Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S2 Ep54: Episode 54: Korean Horror Stories

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

Tonight's show is proudly sponsored by Manscaped: get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code CREEP at https://www.manscaped.com/ Our opening tale might not be the scariest story you've ever heard, but it's beautifully written and leads to a genuinely satisfying ending. If you enjoy listening to it half as much as I did narrating it, you'll be in for a real treat this evening. ‘Kway Mool the Monster’ is an original story by Daniel DuBois, kindly shared with me via the Creepypasta website and narrated here for you all with express permission granted:  http://www.creepypasta.com/kway-mool-the-monster/ Next up we have ‘Bizarre encounters on a tour in North Korea’, an original story by Mr. Outlaw, kindly shared on NoSleep and read here with the author’s express permission.  https://www.reddit.com/user/mr_outlaw Our penultimate tale of terror is ‘The White Doors’, an original story by Matt Mascia, also kindly shared with me via the Creepypasta website and narrated here for you all with express permission granted:  http://www.creepypasta.com/the-white-doors/ We round off this evening with an original story by Alex Sorrow, ‘The Black Fog’, once again kindly shared with me via the Creepypasta website and narrated here for you all with express permission granted:  http://www.creepypasta.com/the-black-fog/

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Welcome to Dr. Creepin's dungeon. Well, there's an old Korean saying. You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. Taking that first step into the unknown, well, it's courage your need if you're to get through tonight's Four Tales of Terran. Later on we have bizarre encounters on a tour of North Korea by Mr. Outlaw.

Then we have the White Doors by Matt Moskia. We round off tonight's proceedings with The Black Fog by Alex Saro. But first up, we have Quaymoo, the Monster, by Daniel Dubois. Now as ever before we begin, a word of caution. Tonight's stories may contain strong language, as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then let's begin. Returning from the vending machine, I would often linger outside of my grandmother's hospital. little room and watched my family before joining them. Dad usually stood by the window silently

looking out past the tree line. My younger brother, Sonuk, would read a weathered comic book in a chair by the partition curtain. Mom sat on the edge of the bed crying and watching my grandmother make strange hand gestures in the air and mutter garbled words under her breath. Every so often, Mom would lean towards her and say in a broken voice, Hey, it's me, your hand oil, remember me? But each time my grandmother's stare remained drugged, glassy, and fixed on her withered hands that danced above the sheets. From where I stood, I'd ponder.

this is what Alzheimer's looks like after a certain age her grandmother's mind starts lying to her it pulls the worst sort of trick swapping out the faces and voices of everyone she ever loved for those of strangers the trick doesn't stop at the grandmother though it's also felt by those closest to her

the stoic son-in-law the ambivalent grandson, the devastated daughter. With the onset of the paranoia, the bedwetting and the hallucinations, the helpless bystanders also begin to forget this sort of woman that the grandmother was before the disease. She too becomes a stranger. The task then becomes a kind of mental surgery. A separation of the gentle pre-Alzheimer's grandmother from her diseased counterpart,

or, as I like to call it, the monster. Only after eight long years was I able to separate the two. Until recently I would get just close enough to remember the way she smelled, or how her cheek felt against mine, before memories of the monster invariably muscle. their way back to the front. I blame most of these intrusions on one particular memory from a night many octobers ago. It was the night when I first met the monster face to face. I grew up in a small fishing village in South Korea called Jin Hay. The town is currently undergoing a building boom as contractors look to accommodate growing numbers of men commuting to neighboring Boussan

for work. However, as a child, I remember Gin Hay for its narrow, shadowy streets, cluttered with fishing nets, barrels and dirty dogs. Brightly-dressed grandmothers chattered at the thresholds of corner stores, waving their arms with hands full of roots and herbs, freshly picked from the mountain sides. Withered old grandfathers peaked from dark windows and smoked forlornly, and brown young men squished over the docks in pink goloshes, with cigarettes between their cracked lips,

sloshing seawater from buckets to wash away the fish guts. The whole village was hunkered down before an emerald curtain of misty mountains that sent regular gusts of winds groundward, relieving residents of the lingering stench of squid and mackerel. It may all sound picturesque on paper, but when I was young, I hated it.

It was boring. I often begged my mother and father to move somewhere less rustic, to a town that had an arcade, or, at the very least, a movie screen. Before even opening my mouth, though, I always knew what answer I'd get. We've been over this, Eun-Young. Your grandmother doesn't want to move. We can't very well leave her here alone, can we? This in turn would send me running over to my Halmonies,

that's Korean for grandmother, house, where I'd ask perhaps for the hundredth time why she wouldn't consider living in a newer, nicer place. As I saw it, the case practically made itself. My Halmonies' house was tiny. It was a one-story concrete tin-roofed edifice with a sliding glass door and a bank of weathered windows along the front and side. She often spent her nights in one of the three rooms huddled by a smoky old charcoal heater, changing out buckets that caught leaks in the ceiling.

It was a dive, and I couldn't see why she wouldn't want to live somewhere more comfortable. But like my parents, Halmany always gave the same answer. Un-young, you know that I want you to move to a place that will make you happy. I have told your mother and father so, but I cannot come with you. When I asked her why, she would mutter some platitudes about old people being stubborn before scuttling into the kitchen. Even at a young age I sensed that she was deliberately hiding her true reasons for not wanting to leave, Chin Hay. But in Korean culture, it's disrespectful to question an elder's wishes beyond a certain point.

Eventually, I just stopped asking. I resolve myself to the inevitable and buckle down for a tedious life that would likely culminate with a marriage to some sort of. sad forlorn fishermen. Okay, so I could be a little melodramatic, but from the mind of a 10-year-old, this was honestly what my prospects look like. Day and night I thought about little else besides getting out of gin hay, getting to that place beyond the horizon where everyone was a stranger, and the neon lights buzzed till dawn, where women wore dresses and men smoked European cigarettes the city that's where I wanted to go soul not Busan the closer and smaller of the two no soul that was the one the Holy Grail the full house and the whole in one

all wrapped up in a million dollar bow I'd never been to Seoul only seen photos that was one of the main reasons I'd like to visit my Halmonie's house for the photo of Seoul. Despite becoming a borderline recluse later in life, as a young adult, she'd done her fair share of travelling. This was largely thanks to a traditional Korean instrument called the Gaiyghum. From a young age, she had excelled at this large wooden instrument played by plucking 12 thick strings. By middle school she was one of the top players in the region. By high school, she was one of the best in the country. It was during her junior year of high school that she won top prize in a regional contest,

thereby making her eligible to compete in the national competition held in Seoul each year. In the end, my halmany didn't place in the contest. Yet, that didn't stop her from becoming a sort of celebrity, both within the first. family and around town. So proud were Jin He residents of the little A. Sul B's trip to Seoul, that blown up photos of her performing on stage were plastered all over town. Everywhere from the post office to the shishimi restaurants down by the docks. This is the same photo that I'd pour over for hours whenever I'd visit my Halmanie's house. Although framed and covered in glass, she always kept it in the lowest cabinet of a large dresser in her living room. I'd pull it out and hold it up to my

face, centimetres from my nose. I'd note every detail. The V-shaped cut in the end of her handbock, ribbon, that's traditional Korean dress. The ripples, shadows and edges of the heavy gold curtain behind her on the stage. Her fingers forming cryptic signs. captured in mid-strumb by the camera lens. The fragile, but set and certain eyes cast downwards towards the strings. More than anything else, though, I'd focus on a hidden look of pure joy in her face. She looked nervous, yes, but excited and confident too. But there was also the unhindered star-struck joy of a country girl who had finally made it to the

city. The photo itself was taken inside a large auditorium. It could have been anywhere, but what made it a photo of soul was that look on my grandmother's face of being young and out of her element. I'd stare into the fragmented photographic grain of her eyes and share in her joy of escape from wind and salt and mackerel guts. From the photo, I'd wander over to a tall, dark wardrobe on the other side of Hallamonies' living room and squeak the ancient doors open. Pushing past the blouses, coats and slacks, I'd come to one garment wrapped in plastic, her handbock, the same one she'd worn at the concert some 40 years before.

