Lighthouse Horror Podcast - If You Ever Freeze Time, Make Sure To Follow The Rules | Scary Stories

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

It follows...   Story from Cfalnevermore Make sure to check out more of their work at u/cfalnevermore                            Original Post: My Fiancé claimed he could freeze time. Now he’s missing : r/nosleep                                  Original YouTube link: If You Ever Freeze Time, Make Sure To Follow The Rules         For more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube  Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | Patreon Merch: lighthousehorror.com  Sound Effects: Freesound Zapsplat  Music: Lucas King - YouTube Myuu - YouTube  Incompetech Darren Curtis Music - YouTube  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 episodes every day, featuring ghost stories, haunted encounters, mysteries, true stories, creepypasta, and anything supernatural and paranormal. Don't miss out on the thrill and suspense that await you in each episode!

Ever since I was little, I could always do it. The first time I remember doing it. I think I was three. My mom literally caught me with my hand in the cookie jar. I saw her marching up with her scary, angry mom face, and suddenly, I stopped everything. Mom stood there, still with her angry face, mid-stride, and her mouth opened terrifyingly, as she'd been right in the middle of yelling something at me. Nothing moved.

There was no sound other than the ringing in my ears, and I just knew I'd stopped it all. I felt it. I just sort of flexed something in my mind. And time just stops. Once I was sure I was safe, I quickly scarfed down my cookie and swallowed it up, before putting on my most innocent face and letting time resume. You know I told you no. I swear, Mommy, I didn't take a cookie.

I licked the crumbs from my lips as covertly as I could. Mom looked confused for a second as she looked me over. Oh, I'm sorry, baby. I swore I saw a cookie in your hand. What are you doing near the cookie jar? I didn't completely escape that one, but I totally minimized the damage and I got to eat a free cookie. That's sort of how I used it as I grew up. I learned pretty quickly that not everyone could stop the clock like I could. I also learned there are limits. When time is frozen, it's

truly frozen. I can move about freely in a frozen world, but I can't move anything. People, objects, insects in flight, all of them are frozen in exactly the same spot as before, and no amount of force I exert can move them. I learned to be careful running around outside when I ran right into a bumblebee and knock the wind right out of myself as it completely halted my excited sprinting. The next thing I learned was to wear thick shoes. When grass can't be moved, it becomes a field of spikes. I'm pretty sure I could stab myself with it if I tried hard enough. With a thick pair of shoes, I could carefully cross over well-manicured lawns. The more unruly ones I stayed away from.

There are exceptions, sort of, like the cookie. I was holding it when I first stopped time, so I was able to carry it with me and eat. My own clothes move with me too. If I tried to grab another cookie, they'd have been like statues, stuck to wherever they were. Other people's clothes are like that too, so I can't go undressing people. while time is frozen, which I'm happy for in hindsight, but we'll talk about how bad I was as a teenager in a bit. For some reason, bringing objects into frozen time doesn't apply to people I'm touching. I can bring a cookie, but another person I'm touching just freezes up like

everything else. I accidentally got my hand caught in the folds of my mother's skirt once, because I froze time and it held me like a vice. That's the first rule. Nothing can be moved. The second rule is in order for time to start back up, I had to be pretty damn close to where I was when I first froze time. Otherwise, it feels like it's hard to explain. You know those video glitches on streaming services, where it hiccups and stops for a few seconds? But then it rushes to catch up, and the last few seconds of footage sort of speed by? It feels like that in my brain. Like I'm desperately trying to push forward and catch up in my brain, but I literally can't

until I'm back close to where I was when I started. I suppose I could also say it was like a skipping record, but I don't know how many people would get that these days. I don't have to be in the exact same position as I was at first, thankfully, just close. My mom says I had a tendency to dash away and that I was weirdly fast at times, so other people might slightly notice some odd visuals as I stop and start, but since I'm close to my original spot, it's nothing they can't explain. I tried to show a friend once.

I told him to watch an apple I was holding. I froze time and set it on the table, then started time again. He says to him, it looked like I just put it down really fast, so I tried again. This time I threw the apple in the air. Once it left my hand and rose an inch, it froze like the rest of the world. My friend just saw me toss the apple in the air. So I tried it one more time. I picked up the apple, froze time, and tried to set it down on the other side of the room.

But then I couldn't start time again. Objects like the apple had to be close to their original position too. Thankfully, I could still pick it up. I never did find a surefire way to convince people I could freeze time, not until I was older. Growing up with this ability, it was strange. I was a weird introvert already. And when you can stop time like a deity, you sort of develop a complex and further isolate yourself. I wasn't completely without friends, mind you?

