Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I Was Dead For 12 Minutes. Something Followed Me Back | Scary Stories

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

They want to take me with them. Story from fainting--goat Make sure to check out more of their work at u/Fainting--Goat         Original Post: I was born twelve minutes after midnight : r/nosleep               Original YouTube link: I Was Dead For 12 Minutes. Something Followed Me Back  For more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube  Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | Patreon Sound Effects: Freesound Zapsplat  Music: Lucas King - YouTube Myuu - YouTube  Incompetech Thank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new scary stories, new true stories, and new creepypasta stories every day!

I think something went wrong when I was born. My parents tell me it was fine, other than being so close to Christmas. They didn't want a child born near Christmas, because they were afraid it would be overshadowed by the holiday. They let me do whatever I wanted for my birthday, and if that meant that I wanted to sleep over with 20 of my friends, so be it. I learned from an early age that the night before my birthday was special, however. It was a time for me and me alone.

I couldn't let anyone else know about the 12 minutes after midnight, those 12 minutes leading up to the moment of my birth, 12 minutes in which I didn't exist, the day of my birth, but not yet the moment, a strange void in which I was, and was not. I can't explain where I got that idea. It's something that's always been in my head from the moment I could form memories. I think I tried talking about it with my classmates once, along with everything else that happens in those 12 minutes, and I quickly learned that I was the strange one, and I shouldn't tell this story, because I'd be laughed at.

It started small, but profoundly terrifying for a small child. My earliest memory is of a dark, claustrophobic space and the weight of the blankets I was hiding under. The heat of my own body. the stale air that I desperately tried to not breathe, too afraid they would hear me, even though I knew it was too late, for I held the edge of the blanket down with both hands, even as they gently pried at it, trying to lift it up and reveal me cowering underneath. It felt like it went on all night.

Now that I'm older, I know it only lasted twelve minutes. As I got older, hiding under the blanket was not enough. I was in third grade the first time they pulled me out from under there. They lifted it up just enough to reach a hand through, and even in the darkness, I could see that it was human. But too angular, the swell of joints and the curve of skin was entirely absent. It was like a cut-out of a hand. There was no color either.

no depth. It did not reflect the light, scant as it was. It grabbed my wrist, and it was so cold that I cried out, but weakly, because terror was wrapped around my throat, and I was choking on it. I could barely move. It pulled and drew me out, and I stumbled as I fell onto the floor, and I saw that all around me the darkness had covered the walls of my bedroom and was stretched across the floor. I was alone on a narrow strip of carpet with my bed behind me, and it was like everything ended at that edge, vanishing into an empty gulf. The hands came from that darkness, dozens of them, stretching out along the floor to grab at my wrist and ankles. I dug in my heels, grabbed hold of my bed frame, and the hands could move me no further. They tried,

But they were weak, and I remained where I was until my clock's minute hands reached 12, and I was alone in my bedroom. I screamed for my parents, sobbing, I told them what happened, and my father investigated the house and told me all the windows and doors were locked, nothing had gotten in, and it was probably a nightmare. And like with my classmates, I learned to not talk about it, I guess as a kid, I interpreted that their evasiveness about the circumstances of my birth meant they knew about those twelve minutes and wouldn't do anything about it.

In eighth grade, I learned to fight back. Holding my ground wasn't enough. I was getting bigger, but they were getting stronger. By then I'd learned that hiding wasn't enough, and so I'd sit on the edge of my bed, watching the clock tick towards midnight. Happy birthday, I whispered to myself as December 20th began, and the darkness started to crawl in across the walls, starting at the corner of my vision. The twelve minutes in which I didn't exist, and the void came to claim me. They surrounded me, and I stood to confront them. I felt cold

fingers close on my legs, on my arms, and I braced myself as they began to tug, to drag me towards the void. And my front foot gave a step. Another. I stumbled and panic welled up in my chest. I was losing. They were dragging me forwards inch by inch, and I wondered what would happen when I reached the edge of the floor. Would I fall? Would I do? die, would I cease to exist? My breath felt like fire in my lungs, and my chest heaved. And in my panic, I slapped one of the hands. Then I closed my fingers into a fist, and I hit it at the wrist, and it shattered. Just like that, shattered like glass, and fell into splinters on the floor. So I fought them off for ten long minutes, and when they vanished, I went to my bed and sat

