Creepy - Shadow Mirror

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Shadow Mirror (starts at 3:09)***Written by: Jonathan Ferro and Narrated by: Michelle Kane***Her Own Bones (starts at 45:17)***Written by: Jency Crookston and Narrated by: Cole Burkhardt***My Muse (starts at 1:04:48)***Written by: Darby AM***Hear more from Sadistic at: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Af6e7GVLSwOZ0ED6HANl8***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by: Alex Aldea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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New episodes are released regularly. with an ever-expanding library waiting to keep you up at night. Subscribe to sadistic wherever you listen to podcasts. And remember, some stories are better left unheard. I've also put the link in today's show description. Okay, first up, A young woman inherents her grandparents' isolated house along with one chilling rule.

Never look into the old hallway mirror after sunset. From writer Jonathan Farrow and narrated by Michelle Kane, Creepy presents. Shadow mirror. It's just a mirror. The phrase echoed in Elisa Smith's mind every time her gaze fell on the blackened glass hanging in the long hallway in her grandparents' house.

The mirror was nearly her height, its opaque surface barely reflecting the room's outlines. While the carved wooden frame, with its twisted, knotted Gothic motifs, wore the marks of time, and the dust accumulated over the years. No one, it seemed, had ever bothered to clean it. Her grandmother, shortly before passing away,

had left her only one enigmatic instruction. Do not remove it, ever. For no reason, and above all, do not look at it after sunset. Elisa had never dared to ask why, and perhaps she would never have the courage to find out. Now, with her grandparents gone and the decaying house inherited, Elisa was forced to live alongside that silent, unsettling presence.

She spent her days between the desk and dusty shells, restoring old books with the patience of someone who knows that every gesture matters, while the sun barely filtered through the darkened windows. The idea of staying here for a few, months, just long enough to get everything in order and prepare the house for sale didn't disturb her. At least not yet. The first week passed in an almost unreal silence, broken only by the creeks of the old wooden floors and the distant moan of rusty pipes. Tiny, almost imperceptible sounds, yet enough to fill the empty rooms with a constant echo. Elisa soon learned to ignore them.

convinced they were merely the product of the house's advanced age. Yet every night when she had to pass the mirror in the hallway to reach the bathroom, something made her hesitate. The reflection in the mirror moved with a slight delay. Half a second, perhaps, almost imperceptible interval, but enough to make her skin crawl. And in that suspended moment, her reflected face seemed to be. to watch her, as if it were no longer a simple image but a living presence trying to imitate her,

or perhaps figure out how. Night after night, that feeling grew, creeping into Elisa's thoughts and leaving a trail of unease that followed her until dawn. One evening, driven by an impulse, Elisa stopped in front of the mirror. She studied it carefully. trying to determine whether fatigue or her imagination were playing tricks on her. Behind her in the hallway, there was only the slightly open living room door, the small table with its chipped vase and dust gathering in the corners. Nothing unusual, at least in the real world. But in the mirror, everything appeared different.

The vase was intact, gleaming as if time had never touched. it. And the flower she had thrown away two days earlier, wilted and lifeless, now bloomed in vibrant colors. Its petals glossy and so vivid, they seemed to radiate their own light. A shiver ran down her spine. It's just your imagination, she murmured out loud, trying to convince herself. Then she turned, walked slowly back to the bedroom, and closed the door behind her. trying to leave that vision behind. But that night, sleep betrayed her. She dreamt of the hallway, the long hallway illuminated by the flickering lights of the dusty chandelier. The mirror stood before her, imposing and silent. But something had changed. Her reflection was smiling, and she was not.

Her reflection's mouth curved into a disturbing smile that, did not belong to her. Elisa awoke with a start, her heart pounding, her skin covered in a cold sweat, aware that something in the mirror was waiting, studying her. Every night the mirror changed,

imperceptibly at first. Small details. The reflection seemed darker. The contours blurred as if a thin veil filtered the light. Her face appeared slightly tilted, with features that did not fully belong to her. Elisa tried to convince herself that it was just fatigue, confused dreams, her mind playing tricks on her.

But as the days passed, the alterations became more evident. Objects that did not exist in reality materialized in the mirror, an antique candelabrum with untouched candles, a carved piece of furniture in baroque lines. that no one had ever owned in this house. Every time she tried to touch them or look through them, the glass showed only the emptiness of the real hallway, leaving her with the sensation of being observed by something

that did not belong to the normal world. And then came the voices. Not understandable words, barely whispered, a melodic and disturbing flow, yet calling her, insinuating themselves into her thoughts and vibrating her nerves to the bone. That night, exhausted from insomnia with her nerves frayed, she could no longer hold back. Her hands trembling and her voice broken with anguish, she shouted into the hallway's darkness. What do you want for me?

