The Lets Read Podcast - 197: HAUNTING SUMMER GETAWAY | 25 True Scary Stories | EP 185

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Schools, Summer Breaks, & Conventions... HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?► www.Reddit.com/r/LetsReadOfficial FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsReadCreepy ♫ Background Music & Audio Remastering: INEKT https://www.instagram.com/_inekt/ PATREON for EARLY ACCESS & Bonus Content!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead

Think you can handle the heat? Try Quesada's all-new Ghost Pepper Chicken Mole for a limited time. Tender chicken, rich Mexican mole sauce, and then boom, ghost pepper fire. Quesada, real Mexican flavor to the max. Order in-store or online. Discover the exciting action of BetMGM Casino. Check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer or enjoy over 3,000 games to choose from like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz.

Make instant deposits or same-day withdrawals. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. I was never really into video games when I was a kid.

Given how into them my brother was, I always figured they were more for boys than they were for girls. He used to play all these super violent army kinds of games, stuff that didn't interest me in the least bit. But then I remember him playing this one game that looked a lot different from all the others. The art style and the clothes and the really nice music in the background, it had me transfixed from the second I laid eyes on it. Then when I asked what he was playing, he replied with three little words that have become some of the most precious memories of my whole life so far. Final Fantasy VIII. It was the only game I ever found myself watching him play,

and after he graduated to a PlayStation 2 2 i got his old ps1 and finally got to play ffa for myself i was just hooked for quite a long time and without a doubt my favorite character was selfie selfie is this super cute and derpy member of your team who uses this awesome nunchaku things to fight with. She also has the coolest hair of anyone in the game, in my opinion anyway, and she just so happened to kinda look like me too. So then one day, me and my friend were doing each other's hair with these new curling irons her mom bought her, and I decided to curl the ends of my hair up like selfie. I think that was the first real attempt at a cosplay I ever did.

And so when I learned there were actual groups of people who not only dressed up like video game characters, but met at conventions to show off their outfits and costumes, I was so about it. So over the years that followed, I ended up amassing all the items of clothing that Selfie has in her outfit, all with the goal of attending the biggest video games expo in the country, E3. It wasn't easy, finding the right style of boots, finding a dress in the perfect shade of canary yellow, but eventually I managed to piece together an outfit that looked exactly like Selfie's. The only thing I was lacking was the nunchakus, but then, like a lot of cosplayers, I ended up getting hold of a cheap plastic toy pair that I painted in the same style as selfies.

Then finally, when everything was ready to go, I waited for E3 to come around, and my dad drove me and my brother there as a very special shared birthday present, as our birthdays are just a month apart. The E3 we went to was one of the first ever to be open to the public too, so it really felt like something special to be able to attend. People were so nice about my outfit and other FF8 cosplayers were coming up to me and asking for photos. And although my brother thought it was a total drag having to be my personal photographer for a while, he was an awesome brother and took lots of pictures of me with people so I could remember the whole thing. But he had only so much patience for that kind of thing, so in the end, we agreed to split up and meet up later on so he could check out all the exhibits he wanted to go see. I was on my own, but I was around so many other

nice people that I didn't think I was in any danger at all. Besides, the whole place was teeming with security guards and stuff, so it felt like the safest place I could possibly be, around all kinds of like-minded people who, like I said, were being so nice to me. The first sign of trouble came when this one guy came up to me, told me Selfie was his favorite Final Fantasy character, then asked for a picture with me. For like the hundredth time, I stopped the passerby, gave them my digital camera, then asked if they'd take a picture of me and the person I was with. Then as they were lining up the shot, the guy started saying all low in my ear,

you know, you look really, really cute in that outfit. Then just as the person took the picture and was handing me back my camera, he grabbed my butt under my skirt so hard I actually yelped out in pain. I turned around, instinctively throwing a slap in the guy's direction, but he backed off so quick that it just missed while people jumped in between us like, hey, hey, what's going on here? I was shouting stuff like that he just grabbed me, that this idiot just grabbed me, this pervert. Only with way more curse words and all that kind of stuff. One of the guys that jumped in pushed the guy away then came over to me to see if I was okay and I ended up kind of venting to him a little about how I'd had such an amazing time all until this butt grabber came along to spoil it. He told me that there were way

too many guys like that at cons, but even so there were few and far between. Then he did the nicest thing ever and offered to walk me around the convention hall as a kind of bodyguard to make sure that it didn't happen again. I mean the guy was tall, handsome and he seemed like he was just that, some kind of knight in shining armor. So of course I said yes to the idea and then we went walking around the con together. So the way the guy was dressed, he had like a samurai kind of sword with him. Like I want to say that he looked like the vampire killer Blade from those movies, but I know he wasn't that character because when I asked him, he just laughed and told me that he

was supposed to be a guy from some anime thing. Obviously the sword he had with him wasn't real, but we talked about how cool it would be if I had an actual pair of nunchakus, how no one would mess with me or try grabbing my butt if I could show off what a ninja master that I was with them. That's when he turned to me and said that as much as he wasn't allowed to bring any real weapons along with him into the convention hall, he had brought along the things that he usually kept in his trunk for personal protection. And that just so happened to be a pair of nunchakus. I thought that that was just about the coolest thing I'd ever heard. And I was so, so impressed when he told me about all the martial arts that he did, hence why he owned a pair of real life nunchakus. So when he finally asked me

if I wanted to go out to his car and check them out, I didn't hesitate at all. He'd been the perfect gentleman so far, why would I expect anything to change? We carried on chatting about this and then as we walked out to his car with me asking him if his nunchakus were heavy, how long he'd been training with them and all of his answers seemed super genuine and honest. Then we got to his car after walking through the parking lot for a while and I swear that I was more excited to see a real life pair of nunchacos than I had been about the whole E3 thing in the first place. But then when he opened up his trunk, I didn't see any. I turned to look at him all confused, expecting him to have a similarly confused look on his face like,

hmm, I'm sure that I left them here. But instead, the look he had was one that literally made my stomach drop. His face was expressionless, except for this intense look in his eyes when I saw it. I knew that I had made a huge mistake. The next thing I know, he's trying to shove me into the trunk of his car, and I just let out this manic screech of pure terror. I screamed longer and louder than I ever had in my life, before or since, not even words, just like a wail of absolute horror as I realized all the brotherly protectiveness he'd been showing me was just an act. The same guy that had warned me about weirdos at the con, about how there were only a few

of them and nothing to worry about, he was one of them, and he had been intending on kidnapping me from the very get-go. He actually managed to get me all the way into his trunk at one point and if it wasn't for me sticking a leg out at the last second, he'd have gotten me trapped in there for good. It was both a kind of blessing and a curse though because the force with which he brought the trunk down onto my leg made it feel like he'd broken it. It was numb and I guess that was just the adrenaline staving off the pain, but in that moment I screamed like he really had broken my leg or something.

That bought me a little bit more time to try and fight my way out of the trunk. But then the more that I fought, the more that I realized that it was no good. He was bigger and stronger than me, and it was only a matter of time before he managed to completely overpower me. And by far the worst part was when he told me, don't make me shut you up. He'd been saying shut up and be quiet almost the whole time, but when he finally said don't make me shut you up, I realized that it was either go along with the abduction, or he might actually choke me out or strangle me completely in order to not get caught in the act.

But then what choice did I have other than to carry on trying to save my own life? If I hadn't, I literally wouldn't be around to tell you this story. Also, I guess by this point you're wondering how I got out of such a horrible situation. And honestly, it was nothing I did myself. It all came down to a stroke of pure luck. It just so happened that some latecomer had been driving through the parking lot looking for a parking space and just so happened to be driving through the same section we were in when they heard my screams. It kind of makes my mind boggle at how the universe had to align that perfectly so that someone heard my screams as aside from the

latecomer, the parking lot was basically deserted of any people. If we'd gone out to his car a little earlier or later, or if that guy and his kids hadn't been stuck in traffic that morning after driving in from out of state, there's a good chance I wouldn't have survived that weekend. After running towards the sound of my screams, the guy managed to scare the guy trying to kidnap me, who just took off when he realized they'd been discovered. The rest is kind of a blur of crying, talking to cops, and then driving to the hospital to get my leg checked out. With the only really good news being that the cops managed to trace the guy's rental car to his dad

because it was rented in his name, and that's how they managed to arrest him before charging him with attempted kidnapping. It was my first real cosplaying experience, and it was completely ruined by some complete psycho who took advantage of my vulnerability to gain my trust enough to attempt to kidnap me, and possibly even kill me. Who knows what he truly had in mind after that. It took me a long time to be able to even attempt to cosplay again, as the whole thing made me feel overwhelming anxiety whenever I so much as looked

at my selfie costume. This year, I'm finally able to actually wear it again, but I honestly don't think that I'll be able to wear it in public or at any kind of convention anytime soon. It's not just what happened to me either, it's that I've heard a lot of different stories about how female cosplays just make a certain kind of guy act a certain kind of way. It's like they see the fictional character and just assume that we're not real people ourselves. That's the way I've come to see it anyway. And it's not just with their actions either. I see all kinds of horrific comments directed towards female cosplayers on a variety of different websites too, be it Reddit or Twitter or even Facebook sometimes.

It makes me think cosplay is something I should just enjoy on my own, or with a circle of like-minded folks online, in communities that can be easily policed and controlled. But again, that's just the way I see it. Either way, I'm going to be very, very careful with my cosplaying in the future. And honestly, as scary as my ordeal was, not being able to express myself like that just makes me really, really sad. To be continued... die-hard sci-fi and Harry Potter fans, and to celebrate their upcoming fifth wedding anniversary, they planned a fun-filled vacation to the new Harry Potter world in Orlando, Florida. Liz was also a huge Star Wars enthusiast, and when she wasn't working at her job as a data reporter, she could often be found creating elaborate cosplays for herself and her husband Sergio.

One of the couple's shared hobbies was cosplaying at theme parks, as well as various comic book sci-fi conventions. But cosplaying wasn't something they did purely for recreation, as they also used these same costumes in their roles as volunteers with the 501st Legion, a group of volunteers who dress up in costumes from Star Wars and visit sick children in Houston-area hospitals. The couple were a very charitable pair, but they definitely weren't the wealthiest, so to offset some of the expenses of their Florida trip, they decided to have a garage sale at their Tomball, Texas home on the morning of January 25th, 2019. But that same morning, as Elizabeth was setting up

the tables she planned on using in the garage sale, a dark-colored Nissan Frontier truck pulled up in front of the Barraza home. The person that got out of the car had long hair and more would appear to be some kind of rogue, with CCTV cameras capturing them walking towards Elizabeth before engaging her in a brief conversation. Seconds later, the person in the rogue pulls out some kind of handgun and fires four shots in Elizabeth's direction, leaving her splayed out in her driveway as her attacker bolts back towards their truck. Then, in a disturbingly eerie turn of events, the shooter appears to circle back around the back in their truck, slowing down at the Barraza's driveway to ensure that Elizabeth was dead. After that, they sped off, probably after hearing the sirens from the

emergency vehicles which were fast approaching, having been called in by an anxious neighbor. Elizabeth was rushed to a nearby hospital, but tragically, she was declared dead the following morning, all at the very same hospital where she had volunteered so many times before. Just 29 years old at the time of her murder, Elizabeth's organ donor status enabled her to save the lives of four separate individuals in the wake of her untimely death. But this was nothing but a cold comfort for her devastated husband and family members. Naturally, they demanded justice for their slain loved one. But despite all the efforts of the Tomball Sheriff's Department, her killer has not yet been brought to justice. Her family even

offered a reward of $50,000 in the hopes that someone could shed some light onto who her killer might be. But to this day, no one has ever come forward with any useful information. The murder of Elizabeth Barraza remains an unsolved mystery, but thanks to the surveillance footage released by the Harris County Sheriff's Office, there are a few things

that we can deduce regarding the killer's identity. Firstly, the vehicle they were driving was recorded by multiple cameras in the Barazas neighborhood, and after idling near the driveway for a while, a person can deduce that they got out of the driver's side door, indicating that they were probably acting alone. It's also clear that this vehicle was seen driving through the neighborhood on the night before the murder, as well as before Elizabeth was shot, which makes it clear that the killer was somehow scouting out the scene of the crime before moving in for the kill. Given that the killer sprinted away from the crime scene, they must have been in fairly decent shape. But beyond that, the clothes that they were wearing

make it very difficult to get a good look at them. Some have even suggested that the long hair was merely a wig intended to disguise their identity. According to the security footage, the shooter doesn't seem to suffer much recoil after firing each round and on top of that, there were no shell casings found at the scene. This indicates that the killer probably used a smaller caliber revolver, and the fact that they were firing with just one hand on the grip shows that they were comfortable and experienced in using firearms. After shooting Elizabeth three times in the torso, the killer then steps forward and fires a single final shot into her head.

