Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - 3 Chernobyl Horror Stories

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

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Talk to Nice Sleep. Did you know that you can take a tour of Chernobyl right now? If you plan ahead, it will cost you about $100. You'll be able to walk through the site of one of the worst nuclear meltdowns in human history. Your tour guide will take you through the exclusion zone, right up to the plant that still contains the ruins of the reactors that went up like radioactive fireworks back in the 1980s. As you stand in the shadow of the crumbling smokestacks, your guide will promise you everything

about the tour is safe, that Chernobyl is completely, perfectly safe. That's a lie. Depending on how much the guide knows, it might be a deliberate lie or a lie of omission. But the thing you need to remember always is that Chernobyl is not safe, or pacified, or even sleeping. Chernobyl is alive, and it is becoming more dangerous by the day. I found out what's growing under the abandoned plant when I snuck away from my tour group a week ago.

I never intended to go off the path when I first signed up for the Chernobyl tour. I was excited to see the hollowed out buildings, the scorched concrete where all of the graphite rained down that night in April of 86. Maybe I could even find a little irradiated rock or pine cone or something to take home as a souvenir. Both the official website and my tour guide assured our group that we were safe from any fallout. While the area around the nuclear plant still crackled with radiation in places, it was generally low enough above the ground that risks were minimal if exposure was limited to a few hours. Again, quoting the tour guide there, she did seem trustworthy, though, as well as shockingly beautiful.

Blonde and short with heavily accented English, Alina already had most of us charmed when she picked us up from Kiev along with our bus. There were seven of us, including Alina and the driver. All five of us tourists were American. Alina gave us the basic history of Chernobyl and the nearby ghost town of Pripy. as our bus dumped along the road towards the exclusion zone. That sounds scary, yes? Alina asked, one blue eye winking like a wave against a beach. Do not be overly concerned by the term exclusion zone.

We do not exclude. It's only a name. In fact, there are nearly 200 residents living in the 2,600 square kilometers surrounding Chernobyl. The bus ride, though bumpy, was. soothing. Between the home of the old engine and Alina's history lesson, I found my eyes starting to droop. I was nearly asleep when I saw the boy standing at the side of the road. Something about him gave me a little jolt and made me sit up. The boy was shirtless, skinny, and maybe 13. He was staring at the bus as we drove by, eyes wide and green, startling green. His face was not

narrow and expressionless. It was like someone had put a mannequin in a field and scribbled over its eyes with an emerald sharpie. But the boy wasn't a doll. His head tracked us as we passed. As he faded in the rear view, the child raised a hand stiffly, like he wanted to wave,

but couldn't quite remember how. The rest of the bus ride into the exclusion zone was uneventful. After about an hour, Alina switched from history to preparing us for the tour. This included going over her company's safety research and then teaching us the basics of both disaster mitigation and radiation survival skills. She didn't go too in depth about the actual effects of radiation poisoning,

but I'd done my Googling before flying over to Kiev, so I have to admit I was a little terrified when the bus pulled up at a large security gate. Welcome to Chernobyl. Alina chirped. We didn't actually start with a nuclear plant itself when we got off the bus. Up first was a tour of Pripyat,

the abandoned town that used to house the workers and families who lived around Chernobyl. Since most folks left in a hurry, walking through Pripyat was beyond Erie. It was as if the entire community was suspended in a moment of time, a limbo where the residents could return any moment. But the area wasn't perfectly preserved.

The wilderness had started to reclaim Pripyat, vines, and underbrush creeping up and over concrete. Everywhere around the town was forest and frontier and green upon green. It certainly didn't look like a land sick with radiation. If anything, the exclusion zone felt vividly alive. At one point, I was walking at the back of the group snapping pictures. when I felt my boot sink into the ground. It was like stepping on a pillow covered in spider webs. I glanced down to find myself standing in a puddle of green moss.

