at me like I was stupid, but Jason nodded grimly. I wondered if he too had seen his death. I wondered how many people had seen their death as I had, felt the iron grip it seemed to have on me. The car ride back was mercifully silent.

Sam, in disbelief of my behavior, Jason giving me my much-needed space. We went back to Jason's parents' house and continued our game of truth or dare, without another word of death. As the years passed, I grew wary of getting too close to people. In my dreams I was already under the gentle waves of the lake. what use would friends be when I eventually succumbed. After high school, I got a part-time job and took college classes online. With no real friends, no romantic prospects, and no hobbies.

Sometimes I felt like the cool water would be a mercy from the prison of homework and petty work drama. It was around that time I started visiting the lake, pretty much daily. My job at a local sporting goods store was a short drive from it, and after every shift, I'd drive to the lake, sit at the end of the pier, and talk to the fish that was my death. I started telling it stories about my life sometimes. It felt natural that the thing that would end it should know about my life.

Sometimes I'd smoke cigarettes or on especially bad days. Just play music. without speaking. Those were the days I most thought about jumping in. Though in retrospect, and I thought about it every day, I dreamt of it. I began to look forward to getting off of work and going to the lake. The fish was getting bigger and harder to miss when I searched the depths of the murky water. All at first it had shied away. It was now impossible to miss, practically the size of a shark. Sometimes I could swear it was reacting to my voice, shimming its fins in this way or that,

to signify it was listening. And each day I got a little closer to the water. Not so close as to fall or be pulled in by the massive fish, but close enough that I could observe the tiny colonies under the water, and to wish that I could join them. There was around that time that Jason showed up at my doorstep. He'd moved away after high school to go to a university, and we'd lost touch after. I'd left my parents' home, but not the town itself.

He seemed nervous, but I invited him in, and we caught up for a while, before I asked about the nature of his unannounced visit. He hesitated, but overcame his anxiousness, to look serious for just a moment. Do you remember that time in high school when you got drunk and told us how you were going to die, he practically whispered. I nodded. Jason began again. I know how you feel. I see it everywhere. When I'm driving, I see it pulling me towards the oncoming traffic. When I'm at home, I feel it pulling me towards kitchen knives or rope. I can sense it with me all the time. But I just wanted to tell you, it's not set in stone. You don't have to listen. I was horrified.

I never knew that while I was fighting my battle with the lake, Jason fought just as hard. In this shared kinship, I felt happy for the first time in a long time. I'd avoid making connections for so long that it felt odd, welcoming someone into my life. But I knew it was what had to be done. Thank you. It's good to know I'm not alone. I'm here for you.

Any time you need, I told him. My death still calls to me. Sometimes I still even feel the urge to go to the lake and visit. But I know that death will welcome me with open arms like an old friend, and I don't want it to catch me with my guard down. Jason and I are friends, and we help each other through difficult. days, the days where I dream about the sweet cocoon of water all around me, where Jason holds a knife in his hand as if it were attached. I do not belong at the bottom of the lake, no matter how it calls

to me. And with Jason by my side, I hope that we can eventually die by anything other than our own hands. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow us at creepypod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through Creative Commons share-a-like licensing, or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast, may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team

and the story's author.