Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S5 Ep259: Episode 259: Area 51 and Beyond

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

Tonight’s opening story is ‘I Explored Area 51 Using Astral Projection’, a wonderful tale by Cold Relics, kindly shared with me via the Creepypasta wiki and read here under the conditions of the CC-BY-SA license: https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/I_Explored_Area_51_Using_Astral_Projection http://relics.valice.net/ We continue proceedings on this rainy evening with ''I Went Camping in The Glasshouse Mountains... I Should Have Stayed Home'', an original work by 1 Happy Hermit, shared directly with me for the express purpose of having me narrate it here for you all: https://www.reddit.com/user/DraKalicDM/ Today’s penultimate tale of terror is ‘The Mandela Effect’, an original story by Shadowswimmer77, kindly shared with me via the Creepypasta wiki. https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/User:Shadowswimmer77 https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/The_Mandela_Effect Tonight’s final tale of terror is both parts of the epic ‘Don’t get The S.A.F.E. App – It’s free, but no bargain!’, a wonderful story by Michael G. Lockhart, AKA BearLair64, kindly shared with me via my sub-reddit and narrated here for you all with the author’s express permission: https://www.reddit.com/user/BearLair64/

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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. Maria 51 intrigues us because it embodies secrecy at the highest level. An isolated military base gloaked in mystery, long rumored to hide everything from alien spacecraft to top secret government experiments. With restricted airspace, blacked out records, and decades of official denial, it's become the perfect breeding ground for conspiracy theories and imaginative speculation.

Eulululalizing what we don't know, what might be hidden beneath the desert sand and what truths, if ever... many the government might be keeping from us. It's not just a place, it's a modern myth. As we shall see in the first of tonight's selection of stories. Now as ever before we begin, a word of caution. Tonight's tales may contain strong language, as one of those descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. That sounds like your kind of thing. Then let's begin. I explored Area 51 using astral projection. About one. I had my first out-of-body experience when I was four years old.

I remember having a vivid dream that took place inside my bedroom, and then suddenly halfway waking up and seeing my own body from above as I floated in the air of the dark room. Having no idea what was happening, I screamed, and I kept screaming until I could finally hear my own cries that forced me awake.

Well, this began to happen again and again, more frequently. My parents had gone from comforting me every night to becoming worried and sometimes annoyed. I took medication that ridded me of what they saw as night terrors and was then weaned off the pills by the time I was six. My OBE started up again, but I was old then and not as frightened. Before long I was teaching myself how to control it.

I could float around my room, it was fun, beat the hell out of any old regular dreams, sometimes even the lucid ones, which I'm also no stranger to. So soon began to expand my territory. I couldn't touch or interact with anything while outside of my body, so my option. for nightly entertainment in my room were limited floating through the toy chest and seeing the insides of my stuffed animals was only fun for so long so I trained my strange superpower and increased its range after a month or so of trying I was able to explore the rest of our house I could watch late-night television with my parents without them ever knowing although I had no say in what channel was on nights they

watched HBO or one of their R-rated movies they were the best sound was always limited in a projected state voices were muffled like people speaking underwater but luckily for me my mum was hard of hearing should she always watch TV with the captions on which benefited my viewing experience during my nightly escapades it also had me reading at a high school grade level by age eight I think I kind of assumed at first that everyone had my ability

it was part of what it meant to be a human but after I brought up how I flew around the house at breakfast a couple of times and they just told me it's sadly like a fun dream i realized that i really could do something special sometimes i'd even use it to spy on my dad when he wrote his stories late at night on his computer in his office i always found it funny how mad he'd get when computer programs weren't working or he couldn't figure something out he also had some interesting midnight snack recipes Well, he was a cool dad all around. For example, when I was seven in the summer of 1996,

he took me to see Independence Day. Looking back, I was probably a little too young for all the destruction and alien violence, but there's always one set piece that interested me, which I look forward to seeing each time the movie was on TV or playing on a world-war on VHS tape. With the title I've given this story, you can probably see where I'm going with this.

Yes, it was the Area 51 stuff in the film that stuck with me the most. I was fascinated by the movie creator's designs and ideas about what the secretive military base looked like. I thought they'd filmed the scenes inside the real place, like they'd gotten special access to some big underground extraterrestrial workshop right out of science fiction.

I later rationalised that they just knew what the place looked like and recreated it. It wasn't until I was nine until I comprehended that they completely made it up. Well, that realization both, disappointed and fascinated me. I had to know what was really down there. How it ran, what experiments they might have been running,

what kind of people weren't there? And, of course, whether or not they actually had aliens or their technology locked up in some secretive warehouse in the middle of a desert. By the time I was ten and our house had internet access, I was gulping up the classic conspiracy theories about the base, going from one Geo Cities or Angel Fireside to the next, and eating up every doctored image of alien autopsies

and examinations of UFOs that I could find. Games like Half-Life and its Black Mesa compound, or Perfect Dark's Take on Area 51, or the titular arcade shooter itself, or scratched an itch, but, well, I knew when I was young, just what I wanted to do with my special power. I'd cheat the system.

I'd bypass all of that security without anyone ever knowing, without ever having to join the military just to maybe get a shot at seeing the place. Could you blame me? If you could do what I can, wouldn't you try? I wasn't even that far away. I grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona. Las Vegas was just a day trip,

and the ranch, as it sometimes called, wasn't far past that. Area 51, a legendary producer of American law, was always just past the horizon when I came of age. and one day I'd see it the problem was that I'd have to practice every night if I could the range of my astral projection was my weakness and I'd have to train myself to extend it wasn't like I could just consult with a mentor or look up OE tips and tricks on the internet

when I was in middle school I learned how some Native American tribes sent their adolescence on vision quests a spiritual journey involving fasting and praying that allegedly sometimes resulted in the sensation of leaving one's body. Elsewhere in the world, various drugs could supposedly trigger out-of-body experiences. None of these things were an option for me, either to learn from or enhance my natural ability. I try to avoid any drugs entirely. They only inhibit my skill. Even taking an Advil before bed makes the projection muddled and weak.

The only way I could get better was by exercising strenuously. I took naps whenever I could, meditated often, and taught myself how to lucid dream every night. Anything to master my inner self. While the time I was 14, I was sometimes getting 12 hours of sleep a day, excessive even for a teenager. Over time, the boundary increased. The dark edges of the astral realm, which I could not reach, expanded outward. My neighbourhood became my playground, and I could go to bed. early whenever my body allowed it give me time to float about and observe the secret lives of our

neighbours before everyone else went to bed well you can call me a pervert i wouldn't blame you but i'm also not going to share what i've seen or name names my curiosity and its rewards are for me alone suffice to say though humans are strange when the veneer we all put on for the public fades away for the day and we stop being a side character in others' lives, our true selves come out. It turns out every family or couple has its problems, those familiar arguments and little debates. We all have our peculiar hobbies and preferred subject matter

that we look up online late at night when we think no one else is watching. Hey, I'm not judging. If you lived in Flagstaff while I did, I apologize in advance for the fact that I may have spied on you for a bit at one point or another. Rest assured, though, your secrets are safe with me. me. I'm not going to say anything about anyone. I just enjoy cheating the laws of the universe and observe without physically being there. But, well, that's no excuse to start gossip. That said,

though, I admit that I was no angel. I was a teenage guy for a few years in my life, and sometimes when I took a sick day in high school, he did have a few ghostly visits to the girl's locker room. Before you scold me, let me at least say that I was more fascinated by my astral range at that point, than the things that I saw in the gym without others knowing. That wasn't the only exploring I did at my high school. I'd go there nights after night, up and down its dark halls. How often did you get to be at your school at night? A few times you were, it was probably for some event where all the lights were on.

There are fewer things more unnatural in this world than seeing your school in darkness. The shouts and bickering of its loud students, not even a lingering whisper in the air. I often heard things when I visited, but they weren't audible, rather they were auditory hallucinations, the trick of a mind, even projected caused by empty liminal space. Don't forget, whatever I could actually hear would be muffled, so I could tell the difference. Now I never saw any ghosts or demons or extra-dimensional beings while in a projected state, and I did look, and every now and then I could have sworn another person to sense. my presence or look right at me and in those instances i'd always freeze up for a second but it was just a coincidence each time based on my position as i watched them what attracted their attention was something

on tv or a cat making a noise or the wind on their curtains i've never been seen i don't think it's possible i've even paid a visit every psychic in town as they supposedly connected to a customer with a deceased loved one to no effect they were either or not a little bit of the same all frauds or just not very good at their profession. By the time I was out of state and in college, I had a firm a grasp on the reality of everything, including the banality of the place I'd long to one day break into. I'd accepted by then that, in all likelihood, Area 51 was little more than a secretive military installation where prototype aircraft were housed and flown, warehouses of spyplanes and bombers, many of which were never mass-produced.

Maybe it really did have its share of government secrets, but I no longer really believe that it had something more exotic, like aliens and their flying saucers. Life had disenchanted me to the point where I believe the Roswell incident really was just a weather balloon. Apologies to my childhood hero, Fox Mulder, but I no longer really cared about believing. Then my dad died in my sophomore year, having focused on schoolwork and a smaller, more chaotic sleep schedule and expanded my projection range all throughout college. And the students in my dorm were all so predictable that spying on them got boring. They played video games, got high,

sometimes even did their schoolwork, and ignored calls from their parents. But once I came home for winter break to attend the funeral and spend some time with my mum, I got back into my nightly jaunts. And it was sort of my way of grieving, through reliving my youth and remembering how much fun I could have as I simultaneously laid in bed and explored the town. And, truthfully, I was also hoping to somehow find my dad lingering about in that other realm. It was a sudden heart attack that took him out of my life. I figured that if anyone had unfinished business and a reason to cling on to the world of a living, it would be him. But he never showed up.

I regretted not telling him my secret back then, thinking that if he'd known, maybe he would have tried to speak to me. me when I was floating around the house, half-way between the corporeal world and whatever is next for us. Well, if there is anything at all. Looking back, there was no logic to my regrets. I was simply coping in my own way. I was, however, awakened to the idea of mortality, and how limited our time could really be. And so I made a promise to fulfill the wish of my younger self, and see that secretive place out in the desert before I died and perhaps spent the rest of eternity drifting around the world. By that point I wouldn't have a body to return to, and no ability to tell all of you what big secrets I might have uncovered. And certainly, if Area 51 did turn out to be a disappointment,

there were so many other places I could check out that most humans would never see. I could visit the bunker under the White House, or get within inches of the radioactive molten and slag that made up the elephant's foot under the Chernobyl power plant. I could swim around in an active volcano, see the inside of a famous dead person's coffin, count the money in a major bank's vault, and peer into safety deposit boxes, and make bizarre finds throughout a self-storage building. Some of those things I'd already done. Actually, not that there's much of interest to see in the region.

I spent a night in Las Vegas once, though, going around its casinos and seeing the security rooms and offices of the owners was one of my highlights by that point I'm still trying to figure out some way to cheat at the games without getting my kneecaps broken in the process after college I spent a few more years refining my techniques and learning how to send my meditative energy further and further outward when I first discovered my power I was restricted to my bedroom by high school I could go a few miles out By college graduation, I was able to get 20 miles away from my body. But the further I got out, the more mentally exhausted I'd be when I returned to my physical self, and the less time I had to project.

Part 2. I can move quickly when I explore, much faster than I can when I'm stuck inside muscle and bone. I've learned to cataport myself through the air to get around long distances. It's not quite as good as flying, but it isn't a bad accomplishment for an amateur without a teacher. Those big jumps are a necessity for extended projection. I can't wake up unless I return to my body, and that's the scariest aspect of what I can do. There have been times where I feel I just barely made it back before a piece of myself faded away. I thought of what might happen if I didn't return before running out of spiritual fuel or whatever you want to call it. There's always been the one thing that's kept me from taking bigger risks.

Area 51 would be my toughest challenge yet. just because of the distance I'd have to cover. I'd given some thought to the possibility that the secretive air base might have some sort of detector able to spot me. It didn't seem likely, but in a world where there are pictures of pretty much everything, the fact that seemingly no one had ever leaked photos from deep inside the place made it enigmatic, like it was detached from the rest of reality. Once I put my mind back to it, I began to obsess about getting inside,

just to see it. I had to see what was inside, if only to put a compulsive curiosity to rest. And then a meme made me move up my schedule. In 2019, a group of a few hundred people showed up to Raid Area 51 out of the thousands that had originally planned to participate. Their proclaimed goal was to see them aliens, and that they couldn't all be denied the chance. But of course, it turned out to be a little more than a party near the base, with only a few arrests. It wasn't that I was worried about them getting inside and messing things up or causing the military staff to trigger some self-destruct safety measure.

