Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - Some Men Will Do the Unthinkable for Revenge

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

🎧 Check out my True Crime podcast called Crimehub. Just search Crimehub in the search bar to find it. 🎉 Ad-free episodes + bonus episodes: https://www.patreon.com/drnosleep 🎥 YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/DrNoSleep ✅ Send all advertising inquiries to: [e-mail] Author: Matt Doggett Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/MatthewDoggettAuthor/ Website/Newsletter sign up: matthewdoggettauthor.com DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content. Parental guidance is advised for children under the age of 18. Listen at your own discretion. #drnosleep #scarystories #horrorstories #doctornosleep #truescarystories #horrorpodcast #horror Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The man's knee was digging into my right hand, keeping it pinned to the ground. His minty breath held undertones of a sour stomach smell. I realized he was chewing gum as the hilt of his knife pressed up against my skin, the blade sending waves of pain through my body as he wiggled it around, doing untold damage to my insides with the blade. How does it feel, baby? He said to me, smiling. I turned my head away and looked over at my wife,

who lay face down on our living room floor, another man on top of her, working at pulling off her pajama bottoms, without taking his weight off her back. I wanted to feel rage at that moment as my wife stared back at me, the look on her face one I'd never seen before. It was one of immense sadness, of disappointment.

But mostly, it was a look of fear. I wanted to experience a surge of adrenaline that would give me superhuman strength. I wanted to be a man from one of those action movies who, despite his wounds, jumps up and dispatches the criminals with Ruth, efficiency. I wanted to make my wife proud, but I couldn't. The energy was already draining from me, along with the blood, pouring out from around the knife blade embedded in my left side. I looked

beyond my wife to Seth, our nine-year-old son. He stood in the dining room entryway, looking with large, uncomprehending eyes at his parents, pressed against the floor by two strange men. A third man stood behind Seth, his hands placed on my son's shoulders, smiling down at the scene before him. None of the men wore masks. I was lucid enough to know what that meant for my wife and me. I just prayed they would leave my son alone. He didn't deserve this. We didn't deserve this. None of us did. The two assaulting me and my wife were white, whereas the one holding my shocked son still was Hispanic. All three of them looked to be in their 20s. They all wore dark winter coats and jeans that were tucked into their boots. Jennifer, my wife, had warned me, but I hadn't listened.

She'd come home hours earlier, around 5.40 that evening, scared out of her wits. I'd seen it on her face when she came into the living room, where Seth and I were watching a nature documentary. What's wrong? I asked. What happened? She dumped her purse to down just inside the living room threshold and marched to the front window, parting the curtains. They're out there, she said. They followed me home. Ooh, I said, getting up from the couch. These men, they were in the whole foods on ninth, three of them. They must have been drunk or something. I don't know. What happened? Jennifer took a deep breath and stepped away from the window. They were wandering around

inside the store, throwing stuff around, harassing people, and just being a general nuisance. I tried to keep my distance, but I wasn't about to let them keep me from shopping. So when I was getting some strawberries, they came up to me and started saying disgusting things, lewd remarks. Jenny's face twisted up into a sneer at the memory. After I don't know how long of this, I couldn't take it anymore, she continued. I yelled at them. I just lost it. I can't even remember what I call them. I call them. I can't even remember what I called them now, but it wasn't nice. I felt a fury ignited my veins. The same fury that men around the world surely experienced when someone harasses their woman. I wanted to turn back time,

to change the past, to be there in the store with her when this happened. Anyway, Jenny said, a couple of Whole Foods employees came up and escorted these three guys out. They didn't go easily. I thought for a moment they were going to start a fight with the employees, but the they didn't. Instead, they kept calling out to me, threatening me. Then they were gone. I thought it was over. But when I came out of the store, I noticed a dirty black Mustang sitting there one row over. I couldn't see in the windows, but something about the car just told me it was them. So I loaded up quickly and came home. But they followed me, David. They followed me here. I stepped up to the and parted the shades, looking out to the dark street.