It was spongy and textured like a honeycomb, covered in a downy fiber, almost like fine hair. The color looked strangely familiar to me, though I couldn't place it at the time. I wiggled my foot and my boot pulled free with a paw. There was enough suction to the moss that I stood there was enough suction to the moss that I stood. stumbled and cursed, not that anyone noticed, as absorbed as they were with Chernobyl and Alina. I continued on, spotting more patches of the moss on the ground, on the sides of buildings,

even dripping down from overhanging roofs. Other than the moss, what surprised me the most about Pripiat was the graffiti. There wasn't much of it, but occasionally, we'd stumble past a wall or door with swirling marks that bled together into almost recognizable shapes. The paint or ink, or whatever was used to draw the symbols was the same green as the moss. I stopped Alina when we passed one door that I was positive was marked with the shape of a key larger than my hand.

Do you get a lot of folks sneaking in here to tag the walls? I asked. Alina looked at me like I'd grown a second head. I do not understand. What is tag? graffiti, paint? Like right here on the door. The door looks clean to me.

I do not see any paint, Alina shrugged. Sorry, maybe it's a shadow? I dropped it. Maybe it was just a shadow I saw. Or maybe the radiation was getting to me. Safety promises be damned. While all of Pripyat was a little unsettling, the derelict amusement park was downright chilling.

abandoned rides and decaying attractions stood like scavenged corpses in neat rows. The sun was out in full, and the weather was fine, but I felt cold as we walked through the park. Here and there, I thought I saw darting movement between the shadows of the rides. Wildlife, I told myself. Through all of this, Alina went on and on about the, in my opinion, overly optimistic future of Chernobyl. The people would come back, and the soil would heal, and the plant might even begin burning again one day, according to Alina. We were all leaving the park, getting ready to head over towards the nuclear plant, when I spotted somebody watching us from the tree line. It was the boy from the roadside earlier. I was sure of it.

Only something was different about the child. He seemed taller, standing in the shade of a burst of pines and spruce. His limbs were long and thin, his ribs observable even at a distance. I thought I could even see his green eyes peeking out from the shadows. But that was probably a trick of the early afternoon light. The boy seemed to be waving at me, gesturing me over. Alina was distracted by the old couple from Nashville. The man was wearing a cowboy hat and kept pantomiming taking a shot.

His wife was waving her arms back towards downtown Pripyat. The other two tourists were sitting in the shade of the decrepit Ferris wheel. Its carriages, still nearly canary yellow, despite the years of ash and weather. I figured I could sneak away from the group easily enough. They probably wouldn't even notice I was gone for 10 or 15 minutes since everybody was taking a break. I'd catch hell from Alina if I disappeared for a while, more than likely. But when was I ever going to get another chance to interact with a Chernobyl local? One of the elusive 200.

A picture with a native would be a much better souvenir than some radioactive rock that probably wouldn't even glow. I made my move while Alina was flipping through a guidebook, still swarmed by the elderly couple. The boy faded back into the forest before I reached the tree line, but there was a small deer trail I was able to follow. I noticed more moss on the trees I passed, either sticking to trunks or hanging down from branches. The trail led to an open clearing. There was nobody in sight.

Hello! I shouted. Or, uh, crap. What was Russian for hello? Um, hello-ski? No response. I took a step into the clearing and froze. A deer had emerged from the trees nearby and was staring at me with all. six of its eyes. A swirling crown of interwoven antlers rose up from the animal's head, or heads. It was almost two heads, but one seemed sunken, half-formed, and sprouting from the shared neck like a tumor. Both the buck and I stood still regarding each other, until a roar cracked the silence and set the animal running back into the forest. Something about the sound was nearly human, but far too loud, too primal. A massive shadow was moving between the trees on the other side of the clearing. It was fast, too fast to follow, but clumsy. Whatever it was,

the thing was big enough to shake the trees it bounced off of, and it was heading directly after the deer. I decided to head back to the tour group. When I turned around, however, there was something wrong with the trail. Most of it was gone. covered by bright green moss. I tried my best to navigate the quarter mile or so back to the reactors, but kept getting turned around. The mossy trail led me to another clearing, this one with an overgrown cave in the middle.