Then as they begin to flee, they bring a hand up to their head. This is another indicator that the person was wearing some kind of wig and that they didn't want it to fall off in the process of escaping the scene. This little detail leads into the robe that the individual was wearing, which may have also been some kind of costume to distract from their actual identity. It should also be noted that the killer just so happened to park in the ultimate blind spot for cameras throughout the neighborhood, another indicator that they'd carefully planned the attack so as not to be

easily identified. Then, in August of 2019, almost half a year after Elizabeth's murder, investigators announced they had a possible break in the case. As the months went by, although investigators would not divulge which aspect of the investigation this break pertained to, Harris County Homicide Detective Michael Ritchie told one Texan media outlet, I feel that the results of that warrant will be critical in the investigation and most likely will expose the suspect and who's responsible for this. Following this statement, rumors began circulating that Elizabeth's murderer was actually some kind of contract killer. This was down to one of the more unnerving

details, how the shooter had circled back around to the crime scene after originally fleeing. They may have needed to drive back around to take a picture of Elizabeth's body lying in the driveway. Elizabeth's father, Bob Nuella, would comment on this particular detail in 2020, saying that, Detective Michael Ritchie also confirmed these suspicions when he told reporters, I feel they contacted somebody and said, hey, the job's done. And then that person said, are you sure? And they turned around and drove by the scene one more time. Something that investigators have always struggled with in regards to Elizabeth's murder is the motivation

behind this well-planned and well-executed slaying. While it's abundantly clear that it was a premeditated attack, the frustration in identifying the killer has led some to theorize that it was actually a completely random killing. Elizabeth has not advertised the garage sale ahead of time, nor had she posted about it online. And while she had posted signs up for the garage sale ahead of time, nor had she posted about it online. And while she had posted signs up for the garage sale that morning, she had only done so minutes before Sergio left for work. This means that, despite many claims to the contrary, it's essentially impossible that her killer used knowledge of the garage sale to target her, and that it was simply a lucky break in their monstrous scheme. However, what's curious is that numerous sources have confirmed that Elizabeth would have

naturally have departed for work by that point in the morning, as she made a habit of leaving early to avoid the Houston traffic. This only gives credence to the idea that her killer was aware of her plans that morning and knew where she would be, but some of the only people to know that she wouldn't be heading into work were her co-workers, as Elizabeth had called out of work that morning. Yet her killer also still knew to wait for her husband to leave before launching the attack, which indeed suggests they had intimate knowledge of the couple's morning routine. Then there's the fact that the killer spoke to Elizabeth for a few

seconds. Was this simply to confirm her identity, or did Elizabeth actually know who killed her that morning? Until they're identified, this is an aspect of the case we can only speculate on. It's entirely possible that Elizabeth's killer might have been someone that Sergio was having an affair with, but there's been very little evidence of this. On all those that knew the couple have dismissed this as nothing short of preposterous. Investigators spend hours and hours combing through the digital lives of both Elizabeth and Sergio in the hopes of finding a potential motive, but nothing remotely incriminating has ever been found, and neither of them have been threatened prior to the shooting, so there seems to be no apparent reason for this crime tied into their relationship.

After eliminating that particular possibility, we come to a very disturbing prospect, that the murder pertains to Elizabeth's involvement in the cosplay community. It shouldn't be lost on us that the killer was wearing a kind of costume when they showed up that morning. I mean, they probably had the wig and robe on hand when they decided to take Elizabeth's life. Is it possible Elizabeth had rubbed someone the wrong way while at a cosplay convention? Someone who wanted to wear some of the same items they'd worn on the day of the offense so that Elizabeth would recognize the person she'd angered? It's clear that Elizabeth's

murderer wanted her to know who they were, or they wouldn't have taken the time to talk to her before firing the fatal shots. Perhaps Elizabeth had a rival in the cosplay community, one who was sick and tired of her showing them up at events or conventions. Granted, that makes for a fairly outlandish theory, but after eliminating the possibility of a love rival, there's very little left for us to speculate on other than her involvement in the local cosplay community. But regardless of motive, the way in which the shooting played out makes the motive seem incredibly personal. If it was some kind of hit, was it a member of the local or national cosplay community that took the contract on her? Elizabeth was definitely one of the more talented costume creators in the country,

and perhaps she was treading on toes of someone who could gain financially from her death. It seems that as long as the motive for Elizabeth's murder remains a mystery, so will the identity of her killer. And maybe, when her killer is finally caught, it'll give us a terrifying insight into the fiercely competitive nature of the American cosplay community, and show how certain individuals in a group that prides itself on being loving and supportive, might not be so peaceful and well-meaning after all. The 2017 Phoenix Comic Con started out much like any other. On the morning of Thursday, May 25th, the Phoenix Convention Center opened its doors to a veritable legion of costume-clad comic book enthusiasts, most of whom were intent on nothing more than some wholesome fantastical fun.

But there was one among them who had much more sinister intentions for one of the convention's special guests. And if it weren't for the swift actions of another, that weekend's Comic-Con might have been marred by a horrific act of very real violence. One of the Thursday's attendees was a man in his 30s named Matthew Enrique Navarro Sterling. Many of those that surrounded Matthew as he walked into the convention were sporting a variety of homemade prop weapons, and while some might have looked very real, for the most part, they were completely harmless. However, the items that Matthew carried in a large black bag were very real, and very dangerous. In his bag were two.45 caliber handguns, a.454 caliber handgun,

a 12-gauge shotgun, a combat knife, pepper spray, and throwing stars. But while Matthew was carrying enough weapons to kill dozens of fellow attendees, he had only one target in mind that day. Jason David Frank, perhaps better known as the original Green Ranger. Jason intended to be at the con all four days for photo ops, autograph signings, and a Friday panel Whereas Matthew intended to make it his last He might have been nothing but an overweight comic book enthusiast But Matthew had managed to delude himself into thinking he was actually the Punisher A Marvel Comics character focused on vigilante justice

After entering the convention hall, Matthew made his way up to the second floor, before taking out his phone and sending a series of viciously violent Facebook messages to several friends and public figures. One of these public figures was an LA-based singer, composer, and cosplayer named Reiko Takahashi. She and Matthew had met before, back in 2014 and over the next year, they exchanged friendly messages about his fitness goals. Then, one night after a concert, Reiko got off stage to find her phone full of messages from Matthew. His tone had changed, and he was threatening to harm another cosplayer.

Reiko stopped communicating with him, gave the woman a heads up, and contacted a friend who was a police officer. The threats had resulted in Matthew getting a warning over the threats, and he had refrained from further contacting Reiko. All until May of 2017 when he announced he was about to do something big at a comic book convention near his hometown. Once again, Reiko contacted the police and soon found herself warning a Sergeant Scott Nichols of California Hawthorne's police department about Matthew's threats.

With Reiko's help, Sergeant Nichols deduced that Matthew was most likely attending the Phoenix Comic Con and he rushed to contact the Phoenix Police Department to inform them of the potential danger. Just eleven minutes after Sergeant Nichols called in the threat, officers of the Phoenix Police Department were combing through the throngs of convention attendees, and when they found Matthew gearing up for his attack on the second floor, they subdued and arrested him without any injury to the public. Matthew pleaded not guilty at his preliminary hearing for attempted murder, and due to his dangerous, unhinged state of mind, his bail was set at $1 million. He exhibited a dramatic threat to the community beyond police officers, beyond Jason David Frank, explained Maricopa County

Deputy Attorney Ed Leiter. Leiter then added that a number of other people were referenced as possible targets or people he wanted to kill. Naturally, such a close call made international headlines, and in the aftermath, Jason David Frank encouraged Comic-Cons everywhere to increase their security procedures. Surprisingly, Jason was graciously empathetic with his prospective killer, saying in an interview that, I don't know this individual, but I will pray for him. Jason was then informed that Matthew had claimed to have stabbed the actor during a previous encounter, something he rather humorously denied.

I think if you mention stabbed and haven't been stabbed, the story speaks for itself, he said. In response to the incident, convention security was beefed up for the remainder of the event. Entrance points were limited, bags and belongings were thoroughly searched, and those with replica or prop weapons would be forced to leave them at home or risk being refused entry. This included what were referred to as weapons from fictional sources, such as plasma rifles, phaser, and even lightsabers. Even those cosplaying as Ghostbusters were bizarrely affected, with one ad hoc safety regulation stating that proton packs are allowed, however the neutrino wand will need to be disconnected or permanently attached to the pack.

From what I can tell, the reactions of attendees, vendors, and special guests were surprisingly mixed. Some welcomed the increased security measures, arguing that they were essential to ensure that all those who attended conventions could be kept safe. Yet others felt that the new draconian regulations were an unnecessary damper on the creativity and panache of those who cosplayed. A handful of cosplayers saw the funny side and replaced their arsenals with witty cardboard signs or sword-shaped balloons. Others didn't see the funny side, and one artisan lightsaber vendor complained that they'd lost thousands of dollars in yearly revenue. A Facebook user used

the analogy of a stinging insect to explain the futility of the move, saying that it does absolutely nothing to prevent other bees from stinging you, just like this fake weapons ban won't do anything at all to keep another lunatic from waltzing in like the Punisher. Another user spoke of the financial hit that the guerrilla prop craft industry would have to endure, saying it would punish hundreds who have worked hours on their cosplays because of one lunatic. Others were far more safety conscious, commenting that they didn't understand how very few commenters on this seem to realize how severe this whole thing is, and giving up a stupid cosplay prop for safety measures is not the end of the world. Another saw the silver lining of the increased security measures, admitting that yes, it was inconvenient, but the show could just as easily have been cancelled. Instead, they came up with this solution. I'm appreciative that no one was hurt and that the con went on for the rest of the weekend.

Count your blessings, folks. Whether attendees agreed with the increased security or not, it seems almost a miracle that no one was hurt that day. Matthew Sterling constituted a heavily armed psychopath in their midst, and he could have just as easily decided to target random convention goers rather than focus his psychopathic rage on an ex-power ranger. We can only be bizarrely grateful that he chose to cryptically warn a member of the cosplay community whose quick thinking allowed swift action by local law enforcement, who subsequently brought Matthew into custody. If he hadn't, if Matthew had been a little more secretive in his murderous machinations, then many, many people could have been hurt that day, and many of those who have gone out that day intending to have one of the most fun-filled days of their lives might have never gone home at all. These days, I can do anything from my phone. Book a vacation, order a meal from a five-star restaurant, buy and trade stocks. But maybe the most amazing thing I can do is make my

dirty laundry disappear and then reappear perfectly washed and folded. I have Rinse to thank for that. I just schedule a pickup in the Rinse app or at Rinse.com. A Rinse valet comes to get my clothes, and before I know it, they're back, crisply folded and ready to wear. They even do dry cleaning, which is returned hanging in a nice rinse garment bag. And with rinse, my satisfaction is guaranteed. If for any reason I'm not happy, they'll re-clean my clothes for free. Best of all, rinse saves me tons of time each week. That's time I get to do something I love versus something I have to do. So if you want to save loads of time each week. That's time I get to do something I love versus something I have to do. So if you want to save loads of time by not doing loads of laundry, remember, there's an app for

that. Rinse. Sign up now and get $20 off your first order at rinse.com. That's R-I- 14-year-old Alicia Navarro was living with her parents at her home in Glendale, Arizona. She was described by her family and friends as a very sweet but very troubled young lady who could be technically described as high-functioning autistic. In light of her diagnosis, she suffered from some quite severe social problems and had such trouble making friends in person that she often retreated to the internet to engage socially. Alicia's mother said that she only ever wore the same white sweatshirt even when it was sweltering hot outside and that the only food she would ever eat was McDonald's chicken nuggets. About a month or so before her 15th birthday, Alicia's parents discovered that her daughter was engaging in frequent conversations with someone online. She eventually admitted that this person was a fully grown adult, and when her parents began

to suspect that the man was attempting to take advantage of her, they banned her from going online in order to protect her. However, this had the opposite effect on young Alicia, who became catastrophically depressed at being cut off from her online social circles. Her parents then started vetting the apps and programs she used hoping they'd be able to protect her from the influences of this older man. Yet Alicia subverted their efforts every single time, forcing her parents to contact the local police to see if they could do anything about it. To their horror, since neither Alicia nor the adult male were breaking any laws, the cops were unable to do anything about the conversations. According to Alicia's parents, the man kept their

daughter on the hook by promising to take her to a local comic book convention, something they were afraid to do on account of their daughter's severe autism. Alicia was a huge fan of comic books and Japanese cartoons, but seemed to believe that the symptoms of her autism wouldn't manifest at such an event. Yet her parents knew that such a loud, colorful, and heavily populated event would be nothing short of a nightmare for their easily stimulated daughter. And it was clear that Alicia's new friend was using the promise of a Comic-Con trip as a kind of attack vector, an obvious weakness he could exploit in order to sow discord between Alicia and her parents. Time and time again, Alicia's

parents explained that it wasn't safe for her to attend Comic-Con, especially in the company of an older man she'd never met before. Alicia seemed to have trouble understanding that, despite the man claiming his intentions were pure, he could not be trusted and that any decent grown-up would never try to talk to a 14-year-old in such a way. It took a while, but Alicia finally claimed she understood that the man's intentions were far from pure. And in the run-up to her 15th birthday, her mood and behavior appeared to dramatically improve. Yet on the night of September 9th, 2019, Alicia's mother stayed up to await the arrival of her husband, who was working late that evening. Although it was way past her bedtime, Alicia disappeared downstairs, claiming she was

parched and wanted a glass of water. To her mother's surprise, Alicia then tried to convince her mother to go to bed, despite the fact that she had promised to wait up for Alicia's father. This behavior was extremely out of the ordinary for the young girl, and after her father arrived home, Alicia's parents went into her bedroom to make sure she was still in her bed. Since their daughter appeared to be sound asleep, Alicia's parents then had a quick bite to eat, then retired to their own bedroom to get some sleep.

