Snook - Strange Stories From Reddit

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

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Hey, what's up guys and welcome back to another Reddit stories video. And today we've got some strange stories from Reddit. And these are strange and scary and a little bit spooky, but they're fun to read and fun to listen to if you like scary stories. And these stories are perfect to listen to if you're sleeping, studying, relaxing, or just want to listen to some strange stories from Reddit. And I appreciate you all stopping by. And before we get into the video, please like the video and subscribe to the channel. It's the channel's called to be a 500,000 subscribers. and I think we can do that kind of soon, so please subscribe to the channel.

And all right, without further ado, let's get into some strange stories from Reddit. A Strange Family Rented My Basement When my mom and dad retired, they got themselves a house in Greece, leaving me to care for the family home on my own. I didn't mind. It was better than trying to buy something on my own. Still, a two-story home for a single man in his early 30s, that's a bit much. I lost my job during the pandemic and with prices on the rise, I decided to start renting out parts of the space I wasn't using.

There was enough room upstairs to house at least a couple of college students and a spacious basement for another. Just this large one-room basement that basically covered the entire underside of the building, supported by these thick concrete beams. It wasn't the kind of place I'd usually consider renting out, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to offer, as long as I was honest about the state of things. I spent a good month just preparing the spaces,

clearing out the upstairs and moving things from the basement to a long-term storage facility. At first, it looked like we had some water damage to deal with, but it turned out to be a false alarm. All in all, it was shaping up to be a pretty painless transition, and the rent would keep me afloat until I could get a proper job. I put out an ad on a couple of socials, one for the upstairs space,

larger enough to support at least a couple of people, and then the basement. I wasn't really sure about the basement, but I included a few pictures and hoped for the best. The price was cheap, too. cheaper than it should be, I guess. I got a few applications for the upstairs space, but most of them were either really short-term or started arguing about the price.

One guy just showed up and tried to walk straight in without calling first. It was a weird time. I didn't get any calls about the basement, though, so I figured I'd just screw that up. It was early October when I had heard the knock. The classic, da-da-da-da-da-da kind of knock. I hurried to open. still browsing job openings on my phone and chewing on a piece of cold pizza from the prior night. It's hard to explain how surprised I was to see what I saw.

Most other applicants had either been young guys or college girls. What was now standing in front of me was a family of four, a mother and father, both in their mid-forties, and two young boys ranging from 10 to 14 years old. The mom had this autumn-colored cotton dress with a little ribbon, and the dad had this fancy black overcoat, a white shirt with a red tie. Both kids were dressed up in identical blue shirts.

At first, I thought they were there to try and convert me to something. I could easily imagine them with a set of Bibles, instead of the dad set forward. Offering me a handshake, I accepted. Hi there, he said with a warm smile. We're the Walters. We're here about the ad. Oh, uh, hello, I answered.

It might get a bit crowded, but you're free to have a look. sorry about the, uh, I vaguely gestured to my unprepared state, but the dad just shook his head. Not at all. Hope we're not imposing. I invited them inside, and they went right past the stairs. I figured they just missed it. Excuse me, I said. It's right up there.

Oh, we know, smiled the mom. We're here about the basement. So there's this long wooden staircase that spirals into the basement. It's one of the main reasons I don't like going down there or furnishing the place. That spiral makes it almost. impossible to bring things down any proper furniture. It's infuriating, but all four members of this picture-perfect family stepped down, all composed. They were courteous and respectful with just the polite amount of excitement, but I got the sense that there was something just off about them.

The dad brought out some measuring tape and started checking the walls. They asked me about the lack of windows, the air quality, their ability to bring down some furniture and put up some light fixtures. I agreed to all of it. I still couldn't believe they were actually considering it. This was clearly not a space meant for a family of four, and they gave the impression that they were pretty well off. There was no reason for them to rent a space like this. Still, as they finished their inquiries, the mother approached me. Would you mind stepping upstairs and just walking around a bit? she asked, we'd like to see how much sound carries through. A strange way to ask for soundproofing, but I did as she asked.

I got up the stairs, put on my heaviest boots, and just wandered around for a bit. After a couple of minutes, I turned the corner, only to see all four of them standing in the hallway. Picture perfect as always, all with a big smile on their faces. We're very pleased, the mother said, we'll take it. They signed a six-month rent agreement, and I got to know them a little better off the next few weeks, as they sporadically dropped by there was Delilah, the mother. Anders, the father, the kids were Aden, who was 12, and Alvin, who was 13. Apparently, they were in between housing and wanted something small and cheap in the interim. Despite all that, I couldn't shake the feeling that a basement was a strange

choice for them. Still, I needed the money, and they were eager to get it done. They even offered to pay a little extra since they were bringing in more people than I'd had anticipated. About a week later, they showed up for the official move in. Lila and Anders insisted on bringing in everything in themselves and that I shouldn't be bothered with any heavy lifting. Apparently, just letting them stay there was a favor enough. They brought in about a dozen pieces of furniture covered in blue tarp in various sizes, along with a dozen or so large cardboard boxes, none of them marked. They put down several hand-woken carpets, the kind you'd seen in a large mansion. Lela was a stay-at-home mom, while Anders worked as some kind of security manager for a nearby airport. He worked on hours, anything from

12-hour shifts to all-nighters, and everything in between. He was also on call for most hours of the day and sometimes had to leave with short notice. It was strange, though. One might think a person like that would need space with good cell coverage. But that basement barely had a single bar. There was Wi-Fi, but it was spotty at best. For some reason, none of this seemed to bother them. That first week to living with the Walters was not a problem. Most of the time I forgot they were even there. I only saw them leave the basement a handful of times, and they didn't make any noise. And most I could hear them stomping up or down that creaky old staircase a couple of times,

but that was mostly Anders heading to work. In fact, I never saw Aden and Alvin leave for school. I figured they were being homeschooled, further pushing the idea that this family might have some kind of religious background. Still, they were hardly an issue. I was still working hard on finding someone to rent the upstairs, but I was having no luck. I had considered lowering the price, but after the Walters moved in, money was becoming less of an issue. Anders even suggested that I applied for a job at the airport.

He knew one of the HR people looking for hires in various departments. Having been jobless for five months, I was willing to try pretty much anything. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that they weren't telling me the whole story. I kept coming back to one thought, what the hell were they even doing down there? Once I decided to get a better look at what they'd done with the place. At that point, I hadn't even seen how they decorated it. It was in the middle of the afternoon, and I had no idea whether they were even down there or not.