Everywhere around and above the cave opening was covered in the strange emerald fibers. The boy stood in the clearing. At least, I think it was the boy. The figure was taller, limbs long and bent, but the face was identical down to the piercing eyes. That was the moment that I realized that the color of his eyes and the color of the moss was the same eerie green. The boy or man or whatever was shirtless. I thought he was wearing

green pants at first, but when I got closer, I saw that it was moss covering him from naval down to nearly his ankles. He was gesturing for me to follow him into the cave. Absolutely not, strange moss man, I said, turning around to leave the clearing. There was another roar, startlingly close, and I decided to take my chances with the cave and the weirdo. The roar trailed off into what was unmistakably the sound of a human weeping, I whispered, scrambling after the man into the narrow opening. It was warm in the cave, and brighter than I expected. Everything had a green tint, like sunlight filtered through a bottle.

The moss was soft and uncomfortably smooth under my palms. I cursed when something on the ground cut my hand. When my blood hit the plant matter, it began to twitch. I crawled a little faster. The tunnel leading deeper into the cave eventually opened up into a wide, vaulted counter. It was bright inside the room, a glow coming off. off of the moss that covered every inch of rock around us. Part of me wished it was darker.

That way, I might not have seen the things buried in the moss. The cavern was full of people, dozens, maybe hundreds. They were jammed into the moss like living ornaments. Some were even pressed into the ceiling. The man had stopped in front of me. He turned back, face blank. And that's when I realized the second horror of the cavern. The bodies and the moss were all different sizes, but each had the exact same face.

The boy from the side of the street, the man from the clearing. There were hundreds of copies of the thing suspended all around me. The creature pointed to something on the floor of the cave, a green lump sticking above the moss. Feeling like I was trapped in some terrible dream, I walked towards the cluster. The top was open and curled inside the moss, was the skeleton of a child. The original boy, I guess. The skeleton was wearing scraps of decayed clothing. He must have been lying in the cave for years, maybe decades. Thick, thorny

vines threaded through the boy's ribs and spine and skull. What is the... My question was cut off, when strong hands wrapped around my throat from behind. The strength was unbelievable, unavoidable. I barely had time to struggle before I blacked out. The last memory I have of the cave is watching the vines begin to stir and slither like a pit of snakes as I fell forward. I woke up to the sound of Alina cursing in Russian. I was back at Chernobyl,

laying on the concrete in the shadow of a giant silo. The tour group was standing over me, all of their faces somewhere in the spectrum of concerned to confused, all except Alina, who was clearly torn between anger and terror. Why did you wander off? She asked. The forest is dangerous. What were you thinking? I sat up gingerly. There was a sudden flash of pain all along my arms and legs. I looked down and saw that my jeans and shirt were shredded in many places. The skin underneath raw and covered in small cuts.

I thought of the vines and the long barbed thorns. How did I get back here? I asked. Alina threw up her hands and shrugged. Then she launched into a tirade about the danger I'd put myself in, and the effect that me being hurt could have on the tour company and her personally. I wasn't listening after the first few words. I'd seen the man from the clearing standing at the tree line watching my group. Next to him was a new figure, bent over like an old man, with deep green eyes and my face.

It was my friend from the State Department who told me about the bear, well, bears, and elk and deer so big you couldn't fit one in the back of a truck. All of those animals, all of that sport, they were all unique and unlike anything else in the world. I'm telling you, Kevin, it's something. Something about Chernobyl. My buddy Chuck told me over drinks. The radiation has done some weird stuff to the animals. Our guys are sending in the wildest reports from the exclusion zone. How wild, I asked, trying to keep the excitement from my voice.

