Creepy - Please Don't & Burned Alive or Buried Alive

Episode Date: November 25, 2021

Please Don'tWritten by theMethuselahian and narrated by Michelle Kane***Burned Alive or Buried AliveWritten by BrenWillPohn and narrated by Cole Burkhardt (Original narration air date: 10-19-2021)***Find our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube:https://www.youtube.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.

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 are 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. Please don't. Written by the Methuselian and narrated by Michelle Kane. Creepy Presents. Please don't. Written by the Methuselahean, narrated by Michelle Kane. I smiled at myself in the mirror for the first time in months, but I didn't want to.

There was absolutely no reason to be happy. My life was in shambles, reduced quite literally to a smoldering heap of charred wood and blackened concrete now 20-odd miles out of sight. But never out of mind. Everything I had, everyone left that I loved, burned to bitter ash. It all started a few months. months ago, a promotion that came with a hefty bump in pay. I've been working corporate law for a bank for years now, and my time to shine had finally come, managed to ferret out a rather insidious clause

in a massive loan deal. Saved the bank from potentially losing millions. With just how big that deal was, I figured my exceptional diligence was worth at least a raise. My boss agreed, and my boss agreed, and and threw in the title of Senior Associate as well. As the professional aspects of my life had just taken a large upswing, I saw no reason not to attend to other equally important facets. At the time, my wife Remy and I were living in an upscale apartment, near enough to the city center where we both worked. It was nice enough, though far from anything suitable for a family.

While we both agreed it was as good a time as any to start having, kids, we were far from seeing eye to eye on where exactly we'd be raising them. Remy loved the city and had been living the bohemian lifestyle of a successful metropolitan theater actress long before we first met. I, on the other hand, longed for the suburban stylings of my childhood, far, but not too far, away from the hustle of the city. With a bit of persuasion, I went out in the end. Though in fairness, credit goes to the house, we were soon to be calling home. A gorgeous, modernized Queen Anne revival, less than 30 minutes from the heart of downtown. Exactly the kind of house I used to dream about as a little girl. Remy loved it as much

as I did, if not more. The mismatched, steeped and gabled roof, the veranda with the twisted iron rock, Bullistrade, the twinned turrets at odd ends, all of this and more, resonated with that brazen eccentricity that burned so brightly within her. I watched in delight as her eyes sized up each room the realtor guided us through. Her head already filled to burst with ideas regarding interior design. We didn't even look at any other houses, and I knew I wouldn't be able to sell Remy on any other. Surprising enough, the first figure the realtor dropped on me was considerably lower than what I had lined up for my opening offer. A house this big, this uniquely beautiful, at a price low enough they might as well be giving it away? Obvious red flag, right? Instinct honed over years of pouring over

hundreds, if not thousands, of contractual agreements told me, this was a mistake. There was a catch buried beneath the all but rabid excitement the realtor struggled to contain as Remy voiced her continued adoration of the house. Before things spiraled entirely out of hand, I explained to both of them that nothing was final until I was certain there weren't any snags waiting for us a few months after moving in. I should have trusted my gut and resigned myself to a cramped life in the city. A proper inspection was arranged, and the report came back clean. While that was handled, I did what I could to look into the life of the previous owner. The bank I worked for had handled the mortgage, and with a few favors called in, it wasn't difficult

to ascertain some facts about the property's past and only slightly shady owner. Really, it wasn't all that interesting beyond a venture that failed spectacularly after his business partner passed on from a shockingly sudden heart attack. I presumed that's what caused the guy to up and vanish a good decade prior, abandoning his home and defaulting on his loan. The bank had been sitting on the property since, despite every effort to unload it. When we next met with the realtor, I asked him about any other interest in the property. in the house. Sure, there had been a few potential buyers, though most just pulled out of the deal at the 11th hour. At this point, the bank was just looking to wash their hands of it without too much of a loss, hence the low asking price, one that I was more than willing to pay, seeing how

excited my wife still was about the whole prospect. And that was that, at least for a few months. We moved in, Remy went berserk on the decor, and eventually we grew accustomed to our new schedules, with the increased commute. It started turning sour the night of the cast party. As I mentioned, my wife was a theater actress. The theater company she worked for had just concluded a long and arduous run of 12th night, with Remy leading up the cast as Viola. The production's director had inserted his own vision into the classic, quite successfully, according to the local review, leading to a much larger number of performances.