There was a black Mustang idling at the curb across the street. Driven by that fury still rolling inside me, I rushed to the entryway closet and groped around inside until I found the baseball bat we kept there. I ran out the front door of the house, hearing, but not really hearing Jenny's protests. The cold January evening enveloped me. But the rage kept me warm as I stormed across our small front yard,

gripping the baseball bat in one white-knuckled hand. I wasn't sure whether I would knock on the window and tell the men to get out or just go straight to bashing their car. It probably would have been the former, but I never had a chance. The black Mustang roared off down the street before I could reach it to do anything. I stood in the road, watching the taillights fade off in the distance and then disappear from view as the vehicle turned right on Polar Avenue. I headed back inside, feeling good that I'd scared them off. I made sure to lock the front door behind me. We had dinner and put Seth to bed, but I could tell that Jenny was still worried. Maybe we should call the police, she said to me as we were getting ready for bed. They wouldn't do anything, I said. They just tell

us to call if they came back. When it came to matters of the police, Jenny usually took my word as Bond. Over my years as a journalist, I'd come to know police operations. pretty well. Well, she said, maybe we can stay at a hotel tonight, just pack a few things and go. Jenny, I said, looking at her over my toothbrush,

newly adorned with toothpaste. I have the alarm set. All the doors and windows are locked. We'll be fine. I just, I have a bad feeling. You're scared. It was a scary thing. That's normal.

But you're safe now. We're safe now. The words replayed through my mind as I lay on my living room floor with a gum-chewing murderer on top of me, my blood soaking the carpet beneath me. They had come just after midnight, and they had knocked, or at least one of them had. While I stood at the front door in my robe, asking who it was and what they wanted, one of them was at the back door. I only knew this when they broke one of the small square window panes and opened the back door,

causing the alarm to beep for a code. I swiped up the baseball bat from next to the front door and ran to the back of the house. But I wasn't careful. I was stupid. One of them was just inside the doorway to the kitchen, pressed up against the wall, waiting for me. He took advantage of my momentum,

sticking a foot out as I went by. I didn't fall, but I stumbled forward, which gave him enough time to come up behind me and press a knife blade to my throat. The Hispanic man came in through the back door, and rushed off into the house, smiling as he passed me. He had a large knife of his own. I heard him open the front door, letting the third man into the house.

Put the goat in. The man with a knife to my throat said, pointing me at the alarm keypad by the back door. No, I said. He snickered. If you ain't, I'm gonna hurt you if you don't do it. My friends just went up to find your hot-ass bitch wife. She'll get God if you don't put the fucking coat in. And if you put in any distress code bullshit, you'll all die when we hear the sirens. You got any kids?

Judging by the groceries your bitch wife bought, I bet you do. You want your kids to die too? I put in the code. I wish I hadn't. I wish I had let the alarm go off. It would have sped up the process. It would have turned a torture murder session into just murder. Better yet.

I wish I had called the police right when they started knocking at the door. door. I knew who it was, and I knew it was trouble, but I thought I could handle it. The man forced me to the living room and held me there, while the other two men brought Jenny and Seth down from upstairs. I tried to make a move, but the man holding me brought the knife down and sliced a deep groove in my right pectoral. He hit me in the side of the head, and I went down hard on the carpet, landing on my back, my left arm under me. Jenny screamed, which got her a hit in the head from her captor. She fell to the floor, face down. Seth cried out, but the Hispanic man slapped a hand over his mouth. The world went fuzzy with pain for a few long moments, but it came

back into sharp focus as the man pierced the skin under my rib cage with his knife. You should really get yourself a gun, the gum-chewing murderer said as he pulled the knife out of my side. Baseball bats only work on punks. I turned my head to see that the man on top of my wife had managed to get her pajama bottoms and underwear off. Her eyes were wrenched shut. Nobody talks to me like you did, the man on top of her said. This is what you get, you uppity bitch. Beyond this terrible sight, the Hispanic man led Seth out of the room, saying, You don't want to see this little man. Time to go to sleep. I wrenched my right hand back as hard as I could, trying to free it from under my captor's knee. It moved, shifting the ball of his knee

from the back of my palm to the back of my fingers. I bucked, trying to throw him off of me, and then yanked my right hand again, pulling it free. I swung it up in a clumsy punch, which landed just under the gum-chewers' jaw. It wasn't much, but it was enough to knock him off balance, which allowed me some movement. I pulled my left arm out from under me, but it was near useless, thanks to the lack of circulation. Taking another shot, I punched for the middle of the man's throat, but missed the mark, causing my fist to glance off his neck. again and I sat up, moving as fast as I could to stand up. The guy was faster. He swung his knife down and stabbed me just above my left collarbone. He pulled the knife out and hit me with a hard

