Creepy - Natural Think

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Drink more water...***Written by: Ryan Peacock***Bonus Episode: "My grandparents begged me to perform an autopsy on my cousin because they suspected his suicide was faked - it wasn’t"***Written by: Polonium Poisoning and Narrated by: Megan McDuffee***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Alex Aldea***Intro/Outro Narration by Joe Stofko 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.

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graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents. Natural Think Written by Ryan Peacock. Imagine if the water you drank could change your life. Imagine that instead of just hydrating you, your water flush toxins, free radicals,

and acidic waste from your body, boost your immune system. hydrated you at the cellular level and prevented or even reverse degenerative conditions like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's. Imagine if the water you drank helped you sleep better, lose weight, and change your life for the better. Imagine if you didn't have to ingest lead, bacteria, chlorine, and fluoride with every glass. It sounds too good to be true, right?

It isn't. Natural think is here. A team of Neuropaths in Austria have cracked the code to better water and a better life. And right now, it's an up-and-coming opportunity for anyone looking to get in. Not only can the Natural Think medical-grade water filter improve your life, but it can improve your bank account too. You don't have to make a decision right away. Just try Natural Think, and in less than two weeks, you'll see the difference in yourself.

It really did sound too good to be true. Maybe if someone else said it to me, I wouldn't have believed it. But this was from Annie. She and I had been friends since we were kids, and I couldn't remember a time when I hadn't had her in my life. I trusted her more than I trusted some members of my own family. Granted, Annie and I hadn't spoken in about a year or so when she messaged me out of the blue. There wasn't any bad blood between us or not.

anything. Last time we met up, things had gone great. We'd gone out for dinner, chatted about our lives, and caught up. Then, happily went our separate ways again, promising to keep in touch. Then we simply just hadn't. Or more accurately, I hadn't. She'd messaged me a few times, but I'd never been all that talkative. No real rhyme or reason for it. I figured she didn't take any offense. I've never been the most social people and Annie knew that. Besides, life is just difficult sometimes. Things get in the way. You lose track of people.

That's just how it is. Once you hit your late 20s, it gets harder to keep your friends around. You sink deeper and deeper into your own little isolated bubble. You get stuck on the hamster wheel of, wake up, go to work, go home, eat dinner, sleep. And making time for anything else becomes a chore. I suppose the pandemic hasn't helped much either. It was easier being social when I could dip out with friends after work

or I'll just go catch a movie by myself and zone out for a few hours, away from the stresses of my life. I could break up the monotony a little more that way. It shakes me up a little bit to think about what my life was like back in 2019. when I could at least take my time commuting home, visit restaurants I'd never been to before, go out of my way to grab dinner with a friend and stuff like that. Then, in 2020 and 2021, everything just went by in a blur and the only evidence I had the time passed is the simple fact that I'm older and more miserable than ever before.

I'm rambling, I know. I guess just looking back at Annie's message it's so obvious that I knew better than this she probably knew better than this but I suppose even complete horseshit can sound good when it comes from the mouth to someone you trust

and you're in a crappy headspace during a crappy point in your life I've been pretty low for the better part of the past several months when she reached out to me so I was honestly just happy to hear from a friend we've been chatting for a few days and catching up before he dropped a natural think bombshell on me looking at it part of me knew that it was a canned sales pitch she'd probably just copy and pasted it from whoever had gotten her into this

I should have known better but like I've said before it was Annie and I trusted her Honestly, she probably could have asked me if I wanted to meet her for a bleach drinking competition and I might have just said yes to it. Plus, I'd be lying if I said the empty promises of better help weren't nice to hear. Some people are just born healthy. I wasn't one of them. I've spent my fair share of time in and out of the hospital and it's never exactly been fun.

anything that promises me a shot of better health might just be worth it. So I figured what did I have to lose aside from money, right? In the end, I don't suppose there's any amount of trying to explain this a way that can justify it. I turned off my common sense and let myself get sucked in by wishful thinking and empty promises. My natural think filter arrived in the mail about a week after I signed up. I'll admit, I wasn't entirely sure what I was expecting. Annie had made it very clear that this wasn't a water ionizer or anything like that. She called it a Waser v. Starker or something?

Don't ask me how to pronounce that and what, if anything, it means. The product itself looked more like one of those filters you put on a tap to improve the water quality, although a little bulkier and metallic. The box it came in, unfortunately, only had instructions in what looked like German, but I managed to set it up just fine using the pictures provided. When I first turned it on, it took a few seconds for the water to come out, and it tasted off. Not the way the water from my tap usually tastes. It had a slight ozone taste to it, and made my tongue feel a lot. It almost felt as if it numbed my mouth a little bit.

Like it was cold, but not in a normal way. Kind of like touching a gel-cooled pillow. It's hard to accurately describe. It didn't bother me that much. There are brands of bottled water I can't even drink due to the chemical taste to get from them, and the unusual taste from the water from the natural think filter wasn't anywhere close to that. But it was still different. Not good or bad, just...