When the final curtain fell, Remy volunteered our home for the last of their cast parties. They needed somewhere a bit more out of the way, as it were. While the production had largely been a roaring success, the toll for such an achievement came by a new strained relationship between the director and his troop. We can leave the details of that at inflated egos, divas being divas, and plenty of shouting matches. When the director discovered he was not invited to this little sware of ours, he made his feelings about that matter quite readily known. If only it had been a strongly worded text or email, perhaps everything would have been fine. No. Instead, he had to show up at our house, more than slightly intoxicated,

looking to start a fight with anyone that so much just looked at him funny. A scuffle broke out, where in his blundering attempt at a row put his fist cleanly through a wall in the foyer. Luckily, Victor, one of the larger and more athletic members of the troop, was able to subdue him until the police arrived. The evening's festivities ultimately fell apart than in there, and the party disbanded before Remy and I had even finished squaring things with the patrol officer. Exhausted, we let cleaning up fall to our future selves and headed for bed. I awoke the next morning shortly before noon, not much more refreshed than the night prior to find myself alone.

Curious, as Remy was more apt to nurse a hangover beneath the covers than anywhere else, I glanced to the mirror through the bathroom's open door to find it just as empty. Down through the house, I eventually caught sight of her, peering at the assaulted wall in the foyer. Perplexed, she gazed at the emptied abyss just beyond the broken plaster with a frown. When I joined her, she simply commented that she thought the kitchen pantry was just opposite this wall. Quite certain of that myself, I went down the hall to see if I could see through the foyer from there, when she stopped me and explained that she had already tried. Shrugging, assuming it was just a gap between walls,

I muttered my complaints about trying to find a contractor to restore it when Remy's unbound curiosity took hold of her in full. Unable to do much beyond gawking at her as she reached her hand within the hole, My protests began shortly thereafter. She began tearing at the loosened plaster. She continued to ignore any and all complaints, not even paying heed to me until she had successfully revealed a doorframe where a wall had once been.

A creeping chill overtook me as I dare to look. Bared concrete walls scarcely revealed by the day's light awaited us. Further within, I could make out the faintest act. outlines of uncarpeted stairs descending downward into the empty dark. My gripes swiftly changed from Remy's impromptu renovations to never remember seeing anything like this on the floor planes. We had a basement, one that was used quite regularly, one half of it containing a lounge and a bar, while the other was dedicated to a home gym that doubled as a rehearsal space for Remy during productions. My thoroughness,

and prying even the smallest detail from this house before we bought it would not have permitted me to overlook something as big as an unfinished section of the house. Again, my wife ignored my moaning complaints. Fascination had gripped her quite tightly indeed, as she began her descent into the unknown, the modest light from her phone blazing the path ahead. Grumbling further to myself, I was not about to allow her to head down all by herself,

and quickly followed. Each step below was just as sturdy as the last, bearing our weight without so much as a creek of the wood. It led us down into a cramped space, only a bit more than shoulders link. Shallow, barely a noot, tucked away in a casket of concrete. Honestly, I was surprised we didn't have to stoop down what with how claustrophobic the space was. We couldn't miss what this strange little place kept secret. It sat, nestled within, leaned against the opposite wall, and covered in a sheet of dusty white. Attached by a small streak of blue masking tape was a piece of folded paper. It was my curiosity that got the better of us this time, as I reached forth and easily pulled the paper free. Waving away the disturbed dust, I unfolded the crisp sheet, eager to see what

forgotten memories could be inscribed on the inside. I was anything but pleasantly surprised. Two simple words, written in heavy-blocked text, strong strokes of the pen that demanded your attention. There was no misunderstanding that they sought to infer grave caution. Please don't. Remy gasped ever so slightly when I showed it to her. Gooseflesh was already prickling up and down my neck and arms.

We both took a step back and, tried to make sense of it. If only our intense desire to know hadn't blinded us from the fact that these words were telling us to go back the way we came, seal up the hole once and for all, and forget any of this had ever happened. No. Instead, I reached for the sheet. I had to know. Whatever was beneath was flat, but not all that thin, heavy too. My thoughts immediately turned to a framed picture and was half expecting to find some highly unflattering portrait, perhaps of the prior owner or his family. When my fingers brushed the metal, ice cold even beneath the sheet,

I had a feeling it was going to be anything but that. Careful, I began removing the sheet. Remy didn't stop me. She was just as invested in what was beneath as I was at that point. It was a mirror. and a beautiful one at that, probably an antique, given the elaborate frame and tarnished silver, one you would expect to find in some ritzie salon, going for more money than glass and metal ought to cost. Cooing excitedly, Remy was eager to have a proper look at it.