Bucks the size of horses, bears the size of tanks. There's freaking werewolves out there straight from fairy tales. Bigger than anything you've ever seen. Smarter and meaner, too. I was practically salivating as I finished my rum and coke. I could already picture the heads and pelts I'd collect, the photos I could show off. Me posed next to a dead brown bear the size of a train car.

Is it hard to get a permit? I asked. Impossible! It's Chernobyl! My heart sank into my stomach, ready to dissolve in the acid. But Chuck leaned forward grinning. Of course. The exclusion zone is a thousand square miles of forest and abandoned towns. I could probably set you up with a local guide that can help you out. Chuck, you're a prince among men.

The man winked. It's going to cost you naturally. Oh, it wouldn't be a proper safari if it was cheap. I was on a private plane to Kiev the next evening. The flight was smooth and simple. I spent the hours, either staring on. out the window or at some of the reports that Chuck provided me with. He had field agents all over Russia and Ukraine, but only a handful ever went into the exclusion

zone around Chernobyl. Their reports were promising. The forest around the old nuclear plant was apparently overflowing with game and wildlife. Even better, the ambient radiation resulted in an unbelievably high number of mutations. There were bucks with two heads, birds with three wings, links with organs on the outside that dragged in the snow. While I was excited, a few of the reports seemed too strange to be real. There were about 200 locals living in the exclusion zone, but some of Chuck's guys claimed they saw many, many more than that on occasion. I saw rambling witness accounts of clones and unnatural figures with glowing green eyes. I chalked all of that up to agents with fanciful imaginations and too much time alone in the woods.

The report that stood out to me the most was a creature designated Ursa Major. The animal was a bear, or possibly tiger, that several agents encountered in the exclusion zone. None of the reports went into detail because the meetings ended with the agent fleeing the area. Chuck told me a lot of his staff had also gone missing that year, with Ursa Major being the most likely suspect. The accounts couldn't even agree on the thing's size, though even the most conservative reports put the bear roughly as large as a loaded pickup truck,

while others said it was nearly the size of a small house. Either way, I was planning on turning Ursa into a wonderful rug for my vacation home. Chuck set me up with a local guide, and we didn't waste any time after I landed. We only stayed in Kiev long enough to load up supplies. Then the guide, Ivan, hired us a driver. Getting a permit to go hunting in the exclusion zone was basically impossible, but apparently bribing local officials to look the other way was

cartoonishly easy. We left our driver and set out through the forest around Chernobyl. Ivan carried a beat-up Soviet-era wooden rifle that looked like it was held together with electrical tape and Ivan's willpower. I brought a selection of tools for the general job, but ended up going with a custom Ruger chambered in a 30-30 Winchester. It was a sleek rifle, all black polymer and clean lines. The optics alone cost more than the average sports car. I tried showing the gun off to Ivan, but for some perplexing reason. I got the sense he wasn't impressed. The morning went beautifully. The reports were right about the high number of mutated animals. By lunchtime, I'd already bagged a deer with antlers growing out from its rib cage, as well as a five-legged

fox. We marked them on the map for later retrieval. I wanted to push deeper in the woods towards Chernobyl, but Ivan was skittish. He kept consulting a map and trying to steer me towards the east. What are you hiding for me, Ivan? I asked. Is there a locals-only hunting spot out west that you don't want to share? Why are you being cagey?

No secrets, he replied in broken English. Is danger. Locals do not go to this spot. Ivan pointed to a section of the map for emphasis. Well, friend, I think that's exactly where we should look next then. It took some convincing, a few threats, and finally the promise of a ridiculous bonus. But Ivan eventually agreed to take me where I wanted to go. After an hour of walking, I have to admit that I was having second thoughts.

