Creepy - Paradoxical

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

The completion of the series started with At My Most Human State***Paradoxical***Written by: EmpyRealInvective***The Journal of Kaneonuskatew Blackwood***Written by: EmpyRealInvective and Narrated by: Joey Sorliss***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Alex AldeaHosted 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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We are still accepting stories, but spots are filling up fast. Little hint. If your story is centered around fall, Halloween, or trick-or-treating, we tend to pay a little closer attention, given the time of year we're celebrating. And we're just days away from Midsummer Scream, 2023. This will be my first horror convention, so please be patient with me showing my face in public. I've spent a lot of time talking to myself in my closet under the stairs, so... Well, you'll see.

And just as a quick heads up, today's stories are a continuation of a series that was written by one of our favorite writers, MP Reel Invective. A story that started with At My Most Human State. Enjoy. Now, this is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastures and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

Creepy Presents Paradoxical Written by Empie Real Invective. Raymond Pellateer hated jobs like this. He pulled his bark tightly across his body and tried to turn his back to the wind that whipped stray flakes into his clothes. He didn't hate the cold as much as he feared it.

He brushed away a memory of locking himself outside in a blizzard when he was younger and almost freezing to death. He paused a moment for his partner to catch up to him. His partner was a greenhorn and liked to try and joke his way through conflicts and life. Raymond Pellateer had been a search and rescue operative for 15 years, and the party hated the most about it, was recovering the frozen bodies.

Cross-country skiers had seen something sticking out of the snow earlier today, and they reported it to the local authorities, who, in turn, reported in to Raymond. He knew that this was his partner's first time in corpse recovery. His partner was wet behind the ears and cocky. It was a dangerous combination. He insisted on his co-workers calling him Iceman, like the character in the movie Top Gun. He insisted so much that no one managed to learn his real name.

Ray hoped that this might be an educational and humbling experience, but he doubted it. They had been hiking for the better part of the day, looking for the body. The snow had been falling around them since they started out along the path. Ray's trained eyes scanned a massive white landscape before him and deftly located the body. Iceman was the first to reach it due to sheer virtue of youth. He stood over the corpse and shouted, Holy shit. I think this guy was raped by the abominable snowman.

Rage was close enough to the frozen corpse to make sense of his partner's assonine comment. The body was a Caucasian male, approximately. He was lying in the prone position with one arm bent upwards, like he had died trying to give God the finger. He had been stripped of his shirt and his pants were around his ankles. It was not the most dignified position to die in. Ray's partner suggested, should we put an APB out on Frosty? I never did like him. In the movies, he seemed a little too friendly.

I bet we wouldn't have this problem if someone had just given him a snowblower. You're a ninja, you know that? Iceman countered. Why would he be practically naked then? He didn't strip on his own. Ray spoke as if you were talking to a child, an especially slow child. Listen good, because I'm only going to explain this once, the crash.

Timson grogly opened his eyes. It was a cold sensation sweeping its way through his clothes that forced him to wake up. He blearily remembered drifting off on the plane ride. He hadn't had much sleep the night before. He rubbed asleep from his eyes and looked over at the source of the cold air. He didn't see the giant keeping hole in the side of the plane, which was directly in front of his eyes because he was more focused on the passenger next to him. The woman next to him was looking at him with her head tilted at a weird hand.

angle. The head sagged, but her open glassy eyes met his stare. On her neck there was an odd protuberance that Tamson quickly realized was due to the fact that her spine had been snapped. She was dead, and her dead-eye stare had been locked onto his unconscious form while he'd been knocked out. He shrieked and tried to free himself, but something held him to his seat. In his terror he attributed this to being locked in her death grip. To his panic-addled mind, she'd ensnared him and was pulling him towards a hellish death. He struggled and screamed before a pair of rough hands grabbed him and pulled hard. He came free from the seat's buckle with a metallic pop, and a powerful hand delivered a slap to knock some sense into him. He was knocked out of his reverie

and became aware that he was in the wreckage of a plane and surrounded on all sides by the dead. When he was asked questions by the other two, he gave simple answers. He only gave his first name. He didn't like the look of the boy. The young man looked like he was 20 or so years old. He had a darker complexion. That wasn't one of the reasons Tamson didn't like him.