there, shaking for hours. I didn't take it very well, realizing I had to fight for my life now. I got shingles soon after, the reactivation of chickenpox that the doctor said was due to stress and my first ever D on my report card. My parents assumed it was because we just moved to another state, and grounded me until my grades improved. I resented them for that, and decided I wouldn't tell them anything ever again. In my sophomore year of high school, those splinters cut my skin when I shattered the hands. The next year I wrapped my hands with medical tape in the minutes

leading up to midnight. In my freshman year of college, I bought a baseball bat and smuggled it into my old bedroom. Classes were out, and part of me was really. believed because my roommate wouldn't be involved. But part of me was also sad, because I wanted to know if anyone else could see the darkness too. I still don't know. I've never married and I've never had anyone around at midnight on my birthday. I keep people at a distance. I think I'm cursed. You see, my parents kept telling me that my birth was normal and I finally stopped asking. Don't get me wrong, despite What I said earlier, I have a healthy relationship with my parents.

I grew out of the teenage angst, and I haven't told them what happens every night on my birthday, because I don't think they can help me. And I think it would destroy them to know I've spent all these years fighting for my life all on my own. But they have their secret as well. My birth was not normal. Something went wrong. I'd long suspected this, and a couple years ago, after a particularly vicious fight with

the intruders, they pulled my feet out from under me, and I was at the very edge of the floor. I could feel the cold of the void on my back, and then it was 12 minutes, and I was safe. I decided that I was going to figure out exactly what happened. I'd start with the only documentation easily available to me, my birth certificate. I went to my parents' house one day while they were out of town on a trip. They keep all their important documents in a lockbox, and I got this out and opened it. Inside were their passports, their birth certificates, copies of our social security cards. Underneath that were personal things.

Letters and photos and other irreplaceable mementos. I made sure to set everything aside in order, but I quickly lost track as I had to dig through far more than I thought I would. My birth certificate was at the very bottom, the second to last document in the box. I wondered why they'd buried it there when all the other identifying documents were within easy reach. I took it out, unloaded it, and read my birthplace. The time of birth, 12.12 a.m. Then I folded it and started to put it back into the box.

My glance fell on the document underneath. Only one thing left inside. A yellowed envelope. On a whim. I picked it up. I'd already snooped through everything else. What was one more envelope, right? Inside was a death certificate.

Same town, same date. My name, 12 a.m. Was I still born? Was my soul fighting for the right to examine? existence in those 12 minutes, just as I fight every single year. I don't know. I have my answer, I guess, but I don't know what to do with it. I have to keep thinking of how to stay ahead of the void that comes to claim me. Fighting them off is getting harder. There's too many of those hands, and I can't shatter them all. So I started prioritizing.

I keep my center of gravity low to maintain my balance and aim for the ones that are trying to grab my arms first so that I can keep swinging my weapon. Then I try to knock off the ones grabbing my legs next. Two years ago, one grabbed my throat. I dropped the bad on instinct, stupid, I know, and tried to pry its fingers off my neck. I couldn't breathe. It was crushing me. I couldn't break.

its grip, and I remember slipping into darkness right as the clock tipped over to 11 minutes after midnight. When I woke up, it was 13 minutes after midnight, and I'd been moved a full two feet from where I last remembered. I wonder how close they'd gotten my unconscious body to the void. Last year, I fought like a wild beast. My careful stance and preparations were forgotten. I couldn't simply hold my ground, not with a memory of that thing choking the breath out of me. I felt their fingers grazing my skin, and it was like I was being burned as I thrashed wildly, desperate to shake them off. The pain was too much, and I put my head down, and I ran instead, because the darkness had not yet consumed the room, and the door was still there, and the hallway beyond it. And I thought,

This was it. This was the solution. I would flee instead of fight. They followed. I made it to the car in the driveway and backed out into the street and floored the gas. The darkness came with me. It seeped in around the edge of the windshield, covering it like frost, and then peeling off into fingers and reaching for my face. I spun the wheel in panic, sliding the car into a streetlight. Then I ripped the door open and fell out into the street, just as their hands closed on my shirt, and they began to drag me backwards, and the color was draining out of the world. Everything was fading into gray. And then it was twelve minutes after midnight.