Yet when they awoke the next morning, what they found made their entire world fall apart. Alicia's mother woke up early in order to prepare for work, but when she walked into the kitchen, she noticed the back door to their home was wide open. Walking into the backyard, Alicia's mother then discovered that her daughter had stacked a bunch of chairs and bricks against one of the backyard's walls, most likely as a way of climbing over it. She then rushed up into Alicia's bedroom, only to find a handwritten note on her bed which read, I ran away. I will be back, I swear. I'm sorry.

Alicia appeared to have taken only her cell phone, her MacBook, and some makeup and perfume with her, along with a rare Iron Man comic book named Demon in a Bottle. The rare comic book was worth around $200, and Alicia had begged her mother to buy it for her as an early birthday present. Alicia's terrified parents immediately contacted the Glendale Police Department, and some of the first people they questioned were Alicia's school friends. This is how they discovered that in the weeks before she ran away, Alicia appeared to be in possession of a cheap burner-style phone, one that was noticeably different from the more advanced cell phone her parents had given her. When asked about this new phone, Alicia's answers had been incredibly cagey, and she refused to tell them either how she'd gotten it or who'd given it to her. One of her friends also mentioned that Alicia had discussed running away from home,

but didn't think that she was being serious about it, so she hadn't informed any adults of the discussion until the police had come to question her regarding Alicia's disappearance. Alicia has never been seen since, so there's a strong suspicion among law enforcement circles that either she was killed by the man who groomed her, or she's being kept prisoner somewhere against her will. Many believe that Alicia did actually plan to return home not long after she departed, as although she took her MacBook with her, she neglected to bring her charger. There's every possibility that she simply forgot to pack it, but Alicia's parents don't believe their daughter really did intend to run away for good, only to visit the local comic con and hang out with her older

friend for a while. While there is a degree of doubt over exactly what Alicia's intentions were, as well as her current condition, one thing is painfully obvious to all involved. Someone in her online social circle had managed to groom her to the point that she would escape the safety of her own home, and aside from cut her off from accessing the internet, there was next to nothing her parents could do about it. It's clear that neither of them were technologically savvy enough to be able to properly vet the apps or websites she was using to talk to this person, and even if they were, it's more than likely that this person would have aided Alicia in subverting such precautions.

In this day and age, internet safety should be paramount whenever our children are involved. Unless parents become more adept at dealing with such online threats, cases like Alicia's are doomed to reoccur, time and time again. To be continued... I used to go to Pittsburgh Comic Con almost every year, and I knew one of the promoters personally. Mike used to give us free tickets if we handed out flyers for him, as he was always super busy running his store, Comics World, in Winver. If anyone listening is from Pittsburgh, you might remember the place, as it was basically a mecca for Pittsburgh nerds of all fandoms and allegiances. Mike was such a cool guy, too. He was always so chill and friendly to anyone who walked into his store. I think he used to volunteer as a referee in peewee basketball games, too. At least that's what I heard. He just had this reputation as being a really nice,

community-oriented guy. I used to stop by Comics World at least once a week to browse his new stock, but then this one week, I stopped by to find the store closed. It wasn't like him to close the store up during operating hours, so I called the store's number to see if everything was okay. But then there was no answer there either, so I actually started to worry a little. I returned the next day about the same time, and the store was closed again. So as much as I didn't want to, I headed over to the only other half-decent comic store in town to see if they had anything I was interested in. When I arrived, I happened to see a guy I knew from hanging out at Comics World.

Probably there too, because he too had found the store to be closed and needed somewhere else to browse. I went over and said hey to him and then asked if he knew why Comics World was closed on a Saturday of all days. He just looks at me all shocked and says, you haven't heard? And launches into an explanation as to why Comics World probably wouldn't be opening up again anytime soon. Mike had been arrested, which was shocking enough, but then the guy told me why he'd been arrested, and I swear I spent the minutes that followed with my jaw on the floor of the store. Before I tell you what he'd been arrested for, there's something you need to know

about Mike. We didn't know too much about his life, but we knew that he used to live in Michigan before moving out to Pennsylvania. He ran a comic book store, which was also called Comics World, with his ex-wife. But after she tragically passed away, he ended up just packing up his life and moving to a different state, probably to escape all the painful memories. No one I knew ever talked to him about it, not at length anyway. I think it was something he just mentioned in passing to someone at one point and it must have made its way down the grapevine to us. I mean, you hear about a guy losing his wife like that, you don't exactly make it the main topic of conversation the next time you see them, do you? Especially when it was painful

enough for him to have to move cities to try and get a fresh start. But then that's what got me so shocked when this guy told me why Mike had been arrested. It had been all over some news website that I just hadn't seen. Mike had been taken into custody for the murder of his own wife 17 years earlier. From what I read in the months after his arrest, Mike had basically faked a robbery at the comic book store after killing her. I think mainly to throw the cops off his scent, but also to maybe claim on insurance too. I'm not sure how he managed to evade suspicion for the better part of two decades, but I guess his covering up of the crime actually worked, at least for a while anyway. I know he was living with a girl here in Pittsburgh, so maybe that had something to do with it too. Like he knew his wife would

help herself to her share of the business or something if he decided to run off with this other woman. A lot of the Pittsburgh comics crowds just flat out didn't believe it at first. One guy I knew told me that he'd already stood trial a few years later, but that he'd been acquitted. The cops just kept wanting to pin the murder on him for some reason and I guess in the end, it was because he actually did it. Because at his second trial after he was arrested, he got life in prison for his wife's murder. It's just terrifying to think that he wasn't anything like the man that I thought he was. He masqueraded as some pillar of the community when, in reality, he was anything but. I just don't get why he didn't

just divorce his wife and take the financial hit instead of outright killing her. Surely that would have been easier of an option in the long run. Makes me think he was just evil from the start, that he had something in him that made him think that he was smarter than everyone else, and that he had more of a right to a few bucks than his wife did to her own life. If he could do that to her, what would he have done to someone like me if a few bucks were on the line? Makes you wonder if you ever really know someone, at all. California comic book conventions are arguably some of the greatest in the entire country. Given their proximity to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, it's not unusual for the LA or San Diego Comic Cons to host some of the most well-known writers, actors, or artists of the comic book world. And a less renowned but more consistent attendee was graphic novelist Blake Leibel. Leibel was originally born in Canada to wealthy

parents consisting of a realtor father and an heiress mother. He is perhaps best known for his 2010 work Syndrome, which is the story of a sadistic doctor who happens to be obsessed with serial killers. on a number of levels, as experienced by four characters who all come from different worlds and yet find themselves embroiled in this giant, impeccably simulated environment. But Blake is famous for another reason too, one even darker than his macabre creative output. During the spring of 2016, a 35-year-old Blake was living in a West Hollywood apartment with his 30-year-old girlfriend, Ayana Kasyan. Ayana was a Ukrainian-born tax office prosecutor and part-time model with whom Blake had fathered an infant daughter, and although their relationship had once been something of a fairytale romance, the preceding few months had seen it deteriorate rapidly.

On the night of May 25th, Blake and Ayona's daughter were staying with the latter's mother, who was visiting from Ukraine and staying in a nearby apartment. It's not clear if this is because she simply wanted to spend some time with her granddaughter, or if the cracks in Blake and Iona's relationship were widening at an exponential rate, but it could easily have been a mix of both. Because that night, whether in cold blood or a fit of rage, Blake came up with a devilishly permanent solution to their very temporary problem. The following morning, Iona's mother called over to Blake's apartment to check on the couple, but no one would answer the door. She then called

Ayanna and Blake's phones, but neither picked up. She began to walk away from the apartment building with a sense of growing concern. Then as she turned around to look at the window of Blake's apartment, she saw something lurking at the edge of a closed curtain. Someone who had been peeking at her as she walked away. Ayanna's mother became wracked by a feeling of deep dread, and suspecting that something was horribly wrong, she immediately called the Los Angeles Police Department to report that something awful might have happened to her daughter. When they finally arrived at the apartment building,

they discovered that Blake had barricaded the door of his home and was refusing to come out. It didn't take long for them to break into his apartment on the suspicion that he had somehow harmed his girlfriend, and when they did so, they made a gruesome discovery. Lying on the couple's bed was the lifeless corpse of Ayanna, who had been scalped before being completely drained of blood and horrifically mutilated. To illustrate some of the terrifyingly perverse things that Blake Livell did to her, I'll refer you to the autopsy transcripts of Los Angeles County Coroner Dr. James Ribes' deposition. Cassian's entire scalp was traumatically absent and was not present near the body. Her skull had been stripped down to the surface of the bone,

and there was no scalp present except for little bits in the back of the neck. Portions of the right side of her face were torn away, including the right ear, all the way down to the jawline. There were quite a number of bruises and abrasions on the face, primarily on the left cheek jaw area, including one which turned out to be a human bite mark. She had lived for approximately 8 hours after receiving the scalp injury, something I have never seen before.

I doubt if any forensic pathologist in this country or abroad had even seen this outside of wartime. The many morbid details of Dr. Rive's report are as shocking as they are disgusting, but it's the final one which is undoubtedly the most disturbing. Iona Cassian was essentially tortured to death, and although it's not clear if Blake incapacitated her before inflicting the majority of her injuries, the fact that she remained alive for eight hours after he tore her scalp off is nothing short of nightmare-inducing. Two years later, in June of 2018, Blake Leibel was convicted of first-degree murder. In light of the fact that he had subjected Ayanna to a grisly and prolonged bout of torture, and the fact that he attempted to plead not guilty to charges of murder,

torture, and aggravated mayhem, he was given a life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole. It's an unreasonable assumption that artists who deal with dark subject matter are all varying degrees of deranged. Most are able to deal with macabre subjects and maintain a healthy state of mind. But the actions of Blake Leibel seem to be evidence to the contrary. That in one particular case, all the darkness an artist has stored up in their mind wasn't neutralized or compartmentalized in any way. It was simply trapped up there, festering away, waiting to be unleashed on whoever angered him sufficiently. And what's really disturbing is that the person he forced to endure hell on earth was the mother of his child, arguably the love of his life. We can only imagine the horrors he'd have inflicted on someone he wasn't so close to. Someone like you, or someone like me. For 18-year-old Natalie Holloway, the summer of 2005 was supposed to be one of the most special of her entire life.

Following her high school graduation, she and over a hundred of her fellow students flew out to the Caribbean island of Aruba for four days of celebration. But it was a trip she would never return from. What followed is potentially one of the most disturbing international missing person cases in contemporary history, one with twists and turns involving a jet-setting murderer, false accusations, and modern-day slavery. Natalie Ann Holloway was in Memphis, Tennessee on October 21st of 1986. She was the eldest daughter of Dave and Elizabeth Holloway, but following their divorce in 1993, Natalie and her younger brother became the stepchildren of prominent Alabama businessman

George Twitty. Natalie spent her teenage years in the affluent Birmingham suburb of Mountain Brook and became a member of the National Honor Society while attending Mountain Brook High School. After returning from Aruba, she had planned to pursue a pre-med track, but as we already know, that never came to pass. Natalie and 124 of her classmates traveled to the Caribbean on Thursday, May 26th of 2005, accompanied by seven adult chaperones. Jody Behrman, the teacher who organized the trip, stated that the chaperones were not supposed to keep up with every move, and instead opted for daily meetings to ensure everything was fine. After all, the trip was supposed to celebrate their newfound freedom, and the chaperones knew any attempts to be overbearing would be rebuffed with contempt. It might come as no surprise that newly graduated high schoolers abused this newfound freedom, but then combined with the fact that Aruba's legal drinking age is 18,

and it made for some pretty messy results. Two of Holloway's classmates, Liz Kane and Claire Fehrman, agreed that the level of alcohol consumed by the group was excessive, and admitted that the Mountain Brook students engaged in wild partying, a lot of drinking, and lots of room switching every night. Their antics were so raucous that, at one point, the manager of the Holiday Inn that they were stayed in took one of the chaperones aside to inform them that they would no longer be taking bookings from Mountain Brook, as the students were making life unbearable for the hotel staff. Natalie was no exception, and was said to have consumed alcohol all day, every day. Some of her

friends later noted that she was skipping breakfast in order to start her days with pre-mixed cocktails, which as many of us know, is nothing short of a recipe for disaster. Sunday, May 29th saw Natalie engage in yet another day of heavy drinking, and after a small dinner, she and her friends visited two establishments named the Aronestad Bar and Carlos and Charlie's. In the wee small hours of the following morning, Natalie's friends spotted her leaving one of the bars at around 1.30 a.m. with a young man by the name of Joran van der Schlaert. Joran was a 17-year-old Dutch honor student who was living in Aruba whilst attending a local international school.