Their car was gone from the driveway. I knocked a couple of times, and when there was no response, I used my key to get down. As I turned the corner, it was deathly quiet and completely dark. I turned on the lights. They all slept in these basic single beds, all spaced out along the easternmost wall. They had a small love seat couch, along with a couple of basic plastic chairs facing a thick old TV placed against the wall. There was an empty bookshelf and a couple of scattered carpets along the floor. I could see a few open boxes.

There was a bathroom next to the staircase, but it looked unused, no toothbrushes or anything. It took me a few moments to realize that I wasn't alone. The entire family was standing in a line along the southernmost wall, furthest away from the staircase. They were standing in order of size from tallest, remaining perfectly still, just looking at me. It wasn't until they noticed me, seeing them that they reacted. They all looked up at me, putting on a friendly smile.

Can we help you? asked Lila. I hope we didn't make too much noise, continued Anders. The kids just nodded in unison. I took a good look at them, but I couldn't figure out. out what I was looking at. I had no explanation for the behavior. Sorry, I was just going to check the water pressure. I lied. I tried knocking. That's all right, smiled Anders. Go right ahead. Walking back up the stairs, a thought hit me. If they were all down there, why was their car gone? Who'd taken it? I had a number of strange interactions with them over the next couple of weeks. For example,

I once found Aden, the younger of the two brothers, standing in the kitchen. He wasn't doing anything in particular, just standing there, staring at the spice rack. When I asked him about it, he said he wasn't doing anything. After a while, he turned on his heel and ran back downstairs. I didn't see it, but I heard his little feet thumped all the way down the staircase. Another time I saw Lila standing in the open doorway, leading to the basement. She was just standing there, hand on the doorknob, looking right at me. I said, hello.

and she said it right back. But she wouldn't let me out of her sight. When I finally passed from her view, I could hear her running back downstairs. Not just hurrying, running. Another time I saw Anders in the car out on the driveway, I saw him from the upstairs window just sitting there, hands on the steering wheel,

for a good 15 minutes, no radio or nothing, just him alone in the car. But the strangest interaction came one night when I was going to the kitchen to get a Coke. I spotted Lila standing in the kitchen fridge wide open. I could see her silhouette illuminated by the fridge bulb. Her long black hair, wet from a fresh shower, standing in a hastily tied bathrobe, her feet bare. At first I didn't see anything strange.

She was just standing there. She wasn't getting anything. It was more like she was bathing in the light. I thought about calling out to her, but something about her demeanor made me want to sneak back into my bedroom. Then I saw it. there was something wrong with her ear. Her left ear was about three inches higher up than her right one. Without her bending her neck, her scalp seemed lightly tilted.

And there was something about the way she moved her fingers that didn't look natural. They pointed in different directions, like her hand was ever so slightly fractured. I just stayed there for a while. Looking at her from a distance, watching her shoulders rise and fall as she took deep breaths, inhaling the cold. When she turned my way, I only saw her for a moment. Her torso moving first and her legs following, like a stilted claymation puppet.

I managed to slip around the corner and heard her rush back towards the basement, her feet tapping against the hallway carpet in an uneven rhythm. When she got to the door, she stopped. I was leaning against the wall listening from the other room. I heard her step around for a bit. Then there was a snap, a popping limb, something finding its way back into a socket. Her steps resumed a natural pattern as she hurried downstairs.

I just stayed there for a while, trying to keep calm. For all intents and purposes, I might have just been seen her in a weird light. It was dark and I was sleepy, and yet I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something unnatural about her, that I'd seen something I wasn't supposed to. From that day forward, I got more suspicious. I didn't go into the hallway at night, and I did my best to avoid the basement door all together. I tried my vets to just put them out of my head. I went back to focus on getting a job and a second tenant for the upstairs space, both of which proved to be a challenge, but I was making

progress. The TSA was hiring, for example, not the most glamorous job, but it would be solid work. There was a couple of college students who came by to check the upstairs floor, a young couple who needed a place to stay while they finished up their master's degrees. They seemed like solid people, and we got along just fine. They knew the place wasn't the most glamorous, but It was a neat short-term solution while they finished up the upcoming semester. The only problem was the Walter's family, who I had yet to introduce them to. I remember knocking on the basement door, having the young couple standing behind me expectantly. Alvin, the oldest of the brothers, chimed in with a cheerful, come in.

As we stepped downstairs, the family of four was standing in a picture-perfect two-by-two formation. Mom and dad in the back, two kids in the front, all dressed in their Sunday best, with a freshly printed smile across their faces. The whole scene was so absurd, like some kind of misplaced commercial from the 1950s. Hello, giggled Lila. Aren't they the most handsome couple, Anders? They sure are, Lila. What do you think, kids?

And in unison without skipping a beat, the kids answered. They sure are handsome. For the next 20 seconds or so, this uncomfortable silence grew between us. The Walters just stood there, smiling at us, waiting for some kind of response. I wanted to say something, but I couldn't help but to feel like I was missing something oblivious. Was Lila's eye color a bit different? Was Alvin's face a bit lopsided? Was Anders missing a finger, or did he just stand in a weird angle? Maybe they'd been strange all along. Maybe it was only now that I was seeing it. When we finally parted ways, I followed the young couple outside. They both turned to me.

Their faces, ashen. One of them just stuttered, but the other managed to form a few words. We're not one to judge, she said, but those people give me the creeps. You won't be seen much of them. Yeah, see, that's my point. Who does that? What kind of family willingly lives in a basement? It's only a temporary measure, I assure you, they, by then the other chimed in. What's what the boxes, he asked? What's in them? Personal keepsakes, clothes, that kind of stuff? No, I mean, the box that moved. The blue one. The discussion died down, and they said their goodbyes. I got the feeling that they wouldn't be returning any time soon. Still, their words lingered in the back of my head. A box that moved?

Really? How'd I miss that? After countless sleepless nights, I decided to finally get some answers. I had to take a little risk and figure this out, once and for all. So one day I slipped a note under the door, informing them that we needed them to clear out the basement for one afternoon while a plumber did some repairs. I looked up a few plumbing things on Wikipedia and referenced a real company, making it to look all-official and stuff. Later that day, Lila and Anders dropped by, holding hands, telling me,

me that they'd be sure to be out for the day. Maybe we'll go to the zoo, smiled Anders. Don't you have work, I asked. It comes and goes, he laughed. We're very fortunate. Very fortunate, asked Lila. So very fortunate. At the designated time, the family was out of the building. They went for a drive in Anders car promising to return shortly. I told them it wouldn't take the plumber more than an hour. They seemed a little suspicious when they hadn't seen the actual plumber show up yet, and they let that suspicion hanging the air. Finally, I just straight up lied, giving them a fake name and asking whether they wanted me to call them. Lila didn't call me bluff. Luckily, but as they pulled out of the driveway, I could tell I was sweating. I didn't even know what I feared, but my mind kept returning

to that night when I'd seen her standing in the light of the fridge. I had no idea what they were hiding, or what they might do if I found out about it. But there was a part of me. I just wanted to get into my car and drive. And another part of me telling me I was just being silly. When they finally drove away, I wasted no time. I hurried downstairs, turned on the light, and started to go through their stuff. It wasn't an invasion of privacy, probably illegal. But if I wanted to sleep soundly again, I had to have an idea about why they were being so goddamn weird. There were a lot of oddities about their place. For example, all their beds were perfectly made, like no one slept in them. Most of the couches and surfaces were covered in dust.