This new section of the forest felt deeper than the last, disconnected, more primal. The trees were larger, many of them dripping with a peculiar green moss that looked sort of fuzzy. Ivan warned me repeatedly not to touch the moss or even get too close. The man kept looking back at her trail, pausing now and then to listen. The forest was never silent. There were constant, small sounds like insects buzzing, bird song, the wind crashing into trees. It was chilly but not unpleasant.

I felt quite zen, though Ivan appeared more and more anxious as the day progressed. At one point when we'd stopped for a rest, I thought I saw shadows deep in the woods around us. I counted nearly two dozen. They seemed human, utterly still, gathered in a ring around us. I couldn't make out much. An unusual shade lay over all of them to the point where they appeared to almost merge into the trees and moss. Lord, there was so much of that moss around us. Hey, Ivan, I whispered.

I see them. Do not acknowledge. Do not speak out. And do not follow, if any, beckon. They will leave us be soon enough. My guide was right. Within five minutes of appearing, the figures had faded back into the forest.

Locals, I asked, trying to keep my voice from cracking. In a way, that this keep moving. In addition to the bright green moss, I kept noticing unusual scratches on some of the tree trunks we passed. I guessed they were claw marks from fidgety badgers and wolverines.

But some of the cuts were quite high, and more than a few looked almost identical. If I squinted, I thought I could see a pattern or a symbol in the scratches. It reminded me of a key with an eye in the top loop. I pointed some of the marks out to Ivan, and he clutched his rifle a little tighter, and asked if I was ready to head back. I wasn't. About an hour after we'd encountered the locals, Ivan suddenly froze on the trail. What's up? I asked, glancing around at the thick woods surrounding us.

Listen, he hissed. I don't hear... Oh. Silence. It was silence as complete and perfect as the original quiet that covered the universe before being shattered by the infinite pop of the Big Bang. There was no bird song, no crickets. Even the wind seemed to have fled. Ivan My guide looked back at me Eyes big as buckshot holes Mouth agape inside his graying beard

Ivan whispered The must slowly begin to The rest of his words were swallowed up By a tree shaking roar that seemed to come from all around us The sound was so loud and close My ears began to ring as it faded However, I was able to still hear the way the roar turned into human sobbing.

Ivan ran. I followed. We stumbled together through the brush, dodging roots. Another roar crackled behind us. Then there was the ripping sound of trees taken out by the roots. Ivan looked back. I could tell by the look on his face that he saw something I didn't want to.

He started to say before several terrible things happened at once. The first was a rush of putrid air breaking over me. It was full of animal odor, rot and wilderness. Ivan was only a few feet ahead of me. I watched as a fur-covered limb the size of a playground slide shot past me and slapped my guide sideways.

Ivan smacked into a nearby pine so hard that I heard his spine snap in the impact. The indirect force of the blow also sent me tumbling. I scrambled to my knees and felt a scream bubbling up in my throat. Ursa Major was indeed a bear in the same way, a tango. is technically a vehicle. He, or she, was on all fours next to Ivan's twisted form. Even hunched over, the creature was gigantic, easily 30 feet from muzzle to tail. The bear was covered in patches of brown black fur and dirt, and even some of the green moss I'd spotted. The size and condition of the beast wasn't what left me paralyzed, though. Human parts sprouted from the bear,

arms and torsos and sunken faces ridged its back like half-buried corpses in a garden. A cluster of eyes on the animal's leg swiveled in my direction. A human arm attached to the bear's rib cage began to weakly reach towards me. Ivan was trying to crawl away from the beast, his legs trailing useless behind him. Help me, he begged. Help! I dropped my rifle when I fell, but it was close by. I began to reach for it, but stopped when I saw the human eye speckle.

across the bear tracking my movement. Help! Ivan whimpered, pulling himself inch by inch deeper into the forest. Slowly, casually, the mutant lifted a huge paw and began pressing down on my guide. Ivan shrieked as his torso crumpled, his ribs shattering like glass.