It was the sideways glances he kept throwing at him and Jim that made him wary. Tamsin let a hand in constructing the barricade that kept the elements out of the plane, but he had already decided that he wasn't going to stay here. Tamson saw the plane as a place of death. They were surrounded by the dead, who would very soon begin to rot and make them sick. his best option was to leave and look for help. He made his intentions to leave a parent to the other two survivors, but Jim was opposed to the idea.

Tamson snapped at them that he wouldn't stay in this tomb for any longer. He grabbed some food and water for the trip and fashioned a coat for himself out of the clothes of the deceased passengers. He left the two as he left towards his perceived salvation. The first thing he became aware of when he stepped outside was the cold. The makeshift jacket he had made for himself out of the other passengers closed at its job and shielded him from the wind. His fingertips and face were exposed, but he tucked his hands into his pants as he walked and kept his back to the wind. He knew that if he could find a town or insulation, that he would be saved, and maybe even hailed as a hero when he directed rescue to the wreckage.

Tamsen began walking in a direction that was in a decline. He assumed that he had a better chance of finding help if he went downhill. He silently prayed that he wasn't walking down into a valley that butted up to a cliff. Every now and then, he withdrew his hands from his pants and rubbed them together to generate heat. The snow was picking up, but he could see the path in front of him. He just had to keep moving downhill, and he would be in the cliff. clear. After a few minutes, Tamson began to shiver. He was prepared for this. He rubbed his arms against his chest and began to warm up. He continued down the path he had chosen. With each step,

his foot sank into the snow up to his ankles. It didn't take long for his feet to begin to get cold. He was wearing sneakers after all. He continued walking and silently prayed that his exertions would warm up his extremities, and he resumed his march. It wasn't until he went for a drink that he began to realize how cold it was, really. The water had begun to crystallize. He had only been outside the plane for an hour or so. That meant it had to be at least below 32 degrees, if not lower. He took a swig of water and winced as the icy water traveled down his throat. It felt like he had swallowed a razor blade.

Tamsin took the water bottle and tucked it under his armpit to prevent it from freezing completely. What seemed like an hour later, Tamson decided to eat the bake of chips he had taken with him. He reasoned that it would be better to eat them now as he was getting tired of constantly looking down at his hands to make sure the chips were still there since his fingers had gone numb a while ago. A smile played across his lips. when he thought of trying to eat with his chattering teeth. It would be so much easier. He would just move the chips towards his chattering mouth, and they would grind the food for him.

Easy peasy. His hopes began to dissolve like a sandcastle in a rising tide as he struggled to open the bag. His numb fingers were making even the most simplest of tasks seem insurmountable. He couldn't take it. tell if he had the bag in between his fingers, and sometimes when he tried to pull it open, it would slip out of his grasp.

Tampson finally managed of a firm grasp on the bag and pulled. The opening of the bag was akin to an explosion that sent chip shrapnel everywhere. It wasn't until he saw a large portion of chips blow away in the wind that he realized that the wind had picked up. A storm was coming. Timson wanted to turn back then and there, but something it goaded him onwards. He realized a portion of his reasoning was based in his pride, and another had its foundation built upon his shame. He didn't want to have to slink back to the wreckage with his metaphorical tail between his legs.