I could tell the TV hadn't been on in a long time. It wasn't even plugged in. There were no phones or phone chargers, no laptops or desktop computers, just a bunch of boxes and underlies furniture. I did find a Polaroid camo at least 30 years old. I started checking their boxes. Just clothes, it seemed. All variations of what I'd already seen,

identical sets of shirts, pants, dresses, and shoes. At least four boxes. is worth. One box was just full of accessories, like earrings, necklaces, glasses, hairspray, and fake nails. Another was full of decorations and knick-knacks, porcelain dogs, family photos, dried sunflowers and roses, both with strange colors and fancy vases. I took my time carefully placing everything back the way I found it. It was odd, but nothing incriminating or downright unnatural. Still, I remember what the couple had said about a box that moved.

I couldn't see anything like it. That is, until I turned to leave. Right by the side of the stairs, resting next to the pristine bathroom was a large blue styrofoam cooler. It was the kind of thing that kind of blended into the background. Like, it had always been there.

Still, I could clearly remember not owning one of those things. It looked old and torn like it had been around for years. And maybe I was imagining things, but it looked like it was moving, pulsing, pressing against the, the surface, making little plastic squeals. There was a sound coming from it, like a low guttural growl

pushed through a thin pipe, a sharp rhythmic noise. It made the cooler rattle and shake, ever so slightly. I froze, hoping it would quiet down. I held my breath and waited for it to settle. I slowly stepped back up the stairs. As I ran at the corner and lost side of the cooler, I heard the styrofoam cover pop off, and the sound became clearer, a loud growl shifting in pitch from high to low, like a singer doing some kind of vocal warm-up, trying to find the right pitch. Then something hit the floor with a painful yelp. I stopped dead in my tracks, trying to identify the sound. It was like I crossed between a dog and some kind of fox, a sharp, screeching tone. Then it scrambled to its feet. I could hear claws and paws scratched the floor, and something was

coming my way, fast. There was something primal in me that told me to run. I hurried up the stairs, only looking back for a short glimpse as I shut the door behind me. I only saw it for a moment, something black with a single eye reflecting back at me. It's skin tight and misplaced across the skull, teeth pointing in all directions, in seemingly random sizes, black drool dripping off in an elongated tongue, a thing wearing the cheap suit of a black dog. As I slammed the door shut, I could hear a car pull up on the driveway. It had been less than 30 minutes.

Maybe they had planned to catch me in the act. I heard them come in and head straight for the basement. Meanwhile, I was in the other room, throwing together a small bag with a change of clothes and a toothbrush. The moment I heard the basement door shut, I headed for my car. The moment I got in the car, I saw them step out of the house. They all stood there in the driveway, just looking at me.

And right next to them was a beautiful black Labrador, happily wagging its tail. I didn't say a word. I just drove. I had to get someplace between us and figure out what the hell I wanted to do. I wanted to go to the police, but there was no way to explain what had seen. What could they even do? Kick them out for having a dog?

There was even a clause in the rental agreement that allowed them a pet. I had nothing to go on. I decided to spend the night of a motel just outside of town. I needed time to think and sleep without having the threat of something strange living under my feet. I couldn't get that image out of my head, that black thing in a dog suit, like something trying to remember what a dog looked and sounded like in real time. I checked in at the motel and got a room on the first floor. I crawled into bed, put the TV on and surfed a bit on my phone.

I could feel myself relaxed for the first time in weeks, but every time I thought about that house and that family, I could feel my pulse stagger. I had no idea what to do or who to call, which is what led me to this site in the first place. A lot of you seem to have seen strange things. I figured I'd post here eventually, but it took me quite some time to build up the courage,

mostly because of what happened later that night. I remember a tap on the door. I must have dozed off. I hadn't turned the TV off or brushed my teeth. I just woke up with this sour feeling in my stomach that something was terribly wrong. I'd closed the curtain so I couldn't see who it was. I thought about hiding it under the bed

or locking myself in the bathroom. My thoughts raced, but I tried to temper them with rational what-ifs. Maybe it was just housekeeping or a concerned manager. Then the knock came again, this time with a voice. "'Mr?' said Alvin Walters. "'Mong must have talked to you.' "'I didn't answer. "'For a few seconds I carefully stepped out of the bed,

"'tried my best not to make a noise. "'Mama wants to talk to you,' he repeated. "'It's urgent. "'There was no way they didn't know I was in here. "'They knew, and they wanted something. "'And whatever it was, I didn't want to find out. "'I sneaked to the back of the room with "'as as the doorknobst started to rattle.

"'I could hear Alvin again, "'this time his voice shrunk to threatening lows, like the dark growl of an adult or elderly man. Mom wants to talk to you. I pulled up in the curtains to a window face in the back of the building. I figured I could climb out of the window. But as soon as those curtains opened, my heart skipped a beat. Right there was Anders, the father himself, just inches from the window,

standing straight with his neatly tucked in shirt illuminated by the sharp light of the single TV screen. An ever-curetious smile cemented on his face. he tapped the window. Would you mind opening up, he asked? It won't take long. Again, I looked a little closer, and again, I could see little details that were just off.

A slight droop of the lip that hadn't been there in the day before. One I pulled lower than the other, his hairline further forward than usual, like he'd rushed himself to look like a person. Another knock at the door, another knock at the window, voices from the front and the back, hell, maybe even the room next door. Little voices, big voices, broken voices. We just want to clear some

things up. Mom wants to talk. It's not what you think. I had to make a break for it, but for that I needed to decide where to go. So I pulled the front curtains aside to see how many of them were waiting up front. All five of them that were standing out front, mom, dad, kids, and dog. I looked back as if trying to convince myself I was saying. There were two dads, and none of them looked right. Further down the street in their car, I spotted two more kids identical to Aden and Alvin, both with little quirks, like they weren't fully formed yet. A loose jaw, a strange eye. One of them had a wide, bald spot. Stepping out of the motel manager's office, I saw another Lila, this one with a deflated arm and a paralyzed face.