I lay on my stomach in the street. My car was badly dented, but no significant damage from the impact. I drove it back home and stood in the shower, watching the blood from the cuts on my back, where their fingers had pierced my skin run down the drain. I think I understand what's happening. A friend's kid once made a smart remark to us after she said she was 11.5, and someone told her that her half year didn't count towards her age. She said that grown-ups don't count half years, because we're close to dying.

which is dark and hilarious, but also true. I am closer to dying. Every year I'm closer to death, and every year my visitors have gotten stronger. I guess we're all trying to stave off death in our own way. My fight is just a little more literal. I was dead in those 12 minutes after midnight and something brought me back. Perhaps I fought my way out. But I think I was meant to stay dead, and perhaps this is just the grave's window of opportunity. Once a year, trying to drag me back to where I belong. It's getting so hard. Twelve minutes is a very long time when you're fighting for your life. I took up running this year. I've been working for speed more than endurance. I only need to keep going for 12 minutes after all. Hiding stopped working and now fighting

is not enough. So I'm going to try flight. I'm going to run like death itself is on my heels, and it is. And maybe I can keep running every year after this until my body begins to fail with age and oblivion doesn't seem so unjust anymore. I've got my running clothes on already. running shoes. I'm terrified and there's still hours to go. Wish me luck. And if you don't hear from me tomorrow, then I guess I wasn't fast enough. Hello again. It's been a year since I last posted. Well, a year and some change. Today is my birthday. The exact moment of my birth has already come and gone and here I am still alive. I wish I could take such a thing for granted. I've been a

running all year, four times a week, or perhaps three when I feel I need a rest. It's difficult. I'm focusing on both speed and stamina, after all, as 12 minutes is a long time to run. I run the same route every day, because as tedious as that sounds, I need to know it by heart. I run it regardless of the weather, because I need to be able to keep my footing in snow, slush, or rain. Sometimes when I see other people out running, I wonder what it is they're running from. I think we're all running from death in our own way. Other runners might talk about how it gives them more energy, or makes them feel better or countless other benefits. But I think subconsciously we all know we're just trying to outrun death, trying to keep our hearts and lungs strong, so that we can better

fight off that specter if it chances to cross our path. They just don't want to admit it. The running is out of desperation. I was training for one run in particular, the only one that would matter. This year, as November started to roll around, I started hinting to my parents that there was something bothering me, that I was actively dreading my birthday. My parents tried to make light of it, saying that if it bothered me so much we could just skip it this year, I could open my presents from them at home, and we wouldn't make a big deal out of it all.

ever made me happy. No, no, it's not that, I told them, over dinner about a week before Thanksgiving. It's just, I can't sleep right before my birthday. I'm always awake around midnight, and it's like those 12 minutes after midnight just feel weird. I watched them carefully out of the corner of my eye, trying to do so inconspicuously. Surely they didn't know. They wouldn't have let me struggle by myself all these years, fighting for my life in the silence of my bedroom, without anyone the wiser. I was still relieved to see that they didn't react in any unusual way. My mother just said that's an odd thing, and maybe I could try taking some medicine

that would help me sleep. I waited a few minutes and then said something that did make them pause. Did anything odd happen during my birth? Earth? Mom and Dad looked up at each other from across the table. Then Mom said something had happened, but they hadn't brought it up because it was such an unpleasant memory. After dinner, we all sat down in the living room, and they brought down my death certificate.

I stared at it and tried to pretend I was seeing it for the first time while Dad told me the story. How I'd been born, and I wasn't crying. The nurses quickly whisked me away. No one told them what was happening, my mom said. She was crying for her baby, and the nurses were cleaning up like nothing was wrong. Then after a little bit, after my dad threatened to punch the doctor, I was brought back in. I was fine, the nurses said, nothing to be worried about.