The bear stood up suddenly, then crashed back down. Ivan popped. Red bits of the man sprang across the underbrush. I ran. I didn't think to grab my rifle. I didn't think at all. Blind panic sent me sprinting ahead. I tried my best to block out the slurping sounds coming from behind me. The sun was setting when I emerged from the woods. Chernobyl lay in front of me, a gray sprawl of concrete, metal, and industrial buildings. I was exhausted and seemed to be alone, but I still couldn't stop shaking. I eventually dropped to my knees next to a building that was attached to a slim silo. When I glanced over towards the forest, the panic came back harder than ever. The bear was standing on the Chernobyl side of the tree lining staring at me. I was too tired to run, and I was sure it would catch me. I looked around for any place to hide.

The creature began walking towards me. It had a deep limp, but I knew how fast it could move when it wanted to. A low growl was building in its throat. I considered barricading myself in the small building nearby, but I didn't trust the door to keep the mind. I saw a narrow ladder leading up the silo and made my decision. The moment I started to scramble up the rungs, the bear roared and came running. I just made it high enough to avoid the creature's swipe.

Its claws gouged deeply into the silo's concrete side. The bear tried to climb up after me. Its bulk shaking the structure, but it couldn't lift its mass up the sheer stone. I struggled up another 30 or so feet before the ladder opened up to a metal edge. I collapsed, staring up at the darkening blue sky, the last light of the day draining into the horizon. It was full night before I could bring myself to glance over the ledge. The bear hadn't stopped roaring and making noises terribly close to human screams. I saw it keep trying to stand and drag itself up the silo towards me, but, for the moment at least, I was safe.

After a while, the bear sat at the base of the structure. It began to sob. Horrible. Human sobbing drifted up to me. The voice was unmistakably that of a little girl in tremendous pain. The cries cycled throughout the night. Sometimes they were male, sometimes female, old and young, heartbroken and terrified. Near dawn, the wailing transitioned into laughter. A dozen voices giggling together. I didn't get any sleep that night. The bear got quiet after sunrise, but I couldn't make myself look down until nearly noon. There was no sign of the creature. I waited another half hour, then slowly made my way down the ladder, looking for an indication that Ursa Major was returning.

I never saw the monster again. I was lucky to encounter a Chernobyl tour group outside of the main reactor building. The day and night I'd spent in the exclusion zone had left me rattled but otherwise unharmed. I flew home the next day. Chuck's been calling, but I haven't answered. I'm not sure what I'm going to tell him, or if he'll believe me, or if I even really believe what happened to myself.

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relaxed siroted booquin Oh, that also. And profite. Via Rae, the voice that we love. From the Journal of Dr. Adrian D. Mern, March 21st, 1992, Moscow, Russia. We can trace the cult of the Keys' roots back to pre-World War I Imperial Russia

under the rule of Tsar Nicholas II. Some in my field believe the cult may have even had a hand in overthrowing the monarch and the death of his family. While it's inarguable that Rasputin, the Tsar's longtime advisor and a mystic, was a member of the cult of the key. I found no direct evidence that they moved against Nicholas II, but I do understand why some of my colleagues like to link the events.

It's clear to all of us that the cult thrives in times of chaos and in places soaked in violence. Natural disaster, war, plague, All of these dark stains on human history call out to the cult of the key. When my contact across the border sent me a report indicating that the cult was converging on Chernobyl, I didn't doubt it for a moment. While the death toll from the nuclear meltdown six years prior

was minor compared to something like a world war, the damage done to the environment, to the very soul of the soil, was extraordinary. The land surrounding Chernobyl would be sick for generations. The reality there was thin, fragile. It was like an inch of eye separating the surface from an impossible depth. What the cult of the key is looking for on the other side of the ice, I do not know.

But I will find out. March 24th, 1992, Kiev, Ukraine. I think I'm being followed. I don't see how the cult could know that I am aware of their activity around the corpse of the nuclear reactor. But strange men with green eyes and identical faces watch me. I'm sure of it. My goal isn't to stop the cult of the key.