left, knocking me back down again. You good, Mason? I heard the man on my wife ask. I'm good. Mason, the gum-chewer, said. He's done. Let's get started on the bitch. That name hung in my mind as consciousness seeped away from me like blood from a gaping wound. Mason. His name is is Mason, I thought, and that darkness was all. I awoke in a hospital room, dull winter sunshine streaming through the window. Jenny, I said to the empty room as understanding came to me. Seth? My heart was suddenly racing, the last waking memories running through my head. The machine next to me started beeping, adding an auditory facet to my delirium,

causing my heart to beat even faster. Jenny? I called. sat? I threw aside the hospital bed covers and moved to get out, pausing his pain in my head, my left side, and my upper chest screamed at me to stop. The door to my room opened, and a nurse rushed in. It's okay, Mr. Vans, she said. You're okay now. Please, lie back down. You've been in surgery, but you're okay now. Where are they? I screamed at her. Where are my wife and son? I, I don't know, Mr. Vans, I don't know. You'll have to talk to the police when they come back. They should be here soon. Until then, I need you to lie back and try to relax. I gritted my teeth as the nurse guided me back down onto the bed with a firm hand. She was an older woman, streaks of gray and her fading brown

hair. Is Seth okay? I said softly. The nurse just shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. Oh, God. They killed him. I said, crying. He killed him. I descended into a place deep inside, going so far down that I didn't even notice when the nurse left. It was a place surrounded by the scenes that, to me, had only happened moments before. It was a place no man should ever have to go. A dark, swirling, chaotic place full of fear, regret, and hate. So much hate.

But like a man freezing to death feels warm just before. dies, I found solace in that dark place, and I knew I couldn't survive without its relative protection. I only came back to the surface when the police showed up to tell me what I already knew. Those men had killed my wife and son. They'd left me for dead. Is there anything you can tell us about these guys other than their descriptions? One of the detectives, a short, stocky man with curly hair asked, did you hear a name? by chance. No, I said. His name is Mason, I thought. I didn't hear any names. That wasn't the first time the police came to talk to me. The same two homicide detectives came back again when I was in

the physical therapy portion of my recovery. They asked the same questions and got the same answers. The thing about going to that deep, dark place inside is that it's full of misery, but it's also a place of freedom, in a sense. The freedom from the bounds of morality. If you stay in that place long enough, you start to forget what morality even is. And I never left that place. I stayed there throughout the weeks of recovery, through the funeral arrangements, the meetings with lawyers, and the excruciating experience of coming home for the first time since the murders. I couldn't stay in the house. It was too much. So I got an extended stay suite and got to work on my plan to find Mason and his pals. My editor, Jerry Fans, was surprised to see me when I came in on a

Tuesday, four weeks after the assault. David, he said, standing up from his desk as I walked into his office. What are you doing here? I've sent you two emails, Jerry, I said, requesting information about those three stories I did last year. I didn't get a response, so here I am. Well, Jerry said defensively. I just didn't think that was the kind of stuff you should be focusing on right now. What do you want them for anyway? I've been thinking about them, Jerry. It's giving me something to do.

I always wanted to do a follow-up. You remember that. Besides, they're my stories, my notes. I just need access to the archives. All right, you got it. If you think it'll help, it's no problem. I do think it will help, Jerry. I said, fine, good. I'll send you a link now. Take whatever you want, I said, and stood there waiting

while Jerry sat down at his computer and sent me the link in an email. I verified the access on my phone and then walked out of his office without another word. The notes I was looking for were from a three-part series about supposed paranormal happenings surrounding a strange cult in the city. It wasn't the first time I'd cover things of that nature. In fact, in recent years, there had been an uptick and unexplainable phenomena involving people that had direct and peripheral ties to the cult. I covered crime and, when the stories came up, things like exorcisms, hauntings, and other supernatural happenings. Most of them had reasonable explanations, but not all of them. On my way out of the building, I scanned the notes, picking

out the names and factoids that I needed. With that done, it was time to find Mason. Given my connections in the police department, the combination of the black Mustang, the name, and the fact that the guy likely had a record, I didn't think it would be a problem. And it wasn't, but finding out where he lived was only the beginning of my plan. Let's go out tonight, Mason, have some fun, Edie said. I'm so fucking bored. No, I said. How many times do I have to tell you? We got a late low for a while.