They put my name on the birth certificate and a day later were leaving the hospital. That was when it got really odd, my dad said. They found a slip of paper tucked under the windshield wiper of their car. It was a death certificate. The one I was holding. And there was a handwritten note with it. They didn't keep the note, but he remembered every word of what it said. It said, I'm sorry. You deserve to know. My dad hounded the hospital after that, demanding answers. It wasn't funny, he said. What kind of sick prank was this? What exactly happened to his daughter. My mother, in the meantime, tried to put the entire incident out of her mind and

focused on their new baby. They never got a satisfactory answer. The doctor whose name was on the death certificate was conveniently never available when he called. He wanted to go to the hospital in person and find the doctor, but my mother talked him out of it. He'd had enough heated exchanges with a hospital staff at that point that they might just call security and throw him out. Best to just move on, my mother said. Whatever happened, I was alive and well now, and that was all that mattered. The story clearly upset my mother, for she got up to make tea. I covertly took photos of the death certificate when she did.

Probably something I should have done when I first found it, but I don't think the extra months would have changed much. I couldn't find any trace of the doctor that signed it. It's been so long that I suppose he doesn't work there anymore and has been gone. long enough that no one knows where he is now. It's not an unusual name either, so simply looking him up online isn't going to yield any meaningful results. All I know is that something unusual happened in that hospital. A death certificate was filled out, but never filed. It was given to my parents in secret. And because of whatever happened there, my death

comes chasing after me every year in the 12 minutes I was neither alive nor dead. I didn't tell my parents what happens to me every year. I fear it would destroy them to know. Instead, I began planning for this year's flight. The next part of my plan was far riskier, but I thought that if I was going to figure this out, it was essential that I get help. I called one of my friends up. She's someone I go running with. We worked together a few years ago, reconnected, and on Saturdays we go on runs together. I wouldn't consider her her best friend. I'm not sure I have any of those, to be honest, but I felt she was the best option since she was already a runner. I asked her if she wanted to do something unusual on my birthday. Go running at midnight in the 12 minutes

before I was born. The idea intrigued her, and since she had some vacation time, time she planned to take anyway. She agreed. A midnight run sounded fun, she said. It'd be quiet and peaceful outside. She showed up around 10, and we watched a movie while we waited for midnight to roll around. Once the show was over, I told her the rest of why I'd invited her. I told her everything about the void, about how it hunted me as a child and how I fought it, and how now I was running from it. I just needed someone to run with me, I said. Someone to confirm that I wasn't imagining this and to see what it was that pursued me so that maybe I could have someone else to help me figure out how to stay ahead of it. To her credit, she listened to the whole thing.

Her discomfort was obvious, but I expected this. It's not every day that a friend springs something like this, Sonia. And she obviously didn't believe that this was real, but she said she believed it was my reality and she'd do whatever she could to help me understand what was happening to me. Prove that it wasn't real at first, and then get me into therapy. I thought bitterly. Well, if that was the outcome of this midnight run, I couldn't complain. It sure would be nice if this whole situation could be resolved by a bunch of counseling and however it is you treat hallucinations. Honestly, I kind of wish that was what happened. You can still back out.

I told her. I don't know if this is going to be dangerous for you or not. I think we'll be able to stay ahead of it, as it didn't seem like it was catching up very fast last year. But I can't promise. I mean, I don't know what will happen if it catches either of us. She assured me it would be okay as she laced up her shoes. She was there to help me.

We started running a bit before midnight to give ourselves time to warm up and acclimation. made to the weather. It was cold and the rain was mixed with sleet. We ran on the street where the pavement retained enough warmth to keep from icing over yet. I tried to not look at my watch. I'd know. I'd know when the void opened up behind us. There was no sense in stressing myself out any further. I focused on my breathing, in one, out too. I kept my hands close to my floating ribs, focused on the movement of my legs and how my feet landed. We need to pick up the pace, I said to my friend. I felt the tickle of the void on the back of my neck,

a mounting sense of dread in a drop to my stomach, like I was falling, like the world was falling away around me. The houses in the corner of my vision were being swallowed up, consumed by the darkness that encroached all around us, sweeping in silently from behind. My heart pounded in my chest and the blood rushed through my ears. The terror gave new strength to my legs, and I lengthened my stride, feeling my muscles respond, to carry me forwards as if I were flying. I don't think I've ever felt so alive as I did in that

moment, running from the grave that yawned hungry behind me. I didn't say anything to my friend. Not yet. I wanted to make sure we were out distancing it before I told her to look behind us. We were moving at a good clip, and I felt the hungry presence of the void trailing our heels, and I knew that we were going to be okay. It wasn't catching up. It was persistently dogging us, but it wasn't going to catch me. Not this year. I felt elation fill my heart and panting. I told my friend to take a quick glance behind us and tell me what she saw. Don't stop, I said. Just look. She did. And she slowed and turned around to stare. I screamed her name. I turned too, unwilling to leave her behind and grabbed at her arm.

