Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - I used to sing in an exclusive boy’s choir. Today, I’m the only surviving member...

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

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Welcome to aboard Via Rai. Embarked and profite. Embarque and celebrate. Rigolet. Publiere. Savoyer. Admire.

Admirate. And profite. Viarai, the voice that we love. Dr. No Sleep. Hey, guys. I want to give a quick shout out to Samantha, Matt, and Rianan

for signing up to become Dr. No Sleep patrons. You three now have full access to my ad-free podcast episodes and bonus episodes. If you have you, like to receive access as well, check out my Patreon page at patreon.com slash DR No Sleep to sign up. The link is also in the description below. Now back to the story. Sometimes I still dream about

being on the stage, stuffed into starchy formal clothes, an itchy cassock, a heavy surplus, doing everything I could to avoid looking at my parents. Yet no matter what I did, I could feel their stairs. They only had eyes and ears for me. I was their miracle child with the heavenly voice. Our family's golden ticket out of poverty, if I could pull it off. My early childhood had been an endless parade of auditions, singing tutors, and choir practices, all with the goal of getting me into one of the world's most prestigious boys' choirs. I still remember the night that I finally exploded. I was only seven. after all, and the pressure had just become too much.

After they'd calm me down and bought me some ice cream, they parked in front of the spotless glass facade of the most expensive restaurant in town. It was sleeting that night, and our second-hand car's heat didn't work. But the people on the other side of that window looked contented and warm. You see that? My father turned around in his seat to glare at me. Envy had turned his eyes into wide white marbles. Do you know how you get in there? Do you?

You have to be the best, no matter what. If you're not the best, you're nothing. That's why we push you so hard. If you can impress those people, get close to them. Convince them that you're one of them. No cloud will ever darken your sky. Your life will be perfect. Otherwise, you'll be stuck out here.

Like us. Although it had been years since my parents immigrated to this country, they both still worked menial jobs with no hope of promotion. They didn't want that for me. They thought that if only I could rub elbows with them, those people in the dinner jackets with shiny cars and flawless skin, all my problems would be solved. I understand completely why they did it, but I still hated them for it. While other kids my age played sports or video games, I was bounced from one swanky hotel to another.

Jet lagged, painfully bored, sick of the strange food and the struggle to fit in, yet always expected to hit the perfect note. The choir directors told me I had the voice of an angel, but by the time I was 10, I was sick of singing. I'd performed in venues that many consider wonders of the world, from packed auditoriums to cathedrals and palaces, but all I wanted was a normal childhood. Not that any of that mattered to my parents. They didn't want to let something so insignificant as my feelings or happiness get in the way of my future.

But they didn't understand what the other boys in that exclusive choir could be like. Behind closed doors, the combination of boredom and family pressure made us all behave like prison inmates. We gossiped, plotted, and tormented each other just to have something different to do. A boy named Martin got the worst of it. It wasn't just that he wore a coke bottle glasses or that his parents were Jehovah's witnesses. It was how he reacted to the teasing. I'd never seen anyone cry so loudly or so hideously. When the chaperones came around to interrogate us after Martin squealed about his stolen underwear,

the magic marker drawings on his face or the cold water that had been dumped on him while he showered, none of us said a word. No one wanted to be next, especially me. After all, with my humble background and dark skin, the majority of the choir probably considered me the second most tormentable after Martin. Maybe he even sensed it somehow, and that's why he gave me the pamphlet. Apparently, Martin had been scouted for an even more exclusive choir. The pamphlet spoke of scholarships, a premier school, and access to the elite.

It was everything my parents dreamed of, and I need to show it to them as soon as possible. If Martin was going, I knew that I needed to get out of there too. Otherwise, I'd be the new target of all the cruelties and humiliations that a pack of bored repressed 10-year-olds could muster. I wasn't at all surprised when my parents insisted that I try out. The auditions would be held in a storied medieval cathedral as befitted such a top-tier organization. Maybe my parents were blinded by ambition, but in their defense, the offer looked very legitimate. Besides, choir parents weren't used to entrusting their children to well-bred strangers and sending them overseas with chaperones.