He wanted to be the hero that saved the survivors of the tragic plane crash. It was those two thoughts that drove him onwards and into the embrace of the Reaper. His mental faculties were the next thing to go. He began to have difficulty thinking straight. His mind was playing tricks on him and time seemed distorted. He thought he saw things in the falling snow. He saw a humanesque figure shifting behind a veil of snow. If he had been thinking clearly,

He would have turned around and returned to the plane before the blizzard got any worse. He continued his death march down the slope as the snow picked up and the temperature dropped even lower. The snow picked up and began to fall so heavily that Tampson was unable to see five feet in front of him. He rubbed at his extremities, but it wasn't as effective as before warming him up. The wind tore at him and redacted him. ripped through his clothes. Buffets of wind blew him back. He lowered his face towards his chest and plowed through the storm. He had to be getting close to finding help. It was hard to move when the frigid weather had completely numbed his extremities. He stumbled when his feet caught

on each other. He corrected himself before he could faceplant in the snow. Tampson angled his head down and watched his feet. It kept the wind out of his face and helped him move forward. The snow continued to fall in sheets, and he continued to shiver. Damson didn't know how long he'd been walking in a daze, but he knew what snapped him out of it. He saw footprints in the snow. His heart leapt for joy, and he began to follow the tracks. His heart hammered out a joyful cadence as he followed the path. of his savior. That ecstatic and tenation faltered as the snow prints became sloppy and began to weave and drunkenly sway back and forth. It wasn't until Thameson stopped and put his foot into the

snow print that everything clicked into place and he roared in frustration. His foot fit exactly in the print. He had been following his own trail and must have gotten turned around in the storm. It was then that all hope flew from him, and he broke out into a run. He had to find help. He had to come across help now, or he would die out here. He stomped his way through the snow. He managed at a frenetic pace for a few minutes before he had to stop and catch his breath. He doubled over and drew the frigid air into his lungs for a few moments.

Each breath he drew in felt like needles sticking into his lungs. Around him, the snow continued its merciless assault. Tampson rubbed at the sweat that had begun to form on his brow. He didn't want to imagine it freezing to him and sealing his eyes shut. He wiped his face and the back of his neck. It wasn't until he cleaned the last bit of sweat from his exposed skin that he was overcome with an hot realization. He felt warm. More than that, he actually felt hot.

Something was wrong here. It was pouring snow around him and the wind was whipping at his exposed skin, but he felt like he was burning up. Did he have a fever? Tamson put the back of his hand to his forehead and quickly withdrew it. It was hot to the touch, like pressing your hand against the boiling pot of water. His skin grew hotter and hotter. It felt like he was boiling from the inside out. He had to drop his core temperature quick.

Tamsant tore the strips of clothing he had wrapped around his hands to protect him from the cold. The sensation of heat kept building within him. He unzipped his jacket next and shucked it off. He felt like he would catch fire any second. He slid his shirt over his head and dropped it on the ground next to his jacket. The cold air felt surprisingly comfortable to his bare skin. He continued to tromp through this steadily building snow, leaving behind his jacket, makeshift hand bindings and shirt.

The feeling of burning faded away as Tamson continued to walk. The wind actually felt refreshing on his skin. The snow fell around him and the flakes that battered up against him felt soft at the touch. His mind relayed they would feel even better if he was wearing even less. He had the thought that there was something wrong with all of this, but he couldn't process it in his mind. He ended the buckle of his pants and let them fall around his ankles. It was invigorating. He was revitalized.

He tried to kick off his pants, but his shoes were in the way. He would take those off after he got his pants off. The thought that something was terribly wrong rattled around in Tampson's head like a moth in a lampshade. But it was an insubstantial and unobtainable thing. Maybe his head would clear up one of the same. he got the rest of his clothes off. Maybe everything would click in place when he felt the wind caressing the entirety of his being. He struggled with his pants for a few minutes before he fell forward into the snow.

The ground was surprisingly soft. More than soft, it actually felt warm. It was like lying in a comfortable bed. The snow acted as a blanket that would eventually envelop him. He would like nothing more than to burrowing. into the ground and curl up. The thought pleased him. He liked the idea of a nap.

It was a pleasant sensation. He would drift off for a few minutes and wake up re-energized. That gnawing thought he had in the back of his mind drifted further and further away from his grasp. Tamson closed his eyes and muttered. So warm. He drifted off. Raymond Pellateer continues. It's cold paradoxical undressing.