The skirt was rose pink, iridescent gusts of wind swirled across its folds. The sleeves were of soft ivory and the vest and ribbon were a milky blue, adorned with geometric symbols, the meanings of which I'd never know. At that age, it was the most beautiful piece of clothing I had ever seen. I was convinced that it held magic powers. Were I to put it on, I somehow knew that it would transport me out of Jinhei, back to the stage in Seoul, where it made its grand debut so many years before. I never, never seemed to have the chance, though. My halmany was a generous woman, but, for whatever reason, she was particularly protective towards her handbock. I could look at it all I wanted.

But, like the prized figure of a toy collector, it never left its package. Still, I often dreamed about wearing that handbook. Luckily, or so I thought at the time, I got my chance a few months later. It was around this time when Halmany began displaying some of the early signs of what everyone thought was run-of-the-mill dementia. She'd forget the names of ingredients while cooking. wear different coloured socks, and confuse relatives with one another at Chuseyok, Korea's equivalent of Thanksgiving. Nothing at all uncommon for a woman in her 60s, we thought, but then the memory loss got worse.

For instance, upon visiting her one evening, my mother found Halmany sitting in a dark kitchen with a table set for two. In a dazed way, she asked, When is your father coming home? Not such a strange question, writes. The problem was that my mother's father, Halmanie's husband, had been dead for ten years. When my mother explained this to her,

Halmanie's eyes contorted in disbelief. Her head drifted downward like a birthday, balloon short on air, until she glared, lost and bewildered into her lap. Within a month, she couldn't be left alone for fear that she'd set fire to the house or wander off during the night. My younger brother and I gradually took over more chores at home, as my mother started living at Halmanie's place. I would still see Halmany every now and then, only now, those eyes that had once been so pleased by my presence, had grown glazed, indifferent, and at the worst moments, even suspicious. My, hi-grandma, would be answered with a prying and guarded,

Who are you? Eventually, I started going over to her house only when my mother needed me to bring something, and even on those occasions I wouldn't see my grandmother. My mother said that it was for the best until my Halmany got better. It was on one such visit to Halmanie's house, delivering eggs, when my mother met me at the door, clutching a bloody dish towel to her thumb. She had cut it while preparing dinner, and needed to run to the doctor's house to have it stitched. Looking pale but calm,

she explained that my Halmany had taken her nightly sleep aid and was now sleeping deeply in her room. Sit in the living room, she said. Color or listen to the radio. Just keep watch over the house, and I'll come back very soon, okay? Before I could say anything, she was already around the corner,

clopping down the street in her house shoes. Inside, I did as my mother had told me. I sat down in the living room and turned the transistor to a music station. There was a creased colouring book and a rusted coffee can full of crayon stubs on the bookshelf. I pulled them down and started colouring in the few remaining patches of white, but after about 20 minutes I got bored. My mind drifted to the photo of Seoul, over in the bottom cabinet of the dresser.

I took it out and inspected it as I always did, noting the long, lacquered plank of the Gaiguum, my harmonies, lustrous eyes, and the handbook, that dazzling gown of pink and blue. It was while looking at the photo that a truly blasphemous idea popped into my little 10-year-old brain. Chalk it up to all children, even the best-behaved ones, being opportunists at heart. But by combining the two factors of my mother's wounded thumb, and the sleeping pills that my halmany had taken, I, little Un-Young, made a startling discovery. I was alone. I mean, really alone. At that moment, there were technically no adults in the house. In other words, there was no one to stop me from engaging in the one activity that was strictly forbidden in my halmeny.

house, namely the wearing of her handbook. Upon having this epiphany, I sat motionless for a few moments, just staring in the direction of the tall, dark wardrobe. It seemed to stare down at me, judging me for the crime that I was yet to commit. I switched off the radio, got up, crossed the room slowly and silently, like a tightrope walker, and pulled the doors open, and there it was. Already separated from the other garments, down at the end of the closet rot, in full sight, as if it had been waiting for me. After taking one long look at the door of my grandmother's room, after listening harder than I'd ever listened in my life for a footstep or a rustle of sheets

I unhooked the dress from the rod pulled the plastic up over the top and slid it from its hangar I got undressed and stepped into the whole floor surrounded by the skirt splayed out in rosy ripples across the vinyl floor I pull it up resting the straps on my shoulders then adorned the ivory blouse and finally the blue vest.

I tied the ceremonial knot in the ribbon on the front, then rustled over to the open bathroom door, the other side of which had a full length mirror. My initial reaction upon seeing myself in the glass was mixed. It didn't fit perfectly, as it had done in all of my dreams. The sleeves were too long. I couldn't even see my fingers, and the dress was pooled around my ankles. Yet, there was still a sense of magic in wearing something so precious, so charged with memories. It had been to soul.

The city lights had shone upon it, perhaps taxis had splashed puddle water on its skirt. Dropping my nose to its hem, I imagined that I could even smell the same. steam and grime of the subway. What I'd give to go where you've been, I thought, as I nuzzled the giant collar with my chin. With eyes closed, I swayed there before the mirror, lost in my daydreams and there, who are you? I spun around to find someone or something, standing in the doorway of my grandmother's bedroom. It wore no pants or shoes. only a large baggy diaper and a floral shirt with stains all across the front of it. Its arms and legs looked to be nothing but bone,

covered in thin layers of bruised, sagging skin. And the face. My God! The bottom row of grey, crooked teeth jutted out from between two cracked and scowling lips. Red scratches and brown scabs covered its cheek, cheeks and forehead. One of the eyes was blackened, making the great staring orb in the centre all the more piercing. Tilting its head back, it stared down the length of its prominent nose at me with that one large eye. My breath caught in my throat. I remember thinking

that this was the most frightening creature I had ever seen. What are you doing in my house? It wailed. The final word crackled with spit. It lisped as if there was something wrong with its tongue. My house, I thought. What does it mean by my house? At the time I was too frightened and shocked to put the pieces together. The diaper, the familiar shirt,

the past month of not seeing my halmany even once, to realize that the thing I was staring at was none other than, than my own grandmother. Because I couldn't make the connection, my young mind came to the quick conclusion that this was Quay Mool. And indeed it was a monster, that had broken into the house.

What's more, it seemed convinced that it belonged there. Not only was it a monster, it was also insane. It took one step over the threshold of the bedroom, never taking its eyes from mine. What do you want? It hissed. Money. Jewelry.

It dragged its bare feet forward another step. Instinctively, I backed up, but the bathroom door was still open behind me. I couldn't go any further. Another step. My dress! It screeched. Is that what you want? His large, wrathful eyes drifted down and ran greedily along every line and fold of the handbock.