I stepped out of the way as best I could, given the narrow space. When the reflection opened up to less of me and more of the hidden passage, I seized as my heart leapt clear into my throat. and the reflection just over her shoulder, a figure lurked in the gloom behind my wife. I couldn't make out much of them, but I was certain a wicked smile crossed their lips, shouting to Remy we both turned to face the stranger. When I tugged a bit too hard on the sheet, pinned as it was between the heavy frame and the wall, the exertion forced the mirror to spill forward, crashing into the ground with a piercing shatter.

There was no one behind Remy. The short passage was empty, and there had been no footfalls on the stairs leading up and out. Frantic, I checked every inch of the walls down there, pressing at the roughly set concrete all around us, finding not even the slightest crack anything, let alone a person, could slip into. It didn't stop there either, with the sudden shock of the shadowy presence, combined with the rattling crash of glass, I tore. through the whole house. I dragged Remy right behind me, dazed and confused as she was about the whole ordeal, ensuring she wasn't out of sight while I confirmed we were alone in the house. We were, and after I explained what was going on to her, Remy did her best to assure me

it couldn't have been anything more than just a trick of the light. I honestly believed her at the time. Knowing what I know now, I would have told her we weren't going to spend another moment in that house, though I really doubt that would have changed anything significantly. We spent the rest of that day doing nothing. Everything and anything could wait, as the jolt of the whole happenstance had thrown me through quite the loop. I hardly touched any of the wine Remy poured for me, and while we tried to watch some TV, it couldn't keep my focus for very long at all.

Every so often, I swear I could catch just the faintest shifting of movement out of the corner of my eye, though every time I looked, nothing was there. Eventually, I wore down and fell asleep as we took in an episode of MASH near midnight. That seemed to be the end of it for a while. The next day, we cleaned up the broken glass without incident. Past the twisted remains of the mirror's frame along to an interested friend of ours, and set about hiring a contractor to properly fill the gap. Before long, our life was back in order, at least for a few weeks.

After that, I found myself most days waking up in the middle of the night, tense and restless. It wasn't nightmares or the like, as I still cannot remember anything prior to suddenly bolting awake feeling as if my very life depended upon something. Our bedroom felt far too small on those nights, far too small. small and far too strange, as if I had awakened in a different place and time altogether. One night it was simply too much. I felt feverish and stifled, like I couldn't breathe properly from the heat bearing down upon me. Careful not to wake Remy, I headed down into the kitchen for a cool splash of water and maybe some ibuprofen. Even after a long gulp straight

from the faucet, the air in the house still felt far too stuffy, so I, reached for the small window above the sink. Just my luck, the latch on it was acting up again. Nothing new, and I had been meaning to replace it for a while now. You really just needed to work at it a bit to have it open, something I was struggling to do in the dark. Flicking the nearby switch brought the small light in the alcove above the sink on, bathing that little slice of the kitchen in an orangy glow you can really only get in the dead of night.

With but a moment of working at the latch, I was able to pull the window free, letting in some much-needed cool autumn air. With eyes closed, I took in a few deep breaths, enjoying the liberation from the oppressive heat that had been following me through the house. Relishing it, a beat longer, I then heard a familiar creak of the floorboards at the kitchen's entry from the main hall. Figuring Remy had roused and found me missing, I apologize as I opened my eyes. An apology that was cut short. The reflection on the partially open window tried to convince me it was Remy. What I saw looking back at me was anyone but. Eyes opened wide, crazed and unblinking.

A half curl of her lips twisted all vile and malicious. Something in her hand glinted fiscously in the meager light. She crept closer and closer. The light now cast upon her. A blur of white knuckles streaked red as she clenched what looked like a shard of broken glass, now rising with horrific purpose. In an instant, I whipped around and found my wife,

looming in the hall beyond the archway. No smile, eyes barely open. Now empty hand trying to rub the sleep from them. She mumbled a few things, asking if everything was all right, and I dismissed her concerns with a few shaky complaints about the unseasonable temperature. She sympathized, sweetly enough, with a promise to turn on the fan in our room. Promising, in turn, to be up shortly, I watched anxiously as she slowly vanished into the gloom of the darkened hall. I held my breath all up until I heard her soft tread on the stairs.