The sound echoed off the peeling walls and the mirror, motionless, and impenetrable, did not answer. Yet she felt more than ever, the weight of its gaze, a silent and insidious observation that seemed to dig into her mind. For a moment, everything seemed to freeze. The very air seemed to hold its breath, and the hallway, shrouded and half-light, became strangely unreal. Then the mirror's glass began to change, a thin, almost liquid mist slowly spread. The surface before her remained clear, cold almost alive, as if breathing of its own accord. With her hand trembling uncontrollably, Elisa approached and almost instinctively traced a word on the condensation. Why? Her breath condensed into tiny rivulets beneath her

fingertips, and each letter seemed to dissolve as soon as it was formed. On the other side of the glass, as if an invisible entity wanted to answer her, a word slowly appeared, clear and scratched into the mist in all caps. Memories. Elisa jumped, her heart hammering in her chest. She spun around searching the room for any sign of presence, but everything was still. From that moment, Elisa's dreams became disturbingly vivid. They were no longer mere fragments of nocturnal thoughts,

but parallel worlds seemingly built to confuse her, rooms of the house that did not exist, endless corridors that led nowhere, doors sealed yet filtering a reddish light, worm and sinister at the same time, and always, at the center of it all, the mirror, motionless, dominant, as if observing her every move even in sleep. One evening, returning from the bathroom, she saw a flickering light in the hallway reveal something strangely familiar yet deeply unsettling. The living room door and the reflection of the mirror was ajar.

She turned slowly, cautiously, her eyes scrutinizing every detail. In reality, the door was perfectly closed. She stepped forward carefully, holding her breath, each step a precarious balance between courage and fear, as if the slightest mistake could bring everything crashing down. Her hand reached toward the glass, hesitant, trembling. As soon as her fingers brushed the surface, the mirror quivered under her touch, like water stirred by invisible hands. And then the impossible.

Her hand sink in. There was no solid wood behind the glass, no barrier, only a liquid, cold, and unsettling resistance, pulling her inward, as if the mirror itself wanted to engulf her into a world beyond reality. Halisa screamed, the sound choked by the fear tightening her throat and withdrew her hand with desperate force. Her skin was icy and damp, and a sharp sulfur smell clung to her nose and mouth, making her cough.

She looked at her palm and arm. The skin was stained, covered in a black, viscous substance, as if something monstrous monstrous had spilled from a nightmare and left its mark on the real world. The portal was open, and the mirror was no longer a mere object. It was a window into another dimension, alive and hostile, ready to invade her reality. In the days that followed, Elisa tried to find a way to ignore it. She barricaded the mirror with furniture, blankets, and tape, hoping to seal its power. She slept upstairs surrounded by sheets and cushions, but the relief was short-lived.

In her dreams, the mirror appeared again, more alive and menacing than ever, and then on the seventh day, it happened. A red light filtered through the mirror's glass, pulsating and alive. It was not a reflection, not a trick of lamps or flickering lights. It was fire, primordial and untameable, illuminating the hallway with unsettling flashes and sudden heat. The floor beneath Elisa's feet began to vibrate, rippling slightly, as if the house itself were breathing heavily, an ancient organism awakening after centuries of silence. The walls, once cold and stale, oozed moisture, black drops dripping slowly, like, diluted blood, leaving dark streaks on the cracked old plaster. The air was thick,

laden with acrid, metallic smells. The mirror opened. No distinct being appeared, no defined figure. Something indefinable emerged, tall and thin, made of a smoke, shadow, and darkness, as if the very air had condensed into a living form. Its contours were uncertain, blurred, dissolving into the surrounding environment like pulsating dirty mist. Where eyes should have been, there were two white sockets,

empty, cold, and devoid of any pupil or iris. Yet they saw. Elisa felt a gaze that penetrated beyond, fond flesh into the bones scrutinizing every thought. The figure advanced slowly, silently, each step making the world around her vibrate, as if reality itself bent under the weight of its presence. The hallway felt narrow, the air heavy, and the smell of sulfur and smoke saturated every pore of her skin.

It spoke not, nor made any gesture. It moved with an unnatural calm, each silent step, leaving no creek on the floor, as if the house itself recognized it as part of its shadow. It passed slowly by Elisa, completely ignoring her, as if she did not exist. It entered the kitchen, sat in the chair nearest the window, and remained there. motionless, waiting, like a patient predator. Driven by terror, Elisa finally found the strength to flee. She ran into the woods screaming with all the voice she had, but the world seemed deaf. No one heard her. The silence around her was absolute and the nocturnal sounds of nature seemed too distant to reassure. trembling and filthy.

She took refuge among the trees until dawn. When she returned to the house, the rising sun filtered through the branches, bringing a cold uncertain light. The creature was gone, but the marks of its passage were clear and disturbing. On the mirror, written in blood, appeared a terrible phrase.

One has entered, another must leave. Elisa approached her breath ragged and realized with horror that her reflection in the mirror was no longer her own. The figure watching her from the other side had changed, deformed, alive with the will of its own. That night, terror gave way to a desperate decision. She could no longer run. She had to know, to understand what lay beyond that glass. even at the cost of her life. She took a torch and a backpack with the essentials,

then stepped into the hallway. The portal stood there, motionless and silent, like an ancient guardian waiting for centuries. Elisa drew a deep breath, gripped the torch with trembling hands, and prepared to cross the threshold between the world she knew and the unknown. One has entered, one must leave.

Those words echoed in Elisa's mind, a relentless, obsessive echo. Who had entered? Who had already crossed the threshold of that portal? She inhaled deeply, trying to steady her trembling hands, and stretched her arm toward the mirror's surface. The glass reacted immediately. It rippled a moment. under her touch, warm and viscous, as if it were a living substance ready to swallow her. A sickly, nauseating smell burned her nostrils, seeping down her throat and forcing her to cough.