Long, ragged breaths broke from its chest. The smell of urine and decay wafted across the room from where it stood. It stopped for a moment under the fluorescent light in the middle of the ceiling. The electric glare lit its withered limbs, but a little of the sun. wild nest of hair atop its head kept any light from reaching its face. Mouth, nose, cheeks and chin seemed to disappear, leaving only the eyes, eyes that I'll never forget until the day I die. They were the eyes of a creature that had strayed beyond the borders of reason, sanity and

hope. Eyes that had seen hell and wanted nothing more than to do harm, to share the pain that it was too great for them to carry alone. That dress, it said, pointing a twitching finger at me. Take dress. It roared. Mechanically, my finger shot down to my chest and began fumbling with the knot on the front. But having never worn a handbock before, I tied the knot incorrectly. I couldn't get it undone. No matter how I borrowed my fingernails under the folds, it wouldn't loosen. I looked down for just a second. When I looked back up, the thing had started to change. With both arms outstretched, it ran towards me screaming. But at the last instant, I ducked to one side.

The thing crashed full force into the mirror, hitting its head and shattering the glass. It bent forward, clutching its face and whining. When it took its hands away, I saw that the mirror had sliced it across the forehead. Blood dribbled down, covering its eyes, nose and cheeks. It looked around for a moment, dazed. But when it caught a sight of me, cowering in the opposite corner of the room, its bloodied face curled into a grotesque skull.

With another scream, it ran at me. Fortunately, a door lead into the backyard was just to my left. I flung it open and ran out behind the house. A path led off into the wood to a square of cement where my harmony kept rows of ongis. Large earthen pots used for storing kimchi, denjang and other types of food. Having played among the pots for years, I knew that most of them were full, but a few particularly large ones near the back were empty. My halmone kept gardening supplies in those.

I heard a snap of branches and a thud somewhere behind me. Looking over my shoulder as I ran, I saw that the quay mule had tripped and fallen, likely from blood running into its eyes. That gave me time to run to one of the three largest ongies, removed the heavy ceramic lids, pull out all the shovels and gloves, and lower myself into a crouch position inside, before replacing the top. From a chip section in the lid, I was able to see out onto the path

and the rows of pots in front of mine. Within a few seconds, the thing stumbled into view, there on the path, in front of the ongis. Its face, hands and shirt were covered in blood. After making a tentative glance

further down the path, it turned its attention to the pots. Growning and breathing hoarsely, it began lifting lids from atop the ongis and tossing them onto the ground. There were about 20 pots altogether, and I knew that it wouldn't be long before it reached the back row and discovered me.

I clasped a hand to my mouth to stifle the sobs that broke from me uncontrollably. Another lid crashed onto the concrete and another. Wiping blood from its face, the quay mule grunted, lifted the top of another pot and checked inside. Then another. Crash! Another. Crash! Crash! Another. Then there were only the three large parts remaining. I reached down near my ankles, feeling for any object that I'd missed while clearing out the Ongi. Anything that could be used as a weapon.

But my fingers came up with only dirt and sand. I prepared to spring out as soon as the lid was lifted off. Then, just as the Kui-Mu prepared to lift the lid on the Ongi beside mine, a cry came from down the path, near the house. Mother! It screamed. It was my mother's voice. Un-young!

It cried again. Footsteps thudded down the path. My mother arrived at the pots and screamed, when she saw the filthy, bloodied creature. But to my surprise, she cried out Mother again, and ran to it. She embraced it,

stroked its face with her bandaged hand, and checked the wound on its forehead. All at once, the quaymool that had shown such ferocity and rage moments before, became dazed, bewildered, and docile. It's thin, mud-spattered legs shook as if they'd give out at any moment. The diaper it wore was sagging and

oversaturated. Its cold white feet matched the color of the concrete upon which it stood. Suddenly, it became the most pathetic thing that I had ever seen. Stumbling towards my mother like a child wanting to be held, it suddenly sobbed. My handbook! How can I compete without my handbook? It reached my mother and the two held one another. A cold wind whistled around them through the tall, moaning trees. The orange sun dipped behind the tree line and the forest darkened. Please.

It begged my mother. Bring back my handbock. How can I win the competition without it? How can I win and get out of this horrible town? At that point, in the state of exhausted confusion, I straightened up inside the pot and lifted the lid off the ongi. My mother caught sight of me. When she saw the soiled handbock, her teary, befuddled eyes settled into a troubled stare

of realization. Without being told, she seemed to know what had happened. you all right she asked over the creature's shoulder I nodded then run to the house and call an ambulance for your halmonie and at that moment as I clambered out of the pot my young mind made the connection arrived at the realization that had been blooming since my mother had called the Kwaymool mother before running to make the call I stopped in front of my mother and the Quaymu. Our eyes met.

Mine and those of that shivering, injured, beautiful woman, whom I'd known my entire life. My halmony, my very sick halmoney. When she saw the handbock, she crumbled into fresh sobs and pointed towards the garment with folded hands as if begging. Fingering the now dirty dress, I looked up. at her. I'll wash it for you. I said, and return it in the morning. I know that you need it for the competition. She nodded. Sobbing, she whispered. Yes. And with that promise, I dashed down the

path, letting the tears come as I ran. My grandmother would never return home from the ambulance ride that evening. After having her forehead stitched up at the hospital, she was placed in a special facility where she'd be less likely to harm herself as per the doctor's recommendation. She stayed there for three months. Often she'd be in a medicated state of sedation, usually following a particularly violent episode. When she wasn't sedated, her moods would shift between two extremes. There were the fits of rage and bouts of agitation, sure. But as she approached death, her disposition during the final month became characterized more by a heavy look of loss and sadness. She'd spent hours by the window, her watery eyes squinted and darting about, as if trying to piece something together.

Speech she eventually left her. when she did speak it often came out as a jumble of incoherent sounds we looked to the tone of what she said to determine its meaning most of the time it was sad or inquiry asking a question or commenting on something or someone long since gone there was however one thing that was always sure to raise her spirits her handbong from the moment of her morning when I first brought it freshly clean to the facility until the day she died, just looking at that dress put a smile on her face. All of the anger, sadness, or bewilderment that she might have been feeling would melt away at the sight of it. Even after she lost her grasp on the names of people and things, my Halmonie's broken mind showed enough mercy to afford her one memory. Her trip to soul. Even a week before her death, you could lean close to her lips and distinguish single soft words whispered on the air of her breath. Gaia groom, contest,

win. And as she spoke, her small, thin fingers would strum invisible strings in the air over her hospital bed. Upon Halmanie's death, my mother let me in on a secret that my grandmother had told very few people during her life. She had never really gotten over losing that contest in Seoul. She had seen it as her ticket out of Jin Hay,

a town which, like me, she had found a bit too small for her dreams. Placing in that contest would have meant automatic acceptance into one of the top traditional music conservatories in Seoul. It would have meant escape from the life of a fisherman's wife. A fate that was likely to before her were she to stay in Jin Hay. She may have held her head high upon returning to Jin Hay after losing the contest, but she cried at night for months afterwards over her perceived failure.

With her parents having no money to pay for a university education, my Halmany did end up staying in Jin Hay, where she married my grandfather, a kind but close-mouthed fisherman. She gave birth to four children, and, over the years, she seemed to obtain what some might call a sense of happiness, or at least contentment.