Natalie was due to fly back to Alabama the following day, but when she failed to show up for her return flight, her friends grew increasingly concerned. Some speculated that she'd flown home early, but the discovery of her passport and luggage in her hotel room ruled this theory out completely. At the behest of her family, her ruined authorities began searching the island, as well as its surrounding waters, but not a trace of Natalie could be found. In order to aid and coordinate the search for their daughter, Natalie's mother and stepfather flew out to Aruba almost immediately. They had been conducting their own information-gathering mission back at home, and within just a few hours of their arrival, they presented a Reuben police with the name of Joran Wanderschlout, the very same boy that Natalie had been seen

cavorting with the night before. Their identification was aided by the Holiday Inn's manager, who had recognized Joran from the CCTV footage of Natalie leaving the bar they'd been drinking at. To the family's horror, Joran had a reputation as something of a playboy, but not only that, the hotel's manager said that something about him terrified her, that he had the cold, dead eyes of a sociopath. If Natalie had indeed left the bar with him whilst in a state of intoxication, there was a large chance that she was in grave danger. After learning of this, Natalie's parents rushed to the Van der Schlout family home, accompanied by two Aruban policemen. When Joran's mother summoned him to a meeting with them, their fears only worsened when

he denied knowing anything about Natalie, and it was only when confronted with the CCTV footage that he admitted having spent the evening with her. Vioran said that he and a friend of his drove Natalie to a stretch of shoreline called Arashi Beach, claiming that Natalie had wanted to see the sharks that frequented the area's crystal blue waters. Following the visit to Arashi Beach, Vioran stated that he and his friend had taken Natalie back to the Holiday Inn at around 2 a.m. Yet as they were driving away, he noticed she was being approached by a man wearing the same kind of black shirt worn by the hotel's security guards. Following a heartfelt plea from Natalie's family, hundreds of volunteers from Aruba and the United States joined in the search

and rescue efforts. The Aruban government gave thousands of civil servants the day off to participate in the rescue effort, and while 50 Dutch Marines conducted an extensive search of the shoreline, Aruban banks raised just over $20,000 to aid volunteer search teams. Contrary to Jeroen van der Schout's version of events, Natalie did not appear on any nighttime surveillance footage from the Holiday Inn's lobby. This initially led investigators to conclude that she hadn't returned home that night, but the Aruban police commissioner later stated that Holloway did not have to go through the lobby to return to her room, meaning that, for the time being,

there was no way of knowing if Yoran was lying or not. Then, on June 5th of 2005, Aruban authorities announced the arrest of two former security guards named Nick John and Abraham Jones. The two men were known to cruise hotels in order to pick up women, and at least one of them had a history of criminality. However, just over a week later, both men were released without charge. Their release was heavily influenced by the police's decision to arrest Joran van der Schlaut on suspicion of kidnapping and murder. Police Commissioner Gerald Dompig told the Associated Press that one of Joran's friends admitted that something bad had happened to Natalie after the suspects took her to the beach. Following an accusation from Joran von der Schlacht, his two friends Deepak Kalpo and Satish Kalpo were arrested on similar charges, and what followed was a bout

of three-way finger-pointing in which each of the suspects attempted to incriminate the others. However, based on physical evidence and witness testimony, the Calpeaux brothers were later released, while Joran's period of detention was extended by 60 days. Yet while prosecutors attempted to build a case against Joran, there was still the matter of finding Natalie. It wasn't yet clear if she was dead or alive, so on July 4th of 2005, the Dutch Air Force deployed three F-16 fighter jets, each equipped with infrared sensors, but not a trace of any living person could be found in the search area. Dutch Marines then combed the area in an attempt to uncover any kind of makeshift grave, but again, nothing was found. Following these searches, a number of reports came in from varying sources, stating that Natalie's body could have been dumped in a small

pond near the Aruba Racquet Club. Another person claimed that he'd spotted men burying a blonde haired woman in a landfill on the afternoon of May 30th. Both sites were searched intensively, but neither proved to be the location of Natalie 30th. Both sites were searched intensively, but neither proved to be the location of Natalie's corpse. As the search grew more and more desperate, Natalie's family increased the reward for her safe return from just over $200,000 to more than a million, while the FBI offered their assistance to the Aruban authorities. After a piece of duct tape with strands of blonde hair stuck to it was located, a new suspect emerged in the case. 21-year-old Freddy Arambatsis had previously been suspected of inappropriate physical contact with an underage girl, and it was suspected that

Joran Wanderschlout and the Kaupo brothers were involved in the same incident. In the months that followed, Joran Wanders Schlaert gave several press interviews which attempted to explain his version of events. Perhaps the most infamous was one in which Joran claimed that Natalie had wanted to engage in intimate relations with him, but he had refused on account of not having protection. This version of events saw Joran claim that he'd left Natalie alone on Arashi Beach at around three in the morning, and that he felt partially responsible for her disappearance having not driven her back to her hotel. He also added that he was almost certain that Natalie was

alive, and that the whole ordeal was just a brief but horrible chapter that would soon have a happy ending. Shortly before resigning his post, police commissioner Dompik gave an interview to CBS News in which he shared his own private theory. He declared that he no longer believed that Natalie was murdered and instead theorized that she had died from either a drug overdose or alcohol poisoning. Then, whoever was with her at the time had such a fear of reprisals that they'd hidden her body to sever any connection to her. Natalie's family denied that she was a drug user, but Commissioner Dompig's claims seemed to have led to the 2006 arrest of a suspected drug trafficker. Frustratingly, this trafficker was subsequently released without charge,

and the search for those responsible continued. The following year, on April 27th of 2007, around 20 investigations descended on the van der Schlaut family's home in order to conduct an extensive search of the grounds. Using shovels and thin metal rods to penetrate the earth, Dutch authorities all but formally declared that they believed Natalie was buried on the property. Police officers also conducted a thorough analysis of Joran van der Schlaut's laptop in the hopes that some kind of digital evidence could be unearthed. The detectives refused to comment on what prompted the new search, but it seems nothing of interest was discovered. A month later, the Kalpo family's residence was also searched by the new search, but it seems nothing of interest was discovered. A month later, the Kalpo family's residence was also searched by the Dutch police, but again, the search produced no new developments.

2007 saw van der Schlaut and the Kalpo brothers brought into police custody for a third time, but following their release, it seemed that Natalie Halloway's case was doomed to remain cold. But in January of 2008, a Dutch journalist threatened to blow the case wide open in an incredibly controversial manner. Out of nowhere, a Dutch crime reporter named Pieter de Vries announced that he had solved the mystery of Natalie's disappearance. He had enlisted the help of Patrick van der Eem,

a Dutch businessman and ex-convict who had placed hidden microphones in his car before gaining Joran van der Schlout's trust. After sharing cannabis with Patrick, Joran confessed that he was with Natalie when she began to have a seizure. He then attempted to revive her, but failed in his attempt.

Then after being advised by a friend to dispose of her body, he did just that and tossed her into the sea. It was a compelling story, but it was one that proved to be completely false. Not only did the Aruban police state that none of the details added up, but Yoran later stated that he'd made the whole thing up while under the influence of cannabis. It was only in an interview with Fox News the following November that Yoron claimed to have finally told the truth, and it made for the most shocking confession of all. On November 24th, Yoron told an American journalist that he had sold Natalie as a slave to a shadowy ring of international human traffickers. Yoron also claimed that his father had paid off two police officers who had learned that

Natalie had been taken to Venezuela to be sold to a wealthy client. But again, he later retracted these statements when the case was about to be reopened. Yet this time, there was actual evidence for his claims. And to vindicate themselves, Fox News played a snippet of a phone conversation between Yoron and an unidentified older man, one in which the man seemed to be aware of Yoron's involvement in a human trafficking ring. 2010 saw Yoron give yet another confession, claiming he disposed of Natalie's body in a marsh in Aruba. But by this stage, it became increasingly suspicious that he was only making these

false claims to protect the human trafficking ring. Some suggested that they were ordering him to muddy the waters, so to speak, in order to throw the authorities off their scent, and that they'd threaten to kill his mother if he didn't retract the one true confession he'd made. 2010 also saw another sickening development in the case, one which would make it painfully clear that Joran van der Schlaut was a deeply malevolent individual. On March 29th, Joran contacted Natalie's mother's legal team and offered to reveal the location of her burial if she paid him a quarter of a million dollars. Incredibly, Natalie's mother wired him a partial payment of $10,000, promising to pay him the rest after the recovery of Natalie's body. It was a rash but strangely prudent decision, as the information she was subsequently provided with proved to be completely false.

Yoron was then charged with wire fraud, but instead of facing extradition to the United States, he fled into the depths of South America. Yet his escape didn't mark the end of this story, and the late spring of 2010 would bring forth another shocking development. On May 30th of 2010, exactly five years since Natalie's disappearance, a 21-year-old business student named Stephanie Flores Ramirez was reported missing in the Peruvian capital of Lima.

Three days later, she was found dead in the bathroom of an expensive hotel room, and the name that hotel room was registered under was none other than Joran van der Schlaut. The next day, Joran was arrested in Chile on a murder charge and extradited back to Peru just 24 hours later. Then, while in police custody, he confessed to killing Flores after she found information on his laptop which linked him to the murder of Natalie Holloway. Before being sentenced to 28 years in prison, Yoran once again denied any involvement in Natalie's disappearance, saying he only tried to extort her mother as a kind of revenge for making his life a living hell for the past five years. The following year, in June of 2011,

Natalie Holloway was officially declared dead in absentia, and to this day her body has never been found. It's safe to say that Joran van der Schlaut was somehow involved in her demise, but which of his confessions is the actual truth? Did Euron simply panic after she overdosed? Or did he kill her, just like he killed Stephanie Flores Ramirez in his Peruvian hotel room? Or perhaps there's an even more sinister explanation for Natalie's disappearance, one involving an international human trafficking ring. It may well be a long, long time before we learn the truth regarding Natalie's fate, but there's also a chance that there are people out there working very, very hard to ensure no one else learns the truth at all. These days, I can do anything from my phone, book a vacation, order a meal from a five-star

restaurant, buy and trade stocks. But maybe the most amazing thing I can do is make my dirty laundry disappear and then reappear perfectly washed and folded. I have Rinse to thank for that. I just schedule a pickup in the Rinse app or at Rinse.com. A Rinse valet comes to get my clothes, and before I know it, they're back crisply folded and ready to wear. They even do dry cleaning, which is returned hanging in a nice Rinse garment bag. And with Rinse, my satisfaction is guaranteed. If for any reason I'm not happy, they'll re-clean my clothes for free. Best of all, Rinse saves me tons of time each week. That's time I get to do something I love versus something I have to do. So if you want to save loads of time by not doing loads of laundry,

remember, there's an app for that. Rinse. Sign up now and get $20 off your first order at rinse.com. That's R-I-N-S-E dot com. Until the age of six, Alicia McPhail lived in the small Scottish town of Airdrie in North Lanarkshire with her mother Georgina and her four-year-old sister, Courtney. Her mother and father separated when she was just three months old, but the lack of parental stability didn't seem to affect Alicia's demeanor. Her head teacher once described her as a smiley, happy young girl who loved being at school. Her father, Robert, lived out on the Isle of Butte with his parents, and Alicia would visit them every other weekend, as well as during summer break. That's

how she ended up on the island during June of 2018, when she traveled to the town of Rothesay for what was supposed to be a three-week vacation. On the evening of July 1st, just three days into her visit, Alicia's grandparents tried to put her to bed, but like many children her age, Alicia was a sleep fighter. Her grandparents begged and pleaded with her, then eventually came to an agreement. She would go to bed, as agreed, but only if they let her watch Peppa Pig until she fell asleep. It was a deal that Alicia's grandparents snapped up in an instant. And after tucking her into bed with Peppa's dulcet tones heard in the background, Alicia quickly dozed off into a deep slumber.

A few hours later, Robert's girlfriend, Toni McLaughlin, snuck into Alicia's room to check on her. Finding Alicia fast asleep, Toni assumed that Alicia would safely sleep through the night, just as she usually did. Little did she know, it was little Alicia's last night on earth, because someone of an unspeakable evil was headed their way to change their lives forever. Although he was born in the English town of Shrewsbury in 2002, Aaron Thomas Campbell moved up to Scotland with his family when he was four or five years old. His childhood was a relatively stable one, but his alcoholic mother often subjected him to emotional and occasionally physical abuse.

His teenage years might have been characterized by ADHD tests, depression, and bouts of self-harm. But Aaron was no loner. He maintained a fairly large circle of friends, kept fit and active, and was charismatic enough to put himself in front of camera and videos that he uploaded to YouTube. When he was just 15, Aaron began to fantasize about committing an act of serious violent crime, and in 2017, he sent a Facebook message to a close friend saying he might kill one day for the lifetime experience. Aaron's parents recognized this potential for destructive behavior when they caught him starting fires and they rushed him to a therapist in the hopes that such behavior

could be nipped in the bud. Aaron was subsequently entered into a behavior correction program and for a while he seemed to be responding to the treatment. Yet unbeknownst to his parents, the mellowing of Aaron's personality was less due to the rehab program's cognitive therapies and more down to the fact that he was excessively using cannabis. Cannabis he was purchasing from none other than Alicia's father, Robert McPhail. On the evening of July 1st of 2018, a 16-year-old Aaron went over to a friend's house for a few drinks. It was supposed to be a celebratory occasion, yet Aaron's mood seemed to worsen as the night went on. Shortly after midnight, a friend found an extremely intoxicated Aaron lying in one of the home's beds,

openly contemplating taking his own life. He complained that his mother had been drinking again, and that he'd engaged in a particularly vicious argument with her before arriving at the party. Such a fractured relationship resulted in him being deeply unhappy, and Aaron wondered aloud why he should carry on living when he couldn't maintain a loving bond with his own mother. Naturally, Aaron's friends were extremely concerned about him and offered him a bed for the night so that he wouldn't have to return home and face another confrontation. But Aaron declined, declaring that he wanted to find some cannabis to smoke, and after departing his friend's house at around 1.30am, he began

calling his regular dealers to check their availability. One of the people Aaron called was Robert McPhail. But when Robert failed to answer his phone, Aaron came up with another plan to obtain cannabis. He knew Robert was in possession of some, and if he wouldn't willingly sell it to him, Aaron would obtain it by force. So after retrieving a butcher's knife from his family's kitchen, Aaron left his house at exactly 1.54am and walked the short distance over to the McPhail's house.