High school was hard. Puberty hit me like a freight train. Despite my parents being wonderful people who taught me about boundaries, and respect, I made a conscious decision to ignore a lot of that in high school. I'd just as soon not mention any of my deviant behavior, but the thing is, I have to. I think that was the first time I saw it. One time, I went into the girl's locker room and froze time. And as I stood there among my classmates, I came to a realization.

They were a bunch of people just like me. Not only that, they were my classmates. I just felt like a dirty intruder and that was suddenly a lot less exciting to me. I turned to leave, hoping to pretend this never happened, and that's when I saw a shadow on the wall. To this day, I have no clue whose shadow it was. It was frozen on the wall, like everything else, but I was transfixed by it. Who was casting this shadow?

Why did it look so alien? I was utterly unnerved, so I hustled out of the showers, unfrozed time, and I ran home, scared, and feeling very dirty, as I should have. Somehow I shook off my terrible teens, and I became a more respectful person. I grew up, got a job. I have a fiance now. It's been ten years since I used my time-freezing ability for anything nefarious. I still use the power from time to time.

It's pretty handy at the few jobs I've had. It's also great for introverted nerds like me. If I need to get away, I can just freeze everything and go sit and stare at the sky for a few hours. In absolute silence. My fiancé believes that I can freeze time now, and here's how. We devised a test we could do. She wrote things onto a post-it note and placed it full.

face down on a glass table while keeping her eyes on me sitting across the room. She'd tell me she was ready, and I would freeze time, crawl under the table, and read what she wrote, before returning to my seat, unfreezing time, and reciting what she'd written. She tried to talk me into other experiments, but I declined, and she respected that. I just wanted to live my life, so we did. That brings us to now. Something has changed. About a month ago, I froze time in the middle of getting yelled at by my boss. I spent some time telling him where he could shove his citations and screaming obscenities

before wandering the office for a time. I grinned when I saw I'd frozen a co-worker in the midst of playing a game of Solitaire when he was supposed to be working. I stopped to look out a window, staring at the frozen world outside, wrestling my anger, under control and preparing to return to my boss to let him finish his tirade. I walked past my solitaire playing friend, and when I glanced at his computer screen, I noticed something off. It was turned off. At the time, I kind of just assumed I'd mixed up co-workers, so I sort of ignored it. When I got back to the boss's office, I swore his coffee mug was turned in a different direction.

When I'd frozen time before, I could read the writing on his coffee mug. No one cares, work harder. Yeah, he's that kind of jerk. Now from that position, all I saw was the black of the other side. This guy always keeps his mug face out to remind his underpaid underlings that they should be doing more for him. And also, I saw the freaking writing when I first froze this moment. Why couldn't I see it now?

I couldn't move the cup or anything, so what else could I do? I resumed time, and I let the idiot keep yelling at me. He made sure to turn his cup to tell me to work harder as I left the office. Out of curiosity, I checked in with my solitaire friend. His computer had crashed. Poor guy lost a really important report he was working on. He had to redo it. Not sure why he was playing solitaire.

I convinced myself nothing was wrong, that I'd just made mistakes. Someone else was playing solitaire, and I just imagined I'd seen the words on the boss's coffee cup. But things like that have been happening more frequently. Small things I could easily miss. Every time I freeze time now, I'll notice something. At home, my toothbrush will move. Or a book will be askew on the shelf.

I was driving myself nuts with it. I kept trying to convince myself I was just being paranoid. Nothing can move when time is frozen. Nothing but me. But last week, something happened that's never happened before. I froze time so I could wander around outside. The frozen town proper is just sort of fascinating. I was strolling along and all of a sudden, there it was.

A noise. There was never any noise before. Even my own feet made no sound as I walked about with time frozen. But I heard it clear as day. It was a thump. It echoed out of some alley. I've never been so scared in my life. Time was frozen.

I'd wandered through the statues of frozen people going about their day thousands of times. It had always been my space, my sanctuary. But now something else was here. How could anything make a sound if time was frozen? I ran. I bruised myself on a floating mosquito as I weaved through the frozen crowds. I'd never been afraid of the frozen people before, because I knew they couldn't do anything. But now, any one of them could have made the noise.