But with the onset of the Alzheimer's, my mother in particular discovered how haunted my harmony had been most of her life by that missed chance in Seoul so many years before. That's why she'd never move out of Jin He, my mother told me, looking down. After losing that contest, she became terrified of failure to the point where she refused to try anything new. Although you never saw that sight of her, Eun Young, she was a hardened pessimist at heart. At that point my mother walked over to the closet in our house and unhooked my Halmany's handbook from within. It had been kept there since her passing. My mother brought it over to me and laid it in my lap. Your Halmany and I both know how much you loved it, she said. I think

she would have wanted you to have it, Unya. It felt so heavy sitting there on my legs, so full, thick, and charged with memories and meaning. I won't lie. The dress also inspired a degree of fear in me. At that young age,

I couldn't help but continually associate the dress with that night. The night I had seen my harmony deranged and deformed into something ugly and, and unrecognizable. Seeing the handbook, I invariably saw the thing that had taken the form of my beloved grandmother. Though the memories grew duller over time, my dreams were haunted well into my teenage years by the Quay-Mool and the wide, watery hate of its eyes. I dreamed that it was hunkered in a dark

corner of my bedroom at night, mumbling something as it said. slid, blood clots and strands of hair between its dirty fingers. Suddenly, it would grunt and shoot a glance over at me. As it started to stand up, I'd try to squirm out of bed and realize that I was wearing the handbock. And for some reason, the handbock was heavy, so heavy that I couldn't move with it on. Once it had reached its full height, the quay mule. would just stand there for a moment, looking at me with those big, mean eyes ringed in bruises

and blood. A bestial screech would break from its lungs, and it would stomp across the room at me, and just before it reached my bed, I'd wake. I never told my family about the nightmares, but for eight years, I never took the handbag out of my closet. it, never even looked at it for fear that it would bring back memories of the monster. Then, during my senior year of high school, I received a letter offering me a large scholarship to a prestigious university in Seoul. For some reason, the moment I opened the letter, my Halmany's handbook came to mind. And all at once, I knew what needed to be done with it. I packed the dress and brought it to Seoul with me when I moved into my dorm.

On the night when my final exams ended for the semester, I took the subway out to Bukhansan National Park. There, among the pines, I gathered some stones into a circle and filled the centre with leaves and branches. From a duffel bag I pulled out my halmonies handbook and placed it there in the middle. within two minutes of lighting the kindling underneath, the ivory sleeves of the dress were winged with flame.

After the gauzy undergarment of the skirt caught, the fire poured up over the vest and engulfed the entire dress. As it hissed and cracked, I looked up above the smoke, above the treetops, and imagined a young woman star-struck and giddy. thrumming the heavy strings of a gaigoo before a stern city audience. I saw her years later as a sad, gentle woman with greying hair, who stole glances at a photo kept in the bottom cabinet of a dresser once her children had gone to bed.

Then came a spindly old woman, warped and contorted by disease and age. So mangled became she by her own mind that her own granddaughter didn't, recognize her and mistook her for a monster finally I saw her withered and dying in a hospital bed with the garbled remnants of a dream murmured on her breath to all of these women I said I've brought your handbock home how many Jinhe is far behind I have escaped that dirty town for the two of us and here I will live for you and me both. And with these words, the monster die.

Now, this wasn't a typical vacation. Normally, I'd have just gone to Hawaii or Japan or somewhere else. But I suppose I was feeling adventurous at the time. What a mistake. I never ran into trouble with the government. That wasn't what made this trip horrific. I just stayed within the boundaries outlined by our tour guide, and there were no problems in that regard.

Although, maybe I would have preferred the alternative. I went with two of my friends, and for the first few days of the trip, well, it essentially consisted of us marvelling at how surreal this whole situation felt. The tour was obviously propaganda. The sights, shows, the food. We all knew it was meticulously planned. Not like it really bothered us.

We weren't there to start some kind of revolution and we never felt explicitly unsafe. That was, until the third day of the trip. We were in a theatre watching a performance. It was kids singing and playing instruments. and it was boring as hell. I was just about to doze off before my buddy Jeff nudged me back into reality. I grogly stared at him before asking what he wanted.

I was expecting him to warn me about falling asleep during the performance, but his actual words caught me off guard. Over there, he told me. What the hell? My eyes tracked where his finger was pulled. pointing. It took me a second to realize what he was referring to, but when I did, I nearly jumped. There was a person up a couple of rows from us, a person with their head completely down in their lap, almost as if they were sleeping, but they were too still, as in their

shoulders were not moving at all. And that was another thing. Their shoulders. I've never seen shoulders that wide before. It was borderline inhuman. I looked at the people sitting beside this oddity, but none of them seemed to notice. Well, upon further inspection, it looked more like they were trying not to notice. Every few moments or so, they turned their heads, and I,

I could see a demeanour of tension in their faces. The show went on for about five more minutes before a man in a suit abruptly ran onto the stage and signalled for the children to stop. Everybody was ordered to leave soon after. As I was heading out the door with my tour group, I looked back, only to see that the person with their head down still hadn't moved an inch. Everybody else was leaving. I contemplated asking our tour. I contemplated asking our tour. guide about this, but decided against it. I'm not even sure how many people out of our group noticed it. Surely it was more than just Jeff and I, but I suppose they didn't really want to think about it. Safe to say, this kind of put a pit in my stomach. Fast forward to that night at around

9 p.m. and Jeff and I are in our hotel room. There wasn't a whole lot to do. The local television was rather dull, and we were too paranoid to make an attempt to access the internet. We were free to roam around parts of the hotel, so, well, that's what we decided to do. We met up with our other friend, Jin, a Korean-Canadian, and began wandering around the place. Leading up to midnight, it was mostly uneventful. We swam in the pool, ate some late dinner, and watched a movie on my laptop in our room. Well, it wasn't completely uneventful. The next incident was why I even included this part in the story.

While roaming the hallways on one of the upper floors, we found an obscure number. This is how it went. 715, 716, 717, 717-7-1-X. At first we assumed that this was. was just some kind of error. This assumption was, admittedly, somewhat of a stretch. I mean, how do you confuse the number eight with the letter X? We stood out there for about five minutes, discussing to ourselves what this was supposed to mean. That was, until I felt something tapping my shoe. There was a finger poking out from underneath the door. It was long and pale,

too much so for my rational brain to comprehend. Needless to say, we immediately went back to our rooms. Now, it's not like there wasn't a cogent explanation for this. Some person was pissed off that three assholes were standing outside their door at midnight, so they devised a way to make us leave. A really tall and pale person. In any case, this wasn't some kind of breaking point for us. Well, weird shit had been happening, but, hey, we only had a couple of days left on the tour.

However, what happened later that night nearly got us there. At around 2 a.m., I felt Jeff tapping me on the shoulder. Dude, fucking hell, was all that he said. He gestured me towards the window, and I followed. At first glance, it appeared to be something. some kind of military personnel marching by himself in the field in front of our hotel. I suppose it was funny for the first few moments. And then you really start thinking about it.

Why was this happening? I wasn't sure how long this was going on for, but there was no way that this would have been acceptable behaviour under North Korean standards. Even if the guy had gone a bit mad in the head, I felt like somebody would have stopped it by now. This went on for about ten more minutes before a vehicle finally pulled up near him. Two soldiers got out and started walking towards the rogue marcher.