Once hypothermia sets and it takes a terrible toll on your brain, mainly your hypothalamus. Hippopotamus? Raymond sighed and continued. It's the part of your brain that regulates your temperature. The cold can actually induce the hypothalamus to... Iceman interrupted. So you're saying he did this to himself? Yep. Shitty.

Well, let's get him down off this mountain. Raymond asked the obvious. Where'd he come from? We have to go see where he came from. There could be other people stranded somewhere. The two began their march up the mountain after marking the frozen man's body with orange flags. They had barely traveled half a mile before they came across the wreckage.

The man had obviously come from here. Here, Raymond heaved a heavy sigh. He really did hate jobs like this. The frozen man could have probably turned around and made it to safety in a few minutes. He radioed in for more help. They had to search the plane for any more survivors. Creepy Presents The Journal of Kenny Nuskita Blackwood, written by Impy Real Invective.

And narrated by Joey Sorless, Ricard Dunkelstein. My name is Ricard Dunkelstein, and I have a hobby that is more interesting than most stamp and coin collectors. I'm a bit of an urban explorer. In today's day and age, when most of the world has been investigated and mapped out, I instead sought to explore the abandon and forgotten. I reasoned that it was in these places where I could find the extraordinary.

I enjoyed my forays into the disused and neglected portions of the city. I love nothing more than to spend a Saturday carefully moving through the decrepit and derelict buildings in the southern side of the city. It was on one of these Saturday expeditions this past year that I first came across the Journal of Keni Nuska to Blackwood. I've been rummaging through an abandoned building on the industrial side of town when I discovered the journal. The first few floors were devoid of anything really interesting. But when I reached the sixth and uppermost floor, I found a soiled mattress and desk. Sitting on the desk was a fountain pen and a paper journal. I ignored the sacchar and sweet smell that flooded my nostrils and pervaded the uppermost floor.

I sat down on what was the squatters' mattress and began to read. Blackwood Journal Entry July 28, 2011. My therapist, back when I had a therapist, suggested that I write all my emotions into a journal so I could go back and see how far I've come. I guess that's true, but probably not in the aspect that she had thought. She probably hoped that I would find enough emotional catharsis that I might make a breakthrough of sorts. But unfortunately, she was wrong.

I write and write, but nothing ever changes. I guess I should give introductions. My name is Keny Nuskata Blackwood. Don't ask me how drunk my parents were when they came up with that name. My father thought it sounded tough, and my mother was too doped up on the epidurals to support or reject the name. I told my friends my name was Kane, and I went over without any problems. I was raised on an Indian reservation in the western part of America, but I left when I was 20 years old. I'm writing all of this because my attempt to flee from home was met with less than desirable results.

The plane stalled mid-air and crashed into a mountain. I won't elaborate on what happened to me while I was stranded in the wilderness for over three weeks, without food and the wounded survivor who passed away named Jim Donner. I will only allude to the fact that it ended with me being tried for murder in court. I don't feel it necessary to expound on this, as shortly after my court hearing, my journal that I had typed while awaiting trial was made public. Note from McCar, Dunkelstein. I believe he's talking about, at my most human state.

Even though I was declared not guilty by the judicial system, the release of my journal made me into a pariah. I couldn't live in one place for too long. As soon as the people placed my name and faced to the tragedy, I had to leave. Their looks of disdain and harsh words were too much for me to bear. I was and am a social exile. I only did what was necessary to survive.

I believe that anyone who had been in my situation would have done the same. But no one seems willing to step up to that challenge of being without food for three weeks and having to eat your only friend. I had received a small sum from when I pressed charges against the airlines that had put me in that fiendish situation. But once my sentiments came out, their support and funding dried up. I found myself an outcast. I moved out to New York. It was the only place where someone like me could be swallowed up in anonymity.