There was no explanation for what I had seen, nor for the dread now creeping up through me. Undeniably, it was her that I saw in the window's reflection. Never had I not been able to recall her likeness in perfect detail. All the same, never had I seen it so strikingly menacing at the same time. Taken a moment longer to hopefully make sense of things, I tried and failed. to convince myself it had been nothing but my imagination, cranked up on the paranoid nightmare setting. I couldn't even force myself to glance back to the window's reflection,

in a fear that whatever I had seen, still waited to further torment me. Eventually I returned to our bedroom, though I had all but sprinted my way there. As I moved through the hall connecting the kitchen and the foyer, I kept catching glimpse of quick movement, from behind me in the glass of the picture frames we had hung there. There was no desire to stop and check,

and I didn't even chance to look over my shoulder, as my feet simply carried me faster and faster. Really shouldn't be surprising to know, I didn't sleep that night. Every time I started to knot off, in that hazy moment as my eyes drooped ever so slowly closed, the ever so subtle shifting of the gloom would jolt me back awake, like a slap in the face. In the worst of my sleep-starved condition,

I could have sworn someone else was looking back at me every time I dared glance at the bathroom's mirror. I took the next day off from work when Remy caught me twice dozing off at breakfast, nearly planting my face messily in my oatmeal each time. With all those years at law school under my belts, I was no stranger to all-nighters. But the exhaustion that gripped me so tight that morning was something else entirely different. Every part of me ached, begging for rest, as if the last day and a half had been ceaseless, dedicated to running for my life. With a bit of help from Remy, I laid myself down on the couch in our living room. She wanted to stay and enjoy the lazy morning with me, a meeting with the theater company regarding their next production required her attention in the

city. She promised to be back as soon as she could, so long as I promised to stay right where I was until she returned. Hazily, I can remember the kiss goodbye she gave me, a gentle and calming thing that helped my eyes close and allowed the darkness to settle evenly. The sweet and intimate scent of her perfume swirling about me, softly telling me it was a okay to let go. So I did for a few hours. My parched throat eventually dragged me up and out of sleeps and brace. A few hard swallows followed by a dry cough, and then I felt it. Just like the night before, everything was wrong. The squirming heat was the first I noticed. It paired all too well with the sudden restlessness in my arms and legs. Pins and needles all up and down my body

as my skin crawled in dread anticipation, the strong feeling of a presence nearby, just barely out of reach. Shifting ever so slightly, I was mustering the courage just to take a single look over the back of the couch when my gaze fell upon the TV. It hung on the wall across the room, just barely overhead. Muted light seeped in from behind the curtains, handily revealing her reflection in the darkened glass. Frozen in place, my eyes given the last of my liberties, stricken by unknowable terror, I watched. The murky shadow and the wide archway to the foyer slowly focus into familiar shapes. My entirety began to tremble. When I recognized the lurking specter, it was Remy, now drifting closer and closer, silent as a passing shadow.

Her figure and form failed to even shift in the slightest as she came to loom just behind the couch. She stopped there, grinning widely with sloppily painted lips. Her mascara ran in chaotic streaks down her cheeks. In staggered jerking motion, she lifted her hand as if doing so for the very first time. A faint shimmer of jagged and silvery light outlined the sharpness of the shard she clenched. Higher it rose, impatiently enduring until that moment in which it could be gleefully sent plummeting down. I could almost feel it scraping into my flesh, digging deeper and deeper when I threw myself from the couch in a flurry. I remember shouting, but not as if it was me or whatever it was that wore my wife's face.

Landing hard on the floor below, just shy of bashing my head in the coffee table, I shuffled backwards, trying to put as much distance between myself and it as quickly as possible. possible. Snatching it off the nearby table, I held a sturdy, diminutive replica of the thinker, poised, ready to hurl the sculpture at the first sign of movement. As the moment slowly scraped by, I realized I was gawking dumbfounded at an emptied room. I was utterly alone, without even the slightest indication that someone else had been there. Honestly, I don't know what happened next. My mind blanked, and I just went numb. Apparently, I didn't even notice when Remy, the real one, returned home sometime after sunset. She found me half sprawled against the wall below the TV,

still clenching tightly at the thinker. That look of concern she wore when she first found me, turned to pungent unease when I tried to explain it all to her, how something lurked in this house, something that readily wore her face and wanted to hurt me. With a smile that shook too much, she tried to dismiss it as just stress from work, and perhaps I was still adjusting to our new living arrangement. Truly then and there, I wanted to believe her.