They stopped within about three feet of him and appeared to exchange a few words. A few moments later they took off running. They were out of there as abruptly as they came. At this point, all of them. All bets were out the window. Something was going on here, something that we didn't quite understand. We continued watching for some duration of time afterwards.

It was only when the man stopped in his tracks and turned his head towards us when we looked away. We closed the blinds, made sure the doors were locked and tried to fall asleep. Tried. There was no chance of that happening. The next morning was a bit of a blur. We heard a knock at our door around 7 a.m. Tired as hell, I got up and looked through the people.

It's our tour guide, and he looked confused. What's going on? I asked him. I don't know, he told me. But we're switching hotel rooms. Don't ask me why I don't know. I refused to believe the connection between what we saw last night and what just happened there. But deep down, I knew that they had to be related. This suspicion was only bolstered when I saw multiple ambulances parted at the site.

I sure weren't there last night. We got onto the bus and started heading towards the new place. Jeff and Jin managed to fall asleep. But, well, I simply couldn't. At some point I started up a conversation with the Swedish guy, Henrik, who was sitting next to me. I'd spoken to him a bit beforehand. Apparently, he was somewhat of a veteran in North Korea. This was his fifth trip.

He was actually hoping to put together a documentary at some point down the line. Pretty cheery guy usually, but not that day. Like me, he had bags under his eyes. and his expression held what I can only describe as explicit confusion. Did you see it last night? He asked me. It was pretty obvious what he was referring to, so I nodded. Yeah, weird as shit.

He dug around in his bag and pulled out his video camera. Bet you didn't see it up close. He was right. The guy was relatively far away, so I couldn't make out any intricate details. But did I even want to know? Henrik pulled up the video that he'd taken last night, and I began watching.

It started out blurry, but soon focused on the same thing that I'd seen last night. The marching man. But Henrik kept zooming in, and zooming in. Eventually, we were close enough to the point where we could see the face. At that moment, I just wanted to run back home. It couldn't have been a mask. It looked too real.

The triangular mouth lined with razor teeth and the singular, beady eye that seemed to be pulsating with every movement. What the fuck is this? The video ended right there. Couldn't blame him for not wanting to film more. He shoved the camera back into his bag and sighed. Four times I've been here and haven't seen this shit.

Why now? The rest of the trip was tense. I don't know if it was just me, but I could have sworn that there were people staring at us from outside every few minutes. Actually, no, it wasn't just me. There were people standing perfectly still in the most obscure places. places, simply staring at our fucking bus. I counted about 14 in total. When we got to the new

hotel, I ran up to my room and stayed there. Thankfully, it was a three-person accommodation, so Jin and Jeff were both with me. Jeff and I refused to go on any more ventures outside the hotel. We simply sat there and waited for this trip to end. But Jin never saw what we did. He was still spooked from that finger incident earlier, of course, but he nevertheless decided to go out. The two of us watched about six movies that day. Morning became afternoon, afternoon became evening. The only time we really left the room was for dinner. When we walked into the dining area, we noticed that a quarter of the group, including gin, still weren't back yet.

We were told that they'd gone to see some sporting arena or something. During our meal, I overheard a rather peculiar conversation between two men with American accents. They were talking about strange things, things that seemed pertinent to what we'd been seeing. I overheard words like anomaly and dimensional and gateway. The word ocean also seemed to pop up a lot. The two were friendly enough and welcomed me into the discussion. I waited for them to tell me their own stories about what they'd seen here, but apparently they hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary.

Oh no, nothing's happened to us, one of them said. We came here hoping that it would, though. Apparently, their own trip to North Korea was sparked by a thread that they'd come across on a website that discussed paranormal occurrences and where people could. find them. They didn't delve into too many specifics about it, though, just that the site wasn't really accessible to the public, that it contained information that could be deemed sensitive by some governments around the world. You all know what that means, so I won't elaborate any further on that. Anyhow, there was some kind of leaked documents circulating that site regarding anomalous

occurrences that were supposed to take place during one specific week in North Korea. As it turns out, that was the week that we decided to go. Now, most of the document was actually unreadable, so they could only gleam a few key details. The date of the week, obviously, but also entities that were referred to as abstract beings, and something about the Yellow Sea connected to the Pacific. However, what was really going on remained unknown. All that the Americans knew was that there was a good chance of seeing some freaky shit if they came. Fortunately for them, that hadn't come to fruition yet.

I ended up telling them about what I'd seen, and this seemed to get them rather excited. Crazy-ass Americans. It was later that night, when she was, you know, when she was. Shit hit the fan. It was around 7pm and Jin wasn't back. This was getting to be a bit too late. However, somebody knocked on our door about 15 minutes later. Well, he's back, is what I was thinking to myself.

But before I could get up, Jeff stopped me. His face was dead serious. Jin has a key. Why would he knock? I froze, lingering on those words. Even if he'd lost his key, he would have tried calling out for us to open up. Slowly, I got up and made my way towards the peephole. I looked through, but was met with darkness.

Somebody, or something, was blocking our view. It wasn't soon after when I felt something touching my toe. In the back of my head I already knew what it was and I just didn't want to look down but I had to it was the fucking finger

I scrambled backwards watching the appendage retract as I did I went to the phone and called the number they gave us for emergencies I told the man over the line that somebody was trying to get into our room and they assured us that they'd be saying sending somebody up there.

We waited in agonizing silence for what felt like an hour. Eventually, we could hear multiple pairs of heavy footsteps coming down the hall towards our room. And here's the problem. We also heard them coming to an abrupt halt as they got closer. Interlocking voices shouted in Korean before fading away, back down the hall. These guys were running away. At about 10pm it sounded like reinforcements had come. There was a small battalion out there.

A lot of harsh but frightened sounded yelling ensued before whatever entity was out there spoke up for itself. A subterranean, guttural amalgamation of demonic sounding tones started echoing throughout the entire place. The most bizarre thing was No gunshots were fired I mean You'd think that they'd shoot at the thing first, right?

A tense struggle elapses right Outside our door for the next few hours It finally ends with a cluster fuck of shouting And banging on the floors and walls It was at midnight when a voice called out to us Saying that they were coming in We braced ourselves for the worst, but when the door finally opened, it was just two tall men in suits that greeted

us, one white, one Asian. We assumed the Asian to be Korean, but his English was tingled with a noticeable Chinese accent. The other man had a Russian one. They apologized for what we'd experienced and said that a bus was waiting outside to take us to the airport. In addition to that, we were to be refunded for our entire trip. Nothing that they told me could have made me glad. I didn't even bother asking any questions. I mean, there was no chance in hell that they were going to get answered, so fuck it. We were getting out of here.

I'd nearly forgotten about Jin when we finally boarded the vehicle. He was sitting at the back and he looked like hell. "'Where have you been, man?' Jeff asked him. Jin simply shook his head. "'I don't think I fucking know,' was his only response. It was hard getting words out of him afterwards. When we finally left, I noticed that there were two empty seats on the bus. I scanned everybody, and it became obvious to me who was missing.

The paranormal-seeking Americans from earlier. I tried not to think about it for the rest of the ride. I tried not to think about it while we boarded the flight. I tried not to think about anything. I just sat back and prayed we get to Beijing soon for the connecting flight home. Okay, spoiler alert. We did. We stayed here for two days and I'm in the airport now about to board my flight.