I simply... I need to know what they are doing. What worlds they are looking into? Even hundreds of miles from Chernobyl. I can feel a thinness in the air, the water. There's a pressure building around Chernobyl. The accident has left a stain that will fracture eventually. The cult hopes that it will break now,

But I suspect it might be a decade or two or three. When it does crack, I wonder what will come through. Or will it simply leave a hole that we all get sucked into? A raw wound in reality. A black hole. I'm heading to the exclusion zone around Chernobyl in the morning. My plan is to camp in Pripyat, the town that was abandoned when the plant began to spit radiation.

There are locals living in the zone, Some, I'm sure, are members of the cult of the key. I'll follow and watch, but I don't plan on trying to stop them from whatever they're doing. Melissa, I miss you every day. If there's some other world or afterlife, I know that you're there. You have to be. If you can be found, I promise I will find you. If they manage to open a door, I will walk through it.

March 27, 1992, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. I've been camping in the forest outside of the Pripyat for the last few days. I made contact with the local exclusion zone settlers almost immediately. They are, for the most part, scattered into small family groups and micro-villages. Already, I'm seeing signs of the cult's influence. The symbols are everywhere, if you know what to look for. tiny tattoos, markings above doors, scratches on trees, keys, always keys. The most intricate of the designs also include an eye above the key.

Those marks I've found in abundance all around the perimeter of Pripyat. I've engaged a local guide to show me the ghost town tomorrow. I can feel that something is happening around Chernobyl. We are approaching the anniversary of the initial meltdown, and the air seems swollen with heat and light. I truly believe that a gate might be about to open to another world. To heaven, perhaps. To Melissa.

March 28, 1992, Pripyat. I am a fool. My guide, Inessa, seemed kind, trustworthy, almost a little naive. She led me through the empty streets of Pripyat early in the morning, while fog still hung over the asphalt. We walked through the famous amusement park, all of the rides leaning over us like forgotten scarecrows, covered in rust.

When I asked Inessa if she'd seen any markings that resembled a key, she smiled and told me there were plenty under the town. She meant Pripyat's sewers. We climbed down deep into the underground. It was surprisingly warm, and there was a green glow that made it easy to see how empty and tight the space was. I had to hunch over as we walked through a tunnel. The source of the light became apparent soon enough.

Moss. Green moss carpeted the sewer, hanging from the ceiling, clogging the drains. Inessa rounded a corner ahead of me so quickly I lost sight of her. I sped up to follow, darting around the corner and nearly tripping on a patch of moss. I never saw who hit me. They must have been waiting against the wall. One moment, I was in the sewer, and the next I was waking up in a small sea. It seems the cult of the key knew I was following along behind them. They removed my knife and lighter and all of my cash, but did leave me my journal at least. Now all I can do is wait.

Late March or early April, under Pripyat. It's impossible to count the days down here. There is light from the moss, but it is dull, sickly, and never changes. I've been held prisoner by the cult for a few days or a week, or a few weeks. They feed me occasionally and provide water, but refuse to answer questions. The cultists are strange. They all dress in white and wear blank white masks. The only ornament that distinguishes any of them is what type of key they wear around their neck.

The larger and more impressive the key, the higher the cultist ranks within their hierarchy. That's what I assume, at least. I spend my day sleeping and waiting and writing down thoughts here only to tear out the pages and start over. It feels like I'm standing on the edge of a terrible cliff. Something is coming, and soon. I hear strange cries echoing through the chamber around the cells. I can't see much.

Only a blank wall opposite my enclosure. But there are times when it sounds like there are wild animals nearby. Not long ago, I heard what might have been a bear but soft, perhaps only a cub. The roar trailed off into sobbing, though. That, I am certain, was from a little girl. The only conversation I've had so far was with another prisoner several cells down. He's an English tourist visiting Chernobyl by the name of Robert. The man has managed to remain in good humor despite our circumstances.