I was surrounded. I held up my phone like a weapon. I'm calling the police I yelled. Get the fuck away from me. "'That'd be inconvenient,' said Anders. "'And you'd be dead,' added Aidan. "'Long dead,' chuckled Alvin. His voice not tuned right.

The doorknob rattled again, more forceful this time. I could feel my pulse rising, my breath growing short. I looked back and forth, seeing the Anders at the back window, trying to figure out the lock. Only now did I see that one of his fingers were nothing but bone. "'How about a trade?' suggested Ila. "'Something for everyone. "'What the fuck are you talking about?'

Go inside that bathroom of yours, grab a piece of tissue, and chew on it, then drop it out the window. What? I couldn't understand what I was hearing. It's like the words were there, but didn't make any sense to me. We're going to need a new suit, said Lila. You will do. You're not fucking wearing me. Oh, we'll leave you alone, and you'll leave us alone, because if you don't, people that look like you are going to start doing some terrible things.

Aren't they, Anders? Oh, they are, Lila, said in Anders. Terrible, terrible things. So that way, we can all walk away. You'll never see us again, and we'll leave you be. I tried to wrap my head around it. They were going to make a suit out of me, like they'd done with that dog and with that family.

There'd be someone looking like me, walking around out there, something vile. But what choice did I have? I stepped into the bathroom and chewed up a piece of tissue. I spat it out and moved to the window. The family stepped back. I clicked the window open and flung the piece of tissue out with a flick of the finger. Lila picked it up and met my eyes with an unblinking gaze.

With one clench of the fist, she grabbed the top of her head and pulled. Her entire face lurched backwards. Her lower lip reaching all the way to her eyebrows. Underneath was just this black sludge, covering what looked like a deformed skull. skull. She was like a walking oil slick, completely midnight black and slick as water. She pushed the piece of tissue inside herself before pulling her face back down. It took her a few seconds to realign, but she just couldn't get it to look right. She coughed a little. She waited, she nodded, and when she looked back at me, she did so with my own eyes, speaking with my own tongue.

Thank you, I heard myself say. I think this will work out for all of us, don't you? I couldn't answer. I couldn't think. I just closed the curtains and scrambled backwards. I heard a car pull around. I heard rustling in the bushes out back. And from afar, I could hear my own voice a final time. We'll be gone by morning, it said, but we're never far away. A car drove off, leaving me in stunned silence, my mouth dry from hyperventilating. The next morning, they were gone. The basement was empty, and they even left to think you note. Attached to it was a polarid picture of a family, a mom, a dad, two kids, and a funny uncle, one that looked exactly like me. I have been contemplating on whether to share this for some time knowing what they could do,

but I believe they're not technically proficient enough to find this, and I've omitted a lot of details. I just need to know if anyone has met something similar, and if so, how he managed to put it behind you. Are they still out there? Are they watching me? How many suits? do they have. I've wanted to just put this behind me and pretend it never happened, but it's getting harder and harder. Every now and then, I see someone that looks vaguely like them, and Anders with a different haircut, a Layla that's slightly younger, school photos with an Aden or Alvin, but a different hair color. And a few weeks ago, I got a call from a friend, mentioning how they'd seen me in the local newspaper. One thing is, I've never been in it. I've considered moving somewhere far, far away, but

First, I just need to get this out. I need someone to believe me. The real me. And not the me you might see in the papers. Because you are my baby. My mother had the most beautiful teeth. Her teeth are my first memory. I remember them, long and white and bared in a ferocious grin, shining under the full moon

as she told me a story. Not a fairy tale or picture book, but my the story. the story of how I'd come to her, rather how'd she come to me. When I was very small, too small to remember anything at all, my mother stole me from a man and took me to live in the forest. She stole me not as an act of love, but as an act of revenge. Though I was desperate to know, she never told me what needed revenge. One night, I finally asked, why won't you tell me?

Because you're my baby, she whispered in her low, wet voice. She stroked my face with long fingers. Her teeth glittered under the stars, rich and pale as polished ivory. My baby will never hear or see or know the cruelties that haunt me. Cruelty was not the only thing my mother knew that I did not. Although it was the only thing she refused to teach me. My mother tried very hard to teach me everything else she knew. Unfortunately, I was a very poor pupil indeed.

My mother was a remarkable huntress. She felt elk and bare effortlessly. Sometimes she slid into the lake. without so much as a ripple and returned hours later with a monstrous fish clamped in her jaws. Because hunting came so easily to her, mother expected me to learn quickly. Men hunt, she hissed. They have always hunted. So shall you. But I could not hunt, not like her. My small, soft fingers were no match for her lethal claws. My clumsy little body, somehow so susceptible to both the heat and the cold, trailed after her like whip-like predators form. Mother caught deer and foxes with her

beautiful teeth, striking from the shadows like a snake. By contrast, my dull teeth could not even crush rabbit bones. I persevered, but did not improve. One night, while Mother snake through the shadows, communing with trees and evading the dark things prowling the night, I curled up and wept. She found me that way, weak and weeping. I covered my eyes and held my breath. I knew it was useless. Mother could hear my heartbeat from the other side of the hill, so she surely knew I was crying. But that small scrap of pride, was all I had. Mother stood there for a long time. Then she crept forward and covered me with fresh leaves before lying beside me. I will feed you always, she whispered, because you're my baby.

In addition to hunting, my mother was a phenomenal creator of shelters. Sometimes she lived within the earth, snaking through loam and tree roots like treasure hoarding dragons of old. Sometimes she lived in the trees. Many nights I watched in awe as her bones elongated and tore through the trees. through her rough skin, stretching upward to twist among the branches like an ancient spider god. I would wait patiently, sometimes for hours, as Mother communed with the spirits buried in the roots, and sometimes she lived in the shadows, creeping through the darkness to flush out food and threat alike. So, Mother tried to teach me to dig burrows, but I could not dig like her. I was too small and too soft, and far too frightened of the bugs and moles that tunneled through the earth.

So, she tried to teach me to live among the tree branches, to rest and listen as the redwoods murmured the long, strange histories of the earth. But my bones could not stretch like mothers. I could not twist my arms to match the branches. My skin could not interlock with the tree bark, and my blood was too sluggish to melt into the sap. So mother tried to teach me to live in the shadows, but the darkness terrified me. Every night, he hid and wept, imagining the legs of centipedes crawling across my skin. All the night creatures reveled in my fear. Owl swooped down to taunt me, and bats torpedoed towards me, giggling in their shrill, squeaking

voices until Mother slapped them out of the sky. Finally, Mother realized the futility of these lessons, so she dug a deep burrow just for me. She lined it with leaves and slurped the worms and roaches from the walls. When she finished, I burst into tears. Why do you weep, she rasped? Because you do everything for me. I knew the laws of nature. I knew the laws of forest creatures and their young.