I fought so hard to accept that as reality. After a few days, I thought it was a battle I had won. Sleep came easier, and I spent that time free from jumping at every flitting shadow. A bit of the paranoia still remained that whatever was haunting me was simply biting its time, but even that lessened within a week's passing. I had been right. I should have listened to the creeping doubt that railed against everything being just fine. It had been waiting for the proper moment, and that time came the night Remy had invited some of the

troop over for a rehearsal. Rather strange that I remember waking up that morning actually excited about the day's events. Since my scare, I had cut a deal with my boss to allow me to work from home while I sorted this nonsense out. While I loved, loved my wife to death, I was a bit starved for socializing, what with my temporary isolation. That, and they always let me watch them run their lines, and that was never not a good time. Our agenda for the evening was a simple one. We had started with a bit of catching up before they jumped right into their work. Then, while they were rattling the walls with boisterous recitations from Wozek,

I would be in the kitchen fixing dinner for the lot of us. It was all going according to plan, until I realized I had forgotten to grab a few choice ingredients while out shopping. Stuff I was certain we had at home, but didn't. I'd like to say it wasn't all that big of a deal stepping out on our guest to hit the local supermarket, but it all started while I was gone. Hard to think that was the case, though. I was in and out and pulling back into our driveway in what felt like the blink of an eye, felt far too short of a time for what went wrong to have actually gone wrong.

Maybe it was because everything that happened after I put the car into park felt like another whole life lived. I didn't even notice anything amiss until after I had pulled the key from the ignition. There wasn't any deep and all. ominous aura surrounding the house, no foreboding dread peeling off the walls like a bad paint job. It was a sudden and sharp pain of sheer terror that came with just a brief glance in the rearview mirror. And the dim light provided only by the garage door motor, I could see them sitting in the backseat of the car. Right next to the sack of groceries. No details. At least.

none that I could determine beyond an insidious and knowing grin. Whirling about in a frenzy, I found only the laden plastic bags sinking into the canvas seat. I was alone, even though a shadow passing by the driver's side mirror told me otherwise. Throwing open the door, I scrambled into the house, the sole cause of my errand abandoned in the car. Desperate to calm my nerve. I feverishly reminded myself It was just my imagination Gone awry yet again Convinced being in the company of Remy

and the others would set my mind to ease, I strained my ears to hear where they might be in the house. Still was the quiet that had settled over her home, But it was anything but peaceful. That same sickly warmth returned to me then As I crept towards the living room. It was where I was where I was where I was, I had last seen the troop before leaving, but was no more relieved to find it darkened and

unoccupied. I didn't go in, and you can be certain I didn't even look toward where I knew the TV hung on the wall. Backtracking to the kitchen is when I heard the crash, straining wood stressed to shatter, heavy footsteps on the tiled floor. Victor, a well-familiar face from the theater group came tearing around the corner, running full pelt. He was panting exasperatedly, eyes full of fear that no soul should know. He didn't even see me, not at first, barreling right into me and sending the both of us sprawling to the floor. Flailing viciously, the mere act of physical content sent him into a howling fit of madness. Again and again, he cried out frantically until I managed to put enough space between us for him to recognize me.

Turns out, apparently mine was the last face he ever wanted to see again. Every bit of him seized as recognition slowly crept into his eyes. He began repeatedly mouthing the word no before he actually spoke it. And when he did it came out, choked, almost pleading. He kept screaming it. as he crashed through the back door, and I still heard it persistently cried, even as he faded into the darkness of the yard beyond. As he fled like a man possessed, I could only watch.

I sat there shivering, not from the cool night air, but from the realization that perhaps my imagination was simply not acting up from stress, only when I could no longer hear his panic shrieks and frantic foothfalls slamming against distant asphalt, did I notice the havoc reeked in his retreat? The door to the basement had been torn nearly clean off its hinges. It hung there at an odd angle, seemingly beckoning me within and below in an unsettling, if not deranged, manner. I could only keep asking myself just what had sent Victor's dark-graving mad into the night. In retrospect, I had to have known.

As I crept down those stairs and through the lounge, part of me surely realized it. The constant questioning of it was simply a means to keep myself from spilling over the lip of the chasm of lunatic terror. A short and rather narrow corridor was all that separated me from the home gym that doubled as Remy's rehearsal space. Each step toward it just as torturously difficult as the last. Only my own ragged breathing kept me company as I slogged onward through the unseen mire of looming terror. With a hard swallow, I crossed over the threshold. I still don't think I fully understand what I saw waiting for me there. Serenity and chaos.

layered like oil and water. I saw Remy, and the others laying upon the floor. Were it not for their expressions of despicably intense fear carved into their faces, I would have assumed them merely resting. That is, until I noticed their chests neither rose nor fell, their still opened eyes focused intently on nothing and everything. And then it hit me. I was only seeing half of the picture.

I looked deeper into the room, into the other half of the room that wasn't actually there, but was all the same. A common thing, really, to see gems with mirrors, and ours was no exception. The entire far wall was lined with them,

used for both perfecting form during workouts and refining poise while delivering soliloquies. What they showed now was nothing less than a nightmare. Blood. So much. So much blood. It wept and oozed from deep and jagged cuts

and punctures all over their bodies. The floor was slick with it, pooling vivid crimson. Abhazardly the walls were splashed in patterns screaming and vicarious. Silence. Rushing over to my wife, I knelt aside her to see if there was anything I could yet do. Perhaps her wounds were not yet fatal.