I just didn't want them to book up all the nearby rooms. By then I got in my range up to about 30 miles, and I wasn't sure if I could do better, as it simply felt like my upper limit. But if I stayed at Racial Nevada, which was around the far north of the base, I thought I could make it work. I reserved a room in the small desert town's motel for an entire week. which is probably one of the longest stays they'd ever seen. And to call it a town was a stretch. The place isn't much more than a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. It has no restaurants outside of the motel,

so most of my meals would come from the Combination Gas Station General Store. I wasn't expecting to be able to fully explore the base in a single night, but I didn't think it would be so huge that I wouldn't be able to cover it within my time frame. Went to bed as early as I could my first night at the Alien-themed Motel, barely able to contain my excitement about the upcoming spiritual breaking. Astral projection, for me at least, is best commenced in a lucid dream state. I can pull it off at limited distances and time while meditating. I used to randomly experience it throughout the night, perceiving it as a regular dream

where I just explored my surroundings. But lucid dreaming was the way to do it right, where I could redirect all of my unused physical energy into my formless wandering self, or while I slept comfortably in a warm bed elsewhere. But the first night was actually a disappointment. I got there fine, going south and flinging myself across Bald Mountain, where I looked down at the lights of the base itself. Crossing the exterior fence was exciting.

Traversing the enclosed desert around the buildings was thrilling. I kept expecting to be surrounded by helicopters and commandos any second, but there I was, strolling right into, the most fortified places in the world. The problem was, I just couldn't figure out where to go to get into the sub-levels. Everyone knew Area 51 has a basement, even without paying a visit, but they didn't make it easy to find a way down. I didn't want to spend too long looking for nothing, other than an elevator,

just in case something happened and I lost my only chance to see anything at all of actual interest. And so I relegated myself to exploring the aircraft hangers and the administrative offices. I'd done a few trial runs on less secretive air bases, and on the surface the homey airport area wasn't all that different from the norm. I saw soldiers on patrol, staff making phone calls, people eating in a mess hall or working on computers. Veiling machines, furniture, bathrooms and locker rooms attached to exercise areas. Everything one would expect to see. It wasn't all that surprising. Area 51 isn't even blurred out on Google Maps.

Anything truly meant to be kept away from prying eyes would be out of view of any passing satellites. The hangars I saw only held standard fighter or surveillance aircraft, including a few models from the past. I even saw one of the first American jet fighters in good condition, an F-86, the kind used way back in the Korean War. Couldn't tell you why they were keeping it airworthy. The only elements I couldn't fully explore,

other than the data on the local servers, were the contents of the file cabinet spread across several of the offices and office quarters. I just have no way to see what's on papers that are pressed together inside a cabinet. So physical information wasn't only protected from possible hackers, it also keeps away the prying eyes of projectionists as well. I could have waited around for someone to open a file

and read it as I peaked alongside them, but I kept my interest on covering ground instead. Honestly, I'm not a big aircraft or military enthusiast. I'm sure there are a million people out there who'd be fascinated with the just exploring the surface freely like I did but it wasn't enough to make all the effort and planning worth it. I would have to try again on the second night. But if I couldn't find a way down after three more attempts,

I figured I'd be ready to head home, disappointed. You may be thinking that I could just dip myself down into the ground and keep going until I emerged into an alien autopsy room or dark energy reactor. The thing is, dropping beneath solid, ground isn't easy. It's slow and navigation is impossible, as I can no longer see anything. I have little sense of orientation or gravity when I project, so if I get disoriented, I could get turned around and end up burrowing towards the centre of the earth and never return

into my body. That wasn't something I was about to try, so I was restricted to elevators just like the locals who somehow managed to get assigned to the place. On my second night, I finished exploring the surface buildings and focused my attention on getting down to the abyss below. It occurred to me that such a secretive base had no reason to make the elevators easy to find. I scoured the insides of walls, looking for hidden rooms, but every building I revisited had no apparent means to gain access to the good stuff. A new idea didn't occur to me until I was halfway back to my body as dawn's first lights throughout the sky.

I'd have to wait another day to try it. The hangards. where Area 51 was primarily used as a place to test out new aircraft in secrecy. That's what it was originally built to do, in a way that kept anything spying in the sky from catching a glimpse. There had to be at least one hangar, maybe a few of them, that connected directly to the underground. To let them manufacture their prototypes down below and bring them up for their test flights, what I'd seen so far must have been just the tip of a very big iceberg. thankfully my third night of exploration provided the breakthrough i was looking for i went into one of the empty hangars and despite no indication whether or not there was something beneath it i lowered myself through the floor after passing through about a metre of metal supports i emerged into an enormous elevator shaft with dozens of lights built into its walls the hanger was big enough on its own but here was a whole pneumatic lift system that could raise or lower the entire floor over the floor of a roomer was a little number of a floor of a roomer was a little bit of a roomer of a roomer of a roomer of a roomer of a roomer.

structure designed to hold aircraft. It was my first clue that a megastructure lurked under the airport, and I went down about 50 feet until arriving at the bottom. The construction bay was just ahead, and some half-completed modern stealth aircraft occupied its space. Eventually, if they even planned on completing it, it would be wheeled onto the elevator and brought to the surface. But for now, the place was otherwise empty, with no tools or blueprints in sight. The flying was, the flying wing-style aircraft was in a dull military grey colour, and its cockpit was empty of any controls. I could have studied the thing all night, even if I wasn't all that invested in aircraft development. Instead, I moved on and began navigating the labyrinthian haws of a realm so few would

ever get to see. Large concrete arches held up natural rock, excavated and drilled perhaps decades ago. Forklifts and inactive floodlights lingered in the halls, which were dimly it up by orange sodium vapor lamps and fluorescent tubes. I didn't see anyone at all in this part of the base. By the end of the night, I'd realized that the first sub-level was barely any more remarkable than the surface. Other than being an impressive engineering feat, it seemed like an area with its glory days long behind it.

It had dozens of vacant offices, sealed locker rooms, empty vending machines, and only a few uniformed base staff walked past me during my whole visit. I looked through more hangars, along with storage rooms filled with old experimental aircraft that might have never seen the light of day, and now sat frozen in time under a tar. They also found some sort of conference room that, for whatever reason, had been buried behind a concrete barrier. It still had its table and chairs, which were right out of the 1960s, and positioning like people had fled the room in a hurry.

For some reason, the room was still lit by a single dim warlight. The conference room turned out to be the most interesting thing I saw that night, just because of its mystery and the lack of any context. The first sub-level seemed to be seldom used. Maybe it sprang to life when a new contract for experimental aircraft arrived, and I had just shown up during the slow season. But I ended up spending the night wandering empty rooms and halls, mostly looking for a way further down.

There was a massive complex that I knew I didn't cover completely, and had not been a moment. particular desire to continue exploring because my gut told me it would be more of the same even so i ended the night on another high note around dawn i finally found a more active portion of the level that was lit more brightly and featured up-to-date rooms with modern computers and furniture it was a small section overall filled with a few dozen on-duty men and women my lip reads told me that they were mostly just talking about current events well the discovery of the area led me to the central elevator that had eluded me, which required key cards. I slipped past the doors, floated up to the lift itself, and looked at the buttons to see that I had three more levels

to check out. As the sun rose, I flew up the elevator to see where it had been hiding. I emerged into a hardened, concrete bunker-like building. I passed through a blast door and drifted along into a lengthy tunnel on the other side until I was under the sky again, and at a secondary checkpoint deep inside the base. The entrance to the lower levels have been concealed within a mountainside, and the tunnel leading to it was buried at the end of a narrow valley a good distance from the other surface buildings. It was both hard to see and well defended.

I did my best to memorize the location, and returned to my body once again, ready to spend another day doing almost nothing as I waited to sleep and travel once more. My next visit, I knew, was going to be a special one. I stocked up on microwavable meals upon arriving in Rachel and rarely left my room, leaving the curtains drawn at all times. I knew I was messing around in a place I was never meant to see, that the government worked hard

to keep a secret, so naturally I had grown paranoid that the feds or the military would somehow track me down and come banging on the door. I hadn't really felt that fear since I started exploring as a kid, back when I thought the cops of all people would show up and arrest my young self for some sort of privacy invasion crimes i never really rationalized how they'd find me though but if anyone in the world could detect and find me there was a good chance it might be they find folks who have a career in area 51 i just couldn't work out how they would either because there were too many unknowns about what they were capable of and what they researched if they for example had at some point reverse-engineered

alien technology, then who knows what manner of physics they were aware of that the rest of us may never understand. While projecting, I was sending some piece of myself out into the world, something tangible, albeit difficult to detect. I was receiving information and sending it back to my brain for processing. I just happened to never have found anyone that could tell me how I did what I did, what kind of signals I might have been broadcasting that someone or something else could perceived. The fear of being court had always dogged me. It wasn't so much the consequences that scared me as it was finding out that there existed a way to find or catch me in such a vulnerable state. This time that worry was also manifesting itself in a perhaps rather crazy concern that

Area 51 had a honeypot set up in part of its base that would attract people like me and capture our projected cells for imprisonment and experimentation. I started thinking that I'd stumble upon a room full of other trap souls who got too curious. It felt like the perfect twist ending to my story. I could never see myself as the first one to truly have access to astral projection. I always assumed that someone else had done it before, and there were hundreds of people like me, if not more. If that were true, then surely someone had paid a visit

to a mysterious installation in an American desert. And if that were true, said installation might have already created countermeasures. or I could just be overthinking and over-worrying again. That was a constant consequence of living a lonely life. I have stress feedback loops in my head that have sometimes led to panic attacks. That's never been a problem while projecting. I guess that's one reason that usually makes me feel so peaceful.

Part three. Well, the fourth night, all of my good food was gone and the motel TV was no longer providing any entertainment. Exploring the base was all I had to look forward to. and I wanted to make the most of it. As soon as I could, I jumped straight to the main elevator and floated my way down to that second sub-level. This one was where the trains ran.

Area 51 had long been rumoured to have an underground rail system, though there were debates if it was just for the local use or if it connected to more distant bases, or even hidden entrances to cargo depots. The level was almost entirely pure cave, drawed away some time ago by large machines. flatbeds ran on electric rail, transporting material and aircraft parts across the installation.

There were few rooms to speak of, and the cars moved without human operators until they reached their terminus, or they were unloaded and moved by people who looked like they might have spent weeks at a time without seeing sunlight. Now I couldn't be certain if it was always this busy on the level, or if there was some big project in the works

that required constant transport of goods. But it was definitely active down there, with cars coming and going constantly. The tunnels were maze-like and sprawling, and with little signage it was easy to get lost. I must have spent around two hours just trying to find something more interesting than the extensive rail line itself.

After I unintentionally doubled back to the elevator, I chose to take it down again instead of spending further time attempting to navigate the local subway system. The third sub-level was much smaller than the first, and looked entirely different. Its corridors were narrow, confining, and featured more metal than concrete or natural rock. It was reminiscent of the interior of a nuclear submarine, and most of the people I saw walking around wore suits and ties.

And those that didn't were armed guards, which was strange. What were they protecting? All trying to keep inside this far down. Well, aliens, I hoped. Seeing a live colony of little grey guys would have made this trip more than worth it, and I couldn't wait to describe them to the world, whether or not anyone believes any part of my story. But there was something weird and concerning about this floor.

For one, I could no longer pass through the walls. I could push my way through some of the metal siding, but something inside the wall stopped me. Nor could I get through the bulkhead-style doors if they were closed, which severely limited my ability to explore the floor. I was able to get a peek inside a room when someone went into it, or left one of them open occasionally, but they always got closed again,

like there was a protocol. If I'd gone into any room, I would probably end up trapped inside it, and that was a risk I couldn't take. What little I did see of the offices and labs on this floor didn't suggest that aliens had ever been kept there, not that I had high expectations. The fact that I couldn't go through the walls,

or the floor and ceiling for that matter, was something new to me. There must have been some sort of energy field inside them, maybe there to block something else, some kind of signal, but by extension they limited my mobility in the process. Seeing the sub-level was a dangerous place to linger, I returned to the elevator and drop downward to the fourth and presumably lowest level.

Only I descended into darkness and something solid. I was already on the bottom floor, at least at the elevator serviced. Either they filled the space below with concrete to seat it off, there never was another sub-level and the button in the lift was just a dummy for whatever reason. I went back to looking through the third level's hallways to see if I'd missed something.