I lost everything, my identity, my ability to sustain myself, my pride. I had once asked the gods for a new start. Unfortunately, I didn't know that the gods were cruel and sarcastic when I offered up that supplication. I got my wishes and spades. I live my life day to day on the streets. My frostbitten deformities make begging a rather easy. thing. The tips of my fingers and nose have gone black. I don't have any more sensation in them, which took some getting used to, but doesn't even phase me now. I'm still gone like a skeleton,

even a year after the plane crash that resulted in my near starvation. I earn enough begging to keep myself fed. It's not the healthiest situation, but it could be much worse. Blackwood Journal Entry, August 7th, 2011. Had that dream again. I'm peering into the cockpit of the place. The only part of the pilot's body that I can see is his hand. The impact crushed the cockpit, and it now looks like it imploded. His hand twitches in its death throes, but it's also beckoning. It is calling me forward, like I should have died in the crash instead of surviving.

I back away from the corpse and turn to flee, but the stewardess is behind me. Her ribcage is spayed open from the cart smashing in. to her during the crash. The ribs move and her insides pulse with every breath. It gives the impression that the ribs are teeth that are grinding, masticating. She lurches forward and the last thing I feel before I wake up are the bones piercing into me. I wake up with a scream in my throat. One of the benefits of living by yourself is that in moments like these, you don't have to explain yourself to anyone. I am sweating heavily and my throat feels raw. What disturbs in you me most about these dreams is the realization that they are stirring up old memories and sensations.

I can almost taste the coppery, sweet marrow in my mouth. It isn't an unpleasant taste, but I know that it is that taboo thought that had resulted in my ostracization from the rest of society. My stomach growls at me. I lay back down and let the uncontrollable sobbing rack my body. Blackwood Journal Entry. September 1st, 2011. My nights belong to my nightmares, and my waking moments are now spent in fear. My therapist would probably chalk up the nightmares as my mind's attempt to process the horrible events. The other homeless people on the street are whispering of a gang going around abducting people, brutally beating them and leaving them in front of the police station.

They say they are merciless and have been doing this for over 30 years. Witnesses are too frightened to report them to the police. They call themselves the Pluto gang, and they have the citizens of New York afraid to go outside. They've even assaulted a semi-known science fiction writer. I have decided to take a fatalistic approach to the whole thing. I can't live my life in fear of the infamous Pluto gang. There isn't much I can do to stop them if they decide to beat me to a pulp in the streets. So it goes.

Blackwood Journal Entry, September 8, 2011. The nightmares continue and are evolving. I am in the cockpit, and the hand of the pilot beckons me to come closer. He motions me to embrace oblivion. I turn my back to him and confront Marge Reed, the stewardess. Her ribbed teeth gnash and grind at me, but she turns and disappears into the cargo hold. I begin to follow her, but another memory is standing before me. Jim Donner is grinning a fiendishly feral smirk.

I want to scream and wake up, but I can't. Jim moves closer to me. He is hobbling, and each step produces a sucking sound as he puts weight on his dislocated ankle. There's a tiny shard of glass sticking from his throat, and his neck is bent at an odd angle from when I snapped it. He lunges, and the second he comes into contact with me, my world explodes with a white flash. I launch myself out of my bed and wince.

I rub at my cheek and it stings. I must have bitten it during my dreams. I prod the wound with my tongue. It's a small wound and will probably heal on its own. The taste of blood in my mouth triggers a memory. I am kneeling over Jim's corpse, and my mouth is on the wound on his neck. I am licking and sucking at the blood trickling from the puncture. My stomach rumbles inappropriately.