Young that were weak were killed in the nest. Young that could not learn to fend for themselves or abandoned to die. I was weak and soft and coated in terrible, ugly scars. Why do you do everything for me? Mother snaked forward, long, large hands sinking into the earth. She curled around me and pulled me close. Because you are my baby. Mother did not always live in the burrow with me.

She roamed the mountains. She burrowed with moles, slithered. with snakes, grazed with elk, hunted with wolves, stood with trees. When I was very small, I thought she ate the forest, but it was not that simple. She protected it, and in return, it sustained her. My heart, she told me one rainy night, is the forest. So this is how it must be. As I grew older, I developed rudimentary survival skills. I shied away from hunting big game, elk and deer, bears and boar, because I did not protect the forest. I gave it not. I gave it not I only took, so I took as little as I could. I trapped rabbits, fished the streams, and ate wild berries.

I dared take nothing else. Once I could reliably feed myself, mother stayed far away for long stretches, hours, then days, and finally weeks. I missed her terribly with a deep, panicky ache. I confronted her about it one balmy spring evening. You leave me more and more, I accused. You'll leave me forever. Never, she murmured. A breeze twined around us, raising goose flesh on my skin, and ripping her long white hair. I will never leave you. But you do, I screamed.

You already do. Before you came, I lived among the trees, listening to their warnings. I slept in the warm earth as worms and centipedes nibbled my skin. I spent many of your lifetimes within the forest. Little one. So many lives at the same time that I forgot. my own name. I do not leave you. I have left the forest for you. I didn't come here. I sobbed. You took me. I did, she said. So I will never leave you. When you think I've left, silence yourself

and listen. Listen for me the way I listen for the trees, the animals and the stars. If you're silent and you're sincere, you will hear me. And then she left. Fury and jealousy seared my heart like a wildfire. She insulted me. She humiliated me. And I have to do that. After all, that she left me, left me for the centipedes and the wolves of the stupid, chittering bats. I don't need you, I screamed. An owl hooted angrily in response. I don't need you at all.

Then I ran from my burrow. As it, the earthen dorm materialized before me, nodding with flowers and wild grasses, anger swelled inside me. It possessed me, this wild ball of misery born of my own endless fear and inadequacy. And it spoke to me. Why should you return to the borough? had asked. Why indeed? It wasn't mine. It was mothers. The entire forest belonged to mother. Without her, the forest would have been consumed me a long ago. So I turned away from the borough and kept running.

I will find the end of the forest, I decided. I will leave it once and for all. I ran for days, in the process treating the forest with contempt. I stripped the trees of their leaves to make nightly beds. I threw rocks at birds and rabbits. I brooded bushes and stripped entire groves of their berries, eating until I threw up from sheer excess. Then I ate again, not out of hunger, not out of any need, but out of malice. And one day, long after spring seated to summer, an inadvertent explosion of heat and greenery, I heard voices. I froze immediately. The only voice I knew was mothers, wet and low, an earthy, rib-shaken whisper. These voices were nothing like mothers. They were high and somehow infantile, with strange shrill notes. These voices,

they were like mine. Trembling, I dropped low and crept through the underbrush. Sun warmed leaves brushed against my face, smooth but painfully crisp. The sun was taking its toll on them. I snaked over the ground, pretending I was mother, slipping through the forest like an invisible snake. I reached a break in the trees and peered through. In a small clearing were four creatures. They had pink skin, and wore heavy clothes that looked suffocating. Their hands were small and soft, their faces were smooth and baby-like, somehow half-formed, wide-eyed and rounded,

with soft noses in plump fesh. I touched my face, flat and smooth, and looked down at myself. Mud streaked, deeply tanned, and marked with a hideous mass of scars, but still soft, hairless, small, weak. There was no mistaking it.

These things in the woods, These overdressed, half-formed beings with small teeth and no claws, and over-large eyes, were like me. They were men. I stood up, propelled by panicky excitement, and strode forward. All at once, they froze. What the hell, one whispered? He lifted something in his arms and pointed it at me. It was long and strange to me.

Inorganic, not alive, with a wooden handle in a gleaming tube. Just then I realized something. The forest was silent. A few birds chirped and sang, and a few bugs emitted their persistent drone. But the vast majority, birds, insects, trees were silent. No rabbits, no deer, certainly no bears. These things, these creatures like me, these men, had silenced the earth. They'd stolen the forest from itself.

We stared at each other for a long time as ever-growing summer heat filled the clearing like an invisible pool. Mother, I whispered. Mother, please help me. She did not, so I turned and ran. The men immediately pursued. I could hear them yelling, crushing the undergrowth, stamping on blossoms and bugs, snapping branches as they ran. The forest's deathly silence was worse than any cry.

There it is, one of them screamed. A second later, the force exploded. A deafening boom shook the trees, and ate through the air as pain erupted on my shoulder. I didn't dare stop or look. I pressed on running and crying at the men came after me. The forest seemed to punish me for my earlier cruelty. Brambles scratched my legs.

Stones caught my feet. Branches wiped at my face, leaving deep, stinging to Runnels. I thanked the forest for its kindness. I thanked it for punishing me rather than stopping me. The men gasped and wailed amongst themselves. What the hell is it? I don't know. I don't know.

Is it a kid? Look at its face. Look at its fucking face. That isn't a kid. Something suddenly filled my ears, droning the sounds of the men in the forest, a deep musical rushing. The birdsong transformed into a turbulent river. And then Mother came, erupting from the trees like a great beast of old. But that's what she was, after all.

A great beast, surely a demon of the ancient world. She pounced upon the men, battling them the way a housecat bats its toys. She clamped one between her claws, squeezing until his head separated and went rolling across the ground. One by one, Mother caught and tore them, shredding them the way she shredded leaves before my bedding. Blood streaked a forest, turning the dirt to mud and dripping from the trees like sluggish rain. Mother dug her claws into the skull of the last survivor and cracked it open like a fruit. Blood and gray brain glistened in the sunlight. The man screamed and screamed and screamed.