The old hanging walk-clock's inside showed me that it was three in the morning so I still had a few more hours before my body would start trying to wake up and ask where its owner was. I had the idea that the floor below, if it existed, might still be accessible somewhere else.

Passing hallway after hallway and going down each side of an intersection and I got a closer look at the weapons in the hand of each patrolling guard whenever I got a chance. They didn't seem like any sort of gun I was familiar with. They actually looked non-lethal, and their barrels were equipped with a panel of lights that surrounded some sort of beam emitter. They had the appearance of a sci-fi laser rifle, but logic told me that they were lightly deterrent weapons,

which may have fired off bright bursts of light in a powerful laser, or burning microwave energy. It made no sense. If someone managed to get all the way down here after dodging all the real bullets up above, why give the guards at the heart of the base rifles like this? Unless, as I already speculated, they were keeping something inside, and these were the only weapons that could contain it. Eventually, I noticed something lining the segments where the hallways were connected by seams and rivets.

Every few metres, there were thin strips of metal and LED lights that ran along the wall, floor and ceiling. I didn't think much of them at first, thinking they were part of a peculiar emergency light system. At least that was until I randomly set one of them off. The moment I did so was one of the scariest moments of my life so far. I can't really explain why I only triggered one of the apparent senses long after I began traversing the level. At the time, what I could think about was how anything in the world would be able to pick up my presence. The LEDs lit up in a pulsing red to attract attention, and my dampened hearing just barely picked up an alarm. This was all so bizarre and new to me that I froze up and just floated there, feeling exposed and helpless.

Guards rushed in like they were trained to do, despite how rarely, if ever, this sort of thing actually happened. They couldn't see me, but they swept their weapons about like they were searching, and some of the men had what appeared to be scanners on their wrists. They were trying to find something invisible like a ghost. I'd say that that was absurd, but I'm someone who can send my own spirit out into the world. The existence of ghosts was never a big leap for me. The younger guys soon looked a little less nervous about what they were doing, and one of the older ones deactivated the alarm as the whole group continued searching.

I was still too freaked out to focus much on their lip movements, but it was obvious that this was a major event for them. They looked at the other hall senses to see if any of the other ones were going off, and one of the men swept his scanner right over my position. I reflexively I held my non-existent breath as he did so, but it didn't seem to pick up anything. I kept still and watched the entirety of the procedures as they followed. The situation was caught in over the radio,

the men finished their scans and began to disperse, except for the one guy who waited for a technician to show up, who then checked the sensor for a malfunction. The tech even plugged a wire into a port near the sensor and ran some software checks on a tiny portable computer. I only started moving again once the IT guide finished up and left. In total, the delay and my abundance of caution had cost me an hour. I'd have to return to my body soon.

But first I convinced myself to press on ahead even after what seemed to be my detection. now wary of the senses every time I passed one. I stay calm as if to keep my astral energy output low and continue down a particularly long hallway that ended at a promising large chamber. It was the most secured place I'd seen yet, a circular room with only two exits

and covered by multiple security cameras and automated weaponry, the turrets in the same non-lethal design as the things the guards were armed with. The head of me was a large segmented blast door, painted orange and black, with the faded numbers, O-1, painted on its stainless steel surface. By the rest of the floor, I couldn't pass through the barrier, and I already really wanted to find out what was on the other side.

It probably held whatever the guards were keeping down here and were worried about, sure, but it didn't matter. I wanted in. For my journey all the way out here, and the risks to be worth it, I think it. I needed it I waited for as long as I could On the off chance someone would open it But had to return to the surface

Once I felt the connection to my body Begating to wane I returned to it Just as I was waking up I lost in my gut to see Just what the base's biggest secret might have been Getting past that door was already my new obsession It was like the Area 51 of Area 51

My childhood dream reignited I would never get answers from anyone in the world and the odds of finding out what was inside by peeking at any visible papers or computer screens throughout the base seemed non-existent. I'd seen a lifetime share of an incredibly exclusive place and of course, because of human nature, I still had to see that final secret.

Part 4. The fifth day was agonizing. Not just because of the wait to get back under the base. It was also when the area 15th, Raiders started showing up. There might have only been a few hundred that actually went through with coming out to the desert to party, get drunk, and live out their alien rescue fantasies. But the motel, my sanctuary, filled up with rowdy out of town,

while camper van and motorcycle engines ruined the quiet atmosphere. All day I thought about the door and what was behind it. Was it a new super-advised aircraft? A deconstructed alien starship? the skeletal remains of an ancient god. I would have accepted an empty warehouse, just as long as I found out for certain and didn't go through the rest of my life not knowing.

I had no idea what was driving my urges, only that I wanted to see something truly special before heading home. So far, I felt like I hadn't. After hours of television and internet browsing just to pass the time, all while staying inside my room to avoid social contact. I grew unreasonable,

excited to see the sunset light hit my room's window. By 8pm I was already in bed and trying to force myself to sleep. Since I couldn't take a sleeping aid and my new neighbours were rude and noisy, it was tortuous. I wouldn't wake up before my sleeping cycle was complete once I was out of my body, but getting there was no easy task and it took two hours of restless tossing and turning. After all of that, the night was a bust. I explored very little else at the base, instead spending most of my time in that final chamber with the giant door, just waiting for someone to come along and open it. I understood that, in all likelihood,

no one would have a need to while I was at the base. I just didn't want to go home thinking I'd missed a potential chance because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. In hindsight, I wish I'd seen more of the base while I had the chance instead of wasting all my time in one place, hoping for the impossible. I returned to my body, disappointed, then suffered through a sixth day, my time at the hotel running out.

I could extend my stay, but I felt that it would just lead to more extensions to feed an obsession when I had to get out of that nowhere town. My mom called me, as did my employer, both of them wondering when I'd come back. Responsibilities at home were putting pressure on me to finish my time in Nevada,

and my room's air conditioner was now just barely working, and a repair guy wouldn't be coming any time soon. I was miserable, but I had to stay just a little longer. I almost spent the night dreaming instead, just to escape from reality for a while. I'd never projected for six nights in a row, so I only ever saw the reprieve of darkness during the few naps I had over the week. And then no one showed up to open that damn door for me again. Every time I was about to leave that security room to explore more of the base,

I convinced myself that someone was on their way to let me through. But it never happened. Ten hours I spent lingering on that sub-level I could only barely navigate. Well, I even tried sending psychic waves to the people down there in an effort to manipulate them into unlocking that door. Didn't work. I woke up early in the morning, sweating and feeling pissed off. I knocked on my walls and yelled at the people next door to turn down their music.

After they told me to shut up, I left my room, packed up some water and food, and drove off. I might have been able to tolerate the desert and the heat for one more day, but not at the motel room where I felt like I was losing my mind. I actually ended up driving down to Las Vegas and spending the day on the strip and blowing money on tourist shows. It worked so far as it let me get my mind off of things, calm down and detox from the shutting routine that I'd reduce myself to. Getting some actual meals at real restaurants helped as well. Still, I never wanted to come back to Nevada again. I arrived back in Rachel around sunset, feeling refreshed, and instead of heading to my room, I went to the party, or other I just observed.

it from afar. The drunken eccentric types looked like they were having more fun than I'd had over the past week. They were gathered up at the gate and just hanging out as baseguards made sure they stayed back and didn't try to run inside. The raiders were smart enough not to get shot, although, as I said earlier, I'd see a few of them get arrested. Their fun lasted into the night, even if they sadly never got a chance to see any aliens. But if that didn't disappoint them, I figured I shouldn't have let myself feel disappointed either. Well, I'd actually seen inside the base, unlike any of those guys. I'd fulfilled a childhood dream.

I could head home right then, look back at all this in the year, and still feel excited about everything I'd witnessed inside Area 51. But, well, that would never be good enough for me, so instead I drove my car to a secluded area near the base, recline the seat, covered all the windows, and fell asleep. If I projected this close to the place, everything would be in sharper focus, giving me a better experience, and I had cut back on the travel time to my body. I was determined to leave the state on a high note. Once I was adrift, I floated over to the party by the main gate, went right by the revelers, and then passed the guards that stopped them from going any further.

If I finally they could see me in cheer as they watched just another regular dude making his way inside the base. Well, I've made fun of them, but I'd slowly start to see the guys as a good luck charm as the night progressed. Before I'd even arrived at the elevator, I saw something new and worth following. Two people in full hazmat suits, with tinted visors that hid their faces, came walking out of one of the side rooms within the mountain tunnel. They were pushing a cart with a large metal crate on top. Even if they had nothing to do with that final door, I wanted to find out what they were up to, so I tagged along without them none.

They went through all the checkpoints and didn't stop to chat with anyone as others moved aside for them in the hallways. I steadily realized that they were heading down the same route I took to get to the locked door. I didn't want to get my hopes up, but it was looking more and more like the two were my ticket inside. While the time the three of us were heading across the lower sub-level together, I tried my hardest to contain my excitement, which was the only thing I could think of to avoid setting off any alarms again. The hazmat boys nearly broke my heart the moment they made a right at the last junction before the door, but it turned out that they were only having their key cards programmed in a surveillance room. It was filled with camera feeds on a TV array and had a single guard watching them all,

including the four cameras pointed at the big door. It must have had codes that changed daily as an extra layer of security. Once their keys were updated, we arrived at the last obstacle. They ran the cards onto two separate scanners, pressed down two red buttons with their thumbs, and then finally pulled the two levers within the door itself. Maybe this was something they did on a weekly basis, or it could have been an annual thing, and I'd just gotten extremely lucky. Whatever the case, the huge slab of metal at long last began to slide open,

to reveal the darkness beyond. Lights flickered to life past the door, illuminating an angled concrete corridor, and a hefty inclined cargo elevator that went down. The hazmat team went in and locked their cart's wheel into a pair of mounts on the lift, which didn't start moving until the big door was closed again. I was still right there with them, and was now committed, having no way out until they left first.

The elevator went downward at a tepid pace, and I stayed with my two new best friends instead of going on ahead with them. I'd come this far, so I was willing to be patient a little longer, I was heading down into the inner sanctum of Area 51. A forbidden place very few would ever think about, much less see for themselves. The right lasted ten minutes or so, and it felt like we'd descended deep into the earth. If ever there was a portal to hell or another dimension, it'd be here.

After the lift came to a stop, a second giant door opened as slowly as the first, revealing something perplexing but not quite bizarre just yet. The head of me was a purely stone antechamber, carved into bedrock. The surfaces were immaculately smooth. About 30 feet of rock, illuminated only by the elevator corridor's light, led up to a large, perfectly proportioned open square that preceded a void of darkness. The square was roughly 40 feet long on each side, so it was certainly a sizable doorway to whatever lay beyond it.

It wasn't completely without technology or machinery. The opening was lined with the same sensor strips used on the third floor, and there were large circular hatches built into the stone on either side of the door. I stepped out into the antechamber with a hazmat crew as they wheeled out their cargo and looked to my sides. On the left was an old regular-sized metal door that showed signs of disrepair. While my buddies worked to unlock their crate and remove its contents, I went over to get a better look at the old side door. It appeared to lead to the original fourth.

sub-level or whatever remained of it. It was unpowered and had no inner electrical field running, so I was able to pass through it and see if there was anything on the other side. But I saw only darkness, nothing at all. One further inspection, I noticed that the door had actually been jammed open just a crack. From outside, I managed to see a tiny bit of the pile of rocks that had blocked my view. It appeared that the hall had suffered a cave-in at some point, or maybe the entire floor had gone through a controlled demolition. Whatever had happened, it seemed to be completely inaccessible. I returned to the Hasmat brothers as they worked together to take out their cargo.

It was a giant battery or a power cell of some kind. I understood what they were doing, replacing one of the two power sources that kept something in, past or around the giant square entrance running. But they couldn't just hot-swap one of the batteries that easily. It looked like they had to shut the whole thing down first. On realizing this, I felt equally terrified and excited. I knew I might actually have a chance to glimpse what they were keeping all the way down here.

The guys went to either side of the door, opened up two fusebox-looking things above the battery hatches, and flicked two of the switches. Nothing happened for a few seconds, and then light slowly began to warm up past the doorway. The first thing I noticed was just how many of them there were, high up on a ceiling inside the chamber. There was an entire array, like stadium lighting turned to a face-down position. Well, it was overkill for illuminating a room. One of the hazmat guys worked to exchange the power cell, while the other took up a defensive position near the center of the doorway and pointed his rifle into the brightening room past it.