There's no way I'm getting back to sleep tonight. I'm going for a walk. Blackwood Journal Entry, September 20, 25th, 2011. Went to the clinic today. I wanted a little something to supplement my begging allowance. I heard from other beggars that if you're in good shape, or at least not riddled with disease,

you could get 40 or 50 bucks for an hour of time. I waited in the lobby while the secretary stalled. I could tell she didn't like the look of me. I can't blame her. I look like I have some horrible necrotic wasting disease. When it became evident that I wasn't going to, to leave, she called my last name, and I went into the office with the doctor. He strapped my arm down and stuck the IV in and began to filter my plasma. It wasn't until I was physically tethered to the

filtration machine that I realized he was looking at me, at my frost-bitten finger specifically. I tried to explain that these were injuries I suffered from after an incredibly cold winter in New York, but the doctor recognized me from the high publicity court case. I didn't know my picture had been splashed all over the world by the media while I was awaiting trial. I thought that giving the nurse the pseudonym Jack Fiddler would be enough to deflect suspicion. While I was stuck waiting for the machine to finish separating out my plasma, the doctor grilled me about my experience during my time when I was stranded on the mountain. I gave non-committal answers. Being stuck in a frigid environment was kind of shitty, and spending three weeks without so much as a crumb to eat was pretty bad. It wasn't until he

asked what it was like to eat another person to survive that I became agitated. I tore the IV out of my arm and stood up. I fled the clinic without receiving any money for donating plasma. But I had to get out of there. Blackwood Journal Entry, September 29th, 2011. Got drunk today? I had no real reason for getting wasted. I just wanted to. I never used to drink back when I was living on the reservation. Blackwood Journal entry. The page is stained with a reddish-brown substance. The dreams are back. Well, that's not true. They never left, but I had found myself lulled into a false sense of security by the repetitiveness of the nightmares. The beckoning hand, the savaged stewardess, and Jim were now commonplace. I had seen them so much that it was like greeting an old and familiar dream.

The dream I had last night was different. Jim appeared before me. He had been standing in the nest of clothes that I had made to keep us warm back then. He looked like he had always looked in my dreams. He had the shard of glass sticking out of his throat, and the deep purple throttle marks were on his neck. He began to shamble towards me on his dislocated ankle. As he got closer, I realized that he was completely covered in bite marks. Parts of him had been torn away.

exposing the red sinewy muscles underneath. He shuffled up the aisle and I wanted to run away from him, but I found myself inexorably drawn towards him. A small amount of blood was dribbling from his throat and his head lulled back and forth with every shuffling step on his broken neck. I stepped forward and now I was only a few feet away from him. He smelled like rotting flesh and whiskey. He lunged the instant he touched me.

I awoke from the dream. The memory of the taste of his flesh was fresh in my mind. My stomach wasn't growling. Blackwood Journal Entry, November 26, 2011. The Pluto gang is at it again. So it goes. Not only have they been abducting people, but now they can add murder to their repertoire.

Word has been going around that a man was recently found in an alley. He had been brutally beaten to death. Police have been pretty tight-lipped on the whole deal, but rumors have been going around that he had been so violently stabbed and beaten that the funeral will be a closed casket affair. I don't know if it really is them or there are copycat gangs running around using their modus operandi, but I do know that it has me on edge. The building I'm squatting in is a few blocks away from any of the other squatters.

I don't play nice with the others, it would seem. They could assault me and I could scream bloody murder and not a soul would hear me. Blackwood Journal Entry, December 24th, 2011. It's freezing here. I mean, it could be much colder. I have experienced colder weather, but I would prefer not to experience it again. That is why I have a can of Sterno with me. I bought a few at a gas station.

I didn't even know that they made it anymore. It is lit and the flammable gel is casting off a blue flame. As long as I stay within the heat radius of it, I will be fine on the cold. nights. The gas station attendant asked me if I was going to drink it. I have seen a few of my older, more alcoholic neighbors back on the reserve, strain it through a sock and drink it. They called it squeeze. It's a quick and easy way to go blind. I politely let him know that I was using it to fend off the cold. I wanted nothing more than to throw it in his face and set him aflame. I've been noticing lately that I've been getting agitated easily and without much provocation.

Blackwood Journal Entry, January 2nd, 2012. I have had a bit of a revelation of sorts. Blackwood Journal Entry, January 3rd, 2012. I guess I need to elaborate on that. The pieces of the puzzle were before me this past month or so. It wasn't until the dream last night that I began to reassemble the puzzle, the quickness in which I would lose my temper, the tonal change of my dreams, the lack of hunger, I now know what is happening.