The bustling metropolitan nightlife of this city was absolutely a welcome change compared to the dark, spine-chillingly empty streets of North Korea. I can't tell you what happened. In all honesty, I'll probably never find out. I'm going to upload this sooner. For now, I'll sign off. The guy next to me won't stop staring at my screen, and it's getting annoying. Horror in real life doesn't come suddenly. It's not a shock or a reactionary scream.

Horror in real life is a slow realization that occurs over the course of years. It needs time to mould, decay and spread. True horror is painful, often sad and tragic. It's a slow deterioration, separating you from all forms of comfort and happiness. It is this kind of horror that I've felt ever since I learned of my mother's passing. The circumstances of her death did not make things any easier. It wasn't a slow death with time to make amends, so just or say goodbye. She hadn't been fighting a disease or infection for years.

She wasn't old nearing the end of her life. Her death came for her quickly and unexpectedly. My mother, who after divorce and my brothers moving away, had been living alone. She kept herself busy by working for the church and caring for her parents. My last couple of visits home, I'd noticed she seemed more fragile than she should for a woman of her age. She had lost weight and seemed starved for visitors. There was also a look in her eyes that bothered me. They were sleepless, panic,

and broken. It seemed as if she wanted to tell me something, but couldn't. Instead, she would just smile sadly and change the subject. I was told that my brother found her late one night in October, locked in the downstairs bathroom, naked, lying in her own blood with her wrists sliced open. She was 63 years old, knowing that suicide is a mortal sin in the Catholic Church and my mother being a devote Catholic, I couldn't help but wonder if something else was involved in her passing. Not anything scandalous or plotted, and something queer and uncomfortable that had been with me and my thoughts since I was a child. It dealt with our family home and, more particularly the old wooden doors. It all began with trouble sleeping. For as long as I can

remember, I always had trouble falling asleep in my parents' house. My grandmother told me that as a small child I was prone to sleep terrors. She would watch me during the day while my parents were at work, and in the evenings when they went out to dinner. She told me that she was watching me the night a bad storm hit our neighbourhood. A tornado had been spotted that night, but never touched down. However, the lightning did claim the house's electricity. My grandmother raced to my bedroom, worried the window facing my crib would break under the violent wind.

There was something else she was afraid of as well. When my grandmother picked me up from my crib, she said she felt something in the room, something new. different and dark. My grandmother, who came to America from Italy as a child, told my parents that she'd felt a strange presence that night and begged them to allow her to do a prayer to remove the Maloic, an old-world superstition.

But my parents, who were religious, believed in angels and demons, not folklore. They didn't want to dabble in curtail. and superstition. As I got older, the sleep terrors continued as nightmares. It wasn't uncommon for me to wake up hours after going to bed, only to be too afraid to fall back asleep. Later, in high school, I dealt with my insomnia by not sleeping for days until I could fall asleep quickly. It wasn't until I went away for college that I was able to rest peacefully. I attribute my difficulty sleeping all of those years to the doors in my parents' house. They were big, plain, wood doors, simple with no additional furnishing or decoration. They seemed ominous, nevertheless. I would

spend hours looking at their patterns in the grain, finding shapes and images in them, like one would do with clouds. The more I looked, the more I saw. until the images seemed so clear to me. Strange, famished figures, naked with one leg or half of a torso, rabid dogs, an old bearded man. I saw faces too,

wide-eyed, mouths open, sometimes made of knots in the wood, all suffering, as if the spirits of these things had somehow become trapped inside the world. The bathroom door on the first floor was the worst. It was positioned next to the door leading to the basement, and the lock on the doork was finicky. It would sometimes get stuck or give way, locking or unlocking by itself.

The bathroom door also had one of the strangest designs. In the center of the door, there was what looked like a woman in intense pain, as if she was in labor. Her face was contorted and blurred with vertical lines of grain. Tearing its way out from what I could only imagine to be her stomach, in my childlike imagination was a wide-eyed creature. I would see the bathroom door in my dreams as well. I had terrible nightmares, where I was floating and desperately trying to get away from the bathroom.

But I was being pulled backwards by an invisible form, unable to escape. It would suck me into the darkness of the room. The door would slam shut shut and lock before I would have a chance to wake up, panicked and out of breath. The nightmares and the lack of sleep only made my already active imagination worse. The strange images in the door weighed on me. There was a door for every room in the house. I could not escape them. They were a constant presence, staring out at me from the wooden veneers. As a child I began to see other things, things that found a way out of the trappings of the wooden frames. Not things I could look at directly, but rather

things that appeared in my peripheral vision. The kinds of things that always begged to be questioned. Was someone there? It was my imagination getting the best of me? Over time, I got better at being watchful and looking without shifting my gaze. One night when I was six years old, I went into my parents' bedroom feeling guilty that it wasn't yet asleep. I needed to be reassured and comforted because I'd scared myself badly. My mother gave me a hug and asked me what was wrong. I told her that I could see things out of the corners of my eyes. She asked me about their appearance, but I couldn't get a good look at them.

As soon as I turned my head, they were gone. She asked me when the last time was that I'd seen one. I told her that there is one with us now in the corner of the room. My mother looked over at what to her was an end. empty corner in her bedroom. She told me that maybe they were angels sent by God to watch and protect me. But they weren't. Something in the pit of my stomach would turn and I would feel sick around them. They were motionless beings, staring blankly at me, only moving when I wasn't looking, slowly getting closer to me every time I looked away.

I'd first discovered them in my peripheral vision outside my bedroom on the stairs, late at night when I couldn't sleep. I would notice a dark shape peeking over the top stair, eyes glistening where nothing should be. I would try to quickly shift my gaze, to refocus on them, but they were always gone. I'd eventually look away and then find them again at my bedroom door, and then even closer at my desk. Ever present, just out of sight.

I decided that they must be demons, not the red horn demons from cartoons, but something else. They seemed old as if they were somehow misplaced, out of time. At night, when I'd see them, I would be too afraid to move, or do anything else but stare blankly, not giving them a chance to move in closer. Sometimes I would hear them talk to me in my head. They would tell me to do things like to wait in the corner of the room, or flood my mind with images of strange, exotic places. I would sometimes do what they said, though nothing ever came of.

it. My mother panicked one afternoon when she couldn't find me. She searched the entire house, eventually finding me in the bedroom closet, facing the wall, where the voices had told me to wait. She was in tears when I told her about the voices. She bought me a rosary and asked if the demons were the reason I was having trouble sleeping. Eventually, my father blessed the house with holy water, room by room, as part of the celebration of the Epiphany, recommended every year by the church. It was after this, when I was still seeing them, that my mother became bothered by my demons and their doors. He began to weigh on her as well. I grew up in a suburb just outside of Cleveland, in a working-class neighbourhood predominantly made up of Irish, Italians and Slovenians.

where religion was very much a part of life. My parents were passionately involved in the church as well, and it was through them that I learned to take the sightings I was having very seriously. Instead of denouncing my demons as part of my imagination, my fears were reinforced, and their existence confirmed through the power of faith and community. One night we had a priest who was new to the parish over to our house, to meet the family.