I will never be able to give a reason behind the panel. place I saw. I don't think I'd be able to rationalise it, even if whoever ran the base sat me down and described it in great detail. Part five, kept deep inside Area 51, was a full-size lobby of a grand hotel, its style copying the architecture of the 1920s. And more eluded it, the more it seemed to be pulled out of history. It wasn't like a movie set or an attempt at a replica. It had Roman pillars, marble tile, a mahogany reception desk with a classic candlestick phone in black. Most of the hard materials were in good condition, but the fabric, like the red carpet and the drapes covering the walls, were falling apart and covered in dust.

Behind the cloth hanging from the ceiling were the remnants of floral wallpaper, curled and melting into the floor. It was like the lobby had been sliced cleanly out of a building and transported directly here the outer edges of the walls look sharp without any signage it was difficult to tell where it had come from but it did certainly look like it had served wealthy clientele in the major american city a century ago and now here it was a hotel lobby out of time and place something unimaginably evil might have happened inside its walls in the distant past or it could have simply been haunted or cursed other possibilities i thought of upon seeing it were that the very matter of the structure had been corrupted,

and it was contained here to contain the spread, or that maybe it really had just been transported from the past through some wormhole experiment gone wrong. Drawn to the large room and not really thinking about it, I drifted forward and threw the open-air doorway. I met resistance on my way inside, yet pushed through with minimal effort. There was something about the room that made these guys contain it, fear it, and point their way.

weapons at it, but I figured that whatever it was it couldn't hurt me. I'd just take a quick look around, and when they finished changing the batteries for the lights, I'd leave with them. Every little detail of the hotel, from the counter's brass corbell to the yellowed mail envelopes that would eternally wait for their recipients and look like they'd fall apart if touched, well, it was all too authentic to be part of a recreation. It was also in good enough condition to suggest that the place had been moved here a long time ago and preserved as if it was in a museum. Whether it had been perfectly rebuilt brick by brick or somehow brought here instantly, my untrained eye was unable to tell. But full brightness, the lights above also completely bathed

and drenched the lobby and probably made the heat unbearable as well, if I could feel it. I could have spent the rest of the night thinking about the purpose, history and storage costs of the hotel lobby, or just exploring it. But I didn't want to linger at the deep end of a containment chamber. I turned to leave, drifting back to the massive entrance. And, damn my luck, I almost made it. I didn't realize I was trapped at first. I thought nothing of the fact that one of the hazmat guys had fully inserted the other battery,

shut and locked the hatch and hit a lever to draw power from it. In my mind, they were only there to keep the lights going. It turned out that they actually powered an invisible barrier within the square doorway. It was the same kind of field within the metal walls above that kept me from going through them. My dumb ass had just gotten stuck inside the hotel lobby crypt. The two finished up with their task, packing up the discharge battery into the crate and wheeling it away and back to the lift. I shouted at them as best I could, but of course they would never hear me. I hit the barrier with my ghostly fists, hoping to cause a reaction that would alert them to my presence.

But that was also to no effect. I had a brief glimmer of hope when they turned around and walked back to the sides of the doorway, but they only did so to turn off the powerful lights. The lamps didn't go dark instantly. The hundreds of bulbs above me had a dim afterglow that would linger for a few minutes, giving the lobby a few lit candles' worth of illumination. But I knew that I'd soon be trapped in darkness for at least a week or at most years. All the while my body rotted away in my car far above the surface, where it would be cooked by the sun.

So, that was it. I'd gotten myself killed. Or maybe I'd go on even without a body, trapped down here for centuries outside of a physical form. I thought about all of the places I would never get to see, and my poor mom wondering what had happened to me. The only two people who could let me out disappeared behind the elevator door, after which I drifted over to the centre of the hotel lobby, feeling completely despondent and resigned.

The fading warmth of the lights looked like they'd keep me out of total darkness for another few minutes. I didn't want to think about my fate, or how long I might consciously be down in that place before everything faded away. I'd never failed to return to my body before. There could have been some chance I'd just wake up and be fine. But I couldn't see that happening, especially not while I was in a chamber seemingly made to contain the same force I'd tapped into to project myself. The light stemmed further.

I could barely see anything. Colors had left the lobby, and there were only faint, dark shapes. I knew that pure darkness awaited me and never had. anything else the piece of me would be trapped here forever and then a voice spoke to me i swear for the first time in my projected form i heard a voice directed towards me and it came in clearly i see you it said in a deep disjointed english from somewhere in the abyssal dark and what manner of being would you be I wasn't alone after all. I didn't dare move.

I was so scared it felt like my spectral form had begun to lose coherence and break apart. If I was in my body, I'd be feeling a heart pound through my chest, or falling into a daze or panic. But in my state, true terror could only diminish my ability to remain an existing, thinking being. I had never come closer to experiencing a degree of fear that could have that effect.

The entity that produced the voice grew closer and whispered into my ear from behind. I do think I have been here long enough. Perhaps you are a means toward freedom. Just before the light was replaced by blackness, I saw and felt something pierced straight through where my spine and heart would be. Long, pale fingers twisted around and curled upward, reaching from my spectral eyes. The skeletal appendages were not.

like spider legs and ended in sharpened claws. It wasn't a ghost or a demon or a powerful psychic alien that had been down here for a long time and had wasted away. It was something else entirely, and I'll never know for certain just what. But its presence was ripping apart the link to my body. It said one last thing. Now, to you.

And I felt an incredible burning sensation tear through me. The next thing I could remember was suddenly waking up in my motel room, on the floor and tangled up in my blanket, with my shoes still on. It was eleven in the morning, the last hour of my stay. Somehow I'd escaped from the prison, returned to my body and made it all the way back to the motel. I looked out of my window and saw my car, messily parked across two spaces and scuffed up, like I'd driven back while intoxicating. I packed and checked out within ten minutes, not even changing. my clothes and I drove straight out of Nevada without stopping. I expected the police or military to chase after me or set up roadblocks, but the highway was just about empty all the way to the

border. No one knew that I'd gone into that prison cell or anywhere else at all on the base. When I finally got home, I ate a microwave meal, turned off all the lights in my apartment, silenced my phone and slept for about 14 hours. I was only calm enough for the next morning to start to actually process what I'd been through and begin writing it all down. My long sleep had been dreamless, but I didn't think much of it at the time. During the day, I started to feel tired much earlier, and I suffered through a murky brain fog, like I was disassociating with myself, making my already boring job harder to get through. I got better over time, but I lost two things permanently as a consequence of my mistakes.

It's been years, and I still have been. haven't had a single dream since then. I go to bed and then wake up. It's like no time has passed for me. In relation to that ailment, I can no longer astral project either. Part of myself is gone

forever. A year ago I got my brain scanned at a hospital. He didn't reveal what was wrong with me or helped me find a treatment. But I did learn that all of the parts of my grey matter that have anything to do with dreaming were much more active than average, even though I wasn't actually dreaming anymore. I think that whatever I encountered

freed me, but also found a way back to my body as a payment for that freedom and took up residence somewhere in my mind. That entity now gets eight hours or more a night to come out and do whatever potentially evil, demented deeds that it wants. It doesn't speak to me or share visions of its motives, but I have no reason to think it's benevolent. The people working, you know, and I have a in an area 51 tried to contain it, and I even knew how to detect it, maybe subdu it with light and other forms of energy, at least until I came along and gave it a way out. I survived, and do what I can to keep others safe, including locking my bedroom door with a key each night to keep myself from sleepwalking or leaving the house in some dangerous,

possessed state, but I don't think physical manipulation is what it's after, or maybe I'm an imperfect vessel for the entity, and it's out there each night looking for another. Well, there's a chance my actions have hurt someone you know, and for that I sincerely apologize. I'll soon be moving to one of the country's most rural areas, but I'm not sure yet if I could find a house that's 30 miles away from another innocent person. I'll accept a solitary life with no dreaming if I have to, but I need some time to track down a suitable place to live. Until then I'll stay on the road So that no single cluster of people

Has to experience the terror I carry And with any luck No pattern will be found And no suspicion falls upon me I may be able to stop all of this If I ended my life Or if I turn myself in at Area 51 But I'm sorry

I'm still too selfish and cowardly to do either And for my mum's sake and my friends I can't stay close to home You see, every night, one or two people within a 30-mile radius of me die from a sudden brain hemorrhage. The local news picked it up and called it a possible local epidemic, and that's when I made the connection and blamed myself. I've been on the move ever since. I'll turn myself into a walking by weapon.

My only remaining hope is that if you should have the misfortune to meet the thing I'm carrying around, any possible pain or terror your experience is brief. Again, I'm sorry. It's a terrible mistake to squander a gift, but worse still to misuse it. I went camping in the Glasshouse Mountains. I should have stayed home. Greetings, I'm not very good at this kind of thing,

and would not by any stretch of the imagination consider myself an author, but I will try to do my best to relay what happened. eight years ago up in the glasshouse mountains of queensland australia my name is cal and i'm a 29-year-old outdoor enthusiast anything that can get me face first into nature is exactly what i want to do with my free time so it all began when a friend of mine his name is detra invited me on a camping trip up into the glasshouse mountains as a birthday getaway it was a thoughtful and generous act of kindness that i simply could not refuse What could be better than a birthday away from all the noise of overpopulation of humans

and to take in that fresh air, the beautiful sights, and spend some quality time with my best friend. So, um, how many times you've been up there? I started climbing out of the passenger seat of a dexterous car. Only a handful of times. Even on those few trips, it was more of a hike. I've helped out here with school groups as a basic survival guide, but, oh, Never really had a chance to camp out and take it all in without all the kids around, so technically first for me as well.

He gave me a slight smile and a shoulder bump. All right. All right. I sighed out each word. Yeah, that's a spirit. We have a long walk ahead of us, brother. Dutra stated with a wide and mocking smirk. We hite for hours, seeing a few rainbow lorikeets a handful of roofs, and even saw some tracks that I firmly believe belonged to some dingoes.

Upon reaching the location that DETRA had designated as the camping spot, well, it was beautiful, trees forming a ring around this mostly open space, and all sides was dense brush and forest. Oh, I have to give it to you. This turned out far more gorgeous than I'd expect it. Not that I doubted you, of course, well, more that I, well, just remembered this mountain from the hikes while in school. Always seemed so bland and basic.

But I guess I just had to know where to go. I said whilst pulling out my phone to snap a few shots. Really? You're using your phone. Didn't you get given a pretty sweet camera just last year? He stated, as if I'd just committed a crime. Well, look, as far as I'm concerned, I paid a lot of money for this phone. Plus, its camera is better than most cameras within a normal person's price range.

So, yeah, I'll stick with this. Take super clear shots anyway, I stated sarcastically. Okay, whatever, man, he said while smiling and scanning the clearing. I'm just glad you agreed to come at all, man. He started towards the middle of the clearing, shifting the bags on his back to gain access to the tent bag. I followed not too far behind, taking pictures as I went. As we reached the centre, we both dropped our bags, and he unzipped the large bag containing his tent. I, however, was still too taken away by the raw beauty that Mother Nature had provided.

It had been so long since I'd been able to get out into nature like this. Couldn't believe I was so reluctant, but, well, being out there made me remember why I loved it so much. Detra was about halfway through putting up his tent. Meanwhile, I was messing with the setting on my phone to optimize my pictures. And in the process, ended up noticing something. that took me off guard. I was messing around with the zoom setting, surprised that the phone could go up to 50 times zoom.

Well, doing so without losing too much quality. However, taking a stable shot seemed near impossible at that level as a slightest twitch would send everything out of frame. However, as I played with it, testing it on the trees on the far side of the clearing, my breath caught in my throat, as on the screen I could see a tree but beside that tree

it looked like something was peering out from behind it but the quality and my inability to keep it stable made it impossible to make out what it was or who it was uh man I think there's someone over there on the far side of the tree line

I said over my shoulder not taking my eyes off the general area where the camera had revealed something ah come on man I get it people bum me out but there are bound to be others up here looking for a spot probably just some guy who wanted this spot and found it was occupied don't worry so much he said with a soft laugh or looking over at me with a raised eyebrow i had to admit it did sound very plausible it was probably just overreacting plus it was a large clearing so there was a chance others would want to set up there alongside us yeah all right You're probably right.

It just seemed creepy through the camera as all. Like, whoever was there, I wanted to be unseen. Yeah, I can get jumpy. Didn't mean to bring the mood down. I moved over to my tent bag and started unzipping and getting it all set up. As the sun was set in a few hours, we would have liked to have the fire pit done before then. After a few hours, we had our tent set and a fire bill with some nice rocks and fine tinder wood. We put out her sleeping bags and set them near the fire.