I'll tell you of my dream. It began like all the other recurring dreams I had since the plane crash. I watched the convulsing and clutching hand of the pilot. I sidestepped the stewardess whose body was split open and masticating like a mad dog. I moved down the aisle and confronted Jim Donner. Something was different this time. It didn't end in a white flash. As soon as I touched him, I was on him.

My hands wrapped around his throat as he feebly beat at me. I watched him die. I began my macabre feast. Once I'd had my fill of him, I stood up and went to the door that led to the cargo hold. Everything was so clear and prescient. I knew what was going to happen next. It was more like a memory than a dream. During the trials, I couldn't remember anything during my time in the cargo hold.

But now it was clear as day. The door swung open and the stench of weak old death wafted in from the inky blackness. I stripped off my jacket and makeshift gloves. I wouldn't need them anymore. That was where I belonged. The memories. I remember shoving my face into their cold abnaments and tearing at them. I buried my face into their ribs and gnawed at their hearts.

It was tough to chew, but so nourishing. I had my fill of feasting on their flesh. It was difficult to chew due to the damage the cold had inflicted on their corpses. A beat and broke their bones and lapped up their marrow. It was salty and had the taste of iron. I remember the taste of their marrow, their blood, and their flesh. I remember all of those delectable tastes. The pieces are all in place.

I haven't been hungry because I haven't been satiating my urges. When'd I become a somnambulist? Is the Pluto gang even a real thing? I know the murders aren't theirs to claim. How long have I been sleepwalking through my nights? How many times have I woken up feeling oddly refreshed in full? I don't know how long for certain I have been giving into my darkest desires, but I do know one thing.

I am so very hungry. The other pages have been staying at dark, dark red and are unreadable. I set the journal down. I wanted to leave, but something was preventing me from doing so. I had some sort of unfinished business. His last journal entry was over a year ago. Could he have abandoned this place and set up another haunt?

There was nothing to indicate that someone had been here. Dust and cobwebs had begun to form on everything. The thing that bothered me most was the source. smell? What was that smell? It was a cloying, sickly sweet scent. I can't really describe the smell other than thinking of one time when I was a child and I ate a jar of honey and got sick. This smell brought back that memory and that feeling of upset. The smell was coming from the nearby bathroom. I wasn't sure if there was running water here anymore. At first I thought it was a smell of vetted water that have been sitting in the bathtub for months on end.

But my attention shifted elsewhere when I saw the writing on the wall. It, of course, wasn't metaphorical writing. I had already read the metaphorical writing that I should have gotten the hell out of there the moment when I picked up the journal. This was actual writing. It was scrawled all over the bathroom walls and mirror in a black felt tip marker. When'd I go? The words overlapped each other and the ink had begun to bleed into the plaster of the walls.

What could it all mean? When'd I go? Crazy? I assumed he'd gone crazy years after the plane crash. When'd I go? When'd he go on his serial cannibalistic spree? When'd I go? I was missing something.

I couldn't see the whole picture. "'When'd I go?' The pieces clicked together when I said it aloud. "'When'd I go? "'Wendigo!' "'He'd gone completely off his rocker. "'He thought he was a Wendigo, "'a cannibalistic spirit prominent

"'in Native American legends. "'I didn't care about investigating the smell anymore. "'I want it out. "'I'd just turned around when the voice rasped. "'Oh, my feet, my burning feet of fire. It wasn't his words. It startled me. But the way that he spoke them, it was somewhere between an audible noise and a whisper. But the sound of it grounded into my ears like sanding paper. I think if I should live a hundred years, I will never hear another sound that instantly

raised the hair on the back of my neck and made my stomach do a somersault like the sound of blackwood talking. It sounded like this was the first time he'd spoken in months. He was just outside the bathroom, and he was waiting for me to show myself. I slowly exited the bathroom and found him standing in the doorway. He, no, it. Because he barely looked human now, exhaled a rattling gasp. He was bone thin. The tips of his fingers and nose were black and necrotic.