Mother leaned down and extended her tongue. It curled outward, pale and orange-gold-like sunrise on a cold, clear morning. and delicately slurped his brains. Curl by curl, like so many worms from my burrow walls. By the time he stopped screaming, the forest had returned to its loud familiar glory, murmuring trees, singing birds, skittering insects, grazing deer. I smiled in Rantam Mother. She reared up and screamed. See what you've done? Terror paralyzed me. I looked helplessly at her, blazing eyes, contorted face, run on earth and wildflowers. Sunbleached bones.

and pale, spongy rot. My mother, my beautiful demon mother, who claimed me out of revenge and raised me out of obligation, staring at me like I was a man. When you stone a bird, my heart stops. When you break a branch, my humbon snap. When you selfishly strip the shrubs of your fruit of their very birthright, my skin blisters. When you hurt the forest, she roared, my heart bleeds. I fell to my knees and hid my face. Mother rushed forward on her many limbs and wrapped long fingers, are on my throat. She lifted me up, dangling me over the forest floor. I killed men for you. Now more will come. They will trample. They will cut. They will burn. They will kill. They will kill the bears and the cougars and the wolves, for they will blame the predators for what I have done for you. Do you see?

She shook me. The carnage below seemed to swing beneath me, a tapestry of blood-soaked earth and ruined corpses. Do you see? Yes, Mother, I whispered. I see. She dropped me. me. I hid the ground with such a force it knocked the wind out of me. Mother pulled back and bruised herself with one of the corpses. I looked up, shaking. Birds watched from the trees, quick and curious and full of condemnation. I averted my eyes as tears spilled. Mother returned to me. She extended an arm and opened her hand. Upon her palm were four eyes and a large glistening heart. I stared at them blankly, then looked up at her. Four eyes, she said, one from each man, in the heart of the one that shot you. Eat. My lip quivered. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the gore in my mother's

hand. A heart and eyes, raw and plump, alive just minutes ago. Mother, I said, please. Are you of me? She asked. Are you of man? The forest became painfully silent, the animals, the trees, and the insects, all waiting with bated breath. I am of you, mother. I, am of you, mother. I plighted. I plucked the first eye from her palm. It was round in, curiously firm. With a sort of firm, watery texture I associated with half-rottomed fruits. The pink, wormy optic nerve dangled. For a terrible moment I thought I would vomit. Then I raised it to my lips and bit in. The eyes were awful, the heart even worse, thick and almost impossible to chew. Mother had to tear it for me, slicing it into manageable pieces with her beautiful teeth. When I finished,

Mother picked me up and, holding me tightly, streaked back to the burrow as night fell. That night I became ill. I shook and shivered and hallucinated for days. My mind bled with images of dangling eyes and glistening hearts and skulls cracked apart like pomegranates. Mother lay with my all the while, soothing me with ancient songs like Birdsong turned to rivers

and cooling me with her damp, earthy breath. Finally, the fever broke. I sat up, gasping as the last visages of my nightmare drifted away. Mother sat across the burrow, hunched over tiredly. You are well, she said. I am glad, for I must leave. I blinked tiredly. Why? Men, she said. But you killed them. There are more, she said. They crept into the forest, searching for their dead brethren. They are cutting the trees and crushing the flowers and killing the bears, my little one. If I don't stop them, they will even come for you. I have to stop them. My heart is the forest, and so are you. I must protect both.

A lump rose in my throat. Shame like I'd never known enveloped me. I'm so sorry. You are my baby. Babies must learn. By learning, they grow. Mother, I said. Am I truly of man?

Mother closed her eyes for a long time. She did not speak. Then she drew a deep breath. I took you from a cruel man. Listen. I will tell you now of the cruelties I endured. I listened and raptured and horrified. as she spun her sorry tale.

Mother was once a young, beautiful, human woman. Surely not more beautiful than you are now, I objected. Listen, she said. Mother was alone in the world. She had no family or friends. She once had a family, but they harmed her greatly, so she ran away. She lived in the forest in a small, ragged tent. She ate wild berries, fished the lake, and boiled water to drink.

Laws are strange things. Though mother hurt nothing and no one, She was breaking the law by living in the forest. She was found and caught and imprisoned, separated from the trees and the birds. Mother faded quickly. Though she was only jailed for a short while, it nearly killed her. The day she was released was the best day of her life, or so she thought. No sooner had mother gathered her meager belongings and exited the jail,

then a guard came up beside her. Where are you headed to, he asked. I'll take you wherever you want to go. Mother was ecstatic. Take me back to the fore, she said. The guard obliged, driving her towards the woods. Except he stopped too soon. He stopped at a house.

His house, it turned out. The guard was a terrible man. He trapped mother. He hurt her, tortured her, abused her in every way. He cut her open. He burned her. He snapped her bones. And he put a baby in her.

Mother was so broken that he missed all signs of impending childbirth. When I came, Mother died. He dumped me in a vada acid. mother told me, and scattered my liquid remains among the trees. But then I heard you. Mother smiled faintly. Crumbles of dirt and root fell from your face. I heard your cry.

Your need for me. I do not understand what Mother said next. It is difficult to translate, but the closest I can come in, everyone sings a song to those they love. Most aren't able to hear these songs. If you can't hear it, it can't help you. But if you can hear it, a song is the most powerful thing in the world. It kills.

It calls, it consumes, it destroys, it strengthens, and sometimes it resurrects. When I were formed and breathed again, I stole you from your father, mother said, Then I brought you here, because you are my baby. I wept silently because I didn't know what to say. I must go, she said. The trees and the animals need me now, so remember, little one. When you are silent and you are sincere, you will hear me. Then she whipped around, like a wolf, a snake, and hawk combined and left.

She did not return. At first I thought nothing of it. I had made a terrible mess. I had summoned men. I had caused the forest to bleed. Mother had a great deal of work ahead of her. But summer slowly bled into fall, and still Mother did not return. When the first snow came, dry and cold,

skittering across the landscape like powder, I knew something was wrong. The snows deepened. The forest drifted into its winter's sleep, cloaked in ice and fog. Every night I made myself silent. I mustered all the sincerity I could, and I listened for my mother's voice. It didn't come.

I grew thin and sick. My skin burned even as I shivered. My chest grew congested. My throat so sore I couldn't sleep. My breath came in sharp, pained wheezes. Soon I became too weak to leave the burrow. I crawled to the doorway and ate snow. For sustenance, I slurped worms from the earth and walls.

