Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - Haunted by Blood and Shadows Painting Murders I Can’t Remember Committing #79

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales  #psychologicalhorror #supernaturalmystery #hauntedmind #darksecrets #memoryloss  “Haunted by Blood and Shadows: Painting Murders I Can’t Remember Committing”A chilling psychological horror where the narrator grapples with mysterious memories of violent crimes they cannot recall. As shadowy visions and blood-stained paintings emerge, the lines between reality and nightmare blur. This story explores haunting guilt, forgotten horrors, and the supernatural forces that twist the mind.A dark tale of fractured memory, unseen evil, and the terrifying struggle to uncover the truth.  horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales,  psychologicalhorror, supernaturalmystery, hauntedmind, darksecrets, memoryloss,  fracturedmemory, ghostlyvisions, chillingconfession, darkart, mindtwist,  forgottencrimes, eeriehaunting, mysteriousmurders, supernaturalhorror, nightmaretruth

I wake up again with red paint-caped under my fingernails. It's thick and sticky, and for a moment, I almost confuse it with blood. That's how it always starts now, the confusion, the haze, and then the dread. This has been happening for weeks. Long, eerie blackouts at night where I lose chunks of time. Then I wake up and there's another painting on my easel that I don't remember creating. I didn't think much of it at first. I laughed it off, even.

I figured it was some kind of weird sleepwalking thing. You know, like those stories you hear where people make sandwiches or drive to Walmart in their sleep. Only my thing was painting. At first, the paintings were just abstract blobs, weird shapes, kind of beautiful in a chaotic way. But then they changed. The first real one hit me hard. A man, face down in a grimy alleyway. His skull was clearly smashed in, and the brushstrokes made it look almost gentle.

But his face, twisted in agony. Blood spilled out in dark puddles like oil. I remember just staring at it for a while, confused. I didn't know who he was, but he felt familiar. Not like a friend or anything. Just, known. I cleaned everything up, put the canvas away in the back of the closet, and told myself it was just a dream bleeding into reality.

Stress, maybe. Then I saw the news. Two days later. Same man. Same alley. Same everything. He'd been killed behind a bar downtown. Blunt force trauma.

No suspects. I stared at the TV screen until it blurred. My mouth went dry. The coincidence was too perfect. But I tried to believe it anyway. I needed to believe it. Because the alternative was just too much. Too dark.

Then came the second painting. This time it was a woman. Young. Curled up on the floor, holding her stomach. Her eyes were wide, frozen in horror. Blood everywhere, seeping from her body and pooling around her like a dark halo. I stared at that painting for a long. time too, wondering what the hell was happening to me. I didn't know her either, but I felt

sick looking at her. Like I was violating something sacred. I didn't paint that, I kept telling myself. Not really. Not consciously. Maybe I'd seen something online and my brain just copied it. But three days later, there she was. On the news. A mugshot style photo, and then footage of a building taped off with yellow police lines. Same position. Same blood. Same terror. It was her. She had been stabbed outside her apartment during a robbery. The painting hadn't just captured her image, it had captured her death. I freaked. I started doing everything I could to stay awake. Coffee. Energy drinks. Cold showers. Loud music. Loud music. Loud music. I even set alarms to go off every 15 minutes during the night.

But nothing worked. I always slipped into that space. That dark place in my mind. And when I woke up, my hands were stained with red, and there was always a new painting waiting for me. It wasn't just the blood or the horror. It was how good the paintings were. Like they were done by someone else entirely. Someone more skilled.

more focused. Every stroke had meaning. Every color was intentional. The art was beautiful in its violence, and that scared me even more. Then came last night. I woke up shivering, surrounded by paintbrushes and torn paper towels. Red smeared across my arms, my cheeks, my clothes. I felt sick before I even looked at the canvas. And when I did, I dropped to my knees. It was Elliot. My ex. We hadn't ended well. There were fights, ugly texts, blocked numbers.

But I'd never wanted anything like this. The painting showed him with his eyes wide open, like he'd seen something he couldn't understand. His throat was sliced clean, from ear to ear. His skin was pale, almost grey. The blood looked so real I could smell it. Something cracked inside me. I crawled away from the easel and just sat on the floor, shaking. I didn't know what to do.