Maybe some were only pretending they were frozen. Who made that sound? Finally, I made it back to my original spot. I stood there panting, trying to start time back up, so I wouldn't feel so alone. But for a brief moment, I couldn't move it. I glanced around with a sense of growing dread, and that's when I saw something else move around the frozen cityscape. cityscape. It was only a shadow, just a flicker of some dark shape. It wasn't human. Its limbs were

long, its head almost looked like an egg, and there were white empty half-circles where eyes ought to be. Just white voids. It was the same shadow from the wall of the showers all those years ago. Somehow I knew that. And it wasn't frozen this time. Our eyes met. Then everything started moving and the shadow vanished. I started screaming right in the middle of the sidewalk. I refused to freeze time ever again. I hoped that whatever that thing was, I left it trapped in that frozen moment. But who the hell knows? If I freeze time again, maybe he'd be it will be in the next frozen moment waiting for me. I don't think it's safe there anymore. My sanctuary is gone. But it can't reach me here, right? Well, I'm not so sure. My fiance

is now convinced our house is haunted. She says she keeps seeing a shadow man staring at her. Her possessions keep moving. Toiletries, knick-knacks, some of her clothes. I tried to tell myself it wasn't the egghead. She thought it was a stalker at first. I rolled with that and started watching out for other clues. But then she saw the white eyes. She shrieked when it happened. She said she saw them at the foot of our bed.

It happened again the next evening. We spent the day distracting ourselves, then the evening brainstorming ideas. Eventually she left to take a shower while I looked for her. first shadow figures online. Minutes after I heard the water shut off, I heard her scream. I froze time and ran to her. By some miracle she hadn't closed the door as she dressed herself after her shower, so I was able to run right into the room.

There she was. She dropped her towel and was recoiling in terror. She stood there frozen, reeling away, about to fall backwards. I followed her gaze. There was the egghead shadow. And it wasn't a shadow anymore. It stood there in the room, a living shadowy mass in a horrifically humanoid shape. Then it turned and looked at me with its empty white voids.

It wasn't frozen. The next thing I knew, I couldn't move. I was as frozen as my fiance. was still aware, I could only watch helplessly as its shadowy limbs shuddered to life, and it skulked towards her. It walked behind her, out of my sight. I heard it rummaging around. A minute later, I could move again.

Time was still frozen. I scoured the house for that thing, but I couldn't find a trace. What the hell had it done? I returned to the bathroom and stared at home. helplessly at my fiance. She was going to fall. She'd slipped when she saw that thing. I moved towards where I saw the egg head, and that's where I found the pair of scissors. They sat right where the woman I loved was going to land. I tried to move them, but of course I couldn't.

I tried moving her, but I couldn't do that either. I spent hours just trying to do something to this frozen. moment so my fiancé wouldn't lose her life the second I started things up. I even tried ticking off my shirt to put between her and the blade to minimize the damage, but I couldn't start time back up without my shirt. I felt so utterly helpless. With nothing else to do, I went back downstairs to restart time and sprinted up to the bedroom to aid my terrified fiancée. I already had emergency services on the way. I found her crying on the ground in an alarmingly large puddle of blood.

She'd impaled her wrist on the scissors. She's in recovery now. I acted fast enough that they managed to save her. They closed the artery and she's receiving donor blood. That thing put the scissors there. I know it. tried to kill her. It's been three days since then. In that time, three different people have died mysteriously in our town. Bizarre accidents. One in a million chances that people could die in such

bizarre ways, but so far we've had three. An older woman stumbled in such a way that she fell forward, and the pens from a pencil cup went into her eye, straight through to her brain. A man stepped out of his pool and tripped over a misplaced pool float and landed on his fuse box in such a way that he'd been electrocuted. Apparently it needed servicing that nobody knew about. A teenage boy on a skateboard was thrown into the street when his board smacked into a toy on the sidewalk that nobody could, identify. He'd been hit by a car. That all happened in the last two days. Maybe it's all a coincidence. But I don't think so. I'm not sure what this thing is or where it came from, but it has control over time, more than I do even. And it seems to enjoy killing. I worry that I'm the one who called it here somehow. As far as I know.