Different. But different was supposed to be good, right? If this filter did half of what Annie claimed it did and really was enhancing the water, of course it would taste a little bit different, right? I don't know. Maybe I was just trying to justify the fact that I'd spent $500 on a medical-grade water filter. Andy had insisted that I'd love this thing so much, I'd jump at the opportunity to get in on the ground floor and start my own business with the company. And I guess I wanted to believe her. I wanted her to be right, looking back at it. I still can't see it with complete certainty if she was or not. My life didn't exactly change overnight,

but after a few days, I did start to see a difference. I've always had trouble sleeping ever since I was a kid. My brain doesn't really shut off at night. Some nights I just can't wind down until I feel like I've met some arbitrary goal or alternative. I just don't want to have to wake up and deal with the anxieties of tomorrow. A couple days after installing the natural thing filter, though, I woke up from the best sleep I'd had in years, feeling refreshed for a change. I didn't even think about the filter.

I just got up, got ready, had breakfast, and went into my home office to start the day. Considering how my usual routine is to get up ten minutes before I'm due to start work, curse God, and drag myself, sometimes still wrapped in a blanket, into my kitchen for a coffee before starting the day, this was an improvement. Maybe it was having a good night's sleep for a change, but my anxiety started to feel a little more manageable too. By which I mean my mind didn't overclock itself to the point of stress the same way it had had a few days prior over every little email. All my problems didn't just vanish.

The anxiety was still there. I still felt tired in the morning, but... Well, they weren't as bad, and I genuinely felt a little better. Not a lot better, but better all the same. But that weekend, I started to wonder if maybe the water filter actually did work after all. That Saturday, I went out for a short walk in the park. It was actually kind of nice. My body didn't feel so sore. I didn't sleep until noon. I just felt well, good, which is a huge change for me.

On Sunday, I was bored, so I just texted my friend, Amber and asked if she wanted to hang out. We were her takeout and just hung out on the couch all night, watching some movies and chatting. I'm not usually the social type, but I felt a little more energized. It was incredible. When Monday rolled around, I felt kind of energized. I'd slept okay. I didn't feel like I'd let the weekend slip through my fingers.

Sure, I could still feel a little bit of that lingering anxiety gnawing at the back of my mind, but it was just easier to dismiss it and find. focus on things I needed to focus on. Looking back on that week, I think I was more productive than I've been since the pandemic started, since I didn't feel this heavy weight on my shoulders all day. It was liberating. And that's when I first saw one. I don't know what it was. I don't know what to call it, but it was there in my house. Sometime around one in the afternoon, I'd shut off my monitors to go for lunch when I saw it reflected in one of my screens. Something vaguely shaped like a man standing in the doorway

to my office. I turned around thinking that someone was there, but I just saw the open door and empty hallway. Nothing else. I remember that I just, I'd remember that I'd just sort of stared at it for a moment before shaking my head and dismissing it. Get it together, Jordan. I brushed it off just as quickly as I'd seen it. Sometimes your mind just placed tricks on you. You see things that aren't there out of the corner of your eye. Perfectly normal, right?

I got up, went to the kitchen, and heated up some leftovers from last night. And if I thought I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye at any point, I never did anything about it. I didn't look over. It was just my mind playing tricks on me. That had to be it. Only that wasn't it. I was getting ready for bed when I saw another one.

I was just in the shower freshening up before bed when I noticed something standing on the other side of the curtain. It was tall, dark, and vaguely shaped like a man. But through the curtain, I couldn't make out any clear details of it. All I could see was that there was a person standing in my bathroom. A person whose head moved ever so slightly to look in my direction, and then... Nothing. I blinked.

My hands were shaking. There was no other sound save for the hiss of the shower and the gurgle of the water circling the drain. Reluctantly, I pulled back the curtain and stuck my head out. It's still nothing. No sign that anyone was in the bathroom but me. What I had seen, though? The flickering moments out of the corner of my eye had been so easy to brush off, as had the figure reflected in my screen, but this?

Wouldn't brush this off? Not by a long shot, know what was going on. But I'd never been so afraid while inside my own home, and I didn't sleep much that night. I stayed up late, scouring the internet for answers. I came upon tales of shadow people, or ghosts that sort of match what I thought. I might have seen, but, well, none of them really managed to explain why they were showing up or what to do with them. And it was hard sorting out what was a true account and what was complete bullshit that someone

had made up for attention. Maybe it was all bullshit? Maybe it wasn't. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Too many maybes. Not enough answers. When I got the ping on my laptop from someone messaging me, I was so on edge that I almost jumped out of my skin.

I was a little relieved to see it was just Annie, though. Burning the midnight oil, hon? I guess she couldn't sleep either. After letting some of the tension drain from my shoulders, I typed out a response. Yep. Can't sleep. You? We chatted for a bit.