It was not enough, and I knew it. Only then, in the quiet and peace and fear of of approaching death, did I become truly silent? Only then did I hear the voice of my mother. I heard her in my dreams, the low, rushing voice, like music made in water. I am coming, she said. I am coming because you are my baby. I smiled and slept. Next thing I knew I was cold, cold and wet and shivering, but awake. I shot up and screamed as my skin brushed the thick flower-matted hide of my mother. I spun around, smiling and froze. Mother lay beside me, panting, blood seeped from a hundred wounds, crusting her hair. The exposed bones in her face were crushed and concave,

leaking gore and blood. Without opening her eyes, she smiled. I heard you. I heard your song. Tears blurred my vision. My chest began to hitch. I couldn't draw breath. It was like I was sick again, drowning in pus and trapped fluid. Only I wasn't dying this time. My mother was. Then stay, I said. You have to stay because you can hear my song. No, she said, you needed to see me again, but you do not need me. I need you, mama, I need you. No, she said, I killed all who would harm you. But what about the forest? The forest will kill me without you. She chuckled. Her breath came, terribly fast and increasingly weak. You are of me. Remember, you are of me. You are my baby. My mother.

My beautiful, ancient mother drew a shallow breath and lay still. I lay beside her for many days. Then, when she began to stink, I left. A hiker eventually found me a stupid, solitary hiker with a soft heart, a great deal of patience, and no fear. When I learned to speak the words of men, the authorities lost no time in telling me that mother was not really my mother. They discovered my identity, at least in a manner of speaking, through DNA. My real mother, they say, was a vagrant, a jam. Dane Doe, who lived in a tent in the National Park. She was alone and defenseless. Two things that

attract human monsters. After a brief stint in jail for loitering, my mother ended up kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured by an ass-yet-unidentified asylum, who eventually tried unsuccessfully to dissolve her in acid. They think he attempted to dissolve my body too. That's why I am covered in scars. It is why I frightened those hunters so long ago. The acid burns make me look like a monster to men. Since my real mother apparently died long ago, they decided that mother, whoever she was, was nothing but a crazy, homeless child abuser. But I know better. Even so, I adapted. I had no choice. I am of my mother, but I live among men. That's what animals must do. Their young learn, grow, and adapt. If they don't, they die. But I'm not adapting anymore.

At least I'm not adapting to live among men. My mouth is changing, changing in ways that are terrible to people, but wonderful to me. It's my teeth, you see. I'm growing my mother's beautiful teeth. Looking at my teeth in the mirror was frightening and electrifying. Joy and terror ran through my veins in equal measure. It had to mean something, so I fell silent. I became sincere. I listened, and I heard. I heard the voice of my mother, low and rushing, like birdsong turned to a wild river. She tells me I do not belong with men because I am of her heart and her heart is the forest. She tells me I must return and she tells me she is waiting for me because I am her baby. I volunteered to sit next to a dead man on a plane and deeply regret it.

The man in seat 43A died halfway across the Atlantic. I was sitting near the front of the plane just behind her. first class and couldn't really see the commotion, but I could hear someone gasping and retching, loud at first, then quieter and quieter. A flight attendant got on the PA and asked for any medical professionals among the passengers to help. I guess there were none. After a few minutes, the man sounds deteriorated into a sort of gurgle, then silence. Then it was over. His name was Molly knew, and he was old, but not that old. And it was like, likely a heart attack, aneurism, drug reaction, or God's will. According to conflicting,

NFH hand reports that flittered down the plane from Row 43 where a flight attendant simply bucked the newly deceased back into his window seat and covered his face with a complimentary airline blanket. The pilot got on the intercom and told us the plane would be turning back to New York due to a tragic medical situation involving one of our passengers. Folks were looking for volunteer willing to sit next to the deceased while we return to our originating airport. The pilot continued, this flight is entirely full and the person sitting there now isn't feeling comfortable. It's an aisle seat, and it'll only be a few hours before we're back over land. I'm not sure why I volunteered, probably some combination of exhaustion, altruism,

and morbid curiosity. My vacation plans were shot anyway, I figured, so why not take the most interesting seat on the plane? The flight attendant thanked me profusely, as did a queasy-looking teenager who took my original seat. I picked up my handbag and shuffled down the aisle to the very last row of the plane. My only prior experience with corpses was an open casket funeral for my grandmother when I was a kid. But the idea of death had never particularly bothered me. It's natural, after all. That said, I admit that I second-guessed my decision as soon as I saw my new seatmate,

Mr. Molly knew. Rest in place, sat upright between the window and me. strapped around the waist with a blue fleece blanket covering his torso and head. The blanket did not cover his hands, which were resting on his lap above his seatbelt, placed that way by a flight attendant as a sign of respect, I assumed. Molly knew's pale fingers were twisted into claws that betrayed the agony of his death. I couldn't look at those hands without imagining what his face looked like under the blanket. I thought of asking for a second blanket, but the flight crew was still busy and calming down other passengers

and preparing for our U-turn around the Atlantic Ocean. So I tried to forget my uneasiness and closed my eyes and slept. I woke. Hours or minutes later, I don't know. To the jostling of turbulence. The cabin lights were off and most of the passengers around me seemed to be sleeping. I looked out the window, trying not to look at Molly knew as I did so, and saw only the uniform blackness of the night.

I imagined the ocean miles below us, lightless and cold. The thought unsettled me. and I reached across Mali Nuh to close the window shade. Then I stopped myself. Hadn't the shade been closed when I sat down? I realized there was something else off about this scene. Molly Nune's posture had somehow changed while I slept. It took me a few seconds to pinpoint it.

His gnarled hands remained on his lap. He was still belted at the waist, and the blanket still shrouded his upper body. But the fabric looked somehow twisted now, as if he had been fidgeting. Very slowly, knowing it was insane even as I knew I couldn't stop myself, I lifted a corner of the blanket. I uncovered his shirt, which the flight crew had unbuttoned while trying to save him.

A patch of blue-gray skin-sprouting white chest hair peaked out from it. I lifted the blanket higher. His color was flecked with dried blood. I remember his terrible gasping. Finally, I pulled the blanket entirely off. and stifled a scream. Molly Neu's head was turned away from me, exactly as if he had turned to stare at the window.

I could see his face reflected in the pexy glass. It was undoubtedly a dead man's face. Pale, drawn, lips parted, jaw slack. There was no life in it, except his eyes. They were moving. I stared at the reflection for half a minute, and I'm sure of it. In the center of that death mask, two pupils flicked back and forth as if tracking something out there in the sky.

What are you doing? A voice beside me interrupted. I whipped around and saw the woman seated across the aisle staring at me. Not so much in fear as disgust. Cover him back up. Give him his peace. He's, I think he's moving, I stammered. His eyes.

I think he might not actually be, but I couldn't finish the sentence. It was too crazy, nor did I have to, because at that moment my stomach dropped 10 feet along with everything else in the plane. Coffee cups and parses slammed against the ceiling. A man near the first class section nearly tumbled out of his seat. I heard call lights going off all over the plane as passengers were jolted awake in panic and confusion. Passengers, please take your seats, buckle in and secure any loose items.