None of it seemed at all unusual, at first. Not until we met the man in the pale blue suit. He was the chief producer, a blondeish, 40-something white guy with a cold smile and even colder eyes. He introduced himself as Mr. Iberettus. I remember how Martin and I exchanged a worried look the first time. we saw him. But our parents were taken with his genteel manners and hinted at promises of social advancement. They were perfectly content to allow this charismatic man and two silent female chaperones to fly us anywhere in the world. Up until we entered the cathedral itself, everything

was normal. The plane, the bus, the hotel, the scolding of the chaperones, the tense feeling of bored excitement. There were 22 of us. all boys between the ages of 8 and 12, accustomed to performing for audiences of hundreds or thousands. Yet when we walked into that gloomy candle-lit cathedral, it was empty. One single ornate, high-backed wooden chair waited in front of the choir stand. We murmured to each other. Was this going to be a private audition? We'd been selected from choirs all over the world, and not all of us spoke English.

Apparently, Mr. Yiparetis had listened to all of us sing at some point, and the thought of those icy eyes judging me from the shadows made my skin crawl. If this was what being among the elite meant, I wasn't sure that I wanted it. As my eyes moved from one uneasy face to another, I had the sense that we all shared the same feeling, even if we couldn't express it. The air smelled like wet stone and was somehow cool. we shivered as Mr. Yiparetis gave us our instructions.

He explained that our surpluses and cassocks were waiting in the vestibule. Once we'd changed, it was very important that we wait for his signal before coming out again. He rang a tiny silver bell and explained that we were not to come out of the vestibule until we heard it again. Any boy who failed to follow his instructions exactly would be dismissed from the audition. He made it sound like death. The wood-paneled vestibule was cozy after the vast, chilling emptiness of the cathedral. As we changed, we nervously joked about Mr. Iperides's seriousness and stupid haircut. We whipped at each other's rears with our casics, argued about sports teams and a mix of languages,

doing everything we could to avoid thinking about this weird contest. A Vietnamese boy with big ears figured that we were on a Japanese. auditioning for some eccentric billionaire. Martin guessed that we were going to sing for the Pope. But the short African boy beside me wasn't so sure. He kept trying to peer out the door, just a bit, and was clearly unconvinced that Mr. Yipparetis was who he claimed to be. One crazy scenario after another occurred to me while I slipped on my cassock and surplus.

Maybe this was a trap set by terrorists who were going to burn us alive in this fancy wooden box. Maybe we were going to be kidnapped. Those and other, worse things that I'd only heard whispers of and didn't fully understand rushed through my mind. I stuck close to the African boy, who said his name was Ibrahim. Somehow, I felt safer with him by my side, peering through the gap in the ornate door, looking out for us. Suddenly he shut the door and turned back to me, his face, Ashen. I asked Ibrahim what he'd seen, but he just shut his eyes. tight and shook his head. The silver bell sounded. Draped in our uncomfortable, archaic robes, we shoveled out like cattle. There were the typical choir stand, sheet music already prepared.

There were the flickering candles, their dim light, unable to reach the gloom of the high ceiling. There was Mr. Eipuretis in his pale blue suit, standing with his hands clasped behind him like an orchestra conductor. And there was a crimson-robed figure sitting like a, a king and that high-backed wooden throne. We couldn't see hands or feet or a face beneath its hood. Just a darkness that attracted our eyes and made us want to look away at the same time. We all paused to stare at the strange sight, but a stern glance from Mr. Yiparetis got us moving toward our places. We were used to obeying and trusting adults like him, but in that moment, I realized that Ibrahim was right.

Mr. Yiparidis wasn't who he said he was. He wasn't the representative of any elite choir, and his silent female assistants weren't just chaperones. They were there for some other darker purpose. Mr. Yiparidis worked for the figure in the crimson robe, and that's why he was so tense, and why his charismatic smile had disappeared. Whatever was under there, he was afraid of it.

Ibrahim Martin and I each exchanged a glance that seemed to say, whatever happens, act normal. The first song we were to sing was D.S. Irey, the Day of Rath. The red-robed figure on the wooden throne didn't move as we warmed up to sing and didn't clap when we'd finished. It was a new experience for us, this uncanny audience of one, observing us from beneath a hood. The silence when we'd finished singing only intensified the sense of wrongness.

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I noticed that Martin had started to look around and panic for an exit, but there was only darkness. Mr. Yiparetis approached the figure in the throne, who held the long sleeves of the red robe to the sides of his head. Yiparidis seemed to shake with some kind of agony. A level of pain that adults usually tried to hide from children. but the red-robed figure didn't let go. It was only a couple seconds,

but it felt like an eternity to me, and I can't imagine how it must have felt for Mr. Iberettus. When he turned back to us, he looked somehow deflated. His blondish hair bedraggled, his pale blue suit hanging limply from his shoulders. With a weary hand, he rang the silver bell three times, pointing first at the big-eared Vietnamese boy, then at the gangly ginger boy behind me,

and finally at Martin, who couldn't get out of there fast enough. The three of them were dismissed to the vestibule, and Mr. Yiparetis turned to the next page of sheep music. La Cremosa, other songs that we'd sung hundreds of times in packed auditoriums around the world. The words sounded different, almost mocking, as they echoed back at us from the cold stone of the empty cathedral.