I could help her. I could help the others. A fool's errand ensnared an impossible insanity. Her flesh was already cold, though I couldn't understand why. While the mirrors portrayed mutilation, Remy's skin was unmarred. beneath my fingertips. Not a single cut, not a single drop of blood spilled. The same for all the others. I don't know how long I sat there, shifting my gaze frantically between these twin worlds. I do remember my slipping grip on what remained of sanity as I tried to puzzle the howl of it together.

Desperately, my rationale clung to the notion that this was all so. some sort of theatrical trick the others were playing on me. At any moment, they would spring back to life and we'd have a good laugh about it. I was so certain of this. It was a relief when I saw Remy began to stir. Relief that turned to abstract horror. The moment I realized, only her reflection rose up from the floor. She stopped toward me from beyond the polished glass. Each movement a shuddering and disgusting convulsion. No small amount of effort was required to raise a deeply bloodstained hand to place against the invisible barrier that separated us.

Shuffling backward in shock, I tried so hard to look away. I pulled my knees to my chest and buried my face therein. To no avail, as the other began pounding so fiercely upon the mirror, I feared for the world that it would break. With my attention secured once more, the mirror's specter smiled cruelly as it painstakingly brought its unfamiliar hand toward its neck. Stuttered spasms allowed it to collect the blood

still seeping from the unsightly gash carved in the throat. Wet was the slap against the glass as the hand began streaking gore in the throat. to shapes, that became letters, that became words. They still burn within my mind, clear as day, despite the heavy fog that obscures the rest of that night, forever yours. That was it, the final straw,

the moment I realized what had been spelled out. I snapped. The last thing I can remember was the hurried sensation of falling backward into a spiraling darkness. A cold embrace waited for me as every part of me screamed. I'm not sure how the fire started, but I'm pretty sure it was me that said it. All I can remember is suddenly coming back to myself

out in the street in front of our house. I sat shivering, absolutely reeking of gasoline and wrapped in a thick blanket, watching the fire crew douse the last smouldering embers that remained. The bodies of Remy and the others were found, more or less, classified under the messy spectrum of human remains until the dental records came back.

I remember hearing homicide and arson being thrown around, but not in my direction. Like I said, I'm pretty sure I started the fire. But the police were extremely reluctant to accept it as a confession. Too much evidence pointed away from me, or so my lawyer kept telling me, that they'd be hard-pressed to make the charges stick. So here I sit, months later. I haven't really told anyone about what happened.

Too wild for anyone to actually believe. I've kept my mouth shut this long, and only one thing has made me change my mind on broaching the subject. and I smiled at myself in the mirror for the first time in months, but I didn't want to. Creepy Presents, Burned Alive or Buried Alive, written by Brenwell Pohn, narrated by Cole Burkart. Original narration aired 1019, 2021. Burnd Alive, and Buried Alive. The two worst fates of... for any living creature that I could ever possibly imagine.

If forced with the choice, which would you pick? Unbearable physical agony or extreme mental torture? The most excruciating pain imaginable, or the utmost form of horror that the human mind is capable of, conceiving. Up to a few years ago, I didn't know either. Why would you even consider it, if not forced to? Well, one day I found out which I did choose. One day so dreadful that there's no adjective in the English language strong enough to properly convey the horror of it. A day so awful that I struggle just to recall it. I had the choice put upon me. Here's what happened.

Years ago, I bought my first home. Being an overall fan of the macabre and living in rural New England, I decided on a nearly ancient American colonial style home, reminiscent of something out of a Nathaniel Hawthorne or Arthur Miller's story. It was the product of a by-d-on era. Though it was built in the early 1800s, as the cliché does, it had good bones and had been fairly well-maintained, considering its age. That being said, it still needed some work.

A few weeks after closing, while fixing some of the faulty old wiring in the basement, I came across a centuries-old drain set into the stone flooring. It was maybe three feet in diameter and covered with a heavy iron grate that was worn with many decades' worth of rough, brown corrosion. It resembled the entrance to a dungeon. Like I mentioned above, I have a curiosity for all the dark and morbid elements of the world. Fines like this were the exact reason I wanted this house.