Kind of an old tradition we'd always done. We took our sleeping bags out of the tents and set them around the fire so we could sit on them and tell stories around the fire. Always a lot of fun. So, um, if you decided if you want to start, what shall I? He said, while opening a pack of hot dogs and setting them down on the little metal grate we'd set over the fire. You know I'm going to go first.

I want this story to be honest. able to be topped so we can have an early night for the height tomorrow. You know, when you give up against my superior storytelling skills, I said with a cheeky grin plastered on my face. Ah, someone's confident tonight. Ah, we shall see, Mr. Master's storyteller. And he looked over at me, expectedly. Oh, the night was filled with the laughs and some drinks and some hot dogs. We shared many stories and ran much later into the story. And he looked over at me, expectedly. And the night was filled with the laughs, and some drinks. We shared the night than we'd originally intended. Oh, bro, it's 2 a.m., I said, with a soft giggle that was mostly due to the alcohol.

Why, you for real? We're in the glass house freaking mountains. If it's past midnight, why don't we not hear any in sick songs? He glared at me as if I was trying to kill the fun just to get some early sleep. But then, as I listened, there wasn't the same. single sound. It was most unnerving. I tried to brush it off as just my overactive imagination, showed him the time on my phone. We both took our sleeping bags back to their respective tents and bedded down for the night. Well, after what must have only been a few minutes. I was

jaded awake by the sound of a gurgling, choking sound, a very violent sound. I could hear a commotion, a lot of movement on the other side of the fire, where Detred set his tent. I got up and unzipped my tent as fast as I could, having no idea what was going on. But I am a certified first responder, and whatever was going on sounded bad. So in my panic to get to Detra, I was out of the tent before I'd even fully unzipped it, and running around the fire, which was quite low, towards his tent. The first thing I noticed was the blood. So much blood. his tent looked like its entire bottom was coated in a thin layer of it. The tent itself was torn up badly,

and the sleeping bag had massive lacerations, and was in ribbons. But Detra, he was nowhere to be seen. My heart was pumping in my ears. I tried to listen for that choking sound. I had to find him, but all I was met with was absolute silence. All I could hear was my heart in my heart,

my ears and my ragged quick breaths. Dee, where are you, man? Make some noise or something. I'm freaking out. If this is some kind of joke, I swore. My words caught in my throat as I was scanning

with my phone's flashlight, trying to find him. When the beam landed on a tree, with a red substance leaking down the bark, moving the light slowly up, not sure what to expect, but knowing it couldn't move. mean anything good. The beam landed on Detris upside down, twisted face, mouth agape, glassy-looking

eyes. My brain was near shut down. I couldn't believe or even understand what I was looking at. The beam revealed more as I moved it around. He'd been impelled through the neck up on the tree, but he was also impelled in his chest and his pelvic region. I stumbled back, flicking my light in every direction, feeling exposed and in danger. I felt the hot dogs we'd eaten earlier, trying to make a reappearance, but I did my best to keep it forced down. I checked my phone. Of course, no service. Such a cliche and yet not unexpected up in the mountains.

I had movement to my left, but by the time I could react for my light to reach the spot, there was nothing. I could hear it all around, though. within the tree line I could just never see it it was playing with me I felt like a deer stuck in a bear trap while wolves surrounded me I decided to make a break from my tent

and as soon as I was inside I heard it rapid heavy footballs heading straight for my tent the unsheathed the machete that I kept in my bag for Lantana and held it out in front of me bracing my arms

hoping against all odds well with this thing speed and its weight if it collided with the tent i'd impale it on the machete whatever that thing was it slammed right into the tent tearing through on impact and i was met with a horrific sight a mouth filled with so many teeth

and jaws wide enough to fit my whole head inside eyes as black as the void I didn't see the rest of the creature because, as I'd hoped, it indeed impaired itself on the machete, but at a price. Basic physics, its kinetic force was insane, and on the impact I felt my right wrist snap. But at that moment I used it to lurch back out of the opening. The creature seemed stunned momentarily, undoubtedly confused by the weapon lodged in its rib area. It wouldn't last long and I knew it. So I ran as fast as I could, doing everything in my power to try and keep the light steady

so as not to trip on anything along the path. I then heard it start its pursuits. I regretted looking back, for what I saw was an elongated head, formed with a large, canine-like face, this straggly black hair falling from the top of its head. I was running on all fours and had the body of what I could only describe as unnatural, like some kind of man and dog-like monstrosity. Its features, well, it was like some kind of fucked-up dingo, but it was so much larger,

and it instilled total fear in me. Once my mind had fully registered what I was looking at, my flight response went into overdrive. The level of fear and adrenaline I felt was insane. The hike that had taken us closer to two hours took me less than 50 minutes, and it was 50 minutes to get back down to the parking area. I jumped inside Detris car and pulled out as fast as I could. I was doing well over any speed limit in the area, but I didn't care.

Well, that was eight years ago. Much has happened since then. But Dee's body was never recovered. And even though I've reached out to anyone who had listened, I don't care how crazy I sound, because something needs to be done. somebody needs to do something that thing needs to die

that I've given up any hope of people listening so now I write this once this is published I'm going into those mountains I'm going to find that son of a bitch and put it down myself or die trying and that's where this post comes in

if you're reading this I'm dead I failed I had this set to auto-publish exactly seven days from writing this. If I had succeeded, I would have stopped that post as the job would have been done. So it's your turn now. Please spread the message. Or better still take the fight to those mountains in any form you can and beat that thing.

I should have stayed home. We all should have stayed home. The Mandela Effect By Shadow Swimmer 77 A phenomenon I've noticed getting more and more attention lately is something called the Mandela Effect The way it's described is as a collective false memory A bunch of people remember something happened a certain way

Even though every shred of evidence proves to the contrary The name comes from Nelson Mandela Who became president of South Africa in 1994 And died in 2013 But despite these facts a lot of people People remember him dying in prison in the 80s, while he was an activist fighting apartheid. There are a ton of other examples, several of which I've experienced myself. I remember the colour charters as being a shade of pink, almost like magenta.

Well, it's greenish-yellow. I definitely looked on Wikipedia to figure out when Jiff Peanut Butter shorned its name from Jiffy, and they never did. And I don't care what the internet or the books in my parents' addict suggest. it's always spelled Berenstein growing up it was Berenstein though the general consensus is that

boy, human memories sure are imperfect another half-serious theory about these phenomena is that at some point people with forced memories have actually crossed over from a parallel dimension almost exactly like the one they exist in now those dimensions are so similar in fact

that the only difference is the one fairly minor detail in question The Monopoly guy wears a monocle, for example. He doesn't. If someone has a bunch of false memories by this theory, it would indicate they've jumped several dimensions a number of times, perhaps slightly flummox to the inconsistency of reality with how they remember it, but otherwise unharmed.

Aside from being general, easy to mistake details, though another aspect that Mandela effect phenomena share is that people are unable to pin down the specific time that they cross dimensions. In most cases, the false memories originated years ago, often in childhood. But people can't name the instant that things changed. There was one time I've experienced the Mandela effect, however, that while it comes from my childhood, I remember the exact moment the jump happened. Really, I can pin it down to a period of a minute or two.

And the thing that changed, well, it wasn't a minor detail. The summer of 1994 was destined to be a memorable one for me, one way or another. My dad's youngest brother, Uncle John, and his wife, had just had their third daughter. The two older girls, Abby and Allison, were age nine and seven, respectively. To help the happy couple get adjusted to the new edition, my dad's older brother, Uncle Mike, offered to take the kids on a road trip for a couple of weeks. Mike was always a bit of an eccentric, not in the least that he always drove an old, Winnebago camper around as his primary mode of transportation. I don't think you could afford to do that

these days, well with the price of gas, but, hey, I digress. My parents agreed my brothers and I should go on the trip to keep my cousins company. At 17 years old, my older brother, Danny, was so long for purely practical reasons. Uncle Mike's plan was to take us up and down a good portion of the mid-Atlantic region to visit distant family members and see some of the sights. Danny was way too old and cool, going out with a bunch of kids still in elementary school, but having another person along with a driver's license made sense. My brother, David, though, I truthfully thought there was no good reason to bring him along. He was only five, and though I certainly loved him after a fashion,

in my ten-year-old mind he was the most annoying little kid in the world. I argued and argued with Mom that he shouldn't come, that he would only be a hindrance, but she made no bones about it. If I wanted to go, then David would be coming too. So at last, I relented. The trip itself was amazing. We started off in Ohio at a festival run by a distant uncle,

who was the pastor of a local church that had rides and cotton candy. The works. We went through Harrisburg to see Hershey Park and tore the governor's mansion, lost air conditioning on the way to the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, and spent some time with second. and cousins on a river ferry near Annapolis. The trip was scheduled to be ten days long, and, looking back, it's amazing the number of

things we managed to see and do in that short period. Well, the motorhome itself was relatively small, as such things go. Sure, there was a small kitchenette, a table, and couch, even a bathroom, but there was only one small bed situated up over the cabin. While we were all more than comfortable while driving, it was really no way that Winnebago could accommodate all sorts of. six of us to sleep. Accordingly, my dad and Uncle John had given Uncle Mike money so we could stay at hotels along the way. Like I said, Mike was a bit of an eccentric. For one reason or another,

we could only stop at speedway stations for gas, and the only hotels we would stay at were Marriott's. At the hotels, we'd always reserve two adjoining rooms, one for Uncle Mike and Donnie, another for us four younger kids. In the kid room, Abby and Allison, which was a lot of share one bed and that meant David and I got the other if I thought David was the most annoying little kid in the world before the trip or now I was sure of it I'd shared a room with him at home since shortly after he was born but at least there we had separate beds now his thumb-sucking he was way too hard for that and it kept me up late into the night once I'd finally managed to fall asleep I'd inevitably get woken up an hour or two later when he'd encroached in my space

is sucking and slurping practically in my ear. It was awful, and after a week I was ready to be done with it. Oh, one last thing I need to make note of. Even though the different locations we visited were awesome in and of themselves. Some of the most fun us four younger kids had was at the hotel pools. Despite only staying at Marriott's, he were continually surprised by the varying designs at each of the franchise locations. Alice and Abbey, David and I spent hours in the pool at every stop,

splashing, racing and generally having a good time. Our last schedule stop was in New York City, and we got in extremely late at night. I'm not sure how many tourist groups of mostly ten and unders have walked the streets and ridden the subways of Manhattan at two in the morning, but on July 8, 1994, we made one more. As always, Uncle Mike had booked us rooms at a Marion specifically the one next to the World Trade Centre.

We slept in late that morning, toured the Empire State Building and found our ancestors' registries on Ellis Island from when they'd come through. We've just gotten into the base of the Statue of Liberty when Uncle Mike gave us two options. We were due to head home the next morning, and the estimated way to get to Lady Liberty's crown

was almost three hours. Did we want to stay in line? I'll go back and check out the hotel pool. The vote was unanimous. I remember, among his other annoying traits, he took David an inordinately long time to change into the bathing suit. He was just getting the hang of tying knots, and it made me want to scream watching him fumble with the cord on his suit,

vehemently refusing to let me help him. I told him impatiently that every minute he wasted getting ready was one less minute we had at the pool. It closed at six, and it was already almost five, but no matter what I said, he refused. to let me tie the stupid thing for him. At last, David was ready, and we raced to the elevator with the girls. As I mentioned, despite only staying at Marriott's,

we'd seen a number of different pool layouts throughout the trip. Some had cabanas, others diving boards, one with actual palm trees in a fake beach. But this was the first to have an honest to goodness water slide. Even better, this one had three, and best of all, we appeared to be the only guests using the pool. The bottom of the slides dumped into a section

that was a sort of annex to the main pool with stairs to the right that you took up to get to the top. There were three flights, 15 stairs each. A sign posted on the war read, slide at your own risk, no lifeguard on duty.

I know because every detail of that pool trip is burned indelibly into my brain. The pool itself was a relatively standard hotel affair, nothing to ride home at out. So of course we started at the slide. We had limited time after all. I checked my time X once we got to the top to see how much we had left. It read 502. Darn that, David, and is not time. There were three slides and four of us. Abby and Allison claimed the first two, and I went to move to the third. David grabbed my arm, the sort of unfounded fear in his

that only five-year-olds could muster. Wait for him, he'd beg me. I tugged away, left his fingers clutching only air. I told him not to be a baby, to just come down right after me. The girls had already gotten a head start, and I didn't want to be left out of the race. I threw myself down the slide. I shot out into the pool at surprising speed. God, it was so fast.