Annie talked about some parties she'd been to before checking in on me, asking if I was all right. I told her I was fine, just jumping at shit. shadows, nothing to be worried about. Then she said something odd. You're seeing them, aren't you? The shadows. I felt my heart suddenly jolt inside my chest.

Shadows? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Before I could type or reply, I noticed that she was already typing. I just waited to see what she might say. I can't exactly say that I made sense for a while. Don't worry. This is natural. Part of the process of waking up is seeing what everyone else misses.

You don't need to worry about them. They won't hurt you. This is insane, I remember thinking to myself, and yet I still felt the sensation of invisible eyes on me, like someone else that I couldn't see was inside the room. I tried to think up a response to type. For a moment, I started to wonder if Annie was playing some sort of prank on me. I watched the screen, waiting for her to tell me that this was all a messed up joke, but... No.

Nothing. She just kept talking. Continuing on about the stupid party she'd just been to as if she hadn't just told me that seeing fucking shadow people was a normal and natural side effect of drinking filtered water. I didn't know what to say. I left around red and then closed my laptop. I wondered if any of this would make any sense in the morning. It didn't.

I saw another figure the next morning when I opened my eyes. Just for a moment. It was there standing at the end of my bat, close to the window. I don't think it was even looking at me. It almost seemed to be looking outside. It was gone as I blinked to sleep from me. my eyes. I read over my conversation with Annie again over breakfast, trying to digest what she told me. I could have sworn I still caught glimpses and movement out of the corner of my eye

every now and then, but they were gone when I tried to look directly at them. I haven't thought for a moment I saw the shadow of a man behind me reflected in my TV. It was crazy. It had to be crazy, but what other explanation was there for the things I was seeing? Maybe it was the water? Maybe as the next few days crept by I noticed more and more glimpses of figures out of the corner of my eye. They never stayed for long, just long enough for me to notice them. Then they were gone again. When you see the reflection of a man behind you and see shapes in the darkness around your

bed enough times, you begin to accept that it might not just be your imagination playing tricks on you. Maybe there's something else there. For what it's worth, the shadowy figures I saw never really seemed to do anything. They just sort of were. Silent, faceless specters standing idle in the background. The internet offered me little information on what they were, and when I finally decided to ask Andy about them again, she didn't offer me much beyond what she'd already said.

Part of the process of waking up is seeing what everyone else misses. You don't need to worry about them. they won't hurt you. Was it normal? I ended up Googling Natural Think, and all I turned up was a fairly generic website that I'd already visited. I didn't mention anything about what I've been seeing.

In fact, none of the sources I mentioned said anything about shadow people. I guess it wasn't considered a primary selling point. Maybe it should have been a red flag that I just accepted this as well as I did. In hindsight, I'm really not sure what else I could have done. Banging other people to see them probably would have just made it seem like I'd gone crazy. Cooped up in my apartment and they weren't exactly causing any trouble. It was also sleeping a hell of a lot better than ever and my anxiety was barely even an afterthought.

I was doing great. And the only thing I'd done differently was started using the natural think water filter. Maybe this was normal. Maybe this was okay. It had to be. Right? A little over two weeks after I started with Natural Think, I told Annie that I wanted him. Shadow people aside, I genuinely did feel better.

And yes, I realized how much of a red flag that sentence probably is. I paid the membership fee and signed up for the online sales training. I started going through it after my regular work hours. I figured I'd give it a shot. shot, see if I could make it work. Maybe I'd make some money off this little side hustle. Stranger things have happened, right? The more I thought about it, the more it started to seem like a good idea.

Although, I suppose there were a few little oddities I noticed that I probably should have paid a lot more attention to. My days were already flying by. I kept busy, so zoning out during my work days was nothing new. granted I've never looked back at my to-do list and noticed I didn't remember completing half of it, but I figured it was better to not look a gift horse in the mouth. The work was done. Everything looked to be in order.

No cause for alarm, right? The biggest indicator that something was off was when I finally messaged Annie about joining up with Natural Think, or when I finally opened up the chat to message Annie about joining up. I didn't recognize the most recent messages between us. I scrolled up reading through them and thought maybe I had a vague recollection of them, but I honestly wasn't sure. The conversation was about three hours old, and I'd asked her about joining up with Natural Think.

I just, I didn't fully remember doing it. Wouldn't I remember something like that? Maybe I wouldn't. It was surreal. I've never lost time before. Ever. I've zoned out, sure, but I've never been doing something one moment only to look up and realize that several hours it passed and I couldn't remember a single thing that I'd done in them. This should have bothered me more than it did, but I remember just shrugging it off as if it was no big deal.

In my mind, it wasn't a big deal at the time. I'd simply just forgotten. People forget all the time, right? The mind can't be expected to remember every trivial little detail about the day. I was busy. And I felt fine. I felt great. And if I didn't remember a couple of hours while I was busy, well, so what?