I pulled hard trying to spur her in a movement. The void lay open behind us, immense enough that it blotted out the sky and the stars. The world ended in darkness, mere yards away, the sidewalk breaking apart like sand as the void advanced, swallowing up everything that lay between me and it. We have to go, I said. It can't catch us. She faltered. Stammered something.

Stunned into immobility by the impossible. of what she saw. I cursed myself. This was a mistake. I shouldn't have involved someone that wasn't mentally prepared for this. She turned to run, but it was too slow. Too late. A hand wrapped around her ankle, the flat emptiness of a human hand, stretching out from the edges of the void. Another wrapped around her shin, and yet more surged forward. at that one point, using her body to drag themselves forwards. She screamed and jerked her leg away from them. I saw their fingers shatter like glass. Blood splattered on the sidewalk as it cut into the shin of her calves. She began to shriek and sob, and then more hands stretched out of the void,

grabbing hold of her wrist and her hair. Slowly, the grave advanced, and the ground beneath her began to crumble. It broke like a dropped window pane, shattering into shards, and she stumbled as one of her feet slipped on the edge of nothingness. The hands were reaching for me now. One stretched its fingers towards me, sliding along the pavement like a snake. I stared up at my friend. Her eyes were filled with tears. Her face was pale. And she stood there, frozen in the mounting realization that she was going to die as a hand slid across her face, a blot of ink on her cheek, like the grave was caressing her in welcome. I let go of my friend. My eyes were filled with tears, and it blurred my vision, mercifully hiding away the look

on her face as she realized. I was leaving her. I ran. I ran harder than I'd ever run before until my lungs burned in agony and the sleet stung on my face. The pain felt right. I'd abandoned my friend, and I deserved to suffer for it. At 12-11, I turned around. My legs burned. I was nearly at the end of the street. I didn't know

what I'd see if the void would still be only a few yards away, and I'd watch it fade away in the last handful of seconds I had left. Instead, there was only the empty street and the shine of the rain and sleet in the streetlights. I was alone. I searched for my friend. I did. I went back to the point we'd separated and I looked for her up and down the street. There was nothing. The reality of what had happened didn't sink in until I reached my house. My mind was racing. I kept trying to think of what I'd do next. Did I call the police? Would they believe me? Could I make up a lie to justify them searching for her without implicating myself? Did it even matter? It wasn't like there was any.

anything left for them to find. She was just... gone. I turned down the street leading to my house, and with a shock I realized that her car was gone as well. My driveway was empty. Her purse was gone from my house when I went inside. I tried calling her cell phone, but the entry for her number was gone. As were all the text I'd sent her. She wasn't on Facebook. She wasn't on Instagram, wasn't on LinkedIn. It was like she'd never existed at all. It wants to do the same to me. Roll back the clock all the way to 12 minutes after midnight on that fateful night to when I shouldn't have lived at all. But I think while the grave demands to be filled, it's not discerning. It may not care who it takes. I think. I think I've found.

I found a way to keep the void at bay for another year. But I need a different solution. I went back to where it all started, to where I was born dead, and to where I was somehow brought back. I told my parents I was going out of town for my birthday, bought plane tickets, and rented a car when I landed. I drove to a modest-sized town with a single hospital. In my jacket pocket were copies of my birth certificate and my death certificate.