I could tell this was going to be an amazing last day. I pulled myself out of the water using the rails on the pool side and looked at the slide expectantly. Allison and Abbey were talking excitedly, already heading back up the stairs, and I thought about going with them, but a small, very small, brotherly instinct made me want to make sure David didn't need help, extricating himself from the pool. I waited, and waited some more. I heard twin high-pitched shrieks, echoing from inside the tubes, and seconds later the girls came flying. out with an enormous splash. I asked them where David was. Was he at the top, too scared to come down

on his own? My cousins both gave me a look of confusion. What was I talking about? Who was David? I thought for sure they were messing with me. I told them it wasn't funny to stop screwing around and be serious. Where was David? They rolled their eyes in unison as only sister as can. We went back up the stairs, telling me they weren't going to waste poor time with dumb jokes. I stood there, dripping and flabbergasted, my eyes fixed on the slide, willing for David to emerge from one of the chews. I waited another two minutes. The girls completed another two runs. I didn't ask them about David again. I wasn't going to play into whatever trick they were trying to pull on me. On my watch read, 506, when I finally went back to the top. I was

telling myself up three flights and 45 stairs that I would find David waiting there sniffling and try not to cry but alive and well. The entrance of the slide was completely vacant. The only sounds from the girls again hitting the water far below. I went to find Danny and Uncle Mike. They were sitting in their room, watching something on the television. Now I was the one barely holding back tears. Danny set up concernedly on the bed. An uncle Mike rushed to where I stood in the doorway asking what was wrong, if I'd gotten hurt. It took me a minute to gain my composure, to haltingly explain that I'd somehow lost my little brother. Neither of them knew who I was talking about.

I sort of lost it then, screaming, thrashing. Where was he? Why was everybody being so mean? Danny awkwardly tried to give me a hug, but I pushed his arms away. No, I screamed. "'Where was David?' Uncle Mike picked up the phone on the nightstand between the two beds. "'He told me I was freaking him out, "'but that if it would help, we'd call my parents.

"'Well, I yelled at him to do it. "'Aby and Allison peered through the door, "'eyes wide, wrapped in towels, "'about the time that the connection went through. "'My mom's voice was concerned as she asked me what was going on, "'but it had an instant calming effect on me. "'Everyone was being taken. terrible, I told her. David was missing and no one would help me find him. She got quiet for a few

long moments, then told me not to worry and to put Uncle Mike back on the phone. He talked to her for a couple of minutes, softly so I couldn't hear, periodically casting glances to where I was sitting on the bed before finishing the conversation and letting me say goodbye. My mom told me to do what Uncle Mike and Danny said, that she's done. see me soon, but that David was fine, and that I'd see when I got home. I got changed in the same bathroom that not only an hour ago I'd been arguing with David in to let me help tie his bathing suit. We quickly packed up the Winnebago and left. Abbey and Allison stayed together on the sofa at the back of the camper, watching me nervously while I sat

at the little table in the kitchenette. I didn't say a word the entire eight-hour drive home. It was after midnight and Uncle Mike had barely rode the camper to a stop in our driveway where I jumped out, rushing to the back door when my mom stood, bath-road held clutched around her. My dad waited anxiously behind her. Where was David? I asked her. Was he all right? Gently she took my hand and led me into the house, back towards our room. When we entered, my jaw literally dropped. everything had changed my loft bed was still there sure but underneath where david's twin bed usually resided set a desk covered in drawings i'd done and a small bookcase bursting with bruce coville paperbacks and

star wars novels my mom told me it had been a very long busy trip that i needed to get some sleep in my own bed she said everything would be better in the morning but that if it wasn't she could call to make me an employment with a doctor. She told me that either way I shouldn't worry, that everything would be all right. I felt something dropping my chest, just above my stomach, heavy as a stone. I felt to my knees as a gut-wrenching sobbed ripped from my throat. I started shaking so hard that I couldn't manage to stop. Heartbreak and pain and guilt tore through me as I cried uncontrollably. I think my mind broke just a little bit. The next day was a Saturday, but my mum managed to call around and find a counsellor with weekend hours.

His name was Mr. Calabrese, but he let me call him Mr. C, and I had sessions with him twice a week for five years. We talked about a lot of different things, though David came up a lot for obvious reasons. Mr. C helped show me that there was no way my entire family had conspired to trick me, that they loved me, that somehow the memories I had of David were just false. The times when he wanted to play his stupid kiddie games or accidentally broke my toys had never happened. Neither at the ones where he was little and had been scared in his crib at night, when I had reached down from my loft bed so he could stand

and just barely grab my fingers with his arm. My memories of the feeling of his hand in mind weren't real, and neither was he. Well, I've lived a generally happy, productive life, since the trip. I went to college, got married, have a couple of kids on my own. I still stay in touch with my parents and Danny. And dare I say it, we're very close. We take turns visiting for holidays, go on vacations to Disney World, the whole shabang. My uncle Mike died of a stroke in 2018, so that sucked. Uncle John, his wife Abby, Allison and their little sister Anna are still doing well,

though. My mom waited a good many years to bring it up. up, mostly because I think she was trying hard not to upset me or mess with my therapy. But long enough down the road, and after a few apiro spritzes one night, she told me that she and my dad had tried for a third kid for years after me, and had even gotten pregnant when I was four and a half. She'd miscarried at eight weeks. If it was a boy, they were going to name him David. So on reading this account might argue my story isn't an example of the Mandela effects. After all, by definition, the phenomenon. and his collective false memory shared by a bunch of people.

To that I'd say, last Christmas I was visiting my parents and went to midnight mass with them. After the service, I happened to be talking to a woman a few years younger than me, whose family my parents have known for the better part of 30 years. She asked me how my brother David was doing, and she hadn't seen him since their eighth grade graduation. It took me a second to answer, but I told her he was fine and left it at that.

I figured it would just be easier that way. If the alternate explanation for the Mandela Effect is, in fact, the real one, that these memories are not actually false, but that those who hold them are in fact cross-dimensional travellers, and David is out there somewhere. But I wonder at times, was I the one who crossed dimensions, or was he? The Marriott in New York we stayed at was destroyed, along with most of the rest of the World Trade Centre complex,

during the terrorist attack on 9-11, so even if I'd want to go back now and check things out and as adult, to see if I can find evidence of tachions or wormholes or whatever, well, I couldn't. I did manage to find one picture of the poor side, or at least one exactly like I remember it, but the hotel and everything around it is gone.

Oh, to David, wherever you are, I hope you know that you're loved. I hope some day as a remote a chance, as it may be, I cross back over to another dimension with you in it. I hope it's one where you get to meet your niece and nephew. Up there I made a different choice, and we went down that slide together. I hope it's one. We both came out the other side.

Don't get the safe app. It's free, but it's no bargain. Brandon nodded along with the employee at the wireless provider store. He was in the process of changing providers and wanted to do it. it in person rather than online. It had paid off. This chick was pretty hot and smart, at least regarding tech. His girlfriend, Jennifer, wouldn't care that he looks. She did it all the time and they happily discussed the hot people they saw each day. He wasn't really paying much attention as she went over features and options for his new device. She'd already completed the

download of everything from his old one. He was now boxed and would be soon on the way to be refurbished and upgraded. He caught up as Denise highlighted a particular feature that was new to all devices. One of the great free offers we have is the safe app, safe actions for everyone. We follow your activities and locations and make recommendations as to the safest course, the best ways to proceed so that you can avoid danger. We take responsibility for your safety and that of all our customers. She held the device so that he could not look at it without viewing her impressive bust. He would have mindlessly agreed to anything she'd said at that moment.

He was also ready to go and meet Jennifer for lunch at a nearby sandwich shop. They rushed through the final process to get this latest bill charged to his credit card. Jennifer was in a decent enough mood, though she had nothing good to say about her co-workers at the medical clinic. She'd wanted to be a doctor and then a nurse and had settled for medical office assistant. She liked to complain that she knew more than anyone else at the office and should be the manager. She was ready to quit and find another employer that might appreciate her. shared her talents. So far, no one was interested since she'd worked at four different facilities in the last two

years. Brandon had possessed ambitions of becoming a games designer. When his mother remarried, the new couple decided that they need room for his younger stepkids, so he'd taken a job at a big box electronics and tech store, moved in with Jennifer. He liked it well enough, especially giving people advice on new products. And they'd lived together for most of the past year, the longest relationship either of them ever endured. So, um, do you like it? Jennifer inquired. Uh, like what, oh, the device. His mind had wondered as she gone on about her immediate supervisor being an old Gen Xer. Yeah, I guess.

It's like better than my last one. Got all kinds of free apps from the provider. Jennifer pretended interest if he listed the new apps, especially the games, so she could pretend interest in something he liked, and the ones that allowed viewing of reality programming, something she liked. They finished lunch, another bill added to his credit card balance, and parted just outside. Okay, I've got to go to work. See you tonight? Brandon offered.

Jennifer agreed and was secretly happy. She'd have time to catch up on her shows in the hours she was still at work. About halfway through his shift, the device booped softly. Brandon was in between customers, so he'd check the alert. It was some notice from one of the new hands. He ignored it and went back to sampling the latest fantasy war game. The story encouraged sales employees to sample the games when they weren't busy, so that they could highlight features for customers,

and to keep them occupied and out of mischief. Management expressed that if customers saw personnel enthusiastically playing a game, they'd want to play it as well. After a few minutes, the device booted, definitely louder than it had the first time. But Brandon didn't check it this time. he'd reached a critical point in the game and was too excited to be distracted. Thirty seconds later, the device booped and buzzed, a heavy vibration that caused Brandon to lose concentration on what he was doing and paused the game.

He was annoyed and looked at the text bubble on the screen. We have been unable to confirm your status. Are you safe? Yes, no. Do you need help? Yes, no. Brandon gaped and stared in confusion. Why would they send me that?

He saw that it was from the safe app. Must be testing. Some of the new apps would likely send him notices for the next few days. He clicked the yes and then the no buttons, and the bubble faded from the screen. I'd forgotten about the app by the time his shift ended, and the store closed. He walked out to his little sedan through the darkened parking lot.

A row of lights had gone out. earlier in the week and he'd forgotten and parked in that area. As he approached his car, he saw that a figure stood near to the much nicer vehicle that belonged to his manager Barbara. The figure wore dark clothes and a hoodie and lurked back in the shadows. Brandon's device began to vibrate intensely. He continued to approach his car. It was probably an employee from one of the other stores in the strip mall, out taking a break.

Hmm, a little worn for a hoodie, he absently thought. He knew that Barbara was closed in the store tonight, and this was his only shift that allowed him to leave when the last customers did, otherwise he'd still be inside helping her. The figure appeared to watch him intently as the device continued to buzz insanely in its holder. Brandon arrived at his car and stood outside the driver door as he started to fish for the keyfold. The figure in the shadow shifted to better view what he was doing, though he didn't notice. What other people did was not his concern. It wasn't his place to judge. He used the fob to start the engine, and as he opened the door, a voice startled him.

Put that fub in the front seat and get out of here. Brandon was confused. Why would anyone demand that he leave his fob in the car and walk away from it? That was a stupid thing to say, and the tone of the speaker annoyed him. He looked up as the figure approached. It was tall and broad-shouldered, and he was holding a pistol. He couldn't clearly see the face, but he could feel the menace implied in the demeanour. He didn't know what to say or do.

He simply stared at the mouth the gate. Don't just stand there, drooling, dumb ass. Get out of here. The man didn't exactly shout, but he was clearly agitated. His voice was clear through the black face mark that hid his features. But, but sir, this is my car, Braddon stuttered as his device continued to vibrate almost uncomfortably. against his side. He reached down to hit the button on the side of it to stop the sound. The alleged carjacker reached out with his free hand and yanked the device from Brandon's holder.

Hey, that's new! He dropped the device in surprise. It had delivered a mild shock to his fingers. Look, stupid, I'm taking your ride. Well, I wanted that fly right. He chucked his chin toward Barbara's SUV. but I'll take yours since you want to look at me so hard. Randon's device lay on the ground, no longer vibrating. He wondered briefly whether it was broken. He purchased a protective cover for it, but still, sirens now sounded in the near distance. He didn't notice it, but the suspect did.