I was fine. Everything was fine. Everything was fine. Then I wasn't. It was maybe a month or two after I'd signed up with natural think. It's hard to say. Time was weird. It all starts to blur together.

I'd made a couple sales, mostly to some friends who noted I looked a bit healthier and seemed a little more lively. I swore up and down that this was a real deal, or the chat logs indicated that I did. I don't actually remember some of those conversations, but I have the logs. Amber had asked me if I want to grab dinner with her and a couple other mutual friends of ours after work. She'd asked me before, but I usually said no. I usually had so little energy by the end of the day I couldn't make myself leave the house. But I remember that I felt great. Good enough to go out at least.

I met them down at a little pizza place downtown. It's a bit more on the upscale side. But they got the best pizza I've ever had. I hadn't actually been there in a couple of years, so it was nice to see them open again. Aside from my one dinner with Amber, I hadn't really gone out and seen anyone in a couple of months. My friends were at a table near the back. I could see the reflections of shadows and the window behind them, scattered about the restaurant. They lingered when I stared, although when I tried to focus on them, they seemed to fade away ever so slightly.

We shot the shit for a bit, catching up. I hadn't seen a few of these guys since before everything got locked down and a few of them barely look like the people they'd been before the world had gone to shit. But it was still good to finally see them again. I remember that at one point the waiter came over to take our drink orders. I told them I was fine. I had a water bottle from home. They gave me this look that was just a little bit annoyed, but I just rushed it off.

They weren't going to understand. Amber teased me a little bit about my bottle, so I tried to explain it. It's filtered, I said. I've got this new filter. It's great. I mean, like, seriously, incredible. You ever heard a natural think? She didn't have a clue what I was talking about. The more I tried to explain it, the less convinced she looked.

But she opened up this particular topic of discussion, and I'd make a believer of her yet. Here, you want to give it a shot? I opened my water bottle and poured some of the contents into an empty glass. Just try it. It does have a bit of a different taste at first, but I promise. I've been sleeping better ever since I started this stuff.

Honestly, don't remember the last time I felt this good. Amber picked up the glass and looked down at it. I saw her face contoured into a mask of sheer disgust that she wretched, as if she'd taken a whiff of pure-dog shut. Oh, God, Jordan, it stinks. Stinks? I looked down at the water and looked fine to me. It was a little foamy, sure.

and it did have a slight smell to it, but it was fine. Just the side effect of the filtration process. One of our other friends leaned in to take a sniff of the water glass only to recoil. They were murmuring amongst themselves saying things like, Jesus, what the hell is that? It reeks. I told them, it's just water. It was fine. Whatever they thought they were smelling was just a side effect of the filter. It was fine.

Even down the glass just to show them that there was absolutely, nothing wrong with it. I remember that Amber physically flinched as I did, her face contorting into a look of disgust. The water was fine. I told them that over and over again, and then Amber was calling my name. She had suddenly gotten closer to me. I didn't remember her moving. She snapped her fingers in front of my face. The waiter was standing near us, looking at concerned. One of my friends had his phone in his hand as if he was poised to call for help. They'd all moved. When had they moved? It had just been a moment and there was a coppery taste in my mouth. Blood. I could feel it trickling out of my nose into my slightly open mouth.

Amber was speaking to me, but I didn't hear a word she said. I was too busy trying to clean the blood off my face. I blinked and looked over at Amber and my friends. Their voices sounded off. I could hear them speaking, but they sounded far away. There was a strange ringing in my ears that hadn't been there before. How long had I been out for? A few minutes, maybe.

Call a doctor, I heard one of my friends say. No, I didn't need a doctor. I'm fine, I murmured. It's fine, we should order. Nobody looked or sounded convinced. My head was swimming. I don't think I could have eaten if I wanted to. I needed a drink.

Where's my water bottle? I looked around for it, but didn't see it. Where's my bottle? I spotted it nearby. It had gotten knocked over at some point. point when I blacked out. The content had spilled all over the tablecloth and foaming, as if the bottle had been full of soap. It was gone.

My water was gone. I needed that. Amber was trying to talk to me again. I brushed her off, looking around as if I would somehow put the water back in my bottle. Instead, I caught a glimpse of the shadows in the window. Dark figure is watching us at the table. Not just standing around, staring directly at us, watching this. They'd never done that before.

They'd never shown more than a fleeting interest in me before. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. I've got to go, Miss Dammered. I'm sorry, I need to go. Amber tried to put a hand on my shoulder, but I pulled away from her and made for the door. One of the waiters tried to get my way, but I duck past them and went right out into the street. I felt fine. I felt absolutely fine. Nothing was wrong with me. They were just overreacting.

They had to be overreacting, right? I tried to walk through the events of what had happened since I got into the restaurant, but the more I thought about it, the less I was sure I remembered. Come to think of it, I didn't even remember driving myself to the restaurant. I only vaguely remembered who else had been at the table, even though I was sure I'd talked to them. No, I was second-guessing myself. Maybe I shouldn't have gone out. Maybe I just needed a rest.