The pilot said over the PA, sounding shaken himself. The weather along our flight path is clear and no planes in the area reporting turbulence, so I'm not sure what it is, but we should be through it momentarily. Even as he spoke, the mild background shaking, I had felt since waking up became noticeably more violent. The woman across the aisle became fumbling for her seatbelt, no longer paying any attention to me or Molly Neue. I forced myself to look at him again. The jolt must have caused him to pitch forward at the waist, his head colliding with the seat in front of him. But Molly Neu's face was still turned towards that window.

His neck twisted as such a sharp angle that I worried it had snapped. I looked at his hands again. in the pallor of his skin. Three flight attendants and a dozen passengers had witnessed this man's death, and I could not rationally imagine they were mistaken. And yet, in the reflection of the window, his eyes left to right, left to right.

I had heard that strange reflexes sometimes kick in after death, limbs flailing, headless chickens running, nerves clearing out the last backlog of instructions from the brain. But the eyes I had never heard, heard of that. I made myself look past that unsettling reflection at the sky itself. It was still dark, moonless and cloudless, but the atmosphere seemed to have taken on a strange hue, a very dark green, like pea soup fog. I thought I could see vague shapes swirling around in the murk, though it might have been just an optical illusion. I recoiled. I desperately wanted to be anywhere else right

then, but the rest of the cabin was approaching a state of penitomium. Flight attendants were hurrying up and down the aisle, attending to spills and bruises, even as they tripped and staggered, the entire plane was shuddering like a barrel going down the rapids. A series of jolts sent Molineux's upper body swinging back and forth like an upside-down pendulum. He was thrown backward into his seat, then sideways into me, a horrible feeling I will never forget, and then the opposite way, his face slamming directly into the window where it came to rest. That was enough for me. I am buckled, leapt out of my seat, and locked myself in the bathroom directly behind me. I would cower on a toilet for the rest of this hellish flight rather than spend

another minute sitting with Mr. Molineau. This plane worked for a half hour or so. I braced both my arms against the bathroom walls and listened to the chimes of flight attendants call buttons, the whine of jet engines, and the growling of the sky. I tried to calm myself by visualizing the skyline of New York, the JFK airstrip, a calm descent. But then I imagined Mollinews window. His face mashed up against the glass like a little boy's. his dead eyes searching the night. The captain's disembodied voice called me back to reality. He sounded outright scared now, and the PA kept cutting in and out.

Extremely anomalous weather. Need everyone in their seats in the emergency position immediately if we did pressurize. The turbulence stopped for four or five seconds, and then suddenly it felt like I was inside a washing machine. I bounced against the walls of the bathroom, I landed on the floor, and could barely manage to get the door open and crawl on all floors into the aisle.

All three flight attendants were down, sprawled on backs and bellies between the seats. Some of the overhead luggage bins had burst open and spewed baggage out. Many of the passengers were weeping, a few prayed, and through it all, the plane would not stop shaking. I heard a series of small bangs above my head and felt something wet on my cheek. Every single soda can in the galley had exploded. I climbed into my seat and belted myself in, having briefly forgotten about Molly knew and my terror. Thwack, thwack. But he was still in his seat, of course, whipping back and forth like a flagpole in a hurricane,

head budding the window so hard that I could see the plexiglass balloon outwards and rebound each time. Thwack. I became worried he'd crack the window, though that's supposed to be impossible, so I overcame my revolution and grabbed his shoulders. But I couldn't restrain him. Again and again, his head hit the window. I began to fear that it was not simply the motion of the plane that compelled him. Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack.

No one else on the plane was watching this. Some of the passengers had rallied and were trying to pull the injured flight attendants out of the aisle. Others were whispering goodbye messages into their phones. Thwack. Thwack. Crack. I heard something cracked beside me and hoped desperately that it was molly new skull and not the window. Outside I could see that green fog was alive and swirling. Amorphous shapes. Thwak. Kroom. Kroom. Another explosion, not pop cans this time, but pressurized oxygen escape. gaping into sky. Molly knew had managed to smash out both window panes in one final blow. Now his mangled head was hanging outside the plane and the rest of his body was straining to follow

it. Restrained only by a seatbelt and the width of his shoulders. An alarm went off in the cabin and a jungle of oxygen mask fell from the ceiling. I put mine on at once but heard other people screaming. Some passengers were trying desperately to get their masks on, the unconscious air crew, but the plane was shaking more violently than ever. And loose debris was flying up the aisles toward my row, toward the hole a dead man made in the plane. Cabin breach, said the pilot, limited backup oxygen, so I'm trying to descend to a safe altitude. But hard to do that in the storm, or whatever it is, God be with us. Once I was sure that I could breathe and was no longer in danger of being sucked down myself,

I took one last look at all I knew. His head must have torn clean off outside the window, for all I could see of it past the rest of his body. I pictured those eyes again, which had seen something in the sky that we had not seen. could not see, even as it now threatened to shake the plane apart. There was some connection between these events that I might never understand. But even without understanding, I could make the last move available to me. I reached over Molly News lap, lifted one of those cold, clawed hands, and unclasped his seatbelt. There was an intolerable, crunching noise as I presume his shoulders were squeezed and crushed to fit the window frame.

And then, in a split second, he was gone. Out the window, into the night, a pale old, old man falling end over end toward the black ocean. Whatever you saw it there, I whispered, whatever you were looking for, go to it and leave us be. The green fog lifted a few minutes later and the plane descended until it was safe to breathe without the masks. Less than an hour later, I really did see the JFK airstrip. A whole squadron of police and ambulance has met us on the way down. The flight attendants and several passengers had to be hospitalized, but as far as I know, no one suffered serious injuries. Federal investigators,

eventually concluded that we had flown through a localized weather anomaly, witnessed by no other plane in that sky that night. Some sort of debris must have been flying around up there with us and taken out the window at 43A. They wrote in the report. This event led to a sudden loss of cabin pressure in which the body of a passenger who had died earlier in an unrelated medical emergency was ejected from the plane. I expected to hear a lot more about it in the news, but I suppose in the end it was just one of those things. The airline had no interest in publicizing and the incident, of course, and the passengers had no desire to relive it. For most people on the flight, it was simply a freak tragedy followed by a close call,

and all's well that ends well. I'm the only one that will dream for the rest of my life about Molly News' eyes and what they saw on the way to the ocean. And all right, guys, thank you so much for watching. This was Strange Stories from Reddit. All three of the stories, really good. I loved all of them, really unique, and as the title says, Strange, so I hope you enjoyed these.

Let me know what you'd like to see in the future. Thank you for watching. This was Snook. See you next time.