That one knew the difference between an ambulance and a police siren, and he saw the flashing lights, still a few blocks away but approaching fast. He shoved Brandon aside, slid into the driver's seat and took off from the parking lot. He made it partway down the block when the police vehicle turned into the entrance. Out on the roadway Brandon's car died and rolled to a stop. The car had gone too far from the fob, which still dangled in Brandon's relaxed grip. The officer must have noticed that the little sedan had stopped and that all of its hazard lights now flashed.

The unwelcome occupant leapt from the driver's side door and fled on foot. The officer turned his vehicle and drove back into the lot and toward Brandon. They soon completed a witness statement, and the officer spoke with Barbara, who let the officer look at the security footage. Brandon texted Jennifer to let her know what had happened, but she was too absorbed with the latest reality show to notice his reality. He'd had to clear several notification bubbles that screamed, Police have been notified. Police are on the way. We will keep you safe.

When he was finally freed from the scene of the incident, no crime since there was no suspect in custody, Brandon finally made it home. As he pulled into his assigned space at the apartment complex, the device booped. He'd been pretty happy with the app for silently alerting the police, but he hadn't noticed the shock anti-theft feature. He thought that the robber had just dropped the device.

He checked the screen. Are you safe? Yes, no. He clicked yes and went inside to see Jennifer. They each had a room and acted as much like roommates as a couple. Hey Jenny, you get my text? She raised up from where she laid sprawled on the couch, snacks and drinks littered around her, viewing space.

No, babe, what's up? He told her, and was rewarded with sympathy and the chance to share her bed for most of an hour. Afterwards, he went to his own room, very satisfied. No sooner had he stepped out of the shower than the device booped. He dried himself enough that he wouldn't get the thing wet when he touched it. By then it had booped and buzzed. Even as he thumbed open the screen, a voice emitted from the speaker.

You have continued to engage in moderate risk behaviour. Are you well? Do you need assistance? That was a pleasant enough, an annoying voice. What the fuck, dude? I'm like sharring. Why do you keep bothering me? me. The voice spoke again. You ate a meal with poor nutritional qualities, including meat. You played a

violent game that might harm your psyche, lue you into dangerous acts. You ignored rational safety protocols when entering an unsafe area after dark. You've engaged in unsafe sexual acts. Your shower has worn slip resistance in the water was too hot to ensure a balance of moisture content in your skin. Any of these could have caused. great physical, mental, emotional harm. We are here to ensure that you remain safe and healthy. Brandon stood gaping. His hair draped wetly about his head, and the towel slung over one shoulder.

A fat drop of water from his hair splashed onto the screen. He quickly wiped it off and set it aside, completing the drying process. When he looked again, the screen had gone dark. The thing had clearly opened a camera feature on him. Oh, great. when I go like, well, see me naked. The device booted. He looked at it, but did not pick it up again.

He no longer had to. He'd forgotten that that thing was AI tech and had learned his habits with experience. Your images will be released only under the terms to which you agreed. For the sole use of the app provider, we will ensure that you remain safe. Is there like a way to turn off the app or snooze it? Safety is a concern at all times.

We will continually monitor your safety. Um, yeah, but could you not like, boot me every five seconds? We have not done that, and unless you find a way to remain in unsafe conditions in rapid succession, we will not. Part of what we do is to remind you of unsafe conditions and acts, so that you will learn to care for yourself more effectively by complying with safety guidelines. Rand and shrugged and held down the power button on the device. Yeah, well, you can't do anything without juice. He put a thing on his nightstand and went to bed.

He awakened to mad, booping and buzzing at 3.33 a.m. He reached over to the device, its screened brightly lit and flashing. What? How? He hoarsely inquired. He picked up the device, and it finally ceased its boisterous alarms. We detected sounds of fear from you. Perhaps you had a nightmare or suffered some sort of neurological malfunction. Are you safe? Do you need help? Brandon had awakened more fully.

They were still groggy and confused. Like, seriously, I was like really sleeping. Why would you wake me up like that? We were concerned for your psychological well-being. Nightmares reflect anxieties. If you need to discuss them, we can do so or we can summon the assistance of mental health authorities, if you prefer. How did you turn on by yourself?

We are in operation at all times. Has your memory suffered from damage? Are you safe? Do you need help? No. I'm angry and I want to sleep. Leave me alone. It's like normal to have dreams. Brandon set the device back on the nightstand. Sleep well and be safe. We will be monitoring.

The next morning he awakened to gentle loops. The moment his eyes opened, the voice intruded on his consciousness. It is the optimal time for you to awaken and take nourishment. You will then have time to exercise before you attend to other activities. Brandon moaned. Really? I don't need some app to tell me what to do. I can like, well, take care of myself. is our role to ensure your long-term health, which will ensure your general safety.

Brandon had had enough. He tossed the device onto the floor near the door to his bedroom and set about his morning ablutions. He just pulled on his pants and was poking his head through the neck of his t-shirt when the doorbell rang. Jennifer would have already left for work, so he walked into the living room even as the rings turned to authoritative knocks. He peered through the safety lens in the door and saw a dark, looming, figure. Who is it? He called through the door. He had no idea who it could be. He wasn't expecting company and his friends knew better than to wake him before 10 a.m. There were no maintenance issues and he paid the rent last week. Well, it was his turn. Jennifer would get it next month.

Well, maybe Jennifer had ordered something. A voice answered through his racing thoughts. A representative of the safe app. Are you safe? Are you well? It was the same androgynous voice that had omitted from the device's speakers. So, it's a real person after all, he thought, as he opened the door to give the possessor of said voice a peace of his mind. The person before him stood politely, hands clasped in front, below the waist. The figure wore dark, loose-fitting garments over a white shirt and black tie. The hair was medium-length, the expression was inscrutable.

He couldn't tell the sex of the person. Well, he didn't really care. Maybe non-binary. The person looked him over from head to toe and back. He felt like he was being undressed and examined in a clinic. You appear to be safe. Do you need help? Brandon stared, jaw drooping.

Um, like, I don't know you. You shouldn't come to people's houses like this. Why are you here? The person stared for a moment, perhaps nonplussed, perhaps simply emulating the demeanor he, she, or it thought was appropriate. You threw down your device in unreasonable anger. We felt it was appropriate to provide a personal check-out for your safety and emotional well-being. Brandon processed the response and decided that maybe they were just overly enthusiastic.

Yeah, well, I don't need a babysitter, and I don't appreciate that the device keeps giving me alerts. Thanks for coming to check on me, but I don't need you to do that anymore. I was about to delete the app anyway. A person gave him a bland smile. We understand that there's a adjustment period, but I must remind you of our agreement, the one you signed only yesterday. There is no way to uninstall the safe actions for everyone app.

Are you safe? Do you need any help? It asked relentlessly. Brandon rolled his eyes. No! And closed the door. He resumed his activities, and since it was on his way, he picked up his device and put it on the all-purpose kitchen table. He presently joined it, a bowl of cereal in hand.

He almost dropped the bowl, when the device booted and buzzed like an oversized angry insect. We recommend that you eat smaller portions and use non-dairy milk. These measures will keep you healthy and safe. Do you need health finding the products? Would you like us to purchase them for you and have them delivered? Well, that did it. Brandon wolfed down his breakfast to the urges of the voice to slow down his intake and to chew properly before swallowing. It warned of creating a choking hazard or indigestion.

The passionless tones made the two conditions seem comparable in outcome and therefore inconsequential. He looked down at the device. You are so going back to the store. The device then volunteered the safest route for him to follow. He chose the shortest way, and the voice admonished him. This route is not optimal for your safety. Do you need help? He ignored it and continued the way he wanted to go.

There is a vehicle behind you that is following at an unsafe distance. Use caution to be safe. He activated the windshield wiper spray and sent droplets over the roof of his vehicle to land on the windscreen of the tailgator, to warn the driver behind him to back off his bumper. That act was unsafe. The other driver may overreact and cause you harm by an aggressive driving response or by exiting his vehicle to physically assault you.

Brandon turned on the car radio to drown out the incessant voice, yet it went on ceaselessly. Up ahead, a vehicle to your right is stopped in an unsafe proximity to the roadway. The driver may proceed before it's safe to do so. Use caution. A pedestrian is crossing ahead, outside the lines of the crosswalk. Use caution. You are approaching a school zone that is currently inactive.

It is safe for you to proceed. The voice chatted until he finally stopped at the store. Your selection of parking space is questionable. It is close to the building, but you will get no exercise from the wall. You are also parked too closely to the designated space line. Another driver could park his vehicle close and leave instantly. sufficient space for you to safely exit and enter your vehicle. Do you need help? Brandon a hoffed in frustration and stalked into the store. Denise was with another customer,

but her supervisor stepped forward to assist him. How may I help you? It was the same person who'd come to his apartment earlier, now dressed in a golf shirt with the Prider logo on one side and the same dark pants. The logo was deep blue and spotted a red eye with white waves. emanating from the bottom, symbolic of broadcasting signals. Brandon stared hard at this person's eyes. You didn't say that you worked here when you came by this morning, he accused. The person stared back. One eyebrow raised questioningly, but otherwise with no change of the bland smile.

I've been here since 9 a.m. I've gone nowhere else. Perhaps you encountered an associate from our support services. Brandon stepped back and looked over the person before him. The similarities were uncanny, but perhaps it was a different associate. Had the figure developed some, even while they spoke, it was definitely more of a she on closer inspection. There was indeed a slightly lighter colour than the other associate, and bushy the way he liked it.

The logo on the shirt had gone from presenting vertically to slightly horizontally. Hmm, female according to those two, he decided. I'm having trouble with my device. I just got it yesterday from Denise. The now attractive manager whose features had somehow acquired makeup to enhance her lips, cheeks and eyes, introduced herself as Debbie. How did I miss that? He wondered, as he allowed her to lead him to a service counter.

Now, what is the nature of your problem? and do you need help? You look down at the device. Well, like, it works and stuff, but there's an app on it that won't leave me alone. The safe app. Started off just booping and buzzing and sending text. Well, now it talks constantly.

Someone came to my daughter this morning to check on me. Debbie nodded. Yes, these are all features to which you agreed before you downloaded the safe actions for everyone at. We follow your activities and locations and make recommendations as to the safest cause. The best ways to proceed

so you can avoid danger. We take responsibility for your safety and that of all our customers. God, it was the same rehearsed speech Denise had delivered yesterday, he realized.

So, um, how can I, like, get out of it? The person at my door said he couldn't delete the app. Maybe I could get a new device? She nodded again, mindlessly with the same sterile smile gracing her features.

That is correct. The contract for the safe app is separate and binding. You cannot stop it even with a new device. Brandon had grown increasingly frustrated. But like, I don't want the app. What if I cancel my contract and go to another provider? Debbie's vacuous smile continued, and she repeated the bobbing nod.

We certainly understand that this is your decision, however you will and have to pay for the device in full. rather than on monthly charges, and the Safe App will continue to ensure your safety and well-being no matter what device or service you use. The contract was something separate. Services provided by the app providers. All service providers are now required to offer the services via the app. Once they are accepted and the app is installed, they are permanent.

Brandon realized that he was trapped. He couldn't afford to pay off the device. Going to another provider wouldn't help. Or so she said, well, he could at least ask another company. He thanked her and left the store. As soon as he was outside, the device started up again. The UV index is high today.

Consider applying some sunscreen. You should purchase and wear anti-UV sunglasses to protect your eyes. Your blood pressure is elevated. Do you need help? He didn't answer. He just continued walking. A competing provider store stood just at the other end of the strip of retail establishments. He hoped the thing would shut up as it had when he'd entered the first provider storefront.

Be careful when you open the door. Another customer is inside and about to exit. The door is heavy and sealed by the climate control inside the structure. When you open the door, be sure to use your body weight instead of trying to use your muscles alone to avoid strain. You have not answered the earlier inquiry. Are you safe? Do you need help? Brandon spoke aloud and sharply. Yes, I'm... He paused.

His outburst had caught the attention of several customers and staff as he entered the storefront. He looked around, in embarrassment, and apologetically whispered, Sorry, yes, App, I'm fine, fine. An employee approached him. The young male appeared to be built on the same chassis as, the androgen that appeared on his doorstep and the miraculously morphing Debbie. Good afternoon. My name is Derek. How may I help you? Have you seen our excellent deals? Brandon wasn't quite sure what to say. If he told the employee that he wasn't a purchasing customer,

they might not be willing to answer his inquiries. He determined to simply ask about the app. Um, it was like looking into an app I heard about. I think it's called something like safety. the safe app. Derek perfectly mimicked Debbie's smile and nod. The safe actions for everyone app. We follow your activities and locations and make recommendations as to the safest course, the best ways to proceed so that you can avoid danger.