my death certificate. I was born 12 minutes after midnight, according to the birth certificate. My parents finally told me that wasn't true. I was born at midnight, but I was quickly taken away and returned later with no explanation. 12.12 a.m. is the time that was written on the birth certificate, and my parents didn't find out the truth until they left the hospital and found a death certificate left under their windshield wiper. filled out, but never filed. I talked with Dad some more over the past year about this. Mom doesn't want to talk about it. She's trying to forget it ever happened, I think. But Dad, Dad is still mad all these years later, angry about how he never got answers, about how

the hospital blocked his attempts to contact the doctor that filled out the death certificate at every turn. We talked quite a bit about this, and once I was convinced I know. knew everything, I started doing some digging of my own. The doctor in question no longer works there. He unfortunately has a common enough name that I wasn't able to find where he moved to. That's a dead end. I also made no progress with a hospital administration. The best I got was a half-hearted admission that perhaps some paperwork was filed erroneously and some miscommunication happened. But that was so long ago and it was unlikely anyone that was, remembered what happened still work there. They understood my frustration, they told me,

but it'd be just one of those things I'd never find out. I wish I could just learn to accept that, and move on. I would if the stakes weren't so high. But every year in those 12 minutes, the void comes for me, trying to undo whatever mistake was made all those years back. Last year, I lost my friend. She simply ceased to exist. I'm not going to let the void take anyone else and I certainly am not going to let it take me. I'm tired of greeting my birthday with dread every year. I'm sick of having to run from death. I'm angry. I'm frustrated. And you know what? I really don't like running. It's a shitty hobby. I can't believe people do this for fun. I planned my trip to give me a few days in advance of my birthday to scout out the hospital.

My plan was to wander over to the nursery, and if I got caught by a nurse, just pretend I was lost. When I got to that part of the hospital, I realized it was a lot newer than the rest of the building. I quickly found a fancy sign that thanked the generous donors that made the addition possible. It was built five years ago. So that obviously wasn't what I was looking for. I went back to the main entrance and chatted with a person at the desk after that when

it looked like he wasn't very busy. I was waiting for my aunt to get out of surgery, I said, and was just killing time. And then I casually asked what was made out of the old nursery wing, because my mother used to work there before she retired. It was all just inpatient rooms now, he said. Might even be where my aunt wound up once surgery was done. I got the floor number from him and then made my husband. excuses to leave. Not that he cared. It's amazing how easy it is to just walk around somewhere

when you look like you know what you're doing. I scouted the floor, but didn't see anything unusual. I mean, I didn't expect to. If there was anything weird going on, then I'm sure someone would have noticed by now. I was more just trying to find out if there was a decent escape route. I didn't want to run down the hallway in case anyone saw me, so my plan is to head down the stairwell From watching it through the day, it was clear hardly no one used it, so I wouldn't run into anyone. I'm not very confident on how fast I'll be on the stairs. I mean, I'm in great shape from running all the time, but it's still a heck of a gamble to take. But I just feel that if I don't take this opportunity to find out more of what's happening,

I'll be running from this my entire life. I hate living in fear of this one night for the rest of the year. I have to do something. So I've got my route. And that brings us up to date. I've scheduled this to automatically post, so if there's nothing after this bit, that means I wasn't fast enough. I made it. I'm still shaking from adrenaline, so I'll just finish this up with an update, and maybe by then I'll have calmed down enough to go to bed.

I waited until midnight. I kept an eye on my watch, so I could count the very seconds. I was poised to flee as soon as anything came to me. As midnight approached, I felt something pressing down around me, like the pressure change from an airplane taking off. I swallowed and my ears popped. I heard a sound like a bubbling, like a hot tub somewhere was running, except it was all around me. Then it was midnight, and there was nothing to run from. The void had swallowed up the entire hospital. One minute I was standing alone with a harsh

fluorescent light illuminating the drab walls, and the next, it had all changed. It was like every surface was dipped in ink. The darkness ran together, and I could no longer see where the walls join the floor. The overhead lights still shone, but the walls and the floor simply swallowed up the light. It was like staring at a single flat plane that just went on and on into eternity. I could only stare at it for a few seconds before vertigo made my head swim, and I desperately squeezed my eye shut and put out a hand, trying to ground myself with the feel of the wall. The texture of this once beige paint beneath my fingers was the only thing that reassured me that I was still in this world. The pressure are really.

me was increasing. It felt hard to breathe. I opened my eyes and desperately looked for the stairwell. I had to get out of here. I had to escape before the void closed again and took me with it. I didn't know if that was what would happen, but it was what I was thinking. Panicking as my worst fears were realized. I was inside the void. I'd made a terrible, fatal error. That was all I could Think of. I found the door to the stairs by feel. My hands passed over the frame, indistinguishable from the rest of the blackness, and then found the bar that opened them. I stared down into an abyss, an empty hole in the world. Tenitively, I slid one foot forwards and felt stable ground. Another, I waved my hands out in front of me, desperately seeking the railing of the stairs.