After each song finished, Mr. Yipparetis would approach the red-robed figure, receive his eerie benediction, then dismiss a few more of us back to the vestibule. With a silent ritual completed, the cycle began anew. Soon, there were more boys inside the vestibule than there were on the choir stand. I should have been able to hear whispers, giggles, and roughhousing from behind that tightly closed wooden door. I should have been eager to fail this creepy tryout and go join them. But it was quiet as a graveyard inside the vestibule. I realized that I was afraid to be dismissed,

afraid to find out what happened to the boys who hadn't made the cut. It was suddenly very, very important that I hit every note perfectly. All my life, I'd sung for someone else. My parents, the choir master, a faceless audience of snobs. Suddenly, however, I was singing for me, singing for my life. One by one, each boy was eliminated until only Ibrahim and I were left. There was only one song remaining. Kiriyei ison.

It meant God have mercy. We exchanged a nervous clobeson. Once as soon as we began to sing, a chill ran up my spine. I'd realized that whatever the prize was for this nightmarish contest, Ibrahim was going to win it. He sang from the heart. He probably didn't hit his notes any more precisely than I did, but he made up for it with sheer passion.

I remembered my parents' words, You have to be the best, no matter what. If you want the best, you're nothing. The tip of my polished shoe was barely touching the back of Ibrahim's choir robes. A quick tug backwards would probably distract him, and anyone watching would think that I was just shuffling my feet. With a quick jerk of my toe, I broke Ibrahim's concentration, and the effects were worse than I'd thought.

He choked up a bit, and his voice nearly cracked. I went on hitting note after note with smug satisfaction, confident that I'd won, even if the only prize was being allowed to leave the empty cathedral alive. Just as I'd imagined, Mr. Yipparetis rang his silver bell and gestured to Ibrahim even before the final note had ceased to reverberate among the distant rafters. The look that Ibrahim cast over his shoulder at me as he walked to the vestibule wasn't anger or malice, as I would have expected.

It was more like pity. Mr. Yiparretis beckoned me forward. He got down on one knee, grabbed my shoulders like I was the most precious treasure. You have the most beautiful voice, he gushed, then paused. And that's why your voice must be given to my master. I hadn't noticed the figure in the crimson robe stand up, but before I knew what was happening, I was being held in the air by my head. Six tendrils, each the texture and color of a fat slug.

had wrapped themselves around my head. Two more slithered into my ears, and another two went into my mouth, into my lungs. I must have blacked out, because when I opened my eyes, my cheek was pressed against the cold floor of the cathedral. The thing in the red robe and Mr. Ipparetis were gone. In my head I was screaming,

but no sound came out of my mouth. I ran to the vestibule, I only halfway glimpsed the bodies that lay scattered in their cassocks. like broken dolls. But I finally understood where the two female assistants had been all this time, cutting our throats one by one as we walked unsuspectingly into the darkness. I backed away from the sickening sight and fled past the empty pews toward the door. Weathered flagstones seemed to extend and twist beneath my feet. Inarticulate whispers hissed from the shadows high above.

It was long past midnight in the streets outside. The red glow of the stoplight made me think of the figure in the crimson robe and I had to grab my throat to stop from vomiting all over my shoes. I staggered around the foreign city helpless until a police officer found me. But when I tried to explain what had happened,

I couldn't, couldn't whisper, I couldn't even sing. My voice had been taken from me. Of course, there were investigations, but they were more like a cover-up. What happened to those other talented boys never appeared in any mainstream news outlet. We turned in the pamphlet and all the other information we add to the police. And when nothing came of their inquest, we had no proof of what had happened.

Nothing except for my missing voice. I've learned to live with it. The inability to talk. My parents shattered dreams. The nightmares. I could have gone on living with it too. if I hadn't heard my own voice recently. It sounded more mature, of course,

as I would have expected from the passage of years, but it was undeniably mine. My voice was still lovely and angelic, but it was coming from the mouth of an up-and-coming politician. In the recording I saw, he had a handsome face and gestured energetically with strong, well-formed hands, not a slug-like tendril in sight.

The thing in the crimson row must have found the other parts it was looking for.