Yeah, that was it. Arrest. I crossed the street towards a parking lot. I'd left my car in and got in. I could see Amber coming towards me, but I didn't want to deal with her. She broke into a run as I keyed the engine, but by the time she reached my car, I was gone. I was fine. She was overreacting.

That was all? I was going to go home, lay down, sleep this off. Everything would be fine. It didn't take me too long to get out of downtown and make it to some of the rural roads leading back home. It was getting dark, but that was fine. I felt fine. I didn't know if the same could be said of the figures I saw in the darkness, though.

They seemed to linger in the shadows, hiding beside trees and in fields. Their eyeless heads were turned towards me, watching me. Even though they had no features, there was something. Something wrong with the way they looked at me. me. Almost as if they were glaring. Upset somehow. No. No. No. No. I was overreacting.

I was just upset from the fiasco at the restaurant and I was projecting that onto them. Everything was fine. My cell phone rang. It was probably Amber. I ignored it. I didn't want to listen to her telling me that something was wrong just because I got a little nosebleed. People get nosebleeds all the time. It's normal. I was fine. I was fine.

I checked my rearview mirror. I saw the shadow of something in my back seat. I didn't think too much of it. Annie had said that I was awake, so of course I was seeing more of them. It was fine. My eyes moved back on the throat. I could see dark shapes ahead of me, standing on the asses. but my headlights didn't seem to illuminate them.

No matter how close, they still seem so dark and my body hurt. My car's engine was still running, but the car wasn't moving. I had a headache. Had my head just been resting against the steering wheel? I didn't remember. My windshield was cracked. It took me a few moments to realize what my headlights were illuminating. but after a moment it dawned on me

I wasn't on the road anymore that tangled mess in front of me was what used to be a wire fence and beyond that I only saw empty farmland well that and shadows a lot of shadows I blinked and opened my car door my legs were wobbly

and I just crashed I didn't remember the crash when did I crash I looked back towards a car. I could see shadows standing behind it, avoiding my headlights. My engine was still running. I forgot me to take my keys out. I was fine.

I took a few more steps towards a car before noticing that the shadows seemed to be closer than they were before. They didn't seem to move, and yet they were closer. I stared at them, blinking slowly. There was a coppery taste in my face. mouth. I felt dizzy. My legs hurt. My head hurt. They were looking at me. Even without eyes, they were looking at me. And they were getting closer. Annie said not to worry about them. They'd always been harmless and yet in that moment something in my gut told me they didn't seem so harmless. They were getting closer, closer.

Closer, I felt something brushed my arm and turned to see one of them looming over me, a dark hand reaching out towards me. I screamed and pulled away, stumbling drunkenly toward more of the shadow things. I felt hands brush against my body, closing around my arms and clamping down on my shoulders. Annie said they wouldn't hurt me, but these ice-cold hands that pulled me towards them said otherwise, I struggled, frantically pulling myself out of their grasp. I flailed my arms, trying to hit them, but I only felt my limbs passed through thin air. The shadows eased back slightly as I squirmed out of their cold grip and started running,

stumbling and tripping on unsteady legs as I got away from my car, away from the shadows. I was fine. I was fine. No. No, I wasn't fine. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I stumbled away from them. My sneaker scraping against the asphalt to the road. The shadows kept getting closer, silently creeping towards me.

I could see more of them in front of me. The ones I just escaped were coming from behind me and I could see others closing in from the sides. They had me surrounded and they were closing in. No. I croaked through tears and snot. No. No, please.

But they didn't listen. I don't even know if they heard me. Cold hands gripped my shoulders. They closed around my arms. I didn't have the energy to scream that I felt cold arms wrapping me tight and so pull me away from the road. I struggled. I tried to pull away again, but for every icy, cold grip I slipped out of ten more, seized me.

They grabbed my legs, my shirt, my hair. They grabbed every part of me they could as they began to pull me. into the darkness. I kept fighting. I kept squirming, and then, then I saw the shadows pull back. I saw lights coming closer to me. With one last burst of energy,

I pulled myself out of the cold grasp of the shadows and stumbled towards the oncoming light. Through the tears of my eyes, I couldn't make out what it was. Not until I saw the terrified look on the face of the driver in the moment before his car barreled in. to me. The doctor tells me that if that car had been going a little bit faster, I'd be dead. He's probably

right. Remember going to the hospital or the surgery. Maybe that's a good thing. What I do remember is waking up in a hospital bed, hooked up the machines and barely aware of where I was. I'm not sure how much of my disorientation was from the crash and how much of my disorientation was from the crash and how which was from the detox. According to the doctor, my blood sample has turned up some interesting results. He doesn't know what kind of drugs I was being dosed with. But he attributes that as the cause of my episode at the restaurant,

as well as my previous lost time. Amber's been here for me. She's visited me a lot in the hospital. She's honestly been pretty good about all this. She's been to my apartment to get the natural. think filter and brought it to the hospital. My doctor said he's since turned it over to the police. I don't know what they've found yet.