With a hesitant step, she entered the portal, then another. Her heart pounded, her knees shook, yet she did not stop until her entire body was beyond the glass, immersed in a world she could never have imagined. The dimension was a parody of reality. The house seemed familiar, yet everything was corrupted and twisted. The rooms she knew were ruined by centuries of decay, shrouded in a darkness that seemed to have a life of its own. The walls wept, congealed blood,

dripping in dark, foul-smelling rivulets. The floor was a macabre, of broken bones and long wet hair, as if the history of countless tragedies were etched into every inch. On the walls, paintings that once would have decorated the house now showed screaming, deformed faces, twisted into expressions of terror and pain. Yet among those tormented faces, Elisa recognized one in particular. It was her. or at least a version of herself, contorted and distorted, with eyes that stared at her from within the canvas,

watching her with an unsettling awareness. A shiver ran down her spine. There was no longer any distinction between her and her reflection, between reality and horror. And the silence, so dense and suffocating, made her perceive every drop of congealed blood and every breath of the corrupted house as if it were the very heartbeat of the world beyond the mirror. In the living room, the creature sat in an armchair made of intertwined bodies, a grotesque, shapeless mass that seemed to breathe. The white, empty eyes, yet deeply aware, fixed on Elisa. And for a moment, the sensation of, of being observed in every fiber of her body paralyzed her. Then as if in a gesture of macabre courtesy,

the shape turned to her and offered a smile. Welcome home. It said, the voice resonating in Elisa's mind without passing through the creature's lips. She trembled, trying to gather enough courage to speak. Who, who are you? Her voice came out broken, almost a shattered whisper. It is not important who I am.

The shape replied, its presence filled with unnatural calm. What matters is who you are. I... Elisa stammered, her heart hammering in her chest. I just want to go back to how it was before. The creature tilted its head slowly, as if peering into the depths of her soul, reading every fear and every desire. Then choose. With a smooth, calm gesture of its hand, it indicated the mirror in the center of the room. Elisa approached hesitantly, her breath shallow, and looked inside. The real house was reflected, orderly and familiar.

Yet something was not as she remembered. The rooms were the same, but the furniture appeared slightly distorted, and fleeting shadows moved along the walls. On the sofa, a figure sat motionless. It was her. Or at least it seemed so. The eyes were completely black, bottomless pits that sucked in the light and every trace of familiarity.

A cruel smile twisted its lips, and in its hands it clutched a photograph. Elisa and her parents, frozen in a happy moment, now trapped in the horror of this distorted copy of reality. If you return, the creature said, its voice resonating in Elisa's mind, sharp as a razor. You will take its place, and it will take yours. But know this. Whoever leaves never comes back. The world beyond the mirror did not obey the rules of reality.

Time flowed distortedly. Hours stretched in today's minutes shattered into eternity. Voices repeated in loops, always the same, like a chorus of ghosts trapped in an endless symphony. Each room had its own rules. The floor could turn to liquid. The walls pulse like lungs. The lights change in intensity and color for no reason.

There was no logic. Only the harrowing awareness that every action she took would be observed, judged, and manipulated. Desperately, Elisa sought an anchor to reality. With hands dirty from dust and plaster, she wrote words and phrases on the walls, trying to tether herself to the real world. It's not real.

It's not real. She repeated the obsessive mantra, like a fragile prayer against the chaos surrounding her. But each word, each phrase painstakingly traced, slowly vanished into the wall, dissolving like mist under the sun. In their place appeared new writings. Unknown phrases written in,

in languages Elisa never studied, symbols and letters that seemed to live on their own. And yet, she understood them. The words flowed through her mind as if they were part of an ancestral knowledge, teaching her secrets she never wanted to know. Each sentence etched into her soul, making the thin barrier between reason and madness waver. Then one day she saw it in the corner of the dark hallway curled up like a frightened child. There was something.

It was not human, not entirely alien either. Every time Elisa looked at it, the line between what was real and what belonged to the nightmare grew thinner, and her heart hammered in her temples. The creature was thin and fragile. almost ethereal, with translucent skin that looked like melted wax left to cool in the sun. Through the pale surface, trembling veins and muscles were visible, an unsettling geography that spoke of suffering. The face, vaguely human, was distorted by a horrific detail. Its mouth was sewn shut with dark threads, pulled so deep into the cheeks that sped.

beach was impossible. Its breathing was uneven, labored. Each inhalation and act of pain that made the air around it vibrate. It made no sound, spoke, no words. It merely raised a thin, cold hand toward her. In its palm lay a rusted, twisted key, encrusted and marked by years of neglect. Elisa hesitated. Her heart pounding so violently it felt as if it might erst. The key radiated a strange energy, a silent call that made her feel both terror and irresistible curiosity at once. Trembling, she reached out and took it. The contact with the cold metal made her whole body shiver. The world around her seemed to pause, as if if the hallway and the house itself were holding their breath, waiting for what was to come.

What, what is this? Elisa asked her voice broken by anxiety and fear. The creature tilted its head and with a slow, measured gesture, indicated the mirror she had seen on the first night, set in a frame that seemed alive, made of pulsating flesh and intertwined muscles. Alisa immediately understood that she had a choice. She could cross it, perhaps find answers, perhaps save herself. Yet the price was clear. If she returned, someone, someone else, would take her place. And perhaps it was not the first time this had happened.