Come on, man, Gabriel said. It's been two months already. If the guy had anything on us, we would be in jail by now. Too fucking bad, I said. We're not doing anything illegal until things cool down some more. Besides selling dope, Petey muttered. The fuck you say? Nothing.

Yeah, that's what I thought. selling dope is different it's how we put food on the table it's what keeps us in this nice house i said gesturing around at the living room i was lounging in a recliner while pety and gabriel were sitting on the leather couch the big screen tv was turned to some movie channel the volume on low well that's what we're saying mason gabriel said food is important but so is getting some snatch i'm about to go crazy if i don't get me some Besides, Pedy said, you're the one that didn't make sure the guy was dead. Well, how about this? I said, how about I take my connect and do my own thing,

leaving you fuckers to find your own supply of dope to sell. Damn, man, we're just bored as all, Pedy said. No need to get all crazy on us. I'm so sick of your bitching, I said. That's all you pussies have been doing lately. Bitch, bitch, bitch. You sound like fucking women. in. Neither man had anything to say about that, but I was still fuming. Go get me a beer, Gabriel,

I said. Gabriel scoffed, but got up off the couch and headed to the kitchen. In preparation for the beer, I took the piece of gum out of my mouth and put it in the ashtray on the table next to my recliner. A crash sounded from the kitchen. What the fuck you doing in there? Petey called, laughing. You fall down? There was no answer aside from a grunt. After a moment, a soft scuffling noise came to my ears. I looked over at Petey, seeing immediately that he was thinking the same thing I was. We both got up quickly, moving hesitantly toward the hallway leading to the kitchen. Wait, I whispered to Petey.

Grab your gun. He nodded and headed over to his bedroom just off the living room, while I tracked back to the table next to my chair, swiping my knife up. We reconvened in the hallway and made our way down it quietly. We stopped at the closed kitchen door and listened. The scuffling sound that had been so loud earlier was fading away. Someone exhaled on the other side of the door, and then there was nothing. I held three fingers up.

Pedy nodded. I dropped one finger, then another, and then the last. We burst through the door to find Gabriel sprawled on the floor in the kitchen. His neck sliced open so wide, his head was barely attached to his body. A pool of blood crept out along the London. an olium floor around my friend's body. A man stood a few feet away from Petey, knife in hand. He wore a long-sleeved plaid shirt, buttoned up to his neck. His dark jeans had bloodstains at the knees from where he'd been kneeling, working to kill Gabriel. He raised his head

and looked at us as we came in. Pedy fired, hitting the man high in his chest. He dropped the knife in his hand and went down to his knees, putting one hand up to the bullet hole. Holy shit, it's you, I said. You really thought you could come in here and kill us all? You motherfucker! Petey yelled, stepping up to the man and jabbing the pistol against his head. You killed Gabriel! Wait, I said, trying to calm Petey down. Just wait a minute. Don't you recognize this pussy? Petey looked up at me. I know who the fuck he is and I don't care. He killed Gabe. This is the guy whose bitch wife thought she could put us in our place. This is the guy who thought he could threaten us with a baseball bat. So fucking what? Pee-D said.

So what? So what? This is the one that got away, my friend. And here he is, like a bird set free, only to come back, looking for something he'll never find. So we're going to take our time with this fucker for Gabriel. I stepped around Gabriel, avoiding the blood, and knelt next to the man, noticing that his lips were moving.

I could barely hear the whispered words, and what I heard didn't sound like English. think praying is going to help you now? I asked, smiling. The man jerked out at me, growling. I shot my right hand out, hitting him with the butt of the knife. Then I shoved him to the floor on his back. Well, this is familiar, isn't it? I said, straddling him, putting my knees on his hands and my left hand to his neck. He glared up at me. His eyes shining was something I couldn't quite place. I don't know how you survived the last time, but you sure as fuck won't this time, I said, pressing the point of my knife to a spot under his ribs. This is where I did it last time, right? I asked.

Looking down at the knife, poking into his plaid shirt, let's see how you do the second time around. I plunged the knife up under his ribs, reveling in the pain I was causing and the convulsing that shook his body. I moved the knife around inside him a little, smiling as he grunted in agony. What the fuck, man? Edie said from behind me. He's smiling.