Despite the small cannabis trade, the crime rate in the town of Rothsey is extremely low. It's the kind of place where people feel no compulsion to lock their car or garages, and it's not unusual for folks to simply leave their front door keys in the lock. In light of this, it was shockingly easy for Aaron to gain access to the McPhail's home. Six-year-old Alicia was sleeping in one of the ground floor rooms, a room that just so happened to be the closest to the front door and by happenstance, this was the room that Aaron entered first in his attempt to steal. Aaron would later tell police that when he saw Alicia silently slumbering in her bed, he saw what he called a moment of opportunity, adding that, once I saw her, all I could think about was killing her. And so, instead of continuing his search to steal cannabis, Aaron lifted the

sleeping girl from her bed and stole her instead. The McPhail home was just a short distance away from a small stretch of shoreline, and as Aaron carried a sleeping Alicia along its ashen gray sands, she suddenly woke up. Upon asking who he was, Aaron told Alicia he was her father before telling her that he was taking her home. Instead, he carried her to an isolated section of the beach, then stabbed her to death. As she lay lifeless in the sand, Aaron stripped himself of his blood-stained clothes, then went home to wash the blood from his hands. At around 6am that same morning, Alicia's grandfather woke up to find that she was no longer in her bed. He was concerned, but after finding her bicycle in the back garden, he was confident that she couldn't have gotten too far.

Nevertheless, Alicia's grandmother reported her missing to the local police force at around 6.23am, while the rest of the household began to search the surrounding area of any signs of her. When she woke up, Robert McPhail's girlfriend noticed she had two missed calls from Aaron Campbell. But when she asked what they were about, he replied to her with, Sorry, doesn't matter. Complete with two laughing emojis. Robert's girlfriend then asked Aaron to keep an eye out for Alicia. And to that he replied with,

Oh, I'm sure she hadn't gone too far By 7am, a volunteer from the Coast Guard was searching the same stretch of shoreline where Aaron had carried a sleeping Alicia And after discovering a bloodied kitchen knife, he informed the local police that something terrible might have happened The Scottish police raced into action, ordering a helicopter search team to scour the surrounding area in the hope that Alicia could be brought home alive. But less than two hours later, a member of the public contacted them with the news that no one wanted to hear. Alicia's naked, lifeless body had been discovered in a wooded area of the grounds of a former hotel, having sustained almost 120 separate injuries. After the Scottish police made an urgent appeal to the general public,

Erin's mother decided to check the CCTV footage from the camera system she had installed outside her home. This was how she discovered that Erin's departure and return from her home lined up exactly with the times that Alicia had gone missing. When she questioned him over it, Aaron denied knowing anything about the case, and while she outwardly professed satisfaction with his answer, she immediately took the footage to the local police. Aaron was then approached by two Scottish homicide detectives, not as a suspect but as a potential witness It was only during questioning when his responses to questions seemed inconsistent that the police decided to arrest him for murder

The following day, he was officially interviewed under caution, meaning the police strongly suspected him of being Alicia's murderer. It's not clear what evidence had been obtained, but it was enough for a judge to decide that Aaron should be detained while more was gathered. At his trial for the abduction and murder of six-year-old Alicia, the evidence of Aaron's guilt was presented to the court. Not only was the footage of Aaron leaving his house shown to the court, proving he could have been present at the scene of the crime, but the jury also saw footage from another CCTV camera which showed an individual walking along the shoreline at around 2.25am.

The individual matched Aaron's physical description and appeared to show them carrying something. Then coupled with a pathologist's testimony that Alicia's clean and uninjured feet indicated that she had been carried and made for a damning indictment indeed. Erin's mother then stood at the witness stand and confirmed that the discarded bloody clothes that were found on the beach all belonged to her son. She also confirmed that there was a knife missing from her kitchen and that the one found was identical to the one that was missing. A forensic scientist then delivered the coup de grace when he announced that Aaron's DNA had been

recovered from Alicia's body and that there was a billion to one chance that he was not the little girl's killer. However, before the trial was over, the court was forced to listen to Aaron's perverted attempt at defending himself. He attempted what is known in British law as a special defense of incrimination, and had his lawyer argue that Robert McPhail's girlfriend, Toni McLaughlin, was responsible for Alicia's death. Aaron claimed that he and Robert's girlfriend had been intimate on the night of Alicia's death, and that she'd framed him by employing the prophylactic that they'd used to plant his DNA on Alicia's corpse. Rightfully so,

McLaughlin was sickened by the accusation, and told the courtroom that she loved the child to pieces and that they had a great relationship. Aaron was so psychopathetically aloof to the whole ordeal that one journalist described him as being completely unfazed as he agreed that it would be truly evil of him to try and lay the blame on an innocent person. Then, after having stated this, it was categorically proven that Tony McLaughlin would be physically incapable of carrying Alicia for a sustained period of time, a feat that would be very possible for the weightlifting Aaron Campbell. Aaron's trial lasted nine days, and when it ended on February 21st of 2019, the jury took just three hours to return a unanimous guilty verdict. Aaron remained completely emotionless while the verdict was read aloud. The presiding judge described the evidence presented against Aaron as overwhelming and declared that he'd committed one of the most wicked and evil crimes this court

has ever heard of in decades of dealing with depravity. Yet perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the trial was Aaron's sentencing, as it included a prepared statement from clinical psychologist and social worker Dr. Gary McPherson. Dr. McPherson said that he had conducted several interviews with Aaron, who had confessed to feeling very satisfied with the murder of little Alicia. Aaron also said that at certain points of the trial, it had taken all his strength to keep from bursting out laughing when some of the details were read out before the court. Dr. McPherson also revealed that Aaron had told him of his continuing desire to kill,

and that he had fantasies of defiling the corpses of those whose lives he'd taken. In light of such a damning verdict, the judge handed Aaron a sentence of 27 years and stated that the sentence would have been even higher if Aaron had been a fully developed adult. It was a hefty sentence, but those close to Alicia believed Aaron should have been locked up for life. Aaron's mother told a gathering of journalists that a life sentence should be a life sentence. He should have no human rights. He doesn't deserve anything.

Because Aaron Campbell is not human. The Summer Break I Turned 17 started as one of the best of my whole childhood, and it ended as one of the worst. First off, my parents took my little brother on vacation without me, which I know might sound like a mean thing to do, but I was glad not to go for two reasons. Number one, they could only barely afford to head down to Florida for 10 days, so me not going would make it much easier on their finances. And number two, I was at that age where you really start to value your independence. So the idea of getting to be home alone for just over a week was like a whole adventure to me.

It was flattering that they even trusted me to take care of myself. So that was exciting and then the idea of having the whole house to myself so I could just chill and do my thing without being bothered by my little brother and his friends, that really sold it to me. But unfortunately, opting to stay home was one of the worst decisions I'd ever made, and left the door wide open for one of the most traumatic and frightening experiences of all my teenage years. Four days into me living my very own utopian teenage girl version of home alone, I was really getting into the swing of things in terms of taking care of myself. I was cooking for myself, doing my own laundry, having friends over for dinner and movie nights.

I felt like an actual adult. I kept the place clean and tidy, put the garbage out, and even the whole getting little chores done like that gave me an awesome sense of self-sufficiency. It is not as if I wasn't aware of the dangers. A friend of mine had joked about the whole home alone thing and asked me what I'd do if a pair of home invaders turned up, intent on robbing the place while I was still inside. The reality of such a thing absolutely scared me and I wasn't even in the mood to joke about such a possibility as I'd never actually put much thought into it. My dad didn't keep a gun in the house, we didn't have a dog and aside from frantically dialing 911, I had no clue how I'd defend myself if something like that happened. I actually started running through scenarios in my head after that and I decided that the best thing to do if I heard or saw any signs of potential intruders would be as follows.

I'd grab a knife from the kitchen, then run upstairs to my bedroom with my phone to call 911. I'd lock my bedroom door, then run into my closet and just wait the whole thing out until the cops showed up. The goal was obviously to avoid any kind of physical confrontation, as even with a knife I don't think there was much a 5 foot nothing 110 pound girl would be able to do to one larger guy, let alone two or three of them. But then the more I thought about it, the more I figured that the chances of it actually happening

were slim to none. By day 5, I only had five more sleeps to go, so the idea that I'd be unlucky enough to have an incident in that time seemed like a really far out possibility, enough so that it actually really eased my mind and I stopped worrying about it altogether. But then, like so many things in life, which only happen when you least expect them to, my worst fear of my home alone scenario actually happened. And it was way worse than I ever could have imagined. It was the sixth night of me being home alone. It was coming up on 10pm on this horribly rainy evening and I'd been binge watching Grey's Anatomy for the second night in a row.

Our TV room had these big sliding glass doors that looked out onto the backyard and as the sky got darker and darker, I thought I saw something moving in the bushes at the end of our backyard. I remember looking up from the TV like, huh? Wondering if it was just my eyes playing tricks on me, but then I saw them move again. They rustled really low down, near the soil and I remember thinking, oh it's just the neighbor's cat, because he used to always jump the fence and go hunting in our backyard close to sundown. But then even though that seemed to be the most logical explanation at the time, something about it just didn't sit right with me. By the time it was almost dark, I thought I better go grab a flashlight and make sure it was nothing but a cat having stalked through the backyard. I'm not one of these people who can

just shrug something off like that and hope for the best. Besides, I knew that unless I actually went to check, I'd be worrying about it all night. So that's what I did. I grabbed the flashlight from the cabinet near our kitchen's back door, then wandered out into the twilight to make sure everything was all clear. Then right as I'm walking towards the bushes near the rear of the yard, one of them really clearly twitches again. The movement made me freeze in my tracks because I didn't see any cat rushing out from under them, which meant that something else was squatting down there for whatever ungodly reason. Then just as I'm backing up away from them,

I see this single person just rise up from the greenery and start to stride towards me. I didn't stick around to see who they were or what they looked like, I just turned around and bolted back inside, executing the well thought out plan that I thought I'd never have to put into action. I zoomed over to the knife block, grabbed the biggest one I could find, then grabbed my phone from the couch before powering up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Then I ran into my bedroom, locked the door behind me, then hid in the closet before dialing 911. I figured if whoever it was wanted to break in, they'd have a hard time doing so as all our doors seemed pretty secure and they'd have a pretty high chance of injuring themselves if they wanted to smash through the glass of our TV room.

So as much as I was obviously terrified by what was going on, I was able to keep myself calm enough to tell the nice 911 dispatcher what the deal was, assuming that I'd be relatively safe. And now's about the right time to tell you that we had this one really creaky stare in our house, one that I'd become accustomed to skipping if I wanted to sneak downstairs after everyone else in my family had gone to bed. Then just as I'm giving the 911 dispatcher my address, I hear the telltale sound of that squeaky stair, where someone had obviously stepped on it. That was the moment I realized that, in my rush to grab the knife and my phone,

I hadn't actually shut the back door properly, and whoever had been in my backyard had just been able to follow me into the house. The last thing I whispered to the dispatcher before I fell completely silent and thumbed down the volume of the call was, they're in my house. But as the dispatcher assured me that the cops were on their way and that they'd have their lights and sirens on to try and scare off whoever was there, I wondered if they'd actually make it on time. But even so, my doors were locked and like I said, we had these big thick doors in our house so it wasn't like they'd have an easy time getting into my room. That's assuming that they weren't just there to rob us, in which case they'd

probably just jack the TV and maybe the stereo system before moving on. But then, why were they coming upstairs, if for no other reason than to find me? The thought just about scared me half to death. All that stood between me and this home invader was the lock on my door, and if they actually wanted to find me and not just rob us, would it really last that long if they actually wanted to find me and not just rob us, would it really last that long if they wanted to break it? The answer to that, in a word, was no. The person hunting me, it was painfully obvious which room I was hiding in, and that was because mine was the only bedroom which was locked. It took no more than two impacts, be they shoulder barges or kicks, and I heard the lock

splinter as the door busted open. I just held my breath, muted the 911 call completely and stayed deathly still in the closet while I heard footsteps on the carpet outside the door. There were a few more footsteps as whoever it was made their way into the middle of my room, and I heard the last few heavy breaths from the exertion of bashing in my door. Then, and I swear to god, this wasn't just my mind playing tricks on me, I heard the person sniff the air, like a dog trying to sniff out its prey. I honestly didn't think that I could get any more scared, but hearing the guy sniff the air like that, like he was some kind of animal, I could hear my own heartbeat after that, that's how terrified I was. Then after a

few minutes that felt like much much longer, with me keeping the 911 call going despite not saying anything or hearing anything, it felt like the room had gone quiet again. There were no footsteps, no heavy breathing, no movement at all by the sounds of things, so I started to think that maybe what I'd heard was the guy walking in to check if there was anyone immediately visible, then when he didn't see anyone he just walked right out again. My closet was the kind that had little slats on it and if you put your eyes real close to them you can see what's on the other side. So to check if the coast was clear I really, really quietly leaned up,

careful not to make a single sound, then peered through the slats. What I saw was the single most terrifying thing I'd ever seen, an image that'll be burned into my mind until the day I die. It was a man alright, with not a single scrap of clothing on him, but he seemed to be almost completely covered in mud, which I'm guessing had either come from our backyard or some other yard in the neighborhood. The reason why I hadn't heard him at all is because he was stood almost perfectly still in the center of my room and it looked like he was just staring at nothing. I couldn't see exactly what his eyes were focused on, but from where I was watching from, it just looked like a blank patch of wall. And when I said almost perfectly still,

he would have been if he wasn't sort of twitching every few seconds. His head jerked a little, his hands seemed to be shaking a little too. I mean there was clearly something horribly wrong with this guy, he definitely wasn't your average thief or home invader. I've never been a particularly religious person, and I feel a little guilty saying this given the context, but I still don't really believe despite the way this turned out. But for the first time since I was a kid, I actually prayed. I mean really prayed, with all my heart and soul, begging whatever was out there to make it so that the guy didn't check the closet. Thankfully he didn't, and right as I was praying so hard I felt myself trembling, and I heard

the sirens coming from the approaching cop cars. The guy didn't run, at least it didn't sound like he did. I just heard more footsteps and then that was it. I stayed in the closet until I heard the cops enter the house, presumably through the back door and I only came out when I could hear them getting close to my bedroom. The cops took me to my aunt's place in the next county over, and she made me some hot tea when I went over exactly what the guy looked like with them. Me and my aunt wanted to keep the whole thing a secret from my mom and dad so it wouldn't have them worrying and ruin their vacation, but this one cop said that as much as he hated to have to

do it, he was obligated to contact the homeowner if a crime had been committed on their property. And that's how the vacation ended a few days early, and they immediately drove back here to Charleston, non-stop from Key West. Mom was distraught and my dad was furious, but there wasn't anything they could do but demand the cops to find the guy before he actually hurt anyone. Weird thing is, I don't think they ever did. I don't know if the guy moved on or it was just a one-time thing. I mean, the fact that he was totally naked and twitching made me think that it was just someone who'd suffered a complete mental breakdown or... Maybe the guy was on PCP or something and it got picked up for something else. There were no more summers alone after that, but it didn't really affect me all that much because within a few years I'd moved off to college.