My brain was screaming at me that I was standing on nothingness, that the ground beneath me couldn't possibly be solid, and I was too scared to even lift my foot. I shuffled awkwardly forward until I found the railing, and then I clung to this like I was drowning. The first step was the hardest. I located the edge with my toes, and then gingerly lowered myself down. After that, I let my body take over. as I knew by instinct how tall each step would be. I reached the first landing and pivoted around to the next set. My hands clutched tight on the railing I could not see. Ahead of me was the next floor. I could see its landing clearly. The void ended a few steps away. The hands grabbed me at the border.

The void seized hold of my ankles, my arms, my clothing. It didn't want me to leave. I let go of the railing to strike at them, trying to break their hold. The ones I hit shattered like glass, but there were still more pouring out of the void to replace them. They seized my hair and then fingers wrapped around my neck. My watch beeped at me as the timer I set one off 11 minutes and 50 seconds after midnight. In desperation, I shoved off the step and let the weight of my body carry me forward. And then it was twelve minutes after midnight as I tumbled forward into the light and out of the void. I only fell four steps, thankfully. It still hurt. I was so shocked by that point

that I just lay there, panting and staring at the walls. I barely registered the pain. I was just grateful to be alive. I blinked, reeling. There was a nurse. kneeling over me, watching with concern. I must have been a sight, on the ground, pale, shaking, dripping in cold sweat. I tried to say something, but the words wouldn't come, so she helped me get up and sit on one of the stairs. She asked a few things. I can't remember quite what, to make sure I wasn't hurt, and we sat side by side for a moment while I recovered my wits. I asked her if she'd seen anything when my heart had slowed enough that I could catch my breath. Something that couldn't be explained.

She said she hadn't, with a reflective ease that I have to suspect she'd said this many times before, perhaps to patients that were awake at midnight. Maybe it was because I was freaked out and not thinking straight, because I did something risky. I took out the copies of my birth and death certificate and handed. them to her. I told her I died here, right at midnight, that no one told my parents, at least not in any official capacity. She looked close to my age, so I wasn't sure what I was hoping to accomplish. Everyone that worked here during my birth was likely long gone before she came to the hospital. She smoothed out the creases in the paper and drew in a sharp breath.

I didn't see anything, she said. But something felt wrong. It always does when midnight comes around. She paused and took a deep breath. It felt especially wrong tonight. I was scared to go upstairs, and then there you were, like you appeared out of thin air. And then she asked me what I saw. So I told her.

There was a rumor, she said, among the hospital nurses. The doctors don't pay it any heed, but the nurses and the rest of the staff that control where patients are placed do. No one that has any risk of dying are placed in these rooms. They call it the Bermuda Triangle, a little cluster of roughly a dozen rooms where the outcomes are never good. And the funny thing is, she said, that before everyone started being careful about what patients went into these rooms, the people in them always died at the same time.

Midnight. I asked how long this has been going on. My heart hammered in my chest. Did it start with my birth, or did it cause my death? She doesn't know, but she's going to try to find out. She lost a patient, she said, years ago when she first started working there. He coded and died in under a minute as soon as the clock struck twelve. She'd reviewed it over and over in her head, trying to find what went wrong,

what she'd missed, that he could have deteriorated so quickly as the night progressed. Then an older nurse pulled her aside, told her it wasn't her fault, that they'd put him in the triangle, and that was on them. She didn't want to believe it. Not at first. But, she said quietly, staring down the empty hallway. Something always felt off about this part of the hospital.

She didn't want to elaborate, and I didn't pry. I was emotionally drained enough already. I gave her my number and got hers in return. We're going to keep in touch. She's going to try to find out more, and I promised to help however I can as well. And when next year rolls around, well, maybe we'll have a better idea of what we're dealing with.