I brought my eyes up from the knife to look at the man's face. Sure enough, he was smiling. He was looking me right in the eyes and smiling, and his lips were still moving. I pulled the knife out and then plunged it in again at a spot a few inches to the left, still looking at his face as I did it. The man was still smiling, still whispering.

I squeezed his throat with my left hand, willing him to show me pain and fear, but he still smiled. Before I knew what he was doing, Petey stepped around, pointed his pistol down at the guy's head, and pulled the trigger. So close to my head, the sound was deafening.

The cartridge ejected and bounced off the cabinet, hitting me in the arm. What the fuck, man? I shouted up at him, my ears ringing. It wouldn't stop smiling, Petey said, looking down at the still smiling dead man. I don't like that. Well, now we have his brains to clean up

and a fucking bullet hole in the floor. Yeah, Petty said. Sorry. I got up and grabbed a stained kitchen towel, then placed it over his face. I wasn't about to admit it, but I was relieved that Petey killed the man. The towel now hiding his face, I went through his pockets, finding nothing but car keys. He hadn't even come with a gun, just a knife. A knife to kill all three of us. I shook my head. Let's get this cleaned up, I said. It's going to be a long night.

Luckily, our neighbors know how to mind their own business. We got the guy and Gabriel into large black trash bags, one down over the head, and another coming up to meet it from the feet. We duct tape the trash bags together, using nearly half a roll to ensure that blood didn't leak out of the bags. Then Pedy and I moved the bodies out to the backyard, setting them next to the house until we could get rid of them properly. We headed back inside to clean up the considerable amount of blood left behind by the two

men. Ah, what the hell, man? I said to Petey as we walked inside. You walked through the guy's blood? No, I didn't, Petey said, stepping through the back door. Well, it sure as hell wasn't me, I said, gesturing at the puddle of blood, left by the man I'd killed. There were bloody footsteps leading away from it, back toward the living room. Do I look like I'm barefoot to you? Pedy said. He was wearing his boots, and the footprints had been made by someone with bare feet. Maybe the guy had a friend with him, I said, whispering now. Get your gun out and follow the footprints. I'll go the other way through the dining room and meet you at the stairs.

Petey was staring at the footprints on the floor, not moving. Hey, I said, hitting him in the arm. You hear me? Yeah, yeah, he said, pulling out his pistol. I picked up my knife from the floor and wiped the blood off it with a paper towel. Then I headed out of the kitchen and into the dark dining room. moving slowly. We never used the dining room for eating, or for much of anything but storage. There were boxes stacked against the walls, an old punching bag that Petey had bought but never set up,

and a number of other odds and ends that were put there and forgotten about. It was dark in the room, the only light coming from the kitchen behind me. I decided not to turn on the light, knowing that it would give me away to whoever was in the house, as I was about halfway through the dining room, something moved in the darkness opposite me. I turned my head quickly, seeing the dark silhouette of a giant spider racing toward me. I cried out and slashed at it, my blade touching nothing but air. One of the thing's legs struck out at me, throwing me two feet back into the wall. I fell down to my knees and scrambled toward the doorway to the entryway, where Petey was supposed to meet me. I rounded the corner and saw Petey's feet near the stairs.

Where is he? Petey asked, looking down at me. Did he attack you? In there? I gasped. It's in there. Petey leveled his gun and stepped over to the doorway, then pivoted into the room. After a moment, he turned on the light. There's nothing here, man. I'll check the kitchen.

No. I said, standing up, I still had the knife in my right hand. It wasn't a person, I said. It was a spider or something. A spider? Are you kidding me? Get it together, Mason. You check upstairs.

I'll check the kitchen. Pedy walked over into the living room and headed toward the kitchen. I stood at the foot of the stairs, convincing myself that my imagination was to blame for the spider, even though I could still feel the pain from the hit. I started up the stairs toward the dark second floor, moving slowly. A large and deformed figure with shiny black skin scurried across the top of the stairs and out of sight. I froze. What the fuck is going on here?

I whispered, backing down the stairs. Moving through the living room, I rushed down the hallway toward the kitchen, opening the door to see Petey standing just inside the doorway, is back to me. His arms and head were slumped forward, as if he'd fallen asleep standing up. The puddles of blood on the kitchen floor were still there. But now, there were footprints tracked all around the kitchen. Many of them were human prints, but there were also hoof prints, paw prints, and some strange triangular prints that I didn't recognize.