It didn't feel like a dream anymore. It didn't even feel like a nightmare. It felt like a warning. I grabbed my phone with trembling fingers and called him. Elliot. I didn't care how we'd left things. I just needed to hear his voice. I needed to know he was alive.

He didn't answer. I left a voicemail, something frantic and confused. I didn't even know what I said. I just begged him to call me back. Then I waited. Minutes crawled by. Hours. I paced my apartment, staring at the painting and then turning away.

I scrubbed my hands raw trying to get the red paint off. I couldn't sit still. I felt like I was being watched, like something inside me was growing, coiling up like a snake. I finally went to his apartment. I know, I shouldn't have. It was late, and he'd made it clear he didn't want to see me again. But I needed to know. No one answered the door. No lights. No sound. I pounded on it for what felt like forever before a neighbor poked their head out and gave me a dirty look. I backed off, apologized, and left. But I didn't go home. I sat in my car outside his building until the sky started to lighten.

I texted him again. Nothing. Then the news came on. No report of a murder. No mention of Elliot. Just weather, traffic, politics. I tried to feel relieved, but I couldn't. The painting was too specific.

Too real. It wasn't just some subconscious projection. It was him. So now I'm here, writing this, because I don't know what else to do. I feel like I'm losing my mind, or maybe being taken over by something else. Something that sees things I can't. Something that knows. What if I'm not just painting what will happen?

What if I'm painting what I did? That thought terrifies me more than anything. Because I don't remember doing any of it. I don't remember leaving my apartment. I don't remember holding a weapon. But what if that doesn't matter? What if I'm being used? What if something inside me comes out at night,

something that wants to hurt people, and uses my hands to do it? And the painting, that's just the souvenir. I tried locking up my art supplies. I put everything in a storage unit across town, kept the key in a safe. But the next morning, there was another painting. on a different canvas. Using paint I didn't own. How is that even possible?

My friends think I'm just stressed out. They keep telling me to take a break, to go on vacation, to unplug for a while. I want to scream at them. They don't see what I see. They don't wake up covered in paint. They don't see the way the people in my paintings look at me. Yes. Look at me.

I swear, the more I paint, the more it feels like they're watching me. Like their eyes follow me around the room. Like they're aware. I've started hearing things too. Soft whispers in the middle of the night. The creak of floorboards when I'm completely still. Once, I found a single, bloody fingerprint on my mirror.

I live alone. I'm terrified of what's going to happen next. Of who's going to show up in the next painting? I started keeping a list, dates, names, images. It reads like a serial killer's notebook. And the worst part is, part of me likes it. Not the death, not the horror, but the art, the precision, the beauty and the tragedy. It's like some twisted part of my brain is waking up at night to express itself. And it's really, really, really. good at it. But at what cost? This morning, I found a blank canvas propped against the wall. Fresh brushes. New paint. I didn't put them there. I know I didn't. It's like something's inviting me now. Daring me. I keep thinking about Elliot. I still haven't heard from him. I called his sister. She hasn't either. I might go to the police, but what the hell?

do I say, hey, I think I might be killing people in my sleep and painting the crime scenes after. They'll lock me up. Maybe they should. But what if that doesn't stop it? What if whatever is using me can keep going, even in a padded cell? I've stopped sleeping entirely. Or trying to, anyway. But the hallucinations are worse now. I see people walking through my apartment. People I've painted. They glide past mirrors but don't reflect. They whisper names I don't recognize. Last night, I found a message written in red on my ceiling, paint what you are. I don't know what that means, but I can guess.

And I don't like the answer. I think I'm going to destroy everything. The canvases, the brushes, the paints, maybe even the easel. I don't care if I lose the only thing I've ever been good at. If it means the painting stop, I'll burn it all. But what if that just pisses it off? What if this thing inside me wants out, and the painting was just step one? If I don't wake up tomorrow, or if someone finds this message and there's another dead body on the news that looks just like the canvas in my closet.

Know this. I didn't want this. I never wanted this. I'm sorry. The end.