The creature said nothing, but his empty, penetrating gaze, was enough to plant doubts that chilled her. How many had been trapped. How many had seen their own reflection come to life and replaced them. Step by step with no hope of escape, she mustered her courage, inserted the key into the mirror, and stepped across the threshold. When she returned to the real world, everything seemed normal. Something was off. The house was too much. The house was too clean. Every piece of furniture gleamed as if freshly polished. Objects were out of place, and the photographs on the walls showed her alongside people she had never seen. A husband with familiar yet unknown features. Two children smiling innocently, as if they had always been a part of her

life, a family that never existed. She went outside trying to understand what has. She went outside, trying to understand what happened. Everything looked the same yet different. People greeted her, but with names that were not hers. Good morning, Mrs. Calderon. How are the twins? Terror gripped her stomach. She ran back home and looked in the hallway mirror, and there she saw it. Herself, the real Elisa, on the other side of the glass, trapped, screaming, clawing at the surface with desperate hand. but her voice could not pass through. She was sealed, imprisoned in that reflected reality, powerless. And in front of her, the creature, now bearing her face, smiled.

One has left, another has stayed. It reached into the hallway, and with a silent gesture, extinguished the light. In the darkness the house seemed to hold its breath, as if the entire building were alive and aware. Then slowly, the doors closed, the windows darkened, and everything drew in on itself. The silence had become absolute and oppressive. Reality and its reflection, once separate, were now two mirrored worlds, eternally bound, with one search. The certainty. Whoever enters the mirror never returns. And whoever leaves carries a secret they can never forget. The following nights were an endless torment. Elisa, or rather the creature that resembled her, began to speak to itself, but not with the voice of a living person. From its mouth came broken words, overlapping voices, sometimes in lost and forgotten language. other times in distorted echoes from the world beyond the mirror, sounds that seemed to vibrate

in the skin and bones of anyone who listened. Yet no one among the figures of her new life seemed to notice. Her false children hugged her tenderly, unaware. Her husband kissed her, kind and affectionate, as if nothing had changed. Everything was immersed in a perfect, orderly performance, yet profoundly unsettling, but in the absolute silence. When the flickering light of the lamps went out, and the noises ceased, someone or something wept behind the walls, a faint, desperate lament that seemed to come from the very soul of the house. One night, driven by an inexplicable impulse, the false Elisa went down to the cellar, There, hidden in a corner, was a door she had never noticed, as if the house wanted to reveal a secret to her.

Behind it opened a small ancient study, steeped in dust and the silence of centuries. The furniture was covered with yellowed sheets, shelves lined with dusty tones, and in the center, atop a dark wooden desk, lay a leather-bound diary. The name engraved on it was clear. F. Calderon. The diary gave off a sharp smell of leather and mold, as if it contained not only words, but trapped memories and forgotten lives.

Inside were dense notes, intricate drawings, and enigmatic formulas, scribbled that seemed to oscillate between science and magic. On every page a recurring phrase, mirrors do not reflect. They wait, As the creature now inhabiting Elise's body leafed through it, it finally understood the truth. The mirror was not a simple portal. It was a sentinel, a gateway that opened cyclically,

every 25 years allowing one consciousness to replace another. But there was one dreadful condition. The original consciousness had to remain alive, trapped. condemned to watch its own life being supplanted by the shadow of another. The story unfolded in terrible cycles. It had happened in 1897, 1922, and 1947. Every 25 years, the portal opened, and something was always out of place. Houses shifted by a few meters. names on gravestones change, and some children were born with severe malformations. The false Elisa snapped the diary shut. Her hands shook, but she was not alone. An invisible presence seemed to watch her, flipping through the pages with her.

The sensation was palpable, a shiver running down her spine, making her perceive with horror that anyone who crossed that portal was never truly alone. And as the room's silence grew thick, the creature realized the cycle was far from over. Something was waiting for her, and she herself had now become part of that ancient, cruel game between reality and reflection, between who she was and who she was meant to be.

A mirror on the wall began to do. tremble, its surface rippling like water stirred by invisible hands. The flickering light of the lamps cast distorted reflections, and from the glass emerged a scream. The real Alisa shouted, and for the first time her voice was heard clearly, powerful like thunder tearing through the night. It is not over! The following night, the sky turned red. It was not a sunset, but a warning. A blood-red hue spread across the clouds like a menacing veil, filling the air with an electric, palpable tension.

All the mirrors in the house began to bleed. The reflective surfaces, once still and silent, now oozed with dark liquid, leaving trails on the floor and seeming to breathe as if alive. The children no longer slept. They remained motionless, eyes wide in the dark, staring into the void with unnatural awareness, as if they were seeing beyond reality trapped between two worlds. The creature's husband began to lose pieces of his skin, small strips falling like dust in the silence. Reality itself seemed to unravel around them, bending and corrupting under the weight of a cycle that had never truly stopped.

And this time, it seemed to want more. The real Alisa trapped behind the glass was growing. Every day, her consciousness strengthened, adapting to that forced existence, until frustration and pain transformed into pure power. And now, she was the one claiming what had been taken from her. The false Alisa began to decay. First, her hair fell in brittle black clumps, then her nails crumbled, cracked like dry bones, and finally her smile itself dissolved, leaving her face expressionless and gaunt.