His eyes were sunken sockets in his head, and they regarded me with a feverish fervor that reflected insanity itself. The blackened skin had drawn back from his nails and gave him the image of having claws. He spoke like a radiator rattling a bolt around in its tubing. Did you read my journal? I nodded, too paralyzed by fear to speak. He paused for a moment longer than a standard blink and asked, Well, did you like it?

The thing didn't give me time. for an answer. He took a step forward and I edged towards a window. I knew I was on the sixth floor, but I'd rather have risked falling six floors and splattering the street below than staying with this fiend any longer. He saw me nervously glance at the window and grated. I would prefer you whole. I'm not a big fan of soup. He drug his tongue across his teeth, and it was then that I noticed they were decaying but sharp. His diet of meat had worn his teeth down to look like he'd filed them. I could smell his breath from ten feet away.

It was the same sickly saccharine smell that I'd noticed when I first entered the room. How long had he been watching me? He lunged across the room faster than a blink and swung a cylindrical object at my head. I would later realize that his weapon was a bone, maybe a femur, and that it had notches on it where he had notches. gnawed it down. It would have brained me of my body not acted on instinct. I managed to duck the swing and fled towards a door. He threw his weapon at me while I fled and hit me square in the back. I lost my balance and smashed into the wall with my forward momentum. I managed to shake off my days

and kept running toward the stairwell. I would later find a bruise the size of a grapefruit from the assault. What was once Kenny Nusky to Blackwood gave a hellish growl and peckle. proceeded to give chase. I knew that if he caught up to me, he would tear me apart and eat me. I ran down the stairs, skipping two steps at a time. I could hear the soft slap of his shoeless feet striking the floors he hunted me down. I could hear him gnashing his teeth and making guttural sounds behind me. I flew down the flights of stairs and ran out into the lobby.

The door was closed, and I didn't want to fumble with a knob with him so close behind me. So I lowered my shoulder and rammed it. It groaned in its frame, but didn't burst open. I frantically planted a foot and kicked it with all my might, but it still wasn't breaking open. The sound of him was getting closer by the second. I gave one last desperate kick and was instantly relieved as it blew open and revealed the street. I started forward, but something jerked me backwards. He had grabbed the collar of my shirt and was pulling me back towards his gaping, rotting mouth.

I was dumbfounded that such a gaunt, famished, looking man had the strength to pull me back by my collar. His rancid breath puffed on my neck and the sensation was so revolting that I gagged. I tore up my shirt and shucked it like a snake shedding its skin and wriggled loose. I took off down the street away from the abandoned building. When I hazard a look back over my shoulder, I saw him in the street. He had a strip of my shirt and it brought it to his mouth. He dragged his tongue across. the shred like he could taste my fear. Then he howered in a bestial manner and returned to his lair. I didn't stop running until I was able to flake a taxi and vanish in the sea of anonymity

that was New York. That was a few months ago. I went to the police. They shrugged off my outlandish story. I can't say I blame them. Would you believe a story about a Wendigo squatting in an abandoned building and feeding his carnal cannibalistic desires? You'd get laughed out of the precinct if you even decided to follow up. I lied to myself and pretended it was an elaborate prank my friends had set up and hired a makeup artist to scare the hell out of me. I stopped my hobby of going out and exploring abandoned buildings. I told myself that lie until it became the truth to me. I can't lie to myself anymore. I found it outside my apartment door this morning.

I was getting ready to go to work for the day. I opened the door and it fell into my apartment, book, and almost pissed my pants when I recognized it as a journal. A small white object similar in shape to a bullet slid out from between the pages. It was the distal portion of a human phalanche. It had been acting as the bookmark for the page. I flipped to the page and with trembling hands and quavering voice right aloud. You never gave me feedback on my journal.

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