So I decided to have a closer look at the forgotten thing. I laced my fingers through the dirty old grate and gave it a firm pull. It opened with a pained and rusted cry. I gazed it down into the hole. A faint, acrid stink arose from its depths. It was as dry as old bone and as quiet as a crypt. I assumed, due to the home's location on the side of a small hill, that the basement had once been prone to flooding, and that modern technological developments had rendered that, like so many other things in this place, a relic of the past. I poked my head a little further in and looked into the deep, dark recesses of the ancient plumbing.

I could make out just the faintest bit of light at the far end. I went out into the yard and found the outlet hidden deep in a thicket of tangled brush. Evidently lacking access to chicken mesh, someone had it covered with a mateshift criss-crossing of merciless-looking barbed wire, apparently to keep any unwanted creatures from crawling in during the night. I thought that whomever had done so had made a smart choice. The pipe looked nearly big enough for a person to squeeze through. A few months later, I was back working in the basement. The previous owner had left boxes upon boxes of yellowed old newspapers, books, and other forms of aged literature stacked under the stairs. I wanted to move out what I could,

they were taking up a lot of valuable storage space, and were a possible fire hazard, too, especially under the dry, splintery wood of the basement risers. Honestly, though, I really wanted to look through them to see what sort of curious old volumes might be hidden away within the dusty mound. About 30 minutes into my task, I had sifted through and moved about five of the boxes without finding anything of much interest. In the sixth box, however, I came upon a strange volume bound in worn leather that looked like it must be older than the house itself.

It had the words, Titab al-Kanoos, embossed on the cover, and was written in what appeared to be Arabic, though I'm no linguist. There were English translation or notes of some sorts written in the margins. They seemed to say something about the locations of lost and hidden treasures. This was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.

Excited by my find, I moved out from under the stairs in search of better lighting to read it by. I went over to a large floodlight I had left in the basement from a previous project and flipped it on. The decrepit wiring running under the stairs sparked violent. I spun quickly, and, in doing so, tripped and fell backward. By the time I got up, the sparks had already lit a fire in the stats of boxes that stood nearly a meter high.

It was licking and biting at the withered stairs like the jaws of a hungry animal. In hindsight, at this very moment, I should have sprinted through the flames to safety. Whatever burns I would have suffered would have paled in comparison to the trauma I was doomed to endure by staying put. But, like they say, hindsight is 2020. Instead, I sat frozen in shock of the sight in front of me. When I snapped out of it, I looked around frantically for any sign of something to douse the flames with. But, of course, there was nothing. Nobody thinks to keep a fire extinguisher in their basement.

The blaze rose higher, engulfing the staircase and spreading around the door jam at the top like some type of hellish decoration. I tried desperately to hold back panic and think of a way out. My basement had no windows and no hatchway either. Then, the fire spread to the exposed fiberglass insulation in the airspace. the ceiling. It jumped from section to section like a stone skipping across a pond. The air became thick with the baking heat. The sound of the flames crackling was now constant and unrelenting. Smoke was filling up the already close air, curling and twisting through the space. Every breath I took tasted of hot ash. I finally decided my only decided my only

hope was to sprint up the stairs through the inferno, and pray my injuries weren't life-threatening. The thoughts of pink, stinging burns, blisters, wet, peeling flesh and skin grafts flashed through my mind. I hesitated. I tried to steal my nerves against it all, and then the staircase collapsed. I drew back against the concrete wall behind me, hoping for respite from the sudden dust of fiery air that followed. It didn't help. It was like standing too close to a bonfire, but with no way to back up. I looked up at the doorway. The threshold was 15 feet up, surrounded by flame. I moved along the wall desperately searching for any relief from the heat and smoke. Everything was on fire now.

I could barely see. My eyes burned and every breath choked my lungs. I was needing to feel lightheaded and nauseous. I was going to die down here. It'sphyxiated and burned alive. I prayed to God to feel as little as possible. I got down on my stomach, hoping to deliver. the inevitable. My hands felt cold metal on the floor. I heard it grind and shift with my movement.

My fingers slipped through elongated holes. I was lying on top of the drain. My heart jumped and then immediately dropped to the pit of my stomach. I had a way out, but it meant squeezing through hundreds of feet of suffocating underground tunnel. I pulled it open. I pulled it open. and it gave that same rusty cry as before. I put my head inside. The air felt cool and fresh compared to the basement. I looked at the speck of light way down in the darkness. It looked miles away.