She tried to flee, but all the mirrors in the house had closed, sealed like prisons. There was no way back. One thing was certain. One had to leave, and one had to leave. And one had to remain. And the dead of night, a dense and oppressive silence enveloped the house. The real Elisa, with a strength no human body could hold, broke the glass from within. No hands or tools were needed. Her will, fueled by pain and the injustice she had endured, was enough. The false children, unchanged until that moment, screamed in a harrowing chorus, and turned into statues of stone, motionless and silent. The creature's husband exploded into a whirlwind of black butterflies that flew away like dark ash,

leaving only emptiness. The walls tore open, revealing not brick or wood, but millions of wide open eyes. And then the silence, so deep it seemed to swallow every breath. The house, reality, the mirrors, all had stopped. Staying or leaving was no longer a choice. The cycle had ended. By morning, the house was empty. No trace of the Calderon family remained, as if they had dissolved into nothingness. The only sign of their presence was the mirrors, everywhere, in every room, covered with black sheets, sealed with wax and blood like cursed relics.

All except one. In the hallway by the entrance, one mirror remained uncovered. The reflective surface gleamed in the morning light, still and silent. But inside, something moved. A figure. The real Elisa.

Years later, the house changed owners. No one ever learned anything about the calderon. family. Documents were confused, signatures erased by time. The new tenant was a young woman, passionate about antiques and full of naive enthusiasm. She renovated every room, painted the walls, polished the floors, arranged the furniture, everything except for the mirror, which remained still covered in dust, yet intact. And although the girl knew nothing, something in the glass. Something in the glass was watching her. A faint smile, cold and knowing, waiting, always. Every time she passed the mirror, Markta felt uneasy. It was not just her reflection observing her. There was an echo,

an imperceptible whisper, as if the sheet of glass breathed with her. One evening, for fun, or perhaps driven by a curiosity that had begun to bother her, she turned to. She turned to traced a message with her finger on the dusty surface. Who are you? The glass answered, not with written letters, but with a sound that pierced Marta's mind. Once I asked the same thing. From the depths of the mirror, a whisper turned into a laugh, soft, thin, and disturbing. Months passed, and the girl began to notice small details.

subtleties she had previously ignored. Now and then, her reflection in the hallway mirror seemed wrong, a delayed movement, a blink that didn't match hers, a gaze that lingered too long, as if the other presence were studying every gesture, and then that smile, almost identical to hers yet slightly different. One night she awoke in a cold sweat, her heart hammering in her chest. She was convinced she had heard a laugh coming from the corridor. Trembling, she got out of bed and went downstairs, trying to convince herself it was only her imagination. But the reflection in the mirror was not alone. Behind her trapped in the glossy pain. A faceless figure watched. Immobile, enormous, its contours blurred like dense smoke, yet terrifyingly real. Martyrs.

Her breath. When she turned, the room was empty. No presence, just cold air and suspended dust. Yet in the mirror, the figure raised a finger and pointed at her a simple gesture, yet heavy with menace. The next day, Marta decided the mirror had to disappear. She ordered its immediate removal. The workers arrived with chisels, hammers, diamond saws, Nothing could scratch the surface of that glass. Every strike echoed through the room, yet the glass remained intact, as if made of living flesh and molten stone together. That evening, one of the workers disappeared.

The security footage clearly showed the man entering the room. He advanced hesitantly, as if sensing the presence of the glass before even seeing it. He reached out his hand to the reference. reflection, barely brushing it, and then vanished. No scream, no sign of struggle, only a faint tremor in the glass, an echo of what had been. His face in prison, distorted by terror, pounding from the other side as if asking for help, from a world he could not reach. Now Marta no longer sees herself in any mirror. She walked through the house with every surface covered in dark sheets, windows blacked out, every reflection hidden or sealed.

Each room was silent, yet the air was thick, charged with anticipation, and she knew it was only a matter of time. Every night, punctually, she heard three sharp knocks, tap, tap, tap, metallic beats that echoed through the corridor through the heart of the house. Like a drum, marking the moment when the cycle would reopen. And, among the whispers of the shadow, a thin, icy voice from behind the glass, spoke directly into her mind. It's your turn.

And next, a private investigator assigned to examine the discovery of human remains on a university campus becomes increasingly fascinated by an eccentric physiology professor whose quiet obsession with the human body leads him toward a mystery that defies any rational explanation. From writer Jensie Crookston and narrated by Cole Burkart, creepy presents her own bones. I thought she would wait until it rained to hide the body.

People usually do. Something about a slate gray sky and the pounding crackle of water against Earth makes people think they're safe or hidden. So they usually don't account for the rain, making it easier for dirt and mud to slough off the bodies of their victims, buried in shallow graves. But there was no rain the night she hid the body, just the sweet and sweaty cloy of late August in the mountains, the kind that made my shirt stick to the driver's seat of my car as I watched. I got the call about three months ago.