After dinner, he asked me if there was anything I wanted to ask God for. I told him that there are demons in this house that hide in the doors, and I wanted them to go away. My parents shared a look of concern, as my mother tried to explain. The priest looked at the doors before he left, and assured me everything was okay. Later that evening he spoke with my parents, and something was settled between these adults.

A couple of months later, my father did a small home renovation, which included replacing all of the doors with white ones. It was relieving for the doors to finally be on, and I thought I would now be rid of the strange creatures and be able to sleep. But it was too late. My mother told me that she was having the nightmares now as well. Something about the doors, she would say. As I got older, I read about the possession of objects like the Annabelle doll,

and how the Native Americans believed in evil wood spirits called Wachachuna. But I mostly ignored the demons, and I eventually stopped seeing them. Despite my mother's wishes, I no longer went to church, and I refused to talk about religious matters or anything involving the strange things I'd seen and felt in the house. I told myself that the horrors I'd faced as a child were due to my overactive imagination and strict religious upbringing. By the time I left at college, there'd been no talk of doors, demons or nightmares for a long time. Although I would still occasionally get that sick feeling in my stomach late at night, when I was near the downstairs bathroom door.

My parents would later divorce, my mum keeping the house and working at the church. I moved away for work to Twin Falls. It wasn't until my dad called to tell me about the circumstances of my mother's passing, that I began to wonder if something more had happened to my mother. I made the trip home to find that my childhood neighborhood had been hit hard by the recession, It was now only a faded memory of the town I grew up in. The corner ice cream parlour was now a get-cash-fast lender,

and the streets were relatively empty and bleak. Houses were boarded up, and my old high school had closed. Parked at a red light, I watched the traffic light signal to empty streets. My parents' house even looked different, old and non-year. as well kept as it had been when my father had lived there. The grass had been overrun with weeds, and the siding was dirty. We stood in front of the house that afternoon after the funeral. My brothers, father and I. My brothers explained to me how my mom had been stressed. Her mood swings had been violent, and her sleeping pattern was erratic. She would go for long periods of time without

sleeping and then fall into a deep sleep for days my brother told me how late one evening after work he'd gone over to our mother's house to check on her it had been two or three in the morning by the time he'd arrived and let himself in finding our mother in the kitchen making breakfast he told me that she'd become confused about the time and had thought it was the morning he explained that she was trying different medications to help with the insomnia, and the doctors had thought the mood swings and suicide could easily have been a side effect. I told them about how I used to have trouble sleeping in her house, and about the demons and the doors. They laughed. They were too young to remember. I told them that I thought I was going to sleep better after Dad had replaced the doors,

but it wasn't until college that I really slept well. That was. That's when my dad stopped me and told me that he'd never replaced the doors. He'd just painted them white. Everything, all of this chaos and madness, all began with the black fog. It was just an ordinary day when the news reported a strange phenomenon, a wispy black cloud of fog, steadily making its way toward the west coast of the country from over the old. ocean. Nobody really cared at first, as you'd expect. It wasn't hurting anyone, except maybe the sailors and planes flying over the ocean, but life for everyone else continued as normal. Whenever the news

would talk about what we now know as the Black Fog, people would nod, show mild interest, say something like, oh yeah, that's interesting, and be done with it, until the Black Fogg. Until the Black fog hit the west coast. Cities on the seaside were the first to be hit and covered with the black fog. The news went crazy, every station frantically pointing their cameras at the fog to capture footage of the unique event. Personally, it always looked like a thick cloud of smoke to me instead of a city covered in fog. The news said that nobody from the outside world, could contact anybody in the fog. A nationwide panic was beginning, and it grew fast.

People who'd previously disregarded the black fog now looked for ways to leave the country, as the news reported that the black fog was still heading east, as though determined to devour the entire country. With mass hysteria of this magnitude, it can be safely assumed that plenty of doomsday profits came forward with, explanations about the fog's origin. It quickly became obvious to me that these prophets of the apocalypse were nothing more than crazies who walked into the news stations from off the street. Nearly every scenario imaginable was told as a reason for the black fog's existence.

God's wrath on humanity. The apocalypse, aliens seeking a safe place to land their spacecraft. The black fog was simple fog mixed with pollutants in the air. It was a publicity stunt for a new movie. It was the government using the fog for some purpose. Kutula was rising. We heard everything, but none of the theories seemed to make sense. There was a few more days of chaotic news reports, and then the black fog came to my town.

I was walking home that fateful afternoon, turning a street corner to see my two-story home come into view down the street. Cars breeze passed me at a steady pace. Coming toward me down the sidewalk was a mother pushing a baby stroller, with an enthusiastic little boy running ahead of her, cheerfully telling his mummy to hurry up. The grass was bright green in the warm summer atmosphere, and there were only a few white clouds in the sky to distract from the wild blue yonder above.

A red car, the side splattered with a thick mud, raced past me. The bright yellow orb in the sky beamed down on the world, covering us in sunlight. If there's anything I do remember from that day, it was the colours. Suddenly, out of nowhere. A dark giant stood up over the horizon and loomed over the city blotting out the sun Cars stopped in the middle of the road

leading other cars to crash into them People began to scream Some hysterical woman yelled It's here As I looked up at the black fog blotting out the sky It swept over the city quickly shrouding me in a cave of blackness

I stumbled through the fog, unable to see my own two hands in front of me. The world around me looked as though it were covered in smoke, but I could breathe it in normally. I heard people screaming, the sound frightfully clear. There was the screeching of tyres as cars stopped, and the crunching of metal as other cars crashed into each other. In my mind, I could picture the street as it had been before the fog hit. My house was a few yards down across the street. If I could find my way inside, I could wait the fog out and see if it would disappear and leave the city. I began walking toward my house uneasily, still hearing people cry out for help.

It was as though I'd become blind. I took my steps with care and tripped over a blunt object when I was halfway across the street. I climbed to my feet with my sense of direction disoriented. How close to my house was I? I just gave it my best guess and made my way forward. I had to walk around a park car and after tripping over the curb and falling onto the sidewalk on the other side of the road. My shoes felt grass beneath them. I wasn't entirely sure if it was my yard.

I worked my way to the front door of the house and side. I died in relief when I realized it was mine. I hurried inside, quickly closed in the door behind me. The fog hadn't gotten in my house, which I was thankful for. Only a little of it got in when I opened the door, but I could still see. The windows displayed nothing but black. It was as though I was standing in my house at night. A starless, moonless night.

I sat down, took a few deep breaths to calm myself, turned on the TV and began to watch the news. If anything was being done about the black fog, surely they would have reported it. The news anchors were calm, but to my dismay, they had nothing to report. They said the black fog was perfectly natural and explainable. They said that the entire nation was being cut. covered at an unbelievably quick rate, and the president had been evacuated for his own safety. I changed the channel right there, cutting off a blonde newswoman mid-sentence. On the new channel, they weren't calling the fog natural.

They weren't talking about the president. They weren't pretending this wasn't a national emergency. Instead, they were panicking. people who looked like normal civilians ran around the station in a frenzy while the camera's view rested on a guy sitting behind the news desk sitting in the middle of all the chaos he stammered as he spoke trying to maintain order somehow

there are no reports of rescues from any seaside city nor did the black fog show any sign of receding the guy was saying as I watched he managed to stop one of the frightened civilians and asked him to say a few things for the camera. I, my name is Adam. Adam began, breathing heavily. That shit out there is crazy, man. Like, it ain't fog, it's something else. Adam wiped off his sweaty forehead and cleared his throat.