It's still out there. I'm going after it. I have to try and stop it. It might come back for the woman I love. It's more powerful than me, but maybe I just haven't figured out all that I can do. I'm sorry, Delilah. I hope I'll be back soon. For anyone who hadn't heard, my fiancé claims he can freeze time, and that some sort of monster appeared from one of his frozen

moments. He's been missing for three weeks now. I've been trying to find him since I got out of the hospital. I guess he forgot that he gave me his Reddit password. I finally found his story and his farewell. His name is Sean. He's a really sweet guy. We were going to get married sometime next year. I didn't know what to think about the ability he had on some level. I think I always thought it was some kind of magic trick he could do. It bothered me a little that he seemed to really believe in it, though, but the thing was, I could never disprove it. I tried. I tried writing things on the other side of the house before asking him to go read them, and every time he'd look at me, smile, and recite what I'd written word for word, like he was

just pulling it out of my head. If he could really freeze time, I have to be able to say, I have to I have no idea what he's doing as a regular office worker. He works in accounting. If he could freeze time, shouldn't he be employed by the military as some sort of super-spy? He also said there were too many limitations. I've clung to the idea that whatever he was doing, it wasn't freezing time. I mean, if he did, how come he can move through air molecules? How can he breathe and process oxygen?

The physics make no sense. It had to be some kind of magic trick. Right? For a while it was just a quirk, but it started to get serious. First, he came home one day looking all kinds of flustered. He told me he saw something after he froze time. Something that moved. He said he started screaming in the middle of town.

I actually got a text from a friend who saw it happen asking if he was okay, so he definitely He was definitely screamed in public. Then he told me all about the egghead shadow. I'm pretty good at reading people. He was scared of something. But what could he have seen? If his powers were real, it's even scarier. What could possibly move between the frozen moments of one person and free-flowing time?

Things went downhill after that. But you already know that. I started seeing the egghead. I never got a good look. It was always just a glimpse of an elongated limb in my periphery, or a shadow flitting by a doorway, and it was all accompanied by a weird chill that would give me goosebumps and make me panic. Then things started moving. I'm telling you, I thought I was just in a typical ghost story after that, or maybe I had some

creepy stalker moving my things when I wasn't looking. In one time, I swear a bottle of perfume I was looking directly at, vanished before my eyes. It just blinked out of existence and left me wondering whether it had ever been there in the first place. Sean said he couldn't move things like that. So was it his egghead? Then came that night. That night I truly saw the egghead for the first time.

I saw it clearly. And it was even worse than Sean. described, it was reaching for me with gangly limbs and elongated fingers. Those white voids where eyes would be seemed to suck in the air around them, and there was a mouth. Just a little half-moon slit filled by the same white void as its eyes, which gave it this weird frowny face. I screamed.

Fell and almost died when I landed on a pair of scissors. Sean got me to the hospital. I remember him telling me he loved me. That was the last time I saw him. He was in contact for maybe a week. I kept trying to convince him to come home. His responses got erratic. Then they stopped.

A day later, the egghead reappeared. in my face. I stepped out of the shower and there it was. Its flesh was like a black void, but its eyes were like empty holes leading to pure whiteness, just like Sean described. My body froze, but I was left aware as the thing took a wobbly step towards me. I couldn't move my eyes. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't do anything. Soon it was inches, from me. I could taste it. Since I couldn't breathe, I couldn't smell it or anything, but its rank, metallic aura poured over me all the same and stained my tongue. It tasted like death. I was forced to stare into its eyes, and I saw something in them, something in the endless

white. I'm trying to think of the words to describe what I saw, but I can't. There was a sudden crash and whirl of noises, and suddenly I could move again. Just like the first time I fell. No scissors were there to stab me this time. When I finally got my bearings, I found the egg head gone and the house empty. I wanted answers. I found my way to his Reddit page and read his account. I've been looking into things since.

The number of fatal accidents keeps increasing. Does that mean Sean failed? Time is still moving and bad things are still happening. I was going to wait and hope that he'd contact me again. The last text he sent said, I think I found it. Then nothing. I went to the police and filed the missing persons report and all. I've talked to his parents and friends.

I had to tell them I didn't know what he's doing, which wasn't a lie. But I still omitted the part about the time-freezing shadow. I can't stay quiet now, though. Something is happening to me, and it's growing in intensity. It started as a headache. I figured it was distress. I mean, I almost died, and my fiancé vanished soon after. My friends all think he stabbed me himself, and I'm covering for him.

So of course I'm stressed. I wasn't surprised when I felt it the first time. It was almost like a scratching sensation. One happening inside my skull. It both was and wasn't physical. I almost felt like I could hear it for a few seconds. It sounded like rusty metal being dragged against more rusty metal, but maybe with a dash of something organic.