We take responsibility for your safety and that of all our customers. He recited the same pitch as had Denise and Debbie. Derek stood. The empty smile that offered friendly, customer service still pasted on his features. Brandon knew it well as a fellow retailer. So like if I change service to your company, can I like opt out or something?

He asked with fading hopes. Derek nodded yet again. The safe app will continue to ensure your safety and well-being, no matter what device or provider you use. The contract for the app is something separate. All providers are now required to offer the services. And once they are accepted, they are permanent. Again, the same speech, Brandon realized.

He noted the logo on Derek's shirt. It was the same pattern as the one on Debbie's, except that the background was white. The eye was blue, and the waves which emanated to Derek's right were red. He didn't say anything else. He simply flared back to his car. Along the way, the device spouted advice to him. You should slow your pace. your blood pressure and heart rate

are elevated due to stress rather than purposeful exertion. You might also trip or lose footing. You'll need to replace these shoes soon. Your current ones are worn and may allow for a slip. They're also worn on the inside and no longer provide adequate arch support. He raised the device into the air and flung it as forcefully as his flaccid muscles allowed at the ground. The protective case sent it bouncing out into the lane behind his car.

He didn't chase it, but rather leaped into his vehicle, started the engine and backed out, aiming to run over the device. Instead, the little vehicle straddled the thing that shouted as loudly as the speaker would allow that he was putting himself in terrible danger, and that it would notify the police and EMS. He didn't hear the words over the roar and rattle of the little engine that barely could. He didn't hear the words over the roar and rattle of the little engine that barely could. instead he focused on driving forward once more trying to get a tire up onto the device he then tried again to back over it he caught the corner of it and then something struck his rear bumper or rather he struck something with it it had a heavy giving feel he stopped put the car in neutral and stepped out to survey what he already knew his heart plunged to his knees and the rest of him soon followed

A form lay stretched out on the pavement behind his car. A small shopping basket from the dollar-saver store in the strip mall rolled toward the other side of the lane on its own. The hands that had pushed and controlled it now released and set to other purposes. The figure stirred and attempted to rise. Brandon stood and ran to see if he could help. It was an elderly woman. The impact had knocked her backward and her right knee now bent at an awkward angle.

She screamed as she raised her blood-soaked head in agony. Brandon's device, the voice now emanating from under his car, informed him, The authorities are on the way. You will be safe. Do you need any other help? Then from the spilled contents of the woman's purse came the same voice. You are severely injured.

We have alerted authorities, and they are on the way to help. Do not try to move or stand. Be as still as you are able. EMS will arrive shortly and transport you to the nearest appropriate emergency room. And the woman said, feebly, understood, I will comply. She indeed relaxed, despite the intense pain that clearly plagued her, and lay so still that Brandon feared she'd succumbed to her injuries. Those that he had caused. He knelt beside her.

I'm like, I'm so sorry. how can I help you? The woman gritted through her pain and whispered. Do as the app tells you. It's there to keep us all safe. You must comply or you'll suffer. Fortunately, the ambulance arrived soon, and Brandon's device kept a running stream of advice

on how to avoid being hit and how to signal the ambulance and to avoid having the gathering crowd harm the woman. He reminded him to, this your vehicle in part can turn off the engine. It's highly unsafe to leave it running and in neutral. The EMS crew worked quickly to stabilize their patient and load her on to the waiting ambulance. Over her obviously severe pain,

she asked one of the crew to bring along her device and as a second thought, her perks. They obliged and the ambulance was presently on its way. In the meantime, a pair of police units had arrived, and Brandon was subjected to some streets, questioning and given a field sobriety test his device app remained silent during the process ultimately they arrested him for reckless driving and towed his car they put his personal property including the device into a bag that one of the officers took along with them to the jail they ignore brandon's pleas to let him

call jennifer they told him that he could make calls once he derived at jail he had to retake the field sobriety test and give both breath and blood samples during the booking process. By the time it was all done, he asked again about making a phone call. The booking staff directed him to the phone on the wall. A large, unpleasant-looking man with tattoos on his face and neck was currently using the phone, so he'd have to wait. And it was finally his turn, he realized that he didn't know her number.

It was in his device, which was now sealed in his personal property bag and stowed in a drawer, where stood a sullen-looking corporal. "'Um, sir, can I like look at my device to get a number?' he asked plaintively. The corporal looked down his substantial nose. "'Oh, bag is sealed. You can't get it until we release you. We told you that when we signed the receipt for it.' Brandon hung his head. He thought as fiercely as he was able and asked the corporal if he could provide a number to the store where he worked.

his only chance was Barbara well he needed to let her know that he wouldn't be at work anyway the corporal rolled his eyes and looked at his own device after a few minutes of tapping he supplied the number and then warned get someone to bail you out soon

or we'll have to put you in with the rest of the criminals and Barbara was awesome as always and even agreed to look up his emergency contact information and called Jennifer and his parents the frightening tattooed man had stretched out on the concrete block that formed the bench and bed in the cell. Well, Brandon paced around for a while, stood with his arms crossed, and then sank abjectly to the floor with his back against the wall.

The scary man regarded him for a moment, and then snorted. You can come sit here with me on my lap. I ain't seen a virgin on the inside for a while. It took Brandon a moment to comprehend what the man had suggested. He felt his face heat and hung his head in abject misery, and, for him. fear. Before anyone could show up for him, a bail bond employee arrived and posted his bond. He hadn't called for the guy. He'd just shone up with paperwork ready to sign. Or Brandon suspected that either Jennifer or his mother had contacted them. In any case, he was glad to be set free. As he left

the holding cell, the scary man called to him. Oh, don't worry, sweet lips, you'll be back, and I'll be waiting. His cackling laughter was the last. thing Brandon heard as he was ushered out to see the magistrate to regain his freedom. He looked at the clear plastic bag that contained everything he'd had on his person at the time of his arrest, and of course the device. The battery had run down, so he felt comforted that he wouldn't have to hear the remonstrations of some AI program designed by freaks who wanted to harass the app users. The bail-bondsman gave him a ride home, his car was impounded as evidence. It wasn't that far in There was no one else to do it.

He couldn't afford a ride share, much less the taxi. He may have been able to take a bus part of the way, but he was saved from all that. As he thanked the man for taking him home, the fellow handed him a pair of business cards. One's mine. We'll have more business if you don't show to cause. If you do, the other card may help. Good lawyer, looking for some easy pro bono work to build her reputation. Well, she's also my cousin, so act right around her.

Brandon took the cards and thanked the man. He gave him a little money, enough to get lunch, and then mournfully walked upstairs to his home. It was early in the morning, and Jennifer was still getting ready for work when he arrived. And she was in a mood. So where have you been at? I stayed up worried about you,

and you didn't call her anything. He looked at her wearily. Barber didn't call you. She glared at him a moment. "'Is that what you were out doing? "'Of course he didn't call. "'Nobody did. "'I need to go in just a minute, but I want some answers.'

"'You looked at the floor in front of his feet. "'I ran into a lady in my car. "'They arrested me. "'I was in jail. "'Well, the odour from his clothes "'finely impinged on her angry mind. "'Ugh, you stink like jail. "'Tirty feet urine, sweat and stale food.

"'I'll never forget that. that even for just the few hours I stayed for drunk and disorderly. Well, Brandon hadn't realized she'd ever been to jail. I didn't get any sleep and I needed a shower bad, was his erudite response. Wait a minute. Who bailed you out if Barbara didn't get me? She asked suspiciously. You shrugged?

The bail guy just like showed up. I thought maybe you or my mom called him, but I forgot to ask him. I just wanted to get out of that place. they put me in a prison with some rapist guy creepy well she at least gave in a little if she breezed out the door you'd definitely get that shower

before you climb into a clean bed I'll see you have to work I can't believe that you got arrested you're such a goody goody dog he decided to leave the device unplugged it was his day off so he could sleep in and he needed the rest

he shouted and brushed his teeth then started to crawl in the bed for some rest before he had to face the dead before his head hit the pillow the voice emerged from the device it would be helpful if you would charge your device it's unnecessary for the app to work but the functions and wait time may be negatively impacted

brandon stared at the ceiling inside figures i'm not getting back up just to make it easier for you to harass me leave me alone i need to sleep for my health how about you help me with that he seized a pillow and crammed it under his neck. The voice intruded once again.

It will be helpful for you to know that we called the bail bondsman. The numbers you have on file at work are no longer accurate. Barbara was unable to assist you. She called the jail and left a message for you that the staff did not deliver. She gave up with no better means at her disposal to help. It is, after all, not her function. So we took over and helped. We found a bail bondsman who was reputable and connected.

to a new but competent attorney who will take your case for a nominal fee. The case will likely settle before you have to go to court. We also reduced your bail in the magistrate system. Jail is a highly dangerous environment. You could be harmed in many ways, not least by the food. You may rest now, unless you need help. Brandon shook his head, forgetting that he was speaking with a machine

and the camera was faced at the nightstand in the ceiling. It didn't matter. The voice let him sleep. A few hours later, he was awakened to the boob bars of the device. The voice spoke urgently. Your roommate is due home within the hour. For your safety, you must not attempt sexual acts with her. We have researched her medical records and found that she may have a condition that you would spread,

especially at the moment, since it has erupted. It is imperative that you avoid intimate contact with her own. that woman. He looked around. Confused. What? What now? She has made inquiries with one of your associates and management at his apartment complex and now plans to move in with him and leave you to take care of the rent and utilities on your own. We have transferred the funds she will owe for next month's rent to your account so that you will have a place to stay. However, you will not be able to renew your lease without an increase in income. You must arise and start searching for a new job. You will not be able to remain here without one. This is a safe location, as safe as possible

with your current income. You clearly need help in this regard, and we will supply the help. Prior to his nap, when he'd learned that it was the app that had secured his release from jail, he'd been somewhat forgiving of its constant intrusions. Now, however, his rage from the day before had returned in earnest. He arose and dressed and left the apartment. He went to the office and spoke with the maintenance supervisor, then shortly returned with a borough claw hammer, ostensibly to hang a picture. He carried the device out onto the concrete porch, and without ceremony, smashed it to bits. He picked up the remnants and took them into the bathroom. He placed a towel in the sink and stopped up the drain. He placed the pieces on the towel and poured some bleach on

them, then filled the sink with water. He left to allow the thing to soak. He'd had enough of the device and internally crowed. Oh, screw any contracts. As he strolled triumphantly from the bathroom, the doorbell rang. He was distracted enough to simply go over and open it. It was Denise from the service provider store. Oh, like, what are you doing here? he asked in confusion. She said nothing, but handed him a box exactly like the one that had come with a new device.

He stared at the box, dread rising. Then another disaster struck, as Jennifer arrived and started to stomp up the steps from behind Denise, thunder clouds building on her furrow brow. Who's this? Is she the one from the jail? And she held up her fingers to display air quotes. Brandon shook his head slowly, in denial, and backed into the apartment. Denise simply turned and squeezed past Jennifer. and ensured that her ample bosom brushed against the less adequate chest of the other woman.

She smiled as she did so. Her actions had the intended effect. Jennifer bounded up the last few stairs and burst into the living room. Really, Brandon? I don't know how you scored that skank, but I'm done with you. I'm moving in with... Brett. Brandon's upon.

I already know, so I don't need to act like it's my fault. That girl's the one who's the one who's... sold me the new device. There was a problem with it, and she just delivered a new one. He held out the box as evidence of his innocence. She stared for a moment, surprised that the normally dull Brandon could figure out where his ass was with both hands. And then she shrugged. Whatever, I'm going tomorrow as soon as I get off. I ain't going to take my turn with rent this month. You're stuck with it all, jailboy. He sought his room on the cold comfort of of gaming on his laptop.

He plugged it into the larger monitor and put on his headphones to drown out the sounds of the world for a while. A few minutes into the game, the screen went blank and the headphone silent. He took them off and watched as a scene reset to its desktop view. He tried to log on to the gaming site

but could get only a site unavailable message. He finally gave up and decided to set up the new device. Inside the box was a cover letter. this is your one free replacement should you break this device in any way or for any reason you will be subject to fees and other penalties the safe actions for everyone provided

he didn't even want to consider what penalties he might incur he simply tossed the pieces of the old device along with the now stinking and ruined towel into the trash he turned on the new device and plugged it into the charger we will keep you safe at all times do you need help no replied simply and a bit mechanically i will comply in the same monotone of defeat tinged with fear that the elder lady had employed and so once again 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 you

one small favor of you. Wherever you get your podcast wrong, 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.