We heard rumors that you can see in the black fog if you have a flashlight or fire. We sent a guy out into the fog. one of those big ass flashlights. He hasn't come back yet. I remained in my living room in complete disbelief that this was happening. I barely registered anything in the new set, not that it said much. The only thing they could talk about was the black fog, and because nobody knew anything about it, there wasn't much to say. I couldn't tell if it was day or night outside, so I tried to sleep according to the clocks in my house. I slept on the hardwood floor in the living room,

too weary and afraid to climb upstairs to my bedroom. When I woke up, I immediately turned the TV on again. Inside the news station, there were sleeping people mixed with people standing off camera who were in rapid discussion about what to do. It was as though they'd forgotten the camera was on. I decided to wait and see if they were going to give any piece of news that was worthwhile, and went into the kitchen to fix myself something to eat.

Fortunately, I had made a trip to the grocery store the day before it all started. Despite this, my appetite still wavered when I looked at the food. Black fog didn't feel real to me, almost like some kind of demented nightmare, but it's still hurt to think about. I returned to the living room without eating anything and sat down on the couch and stared at the TV after staring at the screen and listening to the people in the news station talk for an hour I groaned

survival was boring I turned my head to the living room window and examined it from where I sat curiously I think Adam had said something about being able to see in the fog with I jumped off the couch and stumbled over to the hall closet. After shuffling through coats and other miscellaneous things, I found a flashlight. Clicking it on, I sighed in relief when a bright beam of light shot out, the first light I'd seen since it all started. I pointed the flashlight towards the living room window and froze when I saw a face.

outside. There was a man standing outside the window with his thin nose barely touching the glass. His face was horrible, yet I couldn't look away. The skin hung loosely on him, making him look like an old man. He had long silver hair on his head, a few strands of which were dangling limply over that face, but also huge bald patches. The worst part about the man was that he was smiling at me. He had a wide, toothy grin, but his eyes had black irises and white pupils. Near the bottom of the window,

I could see he was wearing a torn-up white shirt. But his smile hypnotised me. His eyes burned into mine. There was no colour to the man at all. Even the thin cuts on the side of his face were an inky black. He was nearly completely unmoving, only moving the slightest bit as he breathed. The light from the flashlight didn't seem to affect him at all. I moved closer to the window and wrapped my fist on the glass, but the colourless man only stared.

I turned the flashlight off and the man disappeared into the fog. I turned the light back on, and he was visible again. Adam was right. It was possible to see in the black fog with a flashlight. I was intrigued by the colorless man, but also very frightened. How long had he been outside my window? A shiver ran down my back when I realized he could have been watching me sleep. I was unnerved by his endless staring and amused smile.

As much as I wanted to watch the news in the living room, I instead found excuses to stay out. I found myself looking through the same pantry in my kitchen for almost half an hour. Soon after, I found myself sitting alone in a chair in my room upstairs, quietly thinking about when the fog would lift. But I couldn't stay out of the living room forever, and I eventually went back. The first thing I did was flashed the light at the window to see if the colourless man was still there. He was, and didn't seem to have moved at all since I'd first realised he was there. Unsettled, I turned off the flashlight to conserve the batteries, but also so I wouldn't have to look at him. I made myself comfortable on the couch and turned my attention to the news where Adam was talking.

Things in the black fog are everywhere. he was saying because the fog is probably covering the whole world by now stay vigilant a miracle has to happen soon it seemed that I wasn't the only one who

detected the presence of the things in the fog Adam delivered reports of mutilated bodies found in the streets with their eyes in their mouths and their teeth and their eye sockets more of the new station survivors chimed in behind him with more information and told of strange thumps outside safe shelters where people were holed up waiting for it to end. There was no denying it.

Something unnatural was in the black fog. Maybe something beyond the colourless man outside my window. I decided to sleep upstairs in my bedroom that night. I shone the flashlight at the window before trudging upstairs to see if the colourless man, had left he was still there only his eyes had moved to follow me once I'd gotten upstairs I placed the flashlight under my pillow kneeled next to my bed and did something I hadn't done for a long long time I prayed that night I dreamed that the light had returned to the world families walked

down sidewalks. Children shouted to each other as they played. The grass was a dark green and the sky burned blue. The wind was crisp, gently caressing my cheek as it passed by. I looked around in wonder and then noticed somebody standing behind me. I whirled around to see the colourless man standing there with that same grin on his face. Only this time there was no glass separating us. I woke up, sweating. The first thing I saw was my bedroom window. Out of curiosity, I took the flashlight from under my pillow and pointed it at the window. My thumb, flicking the switch, on. I don't know what I was expecting to be there. I was probably thinking that the colorless man would somehow be outside my second floor bedroom. Something was out there.

but it wasn't him. This time it was a woman with pale skin and long black hair. She looked younger than the colourless man, probably in her twenties, but she still had the same crooked grin, the same vacant eyes and the same unsettling stare. She was also completely drained of colour. I immediately fell off my bed and screamed as the colourless woman. woman stared on. I crawled to my feet and slammed my bedroom door closed as I hurried out into the

hallway. As soon as it had shut, I noticed another window in the hallway. I flashed the light at it and gasped when a fat, colourless man came into the light, grinning as though laughing at a private joke. I didn't know what to do. Total panic see. ease me, causing me to flee from the unseen eyes in the black fog. I shone the flashlight at every window I came across. I found another colourless woman in the guestroom window and a thin, colourless man looking into the upstairs bathroom, before I managed to reach the stairs. I practically flew down them and dived into the kitchen where I ducked under the table and tried to catch my breath. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the kitchen window. As much as I didn't want to know

if one of them was there, I still flashed the light at the window. Oh, this was the worst one yet. He resembled a wolf with a wide snout, shaggy black fur and pointed ears. And he stared at me with wide, hungry, pupil-less white eyes. For a crazy moment, I thought it must have been a wolf skull or a mask, but then a thick dog tongue slid out of his mouth and licked his chops as he continued to gaze at me. There was a colourless person at every window in my house I realised. I stumbled out of the kitchen to get away from the starving eyes of the colorless wolf and found myself standing in the living room. I flicked the flashlight on and I pointed it at the window to see that the colorless man was still there patiently waiting. As I stared, his grin widened and revealed fangs like razors in the back

of his mouth. His eyes flashed red. The first color. I'd seen since the black fog had arrived. And then the flashlight died, leaving me alone in the dark. As I stood there, blinking in the utter blackness that surrounded me and pressed in from all sides. Something began tapping on the living room window. As if in response, the colourless people began tapping on every window in the house. The sound was maddening, completely in unison and growing louder, more frequent as every second crept past. And I've been listening to them ever since. All of them, just tapping on the windows.

The sound never leaves, never stops, never pauses. listening to that endless noise I just know that it's tearing my mental state in half I don't know how much longer I can take this I just heard a window break I hope to God it isn't the wolf and so once again we reach the end of tonight's podcast my thanks as always to the authors of those wonderful stories

and to you for taking the time to listen Now, I'd ask one small for your review. Wherever you get your podcast from, please write a few nice words and leave a five-star review as it really helps the podcast. That's it for this week, but I'll be back again, same time, same place,

and I do so hope you'll join me once more. Until next time, sweet dreams and bye-bye.