A sort of wet squelch. It lasted maybe five seconds, and then my head started to throb. Like I said, I thought it was just a headache and ignored it. But it keeps happening. It almost seems to happen at random times. I haven't figured out a pattern yet. I'll just be staring into space. I've been doing a lot of that these days. And then all of a sudden I feel this scratching, and my head throbs. I didn't think it was anything but stress until it happened while I was moving. I've never felt anything like it. Along with the headache and the scratching. It felt like I'd entered a cloud of molasses. I could barely move. And as I did move, it was way slower than it should have been. That was when I started to suspect

it had something to do with Sean and that thing. I have no idea how. It makes no logical sense. Is time breaking down around me? Why do I even feel anything? If time stopped, Why would I even be aware? As far as I can tell, time is just moving forward normally. I still don't know. It keeps happening. The last time it happened, my nose started bleeding. It's been two days. He's gone. I was in a frozen moment at some point. I was typing, and my computer key just stopped working. They suddenly felt as solid as steel and wouldn't move no matter how I pushed. I looked around and everything was frozen. It's just like Sean described, everything frozen in place. It was raining outside. The droplets were like little cold glass

roadblocks. I couldn't move them, so I was trapped in the house. And that thing was there. It looked different. It wasn't as elongated, and I swear it was trying to talk to me, but it sounded like its voice was a million miles away, or maybe a few moments in the past or future. It didn't seem malevolent. It kept gesturing it may. Its white eyes were wide circles. For a time, It looked like it was mimicking the motions of writing something on a piece of paper. When it tried to touch me, I swear something in the universe just broke. I'm back in the hospital. When that thing touched me, I was wrenched back to my original spot in my computer so fast

and violently. I now have a concussion because I think my brain bounced around in my skull. Somehow, nothing else is physically wrong with me. I feel like the force should have ripped my limbs off. I only have a theory on what happened. I don't think that Egghead was the same one I saw before. I think this one was Sean. And I think he was trying to communicate.

It's possible he's been trying for a while, and that's what that scratching sensation was. I guess he figured out how to do different things with his ability. Maybe he could even pass forward or backward in time, but I think it took a physical toll on him. I think that's why he looked like an egghead. I don't know why he looked like a living shadow, but maybe he, like, smeared himself across time. Maybe the other egghead was someone else who tried to meddle even more. I haven't seen anything strange since I was frozen. There was, however, one more incident.

Sean and an unknown man were both found dead in a local warehouse. Cause of death is unknown. Both bore strange burns on their bodies that nobody could identify. The people think they found a genetic link between the unknown man and someone else. That person is only 14 right now, but they've already got to be. a rap sheet. I went to identify Sean's body. It was definitely him. He looks older than I remember. I don't know if that has something to do with his powers or not. My fiance is gone. I think the threat is too. Are there more? How far do their powers go? I'm scared. And I wish Sean

was here. I know I haven't posted yet, but I found something. Sean left one last message. I'm not sure how. It was sitting on a table when I got home from the hospital. It was where that shadow looked like it was writing something. This is what Sean said. Dear Delilah, I don't know why I can do the things I do.

I figured I was just a mutant or some shit. I'm not the only one. The first one I saw came from the future. It learned how to turn back time and it's wreaking havoc. Every time it moves something that shouldn't move, I feel it. It sounds like massive metal slabs grinding against each other. Every time someone dies, it becomes a cacophony. Whatever it's doing, something is breaking.

I've figured out how to do new things. It hurts. The only thing that doesn't hurt is what I used to do, where I'd just move around in a frozen moment. Anything else. It feels like it's stretching me. I think I understand now. It is stretching me. It's making me exist in multiple moments at once.

in the same universe. That's not supposed to be possible. That's why my skin is fading. That's why when I look into my reflection's eyes, I see those white voids. The other egghead was hiding in a single moment, but then it came after you. I chased it away. But I was following in that moment for what felt like years. I think he was toying with me.

After all that time, the grating sound barely phases me, but I feel the effects getting worse. I finally figured out how to fight it, and I think I have it cornered. I have it frozen in a moment, but I had to come back and try to say goodbye first. I love you, Delilah, and the only way I can think to stop this thing will kill me too. I wish I could spend my life with you. But it's better this way. The fewer of us time manipulators there are, the better. I know that sounds like bullshit, but please understand.

I've seen the void behind the egghead's eyes. It leads somewhere outside of time as we know it. Outside our universe. I've seen the things there. that want to get in. I hear them talking to me, trying to get me to meddle with time even more. I won't do it. I'm sorry, Delilah, and I'm sorry that I scared you.

I'm an egghead now, too. Live your best life. And don't forget me. Yours forever. Sean