I don't know if I want to know. What I do know is that whatever was in that filter and messed with my head. And now that I'm free of it, I feel not exactly better, but more myself. I can still smell that harsh chemical in my sink. Amber said it's with the water I brought. to the restaurant smelled like.

I suspect that the filter made the dosage of whatever chemical it was adding to the water stronger over time, hence the smell. At first it was so low that I barely noticed it. Then as I got used to it, my brain just sort of filtered it out and dismissed it as normal. Considering the state I was in, that doesn't surprise me. My memories of the months I was on natural think are hazy. Things blur together. I've recollected everything.

as best I can, but there's still more gaps in my memory that I'm comfortable with. Now that I've got my head clear, I realize that I barely remember anything from my final few weeks on Natural Thing. I can't imagine how much time I'm missing, or how much I can't remember. I don't think anything really worrying happened before the incident at the restaurant, but that's just it. I don't remember it if it did. Was that the first thing? Was that the first of first episode I'd had? Or was it just the first one that someone else saw? The likelihood of the latter terrifies me. If I'm lucky, I'll make a full recovery. And given all that's happened, I suppose that's probably the best silver lining I can hope for. But there's a lot of things that

still don't sit right with me. For starters, I haven't been able to find anything on natural things since I got my head clear. I've got the messages that Annie sent me. Sure. and I've got the ones I sent to some of my friends. The police have the filter, but any trace of them on the internet appears to have vanished. Every link I had is dead now. I even tried looking on a way back machine, but nothing was ever archived.

It's all just vanished. I spoke to the friends I sold to. They can corroborate my story that there was a website, but according to them, they never actually got their filters. I guess they're luckier than I was. Secondly, there's the matter of Annie. I asked Amber to get in touch with her after the accident

when she didn't respond to any of my messages. She came back a few days later having found a news article from Vancouver about a woman being found dead in the harbor a couple weeks back. I confirmed it with her family. It's Annie. Police ruled her. death is suicide. I'm not so sure. Because lastly, there's the shadows. I've seen less and less of them as whatever was in that water has slowly left my system, but I haven't stopped seeing them

completely. It's been almost a month since the accident, a month since I last drank that water, and I can still see them. They're faint. I only ever see them for a few moments at a time in reflections and out of the corner of my eye, like I did when this first started. But they're there. I haven't told Amber about them. I'm not sure how to bring up the subject. I don't even know if she'll believe me

or just write it off as a lingering effect of the drugs. And maybe that's just what it is. A residual effect from the drugs in the water. Maybe it'll go away in time. I just need to be patient. But when I'm lying in bed, I swear I can feel a cold hand touching me. Not grabbing me, but just touching me, reminding me of its presence. Sometimes I open my eyes and for a moment, I see a shadow in my room, standing over my bed.

I hope to God that it's just in my head. I hope to God that it's just the drugs. But I'm not sure. said that part of the process of waking up is seeing what everyone else misses. I can't help but wonder, what if there was some truth to that? For your bonus episode, creepy presents. My grandparents begged me to perform an autopsy on my cousin because they suspected his suicide was faked. It wasn't. Written by polonium poisoning and narrated. By Megan McDuffey.

Everyone knows that being from a family of immigrants is hard these days. My parents were the first generation to come to America, and we moved when I was a baby. We were relatively rich back in our country, so mom and dad had all figured out to open a small restaurant. In just a few years, it became a successful, typical food business. Compared to other children of immigrants, I had it easy. Of course, there were always those who thought I didn't belong in the middle class, and that my place was scrubbing floors. just like most people of my skin color,

but the discrimination was veiled and condescending. Despite the xenophobes, I knew I had every right to take the same space as they did, and I worked harder than most for it. When I graduated medical school, my parents couldn't be prouder. For a while, it felt that everything was fine with our family, then my mother's parents started showing signs of senility.

In our culture, a daughter is supposed to watch after her parents until the end, so we started making arrangements to bring them to America. Since we live in Canada, they would have access to amazing health care as well. Since July, my grandparents and their current caregiver, my cousin, let's call him, Ramick, came to live near us. Grandma and Grandpa loved everything, but Ramick had a hard time adapting. We got along well enough, but he missed his old home,

complained about everything and refused to learn English or get a job besides from helping care for our elders. My parents wanted to send him back, and he wanted to go back too, but my grandparents strongly refused to let him go. Ramek wasn't the most pleasant person, but he was indeed extremely kind when it came to the two of them, so it was understandable. I didn't want to meddle, so I limited myself to visit around once every two weeks, since my job is extremely demanding, and I don't live at my parents anymore. It was around October 25th when Ramek asked to talk to me privately, I followed him to the kitchen. So, Asia.