My brother was never allowed to be home alone though. Even when he was 19 and hoping to move out, mom would always insist that he accompany her to Walmart or wherever they were going, and my parents went ham with the security system and super secure locks on the doors. Can't blame them really, not after something like that happens. A straight up burglary or home invasion is one thing, but a totally naked, mud covered, twitchy guy? I understand why they'd never want to risk anything like that happening ever again. These days, I can do anything from my phone. Book a vacation, order a meal from a five-star restaurant, buy and trade stocks. But maybe the most amazing thing I can do is make my

dirty laundry disappear and then reappear perfectly washed and folded. I have Rinse to thank for that. I just schedule a pickup in the Rinse app or at Rinse.com. A Rinse valet comes to get my clothes, and before I know it, they're back, crisply folded, and ready to wear. They even do dry cleaning, which is returned hanging in a nice Rinse garment bag. And with Rinse, my satisfaction is guaranteed. If for any reason I'm not happy, they'll re-clean my clothes for free. Best of all, Rinse saves me tons of time each week. That's time I get to do something I love versus something I have to do.

So if you want to save loads of time by not doing loads of laundry, remember, there's an app for that. Rinse. Sign up now and get $20 off your first order at Rinse.com. That's R-I-N-S-E dot com. A few years ago, me and an old climbing buddy of mine decided to drive out to a place called Rattlesnake Buttress over in Joshua Tree National Park. We found this really cool looking waterfall that had eroded the rocks around it to the point where it looked like it might have been from another planet or something. It made for a great photo opportunity too, so after snapping a few pictures of it,

we decided to climb it as a kind of miniature challenge. It was challenging in that the rocks were all smoothed off so there wasn't much to grip on the way, but it was also like a mini climb because the waterfall wasn't even all that high and it was a fairly gentle gradient so neither of us thought that it would be that difficult. My buddy took the lead and although it was a fairly challenging climb, we made it almost to the top without any setbacks. Then right as my buddy is about to scramble up to the top, he slips and goes tumbling past me, all the way back down to the bottom. I don't know how he didn't take me out

on the way down, I mean he must have passed just a few inches from me as he fell. I remember my entire body tensing up as I prepared to take the impact, but then nothing came. Next thing I know, I can hear some of the most gut wrenching cries of agony I've ever heard. It wasn't even that my buddy was screaming, it was how weirdly muffled and distorted they sound and I knew in that moment that he must have suffered some kind of horrible facial injury when he fell the 20 or 30 feet down. I moved as fast as I could to get down to him and I called 911 the second I had the hands free to get to my phone without risking a fall myself. But when I actually got down to him,

his injuries were worse than I ever could have imagined. He definitely smashed his head a few times on the way down, but since he wore a helmet, I was safe in the knowledge that he wouldn't have suffered any catastrophic head injuries. He definitely broke his leg, a horrible break too, because his shinbone had ripped through the skin. But without a doubt, it was his face that tore me up the most. I was right in assuming that from his cries that he'd smashed his face on the way down, but Jesus Christ, he was barely recognizable. His nose was all busted up and the way he was lying meant that blood had poured all over his face, pooling in his eye

sockets making it so he couldn't see. And then, the part that actually traumatized me for a while, I couldn't tell where his mouth was. He'd bitten down onto the skin between his bottom lip and his chin so bad that it looked like he had a second mouth. I panicked at first thinking that he had this huge hole in his face, but that was his actual mouth. It took maybe two hours tops for the EMTs to show up, then another two hours to use ropes to lift him out of the hole that he was in and into a helicopter to be airlifted to the hospital. Somehow, he was only in the hospital for about a month, and we were all happy but shocked when he eventually regained full mobility and was able to climb again. I mean, all the doctors who dealt with him were shocked at what a full recovery he'd made, said that he was either super strong

and resilient or just incredibly lucky. Either way, it was easily one of the most horrifying things that ever happened to anyone while I've been climbing while we were on summer break and I honestly think it was one of the most traumatizing moments of my life. Seeing him torn up like that was such a shock to the system. Part of me thought that he wasn't going to survive. He has this huge scar below his lip to remind us of it too, and it's always visible because the facial hair won't grow there anymore. I'm so glad I didn't lose him that day though. He's been one of my best friends since childhood, and if I ended up losing him in such a horrible way,

I'm not sure if I'd ever have gone climbing again. When I was in my final year of university, me and a few friends of mine decided to fly down to South Africa to do some surfing at Nahoon Reef. Our first session started off well, but when I was paddling back out, a shark came up and grabbed hold of my surfboard and my arm and dragged me down to the bottom. It happened so quickly I had no idea what was going on. One shark hit me with a lot of force, throwing me into the air. In a split second, it grabbed my hand and surfboard in its jaws, dragging me underwater with it.

Everything seemed to slow down. I started to feel pain and the next thing I knew, I was staring at a shark straight in the face. I think the shark was confused because it stared back at me for a few moments as if in awe. Its mouth was wide open. I could see a huge set of teeth and a dark black eye. It bolted past me and I felt a shove from behind. It must have brushed along my back, but thankfully it had not bitten me. After it passed, I swam to the surface as fast as I could. When I got there, I saw my surfboard lying in front of me with a bite mark on it. As I climbed on and pulled away, I saw that my right hand was hanging off.

It had a gaping hole in it and my wrist bone was sticking out after the shark had bitten right through it. There was a tear in my wetsuit and blood was rushing out of my hands. I panicked, my adrenaline going into overdrive. All the other surfers were paddling frantically towards the beach. No one stayed in the water to help me out. I was about a hundred meters out at sea, all by myself, and the ocean went completely flat. There was no wave for me to catch. I was shaking, crying, and panicking, seeing my life flash in front of me, realizing that I could die and feeling as if I was in a nightmare. Then out of the blue, a big wave rocked up and I managed to ride it on my stomach before

paddling furiously for another 20 minutes through a deep water channel. Every time I took a stroke, my fingers felt as if they were going to fall off. I could feel the water rushing through my bones, tendons, and joints. The whole time I was worried that the shark would come back. Eventually I made it to dry land. I felt a huge surge of relief, but my wrist was bleeding severely. Someone tied my arm with a surfboard leg rope to slow the bleeding and my friend rushed me to the hospital. I had to wait about five hours for surgery but I was fortunate enough to have been assigned to one of the

best hand surgeons in the country who managed to sew my fingers back together. The shark had bitten through my arm as well as my wrist bone, so that was in a cast for a while. I still have a scar on my right wrist, another on my pinky, and one on my ring finger that runs almost from the top to the tip. That day changed my life, but it hasn't stopped me from surfing, and now I'm even more grateful to be alive than I was before the attack. The Alon School My name is Abigail, and I'm a survivor of the Elan School. The Elan School was founded in Maine by a psychiatrist and a former heroin addict, and the purpose of the school was to serve as a therapeutic boarding school that specialized in behavior modification. From what I understand, only the worst of the worst were sent there,

and I admit that I definitely fell into that category. I'd rather not go into the kinds of things that I was up to during my teenage years, as I like to think that I put the past well and truly behind me, and just thinking about it is honestly kind of triggering. I was sent to the school in 2003 by parents who just didn't know what else to do to curb my self-destructive and selfish behavior. They loved me, they still do, but one of the things they told me before they dropped me off was that some of the techniques employed by the else I'd been sent to before, when in reality, it meant that those who ran the place were completely and utterly insane. With it technically being a school, education was considered a right, but those of us who earned the right were still robbed of an education. The hours where you were actually taught anything were from 7pm to 11pm, and there was no homework, no tests, no projects. For example, math class consisted of grabbing a math book and handing the teacher at least one page of work. Just one page. Then you were told to leave. The rest of our days consisted of almost entirely what the staff called conditioning, but trust me, it was basically just brainwashing. At first, most kids wanted no part of it and tried to resist the kind of stuff that we were subjected to.

But any that did that were subjected to even harsher conditioning than those who just let it happen. If you resisted, any kind of privilege you had was taken away and there was absolutely no way for you to advance in the program until you could prove yourself as a viable candidate, which meant allowing yourself to be brainwashed. This would eventually lead to you being responsible for the conditioning of other students. This way, kids were put into two distinct categories, known as strength and non-strength. Some kids took around six months to earn the title of strength. Other kids took years and some never proved themselves worthy. Non-strengths were forbidden from communicating or interacting with non-strengths in any shape or form,

essentially as a form of social isolation to slowly but surely break them down. Anyone who was particularly rebellious or who tried to think for themselves were thrown into what was basically an isolation room where they were forced to stay for months at a time. They had to sleep on dirty mattresses on the floor which were brought to them at midnight before being woken up at around 7 in the morning to begin their days. The sleep deprivation broke people down faster that way. The staff members consisted almost entirely of former Elon students who were hired after graduating from the program. That way, they kept it more like a cult than any kind of school. Lots of the senior staff members used to pull into the parking lot in really fancy cars too.

I'm talking BMWs and Mercedes and stuff, so they clearly made a lot of money from what should have really been a non-profit organization. You'd think a person would have to be highly qualified to hold a position like that too, maybe with a degree in psychology, education, or social work. But a lot of the staff members had never been to college. Their sole qualification was having graduated the Elan program. And speaking of money, Elan raked in cash based on the amount of time it took for you to graduate. You had to have a minimum of seven promotions before you were a candidate for graduation, and each promotion took a minimum of three months.

The majority of the kids never made it past the fifth promotion, and some of them were there for literally years while Elan leached their parents' bank accounts. Some kids arrived at 14 or 15 and had to wait until they turned 18 to legally sign themselves out, while other kids stayed way past their 18th birthdays, all on the recommendation of the staff. One guy was 23 during my time there and he'd been there since he was at least 16. That means his parents paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their kid to be turned into a brainless, obedient slave to that program. One of the worst parts was that there was an almost complete communications blackout between us and the outside world, meaning we were not allowed to write or receive letters

until we earned the right, and that could take anything from 8 months to a year. When someone found out where I was and wrote me, my unopened letters were ripped up in front of me as motivation to move in the program. Then when you finally earned the right to write letters, all outgoing correspondence to parents, extended family, or friends was thoroughly screened. It was very common for us to have to write many different drafts until we were accepted for mailing. On top of that, all phone calls to our parents were monitored, and we were only allowed about 15 minutes a week of phone call time. All the while, the person who monitored the call would have their hand hovering

over the hang-up button as a constant reminder that any slip-up would result in the call being terminated. As for the real crazy stuff, every morning we were all forced to take part in a ritual that the staff called a general meeting. These consisted of the entire house, which was like 60 plus boys and girls, all screaming at one kid who stood behind a broomstick of all things. A lot of the time they were forcibly held still by two older students so they would have to accept the punishment.

But without a doubt, the worst part was that they were forced to participate in staff organized fight clubs, all designed to humiliate one kid who would be forced to fight at least three others. Even the kids who mostly followed the rules were forced to fight in the name of good. All it took was one slip up and you'd be thrown into the ring as a way of keeping you scared and obedient. A kid once died after being subjected to this punishment too. You can look it up. His name was Phil Williams and he was 15 years old when he died.