I tried pushing myself inside. My shoulders pressed against the sides of the drain, pinning my arms tightly to my sides. Clostrophobia hit me like an electric shock. I scrambled back. up immediately. I couldn't do this. It was so narrow I would get stuck in the pipe and slowly die in there deep under the earth. I sobbed and cried out in utter despair. The fire was closing in around me. I could barely breathe anymore. The heat was like being in an oven like baking to

death. I felt flames lick at my back and I jumped forward. Fire burnt. the stint of my face. I pulled back. I had nowhere left to go. Without stopping to think any further, I shoved my body headlong into the hole. I wriggled in like a worm, the flames burning at my feet and legs giving me the dearly needed motivation to move forward. My arms were pinned to my sides again. Because of the L-shape of the drain, I had to go in upside down. It was like being trapped in a coffin. It was like being stuck in a cave miles below the earth's surface. Dread and anxiety like I have never felt before consumed me. I wriggled and squirmed and kicked.

I moved mere centimeters with each desperate effort. The sides of the pipe clenched around me like a fist. Every move felt like it would wedge me hopelessly in the pipe. In my position, I couldn't even. even see where I was going. I had no idea how much progress I was making if I was even getting closer to the opening. The darkness was total. I sobbed and screamed and squirmed further, scraping my skin on the rough sides of the dried up old pipe. My mind was pure panic now. I pushed with my legs all I could, but I only had a room to lift my knees a few inches.

I struggled wildly to keep moving, the sides of the cylinder grinding against my shoulders and hips. My manic breathing and hopeless cries echoed deafeningly in the pipe. Then I came to a rise. I could feel it like a ridge under my back. The build-up of centuries of rock-hard mineral deposits created a stalagmite-light formation underneath me that gradually rose up the sides of the passage. I kept pushing and squirming as feverishly as ever until I felt my shoulders squeeze right up against my neck.

I kicked, and I twisted, and I yelled, but I could not move. I was pinned within the jagged ridge. There wasn't room to move forward, and I had no way to back up. I was stuck. completely and totally stuck. I thrashed my legs and jerked my torso violently. I whipped my head around and cried out like an animal in a trap, banging my forehead against the top of the pipe and scraping the skin off.

Still, my body wouldn't move. I cried and I screamed until I was exhausted, and then I cried and screamed even more. I began to fade in and out. I dreamt that I saw the faces of the dead climbing out of the earth above me. I heard the voices of demons in my ear chanting and laughing at me in strange languages.

I could feel the pipe squeezing and tightening and relaxing just to play with me. The world spun, Uncontrollably at times making me dizzy and sick. Other times I floated paralyzed through the void. My thoughts whirled violently round my brain like mad, biting flies. My head felt like an oven with my brain baiting inside. The salt of my tears burned my dried up eyes.

I was going to die in here. alone, stuck, unable to move. I completely lost my sanity during those hours. My consciousness turned into a soup of constantly churning, manic thought, with nothing resembling rational or ordered cognitive activity remaining. Consequently, it was my wild, animalistic, screams that finally alerted the firefighters to my whereabouts deep within the pipe. They had to wait until the fire had died down before they'd call in an excavator.

Eventually, the heavy machine became too risty, as it could have easily collapsed the decaying old tube, burying me within. So they set to work dating it up with shovels. After they moved enough earth to expose the pipe, they had to cut out the section I was entombed in with a large saw. I know people were speaking to me during this time, trying in vain to keep me calm, but all I remember is the deafening, metallic, shrieking that echoed through the pipe,

stabbing at my eardrums like ice-picks. Once freed from the rest of the conduit, they lifted the section that held me out of the ground with a small crane and set it down in the yard. I vaguely remember another floating sense, I had hoped I had died. Soon they went back to work with smaller, yet barely less hideous sounding saws. It was night at this point, so I didn't even get the minisual benefit of daylight to ease the suffering.

Other than the noise, it felt no different than when I had first crawled in. Finally, it felt as if a great weight was lifted from all sides. of me. My body seemed to expand in all directions. Cool night air brushed across my skin. I was lifted up and carried away. This, like I said, was years ago. I am just now, regaining the sanity needed to be able to process these events and write them down. My therapist tells me it's a idea, that it'll help me get past the event to whatever degree possible. He says it may help the night terrors, too. I can barely sleep without teleporting right back into that suffocating space.

The other patients in the hospital are used to my nightly streaming by now. So are the nurses and orderlies. It was they who gave me the details of my rescue. They tell me I was stuck in that pipe for nearly ten hours before the rescuers got me out. They also tell me that crawling into it was the only reason I survived. The house was nothing but a pile of ashes after the fire, and, because of its subterranean location, very little heat or smoke got into that awful drain.

So, in the end, that nightmare is the only reason I'm alive, and able to write this, though if I could go back to that day, to that moment standing above the ancient great, surrounded by roaring flame, I'm not sure I'd make the same decision again. I may let the flames take me. I may let myself burn alive.

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