Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - The Ghost of Ed Hardy How I Survived Starvation by Trick-or-Treating at 24 #7

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #ghoststory #starvation #trickortreat #survival #urbanlegend  Facing extreme starvation at 24, the narrator turns to an unusual and desperate method of survival—trick-or-treating in the dead of night. Alongside this strange survival tactic, the presence of the ghost of Ed Hardy casts an unsettling shadow, turning the night into a haunting ordeal that tests the limits of endurance and fear.  horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, ghost, survivalstory, starvation, urbanlegend, EdHardy, haunted, paranormal, desperate, night, trickortreating, horrorcommunity, supernatural, eerie, adultsurvival

There's so much rugby on Sports Extra from Sky. They've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter Sports Extra is jam-packed with rugby. For the first time we've got every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more. Thus the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place.

Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra. Jampack with rugby. Phew, that is a lot of rugby. Get Sports Extra on Sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months. Search Sports Extra. New Sports Extra customers only. Standard Pressing applies after 12 months for the terms apply. You didn't deserve what happened.

And it doesn't have to define you. You don't have to carry it alone. I know a safe place where you can tell your story, and you'll be believed. Call the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre National Helpline on 1-800-77-8888. Whenever you're ready to talk, they'll be ready to listen. I was 24 years old, totally broke, and on the verge of getting kicked out of my apartment.

Like any day now. Rent was long overdue, and my landlord was done being patient. I had no job, no money, and absolutely no clue what the hell I was doing with my life. It was one of those rock-bottom moments where everything just feels like it's crashing down, and all you can do is sit in it and hope you don't drown. Now, when I say I was broke, I mean broke-broke. Like, stomach growling, bones poking through my skin kind of broke. I hadn't had a real meal in days.

The only thing keeping me alive, barely, was this tiny oasis of free popcorn at a grocery store about 30 minutes away from my apartment. I'd make the trek there, sometimes twice a day, just to get a handful or two. Not exactly the diet of champions, but it kept me from passing out cold on the sidewalk. Anyway, one day, I was laying on my mattress, I didn't have a bed frame or sheets, just a mattress on the floor, trying to block out the hunger pangs. When it hit me, Halloween was coming up. People give away candy on Halloween. Free food. That's all I could think about. A little light bulb went off in my underfed, sleep-deprived brain. What if I went trick-or-treating? I mean, technically it was for kids, but who's stopping me? There were no trick or treat police. Desperate times call for desperate candy. But there was one small problem, I didn't have a costume. No money, remember. No old ones to reuse, nothing to borrow. So, I started digging through my closet and found a random collection

of ed hardy clothes I used to think were cool back when I thought trucker hats and rhinestones were a personality. I threw on everything with a skull or a flaming tiger on it. Then, I came up with the most half-baked excuse for a costume, I was the ghost of Ed Hardy. Yep. That was my entire character. Dead tattoo dude. So picture this, a skinny, ghost-pale 24-year-old dude, wearing a mess of bedazzled Ed Hardy gear, dark circles under his eyes, walking around the neighborhood with a beat-up black cloth sack. Not even a Halloween-themed bag. Just some random old thing I found in the closet. I probably looked like a tweaker casing houses, not someone just looking for a sugar fix. And yet, people gave me candy. So much. Candy. I could hardly believe it.

I'd ring a doorbell, someone would open the door, take one look at me, confused, concerned, or cracking up, and then dump handfuls of candy into my sack. It was like watching little miracles unfold, one porch at a time. Some people asked what I was dressed as, and when I said, the ghost of Ed Hardy, I either got a blank stare or a full-on laugh. I think most of them figured I was either too old to be doing this or too hungry to care. They weren't wrong. After about an hour of knocking on doors and pretending to be a vaguely threatening fashion ghost,

my bag was getting heavy. My arms were sore, and my legs were wobbly, but it was worth it. I waddled home like a candy-hording gremlin. Home, by the way, wasn't exactly what you'd call safe. A meth head had kicked my door in a few weeks back, and the lock never really worked after that. I had tried jamming a chair under the doorknob and wedging stuff in front of it, but let's be honest, it was more of a suggestion than actual security. Still, it was a little. It was It was the only place I had, so I dropped my candy haul on the mattress and collapsed beside it like I'd just run a marathon. Then I started eating. Like, really eating.

One mini-snickers. Two mini-snickers. A Reese's. A kit-cat. Three more reases. Some weird gummy thing I didn't even like, but I ate it anyway. My stomach was screaming, but my brain was screaming louder, more. I kept going until I felt like I was going to explode.

It was as if my body couldn't tell whether to celebrate or sound the alarms. And then, something happened. I don't even know how to describe it. Maybe it was the shock of calories after days of malnourishment, or the sugar rush, or just sheer psychological relief. But I went into this weird euphoric state. Everything got kind of fuzzy. The lights in my crappy apartment felt warmer. softer. Like I was in a dream. My vision blurred a little, but not in a scary way. It felt good. Like,

really good. It was the closest thing to being high I'd ever experienced without actually taking anything. I was floating. I was weightless. I didn't feel hungry anymore. I didn't feel anxious. I didn't even feel scared about getting evicted. I felt, calm. peaceful, safe, even. In that moment, nothing mattered except the sweet, sticky, chocolate-filled serenity I had stumbled into. I curled up on my mattress, still half-dressed as a dead tattoo artist, and passed out with candy wrappers all around me like autumn leaves. I slept like a baby. No nightmares, no stress dreams.

Just deep, uninterrupted sleep. When I woke up the next day, the euphoria had faded, but something lingered. A strange kind of pride. I had done something ridiculous and kind of pathetic, sure, but I had also survived. I had hustled. I had adapted. I had eaten. And for the first time in a long while, I didn't feel like a total failure.

No one ever tells you that surviving rock bottom can look absurd. Sometimes it means wearing ugly clothes and pretending to be a fashion ghost just to get some candy. But that absurdity, that moment of desperation, became one of the weirdest and most oddly beautiful memories of my life. I never really told anyone this story before. It's not the kind of thing you bring up casually. Like, hey, remember that time I was starving and trick-or-treated alone at 24? Not exactly a conversation starter.

But it stayed with me. It reminds me of how far I've come, how resourceful I can be, and how sometimes kindness comes from the most unexpected places. Those strangers who gave me candy, they didn't know I was starving. They probably thought I was weird or pathetic. But they still gave. No questions, no judgment. Just a smile and some sugar. And in that moment, it was enough. It's wild how a plastic pumpkin full of chocolate can feel like a lifeline. How one night of pretending and sugar binging can be the turning point in a season of despair. I'm not saying candy solved all my problems, obviously, I still got evicted eventually, and I had to hustle hard to get back on my feet, but it gave me a weird, unexpected glimpse of hope.

And when you've got nothing else, hope is everything. So yeah, that's the story. The time I dressed up as the ghost of Ed Hardy, trick or treat it alone at age 24, and ate myself into a sugar coma just to survive. Life's weird. But sometimes, weird is exactly what you need to keep going. The end.