Pedy? I said. Petey's head came up slightly, and he turned around. His eyes were pure white, and his lips had been cut through the cheeks, giving him a terrifying, bloody grin. I cried out as he stepped toward me, bringing my knife up, and stabbing him in the chest three times in quick succession. Petey shouted, and suddenly his face was normal again. What the fuck? He said, looking down at the shallow wounds in his chest, he brought his gun up, and I knew he meant to shoot me with it. So I stepped in close and jammed the knife into his throat with my right hand,

grabbing his gun with my left. I pulled the blade out. Blood spewed out of the wound and onto my shirt. Petey looked at me with wide eyes, betrayal written all over his face. He stumbled and fell, adding his own blood to the mess on the kitchen floor. Sensing movement behind me, I dropped the knife and transferred Petey's gun to my right hand. I spun around and saw a man standing behind me. The same man, P.D. had shot in the head barely 15 minutes earlier.

He smiled at me, not a wound visible on him. His shirt was intact, and he wasn't bleeding where I'd stabbed him. I raised the gun and fired at him, blinking my eyes at the shot. In the split second it took me to blink, the man had disappeared. No! I said, you're dead. I just saw you die. Laughter echoed through the house, sending chills up my spine. I turned around and ran for the back door, tripping over. over Pedy's body and falling into the puddle of Gabriel's drying blood. I scrambled up and outside.

Sure enough, both tightly wrapped bodies were there where we'd set them. But I still had to see. I had to. So I ripped open the black plastic bag over the smaller body's face, revealing the dead man whose wife thought she could fuck with us and get away with it. He was still there, still dead, and still smiling, although his eyes were closed. But the plaid shirt collar had come down past his collarbone, revealing the top of a strange tattoo. My brows furrowed at the strange symbols. He didn't seem like the type. So I ripped down the length of the bag, tearing the duct tape around his abdomen and waist.

I unfastened the top few buttons of his shirt, revealing black tattoos covering his upper chest. I ripped his shirt, popping the rest of the buttons off. His whole abdomen was covered with black tattoos of strange symbols, pictures, and words. They all looked fresh, too. no more than a couple of weeks old. The strangest ones were around the two stab wounds I'd inflicted. There was a large black oval tattooed under the man's ribs there,

running at a diagonal from just below his shoulder plexus down to his side. The inside of the oval was blank, aside from the two stab wounds. The outside had a bunch of tiny symbols etched around the border. It was like he'd either had the first stab wound commemorated with the tattoos, or he'd known that I was going to stab him there again. just like I did the first time in his house. What the fuck? I said, standing up from his body.

I looked around the yard, sensing that something wasn't right, but seeing nothing out of the ordinary. When I turned back around, the man's body was gone, the empty trash bags lying there next to Gabriel's body. Sucking in a breath, I spun around to run back inside and came face to face with the man. His cold hands grabbed my shirt and pulled me close to his smiling face

and his still closed eyes. I fought to get away, pushing and hitting him, but he was as immovable as a statue. When our faces were only inches apart, his eyelids shot open, a sickly light spilling out of the sockets. I screamed at what I saw there because I saw myself. I tried to look away, but I couldn't.

The images pulled me in until I felt like my very essence was being robbed, ripped from me, raped, and abused. And the longer I watched the, images shooting out of the dead man's eyes, the more I realized that they weren't just images. They were real, and they were happening to me. My limbs were broken and chopped off, but I couldn't experience the relief of losing consciousness. I couldn't go into shock and die. I couldn't escape the pain and the fear. Tiny knife blades were shoved into my eyes again and

again while my skin was torn off in strips, salt, and acid poured into the wounds. My genitals were ripped off my body by massive black hounds. only to reappear and have it done all over again. When one form of torture stopped, another one started. The only breaks were to allow me to experience some fleeting relief, to get my hopes up, only to have them dashed again. And the whole time, through everything, the smiling man was there with me. He was snapping my limbs, stabbing my eyes,

and commanding the dogs to attack. And he was laughing the whole time, somehow laughing without moving his lips. He would laugh while he reminded me why I was here and why I would experience nothing but pain for eternity. He reminded me as if I could ever forget. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew this man figured out how to bring me to a place I'd never believed in.

He managed to drag me to hell, and there was no escape.