Then, for everything you ever did, you had to seek permission from a staff member first. This might sound like I'm exaggerating, but I knew a kid who was forced to clean bathroom urinals with a toothbrush because he smiled without permission. Seriously, I thought it was just a rumor at first until the kid himself confirmed it. I don't think he ever smiled again for literally years after that. He just didn't want to risk going through that again. I didn't actually graduate the program and I only stayed for two years until I could legally sign myself out as an adult. When I told my mom and dad about how the school was ran, they didn't believe me. I don't really blame them to be honest. I'd put

them through so much at that point and the idea of kids fighting in a literal boxing ring and getting screamed at for therapy is so far out there that I don't think I'd have believed it myself unless I actually saw it first hand. I think that's the reason Elon got away with it for so long. People just thought the stories about it were all just exaggerated by kids who had serious behavioral problems. That and the staff were so good at hiding evidence of what they were doing that stuff like the kid dying after the boxing ring were impossible to prove. When I heard about the place getting shut down in 2011, I actually cried with relief. The idea that no one else was going to have to go through what I went through was like a weight lifted from my soul.

Elan fixed me in a way, but only because I realized that as much as I hated the world, and a lot of the people in it, there were always worse places. And Elan truly is hell on earth for those who refuse to give in to the cult that it is. I moved to Miami back in November last year. I was living in Central Florida earlier and people were much nicer and way more helpful. Miami people kind of shocked me. It took me a while to get adjusted to how things work here. I'm a 21-year-old female and I moved here with a friend from back home and she's around my age as well. We had recently moved and didn't have a car and we're still figuring things out.

I went to the bank to get something with my account sorted out. As I said, we didn't have a car so we basically Ubered everywhere at that point. So we reached the bank and then we tried to go to the building and it's closed. Didn't say that on Google by the way. So at this point we were frustrated and looking for another bank to go to. During this, a lady, around 45-50 walks up to us. She was wearing a hijab, a head covering worn in public by some Muslim women, and my friend who's also a practicing Muslim was very happy to see someone else who looked familiar. Away from home, we all look for something that makes us feel at home, I suppose.

She and the woman started talking to each other. She told the woman about how we were stuck there because the bank was closed. The lady seemed helpful. A little too helpful. She offered to drop us off at the other bank which was open, and we politely denied. This was the first red flag for me because who would in a normal situation with good intentions ask two young girls to sit in their car and drive them around the city. She was very persistent and my friend gave in.

I told her in our language that I don't think it's a good idea. She was totally convinced and there wasn't much that I could do at that point because I didn't want to argue with my friend. I took a picture of the license plate of the woman's car and sat in the back of her car while my friend sat in front. It seemed like the woman stayed in her car. The car was a little gross to be honest. I shared my live location instantly along with the license plate number with a group of my friends because something just didn't feel right to me. At this point the woman and my friend are constantly talking about what places to get food and all of that.

I was just sitting in the back seat trying to mind my own business but this woman started asking for our address. My friend still didn't get a bad feeling but thankfully she didn't have the address on her because we had just moved and she asked me. I told her again in my language that this is creepy, why is she asking so many questions? After I said that my friend kind of thought about it and processed it. This woman asked for our numbers which we had to share with her because at this point we were in her car and couldn't really deny anything she asked. She talked about how she wanted us to meet some of her friends and how she could take us out. I couldn't wait to anything she'd asked. She talked about how she wanted us to meet some of

her friends and how she could take us out. I couldn't wait to get out of her car. She told us that she was a realtor. She said that she was a movie director and then she kept changing whatever she was saying all around. It was very sus. We finally reached the bank. I couldn't wait to get out of that car. We started getting out and this woman got out as well. She went over to my friend's side, grasped her hand real tight to the point of actually hurting her, and told her that she wants to take us to meet someone. Now this was in broad daylight outside of a bank, but with all the gun violence in Florida, I was still kind of scared.

She started pulling my friend, trying to get her to go inside the car. My friend at this point almost had tears in her eyes. She didn't say anything, but the look in her eyes said, get me out of here. Now this scared me too, because who did she want us to meet? Why was it so urgent? Was she willing to hurt us if we didn't comply? She was so persistent, she kept pulling my friend's arm. She was a tiny woman, maybe only 5 feet tall and my friend and I are about 5'6 and 5'9. So worst case we could have fought her off easily but I wasn't willing to take a chance

because what if she was armed? At this point I tell this woman in a very friendly voice, oh my god we should definitely go, but it's almost 3.30, the bank's about to close. I just got a few things to do and they're only about 5 minutes, so let me go get this done and then we're all yours. She hesitates, still holding my friend's hand in hers, not letting her go, pulling on her. I try to talk to her again, very, very nicely. I tell her to just give us 5 minutes tops and we'll be ready to go. She says okay and that she'll wait in her car. She lets go of my friend's hand and we tell her, see you, and we walk to the bank.

We get into the bank, scared, mortified, and we wait until the bank closes. And we just wait inside the bank. We get an Uber and walk out with a bunch of people who were leaving, sit in the Uber, and make sure that we're not being followed. During the time that we were inside the bank, we got a frantic spam call from this woman's number. She texted us, called us, repeatedly. We blocked her number, and we were so scared that we could barely talk until we reached home. That day we learned that no matter how familiar a person looks or feels, always keep your guard up. Because there's good people,

but there's also some bad ones, and they come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. The The other day I was grocery shopping at my local Walmart with my four-month-old. While I was loading up my vehicle, I heard an, excuse me, from behind. My cart was very full to the point of almost overflowing with larger items, toilet paper, diapers, etc. So I thought maybe something fell out of my car or I left something behind in the store. As I turned around there was a woman about two feet away from me which in and of itself startled me. She was holding a bouquet of wilted flowers and was handing me a rose saying, Happy Mother's Day. Out of instinct I reached out and took the rose from her. I immediately became hyper aware of my surroundings and instinctively grabbed onto the card which had my son in his car seat still in it.

And the conversation went as follows. Happy Mother's Day. Uh, thank you. I need donations. My child is very, very sick. And she tries to show me a laminated but old looking piece of paper but it was under her arm holding it. Oh no, I'm so sorry, I don't have any cash on me to give you. She stares at me for a few seconds. But my child, I need donations. I'm starting to get nervous. I really, really wish I could help, but I can't. And I handed her the rose back. You don't want it? My child is very sick. You keep the flower for yourself and I hope your child gets better. Sorry. She grabs the flower from me and starts running to other people in the parking lot. I was really scared and started to almost panic but I put my son into the vehicle trying to not touch him with the hand that was holding the flower because of the stories I've read and been told. I then got into my vehicle and locked the doors and

started washing my hands with the sanitizer that I kept in the vehicle. I sat there for a few minutes making sure nobody was around me and nothing was happening to me and then I filed a police report for suspicious behavior. Maybe I overreacted and this woman really was looking for help for a child but the whole situation seemed incredibly fishy to me especially after she left me she went to other people and was even banging on their car windows. While I was filing the police report, I watched a man driving around the same area of the parking lot taking pictures of the same vehicle and parking in multiple different spots, then moving.

Needless to say, I just got out of there. To be continued... This is when I was in college. My program had about 50 people in it and there were maybe 4 guys total and the rest were women. So in my second semester I noticed this guy always saying hi to me. We'll call him Tim. I thought nothing of it and figured that he was just trying to be nice. But then about 2 weeks later it upgraded to wanting a hug from me for whenever he saw me. My friends were asking me what was up and I said I had no clue. It was innocent enough so I wasn't worried. Then I was in this theory class sitting with my friends

when Tim comes and sits beside me. Keep in mind I'm not close with him at all, we're just acquaintances at most. He tries to get my attention but then class starts. When mid-class break comes I tell my friends I'm heading to the food court to grab a coffee. Then Tim jumps up and says, I'll go with you. Now I'm socially awkward and I didn't want to be rude so I said sure. We head to the food court and he stays by my side the whole time. He doesn't order anything, he just came for the trip. When we get back to class and I'm reaching for the handle, Tim jumps in front of the door. I pull back my hand, puzzled. Tim then says, I like you more than a friend.

You want to go out? I simply tell him that I'm sorry, I already have a boyfriend. Then reach around and open the door and head to my seat. Class goes on, my phone buzzes on the table, the screen lights up with a text from my boyfriend. Tim then picks up my phone and hands it to me. I lock the screen and focus back on the lesson. At the end of class, I'm packing up my bag and leave with my friends. Then Tim turns to me and says, Hey, I still like you as more than a friend, even though you have a boyfriend.

At this point, my friends turn to look and I'm standing there confused. I grab my bag and my friends and I grab our stuff and leave. From this point, anytime he saw me, he would try to get close to me. So when I sat with my friends, they had me sit against the wall with one of them beside me. When Tim would come up to us to ask me for a hug or try to sit with us, my friend Ellie would say to leave me alone. And whenever I was alone, he saw it as an opportunity. This all went on until I graduated. Then he found my Facebook and tried to friend me. It was creepy. I'm sure he meant well, but he went about it all wrong. I would enter common areas and look around to make

sure that they weren't there, or that I was always with a friend. I know it's not super creepy, but it creeped me out, and saying leave me alone or have a boyfriend was not enough. So this happened about 15 years ago when I was 18. I used to work in a news cafe franchise in a large mall. We got a lot of creeps for some reason. To the point that all of us girls stopped wearing makeup and tried to have the worst hairstyle as we could to make us as unappealing as possible, so you can imagine the extent of the issue. I've always looked younger. I had to show ID to buy alcohol until I was 30, so with no makeup I probably looked about 15. One day, this creepy dad comes in with

a son. The dad is over 50, huge, bald, dressed all in leather, biker style, and the son is about my age, looks like a stereotypical nerd, thin tall glasses looking at his feet. First, the dad asks to buy bus tickets. I check the drawer, which was pretty low, and I had to bend to look in it. This is important for them, but I don't see any, so I ask a co-worker to go check if there was any in the back. She comes back and says we're out, so I say, sorry sir, we don't have any tickets at the moment. And here comes the old creepiness. Ah, that's a shame. Could you maybe look in the drawer again?

You look so pretty when you bend over. I'm a bit shocked, but I just say, I'm sure we don't have any left, sir. I can see him looking at our cigarette shelf, which goes all the way to the ceiling, and he makes a smug face and says he wants Marlboros. They're at the very top and I would have to get on the ladder to get them but for that very reason we had a box of the cigarettes from top shelves under the counter so I make a smug face too and pull the Marlboros from there. Oh no, I was hoping you'd get on the ladder and I could have a better look at you. Me, trying very hard not to yell at him. Well, I have them here, so no need for the latter. Shane. Oh, what's that pendant you have there?

Well, basically shoving his face into my chest. I jumped back, of course. I was really uncomfortable at this point. I now know that the easiest way out of it would have just been to ask a male colleague to take over But it was my first job and I didn't know any better So I didn't say anything and was just quickly packing his stupid cigarette so I can get rid of him ASAP In the meantime, his poor son, as visibly embarrassed, pulled his sleeve every so often and went Dad, can we please just go?

But the dad didn't react to that at all. I mean, total silence. Didn't even look at him. Finally, the cigs are packed and I tell him it's total, and as he's paying, he goes, what time do you get off for work, honey? With a sleazy smile. The sun is completely red in the face and keeps repeating, dad let's just go, but to no avail of course. At this moment something finally clicked in my brain and I remember an interview with a beauty pageant contestant, you reel a lot of nonsense magazines working in a place like that, who said her best way to blow off old creeps is to make them feel, well, old. So I smiled my most beautiful smile and said with a sweet giggly voice,

Oh sir, I think you're even older than my daddy. Well that did it. He got red, grabbed the sun and literally stormed out dragging the kid behind him. He even left his cigarettes, so a silver lining there. Because I'm a smoker and since they were paid for and he didn't come back for them, my boss let me take them. Still, it was really creepy and I'm uncomfortable thinking about it even after these 15 years. I'm also sorry for that kid. He seemed nice and I can't imagine the embarrassment I'd feel if my dad was hitting on and harassing girls my age. I'm a 31-year-old female, states away from home on a business trip. About an hour ago, around 8.30pm here, I had just gotten back to my room from a work dinner. I heard shuffling in the hallway

and peeked out the peephole. I saw a figure seemingly outside the room to the left of mine, looking outward. They were knocking lightly and said twice quickly, hello, hello? Then it sounded like the door opened and closed. I was like, hmm, okay, they must have forgotten what room they were in or something and someone let them in. I walk back to the main part of my room and I hear shuffling again. I look out again and see a figure. Can't really make out what the person looks like but I see them on the other side of my room this time and again hear light knocking and hello? Hello? I'm starting to get a weird spidey sense of like

what's going on I see the figure leave and think okay that was weird then I again start hearing shuffling I start walking toward the hotel room door and hear a light knock what sounded to be my door and again I hear hello hello and immediately after someone attempts to be my door. And again I hear, hello, hello? And immediately after someone attempts to open my door. Thank god I had the cross latch pulled over, not the deadbolt though. My heart stopped as I stood there and watched the door hit the latch and fall back shut. I called the front desk and informed them that someone had just tried entering my room and I'm not staying with anyone. The front desk attendant just replied,

I don't have any housekeeping up there. To which I replied, Okay, well, that's concerning. Can you please send someone up to check around? The attendant replied, Well, there's no manager on duty. To which I asked if I should call the police instead because I was very worried as I started to cry a bit. She replied that I should do what I thought I needed to do.