What are you a doctor to? You know anything about eyes? I'm not a specialist, but if it's something simple, I can help. It's just that I've been seeing those little handprints randomly. When I close my eyes, they're white. When I open my eyes, they're black. Somewhat made of light and shadow. It sounded like an extreme case of floaters, but one thing caught my attention.

Are you sure they're shaped like hands? Isn't it more like when you see a bird shape on a cloud or something? He pondered for a while. I never saw my cousin so serious. No, the shapes are very distinctive. I browsed my phone for a contact, then wrote down the number and address of a friend who's an optometrist. He was from the same nationality as ourselves, so I hoped my cousin wouldn't be shy to book an appointment. Well, that sounds serious, Remick.

Please see this friend of mine. He's great. If there's anything wrong with your eye, he'll find it out and solve it. and this was the last time that I ever saw my cousin alive. My last words to him were gentle and helpful, but, considering the horrifying conditions of his death, I wish I had paid more attention to him. To be completely honest, I wasn't really worried about Ramek's eyesight. I had referred him to a great doctor.

My schedule at the hospital was hectic, and I was supervising a renovation at my apartment. So what could I do? I was walking to my car at the end of a part-ecky-lawful. particularly difficult night shift when my mother called. Your cousin, Ramek, is dead. Come home immediately. Our voice was tearful, but authoritative.

She was getting used to being the head of our family pretty well. A shock made me leave my car behind and get an Uber. My father offered me a hug and a strong hot coffee as soon as I arrived. Grandpa and grandma were crying on the couch, looking utterly wretched. They were both pushing 80, so terribly frail and unsteady. My heart broke, seeing them like that. My mother was doing her best to comfort them while still shaken, so Dad took me to another room to explain the situation to me.

You and Remick are about the same age, Aisha. Did he tell you anything? Out of the ordinary, I mean? I told Dad about the short conversation we had had about shapes of hands on his eyesight. I can call my friend and ask if Ramick actually went there. If he went, given the circumstances, I'm sure we'll be able to take a look at his patient file, I offered. It was already past 8 a.m., so his office had just opened.

Asia, I was about to call you, my friend answered the phone. Louise said that yesterday a man tried to book an appointment. He said in broken English that he was seeing legs and weird, bended arms, both with his eyes open and closed. Oh, my God. Then what? I asked. He freaked out when she said I could only see him later today and hung up without booking the appointment. We're really, really sorry. please let the police know I'll cooperate in any way I can. I thanked him and let Dad know the new details.

That seems helpful, my daughter. You never disappoint us. Anything else? Was your cousin suffering from the nerves? As far as I knew, there was nothing else of note, beside being grumpy about moving to another country. Dad then proceeded to explain how my cousin was found dead. Rammett collapsed in the backyard at my grandparents' house, on that very same block. If I looked through some of the windows, I could see the police cars. A neighbor was walking her dogs when the two of them went crazy from the smell of death. Thankfully, she was tactful enough to contact my mother instead of my grandparents.

I think the shock would have killed them. Mom and Dad then calmly explained the situation to the elders, and when the police arrived, they nicely placed them at my parents' place, and then began the hard part. Ramek's death was ruled as a suicide. The weapon, an Asian. and knife belonged to him. The angle in which he cut his own throat was virtually impossible to be done by someone else, and only his fingerprints were present. No signs of foul play, but it was too violent.

First of all, his eyes were stabbed. Whoever heard of a suicidal person plucking their own eyes out with a blade? And his body was covered in small, circular, purplish bruises. The weird thing was, my dad explained, is that Romick likely suffered those bruises after his death. And of course, there was no suicide letter. None of us are smart like you, Asia. Dad remarked. That's why your mother and your grandparents want to ask you something. I hope you'll listen to them.

As soon as I got back to the living room, my grandparents begged me to examine Ramick's corpse. The despair and helplessness in their eyes physically pained me, but I responded that I couldn't because I wasn't qualified. I'm a pediatrician, not a coroner, or a pathologist. Mom endorsed them. Ramick is your family. We're afraid it was some sort of a hate crime.

I wanted to tell her that hate crimes are rarely concealed as suicides, but mom was inconsolable. I'm ordering you as your mother to do it. I rolled my eyes as I was an independent 32-year-old person, but this wasn't the time to fight, so I went to more practical matters. Okay, but how? do you expect me to do it? I don't think the deputy will give me access to Ramek's body just because I'm

family. Your father has two godsons in the force. I'm sure they can put you inside the room with whatever other doctor they have. Dad gasped, and we looked at each other. The look we shared said, it's easier to do it than to argue. I don't know if my father was actually as influential as my mother imagined, or if the police didn't consider this case important enough to object. The fact is that I was allowed in the autopsy room. And just like that, the worst hour of my life started. The coroner was a stocky man in his 50s named Gary. When he entered the facility five minutes late, and with a large coffee in hand,