He told me a joke recently. I think you would have liked it, Melissa. How do you get holy water? You boil the hell out of it. April. In my cell, rotting. The cult has failed. It's taken me several days to gather the presence of mine to write down what I saw.

I'm still not sure how much was real. I fear all of it was. The ordeal began when I was ushered out of my cell by two cultists, dressed in all white. I was led to align with six other prisoners, including Robert. We were taken to a massive chamber deep underground. Patches of moss lay in clusters all across the domed ceiling. They chained us in a circle in the center of the room facing outwards. Dozens of cultists gathered in the amphitheater around us,

sitting and chanting in a language I did not understand. A single cultist dressed all in black and twice as tall as any man. man I've ever seen stalked the circle around us, stopping every now and then to sniff at us prisoners. It stopped when it reached Robert. The chanting stopped as well. The tall cultist removed an object from his robes. I recognized it immediately as a piece of graphite. If the gray object was from Chernobyl, from one of the reactors, I could practically feel the radiation crackling off the material. Two white-robed cultists suddenly rushed forward to hold Robert. They choked him and then forced his jaw open wider and wider until I could

hear the tendons popping like bubble wrap. My formerly cheerful friend was trying to scream, but it only came out as a gurgle. His cries were further muffled when the cultist in black lifted the large graphite chunk high and then shoved it down into Robert's throat. The Englishman's eyes bulged, but the chains and cultists prevented him from reaching for his neck. He fell and began to convulse on the floor. His captors murmured, what sounded almost like a prayer above him, then began moving from prisoner to prisoner, repeating the process. Jaws were pulled open until they broke.

Radioactive graphite pressed into mouth so hard that teeth came out, and the men and women in the chamber began to die. I was determined to stay steady, to die with dignity. But when the cultists were nearly to me, I have to admit I lost my nerve. It would be such an ugly way to die. I began to tremble in my chains, helpless. Before my executors reached me, however, the chamber began to fill with an eerie green glow. The light from the moss was becoming more and more intense with each sacrifice.

An odor was flooding the room, the burning smell of scorched ozone that follow summer lightning storms. In the neon brightness of the moss, I saw mad shadows cast around the chamber. Terrible shapes and forms danced and snapped and seemed to push away from the walls towards us. There was a flash of light and a deafening crack. I fell and curled into a ball. The room was engulfed in agonized shrieks. The phenomenon lasted less than a minute, but it felt like a lifetime. When I finally worked up the courage to open my eyes,

I saw a room painted red by violence. Dozens of cultists lay dead and dismembered, a scattered pile of limbs and torsos. Many of the dead had lost their masks, revealing faces disfigured by mutation and radiation. A few of us prisoners still lived, as did perhaps a third of the cult. We were rushed out of the chamber quickly.

The great doors barred from the outside. Whatever ritual the cult of the key attempted that day, They clearly failed. It's been... I'm not sure how long it's been since the incident. I believe I've guessed the approximate date. Chernobyl suffered a meltdown on April 26th, 1986. The cult ritual was likely on the anniversary of the event.

I'm not sure why I'm still alive. Perhaps they are saving me to use as a sacrifice next year. It does not matter. I am familiar with the early signs of radiation sickness, the sunburn, the fatigue. I'm certain that my direct exposure to the graphite during the ceremony will kill me soon. It will not be a pleasant death, so I may try to conclude things myself sooner if I can devise a suitable method. I am scared, Melissa, and I am tired, but I take some measure of comfort in knowing that the cult's ritual has proven to me that there are other worlds than this.

I hope that I will find you soon, wherever your spirit wanders, and that we might be together again. Goodbye and see you soon. The Journal of Dr. Adrian D. Mearn was allegedly discovered in a Kiev thrift store in October of 2022. The contents were uploaded online via PDFs of scanned pages. The current owner of the diary remains anonymous.