I hung up and cried for a bit, not sure what to do. I didn't want to ask for another room because I was too scared to leave now. Ten minutes later, the hotel phone starts ringing. I was honestly feeling really scared to answer, but I did. It was the front desk attendant and she said the police were going to be coming to my room and she didn't want me to panic when I heard someone knocking on my door. I said okay and hung up. I sat there and thought, how do I know this is legit? Whoever tried to access my room had a key, otherwise how else would the door have actually opened? A few minutes later, as expected, I hear a knock. I looked out the peephole and saw

two male officers. I didn't ask to see ID, which in hindsight, it actually would have been the smart thing to do, but I was so shaken up and not really thinking. I opened the door and they asked what was going on. I told them all about what I explained above. They said it was good that I had the cross latch pulled over because the door would open if not. And I responded, it's a hotel, what do you mean? What's the point of the access card then? And wiggled the handle. We were in the hallway, talking with my door open. Then they took a pause and they were like, oh, it automatically locks? Again, I'm like, yeah, it's a hotel. So then they had me shut the door and open it with the key to test, and sure enough, it didn't open without the access card.

Then they said it was probably housekeeping. I responded that the front desk attendant told me that there was no housekeeping up here when I called, plus it was 8.30 pm. Why would housekeeping be coming up at that time unless I had requested someone to come by? Plus I noticed housekeeping had already been by during the day because my trash was emptied and dirty towels were gone. They ultimately told me that they thought it was housekeeping and to not worry But if anything else happened or I felt unsafe to call them They also said that if I wanted to change rooms they were sure the hotel would accommodate this I said okay but I started to cry and they left Now I'm sitting in my room laying under the covers in my clothes

I'm not sure if I'll sleep tonight I'm also too afraid to change rooms because I don't want to leave this room. I have the cross latch pulled over and the deadbolt locked. I think I'm safe. Am I just being paranoid? Was it probably housekeeping? Or should I be doing something else, different? different. I posted Not Dad a few days ago as a personal experience I had when I was a kid. However, not far from my childhood home, maybe a five minute walk give or take, is one of the state of Illinois' most haunted places. It's central Illinois' answer to Chicagoland's Resurrection

Cemetery and its most famous ghost inhabitant, Resurrection Mary. And like Chicago, we have our own local ghost forever confined to the supposedly haunted grounds of what is called the Old State Hospital. This is the story of Old Book. Back in the 1920s, the old state hospital was the home of patients with mental health issues. Even those with special needs such as Down syndrome, autism, and the like, as these people were treated as social pariahs back in the early days. It's sad, but true. One such patient was a man with no name other than Old Book. He was a bookbinder in Chicago who suffered a severe mental breakdown and ceased speaking.

Nobody had any way of contacting his relatives as he couldn't talk and carried no identification on him. Therefore, those who treated him sent him to the Old State Hospital with the name A. Bookbinder, using his profession as his means of identification. He went by Book and seemed to respond to this new name. Over time, Book became a very helpful and calm patient. The doctors and nurses used the competent patients for labor, and Book was one of them and was known for his immense strength and size. One of his duties was to help bury patients who had passed away. The hospital had its own graveyard where patients were buried, so Book and other stronger patients would carry wooden caskets

containing the departed to the graveyard, and then by a pulley and rope, the caskets would be lowered into the ground, and a priest would hold a service in the view of patients and the medical staff. After lowering the casket, Book would quietly walk over to an elm tree in the graveyard and lean up against it and sob for each patient that he had helped carry to their final resting place. After composing himself, he would rejoin the group. Throughout the years, Book carried many of his friends to their final resting place and not once did he not weep by the elm tree.

Age caught up to old Book and he too passed away. Book was a very liked individual by the doctors and nurses and patients alike. His service had a massive turnout as his still living friends carried his casket to the graveyard. After his casket was lowered into the ground, the priest started the service. All at once, a loud wailing was heard from the elm tree Everyone directed their attention to the graveyard elm and saw the ghost of Old Book crying against his tree It was the loudest wail they'd ever heard, one nurse would later say Two confused doctors opened the casket and found old books courts laying peacefully. They then directed their attention back to the ghost who then disappeared.

The service erupted in pandemonium after seeing this unexplainable sight, and it became the most widely told ghost story after this. Years later, the graveyard elms started to slowly die, so a couple of guys went to cut the tree down. However, as the chainsaw ate away at the trunk, the tree let out an inhuman cry. They stopped but resumed cutting it a few days later and had the same results. The graveyard elm was left alone for years upon years. Finally a company was able to get the tree down, but not without the ghostly wailing once belonging to Old Book. To be continued... very late shifts in the city on the weekends. One night the subway I was on got delayed and

after 30 minutes of sitting in the carts, the conductor told everyone to leave because the trains weren't running for the night. Everyone on the trains either called a cab or walked about the 30-40 minute walk on a bridge in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in NYC. I was 16 and alone and extremely exhausted after working on my feet for 10 hours. I tried to call a cab and they said it would take about 20 minutes to come get me but by the time it comes I could have already arrived at my destination. So I decided to walk the bridge and I felt somewhat safe because there were other people walking a few feet ahead of me. They were also on the trains. At first I didn't know which direction to walk in as it was dark and there were no signs. I start walking in

the opposite direction and this middle-aged man who spoke broken English calls for me and motions to the right direction. I immediately thank him and he walks with me from that point. He begins asking me questions like, why are you walking around so late? Do you live with anyone at home? How old are you? I'm hesitant to answer these questions and at this point I'm super creeped out. Luckily this girl around my age was walking behind me and the guy and stopped us so she could ask if I knew the guy. I said I didn't and the guy immediately took my arm and refused to let me go. She was with her boyfriend and the boyfriend threatened to fight him if he didn't leave me. After the boyfriend threatened him, the guy ran away immediately without hesitation. The couple walked with me until we finally got off the bridge and arrived in a safe neighborhood and from there I thanked her

so many times and told her that I was so grateful. I still think about this encounter to this day, and I honestly don't know what would have happened if that girl didn't save me. I'm just so grateful that she did. This story occurred a few years back. That would have been around 8 or 9 at the time. My old bedroom sat facing out towards the streets and also happened to be sat next to our front door. It was very small as it had been built in the place of our old front porch. The roof was slanted slightly downward toward the window which took up most of the wall and the bed could only fit in one way.

It was painted purple, not a nice purple either like a kid's bedroom of course. My bed sat facing towards the door to my bedroom parallel to the window. A closet hookup parted the corner between my bedroom door and the window making for an unusual space. Every night I checked to make sure that the curtains were all shut all the way as the idea of people watching from the street made me very uncomfortable, even at a young age where things like that shouldn't even cross your mind. Every night I slept soundly, no nightmares, no sudden noises waking me in the middle of the night, nothing. That was until the middle of the year, during a school break. I remember waking to the sound of someone breathing. I couldn't move, couldn't catch my own breath.

I was just stuck. I remember so clearly seeing a man stood in the corner of my room, stuck partly between the curtain as if it would hide him. Of course, I could see him. He was just this dark entity who stood and watched. After what felt like hours, I was able to get back to sleep. In the morning, I had told my mom about what had happened and she explained that it was just a strange nightmare and that I was fine. But the way she said it wasn't very believable.

These cases of sleep paralysis went on for about a year, taking me up to the middle of the next year when I was likely 8 or 9. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, just like I had most nights for the last year to the man in the corner. Only this time, I could move. I stayed absolutely still, despite now knowing that he was actually there. I could hear his faint breathing, like he was trying to hide from me as much as I was trying to hide from him. I couldn't help but think, has this man been here every night this year?

I remember the thoughts I had, how I'd run out of the room and scream for my mom, how she called the police, how this man would be arrested and sent away. But I couldn't do that. He was basically in front of the door. I spent the night staring at him, trying to fall asleep. I'd say that it was around 5am when I was finally able to drift off, just sort of as the bird started to wake. I woke up and lo and behold, he was gone. The first thing I did was tell my mom. She was already looking uneasy, like she already knew. And that's when I heard two people talking outside. I found out later the people outside were my neighbors and a police officer who was taking an eyewitness statement. At around 6 in the morning, our neighbor spotted a man standing

outside my window. She called the police but he was gone before they arrived. Other neighbors stepped forward saying that they had seen him outside in the middle of the day, looking at our house. There were no signs of forced entry, only two footprints in the flower bed outside my window. My mother told the officers my account of what had happened and they came to the conclusion that he'd done the same thing last year. I saw it. And it sparked my tangent of sleep paralysis. The streetlight outside projected his shadow so it appeared as though he was stood in my room.

This whole time, he'd been waiting patiently outside my room. And who knows what would have happened if my neighbors didn't spot him on her way out for work. Just a type 1, and was dealing with an immense amount of unprocessed trauma. Being bipolar, I was also being super promiscuous and just not making good choices. I was using OkCupid and matched with the guy. Seemed pretty normal. Worked at a smoke shop, had a dog, no kids, but was married. Come to find out that they were looking for someone who would be down for you know what. We talked for a few weeks and then he invited me over. I was manic, like manic manic and I said yes. I walked to the street corner of my apartment and told him where

I was. He picked me up in a newer BMW and we drove across town to his place. When I get there, the vibe was awkward if that makes sense. I met his wife and we all chatted. She told me that she was a registered nurse at the local hospital and was showing me her tattoos. After a while, he offered to make us drinks. My mom always told me to be careful taking drinks from strangers at bars and such, and my dumb self assumed it was fine since I was already at the house. Still, I watched him. He had several mini vodka bottles and was pouring them into glasses. He had a juice of some kind and served them. It tasted like an ordinary, cheaply terrible drink, way too much booze, and was dry. After a while, I felt super anxious. His wife had gone into the bathroom and I was alone with her

husband and something just felt off. I felt nauseous and just overall felt sick. I worked at the hospital and assumed that I just picked up some bug. I stood up and it felt like the entire world had shifted and I darn near fell over the couch. I didn't think that I drank that much but I thought that I must have. I grabbed my bag and told him that I was going to call a cab to go home. Immediately he stood up and loudly said, No, you can't. He said it almost too fast and frantic.

It scared the life out of me and I knew immediately I needed to leave. I told him I wasn't staying and I was leaving. He tried to block the door but being shorter than him I ducked under his arm. He tried to grab my shoulder but I shook him off and swung at him and my blow landed on his throat to knock the wind out of him. I took that opportunity and ran as fast as I could out the door and to the street. I had a cab number saved into my phone from a really nice cabbie. It was his personal cell number and was a close friend of someone I knew well. I don't really know why, but I just called him. He answered groggily and clearly just woken up from sleeping.

I'm sobbing as I told him what happened. He perked up right away and told me to walk to the gas station across the way and wait for him there. Less than five minutes later, he was pulling into the parking lot. He jumped out and ran over to me. He had remembered taking me home so he knew the address already. He told me to have a friend meet me at my house and stay with me. My friend met us there and brought me inside. I don't remember the rest at all. Apparently I was acting erratic and making with me. My friend met us there and brought me inside. I don't remember the rest at all. Apparently I was acting erratic and making no sense. She called 911 and an ambulance came and I woke up in the hospital with the doctors telling me that I had such a high amount of

benzodiazepines in my system that it was a miracle that I made it home alive. I filed a police report and the nurse was arrested. I'm not sure what happened from there, but I'm just so grateful for the cabbie that came to my rescue. This happened almost exactly a month ago. For context, I live in one of the surrounding cities around Toronto which is about an hour drive depending on traffic. I ordered some weed from a dispensary but I didn't realize it was in the heart of Toronto so I had to make a last minute trip at night to pick up the order. I don't own a car because I don't have a license so I took an Uber. I arrive at my destination at around 10.20pm and

the store closes at like 10.45 so I'm late. I go to pay for the order but my card declines. I'm extremely confused as I literally just paid for an Uber, checked my bank balance and I have more than enough for the purchase. But no, I can't purchase the product. I'm super annoyed and worried because I have no idea why my card is declining and why now? My phone's almost dead. It's the middle of the night. I'm a five hour walk away from home. What on earth am I going to do?

I try booking an Uber and my card declines again. And I'm in some deep doo-doo. My mind is racing as I go through every possible solution to get home and I don't have very long. My phone is at 10% and it's going to die from the cold any minute now. So I tell my friend to call me an Uber after I e-transfer him $50. I didn't expect it to work, but miraculously it does and he calls it. The second I receive the text from my friend saying it was confirmed, my phone dies. Well, I guess I just gotta hope that the Uber knows where I am because if not, I don't know, I guess I sleep on the streets.

Lord knows. So here I am standing on the streets in the middle of Toronto like an idiot when this man asks me for some spare change. I tell him I've got nothing and he pulls out a small knife from his jean pocket and tells me, no, give me your money. Without missing a beat I pull out my wallet and give it to him as well as a vape I had in my pocket too. I had two toonies in there as well as my bank card and ID. He sees the bank card and takes it out, examines it for a wee bit before putting it back in my wallet and running off down the street. So now I'm just standing there in complete shock, wondering how I've managed to get myself into this situation. If the Uber never comes, I've got no way of going

home or identifying who I am to anyone. I am well and truly screwed if that Uber doesn't show up. Thankfully, after not too long, the Uber arrives and I got home safely. To this day, this is the luckiest I've ever felt as an adult. I have absolutely no idea how I got out of that situation. I could have been stranded in Toronto. I could have been stabbed while getting mugged. I could have had to sleep on the streets. I have no idea what I would have done to get home had my friend not clutched it for me in the last second. It was like a 98th minute equalizer except it was me versus my stupidity and I just about pulled through. To be continued... Hey friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations.

I release new videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7pm EST. If you get a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon, and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. And check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all of these stories in big compilations and save huge on data, located anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Links in the description below. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you again soon.