I decided that he looked just competent enough to do his job, as long as nothing out of the ordinary happened. Later, I found out that I was right. Very unfortunately for me, that was no typical autopsy. We put on our aprons, goggles, gloves and masks. I heard your family. I'm sorry for your loss, he said politely. I thanked him, and we got started. As a former medical student, I had seen autopsies before. I just never performed one myself. Gary carefully positioned the body in a supine position, took a look at the preliminary

notes the police officers had taken, and started examining the torso, where most of the strange little bruises were. All the while, Ramek was covered from the neck up. Police couldn't explain those. he pointed. Maybe illergic reaction to the grass. It looks more like bedbug bites, but in a strange way, I said. But of course it's autumn, so those things wouldn't be alive outdoors. Gary scraped off some of the skin to look under the microscope later. I want to take a look at his wound and face before opening him up.

Careful, it will be nasty. I thought that I could take it. I had just extracted a metal bar from a five-year-old boy's torso two nights ago, for Christ's sake. But when Gary took off the sheet, covering my cousin's face, I almost lost it. His throat had a relatively clean cut from side to side, like he didn't mean to just bleed to death, but actually decapitate himself. Still, the canoe-shaped wound was creepy,

like the Cheshire Cat tried to conjure his mouth in a very wrong place. Your family thinks he was murdered because he's not white. I feel the same way, he remarked, as the two of us focused on his neck because we couldn't bring ourselves to look at the holes where his eyes should be. I mustered courage to look at his face. His mouth was open, showing not mere physical pain, but a transcendental horror. His cheeks were still covered in now dried blood. His eye sockets?

Oh my God, I wish they were empty. Instead, they were covered in nasty ulcers and partially squeezed remains of his eyeballs, Looking at the raw skin was nauseating to the point where I felt violated. These wounds clearly weren't the cosomortus. We can go back to them later, only if necessary, Gary said. Of course, he saw his share of Gore as well, but he too was unwilling to look at my cousin's mangled face longer than necessary. So the coroner covered Ramek's face again and proceeded to cut his chest into a Y shape to check if there was anything wrong with his organs.

Next was sawing his ribcage open, but it never happened. Instead, I'll never forget the shriek of panic that Gary let out as he was finishing the incision in my cousin's belly. My only reaction was jumping back as I realized why Gary was retching inside his disposable mask and cursing. His gloved hand was black and viscid. The inside of Ramick's body was crawling with bugs. The bugs were moving around busily and building a nest, thus the viscous substance, holding themselves not only in my cousin's organs, but in his most superficial tissues as well. That's how he had bites after his death. They came from the other side of his skin. And of course, where there are bugs and a nest, there are larva. Hundreds of them.

Coughing from inhaling his own vomit, Gary started taking off his PPE with his clean hand. A few bugs immediately flew on his hair. He slapped his own head on the verge of a monumental nervous breakdown. I'm not paid enough for this shit. I don't know if that's normal in your country or what, but you saw the body shut, or don't. Just burn this unholy thing. And he fucking left me alone in autopsy room

with the infested corpse of my cousin. What I did next was driven by the pure instinct of obeying my mother, no matter how ludicrous the task she entrusted me was. I carefully protected all my still-exposed skin, then grabbed a few bugs and put them in a jar. No one would believe that Ramek was infested from the inside, so I had to show proof. Also, I didn't recognize that species, so maybe it was some new danger. I then started slowly making the baseball stitch I knew I was supposed to, but never had to. Every so often a bug would crawl on my hand or my arm, and I prayed that my protection equipment was enough to keep me from the same fate my cousin had

suffered. I cried as I worked. I still hadn't cried, saving my tears for when I finally uncovered the truth, but it was clear to me that Ramek took his own life because the sensation of the bugs moving around inside his guts had driven him crazy. My stage didn't look very good, but it felt like it was going to hold. Before leaving, I decided to take one last look at Ramek's face. I then realized that the raw soars inside his eyes. eye sockets were bites, too, just like on his skin. He ripped his eyes out with a knife because his ocular globe was teeming with insects. His funeral was three days ago. I didn't have to explain anything to my family. I just confirmed that his death was indeed a suicide, and they deemed my

judgment absolute. As to why, I vaguely replied that Ramek was suffering from mental illness that caused illusions. With that explanation, they are miserable, but pacified. I don't know for how long I can keep telling this lie. Today, the police interrogated me about the suicide of a 54-year-old forensic coroner, known as Gary. I felt like I had to explain part of the story and show them the jar. The bugs were still alive and multiplying. With everything regarding my cousin's death, I didn't have a chance to take a good look at them. When both the deputy and I looked at them through a magnifier, my blood ran cold.

I've never seen any species like that. This bug's legs don't end in claws like most. It ends in tiny five-fingered 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. this podcast are done so through Creative Commons Sherrillite licensing or with written consent from the authors.

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