Campus police at the University of Billings had found something, odd in a dumpster behind the computer sciences building, and needed a confirmation before opening a proper investigation. The confirmation, I learned immediately upon my arrival, was nothing more than necessary paperwork for the investigation that had already been done. They knew what they had found, and I did too. I still think about the early morning janitor that had simply been doing her job. The scent of human remains is not one she'll likely to forget soon. Human bones, rotten skin, torn muscles and wet sinew stuffed into individual white plastic bags and thrown into the dumpster, where they had immediately collected flies and other squirming,

crawling creatures. A team of specialists removed the four neatly tied bags from the dumpster. and followed the customary procedures to contain them safely and categorize them as evidence. I don't know what sort of degree or training you have to receive to be given the privilege to work with what was once a human body so closely. I remember wondering if the people in the plastic full body suits appreciated how lucky they were to be so close to something so intriguing. human bones cleaned so thoroughly that there wasn't even any blood in the bag. The technicalities of being a private investigator, however, were intimately known to me. When the job was offered to me, I accepted it immediately. The city chief of police had been brought in swiftly to take over for campus security,

and I think he mistook my enthusiasm at the job for an over-eager sense of justice. He expected me to find the killer, his words, not mine, and to stope out the full details of the crime they committed to determine just how many life sentences would be necessary. I took about a week learning my way around the campus. I exchanged my collared shirts and slacks for hoodies and jeans, and even at 30 years old, I passed for a student moderately well. I spent time exploring each building,

familiarizing myself with what classrooms were busy and when, which areas were open to the public and which weren't, and listening in on every stray rumor that had kicked up since the mateshift body bags had been found and taken away. The rumors ranged from suggestions that the claims were exaggerated, and the janitor had freaked out about finding some animal bones, to speculation over which student or faculty they thought was capable of murder. I kept a running list of names.

In the quieter moments, spent sitting and watching people move from class to class, I let my mind wander back to the evidence. There are few things more amazing than human anatomy. The way that every puzzle piece inside of us works together to push air through wet flesh and call it life. I think in another life I could have been a doctor, or something like that. On the sixth day of my investigation, I followed a rumor I had heard, whispered between students in the library, to the Life Sciences Building. That's where I met Professor Lauren Hitch for the first time.

Lauren Hitch was a professor of physiology and had, according to one of her students, recently gone on a long rant in class, discouraging the rumors circulating the school that a murder had taken place on campus. She was an older woman and had been teaching at the school for many years. I researched her academic and occupational background and didn't find anything out of the ordinary, but I chose to sit in on one of her classes anyways. It was an evening anatomy class, and the way she talked about the subject of the human body both set me on edge and intrigued me. I immediately wanted to talk to her again. She'd readed me politely when I knocked knocked on her office door the next day, and welcomed me inside. One wall was entirely lined with

overflowing butchelves aside from a single door that I had assumed must lead to a closet. The other walls were far more interesting, in my opinion, plastered floor to ceiling with various scientific diagrams of different parts of the human body. There were large, detailed drawings of a human skull in black and white, netched to a larger and more complicated poster of the muscles and tendons in the knee. I remember being drawn particularly to the depiction of a dissected eye. For both of us, talking seemed to come easily. For me, it was something I had a natural talent in and what I was trained to do as an investigator. For her, I think it was a genuine passion for physiology. I pretended that I was interested in majoring in something like her field, and let her talk and talk and talk.

We talked around the rumors for nearly an hour, before I finally brought the topic up myself in a casual, disbelieving tone, so I could watch her reaction play out in her eyes. There's no way any of it's real. Human bones? They say there wasn't even any blood in the bag. Her gaze flicked between my eyes, and she leaned back in her chair by just a fraction. Do they now? She said softly, not disgusted, not condescending. I'd recognize the tone anywhere, because what it implied was something I felt often. It was something I was feeling right then alongside her.

Intrigue. The comment, effective. put an end to our conversation, but that wasn't a problem for me. I believed I had found who I was looking for, and after that I just needed the evidence to back up my hunch. Professor Hitch's gaze traveled away from mine for just a moment, to the door along the shelved walls. Rumors, she said, people will say the most ludicrous things. and then I was being ushered out. I left her office, left campus entirely for a few hours,

and traveled back when the moon was high in the sky, and only a quarter of the lights in the Life Sciences building were on. I used the key card that University Police had given me to get in, and took the stairs up to Professor Hitch's office. It was completely dark when I stepped in, except for a sliver of dim white light seeping in from the crack under the door by the butchelves. I stepped forward. The room was so quiet I could hear my breath. I couldn't hear anything on the other side of the door when my fingertips moved to the handle,

and then I was pushing inside. It wasn't a closet, like I had first suspected. It was a room, much larger than the office. had been. I realized that the room I had just stepped into must have been a classroom of sorts. Professor Hitz's classroom. There were white, laminate tiles, and white walls, and a collection of tables with strange instruments and large textbooks spread across them. It was lit, only dimly, by the moonlight, that streamed in through the half-open windows. I stepped towards one of the tables at the front of the room, and saw an open sketchbook filled with wild, free-hand illustrations on the visible pages. They were not unlike the many images adorning the walls of Professor Hitch's office, human anatomy, detailed and dissected. I was alone in the room, but the sound of footsteps

from somewhere else in the vicinity implied that I wouldn't be for long. I darted towards an open cabinet behind the table and crawled inside, carefully pulling the door behind me, but leaving it open just enough that I could still see into the classroom. I watched Professor Hitch's enter the room, pushing a large metal cart. She moved her hand to the light switch behind the door, and the fluorescent bulbs turned on with a familiar buzz, and Hitches moved to stand in front of the table where I had just been seconds ago. She carried her. She carried a little bit of the table. She a small book in her hand. It was tiny and couldn't have been bigger than a passport, but she laid it out in front of her on the table and glared at the pages with intense focus. I wondered if that

was the evidence I needed, perhaps a catalog of her crimes. Some serial killers were like that. I was crouched in a cupboard, sharing a room with a potential killer, but for some reason, all of I could focus on was that book. It was not a catalog of her crimes. It was so much worse and so much better. Her eyes stand over the pages, and her lips moved soundlessly until finally she pulled back, wrapping her right hand around her left wrist. The crack was like a gunshot in the nearest silence of the abandoned classroom. It echoed off the walls and made my stomach lurch as I examined the professor's wrist,

twisted at an unnatural angle that made the bump of bone push up against her skin towards the ceiling. But I barely had time to register the shock before I witnessed something entirely more gruesome. I could feel the slow, steady beat of my own heart as I watched Hicks push her hand down, down, down, until the sharp cut of broken bone protruded through her skin with a wet tearing sound. It wasn't even splintered.

The break of the bone was clean when she grabbed it and began to pull. Watching her made me intimately aware of my own hands, my arms, the way Stinn sat atop fragile flesh, and... I watched her pull the bone out of her arm and set it on the desk next to her. She dipped her fingers again into the open wound when she was finished, and began to pull out more, different pieces of herself, not bones, but other things that I wanted desperately to understand

and name and study. She did it with such clean precision, and I watched with rapt attention as she placed things on metal trays or in glass tubes that sat balanced on the larger cart. I don't know how long I sat crouched in that cupboard, but by the time she was finished, my knees and hips were aching. But I still mourned the loss when she eventually bandaged her own arm, washed her hands, picked up her book, and wheeled the cart with her new collection. out of the room. I eventually forced myself out of the cupboard. My feet filled with the pins and needles sensation of having lost too much blood flow.

I looked around the classroom and noticed that she had left her sketchbook still open on the table, now splattered with her own blood. It was evidence. I could have taken it directly to the chief of police. But I didn't. I made many excuses to myself over the next. few days. No one would believe what you saw. There's not enough evidence for something so outrageous. Technically, she hasn't killed anyone. But the truth was, and still is, that I didn't want to put an end

to whatever she was doing. Days turned into weeks, and I continued to sneak back into the Life Sciences building. I followed her, learned her schedule, and know how and how, and we're win to arrive without being seen. I tucked myself into that cupboard for nights on end and watched the artist regrow and remove her own bones. It wasn't always her arm, sometimes it was her leg or her stomach. On one particular occasion, it was her eye. It took her all evening and a series of little silver tools laid out in front of her, which she delicately used to remove the fragile organ. I watched from my hiding place as she set a silver-notched spoon down beside her notebook. It was captivating, filling me with a sense of wonder that nothing ever had and nothing has since.

Watching her do this became an almost nightly ritual. When the loss of sleep started to bother me, I shifted my schedule to sleep during the day instead. I began to plan other events in my life around my evenings, refusing to make plans or meet with others or even eat if it came in the way of my time spent in the white classroom. By the time I was officially fired from my investigative job, I had long since given up any delusions of ever turning. in Professor Hitch's. Instead, I used my professional skills to find different ways to get into Lott campus buildings when my T's stopped working, and keep myself from being recognized or caught on camera. Daylight quickly became nothing more than the long hours between one bone-breaking session and the next.

I watched Lauren Hitch's pull apart her own body, piece by piece, until there were no more broken bones or imperfect pieces to be tied up and thrown away in random dumpsters. Over the course of countless nights, she reconstructed a human body, line by line, pulling it apart and putting it back together again. I never found out why. Maybe there wasn't a why, simply morbid fascination like my own. Because, when she was finished, one warm August night, I watched her from my hidden spot within the trees as she buried the body, made of her own bones, deep underground. I sat, fascinated, as she carefully set the little booklet, no bigger than a passport,

on the body's chest, before covering it. all with the freshly dug dirt. I let the sweat on my back keep me glued to my seat until long after she had left, my hand circling my own wrist. My body was drenched in a thin layer of sweat when I finally stepped out of the car. The sunset cast my long dark shadow over the mound of freshly disturbed dirt. I knelt down. The dirt was cold against my fingers, as I dug, removing soil by the handful, slowly at first, and then in a frenzy the closer I got, until my knuckles were scraped and bloody, and my fingernails were black. My chest heaved as I stared at the unbreathing body beneath me.

I had watched or put it together for days, but it looked different now in the bronze light from the dying sun. I knelt on top of it, staring first in amazement and then confusion. The body was not complete, as I had assumed. It was missing a piece, a glaring hole in an otherwise perfect masterpiece. I couldn't understand how Hitch's had forgotten something so vitally important as the body's second eye. until I saw that the familiar little book was not the only thing she had buried in that shallow grave alongside the body.

My hand was remarkably steady as I bent close and picked up the little, notched silver spoon, examining it, intrigued. And finally, a novelist struggling with a brutal case of writer's block becomes obsessed with a woman who seems to embody the perfect inspiration for his next book. From writer Darby Am, creepy presents, My Muse.

It began with a deadline. I was to have my book finished and ready for printing by the beginning of November, a mere five months away. The publisher, desperate to peddle yet another tawdry romance novel, wanted it in time for the holiday sales frenzy. Romance novels. The very thought was revolting. This was far beneath my usual ovra.

It was tedious for me to spew mushy drivel and move of my intellectual works. Academia, mystery, postmodern fiction. Those were the realms in which I thrived. The domains were my genius shown. To stoop so low as to churn out saccharine filth for the masses? to conform to the shallow mold of pop culture, a betrayal of my craft when I endured only out of necessity. You can't rush perfection. Any true expert would understand that.

But alas, the publishing industry is overrun with imbeciles. Still, time was not on my side. I was stuck, confined to their trivial expectations. Words, which were always a symphony waiting to be composed, now felt like a tangled mess, refusing to cooperate. One after another, I forced them to form something coherent, molding them into something vaguely palatable for an audience with tragically low standards. The majority of so-called writers spent their days obsessively researching the minutia of their work,

as if those superficial details could elevate their mediocrity. I, however, do not operate in such plebeian ways. Most people have heard of method acting, or an actor immerses themselves, in a role. But my process transcends even that I become the art itself, embodying a creative force so profound it would be incomprehensible to most. Yet, despite my unparalleled skill, even I was thwarted by the simplicity of romance. These shallow pedestrian stories are the foundation of all literature. Anyone with a scrap of paper and a fleeting thought could produce one.

And yet, to my horror, it seemed I was incapable of sinking to that level. That is, until I met her, Amelie, a name meaning hardworking, the perfect description of what I needed to defeat my conundrum. Amalie was the kind of woman who could melt even the coldest hearts with just a glance. The kind anyone would be a fool not to love. I had been at my usual table at a standard coffee shop just down the road from my apartment. I stirred the half-melted ice in my Grande triple shot sugar-free vanilla brevet with a caramel drizzle while staring pensively out the window at nothing in particular, wallowing in my own wordless despair.

I caught a glint of strawberry blonde in the sunlight from across the street. Little ringlet curls bounced as she adjusted freshly bloomed white carnations at the flower shop across the street, smiling and saying hello to each passerby as if she knew them personally. She made my heart recite every love cliche ever made. She was the sun. I had to speak to her. I had to be involved in the life of such a fascinating creature. I was across the street before I'd even finished that thought, devising my excuse for approaching her.

She glanced at me when I approached, those warm brown eyes lighting up while they soaked me in. Her smile was complimented by dimples as her sumptuous lips moved in greeting. Even the simple hello sounded so much sweeter when she was speaking it. It was so simple to be with her, to laugh with her and to learn from her. She became my muse, with a single smile I could write an entire saga. The novel became so effortless once I understood what true love was supposed to be. There was nothing more inspiring in the world than waking up with her in the morning. After spending a late night together, I was captivated by the way she looked at three and three

in the morning. Her lipstick almost completely faded. Still, she would desperately fight to stay awake just to be with me one moment longer. Over time, I found myself doing the same. Had I been so afraid of being ordinary that I had dismissed the extraordinary simplicity of love? My chest tightened with the unbearable thought that someone as luminous as Amelie had chosen someone as flawed. That is me. I didn't deserve her laughter, her patience, her love. Time flew by as Amalie and I became accustomed to one another. Days melted into months of happiness.

We were content with spending our lives together. Once my previously despised romance novel was published, we celebrated together, dining at the finest restaurant I could afford off the substantial advance my publisher, awarded me. Amelie looked absolutely spellbound as I popped the cork to a bottle of champagne. Her eyes like twinkling stars as I poured her glass. It was in that twinkle that I realized how deeply I needed her. Amelie moved in with me in December. Spending Christmas Day together was a treat. I drafted so many stories in my head watching her decorate the entire residence. Amelie confided she had always wanted children.

Little children running around Christmas morning filled her with joy. I could see her sitting in my armchair, watching two little children loving me as they ripped apart presents. She would make an exceptional mother, dedicated and loving to a fault. Amelie's family didn't feel the same about me as she did. Her brother eyed me wearily the moment she brought me home to introduce me. Her father made comments about not trusting those creepy writer types. Their paranoia was misplaced,

but I was reassured when I overheard her arguing with her brother and hushed whispers down the hallway after he degraded me by labeling me a freak. The harshness of her tone was arousing. Not once did she ever raised her voice with me. His attitude was borderline Neanderthal, hulking over the dinner table like Amelie was some object that could steal from him. I carefully watched him as he glowered, knowing deep down I had already won. Amelie was mine.

I was assigned another novel shortly thereafter. The haunting feeling of writer's block crept back from the shadowy depths where it had been lurking, slithering into the edges of my mind like a predator stalking its prey. Amelie, ever the dutiful muse, tried everything. Hot coffees, midnight snacks, herbal teas. She would find me late at night and attentively rubbed my shoulders as I hunched over my wretched laptop. It was sweet, I supposed, but ultimately useless. Amelie didn't understand my process.

Not really. None of it was close to touching the gnawing frustration building inside of me. There's only one proven way to conquer the monster of writer's block. To return to the method that had always worked before. Amelie wouldn't understand that either. Inmate, it's time for dinner. The prison guard said, sliding the tray of food through. slid in the cell door before stalking off in a beastly manner.

I couldn't be bothered to gather my dinner for the evening as I tapped my pencil against my desk, the only bit of familiar comfort in this confinement. It was so easy to recall how the knife felt piercing her skin. The warmth of her blood as it spilled onto my hands. The sight of the redness expanding on the mattress sheets as her dying screen. dreams tore through our apartment. Her blood had been my last inspiration, as if each drop was ink onto my paper.

Words are supposed to be simple things to piece together, putting one after another to inspire a semblance of meaning, but they should not be this hard. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, Please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow us at creepypod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through creative common share-a-like licensing

or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team. and the story's author.